Details
The Venue - Leeds College of Music
Quarry Hill
Leeds
LS2 7PD
England
Programme
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata no.1 for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord in G major, BWV 1027
Pierre Boulez – Piano Sonata no.2
George Crumb – Sonata for solo cello
Anton Webern – Sonata for Cello and Piano
Johannes Brahms – Cello Sonata no.1 in E minor, Op.38
Performers
Adrian Brendel – Cello
Tim Horton – piano
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
Adrian and Tim’s recital contrasts traditional sonatas by Bach and Brahms with more modern works. Tim writes: “This fascinating programme juxtaposes sonatas from five composers over three centuries. Bach’s Gamba Sonata and Boulez’s Second Piano Sonata (1948) may seem strange bedfellows but both are steeped in each composer’s fundamentally contrapuntal styles. The Bach is essentially for three voices; the cello and each hand of the keyboard part are inter-dependent voices of equal importance. Likewise, in Boulez’s Sonata there are always several voices that the composer states have no hierarchy. It is the last time that Boulez used traditional forms (sonata, slow movement, scherzo and trio and fugue). In doing so he intended to destroy those forms, a cathartic process that freed him for the explorations of the following years.
George Crumb has been another great firebrand of modernism, although his Sonata for Solo Cello is an early piece that harks back to a neo-classical, tonally-based style rather than his more familiar use of extended instrumental techniques.”