PHOTO BY OVIDIU MICSIK PHOTO BY LISA MARIE MAZZUCCO JOSHUA BELL, VIOLIN SAM HAYWOOD, PIANO Thursday, February 1, 2018, at 7:30pm Foellinger Great Hall PROGRAM JOSHUA BELL, VIOLIN Sam Haywood, piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata in B-flat Major for Violin and Piano, No. 32, K. 454 (1756-1791) Largo; Allegro Andante Allegretto Richard Strauss Sonata in E-flat Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 18, TrV 151 (1864-1949) Allegro ma non troppo Improvisation: Andante cantabile Finale: Andante; Allegro 20-minute intermission Franz Schubert Fantasie in C Major for Violin and Piano, Op. Posth. 159, D. 934 (1797-1828) Additional works to be announced from the stage Joshua Bell appears by arrangement with: Park Avenue Artists and Primo Artists www.parkavenueartists.com www.primoartists.com JAG Entertainment 1.818.905.5511 jagpr.com Leading orchestras and soloists from around the world comprise the Great Hall Series. The 2017-18 series includes Chicago Symphony Orchestra (October 28), Mariinksy Orchestra of St. Petersburg (November 9), Minnesota Orchestra (January 25), Joshua Bell, violin (February 1), and Staatskapelle Weimar (March 10). For more information about these events, including conductors, soloists, and program selections, please visit KrannertCenter.com/calendar. 2 THE ACT OF GIVING OF ACT THE THANK YOU FOR SPONSORING THIS PERFORMANCE Krannert Center honors the spirited generosity of donors who make these performances possible. This event is supported by: Endowed Patron Co-sponsors Emily & James Gillespie have demonstrated a deep devotion to the arts and our community with their legacy gift. Krannert Center acknowledges their steadfast support of the cultural arts in central Illinois. We are grateful for their generosity. * JOAN & PETER HOOD Eighteen Previous Sponsorships Two Current Sponsorships 3 * BARBARA E. BARNES K. 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BECOME A KRANNERT CENTER SPONSOR BY CONTACTING OUR DEVELOPMENT TEAM TODAY: KrannertCenter.com/Give • [email protected] • 217.333.1629 6 PROGRAM NOTES In their remarkable program, Joshua Bell and That Mozart wrote some 36 sonatas for violin and Sam Haywood take us to music that represents piano is not only an astounding accomplishment the essence of Classical style with Mozart, the but also a reflection of his own instrumental roots of Romanticism with Schubert, and a hint of abilities. He was an accomplished violinist and Modernism with Richard Strauss. Such a breadth pianist, and some of his earliest works were for of musical styles makes unique demands on the this combination. Composed in Vienna in 1784, artists and brings a special pleasure to listeners. the Sonata K. 454 was one of the last three and given its premiere by Mozart himself and the WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART talented young Italian violinist Regina Strinasacchi Born January 27, 1756, in Getreidegasse, in the presence of the Emperor Joseph who Salzburg, Austria commented that Mozart was not observing the Died December 5, 1791, in Vienna, Austria score. Mozart admitted that the piano score Sonata in B-flat Major for Violin and Piano, No. 32, was indeed blank and that he had played it from K. 454 memory. As Haydn forged the Classical Period and A sense of dark and light pervades the K. 454 Beethoven pushed it towards Romanticism, Sonata from its opening definitive statement Mozart consolidated it in a way unmatched by to its final merriment. We have here something any other composer. To it he brought not only more than merely contrasting movements. the elegance and grace we associate with the Instead, contrast persists within each of the earlier Baroque Period, but also the brilliance, three movements. In more purely musical terms, power, and clarity that define the Classical Period. one could view this as chords and melody, So, too, was Mozart a harmonic and melodic but that hardly says it all. We could look at it innovator. His death at 35 has left us with endless architecturally as a perfect mix of the vertical and unanswered questions of where he would have the horizontal. Neither of those views, however, taken his profound effect on Western music. fully catches the Sonata’s operatic quality as only Despite the brevity of his life, he produced a Mozart can effect. catalogue of works that defined opera, the Mass, The work is also an adventure in the development the symphony, the piano concerto, and the piano of the sonata for piano and violin with the sonata. To chamber music he brought his rich instruments assuming roles of equal importance. array of duo sonatas, string quartets, and quintets Sometimes the scales are tipped when the that never dull in their many performances. piano takes on the operatic vocal lines and Those who play his music will quickly attest to its embellishments, and the violin provides the solid singular virtuosic challenges based on a demand base line. Competition, however, is not the point for absolute clarity coupled with a pervading of this beautifully integrated work. operatic quality—even in his chamber music. 7 RICHARD STRAUSS upward leaps color the movement's virtuosic Born June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany impact. After a quieter middle section, soaring Died September 8, 1949, in melodies return for a conclusion echoing the Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany triumph of the opening statement. Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 18, TrV 151 The improvisation of the second movement Strauss wrote his famous Op. 18 Sonata for Violin occurs in the development section with its and Piano between 1887 and 1888 at the age of cadenza-like passages for the piano. Before 23 when he had just fallen in love with his wife that, the movement is sweetly lyrical except for to be, Pauline de Ahna. Surely it is a romantic momentary slips into the minor that give it an passion that governs the work, yet we should also edge of sadness. note Strauss's thorough knowledge of both the violin and the piano. The two instruments work The dramatic Finale reveals the work's show piece as one, have their separate grand moments, and qualities for both instruments as they execute somehow share a concerto style. And let us not their daring arpeggios, once again in a form that omit the operatic quality of the piece. Put all suggests a double concerto with a full orchestra. those effects together, and one has a work that The passion and warmth of the movement rises to justly deserves its fame and favor among virtuoso a brilliant conclusion. violinists. That Strauss wrote no other sonatas after Op. 18 A triumphant opening turns lavishly romantic might be explained by his belief that program in the first movement. Unexpected harmonic music was his true form of expression. He would changes lend the movement a hint of darkness, turn from Classical sonata form to write his and the strong and lyrical singing of both operas and his famous tone poems such as Death instruments touches the heart. Downward and and Transfiguration and Also Sprach Zarathustra. 8 FRANZ SCHUBERT Beneath Schubert's C Major Fantasy lies sonata Born January 31, 1797, in Alsergrund, Vienna, form but without its usual restrictions—a Austria victory, if you will, in the struggle between form Died November 19, 1828, in Vienna, Austria and freedom. Although it is played without Fantasy in C Major for Violin and Piano, interruption in true fantasy fashion, still the work Op. Posth. 159, D. 934 suggests sonata form with its slow opening development, a dance-like Allegretto, a Gypsy- To explain Schubert is to explain a miracle, and like Rondo, and a central set of three variations we should attempt it only with the reminder based on Schubert's 1822 setting of Rückert’s Sei that he said of himself: “It sometimes seems to mir gegrüsst (Be Greeted by Me). The particularly me as if I did not belong to this world at all.“ beautiful ending contains one of Schubert's Indeed, he belonged to it so briefly that the size riveting surprises, that is, an abrupt return to the and impact of his output are astonishing. Within opening theme, a stunning effect Schubert also his short lifespan of 31 years he composed no uses in his great F Minor Fantasy for piano four less than nine symphonies, 20 string quartets, hands. A critic at the work's premiere on January two piano trios, a variety of other significant 20, 1828, however, noted the extended length chamber works such as the famous “Trout“ of the Fantasy and admitted that he, like other Quintet and Cello Quintet, numerous operas, 21 members of the impatient Viennese audience, left piano sonatas as well as other solo piano works before it was over. including the Wanderer Fantasy, two glorious sets of impromptus, and the remarkable F Minor The work was completed in December of 1827, a Fantasy for four hands. Looming over all this is scant year before Schubert's death on November his vast catalogue of over 600 songs.