2008-2009 Season, Concert 4
April 23, 25 & 26, 2009
Prokofiev: Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
Natalia Gutman, cello
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
Perhaps the most emotion-drenched and inspiring event of the 2007-2008 season was the appearance with the orchestra of legendary Russian cellist Natalia Gutman playing the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto. So overwhelming was the impression that she made that immediately following the Saturday concert – with one performance left to go – we had already invited her back for the next year. One of the profoundest, most moving musicians ever to appear with the orchestra, Gutman had members of the audience, and members of the orchestra as well, visibly weeping during her encores – several movements of a Bach cello suite. Gutman combines complete mastery of her instrument with a deep, selfless, probing musical intellect and riveting power of communication with the audience. Already at the first rehearsal this was made astonishingly clear to all, as this amazing woman, who speaks almost no English, communicated to the orchestra the subtlest and most powerful insights into the music she was playing entirely in the language of music, abetted by her wonderfully expressive face and the occasional shouted phrase of Russian, so masterfully timed with the music that everyone seemed to understand it.
“That’s my piece,” Gutman has said of the Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra. Written for Mstislav Rostropovich in the early 1950s, it is one of the masterpieces of Prokofiev’s last years – many would call it the greatest work from the last period of his life. And just as Rostropovich “owned” the piece for so many years, Gutman “owns” it now. A concerto of truly symphonic dimensions, this extraordinary work, still not as well-known as it should be, teems with an abundance of gorgeous and unique musical ideas, traverses a universe of moods from the amorous to the grotesque, and displays an unusual diversity of interplay between the soloist and orchestra, such as you find in virtually no other concerto. And the virtuosic demands are simply staggering. Everyone who heard Gutman play in February 2008 will want to hear her again. For those who missed it, don’t miss it this time! Some day you will be telling your grandchildren about having heard Natalia Gutman play Prokofiev!
Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 represents Brahms in his sunniest, most vernal mood. At the age of 43, quite late compared to other composers, he finally finished his First Symphony, an often stormy and confrontational reckoning with the spirit of Beethoven. Having symbolically laid the ghost of the Titan to rest, he was able to write, relatively quickly, this warm, relaxed, generously proportioned work, completely free from the struggles and anxieties of its predecessor. It is the most popular of the Brahms symphonies, and deservedly so. It was the first Brahms symphony that Benjamin Zander was drawn to as a child, and it was the first symphony, by anyone, that he ever conducted. He returns to this beloved work every so often with undiminished affection and zeal. |
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Thursday, April 23, 2009
Sanders Theatre
Discovery Series, 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Jordan Hall
Pre-concert talk, 6:45 pm
Concert, 8:00 pm
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sanders Theatre
Pre-concert talk, 1:45 pm
Concert, 3:00 pm
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Current Season 
2008-2009 Season