Daniel Hsu
徐翔, pianist
Bronze Medalist, Fifteenth Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition
Characterized
by the Philadelphia Inquirer as a “poet…[with] an expressive edge
to his playing that charms, questions, and coaxes,” American pianist
Daniel Hsu captured the bronze medal and prizes for best performance
of both the commissioned work and chamber music at the 2017 Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition. Also a 2016 Gilmore Young Artist,
first prize winner of the 2015 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition, and
bronze medalist of the 2015 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition,
he is increasingly recognized for his easy virtuosity and bold musicianship.
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Daniel Hsu began taking piano
lessons at age 6 with Larisa Kagan. He made his concerto debut with
the Fremont Symphony Orchestra at age 8, and his recital debut at
the Steinway Society of the Bay Area at age 9, before being accepted
into the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 10, along with his
two older siblings. Since then, he has made his debuts with the Philadelphia
Orchestra (2016) and Carnegie Hall (2017) as part of the CAG Winners
Series at Weill Recital Hall. He has appeared in recitals at the Dame
Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts,
and Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, as well as in concerts
in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, and New York.
With orchestra, Daniel has collaborated with the Tokyo, North Carolina,
Grand Rapids, New Haven, and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras, working
with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Nicholas McGegan, Cristian Măcelaru,
Ruth Reinhardt, and Marcelo Lehninger.
The 2018–2019 season takes him across the United States in recital
and concerto performances. Overseas, he performs with the National
Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, joins Curtis-on-Tour in Europe,
and makes appearances in China and Japan, where he has toured annually
since his Hamamatsu success.
Daniel’s chamber music performance with the Brentano String Quartet
earned him the Steven de Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance
of Chamber Music. The Dallas Morning News praised “his impassioned,
eloquently detailed Franck Quintet,” proclaiming it to be “a boldly
molded account, with a natural feeling for the rise and fall of intensity,
the give and take of rubato. Both he and the Brentano seemed to be
channeling the same life force.” He regularly tours the United States
with the Verona String Quartet and in duo piano with his brother,
Andrew, and appears frequently in chamber music festivals.
Decca Gold digitally launched Daniel’s first album featuring live
recordings from the Cliburn Competition of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at
an Exhibition and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, op. 110, as well as his
award-winning performance of Marc-André Hamelin’s Toccata on “L’homme
armé.” He has also been featured in interviews and performances for
WQXR, APM’s Performance Today, and Colorado Public Radio.
Now 21 years old, Daniel is currently the Richard A. Doran Fellow
at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he has studied with Gary Graffman,
Robert McDonald, and Eleanor Sokoloff.
He is a Marvel film buff and enjoys programming. He contributed to
the creation of Workflow, a popular productivity app that allows users
to automate tasks on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which won the
coveted 2015 Apple Design Award and was acquired by Apple in March
2017.
ADDITIONAL
2017 CLIBURN AWARDS:
Steven De Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance of Chamber
Music
Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the Best Performance of a New Work
Robert Schumann
(1810–1856):
Scenes from Childhood, op. 15
“In man, there resides a tender genius that gently opens up
gateways to new worlds and creations for the eternal child, and
that, unnoticed and as if by chance, leads the youth in his
first love to the blossoming spring with his beloved, uniting
and revealing to each other their dreams.”
—Robert Schumann (from his diary)
Throughout his life, the experience of childhood captivated the
imagination of Robert Schumann, whether it was through his
children, literature, or music. While he wrote some pieces
explicitly for children to play, Kinderszenen (Scenes
from Childhood), Op. 15, was meant for adult consumption, a
reminiscence about life as a child. Composed in 1838, it was
conceived as a set of thirty pieces to be a part of his
Novelletten, Op. 21, but Schumann later decided on
separating the sets.
The first piece, “Of Foreign Lands and Peoples,” expresses
childlike wonder. Its melody opens with the notes B-G-F#-E-D,
which will thenceforth appear throughout the entire cycle as a
unifying motive. “A Curious Story” follows and is full of
excitement, portraying an eager child listening to a story. The
subsequent “Blind Man’s Bluff” was a childhood game that he
played with Clara and her younger brother, Alwin, when Schumann
lived at their house. It is in essence a form of tag, similar to
“Marco
Polo.” “Pleading Child” begins and ends the same way, on an
unresolved chord, as if to ask, “Please?” The next piece answers
with “Happy Enough”—perhaps the child made do with what they
had. “An Important Event” asserts itself, full of pompous
rhythms. The most famous piece of the whole collection is
“Dreaming,” or Träumerei, a favorite encore of Vladimir
Horowitz. It suggests a child’s inner dreamworld, possibly
taking place “At the Fireside,” the following piece. The twelfth
piece, “Child Falling Asleep,” is gentle, swaying, and subdued.
Schumann later added the thirteenth and final piece, “The Poet
Speaks,” to be included in the publication. Here, Schumann
breaks the fourth wall and emerges as a grown-up for the first
time in the piece, addressing the audience in the most intimate
and eloquent of moments.
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770–1827):
Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, op. 110
Beethoven’s Sonata in A-flat Major, completed by the end of
1821, is the second in his final trilogy of sonatas, Op. 109,
Op. 110, and Op. 111. At the time, he was also working on
Missa solemnis, his Ninth Symphony, and the Op. 111 Piano
Sonata. That year had been a tremendously trying one physically:
he had suffered an attack of rheumatic fever in January, only
then to undergo jaundice in July for two months (a prequel to
one of the probable causes of his death, liver cirrhosis).
Moreover, by this time, he was wearing a body belt due to pain
in his abdomen.
As in some of his other late works, Beethoven touches upon so
many dimensions of the human experience in this sonata. He is
not afraid to juxtapose spiritual heights with the utterly
profane. The piece begins harmoniously, in four-part quartet
writing, with a theme (falling third, rising fourth) in the
right hand that will inform the entire sonata. The first
movement is, by appearance, strikingly harmless, almost
abnormally lyrical for something written by Beethoven. Even the
form is rather conventional. The development section is rather
short, a series of sequences that unfolds with a sense of
inevitability. The ending of the first movement is inconclusive,
leading straight into the second movement.
The impetuous scherzo and trio comprises two themes that are
identified by musicologists to be Unsa Kätz häd Katzln ghabt
(“Our
cat has had kittens”) and Ich bin lüderlich, du bist
lüderlich (“I
am a slob, you are a slob”). They were popular drinking songs of
the time, and Beethoven would have identified with the second
song, with its mention of
“lüderlich,”
one who was untidy and “not fit for polite society.” Indeed,
those that knew him were aware of his crazed and ragged
appearance. A record exists from 1821 (the year he composed this
sonata) about a brief trip he made to prison due to his attire.
Beethoven, in his reverie, took a long walk and, only when it
was too late, realized that he had lost his way in Wiener
Neustadt. The police, noticing an unshaven and unkempt man
looking into homes (perhaps hoping to ask someone for the
directions), brought him to jail. When he claimed he was
Beethoven, they did not believe him and said, “You’re a tramp.
Beethoven doesn’t look like this.” The composer made a racket,
requesting that Herr Herzog (a local music director) come to
identify him in the middle of the night. Only after Herzog’s
confirmation did the mayor arrive to apologize and release him.
They exclaimed, “He keeps on yelling that he is Beethoven; but
he’s a ragamuffin, has no hat, an old coat . . . nothing by
which he can be identified.”
After this most earthy of movements comes the most metaphysical.
When the second movement dissipates into the third movement,
what ensues is an arioso coupled with a fugue, emblems of older
styles of music and a juxtaposition of grief and hope for the
beyond. A recitative, sobbing made audible, introduces the
arioso. The theme of the arioso, in A-flat minor, is borrowed
from a movement from Bach’s St. John Passion, Es ist
vollbracht (“It is consummated”), describing when Christ
gives up the mortal body. In Beethoven’s score, the description
“Song of Lament” appears in both German and Italian. A sublime
fugue subsequently unfolds, built upon the very same melody as
the opening of the sonata. Yet it is not the end of the story,
and the fugue dwindles. The arioso returns, this time in G
minor, marked Ermattet, “exhausted.” After
resonant, bell-like G-major chords are heard ringing from the
lower recesses of the piano, the fugue emerges once again,
phoenix-like, though this time turned upside down. It is all the
more magical. Composer Vincent d’Indy remarked that the arioso
is “one of the most poignant expressions of grief
conceivable to man” and that the fugue is “an effort of will to
shake off suffering. But the latter is the stronger . . . [its]
will asserting itself against the forces of annihilation . . .
the resurrection!” Indeed, the sonata concludes with boundless
euphoria.
Franz Liszt
(1811–1886):
Sonata in B Minor, S. 178
Considered by many to be his magnum opus, Liszt’s Sonata in B
Minor is exceptional in its content, scope, and architectural
mastery. Alan Walker declares that it was “arguably one of the
greatest keyboard works to come out of the nineteenth century.
If Liszt had written nothing else, he would have to be ranked as
a master on the strength of this work alone.” Unlike most of his
other works, it does not contain programmatic descriptions, and
the wide-ranging hermeneutic interpretations offered by
musicians seem insignificant when listed one after the other. Be
it the Faust legend, a depiction of the Garden of Eden, or an
autobiographical sketch, Liszt never in fact revealed his
intention programmatically. For instance, he reused the same
music from his choral cycle Les Quatre Éléments in Les
Préludes, despite differing programmatic contexts.
Its appellation of “sonata” is significant structurally—the form
functions as a sonata on the local level, as well as
macrocosmically. Walker writes, “Not only are its four
contrasting movements rolled into one, but they are themselves
composed against a background of a full-scale sonata
scheme—exposition, development, and recapitulation. . . . In
short, Liszt has composed ‘a sonata across a sonata.’”
Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasie, which Liszt knew intimately
as a performer, arranger, and editor, would have certainly been
influential on the structuring of this piece. The Wanderer
Fantasie, too, contains four movements linked and unified by
themes that undergo a change in character, otherwise known as
“thematic transformation.” Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor, more than
any of his other works, is the greatest of his “transformation
of themes.”
While having three primary leitmotifs (themes that recur
throughout the piece, representing a specific idea), it displays
an astonishing degree of organicism. Each measure is deeply
integrated with the rest of the work. In this sense, the pianist
Claudio Arrau once dubbed Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor “Beethoven’s
thirty-third piano sonata.”
The sonata is an eclectic amalgam of different styles, and
Kenneth Hamilton writes that it ranges “from Germanic
chromaticism and thematic development to Italianate lyricism,
taking in elements from French grand opera and Hungarian Gipsy
music along the way.” In its haunting introduction, one senses
immediately the slight flavor of exoticism in the descending
scalar passage (first in the Phrygian mode and then repeated as
a “gypsy scale”). After a Mephistophelian outburst, the second
theme, marked Grandioso, is everything the name
implies. Hamilton observes that this portion invokes the French
grand opera chorus. The slow section is the work’s emotional
center. An acerbic fugue ensues and is astonishing in its role
as the development of the sonata form. According to manuscripts,
the composer had originally intended a loud, virtuosic ending,
but later opted for a sublimated, introspective finish.
Fifteen years earlier, in 1839, Robert Schumann had dedicated
his Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17, to Franz Liszt. Liszt was a
great admirer of Schumann, and it was not until he completed the
Sonata in B Minor that he felt he had composed something worthy
enough to reciprocate this gesture. Unfortunately, Schumann was
never to see the score, as in 1853, when the work was completed,
he had already been admitted to the asylum. Clara Schumann, who
received it, thoroughly disliked it. Nonetheless, Liszt’s friend
Richard Wagner wrote to the composer upon hearing it: “Dearest
Franz, you were with me, the sonata is beautiful beyond compare;
great, sweet, deep and noble, sublime as you are yourself.”
Copyright © 1999-2021 中華表演藝術基金會 Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts,
Lincoln, Massachusetts
徐翔
(Daniel Hsu)
音樂會後新聞稿
中華表演藝術基金會8月28日繼續在波士頓伊莎貝拉美術館
(Isabella Stewart Gardner Museumt)
的 Calderwood
大廳中,舉行自去年十一月份以來,在疫情的陰影下,同一場地的第九場現場音樂會。當晚由2017年范克萊本
(Van Cliburn)
國際鋼琴大賽銅牌獎主徐翔
Daniel
Hsu
演出舒曼的童年回憶組曲,貝多芬第31號
Op.110
奏鳴曲,及李斯特的B小調奏鳴曲。
包括音樂界多位名師在內,當晚有200人在現場欣賞。在曲終最後一個音符之後,觀眾立刻起立,報以熱情歡呼及掌聲。
波士頓音樂雜誌(The
Boston Musical Intelligencer)
資深樂評
Geoffrey Wieting,以
『鋼琴家用非凡的詩人才華歌唱』 為題盛讚徐翔。並對主辦單位長期支持樂壇新秀的重要性表示肯定。樂評說:
『徐翔勇敢地選了極需要智慧及傑出技巧,並且是大家喜愛的三首鋼琴經典,作為當晚的曲目。
他的詮釋中肯,不僅表現出他的高超琴藝,並且顯示出他在琴鍵之外的多方追求。』
樂評說:
『舒曼的童年回憶,作曲家表現兩種不同的特性,沉思夢幻及熱情激進,期間又有多層次的模糊不清。
徐翔很有技巧地將兒童的天真單純及成年人的懷舊心情融洽在一起,令人回味。』
在整曲13片段中,樂評仔細分享討論,他說:
『徐翔用他歌唱的聲音,帶領我們穿越多處大調小調的轉折,處處顯示超越他實際年齡的成熟。』
貝多芬著名的第31號Op.110奏鳴曲,是他在身心都受到很大的壓力下完成的,好像是他對這塵世的告別。有好多疑問也試著回答。樂評說:
『徐翔用他特別的歌唱式的琶音,上升下滑充滿感情。有問有答,有悲傷失敗者的挫折,有浴火重生,復活感恩的喜悅,表現出貝多芬
“三隻手” 的效果。如沒有成熟的琴技,是不可能展現的。』
李斯特的
B小調奏鳴曲被稱為鋼琴中的
『喜馬拉雅山』,充滿了不同的情感意境。樂評再次說:
『沒有成熟的技巧及充分的想像力是不能勝任的。徐翔再度表現他非常難得的詩人特色。』
本場演出的全場錄音將在近日放上YouTube,免費供大家欣賞。但依照徐翔經理公司的條件,30日後必須取下。
中華表演藝術基金會第三十三屆音樂季,將由鋼琴家陳宏寬在10月2日週六晚8點於新英格蘭音樂學院喬頓廳(NEC’s
Jordan Hall)
開場。喬頓廳規定僅有480單獨座位,曲目不得超過90分鐘,沒有中場休息,觀眾需戴口罩,並出示打過疫苗的證明才可進場。門票即將開始出售。提供學生免費票及非學生贈送券,請上網預訂:。主辦單位希望提供高品質的音樂給大眾,不論是否可負擔入場券費用,都歡迎。也希望有心人慷慨樂捐,幫助分擔場租,出場費,錄音等等費用。
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