449213-2m

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G major [22'04]

Konzert fUr Klavier und Orchester G-dur . Concerto pour piano et orchestre

en sol majeur Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra in sol maggiore

Concierto para piano y orquesta en Sol mayor

OJ 1. Allegramente [8'44]

[g] 2. Adagio assai [9'23]

o 3. Presto [3'57]

Valses nobles et sentimentales [15'16]

Q] I. Moden [1'15]
[ID II. Assez lent [2'36]
!ill III. Modere [1'43]
m IV. Assez anime [1'06]
!ill v. Presque lent [1'20]
[ill VI. Assez vif [0'41]
!ill VII. Moins vif [2'57]
(jj] VIII. Epilogue: Lent [3'38]
The Cleveland Orchestra

Concerto for the Left Hand in D major

Konzert fUr die Iinke Hand D-dur . Concerto pour la main gauche en re majeur
Concerto per la mano sinistra in re maggiore' Concierto para la mano izquierda
en Re mayor
!ill Lento - Andante - Allegro - Tempo I [18'07]
London Symphony Orchestra

KRYSTIAN ZIMERMAN, Piano

PIERRE BOULEZ

Iololol <!l1998 Oeutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hambur9, a PolyGram company

AUOIORECORDING htlp:/lwww.dgclassics.com - - - [55'45]
 Ravel: The Piano Concertos Valses nobles et sentimentales
avel fulfilled many of the criteria of the
R Baudelairian dandy, both in his clothes
and in his art. That implied not only fastidi
ousness, but also a determination never to
follow the herd. Thus in Ravel's book of influ
ences, Liszt was inscribed well above
Beethoven, while a place of honour was
found for waltz composers such as the
Strausses. Wagner appeared briefly in the
appendix.
Ravel's love of artifice and paradox, further
weapons in the dandy's armoury, made it only
fitting that his light-hearted, brilliant G major
Piano Concerto should have taken him long
er to write than its grander companion. He
spoke of Mozart and Saint-Saens as models,
and asked his publisher to lend him scores of
their piano concertos. Less sensibly, he at
first entertained ideas of playing the solo part
himself and, embarking on a furious study of
Liszt's Transcendental Studies, was with diffi
culty persuaded by friends that one's mid
50s are not perhaps the best time to launch
oneself as a virtuoso.
Jazz is also an essential ingredient in the
outer movements, reminding us that Jose
phine Baker and the Revue nt?gre were the
height of 1920s chic. But in the second
movement Mozart takes precedence, and th(~
long piano theme with which it opens was
modelled on the slow movement of the Clari
net Quintet, "bar by bar". Saint-Saens' spar
kling semiquavers (16th notes) fill the finale,
though the sparkle often has a bitonal after
taste - rather, one imagines, like the lurid
cocktails Ravel was so fond of mixing. Th
first performance, given by Marguerite Long
under the composer's direction in January
1932, was an enormous success, but for all
its brilliance, the work has a classical pois
that moved one critic to write: "How well each
note knows where it's coming from and when
it's going!"
Simultaneously with this concerto Ravel
worked during 1930 and 193101l;,l commis
sion from the one-handed pianist Paul Witl
genstein for a concerto for left hand alone
(other composers he commissioned include
Britten, Prokofiev and Richard Strauss). Ravel
wrote, "In a work of this kind it is essential to
give the impression of a texture no thilmer
than that of a part written for both hands. f cor
the same reason I resorted to a style that i
much nearer to that of the more solemn kind
of traditional concerto."
Unfortunately, Wittgenstein felt that as he had
commissioned the concerto, he could make obvious homage to Schubert's piano pieces
changes to the piano part at will, meeting of the same name. At their first performance
Ravel's expostulations with the claim that on 9 May 1911, the identity of the composer
"Performers must not be slaves". To which was withheld and the audience were asked to
Ravel replied simply, "Performers are slaves". guess (Kodaly and Satie were two of the
On the same grounds he banned an arrange favourite responses). Some of Ravel's friends
ment Cortot made of the solo part for two openly expressed their dislike of the work
hands.
which perhaps only confirmed his opinion
Today we can hardly doubt that the concerto
that audiences on the whole prefer the old to
is best heard with the left hand alone playing
the new.
as many of the right notes as possible. For
The volte-face consisted in largely turning his
one thing, the left hand produces the colour
back on the "Impressionist" sonorities of
ing and phrasing Ravel wanted, with the
Miroirs and Gaspard. But then, when he
thumb given a prominent melodic role; for
orchestrated the Valses in 1912 for a ballet,
another, although the work begins gruffly in
Adelaide, he put some of those sonorities
the depths of the orchestra, whenever piano
back in. Not everywhere, I hasten to add: the
and orchestra are playing together the
opening chord more than retains its original
orchestral texture is beautifully jUdged to
shock value... Elsewhere the orchestral detail
allow every note of the piano part to come
is more subtle, in the interplay between
through.
woodwind and strings and in the countermel
The "message" of the concerto is not so
odies that blossom apparently from nowhere.
clear. Some have heard in it the tramp of Nazi
Certainly, it is one of the most difficult works
jackboots. Less contentiously, one may
of his to bring off, not least because of the
attach it to the long line of his works, from the
unusually numerous passages of rubato. In
early song Un sommeil noir through "Le
the epilogue, for instance, themes from the
gibet" (Gaspard de la nuit), La valse and
preceding waltzes are heard only as faint
Bolero, that touch on obsession and death.
memories, and all must be fused into a single
Some 20 years before writing those two con
mood: nostalgia without incoherence, senti
certos, the 36-year-old Ravel had made a
ment without sentimentality.
dandyish volte-face in composing his Valses

nobles et sentimentales for piano, the title an

Roger Nichols
 A PORTRAIT OF KRYSTIAN ZIMERMAN
f you ask Krystian Zimerman when it was
I that he decided to become a musician, he
finds it hard to come up with an answer. Not
because he can't remember, but simply
because the question has never occurred to
him. It was already obvious that music would
dominate his life when he made his first
appearance on Polish television on 23 May
1963. He was then six years old, and played
two of his own compositions. Neither his
father, who gave him his first lessons, nor his
teacher Jasinski thought in terms of a musical
career for the boy. They were mainly con
cerned with supplementing his natural talent
with a technical equipment that would allow
him to express his love of music fully and to
share it with others.
He began with the great advantage of grow
ing up in a household where his passion for
music was encouraged as much as possible.
Krystian's father was a talented musician, but
music at that time could offer him no more
than an uncertain career. He earned his living
in a more "reliable" profession and was able
to satisfy his love of music in daily sessions
with like-minded colleagues from the archi
tectural studio where he worked. Krystian
was already taking part in these performan
ces by the time he was seven, filling in on his
little keyboard flute for any of the parts that
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were missing - in Brahms's Piano Quintet, for
example, he might on one occasion provide
the cello part, on another occasion the viola,
or yet again, the second violin. This experi
ence stood him in good stead when he at last
came to perform the piano part of the quintet.
His passionate love of music and desire to
realize it in performance is as strong now as it
ever was: in his opinion this is by far the most
important prerequisite for anyone who wants
to become a professional musician.
Among the greatest joys of his life he numbers
his encounters with figures like Herbert von
Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Artur Rubinstein,
Carlo Maria Giulini, Witold Lutoslawski and
most important of all- the piano teacher with
whom he studied exclusively. At seven years
old, Krystian still had a lot to learn: until then
he had taken it for granted that every family
lived with music and owned a piano. To begin
with, he had to learn to communicate his joy
in music making to an audience. Jasinski
stressed how important it was for a musician
to have an all-round education, so languages,
music theory, history, mathematics, physics
and the technique of piano construction went
hand-in-hand with the development of his
more personal interests. To this day, there is
one thing that Zimerman has not learned: to
take a single-minded position on the direction
of his public career. Although he regards it as
a "useful tool" which helps him to communi
cate his musical ideas more easily, it is also
"an irritation" - he considers that celebrity,
with all its attendant consequences, hinders
his musical development. For this reason he
does not devote himself to making regular
recordings or doing the rounds of internation
al concert halls: music making can take place
only when there is a real sense of joy being
conveyed, recordings only when a genuine
necessity for them has been created.
Although he has won several first prizes in
international competitions and his recordings
have earned 14 awards, he believes that his
greatest achievement has been to pace his
concert giving in such a way as to allow him
to study new repertoire all the time, and to
respond as he pleases to different cultures: to
PIERRE BOULEZ was born in 1925 in Mont
brison (Loire), France. He first studied mathe
matics, then music at the Paris Conserva
toire, where his teachers included Olivier
Messiaen and Rene Leibowitz. In 1954, with
the support of Jean-Louis Barrault, he found
ed the "Domaine musical" in Paris - one of
the first concert societies entirely dedicated
to the performance of modern music - and
remained its director until 1967.
As a composer, conductor and teacher, Boulez
has made a decisive contribution to the devel
opment of music in the 20th century and
inspired generations of young musicians with
his pioneering spirit. Boulez began his con-
play Beethoven or Brahms in Germany, for
example, or Debussy in France, or Bernstein
in the USA.
In over 21 years of regular concert giving he
has learned up to three new concertos a year,
as well as chamber works and a wide range
of solo music. This has allowed him to build
up a repertoire on which he can draw for
many different recital or concerto pro
grammes. In addition to around 50 solo
appearances each year, he performs cham
ber music and gives master classes. Since
1986 Zimerman has given as many as twelve
concerts a year for charity. In October 1996
he took up a teaching post at the Music Aca
demy in Basle in Switzerland, where he has
lived with his wife and two' children for the
past 15 years.
(Translation: Andrew Huth)
ducting career in 1958 with the SOdwestfunk
Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. From
1960 to 1963 he taught composition at the
Music Academy in Basle. He became principal
guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra in
1967 and principal conductor of the BBC Sym
phony Orchestra and the New York Philhar
monic in 1971. He relinquished these posts to
take up the directorship of the newly created
Institut de Recherche et de Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris in 1977.
In 1991, he resigned this position but still
retained the presidency of the group he found
ed there, the Ensemble InterContemporain,
which today enjoys a reputation as one of the
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world's finest contemporary music ensembles.
From the beginning of 1990s, Boulez has
returned to an intensive conducting sched
ule, regularly appearing with - in addition to
the Ensemble InterContemporain - leading
orchestras in America (Chicago, Cleveland,
Los Angeles) and Europe (in March 1993 he
conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for the
first time in almost 30 years) and at the Salz
burg Festival. In celebration of his 70th birth
day on 26 March 1995, he undertook an
extended tour which included appearances
with the London Symphony Orchestra, the
Ensemble InterContemporain and the Chi
cago Symphony Orchestra in Paris, London,
Vienna, New York, Chicago and Tokyo.
Pierre Boulez's relationship with Deutsche
Grammophon dates back to the 1970s, with
his prizewinning recordings of Parsifal from
Bayreuth and the complete version of Berg's
Lulu (world-premiere recording). In 1989, he
signed a new long-term exclusive contract
with Deutsche Grammophon and has since
released recordings with the Chicago Sym
phony Orchestra (Bartok, Stravinsky), the
Cleveland Orchestra (Debussy, Stravinsky,
Messiaen, Mahler and Berlioz), the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra (Ravel and Webern),
the Concertgebouw (Schoenberg's opera
Moses und Aron) , the Ensemble InterCon
temporain (Ligeti, Webern, Birtwistle and
Boulez - his ... explosante-fixe... , Structures
Book 2 and Notations I-XII) and the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra (Mahler). His record
ing of Bartok's The Wooden Prince and Can
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tata Profana with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra was honoured four times at the
1994 Grammy Awards in the US, winning in
the categories Best Classical Album, Best
Orchestral Performance, Best Performance
of a Choral Work and Best Engineered Record
ing; it was also judged Record of the Year
1993 by Stereo Review. In 1995 his recording
of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra again won the
top Grammy Awards of Best Classical Album
and Best Orchestral Performance, as well as
the Record Academy Award (Tokyo). The
recording of concertos by Ligeti with the
Ensemble InterContemporain received the
Caecilia Prize in Belgium and the Edison Prize
in Holland. His two most recent Grammy
Awards were for Debussy's La Mer, Noctur
nes and Jeux with the Cleveland Orchestra
(Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral
Performance, 1996) and his recording of
...explosante-fixe... (Best Small Ensemble
Performance, 1997). Pierre Boulez is repre
sented on Deutsche Grammophon video by
Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande in Peter
Stein's Welsh National Opera staging (Opera
Production of the Year 1992 at the Interna
tional Classical Music Awards in London and
the 1995 Echo Award in Germany as Classi
cal Music Video of the Year) and the film of a
Salzburg Festival concert, in which he con
ducts the Vienna Philharmonic in works by
Stravinsky, Debussy and Bartok as well as his
own Livre pour cordes.
epilogo, por ejemplo, los temas de los valses do de animo: nostalgia sin incoherencia, sen

anteriores se oyen s610 como vagos recuer timiento sin sentimentalismo.

dos y todos deben fundirse en un unico esta- Roger Nichols

(Traducci6n: Luis Carlos Gago)

Ioioiol
AUDIO RECORDING

Recording: Cleveland, Masonic Auditorium, 11/1994 (G major Concerto, Valses nobles);

Watford, The Colosseum, Main Hall, 7/1996 (0 major Concerto)
Executive Producers: Roger Wright/Dr. Marion Thiem
Recording Producer: Helmut Burk
Tonmeister (Balance Engineer): Rainer Maillard

Recording Engineers: Klaus Behrens/Stephan Flock (G major Concerto, Valses nobles);

Reinhard Lagemann (0 major Concerto)

Editing: JOrgen Bulgrin

Publisher: Editions Durand, Paris

1998 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1998 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

Cover Photo: Susesch Bayat

Art Direction: Hartmut Pfeiffer

Printed in Germany by/lmprime en RFA par Alt, Niederdorfelden

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