presents… ALEXANDRE THARAUD | Piano Tuesday, April 23, 2019 | 7:30pm Herbst Theatre BACH Aria with Thirty Variations, BWV 988 (Goldberg Variations) Aria Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 3 Canone all’ Unisono Variation 4 Variation 5 Variation 6 Canone alla Seconda Variation 7 al tempo di Giga Variation 8 Variation 9 Canone alla Terza Variation 10 Fughetta Variation 11 Variation 12 Canone alla Quarta Variation 13 Variation 14 Variation 15 Canone alla Quinta Variation 16 Ouverture Variation 17 Variation 18 Canone alla Sesta Variation 19 Variation 20 Variation 21 Canone alla Settima Variation 22 Variation 23 Variation 24 Canone all’ Ottava Variation 25 Variation 26 Variation 27 Canone alla Nona Variation 28 Variation 29 Variation 30 Quodlibet Aria da capo This presentation is generously supported by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Alexandre Tharaud is represented by Opus 3 Artists 470 Park Ave South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 opus3artists.com Yamaha CFX concert grand piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services New York in association with Piedmont Piano Company. ARTIST PROFILE Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; BOZAR, No. 2, together with the Royal Liverpool Brussels; Wigmore Hall and Queen Eliza- Philharmonic Orchestra. San Francisco Performances presents the San beth Hall, London; Auditorio Nacional, In 2014, he published his first book, Pia- Francisco recital debut of Alexandre Tharaud. Madrid; Santa Cecilia, Rome; Tonhalle, no Intime, which was followed in early 2017 Zürich; Casino, Bern; Rudolfinum, Prague by a more personal narrative view on his and Musikverein, Vienna. His festival career: Montrez-moi vos mains. Alexandre appearances include the BBC Proms, Ed- Tharaud is also featured in a film directed inburgh International Festival, Gergiev by Michael Haneke (Amour), and Swiss film Festival in Rotterdam, Aix-en-Provence, maker Raphaëlle Aellig-Régnier, Le Temps La Roque d’Anthéron, Schleswig-Holstein, Dérobé, and has completed a new edition of Rheingau, Ruhr Piano Festival, Nuits de Maurice Ravel’s complete solo piano works Décembre de Moscou, Rimini, Domaine for the German publisher Bärenreiter. Forget and Lanaudière. A Beethoven CD featuring the three PROGRAM NOTES last sonatas was released on the ERATO/ Warner Classics label in Fall 2018. This followed a tribute to one of the greatest Aria with Thirty French singers of all times, Barbara, pre- Variations, BWV 988 sented at the Philharmonie de Paris in Oc- (Goldberg Variations) tober 2017, and a Brahms CD together with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, a regular JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Alexandre Tharaud has distinguished chamber music partner for 20 years. (1685–1750) himself as one of France’s leading pianists. Among the performing highlights of the Recognized on the international stage as next two seasons: a European tour with the In November 1741 Bach, then 56 years an artist of unique vision and originality, Metropolitan Orchestra and its chief-con- old, made the hundred-mile trip east from Alexandre is heralded for his brilliant- ductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Ravel Piano Leipzig to Dresden to visit an old friend, ly conceived programs and bestselling Concerto for the Left Hand); and a tour of Ja- Count Hermann Keyserlingk, the Rus- recordings that range from Bach, Cho- pan including a concert with the Tokyo Met- sian ambassador to the Saxon court. Key- pin, Rameau, and Ravel to music inspired ropolitan Orchestra (Shostakovich Piano serlingk’s court harpsichordist was the by Paris cabaret of the 1920s. Concerto No. 2). Further tours will take place 14-year-old Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, This season’s highlights in North Amer- across France, Germany, Austria, Italy and who at age ten had been a student of Bach. ica include performances with the Cleve- Switzerland together with NDR Radio Phil- There are several stories as to what hap- land Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, harmonie, Orchestre de la Suisse-Roman- pened next, all impossible to confirm. One and his return to the Montreal Symphony. de, Münchener Kammerorchester, Junge is that Keyserlingk commissioned a work His recent recitals in the U.S. include his Deutsche Philharmonie, Bayerische Kam- for his young harpsichordist and gave Bach return to Carnegie Hall, and recitals in merphilharmonie and Orchestra Verdi. a goblet full of gold coins in payment. An- Washington, DC, Boston, Montreal, and Contemporary music has always fea- other is that Keyserlingk was an insomniac Chicago Symphony Hall. He also contin- tured prominently in Alexandre’s activi- who specified that he wanted a piece that ues to appear frequently with Les Violons ties and January 2016 saw him present the Goldberg could play to him as he went to du Roy—with whom he has recorded Bach world premiere of Danish composer Hans sleep. What is certain is that the following and Mozart for Warner Classics—on tour Abrahamsen’s new piano concerto for the year Bach published (as the fourth part of and in Canada, and in recent seasons made left hand (Left, alone) at the Cologne Phil- his edition of keyboard works, the Clavier- his debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra harmonie, together with the WDR Sinfo- Übung) a work he called simply Aria with and the Atlanta Symphony and returned nieorchester. Subsequent performances Thirty Variations, composed for two-manual to the Toronto Symphony. Other recent followed with the City of Birmingham harpsichord. The score bore neither dedica- highlights in North America include ap- Symphony Orchestra, the DR Symfoni- tion, nor any mention at all of Keyserlingk pearances at Boston Symphony Hall and at Orkestret and Rotterdam Philharmonisch or Goldberg. But Bach did give the count Walt Disney Hall. Alexandre has enjoyed Orkest, the latter under the baton of Yan- a copy of this music, and the conclusion is working with such conductors as Peter nick Nézet-Séguin. that this is the piece that had been request- Oundjian, Bernard Labadie, Daniele Gatti, Alexandre’s discography reflects his ed in Dresden. By a process of (perhaps ran- Lionel Bringuier, Stéphane Denève, Vladi- eclectic affinity to many musical styles. dom) association, one of the greatest works mir Jurowski, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, His recordings range from Bach, Mozart ever written immortalizes a 14-year-old and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, among others. and Haydn (with Les Violons du Roy) to harpsichord player, and we know this mu- In Europe, Alexandre performs exten- Le Bœuf sur Le Toit: Swinging Paris (a hom- sic today simply as the Goldberg Variations. sively in Germany (Essen and Cologne age to the roaring twenties). Other discs For his theme—which he calls Aria— Philharmonies; Alte Oper Frankfurt; Lud- for ERATO include Autograph, Alexandre Bach uses a sarabande melody that he had wigsburg Festival), France (Théâtre des Tharaud Plays Scarlatti, Chopin—Journal In- written as part of Anna Magdalena Bach’s Champs-Elysées; Opéra de Versailles), as time, and the major release of 2016: Bach’s Notebook. It is 32 measures long and already well as at the Warsaw Philharmonie; Vic- Goldberg Variations. His latest recording ornately embellished on its first appear- toria Hall, Geneva; Muziekgebouw and features Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto ance, though it is not this melody that will 2 | For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545 furnish the basis for the variations that fol- taken as an individual pleasure. Some in- thirtieth and final variation is marked low but the bassline beneath it. This lengthy cidental observations: the keyboard writ- Quodlibet, which means simply a gather- harmonic progression will become the ing here is unusually brilliant—this is vir- ing of tunes. Here Bach incorporates into backbone of the Goldberg Variations, func- tuoso music, and that virtuosity appears the harmonic frame of his variations some tioning much like the ground bass of a pas- not just in the dazzling runs across the of the popular tunes that he had heard sacaglia. The 30 variations that follow are range of the keyboard but in the complex- sung around him on the streets of Leipzig. grouped in ten units of three, of which the ity of the contrapuntal writing, where the Donald Francis Tovey has identified two third is always a canon, and each successive pianist—limited to just two hands—must of these, and their first lines translate “It canon is built on an interval one larger than keep multiple strands clear. Bach changes is so long since I have been at your house” the previous. Such a description makes the meter at virtually every variation, with the and “Cabbage and turnips have driven me Goldberg Variations sound like one of the music leaping from its original 3/4 meter away. If my mother’d cooked some meat, I more densely-argued works of the Second through such permutations as 4/4, 3/8, 2/4, might have stopped longer.” To a listener Viennese School, but in fact this is some of and on to 12/16 and 18/16. The tenth varia- of Bach’s day, the joke would have been ob- Bach’s most moving and exhilarating mu- tion is written as a Fughetta, and of spe- vious, though it has to be explained to us— sic, and it is a measure of his genius that cial importance to the work are the three we feel only that the work is approaching such expressive music can grow out of such minor-key variations (Nos. 15, 21, and 25): its close in an unusually relaxed and tune- rigorous compositional procedures. all of these are slow, all begin in G minor ful manner. And then, a masterstroke: In fact, listeners do not really need to (but can go far afield harmonically), and rather than rounding off the Goldberg Vari- understand the complexity of Bach’s tech- all are darkly expressive. In particular, No. ations with a rousing display of contrapun- niques to feel the greatness of this mu- 25—which lasts well over six minutes by tal brilliance, Bach instead concludes with sic.