Janina Fialkowska: Notes on the Program

SATURDAY

“What love is to man, music is to the arts and to mankind. Music is love itself, -- it is the purest, most ethereal language of passion, showing in a thousand ways all possible changes of color and feeling; and though true in only a single instance, it yet can be understood by thousands of men -- who all feel differently.” – Carl Maria von Weber

As winter barely seems to promise spring’s arrival, setting up anyone’s annual yearning for renewal and emerging, there is something marvelous about Janina’s choice to open her first recital with us this weekend with music that is fresh, charming, lyrical, yet not cloying, the Invitation to the Dance. Von Weber wrote the piece in 1819 as a gift for his bride, Caroline, and, albeit a waltz, it is not one for dancing. Rather, it is the first of a then new genre, the concert-waltz, something just to be listened to. Too, as music from the early days of the Romantic period, it is not a dance itself; rather, it is program music, to tell a story, this one an image of dancers dancing.

That story, to our modern eyes and ears, may seem typical: the gentleman entreats the lady to dance, she is at first evasive, he persists, she consents, they dance, they give formal thanks and goodbyes, etc. Somehow, it makes me thinks of very genteel paintings by Watteau.

All of this is “portrayed” in the masterful mixing of three great waltz themes, begun with a modest introduction, then a refined unfolding of the tale. There is much charm in the proceedings and the final coda (moderato, after a certain amount of drama) reveals the dancers’ parting compliments to each other in perfect keeping with social and musical forms of the day. 

Although Aufforderung is generally better known in its orchestral arrangement made by Berlioz in 1841, the original was central to the repertory of the greatest pianists of the 19th century, including Liszt and Chopin, and has continued in the same way to the present day. Lucky us to hear one of its great interpreters in the opening of this recital!

SCHUBERT

“The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention.” — Schubert

One must be very careful with grand, generic comments about revered pieces of music, but it is no stretch to say that the B-flat sonata of Schubert is a landmark in the history of musical achievements. It is, of course, one of the three final great piano sonatas, written in the last year of his life, 1828, at which time he also created the “Great” C Major Symphony, the Mass in E-flat, 13 of his best songs, and the String Quintet in C Major. This sonata, like the other pieces here mentioned, and like the final three symphonies of Mozart, is vast in design, quite noble, and, frankly, epic in scale.

How so? We must remember that immediately prior to Schubert’s writing, in the musical period commonly called Classical, the glue that held together the formal model of a sonata was a reasoned evolving of key relationships, the manipulation of motives (ideas), etc., albeit not completely without emotive elements. But, Schubert really began a new compositional path, one making coherence within a piece to be a revelation, even a drama, of personal experience. This was, arguably, the dawn of the period we now call the Romantic era.

He gently expanded the “limits” of the old compositional forms to invite more lyricism, even daydreaming. Where prior sonatas most typically used two major themes, Schubert often put three, and darted among them in sometimes startling modulations. Thus, the listener enters into an unspooling of melodies and colors, often punctuated with dramatic pauses, to experience wonderful, sometimes wandering lyrical moments nonetheless within the formal scheme of a traditional sonata; that is, exposition, development, and recapitulation.

With that lyricism as a main focus, one can see his wisdom in choosing a very moderate tempo for the first movement. The first peaceful melody, slightly tinged with pathos, is accompanied simply. Its unusual low-note trill at the end significantly marks certain important moments in the “architecture” of the movement. A second theme vacillates between major and minor modes, reflecting the sort of contentment and anxiety so often heard in Schubert’s songs. So many contrasting emotional moments will have passed.

In the second movement, a spare sonority, with a somber melody that speaks faintly, too, of reminiscence, evolves along with a genuine song in the middle section.

The scherzo of the third movement surprises with its flowing ease in contrast to most quick-witted scherzos of other sonatas. With marvelous echo effects, syncopations, sudden accents, and vacillating major/minor periods in the proceedings, it achieves all one needs from a scherzo, even if without exuberance or tomfoolery.

The surprisingly merry, devil-may-care theme opening the final movement is boundlessly cheering, but we are lifted even more by the wonderful melody that takes over. Alas! It then gets interrupted by a rowdy new motive to disrupt the whole affair. In the unfolding of it all, stress turns to play, and back around, minor motives turn to major, the whole becomes delightfully unleashed and Schubert’s imagination allows for as wild and fun a ride through a rondo as ever was.

SIBELIUS

“Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic.” 

“Musicians talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen every time. They really are interested in music and art” 
— Jean Sibelius

Linked to von Weber’s Aufforderung with which this recital began, as the listener will soon hear, by the fact of both compositions’ metamorphosis of a “mere” waltz into a means of serious musical expression, even a tone poem, is this Sad Waltz, an extract from six pieces of incidental music that Sibelius wrote for his brother-in-law’s 1903 play Kuolema (Death.) Revised in 1904, the first movement became this single work and was immediately popular with the public, taking on a life of its own. It remains one of Sibelius’s most recognized works.

Its dark mood, somehow not despairing and, in a way, eloquent in its yearning, gives Sad Waltz an exceptional intensity. It may rightly be considered a mid-point in the evolution of the waltz, an apotheosis even, from Weber through the revered but horrifying La Valse of Ravel from 1920.

CHOPIN

“I received a new Ballade from Chopin. It seems to be a work closest to his genius (although not the most ingenious) and I told him that I like it best of all his compositions. After quite a lengthy silence, he replied with emphasis, ‘I am happy to hear this since I too like it most and hold it dearest.’” – Robert Schumann

Chopin wrote 18 polonaises during his lifetime, the word in French meaning simply “Polish,” the first being composed at age seven. Fiercely proud of his heritage as a Pole, although a country with the name of Poland had effectively been erased by the time of Chopin’s birth after years of invasion and occupation, Chopin published two polonaises in 1840 as opus 40. The first of the two, to be heard today, was considered by the 19th century Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein as a “picture of Poland’s greatness” in Chopin’s musical narrative of his homeland’s history. It is one of Chopin’s most familiar works, particularly among intermediate piano students, and, well played, it has an unparalleled dignity and elegance. Of it, the musicologist Halina Goldberg observed, “. . . it is the polonaise that embodies the idyllic and proud Poland.”

A nocturne, generally argued by musicologists to have been originated as a form by the Irish composer, John Field, of course, is music faintly or strongly suggestive of some aspect of evening or night and the emotions related to that time. From Chopin, in this form, we have some of his most intimate and personal art. We hear wistfulness, reflection, perhaps a touch of trouble, sometimes a little undisguised joy. Exceptionally beautiful, poetic, and elegant, they were his most popular pieces during his lifetime and continue to be likewise in our age. The British pianist Harriet Cohen in 1936 gave an elaborate analysis of opus 15. no. 1 in her book Music’s Handmaid, saying, “I have chosen this Nocturne, because it is to my mind by far the most beautiful, the most sincere and characteristic of all Chopin’s Nocturnes.”

Chopin, as is well known, was never interested in “program music,” that is, music that strives to tell a specific tale. Nonetheless, he used the term ballade with its background from a French poetic narrative form of medieval and Renaissance times, coining effectively a new name for a single-movement instrumental work. Thus, in his four Ballades, written in his mature stage after having left his native Poland, Chopin sought not to reveal the particular, but to let music tell its own story. Any piano lover – everyone present at this recital, it must be presumed – knows of the beguiling nature and drama of this first of the four such works that he composed between 1835 and 1842. Some historians will argue that he took inspiration from the writings of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, but others hear this music as Chopin’s very personal reactions to those tales. Your reveries on hearing this voluptuous music are very much invited.

SUNDAY

MOZART

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

“To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.” 
― Mozart

If one hears enormous grief, drama and frustration, even tragedy, in this sonata of Mozart opening today’s recital, it may well be a reflection very much of what was the circumstance of his life in 1778. His mother had died not long after he and his father had been dismissed from the court of Salzburg after their complaints of difficulties with the local archbishop and their dislike of the local musicians. Wolfgang was sent by his father to Paris, where he renewed prior contacts and stayed plenty busy. 

This sonata was born of that time and we are left to wonder whether there is a lot of autobiography in it (e.g. profound sadness at the death of his mother, and so on), but it must be noted that it is one of only two sonatas that he wrote in a minor key, among a vast number of works in major keys.

One of his most successful and perennially favorite sonatas, it is marked by an almost violent intensity in the first movement, launched by insistent repeated chords and marked dotted rhythms. Poignant tenderness radiates from the slow movement, for which Mozart requested a singing style, with expression. The final movement propels the music along with exceptional determination and leads to a dark, tumultuous conclusion.

TAILLEFERRE

"Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism."   — Germaine Tailleferre

Living a long and very productive life, Germaine Tailleferre was the sole woman in the collective of modern French composers who called themselves Les Six. (The others were Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc.) Actively composing for some 70 years and producing about 200 works, she was deeply well-schooled in all the proper Parisian traditions at the Conservatory. She and her fellows, nonetheless, took a different approach to music from most of their contemporaries; they were inspired by the moments and events, often frolicsome, of everyday life. It was a fine antidote to the intense post-Romanticism of Mahler, Strauss, Franck, and like-minded folks and, it can be convincingly argued, their music put in place just what was needed for the rise of neo-classicism. They greatly admired Stravinsky, and all of the Six had their own individual styles, but it is fair to say that, on the whole, this is music marked by freshness, youth, insouciance, and that difficult-to-define quality, French-ness.

This lovely Impromptu, written when she was only 17, will sound much like Fauré to many listeners, but with a sweet little twist. To my ears, it sounds refined yet somehow improvised, a bit of personal dreaming unless it is an alluring flirtation to a paramour we do not see. Longing to expand her career, Tailleferre moved to the United States in 1925 and lived here and in France, back and forth, across several decades. She composed until only days before her death and, in fact, had the premiere of her last major work, the Concerto de la fidelité for coloratura soprano and orchestra, at the Paris Opera in the last year of her life. Tailleferre once remarked that the artist Pablo Picasso had given her the “best lesson in composition” she’d ever received, when he encouraged her to “constantly renew yourself; avoid using the recipes that you have already found.” 

FAURE

“And I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness... I wish my music could show as much diversity.” — Fauré

As was noted in yesterday’s program (for Chopin), a nocturne is suggestive of evening or night and one’s emotional response to that time. One of the feelings anyone might have of a fine evening is deep happiness, of course. It is to that realm that we might be transported in this “happy” nocturne, with its opening of quiet contentment and joy proceeding to a climax of romantic ardor. 

A great musicologist, Harold Schonberg, said of this composer (whose exquisite harmonies and modulations slay me every time!): “Fauré was a master whose delicately adjusted music lacks the grand gesture and excitement that could give it mass popularity. It is music that contains the essence of everything Gallic—form, grace, wit, logic, individuality, urbanity. It is music that has attracted a small but fanatic band of admirers; and those who love the music of Fauré love it as a private, cherished gift from one of the gentlest and most subtle of composers.”

DEBUSSY

“Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

“Extreme complication is contrary to art. – Debussy

Scholars don’t tell us exactly what inspired these “goldfish” from Debussy’s second book of Images – a detail in a Chinese lacquer work or embroidery, perhaps a Japanese ukiyo-e print, perhaps an actual goldfish swimming in a bowl, it doesn’t matter – but this “sonic portrait” is vivid in its portrayal of a fish seeming to glide, then dart, and so on, as goldfish do. Debussy wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand, when he submitted his first book of Images, what he thought about the pieces: "Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano ... to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin . . . ."

RAVEL

“We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art.” – Ravel

It was for a competition sponsored by the Weekly Critical Review magazine that Ravel wrote the first movement of the Sonatine. Encouraged to enter the competition (the prize was 100 francs!) by his friend Michel Calvocoressi, he submitted his winning entry under the pseudonym “Verla,” an obvious anagram of his name. When all the movements were completed, he dedicated the piece to his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski, whose children were later the dedicatees of his Ma mère l’Oye suite.

Piano students and their teachers know the Sonatine well as it occupies an important place in the canon of progressive piano study and competitions. Ravel, who was always anxious about his own limited piano skills, played the piece often in recitals, pretty much eschewing more challenging works, such as his Gaspard de la Nuit. But, who cares? The Sonatine is marvelous with its flawless sonata-form structure in the first movement, infused with Ravel’s wonderful harmonic coloring. (The competition directed that the movement could not be longer than 75 measures. Quite a trick to compress all the musical ideas into that limit.) The minuet that follows begins with a slow waltz, elegant and careful, then builds through moments of passion and intensity. The final toccata (my term, not his) shifts between ¾ and 5/4 time and, with its rhythmic intensity, quite lifts the listener in its brilliant conclusion.

BRAHMS

“It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to let the superfluous notes fall under the table. . . So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them.” – Brahms

In this luxurious, thoughtfully chosen collection of favorite pieces from Brahms, it seems that we are about to be treated in a short time span to evocations of nearly all the profound emotions for which we love his music. This segment may well be overwhelming!

Almost all of these pieces are from very late in Brahms’s life, a time that cranky musicologists sometimes call his “autumn,” as though any part of his genius had faded. Bad-word-here! The listener must recognize here, I counsel, the astonishing revelation of himself that Brahms, whose life was not easy, made with this music. Of opus 117, he said, “. . . the lullaby of all my griefs.” These masterpieces belong to the nostalgic soundscape of his final years in which we find so many of his hallmarks – hemiola (two-against-three rhythms), suave counterpoint, poignant harmonic shifts, and more. We will often hear a recurring feature in these compositions, that of descending melodic shapes. At times, the pathos defies description.

These “miniatures” (his description) are compelling interludes that can put a little grace back into the drama and annoyances of daily life. They are splendid concert music. At home, they could well be the impetus for resolution, even solace. It is good to remember that Brahms had had tremendous success in the 1880s, but in the early ‘90s he lost confidence in himself as a composer and abandoned composition altogether for a time, happily returning to bring forth this music that so touchingly expresses his, or maybe the world’s, sorrow, but never goes down to histrionics or mere sentiment.

As was true effectively throughout his life, Clara Schumann figured enormously in the genesis of his music. About all these short character pieces of his late years, Brahms’s biographer Jan Swafford noted about their affecting expressiveness: “Brahms may have composed the pieces to try and keep Clara going in body and soul. Since she could only play a few minutes at a time now, and because she loved these miniatures so deeply, maybe they did keep her alive.”

CHOPIN

“Chopin was a genius of universal appeal. His music conquers the most diverse audiences. When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sigh of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it. They are moved by it. Yet it is not “Romantic music” in the Byronic sense. It does not tell stories or paint pictures. It is expressive and personal, but still a pure art. Even in this abstract atomic age, where emotion is not fashionable, Chopin endures . . . . When I play Chopin I know I play directly to the hearts of people!” – Arthur Rubenstein

Finally, this bountiful, voluptuous program concludes with two astonishingly virtuosic, dramatic works from Chopin, both beloved, no doubt, by today’s audience. First, although the waltz was a bit foreign to Chopin’s Polish nature, having spent time in Vienna before his move to Paris, he definitely “got” the waltz and created some 20 of them, all of them intended for the concert stage instead of accompanying dancing. This penultimate work in today’s program gives a knowing wink and a nod to von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance with which this weekend’s recitals began.

Written in the abandoned monastery of Valldemosa on an island of Mallorca, Spain, the opus 39 Scherzo is terse, ironic, masterfully constructed, and very grand. It comes from a time when Chopin was dealing with his increasing illness (pericarditis and tuberculosis), often causing interruptions in his composing. Thus, in the opening, one may hear questions or great cries hurled into emptiness. (I could be accused of leading the witness. Sorry.) But, then, immediately we get the spicy motives of the main theme of the Scherzo; frenzy ensues, then calms down suddenly, then aggression in octaves, then the austerity of a chorale (think hymn-tune), and on and on. Bespectacled musicologists might want to give you more sophisticated analysis, but I think we can just be content to rejoice in the Scherzo’s end with a series of chords and fireworks that spell VICTORY, as it unfolds from C-sharp minor to C-Sharp Major.

Let’s let Robert Schumann have the last word today on Chopin: “Hats off gentlemen, a genius!”