Tag: Vancouver Recital Society
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PROGRAM NOTES: ISATA KANNEH-MASON
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata No. 14 in C minor K. 457 In 1785 Mozart’s Sonata in C minor was published together with the composer’s Fantasia in C minor as a single opus, with the Fantasia forming a kind of introductory ‘prelude’ to the sonata. Given that the Fantasia was composed many months after the sonata,…
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PROGRAM NOTES: CASTALIAN STRING QUARTET
Franz Joseph Haydn String Quartet in D minor Op. 76 No. 2 (“Fifths”) Haydn is known as the father of the string quartet for his leading role in transforming the genre from its origins as light entertainment into a vehicle for serious composition, worthy of standing beside the instrumental sonata and the orchestral symphony. His…
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PROGRAM NOTES: MILOŠ AND AVI AVITAL
Johann Sebastian Bach English Suite No. 2 in A minor: Prelude | Well-Tempered Clavier 1: Fugue in C minor | Concerto in D minor (after Marcello): Adagio | Partita No. 2 in C minor: Capriccio In Bach’s time, the instrument closest to the sound world of the guitar and mandolin was the lute. Bach wrote…
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PROGRAM NOTES: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV
Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in B minor K 27 Sonata in D major K 96 The 550-odd sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti are perhaps the most successful works to migrate from the harpsichord to the modern grand piano. Their transparent texture of simple two- and three-part keyboard writing has one foot in the imitative counterpoint of the…
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PROGRAM NOTES: AUGUSTIN HADELICH
Johann Sebastian Bach Partita No. 3 in E major BWV 1006 If polyphonic music was not meant to be played on the violin, Johann Sebastian Bach didn’t get the e-mail. His Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin BWV 1001-1006 of 1720 reveal clearly the scope of his ambition in this regard. The six works in…
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PROGRAM NOTES: JUHO POHJONEN
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fantasy in C minor K 475 The year 1785 was a good one for Mozart. In the words of musicologist John Irving, he had become something of a ‘hot property’ in Vienna, enjoying considerable success both as a published composer and as a performing musician. But Mozart had also acquired a reputation…
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PROGRAM NOTES: TONY SIQI YUN
Johann Sebastian Bach Chaconne in D minor BWV 1004 (arr. Busoni) The 19th century witnessed a revival of interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. But the sound world of the 19th century with its new spacious concert halls and louder, more powerful instruments (played by ego-driven virtuoso performers) flourished at some remove from…
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PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET
Seeing Double: The Doppelgänger Project Reprinted courtesy of Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley, CA “Mir graust es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe/Der Mond zeigt mir meine eigne Gestalt” (“It horrifies me when I see his face/The moon reveals my own likeness…”). These chilling words from one of the poems in Heinrich Heine’s Buch der Lieder…
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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…
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PROGRAM NOTES: TRISTAN TEO
PROGRAM NOTES: TRISTAN TEO Robert Schumann Widmung (arr. Franz Liszt) The year 1840 was Robert Schumann’s Liederjahr, his ‘year of song’. After 10 years of writing almost exclusively for the piano, Schumann in 1840 burst into song, composing well over a hundred Lieder. One song collection, Myrthen Op. 25, had a special meaning for…
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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)…