While recently looking through Juilliard's listings of events for the current season, I noted that no piano performances had been scheduled for the popular Wednesdays at One series. There were, however, several "forum recitals" calendared for weekday afternoons at Paul Hall. On Wednesday, I attended the first of these, a roughly ninety minute performance, given without intermission, of solo piano works by Beethoven, Schumann, Paul Frucht and Liszt.
The program opened with Beethoven's Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major,Op. 81a (1809-1810). The work's French nickname Les Adieux was given it at the publisher's insistence; but the German Das Lebewohl is what Beethoven himself wrote over the score's first three chords and insisted came closer to the meaning of farewell he had had in mind when writing the piece. It's not really surprising that the composer, at least at the time, wanted nothing to do with anything French as the piece was begun in May 1809 in anticipation of Napoleon's siege of Vienna. In fact, the work was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph who was forced to flee with the rest of the Austrian nobility as the French forces approached the city. It was only on Rudolph's return in January 1810 that the composer completed the final two movements, ending with the joyous Das Wiedersehen ("Reunion"). The sonata thus became one of the few instrumental works by Beethoven to have an extra-musical program attached to it. Rarely did he display his emotions as openly as he did here. Along with the earlier Op. 53 and Op. 57, this is considered one of the three major piano sonatas of Beethoven's middle period. The piece was expertly performed by Yilan Zhao.
The next work was Schumann's Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17 (1836-1839) performed by Ryan Reilly. This, of course, is one of the greatest works of the Romantic era and often considered the composer's masterpiece for piano. He began with the first movement which he entitled Ruines and intended as a tribute to his beloved Clara whom he had yet to marry over her father's objections. Appropriately enough, it contained a quotation from Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, the 1816 song cycle in which the master expressed with unparalleled intensity his longing for his distant beloved. Schumann then decided to write a longer work, of which Ruines would become the first movement, as his contribution to a planned memorial to Beethoven in his hometown of Bonn. Eventually, after the work had been rejected by two publishers, Schumann arrived at a final version which he then dedicated to Liszt, perhaps because the latter had proven to be the Beethoven monument's most generous benefactor. Since then it has become one of the most popular pieces in the piano repertoire and a virtuoso showpiece.
Following the Schumann came a modern piece by composer Paul Frucht, a doctoral candidate at Juilliard. The work was performed by Robert Fleitz who, before beginning, gave a short speech in which he mentioned that he himself had commissioned the first movement and that the work had already been given its premiere this past summer at the Danbury Music Festival. This was not the first piece I'd heard by the composer. In April, I attended a Juilliard recital at which his piano trio Levity was performed. I enjoyed this four movement ("Lilt," "Variation," "Shift" and "Pep") solo piece much more than the last and, for what my opinion is worth, thought it one of the better contemporary works I've heard recently.
The afternoon ended with two works by Liszt - his 1868 transcription of Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan and his own 1863 Rhapsodie espagnole - both performed by Christian DeLuca. It was the first that most caught my attention. I've always been amazed at Liszt's ability to reduce a full orchestral score to a composition for only one or two pianos. Several seasons ago, I heard a wonderful performance at Juilliard, coached by Seymour Lipkin and Jerome Lowenthal, of Liszt's 1853 transcription for two pianos of Beethoven's Op. 125. This performance of the Liebestod was equally engaging, and the pianist thoroughly convincing in capturing the full sense of Wagner's music. As an aside, I recently came across a fascinating article on the publisher Henle's blog detailing the printing errors Liszt had failed to catch when proofreading the 1868 and 1875 Breitkopf & Härtel editions of this work and which Henle had subsequently addressed in preparing its "urtext." As I listened to the music, I couldn't help wondering which edition the pianist at this performance had studied.
I've attended many Juilliard piano recitals over the past few seasons and have noticed that the works chosen are always the most difficult and technically challenging in the repertoire. There are no easy pieces here. Instead, the musicians are given an opportunity to display their considerable talent and skills to the fullest. They all play so well that it's sometimes difficult for a non-musician to realize how much practice must go into preparing for each piece. The final performance, usually given from memory without the use of a score, seems so effortless that it can be truly deceptive to the listener.
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