CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Stephen Hough

Zankel Hall
Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Stephen Hough, Piano

MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses, Op. 54
WEBERN Variations, Op. 27
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

WEBER Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65
CHOPIN Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2
CHOPIN Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1
SAINT-SAËNS Valse nonchalante in D-flat Major, Op. 110
CHABRIER Feuillet d’album
DEBUSSY La Plus que lente
LISZT Valse oubliée No. 1
LISZT Mephisto Waltz No. 1

Encores:
GRIEG "Notturno," Op. 54, No. 4
LEO DELIBES / STEPHEN HOUGH Pizzicati
HOUGH Osmanthus Romp
MOMPOU Jeunes filles au jardin

Program Notes:

By Nick Romeo

FELIX MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses
Born February 3, 1809, in Hamburg; died November 4, 1847, in Leipzig.

Composed in 1841, Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses were first performed at Carengie Hall on December 19, 1891, with Ignacy Jan Paderewski, piano

Popular memory rarely grants a composer more than a first name or two, but Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, better known as Mendelssohn, asks us to remember a staggering five words. This barrage of names reflected the fragile acceptance of a Jewish family in early-19th-century Prussia. Felix was given the additional name Jakob Ludwig when he was secretly baptized in 1816. The name Bartholdy, borrowed from a family dairy farm, was added when his parents converted to the Protestant faith in 1822. As the lyric poet Heine later said in defense of his own switch from Judaism to Protestant Christianity, conversion was “the ticket of admission into European culture.” The young Mendelssohn certainly received the ample gifts of European culture. By his early teens he read and translated Latin, studied Euclid, composed and performed brilliantly as a pianist, and even found time to write a 450-verse, mock-heroic poem in dactylic hexameter.

Mendelssohn fulfilled the promise of this precocious childhood with many mature masterworks, including the Variations sérieuses, composed in the summer of 1841. The work was part of an album published to raise funds for a Beethoven monument in Bonn. Mendelssohn had been drawn to Beethoven’s music from a young age; as a teenager he was deeply influenced by hearing Beethoven’s late string quartets. Like Beethoven’s “Serioso” string quartet, Mendelssohn’s variations proclaim their character in the title. The opening theme, with its rising tritone above descending minor chords, does indeed evoke a serious mood, but the following variations range from furious passion to austere fugal writing before concluding with the haunting D-minor of the opening theme.


ANTON WEBERN Variations, Op. 27
Born December 3, 1883, in Vienna; died September 15, 1945, in Mittersill, Austria.

Composed in 1935–36, Webern’s Variations, Op. 27, were first performed at Carnegie Hall on 11/22/1947, with William Masselos, piano.

Where Mendeslssohn added, Webern removed. He was born Anton Von Webern, but dropped the “Von” in 1918 to comply with an edict of the Austrian government that prohibited titles. His Op. 27 Variations, composed in 1935–36, are also shorter than Mendelssohn’s and unadorned with any descriptive adjectives in the title. The variations show a characteristic fascination with symmetry; he manipulates a row, or series of notes, to form patterns that are perhaps more apparent on the page than in performance. Yet the structural intricacy of the variations was the very quality that Webern felt should give rise to deep expressiveness in the performance of his music.


LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111
Baptized December 17, 1770, in Bonn; died March 27, 1827, in Vienna.

Completed on January 13, 1822, the Sonata in C Minor, Op. 111, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in the Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 7, 1891, with Arthur Friedheim, piano.

Though the romantic myth of Beethoven depicts a pure artist who stopped composing only to rip tufts of hair from his anguished head, he also engaged in a long legal squabble for custody of his nephew that probably caused just as much anguish and hair-ripping as any great symphony. In 1820, after the legal bickering had severely diminished his productivity, Beethoven resolved to write three piano sonatas in three months. The goal proved too ambitious, but he did complete three last piano sonatas, finishing his final one, Op.111, in 1822. Unlike a typical three-movement classical sonata, Beethoven’s last sonata consists of only two spacious movements, the first fugal and the second a theme and variations. After the C-minor tempest of the first movement, the C-major tranquility of the second feels majestic and serene. Certain ethereal passages amply justify Beethoven’s typically immodest claim that “he that divines the secret of my music is delivered from the misery that haunts the world.”


CARL MARIA VON WEBER Invitation to the Dance
Born November 19, 1786, in Eutin; died June 5, 1826, in London.

Composed in 1819, Invitation to the Dance received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 1, 1898, with Moriz Rosenthal.

Long before its appearance in the concert hall, the waltz was a social dance that allowed young couples to touch each other. Its immense popularity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to tracts and pamphlets denouncing its corrupting influence on the morals of the young. Describing waltzing in 1813, Byron wrote of “hands which may freely range in public sight where ne’er before.” In addition to having even more names than Mendelssohn, the German composer Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber is often credited with writing the first concert waltz, his Invitation to the Dance. Though the waltz, composed in 1819, was meant to be heard rather than danced to, it still contains the rhythmic charm of its predecessors. Weber also intended to conjure the dance hall; his programmatic outline of the work paraphrases the music with snippets like these: “the lady’s evasive reply—his pressing invitation—her consent.”



FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2; Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1
Born March 1, 1810, in ¯elazowa Wola, near Warsaw; died October 17, 1849, in Paris.

Composed in 1847 and 1835, respectively, the Waltzes in C-sharp Minor and A-flat Major received their Carnegie Hall premieres on November 17, 1891, and January 20, 1900, with Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

Chopin’s Waltzes in C-sharp Minor and A-flat Major are more akin to the aristocratic Paris salons Chopin frequented than the German dance hall. Rather than providing a pretext for lusty behavior in 3/4 time, Chopin’s waltzes channel attention to the music itself, either its formal perfection or the technical brilliance of its performance. The Waltz in C-sharp minor, composed just two years before his death in 1849, is so beautifully melancholy that thoughts of dancing seem impossible. Yet the piece achieves much of its doleful power through artful syncopations and languid pauses that break or distend the basic waltz rhythm. With its elegant trills and rapid scales, the A-flat-major “Grande Valse Brilliante” of 1835 is indeed grand and brilliant, but the songful sixths of the first theme are also unexpectedly earnest and moving.


CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS Valse nonchalante
Born October 9, 1835, in Paris; died December 16, 1921, in Algiers.

Composed in 1899, the Valse nonchalante was first performed at Carnegie Hall on November 18, 1906, with Camille Saint-Saëns, piano.

Like Mendelssohn, Camille Saint-Saëns was a mixture of prodigy and polymath whose interests ranged far beyond music. He studied Latin and Greek, philosophy and religion, archaeology and astronomy. The older French composer Hector Berlioz famously remarked that “he knows everything but lacks inexperience.” The Valse nonchalante of 1899 shows a lovely instance of late French Romanticism in a musical world that had already experienced the shock of Wagner.


EMMANUEL CHABRIER Feuillet d’album
Born January 18, 1841, in Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme, France; died September 13, 1894, in Paris.

Composed in 1891, Feuillet d’album receives its Carnegie Hall premiere at tonight’s performance.

Though easily confused with an imported cheese, Emmanuel Chabrier was actually a 19th-century French composer. He worked as a civil servant for 19 years and in his spare time composed music and befriended other French artists like the poet Paul Verlaine and the painter Edouard Manet. His 1891 piece Feuillet d’album (“Album Leaf”), written after he was able to quit the civil service and pursue music exclusively, is a delicate and mournful wash of sound. Like many pieces in his small but influential body of music, the expanded harmonies and fluid waves of notes seem to anticipate later piano music by Ravel and Debussy.


CLAUDE DEBUSSY La plus que lente
Born August 22, 1862, in Saint Germain-en-Laye, France; died March 25, 1918, in Paris.

Composed in 1910, La plus que lente received its Carnegie Hall premiere on March 118, 1928, with Homer Samuels, piano.

Debussy was an omnivorous consumer of musical traditions and styles. His influences ranged from Borodin to Chabrier and from Wagner to the Javanese gamelan. He was also fascinated by the French symbolist poets and the haunted fictions of Edgar Allan Poe. His 1910 waltz La plus que lente, roughly translatable as “The Even Slower One,” is often seen as a droll parody of the slow waltzes popular in Paris at the time. The playful title certainly makes it easy to hear the perfumed languor and melodrama of the waltz as slyly ironic.


FRANZ LISZT Valse oubliée No. 1; Mephisto Waltz No. 1
Born October 22, 1811, in Raiding (Doborján), Hungary; died July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth.

Composed in 1881, the Valse oubliée No. 1 was first performed at Carengie Hall on December 3, 1928, with Vladimir Horowitz; the Mephisto Waltz No. 1, composed in 1858–61, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Recital Hall (now Zankel Hall) on April 17, 1891, with Arthur Friedheim.

Though Franz Liszt was one of the 19th century’s most technically brilliant pianists, one of his favorite aphorisms for his students was that “technique should create itself from spirit, not from mechanics.” For a young piano pupil watching Liszt effortlessly play rapid double octaves, this might not have been the most helpful advice. Then again, his piano students adored him and he was an enormously influential pedagogue who trained hundreds of pianists. The sardonic self-pity of the title of his 1881 Valse oubliée No. 1 (Forgotten Waltz) belies a work that is memorable enough, though not as vividly seductive as the devilish frenzy of the Mephisto Waltz No. 1. The first Mephisto Waltz, composed between 1858 and 1861, illustrates an episode from the Faust story in which Mephistopheles crashes a wedding party at an inn by playing a whirling dance on the violin followed by a rapturous melody that causes Faust to elope with the bride. From the hammered fifths of the opening to the yearning suspensions of the slower second theme, the waltz is a masterpiece of musical seduction.

Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Stephen Hough, Piano
Stephen Hough is widely regarded as one of the most important and distinctive pianists of his generation. From highly acclaimed performances of the central repertoire in recital, in recording, and with the world’s greatest orchestras to an interest in contemporary and neglected 19th-century works, he integrates the imagination and pianistic color of the past with the scholarship and intellectual rigor of the present, illuminating the very essence of the music he plays. Mr. Hough was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2001 in recognition of his achievements, joining prominent scientists, writers, and others who have made unique contributions to contemporary life. In addition, in December 2007, the Northwestern University School of Music announced that Mr. Hough was chosen to be the second recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance.

Since winning first prize in the Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1983, Mr. Hough has appeared with most of the major American and European orchestras and plays recitals regularly in the major halls and concert series around the world. He is also a guest at festivals such as Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, and the BBC Proms, where he has made over a dozen concerto appearances. Recent engagements include performances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony, and London Philharmonic, as well as the orchestras of San Francisco, St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit, Cincinnati, Toronto, and Dallas.

During the 2007–08 season, Mr. Hough returns to The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago, National, New World, and Houston symphonies; tours the US with the Russian National Orchestra lead by Vladimir Jurowski with performances in San Francisco, Seattle, and at Lincoln Center; and plays recitals at Aspen and the International Gilmore Keyboard Festival.

Highlights of his international appearances include performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Orchestra National, as well as recitals in London and Paris and an extensive recital tour in Australia.

Stephen Hough is a Hyperion recording artist, and many of his catalogue of over 40 CDs have garnered international prizes. Recordings of concertos by Rachmaninoff, Saint-Säens, Hummel, Scharwenka, and Sauer; Mompou;s solo piano music; and two Liszt recitals have won multiple awards, including seven Gramophone Awards (including Record of the Year in 1996 and 2003), Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or, and Monde de la Musique, as well as several Grammy nominations. His 2005 live recording of the Rachmaninoff piano concertos with the Dallas Symphony and Andrew Litton became the fastest-selling recording in Hyperion’s history, while his 1987 recording of Hummel concertos is Chandos’s best-selling disc to date. His most recent release is Stephen Hough’s Spanish Album. Future plans include recording all of the works for piano and orchestra by Tchaikovsky with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä conducting.

Mr. Hough is also an avid writer and composer. In addition to scholarly and critically acclaimed CD liner notes and published musical articles, his interest in theology has led to a book, The Bible as Prayer, which was published in the US and Canada by Paulist Press in September 2007. His Cello Concerto was premiered in spring 2007 by Steven Isserlis and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with Mr. Hough on the podium, and his two Masses—Mass of Innocence and Experience and Missa Mirabilis—will be performed at London’s Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral respectively in summer 2007. Mr. Hough has also published numerous original works and transcriptions for piano with Josef Weinberger Ltd.

Mr. Hough is strongly committed to performing and promoting contemporary music: George Tsontakis, Lowell Liebermann, and James MacMillan are among the composers who have written, or will write, newly commissioned concertos for him. As a chamber musician, Mr. Hough has collaborated with many artists and friends including Steven Isserlis, Joshua Bell, Tabea Zimmermann, and Michael Collins as well as with the Emerson, Takács, and Juilliard string quartets and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet.

A resident of London, Stephen Hough is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester.

For more information please visit stephenhough.com.