international pianists in recital · pdf fileinternational pianists in recital series for...

Behzod AbduraimovMonday 26 March 7pm

Andreas HaefligerMonday 14 May 7pm

Piers LaneMonday 20 August 7pm

Angela HewittMonday 24 September 7pm

2 012 S E A S O N

INTERNATIONAL PIANISTS

IN RECITAL CITY RECITAL HALL

ANGEL PLACE

Presented by

PRESENTING PARTNER

2012 seasoninternational pianists in recitalpresented by theme & variations piano servicesCity Recital Hall Angel Place

PROGRAM CONTENTS

Monday 26 March, 7pm

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOVplays Scarlatti, Beethoven, Brahms and LisztPAGE 5

Monday 14 May, 7pm

ANDREAS HAEFLIGERplays Liszt, Debussy and Beethoven’s HammerklavierPAGE 15

Monday 20 August, 7pm

PIERS LANEplays Bartók, Debussy, Liszt and the complete Chopin waltzesPAGE 23

Monday 24 September, 7pm

ANGELA HEWITTplays Bach’s Goldberg VariationsPAGE 33

This program book for International Pianists in Recital contains notes and articles for all four recitals in the series. Copies will be available at every performance, but we invite you to keep your program and bring it with you to each recital. Please share with your companion.

Dear Piano Lovers

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the Sydney Symphony’s International Pianists in Recital Series for 2012.

2012 marks a significant milestone for the Sydney Symphony, as it celebrates 80 years of dedication, passion and excellence in music. Sharing a longstanding tradition of excellence, Theme & Variations Piano Services and Steinway & Sons have been proud to stand alongside the Sydney Symphony as gold partners for more than ten years.

Looking back across 80 years, we can see so much change – we have seen the rise and fall of world leaders, national and international companies, economic booms and depressions, and extraordinary changes in global communications and technology. When looking at such a diverse history, it can be somewhat comforting to see organisations like the Sydney Symphony and Steinway & Sons that remain a reliable constant, even as they experience amazing growth.

Eighty years ago, the Steinway & Sons piano was already well established across the world as a solid investment and the instrument of choice for many great musicians, performers and composers. Interestingly, in 1932 one could purchase a Model T Ford for roughly half the price of a Steinway & Sons upright piano, a testament to the demand for such a high quality piano.

Steinway & Sons have striven to produce the highest quality instruments without compromise through economic depressions, world wars and even such things as the invention of the electric piano, so that, 80 years on, it remains unchallenged, the number one choice of artists worldwide.

Theme & Variations Piano Services are proud to carry on this tradition, as we enjoy this truly outstanding music-making, piano and venue, and look forward to many more years of successful partnership and service with Australia’s extraordinary music community and, of course, the Sydney Symphony.

ARA VARTOUKIANDirector and Concert Technician

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PRESENTING PARTNER

This recital will be recorded for later broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Larkin at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations:13 minutes, 25 minutes, 12 minutes, 20-minute interval, 9 minutes, 18 minutes, 12 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 9.05pm.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757)Three Keyboard Sonatas

Allegro in B minor, Kk27Allegro in G minor, Kk450Allegrissimo in D major, Kk96

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)Sonata No.7 in D, Op.10 No.3

PrestoLargo e mestoMenuetto (Allegro) – TrioRondo (Allegro)

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op.35: Book 1

INTERVAL

Franz Liszt (1811–1883)

Danse macabre, S555from Danse macabre, Op.40 by Camille Saint-Saënsfurther arranged by Vladimir Horowitz

Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitudefrom Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S173

Mephisto Waltz No.1, S154

2012 seasoninternational pianists in recitalpresented by theme & variations

Monday 26 March, 7pmCity Recital Hall Angel Place

Behzod Abduraimov in Recital

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IN THE GREEN ROOM

Sometimes the best prizes in life aren’t the offi cial ones. In winning the 2009 London International Piano Competition, Behzod Abduraimov claimed 15,000 pounds and a concerto with a London orchestra. But his sensational victory also won the supremely talented 18-year-old a lot of attention. He was noticed by artist manager Jasper Parrott, who immediately began helping him make connections with musicians and orchestras. Parrott, who also manages Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony’s international touring, proposed a match.

Six months later, Abduraimov was making his Sydney Symphony debut – in the orchestra’s tour of China and Kuala Lumpur. ‘It was a great honour for me,’ he says. ‘I had never toured in my life, and my fi rst tour is with Vladimir Ashkenazy – that was great!’ The following year, 2010, Abduraimov joined the Sydney Symphony’s European tour. Finally, in 2012, Sydney audiences have the chance to hear the young musician everyone’s been raving about. Now we’re the winners too.

Technically, Abduraimov has been in Sydney before and even played in the Sydney Opera House – but only in tour rehearsals. This visit is the real thing, with performances of Prokofi ev’s third piano concerto, as well as his recital.

The recital is where a pianist has the opportunity to take more or less complete control over the program. ‘I think it’s very important to create an interesting program for diff erent tastes,’ he says. So he goes for contrast – ‘some serious music and some fl ash’. He’s conscious that some in his audience will be newcomers, some will ‘really appreciate and understand

born1990 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

began studying pianoat five years old

first teachershis mother, then Tamara Popovich in Tashkent

now studying withStanislav Ioudenitch, another Uzbek pianist, at the International Center for Music at Park University, Kansas

big breakwon the 2009 London International Piano Competition, playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3

Sydney Symphony debuttook place on foreign soil, during the orchestra’s 2009 tour to China and Kuala Lumpur; in 2010 he performed with the orchestra in Bremen, Germany

Australia debuton this Australian debut tour he performs Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky concertos with the Sydney, Adelaide and West Australian symphony orchestras and gives recitals in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane

recordingsdebut recital CD was released in March 2012 (see More Music on page 42)

read morewww.harrisonparrott.com/artist/behzod-abduraimov

Behzod Abduraimov in conversation

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Do you want to quit?Piano was always going to be Abduraimov’s instrument. There was never any serious doubt about that, even when, as a boy of eight or nine, he went through the inevitable stage of not wanting to practise. ‘It’s difficult at that age to practise,’ he recalls, ‘and I was thinking maybe violin would be easier, but of course it didn’t happen.’ When he got lazy, his mother – a piano teacher – would tempt him: ‘Do you want to quit?’ You can stop practising forever.’ Then, he says, ‘I would feel so guilty that I would never have to play piano again.’ Childish guilt aside, there was also the thrill of performing, which he tasted at the age of eight, playing a concerto with an orchestra for the first time.

music’, some will be professional musicians. He appreciates (as Mozart did) the need to please music lovers and connoisseurs.

Domenico Scarlatti, for all the thrill and good humour of his music, tends to fall into the connoisseur camp; he’s a relative rarity in recitals. The conclusion of the program is also thrilling, but with a divine-diabolical bent. It seems deliberate, but Abduraimov explains that it happened by accident. These three works come from his debut recital CD, where the themes are war (Prokofi ev’s Sonata No.6), God, and the macabre. ‘I wasn’t especially trying for this macabre theme, it just happened.’

In the recital program, the Beethoven sonata (Op.10 No.3) makes an interesting contrast to the Scarlatti, not only for listeners but for the performer too. In Scarlatti, says Abduraimov, ‘there is not much written in the scores, so it’s really interesting to fi nd the ornamentations, fi nd the dynamics. But with Beethoven, everything is written, the composer’s exact intentions are there.’

Beethoven wasn’t much older than Abduraimov is now when he composed the Op.10 No.3 sonata, but already it taps deep emotions and extremes of drama. ‘The fi rst movement is joyful and bright,’ says Abduraimov, ‘but the second movement is tragic, very deep. The third one is the minuetto – dancing – and the fourth movement is a little bit like a play – I fi nd it uncertain, like in theatre. But I think the most important is the second movement. It’s abstract of course, not program music like the Mephisto Waltz, but by playing the score – every dynamic – you understand what he wanted, what kind of feeling he put there.’

If Beethoven is the ‘serious’ side of Abduraimov’s recital program, then Liszt provides the ‘fl ash’. Surprisingly, so does Brahms. This is diff erent Brahms, he says, perhaps not even meant to be played in concerts. (Brahms called his Paganini Variations ‘Piano Studies’.) ‘My challenge is to bring out the music behind the technical virtuosity and the acrobatics,’ he says. ‘Because actually there is a lot of music – drama, characters, moods.’

There’s no doubt that Abduraimov can meet Brahms’s challenges. And Liszt’s too. Some critics have even suggested he might be the new Horowitz. So perhaps it’s appropriate that Horowitz has a presence, by way of his arrangement of Liszt’s transcription of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre. ‘Horowitz added so many, how do you say, for show – crazy passages, octaves, chords… But he just made it more entertaining. More showy, fl ashy.’ Over the phone, Abduraimov’s voice is smiling. Here is a musician who takes equal delight in the seriousness and the showmanship of the piano repertoire and who has the technical resources to bring off both. He knows, too, that that’s exactly the balance a recital audience likes.

YVONNE FRINDLESYDNEY SYMPHONY ©2012

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Suspicion and Pleasure: the Virtuoso Inheritance

The 19th century was the age of the virtuoso; awesome technical display and musical athleticism drew admiring audiences. And yet, suggests musicologist W. Dean Sutcliff e, the enthusiasm for extreme virtuosity went hand in hand with a deep suspicion of it. (The violinist Paganini was even rumoured to be in league with the devil, thereby accounting for his superhuman technique.) This suspicion arose from a Romantic sensibility that, in music as in all the arts, took its cue from literature and literary values. The highest model to which 19th-century music could therefore aspire was a discursive one, a model in which a musical plot could unfold and in which deep emotions were communicated. The magnifi cent Largo in tonight’s Beethoven sonata, for example, has long been considered the movement that makes this sonata truly great. It’s slow, and therefore serious and profound. This way of thinking is what might prompt a modern music-lover to rank a Mahler adagio above the genius of a Mendelssohn scherzo, because – it’s fair to say – we’ve inherited the Romantic suspicion of virtuosity. But this is not to say we don’t enjoy it.

We’re conditioned to think of music in terms of emotional or mental expression (put another way, to think of music as the kind of thing about which we might write program notes). The alternative, says Sutcliff e, is to think of music as bodily expression, to consider that music ‘may function balletically as well as, or instead of, discursively’. In many ways, tonight’s exhilarating program invites us to abandon ourselves to that possibility.

* * * * * *

It begins with Domenico Scarlatti, a composer-virtuoso who gives the impression of having written nothing but fast movements. His sonatas make the fi ngers dance; they are intended to give pleasure. When Brahms sent a volume of Scarlatti sonatas to his friend Theodor Billroth, he added a cover note: ‘You will certainly enjoy these – as long as you don’t play too many at a time, just measured doses.’

Behzod Abduraimov has followed Brahms’s advice by selecting three of Scarlatti’s sonatas. The fi rst (B minor, No.27 in the Kirkpatrick catalogue) can be heard as a dialogue between what 18th-century musicians might have considered a ‘learned’ style – intricate and discursive – and a hedonistic toccata style with insanely repeated fi gurations.

The second in the group (Kk 450 in G minor) is one of the few of Scarlatti’s sonatas to convey a Spanish fl avour, a ‘tango gitano’ with suggestions of fl amenco. The third

Scarlatti sonatasDomenico Scarlatti was an original genius of the baroque era, best-known for his hundreds of keyboard sonatas. Italian born, he moved to Lisbon when he was in his late 30s, then settled in Madrid, spending the rest of his working life in the service of María Bárbara, Portuguese princess and Spanish queen. The sonatas are single-movement works, following a two-part structure and they provide a showcase for keyboard effects and virtuoso finger technique. At the same time they reveal a quirky originality of harmonic style, nurtured in the relative isolation of Spain.

Scarlatti’s 19th-century advocates included Brahms, who acquired one of the earliest existing manuscripts of the sonatas, and Clara Schumann, who boldly included such ‘novelties’ in her piano recitals. Liszt made editions of Scarlatti’s music, and his brilliant protégé Carl Tausig performed his own concert versions.

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(Kk 96 in D major) is among the best known – its popularity stemming from the theatricality and vitality of the music. It begins with fanfares and mixes earthy eff ects (forbidden parallel fi fths!) with sophisticated humour that upsets expectations by playing with rhythm and pulse.

Humour, playfulness and delight. Dr Charles Burney, recalling his youth in the mid-18th century, wrote: ‘Scarlatti’s were not only the pieces with which every young performer displayed his powers of execution, but were the wonder and delight of every hearer who had a spark of enthusiasm in him…’

* * * * * *

As a pianist, Beethoven inspired wonder and delight of his own, but he was acclaimed not so much for fl uency or brilliance as for his cantabile or singing style, the way he ‘drew entirely new and daring passages’ from the piano, and for the powerful and impassioned eff ect of his music-making. He challenged performers – and listeners too – but always with expressive intent. Even at his boldest, Beethoven never invited Romantic suspicion.

The D major sonata, Op.10 No.3 (1795–98) is the work of a 20-something musician, establishing himself as composer and pianist. Beethoven’s ambition and mastery is already apparent, and he makes no concessions to the performer in this virtuoso sonata, written to demonstrate his own prowess.

At the same time, the acknowledged heart of the sonata, the thing that makes it an early masterpiece, is not a brilliant fast movement but the slow second movement, Largo e mesto. If Carl Czerny’s description of his teacher’s piano style is accurate, then this is Beethoven playing to his strengths. Every musical resource – the deep sonorities and dark chords, the lamenting melodies, the unexpected shifts of register and volume, the richness of thematic ideas – is devoted to this anguished portrait of ‘a person consumed by melancholy’.

This is not to diminish the power of the framing movements or of the lyrical minuet that bridges the Largo and the humorous fi nale, light dispelling darkness. The rhetorical opening of the fi rst movement – a chord, a scale, a pause – commands attention and rightly so: this simple gesture yields the basic material for the Presto (the fi rst four notes) and the Rondo (the next three notes).

Czerny suggests the fi nale was similar to Beethoven’s brilliant improvisations, themselves often based on a motif of just a few notes. In this case, the three-note opening motto behaves like a question, and with a quirky reply, Beethoven sets the scene for capriciously shifting moods and musical textures. When the whimsy is over, the Rondo dissolves into a throwaway ending. How could we not smile?

* * * * * *

Beethoven at the piano‘His playing did not possess that clean and brilliant elegance of certain other pianists. On the other hand, it was spirited, grandiose and, especially, in adagio, very full of feeling and romantic. His performance, like his compositions, was a tone-painting of a very high order and conceived only for a total effect.’

CARL CZERNY

Domenico Scarlatti

Ludwig van Beethoven

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The Op.10 No.3 sonata accords with what we know about Beethoven, composer and performer. Brahms’s Opus 35, on the other hand, seems out of character. Brahms the traditionalist has taken a back seat to Brahms the pianist. This is precisely the kind of virtuoso music that should make us suspicious – showy and fi endishly diffi cult. In fact, Brahms’s friends had a telling nickname for the work, ‘Hexenvariationen’ (Witches Variations). Today it’s commonly known as the ‘Paganini Variations’, but this is just the subtitle. Brahms’s real conception was for two books of Piano Studies, each volume presenting the famous Paganini Caprice No.24 followed by 14 variations and an exhilarating coda. The variations are ‘studies’ in specifi c technical challenges, sometimes more than one. This is music about piano technique.

As a composer, Brahms belonged in the opposing camp to ‘radical’ contemporaries such as Wagner and Liszt of the New German School. And yet Brahms became good friends with the pianist Carl Tausig, a protégé of Liszt’s. The two sustained a good-natured competition, devising new pianistic challenges to confound each other. With the Paganini Variations, Brahms seems to have had the last word, taking on modern trends with music that, in the words of pianist and critic James Huneker, requires ‘fi ngers of steel, a heart of burning lava and the courage of a lion’. (Brahms gave the fi rst public performance, in 1865, Tausig the second.)

Paganini’s themeThe theme in Brahms’s Opus 35 is one of most famous subjects for musical variation. It comes from Niccolò Paganini’s caprices for solo violin, No.24 in A minor, and has provided inspiration to many other composers, including Liszt, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Lutosławski and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Its appeal stems partly from its harmonic simplicity and partly from the persistent and compelling rhythmic figure that dominates the melody.

Brahms at the piano

Niccoló Paganini by Ingres, 1819

Carl Tausig

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In his choice of the Paganini theme as the basis for these ‘transcendental’ studies, Brahms was challenging his rival Liszt, who’d made his own variations on the caprice in his Grand études de Paganini (dedicated to Clara Schumann). But where the Lisztian approach to virtuosity might be said to fl aunt the eff ort involved, in Brahms the eff ort is masked. His Paganini Variations are far more diffi cult than they sound. To return to Huneker, writing in 1913, they are the last word in the technical literature of the piano – ‘diabolical variations’.

* * * * * *

Among the enthusiasms of the Romantic age was a preoccupation with the macabre. Liszt – the Paganini of the piano – confessed to his own ‘obsession with the dead, the dying and the damned’, which emerged in works such as his Faust Symphony, the ‘Dante’ sonata, Totentanz and the Mephisto waltzes, as well as his transcription of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre. But Liszt’s obsession was tempered by a profound faith – he had been attracted to the priesthood since he was a teenager, and eventually took minor orders. Works such as the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses refl ect his vision of art as divine and the artist as priest.

Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre was originally a song about Death playing his fi ddle in a churchyard at midnight, making skeletons dance. More familiar is the orchestral version with its featured part for a mistuned violin and the rattling bones of the xylophone. That Danse macabre is a tone poem in emulation of Liszt; in making his piano transcription in 1876 Liszt was returning a compliment. And when Liszt composed his Csárdás macabre and dedicated it to Saint-Saëns, he wrote to a friend: ‘His Danse macabre is worth more and is better…’

Liszt’s transcription extends the original, expanding the lyrical section that off ers relief from the relentless waltzing and giving even greater emphasis to the macabre elements. After an ominously scintillating introduction, the piano rings out with the sounds of the devil tuning his fi ddle – not to a pure open fi fth, but to a tritone, diabolus in musica, the devil’s interval. Later, a parody of the Dies irae chant adds to the grotesquery. The transcription is completely idiomatic for the piano, while revealing Liszt’s admiration for Saint-Saëns’ orchestral eff ects. At one point he even marks the music ‘Timbales’ or timpani. Ultimately, Liszt begged Saint-Saëns forgiveness for his ‘inability to reproduce on the piano its marvellous orchestral colour’, but his exploitation of the piano’s palette of colours and techniques gives no cause for apology.

‘The world persisted to the end in calling [Liszt] the greatest pianist in order to avoid the trouble of considering his claims as one of the most remarkable composers.’

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

‘I am glad that my variations were of service to Brahms when he composed his; it gives me great pleasure!’

LISZT RESPONDS TO THE PAGANINI VARIATIONS

Camille Saint-Saëns

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In 1941 Vladimir Horowitz made his own version of Danse macabre. It’s based on Liszt’s transcription but adds further intricacies to the musical lines and adjusts register and dynamic eff ects to enhance the drama even further. You can also hear, writes Jed Distler, Horowitz’s signature gestures: the booming fi lled-in chords and powerful interlocking octaves. It’s showier and, says Behzod Abduraimov, even more entertaining!

Exhilaration is followed by contemplation and serenity with Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (God’s blessing in the wilderness), from the collection Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1853), inspired by a volume of poems by Alphonse de Lamartine.

If pieces such as the Danse macabre show Liszt as the sensation-seeking showman of the piano, Bénédiction is the work of a musician determined to establish a reputation as a serious composer in the eyes of a public that wants to know him only as a virtuoso. For this he requires profound music that will elevate the listener into the world of the sublime. Pyrotechnics will not do, although the work remains as demanding as anything by Liszt.

Bénédiction is prefaced by lines from Lamartine, beginning ‘O my Lord, whence comes this peace that overwhelms me? Whence comes this faith with which my heart overfl ows?’ It can be no accident that in the original French these words

Franz Liszt, 1856

Exhilaration is followed by contemplation and serenity…

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fi t the opening melody. The key – F sharp minor – is often associated with religious themes in Liszt’s music, its remoteness perhaps symbolising the unattainable.

Liszt was fond of Bénédiction – he considered it proof of his accomplishment and often played it for visitors (always using the score to prove he was a ‘real’ composer). Today it counts as a miniature masterpiece: one of his most beautiful melodic conceptions with a distinctive accompaniment, which (in the words of Kenneth Hamilton) ‘wreaths the tune in a perfumed halo of mildly pentatonic musical incense’.

Mephisto Waltz No.1 returns to the remorseless and supernatural world of Danse macabre. Gone is the subtlety of Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, but the Mephisto Waltz is nonetheless steeped in literary inspiration (Lenau’s poem on the Faust legend).

The scene is suggested by the subtitle: ‘The Dance in the Village Inn’. Having lured the scholarly Faust to an inn where a wedding feast is taking place, Mephistopheles snatches the violin from the local fi ddler and begins to play wildly – but not before ‘tuning’ the instrument with the famous open fi fths of the introduction. (This time they are pure fi fths.) When the dance takes on a more sensuous guise, Faust and his voluptuous dark-eyed partner dance across the fi elds and into the woods, where – at the height of their ecstasy – they hear the song of a nightingale ‘as if summoned by the devil’. On the surface, this is a conventional waltz, although it’s so frenzied that anyone dancing to it would be barely touching the ground. Underneath, Liszt’s musical devilry is heard at every turn, from the ‘diabolical’ tritone that pervades the seductive middle section, to Mephistopheles’ manic fi ddling and mocking laughter.

* * * * * *

Tonight’s recital begins with the blithe brilliance of a composer who prefaced his music with the instruction to ‘Live happily!’ It ends with the diabolical demands of a composer who’s fondest memory was of a blessing from Beethoven: ‘Go! You are one of the fortunate ones! For you will give joy and happiness to many other people! There is nothing better or fi ner!’ It has been assembled by a young virtuoso who takes unabashed pleasure in every facet of the piano – its challenges, its acrobatics and its opportunities for display, as well as its dramatic and expressive possibilities. There is surely nothing better or fi ner.


…they hear the song of a nightingale ‘as if summoned by the devil’.

This year we’re incorporating our Bravo! newsletter into the program books for individual concerts, which means we can share orchestra news with you more frequently. But rather than including a single issue in a series program such as this one, which will be read all year, we’re also making Bravo! available for download in PDF form. Just visit sydneysymphony.com/bravo during the year for the latest orchestra news and features.

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PRESENTING PARTNER

Franz Liszt (1811–1883)Selections from Années de pèlerinage I – Suisse, S160(First Year of Pilgrimage – Switzerland)

Chapelle de Guillaume TellLe Mal du paysVallée d’ObermannLes Cloches de Genève (Nocturne)

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)Images, Series 2

Cloches à travers les feuillesEt la lune descend sur le temple qui futPoissons d’or

INTERVAL

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)Sonata No.29 in B fl at, Op.106, Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier

AllegroScherzo (Assai vivace)Adagio sostenutoIntroduzione (Largo) – Fuga (Allegro risoluto)


Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations:36 minutes, 13 minutes, 20-minute interval, 43 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 9.05pm.


Monday 14 May, 7pmCity Recital Hall Angel Place

Andreas Haefl iger in Recital

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IN THE GREEN ROOM

Andreas Haefl iger was born into a family of musicians. His father was the Swiss tenor Ernst Haefl iger, acclaimed for his interpretations of Bach, Mozart, and above all, German Lieder. ‘I was fortunate to have been surrounded by music-making on the highest level,’ says Haefl iger. ‘And my father, of course – the sound of his voice and his musical integrity – was a constant source of inspiration.’

He recalls being immersed in music as a craft. Picking up on that word, he explains: ‘In any exalted activity such as music, there is an element of talent and an element of craft. The craft is necessary to take you where you want to go. But, of course, without the talent you can go nowhere.’

Haefl iger’s talent took him to New York at the age of 15. He went from being an after-school music student in Germany to the intensity of a ‘fully professional student environment’ at the Juilliard School. It was a new experience, even though nowadays there are fewer diff erences between national schools of teaching. He did, however, notice the diff erence on his return to Vienna after Juilliard, and when prompted says, with a laugh: ‘In Vienna there is a bigger concentration on music rather than on the career.’

The career might have seemed inevitable, given Haefl iger’s background, but he wasn’t pushed into music. ‘I had the hands for the piano, and demonstrated an affi nity for the piano from very early on.’ But his parents were careful to warn him of the ‘intricate life’ a musical career entails. ‘Ultimately,’ he says, ‘if you are going to be a musician then the dedication is such that no parent’s encouragement or discouragement can really aff ect that.’

born1962 in Berlin to a Swiss family

grew up in Germany

early inspirationhis father, tenor Ernst Haefliger

studied withHerbert Stessin at the Juilliard School in New York City

key recital debutsNew York in 1988; Wigmore Hall, London, in 1993

Sydney Symphony debutfirst visited Australia in 2004, performing Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 with the Sydney Symphony in a concert with Ola Rudner and also appearing in Perth

more Beethovenon this tour he performs Beethoven Piano Concerto No.2 with the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras

recordingshis Perspectives series builds programs around Beethoven piano sonatas; currently at volume 5

what they say‘Unlike many virtuosos, Haefliger is a musician first and pianist second...Andreas Haefliger is a pianist to watch. More importantly, he is a pianist to listen to.’ (Chicago Tribune)

read morewww.andreashaefliger.com

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Andreas Haefl iger in conversation

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InspirationsEarly inspirations for Andreas Haefliger included great musicians of the past such as Edwin Fischer – the Swiss pianist who’d died in 1960 and was known to him only through recordings – as well as living artists such as Alfred Brendel. These were pianists ‘not to imitate but to admire – musicians by whom you can set goalposts’. In this way, says Haefliger, artists ‘propel each other forward. We might take the sound from one, the concentration of another, an idea for interpretation from yet another…’

For many pianists the big break comes in the form of a competition win or through ‘jumping’ for another artist who has cancelled. In Haefl iger’s case, he points to his fi rst recording with Sony, a disc of Mozart piano sonatas. ‘It wasn’t really that early in my career – I would have been about 29 years old – but it was a great opportunity and we worked on it for a long time.’ The result was a kind of calling card, declaring his approach as ‘a serious musician of integrity’.

Integrity and concentration are two words that turn up frequently in our conversation and it’s clear that Haefl iger defi nes himself as an artist who values the music above all. He was conscious, too, of wanting to take the time to develop and mature as a musician. These qualities emerge in his recital programming and, by extension, his recording projects.

Haefl iger is in the middle of an ambitious recording series called Perspectives. It’s not a Beethoven sonata cycle as such, instead, Beethoven sonatas provide the stimulus for each disc’s program. The sonatas are matched with piano works from other composers – pieces which ‘throw light, musically or historically, on the sonatas’. The programming itself is ‘often about the dramatic context, and sometimes about the historical context’.

His most recent release combines the Hammerklavier Sonata with the Swiss book from Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage, as in his Sydney recital. The pairing was prompted, he explains, by the thought of Liszt practising the Hammerklavier in Switzerland during his own ‘years of pilgrimage’. Indeed, Liszt gave the public premiere of the sonata in Paris in 1836, nearly 20 years after its publication. The delay reveals just what a huge undertaking the sonata is, and, adds Haefl iger, ‘it was for a long time considered too diffi cult for audiences’.

The Hammerklavier no longer frightens audiences – ‘we have heard so much music that has been written since’ – but its superhuman demands of technique, stamina and expression still have the capacity to arouse awe in the heart of a pianist. Beethoven himself declared the Hammerklavier Sonata would ‘keep the pianists busy when it is played fi fty years hence’. It still does, nearly two hundred years later. ‘It’s the enormity of it,’ says Haefl iger, ‘it transports us in its greatness.’

With Beethoven and Liszt there is the affi nity between two composer-pianists who were taking music, and the piano, in new directions and seeking new sonorities. In this context, Debussy fi ts perfectly. ‘Debussy was a progressive,’ says Haefl iger, ‘and his music refl ects a search for sound’. He was also very much infl uenced by Liszt. Taken together, the program works in ‘an intellectual sense’ as well as off ering sounds that will strike a note of recognition from work to work. Even in the Beethoven, Haefl iger suggests, we might hear things that ‘remind’ us of music already heard in the recital.


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ABOUT THE MUSIC

In Search of the New

There may not be a more transient term than modernism, given that every age perceives itself as new. The three composers on tonight’s program were variously regarded as modernists: Franz Liszt for his late works and associations with the so-called New German School; Claude Debussy for his innovative and unique harmonies; and Ludwig van Beethoven for, among other things, a seemingly compulsive desire to challenge conventions. While the novelty of all which is new ultimately passes, these composers share a further claim on history, each being exceptional pianists who discovered hitherto unimagined potentials in the instrument, revolutionising the way that it was played.

Liszt’s accomplishments at the piano are well known, and the works presented here are emblematic of his skilful fusion of rhetoric and virtuosity. Yet, as a serious composer his achievements were routinely overlooked. Choosing to attach descriptive or poetic titles to many of his compositions, often with programmatic connotations, he showed himself to be a follower of a new direction in music, one who was part of the ‘modern’ age. The innate narrative in his creations subsequently demanded a fresh take on musical architecture, and the predictable formal structures so prevalent in the Classical age were regularly set aside. Such an approach is evident in the fi rst volume of Years of Pilgrimage (Années de pèlerinage) from 1855, where the individual pieces convey recollections of Switzerland. Each of the four works selected for this concert are versions

Franz Liszt

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recast from earlier material, a collection known as Album d’un voyageur (the title itself suggests a program of the composer’s years spent touring). In the preface of that publication, Liszt outlined his intentions as a composer, describing ‘a series of pieces which, although not restricted to any conventional form, or fi tted to any special design, reveal the passions to which they owe their inspiration’. An important theme of the ‘new’ style is therefore established: music must speak directly of place and time, and, perhaps above all, the involvement of the individual.

The fi rst piece, Chapelle de Guillaume Tell, relates the story of William Tell and the chapel built on the shore of Lake Lucerne where the legendary hero had leapt from his captors in 1307, thus advancing the establishment of the Swiss Confederacy. Nobleness of spirit is conveyed by a solemn chorale and the following serene melody, while the tempestuous central section brings to mind the moment of Tell’s escape. Prior to the quiet ruminations that commence the next work, Mal du pays (Homesickness), is a lengthy quotation of the French author, Étienne Pivert de Senancour. The tract romances the imagery of the Swiss alps and, evocatively, the sound of the shepherd’s horn. The eponymous character in Senancour’s novel, Obermann – a solitary searcher of truth, and dweller in the mountainous valleys of the Jura – is portrayed in Vallée d’Obermann. Here, Liszt provides a brief caption, aptly illustrating the mood: ‘I feel, I exist only to exhaust myself in untameable desires, to drink deep of the allurement of a fantastic world, only to be fi nally vanquished by its sensuous illusion.’ The falling triads that open the fi nal selection, Les cloches de Genève, are, more literally, a depiction of the bells of Geneva. The pattern permeates much of the opening and closing textures, although they are largely absent in the central section, newly composed for this later version.

A second impression of bells leads us into the fi nely nuanced, and highly contrasting, world of Claude Debussy. While accounts of his piano-playing from student years at the Paris Conservatoire are impressive, his public appearances in later years received frequently negative critiques. From his friends and students for whom he played in private, however, there are remarkable recollections. The French pianist Marguerite Long wrote of an ‘incomparable’ pianist. ‘How could one forget his suppleness, the caress of his touch? While fl oating over the keys with a curiously penetrating gentleness, he could achieve an extraordinary power of expression.’ The evolution of his style can be traced through his many works for the piano, their ‘modernity’ lying not only in the way delicate

…music must speak directly of place and time, and, perhaps above all, the involvement of the individual.

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and interesting eff ects are to be brought forth, but in the individuality of their sonorities.

Similarly to the earlier works of Liszt, the three pieces in Debussy’s second series of Images (1907) have programmatic or pictorial titles. Here, however, they are more abstract, even illusory, as with ‘Bells through the leaves’ (Cloches à travers les feuilles). If the opening moments seem caught in stasis, it is due to the use of a whole-tone scale, an element of harmony for which the composer was a pioneer. Similarly, he evokes a scene of ‘Moonlight descending on a ruined temple’ (Et la lune descend sur la temple qui fut) in the second work, an edifi ce which a discarded title page suggests may have been Buddhist in origin. Juxtaposed dissonances conjure an ethereal half-light in this delicate study, where only brief wafts of melody resonate in the stillness. A depiction of a goldfi sh on Chinese lacquer-work was the inspiration for the fi nal piece (Poissons d’or). Potentially virtuosic in character – an aspect of pianism abhorred by the composer – the constant darting and changes of direction invoke rippling water and refracted light.

It is, however, the third of the great keyboard composers on this program – Ludwig van Beethoven – who made the most signifi cant advances in writing for the piano, in both technique and scope. The evolution of the instrument from lightweight early models to the heavier, hammer-action pianos of the 19th century concurrently, and conveniently, revealed the power and force in his music. The title pages of three late sonatas refer to the ‘great Hammerklavier’,

Claude Debussy

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as the piano had come to be known, yet it is the Sonata in B fl at major, Op.106, to which the designation has stuck. The composition – which, fi ttingly, is more demanding on both instrument and performer than any other of his works – was a product of diffi cult and relatively unproductive years, with both the legal jostling over guardianship of his nephew, Karl, and the grim acceptance of his profound deafness preoccupying him greatly. It was begun in the summer of 1817 but not fi nished until the autumn of the following year, the slow gestation period balancing its broad range. In four movements rather than the more typical three, at its core is a simple musical link: the interval of a third. This three-note span appears ubiquitously, the composer employing it in melodies, motifs and modulations, and also in joining larger sections.

The jubilant fanfare which brings the sonata to life also introduces an important motto. Its rising tenth (literally an ‘expanded’ third) and falling third pattern recurs throughout the movement, and is especially prominent in the central development section where Beethoven presages the fi nal movement by setting it contrapuntally. The mercurial second movement presents a dichotomy of moods, the opening phrase appearing to parody the motto of the preceding movement (the interval of a third again is its basis). Yet there are elements that create a curious sense of displacement, such as asymmetrical seven-bar phrases. A darker ‘trio’ section (the melody undulating over thirds) precedes an unexpected presto romp, which dissolves into a witty fl ourish up the keyboard and a tiny (but portentous!)

Ludwig van Beethoven

It is Beethoven who made the most significant advances in writing for the piano…

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tremolo that announces the return of the opening material. The immense third movement is in the key of F sharp minor (harmonically remote but separated from B fl at by three notes) and, for the time, the lengthy proportions encompassed here were novel for a movement of a solo work. Long-breathed phrases move between hushed contemplation and declamations that are operatic in character, while artful embroidering in demisemiquavers of the principal theme on its return potentially belies the movement's simple sonata-form structure.

The genius of the work is fully revealed in the fi nal movement, a massive fugue of enormous complexity. For me, the expansive introduction evokes an earlier master of counterpoint, Johann Sebastian Bach, as it searches through disparate keys and styles. When eventually it is found, the fugal subject is substantial and unrelenting. Of the various contrapuntal devices available, Beethoven assays them all: the subject is presented at half speed, backwards, upside down, on top of itself in mirror image, and so breathlessly in succession that statements occasionally commence before previous ones have fi nished. A second, contrasting fugue (‘like a play within a play’) appears in a calming moment of benediction, before the subjects of both are brilliantly combined. At times, the cleverness seems beyond comprehension, the many layers displacing the beat and creating dissonances which would have been considered ‘modern’ for their time. At length, drifts of broken harmony and a short cadenza suggest internal collapse, but a brief coda resumes the energy and the music races to a fi nal, triumphal close.

Yet this is more than a clever work. It betrays an author of vast experience, capable of simultaneously combining moments of profound monumentality, capricious wit, and, in the slow movement, pathos born of the deepest despair. Signalling the beginning of the composer’s so-called late period, it stands at a point where Romantic music could become more than the sum of its parts. As Liszt was to note prophetically, music ‘will cease to be a mere combination of sounds and will become a poetic language more apt than poetry itself ’, a language that ‘eludes analysis’ and which ‘moves in hidden depths of imperishable desire and infi nite intuition.’ The Hammerklavier Sonata is a work of its time, but is also beyond it; it is a work for the piano, but seemingly written for pianists of generations to come; in short, it is a work that is transient – like all music – yet able to express ‘that within our souls which transcends the common horizon’.

SCOTT DAVIE ©2012

…capable of producing moments of profound monumentality, capricious wit, and pathos born of the deepest despair.

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PRESENTING PARTNER

Béla Bartók (1881–1945)Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Op.20Molto moderato – Molto capricciosoLento, rubato – Allegretto scherzandoAllegro moltoAllegro moderato, molto capricciosoSostenuto, rubato – Allegro

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

ArabesquesNo.1 Andantino con motoNo.2 Allegretto scherzando

Jardins sous la pluie(from Estampes)

Refl ets dans l’eau(from Images, Series 1)

L’Isle joyeuse

Franz Liszt (1811–1883)Venezia e Napoli, S162Gondoliera (Quasi allegretto) –Canzone (Lento doloroso) –Tarantella (Presto)

INTERVAL

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)Complete Waltzes, in order of composition

See page 30 for sequence


Pre-concert talk by Ian Munro at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations:12 minutes, 22 minutes, 19 minutes, 20-minute interval, 55 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 9.20pm.


Monday 20 August, 7pmCity Recital Hall Angel Place

Piers Lane in Recital

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IN THE GREEN ROOM

When he was 17, Piers Lane told his teacher, Nancy Weir, that he’d found a piece by Liszt that he thought was ‘rather good’: a sonata in B minor. He learned it in ten days and played it at concert practice at the Queensland Conservatorium, happily oblivious to its status as the pinnacle of Romantic piano repertoire.

This was one of the things that inspired him growing up in Australia, he says: ‘the fact that there were no boundaries and no expectations’. He found the Grieg concerto in a cupboard when he was nine and read through it; he learned the Liszt E fl at concerto when he was 12 while on holiday. ‘I had no idea how diffi cult these pieces were because nobody told me they were diffi cult. I just enjoyed getting to know them.’ The musicians around him also ensured that he discovered repertoire outside the standard warhorses. His father introduced him to the Bliss concerto and the Ireland concerto; Weir had played Moskowski and Paderewski concertos in Brisbane in 1970. ‘If I’d been a student in Moscow or Paris,’ Lane speculates, ‘I wouldn’t have had that same curiosity about music and natural way of fi nding things. So I’m very grateful to have grown up in Brisbane.’

Nowadays Piers Lane lives in London. ‘If I couldn’t return to Australia as often as I do,’ he says, ‘I’d feel rather estranged. But that’s the wonderful thing about music, it does take you all over the place.’ One of the places that sees him annually is Townsville, home of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. In recent years he has toured for Musica Viva, and

born1958 in London (‘conceived in Putney’) – his English father and Australian mother, both pianists, met at the Royal College of Music

grew up in Brisbane in a house with four pianos

always assumedhe would be a pianist, even as a child – ‘it was only when I got to London and realised how many people want to be pianists that I had a little quaver’

studied withNancy Weir, a student of Artur Schnabel, at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music

tried playingviolin, but astonished his examiners with the ‘excruciating noise’ he made

big breakwas named Best Australian Pianist in the 1977 Sydney International Piano Competition and subsequently travelled overseas on a Churchill Fellowship

residencehas lived in London for more than 30 years

excellent excuses for visiting Australiarecitals, chamber music, concertos and his role as artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville

recordingsinclude a number of volumes in Hyperion’s series The Romantic Piano Concerto

read morewww.pierslane.com

Piers Lane in conversation

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Never the same…‘I’ve played Chopin’s C sharp minor waltz for decades now,’ says Lane, ‘and Rubinstein was still playing it when he was 75. He was asked, “How can you keep playing that piece?” and he said, “Because the piece changes all the time, it’s never the same.” Works grow according to one’s own maturity. That’s the great thing about classical music, it has so many different layers and so many depths that it depends on your own depths and layers. You gradually realise that more and more. For example, every time I come back to the Liszt B minor Sonata, I feel the structure of it a different way. Most pieces gradually refine and you look for different things. You want more sense of structure and perhaps you look for more classical simplicity in things too.’

last year he gave a recital in City Recital Hall: the complete Nocturnes of Chopin, by candlelight.

This year, the Chopin survey continues. His Sydney recital program metamorphosed and its essence changed as the 2012 season was planned. A late Schubert sonata had been performed in the series too recently and had to be discarded; Debussy was requested for his 150th anniversary; Bartók became a late addition. But the Chopin waltzes remained as a constant.

What had been conceived as a ‘solid Classical sonata’ complementing a waltz sequence had become a program of miniatures. ‘Often if you pull out one chunk of a program, the rest collapses, because it has been put together with reason.’ In its fi nal form, however, the program is tied together by the Bartók Improvisations. ‘Bartók and Liszt, they were both Hungarian…and Bartók was inspired by Debussy. And of course there’s quite a connection between Debussy and Chopin,’ says Lane. Later he mentions the melancholy character shared by Bartók’s folksongs and the Chopin waltzes, and even the spirit of improvisation. ‘So I feel that the whole program has an underlying logic to it now.’

One of the connections between Debussy and Chopin is sonority. Debussy told Marguerite Long that Refl ets dans l’eau should have the eff ect of a pebble dropped into still water. ‘It’s an extraordinary use of the pedal and overtones,’ says Lane, ‘and it makes me think of Chopin, the way Debussy sets up the opening with a chord in the left hand and then the notes of the stone being dropped in the water – overtones of that chord and so creating the most wonderful sonority.’ Lane imagines this is something Debussy might have learned from Chopin’s gift for supporting a melody by setting up overtones with the left hand and having the right sing with them.

The second half of Chopin waltzes – performed in their order of composition – is a way for Lane (and his listeners) to fi nd out ‘how Chopin felt about a particular thing and how he developed it through his life’. Only some of the waltzes were published in Chopin’s lifetime, and many of the very best-known ones were published posthumously. At least one – the ‘delicious little’ Waltz in B minor, played second – was destined for the fi re. Fortunately Chopin’s wishes were ignored and something like 28 pieces, this waltz and the Fantasy Impromptu included, were saved for posterity. One of the fi nal waltzes, Op.64 No.3 in A fl at, is especially unusual and very diff erent from some of the showier and more balletic early waltzes – ‘it’s not a dancing waltz, that’s for sure,’ says Lane, ‘but it’s Chopin being Chopin and it was one of his very favourite pieces.’


sydney symphony 27

BARTÓK

Earlier this year, Piers Lane proposed adding more music, and a fourth composer, to this program: Bartók’s Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Op.20. The result is a subtle introduction to the fi rst half of Debussy and Liszt. Bartók, he points out, was deeply infl uenced by Debussy’s music, and Bartók and Liszt share the same Hungarian heritage (although Liszt in this recital takes us to Italy).

Béla Bartók devoted many years of his life to documenting, collecting and publishing folk songs from Hungary, Romania and surrounding regions. But it was when he was in his 30s that this musical material in which he’d been immersing himself became central to his own compositions. And the Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, written in 1920, is one of the fi rst of his works in which folk song becomes raw material, ripe for manipulation.

In these eight short pieces, Bartók combines the personal and the national, setting the original songs to his own improvisational accompaniment and decoration. They range from very simple settings, with few changes to the original tune (as in the fi rst improvisation, Molto moderato), to more radical transformations. The second improvisation (Molto capriccioso), for example, conveys its ‘capriciousness’ with fragmented melody, quirky rhythms and abrupt changes in tempo. Together, the improvisations are a compendium of musical techniques: the combining of material diff erent keys for polytonal eff ect, the infectious character of ostinati (repeated motifs), unconventional scales (the fi fth and sixth improvisations use pentatonic scales, as achieved by playing only on the black keys of the piano), variation form, canons, and mirroring, in which musical phrases are repeated upside down.

Bartók was a great admirer of Debussy and the seventh variation (Sostenuto, rubato) was published in a collection assembled in memory of the French composer. (The memorial also included music by Dukas, Stravinsky, Falla and Eugene Goossens, among others.)

DEBUSSY In his writing for the piano, Claude Debussy proved himself a true successor to Chopin, who died in Paris 13 years before Debussy’s birth. One of his early piano teachers, Mme Mauté de Fleurville, claimed to have been one of Chopin’s students – a claim made by many Parisian women of aristocratic and musical pretensions, although it is more likely that they heard him play often.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Béla Bartók, a great admirer of Debussy

28 sydney symphony

Marguerite Long, one of France’s most important 20th-century pianists, had many lessons with Debussy, and described him as ‘fully preoccupied with Chopin’s method, phrasing and fi ngering’. Chopin’s playing had often been described in similar terms to those used by Debussy’s contemporaries, as his editor Durand wrote in 1915: ‘A full sonority, a remarkable delicacy, a perfect mastery of nuance, an imperceptible rubato, always framed within the beat, and an astonishing use of the pedal.’

Although his piano playing must have been of a high order, Debussy did not gain a Premier Prix in piano performance at the Conservatoire, which probably knocked him out of the running for a career as a travelling virtuoso. This was no loss to the musical world, as his remarkable compositions changed the whole course of Western classical music at the beginning of the 20th century.

The charming piano works of the 1890s do not give much hint of his later development. The Arabesques of 1888 and 1891 are often the fi rst pieces of Debussy that young pianists play, and although simple, they have an attractive sinuousness of melody that remains in the mind long after they have been heard.

The years 1903 to 1908 saw such major changes in harmony, rhythm and compositional style and scale, that charm was left far behind, to the consternation of many establishment fi gures. However, Debussy knew exactly what he was doing: ‘I am indeed trying to do something diff erent – an eff ect of reality – what fools call “Impressionism”, a term which is used as poorly as possible and even used to describe the paintings of Turner.’

Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain) is the third work in a group called Estampes (Prints) from 1903. It is a rainy day, with gusts of wind and sudden downpours, and at the centre of the picture is perhaps the face of a little girl at a window, longing to go out into the garden. The musical language combines whole tone scales, nursery songs, a suggestion of many diff erent instrumental colours, and remarkable pianistic eff ects. (Saint-Saëns, rather piqued at Debussy’s growing reputation, thought the piece was mere nonsense!)

Refl ets dans l’eau (Refl ections in the Water) of two years later is perhaps even more important: it is an astonishingly varied composition based on tiny fragments of melody, immersed in brilliant cascades of water depicted by a wide palette of harmony and rhythmic invention. Debussy described the piece as ‘a little circle of water with a little pebble falling into it’.

L’isle joyeuse of 1904 is a piece of a diff erent sort. Although it uses many of Debussy’s distinctive harmonies and scales, it is an unusual work in the Debussy piano

‘I am indeed trying to do something different…’

DEBUSSY

sydney symphony 29

canon – a large scale romantic work, overtly programmatic, inspired by Watteau’s famous painting L’embarquement pour Cythère (Embarkation for the Island of Cythera). From the opening summons to the fi nal rapturous ecstasy of arrival on the island – the mythical birthplace of Venus – Debussy stamps his own pianistic language on this work. The piece alternates a galant style of dance, with a melody of romantic yearning. Debussy asked Mme Long to play it to him at her fi rst lesson, to see what she would make of it.

LISZTHaving recently travelled to many new countries, through diff erent settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefi ned but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.

Franz Liszt wrote three collections of pieces inspired by his travels to Italy and Switzerland in the 1830s and 1840s. As was his habit, he reworked several of them more than once: Venezia e Napoli appeared in its fi nal form in 1859, as a supplement to the second book in the Years of Pilgrimage (Italy).

Watteau’s painting The Embarkation for Cythera (1717)

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The pieces in Venezia e Napoli are extremely lively impressions indeed. The fi rst is a Barcarolle (moonlight and romance); the second, Canzone, an operatic setting of a theme from Rossini’s Otello (drama and menace); fi nally the rip-roaring Tarantella, with blazing piano virtuosity based on Neapolitan songs. This is one of Liszt’s most brilliantly eff ervescent works – an exquisite celebration of Italian joys and sorrows. Much more fun than a postcard!

CHOPINIn this recital Piers Lane performs Chopin’s waltzes in their order of composition rather than their published order. For ease of reference, this note numbers them as follows:

1. Waltz in E major, Op.Posth. (1829) 2. Waltz in B minor, Op.69 No.2 (1829) 3. Waltz in D fl at major, Op.70 No.3 (1829) 4. Waltz in A fl at major, Op.Posth. (1830) 5. Waltz in E minor, Op.Posth. (1830) 6. Waltz in G fl at major, Op.70 No.1 (1832) 7. Waltz in E fl at major, Op.18 (1833) 8. Waltz in A fl at major, Op.69 No.1 (1835) 9. Waltz in A fl at major, Op.34 No.1 (1835)10. Waltz in A minor, Op.34 No.2 (1838)11. Waltz in F major, Op.34 No.3 (1838)12. Waltz in A fl at major, Op.42 (1839–40)13. Waltz in F minor, Op.70 No.2 (1841)14. Waltz in D fl at major, Op.64 No.1, ‘Minute Waltz’ (1847)15. Waltz in C sharp minor, Op.64 No.2 (1847)16. Waltz in A fl at major, Op.64 No.3 (1847)17. Waltz in A minor, Op.Posth. (1847–49)

Much of Chopin’s music is dominated by dance forms: the mazurkas, waltzes and polonaises being the obvious ones, but some characteristics of these dances also appear in his other works.

Like many dances, the waltz had its origins as a popular country dance. That indefatigable traveller, the 18th-century musical historian Charles Burney, described it as ‘a riotous German dance of modern invention’. For many years before Chopin, it was played and danced at popular gatherings, cafés and domestic salons.

The older generation considered it rather scandalous, because of the physical intimacy it encouraged between partners. Rather than leaving the lower classes to have all the fun, European courts and nobility decided to take it into their repertoire, and to our minds to-day, the waltz is synonymous with a certain aristocratic lifestyle, and often identifi ed with the city of Vienna. Chopin visited Vienna in

sydney symphony 31

1831 and wrote: ‘I don’t even know how to dance a waltz properly – my piano only knows how to mazurka.’

The order in which the waltzes are being performed in this concert is chronological, tracing Chopin’s progress over 20 years from the fi rst known waltz of 1829. Only about eight of the waltzes were published in his lifetime, although Chopin presented some of them as ‘mementos’ to female admirers, by writing them into their albums. The other waltzes were published posthumously.

Despite his professed inability to dance a waltz, Chopin would have heard and seen them wherever he travelled. He conceived his collection of waltzes as concert works, and he often included them in his own salon performances. He probably played many more waltzes than he ever wrote down.

In Chopin’s collection of waltzes, there are several diff erent styles, diff erentiated by tempo as well as by character. There are some that are miniature waltzes with contrasting episodes: Nos. 3 and 6, and some that could almost be danced to: Nos. 2 and 16.

The most exciting ones are often styled ‘valse brillante’ and they are extended works of great virtuosity, with several diff erent sections, often ending in a whirling coda, and a crashing of chords: Nos. 7, 9, 11. There are also some, slow and refl ective, that seem to evoke a ballroom with only a few romantic couples left: Nos. 10 and 17).

And of course there is the most famous waltz of them all, which has come to be known as the ‘Minute Waltz’, although it takes rather longer than a minute to play. Perhaps it is better thought of as a portrait of George Sand’s little dog running around in circles after its own tail.

Many of these waltzes may make us want to dance, although some of the tempos chosen would defeat those who tried. In these waltzes it is the pianist’s fi ngers that do the dancing!

STEPHEN MCINTYRE ©2012With additional material (Bartók) © SYDNEY SYMPHONY

Chopin performing in the salon of Prince Radziwill (October 1829)

‘I don’t even know how to dance a waltz properly – my piano only knows how to mazurka.’

CHOPIN, 1831

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THE SYDNEY SYMPHONY

Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony has evolved into one of the world’s fi nest orchestras as Sydney has become one of the world’s great cities.

Resident at the iconic Sydney Opera House, where it gives more than 100 performances each year, the Sydney Symphony also performs in venues throughout Sydney and regional New South Wales. International tours to Europe, Asia and the USA have earned the orchestra worldwide recognition for artistic excellence, most recently in the 2011 tour of Japan and Korea.

The Sydney Symphony’s fi rst Chief Conductor was Sir Eugene Goossens, appointed in 1947; he was followed by Nicolai Malko, Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon, Willem van Otterloo, Louis Frémaux, Sir Charles Mackerras, Zdenek Mácal, Stuart Challender, Edo de Waart and, most recently, Gianluigi Gelmetti. The orchestra’s history also boasts collaborations with legendary fi gures such as George Szell, Sir Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

The Sydney Symphony’s award-winning education program is central to its commitment to the future of live symphonic music, developing audiences and engaging the participation of young people. The Sydney Symphony promotes the work of Australian composers through performances, recordings and its commissioning program. Recent premieres have included major works by Ross Edwards, Liza Lim, Lee Bracegirdle, Gordon Kerry and Georges Lentz, and a recording of works by Brett Dean was released on both the BIS and Sydney Symphony Live labels.

Other releases on the Sydney Symphony Live label, established in 2006, include performances with Alexander Lazarev, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vladimir Ashkenazy. The orchestra has recently completed recording the Mahler symphonies, and has also released recordings with Ashkenazy of Rachmaninoff and Elgar orchestral works on the Exton/Triton labels, as well as numerous recordings on the ABC Classics label.

This is the fourth year of Ashkenazy’s tenure as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor.

JOH

N M

AR

MA

RA

S

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PRESENTING PARTNER

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

‘Goldberg Variations’Aria with Diverse Variations, BWV 988AriaVariation 1Variation 2Variation 3 (Canone all’unisono)Variation 4Variation 5 Variation 6 (Canone alla seconda)Variation 7 (Al tempo di giga)Variation 8Variation 9 (Canone alla terza)Variation 10 (Fughetta)Variation 11 Variation 12 (Canone alla quarta)Variation 13 Variation 14Variation 15 (Canone alla quinta)Variation 16 (Ouverture)Variation 17Variation 18 (Canone alla sesta)Variation 19Variation 20Variation 21 (Canone alla settima)Variation 22 (Alla breve)Variation 23Variation 24 (Canone all’ottava)Variation 25Variation 26Variation 27 (Canone alla nona)Variation 28Variation 29Variation 30 (Quodlibet)Aria da capo


Pre-concert talk at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

The recital will be performed without interval and will conclude at approximately 8.25pm.


Monday 24 September, 7pmCity Recital Hall Angel Place

Angela Hewitt in Recital

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IN THE GREEN ROOM

For Angela Hewitt, Bach began at home. She probably heard Bach before she was born. Her mother was her fi rst piano teacher and her father, Godfrey, was an organist known for playing Bach. ‘My father used to play all the great organ works all the time,’ she recalls. ‘I loved Bach from the very beginning. I fi rst played him when I was four years old, and later on the violin, and I sang Bach and danced to Bach. He was very present in our household.’

As a result, she says, she learned the basics of good Bach performance right from the outset, and it paved the way for her to become a noted Bach interpreter in her own right. That knowledge and experience has more recently become the subject of a DVD lecture-recital, Bach Performance at the Piano.

It’s too much to summarise in a short phone conversation, but Hewitt gives it a try. ‘The diffi culty with Bach is that it’s just the notes. He didn’t write anything into the score…very little phrasing, few articulation marks, no fi ngering. In Bach’s time, musicians and students were expected to know these things.’ But there’s more. ‘It’s a study in diligence and concentration,’ explains Hewitt, ‘bringing out the diff erent voices. Of course you can just play the notes, and that’s hard enough, but that’s not what I call true Bach playing.’

Angela Hewitt has become known for playing Bach – music usually written for harpsichord – on the piano. In fact it’s no exaggeration to say that she’s one of the leading Bach pianists of her generation, and she’s achieved this reputation in the age of historical performance practice, while all around orchestras

born1958 in Ottawa, Canada

first piano lessons with her mother at the age of three

early inspirationsincluded her father, Godfrey Hewitt, organist at Christ Church Cathedral Ottawa and a noted interpreter of Bach

as a childplayed violin and recorder as well as piano, and studied classical ballet (which she continued into her 20s)

studiedat the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music, then with Jean-Paul Sévilla at the University of Ottawa

big breakher win in the 1985 International Bach Piano Competition, held in Toronto to commemorate Bach’s 300th anniversary

Australian debutin 1991 (a Mozart anniversary year), visited Australia to play five Mozart concertos with the ABC symphony orchestras, replacing Walter Klien at short notice.

artistic projectsinclude the annual Trasimeno Music Festival in Umbria, which she founded in 2005

honoursin 2006 Angela Hewitt was awarded an OBE and named Gramophone Artist of the Year; she is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

read morewww.angelahewitt.com

Angela Hewitt in conversation

sydney symphony 35

and concert pianists were yielding baroque repertoire to their period-instrument counterparts.

But Hewitt says this trend has been a shame, a ‘cop-out’ even. There’s no reason why this music can’t be played on modern instruments or by bigger forces, she says, and her decision to record Bach with ensembles such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra is proof. ‘What I am against is it being played in a style that’s totally anachronistic, that doesn’t make sense.’

Growing up, Angela Hewitt was an extraordinarily busy child. In addition to piano, she was also a talented violinist, a prize-winning recorder player and a serious student of classical ballet. Then, at 15, she began studying with Jean-Paul Sévilla, a French pianist who had arrived in Ottawa. ‘That was a crucial stage,’ she recalls, ‘because I was doing so many other things at that time – ballet, recorder and violin – and Jean-Paul opened up another world to me, so I let go some of the other things gradually, because I wanted to focus on piano – that was a real turning point.’

Perhaps even more crucially, Sévilla introduced her to Bach’s Goldberg Variations – a revelation for a 16 year old. Even with the repeats omitted, this sounds like an astonishing challenge for a teenager’s technique and stamina. But in fact, Hewitt says, ‘it’s the brain part that’s the hardest.…To be able to unravel the canons, to present them with clarity for the listener, to make sense of the whole piece from beginning to end, to present it as one coherent piece… All of those things are diffi cult and take great artistry.’ Now, having performed the work for many years, Hewitt is intrigued to see how it has changed with her development as a musician and pianist –‘it’s changed with me,’ she says.

Something else Hewitt has noticed over the years is the extraordinary eff ect that the Goldberg Variations has on listeners. She points to the way the music begins with the Aria and then at the end it returns. ‘It comes from a diff erent world and you have travelled far – all the expression you’ve gone through in those 30 variations, from great joy to sorrow and to laughter and to the quite raunchy behaviour of the last variation, when he’s probably drinking beer after dinner… It combines the sublime with the everyday, and then it comes full circle, giving this sense of completeness.’

The eff ect is even stronger in concert, simply because of the concentration it demands from the listener. ‘People put a record on at home and do a million other things while they’re listening to it, but when you’re sitting in a concert hall along with other people then the concentration is on a totally diff erent level – I think that’s very special.’


Angela Hewitt, aged four, practising at a pedal piano, an upright piano with a pedal board attached, which had been made for her father.

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Bach’s Goldberg VariationsNote by Angela Hewitt

The circumstances under which the ‘Goldberg’ Variations came into being were passed down to us by Bach’s fi rst biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel. In 1802 he wrote:

The Count (Keyserlingk) was often sickly, and then had sleepless nights. At these times Goldberg, who lived in the house with him, had to pass the night in an adjoining room to play something to him when he could not sleep. The Count once said to Bach that he should like to have some clavier pieces for his Goldberg, which should be of such a soft and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought he could best fulfi l this wish by variations, which, on account of the constant sameness of the fundamental harmony, he had hitherto considered as an ungrateful task. But as at this time all his works were models of art, these variations also became such under his hand. This is, indeed, the only model of the kind that he has left us. The Count thereafter called them nothing but ‘his’ variations. He was never weary of hearing them; and for a long time, when the sleepless nights came, he used to say: ‘Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.’ Bach was, perhaps, never so well rewarded for any work as for this: the Count made him a present of a golden goblet fi lled with a hundred Louis d’ors. But their worth as a work of art would not have been paid if the present had been a thousand times as great.

Some musicologists don’t quite believe Forkel’s tale for several reasons. First, the work carried no dedication when it was published in 1742. Bach simply entitled it Keyboard Practice, consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations, for the Harpsichord with 2 Manuals. Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits. Second, Goldberg would have been only 14 or 15 years old at the time – but surely there were prodigies then as now. Finally, no gold goblet was mentioned in Bach’s estate. Whether or not it’s true doesn’t really matter. It remains a good story (and a good title!), and one which no doubt will forever be attached to this monumental work.

The Aria that Bach uses as a theme appears in the notebook of pieces he began collecting for his second wife, Anna Magdalena, in 1725. It is a dignifi ed, stately sarabande, full of tenderness and poise. It is embellished in the French manner – the ornaments are an essential part of the melodic line. It is the bass line, however, or more specifi cally the harmonies it implies, that gives the basis for the 30 variations which follow.

On this base, Bach builds a magnifi cent edifi ce, beautifully proportioned and astonishingly varied. The variations are

Johann Sebastian Bach

Who was Goldberg?

The Russian ambassador to the court of Dresden, Count Keyserlingk, was passionate about music and gathered around him some of the best instrumentalists of his day, among them a prodigious young harpsichordist named Johann Gottlieb (or Theophilus) Goldberg (1727–1756). Born in Danzig (Gdansk), Goldberg studied with Bach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, in Dresden, then was sent to Leipzig to study with Bach himself. His fame as a virtuoso quickly spread, and it was recounted that he could read anything at sight – even if the score was upside down! Bach must have delighted in having such a pupil.

sydney symphony 37

organised into groups of three, with every third variation being a canon. In these, the upper two voices engage in exact imitation, beginning at the unison in Variation 3, and moving up step by step so that Variation 27 is a canon at the ninth. Each group begins with a free variation; the second of each set is a toccata, with the most brilliant variations belonging to this group.

Variation 1 sets the joyous tone. Both the leaps and the rhythm of the left hand in the fi rst bar are motives for joy in Bach’s music. This two-part invention already gives us a taste of the hand-crossing that will be such a feature in later variations. Variation 2 provides the one exception to the pattern of toccata in second place, and it initially teases us by almost being a canon. It is a three-part invention, with two voices engaging in constant dialogue over a running bass. Then comes the fi rst of the canons in Variation 3 – this one at the unison (the upper voices beginning on the same note, one bar apart). The mood is pastoral simplicity with a touch of the dance.

Variation 4 is a rustic-sounding dance. The opening three

Title page of the fi rst edition of the Goldberg Variations, published as the fourth part of Bach’s Clavierübung by Balthasar Schmid, Nuremberg, in about 1741.

…Bach builds a magnificent edifice, beautifully proportioned and astonishingly varied.

38 sydney symphony

notes constantly jump from voice to voice in playful imitation with syncopations adding interest. It sets us up perfectly for the fi rst of the brilliant toccatas. Variation 5 uses the Italian type of hand-crossing, where one hand makes dangerous leaps over the other. Variation 6 is a canon at the second, and what better motive for that than a descending scale? It alternates beautifully between rising and falling, and the shadowing of the leader by the ensuing voice is not without tenderness.

Variation 7 is a French gigue (‘al tempo di Giga’), and its dotted rhythms and sharp ornaments make it one of the most attractive of the variations. Technical diffi culties resume in Variation 8, with some treacherous overlapping of the hands. This is hand-crossing in the French style, where both are playing at once in the same part of the keyboard. The hands alternate between moving towards or away from each other, with the crossing of the arms providing visual excitement. The next canon, Variation 9, is at the interval of a third. Beautifully lyrical, fl owing yet unhurried, its expressiveness is supported by a more active bass line than in the previous canons.

Variation 10 is a fughetta in four parts – very genial in nature. More overlapping of the hands occurs in Variation 11, a gentle gigue-like toccata which requires great delicacy. It makes use of crossing scales and some capricious arpeggios and trills, the whole dissolving into thin air at the end. Then Bach gives us the fi rst of the canons by inversion (where the second voice is in contrary motion to the fi rst). Variation 12, a very regal canon at the fourth, is also the fi rst one where the voices reverse their leadership role after the double bar.

The sublime Variation 13 is an emotional turning point in the work. Its tender, cantabile melody, resembling a slow movement from a concerto, soars above the accompanying voices, using violin fi gurations and two-note ‘sighs’ in the cadential bars. Chromaticisms in the left hand towards the end serve only to enhance our state of bliss. Bach then wakes us from our dream with the cheerful mordent beginning Variation 14. This same mordent is then the sole feature of a passage which takes us down the full range of his keyboard (changing to an ascent after the double bar). After this brilliant outburst, Variation 15 presents us with a canon at the fi fth and the fi rst of the minor-key variations. I think it very fi tting that it is in contrary motion, as the downward movement – more ‘sighing’ fi gures – is very sorrowful, but its ascending counterpart brings hope. Bach was unable to accept total despair because of his deep religious faith, and this variation is a perfect example of how he expressed this in music. The tempo marking is ‘Andante’, so it must fl ow despite its sorrow. There is a wonderful eff ect at the very

Although the autograph manuscript of the ‘Goldberg’ Variations has been lost, we do have a copy of the original edition – published by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg – that is notated in Bach’s own hand (Handexemplar). As it was discovered as recently as 1974, only editions published after that date take into account the findings therein. Several tempo markings are added, in particular ‘al tempo di Giga’ for Variation 7.

The Handexemplar can be viewed online at the Petrucci Music Library, imslp.org

sydney symphony 39

end: the hands move away from each other, with the right suspended in mid-air on an open fi fth. This gradual fade, leaving us in awe but ready for more, is a fi tting end to the fi rst half of the piece.

Variation 16 opens the second half with the pomp and splendour of a French overture. It is in two sections: the fi rst is grandiose with running scales, brilliant trills, and sharply-dotted rhythms. After the repeat follows a faster, fugal section; here the texture is much more transparent but still very orchestral. Variation 17 is a spirited and light-footed toccata in which Bach obviously takes great delight in writing expressly for two keyboards; on the piano the hands are playing on top of each other for a lot of the time. He continues in a good-natured mood with Variation 18, a canon at the sixth. The bass line skips happily about under the two canonic voices where suspensions are the name of the game.

Variation 19 is in the style of a passepied – a delicate, charming dance. It gives the player a chance to relax before the most dangerous of all the toccatas, Variation 20. Here Bach is obviously writing for a performer who is totally fearless and in command of the instrument. It is not just a display of technique, however. The notes are nothing without the joy and humour that are present in abundance, especially when he engages in ‘batteries’ (a way of breaking chords). This joyous moment is followed by a complete change in mood, and Variation 21 takes us back to the key of G minor with maximum eff ect. The expressiveness of this canon at the seventh is emphasised by the chromatic descent of the bass which, in the third bar, picks up the swirling motive of the opening.

I always get a feeling of rebirth with the onset of Variation 22. The return to G major is partly responsible, but so too is the solidity of the four-part writing. Marked ‘alla breve’ and using imitative dialogue, it seems to begin a sequence which leads beautifully to the conclusion of the work. Bach really has fun with Variation 23, in which the hands engage in a game of catch-me-if-you-can. They end up tumbling on top of each other, ending their gymnastic routine brilliantly together on the last chord! After such antics, the canon at the octave in Variation 24 creates a beautiful sense of repose.

Variation 25 is, without doubt, the greatest of all the variations. Returning to the rhythm of the opening sarabande, Bach writes an arioso of great intensity and painful beauty – agonising chromaticisms show that Romanticism is not far away. Famously called ‘the black pearl’ by Wanda Landowska, its slow tempo (Adagio) makes it much longer than any other variation. The ‘repeated note’ ornament at the beginning – often used by Bach for a jump

The Goldberg Variations is usually considered to be the fourth part of Bach’s Clavierübung (Keyboard Practice), although he didn’t specify the work as such. The first volume comprised the six Partitas, the second the Italian Concerto and the French Overture, and the third various organ compositions along with the Four Duets. In each of these, a French overture figures prominently: as the opening of the Partita in D major, again in the Overture of the second volume, and in the ‘St Anne’ Prelude and Fugue in volume three. In the ‘Goldberg’, Variation 16 provides the French overture.

40 sydney symphony

of a sixth in impassioned music – is wonderfully expressive and very vocal, and was later adopted by Chopin. As with Bach’s greatest works in this vein, we feel that the external world must not intrude on this most private of moments.

In a complete performance of the ‘Goldberg’, the hardest thing is to gather up the energy and concentration needed for Variation 26 after emptying everything from inside yourself in Variation 25. With only a few seconds’ break, you are thrown into another virtuoso toccata where, for a lot of the time, the arms are crossed over each other. Retaining the sarabande rhythm, but much faster, Bach adopts two time-signatures: an unusual 18/16 for the running semiquavers and 3/4 for the accompanying chords, with the former winning out in the end when both hands take off and run in the last fi ve bars. The last canon, Variation 27, is at the interval of a ninth and is the only one in which Bach abandons a supporting bass. Staying within the harmonic outline of his theme, the two voices chatter away in a friendly dialogue, slightly tinged with mischief, before coming to an abrupt end.

Bach then launches into Variation 28, a study in written-out trills. They are accompanied by wide leaps, with bell-like notes marking the beat. With no let-up, the last of the toccatas, Variation 29, opens with joyous drumbeats in the left hand followed by hammered-out chords. I feel it should begin somewhat like a free improvisation, then be strictly in time for the descending cavalcades of notes that follow. If Beethoven comes to mind in the previous variation, then Liszt is surely not far away in this one! It leads us triumphantly into Variation 30, which we expect to be a canon at the tenth – but Bach always has something up his sleeve. In this case it is a Quodlibet (literally ‘as you please’).

A quodlibet was a kind of musical joke in which popular songs were superimposed. The words were humorous and often very naughty. For this fi nal variation Bach chose two folksongs:

I’ve not been with you for so long. Come closer, closer, closer.

and

Cabbage and beets drove me away. Had my mother cooked some meat then I’d have stayed much longer.

Once the party is over, the crowd disperses, and the Aria returns, as if from afar, appearing veiled and even more beautiful in retrospect. Surely this is one of the most moving moments in all of music, and it speaks to us with great simplicity. Our journey is complete, yet we are back where we began.

* * * * * *

…but Bach always has something up his sleeve

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The Goldberg Variations is one of the best performance pieces in the keyboard repertoire. There is a strong visual component – thanks to the spectacular hand-crossings – that makes it fascinating to the spectator and gave Landowska reason to complain:

The gluttony with which the public rushes to buy tickets to hear the Goldberg Variations saddens and discourages me. Is it through love for this music? No, they do not know it. They are prompted simply by the base curiosity of seeing a virtuoso fi ght with the most diffi cult work ever written for keyboard.

That was written in 1933 when Landowska made the fi rst-ever recording of the work. It is still widely performed and appreciated. We might well ask ourselves why this work has such an enormous eff ect on us, as I believe it does. It is certainly one of the most therapeutic pieces of music. The beauty, joy and fulfi lment that Bach shares with us are powerful healers, and give us momentarily the sense of completeness we seek. Perhaps, however, the true reasons should remain a mystery.

When writing about the ‘Goldberg’, it has become almost traditional, ever since Ralph Kirkpatrick’s preface to his edition of the work in 1934, to quote from Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (1643), and I make no exception:

There is something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers. It is an Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and creatures of God; such a melody to the ear, as the whole World, well understood, would aff ord the understanding. In brief it is a sensible fi t of that Harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God.

ANGELA HEWITT ©2000

This note has been abridged from the liner notes accompanying Angela Hewitt’s recording of the Goldberg Variations on the Hyperion label.

Repeats?

One thing that every interpreter has to decide is whether or not to include the repeats, which of course doubles the length. It is hard to please everybody when considering what to do. For many years, I performed the ‘Goldberg’ mostly in the no-repeats version as the second half of a program. Since adding all the repeats for my recording in 2000, I find its impact immensely heightened, the architecture so much more evident, and the possibilities for variation within the variations endless. So my preference lies with what Bach wrote.

AH

Proud sponsor of theSydney Symphonyin their 80th yearof timeless entertainment

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MORE MUSIC

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV

Abduraimov’s debut recital CD was released in March. The disc begins with the Liszt/Horowitz arrangement of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre and Prokofi ev’s Suggestion diabolique and ends with Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz. In between these ‘diabolical’ bookends can be found Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude and Prokofi ev’s Piano Sonata No.6 (the fi rst of his so-called ‘War sonatas’). DECCA 478 3301

ANDREAS HAEFLIGER

If you’ve enjoyed Andreas Haefl iger’s recital program in Sydney, then look for his provocative series of recordings for Avie, Perspectives. This series combines selected Beethoven piano sonatas with complementary or illuminating repertoire. The fi fth volume in the series contains elements of his Sydney program, combining the Hammerklavier sonata with the Swiss volume from Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage.AVIE 2239

Volume 4 makes an intriguing program from Janácek’s Sonata 1.x.1905 (From the Street), Brahms’s Sonata No.2 in F sharp minor and Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata and Sonata in F sharp, Op.78.AVIE 2173

PIERS LANE

Among Piers Lane’s recent releases is a recording of Elgar’s Piano Quintet (completed in 1919) with the Goldner String Quartet. The quintet is coupled with Elgar’s String Quartet in E minor (from around the same period) and a selection of Elgar piano solos. (Lane and the Goldner Quartet have also recorded chamber music by Dvorák, Bloch and Bridge.)HYPERION 67857

Last year, for Hyperion’s budget label, he recorded the complete concert studies of Ignaz Moscheles – virtuoso piano music of the 19th century, in some instances being recorded for the fi rst time.HELIOS 55387

Piers Lane also has a number of releases in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series, with recordings of rarely heard concertos by composers such as Delius, Ireland and Paderewski.

ANGELA HEWITT

Angela Hewitt recording of the Goldberg Variations for Hyperion came out in 2000 – ‘a miracle of music-making at its most instinctive

and spontaneous,’ said The Sunday Times. This much-praised interpretation was subsequently re-released in Hyperion’s 30th Anniversary Series in 2010.HYPERION CDA 67305 (2000)

HYPERION CDA 30002 (2010)

In addition to her recording of the Goldberg Variations, Angela Hewitt has a discography of nearly 50 releases on the Hyperion label, with repertoire ranging from Bach and the French baroque masters, to Beethoven piano sonatas, Mozart concertos and music by Schumann, Chopin, Ravel and Messiaen. They are available for sale on CD and in a variety of high-quality download formats from www.hyperion-records.co.uk

To hear more of Angela Hewitt’s Bach interpretations, also look for the collection featuring the Italian Concerto (BWV 971) and English Suite No.6 in D minor (BWV 811) in a recording made for Deutsche Grammophon in 1985, following her win in the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.ELOQUENCE 4429446

Broadcasts

Most Sydney Symphony concerts are recorded by ABC Classic FM for live or delayed broadcast. Broadcasts from the International Pianists in Recital series will be promoted in program books as they are scheduled, and broadcast listings can be found at www.abc.net.au/classic

2MBS-FM 102.5sydney symphony 20122MBS-FM broadcasts a regular Sydney Symphony spot at 6pm on the second Tuesday of each month. Tune in to hear musicians, staff and guest artists discuss what’s in store in our forthcoming concerts and to hear previews of the music.

sydney symphony 43

Glazunov & ShostakovichAlexander Lazarev conducts a thrilling performance of Shostakovich 9 and Glazunov’s Seasons. SSO 2

Strauss & SchubertGianluigi Gelmetti conducts Schubert’s Unfi nished and R Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Ricarda Merbeth. SSO 200803

Sir Charles MackerrasA 2CD set featuring Sir Charles’s fi nal performances with the orchestra, in October 2007. SSO 200705

Brett DeanBrett Dean performs his own viola concerto, conducted by Simone Young, in this all-Dean release. SSO 200702

RavelGelmetti conducts music by one of his favourite composers: Maurice Ravel. Includes Bolero. SSO 200801

Rare Rachmaninoff Rachmaninoff chamber music with Dene Olding, the Goldner Quartet, soprano Joan Rodgers and Vladimir Ashkenazy at the piano. SSO 200901

MAHLER ODYSSEY ON CDDuring the 2010 and 2011 concert seasons, the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy set out to perform all the Mahler symphonies, together with some of the song cycles. These concerts were recorded for CD, with nine releases so far and more to come.

Mahler 9 OUT NOW

In March, Mahler’s Ninth, his last completed symphony, was released. SSO 201201

ALSO CURRENTLY AVAILABLE

Mahler 1 & Songs of a WayfarerSSO 201001

Mahler 8 (Symphony of a Thousand)SSO 201002

Mahler 5 SSO 201003

Song of the Earth SSO 201004

Mahler 3 SSO 201101

Mahler 4 SSO 201102

Mahler 6 SSO 201103

Mahler 7 SSO 201104

Webcasts

Selected Sydney Symphony concerts are webcast live on BigPond and Telstra T-box and made available for later viewing On Demand.

Visit: bigpondmusic.com/sydneysymphony

Live webcasts can also be viewed via our mobile app.

Sydney Symphony Live

The Sydney Symphony Live label was founded in 2006 and we’ve since released more than a dozen recordings featuring the orchestra in live concert performances with our titled conductors and leading guest artists, including the Mahler Odyssey cycle, begun in 2010. To purchase, visit sydneysymphony.com/shop

Sydney Symphony Online

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Visit sydneysymphony.com for concert information, podcasts, and to read the program book in the week of the concert.

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44 sydney symphony

BEHIND THE SCENES

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Rory JeffesEXECUTIVE TEAM ASSISTANT

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DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

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Eve Le Gall

John C Conde ao ChairmanTerrey Arcus amEwen CrouchRoss GrantJennifer HoyRory JeffesAndrew KaldorIrene LeeDavid LivingstoneGoetz RichterDavid Smithers am

Sydney Symphony Board

Sydney Symphony Council

Sydney Symphony StaffMARKETING & ONLINE COORDINATOR

Kaisa HeinoGRAPHIC DESIGNER

Lucy McCulloughDATA ANALYST

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Jonathon Symonds

Box OfficeMANAGER OF BOX OFFICE SALES & OPERATIONS

Lynn McLaughlinMANAGER OF BOX OFFICE OPERATIONS

Tom DowneyCUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES

Steve Clarke – Senior CSRMichael DowlingDerek ReedJohn RobertsonBec Sheedy

COMMUNICATIONS

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS

Yvonne ZammitPUBLICIST

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PublicationsPUBLICATIONS EDITOR & MUSIC PRESENTATION MANAGER

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DEVELOPMENT

HEAD OF CORPORATE RELATIONS

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Amelia Morgan-Hunn

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HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER

Anna Kearsley

Geoff Ainsworth amAndrew Andersons aoMichael Baume aoChristine BishopIta Buttrose ao obePeter CudlippJohn Curtis amGreg Daniel amJohn Della BoscaAlan FangErin FlahertyDr Stephen FreibergDonald Hazelwood ao obeDr Michael Joel amSimon JohnsonYvonne Kenny amGary LinnaneAmanda LoveHelen Lynch amJoan MacKenzieDavid MaloneyDavid Malouf aoJulie Manfredi-HughesDeborah MarrThe Hon. Justice Jane Mathews aoDanny MayWendy McCarthy aoJane MorschelGreg ParamorDr Timothy Pascoe amProf. Ron Penny aoJerome RowleyPaul SalteriSandra SalteriJuliana SchaefferLeo Schofield amFred Stein oamGabrielle TrainorIvan UngarJohn van OgtropPeter Weiss amMary WhelanRosemary White

sydney symphony 45

SYDNEY SYMPHONY PATRONS

Maestro’s CirclePeter Weiss am – Founding President & Doris WeissJohn C Conde ao – ChairmanGeoff Ainsworth am & Vicki AinsworthTom Breen & Rachael KohnIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonAndrew Kaldor & Renata Kaldor aoRoslyn Packer aoPenelope Seidler amMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy StreetWestfield GroupBrian & Rosemary WhiteRay Wilson oam in memory of the late James Agapitos oam

Sydney Symphony Leadership EnsembleDavid Livingstone, CEO, Credit Suisse, AustraliaAlan Fang, Chairman, Tianda GroupMacquarie Group FoundationJohn Morschel, Chairman, ANZAndrew Kaldor, Chairman, Pelikan Artline

Lynn Kraus, Sydney Office Managing Partner, Ernst & YoungShell Australia Pty LtdJames Stevens, CEO, Roses OnlyStephen Johns, Chairman, Leighton Holdings,and Michele Johns

01 Roger Benedict Principal Viola Kim Williams am & Catherine Dovey Chair

02 Lawrence Dobell Principal Clarinet Anne Arcus & Terrey Arcus am Chair

03 Diana Doherty Principal Oboe Andrew Kaldor & Renata Kaldor ao Chair

04 Richard Gill oam Artistic Director Education Sandra & Paul Salteri Chair

05 Jane Hazelwood Viola Veolia Environmental Services Chair

06 Catherine Hewgill Principal Cello Tony & Fran Meagher Chair

07 Elizabeth Neville Cello Ruth & Bob Magid Chair

08 Colin Piper Percussion Justice Jane Mathews ao Chair

09 Shefali Pryor Associate Principal Oboe Rose Herceg Chair

10 Emma Sholl Associate Principal Flute Robert & Janet Constable Chair

For information about the Directors’ Chairs program, please call (02) 8215 4619.

Directors’ Chairs

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

www.sydneysymphony.com/staytuned

46 sydney symphony

PLAYING YOUR PART

Platinum Patrons$20,000+Brian AbelGeoff Ainsworth am & Vicki Ainsworth

Robert Albert ao & Elizabeth AlbertTerrey Arcus am & Anne ArcusTom Breen & Rachael KohnSandra & Neil BurnsMr John C Conde aoRobert & Janet ConstableDr Bruno & Mrs Rhonda GiuffreIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonMs Rose HercegMrs E HerrmanMr Andrew Kaldor & Mrs Renata Kaldor ao

D & I KallinikosJames N Kirby FoundationJustice Jane Mathews aoMrs Roslyn Packer aoDr John Roarty oam in memory of Mrs June Roarty

Paul & Sandra SalteriMrs Penelope Seidler amMrs W SteningMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy Street

Mr Peter Weiss am & Mrs Doris Weiss

Westfield Group Mr Brian & Mrs Rosemary WhiteRay Wilson oam in memory of James Agapitos oam

Kim Williams am & Catherine DoveyJune & Alan Woods Family BequestAnonymous (1)

Gold Patrons$10,000–$19,999Alan & Christine BishopIan & Jennifer BurtonMr C R AdamsonThe Estate of Ruth M DavidsonThe Hon. Ashley Dawson-DamerPaul R EspieFerris Family FoundationJames & Leonie FurberMr Ross GrantHelen Lynch am & Helen BauerMrs Joan MacKenzieRuth & Bob MagidMrs T Merewether oamTony & Fran MeagherMr B G O’ConorMrs Joyce Sproat & Mrs Janet CookeMs Caroline WilkinsonAnonymous (2)

The Sydney Symphony gratefully acknowledges the music lovers who donate to the orchestra each year. Each gift plays an important part in ensuring our continued artistic excellence and helping to sustain important education and regional touring programs. Donations of $50 and above are acknowledged on our website at sydneysymphony.com/patrons

Silver Patrons$5,000–$9,999Mark Bethwaite am & Carolyn BethwaiteJan BowenMr Alexander & Mrs Vera BoyarskyMr Robert BrakspearMr Robert & Mrs L Alison CarrBob & Julie ClampettIan Dickson & Reg HollowayMr Colin Draper & Mary Jane Brodribb Penny EdwardsMichael & Gabrielle FieldMr James Graham am & Mrs Helen Graham

Mrs Jennifer HershonMichelle Hilton Stephen Johns & Michele BenderJudges of the Supreme Court of NSW Mr Ervin KatzGary LinnaneMr David LivingstoneWilliam McIlrath Charitable FoundationDavid Maloney & Erin FlahertyEva & Timothy PascoeRodney Rosenblum am & Sylvia Rosenblum

Manfred & Linda SalamonThe Sherry Hogan FoundationDavid & Isabel SmithersIan & Wendy ThompsonMichael & Mary Whelan TrustDr Richard WingateJill WranAnonymous (1)

Bronze Patrons$2,500 – $4,999Dr Lilon BandlerStephen J BellMarc Besen ao & Eva Besen aoMr David & Mrs Halina BrettLenore P BuckleHoward ConnorsEwen & Catherine CrouchVic & Katie FrenchMr Erich GockelMs Kylie GreenAnthony Gregg & Deanne WhittlestonAnn HobanIrwin Imhof in memory of Herta ImhofJ A McKernanR & S Maple-BrownGreg & Susan MarieMora MaxwellJames & Elsie MooreJustice George Palmer amBruce & Joy Reid FoundationMary Rossi Travel

Mrs Hedy SwitzerMarliese & Georges TeitlerMs Gabrielle TrainorJ F & A van OgtropAnonymous (3)

Bronze Patrons$1,000-$2,499Charles & Renee AbramsAndrew Andersons aoMr Henri W Aram oamDr Francis J AugustusRichard BanksDavid BarnesDoug & Alison BattersbyMichael Baume ao & Toni BaumePhil & Elese BennettNicole BergerMrs Jan BiberJulie BlighM BulmerIn memory of R W BurleyEric & Rosemary CampbellDr John H CaseyDebby Cramer & Bill CaukillDr Diana Choquette & Mr Robert Milliner

Joan Connery oam & Maxwell Connery oam

Mr John Cunningham scm & Mrs Margaret Cunningham

Lisa & Miro DavisMatthew DelaseyJohn FavaloroMr Edward FedermanMr Ian Fenwicke & Prof. N R WillsFirehold Pty LtdDr & Mrs C GoldschmidtAkiko GregoryIn memory of the late Dora & Oscar Grynberg

Janette HamiltonDorothy Hoddinott aoPaul & Susan HotzThe Hon. David Hunt ao qc & Mrs Margaret Hunt

Dr & Mrs Michael HunterMr Peter HutchisonMichael & Anna Joel The Hon. Paul KeatingIn Memory of Bernard MH KhawAnna-Lisa KlettenbergMr Justin Lam Wendy LapointeMs Jan Lee Martin & Mr Peter LazarKevin & Deidre McCannRobert McDougallIan & Pam McGaw

sydney symphony 47

Matthew McInnesMacquarie Group FoundationMr Robert & Mrs Renee MarkovicAlan & Joy MartinHarry M Miller, Lauren Miller Cilento & Josh Cilento

Miss An NhanMrs Rachel O’ConorMr R A OppenMr Robert OrrellMr & Mrs OrtisMaria PagePiatti Holdings Pty LtdAdrian & Dairneen PiltonDr Raffi QasabianErnest & Judith RapeeKenneth R Reed Patricia H Reid Endowment Pty LtdJohn SaundersIn memory of H St P ScarlettJuliana SchaefferMr & Mrs Jean-Marie SimartCatherine StephenJohn & Alix SullivanThe Hon Brian Sully qcMildred TeitlerAndrew & Isolde TornyaGerry & Carolyn TraversJohn E TuckeyMrs M TurkingtonIn memory of Dr Reg WalkerHenry & Ruth WeinbergThe Hon. Justice A G WhealyGeoff Wood & Melissa WaitesWarren GreenMr R R WoodwardDr John Yu & Dr George SoutterAnonymous (12)

Bronze Patrons$500–$999Mr Peter J ArmstrongMr & Mrs Garry S AshMrs Baiba B Berzins & Dr Peter Loveday Dr & Mrs Hannes BoshoffMinnie BriggsDr Miles BurgessPat & Jenny BurnettIta Buttrose ao obe

Mrs Flora MacDonaldMrs Helen MeddingsDavid & Andree MilmanKenneth N MitchellChris Morgan-HunnNola NettheimMrs Margaret NewtonMr Graham NorthDr M C O’Connor amA Willmers & R PalDr A J PalmerMr Andrew C PattersonDr Kevin PedemontDr Natalie E PelhamMr Allan PidgeonRobin PotterLois & Ken RaeMr Donald RichardsonPamela RogersAgnes RossDr Mark & Mrs Gillian SelikowitzCaroline SharpenMrs Diane Shteinman amDr Agnes E SinclairDoug & Judy SotherenMrs Elsie StaffordMr Lindsay & Mrs Suzanne StoneMr D M SwanMr Norman TaylorMs Wendy ThompsonKevin TroyJudge Robyn TupmanGillian Turner & Rob BishopProf. Gordon E WallRonald WalledgeMr Robert & Mrs Rosemary WalshMr Palmer WangDavid & Katrina WilliamsAudrey & Michael WilsonDr Richard WingMr Robert WoodsMr & Mrs Glenn WyssMrs Robin YabsleyAnonymous (18)

To find out more about becominga Sydney Symphony Patron, pleasecontact the Philanthropy Officeon (02) 8215 4625 or [email protected]

Stephen Bryne & Susie GleesonThe Hon. Justice J C & Mrs CampbellMr Percy ChissickMrs Catherine J ClarkJen CornishGreta DavisElizabeth DonatiDr Nita & Dr James DurhamGreg Earl & Debbie CameronMr & Mrs FarrellRobert GellingVivienne GoldschmidtMr Robert GreenMr Richard Griffin amJules & Tanya HallMr Hugh HallardMr Ken HawkingsMrs A HaywardDr Heng & Mrs Cilla TeyMr Roger HenningRev Harry & Mrs Meg HerbertSue HewittMr Joerg HofmannMs Dominique Hogan-DoranMr Brian HorsfieldAlex HoughtonBill & Pam HughesSusie & Geoff IsraelMrs W G KeighleyMr & Mrs Gilles T KrygerMrs M J LawrenceDr & Mrs Leo LeaderMargaret LedermanMrs Yolanda LeeMartine LettsAnita & Chris LevyErna & Gerry Levy amDr Winston LiauwMrs Helen LittleSydney & Airdrie LloydMrs A LohanMrs Panee LowCarolyn & Peter Lowry oamDr David LuisMelvyn MadiganDr Jean MalcolmMrs Silvana MantellatoMr K J MartinGeoff & Jane McClellan

Take the orchestra with you

www.sydneysymphony.com/mobile_app

Download our FREE mobile app for music excerpts, live webcasts, program books and more.

48 sydney symphony

SALUTE

PRINCIPAL PARTNER

COMMUNITY PARTNER

The Sydney Symphony is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body

The Sydney Symphony is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

PREMIER PARTNER

PLATINUM PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS

sydney symphony 49

GOLD PARTNERS

SILVER PARTNERS

REGIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

MARKETING PARTNER

2MBS 102.5 Sydney’s Fine Music Station

The Sydney Symphony applauds the leadership role our Partners play and their commitment to excellence, innovation and creativity.

SYMPHONY SERVICES INTERNATIONALSuite 2, Level 5, 1 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010PO Box 1145, Darlinghurst NSW 1300Telephone (02) 8622 9400Facsimile (02) 8622 9422www.symphonyinternational.net

Clocktower Square, Argyle Street, The Rocks NSW 2000

GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001

Telephone (02) 8215 4644 Box Offi ce (02) 8215 4600Facsimile (02) 8215 4646

www.sydneysymphony.com

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily refl ect the beliefs of the editor, publisher or any distributor of the programs. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of statements in this publication, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material prior to printing.

Please address all correspondence to the Publications Editor: Email [email protected]

A City of Sydney VenueClover Moore Lord Mayor

Managed byPEGASUS VENUE MANAGEMENT (AP) PTY LTDChristopher Rix Founder

Bronwyn Edinger General Manager

CITY RECITAL HALL ANGEL PLACE2 –12 Angel Place, Sydney, AustraliaGPO Box 3339, Sydney, NSW 2001

Administration 02 9231 9000Box Offi ce 02 8256 2222 or 1300 797 118Facsimile 02 9233 6652 Website www.cityrecitalhall.com

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