Mikhail Rudy 06 Biography The Pianist 25 26.3.2010 ArtisTree 10 Programme 12 About The Pianist Mikhail Rudy Piano Recital 27.3.2010 Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall 26 Programme 27 Programme Notes Biographies 15 Wladyslaw Szpilman Peter Guinness This programme is printed on environmentally friendly paper. Please switch off all sound-making devices. Unauthorised photography or recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your co-operation.
Biographies MIKHAIL RUDY An artist of great creativity and charisma, Mikhail Rudy has won many honours, among them the Prix de l'academie du Disque Francais for his Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 with the St Petersburg Philharmonia; the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of Szymanowski solo piano works; and the Grand Prix Academie Charles Cros for his Scriabin cycle. Rudy was born in Russia where he studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Jacob Flier. After winning First Prize at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris, he settled in France. There he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. It was an apt recognition for a man whose pursuit of an outstanding musical career has always been inextricably linked with a search for excellence in many other areas of art and culture. Since his debut in Paris with Paul Paray, Rudy has performed regularly with all French orchestras and remains one of the most popular artists in France. Rudy also frequently visits his native Russia 6
RAI NHK 20 2004 2008 where he is a regular guest of the St Petersburg Philharmonic and the main Moscow orchestras. Rudy also plays with the finest orchestras around the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Accademia di Santa Cecilia di Roma, La Scala di Milano, Maggio Musicale Firenze, RAI Torino, the BBC Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, the Halle Orchestra, the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, NHK Tokyo, Yomiuri Symphony, and the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Rudy founded the prestigious St Riquier Festival and was their Artistic Director for twenty years. He is also a respected television broadcaster and has contributed to a BBC television documentary on the life and music of Tchaikovsky. In France he created a series of radio projects for France- Musique, illuminating the life and works of Scriabin, Brahms, Szymanowski and Janacek and he is active in experimental video-filming and writing. Rudy also developed an exciting, innovative project for two pianos, Double Dream, with great jazz pianist Misha Alperin which consists of partly rewritten and partly improvised compositions of classical repertoire. The CD, released in 2004 was critically acclaimed. In September 2008, Rudy s first book Le Roman d un pianiste, l impatience de vivre was published. The well-received book was the number one best seller on the classical music list in France for weeks. Some of Rudy s recent highlights include concerts with the Russian National Orchestra, the Budapest National Orchestra, a tour in Austria with the Royal National Scottish Orchestra and concerts in Musikverein in Vienna and Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. In North America, he opened the season of the Vancouver Symphony and was the guest of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He was also the soloist of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Mariss Jansons for the opening concerts of their season. 7
Programme (1810 1849) (1911 2000) 272 633 284 2815 2820 B2 C 2824 287 272 130 10
The Pianist by Mikhail Ruby based on Wladyslaw Szpilman s book The Pianist Performed by Mikhail Rudy on piano and narrated by Peter Guinness Fryderyk Chopin (1810 1849) Nocturne, Op 27, No 2 Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911 2000) Concertino, extracts Fryderyk Chopin Mazurka Op 63, No 3 Prelude Op 28, No 4 Prelude Op 28, No 15 Prelude Op 28, No 20 Sonata No 2 in B flat minor, 1st movement Wladyslaw Szpilman Fryderyk Chopin Suite for Piano, extracts Nocturne in C sharp minor Prelude Op 28, No 24 Prelude Op 28, No 7 Nocturne Op 27, No 2 English translation by Anthea Bell Victor Gollancz Ltd 1999. Use of the translation by kind permission of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd, London. All Rights Reserved. Running time: approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes with no interval 11
About The Pianist 2000 2001 50 2002 Text: Mikhail Rudy I read the book, The Pianist, in 2000 immediately after it was published. I was very moved by the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman which I found echoed my own family s experience. I came from a family which was persecuted by Stalin. My two grandfathers were executed for no reason, and during my childhood, we had to move constantly in order to live and survive. Under those precarious conditions, I started to study the piano in a cellar that flooded regularly, which was our home at the time. During all these difficulties, music was always a tremendous support and the centre of my inner life. In 2001, before the famous Polanski movie was released, I conceived The Pianist project. It was for me, as a classical pianist, a very special artistic experience to write a theatrical play. My goal was to find an original way of putting music and text together in order to find the right balance between the two, so that the drama could continue to move forward. In this case, the music should not be an illustration of the text but a major component of the dramatic development. I chose Chopin and Szpilman s own music pieces because these formed the internal world of Szpilman at that time in his life, expressed through both music and text. In addition, I found an unexpected supporter in the person of Andrzej Szpilman, Wladyslaw Szpilman s son. He was instrumental in having the book republished after more than 50 years of interdiction in Poland. Andrzej asked me to play the first ever concert dedicated to his father s music, which I did in 2002 with the Polish National Orchestra at the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall. I played 12
2002 the Concertino for Piano and Orchestra which Szpilman wrote in the ghetto, and several pieces for piano solo. After the war, Szpilman practically stopped composing classical music and started a very successful career as a popular song writer. During the 2002 concert, I met all the living members of the Szpilman family and we have been in regular contact since. A very unique moment in my life was visiting with them the places in Warsaw where the story took place. 2005 2009 Rudy wrote and performed together with French actor Robin Renucci a theatrical and musical play after Wladyslaw Szpilman s book The Pianist. The show ran in Paris in 2005 for more than four months where it received both audience and critical acclaim. It then toured more than 50 cities in France, was presented with extraordinary success at the Manchester International Festival and in Holland. In 2009, it went to Australia for the Sydney International Festival, and now premieres in the Hong Kong Arts Festival with Peter Guinness. 13
Biographies Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911 2000) 1933 19351945 19631963 1986 2003 Wladyslaw Szpilman studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. After completing his studies in 1933, he returned to Warsaw where he quickly became a celebrated pianist and a composer of both classical and popular music. From 1935 until the German invasion and occupation of Poland he was a pianist at Polish Radio. From 1945 to 1963 he was Music Director of Polish Radio while at the same time he performed as a pianist in Europe. In 1963, he founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet and performed with them world-wide until 1986. His bestselling memoir The Pianist was written immediately after the war and tells the harrowing true story of his miraculous survival during WW II. Szpilman s novel was made into a film by Roman Polanski in 2003 that went on to win the Palme d Or, three Oscars and various European film prizes. Peter Guinness Peter Simpkin Peter Guinness has extensive stage, film and television credits. Guinness has appeared on stage in A Doll s House, The Little Foxes, As You Like It, Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Oleanna, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Dr Faustus, The Tempest, Too Clever By Half, Measure for Measure, The Power and The Glory, The Seagull, Macbeth, Flight, Sarcophagus, Changeling, and Hamlet. He has appeared on television in BBC series such as Bleak House, Casualty, Ivanhoe, Seaforth, Bugs, Smokescreen and Spender I and II, as well as episodes of Red Cap where he was a regular, and The Conclave, Peterloo Massacre, Dark Realm and Arabian Nights. Guinness s film credits include roles in Secret Passage, Jack and the Beanstalk, Greenfingers, Sleepy Hollow, Hostile Waters, The Saint, Christopher Columbus, Alien III and The Keep. 15
Programme Mikhail Rudy Piano Recital (1833 1897) 117 1. 2. 3. 118 Johannes Brahms (1833 1897) Three Intermezzos, Op 117 No 1 in E flat: Andante moderato No 2 in B flat minor: Andante non troppo e con molto espressione No 3 in C sharp minor: Andante con moto Six Piano Pieces, Op 118 Intermezzo in A minor: Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato Intermezzo in A: Andante teneramente Ballade in G minor: Allegro energico Intermezzo in F minor: Allegretto un poco agitato Romanze in F: Andante Intermezzo in E flat: Andante. Largo e mesto Interval (1839 1891) Modest Mussorgsky (1839 1881) Pictures at an Exhibition 26 130 Running time: approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes with one interval
Programme Notes 117 Johannes Brahms Three Intermezzos, Op 117 1171892 1769 16 The Three Intermezzos of Op 117, completed in 1892, find Brahms at his most refined, but with no decline in inspiration. The opening Intermezzo is headed with a quotation from Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (David Herd, 1769): Balou, my boy, ly still and sleep, It grieves me sore to hear thee weep. The sixteen-bar lullaby itself is perfectly shaped and has an intensely moving simplicity which contrasts with the more brooding middle section. Peace returns with the opening melody in a slightly more ornate form. The second Intermezzo couples this feeling of introspective restraint with a scurrying urgency which is again the more impressive for its refusal to become too assertive. Melodies and ideas emerge naturally from the elegant, flowing pianism of this exquisite miniature, following each other with charming inevitability. The final Intermezzo opens with a rather sullen motive which gains in warmth as it develops. By contrast the middle section, with its felicitous crossing-rhythms, is so fresh and cheerful that a charming bridge passage is called for to return to the mood of the opening theme, now reharmonised and filled out in an altogether richer form. Programme notes provided by Mikhail Rudy 27
118 Johannes Brahms Six Piano Pieces, Op 118 D G By way of introduction, No 1 is a brief declamatory flourish in strong contrast with the contemplative charm of the second Intermezzo, with its canons implied but not concluded, and its prevailing mood of reflection. Ballade is a strange title for No 3, characterised as it is by daring modulations and impetuous rhythms, although the remote middle section is more relaxed. No 4 recalls Beethoven, both in style and in mood, and serves as a scherzo and trio leading to the lyrical calm of the Romanze, with its rich chorale ambiguously refusing to assert whether the top or the inner line is really intended to dominate. The middle section in D major is full of lively invention with the most eloquent use of unexpected G sharps, trills and harp colourings, throwing into even sharper relief the simplicity of the opening subject when it returns. The final piece is an unexpected reminder that Debussy, another outstanding miniaturist, was already 31 years old, although still relatively unknown. Yet Brahms, writing in an impressionist style which we now associate so much more with the younger composer, here gives a salutary confirmation of the colossal range of his own piano compositions, and of his mastery of any style to which he set his mind. Programme notes provided by Mihkail Rudy 28
Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition 1873 After a visit to an exhibition of the architect and painter Victor Hartmann s work in 1873, Mussorgsky was inspired to write a series of piano pieces. To hear this, we must take an aural walk or promenade through the art gallery. It is this Promenade theme which is repeated throughout the piece. The first picture is a surrealistic picture of a Gnome, a little dwarf which looks like a nutcracker. This is followed immediately by an Old Castle in Italy with a troubadour singing in front of it. After a short repetition of the Promenade, we come to Children Arguing in Paris s Tuileries Gardens. Then we hear the sound of Oxen pulling a heavy Polish wagon, its lumbering wheels turning. The next Promenade turns into a Ballet of Chickens in their Shells, but this soon turns slowly into Samuel Goldenberg and Schmule, two Jewish men in conversation. One is grave and imposing, the other is lively, skipping to another Jewish tune. Then we come to Limoges Market, with the women haggling. We then descend into the Catacombs of Paris where Mussorgsky notes that he saw the ghost of Hartmann so we have a picture of skulls and skeletons. Now the promenade theme is transformed into a musical representation of the Latin With the Dead in a Dead Language. We are coming to the end now, but we stop to see a surrealistic Hut-like Clock Standing on Chicken Legs. But the climax is the most dramatic. This is The Great Gate at Kiev. Actually, there was no gate to the city of Kiev, but Hartmann designed a fantasy gate, topped by a Russian helmet. Mussorgsky pictures this with a transformation of the original Promenade, ending in a rousing climax. Programme notes by Harry Rolnick 29