With 2010 commemorating 200 years since Frederic Chopin’s birth, there were celebrations at midnight on January 1st in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, Chopin’s birthplace, 60 kilometers west of Warsaw. The Warsaw Philharmonic Hall launched Chopin Year celebrations with a symphony concert January 7th. In Poland, highlights of the Chopin Year will include the “Chopin and his Europe” International Festival in Warsaw (August 2-31) and the 14th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (October 2-23.) The Polish Year in Poland is the initiative of the Polish Ministry of Culture and the Fryderyk Chopin Institute (Warsaw.)
The Eila Eitan public relations agency and the Polish Institute hosted an informative and enjoyable morning meeting at the Felicja Blumental Center in Tel Aviv December 29th 2009 to enlighten those present as to the very many events taking place in Israel throughout 2010 as part of the Chopin Year. (The Polish Institute is an extension of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs that promotes Polish culture and cooperation in the areas of arts, society, education and science.) Ms. Joanna Stachyra, director of the Polish Institute in Israel, welcomed those gathered. Mentioning the fact that Chopin’s music is understood and performed all over the world, she talked about the many activities and concerts taking place in Poland during the year – concerts, workshops and competitions in Warsaw and other locations as well as the opening of the new interactive Chopin Museum March 1st in Warsaw.
The press conference at the Felicja Blumental Music Center opened with the audience viewing a few minutes of Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski’s 2009 documentary film “Unquiet Traveller” . Anderszewski (b.1968 Warsaw) muses on Chopin, saying that although his “costume remains impeccable”, anguish and “screams” lie behind the composer’s transparent musical style.
Leah Agmon, director of the Edward Aldwell Center, spoke of the emphasis on education of the Israel Chopin Year activities opening with the International Chopin Symposium and Festival January 3rd to 7th 2010, a conference of lectures, workshops and master classes organized by Dr. Tamara Balter at the Edward Aldwell Center of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Giv’at Ram campus, in collaboration with the Polish Institute. Maestro Murray Perahia presented the opening address. Lecturing and guiding participants were Professor John Rink (Cambridge University), Professor Carl Schachter (Queens College and CUNY), Professor Assaf Zohar (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance), Professor William Rothstein (Queens College and CUNY), Professor Halina Goldberg (Indiana University), Professor Eytan Agmon (Bar Ilan University), Professor Alexander Tamir (JAMD, Eden-Tamir Music Center), Professor Roger Kamien (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Professor Andrej Jasinski (Katowice Academy of Music). www.aldwell.com
An interesting concert series will be presented by the Center for Chamber Music of the Lynn and Ted Arison Israeli Conservatory of Music (Stricker Conservatorium) in Tel Aviv. Grouped under the title of "Echoes of Heritage”, the series will begin January 15th with a lecture by Dr. Ron Regev and will be followed by seven recitals, each focusing on a specific theme or style. Performers will be Daniel Gortler, Ron Regev, Ido Barshai, Yaron Kohlberg, Matan Porat, Benjamin Hochman, Roman Rabinovich and Shlomi Shem-Tov. A special concert, under the auspices of the Polish Institute and the Adam Mitskevich Institute, will be performed by the highly acclaimed Polish pianist Karol Radziwonowicz. More information on these concerts can be found on www.icm.org.il/chamber
Professor Alexander Tamir spoke of the Chopin Society in Israel and its plans for the Chopin Year. Established by Tamir and the late Bracha Eden, the Chopin Society of Israel (a member of the International Federation of Chopin Societies - educational organizations running small competitions and concerts in schools and music conservatories) in conjunction with Kol Yisrael, the Edward Aldwell Center and the Polish Institute, hopes to have all of Chopin’s piano works performed during the course of the year. Six concerts will take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. Among events taking place, the listening public will be able to hear very young pianists playing their favorite Chopin piece, young composers’ original works inspired by Chopin’s music and works of both Chopin and Robert Schumann (Schumann was also born in 1810.) Four of the events will be included in the 2010 Israel Festival. The Andrej Jagodinski Piano Trio will be performing a concert of Polish jazz. For more detail, please refer to www.einkeremmusicenter.org.il
Director of the Felicja Blumental Music Center Avigail Arnheim spoke of a Chopin event of a different kind to take place May 14th 2010 at the Blumental Center in Tel Aviv. “An Appointment with Chopin” will focus on the Romantic, nationalistic, lyrical and musical aspects of Chopin the composer and virtuoso pianist. The audience will hear Leila Silberstein, Yoni Farchi and Tomer Gevirtz performing Chopin piano pieces interspersed with readings of texts by Baudelaire, Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (b.1923), Georges Sand, Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. www.fbmc.co.il
Guests of the meeting enjoyed some fine playing of Chopin piano pieces by Ariel Lenny (12) and Itai Meir (16), both young pianists taking part in the Edward Aldwell Center’s program for outstanding pianists.
Showing posts with label Master classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Master classes. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Murray Perahia in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
Pianist Murray Perahia, president of the Jerusalem Music Centre, was in Jerusalem conducting master classes for pianists at the JMC from April 19th to April 23rd. This workshop focused on Schenkerian analysis as a guide to better understanding of the construction of works being performed. Joining him was Professor Roger Kamien (Dept. of Musicology, Hebrew University) who presented four lectures on Schenkerian analysis during the week. Perahia performed a solo recital at the Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv, April 26th.
Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was an Austrian musician whose analytical approach involved looking beneath the immediate surface of music to find large-scale shapes and patterns as a guide to more meaningful playing. Young musicians taking part in Perahia’s master classes were required to present the maestro with a written musical analysis of pieces they were to play. The workshop began with Berenika Glixman’s performance of J.S.Bach’s Partita no. 4 in D major, BWV 828; it was Perahia’s wish to begin the week with Bach, to discuss the shapes and construction of a musical text in which Bach indicates no direction. This was, however, no academic exercise: Perahia talked of Bach the great harmonist, Bach the improviser, of the emotional meaning of modulation, of dissonance and consonance, of building melodic and harmonic intensity towards the highest point of a phrase. Perahia worked with Glixman on the delicate playing of inner voices, mentioning the many long hours he himself had spent working on inner voices.
During the four days of master classes, sixteen outstanding young pianists performed works of Bach, as well as Classical and Romantic composers, to an excited and involved audience of students, piano teachers and music enthusiasts crowded into the auditorium of the JMC.
Murray Perahia’s recital at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv was hosted by the JMC and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Proceeds from the concert went to the training of young musicians and the promotion of excellence in music-making in Israel. Born in the USA in 1947, Perahia is one of the most sought-after pianists of today. He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London, and has recently embarked on an ambitious project to edit the complete Beethoven Sonatas for the Henle Urtext Edition.
Perahia’s program was accessible to a wide number of music lovers, due to the fact that it was compiled of familiar and well-loved pieces. It opened with J.S.Bach’s (1687-1750) Partita no. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825. The first of Bach’s works to be published and the last set of keyboard suites he composed, they are his freest and most challenging suites. Perahia’s reading of the Prelude and each of the dances was thought-provoking, finely crafted, layered in refined voice-play, his economic use of ornamentation and chord spreads never a hindrance to the general plan of each movement.
Perahia’s performance of W.A.Mozart’s (1756-1791) Sonata in F major K332 was an articulate guide to the musical text of the work: he stressed melodic changes, major-minor shifts and sudden contrasts using gentle rhythmic flexibility to do so, all this expressed in a language of humility and clarity.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s ( 1770-1827) Sonata no. 23 in F minor, opus 57 (“Appassionata”) was composed during the period from 1803 to 1806. In 1802, Beethoven addressed his Heiligenstadt Testament to his two brothers, discussing his deteriorating hearing: “My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas…” By 1803, the composer was coming to terms with his deafness, issuing in his “middle period” of creativity, one of struggle and renewed strength, during which the “Appassionata” was composed. Perahia’s performance of this monumental work evokes Beethoven’s capriciousness, his vulnerability, but also, at times, a sense of well-being, the tools for this character portrait being the technical possibilities offered by the modern piano. Yet, despite the turbulent inner journey described, the pianist never resorts to the unruly; Perahia remains an observer and an interpreter.
Johannes Brahms’ (1833-1897) Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, opus 24, were composed in September of 1861, dedicated to Clara Schumann and presented to her on her 42nd birthday. She premiered the work in December of the same year. Presenting this wonderful concert piece, Perahia invites the listener to forget the virtuosity involved in its performance and listen to the myriad of ideas, styles, textures and moods, the grouping of variations and to join him in building all towards the dense, many-faceted fugue referred to by British musician and writer, Julian Littlewood, as “a dense, contrapuntal argument”.
In response to a standing ovation, Murray Perahia played two Schubert Impromptus with his signature delicacy, with sensitive attention to filigree details, recreating melodies and harmonies that soar and float and take your breath away.
Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was an Austrian musician whose analytical approach involved looking beneath the immediate surface of music to find large-scale shapes and patterns as a guide to more meaningful playing. Young musicians taking part in Perahia’s master classes were required to present the maestro with a written musical analysis of pieces they were to play. The workshop began with Berenika Glixman’s performance of J.S.Bach’s Partita no. 4 in D major, BWV 828; it was Perahia’s wish to begin the week with Bach, to discuss the shapes and construction of a musical text in which Bach indicates no direction. This was, however, no academic exercise: Perahia talked of Bach the great harmonist, Bach the improviser, of the emotional meaning of modulation, of dissonance and consonance, of building melodic and harmonic intensity towards the highest point of a phrase. Perahia worked with Glixman on the delicate playing of inner voices, mentioning the many long hours he himself had spent working on inner voices.
During the four days of master classes, sixteen outstanding young pianists performed works of Bach, as well as Classical and Romantic composers, to an excited and involved audience of students, piano teachers and music enthusiasts crowded into the auditorium of the JMC.
Murray Perahia’s recital at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv was hosted by the JMC and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Proceeds from the concert went to the training of young musicians and the promotion of excellence in music-making in Israel. Born in the USA in 1947, Perahia is one of the most sought-after pianists of today. He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London, and has recently embarked on an ambitious project to edit the complete Beethoven Sonatas for the Henle Urtext Edition.
Perahia’s program was accessible to a wide number of music lovers, due to the fact that it was compiled of familiar and well-loved pieces. It opened with J.S.Bach’s (1687-1750) Partita no. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825. The first of Bach’s works to be published and the last set of keyboard suites he composed, they are his freest and most challenging suites. Perahia’s reading of the Prelude and each of the dances was thought-provoking, finely crafted, layered in refined voice-play, his economic use of ornamentation and chord spreads never a hindrance to the general plan of each movement.
Perahia’s performance of W.A.Mozart’s (1756-1791) Sonata in F major K332 was an articulate guide to the musical text of the work: he stressed melodic changes, major-minor shifts and sudden contrasts using gentle rhythmic flexibility to do so, all this expressed in a language of humility and clarity.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s ( 1770-1827) Sonata no. 23 in F minor, opus 57 (“Appassionata”) was composed during the period from 1803 to 1806. In 1802, Beethoven addressed his Heiligenstadt Testament to his two brothers, discussing his deteriorating hearing: “My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas…” By 1803, the composer was coming to terms with his deafness, issuing in his “middle period” of creativity, one of struggle and renewed strength, during which the “Appassionata” was composed. Perahia’s performance of this monumental work evokes Beethoven’s capriciousness, his vulnerability, but also, at times, a sense of well-being, the tools for this character portrait being the technical possibilities offered by the modern piano. Yet, despite the turbulent inner journey described, the pianist never resorts to the unruly; Perahia remains an observer and an interpreter.
Johannes Brahms’ (1833-1897) Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, opus 24, were composed in September of 1861, dedicated to Clara Schumann and presented to her on her 42nd birthday. She premiered the work in December of the same year. Presenting this wonderful concert piece, Perahia invites the listener to forget the virtuosity involved in its performance and listen to the myriad of ideas, styles, textures and moods, the grouping of variations and to join him in building all towards the dense, many-faceted fugue referred to by British musician and writer, Julian Littlewood, as “a dense, contrapuntal argument”.
In response to a standing ovation, Murray Perahia played two Schubert Impromptus with his signature delicacy, with sensitive attention to filigree details, recreating melodies and harmonies that soar and float and take your breath away.
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