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the muriel mcbrien kauffman master pianist series
Alexei Lubimov, piano
friday, january 20 • 8 pm • the folly theater
Lifetime Achievement Award
Malcolm Bilson and Alexei Lubimov
DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Selections from Préludes, Book I
Danseuses de Delphes
Voiles
Le vent dans la plaine
La Cathédrale engloutie
Minstrels
Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest
L’Isle joyeuse
— Intermission —
STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Piano Sonata
Quarter note = 112
Adagietto
Quarter note = 112
DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Selections from Préludes, Book II
Feuilles mortes
La Puerta del Vino
“Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses”
“General Lavine” – eccentric
Canope
Feux d’artifice
This concert is sponsored by Charles and Virginia Clark
with support from Dennis Ayzin and Mira Mdivani.
supporting columns in Greek temples sculpted in
the form of a draped female figure. The essential
dichotomy of this architectural element would have
Every pianist has a favorite work by Debussy, but
appealed to him: the fluidity of cloth adorning the
few would deny the overarching importance of the Preludes
female form, but rendered in stone: a woman rendered
in setting forth his singular approach to the keyboard.
immobile in her capacity as a supporting pillar.
Published in two sets of twelve in 1910 and 1913, the Preludes Danseuses de Delphes unfolds as a stately sarabande in
comprise a profusion of ideas for connecting sound, mood,
the old French style. This Prélude is a curious cousin to
and image.
Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies.
Everything in Debussy’s youth pointed toward a
Voiles is an ambiguous word in French. It means
career as a piano virtuoso. He matriculated at the Paris
both veils, which conceal, or sails, which billow in the
Conservatoire at age ten and played Chopin’s Second Piano
wind and propel vessels. Debussy’s music is trance-like,
Concerto when he was twelve. Although composition
anchored by a recurrent opening gesture in parallel
eventually supplanted performance as Debussy’s primary
thirds, whole-tone scales, and a persistent pedal
focus, he remained a superb pianist his entire life. His
point that creates a sense of stasis. A brief interlude
achievement as a composer for piano is, in large part, an
in the middle switches from the whole tones to a
extension of the sound color and techniques he learned from more pentatonic harmony, perhaps an allusion to the
studying Chopin.
Javanese gamelan that so fascinated Debussy.
The two books of Préludes crystallized Debussy’s
“As lightly as possible” is Debussy’s
innovative approach to the piano. Each one explores the
interpretive direction for Le Vent dans la plaine [The
keyboard in highly individual ways that involve pedaling,
Wind on the Plain]. This wind is rustling, but not
arpeggios, delicate figuration, and frequent whole tone
stinging: just a few little gusts in the middle. Foliage
harmonies. He was a literate and cultured man who knew
and high grasses ripple in the breeze. Here again,
many of the important painters and writers of his day as well pentatonic and whole tone scales are Debussy’s
as the other prominent musicians active in Paris. In his piano harmonic vocabulary. The technique is toccata-like,
music, Debussy sought to recreate the subtle colors and play
but to be executed with the most delicate possible
of light of the Impressionist school of painters, and to evoke
touch.
the rich, layered imagery of Symbolist and Parnassus poets.
Few of the Préludes have a specific programme.
The Preludes are unusual in many respects. One is
La Cathédrale engloutie [The Submerged Cathedral] is
that the titles occur at the end in the printed music, not at
an exception. Debussy is referring to the legend of the
the beginning, each one preceded by an ellipsis and enclosed Cathedral of Ys, which was supposedly submerged in
in parentheses. It is as if Debussy wants your imagination
the seas off Brittany’s coast to punish the people for
to wander free as the music unfolds, before he tips his
their lack of piety. Occasionally the cathedral would
hand as to the imagery he seeks to evoke in the individual
rise to the water’s surface as a reminder of past sins.
movements.
Bells and their overtones were in Debussy’s mind, to
The music of Spain exercised a strong attraction
evoke the cathedral’s emergence. The rocking of waves
to Debussy. Though he only traveled there once, and then
interlocks with their clangor. Eventually the cathedral
just across the border to attend a bullfight, he remained
vanishes again, engulfed by the ocean expanse closing
enchanted with the rhythms and quasi-Arabic harmonies of
over its belfry.
flamenco and Spanish guitar music. These sonorities found
Minstrels would be politically incorrect today.
their way into several of the Préludes.
Debussy was thinking of music hall performers in
Another striking aspect of Debussy’s language at
black face and formal attire. He heard an American
the piano is his harmony. Although he was schooled in
minstrel troupe in Southern England while on holiday
traditional 19th-century harmony, counterpoint, and form,
in 1905. Its sounds and atmosphere stayed with him:
he cared little for rules. Three summers (1880-1882) in the
barrel organ, exaggerated clowning, mockery, feigned
employ of Tchaikovsky’s patron Nadejda von Meck gave him
fright, and bawdy jokes tempered by the occasional
early exposure to the works of Russian nationalists such as
sentimental song. This movement reveals Debussy’s
Musorgsky and Borodin; he was enchanted with Slavic folk
sense of humor.
music.
Each Book of Préludes contains one
Later, in 1889, he heard the music of the Javanese
blockbuster movement that is a technical tour de force.
gamelan orchestra at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Soon
Book I’s Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest [What the West Wind
Eastern sonorities inspired by gamelan were cropping up
Saw] is a virtuosic piece cut from the same bolt of
in his piano pieces, including several of the Préludes. While
musical fabric as Debussy’s earlier L’isle joyeuse. Liszt’s
these disparate influences bewildered some of his audience
influence is paramount, with double trills, tremolos,
and many of his critics, they distinguished Debussy from his
broken octaves, and muscular chordal passages. The
contemporaries. His ceaseless efforts to elicit novel sounds
subtler imprint of Chopin’s ‘Winter Wind’ Etude is also
from the piano yielded landmarks in keyboard literature. In
present in this turbulent music, but the pentatonic
terms of his influence on the generations of composers that
and whole tone elements connect it unmistakably to
followed, Debussy was as important as Arnold Schoenberg, in Debussy. Paul Roberts has written, “This is a piece
a completely different way.
unique in the Debussy repertoire, requiring wrists of
Danseuses de Delphes [Delphic Dancers] does open Book iron and fingers of steel.”
I. The title comes from the formal rites at Delphi’s Temple of
Apollo in ancient Greece. Debussy was thinking of caryatids,
Préludes, Books I and II
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
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Oaks Concerto, Symphony in C . . . the list is long.
But piano music? Chances are that hardly anyone
in this evening’s audience knows a solo keyboard work
Early in 1904, Claude Debussy became involved in
by Stravinsky apart from his Three Movements from
a passionate affair with Emma Bardac, an amateur singer
Pétrouchka, which are regularly performed at high-profile
who was the wife of the banker Sigismond Bardac. Debussy competitions because of their extraordinary difficulty. Two
had met her the previous autumn. He had been married to
other pieces for solo piano warrant mention: the Serenade
Rosalie [Lilly] Texier since 1899, but the union was shallow,
in A from 1925 and the Sonata that Mr. Lubimov performs
and he found Bardac intoxicating. In June 1904 Debussy left this evening. Both pieces date from Stravinsky’s neoclassical
Lilly permanently to move in with Emma, whose husband
period, which began when he returned to France after the
traveled extensively. The lovers slipped out of Paris in
Great War. Between 1920 and 1939, he was rediscovering
mid-July to spend three glorious weeks on the British isle
music of the 17th and 18th centuries, often adopting older
of Jersey. L’isle joyeuse [“The joyous island”] mirrors the
forms such as concerto grosso, fugue, and symphony as
delirious passion of Debussy’s first extended holiday with
vessels for his music.
Emma, who eventually became his second wife.
The Sonata of 1924 is a prime example, yet a
Debussy had drafted the score to L’isle joyeuse during confounding one, because none of its three movements
the summer of 1903 while still in Paris. He initially thought adheres to traditional sonata form. Rather, Stravinsky
to include it in the Suite Bergamasque. While on the isle of
embraced the original concept of sonata as a ‘sounded’ piece
Jersey, he revised the piece extensively, adding final touches (i.e., performed on an instrument), as opposed to a cantata,
in Dieppe in August, on his way back to Paris. In that
or sung piece. The Italian verbs that gave rise to the musical
version it is one of his lengthiest solo piano compositions
terms are, respectively, suonare, to play or sound, and
(only Masques rivals L’isle joyeuse in duration), and differs
cantare, to sing.
markedly from the delicate understatement of many of his
He opens with a Baroque motor rhythm in Comodo.
other piano works. As Marcel Dietschy has noted:
Textures are thin: largely in two voices, and occasionally
expanding to parallel thirds in the right hand. Only once
Voluble, passionate joy runs through L’isle
does he expand beyond three voices until the very end,
joyeuse, like a flock of birds dazzled by the dawn
which resolves to a clear cadence in C Major.
and drunk on the freshness of the morning.
The second movement, in A-flat Major, is like a Bach
The past was buried when Debussy finished this
aria. A dignified walking bass in the left hand provides a
piece with its strong and flexible muscles. . . . [it
steady rhythmic ostinato to supports the florid, melismatic
testifies] to Debussy’s uncontrollable feeling for
upper line. Stravinsky indulges with trills and elaborate
Emma Bardac.
embroidery, constantly developing and varying his melody.
For the finale in E Minor, he adopts a toccata style.
The piece is intensely virtuosic, placing technical
The term is another throwback, from the Italian toccare,
demands on the pianist analogous to those in the dazzling
to touch - implying demanding technique on a keyboard
showpieces of Franz Liszt. The composer wrote to his
instrument such as organ or harpsichord. Here again
publisher Jacques Durand: “But God! How difficult it is
the pace is motoric, like the brisk opening and closing
to perform. . . . seems to assemble all the ways to attack a
movements of an Italian concerto grosso. One hears hints of
piano since it unites force and grace.” Debussy uses the
French influence in mischievous exchanges between hands
piano as if it were a full orchestra, drawing forth a variety of and harmonic games. The Sonata ends quietly in E Major.
colors as infinite as the play of light on the sea. (Evidently
Stravinsky dedicated the Sonata to Princesse
recognizing its symphonic potential, the composer planned Edmond de Polignac (1865-1943), an American heiress to
to orchestrate it in 1915, but did not complete the project
the Singer sewing machine fortune. When she married the
before his death.)
French prince in 1893, their strongest shared interest was
Harmonically, L’Isle joyeuse dances between folka passion for arts and culture. By the late 1890s, her Paris
like tunes and vivid whole-tone passages. There are
salon had become one of the city’s most prestigious. After
also some sections in which Debussy writes in two keys
Prince Edmond died in 1901, she assumed a high profile
simultaneously. Rhythmically, the piece alternates between as a patron of the arts, commissioning important works
impetuosity and unpredictability to measured delicacy.
from Falla, Fauré, Poulenc, and Satie, as well as Stravinsky.
Throughout, the composer’s spirit emerges exultant, even
She also lent her support to gifted performers, helping
ecstatic.
to promote the careers of Clara Haskil, Artur Rubinstein,
Vladimir Horowitz, and Ethel Smyth, among others.
L’isle joyeuse
Claude Debussy
Sonata (1924)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Selections from Préludes, Book II
Claude Debussy
Few listeners would dispute that Stravinsky’s
most important compositions are for orchestra. His early
ballets, The Firebird (1910), Pétrouchka (1911), and The Rite
of Spring (1913) have become standard repertoire. Many
of his subsequent ballet scores, theater pieces, and other
orchestral works make regular appearances in the concert
hall: L’histoire du soldat, Pulcinella, Jeu de cartes, Orpheus, Apollon
musagète, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Dumbarton
As with the first book of Préludes, Debussy traverses
multiple worlds in Book II, comprising landscape, humor,
legend, and faraway places. Feuilles mortes [Dead Leaves],
marked ‘slow and melancholy,’ is wistful, a last clinging
to the final vestiges of summer as the trees shed their
foliage. Some writers believe that Debussy intended another
deliberate ambiguity in his title, since in French feuilles can
also refer to sheets of paper – or the pages of a printed book.
Parallel chords, triads, sevenths, and ninths deliver
the reverie.
La puerto del Vino [The Wine Gate] takes its
title from a gate near the Alhambra in Granada.
Manuel de Falla purportedly sent Debussy a picture
postcard of the scene. The image was a catalyst for
associative memory, like Proust’s madeleine. Taking
the Habanera – Spain’s predecessor to the tango– as
its rhythmic pulse, Debussy’s prelude alters tempo
with the abruptness of a flamenco dancer. Melodic
inflections and guitar-like chords reinforce the
Spanish mood, but it is the capricious, sudden
contrasts that make the greatest impression.
Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses [The Fairies
are Exquisite Dancers] transports us to an enchanted
world with gossamer textures, broken chords,
extended trills, tremolos, and a wisp of a waltz. The
capricious tempo changes are a constant reminder
of the world of magic: whether Tinkerbell, the
miracle of a butterfly in flight, or Shakespeare’s
Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed,
Debussy captures their ephemeral and supernatural
character. A brief reference at the end to Carl
Maria von Weber’s Oberon Overture reinforces the
Shakespearean connection.
General Lavine–Excentric is another tap into
early 20th-century popular American culture on
Debussy’s part. He instructs the pianist to play in the
style and tempo of a Cake-Walk. Edward Lavine was
an American clown who performed at the Marigny
Theatre on the Champs-Elysées in 1910 and 1912.
He styled himself as “The Man Who Has Soldiered
All His Life,” delighting audiences with a slapstick
act that included juggling as well as quick costume
and personality changes. The music emphasizes his
awkward, jerky movements, heightening the comic
atmosphere.
Canope returns us to the ancient world.
Canopus was a city on the Nile River. Debussy’s title
refers to funerary urns that preserved certain organs
in Ancient Egyptian culture. The music is mysterious
and veiled, with overtones and commingling chords
playing an important role. Harmonies are uncertain,
and the dissipation of sounds is as important as the
sounds themselves.
Feux d’artifice is the dazzler from Book II of
the Preludes. Fireworks are predominantly visual and
secondarily aural. In Debussy’s hands they become a
synaesthetic experience. Paul Roberts has suggested
that the composer may have had James MacNeill
Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling
Rocket” in mind when he composed it. If so, we may
add painting to the extramusical stimuli, in addition
to the anticipatory buzz and hiss of airborne rockets
before they explode in a riot of sparkles. Through
staccato octaves, compound trills, glissandi, and
exuberant, fantastical cadenzas, Debussy recreates
the theatrical and celebratory aspects of fireworks.
His brief allusion to “La Marseillaise” at the end
connects the piece to Bastille Day and the annual
fireworks displays on the Champ de Mars in Paris.
Program notes by Laurie Shulman © 2016
Alexei Lubimov
“The Russian pianist Alexei Lubimov is nothing if not a perfectionist, and he searched long and hard to find historical instruments that
would satisfy his requirements in these pieces.” (BBC Music Magazine)
Born in the former USSR in 1944, Russian pianist and
harpsichordist Alexei Lubimov was one of the last pupils of
Henryk Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory. Highly regarded
across the world, Mr. Lubimov inspired the first profound
interest among Russian musicians in the music of the baroque
(especially performed on early instruments) and of the twentieth century, much of which had never been heard before in the
Soviet Union.
Mr. Lubimov caught the attention of audiences and critics alike with his electrifying performances of works by contemporary composers. In 1968, he gave the Moscow premieres of
works by John Cage and Terry Riley, and subsequently brought
to the public’s attention works by Schönberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Boulez, Ives, Ligeti and many other contemporary composers such as Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Silvestrov and Pärt. In 1988
he organized in Moscow the avant-garde Alternativa Festival.
Mr. Lubimov did not neglect the essential repertoire
of the nineteenth century or works composed for early piano.
Faced in the seventies with the ideological restrictions concerning twentieth-century music, he founded the Moscow Baroque
Quartet, with which he was able to initiate performances of the
harpsichord and fortepiano repertoire in the USSR. In the eighties, when political restrictions gradually receded, Alexei Lubimov began giving concerts outside the USSR, in Western Europe,
North America and Japan. He made his American debut with
Andrew Parrott and his Classical Band in New York in 1991.
He has performed with such orchestras as the St.
Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of
London, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra,
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Toronto Symphony
Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Tokyo
Symphony Orchestra, as well as the orchestras of Helsinki,
Israel, Los Angeles and Munich. In 1998 he undertook a European tour with the Finnish Radio Orchestra under Jukka Pekka
Saraste, with which he performed the four piano concertos of
Sergey Rachmaninov
He has participated in many festivals, such as the
Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, La Roque d’Anthéron in France,
and the Lockenhaus and Salzburg festivals in Austria. He has
performed with conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Neeme Järvi,
David Oistrakh, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marek Janowski, Christopher
Hogwood, Sir Roger Norrington, Frans Brüggen, David Robertson, Andrey Boreyko, Ivan Fischer, Kent Nagano, and Yan Pascal
Tortelier. He also performs chamber music, playing with Natalia
Gutman, Christian Tetzlaff and Andreas Staier, among others.
Alexei Lubimov has recorded for many labels, such as
Melodya, Erato, BIS and Sony, which have released his interpretations of the complete sonatas of Mozart, as well as works by
Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms and twentieth-century
composers, including Arvo Pärt.
Alexei Lubimov is represented by California Artists Management.
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