150th Celebrations: Concert Series 2009

1st August, 2009 4pm

Piano Duets and Solos - Geoff Chew & Catherine Cook

Schubert Impromptu in C minor op. 90 no 1 (Catherine)
Chopin 3 Mazurkas op. 63 (Geoff)
Chopin Fantasy in F minor (Geoff)

Waltz [Grande Valse brillante] in E flat major, op. 18 (Cath)
Waltz in C sharp minor, op. 64 no. 2 (Cath)
Waltz ["Minute Waltz"] in D flat major, op. 64 no. 1 (Geoff)
Szymanowski 3 Mazurkas (Catherine)
Schubert Fantasy in F minor for 4 hands (Catherine & Geoff)

Impromptu in C minor D899 (op. 90 no. 1)                            Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
(Catherine)
Schubert’s eight Impromptus for piano (this being the first of the first set of 4) were composed in 1827 and are some of the earliest examples of the genre, which is supposed to suggest an improvised style, though the title of this set was given them by the publisher rather than the composer. This piece is the most unconventional in form of all eight, with two contrasted principal themes – an initial march, with some menace in its mood, and a lovely lyrical, nostalgic second subject.

3 Mazurkas op. 63                                                                     Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
(Geoff)
Throughout his career Chopin wrote mazurkas, a form based on a Polish national dance, and though usually small-scale, they are some of his most characteristic and important works. The three making up opus 63 are late and very original works, written in 1847 and dedicated to Countess Laura Czosnowska. The first, in B major, has a bold opening theme, but twice shows signs of “losing the thread”, as if in a reverie, before being abruptly “brought back” to that theme each time. The second, in F minor, is a lament of the utmost refinement, in what contemporaries disparagingly called Chopin’s decadent, “sickroom” style. The third, in C# minor, has a remarkable conclusion, with the theme “in canon” – shadowing itself as if in a double, barely audible echo – before a brief surprise ending.

Fantasy in F minor, op. 49                                                        Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
(Geoff)
The F minor Fantasy op. 49, written and published in 1841, one of Chopin’s greatest works, might equally be said to be in A flat, the key in which it ends. It is something like an improvisation on the idea of a march: the initial sombre slow march, something like a funeral march, dissolves into a creepy conclusion before gradually speeding into an agitated theme that alternates with a second, faster march – quiet at its first appearance and triumphant the second time. Both the initial theme and the second march have melodies borrowed from patriotic Polish songs of the period. Towards the end the music stops to allow a brief, quiet, wonderfully lyrical, slow interlude, which precedes a fast, tumultuous ending.

Interval (20 minutes)

Waltz [Grande Valse brillante] in E flat major, op. 18           Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Waltz in C sharp minor, op. 64 no. 2
(Cath)
Waltz ["Minute Waltz"] in D flat major, op. 64 no. 1
(Geoff)
The op. 18 Waltz in E flat is one of Chopin’s best-known works, a virtuosic version of the archetypal Viennese society dance, written in 1831-32: like the waltzes of Johann Strauss, this piece has an introduction and a principal strain followed by contrasting strains, concluding with a dazzling coda. The same basic pattern is followed in the two equally well-known waltzes from op. 64, dating from a good deal later (1847), the melancholy C# minor waltz and the heady “minute” waltz in D flat. I recall an informal competition at university to see who could play the latter the fastest, but no attempt will be made this afternoon to break the record set on that occasion.

3 Mazurkas from op. 50                                                   Karol Szymanowski  (1882-1937)
(Catherine)
Szymanowski’s mazurkas represent a homage to Chopin, and are cast in the same form as the Chopin pieces, and are equally lyrical though obviously enough in a different harmonic idiom. The op. 50 set, composed in 1924-6, are dedicated to the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, and like Chopin’s mazurkas represent the adoption of “new ways of treating folk materials which did not merely rehash the empty provincial gestures of the past”, in the words of Jim Samson: they illustrate the composer’s renewal and revitalization of his music in the 1920s.

Fantasy in F minor for 4 hands, D940                                     Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
(Catherine & Geoff)
The Fantasy in F minor, one of the pinnacles of the keyboard repertory, dates from the last year of Schubert’s life (April 1828). It is cast in a continuous four-section structure. A meditative opening theme characterizes the first section, which is followed by a slow section in a completely unrelated key, alternating the nobility of mock-Baroque jerky rhythms with the inwardness of Romantic lyricism; a fast but ominous scherzo follows, in the same unrelated key; then the initial theme returns, framing a fugue whose decisiveness is that of a procession towards a final catastrophe. At the very end, the opening theme returns poignantly and completes the cyclical structure, but even the closing bars provide no comfort in this extraordinary conception.