On Wednesday, September 18, 2024, the pianist Shoko Makino will perform a piano concert in Heidelberg Wolfsbrunnen under the title "Miniaturen" at 7:30 PM.
The art of painting with cinnabar (from the Italian "Miniatura") has its origins in the Middle Latin word "Miniatura," which refers to the "delicate painting" of the Middle Ages in the form of ornaments (e.g., embellishments on the edge of a page, design of initial letters). Thus, composers in music also cultivated this form of sudden musical inspiration, free improvisation, sketches, and immediately conveyed emotions that spring from the mind: this concept underlies today's program, starting with Mozart, who was celebrated in his time not only as a pianist but also as an improviser (one has only to think of the preserved cadences to his piano concertos). The Fantasy in D minor moves in an almost romantic-rhapsodic manner, with intimate-sorrowful and contemplative moments, through sudden outbursts to the transfigured D major coda. The works by Martin Münch performed today are connected to the children's songs composed by the author in 1997. In all parameters—melody, harmony, rhythm, and form—Münch strives in both cycles for maximum reflection on the essentials; however, there are differences: the children's songs were composed in a more pedagogical direction, as shown by the sequence following the circle of fifths, with simple melodies accompanied by unusual harmonies so that the child can familiarize themselves with the new music (a similar goal was pursued by Bartok with his Mikrokosmos). In the harpsichord suite, where older forms like Romance, Arabesque, Invention, and Scherzo serve as models for the individual parts, the pieces, mostly lasting about a minute, are radically shorter; however, they do not lack a particular charm, as the miniature is compressed to the minimal, one might say aphoristically, where a single gesture, a single harmony, is extremely concise and highly concentrated. Similarly, but somewhat elongated, are the fairy tales and Arabesques, which musically and pictorially express various sound images. The musical journey continues with Debussy, whose Prelude "La terrasse des audiences du claire de lune" refers to a passage from an Indian chronicle by René Puaux in "Le Temps." "Under this slightly hermetic title, whose pretentious charm possesses the flowery grace of certain Chinese literary fantasies, hides one of Debussy's most deeply musical and delightfully sensitive works," as Cortot said. The "Prelude," the finest examples of which are the pieces by Bach and Chopin, has long been suitable as a miniature-like, freely elaborated form. Thus, Rachmaninoff wrote his 10 Preludes op. 23, of which No. 5 is performed today; an idyllic elegy that also has a refined contrapuntal structure, immersed in an enlightened-dreamy mood. The concert closes with Scriabin's Preludes op. 74, again shorter pieces, where the development of the language and the philosophical thoughts of the composer fully unfold: "Until now, I have always composed in such a way that the interpretation of a piece was only possible in one way [...] Now I want it to be played in completely different ways, just as a crystal can reflect completely different rays of light."
Copyright: Shoko Makino
Admission: 7:00 PM
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
