From the Vault

Ready for Rachmaninoff

I’d been asked several times over the years to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, Op. 9, but never felt it was a piece I wanted to play. Sometimes that kind of feeling never changes, but in this case, on track with my ever-increasing appreciation and re-thinking of Rachmaninoff, when asked by Salt Bay Chamberfest Music Director (and dear friend) Wilhelmina Smith, I felt ready and jumped at the chance.

What an experience it has been to study this collosal work, and to attempt to reconcile its inner workings and contradictions. Here below is the first movement from last week’s performance at Salt Bay, with fabulous colleagues Sean Lee and Yeesun Kim. (The complete audio is here.) How moody, this funereal opening in the piano, and how poignantly mournful the string theme that grows above it.

LISTEN: Busoni Violin Sonata No. 2

Twenty-five years ago, at the Marlboro Festival, my then-new friend Mark Steinberg, the great violinist, convinced me to program and perform with him a sonata by Ferruccio Busoni. Not being then—or now—especially devoted to Busoni, I was a bit skeptical, but reading together through the sonata immediately convinced me. Studying and performing the work left a strong mark, yet its memory faded gradually as the years went by. But this past summer Mark and I came back to this piece, and its visionary, almost cosmic impact was again revelatory for me. Here is the first movement - Langsam - from our performance:

LISTEN: Brahms Op.120/1

Brahms’ two great sonatas Op. 120 are bedrock works in the clarinet repertoire. They are frequently played by violists as well. But barely known today are Brahms’ own careful transcriptions of these works for violin, newly presented in a beautiful new Bärenreiter edition edited by Clive Brown. Here is the ravishing second movement—Andante un poco adagio—from the F-minor Sonata, Op. 120, No. 1, played recently by Korbinian Altenberger and myself as an encore to our complete Brahms sonatas program.

LISTEN: "One Day" opera at the Bolshoi

One of my big projects this autumn is the preparation, together with the renowned director Georgi Isaakian, of a new production of Aleksandr Tchaikovsky’s opera “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” for the Bolshoi Theatre. Rehearsals have not yet begun, but there is of course a huge amount of work behind the scenes, as I study the score, decide on any necessary cuts, correct typos, etc. One of many wonderful aspects of this opera is the sheer beauty of the choral writing. Hear an excerpt if you wish:

Listen: Beethoven Sonata, Op. 26 I

The question of how much to vary the tempo in a set of classical variations—or in a variation movement—is a thorny one.  My teachers were students of Serkin and Schnabel, so I was brought up to think twice before changing tempo to suit each variation.  Doing so might well rob the power of such tempo changes as the author does indicate; or negate, from one variation to the next, the progression of note-values designed to feint an increase or decrease in speed (while in fact keeping a steady pulse and harmonic rhythm); or flatten the effect of other contrasts the composer may be concerned with, perhaps of articulation, dynamics, or register.  A great example of these challenges is the bewitchingly elegant opening movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 26:  how to allow for a certain ebb and flow, for an elasticity in the music, but without changing tempo in an obvious way.  (Incidentally, it is in the coda of this movement that Beethoven, for the very first time in his piano sonatas, explicitly marks senza sordino, i.e. to be played with damper pedal—a wonderful nugget courtesy of Barry Cooper and his invaluable new edition of the sonatas.) Here is this movement from my recent performance at the December Evenings Festival—was it successful in reconciling those conflicting goals?..