Claire Huangci Program Notes

Claire Huangci – “A World of Fantasy”
Sunday April 19, 2026, 2:30 p.m.

“Fantasy” conjures up the world of the imaginative. It is a world of dramatic shifts, of improvised, virtuoso display, spontaneity guided by an intuitive sense of coherence. Poetic fantasies are a “Circus of the Soul”, a “Coney Island of the Mind”, to borrow a few phrases from San Francisco’s late, great, beatnik poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
 
Austrian composer Carl Czerny was a student of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, and part of their inner circles. A hugely prolific and imaginative composer, he wrote over one thousand works, including the rarely performed Fantasy-Brilliante on ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’, composed in the late 1830’s or early 1840’s. He is known today mostly for volumes of pedagogical exercises used in the training of young pianists.
 
Composed in 1820, the Beethoven Sonata No. 30 in E major, Opus 109 diverges from the norms of Classical Sonata Form. It is relatively small in scale, and includes a special, profoundly intimate third movement. The interval of a third is a primary unifying motive through the entire Sonata, creating a sense of organic connection.

The Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu, Op. 66, was composed in 1834 and published posthumously in 1855. Chopin stated that it was not to be published, and for good reason. A manuscript of the piece in his handwriting indicates it was “composed for” rather than “dedicated to” the Baroness d’Este. The Baroness was a talented amateur pianist and a collector of musical works by famous composers of the time. The Fantasie-Impromptu was indeed her private property.

The prodigious composer of over 450 works, Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn) composed her Capriccio in B minor in 1840 during a year long trip to Italy. The virtuoso piano work begins with a rhapsodically expressive introduction that is marked Andante and is followed by a sprightly, mercurial and virtuosic Allegro molto.

American composer Amy Beach was very well known in her lifetime and wrote over 300 published pieces. The Cradle Song of the Lonely Mother was written in 1924, the same year as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It is highly chromatic with a rocking rhythm and lyrical melody. The Fantasia Fugata, composed in 1923, has an inscription by Beach expressing gratitude to her cat (named Hamlet) who had been placed on the keyboard with the hope that it would improvise a subject for her Fugata.

Florence Beatrice Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887. After graduating from High School at age 14 as class valedictorian, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music. There is a unique fusion of styles in her more than 300 compositions, blending African-American references with traditional European stylistic elements in works such as the charming and traditional Waltz of the Spring Maid. Fantasie Nègre No. 2 is one of three compositions with the title.

George Gershwin is the most well-known of American composers and the creator of the most well-known of American compositions, Rhapsody in Blue. He had actually forgotten that he had been commissioned to write the piece for Paul Whitman and his famous jazz band, due in February of 1924. His brother Ira read about the upcoming premiere in late January and alerted George, who got to work and composed Rhapsody in Blue in two weeks. Legendary American pianist Earl Wild made virtuoso Etudes of some of Gershwin’s most iconic songs. These are technically demanding, bold, and lushly decorative in the 19th century Lisztian manner.

Program notes by John McCarthy