Christian Leotta AL Plays Beethoven
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TSO Friends — your window onto a world of music, SHARE your passion for orchestral music with community and like-minded enthusiasts. friendship ENJOY sneak previews of concerts and come to know TSO musicians. DEEPEN your engagement at special fundraising events. Christian Leotta ENRICH your life as a member of TSO Friends. RECITAL plays Beethoven SIGN UP TODAY! TUESDAY 26 MAY 7.30PM FEDERATION CONCERT HALL BEETHOVEN BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No 10, Op 14 No 2 Piano Sonata No 30, Op 109 Allegro Vivace, ma non troppo. Sempre legato – Andante Adagio espresssivo Scherzo: Allegro assai Prestissimo Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No 21, Op 53, Waldstein BEETHOVEN Allegro con brio Piano Sonata No 31, Op 110 Adagio molto Moderato cantabile molto espressivo Allegretto moderato – Prestissimo Allegro molto Adagio, ma non troppo – Fuga: Allegro, INTERVAL ma non troppo Duration 20 mins This concert will end at approximately 9.30 pm. www.tsofriends.com.au Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. 21 5393 TSO Friends Ad for Program.indd 1 22/08/13 10:55 PM ABOUT THE MUSIC Recitals devoted entirely to the piano metrical fun and games with the listener left sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- unsure in the first eight bars as to where 1827) were unknown prior to the final exactly the bar line falls. No such doubt quarter of the 19th century. The trailblazer hovers over the cheerful second subject was German pianist and conductor Hans and the theme which brings the opening von Bülow (Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein section to a close. As expected, the middle shines with an exceptional musicianship” CHRISTIAN LEOTTA was another important figure). Renowned section picks up the themes heard at the (Gramophone, UK) and “one of the most critic Eduard Hanslick, in his review of an outset and transforms them this way and extraordinary Beethoven interpreters of our all-Beethoven recital given by Bülow in that, sometimes venturing into remote tonal Christian Leotta is a native of Catania, Italy, time (Muzika21, Poland). Vienna in 1881, points out the novelty of territory, especially when we touch upon and now lives in Como. In addition to his extensive work as a a concert devoted entirely to Beethoven’s E-flat major. But tonal order is restored and He completed his conservatorium studies recitalist and in the recording studio, music. Indeed, according to Hanslick, it this amiable movement comes to a close. in Milan and then went on to study with Christian Leotta has performed as concerto was unusual to hear Beethoven sonatas at The second movement, Andante, is a set Karl Ulrich Schnabel whose piano school soloist with the Münchner Philharmoniker, all in piano recital programs, let alone five of variations in the key of C. We return to has direct links to a musical lineage tracing the Wiener Kammerorchester, the Italian sonatas one after the other, as delivered by G major for the sprightly final movement, its roots back to Beethoven, through the RAI National Television Orchestra and Bülow (in subsequent years Bülow would Scherzo. As in the opening movement, legendary names of Artur Schnabel and Milan’s Symphony Orchestra “Giuseppe perform Beethoven’s complete 32 piano the principal theme is enlivened through Carl Czerny. Verdi”, regularly performing in such leading sonatas in a series of recitals). metrical ambiguity. Are we in two or three? venues as the Philharmonie at the Gasteig Beethoven plays with this uncertainty Appearing in Montreal in 2002, at the age The fact is, up until this point, piano in Munich, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the throughout this rondo-form movement and of only 22, Christian Leotta became the recitals were expected to offer a mixture Zurich Tonhalle, the Sala Verdi in Milan, closes with an agreeably witty touch. youngest pianist since the youthful Daniel Montreal’s Salle Claude-Champagne, the of brilliance, showmanship and artistry. Barenboim ever to undertake a recital Great Hall at the Bunka Kaikan Theatre They were not meant to tax the listener Although the Sonata No 21 in C major, series encompassing all 32 Beethoven of Tokyo and the Xinghai Concert Hall in intellectually. But with the all-Beethoven Op 53, Waldstein, was written only a few Piano Sonatas and has since presented the Guangzhou. program, the piano recital became an years later, in 1803-4, it plunges us into complete series in Madrid, Mexico City, entirely more serious affair. It also became another world altogether. Welcome to Highlights of his current 2014/2015 Montreal, Lima, Vancouver, Venice, Quebec didactic – audiences were expected to draw Beethoven’s “heroic” phase. Composed concert season include engagements on City and Rio de Janeiro and, for the first cultural edification from being immersed in immediately after the Symphony No 3, five continents including the complete time in each country’s history, Indonesia this unfamiliar, “highbrow” literature. Eroica (i.e. heroic), the Waldstein invests the Beethoven sonatas in Kyoto and the release piano sonata with unprecedented scope and Thailand during 2014, and in Algeria This evening’s recital gives listeners the of his recording of the Beethoven Diabelli and ambition. It is not only longer than Op during 2015. opportunity to hear four of Beethoven’s Variations. 14 No 2, but far more densely textured and piano sonatas in chronological order, thus Following his extraordinary success in this bigger in range. This can be explained, His performance for the Tasmanian tracing not only Beethoven’s development particular repertoire, Christian Leotta’s Symphony Orchestra marks his debut in in part, by Beethoven’s new piano, a as a composer, but also the development early achievements were honoured, in Australia and is part of a visit which also Paris-built Erard; an instrument noted for of the piano sonata as a genre. All 2004, by the President of the Italian includes a solo recital for the Melbourne its extended compass, dynamic range, up, the works cover nearly 25 years of Republic, when he was awarded Italy’s Recital Centre. and robust structure. Here was a piano Beethoven’s career, taking in the so-called prestigious President’s Medal and, in capable of the quasi-orchestral effects that © Weaver Artist Management 2015 “early”, “middle” and “late” periods 2007, Atma Classique signed him to Beethoven demanded of it. As you might that traditionally divide his working life. record the complete Beethoven sonatas expect, the works of Beethoven’s “heroic” Interestingly, all four works are in major keys. in a collection of five double-CD sets, (or “middle”) period are noted for their released between 2008 and 2014. Of these We begin with the Sonata No 10 in G, Op grand and affirmative qualities (triggered, recordings, the international press have 14 No 2, which was probably composed to a large extent, by Beethoven choosing subsequently written, “one of the major in 1799. Born in Bonn, Beethoven had to struggle through his ever worsening Beethoven soloists of our time” (Pizzicato, been in Vienna for seven years or so at the deafness rather than be crushed by it). In Luxembourg) and “this cycle reveals an time he wrote this sonata and was making addition to all of the above, the opening interpreter of Beethoven who can hardly a name for himself as a pianist as well as movement, Allegro con brio, exhibits an be compared to any other pianist of his a composer. The deafness that was to adventurous tonal scheme – the home generation” (Rondo, Germany) and even in curtail his performing career was in its early key is C major but we stray a long way a fiercely competitive marketplace his task stages. The Sonata No 10 opens with some away from it – delivered with remarkable 22 23 confidence. The middle movement, Adagio that continues well into the movement’s molto, has a semi-improvised quality and closing stages. That is to say, Beethoven Have you ever acts as a large-scale lead-in to the final continually plays with the possibilities movement, an epically scaled rondo. of variation, avoiding a clear-cut and This justly famous sonata was dedicated authoritative restatement and summing up to Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von of the principal themes. We venture into F Waldstein, a nobleman who had admired minor for the middle movement, Allegro considered Beethoven from the composer’s early days molto, which is frequently tempestuous in Bonn. before coming to a close on a gentle F major broken chord. The final movement We jump to “late”-period Beethoven for is long and discursive, commencing with a the Sonata No 30 in E, Op 109, which was making harmonically adventurous paragraph in the written in 1820. Beethoven was interested manner of an extemporisation. This leads to in breaking the mould in his late works an “Arioso dolente” (sorrowful song) in the and this sonata is no exception. The first key of A-flat minor which, in turn, leads to movement sets up an opposition between an elaborate three-part fugue in the home a Bequest two disparate thematic units: one is marked key. Of note is the fact that the theme, or Vivace, ma non troppo, the other Adagio to the TSO? “subject”, of the fugue is derived from espressivo. As the movement progresses the opening theme of the first movement, these two ideas are not collapsed one a good example of Beethoven wringing into the other but, rather, maintain their every last drop of potential from his musical individuality. The opening movement ideas.