Saturday, March 11, 2017

Benkman and Roudman will Return to the Cadillac Hotel with More Chamber Music

Last month the Concerts at the Cadillac series at the Cadillac Hotel departed from its usual jazz offering to present an imaginative program of twentieth-century chamber music. This month there will be another recital of chamber music, this time from the nineteenth century. The performers will be familiar faces in the Cadillac lobby. Cellist Rebecca Roudman has performed a variety of different genres there, including performances with her Dirty Cello group. However, in the past when chamber music has been involved, she has been accompanied by Noel Benkman at the piano; and he will join her again for this month’s performance.

Even for those who think they know the nineteenth-century repertoire, this may turn out of be a journey of discovery. The least familiar work on the program will be by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who began studies with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was only eight years old. He continued under Mozart’s tutelage for two years, during which Mozart also invited him to stay in his own house. His other teachers included Muzio Clementi and Joseph Haydn. Late in his life (1824) he composed what he called a “Grande Sonate pour le Pianoforte et Violoncelle;” and this will be the featured composition on the Roudman-Benkman program. The program will also include the first (in C major) of Ludwig van Beethoven’s two Opus 102 sonatas. When Simrock published these two sonatas in 1816, the title page also listed the piano before the cello. The program will also include the second of Johannes Brahms’ two cello sonatas, Opus 99 in F major.

Like all Concerts at the Cadillac events, this recital will begin at 12:30 p.m. and will take place on Friday, March 24. The Cadillac Hotel is located at 380 Eddy Street, on the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street.  The purpose of the Concerts at the Cadillac series is to provide high-quality music to the residents of the hotel and the Tenderloin District; but all are invited to visit the venue that calls itself “The House of Welcome Since 1907.”

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