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WENDY CHEN, PIANO At the age of fifteen, Wendy Chen debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor André Previn. In 1990 she became the youngest winner ever of the National Chopin Competition, was one of the inaugural recipients of the Irving S. Gilmore Young Artists Award, and was named a Presidential Scholar by the National Foundation for the Arts. Since then, her career has flourished, adding Young Concert Artists International Auditions and Washington International Competition to her numerous awards. Ms. Chen has garnered critical acclaim for her engagements with leading orchestras and concert halls worldwide, with reviewers exclaiming that “having pianist Wendy Chen on the program is a guarantee that sparks will fly.” Her numerous orchestral appearances have included the New York Chamber Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Uruguay’s Orquesta Sinfonica del Sodres, New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia and Wellington Sinfonia, Montreal’s I Musici and many others. The Dominion of New Zealand described that “Chen possesses all the qualities of a modern musical star. Her playing was cuttingly virtuosic, had fantastic clarity and crispness, yet also plenty of sensitivity.” Ms. Chen has also appeared with the Boston Pops and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in unique programs that also featured musical legends James Taylor and Art Garfunkel, respectively. Of her performance with the Pops, the Boston Globe wrote “Chen’s performance had stamina, chops, brilliance and sensitivity – a formidable combination. She has given recitals throughout the world, including appearances in Prague’s Philharmonic Hall, Poland’s Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, Korea’s Seoul Arts Center, New York City’s Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Washington D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center, Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio, Nexus Hall in Tokyo, The Forbidden City in Beijing, and at the United States Supreme Court, in a special evening presented by The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Equally sought after as a chamber musician, Ms. Chen spent many years performing duo recitals with the late cellist Stephen Kates, a pupil of Gregor Piatigorsky. She regularly appears in duo recitals with cellist Andrés Diaz. She has appeared at the Tanglewood, Boston Chamber Society, Montreal, Seattle, Spoleto, Amelia Island, Strings in the Mountains, Cartageña, St. Denis and Montreux music festivals. Having studied with legendary pianists Aube Tzerko and Leon Fleisher, Ms. Chen is a dedicated pedagogue, frequently giving master classes throughout the world. She completed a five year residency teaching at the University of Louisville, and has taught at the Innsbrook Institute in Missouri, the Community School of Performing Arts in Springfield, Massachusetts, the International Festival of Music in Cartageña, Colombia, and The Juan Corpas University in Bogota, Columbia. Ms. Chen has appeared on St. Paul Sunday Morning, can be heard regularly on NPR’s Performance Today, and serves as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Her solo recording BOLERO featuring works by Chopin, was released on the RCM label. American Record Guide acclaimed “it glitters and it is gold.”

Parlance Chamber Concerts. New Jersey Symphony and Classical Orchestra Style Concerts 2023-2024 SEASON COVID-19 Info for Parlance Chamber Concerts attendees: Read more here. BUY TICKETS PAST 2023 – 2024 CONCERTS SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2023 AT 4 PM LYSANDER PIANO TRIO ITAMAR ZORMAN, VIOLIN; MICHAEL KATZ, CELLO; LIZA STEPANOVA, PIA NO SCANDINAVIAN INSPIRATIONS The extraordinary Lysander Piano Trio will perform a Scandinavian-themed program including music by the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and 19th-century Swedish composer Amanda Maier . The concert will conclude with Sc hubert’s towering Piano Trio in E-flat, Op. 100 , which features the poignant Swedish folk song “Se solen sjunker” (The Sun Is Setting). LEARN MORE “Incredible ensemble, passionate playing, articulate and imaginative ideas, and wide palette of colors.” — The Strad “Soaring, ripely romantic playing…exhilarating panache.” — Washington Post SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2023 AT 4 PM ANGEL BLUE, SOPRANO BRYAN WAGORN, PIANO SONGS, ARIAS, AND SPIRITUALS In recent seasons, Angel Blue has emerged as one of the most beloved sopranos before the public today. The two-time Grammy Award winner has triumphed at the MET as Vio letta in La Traviata , Mimi in La Boheme , Bess in Porgy and Bess , and the central female role in Terre nce Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones . For her Parlance debut, Angel Blue and pianist Bryan Wagorn will perform a program cherished songs, opera arias, and spirituals. “Luminous soprano voice and unforced charisma.” — New York Times LEARN MORE SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2023 AT 4 PM “MEMORY BELIEVES” BRENTANO STRING QUARTET ANTIOCH CHAMBER CHOIR ”The Brentano String Quartet, by now well established in the international pantheon, offers performanc es both fiercely intelligent and expressively pristine." — The New Yorker
 “The Antioch Chamber Ensemble performed with clarity of tone and intonation so pure that you could hear the buzz of overtones… — New York Times The celebrated quartet and chamber choir will collaborate on an eclectic and moving program including Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, Beethoven’s Cavatina from his 13th string Quartet , a selection of favorite English Madrigals , and the World Premiere of Bruce Ado l phe’s Memory Believes (a requiem) , written in honor of the composer’s brother, artist Jonathan Adolphe. LEARN MORE SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2024 AT 4 PM GOLDMUND STRING QUARTET Musical Love Letters Fast-rising stars of the string quartet firmament, the Munich-based Goldmund Quartet has garnered worldwide acclaim for their deep musicality and astounding ensemble precision. In recent seasons, they have won first prizes in international competitions in London, Germany, and Melbourne, Australia. Following their triumphant 2019 tour of Japan, the Nippon Music Foundation awarded them the use of Antonio Stradivari’s coveted set of string instruments once possessed by the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini. For their Parlance debut, the Goldmund Quartet will perform masterpieces by Alexander Borodin, Anton Webern, and Robert Schumann. LEARN MORE “The Goldmund Quartet are a class act…they delivered a triumphant performance — Edi nburgh Music Review SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2024 AT 5 PM CANDLELIT MUSIC OF THE SPIRIT AN THONY MCGILL, CLARINET STEFAN JACKIW, VIOLIN NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN, PIANO “Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.” — Ludwig van Beethoven M usic has always been considered a direct pathway to the spirit. In this special candlelit event, four of today’s leading virtuosos will perform spiritually resonant works by A r v o Pärt, Max Bruch, Maurice Ravel, Jesse Montgomery, and Olivier Messiaen’s 1941 masterpiece, Quartet for the End of Time. Composed an d premiered in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is a work of overwhelming originality and power. He rose above his physical confinement to create a work of soaring spiritual transcendence. LEARN MORE “Music is an outburst of the soul.” — Frederick Delius “Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” — Leonard Bernstein SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2024 AT 4 PM GOO DE PLAY S BEET HOVEN RICHARD GOO DE, PIANO Hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, Richard Goode has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s premier interpreters of Be ethoven’s music. In his much-anticipated return to Parlance Chamber Concerts, he will perform late Beethoven masterpieces including Six Bagatelles from Op. 119, Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109, and Beethoven’s monumental “Diabelli Variations, ” Op. 120, one of the greatest sets of variations ever composed. LEARN MORE “It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode’s recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtle or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself.” — The New York Times '‘Every time we hear him, he impresses us as better than we remembered, surprising us, surpassing our expectations and communicating perceptions that stay in the mind.” — Gramophone Magazine SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2024 AT 4 PM JORDI SAVALL, viola da gamba & conductor HESPÈRION XXI, Early Music Ensemble LE NUOVE MUSICHE: 1560 — 1660 THE BAROQUE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE “The term ‘early-music superstar’ is surely an oxymoron, but Jordi Savall comes close to being one. Wherever he wishes to travel, an audience will follow. This early-musi c master’s fervent community of admirers is the result of both the consistently gorgeous playing of Hespèrion XXI — the ensemble he conducts and plays in — and Mr. Savall’s ceaseless pursuit of unfamiliar repertoire...glorious ensemble sound to make a listener truly feel like a time traveler" — New York Times J ordi Savall and his legendary early-music ensemble, Hespèrion XXI , will explore 100 years of musical history in a fascinating concert of music by early Baroque masters including Andrea Falconiero, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Tobias Hume, Vincenzo Ruffo, and others. LEARN MORE SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2024 AT 4 PM MOTHERS DAY CONCERT CHEE-YUN, VIOLIN; ALESSIO BAX, PIANO LUCILLE CHUNG, PIANO BRAD GEMEINHARDT, HORN (PRINCIPAL, MET ORCHESTRA) “Alessio Bax is clearly among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public.” — Gramophone “Chung exudes grace and poise at the keyboard, directing all of her energy toward making the music speak clearly.” — Toronto Star PCC’s musical Mothers Day celebration will feature four tenderhearted works inspired by motherhood and children. Th is musical celebration of motherhood will feature four favorites including: Dvořák’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” Schumann’s “Scenes from Childhood,” Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite,” and Brahm s ’s stirring Trio for violin, horn, and piano ., composed in memory of his mother. “Chee-Yun was at once playful and passionate, her bow consistently precise even at NASCAR speed.” — Washington Post LEARN MORE SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2024 AT 4 PM MOZART’S DOUBLE CONCERTOS SETH MORRIS, FLUTE (PRINCIPAL, MET ORCHESTRA) MARIKO ANRAKU, HARP (ASSOC. PRINCIPAL, MET ORCHESTRA) OLIVER NEUBAUER, VIOLIN PAUL NEUBAUER, VIOLA with MEMBERS OF THE MET ORCHESTRA MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Parlance Chamber Concerts’s 16th season will conclude with two of Mozart’s most joyous works, the Concerto for Flute and Harp, K. 299 and Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364 . Composed when Mozart was in his early 20s, these uniquely-scored double concertos show the young genius reveling in the unbounded imagination and budding profundity of his early maturity. The four charismatic soloists will be supported by fifteen members of the MET Orchestra, conducted by PCC’s Artistic Director, Michael Parloff. “Paul Neubauer is a master musician.” — New York Times “Oliver Neubauer was a captivating performer, fully bringing-out the shifting moods, wit, and lyricism of Mozart’s music.” — The Epoch Times “Mariko Anraku a masterful artist of intelligence and wit.” — New York Times “Seth Morris, who did some of his playing onstage in the Met’s new production of The Magic Flute, made a fine flutist and cast member, both.” — The New Criterion LEARN MORE ABOUT PARLANCE CHAMBER CONCERTS VIDEO INTRO TO PARLANCE CHAMBER CONCERTS Michael Parloff introduces the mission and history of PCC. Audience members share their experiences. LEARN MORE PCC: A VIDEO SAMPLER See short video clips from past seasons, featuring the Emerson Quartet, Sir James Galway Richard Goode, and others. MEET THE ARTISTS ABOUT THE SEASON 16 YEARS OF GREAT MUSIC MAKING

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

PHILLIP MOLL, PIANO Born in Chicago, Phillip Moll lives in Berlin, working as an accompanist and ensemble pianist and collaborating with such diverse artists as Kyung Wha Chung, Sir James Galway and Jessye Norman. He has performed and recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the German Symphony Orchestra, the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Berlin Radio Choir, and performances have taken him throughout Europe, North America and the Far East. Since 2004 he has held a professorship for song interpretation at the Leipzig Hochschule. Among the many recordings in which he has taken part are the Brahms German Requiem with theBerlin Radio Chorus (with piano duet), Piano Trios of Dvořák and Suk with the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Trio, vocal duets with Paul-Armin and Peter Edelmann, Gypsy Songs with Renée Morloc, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with the RIAS Chamber Choir, Opera Fantasies with wind soloists of La Scala, compositions of Schubert and Bartók with violinist Andrea Duka Löwenstein, and a programme of shorter pieces with Sir James Galway.

January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 65 January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN One of the most accomplished organists of his day, Mendelssohn had begun studying organ at the age of eleven with August Wilhelm Bach (not a descendent of J. S. Bach). This was in addition to his lessons in piano, violin, drawing, painting, Latin and Greek (and other languages), music theory, and general studies, as well as gymnastics, swimming, horseback riding, dancing, and chess—all of which showed his prodigious talents. A few of Mendelssohn’s great organ highlights include improvising on the St. Paul’s Cathedral organ when he was in London in 1833 to premiere his Italian Symphony and in 1837 completing his three organ Preludes and Fugues, op. 37. He performed organ works by Bach at the Birmingham Festival, when he also premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 and conducted a performance of his oratorio St. Paul . Then in 1840 he gave a challenging concert of Bach’s organ works at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig to raise funds for a new Bach monument. He also began drafting the pieces that would become the six Organ Sonatas, op 65. He completed the first in F minor on December 28, 1844, and the other five by January 1845. Mendelssohn wrote to the publisher Coventry that he considered these sonatas a “kind of Organ-school” and to Breitkopf & Härtel that they represented his personal way of handling the organ. They are all very representative of his adoration of Bach in their use of chorales and fugues. At the same time, in their varied movements, they show Mendelssohn’s interest in contemporary styles of writing, such as song and Lieder ohne Worte (songs without words), while eschewing the usual sonata forms and also refecting his penchant for improvisation. Sonata No. 1 unfolds in four innovative movements—the first full of contrasts including an exordium for full organ, a fugato over organ pedal point, the calm introduction of the chorale Was mein Gott will, das ich g’scheh allzeit alternating with strains of a fugue, the fugue in mirror inversion, the mirror combined with the original, and finally a return to the chorale. The unusual form may have been inspired by a recitative in the same key in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (No. 25), in which Jesus’ agitated utterances alternate with a chorale. The second movement sounds like a song without words, the third like a recitative, and the fourth a fantasia-like movement with virtuosic toccata elements that may have arisen in Mendelssohn’s imaginative improvisations at the organ. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BARRY CENTANNI, PERCUSSION A graduate of the Juilliard School, Barry is principal percussionist for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. His engagements with St. Luke’s have included recordings for Sony, Music Masters, Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon, as well as appearances on “Live from Lincoln Center”. As a freelance musician, he has performed on “Late Night with David Letterman”, as well as “Saturday Night Live”. He has also appeared with the bands Yes, the Moody Blues and Metallica and with artists such as Tony Bennett, Sting, Elton John, and Frank Sinatra. He has also performed as an extra percussionist for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the American Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Little Orchestra Society, the American Composers Orchestra, the New York Pops, the New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. An active teacher, he has been on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music,The College of New Jersey, SUNY Purchase, New York University and Columbia Teachers College. Presently, he is Chairman of the percussion department of Montclair State University.

November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Preludes November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano On Saturday afternoon, December 4, 1926, at the Hotel Roosevelt, Gershwin performed five preludes for piano on the first of several recitals with contralto Marguerite d’Alvarez. (For more about Gershwin’s background as a composer of songs and shows, see “American Songbook below.”) Two of these preludes had been published as Short Story, two “novelettes” for violin and piano, after violinist Samuel Dushkin had seen them in one of Gershwin’s notebooks marked “Preludes” and been given permission to make them into violin and piano pieces for a 1925 recital. Neither the five piano preludes nor the violin-piano arrangements attracted much attention. The five preludes plus a sixth, which Gershwin performed when the recital was repeated in Boston the following month, formed part of a project he had had in mind for some time: a set of twenty-four piano preludes to be called The Melting Pot. (The sixth was never written down in final form.) Although he abandoned the larger project, he published three of the preludes as a set, which has since become an established part of the repertoire. He dedicated them to his friend composer-conductor-pianist-arranger Bill Daly. This afternoon we hear the first two of the set, both heavily influenced by jazz. A bluesy syncopated five-note motive opens the first Prelude and serves as the building material for the piece’s jazzy rhythmic dance. Gershwin once called the second Prelude “a sort of blue lullaby,” and indeed it unfolds as a kind of nocturne over a repeating pattern. Following a new middle section with the melody in the bass, the languid opening returns. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Octet in E-flat major, op. 20 September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano The sixteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn completed one of the ultimate masterpieces of the chamber music literature—the Octet—on October 15, 1825. Even Mozart, with all his well-known precocity, did not create a work of such exquisite perfection by this time in his creative life. Dedicated to Mendelssohn’s violin and viola teacher Eduard Rietz, whose birthday fell on October 17, the Octet is unique not only in its revelation of such consummate skill in so young a composer but also in its instrumental configuration of four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Where did Mendelssohn get the idea for a string octet in which the instruments are not treated in double quartet fashion—as in Louis Spohr’s Double Quartets—but in myriad inventive combinations of the eight instruments? We find no true precedents for his stroke of genius. Though antiphonal effects between two quartets occasionally surface in the Octet, Mendelssohn most often layers the eight parts in an orchestral texture, from which each instrument emerges with solo lines—the first violin most prominently, as befitting a piece in which his teacher probably played the first violin part. Mendelssohn stressed his orchestral intentions in the score: “The Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character.” No doubt he meant “usual” for chamber music in general, but there really is no other piece quite like the Octet with its combination of orchestral textures and technically virtuosic writing for each player. Since he was thirteen Felix had enjoyed a remarkable friendship with the aging Goethe, Germany’s most venerated writer of the time. The composer’s sister Fanny revealed that in the effervescent Scherzo, Felix had set to music a stanza from the Walpurgis Night Dream from Goethe’s Faust , Part I: “The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist / Are lit from above. / A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds, / And all has vanished.” She continued: To me alone he told this idea: the whole piece is to be played staccato and pianissimo, the tremolos coming in now and then, the trills passing away with quickness of lightning; everything new and strange, and at the same time most insinuating and pleasing, one feels so near the world of spirits, carried away in the air, half inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the aerial procession. At the end the first violin takes a flight with a feather-like lightness, and—all has vanished. Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd speculates convincingly that Mendelssohn not only represented additional aspects of Goethe’s dream sequence in the Scherzo—an orchestra of crickets, frogs, flies, mosquitos, and even a bagpipe blowing soap bubbles—but that other movements, too, may contain inspirations from Faust . He cites the first movement’s flamboyant, “Faustian” first violin part, with its bold soaring and tumbling opening, and the grandiose proportions of the movement as a whole. The archaic, lamenting quality of the slow movement perhaps reflects the cathedral scene before the Walpurgis Night, when the guilt-ridden Gretchen attends a church service and faints. And it may be that the fugal finale represents the struggle between Faust and Mephistopheles for Gretchen’s soul, which would also help to explain the reference to “And He shall reign for ever and ever” from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah . Speculations aside, the first movement shows the kind of mastery of sonata form that enabled the composer to use it flexibly. In the recapitulation he felt free to bring back ideas in a different order and his coda shows the kind of developmental thinking that Beethoven liked to impart to his codas. The soulful Andante, ostensibly in C minor, spends most of its time ingeniously avoiding that key. Mendelssohn’s modulations spin out effortlessly and eventually leave the listener in F minor rather in the home key. The second theme captivates with its slowly cascading chains of thirds, which impart a sense of yearning through beautiful suspensions. Mendelssohn’s inspiration for his celebrated Scherzo has been mentioned, but we should also note that the music poured from his pen as a complete thought. Only this movement of the four shows no crossings-out, revisions, or afterthoughts in the manuscript. Instead of using a traditional scherzo-trio-scherzo form he opted for a miniature sonata form, with the development section breaking out in seven-part imitation that anticipates the fugal finale. Mendelssohn himself noted that the Scherzo almost always elicited an encore. He later bowed to its popularity by adding wind parts and substituting it for the minuet of his First Symphony for a performance in London, a practice that was often repeated. The finale begins with a touch of humor as the second cello in its lowest register presents an energetic solo line, which soon blossoms into a cheerful eight-voice fugue. Mendelssohn offers the perfect foil to this contrapuntal complexity with a powerful second theme in fortissimo octaves. His inspired mix of sonata and rondo form, infused by fugal sections surely had its roots in Mozart’s celebrated Jupiter Symphony finale. Bows to two of his other predecessors occur in the development (middle episode)—first the Handel reference noted above, then a nod to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as he cleverly recalls the Scherzo just before the recapitulation. Throughout one can only marvel at the deft contrapuntal handling of the eight individual voices by the sixteen-year-old. The Octet, whose inspiration and effectiveness Mendelssohn may have recaptured but never surpassed, retained a lofty place in his affections. He later called it “my favorite of all my compositions,” nostalgically recalling that “I had the most beautiful time writing it.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 2, 2014 – Sharon Isbin, guitar FRANCISCO TÁRREGA (1852–1909) Recuerdos de la Alhambra November 2, 2014 – Sharon Isbin, guitar At the age of ten Tárrega studied classical guitar with Julian Arcas, followed by training at the Madrid Conservatory, where he also studied theory, harmony, and piano. He soon began to teach and at the same time to establish himself as a guitar virtuoso. His international reputation grew after successful appearances in Paris and London in 1880; he was acclaimed as “the Sarasate of the guitar.” Tárrega did much to promote the guitar at a time when the piano had almost completely overshadowed the instrument. He not only composed some eighty original works for the guitar—Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Capricho árabe, and Danza mora are among his best-known solo pieces—but he transcribed over 140 works by other composers for either solo guitar or two guitars. These include pieces by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Granados, and Albéniz, who once stated that Tárrega’s transcriptions were better than his own piano originals(!). Recuerdos de la Alhambra, a study in tremolo (quick and continuous reiteration of a single pitch), represents Tárrega’s memories of the Alhambra, the citadel and palace at Granada, built by Moorish kings in the thirteenth century. The Alhambra (“the red castle”) stands on a plateau surrounded by a reddish brick wall and is considered one of the finest examples of Moorish architecture in Spain. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano JULES MASSENET (1842-1912) Letter Scene and Va! Laisse couler mes larmes from Werther April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano At least as early as 1880 Massenet was considering writing an opera based on Goethe’s epistolary novel Werther (1774), whose protagonist commits suicide over unrequited love. Goethe’s tragic hero became one of the chief symbols of the Romantic movement in Europe. In Massenet’s factually challenged memoirs he was purposefully vague about the timing of the genesis of his opera saying it had stemmed from when dramatist Georges Hartmann handed him a copy of Werther in Wetzlar on their way back from a performance of Parsifal in Bayreuth. As Masssenet sat reading, he recounted, in a German beer hall in the town where Goethe’s story takes place, he was moved to tears, particularly by the Ossian quote “Pourquois me réveiller” (Why awaken me), which Werther would sing in one of the opera’s dramatic peaks. Scholars have determined that Massenet’s vagueness would lead readers to assume he was talking about the summer of 1882, and that he put aside the idea for his operas Manon and Le Cid, but other details confirm that this Parsifal journey must have occurred in 1886. In truth Massenet began composing Werther in 1885, based on a scenario by Hartmann but actually setting a libretto by Édouard Blau and Paul Millet, so the Wetzlar occasion would have simply spurred him on. Though Hartmann had not actually written part of the libretto, the composer no doubt gave him nominal credit to aid him financially when his bankrupt publishing firm was being absorbed by another. Massenet completed the opera in 1887, but Léon Carvalho, director of the Opéra-Comique, turned it down as too depressing. The theater burned down shortly thereafter, and, though there was a possibility of a premiere in 1889, Massenet’s next opera, Esclarmonde , was performed instead. As it turns out, the premiere took place on February 16, 1892, sung in German, at the Vienna Hofoper—the result of the management requesting another opera from Massenet after the great success of his Manon there in 1890. Somewhat surprisingly, the soprano who had sung the role of Manon in Vienna now took on the mezzo-soprano role of Charlottte, a performance fondly remembered there for decades. The Parisian premiere in 1893 met with only modest success, and it took until the 1903 revival by Albert Carré for Werther to achieve popular status and acclaim as one of Massenet’s greatest masterpieces. The story concerns Charlotte, whose care for her siblings after her mother’s death arouses the sympathy and love of Werther, even though he knows she is set to marry the absent Albert. Charlotte and Werther attend a ball and become entranced with each other, but the spell is shattered when they return to her house and hear that Albert has returned. Time passes, and Charlotte and Albert have been married for three years when the depressed Werther can’t help show his feelings for her. Charlotte says he must really go away until Christmas. Despairing, he contemplates suicide and leaves. On Christmas Eve, Charlotte rereads all the letters that Werther has sent to her, admitting that she really loves him. The desolate Werther appears suddenly and they reminisce tenderly, but she flees. Albert reads a letter from Werther saying he is going away and wants to borrow his pistols. Albert makes the agitated Charlotte bring them as she fully realizes Werther’s intention. She runs to Werther’s rooms, where he lies mortally wounded. He is happy to be united with her, and she admits she has always loved him before he dies in her arms. Massenet made certain changes in Goethe’s story, such as Charlotte’s marriage to Albert being the result of her dying mother’s wish rather than her own choice, having Albert know why Werther wanted to borrow his pistols, and having Werther actually conscious for a final duet with Charlotte. Nevertheless the story proved relatively unproblematic to adapt for the operatic stage, and provided Massenet with a perfect vehicle to show the full force of his ability to write inspired, fluid melodies as well as shrewd psychological character development. The Letter Scene (“Air des lettres”), in which Charlotte reads from letters that Werther has sent her, specifically connects with Goethe’s original story, which he tells in the form of letters. The music’s psychological drama draws from the fact that we experience both the emotions that Werther transmitted in writing the letters as well as Charlotte’s reaction to them. With incredible dramatic pacing, Massenet follows this (after an exchange in which Charlotte’s sister Sophie tries to cheer her up) with the remarkable “Air des larmes” (Aria of tears), in which Massenet famously uses a saxophone obbligato—nicely imagined here on piano—to aid in the aria’s mournful expressiveness. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Scène des lettres (Air des lettres) Werther! Werther! Qui m’aurait dit la place que dans mon coeur il occupe aujourd’hui? Depuis qu’il est parti, malgré moi tout me lasse! Et mon âme est pleine de lui! Ces lettres! . . . Ah! je les relis sans cesse . . . Avec quel charme, mais aussi quelle tristesse! Je devrais les détruire . . . je ne puis! «Je vous écris de ma petite chambre; un ciel gris et lourd de Décembre pèse sur moi comme un linceul, et je suis seul! seul! toujours seul!» Ah! personne près de lui! . . . Pas un seul témoignage de tendresse ou même de pitié! Dieu! Comment m’est venu ce triste courage, d’ordonner cet exil et cet isolement? «Des cris joyeux d’enfants montent sous ma fenêtre. Et je pense à ce temps si doux où tous vos chers petits jouaient autour de nous! Ils m’oublieront peut-être?» Non, Werther, dans leur souvenir votre image reste vivante, et quand vous reviendrez . . . Mais doit-il revenir? Ah! ce dernier billet me glace et m’épouvante! «Tu m’as dit: à Noël, et j’ai crié: Jamais! On va bientôt connaître qui de nous deux disait vrai! Mais si je ne dois reparaître, au jour fixé, devant toi, ne m’accuse pas, pleure-moi! Oui, de ces yeux si pleins de charmes, ces lignes, tu les reliras, tu les mouilleras de tes larmes, O Charlotte, et tu frémiras!» Va! Laisse couler mes larmes Va! laisse couler mes larmes . . . elles font du bien, ma chérie! Les larmes qu’on ne pleure pas, dans notre âme retombent toutes, et de leurs patientes gouttes Martèlent le coeur triste et las! Sa résistance enfin s’épuise; le coeur se creuse et s’affaiblit: il est trop grand, rien ne l’emplit; et trop fragile, tout le brise! Letter Scene (Letter aria) Werther! Werther! Who would have told me the place that he occupies in my heart today? Since he has gone, in spite of myself, I’ve been all weary! And my soul is filled with him! These letters! . . . Ah! I read them constantly . . . With what charm, but also what sadness! I should destroy them. . . I cannot! “I am writing to you from my little room; a sky gray and heavy of December weighs upon me like a shroud, and I am alone! Alone! Always alone!” Ah! No one near him! . . . Not a single testimony of tenderness or even pity! God! How did this this sad courage come to me, to order this exile and isolation? “Joyful cries of children rise from beneath my window. And I think of the time so sweet when all your dear little ones were playing around us! They will forget me, perhaps?” No, Werther, in their memory your image remains alive, and when you return . . . But will he return? Ah! This last note freezes and terrifies me! “You said to me: Christmas, and I cried: Never! We will soon know which of us was speaking the truth! But if I do not reappear, on the appointed day, before you, do not accuse me, weep for me! Yes, with those eyes so full of charms, these lines, you will reread them, and you will wet them with your tears, O Charlotte, and you will tremble!” Go! Let my tears flow Go! Let my tears flow . . . They do me good, my dear! The tears that we don’t cry all fall back into our soul, and their patient drops hammer on the sad and weary heart. Its resistance is finally exhausted; the heart grows hollow and weakens: it is too great, nothing fills it; and too fragile, everything will break it! Return to Parlance Program Notes

CLARA NEUBAUER, VIOLIN 16-year-old violinist Clara Neubauer attends The Dalton School and The Juilliard Pre-College as a student of Li Lin, and she studies with Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Sean Lee at the Perlman Music Program and PMP Suncoast. Clara made her concerto debut with the National Repertory Orchestra in 2012, and her Lincoln Center debut at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Young Ensembles Concert in 2013. This past season, Clara performed as soloist with The Little Orchestra Society, the Dalton Orchestra, the New York Concerti Sinfonietta, and in performances at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Juilliard ChamberFest, and Goddard Riverside. A winner of the 2017 Young Musicians Competition at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Clara was a Young Performer at the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute for five years. Clara was also a Musical Ambassador for the Doublestop Foundation and won first place in the 2017 Adelphi Competition. Born on 9/11/2001, Clara shared the stage with Bernadette Peters and Robert DeNiro hosting a 9/11 Memorial benefit and performing violin duos with her brother. She also can be heard leading the audio tour guide “for children and families” at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, available as a free app at the App Store. She is currently filming a documentary about 9/11 and will be featured in Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11. In her free time, she loves reading, singing, playing chess, and musical theater. In October, 2013, she made her acting debut with the New York Philharmonic at a Young People’s concert at Avery Fisher Hall. At The Dalton School, she loves mathematics and chemistry, and she currently teaches a fifth grade violin class.

ALESSIO BAX, PIANO Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessia Bax is without a doubt “among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public” (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the New York, Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Fabio Luisi, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden. Bax constantly explores many facets of his career. He released his eleventh Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He recently embarked on a trio tour of Spain with violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis. Bax and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, gave recitals at New York’s Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. He has also presented the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with cellist Paul Watkins in New York City. Next season he will make his debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, performing Brahms’ second piano concerto and will return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. This past summer was highlighted by his fifth season as Artistic Director of Tuscany’s Incontri in Terra di Siena festival as well as return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting. Bax revisited Mozart’s K. 491 and K. 595 concertos, as heard on Alessio Bax Plays Mozart, for his recent debuts with the Boston and Melbourne Symphonies, both with Sir Andrew Davis, and with the Sydney Symphony, which he led himself from the keyboard. Other recent highlights include the pianist’s Auckland Philharmonia debut, concerts in Israel, a Japanese tour featuring dates with the Tokyo Symphony, a U.S. tour with flutist Emmanuel Pahud and an Asian tour with Daishin Kashimoto. Recent seasons also saw Bax make his solo recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall, and give concerts at L.A.’s Disney Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. In 2009, he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and four years later he received both the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award and the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. Bax’s celebrated Signum Classics discography includes Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” and “Moonlight” Sonatas (a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”); Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto; Bax & Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung; Alessio Bax plays Mozart, recorded with London’s Southbank Sinfonia; Alessio Bax: Scriabin & Mussorgsky (named “Recording of the Month … and quite possibly … of the year” by MusicWeb International); Alessio Bax plays Brahms (a Gramophone “Critics’ Choice”); Bach Transcribed; and Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies (an American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice 2011”). Recorded for Warner Classics, his Baroque Reflections album was also a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice.” He performed Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available on DVD from EMI. At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He was invited to join the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory in the fall of 2019.