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79e CONCOURS DE GENE ` VE

INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION

Programme note

March, 2020: I was fifteen when the world shut down. By the time we had emerged from the pandemic a few years later, I had lost my grandmother, two years of interaction with the outside world, and any sense of connection to my instrument. During this “new normal,” what was the point of sitting alone in a room, chasing elusive sounds on a wooden box? The essence of music making had vanished; human connection, collaboration, and shared spiritual exploration were no longer possible. Despite coming from a family of string players, I had forgotten why I played the viola in the first place.

So: I stopped playing. I dropped out of Juilliard Pre-College to pursue other interests and projects that sparked my imagination. I immersed myself in my gothic fiction literature class; I built a sculpture of the Mars Rover vehicle; I became the best cook in the family; I worked as an assistant at a new university; I worked on my mother’s farm in rural Tennessee.

Eventually, I felt a quiet but persistent tug towards my viola again; this time, the noise and baggage around music making had vanished, allowing me to approach it with fresh ears and a rejuvenated spirit. Distance, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder.

The first piece I performed after my hiatus was the Hindemith we’ll be playing tonight. Absent a teacher or any formal direction, I used the piece as a guide, working toward the images that the music painted so vividly to me. Since then, painting with my sound has become my fuel: my job is to bring the score to life. I see the works in tonight’s program as intensely image based, conjuring scenes of aliens impersonating humans and fairies singing lullabies.

Brahms’ F Minor sonata is part of a set originally written for clarinet but transcribed for viola by the composer himself. Written in 1894, the two sonatas were the last pieces of chamber music Brahms composed before his death in

1897. With the transcription for viola, Brahms secured his spot in the “viola curse club,” other members including Shostakovich, Bartok, Schnittke, and Vieuxtemps – all having written pieces for viola shortly before their death or even leaving unfinished works behind.

The F minor sonata is a journey through the past, ending with acceptance and enlightenment in the finale. The bell-like motif throughout the piece serves as a constant reminder of the passing of time while we experience Brahms, towards the end of his life, recount tales from his youth. Sitting by the fireside, he depicts memories of falling in love and imbibing one too many beers during Oktoberfest.

Lachrymae is Britten’s play on a “theme and variations” structure, where he boldly places the theme after ten variations. The theme is based on the Renaissance song “If My Complaints Could Passions Move,” written by English composer John Dowland, known for particularly melancholic and doleful compositions:

If Love doth make men’s lives too sour Let me not love, nor live henceforth Die shall my hopes, but not my faith That you that of my fall may hearers be May here despair, which truly saith I was more true to Love than Love to me.

(“If My Complaints Could Passions Move,” Dowland, 1599)

The listener is transported to a different reality during each variation – similar to the transition from black and white film to color in The Wizard of Oz. I see haunted MarioKart characters moving with rubato, droplets dripping from the ceiling of a cave and disturbing the silence, and Roman centurions advancing on the enemy. The final theme is warm and comforting: a singer and lute player perform the song in a humble inn.

79e CONCOURS DE GENE ` VE

INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION

Programme note

Kurtág’s Signs, Games, and Messages is a collection of miniatures written for solo instruments and small ensembles. I remember thinking growing up how odd they sounded, as if the music were trying to escape the instrument and speak. The beauty in Kurtag’s music is in its simplicity; there is no more concise way to convey the literal meanings of signs, games, and messages.

The first on the program is “Vagdalkozós,” or “Flapping Slapping,” in English. Kim Kashkashian appropriately described Vagdalkozós to me as “two stupid people who never agree.”

The second, “...eine Blume für Tabea,” was written for Tabea Zimmerman after the heartbreaking passing of her husband. It is fleeting and gentle, like a light breeze brushing against petals in the sunlight.

The last, “Perpetuum Mobile,” is an example of a “game.” A string crossing exercise disguised as a dance, its absurd outbursts and moments of déjà vu are glitches in the matrix.

Hindemith, a proponent of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, is generally associated with music that is vertical and muscular. He created thick textures and dense harmonies, using his expert knowledge of instruments’ limits to paint right up to the metaphorical canvas edge. In contrast to his usual style, however, this sonata is uncharacteristically lyrical. It retains many of Hindemith’s hallmarks but is also defined by long, wandering lines that erupt in bouts of anger and desperation.

A colleague of mine described this sonata as the creation of the universe, from darkness and tranquility to an awesome display of omnipotence. A few years later, a mentor explained the sonata as the destruction of the world and the loss of innocence. The genius of the writing is

that both can be true. The opening character for me is undeniably the young girl from Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia, running into a forest with fantastical – and at times horrifying – creatures in order to escape reality. I try to experience the piece like Ofelia completing her trials in the labyrinth, and with the pianist, we decide if it ends in death or immortality.

My journey rediscovering the viola after leaving it behind has transformed how I interact with music: I’ve realized that like all other forms of art, music is never objective. It’s a medium with which to communicate, but the messages people receive will never be the same. Of all the universes and realities in the program tonight, what matters most is that the colors are vivid enough for everyone to paint their own visions.

Alessandra Yang