Aron Kallay: Midcentury/Modern

No one can agree on the dates for the “Modern” period of classical music. Some sources say 1890-1930 while others 1910-1970. Others still insist that the “Modern” period started in 1900 and is still going on today. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, some smart historian will codify our naming conventions. My guess is the term “Modern” will disappear from our discourse, but who knows. Maybe what is modern is yet to come?

The middle of the twentieth century is a fascinating time for musical composition. We had Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School rewriting the rules of music making at the same time as John Cage blowing up the idea of what music actually was…. There was this other thing going on in the ‘40s and ‘50s though, that I quite like. Some composers were looking back to old forms for expression, and seemingly picking up where Liszt and Mahler left off, with their own sometimes nationalist twist. This is where Grażyna Bacewicz’s Second Piano Sonata fits in. The language is her own, but it’s the multi-movement structure of the sonata that grounds it. Prokofiev stands alone amongst composers of this time as someone who kept coming back to the piano sonata in a way not seen since Beethoven. In our own time, his monumental Seventh Piano Sonata should speak to us as a warning about the horrors of war and oppression, and of our ability to withstand and rebuild.

PROGRAM:

Michael Frazier – garrapatero aní (2024) World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission

Zanaida Stewart Robles – LA River Scenes (2025) World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission

Grażyna Bacewicz – Piano Sonata No. 2 (1953)

Brandon Rolle – Hypnagogia (2025)   World Premiere – Piano Spheres 30 for 30 Commission

Sergei Prokofiev – Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 (1942)