Stephen Kovacevich (born 1940), who has also been known as Stephen Bishop and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich is an American classical pianist and conductor. He was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, to a Croatian father and an American mother.
He made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11; then, at the age of 18 he moved to London to study under Dame Myra Hess on a scholarship, and has been a London resident ever since, and is currently living in Hampstead.
As a soloist and conductor, he is probably best known for his interpretations of the core classical repertoire, including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Bartók. His international reputation has been built both on his concert appearances, renowned for their thoughtfulness and re-creative intensity, and on the highly acclaimed recordings he has made throughout his career.
In addition to his solo work, Stephen Kovacevich enjoys good relations with orchestras as a conductor and by directing from the piano. He has directed the London Mozart Players, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in this way. His chamber music partners have included Jacqueline du Pré, Martha Argerich, Steven Isserlis, Nigel Kennedy, Lynn Harrell, Sarah Chang, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, and Emmanuel Pahud.
Beethoven: Sonata no 32 in C Minor, Opus 111
Stephen Kovacevich performs the first movement of Beethoven Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor opus 111 at the La Roque d’Anthéron Festival in 2004.
Sheet music to download and print:
(free Silver Membership needed)
Watch the complete recital at Medici TV: http://www.medici.tv/#/movie/27/
Program:
Beethoven – Two Sonatas (op 110 and op 111) and two Bagatelles
Schubert – Ländler
Schubert: Impromptu in G flat major, opus 90 no 3
Extract from Stephen Kovacevich’s masterclass on two of the Op 90 Schubert Impromptus. Full DVD will be shortly available from www.masterclassfoundation.org
Together with Lang Lang and Yundi Li, Sa Chen (born 1979) is considered as one of today’s most important Chinese pianists and a veritable international sensation. Originally a student of Professor Dan Zhao, China’s most eminent piano teacher, she won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition and fourth place in the 2000 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warszaw and a prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition.
Furthermore, she was a third place winner in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She has continued her training with Joan Havill in London and Arie Vardi in Hannover where she now resides.
For decades people who were fortunate enough to see and hear esteemed pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982) perform left concert halls spellbound.
Rubinstein went for the soul of the audience as he wrapped his soaring and spirited playing around each listener. His magnificent interpretation of Chopin remains without equal. Biographer and music historian Sachs first heard Rubinstein play in 1959, but it was not until 1986 that he seriously considered writing a biography of Rubinstein. Not having primary source material from the musician’s first 53 years was an obstacle (Rubinstein’s papers were destroyed or lost when the Germans occupied his house during the war), but Sachs had the full cooperation of Rubinstein’s wife, Nela, and access to a huge amount of source material that had accumulated after the Rubinsteins came to the United States. Since in his memoirs (My Young Years and My Many Years), Rubinstein occasionally changed some dates and facts, Sachs realized an added necessity of thoroughness in his research. The resultant biography “Rubinstein – A Life” is definitive and belongs on the shelf alongside those memoirs.
From the treasure caves of the Russian television, we have here a live rendition of Chopin´s Barcarolle Op. 60, one of Rubinsteins most beloved pieces and also frequently mentioned in his memoirs:
This was a part of Amnesty International’s ‘The Secret Policeman’s Ball’, filmed in 1979 and also starring such notable talent as John Cleese, Billy Connoly, Michael Palin, Peter Cook. The Secret Policeman’s Balls is the collective name informally used to describe the long-running series of benefit shows staged in England to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started out in the mid-1970s primarily as comedy galas featuring popular British comedic performers and later expanded to include leading musical performers.
Pianists post-Liszt, however, blended improvisation with playing from memory so that “Performing a composition by heart fostered the impression that interpretation could have the freedom and spontaneity of an improvisation, but linked to music of greater complexity and–implicity–quality” (from After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance by Kenneth Hamilton, 2008).
While there’s some element of improvisation (interpretation is probably a better word to describe it) in all performances of classical piano music, pianist Gabriela Montero takes this to a different level by taking requests from the audience and improvising her show. Gabriela Montero’s extraordinary ability as an improviser, rare in the classical world, is fast becoming her trademark. From her first contact with a piano, Gabriela Montero has always improvised and she decided to make it public at the behest of Martha Argerich who told her not to be afraid whether people would find it improper or not.
Following her critically acclaimed Rachmaninov, Chopin, de Falla, Scriabin, Liszt recital disc and her Bach and Beyond improvisational album for EMI Classics, Montero recorded a CD of Baroque improvisations at London’s Abbey Road Studios in June 2007. Gabriela takes some of the best known Baroque themes, including Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, Albinoni’s Adagio, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Boccherini’s Minuet and Handel’s Water Music, and brings to her classy improvisations the same passion, poetic musicality and sense of structure that she brings to classical works. And as The New York Times reported following one of Gabriela’s improvisational evenings, “no matter how complex the variations, the original melody always emerges triumphantly from a musical tapestry that might weave blues, jazz, tango and Debussy into a multihued framework.”
Gabriela Montero was born in Caracas, Venezuela and performed in public for the first time at the age of five. Three years later, she made her concerto debut with the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra. She was subsequently awarded a scholarship from the Venezuelan government to study in the United States. Despite winning a number of competitions, including the Bronze Medal at the 13th International Chopin Piano Competition, Gabriela kept her improvisational skills under wraps until Martha Argerich heard her and was “ecstatic,” giving her a ringing endorsement: “I have rarely come across a talent like Gabriela’s. She is a unique artist” as well as personal encouragement. Montero says, “Martha persuaded me that it was possible to combine my career as a serious ‘classical’ artist with the side of me that is rather unique.”
Gabriela performs live improvisation sessions via her website twice monthly – for further details visit http://www.gabrielamontero.com.
The relentlessly intricate architecture of the Goldberg Variations still engage scholars after hundreds of years, while the soothing, noble poetry and formidable technical demands of the piece continue to captivate players and listeners.
A number of legendary performances of this monumental work have been recorded on piano as well as on harpsichord and organ, two of the most popular and highly regarded ones by Glenn Gould (piano: 1955 and 1981).
Johann Nicolaus Forkel wrote in his Bach biography (1802) that the Variations had been commissioned by the Russian Ambassador to Saxony Count Kaiserling, who suffered from insomnia. Goldberg was a young musician, who according to Forkel’s (probably spurious) version of events, was supposed to play from the Variations during the Count’s sleepless nights to cheer him up a little.
The thirty variations do not follow the theme’s melody, but rather use its bass line. Every third variation is a canon at increasing intervals, but the final variation breaks this trend and offers up a so-called quodlibet, where a number of popular tunes (among them one that goes “Cabbage and turnips have driven me away, had my mother cooked meat, I’d have opted to stay”) are used to a humorous effect. After this the heavenly Aria with its elusive beauty returns to close the work.
Between 1981 and 1984 Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms´s orchestral works with the Wiener Philharmoniker to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer´s birth in 1983. As an example of the unique Zimerman/Bernstein collaboration, here´s the second movement of the second Piano Concerto in B flat major Op. 83:
The outstanding Polish pianist, Krystian Zimerman won 1st prize at the international Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warszaw in 1975, which launched his international career. Krystian Zimerman then played with great success in Munich, London, Paris and Vienna. In 1976 he was soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker. He made his first American appearance in 1978, and subsequently toured throughout the world to great critical acclaim. He has performed with many exceptional orchestras and worked with some of the world’s most outstanding conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Herbert von Karajan, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Simon Rattle.
Victory in a significant competition does not always guarantee a blooming professional career. In fact, as the number of competitions constantly expands, instances of this are becoming increasingly rare. Publicly expressing his reluctance to piano competitions and the increasing standardisation of the performer ideals, Krystian Zimerman’s actions are deeply thought out and carefully planned. As a result, they are fewer and farther between. Zimerman generally avoids the limelight, limits the number of live performances he gives and records relatively infrequently. As a result, each artistic endeavor he decides upon is awaited eagerly and closely watched. On April 27, Zimerman created a furor in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation’s military policies overseas:
“It is not just sound. The problem is that this content cannot be really be articulated in an objective, rational, scientific way — with words.
If it were possible to articulate it in an objective, rational, scientific way, the music would not be necessary.”
In the Masterclasses series with Daniel Barenboim, he speaks about what
it is and what it takes to truly play Beethoven. Lang Lang, a younger
colleague playing the Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Appassionata, gets
some intense advice on how to reflect on different interpretational aspects.
Alongside the second and third piano concerti, Rachmaninoff´s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” is probably among his best-known. It has frequently been used as theme music for motion pictures.
In the comfort of his own Villa Senar on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, which he designed himself to be reminiscent of his family estate, Ivanovka, in Russia, Rachmaninoff composed the Rhapsody in 1934.
Here is an excerpt with the excellent pianist Mihail Pletnev and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Dudley Moore (1935 – 2002), was an English actor, comedian and musician.
Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s and became famous as half of the hugely popular television double-act he formed with Peter Cook.
His musical talent won him a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford and whilst studying music and composition there, he performed with Alan Bennett in the Oxford Revue. Bennett then recommended him to the producer putting together Beyond the Fringe, a comedy revue, where he was to first meet Peter Cook. Beyond the Fringe was at the forefront of the 1960s satire boom and after enormous success in Britain, it transferred to the USA where it was also a major hit. His fame as a comedic actor was later heightened by his success in Hollywood movies such as 10 with Bo Derek and Arthur in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively.
Moore was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award but lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In 1984, Moore had another hit, starring in the Blake Edwards directed Micki + Maude, co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy.
In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. In addition, Moore collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti to create a 1991 television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra. He later worked with the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television series from 1993, Concerto!, likewise designed to introduce audiences to classical music concertos.
In 1987, he was interviewed for the New York Times by the music critic Rena Fruchter, herself an accomplished pianist. They became close friends. At that time Moore’s film career was already on the wane. He was having trouble remembering his lines, a problem he had never previously encountered. He opted to concentrate on the piano, and enlisted Fruchter as an artistic partner. They performed as a duo in the U.S. and Australia. However, his disease soon started to make itself apparent there as well, as his fingers would not always do what he wanted them to do.
In June 2001, Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition, he attended the ceremony, mute and wheelchair-bound, at Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.
This clip is from the 1950’s-60s British comedy group “Beyond the Fringe. Dudley Moore plays a very funny but also musically ambitious parody of a Beethoven piano sonata based on very odd yet well-known thematic material.
Together with Lang Lang and Yundi Li, Sa Chen (born 1979) is considered as one of today’s most important Chinese pianists and a veritable international sensation. Originally a student of Professor Dan Zhao, China’s most eminent piano teacher, she won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition and fourth place in the 2000 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warszaw and a prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition.
While there’s some element of improvisation (interpretation is probably a better word to describe it) in all performances of classical piano music, pianist Gabriela Montero takes this to a different level by taking requests from the audience and improvising her show. Gabriela Montero’s extraordinary ability as an improviser, rare in the classical world, is fast becoming her trademark. From her first contact with a piano, Gabriela Montero has always improvised and she decided to make it public at the behest of Martha Argerich who told her not to be afraid whether people would find it improper or not.
