LECTURE/RECITAL "BEETHOVEN-THE SONATA" WILL BE PRESENTED BY PIANIST ALAN GAMPEL AND CELLIST ROBERT MARTIN AT BARD COLLEGE ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, AT 8:00 P.M.

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-Pianist Alan Gampel will present a lecture/recital titled "Beethoven-The Sonata: Chamber and Programmatic Music" on Wednesday, April 21, at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. The program, sponsored by The Bard Center, also features cellist Robert Martin and is free and open to the public.

The lecture/recital focuses on two works by Beethoven, Cello Sonata Op. 5, No. 2 in G minor (1796) and Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 81a, No. 26 (Das Lebewohl, Abwesenheit, und Wiedersehn, also known as Les Adieux, 1809).

"This is the culmination of two years of piano sonata concerts, during the course of which I have focused on a variety of different composers and periods-baroque, classical, romantic, and contemporary," says Gampel. "This concert will concentrate on a sonata that is outside the standard repertoire because it is programmatic. Les Adieux ("the goodbyes") demonstrates not an abstract but a particular plan-departure, absence, and return. This representation of ideas in a sonata is highly unusual.

"I chose the cello sonata, Opus 5, No. 2, because I have been eager to do a performance with a faculty member at Bard, and I have known Bob Martin, who is a wonderful cellist, for a long time. This sonata fits well in the program as it is from a similar, though earlier, period than Les Adieux, and also is not a standard repertoire work, showing as it does a different side of Beethoven's compositional style. Beethoven composed thirty-two piano sonatas, but only five cello sonatas."

In 1998 Alan Gampel returned to the United States after numerous years living and performing throughout Europe. He has performed in the United States at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Chicago's Ravinia Festival, New York City's Frick Collection Series and Mostly Mozart Festival, and with the American, Asheville, Chicago, and West Virginia Symphony Orchestras. Recent European performances include engagements with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Irish National Symphony, and the Czech Chamber Orchestra. In the past few years he has also appeared in recital at London's Wigmore Hall, in Paris at the Theatre du Chatelet, Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Auditorium du Louvre, and Mussée d'Orsay.

Gampel grew up in an artistic family that includes the legendary harpsichordist, Wanda Landowska. He made his debut at the age of seven playing Beethoven at the Hollywood Bowl. At sixteen he was honored with the Presidential Scholars award at the White House and at nineteen he graduated from Stanford University. In 1995 Gampel was awarded the coveted Chopin Prize at the Artur Rubenstein International Piano Competition in Israel. He received a top prize at the Naumburg International Piano Competition in New York, and was unanimously awarded the Special Mozart Bicentenary Prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition in 1991. This year Gampel is giving an extensive international recital tour celebrating Chopin's 150th anniversary.

Robert Martin is dean of graduate studies, associate dean, and professor of philosophy and music of Bard College and co-artistic director of the annual Bard Music Festival. He studied cello at the Curtis Institute of Music with Leonard Rose and Orlando Cole and liberal arts at Haverford College. During his doctoral studies in philosophy at Yale University he was principal cellist of the New Haven Symphony and cellist of the Group for Contemporary Music, then in residence at Columbia University. He was cellist of the Sequoia String Quartet from 1975 to 1985, during which time the ensemble made many recordings and toured internationally. While assistant dean of humanities at UCLA he also founded and produced the Los Angeles chamber music series "Music for Mischa," which is now presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

For further information about the lecture/recital, call 914-758-7425.

This event was last updated on 03-02-2001

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