Hélène Grimaud The Piano Collection CD 1 SERGE RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor Op.18 1. Moderato 2. Adagio sostenuto 3. Allegro scherzando MAURICE RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major 4. Allegramente 5. Adagio assai 6. Presto Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Jesùs Lopez-Cobos
55’42
10’50 11’16 11’41
8’22 9’19 4’00
CD 2 43’53 SERGE RACHMANINOFF Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor Op.36 1. Allegro agitato 7’12 2. Non allegro 4’54 3. L’istesso tempo-allegro molto 5’39 Études-tableaux Op.33 4. No. 1 in F minor 2’33 5. No. 2 in C major 2’12 2
6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
3 5 6 7 8 9
in in in in in in
C minor D minor E flat minor E flat major G minor C sharp minor
3’58 2’44 1’39 1’53 3’17 2’22
12. PRÉLUDE in B flat minor Op.32 No.2 2’53 13. PRÉLUDE in G sharp minor Op.32 No.12 2’24
CD 3 FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN 1. Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op.23
54’18 8’21
FRANZ LISZT 2. Après une lecture de Dante 15’15 Fantasia quasi sonata, from Années de Pèlerinage Book II, Italy ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Sonata No.1 in F sharp minor Op.11 3. Introduzione: un poco adagio-allegro vivace 11’26 4. Aria 2’53 5. Scherzo e intermezzo: allegrissimo 4’51 6. Finale: allegro un poco maestoso 11’13
CD 4 58’36 ROBERT SCHUMANN Kreisleriana, Op.16 1. Äusserst bewegt 2’36 2. Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch 9’08 3. Sehr aufgeregt 4’17 4. Sehr langsam 3’31 5. Sehr lebhaft 2’46 6. Sehr langsam 3’48 7. Sehr rasch 2’05 8. Schnell und spielend 3’11 JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Sonata No.2 in F sharp minor Op.2 9. Allegro non troppo, ma energico 10. Andante con espressione 11. Scherzo, allegro 12. Finale: Introduzione-allegro non troppo e rubato
5’58 5’50 4’01
CD 5 59’08 JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Sonata No.3 in F minor Op.5 1. Allegro maestoso 9’40 2. Andante espressivo 10’55 3. Scherzo, allegro energico 4’41 4. Intermezzo, andante molto 3’31 5. Finale, allegro moderato ma rubato 7’16 KLAVIERSTÜCKE Op.118 6. Intermezzo in A minor 7. Intermezzo in A major 8. Ballade in G minor 9. Intermezzo in F minor 10. Romanze in F major 11. Intermezzo in E flat minor
1’55 5’56 3’25 2’29 3’58 5’01
11’05
Recording: 16-17 June 1992, Abbey Road Studio, London (CD1); 21-23 July 1985 (CD2), 23-25 August 1987 (CD3), 28-30 November 1988 (CD4), 12-14 December 1991 (CD5), Stadsgehoorzaal Leiden, The Netherlands Producers: Holger Urbach (CD1 & 5), Yoshiharu Kawaguchi (CDs 2-4). Engineer: Gen’ichi Kitami (CD1), Peter Willemoës (CDs 2 & 3), Hiroshi Goto (CDs 4 & 5) 1985 (CD2), 1987 (CD3), 1988 (CD4), 1991 (CD5), 1992 (CD1) Union Square Music Ltd. 2014 Brilliant Classics
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The Piano Collection: Rachmaninoff: Liszt: Chopin: Schumann: Brahms: Ravel:
Piano Concerto No.2, Etudes Tableaux, Preludes, Piano Sonata No.2 Dante Sonata Ballade No.1 Kreisleriana, Piano Sonata No.1 Piano Sonatas Nos 2&3, Klavierstuecke Op.118 Piano Concerto in G
Born into a wealthy family near the ancient city of Novgorod on April 1st 1873, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s life was to be one of wanderings and dissatisfaction until he finally died in exile in Beverly Hills in California in March 1943. His very appearance from an early date is that of the doomladen Romantic and indeed his first misfortune happened when at the age of only nine, his father appears to have spent all the family monies and the young composer and his family were left with nothing at all. By 1885, the family had moved to Moscow where the young Sergei began to take piano lessons and made his first attempts at composing. It was not until some six years later that Rachmaninoff produced the first of his early successes as known today - the first Piano Concerto of 1891. Although this was hardly to be the success of the two middle concertos, it sets the tone of Rachmaninoff’s later works with piano and orchestra. All of the concertos were to be written in a minor key and all, together with most of his other works, show the influence of the past masters of the piano and orchestral genres – namely Chopin and Tchaikovsky. The Concerto was followed a year later by what is undoubtedly Rachmaninoff’s best known work for solo piano, the Prelude in C-sharp minor (Op.3 No.2), a work which was to become as annoying in its world-wide fame to its composer as Elgar’s first Pomp and Circumstance March would be to his English contemporary. Those early successes together with his first opera “Aleko”, the so-called “Youth” Symphony and the fine, yet still underestimated tone poem “Prince Rostislav” were to be no cushion for the paranoid disappointment he felt at the failure of his Symphony No.1 of 1895-97. The Symphony’s premiere was conducted by the well-known composer and conductor Alexander Glazunov who (probably under the influence of too much alcohol at the time) ensured the work was a complete failure. Rachmaninoff’s reaction was one of severe nervous distress forcing him to withdraw the work and destroying the score. 4
The parts of the Symphony did however survive and enabled a reconstruction to be made in 1945, too late for its composer to hear and enjoy its later re-entry into the symphonic repertoire. Despite the disillusionment of the failure of the Symphony, Rachmaninoff’s second career as a concert pianist was beginning to flourish and he was also concerned from 1897 onwards with the post of conductor of the Moscow Private Opera Company. The silence in composition which followed saw Rachmaninoff suffering such self-doubts over his capabilities as a composer that he took a course of hypnosis, before in 1901 he was able to complete his second Piano Concerto. The huge success of that work encouraged him to return to composition and soon led to the composition of two further operas - “Francesca da Rimini” and “The Miserly Knight” as well as the set of ten Preludes for Piano solo of 1904. Tastes today have meant that the third of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos now rivals the popularity of the Second and it was that most complex of the Concertos that Rachmaninoff completed between the two sets of Preludes in 1909, together with the most famous of his Symphonies (the Second) written in 1907. These are the major works written before the composer left his native Russia in 1917. An invitation to conduct in Stockholm gave the composer and his family the opportunity to leave Russia shortly after the Revolution and he finally settled in America where his remaining few works show a sad diminution of his talents despite his fame as a pianist. The C minor Piano Concerto dates from the years of 1900-1901 and was dedicated to Nikolai Dahl, receiving its successful first performance in Moscow in November 1901 with the composer as soloist. Cast in conventional three movement form, it is the most lyrical of the four concertos but not without its sense of bravura and grandeur. The Preludes and to a lesser extent, the Etudes Tableaux see Rachmaninoff perfecting the smaller form piano piece in contrast to the larger scale Piano Sonatas. The Second Sonata was composed in 1913 and has much in common with the composer’s sombre choral work “The Bells”. Rachmaninoff was cautious and worried about the length and complexity of the work and made a shorter version in 1931. Liszt and Chopin were the two major piano virtuosi of the nineteenth century as well as two representatives of the burgeoning nationalist schools of music in central Europe. Frédéric Chopin was born outside Warsaw in 1810 but was to leave his native Poland for Paris in 1831 to take up a career as a pianist in the salons of the French aristocracy. It was the lyrical aspect of Chopin’s playing that would endear him to his audience and not surprisingly, many of his own works were written to show off that particular aspect of his technique. Chopin’s temperament however and particularly his poor health 5
through his suffering from tuberculosis made this an unsatisfactory career and he was to spend the winter in the depths of an affair of 1838 in Mallorca with the famous novelist George Sand. The Mallorca episode saw a worsening of his condition and he and Sand returned to Paris where the composer spent his days between life in the capital and summers at Sand’s country house in Nohant. The relationship was not always a happy one and the couple finally separated in 1847, after which Chopin was to write little more. His final major concert tour was to England in 1848 and a year later he was to die from the tuberculosis that had troubled most of his short life. Although the shorter works such as the Preludes, Etudes and Waltzes are probably Chopin’s most popular works, the four Ballades are some of his most remarkable pieces. It is unlikely, although sometimes tempting to imagine, that any of these works contain a programme as such but they do contain not only the lyrical aspects of the composer but also some of his most dramatic writing. Although Franz Liszt is often grouped with Chopin, the two performer/composers could hardly have been different. Whereas Chopin was basically a lyricist within smaller forms, Liszt was a tempestuous performer and composer with a great deal in common with his friend Richard Wagner. Liszt was also a showman as well as a great womaniser but he was also a major musical figure in the quest for modernity; even credited with an early example of atonality as well as the invention of large scale tone poems such as would later be popularised by the likes of Richard Strauss. He was born only a year after Chopin, in 1811 and soon set himself up as a travelling virtuoso and although he also spent most of his life outside his native Hungary, he retained a musical affection for his home land in many of his own pieces. He was also a great supporter of other composer’s works and after becoming Kapellmeister at Weimar in Saxony, was responsible for premiering a vast number of new works. Despite taking minor religious orders in Rome in the 1860’s, his religious works never showed any true inspiration and he soon reverted to travelling and to teaching. He died at the age of seventy five having left behind a large number of compositions ranging from technically difficult piano works to large scale symphonic poems and oratorios. Amongst the symphonic works, the Faust Symphony and Dante symphony stand out as quite literal transcriptions of the works they were based on. Somewhat different is the Dante Sonata, more of a fantasy based on his experiences of reading the Divine Comedy rather than a straightforward musical transcription. The Sonata was written in 1837 and then revised in 1849 and falls into three sections (fast/ slow and then fast again) and amongst its technical innovations makes use of both the tritone and the whole tone scale. 6
Robert Schumann was perhaps the quintessential Romantic figure in the German music of the nineteenth century. He was born in Zwickau in Saxony in 1810, the son of a bookseller and novelist. His early life was tinged with tragedy as his father died when Robert was only sixteen after which his sister committed suicide, Robert was deeply shocked by these events but managed to enrol at Leipzig University and took up musical studies with Friedrich Wieck whose daughter, Clara, he was to eventually (after many family problems and squabbles) marry. Schumann’s own dreams of being a virtuoso pianist were wrecked by the crippling of his left hand, a possible result of the syphilis he had contracted and which was to eventually drive him insane and lead to his death in 1856. It was, in fact, Clara who was to become the true virtuoso in the family and she was to prove both inspiration and performer for Robert as well as for their close friend Johannes Brahms. Around the 1840’s Schumann’s life began to become bleaker and bleaker, a result of his illness and he began to suffer from manic depression. The couple moved to Dresden but it was Clara who was experiencing success as a performer whilst much of Robert’s music was misunderstood and not appreciated. Crisis arrived after a spell as conductor in Leipzig, when Robert tried to drown himself in the river Rhine and was committed to an asylum outside Bonn. Clara and Brahms waited in the wings whilst Robert slowly succumbed to the effects of his disease, starvation and madness. The eight pieces which make up Schumann’s Kreisleriana are based on a comic character Kapellmeister Kreisler - from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story “Kater Murr”. The work dates from the late 1830’s when Schumann was experiencing problems with his courtship of the young Clara and the pieces are an expression of his feelings at the time although they go much further in their deeper emotions than mere admiration and devotion. The First Sonata is also dedicated to Clara and was sent to her in 1836 although her father refused to allow her to acknowledge its arrival. The work, in conventional four movement form, is based on earlier themes by Schumann and indeed by Clara herself and can be seen as something of a coded correspondence between the two lovers. Although he had been born in the Northern German harbour city of Hamburg and spent his early years struggling in that town as a performer in local dives on the one hand and also with the ladies choir of the more sedate suburb of Blankenese on the Elbe river, Brahms tired of his home surroundings. His travels took him both near and far and after meeting with the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim and the composer Robert Schumann and his pianist wife Clara he decided to move south to Austria and to settle in the Hapsburg capital and musical centre of Vienna.
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Johannes Brahms had been appointed director of music at the Court of the Prince of Lippe-Detmold in 1854 but was to finally settle in Vienna in 1862. The move brought about a concentration on composition and a set routine of holidays in Italy in the summer months together with visits to the Spa town of Bad Ischl in central Austria and the Carinthian Lakelands to the South of the country. Success brought about rivalry too and Brahms was to become the unwilling champion of an anti-Wagner faction within the German music establishment. Brahms’ life remained one of convention and celibacy - he did have women friends apart from Clara Wieck but never chose to marry or settle down, comparing somewhat jokingly, his horror of marriage with that of opera a form he was never to contemplate. He died in 1897 a somewhat scruffy and unkempt figure, but an undoubted master composer who had led the most surprisingly uneventful of lives. The piano music of Brahms falls into three sections beginning with the three Sonatas, the four Ballades and a rather over-lengthy Scherzo (Op.4). Of the Sonatas it is the five movement F minor work of 1853 (Number Three) that has found most favour; the five movements follow the pattern of the earlier work but with the addition of a second slow movement after the Scherzo and marked as an Intermezzo. The slightly earlier second Sonata being in a more conventional four movement form - two outer fast movements with two central movements consisting of a slow and expressive Andante followed by a Scherzo and Trio. The middle group consists of the pieces written around 1854-73 and including most of the more technical pieces. The final group consists of the late works, some of the most amazingly individual works of his whole output including the undoubted masterpieces of Op.116 to 119. These are generally more contemplative works than the earlier pieces although the elements of heroism and drama are by no means lacking at times. Brahms’ Op.118 set is labelled simply Piano Pieces (like the earlier Op.76 set) and consists of four Intermezzos, a Ballade and a Romance and although the work is predominantly lyrical, there are severe difficulties and highly technical demands particularly in the final E flat Intermezzo as well as a sense of deep passion in the opening piece to bring out the contrasts with moments such as the sad and plangent phrases of the tender second Intermezzo in A major. Although born in a small town in the Pyrenees in 1875, it was not long before Maurice Ravel moved up to the French capital and by 1889 he was already enrolled at the Conservatoire where for six years he studied with Gabriel Fauré and began to develop his own personal style. It was the unconventional nature of his music that meant, like his predecessor Berlioz, he consistently failed to win 8
the coveted stipendium and honour of the “Prix de Rome (in 1901, 1902, 1903 and at the final attempt in 1905). Ravel gave up all ideas of entering for the prize and proceeded, undeterred to create his own particular genre of music which would include much piano music, concertos, tone poems, chamber works, ballets, songs and two short operas. Ravel’s life story is, in effect, an uneventful one. He never married or had any obvious major relationship with anyone, was a bit of a dandy in his dress sense and was considered both underweight and too short to join the military forces at the outbreak of the Great War. Instead he spent the period as an ambulance driver, unhappy that he could not contribute more than this and his music. He did not even manage to serve in this post beyond 1916 when he suffered a complete physical collapse which was worsened by the death of his mother shortly afterwards. Despite this, after the death of Debussy in 1918, he became France’s greatest living composer although he was finding it increasingly difficult to create new works. The last months of his life were plagued by a serious brain disease which left him unable to do anything and although he submitted to a risky brain operation, he never regained consciousness and died in December 1937 in Paris. Ravel’s output is not large but is varied enough to include chamber works, operas, orchestral pieces and solo instrumental pieces. The two piano concertos are amongst the finest of all the compositions. Although the D major concerto is unusual in being not only in one continuous movement, but also written for the pianist’s left hand only, the G major piece is in the usual three movement form and makes use of the left and right hands of the soloist. Whilst the outer movements are playful and strongly influenced by jazz, the central Adagio assai is both lyrical and impressionistic. Dr. David Doughty
Hélène Grimaud She could be called a Renaissance woman for our times. Hélène Grimaud is not just a deeply passionate and committed musical artist whose pianistic accomplishments play a central role in her life. She is a woman with multiple talents that extend far beyond the instrument she plays with such poetic expression and peerless technical control. The French artist has established herself as a committed wildlife conservationist, a compassionate human rights activist and as a writer. Grimaud was born in 1969 in Aix-en-Provence where she began her piano studies at the 9
conservatory with Jacqueline Courtin and subsequently under Pierre Barbizet in Marseille. She was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire at just 13 and won first prize in piano performance a mere three years later. She continued to study with György Sándor and Leon Fleisher until, in 1987, she gave her well-received debut recital in Tokyo. The same year the renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim invited her to perform with the Orchestre de Paris. This marked the launch of Grimaud’s musical career; one highlighted by concerts with most of the world’s major orchestras and many celebrated conductors. Her recordings have been critically acclaimed and awarded numerous accolades, among them the Cannes Classical Recording of the Year, Choc du Monde de la musique, Diapason d’or, Grand Prix du disque, Record Academy Prize (Tokyo), Midem Classic Award and the Echo Award. Between her debut in 1995 with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Claudio Abbado and her first performance with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur in 1999 – just two of many acclaimed musical milestones – Grimaud made a wholly different kind of debut: in upper New York State she established the Wolf Conservation Center. Her love for the endangered species was sparked by a chance encounter with a wolf in northern Florida which led to her determination to open an environmental education centre. “To be involved in direct conservation and being able to put animals back where they belong,” she says, “there’s just nothing more fulfilling.” But Grimaud’s engagement doesn’t end there: she is also a member of the organisation Musicians for Human Rights, a worldwide network of musicians and people working in the field of music to promote a culture of human rights and social change. For most people, establishing and running an environmental organization or having a flourishing career as a musician would be accomplishment enough. Yet, remarkably, Hélène Grimaud has also found time to pursue writing. Her first book, Variations Sauvages, was published in French in 2003 and subsequently translated into English, Japanese, Dutch and German. Her second book, Leçons particulières, which is part novel and part autobiography, followed in 2005. Despite her divided dedication to these multiple passions, it is through Grimaud’s thoughtful and tenderly expressive music-making that she most deeply touches the emotions of audiences. Fortunately, they have been able to enjoy her concerts due to her extensive touring programme with major orchestras around the world. In 2013, she performs in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Russia, the USA, Brazil, China and Japan. Amongst others, she will play with the Czech Philharmonic, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the Philharmonia, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and 10
the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Brahms features prominently in Grimaud’s programming repertoire throughout 2013. In the autumn Deutsche Grammophon will release her album of the two Brahms piano concertos; the first concerto with Andris Nelsons conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the second recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic. When she took the Brahms on tour to Southeast Asia this year, The Straits Times of Singapore said: “Her playing was distinguished by superb timing and consistency of touch, and seamless interplay between piano and orchestra.” Grimaud is also an ardent and committed chamber musician who performs frequently at the most prestigious festivals and cultural events with a wide range of musical collaborators that has included Sol Gabetta, Thomas Quasthoff, Rolando Villazón, Jan Vogler, Truls Mørk, Clemens Hagen and the Capuçon brothers. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2002, her most recent release was Duo, a collaboration with cellist Sol Gabetta, released in October 2012. Last autumn the pair gave a series of concerts in Germany and France, performing the cello sonatas by Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich and Debussy which are featured on the disc. The album’s repertoire originated as an inspired recreation of a concert they gave at the 2011 Gstaad Festival and which the Berner Zeitung described at the time as “breathtaking” while BBC Music Magazine commented that “. . . in the grand first movement [of Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 1] Hélène Grimaud produces a context of almost orchestral depth and spaciousness into which Gabetta projects her eloquently refined lines.” Previous releases include her Mozart Piano Concertos No.19 and No.23 with the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. That disc, released in 2011, also featured a collaboration with singer Mojca Erdmann on a recording of Mozart’s Ch’io mi scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene. Grimaud’s 2010 release, the solo recital album Resonances, featured music by Mozart, Berg, Liszt and Bartók. Other DG recordings by Grimaud include Bach’s solo and concerto works in which she directed the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen from the piano bench, and a Beethoven disc with Staatskapelle Dresden and Vladimir Jurowski, Reflection and Credo (both of which feature a number of works linked thematically), a Chopin and Rachmaninov Sonatas disc, and a DVD release of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under the direction of Claudio Abbado. Hélène Grimaud is undoubtedly a multi-faceted artist. Her deep dedication to her musical career, both in performances and recordings, is reflected and reciprocally amplified by the scope and depth of her environmental and literary pursuits. 11