Lee Dionne - States of the Soul
Program
Robert Schumann: Songs of Dawn / Gesänge der Frühe (1853)
- In a tranquil tempo
- Animated, not too quick
- Lively
- Moving
- First tranquil, then moving
Elizabeth Younan: Piano Sonata No. 2 (2024)
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F# Minor ‘States of the Soul’ (1897-98)
1. Drammatico
2. Allegretto
3. Andante
4. Presto con fuoco
Listening Guide
Pianist Lee Dionne brings together works by Schumann and Scriabin – composers marked by their creative imaginations – in a two-part series.
Of Robert Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe, Clara Schumann, his wife and lifelong creative partner, wrote in her private diary: “dawn-songs, very original as always but hard to understand, their tone is so very strange.”
The pieces are certainly innovative, pushing Schumann’s equal-parts poetic, evocative, and phantasmagorical style to the point of a near spiritual experience – (wait: is this music actually life-changing or is it just hype? Listen to find out…) The quieter movements (1,2 & 5) sit like a Buddhist ko-an, cryptically simple. Extroverted movements (3 & 4) revel in resonance, conjuring sound castles like the vision of a gilded age.
Our listening expands in response to Schumann, leaving us space in which newer works can unfold: the sonatas of Lizzy Younan and Alexander Scriabin take us on journeys characterised by vivid externalisation of inner emotions. Lizzy’s music perches above a crossroads of excitement, anxiety, neuroticism, and hope. The sonata depicts her move to New York and the ups and downs of moving one’s life across the world. The verdict is essentially postive. We gradually escalate on a ride towards ecstatic joy… and its aftermath.
In the aftermath of all things comes Scriabin, clinically visionary with Messianic tendencies. We accept this when we hear the music. His expressively-4K Third Sonata charts the turbulence of a soul’s journey over the course of its life as few works before or after have done. Intrepid performers are left a combination of spiritually fulfilled and physically and emotionally gutted by the work’s end. We’ll leave you to decide its effect on the listener.
Lee Dionne, Piano
Described as “impressive” (NYTimes), “impeccable” (Fanfare Magazine), and “entrancing” (BBC Music Magazine), pianist Lee Dionne leads a varied, international career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, artistic director, arranger, and speaker.
He has performed numerous solo and chamber debut recitals in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Jordan Hall, Merkin Hall, Spivey Hall, and the Philharmonic in Bratislava.
For six years Lee toured the US and internationally as the founding pianist of the Merz Trio (2017-2023), with which he was a recipient of the prestigious Naumburg Award in Chamber Music and first prize winner of the Fischoff, Chesapeake, and Concert Artist Guild Competitions. Other chamber ensembles and organisations with which Lee has been associated include Yellow Barn Music Festival, Ensemble Connect, and Cantata Profana.
Within Australia Lee has been presented as a soloist, chamber musician, speaker, and studio artist by such organisations as Piano+, the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva, ABC Classic, and Fine Music Sydney.
Lee is deeply indebted to a host of former teachers and mentors, including pianists Vivian Weilerstein, Boris Berman, Wei-Yi Yang, Matti Raekallio, Seth Knopp, Patricia Zander, and Wilma Machover; harpsichordist Arthur Haas; musicologists Michael Friedmann and Paul Berry; and chamber musicians Don Weilerstein, Mark Steinberg, Julio Elizalde, Gerhard Schutz, Kim Kashkashian, Isabel Charisius, Merry Peckham, and Alisdair Tate.
Lee currently teaches piano, collaborative piano, and chamber music at the Sydney Conservatorium. Previous faculty positions include Yellow Barn’s Young Artist Program and Yale University’s Performance of Chamber Music Seminar.