FACULTY AND GUEST RECITAL
HELEN CALLUS, viola
OBERLIN COLLEGE
CONSERVATOR Y OF MUSIC
JAMES HOWSMON, piano
Kulas Recital Hall
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
8:00 P.M.
Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70
Concert No. 172
Robert Schumann
(1810–1856)
Selected Pieces from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64
Introduction
The Young Juliet
Dance of the Knights
Balcony Scene
Mercutio
Sergei Prokofiev
(1891–1953)
INTERMISSION
Sonata for Viola and Piano (1919)
Impetuoso
Vivace
Adagio - Agitato
Rebecca Clarke
(1886–1979)
Please refrain from the use of video cameras unless prior arrangements have
been made with the performer. The use of flash cameras is prohibited.
Please turn off all cell phones, pagers and watch alarms. Thank you.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Helen Callus has been described by critics as “One of the world's greatest violists. Her
playing is so deeply felt the music's message goes straight to the heart.” (The American
Record Guide) and as “…a player with impeccable sensibilities and a beautiful sound,
infinitely malleable into all kinds of musical subtleties.”(The Seattle Times)
Her debut recording for ASV, “Portrait of the Viola” with Robert McDonald – piano
released in 2002, was met with the highest of critical acclaim. Strings magazine described
Ms. Callus as a “…violist of the highest caliber.” The American Record Guide wrote
"The night I wrote this review, I found her performance so moving, so addicting, that I
kept listening to it over and over before I could bring myself to finish the review. Very
rarely have I felt a need to listen to a recording over and over. Only really great artistry
can hold a listener in thrall like that, and that is the artistry of Helen Callus."
Her second recording for ASV, “Walton” was released in June 2006 and featured Ms.
Callus with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei.
Gramophone gave the disk it’s highest recommendation. It was named “Orchestral Disk
of the Month” by the British Classic FM Magazine and most recently named “…the most
beautiful Walton on disc…” by the 2006 Penguin Guide to Compact Discs.
Ms. Callus records solo repertoire exclusively with ASV Sanctuary Classics UK and her
latest recording, “Prokofiev” was released in October 2007. She has also released award
winning recordings with Boston Records [BR1057CD] and her recording for ECM New
Series with the Bridge Ensemble of Giya Kancheli’s Piano Quartet in L’istesso Tempo
also featuring Gidon Kremer on the disc [ECM New Series 1767] was chosen as BBC
Music Magazine’s Best Choice for Chamber Music Recording in April 2005.
As a recitalist, chamber music collaborator and concerto soloist, Ms. Callus has delighted
audiences in major cities around the world including those of Russia, Europe, New
Zealand, Australia and Canada and extensively throughout the US. In 2003, whilst a guest
at Brigham Young University in a performance of the Primrose Memorial Recital, Ms.
Callus also performed with the world renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake
City to an audience of 4,000 and broadcast to over 2,000 television stations around the
world. A busy chamber music artist, Ms. Callus has performed at many chamber music
festivals such as the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Palaces of St. Petersburg
Chamber Music Festival (Russia) and the Dilijan Chamber Music Series at Zipper Hall,
Los Angeles to name a few. Ms. Callus has performed at several major international viola
congresses since 2001 including those of New Zealand, Seattle (of which she was the
host-chair), Kronberg in Germany and Minnesota.
Ms. Callus is a regular solo artist on radio and TV and can be heard regularly on such
programs as Performance Today and in interviews on National Public Radio, Public
Radio International and Radio New Zealand. She was heard for the second time on
National Public Radio’s broadcast Saint Paul Sunday in 2005 as solo guest with pianist
Phillip Bush in a program called ‘Hidden Treasures’, a compilation of beautiful
previously unknown works for viola and piano. The show broadcasts to over 1 million
listeners around the globe. Later this year she will be heard live in the studio of
Performance Today with Fred Child.
Ms. Callus currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. Much in demand all over the world as a teacher she has given
master classes at most of the nations finest institutions. Most recently, Ms. Callus was
Artistic Director of the Centrum Chamber Music Festival situated on the Olympic
Peninsula in Port Townsend just north of Seattle. Last year the festival played host to the
Tokyo String Quartet as ensemble in residence and collaborated with Ms. Callus in
concert. A highly committed advocate for the instrument she has served as the President
of the American Viola Society accepting the honor of being the first women elected to
that title. Through her work with the AVS she created many programs for young viola
students now being used in high schools around the country.
A native of Kent, England, Ms. Callus is a graduate from The Royal Academy of Music
in London and the Peabody Conservatory in Maryland where she was the teaching
assistant to Paul Coletti. Ms. Callus plays on a viola made for her by Gabrielle Kundert, a
copy of the ex-Primrose Amati.
PROGRAM NOTES
Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70
by Robert Schumann
Like most of the Hausmusik Robert Schumann wrote in 1849, "Adagio and Allegro"
features a solo instrument with piano accompaniment. In its original publication,
however, that instrument was not the viola, but the new valve horn. Throughout the
piece, Schumann exhibits many characteristics of the new horn that its predecessor
lacked, including the ability to play notes outside of a single key. Opus 70 begins with an
emotive Adagio, marked "Slow, with heartfelt expression," in which the viola and the
piano engage in a contemplative exchange of the melody. Schumann's talent for chromatic
shading can be heard in the melody's close intervals; occasionally, however, a passionate
outburst sends the melody soaring through large leaps. Despite this outpouring of
emotion, the Adagio ends quietly.
The Allegro explodes with a dramatic piano chord and a torrent of triplets in the viola,
disrupting the placid mood of the Adagio. Marked "Fast and fiery," the recurring
arpeggiated melody drives the Allegro though an energetic rondo. The third theme of the
rondo, marked "Somewhat more peaceful," recalls the Adagio, but the first theme
reasserts itself, frantically culminating in a final tour de force.
~notes by Linda Shaver-Gleason (MM Viola Performance, UCSB)
Romeo and Juliet Suite
by Sergei Prokofiev
Introduction; The Young Juliet; Dance of the Knights;
The Balcony Scene; Mercutio
Sergei Prokofiev composed his score for the ballet, "Romeo and Juliet" during the years
1935 and 1936. Based on Shakespeare's infamous play about the tragic lovers, Prokofiev's
setting is one of the most evocative ever to be put on the stage. By then in his mid-40s,
Prokofiev was reaching the height of his artistic powers as evident in the incredibly rich
and varied textures, dramatic settings and soaring melodies used in the score. The version
played in today's recital is an arrangement for Viola and Piano by the great Russian
violist, Vadim Borrisovsky. Borrisofsky has chosen several of the ballet's most melodic
pieces and arranged them in a manner to best display the widest range of violistic
possibilites.
The Introduction establishes the big melodic themes that will permeate the entire ballet
score and return again and again.
The Young Juliet provides three melodic character sketches for Juliet. The first being the
energetically scampering melody which Borrisovsky has enhanced with double-stopped
chords. The second is the graceful melody first heard in the Introduction movement. The
third is a brief glimmer into the tragic melody which, in the ballet score, is the music to
which we see Juliet discover her fallen lover and then, heartbroken, take her own life at
the end of the ballet. In this arrangement, the form is basically that of a scherzo in which
the opening energetic material returns to complete the movement.
The Dance of the Knights is perhaps the most famous music from the ballet. This material
is taken from the scene where Romeo and his two friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, have
sneaked into the masked ball of their sworn enemies, the Montagues, and are watching the
regal display of the knights. The more gentle music that interrupts is the ladies' dance
during which, once again, we hear that familiar music from the Introduction, and where
Romeo first sees Juliet dancing with a suitor and is intoxicated by her beauty. The
movement ends with a return to the knight's music.
The Balcony Scene is one of the most famous passages in all of dramatic literature where
Romeo and Juliet are finally alone together. This movement is almost one unending
melodic line filled with dramatic leaps of register up and down the instrument.
Mercutio musically describes Romeo's friend entertaining the unsuspecting company at
the masked ball with his humor and wit. The music is lively and devilishly virtuosic, full
of fast runs and challenging double stops. Borrisovsky's arrangement, while staying true
to the content of Prokofiev's score, is skillfully embellished. In a repertoire that is
shamefully shallow (although certainly not as shallow as it once was), it seems a great
mystery why this fantastic arrangement is so seldom performed.
~notes by Michael Lieberman
Viola Sonata
by Rebecca Clarke
Impetuoso; Vivace; Adagio–Allegro
The performance ends this evening with the Viola Sonata by Rebecca
Clarke (1886-1979). A student of Tertis, Clarke, who was born in Harrow,
had a distinguished career as a composer and viola soloist. Her professional
accomplishments in both realms become all the more impressive when
examined in the light of societal expectations of women in the early
twentieth century. Even as she helped redefine the role of women in
classical music – becoming one of the first female instrumentalists in the
Queen's Hall Orchestra, for example – Clarke was acutely conscious of how
gender affected the public's perception of her.
Clarke began working on her most famous composition, the Viola Sonata,
in Honolulu in 1918. After completing it in Detroit in 1919, she entered it
in an international composition competition for Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge's chamber music festival in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Of the over
seventy entries submitted anonymously, the panel of six prominent
musicians became deadlocked between two contenders – a viola suite and
Clarke's sonata. The suite, they said, was the work of a philosopher,
whereas the sonata was that of a poet. Mrs. Coolidge was called upon to
break the tie, ultimately deciding in favor of the suite. Although the contest
rules stated that it would reveal the identity of only the winner – Swiss-born
composer Ernest Bloch, incidentally – the panel demanded to know the
name of the runner-up. Mrs. Coolidge reported that the panel was visibly
astonished to learn that the sonata was the work of a 33-year-old woman.
Both the Bloch suite and Clarke sonata endure as staples of the viola
repertory.
The published score of Clarke's Viola Sonata features a quote from Alfred
de Musset's La Nuit de Mai:
Poet, take up your lute; the wine of youth
this night is fermenting in the veins of God.
The first movement, Impetuoso, opens with a bold declaration by the viola.
The opening perfect fifths impress upon the listener an immediate sense of
identity; though the initial statement gives way to thoughtful meandering,
the iconic theme reasserts itself throughout the sonata. After the opening,
the viola navigates through a tempestuous piano accompaniment, finding
moments of serene contemplation in the eye of the storm. Clarke's mastery
of compositional technique and experience with the viola allow her to
create spectacular effects with the return of themes in the recapitulation, as
harmonic shifts send the viola and piano exploring uncharted waters.
The viola and piano engage each other in a spirited dance through second
movement, Vivace. Clarke employs several special effects for the viola,
including pizzicato, harmonics, and glissandi, lending the movement both
whimsy and virtuosity. The finale, Adagio – Allegro, begins with the piano
alone, playing a single, meditative line. The viola joins, and together they
transform the theme into a rhapsody before restoring tranquility. As the
viola tremolos on a low C, the piano returns to its solitary contemplation; as
if following a thought to its logical conclusion, the piano emerges with
themes from the first movement. Both instruments reminisce about the
"Impetuoso," though intervening musical events affect their treatment of the
old themes. The opening motto emerges triumphantly, bringing the sonata,
and today's program, to a satisfying conclusion.
~notes by Linda Shaver-Gleason (MM Viola Performance, UCSB)