BION TSANG, CELLOANTON NEL, PIANO
Monday, April 16, 2018, 7:30 PM
Bates Recital Hall
This concert will last approximately two hours with one intermission.
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in F major, Op. 17 (1800)
(1770–1827) Allegro moderato
Poco Adagio, quasi Andante
Rondo. Allegro moderato
Leonard Bernstein Three Meditations from Mass (1971)
(1918–1990) Lento assai, molto sostenuto
Andante sostenuto
Presto—Fast and primitive—Molto adagio
Claude Debussy Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915)
(1862–1918) Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto
Sérénade: Modérément animé, Fantasque et léger
Finale: Animé, Léger et nerveux
Intermission
Johannes Brahms Sonata in F major, Op. 99 (1886)
(1833–1897) Allegro vivace
Adagio affettuoso
Allegro passionato
Allegro molto
PROGRAM
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ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Ludwig van BeethovenSonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 17
Born: December 1770, Bonn, Germany
Died: March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria
Composed: Originally scored for horn in 1800, but also arranged for cello by
Beethoven—dedicated to Baroness Josefine von Braun
Premiere: April 18, 1800, in Vienna with Beethoven (piano) and Giovanni
Punto (French horn)
Duration: 14 minutes
Ludwig van Beethoven was arguably the predominant musical figure in the
transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in music history
following Mozart and Haydn. Born into a family of musicians, Beethoven’s
grandfather was a bass singer who would eventually become Kapellmeister
(music director) at the court of the Electorate of Cologne, and his father,
Johann Beethoven, was also a singer in the choir.
With the Elector’s help, Beethoven would leave his hometown of Bonn
and permanently move to Vienna in 1792 to begin composition lessons
with Joseph Haydn and also establish his career. He would become a great
success, making a comfortable living from concerts, commissions, and
publishing scores. From 1793 to the year of composition of the Horn Sonata,
Beethoven’s output consisted of over 100 pieces for solo and chamber
music—including the premiere of his first symphony on April 2, 1800.
The piece was written to showcase the virtuoso horn player of the day—
Giovanni Punto—who was playing a natural horn (a French horn with
no valves) at the time, making it much more difficult for the accuracy of
notes. In order to assure the pieces’ success in print, the first (and only
surviving) source edition dated on March 1801 by publisher Tranquillo Mollo
was accompanied by a solo part for cello with markings by Beethoven
himself. Considered Beethoven’s early compositional style, one can hear the
influences of Haydn’s Classical style in the Sonata in F major.
Leonard BernsteinThree Meditations from Mass for Cello and Piano
Born: August 25, 1918, Lawrence, Massachusetts
Died: October 14, 1990, New York City, New York
Composed: Version for cello and piano composed in 1971
Premiere: Version for piano and cello premiered March 28, 1972, at the
Institute of International Education in New York with Stephen Kates (cello)
and Leonard Bernstein (piano)
Duration: 16 minutes
Longtime director of the New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein was
one of the most influential composers, conductors, educators, performers,
and public personalities of the 20th century. As a composer, he wrote in
many different mediums for orchestra, ballet, film, musical, opera, and
chamber music.
Though it’s difficult to categorize Bernstein’s compositional style as he
consistently blurred, crossed, and disintegrated the boundaries of specific
genres, styles, and tonalities, he found influence in the music of Dmitri
Shostakovich, George Gershwin, and Aaron Copland, and was known to
combine classical and modern-day styles, often described as eclecticism.
Bernstein’s original Mass (A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and
Dancers) was composed at the request of Jackie Kennedy for the opening
of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
on September 8, 1971. Sections from Mass were later arranged by the
composer for cello and piano into Three Meditations and given its premiere
in 1972. The version for cello and orchestra would be premiered in 1977,
with the composer conducting the National Symphony Orchestra, with
Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist.
The piece itself—as evidenced by the title—centers around the celebrations
of Roman Catholic rituals while simultaneously questioning, doubting,
protesting, and reflecting upon—both positive and negative—all those who
attend and perceive this ritual.
Claude DebussySonata for Cello and Piano
Born: August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Died: March 25, 1918, Paris, France
Composed: During World War I—July to August 1915
Premiere: March 4, 1916, in Aeolian Hall, London, England with C. Warwick
Evans (cello) and Alfred Hobday (piano)
Duration: 11 minutes
Born into a family with little money, Claude Debussy began taking piano
lessons at age seven, and his obvious gift on the instrument sent him to
the Paris Conservatory at age 10, where he would spend the next decade
studying composition with opera composer Ernest Guiraud.
During the late 19th century, French music had been heavily influenced by
Romantic period composers Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. Though
Debussy’s instructors and fellow colleagues recognized his talent, they often
found his harmonic usage of post-romantic tonalities, chromaticism, and
musical innovations strange—or as some called it (though Debussy himself
didn’t like the term to describe his music), impressionism.
In 1914, Debussy intended to write a cycle of six individual sonatas
inspired by the compositional traditions of 18th century French
composers François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Debussy was
only able to compose sporadically at this time, a lull brought on by a
diagnosis of colon cancer and a season of deep depression. He would
complete only three of the six sonatas: the Sonata for Cello and Piano
(1915), Sonata for Flute, Violin and Harp (1915) and Sonata for Violin
and Piano (1916–1917).
The sonata demonstrates Debussy’s late style of chamber music—with
dissonant harmonies and progressions without much resolution, while also
nodding back to the musical traditions of the 18th century.
Johannes BrahmsSonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 99
Born: May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany
Died: April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria
Composed: Summer of 1886 in Thun, Switzerland
Premiered: Vienna’s Kleiner Musikvereinssaal on November 24, with Robert
Hausmann (cello), Johannes Brahms (piano)
Duration: 28 minutes
A famous anecdote described Brahms’ visit to a local pub one evening,
claiming that he spent five hours writing down one single note only to
have erased it. He was known for his unforgiving scrutiny, even towards his
own works. His surviving pieces, scholars have suggested, are likely a very
small fraction of what he wrote in total.
Brahms is credited with reviving chamber music after the death of his
close friend and composer Robert Schumann (1810–1856), one of its
greatest early Romantic practitioners. The period in which Brahms wrote
the Sonata for Cello and Piano was during a time of much success. Already
an established composer, he had just finished writing his third and fourth
symphonies (1883 and 1885 respectively) and had written over 200 pieces
for various genres including songs for voice, sonatas, symphonies, and
various works for chamber music.
Brahms’ music remained true to tradition. He maintained a conservative
sense of form and harmony in contrast to the lavishness of his
contemporaries from the “New German School,” led mainly by Franz
Liszt and Richard Wagner. Though Brahms was committed to carrying a
conservative post-Beethoven mantle, he was heavily criticized and insulted
by critics and composers who favored a more progressive approach.
The public reaction to the Cello Sonata was a certain degree of unease,
but critics soon praised the work for its varied character. A worthy sibling
of his prior piece, Symphony No. 4, the Sonata in F major is youthful and
symphonic, with song-like melodies throughout.
Cellist Bion Tsang is internationally recognized
as one of the outstanding instrumentalists of his
generation: among his many honors are an Avery
Fisher Career Grant, an MEF Career Grant and the
Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky
Competition. Mr. Tsang earned a 2010 Grammy
nomination for his performance on the 2009 PBS
special A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert.
Mr. Tsang’s chamber music career has also been a distinguished one,
marked by collaborations with such artists as violinists Pamela Frank,
Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne Akiko Meyers and Kyoko Takezawa
and Chee Yun, violist Michael Tree, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Gary Karr and
pianist Leon Fleisher. He has been a frequent guest artist of the Chamber
Music Societies of Boston, Brooklyn, and Fort Worth, Chamber Music
International of Dallas, Da Camera of Houston, Camerata Pacifica of Los
Angeles, and Bargemusic in New York. He has also performed at such
festivals as Marlboro Music Festival, the Cape Cod, Tucson, Portland,
and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, the Bard Festival, Bravo! Colorado,
Music in the Vineyards, and the Laurel Festival of the Arts, where he
served as Artistic Director for ten years.
Mr. Tsang resides in Austin, Texas, where he is division head of strings
and holds the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Cello at the Sarah
and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin.
He was the recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Award after just his first
year of service and in 2004–2005 was named “Instrumentalist of the Year”
by the Austin Critics Table. In 2005–2006 he was also visiting professor at
Indiana University in Bloomington.
Mr. Tsang received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.M.A.
from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. His other cello
teachers included Ardyth Alton, Luis Garcia-Renart, William Pleeth,
Channing Robbins and Leonard Rose.
ABOUT BION TSANG
Anton Nel, winner of the first prize in the 1987
Naumburg International Piano Competition at
Carnegie Hall, enjoys a remarkable and multifaceted
career that has taken him to North and South
America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa. Following
an auspicious debut at the age of twelve with
Beethoven’s C major Concerto after only two years
of study, the Johannesburg native captured first
prizes in all the major South African competitions while still in his teens,
toured his native country extensively and became a well-known radio
and television personality.
A student of Adolph Hallis, he made his European debut in France in
1982, and in the same year graduated with highest distinction from the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He came to the United
States in 1983, attending the University of Cincinnati, where he pursued
his Master and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees under Bela Siki and Frank
Weinstock. In addition to garnering many awards from his alma mater
during this period he was a prizewinner at the 1984 Leeds International
Piano Competition in England and won several first prizes at the Joanna
Hodges International Piano Competition in Palm Desert in 1986. Mr. Nel’s
nearly four decades of concertizing feature an active repertoire of more
than 100 works for piano and orchestra including performances with the
Cleveland Orchestra, the symphonies of Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle,
Detroit, and London, among many others.
An acclaimed Beethoven interpreter, Mr. Nel has performed the concerto
cycle several times, most notably on two consecutive evenings with
the Cape Philharmonic in 2005. He was also chosen to give the North
American premiere of the newly discovered Piano Concerto No. 3 in E
Minor by Felix Mendelssohn in 1992. Two noteworthy world premieres
of works by living composers include Virtuoso Alice by David Del Tredici
(dedicated to, and performed by Mr. Nel at his Lincoln Center debut in
1988) as well as Stephen Paulus’s Piano Concerto also written for Mr. Nel;
the acclaimed world premiere took place in New York in 2003.
ABOUT ANTON NEL
UPCOMING BUTLER OPERA CENTER PRODUCTION
Falstaffby Guiseppe Verdi
CONDUCTOR
Kelly Kuo
DIRECTOR
Robert DeSimone
Friday, April 20, 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 22, 4:00 PM
Friday, April 27, 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 29, 4:00 PM
All performances in
McCullough Theatre
ABOUT THE OPERA
Falstaff revolves around the farcical (and generally thwarted)
efforts of the “fat knight,” Sir John Falstaff, to seduce two
married women to gain access to their husbands’ wealth. Shining
with originality and composed when Verdi was nearly 80, this
opera is proof that age took nothing from the master.
TICKETS
music.utexas.edu/concerts
QUESTIONS?
UPCOMING NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE CONCERT
The University of Texas New Music EnsembleWednesday, April 25, 7:30 PM
Bates Recital Hall
CONDUCTOR
Dan Welcher
VISITING COMPOSER
David Gompper
CLARINET SOLOIST
Jonathan Gunn
David Gompper Traceur II
Russell PinkstonOff Leash
Keith Allegretti Elegy and Tarantella
David Gompper Butterfly Dance
TICKETS
music.utexas.edu/concerts
QUESTIONS?
UPCOMING SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT
The University of Texas Symphony OrchestraMonday, April 30, 7:30 PM
Bates Recital Hall
CONDUCTOR
Gerhardt Zimmermann
SAXOPHONE SOLOIST
Calvin Wong
W.A. MozartSymphony No. 40 in G minor
Henri TomasiConcerto for Alto Saxophone
Edward Elgar“Nimrod” from Enigma Variations
Hector BerliozRákóczi March
TICKETS
music.utexas.edu/concerts
QUESTIONS?
UPCOMING CONCERTS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN • COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS
Douglas Dempster, Dean
SARAH AND ERNEST BUTLER SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Mary Ellen Poole, Director
For more information about Butler School of Music concerts and events, visit our online
calendar at music.utexas.edu/calendar.
Become a member of The Butler Society and help us successfully launch tomorrow’s
brightest performers, teachers, composers, and scholars. Make a gift today at
music.utexas.edu/giving
The University of Texas Early Music EnsembleTuesday, April 17, 7:30 PM
Recital Studio, MRH 2.608
BUTLER OPERA CENTER PRESENTS
FalstaffFriday, April 20, 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 22, 4:00 PM
Friday, April 27, 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 29, 4:00 PM
McCullough Theatre
The University of Texas Wind EnsembleSunday, April 29, 4:00 PM
Bates Recital Hall
The University of Texas Jazz EnsembleThursday, May 3, 7:30 PM
Bates Recital Hall