- [Narrator] Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundation: bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto.

The Carol Franc Buck foundation.

Additional support provided by these funders.

(energetic classical music) - Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to Classical Tahoe 2020, the festival's ninth season.

This is a wondrous event.

Live music in the summer of 2020.

Let's mark it down, it actually happened.

I'm Cindy Rhys, I am your in-person program annotator, and I am so happy to be here with you this evening.

And so before each piece, I present some information, just nuggets of interesting information that can connect the audience emotionally with the composer.

I just thought it was kind of asking too much to have people who didn't know that backstory be as in love with the music as we were.

I went to music school, Joel went to music school, all the musicians.

The reason we are so in love with this music, part of the reason, is that we know about the composers.

We know about their struggles, we know how human they were and how this music arose from their lives.

To know that Beethoven waited out the bombardment of Vienna, crossed Vienna, which was like a war zone, went to his brother's basement way down underneath the building, had lost most of his hearing, took a pillow, because he had enough hearing that it was so painful, and he brought his manuscript paper and a pencil and he wrote, and he wrote, and he wrote.

With the piano, he would take the legs of the piano off, put the piano on the floor so he could feel the vibrations of the notes, and that's how he would compose.

Things like that, when you hear the triumphal music of, that he has in his pieces, you understand what he overcame.

They're all human, they all had tragedy, they wrote from that human, human, human perspective, so even though it's music that was written centuries or yesterday, there's always a human connection to it, and that's what we'd like to bring alive.

("Serenade in D major, Op.

25") (audience applauds) ("Serenade in D major, Op.

25") (audience applauds) - So I haven't performed for a live audience since March 8th, and I don't know that after this week I will get to again until at least the new year, so this week means a lot.

Let's go back to, let me do when I do it, - Mhm.

- And then we'll go from there.

- Just to see and hear the tone.

- Yeah.

(sings in German) It's amazing that our technology allows us to keep the music going in these very innovative ways.

I mean at the beginning, when everything was just shut down, at least, you know, we were putting together videos piecemeal from our own living rooms, and you know, we've been kind of working with variations on that theme, and that's wonderful.

I'm so grateful that we're, we live in a day and age in which that is possible, but there's nothing like sharing music and poetry with people in real life, where you can feel their energy and they can feel ours, and it's a real act of direct communication.

I mean, to me, it's the difference between sending a text message and actually having a conversation with you face to face in the same room.

It's wonderful we can do both, but this is irreplaceable.

("Standchen D.889") (sings in German) (audience applauds) - I think that one of the things, especially in chamber music, that the audience likes seeing is the relationship between the people.

It's sort of like watching a marriage.

Like when you see a quartet, you see the people playing together, and it's very intimate, and I think that idea of watching us play together and listening to the music is a good evening.

- The final piece, which is the, we're doing in its full form is the Faure C minor piano quartet, which is just a total masterpiece.

- One of my favorite pieces of chamber music, it's like, it's a desert island piece, you know?

If I was stuck on a desert island, and I could only take a few pieces, I'd probably take that.

- It's by Gabriel Faure.

It's a piano quartet, and it's just incredibly thick and romantic.

- It's lush and elegant and beautiful.

- You just, you have to listen to it.

I can't describe it.

It's just incredible.

- And that's just one of the great keyboard chamber music pieces ever written.

It's a piece that fits Sarah wonderfully, 'cause she's just naturally a very elegant player.

- Well, I'm really excited to share the stage with him, and it feels especially poignant this year, because for both of us, these performances are our first time being on stage since March, early March.

It's been, it's been hard.

You know, this has been a really difficult time for everyone in ways that are much more serious than playing concerts, but to do it again in this place and together is particularly special.

(energetic classical music) - The incredible nuance and sensuality of this music is something that I think people have to be able to get from how we play it, and if for some reason, I want to make this really clear: if for some reason that's not communicated, that's our fault as the interpreter, and that's something you have to keep in mind, and I think people, people need to really be demanding on the people who play this music, because if you walk out of a concert and you think, all right, well that was kind of long, that's not the music's fault, almost always, you know, and so it's really about a very convincing performance that people can just really latch onto, and that's actually our job as interpreters is to take this pretty complex stuff and have something just really raw, often, that just comes across that people can grab onto.

It's a piece that really benefits from really being flowing.

You want to not have things feel, we use the word square in music often, if a performance feels very sort of just good for some music, to have this, like, kind of strong spine.

In this piece, of course, you need really good rhythm, but you need a lot of ability to be flexible and horizontal, and that's something, you know, that I think we're capturing, and I hope you'll get a sense of that when we play it for you.

("Piano Quartet No.

1 in C minor, Op.

15") (audience applauds) - The thing you live for are the moments when you send your energy into the audience and the audience sends their energy back to you, so there is this circular field of love and energy that goes on and on, and it just happens so often.

That, I think, is part of the magic, and it will continue.

It absolutely will continue.

(energetic classical music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundation: bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto.

The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

Additional support provided by these funders.