HANS PÅLSSON CONCERT Newbridge College Theatre Saturday 21st July 2018 8pm - The Gerard Manley Hopkins 31st International Festival - County ...
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The Gerard Manley Hopkins
31st International Festival
Newbridge College Friday 20th to Thursday 26th July 2018
HANS PÅLSSON CONCERT
Newbridge College Theatre
Saturday 21st July 2018 8pm
Souvenir Programme €5
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Each colour has a soul of its own. (Emil Nolde)
When Toumanova dances, it is a matter of life and death. (Edwin Denby)
DOMENICO SCARLATTI (1685-1757)
Sonata in E major K 162
Scarlatti’s sonatas were probably written late in life, circa 1752 - after the composer’s 67th
birthday. In all, he composed no fewer than 555 keyboard sonatas. Born in the same year as
Bach and Handel, he is credited with moving music out of the Baroque towards the more
Classical, noticeable here.
Scarlatti was of his time in allowing the feeling to emerge via notes alone; the modern
approach is more subjective in its emphasis on the performer’s involvement - sometimes to outrageous
showman-style effect (including the fetish of conducting an orchestra as well as trying to play). After Scarlatti, the
Sonata developed into a three-part form (exposition; development; and recapitulation); he, however, employed a
single movement divided into two parts.
A gentle opening, light as a harpsichord. introduces the melody-theme of this sonata. After some inventive
examination, the theme emerges again - but now in more introverted mood and in a minor key. A lively passage
follows in contrast, and a quick walk around the keyboard before a slower, more deliberate, section begins. Again
he goes back to the elegant theme and tries it out in a minor key before another upbeat flurry towards the finish:
a high-spirited dance of virtuoso playing ending with style. Timing seems a crucial part of the performance: the
theme does not change much and the emotion comes mainly indirectly and through timing - a Scarlatti
characteristic.
Sonata in C sharp minor K 247
A favourite among pianists - from Clara Haskil to Horowitz to Hans Pålsson.
Introspective and filled with a quiet melancholy, this is a lovely sonata. Its two divisions are clearly marked as
Scarlatti lingers on an motif, changing key as he develops the simple shape before introducing flourishes and
different keys. Then he seems to finish - but does not.
The second section displays a new surge of energy but one not without the same melancholy tinge. Three
times the piece seems to finish, only to ripple off again. Most of this piece is played in the upper, right-hand,
register, with the left hand inserting bass accompaniment before asserting itself at the finish. An elegantly
beautiful masterpiece in miniature.
Sonata in B minor K 87
This sonata offers an immediate contrast to the previous one. It has more of a Romantic than of a Classical
feeling, is set lower, with a beautiful theme which is caressed, developed and repeated as Scarlatti examines its
structure and implications. After the usual pivotal point, where the music seems to pause, it gets going again and
modulates to a quiet finish. A lovely piece, more charged with introspection than the composer usually suggests.
Significantly, the composer seems to caress the very sound of each individual note and chord - not unlike the
way in which Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky dwells of the sensuousness of individual sounds. In keeping
with the mood, Scarlatti gives the ending to the lower register of the left hand.
Sonata in C major K 159
This well-known sonata last less than 3 minutes. Scarlatti was a harpsichord virtuoso and there is arguably
something of that quality about the earlier pieces in this programme; here, however, this popular piece seems
more pianistic - not least, for the greater involvement of the left hand. It begins with a lively theme which is
repeated and then replayed in a minor key. Returning to the major, it comes to a stop - and then starts again -
once more in a minor key. Such binary form, as we have seen, is typical of Scarlatti sonatas. This is a high-spirited
one and, though short, very demanding in terms of technique and alertness to the subtle shadings of its lively
spirit.
This evening, we have been given a chance to enjoy the Scarlatti experience at its most varied and best.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Fantasia in C minor K 475
This piece was written in 1785, when Mozart was 29. As might be guessed from its name, a
‘fantasia’ lays emphasis on improvisation, is free of structure, and follows wherever mood and
inspiration may lead: an imaginative counter-balance to more formal writing. After Scarlatti,
Pålsson now gives us a taste of the next phase of music, with Mozart as the bridge towards a
more Romantic sensibility.This Fantasia starts in a brooding mood, where each note seems charged with emotion: the form may be free
but the feeling is intense. A simple melody emerges; is developed a little out of its six bare notes before a nervy
passage takes over and is repeated higher. Now a plaintively beautiful theme - the kind that Mozart seems so
easily to compose - is repeated a number of times before the left hand dominates, with a pattern of seven bass
notes - one full of threat. A brief rallentando of excitement follows, before the plaintive lyrical theme re-emerges.
Gradually it rises, becoming more and more charged with nervous feeling. A few runs up and down the keyboard
bring no sense of resolution before the theme forces its way back and is examined a few times by the composer -
with growing wistfulness, it might seem. Soon, however, the music takes on a threatening tone before an excited
drumbeat takes over. It’s four notes, hammered by the left hand, counter the spirit of the right and what has
begun to seem like a dialogue between hope and fate reaches its climax. A sombre mood gradually prevails,
culminating with that heavy pattern of seven bass notes. This crosses into the treble and the Fantasia ripples to
end sombrely. Quite a contrast to the elegant conclusions of a Scarlatti sonata, and a pointer towards of a
different, perhaps more modern, sensibility.
Twelve Variations on a Children’s Song in C Major Kv 265
This set of variations on what we know as ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ (the French ‘Ah vous dirai-je, Maman’) was
written in 1781 when Mozart was 25. It gives us an insight into the composer’s inventiveness as he takes a
childish tune and produces 12 variations on it. Not only that, but in doing so, Mozart suggests some of the
complications of childhood: its joys and also its terrors. One might compare the piece to Beethoven’s magnificent
Diabelli variations, in its inventiveness and mood swing - though not, of course, in the ultimately tragic feeling of
the Beethoven masterpiece: these Variations are basically a celebration of childhood - though not one which
overlooks some of the threat implicit in the human condition, at any age.
1: Firstly, he presents the theme song. 2: Variation 1 is lively, full of the exuberance of being young. 3: More
flowery, involving both hands. 4: Back to straightforward, to remind us of the general theme. 5: Now Mozart plays
with the structure, breaking it up. 6: Here the left hand, for a change, is given more play. 6: Flourishes introduce a
baroque, elaborated, feeling. 7: The minor key now suggests a strange, threatening, mood. 8: This time he gives
the theme a different ending. 9: The full treatment, from both hands, forms the epicentre of the whole
composition 10: A slower passage, unexpectedly introduces a darker mood, and the note-pattern of the theme is
broken-up. 11: A stately gavotte follows: a sort of mini-sonata but one not lacking in saddish overtones. 12: The
initial energy reasserts itself, like a re-affirmation of the joy of childhood, before a lively, optimistic, conclusion.
So there we have it: variations on a children’s song become a celebration of being young as well as a reflection
on its vulnerability: reportage taking on deeper significance in the hands of an artist.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 - 1918)
Masques
Très vif et fantasque (à 6/8) - Cédez un peu (en sol bémol majeur)/ Lively and imaginative, 6/8
time - slow down a little (in G flat major)
‘Masques’ was written in 1904, when the composer was in his forties. Though the title refers
back to the early 17th century style of courtly entertainment, Debussy described this piece as
‘An expression of the tragedy of existence’ - so we may assume that the title, with its overtones of festivity and
lightheartedness, is ironic. It was written in the same year that Debussy’s wife had shot herself after she and he
had finally split up. The mood here is one of immediate personal involvement; it also represents Debussy in his
fully impressionistic mode.
The piece opens with a jazzy but nervy beat, on one note which persists as the theme with its strange interval
becomes more challenging. It modulates higher but without losing that dark overtone, then slows, becomes
more meditative, with a few flights as if to escape from the prevailing left hand one-note pattern. However, the
colouring remains dark and unsettling, despite what may seem efforts to escape, via a lighthearted theme before
this, unconvincing, motif is repeated. The bass line persists and finally the flutterings of the right hand are
overwhelmed, so that the dark mood prevails, despite some splashes of notes. The second, flighty, theme re-
emerges - only to be submerged again. Unlike Hopkins’s ‘dark’ sonnets, the conclusion seems bleak, a strangely
suggestive sombreness. To achieve his impressionist style, Debussy employs the harmonic innovations that
became his hallmark, embodying - under the influence of Mallarmé - the new doctrine of art for art’s sake.
Études
Claude Debussy's ‘Études’ are a set of 12 piano studies composed in 1915. The pieces are extremely difficult to
play, and Debussy jokingly described them as "a warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless
they have remarkable hands". Much more than mere exercises, these are exceptional compositions among his
later works. The two Études out of the suite which Pålsson has chosen this evening are considered extremely
demanding technically: only a genuine maestro may take them on.Étude 10: Pour Les Sonorités Ópposés (1915) L 136 (‘For clashing sounds’)
An exercise in dissonance, the slow, eerie opening, with unexpected chromatic jumps and chords, gives way to a
livelier melody featuring the oddly opposing sounds of the title. This ghost-music continues with a higher
thematic cluster of notes emerging here and there. Back he goes to the opening theme, which is played a couple
of times. Strange splashes of chords follow, around the weird theme before the sudden finish on a clashing
chord. Because this is more than a mere exercise, the music is strangely evocative - of the kind which earned
Debussy the description,‘impressionist’.
Étude 1: Pour Les ‘Cinq Doigts’ D’Aprés Monsieur Czerny (1915) (‘For the Five Finger
exercises in the style of Czerny’)
Carl Czerny (died 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist whose books of exercises for learners are
still widely used by piano teachers. Debussy’s study begins ironically, in the style of Czerny, with a few simple
notes from tonic solfa: doh, re, mi, fah, so, repeated as in a beginner’s exercise. A few dissonant chords usher in a
quicker run and suggest that something very different is brewing. The pattern is repeated, almost jokingly,
before Debussy takes off and the playing becomes extremely difficult, demanding mastery of technique - a
reminder that the composer was himself a piano virtuoso. Fiendishly difficult runs follow, up and down the
keyboard. Among clusters of notes, the initial tonic solfa re-emerges as the composer explores the whole piano
keyboard until, with a burst, a final triumphant chord finishes off the étude. This is a showpiece in technique
involving both hands equally, and calls for exceptionally skilled playing. It will remind us that, as well as his
ability to go deep into the emotional heart of a piece, Hans Pålsson is also a virtuoso pianist, as well as one of the
small group of pianists who manage to place technique at the service of feeling.
--------- INTERVAL ---------
with wine reception
Part II
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Allegretto in C minor D 915
An Allegretto is a piece played in a moderately quick tempo, somewhat slower than allegro.
This beautiful piece was composed by Schubert in 1827, the year before he died. Its sad mood
and minor key are taken as lamenting the death, just a few weeks earlier, of Beethoven,
Schubert’s hero, whom he had met shortly before.
The opening theme has the lyrical beauty we associate with Schubert, who had the gift
of creating melody - a talent so rare that it may well be linked to some profound sense of life. He repeats the
melody twice in full, then higher; develops it a little before re-introducing it in a major key; again played twice. A
dark, even angry, passage follows, ending on two emphatically-struck chords.The theme is played again, now in
major key before a louder, more aggressive repetition. After another, this section of the Allegretto is concluded.
A new 8-note theme follows, one more expressive of the tension underlying this whole piece. Schubert
repeats then develops it. Back to the main theme, played quietly, twice over - as if resignation had begun to
succeed the earlier outburst. An angy forte passage follows but peters out when the second melody re-emerges
in major key. Two notes repeated heighten the tension: can there be any resolution to this pattern of
rejection/resignation? A last climactic run enters fortissimo from high to low, suggesting both resistence and
helplessness together, before the Allegretto finishes unexpectedly, unresolved, and mournful. Schubert was too
genuine an artist to impose any easy ending - just like Hopkins who, in some of his anguished sonnets creates a
protagonist battling against despair, without discovering any easy way out.
This lovely Allegretto is a lament in the face of death - Schubert’s own death too, which came within a year.
Pålsson here offers a dramatic contrast to the preceding Debussy Étude and a quieter prelude to the storm of
emotion in the Beethoven sonata to follow.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Sonata No. 30 in E major Op.109
Composed in 1820, this is the second-last of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. In it, after the huge
Hammerklavier Sonata (Op. 106) Beethoven returns to writing of a quieter, more intimate,
character. The Sonata is dedicated to Maximiliane Brentano, the daughter of Beethoven's long-
standing friend. It is characterised by a free approach to sonata form. The main focus is on the
third movement, which is much longer than the prededing two. In it, a set of variationsinterpret its theme in a variety of individual ways and techniques. This original approach to sonata form gives
Beethoven a chance to express dramatic shifts of mood and of time, allowing subtle play to his feelings -
comparable to what Shakespeare did when he enlarged the emotional scope of the Elizabethan sonnet. No. 30 is
one of Beethoven’s last masterpieces, arguably one of the three greatest piano sonatas ever written. It is also
considered one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire, calling, like some of our
earlier programme, for virtuoso playing, in what is Pålsson’s most technically demanding concert.
1: Vivace ma non troppo -Adagio espressivo (‘Not too lively - slowly and expressively’)
This first movement is less concerned with development of theme and more focussed on contrasts: fast v. slow;
loud v. soft; major v. minor - suggestive of doubt and questioning on the part of the composer: a complex of
acceptance, questioning and rejection. After a spirited start incorporating a beautiful, rippling melody, the
movement slows down. Any possibility of resolution seems to be quickly dismissed as hope and doubt dance
around one another climactically. The theme returns, more plaintive now and a more resigned feeling begins to
enter and be chorded. The uneasiness has not been easily overcome, though - as we will realise more fully in the
third movement. Many pianists go straight into the next movement without a pause.
2: Prestissimo, E minor, 6/8 time (‘Very quickly’)
This starts forte introducing an immediate contrast of mood - one of the principles at work in this sonata. The
initial assertiveness, marked by excited runs, gradually yields to the quieter mood we recognise from the first
movement. Hammered single notes break-in unexpectedly, full of tension and even though the gentler,
accepting, theme comes back, there are ripples of unease. The high climax suggests that the pattern of this
sonata embodies both resignation and rejection: perhaps an assertion of life coupled with an intimation of
death: the music of old age.
3: Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo, E major (‘Slowly, very lyrically and feelingly’)
The alluring lament, with which this longest section begins, is filled with sadness. Repeated, it will be examined
with six variations of differing character and piano sonorities, making this third movement seem like a mini-
sonata in itself. In its emotional depth, this lament seems charged with fellow-feeling for all humanity. Such
compassion is something we have come to expect especially of late Beethoven - as of all great artists.
The first variation takes the melody higher but if anything it is even more poignant. Beethoven repeats it.
After its slowness, the next variation quickly breaks up the structure and seems to be moving towards a
resolution. Suddenly the rhythm speeds up before the earlier introspectiveness reasserts itself and slows things
down again. Note by note Beethoven examines his theme. Another feeling of acceptance pushes in: another of
the switches of mood, speeds, and development which typify this sonata.
The last section is quiet, slow at first before the rhythm again becomes restless and disturbed, with
alternations between high notes and deep bass, trills and arpeggios. There is turbulence now, and even rage. The
theme suddenly emerges, slowly and twice - before a last rush of wild energy and assertion. Now the composer
picks out his theme note by note, high on the keyboard against rolling insistence by the left hand bass before the
theme re-enters in full and the sonata ends quietly, in a mood of resignation reminiscent of King Lear’s summary,
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all.
This sonata bears comparison with Shakespeare’s greatest play.
Astonishingly, Hans Pålsson in 2010 played all 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven in Stockholm Concert Hall at 8
concerts in 16 days. By heart! Each concert was sold out and the Stockholm reviews were unanimous in their
admiration:
He reaches a level that few pianists ever achieve.The large audience which follows him
is holding its breath.
Here was the opportunity to drink deep of the best there is in musical perfomance...
Soon afterwards he was awarded the Gold Medal of The Swedish Academy - the music equivalent of the Nobel
Prize - by King Gustaf of Sweden. We are proud and grateful to welcome back to the Hopkins Festival one of the
world’s great pianists.
Notes © Desmond Egan 2018
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