The CCHK is excited to continue our new Friday evening Salon series as we segue into the sunnier side of spring, with an interactive performance featuring the Center’s artist-in-residence, Mike Lee, on March 25, and Professor Xak Bjerken’s piano trio, the Taliesin Trio, on April 1. Event descriptions appear below as well as on our calendar of events. Reservations are required, and you can make them by clicking the links below. Both Salons will take place at the A. D. White House on Cornell’s campus at 5:00PM––we’ll see you there!
Mike Cheng-Yu Lee, “The Viennese Piano and the Stein-Streicher Dynasty”
March 25, 5PM, A. D. White House
Reservations can be made here
A core focus of the CCHK collection is the so-called Viennese piano, a lineage defined first and foremost by its mechanism. Invented by Johann Andreas Stein in the 1770s in Augsburg, Germany, the Viennese piano thrived for roughly 100 years before being superseded by French, English, and American designs. The CCHK collection holds a Stein copy as well as one of the last representatives of the lineage, an 1857 instrument by Stein’s grandson, Johann Baptist Streicher. In this Salon, CCHK artist-in-residence Mike Lee explores why the Viennese piano shot to prominence but fell out of fashion as it grew in size like all other 19th-century pianos. The Salon also traces the storied legacy of three generations of a piano-making dynasty and the pivotal role Nanette Streicher (née Stein) – perhaps the best-known female piano maker ever – holds in the history of music. Excerpts from Mozart and Brahms will be performed on both instruments.
Taliesin Trio, “The Piano Trios of Robert Schumann”
April 1, 5PM, A. D. White House
Reservations can be made here
By the mid-19th century, pianos in different national styles proliferated freely in continental Europe. Clara Schumann, one of the most renowned virtuoso pianists of her day, regularly performed on French, English, and German pianos. In their first CCHK Salon appearance, Xak Bjerken, Ellen Jewett, and Elizabeth Simkin will give a preview of their project to record all three piano trios by Robert Schumann. The performance will feature our 1865 Pleyel, a representative French piano that was purchased and owned by the composer Eugène Ketterer.