Simone Dinnerstein and Alexis Pia Gerlach explore Bach's melodic Gamba Sonatas
J.S. Bach's three Gamba Sonatas can be expressive and energetic and are always melodic. But how much the works really resonate can depend on the interplay and interrelation between the two musicians.
The sonatas were originally written for the viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord, instrumental ancestors to the modern counterparts of cello and piano.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach will play the Gamba Sonatas at a concert Nov. 19 in Tuckerman Hall presented by Music Worcester.
They will be performing the sonatas together for just the second time publicly and two days after they've debuted the program Nov. 17 in New York City at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University as part of a Bach series that Dinnerstein oversees.
Still, there will be a great deal of familiarity and trust between the two musicians going into the performances.
"Oh yeah. Playing with an old friend is always a joy. And she (Gerlach) is so experienced and giving as a musician we can throw things to each other and the other person will catch it. There's a lot of trust," the Brooklyn, New York-based Dinnerstein said during a recent telephone interview.
Gerlach, who has performed at Tuckerman Hall before with the ensemble Concertante, has a wide range of collaborations and artistic expressions as a solo artist and chamber musician.
Dinnerstein is well-known to Worcester-concert goers, and was Music Worcester's first educational artist-in-residence for its 160th anniversary 2018-19 season.
The two first knew each other when they were both in the pre-college program at the Manhattan School of Music.
"I've known Alexis since I was probably 10 or 11 years old." Dinnerstein said. "She's a little older than me, and someone I looked up to as a young performer. Someone I wanted to play with but didn't feel I was at her level."
They did play together at the high school level a couple of times — "both real exciting experiences for me," Dinnerstein said. "She was definitely the star of the pre-college program. A really beautiful cellist, just a natural player. She was my first exposure to cello and the beauty of the cello."
The two have maintained friendship and music, with Gerlach a member of Dinnerstein's Ensemble Baroklyn and a cellist with the Bach series that Dinnerstein has been curating at the Miller Theatre.
Dinnerstein is known for her exploration of the works of Bach, and said the Gamba Sonatas "are really the most incredibly beautiful and intimate and human works that he wrote. They are the pieces I like to listen to when I need to center myself back to earth," Dinnerstein said.
The works were most likely written in the 1730s and 1740s. "They're melodic. There's an honesty to the music when you play it, and there's an embrace when you play it, and it's also lots of fun passing around the motifs," Dinnerstein said.
In addition to the three Gamba Sonatas, the program for Nov. 19 at Tuckerman Hall also includes Gerlach playing Bach's Solo Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major.
"That will be interesting. You'll also hear how he writes for the instrument itself," Dinnerstein said. The way Bach writes for keyboard with another instrument is different to the way he writes for solo keyboard, she noted. "I just find it fascinating how varied Bach's writing is."
The program in Worcester will be: Bach Gamba Sonata No. 1 in G Major; Bach Solo Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major; Bach Gamba Sonata No. 3 in G Minor; and Bach Gamba Sonata No. 2 in D.
Dinnerstein and Gerlach were originally going to debut the Gamba Sonatas program at the Miller Theatre last year, but the ongoing pandemic intervened. Still, the two musicians have always been in-sync with each other and the music.
"I guess I've been very fortunate with the cellists I've collaborated with over the years, but there's something about playing with Alexis that feels really extremely natural," Dinnerstein said. "I guess she's a cellist that relies on a lot of breathing, and I do that too. There's a very natural flow to it and I think she has a beautiful sound. There's a lightness in her playing."
There have been a number of recordings of the Gamba Sonatas, but "you actually don't see them performed (live) so much. I haven't had a concert where all three are played together," Dinnerstein said.
As for Dinnerstein making a recording of them, she said, "Not yet. I would like to record it at some point ... I don't feel ready yet to record."
That said, Dinnerstein's life was changed by making a J.S. Bach recording.
Dinnerstein, who is married and has a son, graduated from The Juilliard School (where she was a student of Peter Serkin), taught piano, and performed mainly in the New York area as a freelancer.
In an earlier interview with the Telegram & Gazette, she recalled that she decided to make her own recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations."
"I had been performing them for a few years, and I felt I had something to say," Dinnerstein said.
The performance was recorded in 2005 with Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse in the neoclassic auditorium of the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. Dinnerstein raised the money to finance the recording from "three friends who had been very encouraging over the years." Just over two years later, after some shopping around, the album was released in 2007 by Telarc International. It earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical Chart during its first week of sales. In 2008, the recording received the prestigious Diapason d'Or Award.
Suddenly, Dinnerstein was in demand as a concert pianist touring the world, and has also gone on to make other acclaimed recordings.
Dinnerstein has had a relationship with Music Worcester since 2014, when she gave a performance of Bach's "Two-Part Inventions" in Tuckerman Hall. She's been to Worcester schools, helped bring bring diverse programming to Music Worcester, and has stayed in touch with the community. Pianist, composer, conductor, poet, singer, painter, calligrapher and Afghanistan refugee Milad Yousufi, also now from New York, accompanied Dinnerstein to Worcester schools and developed his own following here. In June, Dinnerstein and Yousufi performed at a benefit concert at Mechanics Hall for the Worcester Chamber Music Society's Neighborhood Strings program.
"That year I had the residency was one of the most memorable years of my professional life," Dinnerstein said. "I really loved the Worcester community and getting to know the schools and Music Worcester."
Dinnerstein said she's discussed with Music Worcester executive director Adrien C. Finlay "about some stuff in the future. I just love coming back to Worcester."
She was in attendance last month at Carnegie Hall when the Worcester Chorus performed Verdi's "Requiem."
"That was very exciting," she said.
Dinnerstein was speaking on the phone from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she had a couple of engagements with Santa Fe Pro Musica. Since the lockdown eased, she's been very busy performing including concerts in Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Oregon and the United Kingdom, as well as closer to home in Brooklyn.
Indeed, she's feeling that she's approaching a time for some time off.
"I've never had a sabbatical before other than the lockdown. But what I want to do is just I need to have some time to myself … to learn some new repertoire including Brahms Second Piano Concerto. I just feel being a performing musician is so non-stop and high-energy all the time, and I guess I feel I need some time to recover," she said.
But first there's the Bach Gamba Sonata programs Nov. 17 at the Miller Theatre and Nov. 19 in Tuckerman Hall, and Ensemble Baroklyn performing Bach’s Keyboard Concertos Dec. 8 at the Miller Theatre, all concerts she's looking forward to.
"I've actually had a very intensive time since July 2021. I've actually been performing a lot. So I'm about to take a sabbatical from performing. Essentially taking eight months. I'm looking forward to that, too," she said.
Simone Dinnerstein, piano, Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello perform Bach's Gamba Sonatas ― presented by Music Worcester
When: 8 p.m. Nov. 19
Where: Tuckerman Hall, 10 Tuckerman St., Worcester
How much: $35-$49; student, $17.50; youth (18 and under), $7.50. www.musicworcester.org
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: 'There's an embrace when you play it': Dinnerstein, Gerlach play Bach
