Browse through our audio library to hear recorded performances by Alan Fraser, his students and colleagues, as well as talks given to various groups of students and aficionadi. To get you started, here are a couple of numbers recorded June 2010 by Alan Fraser at McGill University, Montreal.
Alan Fraser Russian Recital Original Cover showing Scriabin & Rachmaninoff 1892, Alan Fraser 1982
Sonata #3 in F sharp minor, op. 23 (1897)
Folk Tale in E minor, op. 10 #3 (The Knight’s March – 1908)
Folk Tale in F minor, op. 27 #3 (1913)
Folk Tale in E flat major, op. 27 #2 (1913)
Etude in D sharp minor, op. 8 #12
The music on this CD speaks of a land, a people governed by values profoundly different from our own. It reflects the life of a culture which hasn’t yet lost that indefinable yet essential something which Western ‘civilization’ seems often so insidiously, so easily to have destroyed…
Photo of Alexander Scriabin given to Alan Fraser by Alexander Scriabin, great-grand-nephew of the composer
…Skryabin writes, “I can’t understand how to write only ‘music’ now. How uninteresting it would be. Music, surely, takes on idea and significance when it is linked to one single plan within a whole world-viewpoint… Music is the path of revelation… how potent a method of knowledge it is” …Boris Schloezer, Skryabin’s brother-in-law, describing the Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor: “Skryabin became aware of himself… He had to bring into full consciousness the liberating joy he had found within… This joy lived deep within his soul, and it could not bear the light of day. It flickered, then went out…”
…Vers la Flamme’s opening motive questions tentatively in sighs plangent with dolorous, unfulfilled longing. The work’s thematic cell, a single two-note falling motive is a cogent and potent expression of desire, be it sexual or spiritual in nature. The ‘desire’ motive, initially dark and lethargic, later grows in power and intensity until it is singing, sweet, electric white and intense, swimming, flying in a sea of turbulence and foaming activity… …For Skryabin, religious feeling and physically passionate love were linked rather than separated, ecstasy being the common denominator. All is synthesis: matter and energy, carnal and spiritual love. The flame may be the energy of the atom, but even the quantum physicists now tell us that matter and spirit are one… Surely the flame, ecstatic in nature, has the potential to redeem rather than to destroy, inner desire both constituting the flame and fueling the journey towards it. …With his Sonata #2 in B flat minor Sergei Rakhmaninov, beloved composer of the piano concerti we know so well, has written a veritable concerto without orchestra: in its grandeur and magnificence of scope it equals the emotional intensity of the better-known symphonic works. The motivic economy of Op. 36, its ingenious use of orchestral colours, its highly evolved yet apparently free compositional process, its rich texture and expression, all mark it as one of Rakhmaninov’s unacknowledged masterpieces. Op. 36 stands as convincing evidence: Sergei Rakhmaninov was anything but an anachronism of the Romantic era, a far greater and more modern composer than the hack spinner of movie melodies so many believe him to be…
Alan Fraser, 1995
The music on this CD is thoroughly Russian. It speaks of a land, a people governed by values profoundly different from our own. It reflects the life of a culture that hasn’t yet lost that indefinable yet essential something which Western ‘civilization’ seems often so insidiously, so easily to have destroyed. It is colourful, deeply emotional music. Nothing pale, nothing half-hearted. Whatever is felt, be it joy or sorrow, is felt to the uttermost depths. And somehow it lends sense to this perplexingly attractive passage from Tolstoi: “… a vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, and human – for everything the majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world… this strange and fascinating feeling… that wealth, power and life… all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard – if it has any worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced. It is the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors and glasses, for no apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, non-human criterion of life.” The works of the two most important late Russian Romantics, Sergei Vasiliyevitch Rakhmaninov (1873 – 1943) and Alexandr Nikolayevitch Skryabin (1872-1915) share many national characteristics: strong emotional expression, distinctive harmonic flavour, fervent and fecund melodic invention – yet there are differences. Skryabin the mystic, of Russia, yet always striving for something not only beyond Russia but beyond this world altogether. Rakhmaninov, ironically the one forced to leave Russia at the height of his compositional powers, remaining rooted deeply in his motherland both spiritually and stylistically. The ecstasy and despair of intense spiritual struggle were almost like a drug for Skryabin; Rakhmaninov spoke in a language of more human, flesh-and-blood emotions. Where Skryabin’s scores are littered with directions intended to evoke graphic and explicit inner states. Rakhmaninov preferred merely to imply the inner emotional drama by purely musical means: the art was in the unspoken communication.
Alexander Scriabin, 1892
Alexander Skryabin, 1892 The young Skryabin was both extremely religious and highly sensual. These quotes from his personal diaries show his relationship to God as arising from actual sensation, inner processes that he felt and described, rather than from conceptualized systems of thought: “I thank you for all the fears which your trials and tribulations aroused. You made me know my endless power, my unlimited might, my invincibility. You gave me the power of creativity. ‘Mighty is he who feels defeat and overcomes it! ‘Religious feeling is an awareness of the divine in oneself… prayer is a élan towards God. ‘Like the word of Christ, As the deed of Prometheus, I clothed thee, O world of mine, With a single glance, And by my one thought.” In his excellent biography, Faubion Bowers accuses Skryabin of megalomania and delusions of grandeur evident in such statements as “I am God” and “I create the world as I glance upon it”. But if (as G. I. Gurdjieff notes) there exists knowledge which cannot be apprehended in normal states of consciousness, then Skryabin’s so-called egomaniacal statements could merely indicate the higher level of psychical intensity required in any true creative act — an act which accesses knowledge or information direct from God or the collective unconscious. He who plunges into this higher level but does not create, we call a madman. The creative process requires that same mad plunge, but done with tremendous courage and presence of mind. It actually demands the risk of one’s sanity in order to create! Skryabin writes, “I can’t understand how to write only ‘music’ now. How uninteresting it would be. Music, surely, takes on idea and significance when it is linked to one single plan within a whole world-viewpoint… Music is the path of revelation… how potent a method of knowledge it is… how much I have learned through music! All I now think and say, I know from my composing.” Boris Schloezer, Skryabin’s brother-in-law, describing the Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor: “Skryabin became aware of himself… He had to bring into full consciousness the liberating joy he had found within… This joy lived deep within his soul, and it could not bear the light of day. It flickered, then went out… Skryabin was one of the few who summoned an ancient god from within the depths of his being and gave external consciousness to it”.
Natalya Sekerina, 1894 (Skryabin's first love)
Skryabin himself appended to the sonata a literary program, “States of Soul”: “I: The free, untamed Soul plunges passionately into an abyss of suffering and strife”. “II: The Soul, weary of suffering, finds illusory and transitory respite. It forgets itself in song, in flowers. But underneath the false veil of fragrant harmonies and light rhythms this vitiated and uneasy Soul still suffers…” “III: The Soul floats on a tender and melancholy sea of feeling, amongst the wraithlike charms of Love, sorrow, secret desires, inexpressible thoughts”. “IV: Now the elements unleash themselves. The Soul struggles within their vortex of fury. As the storm reaches its climax, suddenly the voice of the Man-God rises up from within the Soul’s depths. The song of victory sounds triumphantly. But it is weak still… When all is within its grasp, it sinks back, broken, falling into a new abyss of nothingness.” Thus in the first movement a literal battle is waged between the upper and lower registers, the bass insisting on its proud, martial call to arms (a characteristic motive of Skryabin’s which is to become the motto for the sonata) while the treble spins its soulful, striving melody in juxtaposition. Subsequently, a lyrical second melody (1:07) and a friendly third theme game of tag (1:24) provide some relief from the suffering and strife. Finally the opening theme, transformed into an optimistic F sharp major (1:53), is set against its foil, the gentler second theme (2:04), the former musical adversaries now live in harmony. The intensity of the battle rises again through the movement’s development section (2:28) until the Soul proves itself equal to all challenges and finally revels in a full-blown expression of its power (4:12) at the moment of recapitulation. This glorious movement draws to a close with one more victorious statement (5:52), one last triumphant unification of the disparate psychical elements, a first taste of approaching bliss… In the following movements the sonata’s upward leaping motto is transformed to evoke different ideas: in the Scherzo it becomes a restless, march-like accompaniment cautioning us that conflict still lurks under the surface calm. Indecisive, searching harmonies (0:03, 0:05, 0:10) also contribute to a feeling of false repose… In the Andante, Skryabin, sublime and ecstatic, spins one of his most eloquent melodies. Yet even here all is not complete rest: the energy of the battle call manifests in a bell-motive (0:09, 0:19): the Soul’s power never dissipates completely, not even in moments of blissful stasis. In the recapitulation, the underlying subtle series of sighs intensifies the feeling of desire and longing (2:24), until finally the masculine element responds with “his” rendition of the divine song (3:14)… All falls to blissful stasis, the sonata’s motto returns softly in the major (3:58). But then a transformation occurs in the other direction, from major to minor (4:03), and the realization slowly dawns that this was but a pause before the plunge into the vortex.
Skryabin's second wife Tatyana Schloezer
In the Finale the battle call motive finally appears in the treble, linked to the borrowed cantabile second theme from the first movement, now grotesquely transformed and extended chromatically downward (0:00). This new hybrid theme, sick, threatening, and devilish in character, is set over a maniacally surging and fiendishly difficult left hand figuration. This hellish movement, struggling between dark and light, good and evil, God and the Devil, seems to express Skryabin’s contention that “to be an optimist in the real sense, one must have suffered despair and triumphed over it.” Yet at the final cadence, after a glorious ff apotheosis of the blissful third movement theme (5:20) and one last momentary glimpse of hope (6:12), dark wins over light. Schloezer comments: “In short, this is the tragedy of a personality unable to bear his own deification into the Man-God. At the very moment he sounds his song of triumph he sinks into the abyss… the winds blow the dust even of supermen into space.” “Early in my life, in Paris, I led an extremely corrupt life. I tried everything… I drowned myself in pleasures, and was put to the test by them. Without this there is no triumph… I have known since then that the creative act is inextricably linked to the sexual act… Maximum creativity, maximum eroticism…” Following Op. 23 a quantum transformation takes place in Skryabin’s work as he develops his mature, ecstatic style. The music of Vers la Flamme Op. 72 has evolved light years from the Romanticism of the 3rd Sonata: its synthesized harmonies creating a mystical, super-concentrated emotional expression. Whereas the 3rd sonata begins with an exultant and powerfully affirming upward surge, Vers la Flamme’s opening motive questions tentatively in sighs plangent with dolorous, unfulfilled longing. The work’s thematic cell, a single two-note falling motive (1:09) is a cogent and potent expression of desire, be it sexual or spiritual in nature. The ‘desire’ motive, initially dark and lethargic, later grows in power and intensity until it is singing, sweet, electric white and intense, swimming, flying in a sea of turbulence and foaming activity (3:15). The directions in the score clearly indicate Skryabin’s intentions: we move from “sombre” (dark) (0:01) to “avec une emotion naissante” (with a nascent emotion) (1:51) to “avec une joie voilee” (with a veiled joy) (2:00) to “avec une joie de plus en plus tumultueuse” (with a joy more and more tumultuous) (2:45) to “eclatant, lumineux, ff ma dolce” (clangorous, luminous, fortissimo but sweet) (3:15).
Scriabin's Aunt Who Raised Him
For Skryabin, religious feeling and physically passionate love were linked rather than separated, ecstasy being the common denominator. All is synthesis: matter and energy, carnal and spiritual love. The flame may be the energy of the atom, but even the quantum physicists now tell us that matter and spirit are one. Vers la Flamme’s development of the single desire motive, culminating in a tremulous vibrato, could portray the mounting excitement of a woman’s excited, half-desperate cries signaling approaching delirium (4:22). But, the inner mounting flame could equally be one of religious, mystically fervent joy. One of his last works, Vers la Flamme is as misunderstood as anything Skryabin ever wrote. Even Vladimir Horowitz comments, “This is psychedelic music dealing with the mysterious forces of fire and the atom that can destroy all of humanity. Skryabin previewed a vision of the atom bomb”, and the maestro adds massive, explosive basses and octave doublings to prove his point. But surely the flame, ecstatic in nature, has the potential to redeem rather than to destroy, inner desire both constituting the flame and fueling the journey towards it. The 3rd sonata opens in exultation but ends in annihilation, as if the young Skryabin could not handle the mystical fires he had discovered. But the energies, which earlier consumed him, have now become agreeable food for the mature composer. No more the abyss: in Vers la Flamme Skryabin soars ever higher, ever closer to his Creator, to the Source. The Folk Tales of Nikolai Medtner exude Russian nostalgia and atmosphere, mitigated by the influence of Medtner’s German ancestry. In The Knight’s March he revels in various contrapuntal practices, first presenting two contrasting themes (0:01, 1:32), then combining them contrapuntally (2:18), in canon, (2:35), in augmentation (2:53), and finally in a stretto fugato which rises in chromatic sequence (3:12)! This tour de force culminates with a graphic depiction of the left, right, left, right footsteps of the knight’s inexorable progress (3:43)… In the opening theme of Op. 23 #3, the 2nd (0:10) and 3rd (0:15) phrases are fragments of phrase #1 (0:01) in harmonic sequence, and the 4th (0:19) is an exact inversion of phrase #1! Op. 23 #2, a light and humorous romp with an energetic final flourish, provides us with a few moments of comic relief… The word dumka comes from the Russian dumati, to ruminate – in this case, in classic Russian style, on the utter futility and meaninglessness of existence! The musical form is a type of Slavonic folk ballad, alternately elegiac and madly gay. Unlike Tchaikovsky’s popular composition of the same name, Balakirev’s Dumka is virtually unknown even in the land of its composer. Unjust neglect indeed… Notice the figuration in the interludes (1:30, 3:24) which will provide the model for the closing measures of the Rakhmaninov sonata’s first movement.
Sergei Rakhmaninov 1892
With his Sonata #2 in B flat minor Sergei Rakhmaninov, beloved composer of the piano concerti we know so well, has written a veritable concerto without orchestra: in its grandeur and magnificence of scope it equals the emotional intensity of the better-known symphonic works. This sonata has been derided by critics as second-rate music, which only a Horowitz could redeem with a much more than first-rate performance. In fact, the motivic economy of Op. 36, its ingenious use of orchestral colours, its highly evolved yet apparently free compositional process, its rich texture and expression, all mark it as one of Rakhmaninov’s unacknowledged masterpieces. Op. 36 stands as convincing evidence: Sergei Rakhmaninov was anything but an anachronism of the Romantic era, a far greater and more modern composer than the hack spinner of movie melodies so many believe him to be. The dramatic intensity of the 2nd Sonata is achieved with great economy of thematic means – one motivic cell: a descending chromatic scale ending with a quick leap down a fourth. This motive has something of a ‘Fate’ quality about it (think for instance of the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony), yet it also contains strange echoes of Skryabin’s ‘desire’ motive, lending it a passionate intensity that could be even sexual. From the moment this appears in a flurry of sound (0:07) it permeates the whole work as Rakhmaninov creates atmospheres of feeling by means of shifting, contrasting sound textures rather than by full-fledged thematic development. The haunting 2nd theme (2:08) is derived from the same chromatic falling figure, now a melancholic, lonely call across the vast Russian steppes. At times Rakhmaninov’s use of substitution tones and unusual modal flavours brings this music to the brink of atonality, as with the ‘pealing bells’ of the first movement (6:19). Many moods are evoked with bell sounds elsewhere as well: from the first movement’s thunderous, cataclysmic return of its opening theme (6:30) to the pathetically pealing of a single high tone in the slow movement (1:21). The composer wrote, “The sound of church bells dominated all the cities of the Russia I used to know – Novgorod, Kiev, Moscow. They accompanied every Russian from childhood to the grave. All my life I have taken pleasure in the differing moods and music of gladly chiming and mournfully tolling bells. This love of bells is inherent in every Russian…”
In the achingly tender Lento, the descending scale idea appears in a rocking barcarolle (0:16-0:30), but this theme is suffused with such underlying fervour that it too must eventually erupt in a passionate improvisation on the sonata’s thematic cell (Rakhmaninov’s desire motive?) (3:22) before returning to an intense, heartfelt intimacy. In the Allegro molto the descending scale is again transformed, now into an orgiastic, technically brilliant and difficult, glass-smashing Cossack dance (0:10) which shows no sign of letting up until the thematic cell again interrupts (1:05) and leads to the second lyric theme, one of the most beautiful in all Rakhmaninov’s oeuvre (1:33). Does this mad dash paint Mephisto’s entrance, or could it be a joyous extravaganza of two lovers? Whatever the hidden program, the energy and excitement mount through the Finale’s ensuing development (2:51), its recapitulation (3:52), its repeat of the second theme in a full-orchestra extravaganza (4:45) and its brilliant coda (5:45), culminating in a triumphant eruption of technical and sonic brilliance. Rakhmaninov, having shortened and simplified Op. 36 in 1931, later allowed Vladimir Horowitz to restore much of the original material leaving only some revisions intact. After Rakhmaninov’s death Horowitz continued to experiment. For example, his brilliant stroke of substituting a rising chromatic bass line for the original tonic pedal in the final bars (5:54) appears only on his 1979 recording. He also reworked much of the passagework of the third movement, emendations, which appear in neither Rakhmaninov text. I base my performance mainly on the last of the Horowitz reworkings, with a few additional modifications of my own. The well-known ‘encores’ need little commentary. Rakhmaninov’s G sharp minor prelude, op. 32 #11, calls to mind pale yellow sun sparkles on a breeze-swept sea, a ship poised to sail, passengers about to leave Russia their homeland, never to return. Following Rakhmaninov’s delicate and intimately lyrical G major prelude, our program comes full circle with Skryabin’s Op. 8 #12, an etude in legato playing both for the right hand octave melody and the left hand accompaniment with its nimble thumb movements. I have tried to highlight the work’s tragic, singing quality, too often neglected in performances of the “racket in D sharp minor.”
- liner notes by Alan Fraser
Alan Fraser Recording in Town Hall, Subotitsa
Produced by Alan Fraser Recording Engineer: Alan Fraser Digital editing and mastering: Alan Fraser Re-mastering: Morris Apelbaum, Silent Sound Studios, Montreal Booklet text: Alan Fraser French translation: Benjamin Waterhouse Colour photo of Alan Fraser by Zlatko Silver Teleki, Silver Photo Studios, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia Black and white photos of Alan Fraser by Howard Bornstein, California and Clarke Fraser, Montreal Recorded September 17-19, October 14, December 7, 14 1997 at Subotica Town Hall, Yugoslavia. Steinway piano tuned and maintained by Olah Gyorgy and Alan Fraser. Last but not least, thanks to: Debi, Megan, Idries, Clarke, Beryl, Norah, Noel, Scott, Prof. Jokuthon Kadirova-Mihailovitch, Prof. Lauretta Milkman, Prof. Alan Belkin, Prof. Tom Plaunt, John Browning, “G.” and his descendants including Maria Rankov, Pauline de Dampierre and Tom Daly; Sam Slutsky, Misha Petrovitch, Sun Zhen Zhun, Jane Kee, Moshe and his descendants especially Jerry Karzen; Werner and his descendants including Dennis Percy and Alain Chalifour; John Seely, Brana, Otilia, Vrhovac Biljana, Bana, Baldomero, Bob McAlear, Medvedeva Irina Andreevna (Glinka Museum, Moscow), A. Scriabin (the composer’s great-grandnephew, Chairman of the International Scriabin Society), Alan Walker, the Art Academy of Novi Sad, SNP Novi Sad, the Town of Subotica, Vera and Boban Milovanovitch, Fridrih Lindemann, Atsa of ProFoto Novi Sad, Paul McGoldrick, and many others who helped… you know who you are! Exceptionally grateful thanks to Morris Apelbaum of Silent Sound Studios, Montreal, and… A special thanks to my two mentors: Phil Cohen, a man of true vision and genius, and Kemal Gekich, a most highly esteemed colleague and dear friend whose youthful exuberance, personal magnetism, scathing wit, incisive perception, selfless dedication and awesome talent have all left their mark both on me and on this record…
Town Hall, Subotitsa Yugoslavia
Scriabin 3rd Sonata 3rd-4th mvts.
Medtner Fairy Tale in E flat major
Encore: Rachmaninoff Sonata in B flat minor 3rd mvt.
Chopin Ballade in G minor Op. 23
Of the Scriabin 5th Sonata Fraser writes, “The difficulty of interpreting this work is managing the transitions between the sonata’s languourous, sultry eroticism and its frenetic, ecstatic energetic explosiveness. The inexorable forward momentum of the coda tends to get cut because of the leaps to the bass notes, but if you can time them right, the whole section develops an energy that is positively electrifying.”
Of the Scriabin 3rd Sonata he writes, “One main problem with the first movement is tempo: too rushed and it loses its grandeur and monumentality, too slow and it becomes pedantic. I spent a long time trying different tempi to get it just right: this particular performance is admittedly on the slow side but it does give the music space to speak in a particular way…” This recording from a concert in a converted convent near Rome, on a Yamaha C5 piano…
Sonate apres une lecture de Dante Franz Liszt
Islamey’, an Oriental Fantasy Mihi Balakirev
Mazurka in G minor Frederic Chopin
Mazurka in C major Frederic Chopin
Beethoven Sonata in E flat major, Op. 7
Molto Allegro i con brio
Largo con gran espressione
Allegro
Poco Allegretto i grazioso
Ballade in G minor, Op. 23 Frederic Chopin
Fantasy in F Minor, Op. 49 Frederic Chopin
Prelude in B flat major, Op. 23 #1 Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sonata #3 Sergei Prokofiev
Alborado del Grazioso, from ‘Miroirs’ Maurice Ravel
Sonata #3 in B minor, 1st movement Frederic Chopin
Scherzo in B Flat Minor Frederic Chopin
Prelude & Fugue in B flat minor Johann Sebastian Bach
L’Isle Joyeuse Claude Debussy
Italian Concerto Johann Sebastian Bach
December (from ‘The Seasons”) Piotr Illich Tchaikowsky
Gnomenreigen Franz Liszt
Impromptu in E flat major Franz Schubert
‘When I first heard Chen Yuan play, she had fingers and brilliance for sure, but her rhythm was quite unstable, her phrasing was not so developed and she did not have a very big sound. But with all that technical brilliance already in place, I figured she could really blossom if given the right information… By the end of first term she could play Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata in the original version, with decent phrasing and rhythm but a sound that was still small. Second term started with intensive work on Beethoven Op. 101. We worked very hard on the first phrase alone, just to make it 1) sing and 2) lilt properly. When she “got” that – what a subsequent transformation.
Listen to her sound in the Dante Sonata – and this from a hand that barely takes an octave! Due to nerves she muffs the first octave, but from there on in, it’s a blistering performance that is as intense emotionally as it is brilliant technically and huge sonically. I’ll never forget her face as she played her final exam recital – it seemed to glow but she was very quiet, concentrated. All her energy went into the piano, into listening to her sound – nothing was wasted on any effortfulness in producing that sound. She was like the Buddha.
After the first semester I was searching for a way to get more of her soul involved with her playing. Looking at some childhood pictures that her teacher, the esteemed Xie Mei Ai, showed me over Christmas dinner, I noticed for the first time the slight Mongolian aspect to her features, and the thought hit me, “give her Islamey, Balakirev’s oriental fantasy”. It worked: here was western music that her eastern sensibility had no trouble getting her teeth into.
With Dante Sonata there was a more serious problem. For instance, in the second, “heavenly” theme I explained to her about Liszt’s dual nature, his carnal leanings and his aspirations towards the spiritual life, how the sonata explored this conflict and how this theme was his expression of prayer. Nothing. She played the theme but it didn’t live. So I tried another tack: “Imagine that you are the emperor of China, and that you are making your yearly pilgrimage to the circular Temple of the Sun in Beijing. It is your responsibility to pray to the Gods and convince them that the people deserve to have a good harvest this year. Without the beneficence of the Gods, thousands of your people will die. You enter the temple, you prostrate yourself, you pray with all sincerity, all your heart, all your love for your people. And then, it’s not as if you imagine some golden sound of trombones from on high, no, you really do hear them. You look up: the dome of the temple is subsumed in a golden light, and from that haze comes the sound of the heavenly trumpets – somewhat far off, yet distinct. Your prayers have been answered… Try to think of this as you play this theme”
What happened next in that lesson remains engraved in my memory: time stopped. She played, and it was prayer. Xie Mei Ai was there – we glanced wordlessly at each other – the elderly mentor understood only too well what magic was happing! The point is, it was through Chen Yuan’s own culture that she could access the spiritual understanding of the work. Western culture is foreign to her, but the spiritual materia of a work like Dante sonata is universal: to communicate it to a student, you just have to translate into the student’s home culture, the one that touches his or her soul. It was an important lesson for all of us…
Chen Yuan, female aged 21
Sonate apres une lecture de Dante Franz Liszt
Islamey’, an Oriental Fantasy Mihi Balakirev
Mazurka in G minor Frederic Chopin
Mazurka in C major Frederic Chopin
Qian Cheng was one exceptional young man. At 16 his technique was somewhat virtuosic but a bit unsteady. However, when he improved his physical organization, his relationship to the keyboard, and started to get real sound coming out of the piano, an extraordinarily sensitive, noble and passionate spirit was unlocked. He played with exceptional maturity and a fire that many times left me in tears (and that’s not so easy to do!). Unfortunately I don’t have recordings of two of his best performances: the Chopin Ballade in A flat major and the C sharp minor Scherzo. These were world class, unbelievable from anybody, not to mention someone so tender in years… I am happy to say that he went on to study at Kiev Conservatory where he was a prizewinner in the Horowitz competion in 2005.
Qian Cheng, aged 16
Sonata in E flat major, Opus 7 Ludwig van Beethoven
Molto Allegro i con brio
Largo con gran espressione
Allegro
Poco Allegretto i grazioso
Ballade in G minor, Op. 23 Frederic Chopin
Fantasy in F Minor, Op. 49 Frederic Chopin
Prelude in B flat major, Op. 23 #1 Sergei Rachmaninoff
Kuang Li was not so brilliant in the audition – a young, confused 14 year old that could hardly play his way through the score… There were many who by their playing deserved to enter my class more than he. But he had such amazing hands! I took him only because of his hands. They were huge but not fat. Fine boned for their size, but so large that I just ached to see what he could make them do. They reminded me of Ratimir Martinovich’s – but Ratko is 25, not 14! And in the end, when I showed those hands how to make real sound come out of the piano, mostly by learning how to stand with both physical stability on the board and rhythmic stability, it turns out that there was a soul in there as well, that could feel and express real passion no problem… The first time Kuang Li surprised us all by catching fire was in his Appassionata Sonata, but these two performances from his final exam show that it wasn’t a fluke…
Kuang Li, male aged 14 Moment Musical #4 in E minor Sergei Rachmaninoff
Spanish Rhapsody Franz Liszt
‘I was supposed to take 12 in my class, but there were so many really attractive candidates at the entrance auditions that I finally created a group class for five extra students. These five would take turns playing for me in a weekly two-hour lecture that would also serve to present my ideas to the entire Conservatory – anyone who wanted to listen in was welcome. Each week I would generally hear about 3 students out of the 5 on a rotation basis, and the ‘master class’ was always played to a full house.
‘Those 5 served as “guinea pigs” in my presentation of the system that would eventually become my book, and I think they were none too happy about not getting individual lessons. But do you know what? I think they benefited more than they knew. In the second term I discontinued the group class and started working with those 5 individually, and they progressed much more than many of the 12 that had been receiving individual attention from the beginning of the school year! Why? Because they had absorbed the IDEAS as they were presented through those weekly seminars…
Jiang Jie was one of that “group of 5″. Listen to the flamboyant exuberance, the manic energy of her Prokofiev sonata. And this from someone who didn’t even rank among the first 12 at the beginning of the year…
Jiang Jie, female aged 18 Sonata #3 Sergei Prokofiev
Gong Wei, a bit of a dark horse, another one of the “group of 5″. She was always very correct but never really showed much personality or flamboyance. But once again, when she really “got” what a phrase is, what RHYTHM is, she started to fly…
Gong Wei, female aged 18
Alborado del Grazioso, from ‘Miroirs’ Maurice Ravel
Sonata #3 in B minor, 1st movement Frederic Chopin
Li Jia Dai, another one of the 5, was only 15 years old, and had a fairly small hand. She took awhile to figure out that if it’s not collapsing all the time it can begin to produce sounds that would belie its size. But by the end of the year, this sizzling scherzo would indicate that she did finally understand…
Li Jia Dai, female aged 15 Scherzo in B Flat Minor Frederic Chopin
When I discontinued the group class in the second semester, I thought to myself, what else could I do to make this year special? I came up with the idea to have an all-Beethoven mid-term exam. In the end not quite everybody played Beethoven, but we had the last five sonatas plus several earlier ones, and the 4th & 5th concerti. That was quite an afternoon’s listening, I’ll tell you!
Bao Jie was endowed with a natural sensibility and maturity that was a delight to work with. It was to her that I entrusted the most difficult of them all, Beethoven Op. 111, and in many of the lessons she really reached a magical level of understanding of the philosophical content of that work. Somehow she managed to put into sound his nearness to death, his looking back over a life more fulfilling than most, his vision ahead into the unknown. Sadly I do not have a recording of this to offer you. I also did not record her impressive Brahms F minor sonata nor her B flat major concerto from the same composer – Bao Jie really had a Brahms year! The chapter in my book on Bach’s B minor Prelude is from a lesson with her… She was also a fine accompanist, and altogether a musician’s pianist – she really listened…
Tao Qi, one of my big talents that year. He won fourth prize at the Hong Kong International Piano Competition, and under my tutelage prepared an excellent Emperor Concerto, Debussy’s Cloches a travers les fueilles, Bach’s joyful G major Toccata and this fine G minor Ballade and la Campanella. A very humble young man, but seriously dedicated to a higher pianism…
Tao Qi, male aged 16 Ballade in G minor Op. 23 Frederic Chopin
La Campanella Franz Liszt
Ran Xiao was my youngest student at 13. She was accepted for the Gina Bachauer Junior Competition that year, and so her exam program was a little bit on the long side – I let her play both her competition programs in their entirety! It was a little bit much for her, as the occasional fluff or hesitation indicate, yet I’m putting all of her performances on this site just because I’m proud of this achievement from someone so young and unassuming…
Ran Xiao, female aged 13
Italian Concerto Johann Sebastian Bach
December (from ‘The Seasons”) Piotr Illich Tchaikowsky
Gnomenreigen Franz Liszt
Impromptu in E flat major Franz Schubert
Waltz in D flat major (“Minute”) Frederic Chopin
Etude in E flat major Sergei Rachmaninoff
Liu Qiong was a young woman full of energy – TOO full, in fact. She could not keep a steady tempo but kept flying ahead, so all her digital dexterity was for naught – she couldn’t translate that into true virtuosity… How to get her grounded? I gave her an interesting regime as medicine for her manic condition: all four Brahms Ballades Op. 10, Liszt’s Au Bord d’une Source (the book chapter on pressing and holding comes from a lesson on this work with her), and the little gem of a Mozart sonata presented here. When she actually managed to get a hold of herself, so to speak, a really heartfelt musicality began to emerge that had been hidden by all the hysteria. Of course, once she achieved that, then it was only appropriate that I reward her somehow, and so I let her take on Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody. It appears that getting her feet back on the ground did not prevent her fingers from flying as they did before – but now there was organization in all that…
Liu Qiong, female aged 16 Sonata in B flat major K 575 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Spanish Rhapsody Franz Liszt
At 15 Lu Jing Yi was one of my top students despite her young age. Among other things she prepared a strong Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand, a very fine F major Sonata Op. 10 #2 of Beethoven, and this l’Isle Joyeuse. But, despite her facile fingers, she had to work hard to develop her sense of phrasing and counterpoint. It was only at the very end of a long, arduous year of work on various Bach compositions that she reached the level of control and phrase you hear in this Prelude & Fugue.
Lu Jing Yi, female aged 15
Prelude & Fugue in B flat minor Johann Sebastian Bach
L’Isle Joyeuse Claude Debussy
“1999-2000 was a golden year for me. As I left my apartment to catch my plane at the end of June, my entire class was there waiting to see me off, and many professors too. More than a few tears were shed as we said our goodbyes. That group will always have a place of honour in my heart – they worked hard, advanced far, and served music well…”