A Splendid Wintry Carpet Programme Preview III

Like the second violin sonata, the years during which the third violin sonata was composed also span a period of transition for Medtner, as during this time he moved to settle in London. It too is a huge work, lasting some 45 minutes. The composer himself aptly titled it “Epic”, as is recorded on the frontispiece of the first edition, published by Novello. In terms of primary musical ingredients, the same driving, dense symphonic polyphony of chromatic harmony derived from Brahms and Wagner dominates. Large-scale classical architectures, as well as Medtner’s characteristic divisions into smaller sections, each one developing a different motif through incessant repetition, are also important features. Something fundamental has, however, changed. Like so many émigré artists, as the period overseas becomes extended, a home-sickness starts to kick in and the aesthetic features of a long-lost native land begin to reassert themselves. In 1951, Medtner died at his home in Golders Green and was buried in nearby Hendon cemetery, both suburbs of North London with very large Jewish populations. These are mostly descendants of refugees from Eastern Europe, and to this day Yiddish can still be heard in conversation on the streets. Perhaps it is this ethnic milieu that explains in part Medtner’s cultural shift.

The whole sonata is cast in a gloomy E minor. A sombre sense of spacious sorrow hits the ear with the first few dark chords of the Introduzione, where bare piano harmonies with no adorning figuration are followed by a violin melody in sonorous folksy double stops of which even Prokofiev would have been proud. Occasional traceries of fast violin scales over subsequent recurrences of these piano chords add an almost Debussy-like sense of arabesque that also seems uncharacteristic of the Brahmsian sternness of Medtner’s earlier work. When the movement proper begins with the allegro, the metre is hard, incisive, and geometric, and the violin part is replete once more with lavish double stops: here is klezmer folk-fiddling! And if these melodies were devoid of their rolling accompaniment, they would be found to be no more than simple folk-tunes with few chromatic notes: the verve and swing of the music really gets the feet tapping.

The Scherzo that follows also brings a similar sense of movement if not more; but suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of the feverish intensity, the music changes. As with the last movement of second violin sonata, the habanera rhythm emerges, though this time less assertively and more ghostly in manner. The slow third movement begins with seven declamatory piano chords which recall the opening to the Finale of Brahms’ symphony no. 4; however, by contrast, it continues with a violin melody that is a simple folk tune in clear phrases with clear cadences, and its notes are all drawn only from the F minor scale. That is also the case with the slow chordal piano accompaniment: melancholy and mournful, bemoaning a far-off homeland that has been lost.

In the Finale, the folk fiddler crashing into gutsy chords returns. About halfway through, however, the music stops its relentlessness, and the violinist is left high and dry with an improvisatory soaring solo that is entirely repetitive, modal, and folk-like in character. This is a kind of Eastern European Lark Ascending with Chagall’s folk violinist suddenly bemused by a mystical dream. It is merely, though, a short-lived fantasy before the symphonic argument resumes, and with the final tumultuous climax and glorious chords, we are left wondering: who is the real Medtner?