To Program & Program Notes
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Presents © Lisa-Marie Mazzucco © Lisa-Marie Joshua Bell with Sam Haywood FEBRUARY 1, 2019 First Baptist Church 1600 S. 8th Street, Fernandina Beach, Florida 1 PROGRAM JOSHUA BELL, violin SAM HAYWOOD, piano Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano in A Minor, Op. 23 Ludwig van Beethoven Presto (1770-1827) Andante scherzoso, pìu allegretto Allegro molto Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94a SERGEI PROKOFIEV Moderato (1891-1953) Scherzo -Presto Andante Allegro con brio — Intermission — Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13 EDVARD GRIEG Lento-Allegro vivace (1843-1907) Allegretto tranquillo Allegro animato Additional works to be announced from the stage *Program is Subject to Change* YAMAHA Grand piano generously provided by .....Keyboard Connection Pianos & Organs Joshua Bell records exclusively for Sony Classical – a MASTERWORKS Label www.joshuabell.com Mr. Bell appears by arrangement with Park Avenue Artists and Primo Artists. www.parkavenueartists.com www.primoartists.com For more information on Sam Haywood, visit: www.samhaywood.com 2 ABOUT THE ARTISTS JOSHUA BELL With a career spanning more than 30 years as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, conductor, and music education advocate, Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated violinists today. A Sony Classical artist, Bell has recorded more than 40 albums garnering Grammy, Mercury, Gramophone, and Echo Klassik awards. Named the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 2011, he is the only person to hold this post since Sir Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958. Fall 2018 performances include the season-openings of the National Symphony Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda and Cincinnati Symphony with Louis Langrée, performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden, Baltimore Symphony with Cristian Măcelaru, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and Stockholm Philharmonic. A highlight is the live film concert with the New York Philharmonic of the Academy Award-winning film score for The Red Violin in commemoration of the film’s 20th anniversary. In Spring 2019, Bell tours worldwide with the Academy and his North American and European recital tours with pianist Sam Haywood. Another highlight will be a first-ever tour with friends pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis to 10 cities in North America, including New York. He also appears with the Czech Philharmonic under Christoph Eschenbach, Israel Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda, Camerata Salzburg with Andrew Manze, Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck, the Munich Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony – including The Man with the Violin children’s film concert – and a play/ conduct with the Houston Symphony. Bell’s recording with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields of Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and G Minor Concerto was released in June 2018. Previous CDs include an album featuring Nicholas Maw’s Violin Concerto, for which Bell received a Grammy® award. Convinced of the value of music as a diplomatic and educational tool, Bell participated in President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba. He is also involved in Turnaround Arts, another project implemented by the Committee and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which provides arts education to low-performing elementary and middle schools. Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin. 3 ABOUT THE ARTISTS (continued) SAM HAYWOOD Sam Haywood has performed to critical acclaim in many of the world’s major concert halls. The Washington Post hailed his ‘dazzling, evocative playing’ and ‘lyrical sensitivity’ and the New York Times his ‘passionate flair and sparkling clarity’. He embraces a wide spectrum of the piano repertoire and is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician or with accompanying Lieder. He has had a regular duo partnership with Joshua Bell since 2010 and often performs with cellist Steven Isserlis. He has recorded two solo albums for Hyperion, one featuring the piano music of Julius Isserlis (grandfather of Steven Isserlis) and the other Charles Villiers Stanford’s preludes. His enthusiasm for period instruments led to a recording on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano. In 2013 Haywood co-founded Solent Music Festival in UK. The annual Lymington- based festival features highly varied programmes by internationally-renowned artists with projects in the local community. Artists have included the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Alina Ibragimova, Mark Padmore and the Endellion Quartet. He was mentored by David Hartigan, Paul Badura-Skoda and Maria Curcio. Following his early success in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded him the Julius Isserlis Scholarship. He studied both at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, of which he is an Associate (ARAM). Haywood has written a children’s opera and is regularly involved in family concerts, workshops and master classes. He is on the roster of Musical Orbit, the online teaching website and his invention ‘memorystars®’ can significantly reduce the time needed to memorise a music score. His other passions include literature, physics, natural history, technology, magic, fountain pens and table tennis. 4 PROGRAM NOTES Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano in A minor, Op.23 “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life.” — Ludwig van Beethoven The genius of Beethoven’s compositions is said to have possessed an “inexplicable ability to know what the next note had to be” according to composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Beethoven, the complex individual and composer, allowed his romantic and gentle nature as well as his angry and darker qualities to be reflected in his music. His happiness inspired by his walks in the forest or time spent gazing at the stars reveals a much different composer than the one who is known for his tumultuous temper tantrums and tortured love affairs. The Sonata in A minor, Op. 23 was composed between 1800 and 1801. It is dedicated to one of his generous patrons Count Moritz von Fries, a nobleman and banker. Opus 23 and Opus 24 his Spring Sonata were originally to be paired as Opus 23, Numbers 1 and 2. An engraver’s mistake made it impossible to bind the two together as the Sonata No. 5 in F major was printed using an oblong format rather than the tall format for Sonata No. 4. Thus it was less expensive to assign them separate opus numbers rather than re-engraving. By the age of 32 Beethoven had composed ten violin sonatas. Although he was renowned in Vienna as a pianist, he was also well acquainted with the violin. As a youth he studied in Bonn and later continued his violin studies in Vienna with Ignacio Schuppanzigh. During Beethoven’s lifetime violins were undergoing con- structional changes. Their range and the volume of tone were increasing due to the longer neck, fingerboard and strings; higher bridge; greater tension on the strings. Steadily Beethoven made growing technical demands on the violin and the piano. In the original eighteenth-century scores the music for the “violin sonatas” identify them as being “for the fortepiano and a violin.” Beethoven’s creative genius creat- ed a more equal partnership between the two instruments. In the ten sonatas he explores combining two voices of unequal sound mass into a dramatic partnership and coherent unity, “A colloquy of reciprocal enrichment” according to music critic and author Louis Biancolli. Violinist and former chair of Eastman School of Music’s string department and professor of chamber music Abram Loft assessed the A mi- nor sonata: “In no other Beethoven sonata will the duo find a greater challenge to its sense of drama, of timing, of musical repartee...It is one of the most exciting pieces that amateur or professionals can play.” 5 PROGRAM NOTES (continued) Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94a “I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes.” — Sergei Prokofiev Called “the Pride of Soviet Music,” Sergei Prokofiev was born on April 27, 1891 in Sontsovka, in the Ukraine. His musical talent was apparent by age six and he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at age 13. His public debut as a composer and pianist was on New Year’s Eve 1908 and already he was known for an avant-garde, astringent style which some described as “shocking.” Words describing the young composer ranged from stubborn to obstinate, intelligent, and genius. Perhaps best known for his work Peter and the Wolf, a musical story where the characters are portrayed by different orchestral instruments, Prokofiev also composed 7 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 2 violin concertos, 3 operas, and 8 ballets as well as some film scores. Fleeing the Russian Revolution Prokofiev emigrated to the United States in 1917. Known for his sensational piano skills, he was also commissioned by the Chicago Opera. His The Love for Three Oranges composed in 1919 is based on a play taken from Giambattista Basile’s fairy tale achieved international success. In 1922 the composer moved to Paris and in 1936 lured by numerous Russian commissions, he returned to Russia. This proved to be a most inopportune time for Prokofiev as the Soviet authorities were beginning to interfere in artistic matters. In 1942 while working on the film score for Ivan the Terrible, Prokofiev sketched out a sonata for flute and piano inspired by memories the famous French flutist Georges Barrére. Completed in Moscow, the sonata drew unfavorable reviews. In Perm in the Ural Mountains at a remote WWII shelter for Soviet artists, Violinist David Oistrakh suggested that it be arranged for violin and piano.