December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) Suite No. 2 in C minor, op. 17 December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano Following the disastrous failure of his First Symphony in 1897 Rachmaninoff sank into such a deep depression that he could not compose, yet he knew he must produce another piano concerto for an upcoming engagement. Relatives persuaded him to see Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who had been specializing for some years in a method that involved his patients learning a kind of self-hypnosis (which in the early 1930s became known as the Coué method). Rachmaninoff described his treatment and emergence from his creative slump with enough material not only for the concerto but a two-piano suite: I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day, while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl’s study. “You will begin to write your concerto. . . . You will work with great facility. . . . The concerto will be of excellent quality. . . .” It was always the same, without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me. Already at the beginning of the summer I began to compose. The material grew in bulk, and new musical ideas began to stir in me—far more than I needed for my concerto. By the autumn I had finished two movements of the concerto: the Andante [his generic term for any slow movement, in this case the Adagio sostenuto] and the finale—and a sketch of a suite for two pianos. Rachmaninoff saw Dr. Dahl daily from January to April 1900. Whether the method worked, or whether he came out of his depression by his extended conversations with Dahl, who was also an amateur musician, Rachmaninoff was soon able to complete both the Second Piano Concerto and the Suite. He sent three of the four movements of the Suite to his friend, pianist and teacher Alexander Goldenweiser, on February 17, 1901. By April 23, the complete work was ready for the two to play through at Goldenweiser’s apartment. Dedicated to Goldenweiser, the Suite was published that October as Opus 17—before the Second Piano Concerto, op. 18, which accounts for the seeming reverse in the order of the opus numbers. In November the composer and his cousin Alexander Siloti gave the first public performance in Moscow. The Suite begins with a lively march, which reaches a grand climax before fading away in the distance. In the lovely waltz Rachmaninoff plays with the expected 3/4 meter, sometimes stretching his themes into what sounds like 6/4, or two-measure instead of one-measure units. At the beginning of the second of two calmer sections, Rachmaninoff makes a brief reference to the Dies irae theme (four notes only) from the Catholic Mass for the Dead, which would play a significant role in a number of his later works. Rachmaninoff fashioned the Romance around one of his ravishing melodies, which he embroiders ingeniously and builds to a fortissimo climax. In his comprehensive study of Rachmaninoff, Barrie Martyn notes that just before the final appearance of the theme, the composer used material from his six-hand Romance, written for in 1891 for three sisters. According to a footnote in the score, Rachmaninoff based the final Tarantella on an Italian folk song, but the tune has yet to be identified. In any case, the fast, whirling dance makes a dazzling conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman FRITZ KREISLER (1875 — 1962) Three Pieces for Violin and Piano February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman Fritz Kreisler, one of the outstanding masters of the violin and, indeed, one of the most individual performing musicians in history, was famous for his sweet tone and the charm and aristocracy of his playing. As a composer Kreisler is known primarily for his arrangements of works by others and his salon-style pieces, almost exclusively for violin, though he did compose several operettas. While he never claimed intellectual greatness for his compositions, many of them have achieved immortality because they stand above the typical virtuoso “lollipops” of this genre. Kreisler is also known as the perpetrator of a rather delightful hoax: he passed off many of his own compositions as works by Vivaldi, Pugnani, Couperin, Padre Martini, Dittersdorf, Francœur, Stamitz, and others. He reluctantly took credit for these pieces in 1935 saying he had done it in order to round out recital programs with established “names” rather than with his own as-yet-unknown name. Many accepted his shady deeds with amused tolerance, but others took offense, notably English critic Ernest Newman, with whom Kreisler was goaded into a public feud on the pages of London’s Sunday Times. The Marche militaire viennoise probably dates from around 1924 when it appeared on a recording in a piano trio version. It was published the following year for violin and piano as well as in the trio version. The charming outer march sections impart a certain Hungarian flavor, which after all was a significant influence in Vienna. The Old Refrain provides a perfect example of Kreisler appropriating a tune by another composer, in this case “Du alter Stefansturm” from Der liebe Augustin (1887) by Johann Brandl, words by Alice Mattulath. Here, as the title divulges, there is a refrain, a lilting tune that returns after each of two verses. In one version published in 1915, Kreisler wrote out the song with text, dedicating his arrangement entitled “Viennese Popular Song, words by Alice Mattullath” to his “dear friend” tenor John McCormack. Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta was the latest of the present set to be composed, c.1941–42. Following a rhapsodic violin cadenza, Kreisler launches into a lush tune made even richer by the violin’s double stops. Vienna is again invoked by the lilting triple meter in both slow and fast waltzes. The whole concludes with a majestic climax and dazzling feats of violin gymnastics. © Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 14, 2019: Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Jason Vieaux, guitar ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Histoire du Tango, arr. by Dmitriy Varelas April 14, 2019: Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Jason Vieaux, guitar The tango, which originated in late nineteenth-century Buenos Aires in brothels and urban courtyards, gained ballroom status through its seductive powers, spreading to Paris and other European centers in the early twentieth century. Tangos traditionally featured not only couples dancing in tight embrace with almost violent leg motions, but also melodramatic poetry sung to the accompaniment of solo guitar; or a trio of flute, violin, and guitar (or bandoneon, a square, button-operated accordion); or larger ensembles of strings, bandoneon, and piano. Piazzolla infused the tango with new life following the Second World War, though he was criticized by traditionalists for adding dissonance and extended rhythmic techniques. His style, called nuevo tango, bears certain similarities to bebop and bossa nova, while largely avoiding the improvisations of jazz. Piazzolla helped bring about the even more recent tango renaissance through his many performances and recordings with his own Quinteto Nuevo Tango, which frequently joined with jazz ensembles, chamber groups, and orchestras across the globe. Piazzolla’s tangos are often soulful, expressive pieces that retain a certain melancholy even in their most lively passages. Along the way, delightful little surprises occur, such as bits of counterpoint, glissandos, harmonics, hesitations, a suddenly sweet sonority, a jaunty rhythm, and bursts of improvisatory-sounding but carefully written out figuration. Well aware of how much the tango had changed during his lifetime, Piazzolla composed Histoire du tango in 1985 to celebrate the dance in four different eras. He intended the four movements—Bordel 1900, Café 1930, Night Club 1960, and Concert d’aujourd’hui (Modern-day concert)—to be abstractions rather than music for dancing. The premiere by flutist Marc Grauwels and guitarist Guy Lukowski took place in March 1985 at the Fifth International Guitar Festival in Liège, where Piazzolla was also premiering his Concerto for Bandoneon, Guitar, and Strings. Histoire du tango has since been arranged for various instrumental combinations and has become one of Piazzolla’s most frequently performed works. The exuberant Bordel 1900 reflects the tango’s earliest years. Wrote Piazzolla, “The tango originated in Buenos Aires in 1882. . . . This music is full of grace and liveliness. It paints a picture of the good-natured chatter of the French, Italian, and Spanish women who peopled those bordellos as they teased the policemen, thieves, sailors, and riffraff who came to see them. This is a high-spirited tango.” Piazzolla’s lively outer sections frame a middle section that shows his wealth of figuration and sequencing ideas while maintaining the breakneck pace. The more sultry Café 1930 represents the period when, said Piazzolla, “people stopped dancing it as they did in 1900, preferring instead simply to listen to it. It became more musical, and more romantic. This tango has undergone total transformation: the movements are slower, with new and often melancholy harmonies.” A contemplative guitar introduction brings on one of Piazzolla’s most soulful melodies. Nevertheless, he can’t resist the tango’s typical inclusion of contrasting sections—in this case an active interruption and a sweet major-mode interlude before returning to the melancholy opening. The rowdy Night Club 1960 incorporates the influence of the bossa nova craze that took the world by storm and helped catapult Piazzolla to fame. “This is a time of rapidly expanding international exchange,” he wrote, “and the tango evolves again as Brazil and Argentina come together in Buenos Aires. The bossa nova and the new tango are moving to the same beat. Audiences rush to the night clubs to listen earnestly to the new tango. This marks a revolution and a profound alteration in some of the original tango forms.” Piazzolla casts his lively rhythmic sections into high relief by contrasting them with poignant passages from his never-ending supply of expressive melodic ideas. In the jaunty Concert d’aujourd’hui (Modern-day concert), Piazzolla shows how far the tango influence has spread, now invading the most sophisticated concert halls. “Certain concepts in tango music become intertwined with modern music,” he said.. “Bartók, Stravinsky, and other composers reminisce to the tune of tango music. This [is] today’s tango, and the tango of the future as well.” Piazzolla’s careful study of these composers’ music turns up in his textures, harmonies, and rhythmic devices. An impish virtuosic burst rounds off his captivating retrospective. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 18, 2016: Emmanuel Ceysson, harp; Érik Gratton, flute; Inn-hyuck Cho, clarinet; David Chan, concertmaster; Catherine Ro, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Jerry Grossman, cello MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Introduction and Allegro December 18, 2016: Emmanuel Ceysson, harp; Érik Gratton, flute; Inn-hyuck Cho, clarinet; David Chan, concertmaster; Catherine Ro, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Jerry Grossman, cello At the turn of the twentieth century, two harp manufacturers waged a private little war. The firm of Pleyel had commissioned a work from Debussy (Danses sacrée et profane, 1904) to further sales of the newly invented chromatic harp. The Érard piano company, which supplied the Paris Conservatoire with harps and pianos, countered by requesting a work from Maurice Ravel to be written for the customary double-action harp. The resulting Introduction and Allegro was dedicated to M. A. Blondel, the director of the Érard company. Ravel received the commission in 1905 just days before he was to set sail on an extended vacation to Belgium, Holland, and Germany on the Aimée, Alfred and Misia Edwards’s yacht. One of the composer’s letters describes “a week of continuous work and three sleepless nights,” trying to complete the score before the sailing date. Ravel intended to polish his score during the cruise, and hence had it with him on a quick detour to a chemisier for shirts he had ordered for the journey. He then dashed to the harbor only to find that the yacht had sailed without him; to worsen matters, he had left his score at the clothing shop. On his way to Soissons to catch up with the Aimée, Ravel returned to the chemisier who turned out to be an amateur musician. The manuscript was returned to the composer only after much persuasion, and Ravel subsequently met his party at Soissons. The work received its first performance on February 22, 1907, in Paris by the Cercle Musical, a group devoted to chamber music. Though the title page bears the wording “pour Harpe avec accompagnement de Quatuor à cordes, Flute et Clarinette,” other editors indicate “partition d’orchestre” and Ravel himself often conducted the work with a small string orchestra. The slow Introduction presents material to be used in the Allegro, alternating with themes of its own, in a series of colors and textures that show Ravel’s mastery of orchestration. Double-tonguing and tremolo figures in the winds with arpeggios in the strings create an unusually rich sonority. Passages in which the first violin takes on the lowest notes of the string choir provide unusual sonorities; similarly the harp often supplies bass notes that one might expect from the accompaniment. The Allegro can be thought of as an exposition, development, and recapitulation. Ravel’s search for interesting instrumental combinations continues throughout. The harp cadenza, just before the recapitulation, effectively recalls themes from the Introduction. A brilliant coda polishes off this tour de force for the harp. The clear winner in the little harp war was the double-action harp, which is still commonly used today. The chromatic harp failed: in order to finger chords the strings had to be positioned so close together that they would cause unwanted vibrations against one another in any loud passages. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 300c (K. 304) October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano Mozart had written his father from Mannheim on October 6, 1777: “I send my sister herewith six duets for clavicembalo and violin by [Joseph] Schuster, which I have often played here. They are not bad. If I stay on I shall write six myself in the same style, as they are very popular here.” Mannheim flutist Johann Baptist Wendling also encouraged him to write “duets for piano and violin” to help make a living once he got to Paris. Of the seven sonatas resulting from these urges, he wrote five of them in Mannheim in early 1778 and two (including the E minor) in Paris in the early summer of that year. Six of these became known as the Palatine sonatas because Mozart dedicated them to Maria Elisabeth, wife of the Elector of Palatine, when they were published in November 1778 in Paris. The remaining Sonata in C major was included in a group of six published in 1781. Five of the Palatine Sonatas, including the present E minor, consist of only two movements, a configuration Mozart may have borrowed from Johann Christian Bach or Joseph Haydn—or possibly Schuster, whose six sonatas mentioned above unfortunately do not survive. The E minor Sonata, which many consider the greatest of the Palatine Sonatas, is one of only two chamber works with piano and strings in which Mozart employed a minor key (the other being the G minor Piano Quartet, K. 478). Many have suggested that this alternately dramatic and elegiac Sonata and the equally emotionally intense A minor Piano Sonata, K. 310, written around the same time, reflect personal loss—his beloved mother, who had traveled with him to Paris, died on July 3, 1778, after a brief illness. Or he may have been reacting to the enforced separation from his new-found love, Aloysia Weber, the young soprano who lived in Mannheim. Speculation must end there, however, because no one knows the precise dates of composition. The E minor Sonata’s dramatic unison opening leads to a harmonized presentation of the same melody. Each new idea in this movement contains a bit of something that went before, thus unifying the whole. The recapitulation begins with a dramatic reharmonization of the first theme that points to the Romantic world of Beethoven. The second and final movement is labeled “Tempo di Menuetto,” but it behaves more like a rondo, with two episodes interpolated between recurrences of the soulful minuet “refrain.” The first of these episodes offers a stylish sweetness and a piano flourish leading back to the minuet theme. The second, an extended section with two halves each repeated, begins with a soft chordal theme in the piano, and permits, in the words of the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein, “a brief glimpse of bliss.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 13, 2025; Quartetto Di Cremona Claude Debussy (1862-1918) String Quartet April 13, 2025; Quartetto Di Cremona Debussy composed his only String Quartet in 1893 amid work on his orchestral Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune . The chamber work marks the transition between Debussy’s youthful and mature styles—bridging the academic world of his Paris Conservatory training with the dreamy, coloristic world of the Faune . In a larger sense it both glances back to the nineteenth-century heritage of Wagner and Franck and looks to the future with original and imaginative ideas that would influence the course of music. The Quartet is Debussy’s only work that bears an opus number and names a key, as if he were thinking of the weighty history of the genre. The work’s tonal center may be G, but “minor” tells little about Debussy’s harmonic scheme. The first movement relies heavily upon the centuries-old Phrygian mode on G and on D. The second movement alternates and combines G major pizzicato chords with an accelerated and chromatically altered version of the first movement’s opening motive, further blurring distinctions between major and minor. The slow movement, placed third in the order of movements, centers around D-flat, the remotest possible key from “home.” Completed in February 1893, the Quartet was premiered December 29 by the Ysaÿe Quartet on a concert that brought Debussy’s music to the notice of many for the first time. Critics initially seemed somewhat baffled—some were uncomfortable with the Quartet’s original ideas, others felt the allure of its new sounds and suspected their importance for the future. The Quartet exhibits a certain cyclicism or the reuse of themes across movements—not as distinctly unmistakable entities in the manner of his conservatory teacher Franck but as alterations of previous ideas. This creation of new possibilities contributes to the music’s fluid quality. Variants of the first movement’s main theme appear throughout the Quartet, some more obviously related than others. Debussy relied more on the motive’s rhythmic characteristics and general contours than on its harmonic scheme and exact melodic details. In the scherzo, the texture and timbre immediately strike the ear even as the thematic ideas clearly derive from the first movement’s main motive, beginning with the viola’s quickened and obsessively repeated version. The murmuring accompaniment in the next section, over which the first violin plays an elongated version of the motive, provide a coloristic effect that Debussy was to employ frequently, particularly in his orchestral works. The often noted Russian character of the slow movement probably has its roots in Debussy’s sojourn in Russia as part of a piano trio employed by Madame Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patroness. Whereas the movement indulges in a kind of Romantic-period expression, it also foreshadows the new style of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune . The finale bridges the preceding movement by opening in the same remote key and quiet mood. Recitative-like musings from cello and first violin alternate with all four parts echoing chromatic and rhythmic variants of the main motive. The bridging continues in an animated passage that harks back to the textures and rhythms of the scherzo. Debussy then launches the finale proper with an agitated theme above shifting open-fifth chords. He recalls passages of all the movements, but in altered form so they seem to evolve rather than reprise. Tempo and textural changes abound, which apparently unsettled some of the early critics. The final exciting coda offers yet another look at the germinal motive. Debussy optimistically called the work “Premier quatuor ” as if he expected more to follow. He began a second quartet the following year, primarily to please his friend, composer Ernest Chausson, who had been surprisingly disappointed with the “First.” The two had a falling out, however, and Debussy never returned to the project. The Premier quatuor also contributed to the professional animosity between Debussy and Ravel. When Ravel’s Quartet in F appeared in 1902, the parallels with Debussy’s work were obvious—such as the shadowy accompanimental sixteenth-note figures in the first movement and the pizzicatos in the scherzo—igniting a firestorm in the press about the quartets’ rival virtues. Debussy is said to have written to the younger, harassed composer urging him not to change a note of his work, but this letter has never come to light. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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NATHAN MELTZER, VIOLIN Recipient of the 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and youngest ever to win the Windsor Festival International String Competition, Nathan has been a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Aalborg, Adelphi, Berlin, Concepción, Evansville, Indianapolis, Medellín, and Pittsburgh orchestras, among others, performing in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and across the US. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Nathan has performed at ChamberFest Cleveland, Giardini La Mortella, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Moritzburg Festival, the Musical de l’Orne, the Perlman Chamber Workshop, and the Verbier Festival Academy. He has been a concert artist with Omega Ensemble since 2016. Nathan’s 2020-21 season includes the release of his debut CD with Rohan De Silva, a UK concert tour, and the launch of Opus Illuminate, an online concert series dedicated to the works of composers from underrepresented communities. Nathan studies with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin at Juilliard. He performs on the “Ames, Totenberg” Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona 1734, generously on loan from Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative .

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KATE LINDSEY, MEZZO-SOPRANO Last season, rising star mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Nicklausse in the new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann and made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro. She also created the title role in the world premiere of Amelia at the Seattle Opera. During the past summer, she returned to the Santa Fe Opera for Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Albert Herring, and this season she returns to both the Metropolitan Opera for Les Contes d’Hoffmann and the Seattle Opera as Rosina in Il Barbiere si Siviglia, makes her debut at the Los Angeles Opera as Zaida in Il Turco in Italia , and appears at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées as Idamante in Idomeneo. A recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she made her debut there as Javotte in Manon, and has since appeared as Cherubino, the Kitchen Boy in Rusalka, Wellgunde in The Ring Cycle, Second Lady in The Magic Flute (which was broadcast in HD in movie theaters around the world), Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette, the Madrigal Singer in Manon Lescaut, Tebaldo in Don Carlos, and Siebel in Faust. Other recent engagements have included her debuts with the Santa Fe Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, the Lille Opera as Cherubino in performances conducted by Emmanuelle Haim, the New York Philharmonic in a concert performance of L’Enfant et les Sortilege, conducted by Lorin Maazel, the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a new commission by John Harbison conducted by James Levine, the Tanglewood Festival in a concert performance of Les Troyens with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival in the festival’s closing concerts, and the Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Haydn’s Harmoniemesse conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. She also appeared as Cherubino at the Boston Lyric Opera; Stéphano, Rosina, and Mercedes in Carmen at the Opera Theater of Saint Louis (where she was a Gerdine Young Artist); and Angelina in La Cenerentola at the Wolf Trap Opera. In concert she has appeared in Zankel Hall with James Levine and the Met Chamber Orchestra and in recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Ms. Lindsey holds a Bachelor of Music Degree with Distinction from Indiana University. Her many awards include the 2007 Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the 2007 George London Award in memory of Lloyd Rigler, the 2007 Lincoln Center Martin E. Segal Award, and a 2006 Sullivan Foundation Grant.

CHELSEA KNOX, FLUTE Chelsea Knox is the principal flutist of the MET Orchestra. A sought-after performer, Ms. Knox has held positions as assistant principal flute of the Baltimore Symphony and principal Flute of the New Haven and Princeton Symphonies. She has been hailed by the New York Times for her warmth, precision, and clarity, as well as by the New York Classical Review for her “expressive life and full tone.” An active orchestral and chamber musician, Ms. Knox has appeared with numerous orchestras including the Seattle Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and IRIS Orchestra. Additionally, she was a member of the acclaimed woodwind trio, ETA3, managed by Manhattan Music Ensemble. As a soloist, Ms. Knox has performed concertos with the Baltimore Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Manchester Symphony, Juilliard Lab Orchestra, and Connecticut Youth Symphony. She has won competitions including the New York Flute Club Young Artists Competition and the Hartford Symphony Young Artists Competition. Ms. Knox earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School in New York City as a student of Jeffrey Khaner. A native of Litchfield, CT, she received her early training at the Hartt School of Music, where she studied with Greig Shearer. In her spare time she is an active visual artist and her work has been displayed in galleries in New York and Connecticut.