Program Notes - February 26, 2008
Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
Khachaturian
Like many of Khachaturian’s works, this early piece written in 1932 reflects the musical styles and dance rhythms of his native Armenia and occasionally even the sound of the indigenous Armenian instruments.
The three-movement layout is treated unconventionally, beginning with a slow movement followed by a lively middle movement and a final movement that has elements of both styles.
The first movement begins with a slow, reflective clarinet tune marked con dolore (sadly), to which the clarinet and piano add an elaborate web of decorations. The slow, steady rhythmic pace is maintained throughout the movement. Near the close, the main melody is taken over by the violin. The brief but animated second movement is notable for the pronounced ethnic Armenian flavor of its melodies. The final movement begins and ends with quiet clarinet solos. Between them one hears both reflective passages and lively tunes that suggest folk dances.
Suite for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano, Op. 157b
Milhaud
As a young man, Milhaud spent several years in Brazil as secretary to the poet, Paul Claudel, who had been appointed French minister to that country.While there Milhaud soaked up the sounds and rhythms of Brazilian popular and folk music, and the influence of that music permeates a number of his later works. This lighthearted trio, written in 1936, is a good example. In the last movement the alert listener may also detect some hints of Milhaud’s exposure to American jazz.
Milhaud was one of the most prolific composers of the twentieth century, churning out a vast catalogue of works over his long career, a good portion of which was spent living and teaching in the United States. Anyone who writes so quickly and easily is often dismissed as “superficial,” but there is no doubt that small-scale and easily enjoyed pieces like this suite have a place in our collective ears and memories just as secure as that of many a large-scale and more overtly serious masterpiece.
The brief overture, lasting about a minute and a half, sets a tone of upbeat good humor with its perky dance rhythms. The second movement, divertissement, is a kind of genial conversation among three players.
Its main theme sounds like a children’s ditty. The third movement, entitled jeu (play or sport), continues the upbeat mood, but the finale begins with a mock-serious introduction that seems to promise more weighty matters to come. This prelude dies away, however, making room for a catchy little tune that sounds like some South American dancing song. The ending, however, is quiet.
Oblivion and Otono Porteno
Piazzolla
These two brief pieces offer vivid examples of Piazzolla’s unique musical style, which blended the sultry Argentinean tango with American jazz on the one hand and classical influences from Bach, Bartók, Stravinsky, and other composers on the other.
Piazzolla, a native of Buenos Aires, grew up in New York City, studied with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and lived in Italy for seven years. In addition to being a path-breaking composer, he was a virtuoso on the bandonen (an instrument related to the accordion and the concertina) and the leader of a tango ensemble that toured widely.
Oblivion is slow and sad yet also seductive, like the tango itself. It sounds like the plaint of a disillusioned lover. The title of Otono Porteno may be loosely translated “Autumn in Buenos Aries.” It is part of a suite of pieces illustrating the four seasons in terms of Argentinean popular culture. In the course of only about six minutes, the piece offers a wild, stomping opening (that returns at the end), a kind of bluesy recitative, a brief jazzy dance episode, and another slower section that might be called bluesy, perhaps even sexy. The ending brings back the aggressively “modern” sound of the opening.
Largo (1901)
Ives
Tracking down the pedigree of almost any work by Charles Ives can be a daunting exercise in detective work akin to solving a difficult crossword puzzle. Ives’s habit of revisiting old or abandoned works years later and cannibalizing them into entirely different musical genres while perhaps revising them in the process can leave even scholars scratching their heads.
This short piece is a case in point. It seems to have begun life around 1901 as the slow movement of an abandoned violin sonata known to researchers as the “Pre-First” sonata–presumably not one of the four Ives violin sonatas now acknowledged. It is basically in three-part song form (A-B-A) with the clarinet prominent in the middle (B) section. The opening and closing pages are slow and ruminative, in a style that may remind some listeners of the slow movement of a work written some thirty years later–the G major piano concerto of Maurice Ravel. The middle section, in which the clarinet has its moment of prominence, is only marginally livelier but discloses hints of ragtime style.
Trio, “Fleeting Miniatures”
Hudiyev
Farhad Hudiyev, violinist of the Prima Trio, began his composition last June in Oberlin and finished this one-movement trio while on a visit home last August. It is dedicated to his family.
He describes the piece as “a glimpse of one’s dearly essential moments of life, tenderly intertwined and eventually becoming one.” The three instruments, he says, “seem to share thousands of characters together that have a special connection to each other. They seem to encompass widely many wonderful boundaries of life, all the way from crying to wailing within an incredibly short time.” The expressive marking over the work’s introduction is “con grandezza e morbidezza.”
Serenade for Three
Schickele
Peter Schickele, best known as the creator (perhaps perpetrator would be a more accurate word) of the –fortunately -- mythical composer, PDQ Bach, has also written a sizeable body of delightful music of his own. This brief and upbeat trio was premiered in 1993 by the group that commissioned it, the Verdehr Trio. Schickele has said that it reflects the sort of music heard in his youth around the family home in Fargo, North Dakota, where he was studying clarinet and piano and his brother was studying violin.
The three short movements are jazzy and extroverted in style. In their cheeky optimism they suggest the sound-world of such early twentieth- century French composers as Poulenc, Francaix, and Ibert. The first movement, Dances, sustains its rhythmic liveliness even when the dynamics are soft. There are brief suggestions, perhaps, of a carnival calliope or a music box.
The quiet second movement, Songs, offers a little lullaby-like tune over a gentle rhythmic pulse. The finale is a private joke–a set of variations on a theme from one of Schickele’s PDQ Bach extravaganzas, the spoof oratorio Oedipus Tex. It has a sprightly, pops-concert quality. Alert listeners will savor a suggestion of barn-dance fiddling and a touch of boogie-woogie in the piano part near the end.
Program Notes by Robert Finn