Ricercare a 3 |
J S Bach |
| The moment J. S. Bach reached Potsdam on a visit to Prussia in May 1747, music-loving King Frederick The Great summoned him to his Court. He gave Bach a C-minor theme to test his reputed genius for expanding on it upon first hearing. Bach obliged instantly, but later added other canonic and fugal parts to it, culminating the whole as his Musical Offering. Its opening Ricercar a 3 can be thought of as the original improvisation Bach had played on the spot for the King. | |
Choral Prelude |
J S Bach/Busoni |
| Johann Sebastian Bach composed Nun komm der Heiden Heiland for the organ in 1723, expanding it from a venerable Lutheran chorale into a magnificent example of an ornamented chorale prelude. The lovely discourse of the soprano voice cantus firmus is supported by two lower manual voices and a steady pedal bass that moves mostly in eighth notes. The solemn serenity of the work was maintained in this transcription for piano completed by Italian composer/arranger Ferruccio Busoni some 185 years later, in Germany. | |
| Chaconne in D Minor | J S Bach/Busoni |
| The last movement of Bach’s Partita No. 2 for unaccompanied violin completed in 1720, the Chaconne in D minor has been called one of humanity's highest musical accomplishments. Of it Johannes Brahms once wrote “it is he most wonderful, unfathomable piece of music”, adding “if I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, ... the excess of excitement and earth shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind." Often played as a stand-alone, this set of 31 sublime variations on the opening theme will be heard here in Busoni’s widely acclaimed piano transcription. | |
| Variations & Fugue on Chopin’s Prelude in C minor, Op.22 | Ferruccio Busoni |
| The Variations and Fugue on Chopin's C minor Prelude are a revision of music first composed in 1884 when Busoni was eighteen. In 1922 he recast it with a “Faustian” introduction, and a “locus classicus of free tonality” written in three part canon, replacing "the formalism of the apprentice by the economy of the master". The work centers on the haunting Funeral March theme of Chopin’s Prelude No. 20. | |
Three Etudes for Piano, Opus 2 |
Sergei Prokofiev |
| Prokofiev wrote Four Etudes for Piano, Op. 2 in 1909, as a cocky 18-year-old virtuoso pianist living at home in Ukraine, to showcase his considerable keyboard skills. Yet the pieces contain, in abundance, the motoric and sardonic elements associated with his mature style. Three of these four short pieces are featured on this program. The first, in D minor, brilliant in color and thematic invention, bustles with so much brittle energy as to make the audience breathless in its passive listening role. The following E minor piece is interesting in its apparent efforts to restrain the ever agitated rippling piano part from erupting into volcanic outbursts. The last Etude, one of the two written by Prokofiev in the C minor key, will impress by its notable technical challenges, as in all of these brilliant pieces. | |
Ten pieces from “Romeo and Juliet”, Opus 75 |
Sergei Prokofiev |
| Prokofiev, a formidable pianist and composer, wrote the Ten Pieces from “Romeo and Juliet”, Op. 75 as a suite based on his orchestral ballet, to be a distinct solo piano work, not merely a transcription. This sequence of musical scenes closely follows the dramatic curve of Shakespeare’s play, and Prokofiev's palette of musical character shines in his painting of it. A bright and rhythmic Folk Dance sets a festive beginning to what will ultimately become a dark and tragic music. The happy and lively, though not rushed, Scene: The Street Awakens, leads to the festive atmosphere of the Minuet: Arrival of the Guests, to the ball. The rapid, nearly frenetic music in Juliet the Young Girl depicts the young heroine’s exuberance in dressing for it; a contrasting lyrical section catches her gazing at herself in a mirror. In Maskers, eeriness enters the music as Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio appear at the Capulets' ball uninvited. The music in The Montagues and Capulets gets primitive and grotesque, exposing the malevolence between the warring families marching relentlessly forward. Friar Lawrence is a portrait of the good father, one of the most explicitly Shakespearean characterizations of the score. Music of a galloping, near madcap nature portrays Mercutio admirably. An exotic Dance of the Antilles’ Girls, full of mystery, is a masterpiece of mood and color. The most beautiful and passionate music from the ballet appears in Romeo and Juliet before Parting, bringing the drama to its climax, with the intermingling of the famous lovers' themes, and suggestions of their families' hatreds. | |