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2023-2024 SEASON Dear friends, Welcome to the 16th season of Parlance Chamber Concerts! A stellar array of artists will grace our stage in 2023-24. Among the many highlights will be a recital by the MET’s luminous star soprano, Angel Blue ; a musical visit to the 16th Century with legendary viola da gambist-conductor Jordi Savall and his early music ensemble, Hespèrion XXI ; and the long-awaited return of pianist Richard Goode performing late piano masterpieces by Beethoven . A spellbinding evening, “Candlelit Music of the Spirit ,” will feature international solo violinist Stefan Jackiw , with renowned clarinetist Anthony McGill, cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist Michael Stephen Brown . Their evocative program will culminate with Oliver Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time , one of the 20th Century’s most spiritually transcendent works. The passionate young Lysander Piano Trio and Munich-based Goldmund String Quartet will make their Parlance debuts, as will the celebrated chamber choir, Antioch Chamber Ensemble . The virtuoso singing group will join forces with the venerable Brentano String Quartet in program including English Madrigals, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus , and the World Premiere of Memory Believes for string quartet and chamber choir by esteemed American composer Bruce Adolphe . Don’t miss our musical celebration of Mothers Day with acclaimed violinist Chee-Yun , pianistic power couple, Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung , and MET Orchestra principal hornist Brad Gemeinhardt . They will collaborate on an assortment of tender-hearted pieces inspired by motherhood and children. The season will conclude joyously with two of Mozart’s most beloved pieces, his Concerto for Flute and Harp featuring MET Orchestra principals, flutist Seth Morris and harpist Mariko Anraku , and the magnificent Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364 , spotlighting the father-son team of violist Paul Neubauer and violinist Oliver Neubauer . PCC’s Artistic Director, Michael Parloff, will conduct members of the MET Orchestra. I look forward to seeing you again soon at Parlance Chamber Concerts! Michael Parloff 2023-2024 SEASON October 15, 2023 Lysander Piano Trio November 12, 2023 Angel Blue, soprano Bryan Wagorn, piano December 3, 2023 Brentano String Quartet Antioch Chamber Choir January 14, 2024 Goldmund String Quartet February 18, 2024 Candlelit Music of The Spirit March 10, 2024 Richard Goode, Piano Late Beethoven April 7, 2024 Jordi Savall, Conductor Hespèrion XXI May 12, 2024 Mothers Day Concert June 2, 2024 Mozart’s Double Concertos Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Three Late Songs, K. 596 – 598 May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Mozart composed three songs on January 14, 1791, just short of two weeks before his thirty-fifth and last birthday. His lodge brother Ignaz Alberti printed them early that same year in the Frühlingslieder (Spring Songs) section of the Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde (Song collection for children and their friends). This four-volume set, of which only the spring and winter volumes survive, was edited by teacher, poet, humanities scholar, and Catholic priest Placidus Partsch, who likely had the responsibility of assigning texts to different composers. Mozart’s three songs are all strophic—that is, several verses sung to the same melody and, unlike his usual practice, Mozart formatted them like piano pieces with one verse written between the staves. The remaining verses were printed on separate pages. Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling (Yearning for spring), placed first in the spring volume, has achieved folk-song-level popularity owing to its happy melody and charming storytelling images. The poem by Christian Adolf Overbeck (1755–1821) was originally titled Fritzchen an den Mai (Little Fritz, to May), referring to an appealing character Overbeck had contributed to German children=s literature. The title Mozart used stems from a collection edited by J. H. Campe, though many people know the song simply by its first line, Komm, lieber Mai (Come, dear May). The poem consists of five verses, but many modern performers often omit one or more of the middle verses. Clearly Mozart had the melody on his mind because he had just used it as the theme of the rondo finale in his last Piano Concerto, K. 595, completed only nine days earlier. For Im Frühlingsanfange (At spring’s beginning), Mozart sets a poem by Christian Christoph Sturm (1740–1786) titled simply Der Frühling (Spring). Mozart’s own title stems from the catalog he kept of his works, but the first edition bore the title Dankesempfindungen gegen den Schöpfer des Frühlings (Thankful feelings toward the creator of spring). Here, despite the strophic setting, Mozart leaves the world of childhood behind with his dramatic opening chords, a touching melody with signature upward leap and gently elaborated descent, a throbbing bass repeated note in the middle, judicious chromatic harmonies, and a sophisticated if brief piano postlude. Sturm’s poem contains six verses (ordered differently from the Mozart complete works edition as given below), but performers often omit two or three of them. Mozart returns to childlike fun and Overbeck’s poetry for Das Kinderspiel (Children’s play). The nine-verse poem was originally titled simply Kinderlied (Children’s song), but its carefree high spirits, which Mozart captures perfectly, make Kinderspiel an especially fitting title. As with the other songs in this set, singers today often omit some of the interior verses. Mozart gives the performance direction Munter (Blithely) and sets the text in a lightly dancing 3/8 meter. Little leaps and oscillations add to the playful atmosphere. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 547 December 5, 2021: Paul Jacobs, organ Dating has proved extremely elusive for this remarkably masterful, surprisingly underperformed work. Scholars have proposed dates as early as c. 1719, which would mean post-Weimar (see note for BWV 532 for more about Weimar) when Bach was in Cöthen serving Prince Leopold as Kapellmeister, and as late as the 1740s in Leipzig (see note for Sinfonia from Cantata 29 for more about Leipzig), with some middle ground as “by 1725” (early Leipzig). The complexity of both movements and the parallels between them argue for Leipzig, but Bach’s mixture of originality, tradition, and scattered similarities to various works surely account for the differing opinions. Both the Prelude and the Fugue employ short pithy motives that give no hint of the spontaneous excursions that Bach spins out nor what scholar Peter Williams calls their “carefully planned finality.” Each of the first three bars of the Prelude offers a distinct shape that proves recognizable in many variations throughout. The leaping jagged middle idea provides the basis for the leaping pedal, which never takes up the other two shapes. Bach creates the finality that will have its parallel in the Fugue with dramatic chords and a final sustained low pedal note that all point to home. The Fugue subject also operates in one-bar segments, seemingly unfolding as a four-voice fugue with each manual responsible for two of the voices and a palpable absence of pedal. Unusual for Bach, he presents five slightly varied expositions with imaginative ways of linking them and the sheer number of times we hear the subject in myriad ways is stunning. Suddenly, two-thirds of the way into the fugue, the pedal thunders out in a fifth voice with the subject in longer note values (augmentation) while the other four voices perform miraculous strettos and inversions of the subject—pure contrapuntal wizardry. The coda takes place over the same low home pedal that Bach employed in the Prelude, now providing even grander finality by sustaining to the very end. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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DANIEL DORFF, COMPOSER Daniel Dorff’s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, commissioned five times by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s education department resulting in over 20 performances, and commissioned twice by the Minnesota Orchestra’s Kinder Konzert series which has performed his music over 200 times. Dorff’s works have also been performed by the Baltimore Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Eastman Wind Ensemble; chamber concerts of the Chicago Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and Oregon Symphony; on the 1998 Chicago Symphony Radiothon, by clarinetists of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic, and by pianist Marc-André Hamelin, clarinetist John Bruce Yeh, flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal, Donald Peck, Mimi Stillman, and Gary Schocker; and conducted by maestros Alan Gilbert and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other commissions have come from Walfrid Kujala, the Colorado Symphony’s Up Close and Musical series, Sacramento Symphony, Young Audiences, American Composers Forum, Ithaca College School of Music, Symphony in C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony), Network for New Music, National Flute Association Piccolo Committee, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, and other organizations. Dorff has also created arrangements for Sir James Galway and pop musicians Keith Emerson and Lisa Loeb. Highlights of the 2009-10 season include Concerto for Contrabassoon at the International Double Reed Society 2010 convention orchestral concert as well as two performances of It Takes Four to Tango at that convention; several performances at the National Flute Association 2010 convention including the world premiere of Three Little Waltzes for Flute and Clarinet and the new band transcription of Flash! featuring Walfrid Kujala as piccolo soloist; all-Dorff children’s concerts at the Aspen Music Festival and Icicle Creek Music Center in Washington; and many performances of orchestra works at family concerts throughout the season. Highlights of the 2008-09 included the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival performing Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Baltimore Symphony in 5 performances of The Tortoise and the Hare. In February 2009, the Allentown Symphony gave performances of The Kiss, after the painting by Klimt. Dorff was the pre-concert lecturer for Philadelphia Orchestra concerts in March 2009. Flash! for piccolo and piano was performed by Kate Prestia-Schaub at the 2009 International Piccolo Symposium and annual convention of the National Flute Association; Flash! has also been performed on tour by piccolo legend Walfrid Kujala and recently won the International Piccolo Symposium’s biennial composition competition. In May 2009, Sheryl Lee performed Dorff’s The Day Things Went Wrong at the Pet Store (11 Cartoons for Piano) at Royal Albert Hall in London. Other recent premieres include Yvonne Smith in Spark for solo viola performed in Houston in November 2009, Kate Prestia-Schaub in Flash! for piccolo and piano (Murietta CA, January 2009), and Tiffany Holmes in Trees for solo flute, premiered at an all-Dorff concert at the Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair in February 2009 featuring Cindy Anne Strong as guest narrator. Tiffany Holmes and Cindy Anne Strong also performed Trees at the National Flute Association’s annual convention in August 2009. Symphony In C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony) has recorded an all-Dorff CD recently released on Bridge Records, featuring Ann Crumb and Ukee Washington as narrators, conducted by Rossen Milanov. The companion coloring book for his narrated work Billy and the Carnival is now given out annually to young audiences at the Colorado Symphony’s educational concerts. Laurel Zucker recently released August Idyll for solo flute on Cantilena Records, and in May 2010 flutist Pam Youngblood released Dorff’s 9 Walks Down 7th Avenue and his flute/piano transcription of Ives’s Variations on “America” on Azica Records. Daniel Dorff was born in New Rochelle, NY in 1956; acclaim came early with First Prize in the Aspen Music Festival’s annual composers’ competition at age 18 for his Fantasy, Scherzo and Nocturne for saxophone quartet. Dorff received degrees in composition from Cornell and University of Pennsylvania; his teachers included George Crumb, George Rochberg, Karel Husa, Henry Brant, Ralph Shapey, Elie Siegmeister, and Richard Wernick. He studied saxophone with Sigurd Rascher. In 1996, Dorff was named Composer-In-Residence for Symphony in C (formerly Haddonfield Symphony), in which he played bass clarinet from 1980 through 2002. Daniel Dorff serves as Vice President of Publishing for Theodore Presser Company; he is a sought-after expert on music engraving and notation, having lectured at many colleges as well as Carnegie Hall, and advising the leading notation software companies. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Music Publishers’ Association of the USA, the Board of Directors of the National Flute Association, and the Executive Board of The Charles Ives Society. Dorff’s compositions have been published by Theodore Presser Company, Carl Fischer, Lauren Keiser Music (formerly MMB), Elkan-Vogel, Shawnee Press, Mel Bay, Kendor Music, Tenuto Publications, and Golden Music, and recorded on the Bridge, Crystal, Cantilena, New Focus, Silver Crest, Barking Dog, Capstone, Orange Note, Farao Classics, Northbranch, Sea Breeze, Isis, and Meister labels.

JUHO POHJONEN, PIANO Juho Pohjonen is regarded as one of today’s most exciting instrumentalists. The Finnish pianist performs widely in Europe, Asia, and North America, collaborating with symphony orchestras and playing in recital and chamber settings. An ardent exponent of Scandinavian music, Pohjonen has a growing discography which offers a showcase of compositions by such compatriots as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. In the 2019-2020 season, Pohjonen makes his Minnesota Orchestra debut, opening their season with performances of Grieg’s Piano Concerto conducted by Osmo Vänskä. Additional highlights include debuts with the New Jersey Symphony performing Grieg’s Piano Concerto conducted by Markus Stenz; with the Rochester Philharmonic performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Fabien Gabel; and with the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with Jean-Claude Picard. Pohjonen makes recital debuts at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Steinway Society of the Bay Area and returns to give recitals in Howland, NY and New York City. Pohjonen’s chamber performance takes him to San Francisco Performances and Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach with violinist Bomsori Kim, to Parlance Chamber Concerts with violinists Paul Huang and Danbi Um, and to Orange County and Santa Rosa, CA, with the Sibelius Trio. An alumnus of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), Pohjonen enjoys an ongoing association with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with whom he collaborates this season in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Chicago’s Harris Theater. In the 2018-2019 season, Pohjonen appeared as a soloist with the Nashville, Pacific, and Bay Atlantic Symphony Orchestras in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488, and with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83. He performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414 with the Escher String Quartet in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Chicago’s Harris Theater; he also performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in works by Prokofiev and Beethoven with violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, both in New York and on tour to Madison, NJ, and Chicago. Pohjonen joined members of the Calidore Quartet in Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2, at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA. Other highlights of last season include a recital debut at the 92nd Street Y in New York, in which Pohjonen performed a program that features Scriabin’s Sonata No. 8 and Dichotomie by Salonen. Additional recitals took place in Alicante, Spain, and at the Lane Series of the University of Vermont, Music Toronto and at the Savannah Music Festival. Pohjonen has previously appeared in recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in San Francisco, La Jolla, Detroit, and Vancouver. He made his London debut at Wigmore Hall, and has performed recitals throughout Europe including in Antwerp, Hamburg, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Warsaw. Festival appearances include Lucerne; Savonlinna Finland; Bergen, Norway; and Mecklenberg-Vorpommern in Germany, as well as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Pohjonen has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as with orchestras throughout Scandinavia, including the Danish National Symphony, the Finnish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in Finland, and the Symphony Orchestras of the Swedish Radio and Mälmo. Additional concerto performances include the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa; Philharmonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, Zagreb Philharmonic in Croatia; and a tour of Japan with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Pohjonen has collaborated with today’s foremost conductors, including Marin Alsop, Lionel Bringuier, Marek Janowski, Fabien Gabel, Kirill Karabits, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Markus Stenz, and Pinchas Zukerman, and has appeared on multiple occasions with the Atlanta Symphony and music director Robert Spano. Pohjonen’s most recent recording with cellist Inbal Segev features cello sonatas by Chopin and Grieg, and Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, hallmarks of the Romantic repertoire. Plateaux, his debut recording on Dacapo Records, featured works by late Scandinavian composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, including the solo piano suite For Piano, and piano concerto Plateaux pour Piano et Orchestre, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ed Spanjaard. His recital at the Music@Menlo 2010 festival was recorded as part of the Music@Menlo Live series. Entitled Maps and Legends, the disc includes Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K. 331, Grieg’s Ballade in the form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song in G minor, Op. 24, and Handel’s Suite in B-flat Major. Pohjonen joins with violinist Petteri Iivonen and cellist Samuli Peltonen to form the Sibelius Trio, who released a recording on Yarlung Records in honor of Finland’s 1917 centennial of independence. The album, described by Stereophile as “a gorgeous debut,” included works by Sibelius and Kaija Saariaho. Pohjonen began his piano studies in 1989 at the Junior Academy of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and subsequently earned a Master’s Degree from Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in 2008. Pohjonen has participated in the master classes of distinguished pianists Sir András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Jacob Lateiner, and Barry Douglas. Pohjonen was selected by Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship, and has won prizes at international and Finnish competitions, including first prize at the 2004 Nordic Piano Competition in Nyborg, Denmark; first prize at the 2000 International Young Artists Concerto Competition in Stockholm; a prize at the 2002 Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition; and the Prokofiev Prize at the 2003 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition. In 2019 Pohjonen launched an app he developed for iOS, MyPianist, a practice tool for musicians that dynamically responds in real-time to tempi, phrasing, articulation, and more. It is available now on the Apple App Store.

MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946) Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas April 14, 2019: Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Jason Vieaux, guitar In 1907 Spanish composer Manuel de Falla went to Paris, where he formed friendships with Debussy, Dukas, and Ravel that greatly influenced his career. At the time of the Paris production of his opera La vida breve in the winter of 1913–14, a Spanish singer in the cast asked Falla for advice about which Spanish songs she should include on a Paris recital. He decided to arrange some Spanish songs himself using his own system of harmony, which he had just tried out for the harmonization of a Greek folk song requested by a Greek singing teacher. This system stemmed from Falla’s study of Louis Lucas’s L’acoustique nouvelle , a mid-nineteenth-century treatise he had picked up as a young man in Madrid at an open-air book stall, and which was to influence his later style profoundly. It consisted of deriving harmonies from the natural resonance of a fundamental tone, that is, its overtones, then using these as new fundamental tones. Though Falla never lost sight of traditional harmony he claimed that this system, which anticipated harmonic theories of the twentieth century, revolutionized his entire conception of harmony. The composer completed the Siete canciones in Paris before the outbreak of World War I forced him to return to Madrid in 1914. Ironically, He did not permit the singer who had sought his advice to perform them on a Spanish-themed program in Paris because of a bad experience he himself had had performing on a similar Spanish program. The songs were first performed by Luisa Vela (who had just sung in the Madrid premiere of La vida breve ) accompanied by the composer in Madrid on January 14, 1915. The first Paris performance was delayed until May 1920. The songs are dedicated to Madame Ida Godebski, a great friend of Falla; Cipa and Ida Godebski’s famous salon in Paris was a gathering place for many other composers and writers including Roussel, Stravinsky, Ravel, Gide, Valéry, and Cocteau. Falla chose to set seven folk songs from various regions of Spain. García Matos, in his detailed study of Falla’s sources in the Madrid periodical Música in 1953, found that two of the songs closely follow the folk sources as to the tunes and texts, two were retouched slightly, one was modified slightly and expanded, one reworked considerably, and one was probably created from a combination of sources. The songs have been performed far and wide in all manner of arrangements, often titled Suite populaire espagnole . Ernesto Halffter, student and friend of Falla, orchestrated the accompaniment, and subsequent adaptations have appeared for various instruments, notably a well-known arrangement for violin and piano by famous Polish violinist Paweł Kochański. (No. 2 is omitted in the violin arrangement and its offshoots, as is No. 1 in the arrangements for guitar; various order changes are also common.) “Asturiana” takes the listener to the North of Spain for a peaceful lament. The passionate “Jota” takes the name of one of the most widely known Spanish song and dance forms, associated with the region of Aragon. Falla employs the characteristic alternation of sections of rapid accompaniment in 3/8 meter with those in a slower tempo for the melody line. “Nana” is a lullaby, which Falla said he heard as a child from “his mother’s lips before he was old enough to think.” The tune stems from Andalusia, and as such differs from other Spanish cradle songs because, according to the composer, much Andalusian vocal music originated in India. The geographical origin of the “Canción” is uncertain, although Falla followed the popular theme fairly faithfully according to Matos. At the end a canon between the voice (violin in this case) and the accompaniment provides textural interest. The last song, “Polo,” of Andalusian origin, reflects the flamenco or Gypsy world. The original piano accompaniment evokes the guitar’s punteado style—returned here to its source of inspiration—and the accents represent palmadas (hand-clapping) by the spectators. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Chorale Prelude “Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ”, BWV 639 (arr. Busoni) March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano Our discussion of the present three Bach transcriptions must begin with Ferrucio Busoni, who was Egon Petri’s teacher. As a youth Busoni adored Bach above all other composers, a passion that endured throughout his life. He not only drew on Bach’s music for inspiration in his own works but he issued a monumental edition of Bach’s solo keyboard works transcribed for piano—a twenty-five volume collection plus a seven-volume set—aided by his students Egon Petri and Bruno Mugellini. So synonymous did Bach and Busoni become in the public’s mind that on Busoni’s first American tour his wife Gerda was once introduced by a society matron as “Mrs. Bach-Busoni.” This anecdote was related by Petri, a superb German pianist of Dutch descent, who began studying with Busoni in Weimar in 1901. Petri eventually settled in the United States, taught at Mills College, and authored many Bach transcriptions at Busoni’s behest. Busoni issued his Bach edition in two collections: the twenty-five-volume Klavierwerke, and the seven-volume Bach-Busoni edition. Although Busoni’s name appears on each volume of the Klavierwerke, many were edited by Petri and a few by Bruno Mugellini. Petri had expected Busoni to supervise his and Mugellini’s editorial work and they strove to operate under his principles and to emulate his style, yet Busoni concerned himself very little with reading their proofs, much to Petri’s surprise. Busoni strove to remain true to the essence of Bach’s music in his transcriptions, but inevitably his own Romantic sensibilities crept in with his addition of tempo and pedal markings, dynamics, register changes, repeats, and performance suggestions. Nevertheless, these transcriptions are rewarding additions to the piano repertoire. Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ—which appears as No. 5 in Busoni’s collection of Ten Chorale Preludes (1898) and No. 41 (BWV 639) in Bach’s Orgel-Büchlein (Little Organ Book)—has become a favorite of pianists and audiences for its poignant serenity. Flowing arpeggios in the middle voice accompany the tender, mostly unadorned chorale melody, supported by a steady “walking bass.” Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme is actually Busoni’s transcription of what was already a transcription by Bach himself. In 1731 Bach had composed the fourth movement of his Cantata 140 (Wachet auf) in chorale-prelude style with tenor(s) taking the chorale melody, surrounded by a a lyrical countermelody for upper strings in unison and supported by continuo (bass line and harmony). Thus it was a simple task to transfer all three parts to organ, which he did in BWV 645, one of a group of six late works that became known as the “Schübler Chorales” after their publication by Johann Georg Schübler in 1748–49. Busoni’s transcription for piano, No. 2 in his Ten Chorale Preludes, maintains the lilting flow in the upper line against the steady chorale in the middle voice. Turning to the first piece of the group of transcriptions, Egon Petri arranged his version of Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep may safely graze) not from a chorale preude by Bach but rather a soprano aria from Cantata 208 Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! (What pleases me is above all the lively hunt). Bach wrote secular cantatas for aristocratic patrons to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, name days, and accession days, or for academic ceremonies, and he composed Cantata 208 on a text by Weimar court poet Salomo Franck for the birthday of Duke Christian Weissenfels in 1713. Known as the Hunt Cantata, it contains “Schafe können sicher weiden,” the well-known aria for Pales, second soprano to Diana, goddess of the hunt. For centuries listeners have been captivated by its texture of rocking parallel thirds for two flutes—the quintessential pastoral instrument—accompanying the tender main melody, which praises Duke Christian for ruling his people as a good shepherd. The lovely aria has been transcribed for countless times for various performing forces, among the first—Percy Grainger’s for band (1931), Mary Howe’s for solo piano and two pianos (1935), and William Walton’s for orchestra (1940). Egon Petri’s transcription, published in 1944 has become the best-known transcription for piano. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957) Suite for two violins, cello, and piano left-hand February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman and Alexi Kenney, violins, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello Erich Wolfgang Korngold showed an incredible gift for composition at an early age. Upon hearing him play his cantata Gold in 1907, Gustav Mahler proclaimed him a genius and recommended that he study with Alexander Zemlinsky at the Vienna Conservatory. At age eleven he composed a ballet, Der Schneemann (The Snowman), that was so impressive that Zemlinsky orchestrated and produced it at the Vienna Court Theater in 1910 to sensational acclaim. Richard Strauss was deeply impressed by Korngold’s Schauspiel Ouvertüre (Dramatic Overture, 1911) and Sinfonietta (1912), as was Puccini by his opera Violanta (1916). The pinnacle of Korngold’s early career came at the age of twenty-three when his opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) achieved international recognition. By 1928 a poll by the Neue Wiener Tagblatt considered Korngold and Schoenberg the greatest living composers. In 1934 director Max Reinhardt took Korngold to Hollywood where the second phase of his career began. There he composed some of the finest film scores ever written—nineteen in all, including such classics as Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939); he became Hollywood’s highest paid composer at that time. Yet he was caught between two worlds and two eras. He was criticized in some quarters for selling out to Hollywood and for ignoring modern trends in music; in Hollywood he was criticized for writing scores that were too complex. The Suite, op. 23, was written in 1930, several years before Korngold left for Hollywood and while he was under contract with the Theater-an-der-Wien as an arranger of operettas. His wife Luzi worried that his operetta work would lead to his abandonment of serious music, yet it was that work that had provided a steady enough income for him to marry. He did continue to compose serious works, though in fact their number was dwindling. The Suite, for the unusual combination of two violins, cello, and piano left-hand was written at the request of Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in World War I, and whose financial status enabled him to commission left-hand piano concertos from many of the world’s leading composers. Though the Ravel Concerto has remained the best known, works by Prokofiev, Britten, Richard Strauss, and Franz Schmidt were also commissioned by him. And perhaps more to the point, Korngold had already written a remarkable left-hand Concerto for him in 1923. Though Wittgenstein was often known for his temperamental criticisms and rebukes, he performed the Concerto in 1924 and must have admired it enough to want Korngold to write him another piece. Korngold opted for “Suite” as a fitting title for a work of more than four movements, some of which are dance-related. He may also have liked its Baroque associations, for the work begins with a prelude and fugue. The harmonic and rhythmic language, however, displays its Romantically tinged twentieth-century orientation. The piano plays almost the entire Präludium alone, until the strings enter in unison toward the close, introducing the Fuge, which follows without pause. The fugue subject is presented by the cello, followed by the piano then the first violin. The second violin is not given its own fugal entry until the cantabile middle section. The Präludium returns to close the movement. The second movement consists of a waltz, played muted at the beginning and end. A more animated central section provides contrast. The third movement with its main theme of jagged, chromatic broken thirds is labeled “Groteske.” It functions much like a scherzo and trio, but contains intriguing metric shifts between 4/8 and 3/8. Following the Trio, which opens with an extensive piano solo, the “Groteske” is repeated. The Lied brings a singing and introspective contrast, again highlighting the piano at the outset, in an ingenious combination of melody and accompaniment all played by one hand. The Finale is a compositional tour de force, combining rondo and variation form. Introductory piano octaves preview the theme in diminution, whereupon the A theme is presented by the cello and piano, then put through a series of developing variations—developing in the sense that succeeding variations vary what has already been varied, becoming further and further removed from the theme. Korngold’s sophisticated variation techniques include diminution, augmentation, inversion, and retrograde. Episodic material leads to a B theme, which is also treated in a series of variations. The episodic material and the B theme are also closely related to the second section of the A theme, showing Korngold’s fascination with motivic unity. When the A theme returns, as in rondo form, it is in an altered minor key variation, which again leads to more “A” variations. Another set of B variations and another set of A variations bring on the coda—a wistful recall of A similar to its opening guise and a brilliant close. By Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945) Contrasts, BB 116 October 5, 2014 – Osmo Vänska, clarinet; Erin Keefe, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano If the celebrated “king of swing” clarinetist Benny Goodman had not commissioned a work from Bartók, the composer probably would never have written a chamber work that included a wind instrument—this was the sole instance. In 1938 Bartók’s old friend, violinist Joseph Szigeti, wrote to him on behalf of Goodman to commission a chamber work the two could play together. The clarinetist made some very specific requests: he wanted a short work—six to seven minutes so it could fit on two sides of a 78 rpm recording—that should contain two movements, one in each of the Hungarian styles lassú (slow) and friss (fast) that Bartók had made so popular in his Rhapsodies. The composer, however, couldn’t help but respond as he had to previous commission requirements: he wrote what he wanted! Bartók did begin along the specified parameters, completing two movements—now the outer two—probably in August 1938, though they were considerably longer than expected. Goodman, Szigeti, and pianist Endre Petri performed these Two Dances, as they were called, at Carnegie Hall on January 9, 1939. The opening Verbunkos (Recruiting dance) movement possessed a livelier character than that of a lassú introduction, so already in September 1938 Bartók composed a slow movement to separate his two dances, though he waited until December to inform Goodman. The premiere of this complete version, finally named Contrasts, occurred in April 1940 when Bartók came to New York and played the piano part in a now-famous Columbia recording with Goodman and Szigeti. The same trio played the work live in Boston on February 4, 1941, and after Goodman’s three-year period of exclusive performance rights expired, chamber groups everywhere took up the colorful piece. As a proper recruiting dance should, the opening movement struts and postures, and includes the typical kind of melodic ornamentation that reflects Bartók’s familiarity with the national style. Both violin and clarinet are given ample opportunities to show off. After the initial march idea, the composer introduces a memorable theme that is ripe with characteristic Hungarian short-long rhythms. Just before the end Bartók provides a clarinet cadenza that displays the instrument’s range both in pitch and dynamics. The slow movement, Pihenő (Relaxation), projects a more serious quality, incorporating sounds that biographer Halsey Stevens suggests were inspired by Bartók’s study of Indonesian gamelan music. A brilliant shimmering passage introduces trills, pizzicato, and murmuring motives associated with what Bartók called “night music,” first introduced in his Out of Doors for piano in 1926. For the only time in any of his works, Bartók employed scordatura (unusual tuning of a string instrument) here in his whirlwind finale. Sebes (Fast dance) begins with the violin taking up a fiddle tuned with the bottom string raised and the top string lowered by a half step. As a result his opening chords sound like the beginning of a danse macabre—similar to Saint-Saëns’s famous example, which also uses scordatura. Bartók also has the clarinetist trade an A clarinet for one in B-flat in the movement’s outer sections, which changes the color slightly, but also reflects the curious tonality of the work—one of its contrasts?—ending in a different key than it began. Bartók interrupts the movement’s frantic perpetual motion for a slower middle section that features a plaintive melody and eerie washes of sound. Here the piano creeps in contrary motion against the slithering of the violin and clarinet, all in a complex meter of 13/8. The composer employs myriad effects from glissandos and “honking” grace notes to a cadenza of violin pyrotechnics to make this one of chamber music’s most riveting finales. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes