November 24, 1997

Lecture focuses on the music of the Romantic Era

By Barbara McKenna

Anatole Leikin

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
Ha! Ha! The animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

The music of the Romantic Era was known for its highly expressive and personal style. And yet, by the end of that era, which ran from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, the Romantic performance style had become surgically precise and rather uniform, according to associate professor of music Anatole Leikin.

Leikin will discuss these transformations and perform examples on the piano, using selections by Beethoven, Chopin, and Brahms, in a talk titled, "Romantic Performance: Then and Now." The presentation will also feature Maria Ezerova, a lecturer in piano, who will join Leikin in a piano duet. The talk is part of the 1997-98 Humanities Lecture Series, sponsored jointly by the Humanities Division and the Museum of Art and History. It takes place from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, December 11, at the Museum of Art and History at the McPherson Center, 705 Front St. The talk is free and open to the public. A reception follows.

Leikin is a native of Germany who grew up in Russia and received his doctorate in the U.S. He has taught music history, theory, and piano at UCSC since 1989. He has published a multimedia biography of Chopin and published and translated musicological essays covering a variety of subjects. He has performed as solo and chamber pianist, fortepianist, and harpsichordist and recorded the piano music of Scriabin, Chopin, and EMI/Cope.

For more information, call (408) 459-2696 or 429-1964.

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