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Lise de la salle, piano8 pm Friday, February 13

BRAHMS Theme and Variations in D Minor, Op. 18b

BRAHMS Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 Aria Var. I Pi vivo Var. II Var. III Var. IV Var. V espressivo Var. VI Var. VII con vivacit Var. VIII Var. IX poco sostenuto Var. X Allegro Var. XI Moderato Var. XII Listesso tempo Var. XIII Largamente, ma non troppo Var. XIV Var. XV Var. XVI Var. XVII pi mosso Var. XVIII grazioso Var. XIX leggero e vivace (ma non troppo) Var. XX Andante Var. XXI Vivace Var. XXII Alla Musette Var. XXIII Vivace Var. XXIV Var. XXV Fuga - Moderato

I N T E R M I S S I O N

DEBUSSY Selections from Prludes, Books I and II

RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit Ondine Le Gibet Scarbo

The Folly Theater

This concert is underwritten, in part, by The Sanders & Blanche Sosland Music Fund

This concert is underwritten, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts

The Master Pianists Series is underwritten, in part, by the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation

t h e m u r i e l m c b r i e n k a u f f m a n m a s t e r p i a n i s t s s e r i e s

Additional support is also provided by:

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In her debut program on this series, the young French pianist Lise de la Salle juxtaposes two Brahms variation sets with a pair of early 20th-century French masterworks. Her choices are intriguing, because the musical and pianistic innovations of Debussy and Ravel were, in part, a reaction to what they regarded as the excesses of German romanticism. Brahms was a major exponent of that tradition. Like Beethoven, Brahms composed variations throughout his career, finding endless stimulation in the potential of melodies that seem simple on the surface. Both the sets that Ms. de la Salle plays have Baroque origins. The first, while borrowed from Brahmss own String Sextet Op. 18, is indebted both to Bachs immortal violin Chaconne and to the La Folia tune (the origin of which is not known, but which stretches back hundreds years) which was very popular in the Baroque era. The second work surely his greatest keyboard variations is based on a humble tune from a Handel harpsichord suite. Between them, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel revolutionized the world of piano. Each man brought prodigious technique and imagination to his perception of what sounds and textures could emerge from the keyboard. Regarding their respective approaches to harmony and form, both composers ignore the traditional rules about musical structure, which provides a striking contrast to the Brahms that precedes the intermission. The French portion of the program opens with selections from Debussys miraculous Prludes for piano, two volumes published in 1910 and 1913. Each movement has its own character, history, and pianistic texture. In her Debussy Prludes and Ravels virtuosic Gaspard de la nuit, Lise de la Salle surveys the achievement of these two French 20th-century titans. Theme and Variations in D Minor, Op. 18b Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

You will not find Opus 18b in any standard complete piano works of Johannes Brahms. Nearly every edition opens with the three massive sonatas, the Scherzo Opus 4, the Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Opus 9, and the Opus 10 Ballades. Volume I of most editions then moves to the two variation sets of Opus 21.

Photograph of the Eiffel Tower, c.1900(State Library of Victoria)

The apparent reason for this omission is that Opus 18b is Brahmss arrangement of the slow movement from his First String Sextet, Op.18. His manuscript of the piano version is dated September 13, 1860, which was Clara Schumanns 41st birthday. This work, his birthday gift to her that year, reflects his high regard for the original movement.

p r o g r a m n o t e s

the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.

p r o g r a m n o t e s

The stark drama and the tonality evoke the Bach D Minor Chaconne from the Second Partita for unaccompanied violin, BWV 1005. We know that Brahms knew and revered that masterpiece; many years later, after Clara had developed arthritis in her right hand, Brahms transcribed the Bach Chaconne for left hand piano (Studie No. 5, 1879). For the variations, he also drew on La Folia, a famous tune with roots extending back to the 15th century that inspired many composers from the Renaissance era to Brahmss day. The variations are gripping and inexorable, growing progressively more ominous and menacing until a veritable storm erupts in the third section. The wildness of the surging lower scales is punctuated by the sharp exclamations in the upper voices; this is Brahms at his most unbridled, reckless and passionate.

Johannes Brahms, 1855

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 Johannes Brahms

As a composer of variations, Brahms is best-known and loved for the incomparable Haydn Variations, Op. 56a and 56b (1873), which are equally splendid in both the two-piano and the orchestral versions. He had written several earlier sets of variations for solo piano, including the transcribed set that opened this program. The crowning achievement of them all is the Handel Variations, whose colossal scale and splendid invention transcend and ennoble their modest Baroque origins.

Brahms drew his theme from Handels Leons, a collection of harpsichord suites originally published in London in 1733 by Walsh. Friedrich Chrysander began his edition of the complete works of Handel in 1858. Its Volume 2, which included the harpsichord suites, appeared in the early 1860s. Brahms, who had great knowledge and respect for the music of his 18th-century predecessors, devoured the new publication. At the time, it was fairly esoteric music.

The eight-bar theme is the air from Handels Petite Suite in B-flat, although Handels original composition included five simple variations. Brahmss treatment is vastly more extensive and complex, consisting of 24 variations and a splendid concluding fugue. Throughout the variations, he maintains the strict formal outlines of the original theme, and his first variation pays tribute to Handel. From the second variation forward, however, the music is pure Brahms, with voyages through heavy chromaticism, occasional forays to the parallel and relative minor keys, one in Hungarian style, another rather like a siciliana. The level of invention is dizzying.

The Handel Variations require enormous musical intelligence and massive strength from the pianist. Like the early piano sonatas, they date from a time in the composers life when he was still a virtuoso pianist himself. This work is among the most fiendishly difficult in the entire piano literature. It is also a masterpiece of compositional and fugal technique. The closing fugue pulls out all the contrapuntal stops, employing inversion and augmentation of the fugue subject, then a combination of the two, in a monumental ascent to the musical climax of the entire work. The effect is electrifying. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel are not only Brahmss finest essay in the form; they take their place with pride alongside Bachs Goldberg Variations and Beethovens Diabelli Variations as a cornerstone of the virtuoso keyboard repertoire.

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Selections from Prludes, Books I and IIClaude Debussy (1862-1918) Every pianist has a favorite work by Debussy, but few would deny the overarching importance of the Preludes in setting forth his singular approach to the keyboard. Published in two sets of twelve in 1910 and 1913, the Preludes comprise a profusion of ideas for connecting sound, mood, and image. Everything in Debussys youth pointed toward a career as a piano virtuoso. He matriculated at the Paris Conservatoire at age ten and played Chopins Second Piano Concerto when he was twelve. Although composition eventually supplanted performance as Debussys primary focus, he remained a superb pianist his entire life. His achievement as a composer for piano is, in large part, an extension of the sound color and techniques he learned from studying Chopin.

The two books of Prludes crystallized Debussys innovative approach to the piano. Each one explores the keyboard in highly individual ways that involve pedaling, arpeggios, delicate figuration, and frequent whole tone harmonies. He was a literate and cultured man who knew many of the important painters and writers of his day as well as the other prominent musicians active in Paris. In his piano music, Debussy sought to recreate the subtle colors and play of light of the Impressionist school of painters, and to evoke the rich, layered imagery of Symbolist and Parnassus poets. The Preludes are unusual in many respects. One is that the titles occur at the end in the printed music, not at the beginning. It is as if Debussy wants your imagination to wander free as the music unfolds, before he tips his hand as to the imagery he seeks to evoke in the individual movements. The music of Spain exercised a strong attraction for Debussy. Though he only traveled there once, just across the border to attend a bullfight, he remained enchanted with the rhythms and quasi-Arabic harmonies of flamenco and Spanish guitar music. These sonorities found their way into several of the Prludes. Another striking aspect of Debussys language at the piano is his harmony. Although he was schooled in traditional 19th-century harmony, counterpoint, and form, he cared little for rules. Three summers (1880-1882) in the employ of Tchaikovskys patron Nadejda von Meck gave him early exposure to the works of Russian nationalists such as Mussorgsky and Borodin; he was enchanted with S