ESPINA-SCHWARTZMAN DUO:
Two masterworks from 1945
Oskar Espina Ruiz, Clarinet
Victoria Schwartzman, Piano
This program is centered around two sonatas for clarinet and piano written in 1945 by two composers who emigrated in opposite directions: Mieczysław Weinberg fled Poland for the Soviet Union, while Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco fled Italy for the United States. Both sonatas are large in scale, but completely different. While Weinberg writes in a poetic language that often becomes enigmatic as in the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, best known as the foremost guitar composer of the twentieth century, writes in a lyrical and virtuosic style. Both sonatas are relatively unknown because they were not published until the 1970s.
The second half of this program presents Prokofiev as possible context for Weinberg, and Pinto-Correia and Poulenc as possible descendants of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s approach.
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 28 (1945)
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 128 (1945)
Andreia Pinto-Correia (born 1971): Cantos e danças, for unaccompanied clarinet (2011, revised 2025)
Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Opus 14 (2012)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 184 (1962)
