Robert Blocker, Dean
doctor of musical arts recital
David Fung piano
Morse Recital Hall October 20, 2016 • Thursday at 7:30 pm
Yale School of Music
David Fung
piano
October 20, 2016 • Morse Recital Hall
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791
Piano Sonata No. 2 in F major, K. 280 I. Allegro assai II. Adagio III. Presto
Franz Schubert 1797–1828
Fantasie in C major, D. 760, “Wanderer Fantasy” I. Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo II. Adagio III. Presto IV. Allegro intermission
Domenico Scarlatti 1685—1757 Samuel Adams b. 1984 Scarlatti
Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K. 1
Adams
Sonata Two: Self-Portrait (with Domenico in the Background) (2016)
Scarlatti
Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K. 141
Maurice Ravel 1875—1937
La valse, M. 72, “Poème chorégraphique” arr. David Fung
Sonata One (2016) Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K. 32
This performance is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. 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
Described as “stylish and articulate” in The New York Times and having “superstar qualities” by Le Libre, pianist David Fung is a frequent guest artist with the world’s premier ensembles. In July 2016, Mr. Fung’s highly acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival was “everything you could wish for” (Cleveland Classical) and he was praised as an “agile and alert interpreter of Mozart’s crystalline notespinning” (The Plain Dealer). In the following week, he performed Rachmaninoff ’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the Beijing National Stadium for their Olympic Summer Festival. Further highlights of recent seasons include appearances with the Los Angeles Chamber, Israel Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Orchestras of Belgium, China, and Taiwan, as well as the major orchestras of Australia, including the Melbourne, Queensland, and Sydney symphony orchestras.
Ravinia Festival, and an artist residency at the 2015 Hong Kong Arts Festival. Other festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and the Edinburgh International Festival, where the Edinburgh Guide described Mr. Fung as being “impossibly virtuosic, prodigiously talented ... and who probably does ten more impossible things daily before breakfast.” Mr. Fung garnered international attention as a winner in two of the “top five” international piano competitions (the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the Arthur Rubinstein Piano International Masters Competition in Tel Aviv). In Tel Aviv, he was further distinguished by the Chamber Music and Mozart Prizes, awarded in areas in which Mr. Fung has a particularly passionate interest. He has recorded a number of albums for the Naxos and Yarlung labels. His album Evening Conversations (Yarlung) was praised as “an overall favorite” piano recital album by James Harrington in the American Record Guide and was named one of the “Top 10 Recordings of 2011” by Linn Records.
In 2015-16, Mr. Fung received invitations to the Louvre, the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the Kennedy Center, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and toured the major venues of China, including the Beijing Concert Hall, Mr. Fung is the first piano graduate of Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Guangzhou the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles Opera House, and Tianjin Grand Theater. and is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Later in 2016, Mr. Fung will have his New Arts at the Yale School of Music, where York recital debut presented by Lincoln he studied with Peter Frankl. Center’s Great Performers series and his debut at Caramoor. Other recent highlights include performances at the Zürich Tonhalle, Musicora Festival (Paris) broadcast by Medici.tv, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the National Concerto Hall in Taiwan, the
Program Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Sonata No. 2 in F major, K. 280 Mozart’s first six sonatas K. 279–284 were most likely born from his brief time in Munich in 1775. Mozart referred to these sonatas a number of times in his letters to his father from Paris dating from 1777-79, highlighting their interpretive and technical difficulty. Mozart was no doubt proud of these works as he performed them often and by memory. These sonatas are representative of Mozart’s earliest foray into writing for the fortepiano as indicated by the dynamic markings and articulations. The Sonata in F major, K. 280, is an exceptional work of the set due in part to its highly innovative and expressive second movement. Marked “Allegro assai”, the first movement is a boisterous menuet and is one of three in triple meter. Rhythmically varied, the movement features interplay between sections of quarter notes, triplets, and sixteenth notes deployed at various structural points. A noble repeated note motive opens the movement, which is swiftly followed by a passage of stately triplets. The following theme is a comedic dialogue of mockserious sonorities in the bass juxtaposed with coquettish imitative entries of sixteenth notes in the upper register. This material is later used exclusively in the development. The Adagio is a slow siciliano. It is simple in rhythm yet features inventive and unusually expressive harmonic language with which Mozart is able to conjure a mood that is at once mournful, yet restrained and stoic. Among the finest slow movements in his piano sonata repertoire, it anticipates the Adagio in the Piano Concerto No. 23 in A
major, K. 488, composed more than a decade later. Like its predecessor, the concerto movement shares the same tempo marking, the siciliano rhythm, in addition to other similarities in line and harmony. The playful Presto finale restores the good humor and high spirits of the opening movement. Haydnesque in character, it features registral jokes and alludes to the siciliano rhythm of the slow movement. This self-referential interplay of elements between movements is something that Beethoven, as well as numerous others, would later champion. Schubert’s Fantasie in C major. D. 760 is one such representative work where a single motive serves as the basis of all four movements in the composition. Franz Schubert Fantasie in C major, D. 760, “Wanderer Fantasy” Composed in November 1822, the Fantasie in C Major, D. 760, “Wanderer Fantasy,” is perhaps the most overtly virtuosic piano work Schubert composed. It takes its nickname from his 1816 song D. 489, which tells of a protagonist who longs for his homeland. Georg Philipp Schmidt’s text features popular Romantic themes of discontent, estrangement, and endless wandering. The song’s brooding theme forms the basis of a set of variations in the Fantasie’s dark Adagio movement. Highly innovative in form, the entire work is based on a simple motive in dactylic rhythm (long-short-short) upon the same note.
Program Notes
The Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo opens with symphonic C major chords presenting the dactylic motive. As the movement progresses, the motive transforms in character. The theme of the slow movement features the fragment from the “Wanderer” lied, which is assumed to be the origin of the dactylic single-note theme. Haunting variations follow and eventually lead to a chilling coda where the theme is accompanied by shivering tremolandi. As the tremolandi dissolve, a boisterous folk dance in triple meter ushers in the Presto, which acts as a scherzo movement. The Finale is a fugato based on the motive, which gradually gathers momentum to an inexorable and virtuosic climax. Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata in D Minor, K. 1 Keyboard Sonata in D Minor, K. 32 Keyboard Sonata in D Minor, K. 141 Samuel Adams Sonata One (2016) Sonata Two: Self-Portrait (with Domenico in the Background) (2016) The sonatas are generally referenced by Ralph Kirkpatrick’s numbers, which replace Alessandro Longo’s groupings from the first complete edition of 1906. Almost exclusively in binary form, the sonatas are bisected by a double bar near the middle and each of the sections is repeated. While Scarlatti’s sonatas have been noted as predecessors to the sonata-allegro form, Kirkpatrick states that the terms used to describe the Classical sonata are not sufficient for those of Scarlatti. Kirkpatrick also suggested that the sonatas were
written in pairs in the same key thereby forming larger two-movement entities, although performers now often mix sonatas to create contrast. Many of the sonatas have a distinctly Iberian flavor both in figuration and harmony, harking back to savory flamenco sounds and the guitar. Most appealing is perhaps how well the virtuosity of these works has translated to the modern piano. In keeping with the spirit of these characteristics, I commissioned a number of composers to write their own sonatas inspired by Scarlatti. This evening will feature the premiere of two sonatas by Yale graduate Samuel Adams. The first sonata is a frenetically virtuosic work utilizing repeated ornamented motives as well as large leaps beyond the extremities of Scarlatti’s harpsichord. The second sonata features slow ornaments and is an exercise in sostenuto, polyphony, and tone color. Maurice Ravel La valse, M. 72, “Poème chorégraphique” As early as 1906, Ravel began work on a tribute to Johann Strauss Jr. titled Wien. He wrote, “It is a Grand Waltz, a sort of homage to the memory of the great Strauss. You know my intense sympathy for this wonderful rhythm and that I hold the joie de vivre as expressed by the dance in high esteem.” By 1919, the world had changed and the shattering effect of the war had taken its toll on the once glittering frivolity in culture and high society. A commission by Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev finally gave Ravel the impetus to complete Wien. Fate now rendered Vienna a bitter recollection of a bygone era and in turn Ravel’s joyous Wien had become
Program Notes
a darker and brooding work, La valse. However, upon hearing the work, Diaghilev expressed that La valse “is not a ballet; it is a portrait of a ballet, it is a painting of a ballet,” and that the music could not be danced to. Ravel took this to be an affront, which led to an estrangement between the two men. Diaghilev and Ravel never collaborated again. Ravel later published the piece as a choreographic poem for orchestra, and eventually saw performances by Ida Rubinstein’s dance company in Antwerp and Paris. A prefatory note by the composer sets the scene: “Swirling clouds afford glimpses, through rifts, of waltzing couples. The clouds scatter little by little; one can distinguish an immense hall with a whirling crowd. The scene grows progressively brighter. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo. An imperial court, about 1855.” La valse outwardly presents the sophisticated sheen of old-world Vienna, but also embodies an undercurrent of terror and decay that eventually eats through the polished veneer as the work progresses. The collision of these two worlds ultimately tears the work apart. The piece concludes with the utter collapse from what Ravel calls as a “fatalistic whirling”. — David Fung
PETER OUNDJIAN
BRENTANO STRING QUARTET
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Robert Blocker, Dean
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