Music Chamber

Franz Liszt  (1811 – 1886) Six Consolations S172 R12

1. Andante con moto ~ 2. Un poco più mosso ~ 3. Lento placido

4. Quasi adagio ~ 5. Andantino ~ 6. Allegretto sempre cantabile

 

György Ligeti (1923-2006) Four Etudes

VIII. Fem ~ XI. En Suspens

X. Der Zauberlehrling ~ XV. White on White

 

Franz Liszt Sonata in B minor S178

 

Peter O’Hagan has given frequent solo recitals in London and the provinces since his Wigmore Hall debut. His repertoire at over twenty recitals at London’s South Bank Centre (Purcell Room) has included all three sonatas by Boulez, and major works by Stockhausen, Ligeti, Messiaen and other leading contemporary composers. Abroad he has given recitals at festivals of contemporary music in Germany, Portugal and the USA. In January 2008, he gave a critically acclaimed recital of French piano music at the Wigmore Hall, followed by a performance of Boulez’s recent piano music in the presence of the composer at Birmingham Town Hall. Of his recording of Edwin Roxburgh’s Sonata for Piano, the reviewer in Gramophone wrote “Peter O’Hagan’s account of the Sonata is a tour-de-force of intelligent virtuosity”.  Last year, solo concerts included a recital of recent English music at the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, and appearances in Croatia and at the 2010 Bath Bach Festival. 

 

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti (perhaps best known for his soundtrack use in Stanley Kubrick films) composed a cycle of 18 Études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001 arranged in 3 books. They are a major creative achievement combining virtuoso technical problems with expressive content of the 20th century – following the études of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy but addressing new technical ideas as a compendium of the concepts Ligeti had worked out in his other works since the 1950s. Fém – the title is the Hungarian word for metal. Based on chords of the open fifth, with short, irregular, asymmetrically grouped melodic fragments playing off one another. En Suspens – six beats per bar in the right hand, four in the left hand, irregular phrase-lengths and accents in both, weave an ethereal and rather jazz-like web of harmony. Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) – a dancing melodic line is kept in perpetual motion by irregularly dispersed staccato accents. White on White – a white-key study except for the very end, beginning with a serene canon and with a whirling fast middle section.

 

The inspiration for the Six Consolations was literary, a book of poetry by Charles Saint-Beuve that appeared in 1830. In general, the six works are intimate and gentle in nature, the first and last two sharing the key of E major. Liszt completed the monumental Sonata for piano in B minor in February 1853, but it was not premiered by Hans von Bülow until 1857. Critics lambasted the sonata, with the newspaper 'Nationalzeitung' referring to it as..." an invitation to hissing and stomping”. With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems obvious that it represents a unique landmark in the history of piano music as the synthesis of the sonata-form movement with the multi-movement instrumental cycle, which has been dubbed the 'double-function' form. The Sonata can be broken down roughly as follows: A 'First' movement, with a Slow introduction. Exposition, and Development: a 'Slow' movement and a 'Final' movement, with a Recapitulation, a Fugue (scherzando), and a Retransition which brings the sonata to an end in the way the form began. As in Liszt's other larger works, the Sonata's thematic material consists of a series of short motifs, or themes, transformed in character and mood throughout.