Skip to page content
  • WDCH
  • PIANIST PETER SERKIN PERFORMS SCHOENBERG AND BEETHOVEN
  • Mar. 15, 2002
  • FRIDAY, MARCH 15 AT 8 PM, DOROTHY CHANDLER PAVILION

    2001/2002 Celebrity Recital Series

    On Friday, March 15 at 8:00 p.m., the 2001/2002 Celebrity Recitals series continues with a performance of works by Beethoven and Schoenberg by acclaimed pianist Peter Serkin at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The evening's program begins with Arnold Schoenberg's Three Pieces, Op.11 and Five Pieces, Op. 23, followed by Beethoven's Bagatelles, Op. 126. After intermission the program concludes with Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 25 and Beethoven's Sonata in E Major, Op. 109. The recital, presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a part of this season's Schoenberg Prism, a city-wide celebration of the composer's music in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death. The Prism places Schoenberg's works alongside those of other great composers, revealing his debt to the towering figures of the past, as well as his own stature as a revolutionary and visionary composer.

    Composed in 1909 and given their premiere in 1910, Arnold Schoenberg's Three Pieces for piano were met with an almost universal incomprehension. His music had grown increasingly atonal and these were part of an extraordinary group of works composed that year, including the Five Orchestral Pieces and Erwartung. The Five Pieces and the Suite, composed between 1920 and 1923, were among his first 12-tone works, written during the period in which he was formalizing his music theory regarding serialism.

    Beethoven revisited the piano in 1820-22, having taken a ten year break from writing for it as a solo instrument, composing three new works, one of which was the Sonata in E Major. It is the most original in form of the three and features a hymn-like theme in the finale. Composed in 1823, the Bagatelles were written in the same late period as the Diabelli Variations, the Missa Solemnis, and the Ninth Symphony.

    This recital is the third in a series of four recitals focusing on piano masters, presented this season by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The 2001/2002 season of Celebrity Recitals concludes on Friday, April 5 at 8 p.m. with a program featuring Alfred Brendel performing works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

    American pianist PETER SERKIN has mastered four centuries of musical repertoire, and his performances with symphony orchestras, recital appearances, chamber music collaborations, and recordings are respected worldwide. In 1958, at age eleven, he entered The Curtis Institute of Music where he was a student of his father, Rudolf Serkin. A year later, he made his debut at the Marlboro Music Festival and in New York City. He was subsequently engaged for concerto performances with Eugene Ormandy and George Szell. Since that time, Serkin has performed with the world's major symphony orchestras. This season, Peter Serkin is playing a series of Arnold Schoenberg's music in two programs featuring the complete chamber works for piano and a recital of all the works by Schoenberg for solo piano, appearing at Tanglewood, Lincoln Center, and in Oregon, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia. He will also perform the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Berliner Festspiele and with James Levine and the Munich Philharmonic in New York's Carnegie Hall. This spring, Serkin collaborates with violinist Pamela Frank in a series of performances that will feature two new works for piano and violin by composers Alexander Goehr and Peter Lieberson, and works by Bach. Other engagements include a tour with Seiji Ozawa and the Vienna Philharmonic as well as concerto appearances with the Chicago, Boston, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and solo recitals in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Serkin's recording of the six Mozart concerti was nominated for a Grammy Award and also received the prestigious Deutsche Schallplatten Prize.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

    Celebrity Recital


    -SCHOENBERG PRISM-

    Friday, March 15, 2002 at 8:00 p.m.

    DOROTHY CHANDLER PAVILION, 135 N. Grand Ave in Los Angeles

    PETER SERKIN, piano

    Schoenberg: Three Pieces, Op.11

    Schoenberg: Five Pieces, Op. 23

    Beethoven: Bagatelles, Op. 126

    Schoenberg: Suite, Op. 25

    Beethoven: Sonata in E Major, Op. 109

    Tickets ($14 - $51) are on sale at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion box office, all Ticketmaster outlets (Robinsons-May, Tower Records, Ritmo Latino, and selected Wherehouse locations), and by credit card phone order at 213/365-3500. Tickets are also available on-line at www.laphil.com. A limited number of $10 rush tickets for seniors and full time students may be available 2 hours prior to the performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion box office. Valid identification is required; one ticket per person. Groups of 10 or more may be eligible for special discounts. For further information, please call 323/850-2000.

    # # #

  • Contact:

    Elizabeth Hinckley, 323/850-2047; David Barber, 323/850-2023