CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Leon Fleisher & Friends

Zankel Hall
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Leon Fleisher, Piano
Yefim Bronfman, Piano
Jonathan Biss, Piano
Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, Piano

BACH "Sheep May Safely Graze" from Cantata No. 208 (arr. Egon Petri)
SCHUMANN Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18
SCHUBERT Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands, D.940
DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dance in A-flat Major, Op. 46, No. 6
DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dance in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 10
DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dance in G Minor, Op. 46, No. 8

MOZART Rondo in A Minor, K. 511
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 27 in E Minor
RAVEL La Valse

Program Notes:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH “Sheep May Safely Graze” from Cantata BWV 208 (arr. Egon Petri)
Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died Leipzig, July, 25 1750

Composed in 1713, "Sheep May Safely Graze" from Cantata BWV 208 (arr. Egon Petri) received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Weill Recital Hall on March 14, 1998 with Danny Coldren, piano.

Like many of J.S. Bach's famous melodies, the aria "Sheep May Safely Graze" has been arranged for a seemingly endless variety of instruments, achieving even the dubious immortality of a cell phone ring tone. Though versions for tuba quartet or electric guitar can seem a bit outlandish, pianist and Bach scholar Egon Petri's arrangement for piano uses the upper registers of the instrument to gracefully preserve the lilting beauty of the soprano and recorders in the original version.

Bach's devout nature and his prolific production of sacred music make it easy to assume the work’s title is a religious allegory: The sheep represents souls kept safe by God.

But the aria is actually part of a secular cantata that employs mythology and blatant flattery to celebrate the birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels. The cantata even goes so far as to revive the ancient deities Diana (goddess of the hunt) and Pales (goddess of sheep and flocks) to praise the duke, who was fond of hunting. In case the praise from deities was not sufficient, the aria “Sheep May Safely Graze” depicts Duke Christian as a good shepherd who tends and protects his vassals, the helpless and trusting sheep. Composed in 1713, just after a wide range of Italian music became available to Bach's orchestra in Weimar, the aria shows how quickly Bach assimilated the melodic influence of Vivaldi's style.


ROBERT SCHUMANN Arabeske in C Major, Op.18Born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Saxony; died July 29, 1856 in Endenich, near Bonn

Composed in 1838, Arabeske in C Major, Op.18 received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 4, 1891 with Franz Rummel, piano.

Like J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann was also a gifted assimilator of influences, though he tended to draw his inspiration from writers as often as composers. His deep love of literature is probably owed in part to his father, an author of chivalric romances who also translated Byron and Walter Scott into German. Schumann devoured a wide range of classic literature in his youth, and even tried his hand at lyric poetry, drama, and translation. At age 20, he was still unsure whether to devote himself to music or poetry, feeling he was equally capable in both areas.

The title of Arabeske is a poetic metaphor; the word originally referred to a florid element in Arabian architecture. The work reverses the popular idea of architecture as frozen music to suggest that music can be a fluid structure, reflecting the fact that the work does not fit perfectly into any of the pre-made classical forms. Schumann felt that the dissolution of classical forms, like the sonata and the concerto, was a necessary step in the evolution of new, often fragmentary forms that would better reflect the "half-torn page" quality of life itself. Despite this conviction, he appears to dismiss his Arabeske as "for ladies" in a letter from 1839, shortly after its completion. The criticism seems odd, not only because of the charm and beauty of the music, but because a great number of his finest compositions were quite literally written for a lady: his beloved wife Clara, one of the great pianists of her time.


FRANZ SCHUBERT Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands, D. 940
Born July 22, 1808 in Dresden; died April 12, 1878 in Dresden

Composed in 1828, the Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands, D. 940 received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on October 23, 1949 with Anita Sixfin and Sidney Gelber, pianists.

After periods of long separation, Robert and Clara Schumann often celebrated reuniting with extended sessions of playing piano duets. It's tempting to imagine—and chronologically possible—that they played Schubert's Fantasie in F minor. Before Schubert's contributions to four-hand piano repertoire, the genre often encompassed simple melodies or easy arrangements of popular sections from famous operas or symphonies. Schubert's compositions revealed the previously unrealized potentials of the piano duet and established the genre as comparable to the string quartet or sonata, albeit with a shorter history.  The Fantasie in F minor, written in the final year of his life, is a long and technically demanding work that traverses a number of keys, moods, and tempos while remaining structurally coherent.  Schubert was in the throes of the last stages of syphilis, and the pain coupled with highly visible symptoms reduced him to a solitary and depressive existence. It's hard to avoid hearing the darkness of his last years in the work’s beautifully melancholy opening, particularly in light of something he wrote in 1824: “What I produce is due to my understanding of music and to my sorrows.”


ANTONÍN DVOØÁK Slavonic Dances: No. 6 in A-flat Major, Op. 46; No. 10 in E minor, Op. 72; No. 8 in G minor, Op. 46
Born September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia; died May 1, 1904 in Prague

Composed in 1878 (Op. 46) and 1886 (Op. 72), the Slavonic Dances on tonight’s program received their first Carnegie Hall performances in Weill Recital Hall on March 26, 1999 with Albert Kim and Avner Arad, pianists (No. 6); in Weill on May 2, 1993 with Philip and Priscilla Cham, pianists (No. 10); and in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage on April 3, 1954 with Michael and Neal Esemplare, pianists (No. 8).

Antonin Dvoøák composed his first set of Slavonic Dances more than five years after he had recovered from what he later described as his “mad period.” The phrase would have a more sinister meaning if Dvoøák, like Schumann, had literally gone mad, but he seems only to have shown dissatisfaction with his works from 1866–1871, many of which he later destroyed. After this period, Dvoøák moved away from his previous emulation of German composers like Wagner and Schumann, and discovered a new simplicity of musical language and a strong interest in Slavonic folklore. His music became, in his words, “national rather than Wagnerian.” 

The Slavonic Dances are one of the treasures of his self-consciously national style. Loosely modeled on Brahms’s Hungarian Dances (and published after Brahms praised Dvoøák to his publisher), Dvoøák's dances became an immediate success that caused, as one critic put it, “a positive assault on the sheet music shops.” Though the dances do not directly quote from folk songs and dances, they are flavored with the thrilling rhythms and musical idioms of the Slavonic folk tradition.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Rondo in A minor, K.511
Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria; died December 5, 1791 in Vienna.

Composed in 1787, the Rondo in A minor, K. 511 received its first Carnegie Hall performance on January 7, 1893 with Ignace Jan Paderewski, piano.

While Mozart could dazzle royalty and commoners alike with his brilliant improvisations and compositions, he often struggled to secure a steady stream of income from patrons and performances. A Paris patron once declared that he wished Mozart had twice as much social grace and half as much talent, a remark which probably explains some of Mozart's hardship. Circumstances including the jealousy of lesser composers, the meddling of his father, and his own impatience with the often dull requests of patrons also played a role. But despite intermittent troubles, Mozart managed to produce a miraculous number of compositions during his brief life. The Rondo in A minor was composed in 1787, a year after the success of The Marriage of Figaro and while he was composing Don Giovanni.  The poise and shape of the opening melody do suggest an almost operatic quality, and it's easy to imagine the music's dark pathos depicting the despair of some jilted countess. The stark opening gradually yields to a lighter mood before the initial theme returns in increasingly intricate form.


LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90
Baptized December 17, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in Vienna.

Composed in 1814, the Sonata Op. 90 received its first Carnegie Hall performance on January 10, 1909 with Ossip Gabrilowitsch, piano.

Like Mozart, Beethoven was hardly the epitome of social grace. After Beethoven met the poet Goethe, the latter observed that "his talent amazed me; unfortunately he is an utterly untamed personality." Yet as the dedications of many of his works show, Beethoven had a number of influential supporters among the nobility. His Sonata Op. 90 is dedicated to the Count Moritz Lichnowsky, who in 1814 had recently married a Viennese dancer. A possibly apocryphal story relates that when the count asked Beethoven what the sonata meant, he replied that the first movement was “a struggle between heart and head,” and the second was “a conversation with the beloved.” While the struggle in the first movement could describe a count's anguish over whether to marry beneath his level, the music is far too universal to represent a single conflict. The first movement's alternation between loud, stern chords and soft, pleading ones mirrors the larger contrast between the sonata's two movements: The E-minor first movement is abrupt and conflicted; the E-major second movement is flowing and peaceful. The symmetry of the movements is even evident in the first notes of each: The second movement begins with a major inversion of the figure that opens the first.


RAVEL La Valse (arr. Lucien Garban)
Born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées on; died December 28, 1937 in Paris

Composed between 1919 and 1920, La Valse (arr. Lucien Garban) received its first Carnegie Hall performance on April 11, 1931 with Jacques Fray and Mario Braggiotti, pianists.

Maurice Ravel began work on a piece called Wien (Vienna) in 1906, shortly after the last of his many failures to win the prestigious composition prize, the Prix de Rome. Although many thought he deserved the prize, he was repeatedly denied because the overly conservative judges punished him for bending traditional rules of composition. While this may make Ravel sound utterly avant-garde, he was also deeply interested in tradition. Wien, which later became La Valse, began as a tribute to Johann Strauss, Jr. and as “ … a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, with which is mingled in my mind the idea of the fantastic whirl of destiny.” Finished after Ravel had returned from the First World War, the piece seems an elegy for the vanished world of carefree splendor represented by the Viennese waltz. Yet while the music expands and distends the traditional waltz form, it maintains a basic rhythmic exuberance that suggests all has not been lost.

—Nick Romeo
Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Leon Fleisher, Piano
Renowned pianist, conductor, and teacher Leon Fleisher, now in his sixth decade before the public, started piano lessons in his native San Francisco at age four, and gave his first recital at eight. A year later he began studying with the great German pianist Artur Schnabel, and by 16, in 1944, made his debut with the New York Philharmonic. He was the first American to win the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium competition in 1952, which catapulted Fleisher's career for the next dozen years.

Fleisher was suddenly struck silent when two fingers of his right hand became immobile in 1965. In the nearly 40 years since Leon Fleisher's keyboard career was so suddenly curtailed, he has followed two parallel careers—as a conductor and a teacher—while learning to play the extensive but limiting repertoire of compositions for piano left-hand. He began conducting in 1967, but never gave up the idea of playing with both hands again. Fleisher has recently been playing—infrequently—with both hands again, and made his first two-hand recording in 40 years: a sort of musical biography called Two Hands on Vanguard Classics, released in 2004. Its repertoire ranges from J.S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti to Chopin and Debussy, and Franz Schubert's monumental final Piano Sonata in B-flat major.

Yefim Bronfman, Piano
As an “On Location” Artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2008–2009 season, Yefim Bronfman will appear in subscription and chamber music concerts as well as an East Asian tour with that orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen. He also joins Emanuel Ax in a duo recital tour with appearances at Disney Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall; and will give solo recitals on a US and European tour culminating in performances at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and in St. Petersburg. Mr. Bronfman recently performed with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas in that orchestra’s Opening Gala, performing thereafter with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel. Mr. Bronfman’s other North American engagements include those with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony, and Toronto Symphony orchestras. In Europe he appears with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de France, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

Mr. Bronfman has won widespread praise for his solo, chamber, and orchestral recordings. He won a Grammy award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartok Piano Concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His most recent releases are Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; and all the Beethoven piano concertos as well as the Triple Concerto with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mork, and the Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label.

Born in Tashkent, Mr. Bronfman immigrated to Israel at age 15 with his family. He became a pupil of pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University, and continued his studies later with Rudolf Firkusny at The Juilliard School, Leon Fleisher at Marlboro, and Rudolf Serkin at The Curtis Institute. Mr. Bronfman became an American citizen in July 1989.

Jonathan Biss, Piano
Twenty-eight-year-old American pianist Jonathan Biss has already proved himself an accomplished and exceptional musician with a flourishing international reputation through his performances in North America and Europe, and through his EMI Classics recordings. Noted for his prodigious technique, intriguing programs, artistic maturity, and versatility, Mr. Biss performs a broad repertoire ranging from Mozart, Beethoven, and the Romantics, to Janáček and Schoenberg, as well as contemporary works and commissions from such composers as Leon Kirchner and Lewis Spratlan.

Hailed as a major new artist since making his New York Philharmonic debut in 2001, Mr. Biss has appeared with the foremost orchestras of the US and Europe. He is a frequent performer at leading international music festivals and gives recitals in major music capitals both here and abroad.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Biss has been a member of Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center and a frequent participant at the Marlboro Music Festival. He has also toured with “Musicians from Marlboro” on several occasions and collaborates with such chamber ensembles as the Borromeo and Mendelssohn quartets.

Mr. Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians that includes his grandmother, cellist Raya Garbousova, for whom Samuel Barber composed his Cello Concerto; and his parents, violinist Miriam Fried and violist-violinist Paul Biss. He studied at Indiana University with Evelyne Brancart and at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Leon Fleisher.

In April 2006 EMI Classics signed Mr. Biss on a two-year exclusive contract. His newest album for that label, Mozart Piano Concertos No. 21 and 22 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, recorded live at a performance at New York’s Queens College, is being released in October. His most recent EMI Classics recording is an Edison Award–winning recital of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Op. 13 (“Pathetique”), Op. 28 (“Pastorale”), Op. 90, and Op.109, released in October 2007.

Mr. Biss was an artist-in-residence on NPR’s “Performance Today,” the first American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program, and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and the 2005 Leonard Bernstein Award.

Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, Piano
Katherine Jacobson Fleisher's international performing career as soloist, duo pianist, and chamber musician has received critical acclaim. Her Carnegie Hall debut with piano partner Leon Fleisher was praised in the New York Times for its “abundant musicality and refined technique.” She and Mr. Fleisher recently recorded the Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 242 with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Jacobson Fleisher has performed with such orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National d'Ile de France, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra of Portugal, Aspen Chamber Symphony, and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in Toronto. This season she will perform in Japan, Singapore, Germany, and Mexico as well as the United States.

A graduate of St. Olaf College, Ms. Jacobson Fleisher studied with Vitya Vronsky (Vronsky and Babin) at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and later worked with Mr. Fleisher at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she is currently the director of its Piano Ensemble program. Ms. Jacobson Fleisher also actively supports animal rights and awareness and regularly performs benefit concerts on behalf of organizations such as Animal Rescue, Inc., the Baltimore Animal Rescue Care Shelter (BARCS), and HorseNet Horse Rescue. For more information, please visit www.katherinejacobsonfleisher.com.