Emanuel Ax, Piano
Performers
Emanuel Ax, Piano
Program
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1, "quasi una fantasia"
JOHN CORIGLIANO Fantasia on an Ostinato
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2, "quasi una fantasia” (“Moonlight")
R. SCHUMANN Arabeske in C Major
R. SCHUMANN Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 100 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
A fantasy is defined as the free play of creative imagination. The term connoted many different things for the three composers represented on tonight’s program, but in essence it could refer to almost any work that did not quite conform to any of the standard musical forms and genres. Beethoven, the prototypical boundary-defying composer, evoked the 18th-century genre of the free-form keyboard fantasy in his beloved “Moonlight” Sonata and its equally unconventional companion, the Sonata No. 13 in E-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1. Robert Schumann’s great Fantasy in C Major, which originated as a tribute to Beethoven, alludes to the older composer’s song “An die Ferne Geliebte,” a paean to his anonymous “distant beloved.” Similarly, John Corigliano borrowed the thematic material for his Fantasia on an Ostinato from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Although Schumann’s winsome Arabeske has a more traditional structure, it too owes much to the composer’s dreamily melancholic alter ego Eusebius.