House Concert in the Woods
October 3, 2020 @ 7:00 pm
House Concert in the Woods
Music of Ludwig van Beethoven
ARTEK will present a special live-streamed House Concert In the Woods on Saturday, October 3 at 7 pm, of music by Ludwig van Beethoven performed on a period 5-1/2-octave fortepiano owned by our virtual hostess, Pearl Gerstel. The performance will be live-streamed from the beautiful Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center located in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Performers are two husband and wife teams: featured guests Risa Browder, violin and John Moran, cello; and Dongsok Shin and Gwendolyn Toth, fortepiano. Ms. Toth & Mr. Shin will perform Beethoven’s Symphony #1, first movement, in an early 19th-century arrangement for four-hands; and Ms. Browder, Mr. Moran, and Mr. Shin will perform Beethoven’s own arrangement of his Symphony #2 for piano trio. Following the performance, the audience will be able to chat with the performers via Zoom for Q & A.
This is a virtual event. No tickets required, and online admission is free. However, donations gratefully accepted! (suggested donation: $20)
Online link to the concert on Youtube Live will be posted here 24 hours in advance, and via email.
If you plan to watch, please be sure we have your email. Send us a message at artekearlymusic@gmail.com so that we can email you directly the Youtube Live link and an additional link to the the Q & A chat on Zoom.
Risa Browder, violin
Risa Browder has performed with the Folger Consort, Washington Bach Consort, Smithsonian Chamber Players, REBEL, English Concert, London Baroque, Consort of Musicke, London Classical Players, Academy of Ancient Music, Hanover Band, Florilegium, Musiciens du Louvre, and Purcell Quartet. Her recording credits include Chandos, Hyperion, Dorian, Virgin Classics, Erato, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI. She is the concertmaster of Modern Musick. Ms. Browder earned a MusB at Oberlin Conservatory, studied at the Royal College of Music in London, and pursued post-graduate study at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland. She teaches with her husband John Moran at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD.
John Moran, cello
John Moran enjoys a broad-ranging musical career. As a determined 7-year-old he convinced a very kind music teacher at his school to let him learn the cello, though he was officially too young for the program. Once he realized how much he liked the instrument, he abandoned his secret plan of switching to the double bass and joining an old time band. He holds performance degrees from Oberlin and the Schola Cantorum in Basel as well as a PhD in musicology from King’s College London. He teaches viol, baroque cello, and musicology at the Peabody Conservatory, where he and his wife Risa Browder are founding co-directors of the school’s critically acclaimed Baltimore Baroque Band. He is a member of Rebel and Washington Bach Consort, and is artistic director of Modern Musick.
Dongsok Shin, fortepiano
A lover of early keyboard instruments, Dongsok plays the harpsichord, fortepiano, and organ. As a harpsichordist, he performs with ensemble REBEL and the Carmel Bach Festival. His YouTube videos demonstrating the world’s oldest piano on display at the Met Museum have over a quarter million views. But perhaps his most impressive feat as a New Yorker is that he’s been living in the same Upper West Side apartment since 1976, with his wife, eight keyboards, and two cats. (Unfortunately the cats are unable to join us for this concert.)
Gwendolyn Toth, fortepiano
Gwendolyn Toth is the director of ARTEK. She performers and records regularly harpsichords and on old organs in Europe, but occasionally makes forays into the world of Classical period music on the fortepiano with her husband, Dongsok Shin.
About the fortepiano
The piano used in this evening’s concert is a Viennese fortepiano by maker Paul McNulty after an 1805 Walter und Sohn piano now in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Berlin. The instrument is owned by Pearl Gerstel of New York City. We are extremely grateful to Ms. Gerstel for the loan of this beautiful instrument.
Anton Walter (1752 — 1826), who had the title of «Chamber Organ Builder and Instrument Maker in Vienna», was considered to be the most famous fortepiano maker of his time. His improvements in the Viennese pianoforte action remained a standard for many years. He built about 700 instruments, which were praised for their quality by Mozart, who bought a Walter in 1782, and by Beethoven, who nearly succeeded in buying one in 1802. According to Mozart’s son Carl: «Most remarkable is the wing-shaped Pianoforte for which my father had a special preference to such a degree that he not only wanted to have it in his study all the time, but exclusively used this and no other instrument in all his concerts, regardless of whether they took place in court, in the palaces of noblemen or in theatres or other public places»
Anton Walter was born near Stuttgart in 1752 and became active in Vienna in the early 1770’s. When in 1800 his stepson joined the company, the firm name was changed from «Anton Walter» to «Anton Walter und Sohn». The keyboard compass increased, but the basic proportions and tonal concept were retained until his death 1826.
(Courtesy Paul McNulty Fortepianos)