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Morris Robinson, bass Morris Robinson is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the most interesting and sought after basses performing today. GRAMMY® Award-winning bass Morris Robinson featured on recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Read more at https://morrisrobinson.com .

September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA BRAD GEMEINHARDT, HORN; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat, K. 495 September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA BRAD GEMEINHARDT, HORN; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Mozart lost no time looking up his old friend and horn virtuoso Joseph Leutgeb (c. 1745–1811) when he settled in Vienna in 1781. Mozart had known Leutgeb as the principal horn in the Salzburg court orchestra, and, though Leutgeb was now working in his wife’s family’s cheese business in Vienna, he continued to play the horn publicly until at least 1792. As early as 1777, when he transferred to Vienna, Leutgeb had asked Mozart for a horn concerto, but it wasn’t until the composer himself moved to Vienna that he wrote the first of his several works for horn and orchestra. In fact his first Viennese composition, though not a concerto, was the Rondo for horn and orchestra, K. 371, dated March 21, 1781, in his own catalog of works. Mozart loved to tease and ridicule Leutgeb, consequently some of the manuscripts he wrote for him are full of sarcastic comments and playful jibes. Despite Mozart’s oft-reported insensitivity to Leutgeb, they remained close friends to the end. The works Mozart wrote for Leutgeb stand as the true testament not only to their friendship but to the horn player’s skills. Mozart composed his concertos for the hand horn (or natural horn), which had no valves to produce notes that did not occur naturally in the instrument’s harmonic series. These notes could be elicited only by pressing the hand into the bell, something regular orchestral players were not usually required to do, but which solo and chamber music players had to master in order to fill in the full range of notes. These “stopped” notes produce a different tone quality, which Mozart naturally took into consideration, but he was well aware that he could write virtuosically for the horn because of Leutgeb’s abilities. All the works Mozart wrote for Leutgeb—the Quintet K. 386c (K. 407) for horn and strings, several concertos, some fragmentary compositions, and probably the above-mentioned Rondo—admirably display the horn player’s spectrum from vivacious to lyrical playing. The three complete Horn Concertos, K. 417, 447, and 495, all in E-flat major, are misleadingly known as Nos. 2, 3, and 4 because a two-movement work in D major had erroneously been assigned “No. 1,” and K. 447 had been thought to have been composed before the present work, K. 495. The date of this piece, actually the second of the complete concertos, has never been in doubt, for Mozart entered it into his catalog on June 26, 1786, describing it as “A hunting horn concerto for Leutgeb.” Composed just two months after Mozart had completed The Marriage of Figaro , the Horn Concerto not only revels in hunting-horn idioms (last movement), but also exhibits the juxtaposition of elegant melodic bustle and tenderness. The manuscript shows Mozart’s cheerful state of mind in writing for his friend: he employs a variety of different colored inks—black, red, blue, and green. Among the notable aspects of the first movement, the most extended in all the horn concertos, is the soloist’s adoption of the long-note theme of the oboes as the main theme rather than the rhythmic violin melody. The “early” entrance of the soloist is also unusual as is the reordering of the materials in the recapitulation and the additional appearance of the soloist after the cadenza. The slow movement would have shown off Leutgeb’s renowned lyrical playing admirably. It was reported about his solo playing in Paris in the Mercure de France in 1770 that he could “sing an adagio as perfectly as the most mellow, interesting, and accurate voice.” The main theme shows a striking similarity to that of the slow movement (also in B-flat major) of the four-hand Piano Sonata, K. 497, which Mozart completed just over one month after K. 495. The finale, perhaps the most familiar of the composer’s “hunting horn” finales, consists of a rousing rondo in 6/8 meter, replete with horn fanfares. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BENJAMIN BOWMAN, VIOLIN American-Canadian violinist Benjamin Bowman was recently appointed as concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera by maestro Nézét-Seguin. He is also the concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre and is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Benjamin is very active and engaged as a chamber musician, recitalist and soloist. He regularly performs in concerts and festivals in Europe and North America. Most recently, he was nominated for a 2017 Grammy for his recording with the ARC (Artists of the Royal Conservatory) Ensemble (‘The Chamber Works of Jerzy Fitelberg’) and was also featured on the 2013 Juno-winning album ‘Levant’ with the Amici Chamber Ensemble. Other collaborative work includes extensive immersion in contemporary music, improvisation and performance with singer/songwriters. His discography includes recent solo and chamber-music releases on the CHANDOS, Sony Masterworks/RCA Red Seal, ATMA Classique, and Innova labels. Bowman received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Benjamin plays a very fine Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin kindly loaned to him by Irene R. Miller through the Beares International Violin Society.

November 4, 2018: Lucille Chung, piano LOUIS-CLAUDE DAQUIN (1694-1772) Le Coucou November 4, 2018: Lucille Chung, piano Louis-Claude Daquin’s intellectual, artistic family immediately recognized his prodigious talents. He took harpsichord lessons with his talented godmother Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and composition lessons from the illustrious Nicolas Bernier, and at the age of six he performed for Louis XIV. Just two years later he conducted his own Beatus vir at the royal chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, and at twelve he became assistant there to Marin de la Guerre (Elisabeth’s husband). That year he was also hired as organist at Petit St.-Antoine, where crowds flocked to hear him. Daquin won the position of organist at St. Paul in 1727 in competition with a number of fine musicians including the great Jean-Philippe Rameau, and he remained there until his death. Concurrently he held other organist appointments—at Cordeliers from 1732, Chapelle Royale from 1739, and Notre Dame from 1755. He is also known to have mightily impressed his audiences at the Concerts Spirituels at the Palais de Tuileries and the Concerts Français. Contemporary accounts rate Daquin as the finest improviser of his time, but he may have been too busy improvising to commit the extent of his genius to print—just two collections of his compositions were captured for posterity. His Nouveau livre de noëls (New book of Christmas pieces), published in 1757, shows charm, brilliance, and imaginative registrations. But Daquin’s more original side shows in some of the pieces in his Livre de pièces de clavecin (Book of harpsichord pieces), a collection of four suites and a divertissement, for which there was enough demand to be printed twice, in 1735 and again in 1739. In his 1735 preface Daquin points to his use of “new styles of expression” while keeping within true keyboard idioms. He points to Les vents en couroux , in which he says the crossed hands passages represent the fury of the waves and flashes of lightning as the wind whips up a storm on the ocean, and Les trois cadences , which contains the novel technique of the triple trill. He also mentions his attempt to imitate the “appropriate effects and characters” in the publication’s final set of pieces, Les plaisirs de la chasse (The pleasures of the hunt), but other than including it in a list of pieces possible for violins or flutes, he does not mention Le coucou , which has become his most celebrated composition. Le coucou , the first piece in his Third Suite, shows his remarkable use of a stylized bird call in an original way. A cuckoo’s call is generally heard as a descending major or minor third, and Daquin starts with this interval, always placing it in the same rhythmic spot—from the second half of the second beat to the downbeat of the next measure. The call migrates from hand to hand, but more strikingly changes from a third to a second, fourth, fifth, or sixth depending on the harmony, and sometimes ascends rather than descends. It never loses its identity as the cuckoo, however, owing to its rhythmic configuration. In terms of form, Daquin opts for a rondeau in which the opening alternates with two couplets as a refrain in the form A-B-A-C-A. He never alters the texture of running sixteenth-notes against the “cuckoos” except to switch hands and add judicious ornaments, but he keeps the ear engaged with harmonic excursions and the flitting of the cuckoos from place to place. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

WARREN JONES, PIANO WARREN JONES has recently been named as “Collaborative Pianist of the Year” for 2010 by the publication Musical America. He performs with many of today’s best-known artists, including Stephanie Blythe, Denyce Graves, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Matthew Polenzani, Ruth Ann Swenson, Bo Skovhus, Samuel Ramey, James Morris, John Relyea, Joseph Alessi, and Richard “Yongjae” O’Neill-and is Principal Pianist for the exciting California-based chamber music group Camerata Pacifica. In the past he has partnered such great performers as Marilyn Horne, Håkan Hagegård, Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Carol Vaness, Judith Blegen, Tatiana Troyanos and Martti Talvela. His collaborations have earned consistently high praise from many publications: The Boston Globe termed him “flawless” and “utterly ravishing”; The New York Times, “exquisite”; and The San Francisco Chronicle said simply, “He is the single finest accompanist now working.” Mr. Jones has often been a guest artist at Carnegie Hall and in Lincoln Center’s “Great Performers Series,” as well as the festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Caramoor. His international travels have taken him to recitals at the Salzburg Festival, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence, the Teatro Fenice in Venice, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra Bastille, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong and theatres throughout Scandinavia and Korea. Mr. Jones has been invited three times to the White House by American presidents to perform at concerts honoring the President of Russia, and Prime Ministers of Italy and Canada – and three times he has appeared at the U.S. Supreme Court as a specially invited performer for the Justices and their guests. As a guest at the Library of Congress, Mr. Jones has appeared with the Juilliard Quartet in performances of the Schumann Piano Quintet. Recent seasons have included his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a work commissioned for Stephanie Blythe and him, “Covered Wagon Woman,” by Alan Louis Smith. In addition to performances with the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets, he has been heard at the New York Philharmonic in the Sextet of Ernst von Dohnanyi, and been invited to participate regularly in the annual Marilyn Horne Foundation gala festivities at Carnegie Hall, both as performer and Master Class teacher. In the summer of 2009, he conducted sold-out, critically-acclaimed performances of Mascagni’s “L’amico Fritz” with the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera. Mr. Jones’ discography includes more than 25 recordings: the latest is a compilation of new songs by the American composer Lori Laitman on the Albany label. He can be heard on every major record label, in diverse repertory from Schubert and Brahms to more esoteric compositions of Gretchaninoff, Clarke, and Smit, as well as contemporary works by Harbison and others. Mr. Jones is a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where highly gifted young artists work with him in a unique graduate degree program in collaborative piano. Each summer he teaches and performs at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. For ten years he was Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and for three seasons served in the same capacity at San Francisco Opera.
 Mr. Jones is also a prominent musical jurist, having been a judge for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Walter Naumberg Foundation Awards, the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Artists’ Association International Fine Arts Competition, and the American Council for the Arts. Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Jones grew up in North Carolina and graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been honored with the Conservatory’s Outstanding Alumni Award, and currently serves on the Board of Overseers of that institution. A resident of New York City, Mr. Jones enjoys cooking, exercise, historical novels, and lively political discussion.

2012-2013 ARTIST ROSTER INON BARNATAN, PIANO EMERSON STRING QUARTET RICHARD GOODE, PIANO ANTHONY MCGILL, CLARINET DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE - 2013 SIR JAMES GALWAY, FLUTE STEFÁN RAGNAR HÖSKULDSSON, FLUTE PHILLIP MOLL, PIANO NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO LADY JEANNE GALWAY, FLUTE ROBERT LANGEVIN, FLUTE

ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you’ll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener. His clear tone [is] a thing of awe-inspiring beauty, his phrasing spellbinding.” A thrilling young musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, Arnaud Sussmann has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Further solo appearances have included a tour of Israel and concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival in Germany and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sussmann has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, Tel Aviv at the Museum of Art and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest and Moritzburg festivals and appears regularly at the Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Chamber Music, Moab Music and Saratoga Springs Chamber Music festivals. Recent concerto appearances include performances with Maestro Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra at the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony. This past season, chamber music performances included tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to Korea’s LG Arts Center, Shanghai’s Oriental Center and Hong Kong’s Music Academy. Arnaud Sussmann has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Wu Han, David Finckel, Jan Vogler and members of the Emerson String Quartet. He has worked with conductors such as Cristian Macelaru, Marcelo Lehninger, Rune Bergmann and Leon Botstein. A dedicated chamber musician, he has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006 and has regularly appeared with them in New York and on tour, including a recent concert at London’s Wigmore Hall. A frequent recording artist, Arnaud Sussmann has released albums on Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Concert Series, Naxos, Albany Records and CMS Studio Recordings labels. His solo debut disc, featuring three Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist Orion Weiss, was released in December 2014 on the Telos Music Label. He has been featured on multiple PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts alongside Itzhak Perlman and the Perlman Music Program and with musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Born in Strasbourg, France and based now in New York City, Arnaud Sussmann trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman. Winner of several international competitions, including the Andrea Postacchini of Italy and Vatelot/Rampal of France, he was named a Starling Fellow in 2006, an honor which allowed him to be Mr. Perlman’s teaching assistant for two years. Mr. Sussmann now teaches at Stony Brook University on Long Island and was recently named Co-Artistic Director of Music@Menlo’s International Music Program.

HSIN-YUN HUANG, VIOLA Hsin-Yun Huang is firmly established since 1993 as one of the leading violists of her generation. Virtually simultaneously, in that year, she won the top prizes in the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award, which included a scholarship grant, and concerto and recital appearances in Japan. Ms. Huang was also the youngest-ever gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Competition on the Isle of Man. As a result of these and other successes, she has been telecast in concerto appearances with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Munich, the Zagreb Soloists in Paris and the Tokyo Philharmonic in Tokyo; other significant appearances include live broadcast performances with the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Russian State Philharmonic, and the National Symphony of Taiwan, among others. Recent solo highlights included collaboration with London Sinfonia in South America, with Naumberg Orchestra in Central Park, with ICE at Miller Theater, and with Children Orchestra Society at Alice Tully Hall. A native of Taiwan, Ms. Huang currently resides in New York, and is an active soloist and chamber musician in the U.S., the Far East, and Europe. She has participated in various prominent chamber music festivals, including the Rome Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Moritzburg Festival in Dresden, Spoleto Festivals in Italy as well as Charleston, SC, Cartagena Festival in Colombia, Chamber Music Northwest, the Marlboro Music Festival, Prussia Cove, England, St. Nazaire in France, Bridgehampton, the El Paso Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, Festival de Divonne in France, the Appalachian Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Salt Bay Chamberfest, the Newport Festival, and many others. She has collaborated with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Jaime Laredo, Joshua Bell, Joseph Suk, Menahem Pressler, the Guarneri, Juilliard, Brentano, Orion, St. Lawrence, and the Johannes String Quartets. She has recorded Mozart Quintet with the Brentann String Quartet and presented the Mozart Quintets with them under the auspices of Carnegie Hall in 2007. Ms. Huang has recently embarked on a series of major commissioning projects for solo viola and chamber ensemble. In July 2006, she premiered a new work from Houston-based Taiwanese composer Shih-Hui Chen, Shu Shon Key (Remembrance) with the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble at An Appalachian Summer Festival in North Carolina. The work was co-commissioned by the festival along with Chinese Performing Arts, and has received performances at Boston’s Jordan Hall and Da Camera of Houston, the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra has commissioned a version of the work for solo viola and orchestra. A new work from Steven Mackey, also for solo viola and chamber ensemble, received its premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2007. Subsequent performances included presentations by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago, the International Viola Congress 2008, the La Jolla Summer Festival, and at Princeton University. A new disc, Viola Viola, containing both works, will be released by Bridge Record in the fall of 2012. Ms. Huang was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet from 1994–2000. With the Quartet, she participated in festivals worldwide and in such prominent venues as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie, and Japan’s Casals Hall. In 1998, the Borromeo String Quartet was awarded the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award and was chosen by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be members of “CMS Two” and featured in a “Live from Lincoln Center” telecast. She is currently a founding member of the Variation String Trio with violinist Jennifer Koh and cellist Wilhelmina Smith. Hsin-Yun Huang came to England at the age of fourteen to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with David Takeno. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with Michael Tree, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree, and at the Juilliard School with Samuel Rhodes, where she earned her Master of Music. She is a dedicated teacher and currently serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music.

February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Deh vieni non tardar (from Le Nozze di Figaro) February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano The Marriage of Figaro has often been described as the perfect comic opera because it combines engaging entertainment with exquisite musical construction. Mozart had complained to his father in 1783 of having read hundreds of plays, none suitable as a comic opera subject. In late 1785, after aborting several attempts to set existing Italian librettos, he eagerly turned to Beaumarchais’s play Le mariage de Figaro, ou La folle journée (The marriage of Figaro, or The crazy day) once it became clear that Lorenzo da Ponte would write him a libretto. That Mozart composed at “breakneck speed” suggests an imminent production at Vienna’s Burgtheater that December, but the opera was not produced until May 1, 1786. It seems that censors needed time to ascertain that enough adjustment had been made to the politically subversive elements that had caused the play to be banned throughout the Hapsburg empire. Apparently, there were also delays owing to machinations by da Ponte’s rival Abbé Casti and Mozart’s rival Antonio Salieri, as well as problems with procuring dancers and a cast change for the Countess. In the end it was a success, to the point that after the third performance the emperor had to limit encores to keep the opera from lasting all night. Yet Figaro did not achieve its full measure of success until it was produced in Prague the following year, leading to the commission Don Giovanni. Mozart had been writing with such zeal in part because knew that banned subject matter would attract an audience. Further, he could count on familiarity with the characters from Giovanni Paisiello’s greatly successful opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), based on the first of Beaumarchais’s trilogy—and, he was certain he could outdo his rival. As in the play, all of the action takes place in one day, the marriage day of Figaro and Susanna, servants to Count and Countess Almaviva. The main strand of the plot concerns the Count’s flirtations with Susanna in connection with the droit du seigneur (his supposed right as a noble to have his way with her on her first night of marriage) and her clever foiling of his advances. The eventual humiliation of this member of the aristocracy by his “inferiors”—even in its toned down guise—greatly appealed to the rising middle-class audience. Woven into the web are myriad subplots involving Figaro and Marcellina (the Count’s housekeeper), Dr. Bartolo’s desire for revenge on Figaro, the Countess trying to regain her husband’s love, and the womanizing young page Cherubino. For the Vienna revival in 1789, Mozart wrote two replacement arias specifically for Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, da Ponte’s mistress, who—unlike Nancy Storace, the original Susanna—had no comedic acting skills though she had a beautiful voice. In Act 2, Susanna dresses Cherubino as a girl to take her place and compromise the Count. The original “Venite, inginocchiatevi” requires a great deal of comedic acting, so Mozart instead substituted a “stand-and-sing” aria, “Un moto di gioia” (A feeling of joy) for Ferrarese, saying, “The little aria I have written for her I believe will please, if she is capable of singing it in an artless manner, which I very much doubt.” The strophic (several verses sung to the same music) aria is indeed very pleasing, and lovely to hear, since it is rarely used in modern performance. The great “Deh vieni, non tardar” (Oh, come, do not delay) was Susanna’s other aria that Mozart had to replace (which he did with “Al desio” [At the desire], an elaborate rondo showcase). With that substitution, the 1789 audience missed out on one of his most masterful arias—happily included on this afternoon’s program and in most performances of the complete opera. The crucial situation in Act II when Susanna sings “Deh vieni” called for multiple layers of meaning, which Mozart admirably achieved. Susanna and the Countess are disguised as each other to entrap the Count. Figaro has found out about their scheme, but Susanna knows he knows and that he is hiding in the bushes. Thus, as she sings of her love, supposedly for the Count, she is actually singing seductively to Figaro, though he suspects otherwise and becomes jealous. Mozart acknowledges Susanna’s being disguised as the Countess by giving her music more usually suited to noble characters than servants, including preparing it with an extended accompagnato recitative. He also provides the perfect mix of tender longing and mischief. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Aria SUSANNA Un moto di gioia Mi sento nel petto, Che annunzia diletto In mezzo il timor! Speriam che in content Finisca l’affanno Non sempre é tiranno Il fato ed amor. —Lorenzo da Ponte Recitative accompagnato SUSANNA Giunse alfin il momento che godrò senz’affanno in braccio all’idol mio. Timide cure, uscite dal mio petto, a turbar non venite il mio diletto! Oh, come par che all’amoroso foco l’amenità del loco, la terra e il ciel risponda, come la notte i furti miei seconda! Aria Deh, vieni, non tardar, oh gioia bella, vieni ove amore per goder t’appella, finché non splende in ciel notturna face, finché l’aria è ancor bruna e il mondo tace. Qui mormora il ruscel, qui scherza l’aura, che col dolce sussurro il cor ristaura, qui ridono i fioretti e l’erba è fresca, ai piaceri d’amor qui tutto adesca. Vieni, ben mio, tra queste piante ascose, ti vo’ la fronte incoronar di rose. —Lorenzo da Ponte Aria SUSANNA An emotion of joy I feel in my breast, which proclaims delight in the midst of fear! I hope that in contentment distress will end; not always tyrannical are fate and love. Accompanied recitative SUSANNA At last the moment has come when I can rejoice without worry in my lover’s arms. Timid cares, coming forth from my breast, do not come to disturb my delight! Oh, how it seems to the amorous fire, the congeniality of this place, that earth and heaven respond, as the night furthers my designs! Aria Oh, come, do not delay, oh beautiful joy, come where love calls you to enjoy, until night’s torches do not shine in the sky, while the air is still dark and the world quiet. Here the stream murmurs, the light plays, which with sweet whispers restores the heart, here little flowers laugh and the grass is fresh, here everything entices to love’s pleasures. Come, my dear, hidden among these bushes, I want to wreathe your brow with roses. Return to Parlance Program Notes

CRAIG TERRY, PIANIST Lauded for his “sensitive and stylish” (The New York Times) and “superb” (Opera News) playing, pianist Craig Terry has launched an international career regularly performing with some of the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists. He has just returned from a recital tour of South America with Joyce DiDonato on which they performed in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and Ecuador. Currently Mr. Terry is in his eleventh season as Assistant Conductor, and has recently been named Music Director of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Previously, he served as Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Mr. Terry has performed with such esteemed vocalists as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Christine Brewer, Nicole Cabell, Andriana Chuchman, Sasha Cooke, Eric Cutler, Joyce DiDonato, Giuseppe Filianoti, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Denyce Graves, Bryan Hymel, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Ana María Martínez, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, Patricia Racette, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Hugh Russell, Bo Skovhus, Garrett Sorenson, Heidi Stober, and Amber Wagner. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchester, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Pro Arte String Quartet. Mr. Terry’s 2015-16 performance schedule includes concerts with Stephanie Blythe, Christine Brewer, Andriana Chuchman, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Luca Pisaroni, and Patricia Racette. He has recently been named Artistic Director of “Beyond the Aria,” a new concert series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with the Ryan Opera Center and Lyric Unlimited. Mr. Terry’s discography includes three recently released recordings: “Diva on Detour” with Patricia Racette, “As Long As There Are Songs” with Stephanie Blythe, and “Chanson d’Avril” with Nicole Cabell. He was also featured in a “Live from Lincoln Center” national broadcast on PBS with Stephanie Blythe in April 2013.

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

CONNIE SHIH, PIANO The Canadian pianist, Connie Shih, is repeatedly considered to be one of Canada’s most outstanding artists. In 1993 she was awarded the Sylva Gelber Award for most outstanding classical artist under age 30. At the age of nine, she made her orchestral debut with Mendelssohn's first Piano Concerto with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. At the age of 12, she was the youngest ever protégé of Gyorgy Sebok, and then continued her studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with Claude Frank, himself a protégé of Arthur Schnabel. Later studies were undertaken with Fou Tsong in Europe. As soloist, she has appeared extensively with orchestras throughout Canada, the U.S.A. and Europe. In a solo recital setting, she has made countless appearances in Canada, the U.S., Iceland, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan and China. Connie has given chamber music performances with many world-renowned musicians. To critical acclaim, she appears regularly in recital with cellist Steven Isserlis. Including chamber music appearances at the Wigmore and Carnegie Halls, she performs at the prestigious Bath Music Festival, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Weill Hall (N.Y.), and at the Kronberg Festival. Her collaborations have included Maxim Vengerov, Tabea Zimmerman, and Isabelle Faust. Connie regularly tours North America and Europe with Steven Isserlis, and includes a tour of Asia with Joshua Bell. In addition she appears at concert venues across Germany with the cellist Manuel Fischer-Dieskau with whom she recorded the first-ever CD of the Sonatas for piano and cello by Carl Reinecke and the complete Beethoven sonatas. Her CD with Steven Isserlis on the BIS label was recently released. Connie's performances are frequently broadcast via television and radio on CBC (Canada), BBC (U.K.), SWR, NDR, and WDR (Germany) as well as on other various television and radio stations in North America and Europe. She is on faculty at the Casalmaggiore Festival in Italy.