The Romantic Cello: Brahms Sonatas
Sun 3 Sep 2023 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM BST
St Peter's Church, Berkhamsted, HP4 2AX
Description
Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor Op. 38
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor (“Appassionata”)
Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major Op. 99
Join us for an evening of explosive, dynamic and passionate music making as cellist Clare O’Connell and pianist Viv McLean present two monumental sonatas by Brahms interspersed with what Beethoven considered to be the greatest of his sonatas, the tempestuous “Appassionata”.
It is not well known that Brahms, in his youth, achieved considerable skill on the cello. In 1895 he told the celebrated cellist Julius Klengel: “You ought to know that we are close colleagues. As a boy I also played the cello and even got as far as a Romberg concerto.”
His E minor Cello Sonata, written in the early 1860s and his F major Cello Sonata, composed more than twenty years later demonstrate his intimate understanding of the cello and his own distinctive style of performance, and deserve to be recognised as indisputably the most important cello sonatas from the second half of the nineteenth century.
Location
St Peter's Church, Berkhamsted, HP4 2AX