The Art of the Recital: Alessio Bax - March 27, 2014

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

THE ART OF THE RECITAL

ALESSIO BAX

Thursday Evening, March 27, 2014 at 7:30 Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio 3,306th Concert

www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 10th Floor New York, NY 10023 212-875-5788 www.chambermusicsociety.org

THE ART OF THE RECITAL Thursday Evening, March 27, 2014 at 7:30

ALESSIO BAX, piano

LUDWIG VAN Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major for Piano, BEETHOVEN Op. 106, “Hammerklavier” (1817-18) (1770-1827)

Allegro

Scherzo: Assai vivace Adagio sostenuto Largo—Fuga: Allegro risoluto

—INTERMISSION— MODEST Pictures at an Exhibition for Piano (1874) MUSSORGSKY Promenade (1839-1881)

Gnomus

Promenade Il vecchio castello Promenade Tuileries (Dispute d’entants après jeux) Bydto Promenade Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuÿle Promenade Limoges. Le marché (La grande nouvelle) Catacombe (Sepulcrum romanum) Con mortuis in lingua mortua The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba-Yaga) The Bogatyr Gate (at Kiev, the Ancient Capital)

Please turn off cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.

Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

This evening’s performance is being streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive

notes on the

PROGRAM

Tonight’s program will feature what I believe to be two of the most significant works in music literature. Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata is a long journey during which the composer explores intimate secrets, joys and fears of humankind, and carries the spirit from unimaginable depths to unbelievable heights. From the first movement‘s bundle of rhythmic energy and its tightly woven structure, to the uplifting tilt of the Scherzo, Beethoven’s harmonic and rhythmic imagination is boundless. The Adagio, a 20-minute-long movement written in full sonata form, has a desperate inner beauty coupled with an inward soul searching. A special mention needs to go to the introduction to the Fugue, a seemingly improvised, but extremely carefully notated passage in which Beethoven sends the performer and the audience on a search in the dark. The final Fugue is a monument. A long-winding, thorny subject is the base for all kinds of fugal devices, used one after another to build enough energy to power the city of New York. This energy generated by the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, at times silently looking inward and at times bursting outward, is a miracle.

Mussorgsky’s celebrated Pictures at an Exhibition are a staple in both the piano and the orchestral repertoires. The original piano version has an uncannily Russian feel, which in my opinion does not translate into the stunning orchestration by Maurice Ravel. The Promenades are quite special, as they are emotionally influenced by the picture you’ve just “seen” and the one you are about to. Also masterful is how Mussorgsky somehow manages to create a big structure out of these seemingly disparate pieces.

These pieces take us on two incredible journeys. The Beethoven is a journey through one’s soul. I have lived with this work for 20 years now (!) and it never fails to amaze me. While I grow as a person, it seems as if the sonata’s many elements change connotation, meaning, and purpose. That is a very rare thing in a piece of music, no matter how great. It always poses new challenges and will continue to inspire me in perpetuity. The Mussorgsky is a very different kind of journey: a real journey through landscapes, cities, and extremely colorful scenes. The colors and pianism needed to make these pictures come alive always spur my imagination and inspire me to find new ways to make our “percussion” instrument sing, tell a story, and be a little more human.

Both pieces never fail to leave the performer and the audience somewhat changed. I am looking forward immensely to accompanying you tonight on these two life-altering journeys.

-Alessio Bax

Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major for Piano, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier” Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Born December 16, 1770 in Bonn.

Died March 26, 1827 in Vienna.

Composed in 1817-18.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 46 minutes Beethoven’s younger brother, Caspar Carl, a bank clerk of modest success in Vienna, died of tuberculosis on November 15, 1815. Though Caspar seems to have lived with her contentedly, his wife, Johanna, was a woman of sullied reputation whom the composer characterized as “wicked and vicious ...The Queen of the Night.” Beethoven felt that she was unfit to raise the couple’s nineyear-old child, Karl, and he convinced his brother to name him as the boy’s guardian. Two days before he died, Caspar Carl included this provision in his will. During the following hours, however, he had misgivings about taking Karl from his mother, and added a codicil that, in effect, named his wife and brother as co-guardians, thereby contradicting the earlier provision.

There ensued nearly five years of bitter legal battles between Beethoven and Johanna over the custody of Karl, who was mired in misery all the while by the unsettled state of his young life. The case was first decided in Beethoven’s favor in February 1816. Various subsequent proceedings were instituted by Johanna (usually after Karl had fled to her from the smothering attentions of his uncle),

and the courts again formally took up the matter in 1818. Litigation dragged on for the next two years. The eventual settlement in 1820 was painful for Beethoven, not because he lost the suit (he won, but alienated the boy so thoroughly that six years later he tried to kill himself), but because the proceedings revealed that he was without noble ancestors, a life-long belief that he held tenaciously until it was publicly exploded in court. With declining health, shattered hearing, and family turmoil sapping so much of Beethoven’s energy during that time (he turned 50 in 1820), it is little wonder that that halfdecade was the least productive period of his creative life. Between the two Cello Sonatas, Op. 102 of 1815 and the Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 109 of 1820, the only major works that he completed were the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte and the Piano Sonatas in A (Op. 101) and B-flat, the “Hammerklavier” (Op. 106).

It was during the summer of 1817 that Beethoven began his “Hammerklavier” Sonata (so-called because in 1816 the nation-proud composer instructed his publishers to henceforth use that German term for his keyboard works rather than the common Italian word “pianoforte”), when he had escaped from Vienna to rusticate in Heiligenstadt, Nussdorf, and Baden; it was completed late the following year. Upon its publication by Artaria in October 1819, the score was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven’s student and most dependable patron, who had been elected Archbishop of Olmütz a few months before. The “Hammerklavier” Sonata is among the first manifestations of Beethoven’s late style, when he was

simultaneously striving for both greater concentration and greater expansion than he had achieved in his earlier music.

The major works of his last decade—the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, the quartets, and the sonatas—evoke an unprecedented range of emotions and power of expression through the use of distant key relations, bold juxtapositions, vast formal proportions, muscular rhythms, and daring harmonies. The element of concentration, which at first seems inimical to that of expansion, is here actually inextricably allied with it, since Beethoven was able to increase the density of this music—its specific emotional gravity—through complex counterpoint and exquisite control of motivic figuration at the same time that he increased its scope and duration. It is this joining of apparent antitheses— the extension of form alongside the heightening of measure-to-measure expressive intensity—that makes the late works of Beethoven the most profound and challenging in the entire realm of music.

The “Hammerklavier” Sonata is epic in scale yet inexhaustibly subtle in detail.

Its four movements—a sonata-form Allegro with a cantabile second theme,

a Scherzo with a contrasting central trio in quick duple meter, an Adagio in sonata form of almost unparalleled sublimity, and a vast fugue that employs virtually every contrapuntal technique— encompass and bring into balance an enormous range of emotional states that find no counterpart in mere words.

Opposites are here joined: the sonata contains the broadest slow movement that Beethoven ever wrote, as well as one of his most minutely realized fugues; the work is firmly rooted in traditional formal procedures, yet seeks constantly to break their fetters; those who perform the “Hammerklavier” must bring to it both the physical endurance of an athlete and the most exalted interpretative skills of the artist. The words of Artaria’s notice in the Wiener Zeitung of September 15, 1819 announcing the publication of the “Hammerklavier” Sonata still apply well to this extraordinary music: “We shall now put aside all the usual eulogies, which would in any case be superfluous for the admirers of Beethoven’s great artistic talent. We note only that this work, which excels all this master’s other creations in its rich and grand fantasy, artistic perfection, and sustained style, will mark a new period in Beethoven’s piano compositions.” 

Pictures at an Exhibition for Piano

In the years around 1850, with the spirit of nationalism sweeping through Europe, several young Russian artists banded together to rid their art of foreign influences in order to establish a distinctive character for their works. At the front of this movement was a group of composers known as “The Five,” whose members included Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, César Cui, and Mily Balakirev. Among the allies that The Five found in other fields was the artist and architect Victor Hartmann, with whom Mussorgsky became close personal friends. Hartmann’s premature death at 39 stunned the composer and the entire Russian artistic community.

Vladimir Stassov, noted critic and journalistic champion of the Russian arts movement, organized a memorial exhibit of Hartmann’s work in February 1874, and it was under the inspiration of that showing of his late friend’s works that Mussorgsky conceived his Pictures at an Exhibition.

When he took up the piece in early June, he worked with unaccustomed speed. “‘Hartmann’ is bubbling over, just as Boris did,” he wrote. “Ideas, melodies come to me of their own accord, like a banquet of music—I gorge and gorge and overeat myself. I can hardly manage to put them down on paper fast enough.”

The ease with which Mussorgsky found music to memorialize his friend’s pictures was in part the result of his writing in a style perfectly suited to his talents. Since Pictures was composed as a suite of brief sketches for piano, he did not have to concern himself with the troublesome problems of orchestration, nor with the business of thematic development or large formal structure. These last two techniques were particularly difficult for the Russian composers, who had almost no training in the German symphonic traditions. Each of the Pictures is direct and immediately expressive, with a clearly etched melodic and harmonic personality. For the most part, the movements depict sketches, watercolors, and architectural designs shown publicly at the Hartmann exhibit, though Mussorgsky based two or three sections on canvases that he had been shown privately by the artist before his death. The composer linked his sketches together with a musical Promenade in which he depicted his own rotund self shuffling—in an uneven meter—from one picture to the next.

At the time of the exhibit, Mussorgsky was engaged in preparations for the first public performance of his opera Boris Godunov, and he was unable to devote any time to his Pictures until summer.

Promenade. According to Stassov, this recurring section depicts Mussorgsky “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly in order to come

Modest MUSSORGSKY Born March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia.

Died March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg.

Composed in 1874.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 34 minutes

close to a picture that had attracted his attention, and, at times sadly, thinking of his friend.”

Gnomus. Hartmann’s drawing, now lost, is of a fantastic wooden nutcracker representing a gnome.

Il vecchio castello. A troubadour sings a doleful lament before a foreboding, ruined ancient fortress.

Tuileries. Mussorgsky’s subtitle is “Dispute of the Children after Play.”

Hartmann’s picture shows a corner of the famous Parisian garden filled with nursemaids and their youthful charges.

Bydto. Hartmann’s picture depicts a rugged wagon drawn by oxen. The peasant driver sings a plaintive melody heard first from afar, then close-by, before the cart passes away into the distance.

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.

Hartmann’s costume design for the 1871 fantasy ballet Trilby shows dancers enclosed in enormous egg shells, with only their arms, legs, and heads protruding.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle.

The title was given to the music by Stassov. Mussorgsky originally called this movement, “Two Jews: one rich, the other poor.” It was inspired by two pictures Hartmann presented to the composer showing a pair of residents of the Sandomierz ghetto in Poland.

Mussorgsky based both themes on

incantations he heard on visits to Jewish synagogues.

Limoges. Le marché (La grande nouvelle).

A lively sketch of a bustling market, with animated conversations flying among the female vendors.

Catacombe (Sepulcrum romanum)—Con mortuis in lingua mortua. Hartmann’s drawing shows him being led by a guide with a lantern through cavernous underground tombs. The movement’s second section, bearing the title “With the Dead in a Dead Language,” is a mysterious transformation of the Promenade theme.

The Hut on Hen’s Legs. Hartmann’s sketch is a design for an elaborate clock suggested by Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch of Russian folklore who eats human bones she has ground into paste with her mortar and pestle. She also can fly through the air on her fantastic mortar, and Mussorgsky’s music suggests a wild, midnight ride.

The Bogatyr Gate (at Kiev, the Ancient Capital). Mussorgsky’s grand conclusion to his suite was inspired by Hartmann’s plan for a gateway in the massive old Russian style crowned with a cupola in the shape of a Slavic warrior’s helmet, for the city of Kiev. The majestic music suggests both the imposing bulk of the edifice (never built, incidentally) and a brilliant procession passing through its arches. The work ends with a heroic statement of the Promenade theme and a jubilant pealing of the great bells of the city.  © 2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

meet tonight’s

ARTIST

Pianist Alessio Bax is praised for creating “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility. First Prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions and a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including the London and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, the Dallas and Houston symphonies, the NHK Symphony in Japan, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle.

During the 2013-14 season, Mr. Bax returns to the Dallas Symphony under Jaap van Zweden at Bravo! Vail and in Dallas, and to the UK’s Southbank Sinfonia, with which he recorded a pair of Mozart piano concertos. He also appears with conductor Hannu Lintu in Finland, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Hans Graf, the Berkeley Symphony, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and as concerto soloist at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. Recipient of Lincoln Center’s 2013 Martin E. Segal Award and the 2013 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he tours South America with violinist Joshua Bell, and returns to Lincoln Center for Chamber Music Society concerts and a Great Performers duo recital with pianist Lucille Chung—in addition to solo recitals in Dallas and Tokyo. Mr. Bax and Ms. Chung also perform together in Washington, DC, and in Hong Kong, Toronto, and on tour in Canada.

Fall marks the release of a dance-themed duo disc with Ms. Chung, presenting

Stravinsky’s original four-hand version of the ballet Petrouchka along with Brahms waltzes and Piazzolla tangos.

His acclaimed discography for Signum Classics includes Alessio Bax plays Mozart (Piano Concertos K. 491 and K. 595), Alessio Bax plays Brahms (Gramophone “Critic’s Choice”), Rachmaninov: Preludes and Melodies (American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice 2011”), and Bach Transcribed; and for Warner Classics, Baroque Reflections (Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”). He performed Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for maestro Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available as a DVD box set on the EMI label.

International festival appearances have included London’s International Piano Series (Queen Elizabeth Hall), Verbier in Switzerland, England’s Aldeburgh and Bath festivals, and the Ruhr KlavierFestival, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Schloss Elmau in Germany. He has performed recitals in major music halls around the world, in such cities as Rome, Madrid, Mexico City, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and New York.

At age 14, Mr. Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of his hometown, Bari, Italy, and after further studies in Europe moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung. Mr. Bax is a former member of Chamber Music Society Two and a current Artist of the Society.

Subscribe today to hear Alessio Bax perform the opening concert of the 2014-2015 Season

ozart P ano Concer s

Wednesday, October 15, 2014, 7:30 PM Alice Tully Hall

The Chamber Music Society’s 45th anniversary season kicks off with a joyous celebration of Mozart. Elegant and graceful works accompany a pair of brilliant concertos in what is sure to be a thrilling start to the season.

MOZART Quartet in A major for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello, K. 298 (1786-87) MOZART Concerto No. 12 in A major for Piano and String Quintet, K. 414 (1782) MOZART Duo No. 2 in B-flat major for Violin and Viola, K. 424 (1783) MOZART Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major for Piano and String Quintet, K. 449 (1784) Alessio Bax, PIANO • Bella Hristova, Arnaud Sussmann, VIOLIN • Paul Neubauer, VIOLA • Sophie Shao, CELLO • Kurt Muroki, DOUBLE BASS • Carol Wincenc, FLUTE

www.chambermusicsociety.org 212-875-5788

upcoming

EVENTS

ROMANTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

Sunday, March 30, 2014, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Featuring works by Webern, Berg, Bartók, Ives, and Elgar

MASTER CLASS WITH KURT MUROKI, DOUBLE BASS Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 11:00 AM • Daniel & Joanna S. Rose Studio This event will stream live at www.chambermusicsociety.org/watchlive

DESTINATION AMERICA

Sunday, April 6, 2014, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Featuring works by Bartók, Ives, Prokofiev, and Korngold