CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Emanuel Ax Young Artists Concert

Weill Recital Hall
Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Alisa Rose, Violin
Keisuke Nakagoshi, Piano

José Franch-Ballester, Clarinet
Andrius Zlabys, Piano

Jonathan Lewis, Cello
Yoko Kida, Piano

BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108
BRAHMS Clarinet Sonata No.1 in F Minor, Op. 120
BRAHMS Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99

Programs of The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall are generously supported by the City of New York: Office of the Mayor, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York City Council; and by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Program Notes:

JOHNANNES BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108
Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna.

Composed in 1886–88, the Sonata in D Minor was first performed in Budapest on December 21, 1888. It received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 12, 1912, with Efrem Zimbalist, violin, and Eugene Lutsky, piano.

Brahms began his Third Violin Sonata in the summer of 1886, at the same time as the Second, but completed it only two years later, in 1888. It was published in April 1889 with a dedication to Brahms’s close friend and champion, the conductor Hans von Bülow. Unlike the two other violin sonatas, the Third, in D minor, has four movements corresponding to the traditional types. Yet the work still displays a miraculous economy of expression: even with the expanded form, it lasts just over 20 minutes in performance. The mood of this Sonata is darker and more turbulent than the other two. The same controlled intensity of expression now gives the impression of a coiled spring.

The most astonishing aspect of the first movement is the development section, where time seems to hold still during a pedal point that sounds for 46 measures. Over the sustained A, the piano weaves arpeggios, and the violin takes up fragments of the first theme. The coda shifts the key, over an ominous pedal point, to the tonic, D, and the movement ends with a brightening to the major mode.

The D-major set up in the coda of the first movement carries over into the Adagio, which is one of Brahms’s most condensed slow movements. It consists of a broad melody that is repeated in varied form, with no intervening or contrasting episode. As the great critic Donald F. Tovey observed, “Such simplicity comes of the concentration of a life’s experience; it cannot be imitated by merely writing a tune and refusing to develop it.”

The delicate scherzo might be the briefest instrumental movement in all of Brahms, lasting just three minutes. It is also one of Brahms’s most original in terms of form, harmony, and phrase design. There are moments in the movement that sound, because of the way the harmonic progressions refuse to follow Classical precedent, as if they might be from an impressionist work by Ravel or Fauré.

The finale of the Third Sonata is a powerful sonata rondo in which the pent-up energies of the preceding movements are fully unleashed. It begins on the run, in what Malcolm MacDonald has characterized as Brahms’s “galloping scherzo style” in a 6/8 meter. The opening also unfolds over an unstable dominant harmony; the tonic does not appear until the 17th measure. The chorale-like second theme in the unusual key of C major puts the brakes on the forward motion, but the headlong pace resumes with the third theme in A minor. The coda of the movement ups the energy level still further. Marked “Agitato,” it takes still bolder harmonic detours, including an especially wrenching turn to E-flat minor, perhaps the most remote chord possible in the universe of D minor.
—Walter Frisch

Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120, No. 1; Clarinet Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2
Both of Brahms’s Op. 120 sonatas were written in 1894. They were premiered in Vienna on January 7, 1895, with Richard Mühlfeld, clarinet, and the composer at the keyboard. The Sonata in F Minor received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on January 23, 1941, with Louis Bailly, viola, and Genia Robinor, piano; the Sonata in E-flat Major received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on April 24, 1955, with George Grossman, viola, and Harriet Shirvan, piano.

After producing his marvelously energetic String Quintet No. 2 in 1890, Johannes Brahms announced his retirement from composition. Having now reached the age at which Beethoven died, he thought it best to quit while still at the full plenitude his powers. Less than a year later, however, Brahms found his creativity stirred by the eloquent clarinet playing of Richard Mühlfeld. By the end of 1891, he had completed a trio and a quintet for Mühlfeld, and in 1894, while summering at Ischyll, he wrote the present sonatas in F Minor and E-flat major. Muhlfeld premiered both works with Brahms at the piano on January 7, 1895, in Vienna. Brahms later prepared two alternative versions of Op. 120: one for viola, the other for violin.

Sonata No. 1 is a compact, tightly argued four-movement work, opening with a melancholy theme tinged by grandeur. After a climax, the first notes of this theme are slowed down and heard in low-register piano, where they underpin a nostalgic solo melody. Turbulent materials close the exposition, and the development offers both introverted musing and stormy oratory. A normal reprise of the exposition precedes a somber close. The A-B-A form slow movement presents a theme of gentle reticence that eventually reveals glowing inner warmth. Moments of hushed mystery endow the central B section with a deeply philosophical aura. A quizzical tune commences the ensuing dance movement. Robust material follows, and the soloist later decorates the earlier tune with loopy mischief. Low-register solo tones then bring a disconsolate central episode. The finale proves joyous, commencing with a triumphant “signal” of three slow repeated notes (destined for prominence throughout), and a cheerful melody that breaks into chuckles. Agitation is transitory, and the music ultimately speeds to a euphoric conclusion.

Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major is cast in three movements. Artless opening tunefulness belies a formidable compositional apparatus that draws numberless expressive possibilities from a few basic motives. Tranquil pastoralism dominates the first movement, but ebullient romantic passion marks the second-subject climax, while the valedictory coda is a veritable spiritual caress. Fiery anger at the opening of the scherzo leaves gloom and exhaustion in its wake; an almost religious exultation informs the grandeur of the central trio. Brahms’s finale is a set of variations on a flowing theme of quiet majesty—a theme that recalls Beethoven’s Andante favori for piano. The first variation boils down the theme to simple elements. A lilting second variation leads to mischievous antiphonies in the third. Profound contemplation ensues, eventually disrupted by the minor-key outburst of the fifth variation, and returning calm initiates a powerful coda buildup based largely on the theme’s final four notes. The theme then sprints to a joyous close.
—Benjamin Folkman

Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99
Composed 1886, Brahms’s Cello Sonata No. 2 was first performed at a formal soiree at the home of Theodor Bilroth on November 23, 1886, and the following evening it received its first public performance by Robert Hausmann, cello, and Brahms, piano.

Brahms composed his Cello Sonata, No. 2, Op. 99, at age 53, during his first summer at the Swiss resort of Hofstetten near Thun. It has a mature kind of exuberance he never seemed to have in his youthful work. This relatively expansive and extroverted sonata was most probably written for the cellist Robert Hausmann, Brahms’s friend, and was first played by him in concert. Presumably, Brahms was writing for the unique features of Hausmann’s cello playing, specifically a tone so big and luminous it could rise over the piano’s louder passages. Brahms’s biographer, Jan Swafford, says that Hausmann’s influence on this sonata is evident in Brahms’s “feeling for the cello as cello, a creative involvement with timbre and technique.” The work has a highly dramatic four-movement design and is tremendously difficult to play, pushing both the instrumentalists, who are equal partners throughout, to their limits. Arnold Schoenberg remarked in 1931: “Young listeners will probably be unaware that at the time of Brahms’s death, this Sonata was still very unpopular and was considered indigestible. [T]he unusual rhythm … and the unusual intervals … made it difficult to grasp.”

The opening Allegro vivace movement is dramatic, and because it is built around two small motives, feels compressed with a bold leaping passionate first theme in the cello part over explosions of tremolando in the piano. The first theme is asymmetrical, and metrically it seems to wander with its use of syncopation in a mixture of major and minor tonality. The second subject is even more aggressive than the first. Brahms increasingly relies on the cello’s high registers and the use of pizzicati and tremolando to produce his desired effect, making the work stand in real contrast to the E-Minor Sonata, Op. 38, written 20 years before. The cello is given the tremolando at the end of the exposition, then in the terse development, the piano develops the harmony of the tremolando in a rhythmical form. The development is darkly serious and mysterious, with a ghostly passage just before the recapitulation recalling similar passages in Brahms’s symphonies (all of which were composed between the two cello sonatas) and a surprisingly extended first subject in the recapitulation, which has the confidence of the opening. The cello plays tremolando again in the recapitulation; in the long coda both instruments have tremolandos and unite all the strains and moods of the movement in a grand climax. In the words of Malcolm McDonald, the end of the movement has a “sense of suspended time and rhythm that looks forward 30 years to Debussy’s Violin Sonata.”

The slow movement, both soft and melodious, Adagio affetuoso, opens with pizzicato cello accompanying the piano before it plays the noble melody. An impassioned middle section finds cello and piano searching through harmonies, as if they were trying to find each other. This movement is unified by the pizzicato ostinato for both instruments.

The solo piano plays the opening strain of the F-minor, sonorous, galloping scherzo, Allegro passionato, so that the cello’s brusque and agitated entry can have full dramatic effect. The turbulence subsides for the noble, serene, and expansive chorale-like trio. The main theme of the final rondo, Allegro molto, is supple, cheerful and dignified; the movement journeys through many moods from the serious to the agitated to the frolicsome before it comes to its contented and optimistic conclusion.
—Susan Halpern

Walter Frisch’s writings include Brahms: The Four Symphonies
(Yale University Press, 2003) and Brahms and the Principle of Developing
Variation (University of California Press).

Susan Halpern contributes program notes to numerous musical organizations.

Benjamin Folkman writes frequently about classical music.

Alisa Rose, Violin
Violinist Alisa Rose, is a member of keisa, A. J. Roach and the Strange Pilgrims, the Real Vocal String Quartet, and Homespun Rowdy. She has performed at the San Jose Jazz Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Strawberry Music Festival, and the Ferry Music Festival. Alisa has performed chamber music with Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Paul Hersh, Martha Katz, Jodi Levitz, Bettina Mussumeli, Axel Strauss, and Ian Swensen. Additionally, Alisa runs a San Francisco Conservatory of Music outreach program for young disadvantaged violinists. Alisa received her Bachelor’s and Master’s of Music degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Camilla Wicks and Bettina Mussumeli.

Keisuke Nakagoshi, Piano

A native of Japan, Keisuke Nakagoshi came to the US and studied composition with David Conte at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2003, he earned his Bachelor of Music degree in composition. In 2005 he was selected to represent SFCM for the Conservatory Project, a program featuring young artists at the Kennedy Center.
Studying piano with Paul Hersh, he earned his Master of Music degree in chamber music at SFCM in 2006, receiving several awards. He won the SFCM Concerto Competition and performed Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 with the SFCM Orchestra conducted by Alasdair Neale.

Mr. Nakagoshi is also a member of Adorno Ensemble, a collective of musicians focused on chamber music by contemporary composers.

José Franch-Ballester, Clarinet

Andrius Zlabys, Piano

Jonathan Lewis, Cello
Jonathan Lewis, 25, made his orchestra debut at the age of 14 with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra and has since appeared as a soloist with many orchestras across the country. In addition to concert performances in New York’s Zankel Hall and Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mr. Lewis has been seen performing in venues in the US and abroad. During the previous summers, Mr. Lewis has been a participant in the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival and at the Yellow Barn Music Festival. Jonathan holds degrees from Northwestern University and the New England Conservatory of Music. He is currently pursing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the New England Conservatory as a student of Natasha Brofsky.

Yoko Kida, Piano
Yoko Kida earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and her Master of Music degree with distinction from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her teachers include the late Halina Czerny-Stefanska and Victor Rosenbaum, among others. She has performed in Japan, China, the US, South America, and Europe. Her collaboration with renowned clarinetists, such as Charles Neidich and Jonathan Cohler, has led her to perform at the International Woodwind Festival at Boston Conservatory, the International Clarinet Festival in Xi’an, China, as well as the first Woodwind Festival in Caracas, Venezuela. In 2005 she was awarded the Grant-in-Aid Award of the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston, as “a young emerging artist in New England.” In September 2006, she started her doctoral studies in collaborative piano with Irma Vallecillo at the New England Conservatory.