Angela Cheng plays Mozart

May 25, 2011, 7:30 pm

Enmax Hall, Winspear Centre

Angela Cheng plays Mozart

2010-11 Midweek Classics

  • William Eddins, conductor
    Angela Cheng, piano
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Details

Edmonton’s own Angela Cheng, a favourite with the ESO audiences since she was a teenager, returns to play Mozart’s final solo piano concerto with her good friend Bill Eddins on the podium. Two works combining the old and new are also featured. Vincenzo Tommasini fashioned several of Domenico Scarlatti’s harpsichord sonatas into a ballet, much as Stravinsky did in homage to Renaissance master Pergolesi in his famous ballet Pulcinella.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27
Scarlatti: The Good-Humoured Ladies (Arr. Tommasini)
Stravinsky: Pulcinella: Suite

click for detailed seating mapTicket Information

$65 Dress Circle (A)
$53 Terrace (B)
$39 Orchestra (C)
$25 Upper Circle (D)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
Tickets subject to applicable service charges.

Thank you to our media sponsor: espace musique

This performance will be recorded by CBC for future broadcast.

Program Info

Program

TOMMASINI
Le donne di buon umore (“The Good-Humoured Ladies” – after Scarlatti) (21’)*
Overture: Allegro
Presto
Allegro
Andante
Non presto, in tempo di ballo
Cat’s Fugue and Finale: Presto
 
STRAVINSKY
Pulcinella: Suite (23’)*
Sinfonia (Overture)
Serenata
Scherzino – Allegro – Andantino
Tarantella
Toccata
Gavotta con due variazioni
Duetto: Vivo
Minuetto e Finale
 
INTERMISSION (20 minutes)
 
MOZART
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K.595 (33’)*
Allegro (cadenza by Mozart)
Larghetto
Allegro (cadenza by Mozart)
 
Program subject to change
*Indicates approximate performance duration


Program Notes

Le donne di buon umore (“The Good-Humoured Ladies” – after Scarlatti)
Vincenzo Tommasini (b. Rome, 1878 / d. Rome, 1950)
 
First performance of the ballet: April 1917 in Rome
This is the ESO premiere of the piece
 
The first two works on this evening’s program are 20th-century updates of music written much earlier. In the case of the Stravinsky work (see below), the re-working is much more detailed and elaborate, while tonight’s opening piece is a much more “literal” translation. Moreover, both works were conceived as ballets for Sergei Diaghilev’s Paris-based Ballets russes company.
 
For the story of Le donne di buon umore (“The Good-Humoured Ladies”), Diaghilev turned to a comedy by Carlo Goldoni, about a count disguised as a woman at a carnival. For choreography, Diaghilev enlisted Léonide Massine. And for music, he asked Vincenzo Tommasini to orchestrate several keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). Soon after the ballet’s premiere, Tommasini excerpted six of the movements into a concert suite. Scarlatti wrote hundreds of single-movement sonatas for harpsichord, and Tommasini’s orchestration leaves the music nearly intact, but uses modern orchestral colours as a way of bringing the old-fashioned story told in the dance to modern life.
 
 
Pulcinella: Suite
Igor Stravinsky (b. Oranienbaum, 1882 / d. New York, 1971)
 
First performance of the ballet: May 15, 1920 in Paris
Last ESO performance of the suite: January 2003
 
It was probably only a matter of time before two of the darlings of the arts scene in early 20th-century Europe were brought together. It was Eugenia Errazuriz – a patron of both men – who first tried to unite Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso. “One day…you must collaborate with him,” she wrote Stravinsky in early 1917. “What a genius! As great as you are, cher maître.”
 
Sergei Diaghilev first conceived of having Picasso do scenes for Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, but Stravinsky balked at the idea. Gradually, the creation of Pulcinella took shape, with designs by Picasso, and with Stravinsky using unknown music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). The original playbill for Pulcinella said “Music by Pergolesi, arranged and orchestrated by Igor Stravinsky.” But there are two reasons why that billing is inaccurate. The first is that Stravinsky did much more than arrange and orchestrate – he completely re-imagined the music, making it very much his own piece. And secondly, it was soon learned that the reason that the music Stravinsky chose was so “unknown” was that almost none of it was actually composed by Pergolesi, but by Domenico Gallo, Fortunato Chelleri, Alessandro Parisotti, and perhaps others.
 
Fortunately, none of this has any bearing on this delightful score. The full ballet calls for three solo voices in addition to the orchestra, but Stravinsky took 11 movements of his work, and fashioned them into an orchestra-only suite for the concert hall. The Overture has a beguiling sense of the old-fashioned to it, while the Serenata which follows it is a tender courtly dance begun and ended on oboe (Lidia Khaner). It leads without a break into the three-part third movement, a Scherzino (or “little Scherzo”) followed by a darting Allegro section, concluding with an Andantino with a gentle, outdoors feeling to it. A mercurial Tarantella is next, with steps far too quick to actually be danced to, followed without a pause by a trumpet-announced Toccata (“touch piece”). Next is a Gavotta, a gentle dance movement presented as a theme followed by two variations in different tempos. A broadly-humoured Vivo is next, with strident announcements in the lower brass. The final movement is in two parts; a Minuetto begins almost tentatively, but becomes ennobled as it emerges. The lively Finale is a brisk and bright conclusion.
 
 
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K.595
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (b. Salzburg, 1756 / d. Vienna, 1791)
 
First performed: March 4, 1791 in Vienna
Last ESO performance: June 2003
 
Much of the year 1790 was not a happy one for Mozart, but he began to feel a sense of rejuvenation as the new year – the final year of his life – approached. Early in 1791, he began composing prolifically once again, and among the compositions from this time was the first piano concerto he had written in three years. It was to be his last.
 
The work has a strange beginning. After the briefest rustle in the strings, a melody begins, but is constantly intruded upon, and the music continues in a continuous state of unsettledness; even keys are wandered into and out of – it’s as if questions are being asked without any answers provided. Finally, after several minutes, the piano enters, and while its introduction is also interrupted by the tutti, there is much more of a sense of direction and predictable key signature now. The pace is Allegro, but there is restraint here, and the dialog between orchestra and piano is much more integrated than many of Mozart’s concertos. The development section takes the music into some unusual modulations once again, with some beautiful woodwind colours contrasting the lush string sound. Even here, thematic unity maintains an almost logical flow to this long movement. The cadenza seems also to build up out of fragments of the main material, becoming a nimble reflection of what had come before. The movement ends quietly in the orchestra.
 
The slow movement is a Larghetto in E-flat Major, by turns tender and noble sounding. The orchestra is given as much of the drama and musical heft as the soloist, and there is a delicate sense of propulsion always moving the music along. The finale is in a favourite Mozart form: a 6/8 Rondo. The melody skips merrily out of the piano at its first appearance, and the material which contrasts with the recurring theme does little to change the happy – though hardly riotous – mood. This is Mozart at his elegant best, keeping a charge to the music through unexpected rhythms and the occasional left turn into unusual keys, but maintaining unity of melody and pacing by never overstating anything. The cadenza is a virtuosic series of brief meditations on the rondo melody, the strings gently joining its last moments before ushering in the coda.
 
Program Notes © 2011 by D.T. Baker

Artist Info

William Eddins, conductor

william eddins

William Eddins is in his sixth season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has made it a priority that he conduct performances in nearly every subscription series the orchestra has presented, as well as a wide variety of special concerts and galas.

Bill Eddins began playing the piano at age five, but was bitten by the conducting bug while in his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music. In 1989, he decided to begin conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California. Assistant Conductorships with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony (the latter under the leadership of Daniel Barenboim) honed his skills even further.

Mr. Eddins has many interests outside music. He is fond of biking, tennis, reading, pinball, and cooking. He recently completed building his own recording studio at his home in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Jen (a clarinetist), and their sons Raef and Riley. While conducting has been his principal pursuit, he continues to perform on piano in Edmonton and elsewhere. He accepts a limited number of guest appearances each year. In 2008, he conducted a rare full staging of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Opéra de Lyon, which won him great acclaim, leading to a repeat engagement in Lyon in July and September 2010, as well as Edinburgh in August 2010, and in London in September 2010. During August 2009, Bill toured South Africa, conducting three gala concerts with soprano Renée Fleming and the kwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Angela Cheng, piano

angela chengConsistently praised for her brilliant technique, tonal beauty and superb musicianship, Edmonton-raised pianist Angela Cheng is a national treasure. In addition to regular guest appearances with virtually every orchestra in Canada, she has also performed with the Alabama Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Syracuse Symphony, Utah Symphony, and the Israel Philharmonic. At the invitation of Pinchas Zukerman, Ms. Cheng toured China with the Zukerman Chamber Players in May 2009, and joined them again in the 2009-2010 season for a U.S. tour. Mr. Zukerman also invited her to open the season of the National Arts Center Orchestra. 
 
An avid recitalist, Angela Cheng appears regularly on recital series throughout the United States and Canada, and has collaborated with numerous chamber ensembles including the Takács, Colorado, and Vogler quartets. Ms. Cheng's debut recording of two Mozart concerti with Mario Bernardi and the CBC Vancouver Orchestra received glowing reviews. Other CDs include Clara Schumann's Concerto in A Minor with JoAnn Falletta and the Women's Philharmonic for Koch International; for CBC Records, four Spanish concertos with Hans Graf and the Calgary Philharmonic, both Shostakovich concertos with Mario Bernardi and the CBC Radio Orchestra; a solo disc of selected works of Clara and Robert Schumann; and, most recently, an all-Chopin recital CD released by Universal Music Canada. Angela Cheng has been Gold Medalist of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition, as well as the first Canadian to win the prestigious Montréal International Piano Competition. Other awards include the Canada Council’s coveted Career Development Grant and the Medal of Excellence for outstanding interpretations of Mozart from the Mozarteum in Salzburg. 
 
Ms. Cheng last appeared with the ESO in March 2010.

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