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ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Histoire du Tango, arr. by Dmitriy Varelas April 14, 2019: Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Jason Vieaux, guitar The tango, which originated in late nineteenth-century Buenos Aires in brothels and urban courtyards, gained ballroom status through its seductive powers, spreading to Paris and other European centers in the early twentieth century. Tangos traditionally featured not only couples dancing in tight embrace with almost violent leg motions, but also melodramatic poetry sung to the accompaniment of solo guitar; or a trio of flute, violin, and guitar (or bandoneon, a square, button-operated accordion); or larger ensembles of strings, bandoneon, and piano. Piazzolla infused the tango with new life following the Second World War, though he was criticized by traditionalists for adding dissonance and extended rhythmic techniques. His style, called nuevo tango, bears certain similarities to bebop and bossa nova, while largely avoiding the improvisations of jazz. Piazzolla helped bring about the even more recent tango renaissance through his many performances and recordings with his own Quinteto Nuevo Tango, which frequently joined with jazz ensembles, chamber groups, and orchestras across the globe. Piazzolla’s tangos are often soulful, expressive pieces that retain a certain melancholy even in their most lively passages. Along the way, delightful little surprises occur, such as bits of counterpoint, glissandos, harmonics, hesitations, a suddenly sweet sonority, a jaunty rhythm, and bursts of improvisatory-sounding but carefully written out figuration. Well aware of how much the tango had changed during his lifetime, Piazzolla composed Histoire du tango in 1985 to celebrate the dance in four different eras. He intended the four movements—Bordel 1900, Café 1930, Night Club 1960, and Concert d’aujourd’hui (Modern-day concert)—to be abstractions rather than music for dancing. The premiere by flutist Marc Grauwels and guitarist Guy Lukowski took place in March 1985 at the Fifth International Guitar Festival in Liège, where Piazzolla was also premiering his Concerto for Bandoneon, Guitar, and Strings. Histoire du tango has since been arranged for various instrumental combinations and has become one of Piazzolla’s most frequently performed works. The exuberant Bordel 1900 reflects the tango’s earliest years. Wrote Piazzolla, “The tango originated in Buenos Aires in 1882. . . . This music is full of grace and liveliness. It paints a picture of the good-natured chatter of the French, Italian, and Spanish women who peopled those bordellos as they teased the policemen, thieves, sailors, and riffraff who came to see them. This is a high-spirited tango.” Piazzolla’s lively outer sections frame a middle section that shows his wealth of figuration and sequencing ideas while maintaining the breakneck pace. The more sultry Café 1930 represents the period when, said Piazzolla, “people stopped dancing it as they did in 1900, preferring instead simply to listen to it. It became more musical, and more romantic. This tango has undergone total transformation: the movements are slower, with new and often melancholy harmonies.” A contemplative guitar introduction brings on one of Piazzolla’s most soulful melodies. Nevertheless, he can’t resist the tango’s typical inclusion of contrasting sections—in this case an active interruption and a sweet major-mode interlude before returning to the melancholy opening. The rowdy Night Club 1960 incorporates the influence of the bossa nova craze that took the world by storm and helped catapult Piazzolla to fame. “This is a time of rapidly expanding international exchange,” he wrote, “and the tango evolves again as Brazil and Argentina come together in Buenos Aires. The bossa nova and the new tango are moving to the same beat. Audiences rush to the night clubs to listen earnestly to the new tango. This marks a revolution and a profound alteration in some of the original tango forms.” Piazzolla casts his lively rhythmic sections into high relief by contrasting them with poignant passages from his never-ending supply of expressive melodic ideas. In the jaunty Concert d’aujourd’hui (Modern-day concert), Piazzolla shows how far the tango influence has spread, now invading the most sophisticated concert halls. “Certain concepts in tango music become intertwined with modern music,” he said.. “Bartók, Stravinsky, and other composers reminisce to the tune of tango music. This [is] today’s tango, and the tango of the future as well.” Piazzolla’s careful study of these composers’ music turns up in his textures, harmonies, and rhythmic devices. An impish virtuosic burst rounds off his captivating retrospective. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) Suite No. 2 in C minor, op. 17 December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano Following the disastrous failure of his First Symphony in 1897 Rachmaninoff sank into such a deep depression that he could not compose, yet he knew he must produce another piano concerto for an upcoming engagement. Relatives persuaded him to see Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who had been specializing for some years in a method that involved his patients learning a kind of self-hypnosis (which in the early 1930s became known as the Coué method). Rachmaninoff described his treatment and emergence from his creative slump with enough material not only for the concerto but a two-piano suite: I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day, while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl’s study. “You will begin to write your concerto. . . . You will work with great facility. . . . The concerto will be of excellent quality. . . .” It was always the same, without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me. Already at the beginning of the summer I began to compose. The material grew in bulk, and new musical ideas began to stir in me—far more than I needed for my concerto. By the autumn I had finished two movements of the concerto: the Andante [his generic term for any slow movement, in this case the Adagio sostenuto] and the finale—and a sketch of a suite for two pianos. Rachmaninoff saw Dr. Dahl daily from January to April 1900. Whether the method worked, or whether he came out of his depression by his extended conversations with Dahl, who was also an amateur musician, Rachmaninoff was soon able to complete both the Second Piano Concerto and the Suite. He sent three of the four movements of the Suite to his friend, pianist and teacher Alexander Goldenweiser, on February 17, 1901. By April 23, the complete work was ready for the two to play through at Goldenweiser’s apartment. Dedicated to Goldenweiser, the Suite was published that October as Opus 17—before the Second Piano Concerto, op. 18, which accounts for the seeming reverse in the order of the opus numbers. In November the composer and his cousin Alexander Siloti gave the first public performance in Moscow. The Suite begins with a lively march, which reaches a grand climax before fading away in the distance. In the lovely waltz Rachmaninoff plays with the expected 3/4 meter, sometimes stretching his themes into what sounds like 6/4, or two-measure instead of one-measure units. At the beginning of the second of two calmer sections, Rachmaninoff makes a brief reference to the Dies irae theme (four notes only) from the Catholic Mass for the Dead, which would play a significant role in a number of his later works. Rachmaninoff fashioned the Romance around one of his ravishing melodies, which he embroiders ingeniously and builds to a fortissimo climax. In his comprehensive study of Rachmaninoff, Barrie Martyn notes that just before the final appearance of the theme, the composer used material from his six-hand Romance, written for in 1891 for three sisters. According to a footnote in the score, Rachmaninoff based the final Tarantella on an Italian folk song, but the tune has yet to be identified. In any case, the fast, whirling dance makes a dazzling conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Chorale Prelude “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”, BWV 645 (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

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 300c (K. 304) October 5, 2014 – Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano Mozart had written his father from Mannheim on October 6, 1777: “I send my sister herewith six duets for clavicembalo and violin by [Joseph] Schuster, which I have often played here. They are not bad. If I stay on I shall write six myself in the same style, as they are very popular here.” Mannheim flutist Johann Baptist Wendling also encouraged him to write “duets for piano and violin” to help make a living once he got to Paris. Of the seven sonatas resulting from these urges, he wrote five of them in Mannheim in early 1778 and two (including the E minor) in Paris in the early summer of that year. Six of these became known as the Palatine sonatas because Mozart dedicated them to Maria Elisabeth, wife of the Elector of Palatine, when they were published in November 1778 in Paris. The remaining Sonata in C major was included in a group of six published in 1781. Five of the Palatine Sonatas, including the present E minor, consist of only two movements, a configuration Mozart may have borrowed from Johann Christian Bach or Joseph Haydn—or possibly Schuster, whose six sonatas mentioned above unfortunately do not survive. The E minor Sonata, which many consider the greatest of the Palatine Sonatas, is one of only two chamber works with piano and strings in which Mozart employed a minor key (the other being the G minor Piano Quartet, K. 478). Many have suggested that this alternately dramatic and elegiac Sonata and the equally emotionally intense A minor Piano Sonata, K. 310, written around the same time, reflect personal loss—his beloved mother, who had traveled with him to Paris, died on July 3, 1778, after a brief illness. Or he may have been reacting to the enforced separation from his new-found love, Aloysia Weber, the young soprano who lived in Mannheim. Speculation must end there, however, because no one knows the precise dates of composition. The E minor Sonata’s dramatic unison opening leads to a harmonized presentation of the same melody. Each new idea in this movement contains a bit of something that went before, thus unifying the whole. The recapitulation begins with a dramatic reharmonization of the first theme that points to the Romantic world of Beethoven. The second and final movement is labeled “Tempo di Menuetto,” but it behaves more like a rondo, with two episodes interpolated between recurrences of the soulful minuet “refrain.” The first of these episodes offers a stylish sweetness and a piano flourish leading back to the minuet theme. The second, an extended section with two halves each repeated, begins with a soft chordal theme in the piano, and permits, in the words of the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein, “a brief glimpse of bliss.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

PHILLIP GLASS (BORN 1937) Metamorphosis II April 14, 2019: Jason Vieaux, guitar One of the most successful and controversial composers of our time, Philip Glass developed a distinctive style as a minimalist pioneer in the 1960s and early ’70s, using additive and subtractive cycles in static harmony and motoric rhythms for amplified instruments. He created a large body of music in this style for his celebrated Philip Glass Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company, which he cofounded. This period culminated in his Music in Twelve Parts (1971–74), eventually a four-hour work, which was the first that his ensemble played in a traditional concert hall. Glass’s landmark opera Einstein on the Beach , created with Robert Wilson in 1976 for New York’s Metropolitan Opera, brought him instant renown. Since then he has further explored the operatic genre in more than twenty works, also branching out into dance, theater, and film music. His film scores for Martin Scorsese’s Kundun and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours received Academy-Award nominations and his score for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show won a Golden Globe. He has also produced a significant amount of chamber and orchestral music. Among Glass’s recent compositions—premiered in 2017—are his Symphony No. 11, music for the film Jane about the life of Jane Goodall, his Piano Concerto No. 3 for Simone Dinnerstein, a new theater work for the Days and Nights Festival, Passacaglia (Distant Figure) for solo piano, and his String Quartet No. 8. His Piano Quintet, “Annunciation,” premiered in April 2018, and January 2019 saw the spectacular premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic of his Symphony No. 12, “Lodger,” a symphonic song cycle on texts by David Bowie and Brian Eno from Bowie’s album Lodger . In 1988 Glass completed a set of five Metamorphoses for piano, which he released on his landmark Solo Piano album the following year. A longtime admirer of Franz Kafka’s works, Glass took his title from the author’s famous short story Die Verwandlung (The metamorphosis) about a salesman transformed into an insect. The pieces draw on two projects that Glass had recently completed—the score for Errol Morris’s 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line about a man wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer, and his score for part of Gerald Thomas’s 1987 staging in Brazil of a Kafka Trilogy (A Process, Metamorphosis, and Praga) . Said Glass, “As both projects were undertaken at the same time, the music seemed to lend itself well to a synthesis of this kind.” Metamorphosis II has become the most frequently performed of the five pieces and received even more exposure in the 2002 film The Hours . Anne Akiko Meyers writes, “The first time I heard Philip Glass’s hauntingly beautiful Metamorphosis II , I was so struck by it that I asked Michael Riesman (who has collaborated closely with Philip Glass for decades) to arrange it for violin and piano. To my surprise, during our collaboration, Michael mentioned that Metamorphosis II, was influenced by Arvo Pärt’s Fratres .” Riesman adds, “This arrangement is fairly straightforward, except that the middle section, which has rapid four-note arpeggios for piano, didn’t seem idiomatic enough on violin to me, so I changed the pattern to three notes with top and bottom notes repeated, as in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres.” For this series of concerts featuring the collaboration between Anne Akiko Meyers and Jason Vieux, Riesman adapted the piano part for guitar. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

FRITZ KREISLER (1875 — 1962) Three Pieces for Violin and Piano February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman Fritz Kreisler, one of the outstanding masters of the violin and, indeed, one of the most individual performing musicians in history, was famous for his sweet tone and the charm and aristocracy of his playing. As a composer Kreisler is known primarily for his arrangements of works by others and his salon-style pieces, almost exclusively for violin, though he did compose several operettas. While he never claimed intellectual greatness for his compositions, many of them have achieved immortality because they stand above the typical virtuoso “lollipops” of this genre. Kreisler is also known as the perpetrator of a rather delightful hoax: he passed off many of his own compositions as works by Vivaldi, Pugnani, Couperin, Padre Martini, Dittersdorf, Francœur, Stamitz, and others. He reluctantly took credit for these pieces in 1935 saying he had done it in order to round out recital programs with established “names” rather than with his own as-yet-unknown name. Many accepted his shady deeds with amused tolerance, but others took offense, notably English critic Ernest Newman, with whom Kreisler was goaded into a public feud on the pages of London’s Sunday Times. The Marche militaire viennoise probably dates from around 1924 when it appeared on a recording in a piano trio version. It was published the following year for violin and piano as well as in the trio version. The charming outer march sections impart a certain Hungarian flavor, which after all was a significant influence in Vienna. The Old Refrain provides a perfect example of Kreisler appropriating a tune by another composer, in this case “Du alter Stefansturm” from Der liebe Augustin (1887) by Johann Brandl, words by Alice Mattulath. Here, as the title divulges, there is a refrain, a lilting tune that returns after each of two verses. In one version published in 1915, Kreisler wrote out the song with text, dedicating his arrangement entitled “Viennese Popular Song, words by Alice Mattullath” to his “dear friend” tenor John McCormack. Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta was the latest of the present set to be composed, c.1941–42. Following a rhapsodic violin cadenza, Kreisler launches into a lush tune made even richer by the violin’s double stops. Vienna is again invoked by the lilting triple meter in both slow and fast waltzes. The whole concludes with a majestic climax and dazzling feats of violin gymnastics. © Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) S’altro che lagrime from La clemenza di Tito, K. 621 Zeffirettti lusinghieri from Idomeneo, K. 366 February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano In July 1791 Mozart received a “last-minute” commission to compose an opera to celebrate Leopold II’s coronation as King of Bohemia. He had to work quickly in order to complete La clemenza di Tito (The clemency of Titus) by September 6, when it would open at the National Theatre in Prague. Having begun the work in Vienna in late July, Mozart arrived in Prague on August 28 and completed the opera only the day before it opened. After modest successes, La clemenza di Tito experienced a triumphant closing night, which was reported to Mozart back in Vienna on September 30, the day of the premiere of Die Zauberflöte. More than forty composers had previously set Pietro Metastasio’s libretto for La clemenza di Tito, beginning with Caldara in 1734. For Mozart’s purposes the libretto was adapted by Caterino Mazzolà—“reduced to a proper opera” as Mozart put it—who shortened it by one-third and manipulated almost all of Metastasio’s texts so that there would be ensembles and finales in addition to solo arias. The plot, typical of opera seria (eighteenth-century dramatic opera, usually on a classical subject), concerns Titus (Tito), benevolent Roman emperor, whose plan to marry someone other than Vitellia, daughter of the deposed emperor, causes her to plot his demise. She enlists Sextus (Sesto)—who is Tito’s friend but hopelessly in love with her—to burn down the entire city of Rome and thus roast Tito alive. Meanwhile, Tito’s choice of consort has shifted for political reasons from Berenice to Servilia, Sesto’s sister, but when he learns that Servilia and his friend Annio are in love he declares he will not come between them. He now chooses Vitellia, but she doesn’t find out until it is too late to stop the deadly plot. Miraculously, Tito survives the fire, but Sesto is condemned to death for treason. Vitellia, unable to bear the guilt, confesses her part in the scheme, and Tito, who has granted Sesto clemency, now does the same for Vitellia. “S’altro che lagrime” (If nothing more than tears), a gentle minuet-like arietta, is sung by Servilia in Act II as she comes upon Vitellia crying and warns her that her tears are not enough to save Sesto from death. Servilia doesn’t realize that Vitellia is crying in guilty anguish over having brought about his death sentence. Stepping back in time to Mozart’s first big break in opera, in the summer of 1780 he received a commission to write an opera seria for the Electoral Court of Munich. Elector Karl Theodor’s establishment, having recently moved there from Mannheim, boasted one of the finest opera companies and probably the finest orchestra in Europe. Mozart had encountered many of these musicians in Mannheim during his travels several years earlier and he expended his greatest efforts to write a worthy opera. Salzburg cleric Giovanni Battista Varesco condensed Antoine Danchet’s earlier five-act libretto, Idomenée, into three acts, which Mozart—already exhibiting his exceptional dramatic sense of timing and theatrical effect—had to prune severely. Mozart wrote some of his most glorious music for Idomeneo, rè di Creta (Idomeneus, king of Crete), and the premiere, which Mozart conducted in Munich on January 29, 1781, was well received. Yet despite Mozart’s considerable innovations, opera seria was a dying art form, and Idomeneo disappeared from the repertoire, remaining unappreciated until the twentieth century. The story of Idomeneus, the Greek chieftain returning home after the Trojan war, parallels the Biblical story of Jephtha: in return for his deliverance from a horrendous storm, he vows to Poseidon that he will sacrifice the first living being he encounters when he goes ashore, only to find that this is his own son Idamantes. In Italian fashion, the libretto averts a tragic ending by having Poseidon decree that Idomeneus abdicate his throne in favor of Idamantes, who is to marry Ilia. She is the one he loves, though she had earlier given him up to her rival Electra as Idomeneus maneuvered to avoid sacrificing his son. Ilia sings “Zeffiretti lusinghieri” (Gently caressing zephyrs) at the outset of Act III, tenderly, exquisitely asking the wind to carry her thoughts of love to Idamantes. Graceful fast notes represent her message flying on the breeze. The middle section in this ternary form brings musical contrast, though it expresses the same basic idea even if it is now the plants and flowers that are to relay her love. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations SERVILIA S’altro che lagrime Per lui non tenti, Tutto il tuo piangere Non gioverà. A questa inutile pietà che senti oh, quanto è simile la crudeltà. S’altro, etc. —Pietro Metastasio ILIA Zeffiretti lusinghieri, deh volate al mio tesoro, e gli dite ch’io l’adoro, che mi serbi il cor fedel. E voi piante, e fior sinceri, che ora innaffia il pianto amaro, dite a lui che amor più raro Mai vedeste sotto al ciel. Zeffiretti lusinghieri, etc. —Giovanni Battista Varesco after Antoine Danchet SERVILIA If nothing but tears you expend on him, all your weeping will not help. To this useless pity that you feel, oh how similar cruelty is. If nothing, etc. ILIA Gentle zephyrs, oh fly to my beloved, and tell him I adore him, and to keep his heart true to me. And you plants and tender flowers, which my bitter tears now water, tell him that no rarer love you have ever seen beneath the sky. Gentle zephyrs, etc. Return to Parlance Program Notes

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Introduction and Allegro December 18, 2016: Emmanuel Ceysson, harp; Érik Gratton, flute; Inn-hyuck Cho, clarinet; David Chan, concertmaster; Catherine Ro, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Jerry Grossman, cello At the turn of the twentieth century, two harp manufacturers waged a private little war. The firm of Pleyel had commissioned a work from Debussy (Danses sacrée et profane, 1904) to further sales of the newly invented chromatic harp. The Érard piano company, which supplied the Paris Conservatoire with harps and pianos, countered by requesting a work from Maurice Ravel to be written for the customary double-action harp. The resulting Introduction and Allegro was dedicated to M. A. Blondel, the director of the Érard company. Ravel received the commission in 1905 just days before he was to set sail on an extended vacation to Belgium, Holland, and Germany on the Aimée, Alfred and Misia Edwards’s yacht. One of the composer’s letters describes “a week of continuous work and three sleepless nights,” trying to complete the score before the sailing date. Ravel intended to polish his score during the cruise, and hence had it with him on a quick detour to a chemisier for shirts he had ordered for the journey. He then dashed to the harbor only to find that the yacht had sailed without him; to worsen matters, he had left his score at the clothing shop. On his way to Soissons to catch up with the Aimée, Ravel returned to the chemisier who turned out to be an amateur musician. The manuscript was returned to the composer only after much persuasion, and Ravel subsequently met his party at Soissons. The work received its first performance on February 22, 1907, in Paris by the Cercle Musical, a group devoted to chamber music. Though the title page bears the wording “pour Harpe avec accompagnement de Quatuor à cordes, Flute et Clarinette,” other editors indicate “partition d’orchestre” and Ravel himself often conducted the work with a small string orchestra. The slow Introduction presents material to be used in the Allegro, alternating with themes of its own, in a series of colors and textures that show Ravel’s mastery of orchestration. Double-tonguing and tremolo figures in the winds with arpeggios in the strings create an unusually rich sonority. Passages in which the first violin takes on the lowest notes of the string choir provide unusual sonorities; similarly the harp often supplies bass notes that one might expect from the accompaniment. The Allegro can be thought of as an exposition, development, and recapitulation. Ravel’s search for interesting instrumental combinations continues throughout. The harp cadenza, just before the recapitulation, effectively recalls themes from the Introduction. A brilliant coda polishes off this tour de force for the harp. The clear winner in the little harp war was the double-action harp, which is still commonly used today. The chromatic harp failed: in order to finger chords the strings had to be positioned so close together that they would cause unwanted vibrations against one another in any loud passages. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Preludio from Partita No. 3 arrg. for 3 violins & viola May 6, 2018: Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, violin; Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola Though we find precedents for Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin in works by Johann Jacob Walther, Heinrich Biber, and Johann Paul Westhoff, Bach’s contributions totally eclipsed these and remain unsurpassed to this day in invention and magnificence. Trained as a violinist in his youth by his father, Bach knew the capabilities of the instrument and expanded greatly upon them. The autograph manuscript, dated 1720, presents three sonatas in alternation with three partitas. The sonatas represent the serious Italian sonata da chiesa (church sonata) form with four movements in a slow, fast, slow, fast pattern; the partitas resemble the sonata da camera (chamber sonata), a series of dance movements, which if Bach had been writing in the French style would have been called a suite. Throughout the unaccompanied violin works and in those for solo cello, Bach showed his mastery at creating a many-voiced texture with what is essentially a single-line instrument, often by the use of double stops or rolled chords, but even more often by implying several melodic lines by artful figuration. He counted on the ability of the ear to pick out and hold onto notes in one register and string them together over time as an independent voice; one can often hear such implied voices in counterpoint, occurring in two or more registers. Whereas Bach began each of his solo cello suites with a Preludio, the E major Partita is the only solo violin work to open with such a movement. The cheerful perpetual motion of the Preludio has contributed greatly to the work’s popularity. Bach himself showed a fondness for it by transcribing it for organ and orchestra in Cantatas 120a and 29; he also made a transcription of the entire Partita for lute. The Preludio is notable for its larger-than-usual number of authentic dynamic markings. In 1999 music theorist, conductor, and composer Thomas Krämer published his delightful Preludio in E for four violins based on Bach’s popular movement, whose implied counterpoint translates well to this four-voice treatment. The present performance is adapted for three violins and viola. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Viola, D. 786 Nacht und Traume, D. 827 February 16, 2020: Ying Fang, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Schubert’s over 600 surviving songs span just seventeen years, from his student days at the Stadtkonvikt to the last weeks of his tragically short life. He raised the genre to one of central importance and his influence has never been surpassed. The present selection offers some of his beloved stand-alone songs—that is, those outside of his song cycles. Schubert composed “Viola” (a flower in the same family as the pansy and violet) in March of 1823 on a poem by his closest friend Franz von Schober, a charismatic dilettante whose lodgings he shared on various occasion after moving out of his parental home in 1817. Schober’s poem, subtitled “A Flower Ballad,” comprises nineteen verses, which Schubert groups in sections as a kind of through-composed mini-cantata. The song tells the metaphorical story of a lovesick, delicate flower, who hurries to greet Spring, the bridegroom, but wastes away before he arrives. Missing his “dearest child,” Spring has the other flowers search for her, but they find her lifeless. “Viola” is unified by Schubert’s musical treatment of the recurring poetic material of verses 1, 5, 14, and 19, in which the snowdrop is successively exhorted to ring in spring, awaken the flowers, send them to find the missing Viola, and finally to ring her requiem. Schubert creates a dramatic arc from beginning to end—from the quiet beginning of the first section that ends with the return of the refrain to a new more active “movement,” that dramatically tells Viola’s story, and from a new section that portrays the confidence of the other flowers, Spring’s arrival, and the bustling search to find Viola to the return of the quiet simplicity of the opening. Along the way Schubert shows his uncanny ability to respond to the nuances of the text through harmonic shifts, rhythmic adjustments, motivic relationships—and a virtuosic, descriptive piano accompaniment. “Nacht und Träume” (Night and dreams) is impossible to date precisely, but this quintessential Romantic song had to have been composed by June of 1823, when Schubert’s friend Josef von Spaun reported hearing it, and most likely stems from the winter of 1822–23 when Schubert made several settings of poems by Matthäus von Collin. It is touching to think that Schubert composed both this and “Viola” just as he was beginning to feel the ill effects of the syphillis that would claim his life several years later. The imagery of night and dreams was as essential to the Romantic aesthetic as yearning, unrequited love, death, and the supernatural. Collin’s brief poem inspired one of Schubert’s most slow-moving, serene contemplations—and one of his most challenging for the singer, who must sustain its lines at a pianissimo dynamic throughout. He creates a fascinating two-part structure in which each part begins with different music but ends with a musical “rhyme”—lines 2, 3, and 4 corresponding musically with lines 7, 8, and repeat of 8. Throughout the piano maintains a soothing rocking motion with a gorgeous harmonic shift at the outset of the second part to set up the image of dreams eavesdropping with pleasure. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Viola Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läute immer, läute zu! Denn du kündest frohe Zeit, Frühling naht, der Bräutigam, Kommt mit Sieg vom Winterstreit, Dem er seine Eiswehr nahm. Darum schwingt der goldne Stift, Daß dein Silberhelm erschallt, Und dein liebliches Gedüft Leis’, wie Schmeichelruf entwallt: Daß die Blumen in der Erd Steigen aus dem düstern Nest Und des Bräutigams sich werth Schmücken zu dem Hochzeitfest. Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut’ die Blumen aus der Ruh! Du Viola, zartes Kind, Hörst zuerst den Wonnelaut, Und sie stehet auf geschwind, Schmücket sorglich sich als Braut. Hüllet sich ins grüne Kleid, Nimmt den Mantel sammetblau, Nimmt das güldene Geschmeid, Und den Brilliantenthau. Eilt dann fort mit mächt’gem Schritt, Nur den Freund im treuen Sinn, Ganz von Liebesglut durchglüht, Sieht nicht her und sieht nicht hin. Doch ein ängstliches Gefühl Ihre kleine Brust durchwallt, Denn es ist noch rings so still Und die Lüfte weh’n so kalt. Und sie hemmt den schnellen Lauf, Schon bestrahlt von Sonnenschein, Doch mit Schrecken blickt sie auf,— Denn sie stehet ganz allein. Schwestern nicht—nicht Bräutigam— Zugedrungen! und verschmäht!— Da durchschauert sie die Schaam, Fliehet wie vom Sturm geweht, Fliehet an den fernsten Ort, Wo sie Gras und Schatten deckt, Späht und lauschet immerfort: Ob was rauschet und sich regt. Und gekränket und getäuscht Sitzet sie und schluchzt und weint; Von der tiefsten Angst zerfleischt, Ob kein Nahender sich zeigt.— Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut die Schwestern ihr herzu!— Rose nahet, Lilie schwankt, Tulp und Hyacinthe schwellt, Windling kommt daher gerankt, Und Narciß hat sich gesellt. Da der Frühling nun erscheint Und das frohe Fest beginnt, Sieht er alle die vereint, Und vermißt sein liebstes Kind. Alle schickt er suchend fort Um die Eine, die ihm werth. Und sie kommen an den Ort, Wo sie einsam sich verzehrt.— Doch es sitzt das liebe Kind Stumm und bleich, das Haupt gebückt— Ach! der Lieb und Sehnsucht Schmerz Hat die Zärtliche erdrückt. Schneeglöcklein, o Schneeglöcklein! In den Auen läutest du, Läutest in dem stillen Hain, Läut, Viola, sanfte Ruh! —Franz von Schober Viola Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring always, ring out! For you herald a happy time, spring, the bridegroom, nears, comes victorious from the battle with winter, whose icy weapons he took away. So your golden clapper swings, so that your silvery helmet resounds, and your lovely scent quietly, like a flattering call flows forth: That the flowers in the earth rise from their dark nest and worthy of the bridegroom dress for the wedding feast. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring the flowers out of their sleep! You field pansy, tender child, hear the blissful sound first, and she gets up quickly, and dresses carefully as a bride. She wraps herself in a green dress, dons a velvety blue coat, dons her golden jewelry and dewy diamonds. She hurries forth with mighty step, only to her friend in the true sense, completely glowing with love’s warmth, she looks neither to one side nor the other. But an anxious feeling flows through her little breast, for it is so quiet all around and the breezes blow so coldly. And she halts her fast running, already shone upon by the sun, but with terror she looks up, for she is standing all alone. No sisters, no bridegroom, she has been too forward! and been spurned! Then shame shudders through her, she flees as if blown by a storm. She flees to the most distant place, where grass and shadows cover her, she always looks and listens: to see whether anything rustles or moves. And hurt and deceived she sits and sobs and weeps; torn apart by the deepest fear, that nobody will appear. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring so that her sisters come to her! The rose nears, the lily sways, the tulip and the hyacinth swell, the bindweed comes twining around, and the narcissus has joined in. Now that spring appears and the happy festival begins, he sees all who are united, and he misses his dearest child. He sends everyone off to search for the one who is dear to him, and they come to the place where she pines away alone. But the dear child sits mute and pale, her head bowed. Ah! the pain of love and longing has crushed the tender one. Snowdrop, O snowdrop! you ring in the meadows, you ring in the quiet grove, ring, for the field pansy, gentle rest! Nacht und Träume Heil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder; Nieder wallen auch die Träume, Wie dein Mondlicht durch die Räume, Durch der Menschen stille Brust. Die belauschen sie mit Lust; Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht: Kehre wieder, heil’ge Nacht! Holde Träume, kehret wieder! —Matthäus von Collin Night and Dreams Holy night, you sink down; dreams also float down, like moonlight through spaces, through the silent breasts of men. They eavesdrop on them with pleasure; they call when day awakes: Come back, holy night! Sweet dreams, come back! Return to Parlance Program Notes

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 5, No. 2 June 19, 2022 – Amanda Forsyth; Shai Wosner, piano Beethoven composed his first two cello sonatas in the early summer of 1796 while visiting the Berlin court of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was himself an amateur cellist. Dedicated to the king, the sonatas were premiered by the composer at the piano with cello virtuoso Jean-Louis Duport—not to be confused with his brother Jean-Pierre, a less famous cello virtuoso who was already in the employ of the king. Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven’s student and biographer, reported that “on his departure he received a gold snuffbox filled with Louis d’ors. Beethoven declared with pride that it was not an ordinary snuffbox, but such a one as it might have been customary to give to an ambassador.” Despite their being “early” works, the Opus 5 Cello Sonatas, like the early trios and piano sonatas, show the hand of a full-fledged master. The original title—“two grand sonatas for piano and obbligato cello”—reflects the eighteenth-century tradition in which the keyboard predominated and the second instrument played an accompanying role. Though the keyboard is indeed prominent in these works, Beethoven often made it an equal partner, thus forging a new realm for the cello sonata far beyond what scholar Lewis Lockwood called “wallpaper sonatas” of such cellist-composers as Luigi Boccherini. Inspired in part by Mozart’s violin sonatas, Beethoven now showed off the cello in all of its registers and as a match for the piano’s wide range of expression. This expansion of the cello’s role had much to do with the Duports—in particular, the proficiency and personality of Jean-Luis, who had opened up a new era of technical achievement in his playing and teaching of the instrument. Both of the Opus 5 Sonatas follow the same two-movement layout, possibly modeled after Mozart’s C major Violin Sonata, K. 303. Their first movements are preceded by a long, slow introduction, which makes a slow movement unnecessary, and each concludes with a merry rondo finale to finish off the form. The extensive introduction of the G minor Sonata presents a many-faceted drama with plots and subplots that include forceful pronouncements, plentiful dotted rhythms, lyrical yearning lines, and judicious uses of silence near the end to build suspense for the main Allegro section. He generously presents two ideas in both of the exposition’s first and second theme groups, all of which he treats virtuosically in the development section, where he even introduces a lightly dancing new theme. Following his recapitulation he concludes with a turbulent coda. This is one of Beethoven’s most extended sonata movements—it amounts to more than five hundred measures even without the prescribed repeat of the exposition and of the development and recapitulation—and yet its coherence is remarkable. The bubbly rondo refrain of the second and final movement banishes the dark mood. It begins unexpectedly in C major rather than G major, a trick the composer liked enough to repeat for the last movement of his G major Piano Concerto. This catchy refrain encompasses three ideas, all of which Beethoven returns to and varies in this ingenious combination of rondo, variation, and ternary form. The refrain alternates with equally inspired episodes: the first sweet then poignant as it turns to the minor mode and the second a much extended episode in the C major key of the opening. The entire refrain-episode-refrain succession of the beginning returns after this substantial middle episode, and so the rondo form (A-B-A | C | A-B-A) gives the overall impression of a simpler three-part form. Beethoven adds a coda that pauses the forward momentum with a new alternately soft and forthright melodic phrase before the whirlwind conclusion. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108 January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet When Shostakovich announced the completion of his First Cello Concerto in the summer of 1959, he also mentioned that he had composed one and a half movements of a new quartet. He completed this—his Seventh—in March 1960, possibly having also worked on it the previous month while hospitalized for one of many treatments of his weakened right hand. (Only later was his condition diagnosed as a rare form of poliomyelitis.) The Beethoven Quartet (Dmitri Tsïganov, Vasili Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, and Sergei Shirinsky) premiered the work on May 15 at Leningrad’s Glinka Concert Hall. From the time of Shostakovich’s Second Quartet they had become his friends and collaborators, premiering all his remaining quartets until the death of the cellist prevented them from their premiering his last, the Fifteenth. The composer was the first to credit the influence of their performing style on his music. Shostakovich had set up a tonal structure for his cycle of quartets, intending to write one in each of the twenty-four keys. He placed each quartet a third below the previous, beginning with C major (C–A–F–D–B-flat–G), but he broke his scheme by choosing F-sharp minor for his Seventh. (He would resume with Nos. 8 and 9, but in reverse, C minor and E-flat, then continue without break through No. 15.) Commentators speculate that he associated F-sharp minor with the Quartet’s dedicatee, Nina, his first wife and mother of his two children; she had died six years previously from undetected colon cancer. He had recently extricated himself from his unfortunate second marriage of four years, and had perhaps grown nostalgic about his first wife. Nevertheless, their twenty-two year marriage had been anything but smooth, perhaps reflected in the work’s conflicting moods—impish, agitated, haunted, belligerent, and introspective. Shortest of his fifteen quartets, the Seventh unfolds in three compact movements, linked not by continuous sound but by the “attacca” directive between movements so as to prevent disruptive pauses. The first movement begins impishly with the first violin descending in little three-note grouplets until it knocks three times on the home pitch. Not only does the light texture and soft volume add to the impishness, but Shostakovich plays metric games that keep the two types of three-note groupings delightfully off-kilter. The cello presents the stealthy second theme, made agitated by inner instruments’ insistent repeated notes—a Shostakovich hallmark. He cleverly alters the return of the first theme by evening out the rhythm and having the strings play pizzicato. Before the first theme ends, the strings don their mutes, keeping them on through the return of the agitated music and into the hushed ending with the three repeated notes. Still muted, the second violin initiates the slow movement with a rocking arpeggio, which provides a perfect backdrop for the haunting theme of the first violin. The viola and cello’s eerie theme in octave unison receives another of Shostakovish’s insistent repeated-note accompaniments in the second violin, which continues as the first violin floats in. The concluding somber four-note descent leaves the movement sounding open-ended. The finale crashes in with unexpected violence, whereupon we hear the slow four-note descent again. Shostakovich then launches a belligerent, thrilling fugue of irresistible forward momentum. Just when the intensity becomes nearly unbearable, he suddenly brings back the main theme from the first movement in a terrifically aggressive version, reminiscent at times of the Cello Concerto he had just completed. Miraculously, he then turns his fugue theme into a gentle, muted waltz. With a kind of nostalgic look at the impish material of the first movement, the piece dies away introspectively. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes