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Calgary pianist Jan Lisiecki has amassed an impressive collection of accolades at only 15 years of age. He makes his ESO debut with a tempestuous work by the young Beethoven. Interim Concertmaster Eric Buchmann performs the fiery and melodic Violin Concerto by Dmitri Kabalevsky – a perfect compliment to Stravinsky’s delightful ballet homage to the music of Pergolesi.
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3
Stravinsky: Pulcinella: Suite
Kabalevsky: Violin Concerto
Ticket 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.
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Program Information
Program
Stravinsky: Pulcinella: Suite (23')*
Kabalevsky: Violin Concerto in C major, Opus 48 (16')*
Eric Buchmann, violin
Intermission
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Opus 37 (36')*
Jan Lisiecki, piano
*Indicates approximate performance duration
Program Notes
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.
Violin Concerto in C Major, Op.48
Dmitri Kabalevsky (b. St. Petersburg, 1904 / d. Moscow, 1987)
First performed: 1948 in Moscow
This is the ESO premiere of the piece
During the Cold War, and indeed even in the first few decades following, composers who found themselves more or less at peace with the Soviet regime were regarded by the west as somehow less deserving of serious attention. Those who fell out of favour, who were charged with the serious offense of writing music which fell under the accusation of “formalism,” were seen as rebels against the Soviet authorities, and therefore as more “heroic.” But perhaps time and understanding have helped the reputations of composers such as Dmitri Kabalevsky, who seemed to prosper under the Soviet regime. His music had a natural bent toward 19th century idioms and harmonies; that, coupled with his talents for music education made his natural compositional voice one that avoided the strictures directed at many of his contemporaries, such as Shostakovich.
The education aspect of his output encompasses his only Violin Concerto, written during a period in which he wrote several works intended to be playable by gifted young performers. Its premiere was given by an 18-year-old prodigy Igor Bezrodny. It begins with a frenzied rhythmic pattern and a persistent hemiola (a pattern in which two bars in triple time are played as if they were three bars in duple time). The pace slows briefly, but the energy is quickly restored, and the challenges to the soloist are ones of articulation and varying rhythmic patterns. The second movement is in an A-B-A form in which the violin takes the lead in the first “A” section, singing a sweetly lyrical theme over gentle pulses in the orchestra. The contrasing “B” section lifts the energy and the pace somewhat, and when the “A” section returns, the main theme is played this time by the orchestra, while the violin takes flight above it. The finale is marked both Vivace (“lively”) and giocoso (“jokingly”, or “jocularly”), so needless to say, it has dash to spare, beginning mischievously quietly, but soon taking off on a mad dash, which still manages to find time for a brief cadenza before the close.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op.37
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, 1770 / d. Vienna, 1827)
First performed: April 5, 1803 in Vienna
Last ESO performance: February 2007
Two important things had happened to Beethoven by the time he got around to writing his Third Piano Concerto. The first was that he had put his “first period” behind him, and was no longer composing works inherited straight from the tradition of Haydn and Mozart, whose successor he was already deemed as being in Vienna. The second was that pianos themselves were changing; they were sturdier, and encompassed more notes than had been available previously.
“Musical politics force the author to keep his best concertos in reserve for a certain time,” Beethoven wrote to publisher Breitkopf and Härtel, seeming to dismiss his two earlier concertos in favour of the third. It premiered at a Beethoven “academy,” which also featured the first performances of the Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. Beethoven, while confident in his distinctive compositional voice by this time, was still an admirer of his forbears. His Third Piano Concerto shares the same key as one of his favourite Mozart concertos, and at a performance of the Mozart K.491 Beethoven attended with the English pianist Johann Baptist Cramer, Beethoven told his friend, “Ah, Cramer! We shall never be able to do anything like that!” And so he didn’t. Instead, Beethoven crafted a work which is instantly identifiable as his.
There is dark expectation in the extended orchestral introduction, in which all kinds of melodic ideas appear, all of which will be used throughout the long opening movement. We are nearly three and a half minutes in before the piano, which enters with three arpeggiated chords, has its first statement of the main theme. Both orchestra and piano use the same thematic material – unusual at the time, even groundbreaking to an extent. This is a close dialog of equals, giving the movement an almost symphonic feel. Another innovative feature has the piano continue to play after the long cadenza toward the end of the movement, joining the orchestra for the coda.
The Largo second movement is in a key far removed from C minor. Its lyrical E Major material is heard by solo piano first, and the mood throughout is in stark contrast to the drama of the opening movement. This music is tender, dignified and elegant, with the piano often pitted against sparse orchestral accompaniment; sometimes just strings, at other times a woodwind or two.
The finale is a rondo back in the original home key. While boisterous and more lively than the opening movement, there is still tension here, alleviated at times by some lighthearted material for both piano and orchestra. Each time the main theme, in a dancing 6/8 rhythm, returns it is altered, including being subjected to a fugue-like episode about halfway through the movement. By the end, high spirits have finally won out, and the conclusion is radiant and declamatory.
Artist Info
William Eddins, conductor
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.
Jan Lisiecki, piano
Critics call 15-year-old Jan Lisiecki an “aristocrat of the piano,” an “extraordinary talent,” “one of the most sensational young artists”, and praise him for “poetic and imaginatively executed playing”.According to the July 2010 BBC Music Magazine, Jan "is perhaps the most 'complete' pianist of his age.”
Jan had his orchestral debut at the age of 9, and has since performed as a soloist more than 50 times with orchestras in Canada and internationally, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, L’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Minnesota Orchestra, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sinfonia Varsovia, to name a few. On January 1st 2010 Jan had the honour to open the Chopin 200th Birthday celebrations from the composers’ birthplace, Żelazowa Wola. In January 2010, he gave a “dazzling” performance of the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E minor at the MIDEM Classical Awards Gala in Cannes, France. In April, Jan was asked to substitute for Nelson Freire in four concerts France, in May he opened the Seoul International Music Festival in Korea. In July he performed for Her Majesty the Queen of England and a hundred thousand people on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. Jan is already engaged for the 2011/2012 season with multiple orchestral and solo performances across the world.
Jan has played at Carnegie Hall, the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, the Seoul Arts Centre, Kaufman Hall, Salle Cortot and has shared the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman, James Ehnes, and Emanuel Ax. He has performed in the USA, Korea, China, Japan, France, Germany, England, Scotland, Italy, Guatemala, Germany, Poland and throughout Canada. Jan is a dedicated performer of chamber music and has collaborated with the New Zealand String Quartet, Quatour Ébène, and the Penderecki String Quartet, appearing on festivals including the Merano Festival, Menton Festival, d'Auvers-sur-Oise Festival, Seoul Festival, Chopin and his Europe Festival and many others in Canada and the USA.
Recognized for his poetic and mature playing, Lisiecki was awarded many prestigious awards including the 2010 "Debut Atlantic" tour, the 2010 Révélations Radio-Canada Musique, and the 2011 Jeune Artiste des Radios Francophones. Jan has won numerous major Canadian music titles. In 2009 he was awarded Grand Prize at the OSM Standard Life Competition (the youngest in history). In 2008 he won the Grand Award in both the Canadian Music Competitions (June 2008) and the Canadian Music Festival (August 2008, as the youngest in history). Jan was a prize winner in seven international competitions in the USA, Italy, England, and Japan.
In 2008, Jan performed the Chopin F minor Concerto and was named the sensation of the prestigious festival “Chopin and His Europe” in Poland. In 2009, he returned to Warsaw performing the Chopin E minor Concerto, receiving glowing reviews and praise from critics. The concerts where broadcast by the Polish Radio. Jan’s debut CD, featuring these two live performances, with Sinfonia Varsovia and Howard Shelley, was released at the beginning of 2010 by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute as catalogue No. 1 on the new “White Series”. The CD was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or Découverte award in May 2010. The Diapason magazine describes Lisiecki as “an unmannered virtuoso already with virile, and above all, irresistibly natural playing.” The BBC Music Magazines’ July 2010 review commended "Lisiecki's mature musicality,” and his “sensitively distilled” interpretation of the contrasting concerti, played “with sparkling technique as well as idiomatic pathos”, noting that “even in a crowded CD catalogue, this refreshingly unhyped CD release is one to celebrate".
Among others, Jan performances have been broadcast on CBC Canada, BBC Radio, Polish Radio, French Radio, Luxembourg Radio, Austrian Radio, and German Radio, as well as on French Television 3 and the TV 1 and 2 in Poland. Jan was featured in the CBC “Next!” Series as one of the most promising young artists in Canada, and in the Joe Schlesinger 2009 CBC National News documentary "The Reluctant Prodigy".
Jan performs frequently for various charity organizations, including the David Foster Foundation, the Polish Humanitarian Organization and the Wish Upon a Star Foundation. In June 2008 he was appointed a National Youth Representative by UNICEF Canada.
Upon the school board’s recommendation Jan was accelerated four grades and will be graduating in January 2011 from Western Canada High School in Calgary, Canada.
Eric Buchmann, violin
Eric Buchmann studied violin at the Conservatoire de Montréal and at the Université de Montréal where he earned a Bachelor of Music and a DESS degree. In 2001, he moved to Los Angeles to continue his studies at the University of Southern California. Two years later he joined the New World Symphony in Miami Beach where he played under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas and many other music directors from all over the world. His violin teachers include Sonia Jelinkova, Vladimir Landsman, Jean-François Rivest, William Preucil and Martin Chalifour.
Eric Buchmann joined the first violins section of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2006 and was appointed Assistant Concertmaster following auditions in 2009. Eric performs occasionally with the ESO as a soloist and is also a member of the Alberta Baroque Ensemble under the direction of Paul Schieman.
When not playing with the orchestra in Edmonton, you can find him with his family in Montreal or Switzerland. Traveling is one of his passions.
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