William Bracken (piano) / Mon 20 Apr

Performers

William Bracken piano
Adaya Malka Peled soprano

Programme

JS Bach Aria variata alla manniera italiana
Salvatore Sciarrino Etude de concert
Maurice Ravel Jeaux d’eau
Claude Debussy Des pas sur le neige
Camille Saint-Saëns, Leopold Godowsky Le cygne
Salvatore Sciarrino Anamorfosi
Frédéric Chopin Ballade No 3

Interval

Frédéric Chopin Mazurka Op 59 No 1
Frédéric Chopin Etude Op 25 No 2
Alexander Scriabin Etude Op 42 No 3
Alexander Scriabin Etude Op 42 No 5
Alexander Scriabin Sonata No 10 Op 70
Maurice Ravel Le grillon from Histoires naturelles
Olivier Messiaen Amour, oiseaux d’étoile from Harawi
Gustav Mahler Ablösung im Sommer
Madeleine Dring The Cuckoo from Seven Shakespeare Songs
Hayim Nahman Bialik El HaTzipor
Paul McCartney Blackbird
Alberto Ginastera Gato from Cinco canciones populares Argentinas

About

Programme notes written by William Bracken.

Throughout my life, music has been a means through which I connect deeply with other human beings. Firstly with my immediate family, then later with my closest friends and my life partner. The connective power of music as a shared experience is the reason why it has always played a central role in human society throughout history. The collection of works on this programme serve to support this fact and, I hope, allow everyone involved to reflect on the meaningful and important connections that we have with each other.

As a student of music, I have always been fascinated by the connections between certain works. These connections take many forms; from parody and homage to imitation and outright grand theft. The relationships between the composers themselves can be even more complex and wide ranging and are often made irresistibly apparent in their musical conversations. The programme will reveal the dialogues between Debussy and Ravel, Chopin and Scriabin, Saint-Saëns and Godowsky, Dring and Mahler, Bialik and McCartney, and between myself and the superb soprano and dear friend Adaya Malka Peled.

The theme of cultural identity is also central to the construction of this programme, which has of course been a hot topic in the UK in recent times. I thought it relevant to explore this element in my programming as Manchester has played a pivotal role in my musical life; having been a student at the Junior RNCM 2013-2017 and now coming full circle as a student on the IAD programme, I consider it to be a city with which I have a close cultural connection.

Cultural identity has served as an important source of inspiration for many composers. Bach is a wonderful example of a composer who assumed the role of cultural ambassador by paying beautiful homage not only to the music of his native Germany but also the music of the UK, France and Italy, as in the Aria variata alla manniera Italiana, whilst having never set foot outside of Germany in his life. Of equal relevance is the music of Debussy and Ravel, who are associated with musical ‘Frenchness’ – I also refer to the wonderful observation by De Falla of Debussy being one of the greatest ‘Spanish’ composers despite the country only existing for Debussy in his imagination. Chopin dedicated himself wholly to capturing the spirit of the Polish identity in his music, notably in the Mazurkas but also more discreetly in the ballades. Scriabin viewed himself more as a citizen of the universe, and his music alludes to French Impressionism, German Wagnerism and Polish Chopinism, with the undertone of Russian origins always present.

A more personal contribution in relation to this theme will come in the form of an improvisation that connects Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, a reference to my roots in the North-West and my reverence for the music of the Beatles, and Bialik’s El Ha Tzipor (“To the bird”), a folksong from Adaya’s cultural home.

Alexander Scriabin Sonata No 10 Op 70

Alexander Scriabin on Sonata No 10 Op 70:

Insects, butterflies, moths – they are all living flowers. They are the most subtle caresses, almost without touching…They are all born of the sun and the sun nourishes them… This sunlike caress is the closest to me – take my tenth sonata – it is an entire sonata from insects.

Maurice Ravel Le grillon from Histoires naturelles

Text by Jules Renard:

C’est l’heure où, las d’errer, l’insecte nègre revient de promenade et répare avec soin le désordre de son domaine.
D’abord il ratisse ses étroites allées de sable.
Il fait du bran de scie qu’il écarte au seuil de sa retraite.
Il lime la racine de cette grande herbe propre à le harceler.
Il se repose. Puis, il remonte sa minuscule montre.
A-t-il fini? Est-elle cassée? Il se repose encore un peu.

Il rentre chez lui et ferme sa porte.
Longtemps il tourne sa celf dans la serrure délicate.
Et il écoute: Point d’alarme dehors.
Mais il ne se trouve pas en sûreté.
Et comme par une chaînette dont la poulie grince, il descend jusqu’au fond de la terre.
On n’entend plus rien.
Dans la muette, les peupliers se dressent comme des doigts en l’air et désignent la lune.

English translation (The Cricket):

It is the hour when, weary of wandering, the black insect returns from his outing and carefully restores order to his estate.
First he rakes his narrow sandy paths.
He makes sawdust which he scatters on the threshold of his retreat.
He files the root of this tall grass likely to annoy him.
He rests. Then he winds up his tiny watch.
Has he finished? Is it broken? He rests again for a while.

He goes inside and shuts the door.
For an age he turns his key in the delicate lock.
And he listens: Nothing untoward outside.
But he does not feel safe.
And as if by a tiny chain on a creaking pulley, he lowers himself into the bowels of the earth.
Nothing more is heard.
In the silent countryside the poplars rise like fingers in the air, pointing to the moon.

Olivier Messiaen Amour, oiseaux d’étoile from Harawi

Text by Olivier Messiaen:

Oiseau d‘étoile
Ton œil qui chante
Vers les étoiles
Ta tête à l’envers sous le ciel.
Ton œil d’ étoile
Chaînes tombantes
Vers les étoiles
Plus court chemin de l’ombre au ciel.
Tous les oiseaux des étoiles
Loin de tableau mes mains chantant
Étoile silence augmenté du ciel.
Mes mains, ton œil, ton cou, le ciel.

English translation (Love, bird of a star)

Bird of a star,
Thine eyes, singing
Towards the stars
Thy head upturned under the sky.
Thine eye, starlike,
Falling chains,
Towards the stars,
The shortest path from shadows to the sky.
All the birds of the stars,
Far from the picture, my hands sing,
Star, augmented silence of the sky,
My hands, thine eyes, thine neck, the sky.

Gustav Mahler Ablösung im Sommer

Text anonymous:

Kukuk hat sich zu Tode gefallen
An einer grünen Weiden,
Kukuk ist tot, hat sich zu Tod’ gefallen!
Wer soll uns denn den Sommer lang
Die Zeit und Weil vertreiben?

Ei das soll tun Frau Nachtigall,
Die sitzt auf grünem Zweige;
Die kleine, feine Nachtigall,
Die liebe, süße Nachtigall!
Sie singt und springt, ist allzeit froh,
Wenn andre Vögel schweigen.

Wir warten auf Frau Nachtigall;
Die wohnt im grünen Hage,
Und wenn der Kukuk zu Ende ist,
Dann fängt sie an zu schlagen!

English translation (The changing of the summer guard):

The cuckoo has sung himself to death
On a green willow.
Cuckoo is dead, has sung himself to death!
Who shall now all summer long
While away the time for us?

Ah! Mrs Nightingale shall do that,
She sits on the green branch,
That small and graceful nightingale,
That sweet and lovely nightingale!
She hops and sings, is always joyous,
When other birds are silent.

We shall wait for Mrs Nightingale,
She lives in the green grove,
And when the cuckoo’s time is up,
She will start to sing!

Madeleine Dring The Cuckoo from Seven Shakespeare Songs

Text (When daisies pied and violets blue) by William Shakespeare

When daisies pied and violets blue
(And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue),
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo, then on ev’ry tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer [smocks]3,
The cuckoo, then on ev’ry tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

Hayim Nahman Bialik El HaTzipor

English translation of text by Hayim Nahman Bialik:

Greetings to you, kind bird, upon your return
From the hot lands back to my window
Back to your pleasing voice, My soul perishes
In the winter when you leave.

Fly, my bird, to your mountain, your desert
You are happy for you have left my tent.
Were you to live with me, O wing of song,
You too would cry bitter tears at my fate.

Now the tears and the bruises have stopped
But the end of my sorrow has not yet come.
Greetings my dear bird upon your return
Oh please cry aloud for joy!

Paul McCartney Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

Alberto Ginastera Gato from Cinco canciones populares Argentinas

Text anonymous:

El gato de mi casa
Es muy gauchito
Pero cuando lo bailan
Zapateadito.

Guitarrita de pino
Cuerdas de alambre.
Tanto quiero a las chicas,
Digo, como a las grandes.
Esa moza que baila
Mucho la quiero
Pero no para hermana
Que hermana tengo.
Que hermana tengo
Si, pónte al frente
Aunque no sea tu dueño,
Digo, me gusta verte.

English translation:

The cat of the house
is most mischievous,
but when they dance,
they stamp their feet.

With pine guitars
and wire strings.
I like the small girls
as much as the big ones.
That girl dancing
is the one for me.
Not as a sister
I have one already.
I have a sister.
Yes, come to the front.
I may not be your master
but I like to see you.