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An Afternoon of Great Piano Concertos
RiverArts 2016 Music Tour
Saturday, June 4
Alan Murray, piano
at Studio Hollywood
41 Hollywood Drive, Hastings
Works by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, Bartók,
Prokofiev, Franck, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff
Program
(all performances accompanied by pre-recorded orchestras)
Noon
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23
P. Tchaikovsky
Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - allegro con spirito
Andantino semplice - allegro vivace assai - prestissimo
Allegro con fuoco
1:00pm
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11
F. Chopin
Allegro maestoso
Romanze: Larghetto
Rondo: Vivace
2:00pm
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
E. Grieg
Allegro molto moderato
Adagio
Allegro moderato molto e marcato - quasi presto - andante maestoso
3:00pm
Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 44
Allegro moderato - andante
Allegro vivace - andante - allegro
C. Saint-Saëns
closely connected (apart from the main theme of the Adagio) and
material from the first movement is introduced in altered form
into the finale, making it the composer’s most integrated work,
excepting the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.
The first movement opens with the subdued statement of a
plaintiff, diatonic, folk-like melody. Rachmaninoff denied
appropriation of the theme from an outside source: “It is
borrowed neither from folk song forms nor from church sources.
It simply ‘wrote itself’… I wanted to sing the melody on the piano,
as a singer would sing it.” The Intermezzo has a structure akin to a
theme and variations interrupted by a brief episode. The theme is
first heard incomplete in the strings, and then in its entirely as an
oboe solo. The conflicting rhythms and chromaticism of the piano
quickly establish a rhapsodic feeling, and the piano subsequently
present the melody in several versions, from simple triplets to
sumptuous embellishments. There follows a scherzo-like interlude
with a syncopated melody (based on the first movement’s initial
theme) in the solo clarinet and bassoon over a waltz pattern in the
strings and triplet figurations in the piano. The movement ends
with a shortened version of the exposition and leads without break
into the Finale, which is also highly contrasted in content,
alternating march rhythms with lyrical material derived, again,
from the concerto’s opening theme. This brilliant movement
combines a rich texture with an effervescent sparkle and
culminates with a dramatic peroration in which, in the worlds of
Abraham Veinus, “Rachmaninoff calls upon every last resources to
create the sensation of those broad powerful wings upon which his
supremely rhapsodical emotion can soar to a triumphant and
terrific conclusion.”
Source: liner notes from RCA 6209-2-RC
4:00pm
Piano Concerto No. 2
B. Bartók
Allegro
Adagio - presto - adagio
Allegro molto - piú allegro
5:00pm
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26
S. Prokofiev
Andante - allegro
Tema con variazioni
Allegro ma non troppo
6:00pm
Symphonic Variations
Rhapsody in Blue
C. Franck
G. Gershwin
7:00pm
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
S. Rachmaninoff
Allegro ma non tanto
Intermezzo: Adagio
Finale: Alla breve
For more information on the studio, events and performer visit: www.studio-hollywood.com
Alan Murray has appeared in numerous
solo and chamber recitals and as a
concerto soloist with orchestra. The 2016
season marks his fourth consecutive year
as concerto soloist with orchestras, having
recently performed Rachmaninoff’s 3rd
(2013), Bartók’s 2nd (2014), Prokofiev’s 3rd
and Saint-Saëns’ 4th (2015) and
Tchaikovsky’s and Chopin’s 1st concertos
(2016). He returns in spring 2017 for the
two Brahms’ piano concertos, and in 2018
for Prokofiev’s and Rachmaninoff’s 2 nd
piano concertos.
In prior seasons, Mr. Murray presented the Masters Series and Sunrise Series
Concerts in the New York area, comprising over 100 recitals encompassing the
cycles of the solo piano music of Chopin, Schumann, Debussy, Ravel and J.S. Bach,
as well as Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas and Diabelli Variations, and major works of
Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Albéniz (Iberia), Granados (Goyescas), Rachmaninoff, as
summarized on the following pages In 2014, Mr. Murray initiated Collectanea, a
series of performances of art/poetry/dance-inspired classical piano masterpieces
involving simultaneous illuminated displays of still art, and live modern dance
and poetry readings. Mr. Murray’s repertoire, performance calendar and studio
facilities can be found at www.studio-hollywood.com.
A member of the Financial Institutions Group management team at Moody’s
Investors Service in New York, Mr. Murray directs global quantitative risk
analytics for the Insurance sector, and has long overseen operations in the Latin
America region. He resides in Westchester County, New York with his family (wife
Amada and daughter Celia), where they also own and operate Galápagos Books,
a bookstore specializing in world languages and literature, travel and cultural
materials and children’s literature. Mr. Murray studied piano with Frances
Wazeter (of Hastings), Allen Weiss (one-time host of WQXR’s live radio broadcast
“Artists in Concert”), and Robert Preston (winner of the gold medal of the
International Busoni Competition among many others, renowned concert pianist
and chamber music collaborator) and holds a degree in physics and languages
from Cornell University, where he also received a special University Award for
distinguished piano soloist.
Gershwin also recalled being inspired with the music while on a
train to Boston in December 1923: “It was on the train, with its
steely rhythms, its rattley-bang that is often so stimulating to a
composer… And there I suddenly heard – and even saw on paper –
the complete construction of The Rhapsody from beginning to
end.”
After Rhapsody in Blue, American music was never to be the same.
Nor was Gershwin’s career. Though only 25, he was already an
established composer of Broadways shows. But after the
Rhapsody’s instant success, he was determined to become a
“serious” composer, though without abandoning his very lucrative
and enjoyable theatrical career. From then until his early death in
1937, he balanced these two sides of his musical life with
remarkable success.
Notes by William H. Youngren and Lawrence Boylan
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s formal musical education began at the St.
Petersburg Conservatory in 1882. In 1885, he transferred to the
Moscow Conservatory and graduated as a pianist with honors in
1891 and as a composer, also with honors, in 1892. Rachmaninoff
wrote four concertos for piano and orchestra, as well as another
concerto-like work, the Paganini Rhapsody. Many consider the
Third Concerto to be Rachmaninoff’s finest contribution to the
literature, and he himself frequently expressed a partiality for it, at
one point writing: “I believe in what might be called indigenous
music for the piano… Even with my own concertos I much prefer
the Third. The concerto is one of his most interesting experiments
in construction: the various themes of the three movements are
Tovey: “The work is a finely and freely organized fantasia with an
important episode in variation form. All the habits of Cesar
Franck’s style contribute here to the happiest results. He is before
all things a master of the extempore manner.”
Source: liner notes for Colombia Records 33072
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue was first performed on 12 February 1924 at New
York’s Aeolian Hall, as part of a concert given by Paul Whiteman’s
Orchestra and rather pretentiously titled “An Experiment in
Modern Music”. The concert attempted to trace the history of
jazz, from its raw beginnings to the smoother and more
sophisticated dance music of the mid-1920s and even beyond, in
part in order to bring to the raucous new music some measure of
respectability. There were ‘semi-symphonic’ settings of Irving
Berlin tunes and Suite of Serenades by Victor Herbert that had, like
Rhapsody in Blue, been composed specially for the occasion. But
the Rhapsody, with Gershwin at the piano, was the hit of the
afternoon. It set the fashion for ‘crossover’ works that straddle
the two worlds of jazz and the concert hall. Wrote Gershwin:
“Suddenly an idea occurred to me. There had been so much
chatter about the limitation of Jazz, not to speak of the manifest
misunderstandings of its function. Jazz, they said, had to be in
strict time. It had to cling to dance rhythms. I resolved, if possible,
to kill that misconception with one sturdy blow. Inspired by this
aim, I set to work composing with unwonted rapidity. No set plan
was in my mind, no structure to which my music would conform.
The Rhapsody, as you see, began as a purpose, not a plan.”
Peter I. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
At every stage in its history, Russian music has been dominated by
the interplay of two opposing forces: specifically national elements
on one side, and the “western” tendencies represented by Italian,
French and German models on the other. On completing the B-flat
minor concerto in 1875, Tchaikovsky showed the score to his
mentor Nikolai Rubinstein, the direct of the Moscow Conservatory,
who pronounced it unplayable, ultimately agreeing to perform it if
Tchaikovsky would agree to a thorough revision, which the latter
flatly refused. Thereupon the composer sent it to the German
pianist Hans von Bulow, who was delighted with it, proclaiming its
“original, noble and powerful ideas and mature, ripe and
distinguished style”. Through his enthusiastic advocacy, the
concerto rapidly became what it remains to this day: one of the
best loved and most popular of all concertos and a touchstone for
performing pianists. (Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein later reconciled,
and Rubinstein likewise became an advocate for the work, with
Tchaikovsky ultimately revising the solo part in a later edition.)
The rich chordal writing at the very start, the brilliant octave and
shimmering figurations cast the spotlight on a whole range of
pianistic expression, The solo part’s virtues are compounded by
the score’s lyricism and emotional warmth, the wide melodic
spans and the almost impressionistic palette. Passages chiseled in
stone lie alongside others touched-in with the soft brush in a work
that illustrates the entire range of the possibility open to the
concerto genre.
Notes by Volker Scherliess (trans. by Mary Whittall)
Frederic Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1
Chopin was extremely unwilling to perform before larger
audiences and usually displayed his keyboard skills in the cultured
circles of aristocratic salons in Paris, where leading figures in the
French intelligentsia and emigré groups discussed aesthetic
questions relating to painting, literature and music and
commented on political events. By contrast to the concertos of
Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin’s typical virtuoso concertos make
no attempt at a varied dialogue between the solo instrument and
the orchestra, the latter of which is always subordinate to the solo
part, confining itself the function of accompaniment and serving to
prepare and provide a modest background to the solo part.
Chopin wrote his two piano concertos, both in minor keys, shortly
before he left Poland forever. They were subsequently published
in the reverse order of their composition, with “No. 1” having been
written between April and August of 1830. It was first performed,
with the composer as soloist, at the memorable farewell concert in
Warsaw on October 11, 1830.
In the extended opening movement of the concerto the three
principal themes are introduced by the violins before the soloist
takes up - in the form of a paraphrase - the elegant, lively second
theme with increasing brilliance. In the development, Chopin
replaces the customary thematic elaboration with colorful
modulation. Since the piano in any case sets the tone, Chopin
dispenses with a cadenza. This is what the composer himself said
of the slow movement: “The Adagio is a sort of romance, quiet and
melancholic; it is intended to create the impression of a loving
backward look… at a place that awakens in us a thousand sweet
memories. It is like a dream on a beautiful moonlit spring night. It
is therefore played on muted fiddles …. with a silvery tone.” While
metrical and formal sophistication of the opening of the third
movement. This shows Prokofiev’s true mastery at its best: the art
of incorporating motivic material whose inspiration lies in Russian
folk music in a large-scale architectural structure, in which the
tradition of the genre plays as large a part as modern
expressiveness.
Notes by Volker Scherliess (Trans. By Mary Whittall), in addition of
excepts of liner notes from RCA 6209-2-RC
Cesar Franck: Symphonic Variations
Franck’s Symphonic Variations are but one example of a genre that
emerged during the Romantic period – music for solo instrument
and orchestra that is not in concerto form. Von Weber’s
Konzertstück was perhaps the first such example, but Liszt’s
Totentanz, Faure’s Fantaisie and, later, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody
on a Theme of Paganini are further examples. But the Symphonic
Variations uses the piano to provide contrast of individually
nuanced expression against the might of the full orchestra, rather
than as a standout virtuoso part. The work is no simple set of
variations, but rather comprises three connected parts, which
might well have been labelled “Prelude, Variations and Finale”.
The long introduction does not use the variation theme, except in
fragments and hints. The central section consists of the theme and
six variations, which flow smoothly without pauses or cadences.
Perhaps this is why Franck labelled his work “symphonic”
variations, since they are written in the manner of a continuous
symphonic movement. The finale, which is longer than the theme
and variations, uses the variation theme only as an
accompaniment figure. Wrote musicologist Sir Donald Frances
similar fashion as the opening of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto –
in a spare two-voice texture by the piano. A dialogue between
piano and orchestra ensues, leading to a more lyrical, narrative
second theme. In the recapitulation, the opening material is
considerably modified; the passagework is even more complicated
and the second theme acquires more distorted, macabre features.
The second movement is a theme and variations with a lengthy
coda. The charming theme, first enunciated by the orchestra
alone, is in the spirit of some of Prokofiev’s early dance pieces. In
the five variations, it is treated with great imagination and often
altered so radically that it is almost unrecognizable. Only the first
variation preserves the melodic contour; the succeeding ones are
characterized by vivid contrasts of spirit, incorporate the
grotesque, the virtuoso, the somber and, in the fifth variation, the
manner of a broadly burlesqued march. The coda restates the
theme in the orchestra in its original form, this time accompanied
by light chords on the piano. The Finale is reminiscent of the first
movement in its rapid, incessant motion. To some extent, the
main theme is developed in the exposition by means of abrupt
tonal shifts, with grace notes, leaps and glissandi adding dynamic
intensification. The central section, built on a passionate, youthful
theme, is interrupted briefly by a droll interlude in the caustic
humorous vein of the “Visions fugitives” of 1917. In the
recapitulation the rhythmic momentum and the brilliance of the
piano writing are intensified up to the very last measures. The
composer mentioned Schumann’s Toccata as a precedent, but his
older contemporary Stravinsky may have been another godfather.
The mixture demonstrates Prokofiev’s desire to forge his own
musical language from an amalgam of different historical legacies.
But the past did not totally absorb him: that he was moving in a
new direction entirely is clearly illustrated by, for example, the
the forms of the outer movements, in traditional garb, appear
convention, the Larghetto constitutes the central emotional axis of
the work. A gentle piano melody with expressive suspensions,
embellishments and delicately doubled thirds and sixths sings
blissfully, and finally ends high up in the descant. This gem of
romantic lyricism is immediately followed by the Finale. Its
exultantly dance-like Krakowiak theme in triple time links the
image of the great prestigious virtuoso to the Polish idiom and
present the pianist not only as a serious and lyrical musician, but
also as a patriot striking up for the dance and giving internal
currency to the sounds of his homeland.
Notes by Uwe Kraemer (transl. by Gery Brantall)
Edvard Grieg: Piano Concerto
Grieg’s piano concerto is among his earliest important works,
written by the 24-year-old composer in 1868 in Sollerod, Denmark,
during one of his visits there to benefit from the climate.
Grieg's concerto is often compared to the piano concerto of
Robert Schumann - it is in the same key (A minor), the opening
descending flourish on the piano is similar, and the overall style is
considered to be closer to Schumann than any other single
composer. Incidentally, both wrote only one concerto for piano.
Grieg had heard Schumann's concerto played by Clara Schumann
in Leipzig in 1858 (1859 is given by alternative sources), and was
greatly influenced by Schumann's style generally, having been
taught the piano by Schumann's friend, Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel.
Additionally, Grieg's work provides evidence of his interest in
Norwegian folk music; the opening flourish is based on the motif of
a falling minor second interval, followed by a falling major third,
which is typical of the folk music of Grieg's native country. This
specific motif occurs in other works by Grieg, including his String
Quartet No. 1. In the last movement of the concerto, similarities to
the halling (a Norwegian folk dance) and imitations of the
Hardanger fiddle (the Norwegian folk fiddle) are detected.
The work was premiered on April 3, 1869 in Copenhagen. Some
sources say that Grieg himself, an excellent pianist, was the
intended soloist, but he was unable to attend the premiere owing
to commitments with an orchestra in Christiania (now Oslo).
Among those who did attend the premiere were the Danish
composer Niels Gade and the Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein,
who provided his own piano for the occasion. At Grieg's visit to
Franz Liszt in Rome in 1870, Liszt sight-read the score before an
audience of musicians and gave very good comments on the work,
which influenced Grieg later. The concerto is the first piano
concerto ever recorded, by pianist Wilhelm Backhaus in 1909. Due
to the technology of the time, it was heavily abridged at only six
minutes. Grieg revised the work at least seven times, usually in
subtle ways, but amounting to over 300 differences from the
original orchestration. In one of these revisions, he undid Liszt’s
suggestion to give the second theme of the first movement (as
well as the first theme of the second) to the trumpet rather than
to the cello. The final version of the concerto was completed only a
few weeks before Grieg's death, and it is this version that has
achieved worldwide popularity.
Source: wikipedia
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3
Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto could be described in similar
terms as Tchaikovsky’s First: it, too, places the element of pianistic
flair in the foreground. The composer, who wrote the score for
himself, was also after all an outstanding concert performer – but
at the same time it contains delicate nuances of timbre and
texture. The variety of stylistic poses the work strikes during its
course are a reflection of the ten-year period (1911-21) over which
it was composed. The playful, neo-classicist elements, for
example, are reminders that the composer’s original plan was to
write a ‘concertino’ in 18th century style (in a similar vein as the
Classical Symphony, a product of the same period). Eventually,
however, the work grew into something more substantial – in
dimensions, instrumental forces and musical content. Prokofiev
himself enumerated five fundamental characteristics of his music:
1) strict formal construction; 2) piquant harmonic writing (done for
sake of color, rather than as a gesture towards atonality); 3) lyrical,
meditative atmosphere; 4) deliberate grotesquery (notably in the
variations of the second movement); and 5) motoric rhythms.
The Third Concerto was rapidly recognized worldwide. The stark
contrasts of style, mood and texture, so typical of the young
Prokofiev, are vividly apparent in the third concerto. It is a bold
achievement incorporating soulful lyricism, grotesque fantasy and
a Russian national flavor, yet always catering especially to
Prokofiev’s own style of pianistic virtuosity. The opening measures
of the first movement evoke a late-Russian Romantic grandiosity,
commencing with a deceptive understatement by a solo clarinet.
Indeed, the orchestral textures of the work in general tend to be
more astringent than lush, The initial serenity gives way to string
figurations from which emerge the lively first theme, stated – in
any event, Bartok turns to advantage in a most personal way the
“Stravinsky” theme in the Second Concerto.
In the sonata-form construction of the first movement – where the
recapitulation presents the inversion of the themes in the
exposition, essentially a modernized version of Bach-like
counterpoint – there is a lavish variety of invention and modes of
expression. The Adagio is another specimen of ‘night-music’ based
on a unique range of timbres. In a kind of tense and mysterious
dialogue, we hear by turns a slow-paced chorale rendered by the
pallid sonorities of the strings and the meditative comments of the
piano with arabesques of intense evocative force. After the first
Adagio, a real Scherzo (Presto) leaps into action, light and pungent,
with extreme and fantastic mobility; then, the opening episode
returns and the Adagio fades away in an atmosphere of
uncertainty. In the third movement, the first theme – with its
incisive energy, its hammering, barbaric force – seems to lead back
to the mood of the First Concerto. It is the only really new
thematic element in this sections, and acts as a refrain whose
appearances frame the other episodes, all based on variations and
transformations of the Stravinskian thematic material in the first
movement. The movement takes shape as a fantastic, animated
and richly colored sequence of changing inventions articulated in
an incisive, synthetic and energetic fashion. The non-stop wave of
controlled violence finally dissipates into a dream-like sequence
that resolves into a nature-inspired reflection, finally giving way
ultimately to a joyful, triumphant conclusion.
Notes by Paolo Petazzi (transl. by Gwyn Morris)
Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 4
Saint-Saens Fourth Piano Concerto was completed in 1877, written
in the somber key of C minor, and dedicated to Franz Liszt. The
concerto is highly idiosyncratic and, at the same time, significant.
Superficially, it is a two-movement work but as in the composer’s
“Organ Symphony” (also written in C minor), each of the two
movements can itself be subdivided into two individual segments.
The result is akin to a symphony in structure, although
musicologists have never been able to agree on the number of
movements involved, the conclusion being either 4 (which is
within classical concerto structure) or 5 (which is suggestive more
of a Lisztian thematic metamorphosis). But why count? At the
beginning of the opening movement, Saint-Saens harks back to the
principles of the Baroque chaconne, thereby revealing his classical
credentials, while the strictness and characters of the solo writing
emerges from even the briefest glance at the score. The profound
seriousness of so highly atmospheric a piece is a stark contrast to
the Second Concerto, which is unquestionably the composer’s
wittiest work in the genre. But the Fourth sets a standard in Gallic
elegance, panache and refinement.
Notes by Knut Franke (Transl. by Stewart Spencer)
Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2
Bela Bartok’s first two piano concertos, dated 1926 and 1930/31,
belong to two different stages of the period when he was
formulating the musical language of his advanced maturity – a
synthesis in which an original reassessment of certain aspects of
the European cultural traditions, combined with stimuli and
influences resulting from the study of Hungarian and Balkan folk
music; in assimilating rhythmic and melodic elements foreign to
Western classical music, Bartok did not use them in an ornamental
‘exotic’ way, but rather as an integral part of an new language.
In an article that appeared in 1939, Bartok wrote: “My first
concerto… I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to
a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and
the public. And so I decided, a few years later, to compose my
Second Concerto, with fewer difficulties for the orchestra and
more pleasant themes. This aim of mine explains the more
popular and easier character of the greater part of the themes…”.
The statement should not be taken too literally, but it points out
the different style of the two concertos. In the Second, there are
certainly no compromising concessions to ‘easy music’, but it is
true that the thematic materials presents a more clearly
recognizable profile, and the quality of expression is more fluid in
comparison with the harsh tension of the First. Similarly, the
orchestra writing provides a greater variety of more lively and vivid
colors.
In the first movement, strings are silent, and in the Adagio of the
second movement the woodwinds are excluded from the first and
third sections; only in the third movement does the entire
orchestra come together. In the opening movement, the first
theme is directly inspired by Stravinsky, the melodic shape of the
first notes corresponds to the beginning of the horn them at the
start of the finale of The Firebird. Other analogies can be drawn
with Petrushka. Such occasional affinities can also indicate how
differently Bartok and Stravinsky – in his Russian period – used
popular themes. In Bartok, we note an underlying sense of moral
conviction, of familiarity bred of a long and intense study of folk
music… results far removed from Stravinsky’s dry stylization. In