Behzod Abduraimov, Piano
Performers
Behzod Abduraimov, Piano
Program
BRAHMS Klavierstücke, Op. 119
CZERNY Variations on a Theme by Rode
LISZT "Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata" from Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année: Italie
DEBUSSY Suite bergamasque
STRAVINSKY Three Movements from Pétrouchka
Encore:
RACHMANINOFF Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 100 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
BRAHMS Klavierstücke, Op. 119
The three intermezzos in the Op. 119 Klavierstücke set are a study in contrasts, with Brahms stating that “every bar and every note must be played as if … one wished to draw the melancholy out of each one of them, and voluptuous joy and comfort out of the discords.” The final Rhapsody in E-flat Major evokes the robustly heroic style of Brahms’s youth.
CZERNY Variations on a Theme by Rode, Op. 33
A pupil of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, Carl Czerny was the most influential piano pedagogue of the early 19th century. He was also a prolific composer, and although his music is seldom heard today, the understated brilliance of this set of variations—which Vladimir Horowitz memorably recorded in the 1940s—attests to the tasteful artistry for which he was widely admired by contemporaries.
LISZT “Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata” from Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année: Italie, No. 7
The second volume of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, in which this vividly dramatic fantasy-sonata appears, arose from his travels in Italy in the 1830s. It was there, Liszt wrote, that he came to understand “those hidden relationships that link the works of genius. Raphael and Michelangelo helped me to understand Mozart and Beethoven better … Dante found visual expression in Orcagna and Michelangelo; perhaps one day he will find musical expression in a Beethoven of the future.”
DEBUSSY Suite bergamasque
The young Debussy was still poised on the edge between Romanticism and Impressionism when he wrote this entrancing four-movement suite in approximately 1890. Its centerpiece is the perennially popular “Clair de lune,” around which are clustered three dance-like pieces variously indebted to the French Baroque composers whom Debussy admired.
STRAVINSKY Three Movements from Pétrouchka
Pétrouchka is the second of three wildly successful ballets inspired by Russian folklore that made Stravinsky a household name in Paris before World War I. After the war, the composer collaborated with Arthur Rubinstein to create this brilliantly virtuosic piano suite based on episodes from the ballet.