Lyrica Chamber Music Beethoven cello concert

Ludwig van Beethoven was famously described as wrestling with the titans in his music, most obviously in his epic symphonic statements. But does that same Beethoven appear in his more intimate chamber music, such as the five sonatas for cello and piano?

Lyrica Chamber Music will help answer that question in two concerts when cellist Benjamin Capps and Lyrica’s artistic director, pianist David Kaplan, play all of the cello sonatas.

The first concert will on Saturday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m., at Christ Church, 561 Springfield Ave., Summit. It will be followed by a second concert at 3 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 19, at 3 p.m., at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, 240 Southern Blvd.

“Somehow I always feel like I am wrestling with titans when playing Beethoven!” said Capps. “I feel that the fourth sonata (Op. 102, No.1, in C major), despite its overall pastoral leanings, goes a step beyond wrestling with titans. The opening of the second movement of the sonata features a scene that makes me feel as if the devil is creeping up behind me and breathing on the back of my neck.”

The five sonatas are filled with felicities, moments that are exciting, challenging and lyrically beautiful.

“I love the recapitulating melody in the first movement of Op. 5 no. 2,” Capps said. “It’s as if the cello has been asleep for ages and is just springing forth from a sleepy historical/compositional start. Another way of saying that is that for the first time Beethoven gets it ­­— the cello can do anything … with enough practice.”

The five sonatas stretch across most of Beethoven’s composing career and give an idea of how he developed as an artist.

“You absolutely see Beethoven’s compositional progress through the arch of the five sonatas,” Kaplan said. “The first two, Op. 5, are rooted firmly in the tradition of the baroque trio sonata, with slow and fast alternating movements, and a more accompaniment role for the cello, and rather virtuoso writing for the piano.

“The third, Op. 69, embodies the heroic period of Beethoven, in which the humble chamber sonata takes on epic proportions and transcendent eloquence. The last two sonatas, Op. 102, veer toward the abstraction that permeates Beethoven’s final style of writing. These two works, as different from one another as they are, share a spare lyricism, contrapuntal rigor, improvisatory form, and a fully developed interwoven tapestry between cello and piano.”

Kaplan, too, has favorite passages from the five sonatas, moments when Beethoven’s genius takes flight.

“The adagio of the Third Sonata is as beautiful as it is brief,” Kaplan said. “The animated first movement of the G minor contains perhaps the longest stretch of sustained excitement in the entire set. The double-fugue that finishes the Fifth Sonata, written with utter disregard for ergonomics and instrumental realities, is a romp with the sublime.”

The audience for the concert in Summit will hear sonatas nos. 1, 2 and 4. The Chatham audience will hear sonatas nos. 3, 4 and 5.

Lyrica is fortunate to have a cellist of the caliber of Capps. Capps has appeared as soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, the New York Concerti Sinfonietta, the Manchester Music Festival Orchestra, Juilliard Pre-College Symphony, and the Manhattan School of Music Composer’s Orchestra. At age 21, Capps was appointed principal cellist of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, a dynamic New York-based symphony orchestra founded by conductor Alondra de la Parra, whose highly regarded premier Sony Classics recording Mi Alma Mexicana attained high international status.

Capps’ artistry has been praised as “most appealing” by the New York Times and “virtuosic and impassioned” by the Barre Montpelier Times. The Holland Times hailed Capps as a “young cello phenomenon from New York” with “dazzling technique and a fearsomely meaty tone,” and the Epoch Times proclaimed that “Capps has it all . . . cello playing of the very highest standard.”

Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has appeared at London’s Barbican Centre, at Miami’s Arscht Center with Itzhak Perlman, and worked with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Kaplan’s passion for drawing connections between past and present music has resulted in “New Dances of the League of David,” a suite that incorporates newly commissioned miniatures into Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6. He performed the suite with Lyrica Chamber Music in 2014.

Tickets for each concert are $25-$30. For more information about Lyrica Chamber Music, visit www.lyricachambermusic.org or call 973-309-1668.