Banquet of violoncello and of Beethoven

This was a recital given by cellist Tanya Anisimova and pianist Lydia Frumkin.

Both are of Soviet birth and education, although they now live in the USA and are internationally renowned performers and teachers. Tanya is also a composer.

They opened their program with the Beethoven's Sonata Op. 69 for cello and piano that dates from 1807, being contemporary of "Fidelio" and the Fifth Symphony. The work is vigorous, sonorous, of a luminous optimism, and intensely romantic in its eagerness to belong to a new fraternal humanity. It is also a true manifesto of freedom and brotherhood. The interpretation was very "Russian", extremely vigorous, with no concession to tenderness, always aimed at heroism. It is an incredible force that distinguishes these performers, their way of interpreting Beethoven could not have been more wonderful or intense. There were people who missed some gentleness. Not me.

I go for the Promethean feeling of the Beethoven of that time, and that was the feeling of Tanya Anisimova and Lydia Frumkin. The applause of the audience was heartfelt.

The program closed with a piece by Tanya Anisimova composed this year, called Moscow-Mexico for cello and piano, in honor of her first teacher, who now lives in Mexico, teaches at the Conservatorio de las Rosas and attended the concert. This is an extraordinary piece, long, tonal, richly melodic, with a brilliant and complex harmonic texture, with stimulating rhythms that clearly recognize a Mediterranean, Andalusian or North African background, and of high virtuosic demands that Tanya Anisimova knew who she was entrusting to - herself. The final result was indescribably beautiful, and when Tanya asked her teacher to stand up to be honored by this dedication, she cried. She was not the only one.

But this art refuses to leave us. Tanya played an encore that ended up being one of the most remarkable musical moments I remember. She improvised with the solo cello and vocalized with it in a very refined melody, clearly Slavic-style, with such subtle harmonies that it took us from the Earth to stellar spaces, from which we returned with the emotional applause of the lucky ones who were present that night at the Conservatorio de las Rosas.

Mi Morelia. Cambio de Michoacan. Cultura. February 8, 2005

Reviewer: Rogelio Macias Sanchez

Translator: Ruth Rose