St Petersburg, Concert Hall

April's Artist of the Month Mario Brunello (cello)
Recital


Johann Sebastian Bach. Suite for solo cello № 3
Max Reger. Suite for solo cello № 2, op. 131c
Judith Weir. Unlocked
Johann Sebastian Bach. Suite for solo cello № 6
Giovanni Sollima. Alone

One major form of music is the suite, which owes its development to dance music. The very word “suite” indicates a “series” or sequence. Initially, this word was used to refer to works that consisted of two contrasting dances: a slow pavane and a brisk, lively galliard. This is one of the oldest forms of instrumental music, suites being written as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries for the lute, harpsichord and various ensembles.
Gradually, by the middle of the 17th century the genre lost its initial purpose and began to be seen by contemporaries as a “concert” piece. In the music of the Austrian composer Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), who combined different contrasting dances in one piece of music, a consistent type of dance suite emerged that included four traditional dances. The suite began with a measured slow dance – the Allemande (4/4), then a brisk or fast and measured dance – the Courante (3/4), which was followed by a very slow processional dance – the Sarabande (3/4). Later Johann Jakob Froberger introduced a fourth, impetuous dance – the Jig. Differing in character and tempo, these dances were combined by a shared tonality. The countless suites of the late 17th to the early 18th centuries, in addition to the four main dances, included the then highly popular minuet, gavotte and passepied which were generally placed between the sarabande and the jig.
In the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) the suite occupies a special position. The composer wrote six English and six French suites, six partitas for harpsichord, four orchestral suites called overtures and partitas for solo violin.
The suites for solo cello BWV 1007-1012, written in the 1720s, are of particular importance. It is in these compositions that the process of freeing the genre from its links with its everyday origins was completed. In the dance parts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s suites (not just for cello) the composer retains the forms of movement and the characteristics of a rhythmical sketch typical of a given dance.
Each cello cycle is preceded by a prelude and includes six dances: four traditional and two new. Also, in keeping with the composer’s idea, the first piece must be repeated after the second, written in the same tonality but in a different key: this is true of the minuets in suitesnbsp;1 and 2, the bourrées in suites 3 and 4 and the gavottes in the last two. The combination of different style traditions resulted in some surprisingly austere cyclical works. Each subsequent part of the suite is a natural continuation of the previous one. It is in the first part (the Prelude) that contains the vivid thematic impulse which is developed in the other parts of the cycle. It is interesting that Johann Sebastian Bach recommended his sixth and final suite be played on the viola pomposa (a kind of “tenor viola”), a five-stringed instrument which he invented. Each dance part of the suite is like an amazingly contrasting character miniature.

 

In the 19th century, due to the development of a more complex form of instrumental music – namely the symphony – the suite ceased to be the popular genre it had been, though it did continue to develop. The suite in the 19th century did not have such direct links with dance music; it often included separate musical scenes and dance sections could be interspersed with non-dance pieces. But the basic principle – the contrast between the neighbouring parts – was retained.
Turning to genres and forms of early music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was linked with a new trend in art that came to be known as “neoclassicism” (from the Greek “neo”, or “new”). Composers strived to return to clarity of harmonies, simplicity of melodies and forms and to beauty and accessibility of musical language. The features of late romanticism and neoclassicism were combined in the music of German composer and conductor Max Reger (1873-1916).
The composer aimed to grasp the legacy of the 18th century, in particular the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in his own works he turned to musical images of a past era. In his art he developed an interest in the early dance suite. He composed a series of suites for solo instruments such as the viola and the cello. However, as a man at the turn of the 20th century, Max Reger continued the tradition of Bach’s era using rich, contemporary musical language. Energetic and rich in thematic transformations, polyphony and free modulations, the composer’s music exerted a great influence on German art.

Judith Weir (1954) is a British composer who has won broad popularity with the public and music critics all over the world. In her music she has turned to the history of the Middle Ages and to examples of traditional Scottish music, and she is best known for her unique works for opera. Judith Weir is the composer and librettist of a series of theatrical, orchestral and chamber works that have been performed all over the world throughout the last thirty years.
Music for solo cello, such as UNLOCKED, occupies a special position in the composer’s work. This work was written for the cellist Ulrich Heinen, who first performed it in May 1999 in Birmingham (United Kingdom). The vivid and unusual musical language of the piece reveals the timbre beauty and technical abilities of this “singing” instrument. The use of certain timbre characteristics of the instrument at first glance may shock. But this happens because the listener may not fully be aware of their origins.
The cycle UNLOCKED appeared while the composer was studying American folk songs from the magnificent collection of the US Library of Congress in Washington, assembled by John and Alan Lomax in 1930. Some of the songs were recorded by prisoners, generally blacks in Southern prisons.

 

Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962) is an Italian composer and cellist. He was born in a family of musicians and studied the cello under Giovanni Perriera and composition with his father, Eliodoro Sollima. Giovanni Sollima’s works are in the minimalist music style. Nonetheless, the composer actively experiments with different genres: jazz, rock, electronic music, the folklore of Sicily and countries of the Mediterranean basin. He is enthusiastic about performing on instruments from both East and West, electric and electronic instruments and instruments he himself has invented. Giovanni Sollima is one of the greatest Italian cellists and, despite his classical training, he has reinvented this instrument, offering audiences all kinds of experiments with sound. His pieces for cello often have programme subheadings, such as the work Alone.

Anna Kolenkova

 
Age category 6+

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