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May 19, 2019: Friedrich Heinrich Kern, glass harmonica WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Adagio in C, K. 617a for glass harmonica May 19, 2019: Friedrich Heinrich Kern, glass harmonica Please see the Adagio and Rondo, K. 617, for background on the glass armonica and Marianne Kirchgässner. Mozart most likely composed the brief, lovely Adagio in C major for glass armonica virtuoso Marianne Kirchgässner in late 1791, about the same time he composed the K. 617 quintet for her. In only twenty-eight measures (fifty-six, counting repeats), Mozart perfectly shows off the instrument’s ethereal qualities. The piece unfolds in rounded binary form, that is, two sections, each repeated, the second of which opens with contrasting material followed by a return to the opening music. Mozart incorporates elegant little embellishments when this opening returns. As with K. 617, Friedrich Heinrich Kern plays the Adagio on the verrophone, a modern version of the glass armonica. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 3, 2016: Sir James Galway, flute; Benjamin Beilman and Danbi Um, violins; Mark Holloway, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Paolo Bourdignon, harpsichord JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Air on the G String (from Suite in D, BWV 1068) for flute, strings, and continuo April 3, 2016: Sir James Galway, flute; Benjamin Beilman and Danbi Um, violins; Mark Holloway, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Paolo Bourdignon, harpsichord For background on Bach’s Orchestral Suites, see Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor. The Third Suite may be the most famous of the four on account of its meltingly beautiful Air. One of the most popular and arranged pieces of all time, it achieved special notoriety through August Wilhelmj’s version for the violin G string (1871). The Air’s binary form—two halves, each repeated—and its “stepping” bass overlaid with a long, sustained melodic line are standard Baroque procedures, but its poignant effect transcends all formulas. James Galway plays its haunting violin part on the flute. Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) Piano Quartet in A minor February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Alexi Kenney, violin, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, Mihai Marica, cello Schumann’s famous words about Brahms, that he had sprung “fully armed like Minerva from the head of Jove” might just as well have been uttered about Mahler, whose surviving compositions show that he apparently achieved mastery “not step by step, but at once.” Yet we now know that Brahms destroyed dozens of student works that might have offered a glimpse into his development. In Mahler’s case it seemed no such glimpse was possible until 1964, when Peter Serkin and the Galimir Quartet played what may have been the first public performance of a youthful piano quartet movement by Mahler (New York, January 12). The only surviving authenticated composition from a list of possible student compositions by Mahler, the Piano Quartet in A minor (first movement and thirty-two measures of a scherzo) was found in a folder labeled “early compositions” in Alma Mahler’s hand. The date 1876, inscribed on the title page may or may not be authentic. Beginning in the academic year 1875–76, Mahler spent three years as a student at the Vienna Conservatory, studying harmony with Robert Fuchs and composition with Franz Krenn—both conservatives in their musical orientation. Other sources of influence may have been Brahms’s Piano Quartets—Julius Epstein, Mahler’s piano teacher at the Conservatory, had helped introduce Brahms and his Quartets to the Viennese public in 1862. Mahler’s Quartet movement in A minor shows thorough knowledge of sonata form. Such knowledge is intriguing to find in light of Mahler’s more complex and less orthodox sonata-forms in later works. Of the three main themes in the exposition, the second is somewhat unusual in appearing in the home key, only moving away somewhat later, and the third, which has a closing character, exhibits harmonic instability. A tendency in Mahler’s later works to “slip” into other keys quickly rather than modulate painstakingly is already apparent in this movement. A “textbook” development section is followed by the recapitulation, which varies its presentation of exposition materials by incorporating passages from the development and reversing the order in which the second and third themes return. But perhaps the most unusual feature of the movement is the introduction of a violin cadenza just before the tranquil close. Composers throughout history have treated their student or early works with varying degrees of disdain, but would the discovery of more such works truly alter our opinion of a master’s greatness? We can at least be grateful for one glimpse into a formative stage in Mahler’s development as a composer. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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

January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet ANTON WEBERN (1883-1945) Langsamer Satz January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet Webern was in love. In his third year as a student at the University of Vienna, he became romantically involved with his cousin Wilhelmine (Minna), and Webern’s diary, each entry filled with passionate outpourings combined with images of nature, radiates his happiness: “Our love rose to infinite heights and filled the universe! Two souls were enraptured!” The Langsamer Satz (“slow movement”), originally for string quartet, was composed in June 1905 as a direct expression of that love. They kept their affair secret knowing the anguish it would cause both sets of parents, but they married in 1911 after finding out Minna was pregnant. The marriage was officially prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church and solemnized only in 1915, by which time three of the couple’s four children had been born. In 1904 Webern had begun private composition studies with Arnold Schoenberg, which were to have profound impact on his life. There are some indications in the original set of parts for Langsamer Satz that the work was played, most likely within the Schoenberg “circle,” but Webern never made the work public. He may have suppressed it as a student work or because his compositional style soon underwent a major shift toward Schoenberg’s atonal language. In any case, it was not until 1962, almost twenty years after his death, that the world first heard this moving piece, performed on May 27 in Seattle by the University of Washington String Quartet. Langsamer Satz shows Webern’s indebtedness to late Romanticism in its rich harmonies and sweeping melodic lines. While this kind of expressiveness soon became telescoped into bare essentials, the movement exhibits the contrapuntal techniques that enabled him to structure even his most concise serial compositions. The piece consists of four basic sections, the fourth a reprise of the first, plus a coda. Though the key of the movement is E-flat major, the flowing opening melody gives the initial impression of C minor. A short, more restless section in G minor precedes a beautiful new calm theme that, if the opening was not enough, puts to rest questions about Webern’s lyrical abilities. The section peaks with the opening bar of this theme played triple forte, doubled in three octaves. In the reprise of the opening section, the second statement of the main theme is now the property of the cello. A coda based on the lyrical third section climaxes ecstatically and Webern’s wordless expression of love concludes quietly in E-flat major after a brief reminiscence of the C minor opening. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BRUNO EICHER, VIOLIN Violinist Bruno Eicher is Assistant Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, which he joined in 2001, after serving for four years as Associate Concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony and the previous four years as Assistant Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. His wide-ranging orchestral experience includes performing with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, under the avid chamber musician, Mr. Eicher has performed extensively throughout Europe and the U.S., as well as South Korea. In New York, as a member of the MET Chamber Ensemble from 2002 to 2014, he performed regularly at Carnegie Hall. A native of Burgundy, France, Mr. Eicher is a graduate of the Paris Conservatoire where he studied with Pierre Amoyal and Jean Hubeau. In the United States, he was a student of Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School, from which he holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1992, he was the 2nd prize winner of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. He lives in Manhattan, with his wife, MET Orchestra cellist Kari Docter, and their two children. Mr Eicher plays an instrument made in 2011 by Christophe Landon, a copy of the “Circle” Stradivari.

January 31, 2010 – Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe, piano JOHN WILLIAMS / ANDERSON & ROE Three Star Wars Fantasies January 31, 2010 – Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe, piano In 2006, The Juilliard School celebrated its centennial year, and among its many celebratory events, one concert was devoted to film music. Held in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and dubbed “Cinema Serenades,” the concert featured the premieres of original works composed by six famed film scorers. Among the participants The Juilliard School commissioned: Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings), Marc Shaiman (The Adams Family and Sleepless in Seattle), and Marvin Hamlisch (Sophie’s Choice and The Way We Were). John Williams, a Juilliard alumnus, also agreed to compose a new piece, but he regretfully withdrew from the project just over a month before the event was to take place. The school still wanted to honor this titan of film music, and being in the right place at the right time, we (the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo) were asked-and more importantly, given the legal permission-to compose and perform a piece based on music from the Star Wars trilogies. In composing our Star Wars Fantasy: Four Impressions for Two Pianos, we took motives from John Williams’ iconic score and constructed an entirely new work. At times, we were reverent to our source material; at others, not so much. The first impression is loosely based on the cantina theme heard in “Episode IV: A New Hope.” If you are very perceptive, you may notice other themes hidden within the texture of the music, such as the “force theme,” Darth Vader and Yoda’s themes, and various battle motives. The second impression is a quasi-minimalist, free-flowing treatment of the “force theme” heard throughout all six Star Wars films, while the third impression is a more literal arrangement of the “March of the Ewoks” from “Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.” The fantasy concludes climactically with a final impression combining musical themes from all six movies into a toccata of dramatic cacophony. Although we were strapped for time (we finished the composition on the day of the concert!), we had a blast creating this piece of music. Among our favorite memories: watching all six Star Wars films in three consecutive days while devouring pizza and Chinese food, discussing and debating musical ideas at the most unnatural hours of night, giving the adrenaline-charged premiere in front of a packed house, and of course, joyously revamping music we love into a creation all our own. By Greg Anderson & Elizabeth Joy Roe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 12, 2023 – Gloria Chien, piano, Benjamin Beilman 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

March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) String Quartet in F minor, op. 95, “Serioso” March 26, 2017: Jerusalem String Quartet Beethoven’s F minor String Quartet of 1810, the last of his “middle” quartets, is one of a select group of works for which he provided his own descriptive title—other famous instances being his Pathétique Sonata and Eroica and Pastoral Symphonies. He marked his manuscript “Quartett Serioso,” a curious mix of German and quasi-Italian, which apparently meant a work devoid of ostentation whose inner conflicts were expressed by pared-down harmonic, motivic, and formal structures. Unfortunately it could imply that his Harp Quartet, op. 74, written just a year before—and any of his other quartets for that matter—were not “serious,” though surely he meant it as a way to separate his quartet production apart from the proliferation of showy and less weighty quartets by other composers that had begun populating the concert scene. On another front, the work’s “seriousness” has to do with his having written it without a commission because of a personal compulsion, and dedicating it to a friend, cello-player Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, rather than to a highborn patron. This resonates with his late quartets, which, though instigated by a patron, ended up being composed out of sheer inner necessity. Beethoven had already begun using quartet-writing as the place for exploring his most forward-thinking ideas—which had led to such disappointing critical reception of his Razumovsky Quartets, op. 59—but now this testing ground took a turn toward privacy. He waited an unusually long time before having the Serioso Quartet performed and published. The work received its first performance by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in May of 1814, for which occasion Beethoven apparently revised it. The Serioso was one of several pieces that Beethoven sold to publisher Anton Sigmund Steiner in 1815 in repayment of a debt. The debt must have been substantial because the batch also included the Opus 96 Violin Sonata, the Archduke Trio, the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, and several smaller works. A pivotal work, the Serioso takes a look back to the Razumovsky and Harp Quartets but just as clearly points to the late quartets, though it would be fourteen years before he took up the genre again. Concision and new harmonic relationships are paramount here, and often his compression of both boils down to single notes or pairs of notes. The first movement’s dark, furious unison opening suddenly breaks off, followed by a leaping response characterized by dotted rhythms. The ensuing lyrical elaboration of the opening now pointedly highlights the remote Neapolitan harmony (based on the flatted second scale degree). A prominent pair of half steps in the lyrical passage sets up the somewhat unusual key of D-flat for the lovely second theme. Twice, once at the end of the second theme and once in the midst of the closing theme, explosive ascending scales and daring excursions to remote keys command our attention. It stands to reason that in such a terse movement Beethoven would not repeat his exposition. Instead he shocks the listener again with a crashing major chord that seems to signal a development. Yet this turns out not to be a thorough “working-out” in the classical sense, rather a brief revisiting of the furious opening and the leaping dotted-rhythmic idea, followed by a suspenseful buildup. Beethoven then begins his drastically shortened recapitulation with the fortissimo unison of the transition to the second theme. A coda of the same length as the development balances out this remarkable rethinking of sonata form. The Allegretto ma non troppo begins softly and mysteriously, with a melodic shape similar to the first movement’s opening. Any idea of relaxed, lyrical contrast becomes entangled in a wavering between major and minor and an increasing influx of chromaticism that peaks in the middle section’s fugue. This remarkable interior piece unfolds in two sections before the opening music returns in shortened form. Beethoven continues with a serene coda, but instead of ending peacefully makes a directs link to the ensuing tempestuous scherzo. Beethoven asked that his third movement, a typical place for an irreverent scherzo, be played Allegro assai vivace ma serioso . Propulsive sections with an obsessive dotted rhythm alternate with two trio sections of more lyrical demeanor, which still transmit a restless sense with the first violin’s figurations and unusual harmonic juxtapositions of distantly related keys. A truly slow, reflective introduction prefaces the agitated sonata-rondo finale. Compact once again, the movement features a dancelike but disquieting main theme that Beethoven varies ingeniously on every recurrence. Its last appearance comes to a halt on a hushed major chord that unleashes one of the most talked about endings ever. A lightening quick coda in the major mode rockets forth in unimaginable contrast to the rest of the movement and to the entire piece. In this Beethoven parallels his own Egmont Overture, written just months before, also in a serious F minor with an F major coda, but whereas that ending represents a hard-won victory corroborated by the story, here Beethoven seems simply to be letting go, albeit in breathtaking style. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Fantasia in G minor, Op. 77 January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano Beethoven was miserable during the summer of 1809 owing to Napoleon’s invasion and occupation of Vienna. The composer wrote of this time: We have passed through a great deal of misery. . . . Since May 4th, I have brought into the world little that is connected; only here and there a fragment. The whole course of events has affected me body and soul. . . . What a disturbing, wild life around me; nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts. The noise and confusion was especially hard to bear because the court and most of his friends had fled the city, communication was disrupted, and he was unable to spend his customary sojourn in the countryside where his creativity was always rejuvenated. Despite his mood and intermittent inability to write anything “connected,” he composed an impressive number of works during the invasion year: the Fifth Piano Concerto, the Harp Quartet, three piano sonatas (opp. 78, 79, and 81a), several lieder, and a number of miscellaneous pieces, among them the present Fantasia, op. 77. Though Beethoven may have begun writing down the Fantasia during this trying time, he may have actually conceived it in December 1808 for the same concert on which he premiered his Choral Fantasy , which begins with a grand piano introduction in improvisatory style. The solo “Fantasia” that he extemporized on that concert might well have been some form of the present work. In any case, he completed the Fantasia in October, after the armistice was signed and presumably during or following a stay in Hungary with his good friends the Brunsviks—Count Franz, who received the dedication, and his sister Therese. Billed in G minor, the remarkably free-ranging Fantasia touches on that key—never to return—with a cascading scale figure and somber chordal phrase. Repeating the gestures in an unrelated key, Beethoven moves on through a kaleidoscopic array of keys and thematic gestures, eventually settling sweetly in the distant key of B major. He then proposes a simple eight-measure theme in that key and treats it to seven variations before a broad coda reintroduces harmonic uncertainty—even a sweet variant of the theme in C major! The boisterous cascade and subdued chordal gesture of the opening return to settle his main B major key once and for all, to which he adds a comical sign-off. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2022 AT 3 PM IMPRESSIONS OF DEBUSSY AND RAVEL BUY TICKETS KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO “Superb young soloist.” — The New Yorker Michael Brown, piano “Fearless performances…one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” — The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Impressions of Debussy and Ravel will showcase glittering musical highlights from La Belle Époque. Three of today’s most charismatic young musicians will perform Claude Debussy’s beguiling violin and cello sonatas in alternation with Maurice Ravel’s ravishing duo for violin and cello — his elegy to Debussy — and Ravel’s kaleidoscopic piano trio. PROGRAM Claude Debussy Violin Sonata in G minor, L. 140 Program Notes Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello Program Notes Claude Debussy Cello Sonata in D minor, L. 135 Program Notes Maurice Ravel Piano Trio in A minor Program Notes Watch Kristin Lee, Nicholas Canellakis, and Michael Brown perform the first movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio in The Cathedral of Taormina (Sicily):

May 12, 2024: Chee-Yun, violin; Alessio Bax, piano Antonín Dvořák Songs My Mother Taught Me, arr. for violin and piano May 12, 2024: Chee-Yun, violin; Alessio Bax, piano Dvořák composed his Gypsy Songs, op. 55, in the first two months of 1880 for Gustav Walter, an admirer of his songs and a tenor at the Vienna Court Opera. In Walter’s honor, he set the songs in German, in a translation made expressly for this purpose by poet Adolf Heyduk, author of the original Czech poems. Nicolaus Simrock published the songs with German and English words later that year and issued another edition the following year with the Czech added. Some were performed separately in February 1881, but it’s not clear when all seven were first performed as a group. The song cycle has become Dvořák’s most successful. The songs display a number of characteristic Gypsy features, though all of the melodies are original Dvořák. The most famous of the set is No. 4, known in the English-speaking world as “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” but whose first line is better translated “When my old mother taught me to sing.” Here Dvořák gently pits the poignant melody in 2/4 meter against the 6/8 meter of the accompaniment and masterfully alters the music of the second verse enough to create a poignant peak. His expressive simplicity adds a wonderful dimension to the poet’s tearful, loving memories of his mother, carrying on her legacy as he teaches his own child those same songs. “Songs My Mother Taught Me” has taken on a purely instrumental life as well as a vocal one, with myriad arrangements for various combinations. Renowned violinist Fritz Kreisler often played his own transcription for violin and piano, first publishing it in 1914 and making several recordings, perhaps the earliest for a ten-inch single-faced Victor disc in January 1916. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes