WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO This season, soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Freia and Ortlinde in The Ring Cycle and makes her debut at the Tanglewood Festival in a concert version of Die Walküre, conducted by Andris Nelsons. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Ms. Harmer has appeared in their productions of Le nozze di Figaro, War and Peace, Khovanshchina, Parsifal, Die Agyptische Helena, Jenufa, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in the Met’s HD broadcasts of the Ring Cycle and The Magic Flute, which have subsequently been released on DVD (Deutsche Gramophone). Other recent opera engagements have included the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Adalgisa in Norma at the Palm Beach Opera, Leonora in Fidelio at Opera Omaha, Senta in Die fliegende Holländer and multiple roles in the Ring Cycle at the Seattle Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Houston Grand Opera, Eglantine in Euryanthe at the Bard Music Festival , Die Walküre at the San Francisco Opera, Glauce in Medea at the Glimmerglas Festival, Wanda in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at Opera Boston, and Mimi in La Bohéme at the Utah Opera Festival. In concert, Ms. Harmer recently made her debuts with Boston Baroque in performances of Fidelio, and with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in performances of Vaughn William’s Sea Symphony. She has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in performances of the Beethoven Symphony No. 9, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in concert performances of Das Rheingold, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as a soloist at the Schubert Festival, and in Lincoln Center’s Tribute to Renata Tebaldi. In 2005, she made her New York recital debut under the auspices of The Marilyn Horne Foundation, and was presented by the George London Foundation in a recital with Ben Heppner at the Morgan Library. Born in Roseville, California, Ms. Harmer graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from The Boston Conservatory and attended the Music of Academy of the West. She was also a member of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theater of St Louis, and was one of nine singers invited to study at The Music Academy in Villecroze, France. Her many awards include a 2010 Richard Tucker Grant, the 2007 Jensen Award, the Teatro alla Scala Award at the 2007 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, first place at the Palm Beach Opera Competition, the 2005 winner of the George London/Leonie Rysanek Award, and an award from The Marilyn Horne Foundation.

STEPHANIE BLYTHE, MEZZO-SOPRANO A renowned opera singer and recitalist, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is considered one of the most highly respected and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Her repertoire ranges from Handel to Wagner, German lieder to contemporary and classic American song. Ms. Blythe has performed on many of the world’s great stages, such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Paris National Opera and San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Seattle Operas. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year in 2009, received an Opera News Award in 2007 and won the Tucker Award in 1999. Ms. Blythe recently released her first crossover recording on the Innova label with pianist Craig Terry. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is considered to be one of the most highly respected and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Ms. Blythe has sung in many of the renowned opera houses in the US and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Opera National de Paris. Her many roles include the title roles in Carmen, Samson et Dalila , Orfeo ed Euridice, La Grande Duchesse, Tancredi, Mignon, and Giulio Cesare; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in Il Trittico, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung,Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress, Ježibaba inRusalka, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites; Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, andIno/Juno in Semele. She also created the role of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon’s 27 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Ms. Blythe has also appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Orchestra of New York, Minnesota Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Ensemble Orchestre de Paris, and the Concertgerbouworkest. She has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, and Ravinia festivals, and at the BBC Proms. The many conductors with whom she has worked include Harry Bicket, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Nicola Luisotti, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers, and Michael Tilson Thomas. A frequent recitalist, Ms. Blythe has been presented in recital in New York by Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center in both its Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall and its American Songbook Series at the Allen Room, Town Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also been presenter by the Vocal Arts Society and at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC; the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, and San Francisco Performances. A champion of American song, Ms. Blythe has premiered several song cycles written for her includingTwelve Poems of Emily Dickinson by the late James Legg, Covered Wagon Woman by Alan Smith which was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and recorded with the ensemble (CMS Studio Recordings); and Vignettes: Ellis Island, also by Alan Smith and featured in a special television program entitled Vignettes: An Evening with Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones. Ms Blythe starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts of Orfeo ed Euridice, Il Trittico, Rodelinda,and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Carousel and her acclaimed show, We’ll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith. Her recordings include her solo album, as long as there are songs (Innova), and works by Mahler, Brahms, Wagner, Handel and Bach (Virgin Classics). This season, Ms. Blythe’s many engagement include her returns to the Metropolitan Opera for The Rake’s Progress, the Lyric Opera of Chicago for Il Trovatore, the Seattle Opera for Semele, and Carnegie Hall for a recital in Stern Auditorium. This summer she sings the title role in Samson et Dalilah with the Atlanta Symphony, and next season she returns to the San Francisco Opera as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and the Houston Grand Opera as Nettie Fowler in Carousel. She also performs her new program, Sing, America! at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year for 2009. Her other awards include the 2007 Opera News Award and the 1999 Richard Tucker Award. She is also the Artistic Director of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar at the Crane School of Music.

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BRUNO EICHER, VIOLIN Violinist Bruno Eicher is Assistant Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, which he joined in 2001, after serving for four years as Associate Concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony and the previous four years as Assistant Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. His wide-ranging orchestral experience includes performing with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, under the avid chamber musician, Mr. Eicher has performed extensively throughout Europe and the U.S., as well as South Korea. In New York, as a member of the MET Chamber Ensemble from 2002 to 2014, he performed regularly at Carnegie Hall. A native of Burgundy, France, Mr. Eicher is a graduate of the Paris Conservatoire where he studied with Pierre Amoyal and Jean Hubeau. In the United States, he was a student of Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School, from which he holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1992, he was the 2nd prize winner of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. He lives in Manhattan, with his wife, MET Orchestra cellist Kari Docter, and their two children. Mr Eicher plays an instrument made in 2011 by Christophe Landon, a copy of the “Circle” Stradivari.

SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2017 AT 3 PM Jerusalem String Quartet BUY TICKETS JERUSALEM STRING QUARTET ”Superlatives are inadequate in describing just how fine this playing was from one of the young, yet great quartets of our time.” – The Strad FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS On March 26 , the elegant Jerusalem String Quartet will make its Parlance debut. Strad Magazine characterized this ensemble in glowing terms, saying, “Superlatives are inadequate in describing just how fine this playing was from one of the young, yet great quartets of our time.” The first half of their program will be a study in contrasts, journeying from the winged exuberance of Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet in D to the scorching passions of Beethoven ’s “Serioso” Quartet in F minor. After intermission, Dvořák ’s valedictory string quartet in G major will bring the afternoon to a jubilant, sunlit resolution. PROGRAM Joseph Haydn Quartet in D, Op. 64, No. 5 (“The Lark”) Program Notes Ludwig van Beethoven Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 (“Serioso”) Program Notes Antonin Dvořàk Quartet No. 13 in G, Op. 106 Program Notes The Jerusalem Quartet performs Beethoven’s Quartet in G, Op. 18, No 2, mvt 1: The Jerusalem Quartet performs Beethoven’s Quartet in G, Op. 18, No 2, mvt 2:

ANDRÉS DÍAZ, CELLO Since winning the First Prize in the 1986 Naumburg International Cello Competition, Mr. Díaz has exhilarated both critics and audiences with his intense and charismatic performances. He has earned exceptional reviews for
his “strongly personal interpretive vision” (The New York Times) and his “bold and imaginative” playing (TheBoston Globe) and was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as a generous grant from the
 Susan W. Rose Fund for Music in 1998. Andrés Díaz’s numerous orchestral appearances have included return engagements with the Atlanta Symphony under the late conductor Robert Shaw; performances with the American Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the symphony orchestras of Milwaukee, Seattle, Rochester under Christopher Seaman, the Boston Pops and Esplanade Orchestras, the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival with Edo de Waart conducting, and the NationalSymphony Orchestra. Among the highlights of Mr. Díaz’s recent seasons are tours of Taiwan, Hong Kong,Korea, Japan, Hawaii, and Canada performing in recital and with orchestra; appearances in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, the Dominican Republic; a series of concerts in the Soviet Union where he performed as soloist with Russia’s Saratov Symphony in the cities of Saratov and Moscow; and a tour of the major cities in New Zealand with the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra. The young virtuoso is a sought-after recitalist and made his Alice Tully Hall debut in 1987 after winning the Naumburg International Cello Competition. He received critical praise for his second appearance at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1989 when The New York Times remarked that his musical views “always seemed deeply considered rather than superficial or manufactured.” His recital appearances have included the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, and the highly regarded San Francisco Performances Series. Andrés Díaz frequently performed with the late pianist Samuel Sanders. The Díaz/Sanders Duo performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall in New York, the Philadelphia Arts Museum, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall and other venues across the U.S. and abroad. They appeared in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Colorado Springs, Detroit, and Japan, where they appeared at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Among other renowned pianists
 with whom Mr. Díaz has collaborated are Judith Gordon, Margo Garrett, Richard Goode, Mischa Dichter, and Anne-Marie McDermott. During the summer of 2001, Mr. Díaz gave the world premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Concerto for Cello 
and Orchestra at the Brevard Music Center with the Brevard Festival Orchestra. In February 2001, Mr. Díaz performed the American premiere of Frank Bridge’s Oration for cello and orchestra at Boston University. Mr.Díaz has also premiered Thomas Oboe Lee’s Cello Concerto (written expressly for Díaz) with the Boston Civic Symphony, and he gave the Boston and Washington, D.C. premieres of Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra. In that Boston performance, the composer conducted the work. Díaz later performed the piece with the National Symphony Orchestra, James Paul conducting, where it received the First Prize Friedham Award. Andrés Díaz’s debut solo recording on MusicMasters of works by Manuel de Falla and Robert Schumann with pianist Samuel Sanders was acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “strong and subtle; everything Díaz does has
personality and, better than that, character.” On the Dorian label, the two artists have also released Brahms’s Sonatas for Piano and Cello; Russian Romantics, a compilation of short Russian works; and most recently
American Visions, featuring works of Barber, Bernstein and Foote. Mr. Díaz’s current orchestral solo release (also on the Dorian label) features the Villas-Lobos Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and conductor Enrique Diemecke. This recording won a 1996 Allegro Music Award for Best Orchestral Release. His latest recording, in memory of his collaborator pianist Samuel Sanders — featuring the works of Martinu, Lutoslawski, and Rachmaninoff– won The Classical Recording Foundation 2003 Award. Mr. Diaz also recorded the six Bach Suites at the end of 2004. Mr. Díaz’s summer festival appearances (including frequent return engagements) include the Santa Fe, La Jolla, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bravo! Colorado, Spoleto, Saratoga and Tanglewood festivals. His appearances at Tanglewood earned him the Pierre Mayer Memorial Award for Outstanding String Player. He has toured nationally with the Santa Fe and Spoleto festivals. Other festival appearances include the Victoria (B.C.), Steamboat (Steamboat Springs, CO), Musicorda (MA), Rockport (MA) and Cape & Islands festivals. Andrés Díaz is very active with the Díaz String Trio, featuring violinist Andres Cardenes and violist Roberto Díaz. At Carnegie Hall in April 2003, the trio performed the world premiere of a string trio written for them by Gunther Schuller. The trio has performed in the cities of Pittsburgh, Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami; at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland and the International Festival of St. Cypriene in France; and they
have toured extensively in South America, Mexico and Canada. The trio was invited by Isaac Stern to play at Carnegie Hall’s Centennial Celebration, and from 1994-96 it served as Trio in Residence at the Florida International University. They released its first recording featuring the music of Paganini on the Dorian label. A second recording is due for release in 2003 featuring music by Penderecki, Dohnayi, Beethoven. Andrés Díaz was born in Santiago, Chile in 1964, and began studying the cello at the age of five. Three years later he moved to Atlanta, Georgia and studied at the Georgia Academy of Music with Martha Gerchefski. Mr. Díaz graduated from the New England Conservatory where he worked with Laurence Lesser and Colin Carr, and currently plays an active role in chamber music performances with the Conservatory’s faculty. He
served for five years as Associate Professor of Cello at the Boston University and Co-Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Quartet Program, resigning in September 2001. Mr. Díaz now lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife, Julie, and sons Peter Manuel and Gabriel Andrés. He plays a 1698 Matteo Goffriller Cello and a bow made by his father, Manuel Díaz.

October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 67 October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Brahms composed his third and last quartet, op. 67, in 1875 at Ziegelhausen, near Heidelberg, on one of his extended summer holidays. Completed and published the following year, it received its first public performance by the celebrated quartet led by his friend Joseph Joachim at the Berlin Singakademie on October 30, 1876. Brahms dedicated the work to his musical friend Professor Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann, a physiologist in Utrecht. The B-flat major Quartet differs greatly in character from its two preceding quartets, op. 51, nos. 1 and 2, both minor key works of a more serious nature. Brahms’s last quartet, a predominantly sunny work, may have served as a kind of release after the completion of his weighty First Symphony, and the piece abounds in unusual touches. The Vivace has a dance-like character more often reserved for last movements. The opening hunting call in 6/8 meter is frequently likened to Mozart’s Hunt Quartet (K. 458) but may also recall the Scherzo of Brahms’s own B-flat Sextet (op. 18). In the second theme area Brahms ingeniously juxtaposes and combines another dance type in 2/4 with the preceding 6/8 rhythms. The Andante contains another unusual rhythmic feature in its middle section: two bars of 5/4 interrupting the 4/4 meter reflect the improvisatory character of the phrase development. Another striking feature is the return of the opening theme, disguised in an elaborate variation on itself and beginning in the third-related “wrong” key of D major. The third movement shows the composer’s fondness for “scherzo alternatives,” since a scherzo would have seemed redundant after the first movement. Brahms’s innovative color scheme of unmuted viola in combination with the three other muted instruments has often been noted; equally memorable is the viola’s absence when the Trio (so marked) begins as a true trio of violins and cello, which then become the background for another viola melody. The finale, one of Brahms’s great achievements in variation form, provides the weight one might have expected from the opening movement. The crowning glory of the movement, and indeed of the work, is the recall of two themes from the first movement in the last two variations, not as mere cyclic reminiscence, but exhibiting their close ties with the variation theme itself. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2022-2023 SEASON Dear friends, Welcome to the 15th season of Parlance Chamber Concerts! Our 2022-23 events will feature more than 45 of the most extraordinary musical artists of our time. Highlights of the season will include the valedictory appearance of the great Emerson String Quartet and the long-awaited return of the charismatic Danish String Quartet . Notable debuts will feature award-winning artists: saxophonist-composer Steven Banks , winner of the prestigious 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant; pianist Rachel Naomi Kudo , winner of the 2018 Leipzig International Bach Competition; the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio , winner of BBC Music Magazine’s 2022 Chamber Music Award; and cellist Zlatomir Fung , the first American in four decades and youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division. The season will also include an assortment of remarkable artists in thematic events spotlighting operatic wind music performed by Members of Met Orchestra Wind Section , Music from Golden Age Vienna , and masterpieces Inspired by Friendship . I look forward to welcoming you back soon to the 2022-23 season of Parlance Chamber Concerts! Michael Parloff 2022-2023 SEASON September 18, 2022 Winds of the Met October 30, 2022 Emerson String Quartet November 20, 2022 Steven Banks, saxophone December 4, 2022 Sitkovetsky Piano Trio January 29, 2023 Danish String Quartet February 12, 2023 Golden Age of Vienna March 19, 2023 Bach’s 338th Birthday April 2, 2023 All Brahms May 21, 2023 Inspired by Friendship 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

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman and Alexi Kenney, violins, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello, Yoobin Son, flute, Pascual Martinez-Forteza JOHANN STRAUSS (1804–1849) Emperor Waltz (arr. Schoenberg) February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman and Alexi Kenney, violins, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello, Yoobin Son, flute, Pascual Martinez-Forteza On November 23, 1918, in Vienna, Schoenberg founded the Society for Private Musical Performances. For slightly more than three seasons, the Society presented new works in thoroughly prepared performances for an audience of card-carrying members, many of them his friends and students. Critics were not allowed, nor applause or expressions of disapproval. The repertoire naturally included some of his own works, though he refrained from programming any of them until the second season. The composers whose works were performed most frequently were Max Reger (34 works) and Claude Debussy (26). Other composers who figured prominently were Berg, Webern, Bartók, Ravel, Scriabin, Mahler, Stravinsky, R. Strauss, Busoni, Szymanowski, Hauer, Zemlinsky, and Suk. Orchestral works had to be transcribed for performing forces that the Society could manage—two- or four-hand piano, or chamber orchestra consisting of piano, harmonium, flute, clarinet, string quartet, and, occasionally bass, percussion, or other added instruments. Though Schoenberg sometimes assigned the work of transcribing to his students, he made many of the arrangements himself. The Society was losing money, and so on May 27, 1921, Schoenberg and his colleagues presented a benefit concert with new arrangements of four Strauss waltzes—among them the Emperor Waltzes—followed by an auction of the scores. The program listed the following performers: Eduard Steuermann, piano; Alban Berg, harmonium; Rudolf Kolisch and Arnold Schoenberg, violins 1, Karl Rankl, violin 2; Othmar Steinbauer, viola; and Anton Webern, cello. Unfortunately, the Society had to fold that December, but in its three years the Society had presented 154 works, some with multiple performances, in 117 concerts! To turn to the original composer of the Emperor Waltzes, Johann Strauss II was originally discouraged in a musical career by his father who ran a celebrated dance orchestra in Vienna. Eventually, however, it was Johann Strauss II who achieved international recognition as “the waltz king.” In 1888 he was inspired to write two different compositions in his capacity as “imperial court ball music director” for the jubilee celebrating Franz-Joseph’s fortieth anniversary as emperor. The first, the Emperor’s Jubilee Waltzes, op. 434, is rarely heard today, while the Emperor Waltzes, op. 437, has proved to be one of Strauss’s most enduring and popular works. Most of Strauss’s great waltzes stem from the 1860s, including his most well-known On the Beautiful Blue Danube. The present Emperor Waltzes as well as the Voices of Spring, however, were written two decades later when he was concentrating more on operettas than independent dances pieces. He did include waltz sequences in his operettas, of which Die Fledermaus (The Bat) and The Gypsy Baron achieved the greatest success and renown. The set of Emperor Waltzes finds itself equally at home in the concert hall as in the dance hall. The work is introduced by a quiet march—a bit Mozartean in style, orchestration, and trills—in which Strauss previews the theme of the first waltz and builds an impressive climax that subsides in a cello solo. The waltz proper is a tender, lilting affair, leading off a string of four charming waltzes. The third is said to recall Franz-Joseph’s military career in its second half, and the last constitutes a ländler (Austrian folk dance in triple meter, precursor to the waltz). The lengthy coda, which again highlights the solo cello, recalls and develops themes from the first and third waltzes. The final reminiscence of the first theme is tinged with an elegant nostalgia before the final flourish. © Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

Morris Robinson, bass Morris Robinson is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the most interesting and sought after basses performing today. GRAMMY® Award-winning bass Morris Robinson featured on recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Read more at https://morrisrobinson.com .

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 AT 3 PM GALA OPENER CHAMBER CONCERTOS BUY TICKETS NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO “Superb young soloist.” — The New Yorker MICHAEL BROWN, PIANO “Formidable pianist” — The New York Times DAVID J. GROSSMAN, DOUBLE BASS Principal Bass LA Chamber Orchestra MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA “Rich tone, eloquent phrasing.” — The New York Times ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN “Beauty of sound and elegance.” — Nice Matin EMILY DAGGETT SMITH, VIOLIN “Irrepressible élan.” — The Seattle Times SEAN LEE, VIOLIN “Breathtakingly beautiful.” — The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Six dazzling artists will blend concerto panache and salon intimacy, performing virtuoso concertos in chamber settings. PROGRAM Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Concerto No. 14 in E flat, K. 449 for piano and string quintet Michael Brown, solo piano Program Notes Franz Schubert Rondo in A, D. 438 for violin and string quartet Sean Lee, solo violin Program Notes Ernest Chausson Concerto in D, Op. 21 for violin, piano, and string quartet Arnaud Sussmann, solo violin Program Notes Watch Sean Lee perform Schubert’s Rondo in A:

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) Piano Quartet in A minor February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello Schumann’s famous words about Brahms, that he had sprung “fully armed like Minerva from the head of Jove” might just as well have been uttered about Mahler, whose surviving compositions show that he apparently achieved mastery “not step by step, but at once.” Yet we now know that Brahms destroyed dozens of student works that might have offered a glimpse into his development. In Mahler’s case it seemed no such glimpse was possible until 1964, when Peter Serkin and the Galimir Quartet played what may have been the first public performance of a youthful piano quartet movement by Mahler (New York, January 12). The only surviving authenticated composition from a list of possible student compositions by Mahler, the Piano Quartet in A minor (first movement and thirty-two measures of a scherzo) was found in a folder labeled “early compositions” in Alma Mahler’s hand. The date 1876, inscribed on the title page may or may not be authentic. Beginning in the academic year 1875–76, Mahler spent three years as a student at the Vienna Conservatory, studying harmony with Robert Fuchs and composition with Franz Krenn—both conservatives in their musical orientation. Other sources of influence may have been Brahms’s Piano Quartets—Julius Epstein, Mahler’s piano teacher at the Conservatory, had helped introduce Brahms and his Quartets to the Viennese public in 1862. Mahler’s Quartet movement in A minor shows thorough knowledge of sonata form. Such knowledge is intriguing to find in light of Mahler’s more complex and less orthodox sonata-forms in later works. Of the three main themes in the exposition, the second is somewhat unusual in appearing in the home key, only moving away somewhat later, and the third, which has a closing character, exhibits harmonic instability. A tendency in Mahler’s later works to “slip” into other keys quickly rather than modulate painstakingly is already apparent in this movement. A “textbook” development section is followed by the recapitulation, which varies its presentation of exposition materials by incorporating passages from the development and reversing the order in which the second and third themes return. But perhaps the most unusual feature of the movement is the introduction of a violin cadenza just before the tranquil close. Composers throughout history have treated their student or early works with varying degrees of disdain, but would the discovery of more such works truly alter our opinion of a master’s greatness? We can at least be grateful for one glimpse into a formative stage in Mahler’s development as a composer. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes