CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Alisa Weilerstein
Inon Barnatan

Zankel Hall
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Alisa Weilerstein, Cello
Inon Barnatan, Piano

BEETHOVEN Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 102, No.2
KODÁLY Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8
CHOPIN Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60
OSVALDO GOLIJOV Omaramor for Solo Cello
CHOPIN Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 65

Encore:
CHOPIN Largo from Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 65

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for young artists established by Mr. and Mrs. Anthony B. Evnin and the A. E. Charitable Foundation.

Program Notes:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2

Dating August 1815, the last of Beethoven’s five sonatas for cello and piano signals a transition from the “heroic” style of his so-called middle period to the more introspective, convoluted language of his later years. Indeed Beethoven often seems to be feeling his way through this powerful but enigmatic work. The piano starts by making a couple of bold, exploratory leaps, each landing on a heavily accented dotted half-note, before quickly scampering back to home base. The cello then picks up the ball and carries it into more lyrical territory. This start-and-stop pattern repeats itself throughout the Allegro con brio as Beethoven teases out the implications of his two main themes. A variation of the opening bars introduces a pulsating pianissimo interlude, charged with harmonic tension, which resolves magically into a final D-major cadence.

The searing Adagio—the only full-scale slow movement to be found in any of Beethoven’s cello sonatas—is marked, somewhat redundantly, “with great emotional feeling.” Here, too, the composer seems to be searching for a new synthesis of expansive lyricism and dramatic compression. Formally, the movement is open-ended, the cello and piano alighting momentarily on a dominant A-major chord before launching into the final Allegro. Each plays a simple A-major scale reminiscent of the piano’s preliminary warm-up in the first movement. Then the cello leads the way in an energetic fugue characterized by jagged syncopations and contrary motion between the voices. Eventually, a deep, rumbling trill emerges in the piano, like a mighty pedal point, reaffirming the D-major tonality.

Beethoven presented the two Op. 102 sonatas as a parting gift to his longtime friend and patron Countess Erdödy, who moved away from Vienna with her family in 1815. Having made his last public appearance as a solo pianist the preceding year, the composer was increasingly isolated by his progressive loss of hearing. It was also fallow period, compositionally, and a time for taking stock and consolidating the lessons of the past few years before striking off in a new direction. In its blend of tenderness and abrasiveness, hesitancy, and impetuosity, Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major offers a window into Beethoven’s creative soul.

Composed in 1815, the Sonata in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on January 19, 1931, with Percy Such, cello, and Frank Sheridan, piano.


ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882–1967) Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8

Kodály and Bartók are frequently bracketed together as Hungarian nationalists whose scholarly studies of folk music—both men were pioneering ethnomusicologists—enriched their own notably cosmopolitan musical languages. But while Bartók’s strikingly innovative approach to harmony, rhythm, sonority, and musical structure made him a leading figure in the modernist movement, Kodály followed a more conservative path. As Bartók observed in 1921, Kodály’s music “is not of the kind described nowadays as modern. It has nothing to do with the new atonal, bitonal, and polytonal music—everything in it is based on the principle of tonal balance. His idiom is nevertheless new: He says things that have never been uttered before and demonstrates thereby that the tonal principle has not lost its raison d’être yet.”

The “tonal principle” is certainly operative in Kodály’s gripping Sonata for Solo Cello, although the music scarcely fits any conventional definition of tonality. The majestic B-minor chords that open and close the first movement serve more as a point of reference in turbulent harmonic waters than as a fixed tonal anchor. Kodály’s use of scordatura (the cello’s two lower strings are tuned down a half-step, to B and F-sharp, respectively) skews traditional tonal relationships, while darkening the sound of the instrument appreciably. Taking his cue from Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, Kodály exploits the cello’s polyphonic potential to the full. In addition to finger-twisting chords of two, three, and four notes, the performer is called upon to produce a panoply of special sound effects, from ghostly harmonics to fluttery tremolos.

As a technical tour de force, the Kodály Sonata has few rivals in the cello repertory. Yet it rises far above the level of a virtuoso showpiece. Kodály’s breathtaking pyrotechnics and instrumental effects invariably serve expressive purposes, and if much of the sonata has a free-flowing, improvisatory quality, the listener is constantly aware of the underlying musical logic and structure. The folk influence is manifest in the Hungarian-flavored melodies of the Adagio and, especially, in the last movement’s propulsive, demonic dance with its evocations of bagpipes, fiddle, and cimbalom.

Composed in 1915, the Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8, received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on April 18, 1958, with Lillian Rehberg Goodman, cello.


OSVALDO GOLIJOV (b. 1960) Omaramor for Solo Cello

If the tango is to Argentina what the blues are to America, then the Rio de la Plata region around Buenos Aires is Argentina’s Mississippi River Delta. Growing up in La Plata in the 1960s and 1970s, Osvaldo Golijov was swept up by the dance’s renaissance, as expressed both in Astor Piazzolla’s urbane orchestral arrangements and in the hot-blooded vocal tangos popularized by Carlos Gardel, South America’s answer to Frank Sinatra. The bittersweet strains of “Mi Buenos Aires querido” (My Beloved Buenos Aires), one of Gardel’s signature songs, became lodged in Golijov’s creative subconscious. Years later, after moving to the United States via Israel, he summoned them up in a short piece for solo cello called Omaramor. (The title combines the name of the Argentine playwright Omar del Carlo with the Spanish word for love.)

Golijov describes Omaramor as a kind of excursion in which “the cello walks, melancholy at times and rough at others, over the harmonic progression of the song, as if the chords were the streets of the city.” (Anyone who hasn’t fallen under Gardel’s spell should check out his beguiling rendition of “Mi Buenos Aires querido” on Youtube.) Still, Omaramor is a fantasy, not a transcription, and it’s not until rather far along in this musical promenade that the tango melody finally emerges through the filter of Golijov’s wildly eclectic sensibility. The composer’s roots in the classical tradition run equally deep; he once told an interviewer that what excited him about Piazzolla “was not so much his tango roots, but his transmutations of Bartók, Stravinsky, and life in the streets into a new and vital music.” In Omaramor, the cellist is instructed to tune the C string down a half-step, an idea that Golijov reportedly picked up from Kodály’s solo Sonata.

Descended from Eastern European Jews, Golijov carved out niche for himself in the 1990s with his distinctive fusion of Latino, klezmer, African, Arab, and western classical idioms. Since then he has become a bona fide superstar, composing operas, oratorios, film soundtracks, and an offbeat array of chamber works for such adventurous artists as the Kronos Quartet, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Golijov’s preference for multilayered resonances is of a piece with his voracious musical appetite. Last year, for instance, he incorporated Omaramor into a longer composition for cello and string orchestra titled Ausencia (Absence).The second part of that work, in turn, derives from an earlier piece inspired by one of Piazzolla’s orchestral tangos, in which Golijov.hears an echo of “Mi Buenos Aires querido.” The dance has come full circle.

Composed in 1991, Omaramor receives its first complete performance at Carnegie Hall this evening. An excerpt of the work was premiered in Weill Recital Hall on January 12, 2004, with Tahirah Whittington, cello.


FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60

The Barcarolle ranks among Chopin’s greatest accomplishments of his last years, a miracle of finely wrought filigree and exquisite beauty. Written in the highly unusual key of F-sharp major, it is an adaptation of the kind of song traditionally associated with Venetian gondoliers. The chief characteristic of these songs was “an atmosphere of languorous ease and opulence,” as composer Lennox Berkeley puts it, achieved through swaying melodies, gently rocking accompaniment, and a 6/8 meter with a strong accent on the first beat and a weaker one on the fourth. The resulting effects suggest the rhythmic stroking of oars or the rocking of the boat as it glides through the water. Chopin made one significant alteration to the standard barcarolle rhythm in extending its meter from 6/8 to 12/8, thus enabling him to float longer, more flowing melodies over the rhythmic accompaniment. Other notable features of his Barcarolle are the harmonically taut introduction; the effective use of trills and double trills; the extension of a single, vocally inspired melodic line to the pianistic textures of thirds and sixths; the lack of contrast in the middle section; and the remarkable coda that seems to fade away in dreams of blissful slumber, only to close with an abrupt, loud return to reality.

Composed in between 1845 and 1846, the Barcarolle, Op. 60, received its Carnegie Hall remiere on November 25, 1891, with Leopold Godowsky, piano

—Robert Markow

Robert Markow writes program notes for orchestras and concert societies across North America; he is also a contributor to American Record Guide, Opera News, Opera magazine, and The Strad.


FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849) Sonata for Piano and Cello in G Minor, Op. 65

Few composers are as closely identified with a single instrument as Chopin is with the piano. More than his preferred medium of expression, the keyboard was an essential part of Chopin’s creative persona. He combined the piano with other instruments in a mere handful of chamber works, and only once did he attempt a full-fledged duo sonata. Not surprisingly, the G-Minor Sonata for Piano and Cello gave him no end of trouble; sketch after sketch shows him fussing and fretting over details of thematic development, transitions, and ensemble. In the end, of course, these problems solved themselves, and the Sonata has come to be regarded as one of the composer’s mature masterpieces.

Expert opinion in Chopin’s own time was somewhat less favorable. The pianist Ignaz Moscheles, who made a four-hand arrangement of the Op. 65 Sonata, dismissed the original version as “a tangled forest, through which now and then penetrates a gleam of sun.” Even Chopin himself felt so diffident about the first movement that he insisted on omitting it in an early performance. Time and familiarity have placed the work in a less problematic perspective. To modern ears the Allegro moderato sounds neither tangled nor particularly dense, much less incoherent, but lucid, imaginative, and exuberantly melodic. The plush sonorities of the piano never threaten to overwhelm the cello. The two instruments are equal partners, as they surely were when Chopin performed the sonata with his friend Auguste Franchomme.

After the piano lays out the principal theme, the cello announces its entrance with a little three-note figure that will recur throughout the sonata in various guises, serving as a kind of leitmotif. In the Allegro moderato, as in the mazurka-like Scherzo, the expansively lyrical Largo, and the vivacious Finale, Chopin combines discipline and spontaneity, infusing classical form with romantic freedom. Such youthful energy and fertility of invention are all the more astonishing for a composer whose health was deteriorating rapidly. A friend who called on Chopin around this time found him hunched over in pain, “like a half-opened pen-knife.” As he and Franchomme began playing the Op. 65 Sonata, however, the composer’s “body gradually resumed its natural position, the spirit having mastered the flesh.”

Composed between 1845 and 1846, the Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65, received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 12, 1938, with Emanuel Feuermann, cello, and Franz Rupp, piano.

—Harry Haskell

A former music critic and editor, Harry Haskell is the author of The Early Music Revival: A History, The Attentive Listener: Three Centuries of Music Criticism, and Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds: Kansas City and Its "Star."

© 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Alisa Weilerstein, Cello
American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread attention for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. At only 26 years old, she is a veteran on the classical music scene, having performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the US and Europe, and having regularly appeared at prestigious festivals. She is also a dedicated performer of chamber music, having been raised by a family of classical musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age.

During the 2008–2009 season, Weilerstein, who was recently awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal award, will make her debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Elder. Her other orchestral engagements include performances with the National Symphony Orchestra under Itzhak Perlman, the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel, the Houston Symphony Orchestra under James Gaffigan, and the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

In 2006 Weilerstein gave the New York premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul at the Mostly Mozart Festival. This season she will again perform the work with the New World Symphony under Marin Alsop, The Cleveland Orchestra led by Ludovic Morlot, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Louis Langrée, the Colorado Symphony under Jeffrey Kahane, and in Switzerland with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra led by Paul Goodwin. Weilerstein will also give several recitals throughout the US, including Zankel Hall and venues in San Francisco. Also at Zankel Hall this season, she will perform in a program of chamber music with Gil Shaham and friends. Abroad she will perform with the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and Slovenia Philharmonic, as well as several recital tours in Italy.

During the 2008 summer season, Weilerstein will perform chamber music at Spoleto Festival USA, Golijov’s Azul at the Aspen Music Festival, and perform in the opening night gala concert, as well as in recital, at the Caramoor Festival in the US. Abroad she performs at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the Verbier Festival. She will also perform the Elgar Cello Concerto on a month-long tour of Asia with the Asian Youth Orchestra conducted by Richard Pontzious.
Last season Weilerstein performed with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and with the Detroit Symphony under Andrew Davis, the Pittsburgh Symphony under Marek Janowski, the San Diego Symphony under Jahja Ling, the San Francisco Symphony under David Robertson, and the Toronto Symphony under Peter Oundjian. She gave several recitals throughout the US, including her debuts with the Celebrity Series in Boston and at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Abroad she performed with the NDR Hamburg under Manfred Honeck and the Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos.

Weilerstein has been continually engaged by orchestras across the US and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, NDR Hamburg, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

In addition to recitals in music centers across the US, Weilerstein performed at The Louvre in her Paris recital debut in September 1999; an eight-city tour of Japan, featuring a Suntory Hall performance in March 1999; a concert tour of Australia; and Florida tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2000 and 2002. She also makes regular appearances at prestigious festivals throughout the US and in Europe.

In 2008 Weilerstein was awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal prize for exceptional achievement, and was named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. She received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2000 and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000–2001; the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) Rising Stars recital series; and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000–2001, Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics’ Debut series in 2000.

Weilerstein began playing the cello at four years old after her grandmother assembled a makeshift instrument out of cereal boxes for her to play with while she was sick with chicken pox. She showed a natural affinity for the instrument and performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the trio-in-residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004 she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. For more information on Weilerstein, please visit alisaweilerstein.com.

Inon Barnatan, Piano
The flourishing career of pianist Inon Barnatan takes him to some of the most important music centers and festivals worldwide. Still in his twenties, Barnatan is gaining widespread recognition for his poetic and passionate music making, communicative performances, and thoughtful and engaging programming.

Barnatan recently made his recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and his American concerto debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He also gave performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Concertgebouw, as well as the Music@Menlo, Delft and Salzburg Festivals.

In the summer of 2008, he made his debut at the Lanaudiere Festival and the Aspen Festival, where he played a recital of Liszt and Messiaen. He has also appeared at the Salla Verdi in Milan; Royal Festival, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore Halls in London; Musikverein in Vienna; Arts Theatre in Shanghai; and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Barnatan also debuted with the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Porto Symphony, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of New Europe, Haifa Symphony, and the Israel Chamber and Jerusalem Chamber Orchestras, with such conductors as Lawrence Foster, Philippe Entremont, Nir Kabaretti, James Gaffigan, and Kynan Johns

His recital highlights include appearances at the Louvre Auditorium in Paris, Wigmore Hall, the prestigious Rising Stars series at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and the Gilmore Festival in Michigan.

An enthusiastic chamber music player, Barnatan was an artist of the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as part of Chamber Music Society Two. He performs and tours regularly with the Society, and can be heard on its first iTunes digital download, released by Deutsche Grammophon. Barnatan has also appeared on many radio and television stations throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and Israel.

Other chamber music performances include the complete Beethoven piano and violin sonatas at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with violinist Liza Ferschtman, as well as festival appearances at the Bergen International (Norway), Vancouver Chamber Music, Ravinia, Verbier, and Lyon Musicades. Barnatan has collaborated with the Jerusalem String Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Miriam Fried, Gary Hoffman, Ralph Kirshbaum, Jonathan Biss, Martin Fröst, and Paul Neubauer, among others. He was awarded the prestigious Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Prize in Rockport, awarded every two years to an exceptional chamber music pianist.

Barnatan’s debut CD of Schubert piano works for Bridge Records was released in June 2006 to great critical praise. His second CD of works for piano and violin by Beethoven and Schubert with violinst Liza Ferschtman has also won many accolades.

Barnatan curated a project of Schubert’s solo piano and chamber music works, performed last year at and presented by the Concertgebouw; that project will be performed at the Library of Congress and the Festival de México next fall. Participating artists in the Schubert Project include Jonathan Biss, Kiril Gerstein, Shai Wosner, Alisa Weilerstein, Liza Ferschtman, baritone Christopher Maltman, and the Jupiter, Belcea, and Borromeo String Quartets.

Barnatan is also passionate about contemporary music, and regularly performs and commissions music by living composers. In the past season he performed works by Katja Saariaho, George Crumb, Judith Weir, Avner Dorman, Venessa Lann, James Francis Brown, Thomas Ades, George Benjamin, and others.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of four. He made his orchestral debut at eleven and continued his studies with Professor Victor Derevianko. In 1997 he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Maria Curcio (a student of the legendary Arthur Schnabel) and Christopher Elton. Barnatan has also coached extensively with Leon Fleisher, and played for eminent musicians such as Richard Goode, Radu Lupu, Daniel Barenboim, Murray Perahia, Claude Frank, and Christoph Eschenbach. In 2006 Barnatan moved to New York City.