Beethoven Concerti with pianists Wei-Yi Yang Hung-Kuan Chen Melvin Chen and the Yale Philharmonia Shinik Hahm, conductor
horowitz piano series Boris Berman, Artistic Director December 11, 2013 • Morse Recital Hall
Robert Blocker, Dean
Horowitz Piano Series
Beethoven Concerti Wednesday, December 11, 2013 • 8:00pm • Morse Recital Hall Yale Philharmonia • Shinik Hahm, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770—1827
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 I. Allegro con brio II. Largo III. Rondo: Allegro scherzando Wei-Yi Yang, piano
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 I. Allegro con brio II. Adagio III. Rondo: Molto allegro Hung-Kuan Chen, piano
intermission
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61a arr. Beethoven I. Allegro ma non troppo II. Larghetto III. Rondo. Allegro Melvin Chen, piano
As a courtesy to the performers and audience, silence all electronic devices. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.
Artist Profiles
Pianist Wei-Yi Yang has earned worldwide acclaim for his captivating performances and imaginative programming. Most recently, he was praised by the New York Times as the soloist in a “sensational” performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie at Carnegie Hall. Gold Medal winner of the San Antonio International Piano Competition, Mr. Yang has also performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and across Europe, Australia, and Asia. A dynamic chamber musician with a diverse repertoire, Mr. Yang has collaborated with the Pacifica, Cassatt, and Tokyo String Quartets; as well as Frederica von Stade, Clive Greensmith, and Richard Stoltzman, among numerous others.
Germany, Serbia, Montenegro, Mexico, and Scotland. In 2005 he joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music.
Hung-Kuan Chen is one of the great personalities of the music world: enigmatic, brilliant, and versatile. He is a pianist of uncompromising individuality and an inspiring pedagogue. Born in Taipei and raised in Germany, Mr. Chen’s early studies fostered strong roots in Germanic Classicism tempered with the sensibility of Chinese philosophy; the result is a dynamic and imaginative artistry. He is regarded as an extraordinary interpreter of Beethoven’s music.
Mr. Yang has curated inventive interdisciplinary projects, including a collaboration with actress Miriam Margolyes as part of the “Dickens’ Women” world tour; lecture-recitals on the confluence of Czech music and literature; and multimedia performances of Granados’ Goyescas with projections of Goya’s etchings. He has given world premieres of new works by contemporary composers, including Howard Boatwright, Jonathan Cole, Daniel Godfrey, and Ezra Laderman. Mr. Yang studied first in the United Kingdom and then with Arkady Aronov in New York. Under the guidance of Boris Berman, he received his D.M.A. from Yale in 2004.
Mr. Chen’s career was launched when he won First Prize in the Young Concert Artists’ Auditions which presented him in his New York debut on the Young Concert Artists Series and followed it with a second major New York concert at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. One of the most decorated pianists of his generation, Mr. Chen won top prizes in the Arthur Rubinstein, the Busoni and the Geza Anda International Piano Competitions, along with prizes in the Queen Elisabeth, Montreal, Van Cliburn, and Chopin international competitions. He is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Wei-Yi Yang frequently presents master classes and performances in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Korea, and at Princeton University, Ithaca College, and the Hartt School. He has adjudicated the Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial and the San Antonio International Piano competitions. Mr. Yang regularly appears at festivals across the United States, from Norfolk to Napa Valley, and abroad, including
Hung-Kuan Chen has appeared in the music capitals of Asia, Europe, and the Americas and collaborated with major orchestras including Houston, Baltimore, Israel, Montréal, Pittsburgh, the Tonhalle, San Francisco, and Shanghai. He has performed with highly esteemed conductors Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, George Cleve, Josef Silverstein, Andrew Parrett and Sui Lan; and with
Artist Profiles
colleagues including Yo-Yo Ma, Cho-Liang Lin, Roman Totenberg, Denes Zsigmondy, Bion Tsang, Anthony Gigliotti, David Shifrin, and Laurence Lesser, and pianists Tema Blackstone and Pi-hsien Chen. Mr. Chen has served as the chair of the piano department of the Shanghai Conservatory and is the director of the International Piano Academy in Shanghai. In 2009, he was appointed to the piano faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston. He is a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music. In 1992 Hung-Kuan Chen suffered an injury to his hand which caused neurological damage and eventually resulted in focal dystonia. Through meditation and his own research, he was able to heal. His first post-accident solo recital in March of 1998 received rave reviews, and he was described as a transformed artist. Following a concert at Jordan Hall in 2006, Richard Dyer wrote in The Boston Globe, “Hung-Kuan Chen is back in prime technical form after years of struggle following an injury, but those years have made him a different pianist, and a better one. This man plays music with uncommon understanding and the instrument with uncommon imagination.”
A native of Tennessee, pianist Melvin Chen has received acclaim for performances throughout the United States and abroad. As a soloist and chamber musician Mr. Chen has performed at major venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Kennedy Center, and Boston’s Jordan Hall, in addition to other appearances throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia.
Mr. Chen’s performances have been featured on radio and television stations around the globe, including KBS television and radio in Korea, NHK television in Japan, and NPR in the United States. Solo recordings include Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations on the Bridge label, praised as “a classic” by the American Record Guide, and a recording of Joan Tower’s piano music on the Naxos label. Recordings of the Shostakovich piano sonatas and Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice were released in 2007. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Chen has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley, and with the Shanghai, Tokyo, Miami, Penderecki, and Miro quartets. A performer in numerous music festivals, he has performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others. Melvin Chen completed a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University, and also holds a double master’s degree from The Juilliard School in piano and violin. Previously, he attended Yale University, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and physics, where he also studied with Boris Berman, Paul Kantor, and Ida Kavafian. Mr. Chen was previously on the piano faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where he was also associate director. He is also the artistic director of the chamber music program at the Hotchkiss Summer Portals. In 2012 he rejoined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he serves as Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Piano and Deputy Dean.
Artist Profiles
Shinik Hahm has been conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale since 2004, performing regularly at Woolsey Hall. Professor Hahm and Yale Philharmonia have toured Boston, New York, Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul. As a conducting pedagogue, his students have won top prizes at the Besançon, Pedrotti, Toscanini, and China National conducting competitions. They are also active at the helm of various orchestras around the world. His guest conducting appearances include engagements in North and South Americas, Europe, and Asia. He has led orchestras in the world’s most prestigious concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Boston Symphony Hall, Rudolfinum in Prague, Seoul Arts Center, Tokyo Opera City Hall, and the National Theater of China, among others. Most recently, as music director and chief conductor of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Hahm led the orchestra on tour with concerts at the General Assembly of the United Nations, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center. He also served in the same capacity with the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra from 2001 to 2006, during which time the orchestra earned not only national attention but international acclaim through concert tours in the U.S. and Japan. A winner of the Gregor Fitelberg Competition for Conductors, Hahm received the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize from the Eastman School of Music and the Shepherd Society Award from Rice University. Maestro Hahm was decorated by the Korean government with the Arts and Culture Medal.
The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is one of America’s foremost music school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire. Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in New Haven’s historic Shubert Theater. The Yale Philharmonia has performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2008, the Philharmonia undertook its first tour of Asia, with acclaimed performances in the Seoul Arts Center, the Shanghai Grand Theatre, and Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Center for the Performing Arts. The beginnings of the Yale Philharmonia can be traced to 1894, when an orchestra was organized under the leadership of the School’s first dean, Horatio Parker. The orchestra became known as the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale in 1973, with the appointment of Otto-Werner Mueller as resident conductor and William Steinberg, then music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, as Sanford Professor of Music. Brazilian conductor Eleazar di Carvalho became music director in 1987, and Gunther Herbig joined the conducting staff as guest conductor and director of the Affiliate Artists Conductors program in 1990. Lawrence Leighton Smith, music director of the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, conducted the Philharmonia for a decade, and upon his retirement in 2004, Shinik Hahm was appointed music director.
Program Notes
Beethoven: Piano Concertos
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
The first three piano concertos – often collectively referred to as the “early period” concertos – are the products of an ambitious young composer seeking to establish himself across a wide European audience. At the time of the first concerto’s composition, around 1796, Beethoven was traveling frequently among the cultural centers of Vienna, Prague, and Bonn, making a living through private music instruction, public performances, and commissioned compositions. Writing to his brother while touring, Beethoven enthusiastically proclaimed, “I am well, very well. My art is winning me friends and respect, and what more do I want? And this time I shall make a good deal of money.” While today the “art” to which the composer refers calls to mind his compositions, Beethoven was, at the time, renowned as much for the art of his piano playing—less for its precision than for its liveliness. The composer was known to break strings with the force of his impassioned, or as some put it, “impetuous” playing.
The sonata form first movement of the C major concerto begins with a playful march subject, in a subdued pianissimo context, before bursting forth in fortissimo. Indeed, this dynamic interplay proves to be a source of great excitement throughout the movement. Beethoven’s maintenance of the pianissimo dynamic throughout great stretches of music adds great tension that sets his music apart from that of Mozart and Haydn, whose influence can certainly be felt in Beethoven’s work. The movement’s dynamic contrast is matched by the abruptly shifting, often surprising, harmonic structure. For a movement rooted in C major, the extended ventures into the minor mode and its relative keys, including a secondary theme that begins in a distant E-flat major, add to the sense of unpredictability and dynamism that would put the composer’s music, and his performing style, on the map.
It is no surprise that the vast majority of Beethoven’s early compositions involved his instrument. The piano provided both the obvious vehicle for his creativity as well as a means of gaining recognition as both performer and composer. Beethoven’s performances of his own music became the greatest contributions to his rising celebrity, and his pianistic facility enabled him to conjure groundbreaking music from his mind through the keyboard. The piano concertos provide perhaps the most fascinating glimpse into Beethoven’s artistic mind at the time: they combine a medium for his inventive orchestral writing with the vibrant, virtuosic piano writing that he would perform himself.
The lyrical second movement, the longest of any of the composer’s piano concerto middle movements, is impassioned and introspective. The fact that the largo opening theme begins with a reincarnation of the march motto from the first movement’s opening, in a new guise, is an early manifestation of the motivic unity across movements that would become a hallmark of Beethoven’s later works, notably the Fifth Symphony. The movement’s coda ends with a lovely duet between the piano and solo clarinet. The finale, a playful rondo, proves just as surprising as the first movement. With the recurring ritornello theme alone, through clever metric manipulation, the composer defies the listener to discern a downbeat. The
Program Notes
harmonic play of the previous movements, with their frequent ventures into “wrong” key areas, is taken to its extreme in this finale, when the final statement of the rondo begins in B major, harmonically distant from C major, before being pushed back into its expected home territory. The great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock claimed to “play his audience’s emotions like a piano.” The young Beethoven, through his own keyboard, seems keenly aware of how to do just that.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 Though the second concerto to be published, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in B-flat major, Op. 19, was actually written before the Concerto No. 1 in C major. The young Beethoven was quick to move to new projects, seemingly eager both to express his creativity, and to make a name for himself in Europe and thus achieve financial stability. His prolific nature at this youthful period is differs from the obsessive perfectionism of his later life, when he would revisit and refine his compositions multiple times. Beethoven seems, at this point in his life, content to “let things go,” so to speak. When the composer submitted this concerto to his publisher, he admitted, “I do not claim it to be one of my best.” Beethoven’s self-deprecation is interesting at this point in his life, when the young composer was transitioning from a student in Bonn to a star soloist and composer in Vienna. The first movement of this concerto originated in sketches from Beethoven’s days in Bonn. Viewing the entire work as a manifestation of his growing maturity at this crucial point in his artistic life shows a composer both indebted to his training in the Classical style and eager to
insert his own unique voice. The concerto’s first movement, in a typical sonata-allegro form with an added orchestral exposition common to concertante works of this period, begins with an attention-grabbing fanfare motive, followed closely by a more lyrical gesture. This duality of themes, that of the extroverted and introverted, or masculine and feminine, is at play through much of the rest of the movement, and provides the composer with two distinct “characters” who engage in a sort of musical dialogue throughout. Though largely composed in the Classical tradition, at times, Beethoven does venture to some harmonically forwardlooking areas, including a striking excursion to the key of G-flat major. The second movement is a poignant Adagio in the warm key of E-flat major. This tonality was particularly well-suited to tuning of wind and brass instruments of the period, and one can certainly hear their rich presence gently cushioning the soloist’s lyrical melodic lines. The movement is evocative of a highly ornamented operatic solo over an accompaniment that, for the most part, stays out of the way of the coloratura soloist.The pianist is invited, at the end of the movement, to pay “con gran espressione,” or “with great expression.” The humorous and jesting finale is a rondo with recurring refrains that separate excursions into a variety of unique episodes. As in the finale of the first concerto, Beethoven provides some rhythmic trickery, deliberately placing accents in his primary theme on the “wrong” beat, throwing off the audience’s perception of the meter. A spicy minor central episode, in the “Turkish” style very much in
Program Notes
vogue with Beethoven’s Viennese audience, adds a playful divergence. In one final comical gesture, the composer transforms his playful dance theme into a lyrical and expressive theme in a much slower tempo, before simply casting off this sentimentality with a final shrug.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61a arranged for piano by the composer Though it is one of the most often performed and universally beloved works in the concert repertoire today, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major was not met with such acclaim at its Viennese premiere in 1806. The story goes that the composer was so late in completing the work before the premiere that the violin soloist Franz Clement, for whose benefit concert the work was written, essentially had to sight-read it. As may be expected, the premiere was all but disastrous, and Clement allegedly resorted to playing his violin upside-down to keep the audience amused. As if that were not enough, audiences at the time complained of its unprecedented length, and violinists complained of its technical difficulty. The silver lining in all of this, as it turns out, is that Beethoven was encouraged to create a version of the concerto for piano, first published in 1808, as a means of salvaging some success from this brilliant, if hastily composed, work. The piano version was seldom performed during the composer’s lifetime, and has only recently re-entered the standard repertoire as an alternate interpretation of this masterpiece. In one of the most recognizable opening gestures in all of music, Beethoven begins his concerto with four subdued pulsations in, of
all instruments, the timpani. This four-beat motive can be traced as it is transformed and manipulated throughout the entirety of the lengthy and complex first movement. Immediately apparent after this opening gesture is the movement’s lyricism, as made evident in the calm wind chorale that introduces the first theme of the movement. Indeed, though it is technically demanding, the concerto does not rely on flashy pyrotechnics for effect. Rather, it calls on the soloist’s expressive talents throughout. Beethoven greatly enlarges the role of the orchestra in this concerto, in contrast to the solo-centric conception of many other works in the genre. The soloist often comments upon and occasionally even accompanies the action taking place in the orchestra, rather than exerting its presence over an obediently accompanying orchestra. This novel dynamic challenges the concept of a concerto’s focus. The second movement is a lyrical set of variations on a theme that recalls the first movement’s primary theme in its hymnal style. The theme and variations would become one of Beethoven’s most favored and oftenused genres; it allows the composer to demonstrate his clever mastery of a number of styles, and of melodic and motivic transformation. In a way, the theme and variations challenges the composer to write music that is unique and interesting yet constrained by the repeating melody or theme. In this example, Beethoven meets this challenge astutely, by having the original chorale theme be present in its original form throughout. No matter where the soloist ventures, the theme is always there, like a fond reminiscence echoing in one’s mind. This memory remains in the background as the music escalates in energy through a brilliant
Program Notes
connective passage that links the contemplative middle movement to the exuberant finale, which follows without pause. The finale, a jaunty and jovial Rondo in a galloping dance meter, provides some of the technical ostentatiousness that one might expect in a solo concerto. The playful movement departs into some surprising musical territory, including a poignant G minor dialogue with the solo bassoon. As in the finale of the second piano concerto, Beethoven gets the last laugh: he takes the soloist to the very quietest dynamic as it is left alone in the final few bars to ruminate on the opening theme, as though temporarily lost in a pleasant, nostalgic, daydream, before being abruptly shocked back into the present once more by the closing orchestral fortissimo. –Notes by Patrick Jankowski
Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale
violin 1 Dae Hee Ahn Benjamin Hoffman Julia Ghica Edouard Maetzener Gayoung Cho Choha Kim MĂŠlanie Clapies violin 2 Heewon Uhm Tianyun Jia Seul-A Lee Zou Yu Ki Won Kim Shuaili Du viola David Mason Yejin Han Danielle Wiebe Hyeree Yu Colin Brookes cello Sohyang Yoo Allan Hon Zhilin Wang Ji Eun Lee bass Christopher Lettie Ha Young Jung Andrea Elizabeth Blackert Beyer flute Bo Hee Kim 3 Jacob Mende-Fridkis 1 Isabel Lepanto Gleicher 2
oboe Hsuan-Fong Chen 3 Kristin Kall 1 Sol Jee Park Timothy Gocklin 2 Fiona Last clarinet Joshua Anderson 3 Kevin Schaffter 1 bassoon Elizabeth Garrett 1 Darren Hicks Bogdan Dumitriu 1, 2 John Searcy horn Chuta Chulavalaivong 3 Craig Hubbard 1 Wing Lam Au 2 Zachary Quortrup trumpet Mikio Alan Sasaki 3 Patrick Durbin 1 percussion Mari Yoshinaga Georgi Videnov 1 - Principal on Op. 15 2 - Principal on Op. 19 3 - Principal on Violin Concerto, Op. 61a
Shinik Hahm conductor Andrew W. Parker manager Roberta Senatore music librarian Brent LaFlam production assitant Timothy Gocklin office assistant assistant conductors Jonathan Brandani Louis Lohraseb stage crew Jonathan Allen, Garrett Arney, Bogdan Dumitriu, Philip Browne, Patrick Durbin, Jonathan Hammonds, Christopher Hwang, Stephen Ivany, Fiona Last, Louis Lohraseb, Thomas Park, Douglas Perry, Zachary Quortrup, John Searcy, Elisabeth Shafer, Daniel Stone, Terrence Sweeney, Gregory Vartian-Foss, Georgi Videnov, Mari Yoshinaga music librarians Batmyagmar Erdenebat Darren Hicks, David Mason Matheus Garcia Souza Allan Hon, Choha Kim Hye Jin Koh, Fiona Last Michael Laurello, Nicole Percifield Rachel Perfecto Elisa Rodriguez Sadaba
Upcoming Events
New Music for Orchestra december 12 Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Thursday | 8 pm Shinik Hahm, conductor. Music by graduate composers Bálint Karosi, Brendon Randall-Myers, James Rubino, and Benjamin Wallace. Free Admission
Martin Jean, organ decmeber 14 Great Organ Music at Yale Christ Church | Saturday | 8 pm Music of Messiaen. Presented by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Free Admission
Music by Christopher Cerrone december 19 Doctor of Musical Arts Recital Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 8 pm Featuring alumni performers. Free Admission
Ransom Wilson, flute Melvin Chen, piano january 15 Faculty Artist Series Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 8 pm Free Admission
Piano Studio Recital january 21 Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 8 pm Students in the piano studio of Hung-Kuan Chen will perform an evening of piano music. Free Admission
Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique january 24 Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Friday | 8 pm Shinik Hahm, conductor; Boris Berman, piano. Debussy: Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, “Emperor”; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique.” Free Admission
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