Melvin Chen, piano, Nov 28, 2018

horowitz piano series Boris Berman, artistic director

Melvin Chen

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 | 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Jean Sibelius 1865–1957 arr. Sibelius

Finlandia, Op. 26, No. 7

Sibelius arr. Sibelius

Valse triste, Op. 44, No. 1

Maurice Ravel 1875–1937

Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) I. Modéré, très franc II. Assez lent, avec une expression intense III. Modéré IV. Assez animé V. Presque lent, dans un sentiment intime VI. Vif VII. Moins vif VII. Épilogue. Lent

intermission

Johannes Brahms 1833–1897 arr. Otto Singer

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco Allegretto IV. Allegro

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Artist Profiles Melvin Chen, piano Pianist Melvin Chen has performed at such major U.S. venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Boston’s Jordan Hall, in addition to appearances in Canada and Asia. His performances have been featured on radio and television stations around the globe.

Solo recordings include Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations on the Bridge label and a recording of Joan Tower’s piano music on the Naxos label.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Chen has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, and Peter Wiley, and with the Shanghai, Tokyo, Miami, Penderecki, and Miró string quartets. Chen has appeared at numerous festivals, including the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others.

Chen has a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University and a double master’s degree from The Juilliard School in piano and violin. He received a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics from Yale University. At Yale, he also studied piano with Boris Berman and violin with Paul Kantor and Ida Kavafian. Chen is the Director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and is Professor in the Practice of Piano and Deputy Dean at the Yale School of Music.

Program Notes Finlandia sibelius Patrick Campbell Jankowski

Valse triste sibelius Patrick Campbell Jankowski

A protest piece with an enduring and international legacy, Finlandia brought the world’s attention to Jean Sibelius, and to the people of Finland. Originally called “Finland Awakes!,” the work formed the finale of a suite of incidental music accompanying scenes from the nation’s history, presented at a grand public celebration of the Finnish press. This is no accident: Russia had continued to wrap its noose tighter around Finland’s neck, and the free press became a target for censorship.

Sibelius intended for the work to rouse the spirits and strength of the Finnish people.

In this sense, it may be the quintessential example of nationalism in music (when played in Finland under Russian authority, it never carried a programmatic title, so as not to raise suspicion.) From stern and unyielding chords at the opening, and after a militaristic march, a hymnal passage emerges. The theme, beloved of Finns and the rest of the world, was not intended to be sung, though Sibelius eventually permitted words to be included. This may be the ultimate sign of success for a nationalistic piece: when the people adopt it as their own, and it belongs more to them than to its composer.

This “sorrowful waltz” is a rare example of music from a play that is genuinely involved in the action. The play that it accompanied was cheerfully titled, in Finnish, “Death.” At the dramatic high point of the play, a woman dances with the figure of death, whom she, in her delirium, believes to be her long-deceased husband.

The work is made all the more bittersweet not by the dark and melancholy tone at the start, but by the fleeting moments of lightness and joy in the middle, which we know to be an illusion. In a case of powerful dramatic irony, the audience knows what the woman does not. Her delirium is captivatingly portrayed in a wild acceleration to a frenzied climax, where, on stage, the woman is dancing in what appears to be a manic episode. Suddenly, the whole illusion fades, the music is exhausted, and the woman (we assume), has gone off with the play’s title character. Sibelius’s music conveys what perhaps even words could not, and the psychological depth of this brief and simple waltz may explain its enduring legacy.

Valses nobles et sentimentales ravel Katherine Balch

Symphony No. 3, arr. Otto Singer brahms Patrick Campbell Jankowski

For Maurice Ravel, the waltz was not merely a ballroom dance in triple meter, but rather the symbol of a musical era.

The waltz had grown fashionable in the Viennese courts of Mozart’s time, a popularity that remained throughout the 19th century. Ravel’s title in fact references two collections of waltzes by Schubert, the 34 Valses sentimentales (1823) and 12 Valses nobles (1826). During the 19th century, the waltz evolved into a song for private or salon amusement rather than one necessarily to be danced to, though it no doubt retained its association with the apotheosis of elegance in 18th-century court and aristocratic life. Ravel’s interpretation of the waltz, first with his magnificent and troubling orchestral La Valse in 1906, followed by the Valses nobles et sentimentales in 1911, seems to comment on the decay of this epoch. Ravel uses a medium saturated with convention to usher in a new type of music, one that resonates with the complexities, anxieties, and beauty of his own time. Throughout this collection of seven waltzes, angular and dissonant textures collide with dream-like dances; Ravel’s ever-prevalent use of chromaticism colors even the most elegant dance with a sense of insecurity and unease.

While you might have been a bit surprised to see a symphony on a piano recital program, this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. Liszt famously re-worked all of Beethoven’s symphonies for the piano (yes, they are difficult), and as more pianists gained both technical skill and compositional ingenuity, the works of other composers became fascinating and challenging subjects for transformation. In many ways, a typical symphony is just a sonata for orchestra: in four movements, each constructed in some deliberate form from a variety of themes, motives, and harmonic relationships. It seems a natural fit. Brahms wrote several transcriptions of his own symphonies, for two pianos or four hands. He worked in the heyday of publishing, and knew the value of getting his music into peoples’ homes, which (before recordings) meant that it had to be played there by human beings. Otto Singer’s transcription went a step further, giving more notes to fewer fingers, and is, overall, more virtuosic, geared more toward recital performance than to at-home use. In this version, the rhythmic and harmonic interest that Brahms imparts to middle voices is especially pronounced. Writing in the tradition of Beethoven while also steeped in Baroque counterpoint, the composer’s intricate interplay between melody, bass, and internal lines, is among his greatest strengths, and this iteration for solo piano offers another view into his craftwork.

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Horowitz Piano Series 2018–2019 Season jan 16

Peter Serkin His playing is “probing, brilliant and full of imagination” –The New York Times Mozart: Adagio in B minor, k.540 Mozart: Sonata No. 13 in B-flat major, k.570 Bach: “Goldberg” Variations

feb 13

Roberto Prosseda A pianist who commands “a fiery and fluent technique” –Gramophone Mozart: Fantasia in C minor, k.475 Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, k.457 Mendelssohn: Venetianisches Gondollied, Op. 30, No. 6 Mendelssohn: Fantasie, Op. 28 Mendelssohn: Selections from Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words), Op. 30 Mendelssohn: Rondo capriccioso, Op. 14 Schubert: 4 Impromptus, D. 899

Mar 6

Robert Blocker An artist of “great skill and acomplishment” –Los Angeles Times

About the Horowitz Piano Series The legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz chose to leave his papers to Yale upon his death in 1989. Today, Yale honors his legacy through the Horowitz Piano Series, which brings many of the world’s great keyboard artists to Yale and presents the distinguished pianists of the Yale faculty.

Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Radu Lupu are among the guest pianists who have performed at Yale. The series also presents pianists who are less known in the United States, such as Paul Lewis, Pierre Réach, and Mikhaïl Rudy.

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Upcoming Events nov 29 Paul Kerekes, composition

Doctor of Musical Arts Recital 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

free dec 1 Vista: Chamber Music

YSM Ensembles 12:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 4 Emerson String Quartet

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

A performance by the legendary Emerson String Quartet, an ensemble The New Yorker has said is “as eminent as ever.”

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $28, students $13 dec 5 Lunchtime Chamber Music 12:30 pm | Joseph Slifka Center

Free dec 5 Russian Liederabend

Yale Opera An evening of Russian song.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free

dec 6 New Music for Orchestra

New Music New Haven

A program of new orchestral music by the School’s student composers performed by the Yale Philharmonia, with guest conductor Julian Pellicano.

7:30 pm | Woolsey Hall

Free dec 8 Yale Percussion Group

YSM Ensembles 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 12 Guitar Chamber Music

YSM Ensembles 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 13 Ettore Causa, viola, with Boris Berman, piano

Faculty Artist Series 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

free dec 17 Bassoonarama

YSM Ensembles 7:30 pm | Sudler Recital Hall

Free

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