Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Performers
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Program
J.P. SWEELINCK Echo fantasia in Dorian, SwWV 261
CARTER Night Fantasies
CHOPIN Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat Major
MOZART Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475
C. P. E. BACH Fantasia in C Major, Wq. 59, No. 6
BEETHOVEN Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77
IVES The Celestial Railroad
Encore:
VITALY GODZIATSKY Fractured Surfaces
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 100 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
The dictionary defines “fantasy” as “the free play of creative imagination.” The term connoted many different things to the seven composers on today’s program, but in essence it could refer to almost any work that didn’t quite conform to any of the standard musical forms and genres. For C. P. E. Bach, the keyboard fantasy was an expression “of true musical creativeness” that enabled both composer and performer—usually one and the same person in the late 18th century—to “move audaciously from one emotion to another.” That sentiment was echoed two centuries later by Elliott Carter, who sought “to capture the fanciful, changing quality of our inner life” in his phantasmagorical Night Fantasies.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s wide-ranging selection of fantasias invites us to consider similarities and differences across the ages. The juxtaposition of pieces by Sweelinck and Carter highlights their mutual reliance on compact motifs as structural building blocks. The fantasias by Bach and Mozart are closely related in their expressive intensity, while Carter’s intimate focus on “fleeting thoughts and feelings” contrasts with the cosmic, metaphysical themes that Ives broaches in The Celestial Railroad. All seven composers reveled in the “unfettered exploitation of instrumental virtuosity” that one historian identifies as a defining feature of the fantasia.