Roberto Prosseda, piano, February 13, 2019

horowitz piano series Boris Berman, artistic director

Roberto Prosseda

Wednesday, February 13, 2019 | 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791

Felix Mendelssohn 1809–1847

Fantasia in C minor, K. 475 Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Molto allegro

Venetianisches Gondellied, Op. 30, No. 6 Fantasie in F-sharp minor, Op. 28 I. Con moto agitato – Andante – Con moto agitato II. Allegro con moto III. Presto

intermission

Mendelssohn

Selections from Lieder ohne Worte I. Op. 19, No. 6 II. Op. 38, No. 2 III. Op. 53, No. 2 IV. Op. 19, No. 1 Rondo capriccioso, Op. 14

Franz Schubert 1797–1828

Four Impromptus, D. 899, Op. 90 No. 1 in C minor No. 2 in E-flat major No. 3 in G-flat major No. 4 in A-flat major

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 Profile Roberto Prosseda, piano Roberto Prosseda’s sensational discovery of new works by Mendelssohn made the headlines in Europe and led to several Decca releases. His albums have won much acclaim in the press, including the CHOC from Le Monde de la Musique Classique, the Diapason d’Or and Chamber Music CD of the Month in the UK’s Classic FM magazine. In 2014 Prosseda completed his 10-year project of recording Mendelssohn’s complete piano works for Decca in 10 CDs, also released in a box set in 2017 titled Mendelssohn: Complete Piano Works.

Roberto Prosseda has performed regularly with some of the world’s most important orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic, Bruxelles Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Saatskapelle Weimar, Sinfonia Lahti, Berliner Symphoniker, Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, and Leipzig Gewandhaus. He played under the baton of David Afkham, Marc Albrecht, Christian Arming, Harry Bickett, Oleg Caetani, Riccardo Chailly, Pietari Inkinen, Yannik Nezeit-Seguin, George Pehlivanian, Dennis Russel-Davies, Tugan Sokhiev, Jurai Valcuha, and Jan Willem de Vriend. With the Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, he recorded live the Third Piano Concerto in E minor by Mendelssohn, released on the Decca International label in September 2009.

Other than Mendelssohn, of whose piano music he is considered to be one of today’s leading interpreters, Prosseda’s performances

of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin have been particularly praised, and these composers have featured in Prosseda’s recent Decca recordings, including the complete Mozart Sonatas (2015–2018). An active proponent of Italian music, Prosseda also recorded the complete piano works of Petrassi and Dallapiccola.

In September 2011 Prosseda gave his debut on the pedal piano, performing the Concerto for Pedal Piano by Gounod in the world premiere in modern times. He has given more than 50 concerts with the pedal piano, rediscovering the original compositions by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Charles Valentin Alkan. Several composers, including Ennio Morricone, have already written new pieces for pedal piano for Prosseda, and a recording of Gounod’s four pieces for pedal piano and orchestra with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Howard Shelley was released on the Hyperion label in 2013.

Roberto Prosseda is also very active in musical divulgation. He wrote the book Il Pianoforte for Edizioni Curci (2013) and made three documentaries dedicated to Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt (Euroarts). >> robertoprosseda.com

Program Notes Fantasia in C minor mozart Patrick Campbell Jankowski Among Mozart’s most expressive works for solo keyboard, this C minor Fantasia contains moments of great tenderness matched with those of angst and fire. An ambiguous, wandering opening leads to a series of rising and falling arpeggios atop the throb of the accompaniment. We can almost hear traces of Liszt in Mozart’s harmonic adventurousness, as though prefiguring music of later times. A brighter theme emerges, though its footing soon becomes unsure, and Mozart infuses the accompaniment with gestures of momentary anxiety. Overall, there is a clear delineation in the work between its various episodes, and musical ideas return and reflect one another. However, Mozart handles these episodes such that their contrasts remain surprising from one moment to the next.

The dramatic juxtaposition of songful melodies against tempestuous outbursts foreshadows in many ways the music of Romantic composers, who could have found so much inspiration in even this one work.

Sonata No. 14 in C minor mozart Patrick Campbell Jankowski Mozart’s C minor piano sonata is a close sibling of the C minor Fantasia, likewise permeated with undercurrents of angst and passion. Its first movement begins with a monolithic and stern arpeggio in octaves that is immediately followed by a tender, almost timid gesture. The duality

between these two thematic ideas provides the “narrative” of the sonata form movement.

In the development, the opening motto wanders through so many key areas that we lose our way. Just at the point when we believe we have found our way back, we realize that Mozart has cleverly deceived us. The central adagio’s melodies could easily feel at home in any of Mozart’s operatic aria, right down to those magical moments wherein the accompaniment fades away, leaving the “singer” alone on stage with a brief, reflective cadenza. With impressive breadth across the range of the piano, several voices soon seem to make their way into the mix. The sternness of the opening movement returns in the finale, although it is matched by a delightful sense of humor, as though some villainous character has become a mockery (a plot trope we have certainly seen before in the character’s operas). The “agitation” of the main theme, with its somewhat unsteady adherence to pulse, is calmed somewhat

by Mozart’s tendency to interrupt, hiccup, and shrug off musical lines.

Venetianisches Gondellied Mendelssohn Patrick Campbell Jankowski The Venetian Gondolier’s song is a perfect example of those “Lieder ohne Worte” which are more overt in their extramusical allusions. The vision of a rowmans’s song is so evocative that it is hard to get out of your mind. The “barcarolle” rhythmic lilt, with its swaying meter capturing the rocking of a barge in the canal, is clear enough, though the “song” itself is hard to find.

Mendelssohn hints early on at the tenor range, as the hints of a melody floats up and away. From then on, he scatters the melodic line around the piano, in the high and middle range, and rarely seems to complete an entire phrase before meandering elsewhere. As with any great poem, ambiguity makes this brief musical vignette all the more intriguing and memorable.

Fantasie in F-sharp minor Mendelssohn Patrick Campbell Jankowski Mendelssohn’s fantasy for solo piano was born from an idea to write a “Sonate écossaise,” or “Scottish sonata.” The highlands of Scotland were, for composers in mainland Europe, a kind of prototypically Romantic landscape: dominated by rocky crags, dramatic landscapes, and empty expanses, all shrouded in mist and mysticism.

Although some traces of vaguely Scottish thematic ideas make their way into this piece, it is more or less an abstract work, following the vague outlines of a sonata, with its three movement structure. Imbued into this structure is an overall sense of immediacy and almost improvisational freedom (the “fantasy” in this instance, and not too far removed from Beethoven’s ubiquitous “moonlight” sonata quasi una fantasia). The flowing momentum of the opening movement leads to a playfully syncopated middle movement. The dancing energy of that central section spills over into a finale with a quality of intense perpetual motion. Atop the endlessly churning accompaniment, melodies with vague hints of highland folk dances float and bob.

Selections from Lieder ohne Worte Mendelssohn Patrick Campbell Jankowski Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” are not songs at all, sharing little in common with that form beyond an overall prioritization of melody. However, they accomplish a similar goal to those settings of poetic texts to accompaniment: to convey scenes, moods, or states of mind. Though he never specified titles for most of them, it is not difficult to imagine extramusical ideas to accompany these solo piano works, whether hunting songs, gondoliers’ tunes, or episodes of melancholy. A quintessentially Romantic composer, albeit one with a sense of restraint, Mendelssohn was unafraid to blur the distinction between the purely abstract and the programmatic. These are works which occupy their own gray area, and there is nothing at all wrong with gray.

Rondo capriccioso Mendelssohn Patrick Campbell Jankowski Like something out of an opera with no singers, this Rondo Capriccioso begins with an aria-like andante, complete with an understated accompaniment and an almost gaudily ornamented melody. Occasionally, the accompaniment evokes more orchestral concepts. Listen, for instance, to the trumpet calls that interrupt things some way into the piece. The “capricious” quality of the piece comes both from the subsequent section, and for the fact that it seems to be a complete pivot from the first section. In an aria of Rossini or Donizetti,

Program Notes cont. we would expect an expansive, ornamented first part (the cavatina), followed by a rapid, virtuosic, and often playful cabaletta. This flashy second section meanders between humorous and dramatic qualities, just as we might expect in an operatic form. The grand finale is perfectly designed to elicit applause as the curtains come down.

Four Impromptus schubert Patrick Campbell Jankowski These four impromptus manage to sound like a quartet of entirely unique little musical moments that nevertheless seem to belong perfectly together. The first resembles a melodramatic funeral march in both mood and rhythmic content. A sunnier episode, underpinned by pulsating triplets, soon morphs into something stormier. That intensity retreats before building once again. Such mercurial transformations of mood are prevalent throughout the entire set. The second begins as an effervescent waltz thrown slightly off-kilter by extensive use of chromatic half-steps in the right hand.

The restless line climbs to the top of the keyboard just before the robust minor-mode middle section, as heavy as its predecessor was light. It dissolves into the wispy chromatic waltz, which we may have expected.

We likely don’t see the final return of the weighty theme coming, and it concludes the piece on a surprisingly dramatic note.

The famous third piece juxtaposes a simple, almost hymnal melody against the churning accompaniment below, like a reflection of Gretchen’s spinning wheel in the composer’s beloved song. The accompaniment

occasionally bubbles with intensity, momentarily destabilizing the calm which permeates the impromptu, as though the wheel takes control of its spinner for just a second. Although Schubert did not necessarily intend for these four works to be seen as a cohesive four-movement structure, the finale seems to recall aspects of the preceding: the elegant waltz of the second, the churning momentum of the third, and the tempestuous mood of the first. None of the themes are repeated, and yet Schubert achieves a (possibly serendipitous) sense of unity across the whole set.

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Spring 2019

Works by Scarlatti and Mozart, and Chopin: Nocturnes, Op. 27 Chopin: Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49 Bach: Toccata in D major, BWV 912

Piano Master Classes Spring 2019 All master classes take place from 10:30 am to 1 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall.

Feb 14

Roberto Prosseda

Feb 28

Boris Berman

Mar 28

Amy Lin Strasbourg Conservatory

Apr 4

Melvin Chen

Apr 18

Hung-Kuan Chen

MAy Peter Frankl 2 * In the Adams Center Orchestra Room

Upcoming Events feb 15 Eugene Onegin feb 16 Yale Opera feb 17 Yale Opera presents a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Yale Philharmonia.

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The Yale Philharmonia performs its annual concert in the intimate Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $12, Yale faculty/ staff $8, students $5 feb 26 Jordi Savall: Tous les Matins du Monde

Oneppo Chamber Music Series Viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall leads an ensemble in a program of music from the film Tous les Matins du Monde.

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mar 1 Renee Rosnes Quartet Ellington Jazz Series Pianist and composer Renee Rosnes performs selections from her albums Written in the Rocks and Beloved of the Sky. 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $22, Students $10 mar 6 Robert Blocker, piano

Horowitz Piano Series A recital by faculty pianist Robert Blocker, whom the Los Angeles Times has described as a pianist of “great skill and accomplishment.”

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $15, Students $7 mar 31 Quicksilver Baroque: Violini a due

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