About “Russia Revisited”

We are gearing up for our “Russia Revisited” concert on DSE Presents:

Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3:00pm

Followed by Post-concert Conversation with the artists

Gould Rehearsal Hall, Lenfest Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, 1616 Locust Street, Philadelphia

Mimi Stillman, flute

Burchard Tang, viola

Charles Abramovic, piano

Tatiana Abramova, piano (guest artist)

 

Program:

Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata for Piano #6, Op. 80 [Abramovic]

Dmitri Shostakovich, Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 [Tang, Abramovic]

Mieczeslaw Weinberg, Five Pieces for Flute and Piano – U.S. premiere [Stillman, Abramovic]

David Finko, Sonata for Flute and Piano – world premiere [Stillman, Abramova]

Yevgeniy Sharlat, Sonata for Flute and Piano [Stillman, Abramova]

 

Virtuosity and emotional intensity abound in this program of masterworks by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, along with the U.S. premiere of a recently rediscovered piece by Mieczeslaw Weinberg, a world premiere by David Finko, and a sonata by emerging composer Yevgeniy Sharlat. Prokofiev’s Sonata for Piano #6, Op. 82, written in 1940 and the first of his three war sonatas. Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953, the same day the death of Stalin was announced. Shostakovich lived on until 1975, and his intricate, controversial relationship with the regime has been much documented. We will perform his last composition, the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147.

Mieczeslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis by fleeing to the Soviet Union, enjoyed a distinguished career but his music fell into relative obscurity in the West until very recently. His work Five Pieces for Flute and Piano was premiered in 1948 just before the purge, and the manuscript score languished in a St. Petersburg archive for around 60 years before it was discovered by Bret Werb, musicologist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. When I consulted Mr. Werb while doing research on the music of the Holocaust for Dolce Suono Ensemble’s project commemorating the Holocaust, he gave me the manuscript of Weinberg’s piece. I am honored to be giving its United States premiere on the Dolce Suono Ensemble Presents series “Russia Revisited” concert.

In addition, we will give the world premiere of David Finko’s Sonata for Flute and Piano. Finko, a Russian Jewish composer, narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, and suffered persecution under the Soviet regime before emigrating to the United States in the 1970s.

Yevgeniy Sharlat, whose Sonata for Flute and Piano we will also perform on this program, was born in Moscow and came to the United States with his family as a child, having endured economic privation and anti-Semitism under the Soviet regime.

 

Tickets:

General $25 / Senior $20 / Student $10

Available online www.dolcesuono.com, by phone 267-252-1803, and at the door.