boris berman
horowitz piano series Boris Berman, Artistic Director Morse Recital Hall • March 26, 2014
Robert Blocker, Dean
Horowitz Piano Series
boris berman Wednesday, March 26, 2014 • 8:00 pm • Morse Recital Hall Boris Berman, Artistic Director Johannes Brahms 1833—1897
Six pieces for piano, Op. 118 1. Intermezzo in A minor 2. Intermezzo in A major 3. Ballade in G minor 4. Intermezzo in F minor 5. Romance in F major 6. Intermezzo in E-flat minor
Arnold Schoenberg 1874–1951
Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 Leicht, zart Langsam Sehr langsame Viertels Rasch, aber leicht Etwas rasch Sehr langsam
Brahms
Four Piano Pieces, Op. 119 1. Intermezzo in B minor 2. Intermezzo in E minor 3. Intermezzo in C major 4. Rhapsody in E-flat major intermission Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 No. 1 in E-flat major No. 2 in B-flat minor No. 3 in C-sharp minor Seven Fantasias, Op. 116 1. Capriccio in D minor 2. Intermezzo in A minor 3. Capriccio in G minor 4. Intermezzo in E major 5. Intermezzo in E minor 6. Intermezzo in E major 7. Capriccio in D minor
Artist Profile
Boris Berman · piano Boris Berman is well known to the audiences of close to fifty countries on six continents. He regularly appears with leading orchestras, on major recital series, and in important festivals. He studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the distinguished pianist Lev Oborin. An active recording artist and a Grammy nominee, Mr. Berman was the first pianist to record the complete solo works by Prokofiev (Chandos). Other acclaimed releases include all piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin (Music and Arts) and a recital of Shostakovich piano works (Ottavo), which received the Edison Classic Award in Holland, the Dutch equivalent of the Grammy. The recording of three Prokofiev concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Neeme Järvi conducting (Chandos), was named the Compact Disc of the Month by CD Review. Other recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Weber, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Joplin, and Cage.
In 1984, Mr. Berman joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he is professor of piano, coordinator of the piano department, and artistic director of the Horowitz Piano Series. He also conducts master classes throughout the world. In 2005, he was named an honorary professor of the Shanghai Conservatory, and in 2013, an honorary professor of the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen. In 2000, Yale University Press published Mr. Berman’s Notes from the Pianist’s Bench; since then, the book has been translated into several languages. In 2008, the same publisher released Mr. Berman’s new book Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer. This spring and summer, Mr. Berman will tour the U.S., Mexico, Spain, Croatia, Malta, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Great Britain, Estonia, China, Portugal, Holland and Denmark.
As a courtesy to the performers and audience, silence electronic devices. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.
Notes on the Program
johannes brahms Introduction In the last decade of his life, just before the turn of the twentieth century, Johannes Brahms twice proclaimed that he was retiring from composition. Neither proclamation held for long. The recent deaths of his friends had worn on him, and though he was relatively healthy and physically robust, he had begun to feel his own age. Despite these expressions of desire for complete retirement, it seems that deprivation from composition for Brahms is tantamount to deprivation from oxygen. Whenever he would become lethargic, something inevitably inspired him to take up writing again, and the few compositions that were published in his last decade—all of them intimate in scale, either for solo instrument, small chamber ensemble, or voice—display no decline in intellectual or creative faculties. Rather, they are among his very greatest works, poignantly recalling his earlier composition style while showcasing bold experimentation with form and harmony. In these pieces, Brahms looks simultaneously to the past and to the future, bringing closure to his life as a composer while sealing his fate as a true “progressive,” for which he would come to be recognized decades after his death —most famously by Arnold Schoenberg, in a 1947 article. Among the most important compositions from Brahms’s final years are his sets of character pieces for solo piano, published as Opp. 116, 117, 118, and 119. The piano was the composer’s primary instrument and his most natural musical voice, and as a result, these works are very much “at home” for him. Generally, these pieces are more introspective in mood than many of his earlier compositions, and favor the development of motivic content above any “flash” or showy virtuosity. It is difficult to say whether the
complete sets of pieces as they stand were intended by their composer to be performed as such. Although there are certain similarities between the respective pieces in each collection, Brahms most likely never expected for them to be performed as total works, as in the case of a sonata or a suite, wherein a large-scale uniformity is expected across multiple movements. In the case of these sets, each piece is unique and individual. The solo character piece for piano is a genre all its own, and at the same time follows no guidelines apart from length, and so encompasses many other genres. These miniatures are in a wide variety of forms, moods, and styles, and defy any homogeneous characterization. That being said, to hear them assembled in their respective groups, and especially to hear all of the sets together, one cannot help but trace musical elements across them. Regardless of intention, these sets of miniatures somehow simply “work” as whole, large scale pieces. Brahms wrote only three piano sonatas, and all of them were from his very earliest days of composition. That genre was declining over the course of the nineteenth century, in favor of more novel forms. In lieu of the sonata, then, Brahms gives us these remarkable late collections.
Seven Fantasias, Op. 116 In 1890, after writing his second string quintet, the 57-year-old Brahms decided to give up composing. However, he soon resumed, writing four works for clarinet, four sets of short piano pieces (Opp. 116–119), and some vocal music in the last six years of his life. Op. 116 hearkens back to E.T.A. Hoffman and Robert Schumann, whose works Brahms was editing at the time, and one can trace qualities of the bizarre and humorous to Hoffman’s character Johannes Kreisler and Schumann’s Kreisleriana. Furthermore, these later sets (especially Op. 116)
Notes on the Program
represent a retrospective glance at the integrated cycles of short piano pieces that were among Schumann’s most characteristic works. Though Brahms gave Op. 116 the general designation Fantasias, none of the individual works bear this title; they are either Capriccios or Intermezzos. While the titles “Capriccio” and “Intermezzos” are not especially revealing in themselves of any unique properties, the intermezzos tend to exude a reflective, autumnal quality, while the capriccios possess a passionate and energetic ebullience. According to Lionel Salter, the brevity of Op. 116 …only serves to heighten the intensity of their feeling. It is as if the composer at the end of his life had compressed the essence of his musical and emotional thoughts into these miniatures. — Michael Noble
Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 Op. 117 is the smallest of the late sets, a triptych of pieces that are quietly introspective and gentle in mood. Each of the three pieces shares the character of a lullaby, and in fact the first piece, in E-flat major, expressly invokes a Scottish lullaby, an excerpt of which Brahms provides at the heading of the piece. The excerpt from the poem “Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament” is translated as “Sleep softly, my child, sleep softly and well! – It breaks my heart to see you weep.” In German, the text almost perfectly synchronizes with the simple opening lullaby theme. The central section, darker in tone and more stirring in rhythmic activity, may point to the “weeping” of the child in question. The subsequent two intermezzi are equally evocative, although they share no poetic references. Though all three
pieces are in ternary form—the same A-B-A form seen in the Op. 116 pieces—the second intermezzo, in B-flat minor, comes tantalizingly close to sonata form in its construction. It is important to remember that there are no rules or guidelines for the genres of these pieces, and Brahms’s experimentation with form, and with the mixing of forms, is partly what makes these pieces so fascinating.
Sechs Klavierstücke, Op. 118 The six piano pieces of Op. 118 display a remarkable multi-movement structure, particularly with regard to key. It is interesting to hear the six pieces in two groups of three, with each group following a similar relationship both in terms of character as well as tonality. The first three pieces progress from A minor to its parallel major key, A major, and then step down to G minor. The whole tonal landscape then shifts down one step, and the next three pieces begin in F minor, move to the parallel major, and step down to E-flat minor. The symmetry in the construction of this collection goes unnoticed if the works are played independently. Once again, Brahms is experimenting with form, and seems deliberately ambiguous with his composition. Precisely how to interpret the organization of these pieces is like a puzzle to be solved; unlike with a conventional puzzle, we can never know if our solution is correct. The first and fourth intermezzi are brief and introductory in nature and energetic in mood; the second and fifth pieces, an intermezzo and romanze, respectively, are more lyrical and reflective; the third and sixth miniatures, a ballade and intermezzo, are the most grave and passionate of the sets.
Notes on the Program
Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119 This final set of piano miniatures is made up of three Intermezzi and a final, powerful Rhapsody in E-flat major, the only piece among Brahms’s late piano works to be given this title. The first three pieces are lively and graceful, almost acting as preludes to the concluding rhapsody. That piece, given the tempo indication Allegro risoluto, embodies a resolute determination. The insistent, powerful opening chords infiltrate even the grazioso middle section. The work ends with a surprising modulation to E-flat minor, as though a dark cloud has begun to blanket the bright sun, casting a shadow over the music. Though Brahms’s late piano pieces are often energetic and imbued with life, a melancholic hue seems to shade them all. The composer once referred to these late piano pieces as “lullabies of my pain.” One can only hope that in writing them, Brahms found some cathartic relief. — Program notes by Patrick Campbell Jankowski except where noted
arnold schoenberg Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 The first five pieces of Schoenberg’s Sechs kleine Klavierstücke (Six Little Piano Pieces), Op. 19 were written in a single day—February 19, 1911, while the concluding piece was written on June 17, shortly after the death of Gustav Mahler. Indeed, it is a “well circulated claim that Schoenberg conceived Op. 19, No. 6 as a tombeau to Mahler,” according to the Canadian musicologist Henry Klumpenhouwer. During this period, Schoenberg was also in the midst of orchestrating his massive cantata, Gurre-Lieder. The brevity and atonal language of Op. 19 could not be more different from the expansive romanticism exhibited in Gurre-Lieder. Schoenberg remarked of Op. 19: “Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. You can stretch every glance out to a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a breath–such concentration can only be present in proportion to the absence of self-pity.” This work calls into question the entire nature of musical form, and pianist Glenn Gould even suggested that the Six Little Piano Pieces reflect Schoenberg’s own uncertainty as a composer at this time. However, as opposed to the self-pity that Schoenberg may have felt while composing a monumental work such as Gurre-Lieder, Op. 19 provided Schoenberg a chance to assert his confidence in the form of the piano miniature. — Michael Noble
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Robert Blocker, Dean