Camerata Pacifica continues its Why Beethoven? II season in February with a concert in Santa Barbara at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road.
They play same program at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 2, in the Museum of Ventura County, 100 E. Main St.; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, in Rothenberg Hall of The Huntington Museum in San Marino, 1151 Oxford Road; and 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, in Zipper Hall of The Colburn School in Los Angeles, 200 S Grand Ave.
Cameratans Paul Huang, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; Ani Aznavoorian, cello; and Warren Jones, piano, will play Wolfgang Mozart‘s “Duo for Violin & Viola in Bb-Major, K. 424” (1783); Ludwig Beethoven‘s “Cello & Piano Sonata No. 4 in C-Major, Opus 102, No. 1” (1815) and his “String Trio No. 5 in c-minor, Opus 9, No. 3” (1798); and Johannes Brahms‘ “Violin & Piano Sonata No. 1 in G-Major, Opus 78” (1878-79).
Mozart’s two violin-viola duos, K. 423 and K. 424, were written about the same time (1783), yet they are quite different in scale. K. 423 is exquisite and intimate; K. 424 is expansive and extroverted — indeed, if you are listening to a recording of it, you might be forgiven for thinking you were hearing a string quartet.
Beethoven’s five cello-piano sonatas are the greatest gift to cellists since Bach’s “Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV1007-1012.” To adapt a pronouncement of T.S. Eliot to this occasion: Bach and Beethoven divide the cello literature between them — there is no third.
One of the miraculous distinctions of the Beethoven set is their variety: no one is like another, yet each could only have come from Beethoven.
Admission to all venues is $58. For tickets and other information, show up at the box office, call the Camerata Pacifica, 805-884-8410, or email tickets@cameratapacifica.org.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.