Prokofiev & Beethoven: Piano Concertos

Cover artwork by Rudolf Gopas (1913-1983), Coast Landscape, Kaikoura (detail),1959, oil on hardboard, 810x1048mm, collection of Cashmere High School, Christchurch.

Michael Houstoun New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Sergei Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 in C, Op.26 Andante – Allegro Tema con variazione Allegro ma non troppo Conductor James Judd Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat, Op.73 ‘Emperor’ Allegro Adagio un poco moto Rondo: Allegro Conductor János Fürst

Michael Houstoun was born in Timaru, New Zealand, in 1952. He was raised on a farm and received his early musical training from Sr. Mary Eulalie at the Timaru Convent of Mercy. Afterwards he studied with Maurice Till in Christchurch and Dunedin. Till guided him to success to all the major national competitions by the age of 18 and prepared him for the 1973 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he won third prize.

From 1974 to 1981 Houstoun lived in the USA and London, during which time he spent a year at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and was placed fourth in the 1974 Leeds International Piano Competition (behind Dimitri Alexeev, Mitsuko Uchida and Andras Schiff). In London he studied with the late Brigitte Wild and recorded albums of Beethoven and BartĂłk piano music for EMI. Since 1981 Houstoun has lived in New Zealand and played mainly there, but also in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He has performed cycles of the Beethoven piano concertos in Australia and New Zealand, as well as cycles of the complete Rachmaninov works for piano and orchestra in New Zealand.

In 1993 Houstoun celebrated his 40th birthday year with a feast of Beethoven – the five concertos with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the 32 piano sonatas performed in a three-week cycle in Wellington. The piano sonata cycle was repeated in Auckland in 1994, and in Christchurch and Napier in 1995.

During 1995 and 1996 he performed concertos with the ABC (Australia) orchestras in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Tasmania. Always a regular performer with the NZSO, Houstoun took part in major celebrations in 1996 (with Sir Neville Marriner) and early 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of this orchestra.

Houstoun began recording the Beethoven piano sonatas for the new Trust Records label in 1995. A 3-CD set of middle period sonatas was released in June 1995 (receiving the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand’s award for the best classical album of that year) and a further set covering the last five sonatas was issued in July 1996. Two sets covering the remaining sonatas were issued in May 1997.

He was also the subject of a special documentary featuring the music of Liszt, which was filmed in Germany and shown on Television New Zealand in 1996.

In 1998, as well as many solo, concerto and chamber music performances – including two appearances at the International Festival in Wellington – Michael Houstoun was a member of the International Jury for the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition in the USA.

Sergei Prokofiev was a difficult and rebellious student and in his younger days was considered to be a disturbing and dissonant composer. Stifled by the conservatism he found in Russian academia, he quickly left for London PIANO CONCERTO No.3 in C, Op.26 Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) 1 Andante – Allegro 2 Tema con variazione 3 Allegro ma non troppo

where he met Igor Stravinsky and the great ballet impresario, Serge Diaghilev. Stravinsky’s music had a lasting – if unacknowledged – impact on Prokofiev and his relationship with Diaghilev was equally fruitful. However, unlike them, he was later persuaded to return to live in Russia, where he saw himself as apolitical (although this did not prevent life being difficult and unpredictable, especially through the Stalin era).

Prokofiev achieved early fame as a pianist, and his idiomatic and piquant writing found easy expression in the basic percussive qualities of the piano – at the same time, he remembered that the piano can also sing.

Time has shown that Prokofiev belongs to the same musical tradition as Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky. He integrated the rich, bold colours

of the nineteenth-century Russian nationalists with his own sardonic and witty style, and it is this, along with his gift for ravishing melody, which gives his music its individuality. He composed in nearly every genre – ballet (Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella) opera (War and Peace) orchestral (seven symphonies) and instrumental (including a large body of piano music). This is all the more impressive considering how much of it was written in the face of World War II and Stalinist repression.

Prokofiev wrote five piano concertos before he was 40: the first was described as the work of a “musical madman” and the second left one reviewer “frozen with fright, hair standing on end”. The third, written between 1917 and 1921, has become the most popular.

It was Prokofiev’s visiting card to the USA where he premiered it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1921. It offers a memorable clarinet introduction and is reminiscent of his opera The Love for Three Oranges (1919-21) in its lyricism. The second movement is a theme with five variations, while the ferociously difficult finale begins with a staccato theme for bassoons and pizzicato strings interrupted by the blustering entry of the piano. There is a great deal of argument leading to a climax followed by some caustic humour, and it ends with a brilliant coda. From beginning to end, this dazzlingly effective concerto is a verification of Prokofiev’s brilliance as a pianist.

The music writer Norman Lebrecht has written of the composer: “It is impossible to divine what Prokofiev wanted from art or life, beyond the desire to be left in peace. He was a victim of Russian history and his own indecision – torment that invests his intimate music with singular pathos.”

Joy Aberdein

According to the most recent research, Beethoven’s last and most famous piano concerto was probably written early in PIANO CONCERTO No.5 in E-flat, Op.73 ‘Emperor’ Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

1809 when Austria was poised once again on the brink of war with France. On 12 May, after two days of heavy bombardment, Vienna surrendered to the victorious Imperial Army.

Beethoven, whose apartment was right on

4

Allegro

5

Adagio un poco moto

6

Rondo: Allegro

the city ramparts, spent the greater part of these two days in his brother Caspar’s cellar with his head covered with pillows to protect what remained of his failing hearing.

By the time he completed the Fifth Concerto he must have been aware that he was now too deaf to risk giving the premiere himself. The solo part was clearly conceived for a virtuoso and the first performance was given by Johann Schneider, possibly a former Beethoven pupil. It was a brilliant success.

The reviewer in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung reported that the new work “put a numerous audience into such a state of

enthusiasm that it could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition and enjoyment”.

This concerto is without question one of Beethoven’s most heroic works. In size and complexity it bears a similar relationship to the earlier concertos as the Eroica does to the first two symphonies. But the real difference between the Emperor and its predecessors is more fundamental: while the first three concertos and, to a lesser extent the Fourth, are firmly rooted in the language of the Viennese classical period, the Fifth draws much of its inspiration from the music of French Revolutionary composers like Cherubini and Méhul.

The first movement is a virtual compendium of French Revolutionary devices including the characteristic martial theme, described by Alfred Einstein, as “an idealised quick march...often brusque in manner”. The opening however, with its imposing orchestral chords punctuated by rhapsodic piano writing, is pure Beethoven.

The tranquil and exceedingly beautiful slow movement presents an enormous contrast of mood and style from the turbulent opening Allegro, and is linked to the finale by a short transitional passage which contains the essential thematic building blocks of the ensuing Rondo.

The finale is conceived on the same majestic scale as the opening movement, full of rugged strength and massive sonorities. For all that, the solo part is never overshadowed by the orchestra. The piano writing is of a power and complexity never seen before in a concerto and pushed Beethoven’s instrument of 1809 to its absolute limit.

Allan Badley

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is the country’s national orchestra and the flagship of the performing arts in New Zealand. It was founded in 1946 and gave its first public performance in March 1947. The orchestra’s 50th anniversary was celebrated in 1996 and its first Musical Director – James Judd – was appointed in 1999.

The orchestra numbers 90 players who are drawn from the international pool of musicians. It gives over one hundred performances each year, which include concert seasons of major symphonic repertoire in seven subscription centres, as well as visits to smaller centres.

The NZSO is involved in education programmes, performs family and schools concerts, accompanies opera and ballet productions and records for television, film and radio. It commissions and performs New Zealand music and has a long recording history, which has seen it move into the world market and win many international awards.

A highlight of the NZSO’s tours outside of New Zealand was the muchcelebrated visit to Seville to perform at the1990 Expo with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa under the baton of Conductor Laureate Franz-Paul Decker. Two notable recent appearances have been the millennium concert performed in Gisborne with Kiri Te Kanawa and two performances as part of the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, which featured premieres of works by Gareth Farr.

James Judd - CONDUCTOR

James Judd is Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and a sought-after guest conductor. A graduate of London’s Trinity College of Music, Judd came to international attention as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. Later, he returned to Europe after being appointed Associate Music Director of the European Community Orchestra, with whom he currently serves as Artistic Director.

James Judd’s recent performances – in addition to his engagements with the NZSO – include recordings and concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Indianapolis and Utah Symphonies, the Melbourne and Adelaide Symphonies and an international tour with the English Chamber Orchestra.

JÁNOS FÜRST - CONDUCTOR

Born in Budapest, János Fürst studied violin at the Liszt Academy and continued in Brussels where has was awarded the Premier Prix. From there he moved to Dublin where he taught at the Irish Academy. He formed the Irish Chamber Orchestra in 1963 and this, together with his increasing conducting activities at the Royal Irish Academy, drew him towards a full-time career as a conductor.

Fürst made his London debut in 1972 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Since then he has conducted the leading London orchestras as well as major orchestras throughout the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Israel and Japan. He is a regular and popular visitor to Australia and New Zealand.

János Fürst conducted the NZSO’s highly successful Tower Beethoven Festival concerts late in 1995 in which all of the nine symphonies and the Emperor Piano Concerto (with soloist Michael Houstoun) were performed in Wellington and Christchurch.

R udolf G opas : The painter Rudolf (Rudi) Gopas, whose painting appears on the front cover, was born in Lithuania in 1913 and immigrated to New Zealand in 1949. He is largely responsible for bringing European Expressionism to New Zealand. An influential teacher as well as painter, his students included Tony Fomison and Philip Clairmont. He is best known for his vibrant depictions of the New Zealand coastline (which reminded him of his Baltic background), although he also painted brooding abstract works. As well as championing the Expressionist manner, he stressed the philosophical basis of the visual arts. He died in Christchurch in 1983.

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MMT2011-13 Beethoven Piano Sonatas The Early Sonatas

MMT2017-18 Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op.14, 22 & 31 Sonatas

MMT2006 MMT2008 Keith Lewis & Michael Houstoun Houstoun performs Liszt In Recital

Other releases by the HRL Morrison Music Trust can be found at the web site: http://www.trustcds.com MMT2010 Elusive Dreams New Zealand Piano Music

MMT2028 Piano Recital 99

Other recordings of Michael Houstoun by the HRL Morrison Music

MMT2001-03 Beethoven Piano Sonatas The Middle Period Sonatas

The Prokofiev Concerto was recorded live by Trust Records in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand, 20 May 2000.

Producer and Engineer: Keith Warren The Beethoven Concerto was recorded live by Concert FM in the Wellington Town Hall, Wellington, New Zealand, 18 November 1995.

Producer: David McCaw Engineer: Richard Hulse CD Compilation, Digital Editing and Mastering: Keith Warren Executive Producers: Russell Armitage and Ross Hendy Booklet Notes: Joy Aberdein and Allan Badley Cover Painting: Detail from Coast Landscape, Kaikoura by Rudolf Gopas (© The Estate of Rudolf Gopas).

Inside Cover Photograph: Sal Criscillo Design: Cato Partners, Wellington, New Zealand Thanks to Gregory O’Brien, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand Other releases by the HRL Morrison Music Trust can be found at the web site: http://www.trustcds.com

© 1996, 2001 HRL Morrison Music Trust PO Box 1395, Wellington, New Zealand All rights of the producer and of the owner of the work reproduced reserved.

Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this record prohibited.

The HRL Morrison Music Trust was established in March 1995 as a charitable trust to support New Zealand musicians of international calibre. All funds received by the Trust are used to make recordings, present concerts, both in New Zealand and overseas, and assist artists to undertake projects to further develop their talents.

MICHAEL HOUSTOUN New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Sergei Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 in C, Op.26 (Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes / SDRM)

1 2 3

Andante – Allegro

9:22

Tema con variazione

9:20

Allegro ma non troppo

9:54

Conductor James Judd Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat, Op.73 ‘Emperor’

4 5

Allegro

6

Rondo: Allegro

Adagio un poco moto

19:40 7:37 10:12

Conductor János Fürst Total Duration Live Digital Recording © 1996, 2001 HRL Morrison Music Trust 2001 HRL Morrison Music Trust MMT2035

66:25