melvin chen piano
horowitz piano series Boris Berman, Artistic Director December 10, 2014 • Morse Recital Hall
Robert Blocker, Dean
Horowitz Piano Series
melvin chen Wednesday, December 10, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Morse Recital Hall Boris Berman, Artistic Director
Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75 I. Folk Dance II. Scene III. Minuet IV. Young Juliet V. Masks VI. Montagues and Capulets VII. Friar Laurence VIII. Mercutio IX. Dance of the Girls With Lilies X. Romeo and Juliet Before Parting intermission
Johannes Brahms 1833–1897
Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 I. Allegro maestoso II. Andante espressivo — Andante molto III. Scherzo — Allegro energico IV. Intermezzo (Rückblick) — Andante molto V. Finale — Allegro moderato ma rubato
As a courtesy to the performers and audience, please silence all electronic devices. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.
Artist Profile
A native of Tennessee, pianist Melvin Chen has received acclaim for performances throughout the United States and abroad. As a soloist and chamber musician Mr. Chen has performed at major venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Boston’s Jordan Hall, in addition to other appearances throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia. Mr. Chen’s performances have been featured on radio and television stations around the globe, including KBS television and radio in Korea, NHK television in Japan, and NPR in the United States. Solo recordings include Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations on the Bridge label, praised as “a classic” by the American Record Guide, and Joan Tower’s piano music on Naxos. Recordings of the Shostakovich piano sonatas and Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice were released in 2007. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Chen has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley, and with the Shanghai, Tokyo, Miami, Penderecki, and Miró quartets. He has performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others.
Melvin Chen completed a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University, and also holds a double master’s degree from The Juilliard School in piano and violin. Previously, he attended Yale University, receiving a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics, where he also studied with Boris Berman, Paul Kantor, and Ida Kavafian. Mr. Chen was previously on the piano faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where he was also associate director. In 2012 he rejoined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he serves as Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Piano and Deputy Dean.
Notes on the Program
sergei prokofiev Ten Scenes from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75 Although Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy of two star-crossed lovers, Prokofiev originally conceived an alternate ending to his ballet in which the lovers survive. “Living people can dance, the dying cannot,” Prokofiev was quoted in The People’s Artist by Simon Morrison. To rewrite Shakespeare, of course, was considered profane, and Prokofiev’s four-act Opus 64 was premiered with the original story, choreographed by Vania Psota at the National Theater Brno, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve of 1938. Opus 75 is far more than a piano reduction of the ballet. This work is a separate opus, unlike the orchestral suites which are subsets of the full ballet (Op. 64a, 64b, 64c) and offers a new look at Prokofiev’s relationship to the drama. Knowing that the work was conceived with an alternate ending, the listener might take note of the ways in Prokofiev plays with ambiguity. For example, the final act of the ballet concludes with a C major triad—beautifully orchestrated with English horn, tuba, double basses, and violins in unisons at the extremities and a cloud of alto trombones filling out the harmony. This content verticality contrasts with the diminished triad horizontally in the bass line, perhaps a musical setting of the ecstatic duality contained in Elizabethan notions of death. The scenes that Prokofiev chose to include in Opus 75 may illustrate his feelings about the storyline. Most scenes are dedicated to fleshing out the characters, such as the
fleet-footed young Juliet and strict dotted rhythms of the feuding Montagues and Capulets. The final tableau, “Romeo bids farewell to Juliet,” picks up from Act 3 of the ballet. Prokofiev cuts out Scene 7 completely: Juliet does not visit Friar Laurence to receive the poison. After Romeo bids adieu, Prokofiev cuts to the foreboding music of Scene 8 in which Juliet is alone. The character seems to swim through warm honey as the plodding music treks from E minor to B-flat minor at a distance of a tritone—the widest possible tonal gap. As Prokofiev spells out the final triad ambiguously from the top down, each painful note held under a fermata, he presents a lonely Juliet not with a death wish, but with a life decision. Fresh ears can attend this musical and dramatic work with an innocent hope that love conquers all. johannes brahms Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 “It seemed to me that there would and indeed must suddenly appear one man who would be singled out to articulate and give the ideal expression to the tendencies of our time,” wrote Robert Schumann in his journal Zeitschift für Musik, “one man who would show us his mastery, not through a gradual process, but, like Athene, spring fully armed from the head of Zeus. And he has come, a young man over whose cradle Graces and Heroes stood guard. His name is Johannes Brahms.” With the publication of this 1853 article, the twenty-year-old Brahms (who had only met Schumann a few months prior) became a celebrity. He was both a composer and a
Notes on the Program
prodigal pianist; Wagner is said to have “overwhelmed him with praise,” and pronounced that Opus 5 “shows what may still be done with the old forms, provided that one knows how to treat them.” The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor lives in a fine balance between Romantic gesture and Classical construction. According to James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy in their Elements of Sonata Theory, the formal essence of the Classical sonatas of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven lies in the dialogue between key areas and cadences in the exposition versus the recapitulation. In the exposition of Opus 5, the secondary theme begins with a lyrical declaration in A-flat major which, unconventionally, glides down a fifth into D-flat. In the recapitulation, notice how Brahms treats the atypical second theme: he begins with F major, again drifts downward towards B-flat major, but then with a Romantic durchbruch, or breakingthrough gesture, the opening theme returns in F major as part of the coda. Schumann was pleased with the precocious way in which Classical light and dark chiaroscuro and formal restraint balance Brahms’ grand Romantic gestures. The passionate Andante movement is prefaced by a verse by Sternau: The evening dims The moonlight shines There are two hearts That join in love And embrace in rapture. After the Scherzo-Trio, instead of proceeding to the finale, Brahms inserts an Intermezzo
with the subtitle Rückblick. This movement is a more tragic “look backwards” at the Andante. In Brahms’ notebook, following the verse from the Andante is another by Sternau: If ye knew how soon, How soon the trees are withered, And the wood is bare, How soon comes the dreary day When the heart’s beat is dumb. — Program notes by Samuel Suggs
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HOROWITZ PIANO SERIES 2014–2015 BORIS BERMAN ARTISTIC DIRECTOR WEDNESDAYS AT 7 : 30 PM MORSE RECITAL HALL PIANO MASTER CLASSES THURSDAYS AT 10 : 30 AM
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