This Week in Classical Music: October 21, 2024. Lieberson and corrections. Last week our calendar got very much confused: we celebrated Franz Liszt, though his birthday, October 22nd, happens this week. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Liszt early and often, so we’ll do it this week by playing one of his greatest compositions, the B minor Sonata. It’s a magnificent, grand Romantic piece, extremely popular in the early to mid-20th century when it was considered central to any virtuoso’s repertoire; it’s not played as often these days and its importance, so obvious before, is not as apparent. A one-movement piece, it is technically difficult and complex in structure. Liszt completed it in 1853 (the first sketches were written in 1842); it was premiered not by Liszt but Hans von Bülow, his student, in 1857. The sonata is dedicated to Robert Schumann, in return for Schumann dedicating his Fantasy in C major to Liszt some years earlier (Schumann died in 1856, between the Sonata’s completion and its premier). There are scores of excellent performances of the Sonata, so it’s nearly impossible to select the “best” one. Some recordings are more popular than others, for example, Krystian Zimerman’s from 1990 (and it’s indeed very good). And so are the recordings by Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang and Marc-André Hamelin. We’ll play an older recording, made live by the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter. He played it at the Aldeburgh Festival on June 21st of 1966 in the Aldeburgh parish church. We think it’s a profound performance.
The American composer Peter Lieberson was born on October 26th of 1946 in New York. He studied composition with Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen, some of the most “modernist” of American composers but his own music is much more tuneful. Lieberson wrote several concertos (three for the piano, one each for the horn, viola, and cello), an opera, and many chamber pieces, but he’s best remembered for his two song cycles, Rilke Songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, composed in 2001 and, from 2005, Neruda Songs for mezzo and orchestra. Both cycles were written for his wife, the wonderful mezzo Loraine Hunt Lieberson. Here, from the Rilke cycle, O ihr Zärtlichen (Oh you, tender ones). Loraine Hunt Lieberson is accompanied by Peter Serkin. And here is another song from the same cycle, Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht! (Breathe, you invisible poem!). It’s performed by the same artists.
Loraine Hunt Lieberson died from breast cancer in 2006 at the age of 52. Shortly after her death, Peter Lieberson was diagnosed with lymphoma. He continued to compose till the end of his life. Peter Lieberson died on April 23rd of 2011.
Peter Lieberson and corrections, 20204
This Week in Classical Music: October 21, 2024. Lieberson and corrections. Last week our calendar got very much confused: we celebrated Franz Liszt, though his birthday, October 22nd,
happens this week. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Liszt early and often, so we’ll do it this week by playing one of his greatest compositions, the B minor Sonata. It’s a magnificent, grand Romantic piece, extremely popular in the early to mid-20th century when it was considered central to any virtuoso’s repertoire; it’s not played as often these days and its importance, so obvious before, is not as apparent. A one-movement piece, it is technically difficult and complex in structure. Liszt completed it in 1853 (the first sketches were written in 1842); it was premiered not by Liszt but Hans von Bülow, his student, in 1857. The sonata is dedicated to Robert Schumann, in return for Schumann dedicating his Fantasy in C major to Liszt some years earlier (Schumann died in 1856, between the Sonata’s completion and its premier). There are scores of excellent performances of the Sonata, so it’s nearly impossible to select the “best” one. Some recordings are more popular than others, for example, Krystian Zimerman’s from 1990 (and it’s indeed very good). And so are the recordings by Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang and Marc-André Hamelin. We’ll play an older recording, made live by the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter. He played it at the Aldeburgh Festival on June 21st of 1966 in the Aldeburgh parish church. We think it’s a profound performance.
The American composer Peter Lieberson was born on October 26th of 1946 in New York. He studied composition with Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen, some of the most “modernist” of American composers but his own music is much more tuneful. Lieberson wrote several concertos (three for the piano, one each for the horn, viola, and cello), an opera, and many chamber pieces, but he’s best remembered for his two song cycles, Rilke Songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, composed in 2001 and, from 2005, Neruda Songs for mezzo and orchestra. Both cycles were written for his wife, the wonderful mezzo Loraine Hunt Lieberson. Here, from the Rilke cycle, O ihr Zärtlichen (Oh you, tender ones). Loraine Hunt Lieberson is accompanied by Peter Serkin. And here is another song from the same cycle, Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht! (Breathe, you invisible poem!). It’s performed by the same artists.
Loraine Hunt Lieberson died from breast cancer in 2006 at the age of 52. Shortly after her death, Peter Lieberson was diagnosed with lymphoma. He continued to compose till the end of his life. Peter Lieberson died on April 23rd of 2011.