Program I

TWO PIANOS

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 • 8:00 p.m.
Thursday, August 25, 2011 • 8:00 p.m.

Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang, pianos

In their sonatas for two pianos, Poulenc and Stravinsky look at their great predecessors, especially Mozart and Haydn, through 3D glasses. Each piece includes a set of radical variations on themes of their own. Familiar themes are the focus of Lutoslawski’s Variations, on a theme of Paganini (previously put through its paces by Brahms and Rachmaninoff), and Harbison’s Diamond Watch, on a song heard at every baseball game.

Diamond Watch (2010), receiving its Midwest premiere at this concert, honors MIT economist Peter Diamond, Nobel Prize Winner and recent thrower-out of the first ball for the Boston Red Sox, a recognition of his status as long-time fan, and an acknowledgment of baseball’s great fascination with statistics and probability theories.