Ilia Radoslavov, piano
Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 5:30 p.m.
Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall
Natalie L. Haslam Music Center
PROGRAM
Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75
- Folk Dance
- Scene
- Minuet
- Young Juliet
- Masks
- Montagues and Capulets
- Friar Laurence
- Mercutio
- Dance of the Girls with Lilies
- Romeo and Juliet Before Parting
Sergei Prokofiev
(1891-1953)
--- INTERMISSION ---
Pictures at an Exhibition
Promenade
1. The Gnome
Promenade
2. The Old Castle
Promenade
3. Tuileries (Children’s Quarrelling at Play)
4. Bydlo
Promenade
5. Ballet of Unhatched Chicks
6. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
Promenade
7. Limoges. The Market (The Great News)
8. Catacombs (Sepulcrum romanum)
Con mortius in lingua mortua
9. The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga)
10. The Great Gate of Kiev
Modest Mussorgsky
(1839-1881)
PROGRAM NOTES
Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet Op. 75 – Sergei Prokofiev
Prokofiev’s Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition are wonderful works of programmatic music—i.e, instrumental music associated to a story, painting or some other “outside” referent. They are collections of tableaux, which, in the case of Prokofiev, draw meaning from Shakespeare’s play and, in the case of Mussorgsky, rely on their titles and the images they conjure.
They are also some of the most imaginative pieces for the piano. Consistent with the fanciful stories and images that inspired them, they call for sonorities that go from the tender and limpid to the overpowering, awe-inspiring; from the down-to earth to the profoundly reminiscent and evocative; from the everyday to the fantastic; and from the whimsical—through the mesmerizing experience of pure fantastic energy—to the impenetrably robust.
Perhaps nothing brings more into focus the broad array of sonorities in the piano works than their relationship to their orchestral versions. The pieces by Prokofiev were taken from his Romeo and Juliet ballet (although the latter’s musical ideas were, at least at some level, pianistically conceived). Pictures at an Exhibition, originally written for piano, has invited several orchestral arrangements—the best-known of which, by far, was commissioned from Maurice Ravel. Naturally, the orchestral versions exploit the works’ reliance on sonority through timbre. But the piano versions “carve” a number of ambiances and musical fabrics—within a stability of timbre—that is extraordinarily beautiful and imaginative. They create a novel “piano world” where characters and scenes unfold through intimate and whimsical realms of shades, textures, materialities, and luminosities that were outside the capabilities of the instrument as used up to the time of their composition. Out of this poetic world of expanded pianistic sensibilities to sound character arise the breathtaking worlds of Venetian Renaissance and Slavic folklore; of youthful, innocent Juliet and enigmatic—sometimes terrifying—Baba Yaga; of elegant, entitled knights and Bogatyr heroes; of dances and farewells, ballets of unhatched chicks, castles, and catacombs.
Prokofiev’s Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, op. 75 (1937) came into being after two failed attempts at premiering the original Ballet (whose unexpected happy ending was creating much discontent). The bitter resignation of the Kirov Ballet’s director and the arrest and execution of that of the Bolshoi’s likely thwarted the premieres. In an effort to make its music known, the composer selected and re-arranged ten of its movements in what could be thought of as piano transcriptions.
One of Prokofiev’s most “accessible” works, it displays an apparent simplicity and freshness—within a 20th-century language—that comes through, beautifully, in the piano. Like Mussorgsky’s, Prokofiev’s suite reveals a novel use of texture, tonality, rhythm, and figuration, within a “piano world.” But it does it in very different ways. The combination of simple melodic lines with an element of tonal “fracturing”—where lines return to their tonal center as easily as they moved away from it—and an imaginative use of articulation, register, rhythm, and figuration imbue the music with an element of unassuming “defamiliarization” that is uniquely Prokofiev’s and that prevents it from ever being simplistic or overly sentimental. Thus, listeners hear an innocent, youthful, dreamy Juliet who does not sound like any Juliet before. They hear elegant, powerful guests entering a ballroom and realize that their elegance and power are somewhat unique—almost naïve—but none the less convincing for that. Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, presents the characters and events of Shakespeare’s story refashioned in a language that seems simple and utterly fresh but one that takes a masterful performance to fully come to life.
Pictures at an Exhibition – Modest Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) was inspired by Mussorgsky’s visit to a retrospective exhibit of works by his recently deceased friend and painter, Viktor Hartmann, whose images and characters he sought to capture. Interspersed among the pieces, a recurrent movement, “Promenade,” represents the composers’ strolling in between paintings—now casually, now in a particular mood.
Mussorgsky wrote this piece—and his entire oeuvre—under a wave of nationalism in the late 19th-century, when a group of composers known as the Mighty Handful (Mighty Five) were determined to write truly Russian music. Deeply grounded in his culture and the recipient of an unorthodox music education, Mussorgsky developed a unique language that combined idiosyncratic use of tonality, dissonance, and rhythm, together with modal scales, religious hymns, and innovative figurations and textures. Particularly noticeable in the pieces are passages that, lacking a melody, rely on musical gestures of very pronounced character. The “Ballet of the unhatched chicks,” for instance, elicits a sound never heard from a piano before; “Tuilleries” and “Limoges” unfold through bursts of activity that imitate playing children and busy markets; “The Gnome” relies on alternating gestures of fantastic character; and “Baba Yaga” combines the same kinds of gesture with melodic blocks of sounds. The monumentality of the “Great Gates of Kiev” keeps growing well after the theme achieves all the grandiosity it seems capable of in the piano. And, thus, the end of the work seems to mark, for the listener, the end of a truly fantastic journey.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
A native of Bulgaria and hailed by The Beeld as a performer who reaches “high levels of purity” and “exquisite, pure sound” with a “soothing, yet elusive power held in check by an unseen emotion that leaves the audience breathless,” pianist ILIA RADOSLAVOV began his formal studies at age five in Ruse, Bulgaria and was receiving critical acclaim by the age of fourteen.
Throughout his career, Radoslavov has been welcomed warmly and with accolades by audiences and critics alike, while appearing in numerous solo and chamber performances in prestigious venues in the United States, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Serbia, and South Africa. Most notably, he has performed as soloist in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Pretoria’s Brooklyn Theater, and the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. Among his festival appearances are the March Days of Music in Ruse, Bulgaria, the Festival for Young European Talents in Potsdam, Germany, Illinois Chamber Music Festival, New Music Festival, Kirksville, Missouri, and the Fairbanks New Music Festival. An enthusiastic and dedicated collaborator, Radoslavov has performed with such prominent musicians as Metropolitan Opera flutist/piccoloist Stephanie Mortimore, Canadain Brass French horn player Bernard Scully, and most recently distinguished South African violinist Zanta Hofmeyr and renowned Bulgaran violinist Stoika Milanova. His performances have been broadcast on Classic FM Radio, Johannesburg, King FM Evergreen Channel, Seattle, WSIU TV 8, Illinois, and the Bulgarian National Radio. His most recent recording with the Blue Griffin recording label features works from one of his most recent chamber projects with Zanta Hofmeyr – the ten Sonatas for Piano and Violin by Beethoven.
As the gold medalist in the 2009 Seattle International Piano Competition, Radoslavov has also served as one of the jurors for its 2010 edition. The list of recognitions in his name includes first prizes from the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, the Saint Louis Artist Presentation Society, UW-Madison Concerto Competition, UW-Madison Beethoven Piano Competition, National Mozart Competition, Sofia, Bulgaria, and National Piano Competition, Provadia, Bulgaria, as well as awards from the Missouri International Piano Competition, Joplin, Missouri, and the Hague International Piano Competition, the Netherlands.
Radoslavov holds a Doctoral Degree in Piano Performance from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was a Paul Collins Distinguished Graduate Fellow, an award celebrating outstanding performing ability and musicianship. he studied with Christopher Taylor. He has graduated with high distinction and holds degrees in Piano Performance from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and the State Conservatory of Music, Sofia, Bulgaria. His teachers include Christopher Taylor, Wilfred Delphin, Stella Dimitrova, Ilya Tchernaev. He has also studied with world-renowned Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Ann Schein.
Radoslavov is in high demand as a master teacher, adjudicator, and clinician both in the US and Europe. He has taught master classes at University of Chicago, Missouri State University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Drake University, Kansas State University, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Xavier University of Louisiana, State Conservatory of Music, Sofia, Bulgaria, and State College of Music, Ruse, Bulgaria. As a member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), he is a frequent presenter and adjudicator for MTNA events. He is a regular adjudicator at the Illinois State Music Teacher Conference and is presently Co-President of Bloomington Normal Music Teachers Association.
Ilia Radoslavov is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Department in the School of Music at Illinois Wesleyan University.
We hope you enjoyed this performance. Private support from music enthusiasts enables us to improve educational opportunities and develop our student artists’ skills to their full potential. To learn more about how you can support the School of Music, contact Chris Cox, Director of Development, 865-974-2365 or ccox@utfi.org.