Program 

 Program is subject to change

 Program Notes 

(Notes by Michael Lebovitch)

BEETHOVEN:  Piano Sonata in E-flat major, Op.31 No.3, “The Hunt” (1808)        
With the three piano sonatas that make up Beethoven’s Op. 31, he entered the so-called middle period, also referred to as his “heroic” period.  The wonderful thing with Op. 31 sonatas is that we are witnessing the transition from early to middle period – they are not yet in the “heroic” style, with the monumental scale of the Rasumovsky Quartets and the Eroica Symphony.  And yet, the seeds are there, the signs of true maturity.

The E-flat major sonata Op. 31 No. 3, composed and published in 1802, is at once bright and soft, none of the “heroic” gloom yet, but great tenderness right from the beginning bars.  Technical brilliance and lyrical assurance, mingled with good humor, are found together in a very relaxed way.  As common with Beethoven: his instructions to the performer are very specific - the sonata should not be played too quickly or hurriedly.  In the opening movement, the irregular runs in semiquavers (sixteenth-note runs) and demisemiquavers (thirty-second note runs) define the tempo, and in addition, there are several gradual decelerations in the tempo that form transitions that have to be precisely executed.  The second subject is a charming, song-like melody above a simple bass accompaniment.  In the development section of the movement, things get a bit stormier, the lyrical mood becomes more comic, the energy level is raised by skipping intervals and strong dynamic contrasts, with tension being enhanced by the crossed-hand motion.

The Scherzo Second movement is, unusually so, marked Allegretto vivace.  In Beethoven’s mind the “Allegretto” here is less of a tempo indication than of a mood: it requires a dance-like lightness, driven by a certain amount of energy with occasional outburst of fortissimo chords. The Third movement is a minuet marked Moderato e grazioso which is a contradiction in itself.  It shows Beethoven as a wonderful melodist (this melody was used by other composers, including Saint-Saens, for their own sets of variations).  The final Fourth movement is unquestionably a purely pianistic movement: highly virtuosic, full of energy.  Here we finally hear the galloping horse in a hunting chase, giving the piano sonata its “Hunt” label. 

SCHUMANN:  Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15 (1838)

Friedrich Wieck of Leipzig was one of the most renowned piano teachers of his day, eagerly sought out for the discipline and effectiveness of his teaching by many talented and ambitious students, including Robert Schumann, who placed himself under Wieck’s stern tutelage in 1829. Schumann showed such promise that Wieck took him into his household for full-time instruction, a common practice in those days.  The story of his infatuation for Wieck’s young daughter, Clara, is very well known.  By the middle of the 1830s, the affair was causing Wieck serious concern.  By this time, Schumann abandoned hopes for a career of a concert pianist, having damaged a finger, instead focusing on composition and editing a fledgling music journal. 

Op. 15 Kinderszenen is a cycle of tiny character pieces most certainly inspired by Schumann’s feelings for Clara, in fact they suggest a remark she made that Schumann sometimes seems to her like a child.  This set is so well known that the skill with which it is composed and integrated into a series of short pieces is easily overlooked.  Schumann declared that the titles came to him after the music, indicating that the musical ideas and contrasts were more important.  These miniature gems show Schumann an extraordinary storyteller using the language of music.

DEBUSSY:      L’Isle Joyeuse (1904)

The 1904 composition L’Isle Joyeuse is one of Debussy’s works that represents a “musical picture” that depicts a work of art or a nature scene, in this case a specific painting by Antoine Watteau, his famous L’Embarquument pour Cythere (“The Embarkation for Cythera” which is currently at the Louvre museum). The other island implicated in the title, which uses the English spelling ‘Isle’, is the Channel Island of Jersey. In 1904, Debussy escaped to that “island of joy” with Emma Bardac, who became his second wife.  There he completed L’Isle Joyeuse that same year.  This virtuoso piece is highly popular with pianists and audiences alike, deservedly so.

RACHMANINOV:      Moments Musicaux, op.16 (1896)      

Rachmaninov’s Moments Musicaux, Op. 16 were composed while he was waiting for the premier of his First Symphony completed the prior year.  The symphony’s performance in March 1897 was such a disaster that it rendered him unable to compose for the next three years.  But in 1896 his confidence was still intact, showing him a composer full of ideas and in command of compositional technique.  The fusion of Rachmaninov the supreme piano virtuoso and Rachmaninov the inspired composer achieved a new intensity.  The technical demands in the intricate passage-work in some pieces, the relentless 32nd-note figurations in last Moment, the singing poetry in the slower Moments – all are indications that Rachmaninov is using the piano in a bold new way, his own, unique style of piano-writing.

The poignant Andantino of the first Moment is followed by Allegretto, typical of Rachmaninov style of moving the romantic theme to the right hand with bravura, intricate passage-work.  The third piece is a meditative Andante cantabile – somber, through which there is an occasional shaft of sunlight.  This leads to a brilliant Presto.  The last two pieces of the set turn to major keys, with the optimistic Adagio sostenuto and a grandiose concluding Maestoso.  This set, undoubtably, placed Rachmaninov at the pinnacle of the greatest composers-pianists of the 20th century – it is a permanent staple of every great pianist’s repertoire.

 About the Artists 

Fei-Fei, piano

Praised for her “bountiful gifts and passionate immersion into the music she touches” (The Plain Dealer), Chinese pianist Fei-Fei is a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and a top finalist at the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She continues to build a reputation for her poetic interpretations, charming audiences with her “passion, piquancy and tenderness” and “winning stage presence” (Dallas Morning News).

Her burgeoning career includes a number of prominent concerto engagements in the 2017-18 season, including performances with the American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Music Festival, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Long Beach Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Denver Philharmonic, Knoxville Symphony, and a return engagement with California’s Pacific Symphony for a special performance celebrating the Chinese New Year. This season, Fei-Fei also performs in recital in ten states across the United States as well as nineteen cities in China.

In addition to her summer 2017 performances at the Bard Music Festival, recent festival highlights include Bravo! Vail Valley, Music at Menlo, Busan International Music Festival (Korea), Nantucket Musical Arts Society and the Highlands Chamber Music, Music Mountain and Lake George Music Festivals.

Fei-Fei was showcased prominently as a Cliburn finalist in the documentary film, Virtuosity, about the 2013 Cliburn Competition, which premiered on PBS in August 2015, and she has also been featured numerous times on New York’s WQXR radio.

Career concerto highlights in the US include the Fort Worth Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, Austin Symphony, Anchorage Symphony, Youngstown Symphony, and the Juilliard Orchestra. Internationally, she has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Germany’s Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, and in China with the Shanxi and Shenzhen Symphony Orchestras. In December 2016, she performed the world premiere of Shaosheng Li's piano concerto Behind the Clouds with the China National Symphony at Beijing Concert Hall. She has worked with such prominent conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Stern, Jeffrey Kahane, Carl St. Clair, Leon Botstein, Randall Craig Fleisher, John Giordano, Yongyan Hu, and En Shao.

Fei-Fei has performed in recital at Alice Tully Hall as the winner of Juilliard’s 33rd Annual William Petschek Recital Award. Other notable recent recitals in the US include her Weill Recital Hall debut at Carnegie Hall, Gilmore Rising Stars (Kalamazoo, MI), the Smithsonian American Museum in DC, SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center and The Cliburn’s spring 2015 Chopin Festival, and in Europe at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall and the Louvre.

She is a member of the Aletheia Piano Trio, which debuted at the Kennedy Center in February 2014 as part of its Conservatory Project, and performs across the US and in Asia. Deeply committed to sharing her joy for music and connecting with communities, Fei-Fei also engages students and community audiences through frequent school and outreach concerts and master classes.

Born in Shenzhen, China, Fei-Fei began piano lessons at the age of 5. She moved to New York to study at The Juilliard School, where she earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees under the guidance of Yoheved Kaplinsky.

Fei-Fei appears by special arrangement with Concert Artists Guild