Treat your ears to a great, big bevy of sonatas!
Always searching for practical ways to link the music on my mind to other sensory experiences, a thought came to me this weekend, just as I was scraping the last crumbs of delicious Lauretta Jean’s Chocolate Chess Pie off my dessert plate. Isn’t sonata form, as a structural backbone, similar to kitchen staples like milk, eggs, sugar and flour that can be combined in endless delicious combinations?
Although purists (both musical and culinary) may want to pie me in the face for saying so, there are undeniable similarities between the American South’s decadent, gooey chess pie and the classic melktert or “milk tart” that South African expats the world over pine for. It’s also not that far removed from the Portuguese pastel de nata, or even the tres leches cake that my Romanian neighbor’s Mexican friend always brings to international gatherings.
How does this relate to sonata form? Well, let me try to draw simplistic parallels. You take a handful of basic musical elements and call it “exposition” (two themes, one in the tonic, one in the dominant, or, in broad kitchen terms, two eggs, a cup of milk, a cup of sugar, some flour). You mix them up and rework the ideas and call it “development” (mix it, boil it, whisk it, bake it). You bring everything back in a new form and call it “recapitulation” (take creation out of the oven or freezer and serve it on your prettiest plate). You take a bite and sit back with a satisfied sigh, and now you have what musicians call the “coda”!
Yes, I’m vastly oversimplifying. And sure, a one-movement Scarlatti sonata (maybe … a musical pancake?) sounds (“tastes”) nothing like the vibrantly spicy, dense solidity of Bartók’s take on the classical form (perhaps more Austrian Kaiserschmarrn, for it’s “peasant” quality, but in Indian fusion form, for the dissonance and harmonic zest?).
Still, at its heart, Bartók’s fusion of rigid structures with raw energy is as inventive and ingenious for his time as Scarlatti’s keyboard explorations were for his. And, distilled to their bare bones, every one of the sonatas on Tamara Stefanovich’s program bring us a uniquely satisfying combination of musical flavors, born from the exact same basic ingredients. Now that’s what we call genius!
Bring your friends to Tamara Stefanovich’s 8 February recital at Lincoln Hall. You can even meet for your favorite egg-milk-flour-sugar-combination before, or after!
PS: If you’ve noticed our staff and board members in their fabulous light blue PPI T-shirts over the past few months, and have wanted your own, you’re in luck! PPI’s Team T-shirts will be for sale in the lobby on February 8th! We highly recommend this fashion choice for all occasions where expressing an elegant love for the piano feels paramount but thinking about what to wear is wearing you out.
