November 6, 2016 Behzod Abduraimov

NOVEMBER 6, 2016 BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV 1 . BOARD OF PROGRAM BOOK CONTACT DIRECTORS CREDITS US James Reel Editor Arizona Friends of President Jay Rosenblatt Chamber Music Post Office Box 40845 Paul Kaestle Contributors Tucson, Arizona 85717 Vice-President Nancy Bissell Robert Gallerani Phone: 520–577–3769 Joseph Tolliver Holly Gardner Email: [email protected] Corresponding Secretary Nancy Monsman Website: arizonachambermusic.org Helmut Abt Jay Rosenblatt Box Office Manger Recording Secretary James Reel Cathy Anderson Randy Spalding Wes Addison Leslie Tolbert Treasurer USHERS Advertising Philip Alejo Paul Kaestle Barry & Susan Austin Nancy Bissell Allan Tractenberg Susan Fifer Kaety Byerley Marilee Mansfield Michael Coretz Design Lidia Morris Dagmar Cushing OPENFORM Elaine Orman Bryan Daum Printing Susan Rock Joan Jacobson West Press Jane Ruggill Helen Kim Dorothy Steele Jay Rosenblatt Barbara Turton Elaine Rousseau Diana Warr Randy Spalding Maurice Weinrobe & Trudy Ernst Paul St. John Patricia Wendel George Timson Leslie Tolbert VOLUNTEERS Cory Aaland Dana Deeds Beth Daum Beth Foster Bob Foster Marvin Goldberg Eddy Hodak Marie-France Isabelle Traudi Nichols Allan Tractenberg Diane Tractenberg 2 . FROM THE PRESIDENT OF AFCM Reading this program means that you’ve been initiated into an exclusive, mysterious society. The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music’s Piano & Friends series seems to be the best-kept secret in Tucson’s music circles. We launched this series in 1995 with a recital by a splendid young pianist named Tian Ying, who would later be praised by the Boston Globe as “one of the finest pianists active in America.” Since then we’ve presented many instrumentalists who have become high-profile artists, including composer-pianist Lera Auerbach; cellists Zuill Bailey, Alban Gerhardt, and Alisa Weilerstein; flutist Mathieu Dufour; soprano Nadine Sierra; violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Joseph Lin; and pianists Fazil Say and Lang Lang. Yet, to be honest, Piano & Friends has yet to draw the size of audience these artists deserve. The people who do attend more often than not tell us that what they’ve just heard is at least as good as what they get from the high-powered ensembles in our Evening Series. So thank you for joining this select society. But we’d rather not be so exclusive. Tell your friends about these wonderful Sunday-afternoon concerts. And tell us what you think we could do to make Piano & Friends as successful in terms of attendance as it is artistically. James Reel President 3 . BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV NOVEMBER 6, 2016 BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV Described by The Times as the “master of all he surveys” and with The Washington Post noting to “keep your ear on this one,” Behzod Abduraimov’s captivating performances continue to receive international praise. Born in Tashkent in 1990, Mr. Abduraimov began to play the piano at the age of five. He was a pupil of Tamara Popovich at the Uspensky State Central Lyceum in Tashkent, and studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch at the International Center for Music at Park University, Kansas City. In recent seasons Mr. Abduraimov has worked Behzod Abduraimov, piano with leading orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic (James Gaffigan), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Charles Dutoit), the London Philharmonic Orchestra (David Zinman), the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Vladimir Ashkenazy), and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Jirí Belohlávek). In collaboration with The Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, last season Mr. Abduraimov performed in their Prokofiev Piano Concerto cycle at concerts in Stockholm, Vienna, and Dortmund, and on a major US tour with them, which included his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall. This was followed by his recital debut in the Weill Recital Hall as part of the “Distinctive Debuts” series resulting in an immediate invitation to the Stern Auditorium. An award-winning recording artist – his debut recital CD won both the Choc de Classica and the Diapason Découverte – Mr. Abduraimov released his first concerto disc in 2014 on Decca Classics which features Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai under Juraj Valcha. He is currently artist-in-residence at the International Center for Music at Park University, HarrisonParrott Ltd Kansas City. 5–6 Albion Court Albion Place London W6 0QT 4 . THIS AFTERNOON’S PROGRAM “The composer,with barbaric audacity, breaks with the JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) ideals of the Romantics and “Siciliano” from Concerto in D Minor (after Vivaldi), BWV 596 (arr. Cortot) includes the shattering pulse Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 of the twentieth century in (arr. Busoni) his music.” FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828) SVIATOSLAV RICHTER ON PROKOFIEV’S PIANO SONATA NO. 6 Moments musicaux, D. 780 No. 2 in A-flat Major No. 3 in F minor LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor (“Appassionata”), Op. 57 Allegro assai Andante con moto Allegro ma non troppo INTERMISSION SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953) Piano Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op. 82 Allegro moderato Allegretto Tempo di valzer lentissimo Vivace MILY BALAKIREV (1837–1910) Islamey (“Oriental Fantasy”), Op. 18 5 . PROGRAM NOTES TRANSCRIPTION IN MUSIC – the art of translation what was of far deeper import, it was the beginning from one instrument to another – has been of that style of pianoforte touch and technique around almost as long as music itself, with the which was entirely the creation of Ferruccio earliest notated examples going back to the Middle Busoni.” The transcription of the Toccata and Ages. It serves many purposes, from educational Fugue in D Minor reveals this style, with Busoni (an in-depth study of the piece to be transcribed) taking Bach’s mighty organ score and finding its to concert use (recasting a piece as the basis for pianistic equivalent. virtuoso display). The “Siciliano” is unusual in that AMONG THE MYTHS that have attached themselves it is a transcription of a transcription. Bach admired to Franz Schubert is the idea that he struggled to the new Italian style as typified in Vivaldi’s set of make himself known as a composer and died in twelve concertos, Op. 3 (titled “L’estro armonico,” obscurity. This is not completely true. Of course, “the harmonic inspiration”), and he transcribed no. he was not as well known as his great contemporary 11 for organ. Although his reasons are not known, Beethoven, nor did his music travel much outside it seems he had educational and virtuoso goals in Vienna during his life, but in the course of his last mind: he wanted to become better acquainted with eight years Schubert published nearly one hundred Vivaldi’s compositional technique, and he wanted works. And of these works, virtually all were for the to show off his keyboard abilities. Fast-forward two growing domestic market of amateur musicians. hundred years to the 20th Century and the great Thus we find songs, chamber music, and many French pianist Alfred Cortot (1877–1962), who short works for piano. The six pieces published as used Bach’s organ version as the basis for his own Op. 94 under the title “Moments musicaux” transcription. Cortot transcribed the entire work, (actually “Momens musicals” – Schubert’s French but it is the middle movement, with its gentle was not very good) are wonderful examples of the rocking motion, that continues to find favor on way he was able to appeal to this market, writing recital programs. tuneful pieces with memorable melodies, but always THE GREAT ITALIAN PIANIST Ferruccio Busoni within the grasp of the talented non-professional. (1866 –1924) distinguished himself as composer, Of the six, perhaps the most popular is the third in pedagogue, and, of course, virtuoso. For a performer F minor, sometimes called “Russian Air.” who specialized in the great Romantic works BEFORE HIS HEARING LOSS, Beethoven was of the 19th Century, his own compositions could recognized as one of Europe’s greatest piano be surprisingly modern and (occasionally) virtuosos. By 1804, the year of his “Appassionata” impenetrable, and his writings on music looked Sonata, he had been forced to accept the toward the future, as suggested by the title of his irreversibility of his condition. His personal struggle best-known work, “Sketch of a New Esthetic of doubtless contributes to the psychological intensity Music.” His transcriptions are another matter, of this middle period sonata, a work that he himself following the lead of the virtuoso works of Liszt, considered to be his most tempestuous. However, who first took Bach’s organ works and made them the F minor Sonata was named “Appassionata” not available to the concert pianist. A friend of Busoni’s, by Beethoven but by the publisher Cranz, who Kathi Petri, tells the story of the time they heard a heard “a deep passionate note which sounds performance on the organ of a Prelude and Fugue ceaselessly throughout the first movement.” In fact, by Bach. “You ought to arrange that for pianoforte,” this opening movement does articulate the piano’s she said to him. Although Busoni had never first octave F, which was the lowest tone on attempted such a transcription, a week later he Beethoven’s piano. played the work for her on the piano. As his biographer, Edward J. Dent, observes: “This was The Allegro assai, written in sonata form, develops not merely the beginning of the transcriptions, but two motifs – the first, heard in octaves, is based on the F minor arpeggio; the second idea is a calm statement that gradually grows in fervor. Between these contrasting ideas falls the Fifth Symphony’s 6 . PROGRAM NOTES incisive rhythmic motto – short, short, short, long The delightful, dance-like Allegretto provides a – as a suggestion of the composer’s struggle with respite from the intensity of the first movement. By fate.

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