Robert Blocker, piano, October 2, 2019

horow i tz pi a no se r i es Boris Berman, artistic director

Robert Blocker & Friends

Wednesday, October 2, 2019 | 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791

Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 282 I. Adagio II. Menuetto I III. Menuetto II IV. Allegro

Maurice Ravel 1875–1937

Sonatine, M. 40 I. Modéré II. Mouvement de menuet III. Animé

Ravel

Ma mère l’Oye for piano four-hands, M. 60 I. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant. Lent II. Petit Poucet. Très modéré III. Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes.

Mouvement de marche IV. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête.

Mouvement de valse modéré V. Le jardin féerique. Lent et grave Robert Blocker, piano Wei-Yi Yang, piano Martin Bresnick, narrator

intermission

Johannes Brahms 1833–1897

Liebeslieder Walzer for piano four-hands, Op. 52a 1.

Rede, Mädchen 2.

Am Gesteine rauscht die Flut 3.

O die Frauen 4.

Wie des Abends schöne Röte 5.

Die grüne Hopfenranke 6.

Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel 7.

Wohl schön bewandt 8.

Wenn so lind dein Auge 9.

Am Donaustrande 10.

O wie sanft die Quelle 11.

Nein, es ist nicht auszukommen 12.

Schlösser auf!

13.

Vöglein durchrauschet die Luft 14.

Sieh, wie ist die Welle klar 15.

Nachtigall, sie singt so schön 16.

Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe 17.

Nicht wandle, mein Licht 18.

Es bebet das Gesträuche Robert Blocker, piano Melvin Chen, piano

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750

Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140

Christopher Theofanidis b. 1967

Wake up, called the Voice (2015)

Modern Jazz Quartet arr. Miles Walter

Sleepers Awake Robert Blocker, piano Robert van Sice, marimba Arlo Shultis, drums

Artist Profile Robert Blocker, piano

Wei-Yi Yang, piano

An internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Robert Blocker has been described by the Los Angeles Times as an artist of “great skill and accomplishment” who performs with “a measurable virtuoso bent and considerable musical sensitivity.” He has performed in the United States, Europe, Mexico, China, South Korea, Thailand, and elsewhere.

Recent orchestral engagements have included appearances with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony, Houston Symphony, Monterey Philharmonic, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, and Daejeon Symphony Orchestra (South Korea). Blocker earned his bachelor of arts degree from Furman University and his master of music degree and doctor of musical arts degree from the University of North Texas, under the tutelage of the eminent American pianist Richard Cass.

In addition to recital, chamber music, and concerto appearances, Blocker presents master classes and coaches various ensembles in the United States and abroad. He has worked with such renowned groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, Artis Quartet, Brentano String Quartet, and Shanghai Quartet. At Yale University, where he is the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music, Blocker teaches and performs alongside students, alumni, and faculty colleagues.

Pianist Wei-Yi Yang has earned worldwide acclaim for his captivating performances and imaginative programming. Winner of the gold medal at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, he has appeared at major venues across America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. He was recently praised by The New York Times for a “sensational” performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie at Carnegie Hall.

Yang studied in the U.K., then in America with Arkady Aronov and Boris Berman at the Manhattan School of Music and Yale School of Music, respectively. Yang received his doctor of musical arts degree from the Yale School of Music in 2004 and joined the faculty in 2005.

Martin Bresnick, narrator Composer Martin Bresnick is Professor of Composition and Coordinator of the Composition Department at the Yale School of Music. His music has been performed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Bang on A Can All Stars, among other ensembles. He has received commissions from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Foundation, and Chamber Music America. Bresnick is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has received the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Elise L. Stoeger Prize, the ASCAP Foundation’s Aaron Copland Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Melvin Chen, piano

Arlo Shultis, drums

Pianist Melvin Chen has performed at major venues in the United States, Canada, and Asia, and has collaborated with such renowned artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, and Peter Wiley, and with the Shanghai, Tokyo, Miami, Penderecki, and Miró string quartets.

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. 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.

Hailed an “excellent timpanist” by the Baltimore Sun, Arlo Shultis holds a wide range of orchestral experience and has worked closely with many prominent conductors. For the past four years, Arlo has served as principal timpanist of the Marlboro Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Leon Fleischer and Mitsuko Uchida.

Shultis frequently performs as Principal Timpanist of the Yale Philharmonia under the direction of Peter Oundjian. A member of the critically acclaimed Yale Percussion Group, Arlo is in his second year of study under the direction of Robert van Sice.

Robert van Sice, marimba Robert van Sice, one of the world’s foremost performers of contemporary music for marimba, has premiered more than one hundred works throughout the world. He has appeared as a soloist with many major symphony orchestras as well as Europe’s leading contemporary music ensembles and has given more than four hundred master classes in twenty-five countries.

Van Sice is Lecturer in Percussion and Director of the Yale Percussion Group at the Yale School of Music, and is also on the faculties of the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Program Notes Piano Sonata in E-flat major mozart Patrick Campbell Jankowski This compact, three-movement sonata begins, somewhat surprisingly, with a lyrical Adagio. The melody floats between unadorned simplicity and ornamented theatricality, not unlike what we might expect from the Cabaletta in an operatic aria. It was, coincidentally, written right around the time that the teenaged composer was visiting Munich to oversee performances of his comedic opera La finta giardiniera. At times, the right hand seems fully liberated from the left, while at others, Mozart crafts a contrapuntal dialogue between these voices. In the subsequent pair of minuets, the composer continues to play with contrast. Even in the first melodic theme, Mozart juxtaposes restrained, detached lines against flowing arcs. In the closing allegro, the element of texture provides a source of contrast. Transparent settings of dancing octave leaps, delicate yet playful, are answered by richly accompanied passages padded more thickly in the mid-range.

Mozart’s economical study in contrast concludes as economically as we might expect: a nonchalant close of a musical phrase, avoiding pomp and retaining all of its charm.

Sonatine ravel Patrick Campbell Jankowski The opening movement of this Sonatine was submitted to a competition specifying “A first movement of a piano sonatina, length not to exceed 75 bars.” The competition was eventually cancelled, possibly

from lack of interest in the sponsoring journal, because no one but Ravel submitted anything, or a combination of factors. His 77 measures broke the one and only rule of the competition. On a manuscript in the composer’s hand, it was signed “Verla,” a jumbled spelling of “Ravel,” implying that he was keeping his submission anonymous.

Ravel eventually polished this compact and elegant Modéré, and added two subsequent (and likewise concise) movements. This first movement is in perfect, by-the-book sonata form, as clear as though drawn directly from the time of Haydn. The composer uses the rigidity of the form to showcase his gift for melodic invention and refinement. Though the tonal language leans modal and is infused with subtle chromaticism, he realizes it in it in a kind of refreshed classical style. The central minuet dances gracefully, with bright, twinkling moments in piano’s highest range.

The finale’s melodic content is not too different from the opening, based on rising and falling scales. It is accompanied by rolling waves of rhythmic activity, and enough metrical ambiguity to impart the movement with energetic capriciousness.

The whole sonatine embodies two fundamental characteristics of the classical style, one of which we often forget: refinement, to be sure, but also its playful humor.

Ma mère l’Oye ravel Patrick Campbell Jankowski Some of the most treasured music in the piano repertoire is related somehow to childhood and youth. Schumann’s Kinderszenen is infused with innocence

and fascination, and Debussy’s Children’s Corner was dedicated to the composer’s beloved young daughter. Other pieces were written specifically with children in mind, including the first few books of Bartók’s encyclopedic Mikrokosmos études, dedicated to the composer’s son. Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye lives somewhere in this world, as it was written for and dedicated to a little brother and sister. The subject of each movement was drawn from one of the childrens’ favorite stories, and the music itself was written simply enough to be performed by the pair as a four-hand work. However, the work was ultimately a bit too challenging for these children, and the premiere was given by others. Hardly a fault, the suite’s simplicity is refreshing in its clarity. Ravel draws rich characters (Tom Thumb, Beauty and the Beast, a Fairy Garden) in clean lines, like we might see in a sketch from Henri Matisse. A sleepy first movement is drawn from repeated cells that meander without hurry or care around the range, as though getting lost in thought and imagination.

Diminutive Tom Thumb can be heard in the sparkly high range peeking through a dense musical forest. Through thickly textured chromatic modulations, he wanders as though disoriented. The pagoda movement incorporates pentatonic melodies, imparting it with an unfortunately ethnocentric exoticism. A dialogue emerges between Beauty, heard first in an elegant high range melody, and Beast, a gruff descending gesture in the low end. After an intense build, the two thematic ideas seem to have tempered one another, and we can even hear the Beast move up to the higher range (perhaps he has changed back to human form?). The fairy garden

begins delicately, yet its repeating chorale grows to exultant highs, bringing the suite to a joyous close.

Liebeslieder Walzer brahms Patrick Campbell Jankowski Brahms was not only a great and influential composer, but a lifelong student of music.

Whether in his investigations of Palestrina, Bach, and Handel, in his artistic dialogues with the more contemporary music of Haydn, or in the omnipresent shadow of Beethoven’s legacy, the composer was not only aware of past music, but embraced its influence. Around the time that he was writing these Liebeslieder Waltzes, he had been immersed in the music of Franz Schubert, who had been a quiet institution in Vienna during his lifetime, and had become more popular in the years after his death, like a gradual revelation. While never a public icon like Beethoven, Schubert was well-known and beloved in smaller and more intimate circles of musicians and music lovers. Brahms had been editing some of Schubert’s music for publication, including a set of Ländler, right around the time of writing these waltzes. In every respect, these odd waltz settings owe a lot to Schubert, perhaps most especially in their intended context. This is music meant for intimate listening among friends, rather than for large concert halls. Its details are subtle, even in the guise of “casual” dance music. This is exactly the sort of intimate parlor setting that Schubert’s music was written for, as the term “Schubertiade” has now come to mean. Even the marking of “Ländler” tempo is a subtle nod to

Program Notes, cont.

Schubert, but more importantly gives us a sense of mood and spirit. Rather than a refined waltz danced in a gilded hall, a ländler is a German country dance, rustic and free, with heavy stomps and energetic leaps. As you listen to these waltzes, imagine not a polished ballroom, but a dancehall spilled with beer and filled with good cheer.

Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme Bach Patrick Campbell Jankowski The title and first line of one of Bach’s most beloved cantatas, Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme, translates roughly to “Wake, the voice calls to us.” That voice is a watchman in a tower along the walls of the holy city of Jerusalem, announcing, at the midnight hour, that a groom has come to meet his bride. The groom is, naturally, Christ.

The bride is, poetically, the human soul, represented by soprano voices. In a later exchange, she/they will beckon “Komm, Jesu!” (“Come, Jesus”), to which Jesus replies “Komm, liebliche Seele!” (“Come, lovely soul”). All in all, a joyous occasion, and set heavily in metaphor. The opening setting is filled with musical imagery depicting ceremony and pomp. The vaguely militaristic double-dotted rhythms in the initial gestures enhance the announcements of the guards, and the chorale theme itself, heard in the soprano, floats amid this rhythmic activity as though slowly waking, yet transfixed and mesmerized by the presumably breathtaking arrival of Christ to the holy city. In Bach’s orchestration, an oboe plays in counterpoint to the strings, as bass voices interject against the soprano’s

cantus firmus, which remains remarkably unfazed. Towards the middle, Bach inserts a bizarre breakdown into a fugal passage beginning in the low voices over the word “Allelujah” (of course), which eventually dissolves back into the opening material.

Wake up, called the Voice theofanidis Christopher Theofanidis Wake up, called the Voice is a short, fiveminute work that is a kind of fantasyprelude on the chorale tune by J.S. Bach, Wachtet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, which itself is based on a hymn by Philipp Nicolai.

My earliest memory of that melody was hearing it as a young boy when my father played the Busoni choral prelude version of it, and even then, it made a wonderful and lasting impression on me for its jubilant, noble, and soaring nature — qualities found both in its more grand moments but also in its more intimate ones. My piece tries to balance those two affects in the rhapsodic elaboration of the melody.

This piece is dedicated to Robert Blocker, in friendship and admiration.

Horowitz Piano Series About the 2019–2020 Season Horowitz Piano Series NOV 6

Boris Berman A performance of Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 20, D. 959, and music by Chopin, including the Barcarolle, Op. 60, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61.

DEC 11

Boris Slutsky Faculty pianist Boris Slutsky performs an all-Schumann program featuring the Arabeske, Op. 18, Kreisleriana, Op. 16, and the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, including posthumously published variations.

JAN 22

Melvin Chen A performance of Shostakovich’s infrequently performed Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61, and more.

FEB 12 7 pm

mar 4

Mar 25

Hung-Kuan Chen Faculty pianist Hung-Kuan Chen pays tribute to Beethoven with a performance of the composer’s last six sonatas.

Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax A performance of Stravinsky’s piano four-hands arrangement of Petrushka, Ravel’s piano four-hands arrangement of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and music by Lutoslawski and Poulenc.

Wei-Yi Yang A program that in part follows Chopin’s musical language into the works of Debussy and Scriabin.

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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HOROWITZ PIANO SERIES PATRONS paul hindemith circle $250–$599 Mr. and Mrs. Douglas J. Crowley Victoria Keator DePalma Patty & Tom Pollard Lorraine D. Siggins horatio parker circle $125–$249 James Robert Scala Nathan M. Silverstein Richard Sonder & Susan Monserud samuel simons sanford circle $50–$124 Linda Burt Judith Colton & Wayne Meeks Jay & Marjorie Hirshfield Dr. E. Anthony Petrelli gustave j. stoeckel circle $25–$49 Eduardo Groisman Paul Guida & Pat LaCamera Melissa Perez List as of October 1, 2019

Upcoming Events oct 22 Akropolis Reed Quintet

Oneppo Chamber Music Series New works by Jeff Scott and Steven Snowden, as well as arrangements of Rameau and Gershwin.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $28, students $13 oct 25 Ludovic Morlot,

guest conductor

Yale Philharmonia Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1, with Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition winner Jung Eun Kang.

7:30 p.m. | Woolsey Hall Tickets start at $12, Yale faculty/ staff $8, students $5 $3 surcharge at the door Nov 1-2 Fall Scenes

Yale Opera A variety of scenes from beloved comic and tragic operas.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $12, students $5

Boris Berman, piano Horowitz Piano Series A performance of Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 20, D. 959, and music by Chopin, including the Barcarolle, Op. 60, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $15, students $7 nov 6

nov 12 Polonsky-Shifrin-Wiley Trio

Oneppo Chamber Music Series Pianist Anna Polonsky, clarinetist David Shifrin, and cellist Peter Wiley perform Beethoven’s “Gassenhauer” Trio, Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, and Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $28, students $13 Nov 15 Louis Hayes

Ellington Jazz Series

“Throughout his career he’s solidified a place as one of jazz’s most soulfully swinging drummers.”— JazzTimes 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $22, students $10

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