September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper (1843-1913) Requiem for three cellos and piano September 29, 2024:Rafael Figueroa, Edward Arron, and Zvi Plesser, cellos; Jeewon Park, piano David Popper, one of the most influential cellists of the nineteenth century, was greatly respected by Liszt, Wagner, and Brahms. Born in Prague in 1843, he showed musical talent at the age of three by imitating his father’s cantorial chanting. After studying cello with Julius Goltermann at the Prague Conservatory, Popper earned great renown through a series of European tours. On the first of these in 1863 he met the influential conductor Hans von Bülow, who not only performed with him, but obtained an appointment for him at the Löwenberg court chapel. Having become principal cellist of the Vienna Hofoper (Court Opera) in 1868, Popper later joined the renowned Hellmesberger Quartet, which premiered several of Brahms’s works. In 1872 Popper married pianist Sophie Menter, pupil of Liszt, but the marriage dissolved fourteen years later. He moved to Budapest in 1896, where he taught at the Budapest Conservatory for the remainder of his life, serving for a time as cellist of the Hubay Quartet. Popper wrote over eighty compositions, mostly for his own instrument, but also some songs and piano pieces. His cello compositions—four concertos, the three-cello Requiem, and many character pieces—are valued for their idiomatic writing and melodic warmth. He composed the Requiem in 1891 after the death of his publisher Daniel Rahter, and premiered the work in London with Jules Delsart and Edward Howell on November 25 that year. Beloved of cellists, the Requiem has held onto a special niche in the repertoire. The work opens with two of the cellos playing in thirds; with the entrance of the third cello it becomes difficult to imagine a richer sound. The one-movement piece offers expressive solos for each of the cellists and even contains a little interlude featuring the piano (or orchestra). The harmonic language shows the late-nineteenth-century ease of modulating by means of chromatic alterations, deceptive resolutions, and borrowed chords. The piece travels through many keys, but on the most basic level it begins in the minor mode, moves to a remote major key (a major third away), and returns to the home key and opening theme, eventually settling into the major mode at the end. Particularly poignant passages occur with the lush suspensions in the remote key area and the chorale-like writing for the cellos just after the concluding turn to the major. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 27, 2019: Quartetto di Cremona GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858–1924) Crisantemi October 27, 2019: Quartetto di Cremona On February 6, 1890, Puccini wrote to his brother Michele (who had settled in the far-off little city of Jujuy in the Andes) that he had composed a work for string quartet in just one night and dedicated it to the memory of Prince Amadeo di Savoia, Duca d’Aosta and King of Spain, who had died on January 18. Puccini called it Crisantemi because in Italy chrysanthemums are associated with funereal ceremonies and events. (Michele, always interested in his brother’s music, made piano versions of it both for two and four-hands from a copy his brother had sent.) The February 6 letter also mentions a successful—probably the first—performance of the work at the Milan Conservatory by the Campanari Quartet and another performance by the same musicians in Brescia. Though the piece is now performed by quartets or string ensembles looking for an interesting addition to their standard repertoire, Crisantemi is most often heard in Puccini’s reworking of it for some of the most poignant moments in Acts III and IV of his opera Manon Lescaut. The short melancholy quartet follows da capo form—A-B-A, where A is an exact repeat of the opening section. The “A” theme is used for the opening of Manon Lescaut’s final act, and the “B” theme for the orchestral passage accompanying Des Grieux as he addresses Manon through her prison window in Act III. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) Adagio for Strings, op. 11 December 16, 2018: Emerson Quartet In an idyllic spot near Salzburg in the summer of 1936, Barber composed his String Quartet in B minor, op. 11. He arranged the slow movement for string orchestra in 1937 in the hopes that Toscanini would perform it during the next season with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The great conductor did indeed perform it, on November 5, 1938. Titled simply Adagio for Strings , the work has since become Barber’s most popular and frequently performed piece. Often played at funerals, in restaurants, in commercials, and on soundtracks, the Adagio reached a wide audience in the 1986 movie Platoon , though many have suggested that Barber would have objected to its use as the backdrop to such violence. The movement’s soaring quality is enhanced by the fact that its key (B-flat minor) is never explicitly confirmed; the piece even closes on an open-ended note of resignation. The Adagio ’s single, beseeching theme is introduced by the first violin, taken up by each member of the quartet, and built to one of the most sublime climaxes in the repertoire. Following a pause the movement subsides pensively. Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 24, 2019: Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violins; Sarah Crocker Vonsattel, violin; Kristin Lee, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Mihai Marica, cello; Tim Cobb, bass; Gilles Vonsattel, harpsichord JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Double Violin Concerto in D Minor BWV 1043 March 24, 2019: Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violins; Sarah Crocker Vonsattel, violin; Kristin Lee, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Mihai Marica, cello; Tim Cobb, bass; Gilles Vonsattel, harpsichord An accomplished violinist as well as keyboard player, Bach wrote at least six concertos for one or more violins and a number combining violin with other types of solo instruments. He intended the solo parts for himself or for his qualified students or professional colleagues, including several of his own sons. The celebrated “Double” Concerto is in fact a concerto grosso, in which a small solo group (concertino)—here two violins—is contrasted with a larger group (ripieno or tutti). Accordingly Bach titled his manuscript: Concerto à 6, 2 violini concertini, 2 violini e 1 viola di ripieni, violoncello e continuo di J. S. Bach. It was once thought that Bach had composed the work between 1717 and 1723 in Cöthen where he composed the Brandenburg Concertos, but scholar Christoph Wolff has convincingly suggested that he composed this Concerto as well as the A minor Violin Concerto, BWV 1041, around 1730 to 1731 in Leipzig where he directed the Collegium Musicum. This music society, founded at the University in 1702 by then student-of-jurisprudence Georg Philipp Telemann, was made up primarily of students under professional leadership. Bach directed the group from 1729 until the early 1740s (with a short interruption from 1737 to 1739). The Collegium presented public community concerts, one of the first organizations to do so in Germany, and ultimately led to the Leipzig Gewandhaus, which remains the most important musical organization of that city. During Bach’s tenure with the Collegium he constantly needed to produce all manner of music for their weekly performances: overtures, duo and trio sonatas, sinfonias and concertos, including keyboard concertos, which he often performed with his sons and pupils as soloists. A longtime admirer of the works of Antonio Vivaldi, Bach employed the concerto form he standardized in the eighteenth century—three movements: fast, slow, fast. He also availed himself of Vivaldi’s ritornello form (in which a refrain alternates with episodic excursions), though adapted in his own way, and with his particular contrapuntal leanings. All three movements of the Double Concerto make use of or allude to ritornello form. The opening Vivace’s first tutti statement occurs as a fugal exposition, an unusual feature for concertos in general, but a device Bach also used in the finale of the above-mentioned A minor Concerto. In the Largo, ma non tanto, one of Bach’s most beautiful and heart-stirring slow movements, the soloists dominate. The way in which the solo parts intertwine, often weaving lovely chains of suspensions, continues to create a fascinating and moving effect no matter how many times one has heard the work. The opening theme, begun by the second solo violin, recurs in the manner of a ritornello, yet there are no “tuttis”—the accompaniment provides a continual soft rhythmic background, only to come briefly to the fore for cadential reinforcement. The finale, Allegro, begins with a rhythmic cascade of close imitative counterpoint and unfolds in a free ritornello structure. Of special interest are the episodes in which, reversing their roles, the solo violins play broad four-part chords while the orchestra provides the motivic interest. The movement’s rhythmic drive creates a hypnotic momentum. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 2, 2023: ETTORE CAUSA, VIOLA; BORIS BERMAN, PIANO JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Sonata in E-flat for viola and piano, Op. 120, No. 2 April 2, 2023: ETTORE CAUSA, VIOLA; BORIS BERMAN, PIANO This rich, warm product of Brahms’s later years was originally conceived for the clarinet. While writing his G major String Quintet in the summer of 1890 at Ischl, his holiday haunt, Brahms decided he would retire from composing. Yet the following spring he became so enamored of the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist of the Meiningen orchestra, that in the next few years he wrote four works all featuring the instrument: the Clarinet Trio and the Clarinet Quintet, both composed mostly in the summer of 1891, and the two Clarinet Sonatas, op. 120, written in the summer of 1894. In order to reach a wider audience Brahms also produced alternate versions of all these works, substituting the viola for the clarinet. He even made violin versions of the Trio and of the two Sonatas. Brahms was drawn to Mühlfeld as a musician, not for his flash and technical brilliance, but for his warm tone, sophistication, and sensitivity—qualities Brahms emphasized in the four late clarinet works. The composer accompanied Mühlfeld in the first private performance of the Sonatas in November 1894 and also in the first public performances in January 1895. In arranging the Sonatas for viola Brahms transposed certain passages an octave lower and introduced some double stops, but the works were already well suited for the deep, mellifluous tone of the viola; the piano part was left unchanged. With these Sonatas Brahms broke new ground in the repertoire for both the clarinet and the viola. The Sonatas follow Brahms’s tendency to compose in pairs—usually contrasting in character. The F minor Sonata displays storminess in its first movement and ebullience in its last, framing more intimate inner movements in a fairly traditional four-movement framework. The E-flat major Sonata projects a more relaxed feeling in its outer movements, which surround an impassioned scherzo—a less orthodox three-movement sequence. The E-flat major first movement, Brahms’s last in sonata form, shows just how pliable the form could be in his hands. The songful, amabile (amiable) main theme is immediately varied, leading succinctly to his second theme, which as in many of his works is a theme group. Brahms delights in obscuring the outlines of the form so that the end of the exposition and beginning of the development flow seamlessly together. Similarly the end of the development and beginning of the recapitulation are dovetailed. The E-flat minor second movement, Brahms’s last scherzo, takes an intense stand as the Sonata’s centerpiece. Yet it, too, relaxes in a lovely oasis, a trio in B major, rich in the parallel thirds and sixths and the octave doublings of which Brahms was so fond. Brahms turned to his beloved variation form one last time in the closing movement. The first three variations return to the Classic technique of employing increasingly faster note values so that the basic subdivisions change from predominantly eighth notes, to sixteenths, to thirty-second notes. Far from becoming cluttered, Brahms’s texture retains a miraculous clarity. The fourth variation relaxes with quiet, syncopated chords to set up the only fiery variation, the fifth, which also shifts to the minor mode. Amiability returns with the Più tranquillo coda, but Brahms allows the two instrumentalists their virtuosic say in the final bars of the piece. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Fantasy in C, Op. 17 March 8, 2026: Jonathan Biss, piano Rarely does a work so thoroughly combine life and art. Schumann composed the first movement of his Fantasy in June 1836 during the depths of despair at being separated from his beloved Clara Wieck. He later wrote her, “You can understand the Fantasy only if you think back to the unhappy summer of 1836, when I had to renounce you,” and in another letter he called the first movement “a deep lament for you.” Originally Schumann considered the first movement an independent piece, which he titled Ruines . Then in September of 1836 he hit upon the idea of adding two movements and donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the work toward the public fund for erecting a Beethoven monument in Bonn. Titled “Ruins. Trophies. Palms. Grand Sonata for the Pianoforte for Beethoven’s Monument,” the novel work failed to interest two publishers, so in May 1837 Schumann offered the work to Breitkopf & Härtel under the title “Fantasies,” with no mention of the Beethoven project. By the time it appeared in print in the spring of 1839, Schumann had considered a number of titles—Fantasy Pieces, Fata Morgana (referring to the optical illusions of the sorceress), Fantasy in Three Movements, and Poems: Ruins, Triumphal Arch, and Constellation—before finally settling on Fantasy. The publication carried the following motto from a poem by Friedrich Schlegel: “Through all the tones there sounds / in this colorful earthly dream / a gentle tone, sustained / for the one who secretly hears.” Robert wrote to Clara in 1839: “Write and tell me what you think to yourself in the first movement of the Fantasy. Does it also conjure up many pictures for you? Are not you really the ‘tone’ in the motto?” Though adding Schlegel’s motto was something of an afterthought, it still brings up the important idea of allusion. Of the many references Schumann made in the work, one in particular stands out to many listeners: in his first-movement coda he alludes to the final song of Beethoven’s cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved), in particular the phrase “take them then, these songs.” In Beethoven’s setting the poet means that these songs will lessen the distance between the separated lovers, which would have held so much meaning for Robert and Clara that the reference can hardly have been accidental. This and other allusions attest to the personal biographical significance of the work, but what of Schumann’s aesthetic desire, often expressed in his critical writings, to create something new out of old forms? His own indecision about what to call the piece and the widely divergent analyses with elements that “don’t fit” old forms lend weight to the idea that Schumann really created a unique form here. The first movement relies in part on sonata form but brings other elements into play. Most listeners hear three basic sections in the first movement, of which the second is an introspective character piece, “Im Legendenton” (In the style of a legend). But is this self-sufficient section the development section? Its main theme does, in fact, employ a transformed version of a motive from the first section, but this stable section does not behave like a development. Does it interrupt a development section already in progress? Does it interrupt a recapitulation? Cases have been presented for all these views. It bears remembering that this movement was originally conceived as a one-movement fantasy, which in historic terms—the fantasies of Mozart and Haydn, for example—meant a piece with a number of connected sections that exhibited novel features. By adding two more movements, with various hidden connections among them, Schumann also incorporates the idea of a multimovement fantasy as in Beethoven’s Opus 27 Piano Sonatas, which are both labeled “Quasi una fantasia.” Thus with Schumann we have a fantasy within a fantasy. Novel structure, however, would be nothing without great thematic ideas, such as the memorable opening, which begins as if one has just then “tuned in.” Liszt, to whom Schumann dedicated the Fantasy and who played it for the composer several times, warned that this theme should not be played too vigorously, but somewhat “dreamily.” Equally inspired is the second movement’s march theme. Clara particularly adored the second movement, which she learned to play first, saying she reveled in it and that “it makes me hot and cold all over.” This movement presents an original march-trio-march form in which the frequent returns of the march theme also lend the suggestion of a rondo. The thrilling coda strikes terror even into a virtuoso’s heart—each hand must execute extremely wide leaps simultaneously in opposite directions at full speed. The final movement also offers an innovative form that might best be described as a kind of parallel structure: two similar sections followed by a contrasting episode, then a transposed return that is first shortened by omitting the first of the two similar sections and then lengthened by the addition of a coda. The most striking thing about the movement, however, is its poetic, improvisatory atmosphere—highly unusual in a closing movement. Thus Schumann boldly reversed the typical sequence of events by placing his virtuoso showpiece as the work’s centerpiece and a spacious, radiant meditation as its conclusion. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 19, 2008 – Carter Brey, cello; Warren Jones, piano Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Sonata in A Minor, Op. 36, for cello and piano October 19, 2008 – Carter Brey, cello; Warren Jones, piano Arguably the most popular composer ever to emerge from the Scandinavian peninsula, Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1843. He received his formal musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory, but he did not find his unique musical voice until returning to Scandinavia after his graduation. There, Grieg was strongly influenced by Rikard Nordraak, the composer of the Norwegian national anthem. Nordraak’s obsession with the sagas, fjords and music of their homeland inspired Grieg to believe that a form of national music was also possible. He studied and drew inspiration from Norwegian folk music and is today considered a leading musical voice of Norwegian nationalism. Nevertheless, Grieg wrote that “music which matters, however national it may be, is lifted high above the purely national level.” Indeed, his music was admired by many of the most respected composers of his day, including Franz Liszt and Peter Tchaikovsky, both of whom offered their encouragement and approval. History has branded Grieg as a composer of delightful miniatures, owing largely to the popularity of such well-known works as his Holberg Suite and incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. This impression, however, is belied by the massive scale of his cello sonata, one of the most passionate and expansively Romantic sonatas ever composed for the instrument. Grieg dedicated the piece to his brother John, an amateur cellist with whom he had not been on a good terms for some time. Unfortunately, there was no reconciliation, and it was another cellist, Ludwig Gritzmacher, who premiered the work with Grieg at the piano on October 22, 1883. Perhaps reflecting the pain of the brotherly separation, the first movement begins with a brooding, agitated theme, which quickly dissolves into a tender second theme more characteristic of Grieg – warmly lyrical, very Norwegian. The movement has a wide emotional range, heightened by the unusual inclusion of a mini cadenza for the cellist. The lyrical Andante draws its opening theme from an Homage March composed by Grieg as incidental music to a play about King Sigurd Jorsalfar of Norway. (The march was originally scored for four cellos.) There is a stormy middle section before the processional theme returns at the end of the movement. The final movement begins with a brief recitative-cadenza for solo cello, which ushers in a vigorously rustic folk dance. As in the first movement, the finale traces a huge expressive trajectory. Although the sonata has no known extra-musical program, it creates a strongly narrative impression and represents Grieg at his most intense and passionate. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Joaquín’s Turina (1882 - 1949) La oración de torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer) October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Like most Spanish composers of his time, Turina went to Paris to study. While there he performed his already published Piano Quintet, op. 1, to an audience that included Isaac Albéniz. His compatriot advised him to look to his native Spain for material. Turina took the advice to heart, later claiming that the conversation had changed his whole attitude to music. More interested than his countrymen in pursuing the conventional (German) major forms, he sought to combine them with his Andalusian, particularly Sevillian, heritage in a style that had also absorbed Romantic and Impressionistic elements. His works in the smaller genres admirably exhibit Spanish traits, sometimes with humor and often with elegance. Turina composed La oración del toraro in 1924 as a lute quartet, dedicated to the lute virtuosos of the Aguilar family—Elisa, Ezequiel, José, and Francisco; he arranged it two years later for string quartet or string orchestra. The work’s roots in Andalusian folk music appear not only in the sounds of plucked strings, achieved by pizzicato in the string orchestra version, but in the rhythms, modal inflections, and alternating fast and slow sections. The piece also shows French influence, including that of Ravel, and even a bit of English harmonic texture—Vaughan Williams or Delius, perhaps. The bullfighter’s prayer climaxes in the slow middle section with an intensity in the high registers that seems particularly well suited to the sustained sounds of bowed rather than plucked strings. Turina condenses and varies the return of the opening section—without its introduction—now rising again to beseeching heights but without the previous intensity, ending quietly. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DANBI UM, VIOLIN Recently selected as one of eight young artists to join Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center, violinist Danbi Um has appeared as soloist with the Israel Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Herzliya Chamber Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonic, and Dartmouth Symphony, among others, and in such venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and for the Seattle Chamber Music Society and Ravinia Festival. This season, she appears with CMS Two in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, at Saratoga Springs, and in many other national and international concert venues. She also participated in the Music@Menlo Festival and tour with “Musicians from Marlboro.” Ms. Um is a winner of Astral’s 2015 National Auditions. An avid chamber musician, she has participated at Marlboro Music, the Ravinia Festival, Yellow Barn Festival, Prussia Cove, North Shore Chamber Music, and the Caramoor Festival. She tours frequently with “Musicians from Marlboro,” and has performed with the Jupiter Chamber Players. Ms. Um was the Second Prize winner of the 2004 Menuhin International Violin Competition, and won Third Prize at the Michael Hill International Competition in 2009. At age ten, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music, where she graduated with a bachelor of music degree. She also holds an Artist Diploma from Indiana University.

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SARAH VONSATTEL, VIOLIN Violinist Sarah Crocker Vonsattel has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2008. She previously held positions in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. Sarah has appeared as soloist with the musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Symphony, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, among others. Recent performances include appearances at Lake Tahoe Summerfest, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, the Bronxville Chamber Music Series, Downtown Music at Grace Church, the New Marlborough House Concerts, and the Syracuse Society for New Music. As a founding member of the Verklärte Quartet, Sarah was a Grand Prize Winner of the 2003 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, leading to concert tours in the U.S. and Italy with this ensemble. A proponent of new music, Sarah has appeared with the iO string quartet and the Talea Ensemble and can be heard on the Bridge Records label performing the music of Poul Ruders and Tod Machover. She has appeared as both performer and faculty member at festivals including the Orfeo International Music Festival (Italy), the Wellesley Composers Conference (Massachusetts), and the Musical Friends Academy (Tunisia). She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was a student of David Updegraff, and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ronald Copes and Naoko Tanaka. In her spare time, she enjoys distance running and traveling.

MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA As one of the world’s leading young violists, 26-year-old American Matthew Lipman has been hailed by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing” and by the Chicago Tribune for his “splendid technique and musical sensitivity.” The recipient of a prestigious 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota, Illinois Philharmonic, Grand Rapids Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber, Juilliard, Ars Viva Symphony, and Montgomery Symphony orchestras, with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall, and in recital at the WQXR Greene Space in New York City and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. His debut solo album “Ascent” that includes a world premiere by Brazilian composer Clarice Assad and Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy played for the first time on viola is being released by Cedille Records, coinciding with a Lincoln Center recital debut in Fall 2018. The Telegraph praised Mr. Lipman as “gifted with poise and a warmth of timbre” on his Avie recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with the preeminent Mozart scholar Sir Neville Marriner, which topped the Billboard charts. He was the only violist featured on WFMT Chicago’s list of “30 Under 30” of the world’s top classical musicians and has been profiled by The Strad and BBC Music magazines. Mr. Lipman performs internationally as a chamber musician with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and regularly at the prominent Music@Menlo, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bridgehampton, Seattle, Cleveland, and Valery Gergiev’s White Nights festivals. A top prizewinner of the Primrose, Tertis, Washington, Johansen, and Stulberg International Viola Competitions, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as an inaugural Kovner fellow from The Juilliard School as a student of Heidi Castleman, and was further mentored by Tabea Zimmermann at the Kronberg Academy. A native of Chicago, Mr. Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University and performs on a fine 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola loaned through the generous efforts of the RBP Foundation.