Performing almost anything composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven isn’t easy.
So just imagine what cellist Sharon Robinson is putting herself through on Sunday when she will perform not one but all of the great master’s cello sonatas.
Over the course of two back-to-back concerts with Arizona Friends of Chamber Music on Sunday, Jan. 31, Robinson — the “Robinson” in the critically acclaimed Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio — will perform the five Beethoven cello sonatas in chronological order, starting at 3 p.m. with Opus 5 No. 1 in F Major.
“It really runs the gamut of his life. Opus 5 is very, very early show-offy Beethoven, and we continue all the way to late in his life,” Robinson said on Monday, a few hours after she arrived in Tucson from a concert in Phoenix last weekend with her trio. “It’s a great journey for both the audience and the pianist and I.”
Robinson fills out the program with Beethoven’s variations on Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” the F major variations in Part 1 and E-flat Major variations to open Part 2.
This is not Robinson’s first Beethoven marathon; she’s done it a few times with pianist Anita Pontremoli. But that doesn’t make it any easier or less of a big deal, she said.
“Beethoven takes everything out of you anyway, but to do all of that in one day … it’s a marathon,” she said. “It’s not only that we re trying to play all the right notes at the right time, but we’re trying to convey all the (emotion) that Beethoven (intends), Beethoven takes your all. You play full out for several hours.”
Robinson, 66, is no stranger to the Friends stage — she’s been here several times with her trio and was a member of the festival lineup at the 11th annual Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival in 2004. But Sunday will be her Tucson solo recital debut.
“I’ve made a lot of friends here and I hope they are all in town and come to the concert,” she said.
Sunday's concert, a special event for Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, is sponsored by former Friends' president Jean-Paul Bierny and his wife, Chris Tanz.
