Mitsuko Uchida, Piano

Streaming Premiere – Thursday, March 18, 2021, 7pm Mitsuko Uchida, piano Filmed exclusively for Cal Performances at Wigmore Hall in London, England on January 5, 2021. PROGRAM Franz Schubert (1797–1828) From Four Impromptus, D. 935 No. 2 in A-flat major, Allegretto From Four Impromptus, D. 899 No. 1 in C minor, Allegro molto moderato Piano Sonata in G major, D. 894, Fantasie Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Menuetto: Allegro moderato – Trio Allegretto The Cal Performances at Home Spring 2021 season is dedicated to Gail and Dan Rubinfeld, leading supporters of Cal Performances and the well-being of our artists for almost 30 years. Major support provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Nadine Tang and Bruce Smith. Note: following its premiere, the video recording of this concert will be available on demand through June 16, 2021. 1 PROGRAM NOTES The Multifaceted Schubert: For this program, Uchida brings into play Mitsuko Uchida’s Preoccupation of a Lifetime still another of Schubert’s seeming “contra- “I’m afraid there are moments in life when even dictions”: the composer of the stand-alone Schubert has nothing to say to us,” remarks miniature versus the long form from Classical Madame Merle during her entrance scene in tradition. The first is linked for many with Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. “We must Schu bert’s matchless gift as a songwriter and, admit, however, that they are our worst.” for a long time, eclipsed his achievements in the Isabel, the novel’s young protagonist—who larger genres associated with his great contem- will become the victim of Madame Merle’s porary, Beethoven: genres like the sonata, sym- machinations—initially finds herself spell- phony, and string quartet. bound when she encounters her new acquain- Less than a century ago, in the 1920s, the tance for the first time, performing “something likes of Sergei Rachmaninoff admitted that was of Schubert’s” (she recognizes the composer but unaware that Schubert had even written piano can’t specify the piece). The soundtrack of Jane sonatas. Campion’s 1996 film adaptation, in which Bar - bara Hershey plays the older woman, gives an Charming, Deceiving, Gripping: identity to the music: it’s one of Schubert’s Two Schubert Impromptus Impromptus. Indeed, the film turns Schubert One of the advocates who first began to rescue into an accompanying presence who implicitly Schubert from obscurity, Robert Schumann, comments on the unfolding story; later, it cites became fascinated by the tension between the composer’s Death and the Maiden Quartet the improvisatory-seeming freedom of the to accompany Isabel’s agitated state of mind. shorter pieces and Schubert’s approach to ar- Schubert somehow accommodates these chitecture on the grand scale: he coined his fa- contradictions. Until well into the last century— mous remark about “heavenly length” in especially with regard to his piano music— reference to the newly rediscovered “Great” Schubert’s signature for many seemed limited C major Sym phony. to an alluring gift for melody. His lyrical rich- Schumann biographer John Daverio argues ness betokened a spontaneous yet “naive” com- that Schubert suggested a kind of liberation to poser. Such traits were seen as essentially the Romantics by showing that “Beethoven’s harmless and gemütlich and deflected from his path was not the only path to grandeur and music’s emotional complexity and ambitious— sublimity in the larger instrumental genres.” at times even revolutionary—vision. Schubert’s alternate path involved not only Alfred Brendel discards the sentimentalizing “heavenly length” but an “inimitable melan- image from the past and homes in on the ambi- choly and wistfulness” that we can likewise lo- guity at the heart of Schubert when he likens the cate in his shorter works. composer to a wanderer and sleepwalker. “To An aphorism from 1798 by Friedrich wander is the Romantic condition; one yields to Schlegel crystallized an idea that would be it enraptured or is driven and plagued by the ter- seized on by the early generation of Romantic ror of finding no escape. More often than not, composers, in particular Schumann and Cho - happiness is but the surface of despair.” pin: “A fragment should be like a little work of Mitsuko Uchida, too, has for many years art, complete in itself and separated from proved herself to be among our most sympa- the rest of the universe like a hedgehog.” thetic interpreters of Schubert. Her sense of Though in an entirely different context and connection with the composer is profound and alluding to an ancient Greek fragment, the goes back to her early childhood, when she re- philosopher Isaiah Berlin later made the hedge- calls being particularly drawn to the melody- hog an emblem of a type of systematic artist become-folksong “Der Lindenbaum” (from who “knows one big thing,” as opposed to the Winterreise). fox, who “knows many things.” Opposite: Mitsuko Uchida. Photo by Justin Pumfrey. 3 PROGRAM NOTES The pianist and scholar Charles Rosen elab- short-form pieces were likely intended for orates on this image of the hedgehog (in himself to perform at the intimate Schu - German, “Igel”): because it “rolls itself into a bertiads, where like-minded friends would ball when alarmed,” the hedgehog has a form gather to enjoy music and company. that is “well-defined and yet blurred at the When the D. 935 set finally did get published, edges. This spherical shape, organic and ide- Schumann wrote a review in which he objected ally geometrical, suited Romantic thought: to the term “impromptu” insofar as it implies a above all, the image projects beyond itself in a hastily tossed-off improvisation, something in- provocative way.” In similar fashion, continues tended only for the moment. Instead, Schu - Rosen, the “Romantic fragment” is “separate mann suggests that Schubert really intended to from the rest of the universe [yet] suggests dis- compose a sonata, singling out No. 1 (in F tant perspectives.” minor) as the “perfectly executed and self- Near the end of his tragically brief career, contained” first movement of a sonata and Schubert composed some of the most inspired No. 2 (in A-flat major)as the corresponding exemplars of the miniature form in his series of second movement, while No. 4 (in F minor) Impromptus and Moments musicaux for solo would perhaps constitute the finale. “Schubert’s piano. These essays on an intimate (as opposed friends must know whether or not he com- to epic) scale had the force of a revelation for pleted the sonata,” he notes. Schumann, who observed: “[W]e discover The A-flat major Impromptu is in the ABA Schubert anew as we recognize him in his in- form familiar from song or the minuet (with a exhaustible moods, and as he charms, deceives, contrasting central section or trio in the case and then grips us.” of a dance movement). A sense of contrast en- In the fall and winter of 1827, with less than ters into the main section as well, which for its a year to live, Schubert completed two sets of part is differentiated from the flowing triplet four Impromptus each (D. 899 and 935). Only texture of the trio. The piece’s overall mood, two of these (from the first set) appeared in as Schu mann aptly characterizes it, is tranquil print right away; the rest were all published at and introspective. various points after the composer’s death. The Impromptu in C minor, No. 1 of the Schubert did not invent the idea of the im- D. 899 set, begins with a dramatically sustained promptu. The Bohemian composer Jan Václav unison, from which a march theme emerges, Vořišek published a set for piano in 1821—in somewhat subdued at first. It unfolds as a kind turn linked to short pieces by his teacher, Václav of miniature double variation or even rondo: Tomášek—which are often cited as a possible the first theme, a somewhat grimly determined musical influence. But the term “impromptu” march, acquires a more violent accompaniment is something of a misnomer anyway. It was by the end. But it yields to a beguiling lyricism initially imposed by the publisher of Vořišek’s in its counterpart version as the second theme. pieces as well as by Schubert’s publisher. Oscillating with Schubertian ambivalence Schubert acquiesced to this name and then between major and minor in the coda, the used it for the D. 935 set. But the latter was Impromptu reaches its conclusion in C major. deemed “too difficult for trifles” and rejected; it appeared in print only in 1839. From the “A Dichotomy of Harsh Reality publisher’s perspective, “impromptu” was and Beautiful Dreams”: meant to signal something suited to the newly The Piano Sonata in G major, D. 894 emerging market of amateur, middle-class Schubert had a considerably different rela- pianists: modestly demanding character tionship to the keyboard than did two of his pieces, in other words, and certainly not the greatest idols, Mozart and Beethoven. While remarkably original examples Schubert was they used the instrument to establish their producing. From Schubert’s perspective, these respective reputations as virtuosos, Schubert 4 PROGRAM NOTES most likely did not even own one; in any what was the precursor to the Vienna Boys’ case, he was not in their league as a concer- Choir. Spaun became an important friend until tizing pianist. Those who heard him at in- the end of his life and offered financial and formal music gatherings praised the singing moral support; it was at his home that the final quality and sensitive touch of Schubert’s Schubertiad was held on January 28, 1828, at- playing, but they noted weaknesses in his tracting “an enormous attendance” (according technique.

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