horowitz piano series
Boris Berman, artistic director
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | 7:30 p.m.
Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
José García-León, Dean
Maurice Ravel 1875–1937
Prélude, M. 65
Jeux d’eau, M. 30
Miroirs, M. 43
I. Noctuelles (Night Moths)
II. Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds)
III. Une barque sur l’océan (A Boat on the Ocean)
IV. Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester)
V. La vallée des cloches (The Valley of Bells)
intermission
Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn, M. 58
Valses nobles et sentimentales, M. 61
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
Sonatine, M. 40
I. Modéré
II. Mouvement de menuet
III. Animé
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.
Wei-Yi Yang, piano
Pianist Wei-Yi Yang has received worldwide acclaim for his captivating performances and imaginative programming. Winner of the gold medal at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, he has performed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and across America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. Most recently, his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium as the soloist in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie was hailed by the New York Times as “sensational.”
In demand as a dedicated teacher, Yang has presented master classes and performances in Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Mexico, Serbia, and Montenegro, among other countries. His performances have been lauded and featured on NPR, PBS, RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana), ARTE (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne), the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), and on recordings for such labels as Genuin (Leipzig), Hyperion (London), Naxos (Hong Kong), Albany Records, Renegade Classics, and the Holland-America Music Society.
A dynamic chamber musician with a diverse repertoire, Yang is a frequent guest artist at festivals in Lucca, Italy; Mallorca, Spain; Novi Sad, Serbia; Monterrey, Mexico; Konstanz, Germany; Kotor, Montenegro; Bergen, Netherland; and La Jolla and Napa, California; as well
as the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut. He has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Richard Stoltzman, David Shifrin, Frank Morelli, Roberto Díaz, Roger Tapping, Clive Greensmith, Ole Akahoshi, Syoko Aki, and Ani Kavafian, and esteemed ensembles such as the Imani Winds, the Brentano, Miro, Dover, Pacifica, and Tokyo string quartets, among numerous others.
Yang has curated inventive interdisciplinary projects, including a collaboration with the illustrious English actress Miriam Margolyes as part of the Dickens’ Women world tour; lecture/recitals on the confluence of Czech music and literature; and multimedia performances of Granados’ monumental piano suite Goyescas with projections of Goya’s etchings. A keen advocate for the performance and education of newer music, Yang has worked with several notable composers including Martin Bresnick, George Crumb, and Ezra Laderman to prepare their works for premiere and recording.
Born in Taiwan of Chinese and Japanese heritage, Yang studied first in the United Kingdom and then in America with renowned Russian pianists Arkady Aronov at the Manhattan School of Music and Boris Berman at Yale. Yang has also worked with eminent pianists Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Vera Gornostaeva, Byron Janis, Lilian Kallir, and Murray Perahia. In 2004, he received his doctorate from Yale University, where he joined the School of Music’s faculty in 2005, and serves as Professor of Piano.
Prélude, M. 65
r avel
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
The spectrum of Ravel’s piano compositions range from immensely challenging to play to fairly accessible, his music well-suited to its function. This delicate miniature was written in 1913 as a sight-reading piece for piano students at the Conservatoire de Paris. A composer who had written several ballets, a robust set of waltzes, and a song cycle in the preceding year gave the students (and us) a brief and simple prelude. It’s just complicated enough, with its occasional chromaticism and essential hand crossings, to “test” a player while still being manageable at first glance. With a waltz-like theme and graceful moments of repose, it is a short escape from complexity.
Jeux d’eau, M. 30
Miroirs, M. 43
r avel
Nathan Reiff
In 1902, 27-year-old Maurice Ravel was working diligently and determinedly to make a name for himself. Having been dismissed from his piano studies at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1895 following prolonged tensions with the conservative faculty, Ravel returned to the school in 1897 as a composition student, working under the tutelage of Gabriel Fauré. It was over the next few years that Ravel’s mature musical style and personality would emerge, thanks in large part to
Fauré’s guidance and understanding. However, while his Pavane pour une infante défunte met with early success upon its completion in 1899, Ravel made numerous attempts, unsuccessfully, to win the Prix de Rome and in 1900 was once again expelled from the Conservatoire.
Jeux d’eau (1901) and Miroirs (1904–1905) were composed during this turbulent time, which marked an important transition for Ravel, from youth and obscurity to maturity and recognition. The two pieces also reveal the composer’s allegiances and inspirations. Jeux d’eau (Water Games) is a character piece dedicated to Fauré and likely modeled after a similar work by Liszt, while Miroirs is a five-movement suite with each section dedicated to a fellow member of Les Apaches, the group of “ruffians” with whom Ravel began to associate around 1902. Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, a member of Les Apaches who was a close friend of Ravel’s and the first performer of both of these works, furthered the composer’s cultural education, expanding Ravel’s worldview and social circle while his influence and reputation grew.
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
Ravel’s brief minuet is among several resulting works commissioned for the centenary of Haydn’s passing, and published for a short lived musicological society with German origins and a French branch, the Société Internationale de Musique. Ravel was among the six composers who submitted works for the issue, including Debussy and Paul Dukas (known to most as the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice). Suiting a musicological society, the project had an academic or at least learned element at its core: the cryptogram. This specific arrangement of pitches is meant to spell out a corresponding name or word, in this case Haydn. Perhaps the most famous example of this is in Johann Sebastian Bach’s frequent inclusion of his musical “signature” B – A – C – H, or B-flat – A – C – B-natural (the established German musical spelling of B-natural), notably the subject of his Art of Fugue. Many composers since, from Schumann to Shostakovich to Messiaen, have utilized the technique. Haydn’s spelling takes a bit of puzzle-solving to transpose onto a musical alphabet, which has more to do with the ordering of letters when laid atop a scale. At any rate, the spelling ends up with B-natural – A – D (the Y) – D (itself) – G (the N), and these pitches are very clearly heard at the outset of this graceful and elegant dance. The minuet form in and of itself is perfectly suited for Haydn, who wrote hundreds in his lifetime.
Valses nobles et sentimentales, M. 61 ravel
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 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 approximately fifteen-minute collection of seven waltzes, angular and dissonant textures collide with dream-like dances. But Ravel’s ever-prevalent use of chroma-ticism colors even the most elegant dance with a sense of insecurity and unease.
Patrick Campbell Jankowski
The origin story of Ravel’s Sonatine was in fact a musical competition of sorts, issued by a magazine in 1903. It called for submissions of a single movement of a piano sonata in F-sharp, only 75 measures in length at maximum. No matter the outcome of the competition, this would end up becoming the first of three movements collected as the composer’s Sonatine. In this brief but economical work, Ravel gives us an almost textbook example of a classical era solo sonata, something akin to what Haydn may have written, but does so with his distinctive and colorful ear for harmony, and a uniquely cohesive structure. All three movements are based upon very similar harmonic material heard at the very outset. The first two melodic notes of the opening movement are a descending fourth F-sharp to C-sharp, forming the melodic backbone of the entire first movement. The graceful minuet that comprises the second movement begins with C-sharp ascending a fifth to G-sharp (respelled as D-flat and A-flat for those looking at the score), and the final movement, ascending fourths return in the primary theme at the start. There is an overarching economy of form and clarity throughout, but not without some virtuosity. Ravel in fact seldom played the third movement in later life, despite performing the first two. This final Toccata befits its name, as toccatas of the baroque and early classical eras were meant to showcase the skills of their performers. The relentless arpeggios that
underpin most of the movement subside briefly in the middle, when vague recollections of the opening movement return. The Sonatine closes explosively, with acceleration to the end and one final firework.
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charles ives circle
$750 & above
Richard Katz and Stacey Smith
Melody Ouyang
paul hindemith circle
$500–$749
Dr. Lorraine Siggins
horatio parker circle
$250–$499
James R. Scala
samuel simons sanford circle
$125–$249
Henry & Joan Binder
gustave j. stoeckel circle
$50–$124
Ms. Laura Berry
Victor & Susan Bers
Steven & Cathy Carlson
Susan Holahan
Dr. Henry Park & Dr. Patricia Peter
List as of February 12, 2025
The Horowitz Recital Series was established in 2000 to honor the artistry of the great Ukrainian-American pianist Vladimir Horowitz (1903–1989), who 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.
feb Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta
15 & 16 Sat 7:30 p.m. & Sun 2:00 p.m. | Shubert Theatre
Yale Opera presents a new production of Tchaikovsky’s romantic fairy tale
Iolanta. Danilo Gambini returns as stage director and Metropolitan Opera conductor J. David Jackson leads the Yale Philharmonia and an exciting young cast in this lush opera about the transformative power of love.
Tickets available through the Shubert box office, 203-562-5666 and shubert.com
feb 21
Stefano Boccacci, conductor
Yale Philharmonia
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Single tickets start at $13, Yale faculty/staff start at $9, students free
feb 26 Lunchtime Chamber Music
12:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
feb 26 Melvin Chen, piano
Horowitz Piano Series
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Single tickets start at $17, Yale faculty/staff start at $12, students start at $8
feb 28 Yale Percussion Group
YSM Ensembles
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
yale school of music box office
Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College Street, New Haven, CT 06511
203 432–4158 | music-tickets.yale.edu
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