Saturday,February 28,2026, 8 pm
at Jordan Hall,Boston
Presenting Feng Ning寧峰,violin solo
"
"The
Ultimate Solo Violin" 終極無伴奏
Ning Feng Plays Bach,Ysaÿe and Paganini
~ Program
~
Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750): Partita No.2 in D
Minor,BWV 1004 (31') I.
Allemanda
阿拉曼德舞曲
II. Corrente 庫朗特舞曲
III. Sarabande 薩拉班德舞曲
IV. Giga吉格舞曲
V. Ciaccona 恰空舞曲
Eugène Ysaÿe
(1858-1931}: Sonata No.2 in A Minor,Op.27
(12') I.
Obsession; Prelude 痴迷: 前奏曲
II. Malinconia 憂郁
III. Danse des Ombres; Sarabande 暗影之舞:
薩拉班德舞曲
IV. Les furies
復仇女神
Eugène Ysaÿe
(1858-1931}: Sonata No.6 in E Major,Op.27
(7")
~ intermission
~
Niccolò Paganini
(1782-1840): 24 Caprices for
Solo Violin,Op.1
(Excerpts)
24
首無伴奏小提琴随想曲,Op.1
(節選)(42') Caprice
No.1 in E Major,Andante
E
大調第一随想曲,行板
Caprice No.4 in C Minor,Maestoso
C
小調第四随想曲,莊嚴的
Caprice No.5 in A Minor,Agitato
A
小調第五随想曲,激動的
Caprice No.7 in A Minor,Posato
A
小調第七随想曲,穩重的
Caprice No.9 in E Major,"The Hunt",Allegretto
E
大調第九随想曲,"打獵",小快板
Caprice No.13 in B-Flat Major,"The Devil's Chuckle",Allegro
降B
大調第十三随想曲,"魔鬼的笑声",快板
Caprice No.14 in E-Flat Major,"March",Moderato
降E
大調第十四随想曲,"進行曲",中板
Caprice No.17 in E-Flat Major,Sostenuto – Andante
降E大調第十七随想曲,持續的–行板
Caprice No.20 in D Major,"Pastoralle",Allegretto
D
大調第二十随想曲,"牧歌",小快板
Caprice No.21 in A Major,"Serenade",Amoroso – Presto A
大調第二十一随想曲,"小夜曲",温柔的–急板
Caprice No.23 in E-Flat Major,"Military",Posato–Minore –
Posato
降E
大調第二十三随想曲,"軍隊",穩重的–小調–穩重的
Caprice No.24 in A Minor,Tema quasi presto–Variazioni–Finale A
小調第二十四随想曲,主題近似急板–變奏–終曲
Arcadia Music Management Limited
www.musicarcadia.com
"Ning Feng: A Treasure" His
musical advocacy, with broadly eloquent tone,
generosity of expression and superb technique,
reached beyond all expectations. His program,
“The Ultimate Solo Violin,” awed and mesmerized.
Alone on stage, he evoked rapt audience
concentration."
- Julie Ingelfinger, The Boston
Musical Intelligencer
event photos: Chung Cheng
event photos: Xu XiaoPei
Feng Ning寧峰, violin solo
https://www.ning-feng.com/
Ning Feng is recognized internationally as an artist of great
lyricism,innate musicality and stunning virtuosity. He performs
across the globe with major orchestras and conductors,and in
recital and chamber concerts in some of the most important
international series and festivals. In 2019 the Washington Post
described him as "a wonderful player with a creamy,easy tone
and an emotional honesty" and BBC Music Magazine said of a
recent recording "His silvery tonal purity,immaculate intonation
and gently beguiling musicality have a way of making most other
players sound decidedly effortful by comparison."
Ning Feng has toured Europe,Asia and Australia with the Hong
Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and van Zweden,he has toured China
with the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischer,with
whom he has also performed several times in Budapest,with the
Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester and Lawrence Foster,and with the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he has also
worked many times. Other career highlights to date include
performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,City of
Birmingham Symphony,BBC Philharmonic,BBC Scottish,LA
Philharmonic,National Symphony (Washington),Helsinki
Philharmonic,Bavarian Radio Symphony,Frankfurt Radio Symphony,Russian National Symphony orchestras amongst others. He has
worked with many eminent conductors including Gianandrea Noseda,Marin Alsop,Yu Long,Tugan Sokhiev,Vladimir Spivakov and
Vassily Petrenko
In chamber music Ning Feng works regularly with Igor Levit and
together they have performed at the Schubertiade Festival,and
across Germany and London,including both Wigmore Hall and
Barbican Centre. He has performed many times at Kissinger Sommer
Festival,and has collaborated with artists including Edgar
Moreau,Daniel Müller-Schott and Nicholas Angelich
Ning Feng records for Channel Classics and his most recent disc
‘Paganini Caprices 24+1' was released in Jan 2021,which
Gramophone reviews as "his ability to make the music palatable
for listeners… The more you listen the more you want to listen",and it's been Recommended by the Strad magazine. His earlier
recording of Bach's complete solo works for violin was hailed by
Gramophone as "unlike anyone else's… it's the illusion of a
freewheeling conversation projected from within that held me
captive." His discography also includes concerti by Elgar,Finzi,Tchaikovsky,Paganini,Vieuxtemps,Bruch
(Scottish Fantasy),works for violin and orchestra by Sarasate,Lalo,Ravel and
Bizet/Waxman,and with the Dragon Quartet works by Schubert,Dvořák,Borodin,Shostakovich and Weinberg.
Born in Chengdu,China,Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan
Conservatory of Music with Prof. Weimin Hu,the Hanns Eisler
School of Music (Berlin)with Prof. Antje Weithaas and the Royal
Academy of Music (London)with Prof. Hu Kun,where he was the
first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital. The
recipient of prizes at the Hanover International,Queen
Elisabeth and Yehudi Menuhin International violin competitions,Ning Feng was First Prize winner of the 2005 Michael Hill
International Violin Competition (New Zealand),and in 2006 won
first prize in the International Paganini Competition.
Ning Feng plays the 1710 Stradivari violin known as the
‘Vieuxtemps Hauser',by kind arrangement with Premiere
Performances of Hong Kong,and plays on strings by
Thomastik-Infeld,Vienna.
(2020/21 season / 553 words. Not to be altered without
permission.)
Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750): Partita No.2 in D
Minor,BWV 1004 (31')
Living in the digital age where files are often automatically backed
up—from emails to drafts to forgotten notes—it may sound incredulous
that the surviving manuscripts of Bach's Solo Violin Sonatas and
Partitas were nearly disposed of as butcher paper at one point. These
initially overlooked works suffered a delayed reception of true
appreciation that persisted for many decades after the composer's
passing. The sonatas and partitas survived only through the performance
of individual movements, often as technical studies or bravura pieces.
To make matters worse, they suffered additional indignities when
Schumann and Mendelssohn published accompaniments to "clarify" their
harmony. It was not until 1802 that these pieces would be given proper
treatment and published in their entirety. The first violinist to
undertake the monumental task of recording the complete set was Yehudi
Menuhin in 1936, followed by his own mentor, George Enescu, in 1940.
Today, no violinist can imagine their life without these pieces as
constant companions.
Bach himself was a highly accomplished violinist. The violin was most
likely one of the first instruments he studied with his father, Johann
Ambrosius, and his first musical post at age seventeen was as a
violinist. His pupil, Johann Friedrich Agricola, recounts that these
pieces were personally so meaningful to Bach that he would often sit at
the harpsichord and play for himself keyboard versions of the works.
The
six Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001–1006, are dated 1720 on the
manuscript. That same year, Bach suddenly found himself alone: having
gone on a short business trip, he returned to find that his wife, Maria
Barbara, had not only died unexpectedly but had already been buried.
Whether or not the works were conceived in response to his loss, they
stand as some of the most profound music ever written for a solo
instrument.
The
first four movements of Bach's Partita No. 2—Allemande, Courante,
Sarabande, and Gigue—follow the order of the traditional Baroque dance
suite. Each movement unfolds in binary form, displaying both remarkable
technical economy and concision. This then sets the stage for the
monumental and expansive fifth movement: the Chaconne.
The
Chaconne is a work of such emotional, compositional, and spiritual
scope, that volumes have been written on this movement alone. Performing
it is a tremendous and reverent experience in itself, testing both the
technical and expressive limits of the performer. Although it has
inspired countless transcriptions—for piano, solo guitar, orchestra, and
beyond—the original violin work remains uniquely direct and intimate,
balancing structural grandeur with its profound inner journey.
Built over a ground bass repeated sixty-four times, the Chaconne
delivers a series of variations in Sarabande rhythm, reaching far beyond
the scale of the preceding dances. These variations traverse a
kaleidoscope of human emotion: confidence, desolation, divine
consolation, and exaltation. As such, Bach utilizes the whole gamut of
techniques available on hand: chords, arpeggiation, scales,
transposition, inversion, and retrograde are but a few examples. The
journey he brings the listener on, can be divided into three primary
sections: the longest one is in D minor, followed by an otherworldly and
luminous D major, and concluding with the shortest final section which
returns to D minor. Not only is the architecture of these three sections
in accordance with the Golden Ratio, but astonishingly, considering all
the movements of the six Sonatas and Partitas set as a whole (with the
B-minor Sonata Doubles considered as the same movement as its
correlating dance), the Chaconne falls at the Golden Ratio within the
entire Sei Solo cycle.
In
the words of Brahms, writing to Clara Schumann, "The Chaconne is for me
one of the most wonderful, incomprehensible pieces of music. On one
staff, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the
deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could
have created, even conceived, the piece, I am quite certain that the
excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven
me out of my mind."
Eugène Ysaÿe
(1858-1931}: Sonata No.2 in A Minor,Op.27
(12') Sonata No.6 in E Major,Op.27
(7")
"[Eugène
Ysaÿe] was a giant of a man, but a graceful giant, who moved with
effortless ease—he reminded me of a lion with his majestic head and
wonderful eyes. I have never known an artist with a more imposing stage
presence. And he had a heart to match his body. He was a man of
embracing warmth and magnanimity, with an unquenchable zest for life."
-Pablo Casals
Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe, widely regarded as the father of modern violin
playing, was born in Liège (present-day Belgium) on July 16, 1858. After
beginning his violin studies with his father, Ysaÿe became a protégé of
two venerable violinists: Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski. He
later furthered his studies in Paris, forging connections with
luminaries such as Saint-Saëns, Franck, and Fauré. A violin virtuoso of
the highest caliber, Ysaÿe became the most well-respected violinist
after Niccolò Paganini.
At the age
of sixty-five, in 1923, he composed his groundbreaking and audacious
Six Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin, Op. 27. The inspiration of
Johann Sebastian Bach runs throughout the cycle. In fact, he originally
conceived the drafts for this set after hearing Joseph Szigeti perform
solo Bach—after which he immediately locked himself in his room,
instructing that he was not to be disturbed the next twenty-four hours.
Additionally, each sonata was written in honor of a distinguished violin
virtuoso friend, whose artistic style and character is reflected in the
music.
Ysaÿe's
Sonata No. 2 in A minor was written for his good friend Jacques Thibaud,
a leading French violinist of the Franco-Belgian violin school. The "Obsession"of the first movement (of which it is titled) is most obviously for
the music of Bach, whose quotation from the Preludio of his solo
Partita No. 3, opens the work. Thibaud was reportedly said to warm up
daily with it. In an interview, violinist Hilary Hahn observed how the
movement reflected Thibaud's practice habits—moving freely from a
"little bit of this, [to] a little bit of that." Ysaÿe captures this
spirit through his fragmentary gestures.
Juxtaposing
the fragments of Bach are rhapsodic outbursts of the Gregorian Chant
theme Dies Irae—historically a musical epithet symbolizing
"Judgement Day" or "The Day of Wrath" from the Requiem Mass liturgy.
This theme becomes an idée fixe throughout the Sonata. The second
movement, Malinconia (Melancholy), is a profoundly expressive
lament in two voices in the most sonorous tessitura of the violin. It
ends with a lonely and stark presentation of the Dies Irae theme
in its totality. The Danse des ombres (Dance of the Shadows), as
the next movement is named, begins as if it is indeed the ghost of a
seventeenth-century Sarabande (a stately dance with emphasis on the
second beat)—it is presented plucked on the violin. The Dies Irae
theme remains camouflaged in the melody. A set of six variations ensue:
dolce e semplice (sweetly and simply), musette (with a
sustained drone), minore, tranquillo, and eventually, the music
increases in speed and intensity until the return of the opening
Sarabande—this time bowed rather than plucked. The final movement,
"Les Furies," is an impressive depiction of the Furies of Greek
Mythology—avenging spirits who punished crimes by driving their
perpetrators to insanity. The music is wild, relentless, and intense,
complete with eerie ponticello effects that evoke infernal
vapors.
The
sixth and final sonata in this set was dedicated to the great Spanish
violinist Manuel Quiroga, widely regarded as the successor to Pablo
Sarasate. Ysaÿe focuses on two traits of this dedicatee: his reputation
as a virtuoso and his Spanish origins. Written in a single movement,
unlike the preceding sonatas, it is the most virtuosic of the sonatas.
Both rhapsodic flair and Iberian folk rhythms permeate the work, and the
Spanish habanera is central in the middle Allegretto poco scherzando
section. Brilliant, dazzling, and rhythmically charged, the sonata
serves as a thrilling conclusion to the cycle, finishing his set of six
sonatas in E major—in the same key as Bach's conclusion to his six solo
Partitas and Sonatas.
Niccolò Paganini
(1782-1840): 24 Caprices for
Solo Violin,Op.1
(Excerpts)
Niccolò
Paganini's name has become synonymous with virtuosity. Just as one might
call a prodigious young athlete "the Mozart of baseball," so too does
one speak in colloquialisms such as, "Can you play a Paganini riff on
the guitar?" His name alone evokes technical superlatives.
Born in
Genoa, Italy, on February 18, 1784, Paganini demonstrated great talents
on the violin as a child. His parents were extremely strict: his father
would force him to practice ten to fifteen hours a day, sometimes
starving him until he finished practicing. Mythology surrounding his
life abounded: that God appeared to his mother promising that her wish
for Niccolò to be a great violinist would be granted; that his violin
sound was so beautiful that one of its strings was created out of the
intensities of his mistress, whom he had killed himself; that
consequently, he lived twenty years in jail with the violin as his only
companion. Although none of these stories are likely true, Paganini
actively encouraged this aura of diabolical mystery in his public
persona.
He often was
dressed in all black. His gaunt appearance—due to his syphilis, which
ate away at his body, the loss of his teeth (and purposefully not
wearing dentures to enhance his diabolic appearance), and his probable
Marfan Syndrome (which make one's joints extremely flexible), only
increased his popularity. He defied all known limits of violin-playing,
his long fingers executing technical feats hitherto unknown or very
rarely attempted. He even refrained from publishing many works to ensure
that people would not know how he accomplished such wizardry on the
violin.
Published in
1820 but most likely completed by 1805, Paganini's Twenty Four
Caprices for Solo Violin
were dedicated to Agli Artisti
("to the artists"), an unusual, and perhaps a subtly satirical
dedication. The set was inspired by that of Pietro Locatelli's
L'Arte del Violono,
a set of twelve violin concertos, each containing a pair of
unaccompanied cadenzas marked capricci ad
libitum. Just as
Locatelli's twenty-four caprices expanded the limits of violin playing
during his time a century earlier, Paganini's continue to be a test of
true violin mastery to this day, exploring the very limits of violin
technique—not to mention, new techniques he introduced.
Caprice No.
1 opens with shimmering ricochet arpeggios, immediately paying homage to
Locatelli by quoting his seventh caprice. Caprice No. 9 is nicknamed "La
chasse" ("The Hunt,") evoking the hunting calls of horns used by many
composers. "Le
rire du diable," or "The
Devil's Chuckle," is Caprice No. 13—one can hear the chilling allure of
the devil at the beginning and end with its descending chromaticism. The
rapid string crossings and unexpected accents create a "chuckle" effect.
Caprice No. 24 is the most celebrated of the caprices, having inspired
at least twenty sets of variations to have been based on this same
theme, including those by Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Ferruccio
Busoni, and Sergei Rachmaninov, to name just a few. Indeed, Paganini's
theme is straightforward and has a clear harmonic structure—an ideal
theme for variations. In his variations, he proceeds through a labyrinth
of dazzling techniques: from octaves, astonishing bowing feats,
lightening shifts, and more. In his variation nine, Paganini introduces
his very own innovation of left-hand pizzicato (plucking). This
caprice's bravura is irresistible and captivating—an electrifying finish
to his twenty-four Caprices, a monumental span of almost eighty minutes
of violinistic fireworks when performed in its entirety.
Post-Concert ChinesePress:
小提琴家寧峰音樂會後新聞稿
Violinist Ning Feng at NEC’s Jordan Hall, Feb 28, 2026
中華表演藝術基金會第37屆音樂季第3場音樂會,於週六2月28日晚上八時,
邀請帕格尼尼大賽一等獎得主、小提琴家寧峰
(Ning Feng)
演出名為《終極無伴奏》(The
Ultimate Solo Violin)的獨奏音樂會。演奏巴赫、伊薩伊和帕格尼尼的獨奏作品。
寧峰出生於中國成都,定居柏林,寧峰是2006年享負盛名的帕格尼尼國際小提琴大賽得主。出席音樂會的還有1975年同一項比賽首獎得主張萬鈞(Lynn
Chang),比寧峰早了三十多年。除了知名中提琴家Kim
Kashkashian,
與大提琴家Mark Churchill
之外,還有許多備受敬重的音樂家出席,向寧峰表示祝賀。例如
Landmark
管弦樂團的指揮
Christopher Wilkins
亦曾在寧峰於紐西蘭贏得2005年
Michael Hill
國際小提琴大賽時擔任指揮。
Paganini first prize winner, violinist Ning Feng
寧峰, returns to Jordan Hall
plays solo works by Bach, Ysaÿe, and Paganini
on Saturday, February 28, 2026, 8pm
音樂會門票分為$60
(貴賓保留區、可預先指定座位)及
$40(不對號自由入座)兩種, 學生票$20 (不對號自由座區) 。
六歲以下兒 童請勿入場 。網站購票無手續費 。 $60: VIP
Reserved Seats
$40: open seating at non-VIP section
$20: student open seating at non-VIP section
Children under 6 not admitted. 提供免費學生票
(14歲以上,每人一張)請上贈票網頁索票,送完為止。
Limited
free tickets available for students,1 per request for age 14 and up.
查詢:
中華表演藝術基金會會長譚嘉陵,電話: 781-259-8195
Email:
Foundation@ChinesePerformingArts.net
Thank you for
your generous contribution to
Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
中華表演藝術基金會
Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
Lincoln,Massachusetts
updated 2026