TWO-PIANO PARTITA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 632, 10 August 1951, Page 20

TWO-PIANO PARTITA

N Sunday, August 19, at 2.0 p.m., from Station 2YA, in the fourth programme of the series "Music, and News of Music from Britain," Beryl Richardson and Leslie Souness will present from the Studio the first: New Zealand performance (as far as is known) of

Howard Ferguson's Partita for Two Pianos. Here

BESSIE

POLLARD

Are ~ "discusses this work in outline, HOWARD FERGUSON, born at Belfast and: educated St Westminstér School, studied composition at the Royal College of Music wi » R. O: Morris, ‘and the piano with Harold Samuel. His most important. works are a Violin Sonata (1933), and Octet (1934), the Partita for two pianos and also for Orchestra (1937), and’a Piano Sonata (1940). According to Grove’s Dictionary, there are ".. . qualities in‘his work that recall Brahms, however different the idiom, and this impression. is strengthened by the fundamentally diatonic framework of his‘music. Though he has profited by 20th Century experiments in harmony, his thought is linked to’ the classical tradition." Very few composers since Bach have made use of the title Partita. In. the 17th Century this name was applied to collections of dance tunes which were played consecutively, and afterwards grouped together to ‘form instrument Suites. Bach used the name (1) as the equivalent of Suite, in the Six Clavier Partitas; and (2) for sets of variations on chorales for organ. _* drag aK ; : RAE gaa 3, In a note on the score of his. Partita for/T vO Pianos, Howard Ferguson says: "There are. two versions of the Partita: one. for orchestra and the other for two pianos. ach version was conceived for its gwn medium, so neither may be said to be an afrangement of the other." ni omg me The first) movement begins with a Grave introduction which makes a good deal of use of the double dotted quaver-demisemiquaver motif marked with a bracket in "A" below. This moves into an Allegretto pesante section ("B" below) where the time signatures hover between 7/8 and 5/8, giving an unbarred effect ta the music, There are big tonal contrasts in this section of the movement-

The second movement (Allegro un poco agitato) with its 3/2 time signature suggests a sarabande type of movement with a certain air of restlessness imparted by a soft, ever-moving bass part. It begins-

At the 16th bar, the time changes to 9/4, alternating with 6/4. Here Piano I, has a pastoral’ melody accompanied by harp-like reiterated "D’s" from Piano I. (below). The music works up to a great climax at about the 50th bar, which is sustained for some time, and then it gradually subsides into a mere wisp of ‘melody at the end-

The third movement (Andante un poco mosso) makes great play. on the motif suggesting an inverted mordent, marked with a bracket in "A" below. This movement has strange, rather elusive moments; the idiom is modern but not extremely so. The Finale (Allegro con spirito) opens with four pizzicato-like chords from Piano I., and:then a little figure (""B" below): is;played by Piano II. The piu lento middle section harks back to the opening bars-of the second movement, but the brilliancy of the opening mood reasserts itself, and the work ends with a flourish-