Name: Close Encounters With Music: “Rite of Spring” – Rachmaninoff / Stravinsky
Start: 2025-03-23T16:00:00
Location: Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

Michael Chertock

Yehuda Hanani

Enes Pektas

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

Two monumental works, two Russian ex-pats of the same aristocratic background—and two divergent extremes. One, a master of nostalgia and a formidable pianist, follows in the footsteps of Chopin. The other, a trailblazer, scandalizer and collaborator of Picasso delights in breaking old molds—though harking back to traditional Russian folk material—and ushers in a new age in music, conceptually aligned with Cubism. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring shocked tout-Paris and sparked riots (scenes from the film Coco Chanel will be shown). Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano was written after a course of hypnotherapy for “composer’s block,” out of which emerged a work of virtuosity and grandeur, with his characteristic flourishes and a Russian Bell Époque sensibility. “Terrifyingly difficult” for the piano, it is a virtual piano concerto—not to downplay the soulful melodic role of the cello!