Program Notes…With a twist!
Reproduced from the Program notes from my April 2024 Recital
Usually when someone attends a recital, there is an insert of program notes talking about the history of the pieces: Composer did the thing, heard the person, wrote the piece, blah blah. And while I personally love traditional program notes, I thought I would tell you about my connections with the pieces, it is my recital after all…
This is my story…
The Brahms F Minor Viola sonata was one of the first pieces that I listened to as a young violist. I remember buying the first album that popped up when I put “Brahms Viola” in the iTunes search window. Honestly I thought the cover looked cool. It happened to be the recording of Pinchas Zucherman and Daniel Barinboim playing the complete viola and violin sonatas. Yes I know Zucherman is a violinist who plays viola but I was 10…sue me. Anyways, I was amazed at the sound that Zucherman could pull from a viola, a complex, rich sound to open the piece. Three notes in and I was hooked. I listened to the recording over and over and for many years, Zuchermans sound, specifically in the Brahms F Minor, was the default in my head when I was looking for the ideal viola sound in my practice room. Fast forward to the high school years and I was scrolling through Youtube, as one did, and I discovered that there was a recording of Zucherman playing the Brahms Two songs for viola, alto, and piano with celebrated singer, Jessye Norman. To borrow a modern phrase…. I was Shooketh… What a sound that Jessye Norman created. If there was ever a voice that sounded like a viola, it was her. I immediately did a quick google search and realized that she was legendary. Not only was she from my adjacent hometown of Augusta, GA, but she broke the mold for what a musician and singers did, singing everything from Bach to Wagner, Mezzo and Soprano roles, Art songs and Spirituals. Performing in opera houses as well as churches, for presidents and for pastors. There was nothing that she could not do. She did not allow herself to being pigeon holed, to quote her: “Pigeon-holes are only comfortable for pigeons” A motto to live by if there ever was one. This recording of Zucherman and Ms. Norman that inspired my second love after viola, opera. For a long time I felt that there could be no greater job in the world than being in the pit of a great opera orchestra, to be a part of something so much greater than a lowly viola line. All these thoughts stemming from hearing Pinky play Brahms some 20 years ago.
The other piece on the program is the viola concerto by Miklos Rozsa written in 1980 for none other than… Drum Roll…. Pinchas Zucherman…..CONNECTIONS!!…… As many of my friends can tell you, I am what you would call a viola nerd. I live and breathe the viola, spending way too much money on random viola pieces, listening to recordings new and old of viola players, going to viola conferences and enjoying them! What can I say, I’m getting a Doctorate in Viola, you would have to be a nerd to do that… Anyways during my many listening parties with a guest list of one, I came across British violist Lawrence Power. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Look him up! He is amazing and I want to be him when I grow up. After hearing some of his first recordings, I bought everything that I could get my hands on, buying things that were only released in the UK (they really should not have given me a credit card…) I discovered he had released an album of concertos: Bartok and Rozsa. I of course loved his Bartok, but I REALLY loved the Rozsa concerto as it was something different from the “Big 3” of Bartok, Walton, and Hindemith. So I set out to play it….. The only problem was I hadn't played any other standard rep yet, and I was in high school.... So I bided my time playing this and that through college. Then I got to my Masters program and my professor asked: “what do you want to play?” “ Rozsa!” I said! So she sent me her fingerings and bowings and I started looking through them. However, as with most well laid plans, something goes awry. I wanted to take an orchestra audition and I really needed a concerto quickly so we started working on the Bartok as I learned it in my Senior year of undergrad. Then my professor said that I should really learn the rest of the piece and before I knew it, it was on my first Masters recital and Rozsa was left behind. When choosing rep for the following year, I had not learned Hindemith yet, so off we went on the Hindemith journey and Rozsa sat alone on my shelf again. Fast forward to Starting my DMA and since I had learned all the big viola concertos, my wonderful professor asked me what I would like to learn and I said ROZSA. So here we are, 15 years later, after buying the music 8 years ago, I finally get to play it!