Gautier Capuçon, Cello
Yuja Wang, Piano
Performers
Gautier Capuçon, Cello
Yuja Wang, Piano
Program
FRANCK Violin Sonata in A Major (transcr. for cello)
CHOPIN Introduction and Polonaise brillante, Op. 3
RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata in G Minor
Encores:
SAINT-SAËNS "The Swan" from Carnival of the Animals
PIAZZOLLA Le Grand Tango
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 90 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
FRANCK Violin Sonata in A Major
One of the most beloved works in the chamber music repertoire, Franck’s luxuriantly Romantic Violin Sonata in A Major was composed for Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe. Considered by many as the composer’s masterpiece, it has been enthusiastically appropriated by cellists, violists, and flutists. Like Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata, Franck’s features a freely declamatory slow movement in which the two players meditate upon material presented elsewhere.
CHOPIN Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C Major, Op. 3
In the fall of 1829, fresh from a triumphant tour of Austria and Germany, Chopin accepted an invitation from Prince Antoni Radziwiłł to visit his hunting lodge in the mountains outside Warsaw. An amateur composer and cellist, the prince was eager for his daughters to have high-level musical instruction. It was for one of the “two young Eves in this paradise,” as Chopin called them, that he composed the Introduction and Polonaise brillante.
RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19
Rachmaninoff remained an unabashed champion of Romanticism long past the style’s sell-by date in the first half of the 20th century. The lush and impetuously lyrical language that characterizes such early works as the G-Minor Cello Sonata of 1901 remained the pianist-composer’s stock in trade for the remaining four decades of his life. Rachmaninoff’s soaring melodies, richly upholstered textures, and highly idiomatic writing for both cello and piano have given the work a secure place in the repertoire.