Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 2pm
Old First Church
1751 Sacramento Street at Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco
​Program:
Ballade #1 in G minor op. 23
Corey McVicar
Nocturne in C-sharp minor op. posth.
Mazurka in C-sharp minor op. 50#3
Jacqueline Divenyi
Scherzo #2 in B-flat minor op. 31
Robert Schwartz
Nocturne in F minor op. 55#1
Ballade #2 in F major op. 38
William Wellborn
First Intermission
Ballade #3 in A-flat major op. 47
Gwendolyn Mok
Polonaise-Fantasie op. 61
Nancy Lee Harper
Ballade #4 in F minor op. 52
Hanson Tam
Second Intermission
Berceuse op. 57
Barcarolle op. 60
Mack McCray
12 Preludes from op. 28
C major Agitato
A minor Lento
G major Vivace
E minor Largo
D major Molto allegro
B minor Lento assai
C-sharp minor Molto allegro
B major Vivace
B-flat major Cantabile
G minor Molto agitato
F major Moderato
D minor Allegro appassionata
Daniel Glover
Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise op. 22
Heidi Hau

I was quite surprised to find this review of my program booklet of the subject of the previous blog (Oswald/Napoleao Piano Concerti with pianist Artur Pizarro) in the International Record Review. Not infrequently reviewers shred every sentence and thought apart, but this review was not the norm. Here goes:

William Hedley
International Record Review
November 2014

A glance at the names of those composers who feature in the earliest issues in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series shows that there was never any intention to plough a familiar furrow. When Volume 64 features two composers of whom one has never heard – I’m speaking personally, of course – it would be a surprise, though a pleasant one, to discover a neglected masterpiece. In repertoire such as this an informative booklet note is invaluable, and Nancy Lee Harper’s provides much fascinating information. Henrique Oswald and Alfredo Napoleão were both born in 1852, Oswald in Brazil of European parents, and Napoleão in Portugal. Prodigiously talented, each one became a celebrated virtuoso pianist and composer.

The three movements of Oswald’s G minor Concerto, composed around 1886, follow a standard Romantic pattern, with a big, almost symphonic first movement, followed by a calm second movement and vivacious finale. It’s surprising, given that the composer was himself a virtuoso, that the piano is frequently allotted an accompanying role. In the first movement, for example, five minutes have passed before the piano alone introduces a more reflective second theme. This theme brings some harmonic spice to a work hitherto conventional in its musical language. The piano writing is highly accomplished, but so is that for the orchestra, rich and lush, with much use of brass. It possesses neither the granite-like security of Brahms nor the brilliance of Tchaikovsky, sounding, if anything, like Rachmaninov’s orchestral style. This first movement is not without its grandiose gestures, and there are passages where Oswald overdoes his liking for sequences, but if you don’t ask too many questions the music carries you along with it.

This is true of the remaining movements too. Few listeners will be convinced that the sentiments expressed in the slow movement are totally genuine – Harper refers to its ‘Hollywood-esque sentimentality’ – though the beginning and the end of the movement express real feeling. The tarantella finale is quite an achievement, with no respite from the ostinato rhythm throughout its six minutes. Quite a few hearings are necessary before you begin to discern Oswald’s themes, but there is more than enough room on the shelves for a work as appealing and easy to enjoy as this one.

Napoleão’s Concerto, undated but probably composed at roughly the same time, is also in three movements, though less conventional in layout. The work opens with a three-minute orchestral passage that seems too brooding and portentous to be introducing a piano concerto. The spectre of Chopin dominates much of the rest of the first movement, with the piano the dominant partner and the orchestra very much in an accompanying role. A subsidiary theme, first introduced by the horn, establishes itself in the mind very quickly, and rhapsodic development follows thereafter. The end of the movement is charming, rapid piano figuration over gradually disappearing chords from the orchestra. This movement, at 20 minutes, lasts longer than the remaining two put together, and there could hardly be greater contrast. The second movement, only four minutes long, is a dazzling scherzo. A central section introduces the most immediately appealing and memorable music of the whole work, a gentle, rocking passage featuring an attractive duet between the soloist and the horn. Harper is spot-on when she evokes Offenbach to describe the opening of the finale, just as she is when she refers to the ‘can-can exuberance’ of the ending. But the Concerto almost seems like three works, not one. Tchaikovsky’s B flat minor Concerto might be too obvious a work to choose as an example, and an unfair comparison to boot, but its three movements, though very different one from another, do inhabit the same musical and emotional world. That can’t really be said of this fascinating and enjoyable work from Napoleão.

Portuguese-born Artur Pizarro is a natural choice for this repertoire. (A charming booklet photograph shows him as a boy with his teacher, Evaristo de Campos Coelho, who gave the first complete performance of Napoleão’s Concerto.) His playing has all the dash and flair the pieces demand, and the gentler, more lyrical passages are played with an evident understanding of the idiom. He is a brilliant champion for these neglected works. Martyn Brabbins and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales provide the solid support we now expect of them. I hope they thoroughly enjoyed themselves; it certainly seems so. The recording is well up to the exalted standards of the house.

THE ROMANTIC PIANO CONCERTO

Oswald & Napoleão dos Santos: Piano Concertos

Artur Pizarro (piano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins (conductor)
Hyperion CDA67984
Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op. 10 by Henrique Oswald (1852-1931)

1.     Allegro (un poco agitato) 2. Adagio 3. Allego

 Piano Concerto No. 2 in E flat minor, op. 31 by Alfredo Napoleão dos Santos (1852-1917)

1.     Andantino maestoso 2. Scherzo: Allegro vivace – Più lento 3. Allegro – Più vivo

Portuguese virtuoso Artur Pizarro makes a welcome return to the Romantic Piano Concerto series with the outpourings of two brilliant pianist-composers. Their names may not be familiar to listeners today. The Brazilian Henrique Oswald and the Portuguese Alfredo Napoleão were born in the same year, less than three months apart, when Schumann, Brahms and Liszt were alive and Chopin recently deceased. Both were of mixed European heritage: Oswald with a Swiss-German father and Italian mother, Napoleão with an Italian father and Portuguese mother. Both were child prodigies who became widely travelled concert pianists, pedagogues and composers. In 1868 Oswald gave his ‘farewell recital’ and left Rio de Janeiro to study in Europe; Napoleão went to Brazil.

Oswald’s Piano Concerto in G minor, Op 10, dates from about 1886, the year he met Liszt. Although influences of Fauré can be detected in the second theme, the overall character of the first movement owes more to the late Romantic German style. The orchestration is rich and full, but the Tchaikovskian athleticism and virtuosity of the piano-writing keep the soloist to the fore.

Napoleão’s Piano Concerto No 2 in E flat minor, Op 31, is undated but was probably composed around the same time as Oswald’s Piano Concerto. Although Napoleão performed the concerto in a solo piano version, the first performance with orchestra had to wait until 12 February 1941. This was given by Evaristo de Campos Coelho (1903–1988)—with whom Artur Pizarro, the pianist on the present recording, studied as a young child. He played the work numerous times, and performed it for Portuguese radio. Dinorah Leitão (who was Ivo Cruz’s daughter in law, and also a student of Campos Coelho) then played it, and Artur Pizarro is only the third pianist to champion this work.
 

Introduction  

The great Romantic spirit touched the lives and works of the two brilliant pianists–composers represented here: the Brazilian Henrique Oswald (1852–1931) and the Portuguese Alfredo Napoleão (1852–1917). Many similarities exist between them. Born in the same year, less than three months apart, when Schumann, Brahms and Liszt were alive and Chopin’s demise was still a fresh wound, both were of mixed European heritage: Oswald with a Swiss-German father and Italian mother, Napoleão with an Italian father and Portuguese mother. Both were child prodigies who became widely travelled concert pianists, pedagogues and composers.

The year 1868 was a turning-point for the two sixteen-year-olds. Oswald gave his ‘farewell recital’ and left Rio de Janeiro to study in Europe; Napoleão went in the other direction, to Brazil, to seek his fortune. They were each heard by the magnanimous monarch of Brazil, Dom Pedro II (who reigned from 1831 until the monarchy was abolished in 1889): Napoleão in 1869 in Rio, and Oswald in 1879 in Florence. Both musicians experienced life beyond the monarchy, but only Oswald lived beyond World War I. Their paths almost certainly crossed in Brazil, as they were both published by Napoleão’s elder brother, Artur. They each returned to their native countries, where they died. Both became ‘prophets in foreign lands’. In an era before recordings, only contemporary reports and their compositions can tell something about how they played. As composers, they knew their craft well.

Henrique Oswald grew up in a musical environment. At the age of one he travelled by ship from Rio de Janeiro to Santos with his mother en route to the thriving city of São Paulo, where his father opened a beer factory and, in 1857, a piano store. The ill-fated ship caught fire, causing Henrique to remain traumatized throughout his life by the sound of explosions.

Oswald’s mother was his first piano teacher. His first piano recital took place when he was around six or seven years old. Following his mother’s tutelage, he studied with Gabriel Giraudon before going to study in Europe. Planning to study with Hans von Bülow (1830–1894), Oswald instead opted for Florence where he entered the Istituto Moriani. There, he studied counterpoint, harmony and composition, and piano with Henry Ketten and Giuseppe Buonamici. At Buonamici’s house Oswald met Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt; in 1886, the year of Liszt’s death, Oswald spent a few days with the great man in Florence, when they played some of their works for each other.

In 1881 Oswald married Laudomia Bombernard Gasperini, and the couple went on to have five children. He became well known in Italy, although he returned regularly to Brazil for concert tours—while there in 1889 he met Camille Saint-Saëns, who was impressed with the young composer, and together they performed the French composer’s Scherzo, Op 87, for two pianos. Back in Europe, Oswald was appointed to the diplomatic service—first in the Brazilian Consulate in Le Havre in 1900, and later in Genoa—but such bureaucratic work was not in his artistic veins.

In 1902 Oswald entered a composition competition sponsored by the French newspaper Le Figaro. From the 647 manuscript entries from Asia, Persia, Egypt, North and South America and Europe, Oswald’s piano piece Il neigeunanimously won the first prize. The prestigious jury was led by Saint-Saëns and also included the composer Gabriel Fauré and the pianist Louis Diémer. In 1903 Oswald was named Director of the Instituto Nacional de Música (INM) in Rio de Janeiro, where he served until 1906. In 1904 he again met Saint-Saëns and performed a recital for two pianos, including the elder’s Africa Fantasy and Scherzo, in Rio de Janeiro, the city where Oswald would reside permanently from 1909 until his death. In 1909 Oswald performed his Piano Concerto at the INM under the baton of its director, Alberto Nepomuceno, soon assuming a teaching position there.

Oswald came into contact with the leading musicians of the day who were in Brazil, including Darius Milhaud, who was a frequent visitor to his home. Only later in life did Oswald use Brazilian elements in some of his works, although many of his students, such as Lorenzo Fernández, became associated with the nationalistic wave. Oswald’s final phase was devoted to religious compositions, as a result of his son Alfredo—a pianist who promoted his father’s music and a professor at Peabody Conservatory—taking religious orders. Henrique Oswald died on 9 June 1931, shortly after two concerts of his music were given at the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.

It has been said that Oswald wrote ‘the most refined piano music in the history of Brazilian music’, and the pianist Artur Rubinstein called him ‘the Brazilian Gabriel Fauré’, although Oswald’s music lost favour after the ‘Semana de Arte Moderna’ (Modern Art Week) in São Paulo in 1922, which marked the start of Brazilian modernism as a creative force and brought with it a preference for nationalistic music. Nevertheless, Oswald continued to compose music in all genres. French elements strongly permeate his work, although an occasional Russian or Brazilian flavour, as in his Symphony, Op 43, can be heard. He admired the contemporary works of Vladimir Rebikov, with his use of atonality, rich harmonies and unusual rhythms. Oswald received three important recognitions in Europe: the Médaille du roi Albert (Belgium, 1920), Palmes académiques (France, 1928), and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (France, 1931).

Oswald’s Piano Concerto in G minor, Op 10, dates from about 1886, the year he met Liszt, and is dedicated to his teacher Buonamici. Although influences of Fauré can be detected in the second theme, the overall character of the first movement owes more to the late Romantic German style. The orchestration is rich and full, but the Tchaikovskian athleticism and virtuosity of the piano-writing keep the soloist to the fore. The lush and sensual second movement offers an oasis of calm. Its Hollywood-esque sentimentality is given substance by a striking harmonic inventiveness. The jovial third movement continues attacca; this is a tarantella that gives free rein to Oswald’s Italian roots in a spirited homage to Rossini. Oswald cannot contain his penchant for lyricism, the soloist introducing gentle chordal progressions over the orchestra’s ostinato rhythmic figures in the middle section. The concerto ends with a traditional display of bravura. Oswald made a version of the concerto for piano quintet in 1890, and the two-piano score is dated 1892.

Like Oswald, Alfredo Napoleão grew up in a musical family. His father, Alexandre Napoleão, was a musician, and his brothers Artur (1843–1925) and Annibal (1845–1880) also became pianist–composers. Artur went on to become one of the most successful music publishers in Brazil. Their mother, Joaquina Maria dos Santos, died when Alfredo was only a year old. He then was cared for by his maternal grandmother in a city near his birthplace of Porto while his father worked in London. In 1858 his father brought him to live in London, where he studied with a certain Professor Wood (not to be confused with Sir Henry Wood of Proms fame), who was also married to a Portuguese woman and who eventually established a school in Lisbon. Alfredo continued his studies with him until 1868, when he joined his brothers in Brazil in order to pursue his career.

In Brazil Napoleão first worked in a piano store in Rio de Janeiro. In 1869 he gave his debut recital at the Teatro Lírico, attended by Dom Pedro II, with great success. After touring Rio Grande do Sul and Rio da Prata, Alfredo took up residence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay, where he taught the piano. In 1879 he returned to Rio and toured the northern Brazilian provinces, staying for two years in Pernambuco where he also taught the piano. During these years in South America Alfredo was at the height of his fame. In 1882 he returned to Portugal, giving concerts in Lisbon and Porto, where he received glowing critical acclaim; he was equally appreciated in London and Paris. In 1889 he returned to Brazil and gave many concerts throughout the entire South American continent. He finally returned to Porto, the city of his birth, in 1891, where he taught the piano and performed both there and in Lisbon.

As a pianist, Alfredo Napoleão was a great interpreter of Bach, Beethoven and Schumann, and he and his brother Artur did much to promote Luso-Brazilian music, including their own. As a composer, Alfredo wrote four piano concertos and a Polonaise for piano and orchestra, an Ouverture symphonique for large orchestra, chamber music, and sonatas and shorter works for solo piano.

Napoleão’s Piano Concerto No 2 in E flat minor, Op 31, is undated but was probably composed around the same time as Oswald’s Piano Concerto. It is dedicated to the Portuguese King Luís I, whose reign ended in 1889, the same year as that of Dom Pedro II in Brazil. Although Napoleão performed the concerto in a solo piano version, the first performance with orchestra had to wait until 12 February 1941. This was given by Evaristo de Campos Coelho (1903–1988)—with whom Artur Pizarro, the pianist on the present recording, studied as a young child—and the Orquestra Filarmónica de Lisboa, conducted by Ivo Cruz, at the Teatro da Trindade in Lisbon. Evaristo de Campos Coelho played the work numerous times, and performed it for Portuguese radio. Dinorah Leitão (who was Ivo Cruz’s daughter in law, and also a student of Campos Coelho) then played it, and Artur Pizarro is only the third pianist to champion this work.

The unusual first movement opens with a mysterious and sombre string statement, while the virtuoso piano part owes much to Chopin’s E minor Piano Concerto in its idiomatic approach. The short ternary-form second movement in B major is a sparkling Scherzo in the vein of Mendelssohn or Saint-Saëns. The contrasting trio section is in the style of a Barcarolle, including a romantic duo for the pianist and French horn. The third movement’s rousing beginning takes us into the world of an Offenbach operetta, and gives the pianist plenty of scope for brilliant display. The second theme’s ‘music box’ charm gracefully dances in canonic play. Following the recapitulation Napoleão recalls themes from the first two movements, including the Barcarolle-like idea. This final masterstroke brings a sense of nostalgia evoked by the Portuguese word saudade—a longing for something lost in time—before the coda signs off with can-can-style exuberance.

Nancy Lee Harper © 2014 at http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67984&vw=dc.

Several years ago when I was teaching at the Universidade de Aveiro, in Portugal, I was looking on YouTube for stimulating and new music that would inspire my piano students. I ran across “Libertango” à la ANDERSON AND ROE, which has still been one of my favorites of all their works. Inspired by Ástor Piazzolla’s (1921-1992) work by the same name published in 1974 in Milan, Anderson and Roe’s version maintains the spirit of the freed-up new tango that broke with the classical tradition.  Indeed, they create even new paths. What impressed me was not only their fine playing, but the witty and sensuous presentation, expert and creative filming, and most of all, their communication – not only between themselves but with their audience. Their approach is new and is revolutionizing the Piano Duo. I had heard their Masterclass the preceding year – also very fine – at the 2013 Music Teacher National Association’s Convention in Anaheim and knew of their blossoming pedagogical penchant. Their tangy published arrangements have been a spicy addition to the repertoire. Finally, I had the opportunity to hear them in live performance in Los Angeles at the 2014 Music Teachers’ Association of California Convention. And even without the clever filming, their performance was thrilling.

What do they communicate? Joy! Love! Excitement! Innovation! And that Classical Music is accessible to the masses, not just to an elite!  With only 20 fingers, Anderson and Roe has created a sensation – thanks to the Internet − that is likely to go far beyond what Leonard Bernstein did a half century ago with his “Young People’s Concerts”. Over a million people have viewed “Libertango” and that is just one of many of their excellent performances. The meteoric rise to fame is all the more impressive when one realizes that these two young pianists met at the Juilliard School in 2000 when they were both freshmen.

Viva El Tango! Viva Anderson and Roe!

The young Fernando Laires (b. 3 January 1925) went down in the annals of music history as being one of the few and one of the youngest to perform the complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle of 32 sonatas at age 19. At age 20, he performed with Antonino David the complete Beethoven violin and piano sonatas. Both cycles took place in Lisbon, Portugal, Laires' native city. I had the privilege to present a tribute to Laires on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the American Liszt Society, of which Laires is a co-founder. The event took place at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, a lovely university with wonderful music facilities in an all-Steinway school. The tribute to Laires was moving and contained reviews of his playing, excerpts of a live recital of his performing Beethoven’s “Waldstein” sonata and Liszt’s “Spanish Rhapsody”. The sensitivity and nobility of his playing inspired us all. His words about growing up in Mozambique and seeing the wild animals outside his window thrilled as did his recounting of playing Liszt’s Boisselot piano, still in Lisbon, in the “Spanish Rhapsody”. The tribute closed with my playing a work that was written shortly before Laires’ birth – “Nocturno em réb maior” by António Fragoso – and “Five Portuguese Folksongs” arranged by Halsey Stevens and dedicated to Laires. The program was then closed by the young Portuguese pianist, Miguel Campinho, who performed Óscar da Silva’s “Fantasia”, also dedicated to Laires. There is so much to be grateful to Fernando – as well, he founded the Pro Arte Society to promote art and Portuguese music in Portugal, in addition to a 20-volume record set of Portuguese music performed by colleagues and published on Educo.

Viva Fernando!

As one listens to the accompanying CD, on which the author skillfully renders a wide selection of works from the eighteenth to twenty first centuries, from sonatas to electro-acoustic compositions, one realizes just what pleasant surprises we have deprived ourselves of through our general ignorance of Portugal's musical heritage, particularly its lustrous history of keyboard music. There are many hours of listening pleasure to be gained from this repertory. . . . Harpers triune approach, embracing historical narrative, easy-to-access bibliographic information, and actual recordings, will do much to stimulate interest not only in well-established figures such as Seixas but also in less-renowned composers like Luis Pipa. . . . Nancy Lee Harper is a leader among those mapping the terrain.