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Igor Also available in this series: MARKEVITCH Complete Orchestral Works • 8 (Orchestral Version of J.S. Bach’s Work) Arnhem Philharmonic • Lyndon-Gee

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Igor Also available in this series: MARKEVITCH (1912-1983) Complete Orchestral Music • 8 The Musical Offering

1 I. Ricercare a 3 voci 6:35 II. Tema e variazioni 17:11 2 Tema 0:31 3 Var. I: Canon a 2, Cancrizans 1:06 4 Var. II: Canon Perpetuus super Thema Regium 1:10 5 Var. III: Per Motum Contrarium 0:38 6 Var. IV: Canon in Unisono 0:36 7 Var. V: Per Motum Contrarium (Quaerendo invenietis) 0:33 8 Var. VI: Per Motum Contrarium: Inversus Var. Vae 0:31 9 Var. VII: Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente 2:19 0 Var. VIII: Per Augmentationem contrario motu 2:03 ! Var. IX: Canon Per Tonos 3:20 @ Var. X: Canon Perpetuus a 4 4:26 III. 19:22 # I. Largo 5:06 $ II. Allegro (with Orchestral interpolations) 6:27 % III. Andante 3:02 ^ IV. Allegro giusto (‘Canon concertante’, i.e. Canon Perpetuus) 1:05 & V. di Giga 3:42 * IV. Fuga (Ricercare) a 6 voci 8:50

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Also available in this series: (1912-1983) Complete Orchestral Works • 8 This eighth and final volume of the complete orchestral dramatically and uncompromisingly into two halves – works of Igor Markevitch completes a portrait of a clearly a conscious decision on his part, and one whose master orchestrator, albeit here in a rôle subservient to true reasons this intensely private man seems to have the contrapuntal mastery of . Yet sought to keep hidden. Markevitch’s last original Markevitch’s contribution is more than that of mere composition was written in 1941 at the age of 29, and he colourist, for his solution to the “puzzles” posed by never again returned to the creative endeavours that had Bach’s canonic incipits ranks with the most imaginative brought him such renown and adulation when barely in and convincing of the hundreds attempted since 1747; his twenties. The trauma of the Second World War the notes below explain the success of his approach in marks a sharp dividing line during which the greater detail. appears to have undergone a mental, as well as physical Markevitch was very attached to this realisation, crisis, for in 1942 Markevitch suffered a serious illness featuring it in many of his programmes as conductor while living in Tuscany, and in a letter of the same year after 1950 (including that for his U.S. début), whereas written during his recuperation declared that he sensed he scrupulously avoided programming his own original himself “dead between two lives”. But this alone cannot scores. Indeed, after 1938, when he recorded (on poorly fully explain the reasons for his abandoning preserved 78 rpm shellac discs) the ballet score L’Envol composition; and his autobiography Être et avoir été, d’Icare, he avoided his own music as if it represented a published in 1980, obfuscates and misleads even as it diseased earlier life that he wished to forget. Until the makes a show of revealing the writer’s inner life. present Naxos series, that sole recording from the Markevitch is dissimilar to the “conductor- composer’s lifetime, and a handful of radio broadcasts, composer” model exemplified by Furtwängler, remained the only documentation of a composer who Klemperer, Weingartner and many others between the had been hailed in the 1930s as one of the most wars. On the contrary, he emerged first as a challenging voices of his time. Thus the seventeen phenomenally gifted adolescent composer exalted by his world première recordings, and two absolute world contemporaries on the basis of an astoundingly assured premières presented on these eight discs may offer the series of early scores, turning to almost beginnings of an opportunity to decipher the mystery reluctantly when required by his own work and by the that is Igor Markevitch. hardships of post-war life. Yet, after changing course to The singular precedent of Rossini, who retired from this new career exclusively as conductor at thirty, he all the composition of opera at the age of 38 to become a but denied the existence of his own music until nearly restaurateur, but continued to write salon music and sacred seventy years old. When questioned in 1958 about his works, seems hardly comparable. Markevitch’s early life as a composer, he diffidently replied: “I would renunciation at 29 of his identity as a composer is a unique say to you, very frankly, that I am objective enough to case in the history of music. To quote David Drew, “It is a claim that there is music which needs to be heard before silence like no other in the music of this century or before”. mine, and for which the need is more urgent. Apart from At first glance the eclipse during his lifetime of that, if my works are good enough, they can wait; and if Markevitch’s reputation as a composer appears due, they cannot wait, it is pointless to play them.” more than any other single factor, to the dimensions of The facts of his “first life” are remarkable enough. his success as a conductor. What has yet to be fully Born in Ki’ev on 27th July, 1912, he moved with his 8.570773 explained, however, is why his life divides so family to in 1914, before settling in .

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As early as the age of thirteen, he played his piano marvellous balance of intelligence and esprit”. This Christopher Lyndon-Gee Noces to , who recommended the work to eighteen-year old, indeed, was hailed throughout Europe his publishers and invited the boy to study with him. In as perhaps the brightest hope in the musical firmament Christopher Lyndon-Gee was recently honoured as one of only three hundred conductors included in Naxos’s 600- January 1929, before his seventeenth birthday, he of that time. Only three years later page book and CD compilation A to Z of Conductors, covering the entire history of the art-form from Hans von enraptured Dyagilev with his in F, leading in wrote of the première of L’Envol d’Icare: “this work Bülow and Arthur Nikisch to the present day. Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for Grammys in 1998 for a matter of months to the young composer completing …will probably mark a date in the evolution of music.” ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ for the first volume of his groundbreaking series of the complete works of Igor and playing his new Piano Concerto at Covent Garden Was this adulation more than the young composer Markevitch (originally released on Marco Polo); in 2003 for the world première recording of ’s (in concert form between L’Après-midi d’un faune and could bear? Had Dyagilev put pressure on him, Symphony No. 5 on Naxos American Classics; and again in 2007 for ’s Concertos Nos. 1 Renard, at what the influential social columns of conscious or unconscious, to be the new Stravinsky, and 3, with Peter Sheppard Skærved and the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the Deutsche Radio- London’s Sketch referred to as a “rehearsal party” for a exactly thirty years on? His autobiography reveals a Philharmonie). Other recordings have been listed among The Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ in London, Fanfare select group of intelligentsia including, apparently, sense that the overnight glory which assailed him as magazine ‘Outstanding CDs of the Year’, Penguin Guide to Compact Discs’ multiple Rosettes and Key Recordings Virginia Woolf). Soon after, he started work on a major Dyagilev’s protégé caused such a break with the normal listings, and he won the Pizzicato prize in Luxembourg. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Australian ballet score, L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s New rhythms of adolescence that he felt a stranger had been National Critics Circle in 1994, and won the Sydney Opera Critics ‘Best Conductor’ award the same year. Clothes), to be choreographed by Lifar with décor by born within, an alien persona that guided him beyond Acclaimed recent releases include George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 1 in its première recording (Naxos 8.559214); Picasso. In short, he was at seventeen launched by any of his desires. volume 2 of the complete works of Edgard Varèse (8.557882), including the massive original version of Amériques, Dyagilev on a path that brought worldwide fame as a It is undoubtedly more than coincidental that at for an orchestra of 155 players; and the completion of the Markevitch complete works project, the oratorio Le composer by the time he was twenty. nineteen Markevitch should have turned to the Icarus myth Paradis perdu, released in 2008. Frequently invited to conduct at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, he conducted four “I was his last discovery” were Markevitch’s words for his first truly individual work, L’Envol d’Icare, a score world premières on a single concert at the Jubilee, Fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2007 – new symphonies by the in a revealing 1972 interview with the New York dance which he continued to re-work in various forms for more Slovakian composer Roman Berger; Lithuania’s leading female composer Onute Narbutaite; and the Polish critic John Gruen; and indeed, the manner in which than a decade. Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and fell Jerzy Kornowicz and Aleksand’r Lason. In 2006 he led the closing concert at the November 2006 ‘Pawel Dyagilev, “the greatest agent-provocateur that ever to earth embodies a vivid image of the fate of the young Szymanski Festival’, also in Warsaw, featuring six of the major works of Poland’s leading composer of today. In existed”, took him up must at least in part have been a composer, swept along by the frenetic Paris of the 1930s. 2008, a four-DVD set including this complete concert was released worldwide by Polskie Wydawnictwo journey into nostalgia for the impresario. Markevitch Indeed, the most striking passage of Icare is the lengthy, Audiowizualne. As a composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured by the Onassis Foundation Prize in 2001, has won the could hardly have entered more fully into the world of hypnotic, ecstatic-obsessive “Death” that concludes the ‘Sounds Australian’ award three times, the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, and the MacDowell Fellowship twice. In the Ballets-Russes, as he went on to marry Nijinsky’s work, occupying nearly one-third of its duration. 2006, his setting from Dante’s Paradiso, ‘Frammento del Dante’, was premièred in Florence by the Echo- Klassiek daughter Kyra, though this marriage soon degenerated. The series of large-scale works that followed over prize-winning German ensemble SingerPur; Musik für SaitenInstrumente has had recent performances in several So much so that during their wartime life in Italy, the following brief eight years is a succession of countries (including Vladivostock, in far eastern Russia); and ‘Over Litton’, after a poem of Edward Storey, was Bernard Berenson rather amusingly related that Igor and masterpieces in constantly changing languages. Rébus premièred in Wales as a 25th anniversary Presteigne Festival Commission before being taken up widely in New Kyra used to visit him alternately, since “when they and Le Nouvel Âge both embody a Prokofiev-like York, Australia and elsewhere. In progress are forthcoming commissions of a set of songs for Lute and Tenor voice, were together their artistic temperaments tended to grittiness married to that motoric “moto perpetuo” Lieder des Morgensterns; a new work for SingerPur on a text from Milton; a String Quartet; a second string explode”. They were estranged four years into this nine- quality that so typifies the music of Albert Roussel, but orchestra work for the German conductor Eckart Schloifer, ‘... und unter den Blättern saß Er, weinend’; a work for year marriage, and Markevitch soon married again, in a more pointed harmonic framework, and continuing ‘Harpsichord Unlimited’ in New York, Etudes canoniques; and a Symphony respectfully dedicated to the aboriginal though not before he and Kyra had had a son, Vaslav the exploration of multiple simultaneous heritage of Australia, Symphony of Dreamtime. Lyndon-Gee studied conducting under Rudolf Schwarz in London, (nicknamed “Funtyki”, or “small pound weight” by that are Markevitch’s trademark. The all-too-brief and in Rome, where heard him conduct a student concert, subsequently inviting Berenson), named in honour of his grandfather. Cantique d’Amour is a ravishing Skryabinesque essay in him to study at Tanglewood. Here he later worked also under Maurice Abravanel, Erich Leinsdorf and others. He The music of this extraordinary young man betrays evocative color, yet curiously emotionally detached. worked as Bruno Maderna’s assistant at La Scala, Milan, later becoming second conductor at the Teatro Regio in no hint of immaturity: both in style and technique it is Psaume and the cantata-symphony Lorenzo Il Magnifico Turin, working also with the RAI orchestra in that city. He was co-founder with composer Lorenzo Ferrero of the complete, utterly assured and deeply original. His are massive and bold. The early works Sinfonietta, Ensemble Fase Seconda, who premièred dozens of commissioned new works throughout Italy, Germany, France Cantate of 1930, written on a text of Cocteau (and Concerto Grosso and Partita are memorable for far more and at many international festivals. As a composer, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, , including music rescued from the sketches for L’Habit than merely their youthful assurance of execution; their Sylvano Bussotti and . Britain’s great musicologist Arthur Hutchings remains a powerful guiding du Roi), brought forth the comment from Henri Sauget, harmonic language probes beyond the conventional in a influence, several decades on. “…it bears witness to a very fine mastery, and to a very personal manner, especially in their searchingly

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The Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra original polytonal and polyrhythmic treatments. 1916 of Gelderland Province, The Netherlands L’Envol d’Icare remains the singular work among The family settles in La-Tour-de-Peilz (Vevey), these masterpieces, whether for its ascetic, pointillistic Switzerland. Based in Arnhem, the Arnhem scoring; its visionary use of quarter-tone tuning, Philharmonic Orchestra gives some harmonically so precisely calculated; its brilliant 1921-23 hundred symphony concerts each exploitation of complex rhythmic simultaneities; or the Igor studies piano with his father until the latter’s death season in the province of Gelderland, sheer unique sound-world that it evokes from the in 1923. in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, orchestra. Above all, for the poise and emotional charge and abroad, this last including tours to of its hypnotic “Death”. 1925 Photo: Bokkie Vink Spain, Austria, Germany and Hungary. The achievement of Igor Markevitch bridges The thirteen-year-old Igor plays his piano suite Noces In 2007 the orchestra toured Japan for important gaps in our understanding of the period (Nuptials) to Alfred Cortot (himself a composer). Cortot the first time and returned there in between the wars. His language is aggressively arranges for its publication, and invites Markevitch to spring 2009. Martin Seighart was individual. Not neo-classical, it has classical restraint study with him. Chief Conductor and artistic adviser of and a poise that is almost frigidly disciplined. In an the orchestra from the 2003-2004 æsthetic distant from the transmuted romanticism that 1926-28 season until January 2009. Kenichro propels the music of Berg and Schoenberg, he initiated Studies piano with Cortot, and harmony and Kobayashi was appointed Permanent an exploration of dissonance (through ) that with at the École Conductor from the 2006-2007 season, the perspective of the 1990s can readily identify as a Normale de Musique in Paris. and Nikolai Alexeev Permanent Guest fertile harmonic path. Dissatisfied with what he seems Conductor in 2002. Former Chief to have perceived as the indulgent prettiness of 1929 Conductors include Lawrence Renes, impressionism, he sought a purity and detachment of Markevitch completes his diplomas at the École Roberto Benzi and Yoav Talmi. Other style which were rare in this interbellum period of Normale, commencing his Sinfonietta for Orchestra as conductors who have regularly made guest appearances with the orchestra in the past include Bernard Klee, Hans excess. part of his qualifying work. Now sixteen, he plays the Vonk, Jaap van Zweden and Roy Goodman. Soloists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leif Ove Andsnes, Zoltán Igor Markevitch has so recently begun to emerge Sinfonietta and Noces to Dyagilev, who soon after Kocsis, Nicolai Znaider and Akiko Suwanai are also among those who have performed with the orchestra. from the shadows in his “first incarnation” as a commissions two new works from him: a Piano Recordings by the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra include the symphonies of Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and composer that an outline of the major events of this Concerto, which receives a concert première Berlioz, with an enthusiastic reception by the press in both Japan and The Netherlands for recordings of Mahler’s early phase of his life will be illuminating; not least, sandwiched between ballets at the Covent Garden Sixth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. because it shows him in constant, intimate contact with season of the Ballets Russes in July (with Markevitch innumerable other, and hitherto better-known major himself as soloist); and L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s figures of the century. New Clothes), a ballet with scenario by and designs by Picasso. Chronology Only briefly before Dyagilev’s death on 19th August, Markevitch accompanies him to Baden-Baden 1912 for the world première of Hindemith and Brecht’s Born in Ki’ev, 27th July, to the pianist Boris Markevitch Lehrstück; and to Munich for performances of Tristan (a student of Eugene d’Albert) and to Zola Pokitonova. und Isolde and Die Zauberflöte conducted by . With Dyagilev dead, L’Habit du Roi is 1914 abandoned, but some of its music is incorporated into The Markevitch family flees Russia for Paris. Cantate with a new text specially written by Jean Markevitch grows up speaking primarily French, and Cocteau. will eventually write his autobiography Être et avoir été in French in 1980.

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1930 (who directs the remainder of this This “Variation movement” of Markevitch’s Finally, Markevitch cleverly integrates the Sonata Roger Désormière (who conducted Markevitch in his concert). At this stage he sees conducting as a task invention is perhaps his most brilliant stroke in into the composition as a whole by engaging the strings Piano Concerto the previous year) presents the purely in relation to his own music. The American persuading us that the Musical Offering functions of both orchestral groups to amplify the tonic and enormously successful première of Cantate in Paris on première of Rébus follows in April, given by Serge perfectly well as a self-standing, integral concert work. dominant statements of the theme in the Allegro second 4th June. Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. What results, then, presents now as a four-part work: movement. This orchestral “participation” in the In August, the publishing house of Schott (Mainz) On 26th June Désormière conducts the tumultuous texture is both discreet and satisfying. It accepts the Sinfonietta, the Piano Concerto and Cantate première in Paris of L’Envol d’Icare (The Flight of The a 3 does indeed “unify” the various components of the work for publication. Icarus), declared by Milhaud to be “a date in the The “Variations” (i.e. the sequence of Canons) in a concert situation, just as does the logical framing of 8th December: world première in Paris of Concerto evolution of music”. Le Corbusier and Cocteau, as well The Sonata the whole between the two Ricercari. Grosso, reviewed as follows by no less than Darius as many musicians of importance are among the The Ricercar a 6 (for some reason, Markevitch Markevitch’s interest in making this version of Milhaud in L’Europe of 13th December: audience. entitles this Fuga a 6). Bach’s masterpiece was aroused by his former teacher, “Markévitch’s Concerto Grosso was one of those great Nadia Boulanger, to whom his score is dedicated. rendings of the musical skies, a door suddenly opening 1934 Second to these overall formal decisions, Markevitch Indeed, Boulanger herself completed the keyboard on the future which allows an as yet unknown climate to Psaume is greeted by a riot at its Italian première in casts the work for three orchestral groups, continuo part, which had been assigned to Dinu Lipatti, enter. Igor Markévitch has a formidable technique and a Florence. stereophonically disposed on stage; within the central but left incomplete at the latter’s death. By today’s truly unique invention.” group are the instruments that will play the Sonata. standards, this continuo realisation is somewhat “dated” 1934-36 one and two, to the conductor’s left and – highly pianistic in manner, and little suited to the 1931 Markevitch undertakes occasional conducting study right, are composed purely of strings. Orchestra three, in harpsichord! – but we have in this performance retained Composes the Sérénade (January - March), perhaps his with in Switzerland; Scherchen the centre, includes the continuo group, the flute who the part as it stands in Markevitch’s score, since the most “Stravinskian” work, for the newly-formed becomes one of the principal advocates of his music. will play the , as well as Oboe, Cor Anglais, entire composition is in some sense a document on the Parisian ensemble Sérénade. and Bassoon. The presence of these four wind faltering road towards reconstruction of a historically On 24th April Hans Rosbaud conducts the German 1935 instruments provides rich opportunity for textural aware performance practice of the eighteenth century. premières of Concerto Grosso and Piano Concerto with Substituting for Scherchen, Markevitch conducts the contrast and organ-like reinforcement of, particularly, Markevitch’s version of Bach’s Musikalisches Opfer the orchestra of Frankfurt Radio (the latter work with world première of his oratorio Le Paradis perdu (Paradise the bass lines. Indeed, the first entry of the solo Oboe, in was written for, and premiered at the 1950 Strasbourg the composer as soloist). Lost) at Queen’s Hall, London on 20th December. Variation V (Quaerendo invenietis) is little short of Bach Festival. It remained one of his favourite The world première of Rébus in Paris on 15th shocking, and at least ear-sharpening; the cor anglais productions, which he recorded (in mono) in 1956 in December is hailed as a major triumph for the 1936 and bassoon follow in the inverted version, Variation Paris with the ORTF Orchestra, and chose for his New composer. Writing in The New York Times for 10th Marries Kyra, daughter of , in April. VI. York debut at Carnegie Hall with the Symphony of the January, 1932, Henri Prunières declares: They decide to live in Corsier, Switzerland. Without a doubt, the thematic structure of the work Air in January 1957, alongside Verdi and Stravinsky’s “I am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius is clarified by the resourceful use of Markevitch’s Le Sacre du Printemps. Even as his conducting career of even the most gifted musicians. But in the case of 1937 stereophonically disposed forces, and by the judicious blossomed, in other words, he remained determined, his Markevitch, after the new work he has just given us, Conducts L’Envol d’Icare at the Venice Biennale in contrasts afforded by wind tone colours. Whilst aiming protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, to keep his doubt is no longer permissible … his music is not September, remarking to fellow-composer Alex de Graeff: at clarity and separation in the sequence of Canons, in identity as a composer before the public. young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when he was “I rejoice to hear it again, but I am nervous to conduct it his strikingly dignified version of the great, concluding ten, played like a master and not like a child prodigy.” for the first time ... it is so terribly difficult.” Stravinsky Ricercar a 6, he achieves instead an organ-like © 2003 & 2010 Christopher Lyndon-Gee Hailed by many as the “second Igor”, Markevitch is (whose Jeu de Cartes is on the same programme) is in the massiveness of tone through discreet octave doubling now persona non grata with Stravinsky. audience, and retreats from his earlier hostility to and superb use of the bassoon and double-bass as Markevitch, expressing admiration for the score. pedaliter partners, reserved until the very final entry of 1 Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Über J.S. Bachs Leben, Kunst 1933 the theme. und Kunstwerke, Leipzig 1802; reprinted, ed. J.M. After being asked by Mengelberg to conduct the Dutch 1938 Müller-Blattau, Augsburg 1925 première of Rébus with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Contriving a commission fee as a New Year’s Day gift, February, Markevitch takes conducting lessons from Piatigorsky requests a concerto.

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continuo; a perfect homage to the King’s own executant the search for meaning of the theme overall. In the same The world première in Warsaw on 21st January of October 1941 he completes for the pianist Nikita abilities as flautist. way, in The Art of , Bach will use the term Le Nouvel Âge marks a new triumph for the composer. Magaloff, another Florence resident, his Variations, The canons are among the most diverse and Contrapunctus, emphasizing and elevating the On his way back from Poland, Markevitch visits Fugue and Envoi on a Theme of Handel for solo piano, resourceful ever written, including canons by inversion contrapuntalist’s art, for the in which he sums up Nijinsky for the first time in the sanatorium at destined to be his last original composition. (mirror canons), one of these by augmentation (doubling his life’s work. Kreuzlingen; Kyra describes this meeting, and its effect of note values); in Epidiapente, that is, at the fifth; and Without doubt, the four movements of the Trio on her father as “a marvel”. Performed at the Palais des 1942 two entitled Perpetuus, that could hypothetically keep Sonata for flute and violin were intended for Beaux-Arts in Brussels in April, Le Nouvel Âge is He falls seriously ill towards the end of a “hard, hard regenerating their material endlessly. The majority are performance (“royal” performance, indeed), and the two acclaimed by an audience of two thousand. In response winter” (as he describes it to Alex de Graeff in a letter of not written out in full: the heading alone will enable a are also fully realizable as keyboard to this performance, Léon Kochnitsky writes in the May 7th April, 1942). The composer senses himself to be resourceful composer to realize their working out. One, compositions. The Ricercar a 6, very difficult for two issue of La Revue Musicale: “dead between two lives” during his recuperation in indeed, is entitled Quaerendo invenietis, that is, “Seek hands, however, was subsequently published in open “It is often said that a gulf exists between Fiesole; indeed, during the coming year he embarks on a and ye shall find”. The solution to this “puzzle” canon is score, without instrumental prescription. In fact, except contemporary composers and the masses who are avid serious activity as conductor, giving a number of singular: at the second, by inversion, at a distance of ten for the Sonata and one perpetual canon, the music of the for music. For Markevitch this gulf does not exist; in concerts in Florence. beats! original is not scored and has the appearance on the that lies true genius.” page of being somewhat hypothetical; considerably In June Markevitch begins a collaboration with 1943 more so, perhaps, than the open score presentation of Stravinsky’s one-time librettist C.-F. Ramuz on La In October, Germany invades Italy. Markevitch the Kunst der Fuge. Taille de l’Homme, a “concert” for soprano and renounces his conducting commitments to join the Thus arises the question: was the Musical Offering ensemble designed to last an entire evening. Owing to Partisans, becoming a member of the Committee of as a whole ever intended for performance as an integral worsening conditions in Europe, and the end of his Liberation of the Italian Resistance (the Partigiani). He Bach’s inscription, on the page preceding the canons, of composition? It is to this, more fundamental puzzle that publishing contract in Germany, he supplements his recomposes L’Envol d’Icare as Icare, abandoning the the famous acrostic R.I.C.E.R.C.A.R. (“Regis Iussu Igor Markevitch, continuing a long tradition, has income by giving lectures, piano recitals and radio quarter-tones of the original work and re-orchestrating Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta” – “By the proposed a solution in the present realisation. broadcasts in Switzerland and abroad. in a less “astringent” manner. King’s Command, the Song and the Remainder First, he reorders the movements, reasoning that a Resolved by Canonic Art”) is one of the most intriguing satisfying structure will emerge from casting the 1939 1944 clues to the nature of the composition as a whole. somewhat random sequence of canons into a single, Between the outbreak in September of World War II, A further serious illness. Undoubtedly, Bach was an assiduous student of the continuous movement. Bach’s work was originally and Christmas, completes fifty minutes (the first, and music of his precursors (we know, for instance, that he published as 1. Two Fugues, 2. a Sonata, and 3. various only “half” ever finished) of La Taille de l’Homme. 1946 studied Palestrina whilst composing the B Minor Mass), Canons. Markevitch interpolates one of the two Canons During a return visit to Switzerland writes Made in and did not lack for a refined appreciation of the shades Perpetuus (number 8) within the Sonata, as a fourth 1940 Italy, a political study inspired in part by his experiences of meaning attaching to appellations such as Canzona, movement prior to the Gigue, since it is scored in the Visits Florence with Kyra, where he composes the “vocal with the Florentine Partigiani which meets with Ricercar, and the ancient meaning of Fuga, all engraving for ‘Traversa’ (transverse flute) and ‘Violino’. symphony” Lorenzo Il Magnifico on texts by Lorenzo de’ considerable success on its publication in Italy, France antecedents of the form he made his own, the Fugue. He Then, he arranges the realised versions of the remaining Medici himself. Markevitch has failed to comply with and Britain. had, however, never once used the term Ricercar nine Canons into a continuous sequence, which he terms Swiss residency laws, and is thus technically stateless (“researching” or “seeking”) until this late stage of his Theme with Variations, doubling one of them (the upon Mussolini’s declaration of war. He therefore 1947-77 career, and it seems likely that he attached the term to Quaerendo invenietis) in linked versions that are remains in Italy, where Kyra teaches dance. Is naturalised as an Italian citizen in 1947. Following the the Musical Offering as a whole, the entire composition inversions of each other — just as Bach himself had done dissolution of his first marriage, he marries Topazia being a kind of “searching for” the essence of the with the trio fugues in . Markevitch’s 1941-47 Caetani, descendant of a distinguished Roman Emperor’s theme in all possible aspects. choices superbly create an ascending curve of tempo, that The Markevitches live in the “villino” (little Villa), artistocratic line. While the Ricercar a 3 and the Ricercar a 6 are yields to contrast of mood and momentum at the right provided by the art historian Bernard Berenson – who His international conducting career over this thirty- masterful examples of fugue in their own right, the moment, before building again. In relation to the first describes the house as a “cottage in my grounds” – on year period will take Markevitch to music directorships placing of the acrostic in the engraved score guides us to engraved version of the original work, Markevitch’s his Villa I Tatti estate at Settignano, three miles outside in Stockholm (1952-55), Montreal (1956-60), Havana understand that the Canons, too, are an essential facet of order results 1, 7, 3, 2, 9, 9 (inversion), 6, 4, 5, 10. Florence. Dallapiccola is among his circle of friends. In (1957-58), Paris (the Concerts Lamoureux, 1957-61),

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Madrid (1965-69), Monte Carlo, and the Santa Cecilia Das Musikalisches Opfer in company of his eldest son, Wilhelm resulting set of pieces engraved and printed at his own Orchestra in Rome. He also holds conducting courses in (The Musical Offering) Friedemann. At this time the King had every expense, and, less than two months later, on July 7th of Salzburg, Mexico, Moscow, Madrid, Monte Carlo and evening a private Concert, in which he himself the same year sent it to the King with a dedicatory Weimar. Realisation and instrumentation for generally performed some concertos on the preface. We shall never know with precision what was Three Orchestral Groups and solo Quartet flute. One evening, just as he was getting his the exact “theme” given by to Bach 1978 flute ready, and his musicians were assembled, for his elaboration, and to what extent Bach adapted or Markevitch has effectively suppressed his music for 35 Composed primarily in London, 1949-50 an officer brought him the list of the strangers “improved” it. But we do know that Frederick was no years when he receives an invitation from Hervé Thys to who had arrived. With his flute in his hand he mean musician – his flute teacher was no less than conduct Icare and Le Paradis perdu for the Royal ARS MUSICA SCIENTIA EST ran over the list, but immediately turned to the Joachim Quantz, and his own surviving compositions Philharmonic Society in Brussels. The concert is a Johann Sebastian Bach’s ideal – that the perfection of assembled musicians, and said, with a kind of are of merit – and we may surmise from Bach’s reaction success, and leads to over one hundred performances in Art in Music is most nearly achieved when its search for agitation, “Gentlemen, old Bach is come.” The that the essence contained within the royal idea piqued fifteen countries during the following three years. truth, approaching the nature of a scientific investigation flute was now laid aside, … the King gave up his interest not a little. In connection with the Brussels performances of musical materials, is at its most disciplined – his concert for this evening, and invited Bach, There is every reason to believe that the Ricercar a (which Markevitch conducts himself), David Drew, then fascinated Igor Markevitch, as it had challenged many then already called ‘the Old Bach’, to try his 3 represents a fairly literal, immediate writing down of Director of New Music at Boosey and Hawkes music minds before him. Markevitch’s resolutions of the fortepianos, made by Silbermann, which stood the first Fugue improvised on the evening of May 7th on publishers, London, makes contact with Markevitch. “puzzles” left behind in Bach’s Musical Offering are in several rooms of the palace. … Bach was the King’s theme, for in the first engraving supervised Progressively over the next few years, Drew persuades among the most convincing realisations in the long invited everywhere to try [them] and to play by Bach, it is rendered as a keyboard work. So too, Markevitch to unearth his entire œuvre, for which tradition stretching forwards from Johann Christoph unpremeditated compositions. After he had written out on two staves, is the earliest, manuscript Boosey and Hawkes offer a new and comprehensive Oley in 1763, Alexander Agricola, Johann Philipp gone on for some time, he asked the King to version of the Ricercar a 6, though this thorough publication contract. Kirnberger, Augustus Frederic Kollmann, Johann give him the subject for a Fugue, in order to working out of so complex a structure is unlikely to Nevertheless, the present series of recordings, Gottfried Fischer, Joseph Klauss, Alfred Dörfell; execute it immediately without any have been the same music that was played extempore on commenced eighteen years later in December 1995, are through to , Anton von Webern and preparation. The King admired the learned the evening at the palace. Indeed, Bach specifically the première recordings of all but a handful of works many others. manner in which his subject was thus executed recalls in his dedicatory remarks that he had promised which are preserved from 1930s radio broadcasts, and a The origins of Das Musikalische Opfer are well extempore; and, probably to see how far such the King “to work out this Royal theme more fully, and technically poor recording on 78s of L’Envol d’Icare known, but the charming, eyewitness account of Johann art could be carried, expressed a wish to hear a then make it known to the world”. It seems that on the dating from 1938. Nikolaus Forkel, whose biography of Bach was Fugue with six Obbligato parts. But, as it is not evening in question, he asked to be allowed to play a originally published in Leipzig in 18021, bears every subject that is fit for such full harmony, fugue in six parts on a theme of his own choosing, 1980 repetition here: Bach chose one himself, and immediately taking away the complex royal theme, rich in potential Publication by Gallimard of the composer’s executed it to the astonishment of all present in for development, for later elaboration. autobiography, Être et avoir été (Being and having “Bach’s second son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, the same magnificent and learned manner as he The great work of his last year, The Art of Fugue, been). To some extent a roman à , the book reveals entered the service of [the Emperor] Frederick had done that of the King. … After his return to may, too, already have been in his mind when he visited much even as it hides or obfuscates more. the Great in 1740. The reputation of the all- Leipzig, he composed the subject, which he had the Emperor Frederick on that May evening three years In this year Markevitch undertakes revision of some surpassing skill of Johann Sebastian was at this received from the King, in three and six parts, earlier. Just as the Kunst der Fuge could not be complete of his 1930s compositions, in preparation for a series of time so extended, that the King often heard it added several passages in strict canon to it, and without the inclusion of its four canons in diverse performances in Brussels. mentioned and praised. This made him curious had it engraved, under the title of configurations, so, setting to work on exploring every to hear so great an artist. At first he distantly “Musikalisches Opfer.” angle of the magnificently constructed royal alla breve 1983 hinted to the son his wish, that his father would melody, Bach saw that its contrapuntal vindication Only a short time after his first, triumphant return visit one day come to Potsdam. But by degrees he What is clear is that these events of May 7, 1747 – would be most eloquently expressed in a series of to Ki’ev, his city of birth, Markevitch suddenly falls ill, began to ask him directly, why his father did not almost immediately reported in the Potsdam newspaper canons. For, fine though the theme is, it does not allow dying in Antibes on 7th March. come? … The King’s expressions being of May 11 – were of far more than incidental of simple canonic or stretto imitation, but requires repeated in several of his son’s letters, he at significance for the great musician, for he immediately modification. In all, therefore, he appends ten canons to © 1996 and 2009 Christopher Lyndon-Gee length, in 1747, prepared to make this journey, set to work upon elaborating the “royal theme”, had the the work; interposing a Trio Sonata for flute, violin and

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