San Fransisco Performances

The concert began with Beethoven’s Second Cello Sonata in G minor, which was written during the composer’s trip to Berlin where he met King of Prussia (and amateur cellist) Frederick William II and dedicated the works to him–though they were premiered by Jean Louis Duport in a series of concerts, with Beethoven at the piano himself. Isserlis has performed the Five Sonatas written by the great Romantic Composer countless times over the course of his career, and yet, his interpretations are still just as exciting today as they were thirty years ago! In a an article on his blog, Isserlis talks about how revisiting the works is essential so as to remind oneself of the “exact position of every note in the work as a whole” (sounds like our American English classes–ha), as well as uncovering the “profound secrets concealed beneath the surface” of every single aspect of the work. For example, Isserlis perfectly implemented the emotional nuance of the second Beethoven Sonata’s structure, in which the first Adagio Movement doesn’t end on a resolution; instead (after a pause that kept you holding your breath), he launched into the second movement with the resolution into an Allegro tempo, creating an intense sense of falling anticipation for the listening (See excerpt from 00:11:44 - 00:13:00). 

We then jumped about 143 years ahead, and roughly 650 miles away to Paris where, on the cusp of the second World War, Bohuslav Martinů completed his first Cello Sonata. Martinů was a Czech composer who had fled to France during the rise of Nazism; the fear and paranoia within his heart is evident in the first Danse Macabre movement of the work, with constant shifts between darkness and light, tense passages and soaring melody. The piece also incorporates Martinů’s iconic usage of syncopations and themes from Czech folk music in combination with a neo-classical harmonic texture (See 00:35:46 - 00:36:48). The Sonata was also, arguably, the most technically demanding piece on the program, and so, it was during this piece that Isserlis’s rich musicality was best demonstrated to be unimpressionable by technical demands or limitations. 

The energy during intermission was electric: those who had never seen Isserlis perform before were stunned by what they were experiencing, teachers were talking to their students about his playing, and those of us seasoned Isserlis fans were blown away all the same. 

After we returned to our seats, we were presented with Nadia Boulanger’s (one of Gabriel Fauré’s students, and teacher of Philip Glass) Trois Pieces for Cello, an emotionally dense and sensitive work. Richard Naill, a prominent teacher at Colburn (and founder of the chamber music program), noted that Isserlis “was most successful” with this work as the French style “suited what he was doing quite nicely” (referencing his sound and technique). Isserlis is well-known for having championed the music of Gabriel Fauré, a generally underrepresented composer, but whom Isserlis was taught to appreciate while studying with Jane Cowan, an equally passionate advocate for Fauré’s work. 

Finally, we reached the Grieg Sonata, the final beast of the night for the two musicians, and one last journey for us to be taken upon. The piece was composed by Edvard Grieg over the course of one year (1882-1883), marking his return to composition after taking a break due to a combination of preoccupation and illness. The piece borrows themes from several other works and was dedicated to Grieg’s brother, a keen amateur Cellist–though it was premiered by Edvard himself and Friedrich Ludwig Grüztmacher. I myself was the most curious to hear their interpretation of this work as the day before, during a five hour masterclass, the fourth and final student played the same work for Isserlis, and we became privy to his insights and perspectives on the piece. While the student gave an impressive

performance that blew us all away, Isserlis noted a sense of anger and tension in his interpretation that he said was out-of-place in Grieg’s music as he had been noted, historically, to have been quite fond of his own compositions, and that any sense of drama should be in the “mysteriousness” of the piece. Well… Isserlis did not disappoint. (See 01:21:36 - 01:24:50 for magnificent drama–this one’s a tad long, sorry) 

On the topic of Isserlis’s unique interpretations: he has acquired the reputation of being quite the contemporary romantic, not allowing era (whether his or the pieces’) to entirely dictate an interpretation by placing limitations on musicality (within reason, of course). In reference to Bach, specifically, Isserlis argues that attempting to present a historically accurate interpretation is often in vain, as using modern technique can actually elevate the music of Bach in a way that wouldn’t have been prohibited in the Baroque era, rather simply not possible, and that excessive aspirations of accuracy can make audible to the audience “how many books” the performer has read. As far as nuance is concerned, in the masterclass on the 13th, he talked about how composers such as Schumann and Schubert would often use accents as phrase indications, implying usage of vibrato and stressing, as opposed to more overt impulses in the right hand. This knowledge and understanding, in turn, leads to Isserlis uncovering the deeper meaning and stories that the composers were communicating and enables him to fully embrace “what it means to [him]”, to form his own profoundly emotional performances.