Blog Type: Program Notes
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PROGRAM NOTES: JAEDEN IZIK-DZURKO
Alexander Scriabin Valse Op. 38 It is easy to see why Alexander Scriabin was known as “the Russian Chopin.” Like his Polish musical forebear he wrote almost exclusively for the piano and began his career by composing mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, preludes and études. In this Valse we catch the composer near the end of his…
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PROGRAM NOTES: BENJAMIN GROSVENOR
Jean-Philippe Rameau Gavotte and Variations in A minor The modern pianist seeking to play the Baroque harpsichord repertoire faces many obstacles, starting with the friendly fire of his own trusty Steinway itself, so different in sound from the perky little plucked-string sound box for which this music was originally written. A note on the harpsichord…
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PROGRAM NOTES: SCHUMANN QUARTET
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Quartet in D major K. 499 “Hoffmeister” Mozart’s most accomplished string quartets are generally considered to be the ten he wrote after moving to Vienna in 1781, beginning with the set of six dedicated to Haydn, published in 1785 and ending with the set of three dedicated to the King Friedrich Wilhelm II…
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PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE AND PAUL LEWIS
Gabriel Fauré Dolly Suite Op. 56 In the 1890s Gabriel Fauré would often compose or revise small pieces for the infant daughter of his mistress Emma Bardac (1862-1934). These affectionate pieces celebrated a birthday, a pet, or a special person in the life of the young Regina-Hélène, known in the family as “Dolly,” and six…
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PROGRAM NOTES: YUJA WANG
Baldassare Galuppi Andante from the Sonata in C major The Venetian musician Baldassare Galuppi was one of the most successful composers of the 18th century. While his prodigious output of vocal music, comprising more than 100 operas, did not survive in the repertoire, interest in his keyboard music was revived in the last half of…
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PROGRAM NOTES: DORIC STRING QUARTET WITH MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN
Jean Sibelius Quartet in D minor Op. 56 Voces Intimae Sibelius’ Quartet in D minor was completed in 1909 and has five movements, symmetrically arranged in an arch form around the lyrical third-movement Adagio, with scherzos on either side separating it from the opening movement and finale. The name Voces Intimae derives from a Latin…
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PROGRAM NOTES: FAUST QUEYRAS MELNIKOV TRIO
Ludwig van Beethoven Kakadu Variations in G major Op. 121a Beethoven’s Kakadu Variations comprise an introduction and 10 variations on a popular theme from the Viennese stage. It has a compositional history that extends over more than two decades, with a first version of the work likely dating from around 1803. By 1816 Beethoven had had…
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PROGRAM NOTES: LUCAS & ARTHUR JUSSEN
Johann Sebastian Bach Three Chorale Preludes (arr. György Kurtág) The chorale, a hymn setting of pious verse in simple note values, was a central element in Lutheran liturgical practice, whether sung in unison by the congregation, in four-part harmony by the choir in a cantata, or artfully arranged into a web of contrapuntal lines on…
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PROGRAM NOTES: GEORGE AND ANDREW LI
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata in D major K. 381 for Piano Duet In the 1760s, when Wolfgang & his sister Nannerl were touring Europe as child prodigies, the keyboard duet was a popular novelty item on their programs, one that offered a fuller range of sound from a single instrument while still allowing each performer…
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PROGRAM NOTES: SHEKU AND ISATA KANNEH-MASON
Ludwig van Beethoven 12 Variations on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from The Magic Flute Op. 66 Beethoven’s set of variations on a theme from Mozart’s Magic Flute features twelve sharply chiselled operatic duets between piano and cello, widely differentiated in character like the comic personalities in the Singspiel from which the theme is derived. Audiences…
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PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET
Johann Sebastian Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I Fugue No. 16 in G minor BWV 861 (arr. Förster) If you have ever happened to see one of those cooking shows in which a chef is challenged to create an entire meal—appetizer, entrée and dessert—out of a minimum of ingredients (an ox-tail, say, and a banana)…
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PROGRAM NOTES: Z.E.N. TRIO
Franz Schubert Notturno in E-flat major Op. 148 Schubert’s Adagio for Piano Trio D 897 was composed in 1827 but only published decades later, under the publisher’s title Notturno. And indeed, the opening section does conjure up images of nighttime serenity, with its heavenly texture of harp-like arpeggios in the piano supporting a hypnotic melody…
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PROGRAM NOTES: NIKKI AND TIMMY CHOOI AND ANGELA CHENG
Claude Debussy Sonata in G minor for violin and piano The sound of Debussy’s music confounded many of his contemporaries. From a tonal point of view, it floated in stasis in a world of pastel sounds that arrived at their destination more by whim than by design. How, they asked, could what he composed actually…
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PROGRAM NOTES: TETZLAFF-TETZLAFF-VOGT TRIO
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major K 502 The piano trio developed out of the ‘accompanied’ keyboard sonata, a makeshift compositional genre that attempted to compensate for the weak ‘tinkly’ tone of the early fortepiano (forerunner of the modern pianoforte) by the addition of a violin to reinforce the singing line…
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PROGRAM NOTES: ANDREW TYSON
Alban Berg Sonata Op. 1 The tonal system in use throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, from Bach to Tchaikovsky, was predicated on the understanding that pieces would be in a home key – from which they would depart, and to which they would return – and that harmony would result from the interaction of chords…
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PROGRAM NOTES: JONATHAN ROOZEMAN
Luigi Boccherini Sonata in A major G 4 Luigi Boccherini was perhaps the greatest cellist of the 18th century, and like his compatriot of a previous generation, Domenico Scarlatti, he spent the most active portion of his professional life at the court of Spain. His royal patron, the Spanish Infante Don Luis Antonio, younger brother…
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PROGRAM NOTES: YEVGENY SUDBIN
Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in B minor K 197 Sonata in G major K 455 “Probably one of the most outrageously individual compositional outputs of the Baroque era is to be found in the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti,” writes Yevgeny Sudbin in the liner notes to his 2004 Scarlatti album. This may explain why Scarlatti’s…
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PROGRAM NOTES: CHIAROSCURO QUARTET AND KRISTIAN BEZUIDENHOUT
Franz SchubertString Quartet No. 14 in D minor (“Death & the Maiden”) Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet is a sombre work, with all four of its movements set in a minor key. It takes its name from the composer’s lied Der Tod und das Mädchen (1817) that provides the theme for the quartet’s…
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PROGRAM NOTES: PAUL LEWIS
Franz Joseph Haydn Sonata in E minor Hob. XVI:34 It is unusual to encounter a sonata in a minor key from “Papa” Haydn, a composer best known for his chipper disposition. But his Sonata in E minor likely dates from the late 1770s, which could explain its turbulent mood. The 1770s was the decade of…
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PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET
Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet in C minor Op. 18 No. 4 In the Napoleonic era, when a Viennese aristocrat was thinking of entertaining friends at home, he might pop down to the local shop to pick up a six-pack—of string quartets, that is. The most refined form of home entertainment in Austria’s capital was…
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PROGRAM NOTES: FILIPPO GORINI
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata A flat major Op. 110 Beethoven’s penultimate piano sonata is remarkable for the utter simplicity of its musical ideas and the directness with which they are expressed. The most obvious late-period features of this work are an extremely wide keyboard range and a melding of slow movement and finale into a…