Quote from Nicolas
Sterner of The Boston Musical Intelligencer, in a
title “Rendering Warhorses With Apollonian Clarity”
“ Enjoying our first in-person concert in a year, we
joined 60 socially distanced people on Saturday
night at the Gardner Museum. NEC Artist Diploma
laureate, cellist Brannon Cho, and Leeds
International Piano Competition gold medalist Eric
Lu, brought out warhorses: Schumann, Beethoven, and
Rachmaninoff. These two artists performed their
“set” with a technical mastery and perfunctory
polish emblematic of the up-and-coming generation of
young soloists and recitalists. ... Since the cello
parts are mostly written subordinate to the dazzling
keyboard passagework crafted by the
pianist-composers. Even more challenging, the
cellist must compete with a massive Steinway Model
D. Cho and Lu surmounted these difficulties with
moderate ease, aligning in exemplary ensemble
clarity within a somewhat narrow expressive range. “

photos: Chi Wei Lo and Xiaopei Xu
With
permission from pianist Robert Finley, quotes from
his comments on concert April 17, 2021 by Brannon
Cho and Eric Lu:
“Last night I went to my first concert in Boston
since before the pandemic started. It was a piano
and cello recital given by Eric Lu and Brannon Cho
in the new Calderwood Hall of the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum. This was the first concert I had
been to in that hall.
“I enjoyed the concert tremendously. Brannon Cho
produced a lovely singing tone on the cello with
superb intonation, and very expressive playing. Eric
played wonderfully as always, and it was a very
moving performance. He is one of the most musical
and best pianists I have ever known. They both
played extremely well together.
“Eric and Brannon received tremendous applause and
cheering from the audience. They gave a lovely
rendition of Vocalise by Rachmaninoff for an encore.
Bravissimo and congratulations to them for their
absolutely divine concert.
“It was so good to go to a concert again after being
under lockdown at home for so long. The Calderwood
Hall has very good acoustics. It is square shaped
with several balconies. Due to Covid precautions,
there were 64 people in the audience. Everyone wore
a mask and the seats were spaced widely apart. My
seat was on the ground floor, a few feet away from
the piano. Kate Liu turned the pages for Eric. She
is a marvelous pianist and gave a recital of music
by Handel, Chopin and Schumann a few weeks ago in
the same hall. I watched the recording and
congratulated her. Her Schumann Fantasy was
particularly moving. “ |
Eric Lu,
pianist
www.ericlupianist.com

Avery Fisher Career Grant 2021 Recipient “Leeds
winner Eric Lu showed an astonishing command of keyboard tone
and color.. the sign he is already a true artist. It was a
spellbinding experience.” – The Guardian
“Lu’s playing is in a rare class - sensitive and emotionally
intuitive.” – BBC Music Magazine
Eric Lu won First Prize at The Leeds International Piano
Competition in 2018, the first American to win the prestigious
prize since Murray Perahia. He made his BBC Proms debut the
following summer at the Royal Albert Hall, and is currently a
member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme. Eric is an
exclusive Warner Classics recording artist.
Highlights of the 2020-21 season include debuts with the London
Symphony Orchestra (Marin Alsop), Seattle Symphony (Thomas
Dausgaard), Oslo Philharmonic (Constantinos Carydis), Royal
Stockholm Philharmonic (Thomas Dausgaard) and Detroit Symphony
(Eduardo Strausser). He will also give recitals at the
Elbphilharmonie, Queen Elizabeth Hall (International Piano
Series), Cologne Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, NY’s 92nd St Y, and
NCPA in Beijing.
In recent seasons, Eric has appeared in recital at Amsterdam
Concertgebouw, BOZAR Brussels, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Wigmore
Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonia, Fondation Louis Vuitton
Paris, Seoul Arts Centre, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, Grand Theatre
Shanghai, and Sala São Paulo. He has collaborated with the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic (Vasily Petrenko), The Hallé (Sir Mark
Elder and Tomáš Hanus), Shanghai Symphony (Long Yu), Warsaw
Philharmonic (Niklas Willén), Singapore Symphony (Darío Ntaca),
and Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Thomas Dausgaard and Martin Frӧst).
He also went on tour with the Orchestre National de Lille
(Alexander Bloch). In 2019, Eric replaced Martha Argerich in
Singapore, and Nelson Freire in São Paulo.
In 2020, Warner Classics released Eric’s first studio album,
featuring the Chopin 24 Preludes, and Schumann’s
Geistervariationen. It was met with critical acclaim, including
BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Instrumental Record of the Month’. In
2018, Eric’s winning performances of Beethoven and Chopin from
The Leeds with The Hallé and Edward Gardner was released by
Warner. He has also released a Mozart, Schubert and Brahms
recital on Genuin Classics.
Born in Massachusetts in 1997, Eric Lu first came to
international attention as a prize-winner at the 2015 Chopin
International Competition in Warsaw aged just 17. He previously
won the 2015 US National Chopin Competition, and was awarded the
International German Piano Award in 2017. He is a graduate of
the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Robert McDonald and
Jonathan Biss. He is also a pupil of Dang Thai Son. He is now
based in Berlin and Boston.
 |
Brannon Cho, cellist https://brannoncho.com
Described
by Arto Noras as “a finished artist, ready to play in any hall
in the world,” cellist Brannon Cho has emerged as an outstanding
musician of his generation. He is the First Prize winner of the
prestigious 6th International Paulo Cello Competition, and is
also a prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth, Naumburg, and
Cassadó International Cello Competitions.
Brannon Cho has appeared as a soloist with many of the top
orchestras around the world, including the Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra,
Brussels Philharmonic, and Orchestre Philharmonique Royale Liège,
under world-renowned conductors such as Susanna Mälkki, Stéphane
Denève, and Christian Arming.
As a lover of chamber music, Brannon Cho has shared the stage
with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Christian Tetzlaff,
Gidon Kremer, and Joshua Bell. His recent festival appearances
include Marlboro, Kronberg Academy, Music@Menlo, and Verbier. In
addition, Brannon Cho is a scholarship holder in the Anne-Sophie
Mutter Foundation, and the recipient of the 2019 Ivan Galamian
Award, which was previously held by James Ehnes.
Brannon Cho’s recent and upcoming solo performance highlights
include debuts in Wigmore Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie
Hall, the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam, Kumho Art Hall in Seoul,
Konzerthaus Berlin, Seoul Arts Center, the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum, and New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.
Born in New Jersey, Brannon Cho received his Bachelor’s degree
from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music under Hans
Jørgen Jensen. He was awarded the prestigious Artist Diploma
from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with
Laurence Lesser. Today, he is in the Professional Studies
program at the Kronberg Academy, under the tutelage of Frans
Helmerson. Brannon Cho is sponsored by Thomastik-Infeld, and
performs on a rare cello made by Antonio Casini in 1668 in
Modena, Italy.

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
By Dr. Jannie Burdeti
Robert Schumann: Adagio and Allegro in A-flat Major, Op. 70
Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, poignantly displays the
fullness of the composer’s love and passion. Its Adagio is home
to an intimate conversation between two instruments, full of
yearning and tenderness—so much in fact that the work was
originally titled Romanza and Allegro. The year of composition
of the piece, 1849, was an extremely prolific time for
Schumann’s chamber music writing, a period when he produced a
number of other Romanzen for voices. While the Adagio and
Allegro was written originally for horn and piano, in the music,
Schumann notes that the horn part may also be performed on the
violin or cello, and today, many violists also enjoy performing
this work. The composer was no doubt fascinated with the French
horn at the time, choosing to compose works that displayed the
instrument prominently, such as Konzertstück, Op. 86, a concerto
for four horns and orchestra, and Jagdlieder, Op. 137, for four
horns and male chorus.
As one might imagine, the Adagio and Allegro suits the French
horn superbly, in a way that allows its most iconic
characteristics to emerge, particularly its warm, lyrical
nature, as well as a heroic quality that pervades the second
movement.
Schumann’s music is often thought of as representing his two
alter egos: Florestan (the energetic and extroverted) and
Eusebius (the introverted and poetic). These are two characters
he used profusely in his literary contributions to the Neue Zeitschift für Musik (New Periodical for Music), of which he was
the editor for ten years. In the same vein, the Allegro acts as
a sort of literary foil, contrasting the warm sentiments of the
Adagio with a true outpouring of passion and intensity. The
fervor bursts forth the moment the piano launches an
A-flat-major chord and the two instruments, with ceaseless
triplets, rush forth with boundless energy amid delightful,
continuing dialogue.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A
Major, Op. 69
Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A Major, Op. 69, marks a watershed
in the history of the cello repertoire. For some time already,
Beethoven had been experimenting with the cello as a solo
instrument. His Triple Concerto of 1803 (with its famously
difficult cello part), the three Razumovsky Quartets, Op. 59, of
1808, and the Ghost Trio of 1809 all advanced the role of the
cellist from an advocate of baselines to one of a soloist,
competing even with the tessitura of the violin.
As if to further assert the cello’s breakthrough as a solo
instrument, this sonata, written in 1808, begins with the cello
alone. It plays an extraordinarily lyrical and congenial theme,
while the piano finishes the thought in an improvisatory manner.
A repeat of the opening theme is then heard in octaves in the
piano. What is utterly remarkable about this opening theme is
that it becomes the DNA of the entire sonata, melodically and
tonally. The first four notes of the theme, A-E-F#-C#, generate
motives, as well as entire key areas.
After a variant of the first theme is heard, in the opposing
minor mode and with contrasting character, the second theme, in
E major, emerges as a falling arpeggio in the piano (with the
two hands in imitation), with the cello playing a rising scale
in counterpoint. This is a prime example of the axiom that
Beethoven creates the most beautiful music from nothing more
than mere scales and arpeggios. The development centers
harmonically on two main key areas, F# minor and C# minor, which
also coincide with the third and fourth notes of the opening
theme. The return of the opening theme in the cello is
interwoven with a piano line.
The next movement is a scherzo and trio, usually reserved for
the third movement of a sonata. As is common in Beethoven’s
hands, the scherzo (originally meaning “joke”) takes on a rather
brusque humor. In this instance, it is full of syncopated,
off-kilter jabs that persist, unresolved, until the trio
section. The opening theme is presented by the piano, then
continued by the cello. The scherzo culminates when, for the
first time, the two instruments jointly play the main theme with
the backdrop of a raucous left hand in the piano. The trio
section is pastoral, reminiscent of the Sixth Symphony, as if
trying to find the calm in the middle of the storm. It is a
hurdy-gurdy melody, with an ostinato hum in the background that
never calms, but continues on like an energetic engine. The
traditional ABA form of this movement is extended with literal
repetition into ABABA.
The slow movement in this work serves as an introduction to the
finale, a structural idea Beethoven reused, as in the Waldstein
Sonata and the Triple Concerto. The finale has a capacity for
cheerfulness that far exceeds any of the preceding musical
material. The accompaniment of the piano is an energetic
pulsation of chords, or to borrow Konrad Wolff’s words about the
Waldstein Sonata, “a vibration of the instrument of such
communicative power that it will stay in the listener’s mind
throughout the entire movement, just as if the vibrating basses
were continued from beginning to end.” This effect is very much
present throughout the duration of the movement. The development
goes through the traditional circle of fifths and chromatic
meandering before the return is almost stumbled upon. The coda
consists of an extraordinary lyrical line in the highest
registers of the piano, creating one of the most enchanting
moments in the entire work. The ending concludes with a
veritable “vibration” of joyous A-major chords, bringing the
entire large-scale work to a symphonic close.
Sergei Rachmaninov: Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Op.
19
Rachmaninoff wrote his Cello and Piano Sonata in G minor, Op.
19, around the same time as his famous Second Piano Concerto.
With this streak of creativity and success, it is hard to
imagine that only a few years earlier, in 1897, the composer had
fallen into a deep depression after an extremely poor and
ill-received performance of his First Symphony. Rachmaninoff
became so apathetic to composition that he likened himself to a
stroke patient who had lost the ability to use their limbs. Even
an arranged meeting with an admired writer, Leo Tolstoy, did not
improve his frame of mind. Ultimately, he was advised to see a
family friend, the physician Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who offered him
hypnosis and brought him out of his cloud of self-criticism.
Soon thereafter the well-loved Second Piano Concerto and the
Sonata for Cello and Piano were conceived—the former of which he
dedicated to Dr. Dahl. While there are no direct connections
between the two works, they do share many similarities.
Unsurprisingly, his sonata is sometimes thought of as a concerto
for piano, due to its massive scope, symphonic qualities, and
technical demands it makes on the pianist. Rachmaninoff
dedicated the work to his best man, Anatoli Brandukov, and four
months later, married his fiancée after their long, three-year
engagement.
The sonata opens almost mystically, like a meditation upon a
questioning two-note motive, or in the words of Steven Isserlis,
with “incense-filled colours.” One can hear the melodies wafting
up as the piece is conjured into being. After the slow
introduction, a torrent of notes and energy is released in the
piano, while the cello sings a long-breathed melody with hints
of the Dies irae. The Dies irae motive returns later in the work
(e.g., as a bass line in the piano part in first movement, in
the treble part of the piano in the second movement), and the
motive itself is a compositional idea Rachmaninoff often used in
other works as well. The second theme of the movement, first
heard in the piano, contrasts the previous section with a more
relaxed and contemplative feeling throughout. Subsequently in
the development, Rachmaninoff reintroduces the opening’s
two-note motive, but with a reinvigorating, fervent obsession.
What follows is a truly pianistic and exuberant cadenza-like
section that increasingly reaches a climactic point, bringing
about the return of the opening, not unlike the structure of the
Second Piano Concerto’s first movement.
The second movement is feverish and demonic—it begins with a
rhythmic drive and pathos that bring to mind Schubert’s famous
Erlkönig. The two-note motive borrowed from the previous
movement emerges as part of a descending passage that can be
heard in the instruments’ dialogue. Interspersed throughout the
movement are short respites from the franticness that inhibit
the former feelings of urgency. The passages of heart-aching
melodies characteristic of the Russian Romantics reach their
climax in the middle “trio” section of the work, where the piano
and cello engage in a duet overflowing with lyricism. Yet this
last moment of reprieve is ephemeral, and the listener is thrown
once again into the fury of the opening music.
The theme of the slow movement uses a bell-like motive of four
repeated notes first heard in the previous movement. The melody
that is exchanged between instruments is so simple yet profound,
accompanied by kaleidoscopic harmonies in the backdrop. In many
ways, this movement embodies the heart and soul of the whole
work.
The last movement is overflowing with elation and exultation,
following the trials and depths of despair heard in the previous
movements—it is akin to a Beethovenian finale, with triumph
emerging after struggle. It was premiered with a quiet ending,
but Rachmaninov added the joyful and energetic coda ten days
later.
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