February 18, 2024: Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Stephen Brown, piano Max Bruch (1838-1920) Kol Nidrei for cello and piano February 18, 2024: Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Stephen Brown, piano When Bruch was selected in August 1878 for the directorship of a choral society in Berlin, he expressed surprise since the Stern’scher Gesangverein had taken no notice of any of his choral works. He had really hoped for a position in England, which did come to pass two years later, but meanwhile he took up his duties in Berlin. He worked on just two compositions there, the Scottish Fantasy and Kol nidrei. Bruch assumed the position of director of the Philharmonic Society in Liverpool in late August 1880, completing his Kol nidrei there that fall. Subtitled Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for Cello and Orchestra, the work was composed for Liverpool’s Jewish community. The composer described his sources: Two of the melodies are first-class—the first is an age-old Hebrew song of atonement, the second (D major) is the middle section of a moving and truly magnificent song “O weep for those that wept on Babel’s stream” (Byron), equally very old. I got to know both melodies in Berlin, where I had much to do with the children of Israel in the Coral Society. The success of Kol nidrei is assured, because all the Jews in the world are for it eo ipso [by that very fact]. Bruch’s first-mentioned melody is traditionally sung on the eve of Yom Kippur during the service of atonement, when worshipers proclaim that all vows (“Kol nidrei”) made unwittingly or rashly during the year should be considered null and void. Many melodies and their variants have been employed for the Kol nidrei, varying according to local tradition. Bruch’s Kol nidrei melody is the approximately 200-year-old Ashkenazi version, parts of which may go back more than a thousand years. Though he had to condense it, he retained most of its most characteristic turns of phrase. Bruch’s work unfolds as a paraphrase with variational sequences on the melody, and though he was writing for cello and orchestra, his approach seems vocally oriented—an area in which he always felt comfortable. The second theme enters soulfully in the cello atop harp and string arpeggios. This melody, too, is repeated and embellished in many ways, though it never loses its poignant quality. Its treatment takes us to the end of the piece, which closes in tranquility after three rising arpeggiated figures in the cello. The composer was quite partial to this theme—he employed it again in his choral work Three Hebrew Melodies. Though a Protestant, Bruch was often thought to be Jewish because of the strong Jewish affinities so compellingly woven into his music. Of the many cellists asking Bruch to write something for cello along the lines of his violin concertos and Scottish Fantasy, it was Robert Hausmann, said Bruch, who had plagued him for so long that he eventually composed Kol nidrei for him. Bruch was pleased by trial performances in Liverpool by cellist Joseph Hollmann and in the arrangement he made for violin which was tried out by Ernst Schiever. Hausmann did in fact receive the dedication and gave the public premiere in Berlin. Bruch surmised from Hausmann’s reports that the work had suffered in the Berlin orchestral sessions because of “an insanely slow tempo” and vowed to conduct it himself when he came to Berlin at the end of December 1880. With Hausmann’s ensuing performance in London, Hollmann’s in Russia, Jules Delsart’s set for Paris, and publication in 1881, Kol nidrei received an auspicious launch that translated into a well-deserved place in the repertoire. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 25, 2016: Escher String Quartet HUGO WOLF (1860-1903) Italian Serenade September 25, 2016: Escher String Quartet Hugo Wolf is known primarily as a composer of nearly 350 art songs, as a champion of Wagner and disparager of Brahms, and as a man who spent the last years of his short life in agonizing insanity. Though Wolf faced many spells when his creative powers failed him, he also experienced great bursts of creativity. The Serenade in G major—he later called it “an Italian Serenade” in an 1892 letter to Emil Kauffmann—was composed in just such a burst, from May 2–4, 1887, in the midst of a larger creative surge during which he was immersed in setting Eichendorff poems. Wolf’s Eichendorff phase played an important role in the Serenade’s conception. The one-movement work relates thematically to the first of the Eichendorff songs “Der Soldat I,” of which the text concerns a soldier’s love for a lady who lives in a castle. The same subject matter appears in Eichendorff’s novella Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (Memoirs of a good-for-nothing) in which an Italian serenade figures prominently in the plot. The hero, who leaves home to seek his fortune, is a violinist, which might explain the importance of the solo violin in the quartet version of Wolf’s Serenade. At one point in the novella an orchestra plays a serenade, which may have inspired Wolf’s eventual arrangement for small orchestra (1892). As he was rescoring the Italian Serenade for orchestra, Wolf clearly had in mind a four-movement work, but attempts in 1893, 1894, and 1897, remained sketches. That he considered the existing one-movement work as a first movement speaks volumes about his approach to form. He made it perfectly obvious, especially as a critic for the Wiener Salonblatt, that he detested absolute music and any sort of academic technique—fugue, pedal points—that first movements inevitably contained. Therefore, instead of following a typical abstract sonata form, he relied on a form that implied some sort of program or narrative, though he never actually specified one. His free rondo form and recitative-like passages create such an effect. The Italian Serenade leaves the overall impression of playful irony, in part because of its saucy main theme, which returns often enough to overrule any lovesick outburst. In one episode the cello plays an impassioned recitative, which is clearly mocked by the response of the other instruments. At the end Wolf brings back the repeated notes of the introduction, with pizzicato chords providing a last bit of wit. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

June 19, 2022 – Amanda Forsyth; Shai Wosner, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 5, No. 2 June 19, 2022 – Amanda Forsyth; Shai Wosner, piano Beethoven composed his first two cello sonatas in the early summer of 1796 while visiting the Berlin court of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was himself an amateur cellist. Dedicated to the king, the sonatas were premiered by the composer at the piano with cello virtuoso Jean-Louis Duport—not to be confused with his brother Jean-Pierre, a less famous cello virtuoso who was already in the employ of the king. Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven’s student and biographer, reported that “on his departure he received a gold snuffbox filled with Louis d’ors. Beethoven declared with pride that it was not an ordinary snuffbox, but such a one as it might have been customary to give to an ambassador.” Despite their being “early” works, the Opus 5 Cello Sonatas, like the early trios and piano sonatas, show the hand of a full-fledged master. The original title—“two grand sonatas for piano and obbligato cello”—reflects the eighteenth-century tradition in which the keyboard predominated and the second instrument played an accompanying role. Though the keyboard is indeed prominent in these works, Beethoven often made it an equal partner, thus forging a new realm for the cello sonata far beyond what scholar Lewis Lockwood called “wallpaper sonatas” of such cellist-composers as Luigi Boccherini. Inspired in part by Mozart’s violin sonatas, Beethoven now showed off the cello in all of its registers and as a match for the piano’s wide range of expression. This expansion of the cello’s role had much to do with the Duports—in particular, the proficiency and personality of Jean-Luis, who had opened up a new era of technical achievement in his playing and teaching of the instrument. Both of the Opus 5 Sonatas follow the same two-movement layout, possibly modeled after Mozart’s C major Violin Sonata, K. 303. Their first movements are preceded by a long, slow introduction, which makes a slow movement unnecessary, and each concludes with a merry rondo finale to finish off the form. The extensive introduction of the G minor Sonata presents a many-faceted drama with plots and subplots that include forceful pronouncements, plentiful dotted rhythms, lyrical yearning lines, and judicious uses of silence near the end to build suspense for the main Allegro section. He generously presents two ideas in both of the exposition’s first and second theme groups, all of which he treats virtuosically in the development section, where he even introduces a lightly dancing new theme. Following his recapitulation he concludes with a turbulent coda. This is one of Beethoven’s most extended sonata movements—it amounts to more than five hundred measures even without the prescribed repeat of the exposition and of the development and recapitulation—and yet its coherence is remarkable. The bubbly rondo refrain of the second and final movement banishes the dark mood. It begins unexpectedly in C major rather than G major, a trick the composer liked enough to repeat for the last movement of his G major Piano Concerto. This catchy refrain encompasses three ideas, all of which Beethoven returns to and varies in this ingenious combination of rondo, variation, and ternary form. The refrain alternates with equally inspired episodes: the first sweet then poignant as it turns to the minor mode and the second a much extended episode in the C major key of the opening. The entire refrain-episode-refrain succession of the beginning returns after this substantial middle episode, and so the rondo form (A-B-A | C | A-B-A) gives the overall impression of a simpler three-part form. Beethoven adds a coda that pauses the forward momentum with a new alternately soft and forthright melodic phrase before the whirlwind conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SHORT, BASSOON; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Bassoon Concerto in B-flat, K. 191 September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SHORT, BASSOON; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Mozart completed his Bassoon Concerto—the first of his existing concertos for wind instruments—in Salzburg on June 4, 1774. The manuscript on which he recorded this date is now lost, but was once in the possession of publisher A. André, who published the work in 1801 and issued another edition in 1805. It is infinitely regrettable that Mozart may have composed as many as four other bassoon concertos, but this is the only one that survives. We have no documentation about a bassoonist for whom he intended the work or about the first performance. Most likely Mozart wrote it for one of the two bassoonists employed by the Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg—Johann Heinrich Schulz or Melchior Sandmayr. The Concerto admirably displays the lyrical expressiveness, staccato capabilities, and contrasting ranges of the bassoon. The sonata-form first movement begins with the traditional presentation of ideas by the orchestra alone—a shortened version of the main theme, a second theme of notably unusual phrase lengths, and a closing arpeggiated theme, which remains the property of the orchestra only in the course of the movement. Mozart’s treatment of the second theme is especially elegant—when the orchestra plays this theme in the soloist’s exposition Mozart gives the bassoon a countermelody and in the corresponding place in the recapitulation the bassoon and orchestra melodies are reversed. By qualifying the Andante tempo marking with “ma adagio” and by employing muted strings throughout, Mozart infuses a tinge of pathos into the serene atmosphere of the second movement. His writing for the bassoon shows off its singing qualities to great advantage. The opening idea bears a similarity—intended or not?—to the Countess’s aria “Porgi amor” from The Marriage of Figaro , and also appears in a sketchbook Mozart used during his London journey of 1766. For his finale Mozart chose the type of minuet-rondo favored by J. C. Bach, whom he greatly admired; that is, in the style and triple meter of a minuet but with the rondo form of a recurring refrain with intervening episodes. Mozart also ingeniously incorporates elements of variation form by giving the soloist variation material or figuration in the episodes between the orchestra’s statements of the rondo refrain. He offers intriguing variety, though, by entrusting the next to last statement of the refrain to the bassoon while the strings offer contrapuntal interest. By providing places for an “Eingang ” (short cadenza-like passage) in the outer movements, and for cadenzas proper in the first two movements, Mozart allows the soloist ample opportunities for additional display and imagination. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 11, 2026: Viano String Quartet | Four of a Kind Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) String Quartet in C major, Op. 20, No. 2 October 11, 2026: Viano String Quartet | Four of a Kind Haydn composed his six Opus 20 Quartets in 1772, only one year after his Opus 17 Quartets, yet commentators universally remark on his great advance in quartet writing between the two sets. Haydn himself was excited about them, appending more effusive Latin annotations than his usual “Fine Laus Deo ” at the conclusion of most of the quartets. They were published c. 1774 in Paris by Chevardière, but it was their c. 1779 publication by Hummel that gave rise to the nickname “Sun” Quartets, because of the lovely illustration of a rising sun that decorated the title page. Scholars have not been able to establish the order of composition of the Quartets. They are presented in a different order in the two early editions and in a third order in the c.1800–01 Artaria edition that was revised by Haydn, but it is well-known that composers did not arrange their publications by date of composition. It was in the Artaria edition that they received the familiar numbering, and a dedication—to the chamber-music-loving Prince Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz. Together the Opus 20 Quartets offer an astonishing variety of textures and forms. Especially notable is the new importance and complete independence of the cello part and a more prominent kind of contrapuntal mastery. The first movement opens in the texture of a trio sonata with a unique distribution of roles: the cello delivers the melody while the violin has an inner part, and the viola plays the bass. Haydn transposes the melody when it continues in the violin. The surprisingly dark development begins with strong proclamations alternating between the violin and cello. The cello’s melodic role will remain a recurring practice throughout the quartet. The Capriccio in the minor mode is a naturally exploratory and theatrical movement, much like a recitative and aria. A unison opening statement gives way to investigations of various musical ideas that are interrupted or echoed by similarly unified moments throughout. The mood is lifted and stabilized with the violin’s beautiful lyrical moment in the middle until some drama and harmonic uncertainty. The Capriccio continues into the third movement uninterrupted. The third movement, Menuetto, features the characteristics of a musette, a pastoral dance-like piece that suggests the sound of the bagpipe, also known as a musette. Hence, the reappearing extended drones provide a foundation for the light major melody that alternates with brief chromatic lines in minor phrases. Once again, the cello carries the melodic responsibility for a phrase before the minuet ends softly and gently. As is also true for quartets five and six from Opus 20, Haydn closes with a fugue for the final movement. The violin boldly launches into a statement of the first of four subjects (Fuga a 4 Soggetti) to be carefully interwoven. Eventually, the theme is presented upside down by the first violin in the development. Alternating chromatic lines provide suspense that builds into a suddenly loud section with one final homophonic conclusion. —©Jane Vial Jaffe, Ainsley Berryhill Return to Parlance Program Notes

XAK BJERKEN, PIANO Xak Bjerken has appeared with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Schoenberg Ensemble, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Glinka Hall in Saint Petersburg, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, and for many years performed throughout the US as a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet. He has worked closely with composers György Kurtag, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steven Stucky, and George Benjamin, and has premiered piano concertos by Stephen Hartke, Elizabeth Ogonek, and Jesse Jones, a recording of which was released by Naxos in September 2021. He is also director of Ensemble X, a new music group, and has held chamber music residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival, and Olympic Music Festival. Mr. Bjerken is Professor of Music at Cornell University, where he co-directs Mayfest with his wife, pianist Miri Yampolsky. He has also served on the faculties of Kneisel Hall, Eastern Music Festival, and Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of and teaching assistant of Leon Fleisher.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 AT 4 PM WINDS OF THE MET BUY TICKETS ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE DAVID GOULD, BASSET HORN NATHAN HUGHES, OBOE DEAN LEBLANC, BASSET HORN JESSICA PHILLIPS, CLARINET MARK ROMATZ, BASSOON HUGO VALVERDE, HORN BRAD GEMEINHARDT, FRENCH HORN JOEL NOYES, CELLO EVAN EPIFANIO, BASSOON JAVIER GÁNDARA, HORN BRENDAN KANE, BASS MARON KHOURY, FLUTE ANTON RIST, CLARINET JOHN UPTON, OBOE BRYAN WAGORN, PIANO SETH MORRIS, FLUTE ANNE SCHARER, FRENCH HORN FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The inaugural concert of Parlance Chamber Concerts’s 15th season will showcase the brilliant virtuosity of the MET Orchestra’s wind section. The program will highlight the eighteen musicians’s operatically-honed insight into fantasies on themes from Rigoletto and Lucia di Lammermoor, and lyrical music by Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of La Gioconda. The afternoon will culminate in a performance of Mozart’s sublime ”Gran Partita,” the majestic wind serenade that inspired Peter Shaffer, author of the play Amadeus, to have Mozart’s envious rival, Salieri, sigh, “It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.” PROGRAM Franz & Karl Doppler Rigoletto Fantasie for 2 flutes & piano Seth Morris & Maron Anis Khoury, flutes; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Henri Brod Duo from Lucia di Lammermoor, Op. 55 for oboe and cello & piano accompaniment Elaine Douvas, oboe; Joel Noyes, cello; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Amilcare Ponchielli Quartetto for woodwinds & piano accompaniment Seth Morris, flute; Elaine Douvas, oboe; Anton Rist, B-flat clarinet, Jessica Phillips, E-flat clarinet; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Serenade No. 10 in B-flat, K. 361/370a (Gran Partita) Program Notes Watch the Winds of the Met Orchestra perform Mozart’s Serenade No. 10 (“Gran Partita”)

February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Viola, D. 786 Nacht und Traume, D. 827 February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Schubert’s over 600 surviving songs span just seventeen years, from his student days at the Stadtkonvikt to the last weeks of his tragically short life. He raised the genre to one of central importance and his influence has never been surpassed. The present selection offers some of his beloved stand-alone songs—that is, those outside of his song cycles. Schubert composed “Viola” (a flower in the same family as the pansy and violet) in March of 1823 on a poem by his closest friend Franz von Schober, a charismatic dilettante whose lodgings he shared on various occasion after moving out of his parental home in 1817. Schober’s poem, subtitled “A Flower Ballad,” comprises nineteen verses, which Schubert groups in sections as a kind of through-composed mini-cantata. The song tells the metaphorical story of a lovesick, delicate flower, who hurries to greet Spring, the bridegroom, but wastes away before he arrives. Missing his “dearest child,” Spring has the other flowers search for her, but they find her lifeless. “Viola” is unified by Schubert’s musical treatment of the recurring poetic material of verses 1, 5, 14, and 19, in which the snowdrop is successively exhorted to ring in spring, awaken the flowers, send them to find the missing Viola, and finally to ring her requiem. Schubert creates a dramatic arc from beginning to end—from the quiet beginning of the first section that ends with the return of the refrain to a new more active “movement,” that dramatically tells Viola’s story, and from a new section that portrays the confidence of the other flowers, Spring’s arrival, and the bustling search to find Viola to the return of the quiet simplicity of the opening. Along the way Schubert shows his uncanny ability to respond to the nuances of the text through harmonic shifts, rhythmic adjustments, motivic relationships—and a virtuosic, descriptive piano accompaniment. “Nacht und Träume” (Night and dreams) is impossible to date precisely, but this quintessential Romantic song had to have been composed by June of 1823, when Schubert’s friend Josef von Spaun reported hearing it, and most likely stems from the winter of 1822–23 when Schubert made several settings of poems by Matthäus von Collin. It is touching to think that Schubert composed both this and “Viola” just as he was beginning to feel the ill effects of the syphillis that would claim his life several years later. The imagery of night and dreams was as essential to the Romantic aesthetic as yearning, unrequited love, death, and the supernatural. Collin’s brief poem inspired one of Schubert’s most slow-moving, serene contemplations—and one of his most challenging for the singer, who must sustain its lines at a pianissimo dynamic throughout. He creates a fascinating two-part structure in which each part begins with different music but ends with a musical “rhyme”—lines 2, 3, and 4 corresponding musically with lines 7, 8, and repeat of 8. Throughout the piano maintains a soothing rocking motion with a gorgeous harmonic shift at the outset of the second part to set up the image of dreams eavesdropping with pleasure. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Viola Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läute immer, läute zu! Denn du kündest frohe Zeit, Frühling naht, der Bräutigam, Kommt mit Sieg vom Winterstreit, Dem er seine Eiswehr nahm. Darum schwingt der goldne Stift, Daß dein Silberhelm erschallt, Und dein liebliches Gedüft Leis’, wie Schmeichelruf entwallt: Daß die Blumen in der Erd Steigen aus dem düstern Nest Und des Bräutigams sich werth Schmücken zu dem Hochzeitfest. Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut’ die Blumen aus der Ruh! Du Viola, zartes Kind, Hörst zuerst den Wonnelaut, Und sie stehet auf geschwind, Schmücket sorglich sich als Braut. Hüllet sich ins grüne Kleid, Nimmt den Mantel sammetblau, Nimmt das güldene Geschmeid, Und den Brilliantenthau. Eilt dann fort mit mächt’gem Schritt, Nur den Freund im treuen Sinn, Ganz von Liebesglut durchglüht, Sieht nicht her und sieht nicht hin. Doch ein ängstliches Gefühl Ihre kleine Brust durchwallt, Denn es ist noch rings so still Und die Lüfte weh’n so kalt. Und sie hemmt den schnellen Lauf, Schon bestrahlt von Sonnenschein, Doch mit Schrecken blickt sie auf,— Denn sie stehet ganz allein. Schwestern nicht—nicht Bräutigam— Zugedrungen! und verschmäht!— Da durchschauert sie die Schaam, Fliehet wie vom Sturm geweht, Fliehet an den fernsten Ort, Wo sie Gras und Schatten deckt, Späht und lauschet immerfort: Ob was rauschet und sich regt. Und gekränket und getäuscht Sitzet sie und schluchzt und weint; Von der tiefsten Angst zerfleischt, Ob kein Nahender sich zeigt.— Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut die Schwestern ihr herzu!— Rose nahet, Lilie schwankt, Tulp und Hyacinthe schwellt, Windling kommt daher gerankt, Und Narciß hat sich gesellt. Da der Frühling nun erscheint Und das frohe Fest beginnt, Sieht er alle die vereint, Und vermißt sein liebstes Kind. Alle schickt er suchend fort Um die Eine, die ihm werth. Und sie kommen an den Ort, Wo sie einsam sich verzehrt.— Doch es sitzt das liebe Kind Stumm und bleich, das Haupt gebückt— Ach! der Lieb und Sehnsucht Schmerz Hat die Zärtliche erdrückt. Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut, Viola, sanfte Ruh! —Franz von Schober Viola Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring always, ring out! For you herald a happy time, spring, the bridegroom, nears, comes victorious from the battle with winter, whose icy weapons he took away. So your golden clapper swings, so that your silvery helmet resounds, and your lovely scent quietly, like a flattering call flows forth: That the flowers in the earth rise from their dark nest and worthy of the bridegroom dress for the wedding feast. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring the flowers out of their sleep! You field pansy, tender child, hear the blissful sound first, and she gets up quickly, and dresses carefully as a bride. She wraps herself in a green dress, dons a velvety blue coat, dons her golden jewelry and dewy diamonds. She hurries forth with mighty step, only to her friend in the true sense, completely glowing with love’s warmth, she looks neither to one side nor the other. But an anxious feeling flows through her little breast, for it is so quiet all around and the breezes blow so coldly. And she halts her fast running, already shone upon by the sun, but with terror she looks up, for she is standing all alone. No sisters, no bridegroom, she has been too forward! and been spurned! Then shame shudders through her, she flees as if blown by a storm. She flees to the most distant place, where grass and shadows cover her, she always looks and listens: to see whether anything rustles or moves. And hurt and deceived she sits and sobs and weeps; torn apart by the deepest fear, that nobody will appear. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring so that her sisters come to her! The rose nears, the lily sways, the tulip and the hyacinth swell, the bindweed comes twining around, and the narcissus has joined in. Now that spring appears and the happy festival begins, he sees all who are united, and he misses his dearest child. He sends everyone off to search for the one who is dear to him, and they come to the place where she pines away alone. But the dear child sits mute and pale, her head bowed. Ah! the pain of love and longing has crushed the tender one. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring, for the field pansy, gentle rest! Nacht und Träume Heil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder; Nieder wallen auch die Träume, Wie dein Mondlicht durch die Räume, Durch der Menschen stille Brust. Die belauschen sie mit Lust; Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht: Kehre wieder, heil’ge Nacht! Holde Träume, kehret wieder! —Matthäus von Collin Night and Dreams Holy night, you sink down; dreams also float down, like moonlight through spaces, through the silent breasts of men. They eavesdrop on them with pleasure; they call when day awakes: Come back, holy night! Sweet dreams, come back! Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Bohuslav Martinů (1809-1959) Cello Sonata No. 1 February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih The life circumstances of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů made him an exile twice—first by choice, then by force; he ultimately became a wanderer. In 1923 he won a small scholarship to study in Paris and ended up making the French capital his home for seventeen years. Blacklisted by the Nazis, he and his wife were forced to flee in 1940, arriving in New York in 1941 after a series of delays. Never entirely comfortable in the United States, Martinů spent the seven years following World War II in and out of the country, unable to accept a position in 1946 in Czechoslovakia owing to a slow recovery from a bad fall and other personal considerations. With the help of a Guggenheim fellowship he relocated to Paris in 1953, then lived briefly in Nice, later in Italy, and twice more in the US, not to mention many shorter sojourns in various places. He finally “settled” in Switzerland, where he died in 1959. Martinů had been living in Paris for fifteen years by the time he wrote the First Cello Sonata in May 1939. Tension had gripped Europe with the Nazis’ rise to power, and his Czech homeland had been invaded just weeks before. Further, Martinů was in the midst of a personal crisis over his intense extramarital affair with young composer and conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová. Though works of art do not necessarily coincide with biographic events, the Sonata’s angularities, laments, and bristling drive have often been described as reflective of this stressful time in Martinů’s life. The composer dedicated the Sonata to French cellist Pierre Fournier, who gave the premiere with pianist Rudolf Firkušny, a fellow Czech exile, in Paris on May 19, 1940. Just nine days earlier Germany had invaded France, which prompted Martinů to look back on the concert as “a last greeting, a beam of light from a better world. . . . For several minutes we realized what music could give us and we forgot about reality.” The following month he and his wife Charlotte fled to the south of France and then to New York. Much of the first movement swings along like a dance, but its dark hues have suggested a danse macabre to several commentators. Martinů opts for an almost Neoclassic sonata form, the main exception being the coda’s expansive proportions and its introduction of new material that seems to challenge returning materials. In the impassioned slow movement, Martinů features an icily searching piano theme contrasted by a beautifully haunting cello melody. A great climax builds in the central section before the pathos of the opening cello melody returns. A series of piano chords and cello pizzicato evoke an eerie twinkling atmosphere that then sinks back into the opening lament. Propulsive energy permeates the final sonata-form movement. Martinů provides contrast to his driven main theme with a swinging, lighthearted second theme, but the rhythmic vigor builds up again almost immediately. The development grows ever more insistent and the recap and coda only magnify the perpetual motion to the final triumphant C major chord. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108 January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet When Shostakovich announced the completion of his First Cello Concerto in the summer of 1959, he also mentioned that he had composed one and a half movements of a new quartet. He completed this—his Seventh—in March 1960, possibly having also worked on it the previous month while hospitalized for one of many treatments of his weakened right hand. (Only later was his condition diagnosed as a rare form of poliomyelitis.) The Beethoven Quartet (Dmitri Tsïganov, Vasili Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, and Sergei Shirinsky) premiered the work on May 15 at Leningrad’s Glinka Concert Hall. From the time of Shostakovich’s Second Quartet they had become his friends and collaborators, premiering all his remaining quartets until the death of the cellist prevented them from their premiering his last, the Fifteenth. The composer was the first to credit the influence of their performing style on his music. Shostakovich had set up a tonal structure for his cycle of quartets, intending to write one in each of the twenty-four keys. He placed each quartet a third below the previous, beginning with C major (C–A–F–D–B-flat–G), but he broke his scheme by choosing F-sharp minor for his Seventh. (He would resume with Nos. 8 and 9, but in reverse, C minor and E-flat, then continue without break through No. 15.) Commentators speculate that he associated F-sharp minor with the Quartet’s dedicatee, Nina, his first wife and mother of his two children; she had died six years previously from undetected colon cancer. He had recently extricated himself from his unfortunate second marriage of four years, and had perhaps grown nostalgic about his first wife. Nevertheless, their twenty-two year marriage had been anything but smooth, perhaps reflected in the work’s conflicting moods—impish, agitated, haunted, belligerent, and introspective. Shortest of his fifteen quartets, the Seventh unfolds in three compact movements, linked not by continuous sound but by the “attacca” directive between movements so as to prevent disruptive pauses. The first movement begins impishly with the first violin descending in little three-note grouplets until it knocks three times on the home pitch. Not only does the light texture and soft volume add to the impishness, but Shostakovich plays metric games that keep the two types of three-note groupings delightfully off-kilter. The cello presents the stealthy second theme, made agitated by inner instruments’ insistent repeated notes—a Shostakovich hallmark. He cleverly alters the return of the first theme by evening out the rhythm and having the strings play pizzicato. Before the first theme ends, the strings don their mutes, keeping them on through the return of the agitated music and into the hushed ending with the three repeated notes. Still muted, the second violin initiates the slow movement with a rocking arpeggio, which provides a perfect backdrop for the haunting theme of the first violin. The viola and cello’s eerie theme in octave unison receives another of Shostakovish’s insistent repeated-note accompaniments in the second violin, which continues as the first violin floats in. The concluding somber four-note descent leaves the movement sounding open-ended. The finale crashes in with unexpected violence, whereupon we hear the slow four-note descent again. Shostakovich then launches a belligerent, thrilling fugue of irresistible forward momentum. Just when the intensity becomes nearly unbearable, he suddenly brings back the main theme from the first movement in a terrifically aggressive version, reminiscent at times of the Cello Concerto he had just completed. Miraculously, he then turns his fugue theme into a gentle, muted waltz. With a kind of nostalgic look at the impish material of the first movement, the piece dies away introspectively. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833-1887) String Quartet No. 2 in D January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet A medical doctor and professor of chemistry by profession, Aleksandr Borodin was what he modestly called “a Sunday composer.” Consequently he produced a relatively small body of works, leaving a number of them incomplete at the time of his fatal heart attack at age fifty-three. Yet his remarkable handling of musical materials shows him to be one of the most original composers to come out of Russia in the nineteenth century. As a child Borodin had loved to pick out tunes on the piano by ear and had been given flute lessons. He loved to play four-hand piano arrangements of symphonies with his friend Mikhail Shchiglev, and taught himself to play the cello (Shchiglev similarly learned violin) in order to play chamber music with friends. Once his scientific pursuits began, he continued to play chamber music as relaxation. Borodin composed his String Quartet No. 2, the last major work he completed, while on holiday in July and August 1881 in Zhitovo outside Moscow. Its first performance took place on March 9, 1882, at a concert of the Russian Music Society in St. Petersburg. (Some sources give a premiere date of January 26, 1882.) Dedicated to Borodin’s wife, the Quartet nostalgically and lovingly reflects their first months together in Heidelberg. The Quartet has become Borodin’s most frequently performed work outside of, perhaps, his Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Some of its music became especially popular in the form of the Broadway show Kismet, which borrowed not only from the Polovtsian Dances and other Prince Igor music, but from the Quartet’s lively Scherzo for “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” and the lyrical Notturno for “And This Is My Beloved.” The first movement puts sonata form on parade in a sense, as if to say, “Even chemists know their Classical forms.” This has no negative connotation now, but in the late nineteenth century the “Mighty Handful” (or the “Russian Five”)—Borodin, Balakirev, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Cui—had taken naturalism to new levels and Borodin’s traditionalism sometimes received bad press. Nevertheless, Borodin’s Second Quartet sounds much more like a forerunner of Debussy and Ravel than the works of other contemporaries such as Brahms. Borodin featured the cello, his own instrument, in presenting the movement’s songlike main theme, quickly taken up by the first violin, said to represent his wife. The first violin also leads off the equally lyrical second theme, which also includes a martial portion. Borodin’s effervescent, waltzlike Scherzo also shows his knowledge of sonata form, thwarting the listener’s expectation of a middle trio by presenting a development section instead. The merry movement takes its leave with an increasingly ethereal coda. The famous, poignant Notturno also highlights the cello with the initial presentation of the luxurious theme, followed by the first violin sweetly singing the tune in higher register. The second theme, with its resolute rising scale decorated by trills, does little to alter the movement’s lyrical impression. Borodin’s display of canonic techniques throughout this movement is striking for its unobtrusive Romantic unfolding. In the finale Borodin’s “naturalist” tendencies come to the fore with a folk-like melody that serves almost as a motto. He begins with a slow introduction in two questioning phrases that provides a wonderful foil for the ensuing energetic section as well as furnishing its main thematic material. A tender second theme reminds the listener of the work’s overall lyricism. Borodin achieves a brilliant climax and ends suddenly with four emphatic chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

EMI FERGUSON, BAROQUE FLUTE Emi Ferguson is a creative artist expanding the classical music world. Emi bridges genres and disciplines in many roles, as a director, flute player, singer, composer, arranger, radio host, and writer, she has always been excited about finding new ways for people to embrace classical music. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel, Netflix’s Explained (Vox), Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , and New York’s radio station, WQXR talking about how music relates to our world today. Emi’s ability to connect through music has resonated in some of the world’s most meaningful moments. Her performance of Amazing Grace at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor was broadcast globally and is now part of the permanent collection at the 9/11 Museum. As a radio host and programmer, Emi hosts WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase , a weekly show highlighting fantastic young classical musicians, and Once Upon A Composer , a series created for the youngest of radio listeners, introducing them to music through exciting stories about composers. Her book Iconic Composers co-written with Nicholas Csicsko and featuring artwork by David Csicsko, introduces music lovers of all ages to 50 incredible Western Classical composers from the past 1000 years. Emi first started working with New York’s WQXR as a member of their Artist Propulsion Lab, developing the podcast series T his Composer Is SICK! with Max Fine that explored the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin as a way to highlight contemporary case surges. Emi’s recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel , an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes , a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. Emi’s discography also includes releases on Decca Records, Verve Records, New Focus Records, Old Focus Records, Orchid Classics, Canteloupe Music, National Sawdust Tracks, Brontosaurus Records, Coro, and MSR Classics. A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi enjoys performing as both a soloist and a collaborator, appearing at major festivals and concert halls around the world. She is the founder and artistic director of the ensemble, Exquisite Corpse , a collective dedicated to music and art that resists categorization. Its projects reimagine works of the past, revive forgotten voices, reframe classics, and bring history vividly back to life while also fostering new collisions amongst today’s composers, performers, and creators across disciplines. She collaborates regularly with AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society (where she is principal flute), the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Recent collaborations include projects with vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, dancers Julia Eichten and Bret Easterling, composer Michael Hersch, harpist Ashley Jackson, pianists Dan Tepfer and Reed Tetzlof, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, composer Roscoe Mitchell, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Chamber music and its spirit of collaboration has always been central with experiences at festivals like Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo deepening her ability to listen, respond, and create dialogue in front of and within an ensemble. Emi became the first student to earn Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction (for her simultaneous studies in Epidemiology) in flute performance at The Juilliard School. She later earned a second Graduate degree in Historical Performance as the only flutist accepted into Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance class as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. As an educator, Emi has taught on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and the University at Buffalo in addition to being sought after for masterclasses at universities around the country. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.