Program Notes BÉLA BARTÓK DANCE SUITE IN SIX MOVEMENTS Duration: ca. 17 minutes Overview In an essay on The Influence of Peasant Music on Modern Music that appeared in the periodical Melos in 1920, Béla Bartók wrote of the issue central in his creative work. “At the beginning of the 20th century,” he began, “there was a turning point in the history of modern music. The excesses of the romanticists began to be unbearable for many.... Invaluable help was given in this change (or rather let us call it rejuvenation) by a kind of peasant music unknown until then. “The question is, what are the ways in which peasant music is taken over and becomes transmuted into modern music? We may, for instance, take over a peasant melody unchanged or only slightly varied, write an accompaniment to it and possibly some opening and concluding phrases. This kind of work would show a certain analogy to Bach’s treatment of chorales.... Another method by which peasant music becomes transmuted into modern music is the following: The composer does not make use of a real peasant melody but invents his own imitation of such melodies.... There is yet a third way in which the influence of peasant music can be traced in a composer’s work. Neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music.” What to Listen For The Dance Suite, an example of the second genre of Bartók’s folksong-inspired compositions, was written during the summer of 1923, just after he had returned from a tour of England and the Netherlands as a piano soloist. Bartók proudly noted that the Suite’s six continuous sections connected by a returning refrain represented the breadth of his extensive folk music researches: “No. 1 is partially and No. 4 entirely of an Oriental (Arabic) character; the ritornello and No. 2 are of Hungarian character; in No. 3, Hungarian, Rumanian and even Arabic influences alternate; and the theme of No. 5 is so primitive that one can only speak of a primitive peasant character here, and any classification according to nationality must be abandoned.” The concluding No. 6 recalls themes from each of the preceding sections. THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2017-2018 SERGEI RACHMANINOFF CONCERTO NO. 4 FOR PIANO IN G MINOR, Op. 40 Duration: ca. 31 minutes Overview Rachmaninoff was living in Moscow when the Russian Revolution erupted in March 1917. Realizing that the days of his aristocratic world were numbered, he made the painful decision to leave his beloved homeland by accepting an offer that fortuitously arrived just at that time to give a recital tour of Scandinavia. He secured visas for himself and his family before departing in November, but left behind his home, his possessions and his money, taking with him only 2,000 rubles — then practically worthless — and such personal belongings as fit into a small suitcase. He never saw Russia again. During the next year, Rachmaninoff received repeated proposals to perform in America, and on November 1, 1918, he sailed from Oslo to New York. His financial situation when he arrived in this country was difficult, since his family’s wealth had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks and the income from the performance of his works was meager because Russia was not then a signatory of the international copyright laws that would have assured his royalties. To support his family and pick up the frayed threads of his career, he began the coast-to-coast performance tours that were to continue virtually uninterrupted for the next 25 years. So intense was his concertizing during his first American decade that he was unable to compose a single piece. He once told an interviewer that creative work was impossible for him while he was preoccupied with performing: “When I am concertizing, I cannot compose. When I feel like writing music, I have to concentrate on that — I cannot touch the piano. When I am conducting, I can neither compose nor play concerts. Other musicians may be more fortunate in this respect; but I have to concentrate on any one thing I am doing to such a degree that it does not seem to allow me to take up anything else.” It was not until 1926, when he began the Piano Concerto No. 4, that he again found time to compose. What to Listen For The Concerto opens with an energetic orchestral flourish as introduction to the main theme, which is presented by the piano. A transition, filled with rippling figurations for 54
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