Search Results

October 17, 2021: Roman Rabinovich, piano CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Hommage à Haydn October 17, 2021: Roman Rabinovich, piano Debussy composed his Hommage à Haydn at the request of Jules Écorcheville for a special issue of the Revue S.I.M. (Société Internationale de Musique) to celebrate the centennial in May 1909 of Haydn’s death. Five other composers also accepted the commission—Paul Dukas who wrote his Prélude élégiaque, Reynaldo Hahn his Thème varié sur le nom de Haydn, Charles-Marie Widor his Fugue sur le nom d’Haydn, and Vincent d’Indy and Maurice Ravel who both wrote pieces called Meneut sur le nom d’Haydn. The pieces were published in the January 15, 1910, issue of the Revue S.I.M. They were not premiered, however, until March 11, 1911, when nineteen-year-old pianist Ennemond Trillat performed them at a Société concert at the Salle Pleyel. Each composer was given the same assignment: Write a short piano piece using the letters of Haydn’s name as a five-note motive. This was an age-old practice to honor an important person, and in cases where there was no musical equivalent for a letter it could be skipped or be replaced by a substitution note. Here the composers were all given H (B natural in German nomenclature, A, Y (using D as the substitution), D, N (using G as the substitution). The substitution notes, given by the commissioner were obtained by “putting the letter’s alphabetical order over the diatonic series of the sound scale.” As a fascinating historical note, two of the other most important French composers of the day—Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré—declined to participate, presumably because, as Saint-Saëns wrote to Fauré, they would be the laughingstock of Germany for the wrong use of letter-note correspondences. Debussy’s Hommage à Haydn begins with a “soft and expressive” “Valse lent” (slow waltz) in which he presents a bass melody with a distinctive dotted-rhythmic pattern and then highlights his H-A-Y-D-N motive in the upper melody line of the right hand. The second section of the piece shifts to a lively, light character with the motive sped up in the first notes of the right hand. After an even more animated section Debussy concludes with a brief reminder of the expressive opening and a final fast but quiet flourish. This afternoon’s celebration of Haydn makes the perfect occasion to include Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn alongside Debussy’s tribute. Ravel writes a contemplative minuet with Impressionistic harmonies, presenting the motive six times, which he labels in the score. The motive begins the piece as the first five notes in the top line of the pianist’s right hand, migrates to the bass, and appears in inner voices in reverse order and inverted in reverse order (D-G-G-C♯-B). The final utterances appear in the top of the piano’s right hand and in a slow descent from the middle register to the bass. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano ENRIQUE GRANADOS (1867–1916) love songs April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano Enrique Granados received most of his musical training in Barcelona, although he did study in Paris for two years. On his return he began to achieve great acclaim as a pianist, but his intense dislike of travel limited his touring. He founded a concert society in Barcelona in 1900 and a music school, the Academia Granados, the following year. Essentially self-taught as a composer, he began gaining recognition with his colorful Spanish Dances (1892–1911), which were among his first published pieces. He considerably enhanced that reputation with Goyescas (1911), piano pieces inspired by the paintings and etching of Goya. Tragically, travel was at the heart of his untimely death at age forty-nine. Accompanied by his wife, he had reluctantly made the sea voyage to attend the Metropolitan's premiere of his opera Goyescas in 1916, and had postponed his voyage home in order to play for President Woodrow Wilson. Having missed the ship to Spain, they sailed instead to Liverpool where they boarded the Sussex for Dieppe. The Sussex was torpedoed by a German submarine and, although Granados was picked up by a lifeboat, he jumped into the water to save his wife from him and they both drowned. Granados published two important song collections: his Tonadillas and his Canciones amatorias, which show opposite sides of his song-writing art, although both are based on love poetry and both are indebted to his fascination with Goya. The Tonadillas , shorter by definition, link directly with the same eighteenth- and nineteenth-century majas and majos of Goya's paintings through the poetry of Fernando Periquet (1873–1940) and feature relatively spare, guitar-like accompaniments. ( Majas and majos were lower-class people of Spanish society distinguished by their elaborate dress and cheeky manners.) The Canciones amatorias , settings of Renaissance texts, boast longer, imaginatively spun-out melodies and more elaborate accompaniments. They have been somewhat overshadowed by the overt link of the Tonadillas to Goya and to popular Spanish song, but the Canciones amatorios show a distinct affinity with Granados's Goyescas , the piano pieces that brought him so much recognition outside of Spain, and they get to the heart of his expressive capabilities—still incorporating folk idioms but in a highly personal style. The Canciones amatorios received their first performance in Barcelona on April 5, 1915, at the debut of soprano Conchita Badía, accompanied by the composer who dedicated two of the songs to her, “Llorad, corazón” and “Gracia mia.” “Discover the thought ,” like many of the songs in this collection, is striking for its harmonic adventurousness. The song's anonymous poet, in the tradition of courtly love, pines for a woman above his social status. Granados provides “Mañanica era” (It was daybreak) with a delicate setting, befitting its images of blooms and seraphs. He gently shifts to a melancholy expressiveness toward the end for the lover who comes to die. Characteristic “strumming” permeates the accompaniment of “No lloráis, ojuelos” (Don't cry, little eyes), whose melodic lines Granados embellishes gracefully. The middle section provides harmonic interest, and the return to the opening text receives a soaring variation. Granados enhances the bittersweet melancholy of “Llorad, corazón” (Weep, heart) with winding chromaticism. He also creates a special effect with the gently rising leaps in the first section. Today's selections conclude with the delightfully ornamented and flowing “Gracia mia” (My graceful one). Spanish rhythms, mixed meters, triplet embellishments, and mercurial shifts between major and minor provide native color—all with Granados's inspired personal stamp. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, arr. for four cellos by Douglas Moore September 29, 2024: Edward Arron, Carter Brey, Rafael Figueroa, and Zvi Plesser, cellos After a long search for a comic opera subject, Mozart was thrilled with Beaumarchais’s play Le mariage de Figaro, ou La folle journée (The Marriage of Figaro, or The crazy day), especially knowing that Lorenzo da Ponte would do justice to the libretto. Mozart counted on the audience being intrigued since the play had been banned throughout the Hapsburg Empire for its “subversive” elements. After the censors had been convinced the that portions had been altered sufficiently, The Marriage of Figaro opened on May 1, 1786. Despite rival cabals, the opera won a certain acclaim, but its full ascendancy as “the perfect comic opera” began with the Prague production the following year. All of the action takes place on the marriage day of Figaro and Susanna, servants to Count and Countess Almaviva. The main plot concerns the Count’s flirtations with Susanna in connection with the droit du seigneur (his supposed right as a noble to have his way with her on her first night of marriage) and her clever foiling of his advances. The eventual humiliation of this member of the aristocracy by his “inferiors”—even in its toned-down guise—greatly appealed to the rising middle class audience. Mozart’s extremely well-known Overture admirably sets up the intrigues and feverish activity of the wedding day beginning with the merest rustle. A theme for winds and horns—now paired cellos—follows immediately, and suddenly a glorious cap to both opening phrases bursts onto the scene. The second theme group shows the same quick mood changes, building to a climax with no real development section before the reprise begins with the hushed busy theme of the opening. Mozart had at one time composed a middle lyrical contrasting section before the recapitulation, but ripped the sheet out of the finished score, preferring to keep the moods of humor and gaiety uninterrupted. This afternoon’s four-cello version of Mozart’s popular Overture was arranged by cellist Douglas B. Moore, professor emeritus at Williams College where he taught and often chaired the music department from 1970 to 2007. He also appeared with orchestra and at festivals across the United States and has published more than forty original arrangements for from two to eight cellos. Yo-Yo Ma, Maximilian Hornung, the Boston Cello Quartet, and the Vienna Philharmonic Cellos on a televised New Year’s concert are just a few who have featured his cello arrangements. Taking into account the expansive range and agility of his instrument, Moore considers his multiple-voice cello arrangements especially well-suited to pieces originally for orchestra or band. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 5, 2021: Paul Jacobs, organ JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Concerto in D Minor after Vivaldi, BWV 596 December 5, 2021: Paul Jacobs, organ While Bach was serving as court organist for the Duke of Weimar between 1708 and 1717, he avidly absorbed the style of Vivaldi and other masters in part by transcribing their concertos for clavier or organ. This particular endeavor resulted in sixteen clavier concertos (BWV 972–987) and four organ concertos (BWV 592–594, 596; not counting 595, which is a version of 984). Vivaldi is represented nine times, Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello once each, and Torelli and Telemann once each. Several are transcribed from unknown sources and four from concertos by the young Weimar prince, Johann Ernst. All but four of the concertos are in the three-movement, fast-slow-fast configuration that would become the norm for Bach’s own concertos. Johann Ernst was actually the pupil of Bach’s court colleague Johann Gottfried Walther, and both Bach and Walther transcribed different concertos for the youth’s instruction and enjoyment. They can be dated to such a narrow time frame partly by evidence of the manuscript paper, but also because Prince Johann Ernst had just returned in July 1713 from two years in Holland, presumably having heard Italian concertos played on the organ by Jan Jacob de Graaf and bringing back collections of works by Vivaldi and others from the famous publisher Estienne Roger of Amsterdam. Bach likely made his transcriptions before the prince left Weimar in July 1714. One of the publications Johann Ernst must have brought back was Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, op. 3, a collection of twelve concertos issued by Roger in 1711, which was to become the most influential publication of the first half of the eighteenth century. The present D minor Concerto is Bach’s transcription of Vivaldi’s Concerto grosso in D minor, RV 565, for a solo group of two violins and cello with the accompaniment of strings and cembalo, which appeared as No. 11 in the Opus 3 collection. Bach stays faithful to the substance of Vivaldi’s original, but, as would have been conventional practice, fills in the texture and harmony of the continuo and adds melodic ornamentation. His manuscript is remarkable for its specific markings as to organ registration and the use of two manuals. The first movement opens with darting canonic figuration alternating between the two manuals and static harmony that breaks loose just before three chordal measures marked “Grave.” These serve as preparation for the full-fledged fugue that concludes the movement. The lovely relatively brief slow movement flows gently in a siciliano rhythm. The final movement unfolds briskly in a free ritornello form, its main theme featuring repeated-note lines that intertwine in the “solo” voices so as to create delightful brief dissonances. Bach reused this theme in the opening chorus of his Cantata 21: “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis,” which was first performed on June 17, 1714, shortly before Prince Johann Ernst left Weimar. The movement continues its propulsive drive to the end with the active lines in a variety of textures migrating from manual to manual. —©Jane Vial Jaffe [from Vivaldi Concerto grosso in D minor, RV 565, op. 3, no. 11 (2 vlns, vc, strings, cembalo) [ http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/b/b7/IMSLP475414-PMLP153710-Bach_596_Vivaldi_Concerto_Dm.pdf ] Bach also adapted concertos by other composers, notably Vivaldi, whose Italian concerto form exerted a lasting influence on him. He employed Vivaldi’s three-movement model—fast, slow, fast—for his concertos, as well as the ritornello form (in which a refrain alternates with episodic excursions), though adapted in his own way, and with his particular contrapuntal leanings. Was Bach aware that with his keyboard concertos he was creating an entirely new genre In about 1713–14 a decisive stylistic change came about, stimulated by Vivaldi’s concerto form. Bach’s encounter with Vivaldi’s music found immediate expression in the concertos after Vivaldi’s opp.3 and 7 ( BWV593 etc.). Features adapted from Vivaldi include the unifying use of motivic work, the motoric rhythmic character, the modulation schemes and the principle of solo–tutti contrast as means of formal articulation; the influence may be seen in the Toccatas in F and C BWV540 and 564. Apparently Bach experimented for a short while with a free, concerto-like organ form in three movements (fast–slow–fast: cf BWV545 + 529/2 and BWV541 + 528/3) but finally turned to the two-movement form, as in BWV534 and 536. Of comparable importance to the introduction of the concerto element is his tendency towards condensed motivic work, as in the Orgel-Büchlein. In 1711 Etienne Roger, the Amsterdam publisher, brought out what was to become the most influential music publication of the first half of the 18th century: Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico op.3, dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinando of Tuscany; it comprised 12 concertos divided equally into works for one, two, and four solo violins. The change to Roger from local publishers, which several other eminent Italian composers made about the same time, reflected not only the superiority of the engraving process over the printing from type still normally used in Italy (a superiority acknowledged in Vivaldi’s preface to L’estro armonico) but also the enormous growth in demand for the latest Italian music in northern Europe. The third, fifth, and 12th concertos from op.3 (along with the concerto published individually under the title ‘The Cuckow’, RV335), became staples of the repertoire of many violinists, were arranged for a variety of instruments, and were extracted for use in violin tutors throughout the 18th century and beyond. Nowhere was the enthusiasm for Vivaldi’s concertos stronger than in Germany. Bach transcribed several of them (including five from op.3) for keyboard, and his noble patron Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar wrote concertos in Vivaldi’s style. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Sonata for Piano Four-Hands in C major, K. 521 December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano Four-hand piano music—two players at one keyboard—first surfaced in England in the early seventeenth century and became immensely popular in the mid-eighteenth century. As children/teenagers in the 1760s, Mozart and his gifted older sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) greatly popularized four-hand playing all over Europe through the tours they were taken on by their father Leopold. A famous painting of the Mozart family from about 1780 depicts the two showing crosse-hand technique at the keyboard, their father standing by with violin, and a portrait of their recently deceased mother on the wall. Wolfgang apparently wrote his first four-hand sonata, K. 19d, in London in 1765 when he was nine years old. Nannerl also mentioned in a letter of 1800 that she had other similar four-hand works in her possession, some of which may have been even earlier works, but all of which regrettably are lost. Wolfgang returned to the genre in 1772 with the D major Sonata, K. 123a (K. 381), probably influenced by seeing circulating manuscripts of Charles Burney’s four-hand sonatas even before they were printed in 1777 as the first published set of piano duets. Mozart went on to complete three more, of which the present C major Sonata of 1787 was the last. In Mozart’s day it was customary for the woman to play primo (the higher part, often with the melody) and the man secondo (the lower part, often with the bass support)—Wolfgang and his sister always played thus and perhaps instigated the custom. (From 1769 onward, having reached marriageable age, Nannerl was no longer permitted to perform in public.) Charles Burney, famous for his observations on musical life in many European countries, requested that a lady who wished to play piano duets should remove the hoops from her skirt, and not be embarrassed if her left hand occasionally grazed the gentleman’s right. Today’s piano-duet players—as in the case of Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung—like to change up who plays which part for any number of reasons. In his own thematic catalog, Mozart dated the C major Sonata May 29, 1787, which happened to be the very day he received word of the death of his father Leopold. He shared the sad news that day with one of his best friends, Viennese court official and amateur musician Gottfried von Jacquin, at the same time asking him to “have the goodness to give the sonata to my lady, your sister [Franziska, one of Mozart’s most talented pupils], with my compliments—but she might have a go at it immediately, for it is a bit difficult.” Evidently Mozart was eager to play it with her! Several months earlier he had nicknamed Franziska “Signora Dinimininimi” (related to diminutio and minim), no doubt referring to her skill at playing fast notes. As it turned out, when Mozart published the piece the following year, he dedicated it to some other members of the Jacquin circle, Babette and Nanette Natorp, the young daughters of a wealthy Viennese merchant. Babette was also a pupil of Mozart’s and later married Gottfried and Franziska’s older brother Josef Franz. The C major Sonata breathes grace and elegance, much like Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which he composed just two months later—and in great contrast to the more brilliant character of the F major four-hand Sonata composed just ten months before. The C major Sonata’s sparkling first movement opens by contrasting a forthright idea in octave unison with a more delicate response that alternately highlights the secondo and primo parts. Mozart begins his elegant second theme with a distinct three-note pickup to a dotted idea related to the movement’s opening pronouncement, into which he injects darting fast-note decorations. His development section is a fascinating excursion through new ideas and keys that includes storm and brief melancholy before winding up to a full recapitulation. The middle movement ambles sweetly in its outer sections, which surround a more agitated central section. Each of these sections takes on the binary form of a traditional dance-suite movement—two halves each repeated, except for the return to the opening section which is reprised without repeats. The final rondo shows Mozart’s mastery of understatement in its genial refrain. Its subtle charms provide a great foil for the remarkable yet still seemingly effortless virtuosity of its intervening episodes. Mozart’s ingenuity shows up in some wonderfully unexpected harmonic diversions in the episodes and even in the coda, which Mozart caps with emphatic chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 24, 2017: Michael Brown, piano FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849) Valse brillante in A-flat major, op. 34, no. 1 September 24, 2017: Michael Brown, piano Much as he did with the mazurka and polonaise, Chopin took the waltz from its function as dance accompaniment and placed it in the elegant surroundings of high-society salons. He dedicated the A-flat major waltz to Mlle. De Thun-Hohenstein—Jozefina—for whom he had copied it out on September 15, 1835, while he and his parents were staying at her family’s castle in Tetschen. In “brillante” (virtuoso) style, the work unfolds as a tightly organized succession of five waltzes framed by a bravura introduction and coda. Some of the waltzes are repeated with variations and return at various stages; the last, in perpetual motion, appears only once. The waltz section that returns most often is notable for its use of the repeated-note motive from the introduction, its rocketing scalar passages, and its stunning leaps. The return of the theme in sixths that followed the introduction brings a sense of recapitulation. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann and Erin Keefe violins; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Gilles Vonsattel, piano JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann and Erin Keefe violins; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Gilles Vonsattel, piano In 1862 Brahms was seized with ideas for a string quintet of the Schubertian type—string quartet with second cello. Plagued with customary self doubts, and bearing in mind the friendly advice of violinist and composer Joseph Joachim that the ideas were too strong for the sonority of a string quintet, Brahms destroyed his first attempt, recasting it as a Sonata for two pianos in 1863–64. Brahms premiered this version with Carl Tausig early in 1864. Still unsatisfied, and heeding the advice of Clara Schumann, to whom it sounded like an arrangement, Brahms again rewrote the work in the summer of 1864 as a quintet for piano and strings. (This history brings to mind the composer’s First Piano Concerto, which also evolved through various forms.) Brahms’s Piano Quintet was published in 1865 after at least one private trial performance in November 1864; the first public performance took place in Leipzig on June 22, 1866. The Quintet has become one of the most famous and best-loved works in the chamber music repertoire. Repeated hearings do nothing to dull the sense of its power and beauty. The Piano Quintet version has attracted the most performers, but Brahms thought enough of the two-piano version not to destroy it—a major vote of confidence where he was concerned. He had it published, moreover, with the separate opus number 34b, though not until 1872, seven years after the Quintet version was published. It seems that the dedicatee, Princess Anna von Hessen, had been holding onto the loaned manuscript all that time. The opening figure, played in unison, displays a winding melodic shape that is constantly varied but recognizable throughout the work—a faster variation of the figure follows immediately in the fifth measure. Another idea that permeates the Quintet is the melodic half step, which first appears in forceful chords punctuating the rapid piano notes. All of the ideas in the second theme area treat this germinal half-step idea, often in lyrical fashion. The distant new key of the second theme, characterized by downward leaps, creates a remarkable tonal contrast with the opening section. In fact, much of the drama of this movement is inextricably linked with Brahms’s use of harmonic tonal centers. When the second theme area returns in the recapitulation, he employs an especially remote key (F-sharp minor) rather than the home key so as to delay the effect of the return, but also introducing yet another half-step relationship. In the coda, a beautiful calm passage—Brahms indulging in his beloved contrapuntal writing—suggests the possibility of an ending in the major, but this is fiercely obliterated by the minor home key. The slow, rocking motion of the second movement proves tremendously soothing after the stormy first movement. Its simple ternary form again exploits the same kind of key relationship as the first movement. Brahms also indulges in his fondness for parallel thirds and sixths throughout the movement. When the first section returns it is lovingly rescored. The Scherzo begins with a shadowy, eerie theme, only to be banished by a joyous if short-lived chordal outburst. So stunning is this effect that the motivic connection between it and the preceding staccato theme in a different meter might be overlooked. Typical and ingenious of Brahms, both of these are also related to the opening melodic motive of the first movement and its variants. Following a noble trio section with broad melody, he repeats the Scherzo literally. The ending of the Scherzo section—and thus the ending of the movement—shows a marked similarity to the ending of the finale of Schubert’s C major Quintet, D. 956, op. 163, which Brahms came to know well while he was writing his own Quintet. Again it emphasizes the all-important half step. The great English music scholar Donald Francis Tovey wrote that “the savage [half-step] at the end of the scherzo, comes straight from the end of Schubert’s Quintet, and from nowhere else in the whole history of final chords.” Brahms’s experiment with form for the last movement of the Quintet looks forward to his own First Symphony finale. Here, following Schubert’s lead, he fashioned a sonata form in which the recapitulation also serves as development, the whole being framed by a slow introduction and an immense fast coda. The jolly, folk-tinged first theme, which follows a somber introduction, again shows similarities with the opening theme of the Quintet. The Presto coda, one of the movement’s most remarkable features, encapsulates the entire movement, turning the main theme into a storm of staccato triplets and further varying the second theme. Its final section of syncopations is “straightened out” only at the very end by the forceful closing gesture. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Cello Sonata, Op. 36 February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih The last formal position of Grieg's career was as conductor of the Bergen Harmoniske Selskab from 1880 to 1882, after which his activities centered around composition and concert tours. In 1883, newly freed from official commitments, Grieg composed his only Cello Sonata, op. 36, the Walzer-Capricen for piano duet, op. 37, a second set of Lyric Pieces, op. 38, and he worked on a second piano concerto (never completed). Grieg wrote twenty years later that he did not rate the Cello Sonata very highly, "because it does not betoken any forward step in my development." As has been noted previously in these pages, he was not as comfortable in the extended forms of a sonata, as in the lyrical miniatures that were his strength. He may have been concerned about his struggle with form, but his remarks cannot detract from the work's singing melodies, expressive writing for both cello and piano, and Norwegian folk-like characteristics. Moreover, Grieg thought enough of the work to perform it several times with notable cellists. In addition to playing the première with Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden, October 22, 1883, Grieg performed it soon after in Leipzig with Julius Klengel, and twice in Christiania two years later with his older brother John Grieg, to whom the work is dedicated. The composer became acquainted with Pablo Casals through his friend Julius Röntgen, Dutch composer, conductor and pianist, and heard Casals and Röntgen play the Sonata in Amsterdam. The Cello Sonata continued to appear on Casals's recital programs for years. Both the first and last movements of this three-movement Sonata are based on a free sonata form, and both movements contain rich chromaticism and several surprising jazz-foreshadowing sonorities. The first movement begins as if it had already been in progress and the listener just now "tuned in"—a kind of opening favored by many Romantic composers. The second theme is like a folk song, as is the lyrical secondary theme in the last movement. In the slow movement, one imagines the sound of a harp upon hearing the solo piano opening and subsequent accompaniment figures. The last movement opens with a solo cello recitative before breaking into a sprightly dance. Although the Sonata has had its detractors, it has also had supporters. The Boston cellist Wulf Fries, a close associate of Artur Rubinstein, liked the Sonata so much that he wrote to Grieg asking for more of the same kind. Grieg replied that he was ill and had written nothing else for cello, although arrangements for cello of some of his pieces had been made by Goltermann. The great scholar William S. Newman in The Sonata Since the Classic Era regarded it as one of Grieg's best-sounding, most-rewarding sonatas. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 6, 2018: Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola MARK O’CONNOR F.C.’s Jig May 6, 2018: Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola Mark O’Connor has long embraced both folk and classical music, influenced by such giants as folk fiddler Benny Thomasson and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli as well as classical icons Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Yehudi Menuhin, and Pinchas Zukerman. He has produced some forty-five feature albums—mostly of his own compositions—that have greatly influenced succeeding generations. O’Connor’s multiple Grammy-winning recordings include Appalachia Waltz with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, which was released in 1996 and topped the Billboard classical music charts for a year. The O’Connor Band, which he formed with family members and friends, received the 2017 Grammy Award for “Best Bluegrass Band” with its album Coming Home. His Fiddle Concerto, released on the Warner Bros. label in 1995, has been performed over 250 times, making it the most-performed modern violin concerto composed in the last half century. He has since gone on to write three other violin concertos, one of which is a double concerto that he premiered with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Chicago Symphony in 2000. At age thirteen O’Connor was the youngest person ever to win the Grand Master Fiddler Championships—competing against amateurs and professionals of all ages—and he is still the only person to have also won national titles on guitar and mandolin. Winner of a record-breaking six Country Music Association Musician of the Year awards, O’Connor has played with a number of influential bands, including the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength in Numbers. In his twenties he appeared on over five hundred albums with all of Nashville’s greatest artists. A dedicated educator, O’Connor has taught at string camps and universities across the country. In 2009 he released The O’Connor Method (2009), based on traditional American tunes, which has been hailed by the New Yorker and teachers across the country for filling a gap in the education of classical violin players. O’Connor’s F. C.’s Jig (short for “Fiddle Concerto’s Jig”) is a duet for violin and cello arranged from the third movement of his popular Violin Concerto. He and Yo-Yo Ma recorded this captivating arrangement on the album Appalachia Waltz. Colorful episodes alternate with the lively refrain, along the way incurring delightful metric hiccups. The piece is heard here in its equally engaging version for violin and viola, maintaining its witty and virtuosic interplay from start to finish. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 24, 2022 – Marc-André Hamlein, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier“ April 24, 2022 – Marc-André Hamlein, piano In the spirit of nationalism that erupted following the Napoleonic wars in Germany, Beethoven wrote to his publisher on January 23, 1817: “Henceforth all our works that have German titles are to have the name “Hammerklavier” instead of “pianoforte.” The composer also suggested the subtitle for his Opus 101 and 109 Sonatas, but in a curious twist of history only the famous Opus 106 Sonata became known by the designation—and that as a nickname rather than an indication of genre. During the Sonata’s composition in 1817–18 Beethoven was plagued by custody and care issues relating to his nephew Karl and by his own continued ill health. Nevertheless, he had entered his late composing phase, concentrating on one particular work at a time as if to wring the utmost from a genre in expression, intellectual exploration, and aesthetic depth. The Hammerklavier, Missa solemnis, Diabelli Variations, and Ninth Symphony all fit this mold. The Hammerklavier, with its powerful investigation of sonata form and fugue, represents a curious oasis between the daring formal experiments of the piano and cello sonatas immediately preceding and the Piano Sonatas, op. 109–111, that would soon follow. For the first time since his Sonata, op. 31, no. 3, Beethoven writes in the four-movement Classical mold, and yet he expands and explores the traditional forms to a radical extent. The first movement contains one of his longest development sections—replete with a fugal expanse—and his relatively short Scherzo nevertheless sports two trios. Following his slow movement, which is his longest, his fugal finale is positively massive—a precursor to his celebrated Grosse Fuge, originally the finale of his Opus 130 Quartet in the same key of B-flat. Many commentators, led by the distinguished Charles Rosen, have commented on the structural and thematic importance of descending thirds and on the clash of B-flat and B-natural in various harmonic contexts. These unifying threads permeate the composition in a much more profound way than a simple cyclic quotation of one movement in another. The striking chordal opening with its initial leap and distinctive rhythm shows the importance of the interval of the third, but the exuberant gesture also refers to Archduke Rudolph, the work’s dedicatee. The same idea appears in a sketch with the words “vivat, vivat Rudolphus.” A further “Archduke” connection involves the present first movement and that of the Archduke Trio. During the course of their similar harmonic schemes, both descend to the exotic G major for the second subject and employ chains of descending thirds in the development. The relatively brief scherzo adopts the first movement’s rising and falling thirds and warring B-flats and B-naturals but with a comic flair. Beethoven’s ending is a masterpiece of self-mockery—a jab at the weighty conflict between these two adversaries in his first movement. Beethoven added the two-note rising third that opens his slow movement at the proofing stage. This may lessen the shock of the movement’s distant tonality (F-sharp minor), but only by creating a bit of ambiguity before the first full chord. We listen raptly to the contemplative mood, the delicate ornamentation preceding the second theme, the variation of the first theme in the recapitulation, the ensuing unexpected harmonic journey, and the exquisitely simple version of the theme in the coda, but words fail to convey the profound effect of this movement. In the same way that Beethoven audibly searches for how to express the Ode to Joy in the last movement of his Ninth Symphony, here in his Hammerklavier finale he “finds his way” toward the monumental fugue by “trying out” several styles. A decisive leap recalls the opening of the first movement and launches the main fugue subject. He then displays his subject in all its academic permutations—augmentation, retrograde with a new countersubject, inversion—and with the original subject heard simultaneously with its inversion. But instead of pedantic logic he achieves drama and poetry through varied textures, harmonies, and pianistic colors, and mind-boggling manipulation of tension and release. He creates something entirely new out of the genre, remarkably superimposing elements of variation and rondo form on his fugue. The Hammerklavier Sonata has always stood out for its monumental proportions and its demands on the performer and listener alike. Beethoven was fully aware of its challenges when he told his publisher in 1819: “Now there you have a sonata that will keep the pianists busy when it is played fifty years hence.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

May 8, 2022: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Anna Polonsky, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Michael Parloff, lecturer WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 May 8, 2022: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Anna Polonsky, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Michael Parloff, lecturer According to Georg Nicolaus von Nissen (who married Constanze after Mozart’s death and wrote a biography of the composer), Mozart was contracted in 1785 by the publisher-composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister to write a series of three piano quartets. Mozart began the G minor Quartet in July that year—this is the date he entered in his own catalog for the work—and completed it on October 16, as indicated on the autograph manuscript. With this Quartet he had introduced a new genre to Vienna by adding the viola to the already prevalent piano trio combination. Hoffmeister complained that the Quartet was too difficult and that the public would not buy it. Reportedly he told Mozart, “Write more popularly, or else I can neither print nor pay for anything of yours!” Mozart released Hoffmeister from the contract saying, “Then I will write nothing more, and go hungry, or may the devil take me!” Hoffmeister allowed Mozart to keep the money he had already been paid. Mozart had already written the companion Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493, but never began the third. Hoffmeister did in fact issue the G minor Quartet in 1785, but lost money because of poor sales. He began engraving the first violin part of K. 493, but sold the plates to Artaria, who published the work in 1787. It is not surprising that Mozart’s piano quartets would have seemed unattractive to the Viennese public. Amateurs who were used to sightreading piano chamber music at salon gatherings found them too challenging. Even when the quartets had been rehearsed, the audience found them hard to appreciate because of the noisy surroundings and the poor performances at these social gatherings. An anonymous critic in 1788, after complaining bitterly about mangled, dilettantish performances, presumably of K. 493, wrote: What a difference when this much-advertised work of art is performed with the highest degree of accuracy by four skilled musicians who have studied it carefully, in a quiet room where the sound of every note cannot escape the listening ear, and in the presence of only two or three attentive persons! Like its E-flat major successor, the G minor Quartet is laid out in three movements: a large sonata-form first movement, a melodious slow movement—in this case in sonatina form (sonata form minus the development), and an exuberant rondo finale. Striking features of the G minor Quartet’s first movement include the earnest unison opening by all four players and the unusual dynamic emphasis of the second theme, grouping the subject into units of five beats. The graceful second movement, in the relative major, allows the seriousness of the first movement to abate. The piano presents the songlike first theme and the strings the second theme. Streams of thirty-second note figuration extend both themes. Mozart makes subtle alterations in the “recapitulation”—the cello in particular receives more attention. The finale turns the mood to one of out-and-out cheerfulness. Mozart clearly had a fondness for the D major theme of one of the episodes, which Alfred Einstein called “a moment of perfect bliss.” Instead of overexposing it in this movement, in which it never recurs, he reused it in the Rondo for piano, K. 485. Mozart sets the listener up for the conclusion only to divert the course by a crashing deceptive cadence, after which he winds up again for the true finish. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Andante con moto for piano trio October 15, 2023: Lysander Piano Trio By 1878, when Grieg set out to write a piano trio, he had earned recognition as Norway’s foremost composer. He had made important connections in Germany through his studies in Leipzig and had won renown in Copenhagen as well as in his native Bergen, but it was not without great effort. Influenced by violinist Ole Bull, Grieg had begun incorporating Norwegian folk idioms into his compositions, but he struggled to meet expectations in the larger forms of the chamber music medium because of his natural inclination to short, self-contained, lyrical melodies. Grieg had just completed his G minor String Quartet in the summer of 1878, which he said “is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written. I needed to do this as a study. Now I shall tackle another piece of chamber music; I think in that way I shall find myself again.” Yet he composed only one movement of the projected piano trio, the Andante con moto in C minor. He made notes on the manuscript suggesting he might revise it, but he never returned to it nor did he write any other piano trio. After Grieg’s death, his friend, Leipzig-born Dutch pianist and composer Julius Röntgen (who also played a role in this afternoon’s second work), unearthed the Andante con moto and wrote to Grieg’s widow, Nina Hagerup Grieg, saying, “It is a beautiful piece and completely in order. . . . What a solemnity it conveys! How he can’t get enough of that single theme, that even in the major mode retains its mourning character, and then develops so beautifully its full power. . . . The piece can very well stand by itself and does not at all give the impression of being a fragment, as it constitutes a perfect entity in itself.” The piece was not published, however, until 1978 in the Grieg Critical Edition. Grieg’s monothematic movement is so striking because of how often Grieg showcases his theme in octave unison, first presented by the piano after a hushed introduction of string chords. Whereas the major-mode section offers contrast—and one might consider it considerably less “mournful” than Röntgen suggested—there is no doubt about the overall dark intensity of the piece, which rises to a dramatic climax before ebbing quietly. Return to Parlance Program Notes