Menahem Pressler Masterclass - Dello Joio: Aria & Toccata for 2 Pianos / Chen & Morgenstern 10.7.89

Dello Joio: Aria & Toccata for Two Pianos (Low Volume) (Closed Captions Available) Anna Chen & Annette Morgenstern, pianos Jennie K. Wong, studio 00:00 Aria 05:14 Toccata 09:35 Very nice. It’s a very nice piece. I enjoyed it very much. It’s a style of “Americana.” Yes? Like the jazz aspect that we have. In the beginning, you can’t reach that? Start once more from the beginning 10:28 MPD Actually, play two voices. It sounds like one voice. It should be two. Not so loud. Make a crescendo, come down. Don’t fall into it. 11:33 This is like a Bach chorale. This resolution, I would wait just a tiny bit (Sings). That’s good! (Piano 2) Can you make the upper voice more so she can respond to it? 12:34 And your left hand (Sings) 13:13 MPD The RH is too loud. 14:12 MPD Plays La Folia (Folies d’Espagne) theme. Corelli wrote for violin and piano. It’s very beautiful and famous. It’s obvious that it’s a quotation. It’s like a chaconne. (   • Arcangelo Corelli La Folia, Opus 5 #12.  T...  ) 15:55 MPD That’s very nice. The mordants are written out as Bach would have done. So what I would like is for you to put the accents on the mordants. 17:00 MPD Play the B, the F… short. I would like to know if you have the character of the middle voice. 17:55 The arpeggios in the LH pass from one pianist to the other. It should be like one pianist. 20:15 Let me have the Toccata. Start loud at the top and go a little down. Or are you starting loud and getting louder? “Come down.” 21:00 MPD It’s too loud. Light. (Sings) There are notes missing. Bring out the accents. 23:35 A big crescendo to a new start! 24:55 Very good! Sings. I want more. 26:42 Let me have the climax. 27:25 MPD 28:00 The only thing is that you are surprising us with the ending. It should be (Sings). You need an upbeat to the last note! Feel that. Do you understand what I’m saying? What is an upbeat for? Leading to a downbeat! Because the way you both play it, then you have to do this (turns page) before we know it’s finished! There is a way in which one can guide the listener to an end. The ear has to guide us. (Sings) Then we know it’s the end! That’s right! That was good! I knew where the finish was! Good! Thank you!! Crowell Hall, Biola University - La Mirada, CA (10/07/89) Published in 1955, the Aria and Toccata was written for two pianos. The pensive Aria combines response and imitation from the second piano with frequent meter changes. In three distinct sections, the Aria's expressive opening is followed by a subtle change of tempo and a theme that propels the work forward from a soft legato to a powerful forte with a detached accompaniment figure. It subsides to a piano level and calando by the conclusion of the section before proceeding to the final section, and ending pianissimo. The highly rhythmic Toccata is written true to the form. With dynamic, short, marked, and detached figures, Dello Joio fully utilizes the sonorities and ranges of both pianos. He also uses syncopated figures, meter changes, and dramatic pauses. Performance by the Mack Sister's Duo    • Dello Joio- Aria and Toccata   Norman Dello Joio The distinguished professional musical career of Norman Dello Joio began for him at age fourteen when he became a church organist and choir director of the Star of the Sea Church on City Island, New York. A descendant of Italian church organists, he was born January 24, 1913, in New York. His father was an organist, pianist, singer, and vocal coach. Dello Joio recalls that his father was working with singers from the Metropolitan Opera who used to arrive in their Rolls-Royces, and that his childhood was surrounded with music and musicians at home. Dello Joio's father taught him the piano at age four, and in his teens, he began studying organ with his godfather, Pietro Yon, organist at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In 1939, he was accepted as a scholarship student at the Juilliard School and studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar. As a graduate student at Juilliard, he arrived at the conclusion that he did not want to spend his life in a church choir loft, as composition began to envelop all of his interests. In 1941, at Tanglewood and Yale, he began studies with Paul Hindemith, the man who profoundly influenced his compositional style. It was Hindemith who told Dello Joio, “Your music is lyrical by nature, don't ever forget that.” Dello Joio states that, although he did not completely understand at the time, he now knows what he meant: “Don't sacrifice necessarily to a system, go to yourself, what you hear. If it's valid and it's good, put it down in your mind. Don't say I have to do this because the system tells me to. No, that's a mistake.”