Robert Blocker, Dean
faculty artist series
Michael Friedmann & Friends Sunday, February 9, 2020 | 7:30 pm | Glee Club Room in the Adams Center
Introduction to Retirement
Robert Schumann 1810–1856
Bilder aus Osten, Op. 66 Dedicated to the memory of Qi Liu, the warm-toned pianist and Yale alumna with whom I previously played Bilder aus Osten I. Lebhaft II. Nicht schnell und sehr gesangvoll zu spielen III. Im Volkston IV. Nicht schnell V. Lebhaft VI. Reuig andächtig Wei-Yi Yang, piano Michael Friedmann, piano
Arnold Schoenberg 1874–1951
Phantasy for violin with piano accompaniment, Op. 47 Dedicated to the memory of Yeonsu Kim, a fine violinist and Yale alumna with whom I often played the Phantasy Katie Lansdale, violin Michael Friedmann, piano
Program, cont. Schumann
Märchenbilder, Op. 113 I. Nicht Schnell II. Lebhaft III. Rasch IV. Langsam, mit melancholischen Ausdruck Marka Gustavsson, viola Michael Friedmann, piano
Schoenberg
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41 Michael Friedmann, recitation Ani Kavafian, violin Kate Arndt, violin Bethany Hargreaves, viola Rebecca Patterson, cello Wei-Yi Yang, piano
As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.
Artist Profiles Michael Friedmann, piano & recitation Michael Friedmann’s career has included activities as a theorist, pianist, pedagogue, and composer. His specialties involve analytical articles about the music of Schoenberg and performances of the composer’s complete piano music. He has developed an ear-training method that is focused on twentieth-century music, and his book Ear Training for 20th-Century Music (Yale University Press) received special recognition from the Society of Music Theory. In addition to Schoenberg, Friedmann’s piano performances have focused on late works of Beethoven and Schubert. His teaching specialties have included classes relating the analysis of Brahms’ and Schumann’s chamber music to their performance. In addition to teaching at the Yale School of Music, Friedmann has taught at Beijing University and at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music and has lectured and performed at the Beijing Modern Music Festival. Wei-Yi Yang, piano Pianist Wei-Yi Yang has earned worldwide acclaim for his captivating performances and imaginative programming. Winner of the gold medal at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, he has appeared at major venues across America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. He was recently praised by The New York Times for a “sensational” performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie at Carnegie Hall. Yang studied in the U.K., then in America with Arkady Aronov and Boris Berman at
the Manhattan School of Music and Yale School of Music, respectively. Yang received his doctor of musical arts degree from the Yale School of Music in 2004 and joined the faculty in 2005. Katie Lansdale, violin Violinist Katie Lansdale is widely acclaimed as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. She has performed as soloist and chamber artist in North/South America and Europe, and on numerous American concert series. Lansdale has been a member of the internationally acclaimed Lions Gate Trio for over 30 years, recording for Centaur and Triton records and performing across Europe and the Eastern US. In New York, where she founded the acclaimed Locrian new music group. Lansdale’s extensive chamber music concerts have ranged from Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center with Yo-Yo Ma to Merkin Hall with the Twentieth Centuryists; she now performs twice a year in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall with the Festival Chamber Society. Particularly widely acclaimed for performances of solo Bach, Lansdale has performed the complete cycle over a dozen times in North and South America. Lansdale studied with Josef Gingold, Felix Galimir, Ronda Cole, Donald Weilerstein, and Mitchell Stern. She graduated cum laude from Yale, where she was awarded prizes in both the arts and humanities, and earned graduate music degrees (M.M., D.M.A.) at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Manhattan School of Music. She teaches at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford and at Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
Artist Profiles, cont. Marka Gustavsson, viola A dedicated chamber musician, Marka Gustavsson has performed in major halls across Europe, Canada, and the United States, as well as Japan and Israel. She has been invited to chamber music festivals including Bard, Mostly Mozart, Skaneateles, Newport, Bennington, and Portland. She has appeared as a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WQXR’s Showcase Concerts, the Yale School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series, at Banff, and Wall-to-Wall and Music of Our Time at Symphony Space. Marka has worked closely with composers including Joan Tower, John Halle, Kyle Gann, George Tsontakis, Yinam Leef, Katherine Hoover, Martin Bresnick, Richard Wernick, Harold Farberman, and Tan Dun, performing contemporary solo and chamber music repertoire. In 2000, Marka joined the Colorado Quartet, an active touring ensemble that performs traditional and new repertoire. The ensemble has released the complete Beethoven string quartets on Parnassus Records. With the Colorado Quartet, she has served as faculty and co-artistic director at Soundfest Chamber Music Festival and Quartet Institute. Marka is the Associate Director of the Bard Conservatory where she is on the Viola faculty and directs the Chamber Music Program. Ani Kavafian, violin Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has performed with virtually all of America’s leading orchestras, including
the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and many others. Kavafian has served as Concertmistress of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and Co-Artistic Director of the “Mostly Music” chamber music series in New Jersey and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1979. She is Professor of Violin at the Yale School of Music and plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin. Rebecca Patterson, cello The New York Times describes Ms. Patterson as having an “uncommonly warm and rounded tone.” In 1996, Ms. Patterson cofounded the piano-clarinet quartet Antares, which took the top prizes (1997) in the Fischoff, Coleman, Yellow Springs, and Carmel National Chamber Music Competitions. In 2002, Antares was awarded the top prize in the Concert Artists Guild Competition and later joined Sciolino Artist Management (2007-2012), concluding a 15-year run dedicated to performing, commissioning, recording, and educating about chamber music. Ms. Patterson is a graduate of Eastman and Yale, where she studied with Paul Katz and Aldo Parisot. At Eastman she won the Gibbs Chamber Orchestra Concerto competition, the fullmerit Lois Smith Rogers Scholarship, and at Yale she was a recipient of the Ender Scholarship. Most recently, Rebecca is a 2019 recipient of the Ford Musician’s Award for Community Service through the NHSO, where she currently serves as Principal Cello.
Text Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte Text by Lord Byron I. ‘Tis done—but yesterday a King! And armed with Kings to strive— And now thou art a nameless thing: So abject—yet alive! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strewed our earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive? Since he, miscalled the Morning Star, Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. II. Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind Who bowed so low the knee? By gazing on thyself grown blind, Thou taught’st the rest to see. With might unquestioned,—power to save,— Thine only gift hath been the grave To those that worshipped thee; Nor till thy fall could mortals guess Ambition’s less than littleness! III. Thanks for that lesson—it will teach To after-warriors more Than high Philosophy can preach, And vainly preached before. That spell upon the minds of men Breaks never to unite again, That led them to adore Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. IV. The triumph, and the vanity, The rapture of the strife— The earth quake-voice of Victory, To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway Which man seemed made but to obey, Wherewith renown was rife— All quelled!—Dark Spirit! what must be The madness of thy memory! V. The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others’ fate A Suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? Or dread of death alone? To die a Prince—or live a slave— Thy choice is most ignobly brave! [instrumental interlude] VI. He who of old would rend the oak, Dreamed not of the rebound; Chained by the trunk he vainly broke— Alone—how looked he round? Thou, in the sternness of thy strength, An equal deed hast done at length, And darker fate hast found: He fell, the forest prowlers’ prey; But thou must eat thy heart away! VII. The Roman, when his burning heart Was slaked with blood of Rome, Threw down the dagger—dared depart, In savage grandeur, home.— He dared depart in utter scorn Of men that such a yoke had borne, Yet left him such a doom! His only glory was that hour Of self-upheld abandoned power.
Text, cont. VIII. The Spaniard, when the lust of sway Had lost its quickening spell, Cast crowns for rosaries away, An empire for a cell; A Strict accountant of his beads, A subtle disputant on creeds, His dotage trifled well: Yet better had he neither known A bigot’s shrine, nor despot’s throne. IX. But thou—from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung— Too late thou leav’st the high command To which thy weakness clung; All Evil Spirit as thou art, It is enough to grieve the heart To see thine own unstrung; To think that God’s fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean; X. And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, Who thus can hoard his own! And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb, And thanked him for a throne! Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear, When thus thy mightiest foes their fear In humblest guise have shown. Oh! ne’er may tyrant leave behind A brighter name to lure mankind! [instrumental interlude] XI. Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, Nor written thus in vain— Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, Or deepen every stain: If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise, To shame the world again— But who would soar the solar height, To set in such a starless night? XII. Weigh’d in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales, Mortality! are just To all that pass away: But yet methought the living great Some higher sparks should animate, To dazzle and dismay: Nor deem’d Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. [short instrumental interlude] XIII. And she, proud Austria’s mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride; How bears her breast the torturing hour? Still clings she to thy side? Must she too bend, must she too share Thy late repentance, long despair, Thou throneless Homicide? If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,— ‘Tis worth thy vanished diadem! XIV. Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, And gaze upon the sea; That element may meet thy smile— It ne’er was ruled by thee! Or trace with thine all idle hand In loitering mood upon the sand That Earth is now as free! That Corinth’s pedagogue hath now Transferred his by-word to thy brow.
XV. Thou Timour! in his captive’s cage What thoughts will there be thine, While brooding in thy prisoned rage? But one—”The world was mine!” Unless, like he of Babylon, All sense is with thy sceptre gone, Life will not long confine That spirit poured so widely forth— So long obeyed—so little worth! XVI. Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him, the unforgiven, His vulture and his rock! Foredoomed by God—by man accurst, And that last act, though not thy worst, The very Fiend’s arch mock; He in his fall preserved his pride, And, if a mortal, had as proudly died! XVII. There was a day—there was an hour, While earth was Gaul’s—Gaul thine— When that immeasurable power Unsated to resign Had been an act of purer fame Than gathers round Marengo’s name And gilded thy decline, Through the long twilight of all time, Despite some passing clouds of crime. XVIII. But thou forsooth must be a King And don the purple vest, As if that foolish robe could wring Remembrance from thy breast. Where is that faded garment? where The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, The star, the string, the crest?
Vain froward child of Empire! say, Are all thy playthings snatched away? XIX. Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? Yes—One—the first—the last—the best— The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom Envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one!
Upcoming Events feb 12
Hung-Kuan Chen Horowitz Piano Series Faculty pianist Hung-Kuan Chen pays tribute to Beethoven with a performance of the composer’s last six sonatas, Nos. 27–32. 7:00 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $15, students $7
feb 14 Florencia en el Amazonas feb 15 Yale Opera feb 16 Christopher Franklin conducts the Yale Philharmonia and Candace Evans directs the cast in a new production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas. fri & sat 8 pm | sun 2 pm Shubert Theatre Tickets start at $19 • shubert.com
Zukerman Trio Oneppo Chamber Music Series Violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and pianist Angela Cheng perform Beethoven’s “Kakadu” Variations; Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor; and Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C major. 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $28, students $13 feb 18
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Guitar Extravaganza YSM Special Events A daylong immersion in the classical guitar, including concerts, workshops, demos, and more. Headline performance by David Russell. All-Day passes, 3-Concert passes, and single tickets available now. music.yale.edu/guitar-extravaganza
Lunchtime Chamber Music YSM Ensembles School of Music students perform a midday chamber music program. 12:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall free Vista: Chamber Music YSM Ensembles Student ensembles perform and provide insight into the repertoire. 3:00 pm | Morse Recital Hall free
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