Camille Thomas & Roman Rabinovich Program Book

CAMILLE THOMAS CELLO ROMAN RABINOVICH

PIANO

THURSDAY I NOVEMBER 21, 2019 I 7:30 PM KIMBELL ART MUSEUM I RENZO PIANO PAVILION

PERFORMANCE SPONSORED BY

The Board of Directors of the Cliburn salutes with gratitude the generosity of

SHIRLEY G. ANTON†* FORT WORTH TOURISM PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

TERESA & LUTHER KING

for supporting this performance of

CAMILLE THOMAS + ROMAN RABINOVICH

PA G E

26

† Deceased *Made possible by a generous gift to the Cliburn Endowment

CLIBURN AT THE KIMBELL Kimbell Art Museum Renzo Piano Pavilion Thursday, November 21, 2019 I 7:30 p.m.

CAMILLE THOMAS cello ROMAN RABINOVICH piano Ludwig van Beethoven

Seven Variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” by Mozart, WoO 46

Johannes Brahms

Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano in E Minor, op. 38 Allegro non troppo Allegretto quasi menuetto Allegro

intermission Olivier Messiaen

“Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus” from Quatuor pour la fin du temps

César Franck

Sonata for Cello and Piano in A Major, M. 8 Allegretto ben moderato Allegro Recitativo–Fantasia: Ben moderato–Molto lento Allegretto poco mosso

Camille Thomas appears by arrangement with Frank Salomon Associates.

Roman Rabinovich appears by arrangement with Arts Management Group.

Camille Thomas records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon.

Roman Rabinovich records for Orchid Classics.

Steinway & Sons is the official piano of the Cliburn.

This concert is being recorded. Please silence all electronic devices.

CAMILLE THOMAS

cello

The first cellist signed by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) in over 40 years, Camille Thomas blends a brilliant command of her instrument with a rare musicality to offer truly memorable performances. Her first DG recording Saint-Saëns, Offenbach vividly illustrates the reasons for DG’s historic signing and her growing number of enthusiastic fans the world over. Camille’s special talent was also recognized at the European Broadcasting Union Competition, where she was awarded the first prize and named “New Talent of the Year” in 2014.

Whether she is playing Saint-Saëns, Dvorak, Elgar, Haydn, Schumann, a neglected work that she champions, or the new concerto Fazil Say wrote for her, Never Give Up, you can be sure of a passionate and compelling performance. Her fascinating recital programs offer traditional and underplayed repertoire, themes, and collaborations with composer-pianists—all conceived to stimulate the audience, as well as the artist. Camille has won numerous prizes at national and international competitions, including the Seventh Antonio Janigro International Competition in Croatia, the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Strings Competition, the Edmont Baert Competition, and the Léopold Bellan Competition, and was chosen for Forbes’ prestigious “30 under 30” list.

In the 2019–2020 season, Camille makes her highly anticipated United States debut at the Brevard Music Festival performing the Elgar Concerto under the baton of Keith Lockhart. Her whirlwind season then brings her to a number of other leading series and orchestras, including Purdue Convocations, the Cliburn, Houston’s Society for the Performing Arts, Savannah Music Festival, Interlochen Presents, People’s Symphony Concerts (her New York City debut), and the Des Moines, Delaware, and Illinois Symphony Orchestras. Camille also has the pleasure of making her Walt Disney Concert Hall recital debut as a featured artist of the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival.

Recent and upcoming international appearances include concertos with Paavo Järvi in Bremen, Mikko Franck at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Orchestre Philharmonique de France, the Lucerne Festival Strings in Munich, and with Alondra de la Parra at the renowned Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. In recital and chamber music, she performs at prestigious venues and festivals all around Europe, collaborating with top artists from both sides of the ocean.

Following the success of her acclaimed DG debut album Saint-Saëns, Offenbach, Camille is set to release her second recording on the label alongside internationally renowned conductor Stéphane Denève and the Brussels Philharmonic.

Camille studied in Frans Helmerson’s and Wolfgang-Emmanuel Schmidt’s classes at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, after working with Marcel Bardon and Philippe Muller in Paris and Stephan Forck in Berlin. She plays the Stradivarius “Feuermann” (1730) thanks to the generosity of the Nippon Music Foundation and a bow by Eugène Sartory kindly on extended loan from the Fondation Roi Baudoin - Fonds Bollandsee.

COMPOSER BIOGRAPHIES

ROMAN RABINOVICH

piano

Pianist Roman Rabinovich has been highly lauded by The New York Times, BBC Music Magazine, San Francisco Classical Voice, and others. He has performed throughout Europe and the United States in venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Roman has earned praise for his explorations of the piano music of Haydn. At the 2018 Bath Festival, he presented a 10-recital 42-sonata series, earning praise in The Sunday Times. Prior to that, in 2016 as artist-in-residence at the Lammermuir Festival in Scotland, he performed 25 Haydn sonatas in five days, and over two seasons (2016 and 2017), he performed the complete Haydn sonatas in Tel Aviv.

In May 2020, Roman will perform two recitals comprised of Haydn and contemporary works at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and three programs dedicated to Haydn at Wigmore Hall. Dubbed “a true polymath, in the Renaissance sense of the word” (Seen & Heard International), he is also a composer and visual artist. His 2019– 2020 engagements include concerto appearances with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Sir Roger Norrington, Meiningen Orchestra, and Glacier Symphony, and solo recital highlights include the International Piano Series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Liszt Academy, Union College, and ProMusica Detroit.

Recent seasons saw Roman’s critically acclaimed concerto debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington, as well as with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, the NFM Leopoldinum and Szczecin Philharmonic in Europe, and the Seattle Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, and Sinfonia Boca Raton with James Judd in the United States.

Solo recital appearances included Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and Walter Reade Theatres, the Houston Society for the Performing Arts, the Washington Performing Arts Society, Vancouver Recital Society, Chopin Society in St Paul, Philip Lorenz Keyboard Series in Fresno, Janáček May International Music Festival, and Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. As a chamber musician Roman appeared with violinist Liza Ferschtman at, among others, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, and the BeethovenHaus Bonn.

Roman made his Israel Philharmonic debut under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age 10. He was a top prizewinner at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008, and in 2015, was selected by Sir András Schiff as one of three pianists for the inaugural “Building Bridges” series, created to highlight young pianists of unusual promise. Born in Tashkent, Roman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1994, beginning his studies there with Irena Vishnevitsky and Arie Vardi; he went on to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Seymour Lipkin, and earned his master’s degree at The Juilliard School where he studied with Robert McDonald.

PROGRAM NOTES

BY KRISTIAN LIN

Seven Variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” by Mozart, WoO 46 Ludwig van Beethoven b. December 1770 (Bonn, Germany) d. March 26, 1827 (Vienna, Austria) BEHIND THE MUSIC Beethoven appears to have written this work in 1801, at the same time that Mozart’s The Magic Flute was playing in Vienna. He seems to have first heard the opera a few years prior, when he wrote another set of variations on a different aria from the same opera, “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen.”

Here, he takes as his subject a duet for Pamina (who has just learned that Tamino loves her) and Papageno (who is alone).

FOLLOW THE MUSIC • The work begins with a decorous setting of the duet for the cello and piano. This gives way to a first variation in which the melody is sliced into uneven rhythms. A brief second variation follows, in which both instruments run up and down scales that fit the contour of Mozart’s duet.

• Variation 3 has the piano and the cello trading off gracefully lilting figures reminiscent of a country dance. Variation 4 transforms Mozart’s sprightly duet into a melancholy reflection. The mischief soon returns in Variation 5, with its odd rhythms lending the section an air of fun.

• The longest of the set, Variation 6 makes Mozart’s stage number into something dreamy and introspective, with the melody changing hands between the piano and cello in a manner that is almost more songlike than Mozart’s own material.

• The final variation is generally where a set is supposed to end with a flourish, but Beethoven keeps his exuberance in check here as he finishes the set with skipping rhythms. Variation 7 is mostly quiet until its final two notes.

Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano in E Minor, op. 38 Johannes Brahms b. May 7, 1833 (Hamburg, Germany) d. April 3, 1897 (Vienna, Austria) BEHIND THE MUSIC Many people in the music world knew Johannes Brahms as a talented pianist, but relatively few of them knew that he was also quite skilled at the cello. When he published this duo for cello and piano, he included a note in the text that advised that the pianist “should be a partner — often a leading, often a watchful and considerate partner — but it should under no circumstances assume a purely accompanying role.” The original text also called for a freer approach than many modern musicians take, with the pianist at liberty to arpeggiate notes marked as chords, while the cellist is instructed to use portamento (slide between the notes to connect them).

Brahms also noted that the piece would be easy for amateurs to play, not an assessment that many amateurs would agree with.

FOLLOW THE MUSIC • The opening movement of this sonata is somber and beautiful in a way that Brahms devotees will find familiar. The cello plays mostly in the instrument’s lower register, with the work unfolding in an unhurried and rigorously logical fashion. The opening quotes Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, marking the piece as Brahms’ salute to the past that is rooted firmly in his present.

• The composer’s reverence for the past comes through in the second movement, which imitates the dance rhythms of French forms such as the gavotte and the minuet. The trio section of the dance switches from A major to F-sharp minor and makes a legato contrast to the movement’s overall staccato rhythms, tying it to the first movement.

• The third movement is often called a fugue, but this isn’t strictly true. It’s actually a conventional sonata-allegro movement with fugal lines coming from the pianist’s right and left hands as well as the cello melody. Here is where the marriage of piano and cello is truly consummated, with the music rushing in carefully constructed torrents.

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PROGRAM NOTES

BY KRISTIAN LIN

“Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus” from Quatuor pour la fin du temps Olivier Messiaen b. December 10, 1908 (Avignon, France) d. April 27, 1992 (Clichy, France) BEHIND THE MUSIC By now, it’s well known that Olivier Messiaen wrote his Quartet for the End of Time at a Nazi concentration camp, where he employed a piano, violin, cello, and clarinet because those were the instruments that his fellow prisoners knew how to play. The work premiered outdoors in the rain to an audience of about 400 inmates and guards. As much for the circumstances of its composition as for its innate musical qualities, this is Messiaen’s bestknown work.

The “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus” is the fifth movement in the eightmovement quartet, and since it is scored for piano and cello alone, it is presented here. Messiaen had composed this music earlier as part of a work for the 1937 Paris Exposition, which he then arranged to fit into the quartet. In his program note, Messiaen wrote, “Jesus is considered here as the Word. A broad phrase, ‘infinitely slow,’ on the cello, magnifies with love and reverence the eternity of the Word, powerful and gentle, ‘whose time never runs out.’ The cello’s long-limbed melody and the agonized harmonies of the piece are meant to express the perseverance of human faith in God in the face of suffering.”

Beethoven

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PROGRAM NOTES

BY KRISTIAN LIN

Sonata for Cello and Piano in A Major, M. 8 César Franck b. December 10, 1822 (Liège, Belgium) d. November 8, 1890 (Paris, France) BEHIND THE MUSIC There seems to be some evidence that César Franck originally envisioned this work for piano and cello, but the wedding of his violinist friend Eugène Ysaÿe spurred him to change the piece to a sonata for piano and violin and present it as a wedding gift. Either way, the cello version of this piece (arranged by Jules Delsart) is the only one of the many alternate versions that was ever personally approved by Franck. The piece remains one of the most beloved works in violin literature. Oh, and some wiseacres in the classical music world refer to the Franck Sonata as the “Frank Sinatra.”

FOLLOW THE MUSIC • The mood can be hard to determine in Franck’s music, but the opening theme stated by the cello is something that recurs in all four movements, giving the sonata an uncommon unity. This theme is shortly taken up by the piano, which transforms its rhythmic chords from the opening into impassioned figures. The cello then takes back the theme before the piano restates it in grave terms before the movement’s quiet conclusion.

• The more turbulent second movement begins with onrushing cascades of notes from the piano. These transform into angry, fiery chords while the cello turns the opening theme into an agonized lament. The agitation subsides into a quieter middle section before returning with a vengeance that swallows up the serenity. The serenity makes a brief return before a series of tremolo figures in the cello leads the movement to its furious end.

• After the fireworks from the piano in the preceding movement, the cello takes center stage in an enigmatic, discursive movement that proceeds at a stately pace. The cello plays long lines heavy with accidentals that give this “Recitativo-Fantasia” a perfumed air.

• The last movement is probably the most approachable section of the sonata, beginning with the cello and piano trading off dance-like rhythms with a rustic simplicity, though the harmonies grow more complicated than you’d perhaps find in your average shepherd. The finale grows increasingly dramatic and adventurous, with the piano playing spectral figures at times, and with that dance rhythm underpinning everything. The theme from the first movement makes one final re-entrance before the music winds to a triumphant conclusion.

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