CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Emanuel Ax
Yefim Bronfman

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Emanuel Ax, Piano
Yefim Bronfman, Piano

BRAHMS Variations on a Theme by Haydn in B-flat Major, Op. 56b
WILLIAM BOLCOM Recuerdos
MOZART Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K.448
RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

Program Notes:

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)
Variations on a Theme by Haydn in B-flat Major, Op. 56b

The Variations on a Theme by Haydn were first performed at Carnegie Hall in their orchestral version on November 9, 1898, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Gericke; the two-piano version of the work received its first Carnegie Hall performance on April 24, 1926, with Harold Bauer and Ossip Gabrilowitsch.


Brahms looks both backward and forward in his Variations on a Theme of Haydn, composed in 1873. On the one hand, the genre of variations was already centuries old; at the same time, in this work Brahms essentially invented a new brand of free-standing symphonic variations (Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations is another example) and also helped set the stage for the composition of his First Symphony. (Incidentally, though the theme of the work does borrow from the past, the current consensus is that it was not written by Haydn.)

Brahms initially scored the piece in this version for two pianos, the instrument for which he felt the most affinity. The suggestions of color and texture in the better-known orchestral version give the piano version a tantalizing quality while bringing clarity to the underlying structural foundation. Like so much of Brahms’s music, the Variations succeed in delighting the ear as well as the mind. Brahms restricts himself, through the eighth variation, to the exact shape and harmonic template (with excursions into the minor) of the chorale-like theme. Yet the distance traveled between each variation catches the listener by surprise. Brahms compresses so much event and color within each individual variation that the effect is of an impressively wide-ranging journey. The second variation (Andante con moto) rages, while the fifth (Poco presto) flickers by in a skittish wisp and the seventh (Grazioso) unfolds in a sweetly lilting expansiveness. The eighth variation (Presto) plays hide-and-seek with the theme.

As if all this weren’t captivating enough, Brahms saves his tour de force for the finale. Here he loosens the restrictions set previously to write a kind of mega-variation that is actually a longer chain of mini-variations laid over a simple repeated bass pattern. These culminate in a triumphant recapitulation of the whole theme, but now thrillingly rich and resounding, utterly transformed by the new insights and angles Brahms has served along the way.


WILLIAM BOLCOM (b. 1938)
Recuerdos

Recuerdos received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Weill Recital Hall on February 1, 1995, with the Clinton/Narboni Duo: Mark Clinton and Nicole Narboni, piano.


Seattle-born composer William Bolcom has gained a reputation for brashly embracing various styles and vernaculars—sometimes inviting comparison with an earlier musical pioneer, Charles Ives. Although Bolcom studied with some of the icons of European modernism, in his spare time he began to explore his fascination with what was then the all-but-forgotten American idiom of ragtime. His love for the genre blossomed into a lifelong devotion to styles of music making popular in the early part of the 20th century, from the parlor and the barroom to Broadway. As a pianist, Bolcom is a frequent concert and recording partner with his wife, mezzo Joan Morris, in programs devoted to popular song and cabaret from that era.

For all his surface eclecticism, though, Bolcom’s voice is very much his own, as we hear in the three pieces comprising Recuerdos (“Reminiscences”). Bolcom composed the work for a duo-piano competition in 1991 after becoming intrigued by an anthology of turn-of-the-century dances from Latin America. Recuerdos represents a kind of “world music” expansion of Bolcom’s abiding interest in vernacular styles and channels the spirits of three composers of popular music from the past in fluent tributes that are enriched by Bolcom’s witty commentary.

Chôro (literally, “weepy”) is a nod to the Brazilian composer and pianist Ernesto Nazareth (1863–1934), who brought an urbane polish to the sentimental, improvisatory genre of popular instrumental music known as chôro. Like chôro, Nazareth’s works were influenced by a mix of African and European idioms. The ghost of the New Orleans–born pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk appears to emerge from the mid-19th century in Paseo, which recalls Gottschalk’s musical wanderings in the Caribbean with its Cuban inflection of contradance rhythms. Toward the conclusion of the movement, Bolcom uses the two-piano scoring to break down the rhythmic structure in a kind of musical Cubism. The last piece, Valse Venezolano, even more obviously subjects the subject of its homage—here Venezuelan composer Ramón Delgado Palacio (1867–1902)—to latter-day Bolcomesque distortions. Bolcom exaggerates the stylistic tics of his source (nervous meter changes and mood swings) and adds harping dissonances that rudely steal attention, like party guests who have had too much to drink.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448

The Sonata in D Major received its Carnegie Hall premiere on March 16, 1923, with Josef and Rosina Lhévinne.

The year 1781 was one of breakthrough for Mozart—still in his mid-20s but with only a decade of life left. In the spring of that year, he made his decisive break with his patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and began a new but risky career as a freelancer in Vienna. In order to achieve some financial stability, Mozart depended on the income he received from teaching young female students. The piano was fast emerging as a favored instrument for domestic music making and would in fact provide Mozart’s first ticket to success with the Viennese public (hence the large number of piano concertos he composed during the 1780s).

One of his students was Josepha von Auernhammer, a determined musician who, Mozart feared, also had a crush on her teacher. In his letters home, Mozart mercilessly mocked Josepha’s unattractive appearance but described her playing, despite some reservations, as “enchanting” (she in fact went on to have a successful career as a concert pianist and a composer). Mozart wrote a set of sonatas for violin and piano for Auernhammer, as well as this “grand sonata” for two pianos. Unlike the intimate genre of (one) piano four-hands, with its quasi-erotic brushing of fingers and hands against each other, the format of a duo for two pianos was clearly intended for public display. For the premiere of K. 448, at a concert held at the Auernhammer’s home in November 1781, Mozart took the second piano part, while Josepha played the first.

The Sonata is a showpiece, but elegantly so in the way it encourages dialogue between the partners. In the first movement, for example, Mozart passes busy scales and runs back and forth from one instrument to the other, only to have the first piano pull back in a restrained, single-note comment at the start of the second theme. Conversation, not counterpoint, is the focus. Much of the mood here foreshadows the sparkling D-major spirits of the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro. The Andante flows with song and playful grace, adding delicate, mirror-like ricochets of the tune’s ornaments. Mozart concludes with a rondo full of contrasts whose brilliantly balanced, exhilarating choreography requires the utmost precision between its partners. No wonder choreographer Mark Morris chose this sonata as one of the pieces for his Mozart Dances.


SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943)
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

The Symphonic Dances received their New York priemiere at Carnegie Hall in their orchestral version on January 7, 1941, with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The two-piano version of the Symphonic Dances received its world premiere at Carnegie Hall on December 8, 1942, with Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin.


Rachmaninoff became a permanent—and unceasingly homesick—exile from his native Russia in the wake of the 1917 Revolution. Settling in the United States not only left him emotionally unmoored but forced him to readjust his musical priorities out of financial necessity. From his early years, he had divided his activities among composing, conducting, and piano concertizing; during his time in America, however, he was best able to support his family by focusing attention on his career as a piano soloist in high demand. A brutal touring schedule often brought Rachmaninoff to the point of exhaustion. As a result, his compositional output dwindled to just a handful of works in his final 25 years. The very last of these was the Symphonic Dances.

The work originated in summer 1940 on Long Island, during a rare period of relaxation before another crushing fall tour. It was first composed in the two-piano version we hear on tonight’s program. Rachmaninoff then orchestrated the piece to brilliant (and more familiar) effect, making it a sort of unofficial Fourth Symphony. He also intended the Symphonic Dances to have life as a ballet, but his prospective choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, died in 1942 before that project could proceed (an earlier version of the title was Fantastic Dances). However, the two-piano guise is thoroughly compelling on its own terms, serving as a kind of summa of Rachmaninoff’s personalities as both composer and pianist.

Rachmaninoff seems to have had a loose program in mind, at first proposing headings for the three movements (“Noon,” “Twilight,” and “Midnight”), but he later abandoned these as unnecessary distractions. Perhaps the prospective titles were meant to suggest periods in his personal life. In any event, Rachmaninoff laced the work with a number of quotations from his earlier works. After a short and oblique beginning, the first movement presents an abrasive, predominantly rhythmic idea, followed by a restless motif that saturates the musical texture. Much of the movement’s drama is generated from the contrast between this material and the quasi-folk song that gently and exquisitely haunts the middle of the movement (listen for how Rachmaninoff thrillingly allows the original material to creep back into the center and supplant this oasis).

The second part of this triptych is an unsettling waltz, whose anxiousness Rachmaninoff intensifies through repeated interruptions of the momentum. Details are worried over, as one does in trying to recapture a quickly fragmenting dream. The third movement, which alternates between extremely slow and fast tempos, recalls some of the spirit of the first but has a more demonic air. In fact, Rachmaninoff introduces the foreboding medieval chant of the Dies Irae in multiple variants. (This theme serves as a recurrent personal code throughout Rachmaninoff’s works, representing a kind of fatalism.) Toward the end, Rachmaninoff introduces a hopeful melody taken from his a cappella religious choral writing, robbing the Dies Irae of its sting.

—Thomas May

Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Emanuel Ax, Piano
Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at The Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Additionally, he attended Columbia University, where he majored in French. Mr. Ax captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.

In the 2008–2009 season, Mr. Ax returns to several orchestras with which he has had relationships for many years, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony, with which he will perform the world premiere of Stephen Hartke’s Piano Concerto. Special projects include a duo-recital tour with Yefim Bronfman including performances at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall; a performance with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall; and a solo recital tour in both North America and Europe. Other European engagements include a tour of the Far East with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Fabio Luisi, with whom he will record the Strauss Burleske for Sony BMG; and performances with the Tonhalle Orchestra, Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra in Munich and Carnegie Hall, the London Philharmonia, and Orchestre National de France.

Highlights of the 2007–2008 season include performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago, Houston, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and National symphonies. In Europe, he appeared with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra, the London Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin. A solo recital tour in Europe and North America included performances at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Carnegie Hall.

For the opening Gala of the New York Philharmonic in September 2006, Mr. Ax appeared with Mr. Bronfman in Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos conducted by Lorin Maazel with live national television coverage. As an “On Location” artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 2006–2007 season, he contributed to a series of chamber and orchestral programs centered around Mozart and Strauss works. With his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki, a project with the Mark Morris Dance Group originally conceived for New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival in the summer of 2006 was repeated in Vienna and London. Tours included a series of Mozart concertos with Orpheus on the west coast, Florida with the Atlanta Symphony conducted by Robert Spano, a 10-city recital tour, duos with bassist Edgar Meyer, and concerts in Japan with his long-standing colleague and partner Yo-Yo Ma.

In the 2005–2006 season, Mr. Ax served as Pianist-in-Residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker, performing with the orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle in Berlin and New York. Other recent performance highlights have included separate recital tours with two longstanding colleagues, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Yefim Bronfman; a tour of the United States with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Myung-Whun Chung (with performances in Carnegie Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall); and a season-long Perspectives series focused on the music of Debussy.

Mr. Ax has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987. Recent releases include Strauss’s Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman, and period-instrument performances of Chopin’s complete works for piano and orchestra. Mr. Ax has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. His other recordings include the concertos of Liszt and Schoenberg, three solo Brahms albums, an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the premiere recording of John Adams’s Century Rolls with the Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch. In the 2004–2005 season Mr. Ax also contributed to a BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and which was awarded a 2005 International Emmy.

In recent years, Mr. Ax has turned his attention toward the music of 20th-century composers, premiering works by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bright Sheng, and Melinda Wagner. Mr. Ax is also devoted to chamber music, and he has worked regularly with such artists as Young Uck Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Mr. Ma, Edgar Meyer, Peter Serkin, Jaime Laredo, and the late Isaac Stern.

Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale and Columbia Universities. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit EmanuelAx.com.

Yefim Bronfman, Piano
Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as one of the most talented virtuoso pianists performing today. His commanding technique and exceptional lyrical gifts have won him consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences worldwide, whether for his solo recitals, his prestigious orchestral engagements, or his rapidly growing catalogue of recordings.

As an “On Location” Artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2008–2009 season, Mr. Bronfman will appear in two subscription concerts as well as a tour of the Far East with that orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in addition to a chamber music concert with the orchestra’s musicians. Other highlights this season include a duo-recital tour with Emanuel Ax and a solo recital tour traversing the US and Europe and culminating in performances at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and in St. Petersburg. North American engagements include opening the season with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas and with the New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel, as well as performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, among others. In Europe, he appears with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de France, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival, and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

As a Perspectives artist at Carnegie Hall for the 2007–2008 season, Mr. Bronfman partnered with some of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors including the Vienna Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Mariss Jansons, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra with James Levine, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Other engagements included a tour of Japan with the Kirov Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev and a solo recital tour beginning during the visit to Japan, traversing the US, and continuing in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin. With orchestra, he appeared with the Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, New Jersey, and Toronto symphony orchestras and concluded the season with the west coast premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s piano concerto with Salonen conducting, recorded live for Deutsche Grammophon.

Mr. Bronfman appears regularly with such celebrated ensembles as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has worked with an equally illustrious group of conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer engagements have regularly taken him to the Aspen, Bad Kissingen, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl, Lucerne, Mann Music Center, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Saratoga, Tanglewood, and Verbier festivals.

Mr. Bronfman has given numerous solo recitals in the leading halls of North America, Europe, and the Far East. In 1991 he gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman’s first public performances there since his emigration to Israel at age 15. That same year he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize.

Mr. Bronfman has won widespread praise for his solo, chamber, and orchestral recordings. He won a Grammy Award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartók concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His discography also includes the complete Prokofiev sonatas; all five of the Prokofiev concertos, nominated for both Grammy and Gramophone awards; and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. His most recent releases are Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, a recital disc, Perspectives, which complemented Mr. Bronfman’s designation as a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist for the 2007–2008 season; and recordings of all the Beethoven concertos as well as the Triple Concerto with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label. fall 2008 will see the release of the Tchaikovsky Trio in A minor with partners Gil Shaham and Truls Mørk.

A devoted chamber music performer, Mr. Bronfman has collaborated with the Emerson, Cleveland, Guarneri and Juilliard quartets, as well as The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has also played chamber music with Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Shlomo Mintz, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Pinchas Zukerman, among many other artists.

Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973 and made his international debut two years later with Zubin Mehta and the Montreal Symphony. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in May l978, his Washington recital debut in March l98l at the Kennedy Center, and his New York recital debut in January 1982 at the 92nd Street Y.

Mr. Bronfman was born in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, in 1958. He studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University; at The Juilliard School, Marlboro, and the Curtis Institute, and with Rudolf Firkušný, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. He became an American citizen in July 1989.