Evgeny Kissin

Tuesday 10 June 2014 7.30pm, Hall

Schubert Piano Sonata in D major, D850

interval 20 minutes

Scriabin Piano Sonata in G sharp minor,

Op 19 Sonata-Fantasy
Scriabin Études, Op 8 – Nos 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11 & 12

Evgeny Kissin piano

Felix Broede

Part of Barbican Presents 2013–14

Programme produced by Harriet Smith;

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 Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Piano Sonata in D major, D850 (1825)
1 Allegro
2 Con moto
3 Scherzo: Allegro vivace
4 Rondo: Allegro moderato
Schubert’s D major Sonata stands out among his
mature output for its unusually brilliant opening
movement. Written in 1825 (and only the second
of his piano sonatas to appear in print), it was
dedicated to Carl Maria von Bocklet, one of the
leading pianists of the day, and the composer
doesn’t spare his soloist, with leaping melodies,
hand-crossing and abrupt changes in figuration
and dynamic. It’s perhaps no coincidence that
he was simultaneously working on his ‘Great’
C major Symphony, another work imbued with
a self-confident grandeur. The stirring rhythm
of the sonata’s main theme comes to dominate
the entire work, while the frequent modulations
add to the general sense of flightiness and
instability. The arrival of a second theme, with
its curious ‘yodelling’ profile, is marked by an
abrupt key change and a slightly slower tempo.
The development morphs the opening rhythm
into a clear horn call, a figure that makes a final
triumphant return in the fiery coda.
The Con moto intersperses a charming song-
like theme (which bears more than a passing
resemblance to his contemporaneous Lied
Fülle der Liebe) with a syncopated episode that
recalls the horn call of the opening Allegro,
Schubert disorientating us not only rhythmically
but also in his daring harmonies. This movement
is in a simple rondo form – though ‘simple’ is
perhaps not a word that should ever be used in
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association with this composer – and he finally
melds together the two ideas, accompanying the
song-like theme with the syncopated rhythm.
Syncopation dominates the Scherzo too, with
a fervent main theme reminiscent of a good-
humoured marche militaire, which in turn yields to
a dancing Ländler, Schubert not only playing up
the contrasts in the texture of the writing but also
teasing the listener as he switches between three
and two beats in a bar. The smoother profile of
the Trio provides a strong contrast, but it is far
from a placid interlude, as we journey through
a whole region of remote keys. The Scherzo
reappears, before dissolving into the Ländler,
which leads naturally to the gentle rondo finale.
After the ebullience of the first movement, which
is unusually fast by Schubert’s standards, the
finale returns us to more natural territory, with a
naïvely sweet melody set against a moderately
paced ‘tick-tock’ accompaniment. Two episodes
offer contrast before the final appearance of the
rondo theme, now transformed into semiquavers,
seemingly trotting at the double. Finally, a tinkling
coda draws the music up into the ether and
into silence.
interval: 20 minutes

Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915)
Piano Sonata No 2 in G sharp minor,
Op 19 Sonata-Fantasy (1892–7)
1 Andante
2 Presto
Alexander Scriabin was one of the most
iconoclastic figures to emerge from Russian
musical history. Sharing a piano teacher with his
close contemporary Rachmaninov – the imposing
Nikolai Zverev – he studied composition with
Sergey Taneyev. When he was admitted to the
Moscow Conservatoire he continued his piano
studies with Vasily Safanov and composition
with Anton Arensky. Despite having unusually
small hands he became a star student. However,
disaster struck when he overpractised and
damaged his right hand. His response was to
write two pieces for left hand alone, plus the
First Piano Sonata. His hand recovered and he
passed his piano exams with aplomb. But, though
he didn’t graduate in composition, it was in this
direction that he was now moving.
What’s striking about Scriabin, from his early
works onwards, is his originality. Even composers
whom he idolised – and this includes Chopin
– appear very much altered by Scriabin’s
unique harmonic language, which was not only
coloured by Liszt and Wagner but also influenced
by his readings of Nietzsche and Theosophy
and, increasingly, by synaesthesia, something
that found its apogee in Prometheus, which
infamously called for a ‘colour organ’.
Given all this, it’s hardly surprising that Scriabin
was arguably the first Russian composer to
Programme notes
master sonata form and use it to his own ends,
as opposed to those who wrote sonatas because
they felt it was the done thing. Beethoven was
as profound (though unspoken) an influence as
Chopin and Scriabin had played his Op 109
Sonata at his graduation recital in 1892. It’s not
difficult to detect echoes of the ecstatic trills that
suffuse that finale in Scriabin’s Second Sonata,
begun the same year.
The hand of Beethoven can also perhaps be
felt in Scriabin’s sonata structures where two
movements are interlinked, as happens here in
the Second. Unusually, he provided a programme
for this work, completed in the year of his
marriage to the pianist Vera Isacova:
‘The first part evokes the calm of a southern night
on the seashore; the development is the sombre
agitation of the deep, deep sea. The E major
section represents the tender moonlight that
comes after the first dark of the night. The second
movement, presto, represents the stormy agitation
of the vast expanse of ocean.’
The sea was a novel experience for the
composer: he began the sonata after a trip to
Latvia in which he encountered it for the very
first time. And, as pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has
observed, the work ‘portrays the sea more vividly
than the real thing, manipulating your senses;
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 you can actually smell the sea air, taste the salt
water and often feel the fresh breeze change
directions.’
The sonata opens pensively, dominated by
the rhythmic motif that is to pervade the entire
movement, Scriabin teasing us with mere
fragments of a theme. As a more complete
melody emerges, there is still hesitancy in its
phrasing. This relatively subdued mood contrasts
with the B major idea (a couple of minutes in), in
which a luxuriant theme is heard, initially in the
middle register, offset by flickering figuration.
This gives way to a return of the opening idea,
developed and driven through a dark range of
keys before eventually emerging into the E major
mentioned by the composer and now clothing
the tentative melody that grew from the opening
bars. With writing of the most transparent filigree
and delicacy the opening movement reaches
its close, the final bars recalling once more the
pervasive rhythmic motif of the opening.
The finale provides the greatest possible contrast,
a whirling moto perpetuo from which gradually
emerges a long-limbed melody. It climbs ever
higher, struggling to make itself heard above the
turbulent morass of notes. Scriabin only finally
reveals the entire melody on its last appearance
(rather as Beethoven does in the second theme
of the opening movement of the ‘Appassionata’).
The Presto’s almost manic energy is abruptly
quelled with two emphatic chords.
Programme notes © Harriet Smith

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4

Alexander Scriabin
12 Études, Op  8 (1894)
No 2 in F sharp minor
No 4 in B major
No 5 in E major
No 8 in A flat major
No 9 in G sharp minor
No 11 in B flat minor
No 12 in D sharp minor
The set of 12 Études, Op 8, were completed in
1894, although they involved Scriabin in a great
deal of revision before their final publication.
He included some of them in his St Petersburg
debut recital in 1895. Taking Chopin’s Études as a
springboard, with their combination of technical
resource and lyrical impulse, Scriabin introduces
greater chromatic and rhythmic complexities,
while still focusing on specific pianistic problems.
No 2 in F sharp minor casts oriental-sounding
arabesques with a brooding character,
A capriccio, con forza, and the five-against-three
rhythms and angular passagework resolve
to a more brightly lit major-key close. No 4
in B major again blurs the texture with cross
rhythms of five against three (and five against
four), this time with more delicately-fragranced,
widely-spaced arpeggio figurations. No 5 in
E major is an octave study with tricky leaps and
Programme notes
widespread left-hand chords; it begins in dance-
like fashion before turning more passionate. No 8
in A flat major is technically the easiest of the
Études, a tender love-song for Scriabin’s first love,
Natalya Sekerina.
By contrast, No 9 in G sharp minor is an epic
octave study marked Alla ballata, which makes
huge demands on the left hand especially, and
in its central Meno vivo section is reminiscent of
a Chopin Ballade. We reach another moment
of repose with No 11 in B flat minor, redolent
of a Russian folk song in its melancholy falling
sequences. No 12 in D sharp minor, marked
Patetico, is perhaps Scriabin’s most famous
piano piece, a Russian equivalent to Chopin’s
‘Revolutionary’ Étude in the grand manner. In
terms of technique it is another octave study, with
huge left-hand leaps and right-hand gestures that
mirror Chopin’s masterpiece.
Programme note © Tim Parry
5
 About the
performer
Felix Broede
Evgeny Kissin
Evgeny Kissin piano
Evgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in October
1971 and began to play by ear and improvise
on the piano at the age of 2. At 6 years old,
he entered a special school for gifted children,
the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, where
he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor,
who has remained his only teacher. At the age
of 10, he made his concerto debut playing
Mozart’s Piano Concerto, K466 and gave his
first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He
came to international attention in March 1984
when, at the age of 12, he performed Chopin’s
two piano concertos in the Great Hall of the
Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State
Philharmonic under Dmitri Kitaienko. This
concert was recorded live by Melodia, and
a two-LP album was released the following
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year. During the next two years, several of his
performances in Moscow were recorded live
and five more LPs were released by Melodiya.
His first appearances outside Russia were in
1985 in Eastern Europe, followed a year later by
his first tour of Japan. In 1987 he made his West
European debut at the Berlin Festival. In 1988
he toured Europe with the Moscow Virtuosi and
Vladimir Spivakov and also made his London
debut with the London Symphony Orchestra
under Valery Gergiev. In December of the same
year he performed with Herbert von Karajan
and the Berlin Philharmonic in a New Year’s
concert which was broadcast internationally, with
the performance repeated the following year
at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Audio and video

recordings of the New Year’s concert were made
by DG.
In 1990 he made his first appearance at the
BBC Proms and that same year made his North
American debut, performing both Chopin piano
concertos with the New York Philharmonic
conducted by Zubin Mehta. The following week
he opened Carnegie Hall’s centennial season
with a debut recital, which was recorded live by
BMG Classics.
Musical awards and tributes from around the
world have been showered upon the pianist. In
1987 he received the Crystal Prize of the Osaka
Symphony Hall for the best performance of the
year 1986 (his first in Japan). In 1991 he received
the Musician of the Year Prize from the Chigiana
Academy of Music in Siena. He was special
guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards Ceremony,
broadcast live to an audience estimated at over
one billion, and became Musical America’s
youngest Instrumentalist of the Year in 1995. In
1997 he received the prestigious Triumph Award
for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture,
of which he was the youngest-ever awardee. He
was the first pianist to be invited to give a recital at
the BBC Proms (1997).
About the performer
In December 2003 in Moscow, he received the
Shostakovich Award, one of Russia’s highest
musical honours. In June 2005 he was awarded
an honorary membership of the Royal Academy
of Music in London. The same year he was also
awarded the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize.
His recordings have also received numerous
awards and accolades. Past awards have
included the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands,
Grammy awards, and the Diapason d’Or and the
Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Académie du Disque
in France.
He has received honorary doctorates from
the Manhattan School of Music (2001), Hong
Kong University (2009), the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem (2010) and the Ben Gurion University in
Be’er Sheva (2014).
The coming season sees engagements in
major cities across Europe, including London,
Milan, Paris, Salzburg, Vienna, Barcelona,
Berlin, Amsterdam and many more. He will
also undertake an extensive North American
tour, which includes recitals and orchestral
appearances in all the major US venues.
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 Classical music
2014–15
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