CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Christian Svarfvar
Anders Kilström

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Christian Svarfvar, Violin
New York Recital Debut
Anders Kilström, Piano

BRAHMS Scherzo in C Minor for Violin and Piano
BACH Solo Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001
RAVEL Sonata for Violin and Piano
YSAŸE Sonata No. 3
R. STRAUSS Sonata for Violin in E-flat Major, Op. 18

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

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:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)
Unaccompanied Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001

About the Composer

Bach spent most of his life as a church musician, dutifully turning out a prodigious quantity of organ music, cantatas, and other sacred choral works. But he was also a celebrated keyboard virtuoso, as well as a competent violinist and violist. In this capacity, he devoted as much of his time as possible to writing secular instrumental music, ranging from large-scale orchestral suites and concertos to unaccompanied works for sundry instruments.

About the Work

Bach’s six solo sonatas and partitas (three of each) have long been cornerstones of the violinist’s repertoire. Like his six suites for unaccompanied cello, they combine elements of both entertainment and didactic music. (Early editions of the solo violin works identified them as exercises.) They were composed during Bach’s tenure at Cöthen from 1717 to 1723, when he served as kapellmeister to a prince "who both knew and loved music." From this happy and productive period also date such popular works as the six "Brandenburg" Concertos, the four orchestral suites, and the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

A Closer Listen

In the G-Minor Sonata, Bach adopted the four-movement sonata structure that had been developed a few years earlier by the Italian violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli. It consisted of a slow, majestic introduction followed by a fast movement in fugal style, a lyrical interlude (in this case an Italianate Siciliana), and a brilliant finale. Notice how Bach contrives to suggest multiple polyphonic voices through the use of double stops and broken chords.

Performance Time:
approximately 17 minutes



MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)
Sonata for Violin and Piano

About the Composer

From an early age, Ravel was pegged to succeed Debussy as the poet laureate of French music. The two men shared a poetic sensibility and a fondness for sensuous, impressionistic timbres and textures, but Ravel was essentially a classicist at heart. Many of his works pay homage to composers and styles of the past, even as they incorporate ultramodern harmonies and compositional styles.

About the Work

The Violin Sonata is one of several jazz-influenced works that Ravel wrote in the 1920s, inspired by the "frightening virtuosity" of an African-American jazz band he heard in Paris. Composed in the idyllic seclusion of Montfort-l’Amaury, Ravel’s rustic retreat outside Paris, the sonata had its premiere in Paris on May 30, 1927, with Georges Enesco on the violin and Ravel himself at the piano.

A Closer Listen

Ravel, who considered the violin and piano "essentially incompatible," took pains to highlight their independence. The opening Allegretto sets the tone with its spare, diaphanous textures; impetuous lyricism; and quirky melodic twists and turns (reminiscent, Ravel said, of barnyard sounds). The gentle swing and bluesy harmonies of the second movement evoke the classic blues of W. C. Handy in a playfully refined, drawing-room manner. Listen for the fleeting allusions to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue—a work that Ravel admired—both here and in the finale. The last movement spins along like a perpetual-motion machine, the violin busy and slightly manic, the piano delicate and luminous.

Performance Time:
approximately 18 minutes


EUGÈNE YSAźE (1858–1931)
Unaccompanied Violin Sonata in D Minor, Op. 27, No. 3, "Ballade"

About the Composer

Born into a musical family in 1858, Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe studied with two of the leading virtuosos of the day, Henryk Wieniawski and Henri Vieuxtemps. By the end of the century, he had taken both Europe and America by storm. Dvoøák praised the "tremendous power and incomparable purity" of his tone. Among the many works written for or dedicated to him are Debussy’s String Quartet and Franck’s Violin Sonata. After a four-year stint as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony (1918–1922), Ysaÿe returned to Brussels and died there nine years later.

About the Work

Ysaÿe was inspired to write his Op. 27 after hearing Joseph Szigeti play one of Bach’s suites for solo violin. Each of the six solo sonatas is dedicated to one of the reigning violinists of the early 20th century. Like Bach, Ysaÿe exploited the instrument’s expressive resources to the full, using special sound effects, double- and triple-stops, scintillating passagework, and simulated polyphonic passages. The D Minor Sonata, subtitled "Ballade," is the shortest and best-known of the six. It is dedicated to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enesco.

A Closer Listen

The sonata’s single movement falls into three sections. The slow, meditative introduction is characterized by broad, romantic gestures and hollow-sounding intervals (sixths and fourths). Chains of finger-twisting double-stops, mounting in volume and intensity, lead to the main part of the sonata, a bravura showpiece built around a recurring rhythmic figure in a distinctive "snap" rhythm (short-long). After presenting the main theme, the violinist weaves a soft, rhythmically nebulous web of sound, out of which snatches of melody emerge with increasing definition. Short as it is, the sonata reflects Ysaÿe’s desire to combine "musical interest with virtuosity on a large scale."

Performance Time:
approximately 6 minutes



RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, Op. 18

About the Composer

A disciple of Wagner and Liszt, Strauss kept the embers of late romanticism burning long into the 20th century. (He died in 1949, leaving as his musical epitaph the voluptuously nostalgic Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra.) In addition to the operas and symphonic tone poems for which he is best known, Strauss produced a handful of appealing chamber works, all written before his 24th year.

About the Work

Strauss began the Op. 18 Violin Sonata in mid-1887 and finished it in the early autumn while he was vacationing with relatives in the country. Dedicated to his cousin Robert Pschorr, the sonata followed hard on the heels of his musical travelogue Aus Italien. The two works marked a watershed in Strauss’s artistic evolution. The Violin Sonata was his last piece of abstract chamber music; virtually all of his later instrumental works would be inspired by literary or philosophical programs.

A Closer Listen

The young composer’s technical prowess is on display in the Allegro, with its driving rhythms, restless chromatic harmonies, and lushly textured piano writing. Although Strauss pays lip service to traditional thematic development, the music constantly pushes against the bounds of convention. The second movement, aptly titled "Improvisation," is by turns lyrical and dramatic, the violin’s soaring cantilena underpinned by delicate, Chopin-esque filigree in the piano. The exuberant Finale is based on an athletic motif that bears a strong family resemblance to the opening theme of Strauss’s 1889 tone poem Don Juan.

—Harry Haskell

© 2009 The Carnegie Hall Corporation


Performance Time:
approximately 29 minutes


Brahms: Joseph Joachim was presented with the score of the F. A. E. Sonata the day after his performance with Robert Schumann’s orchestra in Düsseldorf. He and Clara Schumann, a world-renowned pianist, read through the work at sight. Then, to the delight of the assembled guests, Joachim played a musical guessing game and accurately identified the anonymous composers of each of the sonata’s four movements.

Bach: One measure of Bach’s genius is the infinite variety of expression he achieved within the bounds of strict formal and compositional principles. Composer J. F. Reichardt called Bach’s solo violin music "perhaps the greatest example in any art of the freedom and certainty with which a master can move even when he is in chains."

Ravel: Violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who studied with George Enesco, recalls that Ravel burst into one of his lessons, "the ink still drying on a piano-and-violin sonata which he had brought along … Then, with Ravel at the piano, [Enesco] sight-read the complex work, pausing now and then for elucidation. Ravel would have let matters rest there, but Enesco suggested that they have one more run-through, whereupon he laid the manuscript to one side and played the entire work from memory."

Ysaÿe: Ysaÿe blazed a new path in violin technique, but he was out of sympathy with the direction music had taken in the early 20th century. "All my life I have been a rebel," he remarked late in life, "yet modern composition strikes me as chaotic." Ironically, Ysaÿe introduced audiences to a number of modernist scores as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony after World War I.

Strauss: Shortly after the premiere of his Violin Sonata, Strauss explained to a fellow composer why he decided to abandon "absolute music" in favor of tone poems and other works based on extramusical programs. "Program music: real music! Absolute music: can be written with the aid of a certain routine and craftsmanship by any only moderately musical person. The first: art! The second: craft! … We present-day musicians therefore still begin with No. 2, until we come to realize that it is not music at all, and that the fundamental condition of a musical work is ‘the most precise expression of a musical idea’ which has to create its own form, every new idea its own form."

Christian Svarfvar, Violin
New York Recital Debut
CHRISTIAN SVARFVAR

Born in 1982, Christian Svarfvar began to play the violin at the age of five. He made his debut at age 12 with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and, after completing his compulsory schooling, he was admitted to the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. At age 19, he won the prestigious Ljunggrenska Competition of Music in Gothenburg, and, upon graduation from the Royal College of Music, he performed Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2004, Mr. Svarfvar was admitted to The Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert Mann and completed the school’s two-year program in a single year. Performance highlights during this period include Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and appearances with the Stockholm Sinfonietta, as well as numerous chamber music and violin recitals at Lincoln Center. In addition, Mr. Svarfvar was the subject of a documentary chronicling his life at Juilliard, which aired on Swedish television.

Mr. Svarfvar has worked such with conductors as Stefan Solyom, Hannu Lintu, Vassily Sinaisky, Douglas Boyd, Howard Shore, Marin Alsop, and Jorma Panula. Since 2007, he has served as the leader and first violinist of NEO, the National Ensemble for Contemporary Music. In addition, he plays chamber music with such artists as Julian Rachlin, Martin Fröst, Frans Helmersson, Per Tengstrand, and Tabea Zimmerman, among others. In 2008, he performed the world premiere of Howard Shore’s violin concerto Eastern Promises with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Stockholm.

In addition to Juilliard, Mr. Svarfvar has received scholarships from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the American-Scandinavian Foundation. He plays a Stradivarius Anno violin from 1709.

Anders Kilström, Piano
ANDERS KILSTRÖM

Swedish pianist Anders Kilström has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, collaborating with such conductors as Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Franz Welser-Möst, Hans Graf, and Heinz Wallberg, and appearing frequently on the Scandinavian chamber music scene. Mr Kilström has been a member of the Swedish contemporary music group KammarensembleN since 1989.

In 2008, Mr. Kilström gave the world premiere performance of Saed Haddad’s Concerto for Piano and Ensemble, and also performed John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano. He has also played Luca Francesconi’s piano concerto Islands at contemporary music festivals in Warsaw, Hong Kong, Vilnius, and Stockholm.

In recent seasons, Mr Kilström has toured with Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand; with soprano Barbara Hendricks in France and Canada; and with Swedish violinist Christian Svarfvar throughout Europe. In addition, he has appeared as soloist with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Göteborgs Symfoniker, Staatskapelle Weimar, Iceland Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.

Mr. Kilström made his Stockholm debut in 1986, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1988, he was chosen to represent Sweden at the Nordic soloist biennale in Reykjavik, Iceland. His recordings can be found on the Caprice, Daphne, Nytorp Musik, and Musica Sveciae labels.

Anders Kilström studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with Gunnar Hallhagen. He subsequently studied with György Sebök, Tatiana Nikolaieva, and Colette Zerah, and at the Banff Centre of Fine Arts in Canada. Currently, Mr Kilström balances his performing life with his duties as Professor of Piano at the the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and at Mälardalen University in Västerås.