complete recital program - George Mason University School of Music

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Dumka, Op. 50
A form of Polish or Ukrainian ballad, a dumka is characterized by a
predominantly sad or plaintive tone contrasted with a central celebratory
section. Given the biographical events leading up to its composition, it is
difficult not to hear the composer’s personal narrative in this music. The
opening chords establish an immediate mood of intense melancholy and
solitude. A pleading repeated pattern leads into the central “con anima”
section and its dance-like folkloric exuberance. But the darkness of the
opening is not dispelled, and a desolate resignation closes in, concluding
the emotional journey more sadly than it began. Tchaikovsky wrote, again
to von Meck:
“You want to know my methods of composing… the
circumstances under which a new work comes into
the world vary considerably in each case.
“(1) Works I compose on my own initiative - that is to say,
from an invincible inward impulse.
“(2) Works that are inspired by external circumstances: the
wish of a friend, or publisher, and commissioned work.
“Works belonging to the first category do not require the least
effort of will. It is only necessary to obey our inward promptings, and if
our material life does not crush our artistic life under its weight of depressing
circumstances, the work progresses with inconceivable rapidity.
Everything else is forgotten, the soul throbs with an incomprehensible
and indescribable excitement, so that, almost before we can follow this
swift flight of inspiration, time passes literally unreckoned and unobserved.”
The Dumka is an epic on a small scale, its emotional charge no
less potent than that of the Pathetique Symphony to be composed six
years later.
Johann Strauss (1825-1899)
Chacun a son gout from Die Fledermaus
Johann Strauss II was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly
dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, including The
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