Image: Eric Valinsky, composer | by David Bazemore
On SATURDAY, March 25 at 3 p.m. the SANTA BARBARA MUSIC CLUB will present another program in its popular series of concerts of beautiful Classical music. This concert will be held at the Faulkner Gallery of the Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 E. Anapamu Street. Admission is free.
One of the highlights of Santa Barbara Music Club’s concerts is the opportunity for audiences to hear great music from a variety of historical periods, with a diversity of musical forms, performed by excellent artists. In this concert, pianist Leslie Cain will present W.A. Mozart’s Sonata No. 14 in C Minor, KV 457 and Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #8 in F-sharp Minor. Composer-pianist Eric Valinsky will perform his own Diamond Sonata.
Program Details
(b. 1952)
- Allegro moderato
- Andante cantabile-Andante amoroso
- Allegretto
(1811-1886)
Notes on the Program
Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Minor, KV 457 was completed in October 1784 and published in December 1785 together with the Fantasy in C minor, K. 475. It is one of only two keyboard sonatas that Mozart composed in a minor key. The mood of the first movement is dramatic, and many musicologists see this sonata as a precursor to Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, which is in the same key.
Franz Liszt completed the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8 in F-sharp Minor in 1847; it was published in 1853. By turns melancholy and energetic, it makes use of authentic Hungarian folk materials, at times even imitating the sounds of the cimbalom, the Hungarian version of the dulcimer.
Valinsky wrote The Diamond Sonata for dancer and choreographer Carrie Diamond. It is a deconstruction of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K 330, a work about which he was profoundly ambivalent. Of The Diamond Sonata he writes, “This was a period of my life in which I was discovering the riches of twentieth century ballet music, particularly of Stravinsky. I admired Pulcinella and Le baiser de la fée, and I wondered whether the technique of modernizing an earlier work could be applied in the stern deconstructive environment of the late seventies. I realized that this could be my way of reconciling with K. 330 and I composed a stark, minimalistic deconstructed paraphrase of the piece. During the subsequent decades, I revised the sonata twice, each time getting to love the original work more and incorporating more of its elegance.”
The Performers
A native Manhattanite, Eric Valinsky has, for more years than he would like to admit, maintained dual careers in computer systems architecture and music. He was educated at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Illinois, finally achieving his DMA in music composition from Columbia University. He studied composition with Walter Aschaffenburg, Salvatore Martirano, Jack Beeson, and Darius Milhaud; piano with Sara Crawford Drogheo and Emil Danenberg; and conducting with Harold Farberman. While living in Los Angeles, he became music director and composer-in-residence for The Storie-Crawford Dance Theatre Ensemble. Returning to New York, he served in a similar capacity for Danny Buraczeski’s Jazzdance, Uris Bahr and Dancers, and The New American Ballet Ensemble as well as composer-in-residence for The Rachel Harms Dance Company, Opera Uptown, and the Dance Department at City College of New York. He is currently Music Director for the American Dance & Music Performance Group and moonlights as founder and partner of Inlineos LLC, a strategic Internet consulting company.
Leslie Cain, pianist, completed her undergraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with André-Michel Schub. She also holds a BA Degree in Philosophy from California State University, Los Angeles, from which she graduated at age 18 as part of the school’s Early Entrance Program, and her honors include First Prizes in the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition. By invitation of the Weill Music Institute, she performed in a master class conducted by Richard Goode in the inaugural season of the Resnick Education Wing at Carnegie Hall, and has also participated in master classes with Jeremy Denk, Lynn Harrell, Gilbert Kalish, and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as the Danish and Kronos String Quartets. She was a participant in the 2016 Ecole d’Art Américaines, the renowned music festival held each summer at the Chateau de Fontainebleau, France, and her other recent appearances include the Appaloosa Festival in Front Royal, Virginia, adding classical music to their lineup of rock and bluegrass performers. Leslie is currently a DMA candidate at UCSB, studying with Paul Berkowitz, and a fellowship member of the UCSB Young Artist Piano Quartet.
This project is funded in part by the Community Arts Grant Program using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission.
