Seta tanyel biography of donald

Guest post by Ann Martin-Davis, pianist and teacher

‘Dum diddle diddle dum dum dum.’

How can it be that this simple tune that we all know isn’t counted in three? Yes, you heard me, not in three, but in fact in four plus two.

Try it out right now in your head – go on – and then go through all those other Baroque minuets that you have been humming for years and you’ll see that the shape of the melodies and the articulation that follows fall into the same pattern.

Now fast forward 200 years to Ravel; Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn, the Sonatine, Menuet Antique, and you’ll find the same patterns, and why? Because this is how it’s danced.

Learning the dances of the Baroque period doesn’t just sort out your understanding and playing of these composers, but it can inform pretty much everything else dance related that you might be involved with.

I’m with the dancer and historical coach Chris Tudor, and I’m joined by harpsichordist Sophie Yates, and Bach specialist, Helen Leek. We’re here to learn some of the basics and after intros in our ‘comfortable clothing’, we’re warming up with a simple hand held chain called a linear carole.

Caroles, or carols as we now call them, always used to be danced and sung, but at some point we lost the dance element. The origins go way back to the ancient Greeks and to the choros, or circular sung dance. Remember the dancers on Achilles’ shield in Homer’s Iliad? The magic of the shield creates a moment of escape from the pressures of reality and of the battle; I too quickly forget my parking battle off the Euston Road and settle into the conviviality of it all.

Next up is a renaissance dance, the Branle, which Chris tells us is a surreptitious way of introducing some of the steps to a minuet. We take one step to the right, close, then one step to the left and over with the right. Always rotating clockwise as we don’t want any negative energy.

We make swift progress a

Piano concerto

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 32, is a work for piano and orchestra completed by Xaver Scharwenka in 1876. The first performance was given on 14 April 1875 by the composer at the piano, under Julius Stern's direction. The work is dedicated to Franz Liszt.

Structure

The concerto is scored in three movements. It is one of the only concertos to present three Allegro movements consecutively.

I. Allegro patetico - Adagio (average performance time: 10-12 mins)

II. Allegro assai (7-8 mins)

III. Allegro non tanto (10-12 mins)

A typical performance lasts around 28 to 33 minutes.

The first movement opens with a short tutti in fortissimo, directly announcing part of the thematic material that will be developed over the course of the movement. The piano quickly enters, cutting short the orchestral overture without a complete statement of the two themes as would be expected in a conventional concerto first movement. In fact, more than a conflict between two contrasting themes as is typical of pieces in sonata form up to the 19th century, the concerto is a development on multiple thematic ideas, with lyrical and introverted moments interspersed with virtuosic bravura reminiscent of the compositional style of Franz Liszt, the piece's dedicatee, known for his outstanding pianistic skill. Another unconventional feature is the interruption of the development section by a wistful Adagio, the only slow passage of the entire concerto. These ideas recall the pieces' origins as a fantasia for solo piano.

The second movement, a Scherzo in the style brillant recalling Hummel and Chopin, shows a different character to the reflective first movement by its contrastingly extroverted writing, in the key of G-flat major.

The finale opens with a mysterious orchestral opening followed by a solo discourse, with allusions to the first movement's themes. Yet again, the work's origins as a fantasia

‘Seta Tanyel’s performances are beyond praise in her invaluable Scharwenka series,’ declared Gramophone, while the same magazine went on to describe the Moszkowski cycle as an ‘enchanted odyssey’. Her recording of Edward MacDowell’s two piano concertos and Second Modern Suite in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series was described by the American magazine Fanfare as ‘a distinguished addition to the catalogue—a winner. Strongly recommended.’