Inspired by a class in historical performance traditions, and written for two classmates from that course, these Three Investigations are explorations of different compositional styles, principles, techniques, and figures, which have gone in and out of “vogue” over the years. Perhaps that makes this piece anachronistic, but I’d beg to differ. Even though the gestures and ideas may be old, the music can’t help but be new.

Recorded live at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music (Turner Recital Hall), April 10-11, 2021; Luciano Marsalli (violin 1), Whit FitzGerald (violin 2), Jacob Beranek (piano).

Three Investigations for Two Violin & Piano (2021)

Recording: August 31, 2016 - David Perry (violin), Dr. William Koehler (piano) - Midsummer's Music Festival, Egg Harbor, WI. 

Written in 2015, Jacob Beranek’s Sonata for Violin and Piano combines several musical elements to form one, unified composition. It incorporates a variety of influences from different eras and origins, and derives inspiration from the works of Janáček, Martinů, Hindemith, Bartók, Debussy, and Poulenc. With a strong Czech and German heritage, the composer seeks to reflect tradition while infusing modern twists into his music.

In the first movement, the most serious of the three, a quiet energy is constantly present, driving the music forward. Interplay between the two instruments is introduced, which becomes more prominent throughout the piece. The second movement begins in a somewhat calm manner, but excitement builds rapidly. Sections of playfully rhythmic themes are contrasted with more lyrical ones that create an enticing musical conversation. After the second movement’s triumphant conclusion, a dreamlike theme is introduced by the violin to commence the final movement. This theme serves as a jumping-off point for several variations that travel across the world and through the many emotions of the heart. The kaleidoscopic journey comes to an exuberant finale with strains of a boisterous Czech folk dance.

As a whole, the Sonata is anchored in contrasts between musical extremes: humor with melancholy, folk with classicism, pensiveness with excitement, and plaintive feeling with exultant praise.

Sonata for Violin and Piano (complete)

For many years, I have felt a strong connection to my Czech heritage on my father’s side of the family. Whether it manifests itself in music, literature, visual art, folk tradition, or (last but not least) food, the culture and history of the Czech people has resonated with me ever since I learned about my great-great-grandfather and his emigration from Bohemia in 1891. Because of this background and interest in history, I was aware that the year 2018 was a significant one for the Czech people: 100 years since independence from Austria, 50 years since Prague Spring, and 25 years since the founding of the Republic. I wanted to, in hopefully a significant but unassuming way, bring attention to this concurrence of anniversaries by composing a piece to commemorate these events and their significance to world history. Therefore, I was overjoyed when the University of Wisconsin-River Falls generously agreed to commission a piece to be premiered in conjunction with the Czech-Slovak 100/50/25 initiatives taking place throughout Midwestern America in 2018.

The resulting composition is entitled "Památník" (translated as “memorial” or “monument” in Czech), which truly describes my artistic intention for the work. The piece begins with a strong low brass motif (using the first four notes of the ancient Czech chorale "Svatý Václave") which builds rapidly until a plaintively expressive tuba solo introduces the main theme of the work. After being passed to a solo euphonium, the texture expands until a syncopated brass and percussion interlude leads to a flowing transition of winds and xylophone, both reusing and foreshadowing motivic material. As the section gains momentum, a solo oboe introduces the middle section’s jaunty main theme, a variant of the Czech "furiant," which is a fiery folk dance known for its feeling of alternation between duple and triple meter. While the tune is original, it toys with strains of the Czech folksong "Sedlák, sedlák, sedlák" and Smetana’s Furiant from "The Bartered Bride." Then, as tension and anxiety build, driving eighth-note rhythms in the woodwinds carry remnants of the furiant theme into the recapitulation, with the trumpet restating the beginning of the main theme. The underlying energy does not lessen, however, and gradually the emotion builds to a high, powerful climax, from which point the music cascades into the Czech national anthem, "Kde domov můj." As the woodwinds’ flurrying accompaniment mixes with what could be the bells of Prague pealing triumphantly, the main theme bursts forth one final time in counterpoint with the anthem. The two push forward together until one last nod to the furiant carries the piece home to a jubilant conclusion.

Many thanks to Dr. Michael Alec Rose for his spirited guidance, as well as to Dr. Michael Kurek, Dr. Jack Stamp, Dr. Thomas Verrier, and Mr. Ronald Foster for their constructive criticism and support.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, this piece is dedicated to my dear friend and mentor Joel Blahník, without whom my love of all things Czech would have gone untended. Všechno nejlepší k narozeninám, a mnohokrát děkuji!

Recording: March 23, 2019, Ingram Center for the Performing Arts, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN - Vanderbilt University Wind Symphony, Dr. Thomas Verrier, Director

Památník: Memorial for Wind Ensemble (2018)

The modern wind quintet has enjoyed a rich, colorful history for two centuries. With this Wind Quintet, I strove to put my own personal spin on the genre while still honoring its heritage. The resulting work, therefore, is a study in tradition and play, upholding my philosophy of writing something I’d enjoy if I were sitting in the audience—and something that hopefully fulfills players in rehearsal and performance.

The first movement is in classical sonata-allegro form. This choice was an experiment to see if this tried, embraced, discarded, and re-embraced mold stands the test of time, making it “my own” only by placing my own ideas inside. The second movement takes the form of a rondo with a reflective introduction and lively coda. This mixed-meter movement is built around a repetitive, jaunty A theme that returns twice after its first statement, with contrasting themes sandwiched in between (ABACA). The third movement is a theme and variations—or perhaps more accurately, a hymn and investigations. After the theme (which begins with a brief quotation of Vaughan Williams’s Sine nomine), a jiglike variation in 6/8 leads into a more pensive variation with the theme covered-up in the bassline. A pointillist restatement of the theme pops up and dances right into a fugue, which is the largest of the five variations. After hearkening back to my original hymn tune in a chorale-like final variation, the third movement settles to a close, and the finale begins. This last movement is ternary (ABA) and features an A theme built around two syncopated tunes which are contrasted by a flowing B section. The A section returns after some finagling, and once it pulls itself together, rushes headlong to a jubilant conclusion, joyously concluding the celebration.

Recording: July 17, 2019, Midsummer’s Music Festival, Fish Creek, WI - Heather Zinninger Yarmel (flute), Margaret Butler (oboe), JJ Koh (clarinet), Fritz Foss (horn), Nathaniel Hale (bassoon)

Wind Quintet (2019)

When I started to conceive this work, the word "partita" came to mind from the first note. Although the term is often associated with Bach’s dance suites, partita literally means “divided off” or “separated,” and therefore only signifies a composition that is divided into multiple movements, nothing more. Having written a lot of programmatic music lately, I wanted to use this piece as an opportunity to move away from explicit narrative and instead try to hold the audience’s attention via purely musical means. A “partita” fit this concept perfectly, and for a bit of descriptive flair, I added the qualifier “melodica.” Compositionally speaking, my primary focus while writing this piece was to improve my sense of harmony and harmonic language, but also to develop my unabashed love of melody. While I’ve been writing “tunes” for ten years, I made it one of my missions this past year to delve into a more thorough study of melodic line and employ it in my music. What better way to test (and expose) myself than a partita melodica? 

The opening movement, Prelude, sets the scene and establishes the lyrical scope of the work. The middle movement, Romanza, explores a wide-range of emotions, and after building to a climax, releases to a cadenza-like section. As the energy builds, the music transitions directly into the lively, dancelike Rondo, paying homage to the partita’s history. Utilizing previous motivic material in the B and C themes, the movement cyclically concludes with the second and first themes from the Prelude, before one last soloistic flair from the English horn rounds out the work in jubilant celebration. 

Recording: November 5, 2018, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Milwaukee, WI - Milwaukee Musaik: Margaret Butler (English horn), Jeanyi Kim (violin), Erin Pipal (viola), Scott Tisdel (cello), Rip Prétat (double bass)

Partita melodica (2018)

During the summer of 2018, I received a fellowship at the Talis Festival & Academy, situated in the beautiful Alps of Saas-Fee, Switzerland. As part of the eleven-day fellowship, I was expected to supervise rehearsals for a world premiere and attend seminars, readings, other rehearsals, and performances, on top of composing two entirely new pieces, including this one.

Given the short timespan, "Of a Fleeting Flower" was composed in six days, and consists of an unorthodox string quartet instrumentation which was assigned to me during composition. This instrumentation, however, is particularly rich, and felt extremely well-suited for the emotional ideas I was exploring in the work: the sensation of time moving too quickly and yet remarkably slowly, timeless moments in which we’re still desperately aware of the seconds ticking, eternal instants which we spend with something (or someone) beautiful but know it will not last. These thoughts are reflected in the music by the interplay of different melodies, the constant modification of the tempo, and an intentional control of rhythmic complexity—at first still, then gradually more involved, then backing off, then delving in densely, and finally transparently longing. The title references a short poem I composed at the same time as the music:

For the sweet joy of a fleeting flower:
embraced briefly, released reluctantly,
never spurned, ever felt, 
yet awaiting.

Recording: June 21, 2019, Midsummer’s Music Festival, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Ephraim, WI - David Perry and Stephanie Preucil, violins; Walter Preucil, cello; Andrew Keller, double bass

Of a Fleeting Flower (2018)

Digging through old boxes one day, my grandmother found a cassette tape dated “March 4, 1973.” Knowing my interest in family history, she gifted me this once-trendy-now-ancient audio device and explained that in the days of long-distance calls, it used to be cheaper to communicate with her in-laws (my great-grandparents) by sending an hourlong recorded “voice letter” on tape than to pay to call from Wisconsin to Colorado. Only having met my great-grandfather a handful of times and never having met my great-grandmother, I was amazed and touched to hear their real, live voices coming through the speakers once I played the cassette.

Years later, during my sophomore year at Vanderbilt University, my friend percussion major Josh Weinfeld and I were paired up in a composition department initiative called “Percussipalooza,” in which composition majors wrote a piece for percussion majors. I remembered the cassette tape my grandma gifted me, and after hours of editing and excerpting, I fashioned the imported audio files into a five-minute conversation between my great-grandparents. The music I subsequently composed, more than underscoring the tape, directly corresponds to the structure of the conversation and the voices speaking (Great-Grandpa’s theme quotes his favorite piece of classical music, and Great-Grandma’s theme harmonizes her laugh). The interplay between the two moves between serious and comical, until confusion sets in as the voices begin interrupting each other. Out of the chaos, Great-Grandma rings clear: “One of these days we’ll come back to sensible styles again.” After the dust settles, a hymn-like restatement of Great-Grandma’s theme leads into a reminiscing reprise of Great-Grandpa’s theme as he reminds us that it is only “goodbye for now.”

Recording: April 15, 2019, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN - Joshua Weinfeld, percussion

Sunday, March 4, 1973 (2018)

Adapted from John Keats’s poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn, this love song describes an image of a young couple: a “bold” young man (the “happy melodist”) serenades a “fair” young woman “beneath the trees.” The two lovers yearn to be together, but it is impossible as the image is engraved on an ancient vase (hence Keats’s title). The text marvels at both the heartache and the beauty of the young lovers’ situation. On one hand, the two can never kiss each other, even though they are “winning near the goal,” but at the same time, there is still joy because the moment “cannot fade.” The young man finds solace in the fact that, though he falls short of his “bliss,” he will forever love the young woman and she will forever be beautiful. In the end, Keats delivers the moral of the story in some of his most famous lines: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Our Rhyme is a musical depiction of this tale, illustrating both the
paradoxical joy and sad longing of Keats’s two young Greek lovers. This setting of the poem begins and ends with Keats’s final lines, creating an arc of passionate storytelling in between two bookends. As the composition develops—eventually employing a pair of soloists to represent the young couple—it strikes its apex, emphasizing the lyrics “More happy love!” Here, after a moment of silence and a brief return to the original material, the soloists make one final, longing gesture together, still knowing they will never kiss. The choir envelops them, softly echoing “Beauty! Truth! Love!”

Recording: March 18, 2017 (world premiere) - North Dakota State University Concert Choir (Dr. Jo Ann Miller, conducting), Peace Lutheran Church, Fargo, ND.

Our Rhyme (2017)

Live Recording: March 7, 2019 - The Gesualdo Six, Cadogan Hall, London, UK (world premiere).

--

While setting the text to this Abendgebet (“evening prayer”) by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I realized that these words were not only a prayer for the evening, but also the prayer of one in the evening of his earthly life. Bonhoeffer, who had been imprisoned for plotting the assassination of Adolf Hitler, wrote this prayer in jail, only months before his execution. Therefore, as I wrote the end of the composition, I wanted to conclude it in a manner fitting Bonhoeffer’s own perspective on death and life. It occurred to me that a powerful yet peaceful “Amen” was necessary to complete this image, and the idea suddenly struck me to set the “Amen” to the tune of the Lutheran chorale Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”). For me, this allusion would perfectly represent Bonhoeffer’s hope amidst death and strength amidst evil. It was not until later that day that I happened to learn the circumstances before Bonhoeffer’s death: the day before his execution, Bonhoeffer conducted his final Sunday service inside the Flossenbürg concentration camp. As the Gestapo entered to escort Bonhoeffer to his “trial,” Bonhoeffer concluded the service and led the congregation with one last hymn: Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott.

Abendgebet (2018)

Commissioned for the 30th anniversary of the Midsummer’s Music Festival, my first Piano Trio presents my own unique take on the genre, while honoring the piano trio repertoire so powerfully championed by Midsummer’s Music. It was very important to me while composing this piece to consider the nature of the festival: their ardent dedication to unsung masterworks alongside canonical monoliths left an indelible impression on my imagination as this composition came into being. That being said, my goal while writing this piece was, as always, to compose something new that communicates to listeners and performers, leading each of them on their own, personal journey—a piece of music which has no agenda except to be itself, something with which everybody can engage and in which everyone can find meaning, a work that is treated as a living thing. After all, isn’t that what art is? Alive? As a professor once told me, “art is a verb.” I hope that through my own use of time-honored crafts like melody, dissonance, harmony, and counterpoint, this Piano Trio will inspire and affect all those involved in a surprising, energetic, organic, and uplifting way.

Recording: August 17, 2020, Midsummer’s Music Festival, Miller Art Museum, Sturgeon Bay, WI - David Perry (violin), Greg Sauer (cello), Jeannie Yu (piano)

Piano Trio No. 1, "Midsummer" (2020)

Jacob Beranek is a Wisconsin-born, New York-based composer of classical music rooted in melody. His compositions are infused with his love of historical traditions — musical, religious, or even his Czech heritage. Beranek served as the inaugural Composer-in-Residence of the Midsummer’s Music Festival (Door County, USA) from 2017–20. His works have been championed by the GRAMMY®-nominated ALIAS Chamber Ensemble (Nashville), Band of the Castle Guards & Czech Police (Prague), Dolce Suono Ensemble (Philadelphia), Euterpe Quintet (Seoul), and The Gesualdo Six (London). He is a student of John Corigliano at The Juilliard School.

Jacob Beranek

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