Program Note:   

Toccata is a difficult, super-fast rondo comprised of a staccato first theme outlining a melodic wedge and a legato second theme. Sarabande is a musical portrait of my mother. Aria is literally a song without words, based as it is on the first musical sketches made for my opera Amelia. Medley takes a fragment of the traditional Irish ballad and subjects it to some brutal compositional chiaroscuro in the form of abrupt callbacks to ideas from the previous movements. The suite served as a required contemporary work for the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Reviews:

Hagen's four-section Suite was well-presented, especially a folksy third section, gently pulsing, interrupted by just a tinge of disquiet [by Van Clibrun Competition semifinalist Mariangela Vacatello].

--Chris Shull, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5/29/09

I'm even more jazzed about Di Wu [who] proved again that my favorite movement in Hagen's Suite for Piano is the aria, when a haunting melody drifts into a prairie scene from a Copland ballet -- and then, on a note, back again.

--Chris Shull, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5/31/09

Hagen's Suite for Piano was also intelligently and effectively crafted [by pianist Michail Lifits], from its popping, pointillistic Toccata to a Medley which revisited the piece's previous movements by mimicking material -- but also color, weight and attitude.

--Chris Shull, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5/31/09

Mariangela Vacatello's premiere of Daron Hagen’s Suite for Piano (another of the required new pieces) introduced a pleasant work of varied character, at times playful, lyrical and stormy. She played it from memory and made an impressive advocate.

--Olin Chism, KERA Art&Seek, 5/28/09

At first blush, I enjoyed the Hagen piece – its octatonic, virtuosic fugue in the first movement, the lyrical second and third movements, and the helter-skelter finale. I expect it will stand up to repeated hearings.

--Matt Erikson WRR Classical 101.1 FM, 5/28/09

[Michail Lifits'] version of the Hagen Suite was full of character, imagination and sincerity; the lyrical lines in the middle movements were beautifully delineated. This was easily the best performance we heard, and I'm willing to admit that there's more to it than I had thought.

-- Gregory Allen, Performance Today, American Public Media, 6/2/09

Michail Lifits then turned to the Hagen suite and gave it, from memory, the best performance of the competition.  This could win the Best Performance of a Commissioned Work award.

-- Mike Winter, Van Cliburn Foundation Competition Blog, 6/1/09

The Hagen suite had not been favorite commissioned work until now. [Di Wu] sure knows how to bring it to life. Once again, the crisp, fast playing sparkles; the lyrical bits are eloquent and tender, and the incisive bits really have bite. What a difference a performer makes! Again: brilliant.

-- Mike Winter, Van Cliburn Foundation Competition Blog, 5/30/09

Vacatello made a fetching case, though, for the Hagen, progressing from chatting Toccata to flowing Sarabande, from dreamy Aria to stop-and-start Medley.

— Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News, 5/29/09

Die knapp zehnminütige "Suite for piano" des 1961 geborenen Amerikaners Daron Hagen war mit ihren vier motorisch dichten, oft perkussiv geprägten Miniatur-Sätzen eine eher launige Einlage. [Performed by Michail Lifits.]

--Wiesbadener Tagblat, 12/3/09