DAVID FUNG, Piano Tributes: Works of Homage and Devotion
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presents DAVID FUNG, piano Tributes: Works of Homage and Devotion FRI FEB 12, 7:30 PM Hodgson Concert Hall FRI FEB 12, 7:30 PM – THURS FEB 18, 7:30 PM Studio HH SUPPORTED BY MURRAY AND DORRIS TILLMAN Please silence all mobile phones and electronic devices. Photography, video and/or audio recording, and texting are forbidden during the performance. #ugapresents PROGRAM PROGRAM NOTES become (predictably) lost in distant keys. The ensuing lament is a By Luke Howard Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) passacaglia based on a descending chromatic bass line (a traditional Capriccio in B-flat Major, BWV 992, Capriccio on the departure Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) mournful motif) and in a key (F minor) of a beloved brother Capriccio in B-flat Major, BWV 992, that Bach would later associate with I. Arioso: Adagio – “Friends Gather & Try to Dissuade Him Capriccio on the departure of a grieving. The descending scales continue from departing” beloved brother as the friends are reconciled to the II. (Andante) – “They Picture the Dangers Which May Befall Him” departure, and the postillion’s horn call At some point during J. S. Bach’s late signals the arrival of the carriage. In III. Adagiosissimo – “The Friends’ Lament” teens, he wrote a poignantly evocative the final fugue—the most extended of IV. (Andante con moto) – “Since He Cannot Be Dissuaded, keyboard work, a Capriccio, in the the movements—the program seems to They Say Farewell” manner of Johann Kuhnau’s Biblical have been put aside for a demonstration which had just been published V. Allegro poco – “Aria of the Postilion” Sonatas of the teenage Bach’s precocious in 1700. Like the Kuhnau sonatas, proficiency in fugue writing. VI. “Fugue in Imitation of the Postilion’s Horn” Bach’s Capriccio tells a story through expressive harmonies and illustrative musical motifs. It is the only piece of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 -1912) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 -1912) explicitly programmatic music Bach “The Phantom Tells His Tale of “The Phantom Tells His Tale of Longing” ever composed. Longing” from Forest Scenes, Op. 66 from Forest Scenes, Op. 66 Unfortunately, scholars can’t agree on The English composer Samuel who the work was actually written for. Coleridge-Taylor was one of the first Florence Price (1887-1953) Traditionally it was thought to have Black composers to enjoy a relatively Adoration been Bach’s older brother Johann successful career in the early 20th Jakob, who left in 1704 for Sweden to century. His mother was a white Englishwoman, and his father a Reena Esmail (b. 1983) take up a position as court oboist. But renowned Bach scholar Christoph Wolff prominent Sierra Leone Creole doctor No. 1 and 3 Crystal Preludes has uncovered evidence that the work who moved from England back to Africa may have been written two years earlier before his son was born. A tragically Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) for the farewell of Bach’s school friend early death from pneumonia at the age Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 Georg Erdmann—it was customary at of 37 prevented Coleridge-Taylor from the time to refer to a close friend as establishing his reputation more firmly, Grave – Doppio movimento “brother”—in 1702. If this is true, though his three cantatas based on the Scherzo then the Capriccio is an even more Song of Hiawatha (including the sen- Marche funèbre remarkable work, coming from the pen sationally popular Hiawatha’s Wedding Finale. Presto of a seventeen-year-old novice. Feast of 1898) continued to be performed regularly and enthusiastically There are six sections in Bach’s for several decades after his death. Johann Sebastian Bach Capriccio, representing the series of (arr. Egon Petri) events leading up to the farewell itself. Coleridge-Taylor was given a compre- “Sheep May Safely Graze” from Cantata BWV 208 The opening arioso melody might allude hensive musical education as a child, to the oboe playing of Bach’s older and studied composition with Sir brother—the melody and figurations are Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal precisely the kind of motifs Bach would College of Music. Sir Edward Elgar assign to the oboe in his later described him as a “genius.” Soon compositions. A loosely fugal passage after graduation, he was appointed a follows, representing the dangers of music professor at the famed Crystal Program is subject to change. foreign lands, where the harmonies Palace School of Music. After his initial 2 3 fascination with indigenous American where she worked until her death Esmail’s most recent work for solo The first movement opens with cultures—he even named his son in 1953. piano, Crystal Preludes (2020) was dissonant leaps, crashing chords, Hiawatha—Coleridge-Taylor drew written for her longtime friend, pianist abrupt changes in dynamics, and increasingly on his African heritage in Price’s Symphony in E minor, from Crystal Rivette. The title’s play on the irregular accents. But the palpable later compositions. 1932, won a Wanamaker Foundation pianist’s name is intentional, and the dynamism is dispelled almost Award, and was performed the following primary focus, though Esmail also immediately by a gentle, chorale-like Coleridge-Taylor’s Forest Scenes, from year by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra acknowledges that it takes on other second theme. After the development 1907, are a set of five piano character —the first time a major American evocations, as well. She describes the section, the chorale is brought back pieces that loosely illustrate an exotic orchestra had performed a work by a textures in these three short preludes more clearly in the recapitulation, story of clandestine love in some Black woman. But after her death, Price as “luminous” and “brilliant” at times, while the first theme lurks menacingly unspecified “forest” close to a city. and almost all her 300 compositions while the “pithy” form of the keyboard as an accompaniment figure. The narrative, such as it is, seems to (including about 100 songs) faded into prelude allowed Esmail (who is, herself, have sprung from the composer’s own obscurity. After decades of diligent a pianist) to “crystalize” her approach The energy from the first movement’s imagination—it doesn’t correspond to scholarly work, and the miraculous to piano composition. opening theme is diverted into the any known existing literary sources. recovery of many of Price’s manuscripts brilliant Scherzo that follows. This The “phantom lover,” introduced in from a derelict house in rural Illinois, movement also includes a contrasting Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) the second movement, has ridden Price’s music has recently enjoyed a lyrical interlude in the Trio section, energetically into the forest to meet much-deserved revival. Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 written in the style of some of the the “lone forest maiden.” But in this Grave – Doppio movimento composer’s waltzes and preludes. The third movement, titled “The Phantom Price’s Adoration was originally composed Scherzo asymmetrical phrase lengths in this Trio Tells His Tale of Longing,” the lover’s as a work for organ, and was published Marche funèbre (3+5 measures, instead of the more dynamic virility gives way to melodious in 1951. With a warm domesticity Finale. Presto usual 4+4) settle uneasily on the ear. typical of popular semi-sacred songs of tenderness and gentle entreaty. Robert Schumann once said of Chopin’s the era, such as “Bless This House” or The third movement—arguably the 1839 Piano Sonata in B-flat minor: “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked,” most famous funeral march in Western Florence Price (1887-1953) it sings a gentle, respectful melody “He calls it a ‘sonata’. One might music—was composed in 1837, two Adoration over long pedal points in the harmonic see this as capricious if not years earlier than the rest of the sonata. Throughout her remarkable and accompaniment. downright presumptuous, for he As the march develops it becomes less underappreciated career as a composer has simply tied together four of his macabre and more heroic. A nocturne- and pianist, Florence Price faced the Reena Esmail (b. 1983) most unruly children—perhaps to like interlude is one of the most smuggle them under his name into transparent and delicate passages relentless double challenge of racism Crystal Preludes and gender bias. Nevertheless, she places they otherwise could never Chopin ever penned. Linked to the persisted, and earned a crucial place Trained at Juilliard and the Yale School have reached.” march by tempo and meter, it is of Music, composer Reena Esmail neither a lament nor a song of in American music history that is still There is indeed a marked difference explores in her music the intersection condolence as it expresses genuine in the process of being fully recognized of character among the four move- of subcontinental Indian and Western and unforced tranquility. An orchestral and celebrated. ments, from the dramatic and agitated classical traditions. Among other arrangement of this movement was opening to the demonic scherzo, the Born into an upper-middle class, honors and awards, Esmail is the performed at Chopin’s own funeral in famous “funeral march,” and the mixed-race family in Arkansas, Price recipient of a United States Artist Paris in 1849. “wind-over-the-grave” whisperings (to excelled at school, and was accepted Fellowship in Music, and has studied paraphrase Arthur Rubinstein) of the into the New England Conservatory of Hindustani music practices in India The final “movement”, unique in style virtuosic finale. But how is it a sonata, Music to study piano and organ, but on a Fulbright-Nehru grant. She has and form, is best considered as a coda instead of merely a collection of won admittance only by “passing” as written new works on commission for to the funeral march, as its chilling character pieces? While some scholars Mexican, in order to avoid the major performing groups including the breeze blows over the grave of the have theorized about a carefully heightened racial bias against African- Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and newly-buried hero.