CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Llŷr Williams

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Llŷr Williams, Piano
New York Recital Debut

SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in C Minor, D. 958
DEBUSSY Estampes
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition

Encore:
CHOPIN Ballade in A-flat Major, Op. 47

The Distinctive Debuts series is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for the presentation of young artists generously provided by The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation.

Additional endowment support for international outreach has been provided by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.

Program Notes:

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828) Piano Sonata in C Minor, D. 958

The Sonata in C Minor was the first and shortest of the three sonatas Schubert composed in the last year of his life—the year he outlived Beethoven, of whom he must have been thinking here. Not only is the sonata in one of Beethoven’s favorite keys; it also draws from that key something of Beethovenian drama and even begins with a reference to the opening of Beethoven’s 32 Variations in the same key. At the same time, of course, there are the harmonic slips into areas of touching intimacy where Schubert is on his own.

There are several such slips in the first movement, whose stormy opening is contrasted with lyrical music in a major key. Extended in the manner of a set of variations, this songful second subject cannot quite forget what came before it, and the exposition ends with a beautiful union of the movement’s two main ideas. The development seems to be seeking for new ways to balance these—or to escape from them, for it ends with running chromatic scales. What follows, inevitably, is not escape but return, in a full reprise of the exposition, after which a substantial coda returns to the material of the development.

The slow movement offers a different balance between song and storm, in an ABABA form. Song, in the A sections, turns in other directions at the ends of strains. Storm is chromatic, relentless, and marked by sudden dynamic changes.

Restlessness continues into the third movement, as do sudden stops. The first part of the minuet has the ground falling from under our feet; the second goes a long way round to restore that ground. The trio recalls the key of the slow movement, but in a darker tone.

The driving rhythm of the tarantella sends the work home, in a big sonata-form finale resembling the hell-bent gallop that ends the composer’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet. As before in this sonata, there are luminous moves from minor to major, and exploratory forays through different harmonic colors. There are also moments, again, when dynamism is interrupted, or put into the background, while the music moves into song. The urgency, however, is always there, ready to take over again, and the compass needle remains pointed firmly at the home key.


CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) Estampes

In this set of “prints,” composed in 1903, Debussy at last created pure piano music that has the kind of evocative sound poetry he had been producing in song accompaniments for well over a decade. This is music in color: maybe the pale gold and blue the composer stipulated for the lettering on the cover.

By means of pentatonic motifs and separate time layers, slow and fast, Pagodes suggests East Asian music—specifically the Javanese music Debussy had heard at the world exposition in Paris in 1889. Perhaps its up-and-down arpeggios also sketch the characteristic roof lines of pagodas, mirrored in a gently rippling temple pool—though the melodies that sound over these reflections prove that the same pentatonic structure is shared with songs and games from nearer home.

La Soirée dans Grenade (“The Evening in Granada”) is one of innumerable French homages to the magic of Spain, and especially to the sultry tug of the habanera, whose rhythm sounds almost throughout in a chiming monotone. Debussy may also have been thinking of his destined performer, to whom he later dedicated Poissons d’or. “If this isn’t exactly the music they play in Granada,” he wrote to his writer friend Pierre Louÿs, “so much the worse for Granada.”

So much the worse, one might add, for gardens in the rain if they do not sound like Jardins sous la pluie, with torrents of toccata-style figuration and the flowers, or sunlight, gleaming through in a pair of French children’s songs ingeniously combined.

—Paul Griffiths

Paul Griffiths is the author of numerous books on music, including The New Penguin Dictionary of Music and, most recently, A Concise History of Western Music (Cambridge University Press).


MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839–1881) Pictures at an Exhibition

When Viktor Hartmann, an artist, designer, and sculptor, died of a heart attack in 1873, his close friend Modest Mussorgsky was devastated. Mussorgsky was further plagued with feelings of guilt, recalling that, had he run for a doctor rather than trying to comfort the stricken Hartmann, the artist might have lived. The composer slipped into a depression aggravated by his alcohol problem.

Vladimir Stassov, a music critic and friend of both Mussorgsky and Hartmann, arranged an exhibit of about four hundred works by the deceased artist, hoping that this tribute might in some way relieve Mussorgsky's depression. The exhibition opened in January 1874, at the St. Petersburg Society of Architects. Mussorgsky was inspired to create a suite of ten musical portraits for piano, his only significant work for this instrument, written in a single burst of creative energy in June 1874. Not published until 1886, Pictures at an Exhibition did not achieve popularity in any form until Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in 1923 at the request of conductor Serge Koussevitzky. The first orchestral performance was given later that same year, conducted by Koussevitzky at the Paris Opera. Since then, Pictures has become one of the most popular staples in the repertory for orchestras and pianists alike.

Each musical portrait is based on one of Hartmann's paintings. A “Promenade,” an imaginary stroll through the picture gallery, opens the work with a theme that returns several times as the listener moves from movement to movement, each depicting musically a different painting or group of paintings. These movements are:

Gnomus. A child's toy made of wood for the Christmas tree at the Artists' Club, styled after a small, grotesque gnome with gnarled legs and erratic hopping movements.

The Old Castle. A watercolor of a troubadour singing in front of a medieval castle.

Tuileries. A lively picture of children scampering about, engaged in horseplay while their nannies chatter.

Bydlo. On giant, lumbering wheels, an oxcart comes into view, its driver singing a folk song.

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. Cheeping baby canaries dance about, still enclosed in their shells, with their wings and legs protruding.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle. Critic Vladimir Stassov felt the title of this movement to be so anti-Semitic that he had it renamed “Two Polish Jews, One Rich, the Other Poor.” The rich one is musically portrayed by an exotic melody, the poor by a
fast muted trumpet.

The Marketplace at Limoges. Another lively, bustling French scene. Here, rather than children, we find the rapid chatter, babble, and arguments of housewives. At the height of a particularly noisy fracas, the music suddenly plunges into the next movement.

Catacombs—Cum mortuis in lingua mortua. Hartmann himself, lantern in hand, explores the subterranean passages of Paris. Eerie, ominous sounds are heard in the ensuing “Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua” (“With the dead in a dead language”). To a distorted version of the “Promenade” theme, the music depicts a grisly sight: “Hartmann's creative spirit leads me,” wrote Mussorgsky, “to the place of skulls and [Hartmann] calls to them—the skulls begin to glow faintly from within.”

Baba Yaga's Hut on Chicken Legs. In Hartmann's painting, the home of the fabled Russian witch Baba Yaga appears as a fantastic bronze clock face, mounted on chicken legs. Mussorgsky prefers to portray the witch's ride through the air in her mortar, steering with a pestle. At the height of the dizzying ride, she seems to sail right out of the picture into “The Great Gate At Kiev.”

The Great Gate At Kiev. This depicts Hartmann's architectural design for a gate (never built) to commemorate Alexander II's narrow escape from an assassination attempt in Kiev.

—Robert Markow

Robert Markow writes program notes for orchestras and concert societies across North America; he is also a contributor to American Record Guide, Opera News, Opera, and The Strad.


© 2009 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Llŷr Williams, Piano
New York Recital Debut
Welsh pianist Llŷr Williams brings extraordinary musical intelligence to his work as a soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician. He has performed with such orchestras as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales (with whom he successfully toured the US), Sinfonia Cymru, London Mozart Players, Hallé Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. He has performed at the BBC Proms in London and has given many remarkable performances at the Edinburgh Festival.

This season brings a busy mix of recitals, as well as concerto and chamber music performances. Williams has toured in Europe with Mitsuko Uchida, Christian Poltéra, Soovin Kim, and Martin Fröst, as part of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust's celebration of its fifth anniversary, with stops at such venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. He will give a series of four concerts for BBC Radio 3 in Cardiff to celebrate the opening of its new venue: two solo recitals, one concert with the Leopold String Trio, and one with bass Shen Yang. Williams and violinist, Alexander Janiczek, will continue their successful Beethoven series at Perth Concert Hall with four concerts. He will also be working the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and will return to I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan to work with Antonello Manacorda and Alexander Janiczek, performing Berg’s Chamber Concerto and Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto. Williams will make his recital debuts at the Lucerne Festival and in Wigmore Hall's main recital series; tonight’s performance marks his Carnegie Hall debut. In the summer of 2009, he will be one of the official accompanists for the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

In 2005 Williams was awarded the MIDEM Classique Outstanding Young Artist Award in partnership with the International Artist Managers’ Association. His first commercial CD featuring Chopin’s Preludes was released in March 2006 on the Quartz label. He is also the subject of a film Y Pianydd—Llŷr Williams by Opus TF for S4C (the Welsh language broadcaster), which recently won a Welsh BAFTA for Best Music Program. It also won an award at the Celtic Media Festival, held on the Isle of Skye, for Best Entertainment Program.

Born in 1976 in Pentrebychan, North Wales, Llŷr Williams studied music at The Queen’s College, Oxford, graduating in 1998 with a first class alpha degree. He went on to take up a postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won every prize and award. From 2000 to 2002, he was a “Shinn” Fellow at the Academy, coaching singers and studying conducting. He was also an active member of the Live Music Now! program for several years. In 2002 Williams was selected for the Young Concert Artists Trust program. He received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2004.