Hey, how you guys doing? This is Jonathan, your absent Publications Officer, writing in from the faraway land of Canada on the art of writing programme notes! Ren Jie has probably already presented on this a (fair) bit two Frdays ago, but with OUAT coming up, I thought it would be prudent for me to provide a rough written guide for everyone, especially the performers. Hopefully, by the end of next week, you all can submit well-rounded, personal, and interesting notes on your pieces. It wouldn’t hurt to whet the listening appetite of your audience as much as possible before the concert starts! (since it’s classical music anyhow).
It’s quite recommended that you write in two paragraphs, one describing the man, the other describing the music. With that in mind, all you need to do is to google everything, looking out for the relevant things:
birth/death dates and the place of birth.
style of compositions (romantic, contemporary)
any innovations he might have introduced
famous works
defining feature in his life
If you’re apt enough to point out that Dvorak was the first Western composer to include themes from Native American sources or that Alkan died as esoteric a death as the compositions he wrote (and other interesting trivia), then you’re on your way to writing good program notes!
You can do the same with the next paragraph by briefly talking about the history of the piece in question.
Here’s a list of what to think about:
Circumstances whereby work was composed (money, opera?)
Audience the work was directed towards (teenage girls?)
Original set of instruments work was composed for (e.g orchestra)
History of performance (e.g Mendelssohn’s Scherzo transposed for solo by Rach)
Reception of piece (Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was booed)
However, there’s a subtle difference here; you probably have to include your own opinions of the piece you’re playing. Think, feel, believe, what you like about the piece and the collection of adjectives you associate it with.
Here’s another list of things you could consider for this:
Mood of piece (e.g joyful, sad, lonely theme)
Technical difficulties (e.g 8-hands hard to coordinate)
Chronological considerations, how it begins, proceeds through sections, and ends
Collections of cheesy metahpors (e.g dazzling finish, exciting climax etc.)
What you wish to convey with your performance
A bit of faking and you’re good to go, probably! And there you have it, programme notes!
As a kind of conclusion, I would like to say that programme notes are more important than one thinks! We live in a sordid world of first impressions, a world bound by common language and cultural status quos, unfavorable to the genre of music we are playing. So, just as a confident salesman has to advertise a product before a reluctant audience, we pianists have to try our best to get people to understand where we’re coming from. Programme notes have the unique function of summarizing music into language that laypeople understand what to look for, and it’s your job to do that effectively to your audience. Who knows, your effort may deepen someone’s enjoyment of the concert as a whole!
So yeah, the theme is cool and the repertoire is awesome and distinctive. I would sprain my left ankle in exchange for being able to perform but sigh that’s impossible. Hopefully that spurs you on to write admirably!
Leave questions in the comment box!
Jon