March 6, 2001 to perform together at UCSB Summary Facts:
A longtime member of the esteemed Emerson String Quartet, David Finckel, cello, and virtuosic pianist Wu Han will perform in concert together for the first time on a local stage on Thursday, April 12 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. The couple’s concert will include works by Beethoven, Schumann, Bruce Adolphe and Rachmaninov. As part of their residency at UCSB, Finckel and Han will engage in a pre-concert Meet-the-Artists Discussion at 7 pm for concert ticket holders. David Finckel, as cellist with the Emerson Quartet, recently won two 2001 Grammy Awards (for best classical album and best chamber music album) for the quartet’s release Shostakovich: The String Quartets. Born into a family of cellists, he began his concert career at the age of 15. At 17, he performed for the revered cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and was accepted as his only American pupil; Finckel studied with Rostropovich for nine years. Wu Han came to study music in the United States after taking first place awards in every major music competition in Taiwan. She has since been acclaimed for her technical and interpretive finesse, impassioned music-making and thrilling style. She is winner of the Andrew Wolf Award for pianists making a significant contribution to the world of chamber music. Their concert opens with Beethoven’s middle period work, Sonata in A Major, Op. 69. Gracious and warm, its melodies have been noted for their uncharacteristic sunniness, filled with warmth and good cheer with hardly any of Beethoven’s usual gravity or uneasiness. Finckel and Han have been hailed for demonstrating in previous performances of the piece their outstanding musicianship and technical virtuosity. Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70 from 1849 follows, a work originally called Romanza, that Finckel describes as “one of the most romantic (and frankly, in my opinion, erotic) partnerships between two instruments imaginable,” likening the work to a conversation between lovers that involves complementing, interrupting, questioning, uniting, and, after a momentary interruption in an unrelated key in the Allegro, a joyful, unbroken stream of energy that closes the work. About Couple, the work he wrote for David Finckel and Wu Han, which follows Schumann in their UCSB concert program, Bruce Adolphe writes, “‘Duo’ or ‘Duet’ does not begin to communicate the intricacy of the relationship between the two musicians for whom I wrote this piece. They are a cellist and pianist who perform together all over the world, but they are also partners in a range of endeavors, including running a record company, (formerly) sharing the directorship of (La Jolla’s) Summerfest, and, that most of complex of duo arrangements, marriage and parenthood. … The piece is in four movements: the first is at times dreamy, ecstatic and dizzy; the second ranges from warm and sensuous to joyous and even a little aggressive; the third is a mysterious aria—expansive, lyrical, intense and personal; the final movement is a kind of game in which simple musical patterns are shared by the two players in a variety of ways, their identities blurring and redefining as often happens in the case of married couples.” Adolphe is the Music and Education Advisor for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and founder of PollyRhythm Productions, an innovative music education company. He has written more than 50 compositions including four operas and several works for theater. Formerly on the faculties of the Juilliard School and New York and Yale Universities, he is a prolific author on the subject of music education and musical creativity. Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19, will close the performance. Written in 1901, the piece is one of a series through which, after a long period of depression and inability to create, Rachmaninov was reborn as a composer. David Finckel and Wu Han came together musically shortly after Wu Han arrived in the United States from Taiwan to study at the Hartt School of Music, where the Emerson was quartet-in-residence. Her teacher suggested she learn the Schumann quintet and play it with the quartet; she did so and immediately afterward, Finckel asked her to join him in a recital performance. “We discovered that we seemed to have the same kind of language, and one recital led to another and soon we were playing all over. This was in 1982. We were married in 1985.” Finckel elaborates, “The thing that happened from the moment we first played together was that people came backstage and said ‘My God, you two have such incredible chemistry! You seem to be thinking the same thing all the time. How do you do it?’” In 1998, Finckel and Han founded ArtistLed, a classical music label that produces, releases and sells CDs exclusively through its website www.ArtistLed.com or by mail or telephone order. ArtistLed’s next release is Finckel and Han’s forthcoming Russian Classics. So far, the company has released five other recordings: Edwin Finckel: Music for Cello, performed by and written for Finckel by his composer father; Beethoven: Complete Works for Piano and Cello; Strauss/Franck/Finckel; Grieg/Schumann/Chopin; and Tchaikovsky Trio/Kodály Duo for Violin and Cello. The pair created the company out of both frustration with commercial labels both large and small and a desire for artistic control of all aspects of the production. Han explains, “It really came out of wanting to record things when the time is right, when we feel that the music is ready to be recorded.” This January, Finckel and Han were featured guests on the Minnesota Public Radio program St. Paul Sunday, where they performed three sonatas by Russian composers from their new CD and spoke about what makes Russian music Russian. As part of their UCSB residency, Finckel and Han will conduct a master class with UCSB music students on Wednesday, April 11 from 4 to 6 pm in Geiringer Hall, UCSB Department of Music. This event is free and open to public observation. Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by the Four Seasons Biltmore, KDB Radio and the UCSB Department of Music, and is supported, in part, with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. For tickets or more information, Editor: For photos, please call |