Here is pianist Marja Bon’s discussion of our program:
Can I just say that this program will make a modern impression? And that it is Beethoven with whom you will be familiar, and Beethoven who will make you curious?
Until 1980 I would have agreed. I have been educated in classical music and have traveled with orchestras and performed as soloist in piano concerts by Beethoven and Mozart.
But since my work with the Schönberg Ensemble my curiosity has grown, my hands have grown accustomed to other chords than the harmonies I was used to, and my ears have been challenged by music from the beginning of the previous century. Can we still call music ‘modern’ that is in fact 110 years old? Most concert organizers would still react like this: I can not get a full concert hall with that kind of music!
But as an organizer myself, I have tried to show a different attitude. Music that is a century old and ‘modern’ is still worth my affection: Alban Berg's music is so rich in enchanting sounds, that have the effect of transforming a misty cloud of question marks into clear exclamation marks.
It is now the beginning of November. After a long pause of several months I will play the Beethoven trio first. My hands feel strange after working in gardens during summer and autumn. My ears are too critical towards the chopping sounds that seem to come from the grand piano.
But while studying Berg’s works every sound stream whispering and curving, the Hauptstimme may radiate and the Nebenstimme has to mix into it. And even though I am playing my own part without the rest of the ensemble, everything seems so complete already… I will be startled at the first rehearsals that we will have at the beginning of December. I know what the result has to be and how it will have to sound, and how I want to hear it. We will have to integrate the different melodies into one Hauptstimme and to subordinate the Nebenstimme to that.
And as far as Berg’s Vier Stücke are concerned: they are very brief, almost as miniature as the work of Anton Webern. I imagine these composers walking through the woods, fording every stream and listening to the rustling and gurgling of brooks, and the pattering drops of water.
Sometimes there is a crescendo on just one note, which is not something you can manage to do on a piano: it will always inevitably give you a diminuendo. How to perform this? I find it fascinating that a composer has imagined this and that a performer should work to present the listener with an illusion. How? I am sure I will succeed, although I do not yet have a clear answer to this question.
Already I can tell you: the Beethoven piece – so familiar to your ears - will cost me hours and hours of work, lots and lots more than the repertoire in which you have to ‘swallow’ all these very complicated notes. I am so used to those notes that I feel like sitting back easily while you as listeners will sit upright in your chairs and be challenged to pay attention.
Schnittke is always surprising, because the breathing of the musical lines is so tense for the musician, whereas the audience will recognize all kinds of quotes that will work for them as tiny sparkles.
We wish you a very pleasant listening experience!
MB
