Lucas Wong, piano

d oct or of musica l a rts

Lucas Wong piano

music by Hector Berlioz George Crumb

morse recital hall October 13, 2011 Thursday at 8 pm

Robert Blocker, Dean

Lucas Wong October 13, 2011 • Sprague Memorial Hall • Doctor of Musical Arts Recital

Hector Berlioz 1803–1869 trans. Franz Liszt 1811–1886

Symphonie fantastique:

Épisode de la vie d’un Artiste I. Rêveries – Passions II. Un bal III. Scène aux champs IV. Marche au supplice V. Songe d’une nuit de sabbat intermission

George Crumb b. 1929

Makrokosmos, Volume II:

Twelve fantasy pieces after the Zodiac part one 1. Morning Music 2. The Mystic Chord 3. Rain-Death Variations 4. Twin Suns (Doppelgänger aus der Ewigkeit) part two 5. Ghost-Nocturne: for the Druids of Stonehenge 6. Gargoyles 7. Tora! Tora! Tora! (Cadenza Apocalittica) 8. A Prophecy of Nostradamus part three 9. Cosmic Wind 10. Voices from “Corona Borealis” 11. Litany of the Galactic Bells 12. Agnus Dei

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.

About the Artist

Levine’s vocal masterclass in Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Wong promotes the solo piano works of William Bolcom and assisted with the West Coast premiere of Bolcom’s opera A Wedding. He has made recordings on the First Impression Music (FIM) label.

Canadian pianist Lucas Wong has a diversified career as a soloist, collaborative artist, and vocal coach. As a winner of the Début Young Artists Competition, he made his solo debut at the Canadian Broadcasting Company in Vancouver. He was recently nominated by William Bolcom as a finalist for the Lili Boulanger Prize. Among other achievements are the Piano Encouragement Award at the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition, the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize, and the Vancouver Foundation Award. From the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto he received a Gold Medal, the conservatory’s highest honor, for his ARCT Teachers’ Diploma.

Alongside violinist Soovin Kim and bassoonist Frank Morelli, Wong was a featured artist at the Banff Centre. He appeared in James

At the Sixth International Piano Academy, Wong was invited to give masterclasses and perform the Shanghai premiere of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn. He has been a clinician at the British Columbia Conservatory of Music and a guest lecturer on Debussy at the Juilliard School, and he adjudicated at the Young Musicians Festival at Fairfield University. A faculty member of SongFest at Pepperdine, he is also on the staff of Yale Opera and the Opera Theater of Connecticut.

Wong began his training at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. He earned his B.Mus. degree from the University of British Columbia, and the m.m. and m.m.a. degrees from the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Boris Berman. Other major mentors throughout his career include Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Michael Friedmann, Margo Garrett, Martin Katz, Warren Jones, Julian Martin, Edward Parker, Poon Tak, Rena Sharon, and Robert Silverman. Wong holds a post-graduate fellowship from the Bard Conservatory, where he worked closely with Frank Corliss, Kayo Iwama, and Dawn Upshaw.

This performance is in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

Notes on the Program

hector berlioz Symphonie fantastique part one: Daydreams – Passions

part two: A Ball

The author imagines that a young musician, affected by the moral malady which a famous author calls le vague des passions [seemingly rootless emotions], sees for the first time a woman who possesses all the charms of the ideal being he had fancied in his dreams, and falls hopelessly in love. Through a singular oddity, the image of the beloved never presents itself to the artist’s imagination except tied to a musical idea, in which he perceives a certain impassioned quality, though noble and shy, as he imagines the object of his love to be.

The artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in daily life: amid the tumult of a festivity, in the peaceful contemplation of the beauties of nature. But everywhere, whether in the town or in the fields, the image of the beloved obtrudes on him, bringing trouble to his spirit.

This musical reflection and its model pursue him incessantly like a double idée fixe [obsession]. This is why the melody that opens the first allegro reappears constantly in all the other movements in the symphony. The passage from that state of dispirited daydreaming, occasionally interrupted by baseless transports of joy, to one of delirious passion, with its gusts of fury, of jealousy, its relapses into tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations, forms the subject of the first movement.

part three: Country Scene Finding himself in the country one evening, he hears two shepherds playing a ranz de vaches [Alpine cattle-call] in dialogue, far away; this pastoral duet, the scenery, the slight murmuring of the trees gently swayed by the wind, some recently formed grounds for hope — everything contributes to bringing an unaccustomed calm to his heart and a brighter color to his thoughts. He thinks of his loneliness; he hopes soon not be alone anymore . . . But what if she were deceiving him? . . . This mixture of hope and fear, these visions of happiness troubled by dark forebodings, form the subject of the adagio.

In the end, one of the shepherds resumes the ranz de vaches; the other no longer answers ... Distant sound of thunder ... solitude ... silence ...

Notes on the Program

part four: March to the Scaffold Having become convinced that his love is not returned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, too weak to kill him, plunges him into a sleep beset with the most horrible visions. He dreams he has murdered the one he loved; he has been sentenced, is being led to the scaffold, is witnessing his own execution. The procession moves forward to the sounds of a march now somber and ferocious, now brilliant and stately, during which the muffled noise of heavy footsteps follows without transition upon the noisiest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four measures of the idée fixe reappear like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

part five: Dream of the Sabbath Night He sees himself at the sabbath, surrounded by a hideous crowd of spirits, sorcerers, monsters of every kind, assembled for his funeral.

Strange noises, moans, bursts of laughter, distant cries to which other cries apparently respond. The beloved melody reappears again, but it has lost its noble and shy quality; now it is only a vile dance tune, trivial and grotesque; it is she, arriving at the sabbath ... Roar of joy at her arrival ... She joins the diabolic orgy ... Funeral knell, ludicrous parody of the Dies irae, sabbath round dance.

Sabbath round dance and Dies irae combined.

–Text by Hector Berlioz, translated by Piero Weiss

» The version performed tonight is based on Liszt’s publication in 1834, before Berlioz finished finalizing his orchestral score in 1845. Liszt’s transcription preserves the authenticity of the original orchestral score dated in 1830.

special thanks To Suzanne Lovejoy and staff at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library and Beinicke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, for providing music for the first half of the program.

To Jack Vees and his team at the Center for Studies in Music Technology at the Yale School of Music, for their insight and resources for the second half of the program.

OPERA SCENES

Yale Opera presents scenes from

october 28

october 29

Il Barbiere di Siviglia Così fan tutte Giulio Cesare I Capuleti e i Montecchi I Puritani Roméo et Juliette Iolanta Les Troyens La Bohème La Traviata Doris Yarick-Cross, artistic director • Marc Verzatt, stage director 7:30 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall Tickets $10-15 • Students $5 • 203 432-4158

music.yale.edu

Upcoming Events

Brentano String Quartet

Yale Philharmonia

october 18

october 21

Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday| 8 pm Oneppo Chamber Music Series Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 103; Beethoven: String Quartet in F major, Op. 135; Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, Op. Post., D. 703; Ginastera: Piano Quintet, featuring guest pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

Tickets $20–$30; Students $10

Woolsey Hall | Friday | 8 pm Peter Oundjian, guest conductor. John Adams: Tromba Lontana; Bruch: Scottish Fantasy, with violinist Soo Ryun Baek; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 in C minor.

Free Admission

Fall Opera Scenes october 28 & 29

Mikhail Rudy, piano october 19 Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 8 pm Horowitz Piano Series Music of Scriabin and Stravinsky, and a multimedia performance of Musorgky’s Pictures at an Exhibition featuring projected animations of Kandinsky’s sketches and watercolors from his original 1928 staging.

Tickets $12–$22; Students $6–$9

Morse Recital Hall | Fri & Sat | 7:30 pm Yale Opera Friday evening features scenes from Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, and Verdi’s La Traviata.

Saturday evening offers scenes from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Bellini’s I Puritani, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, and Puccini’s La Boheme. Doris Yarick Cross, artistic director; Marc Verzatt, stage director.

Tickets $10–$15; Students $5

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

Robert Blocker, Dean

music.yale.edu