A Recital

Carl Rahkonen, viola

Edwin Fry, piano

Friday, January 18th, 2008

7:00 pm

Room 120 Choral Room

Cogswell Hall

Program:

 

Variations on the Follies of Spain        Marin Marais

 

Elegy op. 44                                       Alexander Glazunov

 

I Bid my Heart be Still                        Rebecca Clarke

Chinese Puzzle

Passacaglia

 

Berceuse                                            Armas Järnefelt

 

Sonata “Arpeggione” D.821                Franz Schubert

Allegretto

Adagio

Allegro moderato

 

Recital Notes:

 

Welcome to my viola recital, the first one I’ve played in nearly thirty-two years.  Some have wondered what devil would possess me to play a recital after such an extended period of time.  I’m playing this recital because there is just too much good viola music which doesn’t get played often enough.   Playing viola has little to do with my profession and I offer this recital as an amateur “just for the love” of the music.

 

Marin Marais (1656-1728) was a gambist and composer.   His life was chronicled in the book and movie entitled All the Mornings of the World.  When Marais goes to audition for his teacher St. Colombe, he plays the Variations on the Follies of Spain, a set of eight variations on a popular tune of the time.  I knew I had heard the piece before and remembered that I had played it on my junior recital in college.  It is a great piece and I’m happy to have the chance to play it again.

 

The great Russian composer Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) wrote the Elegie in g minor op. 44 as an original piece for viola and piano in 1893, dedicated to his friend M. Franz Hildebrand.   It is a gem that I fell in love with the first time I heard it.   I hope you love it too.

 

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) was a British viola virtuoso at the turn of the twentieth century.  She wrote an early viola sonata in 1919, that nearly won the Coolidge Prize.  The three pieces I’m playing tonight come from later in her career.  I Bid My Heart Be Still (1944) was written for James Friskin, shortly before his marriage to Clarke.   It is based on an “Old Scottish Boarder Melody,” very similar to those I play with the Irish band Aran.   In this classical arrangement Clarke makes the most of the interplay between viola and piano.

 

The Chinese Puzzle is a little piece originally written in 1921 for Clarke’s violin playing friend Constance Izard.   A viola transcription was not published until 2002.  She sets a typical Chinese pentatonic melody in various counterpoints with the piano.  The piece is almost entirely in pizzacatto and Clarke even writes vib. and gliss. above certain notes bringing to mind the sound of the Chinese pipa, a plucked lute.

 

I consider the Passacaglia on an Old English Tune (1941) Rebecca Clarke’s best composition.   It is dedicated to “B.B.” the composer’s niece Magdalen.   It is not a passacaglia in the traditional sense, rather a set of variations based on Hymn No. 153 from The English Hymnal, a Veni Creator attributed to Thomas Tallis.  She set the variations in the key of C minor, which suits the viola perfectly since it allows chords starting with the lowest string.  The opportunity to play this one piece makes it worth working up a recital.

 

Armas Järnefelt (1868-1958) was born in Finland, but lived most of his life in Sweden.  Both countries claim him as their own.  The Berceuse was originally written for orchestra in the key of G minor, but Järnefelt made arrangements of it for solo viola (or violin) and piano in E minor.   I wanted to play at least one Finnish / Scandinavian piece and this one is a great example.

 

The Arpeggione Sonata in A minor D. 821 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was composed in November 1824 for the arpeggione, a six-string, fretted instrument tuned like a guitar, but played with a bow.  It was larger than a viola and smaller than a cello and played between the knees.  Today arpeggiones are found most frequently in museums.  The sonata was not published until 1871 and is performed today mostly in transcriptions.  For decades it has been a staple of the cellist’s repertory, but it is just as often played by violists.  There are numerous editions in print.  Tonight we are playing an arrangement based on a transcription by Milton Katims (International Edition), which I’ve slightly modified.  I guess you could call it the “Arpeggione Sonata for Dummies.”  The work is in three movements, a Sonata Allegro first movement, an Adagio, with a melody that only Schubert could write, going directly to a final Allegretto, in a quasi rondo form.   I first read through this sonata more than fifteen years ago, so I’m happy finally to have a chance to play it.

 

I thank my wife Sharon Franklin-Rahkonen for her continual support of my musical interests and for always believing in me. I thank Sarah Hagar, who served as my rehearsal pianist last summer.  My deepest heartfelt thanks go to Professor Edwin Fry, piano faculty member from the IUP Music Department.   His playing has moved and inspired me.   Without his help this recital would not have been possible.

 

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