 MEDIA RELEASE |
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MEDIA RELEASE |
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For Immediate Release
June 21, 2001
Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata on Friday’s Art of the Ensemble
This week is the last week of the Art of the Ensemble, with performances Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening at 8 PM in Rolston Recital Hall. Join us for an evening of wonderful music, featuring performances by some of the musical stars of today and tomorrow.
Wednesday night features a performance of the Mendelssohn Trio in c minor, op. 66, by the Dionysus Trio from New York’s Manhattan School of Music. Thursday night, hear Trio Incedo from California perform Trio Fantasia by composer Ivan Tcherepnin. And Friday night, our visiting artists take the stage to perform Rachmaninoff’s only large-scale chamber work, the Sonata in g minor for Cello and Piano.
The Sonata in g minor for Cello and Piano reflects all the strengths and ambiguities of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s (1873-1943) mature style. It was written in 1901 when he was 28, after a long struggle with depression. Two year’s earlier, his First Symphony received a disastrous premiere and a brutal press that plunged the composer into a long depression. Harsh words about his music from Tolstoy were the final straw. For four months, Rachmaninoff made daily visits to a neurologist and gradually, the depression began to life. After his two-year hiatus, Rachmaninoff again turned his attention to composing, and three masterpieces were the result, including the Sonata in g minor for Cello and Piano.
Igor Stravinsky called Rachmaninoff "six feet four inches of misery." In life, Rachmaninoff seldom smiled. Many perceived him to be the archetypal Russian Romantic with his depressive personality, his introspection and his self-questioning. But, then there’s his music. The late Romantic composer, Elgar, spoke of Rachmaninoff’s work as music that "smiles with a sigh."
Visiting artists Laurence Lesser, cello, and Bernadene Blaha, piano, will perform this beautiful work. Laurence Lesser is on faculty at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, and his former students are active worldwide as soloists, chamber musicians, orchestra members and teachers. Canadian pianist Bernadene Blaha is currently on the keyboard faculty at the Unviersity of Southern California in Los Angeles. She has been heralded throughout North America and Europe as a musician with a "brilliant command of the piano".
For more details, or to reserve your tickets, call The Banff Centre Box Office at 762-6301.
Contact:
Enza Apa, Marketing Coordinator/Publicist
P: (403)762-6237