Consonances 2019

Edvard Grieg: “Wedding day at Troldhaugen” (1886)
Edvard Grieg: “4 Norwegian Dances” (1880)
Johannes Brahms: “Hungarian dances” (1st book) (1869)
John Adams: “China Gates” (1986) – solo: C. Sakellaridis
Takeshi Yoshimatsu: “Pleiades Dances VIII” (2000)
T. Yoshimatsu: “Regulus Circuit” (1978) – solo: Beata Pincetić
Tomohiro Moriyama: “Let’s Play a Duet” (2014)

• Norwegian folk music was a defining influence on Edvard Grieg, and this is clear across almost his entire oeuvre. He wrote “Wedding day at Troldhaugen” in 1886 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his marriage to Nina. The op. 35 “Norwegian Dances” from 1880 are four-hand piano arrangements of old folk melodies which Grieg found in the collection of the musicologist and researcher Ludvig Mathias Lindeman.

• Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances”, on the other hand, are not rooted in Hungarian traditional music; rather, they filter the music of the Hungarian Gypsies (Roma) through the composer's own aesthetic. Like other sets of national dances composed in the 19th century, Grieg's “Norwegian Dances” and Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances” were originally written for piano four hands to meet the demand for chamber music. They were orchestrated for symphony orchestra at a later date.

• John Adams creates a musical palindrome whose harmonies alternate between modes and their modal mirror images. We can imagine the work as the unravelling of a DNA double helix in which modes reminiscent of the pentatonic scale used in Chinese music are combined.

• Inspired by the Pleiades star cluster and by Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo, these solo piano pieces by Takeshi Yoshimatsu were conceived, the composer informs us, as a set of preludes for the modern piano. By diffusing Bach Inventions through a Zen aesthetic in suites of imaginary dances, they bridge the past and the future.

• T. Moriyama’s “Let’s play a duet” exploits the capabilities of a piano duo to the full, which gives performances of the work an intense theatricality. Based on avant-garde techniques used in contemporary classical music with touches of traditional Japanese music, the work parodies Boogie-Woogie and a game played out between conflicting characters to humorous effect. A musical adventure that has to be listened to with an open mind!