Oberlin College Community Strings to Perform Music of Bach, Mozart, Poulenc and Dvorák, on Thursday, December 9, 8 P.M., in Finney Chapel Program notes by Philip Highfill
	RELATED back to the main story		Program Notes The G minor prelude and fugue is one of several in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier which call to mind orchestral sonorities. The grandly austere prelude, built entirely on an insistent dotted-rhythm figure, ushers in a lengthy four-voiced fugue of equally emphatic character, whose striking principal subject features the seven-fold repetition of a single pitch (middle C) and the uncommonly powerful use of rests. Also noteworthy are the almost total absence of such standard contrapuntal devices as augmentation, diminution, inversion, and retrograde, and the sparing use of stretto. Instead, there are several simultaneous statements of the subject in parallel thirds and sixths, one of them coinciding with a dual statement of the countersubject -- a flight of melodic fancy which serves momentarily to temper the fugue's otherwise uncompromising tone.   The Concerto in C, K. 246, was composed in 1776 for Countess Antonia von Lützow, an evidently gifted amateur who took piano lessons with Mozart's father Leopold in Salzburg. Though still a very early work, its graceful yet unpredictable melodic contours, expert craftsmanship, and witty interaction between soloist and orchestra point the way toward Mozart's late masterpieces in this genre. One innovative feature in the opening movement is the assignment to the piano of its own second theme (a) prior to its statement of the "real" second subject (b) previously introduced by the orchestra. Variations of this same theme (a) resurface in the concertos K. 415 and 503, both also in the key of C. The sprightly closing subject (c) is another characteristically Mozartian touch. The middle movement, a lyrical andante in the subdominant key of F, is also in sonata form, though with a markedly abbreviated development section. The finale is a high-spirited minuet in rondo form -- ABACABA -- featuring prominent roles for the oboes and horns. Mozart left three cadenzas each for the first and second movements, of which the most elaborate are played tonight.   In August of 1936, following the death of a close friend, Francis Poulenc made a pilgrimage, like countless others before him, to the 11th-century chapel at Rocamadour in the Dordogne. There Poulenc experienced a reawakening of his long-dormant Catholic faith. Here is the composer's description of the site: "Clinging in the full sun to a vertiginous crag of rock, Rocamadour is an extraordinarily peaceful place. Preceded by a courtyard, all pink with oleanders in boxes, a rather modest chapel, built half into the rock, contains a miraculous statue of the Virgin, carved, according to legend, in black wood by Saint Amadour, the short-statured Zacchæus of the Gospel, who climbed into a tree in order to see Christ. In the evening of my visit to Rocamadour I began my Litanies to the Black Virgin for female chorus and organ." The work was completed in only a few days; eleven years later Poulenc transcribed the organ accompaniment for timpani and strings. Those who know only the cheeky, bon vivant side of Poulenc's personality, as expressed in Le bal masqué or the irreverent Chansons gaillardes, will be amazed by the seductive spirituality of the Litanies, which in the composer's typically eclectic fashion evoke the simplicity of Gregorian chant amid lushly pungent 20th-century harmonies.   Whether in their original version for piano four hands, or in Dvorák's subsequent transcriptions for full orchestra, the Slavonic Dances have always enjoyed immense popularity. And why not? They represent Dvorák at his best -- melodic, inventive, colorful, direct, with a genuine feeling and profound love for the folk music of central and eastern Europe. Op. 46 no. 8, a furiant of Bohemian origin, juxtaposes duple rhythms against the actual meter of 3/4. Op. 72 no. 2 combines elements of the Ukrainian dumka, the leisurely sousedská or "neighbor's dance," and the Polish mazurka, and Op. 72 no. 7 is a brisk Balkan kolo. In these arrangements for strings, the first two remain in their original keys, while the finale is transposed up a step from C major.
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