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MICHAEL PARLOFF Principal Flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1977 until his retirement in 2008, Michael Parloff has been heard regularly as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. He has collaborated with such noted artists as James Levine, Jessye Norman, James Galway, Peter Serkin, Dawn Upshaw, Thomas Hampson, Jaime Laredo, and the Emerson String Quartet and has performed on numerous occasions at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As a lecturer, conductor, and teacher, Michael Parloff has appeared at major conservatories and university music schools in the United States and abroad. These venues include The Juilliard School, Yale University, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, the Verbier and Tanglewood Festivals, and the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. He has been a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music since 1985. Michael Parloff is the founder and Artistic Director of Parlance Chamber Concerts. The mission of Parlance Chamber Concerts is to promote the appreciation and understanding of classical music in Northern New Jersey by presenting the world’s finest singers and instrumentalists in affordable, innovatively programmed public concerts and educational events. In recent seasons, Parlance Chamber Concerts has presented such renowned artists as the Emerson and Brentano String Quartets, pianists Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Jeremy Denk, and Simone Dinnerstein, Met Opera singers Stephanie Blythe, Thomas Hampson, Matthew Polenzani, Isabel Leonard, and Nathan Gunn, flutist James Galway, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Since 1996, Michael has also presented over 30 benefit concerts for various nonprofit organizations and humanitarian causes in Northern Bergen County, New Jersey. Michael Parloff has recorded extensively with the Metropolitan Opera for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, London, and Philips and has recorded solo recital repertoire and 20th-century chamber music for E.S.SAY, Gunmar, CRI, and Koch. To view Michael Parloff’s videos and multimedia lectures, click here .

October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, op. 8 October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello The sixteen-year-old Shostakovich composed his First Piano Trio in the throes of love for Tatyana Glivenko, daughter of a well-known Moscow philologist. He had met her on holiday on the Crimean peninsula in the summer of 1923 and wrote home to his mother extolling the virtue of “free love,” though he commented that marriage was valuable for family life. He maintained a relationship with Tatyana for years—largely through correspondence, for they were often geographically separated. Toward the end of the summer of 1923, when Tatyana had already gone home, Shostakovich began his one-movement Piano Trio. He wrote to Tatyana asking her permission to dedicate the piece to her and divulged, “About three years ago I wrote a piano sonata; it was of course a childish thing, immature, but it had some material that was not bad and which I included in the trio in the form of a second subject.” Scholar Sofia Khentova reports that he also employed material from the first movement of a quintet he had written and abandoned the previous April. According to some sources, the Trio received a trial performance during the screening of a silent film on October 25, 1923, at the Harlequinade Cinema in Petrograd, with violinist Veniamen Sher, cellist Grigori Pekker, and the composer at the piano. Others assert that Shostakovich did not begin playing piano for silent films until 1924. In any case, the same group did perform the work, provisionally retitled Poem, at the Petrograd Conservatory in December 1923 (on the 13th or 19th, depending on the source). On April 7, 1924, Shostakovich played the Trio as part of his successful audition for entry into the Moscow Conservatory. Another performance, often listed as the public premiere, took place on March 20, 1925, at the Moscow Conservatory with violinist Nikolas Fyodorov, cellist Anatoli Yegorov, and pianist Lev Oborin. The composer performed the Trio several more times, but the score then lay in obscurity until 1983, when it was published with the reconstruction of a missing passage of twenty-two measures in the piano part, made in 1981 by Shostakovich student Boris Tischenko. Written in Shostakovich’s early post-Romantic style, the Trio contains only hints of some of his later edgy sonorities, but does show characteristic marchlike and perpetual-motion ideas alongside lush lyricism. The introduction begins meditatively with three chromatically descending notes in the cello that generate much of the movement. The main theme proper exhibits both forthright and scherzando qualities. His self-borrowing, which would become a lifelong trait, appears here, as he mentioned to Tatyana, in his lyrical second theme, emerging as a singing cello melody from ethereal piano chords. It unfolds almost identically—even as to key (E-flat major), time signature (6/4), and tempo marking (Andante)—to the second movement of a B minor piano sonata he had written and discarded in 1920 or 1921, thus preserving the material he modestly called “not bad.” Shostakovich’s sonata form is free and rhapsodic, swinging easily in and out of many keys and incorporating a wide variety of tempos. He ends in a grand, climatic recall of his lyrical theme, capped by a brief rush of the perpetual motion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2019 AT 3 PM QUARTETTO DI CREMONA AN ITALIAN JOURNEY BUY TICKETS QUARTETTO DI CREMONA “It’s a rare blend: breadth of sound and capriciousness combined with perfect tuning and ensemble has the players sounding absolutely of one voice… Nothing less than life-affirming.” — Grammophone FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The inaugural concert of the 2019 – 2020 season will showcase one of the most exciting chamber ensembles on the international stage. The Quartetto di Cremona received the 2019 Franco Buitoni Award in recognition of their exceptional contribution to promoting Italian chamber music throughout the world. Their musical journey will feature string quartets by four of Italy’s greatest composers. PROGRAM Luigi Boccherini Quartet in C, Op. 2, No. 6 Program Notes Giuseppe Verdi Quartet in E minor Program Notes Giacomo Puccini Crisantemi Program Notes Ottorino Respighi Quartet in D Program Notes Watch the Quartetto Di Cremona perform the first movement of Giuseppe Verdi’s Quartet in E minor:

October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio Amanda Maier (1853-1894) Piano Trio in E-flat October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio During the all-too-short span of her life, Amanda Maier excelled in two male-dominated fields—as a solo violinist and as a composer. Although little is known about her childhood, clearly her musical talent was recognized early and she enrolled at age sixteen in the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm. She became the first woman to earn the elite Musikdirektör diploma, receiving the highest possible grades in harmony, counterpoint, history and aesthetics, violin, organ, and piano. Her organ skills had merited her a place in the Academy’s even more exclusive Artistklass. Maier continued her education in Leipzig, studying violin with Engelbert Röntgen, concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and composition with conductor/composer Carl Reinecke and professor Ernst Friedrich Richter. She became a regular of the Röntgen household, participating in their many musical gatherings and eventually marrying Engelbert’s son Julius, who had become the love of her life. She also socialized and made music with many other renowned Leipzig musicians, including Clara Schumann and Edvard Grieg. Maier’s earliest surviving compositions, including the Piano Trio, date from this Leipzig period. The later 1870s also saw her performing and touring in an ensemble as a violinist, highlighted by a performance for King Oscar II in Malmö in 1876. The following year Maier returned home to Sweden, but after her father died, she returned to Leipzig where her life felt centered. The couple had to spend two years visiting between Leipzig and Amsterdam after Julius accepted a piano teaching position in the Dutch capital while she maintained her performing schedule in Leipzig and on tours in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. After their marriage in 1880 Maier settled in Amsterdam, and one year later their son Julius II was born, who was to become a violinist. The following year she suffered the first of three debilitating miscarriages, but in 1886 their second son Engelbert was born, who later became a cellist. Besides caring for her sons—whose early music education she oversaw—she continued to perform, though less frequently and rarely in public. Just after Engelbert was born, Maier fell ill with the lung disease that would plague her for the rest of her life. She also suffered from painful recurring eye trouble that often required her to wear dark glasses or a patch. Maier continued her musical activities during good spells between attacks, but they naturally lessened. When the devastated Röntgen wrote of her death to their good friends the Griegs, Edvard wrote back saying, “She was one of my favorites!” In the years after Maier’s death, concerts featured her works in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and The Netherlands, but she and her music gently faded from public awareness. Since the 1990s, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in her music, with recordings and publications of works such as her Piano Quartet and Violin Concerto, which she had performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in one of the pinnacles of her career. Going back to late April 1874, the diaries of both Julius and Amanda had made copious mentions of the Piano Trio, showing great pride and that they consulted on compositional details. They gave the first of many private performances on May 20, 1874, with cellist Julius Klengel (cousin of Julius Röntgen) at the Röntgen’s Leipzig home. Amanda wrote home to one of her favorite professors at the Stockholm Academy about another performance on June 7, saying: Everything has gone as well as I could have wished, and I believe I have made significant progress. . . . I performed . . . Mendelssohn’s concerto, and, among other pieces, a Trio for piano, violin and cello that I have recently composed. My Trio has been well received and sounds wonderful; they say here in Leipzig that my music has a ‘national’ flavor—a Nordic one, that is—which seems to be all the rage here. Jumping forward more than 140 years, Maier’s great-grandson Reinier Thadiens, who was living in Southern France, saw a list of her “lost works” and found the manuscript of her Piano Trio in a pile of music he had inherited. He immediately notified Swedish cellist and scholar Klas Gagge, who published it in 2018 through the Swedish Musical Heritage project and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The world premiere—that is, the public premiere—took place on April 20, 2018, performed in Umeå, Sweden, by violinist Cecilia Zillacus, cellist Kati Raitinen, and pianist Bengt Forsberg. In the first movement, Maier immediately contrasts her forthright opening idea with a quiet phrase in Classic-era style. She proceeds not like Mozart or Haydn, however, but aligns with Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms—those Romantic composers with a classical bent. The expressive second theme is related to the first but has more harmonic instability. Her development section, which journeys through distant harmonies on a scheme similar to Schubert’s E-flat Trio, D. 929, reaches several dramatic peaks before the climax that launches the recapitulation. Taking some Romantic “liberties,” she waits until the coda to bring back her second theme in the main key. The dancelike outer sections of Maier’s Scherzo consist of miniature self-contained sonata forms, much like Brahms’s Scherzo in his Horn Trio of 1865. The songful contrasting central trio section is particularly lovely. Led off by a lyrical cello melody, the slow movement is particularly poignant, with considerable opportunities for contrapuntal intertwining between the violin and cello. The broad three-part form includes a shortened and varied return of the opening and coda. The finale blossoms quickly from a gentle but sprightly opening to surging phrases brimming with Romantic vigor. Maier was clearly aware of some Romantic composers’ cyclic procedures, shown in her recalling of the slow movement. Throughout Maier has delighted in modulating excursions, so it comes as no surprise that she introduces a false reprise before returning “home” for a rousing finish. Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Air from Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D arr. for four cellos September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos When music scholars began sifting through Bach’s long-forgotten works in the nineteenth century, they came across four orchestral masterpieces that they catalogued as “orchestral suites” because of their similarity to suites for keyboard or individual string instruments—and simply to avoid confusion. Bach, however, had called them “ouvertures” in the tradition of his German contemporaries, who used the term for an orchestral work consisting of an overture and several dance movements in the French style. Bach most likely wrote his Third Orchestral Suite around 1731 in Leipzig where he was music director at the University of Leipzig, director of the Collegium Musicum, Kantor of the Thomasschule, music overseer at four major churches, and composer of music for all these entities. Though he may have composed some of the orchestral suites earlier, the earliest existing copies date from Bach’s Leipzig days, so we can assume he performed all of them there with the Collegium Musicum. The Third Suite may be the most famous of the four on account of its sublime Air. One of the most popular and arranged pieces of all time, it achieved special notoriety through August Wilhelmj’s version for the violin G string (1871). This afternoon our four cellists play the arrangement by the Finckel Cello Quartet. The Air’s binary form—two halves, each repeated—and its “stepping” bass overlaid with a long, sustained melodic line are standard Baroque procedures, but its poignant effect transcends all formulas. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 24, 2017: Sean Lee, violin; Michael Brown, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Romance No. 2 in F major, op. 50 September 24, 2017: Sean Lee, violin; Michael Brown, piano Beethoven may have written his two Romances for violin and orchestra as potential slow movements for an unfinished concerto (WoO 5), but in the end he published them as separate pieces. The F major Romance may date from as early as 1798. In German, Romanze designates a songlike instrumental piece (specifically in alla breve meter or “cut time”), of which the French Romance is a special subcategory used for violin concerto slow movements by composers such as Viotti. Beethoven’s sweetly “singing” Romances clearly show his familiarity with this French style. The F major Romance is especially famous for its high range and sweet melodic line, which may partly account for its being played more often than its companion in G. Beethoven interjects contrasting orchestral sections at the ends of thematic statements, characterizing them with majestic long-short rhythms. He creates a wonderful touch at the end when his accompaniment provides a double echo of the solo violin’s last three notes. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sonata in C minor, K. 457 March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Mozart completed his Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457, in Vienna on October 14, 1784, according to his own catalog of his works. The following year he published it together with the Fantasia in C minor, K. 475—a brooding, improvisatory work completed in May 1785—dedicating the pair to Theresia von Trattner, one of his piano students and the second wife of prominent publisher Thomas von Trattner, Mozart’s landlord at the time. Opinions differ as to whether Mozart intended the Fantasia as an extended prelude to the Sonata; Mozart sometimes performed the pieces separately. The C minor Sonata stands apart from Mozart’s other piano sonatas in its dramatic intensity and emotional gravity—its key was one he reserved for music of expressive weight. The outer movements present a stormy character that famously anticipates Beethoven—the young Beethoven knew the work well, and echoes of its opening gesture can be heard in his own First Piano Sonata in F minor, op. 2, no. 1. Mozart’s opening commands attention with a forceful unison theme that rockets upward before dissolving into a chromatic dialogue. The lyrical second theme provides contrast, but the movement’s turbulent energy predominates. The slow second movement with its searching character and expansive treatment is thought to have been composed separately, possibly as a teaching piece for Theresia. Mozart treats its tender melody with rich, varied embellishments each time it returns. The warm middle section no doubt inspired Beethoven in the slow movement of his Pathétique Sonata, op. 13. The finale returns to the restless world of the first movement, with no hint of the merry sort of closing movement Mozart typically favored in his sonatas. Its driven figuration combines quick sighing figures, syncopations, dissonant suspensions, rhetorical pauses, and dramatic hand crossings for a masterfully tragic-sounding conclusion to the Sonata. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE - 2011 Principal Flute of the Metropolitan Opera, Denis Bouriakov enjoys one of the fastest growing careers in the flute world. He has won prizes in many of the most important international competitions, including the Jean-Pierre Rampal, the Munich ARD, the Prague Spring, the Carl Nielsen, and the Kobe competitions. Bouriakov looks outside the standard flute repertoire for works that allow the flute to shine. In addition to having a phenomenal virtuoso technique, he is continually transcribing and performing violin concertos and sonatas, expanding the limits of flute technique and artistry. Mr. Bouriakov released his first solo CD in 2009, which includes the Sibelius Violin Concerto in his own arrangement. He has also recorded the Bach Concerto for 2 Violins in d minor with flutist William Bennett and the English Chamber Orchestra. His anticipated 2012 CD, recorded in Japan, will include works by Copland, Debussy, Boehm, Jolivet and Prokofiev. Bouriakov has performed worldwide as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble of Tokyo, the Odense Symphony, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble of Paris and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. Denis Bouriakov was born in Crimea (now the Ukraine). At the age of ten, he was given a place at the Moscow Central Special Music School, where he studied with Professor Y.N. Dolzhikov. With the support of the ”New Names” International Charity Foundation and the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation, he toured as soloist to over 20 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, and the USA. He went on to attend the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Professor William Bennett (OBE). His graduation in 2001 was accompanied by the “Principal’s Award”, the diploma for Outstanding Recital, and the Teaching Fellowship Award for the following year. In 2006, the Academy awarded him the title of ARAM, Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. While in London, Bouriakov freelanced as principal flute with the Philharmonia of London, the LPO, Leeds Opera North and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Bouriakov’s first position was Principal Flute with the Tampere Philharmonic in Finland, where he also taught at the Tampere Conservatory of Music for 3 years. In 2008, he was appointed Principal Flute with the Barcelona Symphony under Eiji Oue. Later that year he won the Principal Flute position in the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mr. Bouriakov is very active as a soloist, orchestra player and teacher; his recent engagements have included recitals and master classes in Europe, Asia, USA and Australia.

< Back Charles Dancla Variations on Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman for three violins and viola Program Notes Previous Next

September 29, 2024: Carter Brey, cello; Jeewon Park, piano Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) Polonaise Brillante in C, Op. 3 for cello and piano September 29, 2024: Carter Brey, cello; Jeewon Park, piano In October 1829 Chopin spent a delightful week at Antonin, Prince Radziwill’s estate in the principality of Poznan. While he was there he composed his Polonaise brillante for the cello-playing prince to play with his pianist daughter, Princess Wanda. The young composer wrote to his good friend Tytus Woyciechowski in November: While I was there I wrote an Alla Polacca with violoncello. It is nothing but glitter, for the drawing room, for the ladies; you see I wanted Princess Wanda to learn it. I had been giving her lessons. She is quite young: 17, and pretty; really it was a joy to guide her little fingers. But joking aside, she has a lot of real musical feeling; one did not have to say: crescendo here, piano there; now faster, now slower, and so on. Then on a visit to Vienna in 1830, Chopin decided to add an introduction to the Polonaise for cellist Joseph Merk. Our genius composer wrote home ingenuously in May 1831: “Merk tells me that he likes playing with me, and I like playing with him, so together we must produce something good. He is the first cellist whom I can admire on closer acquaintance.” When the Introduction and Polonaise brillante was published in Vienna in 1831, Chopin dedicated the work to Merk. Chopin clearly recognized the popular style of his earliest cello piece, but the “glitter” is charming nonetheless and the piece easily made its way from the drawing-room to the concert hall. Moreover, the experience gave him a feeling for the cello—the only instrument featured in all four of his chamber works. In the Introduction, piano flourishes initiate the strains of a mournful melody for the cello, leading to a nocturne-like episode and further rumination before the heroic Polonaise enters with its characteristic rhythm. Chopin provides a wealth of pianistic figuration to embellish the basic melodic line, concluding in a spate of animated display. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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2018-2019 ARTIST ROSTER EDWARD ARRON, CELLO MICHAEL BROWN, PIANO BARRY CENTANNI, PERCUSSION TIMOTHY COBB, DOUBLE BASS DAVID J. GROSSMAN, DOUBLE BASS PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN CHELSEA KNOX, FLUTE SEAN LEE, VIOLIN MIHAI MARICA, CELLO KEN NODA, PIANO WEN QIAN, VIOLIN SHERYL STAPLES, VIOLIN JASON VIEAUX, GUITAR PINCHAS ZUKERMAN; AMANDA FORSYTH; ANGELA CHENG ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE MAURYCY BANASZEK, VIOLA THE CALIDORE STRING QUARTET INN-HYUCK CHO, CLARINET EMERSON STRING QUARTET WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN PIERRE LAPOINTE, VIOLA QIAN-QIAN LI, VIOLIN ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, VIOLIN GARRICK OHLSSON, PIANO DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO JOEL NOYES, CELLO PASCUAL MARTÍNEZ FORTEZA, CLARINET ALESSIO BAX, PIANO NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO LUCILLE CHUNG, PIANO DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO MING FENG HSIN, VIOLIN FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KERN, GLASS HARMONICA KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA EILEEN MOON-MYERS, CELLO CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA EMILY DAGGETT SMITH, VIOLIN DANBI UM, VIOLIN SARAH CROCKER VONSATTEL, VIOLIN KEVIN ZHU, VIOLIN YOOBIN SON, FLUTE