Gautier Capuçon with Jérôme Ducros Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 8:00pm This is the 828th concert in Koerner Hall

Gautier Capuçon, cello Jérôme Ducros, piano

PROGRAM

Gabriel Fauré: Élégie, op. 24

Jules Massenet: “Méditation” from Thaïs

Johannes Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, op. 38 I. Allegro non troppo II. Allegretto quasi Menuetto III. Allegro

INTERMISSION

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Andante cantabile in D Major

Sergei Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G Minor, op. 19 I. Lento - Allegro moderato II. Allegro scherzando III. Andante IV. Allegro mosso

Gabriel Fauré Born in Pamiers, Ariège, France, May 12, 1845; died in Paris, France, November 4, 1924 Élégie, op. 24 (1880) After successfully completing two chamber works, the First Violin Sonata and the Piano Quartet, French composer Gabriel Fauré turned his thoughts to a cello sonata, starting, as was his custom, with the slow movement. The resulting Élégie was first played privately. “My cello piece was very well received’, Fauré wrote to his publisher, “and that greatly encourages me to go on and finish the whole sonata.” Three years later, however, the elegantly sombre, at first inward-looking, later impassioned Élégie was published as a separate piece and it was to be almost four decades before Fauré composed the first of his two cello sonatas. Fauré subsequently orchestrated the Élégie in 1895. Its deeply sorrowful theme became the basis for an extended improvisation by the organist at Fauré’s state funeral in 1924.

Jules Massenet Born in Montaud, Saint-Étienne, France, May 12, 1842; died in Paris, France, August 13, 1912 “Méditation” from Thaïs (1894) First performed at the Paris Opéra in March 1894, Thaïs is the 24th of French composer Jules Massenet’s three dozen operas. Fashionably juxtaposing erotic tension with religious fervour, Thaïs memorably portrays the transformation of a leading courtesan in 4th century Egypt from a life of sin to one of religious devotion. A parallel conversion of a monk, from physical denial to the pleasures of the flesh, provides a compelling backstory. The lovely Act II “Méditation,” featuring solo violin and marked Andante religioso, echoes the heroine’s thoughts as she contemplates the life that lies ahead.

Johannes Brahms Born in Hamburg, Germany, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, Austria, April 3, 1897 Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, op. 38 (1862-5) The ghost of Beethoven had long hovered over Brahms’s writing table, nowhere more so than in Vienna, where, though born in Hamburg, he was to spend the majority of his working life. Now in his early thirties, he already had spilled ink rejecting the aims of Liszt and the ‘progressive’ composers around him (the New German School). Instead, he turned to the past for inspiration, studying the music and writings of Schütz, Mattheson, Gabrieli, and other composers who had been dead for more than a century. It was to Bach and Beethoven that he turned in his first cello sonata, thereby indelibly linking his name (in the mind of Hans von Bülow and succeeding generations of music lovers) as one of the Three Bs: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. To add to his strong feeling for tradition, Brahms puts the piano first in the title of his new sonata. This is in emulation of the cello sonatas of Beethoven and the accompanied sonata of the classical era in general. By honouring tradition, Brahms was able to make his peace with the past and begin the process of laying to rest the ghost of Beethoven. The finale of the sonata is fugal, just as was the finale of Beethoven’s fifth and final cello sonata – in Brahms’s eyes, its most important predecessor. Moreover, the uncompromising, robust theme of the finale bears an uncanny resemblance to Contrapunctus 17, one of the fugal movements in Bach’s The Art of the Fugue. Before this combative, fugal finale comes a gentle Allegretto, whose melancholy dovetailing of piano and cello functions somewhat like an intermezzo between the two weighty outer movements. Its tentative, rather whimsical piano opening, which is echoed later at the beginning of the Trio, provides much of the material for the entire movement. The E Minor Cello Sonata does not have a slow movement; Brahms destroyed what he wrote of a slow movement in his first draft. The mellow theme of the opening movement seems to highlight the entire range of the solo instrument: noble and resonant in its lower register, rising to its high, lyrical upper ranges. It reminds us that in feeling, if not, broadly speaking, in musical form, Brahms was at heart a romantic.

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky Born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, April 25/May 7, 1840; died in St. Petersburg, Russia, October 25/November 6, 1893 Andante cantabile in D Major (1871/88) “They do not want to know anything else!” Tchaikovsky said of the slow movement of his First String Quartet, more than a decade after he had composed it. The piece became an immediate hit for the impoverished 31-year-old composer and it was soon taken up by the violin virtuoso Leopold Auer. Other arrangements quickly followed and Tchaikovsky himself made a transcription for cello and string orchestra in 1888. The wistfully nostalgic Andante cantabile is based on a folk song that Tchaikovsky heard in the country, a melody he had already included in a collection of folk songs he arranged for piano duet. Here, he skilfully weaves the melody into the fabric of the music and combines it with an original melody of his own.

Sergei Rachmaninov Born in Semyonovo, Russia, March 20/April 1, 1873; died in Beverly Hills, California, March 28, 1943 Cello Sonata in G Minor, op. 19 (1901) Written in the summer of 1901, when he was 28, the Cello Sonata is Rachmaninov's most successful large-scale chamber work. It was preceded by three earlier pieces for cello – salon miniatures really – written for a friend, the cellist and conductor Anatoly Brandukov. The two gave the premiere of the sonata on December 2, 1901. There are four highly contrasted movements. The cello starts alone with a wistful sigh, virtually the only time in the entire sonata that the cello plays unaccompanied. This melancholy mood dominates the introduction and it recurs as the opening movement gets underway. As in the Chopin Cello Sonata, Rachmaninov places a scherzo before the slow movement. This is where he demands the most virtuosity from the cello. Given that Rachmaninov was one of the great virtuoso pianists of the century and better known in his lifetime as a pianist than a composer, it is surprising how well laid out the sonata is for both instruments. Where the cello has to compete with the keyboard, it adds to a feeling of heroic struggle in the piece. In the broad slow movement, in some of the composer’s most expressive duo music, the soulful, warmly lyrical singing tone of the cello complements the powerful sonority of the piano. The only comment Rachmaninov is known to have made about the work is that the cello is not to dominate the performance; that cello and piano are to be viewed as equal partners. Together, the duo concludes the sonata with a mostly optimistic finale, punctuated by more reflective moments. - Program notes © 2018 Keith Horner

Gautier Capuçon Cello Gautier Capuçon is a true 21st century ambassador for the cello, acclaimed internationally for his deeply expressive musicianship and exuberant virtuosity, as well as for the glorious sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello. Performing each season with many of the world’s foremost conductors and instrumentalists, he is also founder and leader of the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Highlights this season include a return to Carnegie Hall (with Daniil Trifonov), an extensive international recital tour with duo partner Jérôme Ducros, supporting the international release of the album Intuition, featuring the same repertoire, and performances at Verbier Festival. As concerto soloist, Capuçon continues to work regularly with conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Semyon Bychkov, Valery Gergiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Lionel Bringuier, Andris Nelsons, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In 2017-18, he will appear with orchestras such as Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Wiener Philharmoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Lyon, London Philharmonia, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, and National Center for Performing Arts. Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Capuçon and has won multiple ECHO Klassik awards and holds an extensive discography, including concerto, recital, and chamber recordings. Born in Chambéry in 1981, Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five. The winner of various first prizes in many leading international competitions, including the International André Navarra Prize, he was named New Talent of the Year by Victoires de la Musique in 2001.

Jérôme Ducros Piano Jérôme Ducros was awarded a Premier Prix avec félicitations by unanimous decision of the jury at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1993 and, in 1994, won second prize and the special prize at the first Umberto Micheli International Piano Competition. He regularly performs in the main French concert halls as well as in London, Geneva, Rome, Berlin, New York, Tokyo, Madrid, and Amsterdam. As an enthusiastic chamber musician, he has played alongside Augustin Dumay, Michel Portal, Michel Dalberto, Paul Meyer, Gérard Caussé, Tabea Zimmermann, Antoine Tamestit, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, the Quintette Moraguès, the Quatuor Ebène, the Fine Arts Quartet, Jérôme Pernoo, and Maxim Vengerov. He has also accompanied such singers as Dawn Upshaw, Diana Damrau, Angelika Kirchschlager, Ian Bostridge, Mojca Erdmann, Laurent Naouri, and Philippe Jaroussky. Among the works he frequently performs in recital is his transcription for two hands of Schubert’s Fantasy for piano duet, which has been enthusiastically acclaimed by public and press. This is included in a CD of fantasies by Schubert (Ligia Digital), which won a Diapason d’Or de l’Année in 2001. Also composer, his chamber works have been performed by great artists such as Gautier Capuçon, Gérard Caussé, Jérôme Pernoo, Antoine Tamestit, Laurent Naouri, and Nora Gubish, and a DECCA CD of his Piano Trio and Piano Quintet, with himself playing the piano part, has been released in 2013.

Both artists are making their Royal Conservatory debuts tonight. Mr. Capuçon returns next season with Yuja Wang.