Saturday, April 21, 2018 • 4:00 p.m ​

Sofie Yang

Graduate Recital

DePaul Recital Hall 804 West Belden Avenue • Chicago

Saturday, April 21, 2018 • 4:00 p.m. ​ DePaul Recital Hall

Sofie Yang, Graduate Recital Juan Sebastian Avendaño Fonseca, piano

PROGRAM

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) Tango Etude No. 3

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) Violin No. 5, Op. 37 (1858-59) Allegro non troppo - Moderato Adagio Allegro con fuoco

Juan Sebastian Avendaño Fonseca, piano

Intermission

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Violin Sonata No. 3, Op. 108 (1886-88) Allegro Adagio Un poco presto e con sentimento Presto agitato

Juan Sebastian Avendaño Fonseca, piano

Sofie Yang is from the studio of Janet Sung. This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Music.

As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you.

Sofie Yang • April 21, 2018

PROGRAM NOTES

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) Tango Etude No. 3 (1987) Duration: 4 minutes Astor Piazzolla was a tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger who ​ ​ revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, ​ ​ incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, to Italian immigrant parents Vicente "Noniño" Piazzolla and Assunta Manetti, Piazzolla actually spent most of his childhood in New York City. During this time of prohibition and the mafia, Piazzolla learned to take care of himself on the streets, hanging around the Cotton Club to hear the jazz of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. He listened to his father’s old records of tango orchestras at home and began to play the bandoneon after his father spotted one in a New York pawn shop in 1929. Piazzolla took music lessons in 1933 with the Hungarian classical pianist Bela Wilda, a student of Rachmaninoff, who taught him to play Bach on his bandoneon.

This mash-up of music and cultures paved the way for Piazzolla’s art to come. He played in the famous traditional tango orchestras of the time but also dared to create many different ensembles for non-traditional occasions, constantly exploring more sounds and innovative ideas. In 1953, Piazzolla won a grant from the French government to study in with the ​ ​ legendary French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, which proved to be a crossroads in Piazzolla’s career because she countered his attempts to hide his tanguero past and instead encouraged its incorporation, saying “Astor, your classical pieces are well written, but the true Piazzolla is here, never leave it behind.”

Biographers estimate that Piazzolla wrote around 3,000 pieces and recorded around 500. He was well-known for the quintet formation of bandoneon, violin, piano, electric guitar, and double bass. This piece is from a set of six tango etudes, originally conceptualized for flute. One can imitate the sharp attacks, airy release, and characteristic sound of the bandoneon, imagining the rest of the band playing along…

Sofie Yang • April 21, 2018 Program Notes

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37 (1858-59) Duration: 25 minutes Belgian Henri Vieuxtemps wrote seven violin , the fifth of which he composed in for a competition at the request of his friend Hubert Léonard, a professor at the Conservatory. The work is ​ ​ continuous and can be regarded as a one-movement piece in three sections or a three-movement piece played without pause. Viennese critic Eduard ​ Hanslick described Vieuxtemps concertos as “imaginative, gracious, well-made and contrived with great technical knowledge… he may be considered the finest composer among contemporary violinists and the finest violinist among contemporary composers.”

Indeed, Vieuxtemps was considered one of the greatest violinists during his ​ lifetime, combining virtuoso technique with beauty of tone and elegance of phrasing. Although he started violin with his father who was a weaver by trade, Vieuxtemps managed an impressive local public debut at the age of six, catching the eye of violinist Charles de Bériot who became one of his first teachers and mentors. Vieuxtemps is credited for reviving the Beethoven Violin Concerto in his 1834 London debut, where he met the famous violinist Paganini and each in turn were impressed by the other. As he gave multiple tours of Paris, , Germany, and also the , where he met his future wife, Viennese pianist Josephine Eder, Vieuxtemps’ influence as a performer and composer grew. Additionally, ​ Vieuxtemps was one of the leading pedagogues of the century. He was a pioneer of early Russian violin history from his six years based in St. Petersburg as court violinist to the Tsar. He also left a great legacy to the Franco-Belgian School from his post as violin professor at the Brussels Conservatory, where his students included Jenő Hubay and Eugène Ysaÿe and where the following teachers filling his position included Wieniawski and Auer.

As a composer Vieuxtemps had an inimitable, dramatic operetta style. “His work is very symphonic,” says Russian-American violinist Misha Keylin, who performed a complete CD series for Naxos of the seven Vieuxtemps concertos. “His music has the ability of a true bel canto but with support of

Sofie Yang • April 21, 2018 Program Notes

everybody [in the orchestra] making it even more beautiful. The soloist has such beautiful lines written [all] around.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 (1886-88) Duration: 30 minutes German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms began his Third Violin Sonata almost immediately after finishing the Sonata No. 2 in A major during a vacation in Thun, Switzerland, in the summer of 1886. However, he then set the work aside for two years and completed it only when he returned to Thun in 1888 for another vacation. It is the last of his three violin sonatas and, unlike the previous two, has four movements. The piano part relates more to Brahms’ later concerto manner than to chamber music: it seems appropriate that he dedicated the work to Hans von Bülow, the great pianist and conductor who also was a close friend and champion of the composer. The key of D minor recalls the composer’s youth, to the First Piano Concerto and the First Ballade for piano. The sonata was premiered in Budapest with violinist Jenö Hubay and the composer at the piano on December 22, 1888.

The first movement begins almost in mid-thought, with no introduction to the inward intensity of the main theme. The sense of a controlled, ongoing line which will eventually break free becomes the preoccupation of the development section, a remarkable passage built entirely over a constantly and regularly reiterated, unchanging single note. The second movement opens with majestic serenity and is an instrumental song without words, reminiscent in the climax of the Hungarian manner so important to Joseph Joachim, the violinist by whom all Brahms’ violin writing was ultimately inspired. The third movement gives the sense of secretive playfulness and was described by Clara Schumann as “like a lovely girl playing with her lover.” In the virtuosic finale, we hear the music build towards resolution and then pull back, all the way until the end of the sonata.

Notes by Sofie Yang.

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