Mishka Rushdie Momen, piano

Program Notes

William Byrd – Pavana Lachrymae

Pavana Lachrymae (after Flow my tears, by John Dowland)
John Dowland
Born January 2, 1563, London, United Kingdom
Died February 20, 1626, London, United Kingdom

William Byrd
Born 1540, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Died July 4, 1623, Stonton Massey, Essex, United Kingdom

This music, now over 400 years old, is the product of two of England’s greatest composers, and we should begin with a word about each of them.

Lutenist and singer John Dowland was educated at Oxford and played before Elizabeth I, but he was disappointed in his hopes of becoming court lutenist, and so he made his career largely on the continent. He held positions in Paris, Venice, Florence, Nuremberg, and Denmark before he returned to England, and finally became lutenist to the court of James I. Dowland played and sang at James’s funeral in May 1625 and died early the following year at the age of 63. We remember Dowland today for his lute songs: songs for voice with the accompaniment of lute; Dowland would accompany himself as he sang. Almost all of his lute songs are about love, and while he could celebrate the pleasures of love in these songs, Dowland appears to have been irresistibly drawn to the darker side of love. Throughout, his songs run the recurrent themes of separation, longing, unworthiness, pain.

William Byrd lived a remarkable life that spanned more than 80 years: born two decades before Shakespeare, he outlived the playwright by almost another decade. Byrd’s life was eventful. He was a devout Roman Catholic at a moment when it was dangerous to be Catholic in England, and though he was under suspicion by the police, he enjoyed the personal protection of Elizabeth I, who granted him the sole right to publish music in London. Byrd trained originally as an organist in Lincoln, but spent much of his career in London, eventually retiring to Essex, where he was involved in a good deal of litigation—he was apparently not a man to walk away from a fight. Byrd is remembered today primarily for his keyboard and sacred music, writing with equanimity for both Anglican and Catholic services. The keyboard music was probably composed for virginal, a type of small harpsichord with one keyboard and strings running parallel to that keyboard (rather than away from it).

Sometime before 1595, Dowland composed a pavan for lute, and in 1600 he published it in an arrangement for voice and lute that sets a dark text, probably by Dowland himself; its original title was Lagrime: “tears.” The first few lines of that text give some sense of its content:

Flow my teares, fall from your springs
Exil’d for ever; let me mourn
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings
There let me live forlorn…

The song became popular, and a number of composers soon arranged it for keyboard. William Byrd was one of these, though he turned not to the song but to Dowland’s original version for lute. The result is one of the finest keyboard pieces of the Elizabethan era, in which Byrd develops, embellishes, and extends Dowland’s pavan.

Henry Purcell – Ground in C Minor, ZT.681

Ground in C Minor, ZT.681 (from Ye Tuneful Muses)
Henry Purcell
Born 1659, Westminster, London, United Kingdom
Died November 21, 1695, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Born into a musical family, Henry Purcell had a meteoric career that made him, over the span of his brief life, the first of England’s great composers. He sang in the Chapel Royal as a boy, became “composer to the King’s violins” at age 18, and was named the organist at Westminster Abbey in 1679, a position he held until his death in 1695 at the age of 36. A prolific composer, he wrote church music, coronation and other official anthems, incidental music for London theatrical productions, and a large number of instrumental and keyboard pieces. He is probably best known to American audiences for two works that have been used for other purposes: Benjamin Britten used a Rondeau from Purcell’s Abdelazar, or, The Moor’s Revenge as the basis for his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and Stanley Kubrick employed Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary to eerie effect in A Clockwork Orange (1971).

In the fall of 1686, Purcell composed an ode titled Ye Tuneful Muses. Many believe that it was written for the birthday of King James II, who turned 53 on October 14 of that year. The ode’s seventh movement, a setting for tenor and orchestra titled “With Him He Brings the Partner of His Throne,” sets a text in praise of James’s wife, extolling her beauty and grace. Some years later (the date is uncertain) Purcell wrote a Ground in C Minor based on the first four measures of the melody of that setting. A “ground” is a variation form, somewhat akin to the passacaglia. In it, a ground bass line repeats constantly, and a series of variations is set above that repeating bass line.

Henry Purcell – Suite in G Major, z. 662

Suite in G Major, z. 662
Henry Purcell
Born 1659, Westminster, London, United Kingdom
Died November 21, 1695, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Purcell’s Suite in G Major was published in London in 1696, the year after his death. The suite is in three brief movements. Its opening Prelude, marked Allegretto, is built on a steady sequence of 16th-notes; the melodic line moves easily between the two hands as the music hurries along its way. The other two movements are in binary form (two halves, each of them repeated). The Almand (a form of the German allemande) is marked Maestoso, and there is something majestic about this music, which has an ebullient energy; the second half—a variation of the first half—is sharply syncopated. The title of the final movement, Corant, comes from the French courante, which means “running,” though the pace here does not feel particularly fast. This movement has a firm dignity, though, and once again the second half is built on syncopated rhythms.

Franz Joseph Haydn – Sonata in C Major Hob.XVI:50

Piano Sonata in C Major, Hob.XVI:50
Franz Joseph Haydn
Born March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Austria
Died May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria

Haydn’s approximately 60 keyboard sonatas are almost unknown to general audiences, who are daunted by their sheer number and more readily drawn to the famous 19th-century piano sonatas that followed. Yet there is some very fine music here indeed. The Sonata in C Major is one of a set of three he composed in London in 1794 and dedicated to pianist Therese Jansen, presumably with her talents in mind. Everyone notes the full sonority of these sonatas, but this has been explained in different ways: some believe that these sonatas consciously echo the sound of the series of grand symphonies Haydn was then writing for London orchestras. Others have felt that the brilliance of these sonatas is the best evidence of Therese Jansen’s abilities, while still others explain it as a sign that the English fortepianos were much more powerful than the instruments Haydn was used to in Vienna.

Whatever the reason, Haydn’s Sonata in C Major rings with a splendid sound. The opening Allegro is full of forthright energy. The initial pattern of three notes repeats throughout: it is sounded tentatively at first, then quickly repeated in full chords. Haydn plays this pattern out with great energy and brilliance across the span of a fairly lengthy movement (more than half the length of the entire sonata).

The central movement is an expressive Adagio in abbreviated sonata form whose main subject is built around the rolled chords heard at the very beginning. The concluding Allegro molto, barely two minutes long, is full of high comedy. It feels like a very fast waltz that starts and stops and modulates throughout, as if the composer cannot quite make up his mind how he wants it to go. Haydn of course knows exactly how he wants it to go, and this lurching, stumbling dance should leave us all laughing.

Dr. John Bull – Walsingham Variations: FVB 1

Walsingham Variations: FVB 1
John Bull
Born 1562, Wellow, United Kingdom
Died March 12, 1628, Antwerp, Belgium

The English composer, virginalist, and organist John Bull was a contemporary of Shakespeare, and his early life was spent at the heart of Elizabethan England. As a boy, he sang in the Chapel Royal of Elizabeth I, earned degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge, served as organist at the Hereford Cathedral, and returned to London to direct the Chapel Royal and serve as organist to Elizabeth’s successor, James I. A keyboard virtuoso, Bull composed largely for the virginal and organ, and for the church, he wrote anthems and motets. In 1613, at the age of 50, he suddenly left England and moved to Belgium. Bull claimed to be a Catholic and said that the move was a matter of religious freedom, but his critics—and there were many—said that Bull had fled to avoid charges of adultery and other sexual misbehavior. From 1617 until his death, Bull served as organist at the Antwerp Cathedral.

Walsingham was a pilgrimage site in Norfolk, reputedly the location of an appearance by the Virgin Mary in 1061. A popular Elizabethan ballad told of a journey there by a pilgrim, and the tune of that ballad became the basis for sets of keyboard variations by two English composers: William Byrd (who wrote his set of 22 variations in the 1570s to 1580s) and John Bull. The date of Bull’s Walsingham Variations is unknown, and it was not officially published until 1899, nearly three centuries after his death, when it appeared as the first work in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (hence the FVB number).

Bull’s Walsingham Variations give some indication of how fine a keyboardist he must have been, for this is quite difficult music. Bull begins his variations with a grand statement of the ballad tune that he lists as Variation 1 and then takes that eight-measure theme through 29 further variations. As these proceed, they become increasingly complex, full of brilliant runs, complicated rhythms, and skillful counterpoint. The sturdy ballad tune remains clear throughout, and the closing moments build that tune up to the stately, stirring final variation.

John Dowland – In Darkness Let Me Dwell

In Darkness Let Me Dwell
John Dowland
Born January 2, 1563, London, United Kingdom
Died February 20, 1626, London, United Kingdom

Dowland’s gravitation to the darker side of love caused him to publish many painful texts, all possibly by Dowland himself, and the title of the present song might stand for them all: In Darkness Let Me Dwell. The song is heard at this concert in an arrangement for piano, and it may be useful for audiences to know its text:

In darkness let me dwell.
The ground shall sorrow be,
The roof, despair to bar all cheerful light from me.
The walls of marble black
That moisten’d still shall weep,
My music, hellish jarring sounds
To banish friendly sleep.
Thus wedded to my woes, and bedded to my tomb,
O, let me living, living die, till death do come.
In darkness let me dwell

Thomas Adès – Darknesse visible

Darknesse Visible
Thomas Adès
Born March 1, 1971, London, United Kingdom

Thomas Adès composed Darknesse Visible in 1992, when he was only 21. It has been called a “recomposition” of Dowland’s In Darkness Let Me Dwell, but that may not be the right word—Adès does not so much recompose Dowland’s great song as he uses it as a structuring element for his own composition. The song is there in the ghostly background, at some moments more evident than others, and Adès melds these “memories” into the context of his own music. Dowland’s song is a lament (“Thus wedded to my woes, and bedded to my tomb, O, let me living, living die, till death do come”), and Adès preserves the dark tone of the original. Particularly interesting are the sonorities and texture of this music. It is “layered” music that seems to exist on several planes: a distant tremolo in one hand may serve as the background for a chordal event in the foreground, and Adès is able to draw a range of different sound into this layering. The music exists across a wide dynamic range, and the sonorities range from tolling sounds to textures created with both hands high in the instrument’s register to mist-like filigrees of sound. Throughout, Dowland’s somber melody weaves its way, and it puts in one final appearance in the closing measures of Darknesse Visible.

Ludwig van Beethoven – Sonata No. 30 in E Major, op. 109

Piano Sonata in E Major, op. 109
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria

The years 1813-1821 were exceptionally trying for Beethoven. Not only was he having financial difficulties, but this was also the period of his bitter legal struggle for custody of his nephew Karl. Under these stresses, and with the added burden of ill health, Beethoven virtually ceased composing. Where the previous two decades had seen a great outpouring of music, now his creative powers flickered and were nearly extinguished; in 1817, for example, he composed almost nothing. To be sure, there was an occasional major work— the Hammerklavier Sonata occupied him throughout all of 1818—but it was not until 1820 that he put his troubles, both personal and creative, behind him and was able to marshal new energy as a composer.

When this energy returned, Beethoven took on several massive new projects, beginning work on the Missa Solemnis and making sketches for the Ninth Symphony. By the end of May 1820, he had promised to write three piano sonatas for the Berlin publisher Adolph Martin Schlesinger. Although Beethoven claimed that he wrote these three sonatas, his final piano sonatas, “in one breath,” their composition was actually spread out over a longer period than he expected when he committed himself to write them. He completed the Sonata in E Major immediately, but ill health postponed the other two.

The Vivace, ma non troppo of the Sonata in E Major opens with a smoothly-flowing theme that is brought to a sudden halt after only nine bars, and Beethoven introduces his second subject at a much slower tempo: Adagio espressivo. But after only eight measure at the slower tempo, he returns to his opening theme and tempo. The entire movement is based not on the traditional exposition and development of themes of the classical sonata movement but on the contrast between these two radically different tempos. Also remarkable is this movement’s concision: it lasts barely four minutes.

The Prestissimo that follows is somewhat more traditional—it is a scherzo in sonata form, full of the familiar Beethovenian power, with explosive accents and a rugged second theme. But once again, the surprise is how focused the music is: this movement lasts two minutes.

It was often characteristic of the music Beethoven’s heroic period that the first movements carried the emotional weight, as did the opening movements of the Eroica and the Fifth Symphony. But in the Sonata in E Major, the opening two movements combined last barely six minutes, not even half the length of the final movement, and this final movement ultimately becomes the emotional center of the sonata.

The Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo is a theme and six variations, followed by a repetition of the opening theme. The form is not remarkable, but the variations themselves are. In his youth Beethoven had made much of his reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and one of his specialties had been the ability to sit at the keyboard and extemporize variations on a given theme. The variation form as he developed it in his late period is much different from the virtuoso variations he had written in his youth. This set of variations is not so much a decoration of the original theme as it is a sustained organic growth in which each variation seems to develop from what has gone before. The theme itself is of the greatest dignity, and to Beethoven’s marking in Italian (molto cantabile ed espressivo) he further specifies in German Gesangvoll mit innigster Empfindung: “Singing with the deepest feeling.” Curiously, Beethoven never changes keys in this movement–the theme and all six variations remain in E major. Despite the wealth of invention and the contrasts generated by the different variations, the mood remains one of the most rapt expressiveness, perfectly summarized by the restatement of the original theme at the sonata’s close.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger