Aspen Music Festival and School Robert Spano, Music Director The 2020 Mercedes T. Bass Sunday Concert Series Alan Fletcher, President and CEO A Recital by Augustin Hadelich, violin and piano

Sunday, August 23, 2020 3 pm

J.S. BACH Partita No. 3 for Unaccompanied Violin in E major, BWV 1006 (1720) 19' (1685–1750) Preludio Loure Gavotte en Rondeau Menuett I—Menuett II Bourrée Gigue

YSAŸE Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin in A minor, op. 27, no. 2 (1924) 15' (1858–1931) Obsession: Prelude: Poco vivace Malinconia: Poco lento (con sordino) Danse des ombres: Sarabande Les furies: Allegro furioso

RACHMANINOFF Vocalise, op. 34, no. 14 (1912; 1915) 6' (1873–1943)

DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN Filter (2001) 5' (b. 1971)

SARASATE Carmen Fantasy (?1883) 12' (1844–1908) Allegro moderato Moderato Lento assai Allegro moderato Moderato

With special thanks to Sasha and Ed Bass, Jane and Michael Eisner, The Eisner Founda- tion, Judy and Leonard Lauder, John P. and Anne Welsh McNulty Foundation, and Alex- andra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz

The Aspen Music Festival and School uses Steinway and Boston pianos, designed by Steinway & Sons; Steinway & Sons is represented in Colorado exclusively by Schmitt Music. Aspen Music Festival and School Robert Spano, Music Director Alan Fletcher, President and CEO A Recital by Augustin Hadelich Sunday, August 23, 2020 3 pm

Named Musical America’s 2018 “Instrumentalist of the Year,” Augustin Hadelich won a 2016 Grammy Award for his record- ing of Dutilleux’s , L’Arbre des songes, with Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. the . An exclusive Warner Classics artist, his He will appear with over 25 North American orchestras in first CD—Paganini’s 24 Caprices—was released in 2018. His the 2019/2020 season, including Boston, Cleveland, New second recording, the Brahms Concerto (with Mr. Hadelich’s York, Montréal, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Houston, own cadenza) and the Ligeti Concerto (with Thomas Adès’s Oregon, Seattle, Toronto, and others. International highlights cadenza) followed in 2019. Bohemian Tales, to be released include performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Lon- this summer, will include his performance of the Dvořák Vio- don), NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (Hamburg), Danish lin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, conducted by National Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Or- Jakub Hr˚uša. chestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He is a frequent guest artist with major orchestras in the Far East, Mexico, South Augustin Hadelich plays the violin “Leduc, ex-Szeryng” by America, New Zealand, and Australia. del Gesù of 1744, generously loaned by a patron through the Tarisio Trust.

Photo credit: Suxiao Yang A RECITAL BY AUGUSTIN HADELICH • PROGRAM NOTES unlike them, it is more French than Italian in style. The opening Preludio is very well known, one of the favorite numbers of many violinists. Bach was evidently fond of it himself, since he reused it in a concerto-like Partita No. 3 for Unaccompanied Violin in E transcription for organ and orchestra in two of his major, BWV 1006 cantatas. The remaining movements are all in dance forms, but only the Gigue is from the classic suite. The Though other composers had written large works other dances—Loure, Gavotte en Rondeau, Menuett for unaccompanied violin before him, Bach’s set of I and II (played alternating in an A-B-A pattern), and six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas are the most Bourrée—are all characteristically French. This indicates extraordinary pieces ever composed for that severely the possibility that Bach conceived this particular partita restricted medium, in that they manage to suggest for a French violinist, but we have no real evidence. But combinations of melodic lines and contrapuntal no matter—the work itself is graceful, charming, and complexities that cannot actually be sustained on the ingratiating for the listener, while making remarkable instrument. But by a clever manipulation of the violin’s demands on the virtuosity of the player. — © STEVEN technique, the composer and player can fool the LEDBETTER listener’s ear into resolving what is basically a single line (with a few extra notes played by multiple stopping) into a full contrapuntal texture. EUGÈNE YSAŸE Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin in A minor, op. Bach himself was the most renowned organist of his 27, no. 2 time, but he was also a fine violinist who continued to develop his technique even after taking up positions Eugéne Ysaÿe began his professional life as a violin that emphasized his work on the organ. His earliest virtuoso—in 1883 he received his first important surviving chamber composition (many, alas, must be contracts through the patronage of the famous Russian lost) is a fugue in G minor for violin, documented in pianist, Anton Rubinstein. From the 1890s, he was a copy from 1714. It is filled with extensive passages hailed as the “king of the violin,” with peerless technique calling for double-stopping, demonstrating the and matchless tone. He was regarded as the first completeness of Bach’s understanding of the instrument “modern” violinist and pioneer of current performance and its possibilities—and perhaps of his own ability as a practices. He also became friends with many composers performer. who dedicated works to him, including Franck, Saint-Saëns, d’Indy, and Debussy. He dominated the Bach copied out the six works (BWV 1001–1006) in the international circuit between 1894 and 1914: it took a year 1720 into one of his most beautiful manuscripts. World War to bring down his star. But beyond that simple fact we know virtually nothing of their composition or purpose (earlier versions of some Like all of Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin, of these pieces suggest that he may have started writing Opus 27, the Second, in A minor, takes on the charisma them as early as his Weimar period, 1708–17). Even if he and personality of its dedicatee, Jacques Thibaud. composed them for a particularly brilliant violinist in He wrote each of the Sonatas for a younger violinist the ensembles he worked with, as has been suggested, whom he particularly admired, and the Second Sonata, he also demonstrates clearly the completeness of nicknamed “Obsession,” mirrors the technique and his own understanding of the instrument and its sensibility of the young Thibaud. possibilities. The sources on which the works survive are securely documented for the Cöthen period, 1717–23. The first movement, Prelude, begins by quoting the Bach Partita in E major verbatim. After those light first In the set as a whole, Bach arranges the works so that the few notes, Ysaÿe introduces a compound line which odd numbered items are called “Sonata” and the even- utterly transforms the effect of the Bach, culminating in numbered items “Partita” (another term for suite, or a a fortissimo marked brutalement (“brutally”). After that sequence of dance movements). iconoclastic violence, Ysaÿe returns to the older forms of musical signification: the familiarDies irae chant from The Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006, is, like the other the Catholic Requiem mass weaves in and out through two partitas, freer in character than the three sonatas; A RECITAL BY AUGUSTIN HADELICH • PROGRAM NOTES the second movement, titled Malincolia. DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN In Danse des ombres (Dance of the Shades), the Filter composer continues the Stygian imagery of the Requiem mass, in one of the most programmatic moments in Daniel Bernard Roumain’s musical output has spanned any of the Six Sonatas. The eponymous Sarabande an incredible range, from pop to solo instrumental, which follows becomes a theme on which six short to chamber orchestra, to hip-hop: after attending a variations are based. Some of these variations take on performing arts high school in South Florida, he nearly a Bach-like Baroque style, while others spin out into opted out of college to continue to play and work dazzling virtuoso turns. The final movement, The Furies, with the rap group 2Live Crew. As the son of Haitian continues the thematic emphasis on the supernatural immigrants, his musical lexicon began with folk music and otherworldly, shifting manically between blazing from the Caribbean island—he has been a musical outbursts and attenuated ponticello—a technique of polyglot from the beginning. bowing close to the bridge to produce a rasping, ethereal tone. Filter, for violin, is a solo work that in some ways is —© JOSEPH PFENDER an outlier in Roumain’s oeuvre, which more often emphasizes large forces, chamber works, and electric instrumentation. It begins with a manic ostinato, often SERGEI RACHMANINOFF swaying into ponticello as it captures a heavy, ominous Vocalise, op. 34, no. 14 rhythm. The incessant three-element pattern evokes a recursive traumatic memory loop, while the intermittent It is only the language in which they are written that upward half-cadential gesture (perhaps “escape tone” continues to sideline Rachmaninoff’s songs on vocal is too on the nose) gives a momentary respite from the recitals when compared to similar works by others, such pounding repetition. But the attempts to gain altitude as Richard Strauss. Rachmaninoff shares with Strauss remain in the minor modal language that predominates an operatic expansiveness of spirit, and a style of piano throughout, and inevitably the melody falls back to the writing that is by turns virtuosic and genuflective. The ground. Vocalise, added to the thirteen songs of Opus 34 three years after its 1912 composition, quickly outpaced the Speaking in 2005, at age 32, Roumain had found his own other songs in the work by virtue of its lamenting quali- voice: “I used to be very interested, as a composer, in ty. Dedicated to the Russian coloratura soprano Antoni- documenting the African-American experience. Now na Nezhdanova, its melancholy melody is reminiscent of I’m interested in the human experience.” Thirteen years Russian Orthodox chant, and although written for voice later, Roumain has in some ways returned to the theme: has been performed on all manner of solo instruments in 2018, at a performance at with Yayoi Ikawa at the as written. National Gallery of Art, Mr. Roumain performed Filter in a polemical political program titled “Redemption If Russian-language song has remained inaccessible to Songs and Sonatas,” in which Haitian and Israeli singers until recently, the Vocalise transcends that barri- national anthems coexist with the music of Bob Marley, er. A vocalise is a wordless song, normally composed as articulating “our desire to define ourselves, our world, an exercise for voice students who are trying to perfect and sometimes, one another.” the technique of breath control and support. Originally — © JP a genuine lied ohne worte, the Vocalise follows its form. But Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise goes far beyond the mere academic exercise to become an ecstatic outpouring of melody. It has been transcribed for almost every kind Carmen Fantasy, op. 25 of instrument, because every musician likes to demon- strate an ability play or sing with the rich legato de- The acclaimed Spanish violinist Pablo Sarasate manded by Rachmaninoff’s ludic melodies. — © JP (1844–1908) was well known to many of Europe’s most distinguished composers; Édouard Lalo, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Antonín Dvorák were among those to have dedicated works to him. As a composer himself, A RECITAL BY AUGUSTIN HADELICH • PROGRAM NOTES in works like the Carmen Fantasy Sarasate cast the spotlight on his own instrument. Part of a long tradition of arrangements for virtuoso soloists of operatic pieces, the fantasy transforms several episodes from Georges Bizet’s landmark opera—one of the signature theatrical works of the late nineteenth century—into one of the most stunning examples of violin wizardry.

Sarasate’s composition, in five sections altogether, begins with an orchestral eruption, with the first section serving as a reimagining of the energetic entr’acte before Act IV (also known as the Aragonaise). It almost immediately throws the focus on the violin and its impressive range; in this initial section Sarasate takes care to highlight the striking contrasts between the instrument’s low and high registers. All this sets up Sarasate’s take on what is perhaps Carmen’s most iconic moment: the Habanera from Act I. Here Sarasate adds spectacular flourishes to the familiar melody and places it in stirring dialogue with the orchestra. An unlikely respite comes in the form of a paraphrase of the Act I passage where Carmen casually dismisses concerns about her role in a fight. In the service of a suitably slow middle section, Sarasate overhauls Carmen’s flippant response into a heartfelt reverie for violin. A sense of vivacity returns quickly with Sarasate’s version of the Seguidilla, also from Act I. Here, as with the Habanera, Sarasate’s signature pyrotechnics embellish a famous tune, suggesting new expressive possibilities. Finally, the work’s closing section originated in the opening number of Act II, commonly known as the Gypsy Song—making for a buoyant, exuberant conclusion. — © SL