CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Andreas Brantelid
Bengt Forsberg

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 7:30 PM

Andreas Brantelid, Cello
New York Recital Debut
Bengt Forsberg, Piano

SCHUBERT Sonata in A Minor, D. 821, "Arpeggione"
FAURÉ Cello Sonata No.2 in G Minor, Op. 117

DEBUSSY Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor
PROKOFIEV Cello Sonata

Encore:
FALLA "Nana"

Program is approximately 1 hour, 40 minutes, including one intermission

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

The Distinctive Debuts series is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for the presentation of young artists generously provided by The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation.

Additional endowment support for international outreach has been provided by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.

Program Notes:

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Sonata in A Minor, D. 821, "Arpeggione"

A Musical Curiosity

For every instrument that has become a familiar part of present-day concert life, there are others that survive only as footnotes to the history of music. The baryton (a stringed instrument for which Haydn composed numerous works), the pedal piano, and the attractively named but expressively limited viola d'amore are among the musical inventions that once seemed promising but are today nearly extinct. Another is the arpeggione, the curious creation of Viennese instrument-maker Johann Stauffer, who produced his first example in 1823. Shaped like a guitar but somewhat larger, the arpeggione was equipped with a fretted fingerboard and six strings—but it was held and bowed like a cello, and had a roughly comparable range.


About the Music

Written for arpeggione virtuoso Vincenz Schuster, the Sonata in A Minor, D. 821, is the only work that is known to have been composed for the instrument, but it has proved as enduring as the arpeggione was ephemeral. Since the demise of the instrument, cellists have welcomed this orphaned sonata into their repertory.


A Closer Listen

Schubert immediately establishes the substantial character of the composition with a somber melody that is announced by the piano and then taken up by the cello. In contrast to this main theme of the opening movement, the second subject is light and animated. Schubert develops both ideas with his characteristic melodic grace, and the conclusion of the first theme reappears in slow motion during the brief coda that closes the movement.

The ensuing Adagio is a serene meditation on a handsomely expressive melody. It leads without pause to the finale, which features a flowing main theme. Two intervening episodes, however, impart a dance-like quality and the flavor of a scherzo. The first of these episodes evokes the sound of Hungarian gypsy violin music, while the second features a passage in which pizzicato figures from the cello accompany the piano to striking effect.



GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845–1924)
Cello Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 117

About the Composer

Gabriel Fauré was one of the leading French composers of the 19th and early-20th centuries, his music embodying both a late flowering of French Romanticism, as well as early ventures into modernism. A naturally reticent artist, Fauré never composed anything that could properly be called an opera and also avoided the major genres of orchestral music, the symphony, and the concerto. Rather, he felt most comfortable writing short piano pieces, songs, and chamber music, and created his best work through these forms.


Fauré's Chamber Music

Fauré's contribution to the chamber music literature consists mainly of two sonatas for violin and piano, and two others for cello and piano; pairs of quartets and quintets for piano and strings; a piano trio; and a string quartet, written in the last year of his life. While these compositions are not large in number, their consistently high quality makes for the most impressive body of chamber music by any French composer.


About the Work

Fauré wrote the second of his two cello sonatas in 1922. Although the composer was then in his late 70s, the work is characterized by a seemingly youthful verve. This is most apparent in its first movements, where Fauré's invention produces an energetic and sunny impression. While the ensuing Andante strikes a more somber note (Fauré originally composed its elegiac main theme for a piece commemorating the centenary of Napoleon's death), the finale recaptures the joyful élan of the opening.



CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor

About the Composer

In the summer of 1915, with France at war and his health in decline, Claude Debussy began work on a series of six sonatas for various instruments. This undertaking was at least partly a defiant response to the events of the war, which was going poorly for France. "I want to work not so much for myself," the composer wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand, "but to give proof, however small it may be, that even if there were 30 million Bosches, French thought will not be destroyed." As it happened, Debussy lived to complete only three of the projected six sonatas. The first, finished before the end of the year, was his Cello Sonata.


About the Work

Like the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, completed in 1916, and the Violin Sonata of 1917, the Cello Sonata abandons the highly sensuous textures of Debussy's earlier music in favor of a more restrained and even austere tone. Indeed, this music suggests an often melancholy frame of mind, as well as a somewhat elliptical style of thematic treatment.


A Closer Listen

The first movement bears the designation Prologue, suggesting a dramatic or narrative conception. Debussy's music seems to confirm this notion; it offers little in the way of conventional melody. Instead, the cello's phrases have a bardic, at times almost declamatory quality that prompted the composer's biographer, Edward Lockspeiser, to refer to the movement as "a noble soliloquy." Noble it is, and poignant also—especially in its hushed final moments.

If this initial portion of the sonata is unconventional, the second movement, whose title indicates a serenade, proves even more so. Debussy revealed the poetic idea behind the music when he originally thought to call this movement Pierrot fâché avec la lune ("Pierrot angry with the moon"). It belongs, then, to a remarkable series of compositions from the early-20th century that took their inspiration from Pierrot and Harlequin, the sad clowns of Italian commedia dell'arte. (Other works of this kind include Schoenberg's melodrama Pierrot lunaire, Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella, and Busoni's opera Arlecchino.) In imagining Pierrot's moonlit world, Debussy draws on exceptional cello sonorities: glassy harmonics, sul ponticello playing (bowing just above the bridge of the instrument, which produces an eerie metallic timbre), chords strummed as though on a guitar, and more.

The Finale moves through several changes of tempo and mood, thereby conveying a mercurial character, and includes recollections of thematic materials heard earlier in the piece.



SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953)
Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 119

The Cellist as Muse

Before emigrating to the US in the 1970s, Mstislav Rostropovich, the distinguished cellist and conductor, enjoyed close working relationships with the Soviet Union's foremost composers. Dmitri Shostakovich performed and recorded his Cello Sonata with Rostropovich and later wrote two concertos for the cellist. Sergei Prokofiev was also taken by Rostropovich's playing and eagerness to champion new music, and composed several works for him. Among them is the Op. 119 Sonata.


A Humanist Motto

Prokofiev prefaced his manuscript of the score with a quotation from the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky: "Man—that has a proud sound." It is an epigram that is well-suited to both the tone of the cello and, one presumes, a humanistic spirit that underlies the sonata.


About the Work

Prokofiev's sonata unfolds in three movements, the first constructed in episodic fashion. The composer treats three themes, which reappear and vanish as the music wanders from one distinct section to the next. Notwithstanding a flurry of activity late in the movement, the music conveys a tranquil, almost dream-like quality.

By contrast, the themes of the second movement give the impression of tunes for folk dancing. Following a central episode that considers a warmly romantic melody, an abbreviated reprise of the initial dance music closes the movement. The finale assumes the form of a rondo, with a lyrical main theme heard before and after several episodes of diverse character.


—Paul Schiavo

© 2010 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Andreas Brantelid, Cello
New York Recital Debut
Andreas Brantelid

Born in 1987, Andreas Brantelid is already one of Scandinavia's leading cellists and is quickly establishing an international reputation. Nominated by the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) for its Rising Star recital series last season, he has performed at the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Kölner Philharmonie, and the Stockholm Concert Hall. He is currently a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and an artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Mr. Brantelid made his debut with the Royal Danish Orchestra at age 14; he has since appeared with all of the major orchestras in Scandinavia. This season, he performs with the Göteborgs Symfoniker, Hamburger Symphoniker, BBC Philharmonic, and Vienna Chamber Orchestra. He also gives the world premiere of Niels Rosing-Schow's Cello Concerto with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Brantelid gives recitals this season in London and in Paris. He made his debut at Wigmore Hall in 2008 with frequent collaborator Bengt Forsberg. He also performs regularly at important festivals, including Risør and Bergen (Norway), Kuhmo (Finland), and the City of London and Cheltenham festivals in the UK.

In 2008, EMI released Mr. Brantelid's debut concerto recording of Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Saint-Saëns, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Schønwand. Earlier this year, the label released Mr. Brantelid's disc of Chopin's chamber music, including the Cello Sonata.

Mr. Brantelid is the first Scandinavian to win First Prize in the Eurovision Young Musicians competition (2006) and the International Paulo Cello Competition (2007). He was named Danish Radio's 2007 Artist in Residence and received a scholarship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in 2008, among numerous other grants and prizes.

Mr. Brantelid has studied with Henrik Brendstrup, Mats Rondin, and Torleif Thedéen; he currently studies with Frans Helmersson at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. Under the auspices of the Augustinus Foundation, he plays a cello by Giovanni Grancino made in 1690.

Bengt Forsberg, Piano
Bengt Forsberg

Among the most highly respected chamber musicians, Bengt Forsberg performs regularly with Andreas Brantelid, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, violinist Nils-Erik Sparf, and cellist Mats Lidström. He has toured extensively with von Otter, with whom he has recorded several award-winning CDs.

As a soloist, Mr. Forsberg has performed with orchestras in Sweden and abroad. His vast repertoire includes standard works and those rarely performed.

Mr. Forsberg holds degrees in piano, organ, and cantorship from the Göteborg Conservatory. He is currently the Artist Director of the chamber music series at All Saints' Church in Stockholm.