PROGRAM NOTES 

–Rosemary Waller

J.S. Bach: Sonata in C Major, BWV 1033

Dating from around 1731, this sonata is among six such works for flute and harpsichord attributed to J. S. Bach.  Several are of disputed authorship.  1033 is of particular interest: some scholars have posited that the upper melodic line came from a much earlier work (1721?) for solo flute by J. S., who later tasked his teenaged son and pupil C. P. E. Bach with attaching a continuo part, usually played by harpsichord and one or more bass instruments.  The Baroque continuo part consisted of a bass line melody together with chords, often indicated only by numbers.  It was understood that performers would embellish and improvise on the continuo part to create their own interpretation.  The upper melody (“flute”) part in a sonata was often labeled simply “treble,” with the understanding that it could be played by any treble instrument, wind or string.  The only manuscript we have of 1033 is completely in the handwriting of C. P. E., lending credence to the supposition that the young student had been assigned the composition of the add-on lower part.   

Dušan Bogdanović: Five Balkan Miniatures, for Violin, Cello, and Guitar

The Serbian-born American Dušan Bogdanović is both a composer and classical guitar performer.  His writing style is influenced by classical, jazz, and ethnic music.  Here are his 1993 remarks concerning the Miniatures: 

“These days of political turmoil in Eastern Europe find their focus especially in Yugoslavia, the heart of the Balkans, and my homeland.  It is both tragic and ironic to see the further disintegration of the land and the people, while being aware of the unique cultural stamp of the whole area.  So it might be that the art, among other universal human endeavors, still shows us a way of harmonizing and synthesizing the most diverse elements coming from the same source.  It is in this spirit that I dedicate the music to world peace.

“ … The Morning, Macedonian, and Tiny-knit Dances are all interrelated thematically and harmonically.  … The Tiny-knit Dance alludes to the nimble fingers of ‘obligatory’ accordion or furla [flute] players one often hears in village weddings or other festivities.”

Sérgio Assad: Operários, from Tarsila, for Violin and Guitar

Born into a musical family in São Paulo, Brazil, Sérgio Assad is acclaimed as guitarist, composer, and arranger.  He began writing for the guitar not long after he started playing the instrument. As a teenager he and his brother Odair, also a guitarist, formed the Duo Assad.  They have collaborated in both performances and recordings with such artists as Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

Operários [Workers], from a larger composition entitled Tarsila, takes its inspiration from the celebrated Brazilian modernist Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973).  Her iconic 1933 painting Operários marked a distinct change in in Tarsila’s style, at a time when she abandoned formalized art forms to become a politically and socially active artist.  The painting depicts a racially diverse group of factory workers, pointedly representative of modern Brazilian society, arranged in front of factory smokestacks and buildings. A reminder of São Paulo’s increasingly industrialized landscape and changing culture, the work was at first controversial but later came to be highly regarded.  Tarsila considered it her most important painting.

Astor Piazzolla: Nightclub 1960, from Histoire du tango

We have come to associate Astor Piazzolla closely with Argentina and the tango dance form.  He was indeed born there, the only child of Italian immigrant parents, but his upbringing, from age four, was in New York City.  One day his father, out for a stroll, spotted a bandoneón in a pawn shop window.  In Argentina he had become fond of the instrument, a small accordion with buttons and no keyboard, an integral part of the traditional tango band.  Now, on a whim, he purchased it for his young son, who quickly became a prodigy.

In 1938 seventeen-year-old Piazzolla returned to Argentina.  He studied with Alberto Ginastera, who encouraged him in 1953 to submit his Buenos Aires Symphony for the Fabien Sevitzky Award.  A scuffle broke out when some members of the audience at the competition were offended by Piazzolla’s addition of two bandoneóns to the traditional symphony orchestra make-up.  Piazzolla nonetheless won a French government grant to study in Paris.  In his memoir he describes his first encounter with his teacher, the legendary Nadia Boulanger:

“When I met her I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas.  She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It’s very well written.’  And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball.  After a long while, she said, ‘Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but I can’t find Piazzola.’  She kept asking, ‘You say that you are not a pianist.  What instrument do you play, then?’  Finally I confessed that I was a bandoneón player, and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own.  She suddenly took my hand and told me: ‘You idiot, that’s Piazzolla.’  And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.” 

Piazzolla is among the great number of young composers of various nationalities to be empowered by Nadia Boulanger to fulfill their own highly individual promise.  (Boulanger’s hundreds of students, over seven decades of teaching, include Burt Bacharach, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Jean Français, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Michel Legrand, and Walter Piston.). Piazzolla never lost his interest in the tango and other native Argentinian music, and in 1986 he composed his Histoire du tango, one of his most popular works. 

Luigi Boccherini: Sonata in G Major, G.5, for Cello and Guitar

According to Gregor Piatigorsky, the Italian Boccherini may well have been the greatest cellist of all time.  He was noted for his ability to play violin repertoire on the cello, in the same upper register.  It was a remarkable feat, a skill he mastered by regularly substituting for ailing violinists on concert tours.  A prolific composer, he wrote over one hundred string quintets, especially for the specific instrumentation he pioneered: two violins, viola, and two cellos (in contrast to the then common scoring for two violins, two violas, and one cello).  One of these quintets contains the minuet known to everyone, famously featured in the 1955 Alec Guinness movie The Ladykillers. Though Boccherini was a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart, his graceful style was uniquely his own, aptly described by British cellist Steven Isserlis as “always inward-looking and full of tenderness with shy humor … perhaps arising from the fact that the composer’s brother was both a poet (he wrote texts for Haydn and Salieri) and dancer, and his sister, brother-in-law and nephew were all distinguished figures in the world of ballet.”  The music of Boccherini also shows influences from the guitar tradition of his adopted country, Spain.

In addition to the string quintets, Boccherini wrote 12 quintets for guitar and strings, nearly 100 string quartets, many string trios, at least 19 cello sonatas, around 30 symphonies, and 12 cello concertos.

Niccolò Paganini: Terzetto in D Major, Op. 66, for Violin, Cello, and Guitar

The violin was not the first instrument for the great Italian virtuoso—at age five he was introduced to the mandolin by his father, turning to violin two years later.  A prodigy who went on to become perhaps the greatest violinist of all time, he was appointed court violinist in Lucca by Napoleon’s sister Elisa, leaving after four years to concentrate on a solo career throughout Europe.  He achieved rock-star status, moving his audiences to tears and hysteria, and at the same time profoundly influencing the evolution of violin technique.  His astonishing performances, as well as his legendary philandering and gambling, led to the widespread belief that he had made a pact with the devil.  (In fact, the church would go so far as to deny him a Catholic burial.)  A less diabolical explanation for his incredible dexterity has been proposed: Marfan Syndrome, suggested by the extraordinary length of his fingers.

In 1833 Paganini met the composer Berlioz in Paris, and they became close friends.  The two shared an intense interest in the guitar: both men played and wrote for the instrument.  Though Paganini never performed in public on the guitar, he enjoyed playing in private for his own satisfaction, doing so even while on extensive concert tours.  He gifted Berlioz with a fine guitar, which both signed on the inside of the instrument. Paganini wrote around 50 works for solo guitar, 20 sonatas for violin and guitar, and 20 quartets for violin, viola, cello, and guitar.  The Terzetto was composed in London in 1833 and premiered in that city, the composer among the performers.  No guitarist was available, so a young Felix Mendelssohn sightread the part on the piano!