Fantasien, Op. 116: No. 6, Intermezzo in E Major

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Pianist, professor, parent. Brian Lee has given numerous solo performances in the Chicago area and beyond, including notable venues such as the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, Bargemusic in New York City, and his son’s pre-school class. He has also been featured as soloist with professional and community orchestras and has given premieres of works by American composers such as Gunther Schuller, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Alex Freeman. His recording of Freeman’s Piano Sonata, which was recorded at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, is part of the critically acclaimed “Inner Voice” album on Albany Records, and a new solo album of works by Brahms was released this fall by Blue Griffin Recording. But what Brian has found as enjoyable and fulfilling as being a soloist, is having had the opportunity to make music with others. He has collaborated with cellist Joel Krosnick of the Juilliard String Quartet, mezzo-soprano Emily Lodine, and regularly performs with well-known Chicago artists such as violinist David Taylor, flutist Lyon Leifer, and pianist William Phemister. A recent collaboration with Mr. Taylor was broadcast and streamed live as part of WFMT’s signature full-length recital series, “Live from WFMT.”

Brian is a dedicated educator, in large part due to the many teachers that encouraged and inspired him in the past: piano teachers, classroom teachers, public school music teachers, pastors, and his mother and father, both of whom sang in the church choir and played countless classical music recordings at home during his youth. Brian is Professor of Music and Coordinator of Piano Studies at Moody Bible Institute, where he teaches remarkable students and works with wonderful colleagues. He has also served on the faculties of Northwestern College (Iowa), Wheaton College, and has been invited as a guest artist, adjudicator and masterclass teacher at many educational institutions, competitions and festivals, both at the college and pre-college levels. He is a graduate of Wheaton College, New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

A native of Canada, Brian was born in Seoul, South Korea and loves Korean food to this day. He has lived in the United States for most of his life, where he continues to reside, work, and raise his family. He and his wife Helen, an accomplished writer and editor, have three children who make their lives more crazy and wonderful.

ABOUT THE ALBUM
Bold, beautiful, breathtaking Brahms. Composer and pianist. Introvert but relational. With his bearded look, Santa Claus and D.L. Moody are his doppelgängers, while portraits of his pre-facial hair era paint someone with movie-star good looks. There is a duality to this man on many levels, and the music is no different: from the sprawling, soaring sweep of a youthful composer, to the transcendent music of his later years. There is Brahms the Traditionalist, someone who fervently studied the musical masters of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, a nineteenth-century composer rooted in eighteenth-century classicism. But there is also Brahms the Modernist, who witnessed many of his contemporaries breaking the mold, and who Arnold Schoenberg would revere in his essay “Brahms the Progressive.”

The solo piano works of Brahms reflect this duality. There are the large-scale, grand, epic, multi-movement sonatas that are the hallmark of his early years, in contrast to the more intimate, efficient, miniature pieces of his late works. Yet, we also see these opposing lines blurred. Early works, such as the ones on this album (Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 and Ballade in B Major, Op. 10, No. 4), express and foreshadow many of the characteristics of late Brahms. In the five-movement Third Sonata, one can view each of the three inner movements as a trio of character pieces: Brahms even designates sub-titles to each of these movements, giving the title of INTERMEZZO to the fourth movement, a harbinger to the intermezzi of his late piano pieces. In the Ballade, wild and unpredictable harmonies dot the landscape, just as progressive and avant-garde in the harmonic language as in late Brahms. Conversely, Brahms casts the Fantasien, Op. 116, published five years before his death, in a more traditional, Baroque-like suite, where musical ideas are often developed with classical transparency and efficiency. Even within his individual works, one can envision and experience the duality of Brahms.