Prokofiev Piano Sonatas

horow itz p ia no s eri es Boris Berman, Artistic Director

PROKOFIEV

THE COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS morse recital hall December 5 & 7, 2011 Monday & Wednesday at 8:00 pm

Graduate pianists perform the complete Prokofiev piano sonatas in two recitals to celebrate a new performance edition of the scores, edited by Boris Berman

Robert Blocker, Dean

PROKOFIEV

THE COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS Horowitz Piano Series • Boris Berman, Artistic Director Sprague Memorial Hall • Piano Sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

M O N D AY, D E C E M B E R 5

Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 1 Allegro

Naomi Woo

Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 14 Allegro, ma non troppo Scherzo. Allegro marcato Andante Vivace

Euntaek Kim

Sonata No. 5 in C major (second version), Op. 135 Allegro tranquillo Andantino Un poco allegretto

David Fung

intermission Sonata No. 9 in C major, Op. 103 Allegretto Allegro strepitoso Andante tranquillo Allegro con brio, ma non troppo presto

Esther Park

Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29 Allegro molto sostenuto Andante assai Allegro con brio, ma non leggiero

Scott MacIsaac

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

PROKOFIEV

THE COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS Horowitz Piano Series • Boris Berman, Artistic Director Sprague Memorial Hall • Piano Sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

W E D N E S D AY, D E C E M B E R 7

Sonata No. 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84 Andante dolce Andante sognando Vivace

Lee Dionne

Sonata No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83 Allegro inquieto Andante caloroso Precipitato

Melody Quah

intermission

Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28, “From Old Notebooks” Allegro tempestoso

Henry Kramer

Sonata No. 6 in A major, Op. 82 Allegro moderato Allegretto Tempo di valzer lentissimo Vivace

Larry Weng

This program will presented in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 5:30 and 8:30 pm.

Notes on the Program

Within the vast, virtually limitless piano repertoire, the piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev occupy a special place. Apart from Alexander Scriabin early in the century, Prokofiev was the only major twentieth-century composer to pay such consistent attention to the form.

Prokofiev’s nine piano sonatas have become cornerstones of the piano repertoire.

in Russia and abroad. He also was encouraged to bring his own compositions and prodded to use a more adventurous musical language.

During the following years, Prokofiev presented several of his works at these evenings.

These performances helped put Prokofiev on the map as one of the most promising and daring modernists in Russia.

Sergei Prokofiev was born on April 11, 1891, in the village of Sontsovka in what is now Ukraine, where he spent the first thirteen years of his life. His musical gifts manifested themselves at an early age and developed in spite of the fact that Prokofiev grew up in cultural isolation. During these formative years, Prokofiev’s mother was his chief musical influence, as well as his first piano teacher.

Only few years separate the Sonata 2 in D minor, Op. 14, written in 1912, from its predecessor. During this short time the young composer was able to define his musical language and to write several works that could hold their own even with his later, more mature compositions. Compared with the conservatively homogenous music of the First Sonata, the Second astonishes with its huge variety, even incongruity, of styles, presented in a paradoxical, carnival-like atmosphere. In fact, this work pushes the limits of contrasts more than any other Prokofiev sonata. It covers a huge emotional range: from Romantic lyricism and Schumannesque soaring to aggressive brutality; to a parody of the cabaret or of musical automatons.

In 1904 Prokofiev was admitted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and he and his mother moved to the capital. Among his teachers were some of the best Russian musicians of the time: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov, and Anatoly Lyadov.

During the conservatory years, Prokofiev wrote no less than six sonatas; some of them were later reworked into what became Sonatas 1, 3, and 4.

The Sonata 1 in F Minor, Op. 1 was composed in 1906–9. Later, Prokofiev referred to this work, rooted in a Romantic tradition, somewhat apologetically: “As a rule the publication of his first opus is a landmark for the composer, a sort of dividing line between his early work and his mature compositions. With me it was different: the Sonata No. 1, a naïve and simple little piece, marked the end of my early period; the new began with the Etudes, Op. 2.”

In 1908 Prokofiev started attending the “Evenings of Contemporary Music.” There he was able to hear the newest music written

The one-movement Sonata 3 in A Minor, Op. 28 was written in 1917 (first version 1907).

It is the shortest of Prokofiev’s sonatas. It is also the most carefully crafted of all his early works in this genre. Originating in an early sonata from his conservatory years, it must have been seriously reworked to arrive at its final shape. It possesses a remarkable energy that propels the work from beginning to end.

The piece’s general tone reflects a much more Romantic spirit than other works written

by Prokofiev during this period. Sarcastic or ironic imagery, so conspicuous in many of his early compositions, is not part of this sonata’s expressive vocabulary.

The Sonata 4 in C Minor, Op. 29 was composed in the same year (1917, first version

Notes on the Program

1908) originating in an early sonata from the conservatory years. Its stylistic content is much more varied than that of the Third.

The character of the first movement is unique, the result of a curious combination of two radically different traits. On one hand, certain features make it sound neo-Baroque, in the vein of Prokofiev’s stylization of Baroque dances, such as the Gavotte, Allemande, or Rigaudon in his Op. 12. On the other hand, the movement’s melodic and harmonic language, as well as its evocative use of the piano registers, refers to the Russian tradition of musical fairy tales, especially the dark, spooky variety. The second movement is built on a dramatic conflict between the somber, chromatic first theme and the lyrical, diatonic second theme, which uses only the white keys of the piano. As for the third movement, it is a brilliant tongue-in-cheek imitation of the Classical style similar to that of Classical Symphony, Op. 25. Prokofiev wrote the symphony at the same time as the Fourth Sonata and conducted its premiere in St. Petersburg just four days after the sonata’s premiere. If in the symphony Prokofiev is concerned with imitating (parodying?) the orchestral style of the Viennese composers of the eighteenth century, here he is mimicking the conventions of the Classical piano style.

The 1917 Revolution in Russia evoked Prokofiev’s sympathy at first; his reaction was similar to that of many artists who aspired to rejuvenation, both artistic and societal. However, the ensuing chaos and destruction caused him to leave the country in 1918, shortly after the premiere of his Third and Fourth piano sonatas. He spent the next eighteen years living outside Russia, first in the United States and then in Europe.

While in the West, Prokofiev tried his hand in various styles; these experiments greatly enriched his musical language.

Sonata 5 in C Major, Op. 38, composed in 1923 in Paris, is the only sonata written by Prokofiev during his sojourn in the West.

He counted it among “the most chromatic of all my compositions. This was the effect of the Parisian atmosphere where complex patterns and dissonances were the accepted thing, and which fostered my predilection for complex thinking.” The sonata’s dissonant harmonies and zigzagging melodies are akin to the expressionistic language of Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel written around the same time. The modernistic features blend curiously with the neoclassic simplicity of stylized cadences and Mozartian piano texture. In 1953, Prokofiev revised the Sonata and assigned the new version a new opus number, 135. It is this later version that is performed tonight.

In 1927 Prokofiev undertook a concert tour of Soviet Russia, where he received a celebrity’s welcome. This reception encouraged Prokofiev, and he became keen on restoring and strengthening ties with the music establishment of his native country. He made several subsequent trips to Russia. By New Year’s Eve of 1936, he moved back to Moscow for good.

Soon after his return, Prokofiev became aware of the heavy-handed “guidance” imposed by the authorities on the Soviet composers who were admonished to write music accessible to the people. Prokofiev tried both to modify his style and to resist the pressure, declaring: “I consider it a mistake for a composer to strive for simplification…. In my own work…, I have striven for clarity and melodiousness.

At the same time I have scrupulously avoided palming off familiar harmonies and tunes.

That is where the difficulty of composing clear, straightforward music lies: the clarity must be new, not old.” Prokofiev’s music became less dissonant and less angular. He turned toward a much more melody-oriented style,

Notes on the Program

departing from the complexity of some of his compositions of the 1920s and early 1930s.

World War II came to Russia in 1941. Along with the whole nation, Prokofiev was deeply affected by both suddenness of the events and the quick deterioration of the situation.

Together with many artists, he experienced a surge of creativity. Some of his most significant compositions, including Piano Sonatas Nos. 7 and 8, were written during the war years. In the West, these three sonatas are often referred to as the “War Sonatas”; Russian musicology does not use this term. Considering them as a group, however, is justified both by their musical properties and by the circumstances of their composition. According to Prokofiev’s wife, Mira MendelsonProkofieva, “in 1939 [Prokofiev] began to write three piano sonatas, [the] Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth, working on all the ten movements at once, and only later did he lay aside the Seventh and Eighth and concentrate on the Sixth.”

The three “War Sonatas,” written by Prokofiev at the peak of his creative powers, are much more emotionally engaged works than their predecessors. In fact, one could argue that here Prokofiev came closest to the Romantic concept of the sonata, with its traditional exploration of the conflict between the individual and fate, or other impersonal forces beyond one’s control. The mechanistic imagery in Prokofiev’s music, familiar to us from his earlier works, plays a crucial role in this drama; it collides with the warmly human thematic material, suppressing and brutalizing it. The carnival-like atmosphere of the Second Sonata and the objective neoclassicism of the Fifth are abandoned, never to return in Prokofiev’s subsequent works in this genre.

The Sonata 6 in A Major, Op. 82 was composed in 1939–40, before the War reached the USSR in 1941. It is difficult to tell whether it was the events in Western Europe, Prokofiev’s home during 1922–35, or the increasingly repressive climate in the Soviet Union that influenced the composer’s mood, but this sonata definitely has turbulent energy and an anxiety concordant with the political tensions of the time.

The dramatic tension is mostly confined to the first and the last movements of the Sixth Sonata. The second movement, a lighthearted scherzo, and the third, a warm waltz, serve as counterbalancing components, while remaining deeply connected with the outer movements. These middle movements reveal many stylistic similarities with two of Prokofiev’s major ballets: Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella.

The Sonata 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 was completed in 1942. While the Sixth Sonata reflects the nervous anticipation of the war, the Seventh Sonata projects the anguish and the struggle of the war years as they were experienced in real time. The thematic material of the first movement is rich and diverse: short melodic and rhythmic statements composing the first group of themes evolve into each other, while the second theme consists of a single long, unfolding melody. The second movement projects the grandeur of a national tragedy, extending beyond any one person’s drama. It is conceived as a monumental symphonic movement, with many allusions to orchestral sonorities. The finale is a toccata, harking back to the famous Toccata, Op. 11. Like the earlier piece, the movement is based on perpetuum mobile and a constantly repeated short motive. The overall defiant energy of the movement is without parallel in Prokofiev’s sonatas.

Notes on the Program

The Sonata 8 in B-flat Major, Op. 84 was completed in 1944, when the outcome of the war had become clear. This may explain both the victorious coda of the finale and the general reflective mood of the first movement.

The Eighth is the most expansive of Prokofiev’s sonatas, epic in its proportions and tone. The sonata is dedicated to Mira MendelsonProkofieva, the composer’s partner since 1939, the year the work was conceived. Their new relationship may be responsible, at least in part, for the music’s introspective, lyrical character.

The Sonata 9 in C Major, Op. 103 was composed in 1947 but not performed until 1951, and not published until after Prokofiev’s death. These delays, unusual given the performance and publication history of Prokofiev’s earlier compositions, are indicative of the composer’s changed political fortunes. In the campaign against formalism launched by Communist Party officials in the early months of 1948, Prokofiev (along with Shostakovich) was implicated as one of the principal culprits.

The Ninth Sonata is notable for the simplicity of its style, as well as for the conciseness and clarity of its structure. It lacks the dramatic conflicts, complexity, and energy of the preceding group of War Sonatas. The conservative musical language may be attributed partly to Prokofiev’s premonition of the politically repressive times. More likely, however, it reflects his general turn to greater simplicity.

The dramatic deterioration of his health may also have contributed to the relative lack of sheer motoric energy so typical of his music.

The strain of the war years proved to be detrimental to Prokofiev’s health. In January 1945 he had his first severe attack of hypertension, which ultimately caused his death

eight years later.

While this sonata’s musical language is more conservative than that of its predecessors, we do find here new traits of a more intimate lyricism and introspection. Prokofiev also introduced several subtle innovations to the structure. The most prominent feature is the device of “previewing,” when toward the end of each movement the material of the next is introduced.

Mira Mendelson-Prokofieva recorded her impressions of the Ninth Sonata in her diary: “This sonata is very different from the three preceding ones. It is calm and deep. When I told [Prokofiev] that my first impression was of it being both Russian and Beethoven-like, he answered that he himself found both of these qualities present in it.”

A serene, meditative tone is indeed the signature mark of the Ninth. This is strongest at the end of the work, when the opening theme of the first movement reappears. The texture of this ending, its spirit, and even its key bring to mind the conclusion of Beethoven’s last piano sonata (Op. 111).

Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953. His death was almost unnoticed by the public, overwhelmed by the shattering event that occurred the same day: the death of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Program notes by Boris Berman, adapted from his book Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008)

About the Artists

Lee Dionne, 22, is currently pursuing his MM degree at the Yale School of Music with Boris Berman, after graduating from Yale University with a BA in literature and top prizes in both comparative literature and music performance. His past teachers have been Wei-Yi Yang, Patricia Zander, and Wilma Machover, and he has taken master classes with Richard Goode, Claude Frank, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Ann Schein, Nelita True, and Mikhail Voskresensky.

Lee made his orchestral debut at age 11 with the Philharmonia Virtuosi under Richard Kapp, and more recently he has performed with the Yale Symphony Orchestra in Woolsey Hall. Other venues include Jordan Hall, Merkin Hall, and on NPR’s From the Top. As a chamber musician, Lee was a grand prize winner of the Junior Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2005, and he attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in 2010.

Praised as having “undoubted talent” by the Los Angeles Times and described as “impossibly virtuosic” by the Edinburgh Guide, young Australian pianist David Fung has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Canberra Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Israel Camerata Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa of Japan, Queensland Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Festival highlights include featured performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Goslar Festival (Germany), Der Internationaler Klaviersommer (Germany), Music at Menlo,

and the Edinburgh International Festival Queen’s Hall Recital Series, where Fung was acclaimed as “prodigiously talented… probably [doing] ten more impossible things daily before breakfast” by the Edinburgh Guide.

Mr. Fung was a top prizewinner at the Twelfth Arthur Rubinstein Piano Masters Competition in Tel Aviv, where he was also distinguished by prizes for Best Classical Concerto and Best Performance of Chamber Music. He won Second Prize and the Audience Prize in the Third Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, and he was the grand prizewinner of the 2002 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award. David Fung has recorded albums for NAXOS, Yarlung Records, Linn Records, and ABC Classics/Symphony Australia. Mr. Fung is a Steinway Artist.

Pianist Euntaek Kim, a native of Incheon, South Korea and now based in New York, has established himself as one of the most promising young talents of his generation.

Hailed by La Libre Belgique as “…sovereign… luminous sonorities…,” Mr. Kim won prizes from many prestigious competitions, including the 2001 Oberlin International Competition and the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. He was also invited to participate in the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels.

A frequent guest at major summer music festivals, Mr. Kim has participated in the Aspen Music Festival and School, Music Academy of the West, and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival. He began his piano studies at age four, and at eleven entered

About the Artists

the Pre-College Division of the Korean National University of the Arts in Seoul as a pupil of Bokhee Chang. In 2001, he moved to New York and soon began his studies at Juilliard’s Pre-College Division with the support of a Nordmann Full Scholarship.

He holds both bachelor and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is currently pursuing the Artist Diploma at the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman.

A top prizewinner in the 2010 National Chopin Competition and the 2011 International Concours Montreal, Henry Kramer’s 2011 season includes a solo recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and a concerto engagement with the Portland Symphony.

Henry has appeared as a soloist with the Orchestre Metropolitan du Montreal, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music Orchestra, as well as in recitals across the U.S. and internationally. He has been featured on National Public Radio and on WQXR in New York City.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra National Piano Competition, first prize and the Best Piano Concerto prize at the National Music Festival, first prize at the Shean National Piano Competition, Grand Prize in the Canadian Music Competition for two consecutive years (2008 and 2009), and winner of the 2010 Kiwanis Festival Rose Bowl. Scott has performed with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne. He will be performing with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra again in the upcoming concert season.

Scott has participated in various international summer festivals such as the International Holland Music Sessions, Académie Musicale Internationale, and Morningside Music Bridge.

Henry holds MM and BM degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert McDonald and Julian Martin.

Pianist Esther Park has performed as a soloist with orchestras and in recitals across the United States as well as in Asia and major European cities. She has appeared as soloist with many orchestras such as the Corpus Christi Symphony, Filharmonia Pomorska (Poland), Orchestra Filarmonica (Romania), Shanghai Philharmonic, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra at Aspen, Shreveport Symphony, the Juilliard Symphony, and the New Jersey Symphony.

Scott MacIsaac began playing piano at the age of six. He studied under Marilyn Engle and is currently studying under Boris Berman in the Certificate in Performance program.

Over the past few years, he has won numerous awards, including first prize at the RBC Concerto Competition, second prize at the

Ms. Park is the winner of the 2009 Prix Amadeo and the 2009 Chopin Gesellschaft Klavierwettbewerb. She is also the winner of the 2004 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition at the Juilliard School, the Juilliard concerto competition, and the 52 nd Kosciusko International Piano Competition. Ms. Park received top prizes at the Third San Marino

About the Artists

International Piano Competition, the Third China Shanghai International Piano Competition, the Sixth Paderewski International Piano Competition, the National Chopin Competition (U.S.A.), Hilton Head International Competition, and the 14th New Orleans International Piano Competition. She is the recipient of the President Clinton’s Prodigy Award. Ms. Park has been heard in New York on WQXR as the winner of the 52 nd Kosciusko International Competition and the Gina Bachauer Competition.

Ms. Park received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky. She also studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, under the tutelage of Bernd Goetzke, and she is an Artist Diploma candidate at the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman.

Described as a “poet with titanium fingers”

by Lloyd Dykk of the Vancouver Sun, pianist Melody Quah has performed on the stages of Malaysia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Japan, China, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, England, Poland, India, Lithuania, and the United States. Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she was a prizewinner at the Seventh International Paderewski Competition held in Bydgoszcz, Poland (2007). Quah was invited to present a series of masterclasses and lectures to students and teachers at the Yamaha Canada Music Camp in 2008 and 2010, and has performed for the Gala Opening of the 4th asean International Chopin Competition.

Melody Quah has made appearances with the Richmond Philharmonic, Academy Philhar-

monic, Vancouver Philharmonic, and the West Coast and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras. She received her master’s degree from the Juilliard School in 2010.

Larry Weng began his piano studies at the age of seven with Dorothy Shi. At the age of eleven, he enrolled in the New England Conservatory Preparatory School under the tutelage of Sylvia Chambless. Larry captured early recognition, winning all three categories of the concerto competition at the New England Conservatory. Larry Weng is a laureate of numerous competitions, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Concerto Competition and the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition for Young Musicians.

In 2005, he was admitted to the joint degree program at Columbia University and the Juilliard School.

In the past few years, Larry has continued to garner recognition in the music world, with top prizes from the New York Piano Competition and the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition. Larry has played in masterclasses for such artists as Menahem Pressler, Claude Frank, Paul Badura-Skoda, and Arie Vardi, and has appeared in notable venues such as Symphony Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Salle de Cortot. Larry completed his bachelor’s degree in economics at Columbia University and his master’s degree at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio. He is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma at the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Boris Berman.

About the Artists

Naomi Woo, 21, originally from Vancouver, is currently a senior undergraduate student at Yale University, majoring in music, mathematics and philosophy. She is concurrently completing her master’s degree in piano performance at the Yale School of Music.

Since making her orchestral debut at age twelve, playing Rachmaninoff ’s Concerto No. 2 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Naomi has soloed with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonia Northwest (Seattle). She has won numerous prizes across Canada for both solo piano and chamber music, including twice performing at the Gala Concert of the Canadian Music Competition, and winning a Gold Medal from the Royal Conservatory of Music. At Yale, Naomi is the music director of SIC InC, a multidisciplinary contemporary music ensemble. Also a conductor, Naomi is the music director of Yale’s Berkeley College Orchestra. In April 2011, she conducted the Opera Theatre of Yale College’s production of Così Fan Tutte, and in February 2012 she will conduct their spring mainstage performance, Thomas Pasatieri’s Signor Deluso.

Upcoming Events

American Brass Quintet

Anniversaries and Messages

december 6

december 9

Oneppo Chamber Music Series Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 8 pm Music from the Renaissance to today, including works by Josquin, Gabrieli, Cherubini, Joan Tower, and Trevor Gureckis.

Featuring a collaboration with School of Music brass faculty.

Tickets $20–30, Students $10.

Christ Church | Friday | 5 pm Yale Schola Cantorum performs music of Lang, Liszt, Theofanidis, and Victoria.

Simon Carrington, guest conductor. Free.

Toshiko Akiyoshi Quartet december 9 Ellington Jazz Series Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 8 pm Including Toshiko Akiyoshi, piano, and Lew Tabackin, saxophone.

Tickets $20–$30, Students $10

New Music for Orchestra december 8 Yale Philharmonia Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 8 pm Shinik Hahm conducts the Yale Philharmonia in new orchestral works by graduate composers Paul Kerekes, Hannah Lash, Loren Loiacono, Garth Neustadter, Kathryn Salfelder, Chris Rogerson, Justin Tierney, and Daniel Wohl. Free.

Vista december 10 Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 8 pm A fresh look at chamber music by Haydn, Poulenc, Frank Martin, and Anton Arensky, illuminated by commentary. Free.

Concerts & Public Relations: Dana Astmann, Danielle Heller, Dashon Burton New Media: Monica Ong Reed, Austin Kase Operations: Tara Deming, Chris Melillo Piano Curators: Brian Daley, William Harold Recording Studio: Eugene Kimball WSHU is the media sponsor of the Horowitz Piano Series.

P.O. Box 208236, New Haven, CT · 203 432-4158

Robert Blocker, Dean

music.yale.edu