Sunday, December 2, 2018, 3pm Hertz Hall Shai Wosner, p iano
PROGRAM
Franz SCHUBERT (1797– 1828) Sonata in A minor, D. 845 Moderato Andante poco mosso Scherzo: Allegro vivace – Trio. Un poco più lento Rondo: Allegro vivace
SCHUBERT Sonata in D Major, D. 850, G asteiner Allegro vivace Con moto Scherzo: Allegro vivace Rondo: Allegro moderato
INTERMISSION
SCHUBERT Sonata in G Major, D. 894 Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Menuetto & Trio Allegretto
Steinway Piano
This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsor Bernice Greene. Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.
PROGRAM NOTES
Franz Schubert Linz, were among the happiest he ever knew. Sonata in A minor, D. 845 His reputation was then spreading quickly Sonata in D Major, D. 850, Gasteiner among Austrian music lovers, and everywhere Schubert’s health nearly collapsed for good dur - he went he found new friends and old admirers ing the spring of 1823, when his suffering from of his songs and piano pieces. “He looks so fit blinding headaches and vertigo became so and strong, is so full of good spirits and so acute that he had to be admitted to the Vienna friendly and communicative, that one is really General Hospital in May. His treatment for overjoyed to see it,” wrote Anton Ottenwald, his what was probably syphilis (mercury? his hair host in Linz in early July. Schubert carried the fell out and he had to wear a wig for some time manuscript of the new sonata with him that until it grew back) proved temporarily success - summer, and created much enjoyment by play - ful, but his health remained troublesome there - ing it for music lovers at his various stops. From aer. He recovered sufficiently to complete Steyr on July 25, he wrote to his parents, “What two dramatic works later that year—the opera pleased especially were the variations [i.e., sec - Fierabras (not produced until 1897) and the in - ond movement] in my new sonata, which I per - cidental music for the extravagantly eccentric formed alone and not without merit, since Wilhelmine von Chezy’s play Rosamunde (a several people assured me that piano keys be - flop at its premiere in December)—and contin - come singing voices under my fingers, which, ued composing through the following year, if true, pleases me greatly, since I cannot endure when he began to turn his attention from songs the accursed chopping in which even distin - and small piano pieces to the larger instrumen - guished pianists indulge and which delights tal forms. He spent the summer of 1824 in neither the ear or the mind.” Soon aer Schu - Zseliz in Hungary, 150 miles east of Vienna, tu - bert returned to Vienna at the beginning of toring the daughters of Count Johann Esterházy October, the recently established firm of Anton in music, and was only too glad to get back to Pennauer agreed to publish the work. e score his friends and family in Vienna in September. was issued early the following year (with a ded - ough he was subject to a rather painful lone - ication to Beethoven’s most eminent pupil and liness in Zseliz, the quiet seems to have done patron, the Archduke Rudolph, who, by 1826, his health some good, and his close friend, the had been elevated to Cardinal-Archbishop of painter Moritz von Schwind, reported that Olmütz in Moravia) as Schubert’s “Premier autumn that “Schubert is here, well and divinely Grande Sonate.” (His only other large-scale frivolous, rejuvenated by delight and a pleasant piano piece previously published was the Wan - life.” Schubert lived with his family outside the derer Fantasy of 1822.) e sonata received central city for a few months, and in February favorable notices in the important journals 1825, moved to the suburb of Wieden to be Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig) and close to Schwind, whose company he sought Allgemeiner Musikalischer Anzeiger (Frankfurt) out almost every day. It was during that spring, during the following months, the first substan - when his health had stabilized and his music tial reviews of any of his instrumental compo - was beginning to receive notice beyond the sitions. In July, he received a letter praising the limits of his native Vienna, that Schubert com - sonata from the pianist, lecturer, and editor posed his Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 845. Georg Nägeli of Zurich, inviting him to con - e A-minor Sonata of 1825 (the third he tribute a work to a new anthology of keyboard composed in that key; the earlier ones date music he was assembling. Schubert replied that from 1817 and 1823) was completed before he would be glad to participate, though noth - Schubert le for a long summer holiday in ing apparently ever came of Nägeli’s invitation. Upper Austria with the singer Johann Vogl on Such international recognition made the sum - May 20. e following four months, spent shut - mer of 1826 a time of considerable pride for tling between Steyr, Gmunden, Gastein, and Schubert, and justified his claim in an (unsuc -
Opposite: Shai Wosner. Photo by Marco Borggreve. PROGRAM NOTES
cessful) application for the post of Kapellmeister characterizes the finest compositions of Schu - at the Habsburg court that his name was known bert’s maturity. e second theme, begun in oc - “not only in Vienna, but throughout Germany.” taves, is gentler in spirit but it is broken into by Kathleen Dale noted several essential stylis - a starkly contrasting passage whose open inter - tic elements of Schubert’s piano sonatas: “For vals suggest the call of an Alphorn or perhaps a him, sheer beauty of sound was an end in itself, folksong Schubert may have heard on his and whatever his sonatas may lack in construc - mountain holiday. (Schubert almost certainly tional strength, they gain in sublimity of tonal borrowed this technique of bold, dramatic con - range, in graciousness of melody, in the unusual trast from his hero Beethoven, who was then variety of rhythmical schemes, and in the ex - immersed in writing his last quartets.) e de - quisite beauty of the pianoforte writing. In his velopment section is largely concerned with the own treatment of form, Schubert showed great motivic components of the main theme. A full ingenuity and originality, as the analyst of his recapitulation of the exposition’s materials, in - sonatas soon discovers—possibly to his sur - cluding the “Alphorn” interruption, rounds out prise; certainly to his delight.” Unlike Beetho - the movement. ven, Schubert made no attempt to redefine the e second movement is simple in con - Classical four-movement sonata structure in his struction—A–B–A–B–A—but subtle in detail. music, but sought rather to expand the genre’s e opening section is one of those endearing emotional scope through greater lyricism and wordless songs with which Schubert filled his more far-flung harmonic peregrinations, qual - instrumental creations; the “B” episode is sub - ities much in evidence in this sonata. e open - tly syncopated and more animated in nature. ing movement, sweetly nostalgic rather than Both are elaborated on their returns, and then heroically tragic, follows a leisurely sonata form: joined together in the final section, with the the first theme is marked by a snapping orna - “A” melody urged on by the syncopated “B” mental mordent, the second by a brief repeated- rhythms. e Scherzo combines Schubert’s in - note pattern. e Andante is a set of variations, nate lyricism and his love of playing dance the only such movement in Schubert’s sonatas, music for his friends with sterner dramatic based on the ingratiating melody heard imme - touches, as though a cloud were passing across diately at the beginning. A scherzo of wide the sun; the central trio, with its smoothly flow - dynamic and harmonic range and a breathless ing chord streams, is a virtual compendium of rondo round out this handsome creation. Schubert’s harmonic inventiveness. e closing • • • Rondo is based on a theme of delightful naïveté In June 1825, during his extended summer whose returns, oen wound about with delicate vacation in Upper Austria, Schubert settled in counterpoint, are separated by passages of com - Gastein, a then-fashionable Alpine resort famed plementary character. for its mineral baths. It was in that idyllic set - ting that he composed his Piano Sonata in Sonata No. 18 in G Major, D. 894 D Major, D. 850. e score was published the On January 31, 1827, Franz Schubert turned 30. following year, one of the growing number of He had been following a bohemian existence in compositions that he correctly claimed were Vienna for over a decade, making barely more making his name widely known, though his than a pittance from the sale and performance enjoyment of his burgeoning renown was of his works and living largely by the generosity abruptly cut short by his death two years later, of his friends, a devoted band of music-lovers at the pitiable age of 31. who rallied around his convivial personality e spacious first movement of the D-Major and exceptional talent. e pattern of Schubert’s Sonata opens with a main theme comprising daily life was firmly established by that time: a determined rising motive in short repeated composition in the morning; long walks or notes and a lithe response in triplet scales, both visits in the aernoon; companionship for wine nested in the fluid harmonic language that and song in the evening. e routine was bro -
PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES ken by occasional trips into the countryside to and Impromptus —that he created during the stay with friends or families of friends. A curi - last months of his brief life. ous dichotomy marked Schubert’s personality Robert Schumann called the Piano Sonata in during those final years of his life, one that G Major (D. 894), completed in October 1826, suited well the Romantic image of the inspired “Schubert’s most perfect work, in both form artist, rapt out of quotidian experience to carry and conception.” e score was published in back to benighted humanity some transcendent April 1827 as Schubert’s Op. 78 by the Viennese vision. “Anyone who had seen him only in the firm of Tobias Haslinger with a dedication to morning, in the throes of composition, his eyes Joseph von Spaun, a fellow student of Schubert shining, speaking, even, another language, will at the School of the Court Chapel in Vienna never forget it—though in the aernoon, to be who became a life-long friend, supporter, and sure, he became another person,” recorded one frequent host of the convivial “Schubertiads” at friend. e duality in Schubert’s character was which the composer’s friends assembled to par - reflected in the sharp swings of mood marking take of the latest blossoms of his creativity. both his psychological makeup and his creative e sonata’s opening statement is floating, work. “If there were times, both in his social re - ethereal, and luminous, a Schubertian counter - lationships and his art, when the Austrian char - part to the rapt timelessness of some of Bee - acter appeared all too violently in the vigorous thoven’s finest slow movements. e music and pleasure-loving Schubert,” wrote his friend takes on a greater urgency as its sonata form the dramatist Eduard von Bauernfeld, “there unfolds, mounting to moments of high drama were also times when a black-winged demon in the development section, but reasserting its of sorrow and melancholy forced its way into abiding halcyon state with the recapitulation. his vicinity; not altogether an evil spirit, it is e Andante, evidence that Schubert had per - true, since, in the dark concentrated hours, it fected a sublime melding of his vocal and in - oen brought out songs of the most agonizing strumental gis by his 29th year, is an extended beauty.” e ability to mirror his own fluctuat - song without words in alternating stanzas: A– ing feelings in his compositions—the darken - B–A–B–A. e Menuetto, actually a vigorous ing cloud momentarily obscuring the bright Austrian Ländler rather than a descendent of sunlight—is one of Schubert’s most remarkable the courtly 18th-century dance, is a reminder and characteristic achievements, and touches that Schubert wrote more practical dance pieces indelibly the incomparable series of works—the for the piano—over 400—than any other species Great Symphony in C Major; Winterreise ; the of composition, save only solo songs. e finale late piano sonatas, String Quintet, piano trios, is a spacious rondo of sun-dappled geniality. —© 2018 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Shai Wosner (piano ) has attracted interna - sonatas, which he describes as “thick novels, tional recognition for his exceptional artistry, rich with insight about the human condition.” musical integrity, and creative insight. His Along with today’s performance, recitals take performances of a broad range of repertoire— place at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, and in from Beethoven and Schubert to Ligeti and Buffalo (NY), Fresno, and Cambridge (MA). the music of today—reflect a degree of virtu - Wos ner also performs works from his latest osity and intellectual curiosity that has made solo recording— Impromptu (Onyx Classics), him a favorite among audiences and critics. featuring an eclectic mix of improvisationally Wosner continues his career-long, critically inspired works by composers from Beethoven acclaimed engagement with Schubert’s music and Schubert to Gershwin and Ives—in Saint in his latest recital series, Schubert: e Great Paul and elsewhere. His concerto perform - Sonatas, comprising the composer’s six final ances include appearances with the Detroit
ABOUT THE ARTIST
and Toronto symphony orchestras (Mozart’s Wosner is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Concerto No. 21); the Jerusalem Symphony Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Orchestra (Brahms’ Concerto No. 2), and Grant, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award—a the Alabama and Wichita Falls symphony prize he used to commission Michael Hersch’s orchestras, Musikalische Akademie of the concerto Along the Ravines , which he per - National eater Orchestra Mannheim, and formed with the Seattle Symphony and the Syracuse’s Symphoria (Schumann’s Piano Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. He was in Concerto). His chamber music collaborations residence with the BBC as a New Generation include a six-city US tour with Orion Weiss Artist and is a former member of Lincoln playing works for four hands and two pianos Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS by Schubert and Brahms with David Lang’s Two). For several summers, Wosner was in - companion pieces gravity and aer gravity ; volved in the West-Eastern Divan Workshop and performances with the Emerson Quartet led by Daniel Barenboim and toured as soloist for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. In Cen ter, New York Philharmonic musicians at the United States, he has appeared with the David Geffen Hall, cellist Stephen Isserlis and orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Berkeley, violinist Laura Frautschi as part of Orpheus Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Chamber Orchestra’s Twilight at Tarisio se - Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, ries; and violinist Jennifer Koh in a Bridge to and San Francisco, and the Saint Paul and Los Beethoven concert on Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Angeles chamber orchestras. Wosner has also Concert Series. performed with the Barcelona Symphony, In addition to Impromptu , Wosner’s record - Bournemouth Symphony, Frankfurt Radio ings for Onyx include concertos and capric - Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, LSO cios by Haydn and Ligeti with the Danish St. Luke’s, National Arts Centre Orchestra, National Symphony conducted by Nicholas Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Orchestre Collon; solo works by Brahms and Schoen - National de Belgique, Staatskapelle Berlin, berg; works by Schubert, both on a solo and the Vienna Philharmonic, among others. recording and paired with new commissions Born in Israel, Wosner studied piano with from Missy Mazzoli; and Beethoven’s com - Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well plete works for cello and piano with Ralph as composition, theory, and improvisation Kirsh baum. He also performs Bartók, Janá - with André Hajdu, and at the Juilliard School ček, and Kurtág on a recording with Jennifer with Emanuel Ax. Koh for Cedille. For more information, please visit his fan page on Facebook, as well as shaiwosner.com.
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PLAYBILL