Azadeh
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| Jeu 03 Mai, 2007 6:04 pm Tara Kamangar - Concert - Cadogan Hall - Londres - 29 juin |
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May, 2007
TARA KAMANGAR IN CONCERT AT CADOGAN HALL
29 June 2007, 7.30pm
Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ
A piano recital by Tara Kamangar playing piano works of composers Aminollah Hossein, Sergei Prokofiev, Ferruccio Busoni, Franz Schubert and Loris Tjeknavorian
Organised by
Iran Heritage Foundation and Asia House.
Supported by
Julius Baer (Middle East) Ltd.
Programme
PART I
Franz Schubert
Sonata in A Minor, D 784
Allegro giusto
Andante
Allegro vivace
Aminollah Hossein
Excerpts from Mosaiques, Op. 19
Persian Miniatures, Op. 25 (U.K. Premiere)
INTERMISSION
PART II
Ferruccio Busoni
Fantasy on Bizet's Carmen
Sergei Prokofiev
Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 28
Loris Tjeknavorian
Danses Fantastiques, Op. 2
Danse Rhythmique
Danse Gracieuse
Danse Lyrique
Danse de Fete
Danse Amoureuse
Danse Elegiaque
Danse d'Extase
Programme notes
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828), considered one of the greatest composers of the 19th century, was born in a suburb of Vienna. He studied at the Vienna Court Choir from the age of eleven to sixteen and then worked as an elementary school teacher for two years, before deciding to devote his life to music. He had no regular employment and depended on the support of his friends and the occasional sale of his compositions. During his lifetime his musical works were unappreciated by the general public, primarily because he was not a concert performer, and most of his works were written for intimate gatherings rather than for the concert hall. His 634 lieder (songs) demonstrate an equal partnership of piano and voice which subsequent composers would follow. He died at the age of 31, almost certainl! y of syphilis.
Schubert's beautiful Piano Sonata in A Minor, D 784 was composed in 1823. By this time, Schubert was aware of his illness, and this may contribute to the sense of foreboding that is felt throughout the sonata. As Ernest Porter has noted, the opening phrase of the first movement consists of the same four notes as the carefree Trout Quintet, but in reverse, and resolves downward to a minor third, setting a tragic mood for the movement. The second movement, marked Andante, offers a sublime respite before the anxious yet powerful final movement.
AMINOLLAH HOSSEIN (1905-1983) was born in Samarkand, Iran, and moved to Russia shortly thereafter. As a child, Hossein learned to play the tar from his mother, and became passionate about music. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Hossein moved to Germany to study medicine on the insistence of his father, and simultaneously studied the piano with the legendary Arthur Schnabel. In 1927, he moved to France to study composition and orchestration with Paul Vidal at the Paris Conservatory. Hossein's first work, the ballet Toward the Light, was performed in 1938 at the Paris Opera House. His later ballets, Persian Miniatures and Scheherezade, were choreographed by George Skibine, one of Diaghilev's dancers. His other orchestrated works include the Symphony of the Sands (1946), the Persepolis Symphony (1947), the Arya Symphony (1976), and three piano concertos. He also composed twenty film scores using the pseudonym "Andr! e Gosselain".
This past year, Hossein's Persepolis Symphony was performed and recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and several of Hossein's works for orchestra and voice were performed and recorded by the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic and the famed tenor Roberto Alagna. In addition, Hossein's orchestral works served as the music for a production of Ben-Hur directed by his son Robert Hossein, staged in Paris's main stadium and attended by 300,000 people over five nights.
The Mosaique Suite is a set of six pieces dedicated to Hossein's beloved wife Anna, a Russian pianist. It was composed in Paris in the 1930s, with financial support from the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Art. Throughout the suite, Hossein uses quickly repeated, pedaled notes to imitate the sound of traditional Persian stringed instruments. Hossein’s ballet Persian Miniatures is arguably his most popular and beloved work. Today it will be heard for the first time in an arrangement for solo piano.
FERRUCCIO BUSONI (1866-1924) was born in Empoli, Italy. His father was an Italian clarinettist, and his mother was a German pianist. He studied in Graz and eventually settled in Berlin as a pianist and conductor. In his visionary 1907 publication "Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music," Busoni expressed interest in microtonal music, proposing a new division of the octave using sixths of tones. He even commissioned an instrument builder to adapt an old harmonium to lay these new intervals, and devised a new notation for them. (Traditional Middle Eastern music, as opposed to Western music, is microtonal.)
The Carmen Fantasy - published in 1920 as the Piano Sonatina No. 6 'Fantasia da camera super Carmen' - is based on themes from Bizet's opera Carmen, including the 'death' theme, Flower Song, and Habanera. Busoni was an admirer of Bizet, and (like Nietzsche) he saw this opera as the Latin counterfoil to the Wagnerian aesthetic. The opera's familiar themes are presented in unexpected guises, and in the final section the death theme is combined with a suggestion of Carmen's Habanera in an ending of sadness.
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953), one of the most celebrated Russian composers of the twentieth century, was born in the Ukraine. Tutored by his mother, he excelled at piano and composition at an early age. He entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of thirteen, where he was taught by Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov, and Tcherepnin. After graduating, he toured the United States and Europe, gaining the admiration of audiences, if not critics. In 1936 he settled in Moscow and endured a difficult relationship with Stalin, spending his last years in failing health and financial insecurity. He died on the same day as Stalin. His better known works include the ballet Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf for orchestra, and the film music for Alexander Nevsky.
Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 3, completed in 1917, was critically well received. The music is tonal and the structure that of a single sonata movement. The motoric opening progresses into a slow, meditative middle section, and culminates in a virtuosic and exhilarating coda. It is dedicated to Prokofiev's closest friend, the poet Boris Verin, and his fellow student Maxim Schmittgof, who committed suicide in 1914 at the age of 22.
LORIS TJEKNAVORIAN (1937-) was born in Iran, the son of an Armenian immigrant family. He studied the violin and piano at the Tehran Conservatory of Music, and later studied composition at the Vienna Music Academy. As Director of the National Music Archives in Tehran, he was placed in charge of collecting and researching traditional Iranian folk music and national instruments. In the course of his career, Tjeknavorian has made about 100 recordings (with RCA, Philips, EMI, ASV, etc.) and written more than 75 compositions (symphonies, operas, a requiem, chamber music, concerto for piano, violin, guitar, cello and Chinese lute, ballet music, choral works, an oratorio, and over 45 film music scores.) His compositions have been performed by countless major orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the American, Tehran, Haifa, and Johannesburg Symphony Orchestras, among many others. He has also conducted several of the world'! s best orchestras, and was the Principal Conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic for a decade.
The Danses Fantastiques was composed during Tjeknavorian's final years at the Vienna Academy, from 1959-60. He later orchestrated this work for three pianos, celesta, and percussion. The dances range in character from trance-like to romantic to flashy. The expressive and haunting melodies are all original (not derived from folk songs) and sound distinctively Armenian. Regarding this composition, the New York Times critic Bernard Holland writes that 'Mr. Tjeknavorian puts Armenian and Iranian tradition in our hand as if they were passports.'
Tara Kamangar
With a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach to Behzad Ranjbaran, pianist Tara Kamangar's recent performances have included solo recitals in London's Wathen Hall and Leighton House Museum, and in the Wattis Room of San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall, broadcast over the BBC Persian Service and Voice of America Television and Radio, and covered in the international editions of Iran's leading newspapers, Kayhan and Ettela'at. Tara has performed and premiered works by the composers Aminollah Hossein, Loris Tjeknavorian, Hormoz Farhat, and Behzad Ranjbaran, and recorded the complete piano works of Golnoush Khaleghi at the composer's request, to be released on the RKAC label later this year. Most recently, Tara was asked by the famed music producer, David Foster, to perform at a fundraiser at the home of Barb! ra Streisand, in a line-up that included pop-classical singer Josh Groban, Grammy-winning saxophonist Kenny G, and Grammy- and Academy Award-winning rock singer Melissa Etheridge.
Tara's upcoming performances for 2007-2008 include solo recitals in the David Josefowitz Recital Hall and Washington DC's National Gallery of Art. She will be the featured performer at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in London, patroned by Cherie Blair (for which she is a finalist in the 'Arts and Culture' category.) She will also perform Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and premiere Hossein's Second Piano Concerto in the United States, as a soloist with the Oakland Symphony under the baton of Maestro Michael Morgan.
A native of California, Tara placed first in several piano competitions while still in high school, received the Paderewski Medal from the National Piano Guild, and participated in top music festivals across the country. During this time, she also performed as a first violinist with the Merced Symphony Orchestra and the California All-State Orchestra, and performed Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with two symphony orchestras. After graduating as valedictorian of her high school class, Tara attended Harvard University, receiving a BA with Honours in Anthropology. While at Harvard, she continued her piano studies with Victor Rosenbaum, Professor of Piano at the New England Conservatory, performed in solo and chamber recitals across campus, broadcast over WHRB 95.3FM and Voice of America's Persian language service, and formed a piano-violin duo with the Concertmistress of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra.
Tara is currently completing postgraduate studies in piano performance at London's Royal Academy of Music with Patsy Toh, as a recipient of the Kathleen Bayfield scholarship.
Admission
18, 20 GBP
Box office (Cadogan Hall)
By Telephone: +44 (20) 77304500
Monday to Saturday from 10am to 7pm
Sunday from 10am to 7pm (performance days only)
Tickets purchased up to 6 days prior to the event are mailed 1st class.
Tickets purchased within 7 days of the event are held at the box office for collection any time prior to the concert.
All telephone bookings are subject to a fee of 2.50 GBP per transaction.
Online: www.cadoganhall.com
All online bookings are subject to a fee of 1.50 GBP per transaction.
Enquiries
Cadogan Hall: +44 (20) 77304500
Iran Heritage Foundation: +44 (20) 74934766, info@iranheritage.org
Asia House: +44 (20) 73075454, betty.yao@asiahouse.co.uk
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