THE BELFAST MUSIC SOCIETY in association with THE ARTS COUNCIL OF NORTHERN IRELAND and THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY presents JOHN OGDON (Piano) Saturday 17 October 1987 7.30 p.m. Elmwood Hall

Fantasia in c minor, K 475 Allegro-tempo 1 Adagio-allegro-andantino-piu Primo W.A. Mozart (1756 1791) Mozart's output for the piano includes not only some 22 sonatas, but also a large number of smaller pieces, including over a dozen sets of variations, and many miscellaneous pieces, from K 1, written when he was five years old, to such pieces as the well-known f minor Fantasia, K 616, composed in the last year of his life. Mozart actually wrote four works he called Fantasia, and in them we see the influence of the music of mimibaly C.P.E. Bach, whose free-form and wide-ranging fantasias are among his most interesting compositions. They are characterised by a certain restlessness, brought about by the juxtaposition of different moods, with frequent changes of harmony, rhythm and metre, often separated by dramatic pauses. This variety of moods is found in the five clearly differentiated sections of the c minor Fantasia, Mozart's largest scale single movement for keyboard. The manuscript is dated 20th May, 1785; it was published that year, along with the c minor Sonata K 457, another of Mozart's most profound compositions, as his "Opus 11". Both works were dedicated to a pupil, Therèse von Trattner, at whose house Mozart and his wife Constanze were living. 2013 Mozart's friend, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, wrote of how Mozart "favoured the company by performing fantasias on the pianoforte", and how "his feeling, the rapidity of his fingers, and ... the apparent inspiration of his modulations" astounded his listeners. We may be grateful that in this, one of the few improvisations that Mozart bothered to commit to paper, we may experience today something of the atmosphere of an actual Mozart performance. Jun 30

Pictures from an Exhibition 2 Modeste Mussorgsky (1839-1881) A few years ago, when Pictures was performed, it would almost always be in the orchestral version made by Ravel; the most masterly, if not always the most authentically Russian of the several orchestrations that have been made of Mussorgsky's piano original. This piano original was comparatively rarely played, perhaps because it was felt that it was actually too. 'orchestral to work convincingly. But now, pianists such as our own Barry Douglas have shown that the piece works perfectly well in the hands of a talented pianist. In the Spring of 1874, Mussorgsky wrote to Vladimir Stassov, the critic and fervent supporter of the group of nationalist composers often known as the 'Five', or the 'Mighty Handful', "Hartmann is boiling as Boris boiled. The sounds and the idea hung in the air, and now I am gulping and overeating. I can hardly manage to scribble it down on paper.' He was referring to the new piece he was working on, inspired by the exhibition of the artist Victor Hartmann's work, organised in January 1874, the year after his death, by Stassov and the President of the Architects Society. Mussorgsky was moved by the exhibition of his dead friend's career, and wanted to write his own tribute, though he had no chance to settle down to the task until after he had seen his opera Boris Godunov safely staged that month. ** The completed score contains a dedication to Stassov, dated 27th July 1874, and Mussorgsky's own titles for the sections are: Promenade this returns several times as a link, and was intended to portray the viewer 'roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now quickly,.. at times thinkly sadly of his departed friend.' Gnomus - a mis-shapen dwarf, apparently Hartmann's design for a toy nutcracker for a Christmas tree.

Promenade The Old Castle Promenade 3 Tuileries - based on a watercolour of the Tuilerie gardens, showing nursemaids and children quarrelling. Bydło Polish oxen, pulling what Mussorgsky called le télégue a French word he coined from the Russian word for a cart, telega. Promenade Ballet of the unhatched chicks - a costume design for a ballet, showing children dressed as chicks, enclosed in eggs as in suits of armour. Vityushka's Jews - Mussorgsky's own nickname for an untitled movement. Apparently two of the drawings in the exhibition were of 'A rich jew wearing a fur hat' and 'A poor jew', who sits miserably, clutching his stick, his face downcast. They are among Hartmann's best and most human pictures, and it could be felt that the alternate pomposity and whining of Mussorgsky's music supports the anti-Semitism revealed in some of his letters. The Market place at Limoges portraying women gossiping and haggling; "an enchanting scherzino, and very pianistic" wrote Stassov to Rimsky Korsakov. Catacombae. Sepulcrum Romanum. Con mortuis in lingua mortua. - a painting showing the interior of catacombs, including the figure of the painter himself; the composer wrote over his manuscript; "The creative spirit of the departed Hartmann leads me towards the skulls and invokes them; the skulls begin to glow faintly'.

4 Baba Yaga's Hut on fowl's legs. - apparently a clock design made of bronze and enamel 'in 14th century Russian style'. The Bogatyr's Gate - inspired by Hartmann's design for slone gates for the city of Kiev; they were never built. "A lovely, mighty and original thing", wrote Stassov; "There is a particularly lovely Church motif 'As you are baptised in Christ', and the mighty bells. are in a completely new style". Gaspard de la nuit (3 poèmes pour piano) * * * * * * * INTERVAL ******* Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Ravel's father Joseph, a civil engineer, had a keen interest in music, and encouraged his eldest son to pursue a career in music. The young Maurice had his first lessons on the piano at the age of seven, and soon afterwards began lessons in harmony, counterpoint and composition; not surprisingly, many of his earliest compositions were for the piano a sonata movement, Variations on a theme by Grieg, and so on. His first important compositions were written when he was twenty -- a Habanera for two pianos; later to become the third movement of the Rhapsodie Espagnole, and the Menuet Antique, his first published work. The piano continued. to play a major role in his music throughout his life; his contributions to the piano repertoire include Jeux d'eau (1901), Miroirs 1905), Valses nobles et. sentimentales (1911), Le tombeau de Couperin (1917), and, at the very end of his career, the two concertos (1930, 1931). The most important of Ravel's piano works, Gaspard de la nuit, was composed in 1908. The title is that of

5 a collection of mysterious prose poems written about 1830 by Aloysius Bertrand - a typically Gothic mixture of the supernatural; castles, lakes, bells, and strange nocturnal visions. The three poems that Ravel used are printed in full at the head of the music, thus emphasising how closely the music is intended to follow the text: (1) Ondine. A brilliant water-picture of the nymph Ondine, whose 'tender and sad song' is heard at the very beginning and reappears in various forms. throughout the movement. The music builds to a richly sonorous climax, then, with her song finished, Ondine asks the poet 'to accompany her to her palace to become King of the Lakes'. When he tells her he can't as he loves a mortal woman, she 'sheds several tears', then 'bursts out laughing, vanishing in a sudden shower' all this is clearly portrayed in Ravel's music. (2) Le Gibet. The Scaffold - a macabre painting of the swinging corpse of a hanged man, outlined against the setting sun, while the bell from a distant town tolls incessantly (on the note Bb) from first bar to last, intricately woven into the texture of the music, which for much of the piece is written on three staves instead of the usual two. The atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe's writings surrounds this strange sound-world which so puzzled its listeners at the work's first performance. (3) Scarbo. This brilliant toccata - like movement is a portrait of one of the little people' whom the poet has heard laughing in the shadows of his room, scratching his nails on his silk bed-covers, and dancing and rolling round his room 'like a bobbin fallen from a sorcerer's spinning wheel'. But while the poet watches, his visitor becomes transparent like candle wax', and disappears. Ravel's music, built up of tiny motifs, rather than a fully-fledged theme, at the end dies away; finally vanishing as mysteriously as the poet's nocturnal visitor.

Totentanz (Dance of Death) on 6 Franz Liszt (1811-1886) For many listeners, Liszt is merely a composer of showy and superficial sets of studies, Hungarian Rhapsodies, and the like. It is true that a number of Liszt's pieces are in this style, but there are also a number of piano pieces, especially those written towards the end of his life, which are totally different; quiet and slow, often with harmonies more associated with the twentieth century than the nineteenth. Liszt's contemporaries failed to understand his advanced idiom, and attacked him at every opportunity - "Liszt is working a great evil upon music" commented Sir George MacFarren, Principal of the Royal Academy; Liszt, however, thought of himself as "hurling a lance into the future". It is not only the later pieces, or the quieter ones, that reveal a remarkable foreshadowing of what are considered twentieth century idioms; there is the atonal opening of the Faust Symphony of 1857, for example, or the remarkable series of piled up bare 5ths that open one of Liszt's most popular compositions, the 1st Mesphisto Waltz (1860). Totentanz, one of Liszt's most extraordinary compositions, reveals a different aspect of his foreward-looking genius; how he can be considered a near ancestor of Bartok and other twentieth century pianist-composers. The very opening of the work, a pounding ostinato in the depths of the piano, is strikingly modern sounding, reminiscent of the opening of Bartok's 1st concerto. Bartok, lecturing on Liszt in 1934, discussed the profound effect Totentanz had on him; commenting on its 'startling harshness' and 'overwhelmingly austerity and darkness', but also noticing its 'wealth of power and beauty', and it is the power of the work that makes the greatest impression.

7 Totentanz was originally composed for piano and orchestra, but Liszt also prepared versions for piano solo and for two pianos. He worked at the piece over a long period of time, beginning in 1838, and producing two different versions, one in 1849, and that generally performed, in 1859. It was apparently inspired by a gruesome fresco by Andrea Orcagna, portraying death flying towards its victims, swinging a scythe, while a heap of corpses lies below. The music is in the form of variations on the ancient plainsong hymn, Dies Irae, The Day of Wrath, familiar from its use by composers as far apart as Berlioz (Symphonie Fantastique), Rachmaninov (Paganini Rhapsody, Symphonic Dances), and even in a recent work for solo flute by István Matuz performed at this year's Sonorities Festival. The theme appears at the very opening of the work, accompanied by the pounding ostinato already mentioned, and is then treated in a variety of ways, including a canon and a toccata-like fugue. Despite Liszt's ingenious metamorphoses of his material, we never lose sight (or sound) of the original theme, though for a few variations in the middle of the piece, Liszt uses a different plainsong like melody, closely related to, but distinct from, the Dies Irae theme. Programme notes by Alec Macdonald ************* TONIGHT'S ARTIST JOHN OGDON was born in Nottinghamshire, in 1937. He made his London debut in 1958 at the Proms, playing Busoni's Piano Concerto with a mastery that astounded the audience. His London recital debut a year later was scarely less exciting, so complete was his technical command, so refreshing and true his interpretative imagination. In 1961 he was awarded the Liszt Prize in Budapest, and in 1962 won the coveted first prize in the

8 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition, an achievement that launched him on his international career. John Ogdon's vast repertory includes the Viennese Classics, the Romantics, the Slavonic nationalists, and particularly twentieth century works. He had not only championed his compatriots, giving first performances of music by Birtwistle, Goehr, Hoddinott, Rawsthorne, Schurmann, Williamson, and even Elgar, but had actively. propagated unfamiliar music by Liszt, Messiaen, Stravinsky, and Tippett, among others. In the words of William Mann in the New Grove Dictionary, "His willingness to play all piano music for which he feels sympathy his taste is almost boundless makes his artistry a valuable feature of musical life." He is also a composer, and enjoys teaching. Between 1976 and 1980, he was a professor of piano at Indiana University. In 1987 John Ogdon celebrated his fiftieth birthday and included in the celebrations was a performance he gave of his own piano concerto at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This performance received the most outstanding reviews from all the major critics. 1987 also includes concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the BBC Promenade Concerts, appearances at the Edinburgh, Harrogate, Buxton, Greenwich and Canterbury Festivals, as well as concerto performances with most of the major British Orchestras. In addition he has been invited to Germany, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Italy and in 1988 returns to the United States. NEXT RECITAL Saturday 16 January 7.30 p.m., Elmwood Hall THE SCHOLARS