PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES

In none of the three movements does the tempo stay in place for long, but the first and last are generally energetic and lively, the middle movement much more tranquil. What could be more classical than that? The first movement’s sonata form can be felt when the violinist returns to the cantilena of the opening, with long notes held against a wash of piano sound. Agitation alternates with repose and major clashes with minor.

The central movement gives more space to the violin to explore some graceful melodic shapes, while the finale recalls the tireless strumming of folk music with a display of whirlwind energy from both partners.

- Hugh Macdonald

Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Opus 108

JOHANNES BRAHMS

The key of D minor was one that Brahms rarely used in his large-scale instrumental works, and one is left to wonder whether the towering shadow of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—in D minor—had anything to do with his caution in settling into that tonality. Clearly the tonality aroused Brahms’ most dramatic instincts, yielding music of great urgency, strength, and emotional intensity.

The D-minor Sonata (1888), Brahms’ last of three works for the violin-piano duo and the most muscular of the set, represents the composer at the height of his powers. With all his symphonies and concertos behind him, and with only a relatively small number of compositions yet to come from his serious and still careful pen, Brahms shows himself to be a master intellect and craftsman, here in complete control of his distinctive materials. Indeed, in the first movement, the composer’s methods become an object lesson in Classic-Romantic procedures.

The dominant elements of the movement are very nearly all contained within the first four measures: three ideas in the violin and, the fourth, the piano’s accompanying line in staggered (thus restless) single notes an octave apart. It is these highly concentrated motifs, so mysterious in their first appearances, which are put through a huge variety of compositional and emotional transformations. The Adagio second movement, a place of tenderness (and only momentary passion) gives appropriate respite from the strenuous activity of the preceding movement. The Scherzo movement appears with no little wit and élan from inside its minor-keyed façade (F-sharp minor), like a provocative child making all manner of expressions out of its exceedingly simple thematic physiognomy. The finale is kaleidoscopic in its changing moods, which range from impetuosity to Hungarian pensiveness to chorale-like calm. Through it all, we have Brahms at his most impressive, at his most compelling.

- excerpted from a note by Orrin Howard

Rondeau Brilliant in B minor, D. 895 FRANZ SCHUBERT

While the four violin sonatas are essentially intimate works, the B minor Rondo (or Rondeau brillant, as it was dubbed by the publisher Artaria), and the C major Fantasy by Franz Schubert are rare display pieces from this least showy of composers. Both were inspired by the young violin virtuoso Josef Slavík (or Slawjk), who in 1826 left his native Bohemia to make a career in Vienna. A few years later Chopin admiringly dubbed him ‘a second Paganini’. Dating from October 1826, the Rondeau brillant was first performed by Slavík and Karl Maria von Bocklet in a concert organized by Artaria early in 1827.

Cast in two lengthy sections—an Andante introduction and an Allegro in sonata-rondo form— the Rondo in B minor is Schubert at his most extrovert and rhetorically forceful. Its technical demands are of a different order from the works of 1816–17, with the piano sometimes treated as a surrogate orchestra. The introduction begins imposingly with echoes of a French Baroque overture, before softening into a long-spun, Italianate cantilena. The question posed by its final two notes is resolved by the rondo Allegro, music of unflagging rhythmic energy, by turns skittish and strenuous, leavened by moments of stillness and harmonic poetry. The second theme, introduced by the piano against hyperactive violin figuration, could have strutted straight out of a Schubert Marche militaire. After a reminiscence of the introduction’s cantilena and a reprise of the rondo theme comes a central episode in G major whose affable tune is truculently developed through a daring spectrum of keys. The rondo theme makes a final appearance before the march kick-starts the barnstorming Più mosso coda.

- Richard Wigmore

LISA TERRY, VIOLA DA GAMBA JOANNE KONG, HARPSICHORD

Saturday, February 25, 2023 | 3:00 pm Knowles Memorial Chapel

Program

Sonata in D major for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 102

I. Adagio

II. Allegro moderato

III. Andante

IV. Allegro

Selections from 27 Pieces for the Viola da Gamba, Drexel 5871

Sonata in G major for Obligato Harpsichord and Viola da Gamba, CSWV:F:31

I. Allegro

II. Largo

III. Allegro

Selections from 27 Pieces for the Viola da Gamba, Drexel 5871

Introduction and Variations on “Was soll ich in der Fremde thun” for viola da gamba and piano

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Lisa Terry And Joanne Kong

LISA TERRY,

Viola Da Gamba

Lisa Terry is an avid chamber music performer and soloist on viola da gamba and violoncello. She has spent her career as a long-term member of many of the best-known chamber ensembles in the early music scene of the Northeast. From her home base in New York City, where she is a member of the viol quartet, Parthenia, Lisa works regularly with the Lyra Consort (NYC) and Pegasus Early Music (Rochester). She is a long-time member of Princeton’s Dryden Ensemble, and is principal cellist and viol soloist with Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia’s baroque orchestra. Lisa was a founding member of ARTEK, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Juilliard Opera Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Concert Royal. She is often heard playing for English Country Dance in New York City and at Pinewoods Camp in Massachusetts.

Lisa earned her degree in cello performance from Memphis State University and continued her studies in New York with Richard Taruskin, viol, and Harry Wimmer, cello. She has appeared to great acclaim as soloist in the Passions of J.S. Bach, notably under the batons of Robert Shaw, Richard Westenburg, Kent Tritle and Lyndon Woodside in Carnegie Hall, in the Jonathan Miller staged performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music conducted by Paul Goodwin, and at the Winter Park Bach Festival, conducted by John Sinclair. With Sinclair, she has also performed the viola da gamba solo in Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light.”

Karl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)

Christoph Schaffrath (1709-1763)

Karl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)

Franz Xaver Chwatal (1808 – 1879)

With Parthenia, she records for MSR Classics. With Tempesta di Mare, she records for Chandos. Lisa serves the Viola da Gamba Society of America as Past-President.

JOANNE KONG, harpsichord

A recognized Bach specialist, Joanne Kong has performed as solo and chamber harpsichordist in the Los Angeles Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Abbey Bach Festival, Bach Aria Festival and Institute, Long Beach Bach Festival, Houston Harpsichord Society Recital Series, Texas Bach Collegium, and is regular guest harpsichordist with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. She has collaborated with some of the world’s finest musicians including the Shanghai String Quartet, flutist Eugenia Zukerman, cellists James Wilson and Christoph Wagner, violinists Karen Johnson and Daisuke Yamamoto, viola da gambist Lisa Terry, baritone Zheng Zhou, 4-time Grammy Award–winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and members of the Bach Aria Group.

Equally at home on the harpsichord and piano, she gave the World Premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass’s Side by Side (2007), the first concerto to be written that features a soloist in a dual role as both pianist and harpsichordist. The work was premiered by Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Richmond Symphony.

Please turn off cell phone and electronic devices prior to the start of this performance. The Bach Festival Society’s policies strictly prohibit photography, filming, or recording of any kind during performances without the express written permission of the Society.

Dr. Kong has been a guest teacher at Yale University, New England Conservatory, Brigham Young University, New York University, Global Summer Institute of Music, the Colburn School, and many others. Currently she is the Director of Accompaniment and Coordinator of Chamber Ensembles at the University of Richmond.