Download Jack Liebeck – violin Kotaro Fukuma – piano

Gala Concert in Honour of World Year of
Physics
Concert Hall, Kyungpook National University
Thursday, 29th September, 15:30
W.A. Mozart: Sonata in E flat major, K380
J. Brahms: Sonata in D minor, Op. 108
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A. Part: Fratres
E. Elgar: Sonata in E Minor, Op. 82
Jack Liebeck – violin
Kotaro Fukuma – piano
Jack Liebeck
Jack Liebeck was born in 1980 in London. His first public appearance was for BBC television, aged
ten, when he played the role of young Mozart. Performing in concertos and recitals since the age of
eleven, Jack’s appearances have taken him to Armenia, Belgium, France, Holland, Italy, Malaysia,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the USA, and
Yugoslavia. Since the age of fourteen Jack has made concerto debuts with many acclaimed
orchestras including the Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, the Halle, the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the English Chamber, the Bournemouth Symphony, the
Lausanne Chamber and the Royal Scottish National Orchestras.
In 2002 Jack made his acclaimed London debut recital in a sold-out Wigmore Hall; his return to the
Wigmore Hall in March 2005 with the pianist Piers Lane was also a sell-out. Last season Jack
recorded the Dvorak Concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra for BBC Radio 3, performed the
Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Tim Hugh and the RSNO under Alexander Lazarev, the Bruch
concerto in Yerevan with the Armenian Symphony Orchestra and the Beethoven Concerto on Polish
radio with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, Poland. Jack’s debut disc on
the new Quartz label was released in July 2004 to enormous critical acclaim. Plans for this year
include concertos and recitals in France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Portugal, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.
Jack plays the 'Ex-Wilhelmj' Guadagnini dated 1785.
Kotaro Fukuma
Kotaro Fukuma was born in Tokyo in 1982 and began his piano studies at the age of five with Kyoko
Sato and later with Kazumi Igeta. He studied at the Paris Conservatory from 2001 to 2005 with
Bruno Rigutto and Marie-Francoise Bucquet. Currently he is studying at the Berlin University of
Arts with Klaus Hellwig.
In 2003, Kotaro won the First Prize as well as the Chopin Prize at the Cleveland International Piano
Competition. As a result, he gave nearly 40 concerts in the USA during two seasons, including his
debut recital in Lincoln Center (Alice Tully Hall) in New York City. He has given recitals and
appeared on TV and radio in Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, UK and the
USA. He has played with nearly a dozen symphony orchestras, including The Cleveland Orchestra
and the Finnish Radio Symphony. His first CD of works by Schumann appeared in 2005 on the
Naxos label.
Program Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791): Sonata in E flat major, K380
I: Allegro; II: Andante con moto; III: Rondo (Allegro)
The Sonata in E flat Major, K380, is one of a group of four violin and piano sonatas that are important
in that they represent the first significant chamber pieces composed by Mozart after he had decided to
remain in Vienna as a freelance composer and cast off the shackles of his employment with the
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. As in all of Mozart’s later sonatas, they represent a true and equal
partnership between the two instruments, rather than the previously usual form of “piano sonatas
accompanied by a violin”. This sonata is determinedly bright and optimistic in tone. It begins with an
insistent three-note phrase which is then elaborated upon throughout the movement. The slow
movement begins with a dreamy melody on the piano with semiquaver accompaniment which is
then taken up on the violin before it repeats the melody; the same pattern of a melodic exposition by
the piano then taken up by the violin is also followed by a dance-like finale that leads to a triumphant
conclusion.
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897): Sonata in D minor, Op. 108
I: Allegro; II: Adagio; III: Un poco presto e con sentimento; IV: Presto agitato
Brahms produced his first violin sonata as a young man of twenty, but, ever self-critical,
he
destroyed it and several others before finally producing the intensely lyrical G major sonata in 1879,
which, like all his published violin sonatas, was crafted for his friend, the great virtuoso Joseph
Joachim. The same lyricism pervades the second sonata in A major composed in 1886. However, the
D minor sonata, produced two years later, is a very different work, composed on a much larger scale
and probably intended for the concert hall, in contrast to the first two sonatas, which feel like
chamber music to be played among friends. The first movement begins with a lyrical theme on the
violin and is characterized by liberal use of syncopation, which also characterizes the last movement.
The second movement is in the major key and begins quietly before climaxing with a passionate forte
with double-stopped thirds on the violin, subsiding to a quiet close. The third movement, which has a
leitmotiv of two dotted quavers, is a bright scherzo beginning and ending in A major surrounding a D
minor section. It leads into the sudden passion of the finale, which is indeed agitato beginning with
double-stopped triplets on the violin that recur throughout the movement, leading to the final
climactic, almost despairing, D minor chords.
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Interval of 15 mins
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A. Part (1935 – ): Fratres
Part was born in 1935 in Estonia, at that time part of the Soviet Union. After a period of success
writing in the modern serial style, he became fascinated by music from the early Renaissance, which
has greatly influenced his musical output. Fratres was composed in 1977 and has been arranged by
the composer for many different instrumental combinations. That for violin and piano is one of the
originals and was given its first performance at the Salzburg Festival in 1980 by the Latvian Gidon
Kremer. The piece sounds deceptively simple but is musically highly complex, for example having a
very varied metrical structure. The melodic line revolves around a sustained perfect fifth above which
triads are woven into nine variations. The violin opens with a virtuoso passage of frenetic string
crossing and the piece closes with violin and piano fading into the aether at opposite ends of their
range. Fratres is dedicated to the Estonian composer Eduard Tubin.
E. Elgar (1857 – 1934): Sonata in E minor, Op. 82
I: Allegro; II: Romance (Adagio); III: Allegro non troppo
Towards the end of the First World War, the Elgars rented a country cottage in Sussex which
catalyzed the last great flowering of Elgar’s musical life. This period of 1918-19 saw the composition
of the cello concerto and three great chamber works, the string quartet, the piano quintet and the
violin sonata. Elgar had been greatly depressed by the outbreak of the First World War and these
compositions are markedly different from much of his earlier output, less self-confident and more
contemplative.
Shortly after this burst of composition, Lady Elgar, his helpmeet and constant
companion, died and with her, his inspiration. Although he lived for another 14 years, he composed
hardly anything and certainly nothing to compare with these last masterpieces.
The violin sonata begins with an agitated duet that melts into a contemplative lyricism. The feeling of
unease is however never dispelled until a moment of resolution at the end of the movement, which
paves the way for the delicious dreamy romanticism of the second movement. Here is something
quintessentially English, redolent of the country lanes of Elgar’s Worcester birthplace and reflecting
perhaps the pastoral surroundings of their Sussex cottage, particularly in the main theme first
sounded high in the violin’s register. The finale begins equally lyrically and contemplatively, before
bursting into a main theme grandiosely sounded on the violin and recalling the Elgar of happier days.
This theme returns to conclude the sonata in an optimistic, self-affirming and dramatic fashion.
Program notes: B. Foster