Wolfgang David, Violin & David Gompper, Piano

Tickets $20 for general audiences, $15 for students, children over age 12, IA Course participants & seniors 60+. Children age 12 and under: free. Tickets available by calling the Sondheim Center box office at 641-472-2787. www.sondheimcenter.com

PROGRAM NOTES

David GOMPPER

Ikon, for violin and piano (2008)

Ikon is a contemplation of a 19th-century Russian icon of St. Nicholas. Three elements are present in the iconic rendering: a square (book of the Gospels), a triangle (created from the crosses of his stole) and three circles (in which the figures of the saint, Christ and Mary appear nimbated). The main motive is derived from three layers of pitch matrices, revealed through a “window” created by the triangle. The 36x36 matrix is itself based on collections of trichords (3x3). Although popularized in western myth as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas was known for his generosity to children, justice for the oppressed, and fight to support the Doctrine of the Trinity at the Council of Nicaea. Hence, the all-pervasive number 3. The work, in three sections, not only follows in general ways the scansion of the Lords Prayer, in Russian, but musically renders three ideas: the linear (the word), the vertical (space), and the connection between the two in the way Eastern Orthodox Christian sign the cross (up, down, right, left). (DKG)

Johannes BRAHMS

Violin Sonata #1 in G major, Opus 78 “Rain” (1879)

This sonata, one of Brahms’s most favorite and well-known of the three works for violin and piano, is a penetratingly beautiful and tender composition. It is often referred to as the Rain Sonata because it takes the principal theme from his Regenlied, opus 59. The form is standard: three movements with the third constructed as a rondo. Thematically, the three repeated D’s rhythmically cast as a dotted rhythm are persistent throughout each movement, helping to create a highly unified and structured work. (DKG)

Johann Sebastian BACH

Chaconne, from the Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 (1717)

Chaconne, from the Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 (c. 1717) the second of three Partitas that Bach wrote for solo violin, is comprised of five dance-based movements. The final, entitled Chaconne, is not

only longer than any of the other movements but by all rights is considered a separate work. Bach took his cue from the French composers, who replaced the quick paced gigues with the Chaconne as concluding movements. The rondo form was traditionally applied to the Chaconne (prototype: major key, triple meter, with a repeating four-bar theme starting on beat two), and Bach follows suit. Formally, the fourteen-minute work is in three large sections, with the middle section in the major mode. The theme is worked through a continuous set of variations, using multiple techniques to alter and develop the principal motive. Often performed, Bach's Chaconne is considered the most important repertoire for the solo violin. (DKG)

Erich KORNGOLD

Much Ado About Nothing (orig. Op. 11, 1918–19)

Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing began life as incidental music—scored for chamber orchestra—to the Shakespeare play (under the German title “Viel Lärm um Nichts”). But as recorded here, the Suite finds the following caption at the head of the score: “Aus der Musik zu ‘Viel Lärm um Nichts’ Op. 11 Für Violine und Klavier leicht bearbeitet vom Komponisten,” that is “From the music to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ slightly revised [or slightly altered] by the composer.” And the caption itself is quite fitting, for it aptly reflects the sophisticated wit central to each of the four pieces.

Claude DEBUSSY

Sonate pour violon et piano (1917)

One of the last of Debussy’s compositions, the piece is the third of a projected series of six sonatas for various instruments. Tonal and modal concerns intermix in the opening “Allegro vivo,” for as is generally the case with Debussy’s oeuvre, common-practice harmonic concerns are not at issue. In fact, a measure of Debussy’s stylistic consistency relates to the means by which closure is achieved at the levels of phrase, section, movement, and the complete work, for when no overriding harmonic principles can be assumed, other compositional means must be established for effectively rendering goal orientation. In the opening movement of the sonata, the subtly complex rhythmic interplay of the violin and piano—and more specifically, both with and against each other and the prevailing meter—provides an unnerving propulsive force that abates in the final measures without having wholly resolved the many layers of conflict established in these 5 minutes of music. The partnership between the violin and piano is made out to be more tenuous in the middle-movement “Intermède” than in either the “Allegro vivo,” or the “Finale.” Utilizing one of his most common tempo indications, Debussy heads the movement with the instruction Fantasque et léger (“whimsical,” or “temperamental and light”) and this character comes across in all aspects of the movement, not the least of which being its “choppy” flow attributable to irregularity among the short phrases and sub-phrases, numerous tempo and dynamic alterations, various accentual patterns, and the constant if quirky exchanges of leading and following roles in the violin and piano. The movement might best be characterized as “forever getting underway,” as the features just mentioned leave one with the impression of many starts and few compelling conclusions: thus the appropriateness of the progressively slower tempo and steady decrescendo in dynamic intensity in advance of the morendo conclusion (“dying away”).

As is true in each of the earlier Cello Sonata (1915) and the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1916), the Violin Sonata is a three-movement work exhibiting cyclic qualities, for material of the opening recurs in subsequent movements. The initial violin gesture in the “Finale”—entering in m. 9 only after the piano has established a triple meter—revisits the principal motive from the first movement of the sonata, and sets up a more notable rhythmic conflict with the piano than is the case at the outset of the piece. It is important to note that on its return subtle changes in the motive extend to a level beyond the pronounced rhythmic hemiola, for a slight tonal deflection occurring toward the end of the motive proves to be the propulsive force initiating the extended first section in this peculiar ABA structure. The B section is stylistically cross-referential to a portion of the “Intermède,” and thus at one level the “Finale” is a microcosmic projection of events that occur over the complete sonata. And in a reversal of what transpires in the middle movement, the concluding A section of the “Finale” continues to intensify in terms of energy level via increases in tempo, dynamic, and other musical parameters, until the multiple-stopped chords in the violin and the six-octave span between the piano’s right- and left-hand gestures are left as the only means of dissipating the très animé romp

of the concluding moments of the composition.

(Greg Marion)

PROGRAM

David GOMPPER

Ikon (2008)

Johannes BRAHMS

Violin Sonata #1 in G major, Opus 78 “Rain” (1879)

I. Vivace ma non troppo

II. Adagio

III. Allegro molto moderato

INTERMISSION

J.S. BACH

Chaconne, from the Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 (c. 1717)

Erich KORNGOLD

Much Ado About Nothing (orig. Op. 11,1918– 19)

I. “Mädchen im Brautgemach”

II. “Holzapfel und Schlehwein”

III. “Gartenszene”

IV. “Mummenschanz”

Claude DEBUSSY

Sonate pour violon et piano (1917)

“Allegro vivo”

“Intermède”

“Finale”

http://davidgompper.com/0.welcome.html

http://wolfgangdavid.com/

Photo by Werner Elmker

November 9, 2008

This is a program of violin and piano music spanning some three centuries and including works that reside in both the sacred and secular realms. The famous Bach Chaccone, the earliest work on the program counters the most recent work, Ikon by David Gompper, completed just this past August. These two works represent a reflective and meditative spirit familiar to audiences and very much in the tradition of the classical repertoire.

The remaining compositions, by Brahms, Debussy and Korngold, all respond to the worlds of nature and literature. The purely abstract Debussy, in which colors and sonority take precedent can be heard as a striking contrast to more concrete identities: Korngold’s reliance on Shakespeare and Brahms’s reference to the loss of youth and the cleansing powers of water, through tears and of rain.

In just a few years, Wolfgang David has ensconced himself on the international stage, both as a recitalist, and as a guest soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras. He has been well received by the press — the Washington Post writes that he has “scaled the heights of music-making.”

He performs on a violin built in 1715 by Carlo Bergonzi, Cremona, on exclusive loan to him from the Austrian National Bank and has recorded a CD with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and two albums with pianist David Gompper.

Gompper has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, conductor, and composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan, Texas and Iowa. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London. He received his doctorate at the University of Michigan, taught at the University of Texas, Arlington, and since 1991 has been Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. He visited Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching, performing and conducting at the Moscow Conservatory.

Gompper's compositions are heard throughout the United States and Europe. In 1999 his Transitus (for wind ensemble) premiered at Carnegie Hall, and a number of his works have premiered in London's Wigmore Hall.

FREE RAFFLE

Here is a free raffle for all who attended this concert. You can win a free ticket to the next concert on the Chamber Music Society Fairfield series if you write and tell us how you liked it. The winner will receive a complimentary ticket to the December 11 concert or another concert of your choice. Send to operafred@lisco.com

Listen to Korngold: Gartenszene from

Much Ado About Nothing