IV. Rondino - Concertino for flute, viola, and double bass by Ervín Schulhoff

Concertino for flute, viola, and double bass by Ervín Schulhoff (1894-1942).
I. Andante con fuoco
II. Furiant
III. Andante
IV. Rondino
Elizabeth Rowe, flute
Steven Ansell, viola
Edwin Baker, double bass
The brilliant Czech composer-pianist Ervín Schulhoff (born in Prague; died in Wülzburg) studied at the conservatories of Prague (beginning there at age ten after an introduction by Dvořák), Vienna, Leipzig, and Cologne. Many musical movements of his time fascinated him: the blending of folk and art music, American jazz, Soviet socialist realism, French neoclassicism and impressionism, expressionism, Czech microtonalism, and Viennese atonalism.
After serving in the Austrian army during World War I, Schulhoff lived in Germany until 1923, aligned with the avant-garde, even composing a jazz-oratorio. When he could no longer remain in Germany, he wrote symphonies in the style of socialist realism while playing as a jazz pianist in Prague under a pseudonym. After becoming a Soviet citizen in 1941, Schulhoff was detained in Prague and then sent to the Wülzburg concentration camp, where he perished.
Schulhoff's Concertino for flute (and piccolo), viola, and double bass, reputedly composed in four days from May 28 to June 1, 1925-is a distinctive work. Timbre particularly interested Schulhoff, and the work's unusual structure resembles a Baroque trio sonata except in the choice of instruments, Schulhoff draws on extreme ranges from the piccolo (used in two movements) to the double bass. The bass does not function solely as provider of rhythm or color; the composer places virtuosic demands on it with solo sections of utmost difficulty.
The Concertino begins with the flute playing an improvisatory-sounding line while the viola and bass offer accompaniment. Schulhoff wrote, "The accompaniment figure at the beginning of the first movement (viola/bass) was taken from a Russian Orthodox litany. Above this (as often found in old Slavic song) a floating melody in the flute." Although in this movement he introduces short episodes unrelated to or contrasting with the beginning, he also reprises the initial pattern. The use of this technique has been related to Schulhoff's interest in dance, and the ostinato-like figures have drawn the notice of some commentators. Arthur Cohn has written, "These are used constantly, not only for pulsatile probity but for color functions whereby one specific-hued scale is fastened at one gamut working against other timbre tints in motion, or in related and opposed ostinatos."
Nationalism figures importantly, too, with Czech folk coloring becoming evident in the second movement. Schulhoff commented, “The second movement (as a scherzo) [is] a 'Beseda,' known as the Czech national dance, whose main factor is indicated by the 'Furiant' tempo marking.” This movement displays alternating rhythms and varying accentuations in a five-beat rhythm. The composer identifies his technique in the Andante: “The theme of the slow movement, based on a Carpathian-Russian love song, is successively taken over unchanged by each instrument, always appearing within the ornamented framework of two voices.” The final movement, Rondino, is based on another folk dance, about which Schulhoff explains, "The last movement 'Rondino' [is] based on the song of a Carpathian-Russian bear tamer, the second part a Slovakian shepherd's theme in the flute with ostinato accompaniment figures in the viola and bass. The whole, a piece of folk music common to popular festivities in the eastern parts of the Czechoslovakian Republic, where people sing in cheerful minor keys and dance accordingly. The harmonic structure of Concertino is based on Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian church modes."
January 19, 2020