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October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 67 October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Brahms composed his third and last quartet, op. 67, in 1875 at Ziegelhausen, near Heidelberg, on one of his extended summer holidays. Completed and published the following year, it received its first public performance by the celebrated quartet led by his friend Joseph Joachim at the Berlin Singakademie on October 30, 1876. Brahms dedicated the work to his musical friend Professor Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann, a physiologist in Utrecht. The B-flat major Quartet differs greatly in character from its two preceding quartets, op. 51, nos. 1 and 2, both minor key works of a more serious nature. Brahms’s last quartet, a predominantly sunny work, may have served as a kind of release after the completion of his weighty First Symphony, and the piece abounds in unusual touches. The Vivace has a dance-like character more often reserved for last movements. The opening hunting call in 6/8 meter is frequently likened to Mozart’s Hunt Quartet (K. 458) but may also recall the Scherzo of Brahms’s own B-flat Sextet (op. 18). In the second theme area Brahms ingeniously juxtaposes and combines another dance type in 2/4 with the preceding 6/8 rhythms. The Andante contains another unusual rhythmic feature in its middle section: two bars of 5/4 interrupting the 4/4 meter reflect the improvisatory character of the phrase development. Another striking feature is the return of the opening theme, disguised in an elaborate variation on itself and beginning in the third-related “wrong” key of D major. The third movement shows the composer’s fondness for “scherzo alternatives,” since a scherzo would have seemed redundant after the first movement. Brahms’s innovative color scheme of unmuted viola in combination with the three other muted instruments has often been noted; equally memorable is the viola’s absence when the Trio (so marked) begins as a true trio of violins and cello, which then become the background for another viola melody. The finale, one of Brahms’s great achievements in variation form, provides the weight one might have expected from the opening movement. The crowning glory of the movement, and indeed of the work, is the recall of two themes from the first movement in the last two variations, not as mere cyclic reminiscence, but exhibiting their close ties with the variation theme itself. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) Selected Songs March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano To Liszt’s annoyance, his more than eighty songs were largely ignored by a public caught up in the “Lisztmania” surrounding his dazzling piano performances. And critics, who considered him a composer of showy trifles, generally dismissed the songs as well. Nor have the songs received their due from posterity, despite their containing some of Liszt’s most poetic, economic, and progressive utterances. The songs did have their champions—the lyric tenor Franz Götze above all, but also Rosa and Feodor von Milde and Emilie Genast—all of whom had the great advantage of having been accompanied by the composer himself at his “matinées” in Weimar. Liszt set mostly German poets, represented in this afternoon’s first group, but he was also sensitive to French poets, reflected here in the group of Victor Hugo songs. German Songs Liszt composed “Wie singt die Lerche schön” (How beautifully sings the lark) in 1855 on a text by his friend, poet, literary historian, and composer August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, best known as the author of the words of Germany’s national anthem. Liszt’s shimmering, harmonically radical setting imaginatively conveys the poet’s images of bird song, nature, and hope after darkness. Liszt’s arpeggiated ninth chords and open ending anticipate Impressionistic sonorities by some fifty years. “Der Glückliche” (The happy one), with its energetic chords and surging harmonies, brims with youthful exuberance and the intoxication of love before ending in peaceful repose. Setting a poem by playwright, novelist, and journalist Adolf von Wilbrandt, Liszt was returning in 1878 to a powerful style he had cultivated decades earlier. In “Die stille Wasserrose” (The quiet water lily), composed in 1860, Liszt set the words of Emanuel Geibel, whose poems were esteemed for their classical elegance while still appealing to Romantic aesthetics. Here again Liszt’s harmonies are daring, now in a lovely introspective setting. Particularly striking is the harmonic shifting as the moon’s rays illuminate the heart of the snow-white blossom. Liszt composed “Im Rhein, im schönen Strome” (In the Rhine, in the beautiful river) in 1840, setting of Heinrich von Heine’s famous poem. He later made a second version, in 1855; the original is performed here. Heine’s poem describes the reflection of the impressive Cologne Cathedral in the river—aptly represented by Liszt’s Impressionistic rippling piano figuration—and almost irreverently compares the famous Madonna there to the poet’s own beloved. Liszt represents the comparison ecstatically at first, but his light postlude suggests that he realized the poet’s impudence. “Es rauschen die Winde” (The wind rushes) sets a poem by Ludwig Rellstab, now remembered especially for nicknaming Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Liszt again made two very different versions (1845 and 1849), of which we hear the more stormy first, which remained unpublished until 1921. The text laments a lost love, which Liszt dramatically represents with both restlessness and resignation, the latter often associated with his personal life at the time—failure in Weimar, the death of two of his children, and obstacles to his marrying Princess Sayn von Wittgenstein. French Songs Liszt was particularly inspired by French Romantic literature and had a close personal relationship with several poets, among them Victor Hugo, who also won renown as a novelist, dramatist, and statesman. Liszt set seven Hugo texts between 1842 and 1844, including the four best known on today’s program. He made alternate versions of several of them in 1849–59. “S’il est un charmant gazon” (If there be a lovely lawn), a Hugo setting from 1844 and revised between 1849 and 1859, effuses in two parallel but varied sections evoking the beloved’s constant heart. Liszt’s lovely inconclusive ending later gave him second thoughts, and his 1860 publication included an ad lib concluding cadence—unnecessary and happily not included in this performance of the idyllic second version. Again in two versions, “Enfant, s’il j’était roi” (Child, if I were king) makes a stirring statement in both versions, of which we hear the second from 1859. Liszt nicely juxtaposes the dramatic grandeur of each verse’s opening with its more contemplative close. In “Comment, disaient-ils” (How, they asked) the moods shift dramatically with the questions of the men on board a small boat and the female oracular answers they receive. Liszt composed his first version in 1842, revising it to great effect in 1849–59 (heard here). Some of his piano effects reflect the Spanish theme of Hugo’s original poem, entitled Autre guitare. The French set concludes with the tender and passionate “Oh! quand je dors” (Oh! while I sleep), which yet again elicited two versions—1842, composed during one of his concert tours, and 1849, not only revised with unusual harmony at the outset, but rewritten melodically and harmonically for the second stanza, and including a vocal cadenza between the second and third stanzas. This later version, sung today, became his best known French song. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Shéherazade for soprano and piano March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano While still a student at the Paris Conservatory in 1899, Ravel conceived an opera to be based on the tales of the Thousand and One Nights . Well-aware of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (1888), Ravel wrote his own Shéhérazade Overture based on the legends, but the work’s lack of success when Ravel conducted it that June gave him pause, and he prohibited it from being published. Then in 1903 he was inspired to set three poems by fellow member of the Apache society Tristan Klingsor (pseudonym of Leon Leclerc), whose cycle entitled Shéhérazade had just been published. Wrote Leclerc: Ravel immediately announced his intent of setting some of my poems into music. His love of difficulty led him to choose, in addition to “L’indifférent and La flûte enchantée , one which, by reason of its length and narrative form, seemed the least likely suited for his purpose: Asie . The fact is that at this time he was extremely preoccupied with the challenge of adapting music to speech, heightening its accents and inflections and magnifying them by adapting them into melody; and to assist him to carry out his project he asked me to read the poems out loud to him. Like much of France and other European countries at the turn of the twentieth century, Ravel was fascinated with evocations of the Far East. The interest was not so much a kind of armchair tourism, but rather represented in the words of musicologist Kurt Oppens—whose knowledge of French poetry was second to none—“the decadence of a hypercivilized culture.” Worth quoting at length, Oppens wrote: Concerning decadence : all such once-fashionable catch names and slogans isolate one single element that, in truth, is common to all art. Every new style is “decadent” in the sense that it pays the price of progress by falling off from a previous achievement. Ravel’s Shéhérazade , however, is decadence with a capital D, a prototypical example of what Decadence as a movement was about. The kind of travel described in a poem such as Asie leads out of the boundaries of the self into archetypal images, a world of subconscious dreams, or eroticism and murder, a mixture that in its concrete political embodiments, led to the unspeakable tragedies of [the twentieth] century. . . . The emotonal-musical climax coincides with these words: “Je voudrais voir des rose et du sang; / Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine .” (I would like to see roses and blood; / I would like to see those who die for love or else for hate.” . . . The “I” of Leclerc’s poem does not think of dying; he is looking at death and responding to it as if it were a stimulant, an aphrodisiac. . . . Ravel’s music for “Asie” is essentially one big rolling wave, a masterfully articulated and controlled crescendo and decrescendo. (The element of control is of course non-decadent; decadent art is in itself a contradictory or dialectical proposition.) It is fascinating that when Ravel conducted these songs himself, he began with “Le flûte enchantée,” followed by “L’indifférent,” and ended with “Asie,” as in the order of the premiere, which was sung by Jane Hatto of the Paris Opéra on May 17, 1904, with Alfred Cortot conducting the orchestra of the Société Nationale. The published order makes for a more subdued ending, in keeping with the intimate love songs of “La flûte enchantée” and “L’indifférent.” Of the two shorter songs, “La flûte enchantée” offers an intimate melody—often sad, occasionally joyful—evoking the thoughts of the poem’s slave girl, who in her master’s house hears her lover playing the flute. “L’indifferent” also unfolds as a private love song, one shrouded in an air of mystery both as to the poem and Ravel’s setting. Is the protagonist Scherherazade herself seducing a young boy or is the androgenous nature of the addressee something that attracted Ravel? Whatever the case, Ravel skillfully captures the elusive, maybe dreamed or imagined-from-afar seductiveness of the poem. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Asie Asie, Asie, Asie, Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice Où dort la fantasie comme une impératrice En sa forêt tout emplie de mystère. Asie, Je voudrais m'en aller avec la goélette Qui se berce ce soir dans la port, Mystérieuse et solitaire, Et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes Comme un immense oiseau de nuit dans le ciel d’or. Je voudrais m’en aller vers des îles de fleurs En écoutant chanter la mer perverse Sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur, Je voudrais voir Damas et les villes de Perse Avec les minarets légers dans l’air, Je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires; Je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d’amour Et des prunelles brillantes de joie En des peaux jaunes comme des oranges; Je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours Et des habits à longues franges, Je voudrais voir des calumets entre les bouches Tout entourées de barbe blanche; Je voudrais voir d’âpres marchands aux regards louches, Et des cadis, et des vizirs Qui du seul mouvement de leur doigt qui se penche Accordent vie ou mort au gré de leur désir. Je voudrais voir la Perse, et l’Inde, et puis la Chine, Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles, Et les princesses aux mains fines, Et les lettrés qui se querellent Sur la poésie et sur la beauté; Je voudrais m’attarder au palais enchanté Et comme voyageur étranger Contempler à loisir des paysages peints Sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin Avec un personnage au milieu d’un verger; Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d’innocent Avec son grand sabre courbé d’Orient, Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines; Je voudrais voir des roses et du sang; Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine. Et puis m’en revenir plus tard Narrer mon aventure aux curieux de rêves En élevant comme Sinbad ma vieille tasse arabe De temps en temps jusqu’à mes lèvres Pour interrompre le conte avec art . . . La flûte enchantée L’ombre est douce et mon maître dort Coiffé d’un bonnet comique de soie Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche. Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor Et j’écoute au dehors Une chanson de flûte où s’épanche Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie. Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole Que mon amoureux chéri joue. Et quand je m’approche de la croisée Il me semble que chaque note s’envole De la flûte vers ma joue Comme un mystérieux baiser. L’indifférent Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille, Jeune étranger, et la courbe fine De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé Est plus séduisante encor de ligne. Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte Une lange inconnue et charmante Comme une musique fausse. Entre! Et que mon vin te réconforte . . . Mais non, tu passes Et de mon seuil je te vois t’éloigner Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce Et la hanche légèrement ployée Par ta démarche féminine et lasse . . . —Tristan Klingsor Asia Asia, Asia, Asia, Ancient, marvelous country of fairy tales, where fantasy sleeps like an empress in her forest filled with mystery. Asia, I would like go away with the ship which is rocking this evening in the port, mysterious and lonely, and which finally spreads its violet sails like an immense bird of night in the golden sky. I would like to go towards the islands of flowers, while listening to the wayward sea sing to an old bewitching rhythm. I would like to see Damascus and the Persian cities with airy minarets rising into the sky. I would like to see beautiful silk turbans above black faces with bright teeth; I would like to see eyes dark with love and pupils shining with joy in faces with skins yellow as oranges; I would like to see velvet clothes and robes with long fringes, I would like to see pipes held between lips all surrounded by white beards; I would like to see harsh merchants with shifty looks, and cadis, and viziers, who with a single movement of their bending fingers, grant life or death according to their wish. I would like to see Persia, and India, and then China, The pot-bellied mandarins beneath the umbrellas, and the princesses with fine hands, and the scholars who quarrel over poetry and beauty; I would like to linger at the enchanted palace and as a foreign traveler contemplate at leisure countrysides painted on fabrics in frames of fir with a figure in the midst of an orchard; I would like to see smiling assassins, the executioner who cuts an innocent neck with his great curved sabre from the Orient. I would like to see beggars and queens; I would like to see roses and blood; I would like to see those who die of love or hate. And then come back later narrate my adventure to those curious of dreams while raising like Sinbad my old Arab cup from time to time to my lips to interrupt the tale with artistry . . . The Enchanted Flute The shadow is soft and my master sleeps wearing a comical bonnet of silk and his long yellow nose in his white beard. But I, I am still awake, and I hear outside a flute song in which pours out sadness or joy in turn. An air sometimes languorous, sometimes frivolous that my dear lover plays. And when I draw near the window, it seems to me that each note flies away from the flute to my cheek like a mysterious kiss. The Indifferent One Your eyes are soft like those of a girl, young stranger, and the fine curve of your beautiful face shadowed with down is still more seductive in its curve. Your lip sings on my doorstep an unknown and charming language like a false music. Enter! And let my wine refresh you . . . But no, you pass, and from my doorstep I see you leaving making a last gesture with grace and your hips gently swaying, with your feminine and languid walk . . . Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) Piano Quartet in A minor February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello Schumann’s famous words about Brahms, that he had sprung “fully armed like Minerva from the head of Jove” might just as well have been uttered about Mahler, whose surviving compositions show that he apparently achieved mastery “not step by step, but at once.” Yet we now know that Brahms destroyed dozens of student works that might have offered a glimpse into his development. In Mahler’s case it seemed no such glimpse was possible until 1964, when Peter Serkin and the Galimir Quartet played what may have been the first public performance of a youthful piano quartet movement by Mahler (New York, January 12). The only surviving authenticated composition from a list of possible student compositions by Mahler, the Piano Quartet in A minor (first movement and thirty-two measures of a scherzo) was found in a folder labeled “early compositions” in Alma Mahler’s hand. The date 1876, inscribed on the title page may or may not be authentic. Beginning in the academic year 1875–76, Mahler spent three years as a student at the Vienna Conservatory, studying harmony with Robert Fuchs and composition with Franz Krenn—both conservatives in their musical orientation. Other sources of influence may have been Brahms’s Piano Quartets—Julius Epstein, Mahler’s piano teacher at the Conservatory, had helped introduce Brahms and his Quartets to the Viennese public in 1862. Mahler’s Quartet movement in A minor shows thorough knowledge of sonata form. Such knowledge is intriguing to find in light of Mahler’s more complex and less orthodox sonata-forms in later works. Of the three main themes in the exposition, the second is somewhat unusual in appearing in the home key, only moving away somewhat later, and the third, which has a closing character, exhibits harmonic instability. A tendency in Mahler’s later works to “slip” into other keys quickly rather than modulate painstakingly is already apparent in this movement. A “textbook” development section is followed by the recapitulation, which varies its presentation of exposition materials by incorporating passages from the development and reversing the order in which the second and third themes return. But perhaps the most unusual feature of the movement is the introduction of a violin cadenza just before the tranquil close. Composers throughout history have treated their student or early works with varying degrees of disdain, but would the discovery of more such works truly alter our opinion of a master’s greatness? We can at least be grateful for one glimpse into a formative stage in Mahler’s development as a composer. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809) String Quartet in D major, Hob. III/63, op. 64, no. 5, “The Lark” March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet Haydn composed his Opus 64 Quartets in 1790, a year of great change in his life owing to circumstances at Esterháza where he had been employed for thirty years. In February Prince Nicolaus’s wife died, and the grief-stricken Prince kept Haydn—his friend as well as his servant—constantly by his side. Haydn’s letters show that, much as he valued his friendship with the Prince, he felt imprisoned, frustrated, and lonely. In September the music-loving Prince Nicolaus died. His successor, Prince Paul Anton II, did not care for music and dismissed most of the music staff, though he continued to pay Haydn’s salary, requiring him to supply music only for occasional functions. Haydn was free at last to pursue other interests and embarked on his first trip to London with violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who had been trying to lure him there for years. Haydn quartet scholar László Somfai suggested that the “stronger profile” of the last two Opus 64 Quartets—the Lark and No. 6 in E-flat major—owed to these great changes in Haydn’s life. The six Opus 64 Quartets are known as the “second” set of “Tost” quartets because of their dedication to Johann Tost, former violinist in the Esterháza orchestra who by this time had become a cloth merchant. (Haydn had also dedicated to Tost his six previous quartets, published in two groups of three as Opus 54 and 55.) Haydn’s relationship with Tost was complicated because Tost apparently profited unscrupulously from selling some of Haydn’s symphonies and quartets in Paris, but he clearly esteemed him as a musician. Though the Quartets may have been commissioned by Tost, several commentators have suggested that it was wealthy patron Maria Anna von Gerlischek (or Jerlischek; Fräulein Nanette in Haydn’s letters) who urged Haydn to compose them. She had ascended to head housekeeper at Esterháza after Prince Nicolaus’s wife died, and she married Tost when he returned to Austria. The D major Quartet, op. 64, no. 5, became known as “The Lark” because of the soaring, circling violin melody in the first movement. The designation, though fitting, was not attached by Haydn, nor was the Quartet’s other less famous nickname, “Hornpipe,” which refers to the merry Finale’s fleeting resemblance to an old English sailors’ dance. The opening movement’s elegantly prancing staccato provides the perfect foil for the first violin’s exquisite “lark” melody in high register. This beloved theme lies at the heart of one of the movement’s most ingenious features—a second recapitulation after he had already produced one in the home key. This produces a wonderful sense of spaciousness and a chance to hear the lovely melody yet again. Equally striking is the sharply modulating transition to his second theme, which begins with a cascade of triplets that takes on a prominent role in the development section. The intimate slow movement follows Haydn’s usual plan—A-B-A with the middle section unfolding in the minor mode. This “B” section turns out to be an imaginative variation on the material of the outer section. Variation also plays a key role in the return of “A,” especially in the added figuration for the first violin. In the wittily elegant minuet Haydn revels in impish grace notes, metric shifts between groups of twos and threes, and unexpected chromatic inflections. His trio section is remarkable for its chromatic minor-mode counterpoint. At breakneck pace in exhilarating perpetual motion, the Finale unfolds in A-B-A form, with elements of sonata form evident in the developmental nature of the middle section. This imaginative minor-mode fugato brilliantly brings out the main theme’s contrapuntal potential without an interruption in the steady stream of fast notes and shines the spotlight equally on all four participants. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Italian Concerto, BWV 971 March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano A master organizer, Bach planned a monumental keyboard series, which he began publishing in installments in 1731 under the unassuming title Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Exercise). This evening’s Italian Concerto holds an important place in this series of “exercises,” which in fact represents the pinnacle of his art and thus an incomparable peak in the whole of music. The first volume contains his six keyboard partitas; the second (1735), a remarkable pair—the Concerto after the Italian Taste and Ouverture in the French Manner, as Bach called them—representing the two leading national styles and the two main orchestral genres of the day; the third (1739), the organ chorales, the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, and the four Duettos; and the fourth (1741), the Goldberg Variations. The Art of Fugue might have constituted Book V, had he lived to see it published. Bach made a careful study of any style he sought to emulate. Not only had he transcribed a number of early concertos by Vivaldi and Marcello as keyboard concertos, but as director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum he had come to know Vivaldi’s later concertos, as well as further examples by younger German contemporaries writing in the now well-established three-movement format. What is remarkable in Bach’s Italian Concerto is that, though he writes to the “Italian taste,” he makes his own masterful reinterpretation, thus it might better be thought of as the “German-Italian Concerto.” Composer and critic Johann Adolphe Scheibe singled out Bach’s Italian Concerto in 1739 as the best of this solo type—that is, not a transcription of an orchestral concerto, but written for one performer encompassing both “solo” and “orchestra” at one keyboard instrument. He went on to hint at Bach’s ingenious mix of styles when he said: “We can certainly defy foreign nations to provide us with such a piece in this form of composition—a piece which deserves emulation by all our great composers and which will be imitated all in vain by foreigners.” Both outer movements follow the customary Italian ritornello form, standardized by Vivaldi, in which periodic returns of thematic material alternate with contrasting episodes. Both movements also bubble along in the vivacious manner long associated with the Italian style, but they also show later developments in their use of four-bar phrases. Of particular interest in this regard is the existence of an earlier version of the first movement, which Bach “pruned” in several place to make more regular four-bar phrases. The lovely slow movement emulates the Vivaldi style that Bach often adopted—a singing, embellished melody line accompanied simply by a steadily pulsing accompaniment. The piece unfolds in two sections, the second beginning with the same accompaniment progression as the first but with a new highly ornamented melody. Bach’s “German-ness” shows in that all of his Italianate embellishments are carefully written out rather than assumed to be improvised as in Italian practice. The infectious vivacity of the last movement contributes enormously to the popularity that the Italian Concerto has always enjoyed. It took the hand of a master to create something so captivating from such uncomplicated harmonies and the simple idea of an ascending scale. Though similar in form and key scheme to the first movement, the finale shows Bach’s later outlook in the more extensive recall of episodic material. As the movement barrels irrepressibly to its conclusion, one can imagine Bach himself reveling in playing this work, which, as he states on the volume’s title page, was “Composed for Music Lovers, for the Mind’s Delight.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 17, 2018: Chiara String Quartet JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809) The Seven Last Words of Christ for string quartet February 17, 2018: Chiara String Quartet THE BACKGROUND Haydn himself described the history of this unique work in the preface to his vocal version, published in 1801: About fifteen years ago [1785] I was asked by a canon in Cádiz to write instrumental music on the Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. It was then customary every year, during Lent, to perform an oratorio in the main church at Cádiz, to the increased effect of which the following arrangements contributed a great deal. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were covered with black cloth, and only one large lamp, hanging in the center, illuminated the sacred darkness. At noon all the doors were closed, and the music began. After a spoken prelude, suited to the occasion, the bishop ascended the pulpit and pronounced one of the Seven Words, and delivered a reflection upon it. When it was finished, he descended from the pulpit and knelt down before the altar. This interval was filled by music. The bishop ascended and descended the pulpit a second, a third time, and so on; and each time the orchestra filled in at the end of the discourse. My composition had to be appropriate to these circumstances. The task of writing seven Adagios, each of which was to last about ten minutes, to follow one another without wearying the hearers, was not the easiest; and I soon found that I could not confine myself to the prescribed time limits. The music was originally without text, and it was printed in that form [1787]. It was only at a later period that I was induced to add the text. . . . The partiality with which this work has been received by discerning connoisseurs leads me to hope that it will not fail to make an impression on the public at large. Haydn did not travel to Spain for the first performance on Good Friday, April 6, 1787, so it is perhaps understandable that he made one salient error in a remarkably detailed description, which he presumably dictated to Georg August Griesinger, handler of his dealings with publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. (It is also possible that Griesinger crafted the preface after Haydn showed him the original commissioning letter, which has since disappeared.) The term “main church” (Hauptkirche ) does not properly signify where the performance took place, not only because there are and were many “main churches” in Cádiz, but it is misleading even within the complex of buildings that comprise the Church of the Rosario. Scholars have assumed that Haydn was simply trying to make the place of the first performance sound more imposing, but we need to follow a bit of history before his description can be appreciated for what it is—the scenario that inspired one his most remarkable and successful compositions. The original Santa Cueva (Holy Cave), underground and adjacent to Cádiz’s Church of the Rosario, began to be used in 1756 by a fraternal group for their weekly meditations on the Passion of Christ. In 1771 Jesuit priest José Sáenz de Santa María became director of the brotherhood and began conducting these meetings. Two years later, in a tangential but related connection, he helped Italian cellist Carlo Moro obtain a position in the Cádiz Cathedral orchestra and provided him with an entree to the chamber music salons of the aristocracy. (The research of cellist Carlos Prieto, who plays the Stradivari cello “ex-Piartti” once played by Moro, has helped to establish a number of pertinent facts.) Father Santa Maria invited Moro to the Good Friday ceremonies at the Santa Cueva in 1774, which took place just as described much later by Haydn and deeply impressed the cellist. In 1778 Father Santa Maria inherited his father’s vast fortune and title, Marquis de Valde-Iñigo, and immediately decided to enlarge and refurbish the Santa Cueva. He hired architect Torcuato Cayón, whom he knew from Cayón’s work on the Cádiz Cathedral, and the renovation, begun in 1781, was completed in time for Good Friday services in 1783. Cáyon had just died in January that year, so his disciple Torcuato Benjumeda continued Cáyon’s and Father Santa Maria’s much grander plans—constructing the more luxurious upper chapel of the Santa Cueva between 1793 and 1796 and refurbishing the Church of the Rosario, also in 1793. Before those later projects were carried out, however, Father Santa Maria determined that his Passion ceremonies in the Santa Cueva would be greatly enhanced by the addition of music. The tradition of a noon to three o’clock meditation on the Seven Last Words is said to have originated in Peru with Jesuit priest Francisco del Castillo, and Father Santa Maria may have gotten the idea of adding music from the 1757 posthumous publication in Seville of another Peruvian Jesuit, Alonso Messia Bedoya. Father Santa Maria always aimed high and decided to commission the most famous composer of the time, Joseph Haydn, bypassing Moro’s suggestion of an Italian compatriot, Luigi Boccherini, who was living in Spain. The idea of approaching Haydn seemed daunting to Moro, but Father Santa Maria turned to fellow brotherhood member Francisco de Paula María de Micón, marquis of Méritos, and maestro di capilla of the Cádiz Cathedral, whom Moro knew from his work there and from playing at his chamber-music soirees—and with whom he especially enjoyed speaking Italian. More important, the Marquis of Méritos was a friend of Haydn’s. In 1785 the Micón wrote a commissioning letter to Haydn full of such detail that Haydn not only accepted the commission but knew what shape it would take and what the ethos and effect of his music should be. With their correspondence lost, we can only surmise that the marquis described the ceremonies just as Haydn laid them out in his preface, and that the ceremonies took place in the same way every year, just as Moro had witnessed in 1784. Further, one of Haydn’s nephews wrote that “the composition owed more to the explanation that he had received in writing from Sr. de Micón than to his own creation because in its own unique fashion, it led him through every step of the way, to the point that, while reading the instructions from Spain, it seemed as though he was actually reading the music.” It might be added, however, that Haydn’s mention of the difficulty of the task was borne out by his friend Abbé Stadler, who was with him when he received the commission. In his autobiography, corroborated by publisher Vincent Novello and his wife, Stadler helped him over a seeming quandary about how to proceed by suggesting the he simply write melodies as if he were fitting them to the first phrase of text in his mind. Before turning to the music itself, however, we might touch on one further possibility for Haydn’s 1801 use of the term “main church,” which has led many to suppose that the first performance took place in the beautiful upper Oratory, which had not even been built at the time of the first performance in the renovated underground Santa Cueva. Among many elaborate features—Ionic columns of jasper, ornate altar of silver and jasper, patterned marble floor—the upper Oratory boasts numerous sculptures, sculptured reliefs, and paintings, in particular, three paintings by Goya: The Last Supper , The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes , and The Guest at the Wedding . Because plans for the upper Oratory were already in the works by 1785, it is entirely possible that the commissioning letter to Haydn contained many details that referred to the envisioned project (although Goya had not yet been specifically commissioned) as well as giving the description of the customary Good Friday ceremonies. The thread of the envisioned plans and how Haydn may have been influenced continues with another individual who might have played some role in Father Santa Maria’s conception of combining art and music in his Santa Cueva project. Sebastián Martínez, collector of art and literature, lived near the site and as a friend of Goya drew up the commission for his paintings for the upper oratory. Martínez owned an engraving of Poussin’s famous painting the Eucharist , which Goya would have seen while staying with him and which many commentators have described as one of the influences for Goya’s The Last Supper in the upper Oratory. As scholar Thomas Tolley suggests, Martínez, as a member of high society who was also interested in the relationship between painting and music, would have also revered Haydn and may have helped in the selecting and commissioning process. He and the others involved in commissioning may have even known the story of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony and hence his fascination with lighting effects, which may have helped to solidify their choice. In any case, it would be easy to imagine the commissioning letter including a copy of Poussin’s painting, which is strikingly similar to Haydn’s description of the “sacred darkness” illuminated by “only one large lamp, hanging in the center.” It is fascinating to think that Goya may in turn have even been influenced by a Good Friday performance of Haydn’s music in the underground Santa Cueva before completing his commission in the upper Oratory. In a remarkable tradition, The Seven Last Words has been performed at the Santa Cueva every Good Friday since 1787. Father Santa Maria made sure Haydn received the honorarium he had been promised, but in a manner almost as unusual as the work itself. One day Haydn received a small box from Cádiz, which he opened only to find a chocolate cake. Highly incensed, Haydn cut into it and found it filled with gold pieces. THE MUSICAL BACKGROUND Composed in 1786 and possibly completed in early 1787, the work originally bore the title Musica instrumentale sopra le 7 ultime parole del nostro Redentore in croce, ossiano 7 sonate con un’introduzione ed al fine un terremoto (Instrumental music on the 7 last words of our Redeemer on the cross, 7 sonatas with an introduction and at the end an earthquake), scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. We know from a later article, published around the time of a 1791 London performance, that at the time Haydn corresponded with the Bishop of Cádiz asking if he could exceed the ten-minute limit occasionally, to which the Bishop responded that he should do as he wished and he (the bishop) would shorten his sermons accordingly. (That correspondence is also unfortunately lost.) As soon as the work was completed, Haydn was already pleased with it and had it performed in Vienna on March 26 and Bonn on March 30, 1787, which performances actually predate the Cádiz performance by a few days. Haydn was taken to task by some but praised by others for his daring in expressing the Seven Last Words by purely instrumental music. He had also arranged the work in the present version for string quartet by February 14, 1787, and authorized a keyboard reduction. Then in 1794 he attended a performance in Passau for which his music had been fit with words by Joseph Friebert based on Christ’s last words from the four Gospels. Though Haydn complimented Friebert, he told a student that “could have written the vocal parts better,” and, with the help of Baron Gottfried van Swieten who adapted Freibert’s text, Haydn produced his own vocal version in 1795–96, inserting a new number for winds between the fourth and fifth sonatas, and adding clarinets, contrabassoon, and two trombones to the orchestra while subtracting two horns. This version, Die Sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze , was first perfromed in Vienna on March 26 and 27, 1796. Haydn’s instrumental original unfolds as follows, each movement, including the introduction and the earthquake, in sonata form: Introduzione, D minor, Maestoso ed Adagio: Haydn makes the most of the contrast between dramatic angular motives in dotted rhythm and contrasting tender passages with pulsing repeated notes. Sonata I: “Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt” (Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do), B-flat major, Largo: Sounding sweetly contrasting to the minor-mode introduction, this movement incorporates the distinct pulsing first heard there, and does switch to the minor mode for expressive purposes. Especially striking is the chromatic treatment for Haydn’s at that time imagined words “the blood of the lamb.” Sonata II: “Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso” (Today you will be with me in paradise), C minor ending in C major, Grave e cantabile: After the pensive opening and in the reprise, the switch to a singing melody in major over arpeggiated accompaniment represents the reward of paradise. Listeners may catch a foreshadow of the hymn (slow movement) of Haydn’s Emperor Quartet. Sonata III: “Mulier, ecce filius tuus” (Woman, behold your son), E major, Grave: Beginning with three simple repeated chords, Haydn’s simple seraphic setting represents the text, “Woman, behold thy son.” Scholar Daniel Heartz points out that Haydn had used similar music for his Salve regina in the same key of 1756. Sonata IV: “Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me?” (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?), F minor, Largo: Solemnity and lamenting begins to predominate with Haydn’s setting for the words “My God, why have you forsaken me?” in the far removed key of F minor. Haydn had also used this dark key for his Symphony nicknamed “La Passione” in 1768. Sonata V: “Sitio” (I thirst), A major, Adagio: This movement begins with an innocent-sounding melody over “dry” pizzicato accompaniment, which makes the entrance of the raging music for the imagined text, “I thirst,” so striking for its expression of torment. Sonata VI: “Consummatum est” (It is finished), G minor, ending G major, Lento: Haydn was particularly proud of this movement, in which he represents Jesus crying to God “In a loud voice”—five fortissimo chords—“It is finished.” Haydn later uses the motive for a bass line accompaniment to a lovely violin melody in the major. Sonata VII: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum” (Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit), E-flat major, Largo: Haydn represents Christ’s yielding his spirit to God’s hand in with a noble first theme. The use of mutes gives the impression of quiet acceptance and the quiet ending suggests Christ’s earthly life being over. Il terremoto, C minor, Presto e con tutta la forza: Without pause Haydn unleashes the fury of the earthquake following Christ’s crucifixion, described in Matthew 27:51: “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.” Haydn’s depiction in raging unisons, darting gestures, and unsettling cross rhythms provides supreme if brief contrast to all the contemplation that has gone before. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2021 AT 3 PM THE SCHUMANN STRING QUARTET MENDELSSOHN, RAVEL, AND MOZART BUY TICKETS PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN Paul Huang possesses a big, luscious tone, spot-on intonation and a technique that makes the most punishing string phrases feel as natural as breathing.” — The Washington Post SCHUMANN STRING QUARTET “Fire and energy. The Schumann Quartet plays staggeringly well with sparkling virtuosity and a willingness to astonish” — Süddeutsche Zeitung FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS One of today’s fastest rising ensembles, the Schumann String Quartet has been hailed worldwide for their fire, energy, and supreme technical accomplishment. Their Parlance debut will include Mendelssohn’s precocious Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, Maurice Ravel’s spellbinding Quartet in F, and Mozart’s adventurous “Dissonance” quartet. PROGRAM Felix Mendelssohn String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13 Program Notes Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F Program Notes W.A. Mozart String Quartet in C, K. 465 (“Dissonance”) Program Notes Watch the Schumann String Quartet perform Mendelssohn’s F-minor Quartet, Op. 80:

WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO This season, soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Freia and Ortlinde in The Ring Cycle and makes her debut at the Tanglewood Festival in a concert version of Die Walküre, conducted by Andris Nelsons. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Ms. Harmer has appeared in their productions of Le nozze di Figaro, War and Peace, Khovanshchina, Parsifal, Die Agyptische Helena, Jenufa, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in the Met’s HD broadcasts of the Ring Cycle and The Magic Flute, which have subsequently been released on DVD (Deutsche Gramophone). Other recent opera engagements have included the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Adalgisa in Norma at the Palm Beach Opera, Leonora in Fidelio at Opera Omaha, Senta in Die fliegende Holländer and multiple roles in the Ring Cycle at the Seattle Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Houston Grand Opera, Eglantine in Euryanthe at the Bard Music Festival , Die Walküre at the San Francisco Opera, Glauce in Medea at the Glimmerglas Festival, Wanda in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at Opera Boston, and Mimi in La Bohéme at the Utah Opera Festival. In concert, Ms. Harmer recently made her debuts with Boston Baroque in performances of Fidelio, and with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in performances of Vaughn William’s Sea Symphony. She has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in performances of the Beethoven Symphony No. 9, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in concert performances of Das Rheingold, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as a soloist at the Schubert Festival, and in Lincoln Center’s Tribute to Renata Tebaldi. In 2005, she made her New York recital debut under the auspices of The Marilyn Horne Foundation, and was presented by the George London Foundation in a recital with Ben Heppner at the Morgan Library. Born in Roseville, California, Ms. Harmer graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from The Boston Conservatory and attended the Music of Academy of the West. She was also a member of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theater of St Louis, and was one of nine singers invited to study at The Music Academy in Villecroze, France. Her many awards include a 2010 Richard Tucker Grant, the 2007 Jensen Award, the Teatro alla Scala Award at the 2007 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, first place at the Palm Beach Opera Competition, the 2005 winner of the George London/Leonie Rysanek Award, and an award from The Marilyn Horne Foundation.

DANIEL DORFF, COMPOSER Daniel Dorff’s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, commissioned five times by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s education department resulting in over 20 performances, and commissioned twice by the Minnesota Orchestra’s Kinder Konzert series which has performed his music over 200 times. Dorff’s works have also been performed by the Baltimore Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Eastman Wind Ensemble; chamber concerts of the Chicago Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and Oregon Symphony; on the 1998 Chicago Symphony Radiothon, by clarinetists of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic, and by pianist Marc-André Hamelin, clarinetist John Bruce Yeh, flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal, Donald Peck, Mimi Stillman, and Gary Schocker; and conducted by maestros Alan Gilbert and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other commissions have come from Walfrid Kujala, the Colorado Symphony’s Up Close and Musical series, Sacramento Symphony, Young Audiences, American Composers Forum, Ithaca College School of Music, Symphony in C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony), Network for New Music, National Flute Association Piccolo Committee, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, and other organizations. Dorff has also created arrangements for Sir James Galway and pop musicians Keith Emerson and Lisa Loeb. Highlights of the 2009-10 season include Concerto for Contrabassoon at the International Double Reed Society 2010 convention orchestral concert as well as two performances of It Takes Four to Tango at that convention; several performances at the National Flute Association 2010 convention including the world premiere of Three Little Waltzes for Flute and Clarinet and the new band transcription of Flash! featuring Walfrid Kujala as piccolo soloist; all-Dorff children’s concerts at the Aspen Music Festival and Icicle Creek Music Center in Washington; and many performances of orchestra works at family concerts throughout the season. Highlights of the 2008-09 included the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival performing Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Baltimore Symphony in 5 performances of The Tortoise and the Hare. In February 2009, the Allentown Symphony gave performances of The Kiss, after the painting by Klimt. Dorff was the pre-concert lecturer for Philadelphia Orchestra concerts in March 2009. Flash! for piccolo and piano was performed by Kate Prestia-Schaub at the 2009 International Piccolo Symposium and annual convention of the National Flute Association; Flash! has also been performed on tour by piccolo legend Walfrid Kujala and recently won the International Piccolo Symposium’s biennial composition competition. In May 2009, Sheryl Lee performed Dorff’s The Day Things Went Wrong at the Pet Store (11 Cartoons for Piano) at Royal Albert Hall in London. Other recent premieres include Yvonne Smith in Spark for solo viola performed in Houston in November 2009, Kate Prestia-Schaub in Flash! for piccolo and piano (Murietta CA, January 2009), and Tiffany Holmes in Trees for solo flute, premiered at an all-Dorff concert at the Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair in February 2009 featuring Cindy Anne Strong as guest narrator. Tiffany Holmes and Cindy Anne Strong also performed Trees at the National Flute Association’s annual convention in August 2009. Symphony In C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony) has recorded an all-Dorff CD recently released on Bridge Records, featuring Ann Crumb and Ukee Washington as narrators, conducted by Rossen Milanov. The companion coloring book for his narrated work Billy and the Carnival is now given out annually to young audiences at the Colorado Symphony’s educational concerts. Laurel Zucker recently released August Idyll for solo flute on Cantilena Records, and in May 2010 flutist Pam Youngblood released Dorff’s 9 Walks Down 7th Avenue and his flute/piano transcription of Ives’s Variations on “America” on Azica Records. Daniel Dorff was born in New Rochelle, NY in 1956; acclaim came early with First Prize in the Aspen Music Festival’s annual composers’ competition at age 18 for his Fantasy, Scherzo and Nocturne for saxophone quartet. Dorff received degrees in composition from Cornell and University of Pennsylvania; his teachers included George Crumb, George Rochberg, Karel Husa, Henry Brant, Ralph Shapey, Elie Siegmeister, and Richard Wernick. He studied saxophone with Sigurd Rascher. In 1996, Dorff was named Composer-In-Residence for Symphony in C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony), in which he played bass clarinet from 1980 through 2002. Daniel Dorff serves as Vice President of Publishing for Theodore Presser Company; he is a sought-after expert on music engraving and notation, having lectured at many colleges as well as Carnegie Hall, and advising the leading notation software companies. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Music Publishers’ Association of the USA, the Board of Directors of the National Flute Association, and the Executive Board of The Charles Ives Society. Dorff’s compositions have been published by Theodore Presser Company, Carl Fischer, Lauren Keiser Music (formerly MMB), Elkan-Vogel, Shawnee Press, Mel Bay, Kendor Music, Tenuto Publications, and Golden Music, and recorded on the Bridge, Crystal, Cantilena, New Focus, Silver Crest, Barking Dog, Capstone, Orange Note, Farao Classics, Northbranch, Sea Breeze, Isis, and Meister labels.

March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Cinq mélodies populaires grecques March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano Early in 1904 French musicologist and philologist Pierre Aubry was preparing a lecture on Greek and Armenian folklore entitled “Songs of the Oppressed,” and he asked Greek-born fellow musicologist and critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi to provide some examples from Greece. Singer Louise Thomasset agreed to perform them on short notice, but only with piano accompaniment, so Calvocoressi enlisted the help of his longtime friend Ravel. They selected five folk songs—four out of Pericles Matsa’s Chansons (Constantinople, 1883) and the fifth, “Les cueilleuses de lentisques,” from a Hubert Pernot collection entitled Chansons populaires de l’le de Chio. Ravel came up with the accompaniments in only thirty-six hours—his first foray into folk settings—and the lecture-demonstration duly took place on February 20 at the Sorbonne. The following year Ravel decided that three of the songs were “too brief,” so he arranged three others from the Pernot collection, which together with two of the originals, “Quel galant” and “Chanson des cueilleuses,” now make up his Cinq mélodies populaires grecques. On April 28, 1906, Calvocoressi presented a recital on popular Greek song, on which Marguerite Babaïan gave the first performance of the set in its new configuration. These songs were the first of Ravel’s piece to be accepted by prestigious music publisher Durand, who wished to be granted first option on all of his subsequent works. Ravel left his stamp on these accompaniments with their chromatic inflections and reinterpretations of modes, but without destroying their original flavor. “Chanson de la mariée” (Song of the bride) is a lively wake-up call for a bride on her wedding day. Ravel accentuates the modal tune (Phrygian) with his chromatic harmonies, and uses rapid-fire repeated notes to generate excitement. “Là-bas, vers l’église” (There by the church) takes up the same mode, but in gentle, serious reflection on those buried in the cemetery, replete with softly chiming “bells.” “Quel galant m’est comparable” (What gallant compares with me?) begins in a boastful proclamation, takes up a dancelike strut, then indulges in a moment of tenderness, before a brief return to the dance. In “Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques” (Song of the Lentisk Gatherers) Ravel keeps his setting simple, with floating harmonies and occasional spun-out elebortion for the voice alone. “Tout gai” (All Gay!) cavorts happily in the major mode with no chromatic inflections. Ravel’s alternating-hand patterns provide lively interest to the ebullient “Tra-la-las.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes