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ZVI PLESSER, CELLO Israeli cellist Zvi Plesser enjoys a wide-ranging career as a soloist, chamber music performer, educator and music director. He has been on the world stage for more than 30 years playing, teaching and promoting music in varied settings from the most prestigious halls to community settings with equal devotion and excitement. As a soloist Mr. Plesser plays regularly in his home country with all the orchestras. Since his debut with the Israel Philharmonic under Maestro Asher Fisch, he has regularly performed with The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Camerata – Including a tour to Australia and Bangkok, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Haifa symphony and more. Highlights of recent seasons include – Bardanashvilli – "Dialogues" with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Ariel Zuckerman, Gulda Cello Concerto with Israel Symphony Orchestra with Rotem Nir, Haydn Cello Concerto with Jerusalem Camerata and Paul Goodwin as well as with Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva with Noam Aviel. On the world stage he has performed with such orchestras as – Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Saint Martin in the Fields, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, Mexico National Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra to name a few, under conductors such as – Zubin Mehta, Sir Neville Merriner, Sergiu Comissiona, Karl Heinz Steffens, Steven Sloan, Duncan Ward, Omer Meir Welber and many more. Mr. Plesser devotes much of his time to chamber music. He has played in various chamber music groups throughout the years – the Huberman Quartet and Concertante Chamber Ensemble. In past season he has performed in some of the world's leading stages such as Paris Champs-Elysees, Musee du Louvre and Salle Pleyel, Vienna Konzerthouse, Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall in New York, London Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre among others. He is frequently invited to music festivals around the world including – Four Seasons Festival, Mayfest in the US, Utrecht International Music Festival, Rolandseck, Kuhmo Festival, ClasClas and Salon de Provence in Europe as well as Le Point in Japan, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival and many more. In the years 2011 - 2021 he served as music director for the” Voice of Music in the Upper Galilee,” festival – Israel’s oldest chamber music festival. Mr. Plesser revitalized the festival by introducing innovative programs that gained the attention of both the audience and the press. In 2022 he founded, together with his friend violinist Guy Braunstein, the Mu-Zi festival. Mr. Plesser is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he studied with Zara Nelsova. His principal teachers include Zvi Harel in Israel and David Soyer in the United States. Mr. Plesser is a professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music where he served as head of the strings department as well as director of the Nazaryan chamber music program. In the fall of 2024 he will begin teaching at the Juilliard school in New York City. He has also taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses and workshops in musical centers around the world. Mr. Plesser is on the faculty of the Perlman Music Program since 2017 where he teaches twice a year in the "Littles" program as well as the Sarasota residency. For the last few years, he has also taught at the Morningside Musical Bridge summer program in Boston. Mr. Plesser has been heard on various radio and television programs and has recorded for Helicon, Kleos, Meridian, Naxos, Alpha and more. A graduate of the Jerusalem Music Center as part of the program for Outstanding Young Musicians headed by Maestro Isaac Stern, Mr. Plesser won the prestigious Francoise Shapira Competition, the 41st annual Washington International Competition and was the recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships.

DAVID J. GROSSMAN, BASS Double bassist and composer David J. Grossman enjoys a multi-faceted musical career in both classical and jazz genres on both the East and West Coasts – as bassist in the New York Philharmonic (joining as its youngest member) and Principal Bassist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, Mr. Grossman gave the West Coast premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s bass concerto Dark with Excessive Bright as part of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2019-2020 subscription season. He has also given recitals and master classes at the Yale School of Music, The Boston Conservatory, the Hartt School of Music, Penn State University, as well as numerous faculty recitals at the Manhattan School of Music (where he is on faculty), among others. Mr. Grossman has released two albums (one classical and one jazz) entitled The Bass of Both Worlds , available from his website, www.davidjgrossman.com . Also a passionate chamber musician, he regularly performs in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles Concerts at Merkin Hall, has performed at the 92nd Street Y, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, to name a few. In the field of jazz, Mr. Grossman was a member of the Marcus Roberts Trio and has performed with Wynton Marsalis, among many others. As a composer, Mr. Grossman’s compositions include Mood Swings for trombone and double bass, written for New York Philharmonic Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi, Fantasy on “Shall We Gather at the River?” , written for Thomas Stacy; and two early compositions: Swing Quartet and String Quintet No. 1 , which were premiered by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

April 13, 2025; Quartetto Di Cremona Claude Debussy (1862-1918) String Quartet April 13, 2025; Quartetto Di Cremona Debussy composed his only String Quartet in 1893 amid work on his orchestral Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune . The chamber work marks the transition between Debussy’s youthful and mature styles—bridging the academic world of his Paris Conservatory training with the dreamy, coloristic world of the Faune . In a larger sense it both glances back to the nineteenth-century heritage of Wagner and Franck and looks to the future with original and imaginative ideas that would influence the course of music. The Quartet is Debussy’s only work that bears an opus number and names a key, as if he were thinking of the weighty history of the genre. The work’s tonal center may be G, but “minor” tells little about Debussy’s harmonic scheme. The first movement relies heavily upon the centuries-old Phrygian mode on G and on D. The second movement alternates and combines G major pizzicato chords with an accelerated and chromatically altered version of the first movement’s opening motive, further blurring distinctions between major and minor. The slow movement, placed third in the order of movements, centers around D-flat, the remotest possible key from “home.” Completed in February 1893, the Quartet was premiered December 29 by the Ysaÿe Quartet on a concert that brought Debussy’s music to the notice of many for the first time. Critics initially seemed somewhat baffled—some were uncomfortable with the Quartet’s original ideas, others felt the allure of its new sounds and suspected their importance for the future. The Quartet exhibits a certain cyclicism or the reuse of themes across movements—not as distinctly unmistakable entities in the manner of his conservatory teacher Franck but as alterations of previous ideas. This creation of new possibilities contributes to the music’s fluid quality. Variants of the first movement’s main theme appear throughout the Quartet, some more obviously related than others. Debussy relied more on the motive’s rhythmic characteristics and general contours than on its harmonic scheme and exact melodic details. In the scherzo, the texture and timbre immediately strike the ear even as the thematic ideas clearly derive from the first movement’s main motive, beginning with the viola’s quickened and obsessively repeated version. The murmuring accompaniment in the next section, over which the first violin plays an elongated version of the motive, provide a coloristic effect that Debussy was to employ frequently, particularly in his orchestral works. The often noted Russian character of the slow movement probably has its roots in Debussy’s sojourn in Russia as part of a piano trio employed by Madame Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patroness. Whereas the movement indulges in a kind of Romantic-period expression, it also foreshadows the new style of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune . The finale bridges the preceding movement by opening in the same remote key and quiet mood. Recitative-like musings from cello and first violin alternate with all four parts echoing chromatic and rhythmic variants of the main motive. The bridging continues in an animated passage that harks back to the textures and rhythms of the scherzo. Debussy then launches the finale proper with an agitated theme above shifting open-fifth chords. He recalls passages of all the movements, but in altered form so they seem to evolve rather than reprise. Tempo and textural changes abound, which apparently unsettled some of the early critics. The final exciting coda offers yet another look at the germinal motive. Debussy optimistically called the work “Premier quatuor ” as if he expected more to follow. He began a second quartet the following year, primarily to please his friend, composer Ernest Chausson, who had been surprisingly disappointed with the “First.” The two had a falling out, however, and Debussy never returned to the project. The Premier quatuor also contributed to the professional animosity between Debussy and Ravel. When Ravel’s Quartet in F appeared in 1902, the parallels with Debussy’s work were obvious—such as the shadowy accompanimental sixteenth-note figures in the first movement and the pizzicatos in the scherzo—igniting a firestorm in the press about the quartets’ rival virtues. Debussy is said to have written to the younger, harassed composer urging him not to change a note of his work, but this letter has never come to light. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 19, 2009 – Jon Manasse, clarinet; John Novacek, piano JOHN NOVACEK Four Rags for Two Jo(h)ns for clarinet and piano April 19, 2009 – Jon Manasse, clarinet; John Novacek, piano John Novacek writes: American music may well force upon us the futility of certain distinctions: “popular” and “serious”, “folk” and “culivated”. Case in point, ragtime, that complex hybrid of black dance tunes filtered through the procedures of the polka, march, and white minstrel song. Classic ragtime flourished from 1895 to 1915 when a number of talented pianists gathered at Tom Turpin’s Rosebud Cafe in St. Louis. The greatest was Scott Joplin (1868-1917), whose infectiously syncopated marches conceal a solid compositional technique. Inspired by the Joplin revival of the 1970s (itself spurred by the soundtrack to the film The Sting), I found playing and composing rags habit-forming, and the habit persists. My own rags show various influences: classic ragtime, the classical showpiece, and stride (the highly embellished, virtuosic offshoot of ragtime practised by Harlem pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller). The Four Rags for Two Jo(h)ns were written at the insistence of clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu. I’m mightily grateful to them for the pressure they exerted, for they play the set with virtuosity, panache, and an uncanny feel for the idiom, and I am delighted that they’ll be recording the rags for Harmonia Mundi later this year. This afternoon, I’ll do my best in filling Mr. Nakamatsu’s spot on the piano bench. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 23, 2018: Michael Brown, solo piano; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Emily Smith, violin; Matt Lipman, viola; Nick Canellakis, cello; David J. Grossman, bass WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Concerto No. 14 in E flat, K. 449 for piano and string quartet September 23, 2018: Michael Brown, solo piano; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Emily Smith, violin; Matt Lipman, viola; Nick Canellakis, cello; David J. Grossman, bass The E-flat major Concerto—completed on February 9, 1784, but probably begun in 1782 or ’83—was the first of Mozart’s so-called “great” concertos and the first work he entered in his own catalog of works. Something about the work’s significance must have triggered the idea that he needed to maintain a record of his compositions, a practice he kept up until a few weeks before he died. He composed the E-flat Concerto for Barbara (Babette) Ployer, a fine pianist who studied with Mozart and whose talents he greatly appreciated. It was for her that he also wrote his Piano Concerto in G major, K. 453, and the “Grand” Sonata for two pianos in D major. Her father, Gottfried Ignaz von Ployer, agent of the Salzburg court in Vienna, frequently presented evenings of music and had helped to pave the composer’s way in Viennese society. By refraining from publishing the E-flat Concerto during his lifetime, Mozart granted Babette almost exclusive rights to the work. He did, however, play it himself on his benefit concert in March 1784, where “it won extraordinary applause,” as he reported to his father, and he did send a copy back to Salzburg for his sister Nannerl to perform. The work’s modest proportions in comparison with subsequent “grander” concertos later prompted Mozart to call it “a concerto in an entirely different style and written more for a small than a large orchestra.” As he had for the three piano concertos that immediately precede this work, Mozart suggested that the E-flat Concerto might be played “a quattro”—that is with string quartet accompaniment rather than full orchestra, in which version it works extremely well. History has tended to underrate this Concerto, but its many imaginative features make the work deserving of more frequent performance. The E-flat Concerto is remarkable for the earnestness of its first two movements. The tonal ambiguity between E-flat major and its relative minor in the restless first movement have even resulted in the work’s being labeled in C minor on occasion. In characteristic fashion Mozart presents a plethora of ideas in both his first and second key areas. In the first group an agitated theme in C minor does not reappear until near the end of the movement. Other striking uses of C minor occur in the recapitulation and in Mozart’s own cadenza for the movement. The slow movement presents an interesting mix of sonata and rondo elements in a procession of intimately elegant ideas and rich modulations. The marked avoidance of cadences and of the signposts of traditional form make this a “quietly revolutionary” movement—a precursor to Schubert perhaps—and add to the tally of this Concerto’s noteworthy features. The finale combines contrapuntal style and comic opera elements with great success, all the while presenting an original sonata-rondo form. Mozart’s distinctive main theme never returns exactly the same way. The second episode’s use of C minor makes a connection with the first movement as does the subsequent fugal version of the main theme in that key. Mozart’s coda in merry 6/8 meter introduces further variation both of the main theme and of one of the later themes—a witty conclusion to an inspired Concerto. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BRUCE ADOLPHE, COMPOSER Composer, author, lecturer, and performer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which has been broadcast weekly on Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child, since 2002 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe has composed several works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: Body Loops (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and string quartet); Self Comes to Mind (solo cello and two percussionists); Obedient Choir of Emotions (chorus and piano); and Musics of Memory (piano, marimba, harp, guitar). Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind, with a text written by Antonio Damasio especially for the project, in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mr. Adolphe’s other science-based music include Einstein’s Light for violin and piano, recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke on Sony Classical, and his tribute to NASA scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, which received its world premiere at the Off the Hook Arts Festival in Colorado in 2018 and was performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in March, 2019. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists, both recorded on the Naxos/Milken Archive label. Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2023); The Mind’s Ear (third edition, 2021, OUP). He contributed the chapter “The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition” to the recently published book Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. Mr. Adolphe contributed the chapter “The Sound of Human Rights: Wordless Music that Speaks for Humanity” to The Routledge Guide to Music and Human Rights (2022).

JONATHAN SWENSEN, CELLO Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was recently awarded joint First Prize at the 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition. Previously he has been featured as both Musical America’s ‘New Artist of the Month’ and ‘One to Watch’ in Gramophone Magazine. Jonathan first fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. The release of Jonathan’s debut recording ‘Fantasia’, on Champs Hill Records, an album of works for solo cello, including Bent Sørensen’s ‘Farewell Fantasia’, composed for and dedicated to Jonathan and which he premiered in 2021. The album received rave reviews on its release, including from Gramophone, BBC Music, The Strad and Musical America which printed “Swensen proves to be not just a bold programmer, but a mature artist with a bold rounded sound and the emotional chops to back it up.” Solo appearances with orchestras have included the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Douglas Boyd, the New England Conservatory Philharmonia and Hugh Wolff, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, the NFM Leopoldinum in a play-direct program, Mobile Symphony, and the Greenville Symphony. During the 2024-25 season Jonathan will make his debut with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, returns to the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra. He has made critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, with additional performances in Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Morgan Library and Museum, the Casals Festival, and the Krannert Center. In addition to his many solo appearances, Jonathan is a frequent performer of chamber music in the U.S. and Europe, appearing at the Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, Vancouver Recital Society, San Francisco Performances, La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, and Newport Classical. In 2024, Jonathan joined the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center where he performs at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, and on tour throughout the United States. He captured First Prizes at the 2019 Windsor International String Competition, 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Jonathan continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory, where he received his Artist Diploma in May 2023. Jonathan is an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium working with Gary Hoffman.

STEFÁN RAGNAR HÖSKULDSSON, FLUTE Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson, a native of Iceland, is principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and is quickly being recognized as one of the leading soloist in the country. Before winning the principal position in 2008, Stefan served as second flutist with the orchestra for four years. Under the direction of James Levine, Mr. Hoskuldsson regularly performs at Carnegie Hall and Zankel Hall with the MET Orchestra and Chamber Ensemble. He has performed under the batons of Valerie Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Essa Pekka Salonen, Ricardo Muti and has collaborated with such artists as Alfred Brendel, Yifim Brofman, Gil Shiham and Diana Damrau. Stefan can be heard and seen on live HD broadcasts with the Metropolitan Opera. One of these recordings include the 2008 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor where he collaborated with Anna Netrebko in the famous flute and soprano cadenza from the mad scene. In addition to his active schedule with the MET, Mr. Hoskuldsson performs as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the US, Europe, South America and Japan. In 2009, he was invited to be a special guest artist at the Sir James Galway International Flute master class in Lucerne, Switzerland where he performed a solo recital and had the honor of playing a duet with Sir James. Stefan returned there in the summer of 2010 to perform and give a workshop on the flute in operatic music. In March 2011, as a part of a European tour Mr.Hoskuldsson gave a series of very successful masterclasses and recitals at the Guildhall School and the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Conservatorio Real in Madrid. He is also a regular guest professor at Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Stefan is a faculty member of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. As an active soloist Stefan performed the Lowell Liebermann Flute Concerto with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 2006. He will return in August 2011 to perform Mozart Flute Concerto in D major in the newly inaugurated Symphony Hall “Harpa” in Reykjavik. Other Concerto engagements include a performance of the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York in October 2011. Stefan will also perform the Nielsen flute concerto and the Bach b-minor Suite with the New York Repertory Orchestra in February 2012. In demand as an orchestral soloist, Mr. Hoskuldsson was invited to play Guest Principal Flute with the Mostly Mozart Festival during the 2009 season as well as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the end of their 2010 -2011 season. Stefan attended the Royal Northern College where he studied with Peter Lloyd and Wissam Boustany. While in Iceland he attended the Reykjavik College of Music studying with Bernhard Wilkinson. Stefan has recorded for the Naxos label-American Classics Series.

MICHAEL PARLOFF, BIOGRAPHY Principal Flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1977 until his retirement in 2008, Michael Parloff has been heard regularly as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. He has collaborated with such noted artists as James Levine, Jessye Norman, James Galway, Peter Serkin, Dawn Upshaw, Thomas Hampson, Jaime Laredo, and the Emerson String Quartet and has performed on numerous occasions at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As a lecturer, conductor, and teacher, Michael Parloff has appeared at major conservatories and university music schools in the United States and abroad. These venues include The Juilliard School, Yale University, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, the Verbier and Tanglewood Festivals, and the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. He has been a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music since 1985. Michael Parloff is the founder and Artistic Director of Parlance Chamber Concerts. The mission of Parlance Chamber Concerts is to promote the appreciation and understanding of classical music in Northern New Jersey by presenting the world’s finest singers and instrumentalists in affordable, innovatively programmed public concerts and educational events. In recent seasons, Parlance Chamber Concerts has presented such renowned artists as the Emerson and Brentano String Quartets, pianists Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Jeremy Denk, and Simone Dinnerstein, Met Opera singers Stephanie Blythe, Thomas Hampson, Matthew Polenzani, Isabel Leonard, and Nathan Gunn, flutist James Galway, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Since 1996, Michael has also presented over 30 benefit concerts for various nonprofit organizations and humanitarian causes in Northern Bergen County, New Jersey. Michael Parloff has recorded extensively with the Metropolitan Opera for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, London, and Philips and has recorded solo recital repertoire and 20th-century chamber music for E.S.SAY, Gunmar, CRI, and Koch. To view Michael Parloff’s videos and multimedia lectures, click here .

October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann and Erin Keefe violins; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Gilles Vonsattel, piano JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann and Erin Keefe violins; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Gilles Vonsattel, piano In 1862 Brahms was seized with ideas for a string quintet of the Schubertian type—string quartet with second cello. Plagued with customary self doubts, and bearing in mind the friendly advice of violinist and composer Joseph Joachim that the ideas were too strong for the sonority of a string quintet, Brahms destroyed his first attempt, recasting it as a Sonata for two pianos in 1863–64. Brahms premiered this version with Carl Tausig early in 1864. Still unsatisfied, and heeding the advice of Clara Schumann, to whom it sounded like an arrangement, Brahms again rewrote the work in the summer of 1864 as a quintet for piano and strings. (This history brings to mind the composer’s First Piano Concerto, which also evolved through various forms.) Brahms’s Piano Quintet was published in 1865 after at least one private trial performance in November 1864; the first public performance took place in Leipzig on June 22, 1866. The Quintet has become one of the most famous and best-loved works in the chamber music repertoire. Repeated hearings do nothing to dull the sense of its power and beauty. The Piano Quintet version has attracted the most performers, but Brahms thought enough of the two-piano version not to destroy it—a major vote of confidence where he was concerned. He had it published, moreover, with the separate opus number 34b, though not until 1872, seven years after the Quintet version was published. It seems that the dedicatee, Princess Anna von Hessen, had been holding onto the loaned manuscript all that time. The opening figure, played in unison, displays a winding melodic shape that is constantly varied but recognizable throughout the work—a faster variation of the figure follows immediately in the fifth measure. Another idea that permeates the Quintet is the melodic half step, which first appears in forceful chords punctuating the rapid piano notes. All of the ideas in the second theme area treat this germinal half-step idea, often in lyrical fashion. The distant new key of the second theme, characterized by downward leaps, creates a remarkable tonal contrast with the opening section. In fact, much of the drama of this movement is inextricably linked with Brahms’s use of harmonic tonal centers. When the second theme area returns in the recapitulation, he employs an especially remote key (F-sharp minor) rather than the home key so as to delay the effect of the return, but also introducing yet another half-step relationship. In the coda, a beautiful calm passage—Brahms indulging in his beloved contrapuntal writing—suggests the possibility of an ending in the major, but this is fiercely obliterated by the minor home key. The slow, rocking motion of the second movement proves tremendously soothing after the stormy first movement. Its simple ternary form again exploits the same kind of key relationship as the first movement. Brahms also indulges in his fondness for parallel thirds and sixths throughout the movement. When the first section returns it is lovingly rescored. The Scherzo begins with a shadowy, eerie theme, only to be banished by a joyous if short-lived chordal outburst. So stunning is this effect that the motivic connection between it and the preceding staccato theme in a different meter might be overlooked. Typical and ingenious of Brahms, both of these are also related to the opening melodic motive of the first movement and its variants. Following a noble trio section with broad melody, he repeats the Scherzo literally. The ending of the Scherzo section—and thus the ending of the movement—shows a marked similarity to the ending of the finale of Schubert’s C major Quintet, D. 956, op. 163, which Brahms came to know well while he was writing his own Quintet. Again it emphasizes the all-important half step. The great English music scholar Donald Francis Tovey wrote that “the savage [half-step] at the end of the scherzo, comes straight from the end of Schubert’s Quintet, and from nowhere else in the whole history of final chords.” Brahms’s experiment with form for the last movement of the Quintet looks forward to his own First Symphony finale. Here, following Schubert’s lead, he fashioned a sonata form in which the recapitulation also serves as development, the whole being framed by a slow introduction and an immense fast coda. The jolly, folk-tinged first theme, which follows a somber introduction, again shows similarities with the opening theme of the Quintet. The Presto coda, one of the movement’s most remarkable features, encapsulates the entire movement, turning the main theme into a storm of staccato triplets and further varying the second theme. Its final section of syncopations is “straightened out” only at the very end by the forceful closing gesture. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DEMIAN AUSTIN, TROMBONE Demian Austin is principal trombonist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is also a member of the MET Chamber Ensemble, which performs regularly at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel halls. He has performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and in the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center. Mr. Austin has played on numerous recordings including the Metropolitan Opera Brass CDs, several movie soundtracks, Dialogues with Double Bass with Jeremy McCoy on Bridge Records, the GM Recordings issue of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Brahms’ First Symphony conducted by Gunther Schuller, and many recordings with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, including Strauss’ Tod und Verklarung. He can also be heard regularly on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Live at the Met Broadcasts, the Saturday Matinee Broadcasts of the Met, and on The Met: Live in HD worldwide movie simulcasts. At Juilliard he has been the Gordon Henderson Pre-College Trombone Faculty since 2009. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1992 from Oberlin College, where he studied with Raymond Premru, and his Masters of Music degree in 1995 from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Per Brevig. Aside from his career in music, Mr. Austin has a keen interest in film and has attended several intensive seminars on screenwriting.

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