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ÉRIK GRATTON, FLUTE Acting Principal Flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Érik Gratton is a native of Montréal, Canada. He received a First Prize with great distinction from the Montreal Conservatory, where he studied with Carolyn Christie and Jean-Paul Major. He furthered his studies with Jeanne Baxtresser at the Manhattan School of Music. Érik is in his 18th season as principal flutist of the Nashville Symphony. He has made many solo appearances with the orchestra, including John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. He can be heard on more than 20 recordings with the Nashville Symphony on the Naxos label. Érik performed recently with the Montreal Symphony and the Seattle Symphony, and he has appeared at numerous orchestral festivals, including Tanglewood, Shira Music Festival Israel, the Peninsula Music Festival, and Mainly Mozart. Érik is an active session player in Nashville’s busy recording industry and enjoys giving solo recitals and playing chamber music on a regular basis. In his spare time, his hobbies include beekeeping, woodworking, and discovering new things and places with his wife Erin.

October 14, 2018: Garrick Ohlsson, piano JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Book 1 October 14, 2018: Garrick Ohlsson, piano Once Brahms had settled in Vienna he naturally developed friendships with many of the musicians there, none more surprising to his old friends Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim than his new relationship with piano virtuoso Carl Tausig, a student and lifelong supporter of Liszt. Associated with the New German School, Liszt and Wagner were considered progressive for developing new genres (program symphony, music drama), innovative transformation of motives, and cyclic unifying procedures, in contrast to supposedly more conservative composers such as Brahms who favored “old” abstract forms. In reality many innovative procedures came out of both “camps” and there was more respect than enmity between the two. The so-called conservatives did, however, complain about the tendency of Liszt and his disciples toward flashy virtuosity without substance. Thus in 1862 Brahms found himself having to explain his friendship with Tausig to Joachim: I socialize particularly with Cornelius [another Lisztian with whom Brahms later had a falling-out] and Tausig. . . . who can doubtless accomplish more with their little finger than all the other musicians with their whole head and all of their fingers. Against this backdrop Brahms composed his Variations on a Theme of Paganini in 1862–63 and dedicated the work to Tausig, which explains the bravura display of finger-busting pyrotechnics. Clara Schumann acknowledged the myriad challenges when Brahms sent her a copy, calling them Hexenvariationen (witches’ variations), though she added, “I have started practicing them most eagerly.” Brahms himself called attention to their exploration of pianistic techniques by calling them Studien , dividing them into two books of fourteen studies each when they were first published in 1866. That he also assigned them an opus number, however, points to the fact that he considered the work concert fare. He gave the first performance from the manuscript on November 25, 1865, in Zurich. Even though the Variations may have been written for Tausig, Brahms himself was able to surmount their difficulties in the days when he was still practicing regularly. Brahms had been schooled in composing inventive variations for years with his teacher Eduard Marxsen, and no one was considered a finer master of the art. In this particular case he seems to have chosen his subject—Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, already a set of variations—to try to equal in difficulty for the piano what Paganini had done for the violin. The following are just a few of the challenges Brahms sets for the pianist: parallel sixths or thirds (Book I, nos. 1 and 2, or Book II, no. 1), independent meters in the right and left hands (Book I, no. 5, and Book II, no. 7), light rapid contrary motion (Book II, nos. 8 and 11), octave glissandos (Book I, no. 13), and octave gestures that are approached and left by wide leaps (Book I, nos. 7 and 8; Book II, no. 10). Brahms was more often interested, as one commentator put it, in “marksmanship” rather than “graspmanship.” In other words, he tended toward feats a virtuoso could show off without huge hands, though the graceful waltz of Variation 4 in Book II, for example, requires a large left-hand span. Some of the most miraculous sonorities come in quiet variations, such as the lovely filigree of Variation 12 in Book I, the feather-light arches with their impish grace notes in Variation 6 of Book II, or the cascading chains of thirds in Variation 13, Book II. Throughout Brahms constantly amazes in his ability to “make music” even while taxing the pianist’s technical abilities. The closing variation in each book is crowned by a coda that encompasses several “études.” The first book’s coda begins loudly, dips down, then regains power in the last section; the second book’s coda begins quietly as it emerges from the variation proper, then grows in volume and texture to the end. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Sonata in G major, D. 894, op. 78 (“Fantasie”) January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano In October 1826 when Schubert wrote his G major Piano Sonata he had just moved into new lodgings near his old school where his friend Franz von Schober and his mother had taken up a new residence. Another longtime friend, Josef von Spaun, paid him a visit there, and Schubert played him the almost completed first movement of the Sonata. Spaun’s pleasure in the piece resulted in his receiving the dedication when the Sonata was published the following year—“for I like to do something to please you when I can,” he reported Schubert as saying. The 1827 publication of the Sonata employed the title Fantasy, Andante, Minuet, and Allegretto, a fabrication of the publisher either to attract customers or to recognize a new concept behind a work that began in a very moderate tempo and with the relaxed-sounding meter 12/8—unusual for a sonata first movement. This title served to confuse early critics and to keep the work from being considered a sonata for a number of years. Robert Schumann, however, recognized the Sonata for what it was, and in an 1835 review of three Schubert sonatas called it “the most perfect in form and substance.” Despite the early designation of fantasy for the first movement, it follows true sonata form, even though its course is primarily a leisurely and lyrical one. Commentators have found links between this movement and the opening of Beethoven’s G major Piano Concerto, which Schubert certainly knew, and also with a procedure he employed just three months earlier in his own G major String Quartet—that of immediately repeating the entire dancelike second theme with soaring ornamentation. The central development section explores some of the more impassioned possibilities of his songful melodies. Though Schubert did not always confine excursions to distant and colorful keys to his development sections, he largely did so in this movement. As in many of his slow movements, Schubert presents his serene main theme three times, alternating with two stormy episodes. His first return to the main theme is somewhat infused with the energy of the intervening episode, so that when the main theme makes its final appearance in its calm guise, it brings a sense of rounding-off and closure. Schubert’s Minuet continues the Sonata’s moderate pace where a scherzo might have seemed too brash. Much in the character of a Ländler (Austrian precursor of the waltz), the main Minuet section and its return encompass one of Schubert’s true gems—a delicate trio that grows out of a little figure heard at the end of the Minuet. In the finale Schubert may again have found inspiration in Beethoven—in this case the Rondo of the G major Piano Sonata, op. 31, no. 1, which like Schubert’s movement is marked “Allegretto.” Schubert’s rondo, though not so-labeled, features a tuneful refrain, based on a long note releasing into shorter and repeated notes. The refrain alternates with scenic episodes, of which the second contains a poetic minor-mode section with a magical shift to major. The movement ends with a quiet yet sparkling coda that peaks just before making a final hushed reminder of the rondo theme—a fitting close for such a lovely, unhurried work. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

MING FENG HSIN, VIOLIN A native of Taiwan, Ming Feng Hsin’s musical career began as a violin soloist after winning the Glasgow International Violin Competition at the age of 15. He subsequently soloed with the Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Orchestra and was hailed by the Scotsman as “destined to be one of the giants of the next generation.” A protégé of Yehudi Menuhin, Mr. Hsin has performed throughout Europe, America and Asia as both soloist and chamber musician. Mr. Hsin is also an accomplished conductor. After getting a conducting degree from Juilliard with Otto Werner Mueller, he has worked with numerous orchestras throughout the world, and has led productions of the operas Aida, Flying Dutchman, La Boheme, and Ballo in Maschera. 
A member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for the past 18 years, Mr. Hsin is married to his colleague in the orchestra Wen Qian, and together they have two young children, Thomas 5 and Olivia 3.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023 AT 4 PM DANISH STRING QUARTET BUY TICKETS THE DANISH STRING QUARTET “That mixture of casualness and control that comes out when they perform makes them the quartet I would most want to hear play just about anything. Chords all have a diamond edge, tunes pour like molten silver, staccato passages skip like stones across a lake.” — Justin Davidson, New York Magazine FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The long-awaited return of the charismatic Danish String Quartet promises to be a true highlight of the 2022-23 season. In their own words, “We are three Danes and one Norwegian cellist, making this a truly Scandinavian endeavor. The three of us, the Danes, met very early in our lives in the Danish countryside, and none of us have any memory of our lives without the string quartet. In 2008 Norwegian cellist Fredrik joined in. He looked like a character from Game of Thrones, and we thought he was a perfect match.” The Danish Quartet will bring their perfectly balanced personal and musical rapport to beloved works by Mozart, Britten, and Schubert. PROGRAM Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Divertimento in F, K. 138 Program Notes Benjamin Britten Divertimenti Program Notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat, K. 428 Program Notes Franz Schubert String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804, Op. 29 (“Rosamunde”) Program Notes Watch the Danish String Quartet perform Beethoven’s String Quartet in F, Op. 59, No. 1, at Parlance Chamber Concerts:

October 29, 2017: Peter Serkin, piano JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Goldberg Variations BWV 988 October 29, 2017: Peter Serkin, piano A wonderful story, recounted by Bach’s early biographer J. N. Forkel, revealed that the Goldberg Variations were the result of a request by former Russian ambassador and insomniac Count Keyserlingk for some clavier pieces that his young house harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, could play for him during sleepless nights. A great patron of the arts, the count lived in Dresden but often visited Leipzig, where in 1737 he had introduced the ten-year-old Goldberg to Bach, recommending him as a harpsichord student. Goldberg indeed took lessons from Bach, but also from his oldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, a great keyboard virtuoso who was working in Dresden. It may be, as some scholars claim, that the elder Bach wrote the monumental work for his son rather than for Goldberg, but Forkel’s account cannot be dismissed because some information for his biography came directly from Wilhelm Friedemann and from Bach’s second oldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. In any case, Goldberg, too, became an outstanding virtuoso, and seems to have played the Variations frequently. Bach visited Count Keyserlingk in Dresden in November 1741, having published the Variations that fall, and it is entirely likely that he gave him a presentation copy. The count referred to them as “my” variations, but the work cannot have been an official commission or Bach would have included a formal dedication. For posterity the Aria with 30 Variations will always be known as the Goldberg Variations. In the larger scheme of things, Bach, a master organizer, published the work as part of the series he unassumingly titled Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Exercise), which he issued in installments beginning in 1731. This “exercise” represents the pinnacle of Bach’s art and thus an incomparable peak in the whole of music. His six keyboard Partitas make up Part I, followed by the Italian Concerto and the French Overture as Part II, the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major and various organ chorales as Part III, and, finally, the Goldberg Variations. He may even have included the Art of Fugue as Book V had he lived to see it published. In choosing to compose a large set of variations, Bach stood firmly in the tradition of Corelli, Handel, and Rameau, though he himself had not written a keyboard set since his youth. Aria was also a traditional title for the first movement of such a set—Bach’s Aria is a thirty-two measure theme that also appears in Anna Magdalena Bach’s Clavier-Büchlein of 1725. For the first eight bars the harmony and bass line (the basis for most Baroque variation sets rather than the theme itself) are the same as for Handel’s Chaconne avec 62 variations, which Bach surely knew. Handel’s treatment of the last variation as a simple canon (precise imitation of one line by another) must have sparked Bach’s imagination even before the Goldberg Variations, because he used the underlying progression as the basis for several canons. Versions of these later appeared in his Fourteen Canons (BWV 1087), which he eventually copied into his own print of Part IV of the Clavier-Übung, explicitly connecting these two collections. He probably also knew a set of sarabande variations attributed to the “Eisenach” Bach (1642–1703)—or to J. S. Bach’s older brother—which employ the same progression for the first four measures. Forerunners aside, Bach employed a much longer theme than his predecessors had, giving himself a much fuller range to explore his incomparable canonic and variation techniques. The whole set is carefully organized so that every third variation includes a canon, systematically increasing the pitch interval at which the second line begins its imitation, starting with a canon at the unison for Variation 3 and continuing through the interval of a ninth in Variation 27. (The canons in Nos. 12 and 15 proceed in contrary motion.) In addition Bach sets up a threefold pattern of variation types (beginning with the third variation) of canon, free counterpoint, and duet-style. Before No. 3 he includes two free variations and follows No. 27 with three more free variations before he recalls the Aria. Despite Bach’s organizational and canonic rigors, there is nothing dry and pedantic about the Goldberg variations, which certainly must have kept Count Keyserlingk highly engaged rather than lulled to sleep. Bach juxtaposes variations of contrasting meter, specific rhythmic figuration, or texture, and he makes dramatic or witty variations with equal ingenuity. One of the most striking aspects of his elegant wit appears in the variations with hand-crossings, which appear already in the first variation. Here they require a certain athleticism, since Bach designates this variation to be played on just one of the harpsichord’s two manuals (keyboards). (Because Bach intended the Goldberg Variations for a two-manual harpsichord, transferring them to piano necessitates decisions about how best to distribute the two-manual variations, which pianists solve in many different ways.) Variations 5, 14, 20, and 28 also call for similar leaping hand-crossings rather than the type whose hand-crossings are the result of lines of counterpoint crossing each other—Nos. 8, 11, 17, 23, and 26. Both types require great virtuosity, the latter following in a long line of keyboard pieces known as bicinia or pièces croisées. Bach also includes dance types, such as a gigue for Variation 7 (labeled al tempo di Giga in his manuscript) or, though not so-designated, a highly ornamented sarabande for the slower Variation 13 with its emphasis on second beats. He labels Variation 10 a Fughetta, which though not a strict fugue contains an entrance of the fugue subject in every fourth bar. Variation 24 seems to have roots in the instrumental pastorale, similar to the siciliana in its lilting compound meter and deceptively simple or “rural” atmosphere. Many of the variations focus on a certain keyboard technique or challenge in the manner of the études of much later generations. Variation 8 suggests a study in arpeggios and contrary motion, Variation 23 a variety of virtuosic figures including parallel thirds, and 28, sustained measured trills, often in inner voices. Bach makes a striking gesture with French overture–style dotted rhythms as a kind of grand opening statement for the second half of the set. This variation also serves to bring back the prevailing major mode after No. 15, the first of only three variations in minor, whose canonic unfolding introduces two-note “sighs,” some daring chromaticism, and a curious ending that drifts upward. The last minor-mode variation, the soulful, chromatic No. 25, achieves the greatest weight and depth of the free variations, part of Bach’s scheme of increasing drama as well as technical brilliance as the set progresses. Most of the variations exhibit a two- or three-voice texture, though Bach intersperses four-voice variations at judicious intervals. Of these, two make specific reference to older polyphonic styles: Variation 22, marked Alla breve, employs Renaissance-style counterpoint as in a motet, and Variation 30 shows Bach having some fun in a quodlibet. Literally “as you like it,” the term had been used since the mid-fourteenth century to designate a humorous piece that combined two or more independent melodies, often folk tunes, in contrapuntal style. The Bach family reportedly improvised such pieces at family gatherings. Scholars have found at least six snippets in Variation 30 that appear to be folk quotations, of which the most obvious are phrases from “Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g’west” (I’ve been away from you so long) and “Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertrieben” (Cabbage and turnips have driven me away). Bach’s witty combination of these phrases seems to refer to this “hodge-podge” (another meaning of Kraut und Rüben) having driven the main theme away, necessitating the recall of the Aria. Without any knowledge of quotations or elegant witticisms, however, Variation 30’s old-fashioned demeanor has the musical effect of halting the intensifying brilliance built up by the preceding variations, preparing for the Aria’s return to bring the work full circle. It is unlikely that Bach, his sons, or Goldberg played the set of variations straight through at a single performance. Nevertheless, its organization, carefully considered contrasts, cohesion, and technical challenges have made performances of the entire Goldberg Variations the lofty goal of many keyboard virtuosos—to the delight of the listening public. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, Soohong Park, piano Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Le Tombeau de Couperin for piano March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, Soohong Park, piano The term tombeau originated in the seventeenth century as the title for memorial dirges composed to honor friends or famous people, specifically as used by lutenist-composer Denis Gaulthier (1603–1672). Couperin, influenced by Gaulthier’s style and his fanciful titles, went even further by composing entire suites to honor Lully and Corelli, entitled Apothéoses . Ravel took up the French tradition, paying homage “less, in reality, to Couperin himself,” he said, “than to eighteenth-century French music”—particularly harpsichord music. Conceived in 1914 but interrupted by Ravel’s participation in World War I, the original piano suite was completed in 1917. Ravel dedicated the six movements to the memory of six friends who had died in the War, making it a kind of double tombeau . Marguerite Long, a great champion of Ravel’s music, premiered the piano version on April 11, 1919. Before the year’s end Ravel heard that Rolf de Maré, director of the Ballet Suédois, wanted to produce a ballet of Le tombeau , but in an orchestral version. He happily chose four of the six original movements to orchestrate—Prélude, Forlane, Minuet, and Rigaudon. This version was first heard not as a ballet but at a concert of the Pasdeloup Orchestra of Paris in 1920 with the ballet version presented later that year. Reflecting Baroque style, the Prélude spins out in fast running triplets in a kind of perpetual motion, but with Impressionist harmonies. The Forlane, with its haunting melody, stems from the ancient dance of the same name, which actually originated in Italy and is distantly related to the French gigue. The lovely Minuet is a restrained movement, growing slightly more agitated in the middle section, but retaining the elegance of the courtly dance. Ravel based the festive Rigaudon on the ancient lively Provençal dance, which was immensely popular in its ballroom version during the reigns of Louis XIII, XIV, and XV. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Sheep May Safely Graze, BWV 208 (arr. Petri) March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano Our discussion of the present three Bach transcriptions must begin with Ferrucio Busoni, who was Egon Petri’s teacher. As a youth Busoni adored Bach above all other composers, a passion that endured throughout his life. He not only drew on Bach’s music for inspiration in his own works but he issued a monumental edition of Bach’s solo keyboard works transcribed for piano—a twenty-five volume collection plus a seven-volume set—aided by his students Egon Petri and Bruno Mugellini. So synonymous did Bach and Busoni become in the public’s mind that on Busoni’s first American tour his wife Gerda was once introduced by a society matron as “Mrs. Bach-Busoni.” This anecdote was related by Petri, a superb German pianist of Dutch descent, who began studying with Busoni in Weimar in 1901. Petri eventually settled in the United States, taught at Mills College, and authored many Bach transcriptions at Busoni’s behest. Busoni issued his Bach edition in two collections: the twenty-five-volume Klavierwerke, and the seven-volume Bach-Busoni edition. Although Busoni’s name appears on each volume of the Klavierwerke, many were edited by Petri and a few by Bruno Mugellini. Petri had expected Busoni to supervise his and Mugellini’s editorial work and they strove to operate under his principles and to emulate his style, yet Busoni concerned himself very little with reading their proofs, much to Petri’s surprise. Busoni strove to remain true to the essence of Bach’s music in his transcriptions, but inevitably his own Romantic sensibilities crept in with his addition of tempo and pedal markings, dynamics, register changes, repeats, and performance suggestions. Nevertheless, these transcriptions are rewarding additions to the piano repertoire. Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ—which appears as No. 5 in Busoni’s collection of Ten Chorale Preludes (1898) and No. 41 (BWV 639) in Bach’s Orgel-Büchlein (Little Organ Book)—has become a favorite of pianists and audiences for its poignant serenity. Flowing arpeggios in the middle voice accompany the tender, mostly unadorned chorale melody, supported by a steady “walking bass.” Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme is actually Busoni’s transcription of what was already a transcription by Bach himself. In 1731 Bach had composed the fourth movement of his Cantata 140 (Wachet auf) in chorale-prelude style with tenor(s) taking the chorale melody, surrounded by a a lyrical countermelody for upper strings in unison and supported by continuo (bass line and harmony). Thus it was a simple task to transfer all three parts to organ, which he did in BWV 645, one of a group of six late works that became known as the “Schübler Chorales” after their publication by Johann Georg Schübler in 1748–49. Busoni’s transcription for piano, No. 2 in his Ten Chorale Preludes, maintains the lilting flow in the upper line against the steady chorale in the middle voice. Turning to the first piece of the group of transcriptions, Egon Petri arranged his version of Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep may safely graze) not from a chorale preude by Bach but rather a soprano aria from Cantata 208 Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! (What pleases me is above all the lively hunt). Bach wrote secular cantatas for aristocratic patrons to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, name days, and accession days, or for academic ceremonies, and he composed Cantata 208 on a text by Weimar court poet Salomo Franck for the birthday of Duke Christian Weissenfels in 1713. Known as the Hunt Cantata, it contains “Schafe können sicher weiden,” the well-known aria for Pales, second soprano to Diana, goddess of the hunt. For centuries listeners have been captivated by its texture of rocking parallel thirds for two flutes—the quintessential pastoral instrument—accompanying the tender main melody, which praises Duke Christian for ruling his people as a good shepherd. The lovely aria has been transcribed for countless times for various performing forces, among the first—Percy Grainger’s for band (1931), Mary Howe’s for solo piano and two pianos (1935), and William Walton’s for orchestra (1940). Egon Petri’s transcription, published in 1944 has become the best-known transcription for piano. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 18, 2024: Anthony McGill, clarinet; Michael Stephen Brown, piano Jesse Montgomery Peace for clarinet and piano February 18, 2024: Anthony McGill, clarinet; Michael Stephen Brown, piano Biography provided by MKI Artists Jessie Montgomery, Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year, is a Grammy-nominated, acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator whose music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of twenty-first century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post) and are performed regularly by leading orchestras and ensembles around the world. In July 2021 she began a three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. Montgomery’s growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works, as well as collaborations with distinguished choreographers and dance companies. Recent highlights include Hymn for Everyone (2021), her first commission as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, co-commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and Music Academy of the West; Five Freedom Songs, a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock, for the Sun Valley and Grand Teton Music Festivals, San Francisco, Kansas City, Boston and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, and the Virginia Arts Festival (2021); I was waiting for the echo of a better day, a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape and Pam Tanowitz Dance (2021); Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by Orpheus and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and Banner (2014), written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation and presented in its UK premiere at the 2021 BBC Proms. Highlights of Montgomery’s 2023–24 season include the world premieres of orchestral works for violinist Joshua Bell, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a consortium led by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices program, and a violin duo co-commissioned by CSO MusicNOW and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her future projects include a contribution to Alisa Weilerstein’s Fragments project, a percussion quartet, an orchestral work for the New York Philharmonic, and her final commissions as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. Montgomery has been recognized with many prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation. She is currently Artist in Residence at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, Composer in Residence at Bard College, and, since 1999, has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization in a variety of roles including composer-in-residence for Sphinx Virtuosi, its professional touring ensemble. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Princeton University. * * * Montgomery originally composed Peace on a commission from Victoria Robey OBE for violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster, who premiered it on their #UriPosteJukeBox series in May 2020. Outdoing Brahms, who saw to it that his two Opus 120 Sonatas work equally on clarinet or viola, Montgomery made Peace available not only for violin and piano but for viola and piano and clarinet and piano, in which version we hear it this evening. Montgomery described her brief piece thus: “Written just a month after the Great Sadness of the first quarantine orders due to COVID-19, facing the shock felt by the whole globe as well as personal crisis, I find myself struggling to define what actually brings me joy. And I’m at a stage of making peace with sadness as it comes and goes like any other emotion. I’m learning to observe sadness for the first time not as a negative emotion, but as a necessary dynamic to the human experience.” —compiled by Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO A “wanderer between worlds” (Lucerne Festival), Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as a Honens laureate, he has in recent years made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, while performing recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His most recent 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times. Reengaged by the San Francisco Symphony, he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Phil Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Ida Kavafian, and the Swiss Chamber Soloists. He has appeared in concert with the Pacifica, Orion, Ebène, Danish, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His 2011 recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His upcoming solo release for Honens will include music of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines. This season’s projects include the Berg Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, as well as multiple appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performing music ranging from Beethoven and Dvorak, to Lachenmann. Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and makes his home in New York City. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.

March 13, 2022: Kristin Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Brown, piano MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Piano Trio in A minor March 13, 2022: Kristin Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Brown, piano The idea of writing a piano trio had been on Ravel’s mind for several years before he actually started composing it. He went so far as to tell his friend Maurice Delage before he had even begun to write, “My Trio is finished. I only need the themes for it.” Humor aside, Ravel had undoubtedly given much thought to the architecture of the work and to the possibilities inherent in the piano, violin, and cello combination. He wrote much of the Trio in the solitude and serenity of his retreat at St. Jean-de-Luz on the Basque coast beginning in 1913, but made little progress until the following year. On March 25, 1914, he wrote to Cipa Godebski that he had completed the first movement and did not want his inspiration to grow cold. He ran into trouble, however, complaining on July 21 to Mme. Casella (whose husband Alfredo would play the piano part in the premiere) that “the Trio has not progressed for three weeks now, and I’m sick of it.” The announcement of France’s entry into the First World War on August 2 shook Ravel tremendously. He was anxious to do his part for France, but he declared, “I want to finish my Trio before joining up.” He wrote to Delage on August 4: If you only knew how I suffer. . . . I just keep working so as not to hear anything. Yes I am working with the persistence and concentration of a madman. But suddenly the hypocrisy of this conduct overwhelms me and I begin to sob over my note paper. When I go downstairs and my mother sees me, naturally I have to show a serene and, if possible, a smiling face. Shall I be able to keep this up? It has lasted four days already since the alarm gongs began. Ravel kept up his frantic work pace, and by August 29 the Trio was completed. He then traveled to Bayonne, the nearest recruiting center to sign up for active duty, but was turned down because he was two kilograms underweight. He thought that his small stature might make him suitable as a fighter pilot, but this too came to nothing. He helped care for wounded soldiers in St. Jean-de-Luz, later drove for the motor transport corps, and continued to compose. The music of the Trio in no way reveals its wartime connection. The first movement, built on a free sonata form, opens with a theme that Ravel in his autobiographical sketch called “Basque in color.” He drew its distinctive rhythm from Zaspiak Bat, a concerto on Basque themes that he never completed. The juxtaposition of this asymmetrically grouped rhythm and the four-square rhythm of the piano left-hand creates a charming effect. The title of the second movement, “Pantoum,” refers to a form of poetry of Malaysian derivation used by Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, and Paul Verlaine, in which the second and fourth stanzas of a verse are repeated as the first and third stanzas of the next verse. Ravel suggested an association with the deferred repetition in the verse form by carrying material from the scherzo on into the trio section. Ravel seems to delight in the mismatched accents of the scherzo material in the strings vying with the chorale-like theme in the piano. Or, as Ravel biographer H. H. Stuckenschmidt suggests, the composer may simply have chosen the title “Pantoum” because he liked the sound and exoticism of the word! For the third movement Ravel turned to an old musical form—the passacaglia—perhaps in honor of his old counterpoint teacher André Gédalge, to whom the Trio is dedicated. Constructed in a huge arc, the movement presents eleven statements of the eight-bar passacaglia theme that build in volume and ascend in pitch until the central climax before making an equally impressive descent. The elaborate rondo-form finale alternates between 5/4 and 7/4 meter—another Basque connection? The opening theme immediately showcases Ravel’s imaginative trio scoring with its violin arpeggios in harmonics, double tremolos in the cello, and muted chords in the piano all creating a novel color. This opening suggests a thematic kinship with the start of the first movement by turning its contour upside down (inversion). The Trio’s premiere took place on January 28, 1915, at a Société Musicale Indépendante concert with pianist Alfredo Casella, violinist Gabriele Willaume, and cellist Louis Feuillard. The critics responded favorably, but the Trio, now considered one of the few great twentieth-century piano trios, attracted little attention; the War no doubt delayed its fair recognition. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

EVAN EPIFANIO, BASSOON Evan Epifanio was appointed Principal Bassoon of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2018. Prior to The Met, Evan was a member of The Sarasota Orchestra and New World Symphony, as well as serving as Principal Bassoon of the Des Moines Metro Opera. He has also performed with other ensembles including The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and The Florida Orchestra. Evan can be heard playing with The MET Orchestra Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall throughout the year. He has lead masterclasses at a variety of locations including The Academia Filarmónica de Medellín, Colombia and most recently The Juilliard School. During his summer months Evan has been heard performing with Classical Tahoe in Incline Village, Nevada and The Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego.