CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Jonathan Biss

Zankel Hall
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

“a young virtuoso and poetic pianist of the first order”—Chicago Sun-Times

Noted for his prodigious technique and artistic maturity, “Biss is an engaging player whose Mozart has clarity and precision, but also heart” (New York Times). Possibly used as a teaching tool for Mozart’s students, the Sonata in C Minor glows with a fiery nature that hints at Beethoven’s passionate “Pathétique” Sonata. The program concludes with works that highlight the genius and virtuosic gifts of Chopin.

Jonathan Biss, Piano

MOZART Sonata in C Minor, K.457
GYÖRGY KURTÁG Selections from Játékok
SCHUBERT Sonata in C Major, D.840, "Reliquie"

CHOPIN Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60
CHOPIN Three Mazurkas, Op. 59
CHOPIN Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
CHOPIN Ballade in F Minor, Op. 52

Encore:
MOZART Andante from Sonata in C Major, K.545

Program Notes:

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Sonata in C Minor, K. 457

The Sonata in C Minor, K. 457 was composed during Mozart’s great compositional spree of 1784, during which he created, among other formidable works, six piano concertos. It has in fact been correctly remarked that the style of this sonata is more idiomatic for the keyboard, compared with the only other minor-mode sonata Mozart wrote (Sonata in A Minor, K. 310); the Sonata in C Minor is more dramatic than it’s a-minor cousin with more theatrical gestures—sudden pauses and sharp dynamic contrasts—influenced, perhaps, by the numerous concertos of that year.

The first movement opens with a loud, brazen theme that is intensified by a contrasting pianissimo answer. The triplet figures that spin out of the main theme’s restatement herald a new, dramatic character hitherto unheard in Mozart’s music—the dark, pessimistic vein that was to shade other works such as the G-Minor Symphony and Don Giovanni. These triplets propel the musical thought to a secondary theme—already in the relative major—but it is quickly abandoned, as if the intense commotion of the first theme had to be diluted further before reaching the “true” second theme in the major key. The triplets reappear and lead to the close of the exposition, and constitute the stringent development that ends obliquely on a very soft dominant chord. At this point, the recapitulation sounds even more fatalistic than the beginning—as Mozart’s biographer Hermann Abert rightly pointed out—so that the whole recapitulation is starker in its unceasing C-minor tonality.

In the coda, broken octaves with their rhythmically distorted sforzandos conclude the piece in gloomy acquiescence. The second movement is thoroughly vocal in character, its unforgettable melismatic passages laden with ornaments reminiscent of the great vocal arias of Italian opera. The last movement’s mercurial stance is interspersed with a lamenting, recurrent theme in F minor, brusquely interrupted by loud chords.

—Cody Franchetti


GYÖRGY KURTÁG (b. 1926)
Selections from Játékok
“Antiphony in f-sharp” from Book II, “Les Adieux (in Janáèek's Manier)” from Book VI, “Portrait (3)” from Book III, “La fille aux cheveux de lin—enragée” from Book V, “Birthday elegy for Judit—for the second finger of her left hand” from Book VI

Since 1973, Kurtág has been composing short pieces—now eight books of music—entitled Játékok (Games), made for him and his wife to play. The work (sections of which we hear tonight) is made of small, playful miracles, each immaculately honed, addressing a single compositional notion. Kurtág makes touching references to, say, Stravinsky in No. 30, “Petruska idézése,” though always in his own inimitable and existentially intimate style: This piece wriggles and giggles, more in the spirit of Stravinsky’s Petrushka than in the music of the Russian composer; in pure Kurtág fashion, however, cloying tributes can often be heard. There is also a playful, 30-second tribute to Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti, which commences with crushing dissonances and ends with a lilting melody. There is even a forthright paean to Kurtág’s wife Márta, a piece that lasts just under one minute; it begins and ends with startling open chords, between which is a meandering and loving soprano-bass duet laden with melody—blink and you’d miss it, which is likely exactly what the composer hopes. The witty “Antiphony in f-sharp”—perhaps taking a cue from Ligeti's Musica Ricercata—playfully hones in on a single note; “Les Adieux” pays respect to the great Czech composer Leoš Janáèek just as “La fille aux cheveux de lin” does Debussy; “Portrait III” pays tribute to Valeria Szervánszky, a pianist who is also Kurtág’s niece; and “Birthday elegy for Judit” does the same for his daughter.

—Daniel Felsenfeld


FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Sonata in C Major, D. 840, “Reliquie”

The name “Reliquie” has stuck to Schubert’s Sonata in C Major ever since Schumann was given the work in 1839 by Ferdinand Schubert (the composer’s brother) and remarked that he had been given “relics.” In fact, the “Reliquie” Sonata remains a fragment, however venerated, because its third and fourth movements were unfinished. There are a number of suppositions about this sonata’s fragmentary condition, ranging from Schubert’s own unwillingness to complete it to the idea that his later four-movement sonatas are connected with his plan to write a great symphony. Though all offer some plausible explanations, none is quite satisfactory.

Like the Sonata in G Major, written a year later, the “Reliquie” Sonata is not really meant for the performance hall: Its ethos belongs to the realm of private ruminations—surely of great emotional impact, but quite different from Beethoven’s sonatas. With Beethoven, musical form itself is elevated to a dialectic and therefore poetic level; with Schubert, lyricism is at the center of the aesthetic goal.

This lyric preoccupation is most evident in the first movement, which hinges on expansive melodies over remote tonal areas: striking oases of lyric contemplation. The unassuming main theme is abruptly transposed—literally transmitted—in a distant key, before a long cadential passage of increasing intensity reasserts the first theme in a completely different guise, heroic and stentorian. The theme modulates through some very unusual harmonic progressions to the second theme in the distant B-minor key. Though the second subject is closely related to the first, it seems much more melodic and spins out before arriving at the more customary key of the dominant tonality in the closing section. The development’s rhythmic uniformity and harmonic audacity has Brucknerian accents and the recapitulation is surely one of Schubert’s most original: The key structure is so ambiguous that we do not perceive the point of return until well into the recapitulation. It should be noted that despite its visionary hues, the movement’s sonority is curiously sparse, as if it were conceived as a proper musical idea divested of medium, lending some credence to the theory that it was conceived in preparation of the symphony that Schubert never wrote.

The Andante has contrasting sections of forlorn melodies and furious interjections. The Minuet, which centers on the opposition of A-flat major with A major, remains incomplete while the Trio in G-sharp minor is fully composed. The last movement, which closely recalls the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3, breaks off in the middle of the recapitulation; it is unclear exactly what Schubert was planning for the already enormous structure (part-rondo and part-sonata). Its rollicking theme pervades the entire movement with its animated energy; here it is interesting to find Schubert’s virtuosic keyboard writing reminiscent of his earlier “Wanderer” fantasy.

—Cody Franchetti


FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849)
Barcarolle in F-sharp Minor, Op. 60; Three Mazurkas, Op. 59; Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2; Ballade in F Minor, Op. 52

The aesthetic of the miniature is quintessentially Romantic, for its composers often preferred to express their creations in what Bertrand Jessup has called intensive aesthetic size as opposed to extensive aesthetic size. Chopin, more than any other Romantic composer, found that the former suited his poetic style; though he wrote a number of sonatas and concertos, the bulk of his work consists of shorter intensive aesthetically sized pieces.

The term “barcarolle” is a musical postcard suggestive of a Venetian boat-song; but here, over rollicking musical figures, Chopin intones a melody of unusual nostalgia and striking harmonic twists.

The Three Mazurkas are among Chopin’s most remarkable pieces. Commonly, they were timid dances for the 19th-century bourgeoise drawing-room, but Chopin’s mazurkas are jewels of the rarest kind: They embrace a vast succession of emotions, ranging from forlorn to bold. Their simplicity is often deceptive and their ambiguity reminisce Chopin’s frayed past lost on Polish soil.

The Ballade in F Minor, the last of his four ballades, belongs to the more extensive essays of Chopin; these, too, were pioneered by him and are his answer to traditional structures such as the sonata. The F minor ballade opens with a serene introduction in D-flat major that seems to disappear into a highly idiosyncratic theme—a melody that is varied throughout the piece with the most resourceful procedures of melodic variation supported with rich yet subtle harmonies. Shortly before the final reiteration of the main theme, the section in D-flat major appears again before disintegrating into one of the most shattering climaxes in all of piano literature.

—Cody Franchetti

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, 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, 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, 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.

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 Biss on a two-year exclusive contract. His 2007 recording on that labelBeethoven Piano Sonatas, Op. 13 (“Pathetique”), Op. 28 (“Pastorale”), Op. 90, and Op.109, received an Edison Award. His newest album for EMI, Mozart Piano Concertos No. 21 and 22 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, recorded live at a performance at New York’s Queens College, was released in October 2008.

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.