Events Calendar

Violin: Breanna Thornton
Piano: TBD

This recital will be livestreamed here: https://music.uiowa.edu/about/live-stream-concert-schedule

View the program here: https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/islandora/object/ui%3A25078

Sonata No. 2 in A Minor

Allegro Scherzo Intermezzo Finale

Sonata-Fantasy No. 1 “De´sespe´rance”

Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano

Energico ma espressivo Intimo
Allegro appassionato

Enrique Soro (1884-1954)

University of Iowa School of Music

Student Recital

Breanna Thornton, violin Feiyang Li & Chieh-Chun Chen, piano

Sunday, December 6, 2020, 3:30 PM Voxman Recital Hall

Intermission

This program is being presented by Breanna Thornton in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Performance and Pedagogy.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

M. Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993)

All the pieces on this program are written by South American composers. Each made a significant contribution to art music in their country. At the turn of the 20th century, it seems that influential artistic communities in Brazil idolized French music and Italian opera may have been popular in Chile. However, I wonder how much of the population held this opinion. As you listen to this music, consider what cultural elements you hear in the music. Do you hear European music? Do you hear Brazilian music? Do you hear Chilean music? Why? Does this challenge your notion of Latino music? How did South American composers react to preference’s for European music? Did they mimic it? Did they combine elements and create their own idiom? Did they reject it and write music completely differently?

Enrique Soro was a Chilean pianist and composer of Italian heritage. He wrote the first full-length symphony in Chile, Sinfoni´a Roma´ntica in 1921. His father was a musician, and when Enrique became of age, he returned to Italy to study music in Milan. At the conservatory, he won the composition prize in 1904 which followed the recent success of his String Quartet in A Major. His first violin sonata was written in Italy and premiered in 1905 in Chile, but was left unpublished. The second violin sonata was written in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century, and premiered at a recital Enrique gave in Carnegie Hall in 1921. It is written when Enrique was developing his mature style that reflects more romantic tastes than early 20th century modern tastes. One author suggests Enrique's music is inspired by Brahms and Schumann. This sonata uses mostly traditional European forms including sonata-allegro form in the first and last movement, and scherzo with trio in the second movement. I do not hear anything in this work that sounds Chilean. But then, what does Chilean music sound like? Enrique wrote a few other chamber works, a piano trio and quintet, plus a few piano pieces. Some claim his most notable work is his concerto for piano and orchestra in D Major in 1919. He won the Pan-American Composition Competition in 1912.

Heitor Villa Lobos was a largely self-taught musician and is one of the most frequently noted composers of South America. It seems he was a colorful character and actively developed a persona for himself that was sometimes convenient for his career. Yet, his grand stories of travel in the Brazilian jungle, where he may have had contact with indigenous music, seem fanciful and unlikely. It is likely that one factual source of indigenous music was Roquette-Pinto's wax cylinder recordings, some of which Heitor transcribed. He was also familiar with an urban style of Brazilian music, especially choros. With an anti-establishment spirit, Heitor wrote music that did not automatically receive approval from the national institute of music or elite critics who tended to admire older European musical style. Villa Lobos became known as a nationalistic composer who incorporated elements of Brazilian music. In the 1920's, Heitor visited Europe, especially France to publicize his work. Heitor may have composed up to a thousand works ranging from symphonies, to choral works, to chamber works, to piano pieces. Later, he also conducted some of his works in South America, Europe, and the United States.

Heitor's first two violin sonatas are earlier works that do not exhibit many nationalistic elements. The first sonata is perhaps his most commonly played violin sonata. It was written in 1912 but performed in 1917 after the second violin sonata had been performed in 1915. This 1915 concert was the first official concerto to present Heitor's music. In the first sonata’s harmony, I hear hints of Debussy, who Milhaud claims was the composer that the younger generation imitated. (Milhaud lived in Rio de Janeiro from 1917-1919). The piece is also somewhat Post-Romantic rather than solely Impressionistic. The title "fantasy" suits the piece well, as it seems to wander simply for the sake of enjoying the harmonies. I enjoy the opportunity this piece affords to simply meander through melancholy emotions. This piece may be a fitting emotional expression for some this year 2020--de´sespe´rance--hopelessness.

M. Camargo Guarnieri was a leading Brazilian composer in the generation after Villa Lobos. He was of Sicilian heritage and studied music mostly in Brazil. Besides composing, Camargo also taught piano, conducted, and taught composition to several notable students. He wrote an array of compositions from symphonies, to vocal songs, to piano works, to chamber music. Mario de Andrade influenced Camargo and other composers to write in a nationalistic style. Camargo went to France in 1938 briefly and studied composition with Charles Koechlin, who was a student of Faure´. In the 1940's, Camargo's first violin concerto won the prize of the Fliescher Music Collection in Philadelphia and his second string quartet won a prize from the Washington D. C.'s Chamber Music Guild. Camargo wrote seven violin sonatas spaced throughout his life. Sonata No. 4 was written in 1956 and premiered in 1959 by Eva Kovach and David Garvey in Carnegie Hall. It was dedicated to the notable Brazilian violinist, Mariuccia Iacovino. This sonata prominently features two elements that Camargo said are essential to composing Brazilian music: counterpoint and rhythm. I definitely see the importance of the horizontal organization rather than vertical organization of the first movement as one researcher noted. When I started studying the first movement, I realized in hindsight that it was more effective to study it rhythmically rather than harmonically. The first few notes in the piece is a main motif, that you can hear obviously return near the end of the last movement. It is a fun, varied, showy piece. To me, the second movement has jazz-like influences and the third movement tango-like influences.