Piotr Anderszewski, Piano

Transcription

1 The Program Thursday Evening, March 3, 2016, at 7:30 Virtuoso Recitals Piotr Anderszewski, Piano BACH Partita No. 6 in E minor Toccata Allemande Courante Air Sarabande Tempo di Gavotta Gigue SCHUMANN Papillons ( ) Introduction: Moderato : Prestissimo Polonaise : Semplice : Prestissimo : Vivo Polonaise Finale Intermission Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Steinway Piano Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater Adrienne Arsht Stage

2 Great Performers BNY Mellon is Lead Supporter of Great Performers Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman s Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts. Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund. Endowment support is also provided by UBS. MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center Mr. Anderszewski will sign CDs in the lobby immediately following the performance. UPCOMING VIRTUOSO RECITALS: Saturday Evening, April 9, 2016, at 7:30 in Alice Tully Hall Richard Goode, Piano ALL-BACH PROGRAM Preludes and Fugues Nos. 1 and 11, from the Well-tempered Clavier, Book II French Suite No Sinfonias Partita No. 2 Italian Concerto Sunday Afternoon, May 8, 2016, at 3:00 in David Geffen Hall Murray Perahia, Piano HAYDN: Variations in F minor MOZART: Sonata in A minor BRAHMS: Ballade in G minor BRAHMS: Two Intermezzos, Op. 119 BRAHMS: Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118 BRAHMS: Capriccio in D minor BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 29 ( Hammerklavier ) For tickets, call (212) or visit LCGreatPerformers.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) to learn about program cancellations or to request a Great Performers brochure. Visit LCGreatPerformers.org for more information relating to this season s programs. Join the conversation: #LCGreatPerfs We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.

3 Great Performers I The Program SZYMANOWSKI Metopes (1915) The Isle of the Sirens Calypso Nausicaa SCHUMANN Variations on an original theme ( Ghost Variations ) (1854) Theme: Leise, innig Variation I Variation II: Canonisch Variation III: Etwas belebter Variation IV Variation V BACH Partita No. 1 in B-flat major Praeludium Allemande Corrente Sarabande Menuets I and II Gigue

4 Great Performers Snapshot By David Wright There is an elegant symmetry to this recital program, in which works representing the earliest and last stages of the Romantic era are bookended by works of the composer the Romantic masters revered above all: J.S. Bach. Bach s six partitas for keyboard instrument are dance suites that open with a non-dance movement an elaborate Toccata in No. 6 and a tuneful Praeludium in No. 1 then proceed through a sequence of dances prescribed a generation before Bach by the Italian-French composer Lully, closing with a lively dance of Irish origin variously known as a gigue, giga, or jig. Robert Schumann is represented here by one of his earliest compositions and his very last one. The cycle of brief character pieces linked by visual or literary associations became a Schumann specialty, starting with the volatile, imaginative Papillons, Op. 2. The Variations on an original theme, WoO 24, was the last piece he worked on before his commitment to an asylum in 1854; the work s enigmatic ending has left scholars debating whether Schumann finished the piece or left it incomplete. The Romantic impulse remained strong in the music of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, but it was intensely colored by influences including the innovations of Debussy and Stravinsky, the folksong research of Bartók, and his own travels through ancient lands of the Mediterranean. His Metopes for piano, named for the sculptural panels that decorate the Parthenon and other ancient buildings, illustrate episodes from The Odyssey, specifically encounters between Odysseus and various bewitching women. Copyright 2016 by David Wright Timeframe ARTS 1831 Schumann s Papillons Victor Hugo s Hunchback of Notre Dame is published Schumann s Ghost Variations Henry David Thoreau s Walden is published Szymanowski s Metopes Kasimir Malevich paints Black Square. SCIENCE 1831 The Royal Astronomical Society receives its royal charter Louis Pasteur begins studying fermentation Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth after the Sun, is discovered. IN NEW YORK 1831 The University of the City of New York is incorporated as a secular institution Astor Library at Lafayette Place opens with 80,000 volumes Two colonels purchase the Yankees for less than $500,000.

5 Great Performers I Notes on the Program Notes on the Program By David Wright Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig Approximate length: 31 minutes As Bach conceived it, the partita was an expanded version of the ubiquitous Baroque dance suite; it included an elaborate opening movement and some non-dance pieces sprinkled in among the allemandes, courantes, and sarabandes. Of Bach s six keyboard partitas, the one in E minor is the most sophisticated, even rarefied. It seems to take its stylistic cue from the partita form itself: As the entire work is an elaborated dance suite, so each movement is an ornamented, complex, quite unfootable meditation on a dance idea. By analogy with Shakespeare s plays, this is the late fantasy play of the partitas, like The Winter s Tale or The Tempest. The closing Gigue is perhaps the most advanced movement of all. Its fugue subject vividly suggests the hopping motions of people dancing a jig, but instead of offering relief from complexity, this final movement piles on still more of it; in the web of syncopations, each voice seems to be dancing to a different drummer, and the chromatic harmonies are almost like a prediction of Brahms s late piano pieces and the Schoenberg school. Papillons, Op. 2 ( ) ROBERT SCHUMANN Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Germany Died July 29, 1856, in Endenich, Germany Approximate length: 15 minutes In 1831, like many other 21-year-olds of the time, Robert Schumann was trying his wings in love and work, and avidly reading the Romantic novels of Jean Paul Richter, whose exotic scenes and veiled symbols hinted at profound truths about life. Schumann s favorite of these was Flegeljahre, whose title translates as Adolescence or perhaps Wild Oats. Do you recall, Schumann wrote a friend, the last scene of Die Flegeljahre the masked ball Walt and the masks Wina Vult dancing how the masks were exchanged leading to the confessions, revelations, anger the hurrying away the conclusion and the brother s departure? I sat reading and re-reading...then I drifted to the piano, and my little Papillons, one after another, came into being.

6 Great Performers I Notes on the Program Papillons was the first of many Schumann works to be inspired by a masked ball or carnival scene, with its rich symbolism of illusion and reality, darkness and light, concealment and revelation. Here was life as the Romantics saw it: a bittersweet quest for fleeting, butterfly-like beauty. Metopes, Op. 29 (1915) KAROL SZYMANOWSKI Born October 3, 1882, in Tymoszówka, near Kiev, Ukraine Died March 29, 1937, in Lausanne, Switzerland Approximate length: 17 minutes Born in a district of the Ukraine that had recently been part of Poland, influenced by composers as diverse as Debussy, Wagner, Scriabin, and Stravinsky, and well-versed in the ancient and modern literatures of both Europe and Asia, Karol Szymanowski possessed enough culture for six ordinary artists. As one might expect, his music is rich in associations and unclassifiable. The cataclysm of World War I, which disrupted the careers of many European musicians, proved to be a particularly fruitful period in Szymanowski s life; enforced isolation in his Ukrainian hometown allowed him to digest the many impressions of his reading and his travels, especially his visits to Italy, Sicily, and North Africa just before the war. The rich mythology of that mid-mediterranean region inspired a suite of three pieces titled Metopes, which Szymanowski composed in A metope (pronounced MET-uh-pee ) is a panel, often decorated with sculpture, between two vertically grooved elements (triglyphs) in a Doric frieze, the most famous example being the 92 metopes that once ringed the outside wall of the Parthenon. Mythological figures were often the subject of metopes, and for his piano pieces Szymanowski selected three that evoked ancient songs and dances, affirming a continuity of human art and beauty amid the stress and upheavals of the war years. In Isle of the Sirens, a seductive siren song, decorated with trills and bird calls, builds to a peak of passion. Calypso is a sensuous portrait of the goddess nymph, daughter of Atlas, who fell in love with Odysseus when he was shipwrecked on her island and detained him there for seven years. Another shipwreck brought Odysseus to the coast of Phaeacia, where he encountered the princess Nausicaa doing laundry and playing games with her handmaidens on the beach; Szymanowski s Nausicaa dances and frolics before withdrawing shyly into the shadows.

7 Great Performers I Notes on the Program Variations on an original theme, WoO 24 ( Ghost Variations ) (1854) ROBERT SCHUMANN Approximate length: 12 minutes In 1854, following his suicide attempt in the Rhine River, Schumann was committed to the asylum in Endenich, Germany, where he would end his days. Before his institutionalization, he completed the task of making a fair copy (i.e., ready for publication) of this theme and five variations. Clara Schumann felt that many of her husband s later works were impaired by illness, and was reluctant to see them published perhaps these variations most of all, being associated with such terrible events. This music did not see print until 1939, and is still rarely played. Schumann said he had a vision in which this theme was sung to him by an angel. But in fact, the angel was Schumann himself, who forgot that he had used versions of this theme in several previous works. The first three variations preserve the theme intact, decorating it with piano figurations or putting it in dialogue with itself in canon, one of Schumann s favorite techniques. The fourth variation fractures the theme and harmonizes it in surprising ways. In the fifth variation, nothing much is left of the theme but its bass line. Some commentators admire this dying away ending as an innovation in variation form. Others believe the piece is incomplete, ending in the middle of a musical journey that Schumann embarked on, but wasn t able to finish. Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Approximate length: 17 minutes Of Bach s six keyboard partitas in this form, the most modern for its time is No. 1 in B-flat major, whose melodiousness and sparkle resembles Scarlatti and even anticipates the style galant of Bach s son Johann Christian. It opens with a Praeludium based on a sunrise motive, passed from voice to voice to charming effect, and closes with the delightful Giga, whose rapid hand-crossing makes it the most Scarlatti-esque movement of all; the composer s power of suggestion is at its height here, creating a pointillist musical landscape out of single notes, without so much as a two-note chord in the entire movement. David Wright, a music critic for Boston Classical Review, has provided program notes for Lincoln Center since Copyright 2016 by David Wright

8 Great Performers I Meet the Artist Meet the Artist Piotr Anderszewski Recognized for the intensity and originality of his interpretations, Piotr Anderszewski has given recitals in recent seasons at Carnegie Hall, London s Barbican Centre and Royal Festival Hall, Vienna s Konzerthaus, and St. Petersburg s Mariinsky Concert Hall. He has also appeared with the Chicago and London Symphony Orchestras, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Royal Concertgebouw, and has directed from the keyboard with orchestras such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Highlights of the season include appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, as well as recitals at the Lucerne Festival at the Piano, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Philharmonie, and London s Wigmore Hall. MG DE SAINT VENANT LICENSED TO VIRGIN CLASSICS Mr. Anderszewski has been an exclusive artist with Warner Classics/ Erato (previously Virgin Classics) since His recording of Beethoven s Diabelli Variations received a number of prizes, including a Choc du Monde de la Musique and an ECHO Klassik award. He has also recorded a Grammy-nominated CD of Bach s Partitas Nos. 1, 3, and 6 and a critically acclaimed disc of works by Chopin. Mr. Anderszewski s affinity with the music of his compatriot Szymanowski is captured in a recording of the composer s solo piano works that won the Gramophone Award in 2006 for Best Instrumental Disc. His recording of solo works by Schumann received an ECHO Klassik award in 2011 and two BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2012, including Recording of the Year. His 2014 disc of Bach s English Suites Nos. 1, 3, and 5 won Gramophone and ECHO Klassik awards in Mr. Anderszewski has been the subject of two award-winning documentaries by Bruno Monsaingeon: Piotr Anderszewski Plays the Diabelli Variations (2001) and Piotr Anderszewski, Unquiet Traveller (2008).

9 Great Performers Lincoln Center s Great Performers Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lincoln Center s Great Performers offers classical and contemporary music performances from the world s outstanding symphony orchestras, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and recitalists. Since its initiation in 1965, the series has expanded to include significant emerging artists and premieres of groundbreaking productions, with offerings from October through June in Lincoln Center s David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and other performance spaces around New York City. Along with lieder recitals, Sunday morning coffee concerts, and films, Great Performers offers a rich spectrum of programming throughout the season. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals including American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October Lincoln Center Programming Department Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming Jon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary Programming Jill Sternheimer, Director, Public Programming Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager Charles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary Programming Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming Regina Grande, Associate Producer Amber Shavers, Associate Producer, Public Programming Luna Shyr, Senior Editor Jenniffer DeSimone, Production Coordinator Olivia Fortunato, House Seat Coordinator Mr. Anderszewski s representation: IMG Artists