WPAS Experience the Best - Washington Performing Arts Society

Ahmet Adnan Saygun was one of the most important figures (if not the most important) in 20th-century Turkish music. Born into a cultivated and supportive family, the boy studied piano and other instruments, and at a very early age he became a high school music teacher (both performing and teaching would remain important to Saygun throughout his life). In 1928 he moved to Paris, which was then the musical capital of the world, to continue his education. There he studied composition with Vincent d’Indy, as well as ethnomusicology and organ. He returned to Turkey, fired with a passion for Western music and determined to bring musical standards and education in Turkey up to contemporary standards. As a composer, Saygun employed classical western forms–he wrote five operas, two ballets, five symphonies, and a number of concertos, as well as piano, chamber, and vocal music–and to these Western forms he brought a passion for native Turkish subjects and musical materials. Saygun early became an enthusiast for Turkish folk music, and this led to his friendship with Béla Bartók; when Bartok visited Turkey in 1936, he and Saygun went on a joint expedition to explore and collect Turkish folk music. Across his long career, Saygun was a composer, a teacher, a conductor, a scholar, and a writer. Much honored in his own country, Saygun also found international success. His music was performed by Europe’s leading orchestras, and in this country Leopold Stokowski led Saygun’s oratorio "Yunus Emre" at the United Nations, and the Juilliard Quartet gave the premiere of his Second String Quartet. Yo-Yo Ma opens this concert with a performance of Saygun’s Allegretto, which is the fourth movement (of five) of his Partita, Opus 31, composed in 1954. This movement is a perfect example for Saygun’s passion for Western art music, in this case Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello, and for Turkish folk music. The Allegretto opens with a Turkish folk melody–restrained, expressive, and haunting–and from this Saygun builds a ternary-form movement. The opening emphasizes the lyric side of this material, but the middle section is much more challenging technically, sending the cello up into its highest register before the opening material returns to draw the Allegretto to its subdued conclusion. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)

George Crumb completed his Sonata for Solo Violoncello in Berlin in October 1955, when he was 26. The sonata is the first of his works to find a place in the repertory: if Crumb cataloged his music by opus number (which he does not), this would be his Opus 1. Those who know Crumb as the composer of visionary scores written for unusual forces and generating evocative sonorities may be surprised by this music, which is neo-classical in its forms and procedures. The spirit of Bach (particularly the Bach of the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello) hovers over this music, which shows a debt to that earlier master in its form, clarity of expression, and classical poise. Crumb’s Sonata is in three concise movements, and Bach would have recognized them all: a Fantasia (which corresponds to the Praeludium of the Bach suites), a theme-and-variation movement, and a concluding Toccata. Longest of the movements, the Fantasia is based on the cello’s opening subject, which is announced between sequences of pizzicato chords. Metrically quite free, this movement rises to a climactic statement marked appassionato e sonore before falling away to close on two quiet pizzicato chords. The central movement offers a theme, three variations, and a coda which is itself a varied restatement of the theme. Something of the music’s character is evident from Crumb’s markings: he describes the central melody as a Tema pastorale and asks that its first statement be Grazioso e delicato. This dancing, dotted theme in binary form then undergoes three sharply contrasted variations. The quick first variation gives way to a second played entirely pizzicato and an expressive third before Crumb offers a fleeting reminiscence of the theme to close. A toccata was originally a fast work designed to show off a keyboard player’s touch (that title means “touched” in Italian). Crumb preserves some of that sense in this finale, a virtuoso movement that opens with an unbarred Largo introduction, then rushes ahead at the Allegro vivace, which skips easily across all four strings as its leaps between measures of 6/4, 9/4, 3/4, and 12/4. A central episode swings along comfortably before Crumb returns to his opening material and the Sonata plunges precipitously to its close on octave C’s. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)

Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello date from about 1720, when the composer was serving as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, about 30 miles north of Leipzig. Bach did not play the cello, and it may well be that he wrote these suites for one of the cellists in the small professional orchestra that Prince Leopold maintained at court and which Bach conducted. Bach may not have played the cello, but his knowledge of that instrument appears to have been profound: the writing for cello in these suites is idiomatic and assured, and he makes full use of the instrument’s lower register. These suites are also extremely difficult and demand a topflight performer–like the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, written at this same period, they represent the summit of the music written for these unaccompanied instruments. Bach’s suites for solo cello remained for years the property of a handful of connoisseurs–they were not published until 1828, over a century after they were written. Bach understood the term “suite” to mean a collection of dance movements in the basic sequence of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, which is the same sequence of movements of his instrumental partitas. But Bach added an introductory prelude to all six cello suites, and into each suite he interpolated one extra dance movement just before the final gigue to make a total of six movements. All movements after the opening prelude are in binary form. Bach’s cello suites have presented performers with a host of problems because none of Bach’s original manuscripts survives. The only surviving copies were made by Bach’s second wife and one of his students, and–lacking even such basic performances markings as bowings and dynamics–these texts present performers with innumerable problems of interpretation. In a postscript to his edition of these suites, Janos Starker playfully notes that one of the pleasures of going to heaven will be that he will finally be able to discuss with Bach himself exactly how the composer wants this music played. In the meantime, individual performers must make their own artistic decisions, and these suites can sound quite different in the hands of different cellists. Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 The D-minor tonality gives the Second Suite a dark and somber spirit–only in the second minuet does the music move briefly into the sunlight of D Major. The stern opening Praeludium is built on a steady pulse of sixteenth-notes, while the Allemande dances gravely, its progress enlivened by dotted rhythms and turns. The Courante moves along swiftly, while the noble Sarabande makes its dignified way at a slower pace. After this, the two minuets offer some relief, with the sunny second dance serving as the trio section. A Gigue (derived from the Irish jig) usually swings along easily on a 12/8 meter, but here Bach sets it in a much shorter metric unit (3/8), and this Gigue dances sternly, with strong accents cutting into the rhythmic flow. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)

Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello date from about 1720, when the composer was serving as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, about 30 miles north of Leipzig. Bach did not play the cello, and it may well be that he wrote these suites for one of the cellists in the small professional orchestra that Prince Leopold maintained at court and which Bach conducted. Bach may not have played the cello, but his knowledge of that instrument appears to have been profound: the writing for cello in these suites is idiomatic and assured, and he makes full use of the instrument’s lower register. These suites are also extremely difficult and demand a topflight performer–like the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, written at this same period, they represent the summit of the music written for these unaccompanied instruments. Bach’s suites for solo cello remained for years the property of a handful of connoisseurs–they were not published until 1828, over a century after they were written. Bach understood the term “suite” to mean a collection of dance movements in the basic sequence of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, which is the same sequence of movements of his instrumental partitas. But Bach added an introductory prelude to all six cello suites, and into each suite he interpolated one extra dance movement just before the final gigue to make a total of six movements. All movements after the opening prelude are in binary form. Bach’s cello suites have presented performers with a host of problems because none of Bach’s original manuscripts survives. The only surviving copies were made by Bach’s second wife and one of his students, and–lacking even such basic performances markings as bowings and dynamics–these texts present performers with innumerable problems of interpretation. In a postscript to his edition of these suites, Janos Starker playfully notes that one of the pleasures of going to heaven will be that he will finally be able to discuss with Bach himself exactly how the composer wants this music played. In the meantime, individual performers must make their own artistic decisions, and these suites can sound quite different in the hands of different cellists. Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 The noble Praeludium of the First Suite rides along a steady pulse of sixteenth-notes, and it is the responsibility of the performer to breathe musical life–manipulation of tempo, contrasts of dynamics within phrases, the gradual building to a great climax–into these otherwise bare sequences of steady notes. Bach makes full use of the resonant sound of the cello’s open G-string that underlies so much of this movement, and–in a nice touch–the movement’s concluding line is effectively an inversion of its opening line. The Allemande moves along a similar sequence of steady sixteenths, though here the tempo feels slower and more dignified; in this and the other binary movements, the performer has the option to take or ignore the repeat of the second section. The Courante (French for “running”) sails along somewhat harder-edged rhythms, while the Sarabande dances with a grave dignity; Bach makes effective contrast here between the resonance of great chords and the steady flow of the melodic line. The interpolated movement in the First Suite is a pair of minuets. Their sprightly rhythms remind us that the minuet had its origins in a quick dance rather than the stately tempo we have come to associate with the court dance; the second minuet is the only section in the suite not in G major–Bach moves to D minor here, though even this continually edges back toward the home tonality. The concluding Gigue is an athletic and quite brief dance in 6/8 that flows smoothly to its brisk close. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)

Mark O’Connor wrote "Appalachia Waltz" in 1993 while living in a cabin in the desert near Santa Fe. He was at that time at work on a different piece, but the inspiration for the new piece proved so strong that he set the other piece aside and composed "Appalachia Waltz" in 15 minutes. It has become O’Connor’s best-known work and has been heard in many different arrangements. O’Connor has attempted to describe the success of "Appalachia Waltz" by noting that it combines several musical traditions: folk-fiddling from the Appalachians, Norwegian folk-fiddling (particularly the hardanger fiddle with its sympathetic strings and drone), and Western classical music. In fact, "Appalachia Waltz" has seemed to many listeners to offer a bridge–a number of points of common experience–between all these different traditions. Music so instantly attractive needs no introduction. This is quiet music, reflective in mood and often tinged with melancholy, yet never tormented or extreme. It draws a listener easily into its own world, and that world is endlessly beautiful. Among the many arrangements of this music is O’Connor’s own for violin, cello, and doublebass, and in this form–performed by the composer, Yo-Yo Ma, and Edgar Meyer–it became the title piece of their best-selling 1995 album "Appalachia Waltz." The music is heard at this concert in an arrangement for unaccompanied cello, an arrangement that reminds us at many levels of its connection to Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)

Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello date from about 1720, when the composer was serving as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, about 30 miles north of Leipzig. Bach did not play the cello, and it may well be that he wrote these suites for one of the cellists in the small professional orchestra that Prince Leopold maintained at court and which Bach conducted. Bach may not have played the cello, but his knowledge of that instrument appears to have been profound: the writing for cello in these suites is idiomatic and assured, and he makes full use of the instrument’s lower register. These suites are also extremely difficult and demand a topflight performer–like the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, written at this same period, they represent the summit of the music written for these unaccompanied instruments. Bach’s suites for solo cello remained for years the property of a handful of connoisseurs–they were not published until 1828, over a century after they were written. Bach understood the term “suite” to mean a collection of dance movements in the basic sequence of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, which is the same sequence of movements of his instrumental partitas. But Bach added an introductory prelude to all six cello suites, and into each suite he interpolated one extra dance movement just before the final gigue to make a total of six movements. All movements after the opening prelude are in binary form. Bach’s cello suites have presented performers with a host of problems because none of Bach’s original manuscripts survives. The only surviving copies were made by Bach’s second wife and one of his students, and–lacking even such basic performances markings as bowings and dynamics–these texts present performers with innumerable problems of interpretation. In a postscript to his edition of these suites, Janos Starker playfully notes that one of the pleasures of going to heaven will be that he will finally be able to discuss with Bach himself exactly how the composer wants this music played. In the meantime, individual performers must make their own artistic decisions, and these suites can sound quite different in the hands of different cellists. Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 The Third Suite is notable for its broad, heroic character, which comes in part from Bach’s choice of key: C major allows him to make ample use of the cello’s C-string, and the resonance of this lowest string echoes throughout the suite. The preludes of all the suites have an intentionally “improvisatory” quality: while the music is carefully written out, Bach wishes to create the effect that the performer is making it up on the spot. The Praeludium of the Third Suite is built on a virtually non-stop sequence of sixteenth-notes, though at the end a series of declamatory chords draws the music to its climax. The Allemande is an old dance of German origin, and that name survives today in square dancing terminology (“Allemando left with the old left hand”); in this movement Bach enlivens the basic pulse with turns, doublestops, and thirty-second notes. The Courante races past, while the Sarabande is dignified and extremely slow. The interpolated movement here is a pair of Bourrées, and listeners will discover that they may already know the first of them, for this graceful dance has been arranged for many other instruments; Bach presents an extended variation of it in the second Bourrée. The concluding Gigue dances quickly on its 3/8 meter; Back offers the cellist some brisk passagework as well as extended doublestopping in this good-spirited dance. (Program note by Eric Bromberger)