Tomorrow there are concerts to please most every Valentine, should you still be looking to celebrate with a light-hearted saunter down Broadway's Great White Way with the Columbia Orchestra's Symphonic Pops or a romantic musical tour of Vienna with cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han.
To hear some extraordinary Viennese classical music, join Finckel and Han in recital at 7:30 p.m. at Wilde Lake Interfaith Center. The program will include Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, Beethoven's Sonata No. 2, Anton Webern's Two Pieces and Three Little Pieces and Brahms' Sonata No. 2.
There is no shortage of passion on this program: Franz Schubert's achingly lyrical Arpeggione Sonata of 1824 was composed for a briefly popular instrument called the arpeggione, a kind of bowed guitar. Written when Schubert was ill with syphilis, which claimed his life four years later, it can be viewed as a meditation on mortality.
Fireworks abound in Beethoven's Sonata No. 2 in G minor, modeled on earlier piano sonatas of Mozart and Haydn. In this dual-instrument sonata, the piano retains a central and virtuosic role: The composer premiered the work in 1796 for the king of Prussia.
Webern, one of the 20th century's modernist pioneers, was a cellist. The Two Pieces of 1899 reveal Webern's early style, the fin-de-siecle Romanticism away from which he turned in the Three Little Pieces of 1914, brief atonal works on a small scale.
Brahms' Sonata No. 2 in F Major was written in Switzerland during the summer of 1886 for cellist Robert Hausmann, whose full, rich sound was a source of inspiration for the composer. One of two cello sonatas, Brahms' passion and drama are everywhere evident in its four movements.
Finckel and Han's professional engagements include performances at international concert halls and music festivals as well as musical outreach and education through the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, Aspen Music School, Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center.
As part of their commitment to musical education, Finckel and Han will offer a master class to aspiring soloists at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Monteabaro Recital Hall at Howard Community College.
For more contemporary and homegrown fare, the Columbia Orchestra's Symphonic Pops concert might be more to your taste at 7:30 p.m. at the Jim Rouse Theatre. The orchestra, under the direction of Jason Love, will be joined by soprano Theresa Bickham and tenor Stephen Paul Cramer, acclaimed performers in opera and musical theater.
The program features music from American musicals, including songs by Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and from the scores of such films as Psycho, Pirates of the Caribbean and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Also on the program is the premiere of local Maryland composer Mark Lortz's Deus Ex Machina. Director of Westminster High School's band and orchestra, Lortz was a finalist in the Columbia Orchestra's 2007 American Composer Competition.
So whether you prefer familiar tunes or classics from Vienna, tomorrow night is a good concert bet.
Tickets for David Finckel and Wu Han's recital are $29 for general admission, $26 for seniors and $12 for students and are available by calling 443-367-3122 or at www.candlelightconcerts.org. Tickets for the master class are $10 for general admission and $5 for students.
Tickets for Columbia Orchestra's Symphonic Pops concert are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $10 for students and are available through the orchestra's Web site at www.columbiaorchestra.org.