25th Singapore International Piano Festival by Singapore Symphony

M essage From Th e S i n ga p o r e S ym p h o n y G r o u p

25 Years and Counting It’s hard to believe that this is already the 25th edition of the Singapore International Piano Festival. The years have flown past, my hair has greyed and thinned, and Singapore’s music scene has grown richer by the year. 25 years ago, there was no Esplanade Concert Hall, no Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Lan Shui had just made his first appearance in Singapore as a guest to the teenage Singapore Symphony Orchestra. When I was discovering the world of classical music in the early 1970s, there was no professional orchestra in Singapore. A few times each year, we had visiting artists who brought music to life in a way that recorded music could only approximate. Most of these were recitals, given the prohibitive cost of touring an orchestra overseas. The inspired decision to form the SSO in 1979 has been well-chronicled, but one of the unplanned consequences was a reduction in the number of recitals and chamber concerts by international artists. In 1993, as one of the SSO’s newer directors, I discussed this problem with the SSO’s General Manager Tisa Ho (now CEO of the Hong Kong Arts Festival). I wanted to bring recitals back into the mainstream of musical life in Singapore. There is something very special in the atmosphere of a great recital: a journey that takes us deeper into the most private thoughts of the composer, refracted through the lens of each pianist’s musical intelligence and enabled by his or her technique. We realised that the ideal time to put on a short festival was when the orchestra went on vacation, in the month of June, as the Victoria Concert Hall would be available. With the support of the Board and especially our piano-loving founding chairman, Mr Tan Boon Teik, we went ahead with the experiment in 1994. We knew that this was worth persisting with from the very first night when extra chairs had to be placed onto the stage because of the overwhelming interest from Singapore’s pianophiles. In that first edition, one third of festival-goers bought tickets to all four concerts, played on consecutive nights – a format which we’ve adhered to ever since (though for exciting reasons, this 25th anniversary edition has some very special extras!). We didn’t model the SIPF on any other festival. From the start, it has been curated by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, exposing audiences to a broad diversity of pianistic temperaments and styles. I helmed the Festival for its first decade, and then invited Chang Tou Liang to take over. In turn, the baton was passed to Lionel Choi in 2010, and next year, it will be the turn of Lim Yan. We are each different in temperament and taste, and consequently each has approached the curatorial challenge differently. There is no committee (and I hope there will never be) – part of the nature

of the SIPF is the curatorial freedom available to the Director, and a committee will often steer the Festival down a middle path when, sometimes, the most interesting possibilities are at the fringes. I am sure we have politely disagreed with each other’s choices from time to time, and that is as it should be. Each festival director is a musical evangelist, charged with bringing personal musical convictions founded on a deep love for the piano and its repertoire, for the enjoyment and edification of our audiences. At the same time, each of us has blind spots that, if perpetuated, would mean a Festival that misses the full range of possibilities in the infinitely rich piano repertoire. A periodic change in the leadership of the Festival is healthy. Apart from Tou Liang and Lionel, I have many people to thank in the SSO staff over the years. Together with our piano technician Walter Haass (who has been coming here for 24 years now), they are the unseen heroes of each year’s mini-marathon. To all those who have supported the SIPF in one way or another over the past 25 years, thank you, and I hope you will continue to find joy and satisfaction in future editions of the festival.

Goh Yew Lin SIPF Founding Artistic Director (1994–2003, 2009) Chairman, Singapore Symphony Group

M essage From T h e AR T IS T I C D IRE C TOR

Who would have guessed that a tiny multi-racial island-republic tucked away at the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula would end up playing host to a world-class festival dedicated to all things pianistic, and to have done so for a quarter of a century already? Of these 25 years, I am very honoured to have been closely associated with the most recent nine of them as Artistic Director (and 18 as a contributor to the programme notes, and more than 20 in the audience), book-ended by Singapore debuts by Yuja Wang in 2010 and the peerless Martha Argerich this year. I am immensely proud of the extraordinary following we have worked hard to build, both among international touring artists and music agencies, and local and regional audiences. In fact, this year, our audience reach has extended far beyond Asia: to our audience members visiting from Australia, New Zealand, France, USA, Germany, Russia, Canada, and the UK, among others, welcome! These nine years, my overall vision for the Festival has been simple, albeit less easy to implement. At a time more than ever before when branding and marketing alone are able to make careers, it has been challenging to plan with the aim of presenting our audience with not just the opportunity to hear great music, but to revel in the high level of musical understanding – as opposed to mere gimmicking and fluff – that each artist, judiciously selected for her artistry, brings to her music-making. Given that our recitals are over consecutive evenings, there also needs to be musical variety between them, and not night after night of the sort of ‘safe’, playby-numbers performances that piano competitions, for instance, seem to invite these days. That I have just four slots each year means no single artist or programme choice could ever be taken lightly. I like to think we have had more hits than misses these past years, and, while I do not deny that there is a special thrill of presenting the justly world-famous, it has been especially satisfying personally that the likes of Benjamin Grosvenor, Chiyan Wong, Daniel-Ben Pienaar, Lukáš Vondráček, Olli Mustonen, Hüseyin Sermet, Cédric Tiberghien, Nareh Arghamanyan and Shai Wosner, among others, came as relatively unknown names in this part of the world, and, through outstanding performances and, in several cases, unexpected and magical transcendence, made many new admirers of their wonderful musicianship. Of course, none of any of this would have been possible if we did not have an experienced team to put together the world-class experience both artist and audience expect, starting with our brilliant, tireless Australia-based piano technician Walter Haass. Walter’s stellar work on our VCH pianos for the 24th year running has drawn the highest praise all round consistently and whose experience, sound judgment and tastes I personally find very reassuring. Everyone at the

Singapore Symphony Group has been incredibly supportive in all aspects of planning over the years, and I am particularly grateful for the marshalling of more than the usual resources this year, including our SSO musicians, for our â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;supersizedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; silver anniversary edition. There is no better time for me to hand over the artistic reins to a successor. For the first time in our history, the Festival will be curated by an active concert pianist. I believe Lim Yan possesses clarity of artistic vision through his immense pianistic abilities. He is devoted to educating the next generation of musicians and music lovers, and is well-liked by colleagues. I have full confidence that he will continue to raise the profile of the Festival and that audiences can expect this annual immersive pianistic experience to be even more inspired and engaging under his stewardship. I wish you a spectacular SIPF25 experience.

Lionel Choi Artistic Director

M e s s a g e s F o r A S i lv e r J u b i l e e “There is something very special in the atmosphere of a great recital: a journey that takes us deeper into the most private thoughts of the composer, refracted through the lens of each pianist’s musical intelligence and enabled by his or her technique.” – Goh Yew Lin (Artistic Director, 1994 – 2003, 2009)

“I am enormously grateful to have had the opportunity to help get this Festival started; for the great music, friendships, and memories; and for the energy and drive of so many who kept it going all these years.” – Tisa Ho (General Manager, Singapore Symphonia Co Ltd 1990 – 1999)

“I remember from my first participation in the Singapore International Piano Festival how amazed I was at their unusually high standards when it came to choice of artists and programmes. That is the mark of a great festival.” – Kun-Woo Paik (1995, 2005, 2014)

“I played in the Singapore International Piano Festival at different stages of my artistic development and always enjoyed it. The warmth of the audience leaves precious memories.” – Piotr Anderszewski (1997, 2010, 2014) “Twenty-five years have passed like a flash. The Piano Festival has been life-changing for me, as a member of the audience and as a listener. It has been a pleasure and privilege to celebrate the riches of all things pianistic!” – Dr Chang Tou

Liang (Artistic Director, 2004 – 2008)

“Singapore has established itself on the international music map, and this festival has played no small part in enhancing its reputation. May it go from strength to strength!” – Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung (2005)

“The inception of the Singapore International Piano Festival more or less coincided with the moment in time when I decided to pursue music seriously. As a young and aspiring piano student, the Festival quickly became an unmissable fixture in the calendar, and it was an incredible honour for me to have participated in the 2005 season as a Young Virtuoso artist.” – Lim Yan (Young

Virtuoso 2005)

“Over the years, I have seen the Singapore International Piano Festival grow from a small piano event to an internationally-recognised piano festival. I am extremely proud to be part of the collaborative effort to make this Festival a great one.” – Walter Haass (Piano Technician for SIPF)

“I am confident this Piano Festival will continue to provide a remarkable platform for world-class performances, delighting audiences with a wealth of diverse and exciting keyboard repertoire and inspiring our young musicians to greater heights!” – Sandi Koh (Young Virtuoso 2008)

“Thinking back about my trips to perform at the piano festival always brings a smile to my face; making music in an intimate atmosphere, surrounded by good friends and an extraordinarily appreciative audience has always been a special experience for me. Happy 25th Anniversary and here’s to many more years!” – Yevgeny Sudbin (2009, 2013)

“It was this piano festival that gave me my introduction to the beautiful city of Singapore, a place for which I have developed much fondness through my return visits over the years. The Victoria and Esplanade Concert Halls are fantastic halls and the audiences in Singapore are some of the warmest and most attentive I know. Wishing everyone a happy 25th festival, for what looks a stunning array of concerts.” – Benjamin Grosvenor (2010, 2013)

“There are piano festivals and piano festivals. And then there is the Singapore International Piano Festival, where every artist would always like to return for the very high artistic quality of the programs and for the warm, enthusiastic audience.” – Pietro De Maria (2010)

“Congratulations to the Singapore International Piano Festival on reaching their 25th anniversary! A wonderful Festival, which offers such a rich diversity of artists and piano repertoire. It’s been an honour to be part of the Festival’s history.” – Behzod Abduraimov (2014)

“It's always a treat to play for the Singapore International Piano Festival! Great instruments, great venue in a great city and, most rewarding - a devoted audience and wonderful atmosphere of a true celebration of the piano!” – Shai Wosner (2011, 2016)

“The Singapore International Piano Festival is one of the finest jewels in the country’s weighty crown of artistic achievement. I send my warmest congratulations for its Silver Jubilee and every possible good wish for the next 25 years … and beyond.” – Stephen Hough (2012)

“The Singapore International Piano Festival will inevitably continue to grow, and I want to send my warmest wishes to the continuation of this unique piano spectacular in Singapore, where its inhabitants “lionises” our beloved instrument and all its magical possibilities. SIPF, may you be forever youthful!” – Chiyan Wong (2012, 2017)

“For pianists, this Festival has everything you wish for: a beautiful venue with excellent acoustic and excellent piano, an attentive and devoted audience, a warm-hearted and efficient team. Happy 25th anniversary and long life to SIPF!” – Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (2016)

“Singapore always fascinated me as a city, so coming here and playing in this extraordinary hall was a truly deep experience! The quality of the audience was striking and being part of such a programming is an absolute honour!” – Cédric Tiberghien (2016)

“All the best for your 25th anniversary edition. l admire your series and programs and wish you well!” – Stephen Kovacevich (2017) “Witnessing a chaotic world and so much political uncertainty at the same time, the presence of a few remaining "islands" of stability offering safe haven to arts and artists, is a blessing we should all be acknowledging. On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I wish a long success to Singapore and to its beautiful Piano Festival.” – Hüseyin Sermet (2017)

“With all my very best wishes and congratulations to the wonderful Singapore International Piano Festival on the occasion of its 25th anniversary! I will never forget my visit in 2017 and strongly recommend the local chili crab…” – Joseph Moog (2017)

We look back at the list of distinguished pianists who have performed at the Piano Festival in its 25-year history: 19 9 4 T h e P i a n o : F o u r Fa n t a s y E v e n i n g s

Kathryn Stott, Jean-Philippe Collard, Martin Roscoe, Kong Xiang Dong

19 9 5 R o m a n t i c I n f l u e n c e s

Kevin Kenner, Boris Berezovsky, Pascal Rogé, Kun-Woo Paik, Benjamin Frith

19 9 6 T h e N e w R u s s i a n s

Mikhail Rudy, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Boris Berman, Nikolai Demidenko

19 9 7 B a s i c a l ly B e e t h o v e n

Nikolai Demidenko, Marc-André Hamelin, Piotr Anderszewski, Peter Donohoe

19 9 8 L i g h t n i n g s !

Igor Zhukov, Robert Taub, Artur Pizarro, Leslie Howard

19 9 9 C e l e b r a t i n g C h o p i n

Dmitri Alexeev, Piers Lane, Artur Pizarro, Nikolai Demidenko

2 0 0 0 7 t h S i n g a p o r e I n t e r n a t i o n a l P i a n o F e s t i va l

Jon Nakamatsu, Konstantin Lifschitz, Nikolai Lugansky, Freddy Kempf

2 0 01 Va r i a t i o n s

Angela Hewitt, Benjamin Frith, Arnaldo Cohen, Giovanni Bellucci

2 0 0 2 9 t h S i n g a p o r e I n t e r n a t i o n a l P i a n o F e s t i va l

Artur Pizarro, Frederic Chiu, Kathryn Stott, Cecile Licad

2 0 0 3 N o s t a l g i a

Dmitri Alexeev, Nikolai Demidenko, Seow Yit Kin

2 0 0 4 L e g e n d s o f t h e P i a n o

Idil Biret, Leslie Howard, György Sándor, Paul Badura-Skoda

2 0 0 5 Im a g e s , Im p r e s s i o n s & P i ct u r e s

Kun-Woo Paik, Noriko Ogawa, Esther Budiardjo, Dennis Lee & Toh Chee Hung, Lim Yan

2 0 0 6 T h e G o l d e n A g e o f t h e P i a n o

Alexander Markovich, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, John Chen, Valery Kuleshov, Lee Pei Ming

2 0 0 7 L i s z t o m a n i a : T h e A r t o f V i r t u o s i t y

David Nettle & Richard Markham, Cyprien Katsaris, Minoru Nojima, Valentina Lisitsa, Albert Lin

2 0 0 8 B a c h t o T h e F u t u r e : 3 0 0 Y e a r s o f P i a n o M a s t e r p i e c e s

Jenö Jandó, Jennifer Micallef & Glen Inanga, Kim Sung-Hoon, Christopher Taylor, Konstantin Scherbakov, Sandi Koh

2 0 0 9 Fa m i l i a r G r o u n d

Vladimir Feltsman, Nikolai Demidenko, Pascal Rogé & Ami Rogé, Yevgeny Sudbin, Yao Xiao Yun, Nicholas Loh

2 010 C h o p i n a t 2 0 0

Yuja Wang, Pietro De Maria, Benjamin Grosvenor, Piotr Anderszewski

2 011 T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

Janina Fialkowska, Shai Wosner, Nareh Arghamanyan, Arnaldo Cohen

2 012 Fa n t a s i e s i n S o u n d

Paul Lewis, Khatia Buniatishvili, Chiyan Wong, Stephen Hough

2 013 M u s i c & M o v e m e n t

Yevgeny Sudbin, Daniel-Ben Pienaar, Benjamin Grosvenor, Simon Trpčeski

2 014 21s t S i n g a p o r e I n t e r n a t i o n a l P i a n o F e s t i va l

Kun-Woo Paik, Behzod Abduraimov, Nelson Freire, Piotr Anderszewski

2 015 R o m a n t i c s & N a t i o n a l i s t s

Imogen Cooper, Olli Mustonen, Lars Vogt, Lukáš Vondráček

2 016 K a l e i d o s c o p e !

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Shai Wosner, Boris Giltburg, Cédric Tiberghien

2 017 Fa n t a s i e s & M e m o r i e s

Joseph Moog, Chiyan Wong, Hüseyin Sermet, Stephen Kovacevich

S i n ga p o r e I n t e r n at i o n a l P i a n o F e s t i va l M i l e s to n e S 19 9 4

F i r s t SI P F

Founding Artistic Director Goh Yew Lin launches the first Festival, titled “The Piano: Four Fantasy Evenings” – featuring Kathryn Stott, Jean-Philippe Collard, Martin Roscoe and Kong Xiang Dong, with several Singapore premieres of piano works including Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody and Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor, K. 397, which was played by three of the pianists. The inaugural Festival is sponsored by GK Goh Stockbrokers. 19 9 5

2 n d SI P F

Start of a long collaboration with Walter Haass, the Festival’s esteemed and indefatigable piano technician, who has worked at the Festival every year since. Kun-Woo Paik and Pascal Rogé make their debut at the Festival. Rogé returns a decade later in 2009, while Paik makes two more appearances, in 2005 and 2014. 19 9 6

3 r d SI P F

Debut by Nikolai Demidenko who goes on to make four more appearances at the Festival – in 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2009.

The 1996 SIPF line-up also plays in Hong Kong. 19 9 7

4 t h SI P F

The 4th SIPF brings two pianists from the Festival, Nikolai Demidenko and Marc-André Hamelin, to reprise their recitals in Penang, Malaysia, in partnership with the Penang State Cultural Council and the Penang State Symphony Orchestra. 19 9 8

5 t h SI P F

Artur Pizarro makes his debut at the Festival, returning the following year, in 1999, and again 2002. 2002

9 t h SI P F

UBS Private Banking comes in as title sponsor. 2003

10 t h SI P F

The Festival presents its first Singaporean pianist, Seow Yit Kin. UBS Wealth Management is title sponsor of the Festival. 2004

11t h SI P F

Chang Tou Liang takes over as Festival’s Artistic Director.

2005

12 t h SI P F

The Festival introduces the Young Virtuoso series, with Lim Yan as its first artiste. Lim will later return to the Festival as its Artistic Director in 2019. 2009

16 t h SI P F

Goh Yew Lin returns as Festival’s Artistic Director. CIMB is presenting sponsor of the Festival. 2 010

17 t h SI P F

Lionel Choi takes over as Festival’s Artistic Director, presenting pianists such as Benjamin Grosvenor and Yuja Wang. Grosvenor makes his return in 2013. 2 011

18 t h SI P F

The Victoria Concert Hall closes for renovations. The Festival moves to Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall for 2011. Shai Wosner makes his Festival debut in 2011 and returns in 2016. 2 012 – 2 014

19 t h , 2 0 t h , 21s t SI P F

Stephen Hough and Chiyan Wong make their Festival debut in 2012, with Wong returning in 2017. Stephen Hough’s Piano Sonata No. 2 “notturno luminoso”, commissioned in part by the SIPF, is performed at the 2012 Festival by the composer. As VCH remains closed, the Festival moves to the School of the Arts for three years. 2 015

2 2 n d SI P F

VCH renovations are completed; the 22nd SIPF returns to VCH with a lineup that includes Imogen Cooper and Lukáš Vondráček. 2 017

2 4 t h SI P F

Stephen Kovacevich makes his Festival debut. 2 018

2 5 t h SI P F

Artistic Director Lionel Choi celebrates the Festival’s Silver Jubilee with a bumper edition of six concerts, where the legendary Martha Argerich makes her Southeast Asia debut. F r o m 2 019

Lim Yan will take over as Festival’s Artistic Director.

Progr amme T h u , 7 J u n e 2 018 V i ct o r i a C o n c e r t H a l l

S e o n g -J i n C h o

SCHUMANN

Fantasiestücke, Op. 12

BEETHOVEN

Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 “Pathétique”

Intermission

25'00

20'00

DEBUSSY

Images, Book 2

CHOPIN

Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58

14'00

There will be a post-concert autograph session with Seong-Jin Cho

28'00

20'00

S e o n g -J i n C h o

With overwhelming talent and innate musicality, Seong-Jin Cho is rapidly embarking on a worldclass career and considered one of the most distinctive artists of his generation. His thoughtful and poetic, assertive and tender, virtuosic and colourful playing combines panache with purity and is driven by an impressive natural sense of balance. Seong-Jin Cho was brought to the world’s attention in Fall 2015 when he won the coveted Gold Medal at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw. This same competition launched the careers of world-class artists such as ‎Martha Argerich, ‎Maurizio Pollini, Garrick Ohlsson and ‎Krystian Zimerman. Within one month, a recording of Cho’s live competition highlights was rushreleased by Deutsche Grammophon, propelling the pianist to pop-star status in South Korea. The album achieved multi-platinum sales within a week of its release and triggered a sales frenzy at stores across the country. It reached No. 1 in the nation’s pop album chart and has sold well over 150,000 copies to date worldwide. In January 2016, following on the success of his debut disc, Seong-Jin signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The first CD of this collaboration features Chopin’s First Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra directed by Gianandrea Noseda, plus the Four Ballades, released to critical acclaim in November 2016. A solo Debussy album was released in November 2017. An active recitalist, he performs in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. In 2017, he made debuts at Carnegie Hall’s Keyboard Virtuosos series in a sold-out Stern Auditorium, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw’s Master Pianists series, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Seoul’s new Lotte Hall, Paris’ new Seine Musicale, Edinburgh International Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, KKL Lucerne and St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. He collaborates with conductors at the highest level such as Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gianandrea Noseda, Antonio Pappano, Myung-Whun Chung, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yuri Temirkanov, Kzysztof Urbanski, Marek Janowski, Vasily Petrenko, Jakub Hrůša, Leonard Slatkin and Mikhail Pletnev. Orchestral appearances include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Rundfunk-

Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Russian National Orchestra.

Highlights of the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons include debuts with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle, stepping in for Lang Lang in Berlin and on tour in Germany and Asia, tours with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano, with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson-Thomas, WDR Sinfonieorchester and Marek Janowski, and European Union Youth Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda, with concerts at the BBC Proms, Berlin Konzerthaus and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. He will also play subscription concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra at Barbican Centre and National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, both under Gianandrea Noseda’s baton, Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin, Philadelphia Orchestra with David Afkham, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala under Yuri Temirkanov and Myung-Whun Chung, Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester with Andrès Orozco-Estrada, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester with Krzysztof Urbanski in Hamburg and Finnish Radio Orchestra with Hannu Lintu. He will play recitals in major venues like Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Verbier Festival, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Rheingau Festival, San Francisco’s Herbst Theater, La Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Baden Baden Festspielhaus and Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho started learning the piano at six and gave his first public recital at age 11. In 2009, he became the youngest ever winner of Japan’s Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. In 2011, he won Third prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the age of 17. In 2012, he moved to Paris to study with Michel Béroff at the Paris Conservatoire and he graduated in 2015. He is now based in Berlin.

Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 A law student who abandoned his studies to pursue a love for performing and composition, much of Schumann’s life was lived between music, publishing, literature and an enduring love for Clara, his wife and muse. This characteristically Schumannesque meeting of music, the literary arts, and Clara is nowhere more apparent than in his 1847 Fantasiestücke (or “Fantasy Pieces”). A set of eight musical shorts for solo piano, they take their title from the great German novelist and composer E.T.A. Hoffman’s Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (1814). While dedicated to the Scottish pianist Anna Robena Laidlaw, the Fantasiestücke was almost certainly written for Clara, during a period of enforced separation. The evocation of bells in the last movement, “End of Song”, for instance, are said especially to symbolise an anxiety for and joy of her return. Almost playfully, Schumann gives the passions and moods that characterise each of the eight movements incredibly specific performance instructions. He subtitles each with a smattering of German observations on how the music is to be performed. “Des Abends” is to be rendered “very intimately”, “Aufschwung” is “very rapidly”, “Warum?” is “slow and tenderly”, and “Grillen”, “with passion”, for instance – significant in an age where instructions were usually in Italian. Besides being named after scenes and moods respectively, the Fantasiestücke’s eight movements also alternate between the characters of Eusebius and Florestan, a pair of psychological alter egos said to represent Schumann. Eusebius is dreamy and contemplative; Florestan, by contrast, is passionate and fiery. Thus, the ‘odd’ movements in the series depict the former, while the ‘even’ movements in the series evoke the latter. The result is a sense of studied balance in spite of all in the Fantasiestücke’s ravishing musical variety. “Des Abends” (or “In the Evening”) is a rich and warm evocation of a far-away sunset. Set in the key of D-flat major and unusually in 2/8 time, the use of expansive and almost unrecognisably relaxed triplets conjures a deep, red Mediterranean or distant Eastern sky – perhaps the one beneath which Clara was travelling. Intended to depict “a gentle picture of dusk”, its fairy-tale and dream-like quality also evokes the gentle and philosophical Eusebius. The second movement, set in F minor, “Aufschwung” (“soaring” or literally “upswing”), is also in compound time (6/8). Urgent, querulous and yet graceful, it shows the character Florestan, or the passionate and fiery other side of Schumann’s self. Consisting of two subjects, the sonorously impassioned F minor first subject opens into lyrical, dignified, and yet dance-like counter-subjects of impossible delicateness, magnanimity and grace. With typical deftness of Schumannesque insight, the Fantasiestücke richly exemplifies a wide spectrum of human and quintessentially Romantic experience. From Man’s search for answers (the 3rd movement “Warum?”, or “Why?”) to depictions of Romantic whim and fancy (the 4th movement, “Grillen”, or “Whims”), the collection also showcases musical portraits of emblematically Romantic obsessions. “In the Night” (“In der Nacht”, 5th movement), “Story” (“Fable”, 6th movement), and “Dream’s Confusions" (“Traumes Wirren”, 7th movement) – are all essential to Romantic imagery. In a gesture that breaks the fourth wall, it ends with the imaginatively meta-narrative signpost of the “Ende vom Lied” (“End of Song”), with the magisterial ringing of both wedding and funeral bells alike. Duana Chan

Seong-Jin Cho

RO B ERT S C H U MANN (1810 –18 5 6 )

Seong-Jin Cho

L U D W IG VAN B EETHO V EN (17 7 0 –18 2 7 )

Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 “Pathétique” 1. Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio 2. Adagio cantabile 3. Rondo: Allegro Life is like the quivering tones and Man the lyre – Beethoven The perception of the fragility of a human life lived in response to the surges and eddies of change is not surprising for a composer for whom feeling, subjectivity and authenticity were essential. This emphasis on Romantic passion, sympathy and feeling is perhaps nowhere felt more strikingly than in Beethoven’s epic Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13. Nicknamed “Grande sonate pathétique” by his musical publisher – a moniker which Beethoven enjoyed – the word is etymologically derived from the Greek pathos meaning ‘suffering’, or a ‘quality that evokes pity or sadness’.

For Beethoven, however, the notion is also one deeply rooted in the philosopher Friedrich Schiller’s central thesis famously posited in Über das Pathetische (1793). Schiller said that “pathos or tragedy arises when unblinkered awareness of suffering is counter-balanced by the capacity of reason to resist these feelings.” Thus the ‘pathétique’ was understood by Beethoven and the Romantics as involving a keen awareness and balance of suffering with reason. The ‘pathétique’ was not simply the recognition of suffering, but the heroic uprising from within against the total subsuming of the self, through temperance, reason and understanding. The Pathétique, in all its moments of dignity and drama, light and darkness, is a perfectly apt musical model of balance in all things. Written in 1798 and one of the last pieces of his early period, it was a roaring commercial success in his day – outselling everything Beethoven had published to date. Set in C minor, the Sonata No. 8 is in the same key as some of his most brooding, dramatic and memorable works (e.g. Third and Fifth Symphonies, Piano Concerto No. 3). A three-movement sonata with a strong melodic quality, the first movement opens with a stormy C minor passage, dark and atmospheric. Escalating dissonant chords follow, and the mercurial movement builds a lyrical and philosophical bridge in which singing major passages and brooding, expansive minor ones alternate episodically. A dramatic chromatic downwards slide leads to the realm of pianistic bravura. Marked by fleet-footed, pattering and staccato pedal points, arpeggios in thirds, diminished and detached broken chords, dramatic octaves and sonorously upward-rising scalic passages, this is music of aching melody and sheer excitement. The breathtaking movement envelopes the listener in gusts of lightning, thunder, wind and rain. The Adagio cantabile opens with a theme that evokes the grandeur of Alpine mountains and forest, the sense of a deep, ravishing blue and green. A soaring rondo interlude in A-flat major, almost like an eagle in flight, it sings like a song without words. Lyrical and heartfelt, it contains two modulating and interim episodes, and is an outpouring of some of Beethoven’s most poignant and wistful keyboard writings.

Duana Chan

C L A U D E D E B U SS Y (18 6 2 –1918 )

Images, Book 2 1. Cloches à travers les feuilles 2. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut 3. Poissons d’or Paris was at the centre of some kind of cultural breakthrough during the couple of decades between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. French artists were breaking traditional boundaries and speaking in newfound artistic languages distinctly their own. Claude Debussy was born amidst this tide of the most forward thinkers and artists of French culture. He became a leader of French musical Impressionism, inhabiting a unique world in which colour and effect took unprecedented importance. A world where unusual, translucent harmonies are atmospherically employed to vaguely hint, suggest, nudge and probe, rather than declare in big, bold strokes. A place where imagination is constantly teased and aroused, where what you think you see is more important than what you actually do see. After all, “when you can’t afford to travel, you have to make good the lack through your imagination,” so wrote Debussy to the conductor Messager in 1903. The two sets of the Images, composed within the first decade of the 20th century, are stellar examples of such embodiment of specific but evanescent experiences in tone, with the second set more focused on all things relating to Nature. Cloches à travers les feuilles (“Bells sounding across the leaves”) begins with slow five-finger exercises on the whole-tone scale, and these evolve into a more rapid accompaniment (the rustling leaves) to some wider intervals (gently tolling bells), with a central climax and a slow fading. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (“And the moon descends over the temple that was”) quietly evokes the same spell cast on the listener by the composer’s prelude La cathédrale engloutie: “rather rigidly moving blocks of hollow-sounding chords – a formula developed by Debussy to suggest the mystery of things ancient and immobile, as in a world that has been drugged and left behind – give it a strange and disquieting character,” as Oscar Thompson once put it. The set concludes with the brilliant Poissons d’or (Goldfish) which reflects Debussy’s fascination with the exotic Orient (a wonderful painting of golden fish in Chinese lacquer is said to hang in his study) and the play of light on water. And so there are the sonorous tremolos and shimmering flashes as the fish glide through the water, leading to an astonishingly turbulent storm in a goldfish bowl. Lionel Choi

Seong-Jin Cho

The third movement, Rondo: Allegro, is lively, playful and almost dance-like. Beethoven intersperses moments of texturally rich staccato and legato alternations with rich chords, delicate chromatic figures, as well as dramatic phrase endings of a darker and more achingly moving sentiment. Some of the contrapuntal episodes in this rondo show incredible power and grace – perfectly consonant with the ‘pathétique’ idea. The music ends unexpectedly with a startlingly organic flourish, a flashy evocation of nature in chiaroscuro darkness and light with which the work began.

Seong-Jin Cho

F R É D É RI C C HO P IN (1810 –18 4 9 )

Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 1. 2. 3. 4.

Allegro maestoso Scherzo. Molto vivace Largo Finale. Presto, ma non tanto

If Chopin’s miniatures, comprising volumes of mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes and so on, left him with a reputation of being feminine and more of a salon composer, and as critics gawked at how his big-form sonatas and concertos could possibly measure up against those of the more “masculine” Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, all these hardly represented the true picture. In reality, Chopin was no stranger to creating large forms. Each of the Ballades and Scherzos, as well as the F minor Fantasy, the Polonaise-Fantaisie and the F-sharp minor Polonaise, is as long as or longer than an average movement of a Beethoven sonata. The fact is that only those whose notion of the sonata was based strictly on formal, rigid Viennese models or stereotypes failed to recognise in the piano sonatas of Chopin’s mature years two of the most finished and coherent contributions to the reformation of the genre.

The Sonata No. 3 in B minor of 1844, composed on the summer estate in central France the composer shared with the novelist George Sand, is an epic work, stretching to nearly half an hour. The first movement, a marvel of rational development of a great wealth of ideas in a loose sonata form, opens in grand fashion, its first subject full of restless mobility. A transitional passage, which is itself rich in new and significant material, links to the gorgeous second subject in D major, marked sostenuto. The contrasting majestic and gentle elements fuel the dramatic tensions and the rambling fantasy of the development section. The movement dispenses with a complete recapitulation, closing with only a restatement of the second subject. The brief second movement Molto vivace is an airborne scherzo with the music flickering and flashing across the keyboard, its right-hand part particularly demanding. A quiet legato middle section offers a moment of repose before the return of the opening, light-footed rush. Chopin launches the lengthy third movement Largo with curt octaves in sharply-dotted rhythms which pervade, and over which the main theme – itself dotted and marked cantabile – rises quietly and gracefully, slow and dreamlike. This movement is also in ternary form, with a flowing middle section in E major. The finale leaps to life with a powerful eight-bar introduction built on mighty upward octave swoops, before the main theme, unmistakably agitato, launches this rondo in B minor. Of unsurpassed difficulty, this final movement – one of the greatest in the Chopin sonatas and representing the composer at his most incandescent, hardly feminine – brings the work to an exultant, brilliant close. Lionel Choi

Progr amme F r i , 8 J u n e 2 018 V i ct o r i a C o n c e r t H a l l

D É NES VÁ R J ON

BEETHOVEN

Bagatelles, Op. 126

BARTÓK

Selections from For Children, Sz. 42 13'00 Volume 1: No. 13 (Ballad), No. 14, No. 15, No. 17 (Round Dance) Volume 2: No. 25, No. 26, No. 27 (Jest), No. 30 (Jeering Song), No. 31, No. 32, No. 36 (Drunkard’s Song) Volume 4: No. 36 - 37 (Rhapsody)

Elegy No. 2

Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Op. 20

Intermission

20'00

8'00

20'00

RAVEL

Gaspard de la nuit

CHOPIN

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1

Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1

Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20

24'00

There will be a post-concert autograph session with Dénes Várjon

5'00

10'00

6'00

12'00

D é n e s Vá r j o n

His sensational technique, deep musicality, wide range of interest have made Dénes Várjon one of the most exciting and highly regarded participants of international musical life. He is a universal musician: excellent soloist, first-class chamber musician, artistic leader of festivals, highly sought–after piano pedagogue.

Widely considered as one of the greatest chamber musicians, he works regularly with pre-eminent partners such as Steven Isserlis, Tabea Zimmermann, Kim Kashkashian, Jorg Widmann, Leonidas Kavakos, András Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Miklos Perenyi and Joshua Bell. As a soloist he is a welcome guest at major concert series, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Vienna’s Konzerthaus and London’s Wigmore Hall. He is frequently invited to work with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, such as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Russian National Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Among the conductors he has worked with are Sir Georg Solti, Sandor Vegh, Ivan Fischer, Adam Fischer, Heinz Holliger, Horst Stein, Leopold Hager and Zoltán Kocsis. He appears regularly at leading international festivals from Marlboro to Salzburg and Edinburgh. He also performs frequently with his wife Izabella Simon, playing four-hand and two-piano recitals together. In the past decade they organised and led several chamber music festivals, the most recent being “kamara.hu” at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. In recent years Várjon has built a close cooperation with Alfred Brendel; their joint Liszt project was presented, among others, in the UK and Italy.

Várjon has recorded for the Naxos, Capriccio and Hungaroton labels with critical acclaim. Teldec released his CD with Sándor Veress’ “Hommage à Paul Klee” (performed with András Schiff, Heinz Holliger and the Budapest Festival Orchestra). His recording “Hommage à Geza Anda”, (PAN-Classics Switzerland) has received very important international echoes. His solo CD with pieces of Berg, Janaček and Liszt was released in 2012 by ECM. In 2015 he recorded the Schumann piano concerto with the WDR Symphonieorchester and Heinz Holliger, and all five Beethoven piano concertos with Concerto Budapest and András Keller. Dénes Várjon graduated from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in 1991, where his professors included Sándor Falvai, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados. Parallel to his studies he was a regular participant at international masterclasses with András Schiff. Dénes Várjon won First Prize at the Piano Competition of Hungarian Radio, at the Leó Weiner Chamber Music Competition in Budapest and at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich. He was awarded with the Liszt, with the Sándor Veress and with the Bartók-Pásztory Prize. Várjon also works for Henle’s Urtext Editions.

DÉNES VÁRJON

L U D W IG VAN B EETHO V EN (17 7 0 –18 2 7 )

Bagatelles, Op. 126 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Andante con moto Allegro Andante Presto Quasi allegretto Presto – Andante amabile e con moto

Though afflicted by severe hearing loss and deafness for the later half of his life, Beethoven continued to be tremendously prolific, with a huge oeuvre of nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, 5 piano concerti, an opera, and more than 100 songs. His music has always remained in constant performance (in contrast to Bach or Mendelssohn, for example), and he remains one of the most-recorded composers in history. Regardless, there are corners of his creative output that continue to be overshadowed by the famous larger works, and this is an example. Published just two years before his death, his third and final set of Bagatelles are a summary of his late compositional style: terse, extremely emotional, improvisatory, with a searching quality far removed from the bold brashness and confidence of his youth.

All of this can easily be seen in the first, which starts out with a deliberately old-fashioned minuet, which is then interrupted by a cadenza, only to be transformed into a different sort of dance: less stately, more flowing — more Romantic. A similar pattern emerges in the third, also a triple-time slow movement with cadenzas, though that piece seems more like a premonition of Chopin’s florid piano writing, and the last of the lot, which starts and ends with a rather inexplicable presto outburst. The three other pieces are like mini-snapshots from his later piano sonatas: contrasts of volume and texture abound, as well as some very unexpected asymmetrical phrase-lengths. The Allegro (no. 2) is like a Haydn rondo gone mad, while the Presto in B minor foreshadows Schubert’s Rondo brillante for violin and piano in its obsessiveness. The remaining Quasi allegretto is an oasis of calm; another antiquated miniature, its pastoral character and simple tunes perhaps a recollection of earlier, happier times. Thomas Ang

Selections from For Children, Sz. 42 Volume 1: No. 13 (Ballad), No. 14, No. 15, No. 17 (Round Dance) Volume 2: No. 25, No. 26, No. 27 (Jest), No. 30 (Jeering Song), No. 31, No. 32, No. 36 (Drunkard’s Song) Volume 4: No. 36 – 37 (Rhapsody)

Elegy No. 2 Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Op. 20 For how well-known Bartók is as a composer, it’s hard to name one “most famous piece”. Perhaps it’s the Concerto for Orchestra, or the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, or even the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta? Or the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, or the opera Bluebeard’s Castle? Whatever one picks, it’s hard to deny that Bartók’s overarching achievement was his work on folk music. He originally started collecting folk tunes as part of his musicological work, but the “folk side” and the “serious music side” eventually meshed together in his mature compositional language. Schumann’s Kinderszenen probably ranks as the most famous classical piece about children, but the slightly patronising take was never intended for children to play. Instead, we have to look eastwards for that: Russia has had a tradition of bite-sized didactic pieces, as well as much of eastern Europe. Tchaikovsky’s Album for the Young leads the pack, and others (like Lyadov, Rebikov or Kabalevsky) are familiar from collections of “teaching pieces”. Bartók himself set about writing a full syllabus for his use, covering both the basic piano techniques as well as an exposure to folk idioms. This work resulted in For Children and the later Mikrokosmos, totalling more than 200 tiny pieces. Selections from the former, based on Hungarian and Slovak folk melodies, are presented tonight. The Elegy, written at the exact same time as For Children, exemplifies Bartók’s earlier “serious music” qualities. Full of dissonant harmonies, rumbles in the bass and wildly-sprawling melodic fragments, this is dramatic mourning in progress, an eight-minute piece built out of the gestures of the first ten seconds. The culmination of Bartók’s earlier style, the Peasant Songs was the last work he assigned an opus number to; from this point on, the folk Bartók and the serious Bartók were one and the same person. This is immediately apparent in the first bars of the piece: a plaintive chant is gradually harmonised in more and more strikingly dissonant ways, an approach that will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has heard the more well-known Romanian Folk Dances. Our journey through rural Hungarica brings us impressions of flitting birds and workmen singing in the fields, but brings us against the modern sound of the early 20th century as well, with biting clashes everywhere, irregular time-signatures, and even a memorial to Debussy. Throughout, the folk strain is clear, but the crushing force of modernity and the imminent wars are always lurking in the distance. Thomas Ang

DÉNES VÁRJON

B É L A B ART Ó K (18 81 –19 4 5)

DÉNES VÁRJON

MA U RI C E RAV E L (18 75 –19 3 7 )

Gaspard de la nuit 1. Ondine 2. Le Gibet 3. Scarbo Vapid though the prose-poems of Aloysius Bertrand might have been, the ghoulish nightmarish world in which they inhabit inspired such imaginative cunning and resource from Maurice Ravel, who must have been affected all the more deeply as his father was then mortally ill. Composed in 1908 and based on Bertrand’s three Fantasies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot (1836), Ravel’s dark triptych, Gaspard de la nuit – loosely translated to mean “Satanic visions of the night” – is a true marvel at not just capturing the sinister resonance of dreams, magic and evil charms, but in also being a prodigiously well-crafted piece of piano writing. Ravel’s curious and inimitable alchemy (with more than a nod to transcendental Lisztian style), the result of which is music at once so spare yet pianistically resourceful, is remarkably akin to Bertrand’s uncanny precision at suggesting – rather than merely narrating – his morbid fascination with the bizarre and the grotesque. Indeed, beneath the music’s deceptively aloof and enigmatic surface lurked an absorption with the violent and fantastic.

Ondine, the first piece in the set, is a lushly evocative tone-painting of a water-sprite plying her coquettish wiles through continual cascades of water: imagine concentric circles of water becoming wider and wider before the water is calmed. Atmosphere in Ondine is therefore everything. The syncopated shimmer of harmony which appears in subtly changing forms through Ondine, whilst highly intricate, exists essentially for an expressive purpose, and the final ripples of sound – depicting the pensive recitative then diabolic laughter of the fatally alluring nymph (who, until now, seemed relatively free from menace) as she fades away – are hauntingly graphic. Le Gibet tells a different story: A distant bell tolls from the town wall beyond the horizon, and the lifeless body of a hanged man glows red in the morning sun. The score tantalises with exquisitely crafted elements: a distant bell tolling endlessly on B-flat like a fateful idée fixe; a procession of hauntingly suggestive harmonies following each other with trance-like regularity; a plaintive melody that appears unannounced, then disappears, never to be heard again. Bertrand’s murky image of the gallows with its wretched corpse glowing blood red under the gaze of an unyielding sun, is replayed slowly, whispered, its mesmerising pulse transfixing the listener in a vision that is at once surreal, ghastly and numbing. Scarbo, the final piece in the set, is generally considered one of the most technically demanding works in the standard repertoire. Parody or tongue-in-cheek upstaging of other virtuoso works like Balakirev’s Islamey (as Ravel himself once put it), there seems no better way than pyrotechnical display to immortalise the nocturnal high jinks of a mean tempered apparition of the night. Scarbo is indubitably a high point in post-Lisztian pianism: a mosaic-like construction of fragments of repeated notes, tremolandos, leaps, running passages, alternate and crossed hand pyrotechnics executed at breakneck speed and punctuated by brusque changes in dynamics, texture and rhythmic patterns. The apotheosis of darting malevolence, glimpsed rather than comprehended, Scarbo is meant only for the pianistically intrepid and transcendentally equipped. Gaspard is certainly, as Alfred Cortot once put it, “among the most astonishing examples of interpretative virtuosity ever contrived by the industry of composers.” Lionel Choi

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1 Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1 Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20 As the critics of the day said of Chopin, “when asked who is the first pianist… Liszt or Thalberg, let all the world answer, as those who have heard – ‘it is Chopin’” … “It appears impossible that just two hands can create effects of swiftness so charming and so natural.” As a composer too, Chopin demonstrated a prodigious talent that was remarkably innate, the surface beauties of his music often obscuring the many extraordinary technical innovations. Take, for instance, the Nocturnes, which, as a form, may not have been totally original to Chopin – this is territory first explored by John Field. But as such lyrical genres go, even Field does not quite match up in the art of chanter aves les doughts (“singing with the fingers”), as Chopin himself put it. Both the nocturnes selected for this evening’s recital are of the dark and sombre variety. The first, the Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1, is in ternary form (ABA). The first episode is of haunting nostalgia, contrasting with a middle section that starts darkly impassioned before building triumphantly to a sunny D-flat major mazurka. The grand, earthy positivity is very shortlived, for the music quickly turns dramatic: a brief, bold recitative of octaves precedes the return of the morose opening episode over its quietly rippling accompaniment. Many commentators do not seem to dispute that the posthumously published Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1 was a work from Chopin’s youth, dating from 1827. No autograph or copy exists to substantiate that claim, but some academics believe this is really a work from his later years – harmonically more complex as to suggest the work of a more mature Chopin, and melodically nostalgic and foreboding, almost like a melancholic farewell. What Chopin put into an established framework like the scherzo was also something completely his own. By no means lightweight, the scherzo was a course for Chopin to express contrasting moods and ideas. The Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20 was completed in 1832 and dedicated to Tomas Albrecht, wine-merchant, Saxon consul in Paris and a good friend who was at the composer’s deathbed in 1849. It gets the entire set of scherzi to a commanding start and sets out quite emphatically Chopin’s impressive master plan for the rest. Two resounding chords summon attention before the tempestuous material of the main scherzo is unleased with a barnstorming (but not manic) ferocity, leading miraculously into the middle contrasting B major trio section, a Polish Christmas carol Lulajze Jezuniu (“Sleep, little Jesus”) that is slow and luxuriously sustained. Lionel Choi

DÉNES VÁRJON

F R É D É RI C C HO P IN (1810 –18 4 9 )

Progr amme S a t, 9 J u n e 2 018 V i ct o r i a C o n c e r t H a l l

J EREM Y D EN K

BRAHMS

Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9

BEETHOVEN

Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

Intermission

J.S. BACH

20'00

Goldberg Variations

65'00

There will be a post-concert autograph session withÂ Jeremy Denk

19'00

J e remy De n k

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk was also recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has recently performed with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as on tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Last season he undertook a recital tour of the UK, including a return to Wigmore Hall. He also returned to the BBC Proms playing Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto. In past seasons he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Britten Sinfonia, with whom he will perform again this season. Denk also recently made his debuts at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie in Cologne, and Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and continues to appear extensively on tour in recital throughout the US, including, recently, in Chicago, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and at New York’s Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in a special programme that included a journey through seven centuries of Western music. In the 2017/18 season, Denk returns to the San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, and Carnegie Hall with Orchestra St. Luke’s, and continues as Artistic Partner of The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with multiple performances throughout the season, and a new piano concerto written for him by Hannah Lash. He also appears in recital throughout the US, including performances in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Seattle, and Los Angeles. He also makes his debut on tour in Asia, including recitals in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul. Future projects include re-uniting with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and a US tour with his longtime musical partners Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis.

Denk is known for his original and insightful writing on music which Alex Ross praises for its “arresting sensitivity and wit”. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. He is the composer of an opera presented by Carnegie Hall, and is working on a book which will be published by Macmillan UK and Random House US. Denk’s debut with Nonesuch Records paired Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 111 with Ligeti’s Études; his account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. His latest recording of the Goldberg Variations reached No. 1 in the Billboard Classical Charts.

Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9 Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9 are not heard that often these days, and this is sad, as – apart from revealing a totally different Brahms who, at 21, was struggling to contain his well-documented love and affection for Clara Schumann – the work has a concentrated depth of involvement with the tragedy of Schumann’s life that is a moving reflection of the relationship between the two composers. It was shortly after Schumann’s breakdown in 1854 that Brahms wrote this set of sixteen variations in F-sharp minor, taking the theme (initially derived from a falling five-note motif of Clara’s invention) from Albumblätt, the fourth number of Schumann’s quite recently published Bunte Blätter, Op. 99. Brahms wrote every note with his own heart’s blood. The music’s chromatic searchings and turbulence are as eloquent as his dedication in the tenth and eleventh variations addressed to Clara and to Clara alone, as a surreptitious quotation from one of her early works towards the end of No. 10 surely confirms. Though branded as insane and incarcerated in an Endenich asylum, Schumann, who described the tones of the shimmering thirteenth variation as “metaphysical” and the serene F-sharp major home-coming as “blessedness”, remained quick to recognise Brahms’ remarkable contrapuntal cunning. Lionel Choi

L U D W IG VAN B EETHO V EN (17 7 0 –18 2 7 )

Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109 1. Vivace ma non troppo – Adagio espressivo 2. Prestissimo 3. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo A work of very mature Beethoven, the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109 (1820) was composed around the time of his Ninth Symphony (1824) and the Missa Solemnis (1819– 1823). The third from last of his 32 piano sonatas – a lifetime of solo pianistic output, among others – this revolutionarily work is nevertheless quiet, intimate and introspective, especially when compared to the gargantuan Hammerklavier sonata that preceded it. Here, Beethoven introduces a series of never-before-attempted formal, stylistic and atmospheric innovations. Reversing the fast-slow-fast expectations of the conventional sonata form, the first movement, instead, is persistently cantabile-like. The second movement, by contrast, is dramatic, rousingly energetic, with a passion that almost anticipates Schumann’s fiery ‘Florestan’. An unexpectedly lyrical third movement, capacious and outrunning first and second movement combined, is the capstone to this musical endeavour. The first movement’s undulating, stream-like Vivace ma non troppo theme alternates with an arpeggiac forte Adagio filled with diminished dissonances. Beethoven alternates between two starkly contrasting moods and sections as the ‘development’, eschewing more conventional means of evoking contrasts typical of sonata form.

JEREMY DENK

J OHANNES B RAHMS (18 3 3 –18 9 7 )

JEREMY DENK

The second movement is a brief and dazzling E minor Prestissimo. Also in abridged ‘sonata form’, it features a series of attenuated contrasts between the first and second subjects in E minor and B minor respectively. Finally, as a work featuring theme and variations, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 is also a somewhat cyclic work as the finale brings all musical material into greater focus and meaning, with all musical strands brought to an utterly lively fruition. Here, a sense of closure is curtailed by the sense of the beginning from the movements before. To be played “full of song with the deepest emotion”, as Beethoven instructs, the startlingly capacious final movement is frequently considered the “heart” of the sonata. What is conventionally a rondo here instead takes the form of a ‘theme and six variations’. Almost double the length of both preceding movements combined, Beethoven extemporises upon and develops glimpses of earlier musical and motivic material. Filled, also, with musical strains that hearken achingly to a Baroque past, it features a sarabandelike theme and a striking use of counterpoint which he learned as a child playing Bach. Also noteworthy is Beethoven’s use of extended pedal points. Exploiting a full and contrasting range of mood and tempi, the last six variations – escalatingly complex and decorated – are redolent of the kind of exulted sublimity which critics have called the Beethovenian sublime, particularly in the recalling of the main theme which sings and surges with dignity, heroism, power and grace. Duana Chan

J OHANN SE B ASTIAN B A C H (16 8 5 –175 0 )

Goldberg Variations Aria Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio

1 a 1 Clav. 2 a 1 Clav. 3 Canone all’Unisuono a 1 Clav. 4 a 1 Clav. 5 a 1 o vero 2 Clav. 6 Canone alla Seconda a 1 Clav. 7 a 1 o vero 2 Clav. (al tempo di Giga) 8 a 2 Clav. 9 Canone alla Terza a 1 Clav. 10 Fugetta a 1 Clav. 11 a 2 Clav. 12 Canone alla Quarta (a 1 Clav.) 13 a 2 Clav. 14 a 2 Clav. 15 Canone alla Quinta (a 1 Clav. Andante) 16 Ouverture a 1 Clav. 17 a 2 Clav. 18 Canone alla Sesta a 1 Clav. 19 a 1 Clav. 20 a 2 Clav. 21 Canone alla Settima (a 1 Clav.) 22 a 1 Clav. (alla breve)

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

a 2 Clav. Canone all’Ottava a 1 Clav. a 2 Clav. (Adagio) a 2 Clav. Canone alla Nona a 2 Clav. a 2 Clav. a 1 o vero 2 Clav. Quodlibet a 1 Clav.

The last of a series of keyboard music Bach published under the title of Clavierübung, the Goldberg Variations is often regarded as the most intense and monumental composition ever written for the harpsichord, and the most important set of variations composed in the Baroque era. Johann Philipp Kirnberger, one of Bach’s pupils, referred to it as “the best variations”; Johann Nicolaus Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, praised the work as the “model, according to which all variations should be made”; and Wanda Landowska called it “a dazzling temple erected in honour of absolute music”. Published in 1741 as “Aria with Diverse Variations”, we know little about how the work eventually got its name, and how little we know is, apparently, difficult to substantiate with some kind of empirical evidence. Forkel is to be held responsible for the legendary background associating the harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb (Theophilus) Goldberg (1727 –1756) with the work. His famous story goes as follows: “The Count (Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, 1696 – 1764) once said to Bach that he should like to have some clavier pieces for his Goldberg, which should be of such soft and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights.” It is perhaps puzzling how Bach could live with the notion of his magnum opus being regarded as a lullaby of sorts, but the Count, who apparently “could not hear enough” of it, did thank Bach by sending him a gold goblet with a hundred louis d’or – possibly the most generous reward Bach ever received for his music – and was responsible for his appointment as composer of the Royal Court Chapel in Dresden in 1736. From this, we may now ask numerous questions about the work to which we may never find certain answers. There is neither documentary evidence of the work being commissioned, nor is there an official dedication in its published title-page, thus contradicting the custom of the day. There is no mention, either, of the gold goblet among the inventory of Bach’s estate when he died in 1750. And could Bach possibly have intended the variations, with all the formidable technical and intellectual challenges they present, for an adolescent? (Bach taught Goldberg when he was brought to Leipzig by the Count in 1737, and the young harpsichordist would still have only been 14 years old when the work was published. But then again, Rosalyn Tureck did learn and memorise the Goldberg when she was 18 in the space of five weeks…). Even if the tale of the commission was true, it seems very unlikely that the Count’s wish was the sole decisive factor determining the style and structure of the work, for he would surely have been too excited by the music rather than feeling drowsy. And we are all the more fortunate today for that, for the Goldberg Variations have come to represent Bach’s – and the Baroque literature’s – most important, exceptional and profoundly musical and human document. The variations display not only Bach’s extraordinary knowledge of diverse styles of music of his day, but also his exquisite performing techniques. But one would never have guessed the entire work’s scale just from the opening Aria alone: a deceptively simple sarabande found in Book II of the Clavierbüchlein for his wife, which David Schulenberg points out to be “neither Italian nor French but specifically German galant in style, and certain details point directly to

JEREMY DENK

Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Variatio Aria

JEREMY DENK

Bach, especially the beautiful broadening out of the rhythm into steadily flowing notes in the last phrase.” Rosalyn Tureck describes it to be “built upon a strong, simple harmonic base which upholds an edifice capable of virtually endless possibilities of structure”. The symmetrical structure of the Aria – a binary dance movement with repeats, consisting of two parts of equal length of 16 bars each – is a prevailing feature in all the variations. Three types of variations may be distinguished here: the first type develops a particular character; the second is frisky and figurative; and the third canonic. And all three types are linked together in groups of three. The ‘character’ variations will include a polonaise (No. 1 – the Count Keyserlingk was, after all, of Polish descent), hopping-dance (No. 4), gigue (No. 7), fughetta (No. 10), aria (No. 13), French ouverture (No. 16), whirling-dance (No. 19), fugal alla breve (No. 22), aria (No. 25 – a strange, almost atonal atmosphere of a minor key cantilena, dubbed by Landowska as “the black pearl”) and an etude in the use of the trill (No. 27). In the case of two-part canons, the second voice enters at ever-widening intervals – in unison (No. 3), then at the second (No. 6) and so on until the ninth (No. 27). The last variation is not a canon in tenth, as might be expected, but an unusual piece entitled Quodlibet, which is a contrapuntal piece, often written for entertainment, built upon several different melodies, and here, Bach quotes two folk tunes: Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir gewest (“I long have been away from you”) and Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertrieben, hätt’ die Mutter Fleisch gekauft, so war’ich langer blieben (“Cabbage and turnips have driven me away, Had my mother cooked meat, I’d have chosen to stay(!)”). Coming after more than an hour’s worth of virtuosic intensity and concentration, this must surely be an indication of a masterly stroke of good-natured wit, emerging from a great composer who is, after all, quite human as well.

But the work is not to end on such a fanciful note. Rather, as pianist Angela Hewitt noted, “the Aria returns, as if from afar. Rather than stating it affirmatively, as it appears in the beginning, it should appear veiled and even more beautiful in retrospect. Surely this is one of the most moving moments in all of music, and it speaks to us with great simplicity. Our journey is complete, yet we are back where we began.” Lionel Choi

Progr amme S u n , 10 J u n e 2 018 V i ct o r i a C o n c e r t H a l l

D ANG THAI SON

SCHUBERT

Allegretto in C minor, D. 915

12 German Dances, D. 790

CHOPIN

Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60

Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31

9'30

PADEREWSKI

Mélodie in G-flat major, Op. 16 No. 2

5'00

Legend in A-flat major, Op. 16 No. 1

Nocturne in B-flat major, Op. 16 No. 4

Minuet in G major, Op. 14 No. 1

Krakowiak in B-flat major, Op. 5 No. 3

LISZT

Réminiscences de Norma, S.394 17'00 (“Reminiscences of Bellini’s Norma”)

Intermission

6'00

12'00

9'00

20'00

There will be a post-concert autograph session with Dang Thai Son

5'00 5'00

Dan g Th ai So n

An outstanding international musician of our time, Vietnamese pianist Dang Thai Son was propelled to the forefront of the musical world in October 1980, when he was awarded the First Prize and Gold Medal at the 10th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. It was also the first time that a top international competition was won by an Asian pianist. He began piano studies with his mother in Hanoi, later at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Vladimir Natanson and Dmitry Bashkirov.

Since winning the Chopin Competition, his international career has taken him to over 40 countries, into such world renowned halls as Lincoln Center (New York), Barbican Centre (London), Salle Pleyel (Paris), Herculessaal (Munich), Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Opera House (Sydney), and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). He has played with numerous world-class orchestras such as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, the Philharmonia, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Oslo Philharmonic, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, NHK Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Hungarian State Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Russian National Symphony, as well as Virtuosi of Moscow, Sinfonia Varsovia, Vienna Chamber, Zurich Chamber, Royal Swedish Chamber Orchestras, and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris. He has worked with esteemed conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Pinchas Zukerman, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ivan Fisher, Frans Brüggen, Vladimir Spivakov and Sakari Oramo. In the field of chamber music, he has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Octet, the Smetana String Quartet, Barry Tuckwell, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Pinchas Zukerman, Boris Belkin, Joseph Suk, and Alexander Rudin, and he has played duo-piano with Andrei Gavrilov.

Other career highlights include a New Year’s Day concert (1995) with Yo-Yo Ma, Seiji Ozawa, Kathleen Battle, and the late Mstislav Rostropovich, in a major international event produced by the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation NHK. On Chopin’s 200th Birthday, 1 March 2010, he played the Concerto in F minor with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under the direction of Frans Brüggen in a Gala Concert at the Warsaw National Opera Theatre. During the 2012– 2013 season, Dang Thai Son toured around the world with an ambitious programme of all five Beethoven piano concertos, the Beethoven Marathon. Dang Thai Son is frequently invited to give masterclasses around the world – such as the special class in Berlin in October 1999, where he taught alongside Murray Perahia and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Since 2001, he has been Guest Professor at the Universite de Montreal. He has sat on the juries of prestigious competitions such as the International Chopin Piano Competition (Warsaw), Cleveland (USA), Clara Haskil (Switzerland), Artur Rubinstein (Tel-Aviv), Hamamatsu (Japan), Piano Masters of Monte Carlo, Sviatoslav Richter (Moscow), Montreal International Piano Competition. Dang Thai Son has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Melodiya, Polskie Nagrania, CBS Sony, Analekta, Victor JVC, and the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. Dang Thai Son is the subject of the biography, A pianist loved by Chopin – The Dang Thai Son Story, published by Yamaha Music Media Corporation in 2003.

DANG THAI SON

F RAN Z S C H U B ERT (17 9 7–18 2 8 )

Allegretto in C minor, D. 915 12 German Dances, D. 790 Schubert is best known today for his immense body of work in the development of a tradition of German Lieder (art song). Roughly 650 songs were written over a very short life, about half of which are still commonly performed today; they span several languages and cover a wide range of topics, from the typically Central European preoccupation with nature and folk superstition (e.g. Erlkönig, the Elf King, probably his most famous song), to human relationships (as in the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin, or The Beautiful Miller-Maid). He died young from complications of syphilis, but left behind a huge work list: in addition to the songs, there are nine symphonies, fifteen string quartets, the great String Quintet in C, 23 piano sonatas, and an incredible amount of other music. One of his final piano pieces, the Allegretto is a very delicate miniature, with Schubert’s typically economic use of material, and a melancholic lyricism to match. The opening idea forms an arch in a C minor arpeggio, and sounds like it could be the beginning of a Beethoven sonata. But Schubert is not given to wild gestures, and the intimate side of this piece is revealed by an immediate restatement in the relative major (E-flat major). After some exploration, there is a small moment of repose when C major shines through. Over the course of the next five minutes, the opening tune is lovingly taken apart and developed, before the full theme returns and the music winds to a stop.

The German Dances (Ländler) date from slightly earlier, when Schubert was in better health, and display him at his most charming. Schubert wrote several collections of dances, all of which are simple tunes with a certain delight in the earthiness of their folk origin. As the Ländler is the precursor to the waltz, all of these dances are in triple time, and all twelve of them are to be played without a break; they can be distinguished by their changes in mood and key. Thomas Ang

F R É D É RI C C HO P IN (1810 –18 4 9 )

Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60 Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 As a composer, Chopin demonstrated a prodigious talent that was remarkably innate, the surface beauties of his music often obscuring the many extraordinary technical innovations. Take, for instance, the Polonaises, a Polish processional dance form which he indissolubly integrated with the seriousness of his heroic impulse and a resounding nationalistic fervour he made entirely his own. What he put into an established framework like the Scherzo was also something completely unique. By no means lightweight, the scherzo was, like the Ballades, a course for him to express contrasting ideas. And take the Nocturnes, which, as a form, may not have been totally original to Chopin – this is territory first explored by John Field. But as such lyrical genres go, even Field does not quite match up in the art of chanter aves les doughts (“singing with the fingers”), as Chopin himself put it.

Like many of the Nocturnes, the Barcarolle is in A-B-A form. A firm bass C-sharp introduces a falling modulation through each key of the main key signature of F-sharp major, lending an air of tonal ambiguity. There is brief silence, before the gently rocking left-hand rhythm, simulating the boatman’s calm paddling, enters, accompanying a songful main theme of ethereal beauty. It is repeated in thirds and sixths, and then leads to successive rising chords before fading out from F-sharp major through F-sharp minor to conclude the first section. A ruminating solo in the left hand leads to the second section in A major. Perhaps darks clouds are forming in the sky, for the paddling is now growing faster and more agitated, the journey a little more splish-splashy, the music taken through modulation after modulation, arpeggios morphing to octaves as the music reaches a couple of climaxes. A sudden twist to F-sharp minor heralds a slow-down and a more peaceful theme spun from the original main theme. As the paddles almost stop completely and the lovers get lost in each other’s eyes, a bass line eases its way to a transition back to F-sharp major before returning to the main theme of the first section. This is no mere repeat of earlier material: it begins with double trills and is altogether more agitated than on its first appearance. Harmonies become more complex, modulations aplenty. A light and free-spirited run in the right hand sends the music to its dreamy, ecstatic point, almost as if the gondola were flying in the air, when a striking tonic chord in the home key of F-sharp major jolts the lovers from their dreams, the piece then brought to its magnificent conclusion by two resolute C-sharp and F-sharp octaves. The most popular of Chopin’s four Scherzi is the Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor (1837), even though Franz Liszt absolutely loathed it. Alan Walker writes: “The only two pieces that [Liszt] discouraged his students from bringing [to masterclasses] were Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor (which he called the Governess Scherzo, because ‘every governess plays it’ and towards which he seemed to have a genuine antipathy) and his own Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, because it was so popular.” Given the relative rarity of governesses these days and that even fewer of them count the performance of Chopin, however muddling, among their graces, Liszt’s derogatory reference must now seem somewhat remote. Dedicated to Chopin’s pupil, the Countess Adele de Furstenstein, this Scherzo is full of drama and passion. It starts, as Chopin himself said, with ‘question and answer’ – the question ominously brief and quiet, and its response a startling outburst. The writer Lenz reported “it was impossible to play these bars softly enough or with sufficient expression for Chopin’s liking”. The central trio, which contrasts with the drama of the scherzo, is itself a study of contrasts between two elements: sustained tranquility in A major and a flightier figure which lends some passing excitement. Lionel Choi

DANG THAI SON

In Chopin’s hands, the Venetian barcarolle, the paddling gondolier’s nostalgic serenade as the gondola, with a love-struck couple for passengers, traverses the romantic waterways, too, is no mere pretty melody over a tenderly rocking rhythmic accompaniment as the gondola bops gently over the calm waters. Completed in 1846 at a late stage in his compositional life, his sole Barcarolle, Op. 60 is a mature stand-alone masterpiece, a marvel of harmonic construction, grandly-conceived but without the work ever quite leaving the salon or drawing room where it has its roots.

DANG THAI SON

IGNA C Y J AN PA D ERE W S K I (18 6 0 –19 41)

Mélodie in G-flat major, Op. 16 No. 2 Legend in A-flat major, Op. 16 No. 1 Nocturne in B-flat major, Op. 16 No. 4 Minuet in G major, Op. 14 No. 1 Krakowiak in B-flat major, Op. 5 No. 3 Known primarily as a pianist today, Ignacy Jan Paderewski led an intensely eventful life, somehow finding time off being the highest-paid performer in Europe to take power as the Prime Minister of Poland. He retired completely from politics in 1922 and resumed music-making, never to return to his homeland. His compositions are rarely played today, being rooted so deeply in his piano-playing and the predominance of the “salon piece” as a genre — one that faded just after the turn of the century. These pieces were written for the musically literate culture from the early part of the 19th century onward, and pieces like Chopin’s waltzes and mazurkas are products of this tradition: music to be played in the home, perhaps to a small group of friends, with a focus on enjoyment instead of the profound philosophical strugglings in works like Beethoven’s sonatas. This trend is well-represented in Poland: Maria Szymanowska wrote in this idiom before Chopin, and after him came Leopold Godowsky (an autodidact!), Józef Hofmann and Paderewski himself. All were well-respected as pianist-composers in their own time, and all wrote larger-scale works, though they are now remembered for their miniatures.

The Mélodie is a beautiful lyric line over a deep bass and accompaniment, and, unlike the Legend, rarely rouses itself to excitement. The storytelling qualities of the Legend call to mind Chopin’s Ballades, and this piece even shares its key with the third of them. A return to tranquility in the Nocturne rounds off the selections from Opus 16, which consists of seven pieces in total. The Minuet used to be a very popular anthology piece, and still occasionally appears as a concert encore. Paderewski is in his antiquating mood here, and the piece finds its place in a series of Humoresques de Concert, the first half of which is an “Antique Book” and the other a “Modern” one. This instantly recalls the quiet charm of the Schubert dances, mixed in with the improvisatory flourishes of Chopin. The krakowiak is a duple-time folk dance from the region of Kraków, and was gradually subsumed into salon music along with its triple-time cousins, the mazurka and the polonaise (although the polonaise had already made this crossing as early as Bach). Its lively character and colourful syncopations gained popularity among audiences easily, and Chopin drew heavily upon the dance in his works for piano and orchestra. Paderewski’s Opus 5 collection of Polish Dances comprises two krakowiaks and one mazurka, and this third piece is a fantastic virtuoso romp on a catchy tune, and is a real crowd-pleaser, featuring tolling bells in the introduction and spicy chromatic harmonisations of a simple folk-like tune. Thomas Ang

Réminiscences de Norma, S.394 (“Reminiscences of Bellini’s Norma”) In 1837, Liszt was challenged for supremacy by Sigismond Thalberg, a Swiss-born Austrian pianist who could apparently not only counter Liszt’s charismatic brand of pianism – replete with glittering, razzle-dazzle firepower – with subtlety but who played as if with three hands! Such nature-defying deftness quickly became à la mode in novelty-conscious Paris. Stung and enraged by what he perceived as Thalberg’s upper-class pretensions (and Liszt displayed a lifelong mix of envy and scorn for the aristocracy), Liszt responded with biting contempt, dismissing Thalberg’s compositions as “so empty, so mediocre” and finding his playing to have as much depth as the diamond studs that embellished his fancy dress shirts. An inevitable showdown took place and although the verdict was one of remarkable political correctness (“Liszt was the greatest pianist; Thalberg the only one”), there could only have been one inexorable conclusion – Liszt continued on his protean and trail-blazing course while Thalberg was consigned to virtual oblivion. The neglect extends to Thalberg’s compositions, including his numerous opera transcriptions. Dwarfed by Liszt’s more richly varied and enterprising examples of this genre, there is little in Thalberg to compare with Liszt’s wit and far-reaching vision. Liszt’s 193 or so paraphrases and partitions are a rich testimony to his uncanny empathy for other composers’ works and to his seemingly limitless charisma. Never entirely the altruist, he at once pays tribute, yet leaves his own indelible imprint. The Réminiscences de Norma dates from Liszt’s middle years when, even after his retirement from life as a travelling virtuoso, his music invariably made exorbitant technical demands. Surely no major composer ever did more to propagate the music of others than Liszt. Based on Bellini’s opera Norma from a decade earlier, this colourful work incorporates seven different themes from the opera, stitched together here by Liszt in a slightly different order. Liszt fashions the opening of this dazzling, colourful work from three pieces in the opera: the chorus “Norma viene”, the Druid high priest Oroveso’s aria “Ite sul colle, o Druidi”, and another chorus “Dell'aura tua profetica”. This last theme, martial and stirring, is then the subject of several ensuing variations, before Liszt returns to the opening ideas. A subtle shift to B minor brings us to Norma’s own aria, the very beautiful “Deh! Non volerli vittime”, found at the end of the opera, as well as two other themes, the duet “Qual cor tradisti” and “Padre, tu piangi?”. After this, the rousing music from the chorus “Guerra! Guerra!” is used to brilliant effect, leading to an extended close where Liszt recalls and re-shapes earlier material in brief. A passing recall of the “Guerra! Guerra!” music brings this virtuoso showpiece to a dazzling close. Lionel Choi

DANG THAI SON

F RAN Z L IS Z T (1811 –18 8 6 ) / V IN C EN Z O B E L L INI (18 01 –18 3 5)

Progr amme M o n , 11 J u n e 2 018 Espl anade Concert Hall

MARTHA ARGERI C H & D AR Í O NTA C A IN RE C ITA L

DEBUSSY

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, L.86 (Transcription for two pianos) 8’30

SCHUBERT

Rondo in A major, D. 951

MOZART

Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448

24’00

BRAHMS

Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56b

17’00

RACHMANINOV

Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17

Intermission

12’00

20'00

30’00

Progr amme W E D, 13 J u n e 2 018 Espl anade Concert Hall

MARTHA ARGERI C H in Concert

Martha Argerich piano * Darío Alejandro Ntaca conductor / piano

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

BEETHOVEN

Leonore Overture No. 3

MOZART

Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453

Intermission

15’00

# 30’00

20'00

PROKOFIEV

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26

30’00

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich, a living piano legend, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She began her first piano lessons at age five with Vincenzo Scaramuzza. Recognised as a child prodigy, her public performances soon began. In 1955, she moved to Europe and continued her studies in London, Vienna and in Switzerland with Bruno Seidlhofer, Friedrich Gulda, Nikita Magaloff, Madeleine Lippati and Stefan Askenase. In 1957, she won the Bolzano and Geneva Piano Competitions, and in 1965 the Warsaw International Chopin Competition. Since then, she has been one of the most prominent pianists in the world both in popularity and ability.

Martha Argerich is renowned for her performance of the virtuoso piano literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her extensive repertoire includes Bach and Bartók, Beethoven and Messiaen, as well as Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Franck, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. She is permanently on the invite lists of the most prestigious orchestras, conductors and music festivals in Europe, Japan and America. Chamber music takes a significant part of her musical life. She regularly plays and records with Nelson Freire, Alexander Rabinowitch, Mischa Maisky, Gidon Kremer and Daniel Barenboim. Martha Argerich has recorded for EMI, Sony, Philips, Teldec and Deutsche Grammophon (DGG) and many of her performances have been broadcasted on television worldwide. She has received many awards: a Grammy Award for Bartók and Prokofiev Concertos, “Grammophon – Artist of the Year”, “Best Piano Concerto Recording of the Year” for Chopin concertos, “Choc” of the Monde de la Musique for her Amsterdam’s recital, “Künstler des Jahres Deutscher Schallplatten Kritik”, Grammy Award for Prokofiev’s Cinderella with Mikhail Pletnev and another Grammy Award for Beethoven Piano Concerto Nos. 2 & 3 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Claudio Abbado (DGG / Best Instrumental Soloist Performance), “Sunday Times – Record of the Year” and BBC Music Magazine Award for her Shostakovich recording (EMI, 2007).

Since 1998 she has been the Artistic Director of the Beppu Festival in Japan. In 1999 she created the International Piano Competition and Festival Martha Argerich in Buenos Aires, and in June 2002 the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano. Martha Argerich has received numerous distinctions, including “Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres” in 1996 and “Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” in 2004 by the French Government, “Accademica di Santa Cecilia” in Rome in 1997, “Musician of the Year” by Musical America 2001, “The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette” by the Japanese Emperor, the prestigious “Praemium Imperiale” by the Japan Art Association in 2005, and the Kennedy Center Honors by Barack Obama in December 2016.

D AR Í O A L E J AN D RO NTA C A

The eldest son of the late piano pedagogue Alejandro Ntaca, Darío A. Ntaca began his piano lessons with his mother, Marta Rossi, and then furthered his studies under his father’s intensive guidance. He also studied orchestral conducting at The Juilliard School with Vincent La Selva and is a graduate of the State University of New York where he studied with Claudio Arrau’s assistant, Germán Diez. When he was 14, Ntaca had the privilege to meet the legendary Earl Wild, whose pianistic influence as “The Last Romantic” has been vital in his development.

Ntaca has performed solo recitals in cities such as Paris, Belgrade, Bucharest, Los Angeles, Tokyo and New York. In 1985, The New York Times praised his performance at Carnegie Recital Hall. He has served as Music Director at the Guild for International Piano Competitions, being subsequently invited to be a juror at the Palm Beach International Piano Competition from 1991 until 2001. Besides a successful career as a virtuoso pianist and conductor Ntaca also gave masterclasses in piano and chamber music at the Universidade Federal de Brasilia, National Conservatory of Romania, Guarnerius Art Centre in Serbia, California State University, New England Conservatory in Boston, Florida Atlantic University and the prestigious McGill University in Montréal. Besides his international engagements, Ntaca is the founder of the Sinfonietta Argerich, and has been its Music Director since its creation in 2004. He has toured with the Orchestra in Argentina with Martha Argerich as soloist. In addition, Martha Argerich and Darío Ntaca have also appeared in many occasions as a piano duo, performing regularly at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the home for the annual Martha Argerich International Festival.

Ntaca has been Music Director of the San Luis Orchestra (SLO) in Argentina from 1990 to 1996. His most remarkable activities with the SLO include a US tour in 1992 performing throughout Vermont, Massachusetts and Florida where he played and conducted from the keyboard. Ntaca has also appeared as pianist and conductor with the Sinfonietta de Paris, Burgas Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Moravian, Russe, Varna and Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestras. He also toured Spain in 1994 with the Oxford Chamber Orchestra. His piano repertoire includes all the works for piano and orchestra by Rachmaninov which he has performed in major centres throughout the Americas. These performances were acclaimed unanimously by critics and distinguished artists like Martha Argerich and Alexis Weissenberg in 1990. For his performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, he received the “1983 Concert Award” from the State University of New York and in 1985 he won the Silver Medal at the Mozart International Competition in Colorado.

SINGA P ORE S Y M P HON Y OR C HESTRA

Since its founding in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has been Singaporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene in the cosmopolitan city-state. In addition to its subscription series concerts, the orchestra is well-loved for its outdoor and community appearances, and its significant role educating the young people of Singapore. The SSO has also earned an international reputation for its orchestral virtuosity, having garnered sterling reviews for its overseas tours and many successful recordings. The SSO makes its performing home at the 1,800-seat state-of-the-art Esplanade Concert Hall. More intimate works and all outreach and community performances take place at the 673-seat Victoria Concert Hall, the home of the SSO. The orchestra performs 100 concerts a year, and its versatile repertoire spans all-time favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres. Bridging the musical traditions of East and West, Singaporean and Asian musicians and composers are regularly showcased in the concert season. This has been a core of the SSOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programming philosophy from the very beginning under Choo Hoey, who was Music Director from 1979 to 1996.

‘A fine display of orchestral bravado for the SSO and Shui’ The Guardian

Since Lan Shui assumed the position of Music Director in 1997, the SSO has performed in Europe, Asia and the United States. In May 2016 the SSO was invited to perform at the Dresden Music Festival and the Prague Spring International Music Festival. This successful five‑city tour of Germany and Prague also included the SSO’s return to the Berlin Philharmonie after six years. In 2014 the SSO’s debut at the 120th BBC Proms in London received critical acclaim in the major UK newspapers The Guardian and Telegraph. The SSO has also performed in China on multiple occasions. Notable SSO releases under BIS include a Rachmaninov series, a “Seascapes” album, two Debussy discs “La Mer” and “Jeux”, and the first-ever cycle of Tcherepnin’s piano concertos and symphonies. The SSO has also collaborated with such great artists as Lorin Maazel, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Diana Damrau, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and Gil Shaham.

M USI C IANS

FIRST VIOLIN

VIOLA

Lynnette Seah Co-Concertmaster Emil Bolozan^ Chan Yoong-Han Jin Li Nikolai Koval* Lim Shue Churn^ Margit Saur Karen Tan William Tan Wu Man Yun* Yew Shan^ Zhang Si Jing*

Yasuo Hayashi^ Stuart Johnson^ Marietta Ku Julia Park Shui Bing Janice Tsai Wang Dandan

SECOND VIOLIN 48

Chan Si Ning^ Hai-Won Kwok Lee Shi Mei^ Michael Loh Priscilla Neo^ Chikako Sasaki* Shao Tao Tao Edward Tan^ Yeo Teow Meng Yin Shu Zhan*

CELLO Chan Wei Shing Simon Cobcroft^ Gerald Davies^ Khachatur Khachatryan^ Lin Juan^ Ryan Sim^ DOUBLE BASS Foo Yin Hong^ Julian Li^ Edmund Song^ Karen Yeo FLUTE Andy Hu^ Kang Hyun Joo^ OBOE Hu Qiuzi^ Rachel Walker

CLARINET

TROMBONE

Li Xin Liu Yoko

Samuel Armstrong Damian Patti Wang Wei

BASSOON Young-Jin Choe^ Liu Chang

TIMPANI

HORN

PERCUSSION

Linda Chua^ Kartik Alan Jairamin Marcus Kwek^ Nigel Leong^

Lim Meng Keh

Zhu Zheng Yi

TRUMPET Lau Wen Rong David Smith

* With deep appreciation to the Rin Collection for their generous loan of string instruments. ^ Musician on temporary contract Musicians listed alphabetically by family name.

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca 50

C L A U D E D E B U SS Y (18 6 2 –1918 )

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, L.86 (Transcription for two pianos) Contrary to the popular notion of all things French being chic and elegant, French music was at a time regularly weighed down by far heavier influences. At the end of the 19th century, for instance, Wagnerism and Franckism were prevalent, along with the love for stodgy musical forms which, when consumed even slightly in excess, led to the musical equivalent of indigestion. Even Debussy himself was initially under their spell – think of his early, distinctly out-of-character Fantasy for piano and orchestra of 1889–1890, for instance – but the young composer joined the circle of poets and artists who met at the house of French poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) every Tuesday night for discussions and companionship. These soul-searching, imagination- and imagery-rich soirées were to shape and change the young Debussy’s compositional language forever. As early as 1865, Mallarmé had already thought of his eclogue L’après-midi d’un faune (“The Afternoon of a Faun”). Its first edition only saw the light of day in 1876, and another eleven years would pass before La Revue indépendante published a “definitive version”. It is probably through this version that Debussy first came to know the eclogue, but it was not until the end of 1890 that he was in direct contact with the poet, who was contemplating a theatrical realisation of the eclogue – a recitation of some form with music – at the Théâtre d’Art. The production never took place. But Debussy, already thoroughly familiar with the poet’s style by that time, began work on his prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” in 1892, re-imagining Mallarmé’s text in purely musical terms. The result: an evocative, languid flute solo which, without ever taking on the character of a full-fledged soloist in a concerto, serves as a recurring theme over an orchestral improvisation bearing no similarity to any pre-established forms. The instrumentation was such as to create a sound-world far removed from the usual symphonic effect so popular at the time, and from the gratifying coloratura à la Saint-Saëns. It would instead evoke the scene’s steamy climate and the mythical half-man half-goat’s hazy, erotic daydreams. It was not until 22 December 1894 that the Société Nationale de Paris finally gave the Prelude its first performance (possibly prior to a reading of the poem), under the direction of the Swiss composer and conductor Gustave Doret. Despite a performance that many thought was mediocre, the audience reaction was ecstatic, declaring the Prelude an unequivocal triumph. Mallarmé himself praised the music, saying that it extended the emotion of his poem and provided it with a warmer background. Debussy regarded the music as “a very free illustration and in no way as a synthesis of the poem.” Ravel, born just a year prior to the poem’s first publication, would later say that the Prelude was, in his mind, “the only absolutely perfect work in the history of music”. Very few know that before he wrote the orchestral score, Debussy made a version for two pianos, which will be performed tonight. Lionel Choi

Rondo in A major, D. 951 The Rondo in A major, D. 951 is the last piano work Schubert wrote for four hands. While on his deathbed suffering from typhoid fever as a result of a complication from syphilis, Schubert agreed to write this so-called “Grand Rondo” at the request of the well-known Viennese publisher Domenico Artaria. Of the thirty-two works he devoted to this form throughout his very brief life, three are as much undisputed masterpieces as his well-known sonatas and string quartets: the Variations D. 813, the Fantasy D. 940 and this, all of which radiating with the warmth, finesse and sensitivity we have come to associate with Schubert. Lionel Choi

W O L F GANG AMA D E U S MO Z ART (175 6 –17 91)

Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448 1. Allegro con spirito 2. Andante 3. Molto allegro The Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448 was composed in November 1781 for Josepha von Auernhammer, one of Mozart’s pupils whose musical qualities he particularly appreciated, while at her father’s home, and the composer performed it afterwards many times with another of his talented pupils, Barbara “Babette” Ployer. At the time, Mozart had just settled in Vienna, which he referred to in his letters to his father as “the land of the pianoforte”. Of undeniable exuberance and tremendous freshness, the work can not be more different from what will be the second and only other piece he completed for two pianos, the serious and rigorous Fugue, K. 426, of 1783. Here, the brilliant key of D major, often associated by Mozart in his concertos and sonatas with effervescent virtuosity, gives the piece an irresistible sparkle, further accentuated by the cascades of scales, arpeggios and Alberti bass. The two pianos balance and play off each other so perfectly without any loss of clarity of texture and musical line that Alfred Einstein considered the work a “culmination of the evolution of the concertante style”. The vibrant first movement Allegro con spirito makes a brilliant, vigorous lead-in to the second movement Andante, an expressive, poised cantilena filled with graceful ornamentation, written like an intimate love duet of sorts. The whirling rondo finale is a virtuosic romp, returning to the dazzling spirit of the first movement. The exotic spirit of Mozart’s famous A minor Turkish rondo from his A major piano sonata, K. 331 of a few years earlier looms large here, for the opening theme seems almost entirely derived from it, albeit in the bright key of D major instead. The work ends in the same way as it began: triumphantly and in unison over four octaves. Lionel Choi

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

F RAN Z S C H U B ERT (17 9 7–18 2 8 )

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

J OHANNES B RAHMS (18 3 3 –18 9 7 )

Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56b Theme: Chorale St. Antoni. Andante Variation I. Poco più animato Variation II. Più vivace Variation III. Con moto Variation IV. Andante con moto Variation V. Vivace Variation VI. Vivace Variation VII. Grazioso Variation VIII. Presto non troppo Finale. Andante Brahms’ first major work for the orchestra, published as Variations on a Theme by Haydn, came after two serenades, the Piano Concerto No. 1 and several vocal works with orchestra such as the German Requiem, the Alto Rhapsody, Schicksalslied, Triumphlied and Rinaldo. It is therefore through these works that Brahms, after much initial hesitation and setbacks, first started to develop his own personal style in orchestral writing.

While Schumann, who considered his younger colleague’s piano sonatas “symphonies in disguise”, had long encouraged him to write for the orchestra, Brahms felt the need to wait. He was intimidated by the ghosts of the great masters of the past, in particular the imposing figure of Beethoven. “I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like [Beethoven] behind us,” wrote Brahms to his friend Hermann Levi in 1872. Methodical as he was, he chose instead to approach orchestral writing by reworking pieces he had composed earlier for other instruments, as is the case with these Variations, which were originally written for two pianos (just as the F minor Sonata for two pianos, Op. 34b would later become the F minor Piano Quintet, Op. 34a), so he did not find himself having to reinvent the entire creative wheel, so to speak. Also, by then, Brahms had already mastered the technique of the variation, of which he already had plenty of practice, with variations on themes of Schumann, Handel and Paganini under his belt. He loved the architectural rigours associated with writing variations: “I often reflect on the form of variation, and I think it should be kept stricter, purer,” said Brahms to Joseph Joachim in 1856. The Variations on a Theme by Haydn is based on a theme known as the St. Anthony Chorale, an Austrian processional chorale in honour of St. Anthony of Padua, arranged in a piece for wind octet. The theme is now attributed to be the work of Ignaz Pleyel rather than Haydn, contrary to what Brahms thought for all of his life. (He wrote in 1896: “People today understand practically nothing about Haydn any more. No one considers that we now live in a time where, exactly 100 years ago, Haydn created all our music… I myself have for years celebrated these events.”) Eight contrasting variations lead to an impressive passacaglia with the bass line derived from the first five bars of the chorale (for Brahms, the richness and quality of the bass line is an essential element in his choice of a theme to be set to multiple variations). Here, Brahms combines a tour de force compositional technique and powerful expressiveness, culminating in a final triumphant iteration of the melody. Lionel Choi

Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17 1. 2. 3. 4.

Introduction. Alla Marcia Waltz. Presto Romance. Andantino Tarantella. Presto

Rachmaninov’s Suites Op. 5 and Op. 17 stand out in the rather meagre two-piano repertoire, and in the composer’s fascinating output in this area. As a student, he prepared a piano duet transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, which first brought him to the attention of Tchaikovsky, among others. His final work, the Symphonic Dances, started out as a two-piano work and was later orchestrated for the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Suite No. 2, Op. 17 also came at a pivotal moment in his compositional career. It was written, along with the more popular Second Piano Concerto, as the story goes, as a happy result of psychiatric treatment from Dr Nikolai Dahl, whose help Rachmaninov sought to snap out of a crippling depression that had devastating effects on his compositional creativity; the result of the spectacular flop of his (to be honest, rather dour) First Symphony. It was dedicated to Alexander Goldenweiser and premiered in Moscow in 1901 by Rachmaninov and his cousin, Alexander Siloti. Cast in an optimistic C major, the Suite No. 2 is perhaps Rachmaninov’s most jovial and buoyant work conceived on a fairly large scale. The grandiloquence is established at the outset in full martial splendour, sunny and supremely confident. The full chordal fanfares fade (quite literally) into the second movement, which is a swirling fast-paced waltz that sweeps one off one’s feet, alternating between two themes – the second being an uncanny quotation of the medieval Dies Irae – amidst breathless jingling troika bells. The lovely third movement Romance brings a feeling of warmth and nostalgia, its melodies arching beautifully over delicate filigree work. The closing tarantella recalls the whirlwind energy of the waltz, only more ebullient and more fiendish than ever, chock full of bravura and Russian fervour. Lionel Choi

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

SERGEI RA C HMANINO V (18 7 3 –19 4 3 )

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

L U D W IG VAN B EETHO V EN (17 7 0 –18 2 7 )

Leonore Overture No. 3 Beethoven’s drive to create music that expressed the highest of ideals was relentless. That he did so with such profundity, is why his music is deemed to be at the pinnacle of mankind’s artistic achievements, approached but never equaled. His beliefs infuse his only opera, Fidelio, which extolls the right to live free and unburdened by the suffering caused by injustice, the transcendence of marital love, and that ultimately adversity can be overcome by loyalty, love and human resolve. It is a woman who embodies these ideals — Leonore, the heroine of JeanNicolas Bouilly’s Léonore, ou l’amour conjugal which inspired the opera. Other composers had composed operas to Bouilly’s text, but Fidelio, flawed though it be, is one of Beethoven’s truly monumental creations, while others have been forgotten. The very fact that this overture exists, is evidence of the frustrations that Beethoven encountered in the ten years that it took him to complete the opera. He wrote four overtures to the opera, which he wanted to call Leonore, but was overruled by the management of the theater where it had its disastrous premiere on 20 November 1805. The failure was in part due to bad timing, as a week earlier, Napoleon had taken Vienna, with the emperor and his court having fled the city. Unsurprisingly, the tale of triumph over tyranny did not go over well with the occupying French troops who were in the audience. It was also in part musical, as there had been inadequate rehearsal time and the vocal parts, which were deemed unsingable, were mangled by the soloists.

Even the numbering of the four overtures does not follow a logical progression. Leonore No. 2 was composed for the original production, while Leonore No. 3 was composed for a revival the following year, as was Leonore No. 1, which was a simplified version of the earlier two for a production in Prague that never took place. The fourth version, known as the Overture to Fidelio, was composed for a revival in Prague in 1814, and is generally performed as the curtain-raiser to the opera. Gustav Mahler began the practice of inserting Leonore No. 3 into Act II of the opera, which renders the final scene irrelevant, as the power and the emotion of the overture overwhelms the final scene. Beethoven was a master at building music from a single motif, in this case a simple three-note theme with a dotted rhythm. The quiet opening evolves into a work of epic proportions full of dramatic intensity, which extolls Leonore‘s determination and ultimate triumph in rescuing her husband from the forces of evil. What did not work in the opera house makes for a dramatic stand- alone orchestral piece and stands as “one of the great emblems of the heroic Beethoven, a potent and controlled musical embodiment of a noble humanistic passion”. Rick Perdian

Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453 1. Allegro 2. Andante 3. Allegretto The year 1784 was a good, prolific one for Mozart. Following the tremendous success of his frothy Turkish-inspired opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”) two years earlier, he reinforced his popularity with the Viennese concert public with as many as six concertos, two sonatas, a string quartet, and a quintet for piano and winds: all works of such enduring quality that they still feature regularly in concerts today. None of these works were written for personal use, and this was particularly the case for the Piano Concertos No. 14 in E-flat major, K. 449 and No. 17 in G major, K. 453, which were written for one of his most gifted students, Barbara “Babette” Ployer. The young lady gave the first performance of the G major Concerto on 13 June in a private concert at her family’s summer home in the Viennese suburb of Döbling, accompanied by an orchestra her father hired for the occasion. On this occasion, Mozart also joined her to perform his new Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448. The Concerto is one of only six of Mozart’s piano concertos which were published during his lifetime. Not only did it enjoy audience success that day in Döbling, it also earned him rave reviews from critics who rightly noted the work’s complexities beyond its obvious beauty. Less monolithic in its expression as compared to earlier concertos, including No. 16 in D major, the G major concerto opens like its older sibling in a march-like rhythm (albeit a most graceful rendering of something so inextricably military), but its thematic material is far richer and altogether more inspired, delicate in its detail yet decidedly forthright in outline. While the Allegro ends with a certain sweetness, the C major second movement Andante begins most solemnly. Olivier Messiaen proclaims this to be “one of the most beautiful writings by Mozart. The central Andante, all by itself, would be enough to make his name immortal”. Beneath the placid surface, there is plenty of harmonic drama: just the piano’s opening longbreathed statement, which meanders in and out of major and minor keys, gives a powerful clue of the more complicated times ahead in the score. Several powerful modulations of key and extensive chromaticism give weight to music of great transparency, its emotional gravitas achieved without the music ever being weighed down by a tempo that is anything slower than andante (“at a walking pace”). In fact, so superbly inspired is the writing in this movement that French musicologist and Mozart specialist Jean-Victor Hocquard went as far as to say that it is of “a perfection that [Mozart] will never exceed in the art of the concerto”. After all the “stifled smiles and secret tears” of the first two movements, as Alfred Einstein described them, the fairly relaxed Allegretto final movement, comprising a theme and sparkling variations, is a welcome relief. Incidentally, word has it that the theme was dictated to Mozart by a small singing bird which he had just bought and adopted as a pet, and he claims to have reproduced it faithfully without changing a single note! Lionel Choi

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

W O L F GANG AMA D E U S MO Z ART (175 6 –17 91)

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca 56

SERGEI P RO K O F IE V (18 91 –19 5 3 )

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 1. Andante – Allegro 2. Theme and Variations. Andantino 3. Allegro, ma non troppo An excerpt of an entry on 30 December 1912 in Prokofiev’s diary reads as follows: “What would be the ideal way to compose a concerto? It occurred to me today that it would certainly be interesting to a pianist to be presented with a concerto that had its origin in a technically challenging sonata and subsequently been transformed into a concerto. The solo part would be bound to be interesting pianistically, while the sonata itself would benefit by the reinforcement and embellishment of a skilfully added orchestral texture. Brilliant idea! Supposing I were to take my Sonata Op. 1? No, that would not work; in the first place I have progressed musically since then, and also one should not disturb the bones of works that have appeared in print. But I do have a nice Sonata in A minor [No. 3, Op. 28], also a perfectly good C minor Sonata [No. 4, Op. 29], and suppose I were to put together a crisp little concerto from that? I am most attracted by this idea.” And so Prokofiev’s Third Concerto began in 1913 as a reworking in sketch form of selected extracts or just mere thematic, rhythmic or harmonic ideas from the third and fourth sonatas as they existed at that time, although the immensely popular version of the concerto we know today was the result of a concerted effort by Prokofiev to complete the work in 1921 in a village on the coast of Brittany. While there is little obvious thematic similarity between the final forms of both the Third Sonata (revised in 1917) and the Third Concerto, both works, and the fourth sonata, took their earliest forms from sketches of disparate ideas a younger Prokofiev had jotted down before as far back as 1911 (hence the subtitle, “From Old Notebooks”, which is attributed to both the third and fourth sonatas) and, from a macro level, have similar pianistic gestures. While the lush romantic orchestration in some of the texturally richer parts of the Concerto is clearly the work of a more experienced composer in 1921, both the Sonata and the Concerto share Prokofiev’s penchant for manic, spiky textures with a winking, wicked and decidedly dry sense of humour, his then-underrated lyrical gifts and, at that time, an adherence to traditional tonality. Structurally, the Third Concerto is also decidedly traditional: set in three movements, each made memorable by containing the composer’s trademarks: ballet, fairy tale, magic, sarcasm, irony – and fistfuls of virtuosity. They all contribute to the concerto’s lasting popularity to this very day. For the soloist, as French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet once noted, “if you don’t have success with this piece on stage, you should change your job!” The opening themes of both the Second and Third Piano Concertos are virtually the same in contour and in pace when they are first introduced, slowly. In the Third Concerto, this dreamy Russian folksong-like theme which opens the sonata-form first movement appears first on the solo clarinet, joined quickly in harmony by a second clarinet, and then by violins and flute. Still hushed, the music suddenly breaks into far faster tempo, building to the soloist’s entry with a perky melody of ringing authority. There is little rest for the soloist henceforth, who is alternating between darting around with rapid-fire figuration and pounding emphatic chords. The pace relaxes to a second theme, largely derived from the first, played mostly by the woodwinds and

The tip-toe balletic grace of the somewhat mischievous-sounding second movement theme is fodder for five ensuing, contrasting variations. Prokofiev himself described the movement: “The theme is announced by the orchestra alone, Andantino. In the first variation the piano treats the opening of the theme in quasi-sentimental fashion, and resolves into a chain of trills as the orchestra repeats the closing phrase. The tempo changes to Allegro for the second and third variations, and the piano has brilliant figures, while snatches of the theme are introduced here and there in the orchestra. In Variation IV the tempo is once again Andante, and the piano and orchestra discourse on the theme in a quiet and meditative fashion [Prokofiev actually marks this freddo, which is Italian for cold]. Variation V is energetic. It leads without pause into a restatement of the theme by the orchestra, with delicate chordal embroidery in the piano.” At the end of the movement, the piano gravely sings its final tune in E minor and the orchestra concludes in E major. A gentle thump on the bass drum then sends the curtains falling on this strange and evocative closing scene. The finale is, broadly speaking, in a fast-slow-fast format. Its opening theme, introduced stealthily by two bassoons and plucked lower strings, is diatonic, the whole material playable on the white keys of the piano. There has been suggestion that it was written in either 1916 or 1918 and originally intended for a string quartet, but there exists no commentary this writer could find which alludes to the theme’s unmistakably Japanese character. And why not, since Prokofiev did actually spend two eye-opening, culturally and musically inspired months in the summer of 1918 in other-worldly Japan while on his way to America? This material is developed with blustering vigour, and ebbs to a contrasting spacious central section which starts with a dialogue: a beautifully expansive melody is first introduced by woodwinds and then soaring, swelling strings, and the piano replies with a ‘walking’ theme of quietly impish character. This section develops to full-on passionate lushness not out of place in an old-fashioned Hollywood romance. The opening section then returns with the same character as it did at the start of the movement, but wastes no time to build a full head of steam, pianistic pyrotechnics and caustic humour aplenty. A brief playful episode leads to the blazing coda, all guns spectacularly firing. Lionel Choi

Martha Argerich & Darío Ntaca

accentuated by castanets and pianistic filigree. More or less skipping the development section altogether, Prokofiev then embellishes all the material with more vigour in the recapitulation, and rounds off the thematically cohesive movement with a higher-speed summary of the recapitulation for an emphatic coda.

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