By Melissa Ingells, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-950360.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI – Raphael Jimenez, associate conductor of orchestras at MSU's College of Music, speaks with WKAR's Melissa Ingells about the upcoming MSU Symphony Orchestra concert at Wharton Center. She first asked him about Bela Bartok's Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra.
AUDIO:
RAPHAEL JIMENEZ: We have a fantastic program coming in this Saturday three masterpieces, three great composers who, they all created a new path in music and explored new ways in writing music, and the three of them are very important in the history of music for different reasons. But you're probably talking about the Concerto for Two Pianos, Two Percussion Players, and Orchestra. This work is a work by Bela Bartok, who started being a piece, a chamber music piece, a sonata for two pianos and percussion. But in an attempt to do better business with the piece, somebody recommended Bartok that he orchestrates the piece for orchestra, so he has the orchestra supporting the soloists, so this became a concerto for two pianos and two percussion players. And it's a phenomenal piece that represents Bela Bartok very well, and all his interest in new ways of writing new harmonies, new ways of exploring folk music, Hungarian folk music, which was a big thing for him.
MELISSA INGELLS: Would you describe it as a tonal piece, a lyrical piece, or is it kind of wild and discordant? What kind of words would you use to describe the sound of the piece?
JIMENEZ: The piece has a little bit of everything. I mean, at the very beginning, Bartok himself describes the piece as like the origin of the world,' like, at the beginning there was nothing.' So, there is no clear sense of pulse. And the motif(s) are not clearly delineated and they keep shifting, so you don't know where the beat is. So, there is that sense of big space that opens the piece. And very soon the piece starts driving, and, you know, a couple minutes into the piece, wild rhythms are propelling the piece forward. So that is for the first movement. The second movement is what people have described as nocturnal music, the music of the night, the music that Bela Bartok tried to portray by depicting the sounds of nature. Maybe animals, birds, and so there are many effects, a lot of punctuation, pointillistic writing. And it's a very slow, of course, movement, with a lot of open space. And the third movement is the folky' one. The third movement is based on folk motif(s), as I told you was a big thing for Bela Bartok, who did a lot of research in Hungarian folk music.
INGELLS: So then you have some ballet music by Stravinsky on the program?
JIMENEZ: Actually, I do have ballet music all the way from the very first piece of the program, and this was not intended, but perhaps subconsciously I came up with that program. As it happens, ballet was my very first big job. I started as a ballet conductor. I do love ballet music a lot, and in fact I still conduct very frequently for ballet companies. And the program starts with Claude Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, who became also a very important piece in the world of ballet. The program continues with the Bartok concerto, who has also, the piece has been taken to the stage by many ballet companies as well. And the concert ends with Petrushka, who is a very well-known ballet by Stravinsky.