Boris Slutsky, piano, December 11, 2019

horowitz piano series Boris Berman, artistic director

Boris Slutsky

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Robert Schumann 1810–1856

Arabeske in C major, Op. 18

Kreisleriana, Op. 16 I. Äußerst bewegt II. Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch III. Sehr aufgeregt IV. Sehr langsam V. Sehr lebhaft VI. Sehr langsam VII. Sehr rasch VIII. Schnell und spielend

intermission

Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 Theme. Andante Etude I (Variation 1). Un poco più vivo Etude II (Variation 2). Andante Etude III. Vivace Etude IV (Variation 3). Allegro marcato Etude V (Variation 4). Scherzando (Var.posth 1). Andante, Tempo del tema (Var.posth 2). Meno mosso (Var.posth 3). Allegro (Var.posth 4). Allegretto (Var.posth 5). Moderato Etude VI (Variation 5). Agitato Etude VII (Variation 6). Allegro molto Etude VIII (Variation 7). Sempre marcatissimo Etude IX. Presto possibile Etude X (Variation 8). Allegro con energia Etude XI (Variation 9). Andante espressivo Etude XII (Finale). Allegro brillante

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 Consistently acclaimed for his exquisite tonal beauty and superb artistry, Boris Slutsky emerged on the international music scene when he captured the First Prize along with every major prize, including the Audience Prize and Wilhelm Backhaus Award, at the 1981 William Kapell International (University of Maryland) Piano Competition. His other accomplishments include first prizes at the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition and San Antonio International Keyboard Competition, and major prizes at the International Bach Competition in Memory of Glenn Gould, Gina Bachauer, Busoni, Rina Sala Gallo, and Ettore Pozzoli International Piano Competitions.

Since his orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony in 1980, Mr. Slutsky has appeared on nearly every continent as soloist and recitalist, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Dimitri Kitaenko and Valery Gergiev.

He has performed with the London Philharmonic, Stuttgart State Orchestra, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Neuss am Rhein in Germany, Bern Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland, Bergen Philharmonic in Norway, the RAI Orchestra in Milan, KBS Symphony Orchestra in Korea, and major orchestras in Spain, Russia, Colombia, and Brazil. In South Africa, he has been soloist with the orchestras of Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. His North American engagements have included concerts with the Baltimore, Florida, Utah, and Toronto Symphonies. Mr. Slutsky has been heard on recital series throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, Latin America, and the Far East, making appearances at the Kennedy Center for the

Performing Arts, the Kaufmann Concert Hall, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, National Concert Hall in Taipei, Performing Arts Center in Seoul, and the Teatro Colon in Bogota, among many others.

An avid chamber musician, Mr. Slutsky’s almost three decades of chamber music collaborations include the critically acclaimed recording of Schumann’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Ilya Kaler on the Naxos label, as well as performances with many renowned artists.

Mr. Slutsky has served as a jury member of many international piano competitions and presented master classes throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. His students have won prizes at numerous prestigious international events.

Born in Moscow into a family of musicians, Mr. Slutsky received his early training at Moscow’s Gnessin School for Gifted Children as a student of Anna Kantor, and completed his formal studies at the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, studying with Nadia Reisenberg, Nina Svetlanova, John Browning, and Joseph Seiger. In addition, he has worked for many years with his mentor Alexander Eydeleman.

Mr. Slutsky joined the faculty of The Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1993. He was visiting faculty at Bienen School of Music of Northwestern University (2017–2018), and Visiting Professor of Piano at Eastman School of Music (2018–2019).

Mr. Slutsky has been appointed Visiting Professor of Piano at The Yale School of Music starting in the fall of 2019.

Program Notes

by Patrick Campbell Jankowski Arabeske schumann

Kreisleriana schumann

An arabesque is sometimes known as a line of continuity, or a line of beauty. Its elegant curvature manifests itself in art and architecture inspired by Arabic design, and in the long lines of ballet dancers’ motions.

When we hear Schumann’s Arabeske, we might draw such a line in our minds. Its melodies climb gracefully up and down in gentle arcs, through sinuous chromatic turns. He decorates these lines with subtle ornaments and inner voices that seem to stretch out and fill the aural space with little branches. In simplest terms, the piece is rondo, with a recurring theme and contrasting episodes. Yet each episode is also derived from the opening theme itself: one melody taken through a few transformations without ever losing its “line of continuity.”

The Arabeske marks a turn from some of the more overtly experimental compositions from Schumann’s younger days (Kreisleriana included), and in some ways this was driven by a need to write a piece that would sell easily to the general public. This does not mean that it is any less valuable nor authentic to its composer. The piece’s strengths lie in its simplicity and concise expression of a poetic concept: the line of beauty.

Kreisleriana is a study in contrasts: sometimes subtle, but often extreme. The inspiration for these dualities is both literary and personal. The Romantic German writer E.T.A. Hoffman – a fantasist with a universal love of art and music – crafted an alter ego in the fictitious violinist and orchestra leader Johannes Kreisler, whose personality was restless and capricious. His tempestuous mind seemed to contain two sides: the dreamy, inward wanderer and the impulsive, impassioned extrovert. Schumann, who deeply admired Hoffman’s music, was not unlike Kreisler himself. To manifest the multiplicities of his own personality, he crafted two of his own characters: the gentle daydreamer Eusebius, and the fiery Florestan.

Whether depicting himself, or channeling himself via Hoffman (or both), Schumann explores these contrasts in each of the eight short fantasy pieces that make up Kreisleriana.

He claimed to write the piece in only four days, at the age of 28. His tempo indications give some clues as to what you might hear.

From the “extremely animated” opening to the “inward” second piece, we already get a taste of these extremes. The third piece, marked “extremely agitated,” contains at its core a brief moment of calm: manic episodes emerging not just between pieces but within them as well. The seventh piece dissolves from a furious and energized opening into a more poised conclusion, while the closing piece is perhaps the most joyful expression of musical schizophrenia in the whole composition.

Symphonic Etudes schumann The full title of these “Symphonic Etudes” depends on which edition one encounters, or which working title one takes from Schumann’s manuscripts and texts. Truth be told, we may never know what its true guise should be. In the course of Schumann’s life and in the years after his death, it has grown and contracted, whether through additions, discoveries, or the edits of his wife, Clara. Through the guise of a theme and variations, each etude-variation explores a different expression of personality and character: from the light and playful to the dense and stoic and the wildly unbridled. We find in these variations traces of Florestan and Eusbesius, two starkly different characters from the composer’s fictitious “Davidsbund.” We know that these figures form some degree of inspiration at least in part from the piece’s working title: “Etuden im Orchestercharakter von Florestan und Eusebius (Studies in an orchestral character of Florestan and Eusebius).”

The mention of “orchestra” is intriguing, and leads us to wonder how Schumann envisions the work spilling from the piano’s body. It signifies grandness and expanse.

From one simple theme grows, quite naturally, a broad array of alternative musical vistas, each with its own concept of texture, sonority, and style.

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Horowitz Piano Series 2019–2020 Season JAN 22

Melvin Chen A performance of Janaček’s In the Mists, faculty composer Hannah Lash’s Six Etudes and a Dream, and Shostakovich’s infrequently performed Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61.

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

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Catherine Russell Ellington Jazz Series “One of jazz’s most celebrated vocalists, an incandescent performer who can make a century-old blues song as fresh and bracing as tomorrow’s bad news.” — San Francisco Chronicle 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

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Peter Oundjian, principal conductor Yale Philharmonia The 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth is celebrated with a performance of the composer’s Choral Fantasy, with the Yale Glee Club and faculty pianist Boris Berman; the Triple Concerto, with violinist and YSM alumna Sunmi Chang, faculty cellist Paul Watkins, and faculty pianist Melvin Chen; and the revolutionary Third Symphony, “Eroica.”

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