Sunday, March 8, 2015, 3pm Hertz Hall David Finckel, , piano

PROGRAM

Russian Reflections

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, Op. 119 (1949)

I. Andante grave II. Moderato III. Allegro ma non troppo

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40 (1934)

I. Allegro non troppo II. Allegro III. Largo IV. Allegro

INTERMISSION

PLAYBILL PROGRAM

Aleksandr Skryabin (1872–1915) Five Préludes for Solo Piano, Op. 16 (1894–1895)

No. 1 in B major No. 2 in G-sharp minor No. 3 in G-flat major No. 4 in E-flat minor No. 5 in F-sharp minor

Serge Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 19 (1901)

I. Lento — Allegro moderato II. Allegro scherzando III. Andante IV. Allegro mosso

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Kathleen G. Henschel and John W. Dewes. Hamburg Steinway piano provided by Steinway & Sons, San Francisco. Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES

RUSSIAN REFLECTIONS Prokofiev in Moscow for the remainder of his life. The late 1930s saw very few public débuts We are delighted to present a program of of Prokofiev’s works, save the Cello Concerto, music that is alternately grand, nostalgic, mys - Op. 58 (1938), and Romeo and Juliet (1936), tical, and earthy—a recital in which cello and both met with negative criticism. piano tell the gripping story of Russian music In the years following World War II, seek - of the 20th century. Culminating in ing to recover the Soviet “socialist realism” Rachmaninoff’s ultra-romantic cello sonata, a ideal of art, Andrey Zhdanov, the leading masterpiece of the repertoire, the program Soviet cultural policy maker, passed a series of showcases the styles of four of Russia’s most resolutions affecting literature, art, film, and, beloved composers, with Prokofiev’s stately finally, in 1948, music. This decree stunted and lyrical sonata opening the great gates to artistic growth in the Soviet Union until the vast Russian landscape. The groundbreak - Stalin’s death, lasting out the remaining years ing sonata by Shostakovich, composed on the of Prokofiev’s life. The elderly composer grew eve of some of his most controversial musical ill and deeply insecure. Much of his work had creations, quickly took its place among the been banned from public performance, and pantheon of cello sonatas, championed world - though still composing, he hardly was living wide by the great Rostropovich. This unusual the pampered lifestyle he had anticipated re - recital program also features the voice of the turning to Russia. solo piano in a short work by one of the in - Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, re - strument’s most innovative masters, markably, was permitted by the Committee of Aleksandr Skryabin, whose sublime Op. 16 Artistic Affairs to receive a public première. It Préludes connect the language of Tchaikovsky was débuted in 1950 by cellist Mstislav with the coming age of modernism. Rostropovich and pianist Sviatsoslav Richter, with the first movement bearing the quote, David Finckel and Wu Han “Mankind—that has a proud sound.” Despite the sheer horror that besieged Prokofiev at the time of the work’s composition, Sergey Prokofiev (GNOG–GOKI) the work remains remarkably expressive. The Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, first movement, marked Andante grave , opens Op. GGO (GOJO) with a resounding call by the cello, followed by a short call-and-response folk melody between In 1936, after nearly 15 years spent living in the cello and piano. A throbbing interlude Paris and traveling worldwide, Sergey brings the main theme, a cheery and flippant Prokofiev, admittedly “patriotic and homesick” duet. The movement slows as the cello rings and longing to “see the real winter again and out a beautiful harmonic cadence, and the sec - hear the Russian language in my ears,” moved ond theme enters much more heavily mechan - back to the Soviet Union with his non-Russian ically than the first. wife and two sons. Relocating during one of The second movement, a playful Scherzo the most savage political and social periods in and Trio, follows suit. A percussive pizzicato Russian history, Prokofiev was set on estab - entrance transmutes to a complacent roman - lishing himself as one of Russia’s greatest com - tic trio section. The final Allegro ma non tanto posers. Rachmaninoff had his hold on remains timid, with melodies and chordal America, Stravinsky claimed Europe, and structure based heavily on Russian folk music. Shostakovich had just been censored by Stalin. The movement lacks neither energy nor drive, Prokofiev kept his passport to tour without yet each climax, rather than developing in tim - having to petition, but upon routine inspection bre and expressive nature, actually becomes it was confiscated without return, grounding more simplistic; sometimes diminishing down

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES to a single note piano melody. The coda re - They’d live there, deep below the piano counts the opening resonant notes of the cello keys in Moscow. Nina could stay in in a grand duet statement, marking a turbu - Leningrad…. Therefore, Opus 40 , and lent and virtuosic conclusion. in particular the first movement, com - posed of firelight and kisses, remains © QOPR Andrew Goldstein the most romantic thing that Shostakovich ever wrote.

Dmitry Shostakovich (GOFL–GOMK) Shostakovich and Nina separated, and the Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, composer, as Vollman alludes, remained in Op. JF (GOIJ) Moscow with no definite plans to follow his wife back to Leningrad. It was during this While interpreting the events of a composer’s time that work on the Cello Sonata began. By life as impetus for his creative work is always 1935, however, Nina was pregnant with the risky business, one important personal devel - Shostakoviches’ first child, and the marriage opment from Shostakovich’s life around the essentially righted itself (which did not pre - time of his Cello Sonata nevertheless remains clude later extramarital affairs by both Dmitry inescapable. In summer 1934, Shostakovich and Nina). Shortly after the affair ended, fell passionately in love with Yelena Konstaninovskaya received an anonymous Konstaninovskaya, a 20-year-old translator. political denunciation and spent roughly a Much to the dismay of his wife Nina (despite year in prison. their mutual agreement to an open marriage), Shostakovich composed the Cello Sonata the composer spent the majority of their sum - for the cellist Viktor Kubatsky, an esteemed mer holiday writing letter to his young mis - cellist and one-time principal at the Bolshoi tress. “There is nothing in you which fails to Theater. Shostakovich, also an able pianist, send a wave of joy and fierce passion inside me subsequently toured with Kubatsky, pre - when I think of you,” he wrote. “Lyalya, I love mièring his Cello Sonata in Leningrad on you so, I love you so, as nobody ever loved be - Christmas Day 1934, alongside the cello fore. My love, my gold, my dearest, I love you sonatas of Grieg and Rachmaninoff. The com - so; I lay down my love before you.” poser reportedly performed the piano parts to William T. Vollman dedicates a chapter of all three works from memory. his epic novel Europe Central to the tempting— albeit improbable—influence of the affair with © QOOU Patrick Castillo Konstaninovskaya on the music of the Cello Sonata. Though rooted in fancy, Vollman’s poetic assessment of the work nevertheless Aleksandr Skryabin (GNMH–GOGK) speaks to its lyrical pathos and sense of ro - Five Préludes for Solo Piano, Op. GL mantic abandon: (GNOJ–GNOK)

Each of Shostakovich’s symphonies I A student of the Moscow Conservatory along - consider to be a multiply broken side the likes of Serge Rachmaninoff and bridge, an archipelago of steel trailing Alexander Goldenweiser, the pianist and com - off into the river. Opus 40 , however, is poser Aleksandr Skryabin struggled greatly to a house with four rooms. … [He] built compose, enduring massive anxiety attacks for Opus 40 for her and him to dwell in, much of the 1890s. With the sup port of the and she led him inside. They were conservatory’s director, Vasily Safonov, going to have an apartment with a dark Skryabin was permitted to graduate early (in passageway, then steps and half-steps. the same year as Rachmaninoff), although his

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES mentor, Anton Arensky, who had been work - summer 1901 on the family’s country estate ing closely with Skryabin on counterpoint and Ivanovka in the Tambov region, several days’ fugue, was adamantly against his departure. travel to the south of Moscow. Nevertheless, Skryabin graduated from the To judge by his letters, it was only after he conservatory, and through Safonov’s support returned to Moscow in late September that he was soon contacted by Mitrofan Belyayev, an began to work on the sonata, the performance Imperial Russian music publisher in Moscow. of which was already planned. The Sonata for Through Belyayev’s connections, Skryabin Cello and Piano, Op. 19, was composed in the was given opportunity to tour Russia in 1894, fall and early winter of 1901 for the cellist and was sent to Paris in 1895. Compo - Anatoly Brandukov. Toward the end of the last sitionally, during this period, Skryabin de - movement, Rachmaninoff wrote the date voted himself almost entirely to composing “November 20th.” At the very end he wrote préludes toward an outstanding bet he had “December 12th,” showing that he revised the made with Belyayev that he could compose 48 ending immediately after the first perform - préludes before departing for Paris; it was to ance. The work débuted in Moscow, on fulfill this bet that Skryabin composed his December 2, 1901, by Anatoly Brandukov, Twenty-Four Préludes, Op. 11, and Five with the composer at the piano. Préludes, Op. 16. By mid-November he was crying off social The first of the Op. 16 Préludes paints a engagements, complaining that “my work’s heavily romantic dreamscape. Like a wind-up going badly, and there’s not much time left. music box, it is as if Skryabin leads us to ques - I’m depressed….” On Novembe r 30, however, tion whether the next note will actually come, he sent a message to the composer Taneyev or whether it will leave us in an airy suspense. inviting him to a rehearsal at 11:30 that morn - Far more decisive than is the following ing. By the following January 15 he was hard prélude, in G-sharp minor: The work carries a at work on the final proofs of the piece: “I’ve depth in the left hand reminiscent of Franz found almost no mistakes.” Liszt, whom Skryabin deeply admired. The In later years, Rachmaninoff remembered third and fourth préludes alternate between a his cello sonata as one of a series of pieces hymn-like chordal melody and a dainty right- through which, with the help of Dr. Nikolai hand melody, which recalls the first prélude’s Dahl, after a long period of depression and sensibility. The set concludes with a brief, yet inability to create, he was born again as a fulfilling Allegretto in F-sharp minor. composer: “I felt that Dr. Dahl’s treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a © QOPR Andrew Goldstein miraculous degree…. The joy of creating lasted the next two years, and I wrote a num - Serge Rachmaninoff (GNMI–GOJI) ber of large and small pieces, including the Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Sonata for Cello.” Op. GO (GOFG) © Gerard McBurney In the wake of the successful completion of his Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff spent

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e i r a M - a s i L

USICAL AMERICA ’s 2012 Musicians of the which has served as a model for numerous MYear, cellist David Finckel and pianist independent labels. All 16 ArtistLed recordings, Wu Han rank among the most esteemed and including the recent Dvořák piano trios, have influential classical musicians in the world met with critical acclaim and are available via today. The talent, energy, imagination, and the company’s website at www.artistled.com. dedication they bring to their multifaceted en - The duo’s repertoire spans virtually the en - deavors as concert performers, recording tire literature for cello and piano, with an equal artists, educators, artistic administrators, and emphasis on the classics and the contempo - cultural entrepreneurs go unmatched. Their raries. Their commitment to new music has duo performances have garnered superlatives brought commissioned works by many of from the press, public, and presenters alike. today’s leading composers to audiences around In high demand year after year among the world. In 2010 , the duo released For David chamber music audiences worldwide, the duo and Wu Han (ArtistLed), an album of four con - has appeared each season at the most presti - temporary works for cello and piano expressly gious venues and concert series across the composed for them. In 2011, Summit Records United States, Mexico, Canada, the Far East, released a recording of the duo performing and Europe to unanimous critical acclaim. In Gabriela Lena Frank’s concerto, Compadrazgo , addition to his duo activities, Mr. Finckel with the ProMusica Columbus Chamber served as cellist of the Grammy Award- Orchestra. Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu have also winning for 34 years. overseen the establishment and design of the Aside from their distinction as world-class Chamber Music Society of ’s performers, Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu have es - CMS Studio Recordings label, including the tablished a reputation for their dynamic and Society’s recording partnership with Deutsche innovative approach to the recording studio. Grammophon, as well as Music@Menlo Live, In 1997, Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu launched which has been praised as a “the most ambi - ArtistLed, ’s first musician-di - tious recording project of any classical music rected and Internet-based recording company, festival in the world” ( San Jose Mercury News ).

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Now in their third term as Artistic Lincoln Center, Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu di - Directors of the Chamber Music Society of rect the LG Chamber Music School, which Lincoln Center, Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu hold provides workshops to young artists in Korea. the longest tenure as directors since Charles In 2012, Mr. Finckel was named honoree and Wadsworth, the founding Artistic Director. Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn They are also the founders and Artistic Fellowship, a program established to identify Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music young Korean musicians and promote cham - festival and institute in Silicon Valley, soon ber music in . In 2013, Mr. Finckel to celebrate its twelfth season, that has gar - and Ms. Wu established a chamber music stu - nered international acclaim. Additionally, dio at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu are Artistic Directors Mr. Finckel serves as Professor of Cello at the of Chamber Music Today, an annual festival , as well as Artist-in-Residence held in , Korea. at . Mr. Finckel and Mr. Finckel and Ms. Wu have achieved uni - Ms. Wu reside in New York. versal renown for their passionate commit - David Finckel and Wu Han appear by ment to nurturing the careers of countless arrangement with David Rowe Artists and are young artists through a wide array of educa - represented by Milina Barry PR. Mr. Finckel tion initiatives. For many years, the duo taught and Ms. Wu’s recordings are available exclu - alongside the late at sively on ArtistLed. Wu Han performs on the and the Jerusalem Music Center. Under the Steinway piano. To learn more, visit auspices of the Chamber Music Society of www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com.

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