2025.02.23 | Nikolai Lugansky Program

Nikolai Lugansky

Sunday, February 23, 2025 | 3PM

Soka Performing Arts Center at Soka University of America

Nikolai Lugansky

PROGRAM MENDELSSOHN 6 Lieder ohne Worte Op.19 No1 E major Op.38 No6 A flat major ‘Duett’ Op.67 No4 C major ‘Spinnenlied’ Op.67 No6 E major ‘Lullaby’ Op.67 No2 F sharp minor Op.85 No4 D major

SCHUMANN Carnaval de Vienne (Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op.26)

WAGNER 4 Scenes from ‘Götterdämmerung’, WWV 86D Brünnhilde and Siegfried’s love duet. Prologue Siegfried’s Rhine Journey Siegfried’s Funeral March. Act III Finale: Brünnhilde’s Immolation. Act III transcription for piano by Nikolai Lugansky

WAGNER Isolde’s Liebestod. Act III from “Tristan und Isolde” transcription for piano, S.447 by Franz Liszt

ABOUT THE PROGRAM Selections from Songs without Words

No. 1 in E major, Opus 19 No. 6 in A-flat Major “Duet,” Opus 38 No. 4 in C Major “Spinnenlied,” Opus 67 No. 6 in E Major “Lullaby”, Opus67 No. 2 in F-sharp Minor, Opus 67 No. 4 in D Major, Opus 85 FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born February 3, 1809, Hamburg Died November 4, 1847, Leipzig

Between 1830 and 1845 Mendelssohn composed a number of short pieces for piano that he called Lieder ohne Worte: “Songs without Words.” That title makes clear that the impulse in this music is fundamentally lyric: a singing melody, usually in the right hand, is supported by a relatively straightforward accompaniment in the left, and many of these pieces are easy enough to suggest that Mendelssohn intended them for the growing number of amateur pianists in the first part of the nineteenth century.

But many of them are frankly virtuosic, so difficult that they remain beyond the reach of all but the most talented amateur pianists.

All these pieces show Mendelssohn’s virtues–appealing melodies, a nice sense of form, rhythmic vitality, and polished writing for the piano– and they became vastly popular, particularly in England. On one of his visits to London, Mendelssohn played several of the Songs without Words for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Mendelssohn collected and published these pieces in groups of six; six sets appeared

during his lifetime and two more posthumously.

The form of these brief pieces is generally straightforward: the melody is presented immediately, the center section sees a brief development of this material, and Mendelssohn usually rounds matters off with a restatement of the melody at the close.

Mendelssohn composed the Lieder in E Major, Opus 19, No. 1 around 1829 when he was only 20. He marks it Andante con moto, and a rippling accompaniment in the left hand continues virtually throughout.

Above this murmuring sound, Mendelssohn sets a flowing, gentle melody that he stresses should be cantabile, and this evolves gracefully as the piece makes its way to the quiet close.

Mendelssohn himself gave the Andante con moto in A-flat Major (Opus 38, No. 6) the nickname“Duett.”

Composed in 1836, this music offers a graceful melodic line that seems to be performed by two different pianists, or perhaps two different singers. This “duet” has the performers seeming to converse– or respond–to each other, and in the score Mendelssohn specifies that a performer must take care to project both voices clearly.

The next three Lieder are from Mendelssohn’s Opus 67, published in 1845, the year that also saw the premiere of his famous Violin Concerto. No. 4 is the famous Spinnerlied, or “Spinning Song”: Presto sixteenth-notes offer the sound of the spinning wheel, while

ABOUT THE PROGRAM the lighthearted song skips along above that quiet rush. No. 6 is a waltz in 3/8, marked Allegretto non troppo; after all its dancing energy, it comes to a very gentle conclusion.

No. 2, marked Allegro leggiero, is in the unusual meter 12/16; it dances gracefully along its staccato writing.

Mendelssohn marks Opus 85, No. 4 Andante sostenuto and combines a heartfelt melody in the right hand with a quietly-arpeggiated accompaniment in the left.

Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Opus 26 ROBERT SCHUMANN

Born June 8, 1810, Zwichkau Died July 29, 1856, Endenich In the fall of 1838 Robert Schumann began an extended visit to Vienna, thinking that he and his bride-tobe Clara Wieck might make that fabled city their home. But the city that proved so attractive to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler held little appeal for Schumann: he found it a closed society, so conservative in its attitudes that he could never think of publishing his journal of music criticism there.

But if the trip proved a dead end as a career route, this was nevertheless a rich time musically for the young composer, and he composed a great deal in Vienna. In the spring of 1839 he set to work on a large-scale work for piano in several movements, but he was unsure exactly what form he wished the music to take. To Clara, he described the piece as a “big romantic sonata,” but those plans

came to nothing and he set the manuscript aside. Back in Leipzig, he returned to the manuscript in January 1840 and finished it.

But the completed work was not a sonata, and Schumann gave it a strange (and tongue-twisting) name: Faschingsschwank aus Wien, which has been translated as either “Carnival Jest in Vienna” or “Viennese Carnival Pranks.” In 1834, Schumann had composed his Carnaval, a series of twentyone brief pieces that offer portraits of various characters all swirling past in a carnival setting. Carnaval quickly became Schumann’s first real success as a composer, and in Faschingsschwank aus Wien he adopted the same general plan: this music is in only five movements and none has the name of a character, but each projects its own mood. These moods are abstract– Schumann gives the five pieces only general music titles–and they form a suite of contrasting movements.

The “jest” of Schumann’s title appears to be his quotation of the Marseillaise in the first movement.

In the politically-conservative Vienna of this era, Metternich had strictly forbidden performances of the French anthem that symbolized political chaos to those in power.

Perhaps to tweak a city he found diffident, Schumann sneaks in a brief whiff of the Marseillaise, rebarred to camouflage it slightly.

The opening Allegro, by far the longest movement, contrasts three quite different themes in music that is by turns lyric and brilliant. The Romance presents a tender melody

ABOUT THE PROGRAM over minimal accompaniment, while the characteristic dotted rhythm of the Scherzino recurs virtually throughout. It is a mark of Schumann’s indecision about the final form of what eventually became Faschingsschwank that he published the Intermezzo separately in December 1839; when he returned to the larger work he then incorporated the Intermezzo as its fourth movement. This is striking music: over rippling lefthand accompaniment, the right hand lays out the declarative main theme. The concluding Finale is the most overtly virtuosic movement: great hammered chords and brilliant passagework finally drive Faschingsschwank aus Wien to its grand close.

Four Scenes from Die Götterdämmerung (arr. Lugansky) Brünnhilde and Siegfried’s Love Duet (Prologue) Siegfried’s Rhine Journey (Prologue) Siegfried’s Funeral March (Act III) Finale: Brünnhilde’s Immolation (Act III) RICHARD WAGNER

Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig Died February 13, 1883, Venice

Die Götterdämmerung (composed 1869-74) is the final opera of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it brings that cycle to its catastrophic conclusion. On this program, Nikolai Lugansky offers his own piano arrangements of four of the most famous excerpts from that opera. Die Götterdämmerung opens with a dark and lengthy Prologue that foretells disaster (and which is not part of these arrangements), but the action itself

begins in sunlight and strength, as Siegfried and Brünnhilde emerge from the cave where they have spent the night. In Brünnhilde and Siegfried’s Love Duet he gives her the ring, and she gives him her horse Grane and sends him off in search of new adventures and new heroic deeds; he descends to the Rhine, his horn call resounding in the distance, as she waves to him from atop her rocky crag. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey opens with the dark Fate motif and soon we hear the graceful theme associated with Brunnhilde and the powerful music of Siegfried, and from there we move to the Rhine journey itself.

This is magnificent music, built on a majestic variant of the Siegfried motif, as well as the motifs of Fire, the Rhine, and the Rhinemaidens, and it glows with the strength and resolve of the young hero.

We next skip far ahead in the opera.

Hagen has stabbed Siegfried in the back with a spear, killing him, and Siegfried’s Funeral Music accompanies the procession that bears his body away. In the opera, two quiet timpani strokes open the Funeral Music, and the music grows quickly to a massive restatement of those two strokes (in the score Wagner marks this Feierlich: “solemnly”). Siegfried’s body is then borne through the moonlight and mists back to the hall of the Gibichungs. Wagner builds this processional music on music that has marked Siegfried’s life, particularly the motifs of Fate, the Sword, and of Siegfried himself.

The

final

excerpt,

Brünnhilde’s

ABOUT THE PROGRAM Immolation, comes from end of the opera. Brünnhilde comes upon the scene, learns of Siegfried’s death, and forgives his betrayal of her.

She throws the ring into the Rhine, orders a funeral pyre ignited for Siegfried’s funeral, and rides Grane into those flames, joining Siegfried in death. The heavens open to reveal Valhalla itself in flames, and the Rhine overflows its banks, destroying the rule of the gods and cleansing the way for the rise of man.

Isoldens Liebestod: Schlußszene aus Tristan und Isolde, S.447 RICHARD WAGNER

FRANZ LISZT Born October 22, 1811, Raiding Died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth Liszt and Wagner shared a long and–at times–difficult relationship.

During his years as music director in Weimar, Liszt championed Wagner’s music and led a number of his operas, including the premiere of Lohengrin. But in 1865 Liszt’s daughter Cosima abandoned her husband Hans von Bülow, ran off with Wagner, and eventually married him. Liszt was furious with both Cosima and Wagner and remained estranged from them until a reconciliation was worked out in 1872.

If Liszt could disapprove of Wagner’s actions, he nevertheless admired his music, and he made piano transcriptions of music from eleven of Wagner’s operas.

Liszt wrote a number of what have been called paraphrases or

reminiscences of music from the operas of many composers–often these were completely original compositions in which the opera music served only as the starting point for Liszt’s own virtuosity. But Liszt’s transcriptions of excerpts from Wagner’s operas were much more respectful–they were almost always straightforward and literal. Liszt’s intentions here were generous: he liked this music and felt that he could make it better known by creating piano versions of works that would be heard only rarely in their original form.

Liszt made his transcription of Isoldens Liebestod in 1867, only two years after the premiere of Tristan und Isolde (and during his period of estrangement from Wagner and Cosima). Isolde’s final scene is of course best-known as the Liebestod (or “love-death”). At the end of the opera, as Tristan lies dead before her, Isolde sings her farewell to both Tristan and to life.

This music has become familiar as one of the most famous orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s operas: as Isolde finds ecstatic fulfillment in death, Wagner surrounds her with a shimmering, glowing orchestral sound. Liszt’s transcription of this scene is remarkable for its fidelity to Wagner’s music and for his subtle approach to the sonority of the piano.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger © 2025.

ABOUT THE ARTIST NIKOLAI LUGANSKY PIANO

Nacional de España.

Nikolay Lugansky was born in 1972 in Moscow. He was studying at Central Music School at Moscow Conservatory under Tatiana Kestner and later on with such professors as Tatiana Nikolayeva and Sergey Dorensky. He continued his postgraduate education under Dorensky supervision. The initial stage of his career as the solo pianist brought him the title of the laureate of the I All-Union competition of young musicians in Tbilisi (1988), VIII International competition of J.S. Bach in Leipzig (1988), All-Union competition of S.V. Rachmaninoff in Moscow (1990), International summer academy Mozarteum (Salzburg, 1992) and the win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1994.

In 2023, he celebrated the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth by performing all of the Russian composer major solo works in a three-concert cycle at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Wigmore Hall in London, along with other performances throughout Europe, including at the Konzerthaus in Vienna and Berlin, the Bozar in Brussels, the Rudolfinum in Prague and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Pianist Nikolai Lugansky is renowned for his interpretations of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chopin and Debussy. He has received numerous awards for recordings and artistic merit.

He collaborates regularly with conductors of the calibre of Kent Nagano, Yuri Temirkanov, Manfred Honeck, Gianandrea Noseda, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Vasily Petrenko, Lahav Shani. He is invited by leading international orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orquestra

The performances have been a great success with audiences and critics alike, where “Lugansky’s command of the piano is exceptional ... He is masterful in his knowledge of tempo, structure and expression” (Bachtrack).

In the summer he returned to the US to perform Rachmaninov concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra with Stanislav Kochanovsky and at the Colorado Music Festival with Peter Oundjian.

During this season, he will perform with the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, the Orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, among others. He will also undertake several tours, including one in Asia in December 2023, in the Canary Islands in January 2024, in the UK with the Orchestre Philharmonique de

ABOUT THE ARTIST Strasbourg and in Italy with Vadim Repin in February 2024.

Described by Gramophone as “the most trailblazing and meteoric performer of all”, Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility. He appears at some of the world’s most distinguished festivals, including the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia and Verbier festivals.

Chamber music collaborators include Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Mischa Maisky and Leonidas Kavakos.

His latest recording “Richard Wagner” was released in March 2024.

For Lugansky’s complete itinerary of 2024/25 concerts — please visit https://nikolaylugansky.com

Lugansky has an exclusive contract with Harmonia Mundi and his Rachmaninov 24 Preludes, released in April 2018, met with enthusiastic reviews. His publication César Franck, Préludes, Fugues & Chorals (2020) won the Diapason d’Or. His album Rachmaninov: “ÉtudesTableaux; 3 Pièces”, was awarded with Choc de l’Année 2023 (Classica) and Gramophone Editor’s Choice (March 2023): “can we use the word genius to describe what he does with them, the torrents of lyricism (never sentimental) and virtuosity bordering on madness of a Russian prince? We are carried away, subjugated and shouting: ENCORE!” (The OBS).

Among the other awards for his many previous recordings: Diapason d’Or (Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonatas ) and Gramophone Editor’s Choice (Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin).

© Marco Borggreve

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Sauvignon blanc was selected by Nikolai Lugansky and will be available for purchase before the performance.

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