February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) Six Songs, Op. 38: In My Garden at Night, To Her, Daisies, Pied Piper, Dreams, A-oo February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Rachmaninoff composed all of his approximately ninety songs in the first half of his life—the first in 1890, when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, and his final set, op. 38, in 1916, the year before he left Russia for what turned out to be the last time. This last collection and the one before, op. 34, came about in part through a fan letter he received in 1912 from someone signed “Re.” Soon discovering that the sender was poet Marietta Shaganian, he wrote to ask for suggestions of poems to set, saying: “The authors may be living or dead—it makes no difference!—only that the things must be original, not translations, and must be no more than 8 to 12 lines long, at most 16. And one more thing: the mood should be sad rather than happy. The lighter shades don’t come easily to me!” Of the fourteen songs in Opus 34, half, he wrote to Shaganian, were ones she had suggested and analyzed for him. Most were Romantic poets with the addition of the more modern Bal’mont. For the Opus 38 set, she again provided texts for him, trying to turn his conservative tastes toward more contemporary symbolist poets, such as Blok, Bryusov, Severyanin, Sologub, and again Bal’mont. Though the composer had noted his affinity for dark moods, which had characterized his earlier songs, these two last sets for the most part transmit more peaceful, uplifting, and even humorous aspects than gloomy ones. Rachmaninoff had plenty of reason for gloom in the fall of 1916 because he was being treated at a sanatorium in Essentuki for tiredness and a pain in his wrist. Shaganian visited him there and described his state of total despair and self-doubt saying that he broke into tears several times as he described his inability to work and the galling idea that it was impossible to be anything more than “a well-known pianist and a mediocre composer.” She ended her lengthy description saying, “He spoke of the impossibility of living in the state he was, and all this in a terrible dead voice, almost that of an old man, with his eyes lifeless and his face grey and ill.” It was during that visit that she gave him a notebook full of her suggestions of poems to set, just as she had done four years earlier. This helped to jolt him out of his creative slump, but he was also aided by visits from other friends, his move out of the sanatorium to nearby spa city Kislovodsk—and above all spending time with the young soprano Nina Pavlovna Koshetz, whom he had accompanied in a recital that spring and who had also visited him at Essentuki. They made plans for another concert, he composed the Opus 38 Songs in August and September, and they premiered them in Moscow in October 24. Rachmaninoff opens the Six Songs with the haunting “In My Garden at Night,” his setting of Alexander Blok’s translation of Avetik Isaakian’s poem, in which he responds to the images of the weeping willow—metaphorically a lovelorn maiden—with simple, melancholic unmeasured phrases. The second half rises to an impassioned peak at “bitterly” as the poem promises that “tender maiden dawn” will dry weeping willow’s tears. “To Her” continues the lovelorn theme, this time a poem by Andrey Bely in which each of three verses ends with the poet calling futilely to his beloved. Rachmaninoff allows great metric freedom in his through-composed setting but preserves the structural text refrains with recognizably similar but ingeniously varied, impassioned phrases. Other striking features include the opening five-note chromatic gesture, which permeates the setting even when the accompaniment becomes more dense, and the fluid music for the river Lethe, the mythological river in Hades that causes forgetfulness. For “Daisies,” op. 38, no. 3, Rachmaninoff chose a 1909 unassuming nature poem by Igor Severyanin. His setting exudes charm with its treble-oriented sonorities, its graceful, independent melodies for the voice and the piano right-hand, and its memorable extended piano postlude. “The Pied Piper,” fourth in the set, shows Rachmaninoff’s rarely seen humorous side as he responds to Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov’s 1914 poem, itself a play on the famous legend. The piper lures—not rats or children—but his beloved out of her house with the enticing sounds of his flute. Rachmaninoff delightfully depicts the flute in both the voice and piano parts. In “A Dream,” op. 38, no. 5, Rachmaninoff responds ingeniously to poet Fyodor Sologub’s images of disembodied dreaming. His atmospheric piano part uses various bell-like sounds—a favorite device of his—to set the scene for the soaring vocal lines. Placed last in Opus 38, “A-oo” sets a 1909 poem by Konstantin Dmitriyevich Bal’mont in which a lover remembers fondly the laughter of his beloved and a dream of them running together to a mountain slope. Rachmaninoff’s pianistic shimmer aptly conveys the poet’s eager, anticipation of finding her, his agitated chords and short vocal phrases portray the lover’s confusion at not finding her, and the music builds to an incredibly impassioned peak as the lover calls “A-oo” hoping she’ll answer back. That hope clearly dies in the piano postlude, which trails off in open-ended quiet. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Ночью в саду у меня Ночью в саду у меня Плачет плакучая ива, И безутешна она Ивушка, Грустная ива. Раннее утро блеснет, Нежная девушка Зорька Ивушке, плачущей горько, Слёзы кудрями сотрет. —Alexander Blok In My Garden at Night At night in my garden a weeping willow weeps, and she is inconsolable, weeping willow, sad willow. When early morning shines tender maiden dawn will dry bitterly weeping willow’s tears with her curls. К ней Травы одеты перлами. Где-то приветы Грустные слышу, Приветы милые . . . Милая, где ты, Милая! Вечера светы ясные, Вечера светы красные Руки воздеты: Жду тебя, Милая, где ты, Милая? Руки воздеты: Жду тебя, В струях Леты смытую Бледными Леты струями… Милая, где ты, Милая! —Andrey Bely To Her Pearls adorn the grass. From somewhere I hear mournful greetings, Cherished greetings . . . Dear one, where are you? Dear one! The lights of evening are clear, The lights of evening are red, My arms raised, I await you, Dear one, where are you? Dear one? My arms raised, I await you; In the streams, Lethe washes the years away, Pale Lethe, In the streams, Dear one, where are you? Dear one! (Маргаритки) О, посмотри! как много маргариток— И там, и тут . . . Они цветут; их много; их избыток; Они цветут. Их лепестки трёхгранные—как крылья, Как белый шёлк . . . В них лета мощ! В них радость изобилья! В них слетлый полк. Готовь, земля, цветам из рос напиток, Дай сок стеблю . . . О, девушки! о, звезды маргариток! Я вас люблю . . . —Igor Severyanin Daisies Oh, look! how many daisies— here and there . . . they are blooming; so many; they are abundant. they are blooming. Their petals are triangluar—like wings, like white silk . . . they have the power of summer! the joy of abundance! they are a radiant regiment. Earth, prepare the flowers a drink of dew, give the stems juice. Oh, maidens, oh starry daisies, I love you! Крысолов Я на дудочке играю,— Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Я на дудочке играю, Чьи-то души веселя. Я иду вдоль тихой речки, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Дремлют тихие овечки, Кротко зыблются поля. Спите, овцы и барашки, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, За лугами красной кашки Стройно встали тополя. Малый домик там таится, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Милой девушке приснится, Что ей душу отдал я. И на нежный зов свирели, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Выйдет словно к светлой цели Через сад через поля. И в лесу под дубом темным, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Будет ждать в бреду истомном, В час, когда уснет земля. Встречу гостью дорогую, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Вплоть до утра зацелую, Сердце лаской утоля. И, сменившись с ней колечком, Тра-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля-ля, Отпущу ее к овечкам, В сад, где стройны тополя. —Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov Pied Piper I play upon my little pipe,— tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, I play upon my little pipe, making people’s souls merry. I walk along a quiet stream, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, gentle lambs doze, Fields wave softly. Sleep, sheep and lambs, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, beyond the meadows of red clover slender poplars rise. A little house is hidden there, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, a sweet girl will dream that I gave her my soul. And at the gentle call of my flute, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, she will come as if to a radiant goal, through the garden, through the fields. And in the forest under a dark oak, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, she will wait in dazed delirium for the hour when the earth falls asleep. I shall meet my dear guest, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, I shall kiss her until morning, assuaging my heart with caresses. And once we have exchanged rings, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la, I’ll let her go to the lambs, to the garden with the slender poplars. Son (Сон) В мире нет ничего Дожделеннее сна, Чары есть у него, У него тишина, У него на устах Ни печаль и ни смех, И в бездонных очах Много тайных утех. У него широки, Широки два крыла, И легки, так лёгки, Как полночная мгла. Не понять, как несёт, И куда и на чем Он крылом не взмахнет И не двинет плечом. —Fyodor Sologub Dream There is nothing in the world better than sleep, he has an enchantment, he silence. He has on his lips neither sadness nor laughter and in bottomless eyes many secret pleasures. He has wide, two wide wings, and they are light, so light like a midnight shadow. How he carries you is unknown, and where, on what, he won’t flap his wing And he will not move his shoulder. Ау Твой нежный смех был сказкою изменчивою, Он звал как в сон зовёт свирельный звон. И вот венком, стихом тебя увенчиваю. Уйдём, бежим вдвоем на горный склон. Но где же ты? Лишь звон вершин позванивает Цветку цветок средь дня зажег свечу. И чей-то смех все в глубь меня заманивает. Пою, ищу, Ау! Ау! кричу. —Konstantin Dmitrevich Bal’mont A-oo! Your gentle laughter was a volatile fairy tale, calling like a flute in a dream. Now I crown you with a wreath of verse. Let’s go, let’s run together to the mountainside. But where are you? Only the sound of the heights is ringing a flower for another flower lit a candle midday. And someone’s laughter deep inside lures me. I sing, I search, “A-oo!” “A-oo!” I shout. Return to Parlance Program Notes

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April 24, 2022 – Marc-André Hamlein, piano C.P.E. BACH (1714–1788) Suite in E minor Wq 62/12 April 24, 2022 – Marc-André Hamlein, piano Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, third child of J. S. Bach to survive beyond infancy, asserted in his autobiography that he never had any music teacher but his father. Though he may have been exposed to various instruments, he apparently studied only keyboards—clavichord, harpsichord, and the new fortepiano. He traveled very little and held just two long-term major positions: royal chamber music accompanist at the Berlin court of Frederick the Great from 1738 to 1768 and—succeeding his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann—Kantor of the Lateinschule and director of music in the five principal churches in Hamburg (1768–88). As geographically constrained as his life seems to have been, by the time he moved to Hamburg at age fifty-four he was the most famous keyboard player and teacher in Europe. Rejecting much of the polyphonic style of his father, C.P.E. Bach turned to the new German “empfindsamer” (intimately expressive) style, elsewhere called “galant,” of which his music is considered the best representative. The empfindsamer Stil is apparent in his sudden changes of Affekt (affect or mood), bold harmonic schemes, “sighing” motives, and greater emphasis on melody. These characteristics occur to some extent throughout his one thousand or so works, ranging from songs and oratorios to symphonies and keyboard works. The keyboard works, which form the core of his output from the 1730s to the last years of his life, consist of sonatas, fantasias, dance movements, and variations. Only rarely did C.P.E. Bach employ the standard movements of his father’s suites—allemande, courante, sarabande, minuet (or alternate dance such as a gavotte or bourrée), and gigue—as in the present Suite in E minor. The piece first appeared in print under the title “Sonata” in 1761 in the fourth collection of Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern (Musical pot-pourri by various composers) issued by Berlin publisher Friedrich Wilhelm Birnsteil. Clearly Bach made revisions to certain movements for publication, as can be seen by comparison with his manuscript version of 1751. Scholars are divided on whether the work was actually composed in 1751 or, owing to its retrospective suite form, in the 1730s. The new complete works edition of C.P.E. Bach’s keyboard works, which runs to eighteen volumes (!), rightly classifies it as a suite and provides the opportunity to compare the 1751 version with that published a decade later. Despite C.P.E. Bach’s use of the old-fashioned sequence of movements, his originality shines in his expressive chromatic harmonies and melodic infections, rhythmic motives, syncopations and disruptions, and changes of register. The Allemande, the most extensive of the movements, adopts the stile brisé (arpeggiated texture) of the French harpsichordists, which helps to sustain decaying sounds of notes struck on the keyboard (or lute). The faster paced Courante also keeps up a constant motion with a texture that shift easily between three and two voices. The pensive Sarabande, in imitative style, is striking for its harmonic coloring and expressive peaks, especially in the second half. The fourth movement features three Menuets, the first returning after the second and third in the manner of a refrain. Each exhibits a different character—the first is notable for its striking bass-note downbeats while the upper voice is silent and for its plentiful dotted (long-short) rhythms, the second for its graceful sets of melodic repeated notes, and the third for a very different emphasis on repeated notes in the right hand over a non-stop running bass. The nimble Gigue again takes up the imitative style of an invention, highlighted by a shift to the upper register to begin the second half. Our featured artist Marc-André Hamelin, in a January 2022 interview with Presto Music’s Katherine Cooper, talked about his acclaimed new recording, C.P.E. Bach Sonatas and Rondos (Hyperion). Aside from his childhood knowledge of several C.P.E. Bach pieces, a crucial seed was planted when he listened to his wife’s broadcast of a Mikhail Pletnev C.P.E. Bach CD on her classical radio show around 2008–09, but it wasn’t until three or four years ago that Hamelin seriously explored making a C.P.E. Bach recording himself. The difficult part was choosing what to record out of the eighteen volumes of the complete keyboard works, which were offered to him by the edition’s managing director, Paul Corneilson. Said Hamelin, “I did this recording out of sheer love for the music—and out of hope that it might incite more pianists to look into it, because it’s a fascinating trove of treasures.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

CLAY ZELLER-TOWNSON, BAROQUE BASSOON Clay Zeller-Townson Baroque bassoon Founder of the acclaimed period-instrument ensemble Ruckus , Clay Zeller-Townson performs regularly with many of North America's leading early music ensembles, including Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, and Musica Angelica. An active educator as well as performer, he has presented masterclasses at the Eastman School of Music, UCLA, and the University of Missouri.

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

April 19, 2009 – Jon Manasse, clarinet; Rafael Figueroa, cello; John Novacek, piano MAX BRUCH (1838-1920) Andante con moto in C# Minor, Op. 83 for clarinet, cello, and piano April 19, 2009 – Jon Manasse, clarinet; Rafael Figueroa, cello; John Novacek, piano A brilliant child prodigy, Max Bruch began composing at the age of nine. By his early teens he had completed his first symphony, and his reputation as a precocious talent had spread across Europe. As an adult, Bruch was renowned as a conductor, teacher, and the composer of major operatic, symphonic, choral and chamber works. At his height, many saw him as destined to be remembered as one of history’s greatest composers. And yet, by the time he died in 1920, Bruch’s reputation had receded precipitously. His output had been long overshadowed by his Romantic contemporaries, Brahms, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky, and he lived to see himself become something of a musical anachronism. His relative obscurity at the end of his life was due largely to his conservative nature. Early in his career Bruch modeled his compositions after those of Mendelssohn and Schumann. As he grew older, he stubbornly refused to embrace the musical language of such revolutionaries as Liszt, Wagner, Strauss, and Schoenberg. Indeed, many of his final works sound as if they could have been composed sixty years before. Taken on it own terms, though, Max Bruch’s music is melodious, masterfully crafted, and fully deserving of being heard. His two most popular works are his G Minor Violin Concerto and Kol Nidrei, a work for cello and orchestra based on Hebrew melodies. The 1910 trio for clarinet, cello (or viola), and piano, Andante con moto in C# Minor, Op. 83, is one of a set of eight pieces for this combination that he dedicated to his son, a professional clarinetist. These pieces were not intended to be performed as a suite; Bruch wrote them to be played separately or in smaller groupings. The C# Minor trio highlights Bruch’s extraordinary melodic and dramatic gifts. Though not specifically programmatic, the piece seems to tell a story. The cello begins with an agitated lament, suggesting the image of a suffering penitent. After a minute or so, the clarinet responds with a soothing hymn, like the voice of a consoling angel. The two protagonists continue to alternate in their contrasting worlds until the clarinet finally prevails, gently drawing the cello into a heavenly resolution. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

ERIN KEEFE, VIOLIN Winner of the 2006 Avery Fisher Career Grant, American violinist Erin Keefe is quickly establishing a reputation and earning praise as a compelling artist who combines exhilarating temperament and fierce integrity. A top prize winner of several International Competitions, she recently took the Grand Prizes in the 2007 Torun International Violin Competition (Poland), the 2006 Schadt Competition, and the Corpus Christi International String Competition, and was the Silver Medalist in the Carl Nielsen, Sendai (Japan), and Gyeongnam (Korea) International Violin Competitions, resulting in performances and immediate re-engagements in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Ms. Keefe has appeared in recent seasons with orchestras such as the New Mexico Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, the Allentown Symphony, the Sendai Philharmonic, the Suwon Philharmonic, the Torun Symphony Orchestra, and the Odense Symphony Orchestra, and has given recitals in the United States, Austria, Germany, Korea, Poland, Japan, and Denmark. During the 2008–09 season, she will make her concerto and recital debuts in cities throughout Poland, Germany, and Japan. Ms. Keefe has collaborated with many leading artists of today including the Emerson String Quartet, Roberto and Andres Diaz, Edgar Meyer, Gary Graffman, Richard Goode, David Soyer, Colin Carr, Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher, and William Preucil. She also performed on a program with Michael Tilson Thomas premiering his own chamber music at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Her recording credits include Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet with Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer, Fred Sherry, and Jennifer Welch-Babidge for Robert Craft and the Naxos Label, recordings of the Dvorak Terzetto and the Dvorak Piano Quartet in E-flat with David Finckel and Wu Han for the CMS Studio Recording label as well as live performances of the Bartok Contrasts, Dvorak Piano Quintet, and Mozart E-flat Piano Quartet recorded for Deutsche Gramophone. Ms. Keefe’s festival appearances have included the Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Music from Angel Fire, Ravinia, and the Seattle, OK Mozart, Mimir, Music in the Vineyards, and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festivals. As a member of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Chamber Music Society Two program for the 2006–09 seasons, Ms. Keefe will appear in numerous programs at Lincoln Center as well as on tour throughout the U.S. In January of 2008, she and other artist members were featured on “Live from Lincoln Center” playing Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. She has performed with the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society and appears regularly with the Boston Chamber Music Society. Ms. Keefe earned a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music Degree from The Curtis Institute. Her teachers included Ronald Copes, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, Philip Setzer, Philipp Naegele, and Teri Einfeldt.

September 18, 2022: Seth Morris, flute; Elaine Douvas, oboe; Anton Rist, B-flat clarinet, Jessica Phillips, E-flat clarinet; Bryan Wagorn, piano AMILCARE PONCHELLI (1834-1886) Quartetto for woodwinds & piano accompaniment September 18, 2022: Seth Morris, flute; Elaine Douvas, oboe; Anton Rist, B-flat clarinet, Jessica Phillips, E-flat clarinet; Bryan Wagorn, piano After studying organ with his father as a very young boy, Amilcare Ponchielli received support from a wealthy patron to attend the Milan Conservatory at the age of nine. When he later took a job as a music teacher and organist in Cremona, he became especially interested in the town’s opera theater, and composing opera became his main love. At first he had little success and had to earn his living as a bandmaster, during which time he composed almost 100 works for band and more than 100 band arrangements of other composers’ works. Ponchielli kept trying to break into the opera world, both as conductor and composer, and his frustrations finally ended with the success of the revised version of I promessi sposi in 1872. Yet even that revision never went beyond conventional style when other Italian composers were beginning to espouse a more futuristic manner. Ponchielli held fast to the conventions of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, who himself ceased composing for a time in order to make his own adaptations to the changing currents of the time. Whereas Ponchielli may not have achieved the dramatic structure of Verdi, he was a master of melody, instrumental colors, and expressive details, and is considered the most important opera composer—aside from Verdi—of the period leading to the “Giovane Scuola” (young school) of composers such as Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo. Yet Ponchielli is known today almost solely for La Gioconda (1876), his only opera that is still performed regularly. In 1857, three years after graduating from the Milan Conservatory, Ponchielli composed his Quartetto for the unusual combination of flute, oboe, E-flat clarinet, and B-flat clarinet with orchestral accompaniment. The piece was premiered that year at the Teatro della Concordia in Cremona by local woodwind teachers—Ponchielli dedicated the piece to his dear friend Cesare Confalonieri, oboe professor at the Milan Conservatory. The work was eventually published in 1873 but with piano accompaniment. This virtuoso showpiece opens with an extended introduction for the piano, much as a concerto or Konzertstück would begin with orchestra. The frolicking first entrance of the winds immediately sets the novel tone for the high, bright quality of Ponchielli’s chosen palette, as does the first melody entrusted to the E-flat clarinet. This unfolds as the first of three main sections all strung together without pause and bearing certain characteristics of a cycle of sonata or concerto movements, while at the same time sounding right at home among freer operatic fantasies that are based on a series of distinctive melodies. Thus, after a first “movement” with sonata-form characteristics, the oboe takes the lead in a graceful “slow movement” marked Andante. A lighthearted theme and variations ensues with one of the charming variations, marked “Scherzoso con vivacità,” requiring the utmost skill from the flute and E-flat clarinet in rapid alternation. Ponchielli also showcases the oboe’s melancholy melodic style before returning to the vivacious vein, and the piece concludes with a dazzling blaze of virtuosity for all. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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

ANGEL BLUE, SOPRANO Angel Blue has emerged in recent seasons as one of the most influential sopranos before the public today. The two-time Grammy Award winner, 2020 Beverly Sills Award recipient, and the 2022 Richard Tucker Award winner is celebrated worldwide for her honeyed soprano and affecting deliveries of many of the most beloved roles in the operatic repertory. The 2023 spring and summer season began with Ms. Blue as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera with Maestro Nicola Luisotti, and her debut in the titular role in Aida at the Royal Opera House with Sir Mark Elder. She can be seen in concert with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Oskana Lyniv, and in recital with distinguished Canadian pianist Dr. Bryan Wagorn at Arizona Opera. Ms. Blue's first summer appearance begins in Europe on tour with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the direction of world-renowned conductor Yannick Nézét-Seguin. She will then make appearances at the Hollywood Bowl in Verdi's Requiem with the star maestro Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, shortly followed by her return to the Santa Fe Opera to sing the title role in Tosca. She makes her Aspen Music Festival debut in a solo recital with pianist Myra Huang. The 2023-2024 season introduces audiences to Angel Blue as Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore at the San Francisco Opera, followed by a highly anticipated return to the Vienna State Opera. She continues her season with performances as Micaëla in Carmen and a role debut as Magda in La Rondine at the Metropolitan Opera. On September 23, 2019 she opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019/2020 season as Bess in a new production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. These performances followed her internationally praised French Opera debut and role debut as Floria Tosca at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July of 2019. She has also been recognized for performances in countless other theaters, such as the Vienna State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Theater an der Wien, Teatro alla Scala, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, Paris Opera, English National Opera, and San Diego Opera. Puccini’s La Bohéme has played an especially prominent role in the development of Angel Blue’s career. She made her United States operatic debut as Musetta at the Los Angeles Opera in 2007 while a member of the company’s Young Artist Program and subsequently made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in the same role in 2015. As Mimí, she has earned exceptional international acclaim. Ms. Blue first sang the role at the English National Opera in London in 2014 and has since performed Mimí for her house debuts at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia, the Vienna State Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company, the Semperoper Dresden, Hamburg State Opera, and of course, the Metropolitan Opera. Equally active on the concert platform, Ms. Blue has appeared in recital and in concert in over forty countries including Hungary, Kazakhstan, India, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, South Korea, China, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico. In 2011 Ms. Blue opened the Royal Opera House, in Muscat, Oman. Orchestral engagements have included concert versions of Porgy and Bess at the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle and with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Münchener Philharmoniker under the baton of Zubin Mehta, and Verdi’s Requiem in Sydney, Australia with Oleg Caetani. She has also sung Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Peri in Schumann’s Das Paradis und die Peri with the Accademia Santa Cecilla in Rome, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Cincinnati Symphony under Music Director Louis Langree. During the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, Ms. Blue dedicated her time to encourage younger singers to stay motivated to finish their studies and continue in opera, through an online talk show called, "Faithful Friday" where she interviewed people who she found to be inspiring. The online talk show received much acclaim from its viewers, many called the show, "Uplifting, and exactly what is needed right now." Ms. Blue has since shifted her focus back to her family life and her singing engagements. However, she still maintains that encouraging and uplifting younger singers in the opera world is at the forefront of her platform. Angel Blue was raised in California and completed her musical studies at UCLA. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.

September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano HERMANN SCHULENBURG (1886-1959) Gypsy Romance and Csardas September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano Hermann Schulenburg is known for contributing music to a number of German films in the 1930s and ’40s, and he was equally at home as a lyricist, though his work has languished in relative obscurity. It comes as something of a surprise then, that in 2015 his Gypsy Romance and Csárdás, which stems from his song “Puszta-Märchen: Es spielen heut’ nacht für mich die Zigeuner” (Fairy Tale of the Hungarian Plains: The Gypsies play for me tonight) reappeared in the 2015 docufiction The Dark Side about the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. The connecting link is violist Paul Neubauer, for whom Schulenburg’s piece had recently become of a signature encore piece. He recorded the piece for Music@Menlo, performed it in the film, and treats us to it here. The Gypsy Romance and Csárdás begins in the poignant improvisatory style related to the slow (lassù) section of many Hungarian dances before breaking into an exuberant fast (friss) section—a csárdás—for the blazing close. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Andante con moto for piano trio October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio By 1878, when Grieg set out to write a piano trio, he had earned recognition as Norway’s foremost composer. He had made important connections in Germany through his studies in Leipzig and had won renown in Copenhagen as well as in his native Bergen, but it was not without great effort. Influenced by violinist Ole Bull, Grieg had begun incorporating Norwegian folk idioms into his compositions, but he struggled to meet expectations in the larger forms of the chamber music medium because of his natural inclination to short, self-contained, lyrical melodies. Grieg had just completed his G minor String Quartet in the summer of 1878, which he said “is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written. I needed to do this as a study. Now I shall tackle another piece of chamber music; I think in that way I shall find myself again.” Yet he composed only one movement of the projected piano trio, the Andante con moto in C minor. He made notes on the manuscript suggesting he might revise it, but he never returned to it nor did he write any other piano trio. After Grieg’s death, his friend, Leipzig-born Dutch pianist and composer Julius Röntgen (who also played a role in this afternoon’s second work), unearthed the Andante con moto and wrote to Grieg’s widow, Nina Hagerup Grieg, saying, “It is a beautiful piece and completely in order. . . . What a solemnity it conveys! How he can’t get enough of that single theme, that even in the major mode retains its mourning character, and then develops so beautifully its full power. . . . The piece can very well stand by itself and does not at all give the impression of being a fragment, as it constitutes a perfect entity in itself.” The piece was not published, however, until 1978 in the Grieg Critical Edition. Grieg’s monothematic movement is so striking because of how often Grieg showcases his theme in octave unison, first presented by the piano after a hushed introduction of string chords. Whereas the major-mode section offers contrast—and one might consider it considerably less “mournful” than Röntgen suggested—there is no doubt about the overall dark intensity of the piece, which rises to a dramatic climax before ebbing quietly. Return to Parlance Program Notes