The Art of the Recital: Anne-Marie McDermott - Feb. 25, 2016

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

THE ART OF THE RECITAL

ANNE-MARIE McDERMOTT Thursday Evening, February 25, 2016 at 7:30 Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio 3,543rd Concert

2015-2016 Season

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

Yamaha CFX concert grand piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services, New York.

THE ART OF THE RECITAL Thursday Evening, February 25, 2016 at 7:30

Anne-Marie McDermott, piano

JOSEPH HAYDN Sonata in G major for Keyboard, (1732-1809) Hob. XVI:40 (1784) Allegro innocente Presto

HAYDN Sonata in C minor for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:20 (1771) Allegro moderato Andante con moto Finale: Allegro

HAYDN Sonata in C major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:50 (c. 1794-95) Allegro Adagio Finale: Allegro molto

—INTERMISSION— HAYDN Sonata in F major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:23 (1773)

Allegro moderato Adagio Finale: Presto

HAYDN Sonata in E-flat major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:52 (1794) Allegro Adagio Finale: Presto

Please turn off cell phones and all 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

What a joy it is for me as a musician and a pianist to present a recital devoted to Haydn’s piano sonatas. I find Haydn’s language fascinating and captivating. There is an underlying visceral energy—every note matters, there is constant rhythmic variety and the emotional palette is broad. His brilliant use of rests and fermatas creates a sense of drama, interspersed with great humor. These five sonatas were written at a variety of times during his life and each one has its own personality and its own story to tell. Haydn’s slow movements transport us to a profoundly thoughtful place. These works are filled with great humanity and character and I embrace the opportunity to devote a program to works of this great master.

-Anne-Marie McDermott

Five Sonatas for Piano by Joseph Haydn Haydn once said of himself that he was “not a bad piano player,” but, though he was not a virtuoso on the instrument of the stature of his friend Wolfgang Mozart, he was a competent and busy keyboard performer and composer throughout his career. Haydn began playing the clavier as a child, and he studied the clavichord, harpsichord, and organ with fine teachers at the Imperial Choir School in Vienna. After leaving the School in 1749, he taught both clavichord and harpsichord, served as organist in a couple of minor Viennese posts, and mastered the art of accompaniment. He was nearly penniless in those early days, living in an attic in an undesirable quarter of the city, and he resorted to his clavier as a source of comfort, as he later told his biographer Albert Dies: “The severe loneliness of the place, the lack of anything to divert the idle spirit, and my quite needy situation led me to contemplations which were often so grave that I found it necessary to take refuge at my worm-eaten clavier ... to play away my melancholy.” His appointment in 1758 as Kapellmeister for Count Morzin (he gave the Countess clavier lessons) and two years later to the musical staff of the Esterházy family ameliorated his situation and greatly expanded the possibilities for his keyboard activities. He participated almost daily in chamber or solo performances at the Esterházy palaces, and occasionally acted as soloist in concertos, as well as serving as keyboardist for vocal concerts and such special occasions as the visit of the Empress Maria Theresa in 1773. After he was appointed director of the Esterházy musical establishment in 1766, he also participated as organist in many sacred and ceremonial events. With the completion of the family’s opera house in 1776, Haydn’s chief function as a keyboardist was as continuo player and conductor from the keyboard, a function he also fulfilled in performances of his symphonies. Even as late as his London visits in 1791 and 1794, Haydn still “presided at the pianoforte” for the presentations of his rapturously received symphonies, according to the eminent 18th-century British music scholar Charles Burney. Haydn largely gave up playing during the years of retirement that followed his English tours, but he derived pleasure from having guests perform for him. He sold his harpsichord in 1808, a year before he died, but kept a clavichord, the species of keyboard instrument on which he had learned to play as a child, and he regularly entertained himself with Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, the Austrian anthem he had written and included in his Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 (“Emperor”), until just five days before his death.

Sonata in G major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:40 Joseph HAYDN Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Lower Austria.

Died May 31, 1809 in Vienna.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Composed in 1784.

Duration: 12 minutes From his earliest clavichord divertimentos to his last set of three piano sonatas written in London, Haydn composed more than 60 solo keyboard sonatas, mostly for students, friends, and amateurs, though some were intended for performing virtuosos. The Sonata in G major, Hob. XVI:40, was one of a set of three such works that Haydn

wrote in 1784, when he was up to his ears composing, producing concerts and operas, and overseeing the bustling musical establishment at Esterháza; the pieces were dedicated upon their publication the following year to Princess Marie Esterházy, wife of Prince Nikolaus II. These three sonatas (Hob. XVI:40-42), written when Haydn’s fame—and the concomitant demand for his music—was spreading like wildfire across Europe, were created for the talented home pianist rather than for the concert virtuoso. Each comprises two movements: fast and faster. The G major Sonata’s first movement alternates strains in major and minor keys, with the opening motive returning several times in varied form. The Presto is a whirlwind rondo with some brilliant passagework at the close. 

Sonata in C minor for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:20 Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1771.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 17 minutes Among Haydn’s most important sonatas was the set of six (Hob. XVI:35-39, 20) published in Vienna in 1780 by Artaria, the first issue by that company of music by Haydn, who remained a client of the firm for the rest of his life. Haydn inscribed the collection to the sisters Caterina and Marianne Auenbrugger of Graz, a talented pair of pianists who, Leopold Mozart said, “play extraordinarily well and are thoroughly musical.” Reflecting the changing tastes of the time, the title page of the Auenbrugger sonatas noted that they

could be played on either “clavicembalo [harpsichord] or forte piano,” though their dynamic range, ornamentation, and general style suggest that they were intended for the latter rather than the former. According to the date on the manuscript, the C minor Sonata (Hob. XVI:20) was composed in 1771, suggesting that Haydn included it in the 1780 set to round out the six pieces expected in such a publication by music lovers of that time. The sonata is thoroughly imbued with the turbulent, proto-Romantic expression of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) style that Haydn had learned from his study of the keyboard works of C.P.E. Bach. Each of the composition’s three movements (Allegro moderato—Andante con moto—Finale: Allegro) follows the essential progress of traditional sonata form, but the strong emotion and sense of tragic heroism were exceptional for the time of the work’s creation, and are yet another

evidence of Haydn’s remarkable invention and stylistic daring. H.C. Robbins Landon wrote of the piece, “The sonata possesses a strength of personality that makes it the first in a distinguished line of C minor keyboard sonatas by each of the principal

figures in the Viennese Classical School: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.

In Haydn’s own career, the sonata is fully the equal of the best of his contemporary music.... No other sonata [of his] quite matches the authority of this work.” 

Sonata in C major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:50 Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1794-95.

First CMS performance on October 27, 2002.

Duration: 15 minutes Haydn’s final set of three keyboard sonatas (Hob. XVI:50-52) was written in London in 1794 and 1795 for the gifted pianist Therese Bartolozzi (née Jansen), a native of Aachen, Germany who had settled in London to study with Clementi. She became one of the city’s most sought-after performers and piano teachers, and both Clementi and Dussek dedicated important sonatas to her. Haydn met Therese early in his second London sojourn, and he became friendly enough with her to serve as a witness at her wedding on May 16, 1795 to

Gaetano Bartolozzi, son of the well-known engraver Francesco Bartolozzi. Haydn later also wrote for her three piano trios (Hob. XV:27-29). The C major Sonata (Hob. XVI:50) begins with a splendid movement, a boundlessly inventive fantasia in sonata form grown from a single thematic kernel, which the eminent Haydn authority Jens Peter Larsen called “perhaps the finest expression of the composer’s own creative power. It is a marvelous example of his structural mastery, developing a short and rather formal opening theme into a varied but consistently unified piece.” The Adagio is delicate and graceful, finely shading its sun-dappled principal tonality with moments of harmonic melancholy. Such a movement speaks eloquently of the influence of Wolfgang Mozart, dead only three years, on the music of Haydn’s late maturity. The compact finale is a sparkling sonatina-form essay that is almost a scherzo. 

Sonata in F major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:23 Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1773.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 15 minutes The set of six sonatas composed in 1773 and published in Vienna by Kurzböck

the following year (Hob. XVI:21-26) was the first publication issued under the composer’s supervision: in that precopyright era of lax control of intellectual property, all previous editions of his music had been published without his consent or even knowledge. The 1773 sonatas, judiciously dedicated to Haydn’s employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, are tailored to the taste and technique of the amateur keyboard player, who offered a potentially

lucrative market for the composer. All except the two-movement Sonata in E-flat (Hob. XVI:25) are in three movements; all are in major keys, crisply constructed in their forms, without extreme demands of technique, and pleasing in content. The opening movement of the Sonata in F major (Hob. XIV:23) takes a little descending figure in dotted rhythms as its main theme. A complementary scalar motive is introduced, but the exposition is largely given over to free scales and arpeggios.

A reminiscence of the main theme begins the development section, which stirs a certain amount of decorous drama with its chromatic excursions. The recapitulation returns the materials of the exposition, appropriately adjusted as to key. The sonataform Adagio, mysterious and melancholy, looks forward to the heightened emotional expression of the gestating Romantic era.

The Finale, also in sonata form, is impudent  and high-spirited.

Sonata in E-flat major for Keyboard, Hob. XVI:52 Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1794.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 17 minutes The E-flat Sonata (Hob. XVI:52), written in London in 1794, was the last work Haydn composed in the form. It has a breadth of gesture and expressive weight from which Beethoven, a student of his during those years, learned much. In his study of Haydn’s keyboard music, A. Peter Brown noted that this is “a big sonata in every sense—it requires power, dexterity, and expression.

Each movement has its own personality: the first is extroverted, the second supersensitive, and the third witty.” The two elements of the opening movement’s main theme, a noble strain whose dotted rhythms recall the old French Ouverture (which also served Haydn as the model for the majestic introductions to many of his late symphonies) and a descending figure in snapping rhythms, exploit the loud-soft

dynamic contrasts characteristic of the pianoforte, the keyboard instrument that had largely supplanted the harpsichord by the end of the 18th century. The second theme, with its high, quick, dancing motives and fluttering figurations, provides a delicate contrast. The noble main theme returns to close the exposition. The development section is tightly woven from the second subject and the main theme’s descending figure. The movement is rounded out by a full recapitulation and a brief coda.

The Adagio, in the surprisingly daring tonality of E major (in terms of musical theory, the most distant key from the home E-flat major—every one of the available seven scale notes must be altered to get there), combines variation and three-part forms into a tender, fantasia-like movement. “Here,” wrote A. Peter Brown, “there is nothing mechanical or superficial, for the impression is one of a spontaneous but extremely skilled and expressive improvisation.” The brilliant sonata-form Finale, both playful and profound, is marked by a chuckling wit, a propulsive rhythmic energy, and an unerring mastery of motivic development.  ©2016 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

meet tonight’s

ARTIST

For over 25 years Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals, and chamber music in hundreds of cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to performing, she also serves as artistic director of the Bravo! Vail Music and Ocean Reef Music festivals, as well as curator for chamber music for the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. The breadth of her repertoire reaches from Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven to Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Scriabin, to works by today’s most influential composers.

Earlier this season she premiered a concerto written by Poul Ruders. Charles Wuorinen’s last solo piano sonata, which she has recorded, was written for her and premiered at New York’s Town Hall. She has recorded the complete Prokofiev piano sonatas, Bach’s English Suites and Partitas (Editor’s Choice, Gramophone magazine), solo works by Chopin, and Gershwin’s Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with the Dallas Symphony (also Editor’s Choice, Gramophone magazine). In 2013, she released a disc of Mozart concertos with the Calder Quartet (“exceptional on every count.”—Gramophone). Most recently she recorded the five Haydn piano sonatas that we hear tonight, together with two Haydn concertos with the Odense Philharmonic in Denmark with two cadenzas written by Charles Wuorinen.

In 2014, Ms. McDermott performed Mozart Concerto, K. 595 with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Donald Runnicles, the Bach D minor concerto with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the New York Citybased Le Train Bleu. In the 2014-15 season she had return engagements with the Vancouver and Dallas Symphonies. In 2012 she performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bramwell Tovey. She also did a west coast tour with award-winning violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the New Century Chamber Orchestra; the complete Beethoven piano trios with Ida Kavafian and Peter Wiley; and the complete Beethoven cello sonatas with Lynn Harrell. Other recent international highlights include a performance of Schumann’s piano concerto with the Sao Paulo Symphony at the Cartagena Festival and an all-Haydn recital tour of China. She gave special performances of works by Charles Wuorinen in New York and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, in celebration of the composer’s 75th birthday.

Ms. McDermott has performed with many other leading orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of San Diego, Dallas, Columbus, Seattle, Houston, Colorado, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Atlanta, New Jersey, Austin, Nashville, Chattanooga, North Carolina, Hartford, and Baltimore, among others. She performs and tours extensively each season with the Chamber Music Society. With CMS she has performed the complete Prokofiev piano sonatas and chamber music, as well as a three-concert series of chamber music by Shostakovich. She enjoys touring as a member of OPUS ONE, a chamber group with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Peter Wiley. Together they have commissioned over 15 new works. She also tours annually violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and performs as part of a trio with her sisters Kerry and Maureen McDermott. She studied at the Manhattan School of Music and was winner of both the Young Concert Artists auditions and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. McDermott lives in New York City with her husband, Michael, and her maltese, Sammy.

Winter —Spring 2016

WATCH LIVE Enjoy a front row seat from anywhere in the world. View chamber music events streamed live to your computer or mobile device, and available for streaming on demand for the following 24 hours. Relax, browse the program, and experience the Chamber Music Society like never before.

3/2/16 6:30 PM Inside Chamber Music 3/10/16 9:00 PM Late Night Rose 3/14/16 11:00 AM Master Class with Sean Lee 3/24/16 7:30 PM New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse 3/31/16 9:00 PM Late Night Rose 4/4/16 11:00 AM Master Class with Wu Han 4/7/16 7:30 PM The Ginastera Cycle 4/28/16 7:30 PM New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse 5/5/16 7:30 PM Art of the Recital: Benjamin Beilman & Yekwon Sunwoo 5/19/16 7:30 PM The Kirchner Cycle

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Hear more from CMS this season

upcoming

EVENTS

INSIDE CHAMBER MUSIC

Wednesday, March 2, 6:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Focus on Dvořák’s Quartet in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 87.

This event will also be streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/watchlive

MENUHIN AT 100: WITH DANIEL HOPE

Friday, March 4, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Daniel Hope curates a program celebrating the 100th birthday of the legendary violinist and humanitarian Yehudi Menuhin.

ROSE STUDIO CONCERT

Thursday, March 10, 6:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Featuring works by Saint-Saëns, Khachaturian, and Babadjanian.

LATE NIGHT ROSE

Thursday, March 10, 9:00 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Featuring works by Saint-Saëns, Khachaturian, and Babadjanian. Hosted by Performance Today’s Fred Child.

This event will also be streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/watchlive

February is Planned Giving Month at CMS. Please remember CMS in your Will.

For more information, call the Planned Giving office at 212-875-5782.