Emanuel Ax explores Beethoven sonatas; Pamela Frank returns…with Brahms at Tannery Pond, by Michael Miller
Tannery Pond Concerts
Sunday, August 12, 2012 at 4 pm
Beethoven – Sonata in A major, Op. 2 No. 2
Sonata in C minor, Op. 13, “Pathétique”
Brahms – Sonata in G major for violin & piano, Op. 78, No. 1
Pamela Frank, violin
Emanuel Ax, piano
There was a certain amount of mystery surrounding this concert since the Tannery Pond season was first announced earlier this year. Venues usually have Emanuel Ax’s programs in plenty of time to include them in their advance season previews. Even if a musician’s repertory is generally familiar, audiences begin to feel insecure, if they don’t know what they’re going to hear in advance, but Emanuel Ax is one of the few musicians who can sell out a house without a program, and that is what happened. The delay made it possible offer a very special surprise, the return of the great violinist, Pamela Frank, to the concert stage after an absence of over a decade. In 2001, she received acupuncture treatment for a hand injury, and this in turn damaged nerves in her arm. She has been teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Peabody Conservatory, as well as a variety of summer music schools and festivals, but it has been uncertain whether she would be able to play again. She played Brahms’ First Violin Sonata in G Major.
