Peter Lieberson and corrections, 20204
This Week in Classical Music: October 21, 2024. Lieberson and corrections. Final week our calendar received very a lot confused: we celebrated Franz Liszt, although his birthday, October 22nd, occurs this week. There’s nothing flawed with celebrating Liszt early and infrequently, so we’ll do it this week by enjoying one in every of his best compositions, the B minor Sonata. It’s a powerful, grand Romantic piece, extraordinarily standard within the early to mid-Twentieth century when it was thought-about central to any virtuoso’s repertoire; it’s not performed as typically nowadays and its significance, so apparent earlier than, will not be as obvious. A one-movement piece, it’s technically tough and sophisticated in construction. Liszt accomplished it in 1853 (the primary sketches had been written in 1842); it was premiered not by Liszt however Hans von Bülow, his pupil, in 1857. The sonata is devoted to Robert Schumann, in return for Schumann dedicating his Fantasy in C main to Liszt some years earlier (Schumann died in 1856, between the Sonata’s completion and its premier). There are scores of fantastic performances of the Sonata, so it’s practically unimaginable to pick the “greatest” one. Some recordings are extra standard than others, for instance, Krystian Zimerman’s from 1990 (and it’s certainly excellent). And so are the recordings by Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang and Marc-André Hamelin. We’ll play an older recording, made dwell by the nice pianist Sviatoslav Richter. He performed it on the Aldeburgh Pageant on June 21st of 1966 within the Aldeburgh parish church. We predict it’s a profound efficiency.
The American composer Peter Lieberson was born on October 26th of 1946 in New York. He studied composition with Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen, a number of the most “modernist” of American composers however his personal music is rather more tuneful. Lieberson wrote a number of concertos (three for the piano, one every for the horn, viola, and cello), an opera, and lots of chamber items, however he’s greatest remembered for his two tune cycles, Rilke Songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, composed in 2001 and, from 2005, Neruda Songs for mezzo and orchestra. Each cycles had been written for his spouse, the great mezzo Loraine Hunt Lieberson. Right here, from the Rilke cycle, O ihr Zärtlichen (Oh you, tender ones). Loraine Hunt Lieberson is accompanied by Peter Serkin. And right here is one other tune from the identical cycle, Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht! (Breathe, you invisible poem!). It’s carried out by the identical artists.
Loraine Hunt Lieberson died from breast most cancers in 2006 on the age of 52. Shortly after her dying, Peter Lieberson was recognized with lymphoma. He continued to compose until the top of his life. Peter Lieberson died on April 23rd of 2011.
