Ralph Votapek Music by Ginastera, Poulenc, Szymanowski & Piazzolla Ralph Votapek Music by Ginastera, Poulenc, Szymanowski and Piazzolla

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, April 11, 1916. From early childhood he showed interest in music, beginning formal studies when he was seven years old. At twelve he entered the Conservatorio Williams, eventually entering the National Conservatory of Music where his teachers included Athos Palma and Jose Andre. His first mature work, the score for the ballet Panambi, was also the first he allowed to survive. The suite from the ballet was premiered in 1937 and the complete ballet was intro- duced at the Teatro Colon in 1940. Primitive in its rhythms and modern harmonies, the score constantly reveals the composer’s interest in a national Argentine idiom. During this time he also wrote the wonderful piano work, Danzas Argentinas. In 1938 he graduated with honors from the National Conservatory. In 1941 he was commissioned the ballet Estancia, and his first symphony, Sinfonia Portena followed in 1942. In 1942 he received a Alberto Ginastera Guggenheim Fellowship and he visited the United States. World War II inspired his Twelve American Preludes for piano and the Elegiac Symphony (1944), dedicated to those who “died for freedom.” From 1945-1947 he lived in New York. In 1948 he became director of the conservatory of the province of Buenos Aires in La Plata. In 1948 he completed another important work — his first string quartet. Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No.1 (1952) and the Variaciones Concertantes (1953) followed. Because of his pronounced anti-Fascist sentiments, Ginastera became increasingly suspect in Argentina dur- ing the Peron regime. Finally, in 1952, he was dismissed as director of the Conservatory of Music and Drama which he had founded. Compelled to earn his living elsewhere, he took to writing motion picture scores. In 1955, with the overthrow of the Peron regime, Ginastera was restored to his Conservatory post — where he remained until 1958 when he resigned to become director of the new Facultad de Ciencias y Artes Musicales of the Catholic University. His Piano Concerto was premiered in Washington, D.C. in 1959 and for the opening season of the New York Philharmonic at – 2 – the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Ginastera was commissioned to write a violin concerto. Ruggiero Ricci introduced it with Leonard Bernstein conducting on October 2, 1963. Ginastera’s opera Don Rodrigo was performed by the New York City Opera in 1966. His next opera Bomarzo (1967) was an extraordinary success. Its overt sexuality prompted one critic to label it “Porno in Belcanto.” In 1971 he wrote his third opera, Beatrix Cenci and in 1972 his Second Piano Concerto was introduced by pianist Hilde Somer with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. His second and third piano sonatas were written in 1981-1982, his cello sonata in 1979 and his cello concertos in 1968 and 1980. Additionally, Ginastera wrote two other string quartets, No.2 in 1958 and No.3 in 1973. Alberto Ginastera died in Geneva, Switzerland on June 25, 1983. Sonata No.1, Opus 22 was composed in 1952 for the Pittsburg Contemporary Music Festival on a commission from the Carnegie Institute and the Pennsylvania College for Women. Johana Harris, pianist-wife of the American composer, Roy Harris, gave the premiere on November 29, 1952. The composer provided the following notes: “The Piano Sonata is divided into four movements. The first one, Allegro marcato, corresponds to the plan of the sonata-form with two main themes: the first one is built upon complex rhythmic cells while the second has a melodic character. The second movement has the structure of a scherzo in three parts whose main theme arises from a row. The whole move- ment is played pianissimo and has strange sonorities. The third movement, Adagio molto appassion- ato, corresponds to the form of a three-part Lied (song). The theme in the first and third parts appears as a lyric improvisation, the second being of a passionate character. The fourth movement, Ruvido ed ostinato (“Rough and Obstinate”), is built in the form of a rondo in five parts with the style and tech- nique of a toccata. This movement is built on a rhythmic line which changes constantly within a fixed structure.” Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Francis Poulenc was a true “musicien francais,” which is to say, of course, that Poulenc’s music is bound to be a bit inexplicable to those of us who listen with non-French ears. We won’t have any trouble enjoying it. Poulenc is as persuasive as Piaf, as mellifluous as Melarchino and mostly about as modern as Mendelssohn. No twelve-tone implications here! No language of dissonance (not a consistent and logical dissonant language, anyhow). Poulenc was once a radical shocker. But, even in 1960, his dissonance remained that of the snazzy musical revolution of the 1920’s, now verging upon the quaint for our case-hardened ears. And the Poulencian consonance is that of the later 1930’s, when “modern” music permitted itself to relax, for awhile, and plain, old-fashioned C major chords were once again heard — somewhat to everyone’s relief. That time, too, is – 3 – now gone. But in the 1960’s Poulenc was still there. Born in 1899 in Paris, Poulenc wrote his first piano composi- tions in early 1917. In 1919 the concert audiences heard his three Mouvements Perpetuels and Poulenc became a household name almost overnight. He then joined a group of French composers (along with Milhaud, Durey, Auric, Honegger and Tailleferre) called “The French Six.” In 1924 Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Poulenc to write a score for the Ballet Russe, and the result was Les Biches (“The Does”). The ballet was a great success. One critic wrote: “The Poulenc score is exquisite... With its ironic and slightly rakish twists, its thoroughly traditional elegance of thought, it goes straight to the point, its one aim being to bring delight.” Many works followed — the Concert Champetre, a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, the Mass in G Major, songs, chamber music and, of course, more piano pieces. During World War II, Poulenc was an active member of the French Resistance movement. Francis Poulenc Works from these years include the poignant Violin Sonata dedi- cated to the memory of Federico Garcia Lorca and the deeply mov- ing, tragic choral work, Figure Humaine. In 1957 he produced the opera Les Dialogues des Carmelites, which received its American premiere at the San Francisco Opera on September 22, 1957. In 1959 he produced La Voix Humaine, and in 1961 the six-part Gloria for chorus and orchestra. Francis Poulenc died suddenly at his home in Paris on January 30, 1963. Critic Jay Harrison once stated that, “In many ways, Poulenc is Paris. He is gay like Paris, sad like Paris. And he bustles constantly. His hands wave, his eyebrows arch, he twitches, grins, makes faces. When his mouth talks, all of him talks too. If he is not Paris, he is at least French. Not even a deaf man could doubt that.” And certainly that is also true of Poulenc’s music. Poulenc’s eight nocturnes span about a decade (1929-1938). Although they are often played separately, Poulenc created a “cycle” when he composed the eighth nocturne and titled it “Pour servir de Coda au Cycle” (“To serve as the Coda for the Cycle”). Unlike Chopin’s or Faure’s, Poulenc’s nocturnes are not romantic tone- poems. They are instead “night-scenes” and “sound-images” of public and private events. The first Nocturne, in C major, acts as a prelude to the set. It is typically Poulenc — constructed out of a touching, almost child-like melodic pattern, with some Stravinskian style touches and a weird epilogue marked, “le double plus lent.” The second Nocturne is entitled “Bal de jeunes filles.” – 4 – The young girls, in Poulenc’s world, are indulging in a quadrille, a dance with both military and the- atrical associations. According to biographer Wilfrid Howard Mellers, this Nocturne “is a delicious Poulenc image for the vulnerability of youth, perhaps even the vanity of human wishes.” The third Nocturne, is entitled “Les Cloches de Malines.” Mellers sees this as a different kind of genre-piece “for it aurally depicts a small-town market-square that is probably, at dead of night, destitute of people. Bells toll through fourths between F and C, played by the left hand in equal crotchets but irregular metre, as though the mechanism is defective. It may well be, since the bells are very old, being in one of Poulenc’s ‘antique’ pieces — with the proviso that its world, however ancient, is still extant... the cacophony that eventually forms a brief middle section has a programmatic intention... perhaps the frantic clangings warn of some disaster, or maybe the clock’s works have gone crazy. In any case, we hear the raucous chaos in psychological as well as physical terms: the hubbub is the ills that flesh is heir to, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, things that go bump in the night.” The fourth Nocturne, “Bal fantôme” carries a quotation by Julien Green:

“Pas une note des valses ou des scottisches ne se perdait dans toute la maison, si bien que le malade eut sa part de la fête et put rêver sur son grabat aux bonnes années de sa jeunesse.”

We are led by Poulenc through an old-world, “phantom ball” where the chromatic harmony, sen- suously spaced, moves us through a by-gone-era waltz. It is dream-like, seductive and welcoming. The fifth Nocturne is entitled “Phalènes” (“Moths”). In this Presto misterioso, Mellers hears the moths flickering in an iridescent bitonality. It is one Poulenc’s more pictorial pieces — the coda is a quiver- ing, sepulchral bit of music, which Mellers feels may signal a human allegory: “we may be moths, jit- tering directionless.” We are again outdoors for the sixth Nocturne. Mellers sees the work as “wafting through dark- ness.” In the seventh Nocturne, our “jeunes filles” are back dancing or strolling on a balmy summer night. According to Mellers, “since the young girls are recalled in the seventh Nocturne, it makes sense that Poulenc should round off the cycle with an epilogue.” The eighth Nocturne is designated “Nocturne pour servir de Coda au Cycle.” It begins with a tune close to that of the first Nocturne, but in 3/4 instead of 4/4. Mellers sees this as “a positive evolution... the music modulates flatwards ending on bare fifths of C, so the tonic C basic to the suite is reinstated, but not strongly affirmed. Fallibly human, Poulenc mistrusted definitive answers. This delectable suite of eight Nocturnes – 5 – displays the loving care with which Poulenc defined, and pro- tected, his vulnerabilities, even though they are less patent than those of the jeunes filles.” Karol Szymanowski (1883-1937) Karol Szymanowski was born in Tymoszowka, near Elisavetgrad, in the Ukraine, on September 21, 1883. His father was a wealthy Polish landowner who made his home a gathering place for the cultural elite. As a result, the young boy was surrounded in childhood with literature, music and art. Music and the piano attracted him and eventually a local teacher was hired to teach him theory. In 1900 he published his first works, a set of piano preludes which prompted the one critic to write, “The lyric sincerity, the charming poetic ideas, the beauty of melodic invention, the harmonic variety and, finally, the elegance of technique and finesse commanded uni- versal attention.” His talent now required serious nurturing, Karol Szymanowski and Karol Szymanowski was sent to Warsaw in 1903 to study with Zygmunt Noskowski. Under Noskowski, he worked industriously at counterpoint as well as in the free forms of composition. A sonata for piano com- posed in 1905 under Noskowski’s guidance, won first prize in a Chopin competition held in Lemberg. That year, he moved to Berlin, where he fell under the spell of the composers Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner. In 1906 he composed his First Symphony, still under the influence of German Romanticism. After he left Germany in 1908, Szymanowski’s style became more subjective, filled with restless moods and dramatic expositions. Examples from this period were his Second Symphony and Second Piano Sonata. A prelude and fugue, written in 1909, won a prize in a competition instituted by the Berlin Signale für die musikalische Welt. Szymanowski did not feel completely comfortable with the direction his music was taking and turned next to exotic idioms. Szymanowski much admired the compositions of Alexander Scriabin and became also interested in mysticism and oriental philosophy. The resulting music he produced was filled with the atmosphere and colors of the East: the opera Hagith (1913), the Love Songs of Hafiz (1914), and the Third Symphony, “The Song of the Night” (1916). – 6 – The Russian Revolution had far-reaching repercussions for Szymanowski. His family estates in both Poland and the Ukraine were plundered and all the family belongings were confiscated by the Bolsheviks. Destitute, he settled in Warsaw and managed to eke out a living through his music, con- certizing when opportunities presented themselves, in Paris, London, and the United States. After the war, Szymanowski spent a few months in the Tatra Mountains of Poland, where he heard native songs and dances. This experience inspired him to utilize these native idioms in his compositions. “Today,” he wrote, “I have developed into a national composer, not only subconsciously but with a thorough conviction, using the melodic treasures of the Polish folk.” His ballet, Harnasie (1926), was based on a Polish legend from the Tatra mountains. Also in 1926, Szymanowski was appointed director of the Warsaw Conservatory. Ill-health began to plague him and in 1929 he suffered a nervous breakdown. He resigned his academic post and checked himself in at a sanitarium near Lausanne, Switzerland. He continued to compose creating his Symphonie Concertante for piano and orchestra, Opus 60 and his Violin Concerto No.2, Opus 61. He took on the responsibilities of president of the Academy of Music in Warsaw, but a relapse sent him back to Switzerland where he died on March 28, 1937 of laryngeal tuberculosis. Szymanowski composed the three piano tone-poems, Masques, Opus 34 in 1915-16. They were first played on October 12, 1916 in St. Petersburg by Sascha Dubiansky. The first poem, “Sheherazade,” which is dedicated to Dubiansky evokes the orientalism and imagery of A Thousand and One Nights. “Tantris the Clown” is based on Ernst Hardt’s poem. Dedicated to Heinrich Neuhaus, this work is a warped version of the Tristan legend. According to Artur Rubinstein, “Tristan, under this false name [an anagram] tries to steal into Isolde’s apartment one night but is readily recognized by the dogs and arouses the suspicions of the household.” “Don Juan’s Serenade” was dedicated to Artur Rubinstein. It is a work that begins in a quasi-improvisational vein, growing impassioned and urgent, with fits of ecstasy. This is an ardent work, full of, according to biographer Eduard Volynski, “soul and heart.” Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) Following a long struggle against illness, composer and musician Astor Piazzolla died on Saturday, July 4, 1992, at the age of 71. He had plunged into a deep coma following a stroke suf- fered in Paris on August 5th, 1990. He was never to compose or play again, and in the months pre- ceding his death, he was already being spoken of in Buenos Aires in the past tense. The tunes and works of Astor Piazzolla will remain, inscribed forever on the walls of the temple of the tango, just below those of the unforgettable Carlos Gardel. All tango lovers agree that there was a “before” and – 7 – “after” Piazzolla. “He revolutionized the tango,” writes Marikena Monti, “Giving the tango emotion and mystery... He discovered a different new rhythm, pure tango, yet dif- ferent. It was a real miracle.” Piazzolla reinvented the tango, bringing to it influences from classical, jazz, and Argentinean folk music. He was born in 1921 in Mar del Plata and was educated in New York until the age of 15. He played classical piano, until one day when his father gave him a bandonéon. “I was 10 years old,” he said. “If he’d bought me a saxophone I’d have played jazz. But it was the tango that won.” While in the United States he met his idol Carlos Gardel who had already noticed this little prodigy. Back in Buenos Aires Piazzolla played in orchestras and composed, but was con- sidered an “intellectual” of the tango by the Porteños, always reluctant to accept innovation in their tango Astor Piazzolla domain. Piazzolla eventually travelled the world and became one of the most famous Argentineans outside Argentina. During the 1960’s he gained popular recognition in his homeland with what were to become his two best-known compositions: the dramatic and sorrowful Adiós Nonino written to com- memorate the death of his father and Balada para un loco (“Ballad For a Madman”), the result of his long collaboration with the poet Horacia Ferrer. In 1985 he composed the History of the Tango. The work is in four parts depicting a particular moment in the evolution of the dance. The two tangos selected by Ralph Votapek are less often heard, but just as compelling. Lo Que Vendrá (“That Which is Coming”) was composed in 1957, two years after Piazzolla had studied with Nadia Boulanger. This piano tango is one of his earliest “infused” works, drawing upon the rhythms of the traditional dance in combination with jazz elements and classical counterpoint and ornamentation of Bach’s time. Retrato de Alfredo Gobbi was composed in 1970 and is a portrait (retrato) of a musical friend.

— Marina and Victor Ledin, ©1998

– 8 – Ralph Votapek

– 9 – Ralph Votapek Biography

Ralph Votapek was born in Milwaukee in 1939 and began his musical studies in Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Conservatory at the age of nine. He studied at Northwestern University with Guy Mombaerts, earning his Bachelor’s Degree, and subsequently attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. His principal teachers were Rosina Lhevinne and Robert Goldsand. In 1959, he won the Naumburg Award which gave him his New York debut at Town Hall. Mr. Votapek skyrocketed to world prominence when he won the Gold Medal of the First Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1962. The prize brought with it a $10,000 check, headlines around the world, a Carnegie Hall debut recital, a contract with famed impresario Sol Hurok, and an RCA Victor recording contract. Since 1962, Votapek has maintained a front-rank position among pianists. After the Van Cliburn Competition prize, Votapek scored a tremendous success in London with the Philharmonia and was hailed for his performances across the United States. In 1966, he made his first tour of South America, where his reputation among young audiences in Buenos Aires was com- pared to those of the “ye-ye” idols. At the famous Colon Theatre they mobbed him, chanting, “Ralphie, Ralphie.” Mr. Votapek has a special commitment to South America, where he has toured every other year for the past three decades. In August 1997, the Buenos Aires Herald said, “Votapek, now in his fifties, keeps his characteristic boyishness; handsome, dynamic and ingratiating, he com- municates easily. Artistically he is as consistent as they come; a rock-solid technique, a catholicity of taste that knows no bounds, and beautifully varied and interesting programs. You’ll never be dis- appointed in a Votapek recital.” He has appeared with virtually all the major American orchestras and has been partnered by such legendary conductors as Rafael Kubelik, William Steinberg, Joseph Krips and Erich Leinsdorf. He has been guest soloist sixteen times with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has appeared frequently with the Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston Pops, Saint Louis, Houston, Dallas and Louisville orchestras. Equally at home in chamber music, Mr. Votapek has performed with the Juilliard, Fine Arts, New World and Chester String Quartets. The PBS television network and other educational sta- tions in the U.S. broadcast frequently Mr. Votapek’s video series of forty recitals. Mr. Votapek has the title of Artist-in-Residence at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

– 10 – Credits Recorded at the WFMT Studios, Chicago, July 28-29, 1997

Recording Engineer: Lawrence Rock Editor: John McDaniel Executive Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Mastered by: Ed Thompson Piano: Steinway & Sons, New York

Cover and Inside Tray Card Photos: Arnaldo Colombaroli (Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina) Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin Design: Communication Graphics

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– 11 – Ralph Votapek Music by Ginastera, Poulenc, Szymanowski & Piazzolla

Alberto Ginastera: Sonata No.1, Opus 22 (1952) 14:57 10 No.6 in G Major (1934) 1 I. Allegro marcato 4:17 Très clame mais san traîner 3:05 2 II. Presto misterioso 2:40 11 No.7 in E flat Major (1935) – Assez allant 2:08 3 III. Adagio molto appassionato 5:07 12 No.8 (1938) – Pour servir de Coda au Cycle 4 IV. Ruvido ed ostinato 2:53 Très modéré 1:50 Francis Poulenc: Nocturnes (complete) 17:27 Karol Szymanowski: 5 No.1 in C Major (1929) – Sans traîner 3:01 Masques (3 Poems), Opus 34 (1916) 21:11 6 No.2 in A Major (1933) – Bal de jeunes filles 13 I. Shéhérazade – Lento assai, languido 9:21 Très animé 1:26 14 II. Tantris le Bouffon – Vivace assai 5:59 7 No.3 in F Major (1934) – Les cloches de Malines 15 III. Sérénade de Don Juan – Vivace 5:51 Modéré mais sans lenteur 3:09 Astor Piazzolla: Two Tangos 5:58 8 No.4 in C minor (1934) – Bal fantôme 16 Lo Que Vendrá (1957) 2:49 Lent, très las et piano 1:31 17 Retrato de Alfredo Gobbi (1970) 3:09 9 No.5 in D minor (1934) – Phalènes Presto misterioso 1:17 Total Playing Time: 60:40

Recording Engineer: Lawrence Rock • Executive Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Mastered by: Ed Thompson • Piano: Steinway & Sons, New York

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Phone: 1-888-40-IVORY • Fax: 614-761-9799 ® [email protected] • Website: www.IvoryClassics.com