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ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856) trans. CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) from Six Studies in Canonic Form, Op. 56
In 1845, Robert Schumann emerged from a lengthy illness and depression with a new, fervent interest in canons and fugues. He resumed his creative work by embarking on a study of these technical, contrapuntal forms. Robert and his wife, Clara (also a pianist and composer), wrote exercises back and forth, and some of Robert’s became published pieces.
He wrote the Six Canonic Studies for pedal piano, an experi- mental model with a bass pedalboard like an organ.
A musical canon is created by having two or more voices sing the same melody with staggered entrances, creating harmo- nies from the overlaps. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is the classic example from childhood.
Schumann’s first study, Nicht zu schnell (Not too fast),
has two voices, staggered at the half-measure and an octave apart, with a separate bassline below. The second canon, Mit innigem Ausdruck (With tender expression), also has two voices, staggered by a full measure, and this time in the same octave, creating an especially gossamer texture. This study is filled out with pulsing harmonies and is built above another bassline.
The Andantino is a bit different—it is bookended by a brief, non-canonic introduction and coda. In between, the canonic voices are separated by the interval of a fifth, creating more complex interrelations. Each line also contains little gaps,
so they interlock more than they overlap. The final Adagio actually has three different canons, the middle one resembling a four-voice fugue.
With the pedal piano obsolete, Claude Debussy later transcribed Schumann’s studies for two standard pianos. Canons, above all, are musicians’ music, and Debussy must have taken pleasure in dissecting Schumann’s workmanship while making the transcriptions. But it is not all academic:
the cool logic of these pieces also gives them a beautiful, mesmerizing inevitability.
TIMO ANDRES Clear and Cold
Andres wrote Clear and Cold in winter 2013 for the pianist Kristin Elgersma. In his note about the piece, he writes simply, “Clear and Cold is a short fantasia on mid-February New England weather, and on Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan [A Boat on the Ocean].”
GABRIEL KAHANE (b. 1981)
Four Songs from The Ambassador
Gabriel Kahane is a singer-songwriter, pianist, theater artist, and composer who lives in Brooklyn. He was born in Venice Beach, California, and is the son of pianist Jeffrey Kahane and his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist. Kahane left Los Angeles when he was just two years old, but the city of his birth inspired to write The Ambassador. Each of the ten movements captures a building at a precise address in the city. For this program, he has selected four: “Veda,” inspired by a house in the 1945 Joan Crawford film Mildred Pierce; “Bradbury Building,” the ornate landmark used as a filming location for cult science-fiction film Blade Runner; “Ambas- sador Hotel,” for the historic, now-demolished hotel where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated; and “Empire Liquor Mart,” where in 1991 an African-American 15-year-old named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by a Korean store owner.
In a 2014 interview with Mother Jones, Kahane explained:
I was born in Los Angeles but I didn’t grow up there. As I started to go back as an adult, I found all the clichés to be false; besides the sunshine and
2018 Summer Season 143