
February 15th
11:30am
DANIEL SHAPIRO Concert
Saturday, February 15th, 2025 11:30am
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
I. Vivace, ma non troppo. Sempre legato
II. Prestissimo
III. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo
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Robert Schumann
Fantasie in C, Op. 17
I. Durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen; Im Legenden-Ton (Quite fantastic and passionately delivered; In the tone of a legend)
II. Mäßig. Durchaus energisch (Moderately. Quite energetic)
III. Langsam getragen. Durchweg leise zu halten (Taken slowly. Keep quiet throughout)
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(Scroll below for program notes.)
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DANIEL SHAPIRO continues to gain recognition as a leading interpreter of Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, and Brahms, and as a teacher and coach at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has given critically acclaimed performances across the United States, in Brazil, Britain, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Korea, and China, at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. This season he performs his third complete cycle of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas; previous live performances of all the sonatas can be found on this website. His DVDs of all of Schubert's major piano sonatas and his CD of Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations have received enthusiastic reviews.
He has taught at CIM for the past twenty-three years, during which time he has become known as an inspiring teacher who helps students achieve profound understanding and develop vivid interpretations of the great masterworks. His students have won important competitions and obtained teaching posts at prestigious universities and schools of music.
As a chamber musician, Shapiro has had the great fortune of collaborating with some of the world’s leading musicians, including Jaime Laredo, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Cho-Liang Lin, Roberto Diaz, Ronald Leonard, Franklin Cohen and Frank Rosenwein. He has performed regularly with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra. He has also performed with the Cavani, Mirò, Linden and Rossetti Quartets, and has released chamber music CDs on the Harmonia Mundi and ASV labels. His Beethoven sonata collaborations with violinist Jaime Laredo can be found on youtube.com.
His musical scope also includes the study of conducting: he has worked with Daniel Lewis, Victor Yampolsky, Fritz Zweig, and Gustav Meier. He made his conducting debut at sixteen at Tanglewood, and conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Akron Lyric Opera.
His musicianship has been enhanced and deepened by extensive collaboration with singers: listening to and working with them has been a source of tremendous inspiration. He studied art song with Gwendolyn Koldofsky and opera with Natalie Limonick, and was an opera and art song coach at UCLA.
A native of southern California, Shapiro began the study of piano at the age of six. His teachers included Leon Fleisher, John Perry, Russell Sherman, Joanna Graudan, and Reginald Stewart. He studied at the University of Southern California and at the Peabody Conservatory, where he received his doctorate.
Shapiro is an expert Scrabble player--he is one of the top ranked players in Ohio, having won or placed in several tournaments. He lives with his family in Cleveland Heights.
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PROGRAM NOTES
Beethoven: Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Like the rest of his late creations, the Sonata in E major op. 109 reflects Beethoven's own struggles and triumphs in life and art. It is a work that explores the full range of human experience, from exuberant joy to bitter pain that ultimately finds peace and spiritual transcendence in the midst of fate’s adversity.
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The first movement, marked Vivace, ma non troppo opens with a gentle theme in the radiant key of E major. The meter feels timeless. The serenity of this first element is suddenly interrupted by a slow, painful second theme in the minor key. Alternating between the major and the minor, music settles on an optimistic direction. Multiple improvisatory episodes appear in this movement, with rising and falling arpeggios. The music of the first movement is invigorating, reaching the climax in the development section. The movement ends with a quiet and peaceful coda that sets the stage for the stormy second movement.
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The second movement, marked Prestissimo, is a thrilling scherzo, full of sudden shifts in mood and mysterious harmonies. The frenetic pace and jagged rhythms enhance the restless drive. It begins with a stormy, enraged theme. The music becomes more and more frenzied, as the movement progresses, until it finally comes to a crashing end, giving way to the serenity of the final movement.
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The third movement, marked in German Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Singingly, with the most inner feeling), is a haunting set of variations based on a simple, sarabande-like theme. Beethoven takes this theme through a series of transformations. If the first variation sees the metamorphosis of the sarabande-theme into a slow waltz, the second variation recalls the Baroque music of Handel. The third variation is booming, boisterous and bucolic. Variations four and five are perhaps tributes to the music of J. S. Bach, imbued with counterpoint writing. These variations are full of unexpected turns, sharing a sense of deep introspection and profound emotion, revealing Beethoven’s remarkable versatility in composing in a variety of styles, both old and new. Shimmering trills in the right hand and fervent runs in the left hand signal the summit of work - the dawn is in sight as the coda reveals for a final time the opening sarabande, the initial theme of the movement.
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Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17
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The opening of the Fantasie, with a furious figuration in the left hand, prepares for an impassioned motto theme in octaves – a descending figure with which later lyric ideas are directly related. The unity enforced by this thematic singularity is further cemented through the continuation of the tempestuous accompaniment. The many and violent changes of mood are heightened by a middle section, headed “In the Character of a Legend,” which conjures nostalgic visions of knighthood and the epic past. But even here the descending line of the motto theme is alluded to – Clara (Schumann's soon-to-be wife) is never far from thought.
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The middle movement is Schumann in one of his most characteristic stances, sending the Davidsbündler (the composer’s imaginary League of David) marching against the Philistines. A grandiose theme supported by comparably grand chords, most of them covering a two-octave range, sets the pace for a dotted rhythm that continues in the obsessive way that hints strongly at Schumann’s fragile emotional condition which ended a dozen years later in insanity. Contrasting episodes and a return of the march culminate in a breathless coda in which the wildly leaping melodic line, again in the dotted rhythm, challenges pianistic marksmanship to the utmost.
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This virtuosic derring-do leads to the heart of the Schumann matter in a slow final movement: an ineffably beautiful poetic utterance whose sighs and whispers and aching longing reveal the composer’s soul in its most exquisite, tortured agony and, finally, in noble triumph and peace.