Protégé Spotlight Recital: Jonah Ellsworth, Cello

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our 2026 Protégé Cellist Jonah Ellsworth is already making his mark on the world of chamber music. A recent graduate of New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music, he has won critical acclaim for both his solo performances and those with orchestras across the nation. He is a member of the renowned Boston Trio, the Boston Symphony, and Germany’s Leipzig Gewandhaus. Welcome Jonah as he makes his CMNW debut performing some of his favorite works by Brahms, Eugène Ysaÿe, and Paul Hindemith—and meet him after his recital!

PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Recital Hall
Tuesday, 7/7 • 12:00 pm

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Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

PAUL HINDEMITH “Phantasiestück,” Op. 8, No. 2

PAUL HINDEMITH (1895–1963) Phantasiestück, Op. 8, No. 2

In 1917, German composer Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) found himself on the verge of his first big career breakthrough. That year, the 21-year-old rising star not only became the concertmaster of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra but also composed his first published work: the Three Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 8.

At the end of that exciting year, however, Hindemith was drafted into the Imperial German Army, an experience that would radically shake his perspective going forward. He emerged from the war believing the time had come for a hard break from the musical past. “The composer today should write only if he knows for what purpose he is writing,” as he later described. “The days of composing only for the sake of composing are perhaps gone forever.”

As a result of this change in perspective, Hindemith never published most of his pre-war music, considering it not representative of his mature style. Thus, the Opus 8 pieces for cello and piano offer a unique opportunity to experience the peak of his early output before he moved on to his post-war point of view. The Phantasiestück, Op. 8, No. 2, with its dramatic left-hand piano arpeggios, especially shows the young Hindemith’s interest in the music of Johannes Brahms. In this exquisite composition’s soaring cello melodies, we can hear a last gasp of Romanticism before it became subsumed by the forces of war, progress, and modernity.

—© Ethan Allred

EUGÈNE YSAŸE Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 28

EUGÈNE YSAŸE (1858–1931) Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 28
   
I. Grave. Lento e sempre sostenuto
II. Intermezzo. Poco allegretto e grazioso
III. In modo di recitativo. Adagio
IV. Finale con brio. Allegro Tempo fermo

Although Eugène Ysaÿe is known for his virtuosity on the violin, he apparently also studied the cello in his youth, and maintained a great love for the cello’s sound. In fact, his compositions for cello comprise the second largest number of pieces in his catalogue (after those for violin, of course!). This Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 28 was composed around the same time as his solo violin sonatas, and the similarities are certainly audible. What is perhaps more striking about this infrequently performed work is Ysaÿe’s real grasp of cello technique and idiom. It is a difficult work, to be sure—on par with the violin sonatas—which may explain why so few cellists perform it regularly. However, it possesses a rich, dark beauty that accents the existing charm of the cello’s depth, making it a great choice for advanced cellists in search of a 20th-century solo work.

—© Courtesy of www.sharmusic.com

BRAHMS Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99

BRAHMS (1833-1897) Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99
   
I. Allegro vivace
II. Adagio affettuoso
III. Allegro passionato
IV. Allegro molto

Thirty years before Hindemith wrote his Opus 8, musical Romanticism had just entered its climactic phase. Richard Wagner, one of the leading figures of the middle or High Romantic period, had died in 1883. A new generation including composers like Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss took charge, pushing beyond previously imagined limits of chromaticism, harmony, and expressivity.

Despite the changes happening around him, the other leading figure of German High Romanticism, Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), remained committed to his own musical journey. The summer of 1886 found Brahms in the calm retreat town of Hofstetten, Switzerland, surrounded by mountains, streams, and a 12th-century castle. Brahms spent a relaxing summer in Hofstetten composing, hiking, smoking cigars, drinking coffee, and spending time with friends.

Musically, that summer proved quite productive, as Brahms finished two violin sonatas, a piano trio, several songs, and the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99. He wrote the cello sonata for his friend Robert Hausmann, cellist of the Joachim String Quartet, who performed the premiere with Brahms on piano after the composer returned to Vienna in the fall.

The other key muse who inspired much of Brahms’s music that summer was Hermine Spies, a young contralto who had performed many of his songs lately. While the two clearly shared an infatuation with one another, it remained unrequited, reflecting Brahms’s desire to protect his independence by avoiding romantic entanglements.

Brahms’s second cello sonata unfolds in four brilliant movements, described at the time by Austrian music critic Eduard Hanslick as “fiery to the point of vehemence, now defiantly challenging, now painfully lamenting.” Indeed, Hanslick wasn’t the only one to find this music challenging; Arnold Schoenberg lovingly described the opening Allegro vivace as “indigestible” to audiences, even at the time of Brahms’s death. Today, this music continues to challenge listeners to keep up with Brahms’s constantly evolving harmonies and the bounding, unsettled quality of its main theme.

The sonata’s slow movement, marked Adagio affettuoso, remains harmonically unsettled, although the gentle cello melody offers a welcome source of respite. The Allegro passionato third movement begins and ends with an eerie scherzo, which surrounds a more wistful middle section. Brahms concludes the sonata with a rondo marked Allegro molto, in which a rustic main theme alternates with a variety of musical departures. This relatively brief movement packs in a wide range of ideas, resolving any lingering unease from the earlier movements and bringing the sonata to an emphatic close.

—© Ethan Allred

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