MURRAY PERAHIA Largo – Allegro – Allegro Risoluto APRIL14 / 7:30 PM BING CONCERT HALL
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PROGRAM Joseph Haydn: Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6 (1793) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Sonata in A Minor, K. 310 (1778) Allegro maestoso – Common time Andante cantabile con espressione Presto Johannes Brahms: Late Piano Music Ballade in G Minor, op. 118, no. 3 (1893) Intermezzo in C Major, op. 119, no. 3 (1893) Intermezzo in E Minor, op. 119, no. 2 (1893) Intermezzo in A Major, op. 118, no. 2 (1893) Capriccio in D Minor, op. 116, no. 1 (1892) INTERMISSION Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, op. 106, Hammerklavier (1817–18) Allegro Scherzo – Assai vivace PROGRAM: Adagio sostenuto MURRAY PERAHIA Largo – Allegro – Allegro risoluto APRIL14 / 7:30 PM BING CONCERT HALL ARTIST Murray Perahia, piano We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum. Murray Perahia appears by arrangement with IMG Artists: 7 W. 54 St. New York, NY 10019 PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones, pagers, and watch alarms, and unwrap all lozenges prior to the performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you. 30 STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2016 PROGRAM: MURRAY PERAHIA JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809) tragic music, unprompted by external events. Although Brahms stays in a reflective VARIATIONS IN F MINOR, HOB. XV11:6 Still, Mozart used minor keys sparingly, and mood at this time, the discipline behind his (1793) it is perhaps no coincidence that his only late 20 pieces, what he referred to as his mature minor-key violin sonata also dates “miniatures,” is rigorous. There’s a unifying Joseph Haydn wrote these dramatic, from 1778, the year of this piece. Both were fiery opening and closing capriccio in beautifully crafted Variations in 1793 for written during Mozart’s six-month stay in D minor in the Op. 116 Phantasien (Mr. Barbara von Ployer, daughter of a Viennese Paris. It was an unhappy time. Parisians Perahia’s selection closes with the first of court official and one of Mozart’s most gifted were more interested in themselves than these), for example, and in a later sequence pupils. It was his first significant piano work in the music of a youthful Salzburger who of three reflective intermezzos in the same after he returned to Vienna from the first of was looking for work. He was separated key. Subtle, underlying thematic relationships two London trips. So elegiac and magisterial from Aloysia Weber, the young soprano he often lie hidden below the surface of these are the Variations that it is not inconceivable thought he was in love with. The final blow late masterworks. But Brahms’ primary that they were intended as an indirect tribute came less than three weeks before Mozart intention is not to produce unified cycles of to Mozart himself, Haydn’s younger friend completed the sonata. His mother died piano pieces after the manner of many of and colleague who had died less than two unexpectedly, in miserable circumstances. Schumann’s piano works. His titles (ballade, years earlier. Structured in double variation Although still in his early 20s, Mozart had capriccio, fantasia, Klavierstücke—or “piano form, two themes are followed by two experienced the emotional depths he was piece”—intermezzo, rhapsody, Romanze) variations of increasing complexity on each beginning to express in his music. imply a freedom from highly structured theme, alternating minor-key poignancy form, while exploiting the maximum contrast with brighter major-key rhapsody. With the between the more dramatic and the more return of the theme in its original, starkly JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897) inward-looking music. In the Op. 116 set, this vivid form, the music appears to have come BALLADE IN G MINOR, OP. 118, largely comes through the juxtaposition of full circle. Then, in an extended coda, Haydn NO. 3 (1893) the fanciful, more extrovert capriccios with caps his Variations with further chromatic INTERMEZZO IN C MAJOR, OP. 119, the reflective, introspective intermezzos. development, powerful right-hand octaves, NO. 3 (1893) With the Op. 119 collection, three gentle crossing of the hands, and dramatic harmonic INTERMEZZO IN E MINOR, OP. 119, yet wide-ranging intermezzos complement surprises. Haydn titled these Variations NO. 2 (1893) a more intense rhapsody. The second Sonata in his autograph score and Un INTERMEZZO IN A MAJOR, OP. 118, intermezzo reveals great economy of means piccolo divertimento in Barbara von Ployer’s NO. 2 (1893) as Brahms builds an entire piece from its dedicatory copy, but they are also often known CAPRICCIO IN D MINOR, OP. 116, first half dozen right-hand notes, which as Andante con variazioni. NO. 1 (1892) transform to a graceful waltz in its middle section. An even shorter idea generates the In what he keenly felt as the autumnal years C-Major Intermezzo, in which just four notes, WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART of his life, Johannes Brahms was no longer emerging from a middle voice, ingeniously (1756–1791) the virtuoso pianist of his youth with the evolve into a sequence of variations on the PIANO SONATA IN A MINOR, K. 310 stamina to give powerhouse performances. idea, all of which capriciously float away into (1778) He was in a reflective frame of mind, the clouds as the piece ends. From the Six writing some of his loveliest, gentlest, Piano Pieces, op. 118, the G-Minor Ballade The driving A-minor chords at the beginning most enduring compositions. “He seemed is robust and incisive in its outer sections, of this sonata herald an urgency that was to mutter into his own beard,” one of his casting a glance backward to the youthful new to Mozart’s keyboard composition. earliest biographers said. “The whole man vigour of Brahms’ earlier keyboard music. The music is taut and purposeful, its rhythm was in the performance.” Brahms had, by The A-Major Intermezzo is a piece of gentle insistent. The angular phrases and the now, reached 60. His attention turned to beauty and moments of aching lucidity. dissonances of the harmony have a tragic ring four collections of short, intimate piano Externally, it follows the customary A-B-A to them. Although the tension eases in the pieces (Opp. 116 to 119). Their music speaks pattern of the majority of the late pieces. Andante, an undercurrent of questioning and the language of the end of an era rather Internally, though, the music is intricately agitation refuses to be quieted. than its beginning. Their construction interrelated. “Your piano pieces…are not only reflects a lifetime of study and practical reflections on the past,” Brahms’ friend, the What caused Mozart to write music of such application of the entire available literature Bach biographer Philipp Spitta, perceptively intensity? On occasion, he simply wrote of Western classical music. wrote to the composer, “but also prophetic 32 STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2016 of the future. I believe I understand you slow movement, on the other hand, opens worked closely with Benjamin Britten and correctly in venturing the opinion that you up huge new horizons, unrestrained by any Peter Pears, accompanying the latter in many wanted to hint at something of the sort with conventions of sonata writing. Technically, its lieder recitals. Mr. Perahia was co–artistic the intermezzos.” working has something in common with an director of the festival from 1981 to 1989. operatic aria. Structurally, the movement is sonata form—though on a scale that gives it Mr. Perahia began the 2015–16 season in LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN a claim to being the largest single movement London and Japan, performing Mozart and (1770–1827) in the classical sonata repertoire. It reaches Beethoven with the London Symphony PIANO SONATA NO. 29 IN B-FLAT tragic depths before Beethoven cuts loose the Orchestra under Bernard Haitink. Later in MAJOR, OP. 106, HAMMERKLAVIER anchor and enters a free recitative-like passage the fall, he undertook a Beethoven project (1817–18) that is at once disorientating and ominous. In with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, it, descending from one key to another, we get playing on and conducting all five piano For a decade, after he first arrived in a glimpse of the majestic three-part fugue that concertos. His spring 2016 tour of North Vienna, Beethoven was recognized as an is to crown the four movements of the sonata. America includes performances with the exhilarating pianist: a virtuoso who could The action is furious, as though the full weight Boston Symphony Orchestra under Bernard excite the senses by the sheer conviction of of the work is now being hammered out in its Haitink and recitals in Portland, Oregon; his playing. Beethoven, however, was not contrapuntal exchanges. The jagged edges, Seattle, Washington; Palo Alto, Berkeley, and a tidy performer; he snapped more piano plunging leaps, and ferocious demands on La Jolla, California; Los Angeles’ Walt Disney strings than any other concert musician of the stamina of the pianist all contribute to the Concert Hall; Durham, North Carolina; his time. The Hammerklavier, completed by relentless energy of the music. A brief, serene Bethesda, Maryland; Montreal, Canada; and 1818, could have done some serious damage ray of light punctuates the maelstrom before New York’s Lincoln Center. to his piano. Epic in scale, Beethoven’s the arguments resume, unforgiving in their largest piano sonata is longer than any of his intensity, ultimately proclaiming the triumph of Mr. Perahia has a wide and varied symphonies except for the Eroica and the will over adversity. discography. Sony Classical has issued a Ninth. The power of its rhetoric is vast, too, —© 2016, Keith Horner special boxed-set edition of all his recordings as Beethoven plunges the music to extremes including several DVDs entitled The First of keyboard register, dynamics, and complex MURRAY PERAHIA 40 Years.