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The multi-awarded young pianist Jan Niković first appeared in Dubrovnik with his performance at the 'Youth for Youth' concert at the 75th Dubrovnik Summer Festival. This time we will experience him in a solo evening where he will perform works by Croatian composer Dora Pejačević as part of a rich program.
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PROGRAMME:
Domenico Scarlatti:
Sonata u a-molu, K. 149
Sonata u h-molu K. 87
Sonata u G-duru, K. 455
Dora Pejačević: Život cvijeća, op. 19
Potočnica
Ruža
Robert Schumann: Carnaval / Karneval, op. 9
1. Préambule
2. Pierrot
3. Arlequin
4. Valse noble
5. Eusebius
6. Florestan
7. Coquette
8. Réplique
9. Papillons
10. A.S.C.H. – S.C.H.A. (Lettres dansantes)
11. Chiarina
12. Chopin
13. Estrella
14. Reconnaissance
15. Pantalon et Colombine
16. Valse allemande
17. Paganini
18. Aveu
19. Promenade
20. Pause
21. Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins
Sergej Rahmanjinov: Varijacije na Corellijevu temu, op. 42
Aleksandar Skrjabin: Sonata br. 4 u Fis-duru, Op. 30 I. Andante II. Prestissimo volando
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Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (Naples, 1685 – Madrid, 1757), an Italian Baroque composer, son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, worked in Italy, Portugal and Spain. In Rome, he served as maestro di cappella at St Peter’s, for which he wrote church music, and he also wrote several operas. In Lisbon, he was the music director at the court of King John V and taught music to the king’s brother Antonio and his daughter Maria Bárbara. He later wrote most of his harpsichord sonatas for her, and when she married the Spanish heir to the throne (the future King Ferdinand VI), Scarlatti followed the couple to Spain, where he spent the rest of his life.
An unknown author described Scarlatti’s sonatas as ‘Bach’s Preludes on holiday at the Mediterranean’. He wrote 555 sonatas, about a dozen for violin and continuo, three for organ and the rest for harpsichord, with numerous instrumental and harmonic innovations and skilful ornamentation. They also inspired numerous arrangements. The Sonata K. 149 is a rhythmic Allegro in A minor, from Scarlatti’s middle period, influenced by Spanish music and rhythms; the Sonata K. 87 in B minor, one of his earlier sonatas, has a slow tempo and a melancholic character; the Sonata K. 455 in G major is a lively Allegro, from Scarlatti’s late period.
The designation ‘K’ next to the sonatas refers to the catalogue of Scarlatti’s works developed by the harpsichordist and musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick, in addition to several other existing catalogues. Kirkpatrick suggested that Scarlatti’s sonatas are ‘not a stylistic continuation of the Italian or Baroque tradition, but a new development with influences from Spanish guitar and dance music’. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz described them as ‘little wonders: fireworks and intimacy side by side’.
Croatian composer Dora Pejačević (Budapest, 1885 – Munich, 1923) came from a noble family – she was the daughter and granddaughter of Counts Pejačević, Bans of Croatia, as well as the daughter of a Hungarian baroness. She was exceptionally well-read and educated; she spoke foreign languages, travelled, and socialized with intellectuals such as the Austrian writer Karl Kraus. She began composing at the age of twelve, and studied music on her own and privately in Zagreb, then in Dresden and Munich.
During World War I, she nursed the wounded in her town of Našice and composed prolifically; after the Piano Concerto from 1913, she wrote the Symphony in F-sharp minor, which was premiered in Dresden in 1920. (The first two modern Croatian symphonies were written in 1917, by Dora Pejačević and Franjo Lučić respectively.) Her unique oeuvre was very promising, but she died soon after giving birth; instead of flowers at her funeral, she wished for donations to support poor musicians.
Dora Pejačević left behind 58 opuses, late Romantic works as well as pieces that firmly belong to European Modern music. In addition to larger works, she regularly wrote instrumental miniatures and art songs. Her piano miniatures The Life of Flowers, Op. 19 (1904/05) were published in Dresden and contain eight movements, each named after a flower. Musicologist Koraljka Kos believes that the intertwining and alternation of major and minor musical forms is crucial to Dora Pejačević’s personality as a composer. In her book about Pejačević, Kos writes: ‘In the group of absolute instrumental forms, Dora Pejačević’s musical language impresses with its high professional level, discipline and formal integrity, while in the second group the composer had more space for intimate lyrical expressions, unfettered play of imagination or occasional breakthroughs from traditional patterns.’
The composer Robert Alexander Schumann (Zwickau, 1810 – Endenich, 1856) wanted to become a pianist, a piano virtuoso: he reportedly gave up his law studies after hearing Paganini play in Frankfurt in 1830. His ambition was hindered by problems with his hand, perhaps caused by a device he had invented to better exercise his fingers, or by medical treatment. His teacher was Friedrich Wieck, whose daughter Clara, despite Wieck’s opposition, later became Schumann’s wife and associate, and was herself a pianist and composer.
Schumann often devoted himself to one genre for long periods: in his early years to piano works, then exclusively to solo songs, then symphonic music, and finally chamber music. His pieces are often characterized by ‘gentle restlessness’ created by combining lyrical themes with dense contrapuntal work. He also founded an important journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The later years of his life were marked by long periods without composing due to frequent depressions.
Schumann’s Carnaval cycle from 1835 was inspired by Ernestine von Fricken, a pianist, Wieck’s student and – at the time, but not for long – Schumann’s fiancée. It contains 21 short pieces: the composer called them scênes mignones. They are a musical-poetic portrayal of carnival life, consisting of energetic dances and so-called character movements. A series of musical codes is woven into the work: For example, Ernestine von Fricken was from the Czech town of Aš, spelled Asch in German, and this can be ‘translated’ into notes, A, Es, C, H. In addition, A-Sch are also the initials of the composer’s middle name, Alexander, and surname, and the same letters are found in the word Fasching – carnival. Schumann hid this series of notes in the music – in all movements except the 1st and the 17th (and the 11th is dedicated to the fifteen-year-old Clara!). The work also contains a short movement, Sphinxes, which was not intended for performance (although Rachmaninoff and Horowitz did record it), but rather contains several bars in which the aforementioned notes, derived from the letters A, S, C, H, are grouped; this movement is the key to decoding.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (Semyonovo, Novogorod, 1873 – Beverly Hills, 1943) received his first piano lessons from his mother, and then studied piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and in Moscow, where he continued to study composition. As a virtuoso pianist with an international career, he wrote mostly for the piano: preludes, four concertos, moments musicaux. After the failure of his Symphony No. 1 (conductor Glazunov was allegedly drunk), he was unable to compose for several years; he recovered after hypnotherapy, composing what is probably his most popular work – the Piano Concerto No. 2. After the October Revolution, in 1917, he left Russia and went to Scandinavia and the USA, where he actively performed nearly until the end of his life.
Some of the characteristics that made his music recognizable and popular with the audiences are broad-stroke melodies, melancholic ostinatos, repetitions, ‘darker’ harmonies, and sentimental atmosphere. Rachmaninoff also wrote three symphonies, cantatas, art songs, and three operas.
The Variations on a Theme of Corelli, from 1931, are not variations on a theme by Corelli, but the theme of La follia (folia, folie), which probably originated in Portugal and the 15th century. This theme (and harmonic progression) was used by many composers – Lully, Vivaldi, Paganini, Liszt, Henze – and Arcangelo Corelli wrote a series of variations on Follia in Sonata, Op. 5, No. 12 in 1700. In Rachmaninoff’s piece, we encounter the theme in a calm and solemn form, in twenty variations, with a variety of characters and influences: from folk elements, through lyrical scenes, chorales, and a pianistic gallop, all the way to the virtuoso finale and coda. When performing this piece, Rachmaninoff sometimes changed the order of the variations, or even omitted some of them (allegedly based on how much the audience was coughing).
Like Rachmaninoff (his fellow student from the Conservatory), Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Moscow, 1872–1915) was an active concert pianist and composer, who wrote many works for the piano, as well as orchestral pieces. He used innovative harmonic procedures and specific chromatic shifts, crossing the boundary of tonality, to an extent, in his later works. He also used his own chord system, in which he attached esoteric meanings to individual chords, such as the so-called ‘mystical chord’. He was interested in the synesthetic nature of art and had very specific demands regarding the lighting at his concerts. He performed throughout Europe and taught at the Moscow Conservatory for several years. At the beginning of the new century, Scriabin increasingly turned to mysticism and theosophy, dedicating himself to creating art that would open up ‘new spiritual horizons’.
Scriabin wrote the Piano Sonata No. 4, out of a total of ten, in summer of 1903, when he composed more than twenty works for piano. In addition to the Sonata, he also wrote a poem about a mystical journey towards a distant star that turns into a blazing sun, about a ‘flight of liberation’, ‘fierce desire’, and ‘mad dance’. The introspective Andante, in which three melodies intertwine, is immediately followed by the poetically announced ecstasy in the Prestissimo, in which, at the sumptuous end, the theme of the first movement returns. Scriabin told the musicologist Sabaneyev that he wanted the movement to be performed as quickly as possible, ‘on the edge of the possible, a flight at the speed of light, directly towards the Sun, into the Sun!’
