When Johannes Brahms was 10 years old, he rejected an offer from an American concert group to tour the United States, but on Friday night his music came to Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.
Juilliard-educated pianist Jeffrey Siegel wove anecdotes around performances of Brahms’ work for about 900 Evanston and Chicago residents at the year’s first installment of his 31st Keyboard Conversations series.
Siegel, who has performed with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, treated the audience to a commentary covering the life and work of Brahms, a German Romantic composer.
The performance opened with a monologue highlighting the important events of Brahms’ life. Instead of coming to the United States, Brahms played in various Hamburg, Germany, dives, taverns and bordellos to support himself during his impoverished childhood, Siegel said. The womanizing and crude behavior Brahms witnessed reportedly left him psychologically scarred as he began his career as a composer and pianist.
Siegel followed his talk with an explanation of the evening’s first piece, Hungarian Dance No. 2 in D Minor, a composition influenced by the Gypsy tunes Brahms encountered during his years touring Hungary. Siegel also performed six of Brahms’ short piano pieces.
He ended the evening with Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, one of the most challenging pieces to play, Siegel said, because Brahms wrote the piece for one pianist but made it complex enough for two.
Every installment of the Keyboard Conversations series, which is sponsored by the Northwestern School of Music, is primarily a piano concert. Each of Siegel’s performances features a different composer, country or musical style. Siegel accompanies his performances with animated descriptions and facts about each composition.
For example, before he played Capriccio in F-sharp Minor, Siegel noted that Brahms dedicated the same piece to two separate women on two separate occasions.
The performance format is aimed to help audience members understand the significance of each composition and provide them with a short history of each piece. At the end of the evening, he answered questions from audience members.
Many of those in attendance were season ticket holders for Keyboard Conversations, although not many students attended.
“We happen to love good music and Jeff Siegel,” said Dorothy Marchi, who attended graduate school at NU in 1962. “We used to live downtown, but we’re in our 80s now, so this is closer to home.”
Several others seemed to share her sentiment.
“My sister has season tickets, and I always enjoy coming (to Siegel’s performances),” Chicago resident Michael LaRoque said. “He’s a great musician.”
The next Keyboard Conversations events are Dec. 14, Feb. 15 and April 5 at Pick-Staiger. The December performance will feature five French composers, and the February show will highlight the romantic ballad throughout musical history. Siegel will close the season with a commentary on 20th century composers. General admission to Keyboard Conversations costs $23 and $16 for students.
