Program Notes - Lincoln Center`s Great Performers

The Program
Sunday Morning, October 25, 2015, at 11:00
Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts
Ray Chen, Violin
BACH Partita No. 3 in E major (1720)
Preludio
Loure
Gavotte en rondeau
Menuets 1 and 2
Bourrée
Gigue
BACH Chaconne, from Partita No. 2 in D minor (1720)
YSAŸE Sonata in A minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (1923)
Obsession: Prélude
Malinconia
Danse des ombres: Sarabande
Les furies
MILSTEIN Paganiniana (1954)
This program is approximately one hour long and will be performed
without intermission.
Please join the artist for a cup of coffee following the performance.
Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off.
Coffee and refreshments provided by Zabar’s and zabars.com.
This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center.
Walter Reade Theater
Great Performers
BNY Mellon is Lead Supporter of Great Performers
Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, The Florence Gould Foundation,
Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Council, and
Friends of Lincoln Center.
Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund.
Endowment support is also provided by UBS.
MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center.
UPCOMING SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE CONCERTS IN THE
WALTER READE THEATER:
Sunday Morning, November 22, 2015, at 11:00
Cuarteto Quiroga
HAYDN: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3
BRAHMS: String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2
Sunday Morning, December 6, 2015, at 11:00
Jakob Koranyi, Cello
ALL-BACH PROGRAM
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major
Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor
Cello Suite No. 3 in C major
Sunday Morning, January 10, 2016, at 11:00
Alexander Gavrylyuk, Piano
SCHUBERT: Sonata in A major, D.664
RACHMANINOFF: Five Étude-tableaux
BALAKIREV: Islamey, oriental fantasy
For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit LCGreatPerformers.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info
Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about program cancellations or to request a Great
Performers brochure.
Visit LCGreatPerformers.org for more information relating to this season’s programs.
Join the conversation: #LCGreatPerfs
We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might
distract the performers and your fellow audience members.
In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must
leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking
of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.
Notes on the Program
Great Performers I Notes on the Program
By Kathryn L. Libin
Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 (1720)
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany
Died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig
Approximate length: 14 minutes
In 1717 Johann Sebastian Bach was offered the position of chapel
organist and music director at a rather small provincial court in
Cöthen, Germany. His new patron, Prince Leopold of AnhaltCöthen, was a musical aristocrat, trained in singing and violin,
whose establishment included an orchestra of some 18 players.
Bach instigated a regular schedule of rehearsals that brought discipline and polish to his small ensemble, and he began to compose music that would grace the musical entertainments at the
court. He highlighted fine solo players among his colleagues.
Such works as the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, including
the E-major Partita, BWV 1006, and the D-minor Partita, BWV
1004, with its celebrated Chaconne, must have been played by a
musician of rare substance. These pieces date from 1720 and
rank among the greatest masterpieces of the violin repertory,
extraordinary not only for their expressive range but for their complex elaboration of counterpoint and harmony on an unaccompanied instrument. In particular, the D-minor Partita’s closing
Chaconne has come to symbolize Bach’s powers at their most
majestic.
Bach launches his E-major Partita with a jaunty, ear-catching
Preludio in which momentum is generated by a seamless flow of
sixteenth-note patterns, and passages of bariolage, with swift
alternation of notes between different strings, add to the bright
timbre. This brilliant movement apparently held special meaning
for Bach, who transcribed it in a new version for organ and
orchestra a decade later, and re-deployed it as introduction to the
festive cantata “Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir,” BWV 29.
The following movements all find their origin in the courtly dances
of France, with well-defined rhythmic patterns that lend a distinctive character to each. A slow, calm Loure animated by dotted
rhythms precedes an elegant Gavotte en rondeau in cut time,
with strongly marked double stops accentuating the opening
phrase. The pair of Menuets at the center of the Partita are linked
by the usual triple meter and two-bar phrasing, but offer pleasing
contrasts, the first Menuet flowing and lyrical, the second with
Great Performers I Notes on the Program
sustained upper notes and melodic lines articulated by short slurs. Both the
Bourrée and the Gigue are more rustic, lively dances; the Gigue in particular provides exuberance and warmth at the close of the work.
Chaconne, from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (1720)
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Approximate length: 14 minutes
Bach’s D-minor Partita outlines a traditional sequence of dance movements until
its final movement, a Chaconne whose massive structure, technical difficulties,
and expressive power were unprecedented. To this day it remains one of the
great monuments of instrumental music, and few pieces have been subjected
to as many transcriptions and arrangements. The piece may have been a reaction to the most significant personal event in Bach’s life during the year 1720,
the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, Maria Barbara. Scholar and violinist Helga Thoene has suggested that the presence of chorale melodies relating to death and resurrection in the mighty work might reveal Bach’s response
to his wife’s death. A defining aspect of any chaconne is a fixed, repeating bass
pattern over which melodic variations develop. In this case, Bach’s bass line
extends for four bars, exploring an interval of a fourth from the opening D down
to G before returning to the tonic. From this Bach generates a stunning range
of variants and a universe of violin idioms, all encompassed in a vast three-part
structure with a D-major section at its heart. Brahms, who produced his own
transcription of the Chaconne for left-hand piano, wrote,
On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the
deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have
created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.
Sonata in A minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (1923)
EUGÈNE YSAŸE
Born July 16, 1858 in Liège, Belgium
Died May 12, 1931, in Brussels
Approximate length: 13 minutes
Born in Liège, Belgium, Eugène Ysaÿe studied at the conservatory there and
took his place in a long line of great violin virtuosos, among which he would
come to be seen as foremost in his own time. His studies with Wieniawski and,
in particular, Henry Vieuxtemps, would take him to the summit of technical and
expressive possibility on his instrument. Ysaÿe made himself at home in Paris,
where he befriended many important musicians who would later dedicate
works to him; he gave premiere performances of such classics as the Franck
Great Performers I Notes on the Program
Sonata, the Chausson Poème, Debussy’s String Quartet, and many other
works designed to set off his extraordinary gifts. In 1886 he received a prestigious appointment as professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory, and in
later years would also serve as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra. Though various illnesses contributed to deterioration in his playing
as he aged, Ysaÿe proved to have an enormous influence on the next generation of violinists, including George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud. Ysaÿe’s
immaculate technique and warm, rich tone set the standard for violin virtuosity
in the 20th century.
Among his most important compositions are the six sonatas for violin solo,
written in 1923. After hearing the young Joseph Szigeti perform a recital of
Bach’s solo violin pieces, Ysaÿe was inspired to undertake a similar project; his
sonatas mediate between homages to rigorous violin techniques of the past
and those of the present, with each sonata dedicated to one of his superb
young colleagues. Szigeti, who received the dedication of the first sonata in the
set, felt that they represented “a subconscious attempt on [Ysaÿe’s] part to
perpetuate his own elusive playing style.” Yet there is no doubt that the composer also had the playing styles of his friends in mind. The second sonata, in
A minor, was dedicated to Jacques Thibaud (1880–1953), a fine French violinist
and close friend of Ysaÿe’s. Homage to Bach is evident at the very opening of
“Obsession,” with its quotation of the first theme from the Preludio of the Emajor Partita and its similar streams of sixteenth notes; present also, however,
is the plainchant melody of the Dies irae, evoking the “Day of Wrath” in the
Requiem Mass. At the end of the pensive, two-voice slow movement,
“Malinconia,” the Dies irae quietly reasserts itself, and appears again in the
“Danse des ombres” as a pizzicato theme that generates six variations. The
sonata closes with “Les Furies,” which brings back the Dies irae motive in a
swirl of furious notes and ethereal sul ponticello passages.
Paganiniana (1954)
NATHAN MILSTEIN
Born December 31, 1904, in Odessa, modern-day Ukraine
Died December 21, 1992, in London
Approximate length: 9 minutes
Few violinists have been more closely associated with Bach’s music than
Nathan Milstein, whose 1975 recording of the sonatas and partitas earned him
a Grammy Award and remains a benchmark for performance of these works.
Born in Odessa in 1904, Milstein studied with Leopold Auer at the St.
Petersburg Conservatory during the last years before the Russian Revolution,
and later worked with Ysaÿe in Belgium. After his 1929 American debut with
Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, he settled in the U.S. and
eventually became a citizen. His tireless concert tours on both continents
introduced countless audiences to the violin repertory, and his fluid, natural
Great Performers I Notes on the Program
playing style was underpinned by superb craftsmanship and obsessive attention to detail, making him one of the most honored musicians of his time.
Like violinists of previous centuries, Milstein excelled at improvisation, transcription, and composition, and frequently programmed his own works and
arrangements. Perhaps the most famous of his compositions is his homage
to the giant among 19th-century violin virtuosi, Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840).
New York Times critic Harold Schonberg referred to Milstein’s Paganiniana,
based on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, as “a wild melange of violinistic stunts.”
But the piece deserves far more esteem than Schonberg suggests. While
retaining the theme and variations structure of the original Caprice, as well as
its basic melodic and harmonic material, Milstein also comments on the
nature of Paganini’s Caprices more generally through references to others that
he weaves into the texture. He presents formidable technical challenges, with
all of Paganini’s brilliant scales and arpeggios, trill effects, multiple stops, and
so forth, but mingles with them more lyrical melodies and even obscure hints
at his own Russian Jewish origins. Each variation is crafted with rigorous care.
Many great musicians, from Liszt to Brahms to Rachmaninoff and a host of
others, have addressed this potent 24th Caprice. Milstein’s homage to
Paganini may be briefer and less elaborate than many, but it acknowledges a
long and noble lineage with the dignity and respect it deserves.
Musicologist Kathryn L. Libin teaches music history and theory at Vassar College.
—Copyright © 2015 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
SOPHIE ZHAI
Meet the Artist
Great Performers I Meet the Artist
Ray Chen
Winner of the Queen Elisabeth and Menuhin Competitions and of a first prize
in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Ray Chen is among
the most compelling young violinists today. He has released three critically
acclaimed albums on Sony: a recital program titled “Virtuoso” including
works by Bach, Tartini, Franck, and Wieniawski that was distinguished
with the prestigious ECHO Klassik Award; a recording of the Mendelssohn
and Tchaikovsky concertos with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
and Daniel Harding; and his latest recording, an all-Mozart album with
Christoph Eschenbach and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.
Earlier this year, on Bastille Day, Mr. Chen joined Daniele Gatti and the
Orchestre National de France for a televised concert in Paris in front of an
audience of over 800,000. Mr. Chen recently completed a five-city tour of
China with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Kent Nagano, as
well as a European tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and
Eschenbach. Other highlights of the past season include his debuts with
the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, a recital at the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw, and a second engagement with Gatti and the Orchestre
National de France.
Expanding the appeal of classical music to young audiences is a commitment that encompasses Mr. Chen’s work both onstage and off. His use of
social media, in particular his series of quirky, self-made online videos, has
proven an effective tool in broadening the reach of classical music through
humor and education.
Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, Mr. Chen was accepted at age 15
to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Aaron Rosand and
was supported by Young Concert Artists. He plays the 1715 “Joachim”
Stradivarius violin on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. This instrument was once owned by the famed Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim.
Great Performers
Lincoln Center’s Great Performers
Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lincoln Center’s Great Performers offers
classical and contemporary music performances from the world’s outstanding
symphony orchestras, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and recitalists. Since its
initiation in 1965, the series has expanded to include significant emerging
artists and premieres of groundbreaking productions, with offerings from
October through June in Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall,
and other performance spaces around New York City. Along with lieder
recitals, Sunday morning coffee concerts, and films, Great Performers offers
a rich spectrum of programming throughout the season.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of
more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals including American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln
Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival,
and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award–winning Live From
Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln
Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center
complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion
campus renovation, completed in October 2012.
Lincoln Center Programming Department
Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director
Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming
Jon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary Programming
Jill Sternheimer, Director, Public Programming
Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager
Charles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Kate Monaghan, Associate Director, Programming
Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Julia Lin, Associate Producer
Regina Grande, Assistant to the Artistic Director
Luna Shyr, Programming Publications Editor
Madeleine Oldfield, House Seat Coordinator
Kathy Wang, House Program Intern
For the Walter Reade Theater
Gregory Wolfe, Stage Manager
Mr. Chen’s representation:
CAMI Music
www.camimusic.com