May 6, 2019, Monday, 8:00 PM—Mischa Maisky, cello and Lily Maisky, piano—CAMA's Masterseries at The Lobero Theatre

of his F-minor concerto for harpsichord
and strings, BWV 1056, adding ornaments
to the melody to accommodate the harpsichord’s
inability to sustain a long tone. The
movement is remarkably similar to, and
may have been admired, by the first movement
of a Telemann oboe concerto.
Pamina, the damsel constantly in distress,
sings and speaks a good deal in The
Magic Flute, the singspiel Mozart composed
three months before his death in 1791, but
she gets only one solo aria, in which she
worries about losing the love of her rescuer
Prince Pamino.
In 1884, the cellist Robert Hausmann
asked Brahms to compose a new sonata
for him. Hausmann was part of the circle of
artists and friends Brahms held dear, and
was a kindred musical spirit in many ways,
sharing Brahms’ classical conservatism
in modern music and interest in older music.
He played the viola da gamba, which
had been extinct for a century as a tool for
current music, and he played cello without
using an endpin, though its use had been
normal for more than a generation. He had
championed Brahms’ otherwise neglected
Opus 38 sonata of twenty years earlier, and
Brahms was happy to compose a sonata
for such a skilled and sympathetic interpreter.
Brahms did most of his composing
during summers away from Vienna. He
spent the next two summers composing
35 songs and his fourth symphony before
turning his attention to chamber music in
1886, finishing the second cello sonata
BRAHMS
along with the Violin Sonata in A and the
C-minor Piano Trio.
Hausmann may have been looking for
a work more adventurous than the relatively
subdued Opus 38 sonata. He certainly
got one, full of grand gestures and
big statements. In places it requires heavy
lifting from the cellist, since Brahms liked
to write dense piano parts with full chords,
creating a rich, full sound, which does not
make life easy for the cellist who needs to
be heard. (A piece of Brahms folklore has it
that after a less-than-stellar cellist played
this sonata through with Brahms, she complained
that she couldn’t hear herself play.
Brahms replied, “You were lucky.”)
The first movement begins with the
cello announcing one of those Brahms signature
sweeping, soaring themes over a
tremolo on the piano. These two elements
CAMA AT LOBERO THEATRE - MISCHA MAISKY AND LILY MAISKY
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