St Petersburg, Concert Hall

Lynn Harrell recital (cello)


Lynn Harrell (biography)

Piano: Anna Malikova


PROGRAMME:
Ludwig van Beethoven
Seven Variations on themes from Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte for cello and piano, WoO 46
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 102 No 2

Sergei Prokofiev
Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 119

Felix Mendelssohn
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 58


Ludwig van Beethoven’s legacy includes three cycles for cello and piano. The third of these cycles was composed using the theme of the duet of Pamina and Papageno from Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte. Although these variations were not subsequently included in the basic list of Beethoven’s opuses, the music in them is very mature and the cello part is developed and virtuoso in nature. It is probable that Beethoven was consulted by the French musician Jean-Louis Duport regarding cello technique, and this experience proved to be important when the composer was working on later opuses with solo cello – such as the Third Concerto and sonatas.
Beethoven’s Fifth (and last) Cello Sonata, regardless of the formal adherence to the three-movement scheme of “fast-slow-fast” (in earlier sonatas Beethoven had experimented with its variations), heralds the dawn of the composer’s late period. The harmoniously refined sonata allegro cedes to the well-developed slow movement, without interruption flowing into the fugue-like finale, the idea of which was to be developed in the composer’s late quartets.
In the history of music the appearance of works for a solo instrument is almost always connected with the collaboration of the composer and a vivid virtuoso performer. For the cello repertoire of the latter half of the 20th century Mstislav Rostropovich was one such character. In 1949 the twenty-two-year-old musician drew the attention of Sergei Prokofiev, who had heard his performance of a sonata by Nikolai Myaskovsky. Soon, working directly with Rostropovich, Prokofiev composed a sonata of his own. External events could not but affect the moods that reign in the music of the sonata (it was the first work composed by Prokofiev after 1948 when most of his opuses had been subjected to criticism and basically forbidden); the typical Prokofiev lyricism and scherzo qualities were literally suppressed, while the slow and restrained first movement takes on the role of the core of the work, comparable with the other two movements together in terms of scale. Simplifying the language of the music did not prevent Prokofiev from creating music that was incredibly fresh and innovative; his works for cello (for Rostropovich he was to compose another Symphony-Concerto) were some of the greatest opuses he ever composed.
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Second Cello Sonata is dedicated to Count Mateusz Wielhorski, a patron of the arts and one of the most significant figures in music in Russia in the 19th century. A pupil of the acclaimed Bernhard Romberg, Wielhorski was also a good cellist; Robert Schumann, during his time in St Petersburg, heard him perform sonatas by Mendelssohn and noted in his diary that Wielhorski performed like a true artist.
In the sonata there are reflections of the facets of the mature Mendelssohn’s style. The first movement of the sonata brings to mind the “Italian” pages of his music. The mysterious colour of the scherzo, underscored by the use of pizzicato for the cello, is undoubtedly closely related to the music he created at the same time for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The lofty Adagio, in which the cello has a recitative role, is a kind of tribute to Bach, whose art Mendelssohn greatly admired. The series finishes with a virtuoso and life-affirming finale.
© Mariinsky Theatre, 2015/Vladimir Khavrov

Age category 6+

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