New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse - May 22, 2014

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

NEW MUSIC IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE Thursday Evening, May 22, 2014 at 7:30 Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse 3,331st Concert

HUW WATKINS, piano YURA LEE, violin/viola RICHARD O’NEILL, viola PAUL WATKINS, cello

www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 10th Floor New York, NY 10023 212-875-5788 www.chambermusicsociety.org

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation.

Blue Shadows Fall was co-commissioned by Wigmore Hall with the support of AndrĂŠ Hoffmann, President of the Fondation Hoffmann, a Swiss grant making foundation and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center funded by a generous grant from Linda and Stuart Nelson in honor of Wu Han and David Finckel.

NEW MUSIC IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE Thursday Evening, May 22, 2014 at 7:30 HUW WATKINS, piano YURA LEE, violin/viola RICHARD O’NEILL, viola PAUL WATKINS, cello

GEORGE BENJAMIN (b. 1960)

HELEN GRIME (b. 1981)

Viola, Viola (1997) O’NEILL, LEE

Three Whistler Miniatures for Piano, Violin, and Cello (2011) I: The Little Note in Yellow and Gold (Tranquillo) II: Lapis Lazuli (Presto) III: The Violet Note (Lontano, molto flessibile) H. WATKINS, LEE, P. WATKINS

HUW WATKINS (b. 1976)

Blue Shadows Fall for Cello and Piano (2013) (CMS Co-Commission, US Premiere) H. WATKINS, P. WATKINS

—INTERMISSION— OLIVER KNUSSEN (b. 1952)

Autumnal for Violin and Piano (1976-77) Nocturne Serenade LEE, H. WATKINS

ALFRED SCHNITTKE (1934-1998)

Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello (1985) Moderato Adagio LEE, O’NEILL, P. WATKINS

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This evening’s performance is being streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive, and is being recorded for future broadcast.

Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

notes on the

PROGRAM

Viola, Viola George BENJAMIN Born January 31, 1960 in London.

Composed in 1997.

Premiered on September 16, 1997 in Tokyo by violists Yuri Bashmet and Nobuko Imai.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 10 minutes George Benjamin is one of the outstanding composers of his generation. The London Symphony Orchestra gave a season-long retrospective of his work at the Barbican, By George. There have been numerous other major retrospectives of his work, including Carte blanche a George Benjamin (Opera Bastille, Paris, 1992), Brussels (Ars Musica, 2003), Tokyo (Tokyo Opera City, 2003), Berlin (DSO, 20045), Strasbourg (Musica Festival, 2005), Madrid (Spanish National Orchestra, 2005), Lucerne Festival (2008), Frankfurt (Alte Oper, 2011), London (Cultural Olympiad, South Bank Centre, 2012), and Milan/Turin (MITO, 2013). He has written two operas: Into the Little Hill, which has toured widely on both sides of the Atlantic, and Written on Skin, which was commissioned and premiered by the Aix en Provence festival (July 2012), and has subsequently been presented in ten cities worldwide. He is now working on his third operatic creation, a full-scale opera for the Royal Opera House, London, to be

premiered in 2018. The founding curator of the Southbank’s Meltdown Festival, George Benjamin was artistic consultant to the BBC’s three-year retrospective of twentieth century music, Sounding the Century.

In 2010 he was awarded a CBE for his services to music and in 2014 he was chosen as Musical America’s composer of the year. In 1976 he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study with Olivier Messiaen (composition) and Yvonne Loriod (piano), after which he studied under Alexander Goehr at King’s College Cambridge. He lives in London, and since 2001 has been the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College, London. His works are recorded on Nimbus Records, and are published by Faber Music in London.

Benjamin writes: “The idea of a viola duo was that of Toru Takemitsu, who was responsible for Viola, Viola being commissioned for the opening of the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall in 1997. My initial thoughts of how to solve the compositional problems inherent within this unconventional medium may have suggested the viola’s accustomed role as a melancholy voice hidden in the shadows. Once under way, however, a completely different instrumental character—fiery and energetic— imposed itself.

“My desire was to conjure an almost orchestral depth and variety of sound.

At first the instruments are virtually braided together—numerous elements hocket between the players at a rate that the ear has difficulty in perceiving who plays what. Through this a larger array of instruments is suggested, each defined by motif, pace, dynamic,

and, above all, register. Only towards the work’s cantabile centre do clearly independent lines begin to flourish.

The implied harmony is intended to be as sonorous as possible, the texture at times maintaining four or more sustained periods.” 

Three Whistler Miniatures for Piano, Violin, and Cello Helen GRIME Born in 1981 in York, England.

Composed in 2011.

Premiered on April 22, 2012 in Boston by the Claremont Trio.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 10 minutes Helen Grime has had works commissioned by some of the most established performers including London Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Conductors who have performed her work include Daniel Harding, Pierre Boulez, and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Her work Night Songs was commissioned by the BBC Proms in 2012 and premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted

by Oliver Knussen. In 2011 she was appointed associate composer to the Halle Orchestra for an initial tenure of three years. Her first commission for them, Near Midnight, was premiered on May 23, 2013 and a recording of her orchestral works performed by the Hallé will be released as

part of the NMC Debut Disc Series in 2014. Upcoming performances include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performing Everyone Sang in May 2014 and a new string trio commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Wigmore Hall for April 2015.

Grime studied oboe with John Anderson and composition with Julian Anderson and Edwin Roxburgh at the Royal College of Music. In 2008 she was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center where she studied with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read Thomas. Grime was a Legal and General Junior Fellow at the Royal College of Music from 2007 to 2009.

She became a lecturer in composition at the Department of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, in January 2010.

Grime writes: “The titles refer to three chalk and pastel miniatures, which are displayed in the Veronese Room of the Isabella Stewart Museum in Boston. Although the music does not relate directly to the pictures, I was taken by the subtly graduated palate

and intimate atmosphere suggested by each of them.

“Throughout the piece the violin and cello form a sort of unit, which is set against the contrasting nature of the piano. The first movement opens with a very quiet and gentle piano melody.

Gradually the violin and cello become part of the texture, but moving at a slower pace. The violin and cello form an overlapping two-part melody, very high in register and ethereal in quality whilst the piano moves at a quicker pace with a more detailed and elaborate version of the string material creating a delicate, layered effect. This leads to a faster section, the two string instruments have overlapping material with more agitated outbursts from the piano. This builds to an impassioned and somewhat flamboyant piano solo, featuring falling gestures and is interspersed with an intensified and quicker version of the previous string material until the end of the movement.

“The second movement is lively and virtuosic for all three players.

A running continuous line is passed back and forth between the cello and violin, eventually being taken by the piano before a more melodic section.

Lyrical lines are contrasted with the more jagged material of the opening, the three instruments coming together in rhythmic unison before an extended and complete melody is heard in the violin and cello. Each melodic entry is lower in register and dynamic, seeming to die away before the final presto section takes over until the movements close.

“Beginning with a distant high piano melody and set against muted strings ‘quasi lullaby,’ the third movement alludes to the textures and material of the opening of the piece. A more agitated florid section leads to a heightened rendition of the piano melody for high cello surrounded by filigree passagework in the piano and violin. The violin takes over before the final section, which combines the piano writing from the opening of the first movement, but here it is much darker in nature.” 

Blue Shadows Fall for Cello and Piano Huw WATKINS Born July 13, 1976 in Wales.

Composed in 2013.

Premiered February 10, 2013 at Wigmore Hall in London by cellist Paul Watkins and pianist Huw Watkins.

Tonight is the U.S. premiere of this piece.

Duration: 12 minutes

A wealth of chamber music is central to Huw Watkins’ output, complementing his parallel career as a pianist. Works written for artists with whom he has developed performing partnerships include his Cello Sonata for Paul Watkins (recorded for Nimbus), Partita for Alina Ibragimova (recorded for NMC) and a viola Fantasy for Lawrence Power.

Long-time supporters the Nash Ensemble commissioned a Horn Trio,

and his recent String Quartet for the Carducci Quartet was a commission from the Manchester Chamber Concerts Society. His growing body of orchestral works includes his widely acclaimed Violin Concerto, premiered by Alina Ibragimova and BBC Symphony Orchestra with Ed Gardner at the 2011 Proms. His recent Flute Concerto for Adam Walker was premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding in February, and will receive further performances with Walker in Cardiff and Dublin.

Watkins’ vocal works include In My Craft or Sullen Art for tenor and string quartet and Five Larkin Songs for soprano and piano, which won a British Composer Award. Music Theatre Wales has commissioned two chamber operas: Crime Fiction and In the Locked Room, a co-commission with Scottish Opera. Most recently, Wigmore Hall commissioned The Phoenix and the Turtle, a choral work, and Remember for soprano and string orchestra was written for Ruby Hughes as part of Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composer in the House appointment with Orchestra of the Swan 2012-14, to be premiered later

this month. His 2013 disc of chamber music with NMC has been highly praised. Upcoming projects include a new song cycle for Mark Padmore for this summer’s Cheltenham Festival, and an orchestral work for the Hallé in 2016. Watkins studied piano with Peter Lawson at Chetham’s School of Music and composition with Robin Holloway, Alexander Goehr, and Julian Anderson at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music.

Watkins writes: “My new work for cello and piano was written for my brother, Paul, and has been co-commissioned

by Wigmore Hall and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. It is a single movement work, lasting just over ten minutes. The first, slow section begins with high, clangourous piano chords over sustained cello writing.

The piano writing soon becomes more consoling, accompanying a slowly-unfolding cello melody.

The central section is longer and faster, beginning ominously in the lowest registers of both instruments.

The music in this section is much more restless and feverish. The final section develops the cello melody from the opening but moves  towards a different conclusion.”

Autumnal for Violin and Piano Oliver KNUSSEN Born June 12, 1952 in Glasgow.

Composed in 1976-77.

Premiered on July 10, 1980 in London by Alan McNaught and George Nicholson.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 8 minutes

One of the pre-eminent composerconductors in the world today, Oliver Knussen is presently Artistin-Association with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. The recipient of many awards, including the Nemmers Prize in 2006, he has been Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival (1983-98), Head of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center (1986-93), and Music Director of the London Sinfonietta (1998-2002). Together with Colin Matthews he founded the Composition and Performance Courses

at the Britten-Pears School in 1992.

Among his best-known compositions are three symphonies, concertos for horn and violin, several song cycles, works for ensembles and for solo piano, and the operas Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! written in collaboration with the late Maurice Sendak. His 60th birthday was celebrated with special events in Aldeburgh, Amsterdam, Birmingham, London, and Tanglewood.

Knussen writes: “Autumnal was composed in 1976-77, being adapted from sketches for an abandoned chamber piece which I made in Serenak in 1975. It forms the first panel of my Triptych (the other two being Sonya’s Lullaby, for piano, and the Cantata, for oboe and string trio).

Autumnal is dedicated to the memory of Benjamin Britten, who died while I was composing it, and the two movements, which are quite restrained and austere in manner, are named after his two song cycles, Nocturne and Serenade. The piece lasts about eight minutes.” 

Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello Alfred SCHNITTKE Born November 24, 1934 in Engels, on the Volga River, in the Soviet Union.

Died on August 3, 1998 in Hamburg.

Composed in 1985.

Premiered on June 2, 1985 in Moscow.

First CMS performance on November 23, 1999.

Duration: 26 minutes

Noted for his hallmark “polystylistic” idiom, Alfred Schnittke has written in a wide range of genres and styles.

His Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977) was one of the first works to bring his name to prominence. It was popularized by Gidon Kremer, a tireless proponent of his music. Many of Schnittke’s works have been inspired

by Kremer and other performers, including Yury Bashmet, Natalia Gutman, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and Mstislav Rostropovich. Schnittke first came to America in 1988 for the Making Music Together Festival in Boston and the American premiere of his Symphony No. 1 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He came again in 1991 when Carnegie Hall commissioned Concerto Grosso No. 5 for The Cleveland Orchestra as part of its Centennial Festival, and again in 1994 for the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7 by the New York Philharmonic and the American premiere of his Symphony No. 6 by the National Symphony.

Schnittke studied counterpoint and composition with Yevgeny Golubev and instrumentation with Nikolai Rakov at the Moscow Conservatory.

He completed the postgraduate course in composition there in 1961 and joined the Union of Composers the same year. In 1962, he was appointed instructor in instrumentation at the Moscow Conservatory, a post which he held until 1972. Thereafter he supported himself chiefly as a composer of film scores; by 1984 he had scored more than 60 films.

From the 1980s, his music gained increasing exposure and international acclaim. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Austrian State Prize in 1991, Japan’s Imperial Prize in 1992, and the Slava-Gloria Prize in Moscow in June 1998; his music has been celebrated with retrospectives and major festivals worldwide. More than 50 compact discs devoted exclusively to his music have been released in the last ten years.

The Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello was commissioned in 1985 by the Alban Berg Foundation to commemorate the centenary of Berg’s birth. Its two movements show the influence of Berg, whose music Schnittke said he loved “above all others,” as well as the Viennese Classical style of Mozart and Schubert. In 1992, Schnittke arranged the work for piano trio. 

meet tonight’s

ARTISTS

Violinist/violist Yura Lee, recipient of a 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the 2013 ARD Competition, is enjoying a career that spans almost two decades and takes her all over the world. As a soloist, she has performed with numerous major orchestras including those of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Saint Louis. She has given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She received numerous international prizes, including the first prize and the audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition, the first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition, and top prizes in the Indianapolis, Hannover, Kreisler, Yuri Bashmet, and Paganini competitions.

Her CD with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, titled Mozart in Paris, received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part in the festivals of Marlboro, Salzburg, Verbier, Caramoor, Ravinia, Kronberg, and Aspen. She was awarded two artist diplomas, by Indiana University in Bloomington and the New England Conservatory in Boston, and her main teachers included Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. Ms. Lee is an Artist

of the Chamber Music Society and a former member of CMS Two, as both violinist and violist.

Richard O’Neill is one of very few violists to receive both an Avery Fisher Career Grant and two Grammy Award nominations. He has appeared with the London, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Euro-Asian philharmonics; the KBS and Korean symphony orchestras; the Moscow and Württemburg chamber orchestras; and Alte Musik Köln.

This season he appears with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Davis, collaborates with the soprano Sumi Jo, tours Europe with the Ehnes Quartet making debuts at Wigmore Hall and the Louvre, and is honored at the Busan International Film Festival with a screening of a feature length documentary film about his multicultural youth orchestra project in Korea.

A Universal/Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, Mr. O’Neill has made seven solo albums that have collectively sold over 150,000 copies. He is in his eighth season as artistic director of DITTO, his South Korean chamber music initiative, which has introduced tens of thousands to chamber music. On its first tour to Japan, DITTO sold out the Tokyo International Forum and Osaka Symphony Hall. He was the first violist to be awarded the artist diploma from The Juilliard School.

On the faculty of the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles, Mr. O’Neill is an Artist of the Chamber Music Society and a former member of CMS Two. Honored with a proclamation

from the New York City council, he also serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the South Korean Red Cross and UNICEF and runs marathons for charity.

Huw Watkins is in great demand as composer and pianist. He is regularly heard on BBC Radio 3 both as a soloist and chamber musician. He has a strong commitment to the performance of new music, and has given many premieres. He was featured composer at the 2009 Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts, and Composer in Residence at both the 2011 Heimbach Festival (at the invitation of Lars Vogt) and Nürnberg Festival. He was named winner of the Vocal Award at the 2011 British Composer Awards for his Five Larkin Songs which he premiered with Carolyn Sampson at the 2010 Weekend of English Song in Ludlow. A disc of his music was released by NMC in 2012. He has also recorded for Chandos and Signum.

He was awarded the RCM’s Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship in 2001 and he is currently Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music and has been appointed as the Royal Philharmonic Society and PRS for Music Foundation’s Composer in the House with Orchestra of the Swan from 2012 until 2014 during which he will be writing a number of new works. Mr. Watkins studied piano with Peter Lawson at Chetham’s School of Music and composition with Robin Holloway, Alexander Goehr, and Julian Anderson at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music.

Paul Watkins enjoys a distinguished career both as a cellist and as a

conductor, and in the 2009-10 season became the first ever Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra.

As solo cellist he performs regularly with all the major British orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, and City of Birmingham Symphony. Outside the UK he has performed with the Netherlands Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra of Turin. Recent highlights include his debut at Carnegie Hall performing Brahms’ Double Concerto with Daniel Hope, and appearances with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, London’s Philharmonia, and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

He also premiered (and was the dedicatee of) Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new concerto with the Royal Flemish, Tampere, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestras and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

A dedicated chamber musician, he was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 to 2013, and joined the Emerson String Quartet in May 2013. He has given solo recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, South Bank Centre, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, and Queens Hall in Edinburgh.

In 2009 he signed an exclusive contract with Chandos Records.

Recent releases include the Delius, Elgar, and Lutoslawski concertos, and discs of British music for cello and piano. Mr. Watkins plays on a cello made by Domenico Montagnana and Matteo Goffriller in Venice, c.1730.