Biography

Canadian violinist Kerson Leong has been called “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Le Monde described his playing as “a mixture of spontaneity and mastery, elegance, fantasy, intensity that makes his sound recognizable from the first notes.” Leong came to international attention by winning Junior First Prize at the Menuhin Competition 2010 in Oslo. For the 2018-2019 season he was Artist-in-Residence with Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, hand-picked by conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. A natural communicator on and off the stage, his passions include music outreach and pedagogy. Of his latest recording (Britten and Bruch concertos), The Strad wrote that “Leong has the required flair and technique, but everything speaks with sincerity.” Possibly the highest accolade that can be given an artist comes from Toronto Symphony concertmaster Jonathan Crow: “There aren’t as many people where you turn on the radio and say ‘Oh, that’s Heifetz’ or ‘Oh, that’s Menuhin’. But with Kerson? I could turn on the radio and say ‘Oh yeah, that’s Kerson playing’ … Nobody else sounds like him.” Leong performs on the “ex Bohrer, Baumgartner” Guarneri del Gesù violin. 2nd LMMC concert.

Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. His prizes and awards include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, prizes at the Honens, Cleveland, and Dublin competitions, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. Vonsattel is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. LMMC debut.

https://kersonleong.com/

https://www.gillesvonsattel.com/

Notes

In his six sonatas for violin and keyboard, Bach brought an unprecedented degree of equality between players. No longer was the keyboard just a background accompaniment. It now consisted of two fully written-out lines, and shared with the violin the working out and elaboration of the melodic material. The sonata on this program begins with an Adagio of sustained expressiveness. Then follows a quick movement of fugal writing, the two instruments dexterously interweaving their lines. The third movement is a chaconne, whose slowly moving bass line is repeated fifteen times. Over this the violin traces a line of gentle beauty, soon joined by the upper voice of the keyboard. The final Allegro is a fugal trio with a slower central section.

What makes Grieg’s Second Sonata so appealing is its pervasive sense of spontaneity and the infusion of nationalistic sentiment. Just one month before writing it, Grieg had married (in the summer of 1867). All the joy and happiness of this springtime of life are reflected in the sonata (aside from the introductory episode marked Lento doloroso). Moreover, throughout his life, Grieg held all three of his violin sonatas in special esteem. The spirit of Norwegian folk music pervades the Second Sonata, though the melodies are all Grieg’s own.

The Violin Sonata was Debussy’s last completed composition, a charming, whimsical work that shows no trace of the illness, depression and frustration the composer experienced during his final years. Debussy himself described it as “full of joyous tumult.” The sonata opens with an unequivocal G-minor chord in the piano, but thereafter Debussy keeps us alert with ambiguities of tonality, tempo, meter and rhythm. The second movement bears the performance direction fantasque et léger. The music is replete with double and triple stops, unusual arpeggios, written-out glissandos and pizzicatos. In formal terms, the finale follows a tortuous path to an exuberant close on two sturdy G major chords.

The warmly lyric and relaxed character, the gracefulness of its melodies, and a generally positive outlook combine to make the First Violin Sonata one of Brahms’ most ingratiating compositions. It features an uncommonly high degree of internal unity. Melodic fragments and rhythmic patterns (especially the violinist’s first three notes) can be traced all through the work. The interaction of the two instruments is worked out in masterly detail – not only do they variously repeat, answer and exchange musical material, but at times the two construct composite lines and patterns through the intertwining of their parts.

Robert Markow