Program Book - CSO Chamber Music: The Wabash Avenue Music Collective at Kehrein Center for the Arts

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SECOND SEASON

Sunday, May 21, 2023, at 3:00 Kehrein Center for the Arts

CSO Chamber Music Series

THE WABASH AVENUE MUSIC COLLECTIVE

haydn String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2 (Quinten)

Allegro

Andante o più tosto allegretto

Menuetto: Allegro ma non troppo

Vivace assai

Rong-Yan Tang, violin

Kozue Funakoshi, violin

Max Raimi, viola

Karen Basrak, cello

raimi Runagate Runagate, Setting of a Poem by Robert Hayden for String Trio, Clarinet, and Mezzo-soprano

Rong-Yan Tang, violin

Max Raimi, viola

Karen Basrak, cello

John Bruce Yeh, clarinet

Sara Dailey, mezzo-soprano

World premiere

intermission

mozart Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K. 581

Allegro

Larghetto

Menuetto

Allegretto con Variazioni

Rong-Yan Tang, violin

Kozue Funakoshi, violin

Max Raimi, viola

Karen Basrak, cello

John Bruce Yeh, clarinet

comments by richard e. rodda

joseph haydn

Born March 31, 1732; Rohrau, Lower Austria

Died May 31, 1809; Vienna, Austria

String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2 (Quinten)

composed 1796–97

Joseph Haydn was universally acknowledged as the greatest living composer upon his return to Vienna in 1795 from his second London venture; he was sixty-three. Though his international renown had been founded in large part upon the success of his symphonies and keyboard sonatas, he repeatedly refused offers to compose further in those genres and instead concentrated the creative energies of his later years upon the string quartet and the vocal forms of mass and oratorio. Except for the majestic trumpet concerto, his only instrumental compositions after 1795 were the six quartets of op. 76, the two of op. 77 and the unfinished torso of op. 103, and they were the culmination of nearly four decades of experience composing in the chamber medium.

Rosemary Hughes wrote in her study of Haydn’s chamber music,

The eight quartets he completed show no signs of flagging powers. In that last great wave of energy,

which carried them to completion, he gathers up all the efforts and conquests, all the explorations, all the personal idiosyncrasies too, of nearly half a century of unbroken creative life. Nowhere is his thematic and structural concentration so strong and closely woven, his ranging through the furthest reaches of key so searching and profound. If elsewhere some of his best instrumental finales are based upon folksongs and dances, here he even surpasses them in exhilaration and closeness of texture. The phrase structure is endlessly varied and flexible, now square and symmetrical, now unfolding in long, continuous paragraphs, according to the character and inner life of the themes themselves. And behind this and permeating it all is a quality hard to define, but one in which we can sense the weight of a lifetime’s experience, human and musical. No young mind and heart could have conceived this music, could have so tempered exuberance with gentleness, or touched sober steadfastness with vision.

above: Joseph Haydn, portrait ca. 1785. Christian Ludwig Seehas (1753–1802) | o pposite page: Max Raimi, photo by Todd Rosenberg

The six op. 76 quartets were written on commission from Count Joseph Erdödy, scion of the Viennese family who had encouraged Haydn’s work since at least 1776 and whose members became important patrons of Beethoven after his arrival in the capital in 1792. The Quartet op. 76, no. 2, the only work in the set in a minor key, opens with the falling-interval, long-note motif that gives the composition its nickname— Quinten (Fifths). This germinal fragment courses inexorably throughout the movement in an amazing variety of transformations, interwoven with more animated material for which it serves as an emotional and textural foil. The mood brightens for the formal second theme, but the development section is imbued with the proto-romantic

pathos with which the quartet began. The recapitulation and coda maintain the music’s stormy demeanor to the end of the movement. The Andante is an ornate instrumental song divided into three large structural paragraphs: A (major)—B (minor)—A (major). The haunted third movement, sometimes referred to as the “Witches’ Minuet,” is constructed from a barren canon in which paired voices chase each other in precise imitation at the interval of an octave; the central trio provides contrast with its more cheerful key and soaring violin line. The finale is a bustling rondo based on a fiery theme inspired by the folk music that Haydn heard from the locals in the courtyard of the Esterházy Palace in western Hungary, where he had worked for a quarter century.

max raimi

Born June 21, 1956; Detroit, Michigan

Runagate Runagate, Setting of a Poem by Robert Hayden for String Trio, Clarinet, and Mezzo-soprano

composed 2021

Max Raimi studied viola with Ara Zerounian before earning degrees in viola performance from the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Lillian Fuchs. In 1984 he joined the

viola section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his work in the CSO, he is frequently heard in chamber performances in Chicago, on the radio, and at music festivals throughout the United States.

A prolific composer, Max Raimi has received commissions from many ensembles and institutions, including the CSO, Library of Congress, and American Chamber Players. Riccardo

Muti and the Chicago Symphony commissioned and premiered his Three Lisel Mueller Settings in March 2018. The recording of the work is scheduled for release in June 2023 on the CSO’s Resound label. In February 1998, Raimi’s Elegy for twelve violas, harp, celesta, and percussion was performed at three Chicago Symphony subscription concerts, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. His compositions have been recorded under the labels of Capstone, Egan, Gasparo, and Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Peace Studies.

Raimi’s arrangements have enjoyed wide circulation as well, having been performed by pianist Daniel Barenboim, among others. In August 1985, a sellout crowd at the old Comiskey Park heard the Chicago Symphony viola section play his arrangement of “The StarSpangled Banner” before a Chicago White Sox game, and a three-viola version of the same work was twice performed at the old Chicago Stadium for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Riccardo Muti conducted Raimi’s orchestration of the University of Michigan fight song, “The Victors,” at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.

An advocate of music education and outreach, Raimi frequently performs at schools throughout the Chicago area and teaches chamber music at Northwestern University. He created and hosted Classics Plugged, a monthly program featuring interviews and commentary related to the world of

classical music in Chicago on radio station WLUW.

Max Raimi on Runagate Runagate

Like so many of us, I had unaccustomed time on my hands during the pandemic and spent several rewarding hours watching a series of lectures about the Civil War from Yale University on YouTube given by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Blight. I will always be grateful that Blight referenced a magnificent Robert Hayden poem about the Underground Railroad, “Runagate Runagate,” in the course of the lectures.

I found the emotional force and sheer energy of this poem to be overwhelming, and it seemed to me that it demanded to be sung, not merely recited. I decided to compose a musical setting of it for mezzo-soprano (among the many voices that Hayden employs in “Runagate” is that of Harriet Tubman) and a few instruments.

As foreign to my own experience as the desperate peril and religiously tinged hope depicted so unforgettably in “Runagate” are, what makes the poem miraculous is how it forces me to empathize with this experience; indeed, how it compels us all to confront our shared humanity. My hope is that by setting it to music, I can give “Runagate” another dimension and introduce it to some who have not read it.

RUNAGATE RUNAGATE

I.

Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing and the night cold and the night long and the river to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep on going

Runagate

Runagate

Runagate

Many thousands rise and go many thousands crossing over

O mythic North

O star-shaped yonder Bible city

Some go weeping and some rejoicing some in coffins and some in carriages some in silks and some in shackles

Rise and go or fare you well

No more auction block for me no more driver’s lash for me

If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes; if you see my Anna, likely young mulatto branded E on the right cheek, R on the left, catch them if you can and notify subscriber. Catch them if you can, but it won’t be easy. They’ll dart underground when you try to catch them, plunge into quicksand, whirlpools, mazes, turn into scorpions when you try to catch them.

And before I’ll be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave

North star and bonanza gold

I’m bound for the freedom, freedom-bound and oh Susyanna don’t you cry for me

Runagate

Runagate

II.

Rises from their anguish and their power, Harriet Tubman, woman of earth, whipscarred, a summoning, a shining

Mean to be free

And this was the way of it, brethren brethren, way we journeyed from Can’t to Can. Moon so bright and no place to hide, the cry up and the patterollers riding, hound dogs belling in bladed air. And fear starts a-murbling, Never make it, we’ll never make it. Hush that now, and she’s turned upon us, levelled pistol glinting in the moonlight: Dead folks can’t jaybird-talk, she says; you keep on going now or die, she says.

Wanted Harriet Tubman alias The General alias Moses Stealer of Slaves

In league with Garrison

Alcott

Garrett Douglas Thoreau

Armed and known to be Dangerous

Wanted Reward Dead or Alive

Emerson

John Brown

Tell me, Ezekiel, oh tell me do you see mailed Jehovah coming to deliver me?

Hoot-owl calling in the ghosted air, five times calling to the hants in the air. Shadow of a face in the scary leaves, shadow of a voice in the talking leaves:

Come ride-a my train

Oh that train, ghost-story train through swamp and savanna movering movering, over trestles of dew, through caves of the wish,

Midnight Special on a sabre track movering movering, first stop Mercy and the last Hallelujah.

Come ride-a my train

Mean mean mean to be free.

—Robert Hayden

wolfgang mozart

Born January 27, 1756; Salzburg, Austria

Died December 5, 1791; Vienna, Austria

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K. 581

composed 1789

Mozart harbored a special fondness for the graceful agility, liquid tone, and ensemble amiability of the clarinet from the time he first heard the instrument as a young boy

during his tours, and he later wrote for it whenever it was available. His greatest compositions for the instrument were inspired by the technical accomplishment and expressive playing of Anton Stadler, principal clarinetist of the imperial court orchestra in Vienna and fellow mason. For him, he wrote not only this quintet but also the Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Viola (Kegelstatt,

K. 498), the clarinet and basset horn parts in the vocal trios, the clarinet solos in the opera La Clemenza di Tito, the clarinet parts added to the second version of the G minor symphony (K. 550), and the flawless Clarinet Concerto (K. 622), his last instrumental work, completed in October 1791, just two months before his death. The last years of Mozart’s life were ones of troubled finances, ill health, and family problems that often forced him to beg for loans from others. It says much about his kindness and sensitivity that he, in turn, loaned Stadler money when he could and even once gave him two gold watches to pawn when there was no cash at hand. The final accounting of Mozart’s estate after his death showed that Stadler owed him some 500 florins—several thousand dollars. The clarinet works that he gave to his friend are beyond price.

The quintet opens with a theme that is almost chaste in its purity and yet is somehow deeply introspective and immediately touching. As its initial punctuating arpeggios indicate, the clarinet’s role in the piece is not so much one of soloist in a miniature concerto (as is the wind instrument in the Horn Quintet, K. 407) as that of an equal partner to the string ensemble. The second theme, a limpid, sweetly chromatic melody such as could have been conceived by no other

musician of the time, not even Joseph Haydn, is given first by the violin and then by the clarinet above a delicate syncopated string accompaniment. A reference to the suave main theme closes the exposition and serves as the gateway to the development section, which is largely concerned with permutations of the arpeggiated figures with which the clarinet made its entry in the opening measures. The recapitulation provides exquisite closure of the movement’s formal structure and emotional progression. The Larghetto achieves a state of exalted sublimity that makes it the instrumental counterpart to Sarastro’s arias in The Magic Flute, which George Bernard Shaw once said were the only music fit to issue from the mouth of God. The menuetto is fitted with two trios: the first, a somber minor-mode essay for strings alone, is perfectly balanced by the clarinet’s lilting, ländler-like strains in the second. The variations-form finale is more subdued and pensive than virtuosic and flamboyant, serving as a fitting conclusion to one of the most precious treasures in Mozart’s peerless musical legacy.

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. previous page: Wolfgang Mozart, portrait attributed to Joseph Hickel (1736–1807), ca. 1783

Rong-Yan Tang Violin

Rong-Yan Tang was appointed to the first violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim in 2003. After graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she came to the United States on a full scholarship to study with Camilla Wicks at Louisiana State University and Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Prior to joining the CSO, Tang held several titled orchestral positions, most recently as associate concertmaster of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. As a soloist, she has performed in the United States, China, Hong Kong, and France.

A former protégé of Isaac Stern, Tang plays on a violin from Stern’s private collection and by his invitation performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

Tang has extensive experience as a chamber musician. As first violin of the Fry Street Quartet, she has appeared on Carnegie Hall’s Rising Stars series, the New School’s Schneider Concerts series, and at New York City’s 92nd Street Y. Tang is the winner of numerous awards and competitions, most notably the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition’s Millennium grand prize and first prize in the Yellow Springs National Chamber Music Competition.

Rong-Yan Tang currently performs on the CSO’s Chamber Music series

and for educational concerts at Chicago public schools. She has appeared in recitals at the Art Institute of Chicago, on WFMT-FM broadcasts, and as a soloist with regional orchestras.

Kozue Funakoshi Violin

Kozue Funakoshi joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2000 after three years with the Cleveland Orchestra. A former concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, she studied with Hideyuki Nimura, Joseph Genualdi, and Sando Shia. A native of Yokohama, Japan, Funakoshi grew up in Kamakura. Her father was a rock musician who played guitar and piano, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. In 1987, she received first prize at the All Japan Young Musicians Competition and was awarded a full scholarship to the Tokyo College of Music, where she received a bachelor’s degree.

Funakoshi has appeared on the Cleveland Orchestra’s chamber music series, at the Kurashiki Music Festival directed by conductor Takashi Asahina, and as a soloist on the Thüringer Philharmonic Orchestra’s 1993 German concert tour. She also served as concertmaster for the Tokyo College of Music Symphony Orchestra’s 1993 U.S. concert tour, which included performances in the Chicago Symphony Center, Carnegie Hall, and Kennedy

PHOTOS BY TODD ROSENBERG

Center. In 2008 Funakoshi performed with the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chung.

Max Raimi Viola

A native of Detroit, Max Raimi has been a violist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1984. He is an active chamber musician and served as a chamber music coach at Northwestern University for many years.

Raimi is a prolific composer, having received commissions from many ensembles and institutions, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Library of Congress, and the American Chamber Players. In February 1998, His Elegy for twelve violas, harp, celesta, and percussion was performed at three Chicago Symphony subscription concerts conducted by Daniel Barenboim. In December 2017, violinist Gil Shaham performed his work Anger Management as an encore at a CSO subscription concert. In March 2018, Riccardo Muti and the CSO gave the world premiere of his Three Lisel Mueller Settings, a CSO commission.

Raimi’s arrangements have also enjoyed wide circulation, having been performed by Daniel Barenboim on piano, among others. In August 1985, a sellout crowd at the old Comiskey Park heard the Chicago Symphony viola section play his arrangement of

“The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Chicago White Sox game, and a three-viola version was twice performed at the old Chicago Stadium for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. On two occasions, Riccardo Muti has conducted Raimi’s orchestration of the University of Michigan fight song, “The Victors,” at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.

Raimi lives in Chicago with his wife, Barbara Flood.

Karen Basrak Cello

Karen Basrak joined the cello section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2012. A native of Arlington Heights, Illinois, Basrak began her studies with Adele O’Dwyer, Gilda Barston, and Richard Hirschl. She received a bachelor of music degree in cello performance from the University of Southern California, where she studied with Eleonore Schoenfeld. While at USC, Basrak received several honors, most notably the Gregor Piatigorsky Award. Before returning to Illinois, Basrak was a member of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, beginning in 2001 as associate principal cello; she served as acting principal from 2002 to 2005 and principal from 2005 to 2012. Basrak has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe and has appeared with the Los Angeles

PHOTOS BY TODD ROSENBERG

Philharmonic, the Northwest, Harper, Kishwaukee, Elmhurst, Skokie Valley, and Greenville symphony orchestras, Winnetka Chamber Orchestra, and American Youth Symphony. As an advocate of music education, she has performed in schools throughout the nation. In recognition of her efforts, Basrak was awarded the key to the city of Greenville, South Carolina. She is on the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

John Bruce Yeh Clarinet

John Bruce Yeh was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1977 as bass clarinet by Georg Solti at the age of nineteen, becoming the first Asian musician ever appointed to the CSO. Two years later, he was named assistant principal and E-flat clarinet. The longest-serving clarinetist in CSO history, he also served as acting principal clarinet from 2008 to 2011. He has performed as guest principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the Guangzhou Symphony in China. He was a prizewinner at the 1982 Munich International Music Competition and the 1985 Naumburg Clarinet Competition in New York. Yeh has performed as a soloist with the CSO several times and continues to solo with orchestras around the globe.

An enthusiastic champion of new music, Yeh is the dedicatee of new works for clarinet by numerous composers, ranging from Ralph Shapey to John Williams. He appears at festivals and on chamber music series worldwide, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Taipei Music Academy Festival, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Yeh has performed with the Guarneri, Ying, Colorado, Calder, and Pacifica string quartets, among others. His over a dozen solo and chamber music recordings have earned worldwide critical acclaim, including the 2007 release Synergy for Naxos of single and double clarinet concertos featuring Yeh, his wife Teresa Reilly, and his daughter Molly Yeh.

John Bruce Yeh is director and cofounder of Chicago Pro Musica, which received the 1985 Grammy Award for Best New Classical Artist. With clarinetist Teresa Reilly, erhu virtuoso Wang Guowei, and pipa virtuoso Yang Wei, Yeh formed Birds and Phoenix, an innovative quartet dedicated to musical exploration by bridging Eastern and Western musical cultures.

Yeh is on the artist faculties of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College for the Performing Arts and Midwest Young Artists in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He is the proud father of Jenna Yeh, culinary artist and wine specialist in Chicago; Molly Yeh, percussionist and Food Network TV personality in Minnesota; and multitalented teenager Mia Reilly-Yeh.

PHOTO BY TODD ROSENBERG

Sara Dailey Mezzo-soprano

Sara Dailey is a mezzo-soprano from Chicagoland with a passion for new and underperformed works. She has performed Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners and Julia Perry’s Stabat mater, as well as many new operas and art songs by living composers. Dailey has appeared on the Indiana University Opera Theater stage

as Meg Page in Falstaff, Alma March in Little Women, and the Mistress of the novices in Suor Angelica. She frequently lends her voice to oratorio works, both as chorister and soloist. She is a former member of NOTUS, IU’s choral ensemble dedicated to performing new choral works, with whom she performed the world premieres of several new pieces. Dailey earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University under the tutelage of Wolfgang Brendel and Julia Bentley.

PHOTO: NO CREDIT