David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors
THE ART OF THE RECITAL
BENJAMIN BEILMAN & YEKWON SUNWOO Thursday Evening, May 5, 2016 at 7:30 Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio 3,585th 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
The Chamber Music Society is deeply grateful to Board member Paul Gridley for his very generous gift of the Hamburg Steinway & Sons model “D” concert grand piano we are privileged to hear this evening. Thanks to Millbrook Vineyards & Winery, official wine sponsor of Rose Studio Concerts.
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
THE ART OF THE RECITAL Thursday Evening, May 5, 2016 at 7:30
BENJAMIN BEILMAN, violin YEKWON SUNWOO, piano
FRITZ KREISLER (1875-1962)
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
ARCANGELO CORELLI (1653-1713)
GIOVANNI BATTISTA VIOTTI (1755-1824)
Praeludium and Allegro for Violin and Piano (1910) “Prelude” and “Gavotte en Rondeau” from Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin and Piano, BWV 1006 (1720) (arr. Kreisler) Sonata in D minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 5, No. 12, “La Follia” (1700) (arr. Kreisler) Concerto No. 22 in A minor for Violin and Piano, G. 97 (1793) (arr. Kreisler) Moderato Adagio Agitato assai
—INTERMISSION— KREISLER
Tambourin Chinois for Violin and Piano, Op. 3 (1910)
KREISLER
Caprice Viennois for Violin and Piano, Op. 2 (1910)
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
“Ballet Music No. 2” for Violin and Piano from Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern, D. 797 (1823, arr. 1917) (arr. Kreisler)
KREISLER
Lotus Land for Violin and Piano (after Cyril Scott’s Op. 47, No. 1) (1905, arr. 1921)
KREISLER
Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta for Violin and Piano (1941-42)
notes on the
PROGRAM
The inspiration for this concert originated in January 2015 when I was loaned the Ex-Mary Portman Guarneri del Gesù violin of 1735—an instrument that Fritz Kreisler added to his collection and played toward the end of his life. Having performed only a handful of his signature compositions in my teens and occasionally as encores, I wanted to learn more about the man that his virtuoso colleague Nathan Milstein called a “violinist who was above and beyond all others, as the Pope in the Catholic World.” Kreisler was exceptional from the very beginning. At seven years old, he was the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna conservatory. By 12, he had received the highest honors from both the Vienna and Paris conservatories. He was a polyglot (he spoke seven languages), a patriot (he was wounded while serving as an officer in the Austrian army during World War I), and humanitarian (regularly donating his concert fees to orphans, cancer patients, and the unemployed.) Kreisler was the kind of complete human being that every young artist should aspire to become. In tribute, I’ve adopted the style of program that Kreisler might have presented in 1925—a bouquet of Baroque or Classical pieces to open the program, a larger concert work (often a concerto with piano reduction), and finally a set of arrangements and original works. I’d like to thank Eric Wen for providing recordings, anecdotes, and his boundless knowledge of Kreisler’s life. I also want to recognize Paul Neubauer, CMS’s resident authority in schmaltz, for offering guidance on how to express Kreisler’s music with the proper Viennese inflection. Thank you Danbi Um, Paul Neubauer, and David Finckel for joining me in November for memorable and deeply enjoyable performances of Kreisler’s string quartet. Finally, thank you, Yekwon, for bringing your innumerable musical gifts to each piece, and to CMS, for presenting this unusual concert.
-Benjamin Beilman
“The artist is like the honeybee. He gathers the pollen and travels from country to country sowing the seed of understanding. His is the message of friendship and goodwill.” -Fritz Kreisler
FRITZ KREISLER Born February 2, 1875, in Vienna—Died January 29, 1962 in New York On January 30, 1962, the day after Fritz Kreisler died, critic Harold Schonberg wrote in the New York Times, “Among his colleagues he was unanimously considered the greatest violinist of the century.... Kreisler was neither a fiery virtuoso nor a classicist, though he had plenty of technique and could play Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms with as much musicianship and knowledge as any classicist. Where he differed from all other violinists was in his charm, and in the sheer aristocracy of his conceptions.... His tone was of unparalleled sweetness. Above all violinists, he had an infallible sense of rhythm and rubato. His interpretations were natural, unforced, and glowing.... As a composer he wrote what might be described as transfigured salon music. If the test of music is longevity, Kreisler’s music bids fair to be immortal.” Fritz Kreisler was the son of an eminent Viennese physician and enthusiastic amateur violinist who began the boy’s musical instruction when he was four. Three years later, Fritz was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory—the youngest student ever enrolled at the school. There he studied violin with Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. and theory with Anton Bruckner, gave his first performance at nine, and won a gold medal when he was ten. Kreisler then transferred to the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included LambertJoseph Massart (violin) and Leo Delibes (composition); in 1887, at the age of 12, he won the school’s gold medal over 40 other competitors, all of whom were at least ten years his senior. He had no further formal instruction on the violin after that time. In 188889, he toured the United States with the pianist Moriz Rosenthal, successfully making his American debut on November 9, 1888 playing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Boston Symphony. When he returned to Vienna, however, Kreisler virtually abandoned music, and for several years studied medicine in Vienna and art in Rome and Paris; he also served for two years as an officer in the Austrian army. He again took up the violin in 1896 and failed to win an audition to become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic, but quickly established himself as a soloist, making his formal re-appearance on the concert platform in Berlin in March 1899. He returned to America in 1900, and gave his London debut in 1901, creating a sensation at every performance. In 1904, the London Philharmonic Society awarded him its Beethoven Medal, and in 1910 he gave the premiere of Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto, written for and dedicated to him. At the outbreak of World War I, Kreisler rejoined his former regiment, but he was wounded soon thereafter and discharged from service. In November 1914, he moved to the United States, where he had been appearing regularly for a decade. (He had married Harriet Lies, an American, in 1902). He gave concerts in the United States to raise funds for Austrian war relief, but anti-German sentiment ran so high after America’s entry into the war that he had to temporarily withdraw from public life. He resumed his concert career in New York in October 1919, then returned to Europe. In 1938, following the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Kreisler accepted the French government’s offer of citizenship, but with the opening of hostilities the following year, he settled in the United States for good; he
became an American citizen in 1943. Despite being injured in a traffic accident in 1941, he continued concertizing to immense acclaim through the 1949-50 season. He died in New York in 1962. In addition to being one of the 20th century’s undisputed masters of the violin, Fritz Kreisler was also the composer of a string quartet, a violin concerto, two operettas (Apple Blossoms and Sissy), and cadenzas for concertos by Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven. (He owned the manuscript of the Brahms Concerto, and donated it to the Library of Congress in 1949.) His most famous works, however, and some of the most beloved pieces in the string repertory, are his short compositions for solo violin. He wrote several dozen of these sparkling miniatures, and made arrangements for violin of a large number of works by other composers, from Bach and Rameau to De Falla and Grainger, as material in a lighter vein for his own concerts. He stirred up a considerable furor in 1935 when he admitted that some of the pieces he had been passing off as transcriptions of older music by less wellknown composers were actually his own works. (“Regrettable,” wailed Ernest Newman in London. “Mr. Kreisler has added to the gaiety of nations and the violinist’s repertory,” countered Olin Downes in New York.) The public accepted the hoax with good humor, however, and, if anything, the whole affair only enhanced Kreisler’s already peerless reputation and glamour. Kreisler once remarked that the generating force behind his music was the love of beauty and the love of the violin itself: “Joy, fear, anger, gladness—all of these can be projected from one heart directly into another through the medium of music. This is possible, I believe, because music is the most direct and untrammeled exponent of human emotion.” * * * Among Kreisler’s most delightful musical counterfeits are the Praeludium and Allegro in the Style of Pugnani, which channels the spirit of that Turin-born violinist and composer (1731-98). The virtuosic Tambourin Chinois (1910, “Chinese Drum”), with its pentatonic main theme and lilting middle section that sounds like nothing so much as a Cuban tango, evokes a most pleasing exoticism. Kreisler’s original works bear the endearing stamp of the distinctive Gemütlichkeit of his native Vienna. Many of the most famous, including Caprice Viennois (1910, “Viennese Caprice”), are waltzes in the traditional manner. Cyril Scott (1879-1970), one of Britain’s most daring and respected early-20th-century composers, wrote symphonies, operas, concertos, oratorios, overtures, tone poems, chamber works, and songs, but one of his most popular pieces was the exotic Impressionistic piano miniature Lotus Land, Op. 47, No. 1 (1905), which Kreisler arranged for violin in 1921. The Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta (1941-42) evokes the sweetly melancholic as well as the joyous sides of Kreisler’s native city’s personality, qualities heard in abundance in his recording of December 1946, the last one he made, when he was 72 and Vienna was just beginning to recover from the devastation of World War II. (The filming of The Third Man was then still three years away).
“Prelude” and “Gavotte en Rondeau” from Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin and Piano, BWV 1006 Johann Sebastian BACH Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. Died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig. Arranged by Fritz Kreisler. Composed around 1720. First CMS performance on September 12, 1984. Duration: 6 minutes Bach composed a set of three sonatas and three partitas for unaccompanied violin (BWV 1001-06) before 1720, the date on the manuscript, probably at Cöthen. Though there is not a letter, preface, contemporary account, or shred of any other documentary
evidence extant to shed light on the genesis and purpose of these pieces, the technical demands they impose upon the player indicate that they were intended for a virtuoso performer: Johann Georg Pisendel, a student of Vivaldi; Jean Baptiste Volumier, leader of the Dresden court orchestra; and Joseph Spiess, concertmaster of the Cöthen orchestra, have been advanced as possible candidates. The Partita No. 3 in E major opens with a brilliant Prelude, which Bach later arranged as the introductory Sinfonia to his Cantata No. 29, Wir danken dir, Gott of 1731. The Gavotte en Rondeau posits an opening strophe, separated by sparkling episodes, which returns, in the manner of the French rondo form, throughout the movement.
Sonata in D minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 5, No. 12, “La Follia” Arcangelo CORELLI Born February 17, 1653 in Fusignano. Died January 8, 1713 in Rome. Arranged by Fritz Kreisler. Composed before 1700. Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece. Duration: 10 minutes Arcangelo Corelli was born in 1653 into an old, distinguished family in Fusignano, a small town between Ravenna and Bologna. He studied violin and counterpoint in Bologna, was elected to that city’s
Accademia Filarmonica at the age of 17 (the only musician other than Mozart and Rossini to become a member before age 20), and in the early 1670s moved to Rome, where he quickly gained a reputation as one of the leading violin virtuosos and composers of the day. Corelli came under the patronage of three of Rome’s most powerful figures during his career—the eccentric Queen Christina of Sweden (who lived in Rome after her abdication in 1654), Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili (who installed the composer in a fine apartment in his family palazzo), and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (who paid him munificently, provided him with handsome quarters, introduced him to the best painters and sculptors of the time, allowed him to take on students
in performance and composition, and provided him with an excellent ensemble of players). Corelli lived for the rest of his life in Rome in Ottoboni’s employ, giving up playing in 1708, and spending his last years polishing his works for publication. The exalted position he had attained in Italian society was recognized by his burial next to the painter Raphael in the Pantheon, where annual memorial concerts were given by Corelli’s students for as long as any remained alive. Corelli published just six sets of a dozen works each: 48 trio sonatas (Opp. 1-4), 12 solo sonatas (Op. 5), and 12 concerti
grossi (Op. 6); the Sonatas for Violin and Continuo, Op. 5 were issued in Rome on January 1, 1700 by the composer himself. The last of the Op. 5 set is not a sonata in the traditional sense, but rather a set of twodozen brilliant and contrasted variations on the old progression of modal harmonies known as La Follia di Spagna (“The Folly of Spain”). La Follia originated as the accompaniment to wild dances in Portugal and Spain in the 15th century, but it had been domesticated for more sedate musical purposes by Corelli’s time, and later also provided creative inspiration for J.S. and C.P.E. Bach, Cherubini, Liszt, Nielsen, Rachmaninov, and others.
Concerto No. 22 in A minor for Violin and Piano, G. 97 Giovanni Battista VIOTTI Born May 12, 1755 in Fontanetto da Po, Italy. Died March 3, 1824 in London. Arranged by Fritz Kreisler. Composed in 1793. Premiered on February 14, 1793 in London, with the composer as soloist. Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece. Duration: 28 minutes “Viotti, it is true, astonishes the hearer; but he does something infinitely better—he awakens emotion, gives a soul to sound, and holds the passions captive.” Thus did the London Morning Chronicle of March 10, 1794 summarize the rapturous response to the violin playing of Giovanni Battista Viotti, who is regarded as the most influential violinist between Tartini and Paganini. The
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (General Music Journal) of Leipzig described the elements of his playing style: “A large, strong, full tone is the first; the combination of this with a powerful, penetrating, singing legato is the second; as the third, variety, charm, shadow, and light must be brought into play through the greatest diversity of bowing.” His 29 violin concertos show the use of mature sonata form and the symphonic argument and proportions that came to characterize such works during the encroaching Romantic era. No less a musical maven than Johannes Brahms praised Viotti highly when he told Clara Schumann of the Concerto No. 22, “It is my very special enthusiasm. It is a splendid work, of remarkable fineness of invention. Everything is thought out and worked out in masterly fashion and with imaginative power.” Viotti composed his Concerto No. 22 in A minor for Salomon’s London concerts of 1793; he was soloist in the work’s premiere
on February 14th, just a week after he had made his debut on the series. The piece is of a scale, style, and structure typical of such works of High Classicism: three movements, arranged fast–slow–fast; lucid forms; virtuosic within the bounds of good taste; founded upon carefully shaped melodies of distinctive motives easily amenable to development; emotionally reserved. The concerto follows the conventional concerto
plan: an opening movement comprising an extended orchestral introduction which prefaces a sonata form based on contrasting themes (here, one broad and somber, the other lively and bright in emotion); a lyrical and expressive Adagio, an instrumental counterpart to a tender operatic scene; and a brilliant, rondo-form finale whose main theme returns, like a refrain, to anchor the structure.
“Ballet Music No. 2” for Violin and Piano from Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern, D. 797 Franz SCHUBERT Born January 31, 1797, in Vienna. Died November 19, 1828, in Vienna. Arranged by Fritz Kreisler. Composed in 1823. Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece. Duration: 3 minutes In 1823 Schubert provided incidental music for the fantasy play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Cypren (Rosamunde, Princess
of Cyprus) by Wilhelmine von Chezy, of which the composer’s biographer Maurice J.E. Brown wrote, “The actual play is lost, but a very full summary of the plot survives from contemporary records. There are some strange flowers in the rotting undergrowth of the ‘Romantic’ jungle-world, but nothing stranger than this play, with its secret passages, princesses brought up by fisherfolk, poisoned letters, shepherd princes and the rest.” The Ballet Music No. 2 from Rosamunde that Kreisler arranged in 1917 uses a jaunty country dance tune in its opening and closing sections to surround several contrasting episodes in the middle of the movement.
©2016 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
meet tonight’s
ARTISTS
Violinist Benjamin Beilman captured First Prize in the 2010 Montréal International Music Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. His honors include a 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, a 2012 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2012 London Music Masters Award. This season’s highlights include appearances with the Albany Symphony, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife in Spain, as well as recitals at the Louvre in Paris and the Vancouver Recital Society. He has performed as soloist with the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall, as well as with the London Philharmonic, L’Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony. He has given recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, the Louvre, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series, and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. He has appeared at Music@Menlo, Caramoor, the Mostly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Young Concert Artists Festivals in Tokyo and Beijing, and Chamber Music Northwest. His debut album on Warner Classics, which includes works by Schubert, Janáček, Stravinsky, and Kreisler, was released in March. Mr. Beilman studied with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy. A former member of CMS Two, he plays a Peter Greiner violin made in 2002.
Praised by the Examiner for “the soft caressing touches in quiet passages and his total command over the instrument,” pianist Yekwon Sunwoo won First Prize at the 2015 International German Piano Award in Frankfurt and First Prize at the 2014 Vendome Prize held at the prestigious Verbier Festival. He has performed extensively as a soloist with numerous orchestras including The Juilliard Orchestra under Itzhak Perlman at Avery Fisher Hall, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Orchestre National de Belgique at Palais des Beaux-Arts, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Maroc, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. His past recital appearances include Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Hamarikyu Asahi Hall in Tokyo, Wigmore Hall in London, Radio France and Salle Cortot in Paris, and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. He has performed at various chamber music festivals such as the Summit Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, Music from Angel Fire, and Chamber Music Northwest. In 2014 the Fontec label released his first album, featuring works by Schubert, Liszt, Rachmaninov, and Ravel. Born in Anyang, South Korea, Mr. Sunwoo began his studies with Min-ja Shin and Sun-wha Kim in Korea. From 2005, he studied with Seymour Lipkin at The Curtis Institute of Music. He later studied with Robert McDonald and earned his master’s degree at The Juilliard School. He also studied with Richard Goode at Mannes College.
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.
5/19/16
7:30 PM
The Kirchner String Quartet Cycle
Stay tuned! The 2016-17 Watch Live series begins September 28
All events are free to watch. View full program details online. www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive
JOIN US AFTER TONIGHT’S CONCERT FOR A CD SIGNING WITH THE ARTISTS.
upcoming
EVENTS
MACABRE
Friday, May 13, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Join an all-star cast of CMS artists as they offer eerie, spine-chilling, and beautifully unnerving musical statements of Herrmann, Caplet, Ravel, and Schubert.
SPRING WINDS
Sunday, May 15, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Hear Gounod’s charming Petite Symphonie and Ibert’s colorful Cinq pièces en trio alongside the incredible octets of Mozart and Beethoven.
THE KIRCHNER STRING QUARTET CYCLE
Thursday, May 19, 7:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Featuring the Orion String Quartet. This event will also be streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/watchlive