Ravinia_2018_Issue_3_Week

and No. 1 in F minor on January 11. These works

stand at opposite poles of musical expression.

The Sonata No. 1 is a dramatic, extroverted

four-movement work based on personality

contrast and mild contention between musical

partners. The three-movement Sonata No. 2 in-

habits the intimate world of Brahms’s late piano

pieces; the solo instrument and keyboard effort-

lessly exchange material and interact with sin-

gle-mindedness throughout.

The flexible instrumentation of these sonatas—

solo clarinet or viola, and a separate version for

violin—indicates no particular indecision by

the composer. There was a practical consider-

ation: the potential market for chamber com-

positions enlarged greatly with these alternate

scorings. Brahms obviously thought first of

clarinetist Mühlfeld’s honeyed tone and nim-

ble fingers. He probably conceived the optional

viola part (some solo passages were transposed

by an octave) with his longtime friend Joseph

Joachim in mind. The violin version required

the most reworking, especially in the piano

accompaniment.

Sonata No. 1 in F minor is the weightier of the

two sonatas. Its

Allegro appassionato

is dark-

ly colored by the unrelenting minor mode of

the lyrical first theme and the choppy, dotted

rhythms in the second. A minor-key slow move-

ment projects even deeper grief. The

Allegretto

grazioso

employs the characteristic triple me-

ter of the Ländler, a south-German folk dance.

Three repeated pitches open the finale, like the

peal of a tower bell. The refrain theme contains

dainty staccatos, adding a bit of vitality to the

sonata.

ZUKERMAN TRIO

Recognized around the world for his artistic

talents as a performer and conductor, Pinchas

Zukerman continually seeks new avenues to

inspire and motivate future generations of mu-

sicians through education and outreach. To this

end, he teamed up with four of his protégés in

2002 to form the Zukerman ChamberPlayers.

Despite each member’s commitment to other

musical and educational pursuits, the ensem-

ble has an extensive international touring his-

tory that has included many prominent guest

artists. In 2011, Zukerman and cellist Amanda

Forsyth and Angela Cheng began to give sepa-

rate performances of duo and trio repertoire in

addition to their work with the ChamberPlayers

on quartet and quintet works. After numerous

invitations to appear at festivals and other ven-

ues around the world, they formally established

the Zukerman Trio in 2013, and they have since

performed as this ensemble in Japan, China,

Korea, Spain, Italy, France, Hungary, South Af-

rica, Istanbul, Russia, and Australia, as well as

throughout the United States and on two tours

of South America.

Pinchas Zukerman

, who has

been awarded the National Medal of the Arts

and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excel-

lence, is in his ninth season as principal guest

conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Or-

chestra and his third as artist-in-residence with

the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Earlier this

year he joined Itzhak Perlman for a gala perfor-

mance with the Israel Philharmonic and a duo

recital tour of the East Coast of the US. Equally

regarded as a conductor and soloist, he is also

a devoted pedagogue, heading up the Zuker-

man Performance Program of the Manhattan

School of Music, where he pioneered the use of

distance-learning technology in the arts. From

1999 to 2015, Juno Award winner

Amanda For-

syth

was principal cellist of the National Arts

Centre Orchestra, with which she also regularly

appeared as a soloist and in chamber ensembles.

A gold medalist of the Arthur Rubinstein Inter-

national Piano Masters Competition,

Angela

Cheng

has also been honored with the Medal of

Excellence in Salzburg for her interpretations of

Mozart’s works.

Richard Mühlfeld

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