Tag: Claude Debussy

  • PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE

    PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE

    Franz Schubert Impromptu No. 1 in F minor  D. 935 The impromptu is just one of a number of small-scale instrumental genres arising in the early 19th century, known under the collective title of character pieces. Cultivated by composers in the emerging Romantic movement, these pieces presented a simple musical idea in an intimate lyrical…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: STEPHEN WAARTS

    PROGRAM NOTES: STEPHEN WAARTS

    Claude Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor  L. 140 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…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: EMA NIKOLOVSKA

    PROGRAM NOTES: EMA NIKOLOVSKA

    Mezzo-soprano Eva Nikolovska has curated an intriguing recital program of songs composed in the forty years between 1865 and 1905, a selection that highlights the changing styles of music emanating from three important centres of music-making. From Vienna there are the contrasting voices of the traditionalist Brahms and his aesthetic adversary Hugo Wolf, from France…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE AND PAUL LEWIS

    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…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: GEORGE AND ANDREW LI

    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…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: NIKKI AND TIMMY CHOOI AND ANGELA CHENG

    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…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: JONATHAN ROOZEMAN

    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…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN

    PROGRAM NOTES: MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN

    Franz Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A minor Liszt’s 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies pay tribute to the gypsy music of his native Hungary. Like an ancient insect trapped in amber, they encapsulate for posterity the dramatic, improvisatory performance style of the roving bands of Romani musicians that Liszt heard as a boy growing up in…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: ALBAN GERHARDT & STEVEN OSBORNE

    PROGRAM NOTES: ALBAN GERHARDT & STEVEN OSBORNE

    Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor BWV 1008 The instrumental suite, with its predictable allemande-courante-sarabande-gigue sequence of dances and its un-predictable addition of various galanteries (minuets, bourrées, gavottes, etc.), was a staple of the Baroque. Arising from neither of the period’s two great wellsprings of musical emotion – religious piety and…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: JAVIER PERIANES

    PROGRAM NOTES: JAVIER PERIANES

    Franz Schubert Piano Sonata in A Major D 664 The salubrious effects of country air on the mind and spirits of the vacationing composer are well known. Witness Schubert’s wonderfully relaxed and lyrical Sonata in A Major D 664 composed in 1819 during a summer sojourn in Steyr, a riverside provincial town set amid the…