Great Performers

#Brahms125

Artists

Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

Martin Helmchen, piano

Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100 (1886)

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Sonata No. 2, Sz. 76 (1922)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 120 No. 2 (1894)

Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 (1886-1888)

Bartok among Brahms

Bartók’s Second violin sonata, an original work in only two movements that is approached from a modernist perspective (bitonality, hexatonic scales) acts as a dividing line in a program that celebrates Brahms on the 125th anniversary of his death. There are three sonatas for violin and piano left by the brilliant Hamburg composer, but Zimmermann and Helmchen have chosen to avoid the first (written at the end of the 1870s) and focus on the last two, almost a decade later. The program is completed with an unusual arrangement, that of the late, essentialist and naked Sonata op. 120 No. 2, which Brahms wrote for the clarinet, although he also left a version for the viola, of which the radiance of the violin will present a completely different perspective.