Polish Violin Music in the 20th and 21st Century

The purpose of this dissertation is to promote Polish violin music written in the 20th and 21st Century. My recitals included many lesser-known compositions and composers which I strongly believe deserve to be better known and more often performed. The search and preparation of those pieces, for which recordings and music scores are not easily found, was a very exciting and stimulating process. Much Polish music written in the 20th and 21st Century is interesting, expressive, beautiful, and deserves to be more often performed. Performing 20th and 21st Century music opens new perspectives in two directions: musically and technically. Performer and listener are, in many cases, unbound from tonality. Composers are looking for new sonorities and exploring such performing techniques as varieties of harmonics, quarter tones, extreme dynamics, complex rhythms, and usage of a wide range of registers. An important part of Polish music is Polish folklore. The little town of Zakopane is known for Polish traditional clothing, food, architecture, dance and music. Also, most prominent Polish luthiers including Wojciech Topa, whose instrument I am playing, have been making their instruments in Zakopane. This little town in the Tatras Mountain has been an inspiration for many Polish artists including Iwaszkiewicz, Witkacy, Karłowicz, and Szymanowski. Those composers used such folklore elements as folk scales, popular tunes, and imitations of the sound of the folk band with characteristic folk dance rhythms. Other musical genres where folk elements are strongly present are the compositions dedicated to young musicians, with a specifically educational purpose. Among composers who wrote educational music were Grażyna Bacewicz, Witold Lutosławski, and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. This approach makes the works more easily understood by young performers and, at the same time, broadens their understanding of Polish culture and prepares them for the challenges of contemporary music. This has been an exciting project for me because, on the one hand, it allowed me the challenge of performing compositions that are lesser-known and often consist of musical language new to me while, on the other, it brought me back to my roots and the country of my mother tongue.

"Variations on Psycho Killer" - Musical Score. Commissioned by Pauline Kim Harris. A virtuosic set of variations on the famous Talking Heads song for solo violin. General information State: Unpublished Organisations: School of Creative Arts, Sonic Arts, UOA35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts Authors: Lyon, E. Keywords: (Talking Heads, Violin Music) Publication date: 2012

Musical Score. Commissioned by Pauline Kim Harris. A virtuosic set of variations on the famous Talking Heads song for solo violin.

Concerto pour violin. [music] /

Originally for violin and orchestra ; arranged for violin and piano.

Scale studies for violin. [music] /

Mode of access: Internet.

Modern trio album. [music] : fifteen special concert arrangements and original compositions for violin, cello and piano /

Elegie and consolation, op. 200, no. 2 / Atherton, Frank P. -- Hungarian dance no. 5 (in G minor) / Brahms, Johannes -- Humoreske : op. 101, no. 7 / Dvor̂ák, Anton ; arr. by Gustav Saenger -- La Cinquantaine / Gabriel-Marie ; special concert arr. by C. Arnold -- Gavotte Louis XIII : Amaryllis / Ghys, H. ; arr. by N. Hansen -- Serenade, from Op. 3 / Herbert, Victor -- Dreams of love = Liebesträume : notturno III / Liszt, Franz ; arr. by R. Klugescheid -- O Belle Nuite, Barcarolle from "Contes d'Hoffmann" / Offenbach, J. ; arr. by Max Woltag -- Celebrated Andante / Reissiger, C. G. -- My heart at thy sweet voice : Cantabile from "Samson and Dalila" / Saint-Saëns, C. ; arr. by R. Klugescheid -- Melodie Mignonne / Sinding, Christian ; arr. by N. Hansen -- Vienna life = Wiener Blut / Strauss, Johann ; special concert arr. by C. Arnold -- Autumn song = Chant d'automne ; Chant sans paroles : op. 40, no. 6 / Tschaikowsky, P. ; arr. by N. Hansen -- Song to the evening star : from "Tannhäuser" / Wagner, Richard ; concert paraphrase by C. Arnold.

FOLK ELEMENTS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY HUNGARIAN MUSIC

At the beginning of the twentieth century, composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály collected thousands of folksongs from the rural regions of Hungary. In an effort to preserve a part of their culture that they feared would be lost, they not only transcribed and catalogued these folksongs, but also incorporated the folk traditions they encountered into their own compositional style. This dissertation deals with violin music written by Bartók, Kodály and their Hungarian contemporaries that have in common the use of rhythms, modes, melodies, figurations and playing techniques sourced in folk traditions. The use of the Hungarian folk idiom in classical music was not exclusive to the twentieth century. From the late eighteenth century until the first decades of the twentieth century, composers utilized aspects of a popular eighteenth-century form of Hungarian folk music called verbunkos. What makes the use of folk music unique in the twentieth century is that, thanks to the work of Bartók and Kodály, composers found inspiration in the more authentic “peasant music.” Unlike the popular, urban verbunkos music, peasant music was the product of the more secluded village-music tradition, largely untouched by the influences of city life. In addition to stimulating a new focus on peasant music, Bartók and Kodály fully assimilated the folk idiom into their compositional toolkits, creating a new style of folk-inspired art music that influenced a generation of Hungarian composers. The new style included characteristic elements of both peasant music and the verbunkos tradition, such as ancient modes and scales, accompanimental and melodic rhythmic patterns, ornamentation, and phrase structures sourced in folk song. To demonstrate the implementation of the folk idiom by twentieth-century Hungarian composers, three recital programs were given at the University of Maryland that included works by Béla Bartók, Sándor Veress, Leo Weiner, Zoltán Kodály, Ernő Dohnányi, Zoltán Székely and György Kurtág. The works can be divided into two main categories: settings or transcriptions of folk material (e.g. Bartók’s Hungarian Folksongs) and compositions using classical forms that include the Hungarian folk idiom (e.g. Bartók’s Contrasts). Recital collaborators include Li-Tan Hsu, Evelyn Elsing, Elizabeth Brown, Shelby Sender and Samantha Angelo.

Hungarian dances. [music] /

Bk.1. Nos. 1-5 -- Bk.2. Nos. 6-10.

L'arte del violino : 25 capricci = L'art du violon : 25 caprices = The art of the violin : 25 caprices = Die Kunst des Violinspiels : 25 Capricen = El arte del violʹin : 25 caprichos /

Pref. in Italian, French and English.

24 caprices : together with Perpetuum mobile and Duo merveille : for violin /

Mode of access: Internet.

Student's concerto for violin and piano, no. 3 in G minor, op. 12 : first to fifth position /

Mode of access: Internet.

L'arte del violino : 25 capricci = L'art du violon : 25 caprices = The art of the violin : 25 caprices = Die Kunst des Violinspiels : 25 Capricen = El arte de violín : 25 Caprichos /

Mode of access: Internet.

Sanderson's duettinos, or, Select violin miscellany : comprising a series of the most esteemed songs, airs, marches, waltzes, quadrilles, &c arranged in their proper keys as duetts for two violins /

Mode of access: Internet.

Fantasia on Scottish folk-melodies ... for violin and piano. [Op. 46]

Publisher's plate no.: 19159-48.

Violinschule,

Caption title.