Four Centuries of Great Music November 13, 2021 Four Centuries of the Piano 3

Today on Four Centuries of Great music is our third program of piano music  - and all solo piano music in this case.  We open with Claude Debussy’s Images, which is a suite of six compositions for solo piano published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907

Book 1 (or "1st series") (L. 110)

1. "Reflets dans l'eau" (Reflections in the water) in D♭ major  

2. "Hommage à Rameau" (Tribute to Rameau) in G♯ minor

3. "Mouvement" (Movement) in C major   

"Reflets dans l'eau" is one of the many pieces Debussy wrote about water in particular, light reflecting off its surface. The piece creates an image of water being not quite still, then becoming rapid, then decreasing in motion again. "Reflets dans l'eau" is also an example of the new tone colours Debussy discovered for the piano in this part of his life, and it is considered to be one of his greatest works for the instrument. Techniques such as arpeggio, pedal-point, staccato, tremolo and glissando are used to depict moving water.

"Hommage à Rameau" is more subdued. It is a sarabande honouring the memory of Jean-Philippe Rameau.

"Mouvement" is the most abstract designation of the pieces. It is a perpetuum mobile, meaning that it is built around a continuous stream of notes.

Book 2 (or "2nd series") (L. 111)

1. "Cloches à travers les feuilles" (Bells through the leaves) in B major 

2. "Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) in E minor  

3. "Poissons d'or" (Goldfish) in F♯ major

"Cloches à travers les feuilles" was inspired by the bells in the church steeple in the village of Rahon in Jura, France. Rahon was the hometown of Louis Laloy, a close friend of Debussy and also his first biographer.

"Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) was dedicated to Laloy. The name of the piece, which evokes images of East Asia, was suggested by Laloy, a sinologist. The piece is evocative of Indonesian gamelan music, which famously influenced Debussy.

"Poissons d'or" may have been inspired by an image of a golden fish in Chinese lacquer artwork or embroidery, or on a Japanese print. Other sources suggest it may have been inspired by actual goldfish swimming in a bowl.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14 (1912), is a sonata composed for solo piano. It was premiered on February 5, 1914 in Moscow with the composer performing.   Prokofiev dedicated the work to his friend and fellow student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Maximilian Schmidthof, who committed suicide in 1913.

Movements  Allegro, ma non troppo; Scherzo. Allegro marcato; Andante  and Vivace

Igor Stravinsky: Trois mouvements de Petrouchka pour piano

Danse russe (Russian Dance)

Chez Pétrouchka (Petrushka's Room)

La semaine grasse (The Shrovetide Fair)

The first movement, "Danse Russe", is drawn from the closing part of the first scene of the ballet. The next part, "Chez Pétrouchka", is the second scene of the stage work, while the final movement, "La semaine grasse", includes the whole of the fourth scene up to the end of the Masqueraders section to which Stravinsky added an ending which he later incorporated in his 1947 revised version of the ballet for concert performances.

Stravinsky's goal in arranging Petrushka for the piano (along with Piano-Rag-Music) was to attempt to influence Arthur Rubinstein into playing his music. (A 1961 live recording featuring Rubinstein at Carnegie Hall was published in 2012.)[citation needed] In order to gain the latter's attention, Stravinsky ensured that Rubinstein would find the arrangement technically challenging but musically satisfying. Trois mouvements de Petrouchka reflects the composer's intentions and, unsurprisingly, it is renowned for its notorious technical and musical difficulties. All three movements include wild and rapid jumps which span over two octaves, complex polyrhythms, extremely fast scales, multiple glissandos, and tremolos.

Aaron Copland’s Piano Fantasy, a commission from the Juilliard School, took five years to complete. A monumental and evocative work written utilizing 12-tone techniques, the Fantasy is a significant departure from the ballets and film scores which Copland wrote in the previous decade to great acclaim. Because of its length and complex structure, it is rarely performed; yet its musical rewards are great. Aaron Copland planned a piano concerto for the young American virtuoso William Kapell, but the latter’s death through a plane crash in 1953 effectively put paid to the project. Existing sketches instead found their way into the Piano Fantasy which, begun in 1955 and completed two years later, was dedicated to Kapell’s memory.

At just over half-an-hour in duration, this is among Copland’s most ambitious works in any genre, and the single-movement format places notable demands on the performer’s stamina as well as on the listener’s concentration. Serial procedures are freely employed, such that the overall feel is discernibly, though far from ‘classic-ally’ tonal. The opening features a ten-note scale (four descending and six ascending notes) that, along with the two omitted notes of the chromatic scale which act as a punctuating cadence, forms the motivic nucleus of the whole piece. The first part of what is effectively a three-part design continues with a more lyrical section, then a fast toccata-like passage which itself is rounded off by a tranquil pastorale. The second part is an extensive scherzo, of a rhythmic fluidity which recalls Copland’s music of the early 1930s, and with a central trio whose playfulness disguises some exacting interplay between the two hands. A varied recall of the scherzo music leads straight into the work’s dynamic and emotional apex, following which, the third part returns to the material of the first in a far from literal reprise. A quiet coda then touches on aspects of the initial scale, before reaching a calm and fulfilled close.

Study No. 7 Conlon Nancarrow Studies for Piano Player 

The definitive recording of these works, originally released on LP by 1750 Arch Records, newly remastered in spectacular sound, representing the most faithful reproduction of what Conlon Nancarrow heard in his own studio. This is the only available recording utilizing Nancarrow’s original instruments: two 1927 Ampico player pianos, one with metal-covered felt hammers and the other with leather strips on the hammers.