CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM
Sunday, January 27, 2013, 3pm Hertz Hall
Nicolas Hodges, piano Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) Giga, Bolero e Variazione, Study after Mozart, from An die Jugend, Book III (1909)
PROGRAM Harrison Birtwistle (b. 1934) Gigue Machine (2011) West Coast premiere
Gigue Machine was co-commissioned by Cal Performances and Carnegie Hall. Claude Debussy (1862–1918) Études, Book I (1915)
Pour les “cinq doigts,” d’après Monsieur Czerny Pour les tierces Debussy Études, Book II (1915) Pour les quartes Pour les sixtes Pour les degrés chromatiques Pour les octaves Pour les agréments Pour les huit doigts Pour les notes répétées Pour les sonorités opposées Pour les arpèges composés Pour les accords Elliott Carter (1908–2012) Two Thoughts About the Piano
Intermittences (2005) Caténaires (2006)
Funded by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2012–2013 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. INTERMISSION Cal Performances’ 2012–2013 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.
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Claude Debussy (1862–1918) Salle Gaveau in Paris with the soprano Ninon piano inspired by Chopin’s contributions to the movement begins sedately, but it is quickly and Études, Books I and II Vallin, and that event seems to have kindled a genre. He attached considerable importance to permanently deflected from its drudging diaton- spark that brightened his mood during the fol- his Études, keeping Durand informed of their icism by a quirky dissonance brazenly escaped Composed in 1915. lowing months. He was seized once again with progress and describing the music in some de- from the original key. The next movement For( the urge to compose, and temporarily put aside tail to his publisher. He loaded the pieces with Thirds) presents sonorous ribbons of consonant When the Guns of August thundered across the Chopin material. “The Muse, which you immense challenges of execution and musician- intervals that are abruptly halted by a surpris- the European Continent in 1914 to plunge the kindly believe to be inspiring me at the moment, ship, and then pointed out, with gleeful sar- ingly passionate closing statement. For Fourths, world into “the war to end all wars,” Claude has taught me to put little faith in her constancy, casm, that they would “treat pianists to their just with its streams of parallel open intervals, ex- Debussy was already showing signs of the colon and I would rather hold her fast than run after deserts...[and] frighten the fingers.... Apart from udes an aura of antiquity tinged with mysticism. cancer that was to take his life four years later. her,” he explained to Durand about the delay. the question of technique, these Études will be Concerning For Sixths, Debussy wrote to his Apprehensive about his health and tormented With the Germans posing a constant threat to a useful warning to pianists not to take up the publisher, “For a very long time, the continuous by the military conflict, his creative produc- descend on Paris, he eagerly accepted the offer musical profession unless they have remarkable use of sixths gave me the feeling of pretentious tion came to a virtual halt. “I should not like to spend the summer at a friend’s sea-side chalet hands.... You break your left hand in them, in demoisselles seated in a salon sulkily embroider- that work to be played before the fate of France in Pourville, near Dieppe. “I have a few ideas at gymnastics almost Swedish. They all conceal a ing, envying the scandalous laughter of mad has been decided, for she can neither laugh nor the moment,” he wrote in June from Pourville, rigorous technique beneath flowers of harmony ninths...yet I am writing this study where the at- weep while so many of our men are heroically “and, although they are not worth making a where flies are not caught with vinegar!” The tention to the sixth organizes the harmonies only facing death,” he told his publisher, Durand, fuss about, I should like to cultivate them.” composer, himself an excellent pianist, admit- with aggregates of these intervals, and it’s not concerning the projected London performance Temporarily freed from the Chopin project and ted that playing them caused him to catch his ugly! (Mea culpa...).” Oscar Thompson called the of a new ballet set to his music. Except for a the terror of the war that summer, he completed breath, “as after climbing a mountain.” He exac- next movement, For Octaves, a “valse caprice.” Berceuse Héroïque for piano composed “as a his first compositions in over 18 months—the erbated their difficulty by publishing the Études The closingÉtude of Book I (For Eight Fingers), tribute of homage to His Majesty King Albert Épigraphs antiques for piano, four hands, and En with absolutely no suggestions for fingering. “It written throughout in patterns of four notes, is I of Belgium and his soldiers,” Debussy wrote blanc et noir for two pianos. is obvious that the same fingering cannot suit meant to be played without the thumb. “It is up no new music in 1914. At the end of the year, Though illness had already begun to sap differently shaped hands,” he rationalized in the to the conscience of the performer whether or he undertook the preparation of a new edition his strength by the summer of 1915, Debussy’s introduction to the score. “‘If you want a thing not he will actually do so,” chided Jacobs. of Chopin’s works to help compensate Durand mind was filled plans for other works, the most done well, do it yourself.’ Let us then choose our The second book of Études is concerned for the regular advances he had been sending. ambitious of which was a projected set of six own fingering.” TheÉtudes remain among the with various idiomatic keyboard figurations. Debussy’s attitude toward the Chopin project sonatas for various instrumental combinations most daunting technical and artistic challenges Slithering scales are rife in For Chromatic was ambivalent. On the one hand, his admira- inspired by the old Baroque school of French in the entire piano literature, “truly music that Degrees. Of For Ornaments, the last Étude to tion for the great Polish expatriate was immense, clavecinists. (It is indicative of the artistic tem- soars to the summit of execution,” according to be completed and the longest and most com- and he noted in the introduction he eventually per of those troubled and uncertain years that the composer. plex of the set, Debussy said, “It borrows the wrote for the publication about the importance Ravel also sought to preserve the spirit of 18th- The twelve Études, Debussy’s last works for form of a barcarolle on a somewhat Italian sea.” of Chopin’s achievement, not only as a historical century France in his Le Tombeau de Couperin, piano, are divided into two books of six num- For Repeated Notes is flashing and mercurial. phenomenon and as part of the pianist’s reper- conceived in 1914. Before deciding to dedicate bers each: the first set broaches traditional Moods as well as tone colors are contrasted in tory but also as a continuing influence on con- his Études exclusively to Chopin, Debussy con- problems of technique; the second, matters of For Opposed Sonorities. Guido Gatti discovered temporary music. On the other hand, the con- sidered a joint dedication to that composer and musical figurations. Though grown from the in this music “alternations of light and shade, flicting editions and manuscript sources for the Couperin.) The first of the Sonatas, for cello and dusty but indispensable realm of piano peda- the contrast between lofty, irradiant peaks and compositions promised to tax mightily his skill, piano, was completed quickly during July and gogy, these movements soar far beyond pieces deep, shadowed abysses, opposites of sonority patience, and judgment. “The Chopin manu- August; another for flute, viola (originally oboe), merely for the practice of keyboard mechan- heard in the most profound silence. And only scripts simply terrify me,” he wrote to Durand and harp was written before the end of the year. ics in their expressive and compositional con- the chime of a bell in the distance brings an echo in February 1915. “How can three manuscripts, Surgery in December prevented him from com- tent—Paul Jacobs, one of the finest exponents of human life into the solitary mountain re- which are obviously not in Chopin’s hand, all pleting the Violin Sonata, his last important of Debussy’s piano music, called them the com- gions.” The Études close with a sweet essay titled be correct? You may be quite sure that only work, until 1917. A sonata for oboe, horn, and poser’s “most finished, perfect and yet adven- For Composite Arpeggios and the rhythmically one is...and that is where the trouble begins....” harpsichord never went beyond the planning turous [piano] pieces.” The first Étude (For Five ambiguous For Chords. Coming as they do near Drained of creative energy during that time, stage; the remainder of the projected set did not Fingers), marked sagement (“well-behaved”), is the end of Debussy’s life, Edward Lockspeiser however, he resigned himself to the assignment. get that far. inscribed to Monsieur Carl Czerny (1791–1857), noted that the Études are “perhaps the greatest of The death of his mother in March 1915 further Simultaneously with the creation of the whose School of Finger Dexterity (Op. 740!) is his piano works...representing a summary of the deepened his depression. In that same month, Cello Sonata in August and September, Debussy known to every serious student of the piano. The composer’s entire pianistic creation.” though, Debussy appeared in a recital at the undertook a series of twelve Études for solo
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Elliott Carter (1908–2012) work was decisively influenced by Charles Ives, teach music, Greek and mathematics. Following 2008: Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, and Two Thoughts About the Piano whom he met through Furness at the age of 16. a two-year retreat to New Mexico in 1941–1943 the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered The two saw each other often thereafter to play to work on his First Symphony, Carter served as Interventions for Piano and Orchestra in Boston Intermittences composed in 2005; Caténaires four-hand piano music, attend concerts, and a consultant for the Office of War Information. on December 4, 2008, and performed the work a composed in 2006. Intermittences premiered on evaluate Carter’s early creative efforts. It was Following the war, he taught at the Peabody week later in New York’s Carnegie Hall at a con- May 3, 2006, in Kalamazoo, Michigan by Peter Ives who encouraged his young friend to pursue Conservatory and Columbia University, but af- cert honoring Carter’s centenary; baritone Leigh Serkin; Caténaires premiered on December 11, music as a profession; he wrote a letter of rec- ter 1950 devoted himself principally to compo- Melrose and the Birmingham Contemporary 2006, in New York by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. ommendation to support Carter’s application to sition, balanced by a few residencies and some Music Group, conducted by Oliver Knussen, Harvard University. teaching at Yale, Cornell, Juilliard, Queens introduced the song cycle On Conversing with Elliott Carter was one of this country’s most Carter matriculated at Harvard not in the College, and Tanglewood. Paradise on June 20, 2009, at the Aldeburgh highly respected composers: winner of two music program, however, but in the English After years of working his way through Festival; Poems of Lucy Zukofsky was premiered Pulitzer Prizes (for his String Quartets Nos. 2 literature curriculum, though he took private Schoenbergian serialism, Stravinskian neoclas- at Tanglewood on August 9, 2009, by soprano and 3); holder of honorary degrees from Harvard, instruction in solfeggio and piano, regularly sicism and even New Deal Americana, Carter Lucy Shelton and clarinetist Stanley Drucker; Yale, and Princeton; member of the American attended Koussevitzky’s adventurous concerts finally arrived at his own distinctive musical the song cycle A Sunbeam’s Architecture, to texts Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters; with the Boston Symphony, and performed in language with the First String Quartet of 1951. by e. e. cummings, was premiered by tenor recipient of the Siemens Music Prize, American chamber groups in the area. His summers were The noted American composer David Schiff, a Nicholas Phan and a 19-piece ensemble in New Prix de Rome, United States National Medal spent in Munich and Salzburg studying both student of Carter at Juilliard, wrote of his teach- York on December 8, 2011. Carter completed his of Arts, and the Gold Medal of the National the modern and classical repertories. By the er’s creative personality in The Music of Elliott last work, 12 Short Epigrams for piano, in August Institute of Arts and Letters for Eminence in time he received his B.A. degree in 1930, Carter Carter: “It was out of the many contradictory 2012, four months before his 104th birthday. Music. In 1988, he was made Commandeur had determined to be a composer, and he en- forces he was experiencing that Carter chose In 2005, Carnegie Hall and the Gilmore dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the rolled in the University’s graduate program to to make his music. The conflicting claims of a International Keyboard Festival commissioned French government, and the following year he study harmony and counterpoint with Walter mechanized society and individual freedom, Carter to write Intermittences for Peter Serkin, received the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Piston, choral composition with A. T. Davison, of order and disorder, European tradition and who premiered it in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Award from the Principality of Monaco and was music history with Edward Burlingame Hill, American innovation, would not be obstacles to May 3, 2006. Carter wrote of the work, a power- named to the Classical Music Hall of Fame in and composition with Gustav Holst, who was creation but would become the subject of cre- ful series of events that range from aggressive to Cincinnati, one of only a handful of living com- visiting professor there at that time. Following ation. Each work would be a summation of op- reticent, “The many meanings that silences can posers accorded that honor. In 2009, he received his graduation in 1932, Carter studied for three posites, and each work would be a fresh start.... express in musical discourse challenged me to the Trustees Award from the Grammy Awards years with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where he Elliott Carter made music out of simultaneous use some of them in Intermittences. This title was for lifetime achievement by a non-performer. also sang in a madrigal group and conducted a oppositions. A piano accelerates to a flicker- suggested by Intermittences du Cœur, one of the The son of a successful New York City mer- chorus that he founded. The works he composed ing tremolo as a harpsichord slows to silence. chapters in Marcel Proust’s novel. It is a short chant, Carter showed extraordinary musical during those years—a string quartet, a flute so- Second violin and viola, half of a quartet, sound work that also uses many different piano sounds gifts as a youngster. He started piano lessons nata, vocal and choral pieces—were withdrawn, cold, mechanical pulses, while first violin and to convey its expressive meanings.” early, and could identify the compositions on but soon after returning home in 1935, he pro- cello, the remaining duo, play with intense ex- Of Caténaires, Carter said, “When Pierre- the family’s phonograph records by the time duced his first major compositions: incidental pressive passion. Two, three or four orchestras Laurent Aimard asked me to write a piece for he was able to read and write. His interest in music for a production of Plautus’s Mostelaria superimpose clashing, unrelated sounds. These him [in 2006], I became obsessed with the idea music, especially new music, was encouraged by the Harvard Classical Club and a commis- surface oppositions point to profound struc- of a fast, one-line piece with no chords. It be- by his teacher at Horace Mann High School, sioned score for the Ballet Caravan on the sub- tural and aesthetic polarities. The music is of- came a continuous chain of notes using differ- Clifton Furness, with whom he studied recent ject of Pocohontas. ten Apollonian and Dionysian at the same time. ent spacings, accents and colorings to produce works by Stravinsky, Poulenc, Milhaud, Casella, In 1936, Carter returned to New York, where Every aspect of the composition articulates op- a wide variety of expression.” Carter derived Hindemith, and other leading progressive com- he wrote articles for the periodical Modern posite values. The music is often at once highly the title from the concept of the “catenary,” the posers, attended concerts of such avant-gardists Music and served as music director of the Ballet structured and improvisatory; fragmented, yet curve a chain makes when suspended from its as Ives, Cowell, and Varèse, and explored such Caravan from 1937 to 1939. His compositions of unbroken. Carter has an appetite for opposites. ends. Aimard premiered Caténaires at Zankel exoticisms as Indian and Balinese music. In that time, including an English horn concerto, He is not interested in reconciling them, as a ro- Hall in New York on December 11, 2006. 1925, Carter accompanied his father on a trip an oratorio and a book of madrigals, already mantic composer would be; nor does he choose For their publication in 2009, Carter grouped to Vienna, where he purchased all the avail- show the complex rhythmic and metrical struc- to ignore them. He delights in them. Highly Intermittences and Caténaires together as Two able scores of Webern, Schoenberg and Berg so tures that became such important components charged contrasts provoke his imagination, in- Thoughts About the Piano. that he could study their revolutionary style. of his later music. In 1939, he married the sculp- spiring patterns of unprecedented complexity.” (Schoenberg’s first twelve-tone work, the Piano tor and art critic Helen Frost-Jones, and took a Carter’s remarkable creativity continued Suite, Op. 25, had just been published.) Carter’s position at St. John’s College in Annapolis to beyond his 100th birthday, on December 11,
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Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) of Zurich conferred an honorary Doctorate of with a reference in the bass near the end to the Professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Giga, Bolero e Variazione: Study after Mozart, Philosophy degree upon him in July 1919. He theme of the Giga. The brief closing Variazione, Birtwistle’s many honors include the Chevalier from An die Jugend considered making the city his permanent resi- which follows without pause, takes a metrically de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1986), the dence, but a lucrative appointment to the faculty transformed version of the Giga subject as its Grawemeyer Award from the University of Composed in 1909. Premiered on October 16, 1909, of the Prussian Academy of Arts the following thematic material. Louisville (1987), a British knighthood (1988), in London by the composer. year lured him back to Berlin, where he lived the Siemens Prize (1995), the Companion of until his death in 1924. Honour (2001), and honorary doctorates from Ferruccio Busoni was perhaps the most cosmo- Busoni codified his progressive views on Harrison Birtwistle (b. 1934) seven British universities. politan musician of the early 20th century. The the cultural and stylistic evolution of the art in Gigue Machine On commission from Carnegie Hall and son of an Italian virtuoso clarinetist father and his Outline of a New Aesthetic of Music of 1907, Cal Performances, Birtwistle composed Gigue a German pianist mother (he was fluent in both which British critic and music scholar Richard Composed in 2011. Premiered on February 2, Machine in 2011 for Nicolas Hodges, who pre- Italian and German from infancy), Busoni was Whitehouse characterized as “a then-controver- 2012, in Stuttgart, Germany, by Nicolas Hodges. miered it in Stuttgart on February 2, 2012. The born in 1866 near Florence, raised in Austria, sial manifesto for the continuing development title refers to the energetic dance that inspired studied in Leipzig, taught in Helsinki (where of musical creativity in a future of unlimited Harrison Birtwistle, born in Accrington, countless 18th-century instrumental move- his students included Jean Sibelius), Moscow possibility, a future to be achieved not by dis- Lancashire in 1934, entered the Royal ments, and Birtwistle explained how the stylistic (where he married the daughter of a Swedish owning the past but by rendering its essential Manchester College of Music in 1952 on schol- concept of Gigue Machine is rooted in Baroque sculptor), Bologna, Weimar, Boston, and New qualities anew, as a catalyst to composition in arship as a clarinetist. There he met composers contrapuntal practices: “I’m thinking of it like York, toured extensively in Europe and America, the present.” Busoni distilled his objective in Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr and a fantasia in two parts, but it’s two musics, not and chose Berlin as his residence. Such interna- the visionary quotation from his own libretto pianist John Ogdon, and together they formed two voices. It’s an interplay between something tionalism, coupled with his probing intellectu- for the 1905 opera Der Mächtige Zauberer (“The the New Music Manchester Group, which was linear and sonorous and something else that is alism, gave Busoni a breadth of vision as com- Mighty Sorcerer”) that he placed at the head largely dedicated to the performance of works by very staccato. To properly hear the distinction poser, conductor, and pianist that few musicians of the treatise: “I want to attain the unknown! Schoenberg and his followers. After leaving the between the two parts, it needs to be as severe of his time could match, but it also meant that What I already know is boundless. But I want RCM, Birtwistle served as a military bandsman as that.” When Mr. Hodges gave the British pre- he was something of an outsider everywhere, not to go even further. The final word still eludes before moving to London to study clarinet with miere of Gigue Machine at the London Proms unequivocally belonging to any single land. He me.” Nurturing future generations of musicians Reginald Kell at the Royal Academy of Music. on August 11, 2012, the reviewer for The Times therefore became a man without a comfortable was a fundamental element in Busoni’s philoso- He worked for a time as a professional clarinetist of London described it as “twelve minutes of country during World War I, since the Germans phy, and to that end he created four small vol- and taught at the Cranborne Chase School in exuberant dance meeting crazed cogwheels.” regarded him as a foreigner living in Berlin (de- umes of pieces for solo piano in the summer of Dorset, but by the mid–1960s, he had turned his English composer and critic Simon Cummings spite his having resided there for almost two de- 1909 that seek to synthesize past and present as attention principally to composition. He spent a wrote of the work’s musical nature in his blog cades) and the Italians felt that he had long since a vector for future developments; he titled them year as a visiting fellow at Princeton University 5:4, “These two musical entities [sonorous and abandoned the country of his birth. When he ap- collectively An die Jugend (“To the Youth”). in 1966, and upon his return to England found- staccato] can be heard moving around and all proached the German Embassy in Washington Volume I (Preludietto, Fughetta ed Escercizio), ed a contemporary music group—the Pierrot over each other throughout the work, which DC about arranging concerts or finding a teach- original with Busoni, couches its avant-garde Players—with Maxwell Davies. When Davies passes through an extended series of episodes, ing post in America, he was coldly refused with harmonic language in the venerable forms of assumed sole directorship of the Pierrot Players drawing on about as wide a range of moods and the excuse that the ambassador was unable to the Baroque; Volume II (Preludio, Fuga e Fuga in 1970 and changed their name to the Fires of behaviors as one could imagine. Unsurprisingly, offer aid to a citizen of a hostile nation. He had figurata) is a study based on the D major Prelude London, Birtwistle established an experimental given the title, an underlying sense of Baroque little choice but to move to neutral Switzerland, and Fugue from Book I of Bach’s The Well- ensemble, Matrix, with fellow clarinetist Alan influence is strong, which is perhaps why it often where he waited out the war in Zurich. Though Tempered Clavier; Volume IV (Introduzione e Hacker. After teaching at Swarthmore College feels like an ‘exercise’—in the sense of something he had earlier regarded Switzerland as some- Capriccio [Paganinesco]; Epilogo) draws its the- and the State University of New York at Buffalo significant being worked through, methodically thing of a cultural backwater, Busoni liked matic substance from the Caprices Nos. 11 and from 1973 to 1975, Birtwistle went back to and rigorously. An assortment of patterns and Zurich and he developed rewarding associa- 15 by Nicolò Paganini. Volume III of An die London, where he was music director of the new- processes continually rise and fall, the active in- tions there among both the Swiss and the many Jugend (Giga, Bolero e Variazione), a “Study after ly established National Theatre until 1983. He gredient in Birtwistle’s compositional formula; refugees who made the city an international Mozart,” begins with an almost literal transcrip- has also served as Composer-in-Residence with at times, the twin musics are kept apart, but haven. In Switzerland, he conducted, gave recit- tion of Mozart’s imitative Eine kleine Gigue in the London Philharmonic (1993–1998), Henry some of the work’s most engrossing passages als, read voraciously, acquired as a companion G major, K. 574, which he composed in April Purcell Professor of Music at King’s College find them interpenetrating, resulting in highly a St. Bernard dog (which he named “Giotto”), 1789 during a visit to Leipzig to meet Friedrich London (1994–2002), Endowed Chairholder in convoluted counterpoint.” and composed, most notably the one-act opera Doles, an aging pupil of Sebastian Bach and his Music Composition at University of Alabama Arlecchino, premiered in Zurich with good suc- successor as Kantor at the Thomaskirche. The School of Music (2001–2002), and Director cess on May 11, 1917. He came to be regarded next section is a free treatment of the courtly of Composition at London’s Royal Academy © 2013 Dr. Richard E. Rodda locally with such high regard that the University Fandango from Act III of The Marriage of Figaro, of Music (1997–2009); he is currently Visiting
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Nicolas Hodges was born of Wales. He will be premiering Thomas Adès’s An energetic recording artist, Mr. Hodges in London in 1970. One of Concerto in Seven Days at the Royal Festival Hall has released more than 20 CDs to wide critical the most exciting perform- in London, subsequently performing it in the Los acclaim, including Adams on Nonesuch, Carter ers of his generation, he Angeles Philharmonic’s “Green Umbrella” series on Bridge, and Gershwin on Metronome. has captivated audiences and with the Netherlands Radio Symphony, all Nicolas Hodges is represented by Opus 3 worldwide with his inter- under the composer’s direction. He also contin- Artists, 470 Park Avenue South, Ninth pretations of classical, ro- ues to appear at music festivals throughout the Floor North, New York, New York 10016: mantic, 20th-century, and world, including Tanglewood, the Edinburgh www.opus3artists.com. contemporary repertoire. Festival, the Dialogues festival in Salzburg, and Mr. Hodges’s concerto the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Marco Boggreve engagements have includ- As well as the standard repertoire, exem- ed performances with the Chicago Symphony, plified both in concerto performances and the MET Orchestra, BBC Symphony, BBC mixed recital programs (such as his program of Scottish Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata paired of London, City of Birmingham Symphony, with 20th-century works), Mr. Hodges’s com- Bamberger Symphoniker, WDR Symphony, mitment to contemporary music is second to SWR Symphony Freiburg/Baden-Baden, none. Elliott Carter’s concerto Dialogues was Helsinki Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, written for Mr. Hodges, commissioned by London Sinfonietta, Basel Sinfonietta, and the BBC. After its premiere with the London ASKO/Schoenberg Ensemble Amsterdam, under Sinfonietta under Oliver Knussen, the concerto conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Martyn was recorded for Bridge Records. He subse- Brabbins, Hans Graf, Oliver Knussen, James quently gave the U.S. premiere with the Chicago Levine, Diego Masson, Jonathan Nott, David Symphony under Daniel Barenboim and re- Robertson, Pascal Rophé, Peter Rundel, Jukka- turned to give the New York premiere with the Pekka Saraste, Leonard Slatkin, Tadaaki Otaka, MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine Pierre-André Valade, and Hans Zender. He has (followed the next season by a repeat with the been featured in many European festivals such MET Orchestra and Mr. Levine at Carnegie as Witten, Darmstadt, Berlin, Luzern, Paris Hall). His many other performances of the (Festival d’Automne), Innsbruck (Klangspuren), work, with numerous orchestras and conduc- Brussels (Ars Musica), Zurich (Tage für Neue tors, have included the French, Japan, Spanish, Musik) and Vienna (Wien Modern); at all the Portuguese, and Dutch premieres. major U.K. festivals, including the BBC Proms; Mr. Hodges maintains a close relationship in Scandinavia, Japan (Suntory Hall), and the to many of today’s most important composers. United States, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Those who have written works for him include Tully Hall, and Orchestra Hall, Chicago. Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Recent and upcoming highlights include his Sciarrino, and Beat Furrer, and he also has close recital debut at Carnegie Hall; his critically ac- working relationships with John Adams, Brian claimed debut with the New York Philharmonic Ferneyhough, Mauricio Kagel, Oliver Knussen, under David Robertson; and subscription de- Helmut Lachenmann, Olga Neuwirth, Per buts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Nørgård, and the late Jonathan Harvey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Karlheinz Stockhausen. A committed teacher, Francisco Symphony. Mr. Hodges has also re- he educates young pianists particularly in the cently performed with the St. Louis Symphony, relationship between the performance of stan- the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the dard repertoire and contemporary works; he London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta also works with young composers, attempting y Coro Nacionales de España, the Philharmonie to demystify the complexities of writing for Luxembourg, and the BBC National Orchestra the piano.
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