Cliburn Laureates + Rachmaninov Digital Program Book

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FEI-FEI

RACH PAG

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YEOL EUM SON

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RACH 2

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DANIEL HSU

RACH 3

CLIBURN LAUREATES + RACHMANINOV with the FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and EUGENE TZIGANE CONDUCTOR

OCTOBER 2, 2018 7:30 PM I BASS PERFORMANCE HALL PERFORMANCE SPONSORED BYBY PERFORMANCE SPONSORED

The Board of Directors of the Cliburn salutes with gratitude the generosity of

Nancy Lee & Perry R. Bass‡* BNSF

for supporting this performance of

CLIBURN LAUREATES + RACHMANINOV

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‡ Deceased *Made possible by generous gifts to the Cliburn Endowment.

CLIBURN AT THE BASS Bass Performance Hall Tuesday, October 2, 2018 7:30 pm

CLIBURN LAUREATES + RACHMANINOV FEI-FEI 2013 FINALIST YEOL EUM SON 2009 SILVER MEDALIST DANIEL HSU 2017 BRONZE MEDALIST WITH THE FORT

WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

EUGENE TZIGANE

CONDUCTOR

Sergei Rachmaninov

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op. 43

Fei-Fei

Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, op. 18 Moderato Adagio sostenuto Allegro scherzando

Yeol Eum Son

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, op. 30 Allegro ma non tanto Intermezzo: Adagio Finale: Alla breve

Daniel Hsu

Intermission

Sergei Rachmaninov

Yeol Eum Son appears by arrangement with IMG Artists.

This performance is made possible in part by the cooperation of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association.

Steinway & Sons is the official piano of the Cliburn. This concert is being recorded.

Please silence all electronic devices.

FEI-FEI

2013 FINALIST

Praised for her “bountiful gifts and passionate immersion into the music she touches” (The Plain Dealer), pianist Fei-Fei is a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and a top finalist at the Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2013. She continues to build a reputation for her poetic interpretations, charming audiences with her “passion, piquancy and tenderness” and “winning stage presence” (Dallas Morning News), both in the United States and internationally, including her native China.

Her burgeoning career includes a number of prominent concerto engagements in 2018–2019, highlighted by a Cliburn Laureates concert with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and her Carnegie Hall/Stern Auditorium debut with the award-winning New York Youth Symphony, followed by a tour of Spain with the ensemble. These follow 2017–2018 featured performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Music Festival.

This season, Fei-Fei’s busy recital itinerary features U.S. performances from coast to coast—from California concerts at Pepperdine University Center for the Arts, Chico Performances at Cal State Chico, and Old Town Temecula Theatre to east coast series such as the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Brooks Center for the Arts at Clemson University, and Hamilton College Performing Arts Series in Clinton, NY. Summer 2018 included returns to the Bard Festival and Music Mountain Festival, and debuts at Gretna Music (PA) and the Huntington (NY) Summer Arts Festival, following up on such recent festival highlights as Bravo! Vail Valley, Music at Menlo, Busan International Music Festival (Korea), Nantucket Musical Arts Society, Lake George Music Festival, and the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival.

Fei-Fei was showcased prominently as a Cliburn finalist in the documentary film, Virtuosity, about the 2013 Cliburn Competition, which premiered on PBS in August 2015. She has also been featured numerous times on New York’s WQXR radio.

Additional career concerto highlights in the United States include the Fort Worth Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Austin Symphony, Denver Philharmonic, Anchorage Symphony, and Juilliard Orchestras. Internationally, she has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Germany’s Baden-Baden Philharmonic, and China’s Shanxi and Shenzhen Symphony Orchestras. In December 2016, she performed the world premiere of Shaosheng Li’s piano concerto Behind the Clouds with the China National Symphony at Beijing Concert Hall. She has worked with such prominent conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Stern, Jeffrey Kahane, Carl St. Clair, Leon Botstein, Randall Craig Fleisher, John Giordano, Yongyan Hu, and En Shao.

Fei-Fei has performed in recital at Alice Tully Hall as the winner of Juilliard’s 33rd Annual William Petschek Recital Award. Other notable recent recitals in the United States include her Weill Recital Hall debut at Carnegie Hall, Gilmore Rising Stars (Kalamazoo, MI), Smithsonian American Museum in Washingon, D.C., SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, and the 2015 Cliburn Festival: the works of Chopin. In Europe, she has appeared at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, and the Louvre.

She is a member of the Aletheia Piano Trio, which debuted at the Kennedy Center in February 2014 as part of its Conservatory Project, and performs across the United States and in Asia. Deeply committed to sharing her joy for music and connecting with communities, Fei-Fei also engages students and community audiences through frequent school and outreach concerts and master classes.

Born in Shenzhen, China, Fei-Fei began piano lessons at the age of 5. She moved to New York to study at The Juilliard School, where she earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees under the guidance of Yoheved Kaplinsky.

YEOL EUM SON

2009 SILVER MEDALIST

Yeol Eum Son’s graceful and timeless interpretations, crystalline touch, and versatile, thrilling performances have caught the attention of audiences worldwide. Praised for her widely eclectic concerto repertoire, ranging from Bach and all-Mozart to Shchedrin and Gershwin, her recent concerto highlights include appearances with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and Bergen Philharmonic under the baton of Dmitrij Kitajenko; a debut Paris date with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Mikko Franck; and Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, amongst others.

In the 2017–2018 season, Yeol Eum made distinguished U.K. debuts in Birmingham with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Omer Meir Wellber and at London’s Cadogan Hall with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Her London debut coincided with the Onyx CD release of a highly acclaimed all-Mozart recording featuring Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, for whom it was the very last recording.

According to The Times, “Yeol Eum Son is a model of clarity and fleetness,” while Gramophone called the recording “an uncommonly fine Mozartian debut.”

Her 2018–2019 itinerary features debut engagements at the Grafenegg Festival with The Tonkunstler Orchestra and Dresdner Philharmoniker under Dmitrij Kitajenko. This season, Yeol Eum also makes her Swiss concerto debut with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Susanna Mälkki; together with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Yeol Eum will appear in Seoul Arts Centre under the baton of Jonathan Nott. She returns twice to London for a concerto debut at King’s Place with Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon and for a chamber collaboration at Wigmore Hall with the cellist Natalie Klein. Further debuts include appearances at Moscow’s House of Music with the Moscow Virtuosi under Maestro Vladimir Spivakov and with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Dmitrij Kitajenko.

A sensitive, emotional, and powerful pianist, Yeol Eum gives frequent solo and chamber music performances around the globe. Most recent recitals include debuts with San Francisco Chamber Music Society, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and her Scottish recital debut at the East Neuk Festival for which The Scotsman acclaimed for having found “that vital emotional connection with the music and physically embracing its raw energy and dynamic extremes with ferocious virtuosity.” She makes her Welsh and Turkish debuts, and also returns to the Helsingborg Piano Festival and Fribourg International Piano Series, and to Berlin for a chamber concert at Berlin Philharmonie Hall.

Yeol Eum’s new releases include two DECCA albums: the recital CD Modern Times featuring solo piano music written between 1910 and 1920 by Berg, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Ravel; and a Schumann and Brahms CD with violinist Clara-Jumi Kang. Previous albums include her debut CD of the complete Chopin Etudes (2004); Chopin Nocturnes for Piano and Strings (2008); prizewinning Cliburn Competition live performance (2009); and a multi-channel SACD O’ New World Music (2012).

In 2018, Yeol Eum was appointed artistic director of PyeongChang Music Festival & School in her native Korea, where she is responsible for programming both summer and winter festivals at the recently-built Olympic site in PyeongChang. She is honorary ambassador of the Seoul Arts Center and her home city of Wonju. A second-prize winner at both the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 2011 and Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, Yeol Eum was a student of Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien Hannover in Germany, where she now lives. She holds a degree from the Korean National University of Arts.

DANIEL HSU

2017 BRONZE MEDALIST

Characterized by the Philadelphia Inquirer as a “poet…[with] an expressive edge to his playing that charms, questions, and coaxes,” American pianist Daniel Hsu captured the bronze medal and prizes for best performance of both the commissioned work and chamber music at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Also a 2016 Gilmore Young Artist, first prize winner of the 2015 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition, and bronze medalist of the 2015 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, he is increasingly recognized for his easy virtuosity and bold musicianship.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Daniel Hsu began taking piano lessons at age 6 with Larisa Kagan. He made his concerto debut with the Fremont Symphony Orchestra at age 8, and his recital debut at the Steinway Society of the Bay Area at age 9, before being accepted into the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 10, along with his two older siblings. Since then, he has made his debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra (2016) and Carnegie Hall (2017) as part of the CAG Winners Series at Weill Recital Hall. He has appeared in recitals at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, as well as in concerts in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, and New York. With orchestra, Daniel has collaborated with the Tokyo, North Carolina, Grand Rapids, New Haven, and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras, working with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Nicholas McGegan, Cristian Măcelaru, Ruth Reinhardt, and Marcelo Lehninger.

The 2018–2019 season takes him across the United States in recital and concerto performances.

Overseas, he performs with the National Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, joins Curtis-on-Tour in Europe, and makes appearances in China and Japan, where he has toured annually since his Hamamatsu success.

Daniel’s chamber music performance with the Brentano String Quartet earned him the Steven de Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance of Chamber Music. The Dallas Morning News praised “his impassioned, eloquently detailed Franck Quintet,” proclaiming it to be “a boldly molded account, with a natural feeling for the rise and fall of intensity, the give and take of rubato.

Both he and the Brentano seemed to be channeling the same life force.” He regularly tours the United States with the Verona String Quartet and in duo piano with his brother, Andrew, and appears frequently in chamber music festivals.

Decca Gold digitally launched Daniel’s first album featuring live recordings from the Cliburn Competition of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, op. 110, as well as his award-winning performance of Marc-André Hamelin’s Toccata on “L’homme armé.” He has also been featured in interviews and performances for WQXR, APM’s Performance Today, and Colorado Public Radio.

Now 21 years old, Daniel is currently the Richard A. Doran Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he has studied with Gary Graffman, Robert McDonald, and Eleanor Sokoloff.

Daniel is a Marvel film buff and enjoys programming. He contributed to the creation of Workflow, a popular productivity app that allows users to automate tasks on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which won the coveted 2015 Apple Design Award and was acquired by Apple in March 2017.

EUGENE TZIGANE

CONDUCTOR

Hailed by the Berliner Morgenpost as “a poised orchestral leader,” conductor Eugene Tzigane is often praised for his elegant style, natural musical authority, and “almost fanatical precision” (Neue Volksblatt). His reputation as a versatile force on the podium is witnessed by the high level of return engagements throughout Europe, North America, and Asia.

He achieved early recognition winning second prize at the 2008 Solti Competition leading to invitations from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Nordwestdeutsche (NWD) Philharmonie. He was immediately appointed principal conductor of the NWD Philharmonie, a position he held until 2014.

Eugene enjoys many ongoing relationships with ensembles including the Norwegian Radio, Lahti Symphony, Umea Symphony, and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestras. Other recent European engagements have taken him to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Orchestre National d’ile de France, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Basel Symphony, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Since his U.S. debut with the Indianapolis Symphony, Eugene has conducted the symphony orchestras of Oregon, New Jersey, Fort Worth, North Carolina, and Columbus, and the Rochester Philharmonic. At his Chicago debut conducting the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, he was praised by the Chicago Tribune for “bringing freshness and energy.” He conducts regularly in Japan, including with the Yomiuri Nippon and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestras, and has been to Australia with the Adelaide Symphony and West Australian Symphony Orchestras.

With a natural flair for working with singers, Eugene made his Bayerische Staatsoper debut conducting a new production of Così fan tutte and more recently took the helm of Die Zauberflöte at Hamburgische Staatsoper, Carmen at Royal Swedish Opera, and Die Fledermaus at Frankfurt Oper, and last year returned to Stockholm to conduct Giordano’s Fedora.

Eugene begins the 2018–2019 season with a return to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in a mixed program of works by Britten, Saint-Saëns, Smetana, and Debussy. Other highlights include return visits to the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Umea Symphony, Helsingborg Symphony, and Orchestre National d’ile de France, and a performance with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Eugene Tzigane began his conducting studies at Julliard with James DePreist where he earned the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship. He completed his studies under Jorma Panula at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm where he was awarded the Franz Berwald Memorial Scholarship and attended masterclasses with Daniel Harding, Michael Tilson-Thomas, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. His other accolades include first prize at the 2007 Fitelberg Competition and second prize at the 2007 Matacic Competition.

FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MIGUEL HARTH-BEDOYA, MUSIC DIRECTOR

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is deeply committed to uniting its community through performance, education, and outreach, reaching an audience of more than 200,000 annually.

Since its beginnings in 1912, the FWSO has been an essential thread in the city’s cultural fabric and the very foundation of Fort Worth’s performing arts. Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya, now in his 19th season at the artistic helm of the FWSO, has led the orchestra into the 21st century to new levels of excellence. Under his leadership, the FWSO has performed at Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras.

Throughout his tenure, the FWSO has released 13 recordings—with several being world-premiere releases—garnering international acclaim. Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the FWSO have embraced creative collaborations through residencies, partnerships, and commissions.

As the principal resident company of the acoustically superb Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall, the Orchestra performs a full season of concerts featuring internationally acclaimed guest artists and works by living composers. The Orchestra performs and partners with the Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth Opera, Cliburn, and Performing Arts Fort Worth. Each summer at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the FWSO presents Concerts In The Garden—a series of familyfriendly concerts that has become a city-wide tradition. Additionally, the orchestra hosts an annual Festival of Orchestras, providing an opportunity for non-professional orchestras across the state of Texas to perform in Bass Performance Hall.

The FWSO keeps exceptional musical experiences at the heart of its community. After all—life is better with music!

MUSICIANS FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MIGUEL HARTH-BEDOYA MUSIC DIRECTOR Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Chair ALEJANDRO GÓMEZ GUILLÉN ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR Rae and Ed Schollmaier/Schollmaier Foundation Chair JOHN GIORDANO CONDUCTOR EMERITUS VIOLIN I Michael Shih, Concertmaster Mrs. Mercedes T. Bass Chair Mr. Sid R. Bass Chair Swang Lin, Associate Concertmaster Ann Koonsman Chair Eugene Cherkasov, Assistant Concertmaster Mollie & Garland Lasater Chair Jennifer Y. Betz Ordabek Duissen Qiong Hulsey Ivo Ivanov Izumi Lund Ke Mai Rosalyn Story Kimberly Torgul

BASS William Clay, Principal Mr. & Mrs. Edward P. Bass Chair Paul Unger, Assistant Principal Jeffery Hall Julie Vinsant The seating positions of all string section musicians listed alphabetically above change on a regular basis.

TROMBONE John Romero, Principal Mr. & Mrs. John Kleinheinz Chair John Michael Hayes, Assistant Principal Dennis Bubert

FLUTE Jake Fridkis, Principal Shirley F. Garvey Chair Pam Holland Adams

TUBA Edward Jones, Principal

VIOLIN II Adriana Voirin DeCosta, Principal Steven Li, Associate Principal Janine Geisel, Assistant Principal Symphony League of Fort Worth Chair Molly Baer Marilyn d’Auteuil Tatyana Dyer Smith Suzanne Jacobson° Matt Milewski† Kathryn Perry Andrea Tullis Camilla Wojciechowska

OBOE Jennifer Corning Lucio, Principal Nancy L. & William P. Hallman, Jr., Chair

VIOLA Laura Bruton, Principal Sarah Kienle, Associate Principal HeeSun Yang, Assistant Principal Joni Baczewski Sorin Guttman Aleksandra Holowka Dmitry Kustanovich Daniel Sigale

BASS CLARINET Gary Whitman

CELLO Allan Steele, Principal Mrs. Mercedes T. Bass Chair Mr. Sid R. Bass Chair Leda Dawn Larson, Associate Principal Keira Fullerton, Assistant Principal Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation Chair Deborah Brooks Lesley Cleary Karen Hall Shelley Jessup

PICCOLO Pam Holland Adams

CLARINET Stanislav Chernychev, Principal Rosalyn G. Rosenthal Chair* Ivan Petruzziello, Assistant Principal Gary Whitman E-FLAT CLARINET Ivan Petruzziello

BASSOON Kevin Hall, Principal Mr. & Mrs. Lee M. Bass Chair Cara Owens, Assistant Principal HORN Molly Norcross, Principal Elizabeth H. Ledyard Chair Alton F. Adkins, Associate Principal Kelly Cornell, Associate Principal Aaron Pino TRUMPET Kyle Sherman, Principal Cody McClarty, Assistant Principal Dorothy Rhea Chair Oscar Garcia

BASS TROMBONE Dennis Bubert Mr. & Mrs. Lee M. Bass Chair

TIMPANI Seth McConnell, Principal Madilyn Bass Chair Nicholas Sakakeeny, Assistant Principal PERCUSSION Keith Williams, Principal Shirley F. Garvey Chair Nicholas Sakakeeny, Assistant Principal Adele Hart Chair Deborah Mashburn Brad Wagner HARP Position vacant Bayard H. Friedman Chair KEYBOARD Shields-Collins Bray, Principal Rildia Bee O’Bryan Cliburn & Van Cliburn Chair STAGE MANAGERS Lisa Stallings Jarod Rehkemper PERSONNEL MANAGERS Brenda Tullos Marilyn d’Auteuil, Assistant ORCHESTRA LIBRARIANS Douglas Adams Marilyn d’Auteuil, Assistant *In Memory of Manny Rosenthal †On leave for 2018–2019 °2018–2019 Season Only The Concertmaster performs on the 1710 Davis Stradivarius violin.

The Associate Concertmaster performs on the 1685 Eugenie Stradivarius violin.

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PROGRAM NOTES

BY SANDRA DOAN

ABOUT THE COMPOSER SERGEI VASILYEVICH RACHMANINOV b. April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia d. March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, CA Born in Russia into a musical family—the fourth of six children—Rachmaninov began piano and music lessons when he was 4 years old, and soon after enrolled as a scholarship student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. By then, his father had lost the family fortune and deserted them, and despite his obvious talent, Rachmaninov was so indifferent that he failed his general education classes and spring exams. Rimsky-Korsakov called it a time of “purely Russian self-delusion and laziness,” and the admissions officers threatened to revoke his enrollment.

It was at this point that Rachmaninov’s cousin Alexander Siloti intervened, removing him from the school in St. Petersburg and putting him into the prep division of the Moscow Conservatory, to study with the famously strict Nikolai Zverev. In the years following, he shaped up, won the Rubinstein Scholarship, and transferred to the senior division of Conservatory. He graduated in 1892 with a “Great Gold Medal,” which had only been awarded to two other students in the history of the school, and emerged as a triple threat: a formidable pianist, conductor, and composer.

By 1899, he was already established as an international musician. As he was building his career, Rachmaninov maintained an uneasy balance between performing and composing, mostly led by financial needs, and his early years were a whirlwind of composing, conducting (he was posted at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow), and concertizing amidst growing political unrest.

After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov permanently left Russia with his family. He divided his time between Switzerland and the United States. Like many other Russian composers in selfimposed exile, he missed Russia and the Russian people, whom he called “the sounding board for his music,” and never fully acclimatized to America. That, coupled with Rachmaninov’s need to earn money and the changing tastes for new music, had a devastating effect on his creative output. He instead focused on concertizing and recording in studio, becoming widely known as one of the world’s greatest pianists.

Rachmaninov never returned to Russia, though he maintained a complicated relationship with his homeland: he was first boycotted in Russia in 1931–1933 after publicly criticizing Soviet cultural policies, but supported the Red Army in its war against Nazi Germany some years later. He was granted American citizenship one month before his death from advanced melanoma.

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PROGRAM NOTES

BY SANDRA DOAN

(CONTINUED)

THE LAST GREAT ROMANTIC COMPOSER Rachmaninov was the last major figure of the Russian Romantic tradition, and the last great pianistcomposer in the lineage of Chopin, Liszt, and Rubinstein. His music is distinctively characterized by melodic passion, rich harmony, and sparkling virtuosity, which won him fans early in his career, but was disparaged as modernism exploded around him in the early 20th century.

When he left Russia, he couldn’t find the inspiration to write, saying “I left behind my desire to compose: losing my country, I lost myself also.” He didn’t write anything new at all between 1918 and 1926. At the same time, his contemporaries—Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartók— were creating a new language that would change the musical landscape. In the final 17 years of his life, Rachmaninov completed just six major works, including tonight’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and had been written off as an irrelevant composer, hopelessly sentimental and outdated.

When he finally did get to writing again, Rachmaninov was painfully aware that his music was out of step with the times. In the late 1930s, he said in an interview: I feel like a ghost wandering a world grown. I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the new… I cannot cast out my musical gods in a moment and bend the knee to new ones. Even with the disaster of living through what has befallen the Russia where I spent my happiest years, yet I always feel that my own music and my reactions to all music remained spiritually the same, unendingly obedient in trying to create beauty.

In spite of the criticism by the music world around him, it is this personal, expressive quality that makes Rachmaninov’s music so recognizable. Today, his originality and the genius and beauty of his writing are widely acknowledged, and he is one of the world’s most beloved composers.

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PROGRAM NOTES

BY SANDRA DOAN

(CONTINUED)

RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI Composed in 1934. Premiered on November 7, 1943, in Baltimore by The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski, with the composer as soloist. Performance time approx. 24 minutes.

When he returned to composing in 1926, Rachmaninov was full of doubts and self-criticism. His Fourth Piano Concerto had a lukewarm reception, and he was already dismissed as old-fashioned.

In 1930, he finished building a villa in Switzerland, where he finally found the idyllic peace he needed to write. It was there that his creativity flowed, and he quickly wrote the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Like Schumann, Brahms, and Liszt before him, Rachmaninov found inspiration in the last of Niccolò Paganini’s set of caprices for unaccompanied violin. Paganini (1782–1840) revolutionized violin playing, and wrote works so difficult that he was the only one who could play them. Even during his lifetime, the legend that he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his unbelievable talent (which he propagated himself) was so widespread that the Catholic Church refused to give him a burial service.

Paganini’s 24 caprices are his most famous works; the last uses a simple theme and spins off into virtuosic variations. Composers have since used this theme for their own variations, as Rachmaninov does here.

The Rhapsody was an immediate success. A few years later, Rachmaninov worked with a choreographer to stage a ballet based on this work. Though it’s impossible to know if Rachmaninov had a program in mind when he composed the Rhapsody, it’s interesting to note the story he matched to the music: the legend of Paganini, his deal with the devil, and his doomed love.

The Rhapsody has 24 total variations within three main sections. The first six variations show off the pianist’s virtuosity, reflecting Paganini’s legendary skill. In variation seven, Rachmaninov introduces a new theme—the Dies irae (“day of death”) chant from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead—which symbolizes death and “the progress of the evil spirit”—the devil’s deal with the composer is struck.

The second section represents several love episodes, culminating in the gorgeous melodies of the famous 18th variation. The last six variations (19–24) are effectively the finale. Alas, Paganini’s art triumphs over love, and the variations continue to get more astonishingly difficult until finally, as Rachmaninov describes, “at the conclusion of the play the several personages [representing] the evil spirit should be caricatures of Paganini himself,” and Paganini is defeated. This last variation is so difficult that even Rachmaninov confessed to be nervous; he broke his own rule against drinking alcohol before a performance, and had a glass of crème de menthe to steady his nerves.

PROGRAM NOTES

BY SANDRA DOAN

(CONTINUED)

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN C MINOR, OP. 18 Composed 1900–1901. Premiered November 9, 1901, in Moscow conducted by Alexander Siloti, with the composer as soloist. Performance time approx. 33 minutes.

Rachmaninov was always prone to depression and self-doubt. It’s no surprise, then, that he stopped composing for three years after his First Symphony was eviscerated by the press. César Cui, a member of the esteemed “Mighty Five” Russian composers, wrote: If there were a conservatory in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write a program symphony on the “Seven Plagues of Egypt,” and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninov’s, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would bring delight to the inhabitants of Hell.

It did not help that the concert was conducted by Alexander Glazunov, who by most accounts was a terrible conductor, and might even have been drunk at the performance! And so Rachmaninov fell silent.

As the idea of composing grew more impossible with time, he finally sought the help of Nikolai Dahl in January 1900 for hypnosis therapy. He began to see him daily, first to help with sleeping and appetite, and then to help with composing. By April, he felt well enough to travel to Crimea and Italy and begin to pick up writing; in the summer, he started back up on smaller projects—a love duet for opera, an a cappella chorus, and two movements for a piano concerto, which he premiered in December to great success.

Months later, his wrote the missing first movement, and premiered the finished work in November 1901, winning immediate acclaim. He dedicated the work “to Monsieur N. Dahl” who had released him from his deep depression and allowed him to work again.

This is Rachmaninov’s first mature work. It maintains the tradition of the Russian piano concerto and is particularly modeled after Tchaikovsky. But there is also a new sense of effortlessness in its unfolding which was new to his style. It is generous music, rich and sonorous. The last movement, in particular, has enchanted listeners and become a part of pop culture, most notably heard in the films Brief Encounter and The Seven Year Itch, and in Frank Sinatra’s songs.

PROGRAM NOTES

BY SANDRA DOAN

(CONTINUED)

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3 IN D MINOR, OP. 30 Composed in 1909. Premiered on November 28, 1909, in New York City with the New York Symphony Society conducted by Walter Damrosch, with the composer as soloist. Performance time approx. 39 minutes.

Rachmaninov continued building from the success of his Second Concerto, and in the decade before his emigration from Russia, reached the height of his career and the most productive period of his compositional activity. In 1909, the pianist-conductor-composer, now in his mid-30s, was invited by New York-impresario Henry Wolfson to go on his first American tour. Hesitant about leaving his family and Russia for a three-month period, Rachmaninov was finally swayed by the generous fees, writing to his friend, “I don’t want to go. But then perhaps, after America I’ll be able to buy myself that automobile… it may not be so bad after all!”

He decided to debut a new concerto, and wrote the Third Piano Concerto that summer, dedicating it to pianist Josef Hofmann, who would never publicly perform it.

Rachmaninov himself didn’t have time to practice the concerto before his U.S. tour, so set out on his first trip to America with a silent keyboard with which to practice. The work premiered in November 1909 with the New York Symphony Orchestra, and Rachmaninov returned weeks later to play with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Gustav Mahler, to rave reviews.

A critic of the New York Herald said prophetically of it: “The work grows in impressiveness upon acquaintance and will doubtless rank among the most interesting piano concertos of recent years, although its great length and extreme difficulties bar it from performances by any but pianists of exceptional technical powers.” Under pressure and wanting to make his work more popular, Rachmaninov authorized several cuts in the score, to be made at the performer’s discretion and commonly taken to make it more manageable.

Being so difficult, the concerto was not performed often until it was championed by Vladimir Horowitz in the 1930s, and found a resurgence after it was prominently featured in the film Shine.

It is in the repertoire of many pianists today, who often perform the work in its entirety.

The concerto is in three movements. It opens with a haunting, simple melody that sets the concerto’s mood of somber intensity. A massive cadenza and fantasy leads to a brief coda and returns to the quiet opening theme. The Intermezzo movement is a tender but melancholy set of free variations. A thrilling passage leads into the dazzling finale, without pause. The Finale: Alla breve recalls themes from the first movement, making this one of the composer’s most unified concertos.

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