Biography Ned Kirk, pianist, is a native of Redding, California, where he received his early musical training. For the past 25 years, Kirk has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician with performances in Europe, Africa and Asia as well as the United States. Upcoming 2011-2012 engagements include recitals with legendary saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a second State Department-sponsored tour of Kenya, and recitals and master classes in the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Kirk has collaborated with numerous outstanding musicians, many of whom serve as conductors and principles in major orchestras around the world - Michala Petri, Michael Christie, Kevin Kenner, Qian Zhou, Li-Wei Qin, Lionel Tan, Charles Kavalowski, Glenn Einschlag, Olav Van Hezewijk, Ron Ephrat, Jeffrey Work, David Jones, Lisa-Maree Amos, Daniel Rothmuller and Donald McInnes. Since 2007, Kirk has served as artistic and managing director of the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, a three-week festival which features many of the world's most important concert artists. Kirk also served as orchestral pianist for the Colorado Music Festival from 2002 to 2004, was a faculty member at the Marrowstone Music Festival and spent four summers teaching piano master classes to students from rural Alaska at the Sitka Fine Arts Institute in Sitka, Alaska. Kirk studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and holds a doctorate degree from the University of Washington. His piano and chamber music coaches have included Craig Sheppard, Walter Hautzig, Nigel Coxe, Earl Carlyss, Tinka Knopp, Lillian Freundlich, Estela Olevsky, Charles Treger and Yefim Bronfman. In addition to his work with the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, Kirk is also professor of piano and chair of the music department at Saint Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. www.nedkirk.com
PROGRAM Ned Kirk, piano Ludwig van Beethoven 13 variations for piano on the aria "Es war einmal ein alter (1770-1827) Mann" from Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's opera Das rote Käppchen, WoO 66 Ludwig van Beethoven Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 Andante con moto Allegro Andante Presto Quasi Allegretto Presto - Andante amabile e con moto Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Sonata Quasi una Fantasia" Adagio sostenuto Allegretto Presto agitato INTERMISSION Nikolai Medtner Fairy Tale, Op. 20, No. 1 (1880-1951) Max Reger Five Humoresques, Op. 20 (1873-1916) Allegretto grazioso Presto Andantino grazioso Prestissimo assai Vivaci assai Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938) Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, from North American Ballads Nikolai Kapustin Bagatelle, Op. 59, No. 9 (b. 1937) Concert Etude, Op. 40, No. 3 "Toccatina"
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) 13 variations for piano on the aria "Es war einmal ein alter Mann" from Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's opera Das rote Käppchen, WoO 66 Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Moonlight" Given Beethoven's vast musical output in other genres, the number of solo piano works is in itself impressive; because the piano was Beethoven's own instrument, his music for solo piano takes on added significance. In his 32 piano sonatas, some 20 sets of variations, and a variety of smaller pieces, including the Bagatelles, one can trace the larger musical transformations occurring between the Classical and Romantic periods as well as Beethoven's personal evolution as a composer. The 13 Variations represent Beethoven in his youth. Completed before his arrival in Vienna in 1792, the work takes as its theme an aria from an opera by Dittersdorf, music Beethoven would have been exposed to during his time in Bonn. The theme Beethoven adopts is pleasant and highly repetitive in form, and he follows it with 13 variations that are equally pleasant, though not yet as experimental as his later music. The variations are treated to standard procedures, including gradually increased complexity of the melodic line, varied rhythmical settings, and the requisite minor mode, allowing Beethoven the chance to begin to stretch his developmental instincts without going too far afield. The Bagatelles, Op. 126, by comparison, are one of Beethoven's last pianistic explorations. Written between 1823 and 1824, these pieces exhibit as much assuredness and genius on a small scale as is seen in Beethoven's previous mastery of large-scale forms. The Bagatelles represent Beethoven in full command of his compositional powers, displayed through six largely unpretentious miniatures that traverse a variety of keys, tempos, and characters. Overall, there is often a gentle profundity, as the music reflects some of Beethoven's last thoughts on this very personal medium. Beethoven's fourteenth piano sonata is perhaps one of his most recognizable works to even the most casual of listeners. While known as the "Moonlight Sonata," the only designation Beethoven ever bestowed upon this piece (written in 1801) was "Sonata quasi una fantasia." The more famous title is the result of German critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab, who unwittingly wrote that the first movement seemed to evoke "a boat visiting, by moonlight, the primitive landscapes of Lake Lucerne" (a lake in central Switzerland). Little needs to be said about the first movement, with its all-too-familiar triplet figuration providing the unrelenting support for the anguished exploration inherent in the main theme; attention should in fact be drawn to the third - and last - movement of the sonata, as Beethoven structured the work to climax with this dramatic finale. Marked presto agitato, the final movement drives forward with an almost relentless intensity, as though unleashing the torrent of emotional energy that was simmering beneath the melancholy surface and painful longing of the first movement. The second movement is a minuet and trio, brief in the respite it provides, but possessing a simple charm and grace that is a necessary relief between the intense emotions of the outer movements.
Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) Fairy Tale, Op. 20, No. 1 The music of Nikolai Medtner (a Russian contemporary of Sergey Rachmaninoff) relies heavily on the Romanticism of his 19th-century forebears. A pianist himself, Medtner's compositional activities centered around this instrument as well, resulting in 11 piano sonatas and numerous character pieces, many of them labeled with the Fairy Tale title. This particular Fairy Tale makes no apologies for its Romantic influences, in a short, yet powerful, work that rejoices in its lush harmonies, hauntingly lyrical main theme, and dramatic architectural scope. Max Reger (1873-1916) Five Humoresques, Op. 20 Max Reger was likewise a prolific composer of keyboard music, and his works reflect both his Romantic inclinations as well as his respect for his German compositional predecessors, such as Bach and Beethoven. Reger's Five Humoresques explore a wide range of emotions and character and are at turns charming, witty, fiendishly difficult in their contrapuntal complexity, and beautifully expressive, with nearly as much variety in tempo as in dynamics. Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938) Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, from North American Ballads "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," the fourth and last of Frederic Rzewski's North American Ballads, is a visceral performance experience for both the pianist and the audience. Composed in 1979, the piece attempts to communicate non-musical, politically-oriented concerns that often feature in Rzewski's music, and the work's title is closely tied to the musical sounds themselves. The relentless drive and overpowering clamor of a cotton mill are readily apparent through the gradually expanding and retracting clusters of the first section of the piece; this almost suffocating sense of oppression, eventually gives way to an expressively poignant "blues" section before returning to the more obsessive rhythmic urgency of the beginning, culminating in one final, dramatic cluster. Nikolai Kapustin (b. 1937) Bagatelle, Op. 59, No. 9 Concert Etude, Op. 40, No. 3 "Toccatina" While the second half of the program began with Russian music heavily imbued with Romanticism, it ends with Russian music possessed of inspiration from a different source: jazz. Nikolai Kapustin studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory, but also simultaneously developed a keen interest in jazz, even touring with a jazz orchestra after graduation. His music blends his knowledge of classical form and virtuosic writing with those harmonic and rhythmic elements central to the jazz idiom. While the Bagatelle explores this mixture within a short, light, almost carefree succession of notes, the Etude lets loose a veritable firestorm of activity, driven by an earthy, pulsating rhythm for a true virtuosic tour de force. Program notes by Caroline Kirk