I gave my first solo piano recital on March 9 2014. These are the program notes I put together for it.

1. March 9, 2014
Tateuchi Hall
Community School of Music and Arts
Recital 1.0
Eugene Lee presents
Piano Coloratura
The painting is titled "Piano Coloratura" and I thought it was a fitting
theme for my first recital. As a painting title it's a clever play on words -
"coloratura" used in musical settings can refer to elaborate and florid
passages with lots of ornamentation, or a specific voice range
("coloratura soprano") that includes notes above high C and the ability to
execute elaborately ornamented passages (the "Queen of the Night" in
Mozart's "Magic Flute" is the most famous example of this).
I also think "Piano Coloratura" describes the incredible range of colors,
moods, textures, dynamics, and emotions that the piano - essentially a
percussion instrument - is capable of if a masterful composition is
presented by a masterful performer. When I was young, our piano was
a cheap Wurlitzer upright that was pretty much physically incapable of
producing much in the way of anything except notes, and so I had not a
lot of interest in learning how to produce different ranges of tones from
the instrument (except for the hour or two a week when I got to play Mrs.
Koff's lovely Steinway during my lessons). So when I finally was able to
become the proud owner of a Steinway B (Concert & Artist model, no
less), I felt like my ears and fingers (and the connection between them)
was reborn. When I decided to restart taking piano lessons in the fall of
2012, I made learning to produce a wider range of tones and colors from
the piano one of my top objectives. So "Piano Coloratura" is a succinct
way of expression my intention and goal for today's recital - to share with
you my attempt to present, through a broad range of repertoire and my
own attempts to execute, the wonderful range of colors that 88 black and
white keys can create.
About the painting
Claire and I stumbled across
this painting while furniture
shopping a couple of years
ago and immediately decided
to have it be the centerpiece
of our living room (where the
piano lives). It's what I see
while practicing at home.

2. Program Program Notes
A note about program notesSonata in E Major, K380
Sonata in a minor, K54
-------------------------------------
Sonata in C major, K330
Allegro moderato
Andante cantabile
Allegretto
-------------------------------------
Sonata in c sharp minor "Moonlight"
Opus 27 No. 2
Adagio sostenuto
Allegretto
Presto agitato
INTERMISSION
Preludes (from Book 1)
Les collines d’Anacapri
La fille aux cheveux de lin
La cathedrale engloutie
Minstrels
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Prelude Op. 32 No. 12 in g sharp minor
Prelude Op. 23 No. 4 in D Major
Prelude Op 23 No. 5 in g minor
-------------------------------------
Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2 in D flat Major
Ballade No. 1 Op. 23 in g minor
Domenico Scarlatti
(1685-1757)
Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart
(1756-1791)
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Claude Debussy
(1862-1918)
Sergei Rachmaninoff
(1873-1943)
Frederic Chopin
(1810-1849)
Despite being a music geek, I often get turned off by
program notes whose sole purpose seems to be to show off
the author's encyclopedic knowledge of arcane biographical
details about the composer, or an opportunity to create
speculative links between disparate topics - with the net
effect of intimidating the reader and providing no
illumination about the music, what to listen to, or what the
performer's intent is. So my intent with these program notes
is to share what I find interesting about the music, a few
highlights of what to listen for, and an interesting tidbit or
two about the composers and their music.
Scarlatti Sonatas
Domenico Scarlatti was born the same year as J.S. Bach
(1685) and died almost at the same time (Scarlatti in 1757,
Bach in 1750. While they both composed for the dominant
keyboard instrument of the time (harpsichord) their music
seems of different worlds. While Bach composed a great
deal of music for use in church settings, and his keyboard
compositions have a cerebral, almost mathematical feel to
them, Scarlatti wrote operas and music for royal court
settings. Born in Naples, later living in Venice and Rome, he
later moved to Lisbon and eventually Seville and Madrid in
Spain, where he absorbed the Iberian musical influences of
local folk music and especially Flamenco. He wrote 555 (!)
keyboard sonatas, none of which I knew anything about
until I heard Horowitz' fantastic "Return to Moscow"
concert from 1986.
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3. The Sonata in E Major K380 is probably Scarlatti's most popular
sonata, which evokes sensations of a trumpet fanfare in a royal court
with a stately, almost military theme. When I play the Sonata in a
minor, I imagine flamenco dancers' feet stamping on the marble
floors of a palace court in Seville. Scarlatti also was a virtuoso
keyboard performer, and this piece was obviously intended to show
off his capabilities.
Sonata in C Major, K330 - Mozart
Albert Einstein wrote "The sonata appears 'lighter' than the preceding
one, but it is just as much a masterpiece, in which every note 'belongs' - one
of the most lovable works Mozart ever wrote." I also discovered this
piece from Horowitz' Moscow concert, but my teacher
Temirzhan Yerzhanov has opened my mind and my ears to so
much about this piece, and about Mozart's music in general. He
has encouraged me to hear it as an orchestral work in places,
especially with tutti ensembles at the end of each major
section. While working on the second movement with me, he
introduced me to the movie "Madame Sousatzka", starring
Shirley MacLaine as a piano teacher, in which slaps her chest and
tells her prodigy student "you must play from here" - and so my
handwritten notes in my music say "Play from the soul". There
also is a revolutionary, for its time, dissonant moment just before
the main theme is repeated in this movement - listen for it. The
final movement is a classic Mozartian finale, and in Einstein's
words "a particularly delighful feature is the way the second part
of the Finale begins with a simple little song".
Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2,
“Moonlight” - Beethoven
Beethoven composed this sonata (#14) while in Hungary in
1802. The name "Moonlight" is not from Beethoven - it
was given in 1832 by a Berlin critic named Ludwig Rellstab
who described the famous first movement as like "a boat
passing the wild scenery of Lake Lucerne in the
moonlight. Beethoven was frustrated by the popularity of
this piece – he complained to Czerny "They are incessantly
talking about the C-sharp minor sonata (op. 27, No. 2); on
my word I have written better ones."
This sonata is in 3 movements, but the end of each
movement is marked "attacca" which means no break. The
first movement is - well, you all know it. My intention is to
play it without the cliches we are all too accustomed to
hearing. The second movement is a short, slightly tongue-in-
cheek play on 3/4 dance rhythms - with interesting
starts/stops and hesitations. I imagine a teenage couple at
their first formal ball in an 18th century court who sheepishly
creep onto the ballroom floor, and then are upstaged by a
confident couple who knows what they're doing. Then,
without pause, comes the third movement, marked "Presto
Agitato" (extremely fast and agitated). This movement is
fast, full of emotional extremes, and sudden loud outbursts
that remind me of the many stories of Beethoven's forceful
playing breaking several strings during concerts. Thankfully
the modern Steinway pianos are more robust.
Program NotesProgram Notes
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4. Preludes from Book 1 - Debussy
Les collines d’Anacpri – The hills of
Anacapri
Anacapri is one of two towns on the island of Capri (located in the
Bay of Naples), where Debussy spent several vacations. (Interestingly,
the Romans called the island "Goat Island", and the Latin word for
goat is capreae.) Some of its best-known cultural features are its natural
beauty and its' people's joyous spirit, and its national dance, the
tarantella. (Tarantella is a folk dance whose origins date back to the
legend that someone bitten by a tarantula spider had to dance an
upbeat temp in order to sweat out the spider's poison.) Anacapri sits
1600 feet up along a steep hillside cliff. Debussy "paints" into this
piece morning bells, first fragments and then full refrains of the
Tarantella, a tenor singing a folk song in a cafe or bistro, and then a
flourish of bells again. I can almost feel and smell the sea breeze as I
listen to this piece.
La fille aux cheveux de lin – The girl with
the flaxen hair
Do you remember the pure innocence of your first crush? That's
what I think of when I play or hear this piece. It opens with the
sound of an innocent girl humming - probably barefoot in a field
picking dandelions - with simplicity and joyfulness infusing the
atmosphere throughout. Debussy was inspired by a poem of the
same name written by Leconte de Lisle, translated below:
Who sits upon the blooming lucerne,
Singing from the earliest morn?
It is the girl with the flaxen hair,
The beauty with cherry-red lips.
Love, in the bright summer sun,
Sang with the lark.
Your mouth has divine colors,
My dear, and is tempting to kiss!
Do you wish to chat upon the blooming grasses,
Girl with long lashes and delicate curls?
Love, in the bright summer sun,
Sang with the lark.
Do not say no, cruel girl!
Do not say yes! I shall better understand
A long gaze from your large eyes
And your pink lips, o my beauty!
Love, in the bright summer sun,
Sang with the lark.
Farewell to the deer, farewell to the hares
And the red partridges! I wish
To kiss the flax of your hair,
To press upon the crimson of your lips!
Love, in the bright summer sun,
Sang with the lark.
Program NotesProgram Notes
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5. La cathedrale engloutie – The sunken
cathedral
I discovered this piece while in high school and it immediately spoke to
me for several reasons. First of all, Impressionism was my favorite art
period, with Monet's Reims Cathedral series at the top of my
list. Secondly, the legend that this piece is based on - the Legend of
Ys - I found particularly fascinating and moving. The very short
version of it is that the city of Ys, once one of the most beautiful in all
of Europe, sank into the sea off the coast of Brittany after its sinful
princess Dahut literally (but unknowingly) slept with the devil. Legend
has it that at low tide the tips of the city's cathedral spires could be
seen above the waves, and the cathedral's bells could be barely heard
from below. Debussy masterfully captures the sights and sounds of
this long-lost city's cathedral gradually emerging from the depths of the
ocean, its bells eventually flourishing in a momentary return to their
former glory days, only to reluctantly return to the murky watery
depths to which it was doomed.
Minstrels
The best notes for this prelude are from "The Piano Works of Claude
Debussy" by E. Robert Schmitz, and so I'll just quote directly: "This is
not the medieval scene with troubadours and their menestrels, the
household entertainers of great feudal lords. This is the American scene
and one of its rich Negro heritages, born around 1828 in the plantations,
where household servants put on minstrel shows with … cake-walks,
solos, scratchy banjos, and drums… minstrel groups … started
appearing in Europe around 1900 in fairs… Debussy was among the
first whose discerning curiosity was captivated by the minstrel groups,
and this prelude is a tribute to his keen sense of observation and capture
of the mime and humor, the quickly shifting moods and offerings of the
show."
Prelude Op. 32 No. 12 in g sharp minor -
Rachmaninoff
Toto, we're not in Paris any more. From Spain to Vienna to
Hungary to France, we are now squarely in Russia for the next
three pieces.
There are many different and somewhat conflicting interpretations
I've tried to integrated into my intention for this piece. Valentina
Lisitsa (famous for becoming famous direct to YouTube)
describes it as a sleigh ride, but not a joyful one - full of
melancholy and departure. My teacher Temirzhan disagrees and
instead hears birds flying overhead. Other sources (ok Wikipedia)
describe it as a typical Rachmaninoff usage of the Dies Irae
theme. That should give you enough to think about!
Prelude Op. 23 No. 4 in D Major
My teacher encourages me to think of the Volga river when
playing this piece. The Volga is so wide at some points that you
can't see from one side to the other - and so it is this gradually
flowing, stately, majestic type of motion that Rachmaninoff
elegantly captures in this piece. Its compositional structure is
pretty straightforward - it's a simple folk tune with 2 variations -
and yet it's by far the hardest piece of all on today's program to
memorize, due to its complex harmonies and non-repetitive finger
patterns. Please send positive mental endurance and focus energy
towards the stage!
Meanwhile, enjoy this quote by Rachmaninoff:
"What is Music? How do you define it?
Music is a calm moonlit night, the rustle of leaves in Summer.
Music is the far of peal of bells at dusk!
Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love!
Music is the Sister of Poetry and her Mother is Sorrow!"
Program NotesProgram Notes
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6. Prelude Op. 23 No. 5 in g minor
This is definitely one of Rachmaninoff's most famous and popular
pieces. The prelude is marked "Alla Marcia" (in the style of a
march) whose simple but catchy opening tune is set in a percussive
military envelope full of tricky jumps just begging for cracks and
missed notes. The middle section is a beautiful over-the-top
schmalzy melody with a piano-substituting-for-orchestra left hand
that together reminds me of sections of his enormous piano
concerti, and then concludes with a recapitulation of the military
opening. It's a physically taxing, fun piece to play - and I hope you
enjoy it as much as I do.
Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2 in D flat Major - Chopin
I was inspired to learn this piece after watching my teacher
Temirzan Yerzhanov's recording of this on YouTube in which he
performed it as an encore at one of his recitals, and also because I
specifically wanted to work on developing a more "singing tone"
on the piano. Chopin hung out with many different musicians and
artists while he lived in Paris, including the Italian opera composer
Bellini. Bellini's bel canto melodic opera writing influenced Chopin
significantly, which is well-evidenced in this beautiful
Nocturne. After the opening theme is presented by a solo
soprano, she is then joined by a mezzo voice who is determined to
be treated as an equal rather than an accompanist. While the piece
is structurally simple (3 treatments of the theme), there are some
intricate and exquisite harmonies and modulations as well as some
(for the performer, anyway) heart-quickening technically difficult
moments that need to be presented with elegance and
control. The moments leading up to these virtuoso filigrees
remind of me of those moments when Olympic figure skaters
skate backwards and prepare one foot just before attempting a
Quadruple Lutz! The Nocturne closes with an extended coda
on a D flat pedal point. Beautiful music.
Ballade No. 1 Op. 23 in g minor - Chopin
Chopin began work on the Ballade in G Minor in 1831 in
Vienna and completed it four years later in Paris. (By
contrast, I started learning to play this piece when I was 17…
and it's still not completely complete.) It's a composition of
epic proportions, and I like to think of it as a Greek drama
structured heroic saga - with narrator, hero, story, and Greek
choir. While you listen to the Ballade use your imagination to
see what sort of characters and story lines your mind visualizes
- I see our hero taking various journeys, some triumphant,
some tense and dramatic, with the repeated first theme (it
comes back two more times in different keys) being the scene-
changing choir-filling-in-the-story motif. The end of the piece
is infamous amongst pianists - often referred to with adjectives
like "dreaded" in many books - it's a passionate, athletically
virtuoso coda that always reminds me of the first time I
encountered a black diamond run while skiing. Strap yourself
in - this piece is a wild ride!
Program NotesProgram Notes
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