2021/2022 - Friends of Chamber Music

2021/2022

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3 The Friends of Chamber Music 2021–22 Season

COVER ARTJohn Alfred, Beethoven's AndanteOil on canvas - 1904

PROGRAM BOOK CREDITS

PUBLISHER: NextPage

PROGRAM BOOK PROJECT MANAGER: Lacie Eades

THE FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC

Leia Barrett, PhDActing Executive Director

Mary Clare WagnerDevelopment Director

Mikaela GarrettMarketing Associate

Chris WernerCustomer Service Representative

Christy PetersonAccountant

Table of ConTenTsTable of ConTenTs

8 Welcome from the Chair of the Board8 Board of Directors9 Welcome from the Acting Executive Director12 The Live Concert Experience13 Concert Venues16 Pre-Concert Conversations112 Contributors113 Soirée114 Glossary

ConCerT Programs & noTesConCerT Programs & noTes

20 Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf26 A Renaissance Christmas 40 Brentano Quartet48 Garrick Ohlsson56 Vladimir Feltsman62 Goldmund Quartet68 Beethoven Festival Preview70 Sergei Babayan76 Rafał Blechacz84 Songs to the Lute94 Runge&Ammon102 Ensemble Correspondances

2021/20222021/2022

Eckart Runge

BENJAMIN BAGBY’S BEOWULFOctober 29, 2021 | 7:30 PMGrace & Holy Trinity Cathedral

A RENAISSANCE CHRISTMASDecember 9, 2021 | 7:30 PMThe Folly Theater

BRENTANO STRING QUARTETJanuary 14, 2022 | 7:30 PMThe Folly TheaterGARRICK OHLSSON, pianistJanuary 28, 2022 | 7:30 PMThe Folly Theater

VLADIMIR FELTSMAN, pianistFebruary 11, 2022 | 7:30 PMThe Folly Theater

GOLDMUND STRING QUARTETFebruary 20, 2022 | 2:30 PMThe Folly Theater

SERGEI BABAYAN, pianistMarch 18, 2022 | 7:30 PMThe Folly Theater

BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL with the MORGENSTERN TRIOMarch 5 & 6, 2022The 1900 Building

RAFAŁ BLECHACZApril 10, 2022 | 2:30 PMThe Folly Theater

RUNGE&AMMON present REVOLUTIONARY ICONSMay 6, 2022 | 7:00 PMYardley Hall at Midwest Trust Center

ENSEMBLE CORRESPONDANCESMay 15, 2022 | 3:30 PMCathedral of the Immaculate Conception

SONGS TO THE LUTEApril 23, 2022 | 7:30 PMGrace & Holy Trinity Cathedral

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We sense in the thoughtful, COVID considerate re-emergence of all performing arts, a deeper appreciation for the joy of live performance, for the dedication of exceptional artists and for celebrating this experience across as broad an audience as possible. Let us experience chamber music at its finest with great live performances for all, through the Friends of Chamber Music. The Friends of Chamber Music is reopening real doors with an inspiring live season wonderfully complemented by the continuing online education and performance offerings developed amid its Covid ‘pivot’. Enjoy the enticing selection of concerts ahead, some originally scheduled for our 45th Anniversary season. There are many Friends you will remember, including pianists Garrick Ohlsson and Vladimir Feltsman as well as Medieval scholar Benjamin Bagby. We are also excited to renew our commitment to community partnerships this season, including a collaboration with one of our local favorites, the Kansas City Chorale, in December. Additionally, we are pleased to be a part of the “KC Molière 400 in 2022” celebration for our final concert of the year with Ensemble Correspondances, who will be making their Kansas City debut. We are ever grateful to the artistry and vision of Founder Cynthia Siebert, who headed the series 1976-2021. The Friends of Chamber Music is moving forward with beauty and inspiration in its transition to future leadership. All of you - our engaged audience, generous donors, superb artists, excellent educators, enthusiastic volunteers and talented staff - come together to make the joy of chamber music at its finest, possible. Thank you very much! Your wonderful support and creativity spark possibility and inspire our community with the glorious art of chamber music. Encore!

It will be a special joy to again see all of you at the concerts.

With sincere gratitude,

Nancy Lee KemperBoard Chair

from The Chair of The boardfrom The Chair of The board

BOARD OF DIRECTORSNancy Lee Kemper, Chair of the BoardDwight Arn, Secretary & TreasurerJennifer Bacon Richard BrueningAlietia CaughronAl Mauro, Jr. Patricia Miller, Ph.D.Tom Nanney

FOUNDERCynthia Siebert

PAST CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARDWilliam G. LeviDavid Steinhaus, M.D.Steven KarbankJerome Wolf

The Friends of Chamber Music 2021–22 Season 9

Dear Friends,As I write this letter on a beautiful fall morning, my heart is full. We are a month away from our first live concert since the Pavel Haas Quartet visited with Boris Giltberg in March 2020. It is astonishing to recall such a memorable concert knowing that a mere two weeks later the world would shut down. Thankfully, many of our favorite musicians took up the mantle, recording extraordinary virtual concerts. But, as you know, these programs could not replace the thrill of live performance.

Flash forward to today, approximately one month before we host Benjamin Bagby. A Medieval scholar and the founder of the extraordinary Sequentia, he is more than a musician. He is an actor, a singer, a harpist, a modern day troubadour if you will. His version of Beowulf is powerful, unforgettable, and as unique as he is.

Only an equally unforgettable concert could follow Benjamin Bagby, and we believe that our multimedia presentation, A Renaissance Christmas, fits that description. Inspired by the Nine Lessons and Carols, this program was created by our friends, Stile Antico. When Stile was forced to cancel their Fall 2021 tour, we wanted to find an innovative way to present this glorious program. We approached Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale with a unique proposition: we would preserve the

program but alternate between live presentations by KC Chorale and virtual programming pre-recorded by Stile, with local actor Robert Brand presenting the nine verses that bind the program together. Every member of this collaboration is tremendously excited to present this once-in-a-lifetime collaboration. We hope you will enjoy watching it as much as we have enjoyed crafting it.

This spring we are pleased to welcome back Garrick Ohlsson who recently celebrated the 50th Anniversary of his historic win of the International Chopin Piano Competition. He is not the only winner of this prestigious award of this season, however. Rafał Blechacz, appearing in April, made history as the first Polish pianist to win, cementing his reputation as a world-class performer. We must not forget about the incomparable Vladimir Feltsman who heroically stepped in for a performance in 2018, when one of our artists had to cancel. Finally, we welcome Sergei Babayan, whose prowess as both a performer and a teacher is unmatched.

Celebrating 30 years together, the Brentano Quartet returns to Kansas City in January. They begin with Haydn’s Quartet in D-Major, Op. 71 No. 2, the first piece they performed on their first program. This is followed by two works commissioned during their 10th anniversary, one of which was written by Bruce Adolphe of Piano Puzzler fame, a mentor to the group. The concert finishes with Beethoven’s Op. 135, his last quartet, a light-hearted work that belied a very difficult time in the great composer’s life. In February we are pleased to welcome the Goldmund Quartet to Kansas City for the first time. In a few short years they have established themselves for their wide range of repertoire and dynamism and are sure to become a perennial favorite on our series.

As the sun sets on the aforementioned day, I turn to our spring early music offerings, including an intimate performance by Anne Azéma, Artistic Director for Boston Camerata, and lutenist Nigel North. Entitled “Songs to the Lute,” this gorgeous concert features lute and vocal music from 1500-1700 when voice and lute were a popular idiom. I believe you will understand why when you hear Anne and Nigel achieve an extraordinary timbre. The season ends with Ensemble CorrespondancesEnsemble Correspondances, a rising star in the early music world led by harpsichordist Sébastien Daucé. Their program, Three Holy Days, features works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, a contemporary of the famous playwright Moliére, even living with the same patron for a time. Presented as part of “KC Molière 400 in 2022” Ensemble Correspondances Ensemble Correspondances is a festive way to end our 46th season.

No matter when you read this letter, we are so happy you are here to share this special season with us. As we move towards the future of the Friends we cannot wait for you to join us on our musical journey.

from The exeCuTive direCTorfrom The exeCuTive direCTor

Dr. Leia Barrett, PhDActing Executive Director

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The Live Concert Experience

What if I arrive late or need to leave early?

Wait until the end of a movement before exiting/en-tering the concert hall. If you are unsure of when that is, please ask an usher for assistance. If you know in advance that you will need to leave a concert early, please ask a box office attendant to reseat you to an aisle seat or a seat that is close to the door.

When should I applaud the performers?

Applaud at the end of the last movement. Unsure? Wait until those around you start clapping or watch for the musicans to lower their instruments.

Can I bring my cell phone?

Yes, but please turn off all electronic devices. This includes cell phones, pagers, watches, and all other devices that make noise.

Are children allowed at concerts?

Children 6 and older are always welcome at FCM performances. (They even get free tickets!) Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

May I photograph or video the concert?

No. Recording devices (including cell phone cameras) are strictly forbidden during the concert. However, feel free to take photos in the lobby with friends before, during intermission or after when possible.

Beyond the Concert

MEET THE ARTISTS

For more than 45 years, we have pioneered bringing the world's greatest musicians to Kansas City. When possible the artists will be available after the concert to sign autographs and greet fans. Select concerts will also feature Q&A sessions with the artist. Sing up for our weekly e-blasts at chambermusic.org to be "in the know" for these post-concert experiences.

VOLUNTEERS

If you enjoy what we do, consider volunteering for The Friends! Our volunteers help FCM reach the communi-ties we serve and they are a vital part of the concert ex-perience. Plus, they receive free tickets to our concerts!


Venues and Parking

THE 1900 BUILDING1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway, Mission Woods, KSFree parking is available on site in the adjacent garage and parking lot, located to the north on State Line Road.

Events at this venue are general admission. Seating is first come, first serve. Please plan accordingly.

CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION416 W. 12th St., Kansas City, MOThere is limited parking at the Cathedral. The parking lots at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral and at The Folly Theater are available.

FOLLY THEATER300 W. 12th St., Kansas City, MOParking is available in the DST Garage (west side of theater) for $8 – $10. You may park for free with your $200 annual gift to the Folly Theater (for details, call 816-842-5500).

GRACE & HOLY TRINITY CATHEDRAL415 W. 13th St., Kansas City, MOParking is available on the north side near W. 13th Street, with limited parking near the east side on Broadway Boulevard. Parking is free unless communicated via email.

YARDLEY HALL12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KSYardley Hall is located in the Midwest Trust Center building on the campus of Johnson County Community College, at the southwest corner of College Boulevard and Quivira Road in Overland Park, Kansas.

For more information about supporting the Friends of Chamber Music or to make a donation or endowment contribution, please call 816-561-9999.

Check out our local programming

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Pre-ConCerT ConversaTionsPre-ConCerT ConversaTions

Directed byDr. Alison DeSimone, Associate Professor of Musicology, UMKC Conservatory

Dr. Andrew Granade, Interim Dean of UMKC Conservatory

October 29, 2021Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf

"The Performance of Beowulf Beowulf "presented by

Dr. Virginia Blanton, Curators' Distinguished Professor of English, UMKCDr. Alison DeSimone, Associate Professor of Musicology, UMKC Conservatory

The Old English poem Beowulf likely began to circulate through oral performance, about which we have some ideas based on the poetry’s meter and alliterative lines, before being copied into one surviving manuscript. Each retelling—whether a recitation or a written text—shapes and reshapes the poem for a new audience. Dr. Virginia Blanton will consider the ways that Beowulf was performed in the early medieval past and how it has been reimaged time and again. Most famously, Seamus Heaney’s 1999 translation electrified readers by its reimaging of this ancient world in light of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In 2020, Maria Dahvana Headley’s feminist translation challenges the masculinist tradition that has so negatively framed Grendel’s mother, and Headley situates her work in the decidedly American context of toxic masculinity. Concertgoers might find it valuable to read one or both before the performance. Additionally, Dr. Alison DeSimone will give some commentary on the musical performance and its context.

December 9, 2021A Renaissance Christmas

"Lessons and Carols: A Victorian Christmas Tradition"presented virtually by

Dr. William Everett, Curators' Distinguished Professor of Musicology, UMKC

In this special episode filmed in partnership with the esteemed British-based vocal ensemble Stile Antico, we’ll discover how the service of Nine Lessons and Carols, a familiar part of the Christmas season nowadays, has its roots in Victorian England, just like so many Christmas traditions in the Western world. This episode will feature discussions with members of the group and explore some of the inner workings of the Tudor-era music that they include on their Lessons and Carols program.


January 14, 2022Brentano Quartet

"Composer Inspiration"presented by

Dr. Alison DeSimone, Associate Professor of Musicology, UMKC ConservatoryDr. Andrew Granade, Interim Dean of UMKC Conservatory

What inspires composers to write what they do? This talk explores the historical contexts and musical choices behind two classic string quartets—Haydn’s Op. 71, No. 2 Quartet in D Major and Antonín Dvořak’s Op. 105 A-flat Major Quartet. For both Haydn and Dvořak, inspiration came from their recent experiences with new audiences: Haydn in London and Dvořak in America. Then, we will discuss Brentano’s commissions and their contemporary contexts: two quartets inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Join Dr. Andrew Granade and Dr. Alison DeSimone as they discuss the genesis behind quartets old and new.

January 28, 2022Garrick Ohlsson

"Chopin and the Human Heart"presented by

Dr. Bob Weirich and Dr. Andrew Granade

One of Chopin’s favorite students, Friederike Müller, once had the opportunity to hear Franz Liszt perform. After the concert, Chopin asked her for her thoughts and Müller declared Liszt’s technical mastery and calmness in the face of difficulty his greatest attributes. "Simplicity is the final achievement," Chopin replied. "After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art." Join pianist Robert Weirich and Andrew Granade as they explore the duality of Chopin’s music, the way it often uses notes and more notes to express profoundly simple secrets of the human heart.


February 20, 2022Goldmund Quartet

"The Classical and the Exotic in the String Quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, and Dvořák"

presented byDr. Martin Nedbal, Associate Professor of Musicology, University of Kansas School of Music

This talk will examine how the Beethoven and Dvořák quartets combine classical traditions with explicit references to folk-likeness and exoticism, while Schubert maintains a distinctly classical tradition.

March 5–6, 2022Beethoven Festival featuring the Morgenstern Trio

"Beethoven: In His Time and Ours"presented by

Dr. William Everett, Curators' Distinguished Professor of Musicology, UMKC & Guests

The Beethoven Festival will feature a two-part multi-disciplinary panel discussion, “Beethoven: In Our Time and His,” moderated by Dr. William Everett, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Musicology Emeritus at UMKC. On Saturday afternoon, we’ll discuss “Beethoven since His Time,” where we’ll explore how and why Beethoven and his music assumed the significance they now hold. We’ll discuss significant performers of Beethoven’s music as well as the idea of performing “cycles” of complete repertories (symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas, piano trios) and look at ways in which Beethoven has become an icon in not only the classical music world but also in popular culture. On Sunday, we’ll continue with “Beethoven in His Time,” which will feature conversations on topics concerning life and culture during Beethoven’s era. Panelists will speak on themes ranging from important literary figures such as Goethe and Schiller and the place of the piano and pianists in the European world to what sorts of things Beethoven would have seen as soldiers returned from the Napoleonic Wars, his own experiences with deafness, and how his reputation as a solitary genius continues to be created.


March 18, 2022Sergei Babayan

"Old Wine in New Bottles: Rethinking Classical Composers"presented by


Throughout history, musicians have regularly taken works by other artists and reimagined them as their own. From the over 2,000 versions of the Beatles’s “Yesterday” to Aretha Franklin’s transformation of Otis Redding’s “Respect” into a feminist anthem, American popular music is built on covers of earlier music. However, we often don’t consider the musical borrowings common among classical composers when we think about music covers, nor that many of our greatest artists make their living reinterpreting the music of European composers. This talk will examine the complex interplay of originality and reinterpretation in classical music and how we might think anew about some of our favorite artists.

April 10, 2022Rafał Blechacz

"Musical Genres and the Modern Audience"presented by

Dr. Thomas Rosenkranz, Associate Professor of Piano, UMKC ConservatoryDr. Andrew Granade, Interim Dean of UMKC Conservatory

What is a genre and why are so many works for the piano called "sonata" or "variations?" Join UMKC piano faculty Tom Rosenkranz and Andrew Granade as they discuss the role that genre has played in piano music and how we can use those genres to understand the language through which the composer speaks to modern audiences.

May 6, 2022Runge&Ammon

"Revolutionary Icons"presented by


What is Beethoven’s place in the modern world? Should we, as Andrea Moore has provocatively suggested, ban his music for a year to let other voices be heard? Or should we attempt to put his compositions in dialogue with music from the last fifty years and see what new ideas result? This talk uncovers the cultural position Beethoven occupies over 250 years after he was born and what we might learn about our current world by the ways in which he is appropriated and discussed today.


The Friends oF Chamber musiC endowmenT early musiC series

BENJAMIN BAGBY'S BEOWULFBEOWULF

This concert is sponsored by a friend of early music.

Friday, October 29, 2021 · 7:30 Pm · Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral

Benjamin Bagby, voice & harp

Performed in 80 minutes without intermission.

Queen Wealhtheow Pledges Beowulf (1909), George T. Tobin


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Although this performance uses video supertitles, the following summary will give an overview of the story up to the point where the retelling of Beowulf will stop, encompassing roughly the first third of the entire epic or lines 1-1062.

Following the formal call of "Hwaet!" [Listen!], the scop (poet, storyteller) reminds the listeners of some geneology: the legendary arrival of the great leader Scyld, found in a boat along the Danish coast, a solitary baby with no possessions. But when he grows up, he becomes a unifier, war-leader, and king of the Danes. On his death he is again set adrift, but now the boat is piled high with treasure and the standard floats in the wind on the mast above him. He leaves a son, Beow, already famous as a king in South Sweden (the northern part of Denmark in the fifth century). Beow carries on the Scylding line as a good and able ruler and is succeeded by his son Halfdane. Halfdane in turn is a worthy king, and has three sons —Heregar, Hrothgar, and Helga—and a daughter, Yrsa, who marries Onela of the royal line of Sweden. Eventually, Hrothgar becomes king and rules long and well.

With the kingdom stable, Hrothgar orders that a great banquet hall be built. Workmen from far and near are brought to build and decorate this royal building. Its fine workmanship and gilded gables are famous in Denmark and abroad. Hrothgar names the hall "Heorot" [Hart]. The drinking and laughter of the warriors, and the harping and songs of the scop provoke a savage monster named Grendel, a descendant of Cain, who lives in the marshes nearby cannot bear this human gaiety in his loneliness. Only gradually do we learn details of the creature: that it takes four men to carry his head on a spear, and that his hand has sharp claws like steel spikes. For weeks and months Grendel visits the hall nightly, devouring sleeping warriors and carrying off others to the moor to feed on later. At last, only drunken, boasting fools will linger in the hall after dark, until they too are slaughtered.

Twelve years pass, and news of Hrothgar's assailant travels eventually to other lands. Beowulf's nephew (son to Beowulf's sister and Higelac, King of the Geats), hears of Hrothgar's distress, and with consent from his uncle, sails with fifteen companions from southwestern Sweden on the east coast of the Oslofjörd. When the Danish coastal watchman learns that they have come to Hrothgar's aid, he shows them the path to Heorot. The Geatish warriors march with

Synopsis of BeowulfBeowulftheir spears, swords, helmets, shields and chain-mail to the high-gabled hall. At Heorot, Beowulf and his men enter with challenges and formal speeches, the strict codes of a warrior’s behavior in court. King Hrothgar had earlier given protection to Beowulf's father, Ecgtheow, during a feud. Learning Beowulf's name, Hrothgar recalls hearing of the extraordinary strength and reputation of the Geatish hero.

The strangers are warmly received and Beowulf is seated on the bench with Hrothgar's young sons. No Dane has confronted Grendel and lived. But the enthusiastic welcome shown to the Geats irritates the jealous Unferth, a drunken courtier sitting at Hrothgar's feet, who taunts Beowulf for having been defeated in a legendary swimming contest with Breca. Beowulf sets the record straight by recounting the dangers—attacking sea-monsters, storms, vast distances—and claiming that they had merely dared each other to a boyish hunt for sea-beasts. Separated by the winter storm, they swam, carrying swords and wearing chain-mail, two different paths: Breca to Norway and Beowulf to the land of Finns. Beowulf ends his retort with a taunt that Unferth has slain his own brother, the ultimate crime, even though by accident. With such "heroes" as this, it's no wonder the Danes can't deal with Grendel themselves! The queen, Wealhtheow, pours ritual mead for the feasting warriors and Beowulf boasts to her that he will defeat Grendel or die in the attempt.

At nightfall Hrothgar and all the Danes depart from Heorot to sleep elsewhere, leaving Beowulf and his men to occupy the hall benches. Beowulf removes his helmet, chain mail, and weapons and boasts again to use no weapon in this fight, since Grendel uses none. As darkness descends Grendel comes gliding up from the misty marshes and pushes open the great door, his eyes gleaming with evil. Immediately he grabs and eats a sleeping warrior. Next, the monster reaches for Beowulf, but the hero grasps his arm and rises to his feet. Beowulf’s men cannot help him since Grendel has put a spell on all weapons so that none can harm him. During the ferocious struggle that follows, the hero wrenches off Grendel's arm. The sounds of the combat terrify the Danes outside: Grendel howling with pain, benches torn up and overturned, the hall shaken to its foundations. Grendel, leaving a trail of blood, escapes without his arm and limps back to the fens where he dies. Beowulf fixes the arm high above the hall as a symbol of victory. Heorot is cleansed of the evil


monster, and in the morning people come from far and near to inspect the sight, following Grendel's trail to a boiling pool of bloody dark water in the marshes.

Young and old race their horses jubilantly back from the water, praising Beowulf, while an old scop, keeper of many ancient stories, makes up a new song about Beowulf’s deeds of the previous hours. He also sings the well-known story about Sigmund and the dragon. As the morning fog clears and the Danes converge on Heorot, Hrothgar appears with his queen and her retinue of maidens. Seeing the wrecked hall and Grendel’s arm, he gives thanks, praising Beowulf, offering to take him as a son, and promising him rich rewards. Beowulf gives a speech in reply. He describes the combat and regrets only that he cannot show Grendel’s entire body. Everyone agrees, looking at Grendel’s claw, that no sword could have ever defeated the monster. Order is quickly made in the half-wrecked hall, and a great celebratory feast is prepared. Mead is poured and Hrothgar makes good on his promise. Beowulf is given a golden standard, a richly adorned helmet and chain mail, a priceless sword, and eight horses—one with a royal saddle decorated with jewels. Beowulf’s men are also given gifts, and the Geatish warrior killed by Grendel is atoned with gold.

The storyteller ends the story by reminding us that in those days God controlled all mankind, as He still does today. Still, human prudence in all things is best. Anyone who lives for long in this world will endure much: both good and evil.

A Brief History of the Beowulf Beowulf Project by Benjamin Bagby

I was first transfixed by Beowulf while growing up in a suburb of Chicago in the early 1960s, when my English teacher, Mrs. Bennett, handed me Burton Raffel’s translation of the poem and laconically said, "You need to read this." (She later handed me yet another bombshell: Dante’s Inferno). Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that a few years later in high school, I was utterly swept away by the sound of medieval music and started my first ensemble. The Anglo-Saxons would say that this was simply my wyrd [personal destiny].

In 1981, Sequentia (the medieval music ensemble I co-founded with Barbara Thornton) was invited to give a concert in Louvain, Belgium, as part of a university colloquium about performing historical vocal music. One of the participants in the colloquium was the Anglo-Saxonist Thomas Cable (University of Texas-Austin), who had recently published a book entitled The Meter and Melody of "Beowulf," discussing the theoretical background for various possible modes of performance. We began to talk, and our discussions, along with my close collaboration with Vermont harp-builder Lynne Lewandowski, planted the seeds for making the Beowulf story into a performance. The sound-image for this performance popped into my head a few months later, as I was driving through rural Arkansas one blustery March evening. Perhaps my subconscious was prodded by the omnipresent local

About BeowulfBeowulfThe Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf survives in a single manuscript source dating from the early eleventh century (British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. XV).

Although scholars do not agree on the dating of the poem—theories range between the sixth century and the date of the manuscript—it is clear that the story has its roots in the art of the scop, the "singer of tales"—oral poet, singer, story-teller and reciter in one person—at formal and informal gatherings, whose services were essential to the fabric of tribal society in early medieval England. The scop would retell the story of Beowulf, in song and speech, perhaps accompanying himself on a six-stringed harp. (This we know from contemporary accounts and surviving instruments.)

His pre-literate audience was attuned to the finest details of sound and meaning, meter and rhyme, timing and mood. The performance—which, for the whole epic,

might last between four and six hours—would never be exactly the same twice, as the scop subtly varied the use of poetic formulæ to shape his unique version of the story.

The central dilemma of any attempt to re-vocalize a medieval text as living art is based on the fact that a written source can only represent one version (and possibly not the best version) of a text from an oral tradition in which musical notation was unknown. The impetus to make this attempt has come from many directions: from the power of those oral storytelling traditions, mostly non-European, which still survive intact; from the work of instrument-makers who have made careful reconstructions of seventh-century Germanic harps; and from those scholars who have shown an active interest in the problems of turning written words back into an oral poetry meant to be absorbed through the ear/spirit, rather than the eye/brain. But the principal impetus comes from the language of the poem itself, which has a chilling, direct, and magical power that modern translations can only approximate.


British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. XV The Nowell Codex contains a copy of the Beowulf text among other pieces of literature. View the complete manuscript on The British Library's website https://rb.gy/drysig

images of razorback hogs, kin to the wild boar, those symbols of fearlessness so dear to the Anglo-Saxons.

An instrument was ordered and built. The project slowly took musical shape, at first making use of shorter Old English poems (such as "Caedmon’s Hymn" and "Deor") and later expanding into a short scene from Beowulf. This particular version was first performed as part of a Sequentia concert program of medieval English music in 1987. Initial guidance with

the intricacies of Anglo-Saxon pronunciation and meter was generously provided by Thomas Cable during several memorable working sessions in his stone library tower in Austin.

In 1990, I was approached by Jan Nuchelmans, then artistic director of the Utrecht Early Music Festival (Netherlands), about the idea of programming an entire evening of Beowulf as part of the festival’s storytelling theme that summer. How could I possibly say no? With

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The Instrument

The six-string harp used in this performance was built by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany), based on the remains of an instrument excavated from a seventh-century Alemannic nobleman's grave in Oberflacht (south of Stuttgart). The study of this instrument also informed the reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo instrument now on display at the British Museum.

The remarkably intact pieces of oak clearly show a thin, hollow corpus with no soundholes. There are strong indications, supported by contemporary iconography, that such an instrument had six gut strings, a tailpiece, and a free-standing bridge. This scop’s instrument serves as a key piece of evidence in reconstructing the performance, for it provides the "singer of tales" with a series of six tones. Although several possible tunings present themselves, the six tones used in this performance were arrived upon through a careful study of early medieval modal theory, yielding a gapped octave which contains three perfect fifths and two perfect fourths. The resulting series of tones serves as a musical matrix upon which the singer can weave both his own rhetorical shapes and the sophisticated metrics of the text. The Anglo-Saxon ear was finely tuned to this web of sounds and syllable lengths, which was always experienced as an aural event, inextricably bound up with the story being told.

The harp is a relatively quiet instrument, but in the ear of the performer it rings with an endless variation of gestures, melodic cells, and repetitive figurations which give inspiration to the shape of the vocalization. In the course of the story, the vocalist may move imperceptibly or radically between true speech, heightened speech, speech-like song, and true song. The instrument acts as a constant point of reference, a friend and fellow performer, a symbol of the scop and his almost magical role in the community of listeners.

less than five months to put together a performance lasting about an hour (there were numerous deletions in the text necessary due to festival time constraints and, strangely, the last departure times of Utrecht buses & trams following late-night concerts), I worked feverishly to solve the many problems of shaping an "epic" performance instead of a ten-minute "song." This work was created with harp in hand and without the use of musical notation. Finding a new oral tradition to reconstruct a lost oral tradition was the process in which this project has its deepest roots. Following the premiere in the tiny crypt of the medieval Pieterskerk in Utrecht, this was the version of the story which I subsequently performed throughout Europe and North America during the mid-1990s.

With the Lincoln Center Festival’s invitation to give a series of performances in New York in 1997, the project received more attention and interest. And it was during those subsequent difficult years 1997–2000—which witnessed the long illness and death of my partner Barbara Thornton and the uncertainty of Sequentia’s future—that the Beowulf project took on new importance and urgency. The memorization process was completed, deleted sections of text were restored, new instruments were acquired, and video titles were used for the first time. Sequentia’s long-time agent Jon Aaron became the producer of the Beowulf project which has become the program you see today.

In the meantime, I have been performing Beowulf between Vancouver Island and the Faroe Islands; synagogues in Poland and the Lower East Side of New York; a warehouse in Los Angeles and a medieval art museum in Cologne; Perth, Pittsburgh, and Perugia; the Cloisters and the Sydney Opera House; a high school in rural Texas and the Cité de la Musique in Paris. I have had much recent help with the text from John Miles Foley (University of Missouri-Columbia), the distinguished Anglo-Saxonist and scholar of oral poetry, who also oversaw the filming of the DVD in Helsingborn, Sweden, in 2006. I am often asked if I plan to learn and perform the entire epic. In fact, during 2002, discussions were started about the possibility of preparing the complete Beowulf (3,182 verses, or a performance time of roughly five hours) for a group of co-commissioners in the U.S., but sufficient interest and funding could not be found to make possible the development of such an intense, long-term project. The idea was reluctantly abandoned in 2004, but not before I had worked my way well into the scene with Grendel’s mother.

Responding to the Lincoln Center Festival’s invitation to return with Beowulf in 2006, I expanded my performance to include the final twenty minutes of the first episode Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel and the subsequent celebrations). In this version, "Part I" is now complete and contains the uncut text of lines, 1-1062, the same version as was released on DVD. Only time will tell if I am able to continue working with the next episode.


Benjamin Bagby

Vocalist, harper, and medievalist Benjamin Bagby is descended from a Germanic clan which emigrated to northern England in c. 630, later emigrating to the colony of Virginia almost a millennium later. From a young age he was captivated

by medieval music, becoming an important figure in the field of medieval musical performance for more than thirty-five years. In 1977 he, with the late Barbara Thornton, co-founded Sequentia, a medieval performance group, based in Cologne, Germany. Sequentia became the most important medieval ensemble in Europe which created the revival and interest in the field of medieval music throughout the Continent and inspired the creation of many medieval ensembles that have continued to grow and thrive throughout Europe. Mr. Bagby continues to devote himself to research, performance, and recording projects for the group.

In addition to his activities as a singer, harper, and director of Sequentia, Mr. Bagby is deeply involved with the solo performance of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic oral poetry. His critically acclaimed, one-man production of Beowulf has been heard worldwide and was released as a DVD in 2007. In 2010 he received the Howard Mayer Brown Lifetime Achievement Award from Early Music America. In 2017, he was awarded the Artist of the Year Award by REMA, the European Early Music Network. In addition to researching and creating over seventy-five programs for Sequentia, Mr. Bagby has published widely, writing about medieval performance practice. As a guest lecturer and professor, he has taught courses and workshops all over Europe and North America. After retiring from his teaching position at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, where he taught between 2005 and 2018 in the professional masters program, Mr. Bagby continues to teach practical workshops for young professionals.


A RENAISSANCE CHRISTMASWITH KANSAS CITY CHORALE & STILE ANTICO

Thursday, December 9, 2021 · 7:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater


A Renaissance Christmas

Corde natus ex parentis (Piae Cantiones) plainchant

Eve's Apology in Defense of Women Emilia Lanyer(1569–1645)

Remember, O thou man Thomas Ravenscroft(c. 1592–1635)

Psalm 85 from the Sidney Psalter

Rorate caeli William Byrd(c. 1540–1623)

The Flower George Herbert(1593–1633)

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen Michael Praetorius(1548–1611)

Peace Herbert

Hodie nobis de caelo Peter Philips(1560/61–1628)

The Fall of Man

God Promises Blessings to His Chosen People

The Prophet Foretells the Coming of the Savior

The Peace that Christ will Bring is Foreshown


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Nativity Donne

Annunciation John Donne(1572–1631)

Ave Maria Josquin des Prez(c. 1450–1521)

Angelus ad pastores ait Raffella Aleotti(1575–1620)

A un niño llorando Francisco Guerrero(1528–99)

Extract from A Christmas Sermon Lancelot Andrewes(1555–1626)

The Burning Babe Robert Southwell(1561–95)

Verbum caro factus est John Sheppard(1515–58)

The Annunciation

The Birth of Jesus

Hodie Christus natus est Hans Leo Hassler(1564–1612)

The Shepherds Go to the Manger

The Shepherds Henry Vaughan(1621–1695)

The Wise Men are Led by the Star to Jesus

The Mystery of the Incarnation

This concert is sponsored by Patricia Cleary Miller and the Michael and Marlys Harverty Family Fund

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Texts & Translations

Corde natus ex parentis — plainchant

Corde natus ex parentisAnte mundi exordiumA et O congnominatus,ipse fons et clausulaOmnium quae sunt, fuerunt,quaeque post futura sunt.Saeculorum saeculis.

Ipse iussit et creata,dixit ipse et facta sunt,Terra, caelum, fossa ponti,trina rerum machina,Quaeque in his vigent sub altosolis et lunae globo.Saeculorum saeculis.

Corporis formam caduci,membra morti obnoxiaInduit, ne gens periretprimoplasti ex germine,Merserat quem lex profundonoxialis tartaro.Saeculorum saeculis.

O beatus ortus ille,virgo cum puerperaEdidit nostram salutem,feta Sancto Spiritu,Et puer redemptor orbisos sacratum protulit.Saeculorum saeculis.

Tibi, Christe, sit cum Patrehagioque PneumateHymnus, decus, laus perennis,gratiarum action,Honor, virtus, victoria,regnum aeternaliter.Saeculorum saeculis.

Of the Father’s love begotten,Ere the worlds began to be,He is Alpha and Omega,He the source, the ending, He,Of the things that are, that have been,And that future years shall see,Evermore and evermore!

At His word the worlds were framed;He commanded; it was done:Heaven and earth and depths of oceanIn their threefold order one;All that grows beneath the shiningOf the moon and burning sun,Evermore and evermore!

He is found in human fashion,Death and sorrow here to know,That the race of Adam’s childrenDoomed by law to endless woe,May not henceforth die and perishIn the dreadful gulf below.Evermore and evermore!

O that birth forever blessed,When the virgin, full of grace,By the Holy Ghost conceiving,Bare the Saviour of our race;And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,First revealed His sacred face,Evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father,And O Holy Ghost, to Thee,Hymn and chant with high thanksgiving,And unwearied praises be:Honor, glory, and dominion,And eternal victory,Evermore and evermore!

Translation: John Mason Neale & Henry Williams Baker

Eve’s Apologie in Defense of Women — Lanier

But surely Adam can not be excused, Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame; What weakness offered, strength might have refused, Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame: Although the Serpent's craft had her abused, God's Holy Word ought all his actions frame, For He was Lord and King of all the earth, Before poore Eve had either life or breath.

Who being framed by God's eternal hand, The perfectest man that ever breathed on earth; And from God's mouth received that straight command,



Adam and Eve Adam and Eve (1642) Jacob Jordaens

Remember, O thou man — Ravenscroft

Remember, O thou man,O thou man, O thou man,Remember O thou man, thy time is spent:Remember O thou manHow thou cam’st to me thenAnd I did what I can, therefore repent!

Remember Adam’s fallO thou man, O thou man,Remember Adam’s fall from heav’n to hell!Remember Adam’s fall,How we were condemned allTo hell perpetual, there for to dwell.

Remember God’s goodness,O thou man, O thou man, Remember God’s goodness and promise made!Remember God’s goodness,How his only son He sentOur sins for to redress: be not afraid!

In Bethlem He was born,O thou man, O thou man, In Bethlem He was born, for mankind’s sake;In Bethlem He was bornFor us that were forlorn,And therefore took no scorn, our flesh to take.

The breach whereof he knew was present death: Yea having power to rule both sea and land, Yet with one apple won to loose that breath Which God had breathed in his beauteous face, Bringing us all in danger and disgrace.

And then to lay the fault on patience' back,That we (poor women) must endure it all; We know right well he did discretion lack, Being not persuaded thereunto at all; If Eve did err, it was for knowledge' sake, The fruit being fair persuaded him to fall: No subtle serpent's falsehood did betray him, If he would eat it, who had power to stay him?

Not Eve, whose fault was only too much love, Which made her give this present to her dear, That what she tasted, he likewise might prove, Whereby his knowledge might become more clear; He never sought her weakness to reprove,With those sharp words, which he of God did hear: Yet men will boast of Knowledge, which he took From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned book.

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Psalm 85 from the Sidney PsalterSidney Psalter

Mighty Lord from this thy land, Never was thy love estrang’d Jacob's servitude thy hand hath, We know, to freedom chang’d. All thy peoples' wicked parts Have been banished from thy sight,Thou on them hast cured quite All the wounds of sinful darts;Still thy choller quenching so, Heat to flame did never grow.

Now then God as heretofore, God, the God that dost us save, Change our state, in us no more Let thine anger object have. Wilt thou thus for ever grieve? Wilt thou of thy wrathful rage Draw the threed from age to age? Never us again relieve? Lord yet once our hearts to joy Show thy grace, thy help employ.

What speak I? O let me hearWhat he speaks: for speak he will Peace to whom he love doth bear, Lest they fall to folly still.Ever nigh to such as stand In his fear, his favor is How can then his glory miss Shortly to enlight our land? Mercy now and truth shall meet Peace with kiss shall Justice greet.

Truth shall spring in ev‘ry place, As the herb, the earth's attire Justices long absent face Heav’n shall show, and Earth admire. Then Jehovah on us will Good in good in plenty throw Then shall we in gladness mow, Wheras now in grief we till. Then before him in his way All go right, not one shall stray.

Rorate caeli — Byrd

Rorate caeli desuper, Et nubes pluant justum: Aperiatur terra, et germinet salvatorem.

Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam: Avertisti captivitatem Jacob.Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Drop down ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: Let the earth open and bring forth a Saviour.

Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: Thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob.Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.


The Flower — Herbert

How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and cleanAre thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;To which, besides their own demean,The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.Grief melts awayLike snow in May,As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shriveled heartCould have recovered greenness? It was goneQuite underground; as flowers departTo see their mother-root, when they have blown,Where they togetherAll the hard weather,Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power,Killing and quickening, bringing down to hellAnd up to heaven in an hour;Making a chiming of a passing-bell.We say amissThis or that is:Thy word is all, if we could spell.

Oh that I once past changing were,Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!Many a spring I shoot up fair,Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither;Nor doth my flowerWant a spring shower,My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line,Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,Thy anger comes, and I decline:What frost to that? what pole is not the zoneWhere all things burn,When thou dost turn,And the least frown of thine is shown?And now in age I bud again,After so many deaths I live and write;I once more smell the dew and rain,And relish versing. Oh, my only light,It cannot beThat I am heOn whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,To make us see we are but flowers that glide;Which when we once can find and prove,Thou hast a garden for us where to bide;Who would be more,Swelling through store,Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.




Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen — M. Praetorius

Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungenAus einer Wurzel zart,Wie uns die Alten sungen,Von Jesse kam die ArtUnd hat ein Blümlein brachtMitten im kalten WinterWohl zu der Halbennacht.

Das Röslein, das ich meine,Davon Jesaias sagt,Ist Maria, die Reine,Die uns das Blümlein bracht.Aus Gottes ewigem RatHat sie ein Kind geboren,Und blieb doch reine Magd.

A rose has sprung upFrom a tender root,As the ancients sang to us,Its strain came from JesseAnd it has brought forth a flowerIn the midst of the cold winter,In the middle of the night.

The little rose that I meanOf which Isaiah toldIs Mary, the pure,Who brought us the little flower.From God’s eternal counselShe has borne a childAnd remained a pure maid.

Peace — Herbert

Sweet peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,Let me once know.I sought thee in a secret cave,And ask’d, if Peace were there.A hollow wind did seem to answer, No. Go seek elsewhere.

I did; and going did a rainbow note:Surely, thought I,This is the lace of Peace's coat:I will search out the matter.But while I lookt, the clouds immediatelyDid break and scatter.Then went I to a garden, and did spyA gallant flower,The crown Imperiall: Sure, said I,Peace at the root must dwell.But when I digg’d, I saw a worm devoureWhat show’d so well.

At length I met a rev’rend good old man:Whom when of PeaceI did demand, he thus began;There was a Prince of oldAt Salem dwelt, who liv’d with good increaseOf flock and fold.

He sweetly liv’d; yet sweetnesse did not saveHis life from foes.But after death out of his graveThere sprang twelve stalks of wheat:Which many wondring at, got some of thoseTo plant and set.

It prosper’d strangely, and did soon disperseThrough all the earth:For they that taste it do rehearse,


That vertue lies therein;A secret vertue bringing peace and mirthBy flight of sinne.

Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,And grows for you;Make bread of it: and that reposeAnd peace, which ev’ry whereWith so much earnestnesse you do pursueIs onely there.

Hodie nobis de coelo Hodie nobis de coelo — Philips

Hodie nobis de coelo pax vera descendit:Hodie per totum mundum melliflui facti sunt coeli.Hodie illuxit nobis dies redemptionis novae,Reparationis antiquae, felicitatis aeternae. Alleluia.

Today for us true peace from heaven came down:Today throughout the whole world the heavens distilled honey.Today there shone for us a day of new redemption,Of long-expected restoration, of eternal happiness. Alleluia.


Annunciation Annunciation – John Donne

Salvation to all that will is nigh;That All, which always is all everywhere,Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,Lo! Faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lieIn prison, in thy womb; and though He thereCan take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.Ere by the spheres time was created thouWast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou are nowThy Maker’s maker, and the Father’s mother.Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little roomImmensity, cloistered in thy dear womb.


Ave Maria

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Virgo serena.Ave cuius conceptio, solemni plena gaudioCaelestia, terrestria, nova replet laetitia.Ave, cuius nativitas nostra fuit solemnitas,Ut lucifer lux oriens verum solem praeveniens.Ave pia humilitas, sine viro fecunditas,Cuius annunciatio nostra fuit salvatio.Ave vera virginitas, immaculata castitas,Cuius purificatio nostra fuit purgatio.Ave, praeclara omnibus angelicis virtutibus,Cuius fuit assumptio nostra glorificatio.O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.


Ave Maria

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, fair virgin. Hail to you, whose conception, full of holy joy, Fills heaven and earth with new rejoicing. Hail to you, whose birth we celebrated, Like the day-star rising, foretelling the true sun. Hail, holy and humble one, fruitful without a man, You whose annunciation was our salvation. Hail, true virginity, spotless chastity, Whose purification cleansed us also. Hail to you who excel in all the angelic virtues, You whose assumption glorified us also. O Mother of God, remember me. Amen.

Nativity – John Donne

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,There He hath made Himself to His intentWeak enough, now into the world to come;But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,Stars and wise men will travel to preventThe effect of Herod's jealous general doom.Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how HeWhich fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,That would have need to be pitied by thee?Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

Hodie Christus natus estHodie Christus natus est — Vespers antiphon for Christmas

Hodie Christus natus est: Hodie Salvator apparuit: Hodie in terra canunt Angeli, laetantur Archangeli Hodie exsultant justi, dicentes: Gloria in excelsis Deo. Alleluia.

Today Christ is born: Today the Savior appeared: Today on Earth the angels sing, Archangels rejoice, Today the righteous rejoice, saying: “Glory to God in the highest.” Alleluia.


The Shepherds The Shepherds — Henry Vaughan

SWEET, harmless live[r]s! - on whose holy leisure Waits Innocence and Pleasure - Whose leaders to those pastures and clear springs Were patriarchs, saints, and kings:How happen'd it that in the dead of night You only saw true light,While Palestine was fast asleep, and lay Without one thought of day?Was it because those first and blessed swains Were pilgrims on those plains,When they receiv'd the promise, for which now 'Twas there first shown to you?'Tis true, He loves that dust whereon they go That serve Him here below,And therefore might for memory of those His love there first disclose;But wretched Salem, once His love, must now No voice nor vision know,Her stately piles with all their height and pride Now languishèd and died,And Bethlem's humble cots above them stept, While all her seers slept;Her cedar, fir, hew'd stones and gold were all Polluted through their fall,And those once sacred mansions were now Mere emptiness and show.This made the angel call at reeds and thatch, Yet where the shepherds watch,And God's own lodging - though he could not lack - To be a common rack;No costly pride, no soft-cloth'd luxury, In those thin cells could lie;Each stirring wind and storm blew through their cots, Which never harbour'd plots;Only Content and Love and humble joys Liv'd there, without all noise;Perhaps some harmless cares for the next day Did in their bosoms play,As where to lead their sheep, what silent nook, What springs or shades to look:But that was all; and now with gladsome care They for the town prepare;They leave their flock, and in a busy talk All towards Bethlem walkTo see their souls' Great Shepherd, Who was come To bring all stragglers home;Where now they find Him out, and, taught before, That Lamb of God adore,That Lamb Whose days great kings and prophets wish'd And long'd to see, but miss'd.The first light they beheld was bright and gay, And turn'd their night to day;But to this later light they saw in Him, Their day was dark and dim.



Angelus ad pastores Angelus ad pastores — Rafaella Alleoti

Angelus ad pastores ait: Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum,quia natus est vobis hodie Salvator mundi.Alleluia.

The angel said to the shepherds: "I bring you tidings of great joy,for the Saviour of the world has been born to you today."Alleluia.


Extract from "A Christmas Sermon" (abridged) — Lancelot Andrewes

It is not commended to stand "gazing up to heaven" too long; not on Christ Himself ascending,much less on His star. For they sat not still gazing on the star. Their vidimus begat venimus; their seeing made them come, come a great journey. Venimus is soon said, but many a wide and weary step they made before they could say venimus; lo, here "we are come;" and at our journey’s end. In this their coming we consider:

First, the distance of the place they came from. It was not hard by as the shepherds — this was riding many a hundred miles, and cost them many a day’s journey.

Secondly, we consider the way that they came, if it be pleasant, or plain and easy. This was nothing pleasant, for through deserts, all the way waste and desolate. Nor secondly, easy, for over the rocks and crags of both Arabias their journey lay.

Yet if safe—but it was not, but exceeding dangerous, as lying through the midst of the "black tents of Kedar," a nation of thieves and cut-throats;

Last we consider the time of their coming, the season of the year. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, ‘"he very dead of winter."

Venimus, "we are come," if that be one, venimus, "we are now come," come at this time, that sure is another. And for all this they came. And came it cheerfully and quickly. It was but vidimus, venimus, with them; no sooner saw, but they set out presently. So as upon the first appearing of the star, they knew it was Balaam’s star; it called them away, they made ready straight to begin their journey this morning. A sign they were highly conceited of His birth, believed some great matter of it, that they took all these pains, made all this haste that they might be there to worship Him with all the possible speed they could.

And we, what should we have done? Sure these men of the East will rise in judgment against us, and their faith against ours in this point. With them it was but vidimus, venimus; Our fashion is to see and see again before we stir a foot, specially if it be to the worship of Christ. Come such a journey at such a time? No; but fairly have put it off to the spring of the year, till the days longer, and the ways fairer, and the weather warmer, till better travelling to Christ. Our Epiphany would sure have fallen in Easter week at the soonest.

A un niño llorando

A un niño llorando al hielo van tres Reyes a adorarPorque el niño puede darReinos, vida, gloria y cielo.

Nace con tanta bajezaAunque es poderoso ReyPorque nos da ya por leyAbatimento y pobreza.

Por eo llorando al hielo van tres Reyes a adorarPorque el niño puede darReinos, vida, gloria y cielo.

Three kings go to adore a child crying in the cold,Because the child can giveKingdoms, life, glory and heaven.

He is born with such lowlinessAlthough he is a powerful king,Because he is giving us through his lawHumbleness and poverty.

To him crying in the cold,Three kings go to adore him,Because the child can giveKingdoms, life, glory and heaven.



The Burning BabeThe Burning Babe — Robert Southwell

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed. “Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I! My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns, Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls, For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.” With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away, And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

Verbum caro Verbum caro — John 1:14

Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis cujus gloriam vidimus quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiae et veritatis.

In principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat verbum.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

The Word was made flesh and lived with us and we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten by the Father, full of grace and truth.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.


Since the debut performance in 1982, the Kansas City Chorale has provided audiences with a high caliber of choral artistry, performing a diverse repertoire of new and traditional music. Under Charles Bruffy’s leadership the choir has garnered international recognition for artistic merit, having been praised for its refined sound,

phrasing and flawless intonation.

As a cornerstone of the Kansas City performing arts community, the Chorale creates concert programs and recordings that educate, engage, provoke, and inspire listeners. The Chorale’s ongoing outreach efforts facilitate the development of local talent, while providing students and their instructors with the opportunity to learn from world-class vocalists.

The Kansas City Chorale has an award-winning collection of albums with Chandos Records, Naxos Records, Nimbus Records, and 2Foals Records. The Chorale's album Life and Breath: Choral Works of René Clausen, won the GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical. Additionally, SoundMirror senior producer Blanton Alspaugh won the GRAMMY® Award for Producer of the Year, Classical, for Life and Breath and Artifacts: The Music of Michael McGlynn.

One of the most admired choral conductors in the United States, Charles Bruffy began his career as a tenor soloist, performing with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in recordings and concerts

in France and in concerts at Carnegie Hall. Shaw encouraged his development as a conductor. He received his undergraduate degree from Missouri Western University in St. Joseph, and completed his master’s degree in conducting from the Conservatory of Dance and Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

His eclectic discography includes five albums on the Nimbus label and eight for Chandos Records, three of which have been recognized by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with GRAMMY® awards for Best Choral Performance. In 2017 Bruffy was recognized with the Signature Sinfonian award conferred by national fraternal society Phi Mu Alpha, recognizing “alumni members who have achieved a high standard of accomplishment in their field.”

He has been Artistic Director of the Kansas City Chorale since 1988 and Chorus Director for the Kansas City Symphony since 2008. He is also Director of Music for Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church. In his spare time, Bruffy breeds and raises Arabian and Saddlebred horses on his ranch just south of Kansas City in Cass County, Missouri.

The Kansas City Chorale

Charles Bruffy


Robert Gibby Brand could not be more delighted to be a part of this concert. A professional actor, he has been seen on most stages in the KC area. However, his other great love is classical music. He’s

had the privilege of performing or doing similar narration for the Kansas City Ballet, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Bach Aria Soloists, and the KC Baroque Ensemble. As a proud English and Philosophy major (Ohio Wesleyan University), he is delighted to delve into these texts and share them with you.

Robert Gibby Brand

Stile Antico is firmly established as one of the world’s most accomplished and innovative

vocal ensembles. Working without a conductor, its twelve members have thrilled audiences on four continents with their fresh, vibrant, and moving performances of Renaissance polyphony. Its bestselling recordings have earned accolades including the Gramophone Award for Early Music, Diapason d’or de l’année, Edison Klassiek Award, and Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. The group has received three Grammy® nominations, and performed live at the 60th Grammy® Awards at Madison Square Garden.

Based in London, Stile Antico has appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals. The group enjoys a particularly close

association with Wigmore Hall, and has performed at the BBC Proms, Buckingham Palace, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Cité de la Musique, Luxembourg Philharmonie, and Leipzig Gewandhaus. Stile Antico is frequently invited to appear at Europe’s leading festivals: highlights include the Antwerp, Bruges, Utrecht and York Early Music Festivals, the Lucerne Easter Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Stile Antico’s performances are often praised for their immediacy, expressive commitment, and their sensitive and imaginative response to text. These qualities arise from the group’s collaborative working style: members rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing artistically to the musical results.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stile Antico has thrown its energy into digital projects, producing a "virtual choir" recording of Tallis’s Spem in Alium, a music film to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, and a series of lecture-recitals, Sundays with Stile, as well as giving live-streamed concerts from Wigmore Hall and the York Early Music Festival. In early 2021, the group gives further streamed concerts for Boston Early Music Festival, Live From London, and St Martin-in-the-Fields, and releases its first recording on the Decca Classics label, marking 500 years since the death of Josquin.

Stile Antico


BRENTANO QUARTET

This concert is sponsored by the Sosland Foundation.

String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71 No. 2, Hob. III:70 Adagio; Allegro Adagio Menuetto: Allegro

Joseph Haydn(1732–1809)

Contrapunctus II from The Art of Fugue Johann Sebastian Bach(1685–1750)

Friday, January 14, 2022 · 7:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

inTernaTional Chamber musiC series

ContraDictions Bruce Adolphe(b. 1955)

Contrapunctus XI from The Art of Fugue Bach

'Lude Steven Mackey(b. 1956)

String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135 Allegretto Vivace Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo Grave ma non troppo tratto; Allegro

Serena Canin, violin Mark Steinberg, violinMisha Amory, viola

Nina Lee, cello

Ludwig van Beethoven(1770–1827)


Program Notes

JOSEPH HAYDN(b. Rohrau, Lower Austria, March 31, 1732; d. Vienna, May 31, 1809)

Composition: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71 No. 2, Hob. III:70

Composed: 1793

Published: London, 1795

Contemporary Works: Haydn's Symphony No. 99 in E-flat Major, Hob.I:99 (1793); Haydn's Symphony No. 101 in D Major, "The Clock," Hob.1:101 (1794); Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Op. 2, dedicated to Haydn, (1793–95)

Events in the World: Second inauguration of George Washington as U.S. president (May 4, 1793); Reign of Terror during the French Revolution (September 5, 1793–July 28, 1794); Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is published (1796)

Approximate duration: 16 minutes

Haydn is justly celebrated for his symphonies, whose crowning glory are the dozen works known collectively as the "London Symphonies." They fall into two groups of six, each associated with one of Haydn’s trips to England in the 1790s. Their premiere performances in London’s Hanover Square Rooms were major social events as well as cultural milestones.

Many music lovers do not realize how prolifically Haydn composed during these two English sojourns. He wrote a considerable number of sonatas and other works for solo piano and quite a bit of chamber music. The latter category included six quartets dedicated to Count Anton Georg Apponyi, a Hungarian nobleman who was an enthusiastic music lover. The count served as Hungarian Chamberlain to the Imperial Viennese Court. His principal residence was in Pressburg (now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia), but he probably met Haydn in Vienna about 1784. They remained friendly and the count, a relative of Haydn’s employer Prince Esterházy, became one of Haydn’s patrons.

Haydn composed the six quartets late in 1793 in anticipation of his second trip to London. Because of his dedication, they have become known as the Apponyi Quartets. The London publishing house of

Corri & Dussek issued the first three in 1795 as Op. 71 and the second three as Op. 74 the following year. After Haydn’s return to Vienna, the firm of Artaria published all six in Austria.

Haydn actually wrote the series to be played by the quartet of Johann Peter Salomon, the German violinist and impresario who had brought him to London in the first place. Salomon was also a champion of quartets by Ignace Pleyel and Adalbert Gyrowetz. To some extent, Haydn embraced those composers’ newer style. For example, from Pleyel—who had been Haydn’s student—the older composer learned about textural variety, argument, and eventual agreement among four players. Salomon was a virtuoso, but in the Apponyi set, the first violin does less showing off than in many of Haydn’s earlier quartets. Indeed, Haydn’s writing is more for four quasi-soloists, a reflection of the instrumental strength Salomon had in his quartet. The emphasis is on the ensemble rather than the individual.

Rosemary Hughes calls this D major work "the most orchestral in aspiration" of all Haydn’s string quartets. It earns that designation in part because of its slow introduction. Although Haydn favored this method of beginning in nearly all his mature symphonies, this is the sole example among the quartets. That stated, all but one of Opp. 71 and 74 have some sort of introduction: sometimes a single chord, sometimes a few bars in a brisk tempo. Here alone is it slow, immediately inviting comparison to the symphonies (though hardly on their scope).

The scant four measures that open Op. 71 No. 2 serve two functions. The first is to quieten the audience as an attention-getter: "The music will now begin." The second is to hint at the thematic material, specifically through the descending octave of the first violin’s opening gesture and the scalar passage in the fourth measure in a duet with viola. When we arrive at the Allegro, leaping octaves are the meat of the main theme. The viola and cello parts cross to initiate an interlocking of parts like a miniature jigsaw puzzle. Similar wide leaps—now cascading downward—will return in the second theme and then again at the close of the exposition and the conclusion of the movement. Haydn also uses a sequence of the octaves to sail through several brief modulations in his recapitulation.

Thus from this most basic of intervals does Haydn spin his magic. To be sure, scalar passage work and other melodic motives enrich the texture, but Haydn reminds us continually that his foundation is simple—and that simplicity provides him with endless stimulation. He

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emphasizes texture, but flashes of startling harmonies enhance the first movement’s interest.

His slow movement is an operatic Andante cantabile in A major. At the start, it seems to favor the first violin, but the other three players all have their turn at more elaborate lines, sometimes in inner voices. Haydn sustains his slow tempo with rhythmic variety and more harmonic meandering and, later, with variation.

The cello opens the Menuetto with a descending arpeggio—seemingly a throwaway accompaniment figure, except that the first violin answers with an ascending arpeggio. Contrary motion and the broken triad are the basis for the movement, which unfolds in irregular phrase lengths. A two-note phrase on a weak beat adds an analogous hint of imbalance to the chorale-like trio.

Haydn’s finale is almost a practical joke. It seems like a well-mannered folksy tune in foursquare phrases. The composer hints at his punch line with a D minor section that introduces rapid sixteenth notes in all four instruments. The opening segment returns, slightly varied. Then, as if the players have found their bearings, they burst into an Allegro coda that pushes all four members of the quartet to concertante style. The thoroughbred, hitherto restrained, has been given free rein.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH(b. Eisenach, March 21, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)

Composition: Contrapunctus II and Contrapunctus XI from The Art of Fugue

Composed: 1740–1750

Published: Leipzig, 1751

Contemporary works: Handel's opera Imeneo (1740 premiere); Bach's Goldberg Variations (1741); Telemann's cantata Musicalisches Lob Gottes in der Gemeine des Herrn (1744)

Events in the World: War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48); construction on the Alamo begins (1744); Catherine the Great marries Peter III of Russia (1745)

Approximate duration: 4 minutes, 8 minutes

The work that has come to be called Die Kunst der Fuge [The Art of Fugue] is among Bach’s most mysterious and baffling creations. The title is not his; it was assigned after his death. (Bach used the more generic label "Contrapunctus" for the individual movements.) Because one of the constituent fugues was incomplete when Bach died in 1750, scholars long assumed that The Art of Fugue was his last work. We now know that he composed most of BWV 1080 from about 1740 to 1742, returning to add a couple of movements in his final year. Even so, this magnum opus from the Baroque era’s greatest practitioner of counterpoint presents more questions than it answers.

The work is a collection of fugues and canons apparently intended to illustrate and exemplify all contrapuntal techniques. It comprises double, triple, and stretto fugues, many using invertible counterpoint. Bach even wrote some mirror fugues, the strictest form of inversion. Most of the fugues are in four parts; however, the collection also includes four two-part canons, which are technically the strictest (and simplest) form of counterpoint. One remarkable aspect of The Art of Fugue is that the same basic fugue subject—its main theme—recurs in each movement, in different guises. Bach ornaments the theme, changes its meter, and alters the rhythmic emphasis of the pitches, among other musical devices. Thus on one level, the entire series constitutes a giant set of variations.

Bach did not specify the order in which he intended the movements to be performed, nor did he specify what instruments he had in mind. Consequently,

Joseph Haydn


the individual movements are numbered differently in various editions. The Art of Fugue is available as printed music for solo harpsichord, organ, brass quintet, and many other instrumental combinations, including chamber orchestra. The Brentano Quartet’s performance of these two Contrapuncti is consistent with the flexible performance practice historically associated with this work.

* * * * *

In 2002, the Brentano Quartet commissioned ten composers in observance of the ensemble’s tenth anniversary. Each one was asked to select a movement from Bach’s The Art of Fugue and write a companion piece to precede or follow the Baroque original. The works we hear by Bruce Adolphe and Steven Mackey were part of that larger endeavor, which was dubbed the Bach Perspectives Project.

Mr. Adolphe chose "Contrapunctus II," an old-style four-voiced fugue, as the basis for ContraDictions. Bach’s original uses a single form of the subject, with a dotted-rhythm countersubject. "Contrapunctus XI," the basis for Mr. Mackey’s 'Lude, is more complex and longer: a four-voiced triple fugue with linked countersubjects. Heavy chromaticism and some startling harmonic turns make for surprising dissonance in Bach’s closing section.

BRUCE ADOLPHE(b. New York, 1955)

Composition: ContraDictions

Composed and published: 2002

Other works from this period: Memories of a Possible Future (2002), Philip Glass's Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2002), George Crumb's Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (2001)

Events in the World (2002): The euro replaces existing currencies in 12 European countries; the Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah; Jimmy Carter receives the Nobel Peace Prize


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Bruce Adolphe

Johann Sebastian Bach

Known to NPR's "Performance Today" listeners for his Piano Puzzlers series, Bruce Adolphe describes himself as a pianist who doesn’t practice. But if you press him, he allows that he studied bassoon and clarinet as well for a number of years. Along the way, he also learned to fend creditably with flute, classical guitar, viola, and string bass for a jazz ensemble. His extraordinary flexibility has helped him develop an innate sense of how instrumental timbres interact and mesh.


Adolphe earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Juilliard School. He has subsequently served on the faculties of NYU, Yale, and Juilliard’s pre-college division, and has also been composer-in-residence at numerous festivals and concert series throughout the USA. He composed ContraDictions as part of the Bach Perspectives Project, and describes it as "a reaction to Bach’s Contrapunctus No. 2." His composer’s note follows:

Like an actor preparing to play the part of a great historical figure, I combed carefully through The Art of Fugue looking for aspects of myself, for something that might connect my world to Bach’s in a sonically tangible way. Playing through Contrapunctus No. 2, I found that certain passing dissonances, if put on pause, so to speak, sounded like harmonies I have used as building blocks in my music. Encouraged by this small discovery, I used the phrases of Bach as a "table of contents" to open my piece, allowing the listener to hear exactly how the connections were made.

Steadied by this harmonic rudder, I set sail and allowed Bach’s obsessive rhythms to propel my piece forward. Once in motion, I found that the famous theme itself could flap freely in the winds of inspiration. Also of great importance to me was the Brentano Quartet itself. Having become enamored of their ability to make music shimmer and glisten, I wrote music that I hoped would allow them employ a wide range of those textures that they alone use in quartet playing.

Adolphe’s perspective is meditative and decidedly personal. We wait a while before hearing Bach’s subject, which emerges as a cantus firmus through the fabric of Adolphe’s own musings. The dotted rhythms of Contrapunctus No. 2 are readily perceptible.

STEVEN MACKEY(b. Frankfurt, 1956)

Composition: 'Lude

Composed and published: 2002

Other works from this period: Mackey's Pedal Tones (2001–02); Steve Reich's opera Three Tales (2002); Peter Maxwell Davies's Naxos Quartet No. 1 (2002)

Events in the World (2002): Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother dies; George W. Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Nelson Mandela; Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind wins 4 Academy Awards


It’s not your average composer who writes a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra (Tuck and Roll, 2000). Nor is the norm one who did not discover classical music until his teens—a time when many young virtuosi are launching careers. Steven Mackey has taken an unusual route to his current status as one of America’s foremost composers.

Mackey was born to American parents stationed in Germany. He grew up in Northern California playing guitar in rock bands and acknowledges his roots in rock’n’roll and blues. During his teenage years, his interests expanded to jazz, fusion, and, eventually, classical music. In college at UC-Davis, he studied guitar and lute, then took up formal study of composition at SUNY Stony Brook. He completed his education at Brandeis, where he earned a doctorate in 1985. That year, he was appointed to the Princeton faculty; in 1993, he became a professor.

Other American composers have adapted elements of rock into their music —Christopher Rouse and John Adams come to mind—but Mackey’s perspective is unique. The bent pitches of electric guitar, for example, play a role in many of his works. "I am fascinated by the sensation of movement in composition," he has written. "Journey metaphors are often aptly applied to my music. I’m interested . . . in transformation, for a sense that something—the material, me, the listener—is changed by the journey. As a result, my music tends to be a one-way trip," he has said.

His approach to Bach’s Contrapunctus XI from The Art of Fugue is akin to a free fantasy. His composer’s note explains his title and the various stages—his term for sections—of his composition:


In 'Lude, my aim was to use melodic and rhythmic materials from Bach’s Contrapunctus XI in new contrapuntal contexts that would stake out a musical territory that I could claim as my own, in sharp contrast to Bach. I was not interested in rhetorical opposition to Bach but rather an earnest characterization, using Bach’s themes, of where I stand as an American composer working in the early 21st century. I’ve always been interested in exploring the edges that delineate contrast. By interspersing 'Lude around and inside Contrapunctus XI, I had four edges to work with: as a pre-Lude, my music recedes gently and allows Contrapunctus XI to emerge. As an inter-Lude I latched on to a particularly obsessive patch of Contrapunctus XI and extended the obsession until it reached escape velocity and found its way back to 'Lude. The most challenging transition for me was returning from 'Lude back to Bach. It is quite a drawn out process, culminating in what I hope is a gentle little bump as the tempo of 'Lude downshifts to the tempo of Contrapunctus XI...After the Bach ends, the post-Lude dances off into the distance.

'Lude borrows from beyond the raw material of Bach’s Contrapunctus, opening with a bold statement of Bach’s signature motive: the pitches B-flat, A, C, and B-natural. (In German musical orthography, the four notes "spell" B-A-C-H.) That motive figures prominently in Mackey’s pre-Lude, before proceeding to The Art of Fugue principal subjects. All are ingeniously interwoven with Mackey’s distinctive and hybrid language.

No audience as knowledgeable as the Friends of Chamber Music needs to be reminded of the significance and depth of Beethoven’s late string quartets. What may come as a surprise in hearing this evening’s closing composition, the last quartet, is its brevity. The other late quartets are lengthy and monumental. The Grosse Fuge takes 17 minutes; Op.131 in C-sharp Minor comprises seven movements, and the five movements of Op.132 in A Minor exceed three quarters of an hour in performance. What, then, are we to make of Opus 135, whose modest and apparently conventional four movements elapse in a mere 25 minutes, the approximate length of a mature Haydn or Mozart quartet?

The answers to this question are complex. The simple response is akin to the proverb “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” For Opus 135 is as extraordinary as its siblings. Its slow movement is as transporting, its scherzo as wild and experimental, its finale as mysterious and thought-provoking as anything that Beethoven composed. Part of the quartet’s mystery is its terseness. Opus 135 is economical in the extreme. Beethoven wasted not a note, composing with an intensity that recalls the Quartetto Serioso, Op.95 in F Minor.

Beethoven sketched Opus 135 when he was completing the C-sharp Minor quartet, Op.131. His concentrated work on the F Major quartet commenced in late July, 1826. On 30 July, his nephew Karl attempted suicide. That catastrophe does not surface openly in the music of Opus 135, but knowledge of its occurrence heightens the quartet’s enigmatic character. Beethoven completed it in October during a visit to Gneixendorf, where he visited his brother Nikolaus Johann (Karl’s other uncle). This quartet was Beethoven’s last completed composition.

The opening Allegretto is the most traditional of the four movements and the least confounding.

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Steven Mackey

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN(b. [baptized] Bonn, December 17, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Composition String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135

Published: 1827



Its melodic material is fairly straightforward and the dialogue among the four players is direct. From the second movement on, however, Opus 135 gets progressively more challenging, subtly drawing the listener into Beethoven’s private demons and ecstasies. His Vivace, a wild movement of less than four minutes, is formally lopsided, allotting disproportionate time and musical substance to its middle trio section. It opens with a lurching, syncopated ride and a decidedly sarcastic undertone. The middle section shifts startlingly to G Major, launching into a buzzing, virtuosic scramble among the three lower strings, while the first violin dances demonically up above. It is a strange, unsettling movement.

The slow movement is one of Beethoven’s sublime variations sets. The Lento assai cantante e tranquillo is a ten-measure theme in D-flat Major with four variations. In two of them, we hear the theme as an undercurrent. Rather than state it explicitly, Beethoven implies it through the shimmer and richness of his string writing.

The finale has a German superscription in the printed score: Der schwer gefaßte Entschuss, usually translated “The hard-won decision” or “The difficult resolution.” This motto is followed by a musical example and the words “Muss es sein? Es muss sein!” [Must it be? It must be!], the name of a canon Beethoven also composed in 1827. Musicians have long debated whether Beethoven was probing the fundamental questions of existence.

At least two stories associated with this canon are considerably more down to earth. According to one anecdote, a music-loving Viennese court official named Ignaz Dembscher had missed the Schuppanzigh Quartet’s performance of Beethoven’s Op.130 in March 1826. Beethoven was adamant that Dembscher should honor his financial commitment and send Ignaz Schuppanzigh the price of his subscription all the same. Dembscher allegedly asked, “Must it be?” Beethoven sent him the canon in response. The other version of the story is that Dembscher wanted to borrow the parts to Op.130 for a private performance and Beethoven insisted he pay for them, since Dembscher had not been an original subscriber at the quartet’s première.

Whichever tale is true, there is a dichotomy between the weighty implications of two German headings and the practical explanation implied by these stories. Beethoven’s finale is similarly divided. The introduction (based on the first phrase of the canon) is mysterious and questioning. The bulk of the movement (based on

the canon’s second phrase) is lighter: if not capricious, then certainly more accessible and direct. Beethoven’s strange introduction is part of this quartet’s enigma, just as his allegro is part of its reassuring charm. He leaves us considerable leeway to arrive at our own conclusions as to his motivation.


Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate,

uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols its “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism;” and the Philadelphia Inquirer praises its “seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture. ”

The Quartet has performed across five continents in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and the Sydney Opera House.

The Quartet has launched numerous projects that reimagine the standard concert program. In 2002, they celebrated their tenth anniversary by commissioning ten composers to write companion pieces for selections from Bach’s The Art of Fugue, the result of which was an electrifying and wide-ranging single concert program. Fourteen years later, they revisited Bach’s masterpiece, performing the entire work in an ambitious multimedia project at the 92nd Street Y in New York with dancers, narrated excerpts, and an installation by artist Gabriel Calatrava. Recently, the Quartet presented a second multimedia project at the Y, which juxtaposed the poetry of Wallace Stevens with late Beethoven and music by composer Martin Bresnick. Other projects have included a three-program examination of select composers' late style, presented at Carnegie Hall; a program surveying the music of lamentation over the last 300 years crowned by Bartók’s Second Quartet; and numerous adaptations of music from Renaissance and early Baroque, including works by Josquin, Gesualdo, Purcell, and Monteverdi.

The Quartet has been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Richard Goode, and Mitsuko Uchida. The Quartet also maintains a strong commitment to new music and has expanded the quartet canon by commissioning works from some of the most important composers of our time, among them Bruce Adolphe, Matthew Aucoin, Gabriela Frank, Stephen Hartke, Vijay Iyer, Steven Mackey, and Charles Wuorinen. Upcoming commissions and collaborations include a new quartet from Chinese composer Lei Liang, a viola quintet from James MacMillan, and a large-scale dramatic work, “Dido Reimagined,” from composer Melinda Wagner and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, to be performed with soprano Dawn Upshaw.

Dedicated and highly sought after as educators, the Quartet are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they perform in concert each semester, work closely with students in chamber music contexts, and spearhead the instruction at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in the summers. The Quartet has given numerous master classes and workshops across the country, and returns annually to the Taos School of Music as visiting faculty. In 2013 and 2017, the Quartet assisted at the Cliburn International Piano Competition, performing quintets with competitors in the final rounds. Before coming to Yale, the Quartet served for fifteen years as Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University.

The Quartet has recorded extensively, releasing discs of quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, as well as a recording of the Schubert Cello Quintet with Michael Kannen. The Quartet has also recorded music by several contemporary composers, among them Bruce Adolphe, Chou Wen-chung, Steven Mackey, and Charles Wuorinen. The Quartet’s recording of Beethoven’s Quartet, Op. 131 was featured in the film A Late Quartet starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken, released in 2012. In 2017, they recorded a live album with Joyce DiDonato, Into the Fire—Live from Wigmore Hall, which included works by Strauss, Debussy, Guillaume Lekeu, and Jake Heggie for Warner Classics. Their most recent release features the K. 428 and K. 465 (“Dissonance”) Quartets of Mozart for the Azica label.

Awards and honors include the first Cleveland Quartet Award (1995); the Naumburg Chamber Music Award (1995); inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two at the CMS of Lincoln Center (1996); and the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut (at Wigmore Hall in 1997.)

The Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” the intended recipient of his famous love confession.

Brentano String Quartet


The muriel mCbrien KauFFman masTer PianisT series

GARRICK OHLSSON

This concert is sponsored by Mdivani Corporate Immigration Law Firm, LLC

Sonata No. 4 in E-flat Major, Op. 7 Allegro molto e con brio Largo, con gran espressione Allegro Rondo. Poco allegretto e grazioso

Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36


Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 36 Allegro inquieto; Andantino Andante caloroso Precipitato

Sergei Prokofiev(1891–1953)

Frédéric Chopin(1810–1849)

Friday, January 28, 2022 · 7:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

Five Etudes from Op. 10 No. 8 in F Major. Allegro No. 9 in F Minor. Allegro, molto agitato No. 10 in A-flat Major. Vivace assai No. 11 in E-flat Major. Allegretto No. 12 in C Minor. Allegro con fuoco

Chopin

Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 Chopin


Program Notes


Composition Sonata No. 4 in E-flat Major, Op. 7

Composed: 1796–97

Published: Vienna, 1797

Other works from this period: Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (1791); Haydn's London Symphonies (1791–95); Beethoven's Op. 2 Piano Sonatas dedicated to Joseph Haydn (published 1796)

Events in the World: President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address (1790); France becomes a constitutional monarchy (1791); Edward Jenner pioneers the concept of vaccination (1796)


Beethoven’s life was richly populated with fascinating individuals, many of whom were his students and patrons—or both. One way he acknowledged their support was through the dedications of his compositions. The Sonata in E-flat, published by the Viennese house of Artaria (pronounced Ahr-tah-REE-uh) in October 1797, appeared with a dedication to Countess Babette von Keglevics. She probably began studying with him that year, when she was about 17. Her family were from Pressburg [now Bratislava] but maintained a second home in Vienna. She must have been a gifted student, for Beethoven subsequently dedicated three other works to her, including the First Piano Concerto. Countess Keglevics married Prince Innocenz d’Erba-Odescalchi, an imperial chamberlain, in 1801. The couple maintained a musical salon in Vienna; we know that Beethoven’s Septet Op. 20 was performed at one of their soirées.

At this early stage of his career, Beethoven favored a four movement structure in his sonatas and piano trios. The E-flat Sonata is one of his largest-scale sonatas and was downright enormous for its day. (Including customary repeats in the first and third movements, it takes more than half an hour in performance.) Beethoven clearly recognized this, for he insisted on its independent publication as a Grande Sonate, rather

than as part of a set of three. Op. 7 is a prime early example of him expanding form, as he would continue to do in trios, the string quartet, and perhaps above all the symphony. Indeed, this sonata is symphonic in scope, stretching the confines of the keyboard, particularly the fortepiano of the mid-1790s.

From the thrumming repeated left hand notes of the opening measures and the bold gestural chords above it, this music demands: "Sit up and notice me!" The quiet start hints that an explosive, dramatic restatement will occur in short order, and Beethoven delivers. With variety, energy, rhythmic changes, and forward momentum, he propels this Allegro molto e con brio forward with urgency. Brilliant sixteenth notes at the conclusion of the exposition return in the coda, adding virtuoso flourish. The repeated triplet eighth notes in the left hand accompany, driving home the inevitability of the final cadence.

The slow movement, a Largo, con gran espressione in C major, demonstrates how Beethoven achieved nobility and profondeur in the piano sonatas far sooner than in other genres. Reaching toward the sublime, he foretells the grandeur and expanse of more mature compositions. The chromatic descending bass octaves in the coda are absolutlely spine-tingling.

The minuet/trio, marked simply Allegro, shows Beethoven both well-mannered and witty, with clever touches of imitation punctuated by sudden dynamic changes. Some textural elements—repeated left hand notes and chordal gestures—link it subtly to the first movement. The trio is notable for its dark tonality (in E-flat minor, the parallel minor), with the melody emerging through the blur of rapidly executed triplets.

The sonata concludes with a gracious rondo, more Schubertian than Beethovenian in its main theme. The contrasting episodes are vintage Beethoven, however, replete with sudden sforzati, liberal sharing of ideas between left and right hands, and plenty of figuration both delicate and flashy. The second episode erupts in C minor, with a thunderstorm of perpetual motion 32nd notes illuminated by chordal lightning flashes. Beethoven’s transition back to the elegance of his main rondo theme is as masterful as it is unexpected. Careful listeners will also discern the importance of the repeated note, referring once again to the rhetorical language of the first movement. The coda transforms the stormy texture of the C minor section, allowing the movement to close with the quiet grace of its opening.

Mozart had only been gone six years when Beethoven

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composed Op. 7. Haydn was still very much alive; his last—and greatest—piano trios date from the same year, 1797. Beethoven’s sonata is completely different from anything that Mozart or Haydn composed: a stunning declaration of his bold and original genius.

The publication of Prokofiev’s Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Piano Sonatas as Opp. 82, 83, and 84 seems to link them chronologically, and they have been historically grouped as a wartime trilogy. In fact, Prokofiev sketched all three sonatas in 1939, before Europe erupted into war. The premieres took place between 1940 and 1944; publication followed in 1941, 1943, and 1946, respectively. The association with the Second World War has clung particularly closely to the Seventh Sonata, probably because of its violent, forceful rhythms.

Prokokiev composed for piano throughout his career. His sonatas span the period from 1907 to the end of his life. When he died in March 1953, he left a tenth sonata incomplete and was planning an eleventh. Yet the so-called wartime trilogy followed a hiatus of sixteen years during which he had ignored the solo sonata. It is as if he had been storing up a wealth of ideas and the floodgates opened.

Although one cannot ignore World War II in any consideration of these three works, the Seventh Sonata is more closely linked to crisis in Prokofiev’s personal life. His marriage to his first wife, the Spanish singer Lina Llubera, had been disintegrating since the mid-1930s. He met the young writer Mira Mendelson in 1939; they soon became lovers. In March 1941, he left Lina and began living with Mira. (They eventually married in 1948.)

After Hitler’s armies invaded the USSR in the summer of 1941, Prokofiev and Mira’s existence became nomadic. That August, the Soviet authorities ordered large numbers of artists to evacuate to Nalchik in the Southern Caucasus. In December, with Nazi troops just 200 miles away, the couple was relocated to Tbilisi. There, in the first months of 1942, Prokofiev worked on

SERGEI PROKOFIEV(b. Sontsovka, Bakhmutsk region, Yekaterinoslav district, Ukraine, April 23, 1891; d. Moscow, March 5, 1953)

Composition Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83

Composed: 1939–42

Other works from this period: Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 (1944); Price's Symphony No. 3 (1940); Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 5 (1938–43)

Events in the World: Winston Churchill serves as prime minister (1940–45); attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941); the founding of the United Nations (1945)


Ludwig van Beethoven


the Seventh Piano Sonata and his first draft of the opera War and Peace. He completed the sonata on May 2, 1942, then traveled with Mira to Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, to begin work on his next large project: director Sergei Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible.

The couple returned to Moscow for two months at New Year’s 1943, in part to attend Sviatoslav Richter’s first performance of the new sonata. The premiere on January 18 was a musical milestone for the Soviets, who perceived music, cinema, theater, and the other

arts as propaganda vehicles to assert Soviet cultural superiority. Two months later, Prokofiev was awarded a Stalin Prize for the Seventh Sonata.

The piece is a striking combination of percussive, brittle writing with passages that verge on reverence. Although Prokofiev identifies the sonata as being in B-flat major, there is no key signature. The first movement opens with persistent march rhythms, demonic and forceful, then changes abruptly to a dreamy Andantino in alternating 9/8 and 6/8 meter.

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Sergei Prokofiev


FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN(b. near Warsaw, March 1, 1810; d. Paris, October 17, 1849)

Compositions: Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36 (1839); Five Études from Op. 10 (1833); Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 (1842–43)

Other works from this period: Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (1830); Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (1835); Schumann's Dichterliebe, Op. 48 (1840)

Events in the World: Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical reaper (1831); Queen Victoria ascends the British throne (1837); the New York Philharmonic is founded (1842)

Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36

The Romantic era flourished especially brilliantly in piano music. Beginning in the 1820s, a bevy of smaller forms began to eclipse traditional structures like sonatas. The rise of the miniature coincided almost exactly with Frédéric Chopin’s coming of age. Although he also composed three fine piano sonatas

A CODED MESSAGE?

The opening theme of the Seventh Sonata’s slow movement bears a striking resemblance to Robert Schumann’s “Wehmut” [Melancholy], No. 9 in the cycle published as Liederkreis, Op. 39 (1842). Both pieces are in E major, and the contour of Prokofiev’s melody is indeed close to Schumann’s. Daniel Jaffé, in his biography of Prokofiev, perceives a secret meaning that derives from Joseph Eichendorff’s text:

Sometimes I may be singingAs if I were full of joy,But secretly tears are flowing,And then my heart feels free.The nightingales will sing,When spring breezes play outside, Their melody of yearningOut of their prison’s tomb.Then all the hearts are listening,And everyone is glad, But none can feel the sorrows,The bitter grief in the song.

Jaffé’s point is that Prokofiev sketched most of the sonata’s themes in 1939, when he was far more concerned with the impact of Stalin’s purges than by the threat of war.

His theory is borne out by the reminiscences of Sviatoslav Richter, the pianist who premiered the Seventh Sonata and who became the foremost interpreter of Prokofiev’s piano music. Richter recalled:

The audiences perceived the spirit of the composition as if it were reflecting everything with which they lived, just as they did when they heard Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony for the first time. Right from the start the sonata projects you into an alarming atmosphere of a world that has lost its balance, so to speak. Disorder and uncertainty reign supreme. Man is observing the havoc of destructive forces. But life . . . does not cease to exist for him. He still senses it, he is still capable of love. And with these emotions he addresses himself to everybody. He joins everyone in their protests and common suffering. Then comes a sudden stiffness of will and desire for victory which sweeps away everything in its path. Man gains strength in his struggle and achieves gigantic power which assert life itself.

Although the Soviets seized on Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (the "Leningrad") as a patriotic symbol of resistance to the Nazis in wartime, Shostakovich conceived most of the symphony in 1939, before the outbreak of war and the German invasion. Richter knew this, of course. His description of Prokofiev’s Sonata reads like an alternative program for the sonata, suggesting the composer’s personal and political subtext for all three movements. – L.S. ©2021

Prokofiev alternates tension and repose, but the overriding mood is summed up in his marking Allegro inquieto [anxious]. The flowing Andantino returns, but nervousness and anxiety ultimately carry the movement.

Caloroso means warm. Rich, sonorous harmonies in E major and A-flat major link this slow movement to the romantic tradition. At least one scholar finds both a quotation from Schumann and a coded message in this movement (see sidebar). It unfolds as a slow waltz, building to a dramatic climax in the middle Poco più animato. Twice, Prokofiev requires runs of 64th notes in the right hand against 32nds in the left. The chords are big and far flung, approaching the clangor of church bells. A mysterious, hypnotic transition returns to the opening E major theme..The sonata’s show-stopper is its perpetual motion finale, marked Precipitato. It is indeed precipitous, with a lurching 7/8 meter punctuated by ostinato octaves on B-flat and D-flat in the left hand. The movement falls squarely in the toccata tradition, requiring flexibility and strength, clarity, and lightning quick reflexes. Satanic, propulsive, and chaotic, this is music to make the heart pound. It has helped to make the Seventh the most popular of Prokofiev’s nine sonatas.


and one for cello and piano, his genius flowered richly in one movement essays, such as ballades, scherzi, and polonaises, and in smaller character and dance-inspired pieces: waltzes, nocturnes, études, preludes, mazurkas, and impromptus.

The term "impromptu" suggests spur-of-the-moment inspiration, generally liberating the composer from formal restrictions. Chopin composed four works with that title, the most familiar of which is the flashy Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. Posth. 66. It dates from summer 1839, the first extended period he spent with George Sand at her country estate, Nohant. With his frail health temporarily restored, he basked in the peaceful French countryside, completing his "Funeral March" Piano Sonata, Op. 35, the Op. 41 Mazurkas, the Nocturne in G Major, Op. 37, and the Impromptu in F-sharp Major.

In keeping with its title, the structure is free, moving from one section to the next in a series of startling modulations and textural shifts. In terms of mood, the impromptu is something of a cross between a nocturne and a ballade. A six-measure introduction in the left hand establishes a dreamy atmosphere, which Chopin sustains after the right hand joins with the principal theme. He interrupts the reverie with a brisk march

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Frédéric Chopin, www.hadikarimi.com

in D major, then returns to the main theme, now in F major—a startling change from his home key, now with accompanying triplets. After an astonishing modulation that returns him to F-sharp major, Chopin launches into a gossamer flight of right hand filigree. The last moments of the impromptu are sheer magic.

Five Études from Op. 10

Many of Chopin’s predecessors and contemporaries—notably Clementi, Cramer, and Czerny—composed studies for the piano. Such works were intended not for performance, but for the practice room. They were to assist the student in developing technique by addressing specific challenges in fingering, evenness of touch, dexterity, and other practical matters.

In Chopin’s hands, the study, or étude, became a work of musical art worthy of concert hall presentation. His two sets of études, published as Op. 10 (1833) and Op. 25 (1837), are a Mount Everest for pianists. Each one is exceedingly difficult in a different way; all of them dazzle the ear with effects that seem near impossible to achieve by two hands on a keyboard. Musically, both sets are spontaneous and superbly crafted.


Étude No.8 in F Major is an arpeggio study for the right hand. But, oh, what magic Chopin creates in this sparkler of a movement! The lightning-quick right hand requires lightness of touch and laser-sharp accuracy to deliver Chopin’s quicksilver colors and harmonic changes. The left hand has a strong rhythmic profile based on a recurring dotted rhythm. A poetic coda brings the étude to a delicious close.

The F Minor Étude that follows is marked Allegro molto agitato. Chopin suggests the agitation via a melody that does not enter on the downbeat, which results in a hiccup-y, nervous character. The left hand reinforces the agitation with constant rotating movement that gives the étude its propulsive momentum. Plaintive and urgent, this étude surprises with its emotional intensity.

Cross-rhythms are featured in the A-flat Major Étude, No. 10. At once brilliant and lyrical, it challenges the pianist with contrasts in accents. Chopin alternates passages in short phrases with staccato right hand passages. Accurate and sensitive pedaling is essential to delivering this mercurial, chromatic étude in a scant 2-1/2 minutes. Although the language is unmistakably Chopinesque, there are some surprising foreshadowings of Brahmsian textures.

Widely spaced arpeggiated chords in both hands give the E-flat Major Étude a harp-like texture. These extended broken chords demand finger control and wrist flexibility, as well as careful pedaling to ensure that the melody is audible.

The Op. 10 set concludes with the so-called "Revolutionary" Étude, arguably the most famous of all Chopin’s études. While the other ones Mr. Ohlsson plays tonight were composed in 1829, this one dates from September 1831. Chopin wrote it upon learning that the Polish rebellion against the Russians had collapsed, and that Russian forces now occupied Warsaw. His angry defiance is inherent in the explosive music, marked Allegro con fuoco. Technically, this étude is the inverse of No. 8. Now the arpeggiated activity is focused in the left hand, while the right hand delivers Chopin’s fiery chordal melody. The passages in octave unison are especially difficult, and the one at the end brings the Op. 10 set to a suitably dramatic close.

Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52

Perhaps the best known and best loved of Chopin’s large-scale, single movement works, the four Ballades tease us by their very name. Are we to construe them as program music, inspired by a literary source whose story is communicated by the music? Or, are they romantic flights of the composer’s imagination, free of specifics, leaving the listener to infer an individualized

abstract drama from the music?

Some critics have found the Op. 52 Ballades to be closely rooted in sonata form, the most conceptual and architectonic of all absolute music. Others liken them to an instrumental tone poem of rhapsodic character, without a specific story. Either way, they are cornerstones of the keyboard literature and unquestionably among Chopin's greatest achievements.

Chopin was the first composer to employ the term "ballade" for an instrumental work. His Ballades vary widely in form, structure, and mood. He never intended them to be construed as a group; indeed, their composition took place over a period of a dozen years. Nevertheless, a strong sense of rhythm pervades all of them and their repeated metrical patterns leave as much of an impression as the themes.

Chopin’s sublime melodies do generate the structure, however. Rather than separate episodes, the music of the Ballades unfolds as a continuous, organic, and integrated whole. Bridge passages unfold with commanding, persuasive logic. Phrases overlap, leading us gently but firmly forward with a sense of inevitability. Momentum increases to culminate in a climactic peroration: the dramatic coda.

The Fourth Ballade, composed in 1842 and published in 1843, displays Chopin in his full maturity. The hesitant material of the introduction is integral to the musical texture. Chopin’s haunting main theme is worthy of his finest nocturnes. He develops the theme through extended variation technique, starting with a simple waltz accompaniment. That choice is striking, since the waltz was associated with lightheartedness, yet here the composer probes its dramatic potential.

Irregular phrase lengths heighten the dreamy atmosphere. The tension builds as the texture grows more agitated, driving to a brief cadenza. Chopin then presents his main theme in a two-part canon, a stark gesture that throws a spotlight on the theme’s underlying anguish and allows him to resume his variation treatment seamlessly. The thunderous climax that ensues leaves one gasping for breath. Eight bars of chorale provide brief respite before the coda explodes: a take-no-prisoners peroration on all that has preceded. This is music of sublime power and tragedy.

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2021


Garrick Ohlsson

S ince his triumph as the first American winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has

established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial, interpretive, and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as his command of the Romantic repertoire.

In the 2018/19 season he launched an ambitious project spread over two seasons exploring the complete solo piano works of Brahms in four different programs. The cycle was heard in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, London and a number of cities across North America. In concerto repertoire ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Brahms and Barber, he

will return to the Nashville, Oregon, Dallas, Detroit and Colorado Symphonies. Internationally he can be heard with orchestras in Seoul, Helsinki, Zagreb, Tallinn, Manchester and London.

A frequent guest Australian orchestras, Mr. Ohlsson has recently visited Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart as well as the New Zealand Symphony in Wellington and Auckland. In February 2020 embarked on a seven city recital tour across Australia.

An avid chamber musician, Mr. Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo and Takacs string quartets, including most recently Boston Chamber Players on tour in Europe. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. Passionate about singing and singers, Mr. Ohlsson has appeared in recital with such legendary artists as Magda Olivero, Jessye Norman, and Ewa Podleś.


VLADIMIR FELTSMAN

This concert is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Irvine O. Hockaday, Jr. and theIrv and Ellen Hockaday Fund for the Friends of Chamber Music

Seven Bagatelles, Op. 33 No. 1 in E-flat Major: Andante grazioso quasi allegretto No. 2 in C Major: Scherzo–Allegro No. 3 in F Major: Allegretto No. 4 in A Major: Andante No. 5 in C Major: Allegro ma non troppo No. 6 in D Major: Allegretto quasi andante No. 7 in A-flat Major: Presto


Friday, February 11, 2022 · 7:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825 Prelude Allemande Courante Sarabande Minuet I Minuet II Gigue

Johann Sebastian Bach(1685–1750)

Four Impromptus, D. 935, Op. posth. 142 No. 1 in F Minor: Allegro moderato No. 2 in A-flat Major: Allegretto No. 3 in B-flat Major: Andante (Theme and Variations) No. 4 in F Minor: Allegro scherzando

Franz Schubert(1797–1828)



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Composition: Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825

Published: First published singly (Leipzig, 1727); published as Op.1 (Leipzig, 1731)

Contemporary works: Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (1721); Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (1725); Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733)

Events in the World: Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels (1726); Ben Franklin publishes the first edition of Poor Richard's Almanac (1732); Frederick the Great crowned king in Prussia (1740)


Bach’s six keyboard Partitas differ from his English and French suites in three principal respects. First, they are technically more difficult and require a larger keyboard. Second, their dance movements tend to be larger and more ambitious in scale. Finally, the Partitas are among the few of Bach’s compositions to be pub-lished during his lifetime. Furthermore, he had a hand in their publication and may even have been personal-ly responsible for their engraving. He began publishing them three and a half years after his move to Leipzig.

The First Partita holds a special place in the Bach can-on because it was the first composition whose publica-tion he oversaw. He worked with Balthasar Schmid, a Leipzig engraver. The Partita appeared in 1726 with a dedication to the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen. It is the best known of the Partitas and the most frequently record-ed. Bach was at the top of his game in his melodic and rhythmic ingenuity, and there is a wonderful playful-ness and tenderness to these movements.

Baroque suites were fairly standardized by Bach’s day: an opening movement followed by an allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Optional additional dances were customarily inserted between the sara-bande and gigue. In the First Partita, Bach interpolated a pair of minuets.

His texture is relatively light throughout, leaning toward a more galant, less rigorously polyphonic approach to these dances. Each of his seven move-ments has its own charm. Bach casts his prelude as a

three-part invention, expanding to four and five parts only for a decisive cadence in the last three bars. Only twenty-one measures long, this prelude is a thoroughly convincing and satisfying opening to the suite. Bach follows it with a dizzying and virtuosic allemande that requires smooth transference of the sixteenth-note mel-ody from one hand to the other.

The courante, though technically in standard binary form, is a precursor of sonata structure, with a short-ened recapitulation. Elegant ornamentation and subtly varied rhythms make the sarabande a model of ele-gance. Bach’s two minuets have a startling simplicity, especially in comparison to the virtuoso movements that flank them. The second minuet moves almost ex-clusively in quarter notes. Perhaps Bach sought to make at least some of the Partita accessible to less advanced players.

His gigue is singular in that the meter is in common time [4/4] rather than the customary 6/8. Bach requires hand crossings in every measure. The texture is akin to a toccata—or an étude. This movement was widely known throughout the late eighteenth and early nine-teenth centuries, even when most of Bach’s other music had fallen into oblivion.

Program Notes

St. Thomas's Church (foreground) and school (background) in Leipzig where Bach served as cantor.



Composition Seven Bagatelles, Op. 33Composed: 1801–02Published: Vienna and London, 1803

Other works from this period: Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ("Moonlight"); String Quintet in C Major, Op. 29; Three Violin Sonatas, Op. 30; Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36

Events in the World: Thomas Jefferson is the first president of the United States inaugurated in Washington, D.C. (1801); Treaty of Amiens achieves 14 months of peace during the Napoleonic Wars (1802–03); British engineer Richard Trevithick constructs the world’s first steam railway locomotive (1803)


The thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas are a corner-stone of the solo piano repertoire. Representing every stage of his career, their uniformly high quality has overshadowed his smaller piano works. Beethoven’s keyboard variations, particularly the magnificent Thirty Variations in C Minor, WoO 80 and the "Diabelli" set, Op.120, are justly celebrated. Less well-known are Beethoven’s more modest piano pieces, those written in the small forms that became increasingly favored by the early Romantics. Mr. Feltsman has chosen to open his program repertoire this evening with some of Bee-thoven’s off-the-beaten-track miniatures: his first set of Bagatellen, Op. 33.

Ultimately Beethoven produced three groups of pia-no pieces with the title Bagatellen; the later two were published in 1823 as Op.119 and Op.126. (Two other short pieces bear the title: a movement in B-flat from 1818, WoO 60, and the ubiquitous Für Elise, which Beethoven probably wrote for Therese Malfatti in 1808 or 1810. Für Elise was published posthumously and has had an extraordinary afterlife in the hands of millions of aspiring pianists.)

Bagatelle means trifle, bauble, or trinket; something frivolous. In music, it generally denotes a short, unpre-tentious piece, often in a salon style. These pieces are far from being trifles. Rather, they are, like great Lie-der (German art songs), compact expressions of life's essence. Few such pieces exist among Beethoven’s piano music. He was apparently the first composer to

assign the label to short, independent keyboard pieces. Beethoven's bagatelles were enormously influential on the generation of composers who followed him.

This first group was published in 1803; however, we know that some of them are teenage works. Bagatelle No.1 in E-flat, for example, is a rondo Beethoven wrote in 1788, when he was still in Bonn. Scholars hypothe-size that some of the Op. 33 bagatelles may have been quasi-exercises, addressing a specific technical chal-lenge. Others may have been discarded movements ini-tially intended for inclusion within a sonata; we do not know for certain. What is clear is that they were not in-tended to be a unified set. There is no logical tonal pro-gression–the key centers are E-flat, C, F, A, C, D, and A-flat. All are in major mode, though a couple have contrasting minor middle sections. Evidently Beethoven assembled them at the behest of his publisher, because the market for short keyboard pieces was strong.

What comes through most clearly in these bagatelles is their variety, surely reflecting aspects of Beethoven’s personality and moods. Characteristics of Beethoven’s style are present, such as unexpected fortissimo ac-cents on normally unaccented beats. What makes the

Ludwig van Beethoven


FRANZ SCHUBERT(b. Vienna, Jan 31, 1797; d. Vienna, Nov 19, 1828)

Composition: Four Impromptus, D. 935, Op. posth. 142

Composed: 1827

Other works from this period: Weber's Der Freischütz (1821); Schubert's Die Nacht (c. 1822); Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829)

Events in the World: First cross-Atlantic steamship (1818); new Paris Opéra opens (1821); John Quincy Adams serves as the 6th U.S. president (1825–29)


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The year 1827 was both annus mirabilis and annus tragicus for Franz Schubert. Increasingly ill with the syphilis that would take his life the following year, he vacillated between psychological highs and lows. Some weeks he participated in jovial gatherings with his friends. When the symptoms of his disease wors-ened, he withdrew from society, lapsing into bouts of deep depression.

Remarkably, he continued to compose prolifically. The quality of his new works was extraordinarily high. They included two sets of piano impromptus and the song cycle Die Winterreise, which is thought to be, in part, Schubert’s acknowledgment of his impending death.

Ironically, his reputation was beginning to solidify after years of relative neglect by his contemporaries. This change occurred in large part because of Tobias Haslinger, who assumed the directorship of the Steiner

strongest impression is his sly wit. In No. 3, an Allegret-to in F major, he startles us by switching without warn-ing to D major, then back again. No.6, an Allegretto quasi andante, takes us by surprise with its intimacy. Beethoven’s instruction is Con una certa espressione parlante [With a certain expression, as if speaking], suggesting a private conversation. He relies on vari-ation technique in several of the bagatelles, dazzling us with increasingly elaborate embroidery on a simple tune. We are never bored. Each bagatelle is perfectly proportioned. Paradoxically, each one slips away leav-ing us wishing it were a little longer.

publishing house in May 1826 and quickly entered into a contractual relationship with Schubert. During the last year of Schubert’s life, Haslinger published a dozen of his new pieces, including the G Major Piano Sonata, Die Winterreise, and the first two Impromptus of Op. 90 [D. 899].

The set that Mr. Feltsman plays was not among the works that Haslinger accepted. Their publication was delayed until 1838, when Anton Diabelli (yes, that Diabelli, the same one who wrote the insipid waltz that inspired Beethoven’s greatest piano variations) issued them as Opus Posth. 142, with a dedication to Franz Liszt.

Diabelli adopted Haslinger’s title of "Impromptu," a designation less formal than the traditional (and stodgy) "sonata." He likely intended to appeal to the new generation of keyboard players. There was precedent in the works of two Bohemian composers—Jan Vořišek (1791-1825) and Jan Tomášek (1774-1850)—who both published impromptus in the early 1820s. Tomášek also used the titles "Eclogue," "Rhapsody," and "Dith-yramb" for his smaller piano pieces. As we have seen, even Beethoven published three sets of Bagatelles. These short works set the stage for the Romantic piano miniature, which would dominate keyboard literature for the next several decades.

Schubert’s Impromptus are larger in scale and superior in musical quality than those of his Bohemian contem-poraries. The four of Op. 142/D.935 were apparently intended as a complementary set, or sequel, to the Op. 90/D.899 Impromptus. (We infer this because Schubert numbered them 5 through 8 on his manuscript.) They have a tonal unity and tempo progression that invites comparison to a multi-movement sonata. Reviewing the first edition of Op. 142 in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Robert Schumann opined that the first, second, and fourth Impromptus might stand as a three-move-ment sonata. The German-American musical scholar and editor Alfred Einstein also considered D. 935 to be a unified sonata. He hypothesized that Schubert adopted the term Impromptus for commercial reasons: "[He] thought that they would stand an easier chance of being sold as 'impromptus' than as a sonata."

The first Impromptu opens with a bold dotted rhythm that outlines the home key of F minor. A more lyrical figure answers, resolving inconclusively in triplets. That classic dichotomy between strong and weak themes provides fertile ground for Schubert’s imagination. He develops both ideas with ornamentation and variants in a substantial movement (approximately ten min-utes) with connections to both sonata and rondo form. Crossed hands figure prominently in several sections,


adding to the movement’s difficulty.

Schubert moves to the relative major key of A-flat for his gentle Allegretto. Initially, it seems like a throw-back to the eighteenth-century minuet, until the clarion call of its second paragraph. The central trio section in D-flat major unfolds in flowing triplets above a per-sistent irregular accent on the second beat in the left hand. Schubert’s adventuresome modulations travel in myriad directions, then miraculously find their way home.

No. 3 is a set of five variations on a folk-like theme in B-flat major. Schubert had previously used the same tune in the entr’acte of his incidental music to Rosa-munde, D. 797. Transposed to C major, it also appears in the Andante of his String Quartet in A Minor, D. 804. In the third Impromptu, he hews closely to the basic harmonic structure, using rhythm, texture, and tonality (with one variation in B-flat minor) to plumb the full potential of this attractive melody. The Impromptus close with an Allegro scherzando back

in F minor. Here again, misplaced accents and irregular meter undermine our sense of balance. Uncharacter-istically for Schubert, the emphasis throughout is far more rhythmic than melodic. Trills above dissonant chords have the effect of electric shocks, galvanizing us to attention even as we scramble to establish where is Schubert’s pulse. They lead to outbursts of rising and falling scale flourishes, swooping about like storm winds on the Scottish moor. In their turn, they set the stage for a contrasting section of passage work in E-flat major. These diverse musical gestures alternate, often varied when Schubert restates them. The coda, marked Più presto, resolves the inherent conflict in a brilliant and decisive close.


Franz Schubert (1825)


Vladimir Feltsman

Pianist, conductor, and educator Vladimir Feltsman, is one of the most versatile and consistently interesting musicians of our time. Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow

Philharmonic at the age of 11. From an early age, he had a wide range of musical interests, studying piano and conducting at the Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories. In 1971, Mr. Feltsman won the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris, touring extensively throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, and Japan. In 1979, because of his growing discontent with the restrictions on artistic freedom under the Soviet regime, Mr. Feltsman signaled his intention to emigrate by applying for an exit visa. In response, he was banned from performing in public and his recordings were suppressed. After eight years of virtual artistic exile, he was finally granted permission to leave the Soviet Union. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Mr. Feltsman was warmly greeted at the White House, where he performed his first recital in North America. That same year, his debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on

the American and international scene. Since then, Mr. Feltsman has performed with major American and European orchestras and appeared at the most prestigious concert venues and music festivals worldwide. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to the twenty-first century.

Mr. Feltsman expressed his lifelong devotion to the music of J.S. Bach in a cycle of concerts that presented the major clavier works of the composer and spanned four consecutive seasons (1992-1996) at the 92nd Street Y in New York. His project “Masterpieces of the Russian Underground” unfolded a panorama of Russian contemporary music through an unprecedented survey of piano and chamber works by fourteen different composers from Shostakovich to the present day and was presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in January 2003. Mr. Feltsman served as Artistic Director for this project as well as performing in most of the pieces presented during the three-concert cycle. These programs included a number of world and North American premieres and were also presented in Portland, Oregon, and Tucson at the University of Arizona. In the fall of 2006, Mr. Feltsman performed all of Mozart’s piano sonatas in New York at the Mannes School of Music and the New School’s Tishman Auditorium on a specially built replica of an eighteenth-century Walter fortepiano. His most recent project, "Russian Experiment," included works of lesser-known Russian composers of the first half of the twentieth century and was presented at the Aspen Music Festival in 2017.

A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the Distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the International Festival-Institute, PianoSummer at New Paltz, a three-week-long intensive training program for advanced piano students that attracts major young talent from all over the world. In 2012 Vladimir and his wife Haewon established the Feltsman Piano Foundation, designed to help young musicians realize their potential and advance their careers. Since 2017 every student accepted to PianoSummer receives free tuition and housing.

Released on the Sony Classical and Nimbus labels, Mr. Feltsman’s extensive discography includes more than 60 CDs and is still growing. He has recorded all of the major clavier works of J.S. Bach, the complete Schubert sonatas, major works of Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms, concertos by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. He has also recorded six tribute recordings dedicated to Russian composers: Tributes to Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Silvestrov, and "Forgotten Russians."

Mr. Feltsman is the author of Piano Lessons, a book published in 2019 that presents insights drawn from a lifetime of devotion to music.


GOLDMUND QUARTET

Quartettsatz, D. 703 Franz Schubert(1797–1828)

String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 96 ("American") Allegro ma non troppo Lento Molto vivace Finale: Vivace ma non troppo

Sunday, February 20, 2022 · 2:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

inTernaTional Chamber musiC series

Antonín Dvořák(1841–1904)

String Quartet No. 9 in C Major,Op. 59, No. 3 ("Rasumovsky")

Introduzione: Andante con moto; Allegro vivace Andante con moto quasi Allegretto Menuetto: Grazioso Allegro molto


Florian Schötz, violin Pinchas Adt, violin

Christoph Vandory, viola Raphael Paratore, cello


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Schubert's immortal B-minor Symphony, the "Unfinished", is a cornerstone of the symphonic repertoire despite its truncated two-movement length. What many music lovers do not realize is that Schubert left dozens of compositions incomplete. This was particularly true during the late 1810s and

early 1820s, a period during which he was growing more comfortable with the vocal medium and less comfortable with instrumental compositions. Most historians believe that Schubert was increasingly humbled by the Beethovenian model and lost momentum on a number of chamber and orchestral works.

The String Quartet in C Minor, called Quartettsatz ["Quartet movement"] by the Germans, falls into this category. Written in December 1820, it was apparently intended to be part of a larger work, for Schubert also sketched about forty bars of a second movement, an Andante in A-flat major. But that movement remained incomplete, and if he did further work on this quartet, it has not survived. Why he left it incomplete is as much of a mystery as the "Unfinished" Symphony, for this sole movement is masterly.

Schubert had written no quartets since 1817. His early efforts in the genre—about a dozen works between 1811 and 1814—were family affairs, literally. His brothers Ferdinand and Ignaz played violin, Franz played viola, and Papa Schubert (Franz Theodor Florian) played cello in the family quartet. The comparative ease of the cello part in these early works suggests that Schubert's father was the weak link in the family quartet.

By contrast, the Quartettsatz has a sophisticated and technically demanding cello line. The stylistic change

FRANZ SCHUBERT(b. Vienna, Jan 31, 1797; d. Vienna, Nov 19, 1828)

Composition: Quartettsatz, D. 703

Composed: 1820

Other works from this period: Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade (1814); Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 (1816); Rossini's The Barber of Seville (1816)

Events in the World: London Philharmonic Society founded (1813); Jane Austen anonymously publishes Pride and Prejudice (1813); Napoleon exiled to Elba (1814)


Program Notes

Schubert playing piano at a Schubertiad, a gathering of friends in a private home during which many of Schubert's compositions were performed.


ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK(b. Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, September 8, 1841; d. Prague, May 1, 1904)

Composition: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 96 ("American")Composed: 1893

Other works from this period: Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony ("Pathetique") (1893); Beach's Gaelic Symphony (1896); Richard Strauss's Don Quixote (1897)

Events in the World: First steel-framed skyscraper (1889); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892); Spanish-American War (1898)


The "American" Quartet holds an analogous position among Dvořák’s chamber works to the "New World" Symphony in his orchestral music. Both are especially beloved to American audiences because of their origins in the United States.

Dvořák had been in New York City for a year, directing the National Conservatory, when he decided to take a summer holiday in 1893. Homesick for his native Bo-hemia but contractually bound to remain in the United States for another year, he chose a destination where he could at least speak his mother tongue. He traveled

to the remote hamlet of Spillville, Iowa, halfway across the American continent. After a season of big city hus-tle and bustle, this small farming community provided tranquil relief. Spillville’s 400 Moravian immigrants welcomed their famous countryman with open arms.

The summer months in Iowa proved fruitful both per-sonally and professionally. Dvořák’s children joined him for the sojourn. He was extremely happy to have family around him and to be among other Czech speakers. Filled with energy, enthusiasm, and a host of melodic ideas, he began to sketch a new string quartet on June 8,1893. Two days later, after apparently ef-fortless work, he completed the sketch, marking on the manuscript, "Thanks be to God, I am satisfied, it went quickly." On June 23, he finalized the full score.

Perhaps because it is suffused with the excitement and immediacy of the moment, the "American" has become Dvořák's most popular string quartet, rivaled only by the A Major Piano Quintet among his chamber works. That stated, it would be an injustice to Dvořák not to mention that he composed fourteen string quartets that contain a wealth of wonderful music. Anyone who en-joys this one should seek out the other mature quartets, which generously reward the curious.

The "American" is one of a group of works that Dvořák sent to Fritz Simrock, his German publisher, from the United States. In order to expedite prompt issuance of the new compositions, Simrock asked Johannes Brahms to proofread the musical galleys. When he learned of Brahms's labor on his behalf, Dvořák was over-whelmed, writing to Simrock, "I can scarcely believe there is another composer in the world who would do as much." The story is a heart-warming testimony to the depth of the friendship be-tween Dvořák and Brahms, and the exceptionally high regard in which Brahms held his younger friend.

The music of the "American" quar-tet, like that of the "New World" symphony, has historically been associated with Negro spirituals and American folk songs. In fact, its syncopations, dotted rhythms, and propensity for pentatonic scales all share roots in

indicates that Schubert likely had a professional quartet in mind; however, no performance is documented during his lifetime. Unless it was played informally at a Schubertiad, the movement remained unperformed until 1868, four decades after the composer's death. Johannes Brahms owned the autograph manuscript for a while, and the piece was published in 1870 in Leipzig.

Quartettsatz is a stormy and turbulent movement, breaking from classic style in its adaptation of sonata form: true recapitulation of the tremolando opening does not recur until the very closing measures. Wild contrasts of mood ally the piece more with the Romantics than the Classicists. To balance the brooding, unsettled power of the first idea is a second theme that has been variously compared to both Mozart and Irving Berlin(!). We will never know whether some personal crisis prompted this emotional outpouring. We can only regret that Schubert did not complete the quartet—and temper that regret with gratitude that the Quartettsatz survived.

Dvořák conducting in Chicago (1893)


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Composition: String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 ("Rasumovsky")Composed: 1806Published: Vienna, 1808

Other works from this period: Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 (1800); Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica" (1803–04); Paganini's Grande Sonata in A Major for violin and guitar (1803)

Events in the World: Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor (1804); Holy Roman Empire dissolves (1806); Noah Webster publishes A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806)


Beethoven returned to the medium of the string quartet in 1804 for the first time in four years. His impetus was a commission from Count Andreas Kirillovich Rasu-movsky, Russian ambassador to the Austrian court since 1792. Immensely wealthy and cultured, Rasumovsky built a splendid residence in Vienna which he filled with a superb library and art collection. Rasumovsky was married to a sister-in-law of Prince Karl Lichnows-ky, another important patron of Beethoven. A capable violinist, he maintained a household filled with music. From 1808 to 1816, he employed an in-house string orchestra that included many of Vienna’s finest players, including the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh.

When the three quartets of Op. 59 were first performed

by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in Vienna in 1806, both the performers and the audience were mystified, and the overall reaction to the new works was negative. The third quartet fared somewhat better than the others, probably because of its reflective nature. More than the other two, this C major work harks back to the revered traditions of quartet writing in the late eighteenth centu-ry. Though unmistakably imprinted with Beethoven's dramatic hand and heroic style, its reference—and its deference—to Haydn and Mozart are readily discern-ible. Clearly Beethoven's contemporaries perceived those qualities as well.

A mysterious introduction opens this work, marked Andante con moto perhaps as a joke by the composer, for there is little motion of any sort in its twenty-nine measures. There is, however, a marked parallel with Mozart’s String Quartet K. 465, also in C major, called the "Dissonance." Like Mozart in the earlier work, Beethoven passes briefly through many tonalities prior to settling in to the home key of C. His sunny, spright-ly main theme initiates a largely untroubled Allegro vivace.

Musicians and scholars alike have always been fasci-nated with the A minor slow movement to this quartet. Initially its lilting 6/8 meter hints at a Venetian boat song, or perhaps a siciliana. But the mournfulness which permeates this movement, so effectively estab-lished by the cello's pizzicato, is Slavic in nature.

Count Rasumovsky apparently asked Beethoven to in-corporate Russian melodies into the new pieces. Only in the first two quartets of Op. 59 did Beethoven use actual Russian folk tunes. Perhaps this melancholy slow movement was his attempt to endow the music with a Russian "feel." Is it the most effective use of "Russian" music because it embodies Beethoven's perception of the Russian spirit?

We do not know what Count Rasumovsky may have thought, but the movement is mesmerizing. It holds our attention with its graceful insistence on rhythmic continuity. Beethoven chooses not to deviate from the 6/8 pattern. His decision is unusual; rather than relying upon rhythmic variety, he makes his creative statement with harmonic explorations.

Having switched gears altogether for this fascinating intermezzo, Beethoven remains reflective in the third movement, which is cast as an 18th-century minuet. Stylistically, this movement is a throwback, in marked contrast to the lively scherzo that had become Beetho-ven’s norm in multi-movement works. There is method to his madness: one needs the breathing time during this elegant, restrained music, for Beethoven holds in abeyance a headlong race at top speed.

the folk music of Dvořák's native Bohemia. In addition, Bedřich Smetana's autobiographical quartet, "In my Life," also served as an important model for Dvořák's first movement. British commentator Richard Graves once described Op. 96 as "eating blueberry pie and washing it down with Slivovic."

Dvořák’s genius in this work is his fusion of Afri-can-American, Native American, and Czech harmonies and rhythms. It doesn’t take too much imagination to hear Indian drums in the finale, and the quartet’s wholesome melodies and vigorous rhythms may well prompt aural memories of folk songs we recall from our American youth. Nevertheless, ultimately Dvořák’s own national spirit prevails, making sure this quartet is Czech through and through.


Whether the last movement is a fugue has been cause for great debate. Technically it is developed not as a fugue, but rather as a sonata form. Certainly it has strong fugal elements and a number of true contrapun-tal entrances. Its magic lies partly in its moto perpetuo cascade of eighth notes, and partly in its exuberant, unbridled vitality. Always the consummate dramatist with the unfailing instinct for maximum effect, Beetho-ven saves the best for last, writing into his recapitula-tion a buildup that gathers momentum and dynamism much like a Rossini overture, to an exhilarating climax. As the English composer and violist Rebecca Clarke observed nearly 90 years ago:

This fugue, one of the greatest movements in the whole of quartet literature, is a most intoxicating thing to play from beginning to end. In the pas-sage where each instrument in turn runs up the whole length of a string there is a glorious feeling of license at being allowed to make a crescendo in which the other players may not join.

Beethoven knows, of course, that music this exultant cannot be fully grasped on only one hearing—so he has his players repeat it. And, the effect is even more exu-berant the second time around, both for the musicians and for the audience.


A TALE OF THREE PATRONS

Two Russian noblemen and a Slavic prince played crucial roles in Beethoven's monumental contribu-tion to the string quartet literature. The first was the Bohemian Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkow-itz. In the late 1790s, he encouraged Beethoven to produce the six quartets which comprise Op. 18.

The Lobkowitz family had a long history of interest in music. Beethoven’s Prince Lobkowitz maintained a private orchestra in Vienna and at his other family residences. Involved with several musical societies, he tossed his hat more actively in the ring when two Viennese operatic theatres required a management bailout in 1807. He first sponsored Beethoven in 1795 with a concert featuring the young Bonn virtu-oso. The two men were particularly close in the first decade of the nineteenth century, glorious years for Beethoven as a composer. He gave his patron a mea-sure of immortality with further dedications to the Eroica Symphony, the Triple Concerto, and the String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Op. 74 ("Harp"). The Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were jointly dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasumovsky.

The three Op. 59 quartets (1805-1806) are generally referred to by the name of their dedicatee, Count Andrey Kyrilovich Rasumovsky. Sometimes they are called the Russian Quartets, although they are not

the only ones with a Russian connection. The count was a career diplomat who served first in Naples, then in Copenhagen and Stockholm, before he was appointed Russian ambassador to the Imperial Austrian court. Aided by considerable family wealth, Rasumovsky established a lavish residence in Vienna, spending freely in the areas of art, music, and literature. He took a strong interest in Beethoven as early as 1795, when he subscribed to Beethoven’s Piano Trios, Op.1. His household orchestra included the members of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which premiered many of Beethoven’s string quartets. Rasumovsky was a creditable violinist who occasionally took the second violin part with his resident ensemble.

The nobleman responsible for Beethoven’s late string quartets was Prince Nikolai Borisovich Golitzin who, like Rasumovsky, was attached to the Austrian court in a diplomatic and administrative capacity. Golitzin was a competent cellist who admired Beethoven’s music. He arranged a handful of Beethoven’s piano sonatas for strings, subscribed to major works such as the Missa Solemnis, and was instrumental in enlisting the Russian Czar Alexander I to subscribe as well. Golitzin helped to spread Beethoven’s reputation in Russia.

Golitzin initially asked for "one, two, or three quartets." Beethoven was notoriously delinquent in delivering the music. The two men sparred about compensation, and their financial haggling was unresolved when Beethoven died in March 1827. A number of letters exchanged between patron and composer survive—primarily in French, the language of educated Russians, but the two men never met.

Although Beethoven took several years to fulfill Golitzin’s initial request, the resulting works were well worth the delay. Ultimately he composed not three, but five quartets, plus the Grosse Fuge. These works are universally regarded as the summit of his chamber music.

– L.S. ©2021


Counted amongst the most exciting young string quartets, the Goldmund Quartet has boasted its exquisite playing in convincing interpretations of the greatest classical and modern works. Their musical sensitivity, attention to intonation, and careful phrasing have inspired audiences worldwide

for more than a decade.

Following their successful debuts at Europe’s most renowned concert halls such as Wiener Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Palau de la Musica, the 2next season sees the Quartet continuing their ascent as one of today’s most exciting young string quartets with recitals at Philharmonie Luxembourg and Casa da Música Porto. Other highlights this season include appearances at Edinburgh International Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and a tour of Japan with performances in Suntory Hall, Shirakwa Hall, and Izumi Hall.

In 2020, Berlin Classics released the Quartet’s third recording, Travel Diaries, featuring works by Wolfgang Rihm, Ana Sokolovic, Fazil Say, and Dobrinka Tabakova which Harald Eggebrecht depicted as "one of the liveliest and most inspiring string quartet CDs in recent time." (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Travel Diaries is a personal musical journey featuring contemporary works by composers the quartet worked with over the last ten years.

The Goldmund Quartet has been awarded several prizes and scholarships. Awarded at the prestigious 2018 International Wigmore Hall String Competition and winners of the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the Goldmund Quartet has been named Rising Stars of the 2019–20 season by the European Concert Hall Organization as well as laureates of the Jürgen Ponto-Foundation. The Quartet received the Bavarian Young Artist Award and the Karl-Klinger Prize during the 2016 ARD International Music Competition Munich. The Jürgen Ponto Foundation has named the Goldmund Quartet as the recipients of their 2020 biennial music bursary, and in summer 2019 the Quartet received one of the most valuable sponsorships of the Nippon Music Foundation which provides the Quartet the Paganini Quartet of Antonio Stradivari for four years.

Educated by Günther Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartet at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia and the Artemis Quartet in Berlin, the Quartet has received important artistic impulses in master classes with the Hagen, Borodin, Belcea, Ysaÿe, and Cherubini Quartets, Ferenc Rados, Eberhard Feltz, and Alfred Brendel. Recitals have taken them to prestigious chamber music venues and series in Denmark, France, Norway, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, China, Australia, and the US. Regular chamber music partners include artists such as Jörg Widmann, Ksenija Sidorova, Pablo Barragan, Alexey Stadler, and Wies de Boevé.

Goldmund Quartet


The Friends of Chamber Music Beethoven FestivalThe Complete Beethoven Piano Trios

"Beethoven: In Our Time and His"A Panel Discussion

The Beethoven Festival will feature a two-part multi-disciplinary panel discussion, “Beethoven: In Our Time and His,” moderated by Dr. William Everett, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Musicology Emeritus at UMKC. On Saturday afternoon, we’ll discuss "Beethoven since His Time," where we’ll explore how and why Beethoven and his music assumed the significance they now hold. We’ll discuss significant performers of Beethoven’s music as well as the idea of performing “cycles” of complete repertories (symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas, piano trios) and look at ways in which Beethoven has become an icon in not only the classical music world but also in popular culture. On Sunday, we’ll continue with "Beethoven in His Time," which will feature conversations on topics concerning life and culture during Beethoven’s era. Panelists will speak on themes ranging from important literary figures such as Goethe and Schiller and the place of the piano and pianists in the European world to what sorts of things Beethoven would have seen as soldiers returned from the Napoleonic Wars, his own experiences with deafness, and how his reputation as a solitary genius continues to be created.

MORGENSTERN TRIO


12:30 PM Panel Discussion: "Beethoven in His Time"

2:30 PM Program III: "The Complete Beethoven Trios"

4:30 PM Post-Concert Dessert Reception with the Morgenstern Trio;

FESTIVAL EVENTS

2:30 PM Program I

5:00 PM Panel Discussion: "Beethoven after His Time"

8:00 PM Program II: "The Complete Beethoven Trios"

Saturday, March 5

Sunday, March 6

The Beethoven Festival is sponsored by Charles and Virginia Clark

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Please note: a commemorative program book wil be provided for this event.


SERGEI BABAYAN

This concert is sponsored by the Sanders and Blanche Sosland Music Fund

Friday, March 18, 2022 · 7:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

Sergei Rachmaninoff(1873–1943)

Selected Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1

J.S. Bach

Étude-tableau in E-flat Minor, Op. 39, No. 5Moment musical in E-flat Minor, Op.16, No. 2Moment Musical in C Major, Op.16, No. 6

Kreisleriana, Op.16 Robert Schumann(1810–1856)

Chaconne from Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

J.S. Bach (1685–1750) arr. Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924)



Chaconne (After Bach’s D minor Violin Partita)Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)

Busoni is not a composer whose name is exactly on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Yet he was an extraordinarily imaginative thinker, and one of the most fascinating figures in early twentieth-century music. The son of an Italian clarinet virtuoso and an Austrian pianist, he spent most of his youth in Austria, and was ultimately more Germanic than Italianate in his music and philosophy, although he remained fond of Italian culture. He showed enormous talent early and began to perform and compose when he was just a boy. He took his first composition lessons at age 13. Between 1881 and 1894, Busoni studied at the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna for three years, then lived in Vienna, Leipzig, Helsinki, Moscow, Boston, and New York. By the time he established a permanent home in Berlin in 1894, he was an internationally famous pianist.

As a composer, Busoni’s evolution was somewhat rockier. He was heavily influenced by Bach, Schumann and Mendelssohn as a young man then, at the turn of the century, underwent an abrupt change of heart and became keenly interested in such innovators as Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók. Ultimately his greatest

obsession proved to be Bach. Starting in 1892 he began transcribing and arranging many of Bach’s organ compositions for piano. He continued to do so until 1919, incorporating many of the transcriptions into his touring repertoire. The Chaconne is one of his most successful transcriptions.

Each of Bach's solo violin sonatas is in four movements, following the accepted Baroque church sonata pattern of slow-fast-slow-fast. All three have a fugue as the second movement. The three partitas vary more in their structure, although each is partly based on popular dance movements of the era. Only one, however, has a Ciaccona: the second partita. It concludes the partita and, at about fifteen minutes, is longer than the previous four movements combined.

The Chaconne (to use its more common French spelling) is arguably the most celebrated movement in the violin literature. A series of 64 continuous variations, it places extraordinary demands on both player and listener. Bach composed his partitas in 1720 (the manuscript, which survives, is dated), but the pieces were not published until 1802. Since then, the list of editors reads like a who's who of violinists, including Ferdinand David (edition published 1843), Joseph Hellmesberger (1865), Arnold Rosé (1901), Joseph Joachim and Andreas Moser (1908), Leopold Auer (1917), Jenö Hubay (1921), Carl Flesch (1930), and Ivan Galamian (1971).

Mendelssohn arranged the Chaconne as a concerto movement; Schumann wrote a piano accompaniment for it. Johannes Brahms, who arranged the Chaconne for Clara Schumann in 1879 as a left hand piece, in order to give her right hand a rest during concerts. Numerous other chamber and orchestral versions proliferated during the 19th century.

None of these formidable precedents deterred the young Ferruccio Busoni from turning his hand to the Chaconne in 1892. In all fairness, this Italian-Austrian composer and pianist had already edited dozens of Bach’s keyboard works for publication. He also transcribed a number of Bach’s compositions for piano. Most were organ works. Busoni’s biographer Larry Sitsky describes the Bach/Busoni Chaconne as “a type of double transcription.”

Busoni first mentally imagined it as an organ piece and then transcribed it for piano in his particular style. There was never any intention to imitate the violin, so that, although faithful to the original, it

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FERRUCIO BUSONI, arranger(b. Empoli, April 1, 1866; d. Berlin, July 27, 1924)

Composition: Chaconne from Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

Ferrucio Busoni c. 1895


maintains its own pianistic integrity as well.

Bach's simple four-bar harmonic progression makes the Chaconne comparatively easy to follow from a listening standpoint. It consists of 30 sequential variations in D minor, then 20 in D major, with a coda of 10 final variations back in minor mode. We do not realize how emotionally draining this music is until the ineffably tender variations in D-major offer temporary respite from the stern atmosphere of the whole.

Busoni is remarkably faithful to the original making only two adjustments to the music: lengthening a diminished seventh arpeggio by one measure for dramatic effect, and repeating one four-bar variation to allow for different internal voicing. Pianistically, his conception is amazing. He celebrates the Chaconne’s multiple voices, adding doublings for emphasis, filling out the chords, and exploring the full range of the piano’s seven octaves as well as its potential for dynamic variety. The piano technique draws on both Lisztian virtuosity and Brahmsian breadth.

Busoni also takes advantage of the late romantic approach to Bach, designating tempo changes and other performance indications not present in the original. Busoni’s student Egon Petri reported that, late in life, Busoni maintained a steadier tempo when performing the Chaconne, and modern interpreters are flexible with respect to how closely they observe Busoni’s tempi. There is little flexibility in terms of their approach to his transcription, which requires stamina, a flair for drama, and sheer courage.

Selected Preludes and Fugues from Das wohltemperierte Clavier, BWV 846-893Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

The Well-Tempered Clavier takes its name from a tuning system called equal temperament, which allows a musician to play in every key on instruments with fixed sounds (primarily keyboard instruments). Bach’s two collections, referred to as Book I and Book II, showed the possibilities of this flexible system. Each book contains 24 Preludes and Fugues in every major and minor key, beginning with C Major and ascending chromatically by half-steps. Although Bach designed the collection as a pedagogical tool – his title page of Book I specifies “For the Use and Profit of the Musical Youth Desirous of Learning, as well as for the Pastime of those Already Skilled in this Study” – he also achieved a monument of Western art.The two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier span a

considerable portion of Bach’s career. He assembled Book I in 1722, while still employed at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. Compilation of Book II took place in Leipzig between 1738 and 1742. Not surprisingly, the style varies greatly among these pieces.

Some of the preludes have the freedom that characterizes a fantasy or toccata, others resemble two-part inventions, and some of the late ones look forward to early sonata form, with development of material. The fugues have varying levels of contrapuntal density, ranging from three to five voices. Some have astounding chromaticism that foreshadows late 19th-century harmony and even the twelve-tone system. All of them balance personal expression with intellectual rigor and technical polish, adding to their musical reward for player and listener alike.

KreislerianaKreisleriana, Op.16Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

The solo piano works of the 1830s display Robert Schumann’s genius at its most immediate and spontaneous. He was surely the greatest master of the romantic miniature, endowing smaller pieces in simple forms with layers of musical substance and expressivity. In the hands of a lesser composer, such pieces would have been merely salon music. Schumann elevated miniatures to the realm of the sublime. At his best, he compiled groups of them into cycles linked by musical motive, tonal relationships, and programmatic or autobiographical subtexts.

The eight movements of Kreisleriana are one of the most successful such cycles. Idiomatic piano writing, subtle weaving of inner voices, and quicksilver mood changes make these pieces vintage Schumann. Nearly all of them are in relatively simple ternary form. Pacing, texture, and tempo vary widely within the cycle. The movements complement one another because of Schumann’s instinctive gift for narrative and the flow of key centers from one piece to the next.

The title has nothing to do with Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), the brilliant Viennese-born virtuoso celebrated for such nostalgic chestnuts as Liebesfreud, Liebesleid, and Tambourin Chinois. Schumann’s inspiration was Johannes Kreisler, a fictional character who appears in three of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novels published between 1814 and 1822. Schumann was the son of a bookseller, both well-read and well-educated. He devoured Hoffmann’s writings, identifying strongly with the eccentric Kreisler, a composer and conductor pushing against the mores of his time. Schumann


believed that Hoffmann’s model for Kreisler was Ludwig Böhner, a violinist and conductor Schumann had heard in performance. In an 1834 letter after one of Böhner’s concerts, he described him: “He was like an old lion with a thorn in his foot.” A bipolar personality, Böhner eventually had a nervous breakdown that ended his conducting career, though he continued to compose. Given what we know today of Schumann’s mental illness, it is hardly surprising that he would have identified with Böhner and with Hoffmann’s fictional Kreisler.

Indeed, there is a direct parallel in Schumann’s own writings, published in his journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. He often signed his critical essays with the pseudonyms Florestan or Eusebius. Florestan represented the passionate, impulsive, excitable, and impetuous voice within all of us. Eusebius [pronounced oy-ZAY-bee-us] represented the dreamy, imaginative aspect of one’s thoughts, impressions, and emotions: the opposite of Florestan.

These two characters manifested themselves in Kreisleriana’s wild mood swings. All eight of Schumann’s movements are in ternary form or modified rondo form (A-B-A-C-A). The Florestan movements are in D Minor or G Minor; the Eusebius ones favor B-flat Major. Paradoxically, each of Kreisleriana’s movements contains aspects of both characters. Schumann uses his B-section in the ternary movements and his episodes in the rondos to shift the mood.

Schumann wrote Kreisleriana between May and September 1838. By then, he and Clara Wieck were deeply in love, and struggling to surmount Friedrich Wieck’s opposition to the match. As with most of Schumann’s piano music in the mid- and late-1830s, his passion and tenderness toward her are mirrored in the music. In a letter to Clara that year, he wrote:

Play my Kreisleriana often. A positively wild love is in some of the movements, and your life and mine, and the way you look. . . . you will smile so sweetly when you see yourself in them. Even to myself my music now seems wonderfully intricate in spite of its simplicity; its eloquence comes straight from the heart.

He was absolutely correct. From the tempestuous opening [Äußerst bewegt], Schumann’s textures are masterful and commanding, exploding with passion. The second movement [Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch]

– one of the first in which a 19th-century composer labeled an interlude Intermezzo – is one of Schumann’s most heartfelt and intimate expressions. The irregular rhythms and harmonic adventures of the ensuing movements explore the full range of moods inherent in Florestan’s and Eusebius’s personae. Schumann disconcerts us with nervous figures that skitter up and down the keyboard, then ravishes us with complex inner voices, woven together with consummate skill.

Schumann wanted to dedicate the work to Clara, but Friedrich Wieck would not permit him to do so. When Kreisleriana was published, it bore a dedication to Frédéric Chopin.

Etude-tableau in E-flat Minor, Op. 39 No. 5Moment musical in E-flat Minor, Op.16 No. 2Moment musical in C Major, Op. 16 No. 6Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Like major composer/pianists before him, Rachmaninoff composed many of his greatest works for solo piano, including some miniatures that really fit into no standard category. Mr. Babayan has chosen examples from three different genres that, collectively, provide a revealing overview of his style from his student years (the Moments musicaux) through the second set of Études-tableaux, his last significant piano works prior to his exile from Russia.

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Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann at the piano.


Rachmaninoff’s Preludes date from three distinct periods in his life. There are 24, consisting of one in each of the major and minor keys, emulating Chopin’s model. Rachmaninoff’s best known prelude is the stormy C-sharp Minor work that so many student pianists thunder through. That piece is actually the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Morceaux de fantaisie, Op. 3, and is otherwise unrelated to the two subsequent sets of preludes. The ten of Op. 23 date from 1901 to 1903; the second set, Op. 32, followed in summer 1910. In general, Rachmaninoff’s Préludes are longer than Chopin’s and more elaborate. Rachmaninoff did not perform them in complete sets. Rather, he selected a small group, sometimes commingling them with examples of other shorter pieces, as Mr. Babayan does this evening.

Rachmaninoff composed two sets of Études-tableaux, Op. 33 (1911) and Op.39 (1916-17). As their title implies, these pieces touch on two aspects of keyboard writing. Etudes are studies, intended to address a specific technical challenge. The term tableaux implies a more conceptual, pictorial element, and suggests a level of whimsy and imagination on the composer’s part. They are clearly more pictorial than technical, though they do celebrate virtuosity and the heart-on-sleeve passion that is an unmistakable hallmark of Rachmaninoff’s piano style.

The E-flat minor Étude-tableau Op. 39 No.5 is the best known of the Opus 39 set, because of its dramatic themes, intense chords, and thunderous octave passages. They are balanced by some lyrical moments with richly arpeggiated textures. This five-minute movement has been likened to an expansive tone poem for piano. Its massive sonorities and astounding technical difficulty made it a favorite showpiece of Vladimir Horowitz.

Rachmaninoff composed his six Moments musicaux between October and December 1896, just four years after he completed his studies in piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory. Though not student works, they are entrenched in the late romantic world of Rachmaninoff’s older contemporaries. Bravura elements elevate them above salon music. While they are not yet fully blossomed examples of Rachmaninoff’s mature keyboard style, their dense textures and elaborate keyboard figuration are integral to the musical structure, and not solely present for decoration. Moment musical No. 2 in E-flat Minor pulsates with energy, an agitated exploration of one principal motive

put through its paces amid dazzling activity, before resolving in four Adagio chords at the end. This is the only one of the Moments musicaux that Rachmaninoff continued to play in recital for years afterward.

The last of the set, Moment musical No. 6 in C Major, makes huge demands on the pianist, requiring both endurance and stamina to execute its near-constant 32nd notes in both hands. Rachmaninoff situates his melody in octaves -- sometimes shared between the two hands – while textures teem at various levels around it. Explosive in places, this majestic movement nevertheless communicates an overwhelming optimism that is unusual in Rachmaninoff.

Sergei Rachmaninoff


Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy and remarkable levels of color, Sergei Babayan brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally diverse repertoire. Le Figaro has praised his "unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing and breathtaking virtuosity." Le Devoir from

Montreal put it simply: “Sergei Babayan is a genius. Period.”

Sergei Babayan has collaborated with such conductors as Valery Gergiev, David Robertson, Neeme Järvi, Yuri Temirkanov, Thomas Dausgaard, Tugan Sokhiev, and Dima Slobodeniouk, among others. He has performed at the International Festival "Stars of the White Nights", the Moscow Easter Festival, the Barbican Centre (with Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra), in St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Théâtre des Champs-Elyseés in Paris, at the Salzburg Festival, and at the Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival where Babayan was artist-in-residence.

In the 2019/20 season, Mr. Babayan’s schedule included concert performances at Carnegie Hall, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, and the Verbier Festival Orchestra. Sergei Babayan regularly performs at many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus and Munich Prinzregententheater, the Maison de la Radio in Paris, at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt's Alte Oper, and the Zurich Tonhalle. He also returned to major festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and Verbier Festival. At Konzerthaus Dortmund, Sergei Babayan is a Curating Artist during the 2019/20 season. Mr. Babayan performs with the world's foremost orchestras, including the London Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the New World Symphony.

Sergei Babayan is a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist; his latest release of his own transcriptions for two pianos of works by Sergei Prokofiev, with Martha Argerich as his partner (Prokofiev for Two; DG 2018), was praised by reviewers as "the CD one has waited for" (Le Devoir), an "electrifying duo that leaves the listener in consternation" (Pianiste), taking ‘the piano duo to a new level: If all music was like this, there would be no sorrow in the world.’ (Norman Lebrecht, MyScena). Mr. Babayan's performances have been broadcast by Radio France, Polish Radio and Television, BBC-TV and BBC Radio 3, NHK Satellite Television and Medici TV.

Born in Armenia into a musical family, Babayan began his studies there with Georgy Saradjev and continued at the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Pletnev, Vera Gornostayeva and Lev Naumov. An American citizen, he now lives in New York City.

SergeiBabayan


RAFAŁ BLECHACZ

This is concert is sponsored by Alietia Caughron.

Sunday, April 10, 2022 · 2:30 Pm · C. Stephen Metzler Hall at the Folly Theater

Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826 Johann Sebastian Bach(1685–1750)

Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58

Sonata No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 10 No. 1 Ludwig van Beethoven(1770–1827)

32 Variations on an Original Theme in C Minor, WoO 80

Beethoven

Prelude, Fugue, and Variations in B Minor, Op. 18 César Franck(1822–1890)

Frédéric Chopin(1810–1849)



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Pianist Rafał Blechacz has curated a thoughtful pro-gram for this afternoon’s performance. All three works on the first half are in the key of C minor, and both of those following intermission are in B minor, giving us unusual tonal continuity. While the first half is devot-ed to two German titans—Bach and Beethoven—the second half is more Francophile, with music by Franck and Chopin. Born in Belgium and Poland, respectively, both men spent the lion’s share of their careers in Paris. Bookending the Romantic era, Chopin and Franck rep-resent different approaches to melding eighteenth-cen-tury forms with nineteenth-century harmonic language.

There are more subtle connections among the works Mr. Blechacz performs. Variations make an appear-ance on both halves; so does a substantial sonata. The thread uniting the entire program is perhaps Bach, whose mastery of counterpoint was a seminal influ-ence on succeeding generations of composers. Beetho-ven’s sequential variations take a bow to Bach in his passacaglia-like theme. Similarly, Franck pays tribute to Bach in the middle segment of his Prelude, Fugue & Variations; so does Chopin’s complex counterpoint in the opening movement of his Third Sonata.

Program Notes


Composition: Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826

Published: First published singly (Leipzig, 1727); published as Op.1 (Leipzig, 1731)

Contemporary works: Couperin's Parnassus, or The Apotheosis of Corelli (1724); Bach's St. Matthew Passion (1727); Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Events in the World: Reign of George II of England (1727–60); first Masonic Lodge in North America is established in Boston (1733); Voltaire's Philosophical Letters (1734)


Bach composed three sets of keyboard suites, which have become known—rather arbitrarily—as French Suites, English Suites, and Partitas (which term implies Italian suites). In fact, each group of six is decidedly French in its arrangement of dance movements and general structure. At the same time, each individual suite has its own personality, and Bach was obviously

at pains to imbue them all with an individuality beyond the unifying factor of tonality. (Each movement of a suite is in the same key.) Although the chronology of Bach’s compositions almost always requires some hy-pothesis and guesswork, scholars agree that the French suites are earliest, the English suites slightly later, and the Partitas—at least a couple of them—the last of the three sets. That stated, all these keyboard compositions almost certainly date from the period 1715 to 1730, hardly an enormous chronological span.

The Partitas set themselves apart in three principal respects. First, they are technically more difficult and require a larger keyboard than the French or English Suites. Second, their dance movements tend to be larger and more ambitious in scale. Finally, the Partitas are among the few compositions by Bach to be pub-lished during his lifetime. Furthermore, he had a hand in their publication and may even have been personally responsible for their engraving. Although four of the six Partitas were almost certainly composed during Bach’s years in Cöthen (1717-1723), he began publishing them three and a half years after his move to Leipzig. Having announced that he would publish six large suites with preludes, he began in 1726 to issue one at a time, at approximately annual intervals. Then, in 1731, he published the complete set of six. Their reissuance as a set supports the contention that they were a com-mercial success, and Bach clearly thought highly of these works.

While the general outline of a Baroque suite was fairly standard by Bach’s days—generally including an allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue—some flexibility remained in the composer’s choices of other dances. The extra dance movements, customarily inserted between the sarabande and gigue, were called galanterien [gallantries]. In addition to varying these extra movements in the Partitas, Bach gave each one a different first movement, e.g., Prelude, Fantasia, Sinfo-nia, Toccata.

The Second Partita is unique in that it comprises only six movements rather than seven. That is balanced by the weight of the opening Sinfonia, a remarkable tripar-tite structure whose three distinct sections are played without pause. Bach opens with a quasi-French over-ture in slow tempo with pronounced dotted rhythms, then moves to a spare Andante with a walking bass in eighth notes beneath an elaborate melody line. (Listen-ers who recall Ward Swingle and the Swingle Singers’ recordings from the 1960s will recognize this section, arguably the Partita’s most familiar.) The Sinfonia con-cludes with a brisk Allegro in triple meter. The writ-ing is almost exclusively two-part, as was the central Andante; however, now the texture is more like Bach’s 2-part inventions, with melodic material exchanged freely between the two hands.


The more conventional dance movements that follow—Allemande, Courante, and Sarabande—are closely linked to the opening Sinfonia in their motivic orga-nization. All three are organized as binary forms with each half repeating. Bach’s Rondeau is a bouncy affair in rapid triple meter, whose "refrain" recurs after con-trasting episodes. Bach again relies on invention-like texture and writes almost exclusively in two parts. He expands to three-part writing for the concluding Capric-cio. This is the only Partita that does not conclude with a gigue. As a counterweight to the Sinfonia, it provides both drama and gravitas to this powerful suite.


Composition: Sonata No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 10 No. 1

Composed: 1795–97


Other works from this period: Beethoven's Sonate pathétique (1797–98); Haydn's The Creation (1798); Haydn's "Erdödy" String Quartet, Op. 76 (1799)

Events in the World: Paris Conservatoire founded (1795); John Adams serves as the 2nd U.S. president (1797–1801); William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads (1798)


One cannot fully understand Beethoven’s first sonata in the key of C minor without an awareness of his context. His indebtedness to Haydn and Mozart as heir to the Viennese classical tradition is widely recognized. In the case of piano music, Mozart was on the higher pedestal. Specifically, Beethoven revered Mozart’s C Minor Sonata, K.457 and was in awe of the great Piano Concerto in C Minor, K.491. Thus it comes as no surprise that Beethoven modeled this piano sonata closely on Mozart’s. The earlier work, composed in 1784, was published in 1785; Beethoven likely played it as a teenager.

Beethoven would return to the key of C minor twice in his piano sonatas: the very next one, the Pathétique, Op.13, and the last of the thirty-two sonatas, Op. 111, in 1822. Both of those works have become firmly entrenched in the canon of musical masterpieces, overshadowing this earlier effort. Yet C minor was always a significant tonality for Beethoven throughout his career. Think of the Fifth Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Coriolan Overture, for starters; there are plenty of other examples.

Beethoven emulates Mozart’s K.457 in several specifics that are easy to hear. The opening motive in both sonatas is a dramatic ascent that late eighteenth-century musicians called a "Mannheim rocket." The gesture—sometimes arpeggiated, sometimes scalar—originated with composers based in and around the court of Mannheim, Germany. Beethoven also follows Mozart’s lead in the stark contrast of his two themes: a strong, assertive first theme and a lyrical, "feminine" second theme. Both development sections in the first

Johann Sebastian Bach


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What, then, are the differences? Precisely what you would expect from Beethoven. His sonata is more rash, ungoverned, and impulsive. Ironically, one French critic evaluated Mozart’s sonata as "Beethovenisme d’avant la lettre [Beethoven before the fact]." Beethoven could not have achieved this level of drama and intensity had Mozart not paved the way.

Op. 10, No.1 was the first piano sonata in which Beethoven abandoned the minuet/trio and limited himself to three movements. Two other movements in C minor survive that may have been intended for this sonata. One is an Allegretto [Hess 69] that was published posthumously; the other is a Presto that appeared independently in 1798. Beethoven chose wisely. The compression in the sonata heightens the drama inherent in his music.

The three sonatas of Op. 10 date from 1796 to 1798, by which time Beethoven was firmly established as a composer and receiving regular commissions. Publication was announced in late September 1798. The first edition was published by J. Eder, who would also publish the Pathétique Sonata the following year. Beethoven dedicated the set to Countess Anna Margarethe von Browne, the wife of the Imperial Count Johann Georg Browne. The Brownes were among Beethoven’s earliest patrons in Vienna.

BEETHOVEN

Composition: 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C Minor, WoO 80

Composed: 1805–06


Other works from this period: Beethoven's Fidelio (1805); Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1808); Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (1808)

Events in the World: Hegel publishes The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807); former Vice President Aaron Burr is acquitted of treason charges (1807); James Madison becomes the fourth U.S. president (1809)


Thirty-two variations may sound like a lot. Make no mistake about it—it is. But don’t be looking at your watch nervously thinking that you’ll be here until midnight. This is an eleven-minute work that packs a wallop. You won’t be counting variations, wondering when it will be over. Your heart may be tightening, however, as the tension and momentum build.

Beethoven’s theme is short, a mere eight bars that elapse in a matter of seconds. That theme is notewor-thy: simple and dignified, in moderate triple meter, with a descending bass line that links it strongly to the Baroque chaconne or passacaglia. The structural resemblance is surely intentional. Beethoven took a decidedly old-fashioned approach, making a conscious salute to the older, sequential variation form.

Yet his piano technique approach is aggressive and forward-looking. Before you have registered that the theme is over, Beethoven launches into the first varia-tion—arpeggios and repeated notes with chordal ac-companiment. He groups the variations in back-to-back pairs, or occasionally in clumps of three, linking these mini-units with a common textural or rhythmic figure. These figurations vary widely. Beethoven retains inter-est, and raises the technical bar, by consistently making matters more complex. He might double the figuration in both hands, or extend it through different registers. He interpolates two pairs of C major variations (Nos. 13-16, for those who are keeping track) in the middle, for temporary relief from the taut atmosphere.

Beethoven, c. 1800


The cumulative effect, however, is anything but a reduction in tension. Beethoven’s gift for dramatic impetus may not have extended to the stage; however, in the realm of instrumental music, he had no peer. These variations are a consummate example of that gift at its most effective. The single-mindedness of his obsession with this simple theme pervades the entire work, through to its spine-tingling coda. Beethoven’s biographer Lewis Lockwood relates these variations to the improvisational tradition. He calls them "a parade of short, brilliant pianistic transformations in the same rigorously maintained length and form."

Beethoven composed the C minor variations in late 1805 or early 1806, about the time he was completing the third of the "Rasumovsky" String Quartets, Op. 59. Sketches for the variations occupy the same pages as those for the famous fugal finale of Op. 59 No. 3. Cu-riously, Beethoven declined to assign an opus number to this work, allocating publication rights to the Bureau des Arts et d’Industrie, which issued the Variations in April 1807, without a dedication. Because of that de-cision, scholars have surmised that Beethoven did not think highly of this work.

Pianists and posterity have opined differently. Perhaps even more important, both Schubert and Mendelssohn studied these variations. The proof of that pudding, so to speak, is in Schubert’s late C Minor Piano Sona-ta (first movement) and in Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses. Both of those masterpieces are undeniably indebted to Beethoven’s disciplined and extraordinary Variations on an Original Theme, WoO 80.

CÉSAR FRANCK(b. Liège, Dec 10, 1822; d. Paris, Nov 8, 1890)

Composition: Prelude, Fugue, and Variations in B Minor, Op. 18

Composed: 1860–62

Contemporary works: Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1859); Brahms's Piano Quintet, Op. 34 (1864); Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C Minor (1866)

Events in the World: Wilhelm I becomes king of Prussia (1861); Battle of Westport, Kansas City (1864); Austrian Empire becomes Austro-Hungarian monarchy (1867)


César Franck was one of the most influential musicians of the late nineteenth century. He gathered many disci-ples around him, including important composers such as Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc, and Louis Vierne. Like Mendelssohn before him, Franck was one of the key figures to acknowledge and make known the rich musical legacy of the past, from Gre-gorian chant and the Renaissance master Palestrina through Bach and Beethoven. He was also a champion of Richard Wagner in France.

A more unlikely candidate for such weighty accom-plishments can hardly be imagined. Franck was born in Belgium, but came to Paris in his teens to take advan-tage of the French capital's superior educational op-portunities in music. His father had initially determined that he should become a concert pianist, but Franck's performing career veered more sedately toward organ. He spent most of his professional career serving as or-ganist in various lesser Parisian churches—hardly posi-tions that would make it likely for him to attract a circle of France's most promising young composers! One of those churches, however—the Basilica of Sainte-Clo-tilde—completed the installation of a fine pipe organ by the Flemish organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1858, just before Franck was appointed its organist. The two men became friends, and Franck often had Cavaillé-Coll’s instruments in mind when he com-posed. He remained at Sainte-Clotilde for some three decades, attracting a loyal following for his post-service improvisations.

Surprisingly, his output of organ works is relatively modest: a dozen major works comprising the Six Pièces of 1860-62, Trois Pièces (1878), and Trois Chorals (1890). The third of the Six Pièces, the Prélude, Fugue et Variation, became quite popular, prompting Franck to transcribe it for two pianos and for harmonium and piano. The English pianist Harold Bauer later tran-

César Franck


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Compositions: Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58

Composed: 1844

Published: Paris, 1845

Other works from this period: Verdi's Nabucco (1842); Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (1843); Berlioz's Les Troyens (1858)

Events in the World: U.S. establishes a uniform federal election day (1845); Second Republic declared in France (1848); the Town of Kansas is incorporated (1850)


One of Chopin’s universally recognized works is his funeral march: the slow movement to the Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35. Because of that movement’s disproportionate familiarity and the popularity of the Second Sonata, the Third Sonata has taken something of a back seat to its older sibling. Among pianists and musical connoisseurs, however, the B Minor Sonata is much beloved and an undisputed masterpiece of Chopin’s final years. It dates from 1844—just five years before he succumbed to tuberculosis—and ranks with other late masterpieces such as the Berceuse, Op. 57 and the Barcarolle, Op. 60.

At nearly half an hour, this sonata is the largest scale of Chopin’s solo compositions. Like the B-flat Minor Sonata, it is cast in four movements of widely varying length and content. As in that sonata, Chopin places the scherzo second and invests the slow movement with considerable rhetorical power and emotional weight. This later work, however, shows advances in Chopin’s style, particularly in his integration of the pianistic filigree and the imagination of its musical episodes. In April 1844, the German poet and critic Heinrich Heine, who lived in Paris, wrote:

I am forced to keep repeating that there are only three pianists worthy of serious notice; these are, in the first place Chopin, the enchanting poet-musician, who has unfortunately been very ill this winter, and is seldom visible to the public. [The other two, in his estimation, were Lizst and Thalberg.]...When I am near Chopin, I quite forget his mastery of piano technique, and plunge into the soft abysses of his music, into the mingled pain and delight of his creations, which are as tender as they are profound.

Organ at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde

scribed the Prelude, Fugue, and Variations for solo piano; his edition was published in 1910.

Franck’s Prelude is a melancholy Andantino cantabile in gentle 9/8 meter, whose principal melody suggests the timbre of the orchestral oboe. The phrase structure is irregular: unfolding in five-measure groups answered by a lower countertheme in four-bar phrases. The dynamic only increases to forte twice, underscoring the movement’s muted character. A dramatic Lento serves as a bridge to the Fugue: three bold choral gestures played fortissimo, each answered by delicate, quiet arpeggios.

The Fugue is a clear tribute to Bach, unfolding in four voices and adhering closely to the rules of traditional counterpoint. It leads directly to the Variation, which reverts to the Prelude theme, now ravishingly em-bellished with flowing sixteenth notes that enhance Franck’s Romantic harmonic language.


The Third Sonata has every quality Heine mentions, from its anguished opening declamation to the sublime second theme, which becomes the dominant melodic idea of the first movement. The rich textures of the Allegro maestoso show Chopin’s absorption of broken chord techniques reminiscent of Carl Maria von Weber and piano figuration from contemporary virtuoso works like Robert Schumann’s Carnaval and Davidsbundlertänze.

A more startling influence is a significantly earlier composer, however: Johann Sebastian Bach. Chopin freely acknowledged that Bach and Mozart were his principal models. Before composing the B Minor Sonata, he had spent weeks poring over counterpoint treatises by Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842) and Jean-Georges Kastner (1810–67). Always, he studied Bach. His preocupation with dense polyphony and imitative counterpoint found an outlet in the development section of the first movement.

Chopin’s Scherzo is brilliant and fleet, requiring an evenness of touch. Its understated, Mendelssohnian atmosphere only partly masks the tumultuous harmonic journeys. The slow movement shows a kinship to the first movement through its brief, dramatic introduction, followed by a nocturne-like texture in the dominant lyric theme. The Largo’s extended middle section is vocal, specifically the caressing bel canto style of Bellini. As Charles Rosen has observed:

Here, for the only time in Chopin, the accompaniment is a literal pastiche of Italian opera orchestration–a pastiche full of affection and admiration.

The finale is both dramatic and virtuosic, with dazzling passage work to balance the quasi-military principal theme. Chopin sustains momentum through his adaptation of the rondo form, which allows him to alternate Romantic passion with bravura display. The mood is at once epic and driven, culminating in a triumphant B major flourish.

Chopin completed the Third Sonata in autumn 1844. The Parisian house of Joseph Meissonier published it in June 1845 with a dedication to Comtesse Emilie de Perthuis, a friend and pupil who was the wife of the royal aide-de-camp. Chopin also dedicated his Op. 24 Mazurkas to her.



RafaŁ Blechacz

Profound thought and feeling merge in Rafał Blechacz’s music-making to create interpretations of irresistible energy and penetrating insight. The Pol-

ish pianist’s artistry is recognized as rare by any measure. His many plaudits include being dubbed "a musician in service to the music, searching its depths, exploring its meaning and probing its possibilities" (Washington Post). Since he took first prize at the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition, he has stood today among the world’s finest pianists, in high demand for the honesty and vision he brings to performances of everything from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin and Szymanowski.

Rafał Blechacz was born in northern Poland in June 1985. He showed early signs of musical talent and began piano lessons at the age of five. Having first enrolled at the Arthur Rubinstein State Music School in Bydgoszcz, he progressed to study at the city’s Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music, graduating in May 2007 from Katarzy-

na Popowa-Zydroń’s piano class. Blechacz’s outstanding technical and artistic attributes secured a sequence of competition successes, beginning in 2002 with second prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Competition for Young Pianists in Bydgoszcz, continuing the following year with joint first prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, and culminating in outright victory at the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where he became the first Polish musi-cian to receive the top prize since Krystian Zimerman thirty years earlier.

In addition to being recognized as one of the great interpreters of Chopin, Blechacz's repertoire choices also reflect his passion for the music of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Liszt, Mo-zart, Schumann, and Szymanowski.

In 2016 Blechacz took a sabbatical from performing to complete a doctorate in philosophy at Nico-laus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. His thesis explored aspects of the metaphysics and aesthetics of music and, as he reflects, his studies have helped him "understand both the freedoms and limitations of musical interpretations."

The special nature of Rafał Blechacz’s work was recognized in 2010 with the Premio Internazio-nale Accademia Chigiana, awarded annually by the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena to an outstanding pianist or violinist. In 2014, he received the Gilmore Artist Award, a prestigious prize conferred every four years—"following a rigorous and confidential selection process"—in recognition of "extraordinary piano artistry." In addition to formal prizes and awards, Blechacz has also garnered ringing endorsements from senior colleagues, with Martha Argerich, winner of the Chopin Competi-tion in 1965, describing him as "a very honest, extraordinary and sensitive artist" and the Irish pianist and pedagogue John O’Conor as "one of the greatest artists I have ever heard in my life."


SONGS TO THE LUTEWITH ANNE AZÉMA & NIGEL NORTH

Saturday, April 23, 2021 · 7:30 Pm · Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral


Pavanne la Romanesque Albert de Rippe (ca 1500 - 1551)

D’où vient celà Claudin de Sermisy (1490-1562)

Clément Marot (1496-1544)

Amy souffres Anonymous (Attaignant, 1519)

Il me souffit de tous mes maux

Basse Dance: La Brosse

Doulce mémoire en plaisir consommée

Doulce mémoire

Quand ce beau Printemps je voy

Ha tu point veu

La Rocque et Bransle Poitou

Tant que vivray en aage florissant

Allemande, “Tombeau de Mezangeau “Canaries

Ma belle si ton âme

Entrée de luth

Cessés mortels de soupirer

Onder de Linde Groene & Carillon de villages

Un jour l’amoureuse Silvie

Si jamais mon ame blessée

La voilà, la nacelle d’amour

Anonymous (Pierre Attaignant, 1519)

Anonymous (Attaignant, 1530)

Pierre Regnault “Sandrin” (1490-1561)

Albert de Rippe (ca 1500 - 1551)

Anonymous, Pierre Ronsard (1524-1585)

Anonymous (Adrian le Roy, 1571)

Anonymous (Attaignant, 1529)

Claudin de Sermisy, Clément Marot

Ennemond (Vieux) Gauthier (Vieux) (ca. 1565 – 1651)

TEXT: Gilles Durant de la Bergerie (1594) MUSIC: Anonymous (1603)

Robert Ballard (1612)

Pierre Guédron (1570–1620)

Nicolas Vallet (1615)

Pierre Guédron (1613)




The friendship of voice and lute was successful in Europe for about 200 years (1500–1700). Perhaps it was particularly strong in France, where the finesse and delicacy of the language was so well matched and supported by the lute; an instrument with the same fine qualities as French itself.

In our program, you will hear chansons and airs from two very different eras. In the 16th century, most chansons were composed in 4 voices yet could be arranged for voice and lute, or voice and harpsichord, or even solo lute or solo keyboard. Pierre Attaignant was the first publisher of these, responsible for the versions we sing of D‘où vient celà, Amy souffrez, Tant que vivray and Il me souffit. Later publishers continued the trend. The lute weaves its delicate polyphonic voices (often just the bass and tenor) while the singer sustains and declaims above. Douce Mémoire was one of the top twenty hits of the day, and we have made our own voice and lute arrangement, heard side by side with a lute intabulation by the famous Albert de Rippe, a native Italian who was court lutenist to Francis I of France, and whose position at court was unsurpassed.

As music, rhetoric and the performance of solo song took a bright new turn around the end of the century (c.1600), the French poets and composers responded in part with the Air de Cour. From 1603–1643, the Air de Cour developed in its form for voice and lute, even though some composers also wrote 4 and 5 voice settings. The Air de Cour composers such as Pierre Guédron (Intendent des Musiques de la Chambre to Louis XIII and the Queen Mother, 1613) and Antoine Bosset, his successor, were court

singers and lutenists. Their airs followed the meter of the text, a style began by Baif in 1570, were written without bar lines and sound as though they alternate between duple and tripe meter, as the text dictates. Unlike the 16th chansons whose accompaniments were contrapuntally conceived, the Airs de Cour lute parts were simple, chordal and like figured basses, written into lute tablature. In this genre Guédron especially is unsurpassed. His magnificent songs,

with their natural rhythmic flow (La voilà), offer freedom for the soloists’ declamatory gestures (Cessez mortels), and go straight to the heart with the most simple and economical of means (Si jamais). The Air de Cour flourished until 1643, after which the next generation took over with Airs de Cour accompanied by the theorbo (Lambert, Bacilly and their contemporaries).

During the 17th century, if you were a lutenist, you were either an elite soloist, only ever playing alone, or you were more of an ensemble musician and accompanist. Ennemond (Vieux) Gaultier was the first influential lutenist of the elite crowd and he set a standard for all who followed him (Denis Gaultier, Gallot,

Dufault, Mouton). His Tombeau de Mezangeau is famous for being the first example of this genre, which honors a deceased luminary, in this case, his teacher, Rene Mezangeau. The “solo” lutenists experimented with different tunings, arriving finally with an 11 course lute tuned (for the first six courses) to a chord of D minor. Robert Ballard, on the other hand, was music tutor to the young Louis XIII, and although he was a virtuoso court lutenist, he seems to have had much to do with the court dancing scene and the Ballets de cour which were a regular entertainment. His two books contain many arrangements for solo lute of dances from these court ballets.

SON

GS TO

THE LLU

TEProgram Notes

Jeune Seigneur Jouant du luth, Abraham Bosse (1602-1646)



D’où vient celà

D'où vient celà, Belle, je vous supply,Que plus à moy ne vous recommandez?Tousjours seray de tristesse remply,Jusques à temps qu'au vray me le mandez:Je croy que plus d'Amy ne demandez,Ou maulvais bruyt de moy on vous revelle,Ou vostre cueur a faict amour nouvelle.

Why is it beautiful lady, I beg you that you no longer confide yourself in me? I shall always be sorrowful until you let me know the truth. I believe you no longer need a lover or that you have heard bad things about me, or that your heart now has a new love.

Amy souffres Amy, souffrez que je vous aymeEt ne me tenez la rigueurDe me dire que votre cœurPorte pour moy douleur extrême.

Si pour moy avez de la peine,Je ay pour vous moult de douleurs,Mais je les refute a valeurs,Pensant d’amy estre certaine.

Amy souffres Amy, souffrez que je vous aymeEt ne me tenez la rigueurDe me dire que votre cœurPorte pour moy douleur extrême.

Si pour moy avez de la peine,Je ay pour vous moult de douleurs,Mais je les refute a valeurs,Pensant d’amy estre certaine.

Il me souffit de tous mes maux

Il me souffit de tous mes mauxpuisqu‘ils m‘ont livré à la mort, j‘ay enduré peines et travaux, tant de douleur et desconfort, que voulez vous que je fasse pour acquérir vostre grâce ?De grand‘ douleur mon cœur est mort, s‘il ne vous voit en vostre face.

Friend, allow me to love youand do not hold it against meto share that your heartfeels such extreme pain for me.

If, on my account, you feel pain, I, for you, suffer greatly, But I push these feelings away, Believing my friend to be true.

Friend, allow me to love youand do not hold it against meto share that your heartfeels such extreme pain for me.

If, on my account, you feel pain, I, for you, suffer greatly, But I push these feelings away, Believing my friend to be true.

I have had enough of all my sorrows, since they brought me to death,I have endured pains and labor,so much sorrow and discomfort,what must I do to earn your grace?My heart shall perish from sorrow, if it sees not your face.


Texts & TranslationsSO

NG

S TO TH

E LLUTE

Doulce mémoire en plaisir consommée

Doulce mémoire en plaisir consommée,O siècle heureulx que cause tel scavoir,La fermeté de nous deux tant aymée,Qui à nos maulx a sceut si bien pourvoirOr maintenant a perdu son pouvoir,Rompant le but de ma seure espéranceServant d’exemple à tous piteux à veoirFini le bien, le mal soudain commence.

Sweet memory consummated in joy, O happy time of such understanding; The loving steadfastness of our [united] love, Which knew so well how to attend our ills, But now alas has lost its [former] strength Severing the thread of my only hope. A sad example all afflicted see, Cease therefore joy, for sudden evil comes.

Quand ce beau Printemps je voy

Quand ce beau Printemps je voy, J’apperçoisRajeunir la terre et l’ondeEt me semble que le jour, Et l’amour,Comme enfans naissent au monde. Le jour qui plus beau se fait, Nous refaitPlus belle et verte la terre :Et Amour armé de traits Et d’attraits,En nos cœurs nous fait la guerre. Il respand de toutes parts Feux et dards

Et domte sous sa puissanceHommes Bestes et Oiseaux, Et les eauxLuy rendent obeïssance. Vénus avec son enfant TriomphantAu haut de son Coche assise,Laisse ses cygnes voler Parmy l’airPour aller voir son Anchise. Quelque part que ses beaux yeux Par les cieuxTournent leurs lumieres belles,L’air qui se monstre serein, Est tout pleinD’amoureuses estincelles. Puis en descendant à bas Sous ses pasNaissent mille fleurs écloses :Les beaux liz et les œillets VermeilletsRougissent entre les roses. [...]

When I see the fair SpringtimeI recogniseEarth and sea renewing their youthAnd it seems to me that DayAnd LoveLike children are born into the world. Day which makes itself lovelier,Makes the earth againLovelier and greener for us,And Love armed with charmsAnd harmsMakes war on us in our hearts. He looses in all directionsHis fiery darts

And overcomes with his powerMen, beasts and birds,And even the watersGive him obedience. Venus with herTriumphant sonSitting up high on her couchSets her swans flyingThrough the airTo go and see her Anchises.

Wherever her lovely eyesAround the heavensTurn their fair light,The air, remaining calm,Is filledWith sparks of love.

Then coming down lowUnder her feetA thousand flowers blooming are born;Fair lilies and bright redCarnationsRedden among the roses. [...]



Ha tu point veu

Ha tu point veu ce grand vilainQui se cache au grenier au foin.Un cocu l'autre meine Et toujours sont en peineUn cocu l'autre meine.

Un jour un cocu me disoitQue sa femme que l'on baisoitEstoit femme d'un autreUn cocu l'autre meine ...

Les confesseurs au Ciel irontTout ceux la des jaloux rirontQui n'ont fait comme un autreUn cocu l'autre meine ...

Car quand aux femmes il plairaTout le monde cocu seraAutant l'un comme l'autreUn cocu l'autre meine...

Mais toute femme de bon coeurNe hazarde point son honneurEntre les mains d'un autre. Un cocu l'autre meine...

Tant que vivray en aage florissant

Tant que vivray en aage florissantJe serviray d'amour le dieu puissantEn faict, en ditz et chansons par accordz; Par plusieurs jours m’a tenu languissantMais après dueil, m’a fait réjouissantCar j'ai l'amour de le belle au gent corps.Son alliance, c’est ma fiance,Son coeur est mien, Le mien est sien.Fi de tristesse, vive liesse, Puisqu’en amour, ha tant de biens.

Quand je la veux servir et honorer, Et par escripts veux son nom décorer, Quand je la voye et visite souvent, Les envieux n'en font que murmurer, Mais notre amour n'en saurait moins durerAutant ou plus en emporte le vent. Malgré envieToute ma vieJe l'aimerayEt chanteray, C'est la première, C'est la dernière, Que j'ay servie et serviray.

Have you seen this wicked one, who hides in the barn? One cuckold leads the other,and they are always going at it;one cuckold leads the other.

One day, one cuckold was telling methat his wife, who was being kissed. Belonged to another. One cuckold leads the other...

The confessors will go to the heavenAnd will have a good laugh at the jealous onesWho did just like the others. One cuckold leads the other...

Since, as it's the ladies’ pleasures, all will end up cuckolds. One just like the other. One cuckold leads the other...

But kind womenwill not risk their honorat the hands of another. One cuckold leads the other...

As long as I live in my prime, I shall serve the mighty king of LoveIn deeds, in words, in songs, in harmonies.That king made me languish a while;But afterwards he made me rejoice,Since now I have the love of the sweet-bodied beauty.In her friendship is my trust, Her heart is mine, mine hers.Away with sadness, long live gladness!Since there are so many good things in love.

When I seek to serve and honor her, When I seek to adorn her name with my words,When I see and visit her The jealous only gossip.But our love doesn’t last any less long for that;The wind carries their gossip and more away.Despite their envy, I shall serve herAnd sing of her all my life.She is the first, she is the last,Whom I have served and shall serve.


Texts & TranslationsSO

NG

S TO TH

E LLUTE

Cessés mortels de soupirer

Cessés mortels de soupirer,Cette beauté n‘est pas mortelle;Il est permis de l‘adorer,Mais non pas d‘estre amoureux d‘elle.

Les Dieux tant seulementPeuvent aymer si hautement.

Amours au lieux plus escartésMême où l‘on méprise ses flammes, Au seul renom de ses beautés Captive les plus grandes âmes:

Mais les dieux seulementPeuvent aimer si hautement. [...]

Desist, mortals, from sighing, Her beauty is not of this world,You may adore her,But you may never love her.

The gods aloneMay love so nobly.

Love, even in the most remote places Where its flames are despised, At the mere mention of her beauties Holds captive the deepest souls.

But only the godsCan love so highly.

Ma belle si ton âme

Ma belle si ton âmeSe sent or allumerDe cette douce flameQui nous force d‘aymer, Allons contans,Allons sur la verdure, Allons tandis que dure Nostre jeune printemps.

Avant que la journéeDe nostre age qui fuitSe sent environéeDes ombres de la nuit, Prenons loysirDe vivre nostre vieEt sans craindre l‘envie Baisons nous à plaisir.

Du soleil la lumièreSur le soir se desteintPuis à l‘aube première Elle reprend son teint. Mais nostre jour,Quant une foys il tombe, Demeure sous la tombe,Y faisant long séjour. […]

Ça, finette affinéeÇa, rompons le destinQui clot nostre journéeSouvent dès le matin.Allons, contans, Allons sur la verdure, Allons tandis que dureNostre jeune printemps.

My beautiful one, if your soulnow feels itself glowingwith this sweet flamewhich compels us to love,let us go happily,let us go upon the greenery,let us go whileour young springtime lasts.

Before the dayof our time passes,feeling itself wrappedin the shadows of night,let us take leisurein living our livesand, without fear of rivalry,let us kiss at our pleasure.

The sun‘s lightfades at eventide;then, at daybreak,its color is revived.but our day,when once it falls,remains in the grave,there to dwell for a long time. [...]

Here then, my precious one,here then, let us break from such a fate, which would end our dayeven before morning has passed.let us go happily,let us go upon the greenery,let us go whileour young springtime lasts.



Celuy seroit trop insencéQuelque heur où son bonheur aspire, Si ces beaux yeux l‘avoyent blesse, D‘oser descouvrir son martire;

Car les dieux seulementPeuvent aymer si hautement.

Bref ces divines qualitésDont le ciel orna sa naissance, Deffendent même au déités, Non de l‘aimer, mais l ‘espérance

D‘obtenir en l‘aymantsinon qu‘un glorieux tourment.

Un jour l’amoureuse Silvie

Un jour l‘amoureuse SilvieDisoit baise moy je te prieAu berger qui seul est sa vieEt son amour,Baise moy Pasteur je te prie,Et te lève car il est jour.

Regarde la naissante Aurore,Baise moy Pasteur que j‘adore,Qui veut que je te prie encorePar nostre amour :Baise moy Pasteur que j‘adore,Et te lève car il est jour.

Ma crainte hors d‘ici t‘appelle,Baise moy Pasteur ce dit-elle,O dieux ! dit-il, quelle nouvellePour tant d‘amour :Baise moy pasteur ce dit-elle,Et te lève car il est jour. […]

Mais puis qu‘il faut que je te laisse Baise moy ma chere déesse, Soulage l‘ennuy qui m‘opressePar trop d‘amour :Baise moy ma chère déesse,Et puis adieu car il est jour.

That one will become quite mad, Chancing to aspire to such happiness, If those beautiful eyes have graced him For daring to discover his own undoing;

For the gods aloneMay love so nobly.

In short, these godly qualitiesWhich were given to her by birthPrevent even the gods, not only to love her, but to hope

That in loving her, they would inherit anything but a glorious torment.

Sylvia, not long since, halfe-affrighted, Because loves theft grew un-benighted, Wak‘ the mate wherein free delighted,And thus did say :With a kisse let all wrongs bee righted, And get-up quickly ; for ‘tis day.

See ! where young Morne begins to enter : What early wings have late bee‘n lent her !Some sleepesse rivall may have sent her, Us to betray :Hastily kisse then, to prevent her,And get-up quickly ; for ‘tis day.

My feare would faine from hence expell thee, Before this traytresse Light do selle theeTo Shame when thinke not much I tell thee Of thy delay ;With a kisse since I must compell theeTo get-up quickly ; for ‘tis day. [..]

Since then to part I find concerningNow thy advice hath taght mee learning,I will, to shew my sealfe discerning,Rather then stay,Take a kisse in pay of loves earning,And so, farewell; because ‘tis day.


SON

GS TO

THE LLU

TETexts & Translations

Si jamais mon ame blessée

Si jamais mon ame blesséeLoge ailleurs qu‘en vous sa pensée, Puissé-je estre pour châtimentPrivé de tout contentement. [...]

Si jamais le temps ny l‘absence Peuvent esbranler ma constance Puissé-je sans aucun secourLanguir le reste de mes jours.

Bref, soyes moy toujours cruelle Autant que vous me semblez belle, Si je manque à vostre beautéD‘amour et de fidélité.

La voilà, la nacelle d’amour

La voilà, la nacelle d‘amour,Où ma maistresse arrive,La voicy, la voilà de retour,De sa prison captive, Qu‘un chacun luy face hommage, Et d‘un courage,Que l‘on chante tousjours la la lala voicy, la voilà.

Le voicy, le voilà ce bel oeil,Sur le cristal de l‘onde :Le voila le soleil nompareil,Le seul astre du monde. Q‘un chacun...

La voicy, la voilà ceste main,A la neige faict honte,Le voicy, le voila ce tétin,Qui son beau sein surmonte. Q’un chacun…

If ever my wounded heart should harbor in its thoughts anyone but you, may I as punishment be deprived of all joy. [...]

If ever time and absence break my fidelity, may I languish without helpfor the rest of my days.

In short, be as cruel to me as you are beautiful, if ever I should lack towards your beauty, in love and constancy.

It is here, the barque of loveIn which my mistress arrives; it is here, there it is, returnedfrom its season of captivity: Let each one pay it homage, and, heartfelt, let everyone always sing, la, la, la,it is here, there it is.

It is here, there it is this beautiful eye, On the crystal of water; It is here, there it is, the unmatched sun, The sole star of the world. Let each one...

It is here, there it is, that hand; It puts snow to shame. It is here there it is, that nippleWhich surmounts her beautiful breast. Let each one…


Anne Azéma French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director Anne Azéma has directed The Boston Camerata since 2008 and the French ensemble Aziman, which she founded, since 2005. Intensely engaged since her student days with the song repertoire of the Middle Ages, she is esteemed as a charismatic solo performer. But she is also widely admired for her creative skill in building and directing complete musical productions of varied styles and periods, both for her recital programs and for larger ensemble forces (concert and stage) in Europe and the United States.

Anne Azéma's current discography of 40 recordings as a soloist (Grand Prix du Disque; Edison Prize) includes five widely acclaimed solo CD recitals. Since assuming the directorship of The Boston Camerata in 2008, she has created a series of sixteen new productions, acclaimed by press and public alike. Ms. Azéma is also in demand as a recitalist, presenting her original programs to audiences in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with either Shira Kammen (vielle and harp), or Nigel North (lutes). Her collaboration with the Tero Saarinen Dance Company (Helsinki, Finland) around early American songs has been praised on three continents. Her 2007 music theater creation The Night's Tale – Le Tournoi de Chauvency, based on a 14th century French narrative, is in continued demand, and was slated to tour in the US in 2020. 2017 marked the creation of a commissioned program in coordination with an international exhibit project of late Medieval artifacts (Art Gallery Ontario, Toronto, The Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) with a CD issued in 2019 (NAXOS) to critical acclaim. In November 2014, she edited, directed and staged The Play of Daniel to critical and public acclaim; the production was successfully reprised in 2017, 2018 and in early 2020.

Among Anne Azéma's teaching activities are master classes, seminars, and residencies at conservatories and universities here and abroad. She has contributed articles to scholarly and general audience publications. In 2011, Ms. Azéma was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. Ms. Azéma was the Robert M. Trotter Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Oregon Eugene in 2012 and again in 2020. She has been invited to lecture at New York University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brandeis and Boston University, and is currently a faculty member at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. In 2017, she was presented with the Distinguished Artist Award of the Saint Botolph Foundation, Boston. Her second film appearance received two prizes at the Montréal FIFA (2014). She has taught at the Fondazione Cini, Venice (2015); the Fondazione Benetton, Treviso (2016); the Schola Cantorum, Basel (2015). Anne Azéma's new collaboration with the label Harmonia Mundi grew from two programs of early American music commissioned in 2018 by the Philarmonie de Paris. Anne Azéma is currently at work on early music theater projects for the ensemble and a 'medieval' video game.


Nigel NorthBorn in London, England, Nigel North has been Professor of Lute at the Historical Performance Institute (formerly Early Music Institute), Indiana University, Bloomington (USA) since 1999. Previous positions included The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London (1976-1996), Hochschule der Künste, Berlin (1993–1999) and the Royal Conservatory, Den Haag, (2006–2009).

Initially inspired at the age of seven by the early 60‘s instrumental pop group "The Shadows", Nigel studied classical music through the violin and guitar, eventually discovering his real path in life, the lute, when he was 15. Basically self-taught on the lute, he has been playing and teaching for nearly 50 years.

After hearing one of Nigel‘s Bach recitals in London, Julian Bream recalled in 2002 “I remember going to a remarkable recital, one which I wish I had the ability to give: it was one of Nigel North‘s Bach recitals, and I was bowled over by how masterful and how musical it was. A real musical experience, something you don‘t always get from guitar and lute players and which, in general, is pretty rare.”

Recordings include a four CD boxed set “Bach on the Lute” (Linn Records), four CDs of the lute music of John Dowland (Naxos), and a new ongoing series of music by Sylvius Weiss (4 CDs) and and Francesco da Milano (3 CDs), both on BGS. Milano (3 CDs, both on BGS).Francesco da Milano (3 CDs, both on BGS).


sPeCial PerFormanCe

LENNON & MCCARTNEY "Eleanor Rigby"arr. Wolf Kerschek/Runge&Ammon

BEETHOVEN "Adelaide" from the Lieder Cycle, Op. 46arr. Runge&Ammon

PIAZZOLLA Libertangoarr. Runge&Ammon

KAPUSTIN Burlesque, Op. 98 DAVIS "Blue in Green"arr. Runge&Ammon

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1 Andante; Allegro vivace Adagio; Allegro vivace

COREA "Spain" paraphrase on the "Concierto de Aranjuez"arr. Runge&Ammon, by Joaquín Rodrigo

BEETHOVEN "Cavatina" from the String Quartet, Op. 130arr. Runge&Ammon

ZAPPA "Bebop Tango" arr. Wolf Kerschek/Runge&Ammon

BOWIE "Warsawa"arr. Wolf Kerschek/Runge&Ammon

BEETHOVEN Adagio ma non troppo (Arioso dolente) et Fugue arr. Runge&Ammon from Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110 HENDRIX "Purple Haze"arr. Wolf Kerschek/Runge&Ammon

RUNGE&AMMONFriday, May 6, 2022 · 7:00 Pm · Yardley Hall

The concert is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Bacon, Jr.


Program Notes

Andrea Moore, a musicologist at Smith College, wrote an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune on December 30, 2019, two days before this “Beethoven year” celebrating the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. In the essay, provocatively titled “Beethoven was born 250 years ago. To celebrate, how about we ban his music for a year?” she argued that since Beethoven doesn’t lack for performances, shouldn’t we celebrate him by playing new music, as he would have wanted during his lifetime. She summarized, “For an artistic tradition that has struggled to articulate its ongoing relevance, a crucial question might be how much compelling new music is going unheard, both by those from within the tradition and those whose music has had little presence in the concert hall?”

As you might imagine, the twitterverse exploded.

Some enthusiastically supported Moore’s suggestion, a response typified by musicologist William Gibbons who noted “Even as the classical music world is reckoning with diversity, equity, and inclusion as essential goals, we’re elbowing people out of the way for *Beethoven*: the mythical dead white European hypermasculine genius hero that personifies the canon.” Other commentators reacted in line with cultural critic Norman Lebrecht who retorted, “Put simply, if we take Beethoven out of the mix, everything else crumbles to dust…. No-one else had the vision, the boldness and the will to liberate music from its pretty classical corsets and shove it into the forefront of public and political attention.” It was a cyberwar over a composer who still provokes debate 194 years after he passed on.

Today’s program by Duo Runge&Ammon walks the line between these warring camps by celebrating Beethoven’s legacy but putting his compositions in dialogue with music from the last fifty years. However, the musicians they have chosen to invite into the conversation might not by the ones you would expect. Building off the image that led John Clubbe to subtitle his recent book on Beethoven “The Relentless Revolutionary,” Runge and Ammon have developed a program that highlights popular musicians and contemporary composers who pushed boundaries and

ignored the rules to craft their own musical vision. Like Beethoven, they refused to let the strictures of musical form constrain the musical content they imagined. They are all groundbreaking, innovative, original, and, yes, revolutionary.

Consider Beethoven’s works that grace this program, only one of which he originally wrote for cello. Beethoven finished the first composition, “Adelaide,” op. 46, when he was only in his twenties and it quickly became one of his most popular. Eduard Hanslick went so far as to proclaim “Adelaide” “the only song by Beethoven the loss of which would leave a gap in the emotional life of our nation.” In fact, this arrangement for cello and piano is only one of many arrangements produced

over the past two centuries; even Franz Liszt crafted a piano version to include in his performances. Its popularity is partially owed to the dramatic nature of the text setting, a side of Beethoven that would reach full flower in his later symphonies. This six-minute song is a mini-opera that wanders through melodies and harmonies in the opening measures as the poet wanders from his gardens to the Alps, seeing his beloved everywhere he turns. In the final part of the song, the poet dies and a flower blooms over his grave, displaying his undying love for Adelaide. Beethoven builds the

intensity here, compressing the melodies to cram even more musical material into the fading space, expressing an emotional intensity that was already growing out of place among his contemporaries.

The other Beethoven works on the program come from much later in his life, at a time when his deafness was almost absolute and his music puzzling even to his most ardent supporters. He composed his fourth and fifth Sonatas for cello and piano, Op. 102, in the last half of 1815, and together they mark the beginning of his so-called “third period.” The works from the last decade of Beethoven’s life stretch the boundaries of classical form, pulling them into shapes that fit his expressive desires. The fourth Sonata for cello and piano is a case in point. Instead of four movements, Beethoven cast the sonata in only two, both of which begin with slow introductions and end with an Allegro vivace. The first movement opens with a beautiful, mournful theme that repeats

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several times and cadences in the sonata’s key of C major before Beethoven proceeds to spend the rest of the movement in the relative minor. The second movement at least stays in the right key, but Beethoven brings back music from the first movement as a way to conclude the second movement. He seems to want to pack as much musical material into the smallest space possible, condensing traditional sonata structure into a powerful package full of expressive potential. Or, to think about it another way, in this sonata Beethoven took a symphony and shrank it to two musicians and two movements without sacrificing meaning.

Beethoven’s revolutionary reimagining of musical form continued in the two works that form the nucleus of the program’s second half. The String Quartet op. 130 is one of a trio of quartets Beethoven wrote in 1825 for Prince Nicholas Galitzin, and while the other two quartets are fairly conventional in form, op. 130 is, as Michael Steinberg memorably christened it, an “inspired eccentricity in excelsis.” Its six movements end with a Grosse Fuge, a movement so incomprehensible to the first audience that Beethoven later removed it and wrote a replacement finale. The fifth movement Cavatina that precedes the Grosse Fuge is its opposite in almost every way: short, emotionally direct, and simple in construction. So why include it in a program that celebrates the revolutionary? Because of the way Beethoven plays with texture. While the Cavatina features a wonderous main melody, the accompaniment to that melody is anything but expected. Every time the melody pauses for a breath, the accompaniment fills the gap with its thoughts, forging its own path almost headless of the melody. It is truly its own organically constructed melody, capable of standing on its own. This remarkable texture contributes to the other revolutionary aspect of the

movement: its emotional heft. Halfway through the movement, Beethoven writes the instruction “beklemmt,” a word often translated as “heavy of heart,” but more fruitfully understood as oppressed, anxious, or suffocating. In the middle of the Cavatina, for a handful of measures, Beethoven gives us a glimpse into the abyss of anxiety that churns under our existence. Those extraordinary measures provide a depth of emotion to this charming movement, a depth that led Beethoven’s dear friend Karl Holz to later remark that the Cavatina “cost the composer tears in the writing and brought out the confession that nothing that he had written had so moved him; in fact, that merely to revive it afterwards in his thoughts and feelings brought forth renewed tributes of tears.”

The grief experienced in the Cavatina is magnified in the final Beethoven work on the program, the Adagio ma non troppo (Arioso dolente) et Fugue from his op. 110 Piano Sonata. This was Beethoven’s next to last piano sonata and the only work he completed in 1821. In it, he combined sonata form’s traditional slow movement and finale into one massive movement that alternates between an operatic lament and the answer to that lament in the form of a fugue. Beethoven created a dialogue between grief and triumph, lyricism and academicism that Vincent d’Indy described as moving between “one of the most poignant expressions of grief conceivable to man” and “an effort of will to shake off suffering.” But as is often the case, Beethoven conceptualizes the progression of our emotional states as an optimistic path towards reconciliation and rejuvenation. At the end of the second Arioso section, Beethoven has the music sit on a single repeated chord that incessantly increases in volume until the fugue returns with its theme turned upside down. Fate has knocked on the door and hope has answered as the fugue spins out into an explosion of euphoria. Here is joy unleashed, a fitting last word from Beethoven.

Joining Beethoven on this program are a trio of composers who work in the same genre as Beethoven but come at it from a different angle. The first of these, Astor Piazzolla, might seem the least revolutionary at first glance. After all, he’s credited with taking his native Argentina’s tango off the streets and into the concert hall, a move that feels conservative. But in doing so, Piazzolla remade the tango into what he called tango nuevo and bought the ire of Argentina’s military government. Piazzolla’s tango nuevo featured an expanded ensemble that included his own bandoneón, pianos and electric organs, acoustic and electric guitars,

Frank Zappa


bass, flutes, and even orchestral strings. It infused the tango with intense dissonances, Baroque counterpoint, and surprising metrical shifts borrowed from classical music and jazz. And it led musicians from Yo-Yo Ma to Grace Jones to perform tangoes in their concerts. You’ll hear these elements in his popular Libertango, a tango he wrote to symbolize his liberation from older tango styles as well as the oppression of the Argentinian government (thus the title which is a portmanteau of “Liberty” and “Tango”). The work features the steady beat and infectious energy of the tango, but you’ll hear that the beat seems to sinuously shift under the soaring melody while the harmonies don’t always go exactly where you expect.sFrank Zappa is another artist who never goes where you expect and whose music is equally at home in the concert hall and the popular stage. Although we often think of Zappa as a rock musician, he put Edgard Varese and Igor Stravinsky next to Johnny “Guitar” Watson and The Velvets in his personal pantheon, and his earliest works bore titles like Collage One for String Instruments and Opus 5 for Piano, Tape Recorder and Multiple Orchestra. Zappa left the concert world behind when he formed his blues band The Mothers of Invention, but never left behind his fascination with musical experimentation, releasing the first concept album in 1966 (Freak Out) and continuing to juxtapose disparate musical genres and forms throughout his career. This revolutionary juxtaposition is seen just in the title of Be-Bop Tango, which joins American jazz with Argentinian tango and was released the same year as Piazzolla’s Libertango. But unlike Piazzola’s work, which is firmly in the tango tradition, Zappa’s tango transcends any single genre. He conceived the Be-Bop Tango as a work for piano and unspecified instrument, leaving the work’s timbre up to chance, and focused his compositional attention on rhythm and harmony. He seems to have wanted to meld the tango rhythm, particularly the newly evolved Marcato-sincopa tango rhythm that emphasized the last eighth-note of a measure, with bebop’s expanded triadic harmonies. At least, that is how the piece begins. As Be-Bop Tango progresses, the distinctions between the two styles diminish as the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic intricacies increase. By the work’s end, the virtuosity on display is remarkable for any style and reminds us that the most fascinating musicians usually defy our expectations.

Piazolla brought the tango into the concert hall, Frank Zappa brought rock and roll, and Nikolai Kapustin brought jazz. Since the 1920s, composers have injected jazz styles, timbres, and rhythms into their

compositions, which might lead you to wonder what is revolutionary about Kapustin’s incorporation of the style. Most composers borrowing jazz did so in the West;

Kapustin embraced jazz behind the iron curtain and under a government that did not condone the style until the 1960s. He became known in the West in the late 1990s, which is when he composed a trio of works for cello and piano as his opus 96-98: an “Elegy,” a “Nearly Waltz,” and this “Burlesque.” A “Burlesque” is a comic interpretation of another work, and I find the best way to conceptualize Kapustin’s parody is to imagine the cello and piano as Laurel and Hardy trading comic barbs back and forth. The cello opens by setting up a punchline that the piano delivers before the piano turns around and sets up a joke for the cello. Throughout the exchanges between instruments, Kapustin keeps the humor moving by incorporating a variety of jazz styles and juxtaposing them with all manner of music from lush Romantic melodies to punchy rock licks, all while keeping you off balance through frequent jumps to odd meters and timbres. “Burlesque” strikes a careful balance among its

Chick Corea

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different styles and keeps you engaged as a listener, all while marveling at the stylistic and technical virtuosity on display.

While Kapustin approached jazz as an outsider, Miles Davis and Chick Corea are consummate jazz insiders who transformed the genre through their broadening of jazz’s vocabulary. Perhaps no jazz musician of the past one hundred years has done more to push jazz’s boundaries than Miles Davis. Davis was always searching for the next step in his musical development. After debuting as a bebop trumpeter with Charlie Parker, Davis helped establish cool jazz with his Birth of the Cool sessions; was at the forefront of orchestral jazz in his recordings with Gil Evans; and combined jazz, rock, and funk played on electric instruments to create jazz fusion. Even with all of these accolades and accomplishments, Davis is best remembered today for Kind of Blue (1959), an album that popularized modal jazz, became the best-selling jazz album of all time, and continues to inspire musicians from every musical genre today. “Blue is Green” is one of two ballads on the album and largely functions as a duet between the two men who wrote the work: Davis on trumpet and Bill Evans on piano. Since it is modal jazz, “Blue is Green” is not built off the standard gravity of a tonal center. Instead, Evans and Davis laid a foundation of a simple five-bar pattern of chords that repeats endlessly, providing a languid feeling over which the solo line drifts. “Blue is Green” provides an opportunity to slow down and revel in individual harmonies and timbres, a revolutionary way of listening to jazz and one widely embraced.

Chick Corea began his career with Miles Davis, helping establish jazz fusion through a series of live performances in the late 1960s. His piano style, which blends earlier jazz styles with rock harmonies and Latin rhythms, transformed the jazz scene in the 1970s and expanded to the concert world in the 1990s as he began composing classical music, including a piano concerto based on “Spain,” one of his most popular songs. Corea composed “Spain” for his album Light as a Feather and opened the almost 10-minute track with a paraphrase of the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, showing the classical roots already at work in the song. The main core of “Spain” is built on a samba rhythm with moments of flamenco thrown in on top of which the melody seems to float. Jazz had long been influenced by Latin American and Spanish music, but with “Spain,” Corea added the spice of American popular music to create a potent mixture still influential today.

The final three composers represented on this program are known as popular musicians, but their revolutionary commercial music impacted every musical genre as well. Perhaps no musician has had a larger impact on what we hear in our everyday lives than Paul McCartney. As a member of the Beatles, McCartney helped expand popular music’s melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral vocabulary and introduced a wider set of themes it could address. “Eleanor Rigby” is a case in point. Like “Blue is Green,” “Eleanor Rigby” is modal, shifting between Aeolian and Dorian modes, which gives the music a bit of an archaic sound in keeping with its older protagonists and theme of loneliness. The Beatles sang on the original track but didn’t play any instruments. Instead, producer George Martin arranged for a double

string quartet largely playing staccato to serve as the accompaniment. A string quartet was an uncommon sound in popular music at the time, but the Beatles

Jimi Hendrix

Paul McCartney


had used one a year before in their song “Yesterday.” Its use here reinforced the “older” sound they wanted. The melody bounces along in a speech-like rhythm but is delightfully tuneful, effectively masking the song’s revolutionary aspects and making the Beatles’ move from a foursome from Liverpool to a force in modern music complete.

Jimi Hendrix was fascinated by the Beatles’ timbral experimentation but wanted to see what was possible by extending a traditional rock instrument like the guitar in a mind-bending new direction. In doing so, Hendrix created a new musical lexicon. Although he released “Purple Haze” only a year after the Beatles published “Eleanor Rigby,” it seems to come from a different planet. Instead of the Beatles’ elegantly witty storytelling, “Purple Haze” features lyrics so elliptical and dreamlike that listeners are still trying to decode them over half a century later. Instead of stepwise and balanced melodies, Hendrix’s melodies are raw and angular. And instead of the sheen of a classical string quartet, “Purple Haze” is all about distortion and dissonance and such high harmonics that, according to biographer Keith Shadwick, “guitar notes are flying off into the ether.” Musically, Hendrix built the song on an R&B and blues foundation, with verses erected on the blues pattern of three chords, but Hendrix extends those chords upward and respells them, making us hear them in a completely new light. No wonder classical musicians have been arranging “Purple Haze” for decades, trying to capture Hendrix’s magic for themselves.

The final musician whose revolutionary persona Runge and Ammon bring into dialogue with Beethoven might surprise you most of all, but David Bowie’s eclectic and idiosyncratic identities make a fitting counterpart to the Viennese composer. Like Beethoven, Bowie continually reinvented his music, always searching for new sounds and new ways to communicate with his audience. He also wasn’t afraid of moving in directions that confounded his listeners, such as when he partnered with Brian Eno to create the “Berlin Trilogy” of albums, starting with Low in 1977. Low received a divided response from critics and fans because it showcases Bowie’s burgeoning fascination with American minimalism, British ambient music, and German electronic krautrock. You can see these interests at work in “Warsawa.” There are no traditional lyrics; instead, Bowie sings syllables he created to match the meaning he wanted to convey. There are no traditional harmonic progressions; instead, Eno and producer Tony Visconti present textures built off randomly chosen chords and slowly layer new textures at new speeds on top of what is already present. There are few trappings of modern popular music; instead, Bowie built a six-minute track with no percussion and limited melodic movement and then kept his voice out of the mix until four minutes had passed. And yet, even with this experimentation, “Warsawa” is captivating. Its textures and timbres pull you in and place you firmly in Cold War-era Warsaw. It is a towering achievement that is frequently described as the most important song on the album and became the inspiration for Philip Glass’s 1993 Low Symphony.

So, we end as we began, with Andrea Moore’s suggestion that we ban Beethoven and bring other (and newer) voices into the concert hall. With this program, Runge Ammon have offered a counter proposal: that we invite those voices into the concert hall not to replace Beethoven, but to be in conversation with him. They have allowed us to see that in the two and a half centuries since Beethoven’s birth, revolutionary music has continued to be created. They have reminded us that great art comes from all corners of the musical world. They have shown us that revelatory art in turn generates more revolutionary art. And they have entered into a musical dialogue where we can see these musicians, these composers, these artists in a new light and hear them with fresh ears.

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As a cellist and founder of the Artemis Quartet, Eckart Runge has been a presence on all of the world’s major

stages from New York to Tokyo over the last 15 years. CD recordings by his ensemble, available exclusively on Virgin / EMI since 2005, have been awarded a number of prizes. During his studies under Edmond Baert at the Brussels Conservatory and David Geringas at the Musical Academy of Lubeck and as an award winner in international contests (Premio Stradivari, Cremona 1991, German Music Competition in Bonn 1994 and “Concours International de Musique Genève” 1995) he pursued and active career as a soloist at an early stage.

In addition to his international quartet career, he is “promoting and working intensively in various languages at the borderline of Tango, Jazz and film music” (Der Spiegel) and is bringing an increasingly larger audience to classical music with his “celloproject”, which he founded in 1998.

In addition to various programs surrounding Tango, film and Jazz he has presented, in particular, productions such as “Concert Visuel” with two pantomimes from the Compagnie Marcel Marceau and Lab of Life – Creativity and Dialogue in Music. The combination of artistic seriousness with communicative presentations is met with enthusiastic acceptance by listeners and critics.

Eckart Runge is now passing on his artistic experiences as a Professor of the Faculty at Berlin’s University of the Arts and the Chapelle Reine Elisabeth in Brussels.

Born in Santiago de Chile to German/Chilean parents, Jacques Ammon first became known in 1989 as an award winner of the international “Claudio

Arrau” piano contest. This was followed by a number of radio and television appearances. Since then, he has been performing regularly at Chilean concerts series and festivals.

Jacques Ammon began his studies as a pupil of Margerita Herrera at the University of Chile and continued these in 1990 under Konrad Elser at the Musical Academy of Lubeck, where he has been a music tutor himself since 2000.

In Germany, the artist, who is at home in Berlin, has been a guest at important musical venues, such as the Rheingau and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivals and at the Hamburg Musikhalle. The autumn of 2002 saw his Japanese debut. A particular artistic interest to Jacques Ammon is the juxtaposition of the classic-romantic and Latin American repertoire.

Jacques Ammon was the artistic consultant in a CD production (EMI) with Latin American music performed by the “12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra” which was nominated for a Grammy and for the Echo classical music prize in 2001.

Jacque Ammon

Eckart Runge


About Runge&Ammon

The duo Runge&Ammon emerged from a shared passion for chamber music boundaries around jazz, tango, rock, theater and film music and has been performing for 25 years in major concert series as well as in clubs in Europe, Asia, the USA and South America Reach a

wider audience for sophisticated music.

In addition to the conceptual program design and the great emotionality, the duo is known for its informative and entertaining moderation, with which the audience is ‘picked up’ and introduced to the demanding background. Further productions of the duo are the “Concert Visuels” with Bodecker & Neander, two pantomimes from the Marcel Marceau company.

The albums CelloTango, RussianSoul and CelloCinema were enthusiastically received by audiences and critics. In 2019 the new album ‘BaroqueBlues’ will be released, which brings unexpected parallels between jazz and baroque music to life.

The album ‘RollOverBeethoven’ was released for the 2020 anniversary of Beethoven, juxtaposing music for cello and piano by Beethoven with the revolutionary avant-garde icons of rock pop history such as Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie or Frank Zappa.


ENSEMBLE CORRESPONDANCESFriday, May 15, 2022 · 3:30 Pm · Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception


Marc-Antoine Charpentier(1643–1704)

Charpentier & the Eternal City

Bonifacio Graziani(c. 1605–1644)

Répons de la Semaine Sainte, Rome 1664

De profundis H. 126Tenebrae factae sunt H.129Desolatione desolata est H.3801è leçon du vendredi saint H.91

Canzon Francesco Cavalli(1602–1676)

O vos Omnes H.134Jerusalem surge H.130 Velum templi H. 128Stabat mater lauds

Charpentier

O mors plainchant

Miserere a 8 Alessandro Melani(1639–1703)

Christus factus est Giacomo Carissimi(1605–1674)

O Oriens splendor lucis aeternae Charpentier

Litanie per la sa vergine Melani

Motet pour les trépassés Charpentier


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Les goûts unis: Marc-Antoine Charpentier and the Bridging of Musical Worlds

Sometime in late 1669 or early 1670, the young composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier stepped back on the streets of Paris for the first time in at least three years. Charpentier, French by birth, had moved to Rome in the mid-1660s in order to study composition in the home of Catholicism itself. In just three or four years, he absorbed all there was to learn about the Italian musical style, which flourished in mid-century Rome. In churches and basilicas, one could hear grand masses and motets for large choirs on a daily basis; in smaller chapels, sacred works like oratorios and cantatas breathed dramatic life into stories from the Bible. Even beyond the consecrated walls of Rome’s great churches, drama infused musical culture. During Charpentier’s time in Rome, Pope Clement IX opened the city’s first public opera house, allowing secular drama to thrive. Steeped in Italian musical knowledge, Charpentier returned to France with a style all his own.

In the seventeenth century, countries in Western Europe distinguished themselves not only through language, but also through customs—food, architecture, painting, and music all reflected something unique and different about a given country or city-state. As a Frenchman, Charpentier would have been raised within the French musical idiom; he was familiar with the popular dances (the most common being the chaconne, passacaille, allemande, sarabande, courante, and gigue), and with the French appreciation for speech-like singing, which they found more emotionally provocative and direct. Yet Charpentier’s training in Italian music offered the chance for him to experiment, musically—to bridge musical worlds between two powerful and deeply Catholic territories.

In bringing together the best of the French and Italian musical styles in his works, Charpentier borrowed the rich harmonic palette, with its tension-filled dissonances, from the Italians, which deepen the emotional impact especially in his French choral settings. This is heard throughout his sacred music, especially, which he composed while working for important Jesuit churches around Paris—most famously, Sainte-Chappelle. The composer’s secular compositions, including his works for many of Molière’s plays and in his opera, Médée (1693), juxtapose the careful setting of the French text with a harmonic world inspired by the dramatic works of his Italian teachers in Rome.

Although Jean-Baptiste Lully, an older contemporary, often gets the lion’s share of attention in music history, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s music reflects a new, progressive style of composition that presages François Couperin’s les goûts réunis in subsequent decades.

-Alison DeSimone

SingersCaroline Weynants, Caroline Bardot, Perrine Devillers – sopranos

Lucile Richardot – mezzo-sopranoDavid Tricou – haute-contre

Antonin Rondepierre, Oscar Golden Lee – tenorsNicolas Brooymans, Etienne Bazola – basses

InstrumentalistsBéatrice Linon, Josèphe Cottet – violins

Mathilde Vialle, Etienne Floutier, Mathias Ferré – viola da gambaThibaut Roussel – theorbo, lute

Lucile Perret – fluteSébastien Daucé – organ, harpsichord and conductor


Exterior view of Sainte-Chappelle, 1855

Why Molière? Why in Kansas City?

France's greatest comic dramatist, Molière (1622-1673), like Shakespeare, wrote for both the public playhouse and the court. Molière learned his playwriting skills as an actor on the road, often performing in impromptu spaces, beginning with short farces using commedia-like stock characters. After his troupe settled in Paris and won the favor of Louis XIV, almost all of his comedies accommodated music and dance, usually in collaboration with composer Jean-Baptiste Lully.

During the last twelve years of his life, Molière was constantly called upon to provide entertainments for the sun king (le roi soleil) and his court at various palaces and on the grounds of Versailles where that palace was under construction. From court ballets (ballets de cour) performed between the acts of comedies to his later comédies-ballets featuring musical moments integrated with the action, Molière wrote works that have stood the test of time: The School for Wives, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The Miser, The Bourgeois Gentleman, and The Hypochondriac, among many others.

With Molière's 400th birthday coming up on Saturday, 15 January 2022, the eyes of the francophone world will be on Kansas City. KC MOlièrelière: 400 in 2022 is a nonprofit organization with a mission to encourage Molière-inspired theatre productions, concerts, dance performances, films, art exhibits, puppet shows, and literary events as well as educational activities focused on the French Baroque era. While the Comédie-Française celebrates Molière's birthday on its stage every year on 15 January, Kansas City's 2022 celebration may well be the biggest in the anglophone world.

Given our city's French heritage, KC MOlièrelière: 400 in 2022 has worked with the Chouteau Fountain Founders toward completion of the François Chouteau and Native American Heritage Fountain on Chouteau Trafficway, not far from the location of the 1821 fur-trading post that is seen as the origin of Kansas City. Tartuffenthrope!, a comedy by Philip blue owl Hooser, Choctaw, imagines Chouteau trying to explain French culture to the Osage by performing tidbits from Molière with his wife Bérénice and his brother Cyprien. It premiered on 24 July at the dedication of the fountain, which also served as Kansas City's celebration of Missouri's statehood bicentennial.

The Alliance Française de Kansas City is also collaborating with KC MOlièrelière: 400 in 2022 to help get study guides, an essay competition, and other programming into public, charter, and private schools. Exposure to a great classic comic author showing the persistence and universality of human foibles is one means of instilling the joy of reading and writing in today's young people. Vive Molière!

- Felicia Hardison Londré


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De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine; Domine, exaudi vocem meam.Fiant aures tuae intendentes, In vocem deprecationis meae. Si iniquitates observaveris,Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?

Quia apud te propitiatio est, Et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine. Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus,Sperava anima mea in Domino. A custodia matutina usque ad noctem Sperei Israel in Domino.

Quia apud Dominum misericordia, Et copiosa apud eum redemptio. Et ipse redimet Israel Ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine Et lux perpetua luceat eis Domine.

Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.If thou, O Lord, will have marked iniquities, Lord, who will withstand?

But with you there is forgiveness,and on account of your law I have waited for you, O Lord.My soul trusts in his word;My soul hopes in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.

For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him there is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Translation: Ron Jeffers

Shadows covered the earthwhen the Jews crucified Jesus,and toward the ninth hour Jesus let forth a great cry, saying: "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" And lowering his head, he gave up the spirit. Jesus, crying out in a great voice, said: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Translation: Ahmed E. Ismail

Tenebrae factae sunt dum crucifixissent Jesum Judaeiet circa horam nonam exclamavit Jesus voce magna:"Deus meus ut quid me dereliquisti?"Et inclinato capite emisit spiritum.Exclamans Jesus voce magna ait:"Pater, in manus Tuas commendo spiritum meum."

Desolatione desolata est terra quia nullusest qui recogitet corde. Super omnes vias deserti venerunt vastatoresquia gladius domini devorabit ab extremum terrae usque ad extremum ejus.

Non est pax universae carni,seminaverunt triticum et messuerunt spinas. Confundemini a fructibus vestrispropter iram furoris Domini.

Of desolation the land is desolate,as no one cares for it. On the desert tracks spoilers came running, for the sword of the Lord will devour everything from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth.

There is no peace for all beings, wheat was sown, thorns were harvested. Let your fruits bewilder for this is the fury and anger of the Lord.


De profundis H. 156 — Charpentier

Tenebrae factae sunt H. 129 — Charpentier

Desolatione desolata est H. 380 — Charpentier


Misericordiae Domini, quia non sumus consumpti, quia non defecerunt miserationes ejus. Novi diluculo, multa est fides tua.

Pars mea Dominus, dixit anima mea;propterea exspectabo eum.

Bonus est Dominus sperantibus in eum animae quaerenti illum.Bonum est praestolari cum silencio salutari Dei.Bonum est viro cum portaverit jugum ab adolescentia sua.

Sedebit solitarius et tabecit, quia levavit super se.Ponet in pulvere os suum, si forte sit spes.Dabit percutienti se maxillam, saturabitur opprobriis.

Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum.

In Monte Oliveti, oravit ad Patrem: "Pater, si fieri potest, transeat a me calix iste. Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem infirma; fiat voluntas tua.

Vigilate et orate, ut non intretis in tentationem. Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem infirma;fiat voluntas tua.

Tristis est animea mea usque ad mortemSustinete hic et vigilate mecum.

Nunc videbitis turbam quae circumdabit meVos fugam capietis et ego vadam immolari pro vobis.

Ecce appropinquat hora,et Filius hominis tradetur in manus peccatorum.Vos fugam capietis et ego vadam immolari pro vobis.

O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, Attendite et videteSi est dolor similis sicut dolor meus. Attendite, universi populi, Et videte dolorem meum.

O all you who walk by on the road, Pay attention and seeIf there be any sorrow like my sorrow.Pay attention, all people, And look at my sorrow.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end.They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,"Therefore I will hope in him."

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,To the soul that seeks him.It is good that one should wait quietly For the salvation of the Lord.It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

He will sit, quiet and alone, for he put a yoke on him. He will put his mouth in the dust, if he starts hoping. He will give the cheek to the one striking him; He will satiate with opprobrium.

Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God.

1è leçon du vendredi saint H.91 — Charpentier

Répons de la Semaine Sainte — Graziani

On the Mount of Olives He prayed to His Father:"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; Let Your will be done."

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak;Let Your will be done.

My soul is sorrowful even to death;Stay you here, and watch with me.

Now ye shall see a multitude that will surround me.Ye shall run away, and I will go to be sacrificed for you.

Behold the hour is at hand,And the Son of Man shall be betrayed Into the hands of sinners.Ye shall run away, and I will go to be sacrificed for you.

O vos omnes H. 134 — Charpentier



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Stabat mater dolorosaJuxta Crucem lacrimosa, Dum pendebat Filius.Cuius animam gementem,Contristatam et dolentemPertransivit gladius.O quam tristis et afflictaFuit illa benedicta, Mater Unigeniti!Quae moerebat et dolebatEt tremebat, cum videbat Nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,Christi matrem si videretIn tanto supplicio?Quis non posset contristariPiam Matrem contemplariDolentem cum Filio?

Pro peccatis suæ gentisVidit Jesum in tormentis,Et flagellis subditum.Vidit suum dulcem natum,Morientem, desolatum,Dum emisit spiritum.

At the Cross her station keeping,Stood the mournful Mother weeping,Close to her Son to the last.Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,All His bitter anguish bearing,Now at length the sword has passed.O how sad and sore distressedWas that Mother, highly blessed,Of the sole-begotten One.Christ above in torment hangs,She beneath beholds the pangsOf her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,Whelmed in miseries so deep,Christ's dear Mother to behold?Can the human heart refrainFrom partaking in her pain,In that Mother's pain untold?

For the sins of His own nation,She saw Jesus wracked with torment,All with scourges rent.She beheld her tender Child,Saw Him hang in desolation,Until His spirit forth He sent.

Stabat Mater — Charpentier

Et velum templi scissum est a summo usque deorsumet omnis terra tremuit.Latro de cruce clamabat dicens"Memento mei domine dum veneris in regnum tuum"

Petrae scissae sunt et monumenta aperta suntet multa corpora sanctorum qui dormierant surrexeruntEt omnis terra tremuit.

And the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottomAnd all the earth trembled.The robber from the cross cried out, saying:"Remember me, Lord, when thou comest into thy kingdom."

The rocks were split, and the graves were opened;And many bodies of the saints who slept, arose.And all the earth trembled.

Velum templi H. 128 — Charpentier

Jerusalem surge et exue te vestibus jucunditatis, Induere cinere et cilicio.Quia in te occisus est Salvator IsraëlDeduc quasi torrentem lacrymas per diem et noctem,Et non taceat pupillar oculi tui.Quia in te occisus est Salvator Israël.

Arise, O Jerusalem, and put off your garments of rejoicing;Cover yourself with sack cloth and ashesFor the Savior of Israel has been slain in your midst.Let your tears run down like a river, day and night,And let not the apple of your eye cease.For the Savior of Israel has been slain in your midst.

Jerusalem surge H. 130 — Charpentier


O mors, ero mors tuamorsus tuus ero, inferne

O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy sting.

Miseremini mei, saltem vos, amici mei,Quia manus Domini tetigit me.

Heu, mihi Domine,Usquequo non parcis mihi,Nec dimittis me ut glutiam salivam meam?Cur faciem tuam abscondis,Et arbitratris me inimicum tuum?Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi, Et factus sum mihimetipsi gravis?

Miseremini mei, saltem vos, amici mei.Ah, pœnis crucior nimis asperis,Ah, flammis uror nimis acribus.

Quando dabis mihi solatium, Quando dabis mihi refrigerium ?Ah, Domine, mutatus es mihi in crudelem.

Miseremini mei, saltem vos, amici mei,Quia manus Domini tetigit me.

Have pity on me, O ye my friends;For the hand of God hath touched me.

Alas, my God,How long wilt thou not depart from meNor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?Wherefore hidest thou thy faceAnd holdest me for thine enemy?Why hast thou set me as a mark against theeSo that I am a burden unto myself?

Have pity on me, at least you my friends.Ah, ah me! Too harsh the retribution that torments me.Ah, too searing the flames that consume me.

When will you give me relief?When will you cool my fever?Ah, You have changed, O Lord, and become cruel to me.

Have pity on me, at least you my friends;For the hand of God hath touched me.

O mors — plainchant

Motet pour les Trépassés

Sancta Mater istud agas, Crucifixi fige plagasCordi meo valide

Juxta Crucem tecum stare,Et libenter sociare In planctu desidero. Virgo virginum præclara,Mihi iam non sis amara,Fac me tecum plangere. Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,Passionis fac fortem,Et plagas recolere.

Inflammatus et accensus, Per te Virgo sim defensusIn die judicii. Quando corpus morietur, Fac, ut animae donetur paradisi gloria. Amen.

Holy Mother, pierce me through,In my heart each wound renewOf my Savior crucified.

By the Cross with thee to stay,There with thee to weep and pray,Is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blessed!Listen to my fond request.Let me share thy grief divine;Let me, to my latest breath,In my body bear the deathOf that dying Son of thine.

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,Lest in flames I burn and die,In His awful Judgment Day.While my body here decays,May my soul Thy goodness praise, safe in Paradise with Thee. Amen.

Translation: Edward Caswall



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Christus factus est — Carissimi

Christus factus est pro nobis obediensusque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis.Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum et dedit illi nomen,quod est super omne nomen.

Christ became obedient for us unto death,Even to the death, death on the cross.Therefore God exalted Him and gave Him a nameWhich is above all names.

O Oriens splendor lucis aeternae — Charpentier

O Oriens,splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae. Veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.

O Rising Sun,Splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness.Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness And the shadow of death.

Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam,Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum,dele iniquitatem meam.

Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco, et peccatum meum contra me est semper.Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci, ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.

Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.Asperges me hyssopo et mundabor.Lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.

Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam, et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.Cor mundum crea in me Deus, et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.Ne projicias me a facie tua, et Spiritum Sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.

Docebo iniquos vias tuas et impii ad te convertentur.

Libera me de sanguinibus Deus, Deus salutis mae, et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique; holocausti non delectaberis.

Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes et holocausta; tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.According unto the multitude of Thy tender merciesRemove my transgressions.

I knowingly confess my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee, That they may be justified in Thy sayings, And might they overcome when I am judged.

Behold, Thou desirest truth in my innermost being, And shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.Wash me, make me whiter than snow.

Open my ears and make me hear of joy and gladness, And my bones that have been humbled shall rejoice. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And make anew a righteous spirit within my body.Do not cast me away from Thy presence, And take not Thy holy spirit from me.

I will teach those that are unjust Thy ways, And sinners shall be converted unto Thee.

Deliver me from blood, O God, the God of my salvation, And my tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness. For Thou desirest no sacrifice, where others would; With burnt offerings Thou wilt not be delighted.

Then shalt Thou be pleased With the sacrifices of righteousness, With small and large burnt offerings; Then shall they lay calves upon your altar.


Miserere a 8 — Melani


Litanie per la sa vergine — Melani

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison Christe audi nos, Christe exaudi nos.Pater de cœlis filii Deus, miserere nobis Fili redemptor mundi Deus, miserere nobis

Spiritus sancte Deus, miserere nobis Sancta trinitas unus Deus, miserere nobis.

Sancta Maria, Sancta Dei genitrix, Sancta virgo virginumOra pro nobis Mater Christi, Mater divine gratiæ Mater purissima, Mater castissimaMater intemerata, Mater inviolata Mater amabilis, Mater admirabilis Mater Creator, Mater Salvatoris Ora pro nobis.

Virgo prudentissima, Virgo venerandaVirgo predicanda, Virgo potens Virgo clemens, Virgo fidelis Ora pro nobis.

Speculum justitiæ, sedes sapientiæ, causa nostræ laetitiæOra pro nobis

Vas spirituale, vas honorabile, Vas insigne devotionisOra pro nobis.

Rosa mistica, turris Davidica, Domus aurea, Ianua cœli, turris eburnea, Fœderis ArcaStella matutinaOra pro nobis.

Salus infirmorum, refugium peccatorumConsolatrix afflictorum, auxilium christianorum,Ora pro nobis.

Regina angelorum, Regina patriarcarumRegina martyrum, Regina prophetarumRegina apstolorum, Regina confessorum Regina virginum, Regina sanctorum omnium Ora pro nobis. Agnus Dei Qui tollis peccata mundi Parce nobis Domine. Agnus Dei Qui tollis peccata mundi Exaudi nos Domine.Agnus DeiQui tollis peccata mundi Miserere nobis.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercyChrist hear us, Christ graciously hear us.Father, God of heaven, have mercy on us.

Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Holy Mother of God, Holy Virgin of virgins,Pray for us.

Mother of Christ, Mother of divine grace,Mother of undivided heart, Mother of flawless chastity,Mother unsullied by evil, Mother ever a maiden,Mother so lovable, Mother so wonderful,Mother of the Creator, Mother of the Savior,Pray for us.

Virgin most wise, Virgin whom we revere,Virgin whose praise we sing, Virgin so powerful,Virgin so gentle, Virgin so faithful,Pray for us.

Mirror of righteousness, seat of wisdom, cause of our joy, Pray for us.

Vessel of spiritual life, vessel of honor,Singular vessel of devotion,Pray for us.

Mystical rose, tower of David, house of gold, Porte du Ciel, tower of ivory, ark of the covenant,Star of the morning, Pray for us.

Salvation of the sick, refuge of the sinful,Consoler of the afflicted, helper of Christians,Pray for us.

Queen of the angels, Queen of the patriarchs,Queen of the martyrs, Queen of the prophets,Queen of the apostles, Queen of the confessed,Queen of the virgins, Queen of all the saints,Pray for us.

Lamb of God,Who takes away the sins of the world, Spare us, Lord.Lamb of God,Who takes away the sins of the world, Hear us, Lord.Lamb of God,Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us, Lord.



Ensemble Correspondances

Founded in Lyon in 2009, Correspondances brings together under the direction of the harpsi-chordist and organist Sébastien Daucé a group of singers and instrumentalists, all of whom are specialists in the music of the Grand Siècle. In a few short years of existence, Correspondances

has become a benchmark ensemble in the seventeenth-century French repertory. Placing itself under the auspices of Baudelaire’s notion of correspondences between the arts, it performs music whose sonorities can still directly touch today’s listeners while presenting staged productions of rarer and more original forms such as the oratorio and the ballet de cour.

The ensemble’s twin commitments to breathing new life into already well-known composers and restoring the image of figures less familiar today but celebrated and frequently performed in their own time has already yielded fifteen critically acclaimed recordings, which have earned such dis-tinctions as the Choc Classica of the year, ffff de Télérama, the Diapason d’Or of the year, the ECHO Preis for the World Premiere Recording of the Year 2016, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, German Record Critics’ Award, Operatic Recording of the Year 2016 in Limelight magazine and the Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros.

Correspondances is in residence at the théâtre de Caen. It is associate ensemble at the Opéra and Chapelle of the Château de Versailles, at the Louvre Museum and at the Théâtre de l’Aquarium at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes.


ContributorsContributorsJuly 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021

The Friends of Chamber Music is grateful to acknowledge the kindness of our many contributors who have given their financial support on behalf of our concerts and our educational activities.To join our esteemed partners in music please contact us by calling 816-561-9999 or email at [email protected]

Visionaries ($100,000 and above)William T. Kemper Foundation

Guardians ($25,000 and above)AnonymousMr. and Mrs. Charles E. ClarkMuriel McBrien Kaufman FoundationSanders and Blanche Sosland Music FundStanley H. Durwood Foundation

Sustainers ($15,000 - $24,999)Mr. Charles L. Bacon Jr.Francis Family FoundationIrv and Ellen Hockaday Fund for the Friends of Chamber MusicMira MdivaniMissouri Arts Council Sosland FoundationRichard J. Stern Foundation

Major Benefactors ($10,000 - $14,999)Ms. Alietia CaughronMr. Gregory E. Gille Patricia Cleary Miller, PhDMichael Waterford

Benefactors ($5,000 - $9,999)Richard & Jane BrueningMichael & Marlys Haverty Family Foundation FundMr. Jonathan and Nancy Lee KemperJozach J. Miller & Peter Bali Mr. Tom NanneyJ.B. Reynolds FoundationRLS Illumination Fund

Patrons ($2,500 - $4,999)Dr. Perry Jay Culver, Jr. Ms. Marilyn A W GaarMr. Jay LongbottomMr. Albert P. Mauro, Jr.

J. David & Roxie McGeeMr. & Mrs. Mark O'ConnellMr. Charles W. SchellhornRMO LLP

Supporters ($1,000 - $2,499)ArtsKCDr. Daniel S. DurrieAnne FraserDennis & Susan Lordi Marker Daphne N. MuchnicDr. Douglas L. NelsonShalon FundCyprienne SimchowitzMr. Jerome T. Wolf

Supporters ($500 - $999)Mrs. Susan BakerAyca Aktas Cil Dr. John R. & Ellen R. GoheenMr. William B. KortMrs. Ann F. MillerMr. Stewart E. NowlinMr. George E. Powell III

Friends (to $499)Gary and Mary AdamsElizabeth AppelbaumLeia Barrett Daniel BernsteinMs. Marcy ChiassonMs. Karen L. ChristiansenMs. Diane L. Lynn ClarkMr. Sean CribbsGlion CurtisMr. Don F. DagenaisMr. & Mrs. David M. Eisenberg Sarah Ingraham-EiserJulie Kemper FoyerMs. Cynthia Gibson


Dr. Richard K GutknechtDanielle StaeckerHallmark Corporate FoundationGayle HathorneMr. George M. Helmkamp, Jr.Mrs. Janet L. HowardMrs. Nancy Panzer-Howell Marika E IvankoFran and Art JennyMr. Hibberd V. B. Kline IIIMr. Paul Laird

Mr. Don W LoncastyMr. James MasonLynn & Robert MackleDr. Douglas S. McnairMrs. Honour Helena MillerMs. Kathleen OldfatherMr. Steve Parks Mark Patterson Nancy PowellMr. William RinckMs. Ann Schofield

Mr. Richard SeatonMike SiglerCatherine B. SmithMrs. Shirley SpiegelMr. Darrick Taylor Mrs. Eileen TerrilMr. Perry Toll Mark Weber Ms. Clair Welsh

Contributors

SoirSoirée 2021 — A Virtual Affairée 2021 — A Virtual AffairSoirée is the Friends of Chamber Music's annual benefit and auction. In May of 2021, we gathered virtually, in our homes and in our social bubbles. Through the technical expretise of Harvest Produc-tions, Doug Frost and Lucille Windsor hosted the "Live" Auction from the 1900 Building while partic-ipants enjoyed wine and charcuterie from the kitchen of The Restaurant at 1900. While nothing can replace a live event, our guests enjoyed spirited bidding, delicious food, and a fantastic performance by the Brentano Quartet. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers and our generous supporters, Soirée 2021 met and exceeded our expections. We would like to extend our thanks to all those whose cntributions enabled this success.

Corporate SponsorsJonathan and Nancy Lee KemperRMO LLP

Table HostsIrv HockadayRichard BrueningJennifer BaconAl MauroAlietia CaughronMarilyn GaarDwight ArnLisa and Charlees Schellhorn

Auction Item DonorsPeruvian ConnectionPryde's Old WestportJyoti MukharjiCulinary Center of Kansas City

J. Rieger & Co. DistilleryTannin Wine Bar & KitchenAffäreAl Mauro and Molly DwyerPear Tree Design & AntiquesDwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and MuseumHudson & JaneMontenari Fine Art JewelersMetropolitan Ensemble TheaterTerry Binn SpaThe Loretto FoundationUnicorn TheaterKansas City ChoraleBach Aria SoloistsKansas City SymphonyHarriman-Jewel SeriesLyric Opera of Kansas City

Paul and Bunni Copaken

Wine DonorsDavid EisenbergJerry EisterholdSteve KarbankJohn KirschScott and Kim PenningNeil and Josh SoslandMike and Nancy Thiessen

Wine ConsultantDoug Frost

AuctioneersDoug FrostLucille Windsor

HONORARY CHAIRS Dick and Jane Bruening

EVENT CHAIRSChris Kline

JoZach Miller


A

Absolute music Music that is not attached to text, drama, visual art, or any kind of representation.

Accompaniment The part or parts of music composition which sup-ports a melody or principal part(s).

Adagio [It.] A very slow tempo.

Adagio cantabile [It.] A singable and songlike slow tempo.

Adagio ma non troppo [It.] A very slow tempo, but not too much.

Agitato [It.] Agitated.

Air An English or French song with rhymed poetry for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment; often in several verses and usually in the meter of a dance.

Alla musette Played in the style of a dance-like piece of pasto-ral character which suggests the characteristics of a musette or a bagpipe.

Allegretto [It.] A moderately fast tempo; often lighter in texture or character than an allegro.

Allegretto ma non troppo [It.] A moderately fast tempo, but not too much.

Allegretto moderato [It.] A moder-ate tempo.

Allegretto quasi allegro [It.] A little faster than allegretto and little slower than allegro.

Allegretto quasi andante [It.] A little slower than allegretto and a little faster than andante.

Allegro [It.] A fast tempo.

Allegro appassionato [It.] A fast tempo, with passion.

Allegro assai [It.] A very fast tem-po.

Allegro con brio [It.] A fast tempo with spirit and vivacity.

Allegro con fuoco [It.] A fast tem-po, with fire.

Allegro inquieto [It.] A fast tempo, restless.

Allegro ma non troppo [It.] Fast, but not too much.

Allegro maestoso [It.] A fast tem-po, majestic.

Allegro moderato [It.]. A moder-ately fast tempo.

Allegro molto agitato [It.] A fast tempo, with much agitation.

Allegro molto e con brio [It.] A tempo faster than allegro, with spirit and vigor.

Allegro scherzando [It.] A fast tempo; playful.

Allegro vivace [It.] A fast tempo; lively.

Allegro vivace e con brio [It.] A moderately fast tempo with vivac-ity and brilliance, with spirit.

Allemande [Fr.] A Renaissance and Baroque dance that was cultivated as an independent instrumental piece ca. 1580-1750. It became the first of the four core movements of the solo suite.

Andante [It.] A walking tempo.

Andante con moto [It.] A walking tempo, with motion.

Andantino [It.] Slighter faster and lighter than andante.

Andantino cantabile [It.] Slighter faster and lighter than andante, in a singing style.

Arpeggio [It.] A chord whose pitches are sounded successively rather than simultaneously.

B

Bagatelle A trifle; a short piece of music in a light vein.

Ballade [Fr.] In the nineteenth century, a long, dramatic type of piano piece; the musical equiva-lent to a poetic ballad.

Barcarolle [Fr.] A song of the Venetian gondoliers, or a vocal or instrumental composition mod-eled on such a song.

Bar line In musical notation, a line drawn veritcally through one or more staves to mark off a measure.

Baroque The period or style in Western classical music extending from roughly 1600-1750. Music of this period was music charac-terized by strict forms, contrapun-tal textures, and florid ornamenta-tion. Prominent composers of the period include J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.

Basso continuo [It.] An indepen-dent, continuous bass line in a piece of music that serves as an accompaniment to instruments or voices performing the melody. At a minimum, it consists of a key-board instrument (harpsichord, organ, or a clavichord) and a bass

Glossary


instrument (viola da gamba, or a cello). In early Baroque works, a lute, guitar, harp, or theorbo may also participate as part of the continuo.

Basso ostinato [It.] A pattern of notes that is repeated over and over again during the course of a vocal or instrumental composi-tion.

Bel canto [It. "beautiful singing"] Italian vocal style of the early 19th century characterized by lyrical, embellished melodies that show off a singer's voice.

Binary form A piece or section of music containing two parts, each of which is usually repeated.

C

Cadence A harmonic formula that concludes or resolves a musical phrase, section, or piece.

Cadenza [It.] An elaborate pas-sage for the soloists in a concerto during which all other instruments are silent; usually near the end of a movement and often not written out by the composer but left to the performer to improvise.

Canon A piece, or moment in a piece, in which a subject or musical idea is imitated by one or more voices playing the same musical idea.

Cantabile [It.] Singing; songlike.

Cantata [It.] In the 17th and 18th centuries, a secular chamber work for voice and accompaniment. The term also describes some pieces of Lutheran vocal music in the 18th century.

Cantillation The speech-like

chanting of a liturgical text. Cantus firmus [Latin, "fixed mel-ody"] An existing melody, often taken from Gregorian chant, on which a new work is based.

Capriccio [It.] A humorous, fanci-ful, or bizarre composition, often characterized by an idiosyncratic departure from current stylistic norms.

Chaconne A Baroque form derived from a popular Latin American dance-song of the seventeenth century. The form consists of vari-ations over a basso continuo.

Chamber music Music written for small ensembles and intended to be performed in more intimate spaces such as private or domestic spaces or in a small hall.

Chanson [Fr.] A French polyphon-ic song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Chant See plainchant.

Chorale Hymn in the Lutheran tradition.

Chord Three or more tones played simultaneously.

Chromatic From the Greek word for "color," the scale that includes all twelve pitches contained with-in an octave.

Classical (1) In Western classical music, the period or style extend-ing from the early eighteenth cen-tury through the early nineteenth century; (2) Art music, as opposed to folk or popular music forms.

Clavichord A keyboard instrument popular between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Clef A sign, such as a treble clef, placed at the beginning of the staff to indicate the position of pitches.

Coda [It. "tail"] A concluding sec-tion of a composition or a move-ment, usually reinforcing the final cadence.

Col legno [It. "with wood"] In string playing, to strike the strings with the bow stick rather than bow with the hair.

Coloratura Elaborate ornamen-tation using virutoso techniques such as runs, trills, and wide leaps to decorate a melody; op-eratic roles in which such music plays a major role, and singers of these roles are also called collor-atura.

Compound time Musical rhythm or meter in which each beat per bar is subdivided into three smaller units.

Con vivacità [It.] With liveliness.

Concertante [It.] In 17th-century music, the combination of voices with instruments. The instruments do not simply support the voices but play independent parts.

Concertino A solo instrument or solo instruments playing with an orchestra.

Concerto A work for one or more solo instrument(s) accompa-nied by orchestra, often in three movements.

Counterpoint The combination of two or more melodic lines; the lines may proceed simultaneous-

Glossary


Glossary

ly and relatively independently.

Courante [Fr.] A Baroque dance movement in triple meter.

Cross-rhythm The shift of certain beats ahead or behind their nor-mal positions in that pattern.

D

Development The development of a musical idea or ideas through variations or transformation; the middle section in sonata-allegro form.

Diatonic A scale with seven differ-ent pitches, made up of five whole and two half steps such as a major or minor scale.

Dissonance The perceived insta-bility of a complex of two or more sounds; "clashing" sounds.

Divertimento [It.] An instrumental chamber music work in several movements; usually in light char-acter.

Dolce [It.] Sweetly.

Dolente [It.] Sorrowfully.

Dotted rhythm A rhythm that features a note(s) with a dot which increases its value by half. This elongation creates an uneven rhythmic feel.

Dynamics The aspect of music relating to the degree of loudness or softness.

E

Eighth notes In common time, notes that receive half of one beat.

Espressivo [It.] Expressive.

Étude Literally a "study;" an instrumental piece designed to improve a player's technique.

Exposition The first section in a fugue, sonata, symphony, or con-certo movement, where a subject or musical idea/theme is first heard or exposed.

F

Fantasia/fantasy A composition in no fixed form wherein a com-poser may follow freely his or her imagination; may consist of mul-tiple styles, moods, keys, meters, tempos, or forms.

Forte [It.] Loud.

Fortissimo [It.] Very loud.

French overture Type of overture that begins with a slow, majestic section followed by a faster sec-ond section.

Fret A piece of material placed across the fingerboard or neck and under the strings of some stringed instruments, limiting the strings to be played at a specfic pitch.

Fugue A composition, or section of a composition, in which the subject (initial melodic motive) is imitatively restated in successive iterations throughout multiple voices.

G

Galant A musical style in the 18th century that featured songlike melodies, short phrases, and light accompaniment.

Gigue [Fr.] A fast Baroque dance

movement in binary form, usually in compound meter and usually the last movement of a Baroque suite.

Glissando [It.] A continuous movement from one pitch to another. This may be produced by a sliding movement on a string instrument or the slide of a trombone or sackbut, with all of the micro-intervals (smaller than half or whole steps) contained in between the beginning and ending notes of the slide. On the piano, it is produced by a rapid succession of half and/or whole steps, played with the hand upside down on the fingernails.

Grave [It.] Slow, solemn.

Grazioso [It.] Graceful.

Gregorian chant Named for Pope Gregory I, unaccompanied, mono-phonic music, codified in the 8th and 9th centuries and used as the basis for compositions in the Cath-olic Church for several centuries.

H

Harmony The simultaneous com-bination of notes.

Haute-contre An operatic tenor voice; the highest and most fa-vored of the three male voices in Baroque and Classical French opera.

Homophony Music in which one voice, carrying the melody, is supported by an accompaniment which is subsidiary to the melody; as opposed to monophony and polyphony.


GlossaryI

Impromptu A title of a single-movement composition, characterized by an off-hand style, as the result of sudden inspiration, but not necessarily of an improvisatory nature.

Intermezzo, also "intermedio" [It.] In 16th-century Italy, a short, light musical entertainment interpolat-ed between more serious sec-tions of more serious fare. In the 19th century, short, independent pieces composed by Brahms or Schumann among others.

Interval The distance between two pitches.

K

Kapellmeister [Ger.] The leader of a musical chapel or court ensem-ble which might provide both sacred and secular music.

Key In tonal music, the pitch relationships that establish a single pitch as a tonal center or tonic.

Key signature Sharps or flats at the beginning of each staff to indicate the key of a piece of music.

L

Largamente, ma non troppo [It.]Very slow and stately, but not too much.

Largo [It.] Very slow tempo.

Largo, con gran espressione [It.] Very slow tempo, with great ex-pression.

Leggiero e vivace [It.] A light and lively tempo.

Lento. [It.] A slow tempo.

Libretto [It.] The text of an opera or oratorio.

Lieder [Ger.] German art songs.

L'istesso tempo [It.] A direction to maintain the same tempo despite changes in tempo, meter, or other apparent disturbances.

Lute A plucked, stringed instru-ment; prominent in Europe and England during the Renaissance.

Lyrical Expressing a compos-er's meaning in an imaginative or beautiful way; relating to the words of a song (the lyrical con-tent of a song).

M

Madrigal [It.] A secular vocal composition of the Renaissance and early Baroque.

Maestoso [It.] Majestic.

Mass The central service of the Roman Catholic rites, deriving from a ritual commemorating the sacrifice of Christ, usually made up of several sections that fall into two categories: the Proper (por-tions in which the texts change according to the liturgical calen-dar) and the Ordinary (portions in which the text never changes).

Mazurka A Polish folk-dance in triple meter with accents on the second or third beat; a stylized piano piece based on the dance.

Measure A way of dividing music into specific units of time, set off by barlines with the same number of beats in a measure.Medieval era The Middle Ages;

music of the period from approxi-mately 500 until about 1430.

Melody An organized succession of musical tones; a tune.

Meter In a given composition or section of a composition, the basic pattern of regular pulses and ac-cents found in each measure and indicated by a time signature; the rhythmic organization of a work.

Minuet/menuetto An elegant dance movement in triple meter.

Minuet/trio A form that combines two binary-form minuets to make an ABA pattern in which the A is the minuet and the B is the trio.

Misterioso [It.] Played in a myste-rious manner.

Mode A type of scale, a schematic arrangement of pitches used as a basis for composition; used in music of the Medieval and Renais-sance periods; also used in jazz and blues improvisation.

Moderato [It.] A moderate tempo.

Moderato dolce e tranquilo [It.] A moderate tempo; sweet, and tranquil.

Modulate To change from one key to another within a composition or movement.

Molto [It.] Literally "much" or "very;" used as a qualifier for tem-po markings.

Molto vivace [It.] Very lively.

Monophony Music consisting of a single voice or line, for either


one performer or an ensemble performing in unison, such as in chant. Most commonly found in music of the Middle Ages.

Mosso [It.] With movement.

Motive [Fr. motiv] A brief musi-cal idea too short to be called a theme.

Movement A complete and rela-tively independent part of a larger composition such as a sonata, quartet, concerto, or symphony.

N

Nocture A short piano piece marked by an ornamented mel-ody, lush accompaniments, and a contemplative mood; popular during the Romantic period.

O

Octave The interval made up of the first and eighth notes of a scale.

Office The daily services of the Roman Catholic rites; the practice of fixed daily hours of prayer.

Opera A drama set to music which consists of singing arias and recitatives with orchestral accom-paniment.

Opus (abbr. Op.) "Work." The method of cataloging a com-poser's works usually indicating the order in which a composer's works were published, but not necessarily the order in which they were composed.

Oratorio An extended musical drama set to sacred text; often

Glossary scored for vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra.

Ordinary Those parts of the Ro-man Catholic mass in which the texts do not change.

Ostinato Short musical pattern that persistently repeats through-out a piece or section of music.

Overture A composition intended as an introduction to a suite, op-era, or other dramatic work.

P

Parallel minor The minor key that shares the same tonic as the major key. For example, C minor is the parallel minor of C major.

Partita 1) In the late 16th and 17th centuries, a variation, usually on a traditional melody; 2) in the late Baroque period and early Classi-cal period, a type of multi-move-ment instrumental suite, whose movements are based on dances that have become stylized and suitable only for listening.

Passacaglia A continuous variation form, principally of the Baroque.

Pedal point A sustained bass note over which contrasting harmony is played.

Pentatonic scale A five-note scale.

Phrase A portion of melody that has a distinct beginning and end-ing.

Piano [It.] Soft.

Piano trio An ensemble con-sisting of a piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello; a piece of music written for the ensemble.

Pianissimo [It.] Very soft.

Pitch The highness or lowness of sound.

Più presto Faster than presto.

Pizzicato [It.] In string playing, the directive to pluck the strings of an instrument with the fingers or thumb.

Plainchant A sacred, unaccompa-nied vocal work with no harmony, only a single voice or multiple voices singing in unison.

Poco [It.] Little or less.

Poco più animato [It.] A little more animated.

Polonaise A Polish dance in triple meter, or a piece of music in the style of a polonaise.

Polyphony Music combining sev-eral lines, each of which retains its identity as a line to some degree.

Prelude A piece or movement that precedes and introduces other movements of a larger work, such as a partita or a suite.

Prestissimo [It.] As fast as possible.

Presto [It.] Very fast.

Program music Instrumental mu-sic that tells a story.

Proper Those parts of the Roman Catholic mass in which the texts change daily with the liturgical calendar.

Psalmody The singing of Psalms in worship.

R

Recapitulation In sonata-allegro


Glossaryform, the third section of a piece of music which restates material from the exposition.

Recitative [It.] A vocal style de-signed for the speech-like decla-mation of narrative episodes in operas, oratorios, or cantatas.

Renaissance In Western classical music, the period extending from approximately 1425-1600.

Ricercar [It.] In the early to mid-sixteenth century, a prelude in improvisatory style; from the late sixteenth century on, an in-strumental piece involving imitat-ing subjects.

Ritornello [It. "little return"] A short, recurrent instrumental pas-sage.

Romantic era In Western classical music, the period usually consid-ered to have spanned the early to late nineteenth century.

Rondo [It.] Usually the final movement of a sonata, a quartet, or a symphony; a form prominent in the Classical period in which a main theme alternates with con-trasting episodes.

S

Sarabande [Fr.] A slow, stately, highly ornamented Baroque dance in triple meter; usually part of an instrumental suite.

Scale A schematic arrangement of notes in ascending and de-scending order of pitch, used as the basis for music compositions most notably from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries.

Scherzo [It. "joke"] A movement of a sonata, symphony, or quartet

usually written in a light, rapid style often with a contrasting trio section.

Semitone A half step; the smallest interval typically used in Western music.

Sforzando [It.] An indication for a strong accent on a note or chord; a sudden loud dynamic change.

Sinfonia [It.] In the late seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries, the generic title for an orchestral piece used as an introduction, interlude, or postlude to an opera, oratorio, cantata, or suite.

Singspiel [Ger.] Literally "singing play;" a German genre of opera, consisting of spoken dialogue interspersed with songs, choruses, and instrumental music.

Sixteenth notes In common time, notes that receive a quarter of one beat.

Sixty-fourth notes In common time, notes that receive a sixteenth of one beat.

Sonata [It.] A composition for one or more instruments, usually in several movements.

Sonata-allegro form A large-form movement in three parts: exposition, development, and recapitulation; an ABA form most commonly employed in sonatas, string quartets, concertos, and symphonies.

Song cycle A group of songs per-formed in succession that tells or suggests a story.

Staccato [It.] Literally "detached;" a manner of performance in which

each note is shortened and sepa-rated from the notes that follow.

Staff The five lines and four spaces on which music is notated.

Stretto [It.] An imitative treatment in which a musical idea that is in more than one voice or instrument follows so closely in succession that each statement of the idea overlaps with the next, creating greater stress or tension.

String Quartet An instrumental ensemble comprised of two vio-lins, a viola, and a cello.

Subject A melody or melodic frag-ment on which a fugue is based.

Suite [Fr.] An instrumental work comprised of different movements with some element of unity, often performed as a single work. The piece's unity may be derived from a common key, or from some thematic connections and overall form.

Symphonic poem A one-move-ment work of program music for orchestra that relates a poetic idea or story.

Symphony (1) A large-scale com-position usually based on sonata form, usually in multiple move-ments written for orchestra; (2) a large-scale instrumental ensemble.

Syncopation Temporary disruption of a steady rhythm by placing a strong note on a weak beat.

T

Tempo The speed at which a com-position is performed. Common


Glossary

tempo markings include (listed from slow to fast): largo, lento, adagio, andante, allegretto, alle-gro, vivace, presto, prestissimo.

Ternary form A movement with three sections. The first and third sections are identical or closely related and the second is contrast-ing; an ABA form.

Texture The overall quality of sound in a piece when all of its elements—tempo, melody, and harmonic materials—are com-bined.

Theme The principal melody in a composition or in a section of a composition.

Theorbo A large bass lute which was developed in the late six-teenth century especially for basso continuo.

Thirty-second notes In common time, notes that receive an eighth of one beat.

Timbre Tone color; the character of a sound, as distinct from its pitch; the quality of a sound that distinguishes one instrument or voice from another.

Time signature The sign placed at the beginning of a composition or during the piece to indicate its meter. It normally consists of two numbers: the top number indi-cates how many beats are in each measure, and the bottom number indicates what type of note is worth one beat.

Toccata An instrumental com-position, often featuring several virtuosic sections, designed to show off the player's technical

capabilities.

Tonal In Western music, the or-ganized relationship of tones with reference to a definite key center or tonic; generally, a work written in a specific scale or key.

Tone poem Also symphonic poem; a term coined by Franz Liszt to designate a piece of orchestral music that conveys a poetic idea, story, or scene.

Tonic The first degree, or pitch, of a diatonic scale.

Tremolando To perform a tremolo

Tremolo [It.] The fast, unmea-sured repetition of a single note or alternation between two notes.

Triad A chord consisting of three pitches, each pitch usually sepa-rated by the interval of a third or fourth.

Trill The rapid alternation of two tones either a whole or half step apart.

Triple meter Any meter in which there are three basic beats in a measure, such as 3/4 or 3/8.

Triplet Three notes of the same rhythmic value to be played/sung in the time normally occupied by one or two note(s) of the same value.

Tutti [It.] In a concerto, the en-semble, as distinct from the solo-ist(s); a passage for the ensemble.

U

Unison Simultaneous perfor-

mance on the same pitch.

V

Variation The compositional tech-nique in which a musical idea or theme is manipulated and repeat-ed with various changes.

Viol Any of a family of fretted, bowed stringed instruments in use from the 16th through much of the 18th century.

Viola da gamba [It.] In the 16th and 17th centuries, a bowed stringed instrument played on or between the legs, as distinct from one played on the arm.

Virtuosic A term used to describe music that requires great techni-cal capability on the part of the performer.

Vivace [It.] Lively; brisk.

Vivace alla marcia [It.] Lively, brisk; in the manner of a march.

Voice (1) The human voice; (2) a single part or line in an instrumen-tal composition.

Note: These definitions are taken from The New Harvard Dictionary of Mu-sic, edited by Don Randel; The New Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Denis Arnold; and The New Grove Dictionary of Music, edited by Stan-ley Sadie; with additional edits by the Friends of Chamber Music staff.


GlossaryCatalog Abbreviations

BWV Bach Werke Verzeichnis, the catalog of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, developed by Wolfgang Schmie-der.

D The Deutsch Catalog contains Franz Schubert's compositions as compiled by Otto Erich Deutsch.

H H. Wiley Hitchcock's catalog of Charpentier's works: The oeuvres de Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Hess A catalog of Beethoven's works compiled by Swiss musicologist and composer Willy Hess in 1957.

Hob The catalog of Joseph Haydn's works, compiled by Anthony van Hobo-ken.

S Franz Liszt's works, identified by S numbers, were cataloged by Humprey Searle in 1954.

WoO Werk ohne Opuszahl [work with-out opus number] refers to the catalog designation of some of Beethoven's works that were not assigned an opus number.

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