Nicolas Namoradze: Notes on the Program
SATURDAY
BACH
“And if we look at the works of J. S. Bach – a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity – on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste.” – Claude Debussy
Bill says
Originally composed, of course, for the harpsichord or, possibly, the clavichord, this Suite of movements inspired by classical dances, is the first of six such suites given the appellation “French” quite some years after their composition and, at that, by someone other than Bach. Bach’s first biographer, Forkel, wrote in 1802 that, “One usually calls them French Suites because they are written in the French manner.” But, musicologists, particularly cranky ones, will point out Italian influences here and there, a polonaise in the sixth suite, etc. Such erudite matters are good for scholarship, but today we might, rather, just indulge in the discrete variety of these movements, all in the same key, but with vivid impetus and not a single moment “the least lacking in good taste.”
NAMORADZE
Nico says
Each piano etude is inspired by a specific technical, pianistic challenge that serves as a basis for the textures and figurations. In “Entwined Threads”, slowly rising scales enter at varying rates, ending up stacked upon one another and causing shifts in the thickness of the overall texture. A study in voicing, various individual strands are highlighted in the layered sonority. In “Double Notes”, each hand navigates a pair of rapidly moving voices as well as acrobatic leaps across the keyboard while alternating between a number of characters — at times whimsical and capricious, sometimes menacing, and finally celebratory. In “Major Scales”, the hands switch between different types of scales in various keys, at first in a coordinated manner but soon falling out of sync and bouncing off each other in different directions. An increasingly chaotic interaction between the two hands leads to the eventual disintegration of the passagework.
RACHMANINOFF
“Too much radical music is sheer sham, for this very reason: its composer sets about revolutionizing the laws of music before he learned them himself.” – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Bill says
The melody and drama of this wonderful Adagio from Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony will be very familiar to almost all listeners today. We are lucky, I think, to have Nico’s fresh transcription of it (lots and lots of notes for just ten fingers!), in debut this afternoon.
Rachmaninoff, having just had two successful seasons as conductor of the opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, sought more time for composition and, so, moved with his wife and infant daughter to Dresden in 1906. It was there that many of his compositions came forth, but only after therapeutic intervention for a rough bout of depression that came about because of the critical failure of his First Symphony. It’s a long tale, perhaps for another time, but just now we can be very happy that Rachmaninoff bounced back with his trademark enchanting melody and aching, voluptuous effect. That engaging theme is a typical Rachmaninoff creation, with its circling around single notes and accompanied by rich harmonies.
BACH
Bill says
Bach, of course, was a remarkable teacher as well as composer and performer, leaving to us an incomparable treasure of music, much of it didactic as much as it is powerful and memorable. In the last decade of his life, Bach wrote his definitive, albeit unfinished, “treatise” on fugues as a way of sharing masterful details of the craft of this trickiest of compositional practices. Interestingly, the original Art of the Fugue was notated for unspecified instruments. Thus, all performances are, in a sense, transcriptions. Famed Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt argued convincingly that the work was certainly written for keyboard performance.
Two movements from Art, each called a contrapunctus, are offered here from among the 14 fugues and four canons in D Minor that comprise the work. About it, the Bach specialist Christoph Wolff has said, “The governing idea of the work was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.”
RACHMANINOFF
“I compose music because I must give expression to my feelings, just as I talk because I must give utterance to my thoughts.” -- Rachmaninoff
“Especially dangerous on the musical front in the present class war.” – An official Soviet verdict on Rachmaninoff’s music, delivered in 1931.
Bill says
This all too rarely heard Sonata is another work from the time Rachmaninoff and his family spent in Dresden. Of that time, he wrote, “We live here like hermits: we see nobody, we know nobody, and we go nowhere. I work a great deal.” (I will skip a bad Covid remark here.) The original idea for the sonata was for it to be programmatic, based upon the main characters in the Faust legend, including Mephistopheles, but that idea was abandoned shortly after he began composing it. Originally quite a sprawling work of some 45 minutes performing time, on advice from Medtner and other contemporary composers, he shortened the work to only about 35 minutes! It quite conforms to the “classical” form of a sonata, including a furious third movement, a real tour de force, complete with big, full-bodied chords so typical of Rachmaninoff.
SUNDAY
BACH - BUSONI
“To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.” – Pablo Casals
“ . . . any melody worth playing should be played mezzo forte.” – Ferruccio Busoni
Bill says
This tender, pleading chorale-prelude from Bach’s Orgelbuchlein, in its original setting, is the first of such a form of composition that any beginning organ student gets assigned: I was given it 56 years ago and have taught it ever since! The straightforward statement of the hymn-tune, accompanied simply, almost starkly, is, nonetheless, quite moving. Pianists should be glad that we organists, via Busoni, lend them a great piece with which to open a program gently.
BEETHOVEN
Bill says
Contemporary with the first sketches of what became Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (da-da-da-Dum!) and in chronology and his catalogue, right between the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas, No. 22 is undeservedly less known, even by Beethoven lovers. Comprised of just two movements, it quite interestingly opens with what in another sonata would be a later movement, a minuet. Of its very contrasting themes, pianist Andras Schiff remarked that the first movement is suggestive of “Beauty and the Beast.” The finale, also in F Major, is a cheerful moto perpetuo, with non-stop continuous sixteenth-notes in a pattern that do not stop for even a second, all the way to the dramatic conclusion.
BOWEN
Bill says
Leave it to a young recitalist to reveal yet another composer not sufficiently recognized in our contemporary time! I am so glad that Nicolas has chosen to bring us these splendid Fragments from British composer York Bowen. Although he was active as a composer and concert pianist for more than 50 years, and with some 160 compositions in his catalogue, like so many musicians who were famous during their own lifetimes, Bowen has been, as we say, “in purgatory” for too long. These very narrative pieces tell a tale, although the listener does not necessarily need to follow it, for the mood and character can be appreciated on an exclusively musical level.
Nico says
York Bowen belongs to a set of late-Romantic composers whose music is enjoying a revival in recent decades after a period of relative obscurity in the latter part of the 20th century. Often called “the English Rachmaninoff”, Bowen was among the leading British pianists of his time, regularly appearing at major venues in Europe and making a number of important recordings. His compositions enjoyed great acclaim, being championed by performers such as Fritz Kreisler, Joseph Szigeti, Lionel Tertis, and Sir Henry J. Wood; he was even hailed as “the finest of English composers” by none other than Saint-Saëns.
Despite this success, Bowen’s thoroughly tonal style gradually fell out of favor, coming across as an anachronistic relic by the time of his death in 1961. However, due in large part to a number of critically acclaimed recording releases by the leading British label Hyperion, his music has lately attracted greater interest and is heard more frequently in concert halls, giving listeners the opportunity to appreciate the keen imagination and craftsmanship of Bowen’s work independently of its relation to the musical fashions of its day.
Bowen’s vast oeuvre for piano includes several sets of character pieces, the largest of which is the Fragments from Hans Andersen, based on fairy tales by the celebrated Danish writer. Each of the ten movements in the set bears a short preface, an excerpt from the story which inspired that particular Fragment:
I: The Snowdrop, or Summer-Geck
And the flower stretched itself and strained itself inside against the thin shell... The sunbeams patted and kissed it so that it opened itself completely, white as snow, and adorned with green stripes. It bowed its head in gladness and humility.
IV: The Golden Treasure
And Burgomaster’s Charlotte sat at the piano, her delicate fingers danced over the keys, and made them ring into Peter’s heart. It seemed too much for him to bear; and at last one day he seized the delicate fingers and the white hand, and kissed it, and looked into her great brown eyes. Heaven knows what he said; but we may be allowed to guess at it.
V: The Bird of Popular Song
Then the old bard struck the strings of his harp, and sang of the youthful courage of the hero... and of the greatness of his good deeds... but at the last sound of the harp there soared over the hill, as though he had fluttered from the harp, a little bird, a charming singing bird.
IX: A Leaf from the Sky
High up, in the thin clear air, flew an angel with a flower from the heavenly garden. As he was kissing the flower, a very little leaf fell down into the soft soil... and immediately took root, and sprouted...
X: A Picture from the Fortress Wall
It is autumn: we stand on the fortress wall, and look out over the sea... and at the Swedish coast, on the other side of the Sound, which rises high in the evening glow.
LOUIE
Bill says
As everyone in today’s audience probably knows, this season is informally called PPI’s “Canadian Friendship Season” because we have engaged quite a number of Canadian recitalists. Too, here is a Canadian composer, Alexina Louie. Commissioned in 1991 by the Canadian Arts Council to write an advanced work for the Canadian Music Competitions, Ms. Louie brought forth I Leap, with its uniquely personal and expressive style. About that style, musicologist Olivia Adams observed, “Through reaching for her Asian heritage she created her own unique voice in a fusion of east and west. There is no one who composes music in the style Louie created. Her music adds a unique voice.” One inspiration for the work, according to the composer herself, was a Zen poem.
NAMORADZE
Nico says
Moon, Refracted was composed in 2019 in advance of my first piano recital tour in Japan. It is a reflection on a well-known Japanese song, Kojo No Tsuki (Moon over the Ruined Castle) by Rentaro Taki (1879-1903). Set in a theme-and-variation form, the work plainly presents Taki’s melody before my own single variation. The sparse, meditative work was influenced by the specia. Atmosphere of Taki’s song as well as elements of the “wabi-sabi” concept in Japanese aesthetics.
Bill says
In distinct contrast to much of the music on today’s program and, indeed, to most of what any audience hears in an ordinary piano recital, we have Nico’s own pieces. Oh, that there were more composer-pianists!
That authoritative and very handy counsel, Wikipedia, says this about wabi-sabi: “In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is ‘imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete’ in nature. Characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetics and principles include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature.”
SCHUMANN
Bill says
Piano music lovers with curiosity about the biography and circumstances of composers know that Robert Schumann had many challenges in life, one of which, early on, was his great love for Clara Wieck, who later became his wife, she being a great pianist herself, but the daughter of a father who vehemently opposed anything that might interfere with her career as a pianist. Too, he strongly disapproved of the idea of Schumann as a possible son-in-law. In 1838, when he was just 28 years old, Schumann left Leipzig for Vienna and, thus, was able to communicate with Clara only through letters and by sending her new compositions. (To his music, sent in this way, she was very enthusiastically responsive.) The drama of it all may be some of the impetus for the Arabeske, with its alternations of passages of wistful longing and more robust, declamatory episodes.
Nico says
As with many works by Schumann, the Arabeske presents a variety of moods and characters within a short timespan. Charmingly delicate and fluid passages in the home key of C Major alternate with darker, passionate sections in foreign keys. The conclusion of this dramatic narrative, a touching and pensive coda, is an iconic moment in Schumann’s piano music.
SCRIABIN
Bill says
The music of Scriabin has gotten a lot of exposure in PPI’s recitals over decades, with many artists having brought us some 55 of his works in various programs. Thinking about audience reactions to this composer’s music I am reminded of the responses that any group of people give to the herb cilantro – they either love it or hate it. At least in my acquaintance, it is rare to find anyone who is middle of the road about either Scriabin or cilantro!
Thus, it is an adventure that Nico has invited us to join in hearing this exploration of Scriabin’s music from several periods in his compositional life. In his later years, Scriabin delved further and further into mysticism, theosophy, even a bit of the occult, and so on. His compositional processes went further afield, too, in harmonic explorations, ultimately losing a “tonal center,” albeit in different ways compared to his contemporaries. Let me know if you’d like to have a musicological chat about why it is not dodecaphony and not cilantro-flavored!
Nico says
Etude Op. 2 No. 1 in C-sharp Minor
Written in his late teens, Scriabin’s somber, expressive Etude Op. 2 No. 1 became something of an instant classic and quickly established the composer’s name in musical circles in Russia.
Eight Etudes Op. 42
The Eight Etudes Op. 42 contain some of Scriabin’s most audaciously complex writing for the piano. Though essentially tonal, the highly dense chromaticism, polyrhythmic textures and intricate polyphony often obscure the underlying harmonic framework. The first study opens with a rhythmic juxtaposition of groups of nine in the right hand with five in the left hand. At the speed prescribed by Scriabin, the combination of these zigzagging figures creates a vital, shimmering sonority. The brief, nervous second study pits an insistent, rhythmically displaced quintuplet figuration against a fragmented melody. The third etude – sometimes nicknamed “the Mosquito” – is a study in trills that foreshadows the “insectile” textures in later Scriabin works such as the Sonata No. 10. It shares the key of F-sharp Major with the following etude, an ardently lyrical work that is the only slow study of the set. The volatile, menacingly volcanic fifth etude marks the center of gravity of Op. 42 and is among Scriabin’s most celebrated studies. The sixth study employs swirling rhythmic patterns of three against five, with occasional exhilarated outbursts eventually leading to a prolonged dissipating of tension. Following an agitated seventh study, the final etude returns to the rapid, glistening and almost aerial quality of the textures of the opening of the set.
Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp Major, op. 30
Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata is the shortest of his sonatas, but also among the most tightly wrought. He wrote a program for the work in the form of a poem, in which a kind of superhuman being is seduced by a distant star before taking flight and ecstatically engulfing it:
In a light mist, transparent vapor
Lost afar and yet distinct, a star gleams softly.
How beautiful! The bluish mystery
Of her glow, beckons me, cradles me…
Sharp desire, voluptuous and crazed yet sweet
Endlessly with no other goal than longing, I would desire.
But no! I vault in joyous leap, freely I take wing, mad dance, godlike play!...
It is toward thee, adored star, my flight guides me
Approaching thee by my desire for thee…
I swallow thee, sea of light, my self-of light, I engulf Thee!
(Translated by Faubion Bowers)
Following the structure of the poem, the two-movement sonata opens with a tender unfolding that blossoms into shimmering textures evoking the “soft gleaming” of the star. The second movement, marked volando (“flying”), hurtles excitedly towards the blissful climax that finally achieves, for the first time in the work, a resolution on the tonic chord of F-sharp Major – an exultant cadence that had been delayed, in Wagnerian fashion, until the very end of the sonata.