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Piano Recital: Music of Mozart & Schubert
February 26, 2022 @ 7:30 pm
Inagurating Ohavi Zedek’s New Steinway Piano
February 26, 2022 | 7:30 pm Following Havdalah at 7 pm Ohavi Zedek Synagogue 188 N. Prospect Burlington, VT 05401
In-person (masked) and on Zoom or Livestream
For more info, contact Cantor Steve [email protected]
Pianist Paul Orgel has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, and China as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra and chamber musician. Critics have praised his playing for its “subtlety and attention to nuance” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “rare pathos” (New York Times), “brilliant technique, sense of humor and fantasy” (Bridgeport Post), “warmth and beauty of sound” (Barre-Montpelier Times Argus), and “power and grace” (Vermont Times). A versatile musician with wide- ranging interests and a varied repertoire, he has given notable concerts in such venues as New York’s Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Ordway Theater in St. Paul and at the San Francisco Conservatory.
Orgel has specialized in Czech music, performing programs of the complete piano music of Janáček, and music from Terezin, and as a scholar of classical performance practice, he has given recitals of Beethoven and Haydn on the Viennese fortepiano. He can be heard on recordings on CRI, (the Grammy nominated “Music of Louis Moyse”, with flutist Karen Kevra), Capstone, (Fantasias by Curt Cacioppo), Phoenix USA (“Music from the Holocaust”: Berman, Haas, Klein, and Ullmann) and MSR (Suk, Chausson, and Reger). A recent project (“Alchemy of Genius”) paired Bach Preludes and Fugues with Chopin Nocturnes in recordings available online at Vermont Public radio.
Paul Orgel was educated at the Oberlin and New England Conservatories, and Boston University. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from Temple University. Among his piano teachers were Russell Sherman, Irwin and Lillian Freundlich, and Harvey Wedeen. He was former on the piano faculties at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Wesleyan University, Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, and is currently a member of the keyboard faculty at the University of Vermont, and a piano faculty member of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Advanced students from his private studio in northern Vermont have, for many years, been among the state’s most frequent award winners in competitions and audititions. www.paulorgel.com
About my Feb. 26 program:
The featured work on my program of music by Mozart and Schubert (two of my very favorite composers), is Schubert’s “Unfinished” Sonata in C, D. 840. Though it’s less often heard than many others, I consider it one of his greatest sonatas. It consists of two large-scale movements that, like those of the “Unfinished” Symphony, stand well on their own. (Schubert made sketches for third and fourth movements, but abandoned them). I add a fast tempo “finale” to the sonata by following it with the third of Schubert’s “Drei Klavierstücke” (Three Piano Pieces), late works that he may have intended to be called “Impromptus.”
Mozart is represented by the experimental Fantasia, K. 396, a work of strong dramatic contrasts, and the well-known Sonata in F, K. 332, an exceptionally spirited work, with an unusual abundance of melodies.
