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November 2nd
12PM

SDPA Faculty Recital - BRYAN VERHOYE

Saturday, November 2nd, 2024 12PM

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Ludwig van Beethoven

Sonata No. 18 in E-flat Major, Op. 31, No. 3

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Sergei Rachmaninoff

Étude-Tableau (Study Picture), Op.33, No.8 in G minor

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Franz Liszt

Mephisto Waltz, No. 1, S.514

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(Scroll below for program notes.)

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BRYAN VERHOYE is a concert pianist who trained at the University of Southern California School of Music, the Aspen Music School, and the Peabody Conservatory. He has won first-prize awards from the International Piano Recording Competition and the Carmel Music Society, as well as multiple awards from the Musical Merit Foundation of San Diego. His performance in Carmel of Stravinsky's "Three Movements From Petrouchka" was broadcast on National Public Radio's syndicated Performance Today program.​

 

Bryan has been featured numerous times with the San Diego Symphony in both classical and jazz settings, and is also an orchestral pianist with the orchestra. He has appeared annually since 2001 in the Carols By Candlelight concerts at the California Center for the Arts Escondido, alongside performers such as Kenny Loggins, America, Kim Carnes, Stephen Bishop, Collin Raye, Juice Newton, and the Little River Band.​

 

Bryan appears frequently as a solo recitalist, accompanist, and chamber music performer in San Diego and throughout the West Coast. He has participated in the educational outreach programs with the La Jolla Music Society and the Mainly Mozart Festivals, has given pre-concert talks for La Jolla Music Society's piano recital series, and is an adjudicator for various piano competitions.​

 

Along with being a published composer and arranger, Bryan is the accompanist for the San Diego Master Chorale, Music Associate/Pianist at Point Loma Community Presbyterian Church, and an Adjunct Music Faculty member at Grossmont College. In addition to his life in music, Bryan delights in being husband to Shelly Marie and father to Molleigh Rae.

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PROGRAM NOTES

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Beethoven:  Sonata Op. 31 No. 3

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The sonata Op. 31 No.3, was composed in 1802 and it is one of Beethoven's most bright and cheerful piano sonatas. This particular sonata, with the exception of Op.106, is the last of the piano sonatas to contain four movements, and is the last one to include a formal minuet. In addition, none of the four movements go at a slow pace.

 

Allegro:  The first movement is in classic sonata form.  The most obviously individual thing about the movement as a whole is its ambiguous opening, which we can only associate with Beethoven. In these opening measures the composer asks a question, and then proceeds to answer it for the rest of the movement.

 

Scherzo: Allegretto vivace. 

Nobody would have dreamt of calling this movement a scherzo if Beethoven had not explicitly done so. The scherzo begins on a lively march with a characteristic emphasis on the last eighth note of each bar. The whole movement is a strikingly original exhibition of humorous fantasy illustrated by a master of virtuosity.

 

Menuetto/Trio: Moderato e grazioso. 

The minuet is a tender song-melody; yet surprises arise in the trio that was used by Saint-Saens as the basis for his Variations on a theme of Beethoven for four-hand piano Op.35. This was the last time that Beethoven used a minuet in a major piano work.

 

Presto con fuoco: The finale of this sonata is sometimes called La Chass or The Hunt. This Presto is a study in continuous rhythmic patterns, two of which are relentlessly used. The first, heard at the opening, is a figure of accompaniment. The second is the "horn" theme. This sonata shows a great deal of humor and demonstrates how Beethoven was able to laugh as well as be dramatic.

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Rachmaninoff - Etude-Tableau in g minor, Op. 33 #8

 

The Études-Tableaux ("study pictures"), Op. 33, is the first of two sets of piano études composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. They were intended to be "picture pieces", essentially "musical evocations of external visual stimuli". But Rachmaninoff did not disclose what inspired each one, stating: "I do not believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let the listener paint for themselves what it most suggests."  The mood is reminiscent of Chopin’s Ballade #1 (also in g minor).​​​

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Liszt - Mephisto Waltz #1

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The Mephisto Waltzes are four waltzes composed by Franz Liszt. Of the four, the first is the most popular and has been frequently performed in concert and recorded.

The first Mephisto Waltz is a typical example of program music, taking for its program an episode from Nikolaus Lenau's 1836 verse drama Faust (not from Goethe's Faust). 

The following program note, which Liszt took from Lenau, appears in the printed score:

“There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad, abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song.”

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