Allegro - A. Berlin

Seeker

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Today’s piece, the next in my #respite series, “Allegro“, is the third movement in rondo form of a sonatina by Uzbek composer Alexander Berlin. I found it in a collection of 11 pieces for the “young pianist” by Uzbek composers published in Moscow in 1974. I also post it to my #Teaching Pieces playlist as a piece I use with my own students that might be of value to others.

Among the things that make the piece so interesting to me is Berlin’s use of rhythm which is very different from music in the “traditional canon”. He writes the piece in 4/4 time which is usually heard with strong pulses on the first and third beats like this: ONE two THREE four, or sometimes, ONE two three four. Berlin does in fact use this traditional rhythm, but he contrasts it with a folk rhythm which goes: One two three Four five six Seven eight. One hand plays the traditional rhythm; the other simultaneously plays the folk rhythm. To keep things even more interesting, he swaps which hand plays which rhythm! If you’re not a musician, and all this “inside baseball” talk confuses you, fear not. You can still enjoy the way the piece plays one set of rhythms against the other! It’s my job to make sure the rhythms are right, yours to enjoy them.

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For those interested in the technology involved in the recording, the main video was captured with an Olympus OM-5 with the M Zuiko Digital 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 lens. Keyboard was captured with a Lenovo FHD Webcam. Audio was captured with a kit-built microphone from JLI Electronics – the Endora. You can read more about the technology inside it on the JLI Electronics website here: https://www.jlielectronics.com/diy-microphone-kits/endora-microphone-kit/. This dual capsule microphone was created by Jules Ruykebusch, and you can hear how it can sound and the many ways it can be used on this recording here: [
Video was routed via USB into my workstation; audio was routed through XLR to an old, but still functional RME Fireface 800. Both were then routed to OBS for real-time synchronization. Minimal audio post-processing was done in Adobe Audition and video trimming in Premiere Pro.
#respite #TeachingPieces #UzbekMusic #Endora #Jules Ruykebusch

pianoloverus

I thought this was a terrific piece and it was, as always, extremely well played. I imagine having different accented beats in each hand makes it quite difficult? Are there some other pieces in the standard piano literature that have this difficulty?

Seeker

pianoloverus I honestly don't know the answer to your question. I would say that I have encountered non-standard divisions of standard meters in other music composed by people trained in the Soviet system. Perhaps this video can shed some light on the topic.
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In it I introduce music by Sofi Mikayelyan, a graduate of the state sponsored conservatory in Yerevan, Armenia which music I play with her sister, Christine Kharazian. At 3:25 in the video (just after I'm done talking about the piece), you can see Christine conduct 4 beats with her bow before we jump into the piece. I consider myself fortunate to have these hugely talented musicians among my friends and collaborators.

My speculation is that, just as the Germans brought folk and village music into "the academy", the Soviet trained composers in countries which were formerly part of the USSR, bring indigenous and other folk and pop elements into music at the "academy" of which Sofi's piece is a second example to the Uzbek work by A. Berlin.