1911
Michael Arnowitt's outstanding program "1911" features seven contrasting works by major composers, all written in the year 1911, a true crossroads time in music and world history. With the Romantic era in its twilight years, new and original music was emerging everywhere -- impressionism in France, various national styles in Hungary, Russia, and other countries, and the first atonal music from Schoenberg in Germany and America's own Charles Ives.
The first decade of our century witnessed an unparalleled creative explosion in all the arts. The world situation was equally rich in change, with the end of aristocracy, the birth of new technologies such as the car, the airplane, and electricity, mass social unrest, and a series of diplomatic and military crises that led to World War I a few years later.
Pianist Michael Arnowitt has selected seven works that show the diverging paths -- some forward-looking, some nostalgic -- of 1911. Stravinsky's "Petrouchka," Scriabin's "White Mass" Sonata, and Ravel's "Valses nobles et sentimentales" are featured, along with works by Ives, Bartok, Schoenberg, and Rachmaninoff. "1911" is a vibrant and rich program which brings you right into this extraordinary time.
Program
Bela Bartok -- Allegro barbaro
Sergei Rachmaninoff -- 3 Etudes-tableaux of op. 33
Charles Ives -- "Hawthorne," from the Concord Sonata
Maurice Ravel -- Valses nobles et sentimentales
-- intermission --
Alexander Scriabin -- Sonata no. 7 "White Mass"
Arnold Schoenberg -- Six Small Piano Pieces, op. 19
Igor Stravinsky -- Three Scenes from "Petrouchka"
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