A Few Words about Chekhov
2007; Routledge; Volume: 63; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2769-4046
Autores Tópico(s)Musicology and Musical Analysis
ResumoABBREVIATION KEY: Diff = difficulty level; V = voice; P = piano; E = easy; mE = moderately easy; M = medium; mD = moderately difficult; D = difficult; DD = very difficult; Tess = tessitura; LL = very low; L = low; mL = moderately low; M = medium; mH = moderately high; H = high; HH = very high; CR = covers range; CS = covers staff; X = no clear key center. NEW WORKS AND COLLECTIONS I ARGENTO, DOMINICK (b. 1927). A FEW WORDS ABOUT CHEKHOV (Olga Knipper and Anton Chekhov) for Mezzo soprano, Baritone and Piano (Orchestra). Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., 2004 (Hal Leonard). Tonal; MS/A^sub 3^-A^sup [musical flat]^^sub 5^, B/A^sup [musical flat]^^sub 3^-F^sub 4^; Tess: M-mH, CR; changing regular meters, mostly slow tempos; V/M-D, P/mE-D; 20 minutes. A Few Words about Chekhov is one of a trilogy of song cycles Argento composed on commission from The Schubert Club of St. Paul (MN), the other two being From the Diary of Virginia Woolf and The Andree Expedition. All are on serious subjects that end with the death of the central character, and all are for medium to low voice-mezzo soprano and baritone. This cycle was premiered in October 1996 by Frederica von Stade, Hakan Hagegard, and Martin Katz. Several things are interesting about the work. First, it was originally composed for voice and piano, but the composer decided after the first performance to orchestrate the accompaniment in order to gain access to warmer orchestral colors as well as the sustaining ability that the piano lacks. In the Composer's Comments, Argento states that the piano is the perfect instrument for the other two cycles because of the coolness and detachment of the Virginia Woolf text and the white, frozen landscape of the Arctic in the Expedition, but that the piano was not capable of supporting the singers in the sustained passages of this cycle. Another point of interest is the source of the text itself and how it is presented in the composition. The composer chose, edited, and arranged passages from Olga Knipper-Chekhov's 1924 essay about Chekhov and from Chekhov's own letters to his wife in the years 1899-1904 into a duocycle in which the singers never interact. Each character is speaking about or to the other, but first at the distance that separates Moscow from Yalta, and finally at the distance of twenty years. Although Argento never intended to stage the cycle, it in fact turned into a chamber opera during the first rehearsals with Hagegard and von Stade. At Hagegard's suggestion, each character took a separate space on either side of the piano (with its tail turned to the audience so that it served as a wall between the singers) in which to stage the writing of the text they were singing. Argento mentions that the other two cycles of this trilogy have also received some staging in performance, an easy thing to do since the action consists mostly in writing. Olga's essay details her first meeting of Chekhov in Moscow during rehearsals of The Sea-Gull in 1898. She describes how he listened to the rehearsals and answered the actors' questions. He writes of his attraction to Olga, and soon they married. His health would not permit him to live in Moscow, and her profession would not allow her to live in Yalta, so they commuted as much as possible between the two places for the six years before his death. The text touches on Olgas descriptions of him and his desire to be with her. In the end, she is present at his death. The musical setting of this text is rather spare in the accompaniment for the most part, rarely providing a continuous pattern that characterizes some element of the text. Only in Olga's solo that begins Our first performance of 'The Cherry Orchard was a triumphant occasion, but there was a feeling of anxiety is there music that creates the mood of the underlying image of the text, in this case perhaps a foreshadowing of Chekhov's approaching death. …
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