LisztÉtudes d’exécution transcendante

Andrey Gugnin

Franz LisztFranz Liszt played a central role in the history of 19th century music as performer, conductor, composer and innovator and was a crucial figure in the development of the music of his own age and beyond. He enjoyed an adulation that bordered on idolatry but was also the subject of misunderstanding, incomprehension and rejection. Liszt spans the ages of Beethoven, whom he met in 1823 (although the circumstances of his receiving the famous “kiss of consecration” is much disputed) and of Debussy, to whom he played in 1884. His music, of which only a fraction is generally known, travelled the equally huge distance from his first published piece – a variation contributed to Diabelli’s compendious work - to the impressionistic atonality and experimental chord structures of his final compositions. Liszt transformed the way we listen to music: he was the inventor of the solo piano recital (“Le concert, c’est moi” as he remarked) positioning the piano, with lid open, parallel to the audience: pioneer of the master class and themed music festival (he presided over a Berlioz season during his period at Weimar): originator of the symphonic poem and restless experimenter (the jury is out on whether he arrived at the “Tristan chord” before Wagner but he certainly produced a perfect note row seventy years before Schoenberg promoted the concept as original). But he was also the product of his times: the darling of the Romantic era Paris salons and the brightest star in the constellation of virtuosi vying with each other for supremacy – Hiller, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner and Thalberg (whom he defeated in a celebrated keyboard duel). Yet at the age of thirty-seven, while at the height of his powers and reputation as a performer, he turned his back on the concert platform and the vast potential wealth it offered to concentrate on composition. He never performed for money again save to raise funds for charitable purposes or causes dear to his heart (he had previously

Études d’exécution transcendante S 1391. No.1 Preludio, Presto, in C major 0’502. No.2 Molto vivace, in A minor 2’103. No.3 Paysage, Poco adagio, in F major 4’544. No.4 Mazeppa, Allegro, in D minor 7’275. No.5 Feux follets, Allegretto, in B flat major 3’436. No.6 Vision, Lento, in G minor 5’447. No.7 Eroica, Allegro, in E flat major 4’308. No.8 Wilde Jagd, Presto furioso, in C minor 5’079. No.9 Ricordanza, Andantino, in A flat major 11’3910. No.10 Appassionata, Allegro agitato,

in F minor 4’1811. No.11 Harmonies du soir, Andantino,

in D flat major 10’1012. No.12 Chasse-neige, Andante con moto,

in B flat minor 5’09

Andrey Gugnin piano

FRANZ LISZT 1811–1886

Recording: 2/3 February 2018, Westvest Church, Schiedam, The NetherlandsProducer: Pieter van WinkelEngineer/editing: Peter ArtsPiano: Steinway D, tuned by Charles RademakerPhotos Andrey Gugnin: Anna Shlykova℗ & © 2018 Piano ClassicsPiano Classics is a trade name of Brilliant Classics B.V.

underwritten the cost of erecting the Beethoven monument in Bonn). His generosity of spirit was exemplary, both towards “ordinary” musicians – he taught for nothing and established student scholarships and a musicians’ pension fund - and his more illustrious contemporaries, some of whom were grateful (Berlioz) others less so (Wagner). Indeed his advocacy of Wagner cost him his position as Kapellmeister in Weimar and the association with him and the “Music of the Future” certainly harmed the reception of his own music in certain quarters. His characteristic response to the sometime condescending, sometimes vicious criticism of his work was: “We can wait”.

Liszt was a man whose life and nature embodied many contradictions. His (perhaps ironic) description of himself as “half Franciscan, half gypsy” half reveals and half conceals the truth. Although a Hungarian patriot and in later life spending a third of each year in Hungary, he came from German speaking stock and spoke hardly a word of Hungarian. His fascination with what he thought was the “traditional gypsy” music of his native country informed many of his popular works but was based on a fundamental misunderstanding its actual nature and provenance. He was a life-long and sincere Catholic, wishing in his youth to become a priest, but a genuine religious sensibility did not preclude his enjoying scandalous affairs, including with the notorious Lola Montez, and long-lasting relationships with women who happened to be married at the time to other people (Marie d’Agoult with whom he had three children – and Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein). After eventually taking minor orders in the church in 1865,he never managed to banish the impression that beneath the cassock of theAbbé Liszt lurked the old Mephistopheles and his enjoyment of the pleasures of smoking, cognac (and, given that his charisma remained undimmed to the end of his life), possibly women, continued unabated.

There is no doubt that there was an element of the showman in Liszt and the hysterical adulation he enjoyed (termed “Lisztomania” by Heine) especially among women, who preserved his snapped piano strings, coffee dregs and old cigar butts as holy relics, was a source of irritation to some. He was criticised for adding his own embellishments to the works of other composers and interspersing his recitals with elaborate fantasias on popular songs and opera arias. Yet his dedication to music, past and present was unquestioned. He rediscovered the works of Scarlatti and championed the late sonatas of Beethoven, then hardly played. His transcriptions of Schubert’s lieder revived interest in them after they had fallen into obscurity and those of Beethoven’s symphonies brought them to a much wider public than would ever hear them played in orchestral form. Throughout his life Liszt strove not always successfully to reconcile the elements of a tripartite personality: “social salon individual, virtuoso and thoughtfully creative composer”. Perhaps his slightly tongue in cheek entry into a hotel register (recorded by George Sand when she and her family were holidaying with Liszt and his in 1836) will serve: Place of Birth: Parnassus. Profession: Musician-philosopher. Coming from: Doubt. Going to: Truth.

Douze Études d’exécution transcendante (S139)In 1826, his fifteenth year, Liszt published twelve études which were intended as a first installment of a double set of forty-eight pieces, visiting each key twice. Nothing further came of this venture but twelve years later he revisited this youthful work and transformed it into one which Schumann remarked was “fit for, at most, ten or twelve players in the world”. Liszt retained the key structure (a descending circle of fifths - C major, A minor, F major, D minor etc) of the earlier set but considerably lengthened each piece (apart

from the first), made he wholesale tempo changes and introduced a range of technical challenges to create a more complex and original work. In 1851 he made further revisions to it, removing some of the more formidable pianistic difficulties, sometimes because developments in piano manufacture e.g. a generally heavier action, had made certain passages more or less unplayable, sometimes in accordance with his general tendency to simplify unnecessarily complex writing, as well as adding or cutting material. He also attached descriptive titles all but two of the studies and although these encapsulate the general mood of each, it should always be borne in mind that the music existed prior to any programmatic associations they might suggest. Both the later sets were dedicated to his teacher Czerny whose own technical studies, while useful to the student, exist on a different pianistic planet. The opening study in C major, appropriately named Preludio retains its original function as an exercise piece as does the second in A Minor, untitled but marked a capriccio, which introduces Liszt’s trademark alternating hand passages and wide leaps. Paysage (Landscape) in F major is characterized by a long lilting melody which gradually becomes more impassioned before fading away into the distance. The D minor fourth study is perhaps most famous of the set and has an independent existence outside it (Liszt subsequently turned it into a symphonic poem). It underwent an intermediate revision between the 1837 and 1851 versions when Liszt added material at the beginning and the end and introduced the association with Byron’s hero Mazeppa and his dramatic if involuntary ride across the steppes lashed to a horse (although Liszt may also have had Victor Hugo’s poem on the same subject in mind). The 1851 version further expands the introduction and coda and the galloping theme undergoes several transformations before a short recitative as the horse expires beneath him and Mazeppa is released in triumphant D major.

The B flat major Feux Follets (Will o’ the Wisps) is a more conventional study piece, characterized by rapid double note passages while Vision in G minor unfolds a theme of measured grandeur (vaguely reminiscent of the opening of the Dies irae) over arpeggios and tremolos. After nervous leaps and scale flurries, the hesitant march of the E flat major Eroica gradually gains in confidence to end in bravura double octave passages. The opening of the presto furioso Wilde Jagd (Wild Hunt) in C minor with its spiky cross rhythms and contrasting “horn call” passage initially lives up to its retrospectively applied title but as it progresses the hunt fades from view as the thematic material is worked out in purely musical fashion. Busoni’s description of the A flat major Ricordanza (Memories) with its long drawn out, slightly sentimental melodic line and delicate decoration as “a bundle of faded love letters” hits the nail on the head. Liszt refrained from applying a title to the tenth F minor study perhaps wisely since the rigorous working out of its sonata form requires no assistance for its appreciation as pure music. The final two studies in D flat major and B flat major Harmonies du soir (Twilight Harmonies) and Chasseneige (untranslatable but in this context Snow storm will do) are more straightforwardly impressionistic pieces although the calm bell-like harmonies of the former are interrupted by a less serene molto animato passage and the restless tremolos and chromatic scales of the latter, while successfully evoking relentless snowfall, underline the fact that the original intention of the piece (and the whole work) is to explore, challenge and extend the range and capabilities of the player.

© David Moncur

a recording artist recordings of piano concertos by Shostakovich together with the State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, (Delos International, 2007), music for piano duo iDuo (together with Vadim Kholodenko, Delos International, 2010) and a recital program from (Steinway & Sons) with the Pictures of the Exhibition raved by the public. The recording of Shostakovich concerti was used on the soundtrack of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film, ‘Bridge of spies’. Andrey has also recorded for TV and radio in Russia, The Netherlands, Croatia, Austria, Switzerland and the USA.

Gugnin’s versatility makes him very much in the spot light as a recitalist, chamber music partner and a soloist with orchestras in more than twenty countries, performing at Vienna’s Musikverein, Carnegie Hall in New York, Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, Sydney Opera House, the Eastman School of Music, the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, Mariinsky Concert Hall, Thailand Cultural Centre, the Louvre, Paris, and the Zagreb Opera Theatre, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space and Asahi Hamarikyu Hall just to mention part of the expanding list. He has been invited and given masterclasses in Russia, the USA, Finland, Australia, Croatia and Japan.

In Takebe cho, Okayama City in Japan, his recital so motivated the public and the organizers in 2016 that soon after the concert, a festival for chamber music was created namely “Takebe-cho Chamber Music Festival - Gugnin and Friends” to be continued in October 2017.

The institutions of artistic collaboration extends from the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Symphony Orchestra of the Saint-Petersburg Cappella, Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Camerata, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo New City Orchestra, The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow

ANDREY GUGNIN

Natalia Smirnova laid what was to become the foundations for Andrey Gugnin to pursue the career of a concert pianist, which enabled him to study with Olga Mechetina, Valery Kastelsky & Lev Naumov and later with Vera Gornostayeva at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory whereupon from 2016 he continues with Stanislav Ioudenitch and William Naboré at the International Piano Academy Lake Como.

In 2013 Andrey Gugnin gained 2nd prize at the Ludwig van Beethoven International Piano Competition in Vienna and 2014 saw the Gold Medal and the Audience Award at the XVI International Gina Bachauer Piano Competition, followed by the first prize in the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2016, taking the accolades for best overall concerto, best 19th or 20th century concerto, best violin and piano sonata, and best preliminaries round one recital.

Subsequently, he received an invitation with Maestro Valery Gergiev with the Mariinsky Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

His innumerous competition successes are as follows: International Competition in Cantù (1st prize, 2009), the International Stančić Competition in Zagreb (2nd prize and two special prizes, Croatia, 2011), and the Valsesia Musica International Competition in Italy (1st prize, 2014), Cidade de Ferrol competition in Spain (1st prize, 2015). The prize at the Allegro Vivo International Competition in San Marino shows his capacity not only as a soloist but also an avid chamber musician excelling in four hands with Vadym Kholodenko (Italy, 2008).

Gugnin will be recording for Hyperion in 2018 preceded by a recent additional invitation by Piano Classics in 2017. He is very much in demand as

State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Asko Schönberg ensemble and Camerata Salzburg so far as well as guest appearances in the Verbier Festival, Ruhr Klavier Festival, Mariinsky International Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Musical Olympus Festival, the Art-November International Festival of Arts, Vivacello, Ars-longa, the Ohrid Summer Festival, the Shanghai Festival, the Summer Evenings in Zagreb festival, the Youth Festival in Aberdeen and the Bermuda Islands Performing Arts Festival, among others.

Forthcoming engagements includes performances in Asia with the Wuhan Philharmonic, Bangkok Symphony; Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, Svetlanov State and Mariinsky Orchestras, London Philharmonic Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra and Jerusalem Camerata, among others. The 2107/18 season also features chamber music performances in Adelaide, Australia, the Malta Festival, Bard and Newport Festivals, USA, Duszniki Chopin International festivall; and concerts in the UK with violinist Tasmin Little. Andrey will be touring throughout Australia and New Zealand as the winner of the coveted Sydney International Competition.