Ravel, Glière, Kodály - Violin/Cello duet - Live

Live from Gladsax Church, Sweden, during the 4th Kammarmusik Festival i Gladsax on the 25th July 2024.

Emma Bandeniece: Cello
David Merlin: Violin

Concert program:

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Sonata for Violin & Cello
"A la mémoire de Claude Debussy” (1922)
00:22 I Allegro
05:57 II Très vif
09:50 III Lent
16:17 IV Vif, Avec entrain

Reinhold Glière (1875-1956):
8 Pieces for Violin & Cello Op.39 (1909)
22:47 I Prelude
24:53 II Gavotte
27:19 III Berceuse
30:21 IV Canzonetta
32:23 V Intermezzo
34:09 VI Impromptu
36:25 VII Scherzo
39:27 VIII Etude

Zoltan Kodály (1882-1967):
Duo for Violin & Cello Op.7 (1914)
41:02 I Allegro serioso, non troppo
49:49 II Adagio - Andante
58:37 III Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento - Presto

01:08:30 Encore:
George Philipp Telemann (1681-1767):
Canonic Duo No.4 in D minor
III Presto

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ABOUT THE CONCERT PROGRAM
Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure - a small town in France near the Spanish border. M. Ravel's talent was already noticeable at an early age, and at the age of fourteen he entered the Paris Conservatory. The sonata for violin and cello was dedicated to her friend - the French composer Claude Debussy, and was written in the period from 1920-1922 in la minor, but one of the main motifs is the relationship between minor and major, which is already present in the violin voice in the first measure. After the melodic first movement, the lively second movement, there is a meditative third part and a energetic fourth part, where after a polyphonic strife, the ending resolves in C major.

Reinhold Glière was born on January 11, 1875 in Kiev to a German father (a wind instrument maker) and a Polish mother. In 1891, he started studying with violinist Otakar Ševčik, and in 1894 he entered the Moscow Conservatory of Music.
Harmony was taught to him by Anton Arensky, and polyphony by Sergejs Taneyev, so it is not surprising that Glier's the influence of the Russian romantics is felt in his works. After graduating from the conservatory, he won a gold medal for his one-act opera "Earth and Heaven". Soon after his studies, his composition professor Sergej Taneyev found two private students for him, who would later become notable composers - Nikolai Myaskovsky and the then eleven-year-old Sergej Prokofiev. R. Glier's rarely performed opus 39 for violin and cello was composed in 1909 after the composer's return from Berlin - it is dedicated to Boris Kaliusno.

Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály was born on December 16, 1882 in a musical family. As a child Z. Kodály studied the violin, piano and sang in the cathedral choir in the city of Nagyszombat (now Trnava, Slovakia), where for the first time he encountered the importance of choral singing. At that time, he had access to the cathedral's music library, which allowed him to get acquainted with a wide range of music. Zoltans Kodais learned to play the cello in order to replace the missing musicians in string quartet evenings organized by his father. Later, he studied modern languages and philosophy at university, but after that he returned to music, obtaining a doctorate at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with a diploma thesis "Strophic structure in Hungarian folk songs".
While studying Hungarian folk music, he spent time with the composer Bela
Bartok with whom he went to the Hungarian countryside to collect folk songs. Later they published a collection of them. The influence of folk music can be felt in Z. Kodály’s own compositions - also in the duo for violin and cello. It was composed in 1914, and already in the opening of the first movement pentatonic scales can be heard as well as hungarian folk-inspired, rhapsodic passages. The second part is full of sadness and pain, possibly reflecting the despair World War I which had recently began.
The last morvment begins with a violin monologue, but then another stage follows - Presto - where the folk spirit returns, and you can hear the Hungarian dance verbunkos and other Hungarian melodies, which lead to a triumphant conclusion.