American Journey: Bernstein / Barber / Herrmann / Gershwin / Ives Tai Murray

• Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion
• 1I. Phaedrus - Pausanias - Lento - Allegro marcato07:13
• 2II. Aristophanes - Allegretto04:37
• 3III. Eryximachus, the doctor - Presto01:35
• 4IV. Agathon - Adagio06:37
• 5V. Socrates - Alcibiades - Molto tenuto - Allegro molto vivace11:23
• Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings
• 6Adagio for Strings07:27
• Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): Psycho Suite for Strings
• 7I. Prelude - The City - The Rainstorm04:34
• 8II. The Madhouse02:08
• 9III. The Murder00:51
• 10IV. The Water01:08
• 11V. The Swamp02:10
• 12VI. The Stairs, The Knife and The Cellar02:21
• 13VII. Finale01:54
• George Gershwin (1898-1937): Three Preludes for piano
• 14I. Allegro ben ritmato e deciso01:32
• 15II. Andante con moto e poco rubato03:26
• 16III. Agitato01:14
• Charles Ives (1874-1954): The Unanswered Question
• 17The Unanswered Question06:44
• Total Runtime01:06:54

Info for American Journey: Bernstein / Barber / Herrmann / Gershwin / Ives

Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated composer of the music for West Side Story, established himself as one of the most remarkable American musicians. The pastoral inflection of the opening Lento, Phaedrus, and the intense but almost strained lyricism of the fourth movement, Agathon, are answered by the percussion-enhanced rhythms of the final movement, Socrates-Alcibiades. Although the name of Samuel Barber is irrevocably linked with his Adagio for Strings, the American composer also left an extremely diverse catalogue of works in the fields of piano, chamber, symphonic and concertante music, art song, and opera. The celebrated Adagio is Barber’s own transcription for string ensemble of the second movement of his First String Quartet op.11, in which form it was premiered by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York on 5 November 1938. Since that time this emotional, yearning work has enjoyed undiminished success and has continued to be used by film directors right up to the present day. Sometimes compared to the Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Barber’s Adagio takes the form of an amplification of its melody by the different string sections until it attains maximum intensity, before reverting to the restrained emotion of the opening bars. It reveals Barber’s lyrical and elegiac temperament, which, combined with a consciously dissonant idiom, has been the key to the work’s success.

The film Psycho, an adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel shot in 1959-60 and featuring a fascinating American musicians. A man of great personal warmth, possessing immense charisma and an outstandingly rich personality, he displayed extraordinary vitality in exercising his multiple skills as an internationally renowned composer, pianist, and conductor. His Serenade for solo violin, strings, harp, and percussion, based on Plato’s Symposium, a dialogue on the nature of love, was written in 1954 to a commission from the violinist Isaac Stern and the Koussevitzky Foundation. It was dedicated ‘To the beloved memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky’. The conductor Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) had been one of Bernstein’s mentors.

The Serenade was premiered at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 September 1954, with Isaac Stern as soloist and the composer conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. It consists of a sequence of five episodes following the order of intervention of the various speakers at Socrates’ banquet, alternating between slow and fast movements, each of them treated in a specific manner within the framework of a continuing instrumental dialogue on melodic motifs that recur from one section to the next. Here Bernstein respects a classical tradition, but he is unstinting in his technical demands on the violin.

central performance from Anthony Perkins in the role of the psychopath Norman Bates, was one of Alfred Hitchcock’s biggest successes. It was deliberately shot in black and white, which for Hitchcock symbolised the opposition between good and evil, and was accompanied by a score by the American composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann, who had begun his collaboration with the director in 1955 on The Trouble with Harry. Taking his inspiration from the ghostly sets and the austere monochrome images, Herrmann conceived a ‘black and white sound’, setting himself the challenge of using strings alone to evoke anguish and dread, for along with the dialogue, here reduced to the bare minimum, music occupies a primordial place at the core of the action.

The breathless repeated rhythms, the prominent bass lines, and the rapid transitions from high to low registers admirably illustrate the unrelenting tension that characterises the film. One of the most terrifying moments is the shower murder scene, which is accompanied by no sound except that of running water (Hitchcock originally wanted no music at all here) until the moment when the murderer opens the shower curtain and raises his knife: then the pizzicatos, the ostinato, the dissonances, the use of the piercing high treble of the strings dropping towards the low register provide an outstandingly effective background.

Premiered by their composer at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York, on 4 December 1926, Gershwin’s Three Preludes for piano offer one more example of that brilliantly successful blend of Afro-American and Russian-Jewish cultures (both of them created by oppressed peoples) which gained him worldwide recognition. These three short pieces were also intended to inaugurate a project in the tradition of the Preludes of Chopin and Debussy. While the more extended second prelude is typical of the blues, the opening of the third may be viewed as a distant echo of the music of Dvořák, whose famous Humoresque had made a great impression on the composer of Rhapsody in Blue in his childhood.

Charles Ives is considered as a precursor of genius and the first authentic musical figure of the United States. Born in New England in 1874, this self-taught son of an equally self-taught musician, a bandmaster, is now regarded as the founding father of twentieth-century American music. His keen instinct enabled him to explore polytonality and polyrhythm, in which his father had instructed him, and to depart from well-worn paths in a spirit of non-conformist freedom. The Unanswered Question was written in 1908, at a time when Ives, while working in the insurance business and remaining an amateur musician from choice, had already carved out a niche as one of the most individual composers of his time. Subtitled ‘A Cosmic Landscape’ and given its first performance in New York on 11 

May 1946, it was conceived as one of a pair of works, along with Central Park in the Dark. Ives was a follower of the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, to whom he dedicated the last movement of his Concord piano sonata. He provided The Unanswered Question with a programme that evokes ‘The Silence of the Druids – who Know, See and Hear Nothing’. This brief, enigmatic work by a perpetually experimenting composer begins with a wholly tonal string continuum depicting the silence of the Druids. Then, in a repetitive and mostly atonal solo, the trumpet poses ‘The Perennial Question of Existence’, while the woodwind attempt to provide the ‘Invisible Answer’.

Tai Murray, violin
Orchestre Poitou-Charentes
Jean-Francois Heisser, piano, conductor

Tai Murray
Violinist Tai Murray is a rising star of her generation and is increasingly in demand for both recitals and orchestral engagements. She has performed many of the world’s great concert halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, and has collaborated with conductors and instrumentalists, such as Marin Alsop, Alan Gilbert, Richard Goode, Jaime Laredo, Hannu Lintu, and Mitsuko Uchida. She made her recital début at London’s Wigmore Hall as well as appearing at the BBC Proms and with the Cincinnati and Dallas symphony orchestras, London’s BBC Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2004 and a former BBC New Generation Artist (2008-2010), Ms. Murray is a native of Chicago. She studied with Yuval Yaron, Franco Gulli, and Joel Smirnoff, and is a graduate of Indiana University and the Juilliard School.

“Technically flawless...vivacious and scintillating...It is without doubt that Murray’s style of playing is more mature than that of many seasoned players; and, with a debut record this outstanding, it can safely be assumed that she will exceed many expectations – she’s certainly exceeded mine.” (Francesca Treadaway, Muso Magazine)

Booklet for American Journey: Bernstein / Barber / Herrmann / Gershwin / Ives