Kreisleriana

14 min.

February 3, 2012
Coolidge Auditorium, the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Miranda Cuckson, violin; Blair McMillen, piano

Commissioned by the Library of Congress through its McKim Fund

Kreisleriana was commissioned through the McKim Fund at the Library of Congress for violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen, who premiered the work at the Coolidge Auditorium there in February 2012. I revised the piece for them two years later. Requested as a duo to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passing of violinist Fritz Kreisler, whose instrument was possessed by the Library, the music does owe something to the swirling, ethereal nature of Kreisler’s technique. But it owes more to Robert Schumann’s earlier piano work, Kreisleriana, and its brilliant cyclic cascade of themes. In my homage bits of first movement theme find there way into the fourth movement then break their way into the heart of the fifth.

“No one likes to be labeled, composers least of all. In a post-concert conversation, Meltzer rejected the idea that his music was ‘post-minimalist,” listing Webern, Berio, Ligeti and Adams as among his influences. The piece commissioned from him by the [Library of Congress] for the anniversary, Kreisleriana, revealed other appealing ideas, especially the Doppler-like effect of buzzing tremolos.”

“Kreisleriana,” brilliantly crafted yet elusive music that seems at once playful, dangerous, waltzing and jumpy.”

“[V]iolinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen team up for the irresistibly witty duet ‘Kreisleriana.’”

“Composed in fulfillment of a commission by the Library of Congress for a work to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of celebrated Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875 – 1962), Meltzer’s Kreisleriana pays homage both to Kreisler and to the music that he espoused. Organized in six movements, the piece might be described as a series of variations on a theme of virtuosity. Kreisler studied with Bruckner, Delibes, and Massenet in the course of an education that exposed him to virtually every trend in composing for the violin and gave him technical assurance sufficient to write his own pieces and successfully masquerade them as works by renowned composers.

“Meltzer’s music traverses a broad spectrum of musical influences, but his own voice remains audible, especially in the inimitably innovative development of thematic material. The performance of Kreisleriana by violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blain McMillen is a whirlwind of technical wizardry of which Kreisler would be proud, but there is depth in this music greater than virtuosity alone can infiltrate. Cuckson never attempts to mimic Kreisler’s singular style of playing: rather, she plays Meltzer’s music with her own impassioned phrasing, which McMillen supports with pianism of sensitivity and suavity. Kreislerianadoes not attempt to be an Enigma-esque musical portrait of its subject. If Meltzer tasked himself with composing music that reimagines Kreisler’s artistry from a Twenty-First-Century perspective, he succeeded. In this performance, Cuckson and McMillen succeed in playing Meltzer’s music as Kreisler played Beethoven’s.”

“Kreisleriana (2012, 2014), a work for violin and piano, was written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler. At the premiere, Miranda Cuckson performed it on Kreisler’s Guarneri violin. (The title also evokes Robert Schumann’s piano masterpiece of the same title.) Meltzer utilized minute aspects of Schumann’s piece to inform the structural underpinnings of his six movements without directly quoting it. Kreisleriana is energetic, convincingly rendered here by Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen, who also performed the world premiere.

“Aqua (2011) is a vibrant string quartet, whose structural inspiration came from Aqua Tower, one of Chicago’s most striking skyscrapers. Meltzer mirrors the tower’s undulating surface with vivid, whirling music, alternated with slower, dramatic moments. It’s well played by the Avalon Quartet, though marred in a couple of spots by the vocalizing of one of the players. Why can’t some string players and keyboardists (such as Glenn Gould) control this distracting tendency?”

“The second chamber work is a piece written for the 50th anniversary of the death of legendary violinist Fritz Kreisler. As it happens the Library of Congress, who commissioned the piece, owns Kreisler’s Guarneri violin and it is they who commissioned this work. Miranda Cuckson does the honors on violin ably accompanied by the trustworthy Blair McMillen. To be sure some of Kreisler’s style is used here but this work, “Kreisleriana” (2012) comes across as more than an homage, more a work informed by Kreisler. It’s a really entertaining piece too.

“Thanks in particular to Bridge Records for releasing this. Bridge is one of those labels whose every release deserves at least a bit of attention. This time I think they’ve found a fascinating voice in Meltzer’s works. Now how about some orchestral work?”

“Kreisleriana (2012/14) has no connection to Schumann. Rather it’s a tribute to Fritz K., part of a Library of Congress commission. I’ve mentioned before that the clarity of Meltzer’s writing has connection to Stravinsky, and I sense that here, but also a tie to Copland. This work for violin and piano has a consistent freshness (I particularly love the sound of a section all based on the interval of the perfect fifth, yet wandering chromatically so it’s impossible to pin down an easy harmonic center). It’s an imaginatively conceived form, which somehow arrives where it started, without the listener knowing why it feels so ‘right’.”

“The final piece is a nod to the violin brilliance of Fritz Kreisler in the violin-piano “Kreisleriana.” It has an elemental primal quality in spite of its sophistication. We do not get some kind of pastiche of Kreisler evocations so much as a very forward moving original take on it all, and so we are very much on new ground. Yet the violin virtuosity and lightness of being that characterizes Kreisler at his finest is to be heard and appreciated in a new sounding.

“And when all is said and done this program gives us the kind of pleasure that comes from immersion in a very musically situated depth and meticulous brilliance. I recommend this highly for you who want to keep current with what is new and very worthy. Bravo!”

“Of the sixteen tracks that comprise the album, perhaps the six from Kreisleriana—composed in 2012 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler, and performed by the violinist Miranda Cuckson and the pianist Blair McMillen—are the most beautiful, exciting and evocative, on an album in which everything is.”

• February 3, 2012: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Blair McMillen, piano, Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• November 19, 2012: Sally McLain, violin and Lisa Emenheiser, piano, Christ Lutheran Church, Washington, D.C.
• February 15, 2013: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Blair McMillen, piano, Bargemusic, Brooklyn, New York
• June 18, 2013: Muneko Otani, violin and Adrienne Kim, piano, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, Smith Hokanson Hall, Vinalhaven Island, Maine
• June 19, 2013: Muneko Otani, violin and Adrienne Kim, piano, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, Waterfall Arts Center, Belfast, Maine
• June 20, 2013: Muneko Otani, violin and Adrienne Kim, piano, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, Lockport Opera House Recital Room, Lockport, Maine
• June 21, 2013: Muneko Otani, violin and Adrienne Kim, piano, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, Dunaway Community Center, Ogunquit, Maine
• August 17, 2014: Jacqui Carrasco, violin and James Douglass, piano, Carolina Summer Music Festival, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• November 17, 2014: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Blair McMillen, piano, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
• November 18, 2014: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Blair McMillen, piano, Mannes College of Music, New York City
• March 17, 2015: Jacqui Carrasco, violin and James Douglass, piano, Brendle Recital Hall, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• September 4, 2015: Harumi Rhodes, violin and Eric Zivian, piano, Moab Music Festival, Star Hall, Moab, Utah
• February 6, 2016: Gabriela Diaz, violin and Donald Berman, piano, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• June 19, 2016: Elizabeth Chang, violin and Alissa Leiser, piano, Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown, Massachusetts
• November 28, 2016: Curt Macomber, violin and Stephen Gosling, piano, Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown, Massachusetts
• August 3, 2017: Curt Macomber, violin and Abigail Sin, piano, Yellow Barn Music Festival, Putney, Vermont
• November 16, 2018: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Stephen Gosling, piano, North of History, New York, New York
• August 29, 2019: Calvin Wiersma, violin and Margaret Kampmeier, piano, Locrian Chamber Players, Riverside Church, New York, New York
• February 21, 2020: Miranda Cuckson, violin and Stephen Gosling, piano, Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Washington, DC