THE CURSE OF THE VIRTUOSO
Premiered:
May 23rd 2023 at the "May, the month of music" festival, Vranje Nenad Marković, trumpets Marina Rajnović, piano 1. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): ADAGIO IN D-MAJOR for trumpet and band (edited and arranged for trumpet and piano by Edward H. Tarr) 2. Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889): LA FORZA DEL DESTINO (no. 14 from the "14 Fantasies on themes by Verdi" for cornet and piano) 3. Antonino Pasculli (1842-1924): FANTASIA DUE sopra motivi dell'opera “UN BALLO IN MASCHERA” di Verdi for english horn and piano (arranged for flugelhorn and piano by Nenad Marković ) 4. GRAN FANTASIA sopra motivi dell'opera “I VESPRI SICILIANI” (assembled and arranged for trumpet and piano by Nenad Marković , using elements from Jean-Baptiste Arban: “Les vêpres siciliennes” (no. 9 from the "14 Fantasies on themes by Verdi"), Antonino Pasculli: “Gran Concerto” for oboe and orchestra, as well as original motifs from the opera ouverture) 5. Giuseppe Verdi: INGEMISCO (“Requiem”, tenor aria), arranged for cornet and piano by Jean-Baptiste Arban |
This program represents my attempt of paying respect to the great and versatile musicians of the 19th century, a time period marked by inventions and revolutions which profoundly and irreversibly changed history (here I mean the history of music, but the same thing can be said about the history of basically anything else). At the heart of it all is the music of Giuseppe Verdi, easily the biggest "pop-star" of his time, whose music meant much more than just music to a great number of people. I was particularly interested in the way Verdi's popular themes were utilized and repurposed by the pioneering instrumental soloists on the newly developed instruments without much prior repertoire (which were abundant due to the progress of the industrial revolution).
Countless "Fantasies," "Variations," and "Potpourris" on Verdi's themes were written (as well as improvised) by the “virtuosos” on practically every musical instrument, serving as a means to showcase not only the musical and technical abilities of the instrument itself but also the prowess of that particular performer. I find it somewhat fascinating to contemplate the purpose and significance of it all. Was it simply toying around, hedonistic self-pleasing amusement without any aspiration for the so-called “higher” form of artistic expression? This was certainly the opinion of the many great thinkers back then and today, who see the so called “virtuosos” as little more than circus performers, trivializing and cheapening true musical art. Is it ever possible for this music to be seen as equal, by anyone other than the “philistines” (e.g. casual concert goers without high musical education)? Even Verdi’s own music has been (and still routinely is) compared unfavorably to the works of the “god-like” figures like Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner or Mahler.
Being in my position, and wanting to create my first (properly planned and researched) program of the romantic music, the first instinct would be to either look for some works by those “serious” composers which could possibly be arranged for trumpet, or take some existing, original trumpet works of a somewhat second-rate quality, but resembling and copying their "serious" style. But after some contemplation, I’ve found this route to be infinitely more inspiring.
There is something about the simplicity and immediacy of Verdi's harmonic language that has sneakily had a strong personal grip on me for quite a long time, and in such a way that other great romantic composers never quite matched. When the Novi Sad wind band, led by my father, disbanded in 1990 (just as I was beginning to play the trumpet and preparing to join), they held a final concert at Serbia's most important classical music venue, the Belgrade Kolarac hall. The highlight of the program was a big Verdi-Suite, which had been diligently rehearsed in the weeks leading up to the concert. As my mother played the saxophone in the band and there was no babysitter available, I was always present and listening, even if I didn’t get to play it myself.
Anyway, I didn't really think about Verdi much after that until 2014, when I was invited to participate in Brett Bailey's production of MacBeth, where we were meant to perform a re-arranged, "Africanized" chamber version of Verdi's Macbeth. There was a week-long rehearsal period and 13 performances scheduled, and I distinctly remember fearing that I would go mad after so much time repeating these “banal” tunes (at the time I was practically exclusively playing contemporary and experimental music). Little did I know that the production will turn out to be so successful that we'll keep getting regularly invited to further festivals around the world for the good part of the next two years. In the end, I've performed that opera over 70 times in front of audiences (add to that dozens of general rehearsals, one for each new hall); and funnily enough, there was not a single moment where I got even slightly bored with the musical material; and not a single performance where I didn’t get goosebumps at the refugee-choir scene near the end.
There are all these discussions about what a musical masterpiece is. How can you tell? Who even has the authority to proclaim such a thing, and by what criteria? Do you rely on analysis or on your visceral feeling? If you ask me, having to play a piece of music for well over a hundred times, and somehow still liking it afterwards, has got to be one of the most reliable tests there is. To quote from Isaiah Berlin's insightful essay "The Naiveté of Verdi":
In music at least, he is the last naive artist of genius. The desire to "go back to Verdi" itself becomes a form of incurable nostalgia, of acutely non-Verdian "sentimentality", from which he was himself wholly and peacefully free. Noble, simple with a degree of unbroken vitality and vast natural power of creation and organization, Verdi is the voice of the world which is no more. His enormous popularity among the most sophisticated as well as the most ordinary listeners today is due to the fact that he expressed permanent states of consciousness in the most direct terms: as Homer, Shakespeare, Ibsen and Tolstoy have done. This is what Schiller called "naiv." After Verdi this is not heard in the music again.
So, after the Verdi-theme was decided, and the decision was made to follow in the "cursed" footsteps of the 19th century virtuosi, I first looked at Jean-Baptiste Arban, the all-father of cornet and every other valved "trumpet-like" instrument. His 14 Verdi-Fantasies are written mostly in the potpourri-form, with some very shy and basic attempts at variations, but far from the dazzling technical passages in some of his better-known pieces such as the “Carnival in Venice”. Consequently, even though the fantasies were performed and recorded by players such as Maurice Andre and Guy Touvron they are still relatively obscure and play a rather insignificant role in the trumpet repertoire. A shame, if you ask me, because there are very few slow movements ever written for trumpet (original or arranged) that ever come close to the sublime beauty of the “Pace, pace mio Dio” aria in the Fantasy no. 14. Arban didn’t have to do much work there except for transposing, as the masterpiece of Verdi’s melody leading didn’t need anything else added, it’s already perfect the way it is. The fact we can’t deny is that our good old Arban had all the composer/arranger know-how necessary to score a perfectly serviceable cornet-and-piano piece; but lacked the talent and subtlety of some of his contemporaries and composer/performers on other instruments such as the Sicilian oboist/composer Antonino Pasculli. Choosing which one of his six masterful Verdi fantasies to add into the program was the hardest part, the decision somewhat helped by their varying level of difficulty on trumpet (ranging from “not so hard” via “really hard” all the way to “impossible” (or at least: “impossible for anyone not named Sergei Nakariakov”).
Finally, I’ve settled on including two of them: the easiest and the hardest one (albeit with a little caveat). "Fantasia due" is originally an english-horn piece, meaning it spends more time in the lower tessitura more suitable for flugelhorn (which also offers a chance to relax the lips in the middle of a rather demanding program - a little pragmatism never hurts). Nevertheless it is a great showcase of Pasculli’s impressive sense of form and instrumentation while still letting the performer work up quite a sweat in the fast passages. However, what comes next is the doubtless centerpiece of this program. After briefly contemplating and then giving up on the idea of composing a Vespri Siciliani fantasy by myself from scratch; I decided to do the next best thing and put together my own mix of the two available fantasies on the themes from the same opera. Pasculli’s Gran Concerto is his most famous, technically hardest, and (arguably) best Verdi-based oboe piece; but it does include several passages which might be too awkward to perform on a trumpet; so instead I combined it with several sections from Arban’s Fantasy no. 9 (they both used the same 6/8 theme as the starting point for the variations-sequence, so I could easily incorporate the variations from the both pieces). Before all of that, I added the eerily suspenseful opening march from the original opera prelude, partly because it is an amazing piece of music which serves as a very effective opening and partly to give myself an extra 3-minute break before all the physically demanding work coming up next (pragmatism still being the order of the day). So, after about a month of tweaking, cutting and pasting, fixing numerous pacing- and transitional issues, the Gran Fantasia sopra motivi dell'opera “I Vespri Siciliani'' was born; and I hope I’m not being too delusional in thinking that it might soon become a staple in the virtuoso trumpet repertoire (sadly, I’ve completely messed up the final variation at the premiere, but hopefully I’ll be able to present some better recordings from the future concerts).
The dramaturgical structure of the program follows the idea of the “Rise and fall of the Virtuoso”: we begin with the simple Adagio, Verdi’s only original piece for trumpet (one of his early works which was lost and recently rediscovered). After that, we’re taking progressively bigger steps, taking on Arban's Forza del destino fantasy which ends with a fast tarantella theme, while still exibiting a rather minimal amount of variations and cadenzas. Moving on to Pasculli’s Ballo in maschera, the woodwind instrument piece played on a brass instrument without any alterations, with the cadenzas and fast passages getting increasingly common and difficult; before finally reaching the peak extravaganza in the Vespri Siciliani and spectacularly crashing with the breathtaking final variation (dubbed by one of my students as “the Carnival of Venice's evil twin”). All that’s left after that is to repent and beg for forgiveness with the Requiem’s Ingemisco, a blissful aria with which this story ends.
Countless "Fantasies," "Variations," and "Potpourris" on Verdi's themes were written (as well as improvised) by the “virtuosos” on practically every musical instrument, serving as a means to showcase not only the musical and technical abilities of the instrument itself but also the prowess of that particular performer. I find it somewhat fascinating to contemplate the purpose and significance of it all. Was it simply toying around, hedonistic self-pleasing amusement without any aspiration for the so-called “higher” form of artistic expression? This was certainly the opinion of the many great thinkers back then and today, who see the so called “virtuosos” as little more than circus performers, trivializing and cheapening true musical art. Is it ever possible for this music to be seen as equal, by anyone other than the “philistines” (e.g. casual concert goers without high musical education)? Even Verdi’s own music has been (and still routinely is) compared unfavorably to the works of the “god-like” figures like Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner or Mahler.
Being in my position, and wanting to create my first (properly planned and researched) program of the romantic music, the first instinct would be to either look for some works by those “serious” composers which could possibly be arranged for trumpet, or take some existing, original trumpet works of a somewhat second-rate quality, but resembling and copying their "serious" style. But after some contemplation, I’ve found this route to be infinitely more inspiring.
There is something about the simplicity and immediacy of Verdi's harmonic language that has sneakily had a strong personal grip on me for quite a long time, and in such a way that other great romantic composers never quite matched. When the Novi Sad wind band, led by my father, disbanded in 1990 (just as I was beginning to play the trumpet and preparing to join), they held a final concert at Serbia's most important classical music venue, the Belgrade Kolarac hall. The highlight of the program was a big Verdi-Suite, which had been diligently rehearsed in the weeks leading up to the concert. As my mother played the saxophone in the band and there was no babysitter available, I was always present and listening, even if I didn’t get to play it myself.
Anyway, I didn't really think about Verdi much after that until 2014, when I was invited to participate in Brett Bailey's production of MacBeth, where we were meant to perform a re-arranged, "Africanized" chamber version of Verdi's Macbeth. There was a week-long rehearsal period and 13 performances scheduled, and I distinctly remember fearing that I would go mad after so much time repeating these “banal” tunes (at the time I was practically exclusively playing contemporary and experimental music). Little did I know that the production will turn out to be so successful that we'll keep getting regularly invited to further festivals around the world for the good part of the next two years. In the end, I've performed that opera over 70 times in front of audiences (add to that dozens of general rehearsals, one for each new hall); and funnily enough, there was not a single moment where I got even slightly bored with the musical material; and not a single performance where I didn’t get goosebumps at the refugee-choir scene near the end.
There are all these discussions about what a musical masterpiece is. How can you tell? Who even has the authority to proclaim such a thing, and by what criteria? Do you rely on analysis or on your visceral feeling? If you ask me, having to play a piece of music for well over a hundred times, and somehow still liking it afterwards, has got to be one of the most reliable tests there is. To quote from Isaiah Berlin's insightful essay "The Naiveté of Verdi":
In music at least, he is the last naive artist of genius. The desire to "go back to Verdi" itself becomes a form of incurable nostalgia, of acutely non-Verdian "sentimentality", from which he was himself wholly and peacefully free. Noble, simple with a degree of unbroken vitality and vast natural power of creation and organization, Verdi is the voice of the world which is no more. His enormous popularity among the most sophisticated as well as the most ordinary listeners today is due to the fact that he expressed permanent states of consciousness in the most direct terms: as Homer, Shakespeare, Ibsen and Tolstoy have done. This is what Schiller called "naiv." After Verdi this is not heard in the music again.
So, after the Verdi-theme was decided, and the decision was made to follow in the "cursed" footsteps of the 19th century virtuosi, I first looked at Jean-Baptiste Arban, the all-father of cornet and every other valved "trumpet-like" instrument. His 14 Verdi-Fantasies are written mostly in the potpourri-form, with some very shy and basic attempts at variations, but far from the dazzling technical passages in some of his better-known pieces such as the “Carnival in Venice”. Consequently, even though the fantasies were performed and recorded by players such as Maurice Andre and Guy Touvron they are still relatively obscure and play a rather insignificant role in the trumpet repertoire. A shame, if you ask me, because there are very few slow movements ever written for trumpet (original or arranged) that ever come close to the sublime beauty of the “Pace, pace mio Dio” aria in the Fantasy no. 14. Arban didn’t have to do much work there except for transposing, as the masterpiece of Verdi’s melody leading didn’t need anything else added, it’s already perfect the way it is. The fact we can’t deny is that our good old Arban had all the composer/arranger know-how necessary to score a perfectly serviceable cornet-and-piano piece; but lacked the talent and subtlety of some of his contemporaries and composer/performers on other instruments such as the Sicilian oboist/composer Antonino Pasculli. Choosing which one of his six masterful Verdi fantasies to add into the program was the hardest part, the decision somewhat helped by their varying level of difficulty on trumpet (ranging from “not so hard” via “really hard” all the way to “impossible” (or at least: “impossible for anyone not named Sergei Nakariakov”).
Finally, I’ve settled on including two of them: the easiest and the hardest one (albeit with a little caveat). "Fantasia due" is originally an english-horn piece, meaning it spends more time in the lower tessitura more suitable for flugelhorn (which also offers a chance to relax the lips in the middle of a rather demanding program - a little pragmatism never hurts). Nevertheless it is a great showcase of Pasculli’s impressive sense of form and instrumentation while still letting the performer work up quite a sweat in the fast passages. However, what comes next is the doubtless centerpiece of this program. After briefly contemplating and then giving up on the idea of composing a Vespri Siciliani fantasy by myself from scratch; I decided to do the next best thing and put together my own mix of the two available fantasies on the themes from the same opera. Pasculli’s Gran Concerto is his most famous, technically hardest, and (arguably) best Verdi-based oboe piece; but it does include several passages which might be too awkward to perform on a trumpet; so instead I combined it with several sections from Arban’s Fantasy no. 9 (they both used the same 6/8 theme as the starting point for the variations-sequence, so I could easily incorporate the variations from the both pieces). Before all of that, I added the eerily suspenseful opening march from the original opera prelude, partly because it is an amazing piece of music which serves as a very effective opening and partly to give myself an extra 3-minute break before all the physically demanding work coming up next (pragmatism still being the order of the day). So, after about a month of tweaking, cutting and pasting, fixing numerous pacing- and transitional issues, the Gran Fantasia sopra motivi dell'opera “I Vespri Siciliani'' was born; and I hope I’m not being too delusional in thinking that it might soon become a staple in the virtuoso trumpet repertoire (sadly, I’ve completely messed up the final variation at the premiere, but hopefully I’ll be able to present some better recordings from the future concerts).
The dramaturgical structure of the program follows the idea of the “Rise and fall of the Virtuoso”: we begin with the simple Adagio, Verdi’s only original piece for trumpet (one of his early works which was lost and recently rediscovered). After that, we’re taking progressively bigger steps, taking on Arban's Forza del destino fantasy which ends with a fast tarantella theme, while still exibiting a rather minimal amount of variations and cadenzas. Moving on to Pasculli’s Ballo in maschera, the woodwind instrument piece played on a brass instrument without any alterations, with the cadenzas and fast passages getting increasingly common and difficult; before finally reaching the peak extravaganza in the Vespri Siciliani and spectacularly crashing with the breathtaking final variation (dubbed by one of my students as “the Carnival of Venice's evil twin”). All that’s left after that is to repent and beg for forgiveness with the Requiem’s Ingemisco, a blissful aria with which this story ends.