10.16.22 GALA • with pianist Jonathan Biss

program

"Where the beauty of a work of art begins"
Concert produced and directed by Mark Ludwig.

Jonathan Biss, piano
Coro Allegro directed by David Hodgkins
Members of the Arneis Quartet
    Heather Braun, violin
    Daniel Doña, viola
    Agnes Kim, cello

Cantor Elias Rosemberg: “El Malei Rachamim”

Jeremiah Klarman: “Sketch for Terezín/Does Grace” (2021)
            TMF commission world premiere.
            A setting of TMF LiberArte poems by Rita Dove
            and Almog Behar, dedicated to 2021 Terezín
            Legacy Award recipient Dr. Rochelle Walensky
            in honor of her healing work as director
            of the CDC.

Alban Berg: Sonata for Piano, op. 1 (1910)
 
Arnold Schönberg: Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19 (1911)
            I.   Leicht, zart (Light, delicate)
            II.  Langsam (Slow)
            III. Sehr langsam (Very slow)
            IV. Rasch, aber leicht (Brisk, but light)
            V.  Etwas rasch (Somewhat brisk)
            VI. Sehr langsam (Very slow)

Franz Schubert: Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828)
            I. Molto moderato
            II. Andante sostenuto
            III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza
            IV. Allegro ma non troppo — Presto
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Picture
Jonathan Biss. Photo by Benjamin Ealovega
“Schönberg and Berg wrote these works nearly a century after Schubert wrote his B-flat sonata. They inhabited different worlds and had very distinct lives and problems. And yet they all manage to convey the beauty and pain of being human. It is impossible to listen to them without having a bit of one’s empathy awakened. Therefore, they feel very appropriate to perform for the Terezin Music Foundation, which in addition to memory, is all about empathy — about not forgetting to look, and listen, to our fellow human beings.”
    — Jonathan Biss

“Alban Berg means the highest degree of responsibility toward the values of older music and the achievements of newer music, means strict self-discipline, the preservation for the soulful warmth and passion that has flowed into music since — and because of — the Romantic era, but it also means balancing that out with polyphonic-constructive work, a symmetry between musical feeling and thought.” 
—Viktor Ullmann, in Our Will to Live