David Finckel, Cello Wu Han, Piano

Sunday, January 20, 2019, 3pm Hertz Hall David Finckel, cello Wu Han, piano Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Sonata No. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano, Op. 69 (1807–08) Allegro ma non tanto Scherzo: Allegro molto Adagio cantabile – Allegro vivace Johannes BRAHMS (1833–1897) Sonata No. 1 in E minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 38 (1862–65) Allegro non troppo Allegretto quasi Menuetto Allegro INTERMISSION Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809–1847) Sonata No. 2 in D Major for Cello and Piano, Op. 58 (1843) Allegro assai vivace Allegretto scherzando Adagio Molto allegro e vivace David Finckel and Wu Han recordings are available exclusively through ArtistLed (www.artistled.com). Artist website: www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com Wu Han performs on the Steinway Piano. Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. Opposite: Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco. PROGRAM NOTES German Mastery fered the composer a guaranteed annual Together, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes stipend to remain in Vienna. It is thought that Brahms, and Felix Mendelssohn represent the the dedication of the sonata was a gesture of peak of mastery in the German Classical and thanks to Gleichenstein. Aer the agreement Romantic traditions, and each composer wrote was signed, Beethoven asked Gleichenstein to significant works for cello and piano duo in help him find a wife. their respective pinnacle years. e sonatas A year aer the work was completed, Bee - featured in this program, as selected by David thoven complained that the sonata “had not yet Finckel and Wu Han, represent some of the been well performed in public.” e first record most important, celebrated, and masterfully of a performance is from 1812, when the work craed pieces in the duo repertoire. From Bee - was played by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny thoven’s incredibly lyrical Op. 69 sonata, com - and Joseph Linke, the cellist who would later posed at the height of the Classical period, give the first performance of the Op. 102 so na - to Brahms’ soulfully vocal Sonata in E minor, tas. Linke was the cellist of the Razumov sky whose beloved fugue pays homage to J. S. Bach, Quartet, which premiered many of Be etho ven’s the master of counterpoint, the program string quartets. traverses the German tradition of consummate Aer presenting the first movement’s noble crasmanship in artistry. Concluding with theme alone, the cello rests on a low note while Mendelssohn’s exhilarating Op. 58 sonata, the piano continues to a cadenza. e music is which oozes an affectingly ebullient character then repeated with the roles reversed, the cello that epitomizes the era of German Romanti - playing an ascending cadenza marked dolce. cism, this thrilling program is a tour de force e mood is rudely broken by a ferocious ver - survey of some of the most revered treasures of sion of the theme in minor that quickly dissi - the cello and piano duo literature. pates to allow for the entrance of the second subject, a beautiful combination of a rising scale Ludwig van Beethoven (cello) against a falling arpeggio (piano). e Sonata No. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano, cello and piano continue trading motifs, each Op. 69 repeating what the other has just played. A One of the greatest works in the cello literature, heroic closing theme is the culmination of the Beethoven composed the Sonata in A Major in section and a brief, contemplative recollection the midst of one of his most phenomenally of the opening motif leads to the repeat of the prolific periods, a period that also birthed the exposition. Fih and Sixth Symphonies, the Fourth Piano e development explores even more in - Con certo, the Choral Fantasy, and the Op. 70 credible worlds, turning through mysterious, piano trios. e new prominence of the cello, rhapsodic, stormy, soaring, and mystical sound the sweeping use of the instrument’s range, and worlds before reaching the recapitulation, the long, singing lines in the A-Major Sonata where the cello plays the theme in its original all herald the full flowering of the cello’s role form against triplet decorations in the piano. in Beethoven’s compositions. e earliest e coda is thoughtful, and an extended chro - sketches of the work appeared in 1807, among matic buildup leads to a heroic statement of those for the Fih Symphony; Beethoven com - the theme. Aer some dreamy, languishing pleted the sonata in Vienna in the spring of music almost dies away, Beethoven finishes this 1808 at the age of 38. great movement with a surprise forte. Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Baron e extraordinary scherzo movement is the Ignaz von Gleichenstein, an amateur cellist and only appearance of a scherzo (meaning “joke”) one of Beethoven’s closest friends and advisers in all five cello sonatas. e music begins on the between 1807 and 1810. Gleichenstein helped upbeat, and the 3-1 rhythm never ceases, even to organize a consortium of sponsors who of - in the happier trio section. Although there are PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES many clever exchanges, the incessant, manic Rhine Music Festival in Cologne, and spent energy leaves the distinct impression that this the following weeks on holiday with the con - scherzo is no joke. ductor and composer Albert Dietrich and Clara A short Adagio cantabile , a beautiful song for Schu mann, Robert Schumann’s widow. e va - both instruments, relieves the nervousness of cation was a happy one: Brahms and Dietrich the scherzo. A moment of hesitation leads to the spent the days hiking and composing; in the quiet, almost surreptitious appearance of the evenings, Clara—one of her generation’s great - final Allegro vivace. e theme, though happy est pianists and a gied composer in her own like its predecessors in the earlier sonatas, is right—would play. more lyrical and has greater emotional depth. Brahms revered Bach above all composers (it It introduces a movement in which the com - can be safely surmised that he was aware of the poser employs virtuosity not as an end in itself, Baroque composer’s cello suites while compos - but as a means of creating internal excitement. ing his own cello sonatas) and paid homage to e second subject presents a difference of him with the E-minor Sonata. e principal opinion between cello and piano, the cello theme of the first movement resembles in shape singing a short phrase, the piano responding and mood the fugal subject of Bach’s Die Kunst with percussive eighth notes. e development der Fuge (e Art of Fugue), and the fugal section is mostly wild, with flying scales and subject of the third movement directly quotes pounding octaves. Approaching the recapitula - from the same work’s Contrapunctus XIII. tion, Beethoven employs the basic materials Neverthe less, in his late twenties and early of the movement: the rhythmic eighth-note thirties, Brahms—the young Romantic—had accompaniment is combined with chromati - already established his voice with such confi - cism, grasping for the main theme. e coda is dence that despite the explicit nod to a past full of thoughtfulness and pathos. ere is a master, the language of this sonata is unmis - sense of reflection amidst excitement, of Bee - takably his own. thoven yearning to be understood, yet with sat - An insistent, syncopated piano accompani - isfaction denied. Aer a series of repeatedly ment underscores the cello’s brooding opening unsuccessful attempts to reach the home key, melody, creating a feeling of inner agitation. A Major is finally attained, as the eighth-note is tension culminates as the cello ascends to melody accelerates to frenzied sixteenth notes. its upper register, and as the piano assumes the e ending is triumphant, as Beethoven ham - theme, the first of a series of heated arguments mers his point home, the cello repeating the between the two instruments begins. A yet first bar of the theme over and over again with more impassioned dialogue follows, ushering the piano pounding out the eighth-note ac - in the second subject. Commentary on the companiment (“I will not give up!”). two cello sonatas of Brahms oen makes note — © David Finckel of the inherent problems of sonic balance in pairing cello with piano (as dense keyboard Johannes Brahms textures easily drown out the cello’s middle reg - Sonata No. 1 in E minor for Cello and Piano, ister). roughout this opening Allegro non Op. 38 troppo, Brahms makes a virtue of the challenge, Brahms composed the first two movements oen pitting the two instruments as combatants of the Cello Sonata No. 1 (his first work for a in contentious dialogue. e development solo instrument with piano) while in his late section avoids danger as well, exploiting the twenties. By this time, Brahms had already extremes of the cello’s range to symphonic re - composed a great deal of chamber music and sults. e conflict dissipates with the appear - become sufficiently well versed in the nuances ance of cascading triplets in the piano, and of writing for individual instruments. In the aer a full recapitulation, the movement ends summer of 1862, Brahms visited the Lower serenely in E Major. PROGRAM NOTES Although composed before Brahms’ move to to Leipzig, where they had previously spent the Vienna, the second movement minuet parleys years 1835–1840, during which time, Mendels - a distinct Viennese flavor: exuberant, but with sohn scholar R. Larry Todd notes, the com - a tinge of darkness more evocative of Mahler poser, still in his 20s, “stood at the forefront of than of the waltzes of Johann Strauss. e heart German music.” Hence in 1840, as part of a of the movement is the divine trio section, sweeping attempt to install Berlin among which departs from the key of A minor to the Europe’s major cultural capitals, the recently even more mysterious, remote tonality of ascendant Friedrich Wilhelm IV had lured F-sharp minor.

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