Akina Yura

erforming rts enterC A P

university at albany State University of New York

2022-23

Cover photo: Urban Bush Women’s “Give Your Hands to Struggle” | Photo by Ian Douglas

Photo this page: UAlbany Performing Arts Center | Photo by Patrick Ferlo

Department of Music and Theatre

University at Albany

presents:

Akina Yura piano

Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 7pm

Recital Hall

UAlbany

Program

Hashi [Bridges] No.1 for Piano Somei Satoh

(1947-)

Ludwig Van Beethoven in D major, Op. 28 (1770-1827)

Piano Sonata No 15

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace

IV. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo

Hashi [Bridges] No. 3 for Piano Somei Satoh (1947-)

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

Frédéric Chopin

Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 (1810-1849)

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47

Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52

About the Performer

Pianist Akina Yura has been heard throughout the United States, Europe, and her native Japan. She has appeared as a guest recitalist in numerous concert series, including the Pianodrom International Piano Festival in Albania. As a chamber musician, she has appeared both in the United States and in Japan, including numerous summer appearances as a collaborative pianist for the Castleman Quartet Program.

Passionate in exploring a wide range of repertoire, Yura continues to present well-known, new, and underrepresented music. Her CD, Mutsuo Shishido Complete Works for Piano (MSR Classics), has been hailed by critics as “first rate” and “fantastic playing… full of sensitive nuances” [American Record Guide]. Fanfare Magazine critic Peter Burwasser wrote: “I cannot imagine a better advocate for this music than the wonderful young pianist Akina Yura…” Dr. Yura also compiled the first full biography of Shishido and analysis of his works.

Currently, Yura serves on the piano faculty at The College of Saint Rose, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and SUNY Schenectady School of Music. She is also a co-founder of, codirector of Kaleidoscope MusArt, Inc. Yura holds piano performance degrees from the University of Maryland (B.M.), Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (M.M.), and the University of Miami Frost School of Music (D.M.A.). Her previous teachers include Santiago Rodriguez, Edward Auer, Shigeo Neriki, Mikhail Volchok, and Nathan Buckner.

Program Notes

Somei Satoh (1947-) was born to a family whose members included masters of Japanese traditional music (hogaku) and traditional dance. He was mainly self-taught in composition, and began his career in 1969 with “Tone Field,” an experimental, mixed media group based in Tokyo. His composition hauntingly evokes a curious fusion of Japanese timbral sensitivities with 19th-century Romanticism and electronic technology. He has been deeply influenced by Shintoism, the writings of the Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki, his cultural heritage, and the multimedia art forms of 1960s. Satoh’s elegant style integrates these elements into an individual approach to contemporary Japanese music, in an unreservedly non-international style, free from any constraints of academism. Satoh writes about his own compositions as:

My music is limited to certain elements of sound and there are many calm repetitions. There is also much prolongation of a

single sound. I think silence and the prolongation of sound is the same thing in terms of space. The only difference is that there is either the presence or absence of sound. More important is whether the space is "living" or not. Our [Japanese] sense of time and space is different from that of the West. For example, in the Shinto religion, there is the term 'imanaka' which is not just the present moment which lies between the stretch of past eternity and future immortality, but also the manifestation of the moment of all time which is multilayered and multi-dimensional... I would like it if the listener could abandon all previous conceptions of time and experience a new sense of time presented in this music as if eternal time can be lived in a single moment.

Hashi [Bridges] No. 1 for Piano employs much prolongation of individual sounds as well as silence. Throughout the work, Japanese timbral notes are repeated with varied length of notes, combined with rests, layers of passages and chords in a free manner, as Satoh describes as “multi-layered and multidimensional.”

Hashi [Bridges] No. 3 for Piano is composed with the wellknown technique of Minimalism, which relies primarily on the prolongation of a single unit of sound, drawing upon this repetitive element which Satoh uses frequently in his music. In this work, as other Satoh’s music using this technique, repetition is perceived more as vibrations because the rapidity of the individual beats in conjunction with an extremely slow overall pulse.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed 32 opuses of sonatas during his lifetime. Each work shows his forwardthinking approach to composition and exists as both a unique work of art and an example of the evolution of his music. Composed in 1801, Piano Sonata No 15 in D major, Op. 28 was given a nickname “Pastoral” by his publisher. As it suggests, the work has pastorale character and resembles his pastoral symphony which would later be composed between 1807-1808. It is distinct for daring melodies and lyricism throughout the sonata. Beethoven was already experiencing the loss of his hearing ability. However, once he wrote to his friend in 1801, “You want to know something about my present

situation…. well, on the whole not all bad.” This sonata is as if it reflects those sentiments of his.

Composed after the famous “Moonlight” sonata, which challenged the standard sonata form by unexpected use of formal structure, this sonata’s structure is rather traditional. The first movement, Allegro, begins with a repetitive monotone bass resembling the timpani. The lyricism of all the themes blend into a texture of gentle contours, sustaining a mood that the development interrupts only briefly at its climax.

The second movement, Andante presents a quartet-like texture with a staccato walking bass line. The overall structure of the movement is that of a minuet and trio with a written-out da capo that provides figural variations as each section is repeated. A short coda recalls materials from the trio section.

The third movement, Scherzo: Allegro vivace, is written with regular form in ternary meter. It starts with four long notes, each an octave apart, and a short-motived melody. The trio starts in the key of b minor, with an octave tremolo-like busy accompaniment. The fourth movement, Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo, is written in sonata-rondo form, with a recurring theme with a drone-like bass line, characteristic of the pastoral genre, in rondo form. As with all the other movements of this sonata, Beethoven first moves into the dominant key, and briefly returning to the recurring theme in original key, moves into new episode in a new key, with a contrapuntal middle section. It is followed by another refrain, all in the tonic, another episode, and a final refrain with a coda.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) composed four ballades during 1831 to 1842. During this time, the composer’s style evolved in the direction of increasingly subtle and refined structure and contrapuntal detail, an evolution that can be traced with reasonable clarity in the ballades. The term “ballade” was associated with French poetry in the 1400s. It is also said that Chopin wrote music for the epic poems of Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Chopin’s ballades do not follow any specific format, and the musical narrative is embedded in many unpredictable and creative phrases throughout the music. All four ballades are

large-scale works, in triple time, 6/4, or 6/8, and have poetic, dramatic, and contrasting subjects. In these ballades, many classical forms of sonata, rondo, and variations are found in revised form and flexibility. They are considered his finest compositions and are the most representative pieces of romantic music.

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 was composed within several years, finished in 1835, and published in 1836. It was dedicated to Baron Stockhausen. The cohesiveness of the materials, the metamorphosis they experience throughout the piece, and the presentation of contrasting materials and dramatic effectiveness maintains this ballade’s undiminished popularity. The ballade begins with an arpeggio in A-flat major in 4/4, a Neapolitan harmony featured in the introduction that returns prominently in the coda. The ballade then has two distinct themes that are restated multiple times throughout the piece. These are unified with transitional materials, many consisting of brilliant passages of significant sonority, leaving the impression that they are as strong as the thematic materials themselves. The second theme appears three times with variations: the first time in E-flat major, then in E major in an expanded version, then again in E-flat major over an arpeggiated accompaniment. The two retransitions are based on the opening figure of the first theme. These sections are constructed and woven artistically into this cohesive work. The coda is based on passage work and stands as a monumental technical challenge that creates an intensity resulting in a closing of supreme excitement.

Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 was composed in 1839 while Chopin spent time with George Sand. The work was dedicated to Robert Schumann in return for Schumann’s dedication of Kreisleriana, Op. 16 to Chopin. The extreme contrasts between the two sections are very distinct in this ballade. An opening, barcarolle-like theme in F major, is contrasted by a stormy section in a minor, consisting of octaves, double notes, and arpeggio-like passages. Chopin heightens the contrast by letting the barcarolle drift away into a dreamy repose before the onslaught of the stormy section. After the storm subsides, the barcarole returns, but with troubled interruptions and developmental twists that lead to various keys and twice growing to climactic proportions. The second climax directly

brings in the return of the second storm, which brings the piece to an almost hysterical coda with double notes marked agitato.

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 was composed between 1840-1841 and was dedicated to Mademoiselle Pauline de Noailles. The work can be described as an arch form: ABCBA. The ballade opens with a very long introductory conversation before the main theme appears. The conversation is composed first of a songlike lyrical theme and then of a dance-like theme in which melodic interest is dispersed between several levels of activities. The second theme grows out of a broken-octave idea, opening the B section, consisting of statement, growth, and development, climax, and restatement. The C section introduces an improvisatory, graceful theme that uses both decorated arpeggios and scalar passage work. It is short, and the B section is restated again, now in A-flat. The B section now is restated through the climax of its development, in an ingenious new setting. The final statement of the B theme occurs over a rising pedal point, first on B, then, C, and finally moving up to E-flat. A climax is achieved with the opening theme of the piece in a grandiose statement. A short coda closes the work breathtakingly with the C section arpeggio figures.

Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 was composed around 18421843 and was dedicated to Madame la Baronne C. Nathaniel de Rothschild, who invited Chopin to play in her Parisian estate to introduce him to aristocrats and nobility. The fourth ballade is the most complex from a structural and contrapuntal standpoint and is often referred to as the most difficult of the four ballades. During the course of the piece, two primary thematic ideas undergo a remarkable metamorphosis. The opening theme is presented with a repetition and variations, giving significant importance to the theme, later presented also in canon modulating from key to another key. The second thematic material is first only presented rather fragmentally over a pentatonic bass moving in octaves. Later, this thematic episode returns and develops into a theme, later presented in barcarolle style, as well as in emotional expression of strength and intensity, as it unfolds, and continues to soar, forming a magnificent climax for the composition. A short, stormy coda closes the work brilliantly.

The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.

The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.

erforming rts enterC A P

HOUSE POLICIES

Latecomers will be seated at the discretion of the management and its staff.

The use of photographic or recording devices of any kind during this performance is strictly prohibited.

There is no food or drink allowed in the theatres, nor is smoking allowed in UAlbany buildings.

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To avoid disrupting the performance, kindly disable any noise making electronic devices you may have with you.

Please take time to note the location of the fire exits nearest to you. In the event of an emergency, an announcement will be made from the stage. Please proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly fashion.

The UAlbany Performing Arts Center is no longer operating a box office. All ticketing is done on-line and can be easily navigated from the web site provided through the QR code above or address below.

www.albany.edu/pac