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LEONIDAS KAVAKOS VIOLIN + ENRICO PACE PIANO THURSDAY, JANUARY 31 & FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2019 I 7:30 PM KIMBELL ART MUSEUM RENZO PIANO PAVILION PERFORMANCE SPONSORED BY
The Board of Directors of the Cliburn salutes with gratitude the generosity of
ELECTRA CARLIN ESTATE* GREG MCCOY HIGGINBOTHAM I CHUBB
for supporting these performances of
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS + ENRICO PACE
PA G E
26
*Made possible by a generous gift to the Cliburn Endowment.
CLIBURN AT THE KIMBELL: MASTERS Kimbell Art Museum Renzo Piano Pavilion Thursday, January 31 & Friday, February 1, 2019 I 7:30 pm
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS violin ENRICO PACE piano
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 4 in A Minor, op. 23 Presto Andante scherzoso, più allegretto Allegro molto
Sergei Prokofiev
Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, op. 80
Andante assai Allegro brusco Andante Allegrissimo- Andante assai, come prima Intermission
Béla Bartók
Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Sz. 87
Moderato: Lassú Allegretto moderato: Friss George Enescu
Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, op. 25 Moderato malinconio Andante sostenuto e misterioso Allegro con brio ma non troppo mosso
Please join us in the lobby after the concert for a special CD signing with Mr. Kavakos and Mr. Pace.
Mr. Kavakos and Mr. Pace appear by arrangement with Opus 3 Artists. Steinway & Sons is the official piano of the Cliburn. This concert is being recorded. Please silence all electronic devices.
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS
VIOLIN
Leonidas Kavakos is recognized across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, acclaimed for his matchless technique, captivating artistry, and superb musicianship as well as for the integrity of his playing. He works with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors, and is a frequent recitalist in premier recital halls and festivals. He is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical. The three important mentors in his life have been Stelios Kafantaris, Josef Gingold, and Ferenc Rados. By the age of 21, Leonidas Kavakos had already won three major competitions: the Sibelius Competition in 1985, and the Paganini and Naumburg competitions in 1988. This success led to him recording the original Sibelius Violin Concerto (1903–1904), the first recording of this work in history, and which won the Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award in 1991. In the 2018–2019 season, as artist-in-residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Kavakos will appear as both soloist and conductor for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 7, and will perform the Shostakovich Violin Concerto with Mariss Jansons and Berg Violin Concerto with Daniel Harding. He will also appear as soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Israel Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. He will make a short tour of China with recital and concerto performances in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai. Leonidas Kavakos has built a strong profile as a conductor and has led the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gürzenich Orchester, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Danish Radio Symphony. This season he will conduct the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Kavakos signed an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical in June 2018. This signifies a welcome return to the label with whom he previously recorded the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Violin Concertos, conducting and playing with Camerata Salzburg. More recently, Mr. Kavakos joined Yo-Yo Ma and Emmanuel Ax for a highly successful recording of Brahms Trios for the label. His first solo project with Sony is the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Beethoven Septet which will be recorded with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra later this season. This will be followed by a project to record the complete Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas. Mr. Kavakos’ extensive discography for the Decca, BIS, and ECM labels also includes Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Enrico Pace, which was awarded the ECHO Klassik Instrumentalist of the Year. This was followed by the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Riccardo Chailly, Brahms Violin Sonatas with Yuja Wang, and Virtuoso. He was awarded Gramophone Artist of the Year 2014. In 2017, Leonidas Kavakos was the winner of the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s highest musical honor, awarded annually to an internationally recognized composer, instrumentalist, conductor, or singer. Previous winners include Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Rubinstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, and Sir Simon Rattle. Born and brought up in a musical family in Athens, Mr. Kavakos curates an annual violin and chambermusic master class in his hometown, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world and reflects his deep commitment to the handing-on of musical knowledge and traditions. Part of this tradition is the art of violin and bow-making, which Kavakos regards as a great mystery and to this day, an undisclosed secret. He plays the ‘Willemotte’ Stradivarius violin of 1734 and owns modern violins made by F. Leonhard, S.P. Greiner, E. Haahti, and D. Bagué.
ENRICO PACE
PIANO
Enrico Pace was born in Rimini, Italy. He studied piano with Franco Scala both at the Rossini Conservatory, Pesaro, where he graduated in conducting and composition, and later at the Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro, Imola. Jacques De Tiège was also a valued mentor. Winning the Utrecht International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 1989 marked the beginning of his international career. He has worked with such notable conductors as David Robertson, Andrey Boreyko, Mark Elder, Janos Fürst, Gianandrea Noseda, Bruno Weil, and Antoni Wit, among others. He performs with many major orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberger Symphoniker, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Hungarian National Philharmonic, London Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Warsaw Philharmonic, and RTE National Symphony. Mr. Pace has toured extensively, giving recitals in Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Milan (Sala Verdi and Teatro alla Scala), Rome, Berlin, London (Wigmore Hall), Dublin, Munich, Salzburg, Prague, and various cities in South America. Festival appearances include La Roque-d’Anthéron, Verbier, Lucerne, Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein, and Husum. Enrico Pace enjoys ongoing partnerships with violinists Leonidas Kavakos, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Akiko Suwanai, and Liza Ferschtman, as well as with cellist Sung-Won Yang, performing with them throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. Other chamber music partners include cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, violist Antoine Tamestit, clarinetist Sharon Kam, baritone Matthias Goerne, and horn player Marie Luise Neunecker, as well as the Keller Quartet, RTE Vanbrugh Quartet, and Quartetto Prometeo. He regularly participates in chamber music festivals and has visited Delft, Moritzburg, Risør, Kuhmo, Montreux, Stresa, and West Cork. With Mr. Kavakos and cellist Patrick Demenga, Mr. Pace recorded the piano trios by Mendelssohn in 2009 for Sony Classical. His recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin with Mr. Kavakos was released by Decca Classics in January 2013 and nominated for a GRAMMY® Award. In April 2016 Decca Classics released a CD of the duo performing virtuoso encore works. With Mr. Zimmermann he recorded the Busoni Violin Sonata No. 2 and the Six Sonatas for Violin and Piano, by J.S. Bach for Sony Classical. In 2011 the Piano Classics label released his highly praised solo recording of the Années de pèlerinage “Suisse” and “Italie” by Franz Liszt.
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PROGRAM NOTES
BY KRISTIAN LIN
Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 4 in A Minor, op. 23 Ludwig van Beethoven b. December 1770, Bonn, Germany d. March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria Beethoven’s first three sonatas for fortepiano and violin (so he described them, implying that the two instruments were equal partners) had not received good reviews from Vienna’s music critics, who found them too dark and technically demanding. The Fourth Sonata and the Fifth, which would have been companion pieces if not for a foul-up at the publisher’s, appear to have been written in response to the reviews. The Fifth was given the nickname “Spring” and pointed to as a Beethoven chamber piece that was open, accessible, and joyful. Still, even it has been overshadowed by the Fourth, which projects a lighthearted air despite being written in a minor key, and which breaks the bounds of form in ways that would have shocked people in 1801, when the sonata was written. Of course, it’s possible that these sonatas were written in response to something else. Beethoven’s deafness had been worsening since first appearing four years before, and this occasioned a burst of creativity by the composer, who feared it might be his last. (In that assumption, he was wrong.) The Fourth Sonata offers contemplative stretches of lyricism, but it is more famous for its furious bursts of energy from the opening on. The work continues to offer a fun challenge to violinists and pianists in terms of timing and rapport.
Composed 1801. Approximately 27 minutes.
ALEXANDRE THARAUD
BACH: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS
PIANO
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PROGRAM NOTES
BY KRISTIAN LIN (CONTINUED)
Violin Sonata No.1 in F Minor, op. 80 Sergei Prokofiev b. April 23, 1891, Sontsivka, Ukraine d. March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia Prokofiev had left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, living and touring in the United States, France, and Germany. However, the Great Depression dampened commissions of new works in the West, and the composer badly missed his homeland. In 1936, he returned to the Soviet Union, with the government promising him privileges and chances to tour internationally. It was probably the biggest mistake of his life. Within a year, the Soviet government had launched The Great Purge, and while Prokofiev couldn’t have known about the millions of people made to disappear, he did know about friends such as Adrian Piotrovsky (his librettist on Romeo and Juliet ), Vladimir Mutnykh (the Bolshoi’s general director who had commissioned Romeo and Juliet ), and Natalia Sats (who commissioned Peter and the Wolf ). After their arrests in 1937, Prokofiev never saw any of them again; Piotrovsky and Mutnykh were executed, while Sats was freed but forbidden from re-entering Moscow until after Stalin’s death, which was the same day as Prokofiev’s. Against this backdrop, Prokofiev began work on the First Violin Sonata in 1938. It stands today as one of his great works, and one of his darkest. He found the composing process difficult and put the score aside for some years, not finishing the sonata until 1946. In the intervening time, he completed a number of other pieces, including the Fifth Symphony, the film score for Alexander Nevsky, and the Second Violin Sonata. The piece has long stretches of bumptious, sarcastic humor reminiscent of Prokofiev’s younger colleague Dmitri Shostakovich. However, the overall mood is one of introspection and despair. The violinist David Oistrakh, to whom the work was dedicated, famously reported that the composer told him that the wintry opening motif (which returns at the end) should be like the wind blowing through a graveyard. Said Oistrakh, “After remarks of this kind, the whole spirit of the sonata assumed a deeper significance for us.”
Composed 1938–1946. Approximately 30 minutes.
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PROGRAM NOTES
BY KRISTIAN LIN
(CONTINUED)
Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Sz. 87 Béla Bartók b. March 25, 1881, Sânnicolau Mare, Romania d. September 26, 1945, New York, NY Bartók traveled extensively to Transylvania before and after World War I, lugging around heavy recording equipment to record villagers playing their local music, which was influenced by cultures as different as Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, Armenian, Turkish, Russian, and Gypsy. Some of these country folks needed convincing that the new technology was not witchcraft, but their performances yielded fresh discoveries that would alter his fellow Hungarians’ thoughts about their nation’s folk music and earn Bartók the unofficial title of “The Father of Ethnomusicology.” His field work would also inspire his own music, including his set of two Violin Rhapsodies, which he wrote in 1928. The First is dedicated to the violinist Joseph Szigeti, and Bartók insisted that Szigeti listen to his field recordings of Transylvanian music to get the proper feel for the rhythms and phrasing of this piece. Though the thematic material was taken from Romanian folk musicians, Bartók adopted the traditional forms of the Gypsy csárdás and the Hungarian military dance known as the verbunkos, both of which use a slower opening section (lassú ) followed by a fast closing section (friss )—the same structure that informs Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. The lassú in Bartók’s First Rhapsody features a droning accompaniment in the piano and a swaggering, flamboyant figure in the violin, while the friss starts delicately before building up to violinistic fireworks. Bartók was dissatisfied with the original ending he wrote for the piece and wrote a new one in 1929, which he used in both recordings of the piece that he made with Szigeti. In either version, the First Rhapsody is a splashy musical experience shot through with the accents of Bartók’s travels in a remote region.
Composed in 1928. Approximately 10 minutes.
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PROGRAM NOTES
BY KRISTIAN LIN
(CONTINUED)
Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, op. 25 George Enescu b. August 19, 1881, Liveni, Romania d. May 4, 1955, Paris, France If your ears are accustomed to the chamber music of Western Europe, Enescu’s Third Violin Sonata will sound like nothing you’ve ever heard. Enescu started studying in Paris while in his teens and maintained deep ties to France, which is why his Third Violin Sonata bears the French subtitle “dans le caractère populaire roumain” (in Romanian folk style). This music is meant to imitate the sound of Romanian folk music and the at-times extreme ornamentation of Gypsy violin playing, without using any actual folk themes. A violinist by training, Enescu gave such specific instructions for the violin part that Sir Yehudi Menuhin (one of Enescu’s pupils) once said that following them would automatically result in sounding like a Gypsy fiddler. The piano part, too, contains unusual configurations meant to make the instrument sound variously like the cimbalom (a Central European instrument similar to a hammered dulcimer) and the kobza (a lute-like instrument that ranges from Hungary all the way to western China). The bizarre repeated notes at the beginning of the second movement have been said to imitate the chirping of frogs during a Romanian summer night. Enescu came by this culture honestly, meeting Lăutari musicians during his childhood trips to Bălțăţești in rural northeastern Romania and receiving an extensive musical education with them. Through them, he absorbed the rhythms of the Romani folk dances, including the dances that trained bears would perform in ursari festivals that would hail the coming of the new year. (These are still done in Romania today.) You can hear the sound of these bear dances in the sonata’s third movement. Of course, the sonata is more than just an exercise in bringing elements of Enescu’s native culture to a French audience. It’s also a wholly realized work, put together with a high degree of workmanship and expressing a melancholy-tinged sense of humor. Not for nothing is this one of the composer’s best-known pieces. Where other European composers had only imitated the sound of Gypsy music, Enescu had grown up in it and was able to bring the truest version of that sound to concert stages in the West.
Composed in 1926. Approximately 27 minutes.
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