Thuesday, 18 October, Kolarac Hall, 20.00
MISCHA MAISKY, violoncello
LILY MAISKY, piano
Beethoven: Seven variations on a theme from Mozart’s “Magic Flute”
Brahms: Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38
Granados: Intermezzo from “Goyescas”  
Granados: Andaluza, Op. 37/5
Sarasate: Playera, Op. 23/1
Albeniz: Tango, Op. 165/2
Cassado: Requiebros
De Falla: Suite populaire espagnole

Ticket prices: 1.000, 1.800, 2.500 din.

MISCHA MAISKY
has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky.  
Rostropovich has lauded Mischa Maisky as "... one of the most outstanding talents of the younger generation of cellists. His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique."  
Born in Latvia, educated in Russia, after his repatriation to Israel, Mischa Maisky has been enthusiastically received in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Tokyo, along with the rest of the major music centers.
He considers himself as a citizen of the world: „I’m playing an Italian cello, with French and German bows, Austrian and German strings, my daughter was born in France, my oldest son in Belgium, the middle one in Italy and the youngest one in Switzerland, I’m driving a Japanese car, wear a Swiss watch, an Indian necklace and I feel at home everywhere where people appreciate and enjoy classical music.“
As an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist during the last 25 years he made well over 30 recordings with such orchestras as Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orpheus und Chamber Orchestra of Europe and others.
One of the highlights in his career was the year 2000 - it was mainly devoted to a world-wide Bach tour which included over 100 concerts! In order to express his deep admiration for this great composer, Mischa Maisky has recorded Bach's Solo Suites for the third time.
His recordings have enjoyed world-wide critical acclaim and have been awarded five times the prestigious Record Academy Prize in Tokyo, three times Echo Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, Grand Prix du Disque in Paris and Diapason d’Or of the Year as well as the coveted Grammy nominations.
Truly a world-class musician and regular guest in most major International Festivals he collaborated with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev and Gustavo Dudamel and his partnerships have included artists as Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Nelson Freire, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, Peter Serkin, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen to name just a few.

Lily Maisky was born in Paris in 1987, moving to Brussels soon after. She began playing the piano at the age of four, with Lyl Tiempo, also studying with Hagit Kerbel, Olga Mogilevsky, Ilana Davids and Alan Weiss. Lily was a pupil at the “Purcell School of Music” from 2001 till 2004 where she also studied jazz piano. She has received master classes and musical advice from such renowned artists including Martha Argerich, Dmitri Bashkirov, Joseph Kalichstein, Evgeny Mogilevsky, Pavel Gililov, Vitali Margulis, Oleg Maisenberg and Marielle Labeque to name a few. She also participated in the prestigious Verbier Academy and the Oxford Philomusica piano courses.
In 1997, Lily's first public performance took place at Carnegie Hall, within the Rainforest Foundation Charity Gala Concert, from which a recording was issued. She is also featured on Mischa Maisky's most recent recording on Deutsche Grammophon as well as an EMI release of chamber music performances live from Progetto Martha Argerich. Lily has been frequently broadcast on European and Asian radio and television. Concert appearances have taken her throughout Europe as well as the Far East. Lily has been invited to many renowned festivals such as the Verbier Festival, Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, the Freiburg Zelt Music Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Franz Liszt festival in Austria, Julian Rachlin and Friends in Dubrovnik, Rencontres de Bel Air in France, the Schlesswig-Holstein Music Festival as well as the English Chamber Orchestra Music Cruise. She has also performed solo and ensemble works in such prestigious venues as the Royal Festival Hall in London, Vienna Konzerthaus, Munich’s Prinzregententheatre, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Venice’s La Fenice, Bonn's Beethovenhalle, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Rome's Teatro Olimpico, Moscow Conservatory, Saint Petersburg Philarmonic Hall and Buckingham Palace, among others.
Lily enjoys playing chamber music as well as solo piano and forms a regular duo with Mischa Maisky. She has also performed with such artists as Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Renaud Capuçon, Sergey Krylov, Nicholas Angelich, Frank Braley, Gérard Caussé, Chantal Juillet, Dora Schwarzberg as well as up and coming violinists Alissa Margulis, Hrachya Avanesyan and Geza Hosszu-Legocky.

Two works for cello and piano from the first part of the concert count as the pillars of literature for this combination of instruments. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Variations take as the subject the duet of Pamina and Papageno from the first act of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Sonata for Cello and Piano Op. 38 by Johannes Brahms reveals the composer’s interest in music of earlier epochs, from Renaissance to Classicism. In particular, this work is homage to Johann Sebastian Bach: the main theme of the first movement, and the fugue subject from the third are cited from his collection The Art of the Fugue (Contrapunctus 4 and 13).

In the second part of the concert, works by Spanish Romantic composers reveal an entirely different relation between cello and piano. With the exception of the virtuoso piece Requiebros by Gaspar Cassado, the celebrated cellist from the first half of the 20th century, originally composed for cello and piano, the rest of the program consists of arrangements of piano, vocal or violin compositions. In any case, what they all have in common is Spanish folk music as the source of inspiration: dancing rhythms, vocal character of ornamented melodies, guitar-like accompaniment.