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December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet GEORGE WALKER (1922-2018) Lyric for Strings December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet George Walker’s long life consisted of a string of outstanding achievements. After graduating from Oberlin College as a piano and organ student, he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music—composition with Rosario Scalero, teacher of Samuel Barber, and piano with Rudolf Serkin—and became the school’s first African-American graduate. He was also the first black instrumentalist to give a recital, his debut, at New York’s Town Hall and to appear as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He toured Europe under the auspices of National Concert Artists—their first African-American instrumentalist—then began teaching before beginning his doctoral studies at Eastman. Awarded Fulbright and John Hay Whitney fellowships (the Whitney’s first composer recipient), Walker studied in Paris with the renowned Nadia Boulanger. Walker taught at the Dalcroze School of Music, the New School for Social Research, Smith College (first black tenure recipient), University of Colorado, Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and University of Delaware. His longest professorship, however, was at Rutgers University (1969–92), where he chaired the music department. Composing remained an equally important facet of Walker’s career, evidenced by over ninety published works to his credit, ranging from orchestral pieces and chamber music to choral works, songs, and piano pieces. Highlighting Walker’s remarkable list of awards and honors is the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in Music—he was the first African-American composer so honored—for his Lilacs for voice and orchestra, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Walker also received commissions from myriad other organizations, such as the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Kennedy Center. As recently as 2013 Walker was still having works premiered—his Movements for Cello and Orchestra that November with the Sinfonia da Camera led by Ian Hobson at the University of Illinois and his Bleu for Violin Unaccompanied at the Library of Congress the previous April. In 2012 the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra premiered his Sinfonia No. 4, “Strands,” a joint commission with the Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and National symphonies. That May he gave the commencement address at the Eastman School of Music, also receiving an honorary doctoral degree where he had already earned a doctorate as a student over half a century earlier. Later that month he received the prestigious Aaron Copland Award from ASCAP. Lyric for Strings originated as the second movement of Walker’s String Quartet No. 1, written in 1946 after he graduated from Curtis and dedicated to his grandmother, who had recently died. Under the title Lament, the piece received its premiere that year on a radio concert of Curtis’s student orchestra conducted by Seymour Lipkin. The official premiere took place the following year at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., by the National Gallery Orchestra conducted by Richard Bales. Retitled at the request of the publisher, Lyric for Strings became one of the most frequently performed pieces by a living American composer. The piece’s origin as a slow movement in a string quartet and its poignant strains tinged with Romanticism bring to mind Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings and the Curtis connection of both composers. Walker’s Lyric for Strings, however, stands beautifully on its own. Falling motives and sustained tones set a mournful mood at the outset. The motion increases with contrapuntal lines weaving their way over a sustained pedal tone until gentle chordal iterations briefly arrest the flow. The resumption of the entwined lyrical lines eventually comes to an impassioned peak, now with low, jabbing chordal interjections of utter anguish. As the passage ebbs and quiet chords sound again, the gentle earlier flow resumes. The piece concludes somberly yet with a sense of peace. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DR. GARETH ICENOGLE, NARRATOR Dr. Gareth Icenogle became the Senior Pastor of West Side Presbyterian Church in February, 2009. He has degrees in ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA, and music degrees from the University of California, Riverside, and California State University of Los Angeles. His masters degrees are in music (voice and composition) and divinity, and his doctorate is in ministry, with a focus on spiritual formation and discipleship. He has written an internationally used textbook on the theology, purposes, and dynamics of faith formation through small groups. Gareth comes to West Side from the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, where he served as Senior Pastor from 2004 to 2008. Before that he served First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem, PA, as Senior Pastor and Co-Senior Pastor for 14 years. Previously he was the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Seminary. Both natives of southern California, Gareth and his wife, Vida Smith, have been married for 36 years. They have two daughters, Tamara, 29, and Tonya, 26.

September 26, 2021: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussmann, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Sihao He, cello; Joel Noyes, cello; David J. Grossman, bass; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 September 26, 2021: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussmann, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Sihao He, cello; Joel Noyes, cello; David J. Grossman, bass; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord In March 1719, when Bach was in Berlin to collect the new harpsichord made for Cöthen by court instrument maker Michael Mietke, he had occasion to play for Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg. The meeting spurred an invitation from the Margrave for Bach to send him some compositions. The works that he sent probably originated in Weimar even before Bach’s move to Cöthen in 1717, but it took yet another two years for him to complete, compile, and submit his “Six concerts avec plusieurs instruments” (Six concertos with several instruments). He dedicated the 1721 manuscript to the Margrave, saying: As I had a couple of years ago the pleasure of appearing before Your Royal Highness . . . and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the small talents that Heaven has given me for Music, and as in taking leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness deigned to honor me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my composition: I have then in accordance with Your Highness’s most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments. No record exists of the Margrave of Brandenburg ever using the scores, ever sending Bach a fee, or ever thanking him. Legend has it that a lack of acknowledgment may have stemmed from the Margrave’s instrumental resources not matching those of Cöthen or Weimar, thus rendering the pieces unperformable at his establishment. It is certainly true that Bach used unprecedented and different scoring in each of the individual works, treating the collection like an “Art of the Concerto Grosso” and thus was not aiming to match any specific establishment’s resources. The manuscript eventually became the property of the state library in Berlin, remaining unpublished until the Bach revival in the nineteenth century. In 1880 Philipp Spitta, Bach’s famous biographer, coined the term “Brandenburg Concertos,” which has been used ever since for the beloved works. Bach empoyed the simple yet flexible plan for the eighteenth-century concerto grosso developed by Torelli and Corelli, standardized by Vivaldi—a small solo group (the concertino) alternating with the full ensemble (ripieno or tutti), typically in three movements: fast, slow, fast. The Brandenburg Concertos offer a wide spectrum of innovative instrumental schemes and combinations and a great variety in treatment of form. Nos. 1, 3, and 6 use instrumental forces that are fairly balance in number, with No. 1 containing some violino piccolo solos and No. 6 featuring two violas. Nos. 2, 4 and 5 contrast a small concertino with a large ripieno throughout, with different instruments featured in each case. In the Sixth Concerto Bach uses only strings and continuo, as in the Third. In this case, however, he creates a new atmosphere of somewhat darker colors by dispensing with violins. (Could Brahms have been following his lead in his A major Serenade?) The concertino is made up of two violas (originally viole da braccio), two violas da gamba (now usually played on cello), and cello. The solo violas provide an especially mellow sound that contributes to this Concerto’s unique sonority. Perhaps the most striking feature of the work, other than scoring, is the incredible contrapuntal writing in the first movement. The violas enter in canon separated by a time interval of only two sixteenth notes. The second movement is a poignant Adagio ma non troppo, followed by the energetic final movement in da capo form (A-B-A), made lively by syncopations and a bubbly mood of optimism. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

IAN ROSENBAUM, PERCUSSION Praised by The Strad as an “utterly dazzling” artist, with “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” (New York Classical Review), violinist Danbi Um captivates audiences with her virtuosity, individual sound, and interpretive sensitivity. A Menuhin International Violin Competition Silver Medalist, winner of the prestigious 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and a recent top prizewinner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, she showcases her artistry in concertos, solo recitals, and in collaboration with distinguished chamber musicians. 
 Her recent and forthcoming engagements include solo appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadephia (Kimmel Center), Brevard Philharmonic, and New York recital debut at Lincoln Center presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, San Francisco recital debut on Music@Menlo’s celebrated “Carte Blanche” series, and Philadelphia recital debut presented by Astral Artists. In addition, she will debut at the Wolf Trap in Washington D.C., and her return to the Parlance Chamber Music Series (NJ), Caramoor Festival as well as a national tour with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. During 2017-18 season, She also debuted for the Palm Beach Chamber Music Society with pianist Juho Pohjonen, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Morning Musicales”, and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., with pianist Orion Weiss. After winning the 2014 Music Academy of the West Competition, Ms. Um made her concerto debut in the Walton Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein. Recent concerto engagements include appearances with the Israel Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, and the Dartmouth Symphony. She also recently appeared in recital and in chamber music performances in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harris Theatre in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, and at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Um is a current artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) and will see her opening the CMS’s 50th anniversary season in fall 2019 at Alice Tully Hall. Festival appearances have included those at Marlboro, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Moab, Seattle, Caramoor, and North Shore. This past summer, Ms. Um made critically acclaimed debut at the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden, Germany at the invitation of Jan Vogler. Her chamber music collaborators have included Anthony Marwood, Vadim Gluzman, Pamela Frank, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Frans Helmerson, Jan Vogler, David Shifrin, and Gilbert Kalish. Born in 1990 in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Um began violin lessons at the age of three. In the year 2000, she moved to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree. She also holds an Artist Diploma from Indiana University. Her teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, and Hagai Shaham. Ms. Um is a winner of Astral’s 2015 National Auditions. She plays a 1683 “ex-Petschek” Nicolo Amati violin, on loan from a private collection.

February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Violin Sonata No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 12, no. 3 February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano Though he achieved his early fame as a pianist, Beethoven had also developed as a respectable violinist. He played violin in his native Bonn and, upon moving to Vienna, took lessons with celebrated violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh and with Wenzel Krumpholtz, who was one of the first to recognize Beethoven’s genius as a composer. His ten sonatas for piano and violin—his generation still thought of the piano first and the violin second—have always held a prominent place in the literature and contain some of his most delightful music. Beethoven completed his three Violin Sonatas, op.12, in 1798, and had them published by Artaria in 1799 with a dedication to composer Antonio Salieri. The dedication is a curious one on two counts—one that Salieri was his mentor in vocal not instrumental music, and the other that most of Beethoven’s dedications went to nonprofessional musicians—aristocrats, patrons, and friends. It is difficult for modern listeners to hear in these Sonatas the “striving for strange modulations,” “inimical barriers,” and “perversities” that upset contemporary critics. His innovative features in these works may also have puzzled Salieri, who, though he admired Beethoven’s talents, thought him wilful and difficult. All three works fit an overall framework that includes a sonata-form first movement, full-fledged slow movement, and rondo, but the rich interplay of motives and Beethoven’s emphatic style took them beyond the comfort level of his contemporaries. The E-flat major Sonata, op. 12, no. 3, is a grand, virtuoso work, whose opening shows just the kind of expansive rhetorical gestures that set Beethoven’s themes apart from those of his Classic period counterparts. And yet, there are enough elegant eighteenth-century-isms to show Beethoven’s deep roots in this tradition, and particularly his study of Mozart’s sonatas for piano and violin. The graceful second theme particularly evokes his forebears. One of the many striking moments in this movement comes just before the close of the exposition when Beethoven builds tension with fast figuration and pounding octaves only to relax into a humorous new little theme. The tempestuous development reminds us of the proximity to his Pathétique Piano Sonata, and the recapitulation is capped by a coda that dramatically suggests the start of a new development section before coming to an emphatic close. The reposeful slow movement highlights first the piano’s lyrical capabilities then the violin’s in the main theme, whereas the violin “sings” the entire middle section over rippling accompaniment. The regular return of the opening section of this aria-like movement seems straightforward until Beethoven takes off on an extended section that almost sounds improvised in its freedoms and unexpected turns. The jolly rondo that rounds off the Sonata contains three contrasting episodes alternating with its dancing refrains. The first, which returns for the third episode, sounds like a variation on the lively main theme, and the second shows Beethoven indulging in his love for contrapuntal devices without actually launching a fugue. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

ORION WEISS, PIANO One of the most sought-after soloists in his generation of young American musicians, the pianist Orion Weiss has performed with the major American orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic. His deeply felt and exceptionally crafted performances go far beyond his technical mastery and have won him worldwide acclaim. The 2015-16 season will see Orion performing with the Iceland Symphony, among others, and in collaborative projects including those with the Pacifica Quartet and with Cho-Liang Lin and the New Orford String Quartet in a performance of the Chausson Concerto for piano, violin, and string quartet. The 2014-15 season featured Orion’s third performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as a North American tour with the world-famous Salzburg Marionette Theater in an enhanced piano recital of Debussy’s La Boîte à Joujoux. In 2015 Naxos released his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing – a major commission Orion debuted with the Albany Symphony – and in 2012 he released a recital album of Dvorak, Prokofiev, and Bartok. That same year he also spearheaded a recording project of the complete Gershwin works for piano and orchestra with his longtime collaborators the Buffalo Philharmonic and JoAnn Falletta. The 2013-14 season featured Orion with orchestras around North America, including the Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Vancouver Symphonies, and the 2012-13 season saw Weiss in repeat engagements with the Baltimore Symphony and New World Symphony. Named the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year in September 2010, in the summer of 2011 Weiss made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in duo summer concerts with the New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Itzhak Perlman. Also known for his affinity and enthusiasm for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with his wife, the pianist Anna Polonsky, the violinists James Ehnes and Arnaud Sussman, and cellist Julie Albers, as well as ensembles including the Pacifica Quartet. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared across the U.S. at venues and festivals including Lincoln Center, the Ravinia Festival, Sheldon Concert Hall, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Chamber Music Northwest, the Bard Music Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, and Spivey Hall. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard, and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005 he made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. He was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2002-2004, which included his appearance in the opening concert of the Society’s 2002-2003 season at Alice Tully Hall performing Ravel’s La Valse with pianist Shai Wosner. Weiss’s impressive list of awards includes the Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at the Juilliard School and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Lyndhurst, OH, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, Sergei Babayan, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February of 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In March 1999, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He was immediately invited to return to the Orchestra for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in October 1999. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.

LIAM BOISSERT, OBOE Oboist Liam Boisset has performed with many of the most reputable orchestras around the United States. He regularly performs with the Metropolitan Opera and has recently served as guest Principal Oboe with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. During the 2019-2020 season, he also joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic on two international tours as Principal Oboe. He can be heard playing both oboe and English horn in The Witcher on Netflix. In addition to his fruitful performance career, Mr. Boisset is a passionate educator, and has taught masterclasses and lessons at The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music at The New School, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Oberlin Conservatory. During the heart of the pandemic, he co-founded the online teaching platform, Aperto Oboe Academy, to connect with and mentor promising young oboists from around the globe. He currently serves on the faculty of Princeton University’s Department of Music.

ÉRIK GRATTON, FLUTE Acting Principal Flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Érik Gratton is a native of Montréal, Canada. He received a First Prize with great distinction from the Montreal Conservatory, where he studied with Carolyn Christie and Jean-Paul Major. He furthered his studies with Jeanne Baxtresser at the Manhattan School of Music. Érik is in his 18th season as principal flutist of the Nashville Symphony. He has made many solo appearances with the orchestra, including John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. He can be heard on more than 20 recordings with the Nashville Symphony on the Naxos label. Érik performed recently with the Montreal Symphony and the Seattle Symphony, and he has appeared at numerous orchestral festivals, including Tanglewood, Shira Music Festival Israel, the Peninsula Music Festival, and Mainly Mozart. Érik is an active session player in Nashville’s busy recording industry and enjoys giving solo recitals and playing chamber music on a regular basis. In his spare time, his hobbies include beekeeping, woodworking, and discovering new things and places with his wife Erin.

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

January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Sonata in G major, D. 894, op. 78 (“Fantasie”) January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano In October 1826 when Schubert wrote his G major Piano Sonata he had just moved into new lodgings near his old school where his friend Franz von Schober and his mother had taken up a new residence. Another longtime friend, Josef von Spaun, paid him a visit there, and Schubert played him the almost completed first movement of the Sonata. Spaun’s pleasure in the piece resulted in his receiving the dedication when the Sonata was published the following year—“for I like to do something to please you when I can,” he reported Schubert as saying. The 1827 publication of the Sonata employed the title Fantasy, Andante, Minuet, and Allegretto, a fabrication of the publisher either to attract customers or to recognize a new concept behind a work that began in a very moderate tempo and with the relaxed-sounding meter 12/8—unusual for a sonata first movement. This title served to confuse early critics and to keep the work from being considered a sonata for a number of years. Robert Schumann, however, recognized the Sonata for what it was, and in an 1835 review of three Schubert sonatas called it “the most perfect in form and substance.” Despite the early designation of fantasy for the first movement, it follows true sonata form, even though its course is primarily a leisurely and lyrical one. Commentators have found links between this movement and the opening of Beethoven’s G major Piano Concerto, which Schubert certainly knew, and also with a procedure he employed just three months earlier in his own G major String Quartet—that of immediately repeating the entire dancelike second theme with soaring ornamentation. The central development section explores some of the more impassioned possibilities of his songful melodies. Though Schubert did not always confine excursions to distant and colorful keys to his development sections, he largely did so in this movement. As in many of his slow movements, Schubert presents his serene main theme three times, alternating with two stormy episodes. His first return to the main theme is somewhat infused with the energy of the intervening episode, so that when the main theme makes its final appearance in its calm guise, it brings a sense of rounding-off and closure. Schubert’s Minuet continues the Sonata’s moderate pace where a scherzo might have seemed too brash. Much in the character of a Ländler (Austrian precursor of the waltz), the main Minuet section and its return encompass one of Schubert’s true gems—a delicate trio that grows out of a little figure heard at the end of the Minuet. In the finale Schubert may again have found inspiration in Beethoven—in this case the Rondo of the G major Piano Sonata, op. 31, no. 1, which like Schubert’s movement is marked “Allegretto.” Schubert’s rondo, though not so-labeled, features a tuneful refrain, based on a long note releasing into shorter and repeated notes. The refrain alternates with scenic episodes, of which the second contains a poetic minor-mode section with a magical shift to major. The movement ends with a quiet yet sparkling coda that peaks just before making a final hushed reminder of the rondo theme—a fitting close for such a lovely, unhurried work. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

MING FENG HSIN, VIOLIN A native of Taiwan, Ming Feng Hsin’s musical career began as a violin soloist after winning the Glasgow International Violin Competition at the age of 15. He subsequently soloed with the Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Orchestra and was hailed by the Scotsman as “destined to be one of the giants of the next generation.” A protégé of Yehudi Menuhin, Mr. Hsin has performed throughout Europe, America and Asia as both soloist and chamber musician. Mr. Hsin is also an accomplished conductor. After getting a conducting degree from Juilliard with Otto Werner Mueller, he has worked with numerous orchestras throughout the world, and has led productions of the operas Aida, Flying Dutchman, La Boheme, and Ballo in Maschera. 
A member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for the past 18 years, Mr. Hsin is married to his colleague in the orchestra Wen Qian, and together they have two young children, Thomas 5 and Olivia 3.