October 14, 2018: Garrick Ohlsson, piano JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Book 1 October 14, 2018: Garrick Ohlsson, piano Once Brahms had settled in Vienna he naturally developed friendships with many of the musicians there, none more surprising to his old friends Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim than his new relationship with piano virtuoso Carl Tausig, a student and lifelong supporter of Liszt. Associated with the New German School, Liszt and Wagner were considered progressive for developing new genres (program symphony, music drama), innovative transformation of motives, and cyclic unifying procedures, in contrast to supposedly more conservative composers such as Brahms who favored “old” abstract forms. In reality many innovative procedures came out of both “camps” and there was more respect than enmity between the two. The so-called conservatives did, however, complain about the tendency of Liszt and his disciples toward flashy virtuosity without substance. Thus in 1862 Brahms found himself having to explain his friendship with Tausig to Joachim: I socialize particularly with Cornelius [another Lisztian with whom Brahms later had a falling-out] and Tausig. . . . who can doubtless accomplish more with their little finger than all the other musicians with their whole head and all of their fingers. Against this backdrop Brahms composed his Variations on a Theme of Paganini in 1862–63 and dedicated the work to Tausig, which explains the bravura display of finger-busting pyrotechnics. Clara Schumann acknowledged the myriad challenges when Brahms sent her a copy, calling them Hexenvariationen (witches’ variations), though she added, “I have started practicing them most eagerly.” Brahms himself called attention to their exploration of pianistic techniques by calling them Studien , dividing them into two books of fourteen studies each when they were first published in 1866. That he also assigned them an opus number, however, points to the fact that he considered the work concert fare. He gave the first performance from the manuscript on November 25, 1865, in Zurich. Even though the Variations may have been written for Tausig, Brahms himself was able to surmount their difficulties in the days when he was still practicing regularly. Brahms had been schooled in composing inventive variations for years with his teacher Eduard Marxsen, and no one was considered a finer master of the art. In this particular case he seems to have chosen his subject—Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, already a set of variations—to try to equal in difficulty for the piano what Paganini had done for the violin. The following are just a few of the challenges Brahms sets for the pianist: parallel sixths or thirds (Book I, nos. 1 and 2, or Book II, no. 1), independent meters in the right and left hands (Book I, no. 5, and Book II, no. 7), light rapid contrary motion (Book II, nos. 8 and 11), octave glissandos (Book I, no. 13), and octave gestures that are approached and left by wide leaps (Book I, nos. 7 and 8; Book II, no. 10). Brahms was more often interested, as one commentator put it, in “marksmanship” rather than “graspmanship.” In other words, he tended toward feats a virtuoso could show off without huge hands, though the graceful waltz of Variation 4 in Book II, for example, requires a large left-hand span. Some of the most miraculous sonorities come in quiet variations, such as the lovely filigree of Variation 12 in Book I, the feather-light arches with their impish grace notes in Variation 6 of Book II, or the cascading chains of thirds in Variation 13, Book II. Throughout Brahms constantly amazes in his ability to “make music” even while taxing the pianist’s technical abilities. The closing variation in each book is crowned by a coda that encompasses several “études.” The first book’s coda begins loudly, dips down, then regains power in the last section; the second book’s coda begins quietly as it emerges from the variation proper, then grows in volume and texture to the end. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

June 19, 2022 – Pinchas Zukerman, violin; Shai Wosner, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, op. 24, “Spring” June 19, 2022 – Pinchas Zukerman, violin; Shai Wosner, piano This most famous of all Classical violin sonatas arose out of Beethoven’s impulse to write a contrasting pair in which the F major Sonata would serve as the more relaxed, genial resolution to its more intense companion. Thus he composed his A minor Violin Sonata in 1800 and immediately after, the present Spring Sonata, completed in 1801. He intended to publish both as Opus 23, but owing to a printer’s error in which the violin parts were engraved in different sizes, they were issued separately to save the expense of redoing one of the parts. Beethoven dedicated the pair to his patron Count Moritz von Fries, whose home had been the scene for the famous piano improvisation duel between Beethoven and Daniel Steibelt. Though Beethoven had composed in pairs before, these Violin Sonatas are the first of his famous companion pieces of such different character, one in the minor and one in the major, carried out most notably in his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The Spring Sonata’s F major key and its flowing, pastoral qualities, especially in its outer movements, are responsible for its nickname, which, however, did not arise with the composer. The first movement’s charming main theme, which has endeared the Sonata to millions, points up several notable features, the first of which is the rigorously impartial parceling out of themes and accompaniment between the two instruments—the violin plays the melody first with accompanimental piano figuration, then the roles are reversed, and this trading off occurs throughout the Sonata. This was not always the case in most eighteenth-century works in the genre, in which the keyboard was considered the primary player. Second, the very fact that there is a great deal of accompanimental figuration—for whichever instrument—is also particularly noticeable in this Sonata as compared to Beethoven’s earlier works. And finally, the technical challenges are not overwhelming for the players, which contributes to the easygoing quality—and to the remarkable number of amateur performances this Sonata has always attracted. The trading off continues in the slow movement, whose unhurried main theme receives florid bits of ornamentation as it returns in varied guises. Certain of these ornaments, fragmented interjections, and especially the repeated oscillations toward the close have suggested bird song to a number of listeners. The briefest of scherzos presents a playful theme that delights the ear as it sets the violin at rhythmic odds with the piano. Apparently fascinated by this theme, Schumann adapted it for the Soldier’s March in his Album for the Young. The busy scales of the trio lead to the short return of the main theme, which trails off delicately. As in the first movement Beethoven employs a lyrical main theme in his finale, here as a rondo refrain between contrasting episodes. One of the movement’s most unusual features is the return of this theme—elaborately set up—in a remote key before it elegantly rights itself. Toward the end he introduces a galloping variation on the theme, and continues to vary the ensuing sequence of ideas to make a conclusive finish. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 17, 2021: Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Brook Speltz, cello; Roman Rabinovich, piano JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809) Piano Trio in G, Hob. XV: 25 (“Gypsy”) October 17, 2021: Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Brook Speltz, cello; Roman Rabinovich, piano Ethnomusicology—the comparative study of musics of the world, music as part of culture, and music of oral tradition—has only been considered a formal scholarly discipline since the 1880s. Yet the study of non-Western music dates back to the Renaissance with occasional flowerings in subsequent periods. Liszt in the Romantic period, for example, published The Gypsies and Their Music in Hungary (1859). In this context Haydn’s “ethnomusicological” activities in the Classic era prove intriguing. Haydn biographer Giuseppe Carpani (plagiarized by Stendhal in his well-known Haydn biography, translated in 1817 by William Gardiner) reported: Some years after Haydn’s establishment at Eisenstadt, when he had formed his style, he sought food for his imagination, by diligently collecting those ancient and original airs, which are to be found among the peoples of every country. The Ukraine, Hungary, Scotland, Germany, Sicily, Spain, Russia were laid under contribution by him. Though this passage confuses Haydn’s arrangements of folk tunes for British publishers with his other real use of folk tunes, it does speak to Haydn’s genuine interest in folk song. He was particularly interested in Hungarian-Gypsy lore (and their food!), a natural result of the geographical position of Esterháza in Hungary. The Esterházys’ appreciation of Hungarian-Gypsy folk music is reflected in an engraving made in 1791 from a drawing by Carl Schütz of an elaborate ceremony at the Esterházy castle that includes a Gypsy band playing off to the side. Haydn’s love of Hungarian-Gypsy melodies manifests itself from the 1760s through the 1790s. Haydn made no distinction (as in Bartók’s later painstaking work) between Hungarian and Gypsy music, using the label “Rondo all’ongarese” in his D major Piano Concerto (c. 1780) and “Rondo, in the Gypsies’ stile” (so-labeled in the authentic Longman & Broderip print) in the present G major Trio (1795). Hungarian scholar Ervin Major noted that the folk tunes Haydn used in his Finale are of particular significance for the history of Hungarian music: the dance melodies woven into [the Trio] belong to our earliest hitherto known recruiting [verbunkos] dances: among our more notable records, only the Hungarian dances of József Bengráf (1790) and four Hungarian dances in the ‘Hadi és más Nevezetes Történetek’ are of an earlier date. Bibliographic details on the wealth of information about Haydn’s borrowed folk melodies can be found in H. C. Robbins Landon’s monumental multivolume Haydn study. Some of Haydn’s Hungarian melodies, with slight variances, are paralleled in an 1805 publication issued by the Vienna “Chemische Druckerey.” The variances seem to indicate that Haydn used them as he knew them, possibly from childhood, without referring to any publication. Haydn’s Gypsy Trio was one of Three Trios, op. 73, probably the last compositions he wrote on his final English sojourn. He dedicated them to Mrs. Rebecca Schroeter, a piano student of his in London who had helped him with certain business matters and with whom he kept up a correspondence after his return to Austria. His piano trios at that time were called “sonatas for pianoforte with the accompaniment of a violin and violoncello”; accordingly the piano part is most prominent though the violin occasionally dominates as in the E minor variation in the first movement and the middle section of the Poco adagio second movement. The cello almost always reinforces the piano’s bass line. In his use of a leisurely (Andante) movement to begin the Trio, Haydn followed his old sonata da chiesa (church sonata) pattern of the 1760s. This lovely set of variations is followed, however, by an even slower second movement that presents a different harmonic world. The triplet accompaniment pattern of the slow movement continues through the three sections of the A-B-A form; a nice touch occurs in the penultimate bar when the cello alone continues the triplet motion. Haydn’s use of a leisurely movement followed by an even slower one intensifies the effect of his brilliant “Gypsy” Finale, which made this Trio an enormous favorite in England and soon after on the continent. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 10, 2010 – Emerson String Quartet SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) Adagio from String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11 January 10, 2010 – Emerson String Quartet Samuel Barber’s poignant Adagio for Strings, heard here in its original form for string quartet, is perhaps the most well-known American composition of the 20th Century. Barber conceived the work as the second movement of his 1936 string quartet. He then arranged it for string orchestra after learning that the eminent Italian maestro Arturo Toscanini was looking for American music to feature in his 1938 season with the NBC Orchestra. Barber sent his arrangement to Toscanini along with a newly composed work, Essay for Orchestra. Months passed, and the scores were finally returned without comment. The disappointed Barber assumed that Toscanini had rejected the pieces. In fact, Toscanini had been so impressed that he had memorized the works and no longer needed the scores. He premiered them in a live, coast-to-coast NBC radio broadcast on November 5, 1938. The sensational response to Adagio for Strings catapulted the 26-year-old Samuel Barber to overnight fame. The success of Toscanini’s subsequent recording of the work (its seven-minute length made it ideal for the 78 rpm format of the day) sealed its popularity with the public. Barber eventually made additional arrangements of the piece, including a setting of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) for 8-part choir. Ever since April of 1945, when Adagio for Strings was performed during the radio announcement of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, the work’s contemplative dignity has established it as an anthem of national mourning. The Adagio was also performed at the funerals of John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Prince Rainier of Monaco, and it was often heard at memorial events in the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The piece has also served as a haunting accompaniment for numerous films, including David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Oliver Stone’s Platoon. In fact, Barber did not compose the piece in the spirit of mourning or lament. Marked Molto adagio espressivo cantando (very slowly, with songlike expressiveness), he considered it to be an intimate meditation and was inspired by a short, passionate poem from Virgil’s Aeneid, presented below in a translation by Robert Pinsky: The Wave As when far off in the middle of the ocean A breast-shaped curve of wave begins to whiten And rise above the surface, then rolling on Gathers and gathers until it reaches land Huge as a mountain and crashes among the rocks With a prodigious roar, and what was deep Comes churning up from the bottom in mighty swirls Of sunken sand and living things and water . . . So in the springtime every race of people And all the creatures on earth or in the water, Wild animals and flocks and all the birds In all their painted colors, all rush to charge Into the fire that burns them: love moves them all. The arch form of the Adagio perfectly captures the poetic image of an ever-expanding sea swell, rising inexorably to a massive climax and then, having spent its accumulated force, rapidly dissipating. The piece unfolds organically from a pianissimo melodic cell first heard in the first violin. The theme weaves its way through the string texture as the dynamics gradually increase and the music ascends into the highest instrumental registers. An intense, sustained fortissimo climax is followed by a moment of silence and then a soothing pianissimo reiteration of the climactic chords two octaves below. A few peaceful transitional chords bring the music back to the original melodic motive, heard in the first violin and doubled an octave below by the viola. The musical journey ends in resignation, as the first five notes of the piece are slowly reiterated in the lowest register of the violin over a simple, sustained, F-Major triad. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2024 AT 4 PM GOLDMUND STRING QUARTET Musical Love Letters “The Goldmund Quartet are a class act…they delivered a triumphant performance — Edinburgh Music Review ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Fast-rising stars in the string quartet firmament, the Munich-based Goldmund Quartet has garnered worldwide acclaim for their deep musicality and astounding ensemble prowess. In recent seasons, they have won first prizes in international competitions in London, Germany, and Melbourne. Following the Goldmund’s triumphant 2019 tour of Japan, the Nippon Music Foundation awarded them the use of Antonio Stradivari’s matched quartet of string instruments once possessed by the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini. For their Parlance debut, the Goldmund Quartet will perform quartet masterpieces by Alexander Borodin, Anton Webern, and Robert Schumann . 2023-2024 SEASON October 15, 202 3 Lysander Piano Trio November 12, 2023 Angel Blue, soprano Bryan Wagorn, piano December 3, 2023 Brentano String Quartet Antioch Chamber Choir January 14, 2024 Goldmund String Quartet February 18, 2024 Candlelit Music of The Spirit March 10, 2024 Richard Goode, Piano Late Beethoven April 7, 2024 Jordi Savall, Conductor Hespèrion XXI May 12, 2024 Mothers Day Concert June 2, 2024 Mozart’s Double Concertos Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts FEATURING BUY TICKETS Goldmund Quartet PROGRAM Anton Webern: Program Notes Langsamer Satz Alexander Borodin: Program Notes String Quartet No. 2 in D Robert Schumann: String Quartet No. 3 in A, Op. 41/3 Program Notes Watch the Goldmund Quartet perform the first movement of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80:

February 26, 2017: Emanuel Ax, piano FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849) Four Impromptus, Opp. 29, 36, 51, & 66 February 26, 2017: Emanuel Ax, piano Between 1834 and 1842 Chopin composed four impromptus (opp. 66, 29, 36, and 51 in that order), which, though conceived as separate pieces, share certain thematic material and a basic ternary shape (ABA). For Chopin, imprompt u did not mean a piece of an improvisatory nature but rather a character piece—a common if vague nineteenth-century designation—and his impromptus show evidence that he revised his materials more than once before arriving at their final form. Chopin composed his so-called Fantasy-Impromptu in C-sharp minor c. 1834 , but decided not to publish it for unknown reasons. He himself called the piece an “impromptu,” but his friend Julian Fontana added “fantasy” to the title when he published it in 1855, six years after Chopin’s death. (An alternate version was also published from a presentation manuscript Chopin made for dedicatee Baroness d’Este.) In 1834 Chopin had not yet solidified what “impromptu” meant for him personally as a genre. He had recently published his Etudes, op. 10, and this first Impromptu belongs to that world. It also shows indebtedness to the Impromptu in E-flat major, op. 89, by Ignaz Moscheles and to Schubert’s Impromptu, op. 90, no. 2. (It has been suggested that similarities to the Moscheles Impromptu may have been a reason for withholding it from publication, but that notion is contradicted by the fact that he published other pieces modeled on those by Moscheles.) The C-sharp minor Impromptu continues to be one of Chopin’s most popular pieces. It unfolds in a simple ternary form whose outer sections feature rippling figuration from which a melody in longer notes emerges. The slower middle section offers an expansive, lyrical melody (later appropriated for the pop song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”), which Chopin treats several times at leisure before returning the scurrying opening section. He also recalls the tune in his ruminating coda. By 1837, when Chopin wrote his second Impromptu in A-flat major , he demonstrated his clear personal definition of the genre by modeling the piece on his own unpublished C-sharp minor Impromptu. Many commentators have pointed out similarities between the two in regard to formal design, texture, and details of phrase structure and motives. That this was a time of despair for Chopin, when his hopes of marrying Maria Wodziński were crushed, contrasts markedly with the effervescent atmosphere of this piece’s outer sections. The middle section becomes more ruminative but hardly brooding. Especially memorable are the cascading chromatics of the “A” sections and the harmonic digressions and melodic embellishments of the “B” section. Chopin composed the third Impromptu in F-sharp minor in 1839 at Nohant, the country estate of writer George Sand (pseudonym of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin), with whom he had by now become romantically involved. Chopin scholar Jim Samson has argued persuasively that “this piece was the single most important harbinger of Chopin’s later style” in its variation style that is built on an ostinato (repeating pattern), its march-like middle section, and the threefold variation of the reprise. The manuscript reveals that the form of this prophetic composition caused Chopin a great struggle. Some of the most striking features of the piece are the astonishing tonal wrench to the unexpected key of F major for the return of the opening theme and the amazing figuration as the theme is varied—finger exercises transformed into magical effects. The delicate, harmonically adventurous fourth Impromptu in G-flat major , Chopin’s personal favorite, dates from the summer of 1842 at Nohant, polished the following autumn/winter. It exists in two versions, one transmitted through his onetime pupil Carl Filtsch, who copied it out either by ear or from a manuscript in 1841. If by ear, he hadn’t remembered how Chopin exquisitely varied the main theme in thirds and sixths on its later appearances, and, if copying from a manuscript, he must have been looking at a version from before Chopin arrived at this imaginative stroke. Chopin likely modeled his G-flat major Impromptu, especially the figuration of the outer sections, on his A-flat major Impromptu. The fourth Impromptu’s outer sections are striking for their ethereal rising scales before certain phrase endings, the adventurous harmonies of their transition passage, and a new second theme. In the slower middle section Chopin features a singing, contemplative melody in the cello register. The sophistication of his harmonies and intricately interconnected flow of ideas make it clear why Chopin favored this Impromptu and regrettable that it has often been overlooked. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

ABOUT THE 2009-2010 SEASON 2009-2010 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Sheep May Safely Graze, BWV 208 (arr. Petri) March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano Our discussion of the present three Bach transcriptions must begin with Ferrucio Busoni, who was Egon Petri’s teacher. As a youth Busoni adored Bach above all other composers, a passion that endured throughout his life. He not only drew on Bach’s music for inspiration in his own works but he issued a monumental edition of Bach’s solo keyboard works transcribed for piano—a twenty-five volume collection plus a seven-volume set—aided by his students Egon Petri and Bruno Mugellini. So synonymous did Bach and Busoni become in the public’s mind that on Busoni’s first American tour his wife Gerda was once introduced by a society matron as “Mrs. Bach-Busoni.” This anecdote was related by Petri, a superb German pianist of Dutch descent, who began studying with Busoni in Weimar in 1901. Petri eventually settled in the United States, taught at Mills College, and authored many Bach transcriptions at Busoni’s behest. Busoni issued his Bach edition in two collections: the twenty-five-volume Klavierwerke, and the seven-volume Bach-Busoni edition. Although Busoni’s name appears on each volume of the Klavierwerke, many were edited by Petri and a few by Bruno Mugellini. Petri had expected Busoni to supervise his and Mugellini’s editorial work and they strove to operate under his principles and to emulate his style, yet Busoni concerned himself very little with reading their proofs, much to Petri’s surprise. Busoni strove to remain true to the essence of Bach’s music in his transcriptions, but inevitably his own Romantic sensibilities crept in with his addition of tempo and pedal markings, dynamics, register changes, repeats, and performance suggestions. Nevertheless, these transcriptions are rewarding additions to the piano repertoire. Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ—which appears as No. 5 in Busoni’s collection of Ten Chorale Preludes (1898) and No. 41 (BWV 639) in Bach’s Orgel-Büchlein (Little Organ Book)—has become a favorite of pianists and audiences for its poignant serenity. Flowing arpeggios in the middle voice accompany the tender, mostly unadorned chorale melody, supported by a steady “walking bass.” Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme is actually Busoni’s transcription of what was already a transcription by Bach himself. In 1731 Bach had composed the fourth movement of his Cantata 140 (Wachet auf) in chorale-prelude style with tenor(s) taking the chorale melody, surrounded by a a lyrical countermelody for upper strings in unison and supported by continuo (bass line and harmony). Thus it was a simple task to transfer all three parts to organ, which he did in BWV 645, one of a group of six late works that became known as the “Schübler Chorales” after their publication by Johann Georg Schübler in 1748–49. Busoni’s transcription for piano, No. 2 in his Ten Chorale Preludes, maintains the lilting flow in the upper line against the steady chorale in the middle voice. Turning to the first piece of the group of transcriptions, Egon Petri arranged his version of Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep may safely graze) not from a chorale preude by Bach but rather a soprano aria from Cantata 208 Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! (What pleases me is above all the lively hunt). Bach wrote secular cantatas for aristocratic patrons to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, name days, and accession days, or for academic ceremonies, and he composed Cantata 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. The lovely aria has been transcribed for countless times for various performing forces, among the first—Percy Grainger’s for band (1931), Mary Howe’s for solo piano and two pianos (1935), and William Walton’s for orchestra (1940). Egon Petri’s transcription, published in 1944 has become the best-known transcription for piano. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Shéherazade for soprano and piano March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano While still a student at the Paris Conservatory in 1899, Ravel conceived an opera to be based on the tales of the Thousand and One Nights . Well-aware of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (1888), Ravel wrote his own Shéhérazade Overture based on the legends, but the work’s lack of success when Ravel conducted it that June gave him pause, and he prohibited it from being published. Then in 1903 he was inspired to set three poems by fellow member of the Apache society Tristan Klingsor (pseudonym of Leon Leclerc), whose cycle entitled Shéhérazade had just been published. Wrote Leclerc: Ravel immediately announced his intent of setting some of my poems into music. His love of difficulty led him to choose, in addition to “L’indifférent and La flûte enchantée , one which, by reason of its length and narrative form, seemed the least likely suited for his purpose: Asie . The fact is that at this time he was extremely preoccupied with the challenge of adapting music to speech, heightening its accents and inflections and magnifying them by adapting them into melody; and to assist him to carry out his project he asked me to read the poems out loud to him. Like much of France and other European countries at the turn of the twentieth century, Ravel was fascinated with evocations of the Far East. The interest was not so much a kind of armchair tourism, but rather represented in the words of musicologist Kurt Oppens—whose knowledge of French poetry was second to none—“the decadence of a hypercivilized culture.” Worth quoting at length, Oppens wrote: Concerning decadence : all such once-fashionable catch names and slogans isolate one single element that, in truth, is common to all art. Every new style is “decadent” in the sense that it pays the price of progress by falling off from a previous achievement. Ravel’s Shéhérazade , however, is decadence with a capital D, a prototypical example of what Decadence as a movement was about. The kind of travel described in a poem such as Asie leads out of the boundaries of the self into archetypal images, a world of subconscious dreams, or eroticism and murder, a mixture that in its concrete political embodiments, led to the unspeakable tragedies of [the twentieth] century. . . . The emotonal-musical climax coincides with these words: “Je voudrais voir des rose et du sang; / Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine .” (I would like to see roses and blood; / I would like to see those who die for love or else for hate.” . . . The “I” of Leclerc’s poem does not think of dying; he is looking at death and responding to it as if it were a stimulant, an aphrodisiac. . . . Ravel’s music for “Asie” is essentially one big rolling wave, a masterfully articulated and controlled crescendo and decrescendo. (The element of control is of course non-decadent; decadent art is in itself a contradictory or dialectical proposition.) It is fascinating that when Ravel conducted these songs himself, he began with “Le flûte enchantée,” followed by “L’indifférent,” and ended with “Asie,” as in the order of the premiere, which was sung by Jane Hatto of the Paris Opéra on May 17, 1904, with Alfred Cortot conducting the orchestra of the Société Nationale. The published order makes for a more subdued ending, in keeping with the intimate love songs of “La flûte enchantée” and “L’indifférent.” Of the two shorter songs, “La flûte enchantée” offers an intimate melody—often sad, occasionally joyful—evoking the thoughts of the poem’s slave girl, who in her master’s house hears her lover playing the flute. “L’indifferent” also unfolds as a private love song, one shrouded in an air of mystery both as to the poem and Ravel’s setting. Is the protagonist Scherherazade herself seducing a young boy or is the androgenous nature of the addressee something that attracted Ravel? Whatever the case, Ravel skillfully captures the elusive, maybe dreamed or imagined-from-afar seductiveness of the poem. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Asie Asie, Asie, Asie, Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice Où dort la fantasie comme une impératrice En sa forêt tout emplie de mystère. Asie, Je voudrais m'en aller avec la goélette Qui se berce ce soir dans la port, Mystérieuse et solitaire, Et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes Comme un immense oiseau de nuit dans le ciel d’or. Je voudrais m’en aller vers des îles de fleurs En écoutant chanter la mer perverse Sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur, Je voudrais voir Damas et les villes de Perse Avec les minarets légers dans l’air, Je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires; Je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d’amour Et des prunelles brillantes de joie En des peaux jaunes comme des oranges; Je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours Et des habits à longues franges, Je voudrais voir des calumets entre les bouches Tout entourées de barbe blanche; Je voudrais voir d’âpres marchands aux regards louches, Et des cadis, et des vizirs Qui du seul mouvement de leur doigt qui se penche Accordent vie ou mort au gré de leur désir. Je voudrais voir la Perse, et l’Inde, et puis la Chine, Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles, Et les princesses aux mains fines, Et les lettrés qui se querellent Sur la poésie et sur la beauté; Je voudrais m’attarder au palais enchanté Et comme voyageur étranger Contempler à loisir des paysages peints Sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin Avec un personnage au milieu d’un verger; Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d’innocent Avec son grand sabre courbé d’Orient, Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines; Je voudrais voir des roses et du sang; Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine. Et puis m’en revenir plus tard Narrer mon aventure aux curieux de rêves En élevant comme Sinbad ma vieille tasse arabe De temps en temps jusqu’à mes lèvres Pour interrompre le conte avec art . . . La flûte enchantée L’ombre est douce et mon maître dort Coiffé d’un bonnet comique de soie Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche. Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor Et j’écoute au dehors Une chanson de flûte où s’épanche Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie. Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole Que mon amoureux chéri joue. Et quand je m’approche de la croisée Il me semble que chaque note s’envole De la flûte vers ma joue Comme un mystérieux baiser. L’indifférent Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille, Jeune étranger, et la courbe fine De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé Est plus séduisante encor de ligne. Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte Une lange inconnue et charmante Comme une musique fausse. Entre! Et que mon vin te réconforte . . . Mais non, tu passes Et de mon seuil je te vois t’éloigner Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce Et la hanche légèrement ployée Par ta démarche féminine et lasse . . . —Tristan Klingsor Asia Asia, Asia, Asia, Ancient, marvelous country of fairy tales, where fantasy sleeps like an empress in her forest filled with mystery. Asia, I would like go away with the ship which is rocking this evening in the port, mysterious and lonely, and which finally spreads its violet sails like an immense bird of night in the golden sky. I would like to go towards the islands of flowers, while listening to the wayward sea sing to an old bewitching rhythm. I would like to see Damascus and the Persian cities with airy minarets rising into the sky. I would like to see beautiful silk turbans above black faces with bright teeth; I would like to see eyes dark with love and pupils shining with joy in faces with skins yellow as oranges; I would like to see velvet clothes and robes with long fringes, I would like to see pipes held between lips all surrounded by white beards; I would like to see harsh merchants with shifty looks, and cadis, and viziers, who with a single movement of their bending fingers, grant life or death according to their wish. I would like to see Persia, and India, and then China, The pot-bellied mandarins beneath the umbrellas, and the princesses with fine hands, and the scholars who quarrel over poetry and beauty; I would like to linger at the enchanted palace and as a foreign traveler contemplate at leisure countrysides painted on fabrics in frames of fir with a figure in the midst of an orchard; I would like to see smiling assassins, the executioner who cuts an innocent neck with his great curved sabre from the Orient. I would like to see beggars and queens; I would like to see roses and blood; I would like to see those who die of love or hate. And then come back later narrate my adventure to those curious of dreams while raising like Sinbad my old Arab cup from time to time to my lips to interrupt the tale with artistry . . . The Enchanted Flute The shadow is soft and my master sleeps wearing a comical bonnet of silk and his long yellow nose in his white beard. But I, I am still awake, and I hear outside a flute song in which pours out sadness or joy in turn. An air sometimes languorous, sometimes frivolous that my dear lover plays. And when I draw near the window, it seems to me that each note flies away from the flute to my cheek like a mysterious kiss. The Indifferent One Your eyes are soft like those of a girl, young stranger, and the fine curve of your beautiful face shadowed with down is still more seductive in its curve. Your lip sings on my doorstep an unknown and charming language like a false music. Enter! And let my wine refresh you . . . But no, you pass, and from my doorstep I see you leaving making a last gesture with grace and your hips gently swaying, with your feminine and languid walk . . . Return to Parlance Program Notes