Daniel Hickey
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Saturday, May 27, 2017 • 1:00 p.m Daniel Hickey Graduate Recital DePaul Concert Hall 800 West Belden Avenue • Chicago Saturday, May 27, 2017 • 1:00 p.m. DePaul Concert Hall Daniel Hickey, clarinet Graduate Recital Beilin Han, piano PROGRAM Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) Sonata para clarinete y piano (1970) Allegro deciso Andante Rondo. Allegro spiritoso Beilin Han, piano Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Clarinet Sonata, FP 184 (1962) Allegro tristement Romanza Allegro con fuoco Beilin Han, piano Intermission Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120 No. 1 (1894) Allegro appassionato Andante un poco adagio Allegretto grazioso Vivace Beilin Han, piano Daniel Hickey is from the studio of Stephen Williamson. This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Music. As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you. Daniel Hickey • May 27, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) Sonata para clarinete y piano Duration: 17 minutes Carlos Guastavino was one of the most prominent Argentine composers of the 20th century. He studied music with Esperanza Lothringer and Dominga Iaffei in the Santa Fe Province when he was young before moving to Buenos Aires as a pupil of Athos Palma. His output was prolific, comprising more than five hundred works that incorporate folk music elements from Argentina into a lush, neo-Romantic style modeled after European composers. His reputation rests largely on his songs, earning him the nickname “the Schubert of the Pampas,” but his chamber and piano works are also frequently programmed in Argentina and around the world. Guastavino’s style is markedly different from his Argentine contemporaries, such as Alberto Ginastera. His influences come from European composers (notably Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Emmanuel Chabrier, Manuel De Falla, Enrique Granados, and Isaac Albéniz) as well as 19th century nationalistic Argentine composers such as Alberto Williams, Ernesto Drangosch, Francisco Hargreaves, Eduardo García Mansilla, and Julián Aguirre. He remained isolated from the modernist and avant-garde movements happening around him, and the incisive nationalist content of his music made him a model for popular and folk musicians in the 1960s. In fact, unlike most composers from any era or country, his music was so popular that he could live off of the royalties alone with little need for supplemental income. The Clarinet Sonata, completed in January of 1970, is Guastavino’s only major work for clarinet. Its three movements follow a standard fast-slow- fast structure, and his delicate and intimate piano writing is evident throughout. The opening movement is brooding and abstract, using the clarinet’s melancholy sound to great effect. Although dark in the beginning, the liquid textures of the piano and arching lines in the clarinet lead to a brighter and energetic conclusion. The middle movement is free and rhapsodic in the beginning before transitioning to intensely lyrical material, Daniel Hickey • May 27, 2017 Program Notes revealing Guastavino’s affinity for songwriting. The main theme, first heard in a haunting and minor setting, returns in the climactic section, major and triumphant. The finale is a lively dance that draws upon Argentine folk elements more so than the preceding movements. Although energetic throughout, a surprise lyrical section temporarily suspends the forward momentum of the music until a rousing march leads to the final iteration of the dance theme. Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Clarinet Sonata, FP 184 Duration: 13 minutes Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) was a French composer and pianist who belonged to the composer collective known as Les Six. French for “The Six,” the group consisted of Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Georges Auric, Darius Milhaud, and Louis Durey. In general, the group’s style can be seen as a reaction against the Impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel in France and the epic Romanticism of Richard Wagner in Germany. Particularly well known for his woodwind chamber music, Poulenc wrote a sonata for two clarinets, a sonata for clarinet and bassoon, and a sextet for wind quintet and piano in which the clarinet is featured prominently before completing the Clarinet Sonata, FP 184 in 1962. Commissioned by the famous clarinetist Benny Goodman, it was dedicated to Honegger, Poulenc’s friend and colleague who died of a heart attack in 1955. It was premiered on April 10, 1963 at Carnegie Hall in New York City with Leonard Bernstein accompanying Goodman on piano. Poulenc had been set to play the piano part originally, but also died suddenly of a heart attack several months earlier on January 30. The Sonata was positively received, with critic Harold C. Schonberg of the New York Times remarking upon its “remarkable finish, style and refinement . [it] is typical Poulenc.” It follows the typical fast-slow- fast of many sonatas, with the exception that the first movement is within itself a fast-slow- fast form. The first movement’s title Allegro tristement (fast but sad) is strange; the music is ever moving forward, but seems grieving at the same time. This is perhaps a reflection of Poulenc’s feelings over the death of the piece’s dedicatee, Honegger. The second movement is clearer in phrase structure and is intensely melancholy and lyrical. More cathartic Daniel Hickey • May 27, 2017 Program Notes than the first movement, the music remains simple and somber throughout. The finale is light and nimble, alternating between various articulate and rhapsodic themes. Combining amounts of seriousness and silliness overall, the Clarinet Sonata is a good summation of Poulenc’s output and style. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Clarinet Sonata no. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120 No. 1 Duration: 22 minutes At the age of 57, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) decided to retire from composing. He told a friend that he “had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace.” The retirement was short-lived, however. Brahms’ admiration for the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld of the Meiningen Orchestra revived his interest in writing new music and led to the creation of some of the most important chamber works in the clarinet repertoire. In 1891, the Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114 for clarinet, cello, and piano became the first chamber work Brahms wrote that featured the clarinet as a primary instrument. Shortly afterwards came the Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 (scored for clarinet and string quartet) modeled after Mozart’s Quintet in A Major, K. 581. Both works were written expressly for Mühlfeld and have an uncommon instrumentation for any time period of classical music. In fact, they are two of the few works for this combination of instruments that made it into today’s standard repertoire. Several years later in 1894, Brahms completed two clarinet sonatas, Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2 in F Minor and E-flat Major. Before these works, compositions written for clarinet and piano were rare. Two of the great masterworks of the clarinet repertoire, these sonatas were the final chamber works that Brahms wrote before his death in 1897 and their popularity led to greater readiness from future composers to write for this combination. The first Sonata in F Minor was premiered in September of 1894 for Georg II, Duke of Saxone-Meiningen in a private concert. Unlike many previous sonatas, in which the solo instrument plays melodic material almost exclusively, Brahms wrote a piano part on par in importance with the clarinet, which itself plays accompaniment lines at various points throughout the sonata’s four movements. Substantial solo works for clarinet in minor keys were rare at the time, and Brahms utilizes the dark Daniel Hickey • May 27, 2017 Program Notes tone color and wide range of the instrument to create bold, lamenting lines in the opening of the first movement that interact with more rhythmically active lines in the piano. The second movement showcases the intimate capabilities of the clarinet’s softer dynamics. Long, arching lyrical lines over delicate piano accompaniment satisfy the need for calm tranquility after the dramatic turbulence of the first movement. The third movement, Allegretto grazioso, is built around a light and playful theme reminiscent of the German Ländler, a folk dance involving a lot of hopping and stomping. The spirited finale returns to the key of F but stays largely in the major mode, providing a bright and energetic ending to the sonata. Notes by Daniel Hickey. 804 West Belden Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 773.325.7260 music.depaul.edu.