American pianist Stephen Kovacevich will be performing a recital at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on October 5. The program includes Four Intermezzos and one Capriccio by Johannes Brahms, and sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert.
The concert is part of Koerner Hall’s piano recital series, and notably, Kovacevich will be making his debut in the venue.
Stephen Kovacevich
It’s difficult to fathom the depth of experience that Kovacevich brings to his performances at this stage of his career. A decade ago, back in 2015, Philips released a set of his complete recordings with the label, and it was a boxed set of no less than 25 CDs.
Stephen’s father was Croatian, and he was born with the name Kovacevich. When he was 12, his mother remarried, and he took the new family name of Bishop, and that’s the name he first performed under. He’d later take on both names, and eventually dropped Bishop.
Stephen had his public orchestral debut in San Francisco at the age of 11 performing the Piano Concertino by Jean Françaix, and his first solo recital later the same year. By his early teens, he was performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. At 18, he moved to London to study under a scholarship, and has lived in the UK ever since.
During a six decade career, he has performed on virtually all of the world’s prominent concert stages with conductors such as Georg Solti, Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, Simon Rattle and Colin Davis. As a chamber musician, he’s performed with cellists Jacqueline du Pré and Lynn Harrell, violinist Kyung-Wha Chung and clarinettist Michael Collins.
While he’s recorded and performed music from Mozart to Stravinsky, it’s clear he has an affinity for Brahms, Beethoven, and Schubert, composers who have taken up a large part of his professional life. He’s recorded all of Beethoven’s sonatas.
And, while his repertoire has also included other composers, he’s unequivocal about who he won’t play.
“‘I’m not indifferent to Haydn, I loathe him,” he’s said.
The Concert
The program includes:
- Johannes Brahms: Intermezzo in E Major, op. 116, no. 4
- Johannes Brahms: Intermezzo in F Minor, op. 118, no. 4
- Johannes Brahms: Capriccio in D Minor, op. 116, no. 7
- Johannes Brahms: Intermezzo in A Major, op. 118, no. 2
- Johannes Brahms: Intermezzo in E flat Minor, op. 118, no. 6
Brahms’ op. 116 and 118 represent a mature version of his piano compositions, when he tended to favour shorter works. He produced about 20 of what he called miniatures in total (opp. 116 – 119) between 1892 and 1893, just a few years before his death. They are works that are at the same time concise and discerning. He sent several Intermezzos to Clara Schumann, who wrote that she found them “a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects.”
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat Major, op. 110
In 1821, when Beethoven wrote his A flat Sonata, op. 110, he was plagued with ill health, including a bout of jaundice during the summer. The piano sonata would be the only work he’d complete during the entire year, and he signed off on it on Christmas Day. Luckily, by the end of the year, his health was improving. “Now, thank heaven, my condition is better, and good health seems to be returning at last …” he wrote. It’s the second of his final trilogy of piano sonatas, and like most of his late works, is infused with a sense of spirituality, and the promise of solace after suffering.
- Franz Schubert: Piano Sonata in B flat Major, D. 960, op. posth.
Schubert would compose three piano sonatas during the last year of his life, 1828. Now considered among the pinnacles of the art form, there weren’t published until 11 years after his death. He worked on all three, the C Minor Sonata (D. 958), the A Major (D. 959), and the B flat Major (D. 960), simultaneously. In the final stages of syphilis, with a shrinking circle of friends, and dogged by financial problems, he experienced a burst of creativity. He moved into his brother Ferdinand’s apartment during the last three months of his life, and he completed the trio of sonatas at a piano that stood in the corner. (It’s still there today.)
- Find concert details and tickets for the October 5 recital [HERE].
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