Well, the Santa Barbara Music Club is back in force with its marvelous free concerts. The next one comes at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 23, in the First United Methodist Church, 305 E. Anapamu St.
The Music Club members who will play include duel pianists Tachell Gerbert & Bradley Gregory, who will perform Wolfgang Mozart’s “Sonata for Keyboard Four-hands in Bb-Major, K. 358/186c” (1774) and “By the Sea (2022),” written for them by Emma Lou Diemer; plus cellist Virginia Kron and pianist Betty Oberacker (Emma Lou’s longtime colleague, friend, and sometime dedicatee), who will give us their (doubtless) brilliant take on Ludwig Beethoven’s “Cello & Piano Sonata No. 3 in A-Major, Opus 69” (1808).
Admission, as noted above, is free.
While I look forward to hearing all three works, I have long been devoted to the Beethoven sonata, especially its rondo-like scherzo, as evincing to a degree what I call the “Mystery of Beethoven.”
By this phrase, I am not speaking of religious mysteries, but only of certain passages — the second theme of the “Emperor” concerto’s first movement; the final movement of the “Tempest” piano sonata; “Für Elise,” the “Alla danza tedesca” from the Thirteenth String Quartet, &c — in which the composer seems to be following some private happiness through the labyrinth of his dreams.
This music does not square well with the public Beethoven of thunderous celebrations of Liberty or stern quasi-baroque explorations of form. In these passages he is delicate, tentative, nimble, haunting, making me think I got him all wrong.
— 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.