May 17, 2026: Sterling Elliott, cello; Henry Kramer, piano Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99 May 17, 2026: Sterling Elliott, cello; Henry Kramer, piano Brahms composed the Second Cello Sonata in his Swiss summer retreat at Thun in 1886. The extraordinarily productive month of August also saw the composition of his A major Violin Sonata, the C minor Piano Trio, and several songs. As he wrote the Cello Sonata, Brahms had in mind the masterful playing of Robert Hausmann, cellist of the Joachim Quartet. Hausmann’s ability to make anything sound good gave Brahms free rein to ignore certain idiomatic constraints and make technical demands, such as quick fingered tremolos on lower strings and uncharacteristic leaps. Hausmann and Brahms gave the first public performance in Vienna on November 24 of that year. Though the work is now acclaimed as a masterpiece of Brahms’s later style combined with some of the ardent pathos of his youthful works, it received a sharply negative review by Hugo Wolf, a notorious Brahms detractor, which is famously quoted in English translation by Nicolas Slonimsky in his Lexicon of Musical Invective : To write down, to print, to have performed anything like the new Cello Sonata by Herr Dr. Johannes Brahms and not to be infected by this madness is no longer a trifle—and upon my heart, I am beginning to acquire respect for myself. . . . What is then nowadays music, harmony, melody, rhythm, meaning, form, when this rigmarole seriously pretends to be regarded as music? If Herr Dr. Johannes Brahms intends to mystify his admirers with this newest work, if he wants to make fun of their brainless veneration, then it is of course something else, and we marvel at Herr Brahms as the greatest bluffer of this century and of all future millennia. Dramatic leaps in the cello and tremolos and broken chords in the piano characterize the agitated main theme of the first movement. Tremolos for both instruments turn out to provide much of the texture of the movement. Brahms constantly and characteristically undermines the movement’s 3/4 meter, beginning as early as the seventh and eighth measures as the cello leaps into high register with a syncopated variant of a hemiola (two beats in the time of three). The slow movement, with its singular marking Adagio affettuoso, is an unquiet and explosive one. One of its most surprising features is its key—F-sharp major, or the Neapolitan of the tonic F major, which led some biographers to suggest, without hard evidence, that this could have been the discarded slow movement of Brahms’s E minor Cello Sonata. Its unexpected harmonic manipulations, however, make it highly unlikely that Brahms could have written this movement twenty-one years earlier. Further, precedents do exist for unusual sequences of keys of movements—in the music of Haydn, for example, one of Brahms’s revered predecessors. Just as surprising is the secondary area in F minor. Prevalent in this movement but a rarity in Brahms’s works for solo strings is his frequent use of pizzicato (plucked strings) in high and low registers. The stormy, shadowy scherzo contains one of Brahms’s most taxing piano parts. Elisabet von Herzogenberg, a fine amateur pianist from whom Brahms often sought reactions during this period, liked the work immensely, but said that she would need to hear Brahms himself play the difficult third movement. The melody of the contrasting trio section is one of Brahms’s most ravishing. Though the trio begins in F, it again touches briefly on the F-sharp major key of the preceding movement. The finale relaxes the mood with a brief, cheerful rondo, into which Brahms slips one darker episode in minor that features sighing figures. Brahms recalls the rondo theme in G-flat major at its third appearance, surely a link to its enharmonic equivalent, F-sharp major, of the slow movement. Karl Geiringer’s examination of the original manuscript of the F major Cello Sonata (in the possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna) revealed that the last movement “seems to have been written with quite peculiar speed, as though the master could hardly write fast enough to put the rush of ideas on paper.” Such speed is entirely in keeping with that miraculously productive month of August. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 3, 2016: Ying Fang, soprano; Sean Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Jesus soll mein erstes Wort from Cantata 171 for soprano, violin and continuo April 3, 2016: Ying Fang, soprano; Sean Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord When Bach took the position of Kantor of the Thomasschule and civic music director in Leipzig in 1723, he set out to compose five cycles of cantatas, roughly sixty per year, for use in the city’s main churches. The two hundred or so that survive represent a remarkable achievement in inventiveness and quality. Bach typically chose his texts from a variety of poets, but in the summer of 1728 Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), his chief librettist between 1725 and 1742, provided him with a full year’s series of texts. This, the fourth of Bach’s cycles, is often called the “lost” cycle, because only nine survive. Of these, Cantata 171, Gott, wie dein Name, written for New Year’s Day and the Feast of the Circumcision, was most likely first performed on January 1, 1729. The Gospel text for New Year’s Day (Luke 2:21) refers to the naming of Jesus when he was circumcised, so the poet’s expansion of the idea into a multimovement cantata revolves around the importance of his name for the Christian world. In the midst of a large-scale work for chorus, oboes, trumpets, and strings, Bach writes a beautiful, intimate soprano aria with lovely violin obbligato, in which the protagonist says that just as Jesus’ name shall be the first word uttered in the new year, so shall it be the last in the hour of death. Always a judicious recycler, Bach reworked this aria from “Angenehmer Zephyrus” (Pleasant zephyr) from his secular Cantata 205 (1725), where the elaborate violin phrases depicted a gentle zephyr wind. Bach changed the basically though-composed form, albeit with instrumental ritornellos, into a ternary form by keeping the first and middle sections as well as the closing ritornello basically unchanged, but making the third section an artfully modified return of the opening section. © Jane Vial Jaffe Text and Translation Jesus soll mein erstes Wort In dem neuen Jahre heißen. Fort und fort Lacht sein Nam in meinem Munde, Und in meiner letzten Stunde Ist Jesus auch mein letztes Wort. —Picander Jesus should be my first word spoken in the new year. On and on his name laughs in my mouth, and in my last hours Jesus is also my last word. Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 13, 2026: MOZART AND SCHUBERT AT 19 BENJAMIN BOWMAN, VIOLIN MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219 (“Turkish") September 13, 2026: MOZART AND SCHUBERT AT 19 BENJAMIN BOWMAN, VIOLIN MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Of Mozart’s considerable number of works for violin and orchestra—five violin concertos, several orchestral serenades that include violin-concerto movements, some separate violin-concerto movements, the Sinfonia concertante (violin and viola solo), and a sinfonia concertante torso—most were composed in Salzburg between 1773 and 1775. It was long thought that the nineteen-year old Mozart wrote all five of his violin concertos in 1775, and though Nos. 2 through 5 belong to that year, the First most likely dates from two years earlier. Mozart may or may not have written his violin concertos with himself in mind as soloist. An accomplished violinist, he is known to have played them on occasion, as did Antonio Brunetti, concertmaster of the Salzburg orchestra. The oft-repeated suggestion that they were actually written for Brunetti seems unlikely, though, because he only came to that post in 1776. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Fifth Concerto’s first movement is the sudden unexpected Adagio where the solo violin makes its first entrance—one might have expected here a return to the main material or a flourish leading into it. This constitutes only one of the many surprises with which the first and last movements abound. The brief development is remarkable in its succession of minor tonalities. The lovely slow movement was apparently replaced at one time by another, K. 261, which Mozart wrote for the aforementioned Brunetti who “found the other one too studied.” Whether or not a vogue for including this E major movement ever flourished (it’s now often performed separately), the original Adagio has been the one played by subsequent generations of musicians. It is a more extensive slow movement than in any of his other violin concertos, worked out in full sonata form. It is the finale that gives the Concerto its traditional nickname “Turkish.” When Mozart wrote about “Turkish” music to his father Leopold, chiefly in connection with his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, he meant a certain type of music accompanied by cymbals, bass drum, and triangle, and music that made liberal use of minor keys and generally entered at a loud dynamic level. The “Turkish” music in this Concerto consists of an outburst in the finale in A minor. Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw has determined that Mozart was most likely to have encountered what he called “Turkish” music—actually Hungarian and Gypsy music from the areas close to the Ottoman Empire—through Michael Haydn, brother of Joseph, who was Mozart’s elder colleague in Salzburg. Michael Haydn had worked in Hungary and had included certain “Turkish” elements in his own music. Mozart borrowed the “Turkish” theme in his finale from himself: he had used it before in his ballet Le gelosie del serraglio (Jealousy in the Harem), written in December 1772 for a Milan performance of his opera Lucio Silla. The form of the finale is intriguing: a rondo within a rondo. The “Turkish” section is actually a little rondo in itself thus making this central episode longer than any of the others between the statements of the refrain. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

RICHARD STOLTZMAN, CLARINET Richard Stoltzman’s virtuosity, musicianship and sheer personal magnetism have made him one of today’s most sought-after concert artists. As soloist with more than a hundred orchestras, as a captivating recitalist and chamber music performer, as an innovative jazz artist, and as a prolific recording artist, two-time Grammy® Award winner Stoltzman has defied categorization, dazzling critics and audiences alike throughout many musical genres. Stoltzman graduated from Ohio State University with a double major in music and mathematics. He earned his Master of Music degree at Yale University while studying with Keith Wilson, and later worked toward a doctoral degree with Kalmen Opperman at Columbia University. As a ten-year participant in the Marlboro Music Festival, Stoltzman gained extensive chamber music experience, and subsequently became a founding member of the noted ensemble TASHI, which made its debut in 1973. Since then, Stoltzman’s unique style of playing the clarinet has earned him an international reputation as he has opened up possibilities for the instrument that no one could have predicted. He gave the first clarinet recitals in the histories of both the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, and in 1986, he became the first wind player to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize. In 2006, he was awarded the prestigious Sanford Medal by the Yale School of Music. His talents as a jazz performer as well as a classical artist have been heard far beyond his annual tours. He has performed or recorded with such jazz and pop greats as Gary Burton, the Canadian Brass, Chick Corea, Judy Collins, Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Keith Jarrett, the King’s Singers, George Shearing, Wayne Shorter, Mel Tormé, Spyro Gyra founder Jeremy Wall and Kazumi Watanabe. His commitment to new music has resulted in the commissioning and premiere of numerous new works for the clarinet, including “Fantasma/Cantos” by Toru Takemitsu, the 1994 winner of Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, “Landscapes with Blues” by Stephen Hartke, a concerto by Einojuhani Rautavaara which premiered with conductor Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, and “TRIO 2009” written for him, cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist Robert Levin by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Yehudi Wyner. Richard Stoltzman has a discography numbering over 60 releases on BMG/RCA, SONY Classical, MMC, BIS, Albany and other labels, including a Grammy-winning recording of Brahms Sonatas with Richard Goode. Among Stoltzman’s most beloved releases are “Amber Waves”, a CD of American works, and the Trios of Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, which won Stoltzman his second Grammy® Award. Recent releases include the acclaimed recordings of Hartke’s “Landscapes with Blues” with IRIS, conducted by Michael Stern (Naxos), a New York Times “Best of 2003”, Rautavaara’s Clarinet Concerto recorded with Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic, released on Ondine, an All-Bach recording, “Vibrations and Fantasies”(BMG Japan, 2008), as well as works of Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Weber (Navona Records, 2008), among others. His newest orchestral recording features William Bolcom’s “Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra” and Clare Fischer’s “The Duke, Swee’pea and Me” (Marquis Classics, 2009). Richard Stoltzman continues to be a trailblazer for his instrument and his arrangement and performance of Debussy’s “Maid with the Flaxen Hair”(Navona Records, 2009) was chosen as one of only three tracks to be pre-loaded on the new Microsoft’s Windows® System 7 release. Bach’s “Chromatic Fantasy in D minor,” “performed so persuasively and exquisitely”(Baltimore Sun), as well as his reflections on the composer, that appear in the Michael Lawrence’s Documentary Film, “Bach & friends” have been singled out as “brilliant” (Huffington Post). Live performances have accompanied screenings at the official launch at the January 2010 EG conference in Carmel, CA and World Premiere at Symphony Space in New York City (May 2010). Mr. Stoltzman’s Summer 2010 includes an eclectic mix of performances, such as a duo recital with guitarist Eliot Fisk at Boston’s Jordan Hall, a return to the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut for Mozart Serenade, and helps to open the new venue for the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Cape Ann with Jazz and Classics. The 10-11 Season includes collaborative performances with the New York Chamber Soloists at UCLA Live! in Los Angeles, CA, UA Presents in Tucson, AZ and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; several of these performances also reprise his collaboration with renowned pianist Menahem Pressler. Other collaborations include a partnership with the Klezmatics at the University of Texas, Austin, a residency and tour with the University of Northern Florida Jazz Ensemble, and Bach and Brahms in recital with pianist Simone Dinnerstein. Orchestral performances include works of Copland, Corigliano, Mozart, and Rossini. Throughout the season, Stoltzman will also continue his commitment to help bring music to children of all ages as an active Board Member of Young Audiences. Past season highlights have featured Stoltzman’s performances of Toru Takemitsu’s Fantasma Cantos with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, as well as at the composers official 75th birthday memorial tribute in Japan, Mozart Concerto performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia and at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, marking Stoltzman’s 25th appearance at the Lincoln Center festival. Performances throughout the US, Canada and Europe of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Clarinet Concerto, Duo recitals with pianists Lukas Foss and Emanuel Ax, with whom he premiered Yehudi Wyner’s “Commedia,”, as well as performances and tours with the American, Borromeo, Emerson, Orion, Takacs, and Tokyo String Quartets are also highlights. Extended residencies have taken Stoltzman to numerous orchestras including and major universities throughout the U.S. and Canada. Especially memorable are concerts of jazz and classics with his son, pianist Peter John Stoltzman. Father and Son have performed together around the globe and were recently featured on NPR’s “Performance Today” and “Weekend Edition” as well as “Voice of America” radio. For their extraordinary talent on the stage, in the classroom, and throughout the community, WGBH radio in Boston called the Stoltzmans “New England’s First Family of Classical Music”. Over the years, Stoltzman has received numerous requests for the music to the enchanting arrangements and original works that can be heard on his recordings and in live performance. Amateur and professional clarinetists alike are now in luck as they can finally enjoy this music published in two appealing volumes entitled “ARIA,” which features the music from the BMG recording of the same name, and “The Richard Stoltzman Songbook,” a collection of jazz and classics, both published by Carl Fischer. Richard Stoltzman, resides in Massachusetts and is a passionate Boston Red Sox baseball fan. He is also a Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef.

INN-HYUCK CHO, CLARINET Inn-Hyuck Cho, a native of South Korea, was just named Principal Clarinet of Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Prior to his appointment in 2016, he was principal clarinet of the Basel Symphony Orchesra (Switzerland), one of the oldest European orchestras, as well as the Musikkollegium Winterthur (Switzerland). He has performed as a guest with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Zurich Philharmonia, Radio France Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra, and the Luzern Symphony Orchestra. 
He is member of the Alma Wodwind Quintet, which won first prize in the Henri Tomasi International Woodwind Quintet Competition in Marseille, France. Mr. Cho was a laureate of the Carl Nielsen International Music Competition and Debussy International Clarinet Competition. He studied at the Korean National University of Arts and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Prof. Michel Arrignon and Prof. Pascal Moragués.

MICHAEL PARLOFF 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 .

November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra STEVEN BANKS (1993) Come As You Are for tenor saxophone and piano November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra For several years, I have wanted to write a piece that was dedicated to my immediate family (my mother and three sisters) and the influence of my upbringing on my understanding of music and life in general. When preparing the program for my Young Concert Artists debut recital, it dawned on me that there would be no better time than this to share a work that bears such personal significance. When I think back to my childhood, and especially the beginnings of my journey in music, the church is at the center of so much. We were regular church-goers, my grandfather was a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church, and the church provided us with an incredible community that was very important to my family in the good times and the bad. The church taught me about the transformative and awesome power of music. In an effort to honor both my family and the church, I decided to write a four-movement work in which each movement would be dedicated to a different family member and take inspiration from their favorite Negro spiritual or sacred song. At its core, Come As You Are is an expanded arrangement or setting of these four songs. As a more direct reference to the music played in the church that I grew up going to, the song Total Praise, which is typically sung by a choir, serves as a sort of connective tissue throughout the entire piece. The titles of each movement come from lyrics from Total Praise. The text of each song is vital in understanding the expressive nature of each movement. However, the form and melodic content of each song have been either been expanded, rearranged, or manipulated in a way that is meant to make the message clear when played on instruments that, obviously, can not convey the actual words. Below, I’ve listed the movement titles along with the song that they draw inspiration from. Lift My Eyes (My Lord, What A Morning) Times of the Storm (Wade in the Water) Strength of My Life (His Eye Is On the Sparrow) Lift My Hands (I Still Have Joy) When interpreted through the lens of classical music, these movements are configured in a way that is intended to align with a slightly deviant four-movement sonata form that composers like Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and many others used in several of their works. In this form, the first movement is an allegro, the second movement is a scherzo or dance, the third movement is an adagio, and the last movement is another fast one, perhaps with a dance feel or including a theme and variations. Come As You Are was conceived of with this in mind, but is not rigidly connected to it. Through the lens of African-American sacred music, the first two movements, Lift My Eyes and Times of the Storm, are inspired by traditional Negro spirituals. It is important to note that spirituals often contained text that was Biblical on the surface, yet deeply personal or communicative in intention. My Lord, What A Morning and Wade in the Water are no exceptions to this tradition. In this spirit, I aimed to strike a balance between the surface-level meaning of these spirituals and what they might have meant for the people that sang them. There may seem to be striking dichotomies in character that are reflective of these varied meanings. The second two movements, Strength of My Life and Lift My Hands, are inspired by songs that are more common in religious practices today. In these, I have tried to make a musical depiction of the lyrics in a way that conveys the message of each song from my perspective. As I wrote this piece, I realized that one of its purposes was to bring together different facets of my own life experience. As a classical musician, the vast majority of my colleagues have little knowledge or understanding of Black culture or how it influences my music-making. As a Black man from North Carolina, many of my family and friends don’t have a true sense of what I do and love as a classical performer and composer. I have also spent an incredible amount of time and energy on keeping these worlds separate and trying to show up in each as if the other didn’t exist. This “two-ness” is akin to a concept called double consciousness that W.E.B. Dubois introduced at the turn of the 20th century in his book The Souls of Black Folk. He outlines this concept, roughly, as having two simultaneous identities. One of these might be described as uniquely American, while the other is uniquely Black. As a composer, I strive to let my internal musical voice be “ok” and to follow it where it wanders, trusting that this amalgamation of experiences is leading me in a direction that is uniquely mine and informed by my various interests and identities. Come As You Are is a significant landmark on this journey to musical individuation. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Piano Trio in G major, op. 1, no. 2 December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio 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. Beethoven’s Opus 1Trios were performed privately in 1794 at the house of Prince Lichnowsky, who received the dedication. 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 any 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, “It 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 Trio in four movements, despite the custom of the day to compose chamber works with piano in three movements. The G major Trio opens with an elaborate slow introduction in which the piano predominates. Both the piano and violin preview the main theme of the Allegro vivace, which makes its entrance in the “wrong key” before righting itself to G major. The slow movement contrasts with the surrounding fast movements by its 6/8 meter, expressive nuances, and unusual key of E major. Haydn also used the key of E major for the slow movement of his famous G major Gypsy Trio, but his Trio was written in England in 1795. Beethoven wrote a fleet scherzo instead of a minuet for the third movement of his Trio. Haydn had written minuets in fast enough tempos to be considered scherzos, whereas Beethoven actually called these movements scherzos. The cello, playing quietly in its lowest range, initiates the furtive-sounding main section. The hushed quality remains until the loud closing bars of the main section. The Trio provides contrast in texture, but remains quiet. The principal section’s return is literal, followed by a soft coda that ends pianissimo. The sonata-form finale also begins quietly but soon bursts forth exuberantly. Beethoven’s obvious fun with repeated notes generates the first theme and, in a different fashion, the second. He must also have enjoyed disguising the beginning of his recapitulation, something that Haydn also did on occasion. Beethoven winds down the movement with quiet fragmentation of motives then jolts the listener with the final fortissimo chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2018-2019 ARTIST ROSTER EDWARD ARRON, CELLO MICHAEL BROWN, PIANO BARRY CENTANNI, PERCUSSION TIMOTHY COBB, DOUBLE BASS DAVID J. GROSSMAN, DOUBLE BASS PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN CHELSEA KNOX, FLUTE SEAN LEE, VIOLIN MIHAI MARICA, CELLO KEN NODA, PIANO WEN QIAN, VIOLIN SHERYL STAPLES, VIOLIN JASON VIEAUX, GUITAR PINCHAS ZUKERMAN; AMANDA FORSYTH; ANGELA CHENG ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE MAURYCY BANASZEK, VIOLA THE CALIDORE STRING QUARTET INN-HYUCK CHO, CLARINET EMERSON STRING QUARTET WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN PIERRE LAPOINTE, VIOLA QIAN-QIAN LI, VIOLIN ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, VIOLIN GARRICK OHLSSON, PIANO DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO JOEL NOYES, CELLO PASCUAL MARTÍNEZ FORTEZA, CLARINET ALESSIO BAX, PIANO NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO LUCILLE CHUNG, PIANO DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO MING FENG HSIN, VIOLIN FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KERN, GLASS HARMONICA KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA EILEEN MOON-MYERS, CELLO CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA EMILY DAGGETT SMITH, VIOLIN DANBI UM, VIOLIN SARAH CROCKER VONSATTEL, VIOLIN KEVIN ZHU, VIOLIN YOOBIN SON, FLUTE

ABOUT THE 2026-2027 SEASON Dear Friends, Our 19th season celebrates the enduring power of musical imagination across three centuries of chamber music. From the youthful genius of Mozart and Schubert to the visionary masterpieces of Bach, Beethoven, and Dvořák, the season explores the extraordinary richness of the chamber music repertoire through performances by many of today's most distinguished artists. We open on September 13 with two astonishing works composed when Mozart and Schubert were just nineteen years old: Mozart's beloved "Turkish" Violin Concerto and Schubert's radiant Symphony No. 5. Met Concertmaster Benjamin Bowman, violin , joins colleagues from the Musicians of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the direction of Michael Parloff , for an afternoon celebrating two young geniuses at the dawn of their creative journeys. On October 11 , the internationally acclaimed Viano Quartet makes its Parlance debut with Four of a Kind , a program tracing the evolution of the string quartet. Spanning Haydn, Janáček, Dvořák, and Mendelssohn , this remarkable concert showcases the extraordinary expressive possibilities of chamber music's most celebrated ensemble. On November 15, Café Music serves up a delectable musical feast. An all-star ensemble featuring violinist Kevin Zhu, cellist Tommy Mesa, pianist Albert Cano Smit, clarinetist Anton Rist, bassoonist William Short, trumpeter Billy R. Hunter, Jr., and guitarist Rupert Boyd performs a delightful menu of works by Martinů, Rossini, Piazzolla, James Grant, and Paul Schoenfield , combining dazzling virtuosity with wit, charm, and culinary inspiration. On January 17, pianist Richard Goode joins violinist Itamar Zorman for an intimate recital spanning three centuries. Their thoughtfully crafted program moves from the elegance of Mozart and Bach through the luminous poetry of Debussy to Beethoven's radiant final Violin Sonata, Op. 96. On February 28, baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist James Baillieu return for Winterreise , widely regarded as the greatest song cycle ever composed. Michael Parloff will offer an introductory talk exploring the history, poetry, and profound emotional journey of this incomparable masterpiece. On March 21, organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs celebrates Bach's 342nd birthday by recreating Felix Mendelssohn's legendary all-Bach recital of 1840 —a landmark event in the nineteenth-century Bach Revival. Featuring six of Bach's greatest organ masterpieces, this remarkable program honors two musical visionaries whose legacies became forever intertwined. On April 11 , the legendary Zukerman Trio—violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and pianist Shai Wosner—celebrates Beethoven in his 250th anniversary year with three chamber masterpieces that illuminate the composer's colossal artistic journey from youthful brilliance to creative maturity. On May 9, violinist Stella Chen, violist Matthew Lipman, cellist Brannon Cho , and pianist Michael Stephen Brown perform two towering masterpieces: Mozart's magnificent Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 563 and Dvořák's radiant Piano Quartet No. 2. And on June 6, baroque flutist Emi Ferguson joins the adventurous period-instrument ensemble Ruckus for Fly the Coop , presenting joyful, imaginative re-creations of Bach's flute sonatas and keyboard preludes. Overflowing with virtuosity, rhythmic vitality, and infectious musical energy, this exuberant finale promises a memorable close to another unforgettable season. I look forward to welcoming you soon to another inspiring season at Parlance Chamber Concerts! Michael Parloff Artistic Director 2026-2027 SEASON September 13, 2026 Mozart and Schubert at 19 Members of the MET Orchestra October 11, 2026 Viano String Quartet Four of a Kind November 15, 2026 Café Music January 17, 2027 Richard Goode, piano Itamar Zorman, violin February 28, 2027 Winterreise Benjamin Appl, baritone James Baillieu, piano March 21, 2027 Bach's Birthday Concert Paul Jacobs, organ April 11, 2027 Celebrating Beethoven's 250th Anniversary Zukerman Trio May 9, 2027 Chen–Lipman–Cho String Trio Michael Stephen Brown, piano June 6, 2027 Fly the Coop Emi Ferguson, baroque flute Ruckus, period-instrument ensemble 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

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2023 AT 4 PM ANGEL BLUE, SOPRANO BRYAN WAGORN, PIANO SONGS, ARIAS, AND SPIRITUALS Angel Blue , soprano Bryan Wagorn , piano ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Angel Blue has emerged in recent seasons as one of the most influential sopranos before the public today. The two-time Grammy Award winner, 2020 Beverly Sills Award recipient, and 2022 Richard Tucker Award winner is celebrated worldwide for her honeyed soprano and affecting deliveries of many of the most beloved roles in the operatic repertory. Angel Blue has been praised for performances in nearly every major opera house in the world, including Teatro alla Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera where she has triumphed in roles as diverse as Violetta in La Traviata, Mimi in La Boheme, Bess in Porgy and Bess , and Destiny/Loneliness/Greta in Terrence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones . For her much-anticipated Parlance debut, Angel Blue and pianist Bryan Wagorn will perform a diverse program cherished songs, arias, and spirituals . 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 “Luminous soprano voice and unforced charisma.” — New York Times PROGRAM Gabriel Fauré Clair de lune Mandoline Fleur jetée Program Notes Claude Debussy Clair de Lune for piano Program Notes Richard Strauss Heimliche Aufforderung Allerseelen Befreit Morgen Cäcilie Program Notes Gershwin Two Preludes for piano Allegro ben ritmato e deciso Andante con moto e poco rubato Program Notes American Songbook Arlen: I Wonder What Became of Me Gershwin: Our Love is Here to Stay Weill: Youkali Program Notes Three Arias by Giacomo Puccini Chi il bel Sogno Vissi d’Arte O Mio Babbino Caro Program Notes Spirituals Good News You Can Tell the World Deep River Ride on King Jesus Program Notes Watch Angel Blue perform Mi chiamano Mimi from Puccini’s La Boheme:

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