Tuesday, January 13, 2015, 8pm First Congregational Church , violin , piano

PROGRAM

Wolfgang Mozart (1756–1791) Fantasia for Piano in D minor, K. 397 (1782)

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–1996) Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano in G minor, Op. 53 (1953) Andante con moto Allegro molto Allegro moderato Allegro — Andante — Allegretto

Mozart Sonata for Piano and Violin in E-flat major, K. 481 (1785) Molto allegro Adagio Thema con variazioni: Allegretto

INTERMISSION

Weinberg Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin, Op. 126 (1978)

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C major, D. 934 (1827) Andante molto — Allegretto — Andantino — Tempo I — Allegro vivace — Allegretto — Presto

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ – Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community.

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Liz and Greg Lutz and Lance and Dalia Nagel. Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

CAL PERFORMANCES 15 PROGRAM NOTES

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (;A?@–;AC;) Romanticism. Repetitions of this sad song are Fantasia for Piano in D minor, K. =CA twice interrupted by sweeping cadenza-like eruptions be fore the Fantasia pauses on an in - Composed in 1782. conclusive harmony, takes a small breath, and trots off with a cheerful D major melody of In 1782, one year after he had bolted from opera buffa jocularity. Mozart, perhaps unsure Salzburg to take up life as a freelance composer of how to bring these two vastly different kinds and pianist in , Mozart developed a new, of music into balance, did not finish notating gleaming admiration for the music of Bach, the piece. When the score was published by Handel and other masters of the early 18th cen - Breitkopf und Härtel in the 1870s as pa rt of the tury. He had been exposed to the works of such complete Mozart edition, the editors tacked on Italian Baroque composers as Leo, Caldara, a few measures of the opera buffa tune to round Durante, and Alessandro Scarlatti in Salzburg, out the work. A very different effect, chosen by where their scores were used for performance some performers, is achieved by recalling the and for study, but his interest in Bach grew Bachian strains of the beginning to bring the from his association in Vienna with Baron Fantasia to a solemn close. Gottfried van Swieten, the Court Librarian and musical amateur who had developed a taste for Mieczysław Weinberg (;C;C–;CC@) the contrapuntal glories of German music Sonata No. ? for Violin and Piano in G minor, while serving as ambassador to the Prussian Op. ?= court at . Van Swieten, who is also re - membered as the librettist for ’s orato - Composed in 1953. Premièred on December 30, rios and , produced a 1955, in Glinko Concert Hall in Leningrad by vi - weekly series of concerts in Vienna devoted to olinist Mikhail Vayman and pianist Mariya “ancient music,” and hired the best available Karandashova. musicians, including Mozart, to perform and arrange the compositions for these events. Mieczysław Weinberg occupied one of the (Among other projects for van Swieten, Mozart most unlikely career niches of any 20th-century scored Handel’s for classical .) musician: a Polish-born Jewish refugee who be - Mozart, perhaps history’s greatest adept at ab - came one of the ’s most distin - sorbing musical styles, learned much about the guished composers. Weinberg, born in fine workings of from his close on December 8, 1919 (he is also known by his involvement with the compositions of Bach transliterated Russian name, Moisei Vainberg), and Handel. came from a musical family and studied piano In addition to the enriched contrapuntal tex - and composition at the local conservatory. tures that increasingly figured in his composi - Soon after his graduation in 1939, he fled be - tions, Mozart also discovered from Bach’s fore the Nazi invasion of Poland to Minsk, preludes, fantasies and toccatas how to fix the where he became a student of Vassily Zolotarev. evanescence of improvisation into a finished Weinberg lived in Tashkent from 1941 to 1943 work. He tried out just such a passage of mus - and then settled in , where he be - ing, seemingly spontaneous broken chords, a friended Shostakovich and other leading Soviet technique found often in the preludes of Bach’s musicians and quickly rose to prominence. He The Well-Tempered Clavier , to begin the managed to escape the 1948 purges that with - Fantasia in D minor that he wrote in Vienna in ered the spirits and careers of many eminent 1782. For all of its simplicity, this is one of the Soviet musicians by adhering to a conservative most deeply moving moments in Mozart’s idiom deemed appropriate by the authorities, music. These opening gestures are followed by but he was jailed in 1953 on a trumped-up a plaintive, chromatically inflected melody that charge of “Jewish bourgeois nationalism.” (Not is indebted less to Johann Sebastian than to that only had Weinberg been shadowed by the se - master’s Son No. 2, Carl Philipp Emanuel cret police ever since his father-in-law, (1714–1788), whose strikingly emotional Solomon Mikhoels, the celebrated Jewish actor works were an important catalyst of musical and artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

Theater, was executed on Stalin’s order in Piano Concerto (K. 482) on December 16, just January 1948, but his wife’s uncle, a physician at four days after putting the finishing touches on the Kremlin, had recently been labeled an the Piano and Violin Sonata in the same key (K. “enemy of the people.”) Shostakovich came to 481). He had recently received a commission his defense and he was released after 11 weeks from Emperor Joseph II for a musical diversion in prison. Weinberg lived quietly thereafter in (The Impresario ) to be given at the orangerie of Moscow and composed prolifically until his the Schönbrunn Palace in February, and was death in 1996, creating a large catalog of works making revisions and additions to for that contains six operas, four operettas, three a revival of that opera in March. Work on nu - ballets, 25 symphonies (many with program - merous chamber and vocal pieces was also matic associations, including one “In Memory squeezed into his schedule, as was the tutelage of Dmitri Shostakovich”), numerous concerted of a sizable group of private students and at least compositions, 17 string quartets, much cham - a half-dozen public concerts for which he acted ber music, songs, choral works, piano pieces, as impresario, publicist, composer, and per - and incidental and film music. “In his music,” former. His main concern at the time, however, wrote Russian-born musicologist and lexicog - was the composition of The Marriage of Figaro, rapher Nicolas Slonimsky, “he followed the which he was readying for production in the precepts of ‘social realism’ in its ethnic aspects; spring as soon as the theaters opened following according to the subject of the composition, he the end of the Lenten prohibition of operatic made use of Jewish, Polish, Moldavian, or performances. Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote Armenian folk melos , in tasteful harmonic that his son was “up to his ears” in work during arrangements devoid of abrasive dissonances.” those winter months. The Violin Sonata No. 5 was the first work Despite the commissions, the grand plans, Weinberg composed after being released from and the facility with which he worked, however, prison in 1953; he dedicated the score to Mozart was troubled. Always something of a Shostakovich for his help in securing his free - spendthrift, he was sinking into a difficult, debt- dom. Sadness and anger, the residues of his in - ridden financial situation from which he never carceration, mingle in the Sonata, though the did extricate himself. The first of what became a latter is expressed more often as cynicism than steady stream of letters to friends begging for as rage. The Sonata opens with a wistful theme money was sent to Franz Anton Hoffmeister, his whose modalism and poignant lyricism echo publisher, on November 20, 1785. “I take refuge Weinberg’s Jewish heritage. The movement be - with you, and ask you to assist me with some comes more impassioned as it unfolds but re - money, which I very much need at this mo - turns to its quiet introspection before the close. ment,” Mozart pleaded. Hoffmeister responded, The second movement is agitated and driving, either with a loan or an advance against future diminishing its tension only in two brief inter - publications. Mozart’s health, like his finances, vening episodes. The diabolical quality that was also showing signs of deterioration. Though makes the third movement something of a not yet 30, he was often seriously ill, and was al - scherzo macabre is countered by a broad violin ready plagued by thoughts of his own death. A melody at the center. Reminiscences of the first few months after his letter to Hoffmeister, he movement frame the finale and enfold a craggy wrote, “I never lie down at night without re - central and passages on either side based flecting that—young as I am—I may not live to on a long, rhapsodic melody shared by violin see another day.” Many of the works of 1785 re - and keyboard. flect his growing seriousness of mind: the D minor Concerto (K. 466), the last two of the Mozart “Haydn” Quartets (K. 464 and K. 465), the Sonata for Piano and Violin in E-flat major, C minor Piano Fantasia (K. 475), the G minor K. >B; Piano Quartet (K. 478, published in October by an anxious Hoffmeister, who asked him if he Composed in 1785. couldn’t “write more popularly”), and the Masonic Funeral Music (K. 477). It was just such Mozart’s life was hectic during the winter of music that bemused the fickle Viennese public. 1785–1786. He completed the E-flat major These probing compositions were not the simple

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES little ditties and pretty musical bonbons they rel - him the most delightful and inexplicable of all ished, but creations which puzzled them, and musical ge niuses. perhaps touched an emotional chord that they felt was as well left undisturbed on a pleasant Weinberg evening after a tasty supper. The audience that Sonata No. = for Solo Violin, Op. ;<@ Mozart had built during his first five years in Vienna began to slip away, and this E-flat Composed in 1978. Sonata, more gallant in style and closer to the popular taste than most of its neighbors (though Weinberg composed his Sonata No. 3 for Solo with a surprisingly Romantic slow movement), Violin in 1978 and dedicated the score to the was probably an attempt to appeal to the taste of memory of his father. In 2014, violinist Gidon his past patrons. Kremer released a significant two-CD set of The occasion for which the E-flat Piano and Weinberg’s chamber and orchestral music for Violin Sonata was written in unknown; it was strings on the ECM label that included the 22- completed on December 12, 1785. It seems most minute Sonata No. 3. Though the work is con - likely that the work was intended to repay tinuous, it comprises several distinct sections, Hoffmeister’s loan (advance?) of October, a sit - around which Kremer wove an imaginative uation that would explain its conservative musi - scenario that grew from the music’s familial as - cal style and its limited technical difficulties, sociation: “I. Portrait of the father : restless nicely tailored to the achievements of amateur repetitive rhythms that barely slow down in performers. Hoffmeister issued the score during brief, sustained double stops. II. Portrait of the the fol lowing year, and some time later a critic mother : intimate, lyrical song in the high regis - for the German journal Musikalische Real- ter, linear texture devoid of distinct rhythmic Zeitung made some remarkably shrewd obser - ac cents. Ill. Self-portrait of the composer as a vations about the piece, which still stand as a child : dance-like, sometimes randomly disrup - reasoned evaluation of the work: “This Sonata tive staccato. IV. Transitional cadenza : extended by Herr Mozart, thanks to the pleasing manner double-stop texture. V. Flight, running amok : in which it is written, will be popular with lovers furious melodic lines, combinations of trills— of art. It were to be wished, though, that Herr what might be called a modern caccia [an Mozart did not allow himself to be captivated so Italian Renaissance vocal genre in exact imita - much by the modish taste of our times. His tion; its name means ‘hunt’]. VI. Reminiscence works would thereby gain an even more general, in soli tude : brief tranquil motifs, sustained and at the same time more durable, value. And notes, contemplation. VII. Fantastic dance/ this work, as well as several others we know, as - Dialogue with Eternity : pallid sounds without sures us that Herr Mozart is not so lacking in constant rhythmic accentuation, unreal pizzi - sound principles of harmony, nor in wealth of catos, vanishing tone.” imagination, as to be unable to serve us stronger fare.” Though the reviewer’s words are appropri - Franz Schubert (;ACA–;B) nation of the lovable with the thoroughly mas - culine”) and the variations finale (which lacks Composed in 1827. the usual minor-mode episode and closes with a light-hearted 6/8 galop to the finish), they do On January 31, 1827, Franz Schubert turned not speak of the daring harmonic peregrina - 30. He had been following a bohemian exis - tions of the central Adagio , whose advanced tence in Vienna for over a decade, making only modulatory practices inspired John N. Burk to a small amount from the sale and performance call it “Romantic 19th-century music before its of his works and living largely by the generos - time.” Though the E-flat Sonata does not scale ity of his friends, a devoted band of music- the heights of expression reached by many of lovers who rallied around his convivial Mozart’s works from the surrounding months, personality and exceptional talent. The pattern it is music imbued with the characteristic grace, of Schubert’s daily life was firmly established by elegance and impeccable good taste that make that time: composition in the morning; long

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES walks or visits in the afternoon; companion - composer, the pianist Carl Maria von Bocklet ship for wine and song in the evening. The rou - (to whom Schubert dedicated both the tine was broken by occasional trips into the D major Piano Sonata, D. 850, of 1825 and this countryside to stay with friends or families of Fantasy), and Schubert conceived the new friends—he visited Dombach, near the Vienna piece as a display vehicle for these two excel - Woods, for several weeks in the spring of 1827 lent performers. The program won little praise. and Graz in September. A curious dichotomy The reviewer for the journal Der Sammler marked Schubert’s personality during those wrote, “The Fantasy for Violin and Piano by final years of his life, one that suited well the Mr. Franz Schubert somewhat exceeded the Romantic image of the inspired artist, rapt out duration the Viennese intend to devote to spir - of quotidian experience to carry back to be - itual enjoyment. The hall emptied itself little by nighted humanity some transcendent vision. little, and the present writer admits that he is “Anyone who had seen him only in the morn - unable to say anything about the end of the ing, in the throes of composition, his eyes shin - piece.” The Musical Gazette of Leipzig reported ing, speaking, even, another language, will that “the new Fantasy did not meet with the never forget it—though in the afternoon, to be slightest success. One may thus rightfully sure, he became another person,” recorded one assume that the popular composer has com - friend. The duality in Schubert’s character was posed himself astray.” Only the Vienna corre - reflected in the sharp swings of mood marking spondent for the London Harmonicon found both his psychological makeup and his creative that the composition “possesses merit far above work. “If there were times, both in his social re - the common order.” Though there is a certain lationships and his art, when the Austrian quotient of merely virtuosic note-spinning character appeared all too violently in the vig - in the variations section of the Fantasy orous and pleasure-loving Schubert,” wrote his (Schubert himself was skilled both as a violin - friend the dramatist Eduard von Bauernfeld, ist and pianist), the difficulties encountered by “there were also times when a black-winged the work’s first hearers probably stemmed demon of sorrow and melancholy forced its more from the music’s formal originality and way into his vicinity; not altogether an evil harmonic daring than from any deficiencies in spirit, it is true, since, in the dark concentrated its craft. hours, it often brought out songs of the most The Fantasy is arranged in seven continu - agonizing beauty.” The ability to mirror his ous sections that bear only a tenuous relation to own fluctuating feelings in his compositions— the traditional l ayout of sonata form. The work the darkening cloud momentarily obscuring opens with rustling piano figurations that un - the bright sunlight—is one of Schubert’s most derpin the lyrical flight of violin melody which remarkable and characteristic achievements, prefaces a strongly rhythmic episode in quicker and touches indelibly the incomparable series tempo, faintly tinged with Hungarian exoti - of works— Winterreise , the “Great” C major cism. There follows a set of elaborately decora - Symphony, the last three Piano Sonatas, the tive variations on Schubert’s song Sei mir String Quintet, the two Piano Trios, the gegrüsst (“I Greet You”), composed to a poem Impromptus , the Fantasy for Violin and of Friedrich Rückert in 1821. (Schubert simi - Piano—that he created during the last months larly used his songs as the bases for instru - of his brief life. mental variations in his “Trout” Quintet, The Fantasy in C major (D. 934), the most “Death and th e Maiden” Quartet and the important of the small handful of compositions Variations on “ Trock’ne Blumen ” [“Withered that Schubert wrote for violin, was composed Blossoms”] for Flute and Piano.) The rustling quickly in December 1827 for a concert to be figurations of the introduction return briefly to given on January 20th by the 21-year-old serve as the bridge to the “finale,” a brilliant Czech virtuoso Josef Slavik (whom Chopin de - showpiece for the participants. A shadow of Sei scribed as “the second Paganini”), at which the mir gegrüsst passes across the Fantasy before a young violinist also planned to introduce a brief, jubilant coda closes the work. concerto of his own making. For the program, Slavik enlisted the assistance of a friend of the © 2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS

such 20th- and 21st-century masters as Henze, Berg, and Stockhausen. He also championed the works of living Russian and Eastern European composers, and has performed many important new compositions, several of which are dedi - cated to Mr. Kremer himself. He has become as - sociated with such diverse composers as Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, , Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Luigi Nono, Aribert Reimann, Pēteris Vasks, John Adams, Victor Kissine, Michael Nyman, , Leonid Desyatnikov, and Ástor Piazzolla, bring - ing their music to audiences in a way that re - spects tradition yet remains contemporary. It would be fair to say that no other soloist of his international stature has done as much for con - temporary composers in the past 30 years. An exceptionally prolific recording artist,

s Mr. Kremer has made more than 120 albums, t r a n

i many of which brought him prestigious inter - L

s t

r national awards and prizes in recognition of his e b l

A exceptional interpretative powers. These include the Grand Prix du Disque; the Deutscher Of all the world’s leading violinists, Gidon Schallplattenpreis; the Ernst-von-Siemens Kremer perhaps has the most unconventional Musikpreis (1982); the Bundesverdienstkreuz; career. Born in Riga, , he began studying the first Accademia Musicale Chigiana Prize at the age of four with his father and grandfa - (1982); the Triumph Prize (2000); the Unesco ther, who were both distinguished string play - Prize (2001); the Saeculum-Glashütte Original- ers. At age seven, he entered Riga Music Musikfestspiel-Preis Dresden (2007); the Rolf School. At 16 years old, he was awarded the Schock Prize (2008); a life achievement prize in first Prize of the Latvian Republic, and two the Istanbul Music Festival (2010); and the Una years later he began his studies with David Vita Nella Musica/Artur Rubinstein Prize Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. He (2011), which is considered by many to be the went on to win prestigious awards, including “Nobel Prize” of music. the 1967 Queen Elizabeth Competition and In 2001, Mr. Kremer and the Kremerata the first prize in both Paganini and Baltica were awarded a Grammy Award for Tchaikovsky international competitions. the Nonesuch recording After Mozart in the This success launched Mr. Kremer’s distin - category Best Small Ensemble Performance. guished career, in the course of which he has In fall 2002, the same recording received an established a worldwide reputation as one of ECHO prize in Germany. the most original and compelling artists of his In 2009, t he EMI Classics CD The Berlin generation. He has appeared on virtually every Recital with and works by major concert stage with the most celebrated Schumann and Bartók was released, as well as of Europe and America, and he has an album with the complete Mozart violin con - collaborated with today’s foremost conductors. certos, a live recording with the label Nonesuch, Mr. Kremer’s repertoire is unusually exten - recorded with at Salzburg sive, encompassing all of the standard classical Festival 2006. His latest CD, De Profundis , was and romantic violin works, as well as music by published in September 2010 , also with

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Nonesuch. Mr. Kremer actively collaborates as competition s in 2011 at age 20. Combining well with the ECM label, which released his last consummate technique with rare sensitivity recording of J. S. Bach’s complete sonatas and and depth, his performances are a perpetual partitas. The most recent releases are an album source of awe. “He has everything and of piano trios with Khatia Buniatishvili and more,…tenderness and also the demonic ele - Giedre Dirvanauskaite and a CD set of ment. I never heard anything like that,” stated Lockenhaus live recordings celebrating the 30 pianist Martha Argerich, while The Financial years of the unique Lockenhaus festival, Times observed, “What makes him such a which Mr. Kremer relinquished in 2011. phenomenon is the ecstatic quality he brings In 1997, he founded the Kremerata Baltica to his performances. … Small wonder every Chamber Orchestra to foster outstanding Western capital is in thrall to him.” young musicians from the three Baltic states. Mr. Trifonov launched the 2014–2015 sea - Since then, Mr. Kremer has been touring ex - son with the Seattle Symphony, making his tensively with the Kremerata Baltica, appear - début in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, ing at the world’s most prestigious festivals which is also the vehicle for his upcoming and concert halls. He has also recorded almost Japanese tour with the Mariinsky Orchestra 25 CDs with the Kremerata Baltica for the and . For first appearances with music labels Teldec, Nonesuch, DG, and the Dallas Symphony and returns to the New ECM. From 2002 to 2006, Mr. Kremer was York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the artistic leader of Les Muséiques Festival in London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, he per - Basel, Switzerland. forms the first concerto of Rachmaninoff, Mr. Kremer plays a Nicola Amati violin, dated whose orchestral output continues to figure from 1641. He is also the author of four books, prominently in the pianist’s programming; he published in German and translated into many also plays the second concerto with the Vienna languages, which reflect his artistic pursuits. Symphony; the third with Washington’s National Symphony and London’s Philharmonia; and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Atlanta Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, and for his Toronto Symphony début. Mr. Trifonov joins the for Shostakovich’s first concerto, and plays Chopin on European tours with the Kremerata Baltica and Philharmonia Orchestra. With a solo recital program of Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt, he tours a host of key venues, including London’s Royal Festival Hall, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in , Tokyo’s Opera City, Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica, and New York’s , for the third consecutive year. Mr. Trifonov also returns to the

a New York venue’s main stage as the culmina - t s o c tion of a nine-city U.S. duo recital tour in A o i r partnership with Grammy Award-winning vi - a D olinist Gidon Kremer. Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov (Dan- eel Last season saw the release of Daniil Tree -fon-ov) has made a spectacular ascent to Trifonov: The Carnegie Recital , the pianist’s stardom since winning First first recording as an exclusive Deutsche Prize at both the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein Grammophon artist. Captured live at his

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS sold-out 2013 Carnegie Hall recital début, Elizabeth Hall, Amsterdam’s which showcased “his uncommon technical (Master Piano Series), Berlin’s Philharmonie (the gifts and poetic sensibility” ( New York Times ), Kammermusiksaal), Munich’s Herkulessaal, the album’s release coincided with his return Bavaria’s Schloss Elmau, Zurich’s Tonhalle, the to Carnegie’s main stage one year later. Further Lucerne Piano Festival, the Palais des Beaux-Arts recital engagements took the pianist from in , the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Chicago to London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and the Seoul Arts Center. Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, and other inter - As an exclusive national musical hotspots, and he collaborated artist, Mr. Trifonov’s future plans with the with 19 of the world’s foremost orchestras, in - label include recording Rachmaninoff’s com - cluding the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the plete piano concertos. His discography also symphony orchestras of Washington, San features a Chopin album for Decca and a Francisco, and London, where his account of recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Chopin’s F minor concerto prompted The No. 1 with Mr. Gergiev and the Mariinsky Times to hail him as “an artist of breathtaking Orchestra on the ensemble’s own label. poise and theatricality.” This past summer the It was during the 2010–2011 season that pianist toured with the Israel Philharmonic, Mr. Trifonov won medals at three of the music and made high-profile festival appearances in world’s most prestigious competitions, taking Edinburgh, Verbier, and Lucerne. Third Prize in Warsaw’s Chopin Competition, In 2012–2013, Mr. Trifonov made débuts First Prize in ’s Rubinstein with all of the “big five” orchestras—the New Competition, and both First Prize and Grand York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Prix—an additional honor bestowed on the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and best overall competitor in any category—in —and with European Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. ensembles including Rome’s Orchestra Born in in 1991 , dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Mr. Trifonov began his musical training at the London’s Royal Philharmonic. He made solo age of five, and went on to attend Moscow’s recital débuts at Carnegie Hall, London’s Gnessin School of Music as a student of Tatiana Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Japan’s Zelikman, before pursuing his piano studies Suntory Hall, and the Salle Pleyel in Paris, with at the Cleveland Institute while summer brought triumphs at the Verbier of Music. He has also studied composition and and Edinburgh festivals and in his BBC Proms continues to write for piano, chamber ensem - début at London’s . In 2013, ble, and orchestra. When he premièred his own he was also awarded the prestigious Franco piano concerto last spring, The Cleveland Plain Abbiati Prize for Best Instrumental Soloist by Dealer marveled: “Even having seen it, one can - Italy’s foremost music critics. not quite believe it. Such is the artistry of Recent recitals have also taken Mr. Trifonov pianist-composer Daniil Trifonov.” to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., This evening’s concert is Mr. Trifonov’s Cal Boston’s Celebrity Series, London’s Queen Performances début.

PLAYBILL