20TH CENTURY EXPRESSIONS

BRUNO MONTEIRO - Violino

JOÃO PAULO SANTOS - Piano

I-Tunes:

This disc brings together a group of works written for violin and piano, by three important but often-neglected composers. Written from 1904-1920, these three works demonstrate some of the sources for the truly international compositional styles developed by their respective composers: Sonata for violin and Piano, op. 9, in D minor, by Karol Syzmanowski (1882-1937); Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, by Ernest Bloch (1880-1959); and a selection of works form the incidental music for Much Ado about Nothing, Op. 11 written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957).

While each piece highlights a different stage within the career of its composer, these seldom-recorded works reveal the enormous talent of these writers: The precocious talent of youth in the case of Syzmanowski (even in the title, the sonata is indicated as clearly tonal – much closer to the sound world of César Franck than to the composer of King Roger, for example). The troubled talent of the displaced post-war master in the case of Bloch’s sonata, one of his last completed pieces before his own aesthetic affirmation of neo-classicism. In the case of Korngold’s suite, we observe the consummate craftsmanship and melodic invention so characteristic of one who would later be among those who defined the highest standards for film scoring during the so-called “golden age” of Hollywood.

In short, this is an important recording for anyone wishing to hear the evocative mixture of styles that characterized so much music around the turn of the last century (Strauss, Franck, Chausson, Debussy, among many others) being beautifully worked through and internalized by a gifted generation of composers.

Details:

The works gathered in this CD represent three composers whose production, though today yet somewhat neglected when compared with that of other commonly authors acknowledged as the great masters of the first half of the XX century, is beyond the shadow of a doubt representative of the time when it was created, as well as of the aesthetical, political and socio-economical convulsions which define the historical period in question.

The biographical and creative paths of the composers Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) show evidence of some common traits which must be mentioned. The first one refers to the almost total forgetfulness which the corresponding works found themselves throughout decades, a trend that has been reverting in recent years. The second one, of a biographical nature, places Korngold and Bloch in the group of composers of Judaic origin who took refuge in the USA, as the Nazi ideology expanded and gained ground in the Europe of that period.

Aesthetically, the three composers share a post-romantic matrix of a Germanic affiliation, marked by the influence of Richard Strauss (and Richard Wagner). If Korngold kept himself faithful mainly to that matrix, Szymanowski and Bloch cultivated eclectic styles, incorporating elements from the French Impressionism by Debussy and Ravel, as well as elements from the Greek, Arabic and Polish mythology, on the first case, and Hebrew, on the second; in fact, it is important to mention that both Bloch and Szymanowski dedicated considerable parts of their musical production to works of ethnical inspiration or nationalist fondness. 

Another trait common to Szymanowski and Bloch refers to the attitude both authors have before music. In effect, both of them believed in a philosophical and spiritual dimension of their art, which in the first case remits to the connection the author kept with the “Young Poland” group throughout the first decade of the XX century. Indeed, the ideas exposed by Stanislaw Prybyzewski, spokesman for this literary movement, promoted an art that goes beyond life and investigates the essence of the universe, thus becoming the utmost form of religion, where the artist takes on the role of priest; such ideas influenced Szymanowski during his first creative stage, turning some works into an inner refuge, free form the constraints and the tensions of the real world and used to the above mentioned mythologies. As for Bloch, his belief on the eminently spiritual character of music and humanity leads us to a constant search for the “collective me” in the ethnical works of the Judaic cycle and the “individual me”, both as creator and as pedagogue; keeping independent from any school or composing system, Bloch stimulated, on his many students, a development coherent with the personality and the personal attributes each one had, stating as unique concern being sincere and true. Korngold, on his hand, overcame that same idea when he reflected on the different musical genres he was led to practice as a composer; at a crucial stage of his creative life, in 1946, he confided with an interviewer that, although form and writing may vary form work to work, the composer should not make any concession as far as what he considers to be his musical ideology is concerned.

Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)

1. Biographical Note

Karol Szymanowski was born on October 3rd, 1882, in Tymoszowka (Ukraine), within a family of the Polish nobility, which acknowledged great importance to the education by arts and literature. His first musical training was under his father (who played cello and piano) and his uncle Gustav Neuhaus. The discovery of R. Wagner’s Lohengrin, in 1895, was especially motivating for the young composer, who then wrote two sonatas for piano and a sonata for violin, all unfortunately lost. From 1901 onwards, he settled in Warsaw, where he studied harmony with Marek Zawirski and counterpoint and composition with Zygmunt Noskowski. Around 1905, together with three other composers, he formed the group “Young Musical Poland”, inspired by the homologous literary movement; although this connection was not a long lasting one, thus culminating in a concert performed in 1906, it was through it and his patron, Prince Wladyslaw Lubomirski, that the youth works of Szymanowski were published and diffused both in Poland and in Germany. From this period date plays for piano (studies, preludes, variations and sonatas), a Sonata for violin and piano, a Concert Opening and several songs on texts of young Polish authors.

In the subsequent years, Szymanowski intensely studied the works of post-romantic German composers; he traveled through the Mediterranean region, whose culture impressed and inspired him; one must highlight his stay in Italy and Sicily, in April 1911. During that year and the following one, he spent most of his time in Vienna, where he presented works such as Sonata Nr.2 for piano, Symphony Nr.2 and the Hagith opera.

New trips through Sicily and the North of Africa increased his interest on the Mediterranean culture; such an influence, together with that of the French impressionist music, with which he contacted during a stay in Paris, in 1914, lead to a considerable parting as far as the aesthetic matrix of Germanic origin, which had characterized his previous works, is concerned. A refugee in Tymoszowka during the first years of the First World War, Szymanowski did some intense composing, having produced several song cycles, Metopy and Maski for piano, Mity for violin and piano and also the Concert Nr.1 for violin and Symphony Nr.3.

As a consequence of the Russian Revolution of 1917, his Tymoszowka property was confiscated; a year later, Poland regained its independence. For Szymanowski, the subsequent period was marked by a reflexion on his role as a Polish composer, due to an inner questioning facing the harsh reality which the war revealed and due to some material problems. The song cycles Slopiewnie, of 1921, came to determine a new direction to its creative activity, thus inaugurating a phase where the nationalist orientation and the influence of the Stravinsky music assumed a preponderant role. In such a context, it is important to mention works such as the twenty Mazurkas op. 50 for piano and the Harnasie ballet, inspired by the music of the inhabitants of the Zakopane region.

Meanwhile, his popularity grew to an international level, which lead to his nomination for director of the Warsaw Conservatory, in 1927; but the following years were years of struggle against opponents who did not accept his political ideals. Suffering from depression and tuberculosis, he was forced to take on a more moderate lifestyle, having been nominated dean of the Warsaw Music Institute, in 1930, a position he occupied for two years. He still composed the Concerting Symphony for piano and orchestra and the Concert Nr.2 for violin, but from 1934 onwards, while fighting against serious financial problems and facing the fast decay of his health condition, he was unable to produce any other substantial work. He died in Lausanne, on March 29th 1937.

2. Sonata for violin and piano in d minor op. 9

The Sonata for violin and piano in d minor op. 9 dates from 1904, having been composed during the author’s first stay in Warsaw. By then, as we have seen, Szymanowski was getting lessons from Zygmunt Noskowski, a master who revealed him the principles of composition for this musical genre, according to the Germanic romantic tradition and enabled him to discover importantmodels such as Johannes Brahms or Cesar Franck.

The work, debuted on April 19th 1909, by the violinist Paul Kochanski and the pianist Arthur Rubinstein (both good friends and fans of the composer), comprises three movements, Allegro moderato – Patetico, Andantino and tranquilo dolce (quasi cadenza) and Finale: Allegro molto quasi presto. If on the first one the influences of Robert Schumann and Cesar Franck are obvious, the second one invokes a universe closer to that of Frederic Chopin. The third one is usually considered the most conventional of them.

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)

1. Biographical Note

Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva (Switzerland), on July 24th 1880. There, his first musical studies were focused on the violin (with the teachers Albert Gross and Louis Etienne-Reyer), on the counterpoint and on composing (with the teacher Emile Jacques-Dalcroze). In Brussels, where he left for, following the suggestion of Martin Marsick, he continued his instrumental studies with Eugene Ysaïe and Franz Schörg, as well as his training as a composer, with François Rasse. In Frankfurt and Munich he improved his skills with Ivan Knorr and Ludwig Thuille, correspondingly.

For a year (between 1903 and 1904) he lived in Paris and got in contact with Debussy’s Impressionism, whose influence he absorbed before he returned to Geneva, where he got married to Margarethe Augusta Schneider. From this period, one must highlight works, such as Symphonie orientale, Vivre-Aimer, Symphony in c sharp minor and also the two symphonic poems Hiver – Printemps.

During the following period of his life (until 1916), he lead a commercial activity on the business his father had established, not allowing that to prevent him from composing, directing the orchestra and teaching musical aesthetic at the Geneva Conservatory. His lyrical drama Macbeth dates from this period, having debuted at the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, in Paris, in 1910. His Jewish cycle, also from this period, comprises works, such as Psalms 137 and 114 for soprano and orchestra (1912-14), Psalm 22 for baritone and orchestra (1914), the Israel symphony (1912-16) and the famous Schelomo rhapsody for cello and orchestra (1915-16).

In 1916 Bloch left for, the first time, for the USA. Initially he was hired as maestro for a tour of the dance company Maud Allan; but he ended up filling in for several other positions of a pedagogical nature at the Mannes School of Music (New York), at the experimental school of Joanne Bird Shaw (Peterboro, New Hampshire), at the Cleveland Institute of Music (where he was the first director, between 1920 and 1925) and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (which he directed between 1925 and 1930). Beside these activities, he also directed an amateur choir within the Manhattan Trade School, in New York, as well as several performances of his orchestral works in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. He was awarded several prizes and distinctions, having signed a contract with the company G. Schirmer for the publishing of his works of Jewish inspiration. During this first American period, he composed two sonatas and Baal Shem for violin and piano, From Jewish life for cello and piano, Poems of the sea for piano, Concerto Grosso Nr. 1 for string orchestra and piano and also the orchestral works America: an epic rhapsody, Four episodes and Helvetia.

Ernest Boch returned to Europe, where he spent most of the decade of 1930 composing and making his work public. He composed Avodath hakodesh, Voice in the wilderness, Evocations and also a Concert for violin and orchestra.

Due to the growing anti-Semitism in the years before the Second World War and given his intention to preserve his American nationality, which he had received in 1924, Bloch returned to the USA, having taught in the California University (Berkeley) between 1940 and 1952. During the last years of his life, he kept composing and being awarded several prizes; from this period date works such as Concerto Grosso Nr. 2, the String Quartets Nr. 2 to 5, and also the Suite symphonique, Concerto Symphonique and Brief Symphony. Bloch succumbed in 1959, a year after he was subjected to a surgery, due to an oncological disease.

2. Sonata n.1 for violin and piano

This work, dated from 1920, is perhaps one of the roughest and most violent works of the author, expressing feelings of revolt, anger and rage stimulated by the horrors of the First World War; as the author himself said, this is a “tormented work, written shortly after the terrible war and the terrible peace”. In this sense, it presents a parallel with the Sonata N.1 for violin and piano of Béla Bártok, which was composed on the following year. With no central tonal defined, and contrary to most of the works by the same author, this one presents three movements (Agitato, Molto quieto, Finale: Moderato - Lento assai). The first one, brutal and aggressive, takes the formal setting of the sonata to its limits, based upon a theme of an almost obsessive character, which systematically interrupts an attempt of improvised evasion; the second one, Molto misterioso, invokes a sense of “Tibetan” calm, as the author said so himself; the third one comprises a marching theme which reaches a culminating point before the reminiscence of the initial Agitato is heard, after which a slow epilogue finishing in E Major suggests a reconciliation and a feeling of inner peace.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)

1. Biographical Note

Born on May 29th 1897, in Brno (Moravia, currently part of the Czech Republic), Erich Wolfgang Korngold was raised in Vienna, where his father, the important musical critic Julius Korngold, worked in association with the famous Eduard Hanslick. His early talent showed evidence at an early age; when he was nine years old, Korngold presented his Gold cantata to Gustav Mahler, who declared the child was a genius.

His musical education was, since the beginning, trusted to eminent masters, such as Robert Fuchs and Alexander von Zemlinsky. The Der Schneeman ballet, composed when he was just eleven years old, the Trio with piano and the Sonata in E for piano deeply impressed distinguished personalities, among which one could find names such as Richard Strauss, Giacomo Puccini, Jean Sibelius, Engelbert Humperdinck, Karl Goldmark, Bruno Walter, Arthur Nikisch and Arthur Schnabel.

During his adolescence, Korngold produced works in several genres, namely Schauspiel Overtüre, his Violanta operas, several songs and chamber music works and also the scene music for the play Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare. In 1920, he reached international fame with the double debut of his opera Die tote Stadt, based on the novel Brugesla-Morte, by the Belgian symbolist writer Heorges Rodenbach, in Hamburg and Köln. Three years later, after having completed a Concert for the left hand which the pianist Paul Wittgenstein had asked him to, he began the composition of a fourth opera, Das Wunder der Heliane, also having arranged and directed operettas by Johann Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and Leo Fall a little over Europe and having taught composition at the Vienna Staatsakademie.

In 1934, Korngold traveled to Hollywood by invitation of Max Reinhardt, with whom he had previously worked in versions of Die Fledermaus and La belle Hélène; this time, Reinhardt was asking for his collaboration for the famous film A midsummer night’s dream and Korngold immediately imposed himself for his capability to adjust to the talking cinema, a new means of expression, namely as far as synchronization of sound and system is concerned.

Shortly after that, Korngold was simultaneously requested by the Warner and Paramount companies to write the original music of a new film, Give us the night, but he did not accept it at once, because he intended to return to Vienna, where the composition of a new opera, Die Kathrin, had been interrupted by Reinhardt’s proposal (for political reasons, this opera never debuted in Vienna in 1937, as it had been predicted; its first public presentation took place in Stockholm two years later, thus achieving a smaller success than his previous operas).

Once again in Hollywood, after August 1935, Korngold worked in films, such as Give us this night, Captain Blood, The prince and the pauper, Anthony Adverse, first orchestral work, the Der Ring des Polykrates and The adventures of Robin Wood, The sea hawk, Kings row and The constant nymph, among others, inaugurating a gender which may be appointed as symphonic sound track, which the author conceived as “singingless opera” and which may be compared, cinematographically speaking, to the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt or Richard Strauss. One must not forget to mention that, even so, Korngold always kept the concern of not neglecting the concept of “pure music”, which compelled him, on the one hand, to create sound tracks which could be presented in a concert, regardless of the visual image, and, on the other, to frequently extract symphonic scores from those very same sound tracks.

After the end of the Second World War, Korngold ceased his cinematographic activity, although he kept himself in the USA. In the last decade of his life, he composed works such as Concert for violin, Concert for cello, the Symphonic serenade for the string orchestra and the Symphony in F; his style, strongly anchored in post-romantic tradition and the models of Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini, was then anachronistic, reason for which his works fell into a forgetfulness from which only recently did they began to emerge. Korngold died in Hollywood, on November 29th 1957.

2. Viel lärm und Nichts (“Much Ado About Nothing”) op. 11

The scene music for the play Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare, op. 11 dates, in its original version, from 1918-1919; the production of the play at the Burgtheater in Vienna had then about eighty representations and the Korngold score comprised fourteen numbers. (I. Ouvertüre, II. “Don Juan”, III. Mummenschanz, IV. Festmusik, V. Lied des Balthasar, VI. Gartenmusik, VII. Intermezzo, VIII. Holzapfel und Schlehwein (Marsch der Wache) – Verhaftung, IX. Mädchen im Brautgemach, X. Kirschenszene, XI. Holzapfel und Schlehwein (Marsch der Wache), XII. Trauermusik, XIII. Intermezzo and XIV. Schlußtanz). 

From that score, the composer extracted a first suite for the chamber orchestra which comprised numbers I, IX, VIII, VII and III of the original version, whose debut took place in Vienna, on January 24th 1920, with the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, under the direction of the composer. After that, the Four pieces for violin and piano, which are presented in this CD, followed, corresponding to numbers IX, VIII, VII and III, publicly presented also in Vienna, on May 21st 1920, by the violinist Rudolf Kolisch and by Korngold himself. There is also another reduced version, Three pieces for piano (number IX, VIII and III).

Ana Telles

(Translation by Manuela Styliano Costa)tracks which could be presented in a concert, regardless of the visual image, and, on the other, to frequently extract symphonic scores from those very same sound tracks.

After the end of the Second World War, Korngold ceased his cinematographic activity, although he kept himself in the USA. In the last decade of his life, he composed works such as Concert for violin, Concert for cello, the Symphonic serenade for the string orchestra and the Symphony in F; his style, strongly anchored in post-romantic tradition and the models of Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini, was then anachronistic, reason for which his works fell into a forgetfulness from which only recently did they began to emerge. Korngold died in Hollywood, on November 29th 1957.

2. Viel lärm und Nichts (“Much Ado About Nothing”) op. 11

The scene music for the play Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare, op. 11 dates, in its original version, from 1918-1919; the production of the play at the Burgtheater in Vienna had then about eighty representations and the Korngold score comprised fourteen numbers. (I. Ouvertüre, II. “Don Juan”, III. Mummenschanz, IV. Festmusik, V. Lied des Balthasar, VI. Gartenmusik, VII. Intermezzo, VIII. Holzapfel und Schlehwein (Marsch der Wache) – Verhaftung, IX. Mädchen im Brautgemach, X. Kirschenszene, XI. Holzapfel und Schlehwein (Marsch der Wache), XII. Trauermusik, XIII. Intermezzo and XIV. Schlußtanz). 

From that score, the composer extracted a first suite for the chamber orchestra which comprised numbers I, IX, VIII, VII and III of the original version, whose debut took place in Vienna, on January 24th 1920, with the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, under the direction of the composer. After that, the Four pieces for violin and piano, which are presented in this CD, followed, corresponding to numbers IX, VIII, VII and III, publicly presented also in Vienna, on May 21st 1920, by the violinist Rudolf Kolisch and by Korngold himself. There is also another reduced version, Three pieces for piano (number IX, VIII and III).

Ana Telles

(Translation by Manuela Styliano Costa)

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)

Sonata for Violin and Piano in d minor Op.9

1 Allegro moderato-Patetico 08’38’’

2 Andantino tranquillo e dolce (quasi candeza) 06’06’’

3 Finale: Allegro molto, quasi presto 05’17’’

ERNEST BLOCH (1880-1959)

Sonata n.1 for Violin and Piano

4 Agitato 12’11’’

5 Molto quieto 09’26’’

6 Finale: Moderato-Lento assai 08’47’’

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957)

Much Ado About Nothing Op.11

7 Bridal Morning (Maiden in the Bridal Chamber) 03’39’’

8 Dogberry and Verges (March of the Sentinel) 02’12’’

9 The Garden Scene (Intermezzo) 05’40’’

10 Masquerade (Hornpipe) 02’17’’

Total: 64’44’’

Ref.: NUM 1173