Martinů, Madrigals for Violin and Viola

Transcription

1 PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Martinů, Madrigals for Violin and Viola We might term Bohuslav Martinů ( ) the bad boy of Czech music. Although, historically he belongs in the illustrious line of Smetana, Dvořák, and Janáček, Martinů s early years were turbulent and full of chaos. One of the most influential men in Czech music pronounced him unfit for a teaching career, but by 1920 he had selected a career in music and was playing the violin with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. On performing a work by Albert Roussel, Martinů decided to study with him. From 1923 to 1941, Martinů remained in Paris working with Roussel (with whom he was a kindred spirit), while his own music was gradually gaining favor both at home and internationally. When Germany invaded France, Martinů and his wife fled to the United States. With New York as his base most of the time, he spent time in New England and elsewhere in Eastern U.S., holding teaching assignments at Tanglewood, the Mannes School in New York, and Princeton University. A bad fall while at Tanglewood in 1942 affected his health and psychology for the rest of his life. Avoiding a return to his homeland because of the Communist government, Martinů and his wife eventually did return to Europe in In France and later Switzerland, the composer resided, producing his final works marks the 50 th anniversary of Martinů s death. The Three Madrigals for violin and viola were completed in New York in July 1947 and dedicated to the violist Lillian Fuchs and her violinist brother Joseph. The first

2 Madrigal is playful with a perpetual motion interrupted only to present two engaging themes. These are eventually developed as a climax to the movement. Martinů s background as a string player and his vast imagination for string music comes to the fore in the Poco andante. At first, mood statements take precedence over melodic themes, though the latter become more important as the movement progresses. Here, too, Martinů s deep love of Renaissance counterpoint surfaces at times, particularly as the movement sweeps toward its finish. The third Madrigal is dominated by an 18 th -century flavor and brief satirical reminiscences of well known music. Beethoven s Pastoral Symphony is recognizable in the opening passages, and the style of Vivaldi flashes through later ones, although tinged with the harmonic language of Richard Strauss and César Franck. A reprise of the opening ideas wraps up the Madrigals in a fun, jolly mood. Schulhoff, Five Pieces for String Quartet Born of non-musical Czech Jewish parents, Ervin Schulhoff ( ) received his education first at the Prague Conservatory and later in Vienna and Leipzig, where he studied with Max Reger. He majored in piano and composition. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 interrupted the start of Schulhoff s career, and he was obliged to spend the next four years in the German army. As with many artists and thinkers, the war experience changed Schulhoff s world view completely, including his ideas about art. Between 1919 and 1923, he lived in Germany, joining the ranks of the avant garde, and contributing to its views as a composer. He embraced early jazz as the musical counterpart of Berlin Dadaist painting.

3 Although he experimented with Schoenberg s type of atonality, he was more drawn to the style of Stravinsky, as people knew it in the early 1920s. For Schulhoff, that was dominated by the music of L histoire du Soldat (1918), which makes generous use of early jazz style. Schulhoff composed the Five Pieces for String Quartet in 1923, the year he returned to Prague. The work was premiered the following summer at Salzburg. In the manner of the three dances in L histoire, Schulhoff s Five Pieces are satirical and often a bit wild. He chooses cultural types as his target, not just dances: Viennese waltz, Venetian serenade, Czech folk music, Argentine tango, and Southern Italian tarantella. These he bundles in the manner of a dance suite. As commentator Richard Whitehouse colorfully describes it: Although following the outlines of a Baroque dance suite, each of the pieces is a self-contained miniature that emulates a particular dance style and in a manner which unashamedly recalls the popular music of the era. The first piece is a moody and wide-ranging waltz, made more so by its rhythmic displacement (this hardly being a waltz for dancing). The second piece is an equally oblique take on the serenade, its strummed undertow giving an ominous quality to music whose irony threatens to take on a more threatening guise at every turn. The third piece is a further instance of the composer s acknowledged debt to Czech folkdance, its unbridled rhythmic drive exuding real energy for all its brevity. The fourth piece is a highly distinctive take on the tango (and has achieved popularity in arrangements that more closely reflect its models), though here the underlying rhythmic elasticity undercuts the music s sultry and provocative manner. The fifth piece looks to the tarantella in a headlong drive that continues unabated through to the decisive closing chords. Dvořák, String Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 97 ( American ) In the fall of 1892, Antonín Dvořák ( ) became, figuratively, the Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. His light duties afforded him time to absorb much of the novel spirit of the New World around him. The fast

4 pace of life in New York impressed him as did his musical experiences there. Noteworthy among these was hearing a black conservatory student singing Negro spirituals. During the spring of 1893, Dvořák completed his first work under such influences, the Symphony No. 9 From the New World. At the end of his first school year at the National Conservatory, Dvořák brought his children to America, and together they spent the summer at Spillville, a Czech colony in northeastern Iowa. There he quickly composed two chamber works, both of which have been nicknamed American : the Quartet in F Major and the Quintet in E-flat Major. In contrast to the American Quartet, which expresses the intimate spiritual experience of that summer, the Quintet reflects external impressions: the spirit of the environment and the unique people he met. The prevailing mood is a happy one, except for melancholy meditation in the slow movement. Some of the same American influences that inform the New World Symphony can be heard here: Negro spirituals and Indian music, both of which Dvořák perceived to have elements in common with Czech music. In addition, analyst Otakar Šourek points out... the characteristic drum rhythm which probably arrested Dvořák s attention in the song and dance shows given in Spillville by Indian traveling troupes and which is employed in all the movements except the Larghetto. The movements all follow classical outlines. The first is in sonata form with contrasting themes. In its development section, Dvořák jumps into some unusual keys. The second movement scherzo is in three parts, the outer ones dominated by the Indian drum rhythm Šourek wrote about:.. _.. _

5 The slow third movement is a set of variations on an original theme Dvořák had jotted down in December 1892, that is, before coming to America. Šourek calls the movement the crowning glory of the Quintet and one of the most enchanting movements in the whole of the composer s chamber music. The finale is a broad rondo, combining folk dance ideas and a theme containing Indian coloring. Šourek informs us that the movement ends with a broadly designed coda in which the gay and vigorous rhythms of the principal theme are worked up to an inimitably Dvořák breath-taking conclusion.