Event is Live
Carnegie Hall Presents

Seong-Jin Cho, Piano

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 8 PM Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Seong-Jin Cho by Christoph Köstlin
Following two sold-out performances on our largest stage, Seong-Jin Cho returns for his third concert at Carnegie Hall. The “uncommonly sensitive and effective pianist” (The New York Times) begins the concert with a timeless suite by Handel, followed shortly by Brahms’s quintessential Handel Variations. The program also includes Sofia Gubaidulina’s gripping Chaconne for solo piano, four of Brahms’s ​confidently experimental Op. 76 piano pieces, and Robert Schumann’s fast-paced and emotionally resonant Symphonic Etudes that nicely complement the Brahms. 

Performers

Seong-Jin Cho, Piano

Program

HANDEL Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430

SOFIA GUBAIDULINA Chaconne

BRAHMS Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24

BRAHMS Capriccio in F-sharp Minor, Op. 76, No. 1

BRAHMS Capriccio in B Minor, Op. 76, No. 2

BRAHMS Intermezzo in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4

BRAHMS Capriccio in C-sharp Minor, Op. 76, No. 5

R. SCHUMANN Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13


Encore:

HANDEL Minuet in G Minor, HWV 434, No. 4 (arr. Wilhelm Kempff)

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately 90 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.

At a Glance

HANDEL  Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430

Handel’s power “to stir, to rouze, to shake the Soul,” in Alexander Pope’s words, is most apparent in his operas, oratorios, and church music. But his many secular instrumental works are no less soul-stirring on a more intimate scale. His debut collection of harpsichord suites, in which the Suite in E Major appeared, was a bestseller when it was published in 1720.

 

SOFIA GUBAIDULINA  Chaconne

Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina acknowledges J. S. Bach and Anton Webern as seminal influences on her music. One of her most frequently performed works, the highly virtuosic Chaconne blends a characteristically Baroque variation form with the serial procedures pioneered by the early–20th-century Second Viennese School.

 

BRAHMS  Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24

The dazzlingly creative Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel is one of a cluster of such works that Brahms composed in the middle of his career. It reflects his abiding interest in variation form, and the rigorous use of chaconnes and other ground basses that characterized the music of Handel and Bach.

 

BRAHMS  Selections from Klavierstücke, Op. 76

Brahms lavished as much craftsmanship on his short piano pieces as on his sonatas and concertos. The eight capriccios and intermezzos in his Op. 76 Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces) illustrate the Romantic genre of the “character” piece, a vehicle for distilling a particular mood or musical idea to its essence.

 

ROBERT SCHUMANN  Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 (with posthumous etudes)

Like many of Schumann’s solo piano works of the 1830s, the Symphonic Etudes contrast the personalities of Schumann’s fictitious alter egos: the stormy, impulsive Florestan and the dreamy, reflective Eusebius. Although the composer was engaged to Clara Wieck when the Symphonic Etudes came to fruition in 1837, they were originally intended to memorialize his first love, a young pianist named Ernestine von Fricken.

Bios

Seong-Jin Cho

Seong-Jin Cho has established himself worldwide as one of the leading pianists of his generation and one of the most distinctive artists on the current music scene. His thoughtful and poetic, assertive and tender, virtuosic and colorful playing can combine panache with purity and is driven by an ...

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