Seong-Jin Cho / Haydn / Ravel / Lizst by Haydn, Ravel, Liszt, Från (2024/2024), Carnegie Hall, New York, USA

Pianist Seong-Jin Cho is a major star at Carnegie Hall, having sold out multiple recitals in recent years. In 2022, Cho’s stature at the Hall reached legendary status, thanks to his once-in-a-lifetime performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto—played by memory, on a single day’s notice, for the first time in years—as he filled an urgently needed role with the Vienna Philharmonic. The New York Times called it “expert music-making, notable for happening at all and miraculous in its execution.” Cho now showcases his boundless talent in a program that includes a playful Haydn piano sonata, a substantial suite by Ravel, and evocative music that Liszt wrote in reflection of his travels through Italy. HAYDN Piano Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI: 34 Although most concertgoers associate Haydn more readily with symphonies and string quartets than with keyboard music, he wrote dozens of masterful sonatas and other works for both harpsichord and piano. Many are well within the reach of amateur players, but the spitfire passagework of this delightful sonata suggests that it was written for a seasoned performer. RAVEL Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn Although Ravel is frequently bracketed with Debussy, at heart he was more of a classicist than his elder. In 1909, both men were invited to contribute to a French music magazine dedicated to Haydn; Ravel responded to the commission with this short, sweet-tempered minuet. RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin In this suite of six short pieces, Ravel pays tribute to François Couperin and other 18th-century French composers in an unmistakably 20th-century idiom. Dedicated to soldier friends who died in World War I, the work evokes the Baroque tradition of musical memorials known as tombeaux. LISZT Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année: Italie The first two volumes of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage drew on his travels in Switzerland and Italy in the 1830s. Liszt wrote that in Italy, he came to understand “those hidden relationships that link the works of genius. Raphael and Michelangelo helped me to understand Mozart and Beethoven better … Dante found visual expression in Orcagna and Michelangelo; perhaps one day he will find musical expression in a Beethoven of the future.” The sources of Liszt’s inspiration in this musical album range from artworks to poetry and folk songs.