A Recital by Daniil Trifonov, Piano

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 Daniil Trifonov, piano Sunday, July 19, 2020 3 pm J.S. BACH Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (before 1742; c. 1745; 1748–49) 83' (1685–1750) Contrapunctus I Contrapunctus II Contrapunctus III Contrapunctus IV Contrapunctus V Contrapunctus VI, 'In a French Style' Contrapunctus VII, 'In Augmentation and Diminution' Contrapunctus VIII, 'Triple Fugue' Contrapunctus IX Contrapunctus X Contrapunctus XI Contrapunctus XII, 'Rectus' Contrapunctus XII, 'Inversus' Contrapunctus XIII, 'Rectus' Contrapunctus XIII, 'Inversus' Contrapunctus XIV, 'Triple Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H' With special thanks to Richard Edwards, in memory of Harley Baldwin, Sharon and Larry Hite, Judith Z. Steinberg and Paul J. Hoenmans, Nan and Chuck Wall, and in memory of Barbara Koval 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 Daniil Trifonov Sunday, July 19, 2020 3 pm Trifonov launched the New York Philharmonic’s 2018-19 season with back-to-back performances; other orchestral high- lights included performances of Scriabin’s concerto during a season-long residency with the Berlin Philharmonic, Proko- Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov—winner of Musical America’s fiev’s Third with the Chicago Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Third 2019 Artist of the Year award—has made a spectacular ascent with the Boston Symphony, and Schumann’s concerto with through the classical music world as a solo artist, champion of longtime collaborator Valery Gergiev and the Met Orchestra the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and at Carnegie Hall. composer. Trifonov added a Grammy Award to his consider- able string of honors in 2018, winning Best Classical Instru- Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Trifonov attended Mos- mental Solo with Transcendental. cow’s Gnessin School of Music as a student of Tatiana Zelik- man before studying with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland This fall sees the release of a new album on Deutsche Gram- Institute of Music. He has also studied composition, and con- mophon—Destination Rachmaninov: Arrival—following tinues to write for piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. 2018’s Destination Rachmaninov: Departure and 2015’s Grammy-nominated Rachmaninov Variations, all with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. As the New York Philharmonic’s 2019–2020 artist-in-residence, Mr. Trifonov has appeared in New York and Europe, and gives the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet. Photo credit: Ben Ealovega A RECITAL BY DANIIL TRIFONOV • PROGRAM NOTE such as Johannes Fux’s well-worn counterpoint manual, Gradus ad Parnassum. JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH That elevated “Art” in the title derives from academic Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 context, where a school of “arts and science” harks back to the Boethian division of the liberal arts into Johann Sebastian Bach’s Art of Fugue (Die Kunst Trivium and Quadrivium. Music was categorized in the der Fuge) occupies a peculiar place in the musical Quadrivium by virtue of the mathematical permutations imagination, whether one first encountered it as a of rhythm, pitch, and harmony used by composers. 500 young performer, as a student of Baroque style, or as an years later, that same basic affiliation of number and audience member. Shrouded in cryptic numerology, musical sound remains current. Even if Bach’s masterful the piece is so thoroughly (even fanatically) structured treatments are vulnerable to charges of pedantry, you that it seems to contain unfathomable depths. One can be sure they will reward deliberate and careful could spend hours diving into arithmetical rabbit attention. holes; indeed, whole books have been written on the philosophical and theological precedents of Art of Indeed, despite the creaky reputation of the work Fugue. there are surprising pockets of supple, lyrical melody, especially in the tender, weaving Contrapunctus VIII, Although it may seem impenetrable and arcane at and especially when performed with the dynamic and first glance, there are a few readily understandable timbral flexibility of the modern piano. Bach wrote Art compositional concepts that can guide our appreciation of Fugue while he worked for Thomaskirche in Leipzig, of counterpoint. The easiest to understand is where he worked from 1723 and until his death in “inversion”: this is a process of turning a melody 1750. As a condition of his employment at the church, upside-down: instead of rising, the melody falls, and which held notoriously reactionary tendencies, he was vice versa. So, the recognizable theme that begins the contractually forbidden from composing music that first two fugues (D–A–F–D–C-sharp) is flipped over bore “any resemblance whatsoever to operatic styles.” (inverted) in the third and fourth fugues, rendering a By contrast, the University of Leipzig was a stronghold related but different main theme (A–D–F–A–B-flat). By of scientific progressives and freethinkers. This tug- itself, this transformation is simple and straightforward. of-war between two wealthy Leipziger institutions is But once he’s established this basic elaboration, Bach enlightening because it attunes us to the reserved style reaches for further techniques, writing the normal and of Bach’s combinatorial methods. It heightens our inverted versions of the theme at the same time (called appreciation of Bach’s skill not just as a melodist, but as “counterfugue”), simultaneous independent second a deft navigator of competing ideologies and agendas. and third melodies that can be swapped into upper or lower voices (called “invertible counterpoint”), or — © JOSEPH PFENDER accelerating, overlapping repetition of the main melody (called “stretto”). With these tools, that very simple first inversion quickly gives rise to exponentially multiplying versions of the “same” melody. That fractal spiderweb of variations captures the effect of a style of composition with an “antique” feel, where contrapuntal precision holds its own mathematical appeal even if one does not hold the entire Baroque playbook in mind all at once. Taking a long view of musical practice, Art of Fugue is part of a historically conscious, tightly controlled mode called “antique style,” or stile antico. Baroque style, in a common, everyday understanding, is to this day largely defined by such an “antique” feel. The fustiness of stile antico is undeniable. Nevertheless, the many lyrical, virtuosic elements of Art of Fugue elevate it compared to similarly pedagogical manuals or technical guides, .

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