Pianist joins Willy Sucre & Friends for 3 NM concerts
Awadagin Pratt, one of today’s premier pianists, is joining Willy Sucre & Friends for three concerts of classical music giants Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms.
“We’re happy to have Awadagin. He’s No. 1 in our book,” Sucre said of Pratt.
The concerts are Jan. 15 in Placitas, Jan. 16 in Socorro and Jan. 17 in Silver City. The common program consists of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major and Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor.
Both works have had gone through several transformations.
Beethoven, Pratt said, didn’t play his as a concerto, but he approved a version of it for quintet with bass. Somebody else made an arrangement for string quartet and piano; Sucre & Friends will play that arrangement.
“It has a chamber music quality when you perform it with orchestra,” Pratt said. “There are so many places where the piano part is almost an accompaniment to the solo lines and the woodwinds and the texture of the piano line is sort of weaving in and out.”
Because the piano isn’t always the dominant force, it operates as a more collaborative instrument. That gives the orchestral version a chamber music quality, he said.
The version for string quartet and piano has not had many performances because it has recently been published, Pratt said.
The work has changing moods — from spirited to stern, to softly lyrical to rhythmically strong. “It has a traditional Beethoven finale — full of joy and vibrancy,” he said.
Brahms began its life as a quintet for two violins, viola and two cellos.
“He wrote it for violinist Joseph Joachim, who talked to Brahms. He felt it didn’t have enough enthusiasm, not enough beauty. So Brahms change it to a piece for two pianos. But Brahms didn’t like it. Then he changed it to a piano quintet,” Pratt said. “It’s really a powerful piece. … It’s the major piano quintet in the chamber literature.”
Pratt, a former Albuquerque resident, is a professor piano and artist in residence at the University of Cincinnati’s Conservatory of Music. He is also a pianist and a conductor with orchestras worldwide.
Playing the triple concerts with Pratt and violist Sucre are violinists Krzysztof Zimowski and Justin Pollack and cellist James Holland.