David Finckel & Wu Han: Russian Revelry

A DUO OF THE MOST ESTEEMED CLASSICAL MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD

When it comes to the greatest chamber musician pairings, few can hold a candle to the incomparable powerhouse duo of the esteemed cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han! Indefatigable titans of American chamber music as the artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004, and Music@Menlo founders and artistic directors since 2002, this irrepressible husband and wife team (like our own artistic directors) are rock stars of the chamber music world. Their exquisite lyricism, superb virtuosity, theatrical flair, and musical insight will make for an evening of simply unforgettable mid-century Russian music.

“There was a sense of absolute certainty in the way cellist and pianist completed each other’s sentences, yet their long familiarity with each other’s musical responses did not rob their performances of freshness, spontaneity or directness…this was deep, life-giving music. The playing of both was polished, even breathtakingly virtuosic.”

— Chicago Tribune

 

The Old Church
Thursday, 2/6 • 7:30 pm PT

Program

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

NIKOLAI MYASKOVSKY Cello Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 81

NIKOLAI MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950) Cello Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 81 (1948-1949)
         
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante cantabile
III. Allegro con spirito

“Myaskovsky in music represented the phenomenon of inner emigration, a form of spiritual resistance to a suppressive regime.”

— Musicologist Iosif Genrikhovich Rayskin

In 1906, at the age of 25, Nikolai Myaskovsky entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory to study with Anatoly Lyadov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. When he graduated in 1911, Myaskovsky had finished the first of his 27 symphonies—he later became known as “the father of the Soviet Symphony.” While at the conservatory, Myaskovsky befriended classmate Sergei Prokofiev, and the two men built a friendship that lasted until Myaskovsky’s death in 1950.

In 1921, Myaskovsky became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory and a member of the Composer’s Union. Over the next 15–20 years, Myaskovsky was the foremost Soviet composer working within traditional musical norms and structures; his symphonies were often performed in Europe and the United States. Stylistically, Myaskovsky endeavored to maintain a non-controversial musical profile without compromising his artistic integrity.

On February 10, 1948, the Soviet Union’s director of cultural policy, Andrei Zhdanov, denounced the music of Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, among others. Myaskovsky was also criticized for his teaching and was censured for introducing “inharmonious music into the Soviet educational system.” All the composers were accused of “formalist perversions and antidemocratic tendencies in music, alien to the Soviet people and its artistic tastes.”

The Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 81 is Myaskovsky’s response to Zhdanov’s accusations. Its straightforward simplicity reflects the Communist Party’s penchant for indigenous folk tunes that elevate Russian peasant dances and songs. Within these parameters, however, Myaskovsky expresses profound emotion, poignant melodies, and a life-long dedication to the art of composition.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

SERGEI PROKOFIEV Cello Sonata in C Major, Op. 119

SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953) Cello Sonata in C Major, Op. 119 (1949)

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

After Sergei Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union permanently in 1936, he found himself subject to artistic pressures from Stalin’s regime. Prokofiev did not suffer this hostile scrutiny alone; all leading Soviet composers, artists, and writers came under the same cold microscope, and the consequences for flouting Stalin’s cultural diktats were severe. Between 1936–38, scores of Russian artists, along with thousands of ordinary Russians, were “disappeared”—executed outright or imprisoned in gulags.

Despite these repressive policies, Prokofiev continued to write. In 1949, he submitted his Cello Sonata, Op. 119 to the Composer’s Union for approval. Op. 119 was written for and dedicated to the phenomenally gifted cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who performed it on two separate occasions with pianist Sviatoslav Richter for the Union’s membership. Richter recalled, “During this period, more than any other, [the Composer’s Union] needed to work out whether Prokofiev had produced a new masterpiece, or conversely, a piece that was ‘hostile to the spirit of the people.’”

In each of its four movements, Prokofiev’s melodies, rhythms, and harmonies are clear, direct, and more overtly tonal than in his earlier works. Each instrument collaborates equally—the cello showcases its lower range, where its richest timbres lie, while the piano alternates between chordal accompaniments and bold melodic declarations.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)  Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19

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

In late spring of 1901, Sergei Rachmaninoff managed to complete his Piano Concerto No. 2 after enduring a long period of paralyzing depression. “I did nothing and found no pleasure in anything,” Rachmaninoff wrote in his Memoirs. “Half my days were spent lying on a couch and sighing over my ruined life.” In desperation, Rachmaninoff sought help from Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who was also an amateur string player. Dahl, using hypnotic techniques, planted encouraging thoughts in Rachmaninoff’s mind during their sessions. “I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in my armchair in Dr. Dahl’s study: ‘You will begin to write ... You will work with great facility ... It was always the same, without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me.”

Freed at last from his mental demons, Rachmaninoff began writing his Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 19 for cellist Anatoly Brandukov in the autumn of 1901. The two men premiered it in Moscow on December 2 of that year.

“I felt that Dr. Dahl’s treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a miraculous degree,” Rachmaninoff recalled some years later. “The joy of creating lasted the next two years, and I wrote a number of large and small pieces including the Sonata for Cello…”

As a child, Rachmaninoff attended Russian Orthodox church services regularly. There he absorbed the sound of the monastic chants used in the church liturgy. These melodies are characterized by a narrow range—usually no more than an octave—and stepwise motion, qualities that shape the expressive melodies and countermelodies of Op. 19.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

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