PROGRAM: LANG LANG MARCH 20 / 8:00 PM BING CONCERT HALL ARTIST PROGRAM Lang Lang, piano J. S. Bach: Italian Concerto in F Major, BWV 971 (pub. 1735) [Untitled] Allegro Lang Lang is managed by Andante Columbia Artists Music, LLC. 1790 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 www.camimusic.com Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, op. 37b (1875–1876) Jean-Jacques Cesbron January: By the Fireside Ronald A. Wilford February: Carnival March: Lark’s Song Lang Lang is an exclusive recording artist of April: Snowdrop Sony Music. May: White Night June: Barcarolle Lang Lang’s performance is generously supported July: Reaper’s Song by Marcia and John Goldman. August: Harvest September: The Hunt October: Autumn Song November: Troïka December: Ballroom Waltz INTERMISSION Fryderyk Chopin: Four Scherzi (1831–1843) Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor, op. 20 (1831–1832) Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor, op. 31 (1837) Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor, op. 39 (1839) Scherzo No. 4 in E Major, op. 54 (1842–1843) PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones, pagers, and watch alarms, and unwrap all lozenges prior to the performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you. 34 STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE MARCH 2015 PROGRAM: LANG LANG JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH the First Piano Concerto, the three string of a White Night at the time of the midnight (1685–1750) quartets, and many smaller works built a wide sun. June is one of the more popular pieces ITALIAN CONCERTO IN F MAJOR, reputation. He was an industrious worker. Four from the collection. Its title, Barcarolle, comes BWV 971 (PUB. 1735) first performances have been documented from the rocking motion of its middle section. within a two-week period in March 1870 July portrays the repetitive actions of the Over a 15-year period, 1726–1741, Bach and three premieres in as many weeks in Reaper’s Song while the August Harvest is a published four collections of keyboard music, November 1875, both periods being typical showpiece requiring nimble fingerwork. Its demonstrating an extraordinary command of the pace at which Tchaikovsky worked. scherzo-like agility and the hunting calls of of the keyboard styles of the day. Annual Tchaikovsky’s need to make a living also drew September are both reminiscent of genres publications of a single partita led to Bach’s him to music criticism for the newspaper favored by Mendelssohn in his Songs without first collection, in which all six partitas—his Russkie Vedomosti and to accepting smaller Words. October mines a characteristic vein Opus 1—exhibited his mastery of the suite commissions, including a substantial quantity of melancholy in a duet between the hands. form. He titled the collection Clavierübung, of occasional music, much of which is lost. In “I continue to bake musical pancakes; today, or “Keyboard Practice.” Part Two of the January 1875 he began a monthly assignment a 10th has been tossed,” he joked to a friend. Clavierübung, containing the Italian Concerto to provide a piano piece appropriate to Rachmaninoff made the glittering sleigh bells in F Major, BWV 971, and the Overture in the month in which it was to appear in a St. of November (Troïka) one of his favorite recital the French Style, BWV 831, followed during Petersburg musical-theatrical periodical called encores. Finally, for the Christmas night ball the 1735 Easter fair. Four years later came Nuvellist. The resulting twelve short piano described in a verse by Vasily Zhukovsky, an eclectic collection of organ music. Then pieces went through several editions after Tchaikovsky provides the gentlest of waltzes. the fourth and final part of the Clavierübung their initial publication and were to become presented the Goldberg Variations as its the composer’s best-known piano music. crowning glory. The Italian Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s approach to the project seems FRYDERYK CHOPIN (1810–1849) Overture in the French Style brilliantly transfer to have been somewhat casual, with magazine FOUR SCHERZI (1831–1843) orchestral music to the keyboard, in the two editor Nikolai Bernard selecting both subtitle leading national styles of the Baroque—the and appropriate accompanying verse by a Chopin was exploring new territory when he Italian and the French. On the title page of the Russian poet. January, for example, is subtitled wrote single virtuoso scherzo movements Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto By the Fireside, and the accompanying excerpt outside the context of the symphony and after the Italian Taste), Bach specifies the two- from Pushkin reads: “A little corner of peaceful the piano sonata. Without the framework of manual harpsichord, allowing him to delineate bliss, the night dressed in twilight; the little fire contrasting sonata movements, he made a the solo line of the Vivaldi-like Italian concerto is dying in the fireplace, and the candle has point of providing contrast within the scherzo on one manual and the orchestral textures on burned out.” itself. The principle behind the four scherzi is the other (or on the two together). The Italian that of alternating dramatic and lyrical ideas. A Concerto sold well and became popular as Vremena goda, Bernard’s title for Tchaikovsky’s lively outer section often encompasses a more Bach’s only original keyboard concerto for collection, translates as “The Seasons,” lyrical middle episode, though the shape of solo instrument. One of his sternest critics, the though “The Months” might make for a each scherzo does vary. The heroic opening composer and writer Johann Adolph Scheibe, better fit. The pieces are in simple ternary chords of the First Scherzo (1831–1832) was forced to admit: “This keyboard concerto form, carefully crafted, often with surprisingly and the subsequent dynamic, scampering is to be regarded as a perfect model of a well- challenging technical demands, given their passagework seem to throw a challenge to designed solo concerto.” intention as music for the home. The music his Parisian piano rivals. The turbulence of is often inspired. The wistful middle section the work is relieved by a contrasting central of January, for example, appears to lead episode, where the young Chopin recalls his PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY directly to Tatiana’s Letter Scene from the homeland in a melody from a Christmas folk (1840–1893) opera Yevgény Onégin. February portrays an song, Lulajże Jezuniu (Sleep, Little Jesus). THE SEASONS, OP. 37B (1875–1876) exuberant carnival scene while the Lark’s Song In the opening outburst of the B-flat Minor in March is more restrained and delicately Scherzo (1837), a question-and-answer-like In January 1866, the 25-year-old Tchaikovsky drawn. The waltz-like April Snowdrop has a statement is followed by a vivid, plunging moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow to take winning innocence and grace—not surprising melody. Dramatic contrast is present from a position teaching music theory at the newly since Tchaikovsky had just completed Swan the outset and continues for all three sections opened Moscow Conservatory. Over the next Lake, the first of his three great ballets. May of a work that Robert Schumann referred to 10 years, his earliest symphonies and operas, captures the beauty as well as the exuberance as “Byronic.” A triumphant coda culminates 36 STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE MARCH 2015 PROGRAM: LANG LANG in the key of D-flat major rather than in the 56th Grammy Awards, where he performed It takes a special kind of dedication to come home key of B-flat minor, bringing to an end with Metallica; the Opening Ceremony of from a small Chinese town, Shenyang, to one of Chopin’s most popular works. The the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where more travel to the big city as a small child, and Third Scherzo (1839) is the shortest of the set. than four billion people around the world to win the attention of the country’s finest Its opens with several bars of indeterminate saw his performance; the Last Night of the music professors. And then to leave behind tonality and unexpected rhythm, with all 12 Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall; or your home country altogether to join the tones of the chromatic scale and four beats to the Liszt 200th birthday concert with the world-famous Curtis Institute of Music in the bar, rather than the customary three. The Philadelphia Orchestra and Charles Dutoit, Philadelphia in the United States. Lang excitement then promised by the resolute, which was broadcast live in more than 300 Lang achieved all of this early on: he started plunging octaves is amply realized in the movie theaters around the United States playing piano at age three, won the Shenyang stormy, virtuoso coda. The middle section and 200 cinemas across Europe (the first Competition and gave his first public recital by is a haunting, somewhat mystical chorale, classical music cinemacast to be headlined the time he was five, entered Beijing’s Central punctuated by cascades of shimmering notes. by a solo artist). He forms enduring musical Music Conservatory at age nine, and won It is an extraordinarily bold and beautiful partnerships with the world’s greatest artists, First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky effect. The Fourth Scherzo (1842–1843) is at from conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Competition for Young Musicians and played once the longest and most refined of the four, Gustavo Dudamel, and Sir Simon Rattle to the complete Chopin études at the Beijing playful and witty at times, pensive at others, a artists from outside classical music—among Concert Hall at 13. He left for America, masterpiece of subtle writing for the piano. them dubstep dancer Marquese “Nonstop” Curtis, and the great piano teacher Gary —© 2015 Keith Horner Scott, king of the crooners Julio Iglesias, Graffman, and when his moment came, he and jazz titan Herbie Hancock.