program - SVIZ

Kats-Chernin’s music is often derived from simple thematic material or musical
formulas and ideas; the initial, intuitively selected impulse is followed by a
treatment of the musical material, which from its starting point develops on
entirely new paths. The composer places particular emphasis on the research
of sound and musical texture. The six Re-Inventions for baroque bassoon and
strings (originally for recorder and strings) came about in 2005 on the basis
of an impulse sparked by Bach’s two-part inventions. Bach’s compositions
became the starting point for musical works that have a different sound and
a different structure from the originals. Re-Invention No. 1 is derived from
Bach’s Invention No. 8 in F Major, and transforms the original composition
into a genuine waltz. Re-Invention No. 2 (from Invention No. 4 in D Minor)
is fragile, slow and hypnotic; in it scales rise and fall above two alternating
chords. Re-Invention No. 3 is based on Invention No. 13 in A Minor, which is
characterised by a relentless motoric energy; the basis for the main material
is here provided by repeating patterns in the violas and cellos.
Giuseppe Tartini, born in Piran, was one of the most famous violinists and
musical theoreticians of his time. Pupils from all over Europe flocked to his
violin school in Padua. As a composer he was above all a master of the sonata,
which he frequently transformed into a stage for virtuosity. Particularly in his
chamber sonatas (sonate da camera) he distanced himself from the established
forms derived from the suite. His works surprised his contemporaries
with their expressive power and affectation, as well as with their daring harmonies.
For Tartini the point of music was not “simple emotional pleasure, but
rather the excitement, intensification and calming of affections with notes”.
The famous violin sonata with the programmatic title ‘The Devil’s Trill’ was
already well known before 1750, but it was only published posthumously in
1798 in Paris. It got its name from dreams in which Tartini apparently heard
the devil playing the violin; when he woke up he tried to notate the ‘devil’s’
melody, or trill. Although the devil’s trill appears only in the last movement,
the entire sonata is spiced with ‘devilishly’ difficult trills. With its characteristic
dotted rhythms and the pastoral atmosphere of a siciliano, the opening Larghetto
is the calm before the storm of the energetic and pugnacious Allegro. A
short, slow Grave introduces the concluding and technically virtuosic Allegro,
in which the sonata proves to be worthy of its name: the leading melody is
accompanied by numerous grace notes and trills on other strings. The short
slow interludes are only a breathing space and preparation for the final virtuosity
of the solo cadenza, where the cult of virtuosity already heralds the cult
of the virtuoso, with which Paganini was to be crowned a few decades later.
PROGRAM / PROGRAM
Katarina Šter
Prevod / Translation: Neville Hall
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