Salon Concert | Flute and Piano Recital |19.12.2021

Η έννοια της πνευματικής και καλλιτεχνικής ανταλλαγής μέσα σε ένα μικρό οικείο περιβάλλον αναπτύχθηκε για πρώτη φορά στη Γαλλία τον 17ο και 18ο αι., την περίοδο του Διαφωτισμού και της Γαλλικής Επανάστασης, οπότε το Salon (= «μεγάλο δωμάτιο») εξελίχθηκε σε σημαντικό θεσμό και πεδίο πολιτικής συζήτησης. Στα σαλόνια των Γάλλων διανοούμενων οι προσκεκλημένοι μπορούσαν να απολαύσουν παραστάσεις, συναυλίες, συνδιαλέξεις και ποτά. Τα Salon Concert έγιναν ιδιαιτέρως δημοφιλή τον 19ο αι., οπότε  αναπτύχθηκε ένα ολόκληρο είδος «μουσικής σαλονιού», κυρίως για πιάνο. Έργα των Schubert, Schumann, τα Νυχτερινά, Πρελούδια, Βαλς, οι Μαζούρκες και Αυτοσχεδιασμοί του Chopin αποτελούσαν το ιδανικό ρεπερτόριο για αυτές τις μουσικές βραδιές, όπως επίσης και οι δεξιοτεχνικές Φαντασίες για διάφορα όργανα πάνω σε οπερατικά θέματα και τα συναισθηματικά τραγούδια.

Σε αυτό το πνεύμα η φλαουτίστα Ναταλία Γεράκη και η πιανίστα Λευκή Καρποδίνη, σολίστ με διεθνή παρουσία, αναβιώνουν την πρακτική των μουσικών σαλονιών του Παρισιού παρουσιάζοντας ένα πρόγραμμα με έργα των Gluck, Chopin, Taffanel,  Fauré, Debussy και Bártok, Piazzolla και Καρποδίνη.

ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ

• CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK
  • Χορός των μακαρίων πνευμάτων
    από την όπερα «Ορφέας & Ευρυδίκη»
• PAUL TAFFANEL
  • Φαντασία πάνω στην όπερα «Ελεύθερος Σκοπευτής»
    του Carl Maria von Weber
• FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
  • Μαζούρκα σε λα ελάσσονα op.17, no.4
    Βαλς σε λα ελάσσονα no.19, B.150 op.Posth
    Πολωνέζα σε λα μείζονα op.40, no.1
• GABRIEL FAURÉ
  • Après un Rêve
• CLAUDE DEBUSSY
  • Rêverie
    Reflets dans l’eau
• BÉLA BARTÓK
  • Ρουμάνικοι λαϊκοί χοροί
• ΛΕΥΚΗ ΚΑΡΠΟΔΙΝΗ
  • Corona Valse
• ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
  • Café 1930 & Night Club 1960

  

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714 –  1787)
Dance of the blessed spirits from the opera  «Orpheus & Euridice», 1762
trans. for flute and piano

According to mythology, Orpheus was the first poet and inspirational singer. He learned the lyre from Apollo. He enchanted with her even the gods of the underworld, when he went down to Hades to claim his beloved Eurydice who had died from a snake bite. Pluto agreed to let her return to earth, provided that Orpheus did not look for her with his eyes before they reached the surface of the earth. On the way back, however, Orpheus turned his head back, wanting to make sure that Eurydice was following him. So he lost her forever. The scene of the Dance of the Blessed Spirits expresses the grief of the unfortunate young man for the final loss of Eurydice. With the opera of Orpheus and Eurydice, Gluck overturned the operatic manners of his time and influenced very important composers, from Mozart to Wagner. Orpheus became a symbolic figure of the spirit of the Enlightenment, on his way from the darkness of the underworld to the light of day.

PAUL TAFFANEL (1844 – 1908)
Fantasy on a theme from the opera “Der Freischütz” by Carl Maria von Weber,
for flute and piano, 187;

The French flutist, conductor and professor at the Paris Conservatory Paul Taffanel is considered the founder of the so-called French school of flute and the most important figure after Theobald Boehm in the evolution of the modern flute. The Complete Flute Method and the 17 Daily Exercises he wrote (completed by students of Louis Fleury and Philippe Gaubert) are still to this day, internationally, the basic learning material of the instrument. He also composed works for flute and piano that were also included in the basic repertoire of the flute. The fantasy on themes of the popular opera “Der Freitschutz” (1817-21) – the first major romantic opera by the German composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) – is one of these well-established repertoire works. It is not just a combination of operatic themes and variations that highlights the skills of the soloist. This Fantasy is based on three arias (Agathe arias “Leise, leise fromme Weise” [act II], Max arias [act III, Finale] and Annchen aria: “Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen”), of which musical richness gives the piece a character not only lyrical but also epic.

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810 – 1849)
Μazurka in a minor op.17, no.4 for piano, 1832

Mazurka is a traditional Polish dance. Chopin first came in contact with this dance form when he was in the Polish countryside as a teenager. He listened to traditional local orchestras playing mazurkas and used their elements in the mazurkas he composed for piano. He wrote a total of at least fifty-nine mazurkas. The love and nostalgia for the homeland and the family, the national pride, the sufferings of his compatriots are the feelings that are reflected in these little diamonds.

Valse in a minor B.150, οp.Posth, no.19 for piano, 1847-1849

Chopin Valses are written in the rhythm of 3/4 of the Viennese Waltz, however they were not intended for dancing but for listening at the Salon Concerts. Chopin composed the first of the Valses at the age of fourteen. During his lifetime he published only eight, while the rest of them, he asked to be burned. Fortunately, eleven more were published after his death. The Valse in a minor is a work of the late period of the composer’s life and is probably the last one he composed. It was published in 1860-eleven years after his death. Charlotte de Rothschild was originally considered the composer of the work, as well as of the Nocturne in C minor. Only in 1955 was  the work attributed to the right composer!

Polonaise in a major op.40, no.1 for piano, 1839

This distinctive musical form, closely identified with the history of Poland, was first introduced in 1573 in Krakow, the Polish capital at the time, on the occasion of the coronation of French Prince Henri d’Anjou as King of Poland. During the coronation ceremony, the courtiers and aristocrats formed a grand procession accompanied by music, which gave the pace of the procession and added grandeur and beauty to the occasion. This music, composed by a court musician, incorporated national characteristics of the Poles. It was a musical presentation of the Polish people to their new monarch. Thus polonaise was born, which gradually evolved into a complete and quite elaborate musical form, loved by the public and widely used by composers around the world. The Polonaise in A major is called Military Polonaise and is the most famous of all.

GABRIEL FAURÉ  (1845 – 1924)
Après un Rêve trans. for flute and piano , 1877

Composer, organist, pianist and teacher, Gabriel Fauré was one of the leading musical figures in Romantic French music. His musical style influenced many composers of the 20th century. Among his most famous works are Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, Nocturnes for piano, as well as the songs Après un rêve and Clair de lune. Après un rêve (After a Dream) describes a dreamy, erotic escape away from the earth, “to the light”. However, upon awakening, the dreamer longs to return to the “mysterious night” and the ecstatic lie of his dream. The lyrics are based on an anonymous Italian poem, freely adapted into French by Romain Bussine.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
Rêverie for solo piano, 1880-84

1890 was the year that Claude Debussy was pleased to see his piano works Deux Arabesques, Petite Suite and Suite Βergamasque published. He reacted with less enthusiasm to the decision of the publisher Eugène Fromont to include in the edition an older work of his, Rêverie: “I wrote it in a hurry, several years ago (between 1880 and 1884). It is consumable music, without artistic value “. The composer’s low rating for Rêverie did not prevent the piece from becoming one of his most played piano pieces.  It is considered a milestone in his work, as it presents the earliest examples of Impressionist writing. The calm, repetitive theme of the introduction is like a descent into the dream world (as its title suggests), and as the plot of the music becomes more and more complex, the dreams become more intense and addictive. The development within the piece also foreshadows the evolution of his (impressionist) music in general.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
Reflets dans l’eau from the piano album «Images I», 1905

Reflets dans l ‘eau (Reflections in the Water) is the first of six pieces in the Images piano suite, which is divided into two volumes. Water, a key element of Impressionism, is found in many compositions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although a few decades ago Liszt laid the first Impressionistic stone by composing Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este ( Water toys in Villa d’Este), inspired by the fountains of the famous villa in Tivoli, Italy. The structure of Reflets dans l’eau is quite free and its writing is improvised. It starts with an interval of a fifth and develops gradually. It creates the image (and sound) of a pebble falling into the water, creating folds and reflections of light on it. Four years before Debussy’s piece, Maurice Ravel composed Jeux d ‘eau (Water Games), another representative example of Impressionist writing.

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881 –  1941)
Rumanian Folk Dances, 1915-1917
trans. for flute and piano

1. Dance with a stick, 2. Sash Dance 3. Dance on a spot
2. Dance from Bucsum, 5. Romanian Polka, 6. Fast dance

By the end of the 19th century, Hungarian music had successfully inspired important composers such as Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt. List’s Hungarian Rhapsodies and Brahms’ Hungarian Dances are the best-known works with Hungarian influences in the classical repertoire. The style of these works, however, came from the music of the gypsies (Roma) and is not a representative sample of Hungarian traditional music. Authentic Hungarian music was of particular interest to Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, who traveled to remote parts of Hungary, recording, cataloging and transcribing thousands of folk melodies, preserving their country’s valuable musical material. Their musicological research also included Transylvania, an area that was under Hungarian occupation and only in 1920 passed into Romanian territory. For this reason, strong influences from Hungarian music are evident in Romanian dances. Bartók composed the Romanian folk dances during World War I, initially for piano and later for orchestra.
 

LEFKI KARPODINI
Corona Valse, 2020

This piano piece was written in the middle of a pandemic, during the period of the first incarceration, in March 2020. “After a week of isolation, a three-note pattern, which followed me persistently for a week, needed to breathe and evolve. Initially I gave it life by improvising in 4/4, but I think it needed  more movement as a reaction maybe to the days of isolation, and so it mutated into the present waltz. Chopin’s Waltzes immediately awoke in me and I instinctively followed a similar piano writing. Corona Valse has been presented at the Koroni Festival in its original version for solo piano and at the Cultural and Conference Center of Heraklion transcribed for violin and piano. It has also been rebroadcast by the Third Program of the Hellenic Radio. It is the first piano work that the pianist shares with the general public.

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA ( 1921 – 1992)
Café 1930 & Night Club 1960 from «Histoire du Tango», 1985
trans. for flute and piano  

Astor Piazzolla was the composer who changed the history of tango, developing the traditional Argentine tango into nuevo tango. He possessed that rare musical perception that enabled him to transform a small musical form such as the tango into an expressive medium with enormous depth and breadth. He also had the ability to create a new reality and dared what others considered impossible. He embodied the constant transcendence, his music itself constantly exceeded its limits. He had a very good theoretical knowledge of classical music, which resulted in him writing complex and interpretation- wise demanding works. The deeper one goes in his work, the more his fascinating quality is revealed to him. It is music that expresses sincere emotion and tragedy because it does not contain a trace of formalism or “commercial” sentimentality, like that of other contemporary composers. It is a product of the mixture of traditions of Buenos Aires, as well as influences of Spanish, Italian, German, Jewish, influences from the natives of America and jazz music. All this makes Piazzolla’s music multicultural and familiar to every recipient, regardless of origin.
Tango was born in the late 19th century. and flourished in the Rio de la Plata area, from immigrants to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The first tangos were played in brothels, then in dance halls, cafes, patisseries, cinemas, theatre halls and cabarets. At first it was received with hostility by the “good world” of the bourgeoisie, in whose prejudiced eyes it remained related to the underworld. It was the conjunctural success in the early 20th century  and its evolution into fashion in the salons of Paris and later of the rest of Europe and America (dinners-tango, competitions-tango, color-tango, champagne-tango, skirt-tango … “international whim” according to the poet Horace Ferrer ) which  had as a result finally to be accepted also by the modest aristocracy of his birthplace. With his work Histoire du Tango Piazzolla outlines four stages in the evolution of tango: Bordelle 1900, Café 1930, Nightclub 1960 and Concert d’Aujourd’hui, from the Buenos Aires brothel to the tango as it is presented today in concert halls. Café 1930 represents the period when tango became more romantic. People stopped dancing, preferring rather to listen to it. Night Club 1960 reflects the influence of bossa nova madness. The audience flocked to the nightclubs to listen passionately to the new tango with Brazilian influences.