27th Singapore International Piano Festival

KSENIIA VOKHMIANINA

NICHOLAS LOH

CHUREN LI

3 - 6 JUNE 2021 VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

CHANG YUN-HUA

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M ESSAGE FROM T H E A R T I S T I C D I R E C TO R L I M YA N

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you back to the Singapore International Piano Festival.

Events of the past eighteen months have affected almost every facet of our lives, and the Festival was no different, with the first enforced cancellation in its almost thirty-year history. As we adapted to an evolving situation and came to terms with new routines – it was precisely in these most unsettled times of isolation and safe distancing that we turned to art for comfort, meaning and solace. Musicians all over the world – together with practitioners of all performing arts – have had to innovate, to engage with communities and audiences in creative ways. Yet as we attended virtual performances and concerts, we also yearned for a time when live events could resume, to feel the visceral thrill of “being there as it happened”, rather than filtered through the medium of technology.

I am delighted, therefore, that we are able to proceed with this year’s Festival and the opportunity to showcase four brilliant, young, locally-based pianists who will be presenting four exciting, varied and very individual programmes which truly reflect their artistic identities. I will also be chatting with UK-based Malaysian pianist Mei Yi Foo, who was due to appear at the Festival last year. She will be sharing her stories, insights and advice In Conversation.

Wishing you an inspiring and unforgettable SIPF 2021.

Lim Yan Artistic Director

PROGR AMME T H U , 3 J U N 2 0 21 VI C TO RI A CO N C ERT H A L L

KSE N I IA VOKHM IAN I NA

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J.S. BACH

Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825

LEVKO REVUTSKY

Three Preludes, Op. 4

RACHMANINOFF

Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 16

7'00

18'00

~Singapore Premiere~

Duration: approximately 1 hr 15 mins (with no intermission)

32'00

3 J U N 2 0 21 KSE N I IA VOKHM IAN I NA

Hailed as a performer with “artistry of the highest order” by The Straits Times and “maturity of musicianship and virtuosity”

by Pianomania, Kseniia Vokhmianina has gained critical and audience attention as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.

At 18, Kseniia was awarded the Lee Foundation Scholarship and the Tuition Grant from the Ministry of Education of Singapore to pursue a Diploma in Music Performance at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore), class of Boris Kraljević. Kseniia is also the recipient of a prestigious scholarship to pursue a degree at the Royal College of Music in London (UK). Further studies took Kseniia to the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland), where she obtained the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Classical Music Performance, class of Konstantin Scherbakov.

Kseniia began her music training at a very young age in her native Ukraine. Her awards at various competitions include the First Prize at the IX International Piano Competition (Serbia), and the Golden Piano Prize at the International Forum of Pianists in Sanok (Poland), among many others. She was recently

awarded the top prize in her category as well as two special prizes, including the Best Musical Performance at the “Clavis Bavaria 2020” International Piano Competition (Germany).

Besides touring around Europe as a solo and chamber music artist, Kseniia also initiated “By Candlelight” chamber music series in Singapore, with the support of the Arts House, as programme curator and performer. She has performed with various international symphony orchestras since the age of eight, including recent engagements with the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra and Murmansk Philharmonic Orchestra.

Website: kseniiavokhmianina.com YouTube: youtube.com/c/KseniiaVokhmianina Facebook & Instagram: @kseniia vokhmianina

KSENIIA VOKHMIANINA

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (16 8 5 –17 5 0 )

Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825 (1726) I. Præludium II. Allemande I II. Corrente IV. Sarabande V. Menuets I & II VI. Gigue Bach published his six Partitas from 1726 to 1731 while working as Leipzig’s Thomaskantor along with maintaining his reputation as a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist. Interestingly, by the time Bach wrote the harpsichord works, now known as the six Partitas, he was already an experienced composer of keyboard suites. However, unlike his English Suites and French Suites, the six Partitas are known to be grander and more technically challenging, with larger individual movements. Johann Forkel, the composer’s first biographer, described Bach’s Partitas as being “such excellent compositions for the clavier [that] had never before been seen or heard….they are so brilliant, well-sounding, expressive, and always new.”

The term partita was used as an equivalent for a dance suite by German composers of the time and represented a collection of pieces based around a central key. In addition to its four canonical dance forms — the allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue, Baroque composers would often add a prelude at the beginning and optional fancier dances called galanteries (menuets, bourées, gavottes) right before the gigue.

With the collection of six Partitas, Bach truly achieved absolute domination over the keyboard suite genre. Moving well

beyond the conventions of the day, he added much variety within the dance movements, introduced polyphonic texture, and deepened the development of voices into the accustomed suite numbers.

The Partita No. 1 in B-flat, published in 1726, opens up with the majestic Præludium which immediately sets the tone of the entire piece. It is followed by the energetic Allemande, full of running notes cascading up and down the keyboard, often split between the hands. The Corrente is sprightly in character, noticeable for its hops and leaps, and marked with dotted rhythms.

The Sarabande unfolds with great nobility and a sense of improvisation is achieved tastefully with the flourishing of ornamentation and a sublime melody in the top voice. As galanteries, Bach inserted two elegant Menuets contrasting in texture, articulation, and character. The Gigue completes the cycle with fireworks of hand-crossings between the bass and treble, the brilliance of which, once mastered, is exciting to both player and audience alike.

Three Preludes, Op. 4 (1914) ~Singapore Premiere~

I. Lento, D-flat major II. Andantino, F-sharp minor I II. Presto, C-sharp minor Ukrainian composer Levko Revutsky was one of the most prominent figures in the development of 19th- and 20th-century Ukrainian musical culture and a disciple of Mykola Lysenko, the father of modern Ukrainian classical music. Revutsky mastered a compositional style which married Ukrainian folk music with the harmonic trends of 19th-century classical music.

In Three Preludes Op. 4, Revutsky skilfully combines lyricism with a rich world of emotions through expressive melodies, complex rhythms and saturated harmonies. These miniatures, contrasting in mood and character, bring the listener on a journey which intersperses laments with moments of drama and heroism — with a sprinkling of melancholy.

Totally pianistic, utterly expressive, Revutsy’s Preludes have a celestial ability to touch one’s soul deeply and stay there long after they’re heard.

KSENIIA VOKHMIANINA

L E V KO R E V U T S K Y (18 8 9 –19 7 7 )

KSENIIA VOKHMIANINA

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SERGEI R ACHM ANINOFF (18 7 3 –19 4 3 )

Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 16 (1896) I. II. I II. IV. V. VI.

Andantino, B-flat minor Allegretto, E-flat minor Andante cantabile, B minor Presto, E minor Adagio sostenuto, D-flat major Maestoso, C major

Rachmaninoff’s Moments Musicaux, Op. 16 was written between October and December 1896, at a time when the composer was preoccupied with the coming performance of his First Symphony. Although composed as a set, each piece of this cycle is self-contained, presenting a new key and mood as well as demonstrating Rachmaninoff’s growing versatility in piano-writing style.

In his Moments Musicaux, the composer phenomenally displays the wide-ranging possibilities of the piano. He achieves a structural arch through all six pieces where the build-up of tragic and dramatic elements is crowned by a luminous, jubilant climax.

The cycle opens with an Andantino, which carries the character of a gentle, elegiac nocturne. It is followed by the contrasting Allegretto, characteristic of Rachmaninoff in the romantic right-hand theme and the bravura of the intricate passage-work.

The Andante cantabile is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's psychologically intense and dramatic lyricism and imbued with solemn moods. Interestingly, Rachmaninoff interprets this through the genre prism of Russian choral requiem singing by doubling the melody in thirds and strict Programme notes by Kseniia Vokhmianina

chordal accompaniment. Through the imitation of the a capella “chorus singing” one can also hear separate echoes of the heavy, mournful procession. The Presto brings effective energy pouring out in a violent stream that already promises hope for enlightenment. Written with great virtuoso sweep, this “musical moment” in E minor requires both tremendous emotional intensity and extreme artistic endurance from the performer. The last two pieces of the set turn to major keys, with a barcarolle-like Adagio sostenuto and a grandiose concluding Maestoso.

In this cycle, Rachmaninoff portrayed an entire odyssey from darkness to light, going through a whirlwind of emotions and finding not just his own circle of images and moods but also his original manner of composition. While not abandoning traditional genre forms, he treats them freely and gives them new, individual content.

PROGR AMME F R I , 4 J U N 2 0 21 VI C TO RI A CO N C ERT H A L L

CHUREN LI

J.S. BACH (J.S. BACH/CHUREN LI) Prelude after Bach

2'00

SCHUMANN Kreisleriana, Op. 16 GEORGE CRUMB

Five Pieces for Piano

RAVEL Miroirs

28'00

Duration: approximately 1 hr 25 mins (with no intermission)

~World Premiere~

28'00 10'00

4 J U N 2 0 21 CHUREN LI

Praised for her “extraordinary skill” in the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), and as the “epitome of poise and polish” in The Straits Times (Singapore), 25-year-old Singaporean pianist Churen Li continues to impress audiences with her musicality, poetry and charm.

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Currently serving as Artist Fellow at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music and Part-Time Academic Faculty at Yale-NUS College, Churen performed as soloist in a tour of Macau and Hong Kong with the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Orchestra, at the invitation of Singapore’s High Consulate in Hong Kong as part of Singapore’s 50th jubilee celebrations of independence in 2015. Other concerto engagements include performances with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Klassische Budapest Philharmonic, Metropolitan Festival Orchestra Singapore, Mihail Jora Philharmonic of Bacau and National University of Singapore (NUS) Symphony Orchestra.

Besides winning top prizes at international and national competitions, Churen was featured as the President’s Young Performer in her home country,

Singapore, in 2014. She is also the recipient of prestigious grants, including the Tan Kah Kee Postgraduate Scholarship (2015) and the FJ BenjaminSingapore Symphony Orchestra Bursary (2013).

With her passion for New Music, Churen was among ten pianists selected in 2018 to perform in the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, and at the prestigious Roche Continents programme in Salzburg, an interdisciplinary programme of workshops and lectures in the arts and in science.

She was listed in 2018 on Singapore Tatler's Generation-T List, a celebration of “50 of the brightest connectors, creative visionaries, influential innovators and disruptive talents in Singapore”.

She holds degrees from Yale University, Cambridge University and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (National University of Singapore).

Website: churenli.com YouTube: youtube.com/c/ChurenLi Facebook & Instagram: @churen.li

CHUREN LI ( b . 19 9 5 )

Prelude after Bach (2021) ~World Premiere~ ROBERT SCHUMANN (181 0 –18 5 6 )

Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (1838) I. Äusserst bewegt II. Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch III. Sehr aufgeregt IV. Sehr langsam V. Sehr lebhaft VI. Sehr langsam VII. Sehr rasch V III. Schnell und spielend GEORGE CRUMB ( b . 19 2 9 )

Five Pieces for Piano (1962) M A U R I C E R AV E L (18 7 5 –19 3 7 )

Miroirs (1904–1905) I. Noctuelles II. Oiseaux tristes I II. Une barque sur l'océan IV. Alborada del gracioso V. La vallée des cloches

I adore improvising. I find that playing around with the thematic materials of the pieces I’m working on brings about an exuberant sense of freedom, creativity and spontaneity. Historically, musicians in the Western classical tradition improvised preludes to set the mood for performances or church services, and I think it’s a shame we’ve lost that performance practice today.

To introduce my recital, I want to bring a sense of the improvisatory, the playful, the imaginative by putting a playful twist on the old practice of preluding. Prelude after Bach is a prelude on J.S. Bach’s D Minor Prelude for Cello. This prelude is glorious in its simplicity: the first four bars outline the tonic-subdominant-dominanttonic harmonic functions in rising and falling triads. I incorporated jazzed-up reharmonisations and extended harmonies in my re-imagining of Bach’s cello prelude as arranged for the piano.

The harmonic thread of “D” runs through my programme for this recital. Ordinarily, the middle C is thought of as the centre of the keyboard when in actuality, it is the middle D that is the point of symmetry between the 88 keys. How does this change the way pianists think about their physical relationships with the piano? Does reconceiving the centre of pianism as D help to bring about greater ease in playing? Prelude after Bach sets the stage for Kreisleriana, which is also centred around D. The D-centrism continues in Crumb’s Five Pieces for Piano. Though it’s hardly audible as both movements were written as extended techniques, it is nevertheless especially noticeable in the second and fourth movements. Ravel’s Miroirs ultimately ends with a descent to C-sharp in Cloches, after traversing through Alborada del gracioso, which also revolves around the tonal centre of D.

CHUREN LI

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (16 8 5 –17 5 0 ) /

CHUREN LI

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If Robert Schumman’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 sounds jarring, if not downright moody and temperamental, it might help to know that it was inspired by a book.

Its full title, in all its bombastic, eccentric glory, is The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper (c. 1819–1821). The novel is as surreal and experimental as you might expect it to be: written by E.T.A. Hoffman, it features a pet cat who fumbles and jumbles his master Kreisler’s papers, magically leading to the creation of a surreal memoir that switches inexplicably between the feline and the human. It was wildly popular when it was published in the 19th century, predating post-modern literary techniques with its unusual narrative structure. Kreisleriana, Op. 16 is named for the eponymous character, Johannes Kreisler the Kapellmeister.

The alter-ego of Kreisler provides a vehicle for Schumann to express the schizophrenic dualities of his own personality: the extroverted Florestan and the introverted Eusebius. Having written it during a manic episode over four days in 1838, the tumultuous nature of Schumann’s music also mirrors his troubled personal life as he sought to marry his beloved, Clara Wieck. Wieck, upon hearing Schumann’s music for the first time, responded in a rather unfortunate manner: “Sometimes your music actually frightens me, and I wonder: is it really true that the creator of such things is going to be my husband?”

Harkening back to the resonance of the key of D in this programme, as the tonal centre of Kreisleriana,

Op. 16, D is almost engulfed by the highly chromatic modulations and harmonic relationships in Schumann’s work. Spanning eight movements and violent shifts in mood, a nervous, frenetic energy runs through the even-numbered movements. The stark contrast this establishes with the tranquility and repose of the odd-numbered movements is almost unnerving. Eventually, the eighth movement fades into nothingness.

The next piece in the programme, George Crumb’s Five Pieces for Piano, represents a different kind of inversion.

Composed in 1962, Crumb turns the very idea of piano-playing in on itself. This was his first composition to utilise extended techniques, preceding decades of explorations into the sound possibilities of instruments.

Extended techniques amplify certain parameters of the body’s motion and gestures. As musicologist Richard Steinitz describes of Crumb: “Crumb’s music belongs, unquestionably, in a colouristic category… displaying the most resourceful and imaginative timbral language of any non-electronic composer”.1 When playing Crumb’s music, one almost feels like they are going inside the piano to reach for far-flung strings. A deep level of tactile and bodily control in sound production, as well as creativity and intuition on the part of the performer, is necessary to realise the timbral possibilities of Crumb’s sonic world.

1

Richard Steinitz, “George Crumb,” The Musical Times 119, no. 1628 (1978): 844.

Concluding the programme is Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs. Translated as “Mirrors”, Miroirs is a fascinating title for this collection of five pieces: what or whom do they reflect? Maurice Ravel later wrote that he was inspired by a quote from Shakespeare: “the eye sees not itself but by reflection, by some other things” (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2).

To me, Miroirs is a special collection precisely because the act of playing music is a kind of self-reflection, a kind of revealing and self-knowing. Ravel prefaced the first piece, Noctuelles (“Night Moths”) with an evocative quote from Léon-Paul Fargue’s poetry, to whom it is also dedicated: Les Noctuelles des hangars partent, d’un vol gauche, Cravater d’autres poutres. (“The night moths launch themselves clumsily from their barnes, to settle on other perches”).

The second piece, Oiseaux tristes (“Sad Birds”) was actually the first of the set to be composed. Ravel said of this piece: “It evokes birds lost in the oppressiveness of a very dark forest during the hottest hours of summer”. Rather than imitate birdsongs of nightingales and cuckoos as is often depicted by composers past, Ravel’s portrayal of sad birds calls to mind Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (1845) in its melancholic evocation of loss.

Programme notes by Churen Li

Une barque sur l'océan (“The Ship on the Ocean”) paints the journey of a lonely barge sailing on a vast ocean through increasingly expansive music. The Alborada del gracioso (“Morning Song of the Jester”) brings to mind the music of Spain, with dexterous repeated notes and crisp arpeggiated chords mimicking the sound of guitars. In the fifth piece, La vallée des cloches (“The Valley of Bells”), Ravel weaves multiple layers of differently sized and pitched bells to create a three-dimensional sonority.

The music also utilises the pentatonic scale extensively, which is perhaps fitting given that Ravel dedicated it to his only pupil, Maurice Delage, who later went on to become a composer known for his interest in the music of India and Japan.

CHUREN LI

This necessitates a different, possibly more intimate and visceral, physical relationship between the pianist and piano.

PROGR AMME S A T, 5 J U N 2 0 21 VI C TO RI A CO N C ERT H A L L

NICHOLAS LOH

FREDERIC RZEWSKI

North American Ballads

GEORGE CRUMB

Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik

Duration: approximately 1 hr 15 mins (with no intermission) 12

32'00 22'00

5 J U N 2 0 21 NICHOLAS LOH

Nicholas is no stranger to the local music scene and is sought-after as a soloist, collaborator and educator.

He graduated in 2014 from the New England Conservatory with a Masters in Piano Performance, specialising in contemporary piano repertoire under the guidance of Stephen Drury. Nicholas has also worked with other leading pianists in the field including Max Levinson, Corey Hamm and Nino Jvania. Prior to this, Nicholas obtained his Bachelor of Music from the University of Birmingham (UK) and his Post-graduate Diploma in Education from the National Institute of Education (Singapore).

Nicholas’s past solo recitals include the Singapore Piano Festival Young Virtuoso Series (2009), the Esplanade Spectrum series (2015) “…and deliver us from…”, and the Esplanade Concourse Cool Classics 2019 “Don’t listen so hard”.

Besides his capacity as a soloist, Nicholas’s greatest presence in the Singapore music scene is as a collaborative pianist. He has worked with musicians from groups as diverse as the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, The Philharmonic Orchestra (Singapore), Singapore Armed

Forces Band, Singapore Lyric Opera, Woodwind Quintet EDQ, the Boston Young Composers Ensemble (BYCE) and Discovery Ensemble (Boston). His recent foray into Chinese music has seen him perform with musicians from Ding Yi Music Company and local erhu ensemble Stringwerkz, as well as guest performers and competitors from the Singapore Chinese Music Competition (2018, 2020) and the Singapore International Erhu Competition (2019).

Previously a teacher with Chung Cheng High School (Main), Nicholas is currently a vocal coach with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the Horn Studio pianist for the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

YouTube: Nicholas Loh

N I CH O L AS LO H

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FREDERIC R ZEWSKI ( b . 19 3 8 )

did with his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.

North American Ballads (1979)

Rzewski’s aesthetico-political views place his music on a tight balancing rope between being modernist and being accessible. Across his whole oeuvre, his constant quotation of American folk melodies, folk tunes, and spirituals is a very well-documented part of his compositional technique. In the North American Ballads, each of the four movements has, at its heart, a workingclass or protest song, on top of which a plethora of musical techniques are applied.

I. II. I II. IV.

Dreadful Memories Which side are you on?

Down by the Riverside Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues

The Americans Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938) and George Crumb (b. 1929) both came to musical maturity after the horrors of the Second World War. As the European musical establishment spilled over into the New World, seeking ways to come to terms with the devastation of the previous decade, there was a surge of new ideas and breakthroughs as different generations of European migrants butted heads. The rather idyllic view of Dvorák was no longer possible; the interbellum had produced ground-breaking works like Edgard Varèse’s Amériques, Charles Ives’s massive “Concord” Sonata, and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.

A Hollywood connection had never appealed to either Rzewski or Crumb, and though their politics were never as firm as fellow American Conlon Nancarrow (who became persona non grata in the United States in part because of his Communistic fighting against Franco’s forces in Spain), they too followed large swathes of the artistic establishment in swinging left in the post-war period. All this was not merely part of their musical experimentalism: Rzewski maintains a firm socialist stance, with his most famous work (The People United Will Never Be Defeated) being a sprawling set of piano variations on a Chilean workingclass song. Crumb was famously against the Vietnam War, and Black Angels (for amplified string quartet) expands the gamut of string sounds like Penderecki

Dreadful Memories is based on a Kentucky coal-miner strike song from the 1930s, when the industry was still happy to let child workers die in the mines of accidents and starvation. The opening states the song in full, flowing manner, almost like an opera, and the treatment after can be described as a crazed modernist Lisztian fantasy on a tune: bits of the melody are isolated and shoved together in all sorts of combinations, often in many keys at the same time.

Herein lies the key to the whole set: there is very little music within that is purely ‘invented’; everything comes from some idea or other that is already latent in the original tune. The soft ending is marked “Something like a Lullaby” in the score.

One can even sing along: Dreadful memories! How they haunt me As the lonely moments fly.

Oh, how the little babies suffered!

I saw them starve to death and die...

Down By the Riverside and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues form a pair like the first two: The former starts out with the spiritual of the same name, a refrain of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement, and spirals into agitation and oblivion, resulting in another “optional improvisation”. Upon calming down, the music goes into a gospel-like rendition of theme and countermelody, but even that doesn’t last long, and everything falls apart at the end: a sobering and cynical message for the struggle against war and capitalism.

The motoric beginning of the finale takes the idea set up in Which side are you on? and runs with it, building up visions of the endless clicking of machines in a textile mill. Huge volumes of sound arise from arm clusters on the keyboard, and the “blues” slowly rises to the surface via a sneaky quotation of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. Unlike the other pieces, the music never really settles into calmness in this movement, and even in the slower moments, the harmonies and constant inner-part movement contribute

to the atmosphere of uneasiness. The machines return at the end, but instead of the low rumble of the opening, they scream aloud at the top of the keyboard before fading out.

N I CH O L AS LO H

Which side are you on? arose from the same workers’ protest, and used the theme of a well-known Baptist hymn fitted with new lyrics to rouse the protesters. Rzewski starts out in full ‘angry’ mode, and it is possible to imagine the music bursting at the seams, with furious gestures like stabbing chords and screaming glissandi covering the full range of the piano.

This outburst eventually settles into an obsessive, repeating rhythm (a technique that returns to great effect in the last movement). Typical of Rzewski is the included “optional improvisation”, after which a brash statement of the theme ends the piece in Bartók style.

N I CH O L AS LO H

GEORGE CRUMB ( b . 19 2 9 )

Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (2001) Crumb’s Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (“A Little Midnight Music”) has, as its title, a tongue-in-cheek nod to Mozart, but this modernist tribute to Thelonious Monk’s ’Round Midnight goes to great lengths to get new sounds out of the (amplified) piano. The performer is given extremely detailed instructions in the score, and by plucking and strumming strings, hitting the frame of the piano, using all manner of pedal effects, and even shouting, Crumb creates a completely unique sound world.

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Despite its title, this piece is a veritable compendium of Crumb’s favourite compositional devices, including long spans of ritualistic actions, liberal sprinklings of bell sounds, and references to all manner of things, including Debussy’s Golliwogg’s Cakewalk, Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are similarities to Rzewski’s pieces in that both use quotations and tend to build episodic, improvisatory forms, but Eine kleine Mitternachtmusik is more than just a series of very freeranging variations. In this piece, a master of classical composition pays homage to a master of jazz.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

PROGR AMME S U N , 6 J U N 2 0 21 VI C TO RI A CO N C ERT H A L L

CHANG YUN-HUA

BEETHOVEN

Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux”

COPLAND

Piano Variations

ALBÉNIZ

Iberia, Book II: Almería

BRAHMS

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24

18'00

8'00 9'00

Duration: approximately 1 hr 25 mins (with no intermission)

27'00

6 J U N 2 0 21 CHANG YUN-HUA

Taiwanese pianist Chang Yun-Hua (b.

1999) started piano lessons at age 4.

She studied with Dr. Wei-Lung Li at the National Tainan Girls’ High School and entered the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YSTCM), Singapore, in 2017 to study with Dr. Thomas Hecht.

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Yun-Hua has been actively participating in international music festivals such as Brancaleoni International Music Festival and Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival. She has won numerous awards, including the Second Prize of Section A at the XXVI Roma International Piano Competition in 2016, Third Prize of Category A at NewArt International Piano Competition in 2017, and the First Prize of piano category at the YSTCM Concerto Competition in 2019.

At the YSTCM, she participated in many chamber groups. She is a member of Conbrio Piano Quartet founded in 2019

by Prof. Bernard Lanskey. The quartet was invited to participate in the first Tianjin Chamber Music Festival in 2019, held by the Tianjin Juilliard School.

During the festival, the quartet had masterclasses with Juilliard String Quartet and pianist Xiaohan Wang. The quartet also performed in masterclasses by Gábor Takács-Nagy, Peter Schumayer and Lim Tze Chian. As a collaborative pianist, Yun-Hua has won the First Prize of the Taiwan Collaborative Piano Competition in 2014.

Yun-Hua has given performances in Taiwan, Singapore and Italy. She has also performed in masterclasses taught

by Dang Thai Son, Chen Pi-Hsien, Boris Berman, Boris Slutsky, James Giles, Logan Skelton, Matti Raekallio and Ursula Oppens.

In addition to being a soloist, Yun-Hua has been involved in chamber music and collaborative piano performances.

Website: changyunhuapianist.com

Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux” (1809–1810) I. Das Lebewohl: Adagio – Allegro II. Abwesenheit: Andante espressivo I II. Das Wiedersehen: Vivacissimamente This sonata was composed in 1809– 1810 and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph, one of Beethoven’s closest friends and patrons. When Napoleon’s army approached Vienna in May 1809, the Archduke was forced to flee with the imperial family. Hence, Beethoven composed this piece to express the deep emotion and to bid farewell to his friend. Furthermore, this sonata is one of the few pieces to which Beethoven gave a title. The three movements were entitled respectively as “Das Lebewohl” (“The Farewell”), “Abwesenheit” (“The Absence”), and “Das Wiedersehen” (“The Return”). The title “Les Adieux” was not given by Beethoven himself, but instead added on by the publisher as the French translation for “farewell”.

The three-note motif at the beginning of the first movement imitates the sound of horns. Beethoven even wrote “Lebe-wohl” over the notes to help people experience the feeling of saying goodbye to one’s dearest friend. This motif also transforms into the turbulent first subject and the expressive second subject. It is very special that the length of the coda is even longer than the development in the first movement. The “Le-be-wohl” motif constantly appears in the coda, which depicts his reluctance to be separated from his friend. The second movement

captures one’s mood of waiting for someone to return through the use of sighing diminished seventh chords, lonely wandering, and angry stabbing sforzandos. In between these materials, a major-key comforting melody comes up, reminiscing all the happy memories in the past. The second movement leads directly into the joyful “reunion” of the third movement. The running sixteenth notes and the light-hearted melody portrays Beethoven’s excitement upon his reunion with his friend.

CHANG YUN - HUA

L U D W I G VA N B E E T H O V E N (17 7 0 –18 2 7 )

CHANG YUN - HUA

20

A ARON COPLAND (19 0 0 –19 9 0 )

ISA AC ALBÉNIZ (18 6 0 –19 0 9 )

Piano Variations (1930)

Iberia, Book II: Almería (1906)

After years of pursuing jazz idioms in the 1920s, Piano Variations was a product of Copland’s second-style period when he started to work on abstract music.

Copland premiered the piece himself, and wrote that the Piano Variations “was the first work where [he] felt very sure of [himself].” Unlike many other variations, the variations in this piece are not episodic – instead, they are played continuously without a break.

He experimented with different ways of playing the piano to create different kinds of effects that successfully intensify the piece, such as striking the keys sharply, producing overtones, and using the sostenuto pedal. Moreover, the dissonant intervals and irregular rhythm also help to make the piece sound powerful and impressive. In addition to the piano solo version, Copland also transcribed this piece for orchestra in 1957.

Iberia is the peninsula located in southwest Europe, divided between current day Portugal and Spain. Albéniz finished composing Iberia a few months before his death. Possessing the rich experience of life and mature compositional techniques, Iberia is Albéniz’s most well-known masterpiece.

This four-volume set of works contains three movements in each, and all of the movements were composed using different Spanish dance rhythms.

Almería is a city in Andalusia, and the piece features rhythms found in the tarantas, the local dance style of Flamenco with a freely flowing character.

Variations and Fugue on a Theme

by Handel, Op. 24 (1861) This piece was written in September 1861 and was dedicated to Clara Schumann on her 42nd birthday. Brahms wrote many variations throughout his life. He also showed a keen interest in Baroque music. This piece is based on the theme from the Aria from Handel’s Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B-flat major. It consists of a theme, 25 variations, and a fugue.

The theme is very simple in terms of the structure and the harmony, which allows Brahms to have more freedom to vary the theme using different approaches. In addition to the Aria and Fugue, Brahms also applied forms from the Baroque era in his variations, such as the Siciliana (Var. 19), Musette (Var. 22), and Canon (Var. 6 & 16).

The organisation of 25 variations can be grouped by how one is related to the next one in terms of similarities in such characteristics as rhythm and character.

These variations were smartly planned so that they help the listeners to prepare for the epic final fugue. Despite how complex it already is as a four-voice fugue, Brahms made it even more challenging by using techniques such as thirds and sixths – resulting in a display of virtuoso pianism.

The theme keeps appearing in different ways, building up to the triumphant ringing of bells at the end.

Programme notes by Chang Yun-Hua

CHANG YUN - HUA

JOHANNES BRAHMS (18 3 3 –18 9 7 )

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