Voices of Schumann, Schubert & Brahms

Monday, July 3

Kaul Auditorium | 8pm

Sponsors: Bill & Diana Dameron

R. SCHUMANN (1810-1856)

Märchenbilder (Fairy Tale Pictures), Op. 113 • (16’)

I. Nicht schnell

II. Lebhaft

III. Rasch

IV. Langsam, mit melancholischen Ausdruck

Paul Neubauer, viola

Jeewon Park , piano

WILLIAM BOLCOM (b. 1938) SCHUBERT (1797-1828)

BRAHMS (1833-1897)

Let Evening Come (1994) • (15’)

I. Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, & Mayfield

II. ‘Tis not that Dying hurts us so

III. Interlude

IV. Let Evening Come

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock), D. 965 • (12’)

Intermission

Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114 • (25’)

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Andantino grazioso

IV. Allegro

Susanna Phillips , soprano

Paul Neubauer, viola

Jeewon Park , piano

Susanna Phillips, soprano

David Shifrin, clarinet

Jeewon Park, piano

David Shifrin, clarinet

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Zitong Wang, piano

Over the course of his life, Robert Schumann experienced several periods of heightened creative productivity, during which he wrote music with amazing speed. Schumann’s final creative burst began in 1850 and spilled over into 1851, coinciding with his move to Düsseldorf to conduct the Düsseldorf Music Society. In a matter of months Schumann wrote his Rhenish Symphony, the Cello Concerto, and several chamber works, including the Märchenbilder (Fairy Tale Pictures) for Viola and Piano, Op. 113.

Op. 113 is a series of miniatures for viola and piano played without pause; each features different tonalities and moods. The restless melancholy of the opening Nicht schnell (Not Fast) features a dialogue between the two instruments. Lebhaft (Lively) offers a cheerful contrast to the first movement, which Rasch (Quickly) amplifies with its galloping triplets in the viola. A brief calm interlude offers breathing space before both viola and piano resume their race. The final Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck (Slow, with Melancholy Expression) features the viola’s resonant tone singing a calm, serene lullaby.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

In 1993, William Bolcom was asked to write a duet for mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos and soprano Benita Valente; at the time, both singers were major stars with the Metropolitan Opera. “We discussed possible texts, and then very unexpectedly Tatiana died, a blow to all of us,” Bolcom recalled. “I was then approached by the sponsors of the commission: Would I write a duo anyway, with… [soprano, piano, and viola], the violist in some way representing the departed Tatiana? The present cantata is the result.”

Let Evening Come features three contrasting poems by Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Kenyon; each text grapples with the impact of death on the living.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

One month before his death, Franz Schubert completed Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, one of his last two songs, to fulfill a request from Berlin opera diva, Anna Milder-Hauptman, for a concert aria. Today, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is a popular showpiece for sopranos and clarinetists alike; it requires the utmost virtuosity from both musicians, along with a wellsupported tone to properly execute Schubert’s lyrical phrases.

For the text, Schubert turned to a familiar poet, Wilhelm Müller, whose poems he had used in the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin. Schubert combined Müller’s words with a poem by Wilhelmine von Chézy; in 1823, Schubert provided incidental music for her play Rosamunde

The themes of Der Hirt auf dem Felsen ecstatic paeans to nature, beautiful landscapes, absent lovers longing for one another—were familiar territory for Schubert. Rather than write a typical lied for voice and piano, Schubert added a solo clarinet to the mix. The inclusion of the clarinet created a dialogue between singer and instrumentalist, and allowed Schubert to more fully explore the deeper emotions of the middle section.

The song begins with a shepherd perched high on a mountain singing to his lover below; the clarinet echoes back up the slope. The second section, in a melancholy minor tonality, expresses sorrow and uncertainty about the future, but joyful enthusiasm abounds in the final section, a celebration of spring’s awakening.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

In December 1890, in failing health and grappling with writer’s block, Johannes Brahms sent his publisher a quintet for viola, which he intended as his final opus.

Brahms wrote, “With this letter you can bid farewell to my music because it is certainly time to leave off...” A few months later, Brahms visited the court of Meiningen, where he met the court orchestra’s Principal Clarinet, Richard Mühlfeld. Intrigued by both the clarinet and Mühlfeld’s virtuosity, Brahms was newly inspired, abandoning his “retirement” to write a trio, quintet, and two sonatas for clarinet.

The overall mood of the Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello in A Minor, Op. 114 is deeply autumnal. Brahms’s enthusiasm for the clarinet notwithstanding, he was still aging and physically unwell. The opening Allegro deftly employs the dusky, covered quality of the clarinet’s chalumeau register, and the overall mood is one of deep weariness. The Adagio suggests retrospection, even a kind of resignation. Here the clarinet is Brahms’s own voice, which carries into the Andantino grazioso. The clarinet introduces the graceful primary theme, which the other instruments explore and elaborate; Brahms also inserts fragments of Viennese waltzes in the trio section. The closing Allegro returns us unequivocally to A minor and the tempestuous Romantic passion typical of Brahms’s earlier music.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

Wednesday, July 5

Alberta Rose Theatre | 8pm

NEW@NIGHT: Tri-Angles

HAN LASH (b. 1981)

R. MURRAY SCHAFER (1933-2021)

VALERIE COLEMAN (b. 1971) umama womama

Valerie Coleman, flute

Jessica Lee, violin

Hanna Lee, viola

Edward Arron, cello

Valerie Coleman, flute

Jessica Lee, violin

Edward Arron, cello

Three Shades Without Angles is a piece that plays with the idea of transformation of musical shapes. All material in the piece is derived from a single idea or motive whose shape changes as the piece unfolds. This motive is tightly coiled in the beginning of the piece, disposed in closely related and concentrated iterations in the three instruments. At the midpoint of the piece, the material relaxes and is disposed melodically in the flute and viola, while the harp lays a harmonic groundwork that has also been informed by the intervallic shapes of the horizontal motive pervading the entire piece. Although the texture that began the piece returns, the unfurling that happened at the piece’s center never retracts, but rather we hear spaciousness, melodiousness within a busy musical texture. The harp’s figuration slows at the end of the piece, and the harp and viola sustain their final pitches, an A-flat and a G.

When writing this piece, I was inspired by Rodin’s sculpture The Three Shades, a detail sitting atop the sculptor’s work, The Gates of Hell, depicting a scene from Dante’s The Inferno. Although my music is not representative or depictive of Dante or an image of hell, I was deeply drawn to the sinewy character of Rodin’s work, its intensity, muscularity, consistency, and the way in which movement and energy are represented in his shapes.

—© Han Lash

R. Murray Schafer, widely regarded as Canada’s foremost living composer until his death two years ago, was a groundbreaking, eclectic, and prolific creative voice. Schafer wrote in numerous genres, including his many works for chamber string ensembles.

In 2006, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music commissioned Schafer to write a String Trio. In his own program notes, Schafer wrote, “While a trio may seem to be a more balanced ensemble than the top-heavy string quartet, it has never proved to be as popular. In fact, there is something unsettling about a trio, like a marriage plus one—a triad of tensions— or at least that is the way I found myself thinking about it when I began to write the piece. Everything moves smoothly at the beginning…but after a few bars the mood becomes more agitated. It is this mood, aside from a few quiet intervals, that is sustained through most of this single movement work. The climax is reached with a powerful descending scale in the cello…followed by a surprising modulation into a Gustav Mahler adagio. This leads back to the gentle opening theme to bring the work to a peaceful close.”

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

Maombi Asante

Valerie Coleman refers to this piece as A Prayer of Thanksgiving. It was commissioned by Blackledge Music, Inc.

—© Valerie Coleman

Thursday, July 6

Kaul Auditorium | 8pm

Co-Sponsors:

Joseph Anthony & Heidi Yorkshire

Ellen Macke & Howard Pifer

Prelude Performance | 6:30pm Young Artist Institute