American Double to Feature Works by Brahms

Violinist Philip Ficsor and pianist Constantine Finehouse, a duo named American Double, perform works by Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy and John Harbison in their second installment of concerts at Westmont Friday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. in Westmont’s Deane Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public.

American Double bookends the concert with Brahms’ Scherzo in C-minor and Sonata in D-minor op. 108. “Brahms wrote three full-fledged sonatas for violin and piano, the last of which is the op. 108 work we will finish the program with,” Ficsor says. “But early in his career, he wrote a movement of a larger sonata, the other movements were written by other composers, among them Robert Schumann. Although Brahms was young when he wrote it, the movement still shows flashes of the depth of expression and harmonic character that would be a signature of Brahms’ style throughout his career.”

American Double, which recorded William Bolcom’s complete works for violin and piano in 2007, will perform Debussy’s Sonata in G-minor. “It’s actually the final piece he completed,” Ficsor says. “It was finished near the end of World War I in Paris, and Debussy’s fierce nationalism emerged in the phrase he wrote on the title page ‘written by Claude Debussy, a French Musician.’ In its transparent textures and delicate harmonic progressions, it shows Debussy both at the height of his compositional mastery and contrasts sharply with Brahms’ more rich harmonic textures.”

The duo will add UC Santa Barbara French horn professor Steven Gross to perform John Harbison’s Twilight Music for Horn, Violin and Piano (1984), which Ficsor says has nothing to do with vampires or the supernatural. “Rather, the piece depicts atmospheric impressions of twilight in musical brushstrokes,” he says. “The inclusion of a horn trio in an otherwise violin-piano exclusive concert is testament to American Double’s continuing partnership with Gross to commission Bolcom for a world premiere Horn Trio in the Fall of 2014.”