Melvin Chen, piano

melvin chen piano

horowitz piano series Boris Berman, Artistic Director December 2, 2015 • Morse Recital Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Horowitz Piano Series

melvin chen Wednesday, December 2, 2015 • 7:30 pm • Morse Recital Hall Boris Berman, Artistic Director

Earle Brown 1926–2002

December 1952 From Folio (1952–1954)

Jarosław Kapuściński b. 1964

Juicy (2010) I. Promenade II. Citrus Duet III. Juices IV. Kiwi V. Blueberries VI. Strawberries

Jason Freeman b. 1977

Shadows (2015, premiere) I. Traces II. Chorale III. Perpetual Quiet IV. Perpetual Melody intermission

Franz Schubert 1797–1828

Sonata No. 18 in G major, D. 894 I. Molto moderato e cantabile II. Andante III. Menuetto: Allegro moderato IV. Allegretto

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

earle brown December 1952 The score to Earle Brown’s December 1952 is composed entirely of vertical and horizontal lines of varying thickness, floating on the page like a two-dimensional mobile

by Alexander Calder (whose work was an influence on Brown). These stark lines offer little instruction of interpretation on their own, and are accompanied with sufficiently vague provisions by the composer: “For one or more instruments and/or sound-producing media. The composition may be performed in any direction from any point in the defined space for any length of time and may be performed from any of the four rotational positions in any sequence.”

The unconventional notation of this piece proposes an unconventional relationship between the composer, performer, and audience, in which all members are part of the process of creation, discovery, and organization of sound. But such notation is not entirely new. We often take for granted today’s five-line staff, which has its origins in graphic scores used in the Middle Ages as a mnemonic aid for learned musicians; this tool became more necessary as music grew more complicated and was pushed to standardization in the eleventh century.

While it is easy to classify the graphic scores of Earl Brown’s Folio, of which December 1952 is a part, as a fundamental break from tradition, it is perhaps much more interesting to listen to this music as a response to the types of music-making that have slowly trickled out of the concert hall for the past several centuries. Brown’s score, at its best, engages both performer and listener in spontaneous but thoughtful

improvisation. Christoph Cox eloquently observes that these scores “affirm the aesthetic value of metaphor in its original sense — the joy in unpredictable leaps and translations, in this case between sight and sound.”

— Katherine Balch jarosław kapuściŃski Juicy (2010) Juicy is a six-movement suite, which fuses images of fruits with live piano music. The video was produced using stop-motion technique on a traditional animation stand.

The musical and visual materials were chosen for their simple but sensuous form and a potential for unexpected associations.

— Jarosław Kapuściński

jason freeman Shadows (2015) In Shadows, the pianist reads an openform score from a laptop screen, choosing his own path through a series of connected musical fragments. At the same time, the laptop listens to the pianist, tracks the decisions he makes about what to play, and constantly updates the score in response.

This dialogue between pianist and computer, actuated through a dynamic score, serves to amplify the expressive decisions made by the pianist, to subtly push him in new musical directions, and to create large-scale structural arcs in the music.

Shadows consists of four movements, each of which explores the pianist-computer-score interaction from a different perspective:

Notes on the Program

I. Traces. The score consists of twelve chords followed by their echoes. The speed at which the pianist moves from chord to chord affects how much of the score is displayed and how much is hidden.

II. Chorale. The pianist plays from a selection of five chords and three embellishment notes. Each time a chord or note is played, its harmonic density and complexity is changed.

III. Perpetual Quiet. The pianist builds arpeggios from a constantly changing set of pitches.

IV. Perpetual Melody. The pianist chooses from a combination of rhythmically driven, short melodic motives and chords. Connections between fragments are added and removed based on the amount each fragment is being played.

I wrote Shadows for pianist Melvin Chen during an artistic research residency at IRCAM in Paris. Many thanks to Arshia Cont and Jean-Louis Giavitto from IRCAM and to Dominique Fober from GRAME for collaborating with me to extend their Antescofo and INScore software, respectively, for use in this piece.

— Jason Freeman franz schubert Sonata No. 18 in G major, D. 894 Schubert’s Sonata in G major was written in 1826 and published the next year in Vienna by Tobias Heslinger as “Fantaisie, Andante, Minuetto, and Allegretto.” This cumbrous title was then abbreviated to “Fantasy in G major,” despite Schubert’s

clear indication that the work was a sonata.

While this distinction may seem trivial, a mislabeling for commercial reasons over musical ones, it actually reflects Schubert’s unique approach to sonata form in this piece. Rather than the typical sonata foundation of contrast, Schubert inserts critical and often fleeting moments of drama within a generally unified thematic and affective palette. The result is an understated and intimate musical experience with delicate and heartfelt quirks.

The Sonata in G major begins with a gentle, grounded homophonic swaying reminiscent of the exposed opening of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. But Schubert’s material seems bound to unified motion, not flourishing into more typical pianistic figuration until the second theme. This music is relaxed and dance-like, but with a relentless softness as though overheard from another room. Schubert’s consistent use of pianissimo and triple piano dynamic markings in the exposition suggests an affect of loneliness or distance. An abrupt rise in dynamics is matched by a sudden shift to the minor mode in the development, replacing the distant swaying of the exposition with more immediate anguish.

The dance-like quality of the first movement pervades the other movements.

Interestingly, the most forceful and least light-hearted of these dances is in the Minuet. The movement’s trio section, however, compensates for its partner’s gruffness. A tender buoyancy characterizes the Rondo-Allegro, offering an understated conclusion in place of the bombastic energy typically associated with a sonata finale.

— Katherine Balch

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DEC 16

Hung-Kuan Chen

JAN 20

Pierre Réach

FEB 17

Dénes Várjon

MAR 9

Robert Blocker

DEC 3

Melvin Chen

DEC 10

Peter Frankl

DEC 17

Yoheved Kaplinsky

Wednesdays at 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall

MASTER CLASSES 2015–2016 Most master classes take place Thursdays at 10:30 am in Morse Recital Hall

Upcoming Events

Vista: Chamber Music & Commentary

Lunchtime Chamber Music

december 3 YSM Student Ensembles Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 12:30 pm Student ensembles offer a personal take on music by Schubert, Beethoven, Ligeti, and Mendelssohn • Wendy Sharp, director Free admission

december 9 YSM Student Ensembles Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 12:30 pm Music for a variety of chamber ensembles Wendy Sharp, director Free admission

New Music for Orchestra New Duke december 4 Ellington Jazz Series Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm Brian Torff and New Duke bring the music of Duke Ellington alive in a contemporary way, combining Ellington’s music with the grooves of jazz, hip-hop, rock, and funk Tickets start at $20 • Students $10

december 10 Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm Music by graduate student composers Krists Auznieks, Katherine Balch, Natalie Dietterich, Brian Heim, Dylan Mattingly, Liliya Ugay, and Tiange Zhou Tickets start at $10 • Students $5

Hung-Kuan Chen, piano Imani Winds december 8 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm Celebrating dance and variations, with selections by Rimsky-Korsakov, Piazzolla, Villa-Lobos, Paquito D’Rivera, and more Tickets start at $26 • Students $12

december 16 Horowitz Piano Series Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm Haydn: Sonata in G major, Hob. XVI: 6; Schubert: Sonata in C minor, D. 958; Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28 Tickets start at $13, Students $7

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Robert Blocker, Dean