Ravinia 2022, Issue 5

MICHAEL WILSON (ANDRES) I I BENNETT GORDON HALL 1:00 PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2022 ANTHONY DE MARE, piano Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano Celebrating the Legacy of Stephen Sondheim HOUGH Pretty Lady: gymnopédie * (from Pacific Overtures ) BENNETT Everybody Says Don’t * (from Anyone Can Whistle ) ANDRES Nice Is Different Than Good * (after “I Know Things Now” from Into the Woods ) BEAL Not a Day Goes By * (from Merrily We Roll Along) SCHUBRING Rhapsody in Red * (after “Goodbye for Now” from Reds ) BEGLARIAN Perpetual Happiness (after “Happiness” from Passion ) BATISTE The Gun Song / The Ballad of Booth * (from Assassins ) CERRONE Kiss Me * (from Sweeney Todd ) TAO Move On * (from Sunday in the Park with George ) REICH Finishing the Hat for two pianos (from Sunday in the Park with George ) RICHTER Anyone Can Whistle * (from Anyone Can Whistle ) PUTS Being Alive * (from Company ) There will be no intermission in this program. * First performance at Ravinia FROM THE ARTIST Stephen Sondheim’s music has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. As I embarked on a concert career, working and collaborating with some of this country’s greatest contemporary classical composers, I often found myself imagining how his mel- odies would sound transformed into serious piano works. The idea never left me, and in 2006 I finally began inviting some of them to try their hand at the idea. Thanks to a generous spark of en- couragement from Mr. Sondheim, the abid- ing faith and love of my partner, Tom Spain, and the talents of producer Rachel Colbert, Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Pi- ano was born. The first 17 pieces premiered at Symphony Space in 2012, and from there the project blossomed like a dream. The collec- tion eventually grew to 36 inspired re-imag- inings by composers from across the musi- cal spectrum—an affirmation of Sondheim as one of the 20th century’s most influential composers. In 2018, as rumblings of celebration around his 90th birthday (in 2020) began to grow, I couldn’t help but think that a handful of new commissions would make the perfect birth- day present. Our birthday “coda” of 14 pieces brought the collection up to 50 and was set to premiere in March of 2020. Just seven days before the scheduled premiere—and on the eve of a preview here at Ravinia—the world went dark. During that first pandemic year, I felt so lucky to have these pieces keeping me com- pany. They were my lights in the darkness. I am especially grateful to have shared some of them with Steve during that time. As always, he responded with unbridled enthusiasm and support, and had hoped to attend the NYC concert premiere in November 2021. Alas, it was not to be. From the start, my greatest hope for Liaisons was for it to contribute to Steve’s legacy, help- ing it to spread further and live long beyond his years. I only wish that hadn’t come true so soon. I am thrilled to celebrate him here with you this afternoon once again at Ravinia. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Each work presented here is a true testament to the diversity of talents represented by the project, and to the singular impact Sond- heim’s music has had on us all. –Anthony de Mare COMPOSERS’ COMMENTS STEPHEN HOUGH (b.1961) Pretty Lady: gymnopédie (2019) I was enchanted when I first heard “Pret- ty Lady”—its gentle melancholy, its quirky harmony, its grace- ful simplicity. When Anthony asked me to write something for the Liaisons project, I de- cided to take this song and reimagine it as a kind of Gymnopédie , in homage to Erik Satie. Stephen Hough’s Pretty Lady: gymnopédie was commissioned by Dan and Jef Hall-Flavin. MARK BENNETT Everybody Says Don’t (2019) “Ever y body Says Don’t” is a compact and driving song about making a differ- ence and overcoming the roadblocks nay- sayers put in your way. I thought it would be fun to springboard off of both Steve’s perfect repeating 16th note– based musical portrait of the “watch-cries” of those naysayers (“Everybody says DON’T / Everybody says STOP / Everybody says WAIT”) and the longer musical lines and wa- ter imagery of the B-section lyrics (“This time a ripple / Next time a wave.”) morphing those earlier, rapid-fire 16th notes into an accom- panying “wave” that carries us through the B section, the return of the A, and the coda. Mark Bennett’s Everybody Says Don’t was com- missioned by DanGallagher and Peter Shearer. TIMO ANDRES (b.1985) Nice Is Different Than Good (2019) Sondheim’s song “I Know Things Now” from Into the Woods seems to me to be largely about how it’s possible for memory to work against one’s own interests by repressing, distorting, and finally replacing itself with false versions. In my paraphrase, a new harmonic skeleton (ris- ing open fifths) generates a churning, refract- ed version of the original song’s melody; we hear the process of questioning and defamil- iarizing one’s own memories. In the absence of lyrics, the music is imbued with the un- derlying weight and meaning of what is, in its surface qualities, a rather lighthearted song. Timo Andres’s Nice Is Different Than Good was commissioned by The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 41