CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL AND INSTITUTE
2009 CHAMBER MUSIC INSTITUTE
Benefit Concert & Reception
Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:00 pm
Martin Family Hall, Menlo School
50 Valparaiso Avenue, Atherton
Fe at u r i n g
Chamber Music Institute Alumni
Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, violin
Youming Chen, vioa
Dmitri Atapine, cello
Gloria Chien, piano
Hilda Huang, piano
with
Wu Han, piano
Program
Franz Schubert: Lebensstürme, op. 144, D. 947, for Piano, Four Hands (1828)
Gloria Chien, Wu Han
Francis Poulenc: Sonata for Piano, Four Hands, op. 8 (1918, rev. 1939)
I. Prelude
II. Rustique
III. Final
Hilda Huang, Gloria Chien
Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quartet no. 2 in g minor, op. 45 (?1885–86)
I. Allegro molto moderato
II. Allegro molto
III. Adagio non troppo
IV. Allegro molto
Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, Youming Chen, Dmitri Atapine, Gloria Chien
The program will be followed by a preview of the 2009 festival season
and a reception with the artists in Stent Family Hall.
Progr am N ot es
Franz Schubert
(b. Vienna, Jan 31, 1797; d. Vienna, Nov 19, 1828)
Allegro in a minor, Lebensstürme, D. 947, for Piano,
Four Hands (1828)
Despite great physical suffering and psychic anguish at
the end of his life, Schubert did not go quietly. His final
year was staggeringly productive. Between mid-1827
and November 1828, Schubert completed the Piano Trio
in B-flat Major, op. 99, and the Piano Trio in E-flat Major,
op. 100; the Fantasy in C Major for Violin and Piano; the
“Great” Symphony; the Cello Quintet; more than two
dozen songs, including the presciently titled Schwanengesang (Swan Song); and the last three piano sonatas, in
addition to numerous other piano, vocal, and orchestral
works—all told, an imposing set of masterpieces, miraculously concentrated within a deeply trying twelve months
or so, unequaled by many composers over entire lifetimes.
For generations of music lovers since Schubert’s death,
these late works have provoked torturous thoughts of
what might have been had the composer lived past age
thirty-one: they suggest the discovery of a new artistic
direction, analogous to Beethoven’s notorious “new path”
toward his imposing “heroic” period.
The first half of 1828 also yielded three marvelous works
for four-hand piano, a genre generously cultivated by
Schubert throughout his career: the Fantasy in f minor,
D. 940 (composed January–April); the Allegro in a minor,
Lebensstürme, D. 947 (May); and the Rondo in A Major,
D. 951 (June). Schubert scholar Christopher H. Gibbs surmises that these three works “serve as additional proof of
Schubert’s quest to transcend the confines of the salon,”
adding that “Schubert’s music for piano duet is among
not only his greatest but also his most original.”
Like many of Schubert’s works, the single-movement,
sonata-form Allegro in a minor was not published until
after the composer’s death; upon publication in 1840,
it was assigned an opus number (op. 144) and the title
Lebensstürme—the storms of life. The title is an apt designation, not only for the deep anxiety that vexed Schubert’s
final year but for the music’s inclement character. The
forceful a minor chords that announce the first theme
immediately place the listener in the eye of the storm; the
subsequent tune is soft but menacing. The sublime second theme emerges in impossibly quiet hymn-like chords
(marked pianississimo) before unfolding into a heartbreaking lied, set in the miraculously distant Neapolitan
key of A-flat major. Even amidst this peaceful respite from
the Sturm und Drang of the first theme, one thinks of the
question Schubert purportedly asked: “Is there any music
that is not sad?”
Francis Poulenc
(b. Paris, Jan 7, 1899; d. Paris, Jan 30, 1963)
Sonata for Piano, Four Hands, op. 8 (1918, rev. 1939)
From the onset of the First World War into the 1920s, Paris
became, more than ever before, an international hotbed
of cultural activity. Gertrude Stein’s salon frequently
hosted fellow American expatriates Ernest Hemingway,
Ezra Pound, and Thornton Wilder. Picasso kept a home in
Montparnasse, where he fraternized with the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, among others. Composers from across
Europe and the United States, including Prokofiev, Arthur
Bliss, and Aaron Copland, likewise flocked to Paris.
Wagner’s influence steadily evaporated and gave way to
a wild new potpourri of musical styles. In 1920, France
became the adoptive home of the thirty-eight-year-old
Igor Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring had set Paris on fire
seven years earlier. Stravinsky’s newly cultivated neoclassical style became a great influence on a group of rising
young composers known as Les Six: Georges Auric, Louis
Durey, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, Germaine
Tailleferre, and Darius Milhaud. These six initially came
together in 1917 in support of the composer Erik Satie,
who had come under fire for his ballet Parade. Based on a
book by Jean Cocteau and featuring cubist décor designed
by Picasso, Parade was an exceedingly modern production
for its time and scandalized Paris. The iconoclastic Satie
mentored Les Six as the young firebrand composers
steadily conquered Parisian musical life. Although Satie
remained the subject of much public indignation among
French audiences, his protégés would become modernist
darlings of 1920s Paris. Honegger and Milhaud enjoyed
the highest public and critical acclaim; Poulenc was widely
regarded as an amateur, capable of writing only lighter,
comic fair, but recent history has come to rediscover and
appreciate Poulenc as the most original voice of Les Six.
Poulenc strove to integrate Western classical music with
popular styles including jazz, vaudeville, cabaret, and even
circus music. His music reflects this ideal in its devilish
stylishness. The Opus 8 Sonata for Four-Hand Piano is a
youthful work, both chronologically (composed in 1918,
when Poulenc was not yet twenty, and then revised in
1939) and in its zestful flair. (Poulenc would later return to
music for two pianists, composing the Opus 156 Sonata
in 1952–53 and Opus 175 Elégie in 1959, each requiring
two pianos, and the Opus 61 Concerto for Two Pianos
and Orchestra in 1932—thus extending a tradition that so
captivated Mozart and Schubert before him.) The Sonata’s
three short movements—labeled Prelude, Rustique, and
Final—bring together invigorating ostinato figures, exotic
harmonies, and popular-sounding tunes. Poulenc’s own
assessment of the musical character he shared with
his compatriots is especially apt for this particular work:
“You will find sobriety and dolor in French music just as
in German and Russian. But the French have a keener
sense of proportion. We realize that somberness and
good humor are not mutually exclusive. Our composers, too, write profound music, but when they do, it is
leavened with that lightness of spirit without which life
would be unendurable.”
Gabriel Fauré
(b. Pamiers, Ariège, May 12, 1845; d. Paris, Nov 4, 1924)
Piano Quartet no. 2 in g minor, op. 45 (?1885–86)
Fauré’s Second Piano Quartet represents a manifold
enigma for chamber music audiences. Contrary to the
composer’s reputation as a miniaturist of characteristic
(and characteristically French) elegance, the quartet’s
rhetorical power places it toe to toe with the robust piano
quartets of the German Romantics, such as the three by
Brahms. It has inexplicably failed to achieve the same
popularity as its elder sibling, the Piano Quartet in
c minor, op. 15, even though, as Opus 45 devotees will
attest, the masterfully wrought Second Quartet is at least
the c minor’s equal. Leading French music scholar Robert
Orledge has specifically lauded the g minor’s “significant
advance on the First Quartet in the force of its expression
[and] the increased rhythmic drive and complexity of its
themes.”
The Second Quartet moreover remains enigmatic for how
little we know surrounding its creation. Fauré likely composed the work between 1885 and 1886 and played the
piano part himself at its premiere on January 22, 1887, at
a concert presented in Paris by the Société Nationale de
Musique Française. (Another performance of note came
on November 9, 1891, in London, involving the virtuosic
Belgian violinist-composer Eugène Ysaÿe.) The score
bears a dedication to the German pianist and conductor
Hans von Bülow. Otherwise, almost nothing is known of
the quartet’s circumstances.
Nevertheless, the work does make evident that Fauré’s
keyboard prowess matched his compositional imagination: the muscular piano part, realized by the composer
at the premiere, requires strength and sensitivity in equal
measures. For much of the work, Fauré weights the
ensemble unevenly, with the piano single-handedly counterbalancing the trio of strings rather than taking part as
one of four equal voices. This dynamic propels the work
immediately from the start of the first movement: over a
turbulent piano accompaniment, violin, viola, and cello in
unison introduce the impassioned theme.
Much of the movement’s subsequent material derives
from the physiognomy of this opening melody. A thoughtful utterance by the viola heralds a change in complexion;
Fauré fashions a gentler and more tender music which
soon progresses to the ethereal, high register of the violin. Following a tranquil recitative in the viola and cello,
punctuated by quietly rolled chords in the piano, the violin
further transfigures the theme, pianissimo, dolcissimo. The
viola, assuming further significance in the movement’s
narrative structure, emerges from this transfiguration
cryptically hemming and hawing; the movement passes
into the development section, a harmonically rich mosaic
Arti st b i og r a phi e s
of fragments of earlier material. The arrival at the recapitulation is forceful and abrupt.
The quartet’s fiendish pianism continues in the scherzo.
The left hand’s frenetic eighth-note accompaniment,
accentuated by forceful pizzicati, provides a propulsive
backdrop for the mischievously syncopated melody in
the right hand. The strings, in unison, introduce their own
musical idea, painted in broad strokes and superimposing 3/4 time onto the established 6/8 meter. The piano
comments with increasingly chromatic iterations of its
own melody. As the scherzo progresses, the music seems
precariously on the verge of eruption at any moment, but
Fauré allows no such indulgence; instead, his sure-handed
restraint only stokes further disquiet.
The piano introduction to the Adagio extends the scherzo’s metric ambiguity, as Fauré divides the movement’s
9/8 meter—a time signature typically treated as nine
small beats grouped into three big beats (1-2-3, 2-2-3,
3-2-3)—into uneven groups of two (1-2, 2-2…). Fauré
apparently designed this passage to evoke church bells
that he heard as a child in the village of Cadirac. The viola
again assumes a prominent role, answering the piano
undulations with fitting simplicity. The composer lovingly instructs the viola: piano, dolce, espressivo, senza rigor.
The dialogue between these two musical ideas—or, perhaps not dialogue, but the poignant detachment of two
estranged monologues—provides the blueprint for the
rest of the movement. (Aaron Copland remarked that this
slow movement’s “beauty is truly classic if we define classicism as intensity on a background of calm.”)
The finale answers the Adagio with a return to the first
movement’s furious energy. Fauré even ups the ante for
the fourth movement (Allegro molto), but his economy
and concision of thematic material hold the wagon firmly
intact through the tempestuous journey. The movement
never relents; indeed, the composer saves the coup de
grâce for the exuberantly triumphant coda.
—© 2009 Patrick Castillo
Dmitri Atapine, cello
Cellist Dmitri Atapine,
the First Prize winner
at the 2004 Carlos Prieto International Cello
Competition (Mexico),
is recognized as an
exciting performer
and an accomplished
chamber musician.
A regular soloist
and recitalist, he has
appeared on some of the world’s most coveted stages,
including Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, the National
Auditorium of Spain, and Prince Philip Auditorium in
Asturias, among others. He has performed as a soloist
with the Asturias Symphony Orchestra, León Symphony
Orchestra, Gijón Chamber Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia
Orchestra, and the Michigan State University Symphony
and Philharmonic orchestras. He has also appeared at
numerous festivals, including Music@Menlo, Banff,
Great Mountains International Chamber Music Festival in
South Korea, Miguel Bernal Jiménez Festival in Mexico,
the French Academy in Rome, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Since 2007 he has served as Artistic Director
of the International Music Festival of Ribadesella in Spain.
He has also collaborated with eminent artists such as
Simon Carrington and the Tokyo String Quartet.
Dmitri Atapine’s multiple awards include First Prize
(String Quartet) and Second Prize (with pianist Hye-Yeon
Park) at the 2008 New England International Chamber
Competition, Grand Prize at the 2007 Plowman Chamber
Music Competition as a founding member of the Alianza
String Quartet, the 2005 Presser Foundation Award, First
Prize and Asturias Symphony Special Prize at the 2003
Villa de Llanes International String Competition (Spain),
winner of the Woolsey Hall Competition at Yale University, and First Prize at the Villa de Sahagún International
Music Competition at age thirteen.
Dmitri Atapine began his musical education at the age of
five at the St. Petersburg Conservatory School of Music.
Since 1992, he has resided in Spain, where he graduated with honors from the Asturias Conservatory under
Alexander Fedortchenko. After receiving his bachelor’s
and master’s degrees with high honors in 2002 and 2003
from Michigan State University under the tutelage of
Suren Bagratuni, he continued his studies with the legendary Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music, where he
completed a master’s of musical arts degree in 2005 and
obtained an Artist Diploma in 2006.
Youming Chen, viola
Violist Youming Chen
is an active recitalist,
chamber musician,
and orchestral musician. He has appeared
in Carnegie Hall,
Alice Tully Hall, the
Royal Albert Hall,
Avery Fisher Hall,
and Merkin Concert
Hall. As winner of
the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra concerto competition, he performed the revised edition of Bartók’s Viola
Concerto with Rossen Milanov. He was featured on the
WQXR Young Artist Showcase radio program in New York.
He has participated in festivals such as the Pacific Music
Festival (Japan), the Aspen Music Festival, Prussia Cove
(England), and Music@Menlo. He has been a violist of
the Gustave Rosseels Quartet and was a founding member of the Fader Piano Quartet, with whom he won the
Saunderson Award at the fifty-eighth Coleman Chamber
Ensemble Competition. The Fader Quartet was also
invited to play as musical guest in the Rainbow Room at
NBC Studios and at the American Irish Historical Society in New York.
Among his orchestral appearances, Youming Chen has
collaborated with Sir Colin Davis in the Proms at the
Royal Albert Hall as Principal Violist. Chen also served as
Principal Violist for the Centennial Tour of the Juilliard
Orchestra with James DePreist, performing in Lucerne,
Berlin, Helsinki, Aldeburgh, and London. He performed
as Assistant Principal with the Flint Symphony Orchestra and as Guest Principal for the Ann Arbor Symphony
Orchestra.
Youming Chen studies with Paul Neubauer. He received a
master’s degree from the Juilliard School and a bachelor’s
degree from the University of Michigan. His teachers
have included Hsin-Yun Huang, Toby Appel, Yizhak Schotten, Victoria Chiang, and Alan de Veritch.
Gloria Chien, piano
Selected by the Boston
Globe as one of the
“superior pianists of
the year” and praised
by Richard Dyer for “a
wondrously rich palette of colors, which
she mixes with dashing bravado and with
an uncanny precision
of calibration,” pianist
Gloria Chien made her orchestral debut at the age of
sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then,
she has appeared as a soloist under the batons of Sergiu
Comissiona, Keith Lockhart, and Thomas Dausgaard. She
has presented solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum, Sanibel Musical Festival, Caramoor Musical
Festival, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the National Concert
Hall in Taiwan. Gloria Chien has participated in such festivals as the Music Academy of the West, the Verbier Music
Festival, and Music@Menlo.
An avid chamber musician, Gloria Chien has been the
resident pianist with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble
of Boston since 2000. Her recent CD featuring music
of Grazyna Bacewicz received fantastic reviews in
Gramophone, The Strad, and American Record Guide. The
International Record Review writes, “[the violinist] could ask
for no more sensitive or supportive an accompanist than
Gloria Chien…exquisitely attentive.”
Her recent performances include collaborations with the
Daedalus String Quartet, James Buswell, Marc Johnson,
Paul Neubauer, Andrés Díaz, Soovin Kim, Carolin Widmann, and Anthony McGill. In the fall of 2004, Gloria
Chien was named Assistant Professor of Music at Lee
University in Cleveland, Tennessee. Her teachers have
included Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun.
Hilda Huang, piano
Hilda Huang is a
piano student of
John McCarthy’s and
studies harpsichord
with Corey Jamason
in the Preparatory
Division at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music. For the
past three summers,
she has been a student
in Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute in California
and has received coaching from Gary Graffman, Wu Han,
and Gilbert Kalish. She has also participated in master
classes with David Finckel and Barbara Nissman. Hilda
Huang has performed in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall
over the past two seasons as the First Prize winner of the
Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition. She
also received First Prize in the 2006 San Francisco Chopin
Competition. She has appeared as soloist at the Carmel
Bach Festival in California. Hilda Huang has performed
on From the Top at Carnegie Hall on PBS and From the Top
on NPR. She was also invited to perform in the annual
Young Artists Concert of the Steinway Society of the Bay
Area as part of its concert series.
Hilda Huang was named a 2008 Davidson Fellow by the
Davidson Institute for Talent Development and received
her award at the Library of Congress in Washington,
D.C. Last October, she made her concerto debut with the
Cincinnati Pops under Erich Kunzel, also making her first
international recording with Telarc. Last December, she
participated in a Bach documentary by Michael Lawrence
Films with violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, the
Emerson String Quartet, Bach scholar Christoph Wolff,
and composer Philip Glass.
Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, violin
Violinist
Tien-Hsin
Cindy Wu has performed with notable
musicians and ensembles in Europe, the
United States, and Asia.
She has performed
as a soloist with the
National Symphony
Orchestra of Taiwan
and Taipei Symphony
Orchestra in her native country, as well as with the Odessa
Philharmonic Orchestra (Ukraine) and the Russian State
Symphony Orchestra. Also an experienced chamber musician, Tien-Hsin Wu has performed throughout Taiwan and
in the United States at New York City’s Alice Tully Hall,
Boston’s Jordan Hall, and Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy
Center and Library of Congress, as well as in Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. She has collaborated with artists such as Toby Appel, Gary Graffman,
Gary Hoffman, Nobuko Imai, Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian,
William Preucil, Thomas Quasthoff, Julian Rachlin, Nikolaj Znaider, and members of the Alban Berg, Guarneri,
Miami, Orion, and Tokyo string quartets.
Tien-Hsin Wu’s many honors and awards include the
gold medal in the eighteenth Stulberg International
String Competition, Third Prize in the David Oistrakh
International Violin Competition, a Chi Mei Young Artist
Scholarship, and Grand Prize in the Young Artist Showcase
Competition organized by Philharmonic Radio Taipei. She
has appeared as a guest on NPR’s From the Top and has
frequently been interviewed by Philharmonic Radio Taipei
and IC Broadcasting of Taiwan. In past summers, she has
attended the Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel
Fire, Music@Menlo, the Verbier Festival and Academy,
the Aspen Music Festival, and the ENCORE School for
Strings, where she serves as a chamber music coach.
In 2008, Tien-Hsin Wu was awarded a scholarship from
the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation for graduate
studies with Midori Goto at the Thornton School of Music
at the University of Southern California. Previous teachers
include Ida Kavafian and Victor Danchenko at the Curtis
Institute of Music and Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at
the Juilliard School. In addition to the violin, she studied
the viola with Steven Tenenbom.
Wu Han, piano
Pianist Wu Han
ranks among the
most esteemed and
influential classical
musicians in the world
today. Her career has
taken her to many
of the world’s most
prestigious venues,
including
Lincoln
Center,
Carnegie
Hall, and Washington’s Kennedy Center. She has toured
North and South America, Europe, and the Far East, and
her regular summer festival appearances include Aspen,
Santa Fe, Chamber Music Northwest, Caramoor, and
Music@Menlo. Wu Han is active as a concerto soloist,
as well, recently appearing with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in a performance of the Beethoven Triple
Concerto. Wu Han is a frequent collaborator with many
of today’s finest musicians and ensembles, including
the Borromeo, Emerson, Pacifica, and St. Lawrence
string quartets.
With cellist David Finckel, Wu Han performs extensively
across the United States and Europe to unanimous
critical acclaim. Last season, the duo gave the world
premiere of Pierre Jalbert’s Cello Sonata at the Aspen
Music Festival, and this season they will be giving the
world premiere of a new work for cello and piano by
award-winning composer George Tsontakis. During the
2006–07 season, Wu Han and David Finckel made their
recital debut at the Morgan Library & Museum’s new
Gilder Lehrman Hall in New York, where they returned
to perform in 2007–08.
Wu Han’s wide-ranging musical activities include the
founding of ArtistLed, classical music’s first musiciandirected, Internet-based recording company, which,
in 2007, celebrated its tenth year. All eleven ArtistLed
recordings have received critical acclaim and are available via the company’s Web site (www.ArtistLed.com).
ArtistLed’s recent release Russian Recital features works
by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Scriabin and marks
Wu Han’s first full-length solo recording for the label.
This season, ArtistLed released its eleventh album, a
recording of the Schubert piano trios, featuring David
Finckel, Wu Han, and violinist Philip Setzer.
Wu Han and David Finckel serve as Artistic Directors of
the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In recent
years, they have become widely recognized for their
initiatives in expanding audiences for classical music
and for guiding the careers of countless young musicians. They are the founders and Artistic Directors of
Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival in Silicon Valley.
Prior to launching Music@Menlo, Wu Han and David
Finckel served for three seasons as Artistic Directors of
La Jolla SummerFest.
Abou t M us i c @ M enlo
Music@Menlo is an internationally acclaimed
chamber music festival and institute under the
artistic direction of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. Based at Menlo School in Atherton,
California, and an important part of the San Francisco Bay
Area’s dynamic cultural fabric, Music@Menlo is noted for
its world-class chamber music performances, extensive
audience-engagement programs, intensive training for
preprofessional musicians through its Chamber Music
Institute, and efforts to enrich and cultivate the global
chamber music community.
Music@Menlo’s
Chamber Music Institute
Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute, now entering
its seventh year, offers an unparalleled opportunity for
young musicians to hone their craft. The Institute offers
daily interaction with world-renowned performing artists,
multiple performance opportunities, and an engaging
series of classes and lectures, complementing the festival’s
beautiful location and nurturing environment. Students in
the Institute’s two programs work directly with the festival’s esteemed faculty of artists and educators and engage
in a wide array of activities. The International Program
serves highly motivated artists at the dawn of their professional careers with an extensive schedule of rehearsals
and master classes that culminate in several performance
opportunities, including the festival’s popular and free Prelude Performance series and collaborations with leading
musicologists in the festival’s Encounter series. The Young
Performers Program is designed for gifted musicians
ages nine to eighteen at the preconservatory level seeking
to develop their musicianship through intensive training.
A daily schedule of rehearsals and coachings
with the artist-faculty culminates in the festival’s signature series of Koret Young Performers Concerts.
Ann S. Bowers Young Artist Fund
Music@Menlo is committed to making study in the
Chamber Music Institute accessible to young artists who
could not attend without scholarship support. Since the
program’s inception, all participants accepted into the
Chamber Music Institute who have needed assistance
have received it. In 2008, all International Program participants received full-tuition fellowships and all Young
Performers Program participants who applied for merit
scholarship or financial aid consideration were awarded
full or partial financial assistance. Decisions to accept
students into the program are made independently of
students’ financial need.
Music@Menlo 2009 Festival
Save the dates: July 17–August 8, 2009
Music@Menlo
50 Valparaiso Avenue, Atherton, CA 94027
650-330-2030 / www.musicatmenlo.org
Music@Menlo–Menlo School is a 501(c)3 nonprofit
organization.