|
Monday, March 15,
2pm and 7:30pm
Russian School Grads
Mikhail Kopelman violin
~ Renowned for his style of immense grace and beauty combined with a
flawless technique, he has performed in a dizzying array of venues
throughout the world as first violinist of the Borodin String Quartet
for two decades
Elizaveta Kopelman piano
~ She has been praised for “her great interpretive ability and
formidable technique.”
Aram KHACHATURIAN Trio for clarinet, violin and piano
~ composed during his school days at the Moscow Conservatory, the exotic,
rhapsodic, hypnotic piece springs from Armenian folk music
SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Trio No. 1 in C Minor Op. 8
~ this hidden gem in one movement traverses a range of emotions that
include gloom, gaiety, tenderness, fury and passion ~ accomplished at age
17 while at the Petrograd Conservatoire and dedicated to a sweetheart, Tatyana Glivenko
PROKOFIEV Overture on Hebrew
Themes
~ made in the U.S.A. out of the spirit of the klezmorim for the Jewish
ensemble Zimro and premiered in New York City on January 26, 1920 ~
for clarinet, piano and string quartet
TCHAIKOVSKY Souvenir de Florence Op. 70
~ it all began in Florence, a city he loved and visited several times,
and where he made his first sketches ~ completed in Russia in 1890 and
revised in 1892, the virtuosic tour de force is a soundscape of emotional
intensity
Monday, March 22,
2pm and 7:30pm
Dmitri Berlinsky violin
~ “He exuded the confidence and poise of a young Valentino. There was
no shortage of brilliance, and his verve was a source of delight”
The Washington Times
Hugo WOLF Italian Serenade
~ a sunny and lyrical string quartet, despite the Austrian composer's
life of pain and suffering
BRUCKNER String Quartet in C Minor WAB 111
~ reveals his love of Bach and Schubert while sowing the seeds for his
own later symphonic style
SCHUBERT Octet in F Major D. 803
~ of heavenly length at under an hour, it's a marathon for the clarinet,
horn, bassoon, string quartet and double bass
Monday, April 5,
2pm and 7:30pm
Mostly 2 Pianos
Adam Neiman piano
~ Recognized as an artist of rare depth, sensitivity and virtuosity,
he is a Grammy nominee and winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant,
Young Concert Artists and Gilmore Young Artist Award
William Wolfram piano
~ Winner of the William Kapell, Naumburg, and Tchaikovsky competitions
~ recognized as an artist who combines powerful Romantic instincts
with a truly formidable command of the keyboard
MOZART Sonata in D Major K. 448
~ his only work for 2 pianos, the Sonata was written in the galant manner
for a performance he would give with his talented Viennese pupil,
Josephine von Aurnhammer, at her family’s home ~ In Alfred Einstein’s
view, “The art with which the two parts are made completely equal, the
play of the dialogue, the delicacy and refinement of the figuration, the
feeling for sonority in the combination and exploitation of the registers
of the two instruments—all these things exhibit such mastery that this
apparently superficial and entertaining work is at the same time one of
the most profound and most mature of all Mozart’s compositions.”
Jacques OFFENBACH Duo for 2 cellos Op. 54
~ the sixth in a set of progressively challenging duets subtitled “très difficile” by the “Mozart of the Champs-Elysées” and “Paganini of the
Cello”
SCHUMANN Andante and Variations Op. 46
~ a unique and beautiful piece scored for 2 pianos, 2 cellos and horn ~
Schumann later explained, “The work is very elegiac. I believe I was
somewhat melancholy while composing it.” He had perhaps reflected on his
loneliness at the time, having written it when Clara was away visiting her
father, a man who disapproved of his daughter’s marriage to Robert.
BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Haydn Op. 56b
~ one of his most ingenious compositions, best known in its orchestral
form (his first symphonic masterpiece), performed by Jens Nygaard and the
Jupiter Symphony in 1990 ~ When Brahms and his closest friend Clara played
it at a private gathering, she declared in her diary, “Today I tried the
new variations for two pianos with Johannes...they are quite wonderful.”
|
Several
months ago, the nephew of our music advisor Michael Volpert attended a
Jupiter dress rehearsal. When the music stopped, Orr, whose vocabulary at
the time comprised all of 6 words, turned to his mother and said, “More.”
We hope you feel likewise.
The
New York Sun Review