Daniil Trifonov @daniiltrifonov
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia @accademiadisantacecilia / Jakub Hrůša -
Mason Bates: Piano Concerto for Trifonov (2021)
Sala Santa Cecilia, Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, Rome, Italy / May 10, 2024
Live broadcast on Rai Radio 3
In January 2022, Trifonov joined the Philadelphia Orchestra for the world premiere of Mason Bates’s new Piano Concerto, composed for him during the pandemic and co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Trifonov performed Bates' piano concerto in various combinations with nine different orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra (Jan. 14 - 16, 2022), the New Jersey Symphony (Mar. 10 - 13, 2022), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Mar. 22 & 25, 2022), the San Francisco Symphony (Jun. 2 - 5, 2022), the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France (Sep. 16, 2022), the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (Oct. 7 - 9, 2022), Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Oct. 14 & 15, 2022), the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Feb. 3, 2024), and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (May 9 - 11, 2024). In June 2024, he will perform this concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
00:00 Movement I
08:21 Movement II
17:57 Movement III
27:43 Applause
29:33 [Encore] Prokofiev: Three Pieces from "Cinderella", II. Gavotte
32:14 Applause
32:23 Interview with Trifonov
47:41 Hrůša and Trifonov share a greeting and a message about their program in Rome
50:50 [News excerpt] "Mason Bates, compositore di musica classica e DJ, con un legame speciale con Roma: amo dare emozioni"
51:48 Interview before the world premiere of Bates' piano concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra on 14th January, 2022
55:16 Interview before the performance of the concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in June 2024
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Instrumentation:
piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, Renaissance drum (large hand drum), four triangles from medium to very high, high and low tam tams, glockenspiel, medium and high suspended cymbals, bongo, flexible switches, snare drum, crotales, finger cymbals, vibraphone, woody clicks (plastic sticks on wood), bass drum, harp, solo piano and strings.
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Excerpt from Benjamin Pesetsky's program note:
Inspiration and Collaboration
Bates’s Piano Concerto was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony for Daniil Trifonov, who inspired the composer with his “remarkable technique, meditative sensitivity, and a composer’s mind to every note he plays."
Bates began planning the Concerto during the early days of the pandemic and dove into Trifonov’s recording catalog, finding it “a soulful soundtrack in my house while live music ceased.”
A Closer Look
Bates’s Piano Concerto is in three movements that seem to travel through different musical eras, filtered through the suspended atmospheres, playful themes, and driving climaxes that are hallmarks of his music. The first movement suggests the Renaissance, filled with hand drums and plucked strings that recall the sound of lutes and early guitars. The reflective slow movement echoes the Romanticism of the 19th century, while the finale (connected from the second movement without pause) is thoroughly contemporary, with hypnotic rhythms and fistfuls of clustered dissonances for Trifonov.
Bates describes the Concerto in detail:
The work evolves through three distinct stylistic sound worlds. The opening movement has an almost Renaissance transparency, pairing the soloist’s progressively more ornamented four-part chorale with strumming pizzicato and reedy winds. After an invention-like cadenza for the soloist, the brass enter with much fanfare as the pianist reaches the lowest, most sonorous depths of the instrument.
The middle movement lurches a hundred years ahead, with the Romantically depressed soloist brooding apart from the orchestra. Radiant textures from each instrument family attempt to lift the soloist’s spirits. It is only when the orchestra comes together in a lustrous tutti that it succeeds, and at this moment the soloist and orchestra finally play together.
Another fast-forward brings us to the more contemporary jazzminimalist finale, alight with mercurial humor and lopsided grooves. The accumulation of quicksilver textures explodes in fanfares, with the opening chorale tune reappearing dramatically, and all musical elements spin together in the Concerto’s final minute.
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Alberto Massarotto's reivew:
www.giornaledellamusica.it/news/daniil-trifonov-e-jakub-hrusa-santa-cecilia
#daniiltrifonov
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