The Many Voices of the Piano Solo Works from Three Centuries
Har r y Haskell
The piano has many, contrasting voices. The instrument owes its very name, pianoforte, to its ability to produce sounds both soft and loud. At once melodic and percussive in nature, the piano’s versatility is adapted to a similarly wide range of tone colors and modes of expression. Tonight’s program juxtaposes two pairs of related works, distinguished by their timbral and expressive subtleties, with one of most explosive musical utterances of the 20th century. The impression of spontaneity conveyed by Schubert’s Four Impromptus belies the music’s emotional depth and scope. Jörg Widmann, who has written a series of musical homages to the Viennese master, observes that “before Mahler, Schubert was the one who went the farthest to the most remote regions of our soul.” Another contemporary German composer, Matthias Pintscher, discerns an affinity between Ravel and Boulez as two masters of “sonic architecture” who “follow an intricately detailed plan, while at the same time liberating themselves and giving the music a logical flow.” Prokofiev completed his powerful B flat–major Sonata in the darkest days of World War II. By turns percussive and lyrical, thunderously loud and mesmerizingly soft, the music expresses what pianist Sviatoslav Richter called “the anxiously threatening atmosphere of a world that has lost its balance.”
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