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DAVID KRAUSS, TRUMPET David Krauss joined The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as Principal Trumpet in 2001and occupies theBeth W. and Gary A. Glynn endowed chair. He has has performedwith James Levine in the MET chamber series at Carnegie Hall and has appeared as guest principal trumpet with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. A native of Long Island, New York, he earned both Bachelor andMaster of Music degrees from The Juilliard School and studied Wynton Marsalis,William Vacchiano, Chris Gekker and James Pandolfi. Prior to joining the Met, heperformed with a variety of ensembles in and around New York City including Orchestraof St. Luke’s, The New Jersey Symphony, and on several Broadway shows. He coproduced three recordings, including the Metropolitan Opera Brass’s self titled debut album and the subsequent “Waltzes, Songs & Festive Scenes” and “Sacrae Symphoniae”, as part of which he was praised by the American Record Guide for his “singing tone which is luxurious and inviting.” He is currently trumpet professor at the Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University and teaches trumpet in the pre college division of The Juilliard School. In the summertime, he is the head brass coach and trumpet teacher at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. David lives in Manhattan with his wife Kristen and their four children Noah, Eli, Margot, and Ava.

Elizabeth Roe, piano The Anderson & Roe mission: To make classical music a relevant and powerful force in society. Known for their adrenalized performances, original compositions, and notorious music videos, GREG ANDERSON and ELIZABETH JOY ROE are revolutionizing the piano duo experience for the 21st century. Described as “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice ), “rock stars of the classical music world” (Miami Herald ), and “the very model of complete 21st-century musicians” (The Washington Post ), the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo aims to make classical music a relevant and powerful force around the world. Their five critically acclaimed albums have spent dozens of weeks at the top of the Billboard Classical Charts, while their Emmy-nominated, self-produced music videos have been viewed by millions on YouTube and at international film festivals. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of Anderson & Roe’s debut. Since forming their dynamic musical partnership as students at The Juilliard School, Anderson & Roe have toured extensively worldwide as recitalists and orchestral soloists; appeared on NPR, MTV, PBS, and the BBC; presented at numerous international leader symposiums; and served as hosts of “From the Top” and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. A live performance by Anderson & Roe was handpicked to appear on the Sounds of Juilliard CD celebrating the school’s centenary. While isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic, Anderson & Roe performed several innovative and interactive virtual events, produced over a dozen new music videos, appeared in MasterVoices’ Myths and Hymns (2021 Drama League Nominee for Best Digital Concert Production) alongside luminaries of opera and musical theater, and hosted a year of Two Piano Tuesday livestream conversations on Facebook Live which drew an enthusiastic and devoted global audience each week.

HENRY KRAMER, PIANO Praised by The Cleveland Classical Review for his “astonishingly confident technique” and The New York Times for “thrilling [and] triumphant” performances, pianist Henry Kramer is developing a reputation as a musician of rare sensitivity who combines stylish programming with insightful and exuberant interpretations. In 2016, he garnered international recognition with a Second Prize win in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Most recently, he was awarded a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant by Lincoln Center – one of the most coveted honors bestowed on young American soloists. Kramer began playing piano at the relatively late age of 11 in his hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One day, he found himself entranced by the sound of film melodies as a friend played them on the piano, inspiring him to teach himself on his family’s old upright. His parents enrolled him in lessons shortly thereafter, and within weeks, he was playing Chopin and Mozart. Henry emerged as a winner in the National Chopin Competition in 2010, the Montreal International Competition in 2011 and the China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2012. In 2014 he was added to the roster of Astral Artists, an organization that annually selects a handful of rising stars among strings, piano, woodwinds and voice candidates. The following year, he earned a top prize in the Honens International Piano Competition. Kramer has performed “stunning” solo recital debuts, most notably at Alice Tully Hall as the recipient of the Juilliard School’s William Petschek Award, as well as at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. At his Philadelphia debut, Peter Dobrin of The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked, “the 31-year-old pianist personalized interpretations to such a degree that works emerged anew. He is a big personality.” A versatile performer, Kramer has been featured as soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras, among many others, collaborating with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gerard Schwarz, Stéphane Denève, Jan Pascal Tortelier and Hans Graf. He has also performed recitals in cities such as Washington (Phillips Collection), Durham (St. Stephens), Hilton Head (BravoPiano! festival), and Seattle (Emerald City Music and the Seattle Series) and made summer appearances at the Anchorage, Lakes Area, Rockport, and Vivo music festivals. Appearances in the 2022-23 season include a debut with New York's Salon Séance, recitals with Newport Classical, Ravinia, Toronto's Koerner Hall, Vancouver Chamber Music Society, and additional appearances in Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Ithaca, and Montreal. Highlights of the current season include performances with the Adrian Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, a return to the Phillips Collection, further appearances with Salon Séance, and recital debuts with Cecilia Concerts in Halifax, Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal, Bargemusic, Northwestern University’s Winter Chamber Music Festival, and Music Mountain Summer Festival together with the Borromeo String Quartet. His love for the chamber music repertoire began early in his studies while a young teenager. A sought-after collaborator, he has appeared in recitals at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest. His recording with violinist Jiyoon Lee on the Champs Hill label received four stars from BBC Music Magazine. This year, Gramophone UK praised Kramer’s performance on a recording collaboration (Cedille Records) with violist Matthew Lipman for “exemplary flexible partnership.” Henry has also performed alongside Emmanuel Pahud, the Calidore and Pacifica Quartets, Miriam Fried, as well as members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Teaching ranks among his greatest joys. In the fall of 2022, Kramer joined the music faculty of Université de Montréal. Previously, he served as the L. Rexford Whiddon Distinguished Chair in Piano at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Throughout his multifaceted career, he also held positions at Smith College and the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Dance and Music. Kramer graduated from the Juilliard School, where he worked with Julian Martin and Robert McDonald. He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman. His teachers trace a pedagogical lineage extending back to Beethoven, Chopin and Busoni. Kramer is a Steinway Artist.

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Lucy Shelton, soprano “In the forefront was Lucy Shelton, a new-music diva if there ever was one, performing with fire, sensitivity, astounding surety of pitch, and what seemed like love abounding.” —The Boston Globe The only winner of two Walter W. Naumburg Awards—for both chamber music and solo singing—American soprano Lucy Shelton is an internationally recognized exponent of 20th- and 21st-Century repertory, having premiered over 100 works by many of today’s preeminent composers. Notable among these are Elliott Carter’s Tempo e Tempi and Of Challenge and Of Love, Oliver Knussen’s Whitman Settings, Joseph Schwantner’s Magabunda, Poul Ruders’s The Bells, Stephen Albert’s Flower of the Mountain, and Robert Zuidam’s opera Rage d’Amours. She has premiered Gerard Grisey’s L’Icone Paradoxiale with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; sung Pierre Boulez’s Le Visage Nuptial under the composer’s direction in Los Angeles, Chicago, London and Paris; performed György Kurtag’s The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza with pianist Sir Andras Schiff in Vienna and Berlin; and made her Aldeburgh Festival debut in the premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Sing, Ariel. Ms. Shelton has exhibited special skill in dramatic works, including Luciano Berio’s Passaggio with the Ensemble InterContemporain, Sir Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage (for Thames Television), Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero (her BBC Proms debut), and Bernard Rands’ Canti Lunatici. Highlights of past seasons include Ms. Shelton’s 2010 Grammy Nomination (with the Enso Quartet) for the Naxos release of Ginastera’s string quartets; her Zankel Hall debut with the Met Chamber Orchestra and Maestro James Levine in Carter’s A Mirror On Which To Dwell; and, in celebration of the work’s centenary, multiple performances of a staged Pierrot Lunaire with ten different ensembles worldwide (including eighth blackbird, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and Da Camera of Houston). Ms. Shelton’s numerous festival appearances have included the Aspen, Santa Fe, Ojai, Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Caen, and Salzburg festivals. Among the major orchestras with which she has worked are those of Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Cologne, St. Louis, Denver, London, New York, Paris, Munich, and Tokyo, working with such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, Ingo Metzmacher, and Alan Gilbert. Ms. Shelton’s extensive discography is on the Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, Koch International, NMC, Bridge, BIS, Albany and Innova labels. A native of California, Ms. Shelton’s primary mentor was mezzo-soprano Jan De Gaetani. In recognition of her contribution to the field of contemporary music, she received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Pomona College (2003) and the Boston Conservatory (2013). Ms. Shelton has taught at the Third Street Settlement School in Manhattan, the Eastman School, the New England Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Britten-Pears School. In the fall of 2007, she joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music’s innovative Contemporary Performance Program. Additionally, Shelton teaches privately in her New York City studio.

Shirien Taylor, violin Updated bio December 17, 2021 With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Shirien Taylor-Donahue. Shirien was our beloved Principal Second Violin who passed unexpectedly at the tender age of 62. Below are some tributes from members of the orchestra. Shirien and I met each other when I joined the Met Orchestra. She in fact was on my audition committee and later told me that she had voted for me in the deciding final round. But our real friendship developed years later when we decided to carpool together on our long drive from Rockland County to the Met. We were neighbors and often made this trip twice a day. And it wasn’t uncommon that after dropping me off after a rehearsal she would pick up her son Craig from school and drive right back to Lincoln Center for him to attend an ABT rehearsal before she played the evening performance at the Met. We cried on each other’s shoulders during difficult times and laughed tears countless other times when things were good; and things were good most of the time when you were with Shirien. Even this one time when we were in horrific traffic on Riverside drive, desperately trying to get to the Met on time while listening to our orchestra playing the overture to the Marriage of Figaro on the radio, – which we were supposed to be playing as well… She was the most delightful violin teacher for my daughter Sophia when she was about 10 years old. They had so much fun,- often a violin lesson was combined with a cooking or baking lesson as well,- as she was the most incredible cook and had fun sharing it with my daughter. She was there for my family during Hurricane Sandy when we lost our electricity and couldn’t live at our house for a week. She had us stay with her and she cooked for us and made sure we were okay until we could live at home again. She was the most charming hostess at dinner parties which we were so fortunate to be part of many times. Did I mention that she cooked incredibly well,- or that she could do the most beautiful cartwheel in slow motion anybody would ever see? Shirien was a delightful, talented, fun-loving, generous and caring person who got her happiness in life out of taking care of the people who meant the most to her. And for those years, I was lucky enough to be part of her world. It’s hard for me to come to grips with the fact that she was taken from us at such a young age, but I will forever be grateful that my life was connected to hers in such a personal and meaningful way. I will miss her terribly but she will always be in my thoughts and in my heart. Caterina Szepes On tour in Japan As I recall, Shirien was the first violinist to win a Violin Section audition and shortly thereafter the audition for Principal Second – which she won, and had prepared for at the same time that she was playing a full performance/rehearsal load. It seemed ground-breaking, at the time. I first met her before she was at the MET and our conversation led her to say that she felt that a great artist would and should play beautifully in any situation whether as a soloist or in a section. So now I am sure she is happily joining in with our illustrious colleagues in the next realms. Shem Guibbory I had a lot of fun sitting with Shirien; she had a quick laugh and her musical gifts made sharing a stand a delight. I already miss her friendship and spirit. Karen Marx Shirien and I were a month apart when pregnant with our first children. Seen here with former Principal Trumpet Mel Broiles. We shared most of life’s crazy twists and turns spending many wonderful Thanksgivings together . Our kids grew up with wonderful holiday memories together. We all miss her terribly. We commuted for 20+ years helping each other stay awake late nights after the Opera. Always a smile and a hug and her little giggle. Funny memories of a Parks concert in Brooklyn when it started to pour. The concert ended and we had to make a mad dash to the car- we spotted a few black garbage bags on the site so we grabbed two, pulled them over our heads and realized we couldn’t see, so laughing and giggling we poked two holes (uneven of course) in the bags trying all the while to hold our violins and purses thru the pounding rain in the dark like two black zombies bumping into everything! We lost sight of each other but we followed the howls of laughter to stay together! Kathy Caswell The ladies of the orchestra threw us a baby shower in the Orchestra Lounge We have so many fond and loving memories of Shirien over the years. In the 21 years Bob and I ran the Concerts in Windham (1997-2018) Shirien appeared 18 times, most often as concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra, but also in chamber music, performing Bob’s music and most noteworthy in recital with Peter Serkin. There’s an interesting backstory to that recital. On a 2005 Performance Today broadcast, Fred Child announced Shirien as the violin soloist in the Finzi Romance from Windham, identifying her as principal 2nd violin of the MET Orchestra. On returning from vacation that summer Shirien was surprised to find a voicemail from Peter saying how much he enjoyed the performance and especially her solo. He obviously had gotten her number from the Orchestra secretary at the time. That was their first communication ever. Some years went by and at a C level rehearsal when Peter was to appear with the orchestra he kept looking over at Shirien. They struck up a conversation and he suggested they play together. When Bob and I contacted Peter in early 2010 about doing a solo recital in Windham, he said he’d like to do a joint one with Shirien. Just one of many memories… We miss her terribly and are grateful for our performances with her outside of the MET, but especially for our long, loving friendship. Our hearts go out to Paul, Craig and Livia. Magdalena Golczewski Shirien was a great colleague. She had such a lovely smile and was always up for a good joke. I will miss you. Tom Brennand With her husband Paul Donahue

CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA “Not only does Cynthia Phelps produce one of the richest, deepest viola timbres in the world, she is a superb musician” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, Ms. Phelps has distinguished herself both here and abroad as one of the leading instrumentalists of our time. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1988 Pro Musicis International Award and first prize at both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Washington International String Competition, she has captivated audiences with her compelling solo and chamber music performances. She is “a performer of top rank…the sounds she drew were not only completely unproblematical –technically faultless, generously nuanced– but sensuously breathtaking” (The Boston Globe). Ms. Phelps performs throughout the world as soloist with orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has appeared in recital in Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, and at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, Wales. She has also been heard on National Public Radio’s St. Paul Sunday Morning, Radio France, and RAI in Italy, and has been featured on The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and CBS Sunday Morning. Ms. Phelps has performed internationally as a collaborator with such artists as Isaac Stern, Itzak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Yefim Bronfman, among many others. A much sought-after chamber musician, she performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York’s Bargemusic, the Boston Chamber Music Society, and Music From Copland House. Ms. Phelps has performed with the Guarneri, American, Brentano, and Prague String Quartets, the Kalichstein-Robinson-Laredo Trio, and at the Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Seattle, Bridgehampton, Ravinia, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Bravo!Colorado, Naples, Cremona, Schleswig-Holstein, and Chamber Music Northwest Festivals. Ms. Phelps regularly receives enthusiastic reviews for her performances as soloist with the New York Philharmonic; works she has performed include Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, the Bartok Viola Concerto and Strauss’s Don Quixote, the Benjamin Lees Concerto for String Quartet, and the recent premiere of a concerto written for her by Sofia Gubaidulina. Recent performances have included a New York Philharmonic International tour featuring the Gubaidulina, a new work written for her by composer Steven Paulus (commissioned by the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival), and return solo engagements with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony and numerous other orchestras. This season, Ms. Phelps appears in virtually every major concert hall in New York City, including performances with the American String Quartet, the Kalichstein-Robinson-Laredo trio, and mezzo-soprano Suzanne Mentzer. She also performs in recital in La Jolla, as well as on tour with violinist Ida Kavafian and cellist Ronald Thomas. She looks forward to a new viola concerto written for her by Richard Danielpour. Her solo debut recording is on Cala Records, and can also be heard on the Marlboro Recording Society, Polyvideo, Nuova Era, Virgin Classics, and Covenant labels. Ms. Phelps and her husband, cellist Ronald Thomas, reside in New Jersey and have three children, Lili, Christinia, and Caitlin.

< Back Béla Bartók Rhapsody No. 1, Sz 86 for cello and piano Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano Program Notes Previous Next

March 13, 2022: Kristin Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Michael Brown, piano 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

January 29, 2023: Danish String Quartet BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976) Divertimenti January 29, 2023: Danish String Quartet Already proficient on the piano since an early age, Britten began viola lessons at the age of ten with Audrey Alston, who introduced him to composer Frank Bridge. Britten’s youthful compositions, unguided by a composition teacher, already numbered over one hundred, and Bridge was impressed enough to persuade Britten’s parents to arrange for private lessons with him in London beginning in 1927. These lessons continued after Britten left South Lodge prep school in 1928 to attend Gresham’s, a boarding school in Norfolk. Bridge’s mentorship was a saving grace since Britten was often unhappy there. He entered the Royal College of Music in 1930, where he began studying composition with John Ireland, who was much more conservative than Bridge in his musical tastes. Britten kept in close contact with Bridge, whose advice he respected more. In his last year at the Royal College of Music in 1933, Britten began a suite of movements for string quartet initially titled Alla Quartetto serioso, with the deliberately contrasting subtitle “Go play, boy, play,” a quotation from Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. His idea was to depict friends and activities from prep school days. He began on February 13 with an Alla marcia movement that briefly became conflated with a never-realized “Emil” suite at the beginning of April when Britten became enamored by the film Emil and the Detectives. Based on Erich Kästner’s novel, the story featured children triumphing over adults, which also had Britten thinking of his school days. Britten dedicated the Alla marcia movement to David Layton, a friend from Gresham’s, and at one time labeled it “P.T.” for “physical training,” a school activity in which Britten was adept, known especially for his cricket playing. Britten completed two other movements, “At a party” and “Ragging” (dedicated to South Lodge friend Francis Barton) and began another on his way to a projected five. The three completed movements were performed—not especially well, thought Britten—on December 4, 1933, by the Macnaghten String Quartet, led by his friend Anne Macnaghten. Then in 1936 Britten revisited the pieces, replacing the Alla marcia (which he recycled in “Parade” from the song cycle Les illuminations) with a more dramatic modern march. He titled the middle movement simply Waltz, and the last, still bearing its dedication to Barton, he called Burlesque. The work in final form, now titled Three Divertimenti, was premiered on February 25, 1936, by the Stratton Quartet at London’s Wigmore Hall. Britten wrote that the performance was received “with sniggers and pretty cold silence,” which so upset him that he never published the work. It was issued posthumously in 1983, and has received many performance by quartets seeking a somewhat less formal genre for their programs than a full-fledged string quartet. Britten wrote marches throughout his career. The edgy opening March here revels in spiky rhythms, glissandos, doubled-stopped unisons, piquant grace notes, and mock fanfares of the kind that appealed to Shostakovich. (Interestingly, the two were to become friends late in their careers after cellist Mstislav Rostropovich introduced them in 1960.) The middle movement, titled simply Waltz, sounds slightly nostalgic and a bit pastoral, as if glancing backward in time. Nevertheless, the forward-looking outlook that Bridge instilled in the younger composer often surfaces, and the waltz becomes somewhat aggressive before calm returns. Burlesque takes the listener on a wild ride with its constant tremolos and darting fragments. Its perpetual motion drives to demonstrative chords and, after pausing with hesitating fragments, drives maniacally to its abrupt close. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano GIOACHINO ROSSINI (1792–1868) Canzonetta spagnuola April 23, 2017: Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Warren Jones, piano By 1815 Rossini’s operas were being performed all over Italy, except in Naples, which had its own traditions. The shrewd impresario Domenica Barbaia, however, invited Rossini to compose for him and then to serve as artistic director of the San Carlo opera house in Naples, where he became a favored son, “reigning” from 1815 to 1822. Probably in 1821, toward the end of his time there, he composed his virtuosic Canzonetta spagnuiola (Little Spanish song), “En medio a mis colores” (Surrounded by my colors). He set three verses, separated by a refrain, with colorful Spanish/Gypsy flair. His oscillating ornaments are challenging to the singer and thrilling for the audience, and his Spanish/Gypsy style sounds prophetic of Bizet, whose “Gypsy Song” in Carmen with its similar after-beat accompaniment, ornaments, and acceleration bears a striking resemblance to Rossini’s dashing work. © Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Canzonetta spagnuola En medio a mis colores, ay, Pintando estaba un día, ay, Cuando la musa mía, ay, Me vino a tormentar, ay. Ay, con dolor pues dejo Empresa tan feliz Cual es de bella Nice Las prendas celebrar, ay. Quiso que yo pintase, ay, Objeto sobrehumano, ay, Pero lo quiso en vano, ay, Lo tuvo que dejar, ay. Ay, con dolor pues dejo, etc. Conoce la hermosura, ay, Un corazón vagado, ay, Mas su destin malvado, ay, Ie impide de cantar, ay. Ay, con dolor pues dejo, etc. —Anonymous Little Spanish Song Surrounded by my colors, ay, I was painting one day, ay, when my muse, ay, came to torment me, ay. With sorrow then I left my happy task of celebrating the charms of the beautiful Nice, ay. My muse asked me to paint, ay, a more spiritual subject, ay, but he asked in vain, ay, and he had to leave, ay. With sorrow then I left, etc. An inconstant heart, ay, may know beauty, ay, but its cruel destiny, ay prevents it from singing, ay. With sorrow then I left, etc. Return to Parlance Program Notes