Birthday! Maurizio Pollini and Alfred Brendel
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Two of the greatest living pianists were born this day, so it’s two birthday cakes to enjoy: one for Maurizio Pollini (1931), and the other for Alfred Brendel (1942). Pass the forks!
We begin the evening’s festivities with Maurizio Pollini, as he plays Chopin’s Piano Etude No. 7 in C. And we continue with Alfred Brendel, of course, as he gives us Schumann’s “Symphonic Etude, Op. 13,” No. 5. A bit later, Pollini playes three excerpts from Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” as transcribed by Stravinsky himself for Arthur Rubinstein: ‘Russian Dance,’ ‘Petrushka’s Room,’ and ‘The Shrovetide Fair’ are all percusively evocative of the eponymous marionette.
Our second hour begins with the Takacs Quartet’s masterly performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in 7, the first of the so-called “Razumovsky” quartets. The Takacs ensemble will perform all sixteen Beethoven quartets at Alice Tully Hall this January. Check out the schedule on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center website.
Alfred Brendel reappears in hour three to play Schuberts complete Impromptus, Op. 90. And Pollini returns as well, this time to bring us Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, known as the “Funeral March” sonata. But first we take time from the piano to feature the cello, as Torleif Thedeen is featured in Saint-Saens’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Jean Jacques Kantorow conducting the Tapiola Sinfonietta.
We begin the evening’s festivities with Maurizio Pollini, as he plays Chopin’s Piano Etude No. 7 in C. And we continue with Alfred Brendel, of course, as he gives us Schumann’s “Symphonic Etude, Op. 13,” No. 5. A bit later, Pollini playes three excerpts from Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” as transcribed by Stravinsky himself for Arthur Rubinstein: ‘Russian Dance,’ ‘Petrushka’s Room,’ and ‘The Shrovetide Fair’ are all percusively evocative of the eponymous marionette.
Our second hour begins with the Takacs Quartet’s masterly performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in 7, the first of the so-called “Razumovsky” quartets. The Takacs ensemble will perform all sixteen Beethoven quartets at Alice Tully Hall this January. Check out the schedule on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center website.
Alfred Brendel reappears in hour three to play Schuberts complete Impromptus, Op. 90. And Pollini returns as well, this time to bring us Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, known as the “Funeral March” sonata. But first we take time from the piano to feature the cello, as Torleif Thedeen is featured in Saint-Saens’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Jean Jacques Kantorow conducting the Tapiola Sinfonietta.
