Peter Frankl Seventieth Birthday Celebration
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the school of music yale university horowitz piano series at yale Peter Frankl Seventieth Birthday Celebration with Boris Berman, piano Robert Blocker, piano Claude Frank, piano and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale Shinik Hahm, music director Friday, October 14, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall the school of music • yale university thomas c. duffy, acting dean h o r o w i t z piano series at yale Peter Frankl with Boris Berman, piano Robert Blocker, piano Claude Frank, piano and Members of the Yale Philhamonia Shinik Hahm, Music Director Friday, October 14, 2005 at 8:00 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall All Works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Concerto for Three Pianos in F Major, K. 242 Allegro Adagio Rondeau: Tempo di menuetto Claude Frank, piano 1 Boris Berman, piano 2 Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat Major, K. 365-316a Allegro Andante Rondeau: Allegro Robert Blocker, piano 2 INTERMISSION Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595 Allegro Larghetto Allegro yale school of music Program Notes The Concerto No. 7 in F Major for three pianos, Köchel 242, composed in Salzburg in early 1776, also exists as a two-piano version, arranged for performances by Mozart and his sister Nan- nerl. Leopold Mozart took great advantage of his talented son and daughter from a young age – they toured Europe extensively as children – and relished particularly the spectacle of their duo performances. To this end, the younger Mozart wrote a number of two-piano (sometimes one keyboard, four-hands) sonatas and divertimenti for himself and his sister. As he explored the con- certo medium, soloist with orchestra, he began to experiment with duo-sonata tactics. The concerto in F, in its version for three pianos, is “Dedicated to the incomparable merit of Her Excellency, Her Ladyship the Countess Lodron, née Countess d’Arco, and her daughters, their Ladyships the Countesses Aloysia and Giuseppa … by their most devoted servant, Wolfgang Mozart.” The Mozarts and the prominent Lodron family were neighbors in Salzburg in the middle 1770s, and Mozart dedicated a number of keyboard works in this period to his patroness, the Countess Antonia Lodron, an avid amateur keyboardist. The opening Allegro is a broad, clear movement that immedi- ately exposes the stripped-down orchestra, strings plus oboes and horns. The first two solo parts are more difficult, but the third, for the younger daughter, is less technically demanding. (The third part, in the two-piano version, is easily covered by the first two parts.) Instead of improvising cadenzas on the spot, as he would have done in performances of his own music, Mozart wrote out the cadenzas in the first and second movements. The work concludes with a dance-like rondo (marked Tempo di Menuetto). Mozart wrote the Concerto No. 10 in E-Flat Major for two pianos, K. 365 in 1779 to be performed with his sister, after the family’s moderately successful trip to Paris via Munich, Augsburg, and Mannheim. While the trip increased Mozart’s fame away from home and was somewhat lucrative, it came with a catch: the death of his mother, who died in Mannheim in July 1778. In the year fol- lowing his mother’s death, Mozart wrote two momentous works for two soloists and orchestra, the double piano concerto K. 365 and the Sinfonia concertante K. 364 for violin and viola. Both are in E-flat, the “Masonic” key. Mozart, as a Freemason, accorded special horowitz piano series 2005-2006 significance to the number three; each of the three flats in the key signature, for example, represent the three pillars of the Masonic lodge. The two-piano concerto is typical of Mozart’s work in E-flat; the soloists engage in dialogue, only to converge in poignant, almost operatic unison sections, punctuated by a digression to E-flat minor, the parallel minor mode (instead of to the more usual relative, C mi- nor). The Andante is highlighted by glorious interplay between the oboes and soloists, with a complacent oboe countermelody float- ing above the arpeggiated solo line. To conclude, Mozart musters his orchestral forces – still only a string orchestra augmented with oboes, bassoons, and horns – for a broad, exuberant rondo-finale. In Vienna after 1781, Mozart returned to the piece and added clari- nets, trumpets, and timpani to the outer movements. The earlier version will be played on tonight’s program. From 1782 to 1786, his early years in Vienna, Mozart wrote 15 piano concertos, mostly for himself as performer. Between 1786 and his death in 1791, however, he wrote only two more, the “Coronation” Concerto (K. 537) and the Concerto in B-flat, K. 595, which he finished in January 1791. With the exception of the clarinet concerto K. 622, the B-flat piano concerto was Mozart’s last orchestral work. In contrast to some of his brighter, bombas- tic major-key concerti, this setting is dark and more introspective. From the outset of the first movement, Mozart creates a sense of uneasiness by oscillating between major and minor and by using descending melodic figures to create a somber feeling of resigna- tion. The Larghetto, which is more flowing than an expectedAndante tempo marking, is a sparse, gentle example of ternary (ABA) form. The brisk concluding Rondeau is reminiscent of earlier “hunting” finales in 6/8, but is characterized by sharp turns into minor and an intricate solo-woodwind interplay. With his operatic use of solo- ist pitted against orchestra, then enveloped into a chamber music texture, Mozart’s last piano concerto is a supreme illustration of his mature compositional voice. — Elizabeth Adams yale school of music Peter Frankl made his name on the international circuit as a young pianist in the 1960s and, since that time, he has appeared with the conductors Ab- bado, Ashkenazy, Barbirolli, Blomstedt, Boulez, Chailly, Davis, Doráti, Fischer, Haitink, Kempe, Kertész, Leinsdorf, Maazel, Masur, Muti, Sanderling, Solti, and Szell, among others. Following his London debut in 1962 and his New York debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, he has been per- forming with many orchestras in the USA (Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, etc), the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Amsterdam Con- certgebouw, Orchestre de Paris, Israel Philharmonic, all of the Lon- don orchestras, and many others in Europe. His numerous world tours have taken him to Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, playing with orchestras, in recitals, and in chamber music concerts. He has appeared over twenty times at London’s BBC Promenade Concerts and has been a regular participant at the Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Verbier and Kuhmo Festivals. Among the highlights of his many Edinburgh Festival appearances were his performance of the Britten Concerto under the baton of the composer and the opening televised concert with the Philharmo- nia Orchestra conducted by Muti. He was the soloist at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at one of the last concerts Yehudi Menuhin ever conducted. In the United States, Peter Frankl has been regular guest artist at the summer festivals in Aspen, Chautauqua, Hollywood Bowl, Marlboro, Norfolk, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, and Santa Fé and he often performs with well-known artists such as Ralph Kirshbaum, Kyung Wha Chung, András Schiff, Tamás Vásáry, and many string quartets such as the Amadeus, Bartók, Borodin, Fine Arts, Guarneri, Pano- cha, Takács, Tokyo, and Vermeer. He has given master classes all over the world, including the Royal Academy and Royal College in London, Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Van Cliburn Institute in Texas. Among his highly praised recordings are the complete works for piano by Debussy and Schumann, the two Piano Concerti by horowitz piano series 2005-2006 Brahms (live recording), Mozart concerti, a solo Bartok and Chopin album, a Hungarian Anthology, the complete four-hand works by Mozart (with Tamas Vasary), the three violin sonatas by Brahms (with Kyung Wha Chung), Bartok’s violin-piano pieces on Hungar- ian Folk Tunes (with Peter Csaba), the three piano trios and the two Clarinet Sonatas by Brahms, and the piano quintets by Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak, and Martinu. Peter Frankl studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest with Professors Hernádi, Kodály and Weiner and won first prizes at several international competitions. He lives in London and is visiting professor at Yale University. In recognition of his artistic achievements he was awarded the Order of Merit by the President of the Hungarian Republic. Boris Berman, piano, is well known to the audiences of more than forty coun- tries on six continents. He regularly ap- pears with leading orchestras, on major recital series, and in important festivals. He studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the distinguished pianist Lev Oborin. Mr. Berman was the founding director of the Music Spectrum concert series in Israel from 1975 to 1984 and of the Yale Music Spectrum series in the United States from 1984 to 1997. An active recording artist, Mr. Berman was the first pianist to record the complete solo works by Prokofiev (Chandos). Other acclaimed releases include all piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin (Music and Arts) and a recital of Shostakovich piano works (Ottavo), which received the Edison Classic Award in Holland, the Dutch equivalent of the Grammy. The recording of three Prokofiev concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi conducting (Chan- dos), was named the Compact Disc of the Month by CD Review. Other recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Weber, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schnittke, and Cage. In 1984, Boris Berman joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he is professor of piano and coordinator of the piano department.