Tonight, Nariaki Sugiura and I play at Gobin. There have been stories in the Banner-Graphic and on the DePauw site. It will probably be Nariaki's last concert in Greencastle for quite a while. He starts a new faculty position at the University of North Dakota next month.
Nariaki starts things off with a solo set. He begins with a vivacious Allegro from a Haydn piano sonata, followed by two short programmatic pieces ("Banshee" and "The Harp of Life") by the American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965), and then a piece by a actual living composer: Alan Jay Kernis's Superstar Etude No. 1.
The Kernis is wild and crazy. A hard act to follow!
But I'll give it a try.
Together we'll play the Five Pieces in Folk Style by Robert Schumann. I think it's the first time for both of us, certainly for me. I grew up listening to these pieces as performed by Pablo Casals. As I explain in the press release below, the first cello record I was given included these pieces. I'd listen to them, or the Schumann Cello Concerto on the other side, almost every night as I went to sleep. (I had an automatic turntable, which would turn itself off when a record was over, in my room.) At some point in my teens, I decided to wait until I was an adult to learn and perform them--I thought it would be nice to "save" them. Last week, thinking about tonight's program, I decided now is the time.
That got me thinking about other childhood pieces, and the Saint-Saëns A Minor Concerto started floating through my head. An album with Leonard Rose playing it, along with the Lalo Concerto and the Fauré Elegy, came into possession early in my cello life as well. I got to meet Mr. Rose in 1973 after a concert, and he autographed the album for me. I was with another cello student and he signed it, "Hello fellow sufferers! Greetings, Leonard Rose." The Saint-Saëns Concerto was one of my favorite pieces. I haven't performed it since 1989--it's out of fashion to play concertos with piano accompaniment, although this was done all the time in the 19th century as well as the pre-World War II era in the 20th. So why not? It's such a terrific piece, and it sounds great with piano.
We finish off with Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango, which he composed in 1982 for Mstislav Rostropovich. They didn't get around to performing it until 1990. So I definitely didn't grow up listening to it. But I love Piazzolla, and this piece is enormously fun to play.
Here's the press release:
It’s a combination “welcome back” and “farewell” concert as the Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues Wednesday night July 13 at 7:30 PM at Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church. Festival founder and DePauw cello professor Eric Edberg is performing in Indiana for the first time since returning from a sabbatical in New York City. Pianist Nariaki Sugiura, who has been a staff accompanist and part-time piano professor at DePauw for several years, as well as a regular Festival performer, has accepted an appointment to the University of North Dakota and will be moving shortly to Grand Forks, ND.
Wednesday’s program features a wide array of music. “I wanted to play music with which I have a personal connection,” Edberg says. “The first cello recording was given when I started playing featured Pablo Casals playing Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style. I used to put the record on almost every night when I went to bed, and would fall asleep to it. I fell in love with those pieces! During my student years I decided to wait until I was a professional to learn them, to give adult self a kind of treat. Well, now I’ve decided to take that gift from my younger self. This will be the first time I’ve performed them.”
Edberg will also be performing the Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 1 (with Sugiura playing a piano reduction of the orchestra part). “Another favorite cello record was the great Leonard Rose playing this and other concertos. I couldn’t believe it was the same instrument I was playing! Eventually I had the opportunity to play for him in his home, to see if he would take me as a student at Juilliard. I played this piece for him, he accepted me, and I got into Juilliard. I had worked very intensely on this piece with Denis Brott, my cello teacher at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and won the concerto competition there. It’s a piece I’ve always loved, and now that I think about it, a vehicle for some early triumphs.”
Edberg and Sugiura will also play “Le Grand Tango” by Astor Piazzolla. “This is an enormously fun piece,” Edberg explains,”and shows a very different side of the cello. Piazzolla studied with the great Nadia Boulanger in Paris, who encouraged him to continue to use the folk tango music of his native Argentina. He returned to Buenos Aries, where he pretty much invented what you might call the ‘art tango.’”
Nariaki Sugiura will perform solo pieces by Haydn, Henry Cowell, and Alan Jay Kernis (whose music was celebrated in this past spring’s Music of the 21st Century festival at DePauw) in addition to playing with Edberg. Sugiura says, “I call this group of pieces ‘The Evolution of the PIano.’ The Haydn sonata is very conventional. The Cowell pieces--’Banshee,’ ‘Aeolian Harp,’ and ‘The Harp of Life,’ use unusual playing techniques, including strumming inside the piano. The Kernis piece is called ‘Superstar Etude No. 1,’ and you’ll have to hear it to learn why it got that name.’”
Edberg says he and Sugiura have performed together many times. “This is a wonderful artistic relationship. We’ve played many recitals together, and he has accompanied many of my students. Nariaki is a tremendous artist, a terrific collaborator, and a fantastic accompanist and coach. While I’m sure we’ll play together in the future, I’ll miss having him at DePauw. So I’m glad we can celebrate his accomplishments here at Wednesday’s concert.”
Wednesday’s program features a wide array of music. “I wanted to play music with which I have a personal connection,” Edberg says. “The first cello recording was given when I started playing featured Pablo Casals playing Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style. I used to put the record on almost every night when I went to bed, and would fall asleep to it. I fell in love with those pieces! During my student years I decided to wait until I was a professional to learn them, to give adult self a kind of treat. Well, now I’ve decided to take that gift from my younger self. This will be the first time I’ve performed them.”
Edberg will also be performing the Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 1 (with Sugiura playing a piano reduction of the orchestra part). “Another favorite cello record was the great Leonard Rose playing this and other concertos. I couldn’t believe it was the same instrument I was playing! Eventually I had the opportunity to play for him in his home, to see if he would take me as a student at Juilliard. I played this piece for him, he accepted me, and I got into Juilliard. I had worked very intensely on this piece with Denis Brott, my cello teacher at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and won the concerto competition there. It’s a piece I’ve always loved, and now that I think about it, a vehicle for some early triumphs.”
Edberg and Sugiura will also play “Le Grand Tango” by Astor Piazzolla. “This is an enormously fun piece,” Edberg explains,”and shows a very different side of the cello. Piazzolla studied with the great Nadia Boulanger in Paris, who encouraged him to continue to use the folk tango music of his native Argentina. He returned to Buenos Aries, where he pretty much invented what you might call the ‘art tango.’”
Nariaki Sugiura will perform solo pieces by Haydn, Henry Cowell, and Alan Jay Kernis (whose music was celebrated in this past spring’s Music of the 21st Century festival at DePauw) in addition to playing with Edberg. Sugiura says, “I call this group of pieces ‘The Evolution of the PIano.’ The Haydn sonata is very conventional. The Cowell pieces--’Banshee,’ ‘Aeolian Harp,’ and ‘The Harp of Life,’ use unusual playing techniques, including strumming inside the piano. The Kernis piece is called ‘Superstar Etude No. 1,’ and you’ll have to hear it to learn why it got that name.’”
Edberg says he and Sugiura have performed together many times. “This is a wonderful artistic relationship. We’ve played many recitals together, and he has accompanied many of my students. Nariaki is a tremendous artist, a terrific collaborator, and a fantastic accompanist and coach. While I’m sure we’ll play together in the future, I’ll miss having him at DePauw. So I’m glad we can celebrate his accomplishments here at Wednesday’s concert.”
