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KARI DOCTER, CELLO Kari Jane Docter, cello, is a native of Minneapolis, MN. She was a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, and graduated magna cum lauda from Rice University, where she studied with Norman Fischer. Upon graduation from Juilliard, as a masters’ student of Joel Krosnick, Kari entered the professional orchestra scene, which took her from the New World Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Utah Symphony, to the Minnesota Orchestra, where she played two seasons. In the fall of 2002, she joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. A lover of chamber music, Kari has been heard at such prestigious music festivals as Marlboro, Tanglewood, and the Grand Teton Music Festival, as well as on the smaller stages of Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble. She can be seen on Wynton Marsalis’ PBS series, “Marsalis on Music” performing with Yo-Yo Ma.

JONATHAN BISS, PIANO Pianist Jonathan Biss is recognized globally for his “impeccable taste and a formidable technique” (The New Yorker). Praised by The Boston Globe as “an eloquent and insightful music writer,” Biss published his fourth book, ‘Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven’, in 2020. The book was the first Audible Original by a classical musician and one of Audible’s top audiobooks of the year. Throughout the 2024-25 season, Biss will continue his ongoing project pairing Schubert’s last sonatas with new compositions by Alvin Singleton, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Tyshawn Sorey, including performances at the Frederic Chopin Society in St. Paul, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Meany Center in Washington and more. He appears with the Boston Symphony led by Xian Zhang, BBC Symphony led by Jakub Hrusa, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Biss will also join the Doric String Quartet for dates in Denmark before going on to perform with Liza Ferschtman, Malin Broman, and Antoine Lederlin in Madrid, Helsinki, and throughout the Netherlands. Biss has appeared as a soloist with some of the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, London Symphony and more. He has served as the Co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival alongside pianist Mitsuko Uchida since 2018. He served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for ten years and has been a guest professor at schools such as the Guildhall SOMAD and the New England Conservatory of Music. As author of ‘Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven’, he examines music and his own life’s journey through the lens of Beethoven’s last piano sonatas. In 2015, Biss embarked on a groundbreaking journey with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, launching the Beethoven/5 commissioning project, which has yielded a collection of five new piano concerti, each written by a distinguished composer in response to one of Beethoven’s iconic works. In April of 2024, Orchid Classics released the first volume of the recorded series, pairing Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, the ‘Emperor’, together with its companion work, ‘Gneixendorfermusik: Eine Winterreise’, by lauded composer Brett Dean, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony under the baton of David Afkham. The second volume of the series releases in October 2024 and features the commissioned concerto by Sally Beamish, ‘City Stanza’s, paired with Beethoven’s piano concerto no. 1. The three subsequent volumes will include works by Caroline Shaw, Timo Andres, and Salvatore Sciarrino with releases planned through 2026. Over the course of his career, Biss has collaborated with a wide range of esteemed musicians, from Mark Padmore to Midori. In the 2023-24 season, he joined the critically acclaimed Brentano String Quartet and double bassist Joseph Conyers for a tour of Beethoven’s late works and Schubert’s Trout Quintet. In the spring of 2024, Biss joined forces with fellow pianist Mitsuko Uchida to highlight Schubert’s four-hand piano music in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Princeton University, and Schenectady’s Union College, following an international tour to London, Dublin and at the Salzburg, San Sebastian and Gstaad Festivals. An advocate of newly commissioned works, Biss most recently collaborated with composers Alvin Singleton, Tysahwn Sorey, and Tyson Gholson Davis for his Schubert commissioning project, which he presented at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Performances, and the Ravinia Festival in the 2023-24 season. Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, Biss recorded the composer’s complete piano sonatas, and offered insights to all 32 landmark works via his free, online Coursera lecture series ‘Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’. In March 2020, Biss gave a virtual recital presented by 92NY, wherein he performed Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas for an online audience of more than 280,000 people. In 2024, Biss participated in Princeton University Concert’s Healing Through Music Series, appearing alongside author Adam Haslett for a panel discussion on anxiety, depression, and creativity. Biss is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Leonard Bernstein Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and a Gilmore Young Artist Award. His albums for EMI won the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and Edison awards. He was an artist-in residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today and was the first American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program. Biss is a third-generation professional musician; his grandmother is Raya Garbousova, one of the first famous female cellists (for whom Samuel Barber composed his Cello Concerto), and his parents are violinist Miriam Fried and violist/violinist Paul Biss. Growing up surrounded by music, Biss began his piano studies at age six, with his first musical collaborations alongside his mother and father. He studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University and Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music.

BILL CHARLAP, PIANIST Pianist Bill Charlap was born in New York City into a musical family, and began his piano studies at the age of three. His father, Moose Charlap, was a Broadway composer and songwriter whose credits included the score to the Mary Martin production of Peter Pan, as well as popular songs recorded by such artists as Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan and Rosemary Clooney. His mother, Sandy Stewart, is a popular singer who toured with Benny Goodman, co-starred on TV’s Perry Como Show and received a Grammy nomination for her hit single, “My Coloring Book.” In the late ’80s, Charlap joined baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s Quartet and he has been the pianist in alto saxophonist Phil Woods’ Quintet since 1995. He has also performed and recorded with Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, Freddy Cole, Houston Person and Jim Hall, among others. In 1997, he formed his trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. The group has recorded seven CDs including 2004’s Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein (Blue Note), for which he received a Grammy nomination. Their most recent Blue Note release is: The Bill Charlap Trio: Live At The Village Vanguard (2007). He has twice received the pianist of the year Jazz Award from the Jazz Journalists Association. For the last three years, Charlap has been the Artistic Director of Jazz In July, a six concert series at the 92nd Street Y’s Tisch Center for the Arts. He has produced several concerts for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and an evening of George Gershwin’s music at The Hollywood Bowl. “Jazz pianist Bill Charlap approaches a song the way a lover approaches his beloved. When he sits down to play, the result is an embrace, an act of possession.” -Time Magazine “Charlap scores a direct hit to the heart.” -Entertainment Weekly

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BRENTANO STRING QUARTET The Brentano String Quartet Mark Steinberg , violin Serena Canin , violin Misha Amory , viola Nina Lee , cello Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent ; the New York Times extols its “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism.” Within a few years of its formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and was also honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. Since then, the Quartet has concertized widely, performing in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus in Vienna; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; and the Sydney Opera House. In addition to performing the entire two-century range of the standard quartet repertoire, the Brentano Quartet maintains a strong interest in contemporary music, and has commissioned many new works. Their latest project, a monodrama for quartet and voice called “Dido Reimagined,” was composed by Pulitzer-winning composer Melinda Wagner and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, and premiered in spring 2022 with soprano Dawn Upshaw. Other recent commissions include the composers Matthew Aucoin, Lei Liang, Vijay Iyer, James Macmillan, and a cello quintet by Steven Mackey (performed with Wilhelmina Smith, cello.) The Brentano Quartet has worked closely with other important composers of our time, among them Elliot Carter, Charles Wuorinen, Chou Wen-chung, Bruce Adolphe, and György Kurtág. They have also been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and pianists Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, and Mitsuko Uchida. The Quartet has recorded works by Mozart and Schubert for Azica Records, and all of Beethoven’s late Quartets for the Aeon label. In 2012, they provided the central music (Beethoven Opus 131) for the critically-acclaimed independent film A Late Quartet. Since 2014, the Brentano Quartet has served as Artists-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music. They were formerly the Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University, and were twice invited to be the collaborative ensemble for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”, the intended recipient of his famous love confession.

Howard Alden, guitar "He may be the best of his generation," writes Owen Cordle in JazzTimes . George Kanzler of the Newark Star Ledger proclaims that he is "the most impressive and creative member of a new generation of jazz guitarists." And Chip Deffaa of the New York Pos t observed that he is "...one of the very finest young guitarists working today." It seems that the only thing regarding Howard Alden on which the critics have debate is whether the remarkable jazz guitarist is one of the best or simply the best. Born in Newport Beach, California, in 1958, Howard began playing at age ten, inspired by recordings of Armstrong, Basie and Goodman, as well as those by guitarists Barney Kessel, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and George Van Eps. Soon he was working professionally around Los Angeles playing in groups ranging from traditional to mainstream to modern jazz. In 1979, Alden went east, for a summer in Atlantic City with Red Norvo, and continued to perform with him frequently for several years. Upon moving to New York City in 1982, Alden's skills, both as soloist and accompanist, were quickly recognized and sought-out for appearances and recordings with such artists as Joe Bushkin, Ruby Braff, Joe Williams, Warren Vache` and Woody Herman. He has continued to win accolades from critics and musicians alike, adding Benny Carter, Flip Phillips, Mel Powell, Bud Freeman, Kenny Davern, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie and George Van Eps, as well as notable contemporaries such as Scott Hamilton and Ken Peplowski to his list of impressive credits. Howard Alden has been a Concord Jazz recording artist since the late '80s where his prolific recorded output as leader, co-leader, and versatile sideman, has captured an artist of consistently astonishing virtuosity and originality. One of the many highlights in Howard Alden's fruitful association with Concord Jazz came in 1991 when, at the urging of Concord President, Carl Jefferson, Alden recorded with one of his all-time heroes, seven-string guitar master George Van Eps on the album Thirteen Strings . As a result of his associating with - and inspiration from - George Van Eps, Alden has been playing the seven-string guitar since 1992. The seven string guitar imparts a greater range and harmonic richness to Alden's already colorful tonal palette, as evidenced on three remarkable follow-up albums with Van Eps, his critically acclaimed duo recordings with saxophonist/clarinetist Ken Peplowski, and the stunning interplay between Alden and special guest Frank Wess on Your Story - The Music of Bill Evans . Alden also teamed up with fellow guitarists Jimmy Bruno and Frank Vignola to record a three guitar outing entitled The Concord Jazz Guitar Collective , which was quickly called by some critics "an instant classic!" Alden's recording from 1996 Take Your Pick serves to underline Howard's wide scope of knowledge of jazz literature. Thoughout the disc, one is amazed at how skillfully Alden delivers interpretations with fresh surprises. Michael Moore, Bill Goodwin, Lew Tabackin, and Renee Rosnes combine with Alden to bring exciting interplay and thrills around every corner to the ten standard and lesser known gems hand picked for this recording. Released in honor of Concord's 25th anniversary was a duo recording with Jimmy Bruno, Full Circle teamed with the very first Concord recording Jazz/ Concord featuring Herb Ellis and Joe Pass. Howard can be heard on the soundtrack to the 1999 Woody Allen movie "Sweet and Lowdown", starring Sean Penn, who was also nominated for an Academy Award for his role as a legendary jazz guitarist in the '30s. Howard not only played all the guitar solos, but also coached Mr. Penn on playing the guitar for his role in the film. The London Observer had this to say about Alden's 2001 solo CD, My Shining Hour ; "If there is such a thing as a complete jazz guitarist, then Alden is it. Only a real virtuoso can sustain a whole CD of solo guitar with the aplomb he displays here." In 2004 Howard was the guitarist(and musical director) chosen for an all-star line-up commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival, touring 50 cities of the United States in addition to their appearance at the Newport Festival. The 2005-2006 season saw Howard adding his acoustic guitar voice to violinist Mark O’Connor’s Hot Swing on his national concert tour. His 2009 recording, “I REMEMBER DJANGO”, once again features his distinctive acoustic sound, developing and expanding the warm and elegant spirit of his performance in “Sweet and Low Down”. Howard’s inimitable playing has also been sought out by rock/blues/pop icon Steve Miller for recording projects and live appearances. Even country music legend Vince Gill recently said, after hearing Howard play in Nashville; “I’m meat and potatoes, but he’s the real deal!” And guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke has this to say about “Guitar” , Howard’s recent solo recording on K2B2 records; “It's the best recording of the seven-string guitar I've ever heard!”. In 2018, in addition to his solo guitar work, Howard has been asked to join multi-genre violin star Nigel Kennedy in recordings and concerts. Howard Alden was voted "Best Emerging Talent-Guitar" in the first annual JazzTimes critics' poll, 1990, and "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" in the 1996, 1992, 1993 and 1995 Downbeat critics' poll. In February of 2009, Howard was recognized as a “Modern Maestro”, one of DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE’S 75 Great Guitarists of all time! “An original virtuoso”

June 2, 2024: Mozart’s Double Concertos WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364 June 2, 2024: Mozart’s Double Concertos Scarcely anything is known about the circumstances surrounding the composition of Mozart’s glorious Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola. In the voluminous Mozart correspondence there is no mention of any impending occasion, soloists for whom it was written, or performances that took place. The work was almost certainly completed in the summer of 1779 while Mozart was in Salzburg, having recently returned from a trip to Mannheim and Paris. No dated autograph source survives for scholarly reference, only a sketch of part of the first movement and some cadenza material. Modern editions must rely principally upon the first edition published in 1801 by Johann André. Many have guessed that Mozart had himself in mind as the viola soloist. He had switched allegiance from the violin during this Salzburg period, much to his father Leopold’s chagrin. One can only be thankful that the circumstances did arise for Mozart to compose this glorious work, which the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein went so far as to call “Mozart’s crowning achievement in the field of the violin concerto.” Though the Sinfonia concertante is scored like many earlier concertos for strings with oboes and horns, the orchestral writing is much richer. There are many passages for divided violas, extensive separation of the cello and bass parts, and the inclusion of the soloists in the many of the orchestral tuttis (ensemble sections). Furthermore, Mozart originally required the solo viola to be tuned a half-step higher than normal, to give it a brightness that made it stand out from the orchestral violas. Thus, though the work is in E-flat, the solo viola part was notated in D major. (Nowadays, however, the violist often elects to perform the solo part without this scordatura, or unusual tuning.) Mozart’s use of the marking maestoso (majestic) was infrequent; it colors the whole sonority of the first movement. Other unusual features of this sonata form movement are the use of a long, thrilling crescendo known as a “Mannheim crescendo”—used by Mozart in the Figaro Overture but seldom elsewhere—and the eloquent semi-recitatives that open the development. The poignant slow movement is in the older sonata form in which the second part closely follows the material of the first, except for the traditional alterations in the harmonic scheme; this framework was closer to a binary than ternary form. Each successive antiphonal phrase of the soloists seems to outdo the previous in expressiveness. For his Presto finale Mozart employed a sonata rondo without a development—or if there is a development, it lasts only four measures after which an exact recapitulation begins. Here the soloists enter with the main theme in the subdominant, a rare device for Mozart, but one later favored by Schubert. This coupled with other unexpected events, such as the very first entrance of the soloists, contribute to an exhilarating movement rich in inventiveness. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 30, 2022: EMERSON STRING QUARTET DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat, Op. 133 October 30, 2022: EMERSON STRING QUARTET Toward the end of his life, Shostakovich was beset by multiple health problems—loss of feeling and mobility in his limbs, a heart attack, a broken ankle—all of which brought his performing career to an end and curtailed many of his civic activities. With sadly more time on his hands, lengthy hospital stays, and deaths of people in his circle, he began thinking more about his own mortality. Many of his late works—the vocal cycles, Symphony No. 14, and the last four string quartets—reflect this preoccupation by plumbing new depths. While living at the Composers’ Union retreat at Repino, Shostakovich wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman on March 9, 1968, that he constantly feared he would die and leave whatever piece he was working on incomplete. Just two days later he finished his String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major and wrote to the first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, Dmitry Tsïganov, whose birthday was March 12, asking him to accept the dedication. Two years earlier he had dedicated his Eleventh Quartet to the memory of Vasily Shirinsky, second violinist of the Quartet until his death in 1965, and thus Shostakovich was continuing his plan of writing a quartet for each member of the group that had premiered most of his quartets. Shostakovich was quite pleased with the work, reportedly answering Tsïganov’s question about whether it was “chamber” in its proportions by saying, “No, no—it’s a symphony, a symphony.” The Beethoven Quartet gave the private premiere on June 14, 1968, at the first creative convocation of the new secretariat of the Russian Composers’ Union. Shostakovich commented on the magnificence of the performance, and the favorable reaction of musicians in attendance made its way into the press in advance of the public premiere in Moscow on September 14. The audience at both performances recognized a newness of form and language in the Twelfth Quartet, in particular its reliance on twelve-tone themes. Though Shostakovich was well-aware of the avant-garde tendencies of his younger colleagues and had occasionally incorporated twelve-tone rows himself, he was now using them in a new way to suit his own purposes. He described his approach to twelve-tone writing in a remarkable encapsulation of his ideals just before the private premiere: As far as the use of strictly technical devices from such musical “systems” as dodecaphony or aleatory is concerned . . . everything in good measure. If, let’s say, a composer sets himself the obligatory task of writing dodecaphonic music, then he artificially limits his possibilities, his ideas. The use of elements from these complex systems is fully justified if it is dictated by the concept of the composition. . . . You know, to a certain extent I think the formula “the end justifies the means” is valid in music. All means? All of them, if they contribute to the end objective. What makes Shostakovich’s use of twelve-tone material in the Twelfth Quartet so fascinating is the way in which he juxtaposes it with the work’s tonal anchor of D-flat major. One might expect the twelve-tone writing to sound antagonistic and be settled by the reassurance of tonality, but Shostakovich’s D-flat major passages seem instead to explore other realms that are at times anguished, brutal, or drained of enjoyment. Laid out unconventionally in two movements with the second much longer than the first, the work opens with a wandering twelve-tone gesture in the cello, which is treated along with other dodecaphic fragments as a delineating device rather according to the “rules” of serial technique. The answering, low-register D-flat music with its oscillating rising patterns sounds sorrowfully contemplative and searching. Another twelve-tone utterance, now in the first violin, brings on a kind of waltz that is far-removed from a glittering social occasion, and yet another twelve-tone fragment introduces an idea characterized by staccato repeated notes. These ideas become joined or layered in myriad ingenious ways with the twelve-tone interjections serving as points of departure. The hushed, fragmented ending still seems in search of closure despite its D-flat fade-out. The huge second movement takes on the symphonic proportions and sonorities Shostakovich suggested in his remarks to Tsïganov. He rolls several movement-like sections into one, beginning with an almost savage mixed-meter “scherzo” that is pierced by individual trills and a jabbing melodic idea begun by the cello. Eventually the tumult dies away with a somber cello recitative that initiates a “slow movement” (Adagio) comprised of funereal chanting juxtaposed with searing melodic lines of great pathos. A striking, insistent pizzicato solo by the first violin based on first-movement figures launches a remarkable section that further develops materials from the entire work. Shostakovich combines motives and textures from the scherzo and the Adagio, and at a climactic point has the lower strings play dense pizzicato chords containing all twelve pitches. A brief revisiting of the Adagio’s sustained pathos brings a return to the first movement’s contemplative sorrow as if “ending with the beginning.” Shostakovich has more to say, however, and revs up the music of the “scherzo” to drive relentlessly to the conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

ORION WEISS, PIANO One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). With a warmth to his playing that outwardly reflects his engaging personality, Weiss’s “delicate, even fingerwork” (Washington Classical Review) and “head-spinning range of colors” (Chicago Tribune) have dazzled audiences around the world. He has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic. In February of 2025, Weiss released Arc III, the final album in his recital trilogy, on First Hand Records. Weiss’s 24-25 performance schedule includes engagements with violinist James Ehnes, who joins Weiss for a return to London’s Wigmore Hall and for performances of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Seattle. Among numerous engagements with U.S. orchestras, Weiss makes his David Geffen Hall debut in New York with the American Symphony Orchestra. He performs Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Newport Classical in Rhode Island, among other recitals. He is featured in performances at Italy’s Teatro Marrucino Biglietteria and in the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis, on a tour with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at LaMusica Chamber Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Weiss also tours Japan, playing the complete Brahms Violin Sonatas with Akiko Suwanai and performs the complete Grieg Sonatas with James Ehnes in Bergen, Norway. Over the last year, Weiss made his return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, and debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra, led by Ken-David Masur. He also toured the United States and Asia with violinist Augustin Hadelich and performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with Augustin Hadelich, as well as fellow violinists William Hagen and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared at venues and festivals including the Ravinia Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), the Edinburgh International Festival, the Schubert Club, Hong Kong Premiere Performances, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Denver Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, the 92nd Street Y, and at summer music festivals including Bard, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Bravo! Vail, Sunriver, and Grand Teton, among many others. Other highlights from Weiss’s recent seasons include a live-stream with the Minnesota Orchestra; a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, the first two installments of his critically acclaimed Arc recital trilogy; a recording of Korngold’s Left Hand concerto and other works with Leon Botstein and TON; and recordings of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta. Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels on recordings such as The Piano Protagonists with The Orchestra Now, led by Leon Botstein; a disc of Scarlatti Sonatas for Naxos; a solo recital disc of Bartók, Dvorák, and Prokofiev; Brahms Sonatas with violinist Arnaud Sussmann; a solo recital album of J.S. Bach, Scriabin, Mozart, and Carter; and a recital disc with cellist Julie Albers. In March 2022, First Hand Records released the first album of Weiss’s Arc Trilogy – Arc I: Granados, Janáček, Scriabin – a recording exploring the omens and tension of the period preceding World War I. Gramophone Magazine praised the album as “expansive, colorful, and texturally varied.” Arc II, featuring the music of Ravel, Brahms, and Shostakovich, was released in November 2022. Arc III, featuring works by Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Dohnányi, Ligeti, and Talma, was released in February 2025 and called a “a worthy successor to the distinguished predecessors” by Gramophone. Over recent years, Weiss has also raised his profile through video, assembling a broad and growing YouTube videography that includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the Op. 39 Rachmaninoff etudes, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, among many others. In the summer of 2011, Weiss made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in summer concerts with the New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Itzhak Perlman. Weiss’s list of awards includes the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005, Weiss made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. From 2002-2004, he was a member of Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). A native of Lyndhurst, Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program through high school, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, and Sergei Babayan. His other teachers include Joseph Kalichstein, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The next month, with less than 24 hours notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was immediately invited to return for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto that October. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax. Learn more www.orionweiss.com .

JOEL NOYES, CELLO Joel Noyes is Assistant Principal Cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and is also very much in demand as chamber musician and recitalist. He regularly appears at the most prestigious concert halls throughout North America, and in 2018 alone his performing schedule will bring him from New York to Norway to China and across the U.S. He performed with Renee Fleming in the opening night concert of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and has been seen there many times since as part of the Musicians from the Met chamber series. He has been featured at festivals including Marlboro Music, La Jolla Summerfest, Strings Music Festival of Steamboat Springs, and serves as principal cellist of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. He has also collaborated with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, including members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Vermeer Quartets. Along with fulfilling the demanding schedule at the Met Opera, at various times in his orchestral career Joel has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Born into a musical family in the state of Maine, he began playing the cello at the age of three under the tutelage of his father. Joel graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with David Soyer. His other teachers have included Richard Aaron at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet. A versatile musician, Joel composes his own music, has played Egyptian music in a band in New York, has performed on CBS’ Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and has participated in numerous movie soundtracks.

October 30, 2022: EMERSON STRING QUARTET JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36 October 30, 2022: EMERSON STRING QUARTET Brahms’s Sextet in G major might be called his “Agathe” Sextet, because it is linked, whether as a salve to his conscience or as a farewell, to Agathe von Siebold, whom he had recently loved but rejected. Brahms wove a musical spelling of her name (or as close as he could get) into the continuation of the first movement’s beautiful second subject. The letter T is not available in musical terms so Brahms spelled it A–G–A–H–E (H is B-natural in German). Some have argued that he spelled it A–G–A–D–E, with the D coming out because it is so prominent in another voice, and that A–G–D is woven in elsewhere as well. In any case, the Sextet is a lovely tribute, though perhaps not as “Romantic” as, and certainly less exuberant than, the first Sextet in B-flat. The whole Sextet, in fact, has a veiled or mysterious quality, projected from the outset by the chromatically juxtaposed rising fifths of the first subject and the continuous oscillating half step of the viola accompaniment. The interval of a fifth and its inversion, the fourth, are thematically important to all four movements. The second movement is the Scherzo, but a scherzo in 2/4 rather than the customary triple meter. Brahms breaks into triple meter for the Presto giocoso trio, which is a thematic outgrowth of the Scherzo theme. The slow movement unfolds as a theme and variations, a form that held great fascination for Brahms ever since his student days with Eduard Marxsen. Brahms’s obvious examples in the form are his Haydn, Handel, Paganini, and Schumann variations and Fourth Symphony finale, but he also used variations frequently in his chamber music. The work ends with a turbulent sonata-rondo, in which the interval of a fifth is particularly exploited in the second theme. Brahms completed the first three movements in September of 1864 and the last movement in May 1865. The first public performance took place in Boston at a Mendelssohn Quintet Club Concert on October 11, 1866; the first European performance took place over a month later in Zürich. The performance in Vienna on February 3, 1867, which is often cited as the first, drew censure from the critics and indifference from the public. Brahms’s circle, however, was enthusiastic and subsequent performances convinced the public of the work’s great merit. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 8, 2022: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Anna Polonsky, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Michael Parloff, lecturer WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 May 8, 2022: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Anna Polonsky, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Michael Parloff, lecturer According to Georg Nicolaus von Nissen (who married Constanze after Mozart’s death and wrote a biography of the composer), Mozart was contracted in 1785 by the publisher-composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister to write a series of three piano quartets. Mozart began the G minor Quartet in July that year—this is the date he entered in his own catalog for the work—and completed it on October 16, as indicated on the autograph manuscript. With this Quartet he had introduced a new genre to Vienna by adding the viola to the already prevalent piano trio combination. Hoffmeister complained that the Quartet was too difficult and that the public would not buy it. Reportedly he told Mozart, “Write more popularly, or else I can neither print nor pay for anything of yours!” Mozart released Hoffmeister from the contract saying, “Then I will write nothing more, and go hungry, or may the devil take me!” Hoffmeister allowed Mozart to keep the money he had already been paid. Mozart had already written the companion Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493, but never began the third. Hoffmeister did in fact issue the G minor Quartet in 1785, but lost money because of poor sales. He began engraving the first violin part of K. 493, but sold the plates to Artaria, who published the work in 1787. It is not surprising that Mozart’s piano quartets would have seemed unattractive to the Viennese public. Amateurs who were used to sightreading piano chamber music at salon gatherings found them too challenging. Even when the quartets had been rehearsed, the audience found them hard to appreciate because of the noisy surroundings and the poor performances at these social gatherings. An anonymous critic in 1788, after complaining bitterly about mangled, dilettantish performances, presumably of K. 493, wrote: What a difference when this much-advertised work of art is performed with the highest degree of accuracy by four skilled musicians who have studied it carefully, in a quiet room where the sound of every note cannot escape the listening ear, and in the presence of only two or three attentive persons! Like its E-flat major successor, the G minor Quartet is laid out in three movements: a large sonata-form first movement, a melodious slow movement—in this case in sonatina form (sonata form minus the development), and an exuberant rondo finale. Striking features of the G minor Quartet’s first movement include the earnest unison opening by all four players and the unusual dynamic emphasis of the second theme, grouping the subject into units of five beats. The graceful second movement, in the relative major, allows the seriousness of the first movement to abate. The piano presents the songlike first theme and the strings the second theme. Streams of thirty-second note figuration extend both themes. Mozart makes subtle alterations in the “recapitulation”—the cello in particular receives more attention. The finale turns the mood to one of out-and-out cheerfulness. Mozart clearly had a fondness for the D major theme of one of the episodes, which Alfred Einstein called “a moment of perfect bliss.” Instead of overexposing it in this movement, in which it never recurs, he reused it in the Rondo for piano, K. 485. Mozart sets the listener up for the conclusion only to divert the course by a crashing deceptive cadence, after which he winds up again for the true finish. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes