CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 8pm Hertz Hall Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Thirty-Three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120 (1819, 1822–1823) Peter Serkin, piano Thema — Vivace I. Alla Marcia maestoso II. Poco Allegro III. L’istesso tempo IV. Un poco più vivace PROGRAM V. Allegro vivace VI. Allegro ma non troppo e seriouso VII. Un poco più allegro Oliver Knussen (b. 1952) Variations for Piano, Op. 24 (1989) VIII. Poco vivace IX. Allegro pesante e risoluto X. Presto XI. Allegretto Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) For Away (1972) XII. Un poco più moto XIII. Vivace XIV. Grave e maestoso XV. Presto scherzando Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938) Adagio (2011) XVI. Allegro XVII. Allegro XVIII. Poco moderato XIX. Presto INTERMISSION XX. Andante XXI. Allegro con brio — meno allegro XXII. Allegro molto (alla “Notte e giorno faticar” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni) XXIII. Allegro assai XXIV. Fughetta. Andante X X V. A llegro XXVI. (Piacevole) Funded by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ XXVII. Vivace 2011–2012 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. XXVIII. Allegro XXIX. Adagio ma non troppo Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. XXX. Andante, sempre cantabile XXXI. Largo, molto espressivo XXXII. Fuga. Allegro XXXIII. Tempo di Minuetto moderato 20 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 21 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Oliver Knussen (b. 1952) Contemporary Music Group, and holder of adage that East and West would never meet by of 1957, inspired by the death of his friend and Variations for Piano, Op. 24 the Elise L. Stoeger Composer’s Chair with creating music that sings of universal human ex- fellow composer Fumio Hayasaka, drew praise the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. perience. Takemitsu sought in his many works from Stravinsky and brought Takemitsu his Composed in 1989. Knussen’s many awards include Honorary to transmute dreams, water, trees, gardens, sky, first recognition abroad. He won international Memberships in the American Academy of Arts birds, wind, the flickering images of film, the fame with his 1967 November Steps for biwa Oliver Knussen is one of today’s leading British and Letters and Royal Philharmonic Society, quiverings of the human heart, the resonance of (a traditional Japanese lute-like instrument), musicians. Born on June 12, 1952, in Glasgow honorary doctorates from the Royal Scottish a read word into patterns of sounds and silence shakuhachi (a flute) and orchestra, commis- into a musical family (his father was Stuart Academy of Music and Drama and Birmingham that would penetrate to the quiet, inner place sioned for the 125th anniversary of the New Knussen, Principal Double Bassist of the London City University, 2004 Association of British where the spirit dwells. “When one life calls out York Philharmonic. Takemitsu thereafter came Symphony Orchestra for many years), he showed Orchestras Award, and 2006 Michael Ludwig to another,” he wrote, “sounds are born. Silence to be regarded among the world’s leading com- a remarkable precocity that recalls the early Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University. bordered with a necklace of sounds, which be- posers: designer and director of the spherical maturation of Benjamin Britten, playing piano He was made a Commander of the Order of the come scales. Little by little, the strands of scales Space Theater in the Steel Pavilion at Expo ’70 very young and composing by the age of six. On British Empire (C.B.E.) in 1994. are bundled into a sheath of light, rising into the in Osaka; guest lecturer at UC San Diego and April 7, 1968, when he was 15, he conducted the Knussen writes, “My Variations for Piano sky, or gushing out, splashing, like the body of a Columbia, Harvard, Yale and Boston universi- LSO in the premiere of his own First Symphony, were composed in September and October 1989, river finding liberation as it reaches the sea. They ties; composer-in-residence at the Tanglewood, and led the work again later that year in New partly from sketches made during the previous fill the universe: enormous, soundless sounds.” Colorado, Avignon, Stockholm, Canberra, York’s Carnegie Hall. He attended the Central spring. Although they are concise—the twelve Though Takemitsu’s music is meticulously Aldeburgh, Berliner Festwochen and other Tutorial School for Young Musicians in London variations play for a little more than six minutes structured and unified through the conventional leading festivals; recipient of many prestigious as a composition student of John Lambert from in all—I have tried to integrate highly con- European practice of transformation of thematic awards in his native Japan as well as from the 1963 to 1969, and from 1970 to 1973 stud- trasted textural and expressive approaches to a motives, it gives the feeling of spontaneity and Akademie der Künste of the German Democratic ied on fellowship with Gunther Schuller at very limited amount of raw material (the theme freedom and space, of being released from the Republic, the American Academy and Institute Tanglewood, where his Second Symphony won is itself variations on its first six notes) within a earth, of being at once substantial and equivo- of Arts and Letters, and the French government the Margaret Grant Memorial Composition three-part dramatic design: an initial group of cal. He was preoccupied with timbre and texture (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and membership Prize in 1971. Knussen’s creative catalog in- five character-variations, a central passacaglia rather than with traditional rhythmic and har- in the Académie des Beaux-Arts). His other dis- cludes three symphonies, concertos for horn and enclosing four more variations, and a final set of monic organization, with the aural point hover- tinctions include the UNESCO/IMC Music violin, several orchestral works, a Requiem (in three, more etude-like variations functioning as ing between sound and silence, with discovering Prize (1991), the Grawemeyer Award (1994) and memory of his wife, who died of a blood infec- a coda to the whole. I should like to acknowledge music that seems to issue from the very air and the Glenn Gould Prize (1996). Toru Takemitsu tion in 2003), songs (among which is the Vocalise some things which were constantly in my mind earth, with giving, he said, “a proper meaning to died in Tokyo on February 20, 1996. with Songs of Winnie-the-Pooh), chamber pieces, while composing this piece: the variations of the ‘streams of sounds’ that penetrate the world For Away, written in 1972 for Australian piano compositions and the companion fantasy Stravinsky, Copland and Webern, which proved which surrounds us.” His creative voice—quiet/ pianist Roger Woodward and premiered by him operas based on texts by noted children’s author positively intimidating models of richness of de- disturbing, joyous/sad, universal/personal—is that year at the Edinburgh Festival, drew upon Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are and sign and character in extreme concision; and the unique in modern music, a manifestation of a two of Takemitsu’s concerns of those years: the Higglety Pigglety Pop!. Knussen has also pursued artistry and musical intelligence of Peter Serkin, world brought closer together by diversity and reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and a an active career as a conductor, appearing fre- for whom the work was commissioned and who expanded by individuality. visit to Bali to experience the remarkable me- quently with the London Sinfonietta and the was a constant source of encouragement during Takemitsu was born in Tokyo on October 8, tallic sounds and supple rhythms of gamelan Philharmonia Orchestra, and guest conducting the composition. My Variations are dedicated to 1930. He studied intermittently for a few years music at first hand—For Away was the first of widely in Europe, Japan, Australia and America; Peter and Regina Serkin.” with Yasuji Kiyose (1900–1981), a student of several works whose titles Takemitsu derived he has led more than 200 world and local pre- Alexander Tcherepnin, but was largely self- from Joyce, whose imagery, musicality of lan- mieres. He served as Principal Guest Conductor taught, a circumstance that helps account for his guage and themes of life, death and eternity res- of The Hague’s Het Residentie Orkest from 1992 Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) highly individual style. A performance of his pi- onated deeply in his own work and thoughts; the to 1996, the Aldeburgh Festival’s Co-Artistic For Away ano piece Futatsu no rento (“Lento for Two”) on a Balinese influence is heard in the music’s bell- Director from 1983 to 1998, and the London contemporary music series in 1950 brought him like attacks and sustained sonorities. Takemitsu Sinfonietta’s Music Director from 1998 to 2002; Composed in 1972. Premiered in August 1972 in to the attention of the composer Jogi Yuasa and wrote, “To be sure, the title For Away is a strange he is now the Sinfonietta’s Conductor Laureate. Edinburgh by Roger Woodward. the conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama, with whom one. While it is a personal gift of mine to Roger He has also been Composer-in-Residence with he founded the Jikken Kobo (“Experimental Woodward, it is at the same time my expres- the Philharmonia Orchestra, Co-Coordinator of Japanese in birth and sensibility, and Western in Workshop”) for collaborations in mixed media sion of extolment and offering to the Galaxy Contemporary Music Activities at Tanglewood, his compositional techniques and instrumental combining traditional Japanese idioms with of Life—a galaxy that is not the sole domain of Artist-in-Association with the Birmingham sonorities, Toru Takemitsu belied Kipling’s old modernistic techniques. His Requiem for Strings mankind.” New York pianist and avant-garde 22 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 23 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES composer “Blue” Gene Tyranny commented Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and other “Wuorinen has used three significant har- his musical work as a pupil of Michael Haydn, perceptively, “Thus, it would seem, that this noted institutions.