Recital and concerto works by Handel, Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, and Benjamin Lees

Suite Vll (g-moll) HWV 432 by Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) Handel was born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti. Handel is one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. The Suite in G Minor is one of his best-known suites. The suite consists of six movements: overture (Largo-Presto-Large)- Andante- Allegro- Srabande- Gigue- Passacaille (Passacaglia). The suite in G minor is much more than a standard set of stylized dance movements. The first movement opens with French overture style with Adagio, followed by a fast (Presto). It features in thirds, sixths, and octaves. The following Andante movement has a lyrical melody. The Allegro movement has two voices in 3/8 time. The Sarabande is marked Andante con moto and has three- and four-voice chords with the melody as the top voice. The Gigue that follows has two virtuoso voices. The last movement, Passacaglia, is the climax of the entire suite. Piano Sonata, in F Major, Opus 10 No.2 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Ludwig Van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist during the Classical period. He is the most famous composer of all time, and his music was the transition between the Classical and the Romantic periods. He also studied with Haydn, but their temperaments, personalities, and outlook on music clashed violently. This piano sonata consists of three movements: Allegro- Allegretto- Presto. This Sonata is one of three that belong to the Opus 10 set. It is the second sonata in the set, written in 1796. Since it is one of Beethoven’s early works, it naturally employs the style of Mozart and his teacher Haydn. You can hear this, especially in the third movement. Usually the second movement of a sonata is written in slow tempo, but in this piece, there is no slow movement. He used an allegretto (a tempo marking that means a little slower than “lively”) instead of a slow tempo. The second movement flows melodiously in F-minor, but ends with a surprising major chord that connects with the third movement. The third movement has a short finale with a single canonic theme. Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54 by Robert Schumann (1840-1856) Robert Schumann was one of the greatest and well-known German composers and pianists in the Romantic period. His music presents strong melody lines and a poetic sentiment. He wrote only one piano concerto, and it was written as a dedication to his wife Clara Schumann. She was also a virtuoso pianist, and she was the first to perform this piece. This concerto is a perfect example of brilliant Romantic piano literature. During the summer of 1841, Schumann wrote only a single movement that he called “Fantasy in A minor.” Clara gave the premiere performance that year in Leipzig. Four years later, he decided to expand it into a full-length concerto. The Concerto is a musical genre which usually highlights single instrumentalist being accompanied by an orchestra. Many concertos follow an architectural structure established by Johann Christian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Joseph Haydn. There are usually three movements, with tempo indications that revolved around a formula of: Fast-Slow-Fast. The first movement was the most formalized compositionally. Towards the end of the movement, there is a pause, during which the orchestra stops playing, and the soloist is highlighted in either an improvised, or written out, “cadenza” This allowed the soloist to use the themes of the piece that were previously presented develop and expand on them, showing off more technically impressive passages. Then, when completed, the orchestra returns, and with the soloist, a grand finale section to close out the movement is presented. In situations where an orchestra is not available, many composers reduced the orchestra score into a single piano, 2-hand version, during which the major themes and accompanying can take place. Etude de concert No. 3 (Un sospiro) S.144 by Franz Liszt (1811-1866) Franz Liszt was one of the greatest and well-known Hungarian composers and virtuoso pianists in the Romantic period. He composed Three Concert Études, Etude de concert No.3, is in D-flat major, and is usually known as Un sospiro (Italian for "A sigh"). The piece opens with windless D-flat major arpeggios then it sounds more spread out. As an etude, this piece is good for a study in crossing hands, playing a connected melody with alternating hands, rapid scales, intervals of thirds, and arpeggios. The piece has dramatic dynamics and beautiful melodies. Fantasia by Benjamin Lees (1948-2010) Benjamin Lees is a well-known American composer of the twentieth century. He was born in Harbin, China and came to the United States in 1925. At age five, Lees began piano lessons. He began studies of harmony and theory studied in his teens, along with his first efforts at composition. After doing military service (1942–45), Lees entered the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he studied with Halsey Stevens, Ernst Kanitz, and Ingolf Dahl. The piece “Fantasia” opens with a sforzando and then begins fast tempo. The piece has intense chords and octave runs that make an exciting and brilliant sound. However, it also shows Lees composition style which included lots of dissonance harmony, surprise dynamic contrasts, tempo changes, and mood changes. The “Fantasia” piece is an excellent example of his music for piano.