Senior Piano Recital by Yuhan Xue

carthage music department presents

Senior Piano Recital

by Yuhan Xue Student of Dr. Deborah Masloski.

Sunday, June 5, 2022 | 7:30 p.m. | A. F. Siebert Chapel

program Sonata Op.109 in E Major Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) I. Vivace, ma non troppo II. Prestissimo III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Andante motto cantabile ed expressivo)

Var I. Motto espressivo Var II. Leggiermente

Var III. Allegro vivace Var IV. Etwas langsamer als das Thema

Var V. Allegro, ma non troppo Var VI. Tempo I del tema C-A-G-E

TAN Dun (b. 1957)

Pictures at an Exhibition Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Promenade The Gnome Promenade (2nd) The Old Castle Promenade (3rd) Tuileries (Children’s Quarrel after Games) Cattle Promenade (4th) Ballet of Unhatched Chicks “Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmuÿle” (Two Jewish people. One rich, one poor) Promenade (5th) Limoges. The Market (The Great News) Catacombs (Roman Tomb) – With the Dead in a Dead Language The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga) The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev)

program notes In 1820 Beethoven had started work on not only the Ninth Symphony and the Diabelli Variations, during this period of creative magnificence he also produced his three final piano sonatas, each an experiment in form. The Piano Sonata Op.109 is one of his three final piano sonatas and the structure in typical the late Beethoven work: Op. 109 opens in a sweeping exhalation, like a speaker encountered in midsentence. Sounding like an improvisation, it ends as it begins, and is followed immediately by an angry, prickly, minor-key prestissimo movement— briefer even than its predecessor. The final movement is a kind of balm. Technically a theme with six variations, the movement opens and ends in the warmth of serenity, daring not to conclude with a bang, but with a sigh.

C-A-G-E (1993) described by the composer as a “fingering for piano” is dedicated to the memory of John Cage (1912-1992), friend and mentor to Tan Dun and one

program notes of the first Western composers to be profoundly influenced by Asian philosophies, particularly through his life-long devotion to chance procedures derived from the ancient Chinese “Book of Changes,” the I Ching. C-A-G-E explores all possible resonances of the piano which can be produced without using the keyboard (for example the production of overtones). Many of the fingering techniques found in C-A-G-E borrow from those of the Chinese plucked string instrument, the pipa. This piece is composed using only the four pitches C, A, G, E in all the different registers of the piano. — Peggy Monastra This repertoire is also imitating the sounds of Chinese traditional folk instruments like 琵琶, 古琴, 扬琴 . The use of ceramic plate to make the sliding sound inside the piano is very creative as the use of guitar playing skills.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was written in 1874, inspired by posthumous works of Mussorgsky’s artist and architect friend Victor Hartmann they had met in 1862 and shared a commitment of Russian nationalism. After Hartmann died unexpectedly at the age of 39, Mussorgsky went to an exhibition of 400 works

by Hartmann and finished Pictures at an Exhibition in six weeks in memory of Hartmann. Of the ten works by Hartmann that inspired Modest Mussorgksy’s ten-movement work, images of four have been lost over time. Below are images of the six remaining paintings and information for of the entire repertoire. The work presents the pictures connected by a series of “Promenades,” during which we hear Mussorgsky walking through the gallery, from artwork to artwork. The “Promenades” do the same for the listener, taking us harmonically and (in Ravel’s version) orchestrally from one picture to the next. The first picture, “The Gnome,” presents a portrait of a wooden toy gnome filled with musical grotesquerie. “The Old Castle” depicts a scene in medieval Italy, as a troubadour sings in front of a castle. The movement is reminiscent of a melancholy Russian folk tune, though Mussorgsky makes a nod to the picture’s locale by using a siciliano rhythm.

A brief scherzo, “Tuileries” depicts children playing - really rough-housing (the movement’s subtitle is “Dispute between Children at Play”) - in the Parisian garden of the title. “Bydlo,”(Cattle) Polish for oxcart, follows without interruption, a sharp contrast to the lightness of “Tuileries” with its heavy, lumbering chords representing the turning of the cart’s wheels and the footfalls of the oxen pulling it. The cart’s drivers sing a dolorous Ukrainian folk song, the somber melody that unfolds over the movement’s heavy tread.

The “Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells” was inspired by Hartmann’s costume designs for a ballet that included children dressed as eggs.

Victor Hartman Chicks in Shell Watercolor Inspiration of Ballet of Unhatched Chicks

Mussorgsky took two sketches given to him by Hartmann, one of a wealthy Polish Jew, the other of an impoverished Russian one, as the inspiration for “Goldenberg and Schmuyle.”

program notes Victor Hartman Two Polish Jews Watercolor Inspiration of “Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmuÿle” (two Jewish people, one rich, one poor)

Hartmann’s sketch of old women quarreling at the market in the French town of Limoges, which the artist visited in 1866, inspired the next movement of Pictures.

Mussorgsky originally wrote a program for this section into his manuscript, but later crossed it out: “The big news: Monsieur de Puissangeout has just recovered his cow Fugitive. But the good ladies of Limoges don’t care, because Madame de Remboursac has acquired handsome new porcelain dentures, while Monsieur de Panta-Pantaléon is still troubled by his big red nose.” Mussorgsky often needed little stories like this to get started, but he clearly realized that “Limoges, the Market Place” was enough, and that listeners would imagine their own goings-on during this little scherzo, a companion musically and atmospherically to “Tuileries.”

Death was a theme in many of Mussorgsky’s works - his Songs and Dances of Death come immediately to mind - and it dominates the next picture, “Catacombae.” The opening presents a progression of dissonant chords, and “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua” (With the dead in a dead language) revisits the Promenade theme, as the skulls in Hartmann’s catacombs “begin to glow.”

Victor Hartman Catacombs Inspiration of Limoges. The Market (The Great News) and Catacombs (Roman Tomb) – With the Dead in a Dead Language

The next picture is based on Hartmann’s design for a clock in the form of Baba-Yaga’s hut on hen’s legs, to which Mussorgsky added the ride of the witch in her mortar.

The movements is in A-B-A form, with the A section depicting Baba-Yaga’s ride, and Mussorgsky underlines the clock aspect with his metronome marking, which indicates a tempo of one bar per second.

Victor Hartman The Hut on Fowl’s Legs Watercolor Inspiration of The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)

The final picture, “The Great Gate of Kiev,” begins broadly, with a majestic processional. Mussorgsky also brought in bell sounds and a return of the Promenade theme before the movement’s resplendent closing pages.

Victor Hartman The Great Gate of Kiev Watercolor Inspiration of The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev)