UMS Concert Program, April 14, 1990: International Presentations Of Music & Dance --

Season: 111th
Concert: Forty-first
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Murray Perahia
Pianist
Saturday Evening, April 14, 1990, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1884)................................. Franck
Fantasiestiicke, Op. 12 (1837) .................................. Schumann
Des Abends (In the Evening) In der Nacht (In the Night)
Aufschwung (Soaring) Fabel (Fable)
Warum (Why) Traumes Wirren (Troubled Dreams)
Grillcn (Whims) Ende vom Lied (End of the Song)
INTERMISSION
Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39 (1839) ..................... Chopin
Mazurka in B-flat minor, Op. 24, No. 4 (1834-5) ................... Chopin
Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 55, No. 2 (1843) ..................... Chopin
"Au bord d'une source" (pub. 1855)
from Annees de pelerinage, Book I ................................ Liszt
Rhapsodie espagnole (1863)
(Folies d'Espagne et Jota aragonesa) .............................. Liszt
The pre-concert carillon recital was performed by Elaine Schultz, an undergraduate student in nursing and a carillon student ofMargo Halsted, University Carillonneur.
For the convenience of our patrons, the box office in the outer lobby will be open during intermission for purchase of tickets to upcoming Musical Society concerts.
Murray Perahia is represented by Frank Salomon Associates, New York City. Mr. Perahia plays the Steimvay piano available through Hammell Music, Inc.
Cameras and recording devices are not allowed in the auditorium. Halls Cough Tablets, courtesy of Warner Lambert Company, are available in the lobby.
Forty-first Concert of the 111th Season 111th Annual Choral Union Series
PROGRAM NOTES by Leonard Burkat
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue................................ Cesar Franck
(1822-1890)
As a child, Franck was a prodigious pianist who quickly outgrew the musical life of Liege, his birthplace, and at the age of fourteen, after a year of study at the Paris Conservatory, he took first prize there in piano, organ, and fugue. For much of his life he was principally an organist, but in his late years he returned to the piano to compose a series of serious, difficult works that he wished to set in contrast with the brilliant but empty virtuoso pieces then in vogue. His greatest piano composition is the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue of 1884. It is a monumental work, perhaps closer in spirit to the Romantic neo-classicism of Mendelssohn than to Bach, combining Franck's great harmonic freedom with the improvisatory contrapuntal style of a master organist and complex keyboard writing like Liszt's.
The idea for the structure in three large, continuous sections probably came from Bach's great Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C major, which it resembles in certain details as well as in broad outline. After the start of the quiet introduction, Franck works into the texture a motive that will later be expanded, by Lisztian transformation, into the subject of the fugue. The most important melodic element of the work, however, is the chorale tune, which is masterfully combined with the fugue subject at the magnificent climax.
Fantasiestucke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 12................... Robert Schumann
(1810-1856)
Robert Schumann wrote most of his piano music before 1840. There are formal works among the compositions of this period, three sonatas for example, but most of them are collections of intimate miniatures that are perfect vehicles of expression for the Romantic imagination, and perfectly realized. The Op. 12 Fantasiestucke, which Liszt admired greatly and Schumann always counted among his best works, fall somewhere between the two extremes. They arc not simple, brief musical statements, but extended and developed works that represent Schumann's highest level of eloquence. After they were written he gave them descriptive or evocative titles, but, he once asked, "Isn't the music itself descriptive enough"
Schumann used the title Fantasiestucke for several works, almost as though it had as specific a meaning for him as the words "sonata" and "symphony." There are two sets of them for piano and two more for piano with other instruments. He seems to have borrowed the word from his literary idol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, who in 1814 and 1815 published a four-volume collection of stories and sketches entitled Fantasy Pieces in the Manner of Callot, the seventeenth-century French artist whose engravings and etchings captivated the Romantics. It was in this book that Hoffmann created his fictional alter ego, Johannes Kreisler, who was the inspiration of Schumann's Kreisleriana, which was originally subtitled Fantasies for Piano.
The eight Fantasy Pieces of Op. 12 were written in 1837 and published in 1838. (A ninth was discovered and published in 1935.) They are: 1. In the Evening (which Schumann said is "to be played with great tenderness"); 2. Soaring (very fast); 3. Why (slow and delicate); 4. Wliims (with humor); 5. In the Night (with passion); 6. Fable (slow); 7. Troubled Dreams (extremely fast); and 8. End of the Song (with good humor).
Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39 .................. Frederic Chopin
(1810-1849)
The scherzo is most familiar to us now as a single movement in a long sonata, symphony, or string quartet, but between 1832 and 1842, Chopin wrote four scherzos as independent compositions. He took the name and some formal ideas from Beethoven, but since he was not obliged to make them fit with other movements in style, mood, or porportion, he was at liberty to give them any size and character he wished. His first change was complete abandonment of the idea of "jest" or "joke," which is what the Italian word scherzo meant before it became the name of a musical form and what it still means in non-musical contexts.
The Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39, was begun during the winter of 1838-1839, which he spent in Majorca with George Sand and her children, and was finished during the following summer at her country estate, at Nohant. It was the time of the B-flat minor Sonata and several more of his best works. Chopin dedicated it to an exceptional pupil of his, not one of the high-born French women whose lessons paid most of his living expenses, but a young German named Adolph Gutmann. He was a ferociously powerful pianist who was said to be strong enough to punch a hole in a table top; his style must have been just the opposite of his master's, but Chopin seems to have liked him for it, and the two became friends. This highly dramatic work may have suited him particularly well.
The introduction to the Scherzo is mysteriously vague in tonality and pulse, misleading the ear as to what is to come: thundering octaves, threatening basses, music and piano writing that are more like Beethoven's than anything else in the Scherzos. The middle section of this three-part piece is itself in three parts: the first, based on a phrase that is half block chords and half broken chords; the second, an extended use of the figuration; and then a return to the first. The music of the first section returns, and the work closes with a long coda.
Mazurka in B-flat minor, Op. 24, No. 4 ............................. Chopin
The mazurka is a folk dance that takes its name from the Mazury region, the ancient province of Mazovia in northeast Poland where Chopin was born. It seems to have originated there as early as the sixteenth century, and in the eighteenth, Poland's Saxon rulers introduced it to Germany. The mazurka is always in triple meter, and, but for the frequent displacement of accents, it would closely resemble the music of the waltz.
Chopin was the first composer to adapt the style of the mazurka to art music, and between 1830 and the end of his life he wrote more than fifty of them. In the biography of Chopin that Franz Liszt published in 1852 (most of which may have been written by his beloved Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein), he wrote, "It is only in Poland that it is possible to catch the haughty, yet tender and alluring character of the mazurka. To understand how perfectly Chopin succeeded in displaying [its] magic, it is necessary to have seen that dance performed on its native soil. [Abridged]" Nevertheless, by the time Chopin made the mazurka an important part of his concert repertoire, the mazurka was being danced in ballrooms from London to Saint Petersburg.
The four Mazurkas of Op. 24 are early works that date from 1834 and 1835. No. 4 of the set is a beautifully expressive piece whose charms conceal the complexity of its melodies, harmony, and rhythm.
Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 55, No. 2............................. Chopin
Chopin took the idea of the musical nocturne from the Irish pianist and composer John Field (1782-1837) and adapted it to his own, greater expressive purposes. In his hands, it is a hushed reverie in a simple three-part form, with quietly elegant, Italianate melody in the first and third parts, and rather more motion in the contrasting central section. The Op. 55 Nocturnes were composed in 1843. No. 2 is in E-flat major, marked Lento sostenuto.
"Au bord d'une source" from Annies de pelerinage
"Beside a Spring" from Years of Pilgrimage..................Franz Liszt
(1811-1886)
Over a period of about forty years, Liszt composed several groups of magnificent descrip?tive piano pieces that he assembled into a series called Annies de pelerinage. His description of them is a Romantic manifesto: "Having traveled through many lands, many places celebrated in history and poetry; having felt that nature stirred deep emotions within me and that a direct relationship had sprung up between us -a sure but inexplicable conhanation -I attempted to render into music some of my most passionate feelings, my keenest perceptions. As in?strumental music advances, it is a poetic language, perhaps even better able than poetry to express everything in us that extends beyond our usual horizons. [Abridged]"
The first "Year" describes in music the poetic essence of nine places in Switzerland. The fourth place, Au bord d'une source, is a beautifully colored landscape that the composer prefaced with a quotation from the German poet Friedrich Schiller: "With a cool murmur, young nature's joy begins."
Rhapsodie espagnole (Folies d'Espagne etjota aragonesa)................... Liszt
While on a concert tour of Spain in 1845, Liszt worked up some pieces based on the folk and popular tunes he heard there, and in 1863, in Rome, he finally gave full expression to his feelings about that beautiful country in this Rhapsodie espagnole. The word "rhapsody" had gained currency among musicians through Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies of the 1850s, and he organ?ized his Spanish Rhapsody similarly, setting it in the old Hungarian folk form of an extended slow section followed by a fast one. Here, the first section is a set of passacaglia-like continuous variations on the tune known as Folies d'Espagne, "Follies of Spain," although it is believed to have originated in the Portuguese region of the Iberian peninsula during the fifteenth century. It is a simple tune whose symmetry lends itself so well to variation technique that dozens of composers through the centuries have used it as a subject. The second section is a lively Spanish dance, zjota aragonesa, based in part on material he had used in his 1845 piece. The tunes must have been very popular in Spain at the time, for the Russian composer Glinka hit on some of the very same ones for the jota he wrote there later that year.
About the Artist
Murray Perahia is recognized as one of the world's most eloquent virtuosos. Born in New York in 1947, he started piano studies at the age of four and later worked withjeannette Haien. Upon entering Mannes College, where he majored in conducting with Carl Bamberger, Mr. Perahia broadened his musical interests by studying composition, harmony, and counterpoint. Work with Arthur Balsam developed his keen interest in chamber music, and he went on to spend four summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. Later pianistic work included studies with Mieczyslaw Horszowski.
In 1972, Perahia became the first American ever to win the prestigious Leeds Competition, a victory that led to over fifty European engagements, including a widely acclaimed London debut. That year he also signed an exclusive contract with CBS Masterworks, becoming the first pianist in ten years to be added to their list of recording artists. In 1973, Mr. Perahia gave his first concert at the Aldcburgh Festival, returning every subsequent year and developing a close association with the Festival's founders, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, the latter of whom he accompanied in lieder recitals for many years. In 1981, he was named a co-artistic director of the Festival, a post he held through 1989.
Among his many recordings are the complete Mozart concertos in which he directs the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard and the complete Beethoven concertos with Bernard Haitink conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, both of which have won numerous awards throughout the world. Other concerto recordings include the Mendelssohn concertos, the Chopin First Concerto, and a recently-released recording of the Schumann and Grieg concertos. He has also made numerous solo recordings -of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Beethoven, and Bartok -and chamber music recordings with Radu Lupu, Sir Peter Pears, and Sir Georg Solti. His and Solti's recording of Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and Brahms' Variations on a Theme for Two Pianos received the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Recording. Mr. Perahia was also named the 1988 Recording Artist of the Year during the Mumm Ovation Classical Music Awards.
During the 1988-89 season, Mr. Perahia was featured in the five Beethoven Concertos in concerts with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Italy and London, performances that were filmed for television, video cassette, and CDV on the Virgin Classics label. He was also heard with the Israel Philharmonic in the Chopin Concertos, which were recorded for CBS Masterworks. His U.S. engagements included recitals in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and orchestral appearances with the Toronto and Boston Symphonies and the Israel Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.
During the current season, Mr. Perahia's orchestral appearances in the United States include a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New York Philhar?monic, as well as engagements with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, among others. He is heard in recital in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and at New York's Avery Fisher Hall, as well as Ann Arbor. Abroad, he performs with Sergiu Celibidache and the Munich Philharmonic, and with the London Symphony under Solti both in London and at Paris's Salic Plcycl. He also performs with the Vienna Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta at the Salzburg Festival and gives recitals in Florence, Geneva, Paris, Hamburg, and London.
This evening's concert marks Murray Perahia's sixth recital in Ann Arbor; his first appearance was in 1977.
Concert Guidelines
Starting Time: Every attempt is made to begin concerts on time. Latecomers arc asked to wait in the
lobby until seated by ushers at a predetermined time in the program.
Children: Children not able to sit quietly during the performance may be asked by an usher, along with the
accompanying adult, to leave the auditorium.
Coughing: From London's Royal Festival Hall: "During a test in the hall, a note played mezzo forte on the
horn measured approx. 65 decibels; a single 'uncovered' cough gave the same reading. A handkerchief
placed over the mouth assists in obtaining a pianissimo."
Watches: Electronic beeping and chiming digital watches should be turned off during performances. In
case of emergency, advise your paging service of auditorium and seat location and ask them to call
University Security at 763-1131.
This activity is supported by the Michigan Council for the Arts. The University Musical Society is an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides programs and services without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, or handicap.
Remaining Concerts
Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia Marc Mostovoy..............Sun. Apr. 22
The King's Singers .......................................... Sat. Apr. 28
Underwritten by Parke Davis Research Division of Warner Lambert.
97th Annual May Festival -May 9-12, 1990 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, 8:00 p.m.
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Andre Previn, Guest Conductor and Pianist
The Festival Chorus
Hei-Kyung Hong, Soprano Richard Stilwell, Baritone Wednesday -Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F; Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 Thursday -John Harbison: Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra; Mahler: Symphony No. 4,
with Hei-Kyung Hong
Friday -Beethoven: Symphony No. 4; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 Saturday --All-Brahms: "Tragic" Overture; "A German Requiem," for Chorus, Orchestra, and Soloists
Pre-concert Presentations -free admission
Saturday, Apr. 28, before The King's Singers, "Adventures with Six Smashing Brits" Kenneth Fischer, Executive Director, University Musical Society; Rackham Bldg. 7 p.m. Thursday, May 10, before May Festival concert with Harbison's new Brass Concerto John Harbison, composer-in-residence, Los Angeles Philharmonic; 7 p.m. (location tba)
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY Board of Directors
David B. Kennedy, President Ann S. Schribcr, Vice President
Thomas E. Kaupcr, Secretary Norman G. Herbert, Treasurer
Gail W. Rector, President Emeritus
Robert G. Aldrich Carl A. Brauer, Jr. James J. Duderstadt Richard L. Kennedy
Patrick B. Long Judythc R. Maugh Rebecca McGowan John D. Paul
John Psarouthakis Herbert E. Sloan Lois U. Stegeman Gilbert R. Whitaker, Jr.
Advisory Committee
Ann Schribcr, Chair
Sue Bonfield Charles Borgsdorf Bradley Canalc Sandra Connellan Katharine Cosovich Elena Delbanco Anne Duderstadt
Joyce Ginsberg Charles Hills JoAnne Hulcc Alice Davis Irani Stuart Isaac Frances Jelinek Shirley Kauper
Howard King Lynn Luckcnbach Alan Mandcl Ingrid Martin Charlotte McGeoch Joan Olscn Agnes Reading
Dorothy Reed Miriam Stephan Raven Wallace Mary White Sally White Shelly Williams Nancy Zimmerman
University Choral Union and Festival Chorus
Laura Rosenberg Cindy Egolf-Sham Rao Jean Schncidcr-Claytor Donald T. Bryant, Conductor Emeritus
Staff
Kenneth C. Fischer, Executive Director
Gigi Andrcson Catherine S. Arcure Sally A. Cushing Leilani Dcnison Barbara L. Ferguson
Judy Johnson Fry Michael L. Gowing Deborah Halinski Lorna Young Hildebrandt
John B. Kennard, Jr. Michael J. Kondziolka Thomas M. Mull Laura Rosenberg
Robin Stcphcnson Joan C. Susskind Carol G. Wargelin Nancy Welder
Student Assistants: James Anderson, Sara Billmann, Karen Cowles,
Mark Ligeski, Karen Paradis, Ann Mary Quarandillo
1990-91 -A "Finely Tuned" Season
112th Annual Choral Union Series
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra ......................................Fri. Oct. 19
Mariss Jansons, Conductor; Dmitri Alexeev, Pianist
London Classical PlayersRoger Norrington...........................Thurs. Oct. 25
Itzhak Perlman & Pinchas Zukerman, Violinists .........................Tues. Oct. 30
Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pianist..........................................Thurs. Dec. 6
Yo-Yo Ma, Cellist ................................................. Thurs. Jan. 10
Leontyne Price, Soprano.............................................. Mon. Jan. 14
Detroit Symphony Orchestra.......................................... Sun. Feb. 10
Ncemejarvi, Conductor; Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Violinist
The Houston Symphony............................................ Thurs. Mar. 7
Christoph Eschenbach, ConductorPianist
Israel Philharmonic OrchcstraZubin Mehta .......................... Thurs. Mar. 21
New World SymphonyMichael Tilson Thomas ......................... Wed. Apr. 3
28th Annual Chamber Arts Series
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center .............................. Mon. Oct. 1
Chilingirian String Quartet...........................................Tues. Oct. 16
The Prism Quartet and Chester String Quartet ........................ Wed. Nov. 14
Camerata Musica of the DDR .........................................Wed. Jan. 30
Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet ................................... Mon. Feb. 11
The Hilliard Ensemble............................................... Tues. Mar. 5
An die Musik..................................................... Thurs. Mar. 14
Elly Ameling, Soprano ................................................ Sat. Apr. 13
20th Annual Choice Series
Any Jive or more comprise a series.
Klezmer Conservatory Band ........................................... Sat. Oct. 6
Ballet Franqais de Nancy.......................................Fri., Sat. Oct. 26, 27
Shanghai Acrobats and Imperial Warriors of Peking Opera................Sun. Oct. 28
Billy Taylor Trio ....................................................Sat. Nov. 17
Royal Winnipeg Ballet, "Anne of Green Gables" ...................... Mon. Nov. 19
Handel's "Messiah" ............................................Sat., Sun. Dec. 1, 2
Little Singers of Paris...............................................Thurs. Dec. 13
New York City Opera National Company............. Wed., Fri., Sat. Feb. 13, 15, 16
Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro"
Mummenschanz, MaskMime ..............................Wed., Thurs. Feb. 20, 21
Nexus, Percussion Ensemble ........................................... Fri. Mar. 8
"Pirin," Bulgarian State Folk Ensemble................................. Sat. Mar. 16
American Indian Dance Theatre ..................................... Mon. Mar. 25
Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre .........................................Tues. Apr. 2
Butch Thompson Trio and
James Dapogny, Pianist; Peter "Madcat" Ruth, Harmonica................. Sat. Apr. 20
Plus, 7 new series drawn from the above offerings:
Family Affair, Jazz Introspection, Chorco-Motive Forces, Cheers Sampler Series, Cantata Brilliante, Concert Adventure Series, Marathon Series
And, add these dates to your calendar: April 30 -A Very Special Concert May 1-4 -98th Annual May Festival
For complete information, call or write for new brochure.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1270 Telephones: (313) 764-2538, 763-TKTS