CHIARA STRING QUARTET Renowned for bringing fresh excitement to traditional string quartet repertoire as well as for creating insightful interpretations of new music, the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) captivates its audiences throughout the country. The Chiara has established itself as among America’s most respected ensembles, lauded for its “highly virtuosic, edge-of-the-seat playing” (The Boston Globe). They are currently Hixson-Lied Artists-in-Residence at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and were the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University from 2008-2014. For the 2015-2016 season, the Chiara was the quartet-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Chiara Quartet has been playing string quartets and asking probing questions since 2000. Always interested in engaging with the music at its core as well as reaching audiences, the quartet has dedicated itself to finding ways to make the musical experience meaningful for all involved. In this pursuit the quartet has performed in venues from major concert halls to clubs, created interactive programs for all ages, and most recently taken to performing and recording from memory, or “by heart.” Described by an audience member as “a 3-D experience for the listener,” playing by heart is deeply rewarding for the Chiara as well; memorizing the score helps them to closely relate to the composer’s compositional process. The Chiara’s latest recording is Bartók by Heart, a 2-CD set featuring Bartók’s six string quartets, played entirely from memory, released in August 2016 on Azica. The quartet’s previous album, Brahms by Heart, was released on Azica in March 2014. In addition to the Chiara Quartet’s regular performances in major concert halls across the country, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in Washington DC, the ensemble was one of the first string quartets to perform in alternative venues for chamber music performance. Recent highlights of the Chiara Quartet’s international performances include extensive tours of China, Korea, and Sweden. In addition to Bartók by Heart and Brahms by Heart, the complete Chiara discography includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 on New Amsterdam Records, the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets for SMS Classical, and the world premiere recordings of Robert Sirota’s Triptych and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout on the Quartet’s own New Voice Singles label. The Chiara has been committed to the creation of new music for string quartet since its inception, and has commissioned composers including Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Nico Muhly, Daniel Ott, Robert Sirota, among others. Recent collaborators in performance include The Juilliard and St. Lawrence String Quartets, Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Robert Levin, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, Nadia Sirota, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. In the summer, the Chiara Quartet is in residence at Greenwood Music Camp as well as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Chamber Music Institute. The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet, as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency. Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning “clear, pure, or light.”

DEBORAH HOFFMAN, HARP Deborah Hoffman has been principal harpist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1986. Ms. Hoffman is chairperson of the harp department at Manhattan School of Music and has been a faculty member since 1997. She has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall under the baton of James Levine. Ms. Hoffman has also toured extensively in Latin America as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Santiago, Costa Rica, Caracas, and Colombia. Ms. Hoffman was the first-prize winner of the 1981 American Harp Society Competition, and in 1978 was a top-prize winner in the Seventh International Harp Competition in Israel. In 1983 she was chosen to represent the United States at the First World Harp Congress in the Netherlands. Ms. Hoffman has performed throughout Canada and the United States as a member of the Hoffman Chamber Soloists, an ensemble comprised of her parents and three brothers. She received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of Susann McDonald. Ms. Hoffman records for Arabesque Records and has recently completed a Grammy-nominated recording of original transcriptions of Chopin works.

LAWRENCE DUTTON, VIOLA Lawrence Dutton, violist of the Emerson String Quartet, has collaborated with many of the world’s great performing artists, including Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Oscar Shumsky, Leon Fleisher, Walter Trampler, Menahem Pressler, Lynn Harrell, Yefim Bronfman, Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Dichter, Jan DeGaetani, Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell and Emanuel Ax, among others. He has also performed as guest artist with numerous chamber music ensembles such as the Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has been featured on two albums with the Grammy winning jazz bassist John Patitucci and tours regularly with cellist Ralph Kirshbaum and violinist Robert McDuffie. With the Beaux Arts Trio he recorded the Shostakovich Piano Quintet, Op. 57, and the Fauré G minor Piano Quartet, Op. 45, on the Philips label. His Aspen Music Festival recording with Jan DeGaetani for Bridge records was nominated for a 1992 Grammy Award. For BRAVO television he recorded works by Stravinsky and Hindemith. Mr. Dutton has appeared as soloist with many American and European orchestras including those of Germany, Belgium, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Colorado, and Virginia, among others. He has also appeared as guest artist at the music festivals of Aspen, Santa Fe, Ravinia, La Jolla and Chamber Music Northwest, and has collaborated with the late Isaac Stern in the International Chamber Music Encounters both at Carnegie Hall and in Jerusalem. He recently appeared at the Great Mountains Festival in Korea. Currently Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Manhattan School of Music and Stony Brook University, Lawrence Dutton began violin and viola studies with Margaret Pardee and continued with Francis Tursi at the Eastman School, when he began playing viola exclusively. He earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Lillian Fuchs. He has received an Honorary Doctorate from Middlebury College in Vermont and the College of Wooster, Ohio and, as a member of the Emerson String Quartet, was a winner of the 2004 Avery Fisher Prize. Mr. Dutton uses Thomastik Spirocore strings. Lawrence Dutton lives in Bronxville, NY with his wife violinist Elizabeth Lim-Dutton and their three sons, Luke, Jesse and Sam.

LAWRENCE BROWNLEE, TENOR Lawrence Brownlee is a leading figure in opera, both as a singer who has graced the world's leading stages, and as a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. Captivating audiences and critics around the globe, he has been hailed as “an international star in the bel canto operatic repertory” (The New York Times), “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars” (The Guardian), and “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR). In the 2024-2025 season, Mr. Brownlee made his highly anticipated role debut in the title role of Mozart’s Mitridate, re di ponto with Boston Lyric Opera. He also returns to The Metropolitan Opera as Count Amaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia (broadcast Live in HD in theaters worldwide), and joins Opéra national de Paris as Tonio in La fille du régiment and Arturo in I puritani, as well as The New National Theatre in Tokyo as Count Almaviva, and Bayerische Staatsoper as Tonio. On the concert stage, Mr. Brownlee will join Levy Sekgapane in a duo concert with the Latvian National Orchestra, L’Auditori in the closing concert, and will embark on a recital tour featuring songs from his acclaimed Rising program across North America and Europe. Highlights of Mr. Brownlee’s recent seasons include his return as Ernesto in Don Pasquale at Teatro alla Scala Milan and as Tonio in La fille du régiment at Lyric Opera Chicago, as well as his role debuts as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at The Metropolitan Opera, as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at The New National Theatre Tokyo and Fernand in a new production of Donizetti’s La Favorite with Houston Grand Opera. In spring 2021, Brownlee joined The Juilliard School as a Distinguished Visiting Faculty Member. He serves as artistic advisor for Opera Philadelphia and is an Ambassador for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited as well as Opera for Peace. In recent years, Mr. Brownlee has emerged as a pivotal voice around equity and diversity in classical music. Mr. Brownlee works with companies and engages civic organizations in the cities he visits to create programs and experiences seeking to expand opera audiences. His critically acclaimed solo recital program Cycles of My Being, a song cycle that centers on the black male experience in America today, has toured extensively, including performances at Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and virtual broadcasts throughout 2020. Mr. Brownlee is a Grand Prize Winner of the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including “Male Singer of the Year” (2017 International Opera Awards), the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award, and the Opera News Award (2021). In October 2019, he had the distinct honor of singing at Jessye Norman’s funeral in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia.

JERRY GROSSMAN, CELLO Jerry Grossman has been the principal cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since1986. He has appeared in recital, and with symphony orchestras and chamber ensemblesthroughout the United States. His highly acclaimed New York debut at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art was followed by the American premiere of Kurt Weill’s 1920 CelloSonata, leading to recording that work, as well as works by Dohnanyi, Prokofiev,Bartok, and Kodaly for Nonesuch Records. His recording of works for cello by VictorHerbert is available on New World Records. He has appeared as soloist in Carnegie Hall and on domestic and European tours with the Met Orchestra under James Levine playing Don Quixote by Richard Strauss. The performance has also been recorded for Deutsche Grammophon . A long association with the Marlboro Music Festival, including numerous ‘Music from Marlboro’ tours and recordings, figures prominently in Mr. Grossman’s chamber musicexperience. He is a former member of Orpheus and Speculum Musicae, and has alsoappeared as a guest artist with the Guarneri, Vermeer, and Emerson String Quartets. Hewas the founding cellist of both the Chicago String Quartet and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Before assuming his position at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Grossman wasa member of the Chicago Symphony for two seasons and the New York Philharmonic for two seasons. Mr. Grossman began his music studies in his native Cambridge, Massachusetts. His teachers there included Judith Davidoff, Joan Esch and Benjamin Zander. He attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied cello with David Soyer and chamber music with the other members of the Guarneri Quartet. Sandor Vegh and Harvey Shapiro were also important influences. Mr. Grossman has held faculty positions at the Juilliard School, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and DePaul University in Chicago. He currently teaches at the Kneisel Hall Summer Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine.

OSCAR STAGNARO, JAZZ BASS Oscar Stagnaro, originally from Peru, is considered one of the most versatile bass players on the East Coast. His mastery of playing a variety of styles ranging from jazz and fusion to Latin jazz, Brazilian jazz, and South American music has helped him travel the world performing with the very best Latin jazz artists. Says Bass Player magazine, “Oscar’s technical agility, advanced harmonic and melodic knowledge, and grounding in funk and R&B—as well as his dedication to Latin traditions—give him the ultimate flexibility when it comes time to lay down a groove.” In addition to his performing career he has developed Latin Bass curricula at both the Berklee College of Music, where he is an associate professor, and at the New England Conservatory. Oscar joined Paquito D’Rivera’s group in 1990.

GREG ZUBER, XYLOPHONE Gregory Zuber is the principal percussionist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, with which he has toured the United States, Europe, and Japan. He can be heard regularly on the Met’s many broadcasts and recordings. He is an active soloist, recitalist, composer, teacher, and clinician. Performance highlights include his 2004 solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and his 2007 solo concert at the Verbier Music Festival. In 2002, he performed the premiere of Hsueh-Yung Shen’s Legend for solo percussionist and orchestra, commissioned for him by the Met, at Carnegie Hall with James Levine and the MET Orchestra. Mr. Zuber performs chamber music regularly with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. He also plays duo concerts with his wife, flutist Patricia Zuber. He is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and the UBS Verbier Music Festival.

May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Three Late Songs, K. 596 – 598 May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Mozart composed three songs on January 14, 1791, just short of two weeks before his thirty-fifth and last birthday. His lodge brother Ignaz Alberti printed them early that same year in the Frühlingslieder (Spring Songs) section of the Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde (Song collection for children and their friends). This four-volume set, of which only the spring and winter volumes survive, was edited by teacher, poet, humanities scholar, and Catholic priest Placidus Partsch, who likely had the responsibility of assigning texts to different composers. Mozart’s three songs are all strophic—that is, several verses sung to the same melody and, unlike his usual practice, Mozart formatted them like piano pieces with one verse written between the staves. The remaining verses were printed on separate pages. Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling (Yearning for spring), placed first in the spring volume, has achieved folk-song-level popularity owing to its happy melody and charming storytelling images. The poem by Christian Adolf Overbeck (1755–1821) was originally titled Fritzchen an den Mai (Little Fritz, to May), referring to an appealing character Overbeck had contributed to German children=s literature. The title Mozart used stems from a collection edited by J. H. Campe, though many people know the song simply by its first line, Komm, lieber Mai (Come, dear May). The poem consists of five verses, but many modern performers often omit one or more of the middle verses. Clearly Mozart had the melody on his mind because he had just used it as the theme of the rondo finale in his last Piano Concerto, K. 595, completed only nine days earlier. For Im Frühlingsanfange (At spring’s beginning), Mozart sets a poem by Christian Christoph Sturm (1740–1786) titled simply Der Frühling (Spring). Mozart’s own title stems from the catalog he kept of his works, but the first edition bore the title Dankesempfindungen gegen den Schöpfer des Frühlings (Thankful feelings toward the creator of spring). Here, despite the strophic setting, Mozart leaves the world of childhood behind with his dramatic opening chords, a touching melody with signature upward leap and gently elaborated descent, a throbbing bass repeated note in the middle, judicious chromatic harmonies, and a sophisticated if brief piano postlude. Sturm’s poem contains six verses (ordered differently from the Mozart complete works edition as given below), but performers often omit two or three of them. Mozart returns to childlike fun and Overbeck’s poetry for Das Kinderspiel (Children’s play). The nine-verse poem was originally titled simply Kinderlied (Children’s song), but its carefree high spirits, which Mozart captures perfectly, make Kinderspiel an especially fitting title. As with the other songs in this set, singers today often omit some of the interior verses. Mozart gives the performance direction Munter (Blithely) and sets the text in a lightly dancing 3/8 meter. Little leaps and oscillations add to the playful atmosphere. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 12, 2024: Chee-Yun, violin; Brad Gemeinhardt, horn; Alessio Bax, piano Johannes Brahms Trio in E-flat, Op. 40 for violin, horn, and piano May 12, 2024: Chee-Yun, violin; Brad Gemeinhardt, horn; Alessio Bax, piano Johannes Brahms always loved the sound of the horn. Among many other instruments, his father, Johann Jakob, played horn professionally, in dance halls and taverns, and even substituted on horn in the sextet that played at the fashionable Alster Pavilion. Though he finally gave in to his young son’s pleas to learn piano, Johann Jakob had already begun teaching him “useful” instruments, in particular the Waldhorn—the natural, valveless horn, or “hand horn,” referring to the method of obtaining certain pitches by the positioning the right hand inside the bell. Valved horns rapidly became standard during Brahms’s lifetime, and the natural horn had fallen out of common use by the time he wrote his Horn Trio in May 1865 while sojourning in Baden-Baden. But he specifically wrote the piece for natural horn out of fondness for its sound, characterized by the muted quality of certain notes. Brahms may also have been thinking of his early home life—a theory that early biographer Max Kalbeck suggested—in particular since his mother had recently died. But, whereas the poignant slow movement could indeed serve as a memorial tribute, the complete rousting of that mood by the spirited, irreverent music of the finale suggests that the work as a whole is not entirely an homage to her. The two quotation sources that Kalback suggested to back his theory—the folk song “Dort in den Weide steht ein Haus,” which Brahms may have learned from his mother, and the chorale “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten”—are certainly appropriate but do not comfortably correspond to the main theme of the finale and its preview near the end of the slow movement. Scholar John Walter Hill proposes a different folk-song source, which Brahms likely knew and which fits the finale’s main theme like a glove: “Es soll sich ja keiner mit der Liebe abgeben” (No one should have anything to do with love). This would shift Brahms’s thoughts, says Hill, to the end of his romantic involvement with Agathe von Siebold in the late 1850s. Brahms had broken off their relationship when it seemed they were headed for marriage, much to Agathe’s heartbreak, but he paid her tribute in his G major Sextet, op. 36, written around the same time as the Horn Trio. Either as a salve to his conscience, or as a farewell, Brahms had woven notes equivalent to the letters of her name into the Sextet’s first movement, composed in September 1864. He completed the Sextet in May 1865, so it is entirely likely that she was still on his mind as he wrote his Horn Trio in the same month. As Hill suggests, the comical jab at love by a confirmed bachelor makes a great deal of sense in light of the newly revealed folk-song source. No matter what extra-musical thoughts may have come to Brahms in 1865, the Horn Trio stands as an inspired piece of chamber music for the unusual combination of violin, horn and piano. Brahms played the piano part in a trial performance in September in Baden-Baden, and the first public performance took place in Zürich on November 28, 1865, with violinist Friedrich Hegar, horn player Anton Gläss, and Brahms himself at the piano. One of the Horn Trio’s greatest surprises, in view of Brahms’s supreme interest in sonata form, is that the first movement is the only example of a first movement in his multimovement works that is not in sonata form. Rather it contrasts a lovely melancholy main theme with two somewhat livelier sections, resulting in an A-B-A-B-A rondo-like pattern. The rollicking scherzo provides a perfect change of scene, racing along as if on the hunt but without characteristic horn fanfares. The soaring second theme and the lovely pathos of the trio section’s theme provide elegant contrast. The slow movement, one of Brahms’s most melancholy and moving utterances with its expansive melody, grave chords, and soulful bass notes, gives a taste of his much later Four Serious Songs. The canonic treatment of a new theme begun by the horn alone particularly shows Brahms in a nostalgic light and leads to one of his most glorious climaxes. The preview of the finale’s theme occurs just before that peak, nicely scored with the horn above the violin. The finale takes off at full gallop, perhaps the banishment of his last thoughts of Agathe, but surely reveling in the historical connection of the horn with the hunt. Here Brahms achieves an ebullient, rondo-like character but in a full-fledged sonata form. He delights in rhythmic play, bits of yearning, the occasional starry twinkle or growling bass, horn calls that are not typical fanfares in horn fifths, and—most exhilarating—a breathless drive to the close. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 4, 2018: Pascual Martinez-Fortese, clarinet; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Alessio Bax, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Clarinet Trio in E flat, K. 498 (“Kegelstatt”) November 4, 2018: Pascual Martinez-Fortese, clarinet; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Alessio Bax, piano Let’s dispense with the nickname right away. Mozart composed this richly imaginative Trio for clarinet, viola, and piano for Franziska von Jacquin, one of his best piano pupils, as we learn from the 1844 memoirs of historical novelist Caroline Pichler, who herself took lessons from Mozart as a young girl. He no doubt wrote the clarinet part for his good friend Anton Stadler— for whom he also wrote his Clarinet Quintet, Clarinet Concerto, and prominent parts in La clemenza di Tito—and the viola part with himself in mind. Mozart dated the work August 5, 1786, in his own catalog, calling it simply: “A Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Viola.” So what does this have to do with a Kegelstatt (skittles/bowling alley)? Mozart did love to play skittles, a game in which one threw or rolled (accounts vary) a wooden ball or disk to knock down nine pins. He also loved bocce, which he learned in Rome. However, the only inscription about skittles on one of his manuscripts appears not on the Trio but on the Duets for Two Horns, K. 496a (K. 487), completed only nine days earlier. It reads—not in his own hand—“Wien den 27.t Julius 1786 untern Kegelscheiben” (Vienna, 27th July 1786 while playing skittles). Somehow the nickname got transferred to the Trio in the nineteenth century, likely through a misappropriation from the Horn Duets. Köchel’s pioneering 1862 catalog transmitted the “Kegelstatt” nickname with the Trio, but at the time Köchel himself had no access to the manuscript, so he was unaware that it bore no inscription. Further, he had not seen the Horn Duets and had assigned K. 487 as Violin Duets—no inscription—and gave the date February 27, 1786. He often had to rely on information from collectors Aloys Fuchs, Josef Hauer, and Leopold von Sonnleithner, who may or may not have been responsible for the misinformation. Various writers perpetuated the “Kegelstatt” nickname for the Trio, as did later editions of the Köchel catalog (revised by others), even as they included the Horn Duets with the “untern Kegelscheiben” inscription. The Trio will probably always carry the spurious nickname, but does it help or hinder? Nicknames tend to save works from obscurity or promote more performances, and in this case it has led numerous writers to marvel that Mozart could have written such a poetic work amid the clatter of a skittles alley. Even without a nickname, however, clarinetists and violists would always have been happy to keep this unique work in the repertoire. Presumably the Trio was first performed shortly after its completion by Franziska von Jacquin, Anton Stadler, and Mozart himself at one of the “convivial” Wednesday soirees at the Jacquin home described by Caroline Pichler. When the Trio appeared in print in September 1788, Mozart’s publisher wanted to assure its commercial success by advertising it as “a trio for harpsichord or pianoforte with violin and viola accompaniment,” adding that the violin part could be performed by clarinet. With violinists more plentiful than clarinetists at the time, it made business sense, but Mozart clearly loved the mid and low range of the clarinet—Stadler’s specialties—paired with the warm sound of the viola. The piano’s top billing also reflected the custom of the day, but Mozart treats all three instruments with remarkable equality. The lovely first movement flows at a gentle Andante pace, perhaps dispensing with the need for a slow second movement. It seems perfectly suited for Mozart’s reveling in the mid-range sonorities of two of his favorite instruments. Throughout his entire sonata form he engages the ear with the imaginative settings and permutations of the five-note ornamental turn that occurs at the outset. Also striking is Mozart’s interest in chromaticism in the form of rising half-step flourishes at the ends of many of his phrases. Chromaticism takes on a more astonishing aspect in the trio section of the minuet. This is an intimate, serious Menuetto of expansive proportions, far removed from the courtly dance tradition. The outer minuet sections feature emphatic contrasts between loud and soft, the former emphasized by the piano’s distinctive bass figure doubled in octaves and the latter concentrated in the treble register. Chromaticism takes on a special yearning quality toward the end of the second section. It is the Trio, however, that brings chromaticism spectacularly to the fore: Mozart focuses pointedly on a four-note motive that circles in on itself in half steps, alternating this idea with spates of running triplets—a truly novel idea. The finale with its sunny, lyrical refrain unfolds as a seven-section rondo—A-B-A-C-A-D-A, in which Mozart ingeniously varies each return of the main theme. The mood darkens suddenly for the middle episode with the viola’s stormy outburst in the minor mode. This movement features some especially brilliant passages for all the instruments—the piano in particular, which would have shown off Franziska von Jacquin’s fleet fingers to great advantage. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 24, 2017: Emily Daggett Smith, violin; Michael Brown, piano MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946) Danza española No. 1 from La vida breve September 24, 2017: Emily Daggett Smith, violin; Michael Brown, piano Falla composed his opera La vida breve (The short life) at a feverish pace in 1904–05 for a composition competition that offered a substantial financial prize and the hope of a performance at one of Madrid’s theaters. With librettist Carlos Fernández Shaw, he settled on a tragic subject from one of Shaw’s poems, El chavalillo (The little lass), about a lover’s treachery because of class distinction. Falla won the competition by unanimous decision, but no performance materialized in Madrid—nor did a projected performance occur in Paris, where he soon settled. After numerous revisions and many failed attempts for performance and publication, La vida breve was premiered in Nice on April 1, 1913, and in Paris the following January as part of a joint agreement. The critics raved! Among the opera’s most popular numbers is “Spanish Dance No. 1,” a lively jota , which has since been arranged for a plethora of instrumental combinations, such as the present version for violin and piano by [Fritz Kreisler?]. In the opera, the dance is performed as part of the betrothal celebration for Paco and Carmela, the girl of his own class that he must marry instead of his beloved Salud, a Gypsy maiden. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Sonata in A, K. 526 March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the composition of the A major Violin Sonata, K. 526, other than that it was written in August 1787 in Vienna during the composition of Don Giovanni. Mozart himself was an accomplished violinist, but there is no evidence that he wrote it with himself in mind; nor is there evidence that he wrote it for anyone else. It seems unlikely, however, that Mozart would have interrupted work the opera unless some occasion demanded it. Mozart’s violin sonatas span an interesting time in the history of the genre. His earliest violin sonatas belong to the tradition of keyboard sonatas for the amateur to which ad libitum violin (or flute, and sometimes cello) accompaniment could be added if available. His violin sonatas, though called piano sonatas with violin accompaniment(!), exhibit equality and great independence of the two instruments. In the Sonata, K. 526—his last except for K. 547, “a small piano sonata for beginners, with a violin”—the piano and violin are truly equal partners. The contrapuntal textures throughout may suggest Mozart’s study of Bach, but the language remains thoroughly his. The Molto allegro is set in 6/8, an unusual meter for Mozart to use for a first movement. (It is interesting that he also cast the first movement of his other A major Violin Sonata, K. 305, in 6/8, a meter commonly associated with “the hunt,” and indeed the meter he used for the first movement of his Hunt Quartet in B-flat major, K. 458.) The hemiola effects (switching from rhythmic patterns of two groups of three to three groups of two) and extensions of cadential phrase endings constitute some of the delightful features of this sonata-form movement. The Andante, again in sonata form, is remarkable for its spare texture, often achieved by the kind of octave doublings that Brahms later favored. Mozart never ceases to amaze in his ability to create such expressive music with deceptively simple means—fragmented melodic utterances, flowing regular accompaniment, chromatic touches, major-minor shifts—how can these produce such a compelling effect? The finale, though one of Mozart longest in a chamber work, races by at a presto tempo. It combines virtuoso tendencies with an almost demonic high-spirited quality. Mozart scholars Derek Carew and Neal Zaslaw have independently reported that the movement is based on the finale of Carl Friedrich Abel’s A major Violin Sonata, op. 5, no. 5, possibly as a memorial tribute since Abel had died on June (Carew mistakenly says January) 20, 1787. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes