SCHUBERT SHOSTAKOVICH PÁRTOS AMIHAI GROSZ SUNWOOK KIM MENU › TRACKLIST › English › Français › Deutsch
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SCHUBERT SHOSTAKOVICH PÁRTOS AMIHAI GROSZ SUNWOOK KIM MENU › TRACKLIST › ENGLISH › FRANÇAIS › DEUTSCH ÖDÖN PÁRTOS (1907-1977) 1 Yizkor (In Memoriam) 10’55 FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) ARPEGGIONE SONATA IN A MINOR, D821 2 I. Allegro moderato 12’07 3 II. Adagio 4’33 4 III. Allegretto 9’36 DMITRI shostakovich (1906-1975) VIOLA SONATA IN C MAJOR, OP.147 5 I. Moderato 9’39 6 II. Allegretto 7’32 7 III. Adagio 15’54 TOTAL TIME: 70’21 AMIHAI GROSZ VIOLA SUNWOOK KIM PIANO › MENU H LIS IN MEMORIAM ENG BY NICOLAS DERNY Six strings, bowed in the manner of a bass viol, but tuned like those of the guitar. Invented in 1823 in the Austrian capital by the luthier Johann Georg Staufer, the arpeggione was stillborn. Only the masterpiece that Schubert wrote for it in November of the following year maintains the memory of this cousin of the baryton. Nevertheless, it could lay claim to a virtuoso exponent, Vincenz Schuster, who is thought to have commissioned the piece and certainly premiered it. The Viennese composer seems to have written it in something of a hurry, but without many erasures or second thoughts, as may be seen in the twenty-two sheets of the manuscript preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Schubert’s inspiration was doubtless stimulated by the naturally melancholic sound of the instrument, whose ‘high register is very similar to that of the oboe, while the low register is close to that of the basset-horn’ (Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 5 March 1823). The Allegro moderato with which it begins does not call into question the principles of sonata form. Although initially stated on the piano, the first theme, in A major, exploits the supple vocality of the string bow. The second theme unfolds in semiquavers, sometimes legato and sometimes staccato, giving it an irresistibly dancelike lightness. The development juxtaposes warm lyricism and cheerful virtuosity, but is never entirely carefree. Following a non-literal recapitulation, the coda ends up calming the mood: the music no longer has the heart for banter. The brief Adagio bears the key signature of E major, a tonality from which this ‘song without words’, in which the piano has to content itself with a mere accompanying role, will wander more often than not. The Allegretto, a rondo that appears more joyful, follows without interruption. The first episode is in a rhythmic D minor that contrasts with the A major of the amiably cantabile refrain. The second, in the dominant, is Viennese grace incarnate. The musicians will nevertheless take their leave of us with a glance betokening a certain spleen. H LIS Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, written in the early summer of 1975, echoes like his swansong. ENG Ravaged by cancer, he died on 9 August, without having completed anything else. ‘There can be no doubt that [this work] will improve the lot of the world’, opined an article in Sovietskaya Muzyka in the inimitable style of the Russian press of the time. These words were actually published in September, a few weeks before the first public performance, given by Fyodor Druzhinin (1932-2007) in the Small Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. Shostakovich explained to Druzhinin that the opening Moderato should be read like ‘a novella’. Initially stated unaccompanied and pizzicato, innocently diatonic fifths are soon superimposed on a dodecaphonic melody assigned to the piano. Though the two ideas might seem mutually repellent, the partners exchange, vary and combine them throughout this gloomy movement, whose only moment of animation is an episode in wailing triplets and its rejoinder before the viola solo returns. The Allegretto, which serves as scherzo, begins by recycling the music that the composer had originally destined for the overture and inn scene of the opera he intended to adapt from Gogol’s The Gamblers in 1941-42, a project that was never completed. It grates and grimaces like something by Prokofiev, midway between a march and a polka. At its heart lie austere lines, a few fragments of which – here played fortissimo, but espressivo – will also serve as the opening of the Adagio finale. Those fragments, a series of descending fourths, are reminiscent of the Prelude to the Suite for two pianos op.6, which the young Dmitri Dmitriyevich composed in 1922 while still reeling from the impact of his father’s death. His way, no doubt, of coming full circle at a time when his own end seemed nigh. When the piano enters in this third movement dedicated ‘to the great Beethoven’, it proceeds to distort the allusion to the Adagio sostenuto of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. A sinister meditation? Not for Shostakovich, who on the contrary called it muzyka svetlaya (radiant music)! Radiant except for those who hear the dotted rhythm as an echo of the Funeral March from his Quartet no.15 . The tension increases around the viola solo, reaching its climax at the return of the piano, which brings all its weight to bear in the bottom register. The H LIS spectre of the cherished Ludwig reappears to round things off – or almost. The very last notes ENG on the viola are actually more redolent of the finale of Strauss’s Don Quixote – by which we are to understand: the death of a disappointed idealist. Shostakovich’s entire œuvre expires in a last chord of C major. The Yizkor (Remembrance) prayer for the dead is medieval in origin and beseeches God to raise up to the soul of deceased relatives and friends. The ‘books of remembrance’ derived from it experienced a resurgence with the advent of Nazism, when they commemorated the victims of the Holocaust. Ödön Pártos wrote his musical evocation of the prayer two years after the end of the war. Born in Budapest, where he studied the violin with Jenő Hubay and composition with Zoltán Kodály, he was at that time principal viola of the Palestine Orchestra – the forerunner of the Israel Philharmonic – founded by Bronisław Huberman in 1936. In Andante tempo, the stringed instrument first speaks from its innermost being, at once enunciating the haunting invocation on which it will build its sermon. The discourse soon gains in intensity, reaching a passionate Animato at the top of the stave. A few bars for keyboard alone (molto tranquillo) restore a semblance of calm. The cantor takes up the thread of his homily with greater warmth and, espressivo molto, gives a glimpse of a lightening of mood. But torments, tensions and disquiet quickly reappear. A powerful Grandioso leads to a cadenza reserved for the strings of the solo voice. The piece ends with a resigned Adagio. H LIS AMIHAI GROSZ ENG AMIHAI GROSZ LOOKS BACK ON A VERY UNUSUAL CAREER PatH: AT FIRST A QUARTET PLAYER (FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE JERUSALEM QUARTET), THEN (AS HE IS TODAY) PRINCIPAL VIOLIST WITH THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, AND ALSO A RENOWNED SOLOIST. INITIALLY, AMIHAI GROSZ LEARNED TO PLAY THE VIOLIN, BEFORE SWITCHING TO THE VIOLA at THE AGE OF ELEVEN. HE STUDIED IN JERUSALEMWITH DAVID CHEN AND SUBSEQUENTLY IN FRANKFURT AND BERLIN WITH TABEA ZIMMERMANN, AS WELL AS IN TEL AVIV WITH HAIM TAUB, WHO HAD A FORmatiVE INFLUENCE ON HIM. AT A VERY EARLY AGE, HE RECEIVED VARIOUS GRANTS AND PRIZES AND WAS A MEMBER OF THE “YOUNG MUSICIANS GROup” OF THE JERUSALEM MUSIC CENTRE, A PROGRAM FOR OUTStaNDING YOUNG MUSICAL taleNTS. AMIHAI GROSZ WORKS ON SOLO AND CHAMBER MUSIC PROJECTS WITH ARTISTS SUCH AS YEFIM BRONFMAN, MITSUKO UCHIDA, DANIEL BARENBOIM, JANINE JANSEN, JULIAN RACHLIN, GUStaVO GIMENO, TUGAN SOKHIEV AND DAVID GERINGAS. HE PERFORMS IN INTERNatioNAL CONCERT HALLS LIKE THE CONCERTGEBOUW IN AMSTERDAM, THE TONHALLE ZURICH, THE WIGMORE HALL IN LONDON AND THE PHILHARMONIE LUXEMBOURG AND at FESTIVALS ALL OVER THE WORLD, INCLUDING THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL, SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN MUSIK FESTIVAL, THE FESTIVALS OF EVIAN, VERBIER AND DELFT, THE BBC PROMS, THE UTRECHT INTERNatioNAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL AND THE WEST CORK CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2019/20 SEASON INCLUDED PERFORMANCES WITH THE DANISH NatioNAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA UNDER ALEXANDER VEDERNIKOV, THE ORCHESTRE D´AUVERGNE WITH ROBERTO FORES VÉSES, AND THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC UNDER ZUBIN MEHta AS WELL AS RICH CHAMBER MUSIC COLLABORatioNS WITH PARTNERS SUCH AS JANINE JANSEN & FRIENDS, DAISHIN KASHIMOTO, JULIAN STECKEL, CLAUDIO BOHÓRQUEZ AND ÉRIC LE SAGE. AMIHAI GROSZ ALSO TOOK PART IN THE CHAMBER MUSIC TOUR OF MAGDALENA KOžENÁ AND SIR SIMON Rattle & FRIENDS WITH CONCERTS IN BIEL/BIENNE, TOULOUSE, BARCELONA, MILAN, ATHENS, KatoWICE AND NEW YORK. AMIHAI GROSZ PLAYS A GASPAR DA SALÒ VIOLA FROM THE YEAR 1570, WHICH IS A LIFELONG LOAN MADE AVAILABLE TO HIM BY A PRIVate COLLECTION. H LIS SUNWOOK KIM ENG SUNWOOK KIM CAME TO INTERNatioNAL RECOGNITION WHEN HE WON THE PRESTIGIOUS LEEDS INTERNatioNAL PIANO COMPETITION IN 2006, AGED JUST EIGHTEEN, BECOMING THE COMPETITIOn’s YOUNGEST WINNER FOR FORTY YEARS, AS WELL AS ITS FIRST ASIAN WINNER. HIS PERFORMANCE OF BRAHMs’s CONCERTO NO.1 WITH THE HALLÉ ORCHESTRA AND SIR MARK ELDER IN THE COMPETITIOn’s FINALS attRACTED UNANIMOUS PRAISE FROM THE PRESS. SINCE THEN, HE HAS EStaBLISHED A REPUtatioN AS ONE OF THE FINEST PIANISTS OF HIS GENERatioN, APPEARING AS A CONCERTO SOLOIST IN THE SUBSCRIPTION SERIES OF SOME OF THE WORLd’s LEADING ORCHESTRAS, INCLUDING THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA, StaatSKAPELLE DRESDEN (ASIA TOUR CONDUCTED BY MYUNG-WHUN CHUNG), NDR SINFONIEORCHESTER HAMBURG, FINNISH RADIO SYMPHONY, PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA, LONDON PHILHARMONIC, ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE, NHK SYMPHONY, HALLÉ ORCHESTRA, AND THE BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOR HIS BBC PROMS DEBUT IN SUMMER 2014. RECital HIGHLIGHTS TO Date INCLUDE REGULAR APPEARANCES IN THE THE ‘PIANO 4 ÉTOILEs’ SERIES IN PaRIS, AS WELL AS DEBUTS at THE WIGMORE HALL, THE LONDON INTERNatioNAL PIANO SERIES (QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL), STOCKHOLM KONSERTHUSET, TeatRO COLÓN BUENOS AIRES, LA ROQUE d’AnTHÉRON INTERNatioNAL PIANO FESTIVAL IN FRANCE, KIOI HALL IN TOKYO, SYMPHONY HALL OSAKA, BRUSSELS KLARA FESTIVAL, BEETHOVEN-HAUS BONN, KLAVIER-FESTIVAL RUHR AND MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN FESTSPIELE.