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May 6, 2018: Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, violin; Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Preludio from Partita No. 3 arrg. for 3 violins & viola May 6, 2018: Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, violin; Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola Though we find precedents for Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin in works by Johann Jacob Walther, Heinrich Biber, and Johann Paul Westhoff, Bach’s contributions totally eclipsed these and remain unsurpassed to this day in invention and magnificence. Trained as a violinist in his youth by his father, Bach knew the capabilities of the instrument and expanded greatly upon them. The autograph manuscript, dated 1720, presents three sonatas in alternation with three partitas. The sonatas represent the serious Italian sonata da chiesa (church sonata) form with four movements in a slow, fast, slow, fast pattern; the partitas resemble the sonata da camera (chamber sonata), a series of dance movements, which if Bach had been writing in the French style would have been called a suite. Throughout the unaccompanied violin works and in those for solo cello, Bach showed his mastery at creating a many-voiced texture with what is essentially a single-line instrument, often by the use of double stops or rolled chords, but even more often by implying several melodic lines by artful figuration. He counted on the ability of the ear to pick out and hold onto notes in one register and string them together over time as an independent voice; one can often hear such implied voices in counterpoint, occurring in two or more registers. Whereas Bach began each of his solo cello suites with a Preludio, the E major Partita is the only solo violin work to open with such a movement. The cheerful perpetual motion of the Preludio has contributed greatly to the work’s popularity. Bach himself showed a fondness for it by transcribing it for organ and orchestra in Cantatas 120a and 29; he also made a transcription of the entire Partita for lute. The Preludio is notable for its larger-than-usual number of authentic dynamic markings. In 1999 music theorist, conductor, and composer Thomas Krämer published his delightful Preludio in E for four violins based on Bach’s popular movement, whose implied counterpoint translates well to this four-voice treatment. The present performance is adapted for three violins and viola. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 15, 2015 – Jeremy Denk, piano; Stefan Jackiw, violin CHARLES IVES (1874-1954) Violin Sonata 1, S. 60 and Violin Sonata No. 4, “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting,” S. 63 November 15, 2015 – Jeremy Denk, piano; Stefan Jackiw, violin In his four violin sonatas, as in much of his music, Ives drew on scraps of hymns, popular songs, band tunes, patriotic songs, and ballads of nineteenth-century America, familiar from growing up in Danbury, Connecticut. These he combined with his own original blend of traditional and nontraditional harmonies, “wrong-note” dissonances, clusters, and very free counterpoint. The sonatas are groupings of many individual violin and piano movements that Ives worked on from c.1906 to 1919. Definite similarities exist among the violin sonatas. All are conceived in a three-movement form and all end with a large-scale coda based on a hymn tune, played by the violin in altered form. The First Sonata , which Ives assembled around 1914 or 1917 using some materials from as early as 1906, shows an intriguing unification by key scheme and motives that neither Second nor Fourth Sonata demonstrates; the Third again uses cyclic procedures. Not only does Ives preview the key of the next movement’s opening motive in both the first and second movements, but he also emphasizes two main keys across movements. Further, he brings back the first movement’s opening at the end of the third movement, and he plays on the melodic similarities between some of his borrowed tunes, such as “Shining Shore” in the first movement and “Watchman” in the third. Other remarkable features of the First Sonata are its types of cumulative settings—unusual even for Ives—in its first and third movement. Cumulative is the apt term, coined by scholar J. Peter Burkholder in his 1983 doctoral dissertation, referring to the manner in which Ives introduces motives that he elaborates and combines until he presents the final “accumulated” setting toward the conclusion. Here in the First Sonata Ives bases his first movement primarily on the hymn “Shining Shore,” which has a contrasting middle section. He not only lets its main theme accumulate through the movement, but similarly treats a countermelody made from the hymn’s contrasting melody. Further, he begins with an introduction that returns at the end, encapsulating the cumulative setting. The slow movement, like much of Ives’s Second Sonata, draws on what is commonly referred to as his “Pre-First” Violin Sonata, which he may have begun as early as c. 1901–02 and worked on at various times between 1908 and 1913. Here, as in that slow movement, he freely varies “The Old Oaken Bucket” in its outer sections and bits of the Civil War tune “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” in its livelier middle section. The loud violin passage at the end previews the main theme of the third movement. In the third movement’s cumulative setting—even more ingenious than in the first—Ives starts to treat fragments from the tune “Work Song” and interrupts this “development” by beginning a different cumulative setting as a middle section (on the tune “Watchman”). He then resumes the initial setting and takes it to its full-blown conclusion—thus creating a unique three-part form. Ives jotted down the following colorful description of the First Sonata on his score: “This sonata is in part a general impression, of kind of reflection and remembrance of the peoples’ outdoor gatherings in which men got up and said what they thought, regardless of the consequences—of holiday celebrations and camp meetings in the [18]80s and 90s—suggesting some of the songs, tunes, and hymns, together with some of the sounds of nature joining in from the mountains in some of the old Connecticut farm towns. “The first movement may, in a way, suggest something that nature and human nature would sing out to each other—sometimes. The second movement, a mood when ‘The Old Oaken Bucket’ and ‘Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching’ would come over the hills, trying to relive the sadness of the old Civil War Days. And the third movement, the hymns and the actions at the farmers’ camp meeting inciting them to ‘work for the night is coming.’” * * * Ives assembled the material of the Fourth Sonata between 1911 and 1916. It was the only violin sonata for which he actually supervised publication: he had it privately lithographed in 1914–15 in a four-movement version. It was later republished in 1942, without the fourth movement and with certain revisions of the other movements. The omitted movement became the finale of the Second Sonata. The Fourth Sonata, Ives said, was “an attempt to write a sonata which Moss White, then about twelve years old, could play. The first movement kept to this idea fairly well, but the second got away from it, and the third got in between. Moss White couldn’t play the last two and neither could his teacher.” The 1942 publication provided Ives’s vivid commentary on the work, taken “mostly from remarks written on the back of some of the old music manuscripts,” which is quoted extensively here for his unique description of his own childhood experiences and how they influenced the work’s construction: “This sonata . . . called ‘Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting’ . . . is shorter than the other violin sonatas, and a few of its parts and suggested themes were used in organ and other earlier pieces. The subject matter is a kind of reflection, remembrance, expression, etc., of the children’s services at the outdoor summer camp meetings held around Danbury and in many of the farm towns in Connecticut, in the [18]70s, 80s, and 90s. . . . “The first movement (which was sometimes played last and the last first)—was suggested by an actual happening at one of these services. The children, especially the boys, liked to get up and join in the marching kind of hymns. And as these meetings were ‘outdoor,’ the ‘march’ sometimes became a real one. One day Lowell Mason’s ‘Work for the Night Is Coming’ got the boys going and keeping on between services. . . . In this movement . . . the postlude organ practice [Ives was an accomplished organist] . . . and the boys’ fast march got to going together, even joining in each others’ sounds, and the loudest singers and also those with the best voices, as is often the case, would sing most of the wrong notes. . . . The organ would be uncovering ‘covered 5ths’ breaking ‘good resolutions’ faster and faster and the boys’ march reaching almost a ‘Main Street Quick-step’ when Parson Hubbell would beat the ‘Gong’ on the oak tree for the next service to begin. Or if it is growing dark, the boys’ march would die away, as they marched down to their tents, the barn doors or over the ‘1770 Bridge’ between the Stone Pillars to the Station. “The second movement is quieter and more serious except when Deacon Stonemason Bell and Farmer John would get up and get the boys excited. But most of the movement moves around a rather quiet but old favorite hymn of the children [“Jesus Loves Me”], while mostly in the accompaniment is heard something trying to reflect the outdoor sounds of nature on those summer days—the west wind in the pines and oaks, the running brook—sometimes quite loudly—and maybe towards evening the distant voices of the farmers across the hill getting in their cows and sheep. “But as usual even in the quiet services, some of the deacon-enthusiasts would get up and sing, roar, pray, and shout but always fervently, seriously, reverently—perhaps not ‘artistically’—(perhaps the better for it). . . . At times these ‘confurorants’ would give the boys a chance to run out and throw stones down on the rocks in the brook! (Allegro conslugarocko!)—but this was only momentary and the quiet Children’s Hymn is sung again, perhaps some of the evening sounds are with it—and as this movement ends, sometimes a distant Amen is heard—as the mood of the Day calls for it. . . . “The third movement is more in the nature of the first. As the boys get marching again some of the old men would join in and march as fast (sometimes) as the boys and sing what they felt, regardless—and—thanks to Robert Lowry—‘Gather at the River.’” * * * In 1914 Ives invited accomplished German violinist Franz Milke to try out his First and Second Violin Sonatas, before he made revisions several years later. As the composer reported, “He didn’t even get through the first page. He was all bothered with the rhythms and the notes, and got mad. He said ‘This cannot be played.’ . . . He couldn’t get it even after I’d played it over for him several times.” This, coming after Ives had experienced a number of similar reactions to his music, prompted him to wonder, “Are my ears on wrong?” Though they still contain challenges, his violin sonatas have long been recognized by performers and listeners alike as among the most original and important pieces of violin music by an American composer. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

EMMANUEL CEYSSON, HARP With his powerful, virtuoso playing, Emmanuel Ceysson, the “enfant terrible” of the harp, sweeps away all the clichés associated with his instrument. His infectious enthusiasm and boundless energy reveals the harp in all its sparkling splendor, in a world where poetry vies with temperament. Since 2005, he has been a presence in such leading venues on the international musical scene as the Wigmore Hall, the Salle Gaveau, Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Berlin Philharmonie, where his appearances in recital, concerto repertoire, and chamber music regularly win high praise from the press. His early career was recognized through Prizes by the Académie des Beaux-Arts and appearances in Classical Music Awards “Victoires de la Musique.” Before playing at the Met, Emmanuel was Principal Harp of the Opéra National de Paris for 9 years, where his solo passages were frequently singled out for mention by the opera critics. His unfailing commitment to his instrument has earned him the highest international distinctions. In rapid succession, he won the Gold Medal and a special performance prize at the USA International Harp Competition (Bloomington) in 2004, First Prize and six special prizes at the New York Young Concert Artist Auditions in 2006, and First Prize at the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich in September 2009, thus becoming the first harpist to obtain awards at three major international events. He was Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 2005 to 2009, as well as Professor at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot” from 2014-2015, and has taught at the International Summer Academy in Nice since 2010; he also gives regular masterclasses in the course of his foreign tours. Recordings with Naxos, Naïve, Clavès, MDG, and others include solo, concerto, and chamber repertoire, and have won the enthusiasm of the specialized press. Naïve “Belle-Epoque,” a French concerto CD, was just released, and Mozart double concerto with Philippe Bernold is to come this fall, under the Aparté label.

THE CALIDORE STRING QUARTET The Calidore String Quartet has been praised by the New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct” and by the Los Angeles Times for its balance of “intellect and expression.” After their Kennedy Center debut the Washington Post proclaimed that “Four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one…The grateful audience left enriched and, I suspect, a little more human than it arrived.” The Calidore String Quartet has enjoyed an impressive number of accolades, including their most recent award of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. The Calidore made international headlines as the winner of the $100,000 Grand-Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition, the largest prize for chamber music in the world. Also in 2016, the quartet became the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and was named BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, an honor that brings with it recordings, international radio broadcasts and appearances in Britain’s most prominent venues and festivals. Formed in 2010 at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, the quartet has also received top prizes in the ARD Munich, Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake and Hamburg competitions. The Calidore String Quartet regularly performs in prestigious venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Berlin Konzerthaus, Brussels BOZAR, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall and at many significant festivals, including the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau, East Neuk and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The Calidore have given world-premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Hannah Lash and Benjamin Dean Taylor. The Calidore has collaborated with many esteemed artists and ensembles, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Joshua Bell, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan, Paul Coletti, David Finckel, Wu Han, Paul Neubauer, Ronald Leonard, Paul Watkins, and the Emerson and Ebéne Quartets, among others. The Calidore has studied closely with such luminaries as the Emerson Quartet, David Finckel, Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, Günther Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, Ronald Leonard and the Quatuor Ebène. The Calidore String Quartet’s debut album for Signum Records, including quartets by Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Janáček and Golijov, will be released in October 2018. The Calidore String Quartet’s other three commercial recordings include quartets by Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, recorded live in concert at the 2016 Music@Menlo Festival; Serenade: Music from the Great War, featuring music for String Quartet by Hindemith, Milhaud and Stravinsky, Ernst Toch and Jacques de la Presle on the French label Editions Hortus; and the quartet’s February 2015 debut recording of quartets by Mendelssohn and Haydn for which Gramophone dubbed the Calidore String Quartet “the epitome of confidence and finesse.” The Calidore were featured as Young Artists-in-Residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today and their performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, Korean Broadcasting Corporation, Bayerischer Rundfunk (Munich), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Hamburg), and were featured on German national television as part of a documentary produced by ARD public broadcasting. As a passionate supporter of music education, the Calidore String Quartet is committed to mentoring and educating young musicians, students and audiences. The Calidore serves as visiting guest artists at the University of Delaware School of Music and has conducted master classes and residencies at Princeton, Stanford, the University of Michigan, Stony Brook University and UCLA. Using an amalgamation of “California” and “doré” (French for “golden”), the ensemble’s name represents a reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it received from its home of origin, Los Angeles, California, the “golden state.”

November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Milonga del ángel for alto saxophone and piano November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra The tango, which originated in late nineteenth-century Buenos Aires in brothels and urban courtyards, gained ballroom status through its seductive powers, spreading to Paris and other European centers in the early twentieth century. Tangos traditionally featured not only couples dancing in tight embrace with almost violent leg motions, but also melodramatic poetry sung to the accompaniment of solo guitar; or a trio of flute, violin, and guitar (or bandoneon, a square, button-operated accordion); or larger ensembles of strings, bandoneon, and piano. Piazzolla infused the tango with new life following the Second World War, though he was criticized by traditionalists for adding dissonance and extended rhythmic techniques. His style, called nuevo tango, bears certain similarities to bebop and bossa nova, while largely avoiding the improvisations of jazz. Piazzolla helped bring about the even more recent tango renaissance through his many performances and recordings with his own Quinteto Nuevo Tango, which frequently joined with jazz ensembles, chamber groups, and orchestras across the globe. Piazzolla’s tangos are often soulful, expressive pieces that retain a certain melancholy even in their most lively passages. Along the way, delightful little surprises occur, such as bits of counterpoint, glissandos, harmonics, hesitations, a suddenly sweet sonority, a jaunty rhythm, and bursts of improvisatory-sounding but carefully written out figuration. Piazzolla composed a series of “angel” tangos, memorable for their melodic inspirations, in contrast to his diablo (devil) tangos, which feature brash harmonies and rhythms. One of his first “angel” works, Tango del ángel (1957) had inspired Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz’s 1962 play of the same title, for whose production the playwright asked Piazzolla to compose some additional pieces. One of these, Milonga del ángel, takes its name from the song form that was the prototype for the tango genre. Piazzolla himself and countless others have arranged his tangos for various combinations. The saxophone sound in particular has a clear affinity with the reedy sound of Piazzolla’s own instrument, the bandoneon. A sweet nostalgia pervades the opening and closing sections of Milonga del angel, framing a slightly more agitated middle section. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JUHO POHJONEN, PIANO Juho Pohjonen is regarded as one of today’s most exciting instrumentalists. The Finnish pianist performs widely in Europe, Asia, and North America, collaborating with symphony orchestras and playing in recital and chamber settings. An ardent exponent of Scandinavian music, Pohjonen has a growing discography which offers a showcase of compositions by such compatriots as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. In the 2019-2020 season, Pohjonen makes his Minnesota Orchestra debut, opening their season with performances of Grieg’s Piano Concerto conducted by Osmo Vänskä. Additional highlights include debuts with the New Jersey Symphony performing Grieg’s Piano Concerto conducted by Markus Stenz; with the Rochester Philharmonic performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Fabien Gabel; and with the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with Jean-Claude Picard. Pohjonen makes recital debuts at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Steinway Society of the Bay Area and returns to give recitals in Howland, NY and New York City. Pohjonen’s chamber performance takes him to San Francisco Performances and Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach with violinist Bomsori Kim, to Parlance Chamber Concerts with violinists Paul Huang and Danbi Um, and to Orange County and Santa Rosa, CA, with the Sibelius Trio. An alumnus of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), Pohjonen enjoys an ongoing association with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with whom he collaborates this season in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Chicago’s Harris Theater. In the 2018-2019 season, Pohjonen appeared as a soloist with the Nashville, Pacific, and Bay Atlantic Symphony Orchestras in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488, and with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83. He performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414 with the Escher String Quartet in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Chicago’s Harris Theater; he also performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in works by Prokofiev and Beethoven with violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, both in New York and on tour to Madison, NJ, and Chicago. Pohjonen joined members of the Calidore Quartet in Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2, at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA. Other highlights of last season include a recital debut at the 92nd Street Y in New York, in which Pohjonen performed a program that features Scriabin’s Sonata No. 8 and Dichotomie by Salonen. Additional recitals took place in Alicante, Spain, and at the Lane Series of the University of Vermont, Music Toronto and at the Savannah Music Festival. Pohjonen has previously appeared in recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in San Francisco, La Jolla, Detroit, and Vancouver. He made his London debut at Wigmore Hall, and has performed recitals throughout Europe including in Antwerp, Hamburg, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Warsaw. Festival appearances include Lucerne; Savonlinna Finland; Bergen, Norway; and Mecklenberg-Vorpommern in Germany, as well as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Pohjonen has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as with orchestras throughout Scandinavia, including the Danish National Symphony, the Finnish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in Finland, and the Symphony Orchestras of the Swedish Radio and Mälmo. Additional concerto performances include the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa; Philharmonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, Zagreb Philharmonic in Croatia; and a tour of Japan with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Pohjonen has collaborated with today’s foremost conductors, including Marin Alsop, Lionel Bringuier, Marek Janowski, Fabien Gabel, Kirill Karabits, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Markus Stenz, and Pinchas Zukerman, and has appeared on multiple occasions with the Atlanta Symphony and music director Robert Spano. Pohjonen’s most recent recording with cellist Inbal Segev features cello sonatas by Chopin and Grieg, and Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, hallmarks of the Romantic repertoire. Plateaux, his debut recording on Dacapo Records, featured works by late Scandinavian composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, including the solo piano suite For Piano, and piano concerto Plateaux pour Piano et Orchestre, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ed Spanjaard. His recital at the Music@Menlo 2010 festival was recorded as part of the Music@Menlo Live series. Entitled Maps and Legends, the disc includes Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K. 331, Grieg’s Ballade in the form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song in G minor, Op. 24, and Handel’s Suite in B-flat Major. Pohjonen joins with violinist Petteri Iivonen and cellist Samuli Peltonen to form the Sibelius Trio, who released a recording on Yarlung Records in honor of Finland’s 1917 centennial of independence. The album, described by Stereophile as “a gorgeous debut,” included works by Sibelius and Kaija Saariaho. Pohjonen began his piano studies in 1989 at the Junior Academy of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and subsequently earned a Master’s Degree from Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in 2008. Pohjonen has participated in the master classes of distinguished pianists Sir András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Jacob Lateiner, and Barry Douglas. Pohjonen was selected by Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship, and has won prizes at international and Finnish competitions, including first prize at the 2004 Nordic Piano Competition in Nyborg, Denmark; first prize at the 2000 International Young Artists Concerto Competition in Stockholm; a prize at the 2002 Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition; and the Prokofiev Prize at the 2003 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition. In 2019 Pohjonen launched an app he developed for iOS, MyPianist, a practice tool for musicians that dynamically responds in real-time to tempi, phrasing, articulation, and more. It is available now on the Apple App Store.

October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Piano Trio in E-flat major, D. 929, op. 100 October 30, 2016: Wu Han, piano; Philip Setzer, violin; David Finckel, cello Schubert made four contributions to the piano trio literature, two full-fledged trios—B-flat major, op. 99, and E-flat major, op. 100—and two one-movement pieces—the early Sonatensatz, D. 28 (1812), and the Adagio in E-flat, D. 897, sometimes called Notturno. Though the precise dating of the B-flat major Trio remains somewhat of a mystery, both the B-flat and the E-flat trios are known to have been composed close to the same time, about a year before his death. The manuscript of the E-flat Trio states that it was begun in November 1827; the finale was probably completed in December. The two trios, though considerably contrasting in character, show a typical Schubertian tendency to work on more than one major work in the same genre, if not simultaneously then in quick succession. The Notturno, which may have been intended as a movement for the B-flat Trio, was also composed around that time. Outside of songs and a few operas, most of Schubert’s compositions were not performed publicly during his lifetime, though many were heard at the private musical evenings known as “Schubertiads.” The E-flat major Trio was one of the few that received a public performance, at the only public concert of his works that Schubert instigated before his death. The concert took place at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna on March 28, 1828, to an overflow crowd containing many ardent Schubert supporters who loudly voiced their approval; the concert also helped Schubert’s ailing finances. The Trio—played by pianist Carl Maria von Bocklet, violinist Joseph Böhm (not Schuppanzigh as is sometimes reported), and cellist Josef Linke—formed the centerpiece of the concert, which also included a string quartet movement, several songs, and a piece for double male chorus. Despite the success of the concert, the event was largely eclipsed by the Paganini frenzy that soon held Vienna in its grip. Schubert’s growing recognition, however, was reflected in the fact that two publishers outside Vienna—B. Schott of Mainz and H. A. Probst of Leipzig—began asking Schubert for works to publish, hoping mainly for “easy” pieces that would sell well, such as songs and piano duets. Probst eventually offered to publish the E-flat Trio for about one-quarter of the going rate for piano trios, saying “a trio is a luxury article that rarely brings in a profit.” Schubert felt obliged to accept the offer on May 10, 1828, in view of his financial situation, asking only for “the swiftest possible publication.” Schubert wrote to Probst on August 1 that “this work is dedicated to nobody but those who find pleasure in it.” On October 2 he still had to “beg to inquire when the Trio is at last to appear. . . . I wait its appearance with longing.” Regrettably, Schubert died one month before the first copies reached Vienna. Both the B-flat and E-flat trios show Schubert’s expansive approach to Classical forms, the B-flat lasting approximately thirty-six minutes and the E-flat about forty-four, which as Joseph Braunstein pointed out is longer than all the Beethoven symphonies except the Third and the Ninth. The sonata-form first movement of the E-flat Trio is built on four themes—the unison opening, which returns to signal the recapitulation and to conclude the work, the scherzo-like main theme, a more hesitant second theme, and a lyrical closing theme. One of the most striking aspects of the movement is that Schubert uses the last of these as the basis of the development. Schubert’s friend Leopold von Sonnleithner reported that the composer had made use of a Swedish folk song in the Andante con moto, and, indeed, Schubert had heard several Swedish folk songs sung by Isak Albert Berg (later the teacher of the famous Jenny Lind) at the home of his musical friends the four Fröhlich sisters. Eventually, in 1978 musicologist Manfred Willfort showed the source of Schubert’s material to be “Se solen sjunker” (The Sun Is Setting) from a manuscript “5 Swedish Folk Songs . . . composed by Mr. B.” Schubert’s use of the folk song constitutes an absorption into his own expressive style rather than a simple quotation as seen in the example below. Despite his “Scherzo” label, Schubert referred to the third movement in a letter to Probst as a minuet, which was to be played “at a moderate pace and piano throughout.” And indeed the Scherzo, which opens canonically, suggests older models. “The trio, on the other hand,” wrote Schubert, should be “vigorous except where p and pp are marked.” Its heavy accents provide great contrast to the more graceful outer Scherzo sections. Schubert’s finale is remarkably progressive in its recall of earlier movements—such “cyclic” procedures were to become common with Romantic composers. The movement has often been criticized for its length, and Schubert himself made cuts in it which he told Probst “are to be scrupulously observed” in the engraving. In a reversal of his usual editorial practice, Brahms restored Schubert’s cut material when he prepared the movement for the new critical edition of Schubert’s works, making the finale over 1,000 measures(!), and adding to the decisions modern performers have to make. The movement’s expansiveness also brings to mind Schumann’s notorious phrase “heavenly length” in regard to Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, or the quip about Schubert often attributed to Stravinsky: “What does it matter if, on hearing these works, I doze off now and then, so long as, on awakening, I always find myself in Paradise?” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 4, 2018: Yoobin Son, solo flute; Sheryl Staples, violin; Qian-Qian Li, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Eileen Moon, cello; Tim Cobb, bass; Alessio Bax, harpsichord ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741) Flute Concerto in D, RV428, (The Goldfinch) November 4, 2018: Yoobin Son, solo flute; Sheryl Staples, violin; Qian-Qian Li, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Eileen Moon, cello; Tim Cobb, bass; Alessio Bax, harpsichord If one were to compose a concerto a month every year for thirty-five years, one would still not match Vivaldi’s feat. He composed close to 500 concertos, including numerous solo concertos and many for different numbers of soloists in a variety of combinations. Of these, twelve complete concertos survive for solo flute—many reworked from other versions—and ten as chamber concertos that include flute. In addition he managed to compose solo and trio sonatas, operas, oratorios, masses, motets, and cantatas, all the while maintaining a heavy schedule of performing, teaching, and traveling. Vivaldi’s extraordinary mastery of instrumental forms and orchestration influenced generations of composers. To him goes the credit for establishing the three-movement norm for concertos. He typically cast his first and last movements in ritornello form, in which periodic returns of thematic material alternate with contrasting episodes. Dating proves difficult with many of Vivaldi’s compositions, but most of his concertos were written for the Ospedale della Pietà, the famous orphanage and music school for girls in Venice. He served as maestro di violino there beginning in 1703 and remained associated with the institution in some capacity for the rest of his life. The present Flute Concerto was published in 1728 in a set of six as Opus 10—the first collection of flute concertos published in Italy. As with most of its companions, Vivaldi adapted it from an earlier version. At several times in his career Vivaldi showed great interest in pictorial composing, most famously in the four Violin Concertos known as “The Four Seasons.” In the present Flute Concerto, which he reworked from an earlier version for chamber ensemble, he focused on the depiction of bird song—not in the type of exact rendering Messiaen would later employ, but in a charming, stylized manner. The Concerto is nicknamed “Il gardinello”—alternately translated as goldfinch, green finch, or bull finch—for its depiction of the finch in raucous and more lyrical moods, with abundant trills, repeated notes, and arpeggios. After the opening ritornello, striking for its forceful unison pattern, the solo flute gives a wonderful free bird-song impression. In other solo passages the flute is joined by solo violin, which also takes an avian role. Certain conventional musical patterns may be superimposed, but the overall effect is delightfully picturesque. The lovely slow movement avoids birdlike representations in favor of a general pastoral atmosphere, with the flute lilting a tender melody in Siciliano style. In contrast to the outer movements, the accompaniment is reduced to continuo alone (keyboard with supporting bass instruments). In between the decisive descending scales in the third-movement ritornello, beguiling pairings of flute and violin again suggest our feathered friends. The solo passages offer more twitterings, some again pairing flute with violin—or two violins—and some pitting the flute alone against the entire ensemble. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 2, 2014: Sharon Isbin, guitar ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860-1909) Asturias November 2, 2014: Sharon Isbin, guitar Composer and piano virtuoso Isaac Albéniz became one of the most influential figures in Spanish music history, creating a national idiom based on his native folk music. An amazing child prodigy, he was nevertheless such an unruly youth that he ran away from home several times, and by age thirteen he had journeyed to Argentina as a stowaway, and to Uruguay, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, and back to Spain. He later traveled throughout Europe, composing his most Spanish-sounding pieces when he was away from his native land. In 1903 he moved to Nice, where he composed his most famous works for piano, collected in the Suite Iberia , published in four books between 1906 and 1909. He died in Cambô-les-Bains, Pyrenées, just before his forty-ninth birthday. Albéniz composed mostly for the piano though he wrote several works for the theater, of which Pepita Jiménez and San Antonio de la Flórida achieved a certain success. Many of his colorful piano works have been arranged for a variety of instruments—the present Asturias is more often heard on guitar than on piano, thanks to the popular arrangements by guitarists Andrés Segovia and Francisco Tárrega, among many others. Asturias dates from the early 1890s, probably during the time Albéniz was living in London. It was published as “Preludio” in two different collections before it ended up in the collection of eight pieces that German publisher Hofmeister issued two years after Albéniz’s death. Hofmeister titled the group Suite española , op. 47, after a work that had been advertised in 1886 but had never materialized. No. 5, Asturias , was subtitled “Leyenda” (Legend). One of the many nostalgic pieces he wrote outside of his native land, Asturias evokes the beautiful Asturias region of northwest Spain. Albéniz knowledgeably suggests the flamenco guitar style by using a pedal point on an open string and broken chord figurations. The slower central section imitates the improvisatory style of flamenco singing in which Gypsy, Indian, and Arabic influences are all present. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 8, 2015 – David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953) Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 119 (1949) February 8, 2015 – David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano In 1936, after nearly fifteen years spent living in Paris and traveling worldwide, Sergey Prokofiev, admittedly “patriotic and homesick” and longing to “see the real winter again and hear the Russian language in my ears,” moved back to the Soviet Union with his non-Russian wife and two sons. Relocating during one of the most savage political and social periods in Russian history, Prokofiev was set on establishing himself as one of Russia’s greatest composers. Rachmaninov had his hold on America, Stravinsky claimed Europe, and Shostakovich had just been censored by Stalin. Prokofiev kept his passport to tour without having to petition, but upon routine inspection it was confiscated without return, grounding Prokofiev in Moscow for the remainder of his life. The late 1930s saw very few public debuts of Prokofiev’s works, save the Cello Concerto op. 58 (1938) and Romeo and Juliet (1936), both met with negative criticism. In the years following World War II, seeking to recover the Soviet “socialist realism” ideal of art, Andrey Zhdanov, the leading Soviet cultural policy maker, passed a series of resolutions affecting literature, art, film, and finally, in 1948, music. This decree stunted artistic growth in the Soviet Union until Stalin’s death, lasting out the remaining years of Prokofiev’s life. The elderly composer grew ill and deeply insecure. Much of his work had been banned from public performance, and though still composing, he hardly was living the pampered lifestyle he had anticipated returning to Russia. Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, remarkably, was permitted by the Committee of Artistic Affairs to receive a public premiere. It was debuted in 1950 by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatsoslav Richter, with the first movement bearing the quote, “Mankind–that has a proud sound.” Despite the sheer horror that besieged Prokofiev at the time of the work’s composition, the work remains remarkably expressive. The first movement, marked Andante grave, opens with a resounding call by the cello, followed by a short call-and-response folk melody between the cello and piano. A throbbing interlude brings the main theme, a cheery and flippant duet. The movement slows as the cello rings out a beautiful harmonic cadence, and the second theme enters much more heavily mechanically than the first. The second movement, a playful Scherzo and Trio, follows suit. A percussive pizzicato entrance transmutes to a complacent romantic trio section. The final Allegro ma non tanto remains timid, with melodies and chordal structure based heavily on Russian folk music. The movement lacks not energy nor drive, yet each climax, rather than developing in timbre and expressive nature, actually becomes more simplistic; sometimes diminishing down to a single note piano melody. The coda recounts the opening resonant notes of the cello in a grand duet statement, marking a turbulent and virtuosic conclusion. ©2013 Andrew Goldstein Return to Parlance Program Notes

ANTHONY MCGILL, CLARINET The winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Anthony McGill currently serves as principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Prior to this position he was associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, following studies at the Curtis Institute with Donald Montanato and at the Interlochen Arts Academy with Richard Hawkins. An experienced chamber musician, he has participated at the Marlboro Music Festival, Sarasota Festival, Tanglewood, La Musica International Chamber Music Festival, Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Menlo, Italy, and Music@Menlo. Since his solo debut in 1991, McGill has appeared with the Baltimore and New Jersey Symphonies, and with the Tokyo, Guarneri, and Avalon Quartets, and Opus One. He has been heard on Ravinia’s Rising Star Series, toured with Musicians from Marlboro, performed at Carnegie Hall, and appeared at Lincoln Center as a member of its Chamber Music Society Two. McGill has also toured Japan with pianist Mitsuko Uchida and members of the Brentano Quartet, and has appeared in concert with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

April 13, 2025: Quartetto Di Cremona Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 April 13, 2025: Quartetto Di Cremona When Prince Nicholas Galitzin ordered “one, two, or three new quartets” from Beethoven in November 1822, he could hardly have realized that he was instigating a series of works by which all later generations would judge profundity. Beethoven had not forgotten the quartet medium in the twelve years since the F minor Quartet, op. 95, but the commission gave him the impetus to turn sketches into finished works. Nevertheless, he could not concentrate on quartet writing until after completing the Missa solemnis , the Diabelli Variations, and the Ninth Symphony, so the project did not begin in earnest until mid-1824. Beethoven completed the E-flat major Quartet, op. 127, in early 1825; the present A minor, op. 132, that July; and the B-flat major, op. 130, in early 1826. The prince loved the Quartets, but was able to make only one payment before going bankrupt and joining the army. The floodgates had been loosed, however, and out of inner necessity Beethoven completed two more quartets in 1826, the C-sharp minor, op.131, and the F major, op. 135, to arrive at the five works known as the “late quartets.” It should be noted that, too late for Beethoven himself but in the proper spirit, a son of Galitzin paid with interest what was owed on his father’s three quartets into the Beethoven estate. While pestering Beethoven in 1823 and 1824 about when he would received his quartets, Galitzin was always quick to say he understood that genius couldn’t be rushed. Beethoven’s problem was not a lack of ideas, but his hectic life as a world-famous composer, as mentioned above. With the A minor Quartet, illness was a major impediment. Though he began work late in 1824, from mid-April to mid-May 1825 he suffered from such a serious intestinal inflamation that part of the time he was bedridden. Though considerably weakened, he managed to complete the A minor Quartet by July, his recovery having prompted one of the few genuinely autobiographical manifestations in his music: he included a slow third movement entitled “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart” (A Convalescent’s Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode). The opening of the Quartet’s first movement has won special comment ever since the late quartets were considered as a group. Its signature four notes—an ascending half step then a descending half step—bears striking similarity to the main theme of the Grosse Fuge (the original finale of the B-flat Quartet) and the opening fugue subject of the C-sharp minor Quartet. Some have even traced it in all five quartets. Whether Beethoven intended the motive as a unifying feature or recognized instances where he or other composers had used it previously, it seems to have been associated with painful emotions, which fits with these profound, introspective late works and particularly with this Quartet’s underlying script of pain transcended. A remarkable aspect of the first movement is how Beethoven is able to relate this motive—of which he gives several permutations in the brief slow introduction—with the distinctive opening gesture of the fast main part. Another noteworthy feature of the movement is the “double recapitulation,” the first in the “wrong” key and the second capped by an especially key-confirming coda. For his second movement he wrote a new style of waltzlike scherzo with a pastoral musette (bagpipe piece) for a trio. In this slightly contemplative dance, pairs of half steps reappear, but with a third note added, which makes the lilting main theme so distinctive. Pronounced utterances of the half steps gruffly interrupt the end of the ethereal musette. Beethoven employs the Lydian church mode (like F major, but with B-naturals instead of B-flats) to give his convalescent’s hymn an archaic, reverent tone. This exquisitely calm music returns in two equally slow-moving variations, twice contrasted by livelier music with wide leaps and trills that he labeled “Feeling new strength.” At a very late stage Beethoven decided the “German dance” that had originally followed the Thanksgiving movement should be replaced by an almost fierce march. (The original movement wound up transposed as the Alla danza tedesca in his next quartet, the B-flat.) He often seemed to require something earthy after something heavenly, or a witticism after something poetic, which is just what the Alla marcia provides. Shortly, however, the first violin plunges into the dramatic recitative that introduces the finale. This rondo—Beethoven’s last except for the replacement finale of the B-flat Quartet—employs a main theme that he had originally sketched as a “Finale instrumentale” for his Ninth Symphony. He gives the lyrical, pensive melody a sense of unrest with his agitated rocking accompaniment. Toward the end Beethoven increases the speed to a dizzying Presto with the cello playing this theme in extremely high register. Having slipped into a scintillating A major, Beethoven decided at the last phase of composition to extend his coda significantly to provide the proper tonal balance in this key for the entire Quartet. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes