Music Chamber

 

 

Leoš Janáček (1854 – 1928) Violin Sonata

Con Moto ~ Ballade ~ Allegretto ~ Adagio

 

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) Violin Sonata No 9 in A major

Adagio Sostenuto-Presto ~ Andante con Variazioni ~ Presto

 

Bela Bartók (1881–1945) Roumanian Folk Dances (arr. Zoltán Székely)

Allegro Moderato ~ Allegro ~ Andante ~ Molto moderato ~ Allegro ~ Allegro

 

Anya Fadina and Mary Hofman have been working as a duo for two years. In that time they have performed numerous recitals across the U.K.  as well as a residency in the Kirsten Kjaers Museum in Denmark. They recently won an award from the Elias Fawcett Trust leading to performances in Lauderdale House, London in 2010. They also recently performed at the Hampstead and Highgate literary festival. They have performed in master classes with Krysia Osostowicz and at IMS Prussia Cove with Valeria Szervanszky. Individually they both have busy and varied careers. Anya has appeared as a soloist with the Urals Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kingston Philharmonic and performed in a festival of British music in Yekaterinburg. She also works regularly with singers both as a lieder accompanist and as a repetiteur and teaches at Westminster School. Mary’s chief love is chamber music and she works with numerous ensembles including performing with the Endellion Quartet at the Cambridge music festival in 2009 and guest leading the Edinburgh quartet. She also enjoys regular work with chamber orchestras such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. She teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music.

 

Czech composer Janáček was strongly influenced by Moravian folk music and he frequently made an effort to follow the rhythmic patterns of the Czech language. Janáček's music often features busy, repetitive patterns that he contrasts with more starkly stated melodies and other material. The violin sonata is a concise work, based on these types of short motives and fast tempo changes. The first movement ("With motion, but not severely") begins with an intense, ascending solo-violin phrase. This is followed by a lyrical melody that is accompanied by tremolos in the piano. The development grows towards an anguished cry. The second movement Ballade is melodic and folk-like, accompanied by arpeggios in the piano. The third movement is an intense and highly compact Scherzo. The fourth movement Finale ("Very slowly") is unusually remote and resigned for a work's closing movement. The middle of the movement builds up considerably, but its opening aesthetic then returns to end the work quite bleakly.

 

The Sonata was originally dedicated to the Afro-Polish-born English resident - virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower, who performed the premiere in 1803 together with Beethoven. However, after the concert, and under the influence of drink, the two quarreled over a certain lady, whereupon Beethoven tore up the dedication and re-dedicated it to the finest violinist of the day, Rodolphe Kreutzer. The irony is that Kreutzer never performed the work, considering it unplayable. The sonata begins with a slow chordal introduction, moving into a tumultuous Presto in A minor. Towards the end of the movement the opening Adagio returns before a close in an anguished coda. The second movement is in great contrast, a quiet tune with five variations. The last of these is dramatic, and the movement closes in F major. This calm is then shattered by an A major chord in the piano, leading to a virtuoso and exuberant final movement, basically a 6/8 tarantella in rondo form. The work ends in a jubilant rush of A major. It is known for a highly demanding violin part, with vast emotional range and impact. The piano part also demands a true partner, and not just an accompanist.

 

The Roumanian Dances are based on folksongs and dances collected by Bartók from peasants and Gypsies during his pioneering ethno-musicological field trips through Hungary in 1910-14. They were arranged first for solo piano and later orchestra, though Bartók would have originally heard these tunes played on fiddle, shepherd’s flute, or bagpipe. Bartók provides simple yet imaginative settings for the folk tunes, which in their brevity share a quest for concision sought by such other "avant-garde" composers as Schoenberg and Webern.