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CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Peter Serkin
Zankel Hall
Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Peter Serkin, Piano
SCHOENBERG Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11
DEBUSSY 6 épigraphes antiques
GYÖRGY KURTÁG Selections from Játékok
·· Pen Drawing, Valediction to Erzsébet Schaár
·· (…and round and round it goes...)
·· Portrait
·· The mind will have its freedom...
CHARLES WUORINEN Scherzo
CHOPIN Polonaise in C Minor, Op. 40, No. 2
CHOPIN Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29
CHOPIN Etude in A-flat Major from Trois nouvelles études
CHOPIN Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2
SCHOENBERG Suite for Piano, Op. 25
Program Notes:
THE PROGRAM
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874–1951)
Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11
About the Composer
In a remarkable series of works between 1907 and 1909, Arnold Schoenberg developed a new approach to harmony known as atonality. Atonal music is not grounded in a single key; it uses the full chromatic spectrum of pitches, rather than the hierarchy of seven in a traditional diatonic scale, and relies on dissonant harmonies instead of consonant triads. Schoenberg’s technical innovation was the means to an expressive end: He wanted to liberate his own imagination from musical convention and tap into a deeper, darker psychological vein. In the years surrounding World War I, however, Schoenberg came to distrust his own instinctive response and sought new ways to structure his music, developing the serial method around 1923.
Serialism entails ordering the 12 pitches in the Western chromatic scale to create a row: Various operations then generate additional rows, all logically related to the original. Serial structures pervade not only his own music, but were also adopted by many composers in the 20th century, including Alban Berg and Anton Webern, as well as Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Charles Wuorinen.
About the Work
The first two pieces in Op. 11 were composed early in 1909, the third later that summer. Up to this point in his career, Schoenberg had all but avoided writing for the piano, perhaps because he himself had no great facility with the instrument. The manuscripts suggest that he composed the three pieces quickly, with no sketching and little revision.
A Closer Listen
The first piece of Op. 11 falls in a traditional A-B-A form: The theme features a three-note idea—a skip down followed by a tiny slide—heard twice, and punctuated by two low chords. This basic motive recurs throughout. The second section is marked by a faster pace and quicker figures. The opening of the second piece presents a plodding ostinato in the left hand and halting theme above. The music was to be "completely immersed in a certain mood," Schoenberg explained. The third piece escapes this melancholic, introspective mood. It is brash, virtuosic, and most importantly, athematic. There are no basic ideas or repeated motives; the music is ever changing, flowing as a stream of consciousness.
Performance Time: approximately 13 minutes
Composed in 1909, the Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 22, 1947, with William Masselos, piano.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
6 épigraphes antiques
About the Composer
If his father had his way, Claude Debussy would have been a sailor. But thanks to his aunt, Debussy started piano lessons around the age of eight; two years later he entered the Conservatoire de Paris, and in 1884, Debussy won the coveted Prix de Rome, which sent him to Italy. Back in Paris, he kept company with leading artists and intellectuals, befriending fellow composer Paul Dukas as well as the poets Stephan Mallarmé and Pierre Louÿs. By 1905, the term debussysme was commonly used. Whether as praise or scorn, it denoted certain aspects of harmony (a haziness created by modal scales) and timbre (colorful blending and doublings) deemed characteristic of Debussy’s early music.
About the Work
Nearly all of the 6 épigraphes antiques are derived from the Chansons de Bilitis (1901), incidental music Debussy composed to accompany the recitation of erotic poems by Pierre Louÿs. In 1914, he expanded the fragile fragments, turning some 100 bars of music into 273. As musicologist Robert Orledge explains, the first four épigraphes are taken directly from the chansons. Numbers five and six were more extensively reworked.
A Closer Listen
The épigraphes owe their wistful, elusive quality to the use of special scales other than the traditional major and minor; among Debussy’s favorites are the five-note pentatonic scale (heard at the very opening) and the whole-tone scale (pervasive in "Pour que la nuit …"). These scales obscure any sense of tonal direction or momentum; thus the music seems to float. Likewise, repeated bass patterns and fragmentary melodic gestures hold the more active moments (as in the fourth piece) in a state of suspended animation.
Performance Time: approximately 15 minutes
GYÖRGY KURTÁG (b. 1926)
Selections from Játékok
About the Composer
Romanian-born composer György Kurtág studied piano and composition at the Budapest Academy of Music before moving to Paris, where he attended courses taught by French composers Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. He returned to Hungary to compose his first opus—a string quartet—and spent much of his career at the Academy of Music as a professor of chamber music.
About the Work
Five of the 19 pieces in Játékok (Games) were written for the composer’s own son when he began piano lessons in 1960; the remainder were composed a decade later at the request of Hungarian pedagogue Marianne Teöke. Eventually, he produced four volumes of short studies akin to Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, a progressive series of pieces that guides the entire development of a young pianist from first stumblings to virtuosic mastery.
A Closer Listen
“Pen Drawing,” dedicated to sculptor Erzsébet Schaár, features whole-tone scales in the right hand circling above lazily repetitive patterns in the left. The blurry, watercolor “Portrait” lets pitches fade one into another to create overlapping dissonances. In contrast, “The Mind Will Have its Freedom...” is aggressively pointillist and percussive. “(... and round and round it goes)” is likewise atomistic, but presents isolated chords.
Performance Time: approximately 4 minutes
Composed in 1979, “Pen Drawing, Valediction to Erzsébet Schaár,” “(... and round and
round it goes),” “Portrait,” and “The Mind Will Have its Freedom...” from Játékok
receive their Carnegie Hall premieres this evening.
CHARLES WUORINEN (b. 1938)
About the Composer
Charles Wuorinen, a New York native, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Columbia University, before being appointed to the faculty. He rose to prominence in the 1960s with a group of virtuosic chamber works, and in 1970 became the youngest composer ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for his electronic composition Time’s Encomium. Denied tenure at Columbia, Wuorinen went on to become a full professor at Rutgers University and one of the most distinguished contemporary composers.
About the Work
Wuorinen’s music is complicated: His works are rigorously, sometimes mathematically, organized; several pieces even translate theories from fractal geometry into musical structures. As difficult as the works are compositionally and conceptually, they are often just as challenging technically. The 10-minute Scherzo, commissioned by the 92nd Street Y and written for Peter Serkin, is a 10-minute tour de force. Reviewing the premiere in April 2008, critic Anthony Tommasini aptly described the piece as “a frenetic, perpetual-motion fantasy.”
Performance Time: approximately 10 minutes
Composed in 2007, the Scherzo receives its Carnegie Hall premiere this evening.
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849)
Polonaise in C Minor, Op. 40, No. 2; Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29;
Etude in A-flat Major from Trois nouvelles études; Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62,
About the Composer
In 1831, Chopin moved to Paris, where he found himself in demand socially as well as professionally—teaching, composing, and performing in elite salons. He arrived as a composer-pianist, one being dependent on the other in the 19th century. Unlike his contemporary Franz Liszt, however, Chopin shunned the public concert stage, preferring the more intimate setting of the private salon.
About the Works
In Paris during the 1930s, the exotic was in vogue, as was the precious Romantic utterance and daring virtuosic display. Thus Chopin’s Polish heritage garnered attention along with his brilliant pianism. His works combine the two dominant modes of Romanticism: the delicate utterance, heard especially in the nocturnes, and the bravura display as in the etudes.
A Closer Listen
Chopin’s Polonaise in C Minor, Op. 40, is notable for presenting the melody in the left hand, with a pulsing accompaniment in the right. Interludes brighten the mode and the mood, but a suggested move to a major key is cut short by the abrupt ending. The Impromptu in A-flat Major falls in a clear A-B-A form, with the outer sections in perpetual motion and the minor-key middle section more melodic. The Nocturne in E Major begins with a gorgeous, simple melody—an aria, really, that incorporates virtuosic flourishes. Less virtuosic is the late Etude in A-flat Major, which presents a subtle technical challenge: The melody must emerge in the counterpoint between the repeated chords in the right hand and rolling accompaniment in the left.
Performance Time: approximately 7 minutes
Composed in 1839, the Polonaise in C Minor, Op. 40, No. 2, received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 11, 1910, with Josef Hofmann, piano
Performance Time: approximately 4 minutes
Composed around 1837, the Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 4, 1891, with Franz Rummel, piano.
Performance Time: approximately 3 minutes
Composed between 1839 and 1840, the Etude in A-flat Major from Trois nouvelles études received its Carnegie Hall premiere on February 6, 1921, with Josef Hofmann, piano.
Performance Time: approximately 6 minutes
Composed in 1846, the Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Lyceum (now Zankel Hall) on December 17, 1896, with Howard Brockway, piano.
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
Suite for Piano, Op. 25
About the Work
Op. 25 is not only atonal, but it is also serial. For the first time, Schoenberg bases all movements of a piece on a single row—that is, on a single, ordered set of all 12 pitches. “The real meaning of my aim,” Schoenberg explained, “was unity and regularity, which unconsciously had led me this way.” The unconscious impulse of free atonality is thus disciplined by conscious logical ordering.
A Closer Listen
Without the familiar rhetoric of traditional tonality, other musical dimensions structure the pieces in Op. 25—at least for the listener. (Schoenberg did not expect audiences to hear his serial rows.) Toe-tappingly regular rhythms enliven the Gavotte; the Musette features a rustic drone in the right hand, characteristic of the genre, along with bird-like repeated chords. The Intermezzo is built around a series of ostinatos; the trio of the Menuett features a mirror canon: The left hand begins with a series of upward leaps, and the right answers with downward ones.
Performance Time: approximately 15 minutes
Composed between 1921 and 1923, the Suite for Piano, Op. 25 received its Carnegie Hall premiere on April 5, 1929, with Oscar Ziegler, piano.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© The Carnegie Hall Corporation
Meet the Artists
Peter Serkin, Piano
PETER SERKIN
An artist of passion and integrity, distinguished American pianist Peter Serkin is one of today’s most thoughtful and individualistic musicians. Throughout his career, he has conveyed the essence of five centuries of repertoire, and his performances with symphony orchestras, recital appearances, chamber music collaborations, and recordings are respected worldwide.
Mr. Serkin’s musical heritage extends back several generations: His grandfather was violinist-composer Adolf Busch and his father pianist Rudolf Serkin. In 1958, at age 11, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with his father, as well as Lee Luvisi and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. He later continued his studies with Ernst Oster, Marcel Moyse, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.
In 1959, Mr. Serkin made his Marlboro Music Festival and New York City debuts with conductor Alexander Schneider; invitations to perform in Carnegie Hall with the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras under George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, respectively, followed. He has since performed with the world’s major orchestras under such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Herbert Blomstedt, and Christoph Eschenbach.
A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Serkin has collaborated with Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank; Yo-Yo Ma; the Budapest, Guarneri, and Orion string quartets; and TASHI, of which he was a founding member.
As a proponent of major 20th- and 21st-century composers, Mr. Serkin has performed many important world premieres, including those by Tōru Takemitsu, Peter Lieberson, Oliver Knussen, and Alexander Goehr, all of which were written for him. Most recently, Mr. Serkin played the world premieres of Charles Wuorinen’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; a solo work by Elliott Carter; and another Wuorinen work for piano and orchestra with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Last season, he premiered Wuorinen’s Fifth Piano Concerto with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Wuorinen’s new piano quintet with the Brentano String Quartet.
Highlights of Mr. Serkin’s recent engagements include performances with the New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia, Minnesota, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, Saint Louis, Toronto, and Atlanta orchestras and symphonies, as well as well recitals at Kennedy Center, Orchestra Hall (Chicago), and 92nd Street Y. He also performs with TASHI’s original members across the US, and appears at Ravinia, Aspen, Ojai, Caramoor, and Tanglewood, among other festivals.
Mr. Serkin returned to Japan in September 2007 to play recitals that featured the works of Takemitsu and Bach in honor of the 10th anniversary of Takemitsu’s death, and appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, and the Bamberg Symphony.
Reflecting, his distinctive musical vision, Mr. Serkin’s recordings, released on such labels as Koch Records and BMG, feature works by Webern, Wolpe, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Knussen, Lieberson, and Wuorinen, as well as Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, and Henze in collaborations with Pamela Frank, Guarneri String Quartet, András Schiff, and the London Sinfonietta, among others. His Grammy-nominated recordings include the six Mozart concertos composed in 1784 with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra, which also received the Deutsche Schallplatten.
Mr. Serkin teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music and at the Longy School of Music. The father of five children, he resides in Massachusetts with his wife, Regina.
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