Patricia Kopatchinskaja Violin Polina Leschenko Piano
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Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 8:00PM | Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall Musical Preview by Princeton University violin students, directed by Anna Lim at 7:00PM PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA VIOLIN POLINA LESCHENKO PIANO BÉLA Violin Sonata No. 2, Sz. 76 (1922) BARTÓK Molto moderato (1881–1945) Allegretto FRANCIS Violin Sonata, FP 119 (1943) POULENC Allegro con fuoco (1899–1963) Intermezzo Presto tragico INTERMISSION GEORGE Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 25 (1926) ENESCU Moderato malinconico (1881–1955) Andante sostenuto e misterioso Allegro con brio, ma non troppo mosso MAURICE Tzigane (1924) RAVEL (1875–1937) About the Program By Lucy Caplan © 2019 BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945) Violin Sonata No. 2, Sz. 76 Bartók insisted that this sonata was Bartók dedicated this sonata to the written in C Major, but a listener could be Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, a forgiven for not finding that immediately celebrated performer who was highly clear. Nor is the piece entirely recognizable in demand in early twentieth-century as a sonata: its two movements flow Europe. The duo performed both violin into one another without pause, and sonatas together in London during the the composer does away with many early 1920s to great acclaim. Their conventional elements of sonata form. relationship is often characterized in Stranger still, the violin and piano seem lopsided, gendered terms: Bartók as to wander down independent paths, rarely the great male composer, d’Arányi as taking up the same musical material the beautiful female muse (Bartók is or engaging in direct conversation. also reported to have been romantically All of these departures from the norm interested in d’Arányi). But it would be contribute to the sonata’s remarkably more accurate to describe her as an freeform sensibility. Shards of languorous accomplished artist in her own right, a melody alternate with frenetic rhythmic musician whose brilliant playing made patterns; the violin’s agitated pizzicati and possible the sonata’s success. the piano’s percussive outbursts coexist without consensus. The sonata concludes on an eerie note as high harmonics on FRANCIS POULENC (1899–1963) the violin fade into nothingness. Violin Sonata, FP 119 Yet for all its eccentricities, the sonata also If there is a ghost hovering over this contains a variety of familiar elements. evening’s program, her name is Jelly One of two violin sonatas that Bartók d’Arányi. Not only did d’Arányi inspire— composed during a 14-month span in and perform—both Bartók’s Sonata and 1921 and 1922, it is expressionistic in Ravel’s Tzigane, but she also tried for style, so dissonant that it veers close years to convince Poulenc to write her to the atonal approach embraced by a violin sonata. It didn’t work. Poulenc composers like Schoenberg, Berg, and was haunted by his own past attempts: Webern. At the same time, there are he wrote two violin sonatas early in his glimmers of Bartók’s characteristic career but destroyed them, dissatisfied embrace of Hungarian folk melodies, with the results. It was only at the urging especially in the second movement’s of renowned French violinist Ginette dance-like passages. Neveu that Poulenc finally published a 2 | Princeton University Concerts princetonuniversityconcerts.org | 3 About the Program sonata (and even this work was subjected Spanish Civil War. The second movement to extensive revisions following Neveu’s carries an epigraph from Lorca—“The untimely death at age 30 in a 1949 plane guitar makes dreams weep”—and the crash). violin’s strummed pizzicato chords evoke that instrument, which Lorca himself “To tell the truth,” Poulenc once said, “I played. With this elegiac movement, don’t like the violin as a solo instrument.” and in the sonata as a whole, Poulenc What he disliked about most sonatas, offers a way to mourn both the past and he elaborated, was their instrumental the present. inequality: “The prima donna violin above an arpeggio piano accompaniment makes me vomit.” Here, the two instruments are GEORGE ENESCU (1881–1955) equal partners. In the first movement, Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 25 they trade skittery sixteenth-note runs before moving into more lyrical territory. Freedom rings out from Enescu’s third The second movement, an Intermezzo, violin sonata: freedom to indulge in is sweet but profoundly melancholy. In tempo-twisting rubato, freedom to linger the final movement, which bears the in the spaces between notes, freedom unusual marking “presto tragico,” violin to use the keys of the piano to evoke and piano come together to generate an the sounds of folk instruments like the abundance of nervous energy. cimbalom or the accordion. Although the sonata is in three movements in a Composed in occupied France during traditional fast-slow-fast pattern, it has World War II, the sonata evokes one an unstructured feel. The first movement other ghostly figure: it is dedicated to is kaleidoscopic, cycling through both the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, melodies and moods at a rapid pace. The who was executed by Fascists during the second begins in primordial stillness, STRING CROSSINGS… George Enescu’s third violin sonata is dedicated to Franz Kneisel whose ensemble—the Kneisel Quartet—was the first group to appear on Princeton University Concerts inaugural season in 1894. 2 | Princeton University Concerts princetonuniversityconcerts.org | 3 About the Program with the piano repeating a single note vibrato and bow speed a certain way or to and the violin floating across a series of play certain notes slightly sharp or flat. ethereal harmonics above. In the final These details suggest the inadequacy of movement, the instruments embark on conventional Western musical notation a dance together before the violin breaks to communicate folk musical practices. away for a dramatic soliloquy. But they also reveal a paradox: Enescu offers the performers less than the usual There is a striking contrast between the amount of interpretive choice, insisting rhapsodic openness of the sonata’s sound that they obey his directions absolutely and the exactitude of its score. The sonata in order to create music that sounds is subtitled “In the popular Romanian wholly improvisatory and free. character,” and it reflects Enescu’s extensive knowledge of Romanian musical tradition. Unlike the composer’s well- MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937) known Romanian Rhapsodies, however, Tzigane the sonata does not quote folk songs directly. Instead, Enescu wrote original The violinist begins alone, at the lowest music that evoked the quintessential depths of the instrument’s range, and ingredients of Romanian musical tradition dances upward in a whirlwind of bravura (much in the same way that Dvorák used motion. Her fingers slide up and down Native American and African American the instrument’s G string, creating an music in his New World Symphony). otherworldly timbre. Several minutes into To ensure that those elements were this extended cadenza, the accompanying properly conveyed, Enescu provided a piano (or orchestra, depending on the heavily annotated score: ornamental performance) tiptoes in, offering a figures are written out in painstaking plush cushion of sound on which the detail, and there are instructions to use violinist can continue displaying her AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT… George Enescu may be a featured composer on this program, but he actually gave the PUC premiere of Ravel’s Tzigane performing on the series as a violinist in 1938! 4 | Princeton University Concerts princetonuniversityconcerts.org | 5 About the Program dazzling technique: harmonics, trills, longstanding interest in composing pizzicati, glissandi, and double, triple, music that represented various ethnic and quadruple stops galore. groups. “Tzigane” is the French word for gypsy (the pejorative term used for the Rumor has it that Ravel became inspired persecuted Roma people); Ravel also to write Tzigane when he heard the wrote music that claimed to represent illustrious Jelly d’Arányi—there she is Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Madagascan again!—perform his Duo for Violin and cultures, among others. In its reliance Cello at a private soirée in London in upon a limited set of sonic clichés, all of 1922. He was so entranced that he stayed this music can blur together, creating a for the afterparty, listening to d’Arányi sort of flattening effect in which all exotic play Hungarian tunes until five in the “others” look and sound the same. Yet as morning. It’s an appealing story, but it leaves out some crucial details. For one the musicologist Stephen Zank has written, thing, Ravel didn’t complete Tzigane until Tzigane’s use of “alleged Gypsy music” two years later. During the intervening is both “acknowledged and effective”: time, he consulted extensively with as the violinist makes her way through d’Arányi, who premiered the piece in this brilliant showpiece, it is easy to feel 1924, regarding technical details. For just as spellbound as Ravel must have another, the piece draws upon Ravel’s been when he first heard d’Arányi play. LET’S PARTY! PRINCETON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: YOU’RE INVITED! The Student Ambassadors of Princeton University Concerts want to get to know YOU! COME TO A STUDENT MEET UP. Tonight at intermission, join other students downstairs in the Richardson Lounge for an internoshin’. Meet other like-minded students who love music and share your thoughts about the concert over free snacks. FOR PRINCETON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ONLY. Visit: princetonuniversityconcerts.org/for-students for more information and to join the student email list. 4 | Princeton University Concerts princetonuniversityconcerts.org | 5 About the Artists Patricia Kopatchinskaja Violin This concert marks Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s Princeton University Concerts debut. Moldovan-born violinist and one of the most distinctive voices in the violin world, Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s unique approach shows itself in her diverse repertoire ranging from baroque and classical works played on gut strings, to new commissions and re-interpretations of modern masterpieces.