CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Gil Shaham and Friends

Zankel Hall
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Gil Shaham, Violin
Adele Anthony, Violin
Cynthia Phelps, Viola
Brinton Averil Smith, Cello
Orli Shaham, Piano

SCHUMANN/BRAHMS/DIETRICH F.A.E. Sonata for Violin and Piano
BRAHMS Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5
BRAHMS String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2

Program Notes:

SCHUMANN (1810–1846) / BRAHMS (1833–1897) / DIETRICH (1829–1908)
F.A.E. Sonata

In the fall of 1853, 20-year-old Johannes Brahms traveled to Düsseldorf to meet the man he admired above all living composers. Robert Schumann had heard about Brahms from their mutual friend, the great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. He welcomed his visitor warmly and promptly introduced him to his student Albert Dietrich. “Someone is here,” Schumann said, “of whom we shall one day hear all sorts of wonderful things.” According to Dietrich, he and Schumann were instantly taken with “the interesting and unusual-looking musician, who, seemingly hardly more than a boy in his short gray summer coat and with his high voice and long fair hair, made a most striking impression. Especially fine were his energetic, characteristic mouth, and the earnest deep gaze in which his gifted nature was clearly revealed.”

Acting on impulse, as was his wont, Schumann proposed that the three of them team up to write a sonata “in anticipation of the arrival of the revered and beloved friend Joseph Joachim,” who was due to give a concert in Düsseldorf under Schumann’s baton at the end of October. The result was the cryptically named—and rarely performed—F.A.E. Sonata. The three letters stand for frei aber einsam (“free but alone”), which the independent-spirited members of Schumann’s circle had adopted as their rallying cry. Brahms’s little Allegro is the third movement of this hybrid sonata. Schumann himself wrote the second and fourth movements, while Dietrich contributed the opening Allegro.

To lend some semblance of unity to this motley confection, the ground rules called for each composer to incorporate the notes f-a-e into his music as a motif. (Schumann was a past master at embedding hidden meanings in his work.) Dietrich dutifully produced an expansive sonata-form allegro in A minor, throbbing with passion and restless chromaticism, in which the f-a-e motto is prominently stated by the violin both near the beginning and at the very end. Schumann’s short, graceful Intermezzo revolves almost entirely around the motif, which, however, doesn’t appear until midway through his exuberantly virtuosic Finale. Only Brahms, always insistent on going his own way, refused to play the game: The motto is nowhere to be heard amid the muscular lyricism and driving cross-rhythms of his charming scherzo.

Joachim was presented with his surprise gift the day after his performance with Schumann’s orchestra. He and Clara Schumann, a world-renowned pianist, proceeded to sight-read the moderately challenging score. Then, to the delight of the assembled guests, the violinist played a musical guessing game and accurately identified the anonymous composers of each of the four movements.

Composed in 1853, the F.A.E. Sonata received its Carnegie Hall premiere on December 1, 1975 with Toshiya Eto, violin, William Masselos, piano.

BRAHMS Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5

Sitting at the piano, he proceeded to reveal to us wondrous regions. We were drawn into circles of ever deeper enchantment. His playing, too, was full of genius, and transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices. There were sonatas, rather veiled symphonies—songs, whose poetry one would understand without knowing the words … single pianoforte pieces, partly demoniacal, of the most graceful form—then sonatas for violin and piano—quartets for strings—and every one so different from the rest that each seemed to flow from a separate source.

Thus did Schumann introduce Brahms to the world in a famous article published in Europe’s leading music journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, on October 28, 1853. Brahms had been the Schumann’s houseguest since he arrived in Düsseldorf four weeks earlier, and Schumann’s initial estimate of his visitor had been amply confirmed. “You and I understand each other,” the older man had remarked after listening to Brahms play his early piano music, including the first two sonatas, in C major and F-sharp minor, respectively. Brahms may also have taken the opportunity to audition the second and fourth movements of his sonata-in-progress. In any event, the other three movements were speedily drafted during the month Brahms spent under the Schumann’s roof, and on November 2, he performed the entire F-Minor Sonata for his captivated hosts.

From the thunderous opening of the Allegro maestoso, with its massive symphonic textures, to the rolled major-key chords that bring the sonata to a majestic close, Brahms’s Op. 5 is a work of breathtaking confidence and maturity. As Schumann observed, it was as if the young and still unknown composer had sprung forth “like Minerva fully armed from the head of Jove.” The F-Minor Sonata is conceived on a grand scale and although much of the writing is tailored for Brahms’s exceptionally large hands, equally as many passages call for great delicacy and tenderness. The two slow movements, in particular, show Brahms at his most poetic. (The Andante bears an epigraph from the German romantic poet Christian Sternau that begins, “Dusk is falling and the moonlight shines …”) In the Finale, Brahms finally got around to using the f-a-e motto that he had previously shunned, a touch that must have endeared him to Schumann even more.

After leaving Düsseldorf, Brahms continued to tinker with the F-Minor Sonata virtually up to the time the printed score appeared in early 1854. Once again, Schumann was responsible for bringing him to the attention of publishers in Germany and Austria. Shortly thereafter, the elder composer began his tragic descent into madness and death. With characteristic generosity of spirit, he declared that he had seen the future of music and his name was Brahms.

Composed in 1853, the Piano Sonata in F Minor received its Carnegie Hall premiere on February 2, 1899 with Emil Sauer, piano.


BRAHMS String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2

In their final form, Brahms’s two Op. 51 quartets date from the fall of 1873, two decades after his fateful encounter with Schumann. Brahms was a merciless self-critic; over the years he had written and rejected a slew of string quartets (20 by his own count), none of which measured up to his exacting standards. He was daunted by the thought of following in Beethoven’s and Schubert’s footsteps, especially at a time when the string quartet medium had fallen out of favor with “progressive” composers like him. People kept asking when his first quartet would be ready and Brahms grew adept at putting them off.

“It took Mozart a lot of trouble to compose six early quartets,” he reminded his publisher, Fritz Simrock, in 1869, “so I will try my hardest to turn out a couple fairly well done. They should not fail you, but if I were a publisher I should not be in such a hurry.” Simrock was a soul of patience; four years later he was still waiting for Brahms to deliver when he received a letter containing more discouraging news: “I give myself the greatest trouble and keep on hoping that something really great and difficult will occur to me, and they turn out mean and paltry!” A few weeks later Brahms finally admitted to himself that he would never be fully satisfied and shipped the two quartets off to Simrock.

Brahms’s diffidence notwithstanding, the A-Minor Quartet is at once “really great” and in some respects “difficult” to categorize and apprehend. This stems in part from Brahms’s lifelong struggle to reconcile the Classical and Romantic strains in his musical language. The classicist is very much to the fore in the opening Allegro non troppo, with its well-proportioned themes and clearly delineated form. The shy, halting melody of the Andante moderato carries us into more personal, introspective territory, while in the third movement, marked Quasi minuetto, Brahms adopts an unconventional multipart structure reminiscent of the late Beethoven quartets. The bravura Finale is a highly rhythmicized romp with a distinctly “Hungarian” flavor. At the end, a quiet echo of the first movement’s principal theme sets up a mad dash to the final cadence.

Composed between 1865 and 1873, the String Quartet in A Minor received its Carnegie Hall premiere on December 14, 1929, with the Léner String Quartet (Jenö Léner, violin; Joseph Smilovits, violin; Sandor Roth, viola; and Imre Hartman, cello).






© 2008 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 addition to his many orchestral engagements, Mr. 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.

Mr. 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 Faure 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.

Mr. 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.

Mr. 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

Cynthia Phelps, Viola
Violist Cynthia Phelp’s versatile career includes appearances as chamber musician, soloist, and Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, with which she has appeared as soloist on major stages across the globe, performing an extensive repertoire, including a concerto specially commissioned for her (and violist Rebecca Young) by the acclaimed Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. She has also been featured in several nationwide “Live from Lincoln Center” telecasts with the Philharmonic and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Additional appearances as soloist include those with the Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic, as well as numerous other orchestras throughout the world. She has collaborated internationally with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, and Yo-Yo Ma, among many others, and has also been heard in recital in Paris, Rome, London, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC.

A much sought-after chamber musician, Phelps performs regularly with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at New York's Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, as well as with ensembles such as the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and the Guarneri, Shanghai, American, and Brentano String Quartets. She is a frequent guest at the Marlboro, Summerfest LaJolla, Music @ Menlo, Bridgehampton, Vail, Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Naples, Cremona, and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals, and is a founding member of Les Amies, a flute-harp-viola trio.

Phelps is a recipient of the Pro Musicis International Award, and the first prize winner at both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Washington International String Competition. She can be heard on the Marlboro Recording Society, Covenant, Nuova Era, Polyvideo, Virgin Classics, and Cala labels. Her broadcast appearances have included National Public Radio, Radio France, and RAI in Italy. She is married to cellist Ronald Thomas and has three daughters, Lili, Christina, and Caitlin.

Brinton Averil Smith, Cello
American cellist Brinton Averil Smith has performed at leading venues and music festivals throughout the US, including Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall, and Marlboro Music Festival, as well as with orchestras in Houston, Detroit, San Diego, Phoenix, Fort Worth, New Jersey, and New Zealand.

Smith’s recording of Miklos Rozsa’s Cello Concerto with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for Koch received widespread international critical acclaim. His recent recording of Fauré’s Piano Trio and Après un rêve with Gil Shaham for Shaham’s Canary Classics label was chosen as one of BBC Music Magazine’s best albums of the year.

Prior to joining the Houston Symphony as Principal Cellist in 2005, Smith was a member of the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the San Diego and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras. Mr. Smith is also a faculty member of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. A prizewinner at the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition, he has performed on such broadcasts as CBS’s Sunday Morning and NPR's Performance Today.

The son of a mathematician and a pianist, Smith was admitted part-time to Arizona State University at age 10, studying mathematics, music, and German, and completed a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics at age 17. At the University of Southern California, he worked as a teaching assistant in mathematics and completed work for an master of arts in mathematics at age 19 while continuing his music studies. He then went to study with Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. Smith lives in Houston with his wife, the pianist Evelyn Chen, and their daughter Calista.

Orli Shaham, Piano
A consummate musician recognized for her grace, subtlety and vitality, Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today’s most gifted pianists. She has performed with the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras; the Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, St. Louis and San Francisco symphonies; and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Taiwan Philharmonic, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. A frequent guest at summer festivals, she has performed at Ravinia, Verbier, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Caramoor, and Spoleto. Shaham has collaborated with her brother, violinist Gil Shaham, on three CDs; their most recent recording, Mozart in Paris, was released by Canary Classics in Spring 2008.

During the 2008–2009 season, Orli Shaham debuts with the Malaysian Philharmonic led by Claus Petr Flor and returns to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Australia. In the US she performs with the St. Louis, San Antonio, and Akron symphonies. Her recital schedule features visits to Cincinnati, St. Louis, and tonight’s special appearance at Carnegie Hall where she performs Brahms Piano Sonata in F Minor and the F.A.E. Sonata with Gil Shaham. In addition, Shaham serves as the 2008–2009 Chamber Music Essentials lecturer for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She also curates and performs in the Pacific Symphony's chamber music series in Costa Mesa, California.

Driven by a passion to bring classical music to new audiences, Orli Shaham maintains an active parallel career as a respected broadcaster, music writer, and lecturer. An enthusiastic teacher, she has taught music literature at Columbia University, and contributed articles to Piano Today, Symphony, and Playbill magazines. Orli Shaham lives in New York and St. Louis with her husband, conductor David Robertson; her two stepsons, Peter and Jonathan; and her newborn twin sons, Nathan and Alex.