Yo-Yo Ma, Julia Hagen, Chloe Chua, Leonidas Kavakos, Daniel Lozakovich, Bertrand Chamayou, Eric Lu, Sayaka Shoji, Simon Trpčeski, Yeol Eum Son and Sergei Nakariakov with conductors Han-Na Chang, Joe Hisaishi, Mikhail Pletnev, Masaaki Suzuki and Kahchun Wong.
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
An Alpine Symphony, The Planets (with a new Earth), Pictures at an Exhibition in two orchestrations, New World Symphony, Scheherazade, Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony, and masterpieces by Mahler, Nielsen, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.
FEATURING SINGAPORE'S
Ding Yi Music Company, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Isaac Lee, Churen Li, Lin Chien-Kwan, Lien Boon Hua, Jonathan Shin and many more
Hans Graf Quantedge Music Director
Rodolfo Barráez Associate Conductor
Hannu Lintu Music Director-Designate
Concert Season
25
Lim Yan
A very warm welcome to the 2025 Singapore International Piano Festival.
To the pianophile, Singapore-born pianist Kate Liu needs little introduction and I am thrilled to present her in this year’s festival. I am also delighted to welcome again and for the first time, Kyoko Hashimoto and Robert Levin for their long-awaited appearances at SIPF; while Paul Lewis makes a long-overdue return to the festival.
This year marks the first time in almost thirty seasons that the festival will go on without the expertise, dry humour and warmth of our beloved piano technician, the late Walter Haass, who sadly passed away last December. We shall miss him dearly.
A reminder that along this inexorable arrow of time, change is the only constant, and one must continually evolve and adapt. So it is also for the Festival; since 2019, when I first took the reins as Artistic Director, there has been a proliferation of music presenters that have contributed to the increased vibrancy of the local music scene. By expanding the format of the festival to include masterclasses, interviews and lecture recitals, I hoped to offer something extra; a behind-the-scenes view of the thinking and preparation behind a recital programme, as well as an opportunity for our young pianists in Singapore, including prizewinners of the National Piano and Violin Competition, to work with our guest artists.
As I hand over Directorship of the Festival to my colleague and successor Albert Tiu, I would like to acknowledge all the staff of SSO – not least of all (although she would hate my mentioning her specially!) Michelle Yeo, the Festival Producer – who have contributed to its continued smooth running and success. I know the Festival will continue to grow and flourish with them and Albert’s leadership.
Wishing you a memorable and transformative experience at SIPF 2025.
Lim Yan Artistic Director
At A Glance
Lim Yan Artistic Director
Peter Salisbury master piano technician
THU, 26 JUN 2025
Kate Liu in Recital
7.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall
Works by Mozart, Brahms and Chopin
FRI, 27 JUN 2025
Kyoko Hashimoto in Recital
7.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall
Works by Fauré, Messiaen, Debussy, Takemitsu, Boulez, Szymanowski and Scriabin
SAT, 28 JUN 2025
Masterclass by Kyoko Hashimoto
1pm, Victoria Concert Hall Dance Studio
Lecture Recital by Robert Levin
4.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall Dance Studio
Paul Lewis in Recital
7.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall
Works by Beethoven, Larcher and Brahms
SUN, 29 JUN 2025
Masterclass by Paul Lewis
3.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall Dance Studio
Robert Levin in Recital
7.30pm, Victoria Concert Hall
Works by Mozart, with improvisation
Digital Release
Yeol Eum Son in Recital
Singapore Symphony YouTube channel
Recorded live at the Victoria Concert Hall in June 2024, during the 30th Singapore International Piano Festival.
THU, 26 JUN 2025
VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
Kate Liu in Recital
MOZART Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310 18’00
BRAHMS Four Ballades, Op. 10 30’00
Intermission 20'00
CHOPIN Four Mazurkas, Op. 30 11’00
Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 25’00
Concert Duration: approximately 2 hrs (including 20 mins intermission)
Post-concert autograph session with Kate Liu at Door 3, Level 2
Pianist Kate Liu has garnered international recognition, notably winning the Third Prize at the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. She also received the Best Mazurka Prize, as well as the Audience Favorite Prize awarded by the Polish public through Polish National Radio. Since then she has toured internationally, performing at some of the world’s most renowned venues and collaborating with orchestras around the globe.
As a distinguished soloist, Kate has been presented in numerous prestigious halls, including the Seoul Arts Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Warsaw National Philharmonic, La Maison Symphonique de Montréal, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Shanghai Concert Hall, Osaka Symphony Hall, and the Phillips Collection. Esteemed orchestras she has collaborated with include the Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Daegu Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Hilton and Head Symphony Orchestra. She is a regular invitee to the Chopin and His Europe Festival in Warsaw, and in 2024, was the recipient of the Olivier Berggruen Prize as part of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.
In 2025, she released her debut album featuring Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Orchid Classics.
Born in Singapore, Kate began her piano studies at the age of four and relocated to the United States at age eight. She studied at the Music Institute of Chicago under Emilio del Rosario, Micah Yui, and Alan Chow. Early in her career, she achieved first prizes at the Third Asia-Pacific International Chopin Competition and the New York International Piano Competition. Kate holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, as well as a Master’s and Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert McDonald and Yoheved Kaplinsky.
kateliu.com
pianist.kateliu katethepianist
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
(1756 – 1791)
Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante, cantabile con espressione
III. Presto
To say Mozart was fond of the piano is rather like saying cats like fish. His output of 18 (or 19) sonatas for solo piano and 27 piano concerti have served as models for following generations and remain part of the core keyboard repertoire. While generally his piano sonatas are in major keys, two are notably in minor keys. One of these is the Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310, written in 1778, which may afford us a look into his inmost thoughts at that time.
What could have turned the sunny Mozart in this direction? One factor may have been the death of his mother Anna Maria Walburga at the age of 57 that summer in Paris after a sudden, undiagnosed illness that lasted some 14 days. Mozart had a deep bond with his mother, who had always played ‘good cop’ whereas his father was ‘bad cop’. He was deeply shocked and several letters exchanged with his father Leopold discuss this tragic event.
The Allegro maestoso first movement has an intensity that theorist Leonard Ratner associated with Turkish or janissary military music, and it is tempting to see this as a precursor of the Turkish March which would appear in his Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331, some years later in 1781 –1783. Serenity returns in the rather long Andante, cantabile con espressione, before the development points out dark clouds approaching. This movement has an unusually large number of trills for both hands, indicating that the work may not have been intended for amateur players at home, who would have
required several swigs of beer for courage before attempting some of the passages. The Presto is a restless rondo, with unsettling off-beat elements, as if we are in search of something. A brief major-key diversion occurs before we return to the minor mode and end abruptly with a sense of loss.
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) Four Ballades, Op. 10
No. 1 in D minor (Andante)
No. 2 in D major (Andante)
No. 3 in B minor (Intermezzo)
No. 4 in B major (Andante con moto)
When we think of Johannes Brahms, we think of the mature Brahms, bearded and stern, deeply respected by the music world, often forgetting that he too, was young once. A lighter, in all senses, Brahms may be glimpsed in his Vier Balladen (Four Ballades), Op. 10, from 1854. Only 21, he was staying in Düsseldorf to help Clara Schumann and her children after his mentor Robert Schumann’s suicide attempt and subsequent institutionalisation. As the doctors had forbidden any direct contact between the couple, Brahms found himself being the go-between. This glimpse into his friend and mentor’s mental state did not help his mood, nor did the increased contact with Clara, for whom he had developed an unfortunate affection while she helped him launch his career.
These troubling thoughts served as inspiration, so it was that Brahms explored the ballade form, a one-movement instrumental piece that had its roots in mediaeval storytelling. While the mediaeval ballade told tales of heroism, romance, and folklore with a combination of words and music, the piano ballade sought to do the same work with music alone. Brahms’s collection was dedicated to fellow composer Julius Otto Grimm (no relation to the Brothers
Grimm who wrote Grimm’s Fairy Tales) and chose to honour the genre’s origins in narrative poetry. Arranged in two pairs in parallel keys, Brahms takes us to a sort of mythological world, a legendary past of indefinite age, in the way that Tolkien’s Middle Earth aimed to be a sort of ancient version of our own planet. Extensive use of open fifths and octaves evoke mediaeval music, and scholars have called it an example of Brahms’s bardic style.
Brahms tells us that the first Ballade was inspired by the old Scottish ballad Edward, in Herder’s Stimmen der Völker (“Voices of the people”), in which a mother interrogates her son about the blood on his hunting knife. Eventually the son admits he has killed his brother (or father, depending on the version), and says he will leave, never to return. The other Ballades have no such clues and enable us to use our imaginations. Robert Schumann, though living in a mental institution, was enthusiastic about the Ballades, probably unaware that part of his young friend’s inspiration was his own wife.
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810 – 1849)
Four Mazurkas, Op. 30 No. 1 in C minor No. 2 in B minor No. 3 in D-flat major
No. 4 in C-sharp minor
Fréderíc Chopin (or Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen as it is spelled in his native Polish) wore his ethnic identity on his sleeve, so while he enjoyed being based in Paris and being the toast of Europe at a time when an independent Poland did not exist (being partitioned between Prussia, the Hapsburg Empire, and the Russian Empire), was nevertheless dedicated to writing in Polish idiomata such as krakowiaks, polonaises and mazurkas, perhaps as a way of keeping his culture alive.
The Krakowiak is a dance from Kraków, and a Polonaise, as the name suggests, is a Polish dance, but what exactly is a Mazurka? A Mazurka is a lady from the Masovia region of the Polish-speaking regions, with Warsaw as its largest city, and also the name of a dance in triple metre traditionally danced in the area. Mazurkas first appear in lute and organ music of the 16th century, but it was the reign of Augustus II ‘The Strong’, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who introduced the mazurka to Germany, and thereafter it became immensely popular in the high society of Paris, London, and other European capitals. While there is great variety in the mazurka genre ranging from the noble dance of courtly ballrooms to the folk versions danced by peasants, all of these are in triple metre, with unpredictable accents on the second or third beats, giving an air of freshness and almost wildness, compared with the more regular ‘Western’ forms.
Chopin’s mazurkas are a view into his innermost thoughts, and through them we may see his style develop, from the utterly symmetrical and short early works that are more clearly dance music to the expansive later pieces which incorporate counterpoint and are almost like fantasias. His Mazurkas, Op. 30 date from 1837, in the immediate aftermath of his 1836 engagement to painter and pianist Maria Wodzi´nska in Dresden, the postponement of the wedding due to her family’s concern over his health, finances, and habits, and their eventual end of the relationship due to his partying. The four works in the set are sombre and detached, perhaps Chopin was still processing his grief and mourning the loss of what could have been. Nevertheless, he would be chuffed to know that his polonaises and mazurkas would continue being the first introduction to traditional Polish musical forms for many music lovers some 200 years after his death.
Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35
I. Grave – Doppio movimento
II. Scherzo
III. Marche funèbre: Lento
IV. Finale: Presto
Two years after his breakup with Maria Wodzi´nska, Chopin had not yet recovered, and a run in with influenza in the winter of 1837 did not help things. Chopin directed this outpouring of sorrow and frustration into his music, writing a Marche funèbre in 1837. This work took on a life of his own and eventually became his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, completed in 1839 and published the following year. Interestingly, while writing this sonata, Chopin was living in the manor of George Sand, in Nohant. He had begun a romantic affair with her in 1837, and their ‘shacking up’ was a source of horror for Chopin’s piously Catholic mother.
The sonata starts dramatically with a Grave section, before going into Doppio movimento where agitation is the order of the day, before a slow theme appears. Grief, Chopin reminds us, is not orderly. Development takes place, with various contrasting ideas jostling for attention. “Chopin is still up and down, never exactly good or bad. … He is gay as soon as he feels a little strength, and when he’s melancholy he falls back onto his piano and composes beautiful pages.”, George Sand wrote in a letter to Charlotte Marliani at the end of July 1839, and we see this in the music, with its back-and-forth cycling between moods.
Where one would expect a lyrical slow movement, Chopin startles us with a Scherzo, with its forceful and aggressive principal theme that almost foreshadows the fiery vigour of Bizet’s Carmen to come some half a century later. Reminding us that this is indeed a scherzo (joke), he gives us a contrasting trio,
slow and lyrical, as if making up for the lack of a slow movement. Then another surprise comes, with two voices—one crawling and the other attempting to soar upwards—were these a reflection of two different impulses within him?
The third movement, Marche funèbre (“Funeral March”), is the heart of the work, having been composed first. Supremely funereal and sombre, it moves inexorably on. The first theme, austere and determined, gives way to a more melodic and tender theme, all the more poignant coming after the first. The first theme returns, taking us back to the unstoppable progress of fate. One is tempted to see there a lament not only for the composer’s personal tragedies, but also for his beloved Poland, which had lost its independence in 1795 and would not see it restored until 1918.
The Finale: Presto has puzzled since its creation. Not following any set form, it undulates unpredictably, with both hands moving in unison, before a dramatic end. The Sonata ends as it began, with a riddle, like a Sphinx – with a mocking smile on its lips. – Robert Schumann
Notes by Edward C. Yong
A writer, editor, and teacher of dead languages, Edward plays lute and early guitars, sings bass, and runs an early music group. Like his dog, he is very much foodmotivated.
VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
Kyoko Hashimoto in Recital
FAURÉ Selections from 9 Préludes , Op. 103 10’00
MESSIAEN Selections from Préludes pour piano 19’00
DEBUSSY Selections from Préludes, Book 1 17’00
Intermission 20'00
TAKEMITSU Rain Tree Sketch II (In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen) 5’00
BOULEZ 12 Notations 10’00
SZYMANOWSKI Etude in B-flat minor, Op. 4 No. 3 5’00
SCRIABIN Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 6 21’00
Concert Duration: approximately 2 hrs (including 20 mins intermission)
Post-concert autograph session with Kyoko Hashimoto at Door 3, Level 2
Kyoko Hashimoto
Kyoko Hashimoto was born in Tokyo and studied at the Toho-Gakuen School of Music, the International Menuhin Music Academy, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. Her teachers included Sebök, Pressler, Masselos, Sandor, Kurtág, and Rados.
She has been performing worldwide in more than 35 countries, including venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Concertgebouw, etc. Besides performing Solo recitals worldwide, she has performed Concertos with distinguished orchestras, and she has performed with the world’s top musicians, such as Ricci, Zehetmair, Meneses, Vegh, Maisky, Isserlis, Adorján, Gallois, Bourgue, Prinz, Collins, Schellenberger, Tuckwell, Marwood, Azzolini, van Keulen, Faust, Baumann, Pasquier, Haimovitz, Hirschhorn, Mann, Rhodes, Petracchi, and Giuranna.
She was awarded numerous prizes at international competitions and has recorded many times for TV and radio worldwide, including a series of 20 works by Beethoven for Dutch radio, and her performance of a Schubert Impromptu was selected alongside recordings by Edwin Fischer, William Kapell and Wilhelm Backhaus for a program of ‘Great Schubert Performances’ in the BBC.’ She has also made more than twenty CD recordings, including Solo recordings of Messiaen, Schumann, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Schubert, Debussy, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, Blumenfeld, Mozart, and Terashima
She is a Professor of Piano at McGill University in Canada, and she was on the piano faculty of the Utrecht Conservatory in Holland, and a guest professor at the European Mozart Academy and many major institutions in most Europe, North and South America, and Asian countries. She has been invited as an International Jury member for many competitions, such as the Gina Bachauer Piano Artists Competition (USA), CMC Steppingstone Competition (Canada), Piana del Cavaliere Competition (President of the Jury, Italy), Maj Lind Competition (Finland), etc. She has been the Director of Europe’s International Music Workshop and Festival (IMWAF) since 2004.
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GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845
– 1924)
Selections from 9 Préludes, Op. 103
No. 3 in G minor No. 4 in F major No. 5 in D minor
The writer Paul Landormy noted that “to speak of Fauré is to touch on what is most intimate and most secret in the genius of France”. Fauré’s style bridged late Romanticism and the second quarter of the 20th century with an elusive, refined style. The subtlety of his expression is sometimes mistaken as being salon-like in its ease, when it is in fact rich with harmonic and rhythmic ambiguity. In his piano works, arpeggios frame the melody like mosaics, and both hands hold equal importance (Fauré was ambidextrous).
66 and beset with deafness when he wrote them, Fauré’s Préludes are tinged with nostalgia and bitterness. A nocturnal spirit imbues Prélude III: Andante, in G minor, which Vladimir Jankélévitch described as ‘a barcarolle strangely interrupting a theme of very modern stylistic contour’. The pastoral Prélude IV: Allegretto moderato, in F major casts a spell with its fresh modal harmonies. Prélude V: Allegro, in D minor, is striking and virtuosic in its outburst of darkness and anxiety, which ends in resignation.
OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908 – 1992)
Selections from Préludes pour piano
No. 4: Instants défunts
No. 5: Les sons impalpables du rêve
No. 6: Cloches d'angoisses et larmes d’adieu
A rare composer with a genuine interest in global music, Messiaen’s style absorbed the French organ tradition, the innovations of Debussy, Stravinsky, and Bartók, birdsong, Greek verse and Hindu rhythms, and Indonesian gamelan. He perceived colours in sound, a phenomenon known as synaesthesia.
Messiaen created what he called ‘modes of limited transposition’—artificial scales that began with the whole-tone scale and evolved into six other symmetrical divisions of the octave.
Prélude IV: Instants défunts (“Departed moments”) paints a palette of grey, mauve, and green. A quiet lament with subtle dynamics, the silences and decay of sound are as important as the notes themselves. Blueorange and purple follow in Prélude V: Les sons impalpables du rêve (“The Impalpable Sounds of a Dream”), with Mode 3 in the right hand, and Mode 2 in the left hand’s chordal theme. In Prélude VI: Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu (“Bells of Anguish and Tears of Farewell”), a repeated note represents a bell with its overtones, tolling higher with each repetition until it reaches a climax, then melting into a tender farewell.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
Selections from Préludes, Book 1
No. 4: Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir
No. 5: Les collines d’Anacapri
No. 10: La cathédrale engloutie
No. 11: La danse de Puck
Debussy’s biographer, Laloy, noted that the composer “received his most profitable lessons from poets and painters, not from musicians”. Debussy’s approach to form and colour drew upon a myriad of influences, including free verse poetry, Japanese prints, and Symbolist literature. Nevertheless, the label ‘Impressionism’ has clung to Debussy, one that he had already rejected in 1908: “I am trying to do something different—an effect of reality … what the imbeciles call Impressionism, a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics”.
Prélude IV: Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir (“Sounds and scents swirl through the evening air”) borrows its title from Baudelaire’s poem Harmonie du soir. The interval of a fourth forms the main motif, first rising, then falling. Breathing a heady, intimate atmosphere, all notions of time disappear into chord clusters that traverse the registers.
Prélude V: Les collines d’Anacapri (“The Hills of Anacapri”) is the only piano work by Debussy with Italian inspiration. Its staccato theme and acciaccaturas conjure up cicada chirps, boozy summers, and sunlight reflecting off the clear waters surrounding the island of Capri.
Like Fauré, Debussy often juxtaposed the same material in different modes or with a shifting bass — akin to Monet’s ‘fixed object’ illuminated from different angles. Prélude X: La cathédrale engloutie (“The Submerged Cathedral”) unfolds as such. With chords spanning seven octaves and misty harmonies and textures, Debussy takes us to medieval France and the ancient cathedral of Ys, drowned in legend. Its plainchant modes and intervals of fourths and fifths are derived from twelfth-century organum, one of the earliest forms of Western polyphony.
Inspired by the fairy-character Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prélude XI: La danse de Puck (“The Dance of Puck”) sets off with sprightly, staccato motifs against a pulsing ostinato.
TORU TAKEMITSU (1930 – 1996)
Rain Tree Sketch II (In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen)
It was during Takemitsu’s military service (1944) that he first encountered Western music, which had been banned in wartime Japan. He received some compositional training but remained essentially self-taught.
Amidst rapid musical experimentation during the 1960s–1970s, he developed his own idiom, fusing a Japanese ethos with Western techniques.
Takemitsu was inspired by The Rain Tree, written by his friend KenzaburoOe, the 1994 Nobel Prize winner for literature. The tale is about an ancient tree, whose thousands of tiny leaves collect rainwater that continues to fall even after the rain stops. Silences are equally meaningful, with each phrase fading into long rests. As a tribute to Messiaen, Takemitsu uses the third mode of limited transposition, a succession of cells consisting of one tone and two semitones.
PIERRE BOULEZ (1925 – 2016)
12 Notations
As the aftermath of war loomed over a fractured Europe, a musical revolution was brewing, particularly in Paris in 1945. Boulez’s famous phrase ‘organised delirium’ (Relevés d’apprenti, Paris, 1966) offers a window into his aesthetics. For his generation, the inseparability of style and logic was a hallmark of musical excellence. As a boy, Boulez showed a strong aptitude for mathematics and seemed destined—at least in his father’s imagination—for a career in engineering. After intense studies in both disciplines, and against his father’s wishes, he chose the Paris Conservatoire. Contemporary music enthusiasts will surely celebrate Boulez’s choice, especially this year, the centenary of his birth.
The number twelve is key in Notations: each miniature lasts twelve bars and employs the same twelve-tone row. While the underlying form and pitch structure remain consistent, the sound world shifts dramatically. Glistening colours recall Debussy, irregular rhythms nod to the music of his teacher Messiaen, and at
times the music turns brutal, jazzy, or virtuosic. Though an early work, Notations became a mainstay in his oeuvre; he revisited its material throughout his life and eventually orchestrated part of it.
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI (1882
– 1937)
Etude in B-flat minor, Op. 4 No. 3
Typical of Szymanowski’s early works, the Études Op. 4 show the influence of his Polish predecessor Chopin as well as his contemporary, the Russian composer Scriabin. No. 3 unfolds with a melancholic melody and escalating tension, spanning from pianissimo to fortissimo. Jan Paderewski often championed the piece, contributing to its disproportionate popularity. Feeling burdened, Szymanowski wrote that “it is a very bad thing to have composed one’s Ninth Symphony at such an early age”. In a copy of its first edition, his handwritten dedication implores us “to perform the piece as rarely as possible”.
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN (1872
– 1915)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 6
I. Allegro con fuoco
II. Adagio
III. Presto
IV. Funèbre
A once-controversial figure for his theosophical obsessions, Scriabin’s music is cloaked in mysticism and inspired by synaesthesia. In 1888, he entered the Moscow Conservatory and became one of its star piano students, but was also known to be lazy and willful. Bouts of nerves plagued him during periods of intense composition, and he lived much of his twenties on the edge of a Dostoyevskian breakdown. Scriabin had relatively small hands (by Russian standards), spanning little over an octave. This informed his piano writing and may have led to the difficult circumstances surrounding this
Sonata. He had hoped to graduate a year early but was denied, earned a Small Gold Medal instead of the Great Gold Medal Rachmaninoff had received, then injured his right hand from overpractice. Physicians told him he would never play again and thus, the Sonata was written as a “cry against God, against fate” (he would eventually regain the use of his hand).
The Sonata embodies youth itself, with its crises and its dreams. The Allegro con fuoco lets rip with a vehement theme that ascends from the depths, only to fall and rise each time with increasing desperation. This quickly finds contrast in a wistful, rhythmically intricate second subject in A-flat major. After a tumultuous development and climax, the music fades into a coda that can only find tenuous calm, wavering between tonic minor and major before settling for F major. Rooted in a chorale-like theme, the Adagio in C minor is melancholic and quietly intense. Like the first movement, its subdued ending in C major offers some false hope. The Presto is a frenzied scherzo, with a propulsive rhythm underlying even the most lyrical strands of its trio. Its conclusion is suspended before flowing into Funèbre, a funeral march that parallels the third movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35. The central section recalls the chorale of this Sonata’s Adagio and is marked Quasi niente (“almost nothing”), though even this attempt at peace is punctuated by three stabbing final chords.
Notes by See Ning Hui
See Ning Hui is a pianist, researcher, and educator passionate about integrating underrepresented composers’ music. She is an adjunct lecturer at UAS-NAFA. Upcoming engagements can be found on www.ninghuisee.com.
SAT, 28 JUN 2025
VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
Paul Lewis in Recital
BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10 No. 1 21’00
LARCHER Sonata for Solo Piano 11’00
Intermission 20'00
BRAHMS Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 18’00
BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 27’00
Concert Duration: approximately 2 hrs (including 20 mins intermission)
Post-concert autograph session with Paul Lewis at Door 3, Level 2
Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis is one of the foremost interpreters of the Central European piano repertoire, his performances and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert receiving universal critical acclaim. He was awarded CBE for his services to music, and the sincerity and depth of his musical approach have won him fans around the world.
With a natural affinity for Beethoven, Lewis took part in the BBC’s three-part documentary Being Beethoven and performed a piano concerto cycle over 3 concerts at Tanglewood in summer 2022, and then in Boston in 2023 with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony. He has performed the cycle all over the world and was the first pianist to play the complete cycle in a single BBC Proms season in 2010. In May 2025 he will perform the cycle with the Oslo Philharmonic ad Eivind Aadland.
Between 2022 and 2025, Lewis embarked on a Schubert Piano Sonata Series, presenting four programmes of the completed sonatas at over 40 venues around the world. In March 2025 he gave the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s Piano Sonata in Oviedo and will give the regional premiere of the piece in Austria, Czech Republic, Holland, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the USA.
In May 2025 Lewis will become the first non-American pianist to chair the jury of 2025 The Cliburn Piano Competition.
His discography with Harmonia Mundi also demonstrates his characteristic depth of approach in Romantic repertoire such as Schumann, Mussorgsky, Brahms and Liszt.
Lewis is co-Artistic Director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, UK.
It was from the piano sonata that Beethoven first established his identity and individualism, and it continued to define his composition style more than anything else. The piano sonata had been his experiment lab for ideas that led to bigger steps like symphonies. As he advanced the piano sonata, he advanced piano-playing itself. He had the ability to draw out a myriad of tone colours from the piano, and demanded that his pianos express a variety of volume and note-attacks: to create drama from thunderstorms to tenderness.
Today’s recital is book-ended with two sonatas set in the key of C minor: the first one he wrote in that key (No. 5), and the final sonata, No. 32.
At its time of composition in 1795–1796, Beethoven had been living in Vienna for 3–4 years, having moved there to study with Haydn in 1792. The Op. 10 Sonatas were dedicated to the Countess Anna Margarete von Browne, a wealthy and loyal patron of Beethoven who, with her husband, had supported Beethoven financially and even gifted Beethoven a horse(!) in appreciation for a prior dedication.
As if an argument, the sonata’s Allegro molto e con brio begins with a resolute declamation – a full C minor chord followed by a jagged arpeggio upwards, answered placatingly by three chords in harmony, before being disrupted again. Then instead of a chorale, the answer comes in urgent triplets before the louder voice has the last words, a chord with a leap, punctuated with fortissimos, then silence. A melody developing out of the last two notes of the first outburst, but now singing, and suspended over a chordal accompaniment,
leads into the second subject, a tuneful, singing line over Alberti bass that sounds as if it is taken right out of a Haydn sonata. These themes, as well as the silences in between, are developed by Beethoven for the rest of the movement.
In the Adagio, the jagged upward arpeggio from the first movement becomes a gentle, lyrical melody. We imagine Beethoven, sitting at his piano, doodling, playing around with scalic lines, note values and chord progressions in a carefree manner – spinning it into music of heartfelt grace and beauty.
The Prestissimo finale brings us back to C minor in unison hushed tones, dark and ominous. In absolute contrast, the second theme is friendly, straightforward and almost polite, converting the first theme in C minor to E-flat major by the end of the exposition. The development is very short and concise, with unmistakable triplet figures that foreshadow Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Given that the next C minor sonata to follow three sonatas later was named the Pathétique, it is little wonder then that this sonata was referred to as the “Little Pathétique” soon after.
Back to my roots
Back to the piano where it all began
What is a thought, an idea, an invention? Where does the stream of developments come from, and what feeds it?
What is it, an idea? Where does it come from? Whose ideas triggered mine? And whose triggered theirs?
When composing, one is an interface in an infinite and never-ending circuit of connections
THOMAS LARCHER (b. 1963)
Sonata for Solo Piano
Where to go, where to let oneself drift?
Where does the light shine when you ignite it?
In all directions, including backwards, towards yourself
– Thomas Larcher
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897)
Three Intermezzi, Op. 117
No. 1 in E-flat major: Andante moderato
No. 2 in B-flat minor: Andante non troppo e con molta espressione
No. 3 in C-sharp minor: Andante con moto
In 1890, at the age of 57, Brahms announced his retirement, claiming that he was done with composing. Two years later however, he produced his last piano works, Op. 116–119, four sets of short pieces that have now become gems of piano repertory. Throughout these works one gets a sense of rage against the injustices of life, resignation at not being able to stop fate, and finally the rest that comes with acceptance and peace. At the time of composition, Brahms had lost some friends and could also have been aware that his time was coming to an end; as such, he describes the human experience musically in a visceral and direct way.
The Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 was written in the summer of 1892 during a short stay at Bad Ischl. Brahms described the set as “three lullabies to my sorrows”, based on a text by Johann Gottfried Herder. Clara Schumann, most likely the secret dedicatee of these pieces, wrote in her diary in November 1892 that they were “a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, rapture, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects… In these pieces I at last feel musical life re-enter my soul, and I play once more with true devotion.”
The first Intermezzo in E-flat is prefaced with the text Schlaft sanft mein Kind, schlaft sanft und schön! Mich dauert’s sehr dich weinen sehn, which translates to “sleep well my child,
lie still and sleep; it grieves me sore to see you weep” and the music corresponds perfectly to the text: the first stanza in the outer sections, and the second stanza in the middle section. The melody is angelic and tender, underneath the sonorous and bell-like octaves in the righthand part. The middle section, set in the minor key, is agitated and poignant, and when the calm first melody returns, it is split between both hands, as if in reminiscence of time past.
The second Intermezzo in B-flat minor is filled with fluid, falling arpeggios and restless irregular phrases. The first theme that emerges from the opening arpeggios is transformed throughout the piece, and culminates quietly in the final bars.
Brahms referred to the third Intermezzo in C-sharp minor as “the lullaby of all my grief” – one of his most mysterious and haunting pieces. The voices wander solemnly in the first section, the middle section features a brief quote from the second movement of his First Violin Sonata; and time seems to stop for a moment as the music transitions back to the first theme.
Writing to Brahms later, Clara Schumann had these words to offer on the collection of Op. 117 Fantasies: “…each one in its own way. I like the deeply passionate ones as much as the dreamy ones, in which such exquisite sounds are conjured out of the piano.”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
I. Maestoso – Allegro con brio ed appassionato
II. Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
If the intermezzi were Brahms’s farewell to music, then Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 was definitely Beethoven’s final, lengthy farewell to the piano sonata.
PAUL LEWIS
An unsettling diminished interval is followed by a full diminished chord, that only seems to resolve partially before another wave hits. Three strikes. Like the first scene of Macbeth, lightning strikes and thunder rolls without introducing a main character. An ominous trill in the bass, like the growl of a timpani roll, grows from the hesitant, jagged shifting chords to curtly arrive at a C – the first semblance of a key after much ambiguity. C minor, that, for Beethoven, has represented emotional intensity and revolution in the sonata heard earlier, turbulence in the Coriolan Overture, and, most notably, fate knocking at the door. Will we see a triumph over fate, as with the Fifth Symphony?
A jolt, then a full-blown theme that forms the basis of the first movement appears. The storm rages on as if an angry improvisation upon the theme, juxtaposing powerful, physical passages with the tenderest of bars that sing and sigh. As Beethoven’s deafness encroached, he thought of ways to try to hear his piano: hacking off the legs and playing while sitting on the floor, so he could ‘hear’ by feeling the vibrations. His piano was out of tune, the strings damaged, he could not hear, and he was exasperated – fist-shaking rage at an unjust and cruel hand fate dealt to him manifests in the music. All the tricks we heard earlier come back – counterpoint, ferocious octaves and scales in unison, and even the use of the keyboard’s entire for dramatic effect. Is it parody, frantic desperation, or revenge? After a build-up and a few loud bangs on the keyboard, the hushed chords and murmurs settle into a C major chord, giving us a sense of anticipation that something wondrous is about to occur.
And something wondrous does occur in the theme and variations that follow. In complete contrast, the theme is regal, simple, and unhurried. The sheer purity of the theme transports us to a place of serenity, and the journey the variations take us on is not
merely a case of triumph over fate; it is a transcendence from hellish suffering to heavenly peace – Beethoven takes us per aspera ad astra, from darkness to the stars, from struggle into light. The first to the third variation takes the theme and increases the intensity and complexity until it reaches full-blown euphoric abandonment that, many claim, foreshadows 20th-century boogiewoogie.
The turning point occurs after this variation. A sudden drop to pianissimo, and we begin our ascent to the stars. Less and less implies more and more, as the serene theme floats over the murmurs of the deep, disappearing into fragments that swirl gently, becoming the softest of trills that shine high above in the celestial heavens. One last statement of the theme, then struggle ceases.
The ending shows what an incredible state of mind Beethoven was in; he chose to end his magnum opus of piano sonatas – and along with it, his entire piano sonata oeuvre – not with a long-drawn note, but with a musical question mark: a quaver followed by a rest. Has Beethoven attained his elusive goal? Perhaps, only heaven knows.
Notes by Natalie Ng
Natalie Ng is a music history geek who plays music, dances to music, and tells stories about composers and their music in her writing.
PAUL
VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
Robert Levin in Recital
MOZART Piano Piece in C major, K. 42 (completed by Robert Levin)
Four Preludes, K. 284a, No. 1
Sonata in B-flat, K. 333
Four Preludes, K. 284a, No. 2
Sonata in E-flat, K. 282
Intermission 20'00
Improvised fantasy in the style of Mozart based on themes provided by the audience
Four Preludes, K. 284a, No. 3
Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio (arr. Mozart)
Four Preludes, K. 284a, No. 4
Sonata in C, K. 330
Concert Duration: approximately 2 hrs (including 20 mins intermission)
Post-concert autograph session with Robert Levin at Door 3, Level 2
Robert Levin
Robert Levin has performed throughout the world, appearing with the orchestras of Atlanta, the BBC, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, La Scala, Los Angeles, Montreal, Philadelphia, Toronto and Vienna on the Steinway, and with the Academy of Ancient Music, La Chambre Philharmonique, the English Baroque Soloists, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique on early keyboards. Renowned for his improvised cadenzas in Classical period repertoire, Robert Levin has made recordings of a wide range of repertoire for AAM, Archiv, Bridge, CRI, Decca/Oiseau-Lyre, Deutsche Grammophon, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, ECM, Hänssler Classic, Hyperion, Klavierfestival Ruhr, New York Philomusica, Philips and SONY Classical, including Bach’s complete harpsichord concertos with Helmuth Rilling, the six English Suites and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier (Hänssler Edition Bachakademie); a Mozart concerto cycle with Christopher Hogwood, Richard Egarr, Bojan Či i , Laurence Cummings, and the Academy of Ancient Music (Decca/Oiseau Lyre and AAM); the Beethoven concertos with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (Archiv); the complete piano music of Dutilleux (ECM; Bernard Rands’ Preludes and Impromptu (Bridge); and the complete Beethoven sonatas and variations for fortepiano and ’cello with Steven Isserlis (Hyperion). Recent releases include the six Bach Partitas (Grand Prix International du Disque)(Le Palais des Dégustateurs), the complete Schubert piano trios with Noah Bendix-Balgley and Peter Wiley (Le Palais des Dégustateurs), and the complete Mozart sonatas on Mozart’s Walter piano (ECM) (Diapason d’Or de l’Année).
A passionate advocate of new music, Robert Levin has commissioned and premiered numerous works, among them Denissov’s Paysage au clair de lune, Joshua Feinberg’s Veils (2001), the Second Piano Sonata of John Harbison (2003), the Piano Concerto Chiavi in mano of Yehudi Wyner (2005, Pulitzer-Prize 2006), the Préludes of Bernard Rands (2007), the Piano Concerto by Thomas Oboe Lee (2007) and Träume by Hans Peter Türk (2014).
He has a long partnership with violist Kim Kashkashian and appears frequently with his wife, pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, in duo recitals and with orchestra, and with cellist Steven Isserlis. A noted Mozart scholar, Mr. Levin’s completions of Mozart’s Requiem, C-minor Mass, and other unfinished works have been recorded and performed throughout the world. From 2002 to 2024 he was President of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany). He was awarded the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig in 2018 and the Golden Mozart Medal by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg in 2024. From 1993 to 2013 he was Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and is presently Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School, and International Chair at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. From 2007 to 2016 he was Artistic Director of the Sarasota Music Festival. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 18th century Germany the word “prelude” was also used as a verb (“praeludieren”). Keyboard performers would improvise such preludes to connect the key of the piece just finished with the one they next wished to perform. Likewise, they would improvise at the beginning of a performance, presenting the tonality of the music to come while they acquainted themselves with the tonal and mechanical characteristics of the instrument. (This practice was continued well into the 20th century by many keyboard virtuosos.)
In Mozart’s own words, taken from a letter to Nannerl written in Paris 20 July 1778 and sent together with a newly composed prelude, “this is not a prelude to go from one key to another, but rather a capriccio—to try out the keyboard.” The mere idea of playing a piece in B minor after a piece in C minor, or a piece in E-flat major after one in A major—a commonplace in today’s recital programs—would have outraged an 18th century musician.
The nature of these preludes is rather different from composed music: they often eschew a fixed meter, consisting of cascades of virtuoso figuration unlike anything else Mozart wrote. While related to cadenzas, their perpetual flamboyance and impulsiveness may astonish some listeners. In no other compositions are we so close to Mozart the master improviser. Their continuity relies upon a harmonic outline which can easily be reduced to a figured bass. Indeed, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Essay on the True Manner of Playing Keyboard Instruments advocates using a figured bass as the foundation for free fantasies.
The prelude Mozart sent from Paris does not seem to have survived: his specific description of its ending does not match any piece we know. However, his title “Capriccio” has long been assigned to a work in C major that bears the Köchel number 395 (300g). This turns out to be another work entirely: a collection of
four preludes that Mozart sent to Nannerl along with his letter of October 11, 1777 (the folds in letter and music match up). These were long assumed to be lost and were assigned the Köchel number 284a. The first three of these modulate; the first one moves from C major to B-flat major. Nannerl had requested just such a modulating prelude in her letter to Wolfgang of September 28, 1777. The notation of these four preludes, the first three ending with incomplete measures marked off by double bars and fermatas, shows clearly that a performance straight through them was not intended.
Today’s programme consists of a series of larger pieces in keys that allow these modulating preludes to connect them in the manner that Mozart and Nannerl intended. Thus, the evening will unfold in a manner that a late 18th-century listener would not just appreciate, but expect.
Piano Piece in C major, found within the manuscript of the Grabmusik, K.42. (Fragment completed by Robert Levin). Salzburg, 1767.
This 25-bar fragment is notated on a leaf that is part of the manuscript to Mozart’s early burial cantata but unrelated to it.
Four Preludes, K.284a (usually known as Capriccio in C major, K.395/300g), No. 1: C major to B-flat major. Munich, early October 1777 (see above)
Sonata in B-flat, K.333. Linz, 1783
One of Mozart’s suavest and richest solo works, its first movement abounds not just in grace, but in whimsy and wit; the middle movement radiates tenderness, and the finale is a close relative to Bach’s “Italian Concerto,” incorporating solo and orchestra into a brilliantly idiomatic bravura piece complete with cadenza.
Four Preludes, K.284a, No. 2: (B-flat major) to E-flat major
Sonata in E-flat, K.282/189g. Munich, 1775
The fourth of Mozart’s cycle of six sonatas K.279-284, it shares its key and its unusual sequence of movements with the “Kegelstatt” Trio for piano, clarinet and viola, K.498: it begins with a slow movement instead of the standard allegro (a pensive adagio viz-à-viz the gentle 6/8 swaying andante of K.498), continues with a minuet in the dominant key, and concludes with brio.
Improvised Fantasy in the style of Mozart based on themes provided by the audience
Depending on the key in which the Fantasy closes, an improvised modulating prelude to connect to:
Four Preludes, K.284a, No. 3: (E-flat major) to C minor
Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio (K.384, 1782), arranged by Mozart.
We cannot be exactly sure when Mozart composed this skillful reduction of the Seraglio overture, published in 1785 but not reprinted until early in the 20th century and therefore not found in the standard vocal scores, even that of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. Mozart’s hand can be seen in the clever rewriting of the sustained flute line in the middle section. The reduction, like the original version, ends not with the tonic chord of C major, but on the dominant, G—a question rather than an answer. In the opera the question is answered by the first aria, in C major, using the same theme as the middle section of the overture. In tonight’s recital, the affirmation is provided by the last of the four preludes:
Four Preludes, K.284a, No. 4: Capriccio in C major
Neither a modulating connection nor a conclusion, but rather a flurry of boisterous virtuosity. It requires a follow-up, here provided by the final work of the programme:
Sonata in C, K.330. Salzburg or Vienna, 1783
The outer movements abound in good spirits and the Andante cantabile is one of Mozart’s most personal cantilenas--a work that is as rewarding to the player in the quiet of the living room as on the concert stage.
Notes by Robert Levin
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