|
||||||||||||||
|
Haochen Zhang 張昊辰, pianist "Such a combination of enchanting, sensitive lyricism and hypnotizing forcefulness is a phenomenon encountered very rarely." –Ury Eppstein, The Jerusalem Post  Since
his gold medal win at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International
Piano Competition in 2009, 24-year-old Chinese pianist Haochen
Zhang has captivated audiences in the United States, Europe, and
Asia with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity,
fearless imagination, and spectacular virtuosity. Haochen Zhang’s
debut at the BBC Proms 2014 received rave reviews for his
impressive precision, expressive and delicate playing, with Ivan
Hewitt, from The Telegraph saying ‘He made the Allegretto dance
with Mendelssohnian lightness and Lisztian diablerie, and played
the melody of the Quasi Adagio with melting softness.’ His return to Fort Worth as part of the 2010–2011 Cliburn Concerts series was lauded by the Dallas Morning News as "the kind of program you’d expect from a seasoned master, served up with dazzling virtuosity where wanted and astonishing sophistication elsewhere" and hailed as one of the top 10 performances of 2010 by both the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His Boston debut under the auspices of the Celebrity Series met with high praise by audiences and critics, making the year-end lists as part of the Boston Phoenix’s top 10 classical music stories of the year. Boston Globe critic Matthew Guerrieri remarked that Mr. Zhang displayed "poetic temperament as much as technical power… [he is] a pianist with ample reserves of power whose imagination seems nonetheless most kindled by subtle delicacy." In April 2013, Haochen made his debut in Munich with the Munich Philharmonic under the baton of the late maestro Lorin Maazel prior to a sold out four-city tour of China.  A passionate and insightful programmer, Mr. Zhang continues to
cultivate his reputation through major performances and debuts
every year. Highlights of the 14/15 season include return
invitations to Pacific Symphony, La Roque d’Antheron Festival in
France, recitals in Paris, Tokyo and Beijing among others, as well
as debut with the LA Philharmonic with Xian Zhang, the Warsaw
Philharmonic with Jerzy Semkow and Deutsche Radio Philharmonie
Saarbücken with Myung-Whun Chung. In spring 2015 Haochen will be
the soloist for a tour with the NDR Hamburg and Thomas Hengelbrock
in Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. Mr. Zhang is also an avid chamber musician, collaborating with such colleagues as the Shanghai String Quartet and is frequently invited by chamber music festivals in the US. In past seasons, he has performed with orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. A prolific recitalist, in the U.S. Mr. Zhang has performed at Spivey Hall, La Jolla Music Society, Celebrity Series of Boston, CU Artist Series, Cliburn Concerts, Krannert Center, Wolf Trap Discovery Series, Lied Center of Kansas and UVM Lane Series, among others. International tours have taken him to cities including Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Dresden, Rome, Tivoli, Verbier, Montpellier, Helsingborg, Bogota and Belgrade. Mr. Zhang’s Cliburn Competition performances were released to critical acclaim by Harmonia Mundi in 2009. He is also featured in Peter Rosen’s award-winning documentary chronicling the 2009 Cliburn Competition, A Surprise in Texas. His complete competition performances are available on www.cliburn.tv. Mr. Zhang is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied under Gary Graffman. He was previously trained at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shenzhen Arts School, where he was admitted in 2001 at the age of 11 to study with Professor Dan Zhaoyi. 20/08/2014  NOTES ON THE PROGRAM By Dr. Jannie Burdeti Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Images, Book 2 Cloches à travers les feuilles Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut Poissons d’or (15’) In 1911 Claude Debussy wrote to his friend, the composer Edgar Varèse, “I love pictures almost as much as I love music.” Perhaps more than any of his predecessors, Debussy blurred the boundaries between artistic disciplines. As Schumann observed, “For the painter, a poem becomes a painting. The composer converts the painting into sound. The aesthetic process of the one art form is the same as that of the other; only the raw material differs.” Similarly, Debussy’s mu-sic is visually evocative, as seen in his sets of Images: two books of triptychs for solo piano and one for orchestra. The year 1907 was a very unproductive one for Debussy—his mood kept oscillating between depression and joyfulness because of finan-cial worries, being compared negatively with Ravel, and uninterest-ing prospects for the future. As a result, he only completed one work: Book 2 of Images. In this set, he explores multilayered timbres, con-sistently using three staves—and reaching further harmonically and pianistically than ever before. Alfred Cortot describes Cloches à travers les feuilles (Bells through the leaves) as a work that “paints a tone picture of hardly stirring boughs lulled in a sweet silence, a tranquil green shade touched but not disturbed by far-off vibrations sustained, quivering, by the petals.” Dedicated to the sculptor Alexandre Charpentier, the piece is often traced back to a tradition from Rahon in France. Louis Laloy, a musicologist and close friend of Debussy, depicted the custom in a letter to the composer: “The sounding of church bells, from the Ves-pers of All Saints’ Day until the Mass for the Dead, passing from vil-lage to village, the forests yellowing in the night’s silence.” Debussy creates this auditory yet picturesque experience by having five dif-ferent layers of sound heard simultaneously, generating such a depth that one can hear an orchestra of bells resounding through the for-est’s leaves. In addition, the piece displays whole-tone sonorities and structural and textural intricacies reminiscent of the gamelan music of the Eastern Javanese—a notable influence on Debussy’s writing. His first encounter with gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exposition was both a pivotal experience for him and a decisive impetus for his mature style. Debussy scholar Paul Roberts describes the piece as a “sense of stillness within motion, the very ambiguity [that is] at the heart of the gamelan.” Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (And the moon sets over the temple that was) is dedicated to Louis Laloy. The composition comes to life through the importance of texture, as opposed to harmony. The sound world is archaic, oriental, and exotic. Both Debussy’s po-etic title and musical content illustrate his affinity for Symbolist aes-thetics. As his dear friend and collaborator Stéphane Mallarmé wrote: “To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the pleasure of a poem . . . to suggest, herein lies the dream.” The inspiration behind Poissons d’or is often attributed to one of Debussy’s possessions: a Japanese black lacquer panel that rested on the wall above his piano. The panel portrayed two goldfish swim-ming under a tree branch against a black background. Graceful and humorous, this is also one of Debussy’s most virtuosic works—one in which he imbues a rather humble piece of artwork with a wealth of colors, exoticism, and pianism. Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Twelve Transcendental Études, S. 139 I. Preludio: Presto II. Molto vivace III. Paysage: Poco adagio IV. Mazeppa: Allegro V. Feux follets: Allegretto VI. Vision: Lento VII. Eroica: Allegro VIII. Wilde Jagd: Presto furioso IX. Ricordanza: Andantino X. Allegro agitato molto XI. Harmonies du soir: Andantino XII. Chasse-neige: Andante con moto (70’) “Bach is the alpha and Liszt is the omega of piano playing.” —Ferruccio Busoni To perform all of Franz Liszt’s Etudes d’execution transcendante (lit-erally “Studies of transcendent execution”) is to ascend one of the loftiest Himalayan summits for pianists. The Oxford English Diction-ary defines the word transcendental as “going beyond the usual lim-its of human knowledge, experience or reason.” Perhaps more than any of his predecessors, with the genre of the “etude” or “study,” Liszt revolutionized piano technique to the point that it verged on the superhuman, the supernatural, and the transcendental. The Tran-scendental Etudes are transcendental not only in their technical de-mands: as the title implies, the works also achieve this distinction by way of their symphonic scope and emotional intensity. And perhaps the true virtuoso transcends the technical difficulties to bring the lis-tener to the realms beyond the physical—indeed, several titles refer to otherworldly perceptions. Wrought out over thirty years, these etudes were most likely inspired by Liszt’s teacher, Carl Czerny. When Liszt was ten, Czerny accept-ed him as a pupil. Czerny was not only a former student of Beetho-ven but also a successful pedagogue and prolific composer of etudes. In 1826, at fifteen, Liszt composed his first large-scale work, Etudes for the Piano in Forty-Eight Exercises, Op. 6 (of which twelve were completed). There were two subsequent versions of these pieces—a revision in 1838 and another in 1852. Liszt dedicated the first and last sets to Czerny. A major turning point in Liszt’s life was attending a concert by the famous violinist Niccolò Paganini in 1832. The impact of this concert on Liszt’s life was profound. He wrote in a letter to a friend, “For a whole fortnight my mind and my fingers have been working like two lost souls. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them, meditate on them, devour them with fury; besides this, I practice four to five hours of exercises (thirds, sixths, octaves, tremolos, repetition of notes, cadenzas, etc.). Ah! provided I don’t go mad you will find in me an artist! . . . Your friend, though insignificant and poor, cannot leave off repeating those words of the great man ever since Paganini’s last performance.” His fire of ambi-tion to become the Paganini of the piano had been lit. A few years later, at the age of twenty-six, in 1837, he rewrote his youthful etudes and infused into the twelve pieces his new level of virtuosity, bringing them to the edge of playability and, according to Rosen, “stretching what the human hands can be made to do.” Schumann, in a review, wrote, “These are veritable studies of tem-pests and terrors, studies for at most ten or twelve people in the whole world.” Liszt published them as the Twelve Great Studies for the Piano. (He planned on doing twenty-four, which the original ti-tled reflected, but his plans never materialized). Eleven out of the twelve etudes were directly based on the earlier versions, with the twelfth etude based on his Impromptu on Themes of Rossini and Sontini, Op. 3, also a much earlier work. The transformation from the previous set was tremendous, and Liszt’s personality shines through each one. Rosen points out that while the first and second versions share a lot in common, such as “harmonic structure, basic melodic line and rhythmic organization, . . . Liszt was able to . . . transform an unin-teresting student’s effort into a radical work of originality.” Much of the transformation is due to Liszt’s use of sonority and his “imagina-tive reconnection of the sound.” He created a final version of the etudes in 1851, essentially removing unnecessary hardships and mak-ing them more suitable to play, while retaining their transcendental virtuosity. Russell Sherman once commented on this set, “There is a health and vitality in the way he ropes together the public rhetoric, the inner working of the musical form, the erotic impulse and the feeling of generosity and religiosity.” I. Preludio: Presto Etude No. 1 in C Major, “Prelude” Pianist Kirill Gerstein writes that this first etude, titled “Prelude,” is “a virtuosic trying-out of the piano.” Lasting less than a minute, the piece dashes back and forth on the keyboard with arpeggios, chords, trills—all the different exercises Liszt likely practiced as a budding virtuoso. II. Molto vivace Etude No. 2 in A Minor Busoni referred to this etude as “Fusées” or “Rockets.” The main theme is a repeated-note figure, made capricious by its quick alterna-tion between hands and daring leaps. Perhaps more than any of the other etudes, this one brings Paganini’s violinistic pyrotechnics to mind. III. Paysage: Poco adagio Etude No. 3 in F Major, “Paysage” (Landscape) A contemplative depiction of how it might feel to view a vast land-scape, this etude is in the same key as Beethoven’s Pastoral Sym-phony. Liszt creates layers of singing lines—at times with only a sin-gle hand, at others with both. This piece offers a welcome respite between the intense passion before and after. IV. Mazeppa: Allegro Etude No. 4 in D Minor, “Mazeppa” In Ukraine, Ivan Mazepa, a seventeenth-century military leader, in-spired an entire genre of artistic, literary, and musical works. The sto-ry goes that Mazepa, as punishment, was tied naked to a wild horse. Liszt, in his etude, bases the story line on Victor Hugo’s poem about the event. In Hugo’s retelling of the legend, Liszt specialist Leslie Howard writes, “a Polish page [is] bound to a wild horse which re-leased him only when, having galloped to Ukraine, it died from ex-haustion.” Liszt later also composed a symphonic poem with the same name. One of Liszt’s most innovative contributions to piano technique in this work is his choice of fingering for the accompanimental pattern in thirds. He uses, in fast succession, fingers two and four to imitate the sounds of the galloping horse. The various thematic transfor-mations that this piece goes through showcase Liszt’s different com-positional and pianistic techniques. V. Feux follets: Allegretto Etude No. 5 in B-flat Major, “Feux follets” (Will-o’-the-wisps) The title refers to the flickering, mystical lights that travelers can see at dusk above stagnant bodies of water, which legend attributes to spirits or ghosts. Looking beyond the notoriously difficult technical aspect of this piece, one can see how Liszt brilliantly depicts this otherworldly phenomenon through his iridescent figurations and chromaticism. VI. Vision: Lento Etude No. 6 in G Minor, “Vision” Here, Liszt creates a dark and foreboding vision. Overtones of the Dies irae theme are heard in the right hand. The arpeggiated chorale grows and intensifies in ecstasy. The tremolos and swells that appear near the conclusion bring to mind the music of Wagner and Bruckner, and perhaps even foreshadow some of the ecstatic writings of Scria-bin. VII. Eroica: Allegro Etude No. 7 in E-flat Major, “Eroica” Sharing the same name and key with Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, this work is a heroic march. However, before the main theme appears, the piece opens with a blazing cadenza-like introduction. The march builds into thundering, double octaves at its climax. VIII. Wilde Jagd: Presto furioso Etude No. 8 in C Minor, “Wilde Jagd” (Wild hunt) Liszt illustrates a mad and reckless chase. This piece is not about hunters in the forest chasing animals; rather, in keeping with some versions of this German folktale (as implied by the German title), this “wild hunt” describes ghost riders chasing and abducting souls to bring to the underworld. According to legend, during these rides, one can hear strains of beautiful music. IX. Ricordanza: Andantino Etude No. 9 in A-flat Major, “Ricordanza” (Remembrance) Busoni described this etude as being “like a packet of yellow love-letters.” With its Italian appellation, it transports the listener to a by-gone era of singing lovers, sparkling sentiments, and faded memories. The ingenious fifteen-year-old Liszt composed this finest of melo-dies. X. Allegro agitato molto Etude No. 10 in F Minor Other than the second etude, this is the only piece without a title given by Liszt. Busoni names this one “Appassionata,” and perhaps uncoincidentally, Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata is also in F mi-nor—and their codas have similarities. One of the most-performed etudes of this set, its passionate and breathless syncopations arrive at a climax with octave D-flats heard twenty-three times in a row. XI. Harmonies du soir: Andantino Etude No. 11 in D-flat Major, “Harmonies du soir” (Evening harmonies) Liszt touches upon the spiritually transcendent in the opening of this exquisite tone poem. Gentle, distant bells, as chords without their normal tonal functions, ring over what feels like a timeless vista. The music swells, but before the grand climax of the theme, a recitative ensues over “l’accompagnamento quasi arpa” (accompaniment like a harp). Before the end, it returns to a sudden repose. Rosen’s remark that Liszt’s “feeling for sound was the greatest of any keyboard composers between Scarlatti and Debussy” aptly describes this piece. XII. Chasse-neige: Andante con moto Etude No. 12 in B-flat Minor, “Chasse-neige” (Blizzard) Busoni described this piece as “the noblest example, perhaps, amongst all music of a poetizing nature - a sublime and steady fall of snow which gradually buries landscape and people.” One can hear the gradual accumulation of snow and its many movements: steady snowfall, gusts, and eventually, avalanches.   鋼琴家張昊辰音樂會後新聞稿 (03-17-2022) 2009年范克萊本(Van Cliburn) 國際鋼琴大賽金獎及第一名得主張昊辰，應中華表演藝術基金會邀請，3月12日在紐英崙音樂學院喬頓廳(Jordan Hall) 舉行鋼琴獨奏會。演出盛大成功，佳評如潮湧。當晚曲目包括德布西 (Debussy) 鋼琴圖像第二冊 (Images pour Book 2)及李斯特 (Liszt) 經典鉅作70分鐘長的超越練習曲 (Transcendental Études) 。300多位觀眾無懼當晚的強風冰雪，在場屏息專注聆聽。當張昊辰結束最後一個音符，全場歡聲雷動，全體起立報以熱烈掌聲，歷久不斷。張昊辰返場數次，本來不想在此巨大70分鐘曲目之後再加演安可曲，但經不起觀眾的熱情，又再演奏了一首舒曼(Schumann) 的夢幻曲(Traumerei)。 當晚有很多音樂界重要人士、鋼琴家、音樂老師及學生出席。已年過80，波士頓環球報 (The Bostons Globe)退休的資深樂評主筆戴爾 (Richard Dyer)會後表示，在1970年早期，他聽完羅素舒曼(Russell Sherman) 現場演奏李斯特此曲後，曾撰文登在紐約時報 (The New York Times) 極力推崇。這50年來，他也聽過當今最有名的鋼琴家如Trifonov 等數人現場，及無下50多種不同的錄音，但今晚張昊辰的表現，可謂有過之而無不及。戴爾也是2009年張昊辰在范克萊本大賽時的評委之一。他說:「今日的張昊辰比當年獲得第一名時的他，又更上一層樓，值得慶賀。」獲得 Leeds 鋼琴大賽第一名的Eric Lu才由外地演出回來，也在場欣賞。很多觀眾也在網上發文稱讚，反應熱列 。 波士頓音樂情報 (The Boston Musical Intelligencer)資深樂評 Geoffrey Wieting在 3月16日以「超越時空的鋼琴家」為題，發表長達三頁的專文，將每首曲子以專業的眼光，仔細討論，鉅細靡遺。全文高度稱讚張昊辰。他說:「張昊辰演奏的德布西的鋼琴圖像，正好和作曲家要求一樣，好樣用沒有錘子的琴鍵彈出，輕柔遙遠，但音色卻變幻無窮。李斯特這首超級練習曲共12 首，是鋼琴文獻中最具挑戰的曲目之一。不但是鋼琴技巧上一次革命性的創新，而且想像力豐富，變化無窮。很少有鋼琴家能有充份的把握在現場演出整套12 首。觀眾能聽到的機會也不多。尤其是由一位大師來演出。能聽到張昊辰演出全套，表現他特別的大局面的風格。除了技巧的難度外，每首都有故事。真是值得慶賀。張昊辰有特別的才華，他的技巧可稱無人可比，但他真正出眾之處，是他能把他的音樂理念，他的故事，由琴鍵分享給聽眾，引起共鳴。這是一種特別超人的天賦。 」 當晚音樂會的錄音將會放在YouTube上，免費供大家欣賞。按合同的規定，放上後短期內必須取下。 中華表演藝術基金會接下來的音樂會，將由小提琴家林昭亮，大提琴家Clive Greensmith，鋼琴家Juho Pohjonen在5月7日週六晚上8時，聯合在喬頓廳演出。門票$15-$50，6歲以下兒童不可入場，學生免費票及非學生贈送票可在官網登記。 接下來是第31屆全美青少年國畫書法比賽，5月15日截止收件。 傅聰國際協奏曲比賽 (本比賽未來可能包括其他樂器，但名稱保持不變)，, 限年35歲以下，不分國籍。2022年協奏曲指定曲目為貝多芬第五號皇帝鋼琴協奏曲。6月10日報名截止。 免費夏日系列音樂會(Summer FREE Concerts @ NEC)，8月8日至27日在紐英崙音樂學院舉行。三週15場音樂會演出者都已排定，詳情近日在官網公佈。  新聞稿 (for 3-12-2022) 第十三屆范克萊本 (Van Cliburn) 國際鋼琴大賽金獎及第一名得主，張昊辰應中華表演藝術基金會邀請，在3月12日星期六晚八時，假紐英崙音樂學院喬登廳 (Jordan Hall) 舉行鋼琴獨奏會。這是中華表演藝術基金會第33屆音樂季第四場音樂會。 曲目包括德彪西，李斯特等作品。90分鐘演出沒有中場休息。觀眾皆須戴口罩。須出示打過疫苗或測試陰性證明方可入場。票價為 $15 (7-13歲)、$30、$50。提供學生免費票 (14歲以上)，及非學生贈送卷。需事前預訂。6歲以下兒童請勿入場。詳情請查官網。 鋼琴家張昊辰在2009年獲得了第十三屆范克萊本國際鋼琴大賽金獎及第一名後，還獲得了 2017 艾佛瑞費雪音樂成就獎 (Avery Fisher Career Grant)。是對其音樂上的成就極大的認可。他對音樂的深刻感觸、超凡的想像力以及華麗的技巧受到了全球音樂界及觀眾的矚目。耶路撒冷郵報 (The Jerusalem Post) 樂評形容張昊辰:"他有著細膩敏感的抒情性和令人催眠的力量，如此美妙的結合實為少見。"波士頓環球報 (The Boston Globe) 在張昊辰完成了在波士頓名家系列 (Celebrity Series of Boston) 的首演後，稱讚張昊辰:"在詩歌的氣質中展現了完美的技術和強大的力量。他是一位能量充沛的音樂家。他的音樂想像力似乎激發起了最為微妙的體驗。" 張昊辰經常在世界各大音樂廳巡演，與著名指揮家及交響樂團合作。包括費城、慕尼黑愛樂、倫敦、倫敦愛樂、西德廣播、法蘭克福廣播、舊金山、洛杉磯愛樂、太平洋、堪薩斯市、西雅圖、以色列愛樂、悉尼、日本愛樂、新加坡、馬林斯基、華沙愛樂、台灣愛樂、及香港管弦樂團等等。 張昊辰還是一位活躍的室內樂演奏家，曾與上海弦樂四重奏、東京弦樂四重奏、布倫塔諾 (Brentano) 弦樂四重奏等合作。並經常受邀參加美國的室內樂音樂節，包括聖塔菲(Santa Fe) 和拉霍亞夏日音樂節 (La Jolla SummerFest)等。 張昊辰畢業於費城柯蒂斯 (Curtis)音樂學院，跟隨著名鋼琴家加里·格拉夫曼 (Gary Graffman)學習。此前他曾在上海音樂學院，2001年，11歲的張昊辰考取了深圳藝術學校，師從但昭義教授。 當晚曲目為下:
鋼琴家張昊辰的音樂養成記 (youtube) |
