Arts & Entertainment
Cellist Owen Young & pianist Alan Murchie at St James's Feb 24
The duo will present a wide-ranging program of chamber music by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns at St James's Episcopal Church
Concerts at St James’s is pleased to present a recital by cellist Owen Young and pianist Alan Murchie on Sunday, February 24, 2019, at 4:00pm at St James’s Episcopal Church, 1018 Farmington Avenue, West Hartford.
Cellist Owen Young, who has been a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1991, is highly sought after as a soloist and chamber musician. Praised for “playing with insight and virtuosity,” he has been a featured concerto soloist with orchestras across the country.
Alan Murchie, well-known across the region as a pianist, organist, and conductor, has been praised for playing with “relaxed mastery and a lovely singing tone.”
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Together, the two musicians, who have given many concerts together, will present a wide-ranging program of evocative music by Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Maurice Ravel, and Camille Saint-Saëns.
Brahms’ Cello Sonata No.1 in E minor (Op. 38), composed as he was achieving musical maturity, was his first published duo sonata. The music is an homage to Johann Sebastian Bach, and echoes of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue) may be heard within Brahms’ distinctively lush Romantic style.
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On a visit to England, Felix Mendelssohn stayed at the home of a family friend, where he was inspired by the beauty of the three daughters to compose three pieces for solo piano, one for each girl. The pieces were published as Trois fantaisies ou caprices in Vienna in 1829.
Widely acknowledged as his first great work, Maurice Ravel’s elegant Pavane pour une infante défunte was composed when he was just 24 years old and still a student at the Conservatoire de Paris. Though the title translates to “Pavane for a dead princess,” it is not an elegy to any particular princess; rather, Ravel intended to recall the graceful dances of the old Spanish court.
Though perhaps best known today for his symphonies and concertos, Camille Saint-Saëns composed many chamber works, among which the sonatas are considered superior. His Cello Sonata No.1 in C minor Opus 32, composed in 1872 in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, is by turns lyric, brooding, searching, tempestuous, and virtuosic.
Admission to the concert is $20 for adults and $10 seniors and students. Tickets will be sold at the door.
