Please join us for a delightful pre-dinner piano recital by Joan Rowland with a program featuring selections from Debussy's Piano Preludes Book II.

Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue                                                                   Bach

 

Twelve Preludes Book II from Twenty-four Preludes                                 Debussy
(See notes below)

 

Prelude op. 34 no. 14                                                                              Shostakovich

 

Four preludes from op. 28: no. 14, no. 15, no. 16, no.18                      Chopin

 

Joan Rowland gave her first recital at the age of nine and her first orchestral appearance with the Toronto Symphony at eleven.  She studied with Mona Bates in Toronto and later Edward Steuermann of the Juilliard School in New York.  Ms. Rowland was a first prize winner in two international competitions, Darmstadt and Salzburg Mozarteum, and subsequently toured as soloist and as a chamber music artist under Columbia Artists Management.  She also toured for two seasons with the legendary clarinetist Reginald Kell in his chamber group and has appeared in solo recitals and with orchestras across Europe and America.

In l980 Ms. Rowland and her long-time friend and collaborator, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, formed the Piano Duo Schnabel as a means of bringing to contemporary audiences the attractive and too-seldom-heard repertoire for four-hand music at one piano.  The Duo was heard in recitals in venues such as New York’s Frick Collection and the 92^nd Street “Y”, at festivals like Ravinia, Berlin, Lockenhaus and Roque d’Antheron, and yearly broadcasts with the Suddeutsche Rundfunk.  The Duo recorded albums for Sheffield Lab and Town Hall.

Ms. Rowland’s own recordings include major works by Robert Schumann, and her latest, Debussy’s complete Preludes, Book I and II, issued on the Surrounded by Entertainment label, to which Preludes Jeremy Siepmann, writing for BBC Music Magazine in 2001 awarded four stars for both performance and engineering, and about which he wrote: “Sound…is more important for Debussy than almost any other composer, and for my taste Joan Rowland gets it just about perfectly, never amorphous, never ruthlessly ‘structured’.  This is very impressive playing.”

As pedagogue, Ms. Rowland has taught at Manhattan School of Music, Greenwich House in New York. She has published articles and given seminars on subjects such as piano techniques, pedaling and practice habits.

Ms. Rowland currently lives in New York City.

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Debussy Preludes Book Two (1912-1913)

1. Brouillards (Mists) According to one source, the mists here are those of the painter Turner, whom Debussy considered to be the finest creator of mystery in art. For the vaporous fluid effect, the right hand (mostly) plays on the black keys and the left hand on the white.

2. Feuilles mortes (Dead leaves) An atmosphere of slow decay is quietly broken by full chords sounding over the underlying waltz rhythm.

3. La puerta del Vino (A Moorish gateway of the Alhambra Palace in Grenada) Debussy received a postcard from his friend Manuel de Falla, and though never visiting Spain, he imagines the nonchalant idleness (the Habañera) and activities in the Alhambra courtyard. Debussy asks for “extreme violence and passionate sweetness.”  

4. Les fées sont d’exguises danseuses (The fairies are exquisite dancers) One of the drawings for J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” bears this title. Debussy’s prelude is delicately poised between a fairy world of arabesques and the real world represented by the melodic line. The opening horn call of Weber’s “Oberon” is the motif heard at the end.

5. Bruyères (Heather) A pastoral scene recalling the summer spent by Debussy in Brittany. The title refers to the wild heather, the “Celtic bushes” found under tall pines.

6. General Lavine- eccentric. The comedian Ed Lavine from Texas appeared on stage in Paris as a combination of wooden puppet and dueling soldier. His act involved trumpeting, juggling, fainting, and playing the piano with his toes. Snatches of “Camp Town Races” are heard.

7. La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (The terrace for moonlight audiences) There are two probable sources for this somber and delicate prelude: a description of the coronation of George V as Emperor of India (which Debussy read in a newspaper) or a reference by Loti to the terrace for holding councils by moonlight appearing in Loti’s “India without the English”. There is an air of sensuality with the slow-moving chromaticisms and fixed pedal points.

8. Ondine Ondine or Undines in Nordic folklore were water nymphs who dwelt in lakes or rivers, luring to death innocent fishermen who sailed the waters. In this prelude Ondine pirouettes, playfully tries out her seductive wiles, becoming more and more imploring as she journeys into the mortal world, until suddenly she plunges back in to her watery world.     

9. Hommage à S. Pickwick, Esq., P.P, M.P.C. Debussy pays homage to Dickens’ Mr. Sam Pickwick the perpetual president and member of the Pickwick Club. The good humored portrait of Pickwick begins with the British national anthem and includes the scrambling of his followers as they pursue their adventures. Sam Wellers’ whistling jig is heard faintly. 

10. Canope A pair of Canopic jars, Etruscan burial urns, stood on Debussy’s desk, their lids surmounted by the animal heads of gods. In this prelude the urns symbolize the mystery of the unfamiliar, the apprehension felt in the face of death. Debussy uses a slow moving succession of chords to invoke an archaic ceremony in the city of Canope.

11. Les tierces alternées (Alternating thirds) This prelude is unique among the two sets. There is no external image, it is a technical exercise foreshadowing the Twelve Etudes of 1915. The piece is built almost entirely on the interval of a third, and, except for a few bars marked forte, the dynamics range from piano to pianissimo.  

12.Feux d’artifice (Fireworks) The Firework celebration on Bastille Day is the inspiration for this Lisztian display of pyrotechnics. Alfred Cortot describes specific images: the slumbering smoke of Bengal candles…the crackling of rockets, the gradual parabolic descent of stars, the whirring of Catherine wheels, the blinding radiance of brightly-colored bouquets, the entire magic of light… “The festivities conclude on a melancholy note, with a snatch of the Marsellaise heard from a distance, as the last reveler winds his way home.”