SUPPORT YOUR SYMPHONY

Seong-Jin Cho performs at part of the In Recital series on January 6. Photo by Harald Hoffmann.

The piano works performed by Seong-Jin Cho on this night reveal the stylistic breadth and variance from Baroque to Romantic to contemporary times. Some may be comfortingly familiar while others push the limits of that comfort. But they each reflect the emotive and technical strengths of piano repertoire and playing: the ranges of expression; complexity of virtuosity; and expansion of technique.  

First is George Frederic Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430. Likely completed in 1718, it was the subject of an unauthorized publication in 1720 that Handel swiftly addressed. Unlike the standard Baroque suite of the time, Handel includes an allemande and courante but forgoes the sarabande and gigue, closing the HWV 430 with a five-variation air nicknamed “The Harmonious Blacksmith.”  

The first three movements, Prelude, Allemande and Courante, take the soloist through contrapuntal figures and phrases that create an improvisatory quality, each movement growing more melodically distinct until the air movement. The actual origins of “The Harmonious Blacksmith” themes are unclear; the story, that Handel heard it after ducking into a blacksmith shop to escape the rain, started circulating in the 19th century. Handel’s inventive settings for each variation give the HWV 430 a light, charming character.  

Sofia Gubaidulina’s Chaconne for Piano follows in stark, jarring contrast. Composed in 1965, Gubaidulina engages with the Baroque era form chaconne, which features improvisatory episodes over the same chord progression. But unlike Bach’s famous D minor Chaconne, Gubaidulina’s Chaconne is dark, angular and impressionistic. The episodes vary from rhythmically languid to agitated and animated; during one episode, the harmonic and rhythmic content evoke boogie-woogie jazz before disappearing in a dissonant chordal barrage.  

Another episode contains melodic and harmonic content evoking the contrapuntal movement that characterizes a lot of piano music from the Baroque period. Whether intentionally or not, Gubaidulina draws upon a wide range of pianistic technique that defined preceding eras: not just in the Baroque genres and contrapuntal motion but the virtuosic flourishes and brooding interiority that were developed and refined in the Romantic period; and the embrace (by some) of modernist tonality, serialism and experimentalism.  

A little more than 100 years before Gubaidulina, Johannes Brahms was also bitten by the Baroque-era bug. Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, composed in 1861, is a light, cheerful journey through 25 different ways to engage with the aria con variazioni theme from Handel’s Suite in B flat major, HWV 434. Brahms’ setting and treatment of the theme create a fascinating musical artifact, especially the greater expressive capabilities of the 19th century piano, but also the continued importance of contrapuntal motion and development that lie beneath the harmonic and melodic complexity that weave through each variation. They also reflect an emotive range that is not always associated with Brahms, who is often stereotyped as serious and academic; ironically, that applies more aptly to the next composition, the Klavierstücke, Op. 76. Featuring eight movements, the Klavierstüke is not programmed often, but is significant in the composer’s career as it marked his return to the solo piano genre after 15 years. The more animated capriccios provide contrast with the contemplative intermezzo movements, creating a work that feels thoroughly composed in its direction and lack of clear, identifiable melodies.  

That such a clear blossoming occurs in Brahms’ Klavierstüke hides the fact that for many composers, the final version belies the months (if not years) of reworking, adding, removing and rearranging the musical ideas that go into a new piece. That was the case with Robert Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, which went through several name changes (one day “Fantasies and Finale on a Theme by Baron de Fricken”; another, “Etudes of an Orchestral Character from Florestan and Eusebius”) and lengths: Schumann wrote 16 variations, published 11; in 1890, Brahms included the five excised variations in his edited edition of the work. 

Published in 1837 and again in 1852 with edits overseen by Schumann, the Op. 13 is based on an original melody by Baron de Fricken, guardian of Robert’s fiancée Ernestine von Fricken. Like Brahms’ Klavierstüke and Gubaidulina’s Chaconne, Schumann’s work is full of emotive and expressive contrasts, embodied in the scrapped title where the characters Florestan and Eusebius represent outgoing and introspective personalities, respectively. The work is, on average, a little over 30 minutes, and is a personal, highly emotional voyage to a rhapsodic, triumphant conclusion.

A. Kori Hill © 2023