Victor Rosenbaum 80th Birthday and NEC Farewell Concert

Victor Rosenbaum, longtime NEC faculty member and a prominent figure in Boston’s musical
life for over five decades, celebrates his 80th birthday and marks his departure from NEC with a
concert that features a newly commissioned world premiere performance of a work by Lewis
Warren Jr. (NEC BM 2019) as well as works of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms.

Program notes

The music I selected for tonight’s program came together quite naturally.  I wanted it to be, to some extent, a retrospective of music I have loved for a long time.  And anyone who knows me would guess that would include Brahms, Beethoven, and Schubert.

The late pieces of Brahms, sometimes described as “autumnal,” convey unabashed emotion.  Brahms had intended them (Opus 116-119) to be his last compositions, but he came out of “retirement” to write the great chamber pieces with clarinet that followed.  The tempo designation of Opus 118 No. 1 (Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato — not too fast but very passionate) tells us a lot about that piece and about life: passion cannot be rushed!  Part of its unsettled intensity results from its harmonic ambiguity, settling into its “home” key only at the very end and, then, in its Major variant, never really establishing ‘a minor’ (the home tonality, which is really only implied by the surrounding harmonies).  Opus 118 No. 2, which emerges seamlessly from the A Major cadence at the end of No. 1, might be called “everybody’s favorite piece”.  It is much loved for its unapologetic sentiment seeming to convey all of life’s yearnings, imbued with sadness and nostalgia.  It felt perfect for this occasion: “sweet sorrow” indeed!

Stephen Albert was a Pulitzer Prize winning composer whose works were being played by major orchestras and top soloists (including Yo-Yo Ma, who premiered his cello concerto) when he died tragically in a car crash in 1992.  Born the same year, we became good friends in Boston when he was on the faculty of Boston University.  In the month after his death I felt moved to write a short piece in his memory for a Jordan Hall performance that month (January 1993).  This year, on the 30th anniversary of his death, I revisited the piece, Elegy-Impromptu, revised it, and play it again tonight in his memory. 

I will always remember the day that Lewis Warren auditioned to enter NEC.  It was one of those rare moments when all of us on the auditioning panel reached an immediate consensus giving him our top grade. That meant that I, as the requested teacher, could go out and meet him and offer an unofficial instant acceptance.  Thus began a close relationship that started in 2015 and continues to this day.  Many is the time that Lewis brought me to tears at studio classes and parties at my home with his singing of “Moon River” and also his own songs, delivered in a pure and poignant tenor voice.  Lewis seemed the obvious person to ask to compose a piece for this concert.  His short Ballade No. 2 clearly shows the influence of the Romantic composers he loves, as well as Debussy, but there is also the influence of the “pop” style he has mastered.  Mostly I’d say, though, that the piece is “pure Lewis” — all heart, warmth, and sincerity.

This is what Lewis writes about his piece:
            "This piece surprisingly came after a 'writer's block' and is improvisatory in nature. Prior to composing, I watched a documentary about Nina Simone and afterwards thought, 'Perhaps I should start with a unison theme!' — inspired by her lucid piano playing. Knowing that Professor Rosenbaum is an exponent of Brahms’ music, I kept the thought of Brahms as inspiration in my subconscious. The rest of the music flowed from my mind and heart to my fingers with a myriad of picturesque scenes and images of autumn in mind. However one may interpret it, I hope that the piece would evoke in the listener honesty, warmth, color, and calming contemplation."

Beethoven’s Sonata Opus 109 is the first piece of the trilogy of sonatas that constitute his last works in the genre.  Like so much music (including Lewis’s piece, by the way), its source seems to emerge from improvisation (especially in the first movement).  Beethoven opens up the keyboard to its full range with alternating faster and slower sections in a fantasy-like manner.  The second movement, which emerges without pause is a furious race to the finish, while the third movement, a theme and variations, seems to encompass a lifetime.

While for some, Schubert is an acquired taste that evolves over time (or not at all), I loved the composer from my early years.  Oddly enough, though, the Sonata in A Major, D 959 is one that I learned 30 years ago, played a few times and recorded, and then never returned to.  Relearning it this year has been a journey of discovery.  I knew that I wanted this sonata, which starts with such positive energy and determination and ends heroically as well, to be on this program.  As the middle work of his trilogy of last sonatas, completed just a couple of months before his death at age 31, it also faces mortality in the most heart-rending second movement.  The sadness of the outer sections frame a middle section with some of the the most extraordinary music of its time —really beyond its time. Emerging from the quietest reverie, it becomes increasingly wild, demonic, almost hallucinatory, as if Schubert’s hand were writing, but seized by a forced beyond his control. 

The charming Scherzo that follows belies the rage and sadness of the second, except for one shocking moment when a fragment of the second movement suddenly emerges like a nightmarish vision from the past.  The last movement, using a theme from an earlier sonata (D. 537) gives us Schubert in all his lyrical glory, but with plenty of drama along the way. 

How lucky I feel to do the work I do and to be able to share this music with you tonight! A day never passes without my remarking on the great fortune it is to have spent….to be spending…my life in music!

Victor Rosenbaum

                                                                                                                        VR