CHAEYOUNG PARK, Piano

2020·2021 VIRTUAL SEASON Sponsored in part by the Helen Wattles Fund, supporting young artists at The Gilmore

Sunday, October 18, 2020 | 4 PM Live Streamed from Wellspring Theater, Kalamazoo, Michigan

CHAEYOUNG PARK, piano

G. LIGETI Musica Ricercata IV. Tempo di valse (poco vivace “à l'orgue de Barbarie”) VIII. Vivace. Energico IX. Adagio. Mesto – Allegro maestoso (Béla Bartók in Memoriam) X. Vivace capriccioso

C. DEBUSSY Pour le piano I. Prélude II. Sarabande III. Toccata

UNSUK CHIN Etude No. 5, “Toccata”

J. BRAHMS Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5 I. Allegro maestoso II. Andante espressivo III. Scherzo. Allegro energico IV. Intermezzo. Andante molto V. Finale. Allegro moderato ma rubato

CONCERT SPONSOR About the Artist GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923-2006) MUSICA RICERCATA, Nos. 4, 8, 9, 10 Composed from 1951 to 1953

At first hearing,Musica Ricercata intricate texture. (Ligeti entitles may seem like a parody. Yet it has a the last piece of the set Omaggio a deeper undertow, as Alex Ross puts Girolamo Frescobaldi, saluting the it. Born in Transylvania in 1923, Ligeti early Baroque master of the genre.) witnessed what Leonard Bernstein He himself was searching for a called “the century of death” at close new musical language. Rather than range. Though he lost most of his setting the eleven pieces in specific family in Hitler’s death camps and keys, Ligeti chose to build them on suffered further under Stalinism, pitch classes, using only a designated Ligeti was able to write bright, witty set of notes in each. He begins with music. Ross believes that “there two pitches in the first, three in the is much to be said for the artwork second, and so on, until in the last that answers horror by rejecting or of the group all twelve chromatic transcending it.” pitches are in use. When today’s piece was written Today’s program starts with the (1951-53), Ligeti was teaching fourth, a Tempo di valse marked poco Chaeyoung Park harmony and counterpoint at the vivace . . . a l’orgue de Barbarie (“a Budapest Academy of Music. It was little fast, in the manner of a barrel Winner of the 2019 Hilton Head International Piano Competition, Chaeyoung the height of Soviet oppression: organ”), giving a nod to one of the Park comes from Seoul and Kansas. She has received top awards in numerous socialist realism in music was favorite instruments of the Hungarian national and international competitions, including silver medal at the 2016 required, folk-like choral music folk tradition. Ligeti transforms the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Competition and 2017 Juilliard was rewarded, other music went traditional waltz meter—three steady Gina Bachauer Competition; third prize at the 2015 CIPC Young Artists unpublished and unheard. In Musica beats to the bar—into the unequal Competition; third prize at the 2015 Yamaha USASU International Senior Piano Ricercata Ligeti knew he was beat rhythm of the Balkans by Competition; and gold medal in music by the National YoungArts Foundation composing “for the drawer,” for his juxtaposing it with measures of two in 2014. own satisfaction, not for public eyes. beats, creating a constantly shifting When the Hungarian Revolution pattern of twos and threes accented Ms. Park has performed in halls such as Orchestra Hall at Chicago Symphony broke out in 1956, he fled to Vienna, by emphatic downbeats. In the Center, Merkin Hall and Helzberg Hall at Kaufman Music Center in New York, then to Cologne, where he met eighth piece, Vivace, Energico, Ligeti Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Weill Recital Hall at Karlheinz Stockhausen, drank in the treats the piano as a percussion Carnegie Hall, New World Center in Miami, and Kodak Hall at Eastman School avant-garde compositions he had instrument, just as Bartók did in his of Music. As a chamber musician, she has most recently participated in been unable to hear, and began to Allegro Barbaro of 1911, spicing the Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Kneisel Hall, and Juilliard ChamberFest. write music that would break ground music with more Balkan rhythms, this After beginning her piano studies at age six in South Korea, Miss Park moved throughout the rest of his long life. time in measures of threes, fours and seven. The mournful ninth piece, Béla to Lawrence, Kansas in 2007 and studied with Dr. Jack Winerock of the Musica Ricercata could be roughly Bartók in memoriam, honors one of University of Kansas for eight years. She is currently studying at The Juilliard translated as “searching music.” The the century’s greatest composers, School with Robert McDonald, where she is a proud recipient of a Kovner title refers to the venerable ricercar who, exiled from his native Hungary, Fellowship. (“to search”), a contrapuntal piece had died in New York City in 1944. whose theme is hidden within an Ligeti provides detailed performance

2 | THEGILMORE.ORG 2020-2021 Rising Stars Series | 3 instructions, beginning with music piece—Vivace, capriccioso—is indeed UNSUK CHIN marked wie tiefe Glocken (“like capricious, scampering over the (B. 1961) low sounding bells”), which soon keyboard, moving into a resoluto, ETUDE NO. 5, “TOCCATA” becomes stringendo (wie in Panik) martellato section (“resolute, (“piling up, as if panicking”), then hammered”), becoming wie verrückt Composed in 2003 moving into soft trills, reminiscent (“as if mad”), and finally dashing Unsuk Chin was born in South Ligeti was a demanding task master, of the “Night Music” in Bartók’s away. Korea in 1961 and studied at Seoul expecting Chin to be curious, great “Out of Doors” suite. The tenth National University, where she was independent, and keenly aware of immediately drawn to contemporary music in other traditions, and to CLAUDE DEBUSSY music. Now a prolific composer live up to his own high standards of (1862-1918) with a distinguished career, she technical virtuosity. During her years was only in her early twenties when of study with him, (1985-88), Ligeti POUR LE PIANO one of her pieces was performed was working on the first volume Composed in 1901 at a conference of the International of his own etudes. During their Society of Composers of Music. composition he had to feel the music Pour le Piano was composed improvised, in this one every move In 1985 a grant from the German in his hand, he said, a method that between 1894 and 1901 and first has been carefully choreographed. state paid for her to study with seems to fit Chin’s music exactly. She performed in January 1902 by The first two cadenzas should György Ligeti, who had by then is skilled at “wrestling subtlety and Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, sound like the Musketeer d’Artagnan found a home in Hamburg. Chin shape from machinery,” Paul Griffiths who had learned of the work from drawing his sword, Debussy said. now lives in Berlin and has had an has observed; in Chin’s music we Maurice Ravel, Debussy’s friend The third, immaculately structured, illustrious career, her prize-winning are in a “world between worlds . . and rival, whose Jeux d’eau he had turns the piano into a harp. Six music performed by the world’s . between past and present.” The premiered the year before. It is a deliciously rich chords end the best orchestras and artists. She is name of today’s work—toccata—is work dedicated to the instrument movement with a flourish. an important voice in new music, borrowed from the past, yet the itself, just as the title says. As a The second movement, a Sarabande, truly an international composer. music is very contemporary. Starting pianist, Debussy knew the instrument was a revised version of one written Her prominence demonstrates that slowly, it grows into a storm of inside out. Like Chopin, he began to in 1894. Both versions are marked women are no longer a rarity in the chords covering the entire keyboard, imagine, enhance, and then unleash Avec une elegance grave et lente world of composers: their music is full of rhythmic excitement. Finally, its evocative power, its matchless (“with a grave and slow elegance”), respected—and performed. the music darts away. resonance and sonority. but in the earlier, Debussy added that Angela Hewitt believes Pour le Piano the music should be “even a bit old- should be played with the same portrait, souvenir of the Louvre, etc.” diligence and rigor that one would It should sound both old and new, JOHANNES BRAHMS apply to a Bach fugue—and Debussy Angela Hewitt believes. The third (1833-1897) was a great admirer of Bach. All three movement, marked vif, is a brilliant SONATA NO. 3 IN F MINOR, OP. 5 movements are borrowed from the toccata. It is one of the most exciting Baroque suite. The opening Prélude, of Debussy’s piano works, and one of Composed in 1853 marked Assez anime et tres rhythme the most difficult, yet Hewitt advises When the twenty-year-old Brahms that would carry him through the (“with spirit and very rhythmically”), that clarity, rather than speed, knocked on the door of their rest of his life. By time of this first lives up to its name, bustling should be the goal. Amid the tumult, Düsseldorf home in the early fall visit, both of the Schumanns had over the keyboard, rippling notes beautiful melodies emerge, and the of 1853, he could scarcely have been embraced by the heart of the matched by electrifying, fortissimo work concludes with eight measures imagined the vital role that Robert German musical establishment, chords. Although a prelude could be of fortissimo chords. and Clara Schumann would come Robert as an eminent composer to play in his musical career, nor and journalist, and Clara as an the deep and enduring friendship internationally acclaimed pianist.

4 | THEGILMORE.ORG 2020-2021 Rising Stars Series | 5 Brahms had brought his first two three piano sonatas, Op. 3, Op. 4, and country waltz, follows. Its chordal, intermezzos. The sonata’s finale, a piano sonatas to share with the Op. 5. Dubbed by Schumann “piano chorale-like middle section, is a rondo, takes an impetuous headlong Schumanns. His third, today’s work, symphonies,” they are music for a complete contrast. Then, instead course with a touch of Mendelssohn. Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5, was finished virtuoso. Clara recalled that one day of leading straight into the finale, It brings back both the heroism and soon thereafter. It would be his last. when she heard Brahms playing, so Brahms gives us a surprise, adding a lyricism of the opening movement, big was the sound that she wondered movement to make five rather than with its dashing main theme and The Schumanns were bowled over. which friend had joined him at the the expected four: a shimmering contrasting episodes. The sonata Clara described his first visit: “It keyboard in a four-hand duet. Upon Intermezzo entitled Rückblick ends with rolled chords in F major, is as though he has been sent by entering the room, she was surprised (“Remembrance”). Its drooping just like the ones that concluded God himself! He played sonatas, to find that it was only Brahms, melody, reminiscent of the previous the first and second movements. scherzos, and so on that he had drawing big fistfuls of notes out of Andante, hints at falling tears, Schumann favored similar unifying written, everything brimming over the keyboard. cast against a persistent left-hand devices; perhaps here Brahms with imagination and emotional rhythm. The style of music in both offers a gesture of gratitude to an intensity . . . He has very attractive In its exuberance, the F-minor sonata slow movements points the way to important musical mentor. hands, which master the greatest is clearly a young man’s work; in the future. Brahms would turn from of difficulties with the greatest of its character, it is unmistakably the piano sonata to collections of ease. And his works are difficult.” In Brahmsian. By his early twenties, Klavierstücke (“Piano Pieces”), short his housekeeping book for that day, he had found his voice. He set the yet profound capriccios, ballades, Robert simply wrote: “Visit from work in the stormy, dramatic key of © Zaide Pixley, PhD romanzas, rhapsodies, and more Brahms. (A genius.)” He immediately F minor. The first movement, marked Professor Emerita, Kalamazoo College introduced him to the readers of Allegro maestoso (“majestic”) is his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (“New cast in sonata form and begins with Journal for Music”) with an article a dramatic flourish, giving way to entitled “New Paths.’’ Johannes soaring melody lines. Packed full of Brahms was launched! He quickly contrasts, the music explores both became part of the family, sustaining the passionate opening chords and Clara through Robert’s illnesses and the lyrical melody of the second hospitalizations until his death three theme, covering the full range of the years later. Clara and Brahms would keyboard. The second movement, become devoted friends and musical marked Andante espressivo, is the advisors to one another throughout quintessence of Romanticism. A their lifetimes (she died in 1896, poem printed in the score (attributed Brahms a year later). to Sternau) sets the scene: “Dusk is falling, the moonlight appears, two Labelled a “Beethovener” at the hearts unite in love and are blissfully beginning of his career, Brahms entwined.” Brahms offers a profound couldn’t escape the shadow of response to these simple words, his illustrious predecessor, and alternating between two themes: was expected to continue his a limpid melody and murmuring legacy of emotionally compelling, accompaniment in A-flat major and architecturally masterful instrumental a graceful dialogue in the delicious works. Brahms was so intimidated key of D-flat major. So sublime is this by this intense scrutiny that he didn’t music that Wagner quoted its coda in compose his first symphony until Die Meistersinger, when Hans Sachs he was forty. Instead he used other sings of birdsong. instrumental music to try out his orchestral ideas—in particular his An energetic Scherzo, almost a

6 | THEGILMORE.ORG 2020-2021 Rising Stars Series | 7 THANK YOU TO OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS OF THE 2020-2021 RISING STARS SERIES A Friend of The Gilmore Landscape Forms Julie and Keith Peterson Janet and Arthur Riley Jan and Ed Sackley Clara and Joseph Stewart Three Rivers Friends of The Gilmore West Michigan Endodontics Elizabeth Burns and Roger Zinser

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