AMY BURTON, SOPRANO With a voice the New York Times has called, “luminous” and “lustrous,” versatile soprano Amy Burton has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, at the White House, and with major opera companies, orchestras, and at concert and cabaret venues throughout the US, Europe, UK, Japan, Mexico, and Israel. Known for her crystalline portrayals of Mozart heroines as well as French repertoire ranging from opera to chansons populaires, Ms. Burton performs throughout the USA and abroad in recital and cabaret concerts with her husband, composer-pianist John Musto . The couple have toured the US and Mexico with "Late Night with Leonard Bernstein" narrated by the composer's daughter Jamie, with acclaimed pianist Michael Boriskin. Ms. Burton has premiered and recorded several of Musto’s song cycles and has been a champion of contemporary composers such as Paul Moravec, John Corigliano, William Bolcom, Richard Danielpour, John Harbison, and others. Notable concert appearances include her New York recital debut at 92Y, Great Performances at Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, PS21, The Kennedy Center, Atelier Lardeur in Paris, the Liceu Forum in Barcelona, the Neue Galerie’s Café Sabarsky, and the modern-day premiere of Cole Porter's 1929 show, La Revue des Ambassadeurs at Town Hall with Vince Giordano and the Night Hawks and in Paris with L’orchestre de Pasdeloup.

DAVID CHAN, VIOLIN David Chan is the concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and an active soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Mr. Chan made his Carnegie Hall debut during the 2002-2003 season, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Rafael Figueroa and the Met Orchestra under the baton of James Levine. In addition, he was a featured soloist in the Met Chamber Ensemble’s performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin and 13 Winds at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, also with Maestro Levine. Mr. Chan first gained international recognition when, at the age of seventeen, he won a top prize at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. Upon his winning both the bronze medal and the special Josef Gingold prize at the prestigious Indianapolis International Violin Competition, the Strad magazine praised him for his “spectacular virtuosity,” while the Indianapolis News commented on his “lustrous tone” and “the kind of authority that usually comes only with maturity.” Mr. Chan made his New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1995, performing Paganini’s Concerto No. 2 under the direction of Hugh Wolff. He has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East, appearing as soloist with such orchestras as the Moscow State Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and the San Diego, Indianapolis, Richmond, Springfield, and Northbrook symphonies. As a chamber musician, he is a frequent guest at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at La Jolla’s SummerFest. His recordings include a recital program, a disc of two Paganini concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra, and an album of violin/cello duos with Rafael Figueroa. A native of San Diego, Mr. Chan began his musical education at the age of four. When he was fourteen, he won the San Diego Symphony’s Young Artists Concerto Competition and subsequently appeared with the orchestra in two series of concerts. That same year he was the featured soloist on the San Diego Youth Symphony’s tour of Austria, Germany, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia. Mr. Chan, whose principal teachers were Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, and Michael Tseitlin, received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his master’s degree from the Juilliard School. He is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School and lives in the New York area with his wife, violinist Catherine Ro, his daughter Annalise, and his son Michal.

< Back Ernest Chausson Concerto in D, Op. 21 for violin, piano, and string quartet Arnaud Sussmann, solo violin Program Notes Previous Next

September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit arr. for four cellos by Finckel Cello Quartet September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos Bach, who stayed remarkably healthy for most of his life, began losing his sight toward the end to the point that the unbearable pain and hindrance to his work led him to undergo an eye operation by the noted English oculist John Taylor, who was lecturing in Leipzig in March 1750. Though the operation initially seemed successful, a second operation had to be performed, which might have helped had not the post-operative procedures of the day weakened Bach’s entire system, causing total blindness, fever, and—ten days before he died—a stroke. Only at this point did Bach realize that death was near. Sometime during his last week, Bach’s thoughts turned to Wenn wir in hochsten Noten sein (When we are in greatest need), BWV 668, a 45-measure chorale prelude that he had expanded from his 12-measure chorale setting c. 1712–13 of the same name (BWV 641) and included in the Orgel-Büchlein. The expanded work belongs to the collection of chorale preludes known as the “Great Eighteen,” revised c. 1739–42 in Leipzig. As Bach lay on his deathbed, apparently having asked an organist friend to play the chorale prelude for him, he began thinking about the original sixteenth-century melody that had also been sung to the words “Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit” (“Before your throne I now appear”) and that their complementary texts perfectly suited his own end-of-life thoughts. Ever the earnest perfectionist, he realized even then that he wanted to make several improvements prior to standing in judgment before his God. Bach dictated the tweaks to a student, and apparently the same student or another copyist made a fair copy of this slightly revised version at the end of a manuscript of organ works in Bach’s hand that included revisions to others of the Great Eighteen. (Unfortunately the last page of that copy disappeared at some point.) The year after Bach’s death, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel—who knew that his father had been tinkering with BWV 668 on his deathbed—issued The Art of Fugue with this chorale prelude at the end, thinking it a more fitting conclusion than the final four-voice fugue that the elder Bach had left incomplete. Not knowing about the dictated revisions, C.P.E. simply included BWV 668 as it had appeared earlier but with the new title, Vor den Thron tret’ ich hiermit. In either version Bach demonstrates his great artistry, and his deathbed revisions stand as a testament to his continual striving for perfection. The work, heard this afternoon in the four-cello arrangement made by the Finckel Cello Quartet, presents the four phrases of the chorale melody in the upper voice, each preceded by a fugal exposition based on what eventually appears as counterpoint to that section of the melody. Bach’s brings contrapuntal mastery to his fugal entries by incorporating inversion (mirror image of intervals) and, toward the end, diminution (shortened note values). A nice harmonic diversion dramatically sets up the final chord. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello Ludwig van Beethoven Trio in E-flat, Op. 1, No. 1 October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello Beethoven carefully considered his presentation to the musical world of Vienna. Though he had composed quite a few works by 1795, he chose the three Trios that form Opus 1 as his first publication. He had been sponsored by Elector Maximilian Franz to move from his hometown of Bonn to Vienna at the end of 1792, to study with the great Joseph Haydn and to make his name in a musically more active world. Haydn was writing piano trios at that time, and though Beethoven probably had started work on his trios before he left Bonn, it was natural for him to work on them under the influence of his new teacher. When Haydn left for a sojourn in London in January 1794, Beethoven immediately began studies with Johann Albrechtsberger, which continued for fourteen months until Haydn’s return. A sketch for one of the movements of the G major Trio, op. 1, no. 2, was found among lessons Beethoven had done for Albrechtsberger. The Trios were performed privately in 1794 at the house of Prince Lichnowsky, the dedicatee of the Opus 1 Trios. Ferdinand Ries, later Beethoven’s pupil, reported many years after the fact that Haydn was among the distinguished guests in the audience and that the older composer had many nice things to say about the works, but advised against publishing the Third in C minor, saying the public would have difficulty understanding it. Ries also reported that Beethoven took this to be a sign of jealousy on Haydn’s part. It has been shown more recently that Ries’s account mixed up the chronology and that possible qualms Haydn may have had about the C minor Trio were raised upon his second return from London in 1795, after the Trios had already been published. In response to this and other accounts that Haydn was envious of the younger composer, esteemed musicologist James Webster wrote, “[I]t is inconceivable that the powerful and original genius of Haydn at the height of his powers should have had any difficulty with this work . . . or indeed any of Beethoven’s music of the 1790s, unless for reasons that reflect on Beethoven’s limitations rather than his own.” Furthermore, Webster demonstrated that no irreparable falling out between the two composers occurred in the 1790s, though they did experience a period of distrust between 1800 and 1804. Beethoven may have worked more on the Trios after the 1794 performance and perhaps other performances of them at Prince Lichnowsky’s. But his most likely reason for delaying their publication until 1795 was to build up a following—meaning a sufficient number of subscribers. Like the other Opus 1 Trios and the Opus 2 Piano Sonatas, Beethoven conceived of the E-flat major Trio in four movements, despite the custom of the day to compose chamber works with piano in three movements. Beethoven’s first public utterance, the first theme of the first movement, takes simple repeated chords and upward-rushing arpeggios and makes distinct motives out of them—short “building-block” kinds of motives that remained central to his mature style. Three quiet repeated chords begin the second theme, which stays within a narrow range in contrast to the more ebullient first theme. His sonata-form movement concludes with an extended coda, showing even in his early work the tendency toward substantial codas that begin almost as second development sections. The Adagio cantabile gently follows a rondo scheme as three presentations of the graceful main theme alternate with two contrasting episodes. Beethoven adds ornamental variants with each recurrence of the main theme and subtracts from its total length in the second appearance to make a more concise form. Beethoven wrote a scherzo instead of a minuet for the third movement of his Trio. Haydn had written minuets in fast enough tempos to be considered scherzos and even used the term Scherzo in his Opus 33 Quartets of 1781, but he was not writing scherzos in his piano trios or for that matter giving them a fourth movement. Beethoven’s sense of humor surfaces in the present Scherzo as it merrily begins in a key twice removed from the home key (the dominant of the dominant). The recurring little three-note motive with a grace note contributes to the section’s cheerful character. The Trio certainly changes character and texture, with long sustained notes in the strings supporting quiet legato figures in the piano. A striking leap of a tenth, heard three times, initiates the exuberant Presto Finale, which contains elements of both sonata and rondo form. The second theme, with its arpeggiated then stepwise descent, enters in each instrument in turn—violin, cello, piano, and again in the violin. Beethoven shows a little harmonic ingenuity late in the movement when this theme appears in E major before returning dramatically to the home key of E-flat. Just before the affirmative closing measures he has a bit of fun with his leaping motive. All in all the Trio makes a very assured as well as promising first opus. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2021-2022 ARTIST ROSTER ISABELLA BIGNASCA, VIOLA Michael Brown, piano DAVID J. GROSSMAN, BASS PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN JAMES THOMPSON, VIOLIN PAUL NEUBAUER, VIOLA (2021) FRED SHERRY, CELLO ZUKERMAN TRIO KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN MICHAEL PARLOFF, lecturer PAOLO BORDIGNON, HARPSICHORD NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN, PIANO NATHAN MELTZER, VIOLIN CLARA NEUBAUER, VIOLIN JUHO POHJONEN, PIANO ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN ANNA POLONSKY, PIANO JEANELLE BRIERLEY, VIOLIN ESCHER STRING QUARTET SIHAO HE, CELLO JOEL NOYES, CELLO OLIVER NEUBAUER, VIOLIN (2021) ROMAN RABINOVICH, PIANO DANBI UM, VIOLIN KEVIN ZHU, VIOLIN SCHUMANN STRING QUARTET

April 3, 2016: Ying Fang, soprano; Sir James Galway and Lady Jeanne Galway, flutes; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Sheep Safely Graze, from Cantata 208 for soprano, two flutes, and continuo April 3, 2016: Ying Fang, soprano; Sir James Galway and Lady Jeanne Galway, flutes; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord Bach wrote secular cantatas for aristocratic patrons to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, name days, and accession days, or for academic ceremonies. He wrote one of his most famous, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! (What pleases me is above all the lively hunt), BWV 208, on a text by Weimar court poet Salomo Franck for the birthday of Duke Christian Weissenfels in 1713. Known as the Hunt Cantata, it contains “Schafe können sicher weiden,” the well-known aria for Pales, second soprano to Diana, goddess of the hunt. For centuries listeners have been captivated by its texture of rocking parallel thirds for two flutes—the quintessential pastoral instrument—accompanying the tender main melody, which praises Duke Christian for ruling his people as a good shepherd. © Jane Vial Jaffe Text and Translation Schafe können sicher weiden, Wo ein guter Hirte wacht. Wo Regenten wohl regieren, Kann man Ruh und Friede spüren Und was Länder glücklich macht. —Salomo Franck Sheep may safely graze where a good shepherd watches. Where rulers are governing well, one may feel rest and peace and what makes countries happy. Return to Parlance Program Notes

2025-2026 ARTIST ROSTER RICHARD GOODE, PIANO BENJAMIN BEILMAN, VIOLIN STERLING ELLIOTT, CELLO JERUSALEM QUARTET RADU RATOI, ACCORDIONIST JONATHAN SWENSEN, CELLO CHEE-YUN, VIOLIN BENJAMIN APPL, BARITONE JONATHAN BISS, PIANO BRAD GEMEINHARDT, HORN HENRY KRAMER, PIANO ANTON RIST, CLARINET THE TALLIS SCHOLARS JAMES BAILLIEU, PIANO LAWRENCE BROWNLEE, TENOR PETER FRANCIS JAMES, NARRATOR KEVIN J. MILLER, PIANO WILLIAM SHORT, BASSOON ORION WEISS, PIANO

September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, arr. for four cellos by Douglas Moore September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos After a long search for a comic opera subject, Mozart was thrilled with Beaumarchais’s play Le mariage de Figaro, ou La folle journée (The Marriage of Figaro, or The crazy day), especially knowing that Lorenzo da Ponte would do justice to the libretto. Mozart counted on the audience being intrigued since the play had been banned throughout the Hapsburg Empire for its “subversive” elements. After the censors had been convinced the that portions had been altered sufficiently, The Marriage of Figaro opened on May 1, 1786. Despite rival cabals, the opera won a certain acclaim, but its full ascendancy as “the perfect comic opera” began with the Prague production the following year. All of the action takes place on the marriage day of Figaro and Susanna, servants to Count and Countess Almaviva. The main plot concerns the Count’s flirtations with Susanna in connection with the droit du seigneur (his supposed right as a noble to have his way with her on her first night of marriage) and her clever foiling of his advances. The eventual humiliation of this member of the aristocracy by his “inferiors”—even in its toned-down guise—greatly appealed to the rising middle class audience. Mozart’s extremely well-known Overture admirably sets up the intrigues and feverish activity of the wedding day beginning with the merest rustle. A theme for winds and horns—now paired cellos—follows immediately, and suddenly a glorious cap to both opening phrases bursts onto the scene. The second theme group shows the same quick mood changes, building to a climax with no real development section before the reprise begins with the hushed busy theme of the opening. Mozart had at one time composed a middle lyrical contrasting section before the recapitulation, but ripped the sheet out of the finished score, preferring to keep the moods of humor and gaiety uninterrupted. This afternoon’s four-cello version of Mozart’s popular Overture was arranged by cellist Douglas B. Moore, professor emeritus at Williams College where he taught and often chaired the music department from 1970 to 2007. He also appeared with orchestra and at festivals across the United States and has published more than forty original arrangements for from two to eight cellos. Yo-Yo Ma, Maximilian Hornung, the Boston Cello Quartet, and the Vienna Philharmonic Cellos on a televised New Year’s concert are just a few who have featured his cello arrangements. Taking into account the expansive range and agility of his instrument, Moore considers his multiple-voice cello arrangements especially well-suited to pieces originally for orchestra or band. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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

September 25, 2016: Jason Vieaux, guitar JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Suite in E minor, BWV 996 for solo guitar September 25, 2016: Jason Vieaux, guitar The ingenious and practical Bach, one of history’s most masterful recyclers, constantly took advantage of upcoming performances, employers’ needs, or teaching opportunities to recycle or adapt existing works. Thus differing versions survive of many works, and others carried his indication that they could be played on alternate instruments. In the case of his compositions for lute, he may have written them for lute virtuosos of his acquaintance—he was in contact with virtuosos S. L. Weiss and K Kropfans of Dresden and historian and player E. G Baron in Leipzig—or for his students, such as lute players/composers J. L. Krebs and R Straube. He was well aware, however, that lute pieces could easily be adapted to the keyboard—he indicated that his E-flat major Sonata, BWV 998, could be played on lute or harpsichord—and of the seven works that bear lute designations, more survive in keyboard than lute versions. The Suite in E minor, BWV 996, is most likely the earliest of the pieces designated for lute—or possibly “Lautenwerk,” a mechanism to emulate the lute on a harpsichord—dating probably from sometime after 1712 when Bach was working in Weimar. It is entirely in keeping with Bach’s philosophy of transferability that this Suite and his other lute pieces should be played on guitar, as they typically are today. Bach based his suites on a standard series of Baroque dance movements, which by his time were no longer meant for actual dancing—Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. All the movements employ binary form (two sections, each repeated). A variety of additional dance movements could be inserted between the Sarabande and Gigue, the typical place for any slightly more “modern” dance forms. He typically prefaced his suites with a prelude, or in this case, as in his “English” Suite No. 6 for keyboard, with a paired prelude and fugue. Here he labels the prelude “Passagio,” a designation for an improvisatory-sounding introduction, and the short but intense fugue, “Presto.” Bach uses the French designations for the remainder of the Suite’s movements, and the serious but graceful Allemande and the elegant Courante show his best French style, much like his French Suites for keyboard. In the lovely, introspective Sarabande, Bach shows his penchant for mixing French and Italian styles, his Italianate sensibility appearing especially in his melodic ornaments. His “added” movement, a vivacious Bourrée that is perhaps the best-known movement of the suite, is striking for its constant long-short-short rhythmic pattern and propulsive bass line. The exuberant Gigue leaves its dance models far behind with a remarkable contrapuntal display embedded in its lively perpetual motion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 127 January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet When Prince Nicholas Galitzin ordered “one, two, or three new quartets” from Beethoven in November 1822, he could hardly have realized that he was instigating a series of works by which all later generations would judge profundity. Beethoven had not forgotten the quartet medium in the twelve years since the F minor Quartet, op. 95, but the commission gave him the impetus to turn sketches into finished works. He completed the present E-flat major Quartet in early 1825, the A minor, op. 132, that July, and the B-flat major, op. 130, in early 1826. The prince loved the Quartets, but was only able to make one payment before going bankrupt and joining the army. Beethoven could not stop with three, however, and without commission but out of inner need for expression he added the C-sharp minor Quartet, op. 131, and the F major Quartet, op. 135, increasing the total by 1826 to the five works we know as the “late quartets.” It should be noted that, too late for Beethoven himself but in the proper spirit, a son of Galitzin paid with interest what was owed on his father’s three quartets into the Beethoven estate. While pestering Beethoven in 1823 and 1824 about when he would receive his quartets, Galitzin was always quick to say he understood that genius couldn’t be rushed. Beethoven’s problem was not a lack of ideas, but his hectic life as a world-famous composer. He could not concentrate on quartet writing until after completing the Missa solemnis, the Diabelli Variations, and the Ninth Symphony. He finally began the E-flat major Quartet in May of 1824 and completed it the following February. Beethoven wrote in a jovial manner to the members of the Schuppanzigh Quartet before the premiere exhorting each to “distinguish himself and to vie with his neighbor in excellence.” Unfortunately the players had only two weeks to rehearse, and the new style of this Quartet with its especially advanced independence among the parts led to a poor performance on March 6, 1825. Beethoven then offered to coach Joseph Böhm leading the same three players that had played with Schuppanzigh, but in his completely deaf state the composer could guide only by watching their fingers and bows move. Their two March 26 performances went only marginally better; Beethoven was pleased, but the critics and much of the audience objected to the work as “incomprehensible,” among other complaints reminiscent of the reception that typically greeted his most innovative works. Opus 127’s majestic opening chords remind us of the grandeur that Beethoven associated with the key of E-flat major—which he had also used for his Eroica Symphony and Emperor Piano Concerto. Almost immediately, however, he shifts to a sweetly lyrical melody and then to a third more energetic idea before his first group of themes is complete. The initial majestic passage is both less and more than a traditional introduction—less in its length and more in its structural role, returning in keys that define the Romantic rather than Classic bent of this work. What is especially remarkable is that the music of this passage opens the development section not as an inciter of instability but in an important new key. Furthermore, its forceful final return occurs toward the end of the development section and not at the beginning of the recapitulation, which in effect disguises the onset of the recap—a new aim of the Romantics. The second movement unfolds as a set of richly expressive variations with a kind of ecstatic continuity that would have been unthinkable in the composer’s earlier periods. Before the theme has even concluded Beethoven begins varying it. This broadly proportioned movement harbors enough space for a marchlike variation, an animated dialogue between the two violins, and a cello and violin conversation, while still leaving the overall impression of a profound, solemn proceeding. The main theme of the Scherzo injects rhythmic incisiveness and a bit of capriciousness into the work. Introduced by four curious pizzicato chords, this theme plays out primarily in a fugal texture, enlivened by frequent trills and seamless interpolations of chordal or unison passages. The trio is almost demonic in its drive, but occasional moments of harmonic relaxation keep it from utter seriousness. Toward the end of the movement Beethoven reintroduces the trio as if to invoke the extended scherzo-trio-scherzo-trio-scherzo form of several of his earlier works, but he breaks off abruptly, pauses, introduces a snippet of scherzo, then just as quickly calls a halt. The Finale begins in dramatic unison before breaking out into a more lighthearted folklike theme. Several striking features belie the outward innocence of the movement: one is possibly the most remarkable “false reprise” in the repertory on account of its length, its key (subdominant), and the subtle alterations of the scoring. It sets up an ethereal “proper” recapitulation, which in turn prepares an exquisite, magical coda. Here, beginning with an extended trill, Beethoven spins an intricate web of figural patterns and harmonic shifts that bespeaks his visionary stance in this new phase of quartet writing. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes