Lugansky y Boriso-Glebsky

As part of its Chamber Cycle, the Auditorio de Tenerife presents a concert by the pianist Nikolai Lugansky and the violinist Nikita Boriso-Glebsky.

Nikolai Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist, although, in the 1930s, he moved to London, where he lived and pursued his career for practically the rest of his life. An implacable opponent of contemporary music, which he condemned in his 1935 work The Muse and the Fashion, he was a post-Romantic influenced by Schumann and Brahms, as well as by Rachmaninoff, influences that have a significant presence in his first sonata for violin. The two first movements premiered in Moscow in 1910, with the composer's older brother, Alexander Medtner, as the soloist. The entire work premiered a year later. It is a complex work displaying Medtner's gift for textures, development of themes and formal mastery.

Sonata No. 3 in D minor by Brahms was the last sonata that the composer wrote for violin. Unlike his previous sonatas, it is formed by four movements and reflects a mature Brahms who displays concision in his expressive power. Its opening sotto voce bars, with the soft and restless piano through its syncopated rhythm, its long developments on a pedal note that seem to evoke kettledrum beats, and the contrast between the delicate Scherzo and the ending theme written in a tarantella rhythm attest once again to the composer's extraordinary mastery of compositional technical resources.

The programme concludes with Sonata No. 1 by Prokófiev, another of the great works in the chamber music repertoire. It is a tormented work, written between 1938 and 1946, that begins with a tense Andante coming from the depths of the piano. However, the violin quickly takes centre stage with a painful melody. The music becomes ethereal while the violin performs notes that slip out disconcertingly, like "the wind in a cemetery", according to the composer. An abrupt Allegro follows, offering a contrast to the Andante; it is much more nostalgic and dreamlike and gradually transforms in a desolate manner to finish with spine-chilling tremolos on the violin. Its fourth movement, Allegrissimo, opens with a joyful and playful theme. However, its lustre quickly comes under threat again from the initial tension of the work, where the music becomes gloomy, with a certain feeling of desperation that seems to describe the historical events that influenced its composition.