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Born in Montréal, Canada, in 1961, Marc-André Hamelin began piano study at the age of five, continuing at the age of nine at the École Vincent-d’Indy, University of Sherbrooke in Montréal. He earned both his bachelor’s (1983) and master’s (1985) degrees in music at Philadelphia’s Temple University. He had already won the International Stepping Stones of the Canadian Music Competitions and International Piano Competition in Pretoria, South Africa, both in 1982. In 1985, his career was fully launched with a win in the Carnegie Hall International Competition of American Music. The Canada Council granted Hamelin the Sylvia Gelber Foundation Award in 1987 and the Virginia P. Moore Prize in 1989. In a performing and recording career that has championed the works of lesser-known composers, Hamelin has released over thirty-five recordings for Hyperion and garnered seven Grammy nominations. He recently received the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the lifetime achievement award from German music critics. Hamelin was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003 and a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec in 2004, and is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Marc-André Hamelin appears by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management Inc., 111 West 57th Street, New York, New York 10019.
Joseph Haydn (born Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; died Vienna, May 31, 1809)
Sonata in F major, H. XVI:23 (composed 1773)
Moderato
Adagio
Finale: Presto
Sonata in E major, H. XVI:31 (composed 1774-1776)
Moderato
Allegretto
Finale: Presto
Haydn was never the boy genius on the keyboard that Mozart was. Nor was he the legendary piano virtuoso that Beethoven was. Unlike his symphonies and string quartets, Haydn’s piano sonatas did not define the very shape and form of their genre. By rough count, Haydn wrote about as many solo piano sonatas as Mozart and Beethoven combined, although never specifically for his own performance. For whatever reason, Haydn’s sonatas have never received the attention, respect, or performances that Mozart’s or Beethoven’s did. Until around 1771, Haydn’s sonatas were conceived for harpsichord, and by the late 1780s, they were clearly piano works, taking greater advantage of the piano’s range and power. Both of these sonatas, though, are from the mid-1770s, when Haydn was writing his keyboard works for either harpsichord or piano. Although Haydn had the amateur player in mind, these works have challenges and depths of their own. In 1774, the Viennese publisher Kurzböck put out a set of the six Sonatas H. XVI:21-26, dedicated to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and written by Haydn the year before. As hard as it may be to believe, this was the very first authorized publication of any of Haydn’s works. The Sonata in F major, H. XVI:23 opens with a sharp march, marked Moderato, with dotted rhythms; the second theme has similar origins. One of only two adagios in the set of six sonatas, the central movement in F minor is gently pastoral, with triplets accompanying. The sonata form Presto finale plays with a dance-like theme that wanders among keys. Haydn’s next set of six sonatas were written between 1774 and 1776, subsequently published by Hummel. The opening Moderato of the Sonata in E major, H. XVI:31 features the sort of rhythmic variety that Haydn specializes in. The E minor Allegretto leads without pause to the Presto finale, which itself has a central section in E minor.
Alexis Weissenberg (born Sofia, Bulgaria, July 26, 1929)
Sonata in a State of Jazz (composed 1982)
Evocation d’un tango
Réminiscence d’un Charleston
Reflets d’un blues
Provocation de samba
Best known as a pianist of breathtaking technique, Alexis Weissenberg has also composed on occasion, usually for his own instrument and almost entirely in what we usually think of as “popular” idioms. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Weissenberg first studied piano with his mother and then eventually – starting when he was three -- with one of Bulgaria’s foremost composers, pianists, and teachers, Pancho Vladigerov (1899-1978). In his first recital at the age of ten, he included a work of his own on the program. Not long after, Weissenberg and his mother tried to flee the political troubles at home but were captured and ended up in a concentration camp. Thanks to an accordion he had escaped with, and the sympathies of a music-loving German guard, the pair was put on a train to Istanbul, their original destination, after about three months in captivity.
In 1945, Weissenberg and his mother made their way to Israel, and then in 1946 to the United States, where he began studies at Juilliard. In 1947, he won the Leventritt International Competition, catapulting him to an international career. He moved to Paris in 1956 and took a decade-long break from performing in order to study and teach. Upon his return to the concert stage in November 1966, he launched his distinguished second act as pianist and recording artist.
Weissenberg’s Sonate en état de jazz (Sonata in a State of Jazz) is what, more than a quarter century after its composition, we might call a mash-up of classical structure, jazz sensibility, and the individual spirits of four different places and associated popular musical forms: Buenos Aires and the tango, New York and the Charleston, New Orleans and the blues, Rio de Janeiro and the samba. In Weissenberg’s own words (translated from the French by Marc-André Hamelin): “A sonata in a state of jazz, like someone in a state of inebriation, hysteria, infatuation, or inspiration, is not in a normal state. The resulting shock, the consequences, palpitations, excessive enthusiasm, and drunkenness of the soul, force it to operate within a cubist logic, which only appears to be lucid when placed in the context of a certain kind of madness. I have subjected a classically constructed composition to what I would call ‘contamination by jazz’.” Weissenberg goes on to say that the four popular forms, “united by a common language … all unquestionably have their own individual personalities, but more significantly they all have specific characteristics which both differentiate and identify them organically, beyond concerns of rhythm or style.”
So in Evocation d’un tango, takes the usually four-beat tango and presents it in three-quarter time. Weissenberg explains: “However, if we were to split the measures into groups of four, we would naturally recognize the inexorable pulse of a heart beating in common time; thus this slowing-down effect creates an unreal kind of distant memory, sentimental but temporally frozen.” Réminiscence d’un Charleston, he writes, “is essentially dependent upon the geometry of its rhythm. Here, melodies and harmonies are made to function more as background, becoming inconsequential …. Its syncopations are characteristically mechanistic and seem to evoke, both visually and aurally, the accelerated appearance and the characteristic abruptness of silent films from the same era. There is still room for elegance, but what predominates is thirst for fun and appetite for laughter.”
Reflets d’un blues evokes the melancholy of the genre, “created by the vague quality of the rhythmic contour, and also by underlying harmonies which, though blurred and troubled, are sophisticated by their very nature.” Provocation de samba, the brightly syncopated finale, Weissenberg describes as “A mixture of paroxystic rhythms and luxurious harmonies [that] give the music a constant light-headed sensuality.” In spite of the series of altered states that Weissenberg summons in the course of the four movements, “I find myself in a state of urgent obligation to swear solemnly that I have written this sonata in a state of indisputable sobriety.” We’ll take his word for it.
Frédéric Chopin (born Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, February 22, 1810; died Paris, October 17, 1849)
Barcarolle in F-sharp major, op. 60 (composed 1845-1846)
Ballade no. 3 in A-flat major, op. 47 (composed 1841)
Both Poland and France lay claim to the legacy of Frédéric Chopin.
He was born on February 22, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, but left
Poland in November 1830, never to return. From September 1831 through
the time of his death on October 17, 1849, he spent most of his time in
France. His father Nicolas had been born in Nancy in 1771, although he
came to Warsaw as a teenager looking for work. He quickly got involved
with Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s uprising against foreign domination and found
himself unable to return to France after the insurrection was crushed.
In 1806, Nicolas ended up marrying the daughter of an impoverished nobleman;
Frédéric was the second of their four children. He would grow up to be
what many consider the greatest of all composers for the piano.
Chopin’s most transforming relationship was that with the French novelist
George Sand (1804-1876). Like most of the summers she and Chopin
shared between 1839 and 1846, the summer of 1841 was spent at her country
home in Nohant in central France. There, Chopin was at leisure to
compose rather than teach or socialize. Having just spent an unusually
unproductive period in Paris, he had a burst of creativity out in the
country, one that included the composition of his Ballade no. 3 in
A-flat major, op. 47.
The musical ballade was largely Chopin’s own invention, paying tribute both
to the similarly-named narrative poetic form popular in Germany a few
generations earlier and to its medieval predecessor. Creating a new
form with an old name allowed Chopin freedom of expression with a link to
tradition. In the decade between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, he
wrote four ballades. True to the genre’s lineage, the Ballade no.
3 is thought to have been inspired by the poem Undine by
fellow Pole Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). It tells the story of the
water sprite who falls in love with a mortal, resulting in the obvious
complications of reconciling different breathing media.
More light-hearted than any of its three siblings, the Ballade no. 3
opens with a halting voice, followed by a slightly more forceful theme whose
rhythm suggests Undine’s waves. In a second section, that rhythm
accompanies an innocent tune that grows in contrapuntal complexity, gives
way to a return of the opening, then rises again. When the opening
passages return toward the end, they build to a heartfelt conclusion.
By contrast, the Barcarolle in F-sharp major, op. 60, dates from
1845-1846, when the Sand-Chopin relationship and the composer’s
always-delicate health were both in decline. The roots of the
barcarolle are in the lilting songs of the gondolier, and so also owe their
rhythms to lapping waves. The long and wandering theme leads
eventually to a passionate midsection, a recap, some further variation to
the main theme, a climax, and a whimsical coda.
Etude
no. 8, Erlkönig, After Goethe (composed 2007?)
Etude
no. 7, After Tchaikovsky (composed 2007?)
Marc-André Hamelin, whose brief biography may be found under “About the
Artist,” is said to have begun composing for his instrument, the piano, when
he was about nineteen. Going
back as far as 1987, he has been composing a projected set of twelve
Etudes in the Minor Keys, two of
which are heard this evening.
About the Etude no. 8, Erlkönig,
After Goethe, Hamelin has written:
“My
Etude No. 8 is a setting for solo
piano of Goethe’s poem Erlkönig (The
Erl-King) which conforms so
closely to the poem that, in theory at least, it could be sung.
Aside from the fact that I repeated
the first four lines for musical reasons, I have closely followed Goethe’s
original text. The composition
of this etude was a fascinating creative act, unlike anything I’d ever done
before, and it was interesting to see that one can do something of this kind
without being in the least influenced by an overpowering precedent; in this
case Schubert’s celebrated setting. I do hope I have succeeded.”
One can
feel the rhythms of the galloping horse and hear the voice of the
dying child in the notes of the right hand.
On the
Etude no. 7, After Tchaikovsky,
Hamelin has contributed the following notes:
“Etude
No. 7 is a relatively straightforward arrangement for the left hand
alone of one of Tchaikovsky’s early songs, his
Lullaby, op.16, no. 1.
It presents difficulties mainly in
the area of textural control and intricate pedaling.
Both of these pieces belong to a set of twelve etudes in all the
minor keys, which are still unfinished.”
So far,
Hamelin has composed at least eight of the planned dozen etudes, including
tributes to such composers as Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolò Paganini and
Franz Liszt, Domenico Scarlatti, Gioacchino Rossini, and Frédéric Chopin.
Leopold Godowsky (born Soshly, near Vilnius, Lithuania, February 13, 1870;
died New York, November 21, 1938)
Symphonic Metamorphoses on Johann Strauss’ “Wine, Woman, and Song” (composed
around 1912)
Before
he was even three, Leopold Godowsky showed promise as a violinist and
pianist, even though he had little or no training on either.
At five, he composed his first work, a minuet, and by the age of
nine, he was performing in public.
By 1884, he was touring in the United States.
Circumstances brought him back to Europe to study with Franz Liszt,
but Liszt died just a few days after Godowsky reached France.
Instead, the teenage
Godowsky ended up studying with Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris.
In 1890 he returned to the United States and on April 24, 1891, was
among the first pianists to perform a recital at the soon-to-open Carnegie
Hall.
During
the 1890s, he taught in New York, Philadelphia, and then Chicago, and has
performed across the United States and Canada.
In 1900, he returned to Europe and soon became the world’s
highest-paid solo instrumentalist.
At the start of World War One in 1914, he returned to the United
States, where he lived the rest of his life.
In June 1930, Godowsky suffered a stroke and never performed in
public again, after four decades as one of the most celebrated of pianists.
He died of stomach cancer in November 1938.
From 1908 until the beginning of the war, Godowsky lived in Vienna, for much of that time as the first Jewish director of the Piano School at the Kaiserliche Akademie für Musik. By 1912, he had written the third of the three Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Johann Strauss, this one based on the younger Strauss’s waltz Wein, Weib, Gesang, op. 333 (Wine, Woman, and Song). Following an original introduction marked Kapriziös und gesangvoll (Capricious and songful), Godowsky performs a contrapuntal transformation on each of Strauss’s waltz themes. This third Metamorphosis was dedicated to Dr. Heinrich Steger, a lawyer who sat on the board of the imperial school and had first approached Godowsky about the directorship.
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Program notes by Jay Weitz, Senior Consulting Database Specialist for music,
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio.
He is a contributing performing arts critic for the weekly
alternative newspaper Columbus Alive
(http://www.columbusalive.com).