event photos: Xiaopei Xu

event photos: Chung Cheng

 
Program notes by Dr. Jannie Burdeti

Bach-Busoni :
Choral Prelude „Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland“

As a lifelong devotee of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ferruccio Busoni dedicated three decades to transcribing organ works of Bach for the piano. The project began after he had been hired as a professor at the Helsinki Conservatory. At the time, Busoni was in his early twenties and seeking new pedagogical methods. His connection with Bach was so strong that on multiple occasions, Busoni's wife was introduced accidentally as “Mrs. Bach-Busoni.” 

The Bach-Busoni chorale “Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland” (“Now come, Savior of the Gentiles”) is a piano transcription of one of Bach's organ chorales bearing the same title. The chorale melody was not Bach's original, however, and originated as a Gregorian chant. Traditionally sung during Advent, the text contemplates the mystery of Christ’s coming to the world. Bach seemed deeply taken by this melody as he included it in seven different works, including two Advent cantatas. 

Set in G minor, the atmosphere of this chorale prelude is somber and introspective. A continuous walking bass serves as the framework for the piece and provides a meditative space for the ornamented tune and interweaving upper voices. As the music progresses, Bach gradually unveils the depth of the soul as if it were a slow dance, moving with grace yet gravitas.

Schubert :
Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960
Molto moderato
Andante sostenuto
Scherzo, Allegro vivace con delicatezza
Allegro, ma non troppo

Hardly more than five feet tall and nicknamed “Schwammerl” (little mushroom) by his friends due to his ‘tubby’ constitution, Schubert lived a harshly short life of 31 years. He devoted himself to the lied or song genre, composing more than 600 songs during his lifetime. His music was most often heard at small gatherings nicknamed “Schubertiades,” which were held at his friends’ or acquaintances’ homes. It was not until the twentieth century that his instrumental music became equally recognized as that of Beethoven’s and his contemporaries’.

Schubert composed a total of twenty-two piano sonatas, some of which remain unfinished. His last three contributions to the genre were written in the summer of 1828, a few months before his death. At that time, he sent a letter to one of his publishers, Heinrich Albert Probst, to see if they would be interested in the works. Schubert wrote: “I have composed, among other things, three Sonatas for pianoforte solo, which I would like to dedicate to Hummel.” Unfortunately, it took eleven years for the sonatas to be posthumously available in print, and to add insult to injury, the publisher dedicated the work to Schumann instead of Hummel. Although one will never know how intimately Schubert understood his imminent death at the time, his three sonatas seem to reflect his understanding, surrender, and ultimately, freedom from mortality.

In Schubert’s last piano sonata, Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960, one finds a serenity and otherworldliness unlike anything before. It was common for artists and writers during that time period to obsess over the very Romantic notion of Todessehnsucht (yearning for death), but one can never know for sure how aware Schubert was of his predicament. For him, death was very real and he suffered physically and emotionally from his venereal disease. 

The first movement is truly beyond analysis. Whether or not it was conscious, its opening recalls that of Beethoven’s Archduke Piano Trio, which shares the B-flat major tonality and a spacious nobility. What Schiff calls the “most extraordinary trill in the history of music” and what Denis Matthews describes as “a distant roll of thunder” is a low rumble heard apart from the peaceful main theme. If it were Beethoven, he would have integrated the trill into the theme as the sonata went along, whereas for Schubert, it always remains a symbol of something different and ominous, coming to the surface at important structural points in the work.

The second movement is the emotional core of the piece. It begins in C-sharp minor, a tonality very remote from B-flat major. In its simplicity and honesty, Schubert opens a window into his deepest, most private thoughts, and along with it, a tremendous sense of solitude. The right hand sings a long, sorrowful melody, while the left hand creates a sense of contrast, with its consistent, rhythmic lilt. In the middle, a new hope emerges, almost as a hymn of thanksgiving. The return of the beginning brings the listener back to reality, with an increase of energy in the left hand. Perhaps the most spiritual moment in this entire work occurs when the theme shifts to the remote and pure key of C major. It is a moment of sudden grace and of transformation. The work ends in C-sharp major.

Paul Badura-Skoda writes that Schubert could have ended right here and it would have been an homage to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 111. However, he decides to continue his four-movement journey with a Scherzo marked con delicatezza that seems to be free from the bounds of the material world. The previous movement explored much lower registers, whereas the Scherzo stays quite high and elevated. Its middle section is reminiscent of a folk-like dance.

The final movement begins with a solo G octave, implying C minor, which is then answered in B-flat major. Beethoven’s last composition, the finale of his String Quartet, Op. 130, does the very same thing. The main theme is joyful in character and in 2/4 time. Alfred Brendel observes that the main theme’s “territory lies somewhere between the humor of Jean Paul and the well-known Viennese saying that life is ‘hopeless but not serious. Badura-Skoda writes, “[it is] the unembittered farewell of the eternal wanderer; whose soul will no longer be disturbed by the last raging of the storm.”

Bach :
Prelude and Fugue in A-flat Major, BWV 886

Hans von Bülow famously quipped that “The Well-Tempered Clavier is the Old Testament” of the piano repertoire. Bach’s two volumes of Das Wohltemperierte Clavier indeed cover not only all twenty-four major and minor keys, twice through, but the entire gamut of imagination, intellect, inspiration, and aspiration—words cannot capture the magnitude of this collection. Bach published the second book in 1742, twenty years after the first. The moniker Well-Tempered refers to the tuning system and Bach’s desire to demonstrate the possibility of composing in all keys during a time when equal temperament (equality between each key) was not assumed. 

Written in the style of an orchestral Sinfonia, the Prelude in A-flat major from Book II is imbued with a sense of grandeur and nobility. Its elegant rhythmic lilt and thirty-second-note flourishes heard throughout serve to reinforce its regal and uplifting character. Adapted from an earlier 1720 Fughetta, BWV 901, the subsequent four-voice Fugue marries two contrasting voices: a vibrant, bouncy main subject and an intense descending chromatic fourth countersubject.

Chopin :
Prelude in A-flat Major, Op. 28 No. 17

According to Franz Liszt, Chopin's twenty-four preludes are “compositions of an order entirely apart...they are poetic preludes, analogous to those of a great contemporary poet, who cradles the soul in golden dreams....”  Ranging from approximately thirty seconds to five minutes in length, each prelude suggests an aphoristic idea or emotion. Chopin began sketches on these Preludes in 1835 and completed the work four years later while staying in Majorca with novelist Madame George Sand. 

Each one of Chopin's preludes is a complete vision, however brief and succinct. The lyrical Prelude in A-flat major, Op. 28, No. 17, is written in the vein of a Mendelssohnian Song Without Words and was a favorite of the set for both Robert and Clara Schumann. Pianist Alfred Cortot poetically subtitled the work “She told me, ‘I love you.’” The work conjures a rich and expressive atmosphere, imbued with tenderness and passion. The prelude concludes with an A-flat bell tolling eleven times in the bass as if to suggest the eleventh hour and the quiet end of a romantic evening.

Chopin :
Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61

Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy, Op. 61, written between the summers of 1845 and 1846, belonged to a time in his life of both personal and creative struggle. His recently ended relationship with George Sand (pen name for Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil) and declining health were in part to blame, but Chopin was nonetheless at the height of his compositional powers. The Polonaise-Fantasy was to be his last large-scale composition for the piano. At the time of its writing, Chopin had not yet found a suitable title for the piece and confessed, “I’d like to finish something that I don’t yet know what to call.” 

Its ambiguity and search for identity can be traced back to his own destiny as an expatriate, and his awareness that he would never return to Poland. The work is first a fantasy, and then a polonaise, in the sense that it is a contemplation on the polonaise, rather than merely a dance like some of his earlier works. It is a synthesis of the Polish national spirit and his most personal thoughts and feelings. Chopin blends elements from two different forms: the ternary structure, characteristic of polonaises, infused with sonata-form elements. This complete integration of 'polonaise' and 'fantasy,' brings about a deep web of interconnectedness through a seemingly rhapsodic and improvisatory work.

Pianist Jeremy Denk calls the opening an “invocation,” with the rising arpeggios serving as an invitation to listen. Two chords open the work with polonaise panache, followed by an ascending, unmeasured arpeggio, a continuation of the second chord's harmony. In this first measure, both ‘polonaise’ and ‘fantasy’ are present. The sequence is heard four times, gradually giving birth to recognizable polonaise rhythms, until the lyrical first theme emerges, heralded by repeated, forte octaves in the left hand. As in the Fantasie in F minor, Op. 49, there is a slow, central section in B major, reminiscent of a dream or a stasis, where the search for answers come to a momentary halt. 

At times, Chopin strays so far from the polonaise that he enters dangerously close to the world of nocturnes. The coda is an apotheosis of both the first theme and the introverted middle B major section. Musicologist Arthur Hedley writes about the “spirit that breathes” in Chopin's polonaises, describing them as “pride in the past, lamentation for the present, [and] hope for the future.

Scriabin :
Sonata No. 5 in F-sharp Major, Op. 53

Scriabin's music was deeply influenced by both his synesthesia and his readings on the mystical school of Theosophy. In one of his oft-quoted poems, he writes, “I am God! I am nothing.” Often in his music, there is the musical depiction of “flight” or “flying,” such as the upsurge in the opening and ending of his Fifth Sonata. 

Of the ten sonatas Scriabin composed, the Fifth is perhaps the most frequently performed. It was completed in 1907, shortly after he finished his symphonic poem, Poem of Ecstasy. Like his later sonatas, it is cast in a single movement. Scriabin borrows a portion of the text from the orgiastic and redolent symphonic poem and includes it at the beginning of the sonata: 

"I summon you to life, secret yearnings! 
You who have been drowned in the dark depths 
Of the creative spirit, you timorous 
Embryos of life, it is to you that I bring daring."   

 Marked Allegro, impetuoso, con stravaganza in the opening, Scriabin asks the performer for the music to be played ‘lively, impetuous, and with extravagance.' While the form adheres closely to traditional sonata form, his harmonic palette heralds a more atonal period, filled with clusters of chords containing tritones, diminished sevenths, and hardly any traditional cadences. 

Of this work, Scriabin wrote: "The Poem of Ecstasy took much of my strength and taxed my patience....Today I have almost finished my Fifth Sonata. It is a big poem for piano and I deem it the best composition I have ever written. I do not know by what miracle I accomplished it.”

The Fifth Sonata marks a turning point in Scriabin’s style—the early sonatas with its flavor of Romanticism is left behind for mysticism, vision, and abstraction.



Post-Concert Chinese Press:

Pianist Hung-Kuan Chen at NEC’s Jordan Hall, September 27, 2025 音樂會後新聞稿

表演藝術基金會第37屆音樂季第1場音樂會, 於週六9月27日晚上八時, 邀請著名鋼琴家陳宏寬(Hung-Kuan Chen)在新英格蘭音樂學院的喬丹音樂廳 (Jordan Hall) 帶來一場以巴赫、舒伯特、蕭邦及史克里亞賓作品為主的鋼琴獨奏會。

陳宏寬是當代最受尊敬的鋼琴家之一, 曾獲得魯賓斯坦 (Rubinstein)、布索尼(Busoni)、蓋扎·安達(Geza Anda)等國際鋼琴大賽的最高獎項, 以及青年演奏家國際鋼琴比賽 (Young Concert Artists International Piano Auditions), 和艾弗里·費舍爾職業獎(Avery Fisher Career Granter)。他現任教於茱莉亞音樂學院, 曾任上海音樂學院鋼琴系主任, 並曾任教於新英格蘭音樂學院和耶魯大學音樂學院(客座教授)。他也是范克萊本(Van Cliburn)、布索尼、上海、瑪麗亞卡納爾斯(Maria Canals)及霍南斯(Honens)等國際著名鋼琴比賽的評審。他指導或培養的傑出鋼琴家包括王羽佳、Lukas Vondráček、Sean Chen、Maxim Lando 和 牛牛等。

音樂會曲目包括:
巴赫布索尼 (Bach-Busoni): 《眾民救主今降臨》聖詠前奏曲
舒伯特 (Schubert): 降B大調奏鳴曲, D.960
巴哈 (Bach): 降A大調前奏與賦格, BWV 886
蕭邦 (Chopin): 降A大調前奏曲, 作品28, 第17號
蕭邦 (Chopin): 幻想波蘭舞曲, 作品61
斯克里亞賓 (Scriabin): 升F大調第五奏鳴曲, 作品53

這是一場難忘的音樂盛宴, 展現了音樂的最高境界, 盛大而成功。陳宏寬以詩意與獨特的藝術魅力, 深深打動人心。當晚360多位熱情的觀眾, 對這場高水準的演出, 都報以熱烈的掌聲和歡呼。在謝幕時, 全場 4 次起立鼓掌, 久久不散。陳宏寬被花包圍。他加演了三首蕭邦作品, 並將其獻給他的導師 — 羅素·舍曼(Russell Sherman)。

在場的許多世界著名的音樂家, 包括 96 歲的普立茲獎得主Yehudi Wyner, Wha-Kyung Byun, Minsoo Sohn, Alexanda Korsantia, Mark Churchill, Lynn Chang, Meng-Chieh Liu, Angel Ramon Rivera, Sergey Schepkin, Bruce Brubaker, Vivian Weilstein, Roberto Poli, Victor Rosenbaum, 等等, 都高度讚揚這場超凡的演出。《波士頓音樂情報》 (The Boston Musical Intelligencer) 的樂評 Sibylle Barrasso以「鋼琴夢想家迷人演繹」為題高度讚揚, 並詳細討論了每一首作品。他寫道: 「在整場獨奏會中, 陳宏寬對眾所周知的曲目展現出個人化且耳目一新的詮釋。他的音樂自然流暢, 彷彿超越了音樂廳的界限, 呈現出一幅宏大的畫面 -- 繁花、綠樹、溪流、湖泊、山脈與天空交織成的風景。其結構出乎意料又充滿驚喜, 時而奔放不羈, 卻又完美地迴響在上帝宏偉與美麗的計劃中。陳宏寬輕鬆駕馭技術難題, 最終在雷鳴般的掌聲中結束演出。」

在音樂會後的慶祝酒會上, 超過 40 位跨代知名音樂家齊聚一堂, 向他表示祝賀。該音樂會的現場錄音視頻將放上中華表演藝術基金會 YouTube. 免費供大家欣賞。也請關注中華表演藝術基金會的 Instagram:@cathychanfcpa.

下一場音樂會將於 2026 年 1 月 10 日由鋼琴家 George Li 演出 。