Relating to Bartok

 

When I met Tomoko in 1983, the first question she asked me was: “Who is your favorite composer?” I answered “Béla Bartók.” Tomoko was impressed because he is usually not mentioned among the Big Bs (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms). Bartók has a way to connecting people, and there are many pieces of evidence that link Tomoko and her family to him.

One of the first connections between Bartók and Tomoko was Bartók’s country of birth: Hungary. Tomoko’s husband Desi was a Hungarian refugee. Like Desi, Bartók had to leave his country; when his father died, Bartók (age seven) and his sister were taken by mother first to the Ukraine and then to Slovakia. Indeed, when World War II started, Bartók immigrated to America; Desi immigrated because of the Hungarian Revolution. Tomoko also immigrated to the US as an adult.

Like Tomoko, Bartók started piano lessons as a young boy. Unlike Tomoko, Bartók wrote his first piano composition at age nine, and performed at his first public piano recital at age 11.

Also like Tomoko, Bartók was influenced by the music of Richard Strauss, Debussy, and Brahms.

Both Tomoko and Bartók appreciate folk music. Interestingly, Bartók started his interest in folk music when he heard an nanny singing folk songs to the little children she took care of. Tomoko routinely sang Japanese nursery songs to her daughter Beata when she was a baby, and how both of them sing those same traditional songs to Beata’s son Kai.

Both Tomoko and Bartók are nature lovers. Nature inspired Bartók in his Night music, which evoked sounds of nature. Another example is his Out of Doors sonata.

Moreover, both Bartók and Tomoko recorded their performances, and both were music teachers. Among Tomoko’s CD recording are pieces by Bartók, making a full circle in their relationship.

 

Falling For The Piano

 

Musicians are often inspired by nature. For instance, Tomoko likes to garden, and she sees the garden as a metaphor for musicians; both take much work and much patience. “Labor is labor,” says Tomoko. Both require connections, and both offer ways for self-expression. The rewards can be immediate, as when planting or weeding – such as working through a particular section of a composition – and sometimes it takes years to see the results.  Autumn is one example of inspiration for composers.

One of the most known compositions is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons’ “Autumn,” which has been arranged for piano.

Tchaikovsky’s composition The Seasons is comprised of 12 movements, one for each month. Autumn months paint musical scenes of a harvest and a hunt, and his October movement “Autumn Song” reflects a mournful fall.

While Felix Mendelssohn is very famous, his sister Fanny is not as celebrated. Indeed, some of her compositions were written under her brother’s name. Her excursions into nature inspired her cycle of piano pieces titled Das Jahr (The Year), which include autumn months.

Born soon after Fanny died, Cecile Chaminade was a French composer and pianist – and the first female composer to be award the prestigious Legion of Honor. Her most famous piano composition is Automne, Etudes de Concert, Opus 35, which contrasts seasonal peace and melancholy with a dramatic storm scene.

In his second book of preludes for piano, Debussy’s piece Brouillards (Fog/Mist) leverages the black keys to create a hazy sound, more pronounced than the faint left hand chords.

A more upbeat impression of fall is captured in Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.“

An even more recent piece is American composer Joseph Schwantner’s piano miniature “Veiled Autumn,” which mirrors the changeability of fall weather.

So if autumn feels like the darkening end of the year, music lovers can feel uplifted by this autumn-inspired piano works.

 

Piano Music for Gardening

 

The adage “April showers bring May flowers” signals the time for gardening, a favorite pastime of Tomoko. She considers it as a way to wake up, to recharge her psychic batteries. “It’s a fresh feeling.”

Refresh yourself with these ten piano pieces inspired by gardens, with a little information about each piece.

In the 1930s Hungarian Bela Bartok wrote a collection of 85 short pieces entitled For Children. One of those compositions is "Rose Garden." These pieces attest to his belief in the importance to educating youngsters in contemporary musical styles.

Amy Beach was the first major American female composer of large-scale art music. Her 1922 Opus 97, Grandmother’s Garden, consists of five parts, each capturing a different flower.

Aaron Copland’s Down a Country Lane was commissioned by Life magazine to be featured in a 1962 issue, which includes photographs and an article explaining that this piano piece was one of the few compositions written express for young students by a major composer.

Claude Debussy’s “Jardins sur la pluie” (Gardens in the rain) is part of his 1903 composition Estampes (Prints). It captures the round of raindrops that storm a French garden. 

As a gift to his mother, Australian Percy Aldridge Grainger arranged an English folk tune into the 1918 piano piece “Country Gardens.” The piece was his greatest success financially, selling over 40,000 copies yearly in the United States. However, Grainger came to resent having to perform it constantly.

A visit to a monastic garden inspired English composer Albert Ketelbey to write “In a Monastery Garde.” In 1915. Ketelbey was known for light orchestral music, and wrote music for silent films.

Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu’s 1938 suite Window on the Garden consists of four lyrical movements. The piece reflects his short stay in Paris just before escaping from the forthcoming Nazi invasion.

Edward McDowell was America’s best known composer at the beginning of the 20^th century. His 1902 piano New England Idyls combines classical European harmonic elements and American textual imagery, as exemplified in the piece "An Old Garden."

Rachmaninoff became known for his lyrical inspiration, where the piano captures the sentiments of the text. Lilacs, Op 21, No. 5 “Lilacs, along with Daisies” was composed in 1902 as a song with accompaniment, but was later transcribed as a sensitive piano solo miniature.

In 1893 Tchaikowsky wrote his last solo piano work, 18 Pieces, one a day. Value-bluette, No. 11, was dedicated to the daughter of his lawyer and friend Nikolay Kondratyev.

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Calming Chopin

During the current pandemic, music can have a calming effect. Tomoko agrees: "Music can be a simple accent, like a flower." She asserts, "If everyone would listen to music, the world we be more peaceful." 

Tomoko considers Chopin to be very quiet sometimes. "He hardly touched the keyboard, but he was a good pianist." Some favorites of his include:

·        Ballade Op. 23 in Gm,

·        Concerto No. 1 in Em,

·        Nocturne No. 2 in Eflat M,

·        Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 in Bm,

·        Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1 Larghetto and No. 2 in Dflat minor,

·        Nocturne Op. 37 No. 1 in Gm,

·        Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1 in Cm and No. 2 in F#m,

·        Nocturne Op. 55 No. 1 in Fm,

·        Prelude Op. 28 No. 4 in Em,

·        Walzes Op. 64 No. 2 in C#m

Tomoko remarks, "One day if you're very depressed, you don't want to hear music. You have to be quiet." That can be a good time to be quiet in nature. In the seemingly quiet of the out-of-doors, you can feel the rhythm of life. It beats in the silence of your heart. And as you become calmer, you can start to hear nature's sounds, which can be music to your ears and psyche. "A bird singing, a tree waving; nature shows that silence is variable music."

But Tomoko  goes on to say, “You can’t go without sound for too long.”

May music bring a calming spring to your lives.

Singing Sibelius

Sibelius was one of the featured composers at Tomoko’s November concert. Miwako Isano sang soprano, and Tomoko accompanied her.

Sibelius is considered Finland’s greatest composer and helped develop his country’s national identity, even though his songs were written in his mother tongue Swedish. He drew upon the Finnish landscape in his tone poems, and he captured the spirit of Finland in his patriotic works. 

Jean Sibelius was born in 1865 and died in 1957. Sibelius’s family vacationed on the coast each summer, which started his love of nature: picturesque, primitive and sublime. 

Although he started with piano, Sibelius turned to the violin and considered going professional, but he chose to become a composer instead.

Varen flyktar hastigt (Spring flies fast), Opus 13 No. 4 was one of a set of seven songs with lyrics by Runeberg, published in 1982; the opus was his first publication with his name on the title page. The song elegantly captures the essence of Nordic seasons. Sibelius had just returned to Finland from Vienna, and wanted to express Finnish culture in his music through incorporating the tonalities of traditional folk music such as natural-minor tonics and accentuating Finnish language rhythms. At that time Finland underwent a national romanticism, partly in protest to Russia’s looming preoccupation of the country.

The end of the 19^th century marked the most productive time for Sibelius in composing songs that were performed the most often in Europe at the time and globally since then. The songs were generally melancholy and even chilling in effect.  

The duet performed two songs from the 1899 Opus 36: Demanten pa massnon (The diamond on the March snow) and Säf, säf, susa (Reed, reed, rustle). The former uses a diatonic approach to express the transition of seasons. The latter bemoans the cruel treatment of a young woman in love, using a metaphor of crashing nature. 

Their final selection was the last song in the Opus 37 five-series set, published in 1901. Flickan kom ifran sin alskings mote (The girl returned from meeting her lover). The song expresses a traditional sense of lost innocence and sexual change. It also became one of Sibelius’s most celebrated pieces. 

Even though Sibelius touted Finnish nationalism, his songs resonate universally.

Springtime

Spring is a time for renewal and refreshment. And music -- and Tomoko -- benefit.

For instance, the first day of spring marks Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday: born in 1685. Furthermore, he wrote "Ode to the Seasons." with Eva Toller lyrics set to his music. Here is her verse on spring:

Spring is approaching and with it comes beauty like green leaves, the fragrance of flowers;
the wet earth is smelling of life,
and the sun starts to warm up all deep frozen souls;
it’s the time for awakening, and it’s the season for lovers;
the butterflies play in the grass, and the birds of all colours are singing.

Spring has many tones. Consider Stravinsky's primal "Rite of Spring." Tomoko and her students have performed the first half of this monumental piece. 

Spring as it occurs in nature can be musical too.  In the seemingly quiet of the out-of-doors, you can feel the rhythm of life. As you become calmer, you can start to hear nature's sounds, which can be music to your ears and psyche. "A bird singing, a tree waving; nature shows that silence is variable music," says Tomoko.

Going Places with Music

Tomoko grew up in Japan, and moved to the U.S. to study professionally. She has also visited and performed in Europe. And music itself transports her. She says, “Without music you don’t see as much of the world.” Music is a cultural gateway, and both music and travel help people get out of their comfort zone.

Tomoko has frequently taken advantage of musical opportunities in her travels. In 1968 Tomoko visited a friend in Florence. There she visited a Medici house, where she asked, “May I use your harpsichord? They let me do it, and I played the Fugue in C sharp major BWV 848 by Bach.” She explains: “The instrument is there. What does it sound like? You have to try it.” In the Chopin Museum she played his Raindrops Prelude in Majorca. However, in Beethoven’s house in Vienna, which was made into a museum, she was not able to touch anything.

Tomoko also thinks that travel, particularly in nature, is good for the musical soul. “If you have a problem with playing, go outside, communicate with nature, and see how it communicates its beauty.” She recalls, “In Rumania my husband and I were walking in the countryside. We saw one little donkey who had left his mother to follows the cow. The donkey started braying, which was a special way of calling.” That sound had its own musical timbre, just as a bird’s singing communicates a special meaning. Tomoko contends that nature’s music might be said to compete with human’s music. It can certainly inform the musician.

In each of these travels, Tomoko steps outside her usual musical zone, and expands her notion about music. These experiences enrich her own performance, and help the listener travel musically in their minds and souls.

Enjoy Tomoko’s musical journey in her albums, found at http://www.tomokohagiwara.com

Nature and Music

“Birds singing. Trees waving. These signs of nature reflect music. If you have a problem when playing the piano, go outside, communicate with nature, and see how it communicates its beauty.” As you can see, Tomoko is deeply in tune with nature.

Tomoko has a keen ear, and can recognize emotion evoked by nature. “In Rumania last year husband and I were walking, and heard a donkey braying. He was little, and had obviously left his mother to follow a cow. I am driving. He had a special way of calling.” Music formalizes that kind of natural emotion.

Thus, Tomoko can speak with authority when she remarks that “Beethoven was close to nature.” He was known for long countryside walks, and his Symphony No. 6 in F major (which he called the Pastoral Symphony) was inspired by nature’s beauty.

Tomoko uses nature as a metaphor for describing music and its play. She talks about a “simple accent, like a flower” to describe how to interpret and play a particular note quietly and delicately. Equally, Tomoko says that when she performs, she is sharing a “whole scene” with the sensation of a landscape. She uses the metaphor of a jungle to describe complicated music that the pianist explores. Likewise, she compares the challenge of a difficult piece of music to walking up a hill, and further contends that conquering the music is like looking back from the top of that hill or mountain to see where you have come from and to see the vista of the music. “It’s an exhilarating feeling!:

Tomoko does not think she is unique in her musical connection with nature. She contends that people have a natural, instinctive sense about music. She also feels that music helps give one balance, just as nature balances today’s technological life.

You can hear nature in Tomoko’s nuanced performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major, Op.109, available at https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tomokohagiwara4.

A little peace and quiet

On Mothers' Day, it's good to think about peace and quiet.

Tomoko remembers her teacher playing the guitar. "It fit with the music so well. It was quiet. Close to nature." She goes on to say, "Music can be a simple accent, like a flower." She asserts, "If everyone would listen to music, the world we be more peaceful."

Playwright Congreve would certainly agree: " Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."

Music also has its silent spaces, which can last just an instant, or become the entire piece, as is famously known in No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33". Some silences enable singers to catch their breaths. Other silences signal a transition between movements, a time for one to synthesize the prior movement, and have time to refocus on a new section.

Silence also connects music and nature. "Silence is the best gold," asserts Tomoko. "This is music." Tomoko remarks, "One day if you're very depressed, you don't want to hear music. You have to be quiet." That can be a good time to be quiet in nature. In the seemingly quiet of the out-of-doors, you can feel the rhythm of life. It beats in the silence of your heart. And as you become calmer, you can start to hear nature's sounds, which can be music to your ears and psyche. "A bird singing, a tree waving; nature shows that silence is variable music."

Nevertheless, Tomoko says, "You can't go without sound for too long."

Tomoko considers Chopin to be very quiet sometimes. "He hardly touched the keyboard, but he was a good pianist." To hear a quiet interlude played by Tomoko, try her interpretation of Chopin's Nocturne in B flat minor, Opus 9, No. 1 on her Chopin Volume 2 album (http://www.tomokohagiwara.com/recordings.html).