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PROGRAMME NOTES

Johann Sebastian BACH Prelude and Fugue in A Major

(6 minutes)

This idiosyncratic but high refined work it's a clear example of the individuality and diversity found in most of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.
The Prelude is in fugal form and resembles a three-part invention, losing the introductory role as it could be a musical movement by itself. It can be divided into three main parts with six entrances and two main episodes. It ends with a tension increasing coda that raises two octaves in the soprano voice.
The Fugue shows the great mastery that Bach possessed on creating a beautiful contrapuntal work from a rare, almost unsightly musical motif. Also being divided in three parts, it starts with a single quaver note followed by rests and a succession of leaps creating an angular and eccentric theme and big ambiguity on the tonality and meter. The extremely frequent use of hemiolas, syncopations and cross-accents produces a succession of metrical changes even more accentuated when the counterpoint starts.
The second section starts after a bridge and introduces the running semiquavers figuration that accompanies the constantly restated subject This gives to this piece an structure of double fugue. The last section starts with an almost homorythmic statement of the subject. Some elements from both preceding sections are recapitulated and the fugue concludes with the return of the semiquaver figuration that helps create the climax hold until the last cadence chord.

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Sonata in C minor op. 10 nº 1

(17 minutes)

Op.10 nº1 is the first sonata where Beethoven uses the c minor mode which will become such a significant symbol during his career. It is the most tempestuous, compressed and impassioned of the set and shows his experimentation and gradual move from Classical style.
The first movement is an energetic statement of the abrupt character that impulsed his youthful spirit. Its opening forte chords followed by poignant pauses and rocked rising scales are a clear example of this angular qualities. He consciously worked on the alternation of strong and weak bars changing the pace of accented measures and creating dramatic syncopations. The movement is based on an expressive contrast between short and long phrases and different characters. Structured in a fairly standard classical sonata form Beethoven plays with the tonal structure restating in the recapitulation the secondary theme in the Major Subdominant and avoiding the traditional ending in the Major tonic.
The lyrical Adagio is in the conventional slow-movement form. It is based on a simple melody highly ornamented and the exposition is followed by a surprising fortissimo dominant seventh chord replacing the development.
The Finale is a violent, nervous and somehow ironic sonata form where the main motif of five quavers is constantly repeated, modified and extended until the last bar of the movement. Beethoven plays and experiments again with articulation, short-long phrase opposition and form omitting the traditional modulating transition and replacing it for a fermata on a half cadence A short development uses as a retransition a unison rhythmic motif which precedes the distinctive 5th symphony opening. The sonata ends with an ambiguous picardie cadence surrounded by minor sonorities.

Johannes BRAHMS Intermezzo in A minor

(3 minutes)

At the end of his life Brahms came back to his favourite medium to create four series of short, intimate and highly expressive miniature works. In them he returns to the effervescence of the first Romanticism character pieces tainted with his most evolved musical language.
This intermezzo flows from a single impulse through a full progression of impassioned music, where the agitation is never fully resolved as the final chord is suspended in a picardie cadence with the 3rd in the top. Brahms reveals here his blurring of melody and harmony, blurring the traditional concept of layers, and expanding the harmonies to a horizon that will proceed as a base point for the next generations.