ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Steinway artist, MAYRON TSONG, has been taken by her performances
around the globe to almost every state in the continental United States, as well
as Canada, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. After her
solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Harris Goldsmith of
The New York Concert Review praised it as “an enlivening, truly outstanding
recital.” Fanfare Magazine called her “a genius, pure and simple … perhaps,
a wizard.”
Her first CD released by Centaur Records won a Global Music Award and
rave reviews in American Record Guide, and Fanfare Magazine compared her playing to
Horowitz, Pollini, Andsnes and Laredo, saying “her technique is dazzling, yet subjugated
to a controlling intellect and deeply felt sensitivity that removes her from the category
‘virtuoso’ by nature of her long-range artistic vision.”
Tsong has performed and interviewed for many radio broadcasts, including CBC Radio
in Canada, WDAV in North Carolina, WFMT Radio in Chicago, Radio 4 in Hong Kong
and NPR’s “The State of Things.” In chamber music collaborations, her summers have
taken her to festivals across the United States, Prague, Germany and Italy, including
The Art of Piano at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Eastern Music Festival, Prague
International Piano Masterclasses and Schlern International Music Festival and Orfeo
Chamber Music Festival in Italy. Her work with some of the finest chamber groups and
musicians in North America include Jeffrey Zeigler (of the Kronos Quartet), Brentano
String Quartet, Philharmonic Quintet of New York, Miró String Quartet, Vega String
Quartet, James Campbell, George Taylor and Antonio Lysy.
Holding graduate degrees in both piano performance and music theory from Rice
University, her impressive pedigree boasts distinguished teachers like John Perry, György
Sebök, Robert Levin, Anton Kuerti and Marilyn Engle. She was recently added to Who’s
Who Among Professional Artists as well as Who’s Who Among American Teachers & Educators.
Tsong is currently associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at the School
of Music at the University of Maryland. She previously served as head of keyboard studies
at the University of Lethbridge and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center presents
Photo by Benjamin Ealovega
PIETER WISPELWEY, CELLO
Pei-Shan Lee, piano
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 . 8PM
Joseph & Alma Gildenhorn Recital Hall
ROBERT DILUTIS FACULTY ARTIST RECITAL | 48
claricesmithcenter.umd.edu | 301.405.ARTS (2787) | 49
PIETER WISPELWEY, CELLO
Pei-Shan Lee, piano
PROGRAM
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953)
Sonata in C Major, op. 119 for Cello and Piano
I. Andante grave
II. Moderato
III. Allegro ma non troppo
FRANCIS POULENC (1899–1963)
Sonata for Cello and Piano, op. 143
I. Allegro – Tempo di marcia: sans trainer
II. Cavatine: Très calme
III. Ballabile: Très animé et gai
IV. Finale: Largo, très librement – presto subito
INTERMISSION
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Cello and Piano
I. Prologue
II. Sérénade
III. Finale
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
Suite italienne
I. Introduzione: Allegro moderato
II. Serenata
III. Tarantella
IV. Gavotta con due variazioni
V. Scherzino
VI. Minuetta e finale
Program is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, which includes a 15-minute intermission.
PIETER WISPELWEY | 50
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
PIETER WISPELWEY is among the first of a generation of performers who are equally at
ease on both the modern and the period cello. His acute stylistic awareness, combined with
a truly original interpretation and a phenomenal technical mastery, has won the hearts of
critics and the public alike in repertoire ranging from Baroque masters like J.S. Bach, to
contemporary works by Schnittke, Elliott Carter and others, including works composed
for him.
Born in Haarlem, Netherlands, Wispelwey’s sophisticated musical personality is rooted
in the training he received. His early studies with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in
Amsterdam were complimented by later studies with Paul Katz in the United States and
William Pleeth in Great Britain. In 1992 he became the first cellist ever to receive the
Netherlands Music Prize, which is awarded to the most promising young musician in
the Netherlands.
Highlights from his future concerto performances include engagements with the
Philharmonia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Warsaw Philharmonic,
Stuttgart Philharmonic, Beethovenorchester Bonn, Orchestre National d’Ile de France and
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Last season, Wispelwey undertook a major tour of
Australia, focusing on the cello concertos dedicated to Rostropovich (Sydney Symphony,
Queensland Symphony, West Australian Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and Canberra
International Festival). He also gave the world premiere of the cello version of John Adams’
Dharma at Big Sur and was guest music director of the Australian Youth Orchestra
Chamber music program.
Future recital highlights include Vienna (Konzerthaus), Paris (Musee d’Orsay),
London (Wigmore Hall), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Brussels (Flagey), San Francisco
Performances, Tokyo (Toppan Hall, Kioi Hall), the Seoul Arts Center and extensive
touring with the Bach Solo Cello Suites in Europe and North America.
Wispelwey recently formed the string quartet Quartet-lab with Patricia Kopatchinskaia,
Pekka Kuusisto and Lilli Maijala. Quartet-lab’s debut project took place at the Konzerthaus
Dortmund in September 2012, and future touring plans include Wigmore Hall in
London, Konzerthaus Berlin, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Luxembourg, the
Helsinki Festival and Beethovenfest Bonn.
Last year Wispelwey celebrated his 50th birthday by embarking on a project showcasing
the Bach Cello Suites. His third recording of the complete suites was released in September
2012, on the label Evil Penguin Classics. The box set also includes a DVD featuring
illustrated debates on the interpretation of the Bach Suites with eminent Bach scholars
Laurence Dreyfus and John Butt.
Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and he has appeared as soloist with many of
the world’s leading orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, St Paul’s
Chamber Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, Tokyo Philharmonic, Sapporo
Symphony, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Symphony,
BBC Scottish Symphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient
Music, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest
Festival Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg, collaborating with conductors including Ivan
Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jeffrey Tate,
Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Vassily Sinaisky, Vladimir
Jurowski, Paavo Berglund, Louis Langrée, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman, Libor Pesek
and Sir Roger Norrington.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
PROGRAM
With regular recital appearances in London (Wigmore Hall), Paris (Châtelet, Louvre),
Amsterdam (Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw), Brussels (Bozar), Berlin (Konzerthaus),
Milan (Societta del Quartetto), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Sydney (The Utzon Room),
Los Angeles (Walt Disney Hall) and New York (Lincoln Center), Wispelwey has
established a reputation as one of the most charismatic recitalists on the circuit.
Wispelwey’s impressive discography of more than 20 albums, available on
Channel Classic, Onyx and Evil Penguin Classics, has attracted major international
awards. Recent releases include Walton’s Cello Concerto (Sydney Symphony/Jeffrey Tate),
Prokofiev’s Symphonie Concertante (Rotterdam Philharmonic/Vassily Sinaisky), Britten
Cello Symphony (Flanders Symphony/Seikyo Kim) — all recorded live — as well as a
unique set of works by Schubert for cello and piano (Fantasy, D. 934; Grand Duo D. 574;
Arpeggione Sonata), recorded on period instruments. His latest release sees him returning
to concerto repertoire and features Lalo’s Cello Concerto and Saint-Saëns’s Cello
Concerto No. 2.
Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710
Rombouts Baroque cello.
Meadowmount School for Strings. Lee’s artistry and comprehensive knowledge of the
chamber music and collaborative literature have made her a highly sought-after partner
for many up-and-coming young artists, especially string and woodwind players.
Lee came to the U.S. for piano study after winning the Youth Division of Taiwan’s
National Piano Competition. The Cleveland Institute awarded her the Rosa Lobe
Memorial Award in recognition of the highest level of artistic achievement in collaborative
piano. Her doctoral thesis The Collaborative Pianist: Balancing Roles in Partnership, has
become an important resource for schools wishing to begin/develop a collaborative piano
program, and is available at ProQuest. Frequently invited to China and Taiwan for
master classes and residencies, her dissertation is currently in the process of being
translated in to Chinese.
Pianist PEI-SHAN LEE’s active concert career has taken her to The Kennedy Center,
Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall,
Boston’s Jordan Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and
tours of France, Germany, Belgium and Israel. Her many summer festival appearances
include The Mostly Mozart Festival, Caramoor Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music
Festival, Chautauqua Institute, Music Academy of the West, Heifetz International Music
Institute, the International Piano Festival in Spain, the International Piano Festival at the
Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, ProQuartet in France and the Great Wall
International Music Academy in China.
A member of the collaborative piano and chamber music faculty at the New England
Conservatory, Lee was also recently appointed to California State University Northridge,
where she is creating a new MM in collaborative keyboard. Her most recent recording of
the Strauss and Szymanowski Sonatas for Violin and Piano with violinist Grzegorz Kotow
will soon be released on the ArchiMusic label.
Since coming to the United States from Taiwan, Lee has collaborated with some
of America’s most important musicians, including violinists Donald Weilerstein,
Ani Kavafian, Jacques Israelievitch, Joseph Silverstein, Ryu Goto and Stefan Jackiw;
violists Kim Kashkashian and Dimitri Murrath; cellists Paul Katz, Robert DeMaine and
Andres Diaz; flutist Jeanne Baxtresser; and pianist James Tocco. Her chamber music
partners have included the Jupiter and Harlem string quartets, members of the Bavarian
Radio, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, San Diego symphony orchestras and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In her hometown of Boston, Lee has performed at NEC, MIT, Boston Ballet and in
recitals with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She also works with the BSO’s
guest conductors and soloists, and she was the Boston pianist seen in rehearsal with
violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in her documentary The Portrait. Her live performances
can also be heard on WQXR, WGBH and WRCJ. In 2006, she was appointed pianist for
Itzhak Perlman’s violin studio at the Perlman Music Program and has since joined its
faculty in the Sarasota Winter Residency. She also served on the faculty of the Chautauqua
School of Music, as staff pianist at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the famed
PIETER WISPELWEY | 52
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953)
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Much of Prokofiev’s fame in the United States rests on his composition of Peter and the
Wolf, the celebrated children’s work animated by Disney. Composed in 1936 just after
spending nearly two decades in the United States and Western Europe, Peter and the Wolf
spawned from the pen of an idealistic Prokofiev who had returned to the Soviet Union
as a heroic son eager to take part in the cultural development of the socialist state.
Although also a celebrated work, Prokofiev’s cello sonata was composed under far
darker circumstances.
With the rise of Stalin came increasingly stricter supervision of art and music by Soviet
authorities. Critical reforms to Soviet art, led by the Soviet ideologue Andrey Zhdanov,
resulted in four major resolutions that passed between 1946 and 1948. During these dark
years of “reform,” artists and musicians were not only criticized, but many were arrested,
killed or simply disappeared. At first seemingly immune to attacks by the regime, the
confident and optimistic Prokofiev of Peter and the Wolf was shattered by the resolution of
1948 that singled him out by name and resulted in a ban of several of his works.
After the 1948 resolution, Prokofiev was afflicted by insecurity and declining health.
Although his compositional output decreased significantly, his cello sonata of 1949
demonstrates that, despite the new difficulties, he did not give up altogether.
Composed for cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the cello sonata was first performed in
public by Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter at the Moscow Conservatory on
March 1, 1950. As Richter recounts in his memoirs, the work had to be approved for
public performance by the Composer’s Union, which indeed recognized it as a work
that was not “hostile to the spirit of the people.”
Debussy’s contribution to the national music of his country is difficult to match. His
“impressionistic” style has come to be recognized world-wide as quintessentially French.
In fact, the grip of Debussy’s style over French music helped stimulate the creation of
Poulenc’s group, Les Six, which positioned itself against Debussy’s influence.
Many similarities exist in the circumstances between Debussy’s sonata and those of
Poulenc and Prokofiev. Like the first two sonatas of this evening’s program, Debussy’s came
to light late in his career. The difficulty of war is also a common denominator. While
Prokofiev and Poulenc had to contend with World War II, Debussy’s cello sonata was
written the year after World War I began. Unfortunately, Debussy also had to contend
with illness. He wrote his cello sonata while suffering from rectal cancer — a disease that
cut short his plans to make this sonata part of a set of six works. In addition to the cello
sonata, he successfully completed two others: a sonata for flute, viola and harp, and
a sonata for violin and piano. Of his violin sonata, Debussy once commented that it was
an example of “what may be produced by a sick man in a time of war.”
Composed during the summer of 1915 at a villa on the channel coast at Pourville,
Debussy’s cello sonata hearkens to an earlier time. With its characteristically rich
harmonies, the cello sonata is unmistakably Debussy. The spirit, however (according to
Debussy), is that of Italian Baroque Theater (Commedia dell’arte). With its roots in the
art of the past, the cello sonata can be seen as a forerunner to certain Neo-Classical styles
that followed Debussy. And, ironically, it may even be considered a forerunner to the
music of Poulenc.
Sonata in C Major, op. 119 for Cello and Piano (1949)
FRANCIS POULENC (1899–1963)
Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Cello and Piano (1915)
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
Suite italienne (1932)
Sonata for Cello and Piano, op. 143 (1940–48)
Poulenc’s cello sonata, like Prokofiev’s, was composed late in its author’s career. But, unlike
Prokofiev’s, Poulenc’s cello sonata took multiple years to complete. The year that he first
sketched the cello sonata, 1940, was the same year that France surrendered to Germany
after the Nazis invaded. World War II certainly must have made Poulenc’s efforts difficult.
In addition, Poulenc’s insecurity with the cello prompted his consultation with French
cellist Pierre Fournier (to whom the sonata was dedicated) for advice on developing certain
technical aspects of the cello part. This process likely added to the sonata’s completion
time as well.
Born to a wealthy family (his father was director of a chemical corporation), Poulenc
had his first music lessons with his mother, an amateur pianist. He moved on to studies
with the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, after which young Poulenc caught the attention of
the French composer Erik Satie. Recognizing ability in young Poulenc, Satie helped induct
him into the group of French composers which came to be known as Les Six. It was only
after this that Poulenc received his first formal instruction in composition. Except for his
studies with Charles Koechlin between 1921 and 1925, Poulenc was a self-taught composer.
Poulenc’s signature style, which features playful melodies and an avoidance of strong
dissonance, can be found in most of his chamber sonatas. In a letter he wrote in 1942,
Poulenc admits to favoring of traditional harmonies over dissonance. He wrote, “I think
there’s room for new music which doesn’t mind using other people’s chords. Wasn’t that
the case with Mozart–Schubert?”
PIETER WISPELWEY | 54
One of the most prolific, stylistically diverse and long-lived composers of the 20th century,
Stravinsky’s influence on 20th-century musical development is immeasurable. Stravinsky is
a fitting conclusion to tonight’s program of Russian and French music since his music
straddled both countries (his early successes were rooted in the Parisian productions of his
music for Russian ballet). This evening’s work by Stravinsky is an arrangement from his
ballet Pulcinella, a composition that stems from those early successes.
Stravinsky’s association with Paris was facilitated by Sergei Diaghilev, an impresario and
founder of the Ballets Russes, who recruited Stravinksy after hearing a 1909 performance
of his orchestral music at a concert in St. Petersburg. In 1910, after the tremendous success
of The Firebird (Stravinsky’s first ballet score for Diaghilev), Stravinsky relocated with his
family to Paris and remained in the West for the remainder of his career.
The ballet Pulcinella (composed 1919–20) is based on Italian Baroque Theater
(Commedia dell’arte) — the very same that served as inspiration for Debussy’s cello sonata.
Stravinsky’s music is perhaps a step further than inspiration — he actually studied and
then reworked music that was original to Italian Baroque Theater, combining historical
textures and themes with modern rhythms and harmonies. The Suite italienne is a 1932
arrangement of Pulcinella for cello and piano in which Stravinsky collaborated with
Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.
claricesmithcenter.umd.edu | 301.405.ARTS (2787) | 55
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
ABOUT THE PROGRAM