FROM LISZT TO LIGETI
Album Notes by Elmira Darvarova
The “Liszt to Ligeti” album idea came to me several years ago when my husband and I stayed at the Victoria Hotel in Budapest. The hotel is the former residence of the violinist and composer Jenö Hubay, with Hubay’s music salon still accessible as a” tea room”. This 1898 riverfront palace had been, during Hubay’s lifetime, the venue for weekly concerts of illustrious artists, and many music events had been broadcast on the radio from 1925 on. Fascinated, we availed ourselves to tea in Hubay’s salon, where the walls are adorned with framed old photos of Hubay and his students. Looking at the photos, I was thinking of Eugene Ormandy, who studied violin with Hubay from age 10, and was, much later, my husband’s music director at The Philadelphia Orchestra. I was also thinking of Hubay’s star student Stefi Geyer - Bartók’s girlfriend and dedicatee of his long-suppressed Violin Concerto No.1 (found among Stefi’s possessions after her death), which is a work I adore and have performed with orchestras on 2 continents. And I was also thinking of Hubay’s student Jelly d’Arányi - the great-niece of Hubay’s teacher Joseph Joachim - that same Jelly d’Arányi, to whom Ravel’s iconic “Tzigane” is dedicated, and for whose 15-year old sister Adila Fachiri, the young Bartók composed his charming Andante in 1902. (Serendipitously, just a few weeks prior to having tea at Hubay’s salon, I had discussed the sisters Jelly d’Aranyi and Adila Fachiri with one of their students - the founder of the Bombay Chamber Orchestra Jini Dinshaw, whom I met while performing in India, and who had studied in the 1960s with both Jelly and Adila in London.) I was also thinking of Jessica Duchen’s novel “Ghost Variations” which depicts the sisters’ quest to find Robert Schumann’s “hidden” violin concerto about which they allegedly learned during spiritual séances, from the "ghosts" of Schumann and their great-uncle Joachim (for whom Schumann wrote the concerto) - a quest that, in 1937, ended with not Jelly but Georg Kulenkampff instead, being authorized by the Nazis to perform the world premiere of Schumann’s concerto in Berlin, while Yehudi Menuhin presented the American premiere, and Jelly only managed to give London’s first performance. Still, Jelly and Adila mattered, as performers to their audiences and as teachers to their students, and many significant works would not have been the same, if not for the inspiration the sisters evoked in major composers, such as Bartók, Ravel, Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams and Rebecca Clarke. Bartók wrote for Jelly his 2 sonatas for violin and piano and premiered them with her, but Jelly and her sister Adila, as well as Stefi Geyer, were not the only Bartók muses among Hubay’s many amazing students. Joseph Szigeti also inspired Bartók, who dedicated to him his Rhapsody No.1 for violin and piano, and Bartók also wrote for Szigeti (and Benny Goodman) the “Contrasts” trio. Like those two other Hungarian-born famed violin pedagogues - Leopold Auer (Jascha Heifetz’s teacher), and Karl Flesch (who taught such superstars of the violin like Josef Hassid, Ginette Neveu, Ida Haendel and my teacher Henryk Szeryng), the legendary Jenö Hubay also attracted to his violin studio the most astonishing talents - because that was the same Jenö Hubay, who had world-premiered the Brahms D minor Violin Sonata with Brahms himself on the piano! The same Jenö Hubay who had performed with Liszt the Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 (dedicated by Liszt to Hubay’s teacher Joseph Joachim). Hubay also taught the father of my esteemed colleague Nandor Szederkényi - a recipient of the Hubay Prize, who recently discovered the final versions of Ysaÿe's 2 String Trios (which led to my participation in their recently-released world-premiere recordings). Hubay’s music salon stunned me as a crossroads of serendipity and celebrated history, galvanizing my appreciation for all Hungarian-born composers and performers who contributed so enormously to enriching the treasure-trove of the world's musical culture. This album is a tribute to them.
Surrounded by Hungarian composers’ music for as long as I remember (having been a concert violinist since age 4), I look back with amazement at how Bartók’s music had been a part of my very first day on the stage - during my first concert as a small child, and also at another important for me junction years later - my first day on the job after winning the concertmaster audition at The Metropolitan Opera (on that day Bartók’s only opera was being presented at The MET). Hungarian composers have been a cherished presence in my concert repertoire. Not only did I perform in the 1980s at Béla Bartók’s Memorial House in Budapest (at a concert which was broadcast throughout Europe), but I also grew up with Bartók’s “Romanian Folk Dances” and Jenö Hubay’s “Hejre Kati”. I first performed Bartók’s “Romanian Folk Dances” at my debut recital at age 4 (having started violin lessons at age 3 with my father, a professional violinist and violist), but at that first concert I had to skip the No.3 movement of “Romanian Folk Dances”, as my 4-year old hands were not yet capable of successfully adapting to higher positions on the fingerboard. My father had studied, as a child, with a Jewish violinist - the leader of the Plovdiv String Quartet, who had instilled in his pupils great respect for the Hungarian-born, American-based world-renowned violin pedagogue and composer Leopold Auer, whose 1921 book “Violin Playing As I Teach It” was translated in Bulgarian. My father had owned that book ever since his childhood violin lessons with his own teacher in the 1930s, and my father was teaching me, since age 3, in accordance with Auer’s instructions in this same book, the ancient and dog-eared edition of which I still continue to own. Auer was, of course, the teacher of Heifetz and Elman, so any word of Auer’s in his instruction manual was followed to the letter by my father. (Auer also happened to be the great-granduncle of György Ligeti - yet another serendipitous link that fascinates me while I write the notes for the album “From Liszt to Ligeti”). And the reason why Hubay's "Hejre Kati" was also part of my early violin studies, is this: my father's violin teacher had attended, as a child, Hubay's concerts in Bulgaria, and owned an autographed by Hubay music part of "Hejre Kati" - so that piece had been revered by my father's teacher, and by my father, forever, and, of course, it was put in front of me on the music stand as soon as I could read music. And, to be able to play Hubay's piece, I was guided by my father from what was his musical bible - Leopold Auer's book “Violin Playing As I Teach It”. Since the earliest days of training me as violinist, my father used to frequently point-out to me that Leopold Auer had been concertmaster in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Saint Petersburg. The concept of “concertmaster” was clear to me even at such a young age, because during the first 7 years of my life, our family lived, as renters, in the house of a former concertmaster of the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra, where my father was employed as violist, and besides, I attended, since my toddler days, numerous rehearsals of that orchestra (in lieu of being watched by babysitters), therefore I observed, for years, what a concertmaster does. My father’s dream was to see me - his daughter - become the concertmaster of the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra - an ambition which I later fulfilled by winning their concertmaster audition and leading for several years that orchestra, including on multiple foreign tours in which I was not only concertmaster but also soloist with many of the famous violin concertos, most often with the Tchaikovsky Concerto, in Leopold Auer’s version. Auer had transcribed and/or modified a vast number of works, but Auer’s output of original compositions was rather small, and few of the published ones were available. Still, at my father’s insistence I learned Auer’s 1874 Tarantelle de Concert and often performed it as a teenager, including at the Franz Liszt Music University in Weimar, Germany - during the International Summer Masterclass of Yuri Yankelevich who himself was an Auer disciple, having studied with Auer’s assistant in Saint Petersburg. The Franz Liszt Music University in Weimar hosted every summer masterclasses by internationally-renowned artists, to which my parents sent me several summers in a row, in order to temporarily get away from the incompetent local teachers with whom I was obligated to study under the communist regime. As a shrine to Liszt and Goethe, Weimar thrilled me. Weimar also held the first venue in which I performed Zoltán Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello - a work, which, years later, I had the opportunity to perform at a couple of music festivals together with the legendary Hungarian-American cellist János Starker, just days before my escape from communist hell with Starker’s help (a recording of our live performance of Kodály’s Duo was recently released by the Urlicht label). During my time in Bloomington as one of Josef Gingold’s teaching assistants at Indiana University, Starker often talked to me about Hungarian composers who influenced his formative years at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, detailing stories about Kodály, Bartók and Dohnányi, who all had written masterpieces which I, at one or another time, had performed. Starker also frequently talked about his chamber music teachers Leó Weiner and Imre Waldbauer (who not only premiered Kodály's Duo for Violin and Cello, but also was the dedicatee of Kodály's 1905 Adagio, included in this album). On my first day at my new concertmaster job at The Metropolitan Opera in January 1989 Bartók’s opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” was performed (with Jessye Norman and Samuel Ramey), giving me a chance to immerse myself in Bartók’s operatic music, after years of performing a great number of Bartók’s chamber and orchestral works. At that point in my life, on that day in 1989, my father’s vision for me had been more than fulfilled - from teaching me through the method of Josef Joachim’s student Leopold Auer, and keeping me focused on goalposts by reminding me frequently of Auer’s concertmaster positions in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and St. Petersburg, to guiding and encouraging me until I escaped behind the Iron Curtain, and reached, across the ocean, the concertmaster chair at one of the world’s most renowned orchestras - The Metropolitan Opera, as its first-ever female concertmaster. Well done, Dad!
FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) shook the music world like a volcano, with his influential oeuvre and unprecedented stardom (a.k.a. “Lisztomania”), which surpassed even that of Paganini, preceding the world-wide popularity of today’s pop music figures. The superstar of his epoch, Liszt mesmerized audiences, while supporting charities, promoting his colleagues, and giving free piano lessons. One of the greatest pianists ever, Liszt was also a conductor, a pedagogue, and a prolific composer, experimenting with musical form, radically changing harmonic language, pioneering the symphonic poem, and anticipating the trends of impressionism, atonalism and seriality. Learning piano since age 7 (initially with his father and later with Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny), Liszt's first composition was published at age 11, as the only child-composer in the Diabelli anthology. Liszt became a legendary piano virtuoso after moving to Paris, where, as a foreigner without money, he was refused admission to the Conservatoire, but took artistic inspiration from Paganini, Chopin and Berlioz. Rubbing elbows with leading authors such as Heinrich Heine and Victor Hugo, he wrote essays, advocating for the elevation of artists’ status above that of servants. During years of heavy touring Liszt's performances exceeded 1000, while he gave away most of the proceeds to charities. Beyond his charisma and talent, Liszt was a leader, an innovator, a humanist, an epitome of generosity, a protector of the weak, a nurturer of young talents, a selfless promoter of others’ music, a fiercely-proud of his national origin Hungarian (who sometimes performed in traditional folk attire and was a national hero in his country of birth), and he also embraced solitary life in a monastery. Liszt conducted the world-premiere of Wagner's “Lohengrin” in Weimar without notifying the exiled Wagner but instead making sure that premiere fell on the exact day of birth of an iconic Weimar figure: Goethe. A rival of Chopin, but also his loyal friend, Liszt erected the first monument in honor of Chopin and wrote the first Chopin monograph. Liszt wrote violin works during a period spanning some 50 years. One of his early violin compositions is the 1835 GRAND DUO CONCERTANT sur la Romance de M. Lafont “Le Marin” (S.128). The French virtuoso Charles Philippe Lafont (the composer of a Romance titled “Le Marin”) was a one-time rival of Paganini, whom he challenged to a contest, but despite losing this “duel”, Lafont falsely bragged that he had overshadowed Paganini. Lafont's salon romance “Le Marin” was the basis for Liszt's Grand Duo Concertant. The melodious theme unfolds after dramatic declamatory recitativos, followed by 3 virtuosic Variations, a spectacular Tarantella, and a Finale of pyrotechnics. I composed my own Cadenza (inserted before the Third Variation), and I also elaborated on some arpeggios here and there, extending them by an octave or two. Liszt’s HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY No.12 in C-sharp minor, dedicated to Joseph Joachim, is one of the most striking among 19 rhapsodies created during Liszt’s Weimar period. Although wrong to conclude that Hungarian folk music had Gypsy/Romani origins, Liszt nevertheless created rhapsodic works of exceptional beauty. In the 12th Rhapsody he sourced a csárdás melody attributed to the Hungarian-Jewish composer and violinist Mark Rózsavölgyi, who was considered the "father of the csárdás", and in 1846 had performed with his band for Liszt in Hungary. Liszt also quoted, in the Allegro zingaresco, a tune popularized by the Hungarian-Romani composer and violinist János Bihari, having heard Bihari in Vienna during the 1820s. Inspired by these sources, Liszt transcribed some of their motifs while believing, erroneously, that they reflected the authentic Magyar folk music of Hungary. Later Bartók and Kodály dispelled this controversy through their research proving that the music played by Romani bands was derived not from real Hungarian/Magyar folk roots, but from pseudo-folk elements in popular art songs, which the Romani musicians absorbed, adapting them to the flavor and inflections of their own performing style, rather than contributing original Hungarian peasant melodies. Therefore Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies may be deficient in the aspect of ethnomusicology (in 1960 Zoltán Kodály wrote of "Franz Liszt's monumental error"), but they are nevertheless poignantly-expressive compositions. When Liszt dedicated his 12th Hungarian Rhapsody to Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee was still a follower of Liszt’s avant-garde tendencies, and concertmaster of Liszt’s orchestra in Weimar (before leaving behind Liszt and his ideals for a concertmaster position in the Kingdom of Hanover). While still in Weimar, and deeply touched by Liszt’s dedication, Joachim set out, circa 1850, to arrange for violin and piano Liszt’s 12th Hungarian Rhapsody, radically changing it into a work closely aligned with the nature of the violin. Therefore Joachim’s contribution to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 is more profound than that of a simple transcription. Transformed by Joachim as RHAPSODIE HONGROISE XII, S. 379a, it elevates Joachim’s status to co-author, as a testament to Joachim’s creative prowess (one is reminded of the help Joachim lent to Brahms during the 4 years it took Brahms to compose his First Piano Concerto - as evidenced in Brahms’ “thank-you” letters to Joachim and in the manuscript’s many alterations by Joachim’s hand.)
JOSEPH JOACHIM (1831-1907) was among the most influential and significant musicians of the 19th C. - a highly-regarded violinist, a muse to Liszt, Brahms, Dvořák, Bruch, Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann, a protégé of Mendelssohn, a respected pedagogue, conductor and composer. Studying violin since age 5 with one of Wieniawski’s teachers, Joachim made, at age 12, a sensational London debut under Mendelssohn’s baton, rescuing the Beethoven concerto from the slump in which it had fallen at the time (due to harsh criticism by Ludwig Spohr, who languished in the shadow of Paganini as violinist, and in the shadow of Beethoven as composer). Performing the Beethoven Concerto from memory and with his own cadenzas, the child Joachim elicited “frenetic applause”, as Mendelssohn reported, and it was pointed-out in the London press that they “have heard all the great performers of the last 20 years attempt, and invariably fail” playing Beethoven’s concerto, but Joachim’s performance had been “an eloquent vindication of the master-spirit who imagined it.” Still a teenager, Joachim became a disciple of Liszt, whose generous support of colleagues inspired Joachim to become himself a guiding light for many of his fellow composers, helping them in their creative work. Bruch and Dvořák dedicated their violin concertos to Joachim after collaborating with him on substantial text revisions, while Brahms not only wrote his Violin Concerto (and his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello) for Joachim, but he also consulted Joachim while composing his Piano Concerto No.1. But before Joachim and Brahms ever met, other important cross-pollinating events surrounded Joachim, who, still in his teen years, felt disappointed with Leipzig’s conservatism and moved to Weimar to join Liszt’s avant-garde group, only to soon become disillusioned also with Liszt’s artistic concepts. (Meanwhile Liszt had dedicated his solo piano work “Hungarian Rhapsody No.12” to Joachim, and Joachim had brilliantly arranged it for violin and piano). Despite a close creative connection with Liszt, Joachim was turned-off by the rampant “Lisztomania” in Weimar, and he also rejected Liszt’s worship of Wagner’s music. Moving away from Liszt’s camp, Joachim gravitated towards Robert and Clara Schumann in the fateful year 1853 - the serendipitous year in which Joachim performed with Clara in duo recitals, and under the baton of Robert as conductor, and also performed with the unknown, 20-year old Brahms, whom Joachim introduced to the Schumanns, thus unleashing significant events in the Romantic musical epoch. After meeting Brahms (on Joachim’s recommendation), Robert Schumann immediately proclaimed Brahms a genius and promoted him to overnight fame. In that very significant year - 1853, just after distancing himself from Liszt, Joachim became the muse, catalyst and the primary cause of what happened to Brahms and to the Schumanns (and just before it all happened, Clara Schumann had dedicated to Joachim her own superbly beautiful Three Romances for violin and piano Op. 22, and Robert Schumann had just finished his only Violin Concerto, written for Joachim - the "Muse” with capital M).
BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945) - a legendary 20th C. composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist, is considered, together with Liszt, one of Hungary’s greatest composers. Showing interest in the piano since his toddler days, he first appeared in public at age 11, playing his 10-movement composition "The Course of the Danube". Bartók later attended the (founded by Liszt) Music Academy in Budapest, where he studied piano with Liszt’s former student István Thomán (whom Bartók later succeeded on the piano faculty), and composition with János Kössler (a cousin of Max Reger), who also taught Zoltán Kodály. At that time Brahms and Schumann were idolized at the Academy, but Bartók’s quest for inspiration led him to the works of Liszt and Wagner instead. After briefly underestimating Liszt (“I did not at that time grasp Liszt’s true significance”) while becoming obsessed with Richard Strauss at the Budapest premiere of “Also sprach Zarathustra” ("At once I threw myself into the study of all Strauss’ scores and began again to write music myself”), Bartók not only transcribed for piano solo “Ein Heldenleben” and performed it (from memory) in Budapest and in Vienna, but he also created, still under the influence of Strauss, his first hit: the symphonic poem “Kossuth” which was immediately performed in Budapest and in Manchester, thus elevating Bartók’s student-composer status to a success story right away. But Strauss’ influence was short-lived: “Meanwhile the magic of Richard Strauss had evaporated. A really thorough study of Liszt’s oeuvre revealed to me the true essence of composing... his work seemed to me of far greater importances than that of Strauss or even Wagner.” In 1904 Bartók was deeply impressed with a peasant song when he overheard a nanny in Transylvania singing it. He decided to devote himself to seeking out the true roots of music folklore preserved in rustic areas, in order to document, transcribe and interpret the melodic riches of authentic folk music through the prism of his vocation as composer. Bartók recruited for this mission his fellow student Zoltán Kodály, whose PhD thesis was “Strophic Structure of Hungarian Folk Song”. Kodály introduced Bartók to his roommate Béla Balázs, who became Bartók’s librettist for the opera “Bluebeard’s Castle”. Bartók and Kodály traveled to remote destinations to record folk melodies with an Edison phonograph with hundreds of wax cylinders - a bulky equipment to be traveling with. (Years later, on an invitation from the Turkish government, Bartók went to record folk melodies of nomadic tribes in Southern Anatolia near the Syrian border, where there were no roads at the time. “Our cart drove across rivers, big and small… the road grew stonier and ceased altogether, and our cart just went on and on rattling over rocky hillsides while we had to keep the phonograph and the records firmly on our laps.”) Closer to home, Bartók and Kodály found out that much of the genuine Hungarian music folklore was still largely undiscovered, while what had been passing for folk music at the time, was actually urban popular music. Bartók detected similarities between the old Hungarian tunes and the ancient pentatonic-like traditions of Siberia, Central Asia and Anatolia. He later extended his research into Slovakian and Romanian areas and was especially fascinated with Bulgarian uneven dance meters, incorporating them in a number of his works. Bartók and Kodály started infusing their compositions with rustic elements from original sources by quoting them either verbatim or amalgamated. Their research placed them at the forefront in comparative musicology, which later merged with ethnomusicology, a science of which Bartók has been credited as the “founding father”. Meanwhile antisemitic hostilities swept around Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. After his librettist Béla Balázs was blacklisted for being Jewish and had to flee Hungary, the governing regime pressured Bartók to remove Balázs’ name from the libretto of “Bluebeard’s Castle”. The rise of fascism in Europe disgusted Bartók, who declined concerts in Germany after 1933, ceased contacts with his German publishers and forbade the German Radio to broadcast his works. In 1940 Bartók escaped to the U.S., where he created one of his best-known works, the Concerto for Orchestra, as well as other major works despite his leukemia diagnosis. In September 1945 Bartók died at 64, shortly after receiving his American citizenship. In 1949 the communist regime in Hungary banned most of Bartók’s major woks, following instructions from the Soviet Union to purge “defectors“ to America. After this ban was lifted in 1958, Bartók’s legacy experienced rehabilitation and his compositions and his pioneering research in ethnic folklore received their due respect in his native country, as well as world-wide. No longer the “misfit” known around Europe with just one popular piece - “Romanian Folk Dances”, Bartók’s reputation flourished. 30 years after his death, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra dominated concert and radio programs on both sides of the Atlantic, and on both sides of the Iron Curtain. (My husband and I both performed it multiple times in the 1970s: he with The Philadelphia Orchestra, myself in my communist country.) In 1988 the (still, as of that time) communist government of Hungary officially requested Bartók’s remains to be exhumed and transferred to his country of birth, where he was given a state funeral. Two dramatic trends are reflected in Bartók’s compositions - the transformation of conventional diatonic harmony, and the revival of ethnic sources as means of inspiration. Tracing indigenous music throughout 3 continents - from the Carpathian Basin in Europe to areas in Turkey and Algeria, Bartók shaped the stream of modernism. After exploring, early on, influences from the Romantic sphere, Bartók ventured beyond mainstream harmony, not only promoting various folk motifs, but also experimenting with dissonances, tone clusters and irregular rhythms. For this album I selected several Bartók works, each one representing a separate creative phase: one of his early works (“Andante”, written in 1902, before Bartók changed his musical direction), as well as his 1917 collection of authentic folk tunes “15 Hungarian Peasant Songs” (which I arranged for violin and piano), in addition to a masterpiece from his mature period (the 1928 “Rhapsody No.1 for Violin and Piano") and the late-period “Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm No. 6”, which crowns Bartók’s Mikrokosmos collection - a stunning tone-clustered miniature, arranged by me for violin and piano. Bartók’s 1902 “ANDANTE”, was written on the back of several postcards sent to the teenaged great-niece of Joseph Joachim - Adila Fachiri (who at the time, together with her sister Jelly d’Arányi, took piano lessons from the 21-year old Bartók). He sent the piece to Adila's home with the title-like note: "In remembrance of November 23, 1902". (Andante appears on the manuscript only as a tempo indication, not an actual title, while the, suggested by Bartók's scholar Denijs Dille, title "Albumblatt" has not ever been used by the dedicatee and first performer Adila Fachiri, nor by Bartók himself.) Adila premiered the work at Wigmore Hall 53 years after receiving it - in 1955, when the Soviets authorized the "un-banning" of Bartók's oeuvre in the USSR-controlled communist countries. This endearing vignette from the final days of Bartók's veneration of Romanticism bears not so much the stamp of passionate Brahmsian vigor, but rather hints of a Clara Schumann-like delicate purity and youthful innocence. The livelier tempo which we chose (unlike others' recorded interpretations) prevents the piece from stagnating and losing its momentum. Bartók's solo piano collection "15 HUNGARIAN PEASANT SONGS" (arranged by me for Violin and Piano) is the crystallization of Bartók's musical personality ("Those days which I spent in the villages among the peasants were the happiest days of my life".) This cycle is not a mere medley derived from balladic texts and ancient modes. It is a breathtaking tribute to the astonishing beauty of music coming from the soul of magnificent human beings celebrating their joys or lamenting their misfortunes. You are transfixed from the first to the last note by the melodies, soothingly-simple and festively-rich at the same time. (In all of their extensive research Bartók and Kodály never encountered a folk song emanating hatred). My arrangement for Violin and Piano is intended to provide violinists with the chance to experience and reveal to others the wonderful essence of this masterpiece. One of two Rhapsodies for violin and piano dating from 1928 is Bartók's RHAPSODY No.1 for Violin and Piano, dedicated to Bartók's muse and frequent concert partner Joseph Szigeti, and consisting of 2 movements in the slow-fast traditional sequence established since the 18th C.: Lassú and Friss, borrowed from the Hungarian ceremonial dance verbunkos (military recruiting dance, from the German word Werbung), performed at roadside taverns by a group of spur-clicking hussars during conscription for the regiments of the imperial army. (In 1795 Haydn incorporated verbunkos into a piano trio; verbunkos was also the precursor of csárdás, derived from csárda - an old Hungarian term for roadside tavern.) Bartók's intention was to showcase the Eastern-European mode of fiddle playing into a Western concert frame, and he instructed Szigeti to listen to original field recordings of the raw peasant tunes in order to emulate them. The original dances in their indigenous version had been unfolding at village squares or roadside taverns, but Bartok wanted them performed at formal concerts. (Bartók's ideals, in that aspect, anticipated Piazzolla' mission to modernize and take away from pubs and clubs the old tango form, and to present it, reborn, and elevated on the stages of concert halls.) The First movement is a combination between a Romanian melody from Mureș County (Transylvania) and the Hungarian-Transylvanian fiddle tune Lament of Árvátfalva (transcribed by Bartók from an earlier recording by Béla Vikár). The Second movement, in chain form, strings together 5 independent tunes depicting a whirlwind dance party. (In his notes on the choreography Bartók mentions a man stepping between 2 sticks on the ground.) The theme from the First movement returns as a unifying Reprise, reminding us how much we missed hearing it again, while thirsting for its rustic beauty. Bartók's vivacious "DANCE in BULGARIAN RHYTHM No. 6" (arranged by me for Violin and Piano) is a sparkling final culmination as the last piece in Bartók's Mikrokosmos collection of 153 progressively-difficult etudes and concert pieces in 6 volumes. Many of us, Bulgarian-born musicians, have traced references in which Bartók mentions the unique Bulgarian irregular, uneven ("asymmetrical") rhythms, or incorporates them (in several of his works - the string quartets, the "Contrasts" Trio, the First Sonata for Violin and Piano, Mikrokosmos and elsewhere), and many of us have also studied these Bulgarian uneven rhythms at the Bulgarian State Music Conservatory, where to pass the exam in the (obligatory) subject of Folk Music, I had to learn 100 (yes, one hundred) Bulgarian folk songs (in their entire length, with all verses), plus - it was also mandatory to learn the steps of 10 elaborate folk dances (the list of which was provided just a few weeks before the exam) with all their leg-twisting choreography in meters like 5/16, 7/16, 9/16, 11/16, 15/16. At the exam you drew a random piece of paper indicating which 10 songs and which 1 dance you had to perform in front of the panel. Growing up among the unique rhythmical complexity which is ingrained in all of us, Bulgarian-born beings, was still not a guarantee to pass this test, so I intensely prepared for it. And I just couldn't refrain from arranging for Violin and Piano Bartók's spectacular "Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm No. 6", the actual rhythm of which (3/8+3/8+2/8) is not especially complicated and it sounds rather jazzy.
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882-1967) was a Hungarian composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, philosopher and linguist, internationally-renowned for his research, his compositions, and as the creator of the Kodály educational method (since 2016 inscribed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage). A violinist and cellist since childhood, Kodály composed from a young age, enrolling simultaneously at the Department of Languages at the University of Budapest, and at the Academy of Music, where he and Bartók studied composition with the same professor - János (Hans) Kössler. In connection with working on his PhD dissertation “Strophic Structure of Hungarian Folk Song”, Kodály became Bartók's life-long friend, champion and fellow researcher of Eastern European indigenous music, and also introduced Bartók to his roommate Béla Balázs, who became Bartók’s librettist for “Bluebeard’s Castle”. Collectively contributing to the development of ethnomusicology as a science, Kodály and Bartók recorded a vast amount of authentic folk music melodies. Like Bartók's music, Kodály's own oeuvre was enriched with material sourced from rustic traditions, while also bearing influences from Romanticism. His best-known works are "Psalmus Hungaricus", Dances of Galánta, Dances of Marosszék, Peacock Variations, Duo for Violin and Cello, Sonata for Cello Solo (Op. 8) and the "Háry János" Suite, derived from his opera "Háry János". Kodály's works are performed world-wide by the most prestigious orchestras, conductors and soloists. Kodály's Cello Sonata Op.8 is one of the most important cello solo works composed since Bach's Cello Suites. Legendary cellist János Starker recorded it four times (his 1948 recording won the Grand Prix du Disque, thus propelling Starker's world-renown). Kodály's ADAGIO for VIOLIN and PIANO, dedicated to Hubay's student Imre Waldbauer, was composed in 1905 - a fateful for Kodály year, when the most important events of his life happened and his future was cast. In that year he met his wife (with whom he spent 53 years together), and also started collaborating with Bartók, embarking on their field research, which changed not only both of their lives and musical legacies, but also the course of musical history in the 20th C. Versions of Kodály's Adagio also exist for viola and cello. The piece is in a tripartite form, with the soulful first theme returning transfigured in a lyrical echo after a passionate rustic middle episode. The burnished-voiced theme of this work is worthy of Brahms' pen.
JENÖ HUBAY(1858 -1937) was a world-renowned Hungarian violinist, composer and pedagogue with an astonishing biography. Performed with Brahms? Check! (World-premiere of Brahms' D Minor Violin Sonata, with Brahms himself on the piano, and world-premiere of Brahms' Piano Trio No.3 again with Brahms, and with cellist David Popper!) Performed with Liszt? Check! (Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata, and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.12, dedicated to Hubay's teacher Joachim and arranged by Joachim for violin and piano!) Legendary teachers? Check! (Joachim and Vieuxtemps - after first learning violin with his father Károly Huber, Head of Strings at Budapest Music Academy, and also concertmaster of Budapest National Opera, where that same violinist, Hubay's father Károly Huber, conducted the Budapest premiere of Wagner's "Lohengrin", receiving a "thank you" letter from Wagner afterwards). Prestigious jobs? Check! (Appointed at age 23 by the Belgian King as Head of the String Department at Brussels' Royal Conservatory, succeeding Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski; and after his father's death, succeeding him as Head of Strings at the Music Academy in Budapest, where he also became the Director). Founder of famous quartets? Check! (The Budapest Quartet, together with David Popper). Great students? Here is just a short list: Stefi Geyer for whom violin concertos were written by Bartók, Othmar Schoeck and her teacher Hubay (who dedicated to Stefi his Fourth Concerto); Franz von Vecsey, who was considered on a par with Ysaÿe and Kreisler, and became the dedicatee of the Sibelius Concerto, and also of Hubay's Third Concerto; Joseph Szigeti - a muse and chamber partner of Bartók, who dedicated his Rhapsody No.1, and his trio "Contrasts" to Szigeti, while Ysaÿe dedicated to him his Solo Sonata No.1 and Bloch composed for him his violin concerto; Zoltán Székely, to whom Bartók dedicated his Rhapsody No.2 and his Second Violin Concerto, and who became concertmaster of The Concertgebouw under Mengelberg; Adila Fachiri - great-niece of Joachim, for whom Bartók wrote his early piece "Andante" and for whom her chamber music partner Rebecca Clarke wrote "Midsummer Moon", while Gustav Holst dedicated to her (and to her sister) his Double Concerto for 2 Violins; Jelly d'Arányi - Joachim's other great-niece, who not only was the dedicatee of Ravel's "Tzigane" and of Vaughan Williams’ Concerto Accademico, but she also world-premiered with Bartók his (written for her) 2 Sonatas for Violin and Piano; Emil Telmányi - the dedicatee of Nielsen's violin concerto; Eugene Ormandy (of Philadelphia Orchestra fame); Imre Waldbauer, to whom Kodály dedicated his Adagio, and who later premiered Kodály's Duo for Violin and Cello, as well as the first 4 of Bartók's string quartets (János Starker, who studied chamber music with Imre Waldbauer, wrote “in a 2-hour session, you could learn more from him than in 6 months of cello lessons”.) Imre Waldbauer, together with Hubay, taught the father of the eminent violinist and researcher Nandor Szederkényi - himself a recipient of the Hubay Prize, and a student of Hubay's student Zoltán Székely (Bartók's muse and recital partner). While Hubay was the founder of the modern school of Hungarian violinists, Hubay also composed hundreds of works, including 4 symphonies and 8 operas. Hubay's SCÉNES de la CSÁRDA No. 4, Op. 32 in E Major "Hejre Kati" ("Hey Katie!") is one of 14 different "Csárdás" Scenes. "Hejre Kati" was written during the time Hubay headed the strings department at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels (1882-1886) and it quotes several popular 19th C. melodies.
KARL GOLDMARK (1830-1915), a Hungarian-born, Vienna-based composer, violinist, pianist and music journalist, started late on the violin (at age 11), and was essentially self-taught as composer and as pianist, but he had a sublime musical talent, nourished while growing up as the son of a cantor in a synagogue. (His nephew Rubin Goldmark was also a composer who in 1924 became Head of Composition at Juilliard, teaching Aaron Copland and George Gershwin). Possessed of an immense lyrical gift, Karl Goldmark struggled to support himself as a theatre violinist, piano teacher and music critic. His “rags to riches” story unfolds from his modest beginnings to his eventual status, after the deaths of Bruckner and Brahms as the leading Viennese composer, revered, at the time, even more than Mahler and Schönberg, and teaching the likes of Sibelius! (There was, at the time, even a “Goldmark cult”, crowning him as the “greatest living dramatist since Wagner’s death”). One of Goldmark's 7 operas earned him 40 curtain calls at its world premiere in Vienna and it was also produced at The Metropolitan Opera in 1885. Goldmark’s symphony “Rustic Wedding” was championed by Sir Thomas Beecham and by Leonard Bernstein, while Goldmark’s masterpiece of a violin concerto is to this day considered mind-blowing, having been recorded by the greatest violinists. (The super-spiky polonaise rhythms in the Finale of Goldmark's concerto might have inspired Goldmark's student Sibelius to infuse the third movement of his own violin concerto with similar rhythms). Goldmark's meteoric success as an assimilated Jew in liberal Vienna was helped by his objectivity with regards to the polarizations among supporters of the opposite camps of Wagner vs. Brahms - while Goldmark maintained a collegial friendship with Brahms and traveled abroad with him, he also acknowledged the artistic merits of Wagner’s works and was instrumental in the formation of Vienna's Wagner Society, although he was not a friend of the antisemitic Wagner. While the scope of Goldmark’s violin compositions is not large, his “BALLADE”, Op. 54 in G Major (first published in 1913), along with his violin concerto has always been a favorite of mine. Goldmark's Ballade showcases the supreme melodic gift which imbues his entire oeuvre with affecting lyricism. The piece is a gem to grace any concert program.
GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923-2006) was an innovative Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary avant-garde music, born in Transylvania into a Hungarian Jewish family. A great-grandnephew of Leopold Auer (world-renowned violin pedagogue and teacher of Heifetz), Ligeti started learning piano quite late, at age 14. During the Holocaust Ligeti's father and brother perished at Nazi concentration camps, while Ligeti was sent to a forced labor camp. After World War II Ligeti studied with Kodály at the Liszt Academy, where Ligeti later was also a faculty member (teaching harmony and counterpoint), before fleeing to Austria after the Soviets brutalized Hungary to quash the uprising against the communist regime. Before his escape Ligeti had mainly created transcriptions of Hungarian and Romanian folk music (“In 1949…I learned how to transcribe folksongs from wax cylinders at the Folklore Institute in Bucharest"), while his modernist works were, at the time, considered non-conforming, therefore they were largely apocryphal. In the West, after working with Stockhausen on electronic music and serialism, Ligeti held teaching positions in Stockholm, Hamburg and at Stanford University. He experimented with electronic textures and machine automation, and with tonal and rhythmical distortions, but later returned to exploring the partial restoration of tonality and rhythmical structures. Familiar with additive and uneven rhythms since his studies with Kodály and his own ethnomusicological research, Ligeti employed asymmetrical meters in a number of his later works (notably in his Horn Trio and in his Violin Concerto). Having performed and/or recorded several of Ligeti's chamber works (including his Horn Trio), I recall playing Ligeti's Chamber Concerto for 13 instrumentalists at Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine: a score for 13 concertante soloists, heard together, yet individually, in various rhythms and speeds, with unfocused intervals. Ligeti's DUO for Violin and Piano is a 1946 miniature from his student days in Budapest, dedicated to composer György Kurtag and violinist Stefan Romascanu. Housed in the Ligeti Collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation, this piece was never published during Ligeti's lifetime, but revisions in Ligeti's handwriting from his late years indicate that he might have been considering it for publishing. This Duo recalls the Bartók/Kodály sphere of stylized folk motifs, with the addition of some fluctuating tonality and modes, while rhythms alternate frequently, preventing settling. Every note is centered, yet the many independent "centers" manage to unify and gather around just one super-center which might or might not be gravitational. The proportions seem perfect for one fleeting moment, but, before you manage to question their perception, they succumb to fluidity, yet, just as you accept their uncertainty, you sense their unexpected geometry. Pianist Thomas Weaver and I were honored to perform the American premiere of Ligeti's Duo for Violin and Piano in September 2023 under the auspices of The New York Chamber Music Festival, commemorating Ligeti's centennial.
- Elmira Darvarova, January 2024
ARTISTS' BIOS
ELMIRA DARVAROVA - “A MARVELOUS VIOLINIST IN THE HEIFETZ TRADITION” - American Record Guide
A Grammy®-nominated concert violinist, an award-winning artist (recipient of Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in 2017 & in 2018, the Golden Quill award by FM Classic Radio, and the Boris Christoff Medal), she is a former Concertmaster of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, hailed in the press as a “marvelous violinist in the tradition of Heifetz” (American Record Guide). Playing the violin since age 3, she gave her first recital at 4, and made her debut as a soloist with an orchestra when she was 8. A student of Henryk Szeryng, Josef Gingold and Yfrah Neaman, she created a sensation when she became the first-ever (and so far only) woman-concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the U.S., and was heard on the MET's live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, CDs and laser discs on the Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI labels. As concertmaster of the MET she has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She has also performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble in Carnegie Hall. Having appeared in recitals and as soloist on 5 continents (including at Carnegie Hall as soloist with orchestra), she has been concerto soloist with numerous orchestras. Well-versed not only in opera, symphonic and chamber music repertoire, she also performs and records in many other genres and styles. She has partnered for chamber music performances and/or recordings with music giants such as James Levine, János Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Rogé, Vassily Lobanov, with tango and jazz legends such as Octavio Brunetti and David Amram, and with the world-renowned Indian musician Amjad Ali Khan, with whom she recorded a trilogy of CD albums, based on traditional Indian Ragas (released in the US, and separately, on the Indian sub-continent). Her 2021 double-CD album “Masterpieces for Sarod and Violin” (based on Indian Ragas) debuted as No. 3 on Billboard and was praised by Songlines Magazine as "one of the best" albums in the long tradition of East-Meets-West. She has recorded numerous CDs for several labels (including the world premiere of Vernon Duke's violin concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, and a CD with music by Rene de Castera named a Record of the Year 2015 by MusicWeb International). Her recent Ysaÿe album is garnering 5-star reviews, and has been praised in the press as “breathtaking”. Her 2023 Naxos album with chamber works by Alfano was hailed as “wondrously fervent, with tiger-like ferocity”. Her recording of the Brahms Horn Trio with legendary hornist Philip Myers and MET conductor/pianist Bryan Wagorn was noted to belong in the same league as the iconic Myron Bloom/Michael Tree/Rudolf Serkin recording. Elmira Darvarova is the founder and leader of the New York Piano Quartet, and performs with the Delphinium Trio, the Amram Ensemble, the Quinteto del Fuego, and in a duo with Argentine pianist Fernando Otero. She is Artistic Director of the New York Chamber Music Festival. A former British Council scholar, she is a Fellow of the Guildhall School in London, where scholarships bearing her name are awarded every academic year. Gramophone Magazine published an interview with Elmira Darvarova on the occasion of her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke’s violin concerto (composed for Heifetz). The Strad Magazine praised her “silky-smooth voluptuous sound” and her “intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing”, while The Chicago Tribune noted her “flawless technique and musicality”.
THOMAS WEAVER - “SENSITIVITY and INCREDIBLE DEXTERITY” - press reviews
THOMAS WEAVER is an American pianist, composer, and conductor currently on faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and Boston University Tanglewood Institute. The former music director of the Marian Anderson Historical Society (2021-2023), and an active soloist and chamber musician, Weaver has been presented by organizations including Carnegie Hall, La Jolla Music Society, Princeton University Concerts, New York Chamber Music Festival, Waterford Concerts, Curtis Institute of Music, and the Kimmel Center. This has brought him to many cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, San Diego, Washington DC, Nashville, Dallas, and Berlin, in addition to festival appearances at Tanglewood Music Festival and Red Rocks Music Festival. Weaver has performed with a number of eminent musicians such as Jess Gillam, David Amram, Elmira Darvarova, Kenneth Radnofsky, Philip Myers, Gene Pokorny, and members of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared as a featured soloist with ensembles including Curtis Institute’s 20/21 Ensemble, Alea III, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Young Artists Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Weaver is currently a member of the Amram Ensemble, Trio Ardente, and New England Chamber Players. A champion of new music, Weaver has premiered many new compositions, including works by David Amram, Reena Esmail, David Loeb, Anthony Plog, John H. Wallace, Francine Trester, Alistair Coleman, and Christopher LaRosa. His playing and arrangements can be heard on the albums David Amram: So In America, and Astor Piazzolla - Genius of Tango, both released by Affetto Records. As a composer his music has been performed across 4 continents, including countries such as the United States, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Australia. His works have been commissioned by a number of organizations and musicians including Boston University (in honor of the School of Music’s 150th Anniversary), Penn Museum, The Marian Anderson Historical Society, The New York Chamber Music Festival, Elmira Darvarova, Dr. Brittany Lasch, Kenneth Radnofsky, Pharos Quartet, Alea III, and the Daraja Ensemble. Weaver’s works have been performed by large ensembles such as the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Mannes American Composers Orchestra and he was the winner of the Bohuslav Martinu Composition Award at Mannes College. An active educator, Weaver has presented lectures and classes at a variety of locations, including Northwestern University, Murray State University, Austin Peay State University, and The People’s Music School in Chicago. Recent students have been accepted to Princeton University, Juilliard Pre-College, and have won awards including the Morton Gould Young Composers Award from ASCAP. Weaver’s primary piano teachers include Anthony di Bonaventura, Victor Rosenbaum, and Pavel Nersessian.
