ONE HUNDRED THIRT Y-FIRST SE ASON Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at 6:30
All-Access Chamber Music Series EMERALD ENSEMBLE Ni Mei Violin Youming Chen Viola Katinka Kleijn Cello Spencer Myer Piano perkinson
Movement for String Trio ni mei youming chen k atink a kleijn
dohnányi
Serenade for String Trio in C Major, Op. 10
Marcia: Allegro Romanza: Adagio non troppo, quasi andante Scherzo: Vivace Tema con variazioni: Andante con moto Rondo: Allegro vivace ni mei youming chen k atink a kleijn
intermission
schumann
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
Sostenuto assai—Allegro ma non troppo Scherzo: Molto vivace Andante cantabile Finale: Vivace ni mei youming chen k atink a kleijn spencer myer
The All-Access Chamber Music Series is generously underwritten by an anonymous donor, who attended similar concerts over forty-five years ago.
comments by richard e. rodda coleridge-taylor perkinson Born June 14, 1932; New York City Died March 9, 2004; Chicago, Illinois
Movement for String Trio composed 2004
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was born in 1932 into a musical family in New York City—his mother was a professional pianist, organist, and director of a local theater. He seemed destined to musical prominence by his very name, given after the London-born composer Samuel ColeridgeTaylor (1875–1912), the son of a white English woman and a physician from Sierra Leone, who became a cultural hero to American audiences (New York orchestral players described him as the “black Mahler” on his visit to that city in 1910). Perkinson demonstrated musical gifts early, and he was admitted in 1945 to New York’s prestigious High School of Music and Art; his mentor there, Hugh Ross, once introduced him to Igor Stravinsky. Perkinson began composing while still a teenager, and he received the LaGuardia Prize from the school for his choral work And Behold on his graduation in 1949. He entered New York University as an education major in 1949 but transferred to the Manhattan School of Music two years later to study composition with Charles Mills and Vittorio Giannini and conducting with Jonel Perlea; he received his baccalaureate in 1953 and his master’s degree the following year. The life-long influence of jazz on Perkinson’s musical personality was nurtured at Manhattan by his classmates Julius Watkins, Herbie Mann, Donald Byrd, and Max Roach—in 1964–65 he played piano in the Max Roach Quartet and at various times served as arranger and music director for such eminent popular artists as Marvin Gaye, Lou Rawls,
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Barbara McNair, Melvin Van Peebles, and Harry Belafonte. Perkinson took further advanced training in conducting at the Berkshire Music Center (1954), Netherlands Radio Union in Hilversum (1960–63), Mozarteum in Salzburg (1960), and privately with Dimitri Mitropoulos, Lovro von Matačić, Franco Ferrara, and Dean Dixon, and in composition with Earl Kim at Princeton University (1959–62). He went on to teach at Brooklyn College and Indiana University, hold conducting positions with the Dessoff Choirs and the Brooklyn Community Symphony Orchestra; serve as music director for Jerome Robbins’s American Theater Lab, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater; cofound the Symphony of the New World (the first integrated symphony orchestra in the United States); and serve as both its associate conductor (1965–70) and music director (1972–73). In 1998, Perkinson was appointed artistic director of the performance program at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago. At the time of his death, in 2004, Perkinson was also serving as composer-in-residence for the Ritz Chamber Players of Jacksonville, Florida. The Movement for Violin, Viola, and Cello, a valedictory both in its mood and the circumstances of its creation, was composed in early 2004, just before Perkinson’s death in Chicago on March 9. Though only four minutes in length, it encompasses a profound emotional journey, from the stark, introspective purity of its beginning, a homage to Bach’s Air on the G String from the Third Orchestral Suite, through the tense, shadowed uncertainty of its central episode, to the return of the opening music, which seems upon rehearing to offer quiet acceptance if not full resolution.
COMMENTS
ernst von dohnányi
Born July 27, 1877; Pozsony, Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia) Died February 9, 1960; New York City
Serenade for String Trio in C Major, Op. 10 composed 1902–03
Ernst von Dohnányi was among the twentieth century’s foremost composers, pianists, teachers, and music administrators. Born on July 27, 1877, in Pozsony, Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia), he inherited his musical interests from his father, a talented amateur cellist, who gave him his first lessons in piano and theory. At seventeen, he entered the newly established Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the first Hungarian of significant talent to do so. The young composer was honored with the Hungarian Millennium Prize for his Symphony no. 1 in 1895, and two years later he received the Bösendorfer Prize for his First Piano Concerto. He graduated from the academy in 1897, and toured extensively for the next several years, appearing throughout Europe, Russia, the United States, and South America. From 1905 to 1915, Dohnányi taught at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, a position he assumed at the invitation of his friend, the eminent violinist Joseph Joachim. He returned to Budapest in 1915, becoming director of the academy in 1919 and musical director of Hungarian Radio in 1931. He served as conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic for the twenty-five years after 1919 while continuing to concertize at home and abroad and remaining active as a composer. In addition to his work as a performer and composer, Dohnányi’s contributions to the musical life of his homeland included inspiring
and performing the works of younger composers (notably Bartók and Kodály); reforming the Budapest Academy’s music curriculum; guiding the development of such talented pupils as Georg Solti, Géza Anda, and Annie Fischer; expanding the repertory of the nation’s performing groups; and serving as a model in musical matters through the strength of his personality and the quality of his musicianship. In 1944, Dohnányi left Hungary, a victim of the raging political and militaristic tides that swept the country during World War II. He moved first to Austria, then to Argentina, and finally settled in Tallahassee in 1949 as pianist and composer-in-residence at Florida State University, where his students included Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and his grandson, conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, former music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Though Dohnányi was in his seventies, his abilities remained unimpaired, and he continued an active musical life. He appeared regularly on campus and in guest engagements; his last public performance was as conductor of the FSU Symphony just three weeks before his death. He died in New York on February 9, 1960, during a recording session.
T
he Serenade for String Trio, op. 10, of 1902, one of the earliest works of Dohnányi’s creative maturity, combines a folkish sense of melody with mastery of form and harmonic sophistication. The composition opens with a march, which, in the fashion of serenades from Mozart’s time, returns at the end of the finale. The principal theme of the first movement is
o p p o s i t e pa g e : Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, photo by Cedille Records a b o v e : Ernst von Dohnányi
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COMMENTS
provided balance by a lyrical subject introduced by the cello above a drone-like viola accompaniment. The romanza embraces a flight of melody for the viola and a more animated and wide-ranging theme for the violin. The nimble scherzo is spun out on featherweight imitative
counterpoint; the central trio uses a smooth, contrasting melody, which is ingeniously superimposed on the scherzo theme on its return. A set of variations on a melancholy chromatic theme and a dashing rondo round out this handsome composition.
robert schumann
Born June 8, 1810; Zwickau, Saxony, Germany Died July 29, 1856; Endenich, near Bonn, Germany
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 composed 1842
In 1842, Robert Schumann turned from the orchestral genres to concentrate with nearly monomaniacal zeal on chamber music. Entries in his diary attest to the frantic pace of his inspiration: June 4: Started the quartet in A minor. June 6: Finished the Adagio of the quartet. June 8: My quartet almost finished. June 11: A good day, started a second quartet. June 18: The second quartet almost finished up to the variazioni. July 5: Finished my second quartet. July 8: Began the third quartet. July 10: Worked with application on the third quartet.
Schumann’s three string quartets, published together under the single opus number 41, were completed in a frenzy of creative activity within just six weeks, after which he never wrote another work in the form. Having nearly exhausted himself, he and Clara took a holiday at a Bohemian spa in August, but he again threw himself into composition soon after his return: the Piano Quintet (op. 44) was begun in September and the Piano Quartet (op. 47) on October 24; both were finished before the Phantasiestücke for Piano, Violin, and Cello (op. 88) was created in December. Schumann, drained by three months of feverish work, then slumped into a state of nervous collapse, and he was unable to compose again until the following February, though his achievement of 1842—the composition of six chamber music masterpieces in five months— stands as one of the greatest bursts of creative inspiration in the history of the art.
f r o m t o p : Robert Schumann, 1839, lithograph portrait by Josef Kriehuber (1800–1876). Vienna, Austria Lithograph of Robert and Clara Schumann by Eduard Kaiser (1820–1895), Vienna, 1847; inscribed to their Zwickau friend, composer and writer Emanuel Klitzsch (1812–1889)
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COMMENTS
T
he Piano Quartet’s opening Allegro, a fully realized sonata form, gives the main theme first in a slow, hymnlike, introductory configuration before it is presented in a quicktempo, staccato transformation to launch the main part of the movement. The second theme, announced in imitation between the piano and the strings, begins with an accented note followed by a rising scale pattern. The start of the development section is marked by recalling the slow introduction. The scherzo is a veritable dance for a whirling dervish. To balance this furious rhythmic exercise, two contrasting trios are interspersed in the movement. The principal theme of the Andante, a beautiful melody
enfolding many wide leaps, is entrusted to the cello. Following a central interlude, the viola sings the theme again with detailed embroidery from the violin. The finale is dominated by a plenitude of fugue. The movement’s thematic abundance is overshadowed only by its pervasive imitative texture, which Schumann contrived to make sound vivacious rather than pedantic.
Richard E. Rodda, a former faculty member at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, provides program notes for many American orchestras, concert series, and festivals.
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profiles Ni Mei Violin
Youming Chen Viola
Ni Mei joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2009. She came to the CSO from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where she was a member of the first violin section. A native of China, Mei began playing violin at the age of six. Her first teacher was her father, concertmaster and later music director of the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra. At the age of ten, she entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she studied for elven years under Duoqin Xu, Shisheng Zhang, and Zhinuo Ding. Ni Mei came to the United States to continue her violin studies at Pittsburg State University in Kansas and at Rice University in Houston, where she was a student of Kathleen Winkler. During that period, she won Pittsburg State’s Concerto and Aria Competition, the Waddill Chamber Music Competition, and first prize in the Young Texas Artists Music Competition. Mei also was concertmaster of the Southeast Kansas Symphony, associate concertmaster of Ohio Light Opera, and a member of the Houston Symphony.
Taiwanese violist Youming Chen was appointed by Music Director Riccardo Muti to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during its 125th season. Chen served as associate principal viola of the Kansas City Symphony and was a member of the Grant Park Music Festival. He performs with the International Chamber Artists ensemble, which is located in the Chicagoland area. Chen has previously participated in the Pacific Music, Aspen Music, Prussia Cove, and Music@Menlo festivals. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
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PHOTOS BY TODD ROS EN BERG
PROFILES
Katinka Kleijn Cello
Spencer Myer Piano
Dutch cellist and Chicago Symphony Orchestra member, Katinka Kleijn is in demand as a soloist. She has appeared with the Orchestra numerous times, including performances of Penderecki’s Concerto grosso for Three Cellos and Orchestra and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Kai on the CSO’s MusicNOW series. In 2016 she performed the world premiere of Dai Fujikura’s Cello Concerto at Lincoln Center in New York to critical acclaim. She has collaborated in chamber music performances with musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Christoph Eschenbach and appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival and on the Symphony Center Presents series. Known for her individual projects, Kleijn presented her solo show oil-free blush highlighting the carcinogenic properties of makeup, which included seven premieres, at the Chicago Humanities Festival. A collaboration with the Chicago-based performance-art duo Industry of the Ordinary resulted in the highly acclaimed and publicized work Intelligence in the Human Machine, by Daniel Dehaan, where Kleijn performed a duet with her own brainwaves. As a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, she has given many premieres, including the first American performance of Zona for solo cello and ensemble by Magnus Lindberg and Eternal Escape for solo cello by Fujikura. Kleijn has recorded for Naxos, Boston Records, and Cedille. Her non-classical recordings include progressive rock band District 97, the ambient-folk duo Relax Your Ears, singersongwriter David Sylvian, and guitarist Bill MacKay.
American pianist Spencer Myer is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today’s concert stage. This season he returns to New York City’s Park Avenue Chamber Symphony as well as solo and chamber performances in New York, South Carolina, Ohio, and his third recital tour of Nova Scotia. Myer’s orchestral, recital, and chamber music performances have been heard throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, and Asia. His 2005 recital/orchestral tour of South Africa included a performance of the five piano concertos of Beethoven with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, followed by return orchestra and recital tours in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2018. Myer’s recital appearances have been presented in New York City’s Weill Recital Hall, 92nd Street Y, and Steinway Hall; Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center; and London’s Wigmore Hall, while many of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York City), WHYY (Philadelphia), WCLV (Cleveland), and WFMT (Chicago). An in-demand chamber musician, he has appeared the past five summers at the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival in Dallas and has enjoyed a recurring partnership with the Miami String Quartet at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. Meyer enjoys an esteemed reputation as a vocal collaborator since winning the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition. An enthusiastic supporter of the education of young musicians, Myer has served as a guest faculty at the Oberlin and Baldwin-Wallace conservatories of music, and in the fall of 2015, he was appointed artistteacher of piano and collaborative piano at Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College. He has released recordings on the Harmonia Mundi USA, Naxos, Oberlin Music, and Steinway & Sons labels.
P H OTOS BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG, SUPATC HA R AT TAN TH UMAWAT
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is grateful to
Abbott for its generous donation of BinaxNOW COVID-19 Rapid Tests.