Music Chamber

Witold Lutosławski (1913 –1994)    Subito for violin and piano

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)               Violin Sonata   Con moto ~ Balada ~ Allegretto ~ Adagio

 

 

Leoš Janáček was born in Moravia in 1854 amidst the growth of nationalism and political unrest. He was intensely attached to his homeland and inevitably his music reflects the folk influences of his background. Having spent most of his active life as a choirmaster, teacher, and specialist in the ethnomusicology of Moravia, he also developed a keen interest in speech patterns and voice inflections as dictated by the context. His study eventually led him to a theory of speech-melody; as a result, pitch fluctuations of words and sentences are a part of his musical lines. Janáček's recognition as a composer came quite late. In his 60s, and already partially in retirement, the productions of his opera Janufa in Prague and Vienna finally put him on the international map. The general style of his works is that the most intensely felt psychological interior is portrayed with extreme vividness. At times, the emotions are raw, hair-raising and excruciating; at other times, tragic, tender and despondent. While one might call his music disturbed and mad, another would re-cast it as severely honest in confronting the pains and fears of human life.

 

The Violin Sonata, one of Janáček's most popular instrumental works, was first sketched in 1914 and finally completed in 1921, after numerous revisions. A four-movement work, it alludes to the violence and the unsettling circumstances of World War I. The first movement, Con moto, opens boldly with an introductory violin solo which is almost immediately followed by the first theme. Throughout the movement, fragmentary and cryptic motives intertwine with longer phrases. As the movement nears the end, tension builds up but finally it concludes, surprisingly peacefully, with a comfortable Db major triad. Next, in the Ballada, the impression is one of tenderness and simplicity. The most lyrical movement of the sonata, the notes seem to flow from one another with ease. An improvisatory, anxious episode briefly interrupts the mood towards the end of the movement, but serenity soon returns. The Allegretto is in the form of a scherzo. In this three-part movement, the first section (which is the same material as the last section) begins with the piano playing a bouncy folk melody over a buzzing series of trills. The violin intermittently interrupts with a shrieking chromatic figure. The middle section is almost pseudo-Romantic. The final movement, Adagio, is the most rhapsodic of the Sonata. The main motif is of repetitive interruption, played ferociously in the violin, at times muted. It is a severe disruption of the poignant piano line. Interjected into the main thematic motif are two contrasting ideas. One is a sunny melody filled with hope and eagerness for life and another is what Janáček described as the majestic entrance of the Russian liberating Army into Moravia. The work ends as the main motif dynamically fades away while the ever-increasing tension of inevitable disaster scents the air.

 

Saul Picado began learning the piano at Portugal’s Conservatório Regional de Castelo Branco having been awarded twice first prize in the internal competition "Lopes Graça".  In 2007 he played at the International Festival in Castelo Branco "Primavera Musical" and played as a soloist the Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Orquestra Académica Metropolitana. He also recorded the Trio in g minor of Smetana. In 2010, along with the violinist Carla Santos, he founded the Dryads Duo, winning first prize at the “Prémio Jovens Músicos” Competition in Portugal last September, in the chamber music category. Also won in the same competition, the 2nd prize in the solo category. Future performances of Dryads Duo will include appearances at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos and Casa da Música, among many others. Currently, Saul is in the second year of the Masters degree in Piano at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, in the classes of professors Martin Roscoe and Peter Bithell.

 

Born in Portugal, Carla Santos was admitted at the Youth Symphonic Orchestra of Sta Maria da Feira, having assumed the position of concertino several times. In 2006 played as a soloist with this orchestra, interpreting “Meditácion” from Jules Massenet. In the same year, under the orientation of the conductor Ernst Schelle, performed the Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. In July 2004 concluded her Conservatory studies with the maximum classification (20) having received the “Fundação Pascoal” Award in the quality of the best instrument pupil in that year. In 2009 Carla was awarded a place at the Royal College of Music, where she studied with Radu Blidar for her Masters Degree in Performance (violin). Periodically, Carla joins the RCM Symphony Orchestra. Currently Carla is an RCM Scholar, taking an Artist Diploma.