CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Radu Lupu

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Radu Lupu, Piano

SCHUBERT Sonata in D Major, D.850
DEBUSSY Preludes, Book I

Encores:
DEBUSSY "La Puerta del vino" from Preludes, Book II
SCHUBERT FRANZ SCHUBERT Moderato in C-sharp Minor from Moments musicaux, D.780

Program Notes:

By Bernard Jacobson

FRANZ SCHUBERT Sonata in D Major, D. 850
Born January 31, 1897, in Vienna; died there November 19, 1828.

Composed between August 18 and September 4, 1825, in Bad Gastein (near Salzburg), the D-Major Sonata, D. 850, was first performed at Carnegie Hall on November 19, 1905, with Alfred Reisenauer, piano.

In Schubert’s brilliant and inventive D-Major Sonata of 1825, the primacy of musical motion over melody suggested in the introductory note above is especially striking in the first movement. If you look in this Allegro for anything that could be called a “beautiful tune,” you will look in vain. The elements that make it up are emphatic chords, insistently repeated four-note figures (again chordal), recurring two-note motifs usually on adjacent tones, and a plethora of rapid triplet and dotted rhythms, all of them joining forces to create an urgent forward impulse that is all but unrelenting. Wile it is true that, just under a minute into the movement, at the juncture we think of as the second subject or subordinate theme, there is a little leaping figure that could be termed “melodic”—but it does nothing to stem the prevailing sense of urgency, and it is anything but the sort of tune that anyone could sing without an appearance of self-parody, for this is unequivocally instrumental rather than vocal writing. In such a context, the sudden onset immediately afterward of seven highly rhetorical measures marked to be played a little more slowly takes on a quite disproportionate importance as the only element that halts for a moment the music’s irrepressible onward rush. (Brian Newbould, in his splendid monograph Schubert: The Music and the Man, has pointed out how this passage “skips up and down huge intervals as a yodeler might do on the mountains Schubert described when writing about his Bad Gastein visit.) Given the extraordinary singleness of purpose that otherwise dominates the movement, it follows that exposition and development are less obviously differentiated in style than is usually the case in Classical sonata-form movements. The development does begin with an eight-measure paragraph in B-flat major that fashions the previously scattered motivic elements for an instant into something like a formal tune—Mozart did something similar at this point in the last movement of his C-Major Sonata, K. 330—but Schubert quickly dissolves the momentary sense of melodic coalescence and proceeds instead to build a formidable climax by throwing the repeated-note chordal cell into vehement conflict with the running triplet figures. In the coda, a slightly faster recurrence of the eight-measure paragraph from the start of the development, this time in the home D Major, leads to a triple-forte conclusion of uncompromising finality.

After so single-minded an opening, the three movements that follow take subtly different approaches to their various thematic materials. The second movement, marked Con moto (“With movement”) and thus not really slow but only slowish, begins with an unimpeachably tuneful theme with an opening clause set forth in an equally straightforward eight-measure pattern. But no sooner do we reach the theme’s second limb than Schubert undermines this rhythmic regularity by throwing in four-note phrases that conflict with the basic 3/4 pulse. As the movement goes on its searching way, rhythmic simplicity is more and more set aside in favor of long chains of syncopations that make it hard at times to remember exactly where we are in relation to the basic meter, while the pianist’s two hands are also brought into increasingly insistent mutual independence. Near the end, rapid alternations of pitch, with fortissimo chords at the extremes of the keyboard interspersed with quieter echoes in the middle register, are almost reminiscent of the two-manual effects of harpsichord music a century earlier. Here, however, the device evokes rather a kind of argument between two dramatic characters, resolved only by the hushed intensity of the triple-piano closing measures.

In the scherzo, rhythm is again the primary interest, the Ländler meter constantly suggesting the lilting effect of a deux temps waltz, where every other measure prolongs its last note into the measure that follows. In the second section, we are treated to a lazily swinging tune over a 1-2-3 bass. This is music, a potent blend of nostalgia and insouciant charm, that it would take a more than ordinarily austere curmudgeon to listen to without cracking a smile–and Schubert attests to the attraction it exerted on him by making it the topic of an unusually extensive coda after the written-out return of the scherzo. The central trio section, meanwhile, beginning in a luminous G-Major pianissimo, eschews melodic interest to concentrate on a long series of chords in frequently changing harmony. Each change has the effect of opening a window, like one of Keats’s “charmed magic casements,” on a different world; and just before the end of each section a momentary pause, written over the bar-line, is like a suddenly in-drawing of breath.

No less fresh and individual is the moderately paced concluding Rondo. The opening theme is indeed a simple melody, in Schubert’s most apparently innocent vein, but its delicately prancing phrases soon gather pace in shorter note-values that echo the insistent forward motion of the first movement. After these games, a pianissimo episode in a slightly slower tempo sounds more like something from one of Schubert’s impromptus than anything we would expect to find in a sonata. But in due course cohesion is imposed with masterly subtlety, the gap between the materials of the contrasted sections narrowed in an allusive manner that shows their themes to be by no means unrelated. The final surprise is a ppp ending as seemingly hesitant and understated as the close of the first movement was emphatic.


CLAUDE DEBUSSY Preludes, Book I
Born August 22, 1862, in St. Germain-en-Laye, France; died March 25, 1918, in Paris.

Debussy began sketching the Preludes in 1907 or 1908 and did most of the work of composing Book 1 between December 1909 and February 1910. He gave the first performance of Nos. 1, 2, 10, and 11 on May 5 of the latter year. Nos. 5, 8, and 9 were first performed by Ricardo Viñes on January 14, 1911, and Nos. 3 and 4 by Franz Liebich two days later. The composer, again, gave the first performance of No. 6 on March 29, 1911. All of these performances were given in Paris.

The first complete Carnegie Hall performance of Book I of Debussy’s Preludes took place on January 23, 1929, with Walter Gieseking; the first Carnegie Hall performance of any Prelude from Book I took place on March 31, 1914, when William Murdoch played “La Cathédrale engloutie.”

No less unhelpful than the “Impressionist” label that Debussy rejected is the notion that his Preludes are in any detailed way “about” the topics adumbrated in their titles. Those titles, for one thing, are given not at the beginning of each prelude, but at the end, in parentheses, like a seemingly unwilling concession to illustrative association. To programmatic interpretations Debussy retorted, “It’s not a picture postcard!” There are nevertheless certain references that it may be helpful to identify. The title of No. 4 is taken from Baudelaire’s Harmonie du soir, which Debussy also used as a song text in the second of his Five Poems of Baudelaire. No. 8, La fille aux cheveux de lin, is a poem by Leconte de Lisle that Debussy had set as a song in 1882. And No. 11, La danse de Puck, stems from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

But for the rest it is less useful to enumerate literary or other artistic references than to consider some of the specific nuances suggested by Debussy’s musical directions. As Alfred Cortot suggested, “Let us realize the nuances, let us play in tempo. That will suffice.” In No. 1, the principal marking, “Lent et grave” (“Slow and grave”) is supplemented by doux et soutenu (“soft [or gentle] and sustained”), and the music is peppered with instructions to play pp, più pp, più p dim., and ppp. The rhythm of No. 2 is to be “without rigor and caressing. No. 3, marked Animé, is to be played “as lightly as possible,” and again piano, pianissimo, and ppp markings predominate. No. 4 is to be “harmonious and supple”; a passage two-thirds of the way through is marked “tranquil and floating,” and the last few measures carry the instructions, “like a distant sounding of horns” and “still more distant and more held back.” Markings like “joyous and light” and “with the freedom of a folk song” are found in No. 5, whose ending is “luminous” and “very much held back.” The halting rhythm of the “Footsteps in the snow” in No. 6 “should have the sound-value of a sad frozen landscape”; near the end we find a passage that is to be “like a tender and sad regret.” No. 7, “Animated and tumultuous,” is momentarily held up by a pianissimo passage marked “plaintive and far off,” and later the tempo becomes “Furious and rapid.” The “Very calm and gently expressive” course of No. 8 is “without rigor,” and yet another pianissimo ending is to be “murmured and held back little by little.”

More specific is No. 9’s evocation of the “interrupted serenade” of its title: the opening measures are “as in preluding” and “like a guitar”; later the color becomes “blurred” and the expression “slightly suppliant,” then “enraged,” and finally, “soft and harmonious,” the piece “recedes into the distance.” The “Profoundly calm” No. 10, the celebrated evocation of the Breton legend of the cathedral in the town of Ys as it sinks into the sea, opens “in a gently sonorous mist,” from which it then “emerges little by little”; the first big climax is “sonorous without hardness,” exactly in accordance with the French pianist Marguerite Long’s description of Debussy’s playing (“He nearly always played in half-tint, but with a full and intense sonority without any hardness in the attack”); a latter pianissimo is “floating and muted,” and the closing measures return to “the sonority of the opening.” “Puck’s Dance,” in No. 11, has “airy” moments, and ends “rapid and vanishing.” Finally, No. 12’s “Minstrels” are portrayed “nervous and with humor,” and then “mocking,” and a repeated-note passage two-thirds of the way through is “like a drum.”

The Preludes may create their own forms, but they are very strongly and clearly structured. As surely, moreover, as his music is not formless, Debussy is also no nerveless ninny. There is a steel thread of tensile strength running through his most luxuriant textures and ecstatic imaginings, and in regard to this quality he may be said to have suffered very much like Chopin from the distortions inflicted by romantically self-indulgent performance.

Copyright © 2007 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Bernard Jacobson writes frequently about classical music and is the author of
A Polish Renaissance, part of the 20th-Century Composers series published
by Phaidon Press.

Radu Lupu, Piano
Radu Lupu is firmly established as one of the most important musicians of his generation and is widely acknowledged as a leading interpreter of the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Schubert. Since winning the prestigious Van Cliburn (1966) and Leeds piano competitions (1969), Mr. Lupu has regularly performed as soloist and recitalist in the musical capitals and major festivals of Europe and the United States. He has appeared many times with the Berliner Philharmoniker since his debut with that orchestra at the 1978 Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan, and with the Vienna Philharmonic, including the opening concert of the 1986 Salzburg Festival under Riccardo Muti. He is also a frequent visitor to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and all of the major London orchestras.

Mr. Lupu’s first major American appearances were in 1972 with the Cleveland Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim in New York and with the Chicago Symphony led by Carlo Maria Giulini. Concerts with the New York Philharmonic soon followed, and Mr. Lupu has since appeared with all of the foremost American orchestras. This season, his annual winter tour will include concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra (in Cleveland and Miami), the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Louis Symphony, as well as a US recital tour.

At the request of Sir Colin Davis, who celebrated his 80th birthday with the New York Philharmonic in 2007, Mr. Lupu appeared in a special series of concerts devoted to concertos of Mozart. Additionally in the 2006–07 season, he performed with the Boston, San Francisco, and Saint Louis symphonies.

Highlights of his 2005–06 US tour included recitals in Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas City, and Ottawa, as well as a duo piano recital in Chicago and Carnegie Hall with Daniel Barenboim in a program focused on works of Mozart. In addition, he performed with the orchestras of Houston, Montreal, and Chicago, and with Berlin’s Staatskapelle Orchestra conducted by Mr. Barenboim in Carnegie Hall.

During the 2004–05 season, Mr. Lupu performed the complete cycle of Beethoven piano concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, which they repeated together in Carnegie Hall. Recent seasons have featured recitals in New York (Carnegie Hall), Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Ft. Worth as well as performances with the Atlanta Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony (at Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall), the Cincinnati Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic.

Mr. Lupu has made more than 20 recordings for London/Decca, including the complete Beethoven concertos with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, the complete Mozart violin and piano sonatas with Szymon Goldberg, and numerous solo recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. His most recent London/Decca releases are of Schubert’s Sonatas, D. 960 and 664, which won a Grammy Award in 1995, and of Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and Humoresque, which won an Edison Award in 1995. He has also made two recordings with pianist Murray Perahia (Sony Classical) and two albums of Schubert lieder with soprano Barbara Hendricks (EMI). In 1998, for Teldec, he joined Daniel Barenboim for a disc of Schubert works for piano four hands. In 2001 Decca released a two-CD set of Schubert’s music for violin and piano, featuring Mr. Lupu together with Szymon Goldberg.

Born in Romania in 1945, Mr. Lupu began studying the piano at the age of six with Lia Busuioseanu. He made his public debut with a complete program of his own music at age 12, continuing his studies for several years with Florica Muzicescu and Cella Delavrance. In 1961 he won a scholarship to the Moscow State Conservatory where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus and his son, Stanislav Neuhaus. During his seven years at the Moscow Conservatory he won first prize in the 1967 Enescu International Competition in addition to the Van Cliburn and Leeds International competitions. In 1989 he was awarded the prestigious “Abbiati” prize given by the Italian Critics’ Association. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Premio Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli award.