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December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio On January 21, 1832, Mendelssohn wrote from Paris to his sister Fanny, “I should like to compose a couple of good trios.” Over a decade earlier he had written a trio for piano, violin, and viola that he never published, but he did not compose a “good trio”—one he thought worthy of publication—until 1839. Published in 1840, the D minor Trio, for the more conventional combination of piano, violin, and cello, was hailed by Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift as “the master Trio of the age, as were the B-flat and D major trios of Beethoven and the E-flat Trio of Schubert in their time.” Mendelssohn finally made good on his 1832 wish when in 1845 he composed a second piano trio—his last—the present C minor. Owing to its strong outer sonata-form movements, the characteristic songfulness in the second movement, and the fleet-footed scherzo, the C minor Trio easily merits a place alongside the D minor. Mendelssohn dedicated the C minor Trio to violinist and composer Louis Spohr—along with playing much of Spohr’s chamber music, Mendelssohn had conducted and continued to perform many of his works with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. Mendelssohn wrote to him on February 14, 1846: Do not be angry with me for having been so bold as to dedicate the enclosed Trio to you without consulting you in advance. Hauptmann assures me that you would receive it well nevertheless, and so I hope he is not mistaken. I would like to have saved the honor for a somewhat longer piece; but then I should have had to put it off, as I so often have had to of late. . . . I no longer wished to delay expressing for once the heartfelt gratitude for so many pleasures, for so much instruction, for which I am indebted to you! Indeed Spohr received the C minor Trio well—he himself played the piece with the composer on several occasions. The main theme of the first movement is flexible and well suited for thematic and contrapuntal development; the restless theme, combined with the sustained low pedal tone (C, the cello’s lowest note), contributes a sense of dramatic anticipation to the opening. A particularly effective detail is Mendelssohn’s use of this theme in the coda where the strings play a broader version against the original version in the piano. The expansive second theme is also given an appearance just before the end of the coda, but this time strikingly in a new key (F minor). The gentle Andante espressivo, in a basic ternary pattern, is reminiscent of the composer’s Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words). It is followed by a scherzo that stems from the fairy-world atmosphere of the Octet, but is slightly more agitated and aggressive. Mendelssohn toyed successfully with the form by incorporating the trio theme in the reprise of the scherzo. The main theme of Mendelssohn’s Finale, with its quick ascent and more prolonged descent, exerted its influence on Brahms, who used it almost literally as the theme of the Scherzo of his F minor Piano Sonata. Another feature of Mendelssohn’s Finale—the inclusion of a contrasting choralelike melody—also found its way into Brahms’s Sonata Finale. Mendelssohn’s characteristic spiritual gesture—similar to the fifteenth-century “Herr Gott, Dich loben alle wir” (common Doxology), which Bach had used in his Cantata 130—creates a solemn mood at its first appearance and returns majestically in the coda to crown the entire work. Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2025 AT 4 PM THE RENAISSANCE CHOIR: THE TALLIS SCHOLARS “MOTHER AND CHILD” THE TALLIS SCHOLARS “The rock stars of Renaissance vocal music” — The New York Times “The sound coming from the Tallis Scholars almost surpassed the humanly possible.” — The Telegraph “One of the UK’s greatest cultural exports.” — BBC Radio 3 ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS For over five decades, The Tallis Scholars , led by founder and director Peter Phillips , have reigned as the world’s leading interpreters of Renaissance sacred music. Renowned for their purity of tone, exquisite blend, and deep musical insight, the ensemble has brought the glories of early choral music to audiences across the globe. Their program, Mother and Child , offers a profoundly moving meditation on motherhood, mystery, and the divine. Spanning five centuries, the all-English program features Thomas Tallis’s magnificent Missa Puer natus, William Byrd’s tender Votive Mass of the Virgin, John Taverner and John Nesbett’s intricate Renaissance gems, and Benjamin Britten’s radiant Hymn to the Virgin. Together, these works form a luminous arc that connects England’s sacred choral tradition from the Tudor era to the modern age. 2025-2026 SEASON September 14, 2025 “Singers” from the Met Orchestra October 12, 2025 Lawrence Brownlee, tenor November 2, 2025 Benjamin Appl, baritone; James Baillieu, piano December 7, 2025 The Tallis Scholars January 18, 2026 Benjamin Beilman, violin; Jonathan Swenson, cello; Orion Weiss, piano February 22, 2026 Radu Ratoi, accordion March 8, 2026 Jonathan Biss, piano April 26, 2026 Jerusalem String Quartet May 17, 2026 Chee-Yun, violin; Sterling Elliott, cello; Henry Kramer, piano Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts FEATURING BUY TICKETS PROGRAM MOTHER AND CHILD Program Notes Thomas Tallis: Missa Puer natus - Gloria William Byrd: Votive Mass of the Virgin Matthew Martin: Salve Regina INTERMISSION Thomas Tallis: Missa Puer natus - Sanctus and Agnus Benjamin Britten: Hymn to the Virgin John Taverner: Mater Christi John Nesbett: Magnificat Watch The Tallis Scholars perform Christmas highlights from the Renaissance : Watch The Tallis Scholars sing Tomás Luis de Victoria's First Lamentation for Maundy Thursday:

January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN Charles Ives (1874-1954) Variations on "America" January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN Charles Ives was an eighteen-year-old organ virtuoso when he composed his celebrated variations for organ on the patriotic hymn “America.” He would not enter Yale until two years later, and his primary musical influence was his bandmaster father George. When he first performed the Variations on “America” on February 17, 1892, at the Methodist church in Brewster, New York, he was still improvising parts of it, as he recalled, and his father had something to say about what he could and could not include. Apparently the piece sometimes contained an interlude of canons (exact or close imitation as one part overlaps another) in three different keys, which George had ruled out because it “made the boys laugh out loud.” Furthermore, he had forbidden the polonaise (a Polish-style dance in 3/4 time) on account of the conflict he perceived between a European form and an American tune. (He later reinstated it as Variation 4.) As with many of Ives’s works, the Variations on “America” were not published until long after they were composed, in this case 1949, but the piece was one of his first to become widely known and played. As it stands, the work features an introduction, a theme, Variations 1 and 2, an interlude, Variations 3 and 4, a second interlude, Variation 5, and a coda. Influences of pieces Ives studied around the time of composition certainly play a role—particularly those by John Knowles Paine, Dudley Buck, and Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck—but the work also manifests Ives’s great streak of originality. In the variations themselves he constantly fragments, reorders, and recomposes his source tune in quite sophisticated ways. Further, the interludes, which were added around 1909–10, show the bold use of two keys at once—F major and D-flat major in the first and A-flat major and F major in the second. Many casual listeners have supposed Ives to be poking fun at the patriotic main theme, whereas those more familiar with his sense of humor have suspected him rather of mocking the more stodgy variation forms of his time. His sense of humor is certainly evident, but he was most likely earnest in showing his mastery of the variation form and of his given instrument. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2016 AT 3 PM Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano BUY TICKETS DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO “His playing has great warmth and expressiveness coupled with a noble, aristocratic restraint.” — Strings Magazine WU HAN, PIANO PHILIP SETZER, VIOLIN FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS On October 30 , New York City’s “Musical Power Couple,” cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han , will join Emerson Quartet violinist Philip Setzer for an afternoon of favorite piano trios. Shostakovich ’s youthfully ardent C-minor trio, composed at 17, was inspired by his first love, Tanya. Beethoven ’s Trio in E-flat, Op. 1, No. 1, was the publishing debut of the supremely confident 25-year-old genius who already sensed his power to permanently alter the musical landscape. The program will conclude with the 30-year-old Schubert ’s profound Trio in E-flat Major, the soulful outpouring of the still-young composer who knew he was nearing the end of his much-too-short life. “It’s hard to imagine a piano trio playing on a higher level of technical accomplishment and musical expressivity…” – Dallas Morning News PROGRAM Ludwig van Beethoven Trio in E-flat, Op. 1, No. 1 Program Notes Dmitri Shostakovich Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8 Program Notes Franz Schubert Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 100, D. 929 Program Notes Wu Han, Philip Setzer, and David Finckel discuss the two Schubert piano trios: Wu Han, Philip Setzer, and David Finckel perform Schubert’s Trio in B-flat, mvt 1:

April 8, 2018: Danish String Quartet LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) String Quartet in D, Op. 18, No. 3 April 8, 2018: Danish String Quartet The D major Quartet may have been the first of the Opus 18 Quartets that Beethoven completed. When he began composing quartets in 1798 he was well aware that he was entering a hallowed and well-populated arena, represented at its best and therefore most daunting by Mozart and Haydn. He was particularly cognizant of the six quartets Mozart had dedicated to Haydn, as well as Mozart’s Prussian Quartets and Haydn’s own Opus 20, 71, 74, and 76 quartets. Only with the composition and publication of piano trios, piano sonatas, cello sonatas, string trios, and violin sonatas under his belt did Beethoven feel ready to begin writing quartets in earnest. His sketchbooks show that he composed Quartets Nos. 3, 1, 2, and 5 in that order; there is some indication that No. 6 was composed last, but little information exists as to where No. 4 fits into the scheme. The Opus 18 Quartets were commissioned by Beethoven’s new patron Prince Lobkowitz, who at the same time commissioned six from the aging Haydn, who was unable to produce more than two and part of another. Inevitably Beethoven must have felt the heat of competition on many levels, and the task, which took him two years to complete, involved much revision. He is famously quoted as writing to his friend Karl Amenda in 1801 about an early version of Opus 18, no. 1, saying not to circulate it, for “I have greatly changed it, having just learned how to write quartets properly.” The Quartets were published in 1801 by Mollo, one of three publishers kept busy by Beethoven that year. As a measure of how far Beethoven had come by the time he wrote the Opus 18 Quartets we should remember that his First Symphony, also published in 1801, came into existence alongside the Quartets. The striking opening of the D major Quartet occurs within a quiet framework as the first violin alone offers a yearning leap, then gently fills in the space and descends even further over murmured chordal support by the other instruments. This signature leap marks various entrances throughout the movement, and is used ingeniously in anticipation of the recapitulation (played by second violin) and immediately following as the recapitulation begins (first violin). Beethoven’s inventiveness at this structural juncture shows in the textural and dynamic contrast and in the slight harmonic adjustment at the actual moment the recapitulation begins. The rich warmth of the slow movement is palpable even without knowing that Beethoven accomplished this color change in part thought his choice of a somewhat remote key (B-flat major). A nice touch is the start of the main theme with the second violin on top of the texture, soon to be leapfrogged by the first violin. The scherzo, though not so named, delights in offbeat accents and curious pauses. In the minor-mode trio section Beethoven created a wonderfully windy, slightly eerie effect with a line of swirling eighth notes passed off from the second to the first violin, accompanied by the slower parallel descent of the other three instruments. The opening of the finale is just as memorable as that of the first movement, again initiated by the first violin. This time, however, we are whisked away in a merry romp, in which Beethoven’s sense of humor roundly deposits us on unexpected harmonic way stations. Both the development section and coda of this masterfully conceived sonata form feature a grand display of the composer’s early period contrapuntal prowess, which would find ultimate expression in the monumental Grosse Fuge . With irrepressible wit Beethoven winds up the movement in a whisper, employing the little three-note motive that launched the proceedings. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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September 27, 2009 – Stephen Williamson, clarinet; Ken Noda, piano ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Fairy Tales, Op. 120, for clarinet, viola, and piano September 27, 2009 – Stephen Williamson, clarinet; Ken Noda, piano Robert Schumann, the son of a bookseller, publisher, and novelist, grew up equally passionate about literature and music. Gifted both as a writer and a musician, he founded and edited the enormously influential journal The New Leipzig Musical Times, which became a driving force behind German musical Romanticism. Always a generous colleague, Schumann campaigned vigorously in support of the composers who he felt were producing music of substance. He also sought to bolster the reputations of underappreciated composers of the past, while criticizing contemporary musicians who he felt catered to prevailing “Philistine” tastes for flashy technical display. Schumann’s passion for Romantic novels and poetry informed his musicianship at every level. From his earliest years the deeply emotional Schumann viewed music primarily as a way of expressing his kaleidoscopically shifting, often dreamy, inner states of mind. Throughout his life he aimed at finding ways to fuse literary and musical imagery, giving many of his pieces evocative titles such as Arabesque, Butterflies, Carnival, Fantasy Pieces, and Scenes from Childhood. These titles were often applied only after he had completed the music in trancelike states of creativity. They were meant to draw the listener into his subtle world of color, mood, texture, and poetic allusion. Fairy Tales, Robert Schumann’s final piece of chamber music, was composed in 1853, shortly after meeting the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms. Schumann was in the midst of a fevered burst of creativity when Brahms first came to play for him. So inspired was he by Brahms’ artistry that he wrote an effusive article in The New Leipzig Musical Times, praising Brahms’ genius and describing him as music’s great hope for the future. The article was written in mid-October, at the same time that he composed Fairy Tales. Perhaps this accounts for the rather Brahmsian flavor that permeates the second and, especially, fourth movements of the piece. Schumann scored Fairy Tales for the mellow combination of clarinet, viola, and piano. His declining health at the time included auditory hallucinations and hypersensitivity to extreme high and low register sounds. These afflictions may have led him to choose the soothing sonority of the two middle-range instruments for this charming evocation of childhood. While Schumann never identified the particular tales or narratives that inspired these four lyrical character pieces, they evoke the atmosphere of favorite stories of youth. The first piece is tender, playful and lyrical, suggesting the beginning of pleasant outdoor journey. The minor-key second movement is more robust and march-like, with a more nonchalant middle section. The third movement is nostalgic and poignant, while the swaggering final movement suggests a hunting scene with lusty horn calls and galloping rhythms. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 3, 2023: Bruce Adolphe, Composer Bruce Adolphe (1955) Memory Believes (a requiem) December 3, 2023: Bruce Adolphe, Composer Bruce Adolphe is known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, broadcast weekly on Performance Today since 2002. But his talents and interests are so broad as to connect “neuroscience, human rights, nightmares, or dinosaurs” with his many career pursuits as composer, author, lecturer, and performer. Among his works based on writings of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind for cello and two percussionists—on a text Damasio wrote specifically for the project—received its premiere by Yo-Yo Ma in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. On other science themes, Adophe’s Einstein’s Light was premiered and recorded by violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Marija Stroke, and his tribute to NASA scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, was performed in 2019 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists—both are both recorded on the Naxos/Milken Archive label. Some other career highlights include Itzhak Perlman’s world premiere of Adolphe’s The Bitter, Sour, Salt Suite at the Kennedy Center and Avery Fisher Hall, Angel Blue singing the world premiere of Water Songs at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the premieres of two full-length operas on Jewish subjects at the 92nd Street Y, and ten world premieres at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Among the many other artists who have performed his works are Fabio Luisi, Daniel Hope, Sylvia McNair, Carlo Grante, the Washington National Opera, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Zürich Philharmonia and Chamber Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, ROCO in Houston, the IRIS Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Brentano String Quartet, the Miami Quartet, the Cassatt Quartet, the Currende Ensemble of Belgium, members of the Silk Road Ensemble, and over sixty symphony orchestras worldwide. Resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Adolphe concurrently serves as composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Institute. He is also the founding creative director of The Learning Maestros and artistic director of the Off the Hook Arts Festival. Adolphe is the author of several books, including Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2023) and The Mind’s Ear, which has already merited a third edition (2021) with Oxford University Press (OUP). He contributed the chapter “The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition” to the recently published Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019). He also contributed the chapter “The Sound of Human Rights: Wordless Music that Speaks for Humanity” to The Routledge Guide to Music and Human Rights (2022). Note by the composer Memory Believes (a requiem) is dedicated to the memory of my brother, Jonathan Adolphe (1952–2022). The structure of the piece is as follows: 1. Meditation I for violin solo 2. Because I could not stop for Death (Emily Dickinson) for choir and quartet 3. Meditation II for cello solo 4. Are there not a thousand forms of sorrow (Ethan Canin) for choir and quartet 5. Meditation III for viola solo 6. Memory Believes (William Faulkner) for choir and quartet 7. Meditation IV for string quartet Texts 1. Emily Dickinson, first stanza of Because I could not stop for Death: “Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality.” 2. Ethan Canin, from A Doubter’s Almanac: “Are there not a thousand forms of sorrow? Is the sorrow of death the same as the sorrow of knowing the pain in a child’s future?” (Used with the kind permission of Ethan Canin) 3. William Faulkner, from Light in August: “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” I chose the first stanza of the Emily Dickinson text because my brother certainly did not stop for Death. In his final year, struggling with the pain of pancreatic cancer, Jon worked at his art with remarkable determination and intensity, creating pieces that would go to galleries in Europe that he would never visit in person. The second text, by Ethan Canin, has haunted me ever since I read A Doubter's Almanac in 2016, and it needs no commentary. I chose the quote from Light in August because Jon, who read most of the major writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, was a fan of Faulkner’s poetic prose, and because this quote uniquely captures a truth about the tapestry of memory, believing, knowing, and wondering in language that is as precise and lyrical as music. Like music, my brother’s paintings, especially his last ones, inhabit a spectral topography of texture and space, where memories, some that we shared but many more forgotten, can exist as gestures that can be believed, and that will endure longer than their sources can possibly be recalled or known. We can only wonder.” Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violin AMY BARLOWE Hebraique Elegie for two violins February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violin Daughter of acclaimed natural history artists Dorothea and Sy Barlowe, Amy Barlowe began playing viola in elementary school, but she really wanted to play violin. Her parents found her a local teacher and she was good enough to play very difficult repertoire even if her technique was unconventional. In high school she worked her way from the back of the second violins to concertmaster, but she needed a good teacher. The great Ivan Galamian accepted her after some “reconstruction work” with Margaret Pardee, and she won admission to the Juilliard School where she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Barlowe’s playing career blossomed with acclaimed solo and chamber music concerts across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. She toured the Northwest with the Oregon Trio and she performed and recorded with her husband, Alan Bodman, as Duo [AB]2 (AB squared). She has also taught extensively—at Willamette University, Juilliard Pre-College, New York’s School for Strings, and the Ohio Conservatory, as well as during summers at the Estherwood and Bowdoin Summer Music Festivals and—for over twenty-five years—the Meadowmount Music School. The death of her father in 2000 gave the impetus for her to begin composing, and two years later, with the onset of an incurable tremor, composition became a more frequent outlet for her energy. She did develop techniques so she could still play the violin, but with the curtailment of her solo career, she realized “that the impending void could be filled if I were to become more creative than re-creative. If I were to write music that I envisioned, it would be another form of ‘world-building’ that I could explore for the rest of my life.” Barlowe’s compositions and arrangements include many works for two violins and piano, solo violin, two Requiems—Aeternum in memory of her father and a Requiem for soprano and orchestra—and 12 Etudes in the Style of the Great Performers, which has won worldwide acclaim. Her arrangement of John Williams’s Theme from Schindler’s List for two violins or violin and viola with orchestra or piano won the endorsement of the composer. More recently The Peace of Wild Things was premiered in June 2019 by Akron Baroque, a chamber orchestra founded by Barlowe in 2006 in which she plays assistant concertmaster to her husband. On the same concert he premiered her Sicliano, written as the middle movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 for which he left just two chords on which creative performers were meant to improvise. Even more recently, in October 2021, Barlowe’s Epitaph for viola and soprano was premiered at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Barlowe composed her Hebraique Elegie in 2001 in memory of her father and has often performed it with her husband to great accalim. The piece has also received a number of performances by today’s violinists, Paul Huang and Danbi Um. Barlow has also arranged it for two violas and for solo violin. She writes: “There is something about the history of the Jewish people, their struggle for survival, their innate ability to buoy themselves from the depths of tragedy through the use of humor, that has always fascinated me. The Hebraique Elegie was born of the desire to find a home for the emotions I experienced at the passing of my father. The hypnotic dance at its core is a sweet reminiscence of dancing with my father at Bar Mitzvahs, while a very little girl, first with my feet atop his polished black shoes; then on my own. From the lonely, chant-like cadenza at its opening, to reflection and reluctant acceptance at its close, the Hebraique Elegie is a lament expressing the irony and juxtaposition of joy and suffering; the struggle with the inevitable.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949) Zueignung, op. 10, no. 1 Traum durch die Dämmerung, op. 29, no. 1 Heimliche Aufforderung, op. 27, no. 1 Allerseelen, op. 10, no. 8 Cäcilie, op. 27, no. 2 May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano Strauss wrote songs all his life, from his first song, “Weinachtslied” (Christmas song), at the age of six, to his Four Last Songs, so-named by his publisher, which he composed at the age of eighty-four. Many of his more than 200 songs were written for soprano Pauline de Ahna who became his wife in 1894; the composer himself usually accompanied her on the piano. Some of his songs remain infrequently performed—often because of their difficulty—while others hold a firm place both in recital and in orchestrated versions by Strauss and others on symphonic programs. “Zueignung” (Dedication) opens Strauss’s first set of published songs, entitled Acht Gedichte aus Letzte Blätter von Hermann von Gilm (Eight Poems from Last Leaves by Hermann von Gilm), op. 10. “Zueignung,” however, was the only text by the Tyrolean poet that was not taken from Letzte Blätter but from a collection entitled Frühling (Spring). Strauss came across the poems for Opus 10 in an 1864 volume brought back from Innsbruck by his friend and composer Ludwig Thuille. The songs were composed in 1885 and were soon dedicated to Heinrich Vogl, principal tenor at the Munich Court Opera, who had expressed admiration for them to the young composer. The impulsive, glowing “Zueignung,” so titled by Strauss and not the poet, unfolds in three very similar strophes with the same brief refrain. One of his best-loved songs, “Zueignung” also exists in a version with orchestral accompaniment made by the composer himself in 1940. In 1894 Strauss and his beloved wife Pauline left Weimar soon after they were married to return to the Court Opera in his native Munich. There on June 7, 1895, he set three poems by his friend Otto Julius Bierbaum, which he published as Opus 29, dedicated to Eugen Gura, a leading baritone at the Munich Court Opera. The first of these, the brief, haunting “Traum durch die Dämmerung” (Dreaming through the twilght), poignantly captures the unhurried anticipation of a love tryst through intimate vocal phrases, subtle modulations, and gently rocking accompaniment. Strauss said that his melodies were usually the result of long, painstaking work, but he told a friend that he composed this song in just twenty minutes—the time allotted to him by his notoriously demanding wife before departing on a walk. Strauss composed the four marvelous songs of Opus 27 in 1894 as his wedding present to his wife Pauline. He had become interested in a group of poets—followers of Max Stirner and his socialist ideals—who had established themselves as a force against sentimental mid-nineteenth-century poets and against folk and mock-ancient poetry. Strauss was little interested in their politics, but latched onto their Romantic outpourings. Third in the set, “Heimliche Aufforderung” (Secret invitation) sets a text by Scottish-born but German-raised Stirner disciple, John Henry Mackay. Far from a political statement, his text is an ardent love song, sung during a tryst amid a crowd of merrymakers. The eager vocal line is accompanied by rippling figurations that change several times to a more static texture to reflect the text. A peaceful postlude follows the ecstatic appeal for night to fall. “Allerseelen” (All Souls’ Day) appears last in the Opus 10 collection of 1885 (see above). November 2 is the day when Western Christians commemorate those dear to them who have died, and the poet of Strauss’s setting is longing for his departed love to return, tenderly wishing for things to be as they once were. Like “Zueignung,” the song shows the twenty-one-year-old’s lyrical and harmonic mastery, in this case unfolding in a through-composed form that becomes progressively more dramatic. “Cäcilie,” which Strauss had placed second in the Opus 27 set, makes a perfect concluding selection here as his most impassioned and ecstatic love song. Dashed off on September 9, the day before his wedding, “Cäcilie” sets a poem that, in a nice parallel, had been written to honor the wife of the poet, Heinrich Hart. (The text is often misattributed to Heinrich’s brother Julius.) Strauss is said to have embellished the already full and virtuosic accompaniment when performing the song, so it comes as no surprise that he decided to orchestrate it in 1897. Together and separately the Opus 27 love songs have been successful with audiences and performers alike ever since they were introduced by the composer and his favorite interpreter, Pauline. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper (1843-1913) Requiem for three cellos and piano September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper, one of the most influential cellists of the nineteenth century, was greatly respected by Liszt, Wagner, and Brahms. Born in Prague in 1843, he showed musical talent at the age of three by imitating his father’s cantorial chanting. After studying cello with Julius Goltermann at the Prague Conservatory, Popper earned great renown through a series of European tours. On the first of these in 1863 he met the influential conductor Hans von Bülow, who not only performed with him, but obtained an appointment for him at the Löwenberg court chapel. Having become principal cellist of the Vienna Hofoper (Court Opera) in 1868, Popper later joined the renowned Hellmesberger Quartet, which premiered several of Brahms’s works. In 1872 Popper married pianist Sophie Menter, pupil of Liszt, but the marriage dissolved fourteen years later. He moved to Budapest in 1896, where he taught at the Budapest Conservatory for the remainder of his life, serving for a time as cellist of the Hubay Quartet. Popper wrote over eighty compositions, mostly for his own instrument, but also some songs and piano pieces. His cello compositions—four concertos, the three-cello Requiem, and many character pieces—are valued for their idiomatic writing and melodic warmth. He composed the Requiem in 1891 after the death of his publisher Daniel Rahter, and premiered the work in London with Jules Delsart and Edward Howell on November 25 that year. Beloved of cellists, the Requiem has held onto a special niche in the repertoire. The work opens with two of the cellos playing in thirds; with the entrance of the third cello it becomes difficult to imagine a richer sound. The one-movement piece offers expressive solos for each of the cellists and even contains a little interlude featuring the piano (or orchestra). The harmonic language shows the late-nineteenth-century ease of modulating by means of chromatic alterations, deceptive resolutions, and borrowed chords. The piece travels through many keys, but on the most basic level it begins in the minor mode, moves to a remote major key (a major third away), and returns to the home key and opening theme, eventually settling into the major mode at the end. Particularly poignant passages occur with the lush suspensions in the remote key area and the chorale-like writing for the cellos just after the concluding turn to the major. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes