PROGRAM NOTES FOR VALENTINA LISITSA'S PIANO RECITAL
ON FEBRUARY 7, 2009
Written by Ms. Lisitsa
Rachmaninov
Étude-tableau in A minor Op. 39 No. 6
Prelude in G major Op. 32 No. 5
Prelude in G# minor Op. 32 No. 12
Prelude in B minor Op. 32 No. 10
Prelude in G minor Op. 23 No. 5
Beethoven
Sonata No. 23 in F minor “ Appassionata”
1. Allegro assai
2. Andante con moto - attacca
3. Allegro ma non troppo - Presto
Schumann
Kinderszenen Op. 15
Of Foreign Lands and Peoples ( Von fremden Ländern und Menschen )
A Curious Story ( Kuriose Geschichte )
Blind Man's Bluff ( Hasche-Mann )
Pleading Child ( Bittendes Kind )
Happiness ( Glückes genug )
An Important Event ( Wichtige Begebenheit )
Reverie ( Träumerei )
At The Fireside ( Am Kamin )
Knight Of The Hobbyhorse ( Ritter vom Steckenpferd )
Almost Too Serious ( Fast zu ernst )
Frightening ( Fürchtenmachen )
Child Falling Asleep ( Kind im Einschlummern )
The Poet Speaks ( Der Dichter spricht )
Thalberg
Grande fantaisie sur le Barbier de Séville, Opéra de Rossini Op.63
Liszt
Totentanz (original solo piano version)
About the Programme
Rachmaninoff
monotonous in texture ... consisting mainly of artificial and gushing tunes ...”
The 1954 edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians on Rachmaninoff
February 1917 - the beginning of Russian Revolution - “The Tale of Little Red Riding Hood“ is composed. Rachmaninoff's family estate is sacked. With the owners absent, the piano is the only victim – budding revolutionaries burn and drown it in a pond.
December 22, 1917 - Rachmaninoff with his wife and two daughters leave St. Petersburg for Helsinki in a snowstorm on an open sleigh, having only a few notebooks with sketches of his own compositions. They are never to return to their homeland. His music is banned for several years.
Etude -Tableaux Op. 39 No. 6
...two minutes of horror... What an innocuous title – “Little Red Riding Hood.” This one is clearly not for children...
A clichéd script for many horror flicks could perfectly synopsize or accompany this two-minute piece. Someone, usually a young girl spooked by something terrible inexplicably runs outside into the darkness, what often follows is a chase through a heavily wooded area and then, as a rule, she trips over some branches, falls to the ground and is murdered or eaten...
Here is a perfect script of this two-minute piece. All the primordial fear of darkness, forest, wild beasts and fear of the unknown play here. It couldn't be done more vividly in a horror movie... starting with a glistening set of sharp teeth, a trembling, miserable little creature running and a muscular carnivore unhurried in its superiority, starts with a bouncy prance, suddenly charges – a chase at dizzying speed follows... No happy ending here, only another flash of bloodied teeth...
Prelude g major Op. 32 No. 5 - a lost paradise.
...Sticky and humid late summer afternoon, when hot air seems to tremble rising over ripening fields - only birds are able to pierce this thick air with their plaintive songs in anticipation of a thunderstorm – finally this heavy air falls down to earth with drops of rain... This is not a dainty French or Italian landscape – these are southern Russia wheat fields. This is Rachmaninoff's ancestral land - the land he never ceased to dream of from far away...
Prelude g sharp minor Op. 32 No. 12
...traditionally described as a sleigh ride, but this is not a joy ride. This is unmistakably a departure, and a very sad one - the feeling of loosing something forever, the feeling which painfully pinches your heart. Is it a foreboding of his last sleigh ride through flowing snow that pricked the face with a myriad of tiny needles – never to see his beloved country again?
Prelude b minor Op. 32 No. 10 - the abyss
A friend of mine once told me that while listening to this prelude he was suddenly overwhelmed by almost uncontrollable desire to commit suicide. Just like that – to go and hang himself. That sums up the mood of this prelude very well. It is a depression in it's manifest form. Stillness, sadness and quiet resignation which are only momentarily replaced by an impetus of utter despair.
Prelude g minor Op. 23 No. 5
The strength of the forward movement in this little prelude is breathtaking. A freight train? Yes, maybe...once this music gets going, it is unstoppable in its tremendous energy. An avalanche? Also a good comparison - except neither would be stopped dead in its tracks by an exceedingly feminine, seductive and lush melody. Very oriental in its roots, it hearkens back to the Russian Empire composer's attraction to musical language of conquered nations of the Near East. Rachmaninoff certainly had a valid claim to this heritage. Rachman -inoff – does the root of his surname ring a bell – like the blind terrorist mastermind, Sheik Rachman, sitting in a NJ jail?
Beethoven
Sonata Op. 57 ”Appassionata”
Beethoven 1803-15
six symphonies (Nos. 3–8), the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos, the T riple Concerto and V iolin Concerto , five string quartets (Nos. 7–11), seven piano sonatas (including the "Waldstein" Op. 53 and the "Appassionata" Op. 57), Fidelio .
Napoleon 1803-15
twelve years of wars – 6 million Europeans dead, countless maimed and orphaned
“ I know of nothing better than the “ Appassionata ” and could listen to it every day. What an astonishing, superhuman music! It always makes me proud, perhaps with a childish naiveté, to think that people can work such miracles!... But I can't listen to music very often, it affects my nerves. I want to say sweet, silly things, and pat the little heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. These days, one can't pat anyone on the head, they might bite your hand off. Hence, those little heads must be beaten, beaten mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people”- V. Lenin
...a controlled rage...
Lenin once said about this work “...superhuman music... I would like to listen to it again and again.” Right! just like a criminal attracted to the crime scene.
This piece belongs to the most anti-tyrannical statements in art. No sentiment here, no sensuality, no romance – all this “nonsense” is mercilessly pruned away. It is a single human locked in a mortal fight against the titans. All the themes bear features of ancient roman heroes – including impeccably straight noses.
Written at the same time as the Fifth Symphony, its first movement closely shares the same famous four notes - leitmotif of “Fate knocking at the door“ which shall appear here in countless reincarnations. The positions are taken and the battle begins only to be suspended in a stalemate.
Second movement beginning is quietly ominous – is it a chant or a march? Very quickly there are no doubts left: it is as militaristic as Napoleonic music gets. It is rather unattractive – there is no melody to speak of – but it's snake-like charm lays in repeated incantations. It gets more and more elaborate until it overwhelms all senses with a display of brash brilliance. A chord with a “question mark” breaks this unstoppable advance.
The third movement – a perpetuum mobile – unexpectedly marked “not too fast.“ I wouldn't direct your attention to such a small technicality if it was not the key to understanding this movement and the whole sonata. It is the deadly fight of an individual with forces far superior, subjective and objective, man and state... play it fast (what an instant gratification!) and it turns into a benign virtuoso showpiece – hardly Beethoven's intent which was quite explicit – not too fast .
What an easy victory – over Beethoven, that is. It is worth noticing that this “tradition” was incidentally propagated by the Russian piano school – unfortunately including the greatest players. I guess comrades preferred it that way!
Schumann
Kinderszenen Op.15
1832 - Schumann, 22, meets Clara Wieck, a 13-year old child prodigy. Mutual attraction blossoms into something bigger by 1834. Wieck Sr. sues for a restraining order to keep Schumann away from his daughter. Litigation continues for five years. The lovebirds finally get married after court declares Clara of a legal age. Eight children to come in the future.
1838 - Kinderszenen completed. What a pure and innocent piece! People often get confused by this title, assuming that it is an easy piece for kids. Let me put it straight: this work is not for children – it is about children – written by an adult for adult's use and enjoyment. Yes, on the surface there are no difficulties. Everything is bright and clear – just like Mozart. Do few notes make this piece easy to play? Let me answer with a question... Is it easier to paint miniatures like Fra Angelico rather than world's largest oils like Tintoretto? You make a call...
Amazingly, Schumann wrote this piece before he got married and could observe his own children. Other than his infatuation with an underage Lolita who was to become his future wife, Clara Wieck, he had little experience with kids.
Granted, there are some factual mistakes that will make any parent knowingly smile - “Funny Story” is way too tame for preschooler's potty jokes, “Pleading Child” - well, Schumann did not know what a whining kid is – and between this piece and the next one - “Happiness” there should have been one called “Tantrums.” “Dreaming” is ten times longer than any kid, even a very dreamy one, could sit still. We shall forgive Schumann – this piece is not about a literal description of a child.
When we get to the last pages – it becomes clear what the “Poet Speaking” is about to say. Innocence, trust, awe and amazement at things big and small, known and unknown yet, real or imagined – these are feelings that we adults hopelessly left in our own childhood dreams, like in a whole other life.
"He is a God when sitting at the piano” (R. Schumann - review on Thalberg).
“ completely worthless, garbage ...“ (F. Liszt - review on Thalberg).
“ As I met Thalberg, I said to him: „Here I have cribbed everything from you.“ „Yes,“ he replied, there are Thalberg passages included which are indeed indecent.“ (Franz Liszt to one of his pupils).
This is jeu perlé and bel canto – combined. What can be more pleasing to a tired listener!
I could start listing all Rossini's themes that Thalberg used in this piece – but frankly, it is irrelevant to us mortals. Instead I prefer to give you a description of his music and playing by Heinrich Heine ,
“ His performance is so gentlemanly, so entirely without any forced acting the genius, so entirely without that well-known brashness that makes a poor cover for inner insecurity. Healthy women love him. So do sickly women, even though he does not engage their sympathy by epileptic seizures at the piano, even though he does not play at their overstrung, delicate nerves, even though he neither electrifies them nor galvanizes them.”
For sheer elegance and good taste, for being able not to overdo ad nauseam even the most virtuoso flourishes – he had no equals. And how could he – after all he was a Prince, while Liszt was a commoner, and even Chopin was just a make-believe aristocrat. Noblesse oblige !
Liszt
Totentanz started 1848, final version 1865
“ The devil was here – I can still smell the sulfur...“ Hugo Chavez
Other major works using the same melody: Berlioz Symphony Fantastique 1830
Saint - Saëns Dance Macabre 1870
Other composers who helped themselves to Dies Irae: Brahms, Britten, Dohnány, Dvorák, Glazunov, Gounod, Honegger, Khachaturian, Ligeti, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Orff, Penderecki, Rachmaninoff, Respighi, Schickele, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Sibelius, John Phillip Sousa, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky,Tchaikovsky, Ysaÿe.
Everybody creates their own hell.
Franz Liszt - this superstar, heartthrob and ladies man had a darker side to him, for he was morbidly obsessed with death, suffering and hell. There are numerous accounts of him, even at a very tender age, frequenting asylums, attending executions, making friends with death row inmates, painstakingly observing mortal sinners having fun in casinos (he would enjoy Las Vegas) and memorizing Dante's hellish chapters of Divine Comedy... He would be a perfect Gothic kid nowadays.
This set of variations on the medieval chant Dies Irae (the Day of Wrath) is stunningly modern. Without knowing the author you could easily place it well into 20 th century. To call it romantic would do it a terrible injustice.
Liszt is dead serious about this piece (pardon the pun). Berlioz' final movement of Symphonie fantastique seems almost lightweight and Saint - Saëns ' playful “Dance Macabre” - humorously ridiculous by comparison. The best visual summary of this piece was done in Ken Russell's outrageous “Lisztomania” movie. He uses Totentanz in an episode depicting an exorcism. The image of a piano still billowing black smoke is quite befitting. As Hugo Chavez would put it – it smells like sulfur down here. I will refrain from imposing any ideas about what is going on. After all, everybody creates their own version of hell – limited only by their imagination.
Program notes copyright 2007 Valentina Lisitsa