Cello-piano duo Annie Hyung and Ariel Mo will perform and discuss Katherine Balch's Prelude and its companion piece, Brahms' E Minor Cello Sonata, featuring the CCHK's enigmatic 1857 Streicher piano, similar to one that Brahms owned. Balch's Prelude was composed to proceed attacca into the Brahms, providing a shocking antithesis that asks us to listen anew to Brahms as subjects rooted in the 21st century, rather than reenacting the 19th. Likewise, the Streicher piano, while featuring a Viennese action, differs remarkably in touch and tone from other pianos of its time--but was this the original intent, or the result of over a century of posthumous intervention? Is this “historical keyboard” an artifact of the past, or does it, too, like Balch’s Prelude, reimagine Brahms for our own time?
