JAMIE BERNSTEIN, HOST Jamie Bernstein is an author, narrator, director, broadcaster, and filmmaker. Her 2018 memoir, Famous Father Girl , is about growing up with composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, and pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre in an atmosphere bursting with music, theatre and literature. Jamie has written and narrated concerts about Mozart, Aaron Copland, and Stravinsky, as well as “The Bernstein Beat,” a family concert about her father modeled after his groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts. She appears worldwide performing her own scripted narrations as well as standard concert narrations, such as Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait” and her father’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish.” Jamie has produced and hosted the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, as well as many summer broadcasts from Tanglewood. She recently narrated the podcast “The NY Phil Story: Made in New York.” Jamie is the co-director of Crescendo: the Power of Music , an award-winning documentary film focusing on children in struggling urban communities, who participate in youth orchestra programs for social transformation. Jamie’s articles and poetry have appeared in such publications as Symphony, Town & Country, and Opera News. She also edits “Prelude, Fugue & Riffs,” a newsletter pertaining to her father’s legacy.

ADAM COCKERHAM, THEORBO, BAROQUE GUITAR Adam Cockerham Theorbo, Baroque guitar Adam Cockerham has appeared as a continuo player and accompanist with leading ensembles in New York and San Francisco. A specialist in seventeenth-century Italian opera, he has participated in numerous modern premieres with organizations including the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and Ars Minerva. He earned his doctorate from The Juilliard School.

< Back Astor Piazzolla Histoire du Tango, arr. by Dmitriy Varelas Program Notes Previous Next

March, 10 2024: Richard Goode, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Six Bagatelles from Op. 119 March, 10 2024: Richard Goode, piano Beethoven was constantly composing piano miniatures, and he saved those that never found a home in his piano sonatas for later publication as collections of unrelated pieces, some to be used as exercises. When he published his first set of Bagatelles, op. 33, in 1803, he was the first to attach the French term for “trifle” to a set of unrelated pieces for piano, though occasionally the term had been used in the previous century for sets of dances or songs. He published two other collections of Bagatelles—Opus 119 in 1823 and Opus 126 in 1825. Those of the last set date from 1824, but the dates of composition for the Opus 119 set range from his early Bonn days through 1822, the period of the Missa solemnis and the three last piano sonatas, opp. 109, 110, and 111. In Beethoven’s mind these miniatures were by no means inferior to his more extended piano works but were simply ideas that were complete in themselves. We can well imagine his incensed reaction, reported by Anton Schindler, when the publisher Peters returned six of them in 1823 saying they weren’t worth his asking price and that he ought to consider it beneath his dignity to waste his time on such trifles. The publication of the set of eleven Bagatelles in 1823—by Clementi in London and Schlesinger in Paris as Opus 112, “corrected” to 119 later in the century—actually caps a convoluted history, discussed by scholars in exhaustive detail. One of the most salient points is that in April 1820 Beethoven broke off work on the Missa solemnis to comply with a request from Friedrich Starke for a contribution to his piano pedagogy book, Wiener Piano-Forte-Schule . Beethoven ended up supplying Nos. 7–11 of the eventual Opus 119 for the 1821 publication, calling them by the German term Kleinigkeiten , in the same wave of German patriotism that had seen him using the term Hammerklavier . Beethoven’s sketches from this time are fascinating in that they show the first movement of the E major Sonata, op. 109, to have originated from the impetus to supply bagatelles, which helps account for its unusual form. Clearly this impetus also inspired him to complete Nos. 1–6, for which he drew on his rich store of materials from as early as 1791–1802. As it happens, however, the improvisatory-sounding No. 6 that begins this evening’s selection is of 1822 vintage judging by sketches that appear amid work on the Credo of the Missa solemnis . It seems wholly appropriate to group Nos. 6 through 11 together as examples of a somewhat later style. The Bagatelles sometimes employ a binary form (two sections with repeats), as in the intimate, chromatically inflected No. 8, or a rounded binary (second half returns to the opening material, both halves repeated) as in the valse triste of No. 9. But many times Beethoven lets the material command its own form, as in the aforementioned No. 6, which puts us in mind of his improvisations, not only at concerts or private gatherings but for himself alone. No. 7 is especially striking for its trills—that sound like chiming bells at the outset but become almost demonic before the precipitous ending—and No. 10, briefest of all, is notable for its single-minded playfulness. With the profound No. 11, one suspects that Beethoven found its individual form totally satisfying—first section repeated, second section a series of varied thoughts—and decided against marring its delicate nuances by employing it in another context. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) String Quartet No. 12 in F major, B. 179, op. 96, “American” November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello Beginning in the fall of 1892 Dvořák served as artistic director and professor of composition at the National Conservatory of Music in America (in New York City) at the urging of the institution’s president, Jeannette Thurber, who offered him twenty-five times the amount he was being paid at the Prague Conservatory. His life in the U.S. was hectic with teaching, public appearances, and engagements as a guest conductor, so he happily accepted an invitation to spend the summer of 1893 relaxing in a small farming community (300 residents) of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa. Overjoyed to be reunited with four of his children who had just arrived from Czechoslovakia with their aunt and a maid, Dvořák traveled to Spillville by train in a party that also included his wife, his two oldest children, and his secretary Josef Jan Kovařík who had grown up there. His delight at being in a rural setting among his countrymen immediately erupted in the composition of his American Quartet, which he sketched in only three days, June 8–10. At the end of the sketch he wrote: “Thanks to the Lord God, I am satisfied, it went quickly. Completed June 10, 1893.” Polishing the score occupied him until June 23, and members of the Kovařík family assisted in trying out the Quartet with the composer himself making his way through the first violin part. The Kneisel Quartet gave the premiere in Boston on New Year’s Day 1894 and in New York on January 12. By far the most popular of Dvořák’s fourteen quartets, the American reflects his aim “to write something really melodious and simple.” As several scholars have pointed out, however, his effortless-sounding result masks remarkable unifying and thematic procedures. The first, second, and fourth movements all begin with an accompanimental backdrop before the main thematic material emerges. The first movement’s viola solo rising confidently over bass pedal and upper-string shimmer specifically brings to mind the opening of another famous Czech string quartet, Smetana’s “From My Life,” which Dvořák knew well. Dvořák chose the “pastoral” key of F major for his work, in which pedals or drones and permeating pentatonic themes (based on five “white-key” notes, F, G, A, C, D) help transmit a rural, “simple” flavor. We should note, too, that these traits relate to American, Slavic, and many other folk traditions. Just one example, however, shows the kind of sophistication at work: the lovely pentatonic melody in the violin that closes the exposition begets the related but altered expressive theme for the cello just after the start of the recapitulation. Many commentators have singled out the nostalgic Lento as the crowning movement of the Quartet, and Dvořák scholar Michael Beckerman has drawn attention to the Schubertian quality of its endless melody. Unfolding in a broad arch that comes to one of chamber music’s most exquisite climaxes, the movement relies primarily on the simple texture of the violin or cello carrying the melody with constant undulating support from the other instruments. Occasionally the second violin joins the first in a melodic role, as at the poignant climax. The final keening of the main theme by the cello against simple repeated chords rather than the former busy accompaniment lends an air of tragedy. Dvořák bases his entire scherzo on the same theme, with a variant serving as the contrasting section, which appears twice. Kovařík suggested that the quiet high violin tune that enters shortly after the opening was inspired by a bird call Dvořák heard outside his home in Spillville. Though the exact species of bird has never been determined beyond question, the most likely candidate is the scarlet tanager. The composer offsets the cheerful main theme of the rondo finale with episodes of more reflective quality. Toward the center, one of these quieter passages suggested to Dvořák scholar John Clapham an occasion when the composer enchanted the St. Wenceslas congregation of Spillville by spontaneously playing the organ during their typically music-less morning mass. The ebullient high spirits cannot be suppressed for long and the movement ends with a plethora of affirmative phrases. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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

November 15, 2026: Café Music Bohuslav Martinů (1809-1959) Suite from La revue de cuisine ("The Kitchen Review")  November 15, 2026: Café Music The life circumstances of Czechoslovakian 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 U.S., not to mention many shorter sojourns in various places. He finally “settled” in Switzerland, where he died in 1959. La revue de cuisine (The Kitchen Revue; 1927) was the product of Martinů’s happy, early years in Paris, where he became caught up in the flood of musical activities there—the jazz craze, the irreverent music of Les Six, and the various styles of Stravinsky, whom the Czech composer greatly admired. Commissioned by Božena Nebeskâ, Martinů composed a witty one-act ballet originally entitled Pokušení svatouška hrnce (Temptation of the Saintly Pot) to a naive scenario about kitchen utensils by choreographer Jarmila Kröschlová. The scoring for a sextet of clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello, and piano not only approximated the jazz bands of Parisian clubs and cafés, but also reflected the period’s new reduced scoring for theater pieces. At the same time it answered criticisms that his earlier ballets were too densely scored. The ballet was first performed in Prague in November 1927, but it was the first performance of the suite from the ballet, now titled La revue de cuisine, that brought the composer great recognition. Performed on Alfred Cortot’s concert series on January 31, 1930, the suite was immediately accepted for publication, the publisher Leduc agreed to publish several other of Martinů’s works, and a repeat performance was requested by the elite Parisian Chamber Music Society. The lighthearted plot of the ballet concerns a Pot and a Lid, whose marriage is threatened by the Twirling Stick’s seduction of the Pot. The Twirling Stick has attempted to interest the Lid in the Dishcloth, who makes eyes at the Lid, but is challenged to a duel by the Broom. The Pot soon begins to long for the Lid, who has rolled into a corner. Miraculously, a big foot brings about the happy ending by kicking the Lid back onto the stage, enabling the Pot and the Lid to make up. The jazz-infused suite of four movements reflects the merry and sometimes satiric elements of the plot without following its twists and turns. An idiomatic trumpet fanfare opens the Prologue’s jaunty march. Shifting meters throw the introduction slightly off kilter before the main part of the march settles in. The middle movements were inspired by dances popular in Paris in the 1920s: the seductive Tango is replete with traditional mournful touches; the Charleston lets loose merrily after a clever wind-up. Another march, the Final, concludes the suite, bringing back cleverly rearranged themes of previous movements. Martinů was extremely proud of the score of La revue de cuisine, which he considered on a par with his quite dissimilar First Symphony from the standpoint of technical perfection. The difference in applying that technique, he realized, was subconscious assuredness in the case of Le revue, whereas the technique for the First Symphony resulted from conscious striving. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

< Back Giuseppe Verdi Quartet in E minor Program Notes Previous Next

SUNDAY, MARCH 24 2019 AT 3 PM BACH’S BIRTHDAY CONCERT BUY TICKETS TIMOTHY COBB, BASS Principal Bass New York Philharmonic DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA EDWARD ARRON, CELLO PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN “Kristin Lee gave a sterling performance…the performance was beautifully integrated and seamless.” — Oberon’s Grove MING-FENG HSIN, VIOLIN JOEL NOYES, CELLO DANBI UM, VIOLIN “Danbi Um’s playing is utterly dazzling…a marvelous show of superb technique” — The Strad MAURYCY BANASZEK, VIOLA PIERRE LAPOINTE, VIOLA SARAH CROCKER VONSATTEL, VIOLIN MIHAI MARICA, CELLO “Stunning Performance” — New York Times WEN QIAN, VIOLIN FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Celebrate Bach’s 334th Birthday with fourteen outstanding artists performing six irresistible Bachian classics. PROGRAM J.S. Bach Prelude from Suite for Cello in D, BWV 1012 Edward Aaron, cello Program Notes J.S. Bach Double Violin Concerto in D Minor BWV 1043 Paul Huang and Danbi Um, solo violins Program Notes J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 Program Notes J.S. Bach Prelude from Violin Partita in E, BWV 1006 Kristin Lee, violin Program Notes J.S. Bach Violin and Piano Sonata in E, BWV 1016 Sarah Crocker Vonsattel, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano Program Notes J.S. Bach Piano Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052 Gilles Vonsattel, solo piano Program Notes

May 21, 2023: Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945) Rhapsody No. 1, Sz 86 for cello and piano May 21, 2023: Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano Bartók first let on that he had written his Rhapsody No. 1—initially for violin and piano—when he wrote to his friend, violinist Joseph Szigeti in the autumn of 1928: “I simply have to talk to you. . . . I have written a minor (12-minute) composition for you (based on folk dances); and I want to talk to you about one or two points.” The same year Bartók wrote his Second Rhapsody for violin, which as it turns out was composed almost simultaneously with No. 1. The Second he offered to Zoltán Székely, a gifted young violinist who became the first violinist of the Hungarian Quartet. In his two Rhapsodies Bartók used many of the authentic folk tunes he had spent years collecting. In a long letter in 1931 to Romanian diplomat and music historian Octavian Beu, who was preparing a radio program about the composer, Bartók wrote: “The two Rhapsodies contain folk melodies from various sources. I intentionally did not indicate any source here, so I restrict myself to saying to you that No. 1 uses Romanian and Hungarian melodies, No. 2 Romanian, Hungarian, and Ruthenian.” Enterprising scholars have identified some of the melodies he used from his great collection entitled Romanian Folk Songs. Like his predecessor and compatriot Liszt, Bartók associated the rhapsody with typical folk improvisations consisting of two sections, lassú (slow) and friss (brisk or lively), and adapted the freely ornamented style, accompanimental figurations, and instrumental colors. Both first movements feature a characteristic short-long Hungarian rhythm—similar to the “Scotch snap” but probably unrelated. In the First Rhapsody Bartók went so far as to include the cimbalom (a Gypsy hammer-dulcimer-like instrument) in his orchestration, which he imitates in the original piano accompaniment. Bartók once admitted to his mother that there was something to be said for music that was pleasing and would make money by being played “a great many times, on the radio, etc.” To this end he made his Rhapsodies playable in as many ways as possible. Although both were initially written for violin with piano accompaniment, he transcribed them almost immediately for violin and orchestra. He also transcribed No. 1 for cello and piano—the version played here—which Pablo Casals played all over the world. Additionally, Bartók stated that each section (lassú or friss) of either Rhapsody could be performed separately. Curiously, not Szigeti but Székely premiered the First Rhapsody with the composer at the piano on March 4, 1929, in London. Szigeti, did, however, premiere the orchestral version in Königsberg on November 1, 1929, Hermann Scherchen conducting. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Joaquín’s Turina (1882 - 1949) La oración de torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer) October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Like most Spanish composers of his time, Turina went to Paris to study. While there he performed his already published Piano Quintet, op. 1, to an audience that included Isaac Albéniz. His compatriot advised him to look to his native Spain for material. Turina took the advice to heart, later claiming that the conversation had changed his whole attitude to music. More interested than his countrymen in pursuing the conventional (German) major forms, he sought to combine them with his Andalusian, particularly Sevillian, heritage in a style that had also absorbed Romantic and Impressionistic elements. His works in the smaller genres admirably exhibit Spanish traits, sometimes with humor and often with elegance. Turina composed La oración del toraro in 1924 as a lute quartet, dedicated to the lute virtuosos of the Aguilar family—Elisa, Ezequiel, José, and Francisco; he arranged it two years later for string quartet or string orchestra. The work’s roots in Andalusian folk music appear not only in the sounds of plucked strings, achieved by pizzicato in the string orchestra version, but in the rhythms, modal inflections, and alternating fast and slow sections. The piece also shows French influence, including that of Ravel, and even a bit of English harmonic texture—Vaughan Williams or Delius, perhaps. The bullfighter’s prayer climaxes in the slow middle section with an intensity in the high registers that seems particularly well suited to the sustained sounds of bowed rather than plucked strings. Turina condenses and varies the return of the opening section—without its introduction—now rising again to beseeching heights but without the previous intensity, ending quietly. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Three Late Songs, K. 596 – 598 May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Mozart composed three songs on January 14, 1791, just short of two weeks before his thirty-fifth and last birthday. His lodge brother Ignaz Alberti printed them early that same year in the Frühlingslieder (Spring Songs) section of the Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde (Song collection for children and their friends). This four-volume set, of which only the spring and winter volumes survive, was edited by teacher, poet, humanities scholar, and Catholic priest Placidus Partsch, who likely had the responsibility of assigning texts to different composers. Mozart’s three songs are all strophic—that is, several verses sung to the same melody and, unlike his usual practice, Mozart formatted them like piano pieces with one verse written between the staves. The remaining verses were printed on separate pages. Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling (Yearning for spring), placed first in the spring volume, has achieved folk-song-level popularity owing to its happy melody and charming storytelling images. The poem by Christian Adolf Overbeck (1755–1821) was originally titled Fritzchen an den Mai (Little Fritz, to May), referring to an appealing character Overbeck had contributed to German children=s literature. The title Mozart used stems from a collection edited by J. H. Campe, though many people know the song simply by its first line, Komm, lieber Mai (Come, dear May). The poem consists of five verses, but many modern performers often omit one or more of the middle verses. Clearly Mozart had the melody on his mind because he had just used it as the theme of the rondo finale in his last Piano Concerto, K. 595, completed only nine days earlier. For Im Frühlingsanfange (At spring’s beginning), Mozart sets a poem by Christian Christoph Sturm (1740–1786) titled simply Der Frühling (Spring). Mozart’s own title stems from the catalog he kept of his works, but the first edition bore the title Dankesempfindungen gegen den Schöpfer des Frühlings (Thankful feelings toward the creator of spring). Here, despite the strophic setting, Mozart leaves the world of childhood behind with his dramatic opening chords, a touching melody with signature upward leap and gently elaborated descent, a throbbing bass repeated note in the middle, judicious chromatic harmonies, and a sophisticated if brief piano postlude. Sturm’s poem contains six verses (ordered differently from the Mozart complete works edition as given below), but performers often omit two or three of them. Mozart returns to childlike fun and Overbeck’s poetry for Das Kinderspiel (Children’s play). The nine-verse poem was originally titled simply Kinderlied (Children’s song), but its carefree high spirits, which Mozart captures perfectly, make Kinderspiel an especially fitting title. As with the other songs in this set, singers today often omit some of the interior verses. Mozart gives the performance direction Munter (Blithely) and sets the text in a lightly dancing 3/8 meter. Little leaps and oscillations add to the playful atmosphere. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes