Gallery 345 - 345 Sorauren Avenue

Yoko Hirota, piano

Programme:

Arnold Schoenberg (Austria/USA 1874–1951)
Fünf Klavierstücke, op. 23

Bruce Mather (Canada 1939)
Fantasy (1964 rev. 1967)

François Morel (Canada 1926)
Trinomes (2011) (Ontario premiere)

Robert Lemay (Canada 1960)
Hiroshima mon amour (1998)

— Intermission —

Laurie Radford (Canada 1958)
Roiling (1997)

Brian Cherney (Canada 1942)
Nachtstücke (2011) (World premiere)

Brian Current (Canada 1972)
Sungods (2007)

Yoko Hirota is represented by Michael Gerard Management Group

“Small is Beautiful” – an introduction by Yoko Hirota:

I would venture to say that the main interest may be the new piece, Trinômes, by François Morel who turned 85 this year. When he told me that he was writing a piano piece for me, I was extremely excited because the last time he wrote for piano was in 1954. His Étude de Sonorité has become one of the standard Canadian repertoires for young pianists who take the RCM examination, but we pianists did not have other piano pieces to get more insight into his fascinating musical universe. I had the honour of giving the world premiere of Trinômes in the University of Calgary’s “Discovery Series” last November. I sent Mr. Morel a recording of my performance of his piece, and he called me and graciously complimented my performance. Needless to say, I was delighted. I am thrilled to be giving the Ontario premiere of Trinômes on April 27th for New Music Concerts.

There is also a new piece, Nachtstücke, written for me by Brian Cherney on the NMC program. My last CD “Small is Beautiful” is a compilation of short pieces, such as Erdenklavier by Luciano Berio and 90+ by Elliott Carter, and I see the Cherney work as a superb example of the miniature piano piece form. I am always intrigued by such short pieces because they are extraordinary musical glimpses and extract the essence of each composer’s idiom in unique ways. Brian’s Nachtstücke consists of six such pieces, and each explores and experiments with the piano’s timbre.

The piece is dedicated to Brian’s piano teacher from his formative years, Ms. Agnes Logan Green. The title —Nachtstücke [“Night Pieces”] — is a reference to one of her favourite composers, Robert Schumann, whose Op. 23 is a set of four pieces entitled Nachtstücke. Cherney’s six miniature piano pieces are extremely gorgeous, and I am sure they will captivate the listener. 

In addition to Trinômes and Nachtstücke, and Schoenberg’s Op. 23 which will open the program, I will play compositions by four Canadian composers: Bruce Mather, Laurie Radford, Robert Lemay and Brian Current. Fantasy by Bruce Mather is one of his early piano pieces and was premiered by the composer as part of a CBC radio recital in Toronto on November 22, 1964. In our personal correspondence, Mr. Mather told me: “In this piece, I tried to integrate a sense of tonality and consonance into a highly chromatic language. The piece oscillates between B Major and C Major.” Some sections formulate four complex layers with a contrapuntal texture that is accentuated by the distinct use of three elements: register, dynamics, and rhythm.

Roiling was commissioned to Laurie Radford as the required competition piece for the 1998 Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition. He told me that he heard around 20 different interpretations of the piece at the competition and liked them all!  As you can imagine, the piece is technically challenging, yet strikingly fluid and expressive. He also mentioned that the work is in three sections and draws abstractly upon the imagery in the poetry that is on the preface of the score for certain gestures and approaches to musical material. 

Robert Lemay has a series of compositions dedicated to film directors. This piano solo piece, Hiroshima mon amour, is dedicated to the French film director, Alain Resnais. Robert told me that there his work reflects four different sources of inspiration: “First, the wonderful film of Alain Resnais. The title of my piece was borrowed from this film with the same title. Second, the book of Marguerite Duras, which is the basis of the film. Third, my personal trip to Hiroshima, especially to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the A-Bomb Dome. Fourth, my personal life; the grandmother of my wife is from Hiroshima, and we got married on August sixth, the anniversary of the tragedy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.” Hiroshima mon amour consists of four short preludes: 1. “Lui” 2. “Elle” 3. “Nevers” 4. “Hiroshima.” Like these general titles, the film’s two main characters never reveal their names. The two cities, Nevers in France and Hiroshima in Japan, have special significance to each of the two main characters. The author of the novel, Marguerite Duras, parallels what happened in the lives of “Lui” and “Elle” in France with the bomb falling on Hiroshima. Put another way, the author tries to draw the history of this bombing and the war through the relationship of the two lovers. The complexity of the film and the novel are indirectly manifested in Robert’s music. I will explain further at my recital.

Finally, the piece, Sungods, by Brian Current, was commissioned by Prairie Debut with assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts. The work is dedicated to pianist Winston Choi, who premiered the piece on a Canadian tour. The piece has a subtitle in Latin, “Affulgat sol omnibus animalibus dei” — the Latin text means “Let the sun shine down upon all of Gods creatures” — a phrase that Brian said that he kept in mind throughout improvising sessions at the piano. The piece is stunningly glorious and brilliant, and I totally enjoy performing it despite its extremely demanding technical features. In fact, there is absolutely no stopping point — even a second — during the last thirteen pages of the music. Believe it or not, I sometimes forget to breathe when I am playing Sungods!

Currently I am recording the compositions by Morel, Cherney, Radford, Lemay, & Current for my next CD on the Centrediscs label, “Voces boreales” (Voices of North). It was made possible through grants from the Ontario Arts Council and is scheduled for release this Fall.

For more information please visit: www.yokohirota.com and
www.5pennynewmusic.ca. Ms. Hirota is represented by Michael Gerard Management Group – Michael Dufresne, President www.mgmg.ca.