Recital: Mina Kim '22 DMA, Cello

NEC: Brown Hall | Directions

290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA
United States

In the course of completing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at New England Conservatory, performance majors present, not just one, but three full-length recitals for which they also write program notes.  It's an opportunity to observe multiple facets of an emerging artist.

Mina Kim '22 DMA studies Cello with Yeesun Kim.

This performance is open to in-person audiences, and can also be viewed below via livestream.

Watch livestream from Brown Hall

Artists
  • Mina Kim '22 DMA, cello
  • Emma Powell, viola
  • Tae Kim, piano
  • Jung-A Bang, piano
  • Yeesun Kim, studio teacher

  1. Paul Wiancko | American Haiku (2014)

    Far Away
    In Transit
    Home

     

    Program note

    Paul Wiancko is an American cellist and composer who is of Polish and Japanese descent. As a previous member of the Harlem String Quartet, Wiancko is an active chamber musician and as a second prize winner of Lutoslawski Cello Competition, he also has a successful career as a solo cellist. As a composer, Wiancko’s string quartet LIFT was featured in the Aizuri String Quartet’s grammy-nominated album, Blueprinting,in 2018 and he has been invited to be a composer in residence for various music festivals including Yellow Barn, and Spoleto.
            In line with his biracial background, according to his bio, “duality” has been in the musical identity since he was a conservatory student. One side is his love for classical music as an international competition winning cellist and the other is his passion projects as an active arranger, composer, and performer for local punk bands. For this duality, Wiancko’s musical language in American Haiku brilliantly demonstrates his deep understanding of various musical genres including classical music, Japanese folk music, rhythmic drive of punk rock, and Appalachian fiddling.     Consisting of three movements that are played consecutively, American Haiku sounds as if it is through-composed as the movements are played attacca without much break in between each movement. Wiancko drew inspiration from the haiku format of 5-7-5 for organizing meters and the phrase length throughout the piece. The commonly featured meters with quick changes include, 5/16, 7/8, 5/8, 7/16, and more. The piece uses a cyclic form as Wiancko brings back the catchy rhythmic themes of the cello part featured in the first movement to the last movement.
            The first movement, Far Away, opens with grand homorhythmic chords played by both the viola and cello that feature the use of perfect intervals in each part. These perfect intervals of fourths in the viola part and the fifths in the cello part are integral parts of musical language throughout the piece. Especially, the common use of fifths on the cello part shows his understanding of the musical language of punk rock. The open fifths without the third interval are referred to as power chords, which are commonly used in rock, punk, and pop music.  Wiancko cleverly transitions to the percussive section driven by the left-hand hammer-on and tapping on the cello that is inspired by traditional Japanese percussive rhythms.
            The second movement, In Transit, features quick passages organized in odd numbered phrase lengths as well as great use of power chords that are swung underneath the melody that is reminiscent of the Appalachian fiddle. The viola part with swung chords reminds one of Appalachian fiddling contrasting to the cello melody which features rock-inspired runs and chromaticism. 
            The last movement, Home, shows Wiancko’s use of a cyclic form as he brings back thematic materials from the first movement, including the opening chordal gestures as well as the rhythmic percussive theme of the cello part. The piece ends with a tempo marking called Prayer. Ending the piece quietly and poetically, Wiancko presents a beautiful musical haiku of various American musical genres.

     
    Artists
    • Emma Powell, viola

  2. George Walker | Sonata for Cello and Piano (1957)

    Allegro passionato
    Sstenuto
    Allegro

     

    Program note

    George Walker was an American composer and pianist who is well-known as the first African American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize. During his long life of 96 years, he had numerous achievements including Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacDowell fellowships, and was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2000. His achievements are often referred to as “firsts,” as he was the first black composer to be awarded a doctoral degree at Eastman, to be tenured at Smith College in 1961, and to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 with his piece, Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. Despite his wondrous achievements as a person and incredible skills as a composer, his music to this day most often appears on concert programs only during February for Black History Month. Walker himself has expressed frustration that his music is frequently categorized as music written by a black composer and has also noted the lack of performances of his music.
           According to Walker, his musical heroes were Debussy, Hindemith, and Stravinsky, and spirituals and jazz were integral parts of his musical language. As a result, Walker’s musical language includes the use of chromaticism, polyrhythms, and serialism with great melodic lyricism. Walker’s Sonata for cello and piano is characterized by his use of polyrhythms and chromaticism with long singing lyrical lines organized in neo-classical forms. 
           The first movement is in sonata form and greatly features his use of poly-rhythms. For example, the piece opens with the piano part’s triplet ostinato that sounds like duple rhythms. The cello’s soaring opening melody in duple and triple rhythms on top of the piano ostinato carries through over the bar lines, which gives one an illusion of lack of meter.  The second theme is presented by the cello part with a use of double stops that is reminiscent of Brahms’ musical language with extreme lyricism and motivic melodic materials. Walker’s use of serialism is featured in the development as they are presented with jagged rhythms in the cello part along with the chordal and homorhythmic parts in the piano part. The soaring melodies, double stops, and jagged serialistic materials reappear in the recapitulation and the movement quickly winds down to a closure in an A major chord.
          The second movement is divided into three sections: a slow introduction with sparse rhythm, a blues-inspired melody performed in rounds by both instruments with a D ostinato in the piano part, and a repetition of the beginning introductory material bringing the movement to a closure. The harmonic and intervallic tensions and resolutions between the cello and the piano parts is the patient driving force in the sparse rhythmic sections. Slow builds with charged emotions created with climbing intervals and beautiful melodies with a tinge of nostalgia are reminiscent of Walker’s most performed piece, Lyric for Strings. The movement ends without a resolution in the cello nor the piano part, which adds to the suspended blues mood.
            According to a wonderful cellist, Astrid Schween, who was able to play the piece for Walker, the composer described the third movement to be featuring his use of the “boogie-woogie rhythm” that are influenced by jazz. The third movement prominently features Walker’s use of the walking bass line in the cello and the piano left-hand part as well as sixteenth notes that are attacked on the off beats that are inspired by the rhythmic materials of jazz. Between the running sixteenth notes, walking-bass, and constantly shifting meter, Walker successfully creates a groovy and strong final movement that forms the movement into a coherent whole.

     
    Artists
    • Tae Kim, piano

  3. Igor Stravinsky (arr. Piatigorsky) | Suite Italienne (1932)

    Introduzione
    Serenata
    Aria
    Tarantella
    Minuetto e Finale

     

    Program note

    Suite Italienne is an arrangement of several movements from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, Pulcinella. The first arrangement was written for violin and piano by Stravinsky for violinist Samuel Dushkin. In 1934, Stravinsky worked on a cello arrangement of the piece with the legendary cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. In the cello version of Suite Italienne, Stravinsky added an Aria movement and omitted a couple of other movements compared to the violin version of the piece to successfully feature the virtuosity of the cello.
           Pulcinella was one of the successful ballet creations born of the collaborations between Sergei Diaghilev and Stravinsky for the Ballets Russes. In 1919, Diaghilev suggested Stravinsky arrange pieces written by an Italian Baroque composer, Pergolesi, for their new ballet. Initially, Stravinsky was against the idea as he was not interested in merely arranging the pre-existing musical pieces. However, Stravinsky eventually came around to the idea and ended up using the melodic materials written by Italian Baroque composers such as Pergolesi, Gallo, Monza, in Pulcinella.      As the entire melodic material of the piece as taken from pre-composed materials, Stravinsky’s added orchestration, accents on weak beats, and harmonies brought up questions of originality amongst scholars. However, aside from the controversy of the originality of the composition, the piece opened a new door for Stravinsky’s neoclassical period of compositions that are characterized by their classical form, use of Baroque-inspired dissonances and harmonies, and light and transparent musical textures.
            The first movement, Introduzione, is based on Domenico Gallo’s Trio Sonata No. 1. Using Gallo’s melody, Stravinsky added extreme and quick changes in the dynamic as well as vibrant articulations. The musical texture is transparent, created by a simplistic piano part and the democratic passing of the melody between the cello and piano as soloist and ripieno. The interplay between the solo group (concertino) and orchestra group (ripieno) playing repeated passages (ritornello) back and forth was an extremely popular concerto style in the Baroque era.
           The second movement, Serenata, uses melodic materials of the tenor's aria from Pergolesi’s opera, Il Flaminio (1735). The fluttering piano ostinato and repeated and slow dotted rhythm of the cello part in the key of C minor present darkness with a tinge of sadness in the Sicilienne style that was popular in the Baroque period. The ballet, Pulcinella,famously features a singer for this movement, who sings the melody during the ballet performance.
            The third movement, Aria, also is driven from Pergolesi’s Il Flaminio. This aria is sung by a bass and is about proclaiming his unrequited love in opera buffa style. The movement features slides and large interval leaps as well as weeping tenutos that add more humor and ridicule to the movement. It is easy to imagine the stomping feet of ballet dancers as it features percussive articulations and pizzicato. The movement ends with the return of materials from Serenata, hinting at the failed attempt of his love confession.
           The fourth movement, Tarantella, features quick-paced virtuosic passages played by both piano and the cello that are characterized by extremely short articulations. With the use of chromatic fifths and quick double stops in the cello part, as well as leaping intervals in the piano part, the movement fully explores a virtuosity that can be demonstrated through the articulations and range of both instruments.
             The last movement, Minuetto e Finale, opens with walking-paced passages with elegance in both the piano and cello part that originates from Pergolesi’s Lo frate ‘nnamorato. After slow-building tension by the cello’s double stops, the movement explodes with a confetti of quick-climbing gestures in C Major and C octaves. The finale movement is taken from the melodic materials of Gallo’s Trio sonata and is truly a fitting celebration for the conclusion of the piece inspired mostly by opera buffa style comic opera.

     
    Artists

  4. Francis Poulenc | Sonata for Cello and Piano, FP 143 (1948)

    Allegro - Tempo di Marcia
    Cavatine
    Ballabile
    Finale

     

    Program note

    Francis Poulenc came from a wealthy bourgeois family. His father owned a pharmaceutical business, Rhône-Poulenc, and his mother was from a craftsmen’s family, which Poulenc attributes to his musicality. He was part of Les Six, which was a group of influential French and Swiss composers including Milhaud, Auric, Honegger, Tailleferre, and Durey who were united by their great friendship. Poulenc, amongst other composers of Les Six, was a great melodiest who upheld the tonal-modal system above the use of chromaticism and parallel harmonic motions that were often used by impressionist composers such as Debussy.
            Poulenc's chamber music is categorized into three chronological groups. The Sonata for Cello and Piano, FP. 143 fall into the central group with his Sextet for Piano and Wind as well as his violin sonatas. Poulenc admittedly was not familiar with writing for string instruments, resulting in destroying two of his violin sonatas written in 1919 and 1924. The cello sonata was premiered by Poulenc and Pierre Fournier, to whom the piece was dedicated. Fournier contributed a significant amount to the technical passages of the cello part as Poulenc was not familiar with composing for the instrument.
            The first movement, Allegro - Tempo di Marcia, is in sonata form and demonstrates Poulenc’s two bars or four bars phrase structures appearing in alternating piano and cello parts. The symmetrical phrase length in the musical conversation of the two instruments distributes the melodies equally in call and response form. Jumping intervals ranging often bigger than octaves in the melody adds the quirkiness which also is brought by abrupt character changes with contrasting dynamic markings. As a result, the Marcia (march) is full of mischief and sounds almost ridiculous.
            Poulenc is often criticized for lacking “substance” and depth because his compositions follow quite traditional forms of four-bar phrase structures as well as lacking an inventive use of harmony. He believed melody was the most important aspect of a musical piece. However, the second movement of the Sonata, Cavatine, is a slow movement that shows Poulenc’s strength as a melodiest and a depth that comes from the dichotomy of an ethereal sound world and a heavy low-ranged earthly sound world. The movement opens with a homorhythmic piano part which almost reminds one of a hymn. The cello entrance adds to the religious chanting, which develops into something dark and intense with a new melody. Poulenc came from a devout Catholic family which worsened his inner struggle of coming to terms with his homosexuality. In this movement, Poulenc demonstrates his religious compositional skills as well as his talent as a great melodiest exploring the full potential of the mid-low range of the cello. After the stormy climax reaching to the high top G in the cello part passes, the movement ends with an extremely calm and almost ethereal section.
           The third movement, Ballabile, is the scherzo movement of the sonata that is witty, quirky and full of quick gestures in both the cello and piano parts. The movement shows his strength as a ballet composer as one of his few critical successes was a commission received from Diaghilev for Ballets Russes: Les biches. The movement’s light-hearted melodies and cheeky pizzicatos bring the smiles back from the first movement.
           The fourth movement, Finale, is the most theatrical of all as the seriousness of Largo at the beginning, quick and awkward running and jumping of triplets section, and rigid march sections are constantly running into each other without proper transitions. The whirlwind of the movement is extremely challenging for a cellist as it explores mostly the upper registers of the cello with quick transitions between the big intervals that require constant shifting of the left-hand. A dramatic rising A major scale in the cello part brings the piece to a close.

     
    Artists
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