CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Emanuel Ax Young Artists Concert

Weill Recital Hall
Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 3:00 PM

Sean Lee, Violin
Naomi Kudo, Piano

Tibi Cziger, Clarinet
Matan Daniel Porat, Piano

Yotam Baruch, Cello
Efi Hackmey, Piano

BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78
BRAHMS Clarinet Sonata No. 2 in E Flat Major, Op. 120
BRAHMS Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38

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:

Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78
Composed in 1878–79, The Sonata in G Major was first performed in Bonn on November 8, 1879; it was heard for the first time at Carnegie Hall on February 7, 1909, with Clara Damrosch Mannes, violin, and David Mannes, piano.

The First Violin Sonata, in G major, was composed in the summers of 1878 and 1879 in the Austrian village of Pörtschach on Lake Worth. It was in these idyllic surroundings that Brahms created some of his sunniest and most serene works, including the Second Symphony (1877) and the Violin Concerto (1878). The smaller-scale G-Major Sonata represents a kind of expressive and technical overflow from those two gentle orchestral giants. There is a similar lyricism and intensity, as well as an efflorescence of melody.

The G-Major Sonata was early on dubbed the “Regenlied” (“Rain Song”) Sonata by Brahms’s friends because the main melody of its first and last movements are based on a song by that title that Brahms had composed in 1873 (Op. 59, No. 3). The finale of the sonata actually quotes the song directly, while the first movement takes over the main rhythmic motive: three D’s in a
long–short–long pattern. The same pattern is also evoked in the middle section of the slow movement.

The first movement of the sonata is especially notable for its profusion of themes, each seeming to grow effortlessly out of the previous one. In fact, the melodies are all related by a careful process of what the 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg would call developing variation: a small motivic figure becomes transformed into something that sounds new but is linked to what has gone before. This principle gives Brahms’s music its powerful logic and unity.

The middle movement of the G-Major Sonata has an expanded ternary form (ABABA). The A segments are based on a melody in E-flat that is typical of Brahms—broadly tuneful but also complex and off-center in its rhythms. The B section, a dark funeral march in E-flat minor, is a musical commemoration of Felix Schumann, one of Clara and Robert’s sons, who in 1879 died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. Brahms sent a copy of this movement to Clara, confessing that he had written it to tell her “how sincerely I think of you and Felix.”

Despite the emerging “Regenlied,” the memory of the Adagio continues to haunt the finale, where the main theme of the Adagio reappears quite suddenly, about half way through, in its original key of E-flat. The finale itself begins, like the “Regenlied” song, in the minor key, here G minor. All its themes are in minor until the reappearance of the slow movement theme. Only in the coda, marked “Più moderato,” does Brahms at last shift the main key from G minor to G major. It is here that the sunshine at last peeks through the clouds—not as a blast of radiance, but as a comforting, warming beam of light.
—Walter Frisch

Clarinet Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2
See notes for Saturday, December 15, 2007.

Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38
Composed 1862–65, Brahms’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38, was first performed on January 14, 1871, in the Leipzig Gewandhaus by Emil Hegar, cello, and Karl Reinecke, piano.

During his long, productive life, Brahms published two-dozen pieces of chamber music from duo-sonatas to sextets, but it is likely that he may have written and destroyed two or three times as many. Musical ideas from those lost works probably found their way into the other compositions that he assembled, disassembled, and reassembled through the years, but no critic of the music Brahms actually had published was as judgmental about his works in progress as he was himself. This sonata for cello and piano was published in 1866; it is his first published duo. Its final form was radically changed from that which it took when he began work on it in 1862.

Brahms had originally intended to write a four-movement sonata including a central slow movement and scherzo. He initially included an Adagio affetuoso movement that he removed and reserved for 21 years, and then in a new tonality, allowed it to become the second movement of the Cello Sonata No. 2. Brahms became dissatisfied with the direction in which he was taking the music and hesitated to show it even to such close friends as Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann’s widow, and Josef Gänsbacher, a vocal teacher at the Vienna Conservatory, who also played the cello and who had helped him get his job as a conductor of a choral society there. In 1865 he began working on the sonata again and converted it into a three-movement work by rewriting the first, discarding the second, and adding two new movements. He dedicated it to Gänsbacher.

This sonata is a dark, solemn, and stately work, but Brahms wrote to his publisher, “not too difficult to play, for either instrument.” In the first movement, Allegro non troppo, the big wide-ranging Romantic melodies are widely developed in sonata form in a movement that has ingeniously varied textures. It begins darkly, but by the movement’s end becomes brighter. For contrast, the second movement is a gracious and old-fashioned Allegretto, like a minuet, but an unusual one with most of the weight placed on the first beats of measures. The finale, Allegro, is a vigorous and powerful fugue on a long subject that seems to have had its inspiration in Bach’s The Art of the Fugue; it concludes the sonata with a show of virtuosity and spiritedness.

The cello shares equal billing with the piano in this work with much textural interplay between the two instruments. The cello part is often scored below the piano, yet without any sacrifice of its melodic line. In particular, the last movement is challenging for the cello in this way; according to legend, a cellist feeling at disadvantage in the final movement while reading it with Brahms complained, “I can’t hear myself,” and the composer presumably replied, “You’re lucky.”

The earliest known public concert performance of the sonata was not given until four and a half years after it was published, on January 14, 1871. The occasion was a chamber music concert in the Leipzig Gewandhaus; the cellist was Emil Hegar and the pianist, the well-known composer, Karl Reinecke.
—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.

Sean Lee, Violin
Sean Lee was born in Van Nuys, California, and started playing the violin at the age of four. As a child, he appeared often on television, including performances with singer Michael Bolton at the 1997 Cable Ace Awards on Turner Network Television and Jerry Lewis’s MDA Telethon for two years. Sean has performed as a soloist with the Torrance Symphony, Westchester Symphony, and Redlands Symphony orchestras, among numerous others. He has also given recitals, most recently, at New York’s Neue Galerie and on the Artist Ascending series in Memphis, Tennessee.

Mr. Lee has studied for the past five years as a student of The Perlman Music Program, and in recent summers has appeared at the Sarasota and Ravinia music festivals. He performs regularly with the Juilliard Orchestra, the LK String Quartet, and the Perlman Music Program String Orchestra. An active chamber musician, he has collaborated in chamber music performances with artists such as Miriam Fried, Ronald Leonard, Lukas Foss, Paul Katz, and Itzhak Perlman.

Now 20 years old, Sean is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at The Juilliard School in New York City as a recipient of the William R. Hearst Scholarship, Dorothy Starling Scholarship, and Sunny Brown Foundation Scholarship. He currently studies privately with the internationally acclaimed Itzhak Perlman and has studied in the past with renowned violin professor Robert Lipsett and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci.

Naomi Kudo, Piano

Recipient of the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award, pianist Naomi Kudo has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Reno Philharmonic, Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra, and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, among others. Recipient of the Chopin Prize and winner of the 2007 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition at The Juilliard School, Kudo was also named a 2004 Davidson Fellow Laureate and was the only American finalist at the 2005 15th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Highlights include performances at the International Chopin Festival in Duszniki-Zdroj and the Salle Cortot in Paris. Ms. Kudo is a third-year undergraduate studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky.

Tibi Cziger, Clarinet
Israeli clarinetist Tibi Cziger is the first clarinetist to ever be admitted to the prestigious Artist Diploma program at The Juilliard School. Mr. Cziger is a frequent recitalist and soloist, having appeared with the Tivoli Symphony in Copenhagen and the Israel Chamber Orchestra, among others. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Cziger has been heard in Israel, Europe, and the US, and has frequently been featured in radio broadcasts. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Israeli Chamber Project and has collaborated with many orchestras and ensembles, including the Orpheus, Israel Philharmonic, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. His many prizes and awards include the Mitchel Lurie Award and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarships.

Matan Daniel Porat, Piano

Israeli pianist and composer, Matan Daniel Porat has performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and gave a debut recital at the Louvre, Paris.

An avid chamber musician, Mr. Porat has participated in the Salzburg, Ravinia, and Verbier festivals, and has collaborated with the Ysaÿe Quartet, violinist Miriam Fried, and flutist Mathieu Dufour. Among his awards is top prize at the 2003 AXA Dublin Competition.

Active as a composer, his pieces were premiered at the Montpellier, Schleswig-Holstein, and Menuhin Gstaat festivals, among others. His new opera, Animal Farm, will be premiered this January in Tel-Aviv.

Holding a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, Mr. Porat studied piano with Emanuel Krasovsky, Maria João Pires, and Joseph Kalichstein, and composition with André Hajdu, Ruben Seroussi, and George Benjamin.

This year he resides in London, working extensively with pianist Murray Perahia.

Yotam Baruch, Cello
Born in Tel-Aviv, cellist Yotam Baruch received his early education at the Tel Aviv Conservatory of Music and the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts. At the age of 18, he was appointed cellist of the Israeli Defending Force Quartet, the only position open to cellists in the Israeli Army. Mr. Baruch received his bachelor’s degree from the Rubin Academy of Music of Tel Aviv University. He was top prizewinner in both the strings department and the chamber music competitions of the Rubin Academy and performed as a soloist with the Rubin Academy Symphony Orchestra. In May 2007, he finished his graduate studies at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where he was a scholarship student of Amit Peled. In the fall of 2007, he began his doctoral studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, studying with Janos Starker.

Mr. Baruch has participated in several summer festivals, including Music@Menlo, Musicorda, The Perlman Music Program, and the West-Eastern Divan Workshop, where he played under the baton of Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Mr. Baruch has been a scholarship recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation since 1995. In May 2005, he won first prize in the Baltimore Music Club competition in Towson, Maryland. Recently, Mr. Baruch received the Israel Dorman Memorial Award from the Peabody Conservatory. He has given solo recitals at the Mendelssohn House in Leipzig, Germany, and Clermont Hall in Tel Aviv. Yotam Baruch records regularly for the Voice of Music radio station in Israel. He has taken part in master classes with Janos Starker, Bernard Greenhouse, Frans Helmersson, Boris Pergamenchikow, and Steven Isserlis, and has collaborated in chamber music with cellists Maria Kliegel and Jens-Peter Maintz, and violist Atar Arad.

Efi Hackmey, Piano
Born in Jerusalem, Israel, Efi Hackmey studied piano and orchestral conducting at Tel Aviv University, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree (2002) and Master of Music degree (2004) with highest honors. His teachers in Tel Aviv were the legendary pianist Pnina Salzman and conductor Noam Sheriff. During his studies in Tel Aviv he won the second prize in the Tel Aviv Academy Piano Competition (2003). Hackmey currently studies with Menahem Pressler at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he is pursuing a Doctor of Music degree in piano performance.

Mr. Hackmey was featured on Israeli TV Channel 2, as well as on the Voice of Music channel of the Israeli National Public Radio. He has performed in chamber concerts organized by the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society in Eilat, Israel (2005). Other performances include concerts in Germany, Austria, and the United States. His recording of songs by Israeli composer Yoav Essing, together with soprano Noa Danon, won the first prize in the Heinrich Heine Composition Competition in Israel (2002).

Mr. Hackmey served as associate instructor in piano and music theory at Indiana University and is currently on the piano faculty at DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana).