Program – Friday 17 April 2020
Great Russian Romantic Piano Sonatas
Konstantin Shamray piano
Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 80 Pyotr Tchaikovsky Allegro con fuoco Andante Scherzo: Allegro vivo Allegro vivo
Sonata No. 2 in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 “sonata-fantasia” Alexander Scriabin Andante Presto
Short Interval
Sonata in E minor, Op. 25 No. 2 "Night Wind" Nikolai Medtner Introduzione: Andante con moto. - Allegro Allegro molto sfrenatamente, presto
The Russian piano sonata is a surprisingly modern phenomenon compared to its Western- European counterparts with few substantial works appearing before the late 1800s. Until this time tastes seemed to favour ballets, operas and symphonic works, however, in the late romantic period the genre blossomed and proliferated. One of the first prominent examples in the Russian repertoire is Tchaikovsky’s Grande Sonata, op 37 which was premiered, to great acclaim, in 1879 by Nikolai Rubinstein. While this was his first published sonata, the composer had made two earlier attempts at the form including his Sonata in C-sharp minor, which was composed in 1865 the year of his graduation from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After his death from Cholera in 1893, it was found amongst his papers and was subsequently edited for publication by the Russian composer and pedagogue Sergey Taneyev (a close friend and former student of Tchaikovsky). This accounts for the late opus number of the C sharp minor Piano Sonata, which, nonetheless, antedates his Op 1. The first movement, Allegro con fuoco, opens with a striking motif consisting of a chord repeated marcato five times while the arching second theme strongly evokes Tchaikovsky's then-idol, Robert Schumann. The Andante is in 3/4 time, consisting of a halting, simple theme (interrupted occasionally by odd little runs) and four variations. The first is march-like, the second full of ornate right-hand figurations, the third a chordal proclamation, and the fourth an indistinct mumble from which the theme emerges mischievously in a high register at the end. The Scherzo is familiar music; Tchaikovsky would incorporate it into his First Symphony the following year. The main theme is snappy and restless contrasting with the florid, weaving trio. After the obligatory repeat of the opening section, an extended sombre epilogue forms a bridge to the final movement. The Allegro vivo is essentially in sonata form and begins with a turbulent theme that makes way for a more chordal but still aggressive second subject, marked (rather contradictorily) Tranquillo ma energico. The two themes undergo a vigorous development building to an exciting conclusion in the major key.
Strange, obsessive, enigmatic, uncanny – adjectives swarm around the music of Scriabin, although much of his music is still unfamiliar to concert audiences. He has been labelled a mystic, a megalomaniac, and a visionary. The eerie trills and atonal disjunctions of his later works, the outwardly improvisatory, though minutely calculated, structures of his mature piano sonatas, and the gigantic colour-imbued orchestral pieces have all contributed to this reputation. However, the earliest phase of Scriabin’s career, from which today’s program draws, gives a different impression. Scriabin was a classmate of that ultimate romantic Sergei Rachmaninoff at the Moscow Conservatory where he received rigorous training in composition and piano until graduating in 1892. His early works represent the continuation of a heritage defined by figures such as Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Chopin. In his mature years, the composer devised a system in which each musical key was associated with a specific colour, going so far as to include in the score of his last tone poem, Prometheus, a part for a (yet to be invented) keyboard which would project illuminated colours into the performing space. This fascination with colour is found even in his youthful correspondence. Just out of his teens and in the year of his graduation, Scriabin travelled to the Baltic coast and had his first unforgettable encounter with the sea. In a letter to his sweetheart he wrote: “Everything glowed with magnificent majesty on the horizon. First a clear purple, then it turned rose-colored, and finally silvery flecks stained the surface of the sea…. The green of the sea blended with the blue reflection of the sky. There was such a play of colors and shades as I've never seen. It was a picture, a triumph of colors, a festival of truth.” It was also the inspiration for his Second Sonata, though it would be another five years and several more ocean-side trips before the fastidious composer would send a completed manuscript to his impatient publisher. In 1897 the Sonata was published with the title Sonata- Fantasie. Scriabin provided his own description of the two-movement work: “…the first movement represents the quiet of a southern night on the seashore; the development is the dark agitations of the deep, deep sea. The E-major middle section shows caressing moonlight coming after the first darkness of the night. The second movement, Presto, represents the vast expanse of ocean stormily agitated.” In the color scheme Scriabin would devise later, the key of E major is a light cool blue.
Nikolai Medtner was a younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin and while he never attained the popular recognition of these musical giants, his work was championed and admired by his peers. Composer Nikolai Myaskovsky wrote to his colleague Prokofiev “You missed a unique pleasure hearing Medtner. I have come to the conviction that his is a colossal talent of the strongest and most precious kind. His last sonata in E minor is a masterpiece.” While at a performance of the same work in 1916, Rachmaninoff (the sonatas dedicatee) is said to have applauded “until the lights were put out” Medtner’s Sonata in E minor is the composer’s most extended work in the genre, a monumental epic which taxes to the full the capacities of performer and listener alike and which some have claimed to be the greatest piano sonata of the twentieth century. It is headed by an epigraph from Tyutchev’s poem Silentium, in which the poet sees chaos as man’s natural inheritance:
What are you wailing about, night wind, what are you bemoaning with such fury? What does your strange voice mean, now indistinct and plaintive, now loud? In a language intelligible to the heart you speak of torment past understanding, and you moan and at times stir up frenzied sounds in the heart! Oh, do not sing those fearful songs about primeval, native Chaos! How avidly the world of the soul at night listens to its favourite story! It strains to burst out of the mortal breast and longs to merge with the Infinite … Oh, do not wake the sleeping tempests; beneath them Chaos stirs! The work is divided into two thematically linked Allegro movements, their general character seemingly corresponding to the two stanzas of the poem. The first movement is in sonata form and its structural divisions are marked by a repeated descending triplet figure, which opens the work like a call to attention. The Allegro section is perhaps the most extended piece of music in 15/8 time in existence. Its first theme grows out of the material of the introduction with an undercurrent of propulsive energy while the second subject is hushed, calm and reflective. The second movement, marked molto sfrenatamente (unrestrained, wildly), is a fantasy based on the material of the sonata’s introduction. It rushes along in headlong torrent, pushing the expressive resources of the piano to the limit. There is little respite from this nightmarish frenzy, for even in the interludes an undercurrent of anxiety is always present. In the coda, fragments of themes are heard over a tonic pedal and the scene of chaos gradually fades from view as the music vanishes into thin air with two swirling arpeggios.
Russian pianist Konstantin Shamray commenced his studies at the age of six in the city of Kemerovo with Natalia Knobloch. He then studied in Moscow at the Russian Gnessin School of Music and the Gnessin Academy of Music with Professors Tatiana Zelikman and Vladimir Tropp, and the Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg, Germany with Professor Tibor Szasz. In 2008, Konstantin won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. He is the first and only competitor to date in the 40 years of the competition to win both First and People’s Choice Prizes, in addition to six other prizes. Konstantin also won First Prize at the 2011 Klavier Olympiade in Bad Kissingen, Germany and performed numerous times at the Kissinger Sommer Festival. In July 2013, following chamber recitals with Alban Gerhardt and Feng Ning, he was awarded the festival’s coveted Luitpold Prize for ‘Outstanding Musical Achievements’. Konstantin’s extensive concert career encompasses Russia, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and China. He has performed with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Russian National Philharmonic, Moscow Virtuosi, Orchestre National de Lyon, Prague Radio Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony amongst others; under the baton of distinguished conductors including Vladimir Spivakov, Dmitry Liss, Tugan Sokhiev, Nicholas Milton and Alexandr Vedernikov. His chamber music partners have included the Australian String Quartet, Kristof Barati, Alban Gerhardt, Johannes Moser, Li Wei Qin and Andreas Brantelid amongst others. He has enjoyed critical acclaim at Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Bochum Festival in Germany, Mariinsky International Piano Festival and White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, Musica Viva Sydney and Huntington Festivals, Coriole Chamber Music Festival and the Adelaide Festival. Konstantin has recorded CDs for labels Naxos, ABC Classics, Fonoforum and Artaria. As of 2020, Konstantin is Lecturer in Piano at the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide.