UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY

Horacio Gutierrez, Pianist

Saturday Evening, February 6, 1993, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

PROGRAM

Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI:50 Haydn Allegro Adagio Allegro molto

Fantasy in C major, Op. 17 ...... Schumann

INTERMISSION

Sonata in B minor ...... Liszt Lento assai - Allegro energico Andante sostenuto Allegro energico

Horacio Gutierrez is represented by Shaw Concerts, Inc., New York.

Mr. Gutierrez plays a Steinway piano available through Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia.

Recordings: Telarc, Chandos, Angel/EMI

TWENTY-SIXTH CONCERT OF THE 114TH SEASON 114TH CHORAL UNION SERIES PROGRAM NOTES

Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI:50 formal elements as successive themes, and between such large ones as the sections Josefh Haydn ( 173 2-1809) conventionally devoted to the exposition and then to the development of ideas. but in Haydn was not really a pianist, Textures that at first glance look thin on a musician, he the course of his long life as the printed page turn out to be full of explore wrote more than fifty works that complex counterpoint and of finger-twist­ piano the varied forms that can be called ing technical difficulties. The specified and sonatas. Some have two movements pedalling too makes clear that this is mod­ with the some have four, and among those ern piano music and has little to do with choice of usual three, there is an enormous the harpsichord. The movement comes to sonatas structures for each. In general, the an end with a coda like an abbreviated of the are music written for the pleasure opera finale. performer, to be played at home in private The second movement, Adagio, seems the equivalent, music rooms rather than in to have been written or at least sketched at the time, of public concerts. rather earlier than the rest. It is an affect­ years, Haydn Especially in his late ing, three-part song, also somewhat oper­ perform­ wrote many sonatas with specific atic in quality, ornamented with almost gifted women ers in mind, often highly improvisatory freedom. The closing Allegro art of music is a whose influence on the molto is a relatively short movement some­ These late part of history not yet written. thing like the finales in tempo di minuetto of experi­ works show the composer's years that had been fashionable when Haydn was symphonist of ence as the most inventive younger, but it is here speeded up to pieces the period. They are not decorated "modern" scherzo tempo. Through quirky serious works that of light galanterie but big turns of phrase, Haydn invests the harmony technical skills demand players with great and rhythm with great wit. and profound musical insights. is one of Haydn's last sonatas, This Fantasy in C major, Op. 17 written in 1794 or 1795 in London, at the Schumann (1810-1856) time of his greatest symphonies, one of a Robert group of three composed for Teresa Jansen, for whom he also wrote three trios. Jansen "To understand the Fantasy," Schu­ must have been a splendid artist and an mann wrote to his beloved Clara, "think accomplished performer, for all six are back to the summer of 1836, when I was highly original, extremely difficult works. separated from you." It is in fact a freely Although she never performed in public, shaped sonata that ends with a slow move­ Haydn listed her among the best pianists ment; it is also a confidential communica­ in London, and he knew her well enough tion from Robert to Clara, with a secret to be a witness at her wedding there, to reference to their separation in a musical Gaetano Bartolozzi, whose father was his quotation from Beethoven's An die feme friend, the engraver Francesco Bartolozzi. Geliebte. The first movement of the Fantasy She must have owned a fine instrument of starts almost abruptly, as though a door has advanced design, for Haydn takes the music been opened on a discourse already in he wrote for her up into a high range that progress. It is a work of "fantasy and passion would not be heard in Beethoven's piano throughout," say the instructions to the music until ten years later. player, though the music shifts for a while The music is also extraordinary in the to a style that is "legendary in tone," by way its apparent simplicity masks its high which Schumann presumably meant that it level of complexity and fantasy. In the is like a folk song. The second movement, opening Allegro movement, Haydn blurs which follows without pause, is to be played the lines of distinction between such small at a moderate tempo, but energetically or vigorously. It is a great march in which the Beethoven: "[Its combination] of so­ powerful chords alternate with complex nata-allegro and four-movement form is counterpoint. When Clara was learning it, one of the rare experiments of the last years she said that it made her "hot and cold all of Beethoven's life to have a genuine re­ over." The Fantasy ends with a long and percussion in the more original work of the gentle poetic reverie that forges a historic first Romantic generation. The Liszt So­ link between the spacious calm of late-Bee­ nata is an attempt to repeat this concep­ thoven and the intimate passion of tion.... Liszt was the composer of his Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. generation who best understood Beetho­ ven." Sonata in B Minor For years the Sonata was resisted and Franz Liszt ( 1811-1886) hated. Schumann was embarrassed when Liszt dedicated it to him, in 1853, for he, Franz Liszt's position in music history his wife and their young disciple, Johannes is assured by the influence of his unmatched Brahms, then distrusted Liszt the man and piano virtuosity, by his championing of disapproved of Liszt the musician. The such advanced composers of his time as performances that Hans von Biilow gave as Berlioz and Wagner, and especially by his early as 1857 and as late as 1881 moved "modernization" of music. He created a critics to call the music affected, arbitrary new style of piano-playing, invented the and extravagant. When the Sonata was symphonic poem, established a place for twenty-four years old, Brahms's friend folklore in art music, and reconstructed the Eduard Hanslick could still write that it was symphony, the sonata and the concerto. His "a musical monstrosity of contrived inso­ new ideas profoundly influenced several lence; in the end, irresistibly comic. Any­ generations of composers and performers. one who has heard it and finds it beautiful In 1848, Liszt renounced his great is beyond help. [Abridged]." Yet when career as a touring virtuoso and settled Wagner heard it in 1854, he wrote to the down in Weimar as court music director, composer, "It is beautiful beyond all belief; with a firm determination to begin com­ huge, lovable, profound, exalted, stately - posing in large forms and to use his powerful like you. I have been stirred to the depths post for the support of the most advanced by it." new music. He had already written many Liszt's basic procedure is the constant short pieces for piano, but he was not yet expansion of motives and transformation of at ease with the problems of musical con­ melodies, a process of synthesis in place of tinuity or with the orchestra. the classicists' developmental analysis. Before long he had developed a new There are several large, distinct sections, integrated structural plan that he used with all based on four or five themes that make great mastery in this Sonata and the First their entrances and departures in various Piano Concerto, and with some differences guises at various times. The music begins in the Faust Symphony. Its essentials are, with a few slow introductory measures Lento first, that the separate movements must ossai, whose descending figure is the blend together into a single, continuous Sonata's first thematic element. In the whole without breaks; and, second, that Allegro energico two themes that have more this new whole must exhibit both the important roles to play in the work are symmetry and the tension that are charac­ heard: the first, vigorous and in a high teristic of the first movements in the classic register; the second, grumbling in the bass, sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. with repeated notes that are later trans­ It is sometimes thought that his model formed into a lyric melody and into an­ was Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, but the other, Grandiose. The middle section, finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Andante sostenuto, is like a slow movement, -could also have served as a prototype. The after which the Allegro energico tempo re­ brilliant pianist-scholar Charles Rosen, in turns, and at the very end the entire cycle his book, The Classical Style, makes this of themes is recalled in a coda. penetrating observation in a footnote about - Notes by Leonard Bur/cat ABOUT THE ARTIST

timore, Indianapolis, Houston and Dallas Symphonies; and the Royal Con­ certgebouw, Minnesota and Cleveland Or­ chestras. A favorite of New York concertgoers, Mr. Gutierrez is a frequent soloist at Lin­ coln Center's "Mostly Mozart" Festival (in­ cluding a "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast) and has performed many times at A very Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall, in recital and with orchestra. With the Y Chamber Orchestra he played 's Piano Concerto in honor of the composer's 75th birthday. As a chamber musician he has played with the Guarneri, Tokyo and Cleveland Quartets. In 1982 he received the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize. Mr. Gutierrez's most recent Telarc re­ cording features Rachmaninoff's Second V^onsidered by critics and au­ and Third Piano Concertos (Maazel/Pitts- diences as one of the outstanding pianists burgh). Also available on the label is the of the day, Horacio Gutierrez appears Brahms Second Concerto (Previn/Royal regularly with the world's greatest orches­ Philharmonic). During the 1989-90 season tras and on its major recital series. alone Mr. Gutierrez recorded five concerti: Since his professional debut in 1970, Tchaikovsky's Concerto No. 1 and with the and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme by conductor , Horacio Gutierrez Paganini with David Zinman and the Bal­ has appeared regularly with conductors timore Symphony, Prokofiev's Second and Lorin Maazel, Andre Previn, and Mehta Third Concerti with Neeme Jarvi and the leading many of the world's leading orches­ Royal Concertgebouw, and Brahms's First tras. Other maestros with whom Mr. Concerto with Previn and the Royal Phil­ Gutierrez has performed include Michael harmonic. Tilson Thomas, Gerard Schwarz, Klaus His televised performances in Great Tennstedt, David Zinman, Edo de Waart, Britain, the United States and France have Kurt Masur, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, been widely acclaimed. He won an Emmy and many more. Award for his fourth appearance with the Highlights of the 1992-93 season in­ Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. clude performances with the Philadelphia He has also been welcomed by Johnny Orchestra, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Carson on "The Tonight Show." A great Utah, Seattle and National Symphony Or­ film and theater fan, he has performed in chestras, and recitals at Carnegie Hall, as recital with Irene Worth and Mariette well as in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Hartley. Princeton and St. Louis. In the course of Born in Havana, Cuba, Horacio an equally busy schedule last season, he Gutierrez appeared at the age of eleven as performed the Previn Piano Concerto with guest soloist with the Havana Symphony. the composer conducting the Pittsburgh He became an American citizen in 1967. Symphony. Festival engagements included He graduated from the , and Ravinia, France's Roque d'Antheron, and he is married to pianist Patricia Archer. the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Other re­ Tonight marks Mr. Gutierrez's second cent performances have been with the Los appearance in Ann Arbor. He last per­ Angeles and New York Philharmonics; Bal­ formed here in January 1988.