Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre The University of Hong Kong 香港大學李兆基會議中心大會堂 16 SEP 2022｜FRI｜8PM SCITARBORIS©
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13 Preludes, Op. 32
No. 1 in C major, Allegro vivace No. 2 in B-flat minor, Allegretto No. 3 in E major, Allegro vivace No. 4 in E minor, Allegro con brio No. 5 in G major, Moderato No. 6 in F minor, Allegro appassionato No. 7 in F major, Moderato No. 8 in A minor, Vivo No. 9 in A major, Allegro moderato No. 10 in B minor, Lento No. 11 in B major, Allegretto No. 12 in G-sharp minor, Allegro No. 13 in D-flat major, Grave-Allegro
Grand Hall, The University of Hong Kong Andrey Gugnin, piano
Fantasie in B minor, Op. 28 Preludes
Oр. 11, No. 2 in A minor, Allegretto Op. 11, No. 3 in G major, Vivo Op. 11, No. 4 in E minor, Lento Op. 11, No. 11 in B major, Allegro assai Op. 11, No. 14 in E-flat minor, Presto Oр. 16, No. 4 in E-flat minor, Lento
Sonata No. 2, Op. 19 in G-sharp minor, 'Sonate-fantasie' PrestoAndante
No. 11 in B-flat minor, Andante cantabile No. 12 in D-sharp minor, Patetico
SCRIABIN Three Pieces, Op. 45 Feuillet d’album Poème Préludefantasque
Etudes, Op. 8
- INTERMISSIONRACHMANINOV
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16 SEP 2022｜FRI｜8PM
Andrey Gugnin
SCITARBORIS©
Possessing an "extraordinarily versatile and agile technique, which serves an often inspired musical imagination" (Gramophone), pianist Andrey Gugnin is rapidly gaining international acclaim as a passionate and virtuosic pianist. He has won several prizes at prestigious competitions, including the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition, the 2014 XCI International Gina Bachauer Piano Competition, and the 2013 Beethoven International Piano Competition. In 2020, the BBC Music Magazine named him the winner of the Instrumental Award for his Shostakovich album with Hyperion Records.
Gugnin has performed regularly with many prominent orchestras around the world, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and has performed under the batons of Asher Fisch, Daniel Raiskin, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Jaap van Zweden. He has also collaborated with the Asko Schönberg ensemble, Camerata Salzburg, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem, and L'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, and on several occasions as the duo partner of violinist Tasmin Little.
As a recording artist, Gugnin has published a broad repertoire ranging from solo piano to symphonic works. His release of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes (Piano Classics, 2018) was selected as Gramophone's Editor's Choice. His performance in the recording was described as "some of the finest Lisztplaying one is likely to encounter these days". Other notable recordings include his duo programme with violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea (Atoll Records, 2019), an inspired selection of solo piano suites entitled Pictures (Steinway & Sons, 2016), and a collection of piano duets with Vadim Kholodenko (Delos International, 2010). Gugnin has also recorded extensively for TVs and radios in Australia, Austria, Croatia, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, and the USA. Currently, Gugnin continues his collaboration with Hyperion Records. His latest album of Scriabin's Mazurkas (2022) was awarded as the 'Recording of the Month' by Limelight Magazine
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In addition to these recordings, Gugnin's Shostakovich Concertos (Delos International, 2007) was featured on the soundtrack of Steven Spielberg's Oscar®-winning film Bridge of Spies. Gugnin's expanding list of performance venues includes Abravanel Hall, Auditorio Nacional, Carnegie Hall, the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory, Hamarikyu Asahi Hall, the Louvre, Mariinsky Concert Hall, Musikverein, Sydney Opera House, Tokyo Metropolitan
Art Space, and Victoria Hall. Gugnin has also participated in many international festivals, including Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Duszniki Chopin International Festival, the Ohrid Summer Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Mariinsky International Festival, and the Verbier Festival.
The 2022-23 season will see Gugnin performing solo recitals across Europe and America, including Vienna's Ehrbar Hall, Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius, and Rose Wagner Performing Arts Centre in Salt Lake City. Gugnin will also showcase a number of piano concertos, including Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments with Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and Grieg's Piano Concerto with South Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
SCITARBORIS©
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Three Pieces, Op. 45 Fantasie in B minor, Op. 28
Etude, prelude, sonata, fantasy - each of these genres in the programme also constitutes a part of the representative repertoire of Chopin, as if Scriabin was following in the footsteps of the Polish piano-poet. Indeed, looking at the solo piano pieces composed by Scriabin in his early period, we can find abundant traces of Chopin's influence, especially in the melodic and harmonic language. The extended Alberti bass in the left-hand part of Prelude Op. 11, No. 11 in B major is reminiscent of Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 9 in F minor , while the lyricism in the right-hand parts reminds one of Chopin's nocturnes, though one might also recall Brahms' Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 2 in A major upon hearing the opening three-note motif. Even the keys of the twenty-four pieces in Op. 11 are organised in the exact same order as in Chopin's Preludes Op. 28. The obvious signs of influence often lead to criticisms against Scriabin's lack of creativity. The Russian nationalist composer César Cui, a member of the Mighty Five, disparaged Scriabin's preludes as "bits filched from Chopin's trousseau". Certainly, Chopin is not the only composer who influenced Scriabin, who is actually more eclectic than what Cui perceived. As observed by musicologist Wilfrid Mellers, "Scriabin's early music shows an affinity with Tchaikovsky in the drooping pathos of its lyricism; with Chopin in its fondness... for a languishing decorative elegance; and with Liszt in its exploitation of the bravura possibilities of the piano." This is not to say that Scriabin's early works are mere pastiches of these composers. Although he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 without a composition degree as Anton Arensky (1861–1906) failed him in composition, his creativity is not to be overlooked even when it comes to his early works. As early as in his Etude Op. 8, No. 12 in D-sharp minor, which he painstakingly revised in 1895 only to see that its original version was published and more widely played, Scriabin surpassed Chopin's expressive intensity with
Preludes Oр. 11, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 11, 14 Prelude, Oр. 16, No. 4 Sonata No. 2, Op. 19, 'Sonate-fantasie' Etudes, Oр. 8, Nos. 11 & 12 Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
NOTESPROGRAMME
Scriabin's interest in psychology can be discerned in his private notebook written in the summer of 1904, in which he discussed Wilhelm Wundt's (1832–1920) definition of psychological experience as a series of processes and ruminated on the nature of consciousness: "The chain of the states of a consciousness is uninterrupted. Further, I notice that one and the same state of consciousness cannot continue for longer than a certain amount of time; the sensation pales and then disappears completely." This fleeting character of consciousness is musically reflected in Scriabin's Three Pieces, Op. 45, in which the composer further expands his language of chromatic harmony. The three very short pieces start as if they are in the middle, and the first two pieces end as if they are still continuing, creating a sense of bittersweet longing especially with the modal mixture in the first piece. Constituting a short chain of consciousness, these miniatures also anticipate Scriabin's shift in focus from directional to timbral harmony.
Scriabin's ever-evolving musical language represents his relentless venture in the sonic depiction of the intricate human psyche. Opening his Sonata No. 2, Op. 19 in G-sharp minor with a slow movement as Beethoven did in his Moonlight Sonata, Scriabin endowed it with a programme that conjoins the mental with the visual and the aural: "The first section represents the quiet of a southern night on the seashore; the development is the dark agitation of the deep, deep sea. The E major middle section shows caressing moonlight coming up after the first darkness of night. The second movement represents the vast expanse of ocean in stormy agitation." The shimmering moonlight on the quiet sea, which also portrays the tranquil state of mind, is lyrically and uniquely depicted by the polyrhythms constructed by the juxtaposition of different regular and irregular note groups.
his ferocious chords rapidly repeated amid the stomping octaves. With its tonal ambiguity and frequent harmonic excursions, Fantasie in B minor, Op. 28 also offers a glimpse of Scriabin's distinctive harmonic language that he continued to develop in his later works.
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Contrary to his own belief that there is no beauty in the preludes, Rachmaninov's languishing creative process is not only reflected in the relatively longer period of gestation, but also embodied in his masterful pianistic writing and thematic development. His huge hands, capable of stretching a twelfth, allows him to craft sophisticated inner voices, exquisite compound melodies, massive chords and dazzling arpeggios, all contributing to the pieces' extensive range of expression. Compared to Scriabin's preludes, which are mostly ephemeral pieces lasting only one to three minutes, Rachmaninov's preludes are thematically full-fletched, often with independent sections pitted against one another. As later revealed by the composer, the requirement of keeping the music succinct was precisely the major obstacle to his progress: "I am at the mercy of my thematic idea, which must be presented concisely and without digression… After all, to say what you have to say, and to say it briefly, lucidly, and without any circumlocution, is still the most difficult problem facing the artist."
13 Preludes, Op. 32
Unlike Scriabin, who wrote forty-seven preludes in six months due to a bet with his publisher Mitrofan Beliaev (1836–1904) in November 1895, Rachmaninov was more heavy-hearted when he undertook his set of thirteen preludes in 1910. On 31 July, he wrote to Nikita Morozov (1864–1925), a fellow graduate from Arensky's class of composition at the Moscow Conservatory: "The business of the small piano pieces goes worst of all. I don't like this occupation, and it goes with difficulty for me. There is neither beauty nor joy." According to the dates on the final drafts of the manuscripts, Rachmaninov completed the individual pieces during the period from 23 August to 10 September, but he had played two of the pieces (Nos. 5 and 12) a few months ago in April as encores at the Moscow premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30.
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Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Rachmaninov's developmental approach to his themes in the short pieces was not always welcomed by critics. As the composer-critic Yuli Engel commented after a recital in which Rachmaninov played his preludes: "Instead of Chopin's two-page or even half-page works, Rachmaninov’s preludes grow into four, six or even eight pages. This is a growth to be welcomed when it derives from
NOTESPROGRAMME
Programmesheen.
the natural tendency of a musical idea to reveal itself as fully as possible, as, for example, the beautiful Prelude-March in G minor, Op. 23. But when a thematic embryo, whose chief interest is as a brief sketch, insists on expansion, as in the long B minor Prelude, then one is sorry both for the piece and the composer."
Although Rachmaninov never performed the thirteen pieces as a complete set, and the keys of the preludes, aside from alternating between major and minor, do not follow a perceptible order, we do find some unifying forces that hold the pieces together. One of the forces is the rhythmic motif , which first appears in No. 2 and recurs in Nos. 4, 10, 11 and 13. Another force is the different sounds of bells, which has a special meaning for Rachmaninov, as he remarked: "The sound of church bells dominated all the cities of the Russia I used to know—Novgorod, Kiev, Moscow. They accompanied every Russian from childhood to the grave, and no composer could escape their influence… All my life I have taken pleasure in the differing moods and music of gladly chiming and mournfully tolling bells." The sound of tinkling bells can be heard in Nos. 5 and 12, in which the right- and left-hand parts have reverse functions. In No. 10, which the pianist Benno Moisevitch (1890–1963) confirmed with Rachmaninov that it is inspired by Arnold Böcklin's (1827–1901) 1887 painting entitled Die Heimkehr (Homecoming), the funeral bell tolls against another set of bells in higher pitches, imbuing the music with a nostalgic
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notes by Sheryl Chow MPhil in Musicology, HKU PhD candidate in Musicology, Princeton University
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