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April 8, 2018: Danish String Quartet LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) String Quartet in D, Op. 18, No. 3 April 8, 2018: Danish String Quartet The D major Quartet may have been the first of the Opus 18 Quartets that Beethoven completed. When he began composing quartets in 1798 he was well aware that he was entering a hallowed and well-populated arena, represented at its best and therefore most daunting by Mozart and Haydn. He was particularly cognizant of the six quartets Mozart had dedicated to Haydn, as well as Mozart’s Prussian Quartets and Haydn’s own Opus 20, 71, 74, and 76 quartets. Only with the composition and publication of piano trios, piano sonatas, cello sonatas, string trios, and violin sonatas under his belt did Beethoven feel ready to begin writing quartets in earnest. His sketchbooks show that he composed Quartets Nos. 3, 1, 2, and 5 in that order; there is some indication that No. 6 was composed last, but little information exists as to where No. 4 fits into the scheme. The Opus 18 Quartets were commissioned by Beethoven’s new patron Prince Lobkowitz, who at the same time commissioned six from the aging Haydn, who was unable to produce more than two and part of another. Inevitably Beethoven must have felt the heat of competition on many levels, and the task, which took him two years to complete, involved much revision. He is famously quoted as writing to his friend Karl Amenda in 1801 about an early version of Opus 18, no. 1, saying not to circulate it, for “I have greatly changed it, having just learned how to write quartets properly.” The Quartets were published in 1801 by Mollo, one of three publishers kept busy by Beethoven that year. As a measure of how far Beethoven had come by the time he wrote the Opus 18 Quartets we should remember that his First Symphony, also published in 1801, came into existence alongside the Quartets. The striking opening of the D major Quartet occurs within a quiet framework as the first violin alone offers a yearning leap, then gently fills in the space and descends even further over murmured chordal support by the other instruments. This signature leap marks various entrances throughout the movement, and is used ingeniously in anticipation of the recapitulation (played by second violin) and immediately following as the recapitulation begins (first violin). Beethoven’s inventiveness at this structural juncture shows in the textural and dynamic contrast and in the slight harmonic adjustment at the actual moment the recapitulation begins. The rich warmth of the slow movement is palpable even without knowing that Beethoven accomplished this color change in part thought his choice of a somewhat remote key (B-flat major). A nice touch is the start of the main theme with the second violin on top of the texture, soon to be leapfrogged by the first violin. The scherzo, though not so named, delights in offbeat accents and curious pauses. In the minor-mode trio section Beethoven created a wonderfully windy, slightly eerie effect with a line of swirling eighth notes passed off from the second to the first violin, accompanied by the slower parallel descent of the other three instruments. The opening of the finale is just as memorable as that of the first movement, again initiated by the first violin. This time, however, we are whisked away in a merry romp, in which Beethoven’s sense of humor roundly deposits us on unexpected harmonic way stations. Both the development section and coda of this masterfully conceived sonata form feature a grand display of the composer’s early period contrapuntal prowess, which would find ultimate expression in the monumental Grosse Fuge . With irrepressible wit Beethoven winds up the movement in a whisper, employing the little three-note motive that launched the proceedings. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

October 27, 2019: Quartetto di Cremona LUIGI BOCCHERINI (1743-1805) Quartet in C, Op. 2, No. 6 October 27, 2019: Quartetto di Cremona Boccherini achieved widespread recognition in his day both as a virtuoso cellist and as an extremely prolific composer, primarily of chamber music. He wrote more than 100 string quintets, close to 100 string quartets, and some 150 other chamber works, including more than thirty cello sonatas. The renown that Boccherini enjoyed in his prime is attested to by the remarks of the typically cautious Charles Burney, famed eighteenth-century historian, who rated him “among the greatest masters who have ever written for the violin or violoncello,” placing him second only to Haydn. In 1756 young Luigi made his concerto debut in his native Lucca, and the following year he likely accompanied his bass-playing father and his older siblings on engagements in Venice and Trieste. The following year Luigi gave a successful solo performance in Vienna, and he and his father were soon hired for subsequent full-season orchestral engagements there, returning for the 1760–61 and 1763–64 seasons. Though he continued to give performances in Vienna and in various Italian cities, times were such that a musician could not earn a living as a solo cellist alone, which is why he took various orchestra jobs and began composing at a great rate. This, then, is the backdrop for Boccherini’s first chamber works, composed in 1761—the six String Trios, op. 1, and six String Quartets, op. 2. After his father died in 1766, Boccherini embarked on a concert tour with violinist Filippo Manfredi, traveling first to Paris, where the Trios and Quartets were published in 1767 (with the opus numbers reversed) and where most of Boccherini’s works would continue to be published. They soon left for Madrid and environs, which through royal patronage became Boccherini’s base for the remainder of his life. In 1770 he added to his other duties the position of “court chamber composer” to the King of Prussia, an arrangement through which he sent twelve works a year but never actually visited or lived there. The last years of Boccherini’s life brought loss of family members, illness, and dwindling financial resources, though reports of him dying in poverty are likely exaggerated. The Opus 2 Quartets brim with elegant Italianate melodic lines and perhaps a few Viennese traits but predate any Parisian influence. The works are notable for the cello’s equality with the other instruments and Boccherini’s frequent use of its tenor register—natural features for a cellist-composer. The C major Quartet, op. 2, no. 6, like the others in the set, contains three movements: a fast first movement, a slow middle movement, and—in this case, like Nos. 3 and 4—a closing minuet. Boccherini launches the spirited first movement with a forthright chord, a sprightly upward gesture, and a gradual sequential descent, all over pulsing repeated notes that lend forward propulsion. Both the second theme, led off by paired second violin and high cello, and the exposition’s closing theme maintain the elegant figures and pulsating drive. The second half begins like the first, but Boccherini soon introduces the minor mode and more sinuous lines before the merriness returns, not with the opening theme but with the second and closing themes. The brief slow movement contains a wealth of ideas—melancholy imitative entries, chromaticism, gentle wide leaps, paired triplets, a lovely passage for second violin and cello, descending gestures answered by emphatic chords, and a flowing cello passage. The concluding section, which begins like a development section, drifts into quiet contemplation with the cello in a haunting prominent role. The closing minuet swings along extrovertedly, relying on loud-soft contrasts. After a more introverted trio section, the cheerful minuet returns to round off the movement. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Toccata in C minor, BWV 911 March 19, 2023 – Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano Bach composed seven manualiter toccatas, BWV 910–916, whose designation toccata refers to pieces that display a keyboardist’s dexterity and manualiter means “hands only” as opposed to those requiring pedals. Therefore these pieces were to be played on a keyboard instrument other than organ—such as the harpsichord in the eighteenth century. Bach never collected these toccatas under a single title, but they represent the culmination of the genre, begun in the sixteenth century and in Bach’s case likely influenced by early Baroque German models comprised of several distinct contrasting sections. Precise dating has proved impossible, but scholars typically designate a range of “?before 1708” to “before 1714,” which places them before or during his tenure at the court of Weimar. The date often given for the D major Toccata, BWV 912, is “before 1710,” with an early version possibly dating from c. 1707. That could have been during Bach’s year in Mühlhausen, June 1707–June 1708, or in Arnstadt where he was organist from 1703 to 1707. In June 1708 Bach took up the post of court organist at Weimar, where Duke Wilhelm Ernst is said to have greatly enjoyed Bach’s playing, so it is likely that Bach himself performed his toccatas for his employer. It is equally possible that they could have been played by one or more of his talented students, but there is no specific evidence that he intended them for teaching, as he did with other works (mentioned above in connection with the French Suites). The D major Toccata, like the other six, closes with a fugue and like all but one (G major, BWV 916) opens with an improvisatory prelude. This brief lively opening is striking for its similarity to the D major organ Prelude and Fugue, BWV 532, which may date from around the same time, especially as to its to ascending scales, which Bach extends locally and employs in dramatic descents in the extended Adagio transition to the first fugue. Prior to that, however, the prelude brings on a captivating Allegro that unfolds with rondo-like recurring passages. Modulatory excursions into the minor mode and similar journeys in the ensuing recitative-like Adagio prepare for the first fugue in F-sharp minor. This fugue offers a somewhat introspective exploration of that key with three expositions of the simultaneous subject/countersubject pair, seamlessly connected by two brief episodes. Following another dramatic declamatory transition, the final fugue gallops along in 6/16 meter much like a perpetual-motion gigue until its final arresting bars. For the C minor Toccata, BWV 911, scholars suggest a date of “before 1714,” which was the year Bach added the title and rank of Konzertmeister to the post of court organist that he had begun at Weimar in 1708. Thus its earliest performers were likely the same as for the D major Toccata above and the other manualiter toccatas, that is, Bach himself or possibly his sons or students. The C minor Toccata begins with an improvisatory, ornate-style introduction, followed by a relatively short Adagio, maintaining a lamenting mood. The main portion of the piece consists of a massive fugue, interrupted by a recitative-like passage, after which Bach introduces a second subject and launches into a double fugue (treatment of his two subjects in contrapuntal combination). A majestic adagio passage brings Bach’s mighty work to a close. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

MILAN MILISAVLJEVIĆ, VIOLA Milan Milisavljević is Principal Viola with the MET Orchestra, having served as Assistant Principal of the MET for twelve seasons. He has also performed as guest Principal Viola of orchestras worldwide, such as the Toronto Symphony. Milan’s solo album Sonata-Song, published by Delos Music, has been reviewed by the Strad magazine as “most recommendable” and “tonally alluring”, with the recording of A. Khatchaturian’s sonata on the album hailed as “definitive”. He has won prizes at competitions such as ARD, Lionel Tertis and Aspen Lower Strings and has performed at Marlboro, Cascade Head and Aspen music festivals. Milan has appeared as soloist throughout the world, with orchestras such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic, Aspen Sinfonia, Classical Tahoe, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río and many others. His teachers include James Dunham, Nobuko Imai and Atar Arad. In addition to his activities as a violist, Milan is increasingly in demand as a conductor and teacher worlwide.

May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano JOHN DUKE (1899-1984) Three Songs May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano After early music training from his mother, a talented singer, John Duke attended the Peabody Institute where he studied composition with Gustav Strube and piano with Harold Randolph. He continued his studying composition in New York with Howard Brockway and Bernard Wagenaar and furthered his piano skills with Franklin Cannon. He gave his piano debut piano recital in New York’s Aeolian Hall in 1920 in a program of Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt, among others, and performed the Grieg Concerto with the New York Philharmonic on tour in his hometown of Cumberland, Maryland, the following year. Fully aware of the challenges of a career as a concert pianist, he joined the faculty of Smith College in 1923, where he taught piano until his retirement in 1967. He furthered his musical training on sabbatical in 1929–30, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. He also spent a summer at Yaddo, the renowned artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York, and many summers at the Seagle Colony, a school for singers in Schroon Lake, New York. Though Duke composed a handful of orchestral and chamber pieces, the vast majority of his output features the voice—265 songs, several stage works, and a few choral pieces. His family background no doubt fostered his interest in song, though he himself said he was amazed at the way his career turned out. “In my early days, my ambition was to be a great pianist, and I could not have believed anyone who told [me] I was destined to be a song composer.” He came to believe that “vocal utterance is the basis of music’s mystery. The thing that makes melody a concrete expression of feeling and not just a horizontal design in tones is its power to symbolize the pull, the tension of our feeling of duration.” Duke was particularly interested in setting texts by American poets and he corresponded with many, among them Archibald MacLeish, William Rose Benet, Mark Van Doren, and Richard Nickson. Just as this correspondence attests to his choice of texts, his correspondence with prominent musicians—among them Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Daniel Gregory Mason, Mack Harrell, Ross Lee Finney, Roy Harris, Arthur Fieldler, William Warfield, and Douglas Moore—reflects the neo-Romantic orientation of his style. This afternoon’s selections, “Richard Cory,” “Miniver Cheevy,” and “Luke Havergal,” feature three of four songs that Duke set to poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1945. Duke creates a perfect musical description of the elegant saunter of Richard Cory as a man about town with his jaunty accompaniment in 6/8 meter. The shocking suicide moment he treats bare of accompaniment, followed by a brief dissonant piano comment. Duke sets “Miniver Cheevy” as “a satire in the form of variations.” The nine colorful variations following the presentation of the theme are labeled Melancholy, Sprightly, Dreamy, Dolorous, Grandiose, Indignant, Puzzled, Tipsy, and Epilogue, all describing someone who thought himself born too late, said to be Robinson’s skewering of his own anachronistic tendencies and referencing his alcoholic brother. “Luke Havergal,” in which a voice from the grave encourages Luke Havergal to join his dead lover, follows a ternary form in which the rich outer sections flank a chilling central section and the final section becomes positively majestic before ebbing. The poem might bring to mind Aeneas of classic lore being led by Sibyl to Queen Dido, who has died by suicide, but coupled with Duke’s music the result especially embodies the nineteenth-century Romantics’ theme of an intense yearning for death so as not to have to endure grief-stricken loneliness. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2014-2015 ARTIST ROSTER ALEX BROWN, JAZZ PIANO RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO HSIN-YUN HUANG, VIOLA ISABEL LEONARD, MEZZO-SOPRANO OSCAR STAGNARO, JAZZ BASS OSMO VÄNSKÄ, CLARINET PAQUITO D’RIVERA, SAXOPHONE DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO SHARON ISBIN, GUITAR KEN NODA, PIANO ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO EMERSON STRING QUARTET STEFON HARRIS, VIBRAPHONE ERIN KEEFE, VIOLIN MATTHEW POLENZANI, TENOR DIEGO URCOLA, TRUMPET MARK WALKER, DRUMS

May 12, 2024: Lucille Chung, piano Robert Schumann Scenes from Childhood, Op. 15 for piano May 12, 2024: Lucille Chung, piano Schumann was at his best when composing miniatures for piano, which he grouped together under various picturesque titles such as Davidsbündlertänze, Fantasiestücke, Noveletten, and Kreisleriana. Perhaps the most purely conceived works of this type, distilled to their essence, are the thirteen Kinderscenen (Scenes from Childhood), op. 15. He described them in a letter to Clara Wieck in March 1838, two years before their marriage, while they were still fighting parental disapproval: Whether it was an echo of what you said to me once, “that sometimes I seemed to you like a child,” anyhow I suddenly got an inspiration, and knocked off about thirty quaint little things, from which I have selected twelve [sic] and called them Kinderscenen. They will amuse you, but of course you must forget that you are a virtuoso. They have such titles as “Fürchtenmachen” [Bogeyman’s coming], “Am Kamin” [By the fireside], “Haschemann” [Catch me if you can], “Bittendes Kind” [Entreating child], “Ritter vom Steckenpferd” [Knight of the hobby-horse], “Von fremden Ländern” [Of foreign lands], “Kuriose Geschichte” [A strange story], etc., and I don’t know what besides. Well, they all explain themselves, and what’s more are as easy as possible. Unlike the later Album für die Jugend, which are written for children, Schumann said that the Kinderscenen are really addressed to adults, “reminiscences of an adult for adults.” Their unassuming front masks an incredible attention to detail, unity, and poetic content. They are connected not only by programmatic content, but by thematic unity: nearly all the pieces seem to stem from the thematic shape of the five-note opening of Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of foreign lands and people). Often the first ascending sixth is left out, leaving a four-note falling figure related to the “Clara motto” that Schumann often used in his compositions. Theorist Rudolph Reti went so far as to call the Kinderscenen a theme with variations, the “theme” comprising not only the opening figure of the first piece but two of its subsequent motives as well. While some of his conclusions stretch credibility to the limit, there is no doubt that the miniatures are bound together as a definite structural unit by more than their program. Each of the thirteen little pieces is a simple example of ternary or binary form. Schumann’s titles, whether added before or after the pieces’ completion (a matter of some discussion), are brought out in the music by a wealth of details. Bittendes Kind (Entreating child) is left still entreating by an unresolved chord (dominant seventh) at the close; the famous Träumerei (Reverie) compresses a whole world within the rise and fall of the opening four-bar phrase; Schumann chose the key of G-sharp minor to intensify Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious); Fürchtenmachen (Bogeyman’s coming) is illustrated by unexpected tempo changes and accents; Der Dichter spricht (The poet speaks), a typical Schumann epilogue, contains a “recitative” (a free unmetered declamation), and ends peacefully. It was perhaps this final piece that Schumann did not include in his original count of twelve, as it is not based on a simple child’s subject, but is rather the poet’s comment or reflection after the child has gone to sleep. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

YOOBIN SON, FLUTE Flutist Yoobin Son was the first Korean to join the New York Philharmonic’s wind section when she became a member of the Orchestra in November 2012. She has served as the principal flute of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and principal flute of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Son has performed as a soloist with ensembles including the New Haven, New Jersey, Florida, William Paterson University, and Korean symphony orchestras, and the Prime and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras. She has appeared in recital throughout the United States, among them the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago, as well as on the Young Artist Series of the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation in Seoul, South Korea. A dedicated chamber musician, Ms. Son has participated at festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival and Music from Angel Fire. She is an alumna of Carnegie Hall’s The Academy, where she was an active performer in the acclaimed Ensemble ACJW. As part of the Academy’s fellowship program, Ms. Son was a teaching artist at P.S. 207K in Brooklyn. She has received honors including the Grand Prize at the Florida Orchestra Young Artist Competition, First Prize at the National Flute Association Soloist Competition, Second Prize at the Koussevitzky International Winds Competition, and the Conductor’s Award at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Auditions. Yoobin Son received her bachelor of music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music, master’s degree from Yale University, and professional studies and artist diploma from the Manhattan School of Music. Her principal teachers have included Robert Langevin, Ransom Wilson, Jeffrey Khaner, and Bradley Garner.

BENJAMIN LUXON, ACTOR-NARRATOR Benjamin Luxon studied with Walther Gruner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (while working part-time as a PE teacher in the East End) and established an international reputation as a singer at the age of 21 when he won the third prize at the 1961 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Soon afterward he joined composer Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group. On their tour of the Soviet Union in 1963, he sang the roles of Sid and Tarquinius in Britten’s operas Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia , respectively. In 1971, Britten composed the title role of his television opera Owen Wingrave specifically for Luxon’s voice; Luxon created the role later that year with the English Opera Group. The following year, 1972, Luxon made his début at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – creating the role of the Jester in Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Taverner – and at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, where he sang the title role in Raymond Leppard’s realization of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. Thereafter he became a frequent guest at both venues and also at Tanglewood in Massachusetts, USA. In 1974, Luxon began his long association with the English National Opera, which culminated in his appearance in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff in 1992. He made his Metropolitan Opera début (as Eugene Onegin) in 1980, his La Scala début in 1986, and his Los Angeles début (as Wozzeck) in 1988. He sang in most of the major European opera houses and made frequent appearances in Munich (Bayerische Staatsoper) and Vienna (Wiener Staatsoper). In addition to his opera work, Luxon also developed a reputation as a concert-giver and recitalist with an unusually broad repertoire, ranging from early music through Lieder to contemporary song, music hall and folk music. He has also been recognised for his work rehabilitating parlour songs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, particularly in partnership with Robert Tear. He made several appearances on BBC TV’s long-running Music Hall Variety show, The Good Old Days, both with Robert Tear and on his own. His rendition of the song ‘Give Me a ticket to Heaven’ always met with tremendous acclaim. It was the song for which the BBC received the largest feedback of any featured on the programme. Luxon has made more than one hundred recordings, many featuring early and mid twentieth-century British songwriting and folksong arrangements by composers such as Britten, George Butterworth, Percy Grainger, Ivor Gurney, Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Peter Warlock. His regular accompanist between 1961 and 1999 was the pianist David Willison. As a guest on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs program, he said that his favourite piece of music is Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alium. Luxon was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1986 Queen’s Birthday Honours.[1] Starting around 1990, Luxon began to be troubled by hearing loss. Though he explored a variety of conventional and ‘alternative’ treatments, continued fluctuation and deterioration in his hearing forced him to end his singing career by the end of the decade. Since then, however, Luxon has developed a career as a narrator and poetry reader, whilst continuing to give master classes and direct opera. He lives in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts in the U.S.

December 15, 2024: THE VIRTUOSO FLUTIST. DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE. A RECITAL FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA, with Erin Bouriakov, Flute. Musicians From The New York Philharmonic. Michael Parloff, Conductor. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Flute Concerto in G, K. 313 December 15, 2024: THE VIRTUOSO FLUTIST. DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE. A RECITAL FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA, with Erin Bouriakov, Flute. Musicians From The New York Philharmonic. Michael Parloff, Conductor. In the winter of 1777 when Mozart was visiting Mannheim, he became very friendly with various wind players whose playing he thought was brilliant. One of these, flutist Johan Baptiste Wendling, had even gone so far as to try to get Mozart a position with Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine. When no position was available and it seemed Mozart would have to leave Mannheim, Wendling industriously procured commissions for him. One such commission came from wealthy Dutch surgeon and accomplished amateur flutist Ferdinand Dejean, who requested what the composer referred to in 1777 as “three short, simple concertos and a couple of quartets for flute” for which the fee was to be 200 gulden. By the time Dejean left for Paris on February 15, 1778, Mozart had completed two full-fledged concertos (though one was an arrangement of an earlier oboe concerto) and three quartets (though until relatively recently the C major Flute Quartet was not authenticated as dating from then because of a quirk in paper studies). He was chagrined, nonetheless, to receive only 96 gulden, saying it went against their agreement. Mozart’s father then surmised how many compositions the original commission must have entailed, based on the fact that his son had received less than half of his fee, and sent an angry letter berating him for his laziness. Yet the younger Mozart cannot be accused of lying about the scope of the commission to please his father, as has been repeated for more than a century—in fact his references to the commission vary as to number and type of composition. Rather, there simply remained an unknown number of works to be completed and Wolfgang wanted payment in advance. This suggests that Dejean would be crossing paths with Mozart after Paris—and indeed Dejean, a fellow Freemason, took up residence in Vienna. It is even possible that the Fourth Flute Quartet (associated with Gottfried von Jacquin) may have been played by Dejean and possibly even counted as an extension of the earlier Dejean commission. But to return to Mozart’s response to his father’s angry letter, it contains a line as an excuse that has grieved flute lovers ever since: “You know that I am quite powerless when I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear.” Is this really what he meant? How can he have written such idiomatic, engaging music for an instrument he supposedly did not like? And did he not greatly admire the flute playing of his friend Wendling? The G major Concerto is a charming work and is by no means “short” and “simple.” The first movement’s opening tutti (ensemble) section presents the forthright main theme and hints at a second theme, but closes with a new, rhythmic arpeggiated passage that returns at important junctures. After the flute’s elaborated exposition of the majestic theme, a bit of the arpeggiated tutti returns to launch the second theme. One of the many ways Mozart displays the soloist’s prowess is in frequent wide leaps, which tests the ability to project in the low register and to move quickly between registers. Mozart provides an opportunity for a solo cadenza just before the arpeggiated tutti closes the movement. The Adagio ma non troppo is one of those leisurely, exquisite movements at which Mozart was so adept. He follows slow-movement sonata form, in which an exposition and recapitulation are separated by a short episode rather than a full development section. Of special note here is the velvety sonority achieved by having the upper strings play muted and the lower strings sometimes in gentle pizzicato. Throughout the flute shows its ability to play lyrically and ornament gracefully. Here, too, Mozart provides an opportunity for a cadenza toward the end. The closing sonata-rondo movement brings in the flute right at the outset. Each return of this delightful refrain brings subtle variants to keep the ear engaged. Mozart introduces the contrasting minor mode episode with a little hint that “something is up” by varying the little tutti scale figures that lead up to it. The placement of the cadenza here before the recapitulation allows this section to proceed without interruption and even to end in quiet elegance. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2012-2013 SEASON 2012-2013 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

MICHAEL PARLOFF Principal Flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1977 until his retirement in 2008, Michael Parloff has been heard regularly as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. He has collaborated with such noted artists as James Levine, Jessye Norman, James Galway, Peter Serkin, Dawn Upshaw, Thomas Hampson, Jaime Laredo, and the Emerson String Quartet and has performed on numerous occasions at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As a lecturer, conductor, and teacher, Michael Parloff has appeared at major conservatories and university music schools in the United States and abroad. These venues include The Juilliard School, Yale University, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, the Verbier and Tanglewood Festivals, and the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. He has been a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music since 1985. Michael Parloff is the founder and Artistic Director of Parlance Chamber Concerts. The mission of Parlance Chamber Concerts is to promote the appreciation and understanding of classical music in Northern New Jersey by presenting the world’s finest singers and instrumentalists in affordable, innovatively programmed public concerts and educational events. In recent seasons, Parlance Chamber Concerts has presented such renowned artists as the Emerson and Brentano String Quartets, pianists Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Jeremy Denk, and Simone Dinnerstein, Met Opera singers Stephanie Blythe, Thomas Hampson, Matthew Polenzani, Isabel Leonard, and Nathan Gunn, flutist James Galway, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Since 1996, Michael has also presented over 30 benefit concerts for various nonprofit organizations and humanitarian causes in Northern Bergen County, New Jersey. Michael Parloff has recorded extensively with the Metropolitan Opera for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, London, and Philips and has recorded solo recital repertoire and 20th-century chamber music for E.S.SAY, Gunmar, CRI, and Koch. To view Michael Parloff’s videos and multimedia lectures, click here .