SAMSON FRANCOIS, born of French parents in Frankfurt-am-
Main on May 18, 1924, earned distinction as a pianist at the
age of six. After his impressive first public appearance where
Pietro Mascagni, composer of Cavalleria rusticana conducted,
the young boy was invited to be soloist in a series of concerts
which the Italian composer would also conduct. Other con-
cert appearances followed. In 1931, Francois entered the Nice
Conservatory and two years later took a first prize there. At the
suggestion of the famed French pianist Alfred Cortot, his par-
ents enrolled him at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.
Following his formal schooling and intensive study with Mar-
guerite Long at the Paris Conservatoire, he won the first grand
prize in the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud piano compe-
tition and embarked on his international career.
Samson Francois made his debut in the United States in No-
vember 1947, playing Prokofiev's Fifth Concerto with Leonard
Bernstein conducting. This and subsequent tours here and in
Europe, in Japan and other countries of the Orient have earned
him enthusiastic tributes with critics remarking on his virtu-
osity, grand manner, fervor and elegance.
According to Francois’ own calculations, his concerts have
taken him to so many parts of the world in recent years that he
has covered a distance equal to that from the earth to the
moon. But when time permits he pursues his penchant for jazz
(to which he listens with a connoisseur’s knowledge), films
and film music. His interest in the latter is more than a hobby,
for in France, he manages his own producing company, has
served on the Cannes Film Festival jury and has composed film
music in jazz, classical and traditional styles.
CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F MINOR, OP. 21
CHOPIN composed only six works for piano and orchestra, including
two concertos. All of them belong to the period when he was begin-
ning to make his way as a concert pianist in Warsaw between 1827, when
he was seventeen years old, and 1831. The fashion of the day prescribed
that the public performer should also compose, and for a pianist the
concerto with orchestra was an essential part of his equipment. After
his move to Paris and the establishment of his fame, Chopin concen-
trated on music for his own instrument and especially upon the smaller
forms to which his genius was ideally suited.
Of the two concertos, the F minor, though published as Opus 21, was
actually composed in 1829, a year before the “first” in E minor, Opus 11.
Chopin took as his models his master Joseph Elsner, director of the
Music School in the Warsaw Conservatory, and the more famous prac-
titioners, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and John Field, whose transforma-
tion of Italianate cantilena into pianistic nocturnes had a great influence
on the development of Chopin’s style.
Although Chopin was rarely at his best in handling the larger musical
forms and his orchestration is often unskilfull, the Concerto in F minor
has a youthful freshness and charm that ensure its survival in the reper-
tory.
The first movement (Maestoso) opens with the usual orchestra tutti.
The quiet first theme is stated in the key of F minor and the second in the
relative major key of A flat. The piano repeats the exposition and the
same sequence occurs in the recapitulation. Chopin builds up a keen
sense of expectancy which is amply rewarded by brilliantly effective mu-
sic, especially in the passage work for the piano.
The second movement (Larghetto) was much admired by both Robert
Schumann and Franz Liszt, and it is a truly romantic movement. Before
the piano there is a brief orchestral introduction. In the middle there is
a dramatic recitative episode with a tremolo accompaniment for the
strings. This slow movement foreshadows the Chopin Nocturne, consist-
ing as it does of an extended melody played by the right hand over a
rocking accompaniment in the left. It has been described as an operatic
aria transformed into instrumental terms.
The third movement (Allegro vivace) is a discursive and loosely con-
structed rondo, whose rhythm suggests the mazurka, another form in
which Chopin was later to excel. The whole movement is of a pictur-
esque nature and the mazurka-like second subject is accompanied by the
strings playing with the wood of the bow. This was an effect, particularly
fashionable in the concertos of Chopin's time and employed frequently
by Hummel. This theme, reduced to its essential arpeggio figure, serves
as a “signal’” when played by a solo horn to introduce the major key and
the recapitulation to which the pianist contributes much delicate orna-
mentation.
RONDO IN C FOR TWO PIANOS, OP, 73
A work of his youth, the Rondo in C major, Op. 73 was not published
until Chopin's death. In December 1828 he wrote to his friend Titus
Woychiechowsky that he had rewritten this Rondo. Actually, what he
had done was to take a piece he had originally composed as a piano solo
and transcribed it for two pianos. Its style and form suggest other pieces
written by Chopin, namely the Finale of the 1st Concerto.
A great burst in the octaves of the first piano (Allegro maestoso, alla
breve) gives the impetus while the second piano responds in double
chords with an expressive melody. This prepares the way for the intro-
duction proper of the Rondo played in 2/4 time. Like the Finale of the
Concerto in E minor, long wreaths of triplets (16th notes) are heard in
the first interlude. Repeated at the end of the piece, these passages serve
as the coda. The second interlude in A minor reveals a contrasting and
expressive theme.
The elegance and liveliness of Chopin's writing here bears the inimit-
able stamp of a young master.
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿