Janice Carissa, piano

Program Notes

Bach – Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826

Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born March 21, 1685, Eisenach
Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig

Bach’s set of six partitas, originally written for harpsichord, was composed between 1726 and 1731 and published in the latter year as the first volume of his Clavier-Übung (“Keyboard Practice”). In a wonderful introductory note in the score, the composer described these works as having been “Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach.” Bach understood the partita to be a suite of dance movements – its name implies a set of “parts” – based on the traditional sequence of allemande-courante-sarabande-gigue. He adopted this tradition but made it his own by supplementing it with three of what he called “galanteries”: extra movements, somewhat lighter in character and intended to make the work more attractive to listeners. These consisted of an introductory movement (in a different form in each of the six partitas) and two extra dance movements.

The Partita No. 2 in C Minor comes from 1727, when Bach was also working on his St. Matthew Passion. It opens with an imposing Sinfonia in three parts: the opening Grave is built on steadily-dotted rhythms, the Andante moves easily above a walking bassline, and the concluding section is a spirited fugue. The partita’s C-minor tonality gives the Allemande, Courante, and Sarabande a wistful, dark cast, and Bach keeps the tempo restrained in these movements as well. The interpolated movement here is a Rondeaux in 3/8, athletic and poised, and then Bach springs a surprise: he drops the expected Gigue and in its place concludes with a brilliant Capriccio in binary form.

Beethoven – Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, op. 13, “Pathetique”

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, op. 13, “Pathetique”
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

It was – quite unusually – Beethoven himself who contributed the famous nickname for this sonata: when it was published in Vienna on December 18, 1799 (two days after his 29th birthday) he called it Grande sonate pathetique. Beethoven understood Pathetique to mean intense or emotional, and those qualities saturate this powerful music, sometimes in quite different ways. Beethoven’s choice of key for this music is crucial: C minor was the key he turned to for his darkest and most dramatic music, and it would later be the key of the Fifth Symphony, Coriolan Overture, and the Funeral March of the Eroica. By 1799, Beethoven had already composed a piano trio, piano sonata, string trio, and string quartet in C minor, and while those are all firm- ribbed works, none of them approaches the stark power of Pathetique Sonata, the earliest great manifestation of Beethoven’s “C-minor mood.”

Beyond its emotional power, this music is remarkable for the young composer’s experiments with form. The Pathetique opens with a slow introduction (his first in a piano sonata) marked Grave, an indication of solemn import as well as slow speed. The powerful chordal writing leads to a sudden plummet down a run of 128th -notes into the main body of the movement, marked Molto allegro e con brio. The materials here are simple–the opening theme is essentially a run up the C-minor scale and Beethoven sets the music at a quiet dynamic–but into these simple elements Beethoven fuses vast power, and soon this music is rushing forward with a furious energy. The second subject, fleet and singing, is decorated with mordents, and all might seem set for what would be simply an unusually powerful opening movement, but Beethoven continues to spring surprises. At just the point the development should begin, the music comes to a stop, and back–in all their dark strength–come the imposing chords of the Grave introduction. Only then does Beethoven allow the development to proceed; this is climaxed by some remarkable harmonic progressions, and Beethoven brings back a reminiscence of the Grave introduction before the twelve-measure coda hurls the movement to its close.

The Adagio cantabile is built on a gorgeous melody – it has become almost too popular – and Beethoven sets this movement in rondo form: this opening melody is twice interrupted by brief episodes, and at the end Beethoven combines the triplet accompaniment of the second of these with his main theme in a graceful fusion of material. The key of this movement – A-flat major – sounds particularly warm and comforting after the C-minor furies of the opening movement, and it is to C minor that Beethoven returns for his rondo-finale, marked simply Allegro. That key, however, does not sound nearly so dark or violent in this finale. There is almost a delicacy to this rondo theme, which may be explained by the fact that Beethoven had originally intended to use it in a violin sonata. One of the unusual features of this finale is its brevity. In fact, the movements grow steadily shorter as this sonata proceeds: the Pathetique moves from a powerful nine-minute opening movement to a six-minute slow movement and concludes with a final rondo lasting barely four minutes. As a result, it feels heavily balanced to the front, and Beethoven was aware of this: when he wrote the Moonlight Sonata two years later, he set out to move the dramatic weight from the first movement to the finale.

The Pathetique is one of Beethoven’s most popular works, and this was true even in his own time. The pianist Ignaz Moscheles has left a wonderful account of the sonata’s effect on young musicians of the era (Moscheles was 10 when the incident he describes here took place): “It was about this time that I learnt from some school-fellows that a young composer had appeared at Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible – such as no one could either play or understand; crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this composer’s name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called genius, I found there Beethoven’s Sonata pathetique. This was in the year 1804. My pocket-money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric production until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, minding his injunctions, I seized upon the pianoforte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and a delight such as no other composer afforded me.”

Rzewski – Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues

Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
Frederic Rzewski
Born April 13, 1938, Westfield, Massachusetts
Died June 26, 2021, Montiano, Italy

Frederic Rzewski studied with Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, and Milton Babbitt, then went to Italy, where he studied with Luigi Dallapiccola. Rzewski taught in Belgium, the Netherlands, and London and in the United States at Yale, Cal Arts, and the University of California at San Diego. A first-class pianist, Rzewski was animated throughout his career by a commitment to social justice, a passion that has shaped much of his music. His The People United Will Never Be Defeated, a massive set of variations for piano on a Chilean protest song, has become a modern classic and has been frequently performed and recorded.

Rzewski composed his Four North American Ballads in 1978-79, and the last of these, the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, has become a classic of its own. It was inspired by an account of a protest at cotton mill in Winnsboro, South Carolina during the 1930’s when the mill’s workers – reacting to the brutal conditions in that mill – began singing a blues song to protest their treatment. To dramatize that situation, Rzewski fashioned an extremely original piece of music, one that captures that conflict in sound without ever seeming to “tell” a story. One of the most impressive parts of this piece is his depiction of the mill itself, for the implacable rhythmic pound of the machines runs through the piece. Rzewski marks the beginning expressionless, machinelike, and from the first instant we are aware of the steady pound of heavy machinery, depicted by rapid tone-clusters, which are to be played by the pianist’s forearm, flat of hand, and sometimes individual fingers. Just when we’ve been flattened by that mechanistic pounding comes a complete change. Rzewski breaks off and gives us the blues tune that was sung to battle that cacophony–he marks that tune tranquillo, espressivo, and it sings its haunting melody along a 12/8 meter. But the respite is short. Back comes the pound of the machines, slowly at first but soon with all its old menace, and it is on this rush of energy that the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues comes to a surprising conclusion.

It goes without saying that this piece demands a nearly superhuman effort from the pianist, who must solve incredible rhythmic complexities and have the stamina to project the unending malice of the machines.

Prokofiev – Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, op. 84

Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, op. 84
Sergei Prokofiev
Born April 23, 1891, Sontsovka
Died March 5, 1953, Moscow

In 1939 Serge Prokofiev planned and began to sketch three piano sonatas–his Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth. He completed the first of these the following year, but the other two took a great deal more time, and before he could finish them the Soviet Union had been plunged into war with Nazi Germany. He completed the Seventh in 1942, but the Eighth had to wait until the summer of 1944, five years after its initial conception. Prokofiev spent that summer at a composers’ retreat at Ivanovo, 150 miles northeast of Moscow, working on two pieces: this sonata and his Fifth Symphony. The heroic symphony was to some extent inspired by the war (“I conceived it as a symphony of the greatness of the human spirit,” said Prokofiev), but the relation between the sonata and the war is elusive. Some Soviet commentators claimed to hear the tread of soldiers and other martial sounds in this sonata, but that must remain supposition. What we can say is that if Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata is in no sense programmatic, it is nevertheless a very serious and long-spanned work, and it is hard to feel that the distant war did not have an influence on this often somber music.

The Eighth Sonata is conceived on a large scale: a huge first movement (longer than the other two combined) is followed by a brief slow movement before concluding with a dynamic finale. Throughout, Prokofiev’s performance markings provide unusual insight into the music’s character. The sonata opens not with the expected fast movement but with a moderately-paced movement significantly marked Andante dolce. There is a wistful quality in the steady pace of the opening section, which proceeds through a series of variations on its two principal themes. The middle rushes ahead, but this is not violent music; instead, it is characterized by a nervous quality (Prokofiev marks it inquieto). The opening material returns at some length, and–after a brief reminiscence of the turbulent middle section–this massive movement concludes quietly.

Some relief is necessary at this point, and it comes in the second movement, also marked Andante, but now Prokofiev specifies Andante sognando (“dreamily”). Some commentators have called this movement, set in 3/4, a minuet, but it resolutely refuses to dance and remains subdued throughout; Prokofiev repeatedly reminds the pianist to play dolce and tranquillo. After the moderate pace of the first two movements, the Vivace rips to life on its 12/8 meter, and the nice spring of the opening theme animates much of the finale. There are quiet interludes along the way, including a return of material from the first movement, before the music drives to a powerful close that Prokofiev marks both sonoramente and con brio.

Emil Gilels gave the first performance of the Eighth Sonata in Moscow on December 29, 1944, two weeks before the premiere of the Fifth Symphony. The relation of the symphony–with its heroic, public character–to the war was quite clear (some even referred to it as a “Victory Symphony”). The Eighth Sonata may well register a reaction to the devastating war, but here Prokofiev speaks in much more somber, more personal terms.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger