Daniel Saidenberg FacultyRecital Series - Juilliard School · The Juilliard School presents Faculty...

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Daniel Saidenberg FacultyRecital Series Piano Quartet

Transcript of Daniel Saidenberg FacultyRecital Series - Juilliard School · The Juilliard School presents Faculty...

Daniel SaidenbergFacultyRecital Series

Piano Quartet

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The Juilliard Schoolpresents

Faculty Recital: Piano QuartetCatherine Cho, ViolinHsin Yun Huang, ViolaNatasha Brofsky, CelloRobert McDonald, Piano

Monday, February 5, 2018, 7:30pmPaul Hall

Part of the Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series

FRANZ JOSEPH Piano Trio in E-flat Major Hob.XV:29 HAYDN Poco allegretto(1732 –1809) Andantino et innocentemente [attacca] Finale: Allemande (Presto assai)

LUDWIG VAN String Trio in C Minor, Op. 9, No. 3 BEETHOVEN Allegro con spirito(1770 –1827) Adagio con espressione Scherzo. Allegro molto vivace Presto

Intermission

JOHANNES Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26BRAHMS Allegro non troppo(1833–97) Poco adagio Scherzo. Poco allegro Finale. Allegro

Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, including one intermission

Major funding for establishing Paul Recital Hall and for continuing access to its series of public programs has been granted by The Bay Foundation and the Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation in memory of Josephine Bay Paul.

Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium.

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Notes on the Program By James M. Keller

Piano Trio in E-flat Major Hob.XV:29

During his visits to London, in 1791–92 and 1794–95, Franz Joseph Haydn became acquainted with English pianos, which were considerably more robust and extroverted in sound than were the Viennese instruments he had known previously. His late piano trios seem tailor-made to exploit the strengths of these new instruments, and their piano parts sparkle perhaps a shade more effusively than do those of his earlier trios.

The E-flat-Major Trio played here was the third in a group of three piano trios he composed for the virtuoso Therese Jansen Bartolozzi just after his second English trip. Born in Aachen, she had moved to London and studied piano with Muzio Clementi. Haydn wrote at least two (perhaps all three) of his last piano sonatas for her, as well as the three piano trios Hob.XV:27–29. In May 1795, he served as a witness at her wedding to Gaetano Bartolozzi, a violin- and viola-playing picture dealer and import-export wheeler-dealer whose father, Francesco, had engraved Haydn’s portrait in 1791.

The sonatas and trios Haydn composed for Therese Jansen Bartolozzi stand at the height of his keyboard production in terms of requisite virtuosity (including notable examples of octave playing and hand crossing), creative use of available effects, and harmonic and structural imagination. The musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon remarked of Haydn’s late piano trios that “it is almost as if he wished to show the world what possibilities in tonal relationships, harmonic subtleties, instrumental combinations and sheer brilliance of form these trios could display in the hands of a master at the summit of his artistic career.” The audacious Trio in E-flat major may have been the last of the set Haydn wrote; it is certainly the one he chose to cap off the published collection. We think of the Classical era as a monument to tonal unity, with all the movements of a composition generally being cast in closely related keys that, as a whole, reinforce the underlying tonic. In this trio, however, the first and third movements are in E-flat major and the middle movement is in B major. Even if we consider B major to be the enharmonic equivalent of C-flat major and therefore the submediant of E-flat major, we are being led all the same into harmonic outer space. In fact, a section of the first movement is written in E-flat minor; a score that within a few pages ranges from key signatures of six flats (for E-flat minor) to five sharps (for B major) might not strike us as unusual in a piece by Franck or Reger, but for 1791 the very idea is extraordinary. Haydn is always astonishing in the breadth of his musical contrasts. Even throwaway gestures may be infused with strokes of genius, as in the last movement, where what Robbins Landon called “a barroom tune of the heavier sort” proves susceptible to being played canonic counterpoint against itself.

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Born: Almost certainly on March 31, 1732, since he was baptized on April 1, in Rohrau, Lower Austria Died: May 31, 1809, in Vienna, Austria

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String Trio in C Minor, Op. 9, No. 3

Ludwig van Beethoven’s five contributions to the string-trio repertoire culminate in his Three Trios (Op. 9) in 1797–98. Published in Vienna in the latter year, they carry a dedication to Count Johann Georg von Browne, a diplomat and an officer in the Russian army (his non-Slavic name signals his Irish extraction) who was one of the composer’s important early patrons. Each trio in the set comprises four movements, and it is everywhere apparent that they have more in common with Beethoven’s six string quartets (Op. 18) that would soon follow than with the two divertimento-serenade string trios that preceded them.

The two outer trios of the Op. 9 set—in G major and C minor—are the most forceful of the set, certainly in comparison to the elegant D-major Trio at the group’s center. The C-Minor Trio most strongly suggests the dramatic, concentrated character listeners would come to associate with Beethoven—and very much with his composition in C minor. “Beethoven in C minor,” wrote the pianist and scholar Charles Rosen, “has come to symbolize his artistic character. In every case, it reveals Beethoven as a hero. C minor does not show Beethoven at his most subtle, but it does give him to us in his most extrovert form, where he seems to be most impatient of any compromise.” Although Beethoven writes a certain amount of double (and triple) stopping, particularly in the violin and viola parts, the texture through most of this work is essentially three-voiced, which yields a sense of transparency. This is not invariably the case with trios; some expand so often to four-part harmony that one wonders why they weren’t cast as quartets in the first place. Beethoven, in contrast, honors his ensemble for what it is.

An anxious mood is never far from the action. The opening movement includes its share of insistent nervousness and hammered chords, building tension that is relieved to a fair degree by the beguiling, rich-voiced slow movement (Adagio con espressione). It is the exception that proves the role in the matter of double-stopping to expand the instrumental texture. Pages of this slow movement achieve an impressive spirit of nobility. The Scherzo is energetic without seeming on the whole cheerful, and the finale bustles along in a restless way, reminiscent at certain points of the same composer’s B-flat-major Piano Sonata (Op. 22, also dedicated to Count von Browne). A fascinating moment arrives with the onset of the development section of this finale, where the concluding measures of the exposition are rendered unexpectedly in the major mode, to strikingly different effect. This feint proves a harbinger of the work’s conclusion, where the minor-key tension dissipates into major-key lightness that drifts off into a quiet adieu—the lieto fine (“happy ending”) of the most well-behaved Classical compositions.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Born: Bonn, then an independent electorate of Germany, probably on December 16, 1770 (he was baptized on the 17th)

Died: Vienna on March 26, 1827

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Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26

Johannes Brahms worked more or less concurrently on his first two piano quartets, in G minor and A major. He premiered the A-major in Vienna on November 29, 1862, just 13 days after he introduced its sister piece there (though the G-minor had previously been heard elsewhere). Where the G-minor is extroverted and taut, the A-major is introspective and luxurious; in fact, it is the longest of all Brahms’ chamber works. That is not to imply that it is a flaccid piece. Brahms was never less than rigorous, and the A-major Piano Quartet is invigorated by the rhythmic complexity, melodic variety, and contrapuntal elegance we expect of its composer.

When he wrote these piano quartets, Brahms was not yet residing in Vienna. He was mostly dividing his time between Detmold and Hamburg, fulfilling various court obligations in the former city, directing a women’s choir in the latter. The dedicatee of the A-major, Elisabeth Rösing, was actually his landlady in the Hamburg suburb of Hamm, where he lived when he was completing the piano quartets.

The first movement opens with a gently rocking theme that pervades the unrolling of this sonata-form structure. The melodies are simple yet beautiful; they sound inevitable. One doesn’t get far into the piece before encountering Brahms’ hallmark hemiolas, contrapositions of two notes against three. By the end of this movement—in performance it can last 16 or 17 minutes—the innate lyricism escalates into fervent sweep, and yet the listener is left feeling that it has been a calming experience.

Brahms’ violinist-friend Joseph Joachim described the second movement as the “wonderful Poco adagio with its ambiguous passion.” It opens as a soothing nocturne, perhaps a love song, but as soon as the first tune is out, the piano unleashes a series of mysterious, even ominous diminished-seventh arpeggios against the unwavering stubbornness of the muted strings—strikingly Schubertian, reminiscent of that composer’s song “Die Stadt,” from the set gathered at the end of his life under the title Schwanengesang. Hungarian Gypsy flavor intrudes in the deeply pitched phrases of the central section, certainly on the passionate side of Joachim’s “ambiguous passion” balance. Passionate, too, are the achingly beautiful phrases of the most “romantic” passage when the strings sing in sixths against the raindrops of the piano’s slowly broken chords.

In the third movement, Brahms creates a complicated fusion of scherzo-and-trio with sonata form—no mean feat, and one that was sure to impress listeners of a more academic persuasion. In the trio section, the piano (in three octaves) and the strings play in canon at the distance of one measure, fortissimo lest anyone miss the point.

Notes on the Program By James M. Keller (Continued)

JOHANNES BRAHMS Born: May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died: April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria

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Some of the modulations in the brisk finale, unanticipated journeys from a point of departure to a harmonic destination a third away, may again remind us of Schubert. In the minor-key passages one may find a Hungarian Gypsy spirit resurfacing, and perhaps also in the very vigorous animato conclusion.

James M. Keller is the longtime program annotator of the New York Philharmonic (The Leni and Peter May Chair) and the San Francisco Symphony. His book Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide, published in 2011 by Oxford University Press, is available as an e-book and an Oxford paperback.

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Natasha Brofsky

As a member of the Peabody Trio for 17 years, cellist Natasha Brofsky has performed on leading chamber music series throughout the U.S., Canada, and U.K; and has recorded on the New World, CRI, and Artek labels. She has appeared as a guest with ensembles including the Borromeo, Jupiter, Norwegian, Parker , Prazak ,Takács and Ying quartets and recently became artistic director of the New York chapter of a musician-led initiative for local hunger relief—Music for Food. During nearly a decade in Europe, Ms. Brofsky won the Muriel Taylor cello prize and held principal positions in the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. She was a member of the Serapion Ensemble and Opus 3 and was a regular participant at IMS Open Chamber Music in Prussia Cove, England. Ms. Brofsky has recorded Shulamit Ran’s Fantasy Variations and Olav Anton Thommessen’s Concerto for Cello and Winds. A sought-after teacher, she is on the cello faculties of New England Conservatory and Juilliard. Since 2001 she has been on the faculty at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont and was previously on the faculty of the Barratt-Due Musikk Institutt in Oslo. Ms. Brofsky has given master classes at many colleges and conservatories in the U.S. and abroad, including for El Sistema in Venezuela, Oberlin Conservatory, the Eastman School, Mannes College, and the Shanghai Conservatory and Middle School.

Catherine Cho

Violinist Catherine Cho has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Orchestra, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Daejon Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Orchestra of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Aspen Chamber Symphony; and has collaborated with conductors including Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Spano, Sixten Ehrling, and Franz-Paul Decker. As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has performed at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Casals Hall in Tokyo as a member of the Casals Hall Ensemble, and Washington’s Kennedy Center, among many others. She has taken part in 11 Musicians From Marlboro national tours, is a founding member of the chamber ensemble La Fenice, and was a member of the Johannes String Quartet from 2003 to 2006. A winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms. Cho won top prizes at the Montreal, Hanover, and Queen Elisabeth international violin competitions. She has served on juries of numerous competitions and taught master classes worldwide. Ms. Cho received her BM and MM at Juilliard and joined the school’s Pre-College faculty in 1996 and the college faculty in 1999.

Meet the Artists

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Hsin-Yun Huang Violist Hsin-Yun Huang’s current season includes performances for Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Chamber Music Columbus, and at the Seoul Spring Festival. Highlights of next season include solo engagements under the batons of Osmo Vänskä and Josef Cabelle in Taipei and Bogota, and she will also be the first solo violist to be presented in the National Performance Center of the Arts in Beijing. She has commissioned works from Steven Mackey, Shih-Hui Chen, and Poul Ruders, and her 2012 recording, Viola Viola, for Bridge Records, won accolades from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Ms. Huang first came to international attention when she won the gold medal in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. In 1993 she was the top prize-winner in the ARD International Competition in Munich and was awarded the Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award. A native of Taiwan and an alumna of Young Concert Artists, she has received degrees from the Yehudi Menuhin School, Juilliard, and the Curtis Institute of Music; she now serves on the faculties of Juilliard and Curtis.

Robert McDonald Pianist Robert McDonald has toured extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. He has performed with major orchestras in the U.S. and was a recital partner with violinist Isaac Stern for many years. He has participated in the Marlboro, Casals, and Lucerne festivals, performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and for broadcasts over BBC Television. He has also appeared with the Takács, Vermeer, Juilliard, Brentano, Borromeo, American, Shanghai, and St. Lawrence string quartets as well as with Musicians from Marlboro. Mr. McDonald’s prizes include the gold medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition, the top prize at the William Kapell International Competition, and the Deutsche Schallplatten Critics Award. His teachers include Theodore Rehl, Seymour Lipkin, Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Beveridge Webster, and Gary Graffman. He holds degrees from Lawrence University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard, and the Manhattan School of Music. A member of the piano faculty at Juilliard since 1999, Mr. McDonald has taught at the Curtis Institute since 2007, where he holds the Penelope P. Watkins Chair in piano studies. During the summer, he is artistic director of New Mexico’s Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival.

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Juilliard Board of Trustees and Administration

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Bruce Kovner, ChairJ. Christopher Kojima, Vice ChairKatheryn C. Patterson, Vice Chair

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND SENIOR ADMINISTRATION

TRUSTEES EMERITI

June Noble Larkin, Chair Emerita

Mary Ellin BarrettSidney R. KnafelElizabeth McCormackJohn J. Roberts

Office of the PresidentJoseph W. Polisi, PresidentJacqueline Schmidt, Chief of Staff

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Drama DivisionRichard Feldman, Acting Director Katherine Hood, Managing Director

Music DivisionAdam Meyer, Associate Dean and DirectorBärli Nugent, Assistant Dean, Director of Chamber MusicJoseph Soucy, Assistant Dean for Orchestral StudiesStephen Carver, Chief Piano TechnicianJoanna K. Trebelhorn, Director of Orchestral

and Ensemble Operations

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Assistant Dean for the Kovner Fellowships

Jazz Wynton Marsalis, Director of Juilliard JazzAaron Flagg, Chair and Associate Director

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and Associate Registrar

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and CommunicationsBenedict Campbell, Website DirectorAmanita Heird, Director of Special EventsSusan Jackson, Editorial DirectorSam Larson, Design DirectorKatie Murtha, Director of Major GiftsLori Padua, Director of Planned GivingEd Piniazek, Director of Development OperationsNicholas Saunders, Director of Concert OperationsEdward Sien, Director of Foundation and Corporate RelationsAdrienne Stortz, Director of SalesTina Matin, Director of MerchandisingRebecca Vaccarelli, Director of Alumni Relations

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JUILLIARD COUNCIL

Mitchell Nelson, Chair

Michelle Demus AuerbachBarbara BrandtBrian J. HeidtkeGordon D. HendersonPeter L. KendYounghee Kim-WaitPaul E. Kwak, MDMin Kyung Kwon

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