Frederic Chiu: Smackdown

One piano. Two composers. Three rounds. In this participatory musical experience, you are invited to listen, debate and vote in a showdown between two iconic musicians.

23/24 Hop Presents

Pianist Frederic Chiu brings his beloved Classical Smackdown series to Dartmouth, where he pits two legendary composers against each other in a musical context. Audiences are invited to listen, debate and vote for their preferred artist over several short rounds of contrasting examples. Insightful commentary from Chiu brings to life favorites along with lesser-known pieces, making the audience's choices engaging, difficult and often surprising!

Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach and 20th Century composer Philip Glass were masters at altering a listener's sense of time, with time slowing stopping or passing more quickly than imagined. With 250 years separating the two composers, both have created music that speaks to diverse people around the globe and across time. Chiu's program highlights the similarities and the contrasts of these two musical icons.

With a vibrant concert schedule, a legacy of 30 CDs and a stream of accolades from around the globe, pianist Frederic Chiu occupies a special place in the world of classical music. His non-traditional approach including interdisciplinary collaborations, integration of new technologies and emphasis on audience engagement distinguish Chiu as an innovator and boundary-breaking 21st-century artist.

View the results of voting at the concert here. >

Funded in part by the Donna Bascom 1973 and Paul Biddelman Fund. Photo: Chris Craymer

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Frederic Chiu plays major venues on five continents: Lincoln Center in New York, Le Châtelet in Paris, the Mozarteum in Buenos Aires, and extensive tours in smaller and unusual venues. He collaborates with classical music friends Joshua Bell, Pierre Amoyal and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, as well as non-Classical friends like jazz pianist Bob James or storyteller David Gonzalez, to bring vivid live piano experiences to all audiences.

Frederic Chiu recorded the most extensive complete piano works of Prokofiev, and his personal relationship with the Prokofiev family makes him a world-recognized advocate of the composer. Across 30+ albums, he has recorded works of Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Rossini and Grieg. His wide recording legacy is seen in his latest recordings: Beethoven/Liszt Symphonies V and VII, Hymns and Dervishes, music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, Distant Voices: Music of Claude Debussy & Gao Ping, and Schubert's Fantasy for Violin and Piano.

His innovative programming includes "Classical Smackdown," where composers face off in head-to-head comparisons, with listeners voting for their favorite composer. With his wife, Jeanine Esposito, he co-created the arts non-profit, Beechwood Arts & Innovation to explore collaboration across art genres and the integration of arts and technology to foster community. His innovative vision of Romeo & Juliet—The Choice, an interactive production of the popular Prokofiev ballet, debuted in 2018. Frederic teaches at both Carnegie Mellon University and The Hartt School.

The Hop Presents

Frederic Chiu: Classical Smackdown
Time Travelers: Bach vs. Glass
Friday, January 26, 8 pm
Rollins Chapel • Dartmouth College • 2024

Funded in part by the Donna Bascom 1973 and Paul Biddelman Fund.
We thank Mrs. Selma Bornstein for her generous donation of the Petrof Concert Grand Piano, given in loving memory of her husband Dr. Murray Bornstein and used for tonight’s concert.

Program

Approximate duration: 75 minutes

Round 1
Prelude and Fugue No. 17 in A-flat major, BWV 886 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II
Etude No. 5 Philip Glass (b. 1937)

Round 2
Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826: I. Sinfonia Johann Sebastian Bach
Metamorphosis: One Philip Glass
Partita No. 2: II. Allemande Johann Sebastian Bach
Metamorphosis: Two Philip Glass
Partita No. 2: VI. Capriccio Johann Sebastian Bach

Round 3
“Erbarme dich, mein Gott” Johann Sebastian Bach
from St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 trans. Frederic Chiu
Mad Rush Philip Glass

Frederic Chiu, piano

Mr. Chiu is a Yamaha Artist
Representative: Maria Guralnik, Sky Top Group (www.fredericchiu.com)

Program Notes

Tonight, vying for your attention, and your vote, are two towering and controversial figures: Johann Sebastian Bach and Philip Glass. In many ways, these two would seem to occupy radically opposite stylistic territories. Bach was born 329 years ago—Glass just celebrated his 75th birthday. In his time, Bach was considered a throwback to an old-fashioned, irrelevant tradition—Glass pioneered a “minimalist” style that would be embraced by popular culture. Bach’s music is very often a complex intertwining of multiple voices, rarely repeating themselves as they interact to create a rich harmonic world. A Philip Glass score often contains only a few distinct musical cells that are repeated
seemingly endlessly.

The funny thing is that, as these two styles move away from each other in one sense, they approach each other on the back side. There is a sense of spirituality, a hypnotic quality of ecstasy that arises from both composers’ music. Bach’s music does this through an overload of information—themes that appear in multiple voices, in reverse, in mirror image—that encourages both hyper-focus and letting go. Glass’ music does this through repetition—a limited number of simple patterns that repeat to the point where one begins to notice the intricate details and interactions within those
simple patterns.

Both composers enhance consciousness and appreciation of the beauty inherent in their music.

Round 1
Disguised as ‘study pieces’ for Bach’s wife and children initially, the Well-tempered Clavier (WTC) broke traditional ground by revealing that the 18th-century tonal system could be expanded with unforeseen qualities. Each piece in the WTC pushed newer limits on the piano as a keyboard instrument of expression. It is the duty of the pianist to unmask these qualities.

The Etude by Glass is also outside the narrow confines of the Etude from the Romantic era, technically challenging and dazzling. This Etude focuses on the particular traits of Glass’ “repetitive structures,” proving to be an exercise in structure, clarity and rhythm.

Round 2
Bach’s Keyboard Partitas (six of them) are the culmination of Bach’s exploration of the genre of the “Suite”, coming after his French Suites and German Suites. The second Partita in particular displays an amazing stylistic virtuosity, from deep declamation to impish dance, from lyrical beauty to multi-voice complexity and detail.

Glass’ series of Metamorphosis (five pieces) come from music for theatre and cinema. The title is taken from Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, from which the music is drawn. Glass also adapted the music for the soundtrack of Errol Morris’ film The Thin Blue Line. Not only are the works in Glass’ signature “repetitive structures”,
but each piece is a slightly altered repetition of its neighboring pieces.

Round 3
Bach’s Passion According to St Matthew is one of the masterpieces of classical sacred music. Scored originally for two choirs, two orchestras and soloists, it was modified and performed several times by Bach in his duty as Kapelmeister, but then disappeared for almost a century. It was Felix Mendelssohn who staged the first full performance of the work, an event often cited as the beginning of the revival of Bach’s music, a movement that has continued on till today.

One of the most recognized and performed segments of this Cantata is the “Erbarme dich” aria for alto and violin. Despite its lulling string of repeated notes in the bass, the message of the aria is hardly one of comfort—“Erbarme dich” relates the despair resulting from the Apostle Peter’s betrayal of his Messiah. Bach’s eerily contained and focused approach to the expression only heightens the sense of despair—a musical enactment of the cold betrayal.

Glass and Bach shared at least one major trait: a capacity for adapting their existing music for new projects. The music of Mad Rush originated in a set of pieces featuring the organ. Soon after, Glass himself arranged the last piece of this set for piano, gave it the title and performed it on the occasion of the first public visit of the Dalai Lama to New York in 1981. The title is an apt description of the sudden changes between the meditative and the frantic, a particularly modern state of mind that Glass captures in music.

“Every detail—thought through, internalized and spun into golden sound—matters.”
New York Newsday

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Frederic Chiu: Classical Smackdown