Franck. Beethoven. Handel. Foster

César Franck wrote his Prelude, Fugue and Variations in 1873 for organ, though the success of the work forced the composer to produce versions for piano, piano duet and physharmonica. The secret of the success lies in the simplicity of the lyrical prelude and its plastique theme, something rare for Franck, which carries soft flute registers in the organ version. Following the brief and rationally structured fugue, we hear a variation on the prelude. The composer wisely limited himself to minimal changes, retaining his stunning melody almost entirely untouched.

Sonata No 12 opens up the path to experimentation in Beethoven’s music. From start to finish it goes against tradition. The first section is in the form of variations, and Beethoven might well have described this dazzling music as being “from heart to heart.” The second section is a light scherzo, almost romantic. This is followed by Marcia funebre sulla morte d'un eroe in which the piano imitates the sound of trumpets and percussion instruments. Beethoven’s friend and pupil Ferdinand Ries said in his memoirs that this part of the sonata appeared following the praise lavished on the funeral march from Ferdinando Paer’s opera Achille in the presence of the composer. The finale is the only section written in sonata form – a kind of “eternal movement,” a flow of pure energy.

Serse’s aria “Ombra mai fu”, which opens Act I of Handel’s opera Serse (1738), is one of the composer’s greatest “hits.” The King of Persia, standing in his garden near his favourite plane-tree, sings of the gentle shade of the foliage (historians believe that the plane-tree was in fact a blessed tree and the Persians worshipped it). In the original version the role of Serse was written for mezzo-soprano, but “Ombra mai fu” can be sung by any voice as it is such a popular arioso.

Jupiter’s aria “Where’er You Walk” from Act II of Handel’s dramatic oratorio Semele (1743) is in harmony with Serse’s arioso. Jupiter sings it, transforming the country of the beautiful and vain Semele into a blissful Arcadia. From now on all of nature – the winds, the trees and the flowers – will adore his new beloved. Going against tradition, the role of Jupiter was written not for bass but for tenor. Sadly Serse and Jupiter do not enjoy this nature in peace for long – love and jealousy await them both...

The Ballad of Reading Gaol, composed in 2011, is one of the most recent works by Grant Foster, an “Australian composer and pianist with a Russian soul.” His music is not afraid of romantic surges, rich harmonies and memorable melodies that are sweeping in their breadth; in the press, Foster has frequently been referred to as “the Rachmaninoff of our time.” It is clear that Grant Foster’s “Russian” qualities as a composer and his performing style are influenced by his teacher Alexander Sverjensky, a graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatoire who took lessons from Alexander Glazunov and Alexander Siloti and who, following the October Revolution, emigrated to Australia from Russia. Many of Foster’s works are thematically linked with revolutionary events in Russia and the tragic story of the family of the last Russian Emperor; almost all of them have been performed and recorded together with Russian ensembles. The Ballad of Reading Gaol, however, occupies a particular place among the composer’s works. For his literary source, Foster took the first seven stanzas of the eponymous poem by Oscar Wilde and accented the words “Yet each man kills the thing he loves.” The composer embodied these famous lines of verse in the genre of triumphant meditation with simple yet at the same time expressive melodic lines. Grant Foster dedicated The Ballad of Reading Gaol to Mira Jevtić, the first performer of several of his works for piano, and his compatriot, the tenor Andrew Goodwin.
Anna Bulycheva