Kremerata Baltica, Gidon Kremer & Olli Mustonen
Kremerata Baltica
Gidon Kremer, violin
Olli Mustonen, piano
Program:
J.S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052
Valentyn Sylvestrov: Serenade for violin solo
Victor Kosenko: Dreams, arranged for violin and strings by Andrei Pushkarev
Alfred Schnittke: Concerto grosso No. 6 for violin and piano
W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major, KV K449
Olli Mustonen: String Quartet No. 1, version for string orchestra
Johann Sebastian Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052
Bach reused the Harpsichord Concerto in D minor from instrumental movements of two cantatas from the 1720s. In those works, the organ played the solo role, and the original orchestra was expanded with oboes. The concerto was likely first performed at one of the regular Friday concerts of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. Bach’s autograph manuscript of the concerto dates from around 1738.
The work follows the Italian style, in which recurring orchestral passages, or ritornellos, alternate with instrumental solos. The first movement’s ritornello is a strong six-bar unison theme. In the solo sections between the ritornellos, the music modulates to related keys, as was customary.
The second movement is unexpectedly in G minor, rather than the more usual major key. It is built on a stately basso ostinato. This repeating bass figure continues throughout the movement, providing a foundation over which the solo line weaves an ornamented melodic thread.
The Allegro finale recalls the first movement in structure. Its ritornello begins with a descending scale, and in the ritornello sections there is occasional alternation of melody between bass and treble. Before the final ritornello, there is a brief but brilliant solo cadenza.
Alfred Schnittke: Concerto grosso No. 6 for violin and piano
Through the modernism with which he mocked official socialist realism and parodied Soviet symphonic thought, Alfred Schnittke became both a leading figure in his country’s new music and an object of cult admiration in underground circles. His experiments with the styles of the Western avant-garde of the 1960s displeased Soviet bureaucrats, and some works were banned from performance. In 1980, he was forbidden to travel abroad. Schnittke eventually moved to Hamburg in 1990.
During his years in Germany (1991–1994), Schnittke was extraordinarily productive. In the creative outpouring that followed years of pent-up inspiration in the Soviet Union, he composed his last concerto grosso (No. 6), dedicating it to the family of his friend, conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky.
The first movement of Concerto grosso No. 6 is for piano and string orchestra; the second is a duet for piano and violin; and in the finale, these forces are combined. The thematic material is based largely on letters derived from the names of people connected to the work. The opening chord E♭–A–C, forming the core motif that recurs throughout, could refer to the composer himself, while the melodic figure D–E♭–C–B is familiar from Dmitri Shostakovich’s works. Similar allusions also refer to the soloists at the premiere on 11 January 1994, pianist Viktoria Postnikova and violinist Alexander Rozhdestvensky.
The music unites a neoclassical, deliberately angular expression with a stark, biting harmonic language. Cluster chords and melodic lines built from wide, dissonant intervals are hallmarks of the work’s sound. Concerto grosso No. 6 strikingly approaches the ideal of absolute, non-descriptive music.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto in E-flat major, K. 449
Mozart composed his E-flat major Piano Concerto for his gifted pupil Barbara “Babette” von Ployer, completing it in February 1784. By refraining from publishing the concerto during his lifetime, Mozart effectively granted Babette exclusive rights to the work, although he also performed it in his own concerts.
Mozart wrote to his father that the piece could also be performed “a quattro,” with only string accompaniment. The concerto has the character of intimate chamber music and is also more modest in scale than his later “grand” piano concertos.
The work is clearly designed to please Mozart’s Viennese audience. The first movement is a multi-faceted, energetic Allegro; it is followed by an elegant Andantino with rich modulations and interesting formal solutions. Perhaps the most memorable is the third movement—a witty rondo whose lighthearted theme with counterpoint is varied in many ways, given polyphonic twists, and finally transformed into a dance-like 6/8 metre.
Olli Mustonen: String Quartet No. 1 (version for string orchestra)
“I grew up listening to string quartets, especially Beethoven and Bartók, and those works have had an enormous impact on who I am as a composer, musician, and person,” says Olli Mustonen of the work.
“In many of my compositions, one can see a kind of journey from darkness to light in various forms. In the case of my string quartet, this journey is unusually heavy. In some passages of the third movement there is hope, but the optimism on offer is of an otherworldly nature. At the beginning of the fourth movement, the highly dramatic elements from the opening return. […] Through a heroic, dissonant struggle, the music reaches a finale full of ecstasy and instrumental joy. Along with the metronome marking, I have given the finale the instruction Con fuoco all’Ungharese—all, of course, in homage to the great Hungarian master, one of my greatest musical heroes since my earliest days.”
Mustonen’s First String Quartet was commissioned by the Norwegian Engegård Quartet in 2016. The ensemble also premiered the work at the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival in Gravdal, Norway, in July 2017.