Lecture Recital (6/9/14)

Pianist Daniel Beliavsky always puts on a good show. When I’ve heard him in concert before, I’ve noted that he speaks quite well about the music he plays, and on Monday evening he took that a step further. Cyclic Form in Music; A lecture recital on cyclic forms in Classical and Romantic music was really enjoyable.

Prelude in C Major, No. 1, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, BWV 846 (1722) –
J.S. Bach
Italian Concerto, BWV 971, Movement 1 (1735) – Bach
Sonata in E Major, K. 380 – Domenico Scarlatti
Widmung (“Dedication”) (1840) – Robert Schumann (transcribed for piano by
Franz Liszt (1848))
Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2 (1892) – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Fantasy-Impromptu Op. 66 (1834) – Frederic Chopin
Impromptu Op. 142, No. 2 (1827) – Franz Schubert

Without going into a lot of music theory, Dr. Beliavsky presented the basics of cyclic form—an ‘A’ section, followed by a ‘B’ section, with a return to ‘A’ (but with modifications, known as ‘A Prime’ (‘A'’)). He also likened this approach to the riddle of the Sphinx—What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening?—and the myth of Oedipus, certainly demonstrating his points.

Throughout, for the most part, Dr. Beliavsky played examples of what we should be aware of before actually playing the pieces. While this was helpful, I found myself wondering whether he was playing the pieces the way he would normally in recital, or whether he was (consciously or subconsciously) emphasizing what we were supposed to be focusing on. The pieces were all quite familiar to me, and probably to you, as well—Google/Yahoo! any of them and you’ll see what I mean.

The Bach prelude was very fluid, if a bit foreshadowed, as mentioned above. The movement from the concerto introduced a ‘ritornello,’ which is a section that keeps getting returned to, and highlighted the difference between what would be a solo section against what would be an orchestral section. Through his examples played before the Scarlatti, he introduced the idea of rhythmic repetition into the cyclic aspect of composition; I found myself thinking that the cyclic function also led to different (contrasting) harmonic/tonal areas, as well.

One of the ‘A Prime’ techniques, as explained to us, was a sort of inflated restatement when the ‘A’ material comes back. This was very much in evidence in the Schumann/Liszt. While Liszt was already embellishing on the basic song structure as written by Schumann, when the ‘A’ section returned, it was with fantastically embellished material—yet we still knew that it was ‘A’.

The Rachmaninoff was my favorite piece on the program. As Dr. Beliavsky stated, one subtitle for it is “The Bells of Moscow,” and his pre-performance examples laid out exactly why that was the case. Note though, that this idea of “program” music is just that—an idea. For some, the music is just the music, while others like the idea of a story (or program) to attach to it. The ‘A’ section was quite clear, while the ‘B’ section was full of running, perpetual motion-style notes, and ‘A'’ was wonderfully inflated. An anecdote regarding this piece (and there were anecdotes about most of them) reportedly goes that because of the royalty payment system in Russia at the time, Rachmaninoff made very little money off of it and he eventually grew to hate it. It was almost always requested as an encore, and when he finally played it, it was the very last piece he would play at that concert.

The Chopin is a well-known piece, played very well here, and it reemphasized the cyclic nature of the performance pieces. The Schubert, which completed the program, was interesting in that it was written just one year before his death (at 31 years of age) and it was written at a time when the Classical period was just bridging into the Romantic. Indeed, the ‘A’ section was firmly Classical while the ‘B’ was definitely Romantic, and ‘A'’ was Classical but inflated—sort of melding both.

As I said earlier, Dr. Beliavsky played very well throughout, entertained with his commentary as well as his music, and even got a few laughs. At one point while he was discussing the Chopin, a cell phone went off—without missing a beat, he said, “Oh, maybe it’s Chopin calling.” You’re a better man than I, Dr. B.

ConcertMeister