bion tsang, cello anton nel, piano tsang, cello anton nel, piano monday, april 16, 2018, 7:30 pm...

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

PLEASE SILENCE YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES

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)


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)


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)


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



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?

[email protected]

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


QUESTIONS?

[email protected]

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


QUESTIONS?

[email protected]

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




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

bion tsang, cello anton nel, piano tsang, cello anton nel, piano monday, april 16, 2018, 7:30 pm...

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