Mao Fujita, Piano
Mao Fujita’s Carnegie Hall recitals are acclaimed for their rare balance of “technical prowess and poetic sensitivity” (Bachtrack). Fujita’s program selections can be similarly described. Tonight’s recital features Beethoven’s and Brahms’s essential first piano sonatas alongside a series of shorter works brimming with surprises. Berg’s Twelve Variations receive their Carnegie Hall premiere, showcasing the early experiments of a singular musical innovator. Felix Mendelssohn’s virtuosic Variations sérieuses explore a single theme across 17 variations in amazingly economical fashion. Plus, discover a lovely and exceptionally rare short work by Wagner, whose climactic Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde is also featured in a spectacular solo arrangement by Liszt.
Performers
Mao Fujita, Piano
Program
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1
WAGNER "In das Album der Fürstin Metternich," WWV 94
BERG Twelve Variations on an Original Theme
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses
BRAHMS Piano Sonata No. 1
LISZT Isoldes Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (after Wagner)
Encores:
RACHMANINOFF "How fair this spot," Op. 21, No. 7 (arr. Mao Fujita)
DEBUSSY La plus que lente
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.
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At a Glance
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1
In the first of his 32 piano sonatas (which pushed the envelope of public opinion and the language of musical classicism), the 25-year-old Beethoven boldly introduced himself to Vienna’s discerning music lovers.
WAGNER “In das Album der Fürstin Metternich,” WWV 94
Although the Paris premiere of Wagner’s Tannhäuser in 1861 was a famous fiasco, it bore fruit in this warmly lyrical Albumblatt (“album leaf”) dedicated to the composer’s most stalwart supporter in the French capital: Austrian socialite Princess Pauline von Metternich.
BERG Twelve Variations on an Original Theme
The 23-year-old Berg was under Schoenberg’s tutelage when he wrote this graceful and conservatively tonal set of variations in 1908. Both pupil and teacher were strongly influenced by Brahms, whose lifelong interest in variation form inspired Schoenberg’s principle of developing variation, in which a theme is subjected to continual, incremental variation.
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses, Op. 54
Mendelssohn hesitated before accepting a commission for an homage to Beethoven in 1841, but his fear that his music wouldn’t measure up to Beethoven’s was unfounded: Variations sérieuses is widely considered a masterpiece on the order of the Diabelli Variations.
BRAHMS Piano Sonata No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1
The C-Major Sonata is one of three piano sonatas that Brahms wrote at the outset of his career in the early 1850s. Upon hearing him play his Op. 1, Robert Schumann declared that it was as if the young composer had sprung forth “like Minerva fully armed from the head of Jove.” Clara Schumann described Brahms’s piano music as “rich in fantasy, depth of feeling, and mastery of form.”
LISZT Isoldes Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (after Wagner)
The famous “love-death” that ends Tristan und Isolde has had a life of its own outside the opera house. In transcribing Wagner’s intensely yearning music for solo piano, Liszt followed the example of the German composer, who often extracted the scene on concert programs.