Through his recitals, concerto appearances, and critically acclaimed
recordings, the Irish pianist John O'Conor has earned a reputation as a
masterful interpreter of the Classic and Early Romantic piano repertoires.
Mr. O'Conor's early studies began in Dublin where his main piano teacher was
Dr. J.J.O'Reilly. He was awarded an Austrian Government scholarship that
enabled him to study in Vienna with the renowned pedagogue Dieter Weber. He
also made a special study of Beethoven with the legendary German pianist
Wilhelm Kempff. In 1973 John O'Conor was unanimously awarded First Prize at
the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna and in 1975 he won
First Prize at the Bösendorfer Competition. John O'Conor first gained
widespread attention in the United States in 1986 with the release of the
initial volume of the complete recorded Beethoven Sonata cycle which was
issued as a box set in 1994. Mr. O'Conor also continues to make significant
contributions to the arts in his native country and has championed the works
of Ireland's leading 19th century composer, John Field. He has become a key
figure in the development of young artists through his role as Director of
the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and was a co-founder of the Dublin
International Piano Competition of which he is Artistic Director and
Chairman of the Jury. As well as being Professor of Piano at the Royal Irish
Academy of Music, he gives master classes and lectures in many of the places
he performs as well as in many of the world’s major music institutions.
Since 1997 he has taken on the mantle of his revered professor Wilhelm
Kempff and gives the annual Beethoven Interpretation Course in Kempff's own
villa in Positano, Italy where Kempff gave the course from 1957. For his
services to music he has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the National
University of Ireland, by Trinity College Dublin, and by Shenandoah
University, Virginia, and an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Irish Academy
of Music. He has been decorated with the title "Officier de l'Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres" by the French Government, has been awarded the "Ehrenkreuz
für Wissenschaft und Kunst" by the Austrian Government, and has also been
decorated by the Italian and Polish governments.
John O'Conor appears by arrangement with Diane Saldick, LLC, 225 East 36th
Street, New York, New York 10016.
John Field (born Dublin, July 26, 1782; died Moscow, January 23, 1837)
Nocturne no 5 in B-flat major (composed 1817)
Cantabile, assai Lento
Nocturne no. 6 in F major (composed 1817)
Andantino
Nocturne no. 18 in E major (“Midi”) (composed 1832)
Moderato
Son of a violinist and grandson of an organist, John Field performed his
first concert in Dublin before the age of ten. When his family moved to
London in 1793, he became an apprentice to Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), the
pianist, composer, teacher, publisher, and keyboard manufacturer. Although
the story goes that Clementi was not the most kindhearted of masters, the
musical relationship between them was mutually beneficial. Field’s virtuoso
playing helped Clementi sell pianos, and in turn, Clementi published Field’s
Sonatas, op. 1 in 1801. The two traveled on business to Paris and then to
Saint Petersburg in 1802. Finding the cultural atmosphere there much to his
liking (and perhaps, seeing a chance to flee Clementi’s shadow and ill
treatment), Field chose to remain in Russia for the rest of his life.
Starting around 1812 and continuing through much of the next twenty-five
years, Field composed a series of short, one-movement piano works he decided
– after considering such titles as “serenades” and “romances” -- to call
“nocturnes.” They were notably innovative for their era, pieces exploring a
single mood rather than compositions based on any of the common musical
forms or telling a story. In general, Field’s eighteen Nocturnes find the
melody in the right hand and accompaniment in the left. Many exist in
multiple versions, or their melodies were reused for other purposes in
another Field work.
The Nocturne no 5 in B-flat major from 1817 derived from an earlier serenade
and was later transformed into a song, La Melanconia, which gives you a hint
of its state of mind. Unlike most of its siblings, the Nocturne no. 6 in F
major introduces melodic ideas in the left hand. Also composed in 1817, it
resurfaced as the basis of the slow movement of Field’s Piano Concerto no.
6. The last and probably most famous of the set, the Nocturne no. 18 in E
major, derives from an earlier divertissement and was also later published
in a version with string accompaniment. It is popularly known as “Midi” or
the “Twelve O’Clock Rondo.” Because it can be heard as conveying more than
one mood and is in rondo form, the Nocturne no. 18 is sometimes excluded
from the roster of Field’s proper nocturnes.
Carl Czerny (born Vienna, February 21, 1791; died Vienna, July 15, 1857)
Variations on a Theme of Rode, “La Ricordanza,” op. 33
(composed around 1824)
Theme: Andante espressivo
Variation I: Stesso tempo
Variation II: Stesso tempo
Variation III: Vivace
Variation IV: Sostenuto
Variation V: Allegro vivace; Andante tempo I
Carl Czerny is known to generations of piano students as the composer of
a million devilishly difficult studies and exercises with German or French
titles as tongue twisting as the pieces are digit damaging. Well, perhaps a
million is a bit of an exaggeration, but consider this. The most complete
catalog of his works included opus numbers going up to 861. But that didn’t
include an even larger list of published works lacking opus numbers, let
alone hundreds of unpublished compositions and uncataloged pieces still in
manuscript, many of them left to Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde upon
his death.
Born to a musical family that had emigrated from Prague to Vienna before his
birth, Czerny was playing piano by the age of three and composing by seven.
By 1799, he was studying with Wenzel Krumpholz (1750-1817), a violinist in
Vienna’s Court Opera and a friend of both Czerny’s father and a certain
Ludwig van Beethoven. When Czerny was ten, Krumpholz took him to meet
Beethoven. Impressed, Beethoven decided to teach the child himself and did
so for several years. Being able to observe Beethoven at such close range
and to learn directly from him, Czerny would gain renown as an interpreter
of the master’s piano music. Among Czerny’s most valuable writings were his
interpretive commentaries on Beethoven’s piano works, based on those years
of lessons and observations. He gave early performances of several Beethoven
works (including the Concerto no. 5, op. 73, in 1812), but eventually gave
up playing in public because he believed “my playing lacked that type of
brilliant, calculated charlatanry” of most virtuosos.
Teaching and composing became his focus. Beethoven’s nephew Karl was one of
his pupils. Beginning around 1820, a young Franz Liszt studied with Czerny
for two years. Many other prominent pianists, composers, and teachers were
taught by him, including Anna Caroline de Belleville-Oury, Sigismond
Thalberg, Stephen Heller, and Theodor Kullak. Given the volume of Czerny’s
output, it should come as no surprise that he also eventually abandoned
teaching for the sake of composing.
Czerny composed in virtually every genre, both sacred and secular. In the
fashion of his day, Czerny churned out hundreds of works based on such
pre-existing material as popular and folk songs, ballets, operas, national
anthems, and oratorios, by composers as well-known as Handel, Haydn, and
Beethoven, and by the now long forgotten. Among the latter is Pierre Rode
(1774-1830), in his time one of the great violin virtuosi of the French
school, as well as a teacher and composer. Rode wrote a series of Airs
varié, short but flashy pieces for violin and piano. One of them in
particular, Air varié in G major, op. 10, composed in 1808, became a huge
hit. It was popularized by the young violinist Louis Spohr (1784-1859) and
arranged in dozens of settings, including a renowned vocal version sung by
the Italian soprano Angelica Catalani (1780-1849). In the early 1820s,
Czerny offered his take on the theme with five variations for piano,
published as his Opus 33.
Ludwig van Beethoven (born Bonn, December 16, 1770; died Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Six Bagatelles, op. 126 (composed 1823-1824)
No. 1 in G major: Andante con moto
No. 2 in G minor: Allegro
No. 3 in E-flat major: Andante
No. 4 in B minor: Presto
No. 5 in G major: Quasi allegretto
No. 6 in E-flat major: Presto; Andante amabile e con moto;
Tempo I
Among his piano works, Beethoven’s thirty-two canonical sonatas take
pride of place because of their monumentality, their influence, and their
popularity. By contrast, the more than two dozen bagatelles that Beethoven
wrote were tiny – “bagatelle” does mean “trifle,” after all – but far from
inconsequential. Many critics have heard Beethoven’s final set of six
Bagatelles, op. 126 as miniature masterpieces right in the innovative mold
of such contemporaneous works as the Symphony no. 9 and the late string
quartets. The composer himself, in an 1825 letter to his publisher, B.
Schott, suggested that the Bagatelles, op. 126 might be the best such works
he’d ever written. They were destined to be the last of Beethoven’s
important piano works.
Lightest of the six bagatelles, No. 1 in G major (marked Andante con moto)
couples a lyrical theme with counterpoint. That theme returns in the left
hand later on, after the triple meter mid-section. No. 2 in G minor is in a
quicker Allegro tempo with an agitated demeanor. Hymn-like and calm, No. 3
in E-flat major (Andante) anticipates Brahms in the ears of some listeners.
Opening amidst turmoil, No. 4 in B minor (Presto) has a prominent bass line
in its central section. No. 5 in G major has a contemplative air about it
and is marked Quasi allegretto. No. 6 in E-flat major nestles a tranquil
Andante amabile e con moto center between two giddy Presto passages.
Franz Schubert (born Vienna, January 31, 1797; died Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Sonata in C minor, D. 958 (composed 1828)
Allegro
Adagio
Menuetto: Allegro; Trio
Allegro
Scholars have argued whether both the volume and the quality of
Schubert’s work during the final months of his life reflected the power of a
composer in his prime or the desperation of a composer racing against time.
In addition to Die Schwanengesang, the String Quintet in C major, and Die
Hirt auf dem Felsen, Schubert wrote three piano sonatas, including the
Sonata in C minor, D. 958.
Schubert most likely began sketching out all three of those final sonatas in
the Spring of 1828, although the most intense work took place in September.
It was then that the symptoms of syphilis, from which he’d been suffering
since the early 1820s, prompted him to move from the Viennese home of his
friend, the poet Franz von Schober (1796-1882) to the suburban home of his
older brother Ferdinand. By September 26, Schubert had completed the three
sonatas and incredibly, the next day performed them at the home of Dr. Ignaz
Menz.
On October 2, Schubert wrote about the sonatas to his publisher Heinrich
Probst, noting that he intended to dedicate them to the composer and
pianist, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), who had lauded some of
Schubert’s songs a year earlier. Probst, however, was indifferent to the
sonatas and never published them. When Anton Diabelli finally published them
in 1839, both composer and dedicatee were dead. Diabelli instead slapped on
a dedication to the still-living Robert Schumann (1810-1856), a great
champion of Schubert’s works. Ironically, Schumann wrote a decidedly
lukewarm review of the three sonatas in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik when
they finally saw print. A similar attitude toward the sonatas prevailed
until around the time of the centennial of Schubert’s death, when a serious
reassessment began. They now hold a central place in the solo piano
repertoire.
Schubert, a great admirer of Beethoven, opens the Sonata in C minor, D. 958,
with an obvious reference to the theme of Beethoven’s 1806 Variations on an
Original Theme, WoO 80, in the same key. The contrastingly gentle second
theme leads to a chromatically tinged development. The second movement,
Adagio, alternates a relatively calm A section with a stormy B section full
of triplets. Many listeners question the designation of Menuetto for the
third movement, what with its frequent silences and other rhythmic
idiosyncrasies; the trio section is more leisurely. The galloping subject of
the concluding Allegro, is a tribute to the finale of Beethoven’s Sonata in
E-flat major, op. 31, no. 3, nicknamed “The Hunt.” Among Schubert’s
lengthier movements, the Allegro is a troubled tarantella in rondo form,
wandering among keys until its tense final notes.
--
Program notes by Jay Weitz, Senior Consulting Database Specialist for music,
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio.
He is a contributing performing arts critic for the weekly
alternative newspaper Columbus Alive
(http://www.columbusalive.com).
