Programme
H.Dutilleux: D’ombre et de silence
Henri Dutilleux is critically acclaimed as a one of France’s outstanding composers of contemporary music. He is unique among contemporary French composers of the post-Second World War generation for his singular affiliation to the development of his own personal style, notably at the avoidance of serialist-influenced compositional processes and resistance to categorization as a member of any aesthetic movement including La- Jeune France.
In the year of 1973, Henri Dutilleux in his late 50s, composed The first title to the Three Preludes, titled
‘D’ombre et de silence’. Translated as ‘In shadow and silence’. In which, ex- traordinarily enough, was written for Arthur Rubinstein. While the second and the third preludes were com- posed in much later years, creating one of his most notable piano work, the Three Preludes.
In D’ombre et de silence, Dutilleux brilliantly used groups of notes to create notes that resemblance somewhat of clusters chords along with tiny change in configurations between of whole steps and half steps made the effect of the sound produced by these quasi-clusters became something warm yet, at the same time, very still and cold.
R.Schumann: Sonata in g minor
no.2, op.22
At times Robert took advice from Clara, his wife, whose judgement as a seasoned performer he respected. Such was the case with the Sonata. Clara wrote in 1838:
‘I am enormously excited with the idea of your Second Sonata; it reminds me of so many happy as well as painful hours. I love it, as I do you. Your whole being is so clearly expressed in it, and besides, it’s not too obscure. Only one thing. Do you want to leave the last movement as it was before? Better to change it and make it a bit easier because it is much too difficult. I understand it and can play it alright, but people, the public, even the connoisseurs for whom one actually writes, don’t understand it. You won’t take this badly, will you?’
Robert wrote another finale which he felt also went better with the first movement. Of his three piano sona- tas, the G minor is by far the most concise. It is a work of great sweep and passion, typically combining dra- matic urgency with moments of rapt tenderness. Schumann doesn’t wait to get our attention—he demands it in the rst bar with that sudden, bro- ken G minor chord. The rst challenge he throws at the player is to mark the opening ‘As fast as possible’, only to urge him or her to go ‘faster’ and ‘still faster’ before the end is reached. The opening theme, which is imitated in the bass, uses the partial descending scale that became Clara’s motto in many of his piano works—a ‘cry from the heart’ for her when they were unable to be together. The beautiful slow movement, marked getragen (solemn), was originally a song that Robert wrote when he was eighteen years old. With the Scherzo comes the one bit of humour in the sona- ta: in its episodes in the major mode there is certainly a twinkle in his eye. The ‘new’ finale makes extensive use of broken octaves to express its rest- lessness, and the Clara motto appears in the lyrical second subject. The mu- sic works up to a feverish climax and a dramatic pause over a diminished seventh chord. The ensuing cadenza goes like the wind, never once letting up.
T.Takemitsu: Rain Tree Sketch II
Takemitsu admired Debussy and Messiaen, as is evident in his piano music, and was drawn to composers who were themselves deeply in- fluenced by the musical and philosophical culture of Asia, including John Cage. his music combines elements of Japanese and Western philosophy with the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre, using both western and traditional Japanese instruments, and the use of de ned silences to create a unique and extraordinary soundworld.
He composed his Rain Tree Sketch II in 1992 in memory of Oliver Mes- siaen (1908-1992), the French com- poser who had a strong influence on Takemitsu. The name of the work was probably inspired by a quotation from a novel by Kenzaburo Oe about the miraculous rain tree, whose tiny leaves store up moisture and con- tinue to let fall raindrops long after the rain has ceased.The work is also a dreamy meditation on the ow of life, and was the last piano piece by Takemitsu.
There are suggestions of traditional Japanese instruments in this work specifically the Taiko drum, the long zither koto and the short-necked lute biwa (the ascending arpeggio figure suggests the plucked sound of these instruments). This music requires a particularly sensitive approach: the sounds should be played with abso- lute clarity, and must also have great beauty, but not too much sentiment. Motifs and forms unfold like a “pic- ture scroll unrolled.” (Toru Takemit- su), emerging out of silence and re- treating back into stillness.
Interestingly, the power and profundity of this piece comes not from the notes themselves, but the silences between them, which create extraordinary moments of stillness and re- pose. A pause in time, a void in space all happening during the constant ow of the music.
“....sound, in its ultimate expressive ness, being constantly refined, approaches the nothingness of that wind in the bamboo grove.”
- Toru Takemistu, ‘Confronting Silence: Selected Writings’