W the program E E 24 K june RISING STAR SERIES 4 y a d s Daria Rabotkina, piano e u T 8 PM “FLOW MY TEARES” (1600) John Dowland (1563-1626)/arr. Daria Rabotkina SONATA IN E MAJOR, K. 162 (1756-57) Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Andante—Allegro—Andante—Allegro SELECTIONS FROM ORDRE 18ÈME DE CLAVECIN IN F MAJOR (1722) François Couperin (1668-1733) ITALIAN CONCERTO, BWV 971 ( ca . 1735) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) [without tempo designation] Andante Presto :: intermission :: SONATINE (1903-05) Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Modéré Mouvement de menuet Animé SONATA NO. 3 IN A MINOR FOR PIANO, OP. 28 (1917) Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Allegro tempestoso—Moderato—Allegro tempestoso—Moderato—Più lento—Più animato—Allegro I—Poco più mosso FANTASY SUITE AFTER BIZET’S CARMEN , 1ST MOVEMENT Sergei Rabotkin (b. 1953) This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Pat Petrou. Ms. Rabotkina is a winner of the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and is represented by Concert Artists Guild. concertartists.org 33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 51 “FLOW MY TEARES” John Dowland (b. London, 1563; d. London, February 20, 1626)/arr. Daria Rabotkina Composed 1600 Non otthees program In addition to wide-ranging “traditional” piano repertoire, Daria Rabotkina has acquired a substantial store of piano works borrowed and adapted from far-flung places in the music by world, including her own concert arrangement* of ragtime legend “Luckey” Roberts’s “Pork Sandra Hyslop and Beans.” As the opening offering on this evening’s concert—in contrast to the fantasy on Bizet’s stormy opera Carmen with which she closes—Ms. Rabotkina has chosen her own arrangement of one of John Dowland’s gentlest songs. Published in 1600 under the title “Lacrime,” it is the second piece in his Second Booke of Songs or Ayres of 2, 4 and 5 parts —“Flow my teares, fall from your springs, Exilde for ever: Let mee morne where nights black bird his sad infamy sings, there let mee live forlorne…” *Hear her play it in a Merkin Hall concert on YouTube. SELECTIONS FROM ORDRE 18ÈME DE CLAVECIN IN F MAJOR François Couperin (b. Paris, November 10, 1668; d. Paris, September 11, 1733) Composed 1722 The Couperins of France were a multi-generational musical dynasty, of whom the most important member was François (called “Le grand”). Couperin was appointed organiste du roi (Louis XIV) in 1693, and was known as a composer of the finest keyboard music of his time. He gathered more than 230 pieces into four books of suites, or ordres , and published them in 1713, 1717, 1722 and 1730. His 1716-1717 treatise, The Art of Harpsichord Playing, was influential not only in his time, but François Couperin, Le grand up to the present day, and has proven an invaluable key to his era’s keyboard music and performance practices. Couperin composed music appropriate to the French language and taste. His study of counterpoint contributed to a clarity of the relationship between the top and bottom voices, and to a linear instrumental style that emphasized elegance and grace—as befit the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, in whose court Couperin served with great distinction. That elegance was furthered by the abundance of ornaments that pervaded his keyboard pieces—Couperin notated them with meticulous care and expected that performers would observe his instructions to the letter. Frequently, Couperin appended descriptive, or programmatic, titles to the dance forms in Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute, the instrument of these ordres , such as the titles in O rdre XVIII , from which Ms. Rabotkina will perform a which John Dowland was a selection: La verneüil Allemande (A lady from Verneuil, or of that family name)— La verneüilléte master. “Flow My Teares” is one of the most beloved of (A young woman, perhaps the daughter, of the former lady)— Sœur Monique (Rondeau) his more than 80 Songs (Sister Monique, a nun, or possibly “soeur” in the sense of a woman of shady repute]— Le and Ayres. Dowland turbulent (The turbulent one)— L’atendrissante (The sensitive one)— Le tic-toc-choc, ou Les himself wrote popular variations on this tune. maillotins (Rondeau)— (Unclear, the meaning of the onomatopoetic “tic-toc-choc;” the “maillotins” might have been a family of acrobats of that name)— Le gaillard-boiteux (The limping guy). 52 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM SONATA IN E MAJOR, K. 162 Domenico Scarlatti (b. Naples, October 26, 1685; d. Madrid, July 23, 1757) Composed 1756-57; 5 minutes From 1729 to the end of his life, Domenico Scarlatti was the court composer and musician to the Lisbon Infanta María Bárbara, who married the heir to the Spanish throne. Among his duties, Scarlatti wrote some 550 one-movement keyboard sonatas for Queen María Bárbara’s own use. These sonatas are notable for their ingenious ornamentations and their rhythmic vitality, with such features as contrasting high and low registers, echo effects, layering of voice textures and surprising dissonances. A two-manual harpsichord Most of Scarlatti’s sonatas are in binary form, with each of the halves repeated. The E major made in 1650 by the famous Sonata on today’s concert is an exception; the two halves of the piece do not repeat verbatim. Belgian maker Joannes Couchet. Scarlatti and Bach Sections I and III, Andante, both feature a main theme in the key of E that uses a rhythmic wrote their keyboard works motif that runs through these sections, which are in 3/4 measure—a triplet and two quarter for such an instrument. notes (in poetic scansion, this rhythm is a dactyl). The opening Andante is in the key of E major and the second Andante is an E minor variant of that section. Both of the Andantes plunge abruptly into the two 4/4 Allegro sections without pause. Sections II and IV have in common a running-16th-note figure that unifies them—the first Allegro is in B major and the second Allegro returns to the tonic key of E major. This work’s galant style and fluid ornamentation are characteristic of all Scarlatti’s sonatas. His harmonic progressions are sometimes startling and playful. They probably shocked the listeners of his time. ITALIAN CONCERTO, BWV 971 Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, Germany, March 31, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750) Composed ca. 1735; 13 minutes In his years at the relatively secular court of Köthen (1717-1723), Johann Sebastian Bach had composed and published dozens of the keyboard works for which he is widely known. The over-lifesized monument During his next appointment, at the Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig (1723 to the end of his to J.S. Bach stands in the life), the increased requirements for liturgical music reduced, but did not curtail, the time place of honor before the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, he spent composing for the harpsichord. where he served as cantor from 1723 until his death in 1750. As a keyboard improviser, no one excelled over Bach. Whether performing in the North German organ styles or the newer Italian and French clavier styles, Bach stunned all listeners with his skills and artistry. In 1735 he published the Clavier-Übung (Harpsichord Study ) in two sections—Part I, Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto according to Italian taste), and Part II, the Ouverture nach Franz ösischer Art (Overture in the French style). Bach wrote the Italian Concerto as a keyboard piece in imitation of the orchestral textures of the then-popular Italian concerto grosso. He specified that the piece be performed on a two-manual harpsichord in order to facilitate the dynamic contrasts between piano and forte, and to emulate the opposing instrumental bodies of a concerto grosso. Like that Italian form, Bach’s concerto is in three movements—fast-slow-fast—with the outer sections, in F major, framing a lyrical Andante in the relative key of D minor. 33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 53 SONATINE Maurice Ravel (b. Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875; d. Paris, December 18, 1937) Notes Composed 1903-05; 11 minutes on the In March and April 1903, the Weekly Critical Review (a short-lived, French-English journal) program advertised a Musical Competition with instructions—“Compose the first movement of a by Pianoforte Sonate in F-sharp minor, not to exceed 75 bars in length.” Maurice Ravel Sandra Hyslop submitted his entry and “won,” but as his entry ran to 84 bars, it was disqualified. Out of this odd beginning, grew one of Ravel’s most distinguished works, which he subsequently completed as a three-movement sonata (called Sonatine for its length, and not for any diminutive aesthetic or musical qualities). He published it in 1905, dedicating the work to his good friends Cipa and Misia (Cipa’s step-sister) Godebski, in whose home the Sonatine was first played privately. Ravel had a predilection for writing in classic forms, and he frequently included dance movements in his works. Both those tendencies are exemplified in his Sonatine for piano, a composition based on a thematic germ of an idea, a falling fourth (F-sharp to C-sharp), upon which he built a classic sonata (the inversion of that theme, from C-sharp to F-sharp, is the basis for the Minuet). It became one of Ravel’s favorite compositions and he included it on many of his own concert programs. Unlike many of his other works, Sonatine never elicited from him one self-critical judgement. SONATA NO. 3 IN A MINOR FOR PIANO, OP. 28 +1917, Portrait of Maurice Ravel at the piano Sergei Prokofiev (b. Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, April 23, 1891; d.