Recital Report: Brahms Chamber Music with Piano Wraps with 7th Recital

Last Monday evening, UT School of Music faculty pianist Kevin Class wrapped up his impressive marathon-like seven recital series of all of the Brahms chamber music with piano.  The series, which began in January of 2014, stretched over three calendar years. Class began with three recitals of the duo sonatas—Cello sonatas with cellist Wesley Baldwin, Clarinet sonatas with Victor Chavez, and Violin Sonatas with Ching-Yi Lin.

The series picked up a year later in February, 2015, with the Trios split over two recitals. On the first  came the Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 40, for Piano, Violin, and Horn (Rachel Loseke, violin, and Gray Ferris, horn), then the Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 (Ruth Bacon, violin, and Wesley Baldwin, cello). On the second recital a month later came the Piano Trio in C Major, Op. 87 (Sara Matayoshi, violin, and Andy Bryenton, cello), the Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello in A minor, Op. 114 (Victor Chavez, clarinet, and Stacy Nickell Miller, cello). The trios were completed with the Trio in C minor, Op. 101 (Gabriel Lefkowitz, violin, and Wesley Baldwin, cello).

October, 2015, saw guests Ching-Yi Lin, violin, Andrew Braddock, viola, Christine Kim, cello, join Class for two of the three Piano Quartets: the C Minor, Op. 60 “Werther” and the G Minor, Op. 25.

Finally, on Monday evening, a respectable crowd braved a cold rain to hear the set completed in entertaining fashion, starting with the other Piano Quartet, the Piano Quartet in A Major, op. 26, (Miroslav Hristov, violin, Kathryn Gawne, viola, and Andy Bryenton, cello) followed by the sensational Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34 (Ruth Bacon Edewards and Sara Matayoshi, violins, Hillary Herndon, viola, and Stacy Nickell Miller, cello).

While the mind boggles over the amount of music contained in these seven recitals, one fact emerges clearly. This was an extremely valuable, if not essential, undertaking, not just as an educational presentation, but for the fact that it combined KSO musicians and other guests with the School’s performance faculty members for notable chamber music.

Class has also embarked on another series: the complete piano sonatas of Mozart. Program Two in this series comes on Thursday, March 3. As always, these recitals are FREE.