VCH Presents - The Modern Man: Mahan Esfahani

MAHAN ESFAHANI

28 NOV 2018 VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

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28 NOV 2018, WED VCH PRESENTS: THE MODERN MAN: MAHAN ESFAHANI Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU Pièces de Clavecin Suite in D major, RCT 3 17’

I. Les tendres plaintes (rondeau) VII. Les tourbillons (rondeau) VI. L’entretien des Muses VIII. Les cyclopes (rondeau) GRAHAM LYNCH

Admiring Yoro Waterfall 5’

GAVIN BRYARS

After Handel’s “Vesper” 11’

MEL POWELL

Recitative and Toccata Percossa 7’

J.S. BACH Partita No. 3 in A minor, BWV 827 18’ I. Fantasia II. Allemande III. Corrente IV. Sarabande V. Burlesca VI. Scherzo VII. Gigue Intermission 20’ J.S. BACH

Fantasia in C minor, BWV 906 5’

J.S. BACH Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 40’ I. Sinfonia II. Allemande III. Courante IV. Sarabande V. Rondeau VI. Capriccio

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MAHAN ESFAHANI HARPSICHORD “Such virtuosity and disarming presentation suggests that Esfahani could inspire a whole new appreciation of the instrument.”

The Guardian Mahan Esfahani has made it his life’s mission to rehabilitate the harpsichord in the mainstream of concert instruments, and to that end his creative programming and work in commissioning new works have drawn the attention of critics and audiences across Europe, Asia, and North America. He was the first and only harpsichordist to be a BBC New Generation Artist (2008-2010), a BorlettiBuitoni prize winner (2009), and a nominee for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year (2014, 2015, and 2017).

His work for the harpsichord has resulted in recitals in most of the major series and concert halls, and concerto appearances around the world.

Recent highlights include his Carnegie Hall debut in spring of 2018, recitals at the 2

Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Thuringer Bachwoche with violinist Liza Ferschtman, concertos with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, residencies with both the RLPO and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the continuation of a multi-year project of the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach for Wigmore Hall, with whom he has enjoyed an association since he made his debut there in 2009. His richly-varied discography includes critically-acclaimed and award-winning recordings for Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon.

Esfahani studied musicology and history at Stanford University and studied harpsichord in Boston with Peter Watchorn before completing his formation under the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Following a three-year stint as Artist-in-Residence at New College, Oxford, he continues his academic associations as an honorary member at Keble College, Oxford, and as professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He can be frequently heard as a commentator on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and as a host for such programs as Record Review, Building a Library, and Sunday Feature. Born in Tehran in 1984 and raised in the United States, he currently resides in Prague.

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683 – 1764)

GRAHAM LYNCH (B. 1954)

Pièces de Clavecin Suite in D major, RCT 3 17’ I. Les tendres plaintes (rondeau) VII. Les tourbillons (rondeau) VI. L’entretien des Muses VIII. Les cyclopes (rondeau)

Admiring Yoro Waterfall 5’

Rameau, French master of the Baroque character piece, wrote three books of these for solo keyboard over the years 1706–27, followed by a fourth collection that included an optional accompaniment for violin, flute, or viola da gamba. The pieces heard tonight date from the second book from 1724, of which the second half forms the Suite in D major.

Graham Lynch’s 2001 admiration of a Japanese waterfall begins with open fifths in an attempt to evoke Oriental flavour, but with its subtle dissonances and use of a very loose sense of time, instead springs out of the tradition of unmeasured-improvisatory preludes of the 17th century. At once melded to the sound of the harpsichord as an instrument and appropriating koto-playing styles, the music surges constantly, growing in complexity until it no longer resembles its twin inspirations, but achieves a momentum fully of its own.

With tongue firmly in cheek, this D major suite begins with a slow, flowing D minor minuet.

Titled Les tendres plaintes (“Tender Sighs”), Rameau here mocks the tradition of cheap, hackneyed third-rate composers writing pieces that rely on established tropes, yet produces a piece of quite stunning elegance and beauty himself.

The L’entretien des Muses (“Conversation with the Muses”) that follows in this programme brings this suite far beyond its ironic origins, as another D minor minuet scours the range of the entire keyboard for its inspiration, reaching both into the depths and up into the heavens.

With Les tourbillons (“The Whirlwinds”), Esfahani’s selection turns finally to D major.

The name comes from the breaking of regular quaver rhythms to triplets, semiquavers, and finally an outburst of virtuosity that almost seems too large for the instrument. More virtuosity rounds out this set: Rameau’s depiction of the legendary one-eyed smithies, Les cyclopes, forging Zeus’s thunderbolts has hand-crossings, quick alternating offbeats, electrifying trills — a veritable compendium of Baroque keyboard techniques.

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GAVIN BRYARS (B. 1943)

MEL POWELL (1923 – 1998)

After Handel’s ‘Vesper’ 11’

Recitative and Toccata Percossa 7’

Handel’s Music for the Carmelite Vespers undergoes riveting treatment via 20th-century tonality, stretching the boundaries of the original. It falls within a certain stream of English minimalism, while retaining a fully organic mode of development, bending these harmonies through 10 minutes of very wellworked chromaticism. Within this framework is much wiggle room for the performer; Gavin Bryars writes in his notes that he has “offered many options with ornamentation, suggesting some, writing out others completely, but also encouraging the player to use their invention and instincts to add others where not specified and generally to adopt an open approach to the piece”. It searches for a fixed point but never quite gets there, in the process aligning itself with Baroque improvisatory fantasias.

Moving slightly further back in time and across the Atlantic, Mel Powell’s Recitative and Toccata Percossa explores F major while sounding entirely American. Thoroughly Bachian in form and structure, sharp-eared listeners will find similarities to Copland’s instrumental works in the combinations of triadic and quartal harmonies and rhythmic vitality, and with a style so rooted in the classicising tendency of the mid-20th century, it will surprise many that the composer had a full-fledged career in jazz, playing professionally from the age of 14 and teaming up with Benny Goodman for two years.

After a neoclassical period, from which this piece springs, he would then explore atonality and eventually twelve-tone music, winning the 1990 Pulitzer for music.

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J.S. BACH (1685 – 1750) Partita No. 3 in A minor, BWV 827 18’ I. Fantasia II. Allemande III. Corrente IV. Sarabande V. Burlesca VI. Scherzo VII. Gigue Fantasia in C minor, BWV 906 5’ Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 40’ I. Sinfonia II. Allemande III. Courante IV. Sarabande V. Rondeau VI. Capriccio Bach’s Partitas for keyboard have been overshadowed by their more illustrious siblings for solo violin, but are nevertheless one of the great sets of keyboard works from the Baroque era. Apart from utterly dominating the fugal form in his two sets of Preludes and Fugues and The Art of Fugue, Bach’s sheer inventive skills allowed him to collect three large sets of dances, which formed the French Suites, English Suites and these Partitas.

A 17th-century keyboard suite usually consisted of dances from various countries: the Allemande (German), Courante (French), Sarabande (also French), and the Gigue (Italian, from the English “jig”). Sometimes a pair of minuets or a pair of bourées would be added; these were called “galanteries”, and were entirely optional. Bach’s Partitas break this standard Baroque mould in different ways: the 3rd Partita has a few extra dance movements rarely seen in keyboard suites (Burlesca and Scherzo), and both the

2nd and 3rd open with an extra non-dance movement.

The 3rd Partita’s initial Fantasia is a true prelude: a short two-part invention laying down A minor as the overarching key of the whole work. The Allemande that follows is spiky and angular, full of quick notes and shakes, while the Courante is lyrical in comparison. The Sarabande, with its regularly pulsing bass line, recalls some of Bach’s orchestra suites and concertos, while the Burlesca is a pounding triple-time movement that stands out against the Scherzo’s lively two-in-a-bar. Rounding out this collection is a Gigue that is polyphonically adventurous, looking forward to some of the thorny keyboard writing in the second set of Preludes and Fugues.

The 2nd Partita is a very different beast, moving far away from its dance origins with a monumental Sinfonia opening. In three large sections (Grave adagio - Andante - Allegro), it builds on C minor and forms a huge instrumental showpiece, rivalling the density of counterpoint in Bach’s keyboard toccatas.

The following dances are suitably weighty as well (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande), but Bach turns back toward instrumental sources for the Rondeau and the Capriccio: in choosing a quick ¾ and a fast finale, he preempts the symphonic form that would eventually solidify in the generation after.

The Fantasia and Fugue in C minor follows the Baroque tradition of having an introductory movement balancing a large fugue movement.

The Fantasia itself is a fine example of Bach’s technical capabilities at the keyboard, with wide-ranging arpeggios and exciting leaps in the polyphonic writing. Hand-crossings and chromatic passages abound, and leave an audience in great anticipation for the fugue that follows.

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The piece was left unfinished at Bach’s death, and several composers and performers have supplied their own “completions”. Busoni and Sorabji, for example, discard the fugue altogether and incorporate the Fantasia into larger suites made from individual Bach movements; editions of Bach’s music have trailed off or filled in a short cadence to end the piece. Whatever a performer chooses to do when playing this piece, they must allow themselves to be led by Bach’s immense skill and intellectual rigour to create a satisfying finish to the work.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

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Photo of Mahan Esfahani (c) Kaja Smith 7

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