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October 29, 2017: Peter Serkin, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Adagio in B minor, K. 540 October 29, 2017: Peter Serkin, piano According to his own catalog, Mozart completed the Adagio, K. 540, on March 19, 1788. Two weeks earlier he had completed the last of his arias for sister-in-law Aloysia Weber, “Ah se in ciel,” K. 538, and the previous month the Piano Concerto in D major, K. 537, “Coronation,” but he was chiefly occupied by thoughts of the impending Vienna premiere of his opera Don Giovanni on May 7 that year. No specific event appears to have prompted the composition of this exquisite, solitary slow movement for piano, though its ending in B major has invited speculation that he may have intended it for a sonata in E minor. Distinguished English musicologist Arthur Hutchings deemed the Adagio Mozart’s finest single piano work and eminent Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein considered it “one of the most perfect, most deeply felt, and most despairing of all his works.” Had it found a place in a complete sonata it would no doubt have received the larger number of performances it merits. The Adagio displays the elegant simplicity that imparts poignance to so many of Mozart’s slow movements. Here sudden changes of dynamics and register supply drama. The movement follows sonata-form of the binary type, in which the second half containing the development and recapitulation is proportionally equal to the exposition. Mozart adds florid elaboration to the short coda, which ends serenely in B major. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

Development Director Inmo Parloff Leadership Council Thomas and Heidi Ahlborn Anne Bosch William and Zitta Chapman Catherine Coo ke Christina Hembree Adrian and Christina Jones Ronald and Mollie Ledwith Youngick and Joyce Lee Carol Martin Dorothy Neff Suzanne Taranto Donald and Gigo Taylor Richard and Michelle Vaccaro

STEFAN JACKIW, VIOLIN Stefan Jackiw is one of America’s foremost violinists, captivating audiences with playing that combines poetry and purity with impeccable technique. Hailed for playing of “uncommon musical substance” that is “striking for its intelligence and sensitivity” (Boston Globe), Jackiw has appeared as a soloist with the Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, among others. Following his summer performance with the New York Philharmonic , Jackiw opens the 2023-24 season returning to the orchestra to perform the Barber Concerto with Jaap van Zweden. His season also includes a quadruple World Premiere of new works at Roulette , and his return to Asia with the Taiwan Philharmonic and the China National Symphony . In the spring, the Junction Trio will make their Carnegie Hall debut with the New York premiere of John Zorn’s Philosophical Investigations. He was also recently invited to perform and curate a series of programs at the Edinburgh Festival (‘Stefan Jackiw and Friends’). During the 2022-23 season, Jackiw returned to the Cleveland Orchestra to perform Britten’s Violin Concerto with Thomas Søndergård, and to the Vancouver Symphony to perform Brahms with Otto Tausk. He also appeared at the 92NY with cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Daniil Trifonov, and he embarked on a multi-city Junction Trio tour that included the group’s Celebrity Series of Boston debut, alongside performances in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and more. His European dates included his return to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Residentie Orkest , as well as appearances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra , the Bournemouth Symphony , and the Sinfónica de Galicia . Other recent highlights include his performance of Mozart’s violin Concerto no. 5 with Alan Gilbert and the Boston Symphony, his return to Carnegie Hall to perform Bach with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s , and performances with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert, and with Orchestre National de Lyon under Nikolaj Znaider. Jackiw recently performed a new Violin concerto, written for him by Conrad Tao and premiered by the Atlanta Symphony and Baltimore Symphony . He has also premiered David Fulmer’s concerto Jauchzende Bögen with Matthias Pintscher and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen at the Heidelberger Frühling. Jackiw tours frequently with his musical partners, pianist Conrad Tao and cellist Jay Campbel l, as part of the Junction Trio. He also enjoys collaborating with pianist Jeremy Denk with whom he has toured the complete Ives Violin Sonatas, which the pair recorded for future release on Nonesuch Records. In 2019, he recorded Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Inon Barnatan, Alisa Weilerstein, Alan Gilbert and Academy St. Martin in the Fields. Jackiw has performed in numerous major festivals and concert halls around the world, including the Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Philharmonie de Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and the Washington Performing Arts Society. Born to physicist parents of Korean and Ukrainian descent, Stefan Jackiw began playing the violin at the age of four. His teachers have included Zinaida Gilels, Michèle Auclair, and Donald Weilerstein. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, as well as an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, and is the recipient of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Jackiw plays a violin made in 1705 by Vincenzo Ruggieri. He lives in New York City.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2023 AT 4 PM THE GOLDEN AGE OF VIENNA BUY TICKETS BENJAMIN BEILMAN, VIOLIN 2019 “Poised and monstrously talented” — Philadelphia Inquirer ALEXI KENNEY, VIOLIN “He made it seem as if this were the only possible way to play the music.” — The New York Times PASCUAL MARTÍNEZ FORTEZA, CLARINET New York Philharmonic Member YOOBIN SON, FLUTE New York Philharmonic Member GLORIA CHIEN, PIANO “…dashing bravado and an uncanny precision of calibration” — Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe MIHAI MARICA, CELLO “Stunning Performance” — New York Times MILENA PAJARO-VAN DE STADT, VIOLA “…lyricism that stood out…a silky tone and beautiful, supple lines.” — The Strad FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS “Vienna’s Golden Age” signifies the fin-de-siecle cultural hothouse that spawned innovations in art, music, science, literature, and philosophy. Creative pioneers such as Mahler, Freud, Gutave Klimt, Hofmannsthal, and Schoenberg rubbed shoulders in the elegant coffee houses, art salons, and concert halls of Vienna during those momentous, pre-war years. Seven extraordinary musicians will explore the charm and portent of the music that flowered in the rich cultural ferment of Golden Age Vienna. PROGRAM Fritz Kreisler Marche Miniature Viennoise Program Notes Fritz Kreisler The Old Refrain Program Notes Fritz Kreisler Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta Program Notes Gustav Mahler Piano Quartet in A minor Gloria Chien, piano Alexi Kenney, violin; Milena Pajaro-Van de Stadt, viola; Mihai Marica, cello Program Notes Johann Strauss Emperor Waltz (arr. Schoenberg) Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman and Alexi Kenney, violins; Milena Pajaro-Van de Stadt, viola; Mihai Marica, cello; Yoobin Son, flute; Pascual Martinez-Forteza, clarinet Program Notes Erich Korngold Suite for two violins, cello, and piano left-hand Program Notes Watch Benjamin Beilman perform Fritz Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta:

November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Lullaby November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello Sometime around 1919 George Gershwin worked on a short piece for string quartet in the course of his harmony and orchestration studies with Edward Kilenyi. Though popular with his friends, the piece was put aside after Gershwin siphoned off its main motive for an aria in the one-act opera Blue Monday , which was pulled from the stage after its premiere in 1922. The manuscript of the quartet lay forgotten on his brother Ira’s shelf for four decades until harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler reminded Ira of its existence. Adler obtained permission to arrange the piece for harmonica and string quartet, in which version the piece was introduced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963. It was a short step for Adler, now with the help of Morton Gould, to make an arrangement for harmonica and string orchestra, but it was not until October 28, 1967, that the Lullaby was publicly performed in its original version for string quartet. Ira and Arthur (another brother) published the piece the following year, and it has had equal success with both string quartets and string orchestras. George Gershwin’s ability to cross over between jazz and “art music” has always been considered one of his great claims to fame, and the Lullaby, written as a “classical” piece, enhances that claim. The Lullaby is designed in three main sections framed by a short introduction and coda. Softly sustained chords and violin harmonics lead to the first main section, which features a gently syncopated accompaniment. The central section itself contains three parts, marked Semplice, Recitativo, and Dolcissimo. The return to the main section is altered and shortened and the piece closes with a unifying return to the harmonics of the introduction with a little tossed-off pizzicato for impish finality. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

< Back John Corigliano Lullaby for Natalie Program Notes Previous Next

< Back J.S. Bach Toccata in C minor, BWV 911 Program Notes Previous Next

ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, VIOLIN Violin superstar Anne Akiko Meyers is one of the most in-demand violinists in the world. Regularly performing as guest soloist with the world’s top orchestras, she presents ground-breaking recitals and is a best-selling recording artist with 35 albums. Meyers is known for her passionate performances, purity of sound, deeply poetic interpretations, innovative programming and commitment to commissioning significant new works from living composers. Anne’s recent recording of Rautavaara’s Fantasia was the only classical instrumental work to be selected on NPR’s 100 best songs of 2017. Fantasia, Anne’s 35th recording, includes works for violin and orchestra by Rautavaara, Ravel and the Szymanowski Concerto No.1, recorded with Kristjan Järvi and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2018, she will premiere a new violin concerto by Adam Schoenberg (which she commissioned) with the Phoenix and San Diego Symphony Orchestras. Anne will also return to Leipzig, Germany to premiere Rautavaara’s Fantasia with the MDR Leipzig Orchestra and has been invited by legendary composer, Arvo Pärt, to perform at the opening celebration of the new Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia. Earlier this year, Anne performed the world premiere of Fantasia by Einojuhani Rautavaara, a work written for her and considered to be the composer’s final masterpiece, with the Kansas City Symphony, conducted by Michael Stern. She performed recitals in Florida, New York, Virginia, Washington D.C., and returned to the Nashville Symphony to perform the Bernstein Serenade with Giancarlo Guerrero. In May, she headlined the Kanazawa Music Festival performing the Beethoven Concerto with cadenzas by Mason Bates with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, toured New Zealand with the Mason Bates Violin Concerto and New Zealand Symphony, and returned to Krakow and Warsaw, Poland to perform the Szymanowski Concerto and Jakub Ciupinski’s newly orchestrated Wreck of the Umbria. Other recent projects include a nationwide PBS broadcast special and a Naxos DVD featuring the world premiere of Samuel Jones’ Violin Concerto with the All-Star Orchestra led by Gerard Schwarz, the French premiere of Mason Bates Violin Concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre de Lyon, and two new recordings-Naïve Classics celebrating Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday and a box set of Anne’s RCA Red Seal discography on Sony Classics. Anne’s prior releases the Four Seasons: The Vivaldi Album, debuted at #1 on the classical Billboard charts, as did Air: The Bach Album, and the Vivaldi was the recording debut of the Ex-Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri del Gesu violin, dated 1741, which was awarded to Meyers for her lifetime use. A champion of living composers, Meyers collaborates closely with many of today’s leading composers. She has expanded the violin repertoire by commissioning and premiering works by composers such as Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Akira Miyoshi, Arvo Pärt, Gene Pritsker, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Somei Satoh, Adam Schoenberg and Joseph Schwantner. Anne has collaborated with a diverse array of artists outside of traditional classical, including jazz icons Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis, avant-garde musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita, pop-era act Il Divo and singer Michael Bolton. She performed the National Anthem in front of 42,000 fans at Safeco Field in Seattle, appeared twice on The Tonight Show and was featured in a segment on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann that became that show’s the third most popular story of the year. Anne has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, CBS’ “The Good Wife”, NPR’s Morning Edition with Linda Wertheimer, All Things Considered with Robert Siegel and recently curated “Living American” on Sirius XM Radio’s Symphony Hall with host David Srebnik. She was on the popular Nick Jr. show Take Me To Your Mother with Andrea Rosen, and best-selling novelist J. Courtney Sullivan consulted with Anne for The Engagements and based one of the main characters loosely on her career. She also collaborated with children’s book author and illustrator Kristine Papillon on Crumpet the Trumpet where the character Violetta the violinist is played by Anne. Anne Akiko Meyers was born in San Diego and grew up in Southern California. She studied with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Felix Galimir, Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. She received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Colburn School of Music and is on the advisory council of the American Youth Symphony Orchestra.

< Back AS LONG AS THERE ARE SONGS Stephanie Blythe will announce the program selections from the stage. No Program Notes Previous Next

December 18, 2016: Mariko Anraku, harp; Emmanuel Ceysson, harp CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Selections from Suite bergamasque, arranged for two harps December 18, 2016: Mariko Anraku, harp; Emmanuel Ceysson, harp Debussy was enchanted by the poetry of Paul Verlaine. Around 1890 he began composing a series of piano pieces that would become his Suite bergamasque , titled after a line of Verlaine’s famous poem Clair de lune . The poem had appeared in an 1869 collection entitled Fêtes galantes , which had been inspired by the paintings of Watteau and his followers. In these paintings, idealized landscapes of parks and gardens in the twilight are often populated by revelers in costumes of the tragic-comic characters of the commedia dell-arte—Harlequin, Pierrot, Colombine, and company—a form of theater that began in sixteenth-century Italy. Verlaine’s collection also provided texts for a number of Debussy’s songs before he returned to the piano pieces for revision and publication as Suite bergamasque in 1905. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word bergamasque (or bergomask) referred to a fantasia or set of instrumental variations based on a folk dance—Shakespeare’s rustic characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , for example, dance a bergomask. Presumably that folk dance had some connection with the Bergamo district in northern Italy. Further, the character of the Harlequin is described as a mischievous servant from Bergamo. By Verlaine’s and Debussy’s time there was no evident connection with the bergomask’s traditional tune or harmonic scheme, but the association with a folk dance and the commedia dell’arte lingered. Debussy’s Suite bergamasque consists of four movements, Prélude, Menuet, Clair de lune, and Passepied, of which we hear I, III, and IV, arranged for two harps by Matthieu Martin. The Prélude opens with unhurried nobility, achieving Debussy’s aim of sounding improvisatory. This introductory idea leads to a stronger, chordally moving main theme, followed by a delicately textured second theme. The middle section develops both themes, with a kind of recapitulation that deals only with the opening introductory idea and the stronger main theme. The outline of sonata form, however, remains secondary to the lovely sense of improvisation or “Impressionism” that Debussy creates. Originally titled “Promenade sentimentale” after another Verlaine poem, the third piece became Clair de lune (Moonlight) when Debussy polished the Suite bergamasque for publication in 1905. Since then the piece has taken on a life of its own, having become extraordinarily popular and, sad to say, trivialized. Its luminous qualities and inspired construction, however, should inspire listeners to look beyond its familiarity. That amazing opening—how it just hangs there then gently descends as silvery light from the moon—is pure genius. Its rhythmic freedom gives the feeling of floating as does the delay of the anchoring pitch of the home key. Debussy, like his contemporary Ravel, was justly famous for his water imagery. The rippling central section no doubt responds to the line in Verlaine’s poem describing the moonlight bringing sobs of ecstasy to the fountains. The ending is magical—Debussy fragments the theme as moonlight would be broken up by shadows and allows it to die away in a haunting final cadence. A passepied was a French court dance of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in triple time, much like a minuet but faster, with fairly constant motion in eighth- or sixteenth-notes. For his Passepied, Debussy opted instead for a moderate tempo and 4/4 meter, perhaps reflecting his original title, Pavane, which refers to a stately court dance. He most likely changed the name after deciding that his piece was too active for a Pavane, but also to avoid comparison with Fauré’s influential Pavane, op. 50. It seems he was not worried about comparison with another source of inspiration—the Passepied from Delibes’s pastiche of “ancient” dances for Le roi s’amuse , which had long been available in piano transcription. Whatever the case, Debussy’s piece, unfolding in a kind of modified rondo form, shows a fascinating mix of the constant motion of a passepied and a profusion of contrasting melodies, all bathed in a kind of modal sonority that hints at older times while proclaiming Debussy’s Impressionistic orientation. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

MIHAI MARICA, CELLO Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica is a First Prize winner of the “Dr. Luis Sigall” International Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile and the Irving M. Klein International Competition, and is a recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant. He has performed with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony in Mexico, the Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Jardins Musicaux Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Santa Cruz Symphony in the US. He has also appeared in recital performances in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Holland, South Korea, Japan, Chile, the United States, and Canada. A dedicated chamber musician, he has performed at the Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk, and Aspen music festivals where he has collaborated with such artists as Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, André Watts, and Edgar Meyer, and is a founding member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet. A recent collaboration with dancer Lil Buck brought forth new pieces for solo cello written by Yevgeniy Sharlat and Patrick Castillo. Last season, he joined the acclaimed Apollo Trio. Mr. Marica studied with Gabriela Todor in his native Romania and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music where he was awarded master’s and artist diploma degrees. He is an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two).

SETH MORRIS, FLUTE Seth Morris serves as Principal Flute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and previously held the same position with the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras. He also was a member of the New World Symphony and West Michigan Symphony and has performed with ensembles across the United States including the Houston, Detroit, and Pacific Symphony Orchestras, American Ballet Theatre, Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Dallas Winds. Seth was a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, as well as a member of the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, and performed at the Bay View Music Festival. A laureate of multiple competitions, Seth won first prize in the National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Competition, the Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, and both the Kentucky Flute Festival's Young Artist and Collegiate Artist Competitions. In 2015, Seth won the bronze medal at the Ima Hogg Competition where he gave the Houston Symphony premiere of the Carl Nielsen Flute Concerto; other concerto performances include the Boston Chamber Symphony, the Bay View Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. In addition to performing, Seth has taught at numerous universities and festivals around the country including serving as guest professor at the University of Michigan and University of Texas at Arlington. He has been a Guest Artist or featured clinician for the Texas Music Festival, Texas Flute Festival, Houston Flute Fest, San Diego Flute Club, Long Beach Flute Institute, Floot Fire Houston, and Kentucky Flute Festival, and has served on the faculty for Carnegie Hall’s NYO-USA and the Houston Youth Symphony. His articles have been published in The Flutist Quarterly and The Floot Fire Book: Advanced. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Seth went on to earn a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Music in Music Education at the University of Kentucky, a Master of Music at the New England Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance degree at the University of Michigan. His teachers include Paula Robison, Amy Porter, Fenwick Smith, and Gordon Cole. Seth is a William S. Haynes Artist.