André Previn Born April 6, 1929, in Berlin, Germany Died February 28, 2019, in New York, New York
André Previn—composer, conductor, pianist, author—was among the most prodigiously talented musicians of his generation. Born in Berlin in 1929 into a family of Russian-Jewish descent, he studied piano at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik until the Nazis forced his parents to flee in 1938. The Previns settled briefly in Paris, where the nine-year-old André continued his studies at the Conservatoire with Marcel Dupré, before moving permanently to Los Angeles; the young musician became an American citizen in 1943. Though Previn was a student of Max Rabinowitsch in piano, Joseph Achron and Ernst Toch in theory, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in composition, his earliest professional experience, gained even before he finished high school, was as a jazz pianist and an orchestrator for MGM Studios, where a distant cousin, Charles, was music director. Previn joined the staff of MGM upon his graduation and composed his first film score, The Sun Comes Up, in 1948. A reputable musician, he recorded a number of successful albums during this period.
In 1951, he began studying conducting with Pierre Monteux, then Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, and soon left MGM to develop his career as a concert pianist and conductor, as well as to work as a freelance orchestrator of film scores—he won Oscars® for Gigi (1958), Porgy and Bess (1959), Irma la Douce (1963), and My Fair Lady (1964). Previn guest conducted widely following his podium debut in St. Louis in 1962, and was appointed Music Director of the Houston Symphony in 1967. The following year, he was named Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1979; he was named the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate in 1993. Previn also served as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976–1984), Los Angeles Philharmonic (1985–1989), London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985–1991), and Oslo Philharmonic (2002–2006). In 2009, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra.
André Previn was one of the most-recorded musicians in history, with 10 Grammy Awards® and well over 200 releases. Though his appearances as a pianist were limited because of the scope of his work as a conductor, he was heard regularly in chamber music and as a soloist-conductor in concertos by Mozart. Previn composed in both popular and concert genres: scores for the musicals Coco and The Good Companion and the films Bad Day at Black Rock, Subterraneans, and Two for the Seesaw; a Symphony for Strings; a half-dozen concertos; Overture to a Comedy, Principals, Reflections, and Diversions for orchestra; numerous chamber and piano works; a theater piece for actors and orchestra titled Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, with words by Tom Stoppard; and song cycles for Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Janet Baker, and Sylvia McNair. On commission from the San Francisco Opera, he created an opera based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. The opera, with a libretto by Philip Littell and starring soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois, was given its premiere by the San Francisco Opera in September 1998; its recording on Deutsche Grammophon won a Grand Prix du Disque. His second opera, Brief Encounter, was premiered by Houston Grand Opera in May 2009.
Previn composed his Violin Sonata No. 2 in 2011 for Anne-Sophie Mutter, who premiered the work at Carnegie Hall in New York on December 14, 2013, with pianist Lambert Orkis. The expressive progression of the Sonata is indicated by the titles of its three movements: “Joyous,” “Desolate,” and “Brilliant.” The Sonata opens with a skipping four-note descent followed by several episodes varied in style and sonority. A recall of the skipping motive leads to an extended lyrical passage in which violin and piano share prominence. A brief, spirited coda closes the movement. The mood of “Desolate” is evoked by its slow tempo, austere texture, and muted violin often played with a “straight” tone, i.e., without vibrato. The central section (“Fast, like shadows”) provides stylistic and formal contrast, before the movement concludes with a return of the stark gestures of the opening. The finale starts with a brief accompanied violin cadenza prefacing a movement of bubbling energy. To conclude, the work occasionally relaxes for a little bluesy music before finishing with a flourish.
Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano
Johannes Brahms Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
For many years, Brahms followed the sensible practice of the Viennese gentry by abandoning the city when the weather got hot. He spent many happy summers in the hills and lakes of the Salzkammergut, east of Salzburg, but, in 1886, his friend Joseph Viktor Widmann, a poet and librettist of considerable distinction, convinced Brahms to join him in the ancient Swiss town of Thun, 25 kilometers south of Bern in the foothills of the Bernese Alps. Brahms rented a flower-laden villa on the shore of Lake Thun in the nearby hamlet of Hofstetten and settled in for a long, comfortable summer.
The periods away from Vienna were not merely times of relaxation for Brahms, however, but were really working holidays. Some of his greatest scores (Violin Concerto; Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies; Piano Concerto No. 2; Haydn Variations; Tragic Overture;and several others) had been largely realized at his various summer retreats in earlier years. The three summers he spent at Thun (1886–1888) were equally productive: the Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Second Cello Sonata, Gypsy Songs, Choral Songs (Op. 104), Lieder of Op. 105–107, and Double Concerto were all written during this period. Brahms composed the C minor Piano Trio in Hofstetten during the summer of 1886.
A stormy outburst in urgent triplets serves as the main theme of the Trio’s first movement. The music’s intensity is heightened by dramatic dotted rhythms, but becomes more subdued for the entry of the formal second subject: a lyrical strain for the strings derived from the rising three-note motive of the opening. The development section is so thoroughly absorbed in the main theme and the dotted-rhythm motive that the piece skips over to begin the recapitulation, the music proceeding directly to a transitional idea and the second subject. The two main-theme motives return in the coda to balance the form, providing a turbulent ending.
Malcolm MacDonald, in his study of the composer, wrote that the second movement “is one of the most delicate that Brahms ever wrote, and yet is a profoundly uneasy movement of grey half-lights, rapid stealthy motion, and suppressed sadness.” The movement’s three-part form (A–B–A) wraps itself around a sinuous theme that the piano unwinds in the outer sections (with spectral echoes from the strings), and a central episode layering mysterious pizzicato arpeggios in the strings upon unsettled chords suspended in the keyboard. The gentle Andante, with its lilting quality reminiscent of Austrian country dances, provides an expressive foil to the surrounding movements. The finale, in compact sonata form, resumes the impassioned manner of the opening movement, though the music turns to the bright tonality of C major in its coda for an affirmative close.
Quartet for violin, viola, cello, and piano in C minor, Op. 13
Richard Strauss Born June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany Died September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Franz Strauss, Richard’s father, was one of the outstanding horn players of his day, renowned for the power and artistry of his solos in Mozart’s concertos, Beethoven’s symphonies, and Wagner’s music dramas as principal hornist of the Munich Court Orchestra for over 40 years. Franz was also a musician of the most firmly held opinions, all of them reactionary, who believed, despite his glorious performances of many recent compositions, that little good music had been written after the death of Schumann. Mozart and Beethoven were the principal gods in his cramped musical pantheon, with Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and, perhaps, Brahms allowed tentative positions on the front stoop. Wagner, Liszt, and Bruckner were anathema. It is therefore hardly surprising that young Richard was trained in the most conservative musical idioms, becoming thoroughly (and exclusively) versed in the style, forms, and ethos of High Classicism.
Strauss, nurtured on the conservative styles espoused by his father, showed a precocious talent for musical composition. His first published work, the FestivalMarch for Orchestra, appeared in 1876, when he had ripened to the age of 12; he wrote an Overture in A in 1879 and a String Quartet the following year. His Symphony in D minor was introduced in March 1881 by the Munich Court Orchestra conducted by the renowned Hermann Levi, who was to lead the premiere of Parsifal 16 months later. From 1874 to 1882, Strauss was a student at Munich’s highly respected Royal Ludwig Gymnasium (i.e., high school), where he excelled in all of his subjects except mathematics. The successful premiere of his Serenade in E-flat, Op. 7 in Dresden on November 27, 1882, brought him to the attention of the distinguished pianist-conductor Hans von Bülow, who asked the young musician to write another work for winds (Suite, Op. 4) for his Meiningen Orchestra, and then invited him to make his debut as a conductor in its premiere on November 18, 1884, in Munich. Bülow sensed an exceptional talent blossoming, and told Strauss that he was one of those musicians who “have the stuff in them to occupy the highest positions at once.” Bülow soon fulfilled his own prophecy. On October 1, 1885, Strauss was engaged as co-conductor with Bülow of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, and only a month later became its sole music director. He was 21.
Strauss completed the C minor Piano Quartet shortly before his twentieth birthday (June 11, 1884), and submitted the score to a competition for such works sponsored by the Berlin Tonkünstlerverein; it won. The opening movement focuses on three principal ideas: a scalar phrase presented by unison strings at the outset; a tender, short-breathed melody in triplet rhythms initiated by the piano; and a bold striding motive, again stated by unison strings. The development gives dramatically heightened expression to the themes. The recapitulation allows broad elaboration of the materials before an extensive coda in quick rhythms closes the movement. The gracefully tripping music of the Scherzo is contrasted by lyrical passages reminiscent of a Viennese waltz. The Andante, with its long, carefully sculpted melodies, rich harmonizations, and wide structural arches, looks forward to the tone poems and operas of Strauss’ later years. The bounding rhythms and leaping melodies of the finale bespeak youthful exuberance, for which long melodic phrases and some rather calculated thematic working-out provide stylistic and expressive balance.
Artists
Artists
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Violinist Ricardo Cyncynates has performed extensively as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. He is Assistant Concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and was appointed to this position by Mstislav Rostropovich following Cyncynates's tenure with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with the NSO in concertos by Mozart and Vivaldi, as well as in Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, Saint-Saëns's Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Sibelius’ Six Humoresques, and Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin on a program led by Music Director Leonard Slatkin for the League of American Orchestras’ National Conference concert.
Cyncynates has performed as a soloist with a number of other Washington area orchestras in concertos by Bach, Brahms, Busoni, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Sibelius, as well as in Bernstein’s Serenade.
An active chamber musician, Cyncynates frequently performs in Washington’s most prestigious venues including the Library of Congress, Corcoran Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, and with The Kennedy Center Chamber Players at the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center. In 1990, together with clarinetist Claire Eichhorn and pianist Anna Balakerskaia, he founded The Ensemble da Camera of Washington, today widely considered one of the premier ensembles in their instrument combination. Their national concert tours, radio broadcasts, and several recordings for the Vernissage Records label have met with unanimous acclaim by audiences and critics alike. To find out more about the ensemble da Camera of Washington, please visit www.EDCWashington.com.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Cyncynates started violin studies with his father and made his debut at age 11 as the winner of Brazil’s National Young Soloists’ Competition. By age 19, he had an extensive solo career to his credit and was appointed first concertmaster of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. He completed his studies at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and at Indiana University studying under Arrigo Pelliccia, Salvatore Accardo, and Franco Gulli. He is a recipient of awards given by the Brazilian National Research Council, Schering Corporation, and Encyclopedia Britannica.
Cyncynates is a renowned teacher, with students receiving prizes in national and international competitions. Several of his former students are also members of major orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. He has given master classes throughout the United States, Asia, and South America. His violin is the 1873 ‘The David’ Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Cyncynates is a Larsen Strings Performing Artist. For more information, please visit www.ricardocyncynates.com.
Violinist Heather LeDoux Green joined the National Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and became a member of the first violin section in 2007. She came to the NSO after spending two years as assistant concertmaster of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Prior to her time in Washington, D.C., Green was a member of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She received her Master of Music degree from Rice University, studying with Sergiu Luca. As an undergraduate, she was a student of esteemed violinist Camilla Wicks. She considers Wicks her greatest mentor, dutifully following her to three schools and graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a chamber musician, Green is a new member of the Manchester String Quartet and has performed with the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Eclipse, Spoleto, Sun Valley, Music in the Mountains, and Round Top. She has participated in the Accademia Chigiana in Italy, Mozarteum Academy in Austria, and Amadeus Quartet Program in London. Green has soloed with the NSO, performing Tan Dun’s “Hero” concerto with the composer conducting. Most recently, she and NSO bassist Paul DeNola have written a comedic children’s program featuring short classical works. They have been featured in the Trump Kennedy Center Family Theater and perform regularly for schools, sharing music and humor with young audiences.
National Symphony Orchestra Principal Violist Daniel Foster’s varied career encompasses orchestral, chamber, and solo playing, as well as teaching. Since capturing the First Prize in both the William Primrose and Washington International Competitions, he has appeared in recital and as soloist with orchestra in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. After studying with Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey at Oberlin Conservatory and with Karen Tuttle at the Curtis Institute, Foster joined the National Symphony’s viola section in 1993 and was appointed principal by Music Director Leonard Slatkin in 1995. Foster has appeared frequently as soloist with the National Symphony since his appointment.
Foster was a member of the critically acclaimed Dryden Quartet, which he founded along with his cousins Nicolas and Yumi Kendall and National Symphony Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef. He is currently a member of the 21st Century Consort and is a founding member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Foster has performed chamber music at the Marlboro, Bowdoin, Killington, and Alpenglow Festivals, as well as at Strings in the Mountains. Foster appears regularly on a number of chamber music series in the Washington, D.C., area.
Foster is on the faculty at the University of Maryland, where his former students have gone on to major orchestral and university positions, and he has been a faculty member at the Bowdoin and Killington festivals. Foster has given master classes at the Oberlin and Peabody Conservatories, the University of Michigan, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Foster is a member of the “International Principals” faculty at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.
Foster comes from a musical family. In addition to his violinist and cellist cousins, his father, William, was also a violist with the National Symphony from 1968 to 2018, and his grandfather, John Kendall, was a renowned violin pedagogue. His wife, Adria Sternstein Foster, is the principal flutist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.
David Hardy, principal cello of the National Symphony Orchestra, achieved international recognition in 1982 as the top American prize winner at the seventh International Tchaikovsky Cello Competition in Moscow. Hardy won a special prize for the best performance of the Suite for Solo Cello by Victoria Yagling, commissioned for the competition. Tass particularly praised Hardy’s performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, David Hardy began his cello studies there at the age of 8. He was 16 when he made his debut as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
When he was 21 years old, Hardy won the certificate in the prestigious Geneva International Cello Competition. The next year, he graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Laurence Lesser, Stephen Kates, and Berl Senofsky. In 1981, he was appointed to the National Symphony Orchestra as associate principal cello by its then music director, Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1994, Hardy was named principal cello of the NSO by its next music director, Leonard Slatkin. Hardy made his solo debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in 1986 with Rostropovich conducting. A regular soloist with the NSO, Hardy, gave the 2004 world premiere performance, with Slatkin conducting, of Stephen Jaffe’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, which was commissioned by the John and June Hechinger Fund for New Orchestral Works. Hardy gave the European premiere of the Jaffe concerto in Slovenia in 2007. Bridge Records released the premiere recording of the Concerto with Hardy and the Odense Symphony of Denmark.
The National Symphony Orchestra recording of John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, featuring Hardy’s solo cello performance, won the 1996 Grammy Award® for Best Classical Album. Another recent recording—in collaboration with NSO Principal Keyboard Lambert Orkis—is Beethoven Past & Present, consisting of two complete performances of Beethoven’s eight works for piano and cello, performed on both modern and period instruments. Hardy is a founding member of the Opus 3 Trio with violinist Charles Wetherbee and pianist Lisa Emenheiser. The Opus 3 Trio has since performed to critical acclaim across the country and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded many new works. Hardy is also a founding member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Additionally, Hardy was cellist of the 20th Century Consort in Washington, D.C., where he premiered works by Stephen Albert, Nicholas Maw, and Joseph Schwantner. Hardy’s playing can be heard on recordings under the Melodyia, Educo, RCA, London, Centaur, and Delos labels.
Critics in Washington and beyond have praised his virtuosic technique and deep musical sensitivity. Hardy’s instruments were made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore in 1694 and Raymond Hardy in 2000.
In addition to his performing schedule, Hardy is professor of cello at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.
Pianist Lambert Orkis’ substantial career includes more than eleven years of international concertizing with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. For 37 years, the celebrated duo of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and Orkis has appeared to capacity audiences in the world’s finest performance venues. They regularly concertize at the most prestigious festivals throughout the world, such as the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals. The duo’s many recordings and DVDs for Deutsche Grammophon include sonata cycles by Mozart (Choc de l’année Award), Beethoven (Grammy Award®), and Brahms. Most recently, on Sony Classical, Orkis can be heard with Mutter and cellist Pablo Ferrández in Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor, and, in 2026, Alpha Classics will release a recording of Mutter and Orkis with cellists Maximilian Hornung and Daniel Müller-Schott, performing works by André Previn and Sebastian Currier.
For Bridge Records, he has premiered and recorded compositions of numerous composers, including solo works written for him by George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and James Primosch. With NSO Principal Cellist David Hardy for the Sono Luminus label, he offers two performances of Beethoven’s cycle of works for piano and cello performed on both modern and period instruments.
Orkis premiered in Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center Wernick’s Piano Concerto, which was written for him and the National Symphony Orchestra, with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting. For the Bridge Records recording of this work, he is paired with Symphony II of Chicago. The European premiere took place with Orkis and Het Residentie Orkest of The Hague, Netherlands. For these last two occurrences, the composer conducted.
As soloist, he has made appearances with other conductors, including Christoph Eschenbach, Leonard Slatkin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Günther Herbig, Manfred Honeck, Christian Măcelaru, John Mauceri, Robert Kapilow, Leon Fleisher, and Kenneth Slowik.
He has twice been engaged as distinguished performing artist and teacher for Australia’s Musica Viva Festival. Three times he has performed for and served as juror of the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition and Festival, most recently as chairman of the jury. The Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition for Pianists and the Trump Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards Competition engaged him as adjudicator, and, as Honored Artist for Taiwan’s New Aspect International Music Festival, he performed and presented master classes in Taipei. This past summer, with cellist David Hardy and using period instruments, he appeared at the 2025 Conference-Festival Piano | Forte presented by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
As a founding member of both the Kennedy Center Chamber Players and the Smithsonian Institution’s Castle Trio (period instruments), he has performed and recorded numerous albums. For over 40 years, he has held the position of principal keyboard of the National Symphony Orchestra, and he has taught at Temple University in Philadelphia, currently as professor of piano, for over half a century. The Federal Republic of Germany has bestowed upon Orkis the Cross of the Order of Merit in acknowledgment of his accomplishments.
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