Hélène Grimaud, Piano
Performers
Hélène Grimaud, Piano
Program
VALENTIN SILVESTROV Bagatelle I
DEBUSSY Arabesque No. 1
VALENTIN SILVESTROV Bagatelle II
SATIE Gnossienne No. 4
CHOPIN Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1 (posth.)
SATIE Gnossienne No. 1
SATIE "En y regardant à deux fois" from Pièces froides, No. 2
DEBUSSY La plus que lente
CHOPIN Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4
CHOPIN Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2
DEBUSSY "Clair de lune" from Suite bergamasque
DEBUSSY Rêverie
SATIE "Passer" from Pièces froides, No. 2
R. SCHUMANN Kreisleriana
Encores:
RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in C Major
CHOPIN Etude in F Minor, from Trois nouvelles études, Op. Posth., No. 1
RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in C-sharp Minor, Op. 33, No. 9 (published as No. 6)
VALENTIN SILVESTROV Bagatelle in E Major
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.
At a Glance
Tonight’s program features 11 short pieces by Chopin, Satie, and Debussy—joint founders of the modern school of French piano music—in dialogue with a pair of atmospheric “bagatelles” by contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. Both Satie and Debussy openly emulated their Polish-born predecessor (who died before either of them was born). For the poetically minded Debussy, “Chopin was a delightful teller of tales of love and war, and he often slips away to that forest of As You Like It in which the fairies are the sole mistresses of the mind.” Hélène Grimaud sounds a similar note when she writes that the three composers’ miniature tone poems “conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection, a mirage of what was—or could have been.”
Robert Schumann, whose masterful Kreisleriana occupies the second half of the program, was equally outspoken in his admiration for his near-exact contemporary. In an article published in 1831, he famously saluted the 21-year-old Chopin with the words, “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!” Ever since, their names have been closely linked in the annals of musical Romanticism.