WI Union-St Martin; Caroline Goulding

1Wisconsin Union Theater

Great History. Bright Future92nd Annual Concert Series

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble

Friday, September 30, 20117:30 pm

www.uniontheater.wisc.edu608-265-ARTS

800 Langdon St., Madison, WI 53706

2 Wisconsin Union Theater

Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this

year by Shawn Werner.

Support for this program is provided by: Fan Taylor Fund for the Performing Arts, Wisconsin Union Theater Endowment

Fund, The Onion, Wisconsin Public radio, WORT, 89.8 FM, WSUM

UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee and help program our

upcoming events, please contact Shawn Werner at [email protected] .


PROGR A M

String Sextet No. 2, in G, Op. 36 (1864-5) ......................................................... Johannes Brahms,Allegro non troppo 1833-1897Scherzo: Allegro non troppoPoco AdagioPoco Allegro

Prelude and Scherzo , Op. 11 ...........................................................................Dmitri ShostakovichAdagio 1906-1975Allegro molto

INTERMISSION

Octet for Strings in E-flat major, Op. 20 ..........................................................Felix MendelssohnAllegro moderato, ma con fuoco 1809-1847AndanteScherzo (Allegro leggierissimo)Presto

THE ACADEMY OF ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

Andrew Watkinson .........................................................................................violin and guest leaderHarvey de Souza ............................................................................................................................... violinJennifer Godson ................................................................................................................................ violinMartin Burgess .................................................................................................................................. violinRobert Smissen ...................................................................................................................................violaDuncan Ferguson ...............................................................................................................................violaStephen Orton .....................................................................................................................................celloJohn Heley ............................................................................................................................................cello

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble appears by arrangement with David Rowe Artists, www.davidroweartists.com

Chandos, Philips, Hyperion recordings

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November 3-20, 2011

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JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)String Sextet No. 2, in G, Op. 36 (1864-5)

“I love you! I must see you again! But I cannot wear fetters.” With these words in a letter to the soprano Agathe von Siebold, the 25 year-old Brahms broke off their secret engagement. Brahms had almost daily contact with Agathe, two years younger than himself, over a two-month period in the summer of 1858. They exchanged letters which Agathe, a professor’s daughter from Göttingen, viewed as ‘the source of the deepest and purest joy.’ Brahms was even photographed wearing an engagement ring that summer, though it was never publicly acknowledged. Agathe had a voice that his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, compared with the sound of an Amati violin. But after Brahms sent his letter in 1859, the couple never again met. Both wore the scars of the broken relationship for years and only in old age could Agathe bring herself to reply to a greeting that Brahms sent via Joachim.

Characteristically, Brahms worked out his feelings in music, not in words. Characteristi-cally, too, it took him several years before the work came together on paper. It also took a melancholy return visit to Göttingen, once Agathe had fled the town of painful memories to become a governess in Ireland. Shortly afterwards, in September 1864, back at his summer retreat in Baden-Baden, Brahms composed the anguished, intense and revealing songs of his Op. 32. Within the month, he also completed the first three movements of a G major Sextet for two violins, two violas and two cellos, finishing the finale the following May. This was to be his Op. 36. At the time, Brahms told the singer Joseph Gänsbacher: “I have freed myself from my last love.”

He did so literally, as well as figuratively, by including a particular sequence of notes by way of catharsis in the opening movement. The phrase is repeated three times, high on the first violin and first viola, immediately after the cello introduces the warmly lyrical second theme. The notes are A-G-A-H-E (H being the German B natural). At the same time the note D, a substitute note for the T in Agathe’s name, on viola forms part of another word, ADE, the German word for ‘adieu’. The two words are a hidden, but nevertheless very conscious ‘Farewell, Agathe.’ The phrase continues to appear throughout the first movement. The reference, if a bit cryptic for those of us not addicted to crossword puzzles or Sudoku, would have been immediately clear to Brahms’s circle of friends, since they were accustomed to musical ciphers in the music of Brahms, Schumann and other romantics.

The second movement is, somewhat unusually, a scherzo - a rather bittersweet scherzo. The darkly colored opening section is a reworking of a Gavotte for piano that Brahms wrote in 1854. The wildly contrasting middle section is a thigh-slapping ländler of great gusto. The E minor Adagio that follows is a melancholy and subdued set of varia-tions on another earlier theme, this time associated with a more persistent desire, his love for Clara Schumann. The finale of this magnificently sonorous, closely integrated Sextet returns to a more upbeat mood.

The G major Sextet was the first work by Brahms to receive its première in the United States. It was given October 11, 1866 at the Mendelssohn Quintet Club in Boston. The European première followed in Zurich the following month.

— Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: [email protected]

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)Two pieces for string octet, Op. 11 (1924-5)

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1918, Saint Petersburg was a city in decline. Throughout the 19th century, it had dominated Russian cultural life. Now, as civil war began to break out, as peasants across the country began to revolt, and as everyone went in search of food to survive, Peter the Great’s dream of ‘a window to the West’ was

PROGR A M NOTES


a city that suffered from anarchy. With Moscow once again reinstated as capital, Saint Petersburg, or Petrograd as it had been named since 1914, seemed to epitomize all that was wrong with Russia under the Romanovs. By the end of the civil war and the Revolution in 1920, ten million had died in the country. Martial law was imposed the following year. A dreadful famine that winter killed five million more.

It was against this bleak background that the young Dmitri Shostakovich entered the Petrograd Conservatory as its youngest student. He was just 13, in poor health, highly strung. Tuberculosis had already been diagnosed and was to recur over the next decade. He was an excellent student, studying piano with Leonid Nikolayev and composition under Maximilian Steinberg. He was encouraged by Glazunov, the head of the Conservatory, and when he suffered from malnutrition, Glazunov arranged for extra rations. One year before his graduation, Shostakovich’s father died unexpectedly. To help support the family, the young composer played piano for silent movies in vari-ous Petrograd theaters.

Still a teenager, Shostakovich used the required graduation symphony to create a big splash. His brilliant First Symphony catapulted him to international fame and retains its freshness to this day. He composed it with the intensity, confidence and single-mindedness that he was to bring to his music in later years. At the time, he also began what he first envisaged as a Prelude and Fugue for string octet. The Prelude was completed by December 1924. Six months later the Fugue had turned into a Scherzo and he now viewed these two movements as part of a projected five-movement suite, which he never completed. The Two Pieces, Op. 11, are at once experimental and precociously crafted, as though the young Shostakovich had set himself the challenge of reconciling opposites - of writing a scherzo within an elegy in the first movement and an elegy within a scherzo in the second. The Prelude is written in memory of a young friend, the poet Volodya Kurchavov, whose death occurred while he was writing. Its elegiac opening chords, together with the interval of a dying fifth and its downward spiraling main theme, are the building blocks of both movements and give the two pieces some unity. Both movements include tautly written contrapuntal passages. In the rather more edgy Scherzo – ‘the very best thing I have written,’ Shostakovich said at the time - they build to searing intensity.

Notes copyright © Keith Horner, 2011. Comments welcomed: [email protected]

2011-12 season only. If posted online, notes must be removed at end of the 2011-12 season.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)Octet in E flat, Op. 20 (1825) With this Octet, the 16 year-old Mendelssohn earned a place in the line of great compos-ers in the Western classical tradition. He had started daily composition at the age of 11. By 16, he could look back on a catalog of four operas, three piano quartets, a virtuoso sextet, and, most significantly, a dozen string symphonies. These were the apprentice works that allowed the precocious young man to appear to burst forth as a fully mature and, indeed original, composer at the age of 16. Everything came together to favor early development. His family was rich and highly cultivated. The cream of Berlin social and intellectual life gathered in the Mendelssohn family’s magnificent Leipzigerstrasse estate in Berlin. Here, at weekly Sunday musicales, the young composer had a private orchestra at his disposal. Here, too, the children - Felix, his elder sister Fanny, younger sister Rebecca and brother Paul - liked to put on plays by Shakespeare. Later, the philosopher Friedrich Hegel, a family friend, taught Mendelssohn at the University of Berlin. Even as an ado-lescent, Mendelssohn was a gifted all-rounder. He painted, he fenced, he wrote verse as well as a copious quantity of letters. As a musician, he was an accomplished pianist and played both violin and viola tolerably well.

PROGR A M NOTES (c o n t.)


The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields was formed in 1959 by a group of eleven enthusiastic musicians with the aim of performing in public without a conductor. Their first three recordings led to a succession of long-term contracts, and the Academy quickly took their place among the most recorded ensembles in history. As the reper-toire expanded from Baroque to Mozart, Bartok and Beethoven, so it became necessary for the principal violin, Neville Marriner, to conduct the larger orchestra.

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble was created in 1967 to perform the larger chamber works—from quintets to octets—with players who customarily work together, instead of the usual string quartet with additional guests. Drawn from the principal players of the orchestra, the Chamber Ensemble tours as a string octet, string sextet, and in other configurations including winds. Its touring com-mitments are extensive, with annual visits to France, Germany, and Spain, and frequent tours to North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan.

The Ensemble’s autumn, 2011 North American tour brings them to nine cities, includ-ing Vancouver, Canada; Chico, CA; Madison, WI; Columbus, OH; Iowa City, IA; Ithaca, NY; London, Ontario, Canada; Sault St. Marie, Canada; and Clinton, CT.

Contracts with Philips Classics, Hyperion, and Chandos have led to the release of over thirty CDs by the Chamber Ensemble.

ABOUT THE ACADEMY OF ST. M ARTIN IN THE F IELDS


The originality of the Octet is noteworthy. The only model Mendelssohn may have had to hand was the first of the double quartets by the virtuoso violinist Louis Spohr, written some three years earlier. Mendelssohn, however, takes the idea of two quartets playing together a good deal further than Spohr. He opens up a palette of eight es-sentially equal instruments and paints in myriad instrumental colors, ranging from the hushed monochrome unison at the end of the Scherzo to the burst of multi-colored hues in the eight-part fugal exuberance that follows. Mendelssohn also pinpoints the sort of chamber-scale orchestral sound he wants: “This Octet must be played by all in-struments in symphonic orchestral style,” he writes in the preface to the score. “Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more sharply emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character.”

Throughout, the young Mendelssohn eagerly explores a sparkling variety of tex-tures, often in strikingly original ways. The first two movements alternate between polished ensemble playing and, as in the soaring opening, the style of a violin concerto. The scherzo, a meeting point for both absolute and program music, has always been the favorite movement of the Octet. It was inspired (Mendelssohn told his sister, Fanny) by the Walpurgis night dream section of Goethe’s Faust, with its vivid insect and small animal imagery: “Drifting cloud and gauzy mist, Brighten and dissever. Breeze on the leaf and wind in the reeds, And all is gone forever.”

Just one year later, Mendelssohn was to return to this musical fairy-world at which he excelled with his incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The mood of the Octet’s finale is hard to put into words. The opening, which is played low down on scrubbing cellos, seems humorous and the counter-melody which soon evolves is less than reverentially lifted from the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah at the words: “And He shall reign for ever and ever”. In fact, the entire movement seems to evolve as a light-hearted treatment of the academic form of the fugue. It is youthful in its exuberance, tongue-in-cheek at times, effortlessly modulating from one key to another, joyous and assured. It represents a perfect rapport between form and content, the likes of which Mendelssohn was to achieve only infrequently again.

— Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: [email protected]


INDIV IDUAL MEMBER B IOGR APHIES

Andrew Watkinson (violin, guest leader) hails from Glasgow. He studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School for four years, and also in Switzerland and Leningrad. His many teachers included Frederick Grinke, Joseph Szigeti, Franco Gulli and Yfrah Neaman. Andrew is first violinist of the renowned Endellion String Quartet, which is in residence at Cambridge University. In its 30 years the quartet has given well over 2,000 concerts worldwide, and its recording the Beethoven quartets Warner Classics has recently been released to critical acclaim. As a soloist he has appeared with many of the British orchestras and performed in Germany, Holland, Israel, France and South America. For many years he was leader and director of the City of London Sinfonia, giving concerts in Britain and touring widely. He has also been a regular guest leader and director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and continues to be invited to guest direct orchestras in Britain as well as in countries such as Italy, Den-mark and Spain.

Harvey de Souza (violin) is a native of Bombay, India, and began musical stud-ies at the age of four with his father. He was awarded a scholarship to attend the Yehudi Menuhin School in England, where he studied with Mr. Menuhin, Felix Andrievsky, and Margaret Norris. He subsequently studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jascha Brodsky and Felix Galamir. He has performed extensively throughout Europe, the U.S., China, and India, and has partici-pated in numerous festivals including Salzburg, Sienna, Gstaad, and Prussia Cove. He was a member of the Vel-linger String Quartet from 1993-1999, and since 1993 has been a member of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Jennifer Godson (violin) has been a member of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields since 1985. She is also princi-pal second violin of the London Mozart Players and co-leader of John Eliot

Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. Much of her musical life has revolved around chamber music and she was a member of the Fairfield String Quartet from 1978-88, perform-ing and broadcasting throughout the UK and Europe.

Martin Burgess (violin) has Played with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields since 1992, and recently made his de-but as guest director. He studied with Emanuel Hurwitz and the Amadeus Quartet. Away from the Academy, Mar-tin leads the Emperor String Quartet, which won 1st Prize at the 1995 Evian International String Quartet Competi-tion and was recently nominated for a Grammy Award in the USA for their CD of the Quartets of William Walton.

Robert Smissen (viola) won a scholar-ship to Chethams School of Music aaat the age of 14, and went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music with Da-vid Takeno. While there he won prizes for chamber music and solo playing. After college he was appointed princi-pal viola with the Northern Sinfonia, a post he held until 1986. He currently plays with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, as well as other London chamber orchestras.

Duncan Ferguson (viola) was born in Scotland, and won a scholarship for post-graduate study at the Royal Acad-emy of Music after receiving his diplo-ma from the Royal Scottish Academy in 1992. Primarily known as a chamber musician he is a multiple prize-winner for both solo performance and with the celebrated Medea Quartet with whom he played for five years. Duncan has been playing with the Academy since 1996 and acts as guest principal for many other orchestras including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra.


B IOGR APHIES (c o n t.)

Stephen Orton (cello) was born in Ripon, Yorkshire. He won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music to study with William Pleeth. He has been principal cello in the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and assistant principal in the English Chamber Orchestra, and has performed as soloist with both ensembles. He was a member of the Delme Quartet for 10 years, and joined the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields as principal cellist in 1986.

John Heley (cello) was born in London, and began playing cello at the age of six. He was awarded a scholarship to study with William Pleeth, and contin-ued studies with Mr. Pleeth at the Guild-hall School of Music where he won numerous prizes. In 1980 he left the post of associate principal cellist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to concentrate on freelance work, which included recordings with guitarist John Williams. In 1986 he became associate principal cellist with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

COMING SOON

Sweet Honey in the RockFriday, October 7, 2011, 8 pm

Madeeline PeyrouxOpening: Nellie McKay

Wednesday, October 12, 20122, 8 pm

Terence BlanchardFriday, October 21, 2011, 8 pm

Yamato, Drummers of Japan“Gamushara—The Beat of Courage”

Thursday, October 27, 2011, 8pm

Marlin Darrah: Pakistan and Afghanistan – A Photographer’s Journey from Kabul to the Khyber Pass & The Tribal Zone

Monday & Tuesday, October 31 & November 1, 2011, 7:30 pm

Caroline Goulding, violinRecital: Thursday, November 3, 2011, 7:30pm

Caroline Goulding with UW Chamber Orchestra, Mendelssohn concertoSaturday, November 5, 2011, 7:30pm

A Classical Encounter with Savion Glover Thursday, November 10, 2011, 8pm

Dobet Gnahoré Friday, November 11, 2011, 9pm, Sett, Union South

Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey SiegelA Beethoven Bonanza

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 7:30pm, Mills Hall

Fran and Brooke Reidelberger: Colorful Mexico!Monday and Tuesday, November 28 & 29, 2011, 7:30 pm

Madison Symphony OrchestraJohn DeMain | Music Director

2011 2012 SEASON

SINGLE TICKETS ON SALE NOW!CALL: 608.258.4141 ONLINE: madisonsymphony.org

OCTOBER 14 15 16ROSSINI Overture to The Barber of Seville

LALO Cello Concerto in D minor

SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2

Ward Stare Conductor

Lynn Harrell CelloSPONSOR: STEINHAUER CHARITABLE TRUST

NOVEMBER 11 12 13HAYDN Symphony No. 104 (London)

RAVEL La Valse

SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No. 1

John DeMain Conductor

Midori ViolinSPONSORS: THE GIALAMAS COMPANY, INC, MGE FOUNDATION • KENNETH A. LATTMAN FOUNDATIONFRED & MARY MOHS • ANN LINDSEY & CHARLES SNOWDON

DECEMBER 2 3 4CHRISTMASSPECTACULARJohn DeMain Conductor

Jamie-Rose Guarrine Soprano

Kyle Ketelsen Bass-Baritone

Madison Symphony ChorusBeverly Taylor, Director

Madison Youth Choirs Michael Ross, Artistic Director

Mt. Zion Gospel Choir Leotha Stanley, Director

SPONSORS: AMERICAN PRINTING • NEDREBO’SM&I WEALTH MANAGEMENT,

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Celebrating 20 years of big ideaswith a great new website:


Great History. Bright Future92nd Annual Concert Series

Caroline Goulding, ViolinDina Vainshtein, Piano

www.uniontheater.wisc.edu608-265-ARTS

800 Langdon St., Madison, WI 53706


Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this year by

Shawn Werner.

Support for this program is provided by: Barbara and Frank Manley Cultural Arts Fund, Fan Taylor Fund for the Perform-

ing Arts, H. Douglas and Elizabeth Weaver Fund for the Performing Arts, Wisconsin Union Theater Endowment Fund,

The Onion, Wisconsin Public radio, WORT, 89.8 FM, WSUM

UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee and help program our

upcoming events, please contact Shawn Werner at [email protected] .


PROGR A M

Caroline Goulding, ViolinDina Vainshtein, Piano

Sonata No. 18 in G Major, K. 301 (293a) .....................................................................W.A. MOZARTAllegro con spirito (1756 - 1791)Allegro

Sonata in A minor, Op. 25, “dans le caractère populaire roumain” ............................................................... GEORGE ENESCU

Moderato malinconico (1881 - 1955)Andante sostenuto e misteriosoAllegro con brio, ma non troppo mosso

INTERMISSION

Sonata in A minor, Op. 105 ..............................................................................ROBERT SCHUMANNMit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck (1810 - 1856)AllegrettoLebhaft

Romance, Op. 28............................................................................................................ GABRIEL FAURË (1845 – 1924)

Caprice d’apres l’etude en forme de Valse, Op. 52, No. 6 ......................................................................................................CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS

(1835 – 1921) arr. EUGENE YSAYE (1858 – 1931)

Exclusive Management:Opus 3 Artists

470 Park Avenue SouthNew York NY 10016

PROGR A M NOTES

By Rose Gear

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote his Sonata in G major K. 301 during a turbulent period of his life. In 1777, Mozart bid farewell to his beloved Aloysia Weber and a position as court composer in Salzburg which the young Mozart had found stifling. In the company of his mother, Mozart journeyed from Salzburg to Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, and finally to Paris. Consequentially, Mozart’s sonatas K. 301-306 are referred to as his Paris-Mannheim sonatas; some were composed in Paris and some in Mannheim. The Sonata in G major dates from February 1778; Frau Mozart died suddenly of fever five months later, leaving the young composer alone for the first time in his life.

The piece consists of two movements, marked Allegro con spirito and Allegro, as was typical of violin-and-keyboard sonatas during this period. In contrast to Mozart’s early sonatas, the violin and keyboard are on equal footing, each gaining prominence in turn with neither outshining the other. Carefree and easygoing throughout, moments of brooding merely add fleeting dramatic contrast to effervescent textures. Given the tragedy that was to occur in Mozart’s life shortly after he composed this piece, the work takes on an air of innocence and adolescent naiveté.



Although playful in spirit, Enescu’s Sonata in A minor Op. 25 lacks any trace of childishness. Born in Liveni, Romania, Georges Enescu (1881-1955) began his formal training at age 9 at the Vienna Conservatory; he later furthered his studies of violin and composition in Paris. Known to have been a skilled pedagogue as well as a gifted composer, Enescu published just 33 compositions in his lifetime. As a whole, Enescu’s works were heavily influenced by the folk music of his native Romania, but also by the romanticism of Brahms and Schumann and the chromaticism of Fauré. However, the darkly atmospheric Sonata in A minor Op. 25 bears little to no stylistic resemblance to the work of these composers. Subtitled dans le caractère populaire roumain or “in Roma-nian character,” Enescu does not quote preexisting folk melodies in this piece, because he felt that he could do little more than state and restate them. Enescu makes frequent use of the elaborate ornaments and sound effects available to gypsy violinists, such as artificial harmonics, slides, pitch bends, and the drawing of the bow over the bridge or fingerboard. The violinist must not only exploit these effects but also capture the free-flowing swing of the folk idiom in order to successfully perform this work.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) wrote only two violin sonatas; both were composed during his short tenure as music director in the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Appointed to the post in 1850, Schumann’s perennially poor mental health, irritability, and general ineptitude as a conductor led him to resign in 1853 after a committee from the orchestra discreetly proposed he devote all of his time to composition. It is at this point that matters took a disturbing turn. Schumann began to hear voices and musical sounds constantly, and his depressions deepened. These brought the composer to try to commit suicide one winter evening by jumping into the Rhine: he was rescued and brought to an insane asylum near Bonn, where he died in his sleep in 1856 at the age of 46

Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 in A minor was officially premiered in March 1852 by the composer’s wife, Clara Schumann, and violin virtuoso Ferdinand David. As one might expect, this work evokes the instability and mood swings that had begun to control the composer’s life. The first movement, marked Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck, or “with passionate expression,” features rich, mellifluous melodic lines in both the violin and piano. Frequent harmonic changes suggest a restless quality while the piano’s unbroken stream of 16th-notes drive the movement forward to an angst-ridden finale. The Allegretto, little more than a pleasant intermezzo, stands in stark contrast to both the preceding and following movement. Here two contrasting fragmentary melodies, one lyrical and one sprightly, perform a delicate dance. The final movement again elicits agitation, as a brisk tempo and increasingly cramped musical texture heighten tensions. The work comes to an end as sudden and as tragic as that of its composer.

Much less tragic was the life of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). Fauré attended the famous École Niedermeyer in Paris on full scholarship, where he studied piano with Camille Saint-Saëns. A major influence on Fauré’s early musical development, Saint-Saëns became a close friend to the composer. At Saint-Saëns’s recommendation, Fauré was appointed assistant organist of L’église de la Madeleine in Paris in 1877. In that same year, and at the age of 32, Fauré composed his Romance in B-flat major Op. 28. In 1895 Fauré began teaching a class in composition at Paris Conservatory, where his students included a young George Enescu. Fauré late became director of Paris Conservatory in 1905, a position he held until 1920.

Charming yet restrained, and with a sense of purity throughout, Fauré’s Romance in B-flat major is Hellenic, the principal goal being the projection of classical beauty. This brief work begins dulce e tranquillo as the violin glides in a song-like melody. The piano picks up fragments of this melody before it is repeated, with minor variations, in the violin part. The key shifts to a turbulent G minor, with the violin’s staccato theme supported by murky undulations in the piano’s middle range. The piano again extracts segments of the violin theme, and the two voices exchange statements before calm is restored and the work’s opening theme returns for a contented finale.



Although himself one of the great pianists of his age, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was amazed and astonished by virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt during an encounter in 1866. Of Liszt’s playing Saint-Saëns wrote, “never again shall we see or hear anything to compare with it.” Saint-Saëns composed piano music in imitation of Liszt’s nuanced, virtuosic style, including a collection of six études for piano completed in 1877. Saint-Saëns’ friend, Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), later arranged the sixth étude of this collection into the version we hear today, Caprice d’après l’etude en forme de Valse for violin and piano.

Ysaÿe’s transcription has all of the ingredients of a good showpiece, designed to pa-rade the technical and musical capabilities of a soloist. Not only does Ysaÿe call upon the performer to master challenging double-stops and arpeggios, but also extended techniques such as left-hand pizzicato and artificial harmonics. Listen also for the per-formers’ use of rubato, or the expressive speeding up or slowing down of tempi. Ysaÿe’s virtuosic arrangement provides a thrilling finish to a demanding program.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Caroline Goulding At age eighteen, violinist Caroline Goulding has performed as a soloist with some of North America’s pre-mier orchestras, including The Cleve-land Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Houston Sym-phony, Detroit Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Sara-sota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Columbus ProMusica, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Cleveland Pops, and the Cincinnati Pops.

Caroline Goulding has been lauded for her “impressive technical polish and musical maturity” (Gramophone). On March 14, 2011 Caroline was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Prior to this, she won the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and was presented in recital throughout the nation including debuts at Merkin Hall in New York, Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre in Washington DC, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. That same year, Caroline was awarded a Grammy nomination for her debut recording on the Telarc label.

Highlights of the upcoming 2011-2012 season include debuts with the Na-tional Symphony Orchestra, Milwau-kee Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Eastern Connecticut Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra as well as recital debuts at the Kansas City Harriman-Jewell Series, University

of Florida and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. Return engagements include solo per-formances with the Dallas Symphony and Boise Philharmonic.

Along with her orchestral and recital appearances, Caroline has appeared on NBC’s Today, MARTHA, PBS’s From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall, NPR’s From the Top, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, WNYC New York, and CosmoGirl Online. In December 2009, Caroline was named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month.

Caroline began studying the violin at the age of three-and-a-half with Julia Kurtyka and began studying with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory in Boston in fall 2011 fol-lowing a summer spent at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. A past recipient of the Stradivari Soci-ety, Caroline currently plays the General Kyd Stradivarius (c 1720), courtesy of Jonathan Moulds.

Dina Vainshtein Russian-born pianist Dina Vainshtein has degrees from the Gnesins’ Institute of Music in Moscow, the Cleveland Insitute of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS (c o n t.)

Her principal teachers were Boris Berlin, Arthur Aksenov and Vivian Hornik Wei-lerstein. Ms.Vainshtein received a Spe-cial Prize for Best Collaboration at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1998). She also won prizes at the Schubert and Music of Modernity International Competiton in Austria (1997) and the All-Union Russian Piano Competition (1993).

Ms Vainshtein has performed at such prestigious venues as Alice Tully Hall and Weill Hall in New York City, Jordan Hall in Boston and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. She has also performed at Ravinia Festival, Car-amoor Festival, Sunriver festival, Music

Academy of the West (Santa Barbara), Meadowmount and Heifitz Interna-tional Music Institute. Ms Vainshtein has appeared as a soloist with I Musici de Montreal (under the direction of Yuli Turovsky) and as a guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet.

She has given live performances on WGBH (Boston), WFMT (Chicago) and for NPR’s Performance Today series. Her recording for the Naxos label with violinist Frank Huang received critical acclaim.

At present Ms Vainshtein is a collabora-tive pianist for the Walnut Hill School and the New England Conservatory.

COMING SOON !

A Classical Encounter with Savion Glover Thursday, November 10, 2011, 8pm

Dobet Gnahoré Friday, November 11, 2011, 9pm, Sett, Union South

Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey SiegelA Beethoven Bonanza

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 7:30pm, Mills Hall

Fran and Brooke Reidelberger: Colorful Mexico! Monday and Tuesday, November 28 & 29, 2011, 7:30 pm

Village Vanguard Jazz OrchestraOpening: UW-Madison Jazz Orchestra

Saturday, February 4, 2012, 8pm

Gaelic StormFriday, February 17, 2012, 8pm

David Finckel, Wu Han & Philip Setzer piano trioFan Taylor Memorial Concert

Friday, February 24, 2012, 7:30pm

Bela Fleck and the FlecktonesThursday, March 1, 2012

The 21st Annual Marcia Légère Student Play Festival. Free!Saturday, March 10, 2012, 7pmSunday, March 11, 2012, 3pm

Sierra Maestra, Great Hall Dance Party!Friday, March 23, 2012, 8pm

WI Union-St Martin; Caroline Goulding

Documents

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