Jan Lisiecki: Notes on the Program
"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." – Friedrich Nietzsche in Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Nietzsche was right about a lot of things, and wrong about a few, too, according to scholars, but I think that he was right on the money about the need to dance every day. Or, at least to move, or at the very least to be moved.
Thus, what a fortuitous and happy afternoon awaits us in this remarkable program of music for the piano entirely inspired by dance. Jan Lisiecki has chosen a very particular path within the repertory of the piano to take us on a tour seemingly of all human emotions.
The kid in me wants to say, “strap in; you’re in for a wild ride,” but that’s not quite the right advice. Rather, I suggest that we settle in for a voluptuous bounty from our favorite instrument and get ready to have many feelings, some of which may not have been experienced in a long while. I trust that when you get home this evening that you will seriously want to boogie.
Because there are so many pieces on this splendid program, I must necessarily make my comments on each quite brief. Please pardon the several incomplete sentences!
Martinů
"A system of uncertainty has entered our daily life." – Martinů on the increased mechanization of modern times.
“Yahoo!” was my immediate reaction on my first hearing of this music. What a splendid way to open a recital!
From the amazingly prolific Czech composer sometimes called a “chameleon” because of his exceptional ability to take many disparate themes/elements/styles and join them in surprising ways, come these remarkable dances, so revealingly Czech in their aesthetic. Of Martinů’s array of musical styles, musicologist Michael Beckerman remarked on the inclusion of “jazz, medieval miracle plays, Slovak folk music, Renaissance madrigals, a range of modernist musical languages, Moravian folk music and poetry, the Baroque concerto grosso, Mexican musical instruments, Stravinskyian neoclassicism, and Byzantine chant.” If one listens to a good bit of Martinů in one stretch, it will seem that the journey remains idiosyncratic and unpredictable. Yay!
The names “Stepping Round,” “Stomp Dance,” and “Polka” tell us of his initial inspirations for these early pieces. Any listener will be surprised by the inventive harmonies and vivid rhythmic drive of each that propels the collection.
De FALLA
“The harmonious effects which our guitarists produce unconsciously represent one of the marvels of natural art.” – De Falla
Another composer deeply committed to the sounds of his native land, the Spaniard Manuel de Falla left us another large catalogue of wonderful compositions, of which this dance, excerpted from his opera La vida breve (Life is Short), has remained most widely known and loved. Here we have the passion and vibrancy drawn from the flamenco tradition of Andalusia. It draws the listener into a world of rhythmic excitement and emotional depth. The opera’s tragic tale of a jilted woman is focused especially poignantly in the moment of this lively jota, a dance performed as part of the betrothal celebration for star-crossed lovers as the tale unfolds.
SZYMANOWSKI
The easily engaging charm of the first two of these four dances most probably springs from their having been intended for children. The whole set actually was commissioned by Oxford University Press in 1926 for inclusion in a series called Folk Dances of the World and the whole quite successfully blends modern classical harmonies with traditional rhythms. Along the way, particularly in the third and fourth dances, the music exhibits increasingly complex harmonies and intense rhythmic drive for a triumphant ending.
SCHUBERT
“Truly, in Schubert there is a divine spark.” – Beethoven
Among the myriad little piano pieces from German composers of the 18th and 19th centuries (think of Haydn, Mozart, Hummel, but also Pamer, Wilde, and certainly Johann Strauss), the 400-or-so works in this genre from Schubert lend endless delight. And, in them, we see how he deftly transformed marches, contredances, écossaises, even waltzes with further sophistication. These Sechzehn Deutsche Tänze, taking only about ten minutes to play, usually described as simple dances of a folk character in triple meter, never feel repetitive or routine. Each contrasts with its neighbors in the collection. Schubert’s friend Josef von Spaun remarked that Schubert used to surprise his friends in social gatherings “with the most beautiful German Dances and Écossaises” and another noted his endless improvisation of lovely waltzes, some of which he then wrote down.
BARTÓK
“Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.” – Bartók
Based on seven tunes from Transylvania, this suite of dances is remarkably faithful to the original melodies he heard performed by fiddlers and flautists when researching the folk music of his native Hungary. But, here we have delightful modern harmonizations for spice, but they do not detract from the originals. He so deftly incorporated his research materials into his own personal compositional style. The suite is short, most typically played without a pause, full of exciting rhythmic fast dances and dreamy slow ones.
About that capturing and using “authentic” Hungarian tunes (full of modal scales and quartal harmonies, the musicologists tell us), it is good to remember that Bartók and fellow countryman Zoltán Kodály traveled throughout the remote regions of Hungary, with an “Edison phonograph” in tow, to record, transcribe, and classify thousands of folk tunes, later used in their compositions, even building a vast set of twelve volumes of their research. In his later compositions, this folk idiom had become so ingrained in his style, that Bartók went on to create his own melodic and rhythmic content. Here we can hear some of that earliest inspiration.
GINASTERA
"I do not search for things, I find them" – Ginastera
"The interior dynamism of this respected and exciting composer was totally concealed by his unflamboyant manner." – Gilbert Chase
From his earliest composing (at 19, with a concerto!), Ginastera, like Bartók and others on this program, declared that his music would celebrate his homeland and, indeed, his musical heritage. It was only two years later that he composed these present dances. Perhaps to drive home the point of his commitment to an Argentinian aesthetic, he gave each movement a provocative title: The Dance of the Old Herdsman, The Dance of the Graceful Girl, and The Dance of the Outlaw Cowboy. As the dances unfold, we hear bitonality (the right hand in one key, the left in another), an ending with a chord comprised of the notes of a guitar when it is being tuned, plenty of intervals of fourths and fifths to evoke expansiveness, dissonances juxtaposed on firm consonance, glissandos, and very, very loud dynamic indications. It is fun to know also that he was briefly a student of Aaron Copland and later a teacher of Astor Piazzolla!
CHOPIN
“The last thing is simplicity. After having gone through all the difficulties, having played an endless number of notes, it is simplicity that matters, with all its charm. It is the final seal on Art. Anyone who strives for this to begin with will be disappointed. You cannot begin at the end.” – Chopin
The wit and sparkle of this well-known waltz, for many the first of his music to be heard in one’s youth, catches the ear immediately. Those first repeated B-flats, a sort of trumpet call to get revelers onto the dance floor, peaks one’s curiosity for the melodies to come. And, there will be plenty of them.
Chopin’s waltzes, including this first published one, were not really written to be danced to and, hence, the tempo marking of Vivo leads the pianist to keep things lively and bright. Effervescent emotions and sentimentality converse in contrasts here, as they do in all his waltzes. About the E-flat Waltz, Robert Schumann gushed in admiration: “It should be danced, at the very least, by countesses!” In 1909, Stravinsky arranged this waltz for Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet Les Sylphides.
BRAHMS
“It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.” – Brahms
Here is Brahms in a bit of melancholy. With the two waltzes excerpted from among the 16 comprising opus 39, a listener is invited to another aspect of the normally light-hearted dance that was all the rage in Vienna. With no. 3, we may wonder about a small regret, or is it a music-box? With no. 15, a lullaby comes to mind, perhaps floating down a gentle stream, or is it actually a poignant goodbye just before a breakup?
Such associations don’t really matter. Rather, these small works simply convey a sweet joy of beautiful music. I so like them here being interspersed with Chopin.
CHOPIN
Indeed, now we go back to Chopin. Of him, Franz Liszt remarked: “Such a poetic temperament as Chopin’s never existed, nor have I heard such delicacy and refinement of playing.”
Chopin composed mostly in small forms, having created only five large-scale works: two concertos and three sonatas. Yet, within these myriad “small” forms there abound worlds of invention, charm, intrigue, and voluptuousness. These two from opus 34 will be familiar to everyone in the hall today, the second with its “sorrow and murky forlornness,” as remarked by the Polish poet Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, and the first with its uplifting energy. (May one write the adjective “perky” when writing about Chopin?)
PIAZZOLLA
“For me, tango was always for the ear rather than the feet.” – Piazzolla
Creator of more than 1,000 compositions, and like other composers on this program in being devoted to portraying the culture of his native Argentina, Piazzolla became very widely popular all over the world for his tangos, most notably this one. Its name is a portmanteau of “liberty + tango,” reflecting his significant break from restrictive, traditional dance-hall music into something, indeed, more liberated. His path to that unique style called tango nuevo took him along to studies of the music of Stravinsky and Bartók, studies directly with Ginastera, listening to lots of jazz in New York, and even mastery of traditional compositional styles, with aspirations toward Bartók. By winning a major prize in 1953 for a symphony he had composed, he went to Paris to study with the famed Nadia Boulanger, mentor to the likes of Copland, Bernstein, Glass, and Elliott Carter. We can be grateful that she insisted that he not follow “classical” precepts but that he acknowledge his brilliance in the tango and to develop it. Good advice!
ALBÉNIZ
"I want the Arabic Granada, that which is art, which is all that seems to me beauty and emotion." – Albéniz
More tango, lucky us! Here, surprisingly though, we encounter a composer who actually eschewed authentic indigenous folk material. Very widely traveled, even as a child, Albéniz initially concentrated on music for the piano, especially short works, lovely especially in intimate settings. He was very devotedly “Spanish” in his person and in his music. Thus, though his style is original, as opposed to one that reflects folk idiom influence, it delivers the harmonies, rhythms, and timbres so recognizable to us as “Spanish.”
Part of his larger suite for piano, España, the Tango in D contrasts with the intensity and passion that we so associate with most tangos, rather evoking a languorous, heightened aesthetic that is unapologetically romantic (as in romance, not Romance, the musicological term.) Some other time, it might be best listened to with a rum drink!
De FALLA
“I am opposed to music based on genuine folkloric documents; on the contrary, I believe that one must start with natural living sources and use sounds and rhythm for their substance, not for their external appearance.” “You must go really deep so as not to make any caricature.” – de Falla
From a modest request from a gypsy dancer and singer, Pastora Imperio, for a new song and dance for her (with a text from poet Gregorio Sierra, as well), a new composition that grew into a chamber ballet was born. A dozen years later, De Falla expanded it again, yielding a ballet-pantomime in one act, El Amor Brujo (Love, the Sorcerer), weaving a captivating tale of love, death, exorcism, and release.
The story is too complex to relate here, but there is a vivid moment of the protagonist dancing an exorcism to rid herself of a clouded past. That Ritual Fire Dance is will quickly recognized by many in today’s audience. Oh, that it might exorcise a little free-floating juju today, too . . . .
CHOPIN
Héroïque!
“. . . the composition which is the closest to my heart.” – Arthur Rubenstein
There is nothing wrong, I think, particularly in our current times, with ending a recital with something unabashedly heroic! In fact, we listeners will probably all wind up grateful and inspired, as well as thrilled, for having heard it.
With its especially lengthy and virtuosic introduction that invites one to take the longest imaginable inhale of breath, then feats of unlimited keyboard pyrotechnics, intriguing melodies, and drama upon drama, this Polonaise has easily won its sobriquet. Indeed, Chopin’s longtime companion, George Sand, responding to the Revolutions in France of 1848 (six years after the composition of this piece), wrote to him about the deep symbolic impression the Polonaise had left on her: “The inspiration! The force! The vigor! There is no doubt that such a spirit must be present in the French Revolution. From now on this polonaise should be a symbol, a heroic symbol.” Chopin was not crazy about descriptive names for his music, but scholars and pianists for a century and a half have called it “Heroic,” irresistibly.