Lee Dionne - Fantasy Pieces
Program
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 10 (1913)
Robert Schumann: Fantasy Pieces / Fantasiestücke, Op. 111 (1851)
1. Very quickly, with passionate expression
2. Quite slow
3. Powerful and very marked
Unsuk Chin: Piano Etudes
- In C
- Toccaten
J.S. Bach: Partita No. 5 in G Major
1. Praeludium
2. Allemande
3. Corrente
4. Sarabande
5. Menuet
6. Passepied
7. Gigue
Listening Guide
Pianist Lee Dionne brings together works by Schumann and Scriabin – composers marked by their creative imaginations – in a two-part series.
Towards the end of his life, the Russian mystic, visionary, and composer Alexander Scriabin came to revere insects for their qualities of “ceaseless activity, fluttering, illumination, and seduction," viewing them as potent symbols of enlightenment. These qualities are evident in his final Tenth Sonata for piano, which he called privately to his friends, the ‘Insect’ Sonata.
Ceaseless activity is certainly the driving force behind the first of Schumann’s Op. 111 Fantasy Pieces as well. Known for his artistic temperament and mercurial alter-ego “Florestan,” the pen-name for many of Schumann’s early works, these fantasy pieces show as stark a juxtaposition of styles as we see in any of Schumann’s longer cycles, beginning with the phantasmagorical (mvmt 1), brushing with the poetic (mvmt 2), and ending with a kind of twilit chivalric vision (mvmt 3).
If both Schumann and Scriabin are known for their “visionary” qualities, then perhaps Unsuk Chin provides a fitting interlude on the program, Unsuk Chin’s music proving, of course, to be some of the most psycho-acoustically, mind-bendingly visionary (in a hallucinatory sense) music of the 20th / 21st-century. But even for those of us who, unlike Scriabin, who are perhaps not blessed with seeing colour in sound, what we hear in Unsuk Chin’s music is the sense of pure delight that leads us, finally, into the Bach: Bach who, like Schumann and Scriabin, transports us, not through harmonic means, but through the elegant, perfectly poised lightness of dance.
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.