CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Performance Monday, March 18, 2013 | 7:30 PM

Sol Gabetta
Alessio Bax

Weill Recital Hall
Seating Chart
Classical-music tastemaker Gramophone magazine named Sol Gabetta Young Artist of the Year in 2010; since then, this Argentinian cellist has won the praise of audiences and critics throughout Europe with her entrancing tone and impassioned lyricism. She is joined by pianist Alessio Bax, winner of the 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

This concert is part of Salon Encores.

Performers

  • Sol Gabetta, Cello
    New York Recital Debut
  • Alessio Bax, Piano

Program

  • BEETHOVEN Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69
  • SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Sonata in D Minor, Op. 40
  • RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19

Bios

  • Sol Gabetta


    Internationally acclaimed since her 2004 debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, Credit Suisse Young Artist Award-winning cellist Sol Gabetta has already received impressive acclaim. A Grammy Award nominee, she received the Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award in 2010 and the Würth-Preis of the Jeunesses Musicales in 2012.

    Ms. Gabetta's performances include appearances with leading orchestras worldwide. She has worked with such ensembles as the Bamberger Symphoniker, kammerorchesterbasel, The Philadelphia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, and Bolshoi Orchestra.

    Ms. Gabetta has appeared at the Verbier, Gstaad Menuhin, Schwetzingen, Rheingau, and Schleswig-Holstein music festivals, as well as the Beethovenfest. Recent appearances have included residencies at the Philharmonie Essen and Berlin Konzerthaus, as well as debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Ms. Gabetta works regularly with many conductors, including Giovanni Antonini, Mario Venzago, Charles Dutoit, Pablo Heras-Casado, and Thomas Hengelbrock. Since 2005, Ms. Gabetta has taught at the Basel Music Academy.

    Highlights of Ms. Gabetta's 2012-2013 season include debuts with the Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Philharmonia Orchestra, and London Philharmonic Orchestra. She returns to the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of David Zinman, in addition to the Bamberger Symphoniker and Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. This season also includes a recital tour with pianist Hélène Grimaud and a performance at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

    Following her first ECHO Klassik award in 2007 (for her recording of music by Tchaikovsky and Ginastera), Ms. Gabetta won the prize for the second time in 2009 for her album of music by Haydn, Hofmann, and Mozart, and a third for her celebrated recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Her extensive discography also includes acclaimed recordings of Shostakovich's cello concertos with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. In the autumn of 2012, Deutsche Grammophon released a duo recital recording with pianist Ms. Grimaud.

    Thanks to a generous private stipend from the Rahn Kulturfonds, Ms. Gabetta performs on a very rare and precious cello by G. B. Guadagnini from 1759.

    More Info

  • Alessio Bax


    Pianist Alessio Bax is praised for his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility. First prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions and a 2009 recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has appeared as soloist with more than 90 orchestras, including the London and Royal philharmonic orchestras, Dallas and Houston symphony orchestras, NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra with Yuri Temirkanov, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle.

    During the 2012-2013 season, Mr. Bax returns as soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Temirkanov for the opening of the St. Petersburg Winter Festival, performs with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden at Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, and collaborates with Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen in Denmark. He performs solo recitals in New York, Boston, St. Paul, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, as well as in Venezuela, South Korea, and Japan. Mr. Bax also tours South America with violinist Joshua Bell, returns to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and performs on tour with his wife and frequent duo partner pianist Lucille Chung.

    February 2013 marked the release of Mr. Bax's recording of Mozart's piano concertos K. 491 and K. 595 with London's Southbank Sinfonia, following the fall release of Alessio Bax Plays Brahms, both for Signum Classics. Also in his acclaimed discography are Rachmaninoff: Preludes & Melodies (American Record Guide Critics' Choice 2011), Bach Transcribed, and Baroque Reflections (Gramophone Editor's Choice).

    Mr. Bax's international festival appearances have included London's International Piano Series (Queen Elizabeth Hall), Verbier in Switzerland, England's Aldeburgh and Bath festivals, and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Beethovenfest, and Schloss Elmau festival in Germany. He has performed solo recitals in Rome, Madrid, Mexico City, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong.

    At age 14, Mr. Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory in his hometown of Bari, Italy. After further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he resides in New York City with his wife.

    More Info

Audio

Shostakovich's Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, Op. 40, Allegretto
Sol Gabetta, Cello | Mihaela Ursuleasa, Piano
RCA

At a Glance

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN  Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major, Op. 69

One of Beethoven's most intricately wrought pieces of chamber music, the A-Major Sonata combines tunefulness and brilliance in equal measure. Sonatas for cello and piano were still a novelty in the early 1800s, in part because composers had not yet solved the problem of balance between the two instruments. Beethoven's five sonatas inspired Mendelssohn, Brahms, and others to come up with their own solutions later in the century.


DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH  Cello Sonata in D Minor, Op. 40

Like much of Shostakovich's music, the Cello Sonata veers from one stylistic and emotional extreme to another. In harmonizing these diverse and often discordant elements, the Russian composer created a highly personal musical language of extraordinary power and beauty. The Op. 40 Sonata dates from 1934, making it contemporary with the first version of Shostakovich's controversial opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.


SERGEI RACHMANINOFF  Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19

Rachmaninoff remained an unabashed champion of Romanticism long past the style's sell-by date in the first half of the 20th century. The lush and impetuously lyrical language that characterizes such early works as the G-Minor Cello Sonata of 1901 remained the pianist-composer's stock in trade for the remaining four decades of his life. Rachmaninoff's soaring melodies, richly upholstered textures, and highly idiomatic writing for both cello and piano have given the work a secure place in the repertoire.

Program Notes
The Distinctive Debuts series is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for the presentation of young artists provided by The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation.

Additional endowment support for international outreach has been provided by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.
This performance is part of Distinctive Debuts.

Part of

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