CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Performance
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 | 8 PM
Leif Ove Andsnes
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Seating
Chart
“One of the most gifted musicians of his generation” (The Wall Street Journal), Leif Ove Andsnes takes you on a musical trip through the last two-and-a-half centuries. It's a thrilling program that includes works by Haydn, Bartók, Debussy, and Chopin.
Performers
Program
- HAYDN Sonata in C Minor, Hob. XVI:20
- BARTÓK Suite, Op. 14
- DEBUSSY Images, Book I
- CHOPIN Waltz in F Minor, Op. 70, No. 2
- CHOPIN Waltz in G-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 1
- CHOPIN Waltz in D-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 3
- CHOPIN Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 42
- CHOPIN Ballade in A-flat Major, Op. 47
- CHOPIN Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1
- CHOPIN Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23
Encores:- CHOPIN Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1
- GRANADOS Spanish Dance No. 5
- RACHMANINOFF Etude-tableau in C Major, Op. 33, No. 2
Bios
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Leif Ove Andsnes
Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is one of the most sought-after pianists of his
generation. He appears each season with the world's leading orchestras and gives recitals
in the foremost concert halls. Also an active chamber musician, he plays at Norway's Risør
Chamber Music Festival and next year will serve as music director of the Ojai Music
Festival in California.
Beethoven figures prominently in Mr. Andsnes's 2011-2012 season, including concerto
performances with the Boston, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Trondheim, and Vienna symphony
orchestras, the Norwegian and Swedish chamber orchestras, and The Philadelphia Orchestra.
Mr. Andsnes tours Italy with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which he also begins his
recorded cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos on Sony Classical. Other highlights this
season include Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in Germany, Japan, and Norway; recitals
in North America, Japan, and Europe; and a spring recital tour in the US with baritone
Matthias Goerne, featuring songs by Mahler and Shostakovich.
Mr. Andsnes's discography comprises more than 30 solo, chamber, and concerto releases,
spanning repertoire from Bach to the present day and garnering eight Grammy Award
nominations and five Gramophone Awards. Among his recent recordings are Rachmaninoff's
piano concertos No. 3 and No. 4 with Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra, and
Schumann's complete piano trios with violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja
Tetzlaff. Among his honors are Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, the Peer
Gynt Prize, and the Gilmore Artist Award.
More Info
Audio
Chopin Ballade No.3 In A Flat, Op.47
Franz Richter, Piano
Deutsche Grammophon
At a Glance
All four composers represented on tonight’s program expanded
the boundaries of piano technique even as they invested the musical language of
their day with new expressive capability. Haydn’s darkly turbulent C-Minor
Sonata, a product of his midlife Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”)
period, is both technically demanding and tonally adventurous. At a time when
composers and publishers routinely hedged their bets by designating keyboard
music for either harpsichord or piano, Haydn produced a work whose vivid
dynamic contrasts could only be realized on the more modern instrument.
Chopin revolutionized piano writing in a large body of waltzes, mazurkas, and
other solo pieces that imbued the brilliance of the salon style with
unprecedented poetic depth. Schumann, himself a master of character pieces,
extolled Chopin’s accomplishment, in which, he wrote, “imagination and
technique share dominion side by side.” Debussy built on the Polish composer’s
innovations in the realm of harmony, melody, and figuration. The Frenchman
might have been referring to himself when he wrote in his edition of Chopin’s
waltzes: “Chopin was a delightful teller of tales of love and war, and he often
slips away to that forest of As You Like
It, in which the fairies are the sole mistresses of the mind.”
Like Chopin, Bartók was a formidable pianist who drew inspiration from the
vernacular music of his native land. Composed during World War I, the
folk-based Suite, Op. 14, anticipates the spare, sharply etched textures and
percussive piano style of Bartók’s later sonatas and concertos.
Program Notes