Oct. 14, 2025 - 7:30pm
(doors open 6:45pm)
Shirley Brill (clarinet)
Jonathan Aner (piano)
Duo BRILLANER
“Every note sounds precious: Shirley Brill plays the Brahms sonatas with a round, beautiful clarinet tone and in audible harmony with her piano partner Jonathan Aner” (Concerti, September 2017)
"Shirley Brill is one of the most accomplished clarinettists of our time ... She is blessed with a beautiful sound, sensitive musicality and a deep understanding of structure." (Daniel Barenboim)
“Has one ever heard such good, flexible, warm and at the same time slender clarinet playing?” (Berliner Zeitung)
Whether as a solo clarinettist in Daniel Barenboim's West Eastern Divan Orchestra, as a guest soloist with the DSO in the Berlin Philharmonie, as a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Nuremberg or together with her partner Jonathan Aner as a celebrated CD artist (“Opus Classic 2024” - Chamber Music Recording of the Year) - Shirley Brill leaves a deep impression and together with Jonathan Aner (“a chamber musician par excellence” - Frankfurter Rundschau) forms a wonderfully harmonious duo.
program:
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Sonata E-flat major
A real gem from the pen of the young Mendelssohn. Relatively rarely heard, this sonata is a prime example of his incredible talent.
Francis Poulenc: Sonata for clarinet and piano
Poulenc wrote this sonata in 1962 shortly before his death and was not able to attend the premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1963 with Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein. How wonderfully romantic, modern and French tradition are combined here.
Alban Berg: Four pieces op.5 for clarinet and piano
Alban Berg's Four Pieces op. 5 (1910) mark his transition to the atonal. Short, rich in contrast and emotionally dense, they combine lyrical moments with expressive outbursts. As an early chamber music work of the Viennese School, they demand virtuosity, sensitivity and narrative creative power.
Johannes Brahms: Sonata f-minor op.120/1
Perhaps the most beautiful music ever written for the clarinet.