In
the aftermath of
Jeremy’s death, one of the few activities that took me out of myself and
provided solace was the piano. At
the
keyboard, the emotions surging through my mind and body – grief, regret,
anger,
sadness, recrimination, doubt, exhaustion, acceptance, loving
remembrance – could
find expression and release. At
other
times, the music was a door through which I could step outside myself,
focused
only on the sounds, the instrument, and the musical text in front of me.
During a tumultuous time, music was a
lifeline.
Mostly
I played music I
was already somewhat familiar with from previous study, sight-reading,
and
recordings. I was
non-selective at
first: Bach sinfonias, the slow movements of Beethoven’s sonatas, Chopin
mazurkas, but also the collections of Broadway standards I had grown up
with. Then, at Penny’s
suggestion, in 2006 I started
attending Sonata adult piano camp for a week each year. That
experience brought home to me the
importance of making music in my life, and also the commitment required
to play
as well as I am able. It remains very much a work in progress.
While I play mostly for myself, I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of Penny’s opening. The experience of living with loss has been a joint endeavor that neither of us could have weathered alone.
Preludes
(from
Eight Preludes for Piano)
Frank Martin
No.
III
Tranquillo ma
con moto
Sonata
in
B-flat minor, op. 35
Frédéric Chopin
Grave,
doppio movimento
Scherzo
Marche
funèbre
Presto
ABOUT
THE MUSIC
The
works I have chosen
for today have within them many of the emotions associated with deep
loss. But they also bound
those emotions within a
clear-eyed intellectual structure that condenses and sharpens them, much
as the
strictures of meter, rhyme, and form heighten the impact of a
well-wrought
poem.
Frank Martin (1890-1974), Preludes
Swiss
composer
Frank Martin is more widely known in Europe than in America.
In his 40s, he became interested in the
12-tone theories of Arnold Schönberg.
He
incorporated elements into his own musical language, synthesizing
chromatic and
12-tone techniques without ever abandoning the notion of a tonal
hierarchy. This language is
evident throughout the
Preludes, composed in 1947-48. While
the
‘vocabulary’ of the Preludes is distinctive to Martin, in form they are
clearly
evocative of the earlier preludes of Bach and Chopin.
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Sonata #2 in B-flat
Minor, op.
35.
Chopin
completed
this sonata in 1839, though the famous “funeral march” third movement
was written earlier, in 1837. The
date
November 28 on the manuscript suggests it may have been written to
memorialize
the defeat of the abortive Polish uprising against Russian rule in
November
1830. The other three movements had a more personal inspiration during a
period
of both intense creativity and severe physical debility.
To
me,
the unity of this sonata is grounded in a deep engagement with the
realization
of mortality. It is not
without
consolation, but solace is hard-won and provisional.
From its ominous opening chords and
hard-driving principal motif, the first movement intimates, but does not
fully
accept, a terrifying possibility. In
the
tumultuous scherzo, agitation threatens to be overwhelming, but is
interrupted
briefly by a gentle waltz-like melody of great beauty.
The agitation returns and builds to a climax,
then modulates into a final reminder of the melody that dies away to
nothing. The funeral march
that follows is
now so familiar as to be an archetype, but try to hear it as if for the
first
time: the muffled drumbeat over sighing footsteps, with the simplest,
sweetest
song of consolation in the trio. The final presto is a complete enigma,
a
sweeping, swirling chromatic line, doubled in octaves, that finds no
place of
rest until the final definitive chord.
I first heard this sonata performed by Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli in 1975 in Bordeaux, and it floored me then. It still does.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
want to thank my
teachers, Polly van der Linde and Ashlee Mack. Polly is the director and
owner
of Sonatina Enterprises, in Old Bennington, VT, and an amazing teacher.
She and her staff have greatly deepened my
understanding of the piano and its repertoire.
Here at Knox, Ashlee has helped me immeasurably with her insights
and
her patience.
Penny
and I first heard
the music of Frank Martin at one of Laura Lane’s Nova Singers concerts.
By luck, we were sitting with Nancy
Eberhardt, who told me of his piano music and generously gave me her
copy of
the Preludes. Thanks to
Laura and Nancy
for enriching my musical life with Martin’s music.
Finally,
to Penny, simply
Thanks. For everything.