FARMINGTON – Violinist Dean Stein and pianist Chiharu Naruse will perform the Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2 in Nordica Auditorium on the second floor of Merrill Hall on the campus of University of Maine at Farmington. This event is proudly sponsored by the Arts Institute of Western Maine and UMF.
Admission is $12 at the door. All AIWM events are free for anyone 18 years old and younger and students with ID. AIWM is an affiliate of the University of Maine, Farmington.
Maine-based musicians with international careers, Stein and Naruse have played together in larger chamber ensembles over the years but made their debut as a duo only last fall.
The February program includes the Sonata No. 7 in C minor (Op. 30, No. 2), which marks a transition to the composer’s mature style in scope, harmonic language and structure. The program also includes sonatas No. 4 in A minor (Op. 23); No. 8 in G major (Op. 30, No. 3); and Beethoven’s first violin and piano sonata, No. 1 in D major (Op. 12, No. 1).
In March, Naruse and Stein play the Sonata No. 5 in F major (Op. 24), nicknamed “Spring” because of what music writer John Henken called its “generally cheerful sense of zesty blossoming”; also, No. 10 in G major (Op. 96) and No. 6 in A major (Op. 30, No. 1).
The April program ends the series with the celebrated “Kreutzer” sonata (No. 9 in A major, Op. 47), known for its emotional power, as well as for the difficulty of the violin part. Also featured are No. 2 in A major (Op. 12, No. 2) and No. 3 in E-flat major (Op. 12, No. 3).
While Beethoven wrote these 10 works relatively early in his career, there’s no mistaking the sensibility behind them.
“While you find his debt to his predecessors (such as Haydn and Mozart), you also find his stamp on the music right from the opening of the first sonata,” said Stein.
