DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE - 2013 Principal Flute of the Metropolitan Opera, Denis Bouriakov enjoys one of the fastest growing careers in the flute world. He has won prizes in many of the most important international competitions, including the Jean-Pierre Rampal, the Munich ARD, the Prague Spring, the Carl Nielsen, and the Kobe competitions. Bouriakov looks outside the standard flute repertoire for works that allow the flute to shine. In addition to having a phenomenal virtuoso technique, he is continually transcribing and performing violin concertos and sonatas, expanding the limits of flute technique and artistry. Mr. Bouriakov released his first solo CD in 2009, which includes the Sibelius Violin Concerto in his own arrangement. He has also recorded the Bach Concerto for 2 Violins in d minor with flutist William Bennett and the English Chamber Orchestra. His anticipated 2012 CD, recorded in Japan, will include works by Copland, Debussy, Boehm, Jolivet and Prokofiev. Bouriakov has performed worldwide as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble of Tokyo, the Odense Symphony, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble of Paris and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. Denis Bouriakov was born in Crimea (now the Ukraine). At the age of ten, he was given a place at the Moscow Central Special Music School, where he studied with Professor Y.N. Dolzhikov. With the support of the ”New Names” International Charity Foundation and the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation, he toured as soloist to over 20 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, and the USA. He went on to attend the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Professor William Bennett (OBE). His graduation in 2001 was accompanied by the “Principal’s Award”, the diploma for Outstanding Recital, and the Teaching Fellowship Award for the following year. In 2006, the Academy awarded him the title of ARAM, Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. While in London, Bouriakov freelanced as principal flute with the Philharmonia of London, the LPO, Leeds Opera North and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Bouriakov’s first position was Principal Flute with the Tampere Philharmonic in Finland, where he also taught at the Tampere Conservatory of Music for 3 years. In 2008, he was appointed Principal Flute with the Barcelona Symphony under Eiji Oue. Later that year he won the Principal Flute position in the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mr. Bouriakov is very active as a soloist, orchestra player and teacher; his recent engagements have included recitals and master classes in Europe, Asia, USA and Australia.

NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO Hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the United States and abroad. In The New York Times, his playing was praised as “impassioned” and “soulful,” with “the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis’s rich, alluring tone.” In the spring of 2015, Mr. Canellakis made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut, performing Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra with the American Symphony Orchestra in Isaac Stern Auditorium. Mr. Canellakis is an artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which he performs regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour. As a member of The Canellakis-Brown Duo, his collaboration with pianist/composer Michael Brown, Mr. Canellakis performs numerous recitals throughout the country each season. A frequent performer at Bargemusic in New York City, he has also been a guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Verbier, Mecklenburg, Moab, Bridgehampton, Sarasota, and Aspen. He is the co-artistic director of the Sedona Winter MusicFest in Arizona. Mr. Canellakis was a winner of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two international auditions. He was also selected to be in residence at Carnegie Hall as a member of Ensemble ACJW, in which he performed in Weill and Zankel Halls and worked to enhance music education throughout New York City. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, where his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and Paul Katz. Mr. Canellakis is on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music. Filmmaking is a special interest of Mr. Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series “Conversations with Nick Canellakis.” All of his videos can be found on his website at www.nicholascanellakis.com .

March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sonata in C minor, K. 457 March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Mozart completed his Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457, in Vienna on October 14, 1784, according to his own catalog of his works. The following year he published it together with the Fantasia in C minor, K. 475—a brooding, improvisatory work completed in May 1785—dedicating the pair to Theresia von Trattner, one of his piano students and the second wife of prominent publisher Thomas von Trattner, Mozart’s landlord at the time. Opinions differ as to whether Mozart intended the Fantasia as an extended prelude to the Sonata; Mozart sometimes performed the pieces separately. The C minor Sonata stands apart from Mozart’s other piano sonatas in its dramatic intensity and emotional gravity—its key was one he reserved for music of expressive weight. The outer movements present a stormy character that famously anticipates Beethoven—the young Beethoven knew the work well, and echoes of its opening gesture can be heard in his own First Piano Sonata in F minor, op. 2, no. 1. Mozart’s opening commands attention with a forceful unison theme that rockets upward before dissolving into a chromatic dialogue. The lyrical second theme provides contrast, but the movement’s turbulent energy predominates. The slow second movement with its searching character and expansive treatment is thought to have been composed separately, possibly as a teaching piece for Theresia. Mozart treats its tender melody with rich, varied embellishments each time it returns. The warm middle section no doubt inspired Beethoven in the slow movement of his Pathétique Sonata, op. 13. The finale returns to the restless world of the first movement, with no hint of the merry sort of closing movement Mozart typically favored in his sonatas. Its driven figuration combines quick sighing figures, syncopations, dissonant suspensions, rhetorical pauses, and dramatic hand crossings for a masterfully tragic-sounding conclusion to the Sonata. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN César Franck (1822-1890) Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, Op. 18 January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN As organist at St. Clothilde and professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory, Franck influenced a generation of organists and composers including d’Indy, Chausson, Duparc, and Vierne. As a composer Franck was a late achiever par excellence: his three memorable chamber works—the Piano Quintet, the Violin Sonata, and the String Quartet—were composed in the last decade of his life, and his only Symphony was completed when he was sixty-five. There is no telling what he might have achieved had he not died in 1890 at age sixty-seven. At St. Clothilde, which boasted one of Cavallé-Coll’s finest organs, Franck naturally provided service music, but it was his after-service improvising that drew crowds and led to his Six pièces , composed between 1856 and 1864. His friend Liszt was so impressed that he declared them deserving of a “place beside the masterpieces of Bach.” Franck dedicated the third of these, Prélude, fugue et variation , composed between 1860 and 1862, to fellow organist Camille Saint-Saëns. The classically oriented Prelude and Fugue may show a kinship with his colleague’s style, though in no way represents a portrait. The tender, slightly melancholy Prelude consists of three iterations of an irregular five-measure phrase. Another short “prelude” that sounds extemporized launches the Fugue, after which the Variation presents a new version of the opening Prelude with a more active accompaniment. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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ABOUT THE 2011-2012 SEASON 2011-2012 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

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April 14, 2019: Jason Vieaux, guitar PHILLIP GLASS (BORN 1937) Metamorphosis II April 14, 2019: Jason Vieaux, guitar One of the most successful and controversial composers of our time, Philip Glass developed a distinctive style as a minimalist pioneer in the 1960s and early ’70s, using additive and subtractive cycles in static harmony and motoric rhythms for amplified instruments. He created a large body of music in this style for his celebrated Philip Glass Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company, which he cofounded. This period culminated in his Music in Twelve Parts (1971–74), eventually a four-hour work, which was the first that his ensemble played in a traditional concert hall. Glass’s landmark opera Einstein on the Beach , created with Robert Wilson in 1976 for New York’s Metropolitan Opera, brought him instant renown. Since then he has further explored the operatic genre in more than twenty works, also branching out into dance, theater, and film music. His film scores for Martin Scorsese’s Kundun and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours received Academy-Award nominations and his score for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show won a Golden Globe. He has also produced a significant amount of chamber and orchestral music. Among Glass’s recent compositions—premiered in 2017—are his Symphony No. 11, music for the film Jane about the life of Jane Goodall, his Piano Concerto No. 3 for Simone Dinnerstein, a new theater work for the Days and Nights Festival, Passacaglia (Distant Figure) for solo piano, and his String Quartet No. 8. His Piano Quintet, “Annunciation,” premiered in April 2018, and January 2019 saw the spectacular premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic of his Symphony No. 12, “Lodger,” a symphonic song cycle on texts by David Bowie and Brian Eno from Bowie’s album Lodger . In 1988 Glass completed a set of five Metamorphoses for piano, which he released on his landmark Solo Piano album the following year. A longtime admirer of Franz Kafka’s works, Glass took his title from the author’s famous short story Die Verwandlung (The metamorphosis) about a salesman transformed into an insect. The pieces draw on two projects that Glass had recently completed—the score for Errol Morris’s 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line about a man wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer, and his score for part of Gerald Thomas’s 1987 staging in Brazil of a Kafka Trilogy (A Process, Metamorphosis, and Praga) . Said Glass, “As both projects were undertaken at the same time, the music seemed to lend itself well to a synthesis of this kind.” Metamorphosis II has become the most frequently performed of the five pieces and received even more exposure in the 2002 film The Hours . Anne Akiko Meyers writes, “The first time I heard Philip Glass’s hauntingly beautiful Metamorphosis II , I was so struck by it that I asked Michael Riesman (who has collaborated closely with Philip Glass for decades) to arrange it for violin and piano. To my surprise, during our collaboration, Michael mentioned that Metamorphosis II, was influenced by Arvo Pärt’s Fratres .” Riesman adds, “This arrangement is fairly straightforward, except that the middle section, which has rapid four-note arpeggios for piano, didn’t seem idiomatic enough on violin to me, so I changed the pattern to three notes with top and bottom notes repeated, as in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres.” For this series of concerts featuring the collaboration between Anne Akiko Meyers and Jason Vieux, Riesman adapted the piano part for guitar. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper (1843-1913) Requiem for three cellos and piano September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper, one of the most influential cellists of the nineteenth century, was greatly respected by Liszt, Wagner, and Brahms. Born in Prague in 1843, he showed musical talent at the age of three by imitating his father’s cantorial chanting. After studying cello with Julius Goltermann at the Prague Conservatory, Popper earned great renown through a series of European tours. On the first of these in 1863 he met the influential conductor Hans von Bülow, who not only performed with him, but obtained an appointment for him at the Löwenberg court chapel. Having become principal cellist of the Vienna Hofoper (Court Opera) in 1868, Popper later joined the renowned Hellmesberger Quartet, which premiered several of Brahms’s works. In 1872 Popper married pianist Sophie Menter, pupil of Liszt, but the marriage dissolved fourteen years later. He moved to Budapest in 1896, where he taught at the Budapest Conservatory for the remainder of his life, serving for a time as cellist of the Hubay Quartet. Popper wrote over eighty compositions, mostly for his own instrument, but also some songs and piano pieces. His cello compositions—four concertos, the three-cello Requiem, and many character pieces—are valued for their idiomatic writing and melodic warmth. He composed the Requiem in 1891 after the death of his publisher Daniel Rahter, and premiered the work in London with Jules Delsart and Edward Howell on November 25 that year. Beloved of cellists, the Requiem has held onto a special niche in the repertoire. The work opens with two of the cellos playing in thirds; with the entrance of the third cello it becomes difficult to imagine a richer sound. The one-movement piece offers expressive solos for each of the cellists and even contains a little interlude featuring the piano (or orchestra). The harmonic language shows the late-nineteenth-century ease of modulating by means of chromatic alterations, deceptive resolutions, and borrowed chords. The piece travels through many keys, but on the most basic level it begins in the minor mode, moves to a remote major key (a major third away), and returns to the home key and opening theme, eventually settling into the major mode at the end. Particularly poignant passages occur with the lush suspensions in the remote key area and the chorale-like writing for the cellos just after the concluding turn to the major. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) String Quintet in C major, D. 956, op. posth. 163 December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet Between August and October 1828, just before his tragically early death in November, Schubert completed an amazing number of pieces, widely varying in character and containing some of his most beautiful music—the three late piano sonatas, the song collection Schwanengesang, the incredible C major String Quintet, and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock). The great quantity and quality may have been an act of defiance by one who knew he had little time left, but they could just as easily have been the product of one confident in his creative powers who had no thoughts of dying, since he had always recovered from previous illnesses. No sketches nor autograph manuscript of the miraculous String Quintet survive to give clues about its gestation. It is entirely possible that the work’s total creation took place within two weeks that September. We know only that the Quintet had been recently completed from a letter to publisher Probst on October 2 offering the work for publication along with the three piano sonatas and some Heine songs. In that letter Schubert mentioned that the Quintet would be “tried over in the near future,” something that did not actually happen until 1850 and in a cut version at that. Probst turned down the Quintet, probably because such a large-scale chamber work would not sell well (though he expressed interest in the songs). This masterpiece was not published until 1853. Schubert’s String Quintet has become one of the most beloved chamber music works of all time. Its endless flow of gorgeous melodies and advanced modulating harmonies, its engaging mixture of tenderness and robustness, and its luxurious sonority enhanced by the presence of a second cello have spoken in an especially personal way to audiences and performers alike. Much has been made of Schubert’s pioneering medium—the presence of two cellos rather than two violas as in Mozart’s great Quintets. “Pioneering” is justified here since Boccherini’s earlier two-cello quintets contained a soloistic first cello part to show off his own playing, whereas Schubert’s five players are all equal participants in a true piece of chamber music. Many reasons for his choice have been offered, but the simplest is probably that he loved the sound of the cello in its tenor range but did not want to give up its bass support. This wondrous work, like his G major Quartet two years earlier, begins simply with a sustained chord that blossoms into melodic and rhythmic fragments. The way in which he immediately transforms these elements portends a movement of great breadth and imagination, but nothing can fully prepare the listener for the melting beauty of the second theme. If for no other reason, the sonority of the two cellos singing high above the viola’s bass line more than justifies Schubert’s chosen quintet configuration. This lilting theme makes many appearances in various instrumental configurations, giving the movement its overall sense of serenity, though Schubert does introduce enough dramatic conflict, particularly in the development section, to provide balance. One of the crowning jewels of the Quintet is its exquisite Adagio, one of Schubert’s rare essays in such a slow tempo. The drawn-out unfolding of his theme seems to suspend time, a quality that speaks volumes about Schubert’s confidence and prowess. His memorable texture has the three middle instruments playing the sustained theme while the first violin provides fragmented outbursts and the second cello pizzicato support. Without warning the middle section explodes passionately in a distantly related key, after which the sublime opening section returns with inspired variants. Toward the end, the turbulent music tries to intrude but is quickly repressed by the prevailing calm. The extraordinarily moving quality of this music led both celebrated pianist Artur Rubinstein and esteemed writer Thomas Mann to say they would choose this movement to hear on their deathbeds. The scherzo’s stomping peasant dance, replete with hunting calls, contains remarkable harmonic shifts and bold dissonances that lend a sophisticated sheen to the merriment. No greater contrast can be imagined than the somber, introspective trio that is ultimately brushed aside by the return of the merry Scherzo. The finale imparts rustic Hungarian flavor with its vigorous short-long rhythms in the accompaniment and shifts between minor and major. The lilting second theme gives a more elegant, courtly impression. Toward the end he creates an unforgettable sonority by offsetting the cellos, again in duet, against delicate arching chords in the upper three voices. His exuberant coda speeds up twice to provide a dazzling conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 6, 2016: The Escher String Quartet WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) String Quartet in D major, K. 575, “Prussian No. 1” March 6, 2016: The Escher String Quartet The String Quartet in D major, K. 575, is the first of the three Prussian Quartets—the last string quartets Mozart ever wrote. In April of 1789 he had left Vienna for Potsdam with his pupil, Prince Karl Lichnowsky (later Beethoven’s patron), who was to introduce him to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. The king, like his flutist/composer uncle, King Friedrich Wilhelm I, and his pianist/composer cousin, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was a great music lover—his instrument was the cello. Mozart hoped the visit would result in some financial gain, but all he received was a small amount of money and a commission to compose “six easy clavier sonatas for Princess Friederike and six quartets for the king.” When Mozart got back to Vienna his situation was no better. He was constantly begging money from friends, who this time did not answer his requests; his wife fell seriously ill; and he himself was suffering from rheumatism, toothaches, headaches, and insomnia. He composed one quartet, K. 575 in D major, but waited almost a year before adding two more, K. 589 in B-flat major and K. 590 in F major. He never wrote the other three, nor did he complete the set of sonatas for the princess. He sold the three quartets to a publisher “for a mockery of a fee, only to lay my hands on some money to keep myself going.” In order to highlight the king’s instrument, Mozart wrote significant cello parts in high register, which he balanced with soloistic opportunities for the other instruments—a style called “quatuor concertant,” which was particularly popular in Paris. Here in the D major Quartet Mozart featured solo cello writing in all movements, whereas in the second quartet the cello comes to the fore only in the first two movements and in the third primarily in the first movement. It seems the image of the cello-playing king receded as time went on. Mozart chose the relaxed tempo marking “Allegretto” for three of the D major Quartet’s movements. He emphasizes the opening movement’s delicate quality by giving the rare directive “sotto voce” (in an undertone, subdued) at the outset and at the start of the recapitulation. The first violin, then viola, present the main theme, with equal prominence given to the cello when it enters with the second theme in high register. Mozart marks this “dolce” (sweetly), another of his exceptional directives. The Andante, his only non-Allegretto movement, is only moderately slow—a walking tempo—further minimizing the tempo contrast between movements. His lovely melody bears enough similarity to his 1785 song “Das Veilchen” (The violet) to have given that nickname to the Quartet on occasion. The arching phrases in the middle section of this A-B-A form also feature the cello as an equal conversationalist. An introductory ornament and light staccato repeated notes, both essential thematic elements, give verve to this elegant Menuetto. The cello particularly comes to the fore in the middle trio section, presenting a singing melody in response to the violins’ lightly tripping invitation. The cheerful finale combines both sonata and rondo form with a recurring main theme introduced by the cello with viola counterpoint. Many commentators have pointed out the similarity of the main idea to the that of the first movement, suggesting a possible anticipation of Romantic composers’ interest in cyclic unity. Mozart’s astounding but seemingly effortless contrapuntal writing throughout the movement makes refrains, episodes, and development alike a witty and elegant experience. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes