Download Dvorak Piano Quintet July 30, 2013 André Previn

Dvorak Piano Quintet July 30, 2013
André Previn
American composer, conductor, pianist
born: 6 April 1929, Berlin
Trio for Piano, Oboe and Bassoon
Lively
Slow
Jaunty
American conductor/composer/pianist André Previn enjoys celebrity on
many counts and scores. He was recognized as a gifted jazz pianist while yet a
teenager in Los Angeles, and his talents as an arranger soon found him setting
films scores to popular Broadway musicals, for which he received four Academy
Awards. As a conductor he served as music director for the Houston, Pittsburgh
and Los Angeles symphony orchestras, as well as the London Philharmonic and
the London Symphony.
From among Previn's original catalog, his Trio for Piano, Oboe and
Bassoon is a delightful tour de force, rich with diverse influences. Scored in
1994, the work was commissioned by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, with
additional support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the National
Endowment for the Arts.
Panache on the wing might be a fair subtitle for the first movement offering pizzazz and flare right from the downbeat. The Lively energy alternates
to-and-fro with lyrical interludes, all set under 20th century harmonies and a
smattering of mixed meters. For contrast, Previn provides a plaintive and Slow
centerpiece, with modern but aria-like narrations from the oboe and bassoon,
set over beautifully applied harmonies in the manner of a jazz reverie.
Titled Jaunty, the Finale flies out of the gate with frenetic rhythms in the oboe
and bassoon. Perhaps a wink at Leonard Bernstein conjures a few sassy motifs à
la New York. But again, for a change of pace, a momentary intermezzo or two
blends a few tender changes within some real 'down home' studio jazz. For
good measure, lots of accented, mixed meter motifs keep us guessing clear to a
punchy close in B-flat.
David Bruce
American composer
Born: 1970, Stamford, CT
Steampunk for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon
Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass
About Steampunk the composer writes:
"Steampunk was originally a science fiction genre but has become a style of
design, fashion and sub-culture. It centres on a kind of 'alternative history' - an
alternative universe which looks a lot like technologically- advanced Victorian
England, where everything is steam-powered. Brass, copper and wood feature
prominently in steam-powered devices like watches, x-ray machines and
futuristic steam-powered cars.
"When Carnegie Hall offered me this commission based around the
Beethoven Septet, the horn and bassoon immediately stood out to me as
defining colours of the group, to which I added the oboe. We might view
Classical Music itself as a kind of steampunk music. It's one of the very few
areas in music performance where unamplified, non-electronic sound is still the
norm.
"Steampunk is in five movements. The brief opening movement has wild
fanfares on clarinet and french horn and is followed by a dark, brooding
passacaglia. The third lyrical movement was inspired by the 'armillary sphere', a
model of the celestial sphere often found in steampunk design, and I hope the
movement captures the impression of a mysterious spiralling celestial
mechanism. The fourth movement is much more light-hearted and seems to
hint at strange ticking clocks. The final movement starts with a desolate stillness,
but gradually and relentlessly - indeed, as if powered by steam - builds up speed
until arriving at a break-neck denouement."
Antonin Dvorak
Bohemian composer
born: 8 September 1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia;;
died: 1 May 1904, Prague, Czechoslovakia
Quintet for Piano and Strings in A major, op.81
Allegro ma non tanto
Dumka - Andante con moto
Scherzo - Furiant: Molto vivace
Finale - Allegro
Dvorak scored his Piano Quintet in A major in 1887. The work is
dedicated to his admiring friend, Dr. B. Neureutter, a professor of medicine and
generous art patron. A bit unusual is that about fifteen years earlier the
composer had written a preceding quintet (op.5), also set in A major. It appears
Dvorak had a special fondness for the musical timbres that resulted from piano
and strings in that key (by contrast, his Violin Concerto, op.53, is cast in A
minor).
About opus 81, historian John Clapham wrote: "Laughter and tears, sorrow
and gaiety, are found side by side. All are presented in a wide range of
instrumental coloring, and through the whole sweeps the life-blood of vital
rhythm."
A lovely tune from the cello provides a mini prelude to the first movement
Allegro, setting the tone of the Piano Quintet overall. But the dolce mood is
replied almost at once with a zesty escape from the piano. And so it goes -
swinging to and fro from plaintive poetry to peppered, dance-like fragments,
blending back and forth from minor to major.
For the second movement Andante, Dvorak conjures one of his favorite
forms - an Eastern European dumka, a plaintive heart song without words,
alternately sad or spirited. The lyrics in the piano also reflect the composer's
admiration for the poignant intonations of Chopin. But stand by for a tarantellalike dance, a delightful escape before soft poetry turns down the lights.
Scherzo means joking or playful, which Dvorak embellishes with a dance cue
known as a furiant, another of his favorite forms. While the music digresses from
the spry triple-duple rhythms of a standard furiant, the frisky momentum prevails
everywhere, but again swinging 'yin-yang' from sassy scampers to dreamy
tenderness.
But from the first Disney-like opening bars, the Finale-Allegro takes to the
breeze and sails without pause until a tender souvenir right before the nimble
accents which close the piece.
----------------------------------------------------------------------program notes by Edward Yadzinsky