79e CONCOURS DE GENÈVE 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.
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 So: I stopped playing. I dropped out of Juilliard depicts memories of falling in love and imbibPre-College to pursue other interests and pro- ing one too many beers during Oktoberfest. jects that sparked my imagination. I immersed myself in my gothic fiction literature class; I Lachrymae is Britten’s play on a “theme and varbuilt a sculpture of the Mars Rover vehicle; I iations” structure, where he boldly places the became the best cook in the family; I worked theme after ten variations. The theme is based as an assistant at a new university; I worked on on the Renaissance song “If My Complaints my mother’s farm in rural Tennessee. Could Passions Move,” written by English composer John Dowland, known for particularly Eventually, I felt a quiet but persistent tug to- melancholic and doleful compositions: wards my viola again; this time, the noise and baggage around music making had vanished, If Love doth make men’s lives too sour allowing me to approach it with fresh ears and a Let me not love, nor live henceforth rejuvenated spirit. Distance, as they say, makes Die shall my hopes, but not my faith the heart grow fonder. That you that of my fall may hearers be May here despair, which truly saith The first piece I performed after my hiatus was I was more true to Love than Love to me. the Hindemith we’ll be playing tonight. Absent a teacher or any formal direction, I used the (“If My Complaints Could Passions Move,” piece as a guide, working toward the images Dowland, 1599) that the music painted so vividly to me. Since then, painting with my sound has become my The listener is transported to a different reality fuel: my job is to bring the score to life. I see the during each variation – similar to the transiworks in tonight’s program as intensely image tion from black and white film to color in The based, conjuring scenes of aliens impersonating Wizard of Oz. I see haunted MarioKart charhumans and fairies singing lullabies. acters moving with rubato, droplets dripping from the ceiling of a cave and disturbing the Brahms’ F Minor sonata is part of a set orig- silence, and Roman centurions advancing on inally written for clarinet but transcribed for the enemy. The final theme is warm and comviola by the composer himself. Written in 1894, forting: a singer and lute player perform the the two sonatas were the last pieces of chamber song in a humble inn. music Brahms composed before his death in