Music to Mothers’ Ears

 

Tomoko celebrated Mothers’ Day celebrated recently, and music composers have celebrated mothers throughout the year for centuries. Here is a sampling of pieces that are These pieces are mother-approved.

Robert Schumann’s cycle of eight songs, “Frauen-Liebe und Leben” (“A Woman’s Life and Love”), follows a woman’s life of falling in love, marrying, and, becoming a mother. It has a very happy tone, but Schumann’s wife did not like the distraction of motherhood from her own musical career.

Richard Strauss’s piece “Muttertändelei” (“Mother-chatter”) recounts a mother’s praise of her child. It was written two years after Strauss’s wife gave birth to their son Franz.

Among Dvorak’s collection of gypsy songs is “Songs My Mother Taught Me.” One of his most famous melodies, this piece tells of a mother teaching her children the songs she herself learned from her mother.

Dvorak’s daughter was composer Josef Suk’s mother – and the inspiration for Suk’s piece pieces “About Mother, which were written for his children.

Ravel was another composer who wrote for children. Ma Mere l’Oye (or Mother Goose) His piano duet suite is a piano duet composed for his friend’s children.

Speaking of Mother Goose, Christina Rossetti penned nursery rhymes that were put to music in 1918 by John Ireland to become Mother and Child.  

The 1910 piano piece “Empress of Night” was a husband and wife effort; Amy Beach composed the music and her husband wrote the text. The piece was dedicated to Amy’s mother.

Bringing in Summer on a Tune

 

Summer is a great time to travel, and Tomoko has enjoyed traveling since she was a young woman. Now with the pandemic, it is harder to travel, but Tomoko can enjoy summer travel through the piano pieces she enjoys performing. Many composers of those pieces were inspired by their own travels and sense of place. Here is a sampling to explore.

Probably one of the first thematic piano pieces that might come to mind is George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” which was written for his opera Porgy and Bess. Its tone and pacing reflect a lazy, jazzy afternoon in the South.

Benjamin Britten’s four-part suite of piano pieces, “Ravel’s “Mirrors” (Op. 5), reflects his boyhood pre-war memories of the British seaside where he lived. The lively melody captures summer holiday life with a celebratory movement, stormy sailing, and nighttime peacefulness.  

Claude Debussy’s prelude “Voiles (Veils or Sails)” reminds one of summer breezes, either on land or sea. Its tonality ranges from veiled mystery to bright open sails.

Franz Liszt’s  three-suite set “Années de Pelerinage (Pilgrimage Years)” was inspired by his visits to the Swiss Alps. The piece paints a Romantic picture of flora and fauna as well as still and running water.

Ernest Moeran’s pastoral “Summer Valley” refers to British and Irish landscapes. While he himself lived a creative and lively existence at that time, this composition reflects a more peaceful mood.

Maurice Ravel’s “Mirrors” evokes the impressionistic sound of the ocean, especially movement #3 “A boat on the Ocean.” It is considered one of his three water-themed masterpieces.

Francis Poulenc’s three-movement suite “Napoli” was written during his visit to Italy. The piece certainly plays an homage to Italian barcarolle and caprice. The music’s color mirrors summer streets and shores of Naples.

Whatever the summer mood, there's likely to be a summer piano piece to celebrate summer, no matter where one is. 

Music in Memory of Past Military

 

As a child, Tomoko experienced World War II in Japan. Her father and brother were conscripted to help the war effort as civilians, and the entire nation suffered hardship because of the war. After the war, Japan was occupied by U.S. military personnel, and Japan had to agree to never re-establish an offensive  military force.

Tomoko’s husband Desy also suffered from military action as his country, Hungary, was under the policies imposed by the Soviets. He was able to escape during the Hungarian Revolution, safely arriving in the United States -- poor but hopeful.

Composers have often expressed their feelings about war in their music, as the following examples of Ravel’s work demonstrate.

In World War I Maurice Ravel wanted to join the war effort, and so he drove a supply truck to support French troops. His piano suite Le tombeau de Couperin memorialized his friends who were killed in the war, a couple of whom were shot dead their first day at the front.  

In 1914 pianist Paul Wittgenstein a war bullet pierced his right elbow, resulting in amputating his arm. In his honor, several composers wrote pieces that could be performed solely by the left hand, including Ravel.  His left-hand piano concerto became Wittgenstein’s favorite composition to play.

Ravel’s compositions Frontispice (1919) and La Valse (2020) captured his own war-based psychological trauma and grief. Similarly, his Sonata for Violin and Violoncello (1922) and Sonata for Violin and Piano (1927) enabled his musician colleagues to share their mutual grief through duet performances.  

Music can be a powerful cathartic experience, both for a performance and for a listener, to address and remember times of war and suffering: to bear the grief and hope for peace.

Bravo for Bartók

One of Tomoko’s favorite composers to perform is Bela Bartók. In her CD “Touria” (available from Amazon), Bartók is the featured composers, showcasing six Rumanian folk dances frp, 1915, seventeen Hungarian and Slovak folk melodies, and “Allegro Barbaro” (1911).

Like Tomoko’s husband Desi, Bartók was born in Hungary (although Bartók’s town came under Romanian rule later on).  And like Desi, Bartók fled his country for America during war times. In Bartók’s case, his anti-Nazi sentiments endangered him. Nevertheless, Bartók always maintained a Hungarian spirit and sense of nationalism.

Bartók showed early musical talent, and gave his first public piano recital at age 11 in 1892 with his own composition, written two years earlier. Among his teachers was a pupil of Hungarian Franz Liszt. Later he was influenced by Richard Strauss and French composer Claude Debussy. In turn, Bartók taught Lili Kraus, one of Tomoko’s professional friends. 

Bartók’s compositions often built on folk music, particularly Rumanian folk dances. Bartók was not only a composer but also an ethnomusicologist, collecting and researching traditional Magyar folk melodies just as nationalism was blooming. Tomoko points out, “The folk inspiration fostered music that came from the heart, and yet how the composers built upon that folk music helped them express their own individuality.”

Bartók played “Allegro Barbaro” privately ten years before the published version of this short dance-like piece was performed publicly in 1921. Each of his pre-published performance was unique, changing speed as well as accents and dynamics. The piece’s title translates into “brisk barbarian”, which was an ironic reference to critics’ labelling of Bartók and his colleagues as young barbarians. Interestingly, the piece was based on Ravel’s “Scarbo.” The final rendition offers a unique counterbalancing of French and Hungarian folk melodies. The tonal pitch is constant, but the major, major and modal relations around it change. “Allegro Barbaro” has two themes, alternating between F# and F. The cadences are surprising, jagged, irregular but they still have chromatic motion. Even this this piece was written relatively early in his career, his compositional style was already mature.

It is no wonder that Tomoko appreciates Bartók: he brings cultural understanding to create an original compelling sound.  And Tomoko brings her own performance gifts to provide a unique experience for her own listeners.

Ravel’s Take on Madagascar

At her November 2018 concert, Tomoko performed Ravel’s "Chansons madecasses" with flautist Tod Brody, cellist Eric Gaenslen, and soprano Miwako Isano. 

This composition, written in 1925-1926, marked a turning point in Ravel’s career, when he focused more on melody and linear ensembles. The music is very impressionistic with its evocative sensuality. Ravel had a long-term interest in ethnic music. However, the work veered away from his usual Spanish inspiration. Apparently, Malagasy traditional music was known in France at that time. 

The text is based on the 18^th century Creole poet Evariste-Desire de Parny, whom Ravel was reading when he was commissioned to write a chamber work. The poems cry for liberation from Madagascar’s colonialism and slavery. 

The first song, “Nahandove,” recounts a native woman’s section. The voice interprets the story as the other instruments provide an evocative landscape.

The second song, “Aoua!!”, shrieks about dangerous white men. The title’s rendition in minor thirds, the piano’s percussive role, the undulating flute, and the ensemble’s bitonality together paint a sharp warning picture. 

The third song, “Il est doux de se coucher,” begins with a melancholy flute, evoking the end of the day (the song is translated as “it is sweet to lie down”). The voice then takes center stage, seems to drift off, and then bristly ends – to the realities of day.

Altogether, Ravel’s experimental music embodies the text in a dramatic and erotic way. Today’s listeners feel the quartet’s pull in a very immediate way.

Remembering Peter Magadini

When Tomoko attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the mid 1960s, there were fewer than a hundred students. But they were serious musicians, and several of them went on to noteworthy success. One of those students who was a classmate of Tomoko was Peter Magadini.

Peter and Tomoko started their studies the same year. Peter was the only percussionist in the Conservatory. Peter was planning to enroll at San Francisco State University in order to study with New York Philharmonic timpanist Roland Kohloff. However, Roland was not available, so Peter continued to drive up 19^th Avenue when he saw the sign for the Conservatory, and applied there. Not only did the Conservatory want a percussion student, but soon he was able to have Roland Kohloff as his personal teacher.

Peter and Tomoko became musical friends. Peter remembers, “I hardly ever saw Tomoko – she was always coming in or out of a practice room, that’s when I saw her.” As for Tomoko, she remembers Peter saying that Bartok was too hard; Tomoko, on the other hand, considers Bartok as one of her favorite composers to perform. In any case, years later Peter invited Tomoko to do a concert with him, featuring Ravel’s “Chansons madécasses.” 

Similarly to Tomoko, who became a piano teacher after her graduation from the Conservatory, Peter too taught at his alma mater.

However, he has moved several times since then: to Los Angeles – where he joined Diana Ross’s tour band, to Toronto where he earned a master’s degree in music and later taught at McGill and Concordia in Montreal, and back to California. Not only has Peter performed with major entertainers such as the George Duke Trio (which he helped form), Bobbie Gentry, Al Jarreau, Buddy Tate, Chet Baker, Don Ellis, and Smokey Robinson. He was also introduced to polymeter through studying with Ali Akbar Kahn, and wrote two distinguished books on polyrhythms. 

The Conservatory has served as a solid foundation for many musicians such as Tomoko's classmate Peter Magadini. Tomoko has experienced the Conservatory both as a student and for fifty years now as an influential teacher.