Brahms on the Bluff: Concert IV – Before the Beard

Pre-concert Discussion with Barbara Nissman at 2:30 p.m.

Brahms was age forty before he grew his famous beard, and his more youthful music is often fiery and temperamental. Barbara Nissman brings her charisma and panache to Piano Sonata no. 3, written when the composer had just turned twenty. Brahms waited for fifteen years before completing his next sonata, this one for cello and piano, which launched an eventual series of seven duos for piano and various instruments. Audience favorite Clancy Newman collaborates with David Allen Wehr in the first of these sonatas, which highlights the composer’s deep interest in earlier styles of music (including the minuet and the fugue), and with Kevin Lee Sun in the second, an outburst of intense emotion and virtuosity for both instruments.

Two Sonatas for Cello and Piano

Clancy Newman, cello

David Allen Wehr and Kevin Lee Sun, pianists

 Piano Sonata #3

Barbara Nissman, piano