6
Friday
june
7 PM
festival gala opening night
emerson string quartet
Eugene Drucker, violin
Philip Setzer, violin
Lawrence Dutton, viola
Paul Watkins, cello
STRING QUARTET NO. 13 IN B-FLAT MINOR, OP. 138 (1969-70)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Adagio—Doppio movimento—Tempo primo
QUARTET IN D MINOR, D. 810, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN (1824)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Presto
The program will be played without intermission.
This evening’s gala honors Mollie and John Byrnes.
Honorary Chairs:
Sherif & Mary Nada
Gala Co-Chairs:
Janice Cane & Walter Hess
Diane Chen Koch-Weser & Jan Koch-Weser
The Emerson String Quartet records exclusively for Sony Classical.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 3
WEEK 1
the program
Der Tod ist groß.
Wir sind die Seinen
lachenden Munds.
Wenn wir uns mitten in Leben meinen,
wagt er zu weinen
mitten in uns.
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Death is huge.
We with our laughing mouths
belong to him.
When we think we are in the midst of life,
he dares to cry
in our midst.
Rainer Maria Rilke
This spring the Emerson String Quartet performed a series of concerts in New York at Alice Tully Hall. The
three programs comprised the last five string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, the final quartets of Benjamin
Britten and Felix Mendelssohn and the Quartet in D minor, D.810, by Franz Schubert.
In these works, the four composers explored the theme of death, even as they were in the midst of life.
Two of those works, Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 13 and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, make an
eloquent pairing. One is the musical evidence of an older man’s obsession with the subject, the other a bold
statement by a young man newly aware of life’s fragility.
Music offers—to those who compose it, play it and listen to it—a particularly profound connection with that
eternity that we cannot otherwise know or measure. Some religions assure their faithful of a life beyond this
world, while music explores with its faithful the emotions elicited by the mysteries of life and death.
Shostakovich stalked these emotions in many of his compositions. His Symphony No. 14, completed just
before he composed the Quartet No. 13, is a setting of 11 death poems for soprano and baritone (the Rilke
poem quoted above is the final number). Franz Schubert, although young, turned frequently to poetry about
death in order to plumb its mysteries. Death and the Maiden, a song that he later incorporated into this
Quartet in D minor, is but one of his many settings of poetry that brought death’s multiple facets into vivid
focus through his music.
With remarkable efforts of will, Shostakovich and Schubert continued to look for the meaning of life and
death through their music. They both bravely battled their diseases, nevertheless, they continued to apply
every shred of creative energy to their quests.
•••
STRING QUARTET NO. 13 IN B-FLAT MINOR, OP. 138
Dmitri Shostakovich (b. Saint Petersburg, September 25, 1906;
d. Moscow, August 9, 1975)
Composed 1970; 19 minutes
The year he began sketching ideas for the Quartet No. 13, Shostakovich wrote to his close
friend Isaak Glikman from his hospital room in Kurgan, a city in the Ural mountains:
The day before I went into hospital I was listening to Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of
Death, and the idea of addressing the question of death finally came to fruition in me.
Portrait of Shostakovich by
Jeannette Brown, from A
Shostakovich Casebook,
Indiana University Press,
2005
4 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
I cannot say that I am wholly resigned to this event. So I settled down to make my
choice of the poems [for the Fourteenth Symphony]. And while the choice of poems
may appear to be random, it seems to me that the music gives them a unity. I
composed the work very quickly, fearing that while I was occupied with it something
might happen to me, for example my right hand might finally cease
to work altogether or I might suddenly go blind or something like
that. I was quite tormented by such thoughts.
In his letters to Glikman, Shostakovich often confessed his frustrations
and fears as his polio continued to take a toll on his body. He repeatedly
visited the clinic in Kurgan, hoping for relief from his symptoms.
Returning there in August 1970, he wrote to Glikman, “I have composed
a quartet, which will be my number 13. D. S.”
Shostakovich spent the fall in Kurgan and was able to return to Moscow
for the first performance of his Quartet No. 13 on December 11, 1970,
at the USSR Composers Club. The performers were the Beethoven
Quartet, the ensemble that Shostakovich admiringly called “my boys”
(they performed the premieres of all but two of Shostakovich’s 15 string
quartets). The enthusiastic response of the audience on that occasion
prompted a second playing of the entire work.
“[Shostakovich’s] quartets have much
in common with Beethoven’s in terms
of their profound creative conception.
But all the finales in Dmitri Dmitrievich
Shostakovich’s quartets are tragic in
character, unlike those of Beethoven.
[He] was an atheist and could not see
anything beyond human existence.
Shostakovich was afraid of death. He
could not envision an exodus from
human suffering. You understand, of
course, this is my subjective opinion.”
Valentin Berlinsky
(founding cellist of the Borodin Quartet),
in A Shostakovich Casebook.
Shostakovich had composed this new quartet, in fact, for one of those “boys,” Vadim
Borisovsky, who had recently retired as violist of the Beethoven Quartet. His replacement,
Fyodor Druzhinin (for whom Shostakovich would later write his Sonata for Viola and Piano,
Op. 147) was the violist in the premiere, as the dedicatee, Vadim Borisovsky (1901–1972),
was no longer able to manage the great demands of the part. It quickly became a Mount
Everest of the viola repertoire, with enormous technical and musical challenges, and
rewards, available only to the strongest players.
The Quartet is a continuous, one-movement arc whose beginning and end, the Adagio sections,
are described by the violist as starting the arc with a mellow, mournful song and closing
it with a gripping solo journey into the outer stratosphere of the viola’s register. The fact that
Shostakovich wrote these profound viola statements for the ailing Borisovsky—who, he
knew, would not be able to play the part— surely added to the poignancy of this journey.
The center section, “doppio movimento” (twice as fast), is a disturbing essay of anguish.
The dreary march, the scraps of melody, the fragments of ensemble voices and the grizzly
punctuation of relentless triplet figures all contribute to the compressed power of the section.
Those triplet figures! Incongruous and startling at first, then annoying, finally terrifying, they
drill with unrelenting persistence—plucked, bowed, soft and sinister, loud and rude—and
most shockingly, tapped by the wooden bows onto the very bodies of the instruments. Then,
just when the music seems to have achieved a state of calm, or resignation, when the viola
begins its final, curious climb into the top of its vocal range, the tapping, no longer in triplets,
just…tapping…echoes in the ear.
Two related motifs—Death
and the Maiden and the
Danse macabre or Dance
of Death are ancient and
pervasive subjects for artists.
Dance of Death, above,
is a woodcut in a series by the
19th-century artist Alfred
Rethel (1816-1859).
Death and the Maiden,
below, is a woodcut by the
Renaissance artist Hans
Holbein, the Younger
(1497-1543).
QUARTET IN D MINOR, D. 810, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1824; 39 minutes
Unlike Shostakovich, who battled polio for decades, Franz Schubert had lived a relatively
sheltered life. The Vienna of his youth enabled his good education in music, supported a
vibrant middle-class lifestyle and allowed him to practice his prodigious talents without
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 5
serious interruptions. However, in 1822 he began to show symptoms of the syphilitic condition
that would take his life six years later.
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Schubert had already undergone at least one intensive mercury treatment when he composed
this string quartet. Despite the ravages of this treatment—hair loss, extreme fatigue and
so on—Schubert regained his good spirits and continued working. Despite frequent mood
swings, in 1824 he wrote the cheerful Octet, as well as this dramatic, four-movement String
Quartet in D minor. He revised the work in January 1826 for its first performance at a
private home in Vienna on February 1. Never performed publicly in his lifetime, it was
published after Schubert’s death, and soon took its place as one of the most powerful,
highly regarded string quartets in the entire repertoire.
The subtitle Death and the Maiden (not Schubert’s choice) was a natural nickname. For the
second-movement theme and variations, Schubert used his own well-known song of that
title, “Der Tod und das Mädchen,” on a poem by Matthias Claudius. It is a dialogue between
a frightened young lady and smarmy Death.
Das Mädchen
The Maiden
Vorüber, ach vorüber!
Geh wilder Knochenmann!
Ich bin noch jung! Geh Lieber,
Und rühre mich nicht an.
Pass by, oh, pass by!
Go away, wild skeleton!
I am still young! Go away, dear man,
And do not touch me.
Der Tod
Death
Gib deine Hand, du schön und zart Gebild!
Bin Freund und komme nicht zu strafen.
Sei gutes Muts! Ich bin nicht wild,
Sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen!
Give me your hand, you lovely, delicate creature!
I’m a friend and don’t come to punish.
Be of good cheer! I am not wild,
You’ll sleep peacefully in my arms!
As a contrast to this Andante con moto section, the first, third and fourth movements of the
Quartet charge forth with a stunning life force. The Allegro is propelled by surging triplets
that drive the momentum through a brilliant climax and into the coda. Even the quiet ending
of the first movement contains echoes of those triplets.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close
of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
…
Wild men who caught and sang the sun
in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on
its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night…
Dylan Thomas
6 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
The Andante con moto, the Death and the Maiden variations, begins with
Schubert’s adaption of the quiet piano introduction to the original song. The
theme and its five variations are subdued in mood, as Schubert embellishes
the conversation between the Maiden and insistent Death.
The fierce Scherzo resumes the first movement’s driving momentum, accented
by angry, syncopated rhythms. A lyrical Trio lightens the mood briefly before
the return of the pounding Scherzo. This furious dance is intensified by a
last-movement tarantella. Both the gentle Maiden’s theme and a fragment of
Schubert’s song Erlkönig (another dramatic rendition of death in a relentless
pursuit of an innocent child) manage to make themselves heard amidst the
pounding of feet in this leaping, forceful Italianate dance. It is no accident that
Schubert chose the tarantella, known even in his day as the therapeutic dance
that tarantula-bite victims performed, until they dropped dead.
7
Saturday
june
Stefan Jackiw, violin
Anna Polonsky, piano
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, K. 454 (1784)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Largo—Allegro
Andante
Allegretto
PARTITA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (1984)
Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994)
Allegro giusto
Ad libitum
Largo
Ad libitum
Presto
:: intermission ::
NOCTURNE (FOR SOLO VIOLIN)
(TO THE MEMORY OF WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI) (1994)
Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952)
Sempre espressivo, calmo
SONATA NO. 3 IN D MINOR FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, OP. 108
(1878–88)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Allegro
Adagio
Un poco presto e con sentimento
Presto agitato
Anna Polonsky is a Steinway Artist.
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of the Robert Family, in memory of Lucien Robert.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 7
WEEK 1
the program
SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, K. 454
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. Salzburg, January 27, 1756; d. Vienna, December 5, 1791)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1784; 23 minutes
On April 24, 1784, Wolfgang Mozart wrote from Vienna to his father, Leopold, at his home in
Salzburg:
“We have the famous Strinasacchi from Manua here right now; she is a very good violinist,
has excellent taste and a lot of feeling in her playing. I’m composing a Sonata for her at
this moment that we’ll be performing together Thursday in her concert at the Theater…”
So Mozart informed his father of his latest composition, the Sonata in B-flat major, K. 454,
which he had just completed, dating it April 21, 1784.
Mozart began composing sonatas for violin and keyboard as a young child, at first entitling
them “Sonatas for Harpsichord or Piano with the Accompaniment of a Violin.” By the time
of the Strinasacchi commission (Sonata No. 32), Mozart’s sonatas for that combination of
instruments had become true partnerships. Written for two fine instrumentalists—himself
and Strinasacchi—to perform before the Imperial court, the sonata stands out as one of
Mozart’s finest ensemble works.
Unfinished oil portrait of
Mozart by his brother-inlaw Joseph Lange (17511831), who was married to
Aloysia Weber, sister of
Mozart’s wife, Constanze
The B-flat Sonata opens with a stately introduction—as befits a performance for the Emperor—
with both instruments setting the mood through grand chords and somber melodies. At the
end of their introductory dialogue, which has established their equal partnership, the two
voices take off in a joyous Allegro. The movement unfolds in classic sonata-allegro form.
In the Andante, an arioso duet in song form, the voices imitate one another, trading roles as
soloist and accompanist, and joining in sanguine harmonies. Tiny surprises in the melodic
contours refresh and delight. The voices sing the center section of their duetto in a minor
key, with a delicate transition back to the initial arioso for a lightly
The violinist Regina Strinasacchi
ornamented reprise.
(1764-1839) must have been a truly
fine violinist, as Mozart rarely commented
upon other musicians in his letters and
would have been mindful of his father’s
high standards: Leopold had written
the highly regarded Treatise on the Fundamental
Principles of Violin Playing in 1756 and was
notorious for his critical opinions.
Even Leopold, however, was taken by
Signorina Strinasacchi, whom he heard
perform the following year, in December
1785. “She played no note without
feeling, so even in the symphonies, she
always plays with expression,” Leopold
wrote to his daughter, Nannerl. “No
one can play an Adagio with more
feeling and more touchingly than she.
Her whole heart and soul are in the
melody she is playing, and her tone
is both beautiful and powerful.” He
added, “In general, I think that a
woman who has talent plays with more
expression than a man.”
8 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
The Allegretto finale is a cheerful rondo, with the two voices in playful
tandem. One can well imagine the delight Mozart and Strinasacchi took
in the witty little interchanges with which the sonata comes to a close.
PARTITA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
Witold Lutosławski (b. Warsaw, January 25, 1913;
d. Warsaw, February 7, 1994)
Composed 1984; 18 minutes
Born in 1913 as the youngest son of a prosperous and educated Polish
family, Witold Lutosławski was barely out of his toddler years when the
world outside his nursery window erupted into a pan-European cataclysm.
He and his family became instant and unwilling participants. When
World War I broke out in the Balkans, Lutosławski’s father left Poland
and sought refuge for his family in Moscow, where the child Witold
witnessed the October Revolution in the streets outside his home. In
1918 his father and uncle were arrested and executed without trial.
Lutosławski’s mother returned with her three sons to Poland, where
the German armies had laid waste to the family lands. Struggling to
keep her family intact and fed, his mother nevertheless saw to it that
her youngest son had the education in music that his talents warranted.
By the 1930s Lutosławski was required to put down his violin, leave his
piano and enter the Polish Army as an officer cadet. At the end of that
assignment, the Second World War, with his homeland once again
destroyed by occupying forces, he was more than ready to turn his
talents to peaceful endeavors. But the world had not finished with him—
the Russian occupation of Poland, which held Lutosławski and his
other compatriots as prisoners in plain sight, began to loosen its hold
only in 1980, when Lech Wałesa’s Solidarity movement gained momentum.
It was in this post-1980 era that Lutosławski began to achieve recognition
beyond Poland’s borders. Stubbornly resisting all internal attempts to
silence him through the years of occupation, he had declined prizes and
other monetary incentives to capitulate to the will of a totalitarian
government. While earning a living in the post-war years by composing
music for theater and other commercial uses, he quietly continued to
develop his own music, artistically challenging materials that surely
would have attracted censorship.
Lutosławski had an affinity for Béla Bartók, the composer and his
music, an affinity that was manifest in his formal composition practices,
as well as in his liberal use of indigenous materials. Also, learning of
John Cage’s music through a radio broadcast, Lutosławski introduced
aleatory elements into his compositions. He was especially intrigued
by the possibilities of freeing orchestral ensembles to explore individual
choices within a larger formal structure. When the Solidarity movement
unlocked Poland’s political prison, Lutosławski and his music were
finally revealed in all their power to the rest of the world.
Lutosławski’s original Partita, for violin
and piano, entered the orchestral
repertoire through the good offices
of Paul Sacher, the esteemed Swiss
conductor and musical Mycaenas. Sacher
had engaged the violinist Anne-Sophie
Mutter to be the soloist in the premier
performance of Lutosławski’s Chain 2:
Dialogue for Violin and Orchestra,
which the composer had dedicated to
Sacher. Lutosławski was so moved by
Mutter’s performance that he readily
honored her request to set the Partita
as a concertante work for violin and
orchestra, a score that he completed
in 1988. (“The idea of composing the
new version was the result of the very
strong impression made on me by
Anne-Sophie’s performances of my
Chain 2. Her extraordinary art has
been a true inspiration for my
compositional work, and I hope to
write something more for her.”) In
1989 Sacher commissioned Lutosławski
to compose a piece that would link
Chain 2 and the new setting of the
Partita. The resulting tri-partite work—
Chain 2, Interlude and Partita—occupies
a unique place in the violinist’s concert
repertoire.
Lutosławski composed the Partita for Violin and Piano on a commission from The Saint Paul
Chamber Orchestra in 1984. Its music director, Pinchas Zukerman, had envisioned a new
double concerto for himself and the pianist Marc Neikrug. Working under a short deadline,
Lutosławski instead created a powerful duet for violin and piano, which Zukerman and
Neikrug first performed in a January 1985 concert in Saint Paul. It was quickly taken up
by other violin-piano ensembles as a major contribution to the repertoire.
The five-movement structure of the Partita—whose very title is a reminder of Lutosławski’s
respect for music of the Baroque era—comprises three formally composed main statements
surrounding two brief connecting passages based on aleatoric principles.
The piano opens the Allegro giusto movement with an urgent theme that is taken up quickly
by the violin; the two instruments are equal participants in maintaining the music’s energized
momentum. The violin, with its inherent tonal flexibility, contributes great color through its
bent pitches, glissandi, and variations in vibrato, while the piano reveals its capacity for variety
in sound articulation and subtle use of the sustaining pedal.
The two brief ad libitum passages bear the instruction that the “violin and piano parts should
not be coordinated in any way.” Lutosławski’s aleatoric materials combine improvisation
with notated passages, so that the instrumentalists here exercise freedom within structure.
They provide links between movements 1, 3 and 5, even as they clear the mind and ear to
make the transitions.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 9
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
The most profound emotional power of the Partita resounds from the Largo central movement.
Lutosławski was known for his composed, dignified bearing, even as his music frequently
exposed depths of overwhelming power and emotion. This force was evident not only in his
great orchestral works, but also in more intimate instrumental ensembles, nowhere more
powerfully than in this Largo section of the Partita. After the second ad libitum, the Presto
movement concludes the Partita with brilliance in both instruments, which explode in a
release of gathered energy of the entire work.
NOCTURNE (TO THE MEMORY OF WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI)
Kaija Saariaho (b. Helsinki, October 14, 1952)
Composed 1994; 6 minutes
The Polish composer Witold Lutosławski commanded respect for his unwavering devotion
to the art and the craft of composition, for his unyielding adherence to individual freedom
under harsh political pressures and for his exceeding generosity of spirit. He was widely
admired by his colleagues. Upon learning of his death, the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho,
then in the midst of creating a violin concerto for Gidon Kremer, gathered her sorrow and
expressed it through musical fragments from that concerto. The resulting Nocturne, like a
shattered mirror, expresses through deceptively simple means the complex shards of a spirit
shocked by the passing of a great mentor. The violinist John Storgårds gave the first
performance of Nocturne in Helsinki on February 16, 1994, nine days after Lutosławski’s death.
SONATA NO. 3 IN D MINOR FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, OP. 108
Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)
Composed 1878-88; 21 minutes
Photo of Johannes Brahms
from 1874, two years before
he composed the Sonata
No. 3 for Violin and Piano
Following his customary schedule of retreating to a village resort area for his annual
“vacations,” Johannes Brahms spent the summer of 1886 at Hofstetten, on Lake Thun.
An inveterate walker at home and abroad, he used the outdoor air to clear his head for
composing. This Swiss summer was productive—in addition to completing several important
compositions, he began work on his third Sonata for Violin and Piano, which he was able to
fulfill after two further seasons of work completing it in the summer 1888. Together with the
violinist Jenő Hubay, Brahms introduced the work at a concert in Budapest on December
21, 1888, and it was published the following year.
Beginning in 1862 and continuing
over a span of three decades, Brahms
wrote a total of seven instrumental
sonatas with piano—two for cello, three
for violin and two for clarinet. Of
those, the Violin Sonata No.3 in D
minor is the most dramatic, with a
virtuoso piano part inspired by the
talents of the dedicatee, the pianist
and conductor Hans von Bülow. In
fact, it has been suggested that the
entire sonata, in all its brilliance,
constitutes a musical portrait of von
Bülow, to whom Brahms was grateful
for his constant professional support.
10 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
The first movement, in sonata-allegro form, explores the full range of
both instruments. From the violin’s sweet opening melody to its stentorian
declamations, and from the surging piano figures that support the
violin to the grand symphonic climaxes, Brahms fills the Allegro with
passions of many colors.
The Adagio’s principal theme, a 24-measure sustained melody, is first
sung in the rich middle register of the violin, the piano echoes it, and
the two instruments together complete the movement with an
impassioned duet of astonishing beauty. The third movement, a sparkly
scherzo, features one of Brahms’s favorite devices, a displacement of
beats (hemiola), which sparks the rhythmic energy. The final movement
demands symphonic power from both instruments—it is a piano concerto
with a single violin filling the orchestra’s role.
8
Sunday
june
David Finckel, cello
Wu Han, piano
5 PM
SONATA FOR VIOLA DA GAMBA AND KEYBOARD NO. 1 IN G MAJOR,
BWV 1027 (CA. 1736–41)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Adagio
Allegro ma non tanto
Andante
Allegro moderato
SONATA NO. 4 IN C MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO, OP. 102, NO. 1 (1815)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Andante—Allegro vivace
Adagio—Allegro vivace
CELLO SONATA NO. 2 IN D MAJOR, OP. 58 (1843)
Felix Mendelssohn (1810-1846)
Allegro assai vivace
Allegretto scherzando
Adagio
Molto allegro e vivace
:: intermission ::
SONATA IN D MINOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO (1915)
Managed by
David Rowe Artists
(www.davidroweartists.com)
Exclusive recording
by ArtistLed
Wu Han performs on a
Steinway piano.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto
Sérénade: Modérément animé
Final: Animé, léger et nerveux
SONATA IN C FOR CELLO AND PIANO, OP. 65 (1961)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Dialogo
Scherzo: Pizzicato
Elegia
Marcia
Moto perpetuo
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Joe and Eileen Mueller.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 11
WEEK 1
the program
Notes
on the
program
The Unfolding of Music
Through cello and piano duos spanning nearly a quarter of a millennium, David Finckel and Wu Han take
listeners through the extraordinary evolution of classical music. Beginning with Bach’s vibrant sonata for
the viola da gamba and harpsichord—the ancestors of the cello and piano—the program transitions seamlessly
to Beethoven’s experimental sonata from the twilight of the Classical period, whose opening recollects the
music of Bach. Mendelssohn, who paved the way for full-blown Romanticism, is featured in his second
Sonata, an ebullient, virtuosic work that pushed the capabilities of the instruments to their limits at the
time. Debussy, universally regarded as the inspiration for musical modernism, composed his only cello
sonata late in his life, the short work becoming the most important work for the cello in the Impressionist
style. The program concludes with Benjamin Britten’s sonata, the first of five masterworks he composed for
famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. David Finckel was privileged to study the work with Rostropovich,
gaining priceless insight into the sonata’s conception through the intimate knowledge of its dedicatee.
-David Finckel and Wu Han
•••
SONATA FOR VIOLA DA GAMBA AND KEYBOARD NO. 1 IN G MAJOR, BWV 1027
Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, Germany, March 31, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)
Composed ca. 1736-41; 15 minutes
On two occasions in 1723, the rich musical life of Leipzig became magnificently richer. On
May 22 the famous musician Johann Sebastian Bach arrived to assume the post of cantor
and music director at Saint Thomas Church, one of the city’s musical epicenters. The other
great development to occur that year was the partnership between Gottfried Zimmermann’s
prominent coffeehouse and the Collegium Musicum, a performing collective of singers and
instrumentalists that would eventually fall under Bach’s supervision when he became its
music director in 1729.
Viola da gamba
Bach took advantage of the Collegium series as an opportunity to compose a good deal of
non-liturgical music. The instrumental works Bach produced for this series include numerous
important pieces, among them this first of three sonatas for viola da gamba, BWV 1027–29.
The early Bach biographer Philipp Spitta—who ranked the G major among the three gamba
sonatas “the loveliest, the purest idyll conceivable”—noted that the viola da gamba “afforded
a great variety in the production of tone, but its fundamental character was tender and
expressive rather than full and vigorous. Thus Bach could rearrange a trio originally written
for two flutes and bass, for viola da gamba, with harpsichord obbligato, without destroying
its dominant character.” The work follows the four-movement structure of the Italian sonata
da chiesa (church sonata) from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Following a slow
introduction, he launches into the fugal Allegro ma non tanto, whose rollicking, perfectly
shaped subject inches its way upwards before quickly laughing its way back down to its
starting point. The third movement is a languishing Andante in the relative minor, which
the finale answers with another jovial fugue.
–Patrick Castillo
12 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
SONATA NO. 4 IN C MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO, OP. 102, NO. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Composed 1815; 15 minutes
Beyond the heroic struggles of his middle period, and by this time almost completely deaf,
Ludwig van Beethoven looked to the future in his last two cello sonatas. The writing of the
C major Sonata is contrapuntal, with independent voices of equal importance moving gently
against each other. The thematic material is once again more complex—the decorative
elements Beethoven once applied in his early period are now fused seamlessly into the
larger structure. Long trills function not merely as ornaments but as orchestration, adding
inner intensity to the sound.
Beethoven in an 1802
engraving
The Andante begins with the cello alone and breathes an unearthly air. The demonic and
anguished Allegro vivace shatters the hypnotic serenity, Beethoven using every possible
device to contrast with the previous music in dynamics, rhythm, texture and tonality. He
uses a surprise F sharp to stop the motion of the Allegro dead in its tracks. The second
subject appears—soothing, quiet, but only for a moment. A very brief development section
contains two ideas—a contrapuntal one followed by a brief chorale, leading to the stormy
recapitulation. The Adagio evokes Beethoven’s fascination with the stars and mysteries of
the universe, and modulates turbulently through several keys before coming to an
inconclusive halt. The sonata’s opening theme reappears, but this time so warmly that its
first incarnation seems only a dream. After a fugato passage, a brilliant coda shows
Beethoven had not lost interest in using virtuosic feats to create excitement.
–David Finckel and Michael Feldman
CELLO SONATA NO. 2 IN D MAJOR, OP. 58
Felix Mendelssohn (b. Hamburg, February 3, 1809; d. Leipzig, November 4, 1847)
Composed 1843; 24 minutes
The turn of the 19th century emancipated the cello from its traditional supporting role, and
Felix Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata in D major, Op. 58, may rightly be counted the most
significant contribution of this period. He penned the Opus 58 Sonata in 1843, a year after his
beloved mother’s death on December 12, 1842. Felix shared the realization with his younger
brother, Paul, that “we are children no longer.” Though Opus 58 bears a dedication to the
Russian cellist and arts patron Count Mateusz Wielhorski, Felix truly intended the work
for Paul, the cellist of the Mendelssohn family. It is the second of two cello sonatas
Mendelssohn composed—the first, the Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 45 (1838), as well as the
earlier Variations concertantes for Cello and Piano (1829), were likewise composed for Paul.
Felix Mendelssohn
The D major Sonata is firmly rooted in the tenets of Classicism inherited from Bach, Mozart
and Beethoven, but meanwhile demonstrates the pathos of the Romantic period. The opening
Allegro assai vivace is all soaring lyricism and propulsive rhythmic energy, even at its tender
second theme. The second movement offers further Romantic cantabile, but couched in a
signature Mendelssohnian scherzo. The homophonic, hymn-like piano introduction to the
slow movement furtively recalls Bach, one of Mendelssohn’s formative influences. The spirited
dialogue between cello and piano continues in the finale, now returning to the effervescence
of the opening movement. An increased restlessness in the piano accompaniment matches
the virtuosic cello, writing measure for measure until the stirring final cadence.
–Patrick Castillo
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 13
Notes
on the
program
Claude Debussy in a photo
taken in 1902, between
the composition of Pour
le piano (1901) and
the two books of Images
(1904-05 and 1907)
SONATA IN D MINOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO
Claude Debussy (b. Saint-Germain-en-Raye, France, August 22, 1862;
d. Paris, March 25, 1918)
Composed 1915; 11 minutes
The last years of Claude Debussy’s life were largely unhappy times. Though his marriage to the
singer Emma Bardac was content, Debussy nevertheless found domestic life increasingly
stifling. His melancholy was compounded in 1909, when he was diagnosed with cancer.
The onset of war in 1914 deeply dismayed the already fragile composer. In 1915 he underwent
an operation to treat his cancer, leaving him almost unable to compose. Nevertheless,
feeling that he had little time left, he continued to work as feverishly as his strength would
allow, planning a set of six sonatas for various instruments. In addition to the Cello Sonata
and the Sonata for flute, viola and harp, he would two years later complete the third sonata
of the projected six, for violin and piano, which would prove to be his final work when he took
ill and died in Paris in 1918.
The Cello Sonata demonstrates an economy of language characteristic of the composer’s
mature style. The Prologue opens with a resolute gesture in the piano, solidly in the key of
D minor, but this conventional harmony yields almost immediately to more mysterious,
Impressionistic sounds, sung in the cello’s upper register. The development section continues
to defy Classical harmony, mixing major and minor tonalities. The bold opening measures of
the animated Sérénade lean even further towards atonality. After a static and suspenseful
passage, marked by a bowed return to the opening guitar-like theme, the music launches
attacca into the lively finale. The cello soars again in its expressive upper register, then
launches into a jaunty melody. The movement features two notably distinct interludes—in
the first, the piano offers a lyrical melody in high octaves, again evoking an exotic Spanish
flavor, the cello appropriately accompanying with strumming pizzicati. Recalling with a
vengeance the declamatory measures of the entire sonata, Debussy returns to D minor
and punctuates the work with a defiant self-assurance.
–Patrick Castillo
SONATA IN C FOR CELLO AND PIANO, OP. 65
Benjamin Britten (b. Lowestoft, November 22, 1913; d. Aldeburgh, December 4, 1976)
Composed in 1961; 20 minutes
Benjamin Britten’s Sonata in C is the first of five masterpieces of a rich artistic
relationship with the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, whom the composer first
met in 1960. With Britten at the piano, the Sonata received its premiere at the Aldeburgh
Benjamin Britten at the piano with the Festival on July 7, 1961. The opening movement, aptly subtitled Dialogo, is a meditation
cellist Mstislav Rostropovich
on the wide expressive potential of whole steps and half steps. The animated first
theme emerges, extending the subdued whole-step and half-step figures into a
turbulent ride. Following a boisterous transitional passage, a lyrical second theme appears.
The ascending whole steps in the cello are interrupted by a striking slide up a minor
seventh, which Rostropovich so described to his student, and the cellist on this program,
David Finckel: “It should be as if the devil comes along and grabs your cello from you.” The
second movement is played with plucked rather than bowed strings, demonstrating the most
virtuosic use of this technique in the entire cello literature. Britten also calls for the cellist to
hammer notes out directly on the fingerboard. The Elegia sets a mournful melody in the
cello against morose, atmospheric chords in the piano. An energetic Marcia follows, evoking
the sounds of a full marching band. In the Moto Perpetuo, Britten fashions a vigorous finale,
full of short-tempered mood swings and fierce syncopations.
–Patrick Castillo
14 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Thursday
12
june
8 PM
borromeo quartet
Nicholas Kitchen, violin
Kristopher Tong, violin
Mai Motobuchi, viola
Yeesun Kim, cello
WITH
Laurence Lesser, cello
SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO (1920-22)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Allegro
Très vif
Lent
Vif, avec entrain
STRING QUARTET NO. 4 (1928)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Allegro
Prestissimo con sordino
Non troppo lento
Allegretto pizzicato
Allegro molto
:: intermission ::
QUINTET FOR STRINGS IN C MAJOR, D. 956 (1828)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Allegro ma non troppo
Adagio
Scherzo: Presto—Trio: Andante sostenuto
Allegretto
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 15
WEEK 2
the program
SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO
Maurice Ravel (b. Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875; d. Paris, December 18, 1937)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1920-22; 20 minutes
Early in the year 1920, the musicologist and critic Henry Prunières (1886–1942) commissioned
Maurice Ravel and nine other prominent composers* to write short works in memory of
Claude Debussy, who had died in 1918. Prunières proposed to publish these pieces in a
commemorative issue of his new music journal, La Revue musicale, and further, to present
the works in a concert dedicated to Debussy’s memory. On August 18, 1920, Ravel wrote to
Prunières:
“Dear Sir, I am sending you, by registered mail, the first movement of the duo for violin and
cello.…Don’t forget to ask my publisher for permission to reproduce this fragment. Very truly
yours, Maurice Ravel.”
The violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange
was one of Ravel’s closest friends during
the last two decades of his life (Ravel
dedicated this Sonata to her). She
published significant personal, often
humorous, memories of their social
and professional interactions. Ravel
himself called this Sonata for Violin
and Cello “very difficult,” and she
described his obsession with the
smallest details in working out the
ensemble: “In general Ravel found
that performers did not read the
instructions on his scores carefully
enough. I remember working on the
‘Scherzo’ in the Duo, where the
rhythms and sonority of the spiccati
must be uniform enough to pass easily
from the violin to the cello. The cellist
Maréchal and I went over it again and
again till we were giddy. Ravel would
not allow the tiniest discrepancy between
the sounds of the two instruments,
dissimilar though they are…”
That Ravel called this manuscript “the first movement” and a “fragment”
indicates that by the time he had finished the short commissioned piece
for Prunières, he had already imagined it as the first of several movements.
Ravel continued to work on the composition, even as the one-movement
Duo appeared in the December 1920 issue of La Revue musicale and
was performed in a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante on
January 24, 1921.
During this period Ravel experienced an ebbing of his creative energies.
The trauma of the First World War, the passing of his beloved mother
and his own ill health had taken their toll. In an autobiographical sketch
published the year after his death, Ravel revealed that “After Le Tombeau
de Couperin [orchestral version, 1919], poor health prevented me from
composing for some time….The Sonata for Violin and Cello dates from
1920…I believe that this Sonata marks a turning point in the evolution of
my career. In it, thinness of texture is pushed to the extreme. Harmonic
charm is renounced, coupled with an increasing emphasis on melody.”
Ultimately, the one-movement Duo for Violin and Cello became the
four-movement Sonata for Violin and Cello, which Ravel’s publisher,
Durand, offered for sale in 1922, with the dedication “To the Memory
of Claude Debussy.” The violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange and the
cellist Maurice Maréchal gave the first performances in Paris on April 6
and May 16, 1922.
At this time, Ravel had several opportunities to meet with Béla Bartók and to hear his music,
which he admired. Ravel also knew the Duo for Violin and Cello by Bartók’s countryman
Zoltán Kodály. The hints of Eastern European folk tunes and dances, modal-scale elements
and robust string playing suggest the direction that Ravel had chosen in order to “renounce
harmonic charm.” This Sonata is a lean composition, with clear dissonances and striking
polyphonic passagework. Ravel knits the movements together by a repetition of thematic
materials and they all come together to conclude in a brilliant braid of contrapuntal energy.
Maurice Ravel and the violinist
Hélène Jourdan-Morhange
in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in
1923
*Béla Bartók, Paul Dukas, Manuel de Falla, Eugene Goosens, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Albert Roussel, Erik Satie,
Florent Schmitt and Igor Stravinsky
16 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
STRING QUARTET NO. 4
Béla Bartók (b. Sûnnicolau Mare, Hungary [present-day Romania],
March 25, 1881; d. New York City, September 26, 1945)
Composed 1928; 21 minutes
Béla Bartók composed his Fourth String Quartet in 1928, shortly after
returning to Hungary from his first tour to America. His good friends and
colleagues of the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet introduced the new work in
a London radio broadcast of February 22, 1929, and they gave the first
concert-hall performance of the Fourth (together with the Third Quartet,
composed only one year earlier) at the Music Academy in Budapest on
March 20. (The dedicatee of the Fourth, the Pro Arte Quartet, first
performed the work the following October.)
Photo of Béla Bartók on holiday in Switzerland in the 1930s
Although composed nearly concurrently, the two newest quartets, No. 3
and No. 4, form a contrasting pair. Whereas the Third comprises four
sections compressed into one continuous, 15-minute piece, the Fourth is
designed in five symmetrically arranged, clearly delineated and more
expansive movements. Bartók himself explained the arrangement:
The slow movement [non troppo lento] is the nucleus of the piece,
the other movements are, as it were, bedded around it: the fourth
movement is a free variation of the second one, and the first and fifth
movements are of the identical thematic material. Metaphorically
speaking, the third movement is the kernel, the movements I and V
the outer shell, and the movements II and IV, as it were, the inner shell.
The Waldbauer-Kerpely String Quartet performed the
premieres of the first string quartets written by Béla Bartók
(seated, left) and his compatriot Zoltán Kodály (seated,
right).
This pattern structure, now known as Bartók’s palindrome, or bridge, is a form that the
composer returned to repeatedly. First employing the structure for his opera Bluebeard’s
Castle, he used it as the basis for many of his compositions, the Fourth String Quartet
being one of the most notable. The palindrome encompasses many elements that contribute
to the strength of the metaphor: the keystone in the center, the melodic and harmonic
systems that balance and mirror each other on either side of the keystone, and other
motivic elements that Bartók used ingeniously to unify the five sections.
Despite the neatness of the metaphor and the stability of Bartók’s bridge, the work is no
mathematical exercise. Filled with passion, instrumental color and extended technical
challenges, the Fourth Quartet rewards the players’ and listeners’ efforts with immeasurable
delights. A four-note motif is buried in the forward propulsion of the outer movements, in
the fast-as-possible, muted buzzing of the second movement (sometimes likened to the
sound of mosquitos), in the serene night mysteries (one of Bartók’s most enchanting signature
sounds) of the center movement, and in the wild pizzicati of the fourth movement. Over the
past decades, lengthy essays have explicated these musical phenomena in fascinating
detail. Bartók himself once provided a valuable listener’s key to his music, “…in spite of all
honest efforts, with such things intuition plays a far more prominent role than one would
imagine….It is no good asking why I wrote a passage as I did, instead of putting it differently—
I can only reply that I wrote down what I felt. Let the music speak for itself; it surely speaks
clearly enough to assert itself.”
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 17
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
QUINTET FOR STRINGS IN C MAJOR, D. 956
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1828; 44 minutes
Although too sick to carry out travel plans during the final weeks of his life, Franz Schubert
did attend a party on September 27, 1828, at which he performed all three of his glorious
new piano sonatas. A few days later, on October 2, he wrote to a friend: “I have finally
turned out a Quintet. [It] will have its first rehearsal one of these days.” Of his other activities
during his final few weeks, we know relatively little. Probably his hoped-for quintet rehearsal
did not take place.
We do know that two weeks before he died, Schubert began to attend a series of counterpoint
lessons with Vienna’s leading music theory professor, Simon Sechter. Despite his abundant
skills and successes, Schubert still strove to improve his composition technique. Listening to
the masterful voice-leading and part-writing in the Quintet, which he had just completed, we
marvel at Schubert’s determination to understand his craft even more deeply and to fly even
higher in his art. In any event, he had only one lesson with Sechter. On November 12 he wrote
his last letter to his friend Franz von Schober. A week later, while correcting the final proofs
of Winterreise, Schubert left this world.
Franz Schubert
The Quintet stands alone in Schubert’s works, and in the great body of chamber music
repertoire of the past three centuries, as a unique beacon of beauty and complexity. Adding
a second cello to the standard string quartet, Schubert created inner voices of profound
expressivity, with the wide-ranging cello frequently soaring above the viola, leaving the
second cello to anchor the whole with its rich tenor/baritone voice.
Hearing the Quintet erases any notions that the key of C major might constitute a plainvanilla experience. Schubert’s introductory tonic chord swells immediately to a diminished
seventh, and the first movement develops thence through a head-spinning range of keys—
D minor, E minor, E-flat major, G major, A-flat major, F major—exploring, along the way,
contrasting musical territories of supreme lyricism, agitation and serenity, before finding
its conclusion in C major.
Echoes of the great B-flat major Piano Sonata haunt the second movement of the Quintet. It
glows with an ethereal texture similar to that Sonata’s Andante. The five instruments sustain
the nocturnal mood of the Adagio, as the three inner voices move in serene counterpoint
laced by the voices of the second cello and the first violin. The movement’s exquisite opening
section, in E major, is interrupted by a dramatic outburst that features a passionate duet
for violin and cello. The drama subsides in C major and the movement ends, after an
enchanted transition back to E major, with a reprise of the suspended serenade.
COMING NEXT
FRIDAY, JUNE 13,
1-3 PM
MASTERCLASS:
Andrés Cárdenes,
violin
A raucous Scherzo follows, with a startlingly somber Trio, and concludes with an exuberant
Allegretto filled with pleasant humor, surprising harmonic modulations and frequent changes
of mood. The third and fourth movements depart from and return to the tonic key of C major,
in which Schubert infused throughout the Quintet all of life’s passions and complexities,
beauties and sorrows.
The publishing house Diabelli purchased the Quintet autographed manuscript from Schubert’s
brother Ferdinand in 1829. In 1850 Diabelli provided the string parts for the first public
performance of the Quintet by Josef Hellmesberger’s quartet, with the cellist Josef Stransky,
at the Musikverein in Vienna. The full score finally appeared in 1853.
18 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Friday
13
june
Charlie Albright, piano
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY JERRY AND MARGARETTA HAUSMAN.
IMPROMPTUS, OP. 90, D. 899 (1827)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
No. 3 in G-flat major: Andante mosso
No. 2 in E-flat major: Allegro
PIANO SONATA 1.X.1905 (FROM THE STREET) (1905)
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
The Presentiment [Předtucha]: Con moto
Death [Smrt]: Adagio
CONCERT ARABESQUE ON THEMES FROM ON THE BEAUTIFUL
BLUE DANUBE (1867/1904)
Andrei Schulz-Evler (1852-1905)/Johann Strauss II
(1825-1899)
IMPROVISATION
Charlie Albright (b.1988)
:: intermission ::
ETUDES FOR PIANO, OP. 25 (1832–36)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
No. 1 in A-flat major: Allegro sostenuto
No. 2 in F minor: Presto
No. 3 in F major: Allegro
No. 4 in A minor: Agitato
No. 5 in E minor: Vivace—Più lento—Tempo I
No. 6 in G-sharp minor: Allegro
No. 7 in C-sharp minor: Lento
No. 8 in D-flat major: Vivace
No. 9 in G-flat major: Assai allegro
No. 10 in B minor: Allegro con fuoco—Lento—Tempo I
No. 11 in A minor: Lento—Allegro con brio
No. 12 in C minor: Molto Allegro con fuoco
Managed by Arts Management Group, Inc.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 19
WEEK 2
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
IMPROMPTUS, OP. 90, D. 899
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1827; 11 minutes
Franz Schubert was born into a cultural circle of healthy co-dependency in Vienna. Educated
middle-class people wanted and could afford to own pianos, new manufacturing techniques
and materials made possible the mass production of home instruments, technological
advances created a publishing industry that served the appetite for piano music of all levels
of difficulty, people who owned pianos needed teachers, everyone needed new music,
composers needed markets and professional performers needed audiences. It was a vibrant
new world in music and it centered around the piano.
Schubert grew up in a household where Hausmusik was de rigueur—his father and brothers
were decent amateur musicians—and they played together often. As a highly gifted youngster,
he received rigorous training in music and quickly surpassed his family’s technical abilities.
Throughout his life, Schubert composed music for both sides of the fence—challenging
piano sonatas, symphonies and string quartets for professionals; piano, violin and vocal
pieces for the homes and churches of music-loving amateurs; as well as dozens of works
accessible to all well-trained musicians, no matter their professional status.
Franz Schubert, pencil
drawing by his friend
Leopold Kupelwieser, 1821
In 1827 Schubert submitted eight new untitled piano solos to the Viennese publisher Tobias
Haslinger. Technically possible for a well-trained amateur musician and musically satisfying
to a professional pianist, the new pieces challenged Haslinger’s marketing ingenuity. His
goal—to affix titles that would have broad customer appeal, while indicating the character
and difficulty of the music. Haslinger steered Schubert toward a title that had recently been
introduced in Vienna by a Czech composer, Václav Tomášek. Impromptu, an improvisatorysounding piano piece in three sections, seemed to Haslinger a fitting name for Schubert’s
eight new piano miniatures.
Published in two sets of four pieces, Schubert’s delightful Impromptus established a level
by which any piano piece of that title has since been measured. They exemplify Schubert’s
talents for ternary structure, dance rhythms and melodic invention. Through them an
amateur pianist can connect with the pleasures of performing music of the highest quality
and a professional pianist can reveal the transcendent properties of Schubert’s limitless
imagination.
PIANO SONATA 1.X.1905 (FROM THE STREET)
Leoš Janáček (b. Hukvaldy, Bohemia [present-day Czech Republic], July 3, 1854;
d. Ostrava, Bohemia, August 10, 1928)
Composed 1905; 14 minutes
Leoš Janáček as a young
man
The Piano Sonata l.X.1905 (From the Street), in E-flat minor, had its origin in Leoš Janáček’s
shocked reaction to the violent end of a street demonstration in his city. He was a passionate
Czech patriot who, like Antonín Dvořák, abhorred the dominance of German language and
culture in his country, and he supported the goals of the students of Brno who were
peacefully demonstrating in favor of a university more sympathetic to the indigenous Czech
culture. The demonstration was put down by armed troops and a 20-year-old woodworker,
20 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
František Pavlík, was run through with a bayonet. The incident occurred
on October 1, 1905.
Janáček immediately composed a three-movement piano sonata that
expressed his anguish and horror. The pianist Ludmila Tučková gave the
first performance of the sonata on January 27, 1906, on which occasion
Janáček, unhappy with his composition, attempted to destroy the score.
Succeeding in burning the third movement, a funeral march, he later
threw the rest of the manuscript into the river. Fortunately, Tučková had
made a copy of the first two movements, which she produced on the
occasion of Janáček’s 70th birthday in 1924. The composer authorized
publication of the two extant movements later that year in Prague.
To the score of his Piano Sonata
1.X.1905, Janáček added at a later
date, these words: “The white marble
steps of the Besední dům [the presentday Brno Philharmonic Hall] in Brno.
The ordinary laborer František
Pavlík falls, stained with blood. He
came merely to champion higher
learning and has been slain by cruel
murderers.”
Throughout his life Janáček remained loyal to tonal music, and despite his initial disappointment
with this sonata, it has lived on as a good example of his talent for wringing tension and
conflict from traditional harmonies. The noted Hungarian author Imre Kertész has written of
the second movement, “I would venture to maintain that, since Schubert, no one has spoken
of death this way on the piano.”
CONCERT ARABESQUE ON THEMES FROM ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE
Andrei Schulz-Evler (b. Radom, Poland, December 12, 1852; d. Warsaw, May 15, 1905)/
Johann Strauss II (b. Neubau, Vienna, October 25, 1825; d. Vienna, June 3, 1899)
Composed 1867/1905; 9 minutes
Johann Strauss II achieved a worldwide reputation for his brilliant dance compositions and
orchestrations, earning for himself the title of “Waltz King.” A well-known anecdote attests
to the quality of his work; Johannes Brahms once wrote out onto a lady’s fan the first few
notes of On the Beautiful Blue Danube and added the comment, “Leider nicht von Brahms”
(Unfortunately, not by Brahms).
Johann Strauss II as
depicted in a silhouette
by Hans Schliessmann
Of the nearly 500 pieces of dance music that Strauss composed, none has achieved greater
world-wide recognition than the waltz score that Brahms admired so openly. Strauss originally
composed his Blue Danube waltz for orchestra and male chorus, the version that was first
performed in February of 1867 by the Wiener Männergesangsverein (Vienna Men’s Choral
Association). Many adaptations of the work have appeared over the years.
Virtuosic piano transcriptions of well-known musical works were once highly popular
features of concert repertoire. The Polish composer Andrei Schulz-Evler created this Blue
Danube “Concert Arabesque” in 1905, the heyday of the tradition, making up for the lack of a
male chorus with an abundance of piano bravura. It prompted the kind of performance that
used to send the fans of Vladimir Horowitz and Earl Wild racing to the stage door for autographs.
Fortunately, signs of the tradition’s revival have begun to appear on concert programs, as the
brilliant transcriptions of Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, Leopold Godowsky and—yes—Andrei
Schulz-Evler resume their well-earned place in the public arena.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 21
ÉTUDES FOR PIANO, OP. 25
Frédéric Chopin (b. Zelazowa Wola, Poland, March 1, 1810; d. Paris, October 17, 1849)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1832-36; 33 minutes
Like Schubert, Frédéric Chopin was born into a piano-obsessed music culture. At the age
of 19 he set out from Poland, where he had become a local celebrity, to measure his
considerable talents and achievements by the more worldly standards of Vienna. There he
began work on what would become one of his most notable achievements as a composer,
a set of piano études. From that time, late summer 1829 until August 1832, he completed
12 piano studies that he dedicated to Franz Liszt and that were published in 1833 as Études,
Op. 10. Settling permanently in Paris in 1831, Chopin continued work on his series,
completing 12 more studies and publishing them in 1837 as Études, Op. 25, with a dedication
to Liszt’s mistress, the Countess Marie d’Agoult. Three further studies, published later,
entered his works list “without opus number.”
As further illustration of Robert
Schumann’s assertion (right) that
“music does not exist for the sake of
the fingers, but the precise opposite,”
we offer the following anecdote:
Josef Hofmann was widely acknowledged
as one of the greatest pianists of the
first half of the 20th century—this
despite the fact that his hands were so
small that Steinway & Sons, New York,
created for him a special piano whose
keys were slightly narrower than
standard. Once, following a concert,
a woman approached the pianist,
“Oh, Mr. Hofmann, how can you play
so wonderfully with such small hands?”
His reply: “Madam! Why do you
imagine that I play the piano with
my hands?”
Many composers had already published volumes of studies under such
titles as “Grand Etudes,” “Characteristic Etudes,” “Studies for the
higher completion of the already proficient pianist” and—that old
favorite of generations of American piano students—Czerny’s “School
for Finger Dexterity.” Chopin had indicated in letters that he intended to
write piano studies for relative beginners, but he could not help himself;
not only did he write 24 pieces that embodied the most significant
technical challenges to a piano student, he captured the musical essence
underlying the technical challenges, and produced the non plus ultra
of a mature pianist’s repertoire, studies that cried out for an audience.
Robert Schumann, one of Chopin’s most passionate and vocal admirers,
once wrote in a review of another composer’s piano etudes: “Difficulty
is their only distinguishing feature; there is more music in many a
Chopin mazurka than in all of these 24 studies. Young composers cannot
grasp soon enough that music does not exist for the sake of the fingers,
but the precise opposite; and no one should dare be a poor musician
in order to become a fine virtuoso.” Chopin’s Études surpass Schumann’s
criteria on every level, exercising the fingers, mind and heart of a
musician in equal measure.
COMING NEXT
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 10 AM
FAMILY CONCERT: Inkas Wasi
22 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Saturday
14
june
david deveau & friends
Andrés Cárdenes, violin
Yinzi Kong, viola
Sophie Shao, cello
David Deveau, piano
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
PIANO QUARTET IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 16 (1796/1801)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Grave—Allegro ma non troppo
Andante cantabile
Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo
STRING TRIO (1933)
Jean Francaix (1912-1997)
Allegretto vivo
Scherzo: Vivo
Andante
Rondo: Vivo
:: intermission ::
PIANO QUARTET NO. 1 IN C MINOR, OP. 15 (1876-79/REV. 1883)
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Allegro molto moderato
Scherzo: Allegro vivo
Adagio
Allegro molto
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Irv and Janet Plotkin.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 23
WEEK 2
the program
PIANO QUARTET IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 16
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1796/1801; 27 minutes
Beethoven’s Opus 16 appears in catalogue listings as both a quintet and a quartet. The reason for this
oddity rests upon his publisher’s desire to reach as wide an audience as possible for sales of the score.
Begun in 1796 and completed in 1797, Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat major for oboe, clarinet,
bassoon, horn and piano was one of the early works that introduced Beethoven to his new
home, Vienna. Still known as that sensational German pianist recently arrived from Bonn,
Beethoven carefully built his reputation as a composer by introducing his new works to
influential audiences among the Viennese aristocracy.
Beethoven was at the piano when the Quintet was first performed, on April 6, 1797, at an
“academy” organized by the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh (who was to play an important role
in Beethoven’s personal and professional affairs throughout his lifetime). The academy stood
out among the many soirées and other house concerts that Beethoven was playing in
his early years in Vienna. An academy was usually more formally organized than a
house concert. It was usually produced by a prominent musician (like Schuppanzigh);
and in addition to its prestige value, an academy was frequently lucrative for the
performers.
The Quintet’s success led to a contract with the Viennese publisher T. Mollo. Beethoven
obligingly transcribed the Quintet’s wind parts for violin, viola and cello, so that when
A square piano, dated 1800, built
by Ignace Pleyel of Paris and owned Mollo offered the score for sale in 1801, buyers received two sets of parts: one set for
by Beethoven, with 67 keys
winds and another set for strings. The piano part remained the same. The first edition’s
(compared to modern-day 88 keys)
title page reads: “Grand Quintetto pour le Forte Piano avec Oboe, Clarinette, Bassoon,
et Cor—ou—Violon, Alto, et Violoncello composé et dedié A Monseigneur le Prince Regnant
de Schwarzenberg par Louis van Beethoven, Oeuvre 16.”
Like the other works he composed at this time—all of them, so far, for solo piano or small
chamber ensembles—Beethoven chose conservative late-Classical vocabulary that proved
his mastery of the traditional techniques. Structurally balanced, with clear instrumental
voicing, the Piano Quintet/Quartet proceeds along familiar lines. A stately, graceful introduction
(Grave) leads to a cheerful Allegro non troppo that forms the main body of the first movement
in sonata form. Beethoven awarded the piano opportunities to sparkle without domineering.
The gentle second movement, Andante cantabile, is cast as a rondo with variations. The
piano introduces the principal theme—a long, graceful melody that is then taken up by the
other instruments. The theme returns in varied form throughout the movement. Unhurried,
the voices close the movement as quietly as it began.
A cheerful Allegro ma non troppo concludes the work with another Rondo. Close analysis
discloses the Rondo’s complexities—what theorists call a “sonata-rondo”—but the listener
can easily discern the repeated return of the principal theme (the rondo) as the most
important unifying device. Again, Beethoven gave the piano opportunity to play a central role
while maintaining a good balance among the voices.
24 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
STRING TRIO
Jean Françaix (b. Le Mans, May 23, 1912; d. Paris, September 25, 1997)
Composed 1933; 14 minutes
In many ways, Jean Françaix lived a charmed life. Born in Le Mans,
France, he grew up in a nurturing and musical home environment, lived
in the same town for more than half a century, studied from his childhood
with the best teachers and enjoyed many decades as a successful
composer with a lifetime works list of several hundred compositions.
Spared much of the trauma that befell his contemporaries who lived
directly in the path of Europe’s devastating wars, Françaix encountered
fewer obstacles on the road to his chosen field.
He chose the field early on—at the age of eight he wrote in an essay,
My father teaches piano, my mother singing, and I am Jean
Françaix. I work during part of the day. In the morning I practice my
piano for two and a half hours. In the afternoon I do my homework
with my grandmother. I shall marry when I am grown up, and as it
will be necessary for me to earn my living, I will decide to be a
composer.
Jean Françaix’s parents—his father the
director of the Le Mans Conservatory,
his mother a voice teacher—sought
advice from Maurice Ravel concerning
their prodigious 10-year-old son.
Ravel’s thoughtful reply included these
comments: “Among the gifts of this
child, I note above all the most fruitful
that an artist can possess, that of
curiosity. From now on, these precious
gifts must not be stifled, at the risk
of letting this youthful sensibility
wither…. He should study a polyphonic
instrument, such as the piano…which
will help him to become intimately
acquainted with all the classical or
modern works which attract him.
The grammar and rhetoric will come
later….” Ample evidence from the
Françaix family records shows that
Ravel’s advice fell on fertile ground.
He never wavered from that goal. Accepted as one of Nadia Boulanger’s
earliest and youngest pupils (they would develop a close, life-long
relationship), Françaix also studied piano with the eminent pedagogue
Isidor Philipp at the Paris Conservatoire. During his weekly trips from
Le Mans for his lessons with Philipp, he filled reams of manuscript pages with his sketches
and by the time he won the Conservatoire’s first prize in piano, at age 18, he was ready to
present his own compositions for public hearings. In 1932 Pierre Monteux conducted the
20-year-old Françaix’s First Symphony in a Paris concert; and the following year Léonide
Massine set Françaix’s music for Scuola di ballo onto the dancers of the Ballet Russes de
Monte Carlo.
The same year Françaix composed this String Trio, one of the earliest of his several dozen
published chamber music compositions. Characterized by its wit, harmonic clarity and
rhythmic invention—Poulenc and Ravel meet Stravinsky—the piece commands attention
from its first notes. Out of the “traveling music” that opens the Allegretto vivo, a sweet
principal theme emerges that is shared, one after the other, by all three instruments. The
jaunty Scherzo is a waltz gone delightfully awry. The Andante movement’s arioso character
provides repose before the romping, stomping dance of the final Rondo.
From the beginning Françaix ignored the distractions of serialism and aleatoric experiments
in favor of more conventional composition styles. He laced his works with imaginative
harmonic explorations and complex rhythms, colorful orchestration and a barely suppressed
sense of humor. Françaix never lost sight of his main purpose as a composer. “My music,”
he said, “should be like Nature: sometimes merry, sometimes serious and never boring.”
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 25
PIANO QUARTET NO. 1 IN C MINOR, OP. 15
Gabriel Fauré (b. Pamiers, France, May 12, 1845; d. Paris, November 4, 1924)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1876-79, revised 1883; 32 minutes
The esteemed French composer, organist and pianist Gabriel Fauré has rightly earned his
reputation as one of his nation’s most important musicians, remembered especially for his
distinctive body of chamber music, solo songs (mélodies) and the genre-renewing Requiem.
He was honored repeatedly for his invaluable service to French music culture—which
included a long and distinguished tenure at the Paris Conservatoire, first as composition
professor and, from 1905 until 1920, as its director. He was revered by his students, who
included Nadia Boulanger, Jean Roger-Ducasse, Charles Koechlin, Georges Enescu and
Maurice Ravel (this roster alone testifies to Fauré’s unusual openness to different points of
musical view). A president of the Société Nationale de Musique, Fauré was also awarded
the Grande Croix of the Legion d’Honneur—a rare achievement for a musician.
Yet Fauré, like many other accomplished artists, was self-critical to a fault. Always laboring
under severe self-doubts, he nevertheless produced, between 1861 and 1924, an immense
and distinguished body of compositions. To this point, his oft-expressed awe of Beethoven’s
string quartets repeatedly delayed him from attempting a work in that genre. The last
composition of his life was his String Quartet in E minor, a result of extraordinary and
passionate commitment to the art of musical creation.
1898 photo of Gabriel
Fauré at the piano; he
was a brilliant—and
ambidextrous—pianist.
The evolution of his first Piano Quartet is an early example of Fauré’s reticence. Under a new
contract with Julien Hamelle, a publisher who had agreed to take a chance on the young
composer, Fauré submitted his first major chamber ensemble composition to Hamelle in
two installments: the first three movements in 1880, and the final movement, after drastic
revision, in 1883.
Fauré himself had been at the keyboard—and he was a brilliant pianist—in the first
performance of the C minor Piano Quartet at the Société Nationale on February 11, 1880.
Despite the warm reception accorded this eloquent work, he was unnerved by the
reservations expressed by some of his friends about its last movement. Sending Hamelle
the first three movements for typesetting, Fauré set about revising the finale, Allegro
molto, a process that took three years. The second “premiere” of the work occurred in April
1884, after which the Quartet was finally published in its entirety.
The strong first movement begins with the three strings playing in unison over syncopated
piano chords. The bold main theme and a graceful second theme form the basis of a
traditional sonata-allegro form. The three strings open the Scherzo movement with five
measures of snappy pizzicato, and the piano enters with an energetic skipping theme. The
Scherzo is further energized by a rhythmic alternation between 6/8 and 3/4 meters. The
contrasting Trio calls upon the strings for a lovely melody played con sordino (with mutes).
The C minor Adagio movement features two mournful, yet sensuous, themes reminiscent
of the mood of the composer’s Élégie for Cello, which also appeared in 1883. The fuller
complement of instruments in the Quartet gives Fauré the expanded color palette that
elevates this movement to even greater poignancy than that of the Élégie.
The new Finale—in all likelihood a complete replacement of the original—contains echoes
of the preceding movements, with hints of melancholy lingering in the drive to the end. The
scampering piano, the dancelike rhythmic pulse and the bravura development of the themes
complete the Quartet with a dramatic finish.
26 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Sunday
15
june
parker quartet
Daniel Chong, violin
Ying Xue, violin
Jessica Bodner, viola
Kee-Hyun Kim, cello
WITH
5 PM
Thomas van Dyck, bass
STRING QUARTET IN F MINOR, OP. 20, NO. 5, HOB. III:35 (1772)
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Allegro moderato
Minuetto
Adagio
Finale: Fuga a due soggetti
AINSI LA NUIT: STRING QUARTET (1973-76)
Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
Introduction and Nocturne—Parenthèse I
Miroir d’espace—Parenthèse II
Litanies—Parenthèse III
Litanies 2—Parenthèse IV
Constellations
Nocturne 2
Temps suspendu
:: intermission ::
STRING QUINTET NO. 2 IN G MAJOR, OP. 77 (1875/1888)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Allegro con fuoco
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Poco andante
Finale: Allegro assai
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 27
WEEK 2
the program
STRING QUARTET IN F MINOR, OP. 20, NO. 5, HOB. III:35
Joseph Haydn (b. Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; d. Vienna, May 31, 1809)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1772; 22 minutes
Life at the rural Hungarian estate Esterháza, where Joseph Haydn took up residence at the
age of 34, proceeded with verve, as Prince Nicholas Esterházy expended substantial sums of
time and money to create a center for the arts in the countryside. As Kapellmeister, Haydn
led and composed for an orchestra of about 25 resident instrumentalists, in addition to
assorted vocal soloists and choristers. The Prince entertained a steady flow of wealthy
visitors to the estate.
Fulfilling the Prince’s frequent requests for symphonies and operas, Haydn also became
remarkably adept at composing quickly for small string ensembles. The results were,
predictably, uneven in quality. In later years he requested of his Viennese publisher, Artaria,
that they ignore his first 12 published string quartets, those from his earliest years at
Esterháza, and start his official roster of quartets with the three sets that he composed in the
late 1760s and early 1770s. Those three sets were published as Opus 9, Opus 17 and Opus 20.
At Esterháza, Haydn had particularly
fine musicians, who gave his music
excellent performances as soon as he set
their parts before them, ink still drying.
The orchestra’s virtuoso concertmaster,
Luigi Tomasini, was a great friend in
addition to being the violinist whom
Haydn admired above all others. In
chamber music ensembles, Haydn
played second violin to Tomasini.
From 1761 to 1769, Haydn’s excellent
principal cellist, also a good friend,
was Joseph Weigl; he was replaced by
the esteemed Anton Kraft when Weigl
left Esterháza to join the Austrian
court orchestra in Vienna.
Earlier, Haydn had named his string quartets “Divertimenti.” With these
three sets, and ever after, he adopted “String Quartet” as the title for
such works. With Opus 20 he wrote final movements using fugal
materials, a significant new feature of string quartets that other
composers would imitate in years to come. Also in Opus 20, he began
to dislodge the minuet movement from second place: in Nos. 2, 4 and
6, the minuet is the third movement. These shifts in style may seem
small on paper; however, the effect, upon hearing the works, marked
a major new direction in style.
The first movement of the F minor Quartet, from 1772, is in classic sonata
form, with a minor-mode principal theme and a major-mode second
theme. The coda lends darkness to the final bars of the moderately
paced movement. The Minuet, similarly somber, is followed by a sweet,
cantabile Adagio. The two-subject fugue makes a sophisticated
conclusion to the Quartet.
AINSI LA NUIT: STRING QUARTET
Henri Dutilleux (b. Angers, France, January 22, 1916; d. Paris, May 22, 2013)
Composed 1973-1976; 18 minutes
In 1973 the Koussevitzky Foundation commissioned the esteemed French composer Henri
Dutilleux to write a string quartet to be performed by the Juilliard String Quartet using the
Stradivari instruments in the collection of the Library of Congress. Despite his impressive
works list, Dutilleux felt challenged by the assignment, as he had not composed a string
quartet since his student days.
For more than three years he worked assiduously, studying historical models and creating
practice sketches. He analyzed such modern scores as Anton Webern’s Six Bagatelles and
Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, which supplemented his study of Beethoven and Bartók string
quartets, as well as other composers’ works. Already enamored of Bartók’s “night music,”
28 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
the evocative passages that occur frequently in his instrumental compositions, Dutilleux was
naturally pulled toward nocturnal images for his own new quartet. He took sketches to the
Juilliard Quartet for trials throughout this long process.
Dutilleux completed the quartet, Ainsi la nuit (Thus the Night), in 1976, dedicating it to the
memory of his friend Ernest Sussman and in tribute to Olga Koussevitzky, the widow of
the famed conductor whose foundation had supported the commission. In the end another
ensemble, the Quatuor Parrénin, gave the first performance of Ainsi la nuit in Paris on
January 6, 1977. The Juilliard Quartet performed it at the Library of Congress in Coolidge
Auditorium as planned, albeit one year later, on April 13, 1978. Dutilleux coached the
Juilliard ensemble in its preparation and attended the performance in
Washington, D.C.
In addition to music sources, Dutilleux was working under the spell of the
painter Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. He confessed to a profound connection
with van Gogh’s vivid visual expression of the universal energy in that work,
and he determined to test whether he could achieve something similar in
sound. He was also intrigued by the role of memory in van Gogh’s creation,
since painting a night scene had to rely heavily on memory and imagination.
The basic building block of Ainsi la nuit is a chord comprising several open
fifths piled atop one another. (Determine the interval of an open fifth by
counting up five notes on a major scale from any starting tone: from A to E,
for instance, or from C to G.) Playing several open fifths simultaneously, piled
upon one another, will produce some dissonance. Dutilleux piled the open
fifths artfully in order to achieve various effects as it reappears throughout
the work.
Dutilleux cast Ainsi la nuit in seven carefully balanced sections: Nocturne I,
Mirror, Litany I, Litany II, Constellations, Nocturne II and Suspended Time.
The chord, that piled-up stack of open fifths, is the principle, but not the sole,
unifying element.
1951 photo of Henri Dutilleux
The Juilliard String Quartet onstage at the
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress,
with the Library’s Stradivarius stringed
instruments (Photograph: Chad Evans Wyatt)
Ainsi la nuit: Thus the night…
Dutilleux also created four linking passages that he called “parenthèses” to complete the
transitions between sections, to make them seamless. Sometimes the “parenthèse” contains
elements that predict the following section; sometimes the “parenthèse” echoes music
elements already sounded.
The composer’s concept of what he called “progressive growth,” his idiomatic approach to
developing thematic materials, describes the over-arching transformation of musical elements
from beginning to end of this string quartet. With only fleeting moments of expressive pause
along the way, Ainsi la nuit revolves without audible transitions, one vast 18-minute night sky.
Dutilleux’s resulting tribute to the vastness of the universe, Ainsi la nuit, is a brilliantly carved
gem, with endless facets reflecting the light as it turns under the skillful presentation of the
four musicians. A first hearing will reveal much of the brilliance. Repeated hearings will
reveal the depths of the work.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 29
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
STRING QUINTET NO. 2 IN G MAJOR, OP. 77
Antonín Dvořák (b. Nelahozeves, Bohemia [present-day Czech Republic],
September 8, 1841; d. Prague, May 1, 1904)
Composed 1875, revised 1888; 30 minutes
In his years of playing viola in a Prague theater orchestra, Antonín Dvořák had accumulated
a store of useful knowledge about the art and the craft of creating a music score. In 1874
he accepted an appointment as organist at Saint Vojtěch Church and began seeking
opportunities for getting his own compositions into circulation.
In 1875 he submitted songs to a competition of the Austrian Commission for State Music
Prize in Vienna, whose small selection committee included Johannes Brahms. The handsome
sum of 400 gulden that he received as prize money was eclipsed by the professional
advantages that accrued from this event. Brahms became an active mentor to Dvořák and
even urged his own Berlin publisher, Simrock, to accept the young Czech composer as a
client. Furthermore, the two composers developed a friendship that lasted to the end of
Brahms’s life.
Antonín Dvor̆ák reading
a score.
Directly after learning of the Vienna prize, Dvořák set to work on a composition for a small
local chamber music competition. He had already written one string quartet, and with his
experience as a professional violist, he felt comfortable with the genre. Within two months
he had completed a five-movement String Quintet in G major, won the prize and had the
satisfaction of hearing the work performed the following March in Prague. He numbered it
Opus 18.
In 1888, by now on the Simrock roster, Dvořák submitted his Opus 18 String Quintet for
publication. Of the work’s five movements, two were lovely slow movements, an Intermezzo
and a Poco andante. Thinking that the balance would be better served with only one slow
movement, he removed the Intermezzo, re-titled it “Nocturne,” and turned it to another use.
Having readied his four-movement Quintet for publication, he was offended when Simrock
announced that he was re-numbering the work to Opus 77 in order to make it seem like a
brand-new composition. It was only one of several disagreements that Simrock and Dvořák
had over the years. This time, as usual, Simrock had his way.
The maturity of the composition helped Simrock’s dubious practice, as no one realized that
it was an early work. The first movement is really quite theatrical, with a hesitant cello-bass
duo introducing the main event—a skipping, extroverted first movement in G major. Dvořák
derived drama through manipulation of the themes in the moody development section; the
darkness is dispelled by the return to good cheer at the movement’s end.
The Scherzo, in E minor, is a brisk, rhythmic dance of decidedly Slavic flavor. Its lilting second
subject provides a gentle contrast to the more masculine dance steps of the principal theme.
The wistful trio section slows the pace and the mood.
Dvořák’s gift for spinning melodies, leading them into harmonic byways and serving them
with imaginative accompaniments, creates a memorable third movement in C major. An
impassioned climax is followed by a sublime drift into sweet silence. The theatrical mood
of the first movement returns for the Finale, ending the Quintet with a jaunty rondo.
30 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Tuesday
17
june
RISING STAR SERIES
neave trio
Anna Williams, violin
Mikhail Veselov, cello
Toni James, piano
8 PM
TRIO IN D MAJOR, HOB: XV, NO. 16 (1790)
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Allegro
Andantino più tosto allegretto
Vivace assai
PIANO TRIO NO. 4 IN E MINOR, OP. 90, “DUMKY” (1890-91)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Lento maestoso—Allegro vivace, quasi doppio movimento—
Poco adagio—Vivace non troppo—
Andante—Vivace non troppo
Andante moderato (quasi tempo di Marcia)—Allegretto scherzando
Allegro
Lento maestoso—Vivace, quasi doppio movimento
:: intermission ::
PIANO TRIO NO. 2 IN E MINOR, OP. 67 (1944)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Andante
Allegro con brio
Largo
Allegretto
Allegro—Andante—Adagio
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 31
WEEK 3
the program
TRIO IN D MAJOR, HOB: XV, NO. 16
Joseph Haydn (b. Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; d. Vienna, May 31, 1809)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1790; 16 minutes
In the mid-1780s Joseph Haydn returned to a genre that he had explored earlier—the trio for
keyboard, violin and cello. By this time, Haydn and his music had gained a reputation that
reached far beyond the Esterháza estate boundaries where he had lived for a quarter of a
century. Publishers in many European countries had begun to compete for his work, and he
found himself in a favorable position, though not altogether enviable, since in those days of
loose copyright oversight, his compositions were frequently pirated and plagiarized. This
often proved aggravating and time-consuming.
In 1789 an English publisher, John Bland, traveled to Esterháza in order to secure a contract
with Haydn. The resulting three trios (now classified in the Hoboken catalogue as Piano
Trios XV:15–17) were published by Bland as Opus 67, with the indication that the designated
keyboard part could be either harpsichord or piano, and that the violin part could be played,
alternatively, by a flute.
Haydn had written the trio works of the 1760s for harpsichord and strings, but by 1780 all
his keyboard sonatas and chamber works were conceived with the fortepiano in mind. The
public’s love affair with the piano was in its infancy—composers and publishers were happy
to encourage the match.
When Haydn began
composing his keyboard
sonatas for piano (instead
of harpsichord), he had
instruments available in his
home at Esterháza like this
one made by the Augsburg
piano builder Johann
Andreas Stein in 1788.
Mozart was particularly
fond of the Stein pianos.
In that era the strings were just emerging from their role as subservient, accompanying
instruments—Haydn and Mozart were to play significant roles in creating chamber music
genres that wove the keyboard (now piano) and strings into a partnership of equal and
complementary voices. The 27 piano trios that Haydn composed between 1784 and the end
of his life played an important part in that process.
Haydn had a gift not only for creating solid music structures, but also for enlivening them
with delight and humor. The three movements of the D major Trio are cast along Classical
lines: outer movements in D major enclosing a slow movement in D minor. Haydn spiced
both the Allegro movement, a sonata-allegro form, and the quick rondo finale with abrupt,
unexpected silences and sudden, quirky key changes.
PIANO TRIO NO. 4 IN E MINOR OP. 90, “DUMKY”
Antonín Dvořák (b. Nelahozeves, Bohemia [present-day Czech
Republic], September 8, 1841; d. Prague, May 1, 1904)
Composed 1890-91; 31 minutes
Antonín Dvořák
In 1893 the Czech composer, Antonín Dvořák, recently arrived in the
U.S. as the new director of the National Conservatory of Music, wrote a
widely read series of essays for the New York Herald newspaper. The
experience of encountering North American culture for the first time
had given him reasons to examine his own musical roots:
Not so many years ago, Slavic music was not known to the men of
other races. A few men like Chopin, Glinka, Moniuszko, Smetana,
Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, with a few others, were able to create
32 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
a Slavic school of music….Smetana did the same for Bohemians. Such
national music, I repeat, is not created out of nothing….The music of
the people, sooner or later, will command attention and creep into the
books of composers.
Dvořák spoke from experience. His own composition books overflowed
with ideas that had crept in from his Central European heritage. Translating
the vocal and dance traditions of his boyhood into an idiosyncratic musical
language, he created numerous compositions for the concert hall that kept
their country accents—the 16 Slavonic Dances, A minor Violin Concerto,
String Sextet in A, String Quartet in E-flat, the Second Piano Quintet—a
long list of substantive works. None is more replete with indigenous
flavor than the Piano Trio No. 4 in A minor, subtitled “Dumky,” a word that
appears frequently in connection with Dvořák’s music.
A simple word that encompasses a complex concept, dumky (singular
dumka) can be traced to Ukrainian sources. In ancient oral tradition,
the duma (plural dumy) was a folk ballad, sometimes an epic story, with
a lamenting character. In the 19th century, the dumka tradition began to
encompass instrumental as well as vocal music. In its spread to neighboring
Central European lands, the dumka, as a musical concept, came to indicate
a style characterized by wide, sometimes sudden, mood swings, ranging
from melancholy to exuberance.
In 1892 Antonín Dvořák signed a
two-year contract as the Director of
the National Conservatory of Music in
New York City. He and the founder
of the Conservatory, Mrs. Jeannette
Thurber, were united in their goals of
admitting and nurturing the talents of
all music students, no matter their race
or gender. Dvořák immersed himself
in American music culture. His devotion
to his own roots in Bohemia sharpened
his perceptions of the rich potential of
the culture then developing on this
side of the Atlantic. Through his work
at the Conservatory, his frequent
contributions to newspapers and journals,
and his involvement in the musical and
social affairs of this country, he played
a significant role in American music.
The E minor Piano Trio acquired its nickname naturally with each of its six movements a
dumka. From the very opening bars, in which the moods swing quickly from dramatically
passionate to merrily insouciant, the dual nature of the dumka defines Dvořák’s entire suite
of six movements. Each section is cast in a different key. The first three movements flow
together as one long fantasy: the Lento maestoso (E minor and E major), Adagio (C-sharp
minor) and Andante (A major). The last three movements explore both the major and minor
modes of the keys of D, E-flat and C. The tempo changes are mercurial, to match the moods.
Dumka describes a style, but it demands no formal structure. Dvořák managed to construct a
long, captivating work whose internal integrity grips the listener’s attention and does not let
go. Without wandering aimlessly, it takes its time, touching the outer boundaries of human
emotions. Dvořák’s inspired melodic inventions are apparently limitless.
Dvořák finished the composition in February 1891. He was the pianist, with his colleagues
—violinist Ferdinand Lachner and cellist Hanuš Wihan—when the Trio was performed for
the first time, on April 11, 1891, in Prague, and met with universal success. Dvořák
performed the “Dumky” Trio forty times on a farewell tour of his country, prior to leaving
the following year to take up his new position as director of the National Conservatory of
Music in New York.
33RD SEASON | ROCK
?
PORT MUSIC ::33
PIANO TRIO NO. 2 IN E MINOR, OP. 67
Dmitri Shostakovich (b. Saint Petersburg, September 25, 1906; d. Moscow, August 9, 1975)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1944; 29 minutes
Dmitri Shostakovich was the pianist in the first performance of his Piano Trio No. 2 on
November 14, 1944, in Leningrad. The violinist Dmitri Tsiganov (of the esteemed Beethoven
Quartet) and the cellist Sergei Shirinsky completed the ensemble.
Shostakovich had already begun writing the Piano Trio when he learned of the sudden death,
on February 11, 1944, of his close friend, the critic Ivan Sollertinsky. A music professor
at the Leningrad Conservatory and the artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic,
Sollertinsky died of a sudden heart attack. “I have no words with which to express the pain
that racks my entire being,” Shostakovich wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman. “May his
memorial be our abiding love for him, and our faith in the inspired talent and phenomenal
love for the art of music to which he devoted his matchless life.” The grief-stricken
Shostakovich dedicated the Trio to his friend’s memory.
The cello begins with a lonely statement from the upper reaches of the instrument’s
harmonics. Inconsolable, it continues its eerie keening as the violin and piano begin to speak.
Slowly they make contact. In a quickened tempo the piano introduces the main theme, with
musical topics in which they can all engage. The conversation is moody, ranging from a folklike merriness to simmering anger.
Photo of Dmitri Shostakovich at the piano
in 1941
Shifting to F-sharp major, the second movement is one of those hurtling,
relentlessly driving Allegros that Shostakovich mastered so cannily. It is a rude
scherzo, with a milder trio section in G major. The scherzo stops abruptly,
throwing the listener directly into the path of eight dark piano chords, the beginning
of the Largo, a funereal movement in B-flat minor. Shostakovich sets the murky,
anguished growl of these painful chords as a passacaglia base upon which the
other instruments perform. The strings speak calmly, then urgently, while the
piano continues the incessant tolling of its bleak thoughts. The movement exhausts
itself as the strings drift away over the final dark chord.
Ivan Sollertinsky’s death left a permanent
wound in Shostakovich’s heart. In
February 1969 he wrote to his friend
Isaak Glikman, “On 10 February I
remembered Ivan Ivanovich. It is
incredible to think that twenty-five
years have passed since he died. Thank
you for describing so fully the evening
held in his memory at the Union of
Composers…You did something very
important in reminding everyone
that Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky was
one of the most dedicated and tragic
personalities of the century as well as
one of the wittiest…”
34 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
The final movement, created from real and invented Jewish melodies,
cries and mocks, dances and flails about, sometimes anxious, sometimes
violent, always harrowing. The jaunty rhythms provide the thinnest of
disguises for this rattling dance of death.* It finally bursts forth blatantly
in all its terror. The piano spews forth cascading, rippling arpeggios,
and gradually the trio of instruments whimpers to a pause. Fragments
of the mocking dance appear briefly. The piano remembers its eight
chords and tries them out once again before all the voices die.
In August 1975 the slow movement of this Piano Trio was played as
part of the memorial services accorded Shostakovich when his body
was laid out in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
*By the winter of 1944, word of the Nazi death-camp horrors had begun to circulate.
Shostakovich regularly transferred into his compositions deeply held feelings about
social and political issues. One can safely imagine this terrible dance of death not
only as a private expression of grief over his dear friend’s premature passing, but
more universally as a despairing reaction against the unspeakable mass human
tortures being exposed on the Western front.
Thursday
19
june
Joyce Yang, piano
8 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY
DRS. DIANE CHEN KOCH-WESER AND JAN KOCH-WESER
SELECTED PRÉLUDES FOR PIANO (1910-1913)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Selections to be announced
FASCHINGSSCHWANK AUS WIEN (CARNIVAL JEST FROM VIENNA),
OP. 26 (1839-40)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Allegro (Sehr lebhaft)
Romanze: Ziemlich langsam
Scherzino
Intermezzo: Mit größter Energie
Finale: Höchst lebhaft
:: intermission ::
CANCIÓN Y DANZA NO. 5 (1942)
Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
Lento litúrgico—
Senza rigore
ESTAMPES (1903)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Pagodes (Pagodas): Modérément animé
La soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada): Mouvement de Habanera
Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain): Net et vif
DANZAS ARGENTINAS, OP. 2 (1937)
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Danza del viejo boyers (Dance of the Old Herdsman): Animato e allegro
Danza de la moza donosa (Dance of the Graceful Maiden):
Dolcemente espressivo
Danza del gaucho matrero (Dance of the Arrogant Cowboy):
Furiosamente ritmico e energico
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 35
WEEK 3
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
SELECTED PRÉLUDES FOR PIANO
Claude Debussy (b. Saint-Germain-en-Raye, France, August 22, 1862;
d. Paris, March 25, 1918)
Composed 1910-13
Claude Debussy’s writing for solo piano reached a new height in 1903, with Estampes
(note on following page); and in 1910 and 1913, his two sets of Préludes assured his reputation
as a masterful composer for the instrument. Twelve Preludes, Book One were finished
between December 1909 and February 1910; and Twelve Preludes, Book Two between
winter 1912 and early April 1913.
In 1910 Ricardo Viñes (1875–1943) was the first pianist to perform any of the Book One
Préludes in public. Both he and Debussy frequently programmed them on concerts in
miscellaneous groups of three or four. Soon other pianists were performing the entire sets
of Préludes on one recital. However, although the Préludes were published in a thoughtful
order, they do not conform to the strict structure of a real cycle. Debussy wrote them to be
played in any desirable grouping according to the taste of the performer.
Claude Debussy in a photo
taken in 1902, between
the composition of Pour
le piano (1901) and the
two books of Images
(1904-05 and 1907)
Debussy’s 24 Préludes portray people, legends, architecture, the elements of nature and
other familiar scenes. He meant for each of these piano pieces to evoke specific images.
He assigned each piece a number, rather than a title; then, at the end of each work, below
the final brace of notes in the score, he appended the descriptive title that he had in mind.
By removing the title from the head of the piece and placing it at its foot, Debussy was
directing extra attention to the music that is its heart.
FASCHINGSSCHWANK AUS WIEN (CARNIVAL JEST FROM VIENNA), OP. 26
Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau, June 8, 1810; d. Endenich, July 29, 1856)
Composed 1839-40; 21 minutes
A classic struggle between father, daughter and suitor played out in Leipzig in the 1830s and
’40s. The young concert pianist Clara Wieck (b. 1819), her authoritarian father, Friedrich Wieck
(b. 1785) and the not-yet-composer Robert Schumann (b. 1810) were the central figures.
At first Schumann hoped to prove to Herr Wieck his worth as a suitor. In 1834 the men were
co-founders of an important Leipzig music journal, Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik; Schumann
soon became its editor and for years wrote substantial essays and commentary on
contemporary European music. Wieck made it clear, in his most incensed, despotic,
patriarchal manner, that he would never accept Schumann as a son-in-law.
Lithograph of Robert and Clara Schumann,
1847
36 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
With Clara as his muse, Schumann began composing, at first almost exclusively
for the piano, and the two lovers managed to communicate in secret. Hoping to
establish an independent life for himself, and eventually for Clara, Schumann moved
to Vienna in October 1838. For six months he explored the possibility of transferring
Die Neue Zeitschrift to the Austrian capital. He also hoped that the environment
would support his increasing ambitions as a composer. However, Vienna’s ingrown
music culture and Austria’s iron-clad political and literary censorship defeated
him. In April 1839 he returned to Leipzig, ready to co-exist with Wieck on his own
territory.
Schumann’s compositions that winter included Faschingsschwank aus Wien, a musical
portrait of the many moods of Vienna’s huge pre-Lenten celebration, Fasching. Fasching is
the southern German dialects’ term for north-German Karneval and French Mardi Gras, a
Schwank is a joking story. The words together add up to a private joke that Schumann
devised as a parting tribute to the censors of the Imperial and Royal Monarchy—into the midst
of the waltzes at the Fasching ball of the first movement, Schumann introduced a rousing
rendition of Le marseillaise, the singing of which was strictly forbidden in repressed Austria.
That musical joke aside, the five movements unfold as a kind of fantasy suite—the Allegro
in B-flat major is a rondo variant; Romanze in G minor speaks secretly to Clara; Scherzino
in B-flat major is a playful interlude between two minor-mode pieces; Intermezzo in E-flat
minor keeps the hands busy playing fast flowing figures while bringing out a singing melody;
and the Finale returns to B-flat major for a rousing ending.
CANCIÓN Y DANZA NO. 5
Federico Mompou (b. Barcelona, April 16, 1893; d. Barcelona, June 30, 1987)
Composed 1942; 4 minutes
A shy man of Catalan heritage, Federico Mompou began his music studies
as a child at the Barcelona Conservatory, and spent many years in Paris,
completing his education and settling there as a member of the city’s
notable artistic circles. His compositions reflect his powerful connections
to the indigenous music of Catalonia and Spain, as well as to the French
composers Fauré, Ravel and Debussy.
Federico Mompou was the pianist
on several audio recordings of his
own music which have been re-issued
on CD. One 1950 audio recording
has been uploaded to YouTube:
“Mompou plays Mompou Canción y
Danza No. 5.”
Essentially a miniaturist—he wrote ravishingly beautiful songs and piano works—Mompou
managed to express rich harmonic impressions through economic means. Between the
years 1921 and 1979, he created a series of 14 piano Canciónes y Danzas (Songs and Dances)
that exemplify this magic. He wrote Canción y Danza No. 5 in 1942 for the distinguished
Catalan concert pianist Maria Canals, to whom he dedicated the piece.
The Song section of No. 5 is a melancholy dirge in C-sharp minor. It proceeds directly to the
Dance section in E major (the relative key of C-sharp minor). The 6/4 measure is enlivened
by irregular phrase lengths. The bell-like main theme is repeated with increasingly
elaborate accompanying figures in the left hand. A relaxed section in A major slows the
movement before the final iteration of the lively dance theme.
ESTAMPES
Claude Debussy
Composed 1903; 12 minutes
Claude Debussy finished Estampes (Woodcuts) in 1903, and it was performed for the first
time the following year in a Paris concert by his friend Ricardo Viñes. (Viñes, Debussy’s
personal friend, was also the professional friend of Debussy and many other contemporary
composers, as he devoted his career to performing and championing new music.) After only
intermittent attention to composing for the piano during the 1890s, Debussy re-focused on
the instrument at the turn of the century. For the following 16 years, he produced one piano
gem after another.
Claude Debussy at the
doorway of his home,
ca. 1910
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 37
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
As the title Estampes indicates, this trio of pieces was inspired by visual art. Debussy’s circle
of good friends included painters, print-makers and sculptors. He dedicated Estampes to
one of them, Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861–1942), a portrait painter and director of the
Académie de la Palette in Paris. In Estampes Debussy has translated vivid visual images,
three woodcuts of his imagination, into equally vivid aural impressions.
The 1889 International Exhibition held in Paris had opened Debussy’s ears permanently
to the indigenous music and instruments of other cultures. For many years the music and
instruments of Java, Japan, China and other Asian cultures had been simmering in his
mind. Those sounds emerge in the movement Pagodas, in which the pentatonic scales
echo traditional far-Eastern melodies, and the nuanced piano writing imitates the textures
of Indonesian gamelan.
Likewise, the Arabic scales and uncanny guitar-like sounds of the piano in the second piece
are redolent of an evening in Granada. As Manuel de Falla remarked of this piece, Debussy
had used not even one authentic Spanish melody, yet “the entire composition in its most
minute details conveys Spain admirably.”
“I love pictures almost as much as
music.”
CLAUDE DEBUSSY TO THE COMPOSER
EDGARD VARÈSE
“Jardins sous la pluie” (Gardens in the Rain) takes us outside into the
weather, “Net et vif” (crisp and fast), via a mix of major, minor and wholetone scales; it also echoes the voice of a parent, soothing an anxious
child with two well-known French folk songs, “Nous n’irons plus aux
bois” (We’ll not go back into the woods) and “Do, do, l’enfant do” (Sleep,
child, sleep), which Debussy wove into the stormy picture.
DANZAS ARGENTINAS, OP. 2
Alberto Ginastera (b. Buenos Aires, April 11, 1916; d. Geneva, June 25, 1983)
Composed 1937; 8 minutes
Photo of the young Alberto
Ginastera
A grandson of Italian and Catalonian immigrants to Argentina, Alberto Ginastera displayed
unusual musical talents at a young age. Music studies began early and he graduated from
the National Conservatory in 1938 with high honors and a professor’s diploma. The Danzas
Argentinas from 1937 is, therefore, a “student work,” but only in the sense that it was
composed by a student—the young man was already in command of his craft. It is the first
piano work that Ginastera included in the official listing of his life’s oeuvre. He dedicated the
three movements to Pedro A. Sáenz, Emilia L. Stahlberg and Antonio de Raco.
The “Dance of the Old Herdsman” is a bitonal piece for which the left hand plays black keys,
the right hand only white keys. The strong rhythmic drive, the hints of the herdsman’s song
and the final strum of the guitar create an unmistakably masculine dance.
The “Dance of the Graceful Maiden” features a wistful, A-minor melody in 6/8 measure. The
maiden dances alone, but her imagination moves her to a place of passionate abandon. The
wistful melody returns, somewhat richer for having had that moment of rapture.
“Dance of the Arrogant Cowboy” is a strutting, chest-puffing, boot-kicking, hip-swinging,
foot-stomping, chin-cocking, head-flinging dance in rondo form. He’s a gaucho looking for
attention, and action. Plenty of action.
38 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Friday
20
june
schubertiade evening
Elita Kang, violin
Jonathan Chu, viola
Owen Young, cello
Thomas van Dyck, bass
David Deveau, piano
Victor Rosenbaum, piano
Mana Tokuno, piano
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
STRING TRIO IN B-FLAT MAJOR, D. 471 (1816)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Allegro
FANTASY IN F MINOR FOR PIANO FOUR-HANDS, D. 940 (1828)
Franz Schubert
Allegro molto moderato—
Largo—
Scherzo: Allegro vivace—
Finale: Allegro molto moderato
:: intermission ::
PIANO QUINTET IN A MAJOR, D. 667, “TROUT” (1819)
Franz Schubert
Allegro vivace
Andante
Scherzo: Presto
Andantino—Allegretto
Allegro giusto
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 39
WEEK 3
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Franz Schubert and his friends occasionally gathered in private homes for casual evenings of singing and
dancing, performing and listening, with Schubert himself usually occupying center place at the piano keyboard.
These evenings acquired a title, “Schubertiades.” The first recorded event to be called a Schubertiade took
place at his close friend Franz von Schober’s family home on January 26, 1821.
Two extant artist renderings—one, an 1868 drawing by Moritz von Schwind, and the other, an 1897 oil
painting by Julius Schmid—reflect upon the look and spirit of a Schubertiade.
Schwind, who was a member of Schubert’s circle and worked, therefore, from his own vivid memories of the
occasions, used Schober’s middle-class home as the setting for his sketch (above, left). Schwind emphasized
the informality of the ambience by drawing the singer, Michael Vogl, stretched out comfortably next to
Schubert, who was in his usual place at the piano.
The painter Julius Schmid (1854-1935), on the other hand, painted his “Schubertabend in einem Wiener
Bürgerhause” (Schubertiade in a middle-class Viennese home) as an elegant tribute to a bygone era that he
could only imagine. The scene no doubt reflects the Viennese salon of Schmid’s world in 1897, when he
painted it, more accurately than the Viennese Schubertiade of the 1820s. Still, his sincere intention to honor
Schubert’s memory has given this painting a permanent place in the composer’s iconography.
•••
STRING TRIO IN B-FLAT MAJOR, D. 471
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1816; 9 minutes
From the evidence of his work at this period in his life, Franz Schubert at the age of 19 was
a composer in transition, away from the facileness of his student efforts and toward the
complexities of his mature works. His early compositions naturally reflected his tutelage by
Antonio Salieri, as well as his young years growing up in a city imbued with the powerful
spirits of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart, and the living presence of Ludwig van
Beethoven.
Under those earlier influences, Schubert began composition of this String Trio in 1816,
completing the Allegro first movement and a few measures of an Andante. He never returned
40 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
to the work. One of his biographers, the esteemed Alfred Einstein, posited that the young
composer did not yet know how to handle the large form of a four-movement string trio, a
theory that will just have to suffice. Upon its publication in 1898, this Allegro movement
captured a permanent place in the chamber music repertoire for its graceful handling of
sonata form, balance of contrasting moods and that Schubertian melodic gift that informed
all of his works, early and late.
FANTASY IN F MINOR FOR PIANO FOUR-HANDS, D. 940
Franz Schubert
Composed 1828; 20 minutes
Franz Schubert wrote prolifically for piano duet players—four hands at one keyboard. His
first catalogued piano work, in fact, was a four-hand Fantasy in G major, which he composed
at the age of 12. Almost every year of his life after that, he composed at least one four-hand
piano piece—for a total of 35. Many of these works remain in active circulation among
devotees of the art of four-hand piano. None is more beloved than the F minor Fantasy.
Composed in the last year of Schubert’s short life, the Fantasy in F minor is one of three
great duets that crowned his efforts in this genre. The two others of that year are the Allegro
in A minor, “Lebensstürme” (Life’s Storms) and the Rondo in A major. The Fantasy is one
continuous piece, with four interlocking sections, which displays all the structural integrity
and variety of a grand sonata. The first and last sections share some of the same materials,
and they support the two inner sections—a slow movement (Largo) and a Scherzo with Trio
(Allegro vivace)—like two solid bookends. The key of the outer movements, F minor, contrasts
pointedly with the key of the inner sections, F-sharp minor, creating further structural cohesion
between the two pairs. It is a profound work, demanding for the ensemble and requiring the
highest level of pianism.
The diminutive composer
Franz Schubert and the
imposing opera baritone
Michael Vogl were captured
in this amusing caricature
by their friend Franz von
Schober, ca. 1825
Schubert completed the F minor Fantasy the same month, January 1828, in which the last
of the well-known Schubertiades took place at the home of his friend Josef von Spaun. The
four-hand work that Schubert brought to that party was the A-flat major Variations on an
Original Theme, another of his beloved duets. The thought that his extraordinary Fantasy
in F minor was never played with and for friends at a Schubertiade is just one more sorrow
among the many occasioned by his death later that year.
Anton Diabelli published the Fantasy in F minor four months after Schubert’s death, in March
1829. The score carried Schubert’s dedication to his dear friend Karoline, Countess Esterházy.
(Schubert’s friend, the artist Moritz von Schwind, pointedly inserted Karoline, Countess
Esterházy, into his 1868 drawing of a typical Schubertiade—the image that appears at the
top of these notes. In that drawing, Karoline’s portrait hangs on the wall beyond the piano,
where the singer Michael Vogl is stretched out comfortably next to Schubert, who is at the
keyboard.)
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 41
PIANO QUINTET IN A MAJOR, D. 667, “TROUT”
Franz Schubert
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1819; 41 minutes
Renowned in his day as an outstanding baritone of the Vienna Court Opera, Michael Vogl
(1768–1840) first learned of Franz Schubert through the young composer’s Lieder. After their
first meeting, in early 1817, Schubert wrote many of his songs for Vogl, whose performances,
sometimes with the composer at the piano, created audiences for these new works. Vogl’s
position at the center of Vienna’s music world, as well as his splendid voice and superior
theatrical sense, drew positive attention to Schubert’s music.
Vogl and Schubert became personal friends. In July 1819 they made a pleasant excursion to
the singer’s home city of Steyr (in Upper Austria, west of Vienna), where Schubert enjoyed a
few weeks of rural life. He wrote to his brother Ferdinand of the local attractions: “…at the
house where I am lodging there are eight girls, nearly all pretty…” and “The country
around Steyr is inconceivably lovely.” In addition to the pretty girls, Schubert met a local
official and amateur cellist, Sylvester Paumgartner, who commissioned the composer to
write a new quintet that he could perform with his friends on one of his frequent evenings of
Hausmusik. He asked Schubert to use his song “Die Forelle” (The Trout) as thematic material
for the new piece. Living in the heart of fishing country, on the Steyr and the Enns rivers,
Paumgartner had a fondness for “Die Forelle,” a song that Michael Vogl often performed
with great flair.
Franz Schubert performing
his chamber music in the
most common venue during
his lifetime—a private home.
The presence of a double
bass would suggest that the
musicians are playing his
“Trout” Quintet.
Schubert began composition of the Quintet in Steyr and completed it upon his return to Vienna
in September 1819. Paumgartner and his friends performed the new A major Piano Quintet
late that fall in Steyr.
The unusual instrumentation for Schubert’s Piano Quintet leads directly back to Paumgartner’s
home, where he often played the cello with his friends—a violinist, violist, bass player and
pianist. With the Johann Hummel Piano Quintet in their repertoire—and knowing of no other
works for that combination of instruments—they were pleased that Schubert accepted
Paumgartner’s commission.
Schubert’s Piano Quintet reflects the rural beauties of Steyr, as well as the special ambience
of Hausmusik, where accomplished amateurs take pleasure in playing quality music together.
Even though this Quintet was quite a stretch for Paumgartner’s amateur skills, it was through
his good efforts that one of Schubert’s most delightful works came to life.
Although the instrumentation is unusual, the “Trout” Quintet unfolds along classic lines,
with the movements alternating fast and slow tempi. Schubert generously endows the
energetic first movement, in traditional sonata form, with his characteristic melodies—
memorable and flowing, with a suggestion of rippling waters in the persistent triplets in the
rhythmic design. The Andante movement, somewhat melancholy in spirit, is followed by an
invigorating Scherzo.
The fourth movement uses the theme that Paumgartner requested: Schubert’s Lied “Die
Forelle.” Originally written in D-flat major, a key that suited Vogl’s voice, the melody is now
introduced in D major, a comfortable key for the strings. After the statement of the theme,
Schubert wrote five variations plus a coda (or sixth variation). He awarded the final statement
of the theme to the cello, Paumgartner’s instrument. The work ends with a fifth movement
in high-kicking, dancing spirit, redolent of the Steyr countryside and Schubert’s pleasure in it.
42 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Saturday
21
june
shanghai quartet
Weigang Li, violin
Yi-Weng Jiang, violin
Honggang Li, viola
Nicholas Tzavaras, cello
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED IN MEMORY OF BOB HARPER
QUARTETTSATZ IN C MINOR, D. 703 (1820)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Allegro assai
SONG OF THE CH’IN (1982)
Zhou Long (b. 1953)
STRING QUARTET NO. 3, LEAVES OF AN UNWRITTEN DIARY (2008)
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)
:: intermission ::
STRING QUARTET IN C MAJOR, OP. 59, NO. 3, “RAZUMOVSKY”
(1805-06)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Andante con moto—Allegro vivace
Andante con moto quasi allegretto
Menuetto: Grazioso
Allegro molto
Managed by California Artist Management
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 43
WEEK 3
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
QUARTETTSATZ IN C MINOR, D. 703
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1820; 9 minutes
For many years after his death, the evidence of Franz Schubert’s industrious attention to his
craft continued to surface—sketch books and manuscripts bore witness to his remarkable
accomplishments. Among the compositions that came to light were incomplete works in
several genres: operas, orchestral works, piano pieces and chamber music (including the
String Trio in B-flat on the Schubertiade concert last evening). Most famous of all is the
“Unfinished” Symphony No. 8 in B minor, of which Schubert completed two full movements
and part of a scherzo before abandoning the score. Nearly as well known, among chamber
music lovers, is this Quartettsatz.
Schubert wrote 14 string quartets, which have by now separated themselves into two distinct
groups: (1) the 11 early quartets, composed for amateur string players, which are rarely
heard on concerts today; and (2) the three mature quartets, composed between 1824 and
1826, which are ubiquitous on present-day chamber music programs and recordings. Between
the two groups, and pointing clearly forward, toward the mature quartets, is this Quartettsatz
(Quartet movement).
This familiar watercolor
by Wilhelm August Rieder
portrays Schubert in the
year 1825. It has been
copied frequently by other
artists, and by Rieder
himself, who reproduced the
image in oils in later years.
Schubert had begun to compose this C minor Quartet in 1820, completed the stunning first
movement, and finished 41 bars of an Andante movement before he inexplicably left off and
never returned to the work. It was discovered among the scores that came to light after his
death in 1828 and eventually came into the possession of Johannes Brahms, who edited the
work for its first public performance on March 1, 1867, in Vienna.
Schubert cast this movement in his own variant of sonata-allegro form. The dramatic opening
of the work, in C minor, soon gives way to a lyrical second theme in the violin. Throughout
the exposition and development of the movement, Schubert creates tension and release via
this alternation of drama and lyricism. He closes the movement with a re-statement of the
dramatic main theme in the emphatic final bars.
SONG OF THE CH’IN
Zhou Long (b. Beijing, July 8, 1953)
Composed 1982; 10 minutes
An ancient Chinese statue of a deity
playing the ch’in.
The American composer Zhou Long reached into the traditional music of his homeland
for his string quartet Song of the Ch’in. The ancient Chinese culture, and one of its
most treasured musical instruments, the ch’in, provided Zhou with the sonic materials
for this homage. He composed the quartet in Beijing, three years before he left China
to study toward his doctorate in music at Columbia University. Now a U.S. citizen, Zhou
won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for his opera Madame White Snake.
The ch’in—or qin—is a fretless, zither-like wooden instrument approximately one meter in
length. Its seven strings are made of silk, graduated in thickness and tuned in fifths. The
lacquered body of the ch’in is inlaid with ivory, jade and mother-of-pearl to indicate pitch
positions, and the written notation of the music indicates both pitches and hand motions.
Bare fingers pluck and stop the strings. The ch’in’s range encompasses approximately the
44 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
range of the Western cello in the bass to the violin at the top. The instrument itself and the
music that it plays are laden with centuries of symbolism.
Because the ch’in is associated with ancient Chinese high culture and intellectual prowess,
it frequently appears in the visual arts as a symbol of learning and beauty. The traditional
scholar’s essential education included mastery of calligraphy, brush painting, chess (or
“go”) and the ch’in. All of these facets of the ch’in lay behind Zhou’s elegant string quartet.
He, too, has successfully combined the beauties of two great musical traditions—Eastern
and Western—into one integrated soundscape.
STRING QUARTET NO. 3, LEAVES OF AN UNWRITTEN DIARY
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. De˛bica, Poland, November 23, 1933)
Composed 2008; 16 minutes
In honor of the Shanghai Quartet’s 25th anniversary and Krzysztof Penderecki’s 75th birthday,
a consortium of supporters* commissioned the String Quartet No. 3, which was premiered
on November 21, 2008, in the Waraszawa Philharmonic Chamber Hall at the Krzysztof
Penderecki Festival. Five years later, on November 20, 2013, the Shanghai Quartet once
again had the honor of appearing in Warsaw at the five-day Penderecki Festival. This time,
for Penderecki’s 80th birthday, they led up to the performance of “their” String Quartet No. 3
by performing the String Quartets No. 1 and No. 2 as well.
The composer Krzysztof
Penderecki at the time he
composed his first two string
quartets
As the Warsaw journalist Thomasz Handzlik pointed out in his review of the concert,
Penderecki had written the first two quartets “during the turbulent period of the 1960s. These
are works in which still strongly present are elements of the musical avant-garde.” When he
undertook the composition of Leaves of an Unwritten Diary, Penderecki returned to harmonic
colors and textures of the pre-Schoenberg, pre-serialism era. As he remarked once,
“…Schoenberg’s is not the exclusive truth. In our century, we sometimes delude ourselves
that only one path is possible. It’s wrong. You can set out in different directions.”
Penderecki worked closely with the Shanghai Quartet to prepare the premiere in 2008.
The cellist, Nicholas Tzavaras, has written that the Third Quartet is,
…composed in a single movement with strongly defined subsections. Starting with an
almost grave introduction, a dark, screaming melody in the viola leads directly into a
driven, brilliant vivace in G minor, which recurs throughout the piece. A beautiful waltz
soon emerges, followed by a poignant and sweetly singing notturno, then back to the
vivace pattern which Penderecki insisted we play “faster, faster.” By the end of our
work with the composer in November we could barely play all the notes in this furious
tempo. As we increased the tempo however, the excitement and intensity were slowly
revealed.
Towards the end of the work, a spectacular gypsy melody appears, a theme that
hasn’t been heard in any of the composer’s previous works. We asked Maestro
Penderecki about this theme and he told us it’s a melody his father used to play
on his violin when he was a child, perhaps a Romanian melody. The climax of this
masterpiece soon comes, where all of the previously heard themes collide in a
powerful moment that is full of intensity and drama. The end follows shortly after
this: soft and introspective, almost walking off into the distance, with stopped
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 45
harmonics played by the second violin, echoing the gypsy melody as the work draws to
a close.
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
In summarizing the Shanghai Quartet’s November 2013 performance, Thomasz Handzlik
wrote: “String Quartet No. 3 was created half a century (after the first two string quartets).
Penderecki wrote the last notes of this piece in 2008, exactly a couple of days before his
previous jubilee festival. The performance of this work by the Shanghai Quartet was then
breathtaking. And in fact it was no different this time.”
*Commissioned by Peak Performances, Montclair University, New Jersey, lead commissioner, and Modlin Center for
the Arts, University of Richmond, Virginia
STRING QUARTET IN C MAJOR, OP. 59, NO. 3, “RAZUMOVSKY”
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Composed 1805-06; 31 minutes
Late in 1805, Count (and later Prince) Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky (1752-1836), the Russian
Ambassador in Vienna, commissioned three new string quartets from Ludwig van Beethoven
for performance at the Count’s palace in the Austrian capital. Beethoven fulfilled the
quartet commission between May and November 1806 and dedicated the resulting three
works to the Count, who played second violin with the Schuppanzigh Quartet when the
quartets were first performed in his elegant home.
The third quartet picks up harmonically where Op. 59, No. 2 had left off. Beginning with an
assertive diminished chord, which relates logically to the second quartet’s E minor tonic
ending, Beethoven now introduces a quiet, 30-measure harmonic exploration that comes
nowhere near to the C major tonic key of this quartet. The tempo indication Andante con
moto proves to be an exercise in suspended animation. As the bass line descends, the other
instruments search the harmonic spheres for a home. The entire introduction, harmonically
and rhythmically ambiguous, creates a tension that is relieved by the promise of stability
when the Allegro vivace breaks forth, and, after a few sprightly introductory measures,
cheerfully establishes the C major home key.
Upon their publication and first
performances, the Opus 59 quartets
were received with consternation by
musicians and audiences alike. The
critic for the influential Leipzig music
journal Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
hailed their publication by calling
them “long and difficult…profoundly
thought through and excellently
wrought, but not easily intelligible.”
The writer added this exception,
“…the Third, whose originality,
melody and harmonic power will
surely win over every educated
music lover.”
The second movement, a reflective Andante con moto, moves the
discourse from C major to its relative, A minor. The melodic materials
are bittersweet, and they make their way in a lengthy flow of lilting 6/8
meter. A lovely 14-bar coda in A minor completes the movement, which
ends with a whisper.
The third movement, a gentle C major Minuet, moves along in 16th-note
passages that are passed among the players. The Trio moves to the
subdominant, F major, with a surprising turn into A major, before
returning to the Minuet itself. An 18-measure transitional coda contains
melodic elements of the finale to come.
And such a finale: Beethoven rarely surpassed the unrestrained
exuberance, self-assurance and brilliance of this concluding movement.
The breathless pace of the introductory fugal material sets the tone for
the entire finale. Contrapuntal suggestions abound, along with brilliant starts and stops,
syncopations and frequent perpetuum mobile passages of breathtaking elan. It all ends with
a joyous perfect cadence in emphatic C major.
46 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Sunday
22
june
shanghai quartet
Weigang Li, violin
Yi-Weng Jiang, violin
Honggang Li, viola
Nicholas Tzavaras, cello
WITH
5 PM
Wendy Chen, piano
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY SUSAN GRAY AND ALEC DINGEE
STRING QUARTET IN A MAJOR, OP. 18, NO. 5 (1798-1800)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Allegro
Menuetto
Andante cantabile
Allegro
SELECTIONS FROM WALTZES, OP. 39 (1865)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Selections will be announced.
HESITATION TANGO, FROM SOUVENIRS, OP. 28 (1953)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
:: intermission ::
QUINTET FOR PIANO AND STRINGS (1904/1912)
Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Adagio—Allegro moderato
Adagio ma non troppo—Allegro con brio—Adagio ma non troppo
Allegro energico
The Shanghai Quartet is managed by California Artist Management.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 47
WEEK 3
the program
STRING QUARTET IN A MAJOR, OP. 18, NO. 5
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1798-1800; 27 minutes
In his late teens Beethoven had dreamed of studying with Mozart. By the time he moved to
Vienna in 1792, his idol had just died. He therefore sought out Josef Haydn for lessons in
composition—after all, Mozart had revered Haydn, who was still very much alive and active
in Vienna. But the magic of that relationship eluded Beethoven. After very few lessons,
he and Haydn parted company. Still, Beethoven was now living in Mozart’s and Haydn’s
musical territory and as he undertook to write his first string quartets, he worked in their
shadows.
By the end of the year 1800, Beethoven had completed six carefully polished string quartets.
In 1801 T. Mollo et Comp. published them in two volumes, Opus 18, with a dedication to
Prince Franz Josef Maximilian von Lobkowitz. The Opus 18 quartets
were first heard at the Lichnowsky Palace, home of Count Karl Alois
Johann Lichnowsky, another of Beethoven’s staunch patrons. The
Count’s Friday-morning musicales often featured his house string
quartet, led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Vienna’s most prominent violinist.
Schuppanzigh and Beethoven formed a lifetime friendship, and he was
frequently the first to perform Beethoven’s new works.
Ludwig van Beethoven walking
Many analysts have delineated the ways in which Mozart’s Quartet in
A major, K. 464, served as Beethoven’s model for this Opus 18 quartet
in the same key. The pianist and composer Carl Czerny once wrote,
“Beethoven saw at my house the score of six quartets by Mozart
dedicated to Haydn. He opened the Fifth in A and said: ‘That’s what I
call a work! In it Mozart was telling the world: Look what I could create
if the time were right!’”
The first movement of Beethoven’s A major Quartet, Allegro, offers an
abundance of materials that Beethoven develops through unexpected
key changes, silences, a variety of textures and the exploration of
dynamics. Like Mozart, Beethoven puts a Minuet in second place, with
the two violins introducing the sweet theme in an unaccompanied
duet. A bit of harmonic disturbance roughens the waters, but after
a brief Trio, the unruffled Minuet closes the movement.
In the Andante cantabile, Beethoven once again hints at his devotion
to Mozart’s A major Quartet by casting it, like Mozart’s, in a themeand-variations format. Beethoven’s third movement sets forth five
variations on his theme—Mozart had composed six variations on his—
and both composers closed the movement with a coda. In Beethoven’s
case, the third movement builds to a tremendous climax and then
disappears with a quiet conclusion. A whirlwind Allegro movement
completes Beethoven’s A major Quartet, with great harmonic activity
and a big, witty coda.
48 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
SELECTIONS FROM WALTZES, OP. 39
Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)
Composed 1865
In 1862 when he was 29, Johannes Brahms began to make frequent visits to Vienna that
would ultimately lead to his settling there permanently in late 1871. Among the important
relationships that developed in the city was his association with the renowned Viennese
music critic Eduard Hanslick, who wrote glowingly of Brahms’s compositions. For more than
three decades they regarded each other with genuine warmth and respect as well as mutual
suspicion—a symbiosis of two people at the top of their professions who recognized that
they had much to gain by maintaining their friendship and their professional cordiality.
One of Brahms’s private passions, studying music manuscripts of the past (in his case, many
centuries past), led to his discovery in Vienna of previously unexamined scores by Franz
Schubert, which were still coming to light. Among those were many waltzes and other
German dances that Schubert had composed by the dozens for solo piano. Brahms prepared
several of them for publication.
The eminent Viennese music
critic Eduard Hanslick
(1825-1904), to whom
Brahms dedicated his
Waltzes, Op. 39
Under the influence of Schubert’s ability to combine a light touch with exquisite workmanship,
Brahms was moved to compose his own set of piano dances. Upon their publication in 1866,
the 16 Waltzes, Op. 39, bore a dedication “To Eduard Hanslick.” Brahms had written to his
friend, “While writing the title of the four-hand waltzes…your name came to me spontaneously.
I don’t know why, I thought of Vienna, of the beautiful girls with whom you play four-hand,
of you yourself, connoisseur of the same, good friend, and so on. Suddenly I felt the necessity
of dedicating it to you.…They are two books of little innocent waltzes in Schubertian form…”
Originally composing the 16 Waltzes as a piano duet (two pianists at one keyboard),
Brahms also rescored the four-hand pieces as a version for solo piano. In August 1866 the
influential music journal Leipziger allgemeine musikalische Zeitung provided an apt description
of the new compositions: “The various waltzes are…sometimes showy and fervid, sometimes
softly swaying, sometimes tender, sometimes wild like gypsy music—but always original
and, in spite of the brevity of the form (the majority of the waltzes occupy only one of a
player’s pages), rising up stirringly and somehow momentously.”
The composer Samuel Barber
at the piano
HESITATION TANGO, FROM SOUVENIRS, OP. 28
Samuel Barber (b. West Chester, Pennsylvania, March 9, 1910;
d. New York City, January 23, 1981)
Composed 1952; 4 minutes
The lighter aspects of Samuel Barber’s rich character—what his G. Schirmer editor Paul
Wittke called his “gather-round-the-piano side”—rarely surfaced in his compositions. One
charming exception is the suite of six dance pieces called Souvenirs (the six dances of
the entire suite: Waltz, Schottische, Pas de deux, Two-step, Hesitation Tango and Galop).
Originating in a piano four-hand piece that he had written for himself to perform privately
with a friend, the music of Souvenirs became widely known as a ballet, which Barber
orchestrated at the request of George Balanchine and the City Center Ballet (now New York
City Ballet). Souvenirs, which premiered in November 1955 to great enthusiasm for Todd
Bolender’s choreography and the entire witty production, is still in the company’s repertoire.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 49
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
The first performances of Souvenirs took place around 1951 in Samuel Barber’s living room,
where he and Charles Turner (1921–2003), a good friend and one of Barber’s very few students
(he professed to dislike teaching), had played the suite as a piano duet on numerous occasions.
Barber agreed to publish the duet—first in its original form for four hands at one piano,
then as a piano duo (at the behest of the Arthur Gold-Robert Fizdale two-piano team) and
finally as a piano solo. His orchestration for the City Center Ballet followed in 1952–53.
The composer’s intention, to recall the musical ambience of early 20th-century America, was
fulfilled in Souvenirs, a rare public exposure of Barber’s nostalgia for that gentler era. For
the first G. Schirmer edition of the suite, Barber wrote: “One might imagine a divertissement
in a setting of the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York, the year about 1914…remembered
with affection, not in irony or with tongue in cheek, but in amused tenderness.”
QUINTET FOR PIANO AND STRINGS
Frank Bridge (b. Brighton, England, February 26, 1879; d. Eastbourne, January 10, 1941)
Composed 1904/1912; 28 minutes
The public’s familiarity with the music of Frank Bridge—even in England, where he was at
one time a prominent violist, conductor and composer—has risen and fallen over the past
seven decades. He is still known as the composition teacher of Benjamin Britten, who
composed his successful string orchestra work Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge
(1937) in tribute. Bridge’s own compositions have recently begun to receive well-deserved,
renewed attention.
Bridge’s earlier works, from the period 1900–1910, were written with inventive harmonic
language based on familiar forms—solo songs, a piano trio, a string quartet, a string quintet
and the like. The Piano Quintet in D minor was such a work, a passionate, four-movement
piece that reflected Bridge’s affinity for the music and workmanship of both Johannes
Brahms and Gabriel Fauré. Composed in 1904 and published in 1906, it received a private
performance in May 1907.
After his success with the Phantasie Piano Quartet in 1910, Bridge was moved to revise the
Piano Quintet. He reduced and fused the two inner movements, and on May 29, 1912, the
new, three-movement Piano Quintet in D minor received its first public performance by the
English String Quartet (of which Bridge was the violist) and the pianist Harold Samuel. It was
published in 1919.
Restlessness and passion define the first movement. Bridge balances the troubled theme
of the opening with a sweeter theme in the strings over the continued rumbling of the piano.
The piano responds with a passionate theme of its own, which leads to a solo passage of real
tenderness. The contrasting moods alternate throughout the Allegro movement. The Adagio
ma non troppo exemplifies Bridge’s rare gift for soaring melodies—also heard in his
impressive body of songs for voice and piano. The absence of text does not impair this
movement’s fine lyrical qualities, expressed by all the instrumental voices. A brisk center
section provides energetic contrast. In the Allegro energico finale, Bridge combines elements
from the preceding movements—from the tender to the troubled—to close the work with a
dramatic ending in D major.
50 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
24
june
Tuesday
RISING STAR SERIES
Daria Rabotkina, piano
8 PM
“FLOW MY TEARES” (1600)
John Dowland (1563-1626)/arr. Daria Rabotkina
SELECTIONS FROM ORDRE 18ÈME DE CLAVECIN IN F MAJOR (1722)
François Couperin (1668-1733)
SONATA IN E MAJOR, K. 162 (1756-57)
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Andante—Allegro—Andante—Allegro
ITALIAN CONCERTO, BWV 971 (ca. 1735)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
[without tempo designation]
Andante
Presto
:: intermission ::
SONATINE (1903-05)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Modéré
Mouvement de menuet
Animé
SONATA NO. 3 IN A MINOR FOR PIANO, OP. 28 (1917)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Allegro tempestoso—Moderato—Allegro tempestoso—Moderato—Più
lento—Più animato—Allegro I—Poco più mosso
FANTASY SUITE AFTER BIZET’S CARMEN, 1ST MOVEMENT
Sergei Rabotkin (b. 1950)
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Pat Petrou.
Ms. Rabotkina is a winner of the Concert Artists Guild International Competition
and is represented by Concert Artists Guild. concertartists.org
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 51
WEEK 4
the program
“FLOW MY TEARES”
John Dowland (b. London, 1563; d. London, February 20, 1626)/arr. Daria Rabotkina
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1600
In addition to wide-ranging “traditional” piano repertoire, Daria Rabotkina has acquired a
substantial store of piano works borrowed and adapted from far-flung places in the music
world, including her own concert arrangement* of ragtime legend “Luckey” Roberts’s “Pork
and Beans.”
As the opening offering on this evening’s concert—in contrast to the fantasy on Bizet’s
stormy opera Carmen with which she closes—Ms. Rabotkina has chosen her own arrangement
of one of John Dowland’s gentlest songs. Published in 1600 under the title “Lacrime,” it is
the second piece in his Second Booke of Songs or Ayres of 2, 4 and 5 parts—“Flow my teares,
fall from your springs, Exilde for ever: Let mee morne where nights black bird his sad infamy
sings, there let mee live forlorne…”
*Hear her play it in a Merkin Hall concert on YouTube.
SELECTIONS FROM ORDRE 18ÈME DE CLAVECIN IN F MAJOR
François Couperin (b. Paris, November 10, 1668; d. Paris, September 11, 1733)
Composed 1722
François Couperin, Le grand
Queen Elizabeth I playing
the lute, the instrument of
which John Dowland was a
master. “Flow My Teares”
is one of the most beloved of
his more than 80 Songs
and Ayres. Dowland
himself wrote popular
variations on this tune.
The Couperins of France were a multi-generational musical dynasty, of whom the
most important member was François (called “Le grand”). Couperin was appointed
organiste du roi (Louis XIV) in 1693, and was known as a composer of the finest
keyboard music of his time. He gathered more than 230 pieces into four books of
suites, or ordres, and published them in 1713, 1717, 1722 and 1730. His 1716-1717
treatise, The Art of Harpsichord Playing, was influential not only in his time, but
up to the present day, and has proven an invaluable key to his era’s keyboard music and
performance practices. Couperin composed music appropriate to the French language and
taste. His study of counterpoint contributed to a clarity of the relationship between the top
and bottom voices, and to a linear instrumental style that emphasized elegance and
grace—as befit the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, in whose court Couperin served with
great distinction. That elegance was furthered by the abundance of ornaments that pervaded
his keyboard pieces—Couperin notated them with meticulous care and expected that
performers would observe his instructions to the letter.
Frequently, Couperin appended descriptive, or programmatic, titles to the dance forms in
these ordres, such as the titles in Ordre XVIII, from which Ms. Rabotkina will perform a
selection: La verneüil Allemande (A lady from Verneuil, or of that family name)—La verneüilléte
(A young woman, perhaps the daughter, of the former lady)—Sœur Monique (Rondeau)
(Sister Monique, a nun, or possibly “soeur” in the sense of a woman of shady repute]—Le
turbulent (The turbulent one)—L’atendrissante (The sensitive one)—Le tic-toc-choc, ou Les
maillotins (Rondeau)— (Unclear, the meaning of the onomatopoetic “tic-toc-choc;” the
“maillotins” might have been a family of acrobats of that name)—Le gaillard-boiteux
(The limping guy).
52 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
SONATA IN E MAJOR, K. 162
Domenico Scarlatti (b. Naples, October 26, 1685; d. Madrid, July 23, 1757)
Composed 1756-57; 5 minutes
From 1729 to the end of his life, Domenico Scarlatti was the court composer and musician
to the Lisbon Infanta María Bárbara, who married the heir to the Spanish throne. Among his
duties, Scarlatti wrote some 550 one-movement keyboard sonatas for Queen María Bárbara’s
own use. These sonatas are notable for their ingenious ornamentations and their rhythmic
vitality, with such features as contrasting high and low registers, echo effects, layering of
voice textures and surprising dissonances.
Most of Scarlatti’s sonatas are in binary form, with each of the halves repeated. The E major
Sonata on today’s concert is an exception; the two halves of the piece do not repeat verbatim.
Sections I and III, Andante, both feature a main theme in the key of E that uses a rhythmic
motif that runs through these sections, which are in 3/4 measure—a triplet and two quarter
notes (in poetic scansion, this rhythm is a dactyl). The opening Andante is in the key of E
major and the second Andante is an E minor variant of that section. Both of the Andantes
plunge abruptly into the two 4/4 Allegro sections without pause. Sections II and IV have in
common a running-16th-note figure that unifies them—the first Allegro is in B major and
the second Allegro returns to the tonic key of E major.
A two-manual harpsichord
made in 1650 by the famous
Belgian maker Joannes
Couchet. Scarlatti and Bach
wrote their keyboard works
for such an instrument.
This work’s galant style and fluid ornamentation are characteristic of all Scarlatti’s sonatas.
His harmonic progressions are sometimes startling and playful. They probably shocked
the listeners of his time.
ITALIAN CONCERTO, BWV 971
Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, Germany, March 31, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)
Composed ca. 1735; 13 minutes
In his years at the relatively secular court of Köthen (1717-1723), Johann Sebastian Bach
had composed and published dozens of the keyboard works for which he is widely known.
During his next appointment, at the Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig (1723 to the end of his
life), the increased requirements for liturgical music reduced, but did not curtail, the time
he spent composing for the harpsichord.
As a keyboard improviser, no one excelled over Bach. Whether performing in the North
German organ styles or the newer Italian and French clavier styles, Bach stunned all listeners
with his skills and artistry. In 1735 he published the Clavier-Übung (Harpsichord Study)
in two sections—Part I, Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto according to Italian
taste), and Part II, the Ouverture nach Französischer Art (Overture in the French style).
The over-lifesized monument
to J.S. Bach stands in the
place of honor before the
Thomaskirche in Leipzig,
where he served as cantor from
1723 until his death in 1750.
Bach wrote the Italian Concerto as a keyboard piece in imitation of the orchestral textures
of the then-popular Italian concerto grosso. He specified that the piece be performed on a
two-manual harpsichord in order to facilitate the dynamic contrasts between piano and forte,
and to emulate the opposing instrumental bodies of a concerto grosso. Like that Italian form,
Bach’s concerto is in three movements—fast-slow-fast—with the outer sections, in F major,
framing a lyrical Andante in the relative key of D minor.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 53
SONATINE
Maurice Ravel (b. Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875; d. Paris, December 18, 1937)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1903-05; 11 minutes
In March and April 1903, the Weekly Critical Review (a short-lived, French-English journal)
advertised a Musical Competition with instructions—“Compose the first movement of a
Pianoforte Sonate in F-sharp minor, not to exceed 75 bars in length.” Maurice Ravel
submitted his entry and “won,” but as his entry ran to 84 bars, it was disqualified. Out of
this odd beginning, grew one of Ravel’s most distinguished works, which he subsequently
completed as a three-movement sonata (called Sonatine for its length, and not for any
diminutive aesthetic or musical qualities). He published it in 1905, dedicating the work to
his good friends Cipa and Misia (Cipa’s step-sister) Godebski, in whose home the Sonatine
was first played privately.
Ravel had a predilection for writing in classic forms, and he frequently included dance
movements in his works. Both those tendencies are exemplified in his Sonatine for piano, a
composition based on a thematic germ of an idea, a falling fourth (F-sharp to C-sharp), upon
which he built a classic sonata (the inversion of that theme, from C-sharp to F-sharp, is the
basis for the Minuet). It became one of Ravel’s favorite compositions and he included it on
many of his own concert programs. Unlike many of his other works, Sonatine never elicited
from him one self-critical judgement.
Portrait of Maurice Ravel at
the piano
SONATA NO. 3 IN A MINOR FOR PIANO, OP. 28 (1917)
Sergei Prokofiev (b. Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, April 23, 1891; d. Moscow, March 5, 1953)
Composed 1917; 8 minutes
Sergei Prokofiev began keeping music sketch books at a young age. His third and fourth
piano sonatas bear subtitles, “D’après des vieux cahiers,” clues that the two works, both
completed in 1917, originated in the “old notebooks,” where sketches from 1907 and 1908
bear witness to their long gestation.
The composer Sergei
Prokofiev was a virtuoso
pianist.
Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28, comprises one virtuoso movement in sonata form that begins
with driving E major chords (the dominant key of A minor), out of which emerges a gentle,
lyrical melody. The development section, a pounding march in D minor (Allegro tempesto),
is followed by another lyrical passage (Più lento) with thematic material predictive of ballets
still in Prokofiev’s future. A passage at Allegro I, with its rapid triplet figures, leads through
changes of keys to a brilliant conclusion in A minor.
FANTASY SUITE AFTER BIZET’S CARMEN, 1ST MOVEMENT
Sergei Rabotkin (b. 1950)
16 minutes
A short story, “Carmen,”
by Prosper Mérimée inspired
Bizet’s opera about the
tragedy of the volatile
cigarette girl and the
hapless soldier.
Daria Rabotkina had her first piano instruction from her parents, professional concert
performers and teachers in her native Kazan, Russia. About the Fantasy Suite after Bizet’s
Carmen, Ms. Rabotkina has said: “This piece was written by my father, Sergei Rabotkin. It
reflects the themes and events in the first act of George Bizet’s opera Carmen….There are
three movements, which I hope to be able to learn someday. My father has recorded the
complete work.” This evening she presents the first movement, which she has now recorded
in a live concert at the Kazan State Conervatory (a performance that was uploaded onto
YouTube this past January).
54 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Thursday
26
june
claremont trio
Emily Bruskin, violin
Julia Bruskin, cello
Andrea Lam, piano
8 PM
PIANO TRIO IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 1, NO. 1 (1793)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Allegro
Adagio cantabile
Scherzo: Allegro assai
Finale: Presto
FOLK SONGS FOR PIANO TRIO (2012)
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Canto para La María Angola
Children’s Dance
Serenata
Chavín de Huántar
:: intermission ::
PIANO TRIO IN B MAJOR, OP. 8 (1854/1889)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Allegro con brio
Scherzo
Adagio
Allegro
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Mary and Harry Hintlian.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 55
WEEK 4
the program
PIANO TRIO IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 1, NO. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1793; 32 minutes
Beethoven moved to Vienna in November 1792 to study composition with Joseph Haydn
and to continue his career as a pianist. Count (and later, Prince) Karl Alois Johann Nepomuk
Vinzenz Leonhard Lichnowsky (1756-1814), who had known and befriended Mozart, recognized
Beethoven’s talent. The Count, who was himself an educated musician, began to feature the
young man in the musicales that he held in his residence each Friday morning.
A brilliant piano improviser, Beethoven immediately caught the attention of other music
aficionados of Vienna. Capitalizing on a growing interest among influential patrons,
Beethoven launched himself into the publishing world with a set of three trios for piano, violin
and cello. His first publisher, Artaria, put the onus upon Beethoven for advertising and sales
of this initial endeavor, and Prince Lichnowsky helped to underwrite the enterprise. The list
of advance subscribers to the volume of trios included many of Vienna’s elite.
Miniature portrait on ivory
of Ludwig van Beethoven
by Christian Hornemann,
1803, the year of the
Heiligenstadt Testament.
By the end of Beethoven’s
first decade in Vienna
(beginning 1792), the
brilliant young pianist had
begun to prove his talents
as a composer. The Three
String Trios, Op. 9, his first
significant publication,
appeared in 1797-98,
followed in 1801 by the
publication of his first set of
string quartets, Opus 18.
In 1795 Haydn heard the Opus 1 Trios at the Lichnowsky residence. While he admired them,
he offended Beethoven by expressing reservations about No. 3, in C minor. In his own piano
trios, Haydn had continued the older practice of having the cello perform a continuo role,
doubling the piano’s bass line, whereas Beethoven liberated the cello to full partnership
in the ensemble—even more than Mozart had done in his piano trios. Furthermore, the
Beethoven trios were bold in spirit and probably seemed somewhat “emotional” to Haydn.
In addition, Beethoven’s trios had not three, but four movements, for he had begun his
practice of inserting a scherzo or a minuet into his piano trios, a practice that Haydn had
reserved for his string quartets.
The Allegro of Op. 1, No. 1 sets off with energy and assurance on an upward-bouncing
arpeggiated theme in E-flat. The contrasting subject, three notes repeated quietly and
passed around among the voices, continues the exposition. The movement concludes with
a lengthy coda.
The second movement, Adagio cantabile, is a lyrical rondo form with three passages of
alternating material balancing the principal theme. The Scherzo, an animated and playful
movement in a quick 3/4 measure, rolls along in a rollicking fashion. In the contrasting Trio,
the piano lessens the momentum of its bouncy theme over a sustained accompaniment in
the strings.
The Finale continues the good spirits of the Scherzo. The piano’s upward-leaping motif
provides the spark that drives the movement, which turns serious only briefly, in a minor
passage introduced by a rapid, downward-moving scalar theme. The movement ends with a
return to the spark of the beginning, a lengthy coda and a confident final cadence in E-flat.
FOLK SONGS FOR PIANO TRIO
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. Berkeley, California, September 1972)
Composed 2012; 11 minutes
Gabriela Lena Frank’s Folk Songs for Piano Trio was commissioned for the Claremont Trio
to perform in honor of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s new home for chamber
56 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
music, Calderwood Hall, in its inaugural season. The Claremont Trio premiered the work there
on September 20, 2012.
The composer Gabriela Lena Frank, a descendant of Peruvian-Chinese and Lithuanian-Jewish
ancestors, was born in Berkeley, California, where she lives today. She studied piano and
composition at the Rice University Shepherd School of Music (undergraduate) and the
University of Michigan (doctorate in music). She credits her Rice University piano professor,
Jeanne Kierman Fischer, with introducing her to the two Western composers, Alberto
Ginastera and Béla Bartók, with whom she feels the strongest affinities. Extensive travels
throughout South America, and particularly within Peru, her mother’s homeland, have given
her a thorough grounding in the musical and literary cultures of those countries.
All these facets of Frank’s life—her family roots and her formal music studies—come together
in Folk Songs for Piano Trio. It is but one of her many works (more than half of her extensive
catalog) inspired by South American sources. She has said of her compositions, “There’s
usually a storyline behind my music, a scenario or character.” In Folk Songs for Piano Trio,
she finds musical expression for the ancient Incan and pre-Incan cultures, impressive traces
of which are still found in modern-day Peru.
Gabriela Lena Frank has
spent extended periods in her
mother’s homeland, Peru,
which has been the
inspiration for many of her
compositions. Two areas of
significance to Folk Songs for
Piano Trio are (1) the town
of Cuzco, southeast of Lima
(and near Machu Picchu),
and (2) the Chavín de
Huántar area, about 150
miles north of Lima at the
confluence of the Mosna
and Huanchecsa rivers.
The scene of “Canto para La María Angola” is the tower of the Cathedral at Qosqo (or Cuzco),
the historic capital of the Incan empire, where a great legendary bell hangs. Named for a
former slave from Angola, the bell is said to have been given extraordinary
“Folk Songs for Piano Trio loosely
powers when she, Maria of Angola, threw 25 pounds of gold into the
draws inspiration from the melodic
smelter along with the iron. The resulting bell, which weighed nearly
motifs and rhythms of my mother’s
seven tons upon its completion in 1659, produced an enormous
homeland, Peru. As an Americanborn Latina, so much of my
resonance that could be heard 25 miles away. It spoke of the domination
understanding of this small yet
of Incan religion by the Conquistadores. Three-and-a-half centuries
culturally rich Andean nation has
later, cracked and ragged in sound, the bell is rarely rung.
The “Children’s Dance” presents a lively contrast to the great bells, and
to the melodious “Serenata” that follows. Imitations of guitar-like
indigenous instruments add characteristic textures to Frank’s
interpretations of Peruvian folk song and dance.
been necessarily fashioned from
within my private imagination from
the time I was a young child. Frequent
trips to Peru in my adulthood, always
done with my mother, leave me with a
sense of belonging to something larger
than myself as I connect private musings
with the actual existing reality...”
The Folk Songs for Piano Trio ends with a tribute to the pre-Incan
culture of the Chavín people at Huántar. An important—and one of the
earliest—pre-Columbian sites, the great stone-work terraces, plazas,
walls and doorways are now under restoration. “Chavín de Huántar” suggests the
magnificence of the original pilgrimage site and commercial center as it existed for the
millennium between 1500 and 500 B.C., as well as the cultural clashes that led to its decline.
GABRIELA LENA FRANK
PIANO TRIO IN B MAJOR, OP. 8
Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)
Composed 1854/1889; 40 minutes
The curious date of composition, 1854/1889, is unique in Johannes Brahms’s works. Well
known for destroying compositions that he found inadequate, Brahms actually allowed this
Piano Trio to circulate for more than 35 years before he decided to correct what he regarded
as its imperfections. In 1888 he signed with a new publisher, Simrock Verlag in Berlin, who
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 57
offered to issue new versions of Brahms’s previously released works, should he choose to
revise them.
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
In summer 1889 he wrote to Clara Schumann, “With what childish amusement I while
away the beautiful summer days you will never guess. I have rewritten my B major Trio
and can now call it Opus 108 instead of Opus 8…It will not be so wild as it was before—but
whether it will be better…?”
Completing his revision of the work, Brahms sent it along to Simrock with this caveat:
“With respect to the modernized Trio, I must categorically state that the old one is bad,
but I do not maintain that the new one is good….What about the old edition? There is no
point in discussing it, but all I would say is: if it is requested, send it, and if you find it
necessary and advisable to reprint it one day, then do so.”
Simrock did not find it necessary, and the 1889 score (published in 1891) became the
authoritative performing version of the Trio. The full extent of Brahms’s revisions and
rewrites constitutes a clear look into a composer’s processes (the distinguished British
music scholar Ivor Keys has published an excellent guide to the two versions of the Trio).
Suffice to say, the early Trio in B major was the work of a 21-year-old. The revised Trio in B
major reflects the skills that came with that young composer’s maturity.
Johannes Brahms wrote
two sonatas for cello and
piano— the first, when he
was a young man (above,
in 1862), and the other in
1886, when he was 53
(below).
Brahms acquired an early love for literature, an interest that no doubt provided extra glue
for the instant bond that he formed with the Schumanns, Robert and Clara, upon meeting
them in 1853. Brahms was especially attracted to the fanciful, music-saturated writings of
E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), in particular, a principal character in Hoffmann’s writings.
Johannes Kreisler, who served as Hoffmann’s fictional stand-in, was an opinionated, cranky
composer and conductor whose passion and fire appealed to the young artists of his
generation. In 1838 Schumann had written a suite of piano pieces, Kreisleriana—now, in the
1850s, Brahms was working under the pseudonym “Joh. Kreisler, Jun.” It was in that frame
of mind—of youthful, unrestrained passion—that Brahms composed the Piano Trio No. 1.
In 1889 the mature Brahms managed to keep that youthful vigor while applying structural
discipline to the piece. The first movement, Allegro con brio, begins with the piano and cello
lyrically introducing the main theme in the tonic key of B major. The lyricism soon gives way
to a passionate declamation by all three instruments, and to a second theme in G-sharp
minor.
The Scherzo begins with the tonic key as well, except that it is now B minor—a dancing
figure reminiscent of a Mendelssohn scherzo. The dance gives way to lyric drama in the trio
section and then returns for a vigorous ending—and a suddenly calm closing measure in
B major.
That calm predicts the repose of the Adagio movement. Like the first movement, the Adagio
moves from an opening in B major to a second theme for the cello in G-sharp minor. Within
the repose, the music of the Adagio speaks of restrained pain. The Allegro finale, shot
through with a persistent dotted rhythm and syncopations, begins in B minor, recalls the
B major of the first movement and then drives to a passionate ending in B minor.
COMING NEXT
FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 3 PM OPEN REHEARSAL:
Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble
58 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Friday
27
june
boston early music festival
chamber ensemble
Robert Mealy, concertmaster
Sarah Darling, violin
Emily Dahl, violin
Jesse Irons, violin
Abigail Karr, violin
Laura Jeppesen, viola
Phoebe Carrai, cello
Beiliang Zhu, cello
Robert Nairn, double bass
Michael Sponseller, harpsichord
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. William Matthews, 7 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY THE IRA FIELDSTEEL EARLY MUSIC FUND
FROM THE PLEASURE GARDENS OF EUROPE
Eighteenth-century Orchestral Music to Delight and Entertain
CONCERTO GROSSO IN D MAJOR, OP. 6, NO. 7 (PUB. POSTH. 1714)
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Vivace
Allegro
Andante
Vivace
CONCERTO NO. 5 IN G MINOR (PUB. POSTH. 1793)
Thomas Arne (1710-1778)
Largo
Allegro spirito
Adagio
Vivace
CONCERTO GROSSO IN B-FLAT, OP. 6, NO. 7 (1740)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Largo
Allegro
Largo
Andante
Hornpipe
:: intermission ::
CONCERTO NO. 1 IN D MAJOR (1742)
John Stanley (1712-1786)
Largo
Allegro
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
Program continues on next page
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 59
WEEK 4
the program
CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 5 IN G MINOR (1766)
Capel Bond (1730-1790)
Poco largo
Tempo giusto
Largo andante
Con spirito
DANCES FROM TERPSICHORE (1734)
George Frideric Handel
Prelude
Chaconne
Sarabanda
Gigue
Notes
on the
program
by
Robert Mealy
“Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens” from Ackermann’s
Microcosm of London, published in 1809
“Vaux-Hall” by Thomas
Rowlandson (ca. 1784)
“Vauxhall Gardens, The Grand Walk,” with the
orchestra playing in the rotunda, artist unknown
Founded in 1661 on the South Bank of the Thames River, London’s Vauxhall Gardens was the most prominent
of the hundreds of “Pleasure Gardens” that flourished in England and on the continent between the mid-17th
and mid-19th centuries. With its thousands of oil lamps, Vauxhall Gardens sparkled long after night fell,
and music ensembles joined with the resident nightingales to offer ongoing entertainment to the multitudes of
paying guests.
•••
FROM THE PLEASURE GARDENS OF EUROPE
Eighteenth-century Orchestral Music to Delight and Entertain
The pleasure garden was a particularly 18th-century invention—a space open to all who
could pay a shilling, a pastoral oasis in the midst of the new urbanism (London had become
the largest city in Europe, second only to Paris by the 18th century), a place for entertainment
of all sorts. London had more than 600 of these pleasure gardens in the course of the 18th
and 19th centuries, and about 70 of them offered a regular diet of music to entertain the
masses. Here one could hear the latest airs from operas (which were then published as
“favorite airs from Vauxhall Gardens”) or—as we hear tonight—the new invention of the
orchestral concert, in which the house band would entertain the promenading citizens with
that great 18th-century musical entertainment, the concerto grosso.
This form of the concerto, in which a small concertino trio is set against the full ripieno
ensemble, was brought to its perfection first in Rome by Arcangelo Corelli (b. Fusignano,
February 17, 1653; d. Rome, January 8, 1713) in the late 17th century. A German composer,
60 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Georg Muffat, who studied this Roman style with Corelli himself, remarked upon the dramatic
effect of contrast that was inherent in the form:
At the direction piano or p all are to play at once so softly and tenderly that one barely
hears them, at the direction forte or f with so full a tone, from the first note so marked,
that the listeners are left, as it were, astounded at such vehemence…By exactly
observing this opposition or rivalry of the slow and the fast, the loud and the soft, the
fullness of the great ensemble and the delicacy of the little trio, the ear is ravished by
a singular astonishment, as is the eye by the opposition of light and shade. Though
this has often been reported by others, it cannot be said or enjoined sufficiently.
Corelli’s Concerti Grossi were polished over the course of his whole career, and were
published posthumously by his longtime companion and second violinist Matteo Fornari in
1714. When these concerti reached England, they caused a sensation. There are reports of
London musicians sitting down to play through all 12 concerti at one time, without taking
a break. Corelli’s music was, as Roger North called it, “the staff of life for all musicians.”
The English obsession with Corelli was part of a larger fascination with Italian culture. A
young English gentleman would not consider his education finished without a year or two
on the Grand Tour, examining the antiquities of Rome, collecting paintings and sculptures,
hearing operas and often having a violin lesson with one of the great Roman violinists. For
the first time, the ability to play the violin was considered as much a mark of culture as
one’s taste in buying art. It’s no surprise that only at the moment when English nobility were
developing a taste for string playing do we have the first published guide on how to play the
violin, Geminiani’s The Art of the Violin (1751).
The genre of the concerto grosso was particularly appealing for amateur players because
the orchestral parts—the ripieno, or parts that filled out the picture—were often relatively
straightforward, allowing gentlemen to play alongside their teachers, who would take the
more challenging concertino parts.
Just as English noblemen asked their architects to build them more lavish versions of the
beautifully proportioned Italian villas of Palladio, so too with their composers. In the hands
of Handel and his contemporaries, the concerto grosso becomes far more theatrical and
more generously proportioned than the elegant classicism of Corelli. The English concerto
grosso is like walking through the rooms of a great country estate—each movement opens
new vistas of elegant proportion, with plenty of delightful details to admire.
Tonight we present several different musical palaces, beginning of course with one of
Corelli’s classic concerti grossi. Most importantly, we’ll hear from that most influential
musical figure of 18th-century England, George Frideric Handel, (b. Halle, February 23, 1685;
d. London, April 14, 1759), who produced his own Opus 6 Concerti Grossi as a kind of
answer to Corelli’s Opus 6. In this collection, Handel takes Corelli’s model and greatly
expands its proportions, with a sure sense of theatrical effect. One of the more striking
pieces in Handel’s Opus 6 is the seventh concerto, which remains orchestral throughout,
with no solo excursions. It ends with Handel’s bow towards English tradition in the form
of a Hornpipe, that quirky dance that Handel’s German friend Johann Mattheson said was
“something so extraordinary that one might think it originated from the court composers
of the North or South Pole.”
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 61
Notes
on the
program
by
Robert Mealy
Before we hear Handel, however, we have a keyboard concerto from one of his younger
disciples. Thomas Arne (b. London, March 12, 1710; d. London, March 5, 1778) is best
known today for writing “Rule, Britannia” as part of his nationalistic epic Alfred. A son of a
well-to-do family, he was so keen on music that he tormented his fellow students at Eton
night and day by practicing the recorder. His father put together an English opera company
for him in a theater in the Haymarket, where Arne’s operatic version of Tom Thumb was
heard in 1734. Arne later went on to write everything from opera seria (a setting of Metastasio’s
Artaserse) to a fully-orchestrated version of the hit ballad-opera The Beggar’s Opera. His
Six Favourite Concertos for the Organ, Harpsichord or Piano Forte were published only
posthumously in 1793, but they seem to have been intended for his son Michael to play in
venues like Vauxhall or Ranelagh Gardens in the 1750s.
After intermission, we hear another of Handel’s followers, the great organist John Stanley
(b. London, January 17, 1712; d. London, May 19, 1786). Blind from the age of two, Stanley
began to study music when he was seven, and rapidly became one of the most important
musicians of 18th-century London. He was appointed organist at Saint Andrew’s, Holborne,
at the age of 14, “in preference to a great number of candidates,” according to his
contemporary Charles Burney. Stanley’s organ playing attracted musicians from all over the
city, including Handel himself. By the 1750s, Stanley was directing Handel’s own oratorios
for the aging composer, and after Handel’s death took over his annual Lenten oratorio
series at Covent Garden. Stanley’s Opus 2 Concerti Grossi were among the most popular
works of their kind. They were soon re-issued in solo arrangements for violin, flute and
harpsichord. The first of his Opus 2 is an especially good example of the noble proportions
of the Georgian concerto grosso, with a succession of movements including a vigorous Allegro,
a learned fugal movement, a thoughtful Adagio and a final, joyous, triple-time dance.
The taste for the art of the orchestra soon spread beyond London to the provincial cities of
England. Capel Bond (b. Gloucester, baptized December 14, 1730; d. Coventry, February 14,
1790) is one composer who spent his entire career outside the gravitational pull of London.
Born in Gloucester, he moved to Coventry when he was 19 and became organist of the
cathedral there. He developed a series of subscription concerts and began an annual choral
festival of Handel oratorios. His Six Concertos in Seven Parts are a mixture of the musical
languages of England at the mid-century. One can hear elements of Handel, John Stanley,
Geminiani and even Charles Avison, that staunch advocate of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard
style. Bond’s music was popular in London; several of these concertos, including the one
heard today, were included in the Concerts of Ancient Music in the capital, where they were
played as late as 1812.
COMING NEXT
SATURDAY,
JUNE 28, 2 PM
FAMILY
CONCERT:
Next Generation
Recital
We return to Handel with our last set of pieces, a collection of dances from his 1734 revival
of Il Pastor Fido. In that year, Handel was forced to contend with a new rival opera company,
the Opera of the Nobility, which was supported by the Prince of Wales. They had managed
to snag some of the greatest singers of the day as part of their company, and Handel was
clearly casting about for a good alternative to superstar castrati. He chose to feature the great
Parisian dancer Marie Sallé in a new prologue called Terpsichore, where Sallé’s versatility
would be shown in the full spectrum of Baroque dance forms. This suite brings our excursion
in the musical pleasure garden of 18th-century London to a close. We’re only sorry we can’t
offer you the food, drink and card games that would have accompanied these works in their
original setting!
62 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Saturday
28
june
8 PM
boston symphony chamber players
Malcolm Lowe, violin
Haldan Martinson, violin
Steven Ansell, viola
Edwin Barker, double bass
Elizabeth Rowe, flute
John Ferrillo, oboe
William Hudgins, clarinet
Richard Svoboda, bassoon
James Sommerville, horn
WITH
Jessica Zhou, harp
Sato Knudsen, cello
Pre-concert talk with Dr. William Matthews, 7 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY EVE AND PHIL CUTTER
INTO THE EVENING AIR (2013)
Yehudi Wyner (b. 1929)
Commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players
SONATA FOR FLUTE, VIOLA AND HARP (1915)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Pastorale: Lento, dolce rubato
Interlude: Tempo di minuetto
Finale: Allegro moderato ma risoluto
:: intermission ::
OCTET IN F MAJOR FOR WINDS AND STRINGS, D. 803 (1824)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Adagio—Allegro—Più allegro
Adagio
Allegro vivace—Trio—Allegro vivace
Andante—Variations. Un poco più mosso—Più lento
Menuetto: Allegretto—Trio—Menuetto—Coda
Andante molto—Allegro—Andante molto—Allegro molto
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 63
WEEK 4
the program
INTO THE EVENING AIR
Yehudi Wyner (b. Calgary, Canada, June 1, 1929)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 2013; 6 minutes
The admiration and respect that the esteemed American composer Yehudi Wyner and his
music have generated in the Boston area led naturally to a commission from the Boston
Symphony Chamber Players (BSCP) for music to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
ensemble’s founding. Celebrating this singular occasion, the ensemble chose to mark its
anniversary with music by prominent composers who have a close connection to Boston and
its orchestra.
The new wind quintet is Wyner’s second commissioned work for the Boston Symphony
Chamber Players. In 1990 he wrote Trapunto Junction, a piece for the ensemble’s brass and
percussion players. More recently the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned Wyner’s
Piano Concerto, Chiavi in mano, written for the BSO and the pianist Robert Levin. It was
awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. The Bridge CD of the Piano Concerto, recorded in 2005
by the BSO, Levin and the conductor Robert Spano, was nominated for a Grammy Award
in 2009.
FINAL SOLILOQUY OF THE INTERIOR
PARAMOUR
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly around us, since we are poor,
a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and
ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the
rendezvous.
With its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one…
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central
mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
—Wallace Stevens
64 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
This past year, the Boston Symphony once again approached Wyner
for a work on a more intimate scale. He responded by composing this
wind quintet, Into the Evening Air, which was premiered on February 9,
2014, as part of the BSCP’s 50th Anniversary Celebration at Jordan
Hall. The performers were the BSCP wind quintet members who bring
the work to Rockport for this evening’s concert.
In January 2014 Wyner wrote this introduction to his new quintet:
The title, Into the Evening Air, was evoked by an elegiac late poem
by Wallace Stevens, an expression of tentative directness and
elusive simplicity. Yet despite the elements of abstraction that
infiltrate the poem, the overall atmosphere is loving and
profoundly consoling. The final lines project a feeling of fulfilled
resolution, as a sense of ultimate tranquility.
I wrote this little wind quintet with no knowledge of the poem.
I labored to find an apt title. All manner of references to ‘5’ were
explored and rejected. And then for reasons unknown, my wife,
Susan Davenny Wyner, suggested this poem of Wallace Stevens,
fashioned in the twilight of his life. Something essential in the
progression of the poem resonated with the trajectory of the
quintet, especially as it seeks a conclusion of quiet affirmation
rather than a resigned sense of loss.
The poem, entitled “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,”
begins with the phrase “Light the first light of evening…” and ends
with these words: “Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together
is enough.”
SONATA FOR FLUTE, VIOLA AND HARP
Claude Debussy (b. Saint-Germain-en-Raye, France, August 22, 1862;
d. Paris, March 25, 1918)
Composed 1915; 19 minutes
In 1915, sick of heart and body, the composer Claude Debussy nevertheless planned an
ambitious new project—he determined to write six sonatas for various instruments. He had
already been diagnosed with rectal cancer and had undergone a devastating surgery. The
war that had erupted in 1914 in his homeland also caused profound suffering. Leaving Paris
in the summer of 1915, he removed to the little seaside town of Pourville on the English
Channel. There he summoned extraordinary strength and wrote the first of his planned
sonatas, the First Sonata for Cello and Piano, completing it in August.
Photo of Claude Debussy
Debussy then set to work on the Second Sonata, imagining a trio of flute, oboe and harp.
The voices that ultimately convinced him were those of the flute, the viola and the harp—the
flute and harp, whose timbres suggested ancient instruments, and the viola, whose mellow
string voice would create an acoustical bridge between the other two. He completed the
Second Sonata for flute, viola and harp in early fall 1915, by which time his condition
had deteriorated even further, forcing a return to Paris for surgery to attach a colostomy.
The first performance of the Second Sonata took place more than a year later, on November 7,
1916, in a private affair at the Longy Club in Boston. Another private performance introduced
the work in France on December 1916, at the home of Debussy’s publisher, Jacques Durand.
The violist on that occasion was the 24-year-old composer Darius Milhaud, who wrote a
touching description of his experience in preparing for that performance. “This was the first
and only opportunity I ever had of meeting the master…his face was deathly pale and his
hands affected by a slight tremor. He sat down at the piano and played me his sonata twice.”
Despite his condition, Debussy attended that performance at Durand’s home and wrote about
it in a letter the following day. “It’s not for me to say anything about the music…Although
I could do so without blushing, because it’s by a Debussy I no longer know…It is terribly
melancholy. I don’t know whether one should weep or laugh on hearing it. Perhaps both,
at the same time?”
The Trio Sonata is a brilliant evocation of the Pastorale mood that not only introduces the
work, but also threads through all three movements. The suggestions of ancient instruments,
and the atmosphere of a time long past, are immediately established in the opening sounds—
the gentle strum of the harp and the soft Pan-pipe voice that feeds seamlessly to the muted
viola. Wisps of ethereal harmonies and suggestions of melodies contribute to the haze
that spreads over this Pastorale.
Debussy frequently chose the minuet as his preferred form for dance movements in his
piano works. He often connected in this way with dance suites of earlier centuries, of
Rameau and Couperin. This Minuet, however, seems like something out of time—not to be
danced, but to evoke memories of what it was like to have danced.
The rondo-like Finale adds a sparkling sensuality to the Pastorale mood. The textures are
spiced by pentatonic harmonies from the Far East, and by flute sounds that hint of the
Javanese gamelan that Debussy so admired.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 65
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Throughout his life Debussy always strove to compose French music, free of Germanic
influences. In 1917 he was able to complete the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano, before he
succumbed to his illness the following year. The three sonatas were published with his
signature, “Claude Debussy, musicien français.”
OCTET IN F MAJOR FOR WINDS AND STRINGS, D. 803
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)
Composed 1824; 60 minutes
The amateur clarinetist Count Ferdinand Troyer (1780–1851) approached Franz Schubert in
early 1824 with a commission to write a companion piece for the hugely popular Beethoven
Septet. Although an amateur, Troyer was known for his fluency and fine tone, and he
maintained high standards for the repertoire that he and his colleagues, a mix of
professional and amateur musicians, performed in his Viennese home.
An image of Schubert and
his friends captures their
social life—an evening in
Vienna, where Schubert
leads the singing. Schubert’s
wide circle of friends
contributed to his good cheer
and sustained him as the
effects of his illness began
to weaken his body and
spirit. The Octet reflects
his pleasure in life.
Schubert finished the Octet on March 1, 1824. Shortly thereafter, Troyer was
able to introduce it at one of his private soirées, where the ensemble of
instrumentalists included Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the prominent Viennese
musician, entrepreneur and quartet leader who, for many years, had been the
principal violinist at the introduction of so many of Beethoven’s works, including
the Septet. Schuppanzigh was once again the principal violinist of the august ensemble
that gave Schubert’s Octet its first public performance, on April 16, 1827, in a concert under
the auspices of the Vienna Musikverein. This concert, which took place fewer than three
weeks after Beethoven’s death, featured several significant Beethoven compositions in
addition to the new work by Schubert.
Schubert had complied closely with Troyer’s request that the new work should be similar
to Beethoven’s Septet. He used the same instrumentation, adding one violin to Beethoven’s
complement of violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn. Schubert followed
Beethoven’s example in arranging the work along the same general format, alternating fast
and slow tempi in the six movements. Both works open with an introductory Adagio (of
identical length) and Allegro, both feature an Andante and Variations in fourth place, and
both surround the variations movement with two dance movements—Minuet and Trio,
and Scherzo and Trio (his Octet, however, reversed Beethoven’s order of the two dance
movements).
With all due respect to Beethoven (whom Schubert revered) and acknowledging the great
popularity of his Septet, we can still give Schubert his due. His mastery of the materials—
dance forms, theme and variations, elegant lyrical passages, idiomatic sonata form and
lively rhythmic patterns—have given the Octet a more favored place in the repertoire.
As a critic wrote after the premiere performance of the Octet, “[It is] commensurate with
the author’s talent, luminous, agreeable and interesting…If the themes do not fail to recall
familiar ideas by some distant resemblances [referring, no doubt, to the Septet], they are
nevertheless worked out with individual originality, and Herr Schubert has proved himself a
gallant and felicitous composer.”
66 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Sunday
29
june
Jeremy Denk, piano
5 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY MOLLIE AND JOHN BYRNES
GOLDBERG VARIATIONS, BWV 988 (CA. 1740)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Aria
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3: Canon on the unison
Variation 4
Variation 5
Variation 6: Canon on the second
Variation 7
Variation 8
Variation 9: Canon on the third
Variation 10: Fughetta
Variation 11
Variation 12: Canon on the fourth
Variation 13
Variation 14
Variation 15: Canon on the fifth
Variation 16: Overture
Variation 17
Variation 18: Canon on the sixth
Variation 19
Variation 20
Variation 21: Canon on the seventh
Variation 22: Alla breve
Variation 23
Variation 24: Canon on the octave
Variation 25
Variation 26
Variation 27: Canon on the ninth
Variation 28
Variation 29
Variation 30: Quodlibet
Aria da capo
:: intermission ::
PIANO SONATA NO. 2, CONCORD, MASS. (1840-60) (1904-15, 1919)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Emerson: Slowly
Hawthorne: Very fast
The Alcotts: Moderately
Thoreau: Starting slowly and quietly
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 67
WEEK 4
the program
GOLDBERG VARIATIONS, BWV 988
Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, Germany, March 31, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed ca. 1740; 77 minutes
During his years as the Thomaskirche Kapellmeister in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach
undertook the publication of a Clavier-Übung (Harpsichord Practice) in several volumes (The
second volume included the Italian Concerto, which Daria Rabotkina performed on June
24). In 1741 the final installment of the Clavier-Übung appeared under the title Aria with
Diverse Variations for Harpsichord with Two Manuals. This grand work, a theme with 30
variations, would remain somewhat neglected until well into the 20th century, when it
acquired its place as the ne plus ultra not only for harpsichord, but also for piano.
Bach’s great Aria-with-variations acquired the subtitle “Goldberg” in later years, when a
quaint, but spurious, story about Polish ambassador Count Keyserling and his servant, the
musician Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, gained currency. No one has produced evidence to
support the story that the Count commissioned Bach to compose music
that Goldberg could play during the long nights of the Count’s insomnia.
“Playful, even racy, elements in Bach’s
Yet, Goldberg Variations became, and remains, its popular title.
personality have been discerned by many
an admirer, but playful elements in
the music tend to be lost in the awful
respect for his skill.”
PETER WILLIAMS IN J.S. BACH: A LIFE IN MUSIC
Words cannot capture the grace, humor, dignity, playfulness,
tenderness, delight, force, cleverness, beauty, explosiveness and
profundity of the Goldberg Variations. Those qualities emerge from the
music itself. However, like a good X-ray, a brief verbal description can
sketch the skeleton that supports the vital, living body of this work,
which Bach organized along orderly, symmetrical lines:
• For the principal theme, the Aria, Bach chose the lovely melody of a keyboard
sarabande in G major that he had written for his wife and published in the
Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach in 1725.
• The work stands securely on a 32-measure ground bass, which is first heard as
the bass line of the Aria, and which repeats, passacaglia-like, as the foundation
of every variation.
The harpsichordist Herbert
Collum with his two hands
playing in comfortable
separation on two keyboards.
Jeremy Denk has observed,
“The Goldbergs, originally for
a two-keyboard instrument,
become uniquely treacherous
when played on just one.
There are many impossible
crossings, many unplayable
moments. You have to decide
which hand goes over the
other, and practice how to
make the switch smoothly; but
there is always the possibility
you will be on stage, communing
with the spheres, and your
fingers and wrists will literally
tangle—like two dancers who
stumble over each other—
scattering wrong notes into
paradise…”
68 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
• The Aria and all the variations are in two parts, 16 bars each, and both halves
are repeated.
• The entire work is in the key of G, with only three variations, Nos. 15, 21 and 25,
in G minor.
• Every third variation (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.) is a canon. (A “round” is a kind of perpetual
canon, with the voices entering at intervals and repeating the melody that the
leader has sung, as in “Row, row, row your boat.” Bach’s canons are sophisticated
versions of that principle.)
• Every successive canon in the Goldberg Variations begins an interval further away
from the leader’s beginning pitch. Thus, the canon of Variation 3 begins on the same
pitch as the leader (“Row, row, row your boat…”); the canon of Variation 6 begins on
the pitch that is the interval of a second away from the leader; the canon of Variation
9 begins on the pitch an interval of a third away from the leader, and so on.
• At Variation 30, instead of writing a canon on the tenth, Bach playfully
interjected a “quodlibet,” which is the music term for a humorous medley
of tunes. For this medley Bach chose two folk songs: Ich bin so lange nicht
bei dir g’west (It’s been such a long time I haven’t been with you) and Kraut
und Rüben haben mich vertrieben (Cabbage and turnips drove me away).
• The Aria constitutes the work’s bookends. It introduces the entire composition,
and after the final variation, the instruction “da capo” tells the performer
to return to the Aria for one last playing of it in its original form. In good
Baroque performance custom, the player or singer adds suitable
embellishment—trills, mordents, turns—in the final iteration of the melody.
Goldberg Variations is an addictive work—to a performer as well as to a listener. A
Bach Aria, detail of a 1913 collage by
highly recommended method by which to feed the Goldberg addiction: search out
the French painter and sculptor Georges
the piano score (from the library, or online at www.IMSLP.org), purchase Jeremy
Braque (1882-1963)
Denk’s CD and the accompanying DVD, and settle down for repeated explorations
of this magnificent work. The visual image—even for music-lovers who do not read music
notation—will enhance the experience of listening repeatedly to Bach’s music as played,
and explained, by Mr. Denk.
PIANO SONATA NO. 2, CONCORD, MASS. (1840-60)
Charles Ives (b. Danbury, Connecticut, October 20, 1874; d. New York City, May 19, 1954)
Composed 1904-15/ rev. 1919; 50 minutes
Charles Ives’s association with the work known as the “Concord Sonata” spanned a long
gestation period—composition and revisions (1904–15), more revisions (1919), self-financed
publication (1920–21) and further revisions even after publication. The work came from his
heart and prompted him to write a book-length program note on the piece, Essays before
a Sonata*.
Ives himself admitted that he called this work a “sonata” because he could think of no
better term. It is not written in sonata form. As the pianist Jeremy Denk wrote in a 2012 New
Yorker essay about recording the work, “The ‘Concord’ Sonata, written over a number of
years, represents Ives’s attempt to synthesize all his thinking—about music, art and life—
in a single vast statement.” Regarded in that light, the Sonata may ostensibly be “about”
the Concord literary personalities—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson
and Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau—but it also reflects the ways in which Ives
identified himself as their direct descendant.
Thirty-four years after Ives had begun to explore the massive ideas and musical expression
of this work, the pianist John Kirkpatrick finally introduced Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in two
public performances—in November 1938 in Cos Cob, Connecticut, and in January 1939 at
a Town Hall concert in Manhattan. Ives cared enough about the concert’s New York Herald
Tribune review, written by the critic Lawrence Gilman, that he included it as an addendum
to the published score of the Concord Sonata. That review reads, in part:
Two photos of Charles Ives:
as a young man, contemplating
his great Piano Sonata No.
2, and as an older man, still
thinking of ways to revise it.
This Sonata is exceptionally great music—it is, indeed, the greatest music composed
by an American, and the most deeply and essentially American in impulse and
implication. It is wide-ranging and capacious. It has passion, tenderness, humor,
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 69
simplicity, homeliness. It has imaginative and spiritual vastness…wisdom, beauty
and profundity…a sense of the encompassing terror and splendor of human life and
human destiny—a sense of those mysteries that are both human and divine…To Mr.
John Kirkpatrick, who made this music known to us in its entirety, an immeasurable
debt of gratitude is due. His own achievement as an artist was…a prodigious feat of
memory and execution. The Sonata is almost unplayable. Its difficulties are appalling.
Mr. Kirkpatrick conquered them as though they did not exist. His performance was
that of a poet and a master.
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Ives wrote the entire score of the Concord Sonata with only a few bar lines, and even fewer
indications of measure divisions—an occasional 7/8, 7/4 or 8/8 appears in the middle of a
movement. In an Afterword, Ives urged performers to follow their own best musical instincts
in choosing tempi and phrasing. For example, about “Hawthorne” he wrote, “For the most
part, this movement is supposed to be played as fast as possible and not too literally. Marks
of tempo, expression, etc. are used as little as possible. If the score itself, the preface, or
an interest in Hawthorne suggest nothing, marks may only make things worse.”
The audience, like the performer, would be well advised to put aside a literal
approach to the composition and to allow Ives’s musical messages to enter the
deepest places of listening. In a sense, this is a meticulously annotated
improvisatory work. Ives said later in his life, “I don’t know as I shall ever write
out [my improvisations on the Concord Sonata], as it may take away the daily
pleasure of playing this music and seeing it grow and feeling that it is not
finished…I may always have the pleasure of not finishing it…”
Ralph Waldo Emerson was for Ives “America’s deepest explorer of the spiritual
immensities.” The Emerson movement is certainly the grandest in conception
of the four movements. Ives even uses Beethoven’s “fate-knocking-at-the-door”
motif from the Fifth Symphony as a thematic element. Throughout the work Ives
quotes many musical themes, from Tristan und Isolde to “Columbia, Gem of the
Ocean” and Lohengrin to “Massa’s in de Cold Ground,” but Beethoven’s Fifth
belonged to Emerson. In “Hawthorne,” a kind of scherzo, Ives confessed to
suggesting “some of [his] wilder, fantastical adventures into the half-childlike,
This poster announced the New York premiere
of Charles E. Ives’s “Concord, Mass., 1840- half-fairy-like phantasmal realms,” rather than pursuing Hawthorne in his search
60,” subtitled “Second Pianoforte Sonata,”
for moral truths. “The Alcotts” finds Louisa May and her father, Bronson, at home
to be performed on January 20, 1939.
in a lyrical moment. “Thoreau,” said Ives, “was a great musician, not because he
played the flute, but because he did not have to go to Boston to hear ‘the Symphony.’”
The fourth movement is a rich, free-form poem in Thoreau’s honor.
Such a large, complex piece of music has generated a great deal of commentary. That Ives
had already published his own book on the subject of the Concord Sonata has not deterred
scholars from diving in after him. Ultimately, it is Ives’s musical conception that matters. If
he felt that he never finished the Concord Sonata quite to his satisfaction, he did leave a
great piano invention that captured the spirit of 19th-century Concord, as well as of 20thcentury Ives.
*Available as a free download at the Project Gutenberg website, www.gutenberg.org.
70 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
6
Sunday
july
Richard Stoltzman,clarinet
Mika Yoshida Stoltzman,marimba
5 PM
BACH TO THE FUTURE!
IRISH SPIRIT (2012)
Bill Douglas (b. 1944)
TWO-PART INVENTIONS (1720s)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)/arr. Richard Stoltzman
Selections
CHROMATIC FANTASY IN D MINOR (1720s)
Johann Sebastian Bach/arr. Richard Stoltzman
“THE NYMPHS” (2012)
John Zorn (b. 1953)
WINGS (1982)
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996)/arr. Bob Becker
TANGO SUITE (1985)
Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
:: intermission ::
CARNYX FOR SOLO CLARINET (1984)
Şerban Nichifor (b. 1954)
KALUSHAR FOR SOLO MARIMBA (2014)
Şerban Nichifor
World Premiere
CRESCENT MOON, LET ME LOVE YOU (2013)
Matthew Tommasini (b. 1978)
U.S. Premiere
MIKARIMBA (2001)
Bill Douglas
Program continues on next page
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 71
WEEK 4
the program
MOSTLY BLUES (2012)
Thomas T. McKinley (b. 1938)
Selections
PAVANE DUO (1899)
Maurice Ravel (1882-1937)
MARIKA GROOVE (2012)
Chick Corea (b. 1941)
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Jeannie and Angus McIntyre.
IRISH SPIRIT
Bill Douglas (b. London, Canada, November 7, 1944)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 2012; 8 minutes
Bill Douglas and Richard Stoltzman met as students at Yale University in the late 1960s and
have been friends and colleagues ever since. Among their many recordings is a 1998 RCA
album, Open Sky: Richard Stoltzman Plays the Music of Bill Douglas. A versatile composer,
Douglas has written works in multiple genres and styles. He expresses his all-encompassing
love of music in a basic philosophy, “It [music] can be helpful to the world. It can evoke such
positive emotions as compassion, tenderness, strength, nobility, upliftedness and joy.” Irish
Spirit, which Douglas wrote for Richard and Mika Yoshida Stoltzman, exemplifies that philosophy.
The two parts of the piece, a lyrical, folk-like ballad and a celebratory dance, unite to
provide the kind of quiet happiness that all human beings find in good music.
TWO-PART INVENTIONS
Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, March 31, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)/
Arr. Richard Stoltzman
Composed 1720s; 8 minutes
Bill Douglas
In the 1720s Johann Sebastian Bach wrote 15 two-part inventions and 15 three-part sinfonias
for harpsichord that are still an important basis of piano instruction. Each group of 15
contains eight pieces in major keys and seven pieces in minor keys. Bach prefaced the score
with the remark that this is an “honest method, by which the amateurs of the keyboard—
especially those intent upon learning—are shown clearly how to play cleanly in two parts,
and after further progress, to handle three parts correctly and well; and along with this
not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop them well; above all, however,
to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of
composition.”
CHROMATIC FANTASY IN D MINOR, BWV 903
Johann Sebastian Bach/arr. Richard Stoltzman
Composed 1720s; 10 minutes
J.S. Bach’s Invention in
B-flat major
The “fantasy” was an established keyboard form when Bach took it to new heights with his
Chromatic Fantasy in D minor for harpsichord. The work opens with a fantastic exploration
of the key of D minor, with florid, rapid scales and rippling broken chords; a quiet interlude
72 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
introduces a chorale-like theme; the final section, recitativo, unites the two elements—the
simple aria and the improvised-sounding embellishments. Having an entire keyboard at his
disposal, Bach explored many rich chromatic and harmonic directions. Richard Stoltzman set
himself a real technical and musical challenge when he transcribed the work for solo clarinet.
“When I was asked why I was going to do the Chromatic Fantasy (because it’s originally
for keyboard),” Stoltzman has written, “I said, what I can bring to it is breath. It’s a kind of
singing improvisation and journey….Bach took the 12 notes and treated them all very
personally and with great honesty, wonder and discovery.”
“THE NYMPHS”
John Zorn (b. New York City, September 2, 1953)
Composed 2012; 11 minutes
The saxophonist John Zorn is one of this country’s most versatile musicians. He has composed
for films, concert halls, bars and any other venue where music comes to life. “All the various
styles are organically connected to one another,” Zorn has said. “People are so obsessed
with the surface that they can’t see the connections, but they are there. Composing is more
than just imagining music—it’s knowing how to communicate it to musicians.”
John Zorn
In 2013 the Tzadik label released an album of Zorn’s music, The Mysteries, a suite of nine
pieces performed by Bill Frisell (guitar), Carol Emanuel (harp) and Kenny Wollesen
(vibraphone). Scored for guitar, harp, bells and vibraphone, the ninth piece of The Mysteries
is entitled “The Nymphs.” Mika Yoshida Stoltzman performed Zorn’s adaptation of the work
for solo bass marimba in its world premiere at Carnegie Hall in May 2013.
Toru Takemitsu
WINGS
Toru Takemitsu (b. Tokyo City, October 8, 1930; d. Minato, Tokyo, February 20, 1996)/
arr. Bob Becker
Composed 1982; 3 minutes
In 1982 Toru Takemitsu composed incidental music for an Arthur L. Kopit play, Wings. One
of Takemitsu’s numbers for the play, “Tsubasa,” was sung by a mixed chorus on the author’s
own text, “Oh wind, oh clouds, oh sunlight! You’re the wings that carry my dreams.” Bob
Becker subsequently arranged the piece for marimba and vibraphone for the percussion
group NEXUS, of which he was a founding member in 1971. The ensemble continues to
tour and record, and Mika Yoshida Stoltzman has given NEXUS credit as a major influence
on her own development as a performer.
Ástor Piazzolla
TANGO SUITE
Ástor Piazzolla (b. Mar del Plata, Argentina, March 11, 1921; d. Buenos Aires, July 4, 1992)
Composed 1985; 6 minutes
Originally written for two guitars, the Tango Suite comprises three movements—Allegro,
liber; Andante rubato and Allegro: più mosso, ma pesante. It has become one of Astor
Piazzolla’s most performed pieces and has prompted arrangements for all manner of
instrumental combinations—from solo piano to two marimbas, cello with guitars and
saxophone quartet.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 73
CARNYX FOR SOLO CLARINET (1984)
Şerban Nichifor (b. Bucharest, Romania, August 25, 1954)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1984; 4 minutes
Serban Nichifor, a cellist and prolific composer of works in many genres, is a
professor of composition and musicology at the National University of Music in
Bucharest, Romania. He has become particularly known for his compositions
dedicated to the memory of those who died in the Holocaust.
Nichifor’s colorful and expressive solo work Carnyx evokes the sound and style of an ancient
wind instrument by that name. The carnyx was found in many European cultures, from Celtic
lands to the distant reaches of Eastern Europe. Typically, it was a long—as tall as a person—
s- or c-shaped metal trumpet that was used in warfare, where its voice was aggressive and
strident. Adding to its fierceness was the bell of the “trumpet,” which was frequently hammered
into the shape of a wild animal’s head.
KALUSHAR FOR SOLO MARIMBA
Şerban Nichifor
Composed February 2014; ca. 3 minutes
World Premiere
A Căluşari dancer on a
Romanian postage stamp,
1977
A Central-European dance, known in Romania as “Călăus ̦” and in Bulgaria as “Kalush,”
gives its name to this new work written for solo marimba and dedicated by Serban Nichifor
“To brilliant musician Mika Yoshida Stoltzman.” The dancers—in Romania, “Călus ̦ari,” and
in Bulgaria, “Kalushari”— are young men, clad in all-white clothing with bells on their legs.
The dance is traditionally performed in the springtime, when the dancers demonstrate their
manliness by twirling and stamping, brandishing sticks and working themselves into a
general frenzy of macho exuberance. Nichifor has challenged the performer with the
instruction to play “Prestissimo possibile” at the metronome speed of “eighth note = 432.”
CRESCENT MOON, LET ME LOVE YOU
Matthew Tommasini (b. Brussels, Belgium, 1978)
Composed 2013; 5 minutes
U.S. Premiere
Richard Stoltzman and
Mika Yoshida Stoltzman
Crescent Moon, Let Me Love You, for clarinet and marimba, was written for Richard Stoltzman
and Mika Yoshida Stoltzman, who performed it for the first time on November 5, 2013. The
occasion was a celebration of the composer Bright Sheng at The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology (HKUST), which had just awarded Sheng an Honorary Doctorate.
This evening’s concert constitutes the U.S. premiere of the work.
Mr. Tommasini has written that “Crescent Moon, Let Me Love You was inspired by ‘Love Song
of Kangding,’ a folksong from the Sichuan province of China. Evoking landscapes of the
crescent moon and clouded skies, which come to symbolize the lovers themselves, the
clarinet and marimba personify these images in a series of variations on the folk tune.”
74 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
MIKARIMBA
Bill Douglas
Composed 2001; 9 minutes
Bill Douglas wrote Mikarimba in 2001 on a commission from Mika Yoshida Stoltzman. He says
about the work that “the first movement is in salsa style, combining jazz-like melodic figures
with Afro-Cuban-like rhythms. The second is a simple, lyrical four-part chorale and the third
is an Irish-African jig. It combines African rhythms with Irish-like melodic and harmonic material.”
MOSTLY BLUES (SELECTIONS)
William Thomas McKinley (b. New Kensington, Pennyslvania, December 9, 1938)
Composed 2012; 8 minutes
William Thomas McKinley, a jazz pianist and versatile composer, has a works list of more
than 300 compositions for chamber music, symphony orchestras and solo instrumentalists.
He and Richard Stoltzman have worked together for many years, as the clarinetist has
performed and recorded McKinley’s Nine Shades of Lament for clarinet and orchestra,
Clarinet Sonata and Second Clarinet Concerto. In this evening’s concert, Mika Yoshida
and Richard Stoltzman will play a selection from McKinley’s clarinet-and-marimba
composition Mostly Blues, a 21-piece work that they premiered in April 2012 at Carnegie Hall.
William Thomas McKinley
PAVANE DUO
Maurice Ravel (b. Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875; d. Paris, December 28, 1937)
Composed 1899; 6 minutes
Maurice Ravel wrote the Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) for solo
piano when he was a composition student of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatory. The
stately funeral procession has lived on in arrangements for many instruments—Ravel
himself orchestrated the piece in 1910.
MARIKA GROOVE
Chick Corea (b. Chelsea, Massachusetts, June 12, 1941)
Composed 2012; 12 minutes
Chick Corea
The jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea wrote Marika Groove for Mika Yoshida and
Richard Stoltzman, who premiered the work with the drummer Steve Gadd and bassist
Eddie Gomez in April 2012 at Carnegie Hall. “Creating this composition for Mika Yoshida was
a pure joy,” Corea has said. “Her only request was that ‘groove’ be a part of the composition.
So groove we have…And a special joy to also write for my old friend Richard Stoltzman—the
rubato solo in the middle is written especially for him.”
COMING NEXT
MONDAY, July 7, 7 PM
FILM: Clash of the Wolves with film-music expert Martin Marks
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 75
A full page ad can go here
76 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
8
Tuesday
july
8 PM
RISING STAR SERIES
donald sinta
saxophone quartet
Dan Graser, soprano saxophone
Zach Stern, alto saxophone
Joe Girard, tenor saxophone
Danny Hawthorne-Foss, baritone saxophone
“THEN AND NOW”
QUARTETTSATZ IN C MINOR (1820)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)/arr. Dan Graser
PHANTOMS (2012)
Natalie Moller (b. 1990)
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS, FROM STRING QUARTET, OP. 11 (1938)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)/Arr. Michael Warner
RECITATION BOOK, V: FANFARE/VARIATIONS ON “DURCH
ADAMS FALL” (2006)
David Maslanka (b. 1943)
:: intermission ::
QUATUOR POUR SAXOPHONES, OP. 109 (1932)
Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
Première partie: Allegro—Più mosso
Canzone variée
Thema: Andante
Variation I: Même movement
Variation II: Con anima
Variation III: À la Schumann: Grave
Variation IV: À la Chopin: Allegretto
Variation V: Scherzo: Presto
Finale: Allegro moderato—Più mosso
SUITE (1993)
Michael Nyman (b. 1944)
Here to There (arr. Graser)
The Promise (arr. Graser)
Songs for Tony
SPEED METAL ORGANUM BLUES (2004)
Gregory Wanamaker (b. 1968)
First Prize winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and
is represented by Concert Artists Guild. concertartists.org
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 77
WEEK 5
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
QUARTETTSATZ IN C MINOR
Franz Schubert (b. Himmelpfortgrund, Vienna, January 21, 1797;
d. Vienna, November 19, 1828)/arr. Dan Graser
Composed 1820; 9 minutes
Franz Schubert began to compose a new string quartet in C minor in 1820. He completed the
stunning first movement and finished 41 bars of an Andante movement before he inexplicably
left off and never returned to the work. It was discovered among the scores that came to
light after his death in 1828. The manuscript eventually came into the possession of Johannes
Brahms, who edited the work for its publication in 1867 as Quartettsatz (quartet movement).
Its first public performance took place in Vienna on March 1, 1867.
Donald Graser, the soprano saxophonist of the Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet, arranged
Schubert’s Quartettsatz for the ensemble. A member of the faculty of Grand Valley State
University, Graser frequently gives masterclasses and clinics at universities and conservatories
in the U.S. and abroad.
PHANTOMS
Natalie Moller (b. 1990)
Composed 2012; 7 minutes
Composer Natalie Moller was a candidate for a master’s degree in composition at the
University of Michigan when she was named a winner of the Donald Sinta Quartet 2013
National Composition Competition. The Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet performed the
premiere of Moller’s competition-winning composition, Phantoms, in France at the
Versailles Conservatory, on April 4, 2013, followed by performances in Paris on April 5 and 8.
A week later, April 16, the U.S. premiere took place at the University of Michigan.
Donald Sinta
Donald Sinta, the Arthur F. Thurnau
and Earl V. Moore Professor of
Saxophone at the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, has earned an international
reputation for his many achievements.
In 1969 he was the first elected chair
of the World Saxophone Congress.
An avid supporter of new music, he
has premiered more than 40 works by
American composers, and his recording
American Music for the Saxophone is a classic.
Before joining the UM School of Music,
he was on the faculties of the Hartt
School of Music and Ithaca College.
He is currently director of the All-State
Program at Interlochen and the Michigan
Youth Ensembles. On April 11, 2014,
the Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet
took part in a concert staged by the
University of Michigan Symphony Band,
an evening of musical celebration
honoring Professor Sinta.
78 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Phantoms begins with quiet clusters of tones in a lower register, from
which soft melodic fragments emerge. A fluttering of tremolos leads
to increasingly agitated activity, as the four instruments separate into
their respective voices. Their elaborated plaints, led by the soprano,
culminate in a defiant final wail at the extremes of their ranges on an
open fifth.
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS FROM STRING QUARTET, OP. 11
Samuel Barber (b. Pennsylvania, 1910; d. New York City, 1981)
Composed 1938; 9 minutes
The revered conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), who rarely
performed works by American composers, met Samuel Barber in Italy
in 1933, and after getting to know the young composer expressed an
interest in his music. It took Barber several years to create scores that
he considered suitable for the Maestro’s review.
In the spring of 1938, Barber submitted to Toscanini his newly completed
Essay for Orchestra along with the Adagio for Strings, Barber’s own
adaptation for five-part string orchestra (adding double basses) of the
second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Toscanini’s decision to
perform both the works signaled a major new chapter in Barber’s
career. On November 5, 1938, Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio
broadcast from Rockefeller Center featuring both the Essay and the Adagio. That single
performance brought Barber instant renown. In addition, Toscanini took Barber’s music
on an international tour and the Adagio for Strings has been constantly in the public ear
ever since.
Many composers and arrangers have adapted the Adagio for Strings for other instruments
(Barber himself created a choral piece based on it, setting it to the text of the Agnus Dei
from the Latin mass). In 1997 the trumpet player Michael Warner, founding director of the
Spokane British Brass Band, created this arrangement for saxophone quartet.
RECITATION BOOK, V: FANFARE/VARIATIONS ON “DURCH ADAMS FALL”
David Maslanka (b. New Bedford, Massachusetts, August 20, 1943)
Composed 2006; 11 minutes
The composer David Maslanka has written more than 130 works for a wide variety of instruments
and voices in many genres. Particularly known for his compositions for wind instruments, he
has written a number of works for solo winds, four wind quintets and five saxophone quartets.
About his 2006 composition Recitation Book, Maslanka writes:
A recitation book is a collection of writings, often of a sacred nature, used for readings
by a community. The music of this piece draws on old sources for each movement—
Bach Chorales, a Gesualdo madrigal, Gregorian chant. A number of old variation
techniques are employed throughout the piece. Recitation Book was composed for,
and premiered and first recorded by, the Masato Kumoi Saxophone Quartet of Tokyo.
David Maslanka
Maslanka based the last of the Recitation Book’s five movements, Fanfare/Variations on
“Durch Adams Fall,” Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chorale in D minor, BWV 637, from the
Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book). Although the entire Recitation Book has earned a devoted
following, the Movement V has acquired a particularly prominent place in the concert repertoire
as a stand-alone piece, challenging to performers and popular with audiences. The complete
title of Bach’s chorale hymn, “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt menschlich Natur und Wesen,”
translates as “Through Adam’s fall human nature and essence are thoroughly corrupted.”
Saxophones de la Garde
Républicaine
QUATUOR POUR SAXOPHONES, OP. 109
Alexander Glazunov (b. Saint Petersburg, August 10, 1865;
d. Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, March 21, 1936)
Composed 1932; 22 minutes
In 1928 the prominent Russian composer Alexander Glazunov, director of the Leningrad
(formerly St. Petersburg) Conservatory, left his homeland for a tour; his brief visit turned
into permanent exile and he spent the last eight years of his life in Paris. The Communist
authorities in the Soviet Union, suspicious of his connections to Western influences, effectively
erased him from its rolls of composers, particularly when it became clear that he was
composing for that bourgeois instrument—the saxophone.
Glazunov became enamored with the saxophone through a quartet of soloists in the military
concert band of the “Garde Républicaine,” whose principal soprano saxophonist was Marcel
Mule, whom Glazunov particularly admired. On March 21, 1932, Glazunov wrote to his friend
Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg, “I have an idea to write a quartet for saxophones….There
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 79
are great saxophone soloists in the band of the National Guard.” On June 2 he wrote again
to Steinberg:
Notes
I have completed the composition for four saxophones…Movement I, Allegro B-flat
major in 3/4 with rhythm: a bit of American! Movement II, Canzone Variée. The theme
is built only on harmony; the first two variations are strict classical medieval style.
Next follows a variation with trills à la Schumann (akin to his Symphonic Etudes), a
variation à la Chopin, and Scherzo. The Finale is in a fairly playful style.
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
I am afraid that this composition will fatigue performers due to its length. I talked to
one of them, and he assured me.
In December Glazunov looked forward to a run-through of the Quartet: “I still worry about
how matters will stand with ‘breathing,’ because the number of rests are few, and I wish to
achieve full consonance.”
The Quartet, published as Op. 109 and bearing the dedication “To the Artists of the Quatuor
des Saxophones de la Garde Républicaine,” was premiered in April 1933. Glazunov wrote to
Steinberg: “The performers are such virtuosi that it is impossible to imagine that they play
the same instruments as we hear in jazzes [sic]. What really strikes me is their breathing
and indefatigability, light sound, and clear intonation.” Thus inspired, Glazunov wrote his
Saxophone Concerto for Marcel Mule the following year.
SUITE
Michael Nyman (b. Stratford, London, March 23, 1944)
A 1948 portrait of Marcel
Mule (1901-2001),
the French saxophonist so
admired by Alexander
Glazunov
Composed 1993; 8 minutes
The British composer and pianist Michael Nyman, who has written prolifically in many genres
of music, is widely known beyond the concert hall for his film scores. His music for Jane
Campion’s 1993 film The Piano has been particularly successful. Dan Graser created saxophone
quartet arrangements of two of the score’s tracks, “Here to There” and “The Promise.”
Nyman has written about “Songs for Tony:”
I began writing a saxophone quartet on New Year’s Eve 1992. In the early afternoon
of January 5, 1993, I was informed that my friend and business manager, Tony Simmons,
had died after a long and heroic fight against cancer….The first song is a transcription
of an actual song, “Mozart on Mortality,” which I wrote for the Composers Ensemble
in the spring of 1992.…The second song is adapted from the music for The Piano. This
film was the last major deal that Tony negotiated on my behalf. The third song, a
soprano sax solo, is based on a tune I composed some years ago, but was saving for
a special occasion.
SPEED METAL ORGANUM BLUES
Gregory Wanamaker (b. 1968)
Composed 2004; 1 minute, 4 seconds
Gregory Wanamaker, professor of composition at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam,
has wide-ranging music interests. He says of himself that he studies sounds from around
the world, “to draw from a variety of musics,” to inform his continually evolving voice. Speed
Metal Organum Blues was commissioned by the Prism Saxophone Quartet in honor of the
group’s 20th anniversary. According to Wanamaker, “The title refers to the fast-paced
succession of open fifth ‘power chords’ found in speed metal music—and the strange notion
that this music may have actually evolved from 13th-century organum (doubtful, but funny to
think about: Monks on speed!).”
80 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Thursday
10
july
calder quartet
Benjamin Jacobson, violin
Andrew Bulbrook, violin
Jonathan Moerschel, viola
Eric Byers, cello
WITH
8 PM
Marcus Thompson, viola
QUARTET IN G MAJOR, K. 387 (1782)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Allegro vivace assai
Menuetto: Allegretto—Trio
Andante cantabile
Molto allegro
FIVE MOVEMENTS FOR STRING QUARTET, OP. 5 (1909)
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
Heftig bewegt [impetuously animated]
Sehr langsam [very slow]
Sehr bewegt [very animated]
Sehr langsam [very slow]
In zarter Bewegung [in tender motion]
VEXED (2012)
Don Davis (b. 1957)
:: intermission ::
STRING QUINTET IN G MAJOR, OP. 111 (1890)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Allegro non troppo
Adagio
Un poco allegretto
Vivace, ma non troppo presto
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Susanne Guyer and Thad Carpen.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 81
WEEK 5
the program
QUARTET IN G MAJOR, K. 387
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. Salzburg, January 27, 1756; d. Vienna, December 5, 1791)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 1782; 28 minutes
Sometime in 1781 the 25-year-old Mozart got to know Joseph Haydn in Vienna. Mozart
revered Haydn, and the two composers became friends, seeing each other socially and playing
chamber music together at private soirées.
Beginning in 1782 Mozart began once again to compose string quartets. He had written
more than a dozen quartets before 1773, so he was no beginner. However, the experiences of
the intervening years, as well as his reverence for Haydn, prompted Mozart to an extraordinary
achievement in the six string quartets that he produced between 1782 and 1785.
In January 1785 Mozart played three of the quartets for Haydn at a private quartet evening,
and in February, Haydn heard (and probably performed in) the other half of the set. Leopold
Mozart, who was visiting Wolfgang and Constanze in Vienna, reported to his daughter, Nannerl:
On Saturday evening we had Herr Joseph Haydn and the two Barons Tindi with us,
and the new quartets were played, but only the three new ones [K. 458, 464, 465] he
has composed in addition to the other three we already have [K. 387, 421, 428].…Herr
Haydn said to me, “I tell you, calling God as my witness and speaking as a man of
honor, that your son is the greatest composer I know, either personally or by reputation.
He has taste, and, in addition, the most complete understanding of composition.”
Instead of dedicating the new works to a wealthy patron in hopes of remuneration, Mozart
dedicated the six quartets to Haydn, from whom, he said, he had learned the art of the
string quartet.
Friends and colleagues —
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(top) and Joseph Haydn
Mozart’s sketches and work papers show the prodigious amount of care that went into the
composition of all the “Haydn” quartets. The first movement of K. 387 is a cheerful essay in
traditional sonata-allegro form. The Minuet is spiced with off-beat accents, which interrupt
the flow of this sunny movement; the Trio section—which ordinarily represents a lightening
of mood—is in this case a dramatic, stern affair. The third movement, as the tempo indication
suggests, is a flowing, lyrical passageway; Mozart infused it with a deep and serious
undercurrent. Mozart returns to classic sonata form for a joyous finale, complete with
contrapuntal textures and a four-voice fugue—the movement comes to rest in a surprising,
satisfyingly soft ending.
FIVE MOVEMENTS FOR STRING QUARTET, OP. 5
Anton Webern (b. Vienna, December 3, 1883; d. Mittersill, Austria, September 15, 1945)
Composed 1909; 11 minutes
From 1904 to 1908, Anton Webern studied privately with Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna, at
first creating compositions in the late Romantic style with which he had grown up (for
example, Sommerwind, for orchestra, and Langsamer Satz [Slow Movement] for string
quartet). By 1905 Webern was striking out onto the path that he would follow for the rest
of his life, creating spare, meticulously wrought pieces with such traditional titles as
“Symphony,” “Passacaglia,” “Bagatelles,” “Lieder” and “Sonata,” and basing them in
untraditional, atonal harmonic language.
82 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
The Fünf Sätze [Five Movements] that he composed in 1909 for string quartet constituted an
early example of his new direction. A cellist himself, Webern knew what he was asking of
string players in order to achieve the new sounds that he imagined. Such techniques as
bowing with the wood on the strings, various forms of pizzicati, tremolo and harmonics were
already familiar techniques—Webern pushed their boundaries in creating the extraordinary
sounds that he was after.
The first movement, cast in a highly condensed sonata form, ranges over a wide emotional
territory. Its two main themes encompass that range—from loud and brash to sweetly lyrical.
The tender second movement expands upon the sweet lyricism. The muted strings describe
a dynamic range that hovers around pianissimo, reaches a brief peak of piano in the sixth
measure, and in the final bar fades away, pianississimo, to “hardly audible”—kaum hörbar,
as Webern directed. The brief third movement bursts forth from that silence. All the strings,
unmuted, engage in a playful game: pizzicato alternating with bowing, close to the bridge.
The fourth piece, a second very slow movement, more mysterious than the first, offers textures
of damped strings, feathery pizzicati and gently bowed melodic fragments. The muted,
mournful cello voice sets the mood of the final movement. Its melody is echoed, in variation,
by the other instruments, also muted. The work ends pianissimo and verlöschend (dying away).
Photo of Anton Webern at
the time he studied with
Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna
An ad hoc quartet of players gave the first performance of the Five Movements in February
1910. It was published in 1922, and Webern returned to it in 1928, and again in 1929, as the
foundation of arrangements for string orchestra.
VEXED
Don Davis (b. Anaheim, California, February 4, 1957)
Composed 2012; 5 minutes
The composer Don Davis first saw works by the Bavarian-born sculptor Franz Xaver
Messerschmidt (1736–1783) in summer 2012, when a major exhibit came to the Getty Center
in Los Angeles. The exhibit featured a series of works that Messerschmidt created between
1771 and his death in 1783. Using his own image in a mirror as a model, the sculptor had
produced a significant series, about 60 “Kopfstücke” (Head-pieces), as he called them,
alabaster renderings of the full range of human emotions (which he calculated to be
precisely 64). In 1794 the sculptures had their first public exhibition, in Vienna, where a
newspaper critic first described them as “character heads.”
One of ca. 60 “character
heads” created by the
Bavarian-born sculptor
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
(1736-1783), “The Vexed
Man” inspired Don Davis’ s
string quartet Vexed,
composed for the Calder
Quartet in 2012.
When the Calder Performing Arts Organization and the Getty Museum commissioned Davis
to compose a new work for the Calder Quartet, he chose Messerschmidt’s “The Vexed Man”
as his subject. The resulting quartet was premiered at the Getty Center Museum in Los
Angeles in October 2012.
Don Davis has written this note about the piece:
Vexed is an essay for string quartet on the Messerschmidt bust, posthumously named
”The Vexed Man,” in the Getty Center’s exhibition Messerschmidt and Modernity. Many
interpretations have been proposed to describe exactly what Messerschmidt was
expressing in this, one of the most perplexing and beautiful objects of his output. The
extreme and tormented contortions depicted in the subject’s facial features suggest an
emotional state of intense agony. Many have speculated that the subject is attempting
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 83
to cleanse himself of imagined demons brought on by schizophrenia, but I suspect
instead that the subject was using all of his faculties to prevent the escape of said
demons and the havoc that would be released.
Notes
on the
program
Vexed explores the extremes of register and microtonality to represent this perhaps
futile attempt to reign in explosive forces, alternating between quiet episodes of
restrained intensity and outbursts of vehement fury. Myriad textures are employed
in response to the delicate and tactile nature of the alabaster surfaces utilized by
Messerschmidt. Just as the natural cracks in the stone outline the topography of the
skin of “The Vexed Man,” fissures separate the quartet’s narrative, as if on the brink of
the infinite abyss of madness.
by
Sandra Hyslop
STRING QUINTET IN G MAJOR, OP. 111
Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)
Composed 1890; 24 minutes
When Johannes Brahms submitted his G major String Quintet to his publisher in 1890, he
added a message: “With this note you can take leave of my music, because it is high time to
stop.” Brahms had reached a saturation point. His notorious self-criticism had already
turned his wastebasket and fireplace into the most useful appliances in his home. Just as
he had never hesitated to throw away sketches and drafts, so he was ready to put a stop to
the entire creative process.
Listening to this grand Quintet today, we are hard-pressed to imagine it as a valedictory
work. Its vigor and suppleness speak of youth and energy. That is apparently what the first
audience felt as well. The esteemed Rosé Quartet, with Franz Jelinek as the guest violist,
gave the premiere performance of the Quintet in G major on November 11, 1890, before an
enthusiastic gathering in Vienna’s Bösendorfer Concert Hall.
Brahms’s good friend, Dr. Theodor Billroth, had attended the first rehearsal and wrote to the
composer:
As I think back over the hours of my life, the richness of which few mortals can have
had, you always and still stand in the first place….The experiences which bind us
together are a bit like those that tie together the brothers of a good family….Today I
heard enthusiastic shouts, “The most beautiful music he has ever composed!”…I have
often reflected on the subject of what happiness is for humanity. Well, today in
listening to your music, that was happiness.
The cello opens the G major Quintet with an expansive, extroverted statement from which
the entire ebullient movement proceeds. After the extroverted first movement, the music
turns inward. The Adagio, in the key of D minor, introduces a more melancholy tone, with the
motion finally ending quietly in the strings’ lower registers. The third movement, Un poco
allegretto, is a scherzo and trio whose mood matches the preceding Adagio. Wistfulness
predominates in the scherzo, which the trio lightens with gentle folk-like dancing. The
Quintet ends with echoes of the cello’s introductory material from the first movement, and
a rousing finale with all-out, knee-slapping dance materials freshly imported from the
countryside.
84 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Friday
11
july
chanticleer
Jace Wittig, Interim Music Director
Gregory Peebles, Kory Reid, Darita Seth, soprano
Cortez Mitchell, Alan Reinhardt, Adam Ward, alto
Michael Bresnahan, Brian Hinman, Ben Jones, tenor
Eric Alatorre, Matthew Knickman, Marques Jerrell Ruff, baritone and bass
5 & 8 PM
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY GARTH AND LINDSAY GREIMANN
SHE SAID | HE SAID
I
GAUDE GLORIOSA À 5*
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594)
REGINA CAELI LAETARE À 8*
Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611)
O FRONDENS VIRGA
Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)
II
From GARTENLIEDER
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847)
Schöne Fremde
From SECHS LIEDER, OP. 50, NO. 4
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
Wasserfahrt
From FÜNF GESÄNGE, OP. 104, NO. 1
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Nachtwache I
III
TROIS CHANSONS
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Nicolette
Trois beaux oiseaux du paradis
Ronde
Program continues on next page
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 85
WEEK 5
the program
IV
LET DOWN THE BARS, O DEATH
Samuel Barber (1910–1981) /arr. Steve Hackman (b. 1980)
Notes
on the
program
WAIT FANTASY*
“Wait” Music & Lyrics by Anthony Gonzalez/Yann Gonzalez/Morgan
Kibby/Brad Laner/Justin Meldal-Johnsen/arr. Steve Hackman
Commissioned by Chanticleer in 2013
V
FLOWER OF BEAUTY
John Clements (1910–1986)
L’AMOUR DE MOY*
Trad. French/arr. Alice Parker/Robert Shaw
OY POLNÁ, POLNÁ KORÓBUSHKA*
Trad. Russian/arr. Constantine Shvedoff
VI
“CHEGA DE SAUDADE”*
Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927–1994)/arr. Jorge Calandrelli
Commissioned by Chanticleer in 2013
“RING OF FIRE”*
June Carter Cash (1929–2003)/Merle Kilgore/
arr. Michael Mcglynn
Commissioned by Chanticleer in 2013
“SO IN LOVE”
Cole Porter (1891–1964)/arr. Joseph Jennings
VI
SPIRITUAL MEDLEY
Trad. Gospel-Spiritual/arr. Joseph Jennings
Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow*
Sit Down Servant
Plenty Good Room*
*These works have been recorded and are available at this performance and at www.chanticleer.org.
†These pieces have been published through Hinshaw Music as part of the Chanticleer Choral Series.
• • •
TODAY’S FIVE O’CLOCK PERFORMANCE IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY
OF ROCKPORT MUSIC BOARD MEMBER PETER D. BELL,
WHO PASSED AWAY ON APRIL 4, 2014.
Please visit the Board listing for more information about Peter.
GAUDE GLORIOSA À 5
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)
The Blessed Virgin Mary is the focal point for some of the most inspired writing in musical
liturgy. Composers from the Middle Ages to the present day have composed countless
works—from brief motets to elaborate masses—in Her honor. Full of adoration, reverence,
86 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
passionate pleas for mercy and solemn prayers for intercession, the Marian motet was
perhaps most perfectly realized in the hands of Renaissance masters from Italy and Spain.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in the Italian town from which he took his name.
He was maestro di cappella at St. Peter’s in Rome from 1551 to 1554 and from 1571 until his
death in 1594. His fame as the outstanding representative of the Roman school caused his
name to be directly associated with the “strict” style of Renaissance counterpoint used as a
pedagogical model by students of nearly every succeeding generation. In Gaude gloriosa, a
motet with a celebratory spirit, Palestrina demonstrates his mastery of these contrapuntal
techniques. The meticulous voice leading and refined dissonance treatment now universally
idealized as the “Palestrina style” are pervasive.
REGINA CAELI LAETARE À 8
Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548-1611)
Spanish composer and organist Tomás Luis de Victoria, like many of his contemporaries,
traveled to Rome to learn his art. It is possible that Victoria studied with Palestrina while he
was there. Victoria’s many compositions, comprised exclusively of sacred works, brought
him a great deal of fame during his lifetime, primarily due to his ability to publish lavish
volumes of his works.
The artist Lucca della
Robbia (ca. 1399-1482)
created terra cotta figures on
10 panels for the Cathedral
of Florence; the panels,
collectively known as
Cantoria, show young
people singing, dancing
and playing instruments,
all in praise of the Lord.
Victoria felt a great affection for the four Marian antiphons, composing numerous settings
of these texts. Regina caeli laetare, for eight-voiced double choir, displays Victoria’s penchant
for music of a joyful nature. Lively, dance-like alleluia sections break up the predominant
texture, comprised of close imitation and fast scalar passages.
O FRONDENS VIRGA
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Hildegard of Bingen is one of the earliest documented female composers of the West. She
experienced her first divine visions at the age of three, as she explains in her autobiography,
Vita. By the time she had reached adolescence, either because of her unusual nature, or as
an attempt to position themselves politically, von Bingen’s parents enclosed her in a nunnery.
Therein she was placed under the care of Jutta, another visionary—with her own disciples—
who played a pivotal role in Hildegard’s education and upbringing. She developed gifts as a
mystic, botanist, musician and articulate person of letters, creating Ordo virtutum, the earliest
extant morality play. Serving as Abbess at a convent, she wrote music to be sung by the
daughters of her convent during the hours of the Office. O frondens virga finds its roots in
Gregorian chant, the wellspring of much liturgical melody.
SCHÖNE FREMDE
from Gartenlieder
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847)
The chapel choir in this
woodcut was established in
1498 by Emperor Maximilian
I, Holy Roman Empire.
WASSERFAHRT
from Sechs Lieder, Op. 50, No. 4
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Of the Mendelssohn family’s four children, Fanny and Felix showed extraordinary promise as
musicians at a very young age, playing the piano from early childhood and composing major
works by the advent of their respective teenage years. Fanny was considered for some time
to be the superior musician, and their shared musical tutor and mentor, Carl Friedrich Zelter,
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 87
Notes
on the
program
spoke of her quite favorably. She composed well over 400 pieces of music in her lifetime but
was ultimately beholden to time and place—it was not considered acceptable for a woman to
have a musical career—thus her efforts were restricted to chamber music. Nonetheless, her
works have endured. “Schöne Fremde,” from Gartenlieder, displays her gifts for melody and
playful text painting, in this case a text by Joseph Eichendorff.
Felix Mendelssohn wrote his Sechs Lieder, Opus 50, just before 1840. In “Wasserfahrt” he
captures the dreary atmosphere and melancholy mood of Heinrich Heine’s poem.
NACHTWACHE I
from Fünf Gesänge, Op. 104, No. 1
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Felix Mendelssohn’s beloved
older sister, Fanny, had
outstanding musical gifts
and a thorough education
in performance and
composition, but was
restrained by their father
from professional acitivity.
Johannes Brahms was one of the major forces of German Romanticism in the 19th century.
His musical output includes works in nearly all the main genres of the time. He was a prolific
composer of choral music, with equal emphasis on accompanied and a cappella works. While
his reputation with choral audiences might rest on Ein deutsches Requiem (for chorus and
orchestra) or his Liebeslieder Waltzes (for chorus and piano), his unaccompanied output is
no less notable. An avid researcher into musical practices of the past, he was particularly
interested in the madrigals and motets of preceding centuries and strove to re-imagine
the musical innovations of the past in his own compositional voice. “Nachtwache I” (text by
Friedrich Rückert) is the first of a set of five songs published in 1889. Some of his finest
compositions come from this period, and Brahms scholars often point to Fünf Gesänge as
the apex of the composer’s a cappella choral output. The pieces recall the intimacy of the
Renaissance madrigal and show the popularity of a cappella singing in the late 1800s.
TROIS CHANSONS
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Ravel wrote the music and text for these three songs for unaccompanied choir. Trois chansons
was Ravel’s only foray into the medium of choral music save the ill-fated cantata that was at
the center of the scandal surrounding his well-publicized loss of the Prix de Rome in 1905.
“Nicolette” (dedicated to his good friend the poet Tristan Klingsor) is a witty fable about a
girl who denies all suitors (a grizzly wolf, a handsome page) until she meets a fat, ugly and
excessively wealthy landlord who offers her all his money. The two live happily ever after.
“Trois beaux oiseaux du paradis” (Three Beautiful Birds of Paradise) is overtly linked to war
and patriotism (Ravel wrote Trois chansons in 1914-15). In the third movement, “Ronde,”
Ravel sets a dialogue between the old men and women of a village, who entreat the young
to stay away from the dark woods. As a caution, the poetry catalogues all the frightening
mythological creatures one can imagine. However, in a charming turn at the end of the song,
the young claim that the advanced age of the villagers was enough to scare all the demons away.
LET DOWN THE BARS, O DEATH
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
A triple prodigy in voice, composition and piano, the Pennsylvania-born Samuel Barber had
a long history with the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, beginning at the age of
88 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
14. His place as one of the most important American composers to come of age between
the World Wars is undisputed.
Barber wrote in many musical idioms—symphony, concerto and song. Though his
contribution to choral music was limited, the works that exist are staples of the repertoire.
Barber’s treatment of Emily Dickinson’s poem Let Down the Bars, O Death uses stately
dotted rhythms to evoke the unwavering march of mortality. The emotional landscape of the
miniature remains true to the poetess, who once wrote in a letter to a friend: “Death is
perhaps an intimate friend, not an enemy…a preface to supremer things.”
WAIT FANTASY
arr. Steve Hackman (b. 1980)
“Wait” Music & Lyrics by Anthony Gonzalez/Yann Gonzalez/Morgan Kibby/
Brad Laner/Justin Meldal-Johnsen/Original material by Steve Hackman
Samuel Barber
Composer, conductor, arranger, producer, pianist and singer/songwriter Steve Hackman
combines a virtuosic skill set with musical eclecticism. A graduate of the Curtis Institute
of Music, he has worked in various roles with soloists and major ensembles, including the
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Time for Three, Michael Cavanaugh and Chanticleer.
Fluent in a breadth of musical genres ranging from traditional classical to contemporary
popular, Hackman embraces this wealth of diverse material and synthesizes it into a
uniquely new and compelling language.
Commissioned in 2013 for Chanticleer’s release Someone New, Hackman was inspired by
“Wait,” from the French electronica band M83. “Wait” became a point of embarkation for
what can only be described as an epic choral fantasy, incorporating “I sing to use the
Waiting” by Emily Dickinson. The repetitions of “No time”— impassioned and ethereal—
break up the Dickinson text, creating a layered and dramatic meditation on Death and the
illusion of Time.
FLOWER OF BEAUTY
John Clements (1910-1986)
While not a folksong in the strictest sense, Flower of Beauty sets a lilting melody to a lovely
harmonization, at once reminiscent of folk singing and inspired by the English part-song
style listeners might associate with Edward Elgar or Charles Villiers Stanford. The text, by
British poet Sydney Bell, was set to music by fellow Englishman John Clements in 1960.
L’AMOUR DE MOY
Traditional French/arr. Alice Parker (b. 1925)/Robert Shaw (1916-1999)
This arrangement of a 15th-century French folksong, by two of America’s 20th-century
choral luminaries, blends contemporary harmony with an ancient melody. The text is rich
with sumptuous imagery and blushing love. While entirely secular, the piece uses much of
the same imagery as the biblical “Song of Songs” and plays on many of the same sensual
and reverent impulses.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 89
OY, POLNÁ, POLNÁ KOROBUSHKA
Traditional Russian/arr. Constantine Shvedoff
Notes
on the
program
The lyrics for Oy, polná, polná korobushka come from a verse-novella by Nikolai Nekrasov
called The Peddlers. These sellers were a common sight in 19th-century Russia, and this
song ostensibly tells the tale of a young lad willing to give up all of his merchandise to win
his true love. The text, however, is open to other, more ribald, interpretations.
“CHEGA DE SAUDADE” (NO MORE BLUES)
Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994)/arr. Jorge Calandrelli with Portuguese lyrics by
Vinicius de Moraes, English lyrics by Jon Hendricks/Jesse Cavanaugh
Jobim’s bossa nova classic “Chega de Saudade” needs little explanation. The piece proved to
be a fitting opportunity to work with the Grammy Award-winning arranger Jorge Calandrelli,
who wrote several arrangements for Chanticleer’s album Lost in the Stars. The opening and
closing of the piece are sung in Jobim’s native Brazilian Portuguese.
“RING OF FIRE”
June Carter Cash (1929-2001)/Merle Kilgore/arr. Michael McGlynn
To fashion this iconic Johnny Cash tune into a choral arrangement, Michael McGlynn (a
familiar name to Chanticleer audiences) re-imagined both the atmosphere and harmony of
the piece, channeling the melancholy lyrics and the low-lying melody.
“SO IN LOVE”
Cole Porter (1891-1964)/arr. Joseph Jennings (b. 1954)
Well-known for his arrangements of gospel and spirituals, Joseph Jennings
wrote in a variety of other styles as well during his extended tenure as music
director of Chanticleer. This virtuosic arrangement blends Jennings’s musical
heritage with the popular and jazz idioms of the Great American Songbook.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers, organized in 1871 at
Fisk University, was the first vocal ensemble to
bring the Negro Spiritual into the concert hall.
SPIRITUAL MEDLEY
Trad. Gospel-Spiritual/arr. Joseph Jennings
Joseph Jennings’s arrangements have become popular favorites with audiences
worldwide. These final selections are examples of his ability to inject the vocal freedom
inherent in the Southern Baptist tradition into the structure of classical music.
In addition to the many individual contributors to Chanticleer, the Board of Trustees thanks the following foundations,
corporations and government agencies for their exceptional support:
COMING NEXT
The National Endowment for the Arts • Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation • Dunard Fund USA • The Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
Chevron • The Bernard Osher Foundation • The Bob Ross Foundation
The Confidence Foundation • The Wallis Foundation • The Schick Foundation
FAMILY
CONCERT:
Bohemian
Quartet
SATURDAY,
JULY 12, 10 AM
Founder: Louis Botto (1951–1997) • Music Director Emeriti: Joseph H. Jennings, Matthew Oltman
Opus 3 Management • Label Manager: Lisa Nauful
Program notes by Andrew Morgan, Kip Cranna, Joseph Jennings, Jace Wittig, Gregory Peebles and Brian Hinman,
with thanks to Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Alessandra Cattani, Katja Zuske and Elena Sharkova for assistance.
90 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Saturday
12
july
calder quartet
Benjamin Jacobson, violin
Andrew Bulbrook, violin
Jonathan Moerschel, viola
Eric Byers, cello
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
THE FOUR QUARTERS, OP. 28 (2010)
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
Nightfalls
Morning Dew
Days
The Twenty-fifth Hour
STRING QUARTET NO. 2, INTIMATE LETTERS (1928)
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Andante—Con moto—Allegro
Adagio—Vivace
Moderato—Andante—Adagio
Allegro—Andante—Adagio
:: intermission ::
QUARTET NO. 1 IN E MINOR, FROM MY LIFE (1876)
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Allegro vivo appassionato
Allegro moderato à la Polka
Largo sostenuto
Vivace
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of the
Selma and Bayness Andrews Fund, Kathe and Allan Cohen, advisors.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 91
WEEK 5
the program
THE FOUR QUARTERS, OP. 28
Thomas Adès (b. London, March 1, 1971)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed 2010; 20 minutes
The Calder Quartet’s commitment to the music of English composer Thomas Adès began
with the ensemble’s concert performances and its 2008 recording of Adès’s Arcadiana, a
string quartet composed in 1994. Since that time they have added two further Adès works to
their repertoire: his Piano Quintet (which they have performed in concert with the composer
at the piano) and The Four Quarters for string quartet.
With a commission from the Carnegie Hall Corporation, Adès wrote The Four Quarters in 2010
for the Emerson Quartet, which gave the premiere of the work on March 12, 2011, at Stern
Auditorium. In October of that year, the Calder Quartet began performing The Four Quarters
on a concert in Berkeley at Hertz Hall, and it has become a permanent part of the
ensemble’s repertoire.
Although he did not necessarily intend the quartet as “program music,” Adès planted significant
clues that suggest certain connections with the natural world and its rhythms. “Four” and
“Quarters” refer to the divisions of a day, which Adès follows through a 24-hour cycle, and
beyond. The concepts of “Four” and “Quarters” also encompass internal rhythmic motion,
notated in the score by such meter markings as 2/12, 6/4, 2/4+6/16 and the like (the meter of
the last movement, “The Twenty-fifth Hour,” is 25/16).
Thomas Adès
“Nightfalls” opens with small explosions of sound as the four instruments, playing without
vibrato, set the mood of the gathering dusk. Twice disturbed by a mighty crescendo, the
movement finally settles down in slumber, with quiet little brushes of night sounds in the
viola. The second movement, “Morning Dew,” demands loud, expressive pizzicati from all
the instruments as the day awakens. The rhythmically complex dripping figures give way to
sustained sonic rays in an expansive bowed passage in the second half of “Morning Dew.”
The sounds of the forceful, ffff (loudest possible) chords that concluded the second movement
slowly disintegrate, and the second violinist introduces the quiet, pulsing rhythm of “Days.”
This hint of time passing becomes more passionate in the emotional climax of the piece,
and “Days” ends with a quiet, somewhat unresolved feeling. The fourth quarter, “The
Twenty-fifth Hour,” begins with a sweet march, then becomes expansive and assertive.
The circle closes with the quiet that comes when the mind goes into that time beyond
consciousness, just past 24 hours, when surrounded by darkness, we become hyper-aware
of the universe.
STRING QUARTET NO. 2, INTIMATE LETTERS
Leoš Janáček (b. Hukvaldy, Bohemia [now Czech Republic], July 3, 1854;
d. Ostrava, Bohemia, August 10, 1928)
Composed 1928; 26 minutes
Kamila Stösslová and Leoš
Janác̆ek strolling together in
Luhac̆ovice, summer 1927
In the last decade of his life, Leoš Janáček wrote with unimpaired imaginative powers and
skill. He composed a number of important works during this time, and after laboring for
decades in the quiet byways of his home in Brno, finally achieved international fame,
particularly for his operas. He would have said—he did say—that the source of his youthful
92 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
energy was his muse and inamorata, Kamila Stösslová. That she was a married woman, 38
years younger than he and the mother of two children, did not impede her powers to
inspire him.
It was not the first time that Janáček’s wife, Zdenka, had lived with the shadow of another
woman on her marriage, but this woman, Kamila, had staying power. From 1917, when the
two couples met—Kamila and her husband, Leoš and his wife—until Leoš’s death in August
1928, Zdenka’s role in his life gradually diminished. All available evidence suggests that
Kamila and Leoš carried on a chaste love affair, based on a passion that existed largely
in Janáček’s imagination—but a passion so powerful that it caused as much turmoil as if
the two lovers had consummated his desires.
Janác̆ek’s widow, Zdenka,
in 1928
In January 1928 Janáček embarked on writing a second string quartet. From his home in
Brno, he wrote to Stösslová at home with her husband in Písek: “Now I’ve begun to write
something nice. Our life will be in it. It will be called Love Letters… Those dear adventures of
ours! They will be the little fires in my soul and they will set it ablaze [to compose] the most
beautiful melodies.” His giddy passion thus enflamed, he wrote again, “Today I wrote down
in music my sweetest desire. I am battling with it, the desire wins. You are giving birth.”
Between January 29 and February 19, 1928, Janáček completed the String Quartet No. 2
(he had changed the subtitle to “Intimate” Letters).
Kamila, it will be beautiful, strange, unrestrained, inspired, a composition beyond
all the usual conventions! Together I think that we’ll triumph! It’s my first composition
that sprang from directly experienced feeling. Before then I composed only from
things remembered. This piece, Intimate Letters, was written in fire, earlier pieces
only in hot ash. The composition will be dedicated to you; you’re the reason for it and
to compose it was the greatest pleasure for me.
Janáček never had a chance to write that dedication. He was with Stösslová and her children
when he contracted pneumonia and died that August. String Quartet No. 2, Intimate Letters,
had its premiere performance three weeks later. His wife, Zdenka, tried desperately, but in
vain, to get the subtitle removed from the score.
The quartet is structured with its own inner logic, following no traditional patterns of sonataallegro form, slow movement, scherzo and so on. It was composed with Janáček’s sure ear
for strong melodies, unique rhythmic patterns and unusual harmonies that push, but do not
abandon, the limits of the tonal world. Just as he described it, Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2
is beautiful, strange, unrestrained and inspired.
QUARTET NO. 1 IN E MINOR, FROM MY LIFE
Bedřich Smetana (b. Litomyšl, Bohemia [now Czech Republic], March 2, 1824;
d. Prague, May 12, 1884)
Composed 1876; 28 minutes
The composer Bedřich Smetana has become so closely identified with the nationalist
movement in 19th-century Bohemia that he is called the “Father of Czech Music.” In 1866
he became music conductor of the Provisional Theatre, where his opera The Bartered Bride
would have its premiere that spring.
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 93
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
In September 1874 Smetana wrote a letter to the Theatre’s management: “It was in July…
that I noticed that in one of my ears the notes in the higher octaves were pitched differently
than in the other and that at times I had a tingling feeling in my ears and heard a noise as
though I was standing by a mighty waterfall…” Later that fall Smetana wrote to his close
friend Josef Srb-Debrnov, “…on the 20th of October I lost my hearing completely.” He was
50 years old.
After a period of understandable distress and depression, Smetana returned to composing.
In 1876 he undertook the composition of an autobiography in music, which he decided to
cast, unusually, in the form of a string quartet. He was already engaged in composing the
big orchestral suite Má Vlast (My Country), with its tribute to the River Moldau. It must have
seemed just as persuasive to Smetana that he would use himself as the programmatic
subject for a composition. He would become the first composer to apply such a personal
program to a string quartet, the holiest realm of “absolute music.” String Quartet No. 1
explores his life with dignity and honest passion. Smetana wrote,
I had no intention of writing a quartet according to recipe and the customary formulas,
…with me, the form of each composition is the outcome of the subject. Thus it is that
this quartet has made its own form; I wanted to paint, in sounds, the course of my life.
The first movement depicts my youthful leanings towards art, the Romantic
atmosphere, the inexpressible longing for something I could neither express nor
define, and also a kind of warning of my future fortune…The long insistent note
in my finale owes its origin to this. It is the fateful ringing in my ears of the highpitched tones which, in 1874, announced the beginning of my deafness. I permitted
myself this little joke, because it was so disastrous to me.
Smetana composed the second movement in Bohemian
polka style, saying that it “recalls memories of when I
used to write dance music and gave it away right and left,
being myself an enthusiastic dancer.” About the tender
Largo sostenuto he wrote that it “recalls the bliss of my
first love for a girl who afterwards became my faithful
wife.”
The Bohemian composer
Bedr̆ich Smetana has been
remembered with respect
and honor in Czechoslovakia
and the present-day Czech
Republic, where his image
has appeared on numerous
postage stamps, coins and
paper currency.
Lastly, “The fourth movement describes the discovery
that I knew how to treat national material in music and my joy at following this path.”
But then,
…The catastrophe, the beginning of my deafness, a glimpse into the dark future.
The remembrance of everything that was promised by my early career brings with
it at the same time a sense of sadness.
That is roughly the aim of this composition, which is almost a private one. I have
therefore deliberately written for four instruments conversing among themselves
about the things that so momentously affect me. Nothing more than that.
Smetana’s young friend and colleague Antonín Dvořák was the violist in the quartet that first
played From My Life before a private audience in 1878. The public premiere took place on
March 29, 1879, in Prague.
94 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Sunday
13
july
5 PM
imani winds
Valerie Coleman, flute
Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe
Mariam Adam, clarinet
Monica Ellis, bassoon
Jeff Scott, French horn
STARTIN SOMETHIN
Jeff Scott (b. 1967)
SUMMER MUSIC FOR WIND QUINTET, OP. 31 (1953-55)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Slow and indolent—Faster—Lively, still faster—With motion,
as before—Joyous and flowing—Tempo I
AFRO-CUBAN CONCERTO (2001)
Valerie Coleman
Afro
Vocalise
Danza
:: intermission ::
RUBISPHERE FOR FLUTE, CLARINET AND BASSOON (2012)
Valerie Coleman
THE RITE OF SPRING (1913)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)/arr. Jonathan Russell
DANCE MEDITERRANEA
Simon Shaheen (b. 1955)/arr. Jeff Scott
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 95
WEEK 5
the program
STARTIN SOMETHIN
Jeff Scott (b. New York, 1967)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
4 minutes
The composer Jeff Scott leads multiple professional lives. The Imani Winds horn player
since the ensemble’s founding in 1997, he has also performed on numerous movie soundtracks
and in theater and ballet orchestras. Additionally, he is the composer and arranger of an
extensive body of works in many genres, and for a variety of instruments and singers, as
well as an educator, serving as a member of the Montclair State University music faculty
since 2002. His piece Startin Somethin was commissioned by the Monmouth Winds
(members of the New Jersey Symphony). He writes:
Startin Somethin is a modern take on the genre of ragtime music. With an emphasis
on ragged—the defining characteristic of ragtime music is a specific type of
syncopation in which melodic accents occur between metrical beats. This results
in a melody that seems to be avoiding some metrical beats of the accompaniment
by emphasizing notes that either anticipate or follow the beat. The ultimate (and
intended) effect on the listener is actually to accentuate the beat, thereby inducing
the listener to move to the music. Scott Joplin, the composer/pianist known as the
“King of Ragtime,” called the effect “weird and intoxicating.”
Composer and Imani Winds
horn player Jeff Scott
SUMMER MUSIC FOR WIND QUINTET, OP. 31
Samuel Barber (b. West Chester, Pennsylvania, March 9, 1910;
d. New York City, January 23, 1981)
Composed 1953-55; 13 minutes
Summer Music was written by Samuel Barber on a commission from the Chamber Music
Society of Detroit. Over the two-year period of its composition, Barber was influenced by
significant interactions with the New York Wind Quintet, in particular its esteemed horn player,
John Barrows. Summer Music was first performed in March 1956 at the Detroit Institute of
Arts. It achieved instantaneous and lasting success with audiences and wind ensembles.
On behalf of the Imani Winds, the Canadian cellist and writer Brian Mix has contributed the
following note on Barber’s Summer Music:
Samuel Barber
96 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Samuel Barber is one of the best known and most performed of American
composers. His popularity rests in part because of his immediate accessibility: Barber
resisted the modernist developments of many of his contemporaries, opting instead
to stay within the boundaries of late Romanticism harmonically, and traditional forms
structurally. However, his essential conservatism should not be taken as a lack of
an original voice. His music is both personally distinctive and idiomatically definitive,
“American” in its simplicity and directness, but never derivative or heavy handed.
Barber’s melodic gifts are well evident in his many songs and in such works as the
Adagio for Strings. He was internationally known before he was 30. Most of Barber’s
works were the results of commissions by ensembles or prominent performers.
As a result Barber was prolific in many genres, but left only a handful of examples
in each. Such is the case in chamber music: one string quartet, one violin sonata,
one cello sonata and one wind quintet. Summer Music is quintessentially Barber in
its lyricism, and in the wide range of emotional material contained within its
single movement.
AFRO-CUBAN CONCERTO
Valerie Coleman (b. Louisville)
Composed 2001; 18 minutes
Valerie Coleman began her musical studies at the age of 11 and by 14 had already composed
three symphonies. She studied at Boston University and the Mannes College of Music in
New York. The resident composer, founder and flutist of the Imani Winds, she has served on
the faculty of The Juilliard School of Music Advancement Program and the Interschool
Orchestras of New York.
Composer and Imani Winds
flute player Valerie Coleman
Valerie Coleman has written about her Afro-Cuban Concerto:
The Afro-Cuban Concerto for Wind Quintet and Orchestra was premiered by the New
Haven Symphony under the direction of Jung-Ho Pak in the 2003-04 season. This is
the work to be heard here in its chamber version for wind quintet alone.
This concerto for winds infuses orchestral music with Afro-Cuban musical idioms,
while reintroducing the concept of wind quintet as solo ensemble to the orchestral
stage. In this three-movement work, the wind quintet mimics Afro-Cuban percussion
instruments and traditional vocal sounds, using “wailing” melodies and rhythms at the
root of Afro-Cuban music.
The quintet-only version was written for Imani Winds out of my desire to expand
the sonorous possibilities of the traditional wind quintet and my belief in the role of
flexibility in performance situations. This version was premiered in November 2001 by
Imani Winds at their Carnegie Hall debut. The full orchestral version has been performed
by both the New Haven Symphony under the baton of Maestro Jung-Ho Pak and the
Interlochen Music Festival Orchestra under the baton of Lawrence Leighton Smith.
RUBISPHERE FOR FLUTE, CLARINET AND BASSOON
Valerie Coleman
Composed 2012; 4 minutes
Inspired by the club and lounge scene of Manhattan, Valerie Coleman composed her
Rubisphere for flute, clarinet and bassoon for a performance at a Manhattan club, as part
of the 2012 Composers Concordance Festival Marathon, “Composers Play Composers.” It
was premiered by the trio of performers for whom she wrote the work—herself and her
Imani Winds colleagues Monica Ellis and Mariam Adam.
Composer Igor Stravinsky
and Ballets Russes principal
male dancer Vaslav Nijinsky,
who choreographed the
original (1913) ballet Rite
of Spring.
THE RITE OF SPRING
Igor Stravinsky (b. Lomonosov, Russia, June 17, 1882; d. New York City, April 6, 1971)/
arr. by Jonathan Russell
Composed 1913/arr. 2010; 21 minutes
A multi-talented musician, Jonathan Russell is a clarinetist, conductor and above all, a
composer. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the composition program at Princeton
33RD SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 97
Notes
on the
program
by
University. A dedicated educator, he has served on the music theory faculty at the San
Francisco Conservatory and on the composition faculty at the Conservatory’s adult and
preparatory divisions.
The Imani Winds have provided their thoughts about Jon Russell’s brilliant arrangement of
the Stravinsky ballet:
The Rite of Spring occupies one of the most revered places within the pantheon of
contemporary classical music, since its premiere on May 29, 1913. Originally a ballet,
this tour de force masterpiece has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire. The
first note sets the stage, with a haunting bassoon solo, opening the door to visions
of a pagan ritual in which a young girl dances herself to death.
Sandra Hyslop
The piece is divided into two parts that include intense and famously complex, multimeter rhythms, coupled with completely innovative uses of harmony and orchestration.
Also, Stravinsky is masterful with his use of stark dissonances at one point and the
most serene melodic phrases at another.
The Rite of Spring was tastefully excerpted and arranged by Jonathan Russell, a New
Jersey-based composer and clarinetist. The beauty of this arrangement is that although
it reduces a 100-plus piece orchestra to a wind quintet, it completely captures the
essence of the selected sections, while still fulfilling the meaning of the entire piece.
The writing is already so exceptionally executed that the piece is capable of being
arranged for a small ensemble with careful placement of voices and pairings of
instruments within the quintet, which Mr. Russell achieves. All of the intricate
and beautiful elements that lovers of the piece look for are well within this
arrangement, which constitutes a hardy addition to the wind quintet repertoire.
Composer and arranger
Jonathan Russell
DANCE MEDITERRANEA
Simon Shaheen (b. Tarshiha, Upper Galilee, Israel, 1955)/arr. Jeff Scott
Composed before 2001; 7 minutes
Virtuoso string player and
composer Simon Shaheen
COMING NEXT
MONDAY,
JULY 21, 7 PM
FILM:
A Walk into
the Sea – Danny
Williams and the
Warhol Factory
Simon Shaheen, an internationally renowned master of stringed instruments ranging from
the oud to the violin to the mandolin, is a member of the faculty at the Berklee College of
Music. His official faculty profile reveals his devotion to the world’s music, with no borders:
“What I’m bringing to Berklee is my experience as a Western classical musician, Arab
traditional musician and this eclectic fusion of music from around the world, which I
grew up with. I speak five languages because I grew up with it…so it’s part of me. Berklee
is the place where I can bring all this experience, because the idea is not to create compartments
of music, but to open the walls and let all these experiences seep into each other.” Shaheen’s
Dance Mediterranea was originally a violin solo accompanied by an eclectic mix of Western
and Eastern instruments—strings, winds and percussion. It can be heard on a 2001 CD, as
well as via several online sources, such as YouTube.
Jeff Scott, hornist of the Imani Winds and a prolific composer and arranger, has adapted
Shaheen’s highly improvised Dance Mediterranea for the ensemble. “Dance Mediterranea is
one of Shaheen’s classic compositions. The essence of traditional Middle Eastern sounds,
as they meet with virtuosic compositional technique, is more than apparent in this multidimensional, multi-metered piece. It mixes improvisation with block ensemble writing, and
concludes with a fiery finish. This arrangement stems from the collaboration Imani Winds
has established with the master oud player.”
98 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM