Music@Menlo’s twelfth season, Around Dvořák, celebrated the timeless work of the Czech Romantic master Antonín Dvořák, one of the most universally beloved musical voices of his generation. This season not only offered audiences the opportunity to absorb the vibrant musical culture of Dvořák’s homeland and its neighboring regions but also delved into the far-reaching effects of his music, whose influence was felt as far afield as America, as well as throughout subsequent generations of composers. Each disc of the 2014 edition of Music@Menlo LIVE captures the vibrant spirit of the season. Alongside Dvořák and his countrymen, who were fueled by their interest in Czech folk traditions, the composers of nearby Hungary likewise mined the richness of their own musical heritage. Disc VIII explores their aim of developing a distinctively Hungarian musical identity. Continuing Bartók’s development of Hungarian music, Dohnányi wedded the late Romantic tradition with his own singular voice while György Ligeti, one of the twentieth century’s most inventive enfants terribles, extended the legacy of Hungarian music with a daringly modern flair. György Ligeti (1923–2006) Sonata for Solo Cello (1948–1953) Hungarian composer György Ligeti was born into a Jewish family in 1923 and grew up under the vile reigns of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. In 1948, one year prior to his graduation from the National Academy of Music in Budapest, Ligeti became enamored with a young cello student named Annus Viràny but never revealed his affection for her. He nonchalantly presented her with his new composition for unaccompanied cello: a single movement Dialogo, a tender, lyrical work capturing his innermost feelings for her. To Ligeti’s surprise, Viràny did not understand the nature of the dedication and the piece remained unperformed. In 1953, another cellist, Vera Dénes, presented him with a request for a solo cello piece. Ligeti composed a fast movement to complement the Dialogo and labeled it Capriccio, in reference to Nicolò Paganini’s virtuosic Caprices for Solo Violin. He was prepared to present his two-movement sonata to the public, but the Hungarian Composers Union, known for its strict evaluation of work in the early 1950s, denied the performance and publication rights because it was seen as too modern. The work was allowed only a single radio performance by Dénes, which was never actually broadcast. The sonata did not receive a concert performance until 1983 and was published and recorded in 1990. Written five years apart, the two movements are very different in character. The Dialogo, with its flowing lyricism and rhapsodic phrases, was described by Ligeti as “a dialog. Because it’s like two people, a man and a woman, conversing.” In contrast, the second movement Capriccio is energetic and impassioned. A rapid tempo, feverish triple time, and a barrage of sixteenth-note passages make this movement an exuberant and demanding conclusion to the work. —Andrew Goldstein Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Selections from Forty-Four Duos for Two Violins, Sz. 98 (1931) Bartók composed his Forty-Four Duos for Two Violins in 1931, at the request of the German violin instructor Erich Doflein. Doflein had sought permission to set selections from Bartók’s piano cycle For Children in his own volume of violin pedagogical pieces. Bartók was intrigued by Doflein’s project, which he saw as a dual opportunity: to provide young musicians with useful technical studies, as well as to introduce them to folk music from various cultures. Bartók offered instead to compose a new series of violin duos, graded from beginner to advanced, for Doflein’s collection, drawing from Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Arabic folk music. All but two of the Forty-Four Duos are based on actual folk melodies. The thirty-fifth duo doesn’t use an authentic folk melody but is based on the Ruthenian kolomejka, a lively folk dance. This and the lyrical tenth duo, Ruthenian Song, reflect the folk music of a region of Central Europe at the intersection of the former Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine. Bagpipes (with variations) is likewise not based on a folk tune per se but is fashioned in the style of a Romanian bagpipe song. Bartók simulates the bagpipe sound with a steady drone beneath the spinning melody. The first duo that Bartók composed for Doflein’s manual ultimately became, on account of its level of difficulty, the last of the forty-four: the exotic Transylvanian Dance. —Patrick Castillo Ernő Dohnányi (1877–1960) Serenade in C Major, op. 10 (1902) The Opus 10 Serenade arguably represents Dohnányi’s first mature work, demonstrating a marked departure from the influence of Schumann and Brahms. Still audible is Dohnányi’s Romantic foundation, and the medium—a trio of violin, viola, and cello— represents a repertoire tradition dating to the Classical period: Haydn wrote twenty-one such pieces, Mozart contributed his famous Divertimento to the trio literature, and Beethoven produced five before trying his hand at the string quartet. But while the serenade evokes the music of previous eras in its form, the work’s expressive language ultimately, and emphatically, asserts Dohnányi’s singular compositional voice. A stately march serves as the serenade’s extroverted curtain raiser. Double- and triple stopped chords create the illusion of a larger ensemble than the seemingly modest string trio. Yet even in the puffed-up trappings of a march, Dohnányi’s lyrical gift is in evidence. Dohnányi crafts the elegant second movement romanza such that each instrument shines equally, playing in the most resonant part of its register and without sacrificing textural clarity. The movement begins with an emotionally stirring viola solo, accompanied by delicate pizzicati in the violin and cello. Subsequently, accompanied by restless viola figurations, the violin and cello offer simultaneous melodic utterances: not quite a duet but music which Dohnányi fits together superbly. The third movement is a fiendish scherzo, markedly different in character from the romanza but equally impeccable in Dohnányi’s management of instrumental texture. The serenade concludes with a lively rondo finale, evocative of the folk character so prevalent in the music of Dohnányi’s countrymen. —Patrick Castillo Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) String Sextet in A Major, op. 48 (1878) Dvořák composed his Opus 48 Sextet over a two-week period in 1878, in the wake of an important dual success. His Three Slavonic Rhapsodies and the first set of his Slavonic Dances for Orchestra had premiered in May of that year, fueling his rise to international stardom. Just as those works helped to establish Dvořák not only as an important new compositional voice but also as the representative of a distinctly Czech style, so did the String Sextet reinforce that reputation in the realm of chamber music. The sextet, brimming with Bohemian charm, offers a rapturous sonic warmth from the ensemble of two violins, two violas, and two cellos. One benefit of this rich scoring is the ability of the second cello to serve as the bass voice, allowing the first to pursue a lyrical melodic role. The main theme of the first movement, introduced as a rhapsodic duet between the first violin and first cello, demonstrates these qualities. The sextet’s middle two movements draw from traditional folk forms: the second movement is a dumka, a sung Slavic folk ballad. Midway through the movement, Dvořák introduces poignant, Gypsy-like music, which soon gives way to a tender Andante lullaby in the rarefied key of F-sharp major. The understated tones of the dumka are obliterated by the rambunctious third movement furiant, a traditional Czech folk dance (the word furiant literally means “a proud, swaggering, conceited man”). The final movement is a set of five variations on a melancholy theme, first presented by the first viola, accompanied by the second viola and cellos; the absence of the brighter-toned violins accentuates the theme’s moodiness. The violins join in for the first variation: the deployment of the full ensemble playing long, legato phrases and the two-against-three rhythmic scheme lend the music a rich sonority. The second variation is redolent of a scherzo in Mendelssohn’s signature Midsummer Night’s Dream style. The first cello issues the desolate melody in the third variation; the rest of the ensemble holds a spacious pianissimo chord, evoking a lonely wanderer in a barren landscape. That sense of desolation extends into the fourth variation, now given anxious voice by the violins and first viola above a threatening undercurrent of triplets in the second cello. From the uneasiness of this fraught music emerges the fifth variation, which resets the theme with the immediacy of a folk song. Dvořák follows the fifth variation with an energetic stretta—then, finally, as if he were simply biding his time throughout the five lugubrious variations, he allows wild elation to burst forth like a wound-up jack-in-the-box, and the sextet gallops excitedly to its blistering conclusion. —Patrick Castillo About Music@Menlo Music@Menlo is an internationally acclaimed three-week summer festival and institute that combines world-class chamber music performances, extensive audience engagement with artists, intensive training for preprofessional musicians, and efforts to enhance and broaden the chamber music community of the San Francisco Bay Area. An immersive and engaging experience centered around a distinctive array of programming, Music@Menlo enriches its core concert programs with numerous opportunities for in-depth learning to intensify audiences’ enjoyment and understanding of the music and provide meaningful ways for aficionados and newcomers of all ages to explore classical chamber music.