CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Gil Shaham And Friends

Zankel Hall
Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Gil Shaham, Violin
Adele Anthony, Violin
Masao Kawasaki, Viola
Paul Neubauer, Viola
Alisa Weilerstein, Cello
Akira Eguchi, Piano

BRAHMS Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 101
BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100
BRAHMS String Quintet in F Major, Op. 88

Program Notes:

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)


Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 101


Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100

Composed between 1879 and 1888, Brahms’s three sonatas for violin and piano are works of mature and unostentatious mastery. In contrast to the Violin Concerto of 1878, which sets the soloist’s warm-blooded virtuosity against the resplendent panoply of the orchestra, the sonatas are predominantly intimate and conversational in tone. The robust lyricism that characterized much of Brahms’s earlier chamber music has receded into the background. In its place is a more restrained, but no less compelling, mixture of tenderness and strength.

Both the sonatas and the concerto reflect the influence of the great Hungarian violinist and composer Joseph Joachim. Brahms’s long-time ensemble partner and artistic collaborator, Joachim first heard Brahms play the piano on a recital with the violinist Eduard Reményi in 1853. “Never in the course of my artistic life,” he recalled, “have I been more completely overwhelmed with delighted surprise than when the rather shy-mannered, blond companion of my countryman played one of his sonata movements of quite undreamed-of originality and power, looking noble and inspired the while.” Even at that early date, Joachim was as impressed by Brahms’s sensitivity and “idealism” as by his forceful artistic personality.

The first movement of the Sonata No. 2 in A major—marked, rather unusually, Allegro amabile—exudes the relaxed give-and-take of a companionable dialogue. The pianist introduces a lilting four-bar melody, whereupon the violinist echoes the final phrase, as if to say, encouragingly, “Yes, go on.” After two or three more false starts, the violin picks up the theme and runs with it. From then on the two instruments pass the ball back and fourth, now lightheartedly, now in earnest, always careful to avoid upstaging each other. The genial repartee continues in the Andante tranquillo, with slow and quick sections alternating in rondolike ABABA form. The main theme of the concluding Allegretto grazioso, like that of the first movement, surges upward in rising arcs before returning to rest at its starting point.


String Quintet in F Major, Op. 88

The first of Brahms’s two string quintets (scored for string quartet plus an extra viola) dates from 1882. The composer had declined the conductor Hans von Bülow’s invitation to visit the Bayreuth Festival that summer, possibly out of pique after Wagner publicly savaged him in print. (The two composers and their partisans often seemed to treat one another as mortal enemies.) Instead, Brahms holed up in his rented villa at Bad Ischl to finish work on his F Major Quintet and C Major Piano Trio. Although the weather at his mountain hideaway was typically soggy and lugubrious, the Quintet is suffused with warmth and sunlight. The composer-critic Hugo Wolf described its atmosphere in impressionistic terms in his review for the Wiener Salonblatt:

The imagination of the composer revels in picturesque images; we find no trace of the frosty November mists that elsewhere brood over his compositions and stifle each warm tone from the heart before it can sound out—all is sunny, now brighter, now more dim; a magical emerald green is diffused over this fairylike picture of spring; everything grows green and buds, one really hears the grass growing. . . . . In the second movement the shadows sink deeper. Evening, and the night, shroud the fantastic creation that moved so wonderfully in the first movement. Deep meditation and silence. An animated form moves through the deep solitude. It is as though glow-worms danced their rounds, it flashes and sparkles so in the rushing figures of the instruments. But the form disappears. The former silence returns, to be once again broken by a similar motive. In strange harmonies, that modulate between dream and waking, this mysterious tone picture dies away.

Wolf neatly captures the essence of the Quintet’s middle movement, an unusual rondolike structure in five sections that combines the traditional functions of slow movement and scherzo. Its unexpected A major ending, capping a sequence of quiet, harmonically ambiguous block chords, is one of many delicious surprises that Brahms strews in the listener’s path. A pair of emphatic chords heralds an abrupt return to F major as the athletic finale takes off in a burst of contrapuntal energy. Wolf criticized the Allegro energico as jarringly academic, but Brahms’s perky fugue, with its (almost) relentless torrent of eighth notes, bears scant resemblance to textbook models. Although the F Major Quintet has never been as popular as its sequel, Op. 111 in G Major (to be heard on tonight’s concert), Brahms told Clara Schumann that he considered it “one of my finest works.”


—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." 

© 2009 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Gil Shaham, Violin
Violinist Gil Shaham is internationally recognized by audiences and critics alike as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras and conductors, as well as for recital and ensemble appearances.

Highlights of the current season include appearances with the orchestras of New York, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Atlanta, Montreal, and Houston, as well as Berlin, London and Munich in Europe. In addition to his many orchestral engagements Shaham regularly tours in recital and enjoys musical collaboration with his family, including his wife, violinist Adele Anthony; his sister, pianist Orli Shaham; and his brother-in-law, conductor David Robertson. This winter he again brings together friends and colleagues for three concerts of Brahms’s chamber music at Zankel Hall.

Shaham has recorded more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs, including a number of bestsellers that appear on record charts in the US and abroad. These recordings have earned prestigious awards, including multiple Grammy Awards, a Grand Prix du Disque, a Diapason d’Or, and a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His most recent recordings—including his new, bestselling release of Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Zinman—have been produced for his own label Canary Classics. Others include The Butterfly Lovers and Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Singapore Symphony; The Fauré Album with Akira Eguchi; a Prokofiev album with Orli Shaham; and Mozart in Paris, a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A major with Yefim Bronfman and cellist Truls Mørk.

Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel where he began violin studies at age seven. In 1982 he returned to the US as a student of Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at The Juilliard School. He has also studied at Columbia University.

Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990 and the Avery Fisher Prize in 2008. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife and their two children.

Adele Anthony, Violin
Since her triumph at Denmark’s Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in 1996, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career that
includes both solo appearances and chamber music performances.

In recent seasons, Anthony has performed with major orchestras in Houston, Seattle, San Diego, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids, as well with the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, among others. She has also appeared at summer festivals such as Aspen and La Jolla. Abroad, Anthony has performed with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, Denmark’s Aalborg and Aarhus Symphony orchestras, Finland’s Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, NDR Orchestra Hannover, and Orchestre
Philharmonique de Radio France. Anthony enjoys performing in duo recital with her husband, Gil Shaham. This winter she joins him for three Brahms chamber music concerts at Zankel Hall.

Anthony is an active recording artist. In 2006 Naxos released Vivaldi:The Four Seasons, her recording with Sejong Soloists and Cho-Liang Lin. Her recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra was released by Naxos in 2000. She has also recorded Arvo Pärt’s Tabula rasa with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and the Nielsen Violin Concerto with Dorrit Matson and the New York Scandia Symphony (Centaur).

Anthony studied at the Conservatory of the University of Adelaide with Beryl Kimber until 1987. She continued her studies at New York’s Juilliard School, where she worked with Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, and Hyo Kang. She made her Australian debut with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1983 and has since performed with all six symphony orchestras of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She will return to Adelaide in June 2009 for performances and a recording. Anthony has also received awards from the Australia Council, the South Australian Government, and The Queen’s Trust. She performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728, and resides in New York City with her husband and their two children, Elijah and Ella Mei.

Masao Kawasaki, Viola
Violinist and violist Masao Kawasaki leads an exciting and versatile international career as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and pedagogue of violin and viola. His multifaceted career has resulted in the development of musicians that now enjoy careers in every realm of the music field. His excellence in teaching was acknowledged in 2004 when he received the prestigious Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recognition Award.

Kawasaki performs extensively as soloist with numerous orchestras throughout Europe, Asia and North America, including appearances with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Miyazaki International Music Festival Orchestra, Mito Chamber Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall with the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra.

Kawasaki’s has collaborated in chamber music with the world’s most distinguished artists, including Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Yefim Bronfman, Joseph Suk, and Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg. Guest appearances include Tokyo, Emerson, Juilliard, and American String Quartets. He has recorded for CBS/Sony, EMI, Nonesuch, and Phillips labels and featured in live broadcasts on radio and television stations globally. Festival appearances include Spoleto, Rockport, Casals, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, and Miyazaki International Chamber Music Festivals.

Critically acclaimed as a violinist and violist, Kawasaki is frequently invited to serve on juries of competitions, including Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, Tertis International Viola Competition, and national violin and viola competitions in Japan and China.

Kawasaki’s students enjoy careers as soloists, chamber musicians, principal players of major orchestras, and professors of major universities and conservatories worldwide. He is a member of the violin and viola faculties of The Juilliard School, Chairman of the String Department at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, a member of the violin-viola faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and holds the Geraldine B. Gee Chair for viola at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Recent highlights include master classes in Shanghai and Beijing, China; the Ishikawa Music Academy; and Viola Space.

Paul Neubauer, Viola
Paul Neubauer’s exceptional musicality and effortless playing distinguish him as one of this generation's quintessential artists. Balancing a solo career with performances as an artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Neubauer at age 21 was the youngest principal string player in the New York Philharmonic's history. He is the Orchestra and Chamber Music Director of the OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In 2005 he premiered Joan Tower's Purple Rhapsody, a viola concerto commissioned for him by seven orchestras and the Koussevitsky Foundation.
Neubauer has recently released an all Schumann recital album with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for Image Recordings. He also recorded works written specifically for him: Wild Purple for solo viola by Joan Tower for Naxos; Viola Rhapsody, a concerto by Henri Lazarof on Centaur Records; and Soul Garden for Viola and Chamber Ensemble by Derek Bermel on CRI. His recording of the Walton Viola Concerto was recently re-released on Decca. He has appeared with over 100 orchestras throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, including the New York, Los Angeles, Helsinki and Royal Liverpool philharmonics; the National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and the Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras. He gave the world premiere of the revised Bartók Viola Concerto, as well as concertos by Penderecki, Picker, Jacob, Lazarof, Suter, Müller-Siemens, Ott, and Friedman.
Neubauer has performed at the festivals of Verbier, Ravinia, Stavanger, Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, and Marlboro. Neubauer was an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the first prizewinner of the Whitaker, D'Angelo and Lionel Tertis International Competitions. He has been heard on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and has been featured in Strad, Strings, and People magazine. In 1989 he became the first violist chosen to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Born in Los Angeles and currently residing in New York City, Neubauer studied with Alan de Veritch, Paul Doktor, and William Primrose. He holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he is now a member of the faculty. He also teaches at Mannes College.

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 26 years old, she has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals throughout the US and Europe, has appeared at prestigious festivals, and is a dedicated performer of chamber music.

This season Weilerstein will make her debuts with the Boston and the Chicago Symphony Orchestras, and perform with the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas and National Symphony Orchestras, and New York Philharmonic, among others. She will give recitals and perform chamber music throughout the US. Abroad she will perform with the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Slovenia Philharmonic, and will give several recital tours in Italy.

During the 2007–2008 season Weilerstein performed with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Diego Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony and the Orchestre National de Lyon, among other orchestras. She also gave several recitals throughout the US, including the Celebrity Series in Boston. Abroad she performed with the NDR Hamburg, the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at the Hong Kong Festival, and gave recitals in Bergamo and Milan, Italy.

Alisa Weilerstein was awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal prize in 2008 and was named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival. She was the recipient in 2000 of an Avery Fisher Career Grant 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.

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. In November 2008 Weilerstein became a Celebrity Advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Weilerstein was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was nine. Please visit alisaweilerstein.com for more information about Alisa Weilerstein

Akira Eguchi, Piano
Akira Eguchi has captivated audiences and critics throughout the world as a piano soloist, chamber musician, harpsichord player, and collaborative pianist.

Since making his highly acclaimed New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1992, Eguchi has performed at the foremost music centers of the United States, Europe, and the Far East. His appearances in the US include Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Musikverein in Vienna; Barbican Centre in London; and Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. Distinguished for his performances for heads of State, Eguchi has played for President Clinton in presentation by Isaac Stern at the White House, and for the Emperor and Empress of Japan at Hamarikyu Ashahi Hall in Tokyo.

His recordings are available on Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Denon, Marquis Classics, Victor, IDC, BMG, Kosei publishing, Canary/Vanguard, AVEX, Octavia, and NYS Classics.

His solo discography comprises three solo CDs: Dear America, Legends of the Maestros (recorded at the Carnegie Hall on a historic 1887 Steinway piano used at the Hall’s opening in 1891), and a third album including Mussorgky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Horowitz). Two of them were selected as the best newly released recordings of the month by Recording Arts magazine.

Born in Tokyo, Eguchi received a degree in Music Composition from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he subsequently served as a faculty member. Eguchi received his master’s degree in piano performance from The Juilliard School. He has studied with Herbert Stessin, Samuel Sanders, Hitoshi Toyama, Shin Sato, Akira Kitamura, Ichiro Mononobe, and Akiko Kanazawa.

Eguchi currently lives in New York City and is on the faculty of CUNY Brooklyn College. He also is a guest professor of the Senzoku-Gakuen Music College in Japan.