Tony Siqi Yun, piano

Program Notes

Brahms – Theme and Variations in D Minor, op. 18b

Theme and Variations in D Minor, op. 18b
Johannes Brahms
Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg
Died April 3, 1897, Vienna

Clara Schumann met Brahms when he was only twenty, and over the next forty years each remained the most important person in the other’s life. For Brahms, Clara was friend (often a very angry one), confidant, champion, and critic. In 1860 Brahms completed his Sextet for String in B-flat Major, and Clara knew the music in manuscript long before it was performed. She was especially attracted to its second movement, a set of variations marked Andante, ma moderato, and–wishing to be able to play it herself–she asked Brahms to make an arrangement for piano. This he did on September 13, 1860, inscribing the manuscript to her “as a friendly greeting”; the first performance of the String Sextet itself did not take place for another month – it was premiered in Frankfurt am Main on October 31. The arrangement may have been made for Clara, but Brahms himself was very fond of it and would perform it for friends. It was not published until 1927, thirty years after his death.

The somewhat severe eight-bar theme is heard immediately over a bass-line so prominent that it has suggested passacaglia structure to some, though Brahms’s variations do not proceed in that form. The six variations are usually in binary form, with both halves repeated. The first three variations remain in D minor. The first sounds somewhat Bach-like, the second presents the theme in pounding triplets, and the third features a swirling bass-line. The fourth and fifth variations move into D major: the fourth sings nobly (Brahms marks it molto espressivo e legato), while the fifth offers a delicate melodic variation (this line is taken by a solo viola in the sextet version). The final variation returns to D minor and presents what is virtually a skeletal transformation of the original theme, and this leads the set to a subdued and somber close.

Program note by Eric Bromberger

Wagner – Isoldes Liebestod: Schlußszene aus Tristan und Isolde, S.447

Isoldes Liebestod: Schlußszene aus Tristan und Isolde, S.447
Richard Wagner
Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig
Died February 13, 1883, Venice

Franz Liszt
Born October 22, 1811, Raiding
Died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth

Liszt and Wagner shared a long and–at times–difficult relationship. During his years as music director in Weimar, Liszt championed Wagner’s music and led a number of his operas, including the premiere of Lohengrin. But in 1865 Liszt’s daughter Cosima abandoned her husband Hans von Bülow, ran off with Wagner, and eventually married him. Liszt was furious with both Cosima and Wagner and remained estranged from them until a reconciliation was worked out in 1872.

If Liszt could disapprove of Wagner’s actions, he nevertheless admired his music, and he made piano transcriptions of music from eleven of Wagner’s operas. Liszt wrote a number of what have been called paraphrases or reminiscences of music from the operas of many composers–often these were completely original compositions in which the opera music served only as the starting point for Liszt’s own virtuosity. But Liszt’s transcriptions of excerpts from Wagner’s operas were much more respectful–they were almost always straightforward and literal. Liszt’s intentions here were generous: he liked this music and felt that he could make it better known by creating piano versions of works that would be heard only rarely in their original form.

Liszt made his transcription of Isoldes Liebestod in 1867, only two years after the premiere of Tristan und Isolde (and during his period of estrangement from Wagner and Cosima). Isolde’s final scene is of course best-known as the Liebestod (or “love-death”). At the end of the opera, as Tristan lies dead before her, Isolde sings her farewell to both Tristan and to life. This music has become familiar as one of the most famous orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s operas: as Isolde finds ecstatic fulfillment in death, Wagner surrounds her with a shimmering, glowing orchestral sound. Liszt’s transcription of this scene is remarkable for its fidelity to Wagner’s music and for his subtle approach to the sonority of the piano.

Program note by Eric Bromberger

Beethoven – Piano Sonata in F Minor, op. 57 “Appassionata”

Piano Sonata in F Minor, op. 57 “Appassionata”
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 17, 1770, Bonn
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

Between May and November 1803, Beethoven sketched the Eroica, a symphony on a scale never before imagined. Nearly half an hour longer than his Second Symphony, Beethoven’s Third thrust the whole conception of the symphony – and sonata form ¬– into a new world, in which music became heroic struggle and sonata form the stage for this drama rather than an end in itself. It was a world of new dimensions, new sonorities, new possibilities of expression, and with the Eroica behind him, Beethoven began to plan two piano sonatas. These sonatas, later nicknamed the “Waldstein” and the “Appassionata,” would be governed by the same impulse that shaped the Eroica.

The ominous opening of the Allegro assai is marked pianissimo, but it is alive with energy and the potential for development. As this long first theme slowly unfolds, deep in the left hand is heard the four-note motto that will later open the Fifth Symphony, and out of this motto suddenly bursts a great eruption of sound. The movement’s extraordinary unity becomes clear with the arrival of the second theme, which is effectively an inversion of the opening theme. And there is even a third subject, which boils out of a furious torrent of sixteenth-notes. The movement develops in sonata form, though Beethoven does without an exposition repeat, choosing instead to press directly into the turbulent development. The rhythm of the opening is stamped out in the coda, and after so much energy, the movement concludes as the first theme descends to near-inaudibility.

The second movement, a theme and four variations marked Andante con moto, brings a measure of relief. The theme, a calm chordal melody in two eight-bar phrases, is heard immediately, and the tempo remains constant throughout, though the variations become increasingly complex, increasingly ornate. Beethoven insists that the gentle mood remain constant – in the score he keeps reminding the pianist to play dolce, and even the swirls of 32nd-notes near the end remain serene. The sonata-form finale, marked Allegro ma non troppo, bursts upon the conclusion of the second movement with a fanfare of dotted notes, and the main theme, an almost moto perpetuo shower of sixteenth-notes, launches the movement. The searing energy of the first movement returns here, but now Beethoven offers a repeat of the development rather than of the exposition. The fiery coda, marked Presto, introduces an entirely new theme.

Beethoven offered no program for this sonata, nor will listeners do well to try to guess some external drama being played out in the “Appassionata.” Sir Donald Francis Tovey, trying to take some measure of this sonata’s extraordinary power and its unrelenting conclusion, has noted: “All his other pathetic finales show either an epilogue in some legendary or later world far away from the tragic scene . . . or a temper, fighting, humorous, or resigned, that does not carry with it a sense of tragic doom. [But in the “Appassionata”] there is not a moment’s doubt that the tragic passion is rushing deathwards.” That may be going too far, but it is true that–in sharp contrast to the shining, exultant conclusions of the Eroica and the Fifth Symphony – this sonata ends with an abrupt plunge into darkness.

Program note by Eric Bromberger

Busoni – Berceuse from Elegies, BV 249

Berceuse from Elegies, BV 249
Ferruccio Busoni
Born April 1, 1866, Empoli
Died July 27, 1924, Berlin

In 1907 Ferruccio Busoni, then 41 years old, composed a set of six piano pieces and published them the following year under the title Elegies. The pieces are not really elegies in the sense that they memorialize people who had died but more a collection of pieces that showed new directions for Busoni as composer. Though some of the pieces were based on music that he had composed earlier, now Busoni’s harmonic language became more astringent, his sense of theme more elusive, his expression more abstract. Busoni felt that in the Elegies he had finally found his authentic voice as a composer, but this music did not find a receptive response from either critics or audiences.

In 1909 Busoni came back to the set and added a seventh piece, which he titled Berceuse. A berceuse is in no sense an elegy–it is in fact a cradle song, intended to help infants fall asleep; perhaps Busoni chose that title because of the restrained character of this music. Busoni’s Berceuse is brief and for the most part very quiet, rarely rising above the dynamic of piano. The performance marking is Andantino calmo, and along the way Busoni instructs the pianist to make the performance dolcissimo, calmissimo, and espressivo dolente. So Busoni regarded this music as sweet, expressive, and grieving, yet it feels subdued and restrained throughout. Over a pattern of steady eighth-note arpgeggios, Busoni sounds his spare, almost disembodied main idea. The left-hand accompaniment turns those eighth-note arpeggios in flowing triplets, and the music grows more animated, only to return to the opening calm and finally to break down and dissolve into silence.

A NOTE: This music exists in several forms. In 1919, ten years after composing the Berceuse, Busoni returned to it for a very personal reason. His mother had died, and in her memory he orchestrated the Berceuse, retitling it Berceuse élégiaque in the process. That orchestral version was in turn arranged for a small chamber ensemble by Erwin Stein for Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Music Performances in Vienna. All three versions have been recorded.

Program note by Eric Bromberger

Schumann – Symphonic Etudes, op. 13

Symphonic Etudes, op. 13
Robert Schumann
Born June 8, 1810, Zwickau
Died July 29, 1856, Endenich

The piano teacher Friedrich Wieck sometimes took promising students to live in his own home. Robert Schumann was one of these, and in April 1834 Wieck brought the seventeen-year-old Ernestine von Fricken into the household. She herself would prove only a mediocre pianist, but her effect on Schumann–and his music–was profound. He promptly fell in love with her, and the two became secretly engaged–to the quiet fury of Clara, who even at age 15 could see what was going on, even if her father could not. Under Ernestine’s spell, Schumann composed Carnaval, based on a four-note sequence derived from the name of her hometown Asch. At this point, her father–Baron von Fricken–got wind of matters and carried her off, and that was that.

Before this rupture, however, Schumann had begun to compose a set of piano variations on a theme in C-sharp minor written by the Baron himself for flute and titled Thema quasi marcia funebre. The end of the romance probably put an end to Schumann’s enthusiasm for the piece, and he set it aside, where it lay for two years. But in September 1836 Chopin made a visit to Leipzig, and Schumann was so dazzled by his playing that he pulled out the manuscript and set to work, exclaiming that he was writing “etudes with great gusto and excitement.” He completed the work and published it the following year.

Schumann had heard Chopin play his Etudes and was inspired to write something similar. His Symphonic Etudes were intended at first simply as a set of etudes, but he soon realized that almost all of these were variations on von Fricken’s flute theme, so that the set is a collection–simultaneously–of etudes and variations. It was originally published in 1837 under the title Etudes in Orchestral Character for Piano from Florestan and Eusebius, but for the second edition in 1852, Schumann revised the music, dropped several etudes, and renamed it Etudes in the Form of Variations. The generally-accepted title today for the set is Symphonic Etudes, though this music has nothing to do with the orchestra: it is simply brilliant music for the piano.

The music’s subsequent publication history is complex. In 1861, five years after Schumann’s death, Friedrich Wieck brought out a new edition that attempted to reconcile the differences between the two versions Schumann had published. In 1890, for the publication of Schumann’s collected works by Breitköpf and Härtel, Brahms prepared a new edition that restored the five etudes Schumann himself had cut. As a result, the work is performed today in a variety of forms.

The Symphonic Etudes are regarded as one of Schumann’s finest creations, but when he wrote this music variation-form was considered something from the past, bookish and academic. Schumann realized that audiences might not respond readily to a set of variations, and when Clara decided not to play them in public, he concurred: “You were wise not to play my Etudes. That sort of thing is not suited for the general public, and it would be very weak to make a moan afterwards and say that they had not understood a thing which was not written to suit their taste, but merely for its own sake.” He was, however, delighted when Clara chose to play them for Franz Liszt, who instantly recognized their merit.

In their complete form, the Symphonic Etudes–the theme, the variation/etudes, and a finale–make up a substantial piece of music lasting over half an hour. The Baron’s cool, poised theme gives shape to most of the variations, but listeners often feel that in the excitement of Schumann’s writing it vanishes altogether–and they may be right. Schumann treats the theme in a variety of ways, ranging from the brilliant and technically difficult to the gentle and evocative. The theme sometimes appears as a subordinate voice, sometimes as a polyphonic subject, and sometimes simply as the melody.

Schumann concludes with a huge finale based on a quotation from Heinrich Marschner’s opera Der Templer und die Judin, and the Baron’s original theme appears in the course of this. During the month when he composed this finale, Schumann was being visited by a good friend, the young English composer William Sterndale Bennett. In Marschner’s opera this theme, a leaping chordal melody, accompanies the words “England, rejoice,” and Schumann includes it here as a welcoming tribute to his English friend.

Program note by Eric Bromberger