Upcoming Events
Pen-y-bryn Lodge
| Date: | 05 May 2012 |
| Time: | 7:00 pm |
| Location: | Oamaru |
| Venue: | Pen-y-bryn Lodge, 41 Towey Street |
Programme
Mozart: Piano Trio in B flat major K502
Bright Sheng (China/USA): Two movements for piano trio
Anthony Ritchie (NZ): Piano Trio
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Dvořák: Piano Trio No.1 in B Flat Major, Opus 21
Programme notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756- 1791): Piano Trio in B flat major, K. 502 – c. 20’
Allegro
Larghetto
Allegretto
The piano trio had thrived as a genre suited to amateur music-making in eighteenth-century parlours, but it was only when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned his hand to the medium that it was transformed into the ‘art form’ we know today. Emerging from the home into the concert hall, piano parts became significantly taxing (Mozart wrote them for himself to play) and the violin and cello were elevated from accompanying roles to positions of equal prominence.
The Bb major Trio, completed in 1786 in Vienna, is now a well established and much-loved concert piece. The heart of the piece is the exquisite slow movement with its beautiful melodic lines and graceful embellishments. This is flanked by movements of captivating verve and energy.
Bright Sheng (China/USA b. 1955): Two Movements, from Four Movements for Piano Trio (1990) – c. 6’
Born in 1955 in Shanghai, China, Sheng began piano studies at the age of four with his mother. After the Cultural Revolution, he moved to New York in l982, and received his MA and DMA. Steeped in the tradition of Western classical music, Sheng’s compositions draw from the fount of late 20th-century contemporary ideas, and the folk music of China and the surrounding-famed Silk Road region. Sheng’s teachers have included Leonard Bernstein (composition and conducting), George Perle, Hugo Weisgall, Chou Wen-Chung, and Jack Beeson. Since 1995, Sheng has been a member of the composition faculty at the University of Michigan, where he now serves as Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music. In addition to composing, Sheng enjoys an active career as a conductor and concert pianist, and frequently serves as music advisor and artistic director to orchestras and festivals. Sheng previously served as the Artistic Advisor to Yo-Yo Ma’s "Silk Road Project."
The composer writes: “Four Movements for Piano Trio is based on musical materials from My Song, a work for solo piano which I composed in 1988. In both works I sought to develop my own concept of “tonality” by unifying my mother tongue (Oriental classical and folk music) and father tongue (Western classical music).
The second movement is based on a numorous and joyful folk song from Se-Tsuan. The last movement evokes a lonely nostalgia.”
Anthony Ritchie (NZ; b. 1960): Piano Trio (2001) – c. 15’
Maggie Boy, Nice Boy
The Deamon
Hyper-dyper
Anthony Ritchie was born and educated in Christchurch. He received his first commission in 1982, his final year at Canterbury University, resulting in the Concertino for Piano and Strings. Anthony went on to complete a PhD on the music of Bartok, and studied composition with Attila Bozay at the Liszt Academy. He has worked as a freelance composer since 1994 (after being the Composer-in-Residence with the Dunedin Sinfonia in 1993-94), and has written for a wide variety of performers including the NZSO, the Auckland Philharmonia, Michael Houstoun and Wilma Smith, and also choreographers such as Shona Dunlop and Dan Belton. As well as having composed a large variety of vocal and instrumental works he has also written music for theatre and dance. Many of his works have been performed overseas, and a growing number are being recorded and published commercially.
Piano Trio was commissioned by Chamber Music New Zealand, and was a finalist in the SOUNZ Contemporary Award for 2001. The work is in three movements, and in the words of the composer “attempts to suggest psychological states through sound images. It is not directly programmatic but, as the titles of the movements suggest, there are distinct ideas and moods imbedded in the music. The first movement uses imaginary characters from childhood – ‘Maggie Boy’ and ‘Nice Boy’ – as representations of two sides of personality: the bad and the good, or the dark and the light. ‘Maggie Boy’ has music that is barbarous, angular and dissonant, whereas ‘Nice Boy’ appears as a wispy, lyrical theme in the strings. ‘Maggie Boy’ returns in the final section of the movement, dispatching ‘Nice Boy’ to the recesses of the mind. The second movement, ‘The Deamon,’ is concerned with neither good nor bad but rather the nothingness of depression, that caged state of mind where emotions and feelings seem to spiral inwards. Melodic lines twist and turn, trying to find a way out of the psychological cage… The third movement, ‘Hyper-dyper’ is, as its title suggests, ebullient and almost frantically busy. An angular and jazzy opening theme is followed by a nervous, darting second theme; a playful but tense middle section follows, and in the Coda the ‘hyper’ quality dominates and the Trio comes to an end on a crunching discord.
Antonín Dvořák (Czech; 1841-1904): Piano Trio in B-flat major, Opus 21 (1875) – c. 32’
Allegro molto
Adagio molto e mesto
Allegretto scherzando
Allegro vivace
Dvořák’s B flat major trio is the first of his four surviving works in the genre - two earlier trios were deemed ‘unworthy’ by the composer, and subsequently destroyed. While this early work has not enjoyed the same public or critical acclaim as the more grandly-scaled Trio in f minor, or the beloved “Dumky”, it is nonetheless an elegant work from a young composer who was beginning to find his voice, and about to attract success on the international stage.
A pastoral mood is established by a shimmering figure in the piano, above which the violin enters with a graceful, arpeggiated melody. This is passed back and forth with the piano until the violin interrupts with a much more energized, dance-like version of the motive. As the movement develops, the contrast between lyricism and rhythmic drive becomes more apparent, with a delightful undercurrent of simple, enthusiastic energy.
The second movement is a dumka – a traditional Czech folk music form in which a melancholy theme is contrasted with more optimistic, exuberant writing. The piano states the elegiac melody in g minor, which is then repeated in the cello and violin – this leads to a more gently lilting second theme in A major. These themes alternate and develop, intensify and finally die away, all the while supported by ever-changing accompanying figures.
The mood quickly changes in the scherzo, to another popular East European dance – this time, a polka. Off-beat accents and frequent surges and releases of tempo result in a movement filled with light-hearted, gentle humour. The lyrical, flowing middle section provides yet more contrast, before we are thrown back into one last round of the dance.
The Finale begins almost hesitantly, again in the key of g minor, until the momentum is propelled forward with an exuberant march-like second theme in the home key of B flat major. Musical fragments are cleverly passed between the three instruments, until the slow dumka theme returns in the cello - perhaps the young composer was inspired here by Schubert’s great E flat major trio? The material is once again transformed before the final reprise and an exuberant coda.
Booking Information
Concert Ticket (5 May): $50 - includes glass of wine, interval snacks and coffee
Concert Ticket (5 May) + Dinner (6 May): $125 - includes dinner with NZTrio
Accommodation Package (5 & 6 May): $1,000 - includes 2 nights luxury accommodation, breakfasts, concert and dinner
CLICK HERE to book online or phone Pen-y-brn lodge: 03 434 7939