Stephen Hough Joins North Carolina Symphony for “Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2”
Plus Music by Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner
Stephen Hough, photo by Christian Steiner
North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn welcomes one of the world’s most celebrated pianists to North Carolina later this month. At the same time, he is reacquainted with an old friend.
Award-winning English pianist Stephen Hough, a one-time classmate of Llewellyn’s at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, England, joins the North Carolina Symphony for “Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.”
The performances begin at Kenan Auditorium, on the campus of UNC-Wilmington, on Thursday, Feb. 23. Two weekend concerts follow in downtown Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25. All three performances begin at 8:00 p.m.
Widely regarded as one of the most important and distinctive pianists of his generation, Hough has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the Genius Grants, as well as Northwestern University’s Jean Gimbel Lane Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award. He has appeared with most major American and European orchestras, including a recent performance with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle that was televised worldwide.
For Grant Llewellyn, though, Hough is a friend and an important contemporary from his own musical development.
“I have memorable recollections of the first time I heard him as a concerto soloist with the Halle Orchestra whilst still at school,” the conductor said in an interview published in the Symphony’s Opus Magazine. “The finale of the Mendelssohn G-minor Concerto has never sounded more brilliant and sparkling to me since that first live exposure in the hands of Stephen…I increasingly try to work with people I know well and respect. Stephen is foremost among them.”
Hough takes center stage for one of the most enduringly popular solos in the piano literature, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, written at the turn of the century as proof that the young virtuoso had overcome a crushing writer’s block. The concerto is famously dedicated to Dr. Nicholas Dahl, the Moscow physician who treated Rachmaninoff for depression during its composition.
In performing the work, the Symphony treats North Carolina concertgoers to one of Hough’s specialties. “Hough, it turns out, was twice on the verge of becoming a Catholic priest, but, luckily for us, bishops and priests argued him out of it,” wrote London’s Independent following a performance of the work in 2007. “Lots of folk can sing plainchant, but only one in a million plays Rachmaninoff like him.”
Similarly, this past January, London’s Guardian raved about Hough’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony.
“Hough’s awesome pianism meant that the pyrotechnics were delivered with powerful force,” it wrote, “but balanced by his poetic shaping of Rachmaninoff’s lyrical lines and a gossamer touch for the delicate filigree writing. This is a work that deserves to be heard more often, but few can get to its core as Hough does.”
Complementing Hough’s appearance is a program of works by musical luminaries, most notably music’s other consummate piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt. The Symphony opens the concert with Liszt’s feisty Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, based on the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas.
The orchestra also performs Liszt’s passionate tone poem Mazeppa, a colorful depiction of the ordeals endured by the legendary military leader, complete with a breakneck horse ride. The normally reserved French composer Claude Debussy praised the piece’s fervor: “The fire and abandon which Liszt’s genius frequently attain are much preferable to white-gloved perfection.”
Also included in the evening are two operatic highlights. The patriotic Rákóczy March from Hector Berlioz’s opera The Damnation of Faust once led George Bernard Shaw to say that he would “charge out and capture Trafalgar Square single-handed” if it lasted one minute more. The Symphony follows it with Wagner’s Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin, a charming and poetic vision of angels descending from heaven.
As Llewellyn points out, stirring melodies are not the only connection between these works.
“We wanted to showcase the two greatest pianist-composers in the 19th- and 20th-century, respectively: Liszt and Rachmaninoff,” he says, “and in between we’ve taken the two composers Liszt most associated with in his life.
Berlioz dedicated his opera The Damnation of Faust to his very close friend Liszt, while Wagner married Liszt’s daughter, Cosima. Liszt conducted the premiere of Lohengrin in Weimar, Germany, in August 1850 and also championed several other Wagner works.
“So you’ve got almost a symphony with a substantial yet quixotic movement [in the Hungarian Rhapsody],” says Llewellyn, “this march—short, brilliant, driving—by Berlioz and then a substantial closing movement by Wagner. I think the artistic flow of this is just wonderful, and then making all those extra musical connections as well, is very neat.”
Hough’s previous and only performance with the North Carolina Symphony was in 2003, while Gerhardt Zimmerman was music director. This is his first performance with Llewellyn in North Carolina.
“He is pretty big here [in the United States], and he is absolutely massive in Europe now,” adds Llewellyn. “He’s presenting stuff, he’s writing stuff and, of course, he is playing like a God. We’ve had a couple of near misses [in booking] Stephen since I’ve been here. I am thrilled we are able to feature him.”
Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of “Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2” on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25 range from $40 to $70, with $40 tickets for seniors.
Regular tickets to the Wilmington Series performance on Thursday, Feb. 23 range from $40 to $60.
Students receive $10 tickets in both venues.
For tickets, visit the North Carolina Symphony website at www.ncsymphony.org or call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.
Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh. Kenan Auditorium is located on the UNC-Wilmington campus, at 601 S. College Road in Wilmington.
Beyond the Stage
Pre-concert talks and “Meet the Artist” events are held before Symphony concerts across the state. These engaging conversations offer a unique perspective on the evening’s featured composers, the chance to ask questions and hear the inside story on what to listen for.
For “Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2,” UNC-Wilmington’s Dr. Barry Salwen leads a pre-concert talk inside Kenan Auditorium on Thursday, Feb. 23 at 6:50 p.m.
In Raleigh, Catherine Brand of WUNC-FM hosts Stephen Hough, among others, for “Meet the Artists” in the Swalin Lobby of Meymandi Concert Hall on Friday, Feb. 24 at 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Tom Koch of North Carolina State University will present a pre-concert talk in the Swalin Lobby of Meymandi Concert Hall on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 7:00 p.m.
About the North Carolina Symphony
Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children in more than 50 North Carolina counties. An entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.
Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington—as well as individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year—and conducts one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra.
Concert/Event Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2
Grant Llewellyn, Music Director
Stephen Hough, piano
Thur, Feb. 23, 2012, 8pm
Kenan Auditorium, UNC-Wilmington, Wilmington
Fri/Sat, Feb. 24-25, 2012, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh
Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2
Grant Llewellyn, Music Director
February 23-25, 2012
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Rákóczy March from The Damnation of Faust, Op. 24
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Mazeppa
Franz Liszt
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
I. Moderato
II. Adagio sostenuto
III. Allegro scherzando
Stephen Hough, piano
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