Fauré and Prokofiev 

Gabriel Fauré: Trio in D minor, Op. 120 
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Andantino
III. Allegro vivo

Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B Minor, Op.32, No. 10

Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32, No. 12

Sergei Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2
I. Allegro sostenuto
II. Adagio
III. Allegro

Date: September 28th, 2022.
​Time: 7:30pm
Location: First Free Church
Address: 1375 Carman Rd Room 312, Ballwin, MO 63021
Admission: Free

Concert Artists

Asako Kuboki / Violin

Ann Fink / Violin

Nina Ferrigno / Piano

Grace Park / Cello

Andrew Francois / Viola

Davin Rubicz / Cello

Jessica Cheng Hellwege / Violin

Gabriel Fauré: Trio in D minor, Op. 120 I. Allegro ma non troppo
Gabriel Fauré, born in 1845, was a leading French composer of his time. Among his most famous compositions are Pavane, composed in 1887 for orchestra and Sicilienne for Cello and Piano, composed in 1898. Fauré also wrote two operas and a number of works for solo piano, piano for four hands, violin and piano, cello and piano, flute and piano, piano quartets, quintets, and trios, solo harp, voice and piano, chorus, and orchestra. He was also an organist, pianist and professor.
Fauré was director of the Paris Conservatory during the later years of his life. In 1920 he retired from the position to allow himself more time for composing. One of his first projects was to write a trio for either violin or clarinet, cello, and piano. However, his health was declining as was his hearing, which he’d been losing gradually over the past two decades. The trio wasn’t completed until 1923. By then, Faure was too ill to attend the premiere. The trio was followed only by Fauré’s string quartet, which was the last piece he wrote before his death in 1924. After his death, the Paris Conservatory regarded Fauré’s compositional style as the farthest limit of modernity, beyond which students should not go. (Nectoux, Jean-Michel (1991). Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life.)


Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B Minor, Op.32, No. 10
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32, No. 12
Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in the Russian Empire in 1873. Following the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff immigrated to the United States in November of 1918. He died in Beverly Hills, California in 1943 at age 69. Rachmaninoff started taking piano lessons during his early childhood and entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1885. He had great encouragement from his mentors and teachers to pursue a career as a concert pianist, but his interest in composition wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm. He continued to pursue his passion for composition on his own, and by 1890 he had already composed several works, including his first piano concerto.
In 1904, Rachmaninoff became conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre. In the two seasons that he worked there, he was integral in establishing the modern arrangement of orchestra musicians in the pit and also helped establish the tradition of standing while conducting.

Rachmaninoff continued a career as a performer and composer, first while living in Dresden and then Moscow and finally moving to the United States in 1918. He was already quite well known in the U.S., and had a busy career touring and concertizing. However, once he began his concert career in the U.S. he had little time for composing. He wrote only six pieces during the time he lived in the U.S.

In 1910, Rachamaninoff published Thirteen Preludes, Op. 32 for solo piano, completing a set of twenty-four preludes. They include all major and minor keys.


Sergei Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2
Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who lived from 1891 until 1953. He was part of the Russian Empire that is now Sontsivka, Pokrovsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. From a young age, Prokofiev showed a talent for composing and playing the piano. He spent most of his young life at the St. Petersburg Conservatory studying, composing, and performing. Although Prokofiev completed his official studies in 1914, he returned to the conservatory during World War I to take lessons on the organ and avoid the draft. From 1918 until 1936, Prokofiev lived abroad. First he immigrated to the United States, but after a short time moved to Paris. In 1922 he moved to the Bavarian Alps and then back to Paris in 1923. During these years he was also traveling extensively in the Soviet Union and the United States for various compositional projects including productions of ballets, operas, and symphony performances.

In 1936 Prokofiev settled in Moscow, but in 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, he evacuated to the town of Nalchikin Karbarda, 900 miles south of Moscow. Once there, Prokofiev met the Minister of Culture who encouraged him to incorporate the local folk music of the Kabardinian people into his compositions. Prokofiev’s second string quartet was the result. One will hear the influence of Karbardinian folk songs in the themes of each movement, and Prokofiev’s use of accented rhythms and percussive effects give the piece a more rustic feel than many of his other works.