The first movement is featured here, though hopefully sometime I will find the time to do the rest of it. Program notes for ICSO 3/3
Can't go wrong with Argerich.
Prokofiev's third and most enduringly popular piano concerto was premiered in 1921 (though sketches of the second movement date as far back as 1913). The bulk of the composition was completed during the summer of that year, which he spent in Brittany, France. He premiered it himself that December with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Vital and witty, this three-movement concerto is a pillar of the
twentieth-century piano repertoire.
The first movement opens with a quiet and lyrical clarinet solo, which the strings also quote. The introspective mood does not last long, however, as the strings rush forward with sixteenth notes to begin the Allegro, and the piano bursts forward with the main subject, a lively chattering theme. A slower, more wistful theme is articulated first by the oboe over pizzicato strings, which the piano develops before accelerating into a series of cascading triplets which crescendos into a grand restatement of the Andante theme, now given fully and expressively by the entire orchestra. The music segues into a long, discursive development of this theme. Then, with four quietly expectant chords intoned by the winds, the Allegro is brought back with a vengeance. The recapitulation features abrupt, jagged tempo changes that highlight each returning theme. The recapitulation of second theme winds down gradually, as if out of steam. But just before the listener catches his breath, the piano enters for the final flourish, a continuous run of sixteenths which drives forward inexorably to a thrilling close.
Paavo Jarvi and Cincinnati Symphony.
Program notes for ICSO 3/3
Britten's opera Peter Grimes tells the bleak story of a misanthropic loner fisherman who faces the unforgiving accusations of the townsfolk after his apprentices suffer unforeseen but accidental deaths. Tortured and unstable, Grimes is driven to suicide in the raging, stormy sea. Inspired by George Crabbe's poem "The Borough," Britten's work takes a more sympathetic view towards Grimes, and explores the darkness of a
man hopelessly marginalized. The opera premiered in 1945 and became one of Britten's first critical and commercial successes. The Four Sea Interludes extracted from the opera comprise a series of vignettes
evoking the sea in its myriad symbolic states throughout the story. Their existence highlights the seaside setting's centrality in the opera; while the town is fictional, the opera is pervaded with the eerily haunting beauty of the coast along Britten's native Suffolk.
At only about three minutes per movement, each of the four portrayals is brief but highly illustrative. The first, Dawn, is drawn from the transition between the prologue and first act, and sets an austere stage. It utilizes only three main elements: a thin, high, and cold melody of sunlight piercing the clouds, given by violins and flutes; the gentle rising and falling murmur of the surf, featuring clarinet and violas; and ominous, dramatic swells from the brass. In Sunday Morning, which precedes act two, the sunny tolling of church bells overlays digressive, meandering melodies in the strings and fragmented conversation in the winds, suggesting the townsfolk at worship against the backdrop of a lively ocean. The congregation scene depicts the townsfolks' callous bigotry towards Grimes.
In Moonlight, the most serene of the four movements, an unceasing and ever-more-yearning series of swells mimics the tide at nighttime, accentuated by glints of light from percussion and woodwinds. Underlying the nighttime serenity is a muted ominousness, though, and the fourth movement's Storm is the realization of all that was portended before it. The referenced storm actually takes place in the first act of the opera – however, the turmoil it reflects festers in Grimes himself and grows continually, making these seascapes also function as a reflection of Grimes' emotional state. The movement is full of violent swells and brutal crushing dissonances. Short-lived relief comes in the form of a few glowing, suspended arcs of melody, moments of brief hope in which the embattled Grimes imagines a possible safe haven. Ultimately, however, they are fleeting and must succumb to the tempest, which surges forward to a savage, oppressive victory.
(end program notes)
the opera itself, which we watched a couple days ago, is kind of a strangely paced work. the music that gets put into these four sea interludes as well as the passacaglia is definitely the best thing about the entire work. the thing about the opera itself is first, that none of the characters really inspire much sympathy. while this is sort of the point - peter grimes is unlikeable, but that shouldn't make us condemn him or make him deserving of his fate. the second thing about the opera is that a lot of the action in it, especially action which is supposed to convey the pettiness of the townsfolk, ends up being kind of superfluous. there's something about modernist art that struggles too hard to find art in the plain and the everyday, and for a genre so incredibly dependent on drama, it is either very, very difficult or just plain makes no sense at all to try to stage pedestrian action, even if it is "true."
anyway, these pieces are fantastically effective at evoking the cold grandeur of the sea - i think that's what the weird harmonies suggest the most to me. the atmosphere is incredibly stark, but the content itself is not focused, hence the meandering tonalities, melodies, and chords. very interesting stuff.
this has been my absolute favorite piano concerto for at least a year now, and i'm not sure anything will change that too soon. it is being performed here next week, and so i have written program notes for it. they are necessarily brief because of the nature of the concert, which involves a lot of selections, but actually halfway through writing them i just turned on the capslock and wrote, I FUCKING LOVE THIS CONCERTO AND YOU SHOULD JUST LISTEN TO IT BEFORE I RUIN IT WITH PALTRY WORDS. and that's how i feel. but this is my best effort at it.
and this is the only recording anyone in need of a recording should watch:
he gets a real grace and elegance and effortlessness, and all while looking like it takes no effort at all. of course, just for shock value, the recording of bernstein conducting this WHILE AT THE PIANO is also worth a gander. argerich also has a beautiful rendition.
One of two piano concerti Ravel
composed, this dazzling jazz-influenced work premiered to
long-lasting success in 1932, with Marguerite Long at the piano and
Ravel himself conducting. Though it sparkles pianistically, its color
and character derive in equal part from Ravel's distinctive use of
the orchestra, which is as vital in this work as in any of his
exclusively orchestral compositions.
The first movement opens with a single
whip crack and a sprightly first subject presented by the winds above
a light accompaniment and scintillating flourishes in the piano.
Gradually the entire orchestra joins in the theme, until the piano
emerges with a rhapsodic discourse, punctuated by blues figures from
the winds; the second theme ascends, lyrical and more introverted, is
introduced quietly by the piano. Syncopated accents characterize the
motorlike return of opening material, and the exposition concludes
with a flourishing cadenza that brings back material from the
opening. The dreamlike development is a thoughtful extension upon the
first theme, featuring string harmonics, a harp solo, and massive
colorful outbursts from the orchestra. The second theme's development
crests into the same motor of sixteenths which incessantly drives us
forward to the boisterous, brassy descending scale that concludes the
movement.
The transcendent second movement
spotlights one of Ravel's most ethereal strokes of lyrical genius,
and one of his most hard-won. The first subject, presented initially
only by the solo piano, exists serenely for several minutes, until a
solo flute breaks the reverie and allows the rest of the orchestra to
enter. The second subject is darker and accompanied by dissonant
rising chords in brass and winds, but retains the stately loveliness
imparted by the incessant waltz-like chords in the solo piano. After
a brief and lushly dissonant zenith, the first theme is brought back
by an extended English horn solo, around which the piano flows gently
and continually to a glowing close.
The third movement is a moto perpetuo,
a tour de force by both soloist and orchestra. It opens with four
explosive chords which recur throughout the movement, and features
difficult solos for almost all the wind and brass instruments. The
movement switches between a sixteenth-note running motor and a
galloping triplet figure, and ends abruptly, with the same four
chords that open the movement.
ok, this is not the best recording you can get out there, but the only one i think that's commercially available is the one of the original commission by pittsburgh symphony and i'm not sure i can legally upload it. plus, this recording is one of me! this is the run-through I did of this piece last week when i ran rehearsal. and these are the program notes that i wrote for the concert that this orchestra is performing it on next weekend.
Eric Moe's No Time Like the Present
is a muscular, energetic, and invigorating five-minute exploration of
orchestral rhythm. Commissioned in 1996 by the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra, it was premiered in 1998 by then-music director Mariss
Jansons. It seeks to respond to the proposition of what might have
happened had Stravinsky spent his time in the States absorbing the
rhythms of Detroit's Motown rather than Los Angeles's Hollywood.
The
work opens with a vigorous motor of sixteenths which underlies
fragments of jagged and “funky” rhythms distributed among solo
wind and brass, and interrupted by bars of siren-like triplets. A
horn solo emerges to inaugurate a rhapsodic contrasting mood,
characterized by solos which move to piccolo, english horn, and
eventually, strings. These are punctuated by outbursts from the brass
and percussion, which flare forth and then melt away as quickly as
they came.
A solo
bass clarinet colored by trombones commences the final section, a
series of angular, increasingly extended and instrumentally-layered
swells that crest in sudden explosions and unexpected silences. Bold
triplets in the horn urge the music forward to a percussion-driven
climax which ends abruptly, leaving only the soft glow of a cluster
of harmonics in the celli, like an “afterimage” of the explosion
we have just witnessed.
Moe is
an American composer and concert pianist who is currently Professor
of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh.
