Ditta Rohmann (cello), Emese Mali (piano)
In Liszt’s late works volatile virtuosity increasingly gave way to a more sparse mode of expression, to a dignified and enigmatic melancholy. The Two elegies that begin the programme were written when the composer was in his sixties. The work is played with various instrument combinations, but its meditative depths are shown to best effect by the dramatic tone and warmth of the cello. Liszt was over seventy when he wrote La lugubre gondola in 1882. The image of a coffin moving across water is like a vision: a year later the body of his son-in-law and good friend Richard Wagner was carried in just this way in a black gondola across the lagoons of Venice. Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth, the musical version of a poem of the same name by Felix Lichnowsky, captures this same, exalted, elegiac tone. The modernity of Liszt’s late works almost imperceptibly attunes our ears to the works of contemporaries. Witold Lutoslawski’s darkly passionate Grave composed in 1981 is followed by the Sacher Variations commissioned from the Polish composer by the great cellist, Mystislav Rostropovich for the 70th birthday of Paul Sacher, known for his great contribution to music. The evening closes with extracts from György Kurtág’s Games, a series written with pedagogical intention but often performed at concerts for its witty expressiveness.
Programme:
Liszt: Two elegies, La lugubre gondola, Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth – for cello and piano
Lutoslawski: Grave and Sacher Variations – for Solo Cello
Kurtág: extracts from Játékok (Games) – for piano
