CONCERT 30 AUGUST 2024
Ticket
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Tickets
R250,00 incl VAT
CONCERT VIOLIN AND “PIANO”
Venue: Rosalinda Ontwerp
Date: Friday 30 August 2024
Performer: Dieter Hendricks (violin)
In this concert, Dieter will merge his two worlds of music and machine learning to determine whether an AI-driven virtual pianist can serve as a reliable partner for chamber music.
In 2019, world-renowned Finnish pianists, Juho Pohjonen and Joonas Pohjonen, developed MyPianist, a digital pianist which aims to respond to a musician’s playing just as a real musician would.
From their website:
“MyPianist listens to your playing with the built-in microphone and reacts to it with a sophisticated A.I. algorithm. Besides your phrasing and dynamics, the model takes into account the musical style and situation; in fact it rarely tries to follow you as exactly as possible since that would sound unnatural in most musical contexts.”
Dieter has worked extensively in the field of machine learning and AI, along with being a professional violinist.
He will give a brief talk on the underlying technologies and principles behind this new digital pianist tool, before demonstrating its efficacy with a full recital programme. While it will never replace the nuance, sensitivity and interpretations of a real pianist, we can determine together whether it can be a useful tool when needed.
PROGRAM
- Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 By Amy Beach (1867 – 1944)
- Scherzo in C minor from FAE Sonata By Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1987)
- Sonata in E-flat major for Violin and Piano, Op.18 By Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
- i. Allegro ma non troppo
- ii. Improvisation: Andante cantabile
- iii. Finale: Andante – Allegro
- Scottish Fantasy in E-flat major, Op.46, 3rd movement “Andante sostenuto” By Max Bruch (1838 – 1920)
- Tango Etude No. 3 for Solo Violin By Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992)
Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 By Amy Beach (1867 – 1944)
The programme begins with the Romance by Amy Beach, a leading American composer in her own right and the first American woman to compose a symphonic work. This work was composed in 1893, demonstrating a romantic, lyrical style which illustrates strong influences from Franck and Brahms. A fitting start to the programme, in honour of Women’s month.
Scherzo in C minor from FAE Sonata By Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1987)
The Scherzo is now something of an orphan, although it was intended to be the second movement of a collaborative sonata, conceived as a welcoming gift for Joachim in Düsseldorf, with a first movement written by Albert Dietrich, the third and fourth by Robert Schumann. The recipient was asked to guess the author of each movement, which he did quite easily. [The F.A.E. of the title are the letters of Joachim’s maxim, Frei,aber einsam (Free, but lonely), and are used as notes of a motif of the sonata.]
Brahms’ contribution could hardly be mistaken – the composer’s youthful (age 20) footprints are evident: the taut energy, beginning with the violin’s Beethoven-esque three-short-and-a-long; the syncopations and cross-rhythms; the intermezzo-like lyricism of a trio that can’t resist brandishing some main section materials for the sake of unity.
Sonata in E-flat major for Violin and Piano, Op.18 By Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
i. Allegro ma non troppo
ii. Improvisation: Andante cantabile
iii. Finale: Andante – Allegro
The Violin Sonata was composed the year that Strauss first met the soprano Pauline de Ahna, whom he would later marry, and it is not hard to hear suggestions of romantic ardour in the lush lyricism of the work. This is particularly true of the rapt, long-breathed Improvisation, the Andante cantabile middle movement, which proved so popular that Strauss allowed it to be published separately. The nobly aspiring outer movements remind us that E-flat was also to be the key of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), as it was of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. Consummately crafted, they have a refined sparkle that overcomes the dark intrusions with confident energy. Strauss had already come to regard sonata form as a “hollow shell,” but one that he filled here with characteristic thematic ebullience and sophistication. The first movement shifts metre freely for different themes, and even has the two instruments playing in different metres at one point. The Finale begins with a hushed, premonitory prelude for the piano, before launching the energetic main theme, which is closely related to the opening (and emphatic closing) of the first movement. It is emotionally and technically turbulent, but relatively stable harmonically and metrically until Strauss shifts into the triple-metre variant in C-flat presaged by the piano introduction.
Scottish Fantasy in E-flat major, Op.46, 3rd movement “Andante sostenuto” By Max Bruch (1838 – 1920)
The violin, Bruch said, “can sing a melody better than a piano, and melody is the soul of music.” This notion is exemplified in his Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and here we will present the 3rd movement, based on the Scottish folk tune, “I’m a doun for lack O’Jonnie”. The melody here is so delicate and lonesome that, with this lyric, it makes you dab a drop of tear or two as you picture a girl sitting alone on the turf singing, or rather, speaking this song as she awaits Johnnie, who might have forsaken or betrayed her.
Tango Etude No. 3 for Solo Violin By Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992)
The tango etudes are a pairing of classical concert etudes and Piazzolla’s morphing of the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango ‘new tango’. Expect the development of different ideas, colours, articulations and rhythms which are foundational for this ground-breaking style. The 3rd etude provides us with a virtuosic South American flourish to end off our recital.
BIOS OF PERFORMER:
Dieter Hendricks (violin)
Dieter began violin studies at the age of 7 with Ilse Klingelhofer in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, later studying with Doina Bruno, Gabrielle Stebbins and Leo Vleeschouwer. He gained distinctions in both the Trinity associate and licentiate performance diplomas. After spending some time overseas, he returned back to Johannesburg as an active member of the professional music circuit in Gauteng, playing regularly for the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO), Phoenix Orchestra, Applegreen Orchestra and Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, along with session recording and chamber work. Dieter has a PhD in applied mathematics and machine learning, and was a full-time senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, where he remains an associate member, supervising postgraduate students and maintaining research collaborations with the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance. He is also an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town.
Dieter is the second violin of the acclaimed Pangea String Quartet (PSQ).
