Wolfgang David, Violin
David Gompper, Piano
Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Sondheim Center
200 N Main, Fairfield, Iowa
In the space of a few short 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,” while The Strad praises his playing for being as “emotionally wide-ranging as one could hope for,” and Thomas Frost, Senior Executive Producer at SONY Classical, foresees for him “a significant international concert and recording career.”
Admitted to the University for Music in Vienna at the age of eight, David studied there for many years with Rainer Kuechl, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He subsequently continued his studies at the Musikhochschule in Cologne with Igor Ozim, and at the Guildhall School of Music in London with Yfrah Neaman.
The winner of many competitions and prizes, David has performed in major halls such as Konzerthaus and Musikverein Hall in Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York, Cerritos Center in Los Angeles, the Wigmore Hall in London, and Philharmonie in Cologne. He has concertized in over 30 countries and tours regularly throughout Europe, the United States, South Africa, and South Korea. In 2006 David recorded an album of compositions by the King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London) under the baton of Emmanuel Siffert.
Highlights of his career have included concerts at the Great Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York in the presence of Secretary General Kofi Annan, and a concert in Bangkok, given for the Queen of Thailand.
Wolfgang David performs on a violin built in 1715 by Carlo Bergonzi, Cremona, on exclusive loan to him from the Austrian National Bank.
David Gompper works professionally as a pianist, a conductor, a composer, and a pedagogue. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and at the University of Michigan, and has for the past 17 years been Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa.
Gompper’s compositions are performed widely, with several receiving their premiere in London’s Wigmore Hall, others at the Moscow Conservatory and at the ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics in Karlsruhe Germany. He recently completed several new compositions: Ikon for violin and piano; Ikon II for violin and chamber orchestra; L'Icone St. Nicolas for the Manhattan Sinfonietta; and The Animals, a 28’ song cycle on words by Marvin Bell (premiered earlier this month by Stephen Swanson). His Violin Concerto, premiered in Quito, Ecuador last April, will be one of four works recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London) in December 2009 for a release on Naxos in early 2011. Gompper is also recorded on the Capstone, the Centaur, and the Albany labels. For additional information, including a complete discography, consult Gompper’s website: http://www.davidgompper.com/
As a duo David and Gompper have issued three CDs to date.
PROGRAM
Gompper: Music in the Glen
J.S. Bach: Solo Sonata in C Major
BMV 1005
INTERMISSION
Brahms: Sonata in d Minor
Pablo de Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy
Listen to
Brahms: Sonata in G Major, 2nd movement
PROGRAM NOTES
Music in the Glen draws upon portions of an Irish fiddle reel of the same name and the opening gesture of Pierre Boulez's Sur Incises, thus reflecting Gompper's interest in combining abstract tonal relationships (here derived from the Boulez) and music that is familiar (the reel). A slow introduction gives over to the two principal sections of the piece; the work is rounded off by a coda.
The audible division of the composition into four sections suggests an episodic design. And yet such a reading misses the stunning subtext predicated upon what at times are rather subtle interconnective threads that shoot through each section. Perhaps a better metaphor exists: the raw material of the piece--based on the morphing together of linear fragments from the folk tune and the Boulez-inspired verticality—represent dual light sources emitted at the head of the work that simultaneously pass through prisms variously located in the introduction such that the incident beams are refracted in the succeeding principal sections; the process is reversed in the coda where all events are refocused into an extremely intense singly directed ray of light. Greg Marion
The six solo-violin pieces are one of these comprehensive collections that Bach intended for performance and edification. They are divided into two sets of three pieces: three “sonatas” and three “partias”. The three sonatas exemplify the sonata da camera (chamber-sonata) genre, each having a slow movement, a fugue, another slow movement, and a fast finale. All three partitas exemplify the sonata da chiesa (church-sonata) genre, each containing a series of dance movements. But no two partitas or sonatas are quite the same. Bach completed his sonatas and partitas for solo violin no later than 1720, the date on his manuscript of all six pieces.
Many preludes, reflecting their origin as introductory music, imitate an improvisation. This is especially true when a prelude simply animates a series of harmonies by repeating one pattern over and over. The C-major Prelude that opens Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is the epitome of such “pattern-preludes.” The arpeggiation pattern recurs twice for each harmony until close to the very end. The Adagio of the C-major solo-violin sonata is yet another pattern prelude. Using a very simple pattern — dotted-rhythm neighbor notes — it activates one or two notes of each harmony in what would otherwise have been a block-chord texture.
The Fuga is quite different, with its considerably longer subject, overall length, and design. The beginning of the chorale melody “An Wasserflüssen Babylon” is close to Bach’s fugue subject, a melody which is often associated with the chorale “Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” which is identical with the melody to “An Wasserflüssen Babylon” for the first seven notes. Yet like the A-minor Fuga, it works with the subject and its inversion (whose first appearance Bach marks with the words al riverso) and a chromatic-scale countersubject that also appears inverted only when the inversion of the subject enters. The C-major Fuga concludes by bringing back its first 66 measures in da capo fashion — a fugal procedure absent from the other violin fugues. It is quite possible that the C-major Fuga is related to a now-lost organ fugue that Bach performed when he applied for a job in Hamburg in December of 1720, the year in which he wrote the autograph score of the solo-violin works. – Joel Lester
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) was one of the greatest contrapuntalists and most prolific composers of the 18th century. He brought the Baroque era to the point of greatest maturity and assimilated the utmost variety of rhythms and textures from all over Europe. Bach was able to manipulate motive on both small and large scales, and his compositions exhibit a highly evolved sense of harmonic function and control.
Johannes Brahms' Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, op. 108 is the last in a triptych of violin sonatas composed between 1878 and 1887. Unlike Brahms' two previous violin sonatas it is in four movements (the others are in three movements). The sonata is dedicated to Brahms' friend and colleague Hans von Bülow, and was premiered in Budapest in 1888 with Jenő Hubay on violin and the composer at the piano.
Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) first became known as a pianist, having performed his first solo concert at the age of 15. He only became internationally known as a composer some 30 years after beginning his musical training, mostly due to his open opposition to the new Germanic school of composition, and the aesthetic principles of composers such as Franz Liszt. After the first complete performance of the German Requiem in 1869, Brahms' music became rapturously received and he finally enjoyed international renown and financial security. Brahms died of cancer at the age of 63 at his home in Vienna.
The Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 (1883) is a violin fantasy on themes from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. The piece contains an adaptation of the Aragonaise, Habanera, an interlude, Seguidilla, and the Gypsy Dance.
Pablo de Sarasate, a violin prodigy, was born in Pamplona, Spain and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He gave concert tours from 1859, playing throughout Europe and both North and South America. A number of pieces were written for him, including Édouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, Camille Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 and Introduction and rondo capriccioso and Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.
For his own use Sarasate wrote a number of works for violin and piano or violin and orchestra, including, as might be expected, compositions based on Spanish themes and rhythms. Following the common practice of his time, he also wrote concert fantasies based on themes from popular operas and compositions based on Spanish themes and rhythms. Among these one of the best known is his Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs), together with his Spanish Dances of which the best known remains his 'Carmen Fantasy'.
Photo by
Werner Elmker
MUSIC
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2010
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Tickets $15 general. $12 students, seniors 65 yrs,
IA Course participants, children (under 12 yrs free).
Call the Sondheim Center box office at 641-472-2787.
This concert is sponsored in part by
Design and copyright 2009 Freddy Niagara Fonseca
Fairfield Creates
