BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 (1878 and 1881)

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)

In April 1878, Brahms journeyed to Goethe’s “land where the lemon trees bloom” with two friends, the Viennese surgeon Theodor Billroth and the composer Carl Goldmark. Though he found the music of Italy ghastly (he complained of hearing one opera that consisted wholly of final cadences), he loved the cathedrals, the sculptures, the artworks and, especially, the countryside. Spring was just turning into summer during his visit, and he wrote to his friend Clara Schumann, “You can have no conception of how beautiful it is here.” Still under the spell of the beneficent Italian climate, Brahms sketched themes for his Second Piano Concerto on his return to Austria on the eve of his 45th birthday. Other matters pressed, however, and the Concerto was put aside. Three years later, during the spring of 1881, Brahms returned to Italy and he was inspired by that second trip to resume work on the Concerto. The score was completed by July. Whether or not the halcyon influence of Italy can be detected in the wondrous music of the B-flat Concerto is for each listener to decide. This work is certainly more mellow than the stormy First Concerto, introduced over twenty years earlier, but whether that quality is the result of Brahms’ trips to the sunny south, or of a decade of imbibing Viennese Gemütlichkeit, or simply of greater maturity remains a matter for speculation.

The Concerto opens with a sylvan horn call answered by sweeping arpeggios from the piano. These initial gestures are introductory to the sonata form proper, which begins with the robust entry of the full orchestra. A number of themes are presented in the exposition; most are lyrical but one is vigorously rhythmic. The development uses all the thematic material, with one section welded almost seamlessly to the next, a characteristic of all Brahms’ greatest works. The recapitulation is ushered in by the solo horn, here given a richer orchestral accompaniment than on its earlier appearance.

It is rare for a concerto to have more than three movements, but the second movement, a scherzo, was added by Brahms to provide a contrast of tonality and mood within the overall architecture of the work. The third movement is a touching nocturne based on the song of the solo cello heard immediately at the beginning. (Brahms later fitted this same melody with words as the song Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer [“My Sleep Grows Ever More Peaceful”].) An agitated central section gives way to long, magical phrases for the clarinets that lead to a return of the solo cello’s lovely theme. The finale fuses rondo and sonata elements in a style strongly reminiscent of Hungarian Gypsy music.

PROKOFIEV: Suite from Romeo and Juliet

Selections from Romeo and Juliet (1935)

SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)

When Prokofiev returned to Russia in 1933 after his long sojourn in the West, he had already acquired a reputation as a composer of ballet. His first balletic effort had been the volcanic Ala and Lolly written in 1914 for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris, whose music is better known in its concert form as the thunderous Scythian Suite. Though Diaghilev did not like the piece and refused to stage it, he remained convinced of Prokofiev’s talent and commissioned Chout (“The Buffoon”) from him in 1921 and produced it with his Ballet Russe. Le Pas d’acier (“The Steel Step”) followed in 1927 and The Prodigal Son in 1928, which was the last new ballet Diaghilev produced before his death the following year. Sur le Borysthène (“On the Dnieper”) was staged, unsuccessfully, by the Paris Opéra in 1932. The last two of these works showed a move away from the spiky musical language of Prokofiev’s earlier years toward a simpler, more lyrical style, and the Kirov Theater in Leningrad took them as evidence in 1934 that he should be commissioned to compose a full-length ballet on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After difficulties staging the ballet in Russia, Romeo and Juliet was premiered in Brno, Czechoslovakia in December 1938 and has since come to be regarded as one of Prokofiev’s most masterful creations.

Montagues and Capulets incorporates, as slow introduction, the music accompanying the Duke as he forbids further fights between the families on pain of death, the heavy-footed Dance of the Capulet Knights from the Act I ballroom scene, and a graceful transformation of the Knights’ theme to portray Juliet.

The Minuet describes the arrival of the guests at the Capulet mansion in the Act I ball scene.

The Young Juliet characterizes the several moods of the heroine, not yet fourteen years old.

The swaggering/cautious Masks depicts the arrival in masks and costumes of Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio at the ball in the house of their enemy.

The rapturous balcony scene is titled simply Romeo and Juliet.

The ecclesiastical music depicting Friar Laurence occurs as the friendly monk and Romeo await Juliet in the cleric’s cell.

The Death of Tybalt is based on the music accompanying the duel of Tybalt and Mercutio, Tybalt’s death and his funeral procession.

Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb is taken from the ballet’s final scene: Juliet’s funeral procession and Romeo’s grief at her presumed death.

The Death of Juliet is the touching music that closes the ballet.

Stéphane Denève, Conductor

Stéphane Denève is currently in his fifth season as principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra, a position that runs through the 2019-20 season. He spends multiple weeks each year with the ensemble, conducting subscription, tour, and summer concerts. His 2018-19 subscription season appearances include three weeks of concerts, two of which are devoted to a Barnes/Stokowski Festival, a celebration of the artistic passion Albert Barnes and Leopold Stokowski shared. Mr. Denève has become very well known to audiences at Verizon Hall, the Mann Center, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail, having appeared as guest conductor numerous times since making his debut in 2007. He has led more programs than any other guest conductor during that time period, in repertoire that has spanned more than 100 works, ranging from Classical through the contemporary, including presentations with dance, theater, film, and cirque performers. 

Mr. Denève is also music director of the Brussels Philharmonic and director of its Centre for Future Orchestral Repertoire (CffOR), and with the 2019-20 season will become music director of the St. Louis Symphony. He was previously chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. 

Recent engagements in Europe and Asia include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna Symphony, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the NHK Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In North America he made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 with the Boston Symphony, with which he has appeared several times, both in Boston and at Tanglewood. He regularly conducts the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony. He is also a popular guest at many of the U.S. summer music festivals, including Bravo! Vail, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Hollywood Bowl, the Blossom Music Festival, and Festival Napa Valley. Summer 2018 saw his debuts at the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West, and the 2018-19 season will see him lead a major U.S. tour with the Brussels Philharmonic. 

Mr. Denève enjoys close relationships with many of the world’s leading artists, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yo-Yo Ma, Nikolaj Znaider, James Ehnes, Leif Ove Andsnes, Leonidas Kavakos, Nicholas Angelich, Lang Lang, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Gil Shaham, Emanuel Ax, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Lars Vogt, Nikolai Lugansky, Paul Lewis, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, and Augustin Hadelich. 

In the field of opera Mr. Denève has led productions at the Royal Opera House, the Glyndebourne Festival, La Scala, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Netherlands Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and the Opéra National de Paris. 

As a recording artist, Mr. Denève has won critical acclaim for his recordings of the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Franck, and Connesson. He is a triple winner of the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, was shortlisted for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award, and won the prize for symphonic music at the International Classical Music Awards. His most recent releases are discs of Prokofiev suites and the works of Connesson with the Brussels Philharmonic (awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, the Caecilia Award, and Classica magazine’s CHOC of the Year) and a disc with the piano duo Lucas and Arthur Jussen and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all for Deutsche Grammophon. 

A graduate of, and prizewinner at, the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Denève worked closely in his early career with Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, and Seiji Ozawa. He is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners and has worked regularly with young people in the programs of the Tanglewood Music Center, the New World Symphony, the Colburn School, and the Music Academy of the West, among others. 

Photo: Jessica Griffin

Nicholas Angelich, Piano

Born in the United States in 1970, Nicholas Angelich began studying the piano at five with his mother. At the age of seven, he gave his first concert with Mozart’s Concerto K. 467. He entered at 13 the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris where he studied with Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod, Michel Beroff and Marie Françoise Bucquet. He won the First Prize for piano and chamber music. 

Nicholas Angelich followed master-classes with Leon Fleisher, Dmitri Bashkirov, and Maria Joao Pires. In 1989 he won the Second Prize of the International Piano Competition R. Casadesus in Cleveland and in 1994 the First Prize of the International Piano Competition Gina Bachauer. In 1996 he was invited as a resident of the International Piano Foundation of Cadennabia (Italy). In 2002 he received the “International Klavierfestival Ruhr - Young Talent Award” (Germany) from Leon Fleischer where he performed in June 2003. 

He made his debuts in May 2003 with the New-York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur at the Lincoln Center in New-York. Valdimir Jurowski invited him to open with him the 2007/08 season of the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow. 

He also performed with the Orchestre National de France under Marc Minkowski and Joseph Pons, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Paavo Järvi, Orchestre National de Lyon and David Robertson, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under Jesus Lopez-Cobos and Kenneth Montgomery, Saint-Petersbourg Symphony under Alexandre Dimitriev, Strasbourg and Montpellier orchestras under Jerzy Semkow, Toulouse Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden in Amsterdam and Yannick Nezet-Sequin in San Sebastian, the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne and Christian Zacharias, the SWR Baden-Baden orchestra and Michael Gielen, the Francfort Radio orchestra under Hugh Wolff and Paavo Jarvi, the Swiss-Italian Radio Orchestra and Charles Dutoit, the Tonkünstler Orchester and K. Järvi, the Seoul Philharmonic under M.-W. Chung, the London Philharmonic under Kazuchi Ono and Vladimir Jurowsky, as well as recitals in London, Munich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Rome, Lisbon, Brescia, Tokyo, Paris. He is a regular guest of the Verbier Festival and Martha Argerich’s festival in Lugano. 

Recent engagements include concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and Y. Nezet-Seguin, the Montreal Symphony, Atlanta Symphony (E. Krivine), Seoul Philharmonic (M.-W. Chung), Stuttgart Radio Orchestra and Roger Norrington, a tour with the London Philharmonic under V. Jurowski, and chamber music in North America with R. and G. Capuçon (New-York, San Francisco, Québec, Montréal, Ottawa…). He will make his debuts at the BBC Proms in July 2009 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Y. Nezet-Seguin. 

Great interpreter of classic and romantic repertoire, Nicholas Angelich played all Beethoven Sonatas and Liszt’s Années de Pélerinage in different countries. He is also very interested in 20th century music such as Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chostakovitch, Bartok, Ravel, as well as Messiaen, Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Eric Tanguy and Pierre Henry, who dedicated to him the Concerto for piano without orchestra. 

Always enthusiastic about playing chamber music, his partners are Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Maxim Vengerov, Akiko Suwanai, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin, Gérard Caussé, Alexander Kniazev, Jian Wang, Paul Meyer, the Ysaye, Prazak and Ebène Quartets. 

Photo credit: Stéphane De Bourgies