WI Union-Jeremy Denk

Where Quality Endures…And New Traditions Begin 91st Annual Concert Series

Jeremy Denk, piano Thursday, April 21, 2011 7:30 pm

www.uniontheater.wisc.edu 608-265-ARTS (2787) 800 Langdon St., Madison, WI 53706 Wisconsin Union Theater 1

Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this year by Kiley Groose.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts Additional support provided by: ETC, WORT 89.9 FM, Wisconsin Public Radio, and AV Club.

UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, and help program our upcoming events, please contact Kiley Groose at kgroose@gmail.com

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JEREMY DENK , PIANO Sonata No. 1.................................................................................................................................. IVES I. Adagio con moto (1874-1954) IIa. Allegro moderato IIb. Allegro, “In the Inn” III. Largo-Allegro-Largo IVa. (no tempo heading) IVb. Allegro; Presto; Slow V. Andante maestoso INTERMISSION Goldberg Variations, BWV. 988..................................................................................... J.S. BACH Aria (1685 – 1750) Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 3: “Canone all’Unisono” Variation 4 Variation 5 Variation 6: “Canone alla Seconda” Variation 7 Variation 8 Variation 9: “Canone all Terza” Variation 10: “Fughetta” Variation 11 Variation 12: “Canone alla Quarta” Variation 13 Variation 14 Variation 15: “Canone alla Quinta” Variation 16: “Ouverture” Variation 17 Variation 18: “Canone alla Sexta” Variation 19 Variation 20 Variation 21: “Canone alla Settima” Variation 22 Variation 23 Variation 24: “Canone all’Ottava” Variation 25 Variation 26 Variation 27: “Canone alla Nona” Variation 28 Variation 29 Variation 30: “Quodlibet” Aria da Capo Steinway Piano Exclusive Management:

470 Park Avenue South 9th Floor North New York NY 10016 Wisconsin Union Theater 3

ABOUT THE MUSIC

By Perry Allaire Ives: First Piano Sonata When Charles Ives, by his own admission, conceived the idea of writing a “Concord” piano sonata, it was September of 1911. He had already been working with the various musical elements which would form the work, in various guises, since 1904. By 1915 he had put the first version of the Sonata on paper; after his first major heart attack in 1918, he produced a second version along with the Essays Before a Sonata, published 1919-1920. Throughout the rest of his life he continued to rework the piece, publishing what he hoped was a “final” version in 1947.

Nothing like this was the case with the First Piano Sonata. It was written between 1902 and 1910, although in 1905 Ives dashed off his “Three-Page Sonata,” itself a pithy and important little work. But the composer never returned to the First Sonata for revision; it stands as it is, a testament to its composer’s romantic heritage and personal expressive force. The American composer and conductor Lou Harrison, who led the first professional performance of Ives’ Third Symphony in 1946 (a mere 42 years after it was written) has called the First Piano Sonata “One of the most gripping and eloquent works of the turn of the century--special among the composer’s works.”

The first movement opens with a somber adagio statement which builds through a series of sweeping gestures to a jarring rhythmic displacement. After a free cadenza, the movement concludes in dreamy lyricism. The hymn tunes “Where‘s My Wandering Boy Tonight“ and “I Was a Wandering Sheep” are important in the movement, along with “How Dry I Am,” which will be heard in each of the succeeding movements.

Both the second and fourth movements of the First Sonata are ragtime scherzos based on four ragtime pieces that the young Ives had composed while still a student at Yale. The second movement begins with “How Dry I Am” which is worked in with several statements of “Bringing in the Sheaves” as counterpoint; at the end of this first scherzo section (and again at the end of the movement), Ives uses the hymn tune “I Hear Thy Welcome Voice” as a “chorus.” The second half of the movement is another scintillating ragtime piece called “In the Inn.” The fourth movement scherzo is one of Ives’ wildest creations. Its introduction, which initially contains bold dissonances and daring cross-rhythms, evolves into bitonality and tone clusters. Then comes another ragtime section which, starting in muted tones, builds to a towering climax, using material from the second movement, including an even more brutal treatment of “Bringing In the Sheaves.” Then, quoting “I Hear Thy Welcome Voice,” the movement subsides into final peace.

In the third movement we find Ives at his most tenderly romantic and this is surely the emotional heart of the Sonata. Its one theme, rhapsodic in character, is introduced in fragments and small motives, and it reveals its complete self only gradually. The movement builds to an eloquent and intense middle section and then ebbs back to the serene Largo mood with which it began. The principal quotation in the movement is of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” although “I was a Wandering Sheep” makes some reappearances.

The great fifth movement Finale recalls the heroic quality of the finales of the early Brahms piano sonatas in its intensity, breadth, and scope. Although “I Was a Wandering Sheep” is heard again, this last movement is dominated by a motive derived from “I Hear Thy Welcome Voice” whose original form consists of a falling semitone followed by a falling minor third. During the movement this motive 4 Wisconsin Union Theater

A B O U T T H E M U S I C ( c o n t .) appears in various alterations, sometimes inverted, sometimes with the semitone expanded to a whole tone or even to a minor or major third and it is this musical argument that provides the intellectual core of this final movement.

After a preliminary climax is reached, an eloquent “Adagio Cantabile” section suspends the forward motion of the movement. Here, in this essentially improvisatory span of time, we again hear the echoes of “How Dry I Am;” then a jazzy impetus, rhythmically complex, begins and builds to the broad fortissimo conclusion of the Sonata. In the surprising final measure of the work, we hear the finale’s generative motive in its original form. Ives has closed his circle with that kind of transcendental vision that was often his personal gift.

J. S. Bach: Goldberg Variations During his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach published very few of his works.

What he called his Opus 1 was the first of his six “Partitas” for clavier, the one in B-flat major. Bach personally supervised the engraving of this work, which was then published in 1726. Even though some of his choral works had already been printed, Bach subscribed to the practice of his time, considering them relatively unimportant and giving preference to the keyboard suite.

By 1731 Bach had composed and brought out the other five of his six keyboard Partitas. They were then collected and published again in what turned out to be the first of his four-volume Clavierubung, a term he had borrowed from his predecessor Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722), meaning not “studies” in the modern sense, but diversionary pieces for any keyboard instrument. The remaining three volumes appeared as follows: II: Italian Concerto and French Overture (1735); III: the Organ Mass and the Four Dances for harpsichord (1739); and IV: the so-called “Goldberg Variations” (1742).

If the truth be told, what we now know as J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations could just as well have been called his “Kayserlingk Variations,” since they were commissioned by Count Hermann Carl von Kayserlingk (1696-1764), a Dresden patron of the arts and great admirer of Bach. The count apparently suffered from insomnia, and he wanted Bach to compose music for the Court harpsichordist to play in order to pass the long sleepless nights. But the harpsichordist, one Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, was the one whose name became famous.

According to Bach’s first biographer, J. N. Forkel, the composer felt that the Count’s request “could best be fulfilled by means of variations, which he had until then considered to be an unrewarding labor on account of the unchanging basic harmonies.” (Bach’s biography, like his fame, was late in coming: Forkel’s book appeared in 1802.) In fact, Bach had only once before employed this form, namely in his “Aria with Variations in the Italian Manner” of 1709. But these are melodic variations and have nothing to do with the task the composer made for himself in the “Goldberg” set of 1742.

In his last years, Bach shows a kind of exhaustive approach to discovering and bringing to light every possible aspect of his musical material. This may be seen in such works as the second book of the Well-tempered Clavier (1744), the Musical Offering (1747), the Canonic Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch” (1748), and, above all, in the unfinished Art of Fugue, where, at the place that Bach stopped writing, all voices are at the same point vertically. The Goldberg Variations also share this lofty character, and as an accomplishment in the form can perhaps only be compared with Beethoven’s great Diabelli Variations.

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A B O U T T H E M U S I C ( c o n t .)

Like Beethoven, Bach uses for his theme a quite modest tune; his “Aria” comes from his own (second) Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, where it can be found, titled “Sarabande.” It is the bass-line of this tune that often serves as the basis for variation within the fixed harmonic scheme of G major to D major to E minor and back to G major. Only twice does Bach employ the darkness of G minor, specifically in Variations 21 and 25.

But Bach’s task was much more complex than just that of passacaglia. The total number of variations is 30. For each third variation (Nos. 3, 6, 9. 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, and 27), Bach writes a canonic variation, the first canon being at the unison and then proceeding by step through a canon at the octave (No. 24) to a canon at the interval of a ninth (No. 27). All of these except the last are two-voice canons with the bass forming a free third voice. So the whole may be seen as ten groups of three variations, the third always being canonic. But Variation 16 is in the style of a French Overture (slow, dotted introductory first half; fast, almost strict fugal second half )--the only time this form is employed--and because of its central position among the thirty this Variation essentially divides the work in half.

At equal distances on both sides of it we find, in Variations 10 and 22, a small fughetto, and so by this device the work may be divided into thirds. Also, speaking generally, the variations proceed from the technically simple to the most complex (No. 29), and this in itself reveals the whole as a culminatory showpiece of the state of harpsichord technique at the time of its composition.

If Bach had chosen to follow precisely his plan of every third variation being canonic at a one-step-greater interval, Variation 30 would have been a canon at the interval of a tenth. Instead, what catches us by surprise is a “Quodlibet,” a humorous, often parodistic piece made up of the simultaneous singing of several songs. For this purpose Bach employed two then-well-known popular tunes. One runs thus: “It’s so long since I was last with you, come closer, come closer, come closer,” while the other says: “Cabbage and turnips drove me away, had my mother cooked meat I’ve had opted to stay.” These are combined with the bass theme with such artistry as to seem not only effortless but great fun. In such a work Bach can still find a place for humor. The Aria then returns to provide a serene finishing touch.

A heading in the Clavierubung describes the music as being “for music-lovers to refresh their spirits.” Surely, Bach has succeeded in reaching that goal with this magnificent set of variations based on the little Sarabande he first set down for Anna Magdelena in 1725.

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ABOUT THE ARTIST Jeremy Denk, Pianist American pianist Jeremy Denk has steadily built a reputation as one of today’s most compelling and persuasive artists with an unusually broad repertoire.

He has appeared as soloist with many major orchestras, including the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, New World, St. Louis, and San Francisco Symphonies, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and London Philharmonia. Last season he played concertos by Beethoven, Copland, Mozart, Schumann, and Stravinsky, whose Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments he performed under the direction of John Adams, first with the London Symphony Orchestra in London and Paris, and then as part of Carnegie Hall’s City Noir. He appears often in recital in New York, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia.

During the 2010-2011 Season, Denk releases his first solo recording, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives, on which he plays Charles Ives’s Piano Sonatas 1 & 2 (“Concord”). He also returns to Carnegie Hall for his second solo recital, in works by Ligeti and Bach, and a concerto appearance, featuring Liszt’s First with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Charles Dutoit, after performances together in Philadelphia.

Mr. Denk has been the recital partner of violinist Joshua Bell since 2004. A Philadelphia reviewer noted their “equal partnership, with no upstaging.”

Working often with contemporary composers, Denk has participated in premieres

by Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, Kevin Puts, and Ned Rorem. He has recorded works

by Leon Kirchner and Tobias Picker.

“Think Denk,” the popular blog where he writes of some of his experiences and gives detailed musical analyses, has been praised by colleagues and the press.

The New Yorker called him a “superb musician who writes with arresting sensitivity and wit.” The Richmond Times said “Mr. Denk is the ideal interpreter for music that defies easy classification,” and The Washington Post referred to his “Brilliant Playing at the Edge of Schumann’s Sanity.”

Jeremy Denk earned degrees from Oberlin, Indiana University and Juilliard. He lives in New York City, and his website and blog can be found at http:// jeremydenk.net.

NEXT SEASON’S CONCERT SERIES Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble Friday, 9/30/11, 7:30 pm Caroline Goulding, violin Recital, Thursday, 11/3/11, 7:30 pm With UW Chamber Orchestra, Saturday, 11/5/11, 7:30 pm David Finckel, Wu Han and Philip Setzer Trio Friday, 2/24/2012, 7:30 pm Peter Serkin, piano Saturday, 5/5/2012, 7:30 pm

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