Saint-Saens: Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 75

Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 75

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

Allegro agitato – Adagio

Allegro moderato – Allegro molto

One of the most remarkable child prodigies in the history of music---performing Beethoven piano sonatas in public at the age of 5, and composing symphonies in his early teens, Camille Saint-Saens has the ironic fate of being best-known for a composition written for the amusement of friends and never published in his lifetime: the “Carnival of the Animals”! But recently there has been a resurgence of interest in Saint-Saens, and his many concertos, chamber works and orchestral compositions are regaining their position in the concert repertory.

Written in 1885, the D Minor Violin Sonata is one of the supreme tests for a violinist, combining powerful emotional expression with technical requirements which push an artist to the breaking point. The sonata is laid out in two section, each with two movements linked by a transition. The opening Allegro agitato moves restlessly between moods of melancholy and nostalgia, giving way to songlike lyrical tenderness in the Adagio which follows. A sharp change of character is heard in the graceful, skipping rhythms of the Allegro moderato which introduces a breezy zestfulness after the introspection of the opening section of the sonata. A hymn-like passage with rich chords in the piano leads to the finale, which goes off like a rocket, the violin hurtling forward in a “perpetual motion,” leading the piano on a merry chase. Themes are recalled from earlier in the work, with a moment of quiet forming contrast along the way. But the furious headlong momentum returns, concluding the sonata in a truly awesome display of roller-coaster fireworks, the violin and piano flying onward in a “triple” unison to bring the work to a sensational conclusion.

For a concert by Darwyn Apple

Szymanowski : Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23

Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23

Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)

Karol Szymanowski, the most important Polish composer to appear in the century following the death of Chopin, wrote a wide range of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, songs and operas, including two of the finest violin concertos of the 20^th century. There are a number of smaller compositions for violin and piano, mostly lyrical pieces such as this Romance, which dates from 1910. Characteristic of Szymanowski’s music written before World War I, it is a dreamy, expansive flow of effortless melody, the violin floating and soaring over richly-textured harmonies, twice building to a passionate climax, then drifting away to close in rapt stillness.

For a concert by Darwyn Apple

Ravel : Tzigane (Rapsodie de Concert)

Tzigane (Rapsodie de Concert)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Maurice Ravel, himself a pianist, composed a number of works for violin and piano, as well as chamber music spotlighting the violin. But only once did he write for violin and orchestra, in this “concert rhapsody,” dating from 1924, and first performed in London by the Hungarian violinist, Yelly d’Aranyi, (who happened to be the grand-niece of Brahms’ violinist colleague, Josef Joachim.) Another version for violin and piano was prepared by the composer at the same time. The title, ”Tzigane” (“Gypsy”), is characteristic of Ravel, who was fascinated by exotic places and cultures, writing compositions based on Hebrew, Greek, African and Asian themes, and even a movement in his 1927 Violin Sonata entitled “Blues.” Of course, no “exotic” culture is more associated with the violin than that of the Gypsies. Although Ravel had frequently heard Gypsy violinists, all of the musical material in “Tzigane,” while influenced by authentic Gypsy music, is original.

The violin dominates the composition, as in the opening, where the violin is heard without accompaniment in an extended cadenza of dizzying technical virtuosity. The basic musical elements are laid out, by turns playful, songful, passionate and dramatic. Eventually the piano enters with a billowing background, leading in the primary theme, which is highly dancelike in character. The soloist is increasingly urged to employ every imaginable “trick” of the violinist’s trade, with trills, pizzicato (plucked) effects, flute-like harmonics, soon moving into a stomping, rhythmically charged section of ever greater energy and brilliance. The music plunges ever onward to end with dazzling, unbridled bravado.

for a concert by Darwyn Apple

Mendelssohn : Violin Concerto in E Minor

Violin Concerto in E Minor

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Finale: Allegro molto vivace

Felix Mendelssohn, in his day known world-wide as perhaps the most celebrated composer of them all, composed this work not long before his early death, creating perhaps the best-loved of all violin concertos. A test of any professional performer, the concerto is typical of Mendelssohn’s style, with a wonderful balance between brilliant display, rhythmic energy and melting melodic lyricism. The Finale is particularly a challenge for the violinist, who from the first note tears off on a musical steeplechase which never flags, racing on to an exciting finish.

for a concert by Darwyn Apple

Still :Suite for Violin and Piano

Suite for Violin and Piano (1943)

William Grant Still (1895-1978)

Mother and Child

Gamin

It is well known that even in the earliest days of colonial America slaves transported to these shores from Africa exhibited a remarkable richness of musical activity. At the time most white people paid little attention of the unique African music-making which survived under slavery, much of which would manage to survive well into modern times. But in the plantation world music of a different kind was often supplied by slaves who quickly adapted to the instruments and tunes of their masters, providing entertainment in an environment which seems scarcely believable today. (It it ironic to note that public advertisements in the 18^th century frequently referred to musical talent among African slaves as a “selling point” in the ghastly commerce of slavery!)

The emergence in the late 19^th century of genuine Black American music---first of all, the Spirituals, and later popular forms which develop into Ragtime, the Blues, Jazz---is now fairly widely recognized. Yet to this day the growth of distinct and finely-crafted Black concert music often remains cloaked in obscurity, and demands proper recognition.

William Grant Still, in his lifetime often called the “Dean of Black American Composers,” was one of the primary figures in the emergence of first-rate professional Black classical musicians in the first half of the 20^th century. A Californian by birth, Still studied in Ohio, worked for a while in Memphis with W. C. Handy (composer of the “Saint Louis Blues”), later with Eubie Blake in New York (notably in the pioneering Black Broadway musical, “Shuffle Along” in 1921), going on to serious study with several of the most eminent classical composers of the ‘20s and ‘30s. Still sprang to wide notice with his Afro-American Symphony (1930), which was widely performed by some of the most important American orchestras, and conductors such as Leopold Stokowski and Howard Hanson.

The Suite for Violin and Piano, comprising three movements, shows Still’s lifetime fascination with the graphic arts, each section being linked to the work of Black American artists. “Mother and Child,” an outpouring of deeply felt lyricism was inspired by a lithograph of that title by Sargent Johnson (1887-1967), a noted sculptor based in California. In sharp contrast, “Gamin” (“Street urchin”) is filled with quirky humor, with bluesy acrobatics in the violin heard against a strutting “boogie-woogie” piano accompaniment. This was inspired by one of the best-known works by the Black American sculptor, Augusta Savage, a warm-hearted representation of a Black youngster, wearing—even sixty years ago!---his cap with the brim turned around.

for a concert by Darwyn Apple

Bach : Sonata No. 1 in G Minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1001

Sonata No. 1 in G Minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1001

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Adagio - Fugue

Though best-known as the greatest keyboard player of his day, Johann Sebastian Bach’s first instrument was the violin, for which he composed a remarkable range of concertos, sonatas and chamber music. While his career centered upon activities as an organist and church musician, in his early thirties Bach held a position as director of music at a small princely court which focused entirely upon the production of instrumental music. It was then that most of his violin music was written, most famously the set of six Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, perhaps the most challenging music ever composed for the instrument, and a sort of “bible” for all aspiring violinists. Today Mr. Apple performs the first two (of four) movements from the First Sonata. The Adagio establishes a mood of dignified calm and majesty, with sweeping chords interspersed with flowing melodic lines, creating music of surprisingly full sonority from what might be thought to be the limited resources of a single, lone string instrument. The fugue, in which the opening figure (catching the listener’s attention with four repeated notes) is heard by itself, then several times in succession, each time enriched by other melodic lines interwoven to form a fascinating musical tapestry. While fugues are sometimes thought of as rather “intellectual” in character, Bach’s amazing range of colors and harmonies invests the music with great expressive power, irresistible momentum and drama.

for a concert by Darwyn Apple

Brahms Scherzo in C Minor for Violin and Piano (“Sonatensatz”)

Scherzo in C Minor for Violin and Piano (“Sonatensatz”)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

As a young man Johannes Brahms met the celebrated Hungarian violinist, Josef Joachim, who would become a lifelong friend, and inspiration for all of his violin compositions. The German subtitle “Sonatensatz” refers to the curious fact that this scherzo movement was originally part of a composite violin sonata written for Joachim, with three different composers contributing movements to form a complete work. The scherzo was composed in 1853 when Brahms was barely 20 years old, but was only published in 1906, soon finding a place in the concert repertory.

From the very beginning the music leaps into action, seizing the listener’s attention with pounding rhythms, sweeping lyrical phrases and an air of dramatic expectancy. The music becomes more subdued for a gentler contrasting episode at midpoint, returning to the rhythmic energy of the opening, rounding out the work with a majestic conclusion.

for a concert by Darwyn Apple

Stravinsky: Suite from the Firebird

Suite from the "Firebird" (1919)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Many of the very greatest composers have revealed their genius at an early age; Igor Stravinsky was not among that number. Growing up surrounded by music and learning, the son of a celebrated singer at the Maryiinsky Opera in Saint Petersburg, Stravinsky received a thorough musical training as a boy, but only began to show a serious interest in composition around the age of twenty. Friendship with the youngest son of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov led to a meeting with the composer, who became an unofficial tutor and advisor, even something of a father figure to the young man. In his early twenties Stravinsky composed a series of bland and well-crafted works which showed little sign of his eventual gifts, among them a piano sonata and a Symphony in E-flat, which reflected the influence of Tchaikovsky and Borodin. But in his mid-twenties he began to undergo a remarkable transformation. Not long before Rimsky's death in 1908 Stravinsky showed him sketches for a projected opera, The Nightingale," and the “Scherzo Fantastique,” perhaps the most important of the early compositions. Soon after, in early 1909, the Scherzo was heard at its premiere by the man who would become the key figure in the Stravinsky's career, Sergei Diaghilev. In that same year Diaghilev launched the first of what would become his annual "Russian seasons" in Paris, presenting classical ballet productions, as well as an ambitious repertoire of Russian operas, all of which were utterly unknown in the West. The operas dazzled the Parisian audiences with their colorful Oriental exoticism---but lost money. While the initial ballet evenings astonished the public with the superior gifts of Russian dancers, in style and subject-matter they remained close to the familiar styles of French classical ballet. Diaghilev realized that he needed to develop a repertory of distinctively RUSSlAN ballet, bringing together virtuoso dance and the sort of vivid textures and rhythms of Russian music which made such a powerful impression in the opera performances. (From a distance of 90 years it is difficult to comprehend that such a style of ballet hardly existed at the time. Apart from Tchaikovsky, whose musical idiom was fairly familiar to western audiences, hardly any first-rate Russian composers wrote for the ballet before Stravinsky. In a blunt and scathing letter Rimsky-Korsakov himself laid out good reasons why he would NEVER be caught dead writing a ballet, among them: "it is a degenerate art...the best thing ballet has to offer dances, are boring...there is no need for good music in ballet...ballet music is usually performed in a sloppy, perfunctory way..." ! (Sadly, Rimsky died too soon to see his own imprecations swept aside by the work of his protégé. Determined to produce a distinctive RUSSIAN ballet for his 1910 season in Paris, Diaghilev proposed a new ballet based on Russian folk tales, the FIREBIRD, which would be a feast for eye and ear, a spectacle unlike any other ever seen in Paris. The music was originally to have been composed by Diaghilev's staff conductor, Nikolai Tcherepnin, who quickly withdrew from the project. Then, after a period of squabbling, no fewer than three other composers were offered the commission---all refused. One of the familiar myths about the originas of the “Firebird” has it that Anatol Liadov, a respected composer of the older generation, was offered the commission, but as usual worked in a lackadaisical manner. The truth is that only when four or five composers shunned the commission was Stravinsky selected for the job, proceeding to compose the 45-minute score in little more than four months, in time for the hugely successful premiere in Paris on 24^th June, 1910. As was said of Lord Byron, Stravinsky "awoke to find himself famous." A year PETRUSHKA appeared, and in 1912 LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS was composed, although not performed until 1913. Thus, turning away from Tchaikovsky's classicism (much as Stravinsky himself revered that musical idiom), genuine "Russian" ballet came into being with The FIREBIRD drawing upon unique Russian musical traditions, and in the process establishing the international supremacy of Russian dance. With Paris (and the world at large) conquered by the dancers of Diaghilev's BALLETS RUSSES, the world of ballet underwent a seismic transformation not again witnessed until the remarkable achievement of George Balanchine in bringing the traditions of ballet to New York a quarter century later.

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30

Sergei Rachmaninov
(1873-1943)

Only in recent times could a serious writer on matters musical be bold (or reckless) enough to speak with

commendation of the work of Sergei Rachmaninov. (Anyone with access to the Fourth Edition of Grove's Dictionary will find the sort of disdainful critique of the composer quite characteristic of musical criticism until late in the 20^th century.) Why this has been so is difficult to explain. Perhaps the sheer popularity of Rachmaninov's works has caused the Arbiters of Good Taste to conclude that this alone must be a cause for condemnation. (Such persons forget the wonderful story about Brahms enscribing a photo of himself and Johann Strauss, of all people, in which he sketched out the opening bars of the "Blue Danube" with the inscription, “unfortunately NOT by Johannes

Brahms" - !) Another "problem" with Rachmaninov is perhaps his lifelong loyalty to a musical style and personal idiom shaped in the late 19^th century. (The solution, of course, might have been for Rachmaninov to have died before the age of forty!" But if no less a figure than Gustav Mahler could find much to admire in the work of his Russian colleague, perhaps foolish notions of “taste" should be reserved for food critics and the Style Section of the Sunday papers.)

Rachmaninov was born on an estate near Novgorod into a well-to-do family which moved to Saint Petersburg where the boy, his musical gifts manifest at an early age, began studies at the conservatory. Not yet in his teens, Rachmaninov was sent by his cousin, Alexander Siloti (himselfa distinguished pianist and conductor) to study at the Moscow Conservatory. There Rachmaninov received strict piano instruction, as well as the whole range of music theory and counterpoint, coming to know most of the prominent musicians of the "Moscow school," among them Arensky, Anton Rubinstein, Taneyev, and above all, his idol, Tchaikovsky. Already a prolific composer while still in his teens, Rachmaninov sketched the first version of his First Piano Concerto as early as 1890, followed in the same year by his first major orchestral work, the symphonic poem, "Prince Rostislav." In 1892 the TRIO ELEGIAQUE

and one-act opera, ALEKO were composed, while his most famous single work, the all-but-notorious "Prelude

in C-sharp minor," was published before the age of twenty----soon becoming the bane of his life as a concert pianist. ALEKO was performed, winning enthusiastic praise from Tchaikovsky, and the composer seemed moving ahead without a cloud on the horizon. But everything changed in 1897 with the disastrous performance of his First Symphony in D Minor, which had the misfortune to be conducted by the remarkably incompetent (and possibly intoxicated) Alexander Glazunov. The symphony and its composer were roasted by the critics, plunging Rachmaninov into a profound depression, which resulted in a period of three years without any composition whatever. (The symphony was not published, and the manuscript eventually disappeared. Happily in 1945 the original orchestra! parts were discovered, the score re-constructed, and on 17 October, 1945 the symphony had a triumphant second performance, and is now recognized as one of the composer's most original works.)

Rachmaninov's recovery from depression through the efforts of a doctor in Dresden, leading to the

resounding success of the Second Concerto is well known. There followed a succession of major compositions, notably the splendid Second Symphony in 1906. But rivalling Rachmaninov's acclaim as a composer was his accomplishments as a concert artist, which rapidly won him fame as one of the finest performers of the day. It was in preparation for his debut as both pianist and composer in the United States that the Third Piano Concerto was composed in 1909. The concerto received its world premiere at Carnegie Hail on 28 November, 1909, with the New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch. A rather more auspicious performance at Carnegie followed on 16 January, 1910, with the New York Philharmonic under Gustav Mahler, who had been so deeply impressed by the concerto that (in that era before unions) he insisted upon extending the dress rehearsal by ninety minutes to do justice to the complexity of the work. Rachmaninov marvelled at Mahler’s attention to detail, and precise integration of the piano and orchestral elements, which resulted in a performance which he remembered as the finest of his career. Thirty years later Rachmaninov completed his cycle of the concertos on disc when he was soloist in a recording made in XXXX 1940 with his favorite orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

Sergei Rachmaninov's first two piano concertos were freely modelled upon the celebrated B-fiat minor Concerto of his beloved Tchaikovsky, opening with full-throated lyrical melodies, the piano part closely interwoven with elaborate and richly-colored orchestral writing. The Third Concerto, an altogether more intricate and large-scale musical structure, opens with a simplicity and directness not heard since the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Against an accompaniment figure whose rhythmic elements, hardly noticed at first, will increasingly take on importance throughout the concerto, the soloist unfolds an plaintive melody of almost folk-like character, naive in its rhythmic character, diatonic in its musical language. While the musical argument will soon take on a complexity and sheer weight which is unique to this concerto, the truest expression in the work is always found in those moments when the composer returns to the simplicity of this opening. With a quickening of tempo the main theme is taken over by the violas and horns against a delicate tracery of passage-work in the piano. The tempo quickens yet again, the virtuoso piano writing begins to push aside the lyrical flow of the main theme, building in exitement and richness of detail. Settling down into a slower tempo (MODERATO), the Second Subject draws together a number of contrasting elements, at first giving voice to a powerful lyrical outburst by the strings, then moving into a SCHERZANDO passage, with staccato writing in the strings in dialogue with the piano, soon is transformed into a smoothly flowing episode in the piano alone (in B-Flat), then joined by the orchestra, increasing in fullness of texture and harmony. The exposition is then rounded out, still in B-fiat, in classical fashion returning to the music which opened the movement, at first back in the home key of D Minor, the principal theme recalled for a moment in its original uncomplicated form. Suddenly becoming agitated, a new figure (staccato thirds in winds and piano) is introduced, pressing on into increasingly urgent triplet passagework in the piano, soon breaking into a wild passage in which the staccato thirds are now dense chords in the piano over the primary rhythmic element from the very beginning of the movement. These too are hammered out in triplet figures as the music rushes into a frenzied climax, the piano in a shower of sixteenth-notes in the upper register over a heavily sustained bassline moving in half-notes. Withdrawing into a quiet mood as quickly as it had raced into dramatic wildness, the sustained bassline continues, the piano circling about in restless eighth-note canonic writing, the two hands widely spaced on the keyboard. The thirds reappear, the atmosphere becoming ever more sustained and subdued as the cadenza is launched.

CADENZA

In a quite original touch, Rachmaninov introduces brief passages for solo wind instruments into the latter portion of the cadenza, sharing the moment with solo flute, oboe, clarinet, finally horn.

Returning to D Minor, Rachmaninov, having already mademuch use of the secondary theme, rounds out the movement without a formal recapitulation, finishing with a final statement of the first subject in its original lyrical form, which serves as a coda to the movement.

While the term “intermezzo” is often applied to a rather light-weight, usually lyrical movement, often taking the place of a more a more animated SCHERZO, in this case the INTERMEZZO

acts as a deeply introspective interlude linking the massive outer movements. Even for a composer as given to expressions of melancholy feeling, the lengthy orchestra introduction to this movement is unusually sombre and inward-turning. The piano enters with a mood-breaking splash of color and virtuosity, then settling into the warm key of D-flat for the principal theme of the movement. This soon moves into darker harmonic colors with a remarkably extended passage which hovers over a long sustained pedal F. (It is sometimes suggested that the main part of the movement is a freely composed theme and variations.) Breaking away into shifting harmonic territory, the tempo quickening and emotional tone heightened and impassioned, the main theme becomes ever more insistent, finally returning to the key where it had begun, D-flat. Unexpectedly (taking his cue from the slow movement of the Tchaikovsky first Concerto), Rachmaninov lifts the music into the more transparent tonality of

F-sharp minor. Stepping into a rapid 3/8 metre, the effect is of a will-o-the-wisp SCHERZANDO episode which, all to soon, gives way to the earlier atmosphere of sorrow and aching emotional expression to end the movement. Sidestepping a conventional conclusion, the piano instead moves assertively forward in a brilliant cadenza-like passage to launch the finale without a pause.

Where the first movement is predominantly lyrical and the INTERMEZZO elegiac, the finale is most notable for its rhythmic vitality and irresistible momentum. Bounding off, brimming with energy, the principal theme is an uncomplicated, chordal statement in the piano set against a galloping background in the winds (with faint hints of rhythms heard in more relaxed surroundings at the beginning of the concerto.) A sturdy “transitional theme" follows, the piano writing suggesting the rather "military" style found in such popular Rachmaninov pieces as the Prelude in G Minor. This tumbles onward to lead in the secondary theme (in C Major), another thickly chordal passage bristling with syncopation which unexpectedly yields to a sustained melody in G Major unfolded in triplets in the piano, combined with syncopated figures in the strings. The end of the exposition is signalled in traditional fashion with a solid cadential thump, a faster tempo (ALLEGRO MOLTO), and after few ruffles and flourishes in the orchestra, a move into the key of E-flat, where the composer is content to settle in for an extended stay. This development section, marked SCHERZANDO, is laid out as a fourfold variation upon material derived from the secondary theme of the first movement, the piano displaying a full spectrum of decorative filligree and playful virtuosity. Rachmaninov, never blinking, dares to remain in E-flat for a no fewer than 92 bars (!), for a moment gliding off into E Major for a moment of gentle reflection before sliding back to E-flat, where this lovely (and harmonically static) central episode closes with an oddly understated hymn-like cadence in---E-flat. The recapitulation, opening in C Minor, follows fairly closely the earlier sequence of elements, if anything with even great momentum and excitement. Of particular note is the lyrical expansion of the syncopated secondary element, now with even more urgent expressive power, the sweeping melodic line in the piano now riding over softly pattering repeated eighth-notes in the strings. This spills over into the CODA, marked VIVACE, which opens with music actually derived from the first movement cadenza, the piano in its lowest register, joined by timpani and lower strings, creating an atmosphere of menace and irresistible momentum. The music gallops forward, with a brief pause for a short cadenza before reaching the emotional peak of the work: a grand, sweeping melody derived from the secondary theme now forming a majestic apotheosis. A brief, exultant final sprint brings the concerto to a triumphant close.

Bartok: Dance Suite

Dance Suite (1923)

Bela Bartok
(1881-1945)

Apart from Gustav Mahler, most of the major 20^th century composers who continued to contribute to the tradition of the full-scale symphony came from countries outside Central Europe: the Scandinavians, the English, the Americans and the Soviets. Most of the other major 20^th century composers---Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern Varese---turned away from that tradition. Bela Bartok was such a composer. Indeed, Bartok's catalogue of large orchestral compositions is surprisingly short, barely twenty major works, including two ballet scores, and nine works (rhapsodies and concertos) for piano, violin and viola and orchestra. At the time of the premiere of the Dance Suite in 1923 only a single orchestral work of the composer's maturity had yet been performed, the Four Pieces for Orchestra of 1912, first heard only a year earlier. The Dance Suite was something of a break-through for Bartok, following a performance in Prague in 1925 which caught the public imagination Bartok. Within a year the composition had received sixty performances, Bartok's international reputation began to prosper, and the compositions by which he is best known began to appear.

The Dance Suite is a vivid reminder of Bartok's profound relationship with the folk culture of not only his native land, but of Eastern Europe and the Middle East as well. Unique among composers, he was a serious student of folk music, a veritable "Ethno-musicologist," to use a word which did not exist in the early years of the 20 century when he and his friend Zoltan Kodaly went on field expeditions to collect ofolksongs, making use of the primitive cylinder recording apparatus which had just been developed. (Interestingly, in the first decade of the 20^th century, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger in England, and Cecil Sharp in the American Appalachian region, were also engaged the study of folk music---in the nick of time, as it happened, for the development of radio and recorded music would soon snuff out the surviving folk culture in those regions.)

Bartok"s "native land" was Hungary, of course. But a quite different Hungary from the independent nation which came into existence with the dissolution of the "Austro-Hungarian Empire" in 1918. Until that date Hungarian culture remained cloaked in obscurity. Among many composers and music-lovers (especially in Vienna), there was a sentimental fondness for "Hungarian" music, as is famously known from Brahms' Hungarian Dances, and many of the

popular late 19^th century Viennese operettas. And, of course, the whole world celebrated Franz Liszt as the essence of Hungarian music, most of all for his brilliant Hungarian Rhapsodies. But Liszt spent little time in his native land after his teens, and as an older man struggled to speak the language. Like Brahms, and many other musicians of the day, Liszt believed that the music of the Hungarian gypsies was indeed the authentic Hungarian music---he even took time to write a wonderfully misinformed book! It was only 20 years after the death of Liszt that Bartok and Kodaly were able to establish that genuine Hungarian music was quite another matter from the music heard in restaurants in Vienna and Budapest, for the most part played and created by Gypsies, who belonged to a distinct tradition of their own. Bartok's scholarly approach to the subject (in contrast to the enthusiasms of Liszt and Brahms) not only clarified the true nature of Hungarian folk music, but also began to reveal the enormous range and vitality of the music of Rumania, Bulgaria and other hitherto unknown regions of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire as well.

When Bartok fled Hungary at the beginning of World War II to take refuge in the United State, unlike Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, he refused to accept offers from universities to earn a secure living as a teacher of composition--he insisted that it could not be taught! However he quite willingly took a position at Columbia University studying and organizing a large collection of folksong materials, forty years after his expeditions into rural Hungary returning to his early activity as an "ethno-musicologist."

Ritornello

Although strongly devoted to the goal of Hungarian political and cultural independence, Bartok's involvement with folk music was remarkably open-minded and internationalist, as is exemplified in his Dance Suite. For all its folk music influences, this work was actually composed for a uniquely 'urban" occasion: the celebration in 1923 of the 50^th anniversary of the union of three sister cities on the banks of the Danube---Buda, Obuda and Pest---to form the capital city of"Budapest." That Bartok was commissioned to compose a work by the conservative authorites of Budapest was rather curious, considering the composer's own left-wing leanings in the early years of independence. The early 1920s were a period of great political unrest, the newly independent nation having flirted briefly with Communism in 1919, then swinging into extreme right-wing political unrest, inflation and falling living standards. At the time Bartok himself was attacked by some nationalists as "unpatriotic" due to his work with the Rumanian and Slovak folk music, as well as his own political views. The suite was first heard on 19 November, 1923, on a concert conducted by Ernst yon Dohnanyi, which also included commissioned works by Dohnanyi himself, and the sensation of the evening, Zoltan Kodaly's brilliant "Psalmus Hungaricus."

The Dance Suite consists of six dance movements (mostly in quick tempo), several of which are linked by a RITORNELLO, a gentle, lyrical passage which Bartok, rather pleased with himself, described as "such a faithful imitation of a certain kind of Hungarian folk melody that its derivation might puzzle even the most knowledgeable of musical folklorists." That said, Bartok went on to point out that no actual folk material was employed in the composition.

The opening movement, marked MODERATO is described by Bartok as having links with Arab music. The initial melodic pattern in the bassoon is the sort of "compressed" figure common to much of Bartok's music, circling around a tightly-knit sequence of close intervals (half steps, seconds and thirds), heard against a heavily-accented, irregular rhythmic background (another typical Bartokian mannerism.) The strings play in choppy down-bow strokes joined by the percussive interjections in the piano. The bassoon figure is passed on to English horn, clarinet and oboe, often played in seconds (anticipating the famous "Game of the Couples" movement from the Concerto for Orchestra written 20 years later). Swooping GLISSANDO figures appear in the strings, the orchestral texture thickens,

chugging forward in heavy accents. (There is even a charming moment when the bassoon melody is heard in the tuba.) Then the RITORNELLO steals in, comfortably set in G Minor (Aeolian mode), a sweetly nostalgic moment forming a link to the next movement.

The Second Movement, ALLEGRO MOLTO, said to be derived from the Hungarian tradition, stomps into view in B-flat minor, loud, heavily weighted with the brass, obsessively centering upon the interval of the minor third. The rhythms become ever more irregular, displaying a wildness reminiscent of similar passages in the composer’s "Miraculous Mandarin." The RITORNELLO reappears, a bit less sweet this time, now set in E-flat.

In the Third Movement "Hungarian, Rumanian and even Hungarian influences alternate," according to the composer. Marked ALLEGRO VIVACE, this is effectively the work's "Scherzo," set in a strongly pentatonic key of B, making much use of the so-called “Hungarian interval”: the perfect fourth. Laid out in a Rondo-like scheme (ABACA), the opening "bagpipe" tune introduced by the bassooon moves around the orchestra, rising in intensity, followed by the “B” section in which a drone-like tune is punched out in the strings. The second appearance of the "A" tune creates a "music-box" effect in a magical passage with the piano (played by two performers, four-hands) circling around in a four-part canon, laid out against a background of harp and harmonics in the strings. The "C" section is another heavy-footed passage in the strings over a drone figure, soon joined by shrill, skirling high winds, bringing back the A theme for a brilliant finish.

At this point there is no RITORNELLO; the slow Fourth Movement (MOLTO TRANQUILLO) emerging PIANISSIMO from a moment of silence. Characterized by Bartok as "entirely Oriental (Arab) in character," this is an example of the hushed, haunted slow music which is so memorable in the composer's later works. Opening with richly-textured sonorities in the strings alternating with chant-like melodic figures in the winds, here the fluid, unaccented rhythmic flow of the music creates an atmosphere of mysterious stillness. Malcolm Gillies has described this as "a music that just IS rather than one that progresses. It exists in time rather than moves through time."

Introduced by the briefest of the RITORNELLO passages, the short Fifth Movement (COMMODO) is described by Bartok as having "a primitive peasant character." Little more than an introduction to the final movement, here a pulsating repeated-note figure is heard in the violas, then reiterated with added sonorities of the ("Hungarian") perfect fourths, rising in tension to a couple outbursts in the winds and brass, then striding without a break into the finale.

The Sixth Movement, ALLEGRO, extends the repeated-note figure from the previous section, with another "pile-up" of fourths rising from the cellos and basses into the upper strings and winds. This finale is sometimes described as a "medley," with quotations from the earlier movements passing in review and in various combinations, reaching a grand climax, only to settle back into a last recollection of the RITORNELLO. The coda begins with a simply peasant-like tune in solo strings, soon builds to another towering sonority, with the "bagpipe" tune of the third movement returning to bring the proceedings to a resounding conclusion.