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THE DANISH STRING QUARTET FREDERIK ØLAND (VIOLIN); RUNE TONSGAARD SØRENSEN (VIOLIN); ASBJØRN NØRGAARD (VIOLA); FREDRIK SCHØYEN SJÖLIN (CELLO) Among today’s many exceptional chamber music groups, the GRAMMY® nominated Danish String Quartet continuously asserts its preeminence. The Quartet’s playing reflects impeccable musicianship, sophisticated artistry, exquisite clarity of ensemble, and, above all, an expressivity inextricably bound to the music, from Haydn to Shostakovich to contemporary scores. Performances bring a rare musical spontaneity, giving audiences the sense of hearing even treasured canon repertoire as if for the first time, and exuding a palpable joy in music-making that have made them enormously in-demand on concert stages throughout the world. The recipient of many awards and prestigious appointments, including Musical America’s 2020 Ensemble of the Year and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, the Danish String Quartet was named in 2013 as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and appointed to the The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). In 2021-2022, the Danish String Quartet introduce DOPPELGÄNGER, an ambitious 4-year international commissioning project. DOPPELGÄNGER pairs world premieres from four renowned composers—Bent Sørensen, Lotta Wennäkoski, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Thomas Adès—with four major works from the masterful chamber music repertoire of Schubert. Each season, the Danish String Quartet will perform a world premiere on a program with its doppelgänger—the Schubert quartet or quintet that inspired it—culminating in the premiere of a quintet by Adès, after the great String Quintet in C major. The DOPPELGÄNGER pieces are commissioned by the Danish String Quartet with the support of Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures, Vancouver Recital Society, Flagey in Brussels, and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. The first commission, composed by Bent Sørensen and inspired by Schubert’s quartet in G Major (D.887), is scheduled to premiere in 2021. In addition to performances of DOPPELGÄNGER, the Danish String Quartet gives over 20 performances throughout North America in the 2021-2022 season. Highlights include debuts at the University of Georgia, Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center, Shriver Hall, and Virginia Arts Festival, return trips to Boston’s Celebrity Series, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis, Chamber Music Cincinnati, and University of Washington’s Meany Hall, and a tour of Florida. European highlights include tours of Denmark, France, Germany, and Amsterdam. As part of a multi-year residency, the Danish String Quartet brought a series of five concerts, which mirror the programs in its ongoing recording project with ECM New Series, PRISM, to La Jolla Music Society in November 2019. Each PRISM program is an exploration of the symbiotic musical and contextual relationships between Bach fugues, Beethoven string quartets, and works by Shostakovich, Schnittke, Bartok, Mendelssohn, and Webern, forming an expertly curated musical evolution within each individual program and across the entire PRISM repertory. Prism I, the first disc of this five-album project for the ECM label, was released in September 2018 and garnered a GRAMMY® nomination in the category of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for the group’s recordings of Beethoven’s Op. 127 in E-flat Major, Bach’s Fugue in E-flat Major (arranged by Mozart), and Shostakovich’s final string quartet, No. 15 in E-flat minor. Prism II was subsequently released in September 2019 to rave reviews including a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine, “Best Classical Music of 2019” from New York Times, and “Classical Music You Must Hear” from Apple Music. Prism III—featuring Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13, Op. 131, Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1, and Bach’s Fugue in C-sharp minor, BWV 849 from The Well-Tempered Clavier—was released in March 2021. The Danish String Quartet returned to North America in the 2019-2020 season as one of the most prominent musical voices in the monumental celebrations of Beethoven’s 250th year. With two sweeping North American tours, the Danish engaged its expansive audience in programming centered around the towering Beethoven string quartets, as well as many important works which inspired, and were inspired by, these revered giants of the classical canon. The Danish returned to Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as the featured string quartet performing the entire Beethoven cycle over the course of six concerts in February 2020. The Quartet performs the cycle again for the Schubert Club in St. Paul, MN, in November 2021. The group takes an active role in reaching new audiences through special projects. In 2007, they established the DSQ Festival, which takes place in an intimate and informal setting at Copenhagen’s Bygningskulturens Hus. The 2020 DSQ Festival featured an array of meticulously curated programs including such guests as violinist Malin William-Olsson, cellist Andreas Brantelid, and pianist Marianna Shirinyan. In 2016, they inaugurated a new music festival, Series of Four, in which they both perform and invite colleagues—the Ebène Quartet, mandolin player Chris Thile, among others—to appear at the venerable Danish Radio Concert Hall. Concerts this season featured collaborations with iconic Scandinavian artists including Andreas Brantelid, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, and the Danish National Girls Choir. Since its debut in 2002, the Danish String Quartet has demonstrated a special affinity for Scandinavian composers, from Carl Nielsen to Hans Abrahamsen, alongside music of Mozart and Beethoven. The Quartet’s musical interests also encompass Nordic folk music, the focus of Wood Works, an album of traditional Scandinavian folk music, released by Dacapo in 2014. As a follow-up, the Danish String Quartet released Last Leaf for ECM, an album of traditional Scandinavian folk music. This recording was one of the top classical albums of 2017, as chosen by NPR, Spotify and The New York Times, among others. Named Artist-in-Residence in 2006 by the Danish Radio, the Quartet was offered the opportunity to record the Nielsen string quartets at the Danish Radio Concert Hall. The two CDs, released in 2007 and 2008 on the Dacapo label, garnered enthusiastic praise for their first recordings—“these Danish players have excelled in performances of works by Brahms, Mozart and Bartók in recent years. But they play Nielsen’s quartets as if they owned them,” noted the New York Times. In 2012, the Danish String Quartet released a recording of Haydn and Brahms quartets on the German AVI-music label, for which they also received critical notice. “What makes the performance special is the maturity and calm of the playing, even during virtuosic passages that whisk by. This is music-making of wonderful ease and naturalness,” observed the New York Times. Subsequently, they recorded works by Brahms and Robert Fuchs with clarinetist Sebastian Manz, released by AVI-music in 2014, and in 2017, an album with music of Thomas Adès, Per Nørgård, and Abrahamsen, the Quartet’s debut on ECM. The Danish String Quartet has received numerous citations and prizes, including First Prize in the Vagn Holmboe String Quartet Competition and the Charles Hennen International Chamber Music Competition in the Netherlands, as well as the Audience Prize at the Trondheim International String Quartet Competition in 2005. In 2009, the Danish String Quartet won First Prize in the 11th London International String Quartet Competition, now known as the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition, and return to the celebrated London concert hall frequently. The Quartet was the awarded the 2010 NORDMETALL-Ensemble Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany, and in 2011, they received the Carl Nielsen Prize, the highest cultural honor in Denmark.

SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 2022 AT 3 PM MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN THE “HAMMERKLAVIER” SONATA BUY TICKETS MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN, PIANO “A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” — The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The celebrated pianist Marc-André Hamelin is renowned for his compelling artistry, jaw-dropping technique, and inventive programming. His multifaceted Parlance debut will begin with a keyboard suite by CPE Bach followed by Hamelin’s own dazzling “Suite in the old style,” combining baroque and contemporary elements. His recital will culminate with Beethoven’s Olympian “Hammerklavier” Sonata of which his publisher wrote, “It excels above all other creations of this master not only through its most rich and grand fantasy, but also in regard to artistic perfection and sustained style, and will mark a new period in Beethoven’s pianoforte works.” “In everything he revealed himself to be a musician’s musician, a virtuoso in the most comprehensive sense of the word… jaw-dropping.” – John von Rhein, The Chicago Tribune PROGRAM C.P.E. Bach Suite in E minor Wq 62/12 Program Notes Marc-André Hamlein Suite à l’ancienne (Suite in the old style) (2020) Program Notes Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier “ Program Notes See Marc-André Hamelin perform Fauré’s Impromptu No.2, Op. 31: See Marc-André Hamelin perform Scarbo from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit:

GREG ZUBER, XYLOPHONE Gregory Zuber is the principal percussionist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, with which he has toured the United States, Europe, and Japan. He can be heard regularly on the Met’s many broadcasts and recordings. He is an active soloist, recitalist, composer, teacher, and clinician. Performance highlights include his 2004 solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and his 2007 solo concert at the Verbier Music Festival. In 2002, he performed the premiere of Hsueh-Yung Shen’s Legend for solo percussionist and orchestra, commissioned for him by the Met, at Carnegie Hall with James Levine and the MET Orchestra. Mr. Zuber performs chamber music regularly with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. He also plays duo concerts with his wife, flutist Patricia Zuber. He is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and the UBS Verbier Music Festival.

March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet Ludwig van Beethoven Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 (“Serioso”) March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet Beethoven’s F minor String Quartet of 1810, the last of his “middle” quartets, is one of a select group of works for which he provided his own descriptive title—other famous instances being his Pathétique Sonata and Eroica and Pastoral Symphonies. He marked his manuscript “Quartett Serioso,” a curious mix of German and quasi-Italian, which apparently meant a work devoid of ostentation whose inner conflicts were expressed by pared-down harmonic, motivic, and formal structures. Unfortunately it could imply that his Harp Quartet, op. 74, written just a year before—and any of his other quartets for that matter—were not “serious,” though surely he meant it as a way to separate his quartet production apart from the proliferation of showy and less weighty quartets by other composers that had begun populating the concert scene. On another front, the work’s “seriousness” has to do with his having written it without a commission because of a personal compulsion, and dedicating it to a friend, cello-player Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, rather than to a highborn patron. This resonates with his late quartets, which, though instigated by a patron, ended up being composed out of sheer inner necessity. Beethoven had already begun using quartet-writing as the place for exploring his most forward-thinking ideas—which had led to such disappointing critical reception of his Razumovsky Quartets, op. 59—but now this testing ground took a turn toward privacy. He waited an unusually long time before having the Serioso Quartet performed and published. The work received its first performance by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in May of 1814, for which occasion Beethoven apparently revised it. The Serioso was one of several pieces that Beethoven sold to publisher Anton Sigmund Steiner in 1815 in repayment of a debt. The debt must have been substantial because the batch also included the Opus 96 Violin Sonata, the Archduke Trio, the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, and several smaller works. A pivotal work, the Serioso takes a look back to the Razumovsky and Harp Quartets but just as clearly points to the late quartets, though it would be fourteen years before he took up the genre again. Concision and new harmonic relationships are paramount here, and often his compression of both boils down to single notes or pairs of notes. The first movement’s dark, furious unison opening suddenly breaks off, followed by a leaping response characterized by dotted rhythms. The ensuing lyrical elaboration of the opening now pointedly highlights the remote Neapolitan harmony (based on the flatted second scale degree). A prominent pair of half steps in the lyrical passage sets up the somewhat unusual key of D-flat for the lovely second theme. Twice, once at the end of the second theme and once in the midst of the closing theme, explosive ascending scales and daring excursions to remote keys command our attention. It stands to reason that in such a terse movement Beethoven would not repeat his exposition. Instead he shocks the listener again with a crashing major chord that seems to signal a development. Yet this turns out not to be a thorough “working-out” in the classical sense, rather a brief revisiting of the furious opening and the leaping dotted-rhythmic idea, followed by a suspenseful buildup. Beethoven then begins his drastically shortened recapitulation with the fortissimo unison of the transition to the second theme. A coda of the same length as the development balances out this remarkable rethinking of sonata form. The Allegretto ma non troppo begins softly and mysteriously, with a melodic shape similar to the first movement’s opening. Any idea of relaxed, lyrical contrast becomes entangled in a wavering between major and minor and an increasing influx of chromaticism that peaks in the middle section’s fugue. This remarkable interior piece unfolds in two sections before the opening music returns in shortened form. Beethoven continues with a serene coda, but instead of ending peacefully makes a directs link to the ensuing tempestuous scherzo. Beethoven asked that his third movement, a typical place for an irreverent scherzo, be played Allegro assai vivace ma serioso. Propulsive sections with an obsessive dotted rhythm alternate with two trio sections of more lyrical demeanor, which still transmit a restless sense with the first violin’s figurations and unusual harmonic juxtapositions of distantly related keys. A truly slow, reflective introduction prefaces the agitated sonata-rondo finale. Compact once again, the movement features a dancelike but disquieting main theme that Beethoven varies ingeniously on every recurrence. Its last appearance comes to a halt on a hushed major chord that unleashes one of the most talked about endings ever. A lightening quick coda in the major mode rockets forth in unimaginable contrast to the rest of the movement and to the entire piece. In this Beethoven parallels his own Egmont Overture, written just months before, also in a serious F minor with an F major coda, but whereas that ending represents a hard-won victory corroborated by the story, here Beethoven seems simply to be letting go, albeit in breathtaking style. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano JOHN DUKE (1899-1984) Three Songs May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano After early music training from his mother, a talented singer, John Duke attended the Peabody Institute where he studied composition with Gustav Strube and piano with Harold Randolph. He continued his studying composition in New York with Howard Brockway and Bernard Wagenaar and furthered his piano skills with Franklin Cannon. He gave his piano debut piano recital in New York’s Aeolian Hall in 1920 in a program of Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt, among others, and performed the Grieg Concerto with the New York Philharmonic on tour in his hometown of Cumberland, Maryland, the following year. Fully aware of the challenges of a career as a concert pianist, he joined the faculty of Smith College in 1923, where he taught piano until his retirement in 1967. He furthered his musical training on sabbatical in 1929–30, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. He also spent a summer at Yaddo, the renowned artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York, and many summers at the Seagle Colony, a school for singers in Schroon Lake, New York. Though Duke composed a handful of orchestral and chamber pieces, the vast majority of his output features the voice—265 songs, several stage works, and a few choral pieces. His family background no doubt fostered his interest in song, though he himself said he was amazed at the way his career turned out. “In my early days, my ambition was to be a great pianist, and I could not have believed anyone who told [me] I was destined to be a song composer.” He came to believe that “vocal utterance is the basis of music’s mystery. The thing that makes melody a concrete expression of feeling and not just a horizontal design in tones is its power to symbolize the pull, the tension of our feeling of duration.” Duke was particularly interested in setting texts by American poets and he corresponded with many, among them Archibald MacLeish, William Rose Benet, Mark Van Doren, and Richard Nickson. Just as this correspondence attests to his choice of texts, his correspondence with prominent musicians—among them Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Daniel Gregory Mason, Mack Harrell, Ross Lee Finney, Roy Harris, Arthur Fieldler, William Warfield, and Douglas Moore—reflects the neo-Romantic orientation of his style. This afternoon’s selections, “Richard Cory,” “Miniver Cheevy,” and “Luke Havergal,” feature three of four songs that Duke set to poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1945. Duke creates a perfect musical description of the elegant saunter of Richard Cory as a man about town with his jaunty accompaniment in 6/8 meter. The shocking suicide moment he treats bare of accompaniment, followed by a brief dissonant piano comment. Duke sets “Miniver Cheevy” as “a satire in the form of variations.” The nine colorful variations following the presentation of the theme are labeled Melancholy, Sprightly, Dreamy, Dolorous, Grandiose, Indignant, Puzzled, Tipsy, and Epilogue, all describing someone who thought himself born too late, said to be Robinson’s skewering of his own anachronistic tendencies and referencing his alcoholic brother. “Luke Havergal,” in which a voice from the grave encourages Luke Havergal to join his dead lover, follows a ternary form in which the rich outer sections flank a chilling central section and the final section becomes positively majestic before ebbing. The poem might bring to mind Aeneas of classic lore being led by Sibyl to Queen Dido, who has died by suicide, but coupled with Duke’s music the result especially embodies the nineteenth-century Romantics’ theme of an intense yearning for death so as not to have to endure grief-stricken loneliness. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN, PIANO Winner of the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Brown has recently performed as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the National Philharmonic, NFM Leopoldinum, and the North Carolina, Wichita, Grand Rapids, New Haven, and Albany Symphonies; and recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Lincoln Center. Brown is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing frequently at Alice Tully Hall and on tour. This season he opens the Society’s season with Bach and Mendelssohn concertos, and makes European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca. He was selected by András Schiff to perform on an international tour making solo debuts in Berlin, Milan, Florence, Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He regularly performs recitals with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Gilmore, Ravinia, Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, Music in the Vineyards, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise. As a composer, he recently toured his own Concerto for Piano and Strings (2020) around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He was the Composer and Artist-in-Residence at the New Haven Symphony for the 2017-19 seasons and a 2018 Copland House Residency Award recipient. He has received commissions from the Gilmore Piano Festival, the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra; the New Haven and Maryland Symphony Orchestras; Concert Artists Guild, Shriver Hall; Osmo Vänskä and Erin Keefe; pianists Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Orion Weiss, Adam Golka, and Roman Rabinovich; and a consortium of gardens.
 A prolific recording artist, his latest album Noctuelles, featuring Ravel’s Miroirs and newly discovered movements by Medtner was called “a glowing presentation” by BBC Music Magazine. He can be heard as soloist with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot in the music of Messiaen, and as soloist with the Brandenburg State Symphony in music by Samuel Adler. Other albums include Beethoven’s Eroica Variations; all-George Perle; and collaborative albums each with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and violinist Elena Urioste. He is now embarking on a multi-year project to record the complete piano music by Felix Mendelssohn including world premiere recordings of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth. Brown was First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, a winner of the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (formerly CMS Two), a recipient of the Juilliard Petschek Award, and is a Steinway Artist. He earned dual bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composers Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. Additional mentors have included András Schiff and Richard Goode. A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19th century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria. He will not reveal which is his favorite, so as not to incite jealousy. In his spare time, he learns Italian, carves stumps into coffee tables, and plays a lot of Mendelssohn.

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 .

< Back Camille Saint-Saëns Romance, Op. 36 for cello and piano Program Notes Previous Next

< Back Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumblebee, arr. Rachmaninoff Program Notes Previous Next

ZUKERMAN TRIO Pinchas Zukerman, violin Amanda Forsyth, cello Shai Wosner, piano A prodigious talent recognized worldwide for his artistry, Pinchas Zukerman has been an inspiration to young musicians throughout his adult life. In a continuing effort to motivate future generations of musicians through education and outreach, the renowned artist teamed up in 2002 with four protégés to form a string quintet called the Zukerman ChamberPlayers. Despite limited availability during the season, the ensemble amassed an impressive international touring schedule with close to two hundred concerts and four discs on the CBC, Altara and Sony labels. Beginning in 2011 Zukerman, along with cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Angela Cheng, began offering trio repertoire as an alternative to the quintet works with the ChamberPlayers. In addition to piano trios by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Dvorak and Shostakovich, programs often include duo performances with various couplings including the Kodaly Duo. Invitations from major Festivals and venues led to the official launch of the Zukerman Trio in 2013. Since then, the ensemble has traveled around the globe to appear in Japan, China, Australia, Spain, Italy, France, Hungary, South Africa, Istanbul, Russia, and throughout the United States. The Trio regularly performs at the Ravinia Festival, and has appeared at major festivals including the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Verbier, and Bravo! Vail. Beginning with the 2020 season, the trio has included pianist Shai Wosner alongside Zukerman and Forsyth. With a celebrated career encompassing five decades, Pinchas Zukerman reigns as one of today’s most sought after and versatile musicians – violin and viola soloist, conductor, and chamber musician. He is renowned as a virtuoso, admired for the expressive lyricism of his playing, singular beauty of tone, and impeccable musicianship, which can be heard throughout his discography of over 100 albums for which he gained two Grammy® awards and 21 nominations. Born in Tel Aviv, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962, where he studied at The Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. He has been awarded a Medal of Arts, the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline. A devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts. He currently serves as Conductor Emeritus of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, as well as Artistic Director of its Young Artist Program. Canadian Juno Award-winning Amanda Forsyth is considered one of North America’s most dynamic cellists. Her intense richness of tone, remarkable technique and exceptional musicality combine to enthrall audiences and critics alike. From 1999-2015, Amanda Forsyth was principal cellist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, where she appeared regularly as soloist and in chamber ensembles. She is recognized as an eminent recitalist, soloist and chamber musician appearing with leading orchestras in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. As a recording artist she appears on the Fanfare, Marquis, Pro Arte and CBC labels. Pianist Shai Wosner has attracted international recognition for his exceptional artistry, musical integrity, and creative insight. His performances of a broad range of repertoire—from Beethoven and Schubert to Ligeti and the music of today—reflect a degree of virtuosity and intellectual curiosity that has made him a favorite among audiences and critics, who note his “keen musical mind and deep musical soul” (NPR’s All Things Considered ). Mr. Wosner is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He is on the faculty at the Longy School of Music in Boston. “The cleanly articulate performance was elevated by an uncommon passion, both in the tender Adagio and in the finale that shifts abruptly from sadness to joy.” – The Chicago Tribune “With Pinchas Zukerman’s matchless musicianship and charisma at its core, this is a trio made in heaven. Amanda Forsyth brings passion and formidable technique as a cellist, and pianist Angela Cheng is the dream accompanist who lives every note.” – Limelight

February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano GEORGES BIZET (1838-1875) Chanson d’avril and La coccinelle February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Despite Bizet’s primary preoccupation with composing opera, he also wrote more than fifty songs for voice and piano, many of which have stood the test of time because of their fresh contribution to the genre of French mélodie (art song). He built on the style of his teacher, Charles Gounod, but he managed to imbue his songs with more scenic flair and more unusual harmonies and textures. One imagines that if Bizet’s life had not been cut tragically short, he could have produced a body of songs that rivaled those of Fauré, Duparc, and Chabrier, all of whose best songs date from after Bizet’s death. Bizet’s most well-known songs appear in the 1873 collection Vingt (20) mélodies , though most of them had been published before. His somewhat lesser-known but equally great collection, Feuilles d’album (Album leaves), contains six songs all composed in 1866 and published the following year. His final collection (Seize [16] mélodies ), published posthumously in 1883, contains mostly adaptions he made between 1873 and 1875 from unfinished and unperformed operas. His choice of poets demonstrates his amazingly wide-ranging literary tastes, and his dedications include a large circle of friends and colleagues—mainly singers, both professional and amateur. Even when writing in a virtuosic vein his songs are grateful to sing. Bizet composed the charming, graceful “Chanson d’avril” (April song) by 1871 for mezzo-soprano Anna Banderali, wife of composer Grat-Norbert (Adrien) Barth, who a dozen years earlier had beaten out Bizet for the Prix Edouard Rodrigues. Like many of Bizet songs it is strophic, this time in two verses, with a constantly rustling piano part that suggests the stirring of spring and provides a perfect foil for the smoother vocal lines. “La coccinelle” (The ladybug) dates from June of 1868, written for amateur singer Fanny Bouchet. Bizet’s setting provides a perfect example of his ability to create an entire scene within a song. He carefully delineates three characters—in the opening recitative we meet the girl who is the object of the boy’s affection, then for most of the narrative he recounts his missed opportunity for a kiss in a lighthearted waltz as if they are at a dance, and finally the ladybug teases him in her own little song. He concludes with soaring regret and a rueful “I should have.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Chanson d’avril Lève-toi! lève-toi! le printemps vient de naître. Là-bas, sur les vallons, flotte un réseau vermeil. Tout frissonne au jardin, tout chante, et ta fenêtre, Comme un regard joyeux, est pleine de soleil.Du côté des lilas aux touffes violettes, Mouches et papillons bruïssent à la fois; Et le muguet sauvage, ébranlant ses clochettes, A réveillé l’amour endormi dans les bois.Puisque avril a semé ses marguerites blanches, Laisse ta mante lourde et ton manchon frileux; Déja l’oiseau t’appelle, et tes sœurs les pervenches Te souriront dans l’herbe en voyant tes yeux bleus.Viens partons! Au matin la source est plus limpide;N’attendons pas du jour les brûlantes chaleurs, Je veux mouiller mes pieds dans la rosée humide, Et te parler d’amour sous les poiriers en fleurs!—Louis Bouilhet April Song Get up! Get up! Spring is just born. Yonder above the valleys floats a vermilion space. Everything quivers in the garden, everything sings, and your window, like a joyful glance, is full of sun.Beside the lilacs with their purple clusters, flies and butterflies buzz together; and the wild lily-of-the-valley, ringing its bells, has awakened love asleep in the woods.Since April has sown its white daisies, leave aside your heavy coat and your cosy muff; already the bird is calling you, and your sisters the periwinkles will smile in the grass at you on seeing your blue eyes.Come, lets go! In the morning the spring is more limpid; let us not wait for the burning heats of the day, I want to wet my feet in the damp dew, and to talk to you of love beneath the flowering pear trees! La coccinelle Elle me dit: “Quelque chose “Me tourmente.” Et j’aperçus Son cou de neige, et, dessus, Un petit insecte rose.J’aurais dû,—mais, sage ou fou, A seize ans, on est farouche,— Voir le baiser sur sa bouche Plus que l’insecte à son cou.On eût dit un coquillage; Dos rose et taché de noir. Les fauvettes pour nous voir Se penchaient dans le feuillage.Sa bouche fraîche était là; Hélas! Je me penchai sur la belle, Et je pris la coccinelle; Mais le baiser s’envola.“Fils, apprends comme on me nomme,” Dit l’insecte du ciel bleu, “Les bêtes sont au bon Dieu; “Mais la bêtise est à l’homme.” —Victor Hugo The Ladybug She told me: “Something torments me.” And I saw her snow-white neck, and, on it, A small rose-colored insect.I should,—but wise or mad, at sixteen, one is shy,— have seen the kiss on her mouth more than the insect on her neck.It looked like a shell, rosy back and spotted with black. The warblers to see us better stretched out their necks in the foliage.Her fresh mouth was there; alas! I leaned over the beautiful girl, and I removed the ladybug, but the kiss flew away.“Son, learn what they call me,” said the insect from the blue sky, “Creatures belong to the good Lord, but foolishness belongs to man.” Return to Parlance Program Notes