Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Piano Sonata in E flat major, Hob.XVI 49

1. Allegro non troppo
2. Adagio cantabile
3. Finale: Tempo di Menuet

John Paul Corigliano (b.1938)

Etude Fantasy (1976)

Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Sonatine

1. Modéré
2. Mouvement de menuet
3. Animé 

Interval – 20 minutes

Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin (1937-2020)

Sonata No.9, Op.78

1. Allegro
2. Larghetto
3. Interludio
4. Allegro ma non troppo

When Haydn was composing works for the piano (or forte piano), the instrument was in its infancy.  In the early days of Haydn’s keyboard works, the harpsichord was still the instrument of choice.  When JS Bach, early in the 18th century, was asked to report on one of the new instruments, he wrote about the inferior tone quality and, more important, the poor mechanism of the new sustaining pedal.  Later in the 19th century, the ability to alter tone and dynamics by touch and to sustain the sound using a foot pedal were all important for Haydn’s late works and the sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. 

Joseph Haydn’s E flat Sonata you are to hear this evening is a prime example of the fine works the composer produced before the end of the 18th century.  Like so many compositions the Sonata had a dedication.  This had a touch of scandal as it appeared to have been written as a gift to Maria Anna Genzinger, a married young woman, 16 years the composer’s junior!  But the dedication was to another woman, the woman who had commissioned the Sonata so as to give it to Ms. Genzinger.  How our Sunday press would have loved that tale!  And after all that, the Sonata is one of Haydn’s finest.   How could it not be? 

John Paul Corigliano is one of the most important voices in American contemporary classical music.  To quote Wikipedia, “John Paul Corigliano (born February 16, 1938)[1] is an American composer of contemporary classical music. With over 100 compositions, he has won accolades including a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Academy Award. 

He is a former distinguished professor of music at Lehman College and the City University of New York and part of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School. Corigliano is best known for his Symphony No. 1, a response to the AIDS epidemic, and his film score for François Girard's The Red Violin (1997), which he subsequently adapted as the 2003 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra for Joshua Bell.  His vast catalogue of compositions includes music of all genres, aiming to make his work accessible to all audiences. 

The composer writes about the Etude Fantasy, “My Etude Fantasy is actually a set of five studies combined into the episodic form and character of a fantasy. The material in the studies is related most obviously by the interval of a second (and its inversion and expansion to sevenths and ninths) which is used both melodically and in the building of the work’s harmonic structure.” Make of that what you will!

 Maurice Ravel probably wrote his Sonatine (little Sonata) in 1905. This was the period in which he composed the larger and, pianistically more difficult, Miroirs.  It seems that the 1st movement was written in response to a competition, where the “first movement …… no longer than 75 bars”’.  The prize was 100 francs. 

Nikolai Kapustin was a composer and pianist of Russian-Jewish descent. He performed and composed in the USSR period.  His early music education was traditional, studying piano at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1954, Kapustin discovered Jazz and played in early Soviet Jazz bands.  He was a pianist of considerable ability, performing a Prokofiev concerto in his graduation recital, but he never considered himself a jazz musician: "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisations are written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them."  Hearing his Sonata no.9, you will hear what the composer meant about written out improvisation.  The music bears all the stamps of improvisation, but it is more tightly constructed, with the same flow of energy and spontaneity.  Amongst his compositions are 20 Piano Sonatas, 6 Piano Concertos and other instrumental concertos, sets of piano variations, études and concert studies.  Kapustin died in 2020 in Moscow at 82 years of age. 

Programme Notes Copyright Alistair Jones, 2025