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Concerto for Harpsichord (iii: Allegretto grazioso) by Joseph Dillon Ford
Download this movement (mp3, 4.7 MB)
Some of the most prominent musical ideas heard in Ford's Concerto for Harpsichord probably date back as far as early 1981, when the composer was twenty-nine years of age. A manuscript sketch of what was to become the opening ritornello, which bears the title "Suite à 4 pour clavessin," is dated "2/21/81," although that date is actually written above another piece in the same folio (Ford's F-major tombeau, later named "Halcyon"). The cantabile theme with which the second movement opens can be traced to another manuscript sketch of what would have been the slow introduction of a piano sonata, possibly of even earlier origin.
It was not until February of 2004, however, that Ford, by then age fifty-two, actually began work on his concerto. The first complete draft of the opening "Allegro moderato" was printed that same year on 20 March. The earliest extant draft of the "Larghetto cantabile" was completed nearly a year later on 20 February 2005, and the first complete draft of the "Allegretto grazioso" (originally marked "Tempo di minuetto") followed on 13 March. More than seventeen additional months would pass before Ford finally completed the concerto, printing the last pages of the master score and parts on 16 August 2006 after a period of extensive editing which would actually continue, in the form of minor graphic revisions, for some days thereafter.
Although the concerto is manifestly Italo-German baroque in style and pays overt homage to J. S. Bach, whose music Ford had studied with musicologist Christoph Wolff at Harvard, it also departs from its models in several distinctive ways. None of Bach's harpsichord concerti, for example, end with a set of variations for the soloist and orchestra, but Ford not only chose the theme-and-variations form for his finale but also based the movement on Bach's setting of the chorale, "Dir, dir, Jehovah will ich singen," found in the Notenbüchlein the German master compiled for his second wife, Anna Magdalena. This fact explains the unorthodox nickname "Chorale Concerto" bestowed by the composer. (The baroque "chorale concerto" is actually a type of sacred vocal music for one or more voices and instruments.) Ford's work also follows a harmonic scheme not characteristic of the baroque harpsichord concerto, opening in G minor, transiting through a slow movement in C minor, and using the dominant of C minor as a pivot into the G-major finale. This scheme, however, effectively heightens the sense of dramatic tension and release, as pathos gives way to mirth with the climactic change of mode.
The overall structure of the "Allegro moderato" recalls the baroque concerto in its alternating contrastive statements by orchestral ritornello and soloist. The ritornello, heard complete in the first twenty-five measures, recurs thereafter in differentiated, mostly fragmentary forms of varying length. Although the soloist initially introduces new material between occurrences of the ritornello, after a brief transition to E-flat major (mm. 65–78), it is closely integrated with the latter in a lengthy "development" section (mm. 78–143) wherein it actually quotes or otherwise enlarges upon the ideas of the ritornello. The ritornello in G minor beginning with the anacrusis in m. 142 thus serves as a kind of "recapitulation," inviting further comparison with eighteenth-century sonata and sonata-rondo forms more closely identified with composers who lived and worked after Bach.
The "Larghetto cantabile" was suggested, at least in part, by the exquisite A-flat-major "Largo" of Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord in F Minor (BWV 1056), as evidenced by its pizzicato accompaniment and singing melody. But Ford's "Larghetto" is cast in the somber minor mode, and unlike Bach's movement, focusses so single-mindedly on the right-hand melody of the soloist that the left hand remains largely at rest. On the other hand, Ford has given much more musical prominence to the first and second violins and cello, all of which break away from a simple accompanying role to provide essential musical ideas of their own. The movement falls into two large sections, articulated by a recitative-style cadence. The first section opens with a plaintive tune that is later taken up in modified polyphonic form by the first and second violins (mm. 12–25), rejoined presently by the harpsichord playing a delicate obbligato ( mm. 17–21). In the second half of the movement, a new harpsichord melody in triplet rhythms with pizzicato accompaniment is punctuated by expressive interjections from the cello. By and by the triplets are distributed among the soloist's right and left hands, and with a long trill over bass triplets, the movement draws quietly to a close on the dominant, setting the stage for the G-major tonality of the finale.
The last movement opens with an orchestrated version of Bach's setting of "Dir, dir, Jehovah, will ich singen," with each half of the chorale repeated. Thereafter, soloist and orchestra alternate and share equally as they present varied iterations of this borrowed material. The first variation (mm. 19–52) introduces new embellishments and livelier rhythms, concluding with a triplet melody in the first violins. The second variation (mm. 52–83) is livelier still, with sixteenth-note figuration in the solo part over delicate pizzicato accompaniment, alternating with equally ebullient statements of each half of the chorale tune in the first violins. A dramatic E-minor fugato whose subject is based on the first four measures of the chorale melody ensues in the strings (mm. 83–100), building up to a startling reentry of the harpsichord in its highest register as it repeats the first half of the chorale tune in A minor over crystalline scalar figuration. This variation is greatly extended and fantastically elaborated into a quasi-development section (mm. 107–36) which motivically recalls the chorale tune while at the same time discovering new material and presenting the harpsichordist with an opportunity for virtuosic flights of fancy. After a short fully notated cadenza, the meter shifts from 3/4 to a sprightly alla breve and the fugato texture resumes as the second violin, viola, and first violin present the four-measure subject in an entirely new guise (with reinforcement from cello and harpsichord). The soloist enters with yet another novel variation of the first half of the chorale tune, emphasizing this time not its melodic contour but its underlying harmonic structure (mm. 152–60). The movement concludes with a brightly animated tutti version of the second half of the chorale melody, topped off with an arpeggiated flourish deftly delivered by the soloist.
You may hear the entire concerto at the following URL:
The calligraphic ornament above is based on a fourteenth-century design detail appearing in Plate No. 11 of W. R. Tymms, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times ... (London: Day and Son, 1860.) The roundel frames above were derived from a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript depicting the "Vision of Isaiah" attributed to Girolamo Da Cremona, now housed in the Libreria Piccolomini, Duomo, Siena.
