BION TSANG, CELLO ANTON NEL, PIANO

Transcription

1 BION TSANG, CELLO ANTON NEL, PIANO Monday, April 16, 2018, 7:30 PM Bates Recital Hall This concert will last approximately two hours with one intermission.

2 PROGRAM Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in F major, Op. 17 (1800) ( ) Allegro moderato Poco Adagio, quasi Andante Rondo. Allegro moderato Leonard Bernstein Three Meditations from Mass (1971) ( ) Lento assai, molto sostenuto Andante sostenuto Presto Fast and primitive Molto adagio Claude Debussy Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915) ( ) Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto Sérénade: Modérément animé, Fantasque et léger Finale: Animé, Léger et nerveux Intermission Johannes Brahms Sonata in F major, Op. 99 (1886) ( ) Allegro vivace Adagio affettuoso Allegro passionato Allegro molto PLEASE SILENCE YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES

3 ABOUT THE PROGRAM Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 17 Born: December 1770, Bonn, Germany Died: March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria Composed: Originally scored for horn in 1800, but also arranged for cello by Beethoven dedicated to Baroness Josefine von Braun Premiere: April 18, 1800, in Vienna with Beethoven (piano) and Giovanni Punto (French horn) Duration: 14 minutes Ludwig van Beethoven was arguably the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in music history following Mozart and Haydn. Born into a family of musicians, Beethoven s grandfather was a bass singer who would eventually become Kapellmeister (music director) at the court of the Electorate of Cologne, and his father, Johann Beethoven, was also a singer in the choir. With the Elector s help, Beethoven would leave his hometown of Bonn and permanently move to Vienna in 1792 to begin composition lessons with Joseph Haydn and also establish his career. He would become a great success, making a comfortable living from concerts, commissions, and publishing scores. From 1793 to the year of composition of the Horn Sonata, Beethoven s output consisted of over 100 pieces for solo and chamber music including the premiere of his first symphony on April 2, The piece was written to showcase the virtuoso horn player of the day Giovanni Punto who was playing a natural horn (a French horn with no valves) at the time, making it much more difficult for the accuracy of notes. In order to assure the pieces success in print, the first (and only surviving) source edition dated on March 1801 by publisher Tranquillo Mollo was accompanied by a solo part for cello with markings by Beethoven himself. Considered Beethoven s early compositional style, one can hear the influences of Haydn s Classical style in the Sonata in F major.

4 Leonard Bernstein Three Meditations from Mass for Cello and Piano Born: August 25, 1918, Lawrence, Massachusetts Died: October 14, 1990, New York City, New York Composed: Version for cello and piano composed in 1971 Premiere: Version for piano and cello premiered March 28, 1972, at the Institute of International Education in New York with Stephen Kates (cello) and Leonard Bernstein (piano) Duration: 16 minutes Longtime director of the New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein was one of the most influential composers, conductors, educators, performers, and public personalities of the 20 th century. As a composer, he wrote in many different mediums for orchestra, ballet, film, musical, opera, and chamber music. Though it s difficult to categorize Bernstein s compositional style as he consistently blurred, crossed, and disintegrated the boundaries of specific genres, styles, and tonalities, he found influence in the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, George Gershwin, and Aaron Copland, and was known to combine classical and modern-day styles, often described as eclecticism. Bernstein s original Mass (A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers) was composed at the request of Jackie Kennedy for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on September 8, Sections from Mass were later arranged by the composer for cello and piano into Three Meditations and given its premiere in The version for cello and orchestra would be premiered in 1977, with the composer conducting the National Symphony Orchestra, with Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist. The piece itself as evidenced by the title centers around the celebrations of Roman Catholic rituals while simultaneously questioning, doubting, protesting, and reflecting upon both positive and negative all those who attend and perceive this ritual.

5 Claude Debussy Sonata for Cello and Piano Born: August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France Died: March 25, 1918, Paris, France Composed: During World War I July to August 1915 Premiere: March 4, 1916, in Aeolian Hall, London, England with C. Warwick Evans (cello) and Alfred Hobday (piano) Duration: 11 minutes Born into a family with little money, Claude Debussy began taking piano lessons at age seven, and his obvious gift on the instrument sent him to the Paris Conservatory at age 10, where he would spend the next decade studying composition with opera composer Ernest Guiraud. During the late 19 th century, French music had been heavily influenced by Romantic period composers Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. Though Debussy s instructors and fellow colleagues recognized his talent, they often found his harmonic usage of post-romantic tonalities, chromaticism, and musical innovations strange or as some called it (though Debussy himself didn t like the term to describe his music), impressionism. In 1914, Debussy intended to write a cycle of six individual sonatas inspired by the compositional traditions of 18 th century French composers François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Debussy was only able to compose sporadically at this time, a lull brought on by a diagnosis of colon cancer and a season of deep depression. He would complete only three of the six sonatas: the Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915), Sonata for Flute, Violin and Harp (1915) and Sonata for Violin and Piano ( ). The sonata demonstrates Debussy s late style of chamber music with dissonant harmonies and progressions without much resolution, while also nodding back to the musical traditions of the 18 th century.

6 Johannes Brahms Sonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 99 Born: May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany Died: April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria Composed: Summer of 1886 in Thun, Switzerland Premiered: Vienna s Kleiner Musikvereinssaal on November 24, with Robert Hausmann (cello), Johannes Brahms (piano) Duration: 28 minutes A famous anecdote described Brahms visit to a local pub one evening, claiming that he spent five hours writing down one single note only to have erased it. He was known for his unforgiving scrutiny, even towards his own works. His surviving pieces, scholars have suggested, are likely a very small fraction of what he wrote in total. Brahms is credited with reviving chamber music after the death of his close friend and composer Robert Schumann ( ), one of its greatest early Romantic practitioners. The period in which Brahms wrote the Sonata for Cello and Piano was during a time of much success. Already an established composer, he had just finished writing his third and fourth symphonies (1883 and 1885 respectively) and had written over 200 pieces for various genres including songs for voice, sonatas, symphonies, and various works for chamber music. Brahms music remained true to tradition. He maintained a conservative sense of form and harmony in contrast to the lavishness of his contemporaries from the New German School, led mainly by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. Though Brahms was committed to carrying a conservative post-beethoven mantle, he was heavily criticized and insulted by critics and composers who favored a more progressive approach. The public reaction to the Cello Sonata was a certain degree of unease, but critics soon praised the work for its varied character. A worthy sibling of his prior piece, Symphony No. 4, the Sonata in F major is youthful and symphonic, with song-like melodies throughout.

7 ABOUT BION TSANG Cellist Bion Tsang is internationally recognized as one of the outstanding instrumentalists of his generation: among his many honors are an Avery Fisher Career Grant, an MEF Career Grant and the Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition. Mr. Tsang earned a 2010 Grammy nomination for his performance on the 2009 PBS special A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert. Mr. Tsang s chamber music career has also been a distinguished one, marked by collaborations with such artists as violinists Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne Akiko Meyers and Kyoko Takezawa and Chee Yun, violist Michael Tree, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Gary Karr and pianist Leon Fleisher. He has been a frequent guest artist of the Chamber Music Societies of Boston, Brooklyn, and Fort Worth, Chamber Music International of Dallas, Da Camera of Houston, Camerata Pacifica of Los Angeles, and Bargemusic in New York. He has also performed at such festivals as Marlboro Music Festival, the Cape Cod, Tucson, Portland, and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, the Bard Festival, Bravo! Colorado, Music in the Vineyards, and the Laurel Festival of the Arts, where he served as Artistic Director for ten years. Mr. Tsang resides in Austin, Texas, where he is division head of strings and holds the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Cello at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Award after just his first year of service and in was named Instrumentalist of the Year by the Austin Critics Table. In he was also visiting professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. Mr. Tsang received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.M.A. from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. His other cello teachers included Ardyth Alton, Luis Garcia-Renart, William Pleeth, Channing Robbins and Leonard Rose.

8 ABOUT ANTON NEL Anton Nel, winner of the first prize in the 1987 Naumburg International Piano Competition at Carnegie Hall, enjoys a remarkable and multifaceted career that has taken him to North and South America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa. Following an auspicious debut at the age of twelve with Beethoven s C major Concerto after only two years of study, the Johannesburg native captured first prizes in all the major South African competitions while still in his teens, toured his native country extensively and became a well-known radio and television personality. A student of Adolph Hallis, he made his European debut in France in 1982, and in the same year graduated with highest distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He came to the United States in 1983, attending the University of Cincinnati, where he pursued his Master and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees under Bela Siki and Frank Weinstock. In addition to garnering many awards from his alma mater during this period he was a prizewinner at the 1984 Leeds International Piano Competition in England and won several first prizes at the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition in Palm Desert in Mr. Nel s nearly four decades of concertizing feature an active repertoire of more than 100 works for piano and orchestra including performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the symphonies of Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, and London, among many others. An acclaimed Beethoven interpreter, Mr. Nel has performed the concerto cycle several times, most notably on two consecutive evenings with the Cape Philharmonic in He was also chosen to give the North American premiere of the newly discovered Piano Concerto No. 3 in E Minor by Felix Mendelssohn in Two noteworthy world premieres of works by living composers include Virtuoso Alice by David Del Tredici (dedicated to, and performed by Mr. Nel at his Lincoln Center debut in 1988) as well as Stephen Paulus s Piano Concerto also written for Mr. Nel; the acclaimed world premiere took place in New York in 2003.

9 UPCOMING BUTLER OPERA CENTER PRODUCTION Falstaff by Guiseppe Verdi CONDUCTOR Kelly Kuo Friday, April 20, 7:30 PM Sunday, April 22, 4:00 PM Friday, April 27, 7:30 PM Sunday, April 29, 4:00 PM DIRECTOR Robert DeSimone All performances in McCullough Theatre ABOUT THE OPERA Falstaff revolves around the farcical (and generally thwarted) efforts of the fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands wealth. Shining with originality and composed when Verdi was nearly 80, this opera is proof that age took nothing from the master. TICKETS music.utexas.edu/concerts QUESTIONS?

10 UPCOMING NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE CONCERT The University of Texas New Music Ensemble Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 PM Bates Recital Hall CONDUCTOR Dan Welcher David Gompper Traceur II VISITING COMPOSER David Gompper Russell Pinkston Off Leash CLARINET SOLOIST Jonathan Gunn Keith Allegretti Elegy and Tarantella David Gompper Butterfly Dance TICKETS music.utexas.edu/concerts QUESTIONS?

11 UPCOMING SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra Monday, April 30, 7:30 PM Bates Recital Hall CONDUCTOR Gerhardt Zimmermann W.A. Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor SAXOPHONE SOLOIST Calvin Wong Henri Tomasi Concerto for Alto Saxophone Edward Elgar Nimrod from Enigma Variations Hector Berlioz Rákóczi March TICKETS music.utexas.edu/concerts QUESTIONS? tickets@mail.music.utexas.edu

12 UPCOMING CONCERTS The University of Texas Early Music Ensemble Tuesday, April 17, 7:30 PM Recital Studio, MRH BUTLER OPERA CENTER PRESENTS Falstaff Friday, April 20, 7:30 PM Sunday, April 22, 4:00 PM Friday, April 27, 7:30 PM Sunday, April 29, 4:00 PM McCullough Theatre The University of Texas Wind Ensemble Sunday, April 29, 4:00 PM Bates Recital Hall The University of Texas Jazz Ensemble Thursday, May 3, 7:30 PM Bates Recital Hall For more information about Butler School of Music concerts and events, visit our online calendar at music.utexas.edu/calendar. Become a member of The Butler Society and help us successfully launch tomorrow s brightest performers, teachers, composers, and scholars. Make a gift today at music.utexas.edu/giving THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS Douglas Dempster, Dean SARAH AND ERNEST BUTLER SCHOOL OF MUSIC Mary Ellen Poole, Director