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Gilles Vonsattel, Piano carte blanche concert iv: Gilles Vonsattel, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) August 3 Six Bagatelles, op. 126 (1824) Andante con moto Sunday, August 3, 10:30 a.m., Stent Family Hall, Allegro Menlo School Andante Presto Quasi allegretto Presto Piano Sonata no. 14 in c-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2, Moonlight (1801) PROGRAM OVERVIEW Adagio sostenuto Praised by the New York Times as “a pianist well worth Allegretto watching,” Gilles Vonsattel follows his 2013 festival debut Presto agitato with a recital program centered on themes of nationalism and FRANZ LISZT (1811–1886) revolution. The program begins with two groundbreaking works Funérailles from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1849) by Beethoven: Six Bagatelles and the Moonlight Sonata. Liszt’s NCHE CONCERTS Funérailles, written in memory of the crushing of the Hungarian IntermissiON A Revolution of 1848, signals the awakening of a new national LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854–1928) L voice. Janáček’s Sonata 1.X.1905 is of a similar elegiac nature, Sonata 1.X.1905 (1905–1906) B mourning the death of a slain Czech protester. The program The Presentiment (Predtucha): Con moto concludes with Saint-Saëns’s exotic Africa fantasy and Frederic Death (Tod): Adagio Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, based on a workers’ song from the Industrial Revolution. CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835–1921) RTE RTE Africa, op. 89 (1891) A This concert features a post-concert picnic lunch with Gilles FREDERIC RZEWSKI (b. 1938) C Vonsattel. A gourmet boxed lunch may be reserved for $18. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1979) Gilles Vonsattel, piano SPECIAL THANKS Music@Menlo dedicates this performance to Karen and Rick DeGolia and also to George and Camilla Smith with gratitude for their generous support. 58 Music@Menlo 2014 Program Notes: Gilles Vonsattel, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (Born Bonn, baptized December 17, 1770; died March 26, 1827, Vienna) Piano Sonata no. 14 in c-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2, Moonlight Six Bagatelles, op. 126 Composed: 1801 Composed: 1824 Other works from this period: Six String Quartets, op. 18 (1798–1800); Dedication: Johann van Beethoven Sonata no. 13 in E-flat Major, op. 27, no. 1,Quasi una fantasia (1801); Sonata no. 15 in D Major, op. 28, Pastoral (1801); Symphony no. 2 in D Other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below Major, op. 36 (1801–1802) Approximate duration: 20 minutes Approximate duration: 15 minutes Beethoven’s work, especially through his middle and late periods, defines At the turn of the nineteenth century, Ludwig van Beethoven, at the age him as a master of monumental compositions. Grand-scale works such of thirty, began to lose his hearing. In a letter to his childhood friend Franz as the Eroica Symphony, the Ninth Symphony, Missa solemnis, and even Gerhard Wegeler, he wrote: such seemingly modest works as the Diabelli Variations for Solo Piano exemplify Beethoven’s characteristic and dramatic fervor. However, he You can scarcely believe what an empty, sad life I have had for demonstrates equal aptitude and grandeur in composing small-scale the last two years. My poor hearing haunted me everywhere like works, such as his Six Bagatelles, op. 126. Composed immediately after a ghost; and I avoided all human society. I was forced to seem a the premiere of the Ninth Symphony in May 1824, the Opus 126 Bagatelles misanthrope, and yet I am far from being one. This change has stand as Beethoven’s finest set of piano miniatures. been brought about by a dear charming girl who loves me and Unlike his earlier sets of bagatelles, opp. 33 and 119, this set was whom I love…and for the first time I feel that marriage might intended for performance not as separate pieces but as a complete cycle. bring me happiness. Unfortunately she is not of my class. Beginning with the second bagatelle, the key of each subsequent piece forms a descending chain of thirds (g minor, E-flat major, b minor, G major, The “dear charming girl” Beethoven refers to was the Viennese E-flat major), a pattern later used in his Opus 127 and 131 string quartets. Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, who became a student of his in 1801. The lyrical and contemplative first bagatelle in G major is followed by the Beethoven was infatuated with her, but she was only seventeen years exclamatory opening of the second in g minor. old and of a higher social class. Beethoven dedicated his Piano Sonata no. 14 to her as a token of his affection, yet their romance was fleeting; in November of 1803, she married Count Wenzel Robert Gallenberg, a young composer of ballet music. German music critic Ludwig Rellstab coined the sonata’s popular title, Moonlight, in 1832, when he wrote that the sonata reminded him of Brisk, forte sixteenth notes contrast with an expressive piano phrase, the moonlight on Lake Lucerne. In fact, Beethoven was never aware of the further indulged in a melodious cantabile section. The third bagatelle in subtitle, as it became popularized five years after his death. The original E-flat major returns to a pensive temperament, this time enhanced by title, Quasi una fantasia (Almost a Fantasy), mirrors that of its sister work, the Opus 27 Number 1 Sonata. Beethoven’s use of the instrument’s wide register. The fourth bagatelle NCHE CONCERTS Hector Berlioz described the famous opening, marked in b minor, marked Presto, features masterly harmonic and rhythmic Adagio A experimentation. Sudden breaks in the music and tritone leaps throughout sostenuto, as “one of those poems that human language does not know L provide harmonic complexity. An ironclad opening is comically relieved by how to qualify.” Written in c-sharp minor, a rarely used key at the time, B a gaudy melody with a jazzy rhythmic flair. the subdued and esoteric melody is one of the most cherished in the repertoire. The languid ascending three-note accompaniment is joined by an effusive main theme. A second movement scherzo, Allegretto, is notably in the enharmonic key of D-flat major. Though brief, the trio’s RTE syncopation adds considerable depth to a seemingly buoyant section. The A final movement’s rapid tempo, rumbling sixteenth-note accompaniment, C and stormy sensibility demand an immense display of virtuosity from the pianist. The movement is marked but frequent and The fifth and sixth bagatelles, in G and E-flat major, respectively, piano, crescendos create a forceful and vigorous finale. continue the charming, contemplative nature of the earlier bagatelles. sforzandos —Andrew Goldstein The sixth opens with a radiant presto theme that, after a stirring chorale section, returns to bring the work to a sudden and enlivening close. —Andrew Goldstein *Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 100. www.musicatmenlo.org 59 FRANZ LISZT Janáček was outraged by Pavlík’s killing and composed a memorial (Born October 22, 1811, Raiding [Doborján], Hungary [now Austria]; died sonata expressing his anger and grief. The work, first titled From the July 31, 1886, Bayreuth) Streets: 1 October 1905, was originally in three movements. At a rehearsal with pianist Ludmila Tučková, Janáček—apparently embarrassed by the Funérailles from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses quality of the other works on the program—rushed on the stage, ripped Composed: 1849 the third movement from Tučková’s piano, and lit it on fire. At the dress Other works from this period: Glanes de Woronińce, S. 249 (1847); rehearsal, Janáček, still not pleased with his work, took the manuscripts of Marche héroïque, S. 510 (1848); Ballade no. 1, S. 170 (1849); Trois études the first two movements and threw them into the Vltava River, later writing, de concert, S. 144 (1845–1849) “They did not want to sink. The paper bulged and floated on the water Approximate duration: 11 minutes like so many white swans.” Tučková, this time anticipating the composer’s brash reaction, made copies of the piece before it was destroyed. While performing in Kiev, Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt met Princess Carolyn On the composer’s seventieth birthday in 1924, nearly two decades von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who hosted the composer at her Woronińce home later, the work was discovered again and published with Janáček’s for three months in the fall of 1847. Despite Wittgenstein’s looming divorce, permission. He supplied the short program note: they fell in love and she soon followed Liszt to Weimar, where he held the position of Kapellmeister-in-Extraordinary. Liszt greatly enjoyed the quiet The white marble of the steps of the Besední dům in Brno. The town of Weimar and settled there with Wittgenstein until 1861. The court ordinary laborer František Pavlík falls, stained with blood. He of Grand Duke Carl Alexander afforded Liszt both his long-desired time to came merely to champion higher learning and has been slain leisurely compose without the stresses of concertizing and a safe haven by cruel murderers. during Hungary’s turbulent rise against the Austrian Habsburg Empire. Liszt witnessed from only seventy-five miles away as liberals of the Despite the composer’s various conflicted sentiments over the work, Hungarian Diet sparked demonstrations in Pest and Buda. The protesters its two movements, The Presentiment and Death (Elegy in the original stipulated that the imperial government accept their twelve demands, manuscript), are remarkably expressive. The remorseful opening is essentially establishing the Kingdom of Hungary as a self-governing state of contrasted by a sporadic forte Czech melody. the Habsburg Empire. The revolution of 1848 afforded them promising success, bringing support from the Slovaks, Germans, and Hungarian Jews; however, the war for independence came to a halt in October 1849 with the execution of the Hungarian Count Lajos Batthyány and sixteen other independence leaders.
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