Piano and Friends

Arizona Friends of Chamber Music

Piano & Friends Series

All concerts at 3:00 p.m. at Leo Rich Theater

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A cello sonata usually lets the cello be the star, but all three of these works were written by superb pianist-composers, so the keyboard stands as the cello’s full partner. Beethoven virtually invented the sonata for cello and piano; he had no models from Haydn or Mozart to work from. By the time he wrote his Op. 102 sonatas, he was withdrawing from society (because of his deafness) but exploring new ways of expressing himself in music. Benjamin Britten’s suite, from nearly 150 years later, is the first of several works he composed especially for the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; it’s essentially a traditional four-movement sonata with a march inserted to keep things a little unpredictable. In Sergei Rachmaninov’s late-Romantic sonata, the cello contends with the piano for dominance (not always successfully) in a restless work full of long, lush melodies.

Beethoven, Sonata for cello for piano No. 4 in C major, Op. 102/1

Britten, Sonata for cello & piano in C major, Op. 65

Rachmaninov, Sonata for cello and piano in G minor, Op. 19

In his early 20’s he was hailed as “a brilliant cellist” by the legendary Mstislav Rostropovich and Sergey Antonov went on to prove his mentor’s proclamation by garnering top honors in numerous soloist and chamber competitions, ultimately landing the most coveted prize of them all, the Gold Medal at the world’s premier musical Olympiad, the quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2007. Born into a musical family in Moscow in 1983, Antonov was one of the youngest recipients of the Tchaikovsky award. His subsequent performances have taken him round the globe, from the Moscow Conservatory's Great Hall to Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and as a repeat guest artist at the Newport Music Festival in Rhode Island, where he made his American debut in 2007. He has collaborated with such maestros and classical artists as Yuri Simonov, Maxim Vengerov, David Geringas, Michiyoshi Inoue, Mikhail Pletnev and Yuri Bashmet among others, and has appeared on Russian National Television in performance with the Moscow Philharmonic in their “Stars of the 21st Century” series, and in live concert on Boston’s NPR radio station WGBH. Antonov now calls Boston, Massachusetts his home.

Bernadene Blaha's "brilliant command of the piano", whether featured as recitalist, concerto soloist or chamber musician, has been heralded in performances throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Mexico. This season’s highlights include her debut performances in Australia, as well as an invitation to serve as a jury member at the prestigious 2010 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Originally from Canada, Ms. Blaha first came to international attention as a prizewinner in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition; the Young Keyboard Artists International Piano Competition, Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Masterplayers International Competition, Lugano, Switzerland; and the 11th Annual International Piano Competition, New York City. This latter award resulted in two highly acclaimed recital appearances, at Carnegie Recital Hall and the Lincoln Center Library. Soon afterward, Ms. Blaha was featured in the opening orchestra concert and a solo recital at the XXIX International Chopin Festival in Marianske Lazne, Czechoslovakia, followed by solo recitals at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and in London, England.

A highly regarded chamber musician, Ms. Blaha has been a regular guest at international festivals including, The Newport Festival, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Festival of the Sound, Bard Festival, Banff Festival of the Arts, Round Top International Festival and Festival de San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Violists who want to play much pre-contemporary music must rely heavily on transcriptions of pieces originally for violin or cello, but Johannes Brahms did violists a favor by offering his two nostalgic, autumnal Op. 120 sonatas to either clarinetists or violists. Otherwise, this program is dominated by borrowings, and features some Bach-obsessed music: a pair of movements derived from one of Bach’s solo violin partitas, and Bach tributes by two 20th-century composers. The rest is a series of treats, though not trifles: one lyrical and one dramatic excerpt from Prokofiev’s most popular ballet, and entertaining items by Paganini and Popper that require a nimble player of great technical skill.

Something unusual for Piano & Friends: a vocal recital. It begins with a great Schumann song cycle (it translates as “The Poet’s Love”), which opens with optimism but hints right from the start that the outcome will be, at best, bittersweet. Maurice Ravel wrote his song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée in competition with Falla, Milhaud and other composers to provide songs for a film version of Don Quixote; Ravel lost, but today his is the most celebrated effort. Lee Hoiby had a more serious purpose in composing Last Letter Home in 2006; it’s a setting of a letter that the late Pfc. Jesse Givens, serving in Iraq, left for his wife and children. Nothing could be more different from that than William Bolcom’s witty Cabaret Songs, inspired by similar material by the likes of Kurt Weill.