Imre Waldbauer, an Important but Little-Known Violinist Partner of Béla Bartók

Imre Waldbauer (1892–1952) attained his greatest stature as a performer in his position as the first violinist of the Waldbauer–Kerpely Quartet, named after him and cellist Jenő Kerpely. This ensemble premièred Bartók's String Quartets nos. 1, 2 and 4 and his early Piano Quintet. Although Waldbauer's name is mostly mentioned in the Bartók-literature primarily because of his quartet, he was also important for Bartók as a “standalone” violinist as well. Waldbauer and Bartók played numerous sonata recitals from the 1910s to the 1930s, and Waldbauer also played the first performance of important violin works by Bartók: the “One Ideal” from the Two Portraits, (première: Budapest, 12 February 1911), the Violin Sonata no. 2 (première: Berlin, 7 February 1923) and nos. 16, 19, 21, 28, 36, 42, 43, 44 from the Forty-Four Duos (concert hall première: Budapest, 20 January 1932). Although Waldbauer seems like an individual of special importance, very little is known about his relation to Bartók and about his life in general (unlike his violinist contemporaries, e.g. Joseph Szigeti or Zoltán Székely). The present paper focuses on the relationship between the composer and the violinist, using materials from the yet unexplored Waldbauer legacy held in the Budapest Bartók Archives (recent donation from the Waldbauer family).

ADÈS AND SONATA FORMS

Despite an ever-expanding body of literature on Adès's engagement with the music of the past, his use of traditional formal models has attracted little critical comment. That which does exist privileges the relatively straightforward surface articulation of his musical forms over more nuanced accounts. In the case of Adès's sonata forms, this has had at least two consequences for our understanding of his music: first, that too strong an emphasis on syntactical groupings occludes what is happening discursively in the music; and second, that ‘textbook’ models are not the only formal tradition with which Adès's sonata forms engage. Rather, his sonatas bear traces of a rotational model that recalls the examples of Janáček and Sibelius. This article considers how Adès's sonata forms can be constituted not as neo-classical prefabrications but, a posteriori, as a practice that emerges across his career – from the Chamber Symphony and …but all shall be well to the Piano Quintet and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra – from an interaction between traditional syntactical groupings, thematic procedures and tonal plots.

TOPICS, DOUBLE CODING AND FORM FUNCTIONALITY IN THOMAS ADÈS'S PIANO QUINTET

This article interrogates the formal and expressive roles of the opening horn-call topic in Thomas Adès's Piano Quintet (2001). Although William Caplin describes the relationship of topics to form as ‘rather tenuous’, he notes that some topics have a ‘likely’ formal relation.1 Within this, he includes the rising horn call as an initiating function. Drawing upon Charles Jencks’ influential concept of double coding, which describes a sign's ‘attempt to communicate with both the public and a concerned minority’,2 I show how the Piano Quintet's horn-call opening satisfies, on one level, the familiar (tonal) initiating formal function that Caplin describes but, understood in the context of two significant reversals of the horn call's characteristic rising contour to descending horn fifths (the openings of Beethoven's ‘Les Adieux’ sonata and Ligeti's Horn Trio), Adès's opening can be understood as transgressive. This Janus-faced interpretation of the opening bars engages both positively and critically with these references to the past, a double-coded understanding which points to Adès's continued popularity in both academic and concert spheres.

Archives and blank spots: scholarly perspectives for recovering Polish music (1794–1945)

In this article, the author tries to present the issue of blank spots in the history of Polishmusic since 1794 (the world premiere of Cud mniemany, czyli Krakowiacy i Górale [The supposedmirtacle, or Cracovians and highlanders] composed by Jan Stefani to the libretto of Wojciech Bogusławski is regarded as a symbolic beginning of national style in Polish music) up to the end of the SecondWorld War. It was a great period in history when Poland twice did not exist as a state (between1795 and 1918 and between 1939 and 1945).At the beginning the attention is drawn to the Polish music in the nineteenth century. Author describes new discoveries such as the Second Piano Quintet in E flat Major (with double bassinstead of second cello) by Józef Nowakowski (Chopin’s friend), and String Quartets op. 1 and monumentaloratorio Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi by Józef Elsner who was Chopin’s teacher in the Conservatory of Music in Warsaw (Elsner’s Passio discovered at the end of the twentieth century isregarded now as the most outstanding religious piece in the history of Polish music in the nineteenth century). Among other works author also mentions romantic opera Monbar (1838) by Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński and first opera of Stanisław Moniuszko Die Schweitzerhütte (about 1839) written to the German libretto during composer’s studies at Singakademie Berlin. Addressing the issue of Polish music of the first half of the twentieth century author draws attention to the composer Eugeniusz Morawski regarded as the leading Polish author of programme music next to Mieczysław Karłowicz (unfortunately Morawski is still forgotten figure in the Polish musical life). Among others the importance of symphonic heritage of Feliks Nowowiejski, an author ofextremely popular in Europe during the second decade of twentieth century oratorio Quo vadis, is mentioned. At the end of article, the author takes up the problem of the enigmatic figure of Adolf Gużewski.The whole musical output of Gużewski, whose opera Dziewica lodowców [The Ice Maiden] was applauded in Warsaw and Russian opera houses in the second decade of the twentieth century, is now considered lost.

Preludio

This chapter sets in motion the primary themes of the book, tracing briefly Alfred Schnittke’s compositional evolution before the Concerto Grosso no. 1, paying special attention to his Symphony no. 1 (1969–72) and his initial ideas about polystylism, as well as the works immediately preceding the Concerto Grosso no. 1, including the Piano Quintet (1972–76), Hymns (1974–79), Requiem (1975), and Moz-Art (1975–76). It also investigates the genesis, construction, and affect of the Preludio of the Concerto Grosso no. 1, focusing on its initial prepared piano chorale together with its other key motives. The chapter further discusses the interpretations of polystylism and postmodernism by such Russian writers as Svetlana Savenko and Alexander Ivashkin. Finally, the chapter sets in place the justification and format for the remainder of the book.