Leos Janáček composed in relative obscurity during the early part of his life, developing his style apart from popular trends. As a youth, he took an interest in folk music and avidly collected and recorded Moravian as well as Slovak melodies. Drawn to their unusual harmonies, he used their modal scales (with added hints of dissonance) in his own music. These elements became intrinsic to his early style and subtly coloured his mature works. Despite personal and professional disappointments, Janáček remained faithful to his musical vision and persevered, to be rewarded in his sixth decade with the acclaim he richly deserved.

On an Overgrown Path, Book II is one of Janáček’s few solo piano compositions. Although he was proficient on the instrument, he produced a limited amount of keyboard music, most of it published between 1900 and 1912. Book II was completed towards the end of this period, as an addendum of sorts to the pictorial pieces of the 1901 Book I. The first two selections were written for but were not included in the earlier set; the last three were composed in 1911. Book II begins with an appealing Andante featuring a repetitive opening figure and shifting modal tonalities. The Allegretto is a little darker but with a similar tonal colouring. The Vivo captures a jovial character, while the Più mosso is slightly more mercurial in nature. The final Allegro is full-bodied and dramatic with tremolo elements and bittersweet melodies.

Franz Liszt wrote in all manner of styles during his long career. Initially he was best known for his virtuoso piano works, but he also explored orchestral genres, programmatic music, and vocal transcriptions. Transferring operatic and lyric works effectively to the keyboard is no small undertaking, and Liszt was a master of the technique. Among his efforts was the 1867 transcription of the Leibestod aria from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

The famous Liebestod (Love-death) is sung at the end of this medieval tale of star-crossed lovers. In the first act, Tristan and Isolde fall inconveniently in love; by Act III they are both doomed, with Tristan already dead and Isolde soon to follow. Brangän, Isolde’s abandoned bridegroom, approaches the unfortunate lovers, not to separate them as expected but to unite them, whereupon Isolde sings the Liebestod then dies of grief beside her beloved. Liszt’s transcription is faithful to Wagner’s musical intent, and he avoids imprinting too much of his own style on the work. While many of the orchestral and vocal elements are trimmed to accommodate a single instrument, the overall effect is still very emotive, befitting the opera’s tragic end.

Even during his youth at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Sergei Prokofiev was an abrasive individual known for his cutting wit and piercing intellect. He took a similarly idiosyncratic approach to the piano. While others in the school carried on the post-Romantic traditions of Debussy and Scriabin, Prokofiev espoused a more aggressive style of playing. He attacked the piano with driving rhythms and forceful harmonies—not quite atonal, but definitely more dissonant than was comfortable for his professors. The Sarcasmes, Op.17 (1912—1914) date from this early period and are indeed sarcastic, demonstrating his disdain for the lyric style of such earlier composers as Chopin and Liszt. The manner in which the pieces storm and rage must have caused some surprise at their premiere, yet they are a reflection of the turbulent times in which they were conceived. The set opens with the forceful and captivating Tempestoso. The Allegro rubato then backs away from the driving pace, with a greater freedom of tempo. The Allegro precipitato returns to the opening fury with an unrelenting pulse beginning in the bass register. The next movement is titled Smanioso, meaning “raging” or “rampaging,” an effect decisively captured with an economy of expression. Finally the Precipitosissimo ends the set with an unsettling descent into the lower regions of the keyboard.

Although Franz Schubert expressed himself in a variety of musical mediums, only his lieder gained much recognition during his life. Schubert’s idol Beethoven apparently became acquainted with some of these vocal works towards the end of his life, and is said to have been impressed with their quality. Had he lived longer he might have been able to help the struggling composer, but this was not to be; the great man died and was buried in late March 1827, with Schubert serving as one of the pallbearers. A little over a month later Schubert composed his Allegretto in C minor, D.915. Listeners may detect strains of Beethoven that serve as a subtle homage. Schubert chose the sombre key of C minor and a lilting 6/8 metre. The overall structure is a large-scale ternary form, with the entire opening section repeated after a brief chordal middle passage. Within the outer sections there is a loose rounded binary form, and the main theme can be heard several times.

Thomas Adès is a versatile musician, thrilling audiences not only with his conducting and pianistic skills but also his compositional talents. Tonight he presents a “concert paraphrase” of his 1995 opera Powder Her Face, which is based on the 1963 divorce case of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll and her second husband, the Duke of Argyll. This caused quite a scandal at the time because explicit photos of the Duchess and a nameless lover were introduced as evidence of her infidelity. The opera’s music is without a doubt individualistic, but hints of Stravinsky, Britten, Weill, and even the tango can be heard effectively incorporated.

Adès writes: “For the Concert Paraphrase I have taken four scenes from my first opera, Powder Her Face, and freely transcribed them as a piano piece. The libretto, by the novelist Philip Hensher, paints the portrait of a Duchess of a certain age at the end of the twentieth century and the end of British aristocratic influence. In the opera the Duchess’ grace and glamour are figured in the music by a certain virtuosity, which encouraged me to feel that parts of the music would translate into a piano Paraphrase rather in the manner of Liszt or Busoni. The first scene is Scene One, my “Ode to Joy”, here the Duchess's perfume, Joy by Patou. The second scene in the Paraphrase is Scene Five, “Is Daddy Squiffy?” The third scene is Scene Four, the aria “Fancy being Rich!” The Paraphrase ends with the eighth and final scene of the opera and the aria “It is too Late”, in which the dead Duke returns as Hotel Manager to evict the Duchess from the room in which she lives, and the closing tango in which the room is made ready for the next occupant.”

Ludwig van Beethoven was famous for the breadth of his works in the realm of orchestral, chamber, and solo ventures; yet his oeuvre contains some small-scale compositions, deceptively simple in texture and in technique, which deserve equal respect, displaying the same skill of development and clarity found in their much grander cousins. The Six Bagatelles, Op.126 is just such a collection. It was published in 1825; although the individual dates of composition are difficult to determine, it is likely that Beethoven intended them to be performed as a set. He implied as much in a letter to his publisher, and the idea is also supported by the related key signatures of numbers II to VI (each one down a major third).The first Bagatelle, Andante con moto, Cantabile compiacevole begins the set in G major with a full repetition of the second half. The following Allegro moves to G minor with the greater intensity the key implies; in this case, both A and B sections are repeated in the binary form. The third bagatelle, Andante, Cantabile e grazioso, in E flat major, is more whimsical, even florid at times, with a through-composed structure. The Presto, in B minor, is longer than its partners and seems to shift between controlled anger and reconciliation. The cycle returns to G major in the fifth piece, Quasi allegretto, with a singing 6/8 metre. The final Bagatelle opens into a brief but energetic Presto followed by an amiable Andante in E flat major.

©2009 by Barbara Siemens, a piano instructor who has done post-graduate work in historical musicology. www.keystothepiano.ca.