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GLORIA CHIEN, PIANO Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by the The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo by Artistic Directors, David Finckel and Wu Han, a position she held for the next decade. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became artistic directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR in 2020. They were named recipients of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2021 for their efforts during the pandemic. Chien received her bachelor, masters and doctoral degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist.

WESTON SPROTT, TROMBONE Weston Sprott was appointed to the position of second trombone of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the spring of 2005. He began his musical training in his hometown of Spring, TX. Mr. Sprott attended Indiana University before completing his Bachelor of Music degree at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His primary teachers include Michael Warny (Houston Grand Opera and Ballet Orchestras), Carl Lenthe (former Principal Trombone, Bavarian State Opera and Bamberg Symphony) and Nitzan Haroz (Principal Trombone-Philadelphia Orchestra). While a student at Curtis, Mr. Sprott held the positions of Principal Trombone in the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra (Philadelphia) and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. He was the founding member of the Texas Trombone Octet, a group that won the Emory Remington competition and was featured in concert at the International Trombone Festival in Helsinki, Finland. Mr. Sprott has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, Hot Springs Music Festival, The American Wind Symphony Orchestra, and The Sphinx Symphony (Detroit). He has also performed with the St. Barts Music Festival and the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society. Mr. Sprott has worked under the baton of many of the world’s great conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn and numerous others. Mr. Sprott was recently featured in the documentary film “A Wayfarer’s Journey:Listening to Mahler” with actor Richard Dreyfuss and actress Kathleen Chalfant. He was also a performer in the film “Rittenhouse Square” under the direction of Robert Downey, a documentary that played in major film festivals throughout the United States to critical acclaim. In September 2007, Mr. Sprott made his Carnegie Hall solo debut performing Lars Erik-Larsson’s Concertino in Weill Recital Hall at the invitation of the Bulgarian Consulate. Other engagements have led to performances with gospel and jazz artists such as Branford Marsalis, Take 6 and Donnie McClurkin. Performances and interviews with Mr. Sprott have been seen and heard on PBS’ Great Performances, NPR’s Performance Today, and Sirius Satellite Radio. In demand as a soloist and masterclass clinician, Mr. Sprott has been a featured guest artist at several of America’s leading conservatories and universities. He is currently on the faculty of Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, and he previously served on the faculty of The New School University, a division of the Mannes School of Music in New York City. Weston Sprott is an artist/clinician for the Edwards Instrument Company. He performs exclusively on Edwards trombones and Doug Elliott mouthpieces.

WU HAN, PIANO Pianist Wu Han ranks among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. Leading an unusually multifaceted artistic career, she has risen to international prominence through her wide-ranging activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. In high demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician, Wu Han has appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious concert series and venues across the United States and around the world. She is a frequent collaborator with many of today’s finest musicians and ensembles. Wu Han appears extensively each season as duo pianist with cellist David Finckel, and in 2012, they were the recipients of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year award, one of the highest honors granted by the music industry. London’s Musical Opinion said of the duo’s Wigmore Hall debut: “They enthralled both myself and the audience with performances whose idiomatic command, technical mastery and unsullied integrity of vision made me think right back to the days of Schnabel and Fournier, Solomon and Piatigorsky.” In addition to her distinction as one of classical music’s most accomplished performers, Wu Han has established a reputation for her dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, Wu Han and David Finckel launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue of eighteen albums has won widespread critical acclaim. The duo’s recording for the ArtistLed label of the Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev sonatas for cello and piano received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor’s Choice” award. The most recent addition to the ArtistLed catalogue, Wu Han LIVE, was released in December 2014 in collaboration with the Music@Menlo LIVE label and features Wu Han performing solo and chamber works of Mendelssohn, Bach, and Haydn. Now in their third term as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han hold the longest tenure since Charles Wadsworth, the founding Artistic Director. They are the founding Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim, soon to celebrate its thirteenth season. David Finckel and Wu Han also serve as Artistic Directors of Chamber Music Today, an annual festival held in Seoul, Korea. The festival, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, is at the forefront of expanding the presence of chamber music in the Far East. Wu Han has achieved universal renown for her passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of countless young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, she taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. Under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Wu Han and David Finckel direct the LG Chamber Music School, which provides workshops for young artists in Korea. In 2013, Wu Han and David Finckel established a chamber music studio at Aspen Music Festival.

ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE Elaine Douvas has been principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera since 1977 and was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony for four years prior. Her career highlights include the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, James Levine conducting. In 2017, Douvas was invited to serve as Chairman of the Jury for the Munich ARD International Oboe Competition. She has recorded several solo CDs on Boston Records, Oboe Classics, Music Minus One, and one with her quartet “Pleasure is the Law”: flute, oboe, cello, and piano. Equally devoted to her career as a teacher, Ms. Douvas has served on the oboe faculty of The Juilliard School since 1982, The Mannes College of Music since 1981, and the Bard College Conservatory since 2009. In her capacity as Chairman of the Woodwind Department at Juilliard, she teaches career development and attitudes for career longevity! Her students hold positions in numerous orchestras and university faculties. In the summers she is a long-time artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and she has given master classes and week-long seminars across the USA, as well as Canada, England, and China. Douvas lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey with her husband Robert Sirinek, former trumpeter with the Met and Orchestra Manager since 1986. They have two grown daughters, Portia and Margot, both pursuing careers in medicine. For over twenty years she has devoted her spare time to figure skating and has passed eleven USFSA tests in free-style and “moves in the field”.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Octet in E-flat major, op. 20 September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano The sixteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn completed one of the ultimate masterpieces of the chamber music literature—the Octet—on October 15, 1825. Even Mozart, with all his well-known precocity, did not create a work of such exquisite perfection by this time in his creative life. Dedicated to Mendelssohn’s violin and viola teacher Eduard Rietz, whose birthday fell on October 17, the Octet is unique not only in its revelation of such consummate skill in so young a composer but also in its instrumental configuration of four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Where did Mendelssohn get the idea for a string octet in which the instruments are not treated in double quartet fashion—as in Louis Spohr’s Double Quartets—but in myriad inventive combinations of the eight instruments? We find no true precedents for his stroke of genius. Though antiphonal effects between two quartets occasionally surface in the Octet, Mendelssohn most often layers the eight parts in an orchestral texture, from which each instrument emerges with solo lines—the first violin most prominently, as befitting a piece in which his teacher probably played the first violin part. Mendelssohn stressed his orchestral intentions in the score: “The Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character.” No doubt he meant “usual” for chamber music in general, but there really is no other piece quite like the Octet with its combination of orchestral textures and technically virtuosic writing for each player. Since he was thirteen Felix had enjoyed a remarkable friendship with the aging Goethe, Germany’s most venerated writer of the time. The composer’s sister Fanny revealed that in the effervescent Scherzo, Felix had set to music a stanza from the Walpurgis Night Dream from Goethe’s Faust , Part I: “The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist / Are lit from above. / A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds, / And all has vanished.” She continued: To me alone he told this idea: the whole piece is to be played staccato and pianissimo, the tremolos coming in now and then, the trills passing away with quickness of lightning; everything new and strange, and at the same time most insinuating and pleasing, one feels so near the world of spirits, carried away in the air, half inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the aerial procession. At the end the first violin takes a flight with a feather-like lightness, and—all has vanished. Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd speculates convincingly that Mendelssohn not only represented additional aspects of Goethe’s dream sequence in the Scherzo—an orchestra of crickets, frogs, flies, mosquitos, and even a bagpipe blowing soap bubbles—but that other movements, too, may contain inspirations from Faust . He cites the first movement’s flamboyant, “Faustian” first violin part, with its bold soaring and tumbling opening, and the grandiose proportions of the movement as a whole. The archaic, lamenting quality of the slow movement perhaps reflects the cathedral scene before the Walpurgis Night, when the guilt-ridden Gretchen attends a church service and faints. And it may be that the fugal finale represents the struggle between Faust and Mephistopheles for Gretchen’s soul, which would also help to explain the reference to “And He shall reign for ever and ever” from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah . Speculations aside, the first movement shows the kind of mastery of sonata form that enabled the composer to use it flexibly. In the recapitulation he felt free to bring back ideas in a different order and his coda shows the kind of developmental thinking that Beethoven liked to impart to his codas. The soulful Andante, ostensibly in C minor, spends most of its time ingeniously avoiding that key. Mendelssohn’s modulations spin out effortlessly and eventually leave the listener in F minor rather in the home key. The second theme captivates with its slowly cascading chains of thirds, which impart a sense of yearning through beautiful suspensions. Mendelssohn’s inspiration for his celebrated Scherzo has been mentioned, but we should also note that the music poured from his pen as a complete thought. Only this movement of the four shows no crossings-out, revisions, or afterthoughts in the manuscript. Instead of using a traditional scherzo-trio-scherzo form he opted for a miniature sonata form, with the development section breaking out in seven-part imitation that anticipates the fugal finale. Mendelssohn himself noted that the Scherzo almost always elicited an encore. He later bowed to its popularity by adding wind parts and substituting it for the minuet of his First Symphony for a performance in London, a practice that was often repeated. The finale begins with a touch of humor as the second cello in its lowest register presents an energetic solo line, which soon blossoms into a cheerful eight-voice fugue. Mendelssohn offers the perfect foil to this contrapuntal complexity with a powerful second theme in fortissimo octaves. His inspired mix of sonata and rondo form, infused by fugal sections surely had its roots in Mozart’s celebrated Jupiter Symphony finale. Bows to two of his other predecessors occur in the development (middle episode)—first the Handel reference noted above, then a nod to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as he cleverly recalls the Scherzo just before the recapitulation. Throughout one can only marvel at the deft contrapuntal handling of the eight individual voices by the sixteen-year-old. The Octet, whose inspiration and effectiveness Mendelssohn may have recaptured but never surpassed, retained a lofty place in his affections. He later called it “my favorite of all my compositions,” nostalgically recalling that “I had the most beautiful time writing it.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Sonata (Duo) for Violin and Cello March 13, 2022: Kristin Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Brown, piano In 1920 Henry Prunières, editor of La Revue Musicale, commissioned pieces by ten prominent composers—Bartók, Dukas, Falla, Eugene Goossens, Malipiero, Ravel, Roussel, Satie, Schmitt, and Stravinsky—to be published in a special issue commemorating Debussy and to be played on a special recital at the Société Musicale Indépendante on January 24, 1921. Ravel’s contribution was the first movement of his Duo for violin and cello. Owing to work on a concurrent commission for the opera L’enfant et les sortilèges and numerous other distractions—including moving into a country villa where he could compose undisturbed—Ravel did not resume work on the Sonata until the summer of 1921, completing it in January 1922. At the time of the premiere on April 6, 1922, by violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange and cellist Maurice Maréchal, the work was still titled Duo, perhaps reflecting Kodály’s 1914 work of the same title for the same combination of instruments. Indeed the Hungarian flavor of parts of the finale may indicate more than titular influence. Ravel noted the Sonata (its published title)—as a “turning point” in his career from the lushness of previous works to a more “stripped down” style. The work shows a “restraint from harmonic charm,” wrote the composer, and is “more and more an emphatic reversion to the spirit of melody.” Unintended dissonances marred the first performance—consequences of Ravel’s novel ideas, which proved technically challenging. Naturally some critics complained about the austerity of the new style, but Gustave Samazeuilh wrote of the “supple imagination of the first movement, “the surprising verve” of the second and fourth movements, and the “pure and sustained line” of the slow movement. Ravel met the challenge of composing for reduced forces not only through a new melodic style, but through an incredible variety of textures, articulations, and timbres. In the sonata-form first movement he keeps both instruments in the same register much of the time, thus focusing not on their differences but their pitch content, which shifts between major and minor. By contrast, the scherzo showcases the different ranges of the two instruments and, even more striking, the difference between pizzicato (plucked) and arco (bowed) articulations. A wonderful texture is created by broken chords in harmonics that accompany the violin’s folklike pizzicato theme, which later returns arco with a new accompaniment. Another novel sonority occurs at the conclusion with the cello’s pizzicato, triple-stop glissando (slide). The slow movement begins and ends in calm introspection, rising to a turbulent peak in the middle. Its simple lyricism provides a great foil for the preceding scherzo and the following finale, which by turns can be characterized as agitated, playful, and driven. In this concluding movement Ravel delights in changing meters, Hungarian folk touches, and further pizzicato and arco contrasts as he artfully creates new themes and combines them with ideas that we’ve heard before, including prominent recalls from the first movement. The great swirl of themes, keys, and textures suddenly comes to a halt in a simple C major chord. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) Sonata for Cello and Piano in d minor, Op. 40 (1934) February 8, 2015 – David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano While interpreting the events of a composer’s life as impetus for his creative work is always risky business, one important personal development from Shostakovich’s life around the time of his Cello Sonata nevertheless remains inescapable. In the summer of 1934, Shostakovich fell passionately in love with Yelena Konstaninovskaya, a 20-year-old translator. Much to the dismay of his wife Nina (despite their mutual agreement to an open marriage), the composer spent the majority of their summer holiday writing letter to his young mistress. “There is nothing in you which fails to send a wave of joy and fierce passion inside me when I think of you,” he wrote. “Lyalya, I love you so, I love you so, as nobody ever loved before. My love, my gold, my dearest, I love you so; I lay down my love before you.” William T. Vollman dedicates a chapter of his epic novel Europe Central to the tempting–albeit improbable–influence of the affair with Konstaninovskaya on the music of the Cello Sonata. Though rooted in fancy, Vollman’s poetic assessment of the work nevertheless speaks to its lyrical pathos and sense of romantic abandon: Each of Shostakovich’s symphonies I consider to be a multiply broken bridge, an archipelago of steel trailing off into the river. Opus 40, however, is a house with four rooms……[He] built Opus 40 for her and him to dwell in, and she led him inside. They were going to have an apartment with a dark passageway, then steps and halfsteps. They’d live there, deep below the piano keys in Moscow. Nina could stay in Leningrad… Therefore, Opus 40, and in particular the first movement, composed of firelight and kisses, remains the most romantic thing that Shostakovich ever wrote. Shostakovich and Nina separated, and the composer, as Vollman alludes, remained in Moscow with no definite plans to follow his wife back to Leningrad. It was during this time that work on the Cello Sonata began. By 1935, however, Nina was pregnant with the Shostakoviches’ first child, and the marriage essentially righted itself (which did not preclude later extramarital affairs by both Dmitry and Nina). Shortly after the affair ended, Konstaninovskaya received an anonymous political denunciation and spent roughly a year in prison. Shostakovich composed the Cello Sonata for the cellist Viktor Kubatsky, an esteemed cellist and one-time principal at the Bolshoi Theater. Shostakovich, also an able pianist, subsequently toured with Kubatsky, premiering his Cello Sonata in Leningrad on Christmas Day, 1934, alongside the cello sonatas of Grieg and Rachmaninov. The composer reportedly performed the piano parts to all three works from memory. ©2006 Patrick Castillo Return to Parlance Program Notes

SARAH CROCKER 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.

ERIKA BAIKOFF, SOPRANO Russian American Soprano, Erika Baikoff, is a recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. As a Lindemann Young Artist, she sang the roles of Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro . At Maestro Nézet-Séguin's invitation, she joined the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra's tour of Das Rheingold and was featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler's 4th Symphony with Maestro Rustioni and the Ulster Orchestra. Equally passionate about chamber music, she made her debuts with Schubertíada and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, both of which she will return to in future seasons. The 2023/2024 season includes debuts with the Houston Grand Opera, London Symphony Orchestra, and Ciclo de Lied. From 2018 to 2020, Erika was a member of the Opéra National de Lyon Studio, where her roles included Le Feu/ Princesse/ Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges , Juliet in Boris Blacher’s Romeo and Juliet , Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco, and the soprano solo in Mahler's 4th Symphony. Erika is the first prize winner of the 2019 Helmut Deutsch Liedwettbewerb and the 10th Concours international de chant-piano Nadia et Lili Boulanger with her duo partner, Gary Beecher. Other awards include the 6th Prize, Oratorio-Lied Prize, and Schubert Prize at the Tenor Viñas Contest, George London Award, Sullivan Foundation Career Development Grant, 2020 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Semi-finalist, Career Bridges Grant, Mondavi Young Artist Founders’ Prize, and the Bouchaine Young Artist Scholarship. Erika is an alumni of the Atelier Lyrique at the Verbier Festival, where she sang Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, and the Académie Vocal Residency of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies from Princeton University and a Master of Music from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

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CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Danse sacrée et profane December 18, 2016: Mariko Anraku, harp; David Chan, concertmaster; Catherine Ro, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Rafael Figueroa, cello Please refer also to the “private little war” in the notes for Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro. The customary double-action harp is fashioned with seven pedals, which can make each of the seven notes of the diatonic scale either flat, natural, or sharp. In 1897 the famous Paris instrument-making firm of Pleyel introduced a new chromatic harp, which contained a string for every half step, thus almost doubling the number of strings. In 1903 Pleyel invited Debussy to compose a test piece, which was to be used for a class that was being initiated in the new instrument at the Brussels Conservatory. The resulting work, Deux danses (Danse sacrée et profane ), for harp and string orchestra has long since become a beloved part of the repertoire, while the chromatic harp has become a museum piece. The work is now played on the double-action harp, a possibility Debussy had allowed for on the title page; he also transcribed it for two pianos. Debussy used the collective title Danses for the work, which contains two movements, both in triple meter and A-B-A form. The slow Danse sacrée was suggested to Debussy by a piano piece by his friend, composer and conductor Francisco de Lacerda, but also owes something to Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies , of which Debussy was fond enough to transcribe two for orchestra. A vague ritualistic atmosphere, imparted by its slow-moving modal sonorities, often in parallel octaves, accounts for the title “sacred dance.” Similarly, the suggestion of a lilting waltz, rather than any specific pagan scene, gives rise to the title Danse profane . © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) String Quartet in D major, K. 575, “Prussian No. 1” March 6, 2016: The Escher String Quartet The String Quartet in D major, K. 575, is the first of the three Prussian Quartets—the last string quartets Mozart ever wrote. In April of 1789 he had left Vienna for Potsdam with his pupil, Prince Karl Lichnowsky (later Beethoven’s patron), who was to introduce him to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. The king, like his flutist/composer uncle, King Friedrich Wilhelm I, and his pianist/composer cousin, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was a great music lover—his instrument was the cello. Mozart hoped the visit would result in some financial gain, but all he received was a small amount of money and a commission to compose “six easy clavier sonatas for Princess Friederike and six quartets for the king.” When Mozart got back to Vienna his situation was no better. He was constantly begging money from friends, who this time did not answer his requests; his wife fell seriously ill; and he himself was suffering from rheumatism, toothaches, headaches, and insomnia. He composed one quartet, K. 575 in D major, but waited almost a year before adding two more, K. 589 in B-flat major and K. 590 in F major. He never wrote the other three, nor did he complete the set of sonatas for the princess. He sold the three quartets to a publisher “for a mockery of a fee, only to lay my hands on some money to keep myself going.” In order to highlight the king’s instrument, Mozart wrote significant cello parts in high register, which he balanced with soloistic opportunities for the other instruments—a style called “quatuor concertant,” which was particularly popular in Paris. Here in the D major Quartet Mozart featured solo cello writing in all movements, whereas in the second quartet the cello comes to the fore only in the first two movements and in the third primarily in the first movement. It seems the image of the cello-playing king receded as time went on. Mozart chose the relaxed tempo marking “Allegretto” for three of the D major Quartet’s movements. He emphasizes the opening movement’s delicate quality by giving the rare directive “sotto voce” (in an undertone, subdued) at the outset and at the start of the recapitulation. The first violin, then viola, present the main theme, with equal prominence given to the cello when it enters with the second theme in high register. Mozart marks this “dolce” (sweetly), another of his exceptional directives. The Andante, his only non-Allegretto movement, is only moderately slow—a walking tempo—further minimizing the tempo contrast between movements. His lovely melody bears enough similarity to his 1785 song “Das Veilchen” (The violet) to have given that nickname to the Quartet on occasion. The arching phrases in the middle section of this A-B-A form also feature the cello as an equal conversationalist. An introductory ornament and light staccato repeated notes, both essential thematic elements, give verve to this elegant Menuetto. The cello particularly comes to the fore in the middle trio section, presenting a singing melody in response to the violins’ lightly tripping invitation. The cheerful finale combines both sonata and rondo form with a recurring main theme introduced by the cello with viola counterpoint. Many commentators have pointed out the similarity of the main idea to the that of the first movement, suggesting a possible anticipation of Romantic composers’ interest in cyclic unity. Mozart’s astounding but seemingly effortless contrapuntal writing throughout the movement makes refrains, episodes, and development alike a witty and elegant experience. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes