Fischer Duo brings cello, piano duets to Placitas Artists Series
The renowned Fischer Duo will play a sampling of their favorite cello and piano duets at the Placitas Artists Series on Sunday, May 19.
Located at the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church, the program features works by François Couperin, Robert Sirota, William Grant Still, William Bolcom, Nadia Boulanger and Ludwig van Beethoven.
“There’s an amazing amount of repertoire for the cello and piano, starting with Beethoven and going through all the classical composers,” cellist Norman Fischer said in a telephone interview.
“Composers are still fascinated by the two,” he continued. “The range of the cello is really the full range of the human voice.”
Fischer, a Grammy Award-winning cellist, gained renown with the Concord String Quartet. He teaches at Rice University. His wife Jeanne Kierman is an accomplished pianist with a background in ensemble work and teaching.
Fischer began on the cello at the age of 10.
“I fell in love with it,” he said, “the sound and the great variety of repertoire the cello has. It plays rhythm, it plays melodies, it plays harmonies.”
The program features six works, some of which the duo has championed. It opens with a collection of pieces by Couperin, followed by Bolcom’s Introduction and Allegro from “Sonata No. 2.” Written in 2020, the latter piece reflects political chaos as well as the pandemic. Sirota’s “Family Portraits” were commissioned by Fischer, and feature musical portraits of the couple and their two daughters.
Fischer discovered Boulanger’s “Trois Pièces” after knowing of her fame as a composition teacher.
“We didn’t know she had written any music herself,” he said.
The pieces include a dreamscape, a folk song and a Parisian urban street romp.
Beethoven’s “Sonata in A Major, op. 69,” is a famous cello sonata written during the composer’s middle period in 1807-08.
Since they began playing together in 1971, the Fischer Duo has performed for lovers of chamber music across the country.