Rhapsody No.1 (for piano)

Nearly two decades, and several cataclysmic events in the composer’s life and in the history of his country, Iran, separate Farid Omran’s Two Rhapsodies for Piano, and yet there is a strong connection between them. Both pieces are homages to the music of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945), who was a pioneer in paving the way for folk and peasant music of Central Europe and the Near East to enter the Western canon.  According to Omran, “Iranian folk music is very rich and varied, and not too much work has been done on this inexhaustible source. Being faithful to tonal music myself, it was a good occasion for me to compose a piece that might give an idea to the listener about Iranian folk tunes.”  Both rhapsodies have themes that in their unadorned beauty and their rough-hewn, rustic simplicity sound as if they are directly quoted from Iranian folk music, and for the first main theme of the Second Rhapsody, that is indeed the case.  But most of the melodies in these two pieces are original, skilfully woven together with the folk material to form an organic whole, and therein lies Bartok’s key influence.  

Composed in 1971, Rhapsody No. 1 for piano is brimming with all the youthful energy and unbridled enthusiasm of a 27 year old. True to its name, the piece has all the sudden tempo and mood changes that are emblematic of a Rhapsody, as exemplified by Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies (as well as some of the same technical piano acrobatics.) Yet there is also a remarkable thematic cohesion and an economy of means in it that points to Beethoven, another composer Omran often lists as a major influence: The very first measure of the piece, a descending figure in the right hand encompassing a perfect fourth, D-C-A, dominates the entire piece, while the chord in the left hand leaves no doubt that the interval of perfect fourth rules not just the melodic but also the harmonic sphere here. Together with its retrograde, A-C-D, this motif is responsible for all the main themes in the piece: the theme of slow introduction, as well as the fast peasant-dance-like theme (the one with the repeated D note in the bass that recalls Bartok’s Bear Dance,) which is interleaved with it in a slow-fast-slow-fast-slow pattern characteristic of Liszt’s rhapsodies, to form the first section of the piece.  The same descending fourth motive, now with the note B added in to complete the tetrachord,  also opens the theme of the middle section, another seemingly folk tune, reminiscent of a popular song that one could have heard on the streets of Tehran back in the 1970’s.  The middle section consists of this theme, together with five increasingly more diabolical variations of it that culminate in a series of frenzied three-octave catapults in the right hand, perhaps another nod to Liszt, before calm is again restored, the theme from the introduction returns, and with it the same interleaving pattern of slow and fast episodes of the first section, and the same Bear Dance-like theme, except now seemingly energized and invigorated by the gymnastics of the middle section.  The work thus has an arch form, characteristic of many Bartok pieces, as well as being a ubiquitous element in Iranian and Middle Eastern landscapes.    

Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh