CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Lang Lang

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Lang Lang, Piano

MOZART Sonata in B-flat Major, K.333
SCHUMANN Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
Traditional Chinese works
GRANADOS "Los requiebros" from Goyescas, Book I
LISZT Isolde's Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D-flat Major

Encore:
CHOPIN Etude in E Major, Op. 10, No. 3, "Tristesse"

Program Notes:

By Robert Markow

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333
Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg; died December 5, 1791, in Vienna.

Composed in 1783, Mozart’s Sonata, K. 333 was first performed at Carnegie Hall on November 21, 1948, with Anatole Kitain, piano.

The B-flat-Major Sonata, K. 333, is one of the more ambitious and technically demanding of Mozart’s 19 piano sonatas. It is laid out on a large scale, with the first two movements in sonata form and the third in sonata-rondo form (ABACABA). The assurance, technical brilliance, aristocratic poise and mastery of form in this sonata all look forward to the unbroken series of great piano concertos Mozart composed in Vienna from 1784 to 1786. Its finale even contains a fully written out cadenza, just as in a concerto, and is immediately preceded by the standard “orchestral” preparation.

The first movement is imbued with a gentle lyricism that shows the influence of J. C. Bach. But Mozart transcends the older composer’s style in the emotional intensity of his development section. The slow movement is, if anything, even more lyrically endowed than the first. The development section wanders into startling harmonic byways, and the insistent three-note figure adds a further measure of intensity to the emotional climate. The final movement is more extroverted and playful, and is built around a delightful refrain whose second part serves as a point of departure into new subjects upon each recurrence.


ROBERT SCHUMANN Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau; died July 29, 1856, in Endenich (near Bonn).

Composed in 1836–38, Schumann’s C-Major Fantasy received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 24, 1891, with Leopold Godowsky.

Schumann’s Fantasy Op. 17 represents one of the towering landmarks of the 19th-century piano repertory. It is quintessentially music of the Romantic period—sprawling in form, passionate in character, utterly personal and unorthodox in conception. Bernard Jacobson calls it “perhaps the most fruitful blend of expansive thought and lyrical content [Schumann] ever achieved.” To Franz Liszt it was “a noble work, worthy of Beethoven.”

Schumann wrote this work during his “piano decade” (the 1830s). His original plan was to donate the proceeds from sales of the music to a fund for the erection of a Beethoven memorial in Bonn, but the project fell through. He at first called it a “grand sonata” and gave the subtitles “Ruins,” “Triumphal Arch,” and “Ring of Stars” to each of the three movements. His publisher Kistner was not enthusiastic about the idea. Schumann thereupon changed the title to “Fantasie” and withdrew the subtitles, but the work was eventually published by another firm, Breitkopf und Härtel.

Schumann appended to this final version of the score an enigmatic verse by Friedrich Schlegel: “Through all the tones sounding in this colorful earth-dream, there emerges one ethereal tone for the person who listens in secret.” The reference is autobiographical. At the time Schumann began working on the Fantasy, the father of his beloved Clara Wieck had forbidden the two to meet or even to correspond. Thoroughly dejected, and for a time believing that he had lost Clara forever, Schumann found the only avenue of communication left open to him was through music. The “one ethereal tone” (or rather tones) in Schlegel’s verse became a quotation from Beethoven’s aptly-named song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). This theme is quoted directly at the end of the first movement, but throughout the movement, beginning with the opening five-note descending figure in the right hand, there are numerous scattered allusions to it. The text of the song quoted runs thus: “Take them, then, these songs I sang you, songs of passion, songs of pain. Let them like an echo tender all our love call back again.”

Schumann wrote to Clara in 1838 that “I think the first movement is more impassioned than anything I have ever written—a deep lament for you.” Indeed, the opening bars of the Fantasy surge with drama and restlessness: over a foaming, turbulent left-hand figuration is heard a long, soulful outpouring of impassioned lyricism. The movement falls into three large sections corresponding roughly to the exposition with two main themes, development and recapitulation of standard sonata form. Extremes of emotion, from wild exuberance to deepest introspection express the spiritual world to the fullest.

The second movement, in the “heroic” key of E-flat major, contains two closely intertwined ideas: a proud march theme and a rhythmic figure of alternating short and long notes. The final presentation of this rhythmic figure is one of the most fearsomely difficult passages in the entire piano repertory, with many rapid leaps to the extremes of the keyboard. The quieter central section of the movement is typically Schumannesque in its gently poetic musing, the presence of the melody in an inner voice, and the use of complex, syncopated rhythms.

The final movement evokes the spirit of the nocturne—dreamy, tender, a world without conflict. Biographer Joan Chissel sees it as “a profound benediction. Nothing in the earlier sonatas, or indeed any of [Schumann’s] previous works, springs from such deep places of the heart.” Twice the music rises to a magnificent climax and subsides. By the end, which has finally returned to C major after excursions to many foreign keys, the mood is one of quiet elation and serenity.


ENRIQUE GRANADOS “Los requiebros” from Goyescas
Born July 27, 1867, in Lérida, Spain; died March 24, 1916, at sea.

Composed in 1909, “Los requiebros” received its US premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 26, 1913, with Ernest Schelling, piano.

Goyescas, usually translated as “Scenes from Goya” or “Pieces after Goya,” was directly inspired by paintings Granados had seen in the Prado, each of which described some aspect of 18th-century Madrid. Elements of Spanish folk music combine with poetic suggestion and technical brilliance to produce some of the finest keyboard music ever to come out of Spain. Pianist Douglas Riva calls Goyescas “one of the truly great effusions of Romantic pianism.” To critic Ernest Newman, in playing this music “one has the voluptuous sense of passing the fingers through masses of richly colored jewels.”

The first number of Book I, “Los requiebros” (Flattery) was inspired by the painting Capricho, Tal para cual. Over a rhythmic foundation set to the jota (a dance from Goya’s native Aragon, two contrasting phrases from an 18th-century tonadilla (the popular musical theater of Goya’s time) are subjected to the variation technique.


FRANZ LISZT “Isolde’s Liebestod” from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
Born October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary (today in Austria); died July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany.

Composed in 1867, Liszt’s arrangement of “Isolde’s Liebestod” received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 24, 1891, with Leopold Godowsky, piano.

Liszt first met Wagner in 1841. In time they developed one of the most intimate relationships between any two major composers in the history of music, a relationship that endured until Wagner’s death in 1883. Liszt made his first Wagner transcription in 1848 (the Overture to Tannhäuser). This was followed over the years by substantial passages from every one of Wagner’s important operas, including the early Rienzi. Tristan und Isolde was the last music Liszt heard before he died, and “Tristan” was the last word he uttered on his deathbed. He was buried on the grounds of the Wagner estate, Wahnfried, in Bayreuth.

On the one hand Liszt’s version of the final pages of Tristan und Isolde is a piano reduction of the orchestral score alone, since nearly everything Isolde sings is doubled by at least one instrument. On the other hand, it is a masterful recreation with ten fingers and 88 keys of what an 80- or 90-piece orchestra is doing, with the piano attempting, with a fair degree of accuracy, to recreate sustained notes, enormously complex textures and great masses of sound. In this music, Isolde approaches total spiritual union with her beloved Tristan in a world where Death and Love are one. By the end she has collapsed in a state of rapturous transfiguration.


FRANZ LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D-flat Major
Composed in 1847 and revised in 1853, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3 received its Carnegie Hall premiere on January 23, 1892, with Ignacy Jan Paderewski, piano.

Liszt was captivated by Hungarian gypsy music all his life, right from childhood. He collected melodies he heard played at campsites and other locations. His writings are peppered with references to them and their music, and he even wrote a 450-page treatise on the subject, published in 1859. Liszt explained the title as follows: “By using the word Rhapsody, my intention is to indicate the fantastic-epic nature which I believe this music to possess. Each of these pieces seems to me to resemble part of a series of poems which all express national fervor. Liszt was mistaken in equating “gypsy” music with that of the Hungarian Magyars, as research by Bartók, Kodály, and others has proven. The themes he used actually came from urban sources, mostly popular tunes recently composed. The gypsy flavor derives from use of the so-called “gypsy scale,” sectional structure punctuated by sudden breaks, abrupt transitions, and a freely improvisatory style. Contrast and gathering momentum are the principal shaping forces of this music.

The Sixth Rhapsody is in four connected sections. It opens with declamatory music strongly suggestive of the Hungarian national character. This is followed by a brief Presto set to the strongly syncopated czardas rhythm. Then comes what many consider to be the feature of this rhapsody, the highly expressive Andante, with its strongly improvisatory character. The work concludes with a brilliant theme in rapidly articulated octaves, requiring from the pianist supple wrists, lightness of touch and uncommon endurance.

Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

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

Lang Lang, Piano
Considered by the New York Times to be the “hottest artist on the classical music planet,” 25-year-old Lang Lang has played sold-out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world and is the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Vienna Philharmonic, and all the top American orchestras. He has worked with the world’s best orchestras under the most renowned conductors, including Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gergiev, Jansons, Levine, Mehta, Maazel, Welser-Möst, Muti, Nagano, Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Salonen, Slatkin, Temirkanov, and Tilson-Thomas.

Lang Lang crossed continents several times during 2007 and performed in numerous cities around the world. In summer 2007, he performed an open-air concert with Maestro Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskaeplle for tens of thousands of people at Berlin’s Waldbühne. At the invitation of H.R.H. Prince Charles, Lang Lang performed a piano concerto commissioned in memory of the Queen Mother and recently appeared as part of Great Britain’s Royal Variety Show, which was attended by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and broadcast to 13 million people. Earlier, in the fall, he performed 10 piano concertos to mark the 10th anniversary of the Beijing International Festival as well as the 20th anniversary of his first stage appearance and performed at the opening concert for the Rome Film Festival. On December 8, 2007, Lang Lang was the guest soloist at the Nobel Prize Concert held in Stockholm, which was attended by the Nobel Laureates and members of the Royal family.

Performance highlights in 2008 include the New Year’s Eve opening of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing with Seiji Ozawa, a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic around the closing of the Euro Cup in front of the Schönbrunn Palace, and an open-air tour including concerts in New York’s Central Park, the Hollywood Bowl, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, Dresden, and Hamburg. For the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2008 New Year’s Eve concert broadcast Lang Lang performed Johann’s Strauss’s “Chinese gallop.” Most recently, Lang Lang performed at the 50th Anniversary Grammy Awards, dueling pianos with Herbie Hancock and broadcast live to 17.5 million viewers. In addition, he participates in a special concert with Cecilia Bartoli honoring Maria Malibran, makes a 12-city US recital tour, and tours to past Summer Olympic cities with the China Philharmonic. Later in the year he will perform a solo recital at the London Proms.

Lang Lang began playing piano at the age of three, won the Shenyang competition, and gave his first public recital at the age of five. When he was nine he entered Beijing’s Central Music Conservatory. He went on to win first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition and played the complete 24 Etudes of Chopin at the Beijing Concert Hall at 13. At 17, Lang Lang’s break into stardom came when he was called upon for a dramatic last-minute substitution at the Gala of the Century, at which he performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. Following this gigantic debut, he performed successful concerts around the world. He has appeared twice on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno as well as on Good Morning America and 60 Minutes. Has has been featured on every major TV network as well as in lifestyle magazines worldwide, including Vogue, GQ, Die Welt, Reader’s Digest, and People.

Lang Lang has performed for global leaders around the world including Prince Albert II of Monaco; the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan; President George H. W. Bush, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; President Hu Jin-Tao of China; President Horst Koehler of Germany; President Abdul Kalam of India; and H.R.H. Prince Charles, as well as President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

In 2004, Lang Lang was appointed International Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). As a result of his enormous popularity with children, Steinway created the Lang Lang Steinway, designed in five different types for the early musical education of children. This is the first time Steinway has used an artist’s name to produce pianos in its 150 year history. With this devotion to children in mind the Lang Lang International Music Foundation has been founded on and dedicated to expanding young audiences and inspiring the next generation of musicians through its various outreach programs. He currently serves on the Weill Music Institute (WMI) Advisory Committee as part of Carnegie Hall’s educational program and is the youngest member of Carnegie Hall’s Artistic Advisory Board. Lang Lang is proud to be the global brand ambassador for Audi automobiles and Montblanc, and is the Chairman of the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award Project.

Lang Lang is the featured soloist on the Golden Globe–winning score for The Painted Veil, composed by Alexandre Desplat, and can also be heard on the soundtrack of The Banquet composed by Tan Dun.

Lang Lang records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon/Universal. Every CD he has made has entered the top classical charts as well as many pop charts around the globe. Lang Lang’s newest release, Beethoven’s concertos Nos. 1 and 4 with the Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach, debuted at No. 1 on the Classical Billboard Chart. Lang Lang also appeared on Billboard’s New Artist chart at the highest position for any classical artist. He was recently nominated for a Grammy for his work on the new release and is the first Chinese artist to be nominated for Best Instrumental Soloist. He has also been honored by the Recording Academy’s Presidential Merit Award. He was also honored by the Recording Academy as the recipient of the 2007 Presidential Merit Award, whose past recipients include Zubin Mehta and Luciano Pavarotti. His previous release, the documentary film and soundtrack album Dragon Songs, departs from the Western music of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, and Liszt and takes Lang Lang’s audience on a groundbreaking journey through “his” China. This year a new recording with the Vienna Philharmonic of Chopin’s concertos Nos. 1 and 2 will be released.

Lang Lang has received honorary professorships at all the top conservatories in China, where he gives master classes regularly, as well as at Julliard, the Curtis Institute, and Hannover.

For further information, visit langang.com.