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- Yehudi Wyner
Toward the Center (1988)
- Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
Programme Note
Composer Note:
Toward the Center (1988) was commissioned by the Yale School of Music to honor Ward Davenny, distinguished pianist and teacher, who had been a mainstay of the Yale establishment from 1961 until his retirement in 1988. The composition was completed in March, 1988 and received its first performance at Yale on April 21st, interpreted by Ian Hobson, brilliant young pianist and former student of Mr. Davenny. The title, Toward the Center, contains some cryptic allusions, some of them playful, others of a deeply personal nature. Whatever the exact definition of the title may be, I feel that the music seeks to embody something of the process of exploring psychological and cultural interiors and transmitting that experience in an illuminating, possibly revelatory way.
The composition is through-composed, in the manner of a fantasy. A jazzy opening flourish defines the pitches and intervals from which all the subsequent music will flow, but the derivations are often fanciful and associative rather than rigorous and systematic. Much of the music is guided by romantic, gestural rubato, urgent and elastic, but there are extended passages of stable tempo as well. Toward the Center ends with a subdued apotheosis, trailing off in a cloud of distantly remembered dance music, now nostalgically transformed, refined, delicately exalted.
— Yehudi Wyner
Toward the Center (1988) was commissioned by the Yale School of Music to honor Ward Davenny, distinguished pianist and teacher, who had been a mainstay of the Yale establishment from 1961 until his retirement in 1988. The composition was completed in March, 1988 and received its first performance at Yale on April 21st, interpreted by Ian Hobson, brilliant young pianist and former student of Mr. Davenny. The title, Toward the Center, contains some cryptic allusions, some of them playful, others of a deeply personal nature. Whatever the exact definition of the title may be, I feel that the music seeks to embody something of the process of exploring psychological and cultural interiors and transmitting that experience in an illuminating, possibly revelatory way.
The composition is through-composed, in the manner of a fantasy. A jazzy opening flourish defines the pitches and intervals from which all the subsequent music will flow, but the derivations are often fanciful and associative rather than rigorous and systematic. Much of the music is guided by romantic, gestural rubato, urgent and elastic, but there are extended passages of stable tempo as well. Toward the Center ends with a subdued apotheosis, trailing off in a cloud of distantly remembered dance music, now nostalgically transformed, refined, delicately exalted.
— Yehudi Wyner
Scores
Reviews
The revelation of the pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s perfectly conceived recital on Sunday evening at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College didn’t come in one of the Liszt or Chopin pieces. It was the contemporary work sandwiched between them: Yehudi Wyner’s Toward the Center, a solo written in 1988 to commemorate the retirement of a longtime teacher at the Yale School of Music.
It begins with a brazen, almost stentorian flourish that’s left to resonate before the pianist proceeds, as if with caution, and then suddenly dives again into thickets of activity. Contrasts emerge, but subtle ones. The mood grows reflective; fragments of melody keep coming to subdued endings, after which the music seems unsure how, or even if, it should proceed.
There’s a section dogged by a sober three-note motif, and then pristine scales, like descending staircases made of ice. Near the end, the music starts shyly to swing, softly moving toward the keyboard’s heights before resolving in a light tolling, growing ever fainter.
The piece is a little masterpiece, quiet and glowing, and Mr. Hamelin, with his preternatural clarity and control, qualities that in him don’t preclude sensitivity and even poetry, was an ideal interpreter on Sunday, when he appeared as one of the highlights of the 16-day International Keyboard Institute & Festival. When the performance ended, and Mr. Wyner was called to the stage, he bowed not to the audience but to Mr. Hamelin, giving gratitude where it was due.
Toward the Center wasn’t just thrown into the recital, a nod to contemporary music. Its changeable emotions seemed to emerge organically from the five Liszt works on the first half of the program, and its lyrical impulses led sensibly into Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 at the end.
It begins with a brazen, almost stentorian flourish that’s left to resonate before the pianist proceeds, as if with caution, and then suddenly dives again into thickets of activity. Contrasts emerge, but subtle ones. The mood grows reflective; fragments of melody keep coming to subdued endings, after which the music seems unsure how, or even if, it should proceed.
There’s a section dogged by a sober three-note motif, and then pristine scales, like descending staircases made of ice. Near the end, the music starts shyly to swing, softly moving toward the keyboard’s heights before resolving in a light tolling, growing ever fainter.
The piece is a little masterpiece, quiet and glowing, and Mr. Hamelin, with his preternatural clarity and control, qualities that in him don’t preclude sensitivity and even poetry, was an ideal interpreter on Sunday, when he appeared as one of the highlights of the 16-day International Keyboard Institute & Festival. When the performance ended, and Mr. Wyner was called to the stage, he bowed not to the audience but to Mr. Hamelin, giving gratitude where it was due.
Toward the Center wasn’t just thrown into the recital, a nod to contemporary music. Its changeable emotions seemed to emerge organically from the five Liszt works on the first half of the program, and its lyrical impulses led sensibly into Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 at the end.
20th July 2015