Symposiums
Symposium 95
MOZART & BEETHOVEN
Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin
24 October 2010
- Jennifer Frautschi, violin & Pedja Muzijevic, fortepiano
To open Helicon’s twenty-sixth season, violinist Jennifer Frautschi and pianist Pedja Muzijevic join forces in an elegant program pairing sonatas for fortepiano and violin by Mozart and Beethoven.
For this symposium, Pedja will play a beautiful reproduction of the fortepianos owned by Mozart and Beethoven, and Jennifer’s violin will be strung with gut strings.
Hearing these well-loved masterpieces on the instruments the composers knew and played will be a rare treat and a joyous beginning the Helicon season!
Symposium 96
THE SCHUBERT OCTET
on Period Instruments
6 February 2011
- With Mark Steinberg, violin and Eric Hoeprich, clarinet
In early 1824, the 27-year-old Franz Schubert received a commission from Count Ferdinand von Troyer for a companion piece to Beethoven’s immensely popular Septet in E-flat. In fact, during Beethoven’s lifetime, his septet was his most popular work, so this commission put the young Schubert in heady company.
Schubert met the challenge by augmenting Beethoven’s ensemble with an additional violin and producing a remarkable work that is at once symphonic in scope and deeply personal.
The Octet received its premiere on 1 May 1824 in the Vienna townhouse of Count von Troyer. Helicon’s presentation of this work in the music room of a Manhattan townhouse and employing the instruments of Schubert’s time, aims to capture the sense of discovery of that first performance.
Symposium 97
THE MUSE OF HISTORY
The Preludes and Fugues of Schostakovitch and Their Musical Predecessors
10 April 2011
- Ilya Poletaev, piano, harpsichord, and chamber organ
Helicon’s 97th Symposium, "The Muse of History," explores Dmitri Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues in the context of their historical predecessors. Written in a remarkable burst of creativity in 1951, these works were directly inspired by the J. S. Bach's Preludes and Fugues, yet deeper study reveals fascinating layers of musical influences at work in the composer’s imagination.
The Russian-born multi-keyboard artist Ilya Poletaev has created this program for Helicon where he will play the harpsichord, chamber organ, and the modern Steinway, all the while guiding us to a deeper understanding of these remarkable works and the musical mind that created them.
Symposium 98
A DVORAK SALON
15 May 2011
- Bagatelles, op. 47 for Two Violins, Cello & Harmonium
- Zigeunermelodien, op. 55 for Tenor and Piano
- Piano Quintet no. 2 in A Major, op. 81
We open Helicon's first Symposium of Dvorak's music with a charming rarity, the Bagatelles for strings and harmonium, suffused with folk elements, the haunting sound of the harmonium adds to their special flavor.
Helicon welcomes Tenor William Ferguson to sing the evocative song cycle, Zigeunermelodien (“Gypsy Melodies”), which includes Dvorak’s most famous song, “Songs my mother taught me.”
The composer’s lush Piano Quintet closes our twenty-sixth Season suffused with lyricism and dramatic power.