Tag: Vancouver Recital Society
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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…