"When a young lady of 15 sits down at the keyboard and plays [Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto, nº 1]… as Ms. Nancy Lee did….the natural order of things cannot help but be somewhat displaced..."
"Mozart’s evergreen Trio in C Major, K. 548 came like a burst of sunlight into a gloomy room..."
“Nancy Lee Harper is an extraordinarily multi-talented American musician and scholar who works and lives in Portugal. An expert on Hispanic music, her recent book on Manuel de Falla, is a landmark biography and study of the composer..."
"This professor at the University of Aveiro, resident in Portugal since 1992, gives us in Nancy Lee Harper-Piano a vision of the 20th century in Portugal, from the folkloric influence until Expressionism and electronic music.."
RECITAL IN LONDON, ST. JAMES
The profound influence on Beethoven of Muzio Clementi, composer, pianist and piano maker is evident in every turn in his extensive output of piano sonatas, though these are widely recorded they are less often programmed in recital. So it was a special treat to hear the Sonata in G minor Op 34 No 2 performed with dramatic intensity by Nancy Lee Harper, the Portuguese-based American pianist, the centrepiece of her lunchtime recital at St James' Piccadilly, London UK, on 22 September 2003.
The concert, presented by the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe, featured an especially exciting programme of four seldom heard works by famous and less familiar composers. Nancy Lee Harper, who is both an academic and performing musician and currently on the Faculty of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, began with Beethoven's brief Klavierstuck WoO 61a before embarking on one of the most romantic of Clementi's sonatas.
The first movement began with dark foreboding in the Largo e sostenuto and launched into a fiery Allegro con fuoco in which diminished seventh harmonies bolted recklessly and the pithy three quaver upbeat -- downbeat rhythm of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony motto (a common enough feature of Classical style already much used by Haydn) was developed and emphasised with almost orchestral exuberance.
In the slow movement Nancy Lee Harper conveyed the elegant, Schubertian lyricism with gentle resonance, poetic plangent chromaticism, and a touching counterpoint in the codetta. The last movement, Molto Allegro, again exuded the romantic turbulence yet restrained within classical proportions. The main theme's bristling energy was brightly complemented by virtuoso scalic passages and there were overtones of the Appassionata in the second subject. Particularly impressive were the richly articulated imitative textures of this fizzing finale.
Late romantic pianism ensued with Nancy Lee Harper's compelling performance of two pieces by Oscar da Silva (1870-1958), a Portuguese composer who studied with Reinecke and Clara Schumann, and whose fascinating yet little known late-romantic oeuvre is seldom performed or recorded, some of it still in manuscript. The second of his extensive set of Dolorosas, character pieces of a nocturne-like lyricism, evinced beguiling modal hues and expression, while 'Passion' from Images No 6 evoked both Liszt and Ravel in its bravura textures and translucent harmonies. Da Silva's music would appear to be an ideal target for rediscovery.
The recital was crowned in pyrotechnical excitement with music by de Falla, whose work is the subject of two recent books by Nancy Lee Harper (Greenwood Press and Scarecrow Press). The Fantasia boetica, so-called after the Roman term for Spain, exploded in wild Iberian energy evoked in turn through brusque chordal textures, glistening glissandi and richly ornamented melodies enveloped in suitably guitar-like flamenco effects of repeated notes and cross hands passages. The swirling syncopations of the encore, de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, brought the recital to a splendid close, affirming the artistry of a pianist boldly attuned to the Iberian inspiration of a repertoire that well rewards the hearing.
Copyright © 7 October 2003 Malcolm Miller, London UK
January 13, 2010 by Luis Dias
by Dr. Luis Dias
On 10 January 2010, Pro Musica, in collaboration with EPTA (European Piano Teachers’ Association), present a piano recital by a formidable musician-scholar, Nancy Lee Harper. The concert will be at St Inez church at 7 pm. Entry is free.
Dr Harper’s performances have spanned four continents, many of them in prestigious institutions such as the Juilliard and Eastman Schools of Music, drawing forth rave reviews. She has also given Masterclasses worldwide.
An American national, she currently lives in Portugal, where she is Associate Professor with Distinction at the Universidade de Aveiro.
In 2003, Dr. Harper completed the first U. K. Certificate Course in Music Medicine offered by ISSTIP “with Distinction” and now supervises post-doctoral work in that area. She is the founder-President of EPTA-Portugal. Having completed the first UK certificate course in Music-Medicine “With Distinction”, she has developed disciplines within the Masters of Music in Performance degree in this area at UA. In 2005, she was featured on the cover of Piano Journal and was the interviewee subject by Carola Grindea published in Great Pianists and Pedagogues in Conversation with Carola Grindea (London: Kahn & Averill, 2007). In 2006, she was nominated for a prize from the Samii-Houseinpour Foundation in Belgium.
She has explored Ibero-american music intensively, including performances of several world premières (5 viñetas para piano emocionado by Eurico Carrapatoso in Poltava, Ukraine; Rhapsody for flute and piano by James Wintle in Funchal, Madeira, Lírios roxos do campo by Amilcar Vasques Dias in Sernecilche, Portugal; 2 CDs of Portuguese 20th-century composers on the Numérica label in 1999, 2006). Several of her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio (USA) Portuguese national radio (Antenna 2), and Portuguese national television (RTP 2).
Dr. Harper holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of North Texas at Denton (1985), as well as a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Texas at Austin (1970). She is also an accomplished harpsichordist/fortepianist. Post-graduate studies were done at the Royal Academy of Music in London in harpsichord, accompanying, chamber music and composition. Her piano teachers have included: Larry Walz, Ralph Berkowitz, Frank Mannheimer, Dalies Frantz, Denise Lassimonne, Verna Harder, Nena Wideman, and coaching with Carola Grindea.
Dr. Harper is the author of several books and more than seventy articles in scientific journals and encyclopaedias. Her books include Manuel de Falla: a Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1998), Manuel de Falla: His Life and Music (Scarecrow Press, 2005), Portuguese Piano Music: A Brief Introduction and Annotated Bibliography (with CD, forthcoming, Scarecrow Press) Correntes pedagógicas no ensino de música: uma introdução (forthcoming, Editorial da Universidade de Aveiro) and a chapter “Baroque Fingering: What can the Modern Pianist Learn?” in Joseph Banowetz’s The Pianist’s Guide to Fingering (forthcoming, Indiana University Press).
Her concert in Goa spans the gamut of the pianistic repertoire, beginning with two Songs without Words (Lieder ohne Wörte) by F. Mendelssohn, a sonata by F. J. Haydn in E flat major (nº 51, Hob.XVI/38), proceeding to Schumann’s monumental Symphonic Etudes. The recital continues with Maurice Emmanuel’s Sonatina No. 4, op. 20, “Sur des modes hindous” (presumably chosen specifically for her recital in India), moving on from there to a work (Nocturne in D flat major) by the Portuguese genius António Fragoso, whose tragically short lifespan was a huge blow to music. The programme concludes with F. Chopin’s Ballade in G minor No.1, Op. 23, and Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8.
It promises to be a concert to be remembered for a long time to come.
This article appeared in the Herald, Goa India on 8 January 2010