Saudade Seite 2 Seite 43

Seite 44 Seite 01 Elisabeth Leonskaja Tchaikovsky Shostakovich Rachmaninov Saudade Seite 2 Seite 43 PROGRAM PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-18 93) Piano Sonata Op.37 in G major "Grand Sonata" (187 8) 33:38 1 I Moderato e risoluto 13:00 2 II Andante non troppo quasi moderato 10:02 3 III Scherzo - Allegro giocoso 03:07 4 IV Finale - Allegro vivace 07:29 DMITRY SHOSTAKOVICH (19 06-1975) Piano Sonata No. 2, Op.61 in B minor (1943) 27:20 5 I Allegretto 07:28 6 II Largo 06:25 7 III Moderato 13:27 SERGEY RACHMANINOV (1873-1943) Morceaux de fantaisie Op.3 (18 92) 8 No. 2 Prelude in C sharp minor 03:38 Preludes Op.32 (1910) 9 No. 1 2 Prelude in G sharp minor - Allegro 02:44 Preludes Op.2 3 (19 03) 10 Allegro No. 6 Prelude in E flat major - Andante 02:53 Morceaux de fantaisie Op.3 (18 92) 11 No. 1 Elegie 05:46 Elisabeth Leonskaja, piano Total Time: 76:21 Seite 42 Seite 03 Saudade EN The concept lying behind pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja’s new recording entitled “Saudade” stems from no set of musicological ideas; nor does it have any programmatic basis. Instead, it derives from an emotional state or feeling. Therein lies its argument and the justification for this programme. The composers and their particular works presented here are deservedly important and carry out an especially meaningful role. Yet, it is the feeling which is important here, and it is the unifying theme of what is the most personal (so far) of the Russian pianist’s recording projects. Why, then, saudade? For the reason that within the heart of this album resides a feeling. Feelings are enigmatic in terms of definition, can be complicated to translate and, on occasion, more than a single method is needed in order to express them. Portuguese in origin, the word saudade, is difficult to pin down exactly and is nigh on impossible to render into another language. Consequently, other languages (such as Spanish and Galician) tend to use it in its original form. Saudade expresses a fundamental emotional state, close to melancholy, spurred on by one’s distance – in time or space – from someone or something loved; it involves bridging that distance. Often it implies the suppressed awareness that that person or thing will perhaps never return. Saudade is not merely loneliness; nor is it just yearning; nor does it reflect a sense of either sadness or joy; it is much more than melancholy. It resembles 3 Seite 04 Seite 41 the Welsh hiraeth, the Romanian dor (this was referred to in the context of Elisabeth Leonskaja’s earlier album “Paris” in connection with George Enescu’s Piano Sonata No. 1), and the German Sehnsucht, but the main difference between saudade and other states close to nostalgia lies in how it is perceived by the people who feel it. The sentiment expressed by Leonskaja is a particular one, her own, personal, private, special and non-transferable sentiment. It is a sentiment focused on the very origins of existence and one which finishes with its openness to transcendence. It is what has been experienced and understood; it is a loved one no longer visible but who yet keeps on existing; it is embraces…; perfumes scented which the sense of smell revives only in the mind; melodies, whose intervals, having been detected and comprehended, become part of one’s musical bloodstream; landscapes sketched out at an early age; all the many lives which have been lived; joy and sadness simultaneously; everything that will return no more; all this is saudade. The sound conjured up in Elisabeth Leonskaja’s saudade is that of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov. The pianist sets this feeling to music with composers and compositions which have accompanied her throughout her life and career. Leonskaja’s initial recordings for the Soviet record label Melodiya – at the start of the 1970s – included chamber works by Shostakovich in the company of the violinist Oleg Kagan. 1988 was a significant year for Russian repertory for solo piano, with Leonskaja recording for Teldec the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, the Scriabin Fantasia, 4 Seite 40 Seite 05 DEDICATED TO MY BELOVED PARENTS AND TO MY SISTER LUDMILA, IT WAS THEIR DREAM FOR ME TO DEDICATE MY LIFE TO MUSIC; TO MY TEACHERS WHO SHOWED ME THE WAY TO MUSIC, TO MY GREAT MASTERS, WHO SET MY STANDARDS, AND TO MY DEAR FRIENDS, WHO HAVE MADE ME THE GIFT OF LOYAL AND SINCERE FRIENDSHIP. Elisabeth Leonskaja Seite 06 Seite 39 Op.28 and Second Piano Sonata, as well as the Sonata in G major, Op.37 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), which appears here. This last work, known as the “Grande Sonate” and composed in 1878 (it was Tchaikovsky’s second effort in this form, given that he had written another – at that point unpublished – sonata), has a place alongside the major examples of this form from the Romantic era. All the most significant European tendencies in piano thinking – the piano as an orchestra-instrument – converge in it. It is with good reason that there are unmistakeable echoes of Chopin and Schumann, above all of the latter in the work’s outer movements. The sonata is made up of four movements, in which Tchaikovsky draws upon classical forms: a first movement,Moderato e risoluto, written in sonata form, complete with two typical subjects, one impulsive and virile, the second very lyrical; an Andante non troppo quasi moderato; a brief but sparkling Scherzo and a closing Finale with characteristics which are similar to those of the first. The Sonata in G major, Op.37 received its first performance on November 2, 1879, in Moscow, from Nikolay Rubinstein. The Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op.61 by Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975) was dedicated to the memory of Leonid Nikolayev, a professor at the Petrograd Conservatory and Shostakovich’s favourite piano teacher. The inspiration for his second piano sonata came from receiving the painful news of the early death of Nikolayev on October 11, 1942. The Sonata was completed in March 1943, between the legendary Seventh (“Leningrad”) and Eighth Symphonies. This was the period of the Great Patriotic War between the 6 Seite 38 Seite 07 Soviet Union and Nazi Germany (1941-1945) which, undoubtedly, was one of the key factors which exercised great influence not just on Shostakovich’s symphonies (officially called “military” symphonies or “symphonies of war”) but on this sonata as well. The work presents a much more traditional and less daring profile than his first sonata, although that had been written some 17 years previously in 1926. The second sonata was premiered by the composer himself on June 6, 1943, just before moving with his family to Moscow from Kuybïshev, where they had been evacuated from Leningrad at the outbreak of the war. This was, therefore, not a propitious time for indulging in any form of aesthetic experimentation. The Sonata in B minor establishes a link with Romantic-era sonata-like forms: a predisposition for classical solutions dominates the whole work, from sonata form in the first movement, through to the final movement variations, by way of the use of ternary form, thematic developments and the rigour of its key structure. A certain “genre interaction” can be identified, in terms of the clear influence of other genres upon this piano work. For example, the influence of symphonic genres entails dramatic developments and wide- reaching textural and timbric imitations. The impact of film music can be perceived through the illustrative function of some sections of the work, in the rapid transitions to and from contrasting episodes and in the use of popular genres such as marches. Although he was an excellent pianist himself, Shostakovich was not fundamentally a piano composer. Where Beethoven used to express himself to a great extent through his symphonies and piano sonatas, Shostakovich had his own “pair” of favourite genres: the 7 Seite 08 Seite 37 symphony and the string quartet. The majority of the original piano works of Shostakovich are written in the piano miniature genre, except for the large- scale cyclical work, the 24 Preludes and Fugues and the two piano sonatas. Sonata No. 1 belongs to the first period and is a work of a single movement, very much influenced by the musical language of other composers of the epoch (Stravinsky, Prokofiev). Sonata No. 2 belongs to the beginning of the middle period, a time of a rapid maturing of the composer’s individual style, and is the only pianistic work by Shostakovich written in the context of a multi-movement sonata. The only previous occasion when Elisabeth Leonskaja has recorded Shostakovich Op.61 Sonata, was back in 1992 for a Teldec release which also included Shostakovich’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Hugh Wolff conducting. This Sonata and Tchaikovsky’s Op.37 have formed part of the main body of her Russian repertory for solo piano for over fifty years on the concert stage. After all these years, Leonskaja is offering us her most up-to-date and personal version of these two, monumental works, enriched by time, artistic experience and musical maturity. What is completely new, however, is Leonskaja recording music by Rachmaninov. This is the first time that the pianist has transferred from the concert hall into the record studio a selection of preludes with which, together with the sonatas by his contemporaries, make up a musical landscape which speaks eloquently of the Russian pianist’s purest essence.

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