Garrick Ohlsson Program Guide | June 2023

Program 1
The death of Beethoven in early 1827 deeply
affected the 30-year-old Franz Schubert,
who himself only had 18 months to live, and
perhaps spurred him to even greater creative
heights. That same year Schubert wrote the
monumental song cycle Winterreise, the
magnificent last three piano sonatas, the two
piano trios and other extraordinary works
including the Impromptus for piano. The
C minor Impromptu is a work of haunting
beauty. The melancholy opening theme is
immediately captivating, its brooding minor
restlessness giving way to a lyrical, more
soothing version of the theme but now in A-flat
major. The transition from minor to major keys
is an important feature of Schubert’s music,
both for harmonic colour and also for the
implied change in emotional inflection. After
a series of variations alternating between
major and minor versions of the themes and
culminating in a powerful climax, the
opening melody returns, but now finally in
C major, signalling a sense of acceptance
and resolution.
Franz Liszt and Franz Schubert could not
have been more different in personality and
in their engagement with society. Schubert
was shy and introverted, kept a small circle
of close friends and rarely ventured out in
public. Liszt, on the other hand, was a highly
charismatic extrovert, a flamboyant showman
who travelled extensively. Nonetheless, Liszt
was strongly influenced by Schubert’s music.
He transcribed dozens of Schubert’s songs for
solo piano and arranged Schubert’s extended
piano work Wanderer Fantasy as a concerto
for piano and orchestra.
Liszt’s Sonata in B minor has some striking
similarities with the Wanderer Fantasy. Both
works are played straight through without a
break yet are internally subdivided into four
movements. Furthermore, in both works, the
musical material is based on themes heard at
the beginning which are transformed or varied
as the piece unfolds, creating a sense of unity
within the larger structure. In the Liszt sonata
four musical ideas form the basis for the whole
work. We hear the first three immediately – a
descending scale, a leaping octave passage
and a low-register gruff theme based on
repeated notes. The fourth, a chorale-like
theme, appears around three minutes in.
Liszt’s transformations and variations of
these ideas is masterly. One of the most
striking occurs in the sonata’s slow movement
where the opening low gruff theme becomes
an elegant and dreamy melody, singing
beautifully in the treble register. Immediately
after this section, the leaping octave theme
serves as the basis for a powerful and
extended fugal passage.
The sonata was not universally well received
at first. Its uncompromising sound world,
musical and technical complexity, and
06