Canberra 1987

GEOFFREY TOZER IN CONCERT Canberra 1987 Liszt • Brahms • Haydn • Chopin • Weber Geoffrey Tozer in Concert | Canberra 1987 Franz Liszt (1811-1886) 1 Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C sharp minor 11’27” Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) 2 Nine Waltzes from Op. 39 (piano solo version) 11’17” Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) 3 Adagio in D flat major, from Sonata in A flat, Hob. 46 7’06” Frederic Chopin (1810-1849 4 Grande Valse Brilliante in A flat major, Op. 42 3’54” 5 Polonaise- Fantaisie in A flat major, Op. 61 12’42” Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) 6 Presto in C major, from Sonata No. 1 in C 4’12” RECORDED LIVE IN THE LLEWELLYN HALL, CANBERRA JUNE AND JULY 1987 REMASTERED BY MARTIN WRIGHT, MOVE RECORDS Go to move.com.au for program notes for this CD, and more information about Geoffrey Tozer There are more concert recordings by Geoffrey Tozer … for details see: move.com.au P 2015 Move Records Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody Brahms: Nine Waltzes Haydn: Adagio No. 2 Brahms wrote his Waltzes Op. 39 Haydn composed his beautiful Adagio The Hungarian Rhapsody to most originally for piano duet, but quickly in D flat major, solemn yet warm, as people, is a rarity in recital programs arranged them for one performer in a the slow movement of his Sonata in A today. A work designed to excite simplified edition and in the version on flat, Hob. 46. an audience to fever pitch, it never this recording. Sixteen waltzes make up fails to create its effect, and is still the collection, ranging from noble, slow one of the most popular pieces in waltzes to peasant dances, and even to the world. Liszt, who was famous some apparent portraits in waltz form as an improvisor (making up pieces of the dancers themselves. on the spur of the moment), left an instruction to the performer to improvise a cadenza just before the end of the rhapsody. In order to dispel any remaining seriousness, Geoffrey Tozer on this recording brings in some Australian folksongs, ending on a light-hearted note. This cadenza was improvised during the performance. Chopin: Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie Weber: Presto Grande Valse Brilliante The Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61 is Weber’s piano playing was fiery and Chopin lived for most of his life in one of Chopin’s last works, and one dashing, and his music no less so. Paris where he taught many titled in which he seemed to sum up all His hands were very large, making it pupils, occasionally playing in small his feelings for his lost homeland, impossible for those with a smaller gatherings and composing constantly. Poland. Liszt considered it a lament for handspan to play his works. The The Waltz in A flat major Op. 42 is Poland’s vanished glories. Perpetuum Mobile, or Rondo in C known as the two-four waltz, as its major, is a breathtaking virtuoso display melody appears to contradict the for the performer. waltz metre underneath it . “It is a waltz that could only be danced by countesses,” said Schumann. Geoffrey Tozer recorded these items in concert in June 1987 during a series of four recitals to celebrate his twenty-fifth anniversary as a performer. Works ranged from a Biblical sonata of Kuhnau to Busoni’s Toccata, and included works by Schubert, Schumann, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok and Gershwin, ending with an hour- long challenge from the audience who submitted themes and styles, and combinations of various themes, for him to improvise in classical style. These recitals were presented by the Friends of the Canberra School of Music, to whom grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to produce this recording. The Friends is a group actively supporting the students, staff and activities of the Canberra School of Music. Executive producer. Ross Gengos Recording engineer: John Davies Recording consultant: Michael Brown eoffrey Tozer was an artist of Churchill Fellowship (twice, Australia), MBS radio archives in Melbourne and the first rank, a consummate the Australian Creative Artists Fellowship Sydney, the BBC archives in London and musician, a concert pianist (twice, Australia), the Rubinstein Medal in archives in Israel, China, Hungary, and recitalist with few peers, (twice, Israel), the Alex de Vries Prize Germany, Finland, Italy, Russia, Mexico, Gpossessing perfect pitch, a boundless (Belgium), the Royal Overseas League New Zealand, Japan and the United musical memory, the ability to improvise, (United Kingdom), the Diapason d’Or States, form an important part of Tozer’s to transpose instantly into any key or (France), the Liszt Centenary Medallion musical legacy; a gift of national and to create on the piano a richly textured (Hungary) and a Grammy Nomination international importance in music. reduction of an orchestral score at sight. for Best Classical Performance (USA), Throughout his career Tozer resisted He was a superb accompanist and a becoming the only Australian pianist to the frequent calls that he permanently generous collaborator in chamber music. achieve such distinction. re-locate to the northern hemisphere and He was also a composer. Geoffrey Tozer died on 21 August sign with a major international agent. Tozer composed from childhood 2009 at the age of just fifty-four. After Whatever this cost him in career terms, and left more than 160 compositions Tozer’s untimely death, journalist James he proved it was possible to achieve several of which he performed publicly Campbell described him in the media as international renown as a pianist while in Australia and overseas. His prodigious ‘Australia’s greatest and most recorded based permanently in Australia. His abilities were recognised early in his pianist’. Tozer’s greatness is certainly overwhelming motivation was always childhood and during a professional evident in his recorded output and to bring music to the people whether career that lasted for nearly fifty years witnessed by his vast performance this meant playing for a local audience he developed into a mature artist, fully history which exceeds that of any other or piano students in regional China, realising his abilities and earning renown Australian pianist. Esteemed Australian giving a Master Class in Mexico City or around the world with recitals and pianists such as Eileen Joyce, Noel performing for three weeks on a tour of concerts on five continents. He made his Mewton-Wood, Percy Grainger and country towns in South Australia. He was first recording in 1963 and, as an exclusive Roger Woodward among those whom invariably motivated to use his talents artist of Chandos during his adult career, Tozer admired, certainly achieved to make music at every opportunity, produced thirty-four recordings of greatness, but few pianists anywhere and regarded this as a duty which was distinction, six commercial recordings for can rival Tozer’s repertoire or his output more important than whether the several Australian record companies and of recorded performances. The body of performances themselves took place in hundreds of other recordings mainly for more than 600 recordings which Tozer the Australian outback, the Sydney Opera the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, produced between 1963 and 2009 fully House, the Royal Albert Hall, the Arts including complete concertos of Bach, justified Campbell’s description. Today Centre in Gulangyu, China, or in Carnegie Beethoven, Mozart and Medtner on many of Tozer’s recordings can be found Hall. By March 2009, when Tozer gave film. Tozer won numerous awards in the ABC archives. They, along with what proved to be his final concerts for during his career including the Winston other recordings by Tozer housed in the large audiences (30,000 people) at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, he had on 15 April 1963 that the eight year old had met Eileen Ralf, the pianist whose performed in at least forty countries Tozer gave his first public performances teaching he later described as ‘the over a period of forty-six years with to be preserved on recording: a recital, greatest musical gift given to me’. To many of the world’s major orchestras organised by Marjorie McAlpin, for which assist the young prodigy, Trans Australian and conductors. As an exclusive artist Tozer played music of Bach, Mozart, Airlines gave Tozer unlimited free travel of Chandos he had produced a series Beethoven, Pergolesi and Bartok. Later his between Melbourne and Hobart so that of recordings which had brought mother wrote in her diary that the young Tozer could have weekly lessons with him acclaim as a ‘grand master’ of his pianist had performed well: ‘Geoffrey Eileen Ralf in Hobart. During the next instrument and which, in their quality showed his ability to work for perfection five years, under the watchful eyes of and diversity, became a testament to his …despite some laboured playing.’ During Ralf and her husband Thomas Matthews, musical genius. the year Tozer made extremely rapid Tozer became an experienced, fledgling Tozer was conceived in Tasmania, but progress. On 27 August 1963, he gave concert pianist, giving numerous recitals was born in India on 5 November 1954. his first broadcast recital on ABC radio, and more than forty concerts with the He lived there with his mother Veronica playing Bach Preludes No 4 and No 5 and major orchestras in various Australian and brother Peter until October 1958 Beethoven’s Sonata Opus 49 No 2. Several cities. He performed concertos of Bach when the family moved to Melbourne. weeks later he performed Bach’s Concerto and Grieg, the first movement of Brahms Tozer’s father was Geoffrey Conan- in F Minor with the Melbourne Symphony Piano Concerto No. 1, the five Beethoven Davies, a brilliant scholar who had been Orchestra for an ABC television broadcast. concertos, Haydn’s Piano Concerto in educated at Bromsgrove and, from the On 13 April 1964 he performed the D Hob XVIII for a large audience at the age of fifteen, at Keble College, Oxford same concerto with the Astra Chamber Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne University.

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