JAEMIN HAN / JULIEN QUENTIN
Take note, a phenomenon! In 2021, at the age of 15, Jaemin Han won the prestigious George Enesco International Competition. For his Verbier debut, the Korean cellist returns to Shostakovich, the composer with whom he triumphed in Bucharest, as well as to the tango rhythms of Astor Piazzolla. His freedom-loving bow finds an ideal partner in Julien Quentin.
Programme
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Cello Sonata in F major Op. 6
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Cello Sonata in D minor Op. 40
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992)
Le Grand Tango
Concert without interval
Find out more
In 1883, Richard Strauss was barely older than Jaemin Han when he completed his Sonata for Cello and Piano. The work unmistakably bears the mark of illustrious predecessors, notably Mendelssohn. Yet time and again one detects the particular sensuousness of Strauss’s instrumental writing, which would soon culminate in his orchestral works. At 28, Shostakovich was already an experienced composer. Still basking in the success of his opera Lady Macbeth (Stalinist disgrace would come two years later), the Russian wrote his first major chamber work. Although it was conceived during a serious marital and personal crisis, the Sonata for Cello and Piano displays a classical structure and a certain serenity. Closing the programme, Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango finally allows Jaemin Han (and his partner-in-crime Julien Quentin at the piano) to unleash all the rhythmic fever characteristic of the Argentinian musician.
