Remembering Russia Jesus Rodolfo

MIN YOUNG KANG

REMEMBERING RUSSIA

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) (1882-1971) Selections from Romeo and Juliet (arr. Vadim Borisovsky) Suite Italienne “Pulcinella” (1925 version) 1 Introduction (1961) 2. 30 (transcription for and piano by Jesus Rodolfo) 2 Young Juliet (1967) 3. 17 11 I. Introduction 2. 21 3 Dance of the Knights (1961) 5. 53 12 II. Serenata 3. 36 4 Balcony Scene (1977) 5. 57 13 III. Tarantella 2. 17 5 Mercutio (1961) 2. 18 14 IV. Gavotte con due variazioni 4. 17 6 Death of Juliet (1977) 7. 30 15 V. Minuetto - Finale 4. 57

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) Total playing time: 84. 10 Sonata for cello and piano in G Minor, Op. 19 (arr. Vadim Borisovsky) 7 I. Lento - Allegro moderato 14. 12 Jesus Rodolfo, viola 8 II. Allegro scherzando 7. 16 Min Young Kang, piano 9 III. Andante 6. 11 10 IV. Allegro mosso 11. 20

This album is dedicated to Parker Ray, whose love and support helped me persevere and create in the face of the pandemic. I originally was scheduled to record this album in early April 2020 in my hometown in Northern Spain, but my plans were unexpectedly changed with Europe and then the United States shutting down and entering quarantine due to COVID-19. At the beginning of this unplanned hiatus, these songs, anchored in the theme of love, seemed to me to be a bit out-of-step with what the world was experiencing with the global pandemic. I began to question whether this music was appropriate at this time.

Originally titled “Romeo & Juliet,” I realized as I pondered this recording that the music actually was in tune with this turbulent time. Love, decency, hope and optimism prevailing against mortality, mistrust, injustice and uncertainty — these are the overall underlying themes of this album,— and it is what the world, and our country, has demonstrated throughout the past months of this pandemic.

The chosen works on this album are fairly well-known. While still an album about love (and the art that can come with love), the meaning of the album has evolved and expanded to become a recording about the importance of the perseverance of hope, determination, and love in the face of death and uncertainty. Global events like the pandemic of 2020 forever alter our lives. Whether we will emerge from this better or worse is still to be seen, but we can each make a positive impact in our own way. And so, I have moved forward with making the album, creating the sound world that I originally planned. I hope you enjoy it, and that it brings something positive into your life.

Jesus Rodolfo

4 5 : Selections from ballet transcribed the entire work for viola and Romeo & Juliet (Arr. Vadim Borisovsky) piano between 1961-1977. Considering the complexity and orchestral lushness - Introduction (1961) of Prokofiev’s original score, Borisovsky - Young Juliet (1967) created a remarkable transcription for viola - Dance of the Knights (1961) and piano. Prokofiev’s use of leitmotifs in - Balcony Scene (1977) the original ballet is cleverly portrayed by - Mercutio (1961) imaginative use of the viola’s full register, - Death of Juliet (1977) harmonics, and bowing techniques.

Perhaps, the most famous love story of all The Introduction, or first movement serves times, where the purest innocent love faces as a prelude to the entire selection of the darkest death. dances. The love theme is presented and the naiveness of youth resembles joy. Romeo & Juliet, a play originally written by William Shakespeare in 1597, a tragic idyll Young Juliet introduces one of the main that was taken by the Russian composer characters, Juliet, jumping in her room with Sergei Prokofiev and turned into a ballet. her grandma. The themes of innocence and Prokofiev’s mastery on describing feelings, her vulnerability appear for first time as well. actions, characters and stories with music, A full range of colors and bow articulations made this theatrical love story turn into one in the viola part showcase the versatility and of the most famous Russian ballets. luscious beauty of the instrument. Immediately after this, the famous Dance With the approval of Sergei Prokofiev, the of the Knights, both confronted families, gifted Russian violist Vadim Borisovsky, Montecchi e Capuleti in the same ball

6 7 room dance, while witnessing their beloved The Death of Juliet, set at the catacombs, Sergei Rachmaninov: Sonata for cello Sonata for Cello and Piano, written during children, Romeo and Juliet fall in love. where Juliet lies in her catacomb and piano in g minor Op.19 (1901) – the summer of 1901 for his longtime friend However, Aristocracy isn’t supposed of surrounded by her family. When that Published in 1902 Transcription for viola Anatoly Brandukov. Composer and cellist showing feelings, and they completely leave, Romeo appears completely heart and piano by Vadim Borisovsky (1950) gave the first performance of the new seamless continue the party. This movement broken, and takes Juliet in his arms trying sonata on December 2, 1901, in . It showcases the full range of the viola, from to wake her up. The music is the same Rachmaninov wrote very little chamber was in the afterglow of this success that different bow strokes, to harmonics, double as the balcony scene but in a minor key, music: two piano trios, various fragments Rachmaninov wrote the Cello Sonata, stops, highlighting the power and beauty of resembling death. The C Major turns into for string quartet, and some short pieces for and perhaps it should come as no surprise the tone and sound of the viola. c minor after Romeo drinks the venom strings and keyboard. But for one chamber that the sonata shows some of the grand, and Juliet wakes up and sees her beloved ensemble he felt a continuing affection – the extroverted manner of the piano concerto. Balcony Scene: Romeo visits Juliet through death. She desperately tries to wake him combination of cello and piano. Among his Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata is symphonic the backgarden of her palace, and they up, finding that he drank the poison, and earliest works were the Romance in F Minor in its scope and its expressive ambition. express their love for each other. Here is after realizing there isn’t any more left for cello and piano and Two Pieces for Cello The work opens with a large movement in the moment where they fully fall in love for her to drink, acknowledges the reality, and Piano, Op. 2, and to that combination sonata form prefaced by a dreamy, slow and commit to escape the hate of their and she plunges his sword into her breast. he returned in his final chamber work, the introduction. The cello states the lyrical confronted families. The judicious mix of Musically, the c minor appears on a double Sonata for Piano and Cello in G Minor. main theme over a busy accompaniment, lyricism and ardor is so intensely moving. octave octatonic scale that takes us from while the complementary melody, a simple, real sound to harmonics, representing the The Second Piano Concerto was completed almost chant-like theme of touching Mercutio, best friend of Romeo, struts human mortality, and the detachment and launched with enormous success simplicity, is initiated by the piano. Much to music of tremendous virility, in this of the soul from the human body, within a year; it was the first music to carry of the development section is ingeniously movement. Always brave, mischievous metaphorically ending in C Major as love is Rachmaninov;s name to an international extrapolated from a half-step motive and defiant of everyone, especially Tybalt, eternal and goes beyond life. audience. In gratitude, the new work first heard in the introduction. As is ignoring his own mortality. This movement was dedicated to Nicholas Dahl. Full characteristic of several of Rachmaninov’s is highly virtuosic for both instruments, and of confidence and pride, Rachmaninov large formal structures, the recapitulation one of audience’s favorites. immediately followed the concerto with a emerges without pause or strong

8 9 demarcation from the climax of the The finale is another fully realized sonata in Italian history, when Venice was a frantic sense of trance. Greek, Italian and development. Just before the coda the form, with a second theme even more flourishing port of trade. Spanish flavors can be heard in the music. piano is given a virtuosic outburst that melodically ingratiating than that of The Gavotte and due Variazioni takes us almost becomes a small cadenza. the opening movement and a robust, For me, Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella”, 1 act ballet back to the baroque, now looking through invigorating and blazing coda, which leads based on an 18th-century play, Quattre a kaleidoscope, changing the theme, The whirling scherzo that follows presents to a cadence very much in the manner of Polichinelles Semblables (“Four identical mutating and evolving it. The second some extremely challenging problems of the just-completed Second Piano Concerto. Pulcinellas”) touches on the concepts variation has a very descriptive musical bowing to the cellist. Gone are the broad, of Time, Love, Envy, Life and Death, as effect that calls to mind a music box with romantic gestures of the first movement, perceived in the context of a magnificent a dancing ballerina inside that slows down and in their place comes a muttering, Igor Stravinsky: Suite Italienne Baroque Ball. with the music and all of a sudden need to trembling rush of triplets in somber C “Pulcinella” (1925 version) - Suite for wound up so that the box continues to play. minor. Rachmaninov varies by inserting a violin and piano, after themes, fragments, The Introduction in the first movement The Minuetto e Finale is the very conclusion lyric episode into the fast-outer sections. and pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi (1710- is like a curtain opening on the Ball, as of the “play” Pulcinella, where after at the The trio section itself is built on a gorgeous 1739) Transcription for viola and piano by if we were in Versailles and the king had end of the only act, Pulcinella is stabbed lyric theme for the cello, another example Jesus Rodolfo (2020) invited us to his very glamorous party. by Florindo and Cloviello, only as a set-up of Rachmaninov’s beautiful writing for the The second movement, Serenata reminds event to gain Pimpinella’s forgiveness to instrument. I have always thought of this piece as a us of how timeless life really is. A sense him, after he kissed Rosetta. As a closure The Andante is a wonderful, moonlit song view to the Baroque period through the of constant being, given the permanent of this last movement, Furbo, the magician of great warmth and nostalgia. First piano looking glass of the 20th Century. Of rhythm of quarter note - eight note, makes appears and resurrects Pulcinella in front and then cello pick up and develop the things that are, and at the same time, us feel floating in the universe of time, of of everyone. The purity of the musical lines main theme, a melody so lyric that it should are not. It calls to mind Baroque dances watching history passing before our eyes. dramatically contrasts with the joy and remind listeners of a little-known side of and elegant aristocrats at a masquerade To me this movement represents the gap exaltation of the finale, where Stravinsky Rachmaninoff: he wrote nearly seventy ball in a luxurious palace in France. The between Pergolesi’s time and Stravinsky’s magnificently showcases the use of songs. original themes are attributed to Pergolesi, time when he re-wrote the work. The accents and multi rhythms. At the end the reminding the listener of a very rich period Tarantella recalls a festive feeling and a marriage of the three couples, Pulcinella

10 11 and Pimpinella, Florindo and Prudenza, and Jesus Rodolfo performs on the only exact Clovillo and Rosetta, takes place. replica of the ornamented Stradivarius Viola, the “Spanish Court”, originally The violin version of the Suite italienne commissioned by King Philip V for his son contains the mock pompous Introduzione, (Prince then) Charles IV in 1696. The original which served as Pulcinella’s Overture is part Palatine Stradivarius Quartet at the (originally the first movement of a trio Royal Palace of Madrid. sonata); the charming, slightly melancholy Serenata, a tenor solo in the ballet (based Jesus Rodolfo’s viola structs the eye by its on a tenor aria in the opera Il flaminio, stunning figure, the beauty of the slender 1735); and the lively Tarantella (originally maple body, charming head, delicate the third movement of a trio sonata). golden varnish impeccably transparent The Gavotta con due variazioni follows and lightness in texture. The instrument (originally from the first set ofEight Lessons decoration includes the inlaid purpling with for the Harpsichord ). The final movement camel bone argyle and circle shaped pieces contains both a stylized Minuetto and a as well as embedded ribs with rabbits, brilliant Finale (originally a canzona from Lo pigeons and the ivy, all of them symbols of frate ’nnamorato and the third movement the Spanish Monarchy. of another trio sonata, respectively). Luthier: Diego Del Valle Jesus Rodolfo

12 13 Acknowledgements

PRODUCTION TEAM Executive producers Jesus Rodolfo & Renaud Loranger (PENTATONE) Recording Producer Jesus Rodolfo Recorded & mixed by Sean Yoo at NV Recording Studio Mastered by Andreas K. Meyer at Swan Studios

Liner notes Jesus Rodolfo Photography Pierre Lidar | Design Marjolein Coenrady Product management Kasper van Kooten

This album was recorded on August 5th to 7th 2020, at NV Recording Studio, NJ, USA.

Jesus Rodolfo has been dressed for the album photo shoot by J. Mueser.

PENTATONE TEAM Vice President A&R Renaud Loranger | Managing Director Simon M. Eder A&R Manager Kate Rockett | Product Manager Kasper van Kooten Head of Marketing, PR & Sales Silvia Pietrosanti

14 Sit back and enjoy