Atalanta (2020)
JOHN PSATHAS | b. 1966
I've always been inspired by the performers I write for. Atalanta was shaped by knowing that percussionist Fabian Ziegler and pianist Akvilė Šileikaitė—soon to be married—would be performing it. There's a sense of youthful love and playful pursuit in the music.
The name Atalanta, from Greek mythology, means “equal in weight”—a fitting metaphor for marriage. Atalanta was a swift, independent huntress who only agreed to marry a man who could beat her in a footrace. Many failed until Hippomenes, with help from Aphrodite and three golden apples, finally won her hand.
The backing track features the late Richard Nunns performing Taonga Puoro—if you listen closely, you can hear his voice resonating through a Putorino.
I have a confession. I usually plan compositions years ahead, but after leaving my university job and juggling freelance work, I completely forgot Atalanta was due. On New Year's Day 2020, while relaxing at the beach with my wife Carla, I got a message from Fabian asking about the piece. I panicked. Within an hour, Carla was packing to leave and I was at the piano. The opening riff came to me instantly.
I wrote the piece in just eight frantic, caffeine-fueled days—my wildest writing stretch ever. I created so many alternate files in Logic Pro that I ran out of names and resorted to Star Wars, Star Trek, then gibberish. Somehow, Atalanta became my most successful piece in two decades—second only to One Study One Summary. I'm grateful for the result... but I never want to write like that again.
Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano
MADELINE DRING | 1923-1977
I. Allegro con brio
Multi-faceted artist Madeleine Dring (1923-1977) was an English actress, mime, cartoonist, violinist, pianist, singer, and composer. She earned a violin scholarship to the junior department of the Royal College of Music (RCM), and she continued her studies at RCM as a senior composition student of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob. In addition to composing concert pieces, Dring sustained her love of the theater by acting, singing, playing piano, and composing incidental music.
Dring composed several of her chamber works, including the Trio for flute, oboe, and piano (1968) for her husband Roger Lord, a professional oboist who played with the London Symphony Orchestra. Flutist Peter Lloyd, Lord, and André Previn premiered the Trio in the United States. Dring admired Francis Poulenc, and her works often exhibit similarities in melodic structure and rhythmic wit.
Poulenc’s influence is clearly heard in the Trio. The first movement consists of mainly homorhythmic lines between the flute and oboe, though cheeky mixed meter passages elude a strong rhythmic pulse.
Lilacs
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF | 1873-1943
On March 28, 1897, Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony was premiered at one of the Russian Symphony Concerts. Yet, what should have been a resounding success for the composer became instead a crushing failure. Two other pieces were premiered on the same program and the performance of Rachmaninoff’s symphony suffered accordingly. The orchestra’s conductor, Alexander Glazunov, is said to have made poor use of rehearsal time, and, according to some accounts of the concert, was also drunk. Critics panned the work itself, overlooking the many faults that arose from Glazunov’s leadership. Afterwards, Rachmaninoff fell into a deep bout of depression that lasted for the next three years, and during which time he composed very little music. With the help of psychologist Nikolai Dahl, Rachmaninoff eventually regained his confidence and set to work again, composing one of his most enduring compositions, the Second Piano Concerto.
Shortly after the success of the Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff composed in 1902 the majority of the songs that would become his 12 Romances, op. 21 (the only exception being the opening song “Fate,” composed in 1900 as the composer was beginning to emerge from his period of hopelessness). The fifth song, “Lilacs,” is perhaps the best known of the set and is the only one which the composer himself transcribed for piano. The text, by Ekaterina Beketova, describes a pristine daybreak as the narrator walks along the dewy meadow to the lilacs where among them she will find her one true happiness. In its unassuming manner, Rachmaninoff’s setting eloquently captures the essence of Beketova’s poem. A simple broken chord motif that could portray to the listener’s mind either the first rays of sunlight stretching out from the horizon or the slow, wistful gait of the narrator pervades much of the accompaniment. At first, this is the only support given the voice, but after a short time, a new melody enters that echoes the dream-like vocal melody. The song reaches its climax at the start of the second stanza. The piano breaks its pattern thus far, employing momentarily a richer accompaniment, while the vocal melody is suddenly tinged with melancholy. However, at the final words of the poem, the music has retreated to its previous ethereal state and a brief coda closes the song quietly and with the image of the morning sun shining on the lilacs. Joseph DuBose
A Dream
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
In “A Dream,” op. 38, no. 5, Rachmaninoff responds ingeniously to poet Fyodor Sologub’s images of disembodied dreaming. His atmospheric piano part uses various bell-like sounds—a favorite device of his—to set the scene for the soaring vocal lines.
Placed last in Opus 38, “A-oo” sets a 1909 poem by Konstantin Dmitriyevich Bal’mont in which a lover remembers fondly the laughter of his beloved and a dream of them running together to a mountain slope. Rachmaninoff’s pianistic shimmer aptly conveys the poet’s eager, anticipation of finding her, his agitated chords and short vocal phrases portray the lover’s confusion at not finding her, and the music builds to an incredibly impassioned peak as the lover calls “A-oo” hoping she’ll answer back. That hope clearly dies in the piano postlude, which trails off in open-ended quiet.
TONOI XII
NICKITAS DEMOS | b. 1962
Commissioned by and Dedicated to Curtis Gay
TONOI XII is part of an ongoing series of works for solo performers. During the writing of these solo works, I have established certain characteristics common to all the pieces in the series. The pieces are episodic and abstract in nature, having no specific idea or “program” attached to them. Although presented in one contiguous movement, the works are divided into clear sections. I write these compositions in a linear fashion – beginning with the first measure and writing straight through to the last with no insertions of sections; composing a later section before an earlier section; etc. This type of composition reminds me of a type of artwork called “continuous line contour drawing” which is achieved by the artist drawing without picking up the pencil off the paper. The game that I set-up up for myself is to figure out a way to return to the opening material no matter how far I have wandered. In all individual TONOI works, I am also interested in writing as idiomatically as possible for the respective solo instrument with each piece dedicated to and written for a specific performer. In the case of this work, I have written and dedicated TONOI XII to saxophonist Curtis Gay who also commissioned the piece.
Etude Tableau in D Major, Op. 39, No. 9
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
The étude, or study piece, was already a common element in piano instruction by the beginning of the 19th century. Its early champions were Clementi and Czerny, today practically household names for any student of the piano. Yet, it was not until Frédéric Chopin that the étude was elevated from its original mere didactic purpose to also being an outlet for the composer’s creativity. In a sense, it became as much a “study piece” for the composer as the pianist, with a virtually blank canvas for him to exercise, grapple with, and expand his knowledge of his craft and its means of execution in performance. Chopin’s example was followed by many, and within the passing of a century, the étude seemed to expand once again to take on the additional task of programmatic music with the composition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s two sets of Etudes-Tableaux, opp. 33 and 39, composed in 1911 and 1916-17, respectively. Unlike other composers of programmatic music, Rachmaninoff did not reveal the images he had in mind when composing these sets, believing that the composer should not divulge too much of his method of creativity, but instead preferred for the listener to paint his own picture from what he hears.
Rachmaninoff composed the latter set of études, opus 39, concurrent with an intense study of the music of Alexander Scriabin as part of his preparation for a recital in the deceased composer’s honor. Though his performance of Scriabin’s music was critically panned, it sparked a new direction of creativity, making opus 39 markedly different from its predecessor. Apart from this shift towards an angular melodic style and harmonic dissonance, opus 39 is also more technically challenging than opus 33. Indeed, it possible to look on its nine constituent pieces as more études than tableaux. Each piece is extremely virtuosic and requires of the pianist a near Herculean strength to perform effectively. Incidentally, opus 39 was also the last piece Rachmaninoff composed before leaving his native Russia. In 1929, four pieces from opus 39 (nos. 2, 6, 7, and 9) and one from opus 33 (no. 7) were, with the composer’s blessing, orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi. Respighi reordered the five études but provided each with descriptive titles he devised from what Rachmaninoff told him of the images he had in mind during their composition.
En Blanc et Noir
CLAUDE DEBUSSY | 1862-1918
Movement I
En blanc et noir is a suite in three movements for two pianos by Claude Debussy, written in June 1915. He composed the work on the Normandy coast, suffering from cancer and concerned about the prospects of France in the Great War. The work is full of personal literary and musical allusions. Each movement comes with a literary motto. In the second movement, Debussy quoted Luther's hymn "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" as a symbol of militant Lutheran Germany. The three movements were dedicated respectively to three people: Serge Koussevitzky, Jacques Charlot (an associate of Debussy's publisher who was killed in the war), and Igor Stravinsky.
Credits:
Created with an image by Natda - "black grand piano at spot light in dark room"