Sergei Babayan Recital at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall audiences last heard Sergei Babayan in jaw-dropping concerts with his protégé, Daniil Trifonov. The veteran pianist returns in a recital comprising some of his most-celebrated repertoire. It begins with Liszt’s second ballade, as notable for its aching restraint as its thunderous eruptions; short piano works by Rachmaninoff, a composer especially close to Babayan’s heart; and a fantasia by Vladimir Ryabov, which, after a recent performance by Babayan, was called “the most startling discovery of the evening … something strikingly novel” (Bachtrack). The second half of the concert features a series of songs by Schubert, popularly transcribed for solo piano by Liszt, and Robert Schumann’s dramatic and many-faceted Kreisleriana, one of the composer's favorite works.

Thursday, November 2, 2023 7:30 PM Zankel Hall

Performers

Sergei Babayan, Piano

Program

LISZT Ballade No. 2 in B Minor

VLADIMIR RYABOV Fantasia in C Minor

RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in E-flat Minor, Op. 39, No. 5

RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in C Minor, Op. 39, No. 1

RACHMANINOFF Allegretto in E-flat Minor from Moments musicaux, Op. 16, No. 2

RACHMANINOFF Maestoso in C Major from Moments musicaux, Op. 16, No. 6

LISZT "Der Müller und der Bach" from Müllerlieder von Franz Schubert

LISZT "Aufenthalt" from Lieder aus Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang

LISZT "Auf dem Wasser zu singen" from 12 Lieder von Franz Schubert

LISZT "Die Stadt" from Lieder aus Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang

LISZT "Gretchen am Spinnrade" from 12 Lieder von Franz Schubert

R. SCHUMANN Kreisleriana

Detail

Rachmaninoff put it, music is the sister of poetry, but her mother is sorrow.”

Despite all his virtuosity, Babayan's playing rejects the cliché of the late romantic gesture. This technically brilliant pianist responds to the emotional turmoil of the first (Allegro agitato) or the fifth (Appassionato) piece from the Etudes Tableaux op. 39 with a turbulently speaking musical design, rather than with a thundering paw. This sounds like a seething, eruptive outburst of an inner monologue. At the same time, his playing can get lost in a wonderfully glittering manner in the impressionistically lit inner landscapes of the slow pieces. All beauty is at the same time permeated by deep melancholy, according to Rachmaninoff's statement that music is the sister of poetry, but its mother is grief. (Deutsche Grammophon)

Sergei Babayan is one of the leading pianists of our time. Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy and remarkable levels of color, Sergei Babayan brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally diverse repertoire. Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing and breathtaking virtuosity.” Le Devoir from Montreal put it simply: “Sergei Babayan is a genius. Period.”

Riccardo Muti and Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

Feels to honor Muti and his warm and encouraging message for new discovery in the contemporaries of this program - classicasobi

Revered conductor Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony, Richard Strauss’s Aus Italien, and a New York premiere by Philip Glass inspired by Italy and written to honor Muti. Mendelssohn’s sunny Fourth Symphony is a hugely popular work, and it serves as a companion piece to Strauss’s rarely heard “symphonic fantasy,” last performed at Carnegie Hall nearly 50 years ago. In both pieces, the great German composers distill eye-opening travels across Italy into wonderfully evocative music.

Detail

Program note

Thursday, October 5, 2023 8 PM

Performers

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Riccardo Muti, Conductor

Program

PHILIP GLASS The Triumph of the Octagon (NY Premiere)

FELIX MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4, "Italian"

R. STRAUSS Aus Italien

PHILIP GLASS The Triumph of the Octagon

New premire, written to honor Muti honor Muti. A structure built of sustained chords and rolling arpeggios rather than blocks of limestone.

“While I have written music about people, places, events, and cultures, I cannot recall ever composing a piece about a building. What became clear was that I was not writing a piece about Castel del Monte per se, but rather about one’s imagination when we consider such a place.

I dedicate this work to Maestro Muti, in honor of his many successes as conductor of the CSO and important contributions to the world of music.”

—Philip Glass

F. MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, “Italian”

“Most cheerful piece I have yet composed.” - MENDELSSOHN, once tried, with utter failure, to interest the 80-year-old Goethe in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But Goethe recommended to go to Italy to him.

After Mendelssohn’s premature death in 1847, several of his scores, including the “Italian” Symphony, were finally published, widely performed, and welcomed into the repertoire.

Unlike either, and going against the grain of virtually all symphonic finales known to Mendelssohn, this dance begins in the minor mode and stays there to the last chord. Despite its bitter cast, it makes a brilliant and decisive ending.

Sound

R. STRAUSS Aus Italien, Op. 16

“The connecting link between the old and the new methods” - Strauss, his first tone poem, himself found the work itself as new and revolutionary,

“I will never be converted to Italian music,” Richard Strauss wrote to his father during his first trip to Italy in the summer of 1886. But Aus Italien, the large-scale symphonic work he began sketching as soon as he arrived

“Immensely proud” of the controversy it stirred: “Some people applauded lustily, others hissed loudly, but finally the applause won the day,” Strauss said after the premiere.

There is no escaping a new influence on Strauss, as well: On his way home from Italy, Strauss stopped over in Bayreuth to hear Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal.

Sound

-Edited by classicasobi