Sonata for Piano Four Hands
by Elizabeth Raum
Commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and dedicated to Jean-Paul Bierny and Fred Chaffee
Sonata for Piano Four Hands was commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music for performance by Bernadene Blaha and Kevin Fitz-Gerald. The first movement is based on two motives: the first, a triplet figure heard in the primo part twice before being answered by descending thirds in the secondo part. The insistence of these statements being passed back and forth establishes a tension between the two with the triplets expanding into a driving ostinato accompanying the augmentation of the descending thirds which develops into a theme. The roles are soon reversed with the primo part taking up the theme accompanied by the ostinato in the bass. Back and forth they argue, ascending and descending, until a truce is finally reached. Here, a conciliatory calm prevails, more romantic in style, although the underlying tension still persists punctuated by flashes of the original motives. Declarations from each part pervade this middle section as the music grows more and more intense and angry until we have returned to the original conflict. But the battle seems to have spent itself and the movement ends quietly as if exhausted by strife.
The second movement, the “Geneva Variations”, so named for the granddaughter of the composer, is based on a song that the three year old made up herself. Upon hearing the tune, the composer was so taken with it that she decided to use the melody as the theme in her set of variations. This movement is programmatic as may be surmised by the use of the Dies Irae in the first and last variations. The theme represents the child, or the beginning, but even in childhood there is the shadow of eventual death and this is established in Variation 1, (“Foreboding,”), where the Dies Irae is woven into the secondo part, and again in the last variation. But in between, there’s the body of life starting with childhood (Var. 2 “Innocence”), then youth with its romances, adventures, and difficulties (Var. 3, “Rebellion”) and then parenthood and children (Var. 4, “Carousel”) and finally in the fugue (Var. 5, “Fugue”) the realization of death again. However, within this variation are the recurring melodies of happy times, memories of the events of life. The program is more implied than specific, but the composer felt this inspiration upon hearing the theme sung by one so young.
The Geneva Variations segue into the third movement in A Major, the key of hope, called “Hymn to the Children.” The anxieties of the previous movements are swept away by a passionate declaration of the joy of life.