Sunday, March 12, 2017, 3pm Hertz Hall ,

PROGRAM

Franz SCHUBERT (1797 –1828) Sonata in G Major, D. 894 Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Menuetto: Allegro moderato – Trio Allegretto

INTERMISSION

Timo ANDRES (b. 1985) Heavy Sleep (2013)

Gabriel KAHANE (b. 1981) Works on Paper (2016, West Coast Premiere) Death to Advertising Veda (Paraphrase) The New Sincerity Auld Reel

Frédéric CHOPIN (1810 –1849) Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 Allegro maestoso Scherzo: Molto vivace Largo Finale: Presto non tanto

Jeffrey Kahane appears by arrangement with CM Artists.

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2016/17 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. PROGRAM NOTES

Sonata in G Major, D. 894 trios, the Impromp tus—that he created during the last months of his brief life. On January 31, 1827, Franz Schubert turned 30 Robert Schumann called the Piano Sonata in years old. He had been following a bohemian G Major (D. 894), completed in October 1826, existence in Vienna for over a decade, making “Schubert’s most perfect work, in both form barely more than a pittance from the sale and and conception.” The score was published in performance of his works and living largely by April 1827 as Schubert’s Op. 78 by the Viennese the generosity of his friends, a devoted band of firm of Tobias Haslinger with a dedication to music-lovers who rallied around his convivial Joseph von Spaun, a fellow student of Schubert personality and exceptional talent. The pattern at the School of the Court Chapel in Vienna of Schubert’s daily life was firmly established by who became a life-long friend, supporter, and that time: composition in the morning; long frequent host of the convivial “Schubertiads” at walks or visits in the afternoon; companionship which the composer’s friends assembled to for wine and song in the evening. The routine partake of the latest blossoms of his creativity. was broken by occasional trips into the coun - Kathleen Dale noted several essential stylistic tryside to stay with friends or families of friends. elements of Schubert’s piano sonatas: “For him, A curious dichotomy marked Schu bert’s per - sheer beauty of sound was an end in itself, and sonality during those final years of his life, one whatever his sonatas may lack in constructional that suited well the Romantic image of the in - strength, they gain in sublimity of tonal range, spired artist, rapt out of quotidian experience in graciousness of melody, in the unusual vari - to carry back to benighted humanity some ety of rhythmical schemes, and in the exquisite transcendent vision. “Anyone who had seen beauty of the pianoforte writing. In his own him only in the morning, in the throes of treatment of form, Schubert showed great composition, his eyes shining, speaking, even, ingenuity and originality, as the analyst of his another language, will never forget it—though sonatas soon discovers—possibly to his sur - in the afternoon, to be sure, he became another prise; certainly to his delight.” person,” recorded one friend. The duality in Unlike Beethoven, Schubert made no at - Schubert’s character was reflected in the sharp tempt to redefine the Classical four-movement swings of mood marking both his psychologi - sonata structure in his music, but sought rather cal makeup and his creative work. “If there to expand the genre’s emotional scope through were times, both in his social relationships and greater lyricism and more far-flung harmonic his art, when the Austrian character appeared peregrinations, qualities much in evidence in all too violently in the vigorous and pleasure- the G-Major Sonata. The work’s opening state - loving Schubert,” wrote his friend the dramatist ment is floating, ethereal, and luminous, a Eduard von Bauernfeld, “there were also times Schubertian counterpart to the rapt timeless - when a black-winged demon of sorrow and ness of some of Beethoven’s finest slow move - melancholy forced its way into his vicinity; not ments. The music takes on a greater urgency as altogether an evil spirit, it is true, since, in the its sonata form unfolds, mounting to moments dark concentrated hours, it often brought out of high drama in the development section, but songs of the most agonizing beauty.” The ability reasserting its abiding halcyon state with the re - to mirror his own fluctuating feelings in his capitulation. The Andante, evidence that Schu- compositions—the darkening cloud momen - bert had perfected a sublime melding of his tarily obscuring the bright sunlight—is one of vocal and instrumental gifts by his 29th year, is Schubert’s most remarkable and characteristic an extended song without words in alternating achievements, and touches indelibly upon the stanzas: A–B–A–B–A. The Menuetto, actually incomparable series of works— Winterreise , the a vigorous Austrian Ländler rather than a de - Great Sym phony in C Major, the last three scendent of the courtly 18th-century dance, is a piano sonatas, the String Quintet, the two piano reminder that Schubert wrote more practical

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES dance pieces for the piano—over 400—than founded by Bruce Levingston in 2001 any other species of composition, save only solo that “seeks to explore and develop the work of songs. The finale is a spacious rondo of sun- emerging as well as established composers and dappled geniality. artists from different mediums.” Levingston premiered the work at Zankel Hall in New York Heavy Sleep on April 7, 2014. The title is derived from “Nocturne” by the Swedish poet Tomas Tran- Timo Andres was born in 1985 in Palo Alto, strömer (1931-2015): I drive through a village at California, grew up in rural , night, the houses rise up/in the glare of my studied composition at Juilliard’s Pre-College headlights—they’re awake, want to drink./ Divi sion during high school, and earned bach - Houses, barns, signs, abandoned vehicles— elor’s and master’s degrees at Yale as a student now/they clothe themselves in Life. The people of Martin Bresnick, Ingram D. Marshall, Chris are sleeping:/some can sleep peacefully, others Theofanidis, and Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron have drawn features/as if training hard for eter - Jay Kernis; he also studied piano with Eleanor nity./They don’t dare let go though their sleep Marshall and Frederic Chiu. Andres’ composi - is heavy./They rest like lowered crossing barri - tions, almost entirely for instrumental chamber ers when the mystery draws past. ensembles and for piano, have been commis - Andres wrote, “For a supposed nocturne, sioned by the Symphony Orchestra, Los Heavy Sleep is dense, dramatic, and packed with Angeles Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall (Lon- activity. The material of the piece is set on a re - don), , Concertgebouw Amster - peating ground of chromatic scales, an idea dam, Performances, Gilmore taken from the coda of Chopin’s Nocturne in Foun dation, Third Coast Percussion, the Library F-sharp minor, Op. 48, No. 2. The piece’s char - of Congress, and other leading performers acter, though, is based more on the Nocturne and organizations. As a solo pianist, he has ap - in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1, its measured pacing peared at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, belying the terrors of its middle section. Heavy Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Lincoln Sleep begins with isolated chords—seemingly Center, the Barbican Centre (London), and disconnected events that gradually reveal an New York’s Le Poisson Rouge in works by Philip overall direction as they increase in complexity Glass, Nico Muhly, and other prominent and volume. Eventually the music gets ‘stuck’ contemporary composers as well as those on a repeated whole-step interval—not much of Ives and Mozart. As with many of his creative in terms of a theme, but revealed in greater colleagues, a wide range of music informs relief by the variety of things happening around Andres’ works, from such traditional com - it. After a loud confrontation between the posers as Brahms, Mozart, and Schuman to whole-step and the opening chords, the music Brian Eno, , and the Icelandic “post- evaporates in a harmonic haze, turning the rock” band Sigur Rós—he has written a com - same idea over and over.” panion piano suite to Schumann’s Kreisleriana and “re-composed” the left-hand part and ca - Works on Paper denzas for Mozart’s Coronation Concerto. Timo Andres’ distinctions include awards and grants “Gabriel Kahane,” according to the biography from the American Academy of Arts and on his web site (gabrielkahane.com), “is a song - Letters, BMI, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, writer, singer, pianist, composer, devoted ama - American Music Center, and Copland Fund; teur cook, guitarist, and occasional banjo player his The Blind Banister was a finalist for the 2016 … [who] writes string quartets and musicals Pulitzer Prize in Music. and pop songs, with his heart fully in all of those Heavy Sleep was commissioned by Première endeavors.” Kahane, the son of acclaimed pi - Commission, Inc., a nonprofit organization anist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, was born PROGRAM NOTES in 1981 in the suburb of Venice Issue ), premiered his full-length musical Febru - Beach, moved between the coasts several times ary House at New York’s Public Theater in May during his youth, and spent a year studying jazz 2012 and recorded its score on the StorySound at the New England Conservatory of Music in label, and recently completed Gabriel’s Guide Boston before completing his undergraduate to the 48 States , a song cycle based on the degree at Brown. He moved to American Guide Series published by the Works after graduating in 2003 and worked as music Progress Administration, the New Deal pro - director with the newly founded theater com - gram to put Americans back to work during the pany Les Freres Corbusier, which won an Obie Great Depression. His 2014 CD release, The Award that year for its Off-Off-Broadway Ambassador , for which he used 10 buildings premiere of the satirical musical A Very Merry in Los Angeles to inspire songs about life in that Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant . city from World War II to the present, was Kahane established his reputation as a com - staged by director John Tiffany and set designer poser and performer with appearances and the Christine Jones, both Tony Award winners. recording of his 2006 song cycle Craigslistlieder , (The fashionable Ambassador Hotel was a which took its texts from want ads posted on - favorite celebrity haunt, location for two dozen line on Craigslist. (Zachary Woolfe of The New high-profile feature films, host to early Academy York Times called it “kind of classical-yet-poppy, Award ceremonies, home to the legendary ironic-yet-musical”—the song titled “Neurotic Cocoanut Grove nightclub, and site of the and Lonely,” for example, is based on a post assassination of Robert F. Kennedy; it was de - from a “slightly hunched, occasionally em - molished in 2005.) ployed anthropologist, chainsmoking jew, Gabriel Kahane is among a remarkable currently living with parents, off from school group of young American musicians who are to deal with emotional problems [medicated], not only forging brilliant symbiotic careers as seeks gorgeous artsy genius woman interested composers and performers and even lyricists, in philosophical discourse, making out, televi - but also as collaborators and mutually support - sion, woody allen movies.”) Kahane has since ive friends. Kahane first met composer-pianist received wide notice for the chamber and vocal Timo Andres in New York in 2010, and they works he has performed in small clubs and tried performing a duo-recital together the in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, following year that ranged from Bach to Ives to Lin coln Center, the Library of Congress, Walt Jerome Kern to , their peer Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Kings who was named Musical America ’s 2017 Com - Place in London, and the Vail, Caramoor, and poser of the Year. “I like throwing old and new Aspen summer festivals. all together and making a sort of salad pro - Kahane has collaborated with singer-song - gram,” Andres explained. “To me, those things writers and ; are constantly shining light on each other in appeared in concert with , Brad interesting ways; it helps you to hear them dif - Mehldau, , , Timo ferently.” (They described the program as a Andres, and the ; received com - “mix tape.”) Kahane loved the idea too, but re - missions from the , called, “We were both sick, it was a terrible con - , American Composers cert, and no one came. It was a qualified fiasco, Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and but there was something good in there.” They other noted ensembles and performers; served continued to hone the concept and by 2016 had as artist-in-residence at Carolina Performing developed a program that they were ready to Arts at the University of North Carolina in tour nationally. They composed brief solo piano Chapel Hill; and been a fellow at the Mac - pieces for each other for the recital—Andres Dowell Colony and at Yaddo. He released his wrote Mirror Songs for Kahane, Kahane wrote third CD in 2016 (the song cycle The Fiction Works on Paper for Andres—and premiered

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES them on April 5, 2016 at the Bedlam Lower - Kala santy. Sand wrote back that the guests town club in Saint Paul, Minnesota; two days would stay first in her Parisian apartments and later they performed them in New York at then continue to Nohant. Chopin was stirred Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, which had com - enough by the news of Ludwika’s visit that he missioned the pieces. started to compose again, and began sketching Kahane’s Works on Paper comprises three a large piano sonata in B minor in July. short movements. The chattering counterpoint Early in August, Chopin hurried to Paris to of “Death to Advertising” suggests the media’s meet Ludwika and Kalasanty. Brother and inescapable surfeit of messages. “Veda” para - sister fell tearfully into each other’s arms, and phrases the song in “The Ambassador” that Frédéric celebrated their reunion by shepherd - evokes the destructively wayward daughter in ing the couple around Paris—sightseeing, the 1941 Oscar-winning film Mildred Pierce , attending Les Huguenots at the Opéra, arrang - starring Joan Crawford as the title character and ing soirées to show her off to his friends, visiting Ann Blythe as Veda. Veda’s behavior eventually the aristocrats in whose apartments he per - causes Mildred to throw her out to their house, formed. Chopin was worn out aer two weeks and Kahane’s lyric poignantly expresses both of this hyperventilated activity, and gladly took the mother’s regret and her longing for her Ludwika and Kalasanty to Nohant. Chopin was daughter: “Take my blood and take my marrow, greatly revived in mind and body (Sand later Scrape the meal from my bone, Pierce my heart, wrote to assure Ludwika that she was “the best If you please, With your arrow, But Veda, my physician he has ever had, because merely darling, Come home.” “The New Sincerity Auld speaking to him about you is enough to restore Reel” is a faux folksong refracted through a his love of life”), and returned to his B-minor prism of virtuosity. sonata with enthusiasm aer his sister’s depar - ture at the beginning of September. e work Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 was completed by the time he returned to Paris Frédéric Chopin in late autumn. Chopin first met the flamboyantly iconoclastic e key of B minor was virtually unprece - novelist George Sand late in 1836 at a party dented in the Classical piano sonata literature— given by . eir friendship deepened no such works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, into sincere if tempestuous and unconventional Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dussek, or Hummel love during the following months, and Sand exist in that tonality. (Liszt did not begin his served for the next decade as Chopin’s muse Sonata in B minor until 1852.) Chopin appar - and protectress. Beginning in 1839, they es - ently chose the key for both the darkly colored caped from the summer heat and dust of Paris emotional ambiance it creates for the music and to Sand’s country villa at Nohant, near Château- for the opulent sonorities it allows to be drawn roux in the province of Berry. Just as the couple from the piano. Both of these qualities are was preparing to leave for Nohant in May 1844, evident in the opening movement, which is Chopin learned that his father had died in marked by the rich figurations, precise motivic Warsaw. e news devastated him, exacerbat - control, and melodic fecundity that character - ing the tuberculosis that was beginning to sap ize the creations of Chopin’s fullest maturity. his strength, and Sand took him to Nohant as Formal delineation is provided by the contrast - soon as he had recovered sufficiently to travel. ing second theme, an arching lyrical inspiration She was concerned enough over his health and buoyed by a rippling arpeggio accompaniment. state of mind that she wrote to his mother, sug - e remainder of the movement proceeds ac - gesting that a visit from the family might help cording to the traditional sonata model, except to restore him. It was agreed that his sister for the not unimportant point that the main Lud wika, who had not seen Chopin for 14 theme is omitted in the recapitulation, which years, would travel to Paris with her husband, therefore begins directly with the lyrical sub -

ABOUT THE ARTIST sidiary subject. e compact Scherzo balances recognition for his innovative programming and its mercurial outer sections with a smoothly commitment to education and community in - flowing melody in the baritone range for the volvement with all three orchestras and received central trio. e Largo, reminiscent in its rapt ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Pro gram ming eloquence of Chopin’s finest nocturnes, was for his work in both Los Angeles and Denver. judged by Alfred Frankenstein to be “one of He is also the artistic director of the new Green the high points in all of Chopin and in all of Music Center Chamberfest in Sono ma, CA, the music of the Romantic era.” e closing which had its inaugural season in June 2015. movement, compounded formally of elements Recent engagements include appearances at of sonata and rondo, is febrile and almost tem - the Aspen, Caramoor, and Blossom festivals; pestuous until it turns to the brighter tonality concerto performances with the Toronto, New of B Major for its energetic coda. World, Hous ton, Colorado, and Oregon sym - —© 2017 Dr. Richard E. Rodda phonies, among others; playing/ with the San Francisco, National, Detroit, Van - Jeffrey Kahane couver, , and sympho - Equally at home at the keyboard or on the nies and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well podium, Jeffrey Kahane has established an in - as for the third time in four seasons with the ternational reputation as a truly versatile artist, New York Philharmonic; and conducting the recognized by audiences around the world for New England Conservatory Symphony Orch - his mastery of a diverse repertoire ranging from estra in Boston, the Juilliard Orchestra at Lin coln Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to Gershwin, Center, and the National Repertory Orche stra Golij ov, and John Adams. in Colorado. Since making his Carnegie Hall debut in The 2016 –17 season is Kahane’s 20th and 1983, Kahane has given recitals in many of final season as music director of the Los Angeles the nation’s major music centers, including Chamber Orchestra. He directed a three-week New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los city-wide festival in January 2017, which Angeles, and Atlanta. He appears as soloist with incorporated a major educational and outreach major orchestras such as the New York Philhar- project honoring the legacies of composer Kurt monic, , Los Angeles Phil - Weill and civil rights activist Rabbi Joachim harmonic, , and the Prinz. The project culminated with Kahane Toronto and San Francisco symphonies, and conducting the LACO and a distinguished cast is also a popular artist at all of the major US of vocalists in a production of Kurt Weill’s final summer festivals. Broadway musical, Lost in the Stars. Kahane made his conducting debut at the Additional season highlights include return in 1988. Since then, he visits to the Oregon Bach Festival, the Ravinia has conducted many of the major US orches - Festival, where he plays/conducts with the Chi - tras, including the New York and Los Angeles cago Symphony, and New York’s Mostly Mozart Philharmonics, Philadelphia and Cleveland Festival, where he plays/conducts three Mozart Orchestras, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and concertos; a return to the Chamber Music the Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Society of ; and return engage - Indian apolis, and New World symphonies, ments with the Houston, Oregon, Utah, Colo - among others. Currently in his 20th season as rado, and Alabama symphonies. music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Kahane’s recent European engagements in - Orch estra, Kahane concluded his tenure as clude play/conduct programs with the Camer - music director of the Colorado Symphony in ata Salzburg, Hamburg Symphony, and the Real June 2010 and for 10 seasons was music direc - Philharmonic de Galicia in Spain, as well as ap - tor of the Santa Rosa Symphony, where he is pearances at the Meck-Pomm Chamber Music now conductor laureate. He has received much Festival in Germany. ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jeffrey Kahane has recorded for the SONY, nalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, he EMI, Telarc, RCA, Nonesuch, Deutsche Gram- was also the recipient of a 1983 Avery Fisher mo phon, Virgin Records, Decca/Argo, and Career Grant. An avid linguist who reads Haenssler labels in collaboration with the New widely in a number of ancient and modern lan - World, Cincinnati, Bournemouth, and Oregon guages, Ka hane received a master’s degree in Bach Festival symphonies, as well as works by classics from the University of Colorado at Gershwin and Bernstein with Yo-Yo- Ma, the Boulder in 2011. Beginning in the fall of 2016, complete works for violin and piano by Schu - he became a professor of keyboard studies at bert with , and Bach concertos the Uni versity of Southern California Thorn - with the LACO and . ton School of Music. A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of Jeffrey Kahane resides in Los Angeles with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ka- his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist in pri - hane’s early piano studies were with Howard vate practice. They have two children—Gabriel, Weisel and . First Prize winner a composer, pianist and singer/songwriter, and at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and a fi - Annie, a dancer and poet.

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