- This event has passed.
Fujikura, Prokofiev, & Mozart
DAI FUJIKURA
Floating Fireflies
June Han, harp
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80
I. Andante assai
II. Allegro brusco
III. Andante
IV. Allegrissimo
Nelson Lee, violin • Pei-Shan Lee, piano
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, “Stadler”
I. Allegro
II. Larghetto
III. Menuetto — Trio I — Trio II
IV. Allegretto con variazioni
Stephen Williamson, clarinet • YooJin Jang, Meg Freivogel, violin • Liz Freivogel, viola • Denise Djokic, cello
DAI FUJIKURA
Floating Fireflies (2021)
Dai Fujikura has provided the following note to accompany Floating Fireflies:
The harp has always been a mysterious instrument for me. I knew the function of the instrument, but I always knew there must be more than how the instrument works.
When I received a passionate email from the harpist Stef Van Vynckt asking me to write a new harp piece, I was delighted. Also, another harpist, Mai Fukui, was happy to co-commission the work with Stef; I felt that at last the long awaited time had come for me to research the instrument.
It turned out to be more research into the harpists — the musicians who decided to dedicate their lives to the instrument — rather than research into the harp itself. Why did they choose this instrument? Why do they become so obsessed by it? What is so great about it?
I was composing this work during the pandemic, so I could spend a long time with them remotely, trying out many different things. It was more as if I was trying to get into the harpists’ minds rather than just focusing on what is technically possible on the harp.
After all these experiences with the two harpists, the music material I came up with was something that appeared to float, hovering without a particular direction. Or maybe there IS an overall direction. Or maybe it is something between the two states….
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80 (1946)
Having spent much of the interwar period in the United States and Paris, by the time of the Great Depression Prokofiev increasingly found work in the Soviet Union. The state, relatively shielded from the economic freefall, took an active part in funding cultural production. After a few years of shuttling between Paris and Moscow, however, Prokofiev was made to understand he could no longer have his cake and eat it. Either he should return to the USSR and become an “official” composer, or revoke the right to return to Russia altogether. With his wife and sons, therefore, Prokofiev moved back to Moscow in 1935. For the first few years, he retained an “external passport” allowing him to tour abroad; in 1938, he sent his passport to the authorities for a bureaucratic formality, never to have it returned.
It was that same year, 1938, that Prokofiev began his First Violin Sonata, alongside a large number of official projects — a work to celebrate the 60th birthday of Stalin, a score and cantata for Sergei Eistenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, and an opera project Semyon Kotko, based on Valentin Kateyev’s novel, I, Son of Working People. In contrast to these politically sanctioned works, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata strikes a somber and searching tone, a far cry from the brash confidence of the Socialist Realist aesthetic doctrine made official under Stalin. Listen in particular for the chilling passage at the end of the first movement where the muted violin swirls in nimble runs around bell-like chords in the piano, a passage Prokofiev described as “autumn evening wind blowing across a neglected cemetery grave.” It is not hard to imagine this sonata harboring some of the apprehension and uncertitude the composer faced during these transitional years.
Feeling unable to complete the work in 1938, Prokofiev set it aside, returning to it only after the War. By that time, Prokofiev had secured his reputation as a reliably patriotic composer: in 1943 he achieved the prestigious title of Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Republic, and in 1946 he was consecrated with three Stalin Prizes (for his Fifth Symphony, Eighth Piano Sonata, and the Cinderella ballet). It was violinist David Oistrakh, a friend of Prokofiev’s, who induced the composer to complete the sonata, premiering it later that year. Given the sonata’s anxious and tormented character, it may seem surprising that the work earned Prokofiev yet another Stalin Prize in 1947 — proof, perhaps, that as far as the regime was concerned, Prokofiev’s solid track record counted for more than scrutiny of his style. After Prokofiev died in 1953 — on the same day as Stalin himself — Oistrakh chose to reprise the slow movements of the Sonata at his funeral.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, “Stadler” (1789)
Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet exhibits the seemingly magical synergy that can occur when a composer writes with an outstanding instrumentalist in mind. In this case, it was the clarinetist and basset hornist Anton Stadler, one of Mozart’s earliest musical contacts following his arrival to Vienna in 1781. Over the years, the two grew to be close comrades: both became Freemasons, and even hatched plans to form their own secret society (called Die Grotte, or “The Grotto”), although this never came to fruition. Their friendship brought about a large number of works, including a handful of Masonic compositions for basset horn, little remembered today. Stadler’s lasting artistic legacy came through his contributions to clarinet performance. At a time when the clarinet was mostly heard as a component in a “harmonie” (a wind ensemble used for light or ceremonial music), Stadler distinguished himself as an exceptional soloist. As Mozart wrote to his friend, “Never could I have imagined that a clarinet could imitate the human voice as you did. Indeed, your instrument has so soft and lovely a tone that nobody can resist it.”
Mozart made the most of Stadler’s skill. His so-called “Kegelstatt” Trio, K. 498 for piano, clarinet and viola, composed in 1786, was among the first chamber works composed for the instrument. The publisher, aware of the peculiarity of the configuration, indicated that the clarinet part could be performed by a violinist instead. By the time Mozart composed the clarinet quintet in 1789, there was no doubt: this was “Stadler’s Quintet,” and a new paradigm of clarinet performance was in place. Two years after the quintet, Mozart followed up with another clarinet masterpiece for Stadler: his concerto, K. 622‚ completed a few weeks before his death. While the quintet was composed originally for the “basset clarinet,” a woodwind of Stadler’s invention combining his two instruments of choice and featuring an extended lower register, today it is typically performed using a standard clarinet in A.
Program Notes by Peter Asimov