Boris Berman: Bach Concertos

Boris Berman Âť piano

horowitz piano series Boris Berman, Artistic Director

april 6, 2011 Sprague Memorial Hall

music of Johann Sebastian Bach with Katie Hyun, violin David Southorn, violin Ettore Causa, viola Mihai Marica, cello

Robert Blocker, Dean

april 6, 2011 ¡ 8 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Boris Berman Âť piano

with katie hyun, violin david southorn, violin ettore causa, viola mihai marica, cello

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053 (Allegro) Siciliano Allegro Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056 Allegro Adagio Presto Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055 Allegro Larghetto Allegro ma non tanto Intermission Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1058 (Allegro) Andante Allegro assai Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054 (Allegro) Adagio e piano sempre Allegro

As a courtesy to the performers and audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.

boris berman piano

classes throughout the world and is a frequent juror of various national and international competitions. In 2005, he was named an honorary professor of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Photo by Bob Handelman

Mr. Berman’s acclaimed releases on Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, and Melodia labels were followed by two CDs of all the Scriabin piano sonatas for the Music and Arts label and a recital of Shostakovich piano works (Ottavo), which received the Edison Classic Award in Holland.

His recording of three Prokofiev Concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Neeme Jarvi (Chandos) marked the beginning of an ambitious project of recording the complete Prokofiev solo piano works. The first pianist ever to undertake this task, Mr. Berman has released it on nine Chandos CDs to great critical acclaim.

In addition, Chandos has issued Mr. Berman’s recitals of works by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schnittke, as well as chamber music of Janácek, and – with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Neeme Jarvi – Stravinsky’s Concerto.

The artistry of Boris Berman is well known to the audiences of over forty countries on six continents.

His highly acclaimed performances have included appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Toronto Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish Orchestra. A frequent performer on major recital series, he has also appeared in important festivals including Marlboro, Waterloo, Berman’s most recent discography shows the Bergen, Ravinia, and Israel Festival. breadth of his repertoire: a disc of Debussy for Children (Ottavo); two releases of works for preBorn in Moscow, Boris Berman studied at the pared piano by John Cage (Naxos), which was Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Lev named the Top Recording by BBC Music MagaOborin. He performed extensively throughout zine; the Grammy-nominated Piano Quintets the Soviet Union as a recitalist and appeared as of Shostakovich and Schnittke with Vermeer guest soloist with numerous orchestras. In 1973, Quartet (Naxos); and, unexpectedly, a recorBoris Berman left a flourishing career in the ding of Scott Joplin’s Ragtimes (Ottavo). In the Soviet Union to immigrate to Israel. He quickly recently issued Naxos collection of the complete established himself as one of the most sought- Sequenzas by Luciano Berio, Berman plays after keyboard performers and an influential Sequenza IV for piano. For the recording of musical personality.

Brahms Sonatas with the cellist Clive Greensmith (Biddulph), he played an 1867 Bechstein piano.

A dedicated teacher of international stature, Boris Berman has served on the faculties of In 2000, Yale University Press published Boris Indiana (Bloomington), Boston, Brandeis, and Berman’s Notes from the Pianist’s Bench, which has Tel-Aviv Universities. Professor of Piano at since been translated into several languages. His Yale School of Music since 1984, he is now the most recent book is Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A coordinator of piano and the director of the Guide for the Listener and the Performer, also Horowitz Piano Series. He also conducts master from Yale University Press.

artist profiles

Ettore Causa viola

Katie Hyun violin

Born in Naples, Italy, Ettore Causa began his studies of violin and viola at the Naples Conservatory, where he graduated with the highest honors. He later studied at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland with Sir Yehudi Menuhin and others, and with Michael Tree at the Manhattan School of Music. Causa has been first solo viola of the Carl Nielsen Philharmonic (Denmark) and leader of the Copenhagen Chamber Soloists. In 2000, he was awarded the Peter Schidlof Prize and the John Barbirolli Prize at the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. He has since made solo, recital, and festival appearances around the world, performing in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He is a member of the Aria Quartet and is regularly invited to play with colleagues such as Pascal Rogé and Thomas Adès. His first recording, for Claves, was crowned with the 5 Diapason, and a new recording has already been highly praised by critics worldwide. In 2001, Causa was appointed professor of viola and chamber music at the International Menuhin Music Academy, and in 2009 he joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music. Ettore plays on a viola made for him by Frederic Chaudiere in 2003.

Violinist Katie Hyun has performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Orchestra in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition, she has also won the 2005 Stony Brook Concerto Competition, 2004 Aspen Academy Orchestra Concerto Competition, 2003 Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition, 2000 Concerto Soloists Young Artists Competition, and several others.

She has appeared on the television program Good Morning Texas and on the NPR show Prairie Home Companion. In 2006, she collaborated with bassist Edgar Meyer at the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival and participated in his Carnegie Hall workshop. She has attended the Music Academy of the West, Aspen, Taos Festival of Music, Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn, and other festivals. Katie Hyun received her artist diploma from the Yale School of Music and her master’s degree from the State University of New York in Stony Brook. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Mihai Marica cello

David Southorn violin

Mihai Marica began his training as a cellist at the age of seven in his native Romania. He earned his master’s degree and artist diploma under Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music. Mihai has won numerous competitions, including first prize and the award for the best performance of a commissioned work in the 2005 Irving M. Klein International String Competition, and first prize and the Audience Choice Award at the 2006 Dr. Luis Sigall International Competition.

He received the 2006 Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant. Mihai has performed as a soloist with the New Haven and New Britain Symphony Orchestras, Louisville Orchestra, Santa Cruz Symphony, Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony (Mexico), Daejeon Philharmonic (Korea), Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg (Russia), and the major Romanian orchestras. He has also appeared in recital across Europe and North America and in Korea, Japan, and Chile, as well as at festivals including Banff, Great Mountains, and Laguna Beach. Mihai served as interim principal cellist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra for the 2008–2009 season.

David Southorn has distinguished himself as a violin soloist, chamber musician, and concertmaster. He is a member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet, which, in 2010, won first prize in both the Plowman Chamber Music and Hugo Kauder Quartet Competitions. As a soloist he has appeared with the Fremont, Nova Vista, and Portland Festival Symphonies, among others. Southorn has had the opportunity to perform with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and on the Mostly Music series, and in numerous festivals including Banff, Spoleto USA, Kneisel Hall, and Tanglewood.

Last summer he performed with the Amphion Quartet at Music@Menlo and the Beethoven Institute at Mannes. David frequently assumes the role of concertmaster and has performed under such conductors as James Levine, Kurt Masur, Bernard Haitink, and Michael Tilson Thomas, among many others. This summer he will be appearing with the Amphion Quartet at the OK Mozart Festival and Chamber Music Northwest. David earned a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from Yale under the tutelage of Ani Kavafian and is currently pursuing a Professional Studies Certificate with Glenn Dicterow.

notes on the program

by Jordan Kuspa

For several years, Bach threw himself wholeheartedly into the creation of a body of sacred cantatas to be used by the various churches.

Between 1723 and 1729, Bach composed the Now widely hailed as the greatest Western com- bulk of his roughly 300 cantatas, allowing him poser of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach was to continually draw upon this repertoire for each once not even considered the finest composer of the churches whose music he organized. in his own corner of Germany. In 1722, Bach applied to become Kantor of the Thomaskirche In 1729, with this body of sacred works to (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig, one of the support his activities as Kantor, Bach took the most prestigious musical positions in the city. additional position of director of the Collegium However, the Leipzig authorities preferred to musicum, an instrumental ensemble of profeshire Bach’s friend Georg Philipp Telemann, who sionals and university students that Telemann was at that point the most famous German had founded in 1702. While it is not known composer living in Germany. (George Frideric definitively what was performed at their weekly Handel was entrenched in England by this concerts, it is likely that many of the secular time.) When Telemann was not allowed to orchestral and chamber works written during leave his current post in Hamburg, the Leipzig Bach’s previous employment at Cöthen (1717– council turned to a musician named Christoph 1723) were revisited here, including the three Graupner, who had been educated in the orchestral suites (BWV 1066–8) and the three Thomasschule (the boarding school attached violin concerti (BWV 1041–3). Bach’s keyboard to the Thomaskirche) himself. Graupner was concerti (BWV 1052–8) also must first have not permitted to leave his post in Darmstadt been performed at this time. either, so in the spring of 1723, Bach was finally offered the position. Upon hearing that Bach Though Bach was one of the most prolific comwas the choice for Leipzig, Graupner graciously posers in history, he often borrowed heavily wrote to the city council assuring them that Bach from his earlier work to create new compositions. “is a musician just as strong on the organ as he In the case of the keyboard concerti (which is expert in church works and capelle pieces” were originally played on the harpsichord), and a man who “will honestly and properly musicologists have suggested that the concerti in E major and A major (BWV 1053 and 1055) perform the functions entrusted to him.” were adapted from earlier concerti for oboe These functions included organizing the music d’amore (a mezzo-soprano cousin of today’s for the four main churches of Leipzig, acting as oboe). Unfortunately, these originals have been musical director to the Leipzig university, and lost. In the case of the D major and G minor instructing the fifty to sixty students of the works (BWV 1054 and 1058), Bach’s violin Thomasschule in music and Latin. (The lessons concerti in E major and A minor (BWV 1042 in Latin were a sticking point between Bach and and 1041, respectively, still extant) formed the his employers, as he did not wish to teach them.) basis of these compositions.

Concertos for Keyboard and Strings BWV 1053, 1054, 1055, 1056, 1058

by Johann Sebastian Bach

notes on the program

by Jordan Kuspa

This is not to say that the keyboard concerti should not be considered independent works in their own right. Bach reworked the originals extensively, adding new contrapuntal lines and developing his musical material more fully. For this reason, it is impossible to accurately recreate the original versions of some of these works, although scholars have certainly tried. In many cases, Bach reused the originals in other contexts, often creating movements of cantatas from the earlier music. These adaptations may be closer to the original conception for the concerti, and have offered many clues as to how the works may have sounded with an oboe or violin as the solo instrument. For example, the F minor concerto has been the subject of much debate, with some scholars convinced that the work draws from multiple earlier sources, while others have found that argument unsatisfactory. The middle movement of this concerto is also used as the opening Sinfonia of the cantata Ich Steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (BWV 156). In this setting, Bach scores the music for oboe and strings, suggesting the use of the oboe as the original concerto soloist.

given in honor of Telemann, who was the boy’s godfather) and Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian, would both go on to write important keyboard concerti, with those of Johann Christian proving to have a great influence over the piano concerti of Mozart.

The harpsichord concerti of Johann Sebastian Bach have been played on the piano for centuries.

Mendelssohn was known to have played the D minor concerto (BWV 1052, not on tonight’s program), and Brahms wrote a cadenza for it.

Bach himself was introduced to the piano in the 1730s by the piano and organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, but he was dissatisfied with the new instrument. (The piano had been invented around 1700). However, in the last years of his life, Bach changed his mind and even began to act as an agent for selling Silbermann’s pianos.

This is not to say that Bach would have played these harpsichord concerti on the piano, but it does leave open the possibility that he might have approved of the substitution. While we may never know how Bach felt about hearing his compositions played on this new instrument, we can be grateful for the pianists who have As keyboard concerti, Bach’s works form one of kept this music alive so that we might continue the earliest significant bodies of German music to enjoy it for centuries to come. in the nascent genre. The manuscript, now held at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, has been dated to 1738, though it is probable that Bach would have played the concerti several years before then in the scope of his responsibilities as director of the Collegium musicum. It is also possible that two of Bach’s elder sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, played the solo parts in concert, as they almost certainly did for the concertos for two harpsichords (BWV 1060–2).

Carl Philipp Emanuel (the name Philipp was

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