SPRING FEELINGS – MUSIC WITH READING FROM THE “KREUTZER SONATA” BY TOLSTOY
Dear Friends of Music and Literature,
On May 4, 2019, the duo Sis, consisting of the sisters Huei Chiang (violin) and Yin Chiang (piano) played two works by Ludwig van Beethoven. As a motive for this concert, they chose the transition into the spring, which seems, for now, to have yet to decide when he is coming.
Thus, it was not surprising that the famous Spring Sonata was first on the program, whose first movement everyone should be familiar with, even though the name might be unknown. If you suspect that two sisters can play together beautifully, then you are absolutely right! The dynamics of the two instruments were well balanced right to the last rows, so that neither player overshadowed the other. Yin and Huei Chiang played this concert full of fervor and devotion, which sent several shivers over the listeners back during the fast passages, which both musicians played masterfully and musically excellent, whereas the calm passages sent the listener into an imaginary blooming garden.
However, the program was not limited to a concert alone. The two musicians were accompanied by a reading by Dr. Marc Herrmann with the passages from the “Kreutzer Sonata” by Lev Nikolajewitsch Tolstoi, who based this tale on the eponymous composition by Beethoven, which was composed almost a century earlier. The story describes a man who out of jealousy murders his wife. But it should not be so tragic in this concert. After the first movement from the Spring Sonata, Marc Hermann took the floor and gave the protagonist of the narrative a great deal of empathy. It soon became clear that this person was somebody who had a very staid attitude, even for those days. At the same time, however, it is visibly difficult for him to act in accordance with his own moral standards, blaming his “corrupt” environment for his behaviour. So all the ladies he met were not innocent and pure enough for this gentleman until he thought he had finally found the right one. The three remaining movements of the Spring Sonata followed, and the listener might wonder how such a person as the protagonist could be associated with these lively and positive feelings.
After the intermission the first movement of the Kreutzer Sonata by Beethoven immediately followed and it’s wild temperament impressively aroused the mind of the listener. Between the two other movements, Marc Herrmann once again lent the protagonist his words, who spent at least as much energy on his revulsion against the said sonata that dared to put the listener in such a mood. After all, music must fulfill a purpose, such as dancing or marching. But music without purpose and peppered with emotions – that’s really unheard of! And so it especially displeased this gentleman that just his wife, who incidentally also played the piano, now also regularly rehearsed together with a professional violinist, for example also the said Kreutzer-Sonata. While the protagonist presented himself as extremely polite and courteous towards the musician, he imagines how his formerly pure wife is subject to the scheming seductions of this musician. Hearing this was especially funny, since Marc Herrmann addressed these accusations towards Yin Chiang who also happens to be his real wife.
Yin and Huei Chiang presented together with Dr. Marc Hermann a wonderful program, with which they truly understood to awaken spring feelings in their audience. Especially the eccentric nature of the protagonist in Tolstoy’s story gave the whole event a cheerful note. With their second concert in the music studio, the two musicians again fully convinced the audience of their abilities, while the Kaps-Flügel from 1875 and the violin from the beginning of the 20th century perfectly reproduced the timbre of these compositions.
Dear friends of music and literature,
Today there is once again an extraordinary concert combining Beethoven’s music with the literature of L.N. Tolstoy. The Duo Sis, consisting of Yin Chiang (piano) and Huei Chiang (violin) is performing for the second time in the music studio, after it celebrated its first very successful appearance in the music studio in 2017. The literary design of the program will be carried out by Dr. Marc Hermann. The focal point of this evening is the Kreutzer Sonata by Beethoven, which also Tolstoy dedicated himself to in literary terms.
Beethoven composed the sonata in 1803, initially titled “Sonata per il Pianoforte ed uno violino obligato in un stile molto concertante come d ‘ un concerto”. He dedicated the sonata to George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (1778 – 1860), a star violinist with African and German roots from Poland who lived in England. Beethoven and Bridgetower got to know each other when they performed together in Vienna in 1803 and Beethoven must have been very enthusiastic about his abilities. The dedication reads “Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer [Bridgetower], gran pazzo e compositore mulattico” (mulatto sonata, composed for the mulatto Brischdauer, a great madman and mulactic composer).
The 1889 published novel by Tolstoy is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage. The main character, Pozdnyshev, relates the events leading up to his killing his wife: in his analysis, the root causes for the deed were the “animal excesses” and “swinish connection” governing the relation between the sexes.
Also on the program is the so-called Spring Sonata by Beethoven, which he composed in 1801. It was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, a patron to whom Beethoven also dedicated two other works of the same year – the String Quintet in C major and the Fourth Violin Sonata – as well as his later Seventh Symphony.
So look forward to the musical entrance to spring, full of wild passion and zest for life!
Saturday, 4th of May 2019
17:00 pm
at
Musikstudio & Galerie: Gabriele Paqué
Blücherstraße 14
53115 Bonn
Program:
Reading (in German): The Kreutzer-Sonata by Tolstoy
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 (Spring Sonata)
1. Allegro
2. Adagio molto espressivo
3. Scherzo: Allegro molto
4. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo
Pause
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Violin Sonata No. 9 A Major, Op. 47 (Kreutzer-Sonata)
1. Adagio sostenuto – Presto
2. Andante von Variazioni
3. Finale. Presto
Entry: 18,- € / 10,- € red.
The Duo Sis
Yin and Huei Chiang are two sisters that grew up with the same musical education, studying first at the eliteschool in Taipei and later in the University “Mozarteum” in Salzburg. Although they often played together during their childhood, their first formal performance took place in the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2006. Since then they have undertaken many concert tours together throughout China and Taiwan.
Yin Chiang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, where she received her first piano lessons at the age of 4. Before moving to Europe in 1995 she attended specialist music schools in Taipei. She then continued her piano studies at the University “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Peter Lang and Hans Leygraf, where she gained the title “Magistra Artium”. Subsequently, she studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne graduating with the “Konzertexamen” for chamber and contemporary music.
Her first solo performance with orchestra took place when she was 11 years old, in a tour throughout Taiwan. At the age of 16 she performed in a tour in China. Since then she has performed in many European countries as a piano soloist and chamber musician with, amongst others, the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, the Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra, the Salzburger Musici Quartet, the E.T.A.Hoffmann Trio, the Cologne Vocalsoloists, the Duo Ensemble Présence, the Ensemble Garage, the Ensemble 20/21, the Ensemble DuoPlus, the Artwork Ensemble and the Gunnar Berg Ensemble. Moreover, she was invited to the International Ensemble Modern Academy, Klangspuren festival (both Austria), Lucerne festival Academy (Switzerland), Acanthes festival (France), Temporada Avuimúsica festival (Barcelona), the New Music Week (Shanghai), the Hörfest (Germany), Music with innovative Expressions (Taipei), China Time Festival(Hamburg). In 2002 she made her debut in the prestigious Mozartwoche festival in Salzburg playing the world-premiere of Spencer H. Shedler’s “Refraction” for piano solo. She was engaged as both, a pianist and music director responsible for two contemporary opera productions at the Kammeroper Köln (Cologne Chamber Opera). These were “Die Edelweißpiraten” by Snezana Nesic in the season 2007/08 as well as “Weiße Rose” by Udo Zimmermann in the season 2008/09.
Yin Chiang has received scholarships from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Gisela and Erich Andreas foundation in Berlin and the NRW Arts Foundation in Germany. Her performances of works for solo piano by Luciano Berio have been broadcasted in Italian television, and many of her live performances have been broadcasted by radio companies such as Ö1, DRS2, WDR, and the “Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique“ (IRCAM).
The focus of her artistic work is contemporary music, demonstrated by her collaboration with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble InterContemporain, and Pierre Boulez, as well as with various composers, such as György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Marco Stroppa, Toshio Hosokawa, and Matthias Pintscher, only to mention a few. Since 2008 she has regularly given concerts and masterclasses about contemporary music at different music universities in China and Taiwan.
In 2006 she was granted the Austrian citizenship. From 2011 to 2012 she taught in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In 2012 she founded the C-Camerata, Ensemble for the contemporary music in Taipei. From 2013 to 2015 she translated the whole book of C.P.E. Bach’s “Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen”. In 2015 she recorded the CD “C.P.E. Bach: 8 Sonatas for the Keyboard”.
Photo: Shirley Suarez
Born in 1980 in Taipei, Taiwan, Huei Chiang received her first piano lessons at the age of four, and a year later began studying the violin. She attended specialist music schools and won piano and violin prizes in Taipei’s Competitions.
Following her graduation from the Affiliated Junior High School of the National Taiwan University in 1996, she moved to Austria in order to continue her studies with Maestro Ruggiero Ricci and his assistant Chris Nicholls at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. She attended masterclasses with Viktor Pikaizen and Mauricio Fuchs, studied chamber music with the Hagen Quartet and performed as a member of the Leopold Mozart Orchester in Austria and in Germany.
In 1999 she accepted a position as a first violinist in the Orquestra de Cambra de L’Empordà (Spain), at the same time as completing her studies in Austria. A year later, she graduated having attained the first Diploma with Distinction.
From 1999 to 2011, Huei Chiang lived in Spain, performing with the Orquestra de Cambra de L’Empordà. Since 2002, she was assistant concertmaster of the same orchestra, and also of the Orquestra Filharmònica de Catalunya. She performed in this capacity and as soloist throughout Spain and Europe, in the USA, Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and China.
She has participated in several international competitions and in 2005, she won the 3rd prize in the International Louise Henriette Competition in Germany, where she was also awarded the loan of an Italian master violin by the Maggini foundation in Switzerland.
In 2006 she was invited to participate in the Lucerne Festival Academy where she worked with members of the Ensemble InterContemporain and performed concerts under the direction of Pierre Boulez in the Lucerne Festival. In 2007, she formed a piano trio in Cologne, Germany, where the trio studied contemporary chamber music repertoire with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. In November 2010, she collaborated with the Ensemble DuoPlus (Germany) when it was invited to perform in the “3rd New Music Week” Festival at the Shanghai Music conservatory, and to give concerts and masterclasses in China and in Taiwan (Wuhan Conservatory of Music, Changiang University in Jinzhou, Hangzhou Normal University, Forum Auditorium in Taipei, lecture concert in Taipei Municipal University of Education, masterclass in the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University).
Besides music she has also developed a strong interest in yoga practice and philosophy. In 2010 she became a certified yoga teacher, and started presenting her own project “Musica Chakra” throughout Catalonia, which is a special session combining yoga, meditation, and solo violin music by Bach, where she leads the audience as a yoga teacher and also performs as a violinist.
In 2012 she came back to University Mozarteum Salzburg to continue her Master’s degree study with Professor Harald Herzl, and in January 2014 she graduated with Distinction. She has been invited to perform regularly with Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, and has been the guest player of the first violin in the Orquesta de Cadaqués (Barcelona, former conductor Laureate Sir Neville Marriner).
Besides working as an orchestra musician, Chiang is also a member of the C-Camerata Taipei since 2012, an ensemble combining western and eastern instruments in a unique manner and specialises in contemporary music. In 2014 she was invited to perform the Brahms violin concerto with the Knox- Galesburg Symphony in the United States.
Since 2015 Chiang has been the first violin member of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck. In 2017 she completed the postgraduate study of baroque violin with Hiro Kurosaki at the Mozarteum Salzburg.
As well as playing, Huei has also developed her talent in writing in a very early age, her childhood dreams were to become a musician and a writer. Here you can find her articles about traveling as a professional musician, poems and short stories inspired by everyday life, by her working and playing in an opera house (favorite opera: Turandot, which represents love!) originally written in English, German and Chinese. Enjoy!
I’m looking forward to your visit!
Sincerely
Gabriele Paqué
Note on parking!
Parking spots in Bonn-Poppelsdorf, about a 10 minutes walk from the Blücherstraße!
Current exhibition: Wilhelm Frosting – Painter of light
(you will be redirected to our gallery website)
The gallery is open on saturdays between 14 and 18 pm.
After telephonic agreement the gallery can also be visited at other times.
Blücherstr. 14, 53115 Bonn
Phone: 0228-41076755