La Jolla Music Society Season 47 Program Book January and February

Page 1

JANUARY - FEBRUARY

47 SEASON

DANIIL TRIFONOV

2015-16


2015-16 CALENDAR SEASON 47

OCTOBER

FEBRUARY

APRIL

NEW YORK CITY BALLET MOVES

THE MONTROSE TRIO

WINTERFEST GALA

San Diego Civic Theatre

Saturday, February 6, 2016 · 8 PM

Saturday, April 2, 2016 · 6 PM

Friday, October 30, 2015 · 8 PM

NOVEMBER AN EVENING WITH CHRIS THILE, mandolin

Saturday, November 7, 2015 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

THE ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Zubin Mehta, conductor & music director

Thursday, November 12, 2015 · 8 PM San Diego Civic Theatre

DECEMBER SDYS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Jeff Edmons, music director & conductor Jinjoo Cho, violin

Friday, December 11, 2015 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

JINJOO CHO, violin

Sunday, December 13, 2015 · 3 PM The Auditorium at TSRI

THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA

Saturday, December 19, 2015 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

Martin Beaver, Clive Greensmith & Jon Kimura Parker

STORM LARGE & KIRILL GERSTEIN

MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

Coasterra

AARON NEVILLE

TANGO, SONG AND DANCE

Balboa Theatre

Friday, April 15, 2016 · 8 PM

Thursday, February 11, 2016 · 8 PM

Augustin Hadelich, Joyce Yang & Pablo Villegas

NING FENG, violin

MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

The Auditorium at TSRI

Sunday, April 17, 2016 · 3 PM

Sunday, February 21, 2016 · 3 PM

SDYS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Jeff Edmons, music director & conductor Ning Feng, violin

Friday, February 26, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

DANIIL TRIFONOV, piano

Sunday, February 28, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

MARCH KEB' MO' BLUESAmericana

Friday, March 4, 2016 · 8 PM Balboa Theatre

PAUL LEWIS, piano

ISTVÁN VÁRDAI, cello The Auditorium at TSRI

MURRAY PERAHIA, piano

Sunday, April 24, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO Saturday, April 30, 2016 · 8 PM Spreckels Theatre

MAY NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC Alan Gilbert, music director

Wednesday, May 4, 2016 · 8 PM Jacobs Music Center-Copley Symphony Hall

JOSEF ŠPACˇEK, violin

Sunday, May 8, 2016 · 3 PM

Friday, March 11, 2016 · 8 PM

The Auditorium at TSRI

MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

THE COMPLETE

BEETHOVEN PIANO TRIOS: PART I

JANUARY

BALLET FLAMENCO DE ANDALUCÍA

GARRICK OHLSSON, piano

Spreckels Theatre

Saturday May 14, 2016 · 3 PM

MONTREAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

THE COMPLETE

Thursday, January 14, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR Saturday, January 16, 2016 · 8 PM Balboa Theatre

ITZHAK PERLMAN, violin & EMANUEL AX, piano

Wednesday, January 20, 2016 · 8 PM Jacobs Music Center-Copley Symphony Hall

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 · 8 PM

Kent Nagano, music director Daniil Trifonov, piano

Wednesday, March 23, 2016 · 8 PM Jacobs Music Center-Copley Symphony Hall

Philip Setzer, David Finckel & Wu Han MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

BEETHOVEN PIANO TRIOS: PART II Philip Setzer, David Finckel & Wu Han

Saturday May 14, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

MOZART GROUP

Saturday May 21, 2016 · 8 PM MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

JI, piano

Sunday, January 24, 2016 · 3 PM

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NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

The Auditorium at TSRI

LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY


SEASON 47 IS DEDICATED TO

CONRAD PREBYS & DEBBIE TURNER

La Jolla Music Society wishes to thank Conrad and Debbie for their extraordinary leadership and generosity.


SUPPORTING DECADES OF STANDING OVATIONS FOR THE LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY! ACT ONE THE MED Ocean View Restaurant Savor New American Cuisine & Renowned Wines CURTAIN CALL Café la Rue bistro/bar Enjoy Modern European Cuisine & Late Night Libations Reser vations: 858-454-0771

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WE PRESENT world-class performances throughout the San Diego region.

WE PRODUCE the acclaimed music festival La Jolla Music Society SummerFest. WE EDUCATE adult and young audiences as

well as aspiring and emerging artists.

LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY is devoted to presenting

and producing stimulating performances of the highest quality that create powerful audience experiences. La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, Catamaran Resort Hotel and Spa, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens,Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

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SEASON PARTNERS

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WELCOME LETTER Dear Friends of LJMS, With the beginning of a new year we are compelled to look back and reflect on the past, but my gaze is forward on the promising road ahead for La Jolla Music Society and the vibrant array of upcoming performances. Piano music abounds this January. La Jolla Music Society joins our colleagues the San Diego Symphony, California Center for the Arts, Escondido and Poway Onstage to explore the dynamic repertoire of piano music with the Upright & Grand Piano Festival. The first of our two presentations is pianist Garrick Ohlsson performing two monumental works: Beethoven’s complex Sonata in A-flat Major and Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major, “Wanderer Fantasy”; alongside a selection of works by Chopin, a composer with whom Mr. Ohlsson has earned critical acclaim as a magisterial interpreter. Then, less than one week later, we have two of the most celebrated masters of the concert stage, the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Emanuel Ax, on a recital of sonatas by Mozart, Fauré and Strauss. Under the musical direction of pianist Gerald Clayton, Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour brings a talented roster of jazz musicians to perform a lively mix of original compositions and celebrated works from notable artists that have performed at the renowned jazz festival. Rounding out January, our exploration of piano repertoire concludes with the Winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, gifted pianist Ji will perform the complex and iconic Goldberg Variations. The breadth of our artistic programming is undeniable in February, as we welcome back former Tokyo String Quartet members, Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith with pianist Jon Kimura Parker, in their new artistic collaboration—The Montrose Trio. Then just a couple days after Mardi Gras, join us at the Balboa Theatre to see Grammy® Award-winning vocalist and New Orleans legend Aaron Neville take the stage with his quintet. Violinist Ning Feng, First Prize Winner at the International Paganini Competition, makes his La Jolla Music Society debut with a recital on February 21 at The Auditorium at TSRI and later that week performs Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 with the Chamber Orchestra, continuing our partnership with the San Diego Youth Symphony. Finally, we close February with the return of Russian superstar Daniil Trifonov, in the first of two not-to-be missed performances featuring the pianist this Season. Hear him in recital performing works by Bach, Schubert, Brahms and Rachmaninoff on February 28 at MCASD Sherwood Auditorium. I look forward to seeing you at many of our performances in 2016 and beyond.

Kristin Lancino

President & Artistic Director W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 9 10 11 15 16 19 23 26 27 31 35 39 43

CALENDAR WELCOME LETTER LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY STAFF & BOARD OF DIRECTORS GARRICK OHLSSON MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR ITZHAK PERLMAN & EMANUEL AX JI THE MONTROSE TRIO AARON NEVILLE QUINTET NING FENG SDYS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA DANIIL TRIFONOV ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES SUPPORT

ADMINISTRATION

ARTISTIC & EDUCATION

DEVELOPMENT

MARKETING & TICKET SERVICES

PRODUCTION

LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY STAFF

BOARD OF DIRECTORS · 2015-16

Kristin Lancino, President & Artistic Director Cho-Liang Lin, SummerFest Music Director

Katherine Chapin – Chair Theresa Jarvis – Treasurer Susan Hoehn – Secretary Martha Dennis, Ph.D. – Past Chair

Chris Benavides – Finance Director Debra Palmer – Executive Assistant & Board Liaison Jordanna Kidd – Administrative Assistant Leah Z. Rosenthal – Director of Artistic Planning & Education Jordanna Rose – Artist Services Coordinator Allison Boles – Education Manager Marcus Overton – Consultant for Special Projects Serafin Paredes – Community Music Center Program Director Eric Bromberger – Program Annotator Ferdinand Gasang – Development Director Benjamin Guercio – Development Coordinator Kristen Sakamoto – Marketing Director Vanessa Dinning – Marketing Manager Hilary Huffman – Marketing Coordinator Matthew Fernie – Graphic & Web Designer Cari McGowan – Ticket Services Manager Shannon Haider – Ticket Services Assistant Caroline Mickle – Ticket Services Assistant Alex Gutierrez – Ticket Services Assistant Shaun Davis – House Manager Paul Body – Photographer Travis Wininger – Production Manager Jonnel Domilos – Piano Technician

LEGAL COUNSEL

Paul Hastings LLP

AUDITOR

Leaf & Cole, LLP

HONORARY

Stephen Baum Karen A. Brailean Gordon Brodfuehrer Wendy Brody Ric Charlton Linda Chester Elaine Bennett Darwin Silvija Devine Brian Douglass Barbara Enberg Lehn Goetz Kristin Lancino Robin Nordhoff Rafael Pastor

Brenda Baker – Honorary Director Stephen Baum – Honorary Director Joy Frieman, Ph.D. – Honorary Director Irwin M. Jacobs – Honorary Director Joan K. Jacobs – Honorary Director Lois Kohn (1924-2010) – Honorary Director Helene K. Kruger – Honorary Director Conrad Prebys – Honorary Director Ellen Revelle (1910-2009) – Honorary Director Leigh P. Ryan, Esq. – Honorary Director

Christopher Beach – Artistic Director Emeritus

LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY 7946 Ivanhoe Avenue, Suite 309, La Jolla, California 92037 | Admin: (858)459-3724 | Fax: (858)459-3727

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LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY

Ethna Sinisi Piazza Peggy Preuss Deirdra Price, Ph.D. Sylvia Ré Jeremiah Robins Clifford Schireson Marge Schmale Jean Shekhter Maureen Shiftan June Shillman Jeanette Stevens Debra Turner H. Peter Wagener Clara Wu


PRELUDE 7 PM

Lecture by Steven Cassedy: Is it Just a Fantasy?

As its title suggests, Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy” (based on one of the composer’s songs) does not easily fit into any conventional formal category. Yet, despite being called a “fantasy,” it is held together by a few easily perceptible rhythmic and melodic features. La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

Tonight’s concert is underwritten by Medallion Society members:

Maria and Dr. Philippe Prokocimer Exclusive Tour Management and Representation: Opus 3 Artists - 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 - www.opus3artists.com

FRIEMAN FAMILY PIANO SERIES

Garrick Ohlsson, piano THURSDAY, JANUARY 14 · 8 PM MCASD SHERWOOD AUDITORIUM

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, Opus 110 (1821) (1770-1827) Moderato cantabile molto espressivo Allegro molto Adagio ma non troppo; Fugue: Allegro, ma non troppo SCHUBERT Fantasy in C Major, D.760 “Wanderer Fantasy” (1822) (1797-1828)

I N T E R M I S S I O N

CHOPIN Scherzo No. 4 in E Minor, Opus 54 (1842) (1810-1849) Étude, Opus 25, No. 5 in E Minor (1837*) Étude, Opus 25, No. 6 in G-sharp Minor (1837*) Nocturne in C Minor, Opus 48, No. 1 (1841) Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Opus 23 (1831) * Composition Published

Garrick Ohlsson last performed for La Jolla Music Society on the Frieman Family Piano Series on January 13, 2012.

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GARRICK OHLSSON - PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, Opus 110 (1821)

Ludwig Van BEETHOVEN Born December 16, 1770, Bonn Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

The years 1813 through 1820 were exceptionally difficult for Beethoven, who virtually stopped composing in these years. There were several reasons for this: his deafness was now nearly complete, he suffered periods of poor health, and much of his energy was consumed with his struggle for legal custody of his nephew Karl. And–perhaps most important–he had reached a creative impasse brought on by the exhaustion of his Heroic Style. Where the previous two decades had seen a great outpouring of music, now his creative powers flickered and were nearly extinguished. Not until 1820 was he able to put his troubles, both personal and creative, behind him and marshal his energy as a composer. At the end of May 1820 he committed himself to writing three piano sonatas for the Berlin publisher Adolph Martin Schlesinger; these would be Beethoven’s final sonatas. Although he claimed he wrote them “in one breath,” their composition was actually spread out over a longer period than he expected when he agreed to write them. The Sonata in A-flat Major, completed in December 1821, shows some of the most original touches in a group of sonatas that are all distinguished for their originality. The first movement, Moderato cantabile molto espressivo, is remarkable for its lovely and continuous lyricism. Beethoven notes that the opening is to be played con amabilità, and that spirit hovers over the entire movement. The essentially lyric quality of this movement is underlined by the fact that the second theme grows immediately out of the first: the opening idea has barely been stated when the second seems to rise directly out of it. By contrast, the bluff Allegro molto is rough and ready: it is a scherzo with a brief trio section full of energy and rhythmic surprises. The long final movement is of complex structure: it performs the function of both adagio and finale, yet even these elements are intermixed with great originality. The main theme of the Adagio, marked Arioso dolente, arches painfully over a steady chordal accompaniment before Beethoven introduces a fugue marked Allegro, ma non troppo. After a brief working-out, the fugue comes to a halt and the Arioso theme returns. This time, however, Beethoven has marked it Ermattet, klagend (exhausted, grieving), and here the music seems almost choked and struggling to move. Yet gradually the music gathers strength and the fugue returns, but this time Beethoven has inverted the theme and builds the fugue on this inversion. The sonata ends with a great rush upward across five octaves to the triumphant final chord.

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Fantasy in C Major, D.760 “Wanderer Fantasy” (1822)

Franz SCHUBERT Born January 31, 1797, Vienna Died November 19, 1828, Vienna

In the fall of 1822, Schubert set to work on a new symphony. He completed the first two movements and began a scherzo, but then became interested in writing an extended work for solo piano and set the symphony aside. He completed the piano work in November 1822, and it was published the following February; he never returned to the symphony, and it is known to us today as the “Unfinished Symphony.” The piano piece has taken the name Wanderer Fantasy, for it is based in part on Schubert’s song Der Wanderer, composed in 1819. The Wanderer Fantasy is in one long movement–about twenty minutes in length–that falls into four sections. While the title “fantasy” may imply a lack of attention to form, exactly the reverse is true here–there are unusual thematic and rhythmic connections between the four sections, so that this music is tightly disciplined throughout. It is also extremely difficult to perform. The Wanderer Fantasy has been called the first of Schubert’s mature compositions for the piano, and in fact it was too difficult even for its creator. Schubert is reported to have given up during a performance of this music and to have stormed away from the piano, exclaiming in frustration: “The devil may play this stuff! I can’t!” The brilliance and difficulty of this music have made it a great favorite of virtuoso pianists. Franz Liszt admired and frequently performed the Wanderer Fantasy, and its cyclic structure of interconnected movements had a strong influence on Liszt’s own music. The opening provides the basic dactylic pulse that will recur throughout the Fantasy. This steady, pounding rhythm will return in many forms; in this opening section, it repeats frequently, and some of these repetitions are brilliant, generating a vast volume of sound. The second section (there are no pauses between the different sections) quotes a fragment of Schubert’s song Der Wanderer at a very slow tempo and then offers a series of variations on it. Again, these variations grow increasingly brilliant before this section subsides to end quietly. The third section, playful and fast, is built upon a dotted rhythm that now begins to dominate the music–this dancing rhythm will reappear in several other themes in this carefree interlude. The final section brings back the theme that opened the Fantasy, but now that rhythmic figure is treated fugally, and this impressive music powers its way to a dramatic conclusion.


GARRICK OHLSSON - PROGRAM NOTES

Scherzo No. 4 in E Major, Opus 54 (1842)

Frédéric CHOPIN Born February 22, 1810, ˙Zelazowa Wola, Poland Died October 17, 1849, Paris

Though the term had been used earlier, it was Haydn who conceived of the scherzo in its modern sense. In 1781, he called the third movement of some of his string quartets a “scherzo.” What had been the old minuet-and-trio movement now became a scherzo (and trio), and Haydn’s choice of that name indicated that he wanted more speed and liveliness. Beethoven took this evolution one step further: his scherzos, usually built on very short rhythmic units, explode with violent energy and with enough comic touches to remind us that scherzo is the Italian word for joke. In his four scherzos, Chopin does not copy the forms of Haydn or Beethoven, but adapts the general shape of the classical-period scherzo for his own purposes. He keeps the quick tempo, the 3/4 meter, and (usually) the ABA form of the earlier scherzo, but makes no attempt at humor–the emphasis in this music is on brilliant, exciting music for the piano. The general form of the Chopin scherzo is an opening section based on contrasted themes, followed by a middle section (Chopin does not call this a trio) in a different key and character; the scherzo concludes with the return of the opening material, now slightly abridged. Chopin’s Scherzo in E Major, his final work in this form, was composed in 1842 and is suffused with a spirit more relaxed than one generally associates with the scherzo–it is full of sunny, almost rhapsodic music. It is also his longest, and the entire scherzo is to some extent unified around its first five notes, which will reappear throughout in a variety of guises. Particularly striking is the central episode in C-sharp minor, in which a flowing melody moves along easily over a rocking accompaniment. The return of the opening material is extended, and the final pages are brilliant.

Étude, Opus 25, No. 5 in E Minor (1837) Étude, Opus 25, No. 6 in G-sharp Minor (1837) While still a teenager in Warsaw, Chopin heard a performance of Niccolò Paganini’s Caprices for Solo Violin and was astonished–as were so many other musicians of that era–by what the Italian composer had achieved in this music. Here were extraordinarily complex works for the violin that presented specific technical problems for the performer yet managed to be exciting and engaging music at the same time. Chopin resolved to write something similar for the piano, and over the next few years, a difficult time for the composer, he

did just that. The Twelve Études of Chopin’s Opus 25 date from 1839, when the composer was living in Paris. The Études should be understood first as teaching pieces. Written for Chopin’s students, this brief studies present different kinds of pianistic problems, ranging from the most finger-breaking virtuoso hurdles to the ability to sustain a long melodic line. Along the way, however, they offer breathtaking music that delights general audiences while it challenges pianists. The two études of Opus 25 on this program create specific technical problems for the pianist: No. 5 in E Minor is in Lombard rhythms (dotted rhythms with the short note coming first), while No. 6 in G-sharp Minor is in thirds.

Nocturne in C Minor, Opus 48, No. 1 (1841) Chopin wrote the dramatic Nocturne in C Minor in 1841, when he was 31 years old and living in Paris. The title “nocturne,” with its suggestion of a restrained and subdued atmosphere, might seem inappropriate for the Nocturne in C Minor, which moves from a quiet beginning to an almost frenzied climax. The understated beginning (Chopin marks it mezza voce: “middle voice”) soon introduces widely-spaced chords in the left-hand accompaniment, and these in turn give way to rolled chords and then to thunderous octave runs; these runs–four octaves deep–require the utmost power from a performer, and the chordal theme emerges almost in passing. Chopin drives the music to a huge climax full of rhythmic complexity–the closing section consistently sets three against four–until suddenly the fury subsides and the music concludes on three quiet C-minor chords.

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Opus 23 (1831) Chopin himself was the first to use the term “ballade” to refer to a piano composition, appropriating the name from the literary ballad: he appears to have been most taken with the lyric and dramatic possibilities of the term, for his four ballades fuse melodic writing with intensely dramatic–almost explosive–gestures. After Chopin’s death, Liszt, Grieg, Fauré, and Brahms would compose works for solo piano that they too called ballades. Formally, Chopin’s ballades most closely resemble the sonata-form movement (an opening idea contrasted with a second theme-group, and the two ideas developed and recapitulated), but the ballades are not strictly in sonata-form, nor was Chopin trying to write sonata-form movements. His ballades are quite free in form, and their thematic development and harmonic progression are sometimes wildly original. All four ballades employ a six-beat meter (either 6/4 or 6/8), and W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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GARRICK OHLSSON - PROGRAM NOTES

the flowing quality of such a meter is particularly well-suited to the sweeping drama of this music. All four demand a pianist of the greatest skill. Because of the literary association and the dramatic character of the music, many have been quick to search for extra-musical inspiration for the ballades, believing that such music must represent the attempt to capture actual events in sound. Some have heard the Polish struggle for independence in this music, others the depiction of medieval heroism. Chopin himself discouraged this kind of speculation and asked the listener to take the music on its own terms rather than as a representation of something else. Chopin began work on the Ballade in G Minor in 1831 in Vienna and completed it four years later in Paris. A portentous seven-bar introduction of uncertain tonality gives way to the opening episode, a waltz-like theme in G minor. The second theme is much more dramatic but–curiously–is related to the waltz theme. This second theme undergoes a brilliant development, though this ballade lacks the recapitulation that would be expected at this point in a sonataform movement. Instead, Chopin brings back the waltz theme briefly before launching into the coda, appropriately marked Presto con fuoco.

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LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY


La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

Many thanks to our Hotel Partner:

The Westgate Hotel

JAZZ SERIES

Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour SATURDAY, JANUARY 16 · 8 PM BALBOA THEATRE

Raul Midón, vocals & guitar Ravi Coltrane, tenor & soprano saxophones Nicholas Payton, trumpet Gerald Clayton, musical director Joe Sanders, bass Gregory Hutchinson, drums

Works to be announced from stage NO INTERMISSION

This performance marks Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour’s La Jolla Music Society debut.

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La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

SPECIAL EVENT

Itzhak Perlman, violin & Emanuel Ax, piano WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20 · 8 PM JACOBS MUSIC CENTER-COPLEY SYMPHONY HALL

Many thanks to our Hotel Partner:

The Westgate Hotel Mr. Perlman’s recordings can be found on the Deutsche Grammophon, Warner/EMI, Sony Classical, London/Decca, Erato/Elektra International Classics and Telarc labels. For more information on Itzhak Perlman, visit www.itzhakperlman.com Management for Itzhak Perlman: Charlotte Lee, Primo Artists, New York, NY www.Primoartists.com Exclusive Tour Management and Representation for Emanuel Ax: Opus 3 Artists - 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 www.opus3artists.com

MOZART Sonata in C Major for Piano and Violin, K.296 (1778) (1756-1791) Allegro vivace Andante sostenuto Rondo: Allegro FAURÉ Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Opus 13 (1875) (1845-1924) Allegro molto Andante Allegro vivo Allegro quasi presto I N T E R M I S S I O N

STRAUSS Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Opus 18 (1887) (1864-1949) Allegro, ma non troppo Andante cantabile Andante; Allegro Additional works to be announced from the stage Itzhak Perlman last performed for La Jolla Music Society in a Special Event on February 21, 2009. Emanuel Ax last performed for La Jolla Music Society on the Frieman Family Piano Series on May 4, 2012.

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ITZHAK PERLMAN & EMANUEL AX - PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Sonata in C Major for Piano and Violin, K.296 (1778)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna

In the fall of 1777 Mozart and his mother set out on a long trip which the family hoped would finally land the 21-year-old composer a position worthy of his talents (father Leopold could not get free of his obligations in Salzburg and so remained behind). After a brief stopover in Munich, they arrived in Mannheim in October for a five-month stay. Here Mozart was impressed by the superb Mannheim orchestra, wrote several works for flute, and finally learned– to his dismay–that there was no possibility of a position for him in that city. Just before he left for Paris, Mozart became interested in writing sonatas for violin and keyboard and quickly wrote seven of them: the Sonata in C Major on this program was composed on March 11, 1778, three days before his departure. In Paris, Mozart had six of these sonatas published, but he held back the Sonata in C Major and did not publish it until three years later, shortly after his arrival in Vienna. This sonata has always been a favorite. Audiences like it because Mozart frames a genuinely expressive slow movement with two outer movements full of fire. Violinists like it because it is so much fun to play. Scholars like it because it is so clearly a transitional work: where most of the Mannheim sonatas were in two-movement form, here Mozart writes in full three-movement form. Previous sonatas (including Mozart’s own) had essentially been keyboard sonatas with violin accompaniment: the violin can be eliminated from these sonatas with almost no loss of music content. But an acute reviewer in Vienna recognized the increasingly important role of the violin in this music, describing it as “Very brilliant and suited to the instrument. At the same time the accompaniment of the violin is so artfully combined with the clavier part that both instruments are kept constantly on the alert; so that these sonatas require just as skillful a player on the violin as on the clavier.” The Sonata in C Major rings with the spirit and sweep which that key always seemed to evoke from Mozart. The very opening has been compared to a march, with the piano’s triplet turn snapping the music forward. Quickly the instruments are answering each other, and the music rides forward breathlessly on the piano’s sparkling runs. The piano has the delicate second subject as the violin vigorously accompanies, and Mozart offers a repeat of both exposition and development.

Especially effective is the coda, where the jaunty spirit of the opening march propels the music to its energetic close. Alfred Einstein has noted that Mozart took the main theme of the Andante sostenuto from the aria “Dolci aurette” by Johann Christian Bach. Again the piano leads, but at the center section the violin takes up the melody, and on a series of graceful turns leads it through unexpected keys full of the expressive harmonic shading that marks Mozart’s mature music. Rather than opting for a literal return of the opening section, Mozart offers a coda that gradually dissolves into silence. The finale returns to the spirit of the opening movement. It is the expected rondo, but Mozart ingeniously builds some of the contrasting episodes on variants of the main theme as the sonata drives to its spirited close.

Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Opus 13 (1875)

Gabriel FAURÉ Born May 13, 1845, Pamiers, France Died November 4, 1924, Paris

One of Fauré’s students, the composer Florent Schmitt, described his teacher as an “unintentional, unwitting revolutionary.” The term “revolutionary” hardly seems to apply to a composer best-known for his gentle Requiem, songs, and chamber works. But while Fauré was no heaven-storming radical bent on undoing the past, his seemingly-quiet music reveals enough rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic surprises to justify Schmitt’s claim. The Violin Sonata in A Major, written in the summer of 1876 while Fauré was vacationing in Normandy, is dedicated to his friend, the violinist Paul Viardot. Following its first performance, the sonata was praised by Fauré’s teacher Saint-Saëns for its “formal novelty, quest, refinement of modulation, curious sonorities, use of the most unexpected rhythms . . . charm [and] . . . the most unexpected touches of boldness.” This is strong praise, but close examination of the sonata shows that Saint-Saëns was right. One of the most interesting features of the opening Allegro molto occurs in the accompaniment, which is awash in a constant flow of eighth-notes. The first theme appears immediately in the piano, and already that instrument is weaving the filigree of accompanying eighth-notes that will shimmer throughout this movement: one of the challenges for performers is to provide tonal variety within this continual rustle of sound. The movement is in sonata form, and the descending second theme, introduced by the violin, is accompanied by a murmur of triplets from the piano. The movement concludes on a fiery restatement of its opening theme. Distinguishing the Andante is its rhythmic pulse: a 9/8 W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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meter throbs throughout the movement, though Fauré varies its effect by syncopating the accents within the measure. The third movement, a scherzo marked Allegro vivo, goes like a rocket. Fauré chooses not the expected triple meter of the traditional scherzo but a time signature of 2/8, an extremely short rhythmic unit, particularly when his metronome marking asks for 152 quarter-notes per minute. He further complicates the rhythm by writing in quite short phrases, so that the effect is of short phrases rapidly spit out, then syncopated by sharp off-beats. A lovely, graceful trio gives way to the opening material, and the movement suddenly vanishes in a shower of pizzicato notes. The tempo marking for the finale--Allegro quasi presto–seems to suggest a movement similar to the third, but despite its rapid tempo the last movement flows easily and majestically. Or at least it seems to, for here Fauré complicates matters harmonically. The piano opens in the home key–A major–but the violin seems always to prefer that key’s relative minor, F-sharp minor, and the resulting harmonic uncertainty continues throughout the movement until the sonata ends in unequivocal A major. To emphasize this sonata’s originality may have the unhappy effect of making the music sound cerebral, interesting only for its technical novelty. That is hardly the case. Fauré’s Sonata in A Major is one of the loveliest violin sonatas of the late nineteenth century, full of melodic, graceful, and haunting music.

Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Opus 18 (1887)

Richard STRAUSS

Born June 11, 1864, Munich Died September 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

The Violin Sonata came at a pivotal point in Richard Strauss’ career. He wrote it in 1887-8, when he was only 24 and just beginning work on the symphonic poem Don Juan. The success of Don Juan would lead Strauss to concentrate on the symphonic poem and later on opera; the Violin Sonata, in fact, was his final piece of chamber music. Coming at so important an intersection in his career, the Violin Sonata shows features of both the world Strauss was leaving and the world he was about to enter. In its structure and harmonic language, the sonata looks back to the classical tradition of Brahms and Schumann, but in its dramatic scope and the sheer panache of the writing, it looks ahead to the symphonic poems. Not all listeners have found this combination convincing, and some have questioned whether Strauss’ Violin Sonata, full of volcanic fury and dense textures, is chamber music at all. Strauss’ biographer Norman Del Mar notes that “the piano part resembles nothing so strongly as a Liszt Piano Concerto,

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while the violin line . . . rather suggests a full body of strings.” The fusion of styles in Strauss’ Violin Sonata can be jarring, but this is nevertheless brilliant, exciting music. Strauss played both piano and violin, and the writing for the two instruments is virtuosic. The piano opens the Allegro, ma non troppo, and its first figure–immediately picked up by the violin–contains the rhythmic cell that will animate the entire movement: a sixteenth-note pickup leading into a triplet. This figure, full of the rhythmic snap so typical of Strauss’ tone poems, recurs throughout the movement. The second theme soars through a range of two-and-a-half octaves, while the third–marked appassionato–climbs into the violin’s highest register. This sonata-form movement, marked by an exceedingly active development, closes on a restatement of the first idea. The Andante cantabile was written after the outer movements were completed and published separately under the title Improvisation. It is in ABA form, with an opening section that has reminded many of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. The interior sequence is impassioned, with the violin line riding high above shimmering arpeggios of 64th-notes in the piano; Strauss quotes Schubert’s song Erlkönig in the turbulent middle section and the slow movement of Beethoven’s “Pathétique” Sonata in the coda. Nowhere does the transitional nature of this sonata appear more clearly than at the opening of the finale. After an Andante introduction that sounds as if it might have been written by Brahms, the first theme rockets upward at the Allegro, sounding very much like the great upward rush of orchestral sound at the beginning of Don Juan, written at almost the same time. The finale is much in the manner of the opening movement, with an espressivo second theme, a soaring third, and a superheated development. The coda is a graceful and imaginative extension of the opening theme.


DISCOVERY SERIES

Ji, piano SUNDAY, JANUARY 24 · 3 PM THE AUDITORIUM AT TSRI

J.S. BACH Three Chorale Preludes (arr. by Ferruccio Busoni) (1685-1750) Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 (1748) Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland, BWV 599 (1723) Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein, BWV 734 (1750) MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses in D Minor, Opus 54 (1841) (1809-1847)

MUSICAL PRELUDE 2 PM Young artists from the San Diego Youth Symphony perform

La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

The Discovery Series is underwritten by Medallion Society member:

Jeanette Stevens

MESSIAEN Les offrandes oubliées (arr. for piano) (1930) (1908-1992) La Croix (The Cross) La Péché (The Sin) L’Eucharistie (The Eucharist) I N T E R M I S S I O N

J.S. BACH Aria with Thirty Variations, BWV 988 (Goldberg Variations) (1741) Aria Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 3 Canone all’ Unisono Variation 4 Variation 5 Variation 6 Canone alla Seconda Variation 7 al tempo di Giga Variation 8 Variation 9 Canone alla Terza Variation 10 Fughetta Variation 11 Variation 12 Canone alla Quarta Variation 13 Variation 14 Variation 15 Canone alla Quinta

Variation 16 Ouverture Variation 17 Variation 18 Canone alla Sesta Variation 19 Variation 20 Variation 21 Canone alla Settima Variation 22 Variation 23 Variation 24 Canone all’ Ottava Variation 25 Variation 26 Variation 27 Canone alla Nona Variation 28 Variation 29 Variation 30 Quodlibet Aria

Additional support for the Series is provided by:

Gordon Brodfuehrer

This performance marks Ji’s La Jolla Music Society debut.

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JI - PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Three Chorale Preludes (arr. by Ferruccio Busoni) Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 (1748) Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland, BWV 599 (1723) Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein, BWV 734 (1751)

Johann Sebastian BACH Born March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig

As a devout Lutheran, Bach took very seriously Martin Luther’s call for a music (and a language) available to all members of the congregation. In the effort to reach the common man and make religion more immediate and meaningful, the music of the Lutheran service was built not on the Latin of the Roman Catholic Church–chanted by the priest–but on the simple and sturdy hymn-tunes of Germany (some of them by Martin Luther himself), which could be sung by all the members of a congregation. Bach was drawn to these old German chorale melodies throughout his career: he wrote cantatas based on chorale tunes, he included chorales in his passions, he composed about thirty new chorale tunes of his own, and he also made about 400 reharmonizations of existing chorale tunes, usually for solo organ. This program opens with three of Bach’s chorale preludes in piano arrangements by the German-Italian pianist Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), who left seven volumes of Bach arrangements. One of the best-known of Bach’s chorale preludes is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Awake, the Voice Is Sounding”). The original melody appears to have been composed by Jakob Praetorius about 1604, and Bach used it twice: as an organ prelude and as the fourth movement of his Cantata No. 140, which was composed in November 1731 and which takes the title of the chorale for the entire cantata. Busoni made his transcription from the cantata version, which has the noble, flowing melody on top, the tenor line in the center (it tells of the approach of the bridegroom–Christ–and the excitement of the maidens who await him), and the continuo beneath them. Bach set Nun komm’, der Heiden Heiland (“Come Thou, Redeemer of Our Race”) on several different occasions, and these in turn exist in a variety of forms: as the original choral setting as it might have been sung in Lutheran services, as one of Bach’s chorale preludes for organ, and (centuries later) in Leopold Stokowski’s sumptuous arrangement for full symphony orchestra. The stately Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein (“Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice”) is based on an anonymous hymn tune from the fifteenth century.

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Variations sérieuses in D Minor, Opus 54 (1841)

Felix MENDELSSOHN Born February 3, 1809, Hamburg Died November 4, 1847, Leipzig

The Variations sérieuses are the work of a composer working under severe stress. In 1840 the newly-crowned King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, proposed a plan to revitalize the arts in the German-speaking world. He opened a New Academy of the Arts in Berlin and named Mendelssohn head of the music school there. Mendelssohn was anxious to satisfy the king, but loathe to leave Leipzig and the excellent orchestra he had created there. He accepted the position reluctantly, then found himself frustrated when his proposals disappeared into governmental bureaucracy. Mendelssohn would stick it out for five years in Berlin, but at the conclusion of his first year he was already unhappy with the situation. From this moment of frustration came two of Mendelssohn’s finest works: he completed the Variations sérieuses on June 4, 1841, then immediately pressed on to compose his “Scottish” Symphony. Some biographers have been quick to attribute these superb pieces to Mendelssohn’s unhappiness in Berlin, but that must remain conjecture. What is clear, though, is the quality of the music itself: the piano pedagogue Ernest Hutcheson has called the Variations sérieuses “certainly one of Mendelssohn’s best piano compositions, perhaps the best of all.” It has been suggested that Mendelssohn chose the name Variations sérieuses to distinguish these variations from the sets of frivolous variations on popular tunes that were appearing by the middle of the nineteenth century. This is deeply serious music, and it is also quite concentrated: the theme and seventeen variations span only eleven minutes, and some of the variations pass by in only a matter of seconds. The theme–Mendelssohn’s own–is quite interesting. Of a choralelike simplicity, it is stated quietly at the very beginning: Mendelssohn marks it both Andante sostenuto and piano on its first appearance. But even on its first statement, that (seemingly) simple little tune is full of harmonic tension– the music may nominally be in D minor, but there are so many accidentals here that the sense of a home key is shaken. Mendelssohn’s theme may seem wistful and gentle, but listeners should be particularly alert to the bass line that underpins that theme–that line will provide the foundation for many of the variations. Over the first several variations Mendelssohn’s theme remains clearly discernible, but as the variations speed ahead and involve chordal, staccato, and syncopated writing that theme becomes harder to trace, and one becomes more aware of the theme’s bass line as the organizing principle in this


JI - PROGRAM NOTES

music. The tempo relaxes at the tenth variation, a brief fugato, then races ahead brilliantly at the twelfth; this variation is marked Tempo di Tema but is written entirely in 32nd-notes, so the pulse is quite fast. The fourteenth variation is a lovely Adagio, and Mendelssohn brings the set to its conclusion with several fast variations. The last of these is extended, and within it Mendelssohn quotes his original theme and briefly recalls the shape of several of his variations. The music drives to what promises to be a grand conclusion, but at the last moment Mendelssohn reins in this energy, and the Variations sérieuses fade into silence on somber D-minor chords.

Les offrandes oubliées (arr. for piano) (1930)

Olivier MESSIAEN Born December 10, 1908, Avignon, France Died April 28, 1992, Paris

The year 1930 was a momentous one for Olivier Messiaen. He graduated from the Paris Conservatory, where he had studied since he was eleven. He became organist at La Trinité in Paris, a position he would hold until 1978. And that summer he composed the first of his orchestral works that he would hear, Les offrandes oubliées. He was all of 21 years old at the time, and he would hear Les offrandes oubliées the following February 19, when Walter Straram led the première in Paris. Les offrandes oubliées translates as “Forgotten Offerings,” and this “Symphonic Meditation” (as Messiaen subtitled it) was inspired by the devout Roman Catholic faith that would animate almost every note he was to compose. For this brief work, which might be described as a parable of man’s fall and redemption through Christ, Messiaen wrote a poem in three stanzas that correspond to the three sections of the music. The composer’s biographer Paul Griffiths has offered a translation of this poem, which is printed in the score: Arms extended, sad unto death, on the tree of the Cross you shed your blood. You love us, sweet Jesus: that we have forgotten. Impelled by folly or the serpent’s tongue, on a panting, frantic, unceasing course, we went down into sin as into the tomb. Here is the spotless table, the spring of charity, the banquet of the poor, here the Pity to be adored, offering the bread of Life and of Love. You love us, sweet Jesus: that we have forgotten. Les offrandes oubliées is usually heard in its orchestral version, but Messiaen also made a piano arrangement, which is performed on this concert. While the composer did not give

titles to the movements in the published score, he did include them in his program note for this piece, and those titles are included in this discussion. The opening section (La Croix) corresponds to Christ’s sacrifice. Marked “grieving, profoundly sad,” this slow, dark music progresses along meters that change every measure. Messiaen unifies all three sections of Les offrandes oubliées around a melodic motif that is presented in each at a different speed and dynamic and by different instruments–it is heard in this opening section as a slow, rising figure. The second section (La Péché), marked Vif (“Lively”), arrives as a shocking, sudden explosion. Marked féroce, désespéré, haletant (“fierce, desperate, panting”), this is a portrait of human sin, of a falling away from Christ–this is the “forgetting” of the title. The music, very fast, is driven along by huge attacks and brilliant writing. The central melodic motif appears midway through as a strident call. This section drives to a sharp climax and then breaks off in silence, and out of this silence begins the final sequence, a musical depiction of the Eucharist (that is, the “unforgetting” of Christ). In the orchestral version Messiaen scores this section only for strings, and they achieve a luminous sonority here–the unifying melodic motif is heard quietly in the first violins as the music makes it way to a peaceful concluding chord in E major. This section is marked Extremely slow, and in fact it is so slow that at moments it can seem almost static. This is one of the first manifestations in Messiaen’s music of an idea that would fascinate him throughout his life: the musical depiction of eternity. Messiaen himself later described this section as “long, slow phrases from the violins, rising over a carpet of pianissimo chords, with reds, golds, blues (like a distant stained-glass window), lit by muted soloists.”

Aria with Thirty Variations, BWV 988 (Goldberg Variations) (1741)

Johann Sebastian BACH In November 1741 Bach, then 56 years old, made the hundred-mile trip east from Leipzig to Dresden to visit an old friend, Count Hermann Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador to the Saxon court. Keyserlingk’s court harpsichordist was the fourteen-year-old Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who at age ten had been a student of Bach. There are several stories as to what happened next, all impossible to confirm. One is that Keyserlingk commissioned a work for his young harpsichordist and gave Bach a goblet full of gold coins in payment. Another is that Keyserlingk was an insomniac who specified that he wanted a piece that Goldberg could play to him as he went to sleep. What is certain is that the following year Bach W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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published (as the fourth part of his edition of keyboard works, the Clavier-Übung) a work he called simply Aria with Thirty Variations, composed for two-manual harpsichord. The score bore no dedication, nor any mention at all of Keyserlingk or Goldberg. But Bach did give the count a copy of this music, and the conclusion is that this is the piece that had been requested in Dresden. By a process of (perhaps random) association, one of the greatest works ever written immortalizes a fourteen-year-old harpsichord player, and we know this music today simply as the Goldberg Variations. For his theme–which he calls Aria–Bach uses a sarabande melody that he had written as part of Anna Magdalena Bach’s Notebook. It is 32 measures long and already ornately embellished on its first appearance, though it is not this melody that will furnish the basis for the variations that follow but the bassline beneath it. This lengthy harmonic progression will become the backbone of the Goldberg Variations, functioning much like the ground bass of a passacaglia. The thirty variations that follow are grouped in ten units of three, of which the third is always a canon, and each successive canon is built on an interval one larger than the previous. Such a description makes the Goldberg Variations sound like one of the more densely-argued works of the Second Viennese School, but in fact this is some of Bach’s most moving and exhilarating music, and it is a measure of his genius that such expressive music can grow out of such rigorous compositional procedures. In fact, listeners to do not really need to understand the complexity of Bach’s techniques to feel the greatness of this music. One is certainly aware of the original bassline as a structuring element, but beyond that each successive variation can be taken as an individual pleasure. Some incidental observations: the keyboard writing here is unusually brilliant– this is virtuoso music, and that virtuosity appears not just in the dazzling runs across the range of the keyboard but in the complexity of the contrapuntal writing, where the pianist– limited to just two hands–must keep multiple strands clear. Bach changes meter at virtually every variation, with the music leaping from its original 3/4 meter through such permutations as 4/4, 3/8, 2/4, and on to 12/16 and 18/16. The tenth variation is written as a Fughetta, and of special importance to the work are the three minor-key variations (Nos. 15, 21, and 25): all of these are slow, all begin in G minor (but can go far afield harmonically), and all are darkly expressive. In particular, No. 25–which lasts well over six minutes by itself–forms the emotional climax of the work before the spirited conclusion. That close is unusual all by itself. The thirtieth and final variation is marked Quodlibet, which means simply a gathering of tunes. Here Bach incorporates into the harmonic frame of his variations some of the popular tunes that he had heard sung around him on the streets of Leipzig. Donald Francis

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Tovey has identified two of these, and their first lines translate “It is so long since I have been at your house” and “Cabbage and turnips have driven me away. If my mother’d cooked some meat, I might have stopped longer.” To a listener of Bach’s day, the joke would have been obvious, though it has to be explained to us–we feel only that the work is approaching its close in an unusually relaxed and tuneful manner. And then, a masterstroke: rather than rounding off the Goldberg Variations with a rousing display of contrapuntal brilliance, Bach instead concludes with a simple repetition of the opening Aria.


PRELUDE 7 PM A conversation with Jon Kimura Parker hosted by Marcus Overton

La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

Many thanks to our Hotel Partner:

The Lodge at Torrey Pines Exclusive Tour Management and Representation: Opus 3 Artists - 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 - www.opus3artists.com

REVELLE CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES

The Montrose Trio SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6 · 8 PM MCASD SHERWOOD AUDITORIUM

Jon Kimura Parker, piano; Martin Beaver, violin; Clive Greensmith, cello TURINA Piano Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Opus 76 (1933) (1882-1949) Lento; Allegro molto moderato Molto vivace Lento; Andante mosso; Allegretto HAYDN Piano Trio in E Major, Hob.XV:28 (1797*) (1732-1809) Allegro moderato Allegretto Rondo: Allegro I N T E R M I S S I O N

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50 (1882) (1840-1893) Pezzo élégiaco Tema con variazioni Variazione finale e coda: Allegro risoluto e con fuoco * Composition Published

This performance marks The Montrose Trio’s La Jolla Music Society debut.

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THE MONTROSE TRIO - PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Piano Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Opus 76 (1933)

Joaquín TURINA Born December 9, 1882, Seville Died January 14, 1949, Madrid

Trained at first in Seville and Madrid, Turina moved to Paris in 1905, when he was 23, to study with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. Like so many young Spanish composers of his generation, Turina loved Paris, its richness, and the training it offered. He remained there for nine years, returning to Spain just as World War I began. Many young Spanish composers of this era devoted themselves to Spanish subjects and to creating a specifically Spanish music. Turina was very much part of this nationalist movement, as compositions such as Sinfonia sevillana, La oración del torero, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda make clear. But among his generation of Spanish composers, it was Turina who remained most strongly attracted to the classical forms developed by German composers: sonatas, trios, and quartets. In Madrid, Turina conducted and composed, and in 1930 he was named Professor of Composition at the Madrid Conservatory. His Piano Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Opus 76 dates from 1931, shortly after his appointment to the faculty of the Madrid Conservatory. Though Turina uses no actual folktunes in this music, it nevertheless has a particularly “Spanish” atmosphere: the Trio is full of the rhythms and melodic shapes characteristic of Spanish music. The first movement opens with a quiet–and very brief–Lento introduction before the Allegro molto moderato surges to life with the exciting main theme. Turina writes a playful second subject for the violin, and this dynamic opening section gives way to a reflective central episode introduced by the cello; the opening material returns to drive the movement to the piano’s powerful concluding chord. The Molto vivace is in ABA form. The piano has the musical interest at the beginning while muted strings race along quietly as accompaniment; at the center of this movement, the strings have a lyric duet before the opening material returns. The finale is episodic in structure: it is essentially a series of dances, and along the way there are many changes of speed and mood. The most lively and colorful of the movements, it provides a fitting conclusion to the Trio.

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Piano Trio in E Major, Hob.XV:28 (1797)

Franz Joseph HAYDN Born April 1, 1732, Rohrau, Austria Died May 31, 1809, Vienna

Haydn’s two extended visits to England in the 1790s came as a revelation to the sixty-year-old composer. More accurately, they came as a shock. For thirty years Haydn had been Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family at their remote palace forty miles east of Vienna. There, as a staff musician, Haydn had worn a uniform, conducted and composed, and put on concerts for his prince and invited guests. But when Prince Nikolaus died in 1790 and the impresario J.P. Salomon invited him to England, Haydn discovered–to his astonishment– that he was famous. Salomon’s concerts were open to the enthusiastic English public, which bought tickets, crowded the halls, and cheered Haydn’s music. Haydn was introduced to George III, had an extremely active social life (at the end of his first week in England, he observed that he had “had to dine out six times up to now, and if I wanted, I could have an invitation every day”), and made a huge amount of money. He called his years in England the “happiest” of his life and observed pointedly that he “became famous in Germany through England.” One of the most invigorating aspects of Haydn’s years in England was his contact with a middle-class audience, which not only came to hear music but also played it. This may help explain why he composed a number of piano trios while in England–it was music that could be purchased and performed by the growing number of amateur musicians in England. The present Trio in E Major is one of a set of three that Haydn appears to have begun in London and finished in Vienna; it was published in London in 1797. This music may be progressive in the sense that it was composed with an emerging middle class in mind, but its roots lie in a form that was in the process of disappearing, the accompanied sonata. We may think of this piece as a piano trio, but Haydn did not: he published this set of trios under the title “Sonatas for the pianoforte with an accompaniment for the violin and violoncello.” Where later composers would balance the musical duties more evenly, Haydn felt that the piano is the dominant instrument here, with the two stringed instruments playing a subordinate role: the cello often doubles the pianist’s left hand, though the violin is offered somewhat more independence. The Trio in E Major is marked by the lyric spirit that was a part of Haydn’s chamber music in these years. The Allegro moderato is based on the piano’s singing opening phrase, in which every single note is decorated by a gracenote; the Allegretto features the piano prominently, and the trio concludes with a brisk rondo marked Allegro.


THE MONTROSE TRIO - PROGRAM NOTES

Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50 (1882)

Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia Died November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg

Nikolai Rubinstein, brother of the pianist Anton Rubinstein, had hired Tchaikovsky to teach composition at the Moscow Conservatory and later encouraged him as a composer, conducting and championing his music. When Nikolai died on March 23, 1881, at the age of 46, Tchaikovsky resolved to write a work in his memory, but it was difficult for him to choose the form for such a piece. Nikolai had been a pianist, but a piano concerto did not seem a proper memorial piece. Tchaikovsky disliked the combination of piano and strings in chamber music but eventually overcame this aversion to write the Trio in A Minor as the memorial to Rubinstein; it was the only time Tchaikovsky used a piano in his chamber music. He began work on the trio in December 1881 while living in Rome and completed the score on February 9, 1882. The manuscript is inscribed: “In memory of a Great Artist.” A particular memory came back to Tchaikovsky as he worked on this music: in 1873, after the première of Tchaikovsky’s The Snow Maiden (which had been conducted by Rubinstein), faculty members from the Moscow Conservatory had gone on a picnic in the sunny, blossomcovered countryside. Here they were surrounded by curious peasants, and the gregarious Rubinstein quickly made friends and had the peasants singing and dancing. As he set to work on the trio, Tchaikovsky remembered how much Rubinstein had liked one of these songs. The trio as completed has a very unusual form: it is in two massive movements that last a total of almost 50 minutes. The first movement in particular has proven baffling to critics, who have been unable to decide whether it is in sonata or rondo form. It is built on two sharply contrasted themes: the cello’s somber opening melody–which Tchaikovsky marks molto espressivo–and a vigorous falling theme for solo piano, marked Allegro giusto. Tchaikovsky alternates these themes through this dramatic movement, which closes with a quiet restatement of the cello’s opening theme, now played in octaves by the piano. The second movement is a huge set of variations. The theme of these variations is the peasant melody Rubinstein had liked so much on the picnic in 1873, and Tchaikovsky puts this simple tune through eleven quite different variations. Particularly striking are the fifth, in which the piano’s high notes seem to echo the sound of sleigh bells; the sixth, a waltz introduced by the cello; the eighth, a powerful fugue; and the tenth, a mazurka introduced by the piano. So individual and dramatic are these variations that several critics instantly

assumed that each must depict an incident from Rubinstein’s life and set about guessing what each variation was “about.” Tchaikovsky was dumbfounded when this was reported to him; to a friend he wrote: “How amusing! To compose music without the slightest desire to represent something and suddenly to discover that it represents this or that, it is what Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme must have felt when he learnt that he had been speaking in prose all his life.” The trio concludes with a final variation so huge that many have considered it a separate movement. It comes to a somber end: Tchaikovsky marks the final page Lugubre (“lugubrious”), and over a funeral march in the piano come fragments of the cello’s theme from the very beginning of the first movement, now marked piangendo: “weeping.” This theme gradually dissolves, and the piano marches into silence.

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La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

Many thanks to our Hotel Partner:

The Lodge at Torrey Pines

JAZZ SERIES

Aaron Neville Quintet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 · 8 PM BALBOA THEATRE

Aaron Neville, vocals Charles Neville, saxophone Michael Goods, keyboard David Johnson, bass & vocals Eric Struthers, guitar Earl Smith Jr., drums & vocals

Works to be announced from stage NO INTERMISSION

This performance marks the Aaron Neville Quintet’s La Jolla Music Society debut.

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DISCOVERY SERIES

Ning Feng, violin SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21 · 3 PM THE AUDITORIUM AT TSRI

Jeeyoon Kim, piano MOZART Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-flat Major, K.378 (1779) (1756-1791) Allegro moderato Andantino sostenuto e cantabile Rondeau: Allegro BEETHOVEN Sonata in C Minor for Violin and Piano, Opus 30, No. 2 (1803*) (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Adagio cantabile Scherzo: Allegro Finale: Allegro

MUSICAL PRELUDE 2 PM Young artists from the San Diego Youth Symphony perform

La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

I N T E R M I S S I O N

FALLA Suite Populaire Espagnole (1926) (1876-1946) El paño moruno (Allegretto vivace) Nana (Calmo e sostenuto) Canción (Allegretto) Polo (Vivo) Asturiana (Andante tranquillo) Jota (Allegro vivo) KORNGOLD Much Ado About Nothing Suite, Opus 11 (1919) (1897-1957) The Maiden in the Bridal Chamber Dogberry and Verges: March of the Watch Scene in the Garden Masquerade: Hornpipe WAXMAN Carmen Fantasie (1947) (1906-1967)

The Discovery Series is underwritten by Medallion Society member:

Jeanette Stevens

* Composition Published

Additional support for the Series is provided by:

Gordon Brodfuehrer

This performance marks Ning Feng's La Jolla Music Society debut.

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NING FENG - PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-flat Major, K.378 (1779)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna

This sonata dates from the period of Mozart’s move from his native Salzburg to Vienna–the evidence is unclear whether he wrote it in Salzburg or just after his arrival in Vienna in 1781. In any event, it was published as part of a group of six violin sonatas in Vienna on December 8, 1781, almost ten years to the day before the composer’s death. This group of six sonatas represents a sudden advance in Mozart’s writing for violin and keyboard. His early violin sonatas had been largely piano sonatas with violin accompaniment, but here the violin becomes a more equal partner in the enterprise. The Sonata in B-flat Major is especially impressive for the richness of its ideas, for the music seems continually alive with new themes, new moods, new ideas, and these often stand in dramatic contrast to each other. It is also extremely vital, almost scintillating music–energy seems to boil out of every measure. The Allegro moderato opens simply. The graceful main idea is heard immediately in the piano, with the violin accompanying it, but the roles quickly reverse as the violin takes up the melody. The exposition is full of striking features–key shifts, romantic turns of phrase, rapid runs–with an extended development that begins in the unexpected key of C minor. Mozart’s marking for the second movement– Andantino sostenuto e cantabile–is important. He rarely marked a movement cantabile–he assumed that all music should sing–so that when he specifies cantabile, it should be taken seriously. This truly is lyric music, an extended aria for violin rather than voice. It is built on contrasting episodes–the first melodic, the second dramatic–and these alternate before the quiet close. The concluding rondo-finale is brief but brilliant. The piano announces the rondo theme, which then goes through several varied episodes including sixteenth-note runs, flying triplets, dotted dance rhythms, and hunting horn calls before the final return of the rondo theme and the dash to the concluding cadence. The six sonatas–offered by Artaria, Mozart’s new publishers in Vienna–were enthusiastically received by the critics there. Listening to this supremely accomplished music two centuries later, it is easy to understand why.

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Sonata in C Minor for Violin and Piano, Opus 30, No. 2 (1803)

Ludwig Van BEETHOVEN Born December 16, 1770, Bonn Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in C Minor is one of the set of three that he wrote in the small village of Heiligenstadt outside Vienna during the summer and fall of 1802. This was a period of extraordinary distress for the composer, for it was during the months at Heiligenstadt that Beethoven was finally forced to accept the inevitability of his deafness. The choice of key for this sonata is important, for C minor was the key Beethoven employed for works of unusual intensity. The recentlycompleted “Pathétique” Sonata, Fourth String Quartet, and Third Piano Concerto were in C minor, and in the next several years Beethoven would use that key for the Funeral March of the Eroica, the Fifth Symphony, and the Coriolan Overture. The musical conflict that fires those works is also evident in this sonata, which is–with the Kreutzer Sonata–the most dramatic of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas. The opening movement is marked Allegro con brio, the same indication Beethoven would later use for the opening movements of the Third and Fifth Symphonies, and the sonata’s first movement has a dramatic scope similar to those symphonies. It opens quietly with a recurrent brooding figure that ends with a sudden turn, like the quick flick of a dragon’s tail. The violin soon picks this up and also has the second subject, which marches along clipped dotted rhythms. There is no exposition repeat, and Beethoven slips into the development quietly, but soon the energy pent up in these simple figures is unleashed–this dramatic music features massive chording by both instruments and drives to a huge climax. By contrast, the Adagio cantabile opens with a melody of disarming gentleness, once again announced by the piano, and much of this movement sings gracefully. As it develops, however, the accompaniment grows more complex, and soon these murmuring runs begin to take over the music; Beethoven makes sharp dynamic contrasts before bringing the movement to a quiet close. The brief Scherzo: Allegro is full of stinging accents and rhythmic surprises; its trio section is a subtle variation of the movement’s opening theme, here treated in canon. The Finale: Allegro returns to the mood of the opening movement–again there is a quiet but ominous opening full of suppressed energy that will later explode to life. This finale is in modified sonata-rondo form, and despite an occasional air of play and some appealing lyric moments, the movement partakes of the same atmosphere of suppressed tension that


NING FENG - PROGRAM NOTES

has marked the entire sonata. Beethoven brings it to a suitably dramatic close with a blazing coda marked Presto that remains resolutely in C minor.

Suite Populaire Espagnole (1926)

Manuel De FALLA Born November 23, 1876, Cádiz Died November 14, 1946, Alta Grazia, Argentina

Falla had moved from Madrid to Paris in 1907, but returned to Spain at the beginning of World War I. The Seven Popular Spanish Songs, completed in Paris in 1914, was his final work before his departure. It comes from a period of unusual creativity: El Amor Brujo would follow in 1915 and Nights in the Gardens of Spain in 1916. In arranging that collection of songs, Falla took the unaccompanied melodic line of seven Spanish popular or folk songs and harmonized them himself, occasionally rewriting or expanding the original melodic line to suit his own purposes. Several years later the Polish violinist Paul Kochanski arranged six of the songs–with the approval of the composer–for violin and piano and published them as Suite Populaire Espagnole (Kochanski also rearranged the order of the movements in his arrangement). 1. El paño moruno or “The Moorish Cloth” (Allegretto vivace) is based exactly on the famous song, and Kochanski’s arrangement makes imaginative use of harmonics and pizzicato. 2. Nana (Calmo e sostenuto) is an arrangement of an old Andalusian cradle song, and Falla said that hearing this melody sung to him by his mother was his earliest memory. The violin is muted throughout, and the piano accompaniment is quietly syncopated. 3. Canción (Allegretto) repeats a dance theme continuously: the entire middle section is performed on artificial harmonics. 4. Polo (Vivo) The polo is a specific form: an Andalusian folksong or dance in 3/8 time, sometimes with coloratura outbursts. This particular polo, while based on Andalusian elements, is largely Falla’s own composition. 5. Asturiana (Andante tranquillo) is a tune from Asturias, a province in the northwest part of Spain. Here the violin, muted throughout, plays the melodic line above a quiet sixteenth-note accompaniment. 6. Jota (Allegro vivo) is the best-known part of the suite. A jota is a dance in triple time from northern Spain, sometimes accompanied by castanets. Slow sections alternate with fast here, and the extensive use of chorded pizzicatos may be intended to imitate the sound of castanets.

Much Ado About Nothing Suite, Opus 11 (1919)

Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD Born May 29, 1897, Brno, Czech Republic Died November 29, 1957, Hollywood

It is easy for American audiences to think of the man who won Oscars for the scores to The Adventures of Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse as a film composer, but Erich Korngold wrote for the movies for only about a decade (1934-1946). The rest of his career was dedicated to“serious” music (which somehow implies that film music is not serious): Korngold wrote five operas, a great deal of symphonic and instrumental music, and a number of songs. Some of his works, including the opera Die tote Stadt and the wonderful Violin Concerto (composed for Heifetz and based on themes from Korngold’s film scores), have achieved a measure of popularity. Much good music by Korngold remains–and deserves–to be heard. Korngold wrote incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing in Vienna in 1919, the year before the première of Die tote Stadt. The original version was scored for chamber orchestra, and Korngold then drew two suites from this music, one for orchestra and one for violin and piano. Shakespeare’s comedy, with its sharptongued lovers Beatrice and Benedick and the evil plot against the innocent Hero, has always been a favorite, and Korngold’s music captures some of the magic of the play. Particularly memorable are the bumbling constables of the night watch, Dogberry and Verges, and Korngold depicts the stumbling antics of the night watch in the sturdy and comic little march that comprises the second movement of these excerpts. The Garden Scene is soaring and melodic, and Korngold rounds the suite off with a Hornpipe (appropriately, a dance of English origin) that zips briskly along its 2/4 meter.

Carmen Fantasie (1947)

Franz WAXMAN Born December 24, 1906, Chorzów, Poland Died February 24, 1967, Los Angeles

Franz Waxman began his career as a pianist in Berlin cafés but soon gravitated to what was then a new path for music– film scores. He arranged the music for Friederich Holländer’s Der blaue Engel in 1930 but fled Germany three years later when Hitler came to power. Waxman arrived in the United States in 1934 and quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s leading composers–among his many films were Magnificent Obsession, Captains Courageous, Rebecca, Suspicion, Sunset Boulevard, and A Place in the Sun. Waxman also wrote “concert” music, and these works were often based on material W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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from his film scores. A first-rate conductor, he founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 and directed it for the final twenty years of his life; with that festival, he presented the West Coast première of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Georges Bizet’s Carmen offers such intoxicating music that it has haunted musicians ever since its 1875 première, and Bizet’s music has re-appeared in many forms, from a Busoni sonatina to Shchedrin’s arrangement for strings and percussion to countless virtuoso paraphrases. The most famous of these are the many arrangements for violin and orchestra by Sarasate, Hubay, Zimbalist, and others. Waxman wrote his Carmen Fantasie in 1947 for Jascha Heifetz, who was one of his neighbors in Hollywood. This ten-minute virtuoso showpiece does not need to be analyzed or “explained” to listeners, who may simply sit back and enjoy one more evocation of Bizet’s memorable tunes, all stitched together with some very fancy fiddling (the imprint of Heifetz’s virtuosity is evident throughout). Along the way, we hear such favorites as the Habanera, Seguidilla, and Intermezzo, as well as a few tunes that do not usually appear in Carmen paraphrases, including the Card Song from Act III.

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PRELUDE 7 PM

An interview with Ning Feng hosted by Marcus Overton

La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

Tonight’s concert is dedicated in memory of:

Bernardo “Benny” Manuel Hollman Jr.

SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY SERIES

Chamber Orchestra

Jeff Edmons, music director & conductor Ning Feng, violin FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26 · 8 PM MCASD SHERWOOD AUDITORIUM

MOZART Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 (1786) (1756-1791)

VIEUXTEMPS Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor, Opus 37 (1861*) (1820-1881) Allegro non troppo; Moderato Adagio Allegro con fuoco Ning Feng, violin I N T E R M I S S I O N

MOZART Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K.385 “Haffner” (1782) Allegro con spirito Andante Menuetto Finale: Presto KABALEVSKY The Comedians, Opus 26 (1938) (1904-1987) Prologue Comedians’ Galop March Waltz Pantomime

Intermezzo Little Lyrical Scene Gavotte Scherzo Epilogue * Composition Published

The SDYS Chamber Orchestra last performed for La Jolla Music Society on the San Diego Youth Symphony Series on December 11, 2015. Ning Feng last performed for La Jolla Music Society on the Discovery Series on February 21, 2016.

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SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA - 2015/16 ROSTER

SDYS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Music Director: Jeff Edmons

VIOLIN I

Sofia Hashemi-Asasi Allan Huang Erica Hwang Daniel Rim Ilana Hirschfeld Natalie Chin Frank Lee

VIOLIN II

Bryan Kaleta Christian Gonzales Michelle Ju Ryan Park Lois Kim George Niu Song Lee

VIOLA

Ricardo Reyes Nathan Rim Diego Guerra

CELLO

Andrew Rim Paul Maxwell Stephen Yang Wade Streit Emily Lin

DOUBLE BASS

Micayla George William Mrdjenovich

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 (1786)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna

The Marriage of Figaro, based on the Beaumarchais play that had been banned for its theme of social injustice and its portrayal of servants outsmarting their masters, had its première in Vienna on May 1, 1786, and promptly began a successful run. In many respects, Figaro marked the high point of Mozart’s success during his lifetime. On a visit to Prague the following year to conduct the opera, Mozart reported that “here nothing is talked of but Figaro, nothing played but Figaro, nothing whistled or sung but Figaro, no opera so crowded as Figaro, nothing but Figaro.” Mozart customarily composed the overtures to his operas last, and that was probably the case with The Marriage of Figaro, though there is no evidence that he had to stay up all night before the final rehearsal to get it done, as was the case with Don Giovanni. Mozart’s overtures were usually in sonata form, but he abandoned that form here, and for good reason. The Marriage of Figaro is witty, brilliant, and wise, and it needs an overture that will quickly set its audience in such a frame of mind. This overture is very brief (barely four minutes), and Mozart drops the development section altogether. He simply presents his sparkling themes (there are six of them, even in so

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FLUTE

FRENCH HORN

OBOE

TRUMPET

CLARINET

TIMPANI

Christine Kim Catherine Jung Laura Gilmore Christine Kwon Jay Shankar Ivy Huang

Jamie Pfauth Timothy Toombs Michael Remish Minjoon Choi David Meinen

BASSOON

Max Jiang

short a space!), recapitulates them, and plunges into the opera. Evidence suggests that he had originally begun to compose a D-minor Andante as an interlude at the center of the overture, but saw that it would be out of place and crossed it out. From the first instant, when this music stirs to life, to its sudden explosions of energy, the overture has delighted all who hear it and is the perfect lead-in to the comic escapades (and human insight) that will follow. Faced with having to choose a performance marking for his players, Mozart dispensed with any description of the emotional character he wanted from a performance. He simply chose one word, and it is perfect: Presto.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor, Opus 37 (1861)

Henri VIEUXTEMPS Born February 17, 1820, Verviers, Belgium Died June 6, 1881, Mustapha-lez-Alger, Algeria

The Belgian violinist-composer Henri Vieuxtemps had a career quite similar to that of his contemporary, the Polish violinistcomposer Henryk Wieniawski. Both were child prodigies, both studied in Paris, both spent extended periods in Russia, both toured America, and both taught at the Brussels Conservatory in the final years of their lives. Vieuxtemps loved to travel, and so embarked on concert tours that took him throughout Europe and brought him to America for three extended visits; one of the results of his time in America was his encore piece Souvenir


SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA - PROGRAM NOTES

d’Amérique, a set of comic variations on “Yankee Doodle.” Ironically, Vieuxtemps’ love of travel led to his death. Riding in an open carriage while on vacation in Algeria, he was struck on the head by a rock thrown by a drunk and died of complications from that injury. Vieuxtemps is part of the tradition of great Belgian violinistcomposers that includes his teacher Charles de Beriot and his student Eugene Ysaÿe. As might be expected, Vieuxtemps wrote primarily for the violin–his compositions include seven violin concertos (of which the Fourth and Fifth are the best-known), a violin sonata, string quartets, and a number of short works for violin. He composed his Fifth Violin Concerto shortly after returning to Paris from his second American tour in 1857. The concerto–which is quite compact–has an unusual form. Its movements are performed without pause, and the first movement is substantial, lasting about eleven minutes, but the cadenza and second and third movements combine to span only about eight minutes. The Allegro non troppo begins with the customary orchestral introduction, and the solo violin makes an unexpectedly subdued entrance. Vieuxtemps writes beautifully for his own instrument here, combining an elegant lyricism with passages of extraordinary virtuosity. The long first movement leads directly into the cadenza (Vieuxtemps composed two different cadenzas for this concerto), which in turns flows without pause into the Adagio. Vieuxtemps borrowed the main theme of this movement from the opera Lucile, composed in 1769 by his countryman André Grétry. Early in that opera, four characters join to sing “Ou peut-on être mieux,” a quartet in praise of domestic happiness, and some of that happy spirit infuses this lyric movement. Vieuxtemps originally intended to conclude the Fifth Concerto at the end of this movement but eventually decided to add fast movement. This blazing finale, marked Allegro con fuoco, whips past in barely a minute.

Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K.385 “Haffner” (1782)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART For Mozart, July 1782 brought some of the best of times, and some of the worst. On the 16th of that month, his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio was produced in Vienna after nearly a year of intense work. The Abduction–Mozart’s first opera in German–was a huge success: it was at that première that Emperor Joseph II complained that the opera had “too many notes,” only to be met with Mozart’s famous reply: “Exactly as many as are necessary, Your Majesty.” Mozart was quite busy with other matters as well, arranging the opera for wind ensemble, revising an earlier wind serenade, and preparing for his own marriage to Constanze Weber on August 4. But

back in Salzburg, that marriage had been frostily opposed by Mozart’s father Leopold, who had cut off all communication with his son for a time. And now, in the midst of this frantically busy month, came a letter from Leopold, and it brought a request. In Salzburg, Sigmund Haffner, the son of a prominent family, was being elevated to the nobility. Six years earlier, in 1776, when one of the Haffner daughters was married, the family had asked Wolfgang to compose music for that occasion, and he had responded with the Serenade in D Major, K.250, nicknamed the “Haffner” Serenade. Now, the family wondered, could Wolfgang supply music for the ennoblement ceremony? The composer nearly exploded. Some sense of his thorny relation with his father burns through his reply: And now I’m supposed to produce a new symphony? How is such a thing possible? You have no idea how hard it is to arrange something like that for winds so that it really suits them and yet loses none of its effect. Oh well, I must just spend the night over it, otherwise it can’t be done–and for you, dearest father, I’ll make the sacrifice. You’ll definitely get something from me in every mail–I’ll work as fast as possible–and so far as haste permits, I’ll write well. Desperate for his father’s approval of his marriage, Mozart set to work on the music for the Haffners in what little spare time he had (his father’s approval would arrive–grudgingly– on August 5, the day after he and Constanze were married). While he missed sending something “in every mail,” he did manage over the next couple of weeks to turn out a sixmovement serenade consisting of an Allegro, a march, a slow movement, two minuets, and a rondo-finale. He finished and dispatched the last of these movements on August 7, three days after his marriage, and then–with other things on his mind– completely forgot about this music. He remembered it the following winter. Mozart had scheduled an academy of his own music at the Burgtheater in Vienna on March 23, 1783. It would be a long concert indeed: Mozart played one of his piano concertos, there were arias and other orchestral movements, and Mozart played some solo piano music. He needed a festive orchestral work to open this program, and now he remembered the serenade he had written the previous summer for the Haffners. He wrote to his father, asking to have the manuscript sent from Salzburg. Mozart’s music could impress even its creator, and he wrote back to his father: “My new Haffner symphony has positively amazed, for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good effect.” It should be noted, though, that what Mozart received from Salzburg was not a symphony, but a serenade. To convert it to a symphony, he made a number of changes, eliminating the opening march (this survives as his March in D Major, W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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K. 408) and one of the two minuets (this has been lost). He also added flutes and oboes to what was now a four-movement symphony. What we know as the “Haffner” Symphony had its first performance at the Burgtheater concert, an evening that was by all accounts a huge success. Mozart described it to his father: “The theater could not possibly have been fuller and all the boxes were taken. What pleased me most, however, was that his Majesty the Emperor was present, was delighted and applauded me loudly.” The “Haffner” Symphony explodes to life, then seems to overflow with festive energy across its compact (twentyminute) span. Something of Mozart’s performance before the emperor may be evident from the performance instructions he sent his father the previous summer: “The first Allegro must be played with great fire, the last–as fast as possible.” We feel that “great fire” from the first instant, when the violins make their two-octave leaps and the music races ahead on trills, a firm little march-rhythm, and blazing runs. This symphony is in the “violinist’s key” of D major, a key that sits comfortably under the hand and has a particularly resonant sound, and the writing for violins in the outer movements of this symphony is particularly brilliant. In the course of the movement Mozart three times gives the violin part the unusual marking sciolte: “in a free and easy manner.” This music is hardly “easy,” but that marking does suggest some of the festive quality Mozart wanted in a performance. He builds this Allegro on only one theme–the powerful opening–and this undergoes some impressive contrapuntal extension before the movement races to its ringing close on great D-major chords. Mozart left no marking for the second movement, and later editors have marked it Andante. It too is in sonata form, contrasting the elegant opening with an active second idea from the second violins and violas. The development is quite brief, and Mozart rounds the movement off with a recapitulation that continues to develop the material. The Minuet returns to the manner (and the key) of the opening Allegro–its powerful beginning makes the same two-octave leap that brought the symphony to life–but the graceful trio draws us into a world of polished elegance. We should remember Mozart’s instruction that the finale should be “as fast as possible.” He marks it Presto, and it often feels like a perpetual-motion for the combined violin sections, which are given passages of virtuoso brilliance. This movement is just plain fun, with its racing violins, great explosions, surprising little adventures along the way, and the final rush to the sizzling close. No wonder Joseph II was delighted and applauded so loudly. Over two centuries later, this symphony still has that effect on audiences.

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The Comedians, Opus 26 (1938)

Composed in 1938 arr. for Orchestral Suite in 1940

Dmitry KABALEVSKY Born December 30, 1904, St. Petersburg Died February 16, 1987, Moscow

In 1938, the year he completed the first version of his opera Colas Breugnon, Dmitry Kabalevsky was asked to provide music for a production at the Central Children’s Theater in Moscow of Daniel’s play The Inventor and the Comedians. Long interested in music for children, Kabalevsky was happy to write music for this play, which tells the story of a band of traveling comedians. Two years after the play was produced, he took ten numbers from his score, changed their order slightly, and arranged them as an orchestral suite called The Comedians. Daniel’s play appears to have disappeared, but nearly eighty years later Kabalevsky’s colorful suite remains one of his most popular works. Kabalevsky’s finest music is marked by exhilarating energy, a nice sense of irony, and a genuine melodic gift–some of the best music in this suite, in fact, comes in its slow movements. Despite the furious energy of much of this music, textures remain transparent throughout, and the quiet movements offer sensitive writing for solo winds. The ten pieces in The Comedians are admirably concise: the entire suite lasts barely a quarter of an hour. The Prologue, appropriately marked Allegro vivace, races along on dotted rhythms and the bright color of the xylophone. Comedians’ Galop has become the most famous part of the suite: with its evocation of pratfalls and tumbling clowns, this movement has joined Julius Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators as some of the greatest circus music ever written. A leisurely March leads to a somber little Waltz in which the dance tune is passed easily between different instruments. The mock-serious Pantomime, with its ponderous chordal accompaniment, is all the more effective for keeping its tongue in cheek, while the Intermezzo–colored by the sound of varied instrumental duets–comes to a surprising close with a dark string resolution. The winsome Little Lyrical Scene leads to two movements that show the influence of other composers. Some have heard echoes of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony in the Gavotte, but this graceful music, with its haunting clarinet duet and ironic turns of phrase, bears more fully the imprint of the composer who influenced so much Soviet music–Gustav Mahler. The Scherzo, full of graceful string passages punctuated by wind solos, evokes the atmosphere of Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores. Kabalevsky rounds off his suite with a blazing Epilogue. This brings back the theme of the Prologue, now in a grand restatement, and the music rushes to a knock-out conclusion.


PRELUDE 7 PM

Lecture by Steven Cassedy: Difficult for the Sake of Being Difficult? Brahms’ set of Variations on a Theme of Paganini is one of the most notoriously difficult compositions in the piano repertoire, outpacing even many of Franz Liszt’s compositions. In the Variations, Brahms helped redefine the language of virtuosic pianistic expression, suggesting that technical difficulty served a purpose beyond showmanship. La Jolla Music Society’s 2015-16 Season is supported by The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, ResMed Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Westgate Hotel, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, Brenda Baker and Stephen Baum, The Beyster Family, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, The Frieman Family, Rita and Richard Atkinson, Raffaella and John Belanich, Brian and Silvija Devine, John and Kay Hesselink, Jeanette Stevens, Gordon Brodfuehrer, and two anonymous donors.

FRIEMAN FAMILY PIANO SERIES

Daniil Trifonov, piano SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 · 8 PM MCASD SHERWOOD AUDITORIUM

J.S. BACH Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004 (1720) (1685-1750) (arr. for piano by Ferruccio Busoni) SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in G Major, D.894 (1826) (1797-1828) Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Menuetto: Allegro moderato Allegretto I N T E R M I S S I O N

BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 35, Book I (1863) (1833-1897)

RACHMANINOFF Piano Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Opus 28 (1907) (1873-1943) Allegro moderato; Allegro Lento Allegro molto

Tonight's concert is underwritten by Medallion Society member:

Leigh P. Ryan Many thanks to our Restaurant Partner:

THE MED Ocean View Restaurant

Exclusive Tour Management and Representation: Opus 3 Artists - 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 - www.opus3artists.com

Daniil Trifonov last performed for La Jolla Music Society on the Frieman Family Piano Series on April 10, 2015.

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Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004 (1720) Arr. for Piano by Ferruccio Busoni (1879)

Johann Sebastian BACH Born March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig

The magnificent Chaconne that concludes the Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin is among the most intense music Bach ever wrote, and it has worked its spell on musicians everywhere over the last two and a half centuries. The violin is a linear instrument, and the full harmonic textures implied in the original seem to cry out for performances that can project these more satisfactorily than can the violin. The Chaconne has been transcribed for many other instruments and combinations of instruments, including several versions for keyboard: first by Joachim Raff and in 1877 by Brahms, who arranged it for left hand only. Brahms was almost beside himself with admiration for this music; to Clara Schumann he wrote: “If I could picture myself writing, or even conceiving such a piece, I am certain that the extreme excitement and emotional tension would have driven me mad.” Ferruccio Busoni, who felt a similar excitement about the Chaconne, made his transcription some years after Brahms’ and first performed it at a concert in Boston in 1893. This was a period when Busoni was making piano transcriptions of Bach’s organ music, and at least one scholar has suggested that Busoni conceived of the Chaconne as organ music (rather than violin music) and then–with that sonority in mind–proceeded to make a transcription for piano that would project an organlike richness of sound. Busoni’s transcription is a fairly exact reproduction of Bach’s music: he makes only minor changes in the original, including the repetition of one brief phrase not repeated by Bach. A chaconne is one of the most disciplined forms in music: it is built on a ground bass in triple meter over which a melodic line is repeated and varied. Here the four-bar ground bass repeats 64 times during the quarter-hour span of the Chaconne, and over it Bach spins out gloriously varied music, all the while keeping these variations firmly anchored on the ground bass. At the center section Bach moves into D major, and here the music relaxes a little, content to sing happily for a while; after the calm nobility of this interlude, the quiet return of D minor sounds almost disconsolate. Bach drives the Chaconne to a great climax and a restatement of the ground melody at the close.

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Piano Sonata in G Major, D.894 (1826)

Franz SCHUBERT Born January 31, 1797, Vienna Died November 19, 1828, Vienna

Schubert composed this music in October 1826, and it was published six months later in Vienna by Tobias Haslinger as Schubert’s Opus 78. But when he brought out this score, Haslinger gave it a title that has caused a great deal of confusion: he published the work not as a unified whole but under the names of its four movements, and so it first appeared in April 1827 as Fantaisie, Andante, Menuetto, and Allegretto. This awkward name was in turn abbreviated to Fantasy in G Major, and the music was known for some time under that title, even though Schubert’s manuscript clearly calls the work a sonata on its title page. Haslinger’s substitution of so unwieldy a title of his own has been explained by at least one observer as an effort to attract the developing market of amateur pianists in Vienna with a title that might not seem so forbidding to casual players as a sonata. Actually, Haslinger’s motives were more complex–and understandable–than such an explanation seems to make them. There were good reasons why he might not want to call this music a sonata, and those reasons center primarily on its first movement. That movement is of extraordinary length (if the indicated repeat is taken, it can stretch out to nearly twenty-five minutes), it is at a moderate tempo, and it has none of the dramatic character one associates with a sonataform first movement. The other movements are of comparably generous proportions, so much so, in fact, that the entire work can approach fifty minutes in some performances, making it significantly longer than Beethoven’s mighty “Hammerklavier” Sonata. It is no surprise that Haslinger, faced with such unusual music, might choose to identify it to potential buyers as a collection of individual pieces rather than a unified sonata. But Schubert knew what he was about, and this clearly is a Piano Sonata in G Major, as we have come to know it today. Schubert’s conception of the piano sonata was different from Beethoven’s, and those differences are most evident in that first movement. Schubert’s marking Molto moderato e cantabile suggests that he wants a broad, relaxed, and singing performance, and that is certainly consistent with the music itself, which rocks gently along its 12/8 meter and moves from a pianissimo dynamic in the opening measure to triple piano in the tenth. If this is going to be non-dramatic music, it is also nicely unified: most of the thematic material seems to spin out of that quiet opening subject, and the music by turn dances, surges, and flows across the long span of the movement. The development seems to begin more powerfully in firm G minor, but those tensions relax almost immediately, and the music


DANIIL TRIFONOV - PROGRAM NOTES

resumes the character it established in its opening moments. In the closing measures, the rhythmic pattern of the very beginning seems to break down and dissolve as the music marches to a barely-audible close. The second movement is a slow rondo (the marking is Andante) in 3/8 meter. The opening melody–simplicity itself– will be the basis for the rondo, and it grows more ornate as it reappears across the broad span of this movement. Schubert separates these episodes with violent interruptions, great hammered chords that intrude upon the sweet atmosphere of the beginning and then melt away as the rondo theme reasserts itself. By far the shortest of the movements, the Menuetto dances with a sort of rustic simplicity, once again built on insistent chords; in sharp contrast, Schubert specifies that he wants the delicate trio section molto legato after the staccato chords of the minuet. The last movement is another rondo, but this one too is at an unexpected tempo: rather than opting for a brilliant finale, Schubert writes a comfortable one. The marking here is Allegretto, and the agreeable central theme makes clear that– like the first movement–this music will be essentially nondramatic. Schubert takes that rondo theme through a series of varied permutations: sometimes it dances in the piano’s ringing high register, sometimes it appears deep in the pianist’s left hand, and it undergoes some nice thematic evolution as it proceeds. A gorgeous C-minor episode marked espressivo passes by so quickly that it is over almost before the ear has begun to adjust; Schubert then brings it back in sunny C major, and just as quickly this vanishes too. So this movement goes: it is long, but it offers a constantly-evolving musical landscape, and finally this music dances its way to an ending all the more wonderful for being so understated.

Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 35, Book I (1863)

Johannes BRAHMS Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg Died April 3, 1897, Vienna

Niccolò Paganini–rumored by some to be in league with the devil–published his Twenty-Four Caprices for Solo Violin in 1820, and the theme of the final caprice, full of angular leaps and coiled energy, has haunted composers ever since. Among those who have written extended works based on this sprightly theme are Paganini himself (twelve variations), Liszt (Transcendental Études), Schumann (Paganini Variations), Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini), and–more recently–Witold Lutosławski and Boris Blacher (both of whom have composed a set of Variations on a Theme of Paganini) and George Rochberg (Fifty Caprice Variations). Further sets of

variations may still come, for the possibilities of this theme appear inexhaustible. Brahms composed his Variations on a Theme of Paganini in 1863, shortly after moving from Hamburg to Vienna, and published them as two books of fourteen variations each. These variations are extremely compact: each set–consisting of the theme, fourteen variations, and a blazing finale–lasts only about eleven minutes. Brahms himself described them as exercises (“Studies for Pianoforte”) and gave the two sets the slightly dry and academic title of “Books,” but listeners should not be put off by the composer’s usual self-deprecation: this is ingenious and exciting music, pleasing for the verve of the writing for piano and for the sheer exhilaration of hearing Paganini’s theme put through so many transformations. It is also fiendishly difficult for the performer, and Brahms’ Paganini Variations are regarded as one of the supreme tests for pianists. Brahms’ close friend Clara Schumann, one of the finest pianists of the nineteenth century, found them so difficult that she called them Hexenvariationen (“Witches’ Variations”), implying that it would take supernatural powers to solve all the technical problems they present. Brahms himself gave the first performance of the two Books in Vienna on March 17, 1867. The Paganini Variations may succeed brilliantly as concert music, but there is at least an element of truth in Brahms’ description of them as exercises. Each variation presents the pianist with a particular technical problem: some are written in thirds, some in sixths, some in octaves; some present several rhythms simultaneously, while others require difficult trills or staccato or legato passages; still others require awkward hand-crossings. The music itself is quite varied, ranging from gentle passages that Brahms marks molto dolce to an explosive variation marked Feroce, energico. On this recital Mr. Trifonov performs Book I. A generalization sometimes made is that Book I is distinguished by the difficulty of its technical hurtles, while Book II is more satisfying from a purely musical point of view, though such a distinction may not matter much: it should be noted that a century ago pianists sometimes assembled their own sets of Paganini Variations by drawing variations from the two Books. Brahms’ music at its best fuses technically complex writing with engaging musical ideas, and the Paganini Variations can be enjoyed on many levels: for the virtuosity of the playing, the ingenuity of the variations, and the beauty of the music, as Paganini’s theme is made to sing in ways its creator never dreamed of.

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Piano Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Opus 28 (1907)

Sergei RACHMANINOFF Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills

In February 1906 Rachmaninoff resigned his position as conductor at the Bolshoi and moved his family to Dresden. He had won critical praise as a conductor, but the demands of that position prevented him from composing, which was what he really wanted to do. He loved the quiet house he rented in Dresden–it was surrounded by a garden–and he set to work immediately. The next few years were some of his most productive, for they included the composition of his Second Symphony, Isle of the Dead, and Third Piano Concerto. Also from these years came a work that has proven much less familiar, the First Piano Sonata. Rachmaninoff sketched the sonata in January and February 1907 and had it complete on May 14 of that year. But he was by no means comfortable with his latest creation. To a friend he described his problems with it: “The sonata is certainly wild and interminable. I think it takes about 45 minutes. I was lured into this length by its guiding idea. This is–three contrasting types from a literary work. Of course no program will be indicated, though I begin to think that the sonata would be clearer if the program were revealed. Nobody will ever play this composition, it’s too difficult and long . . . At one time I wanted to make a symphony of this sonata, but this seemed impossible because of the purely pianistic style in which it is written.” The première, given in Moscow on October 17, 1908, by Konstantin Igumnov, got a respectful but mystified reaction, and the composer had scarcely any more success when he played the sonata on his recitals during the next several seasons. Perhaps it may help audiences to know that the “literary work” that inspired this sonata was Goethe’s Faust and that its three movements were apparently inspired in turn by Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles. Small wonder that the work struck Rachmaninoff as symphonic in character: these are the titles and sequence of the three movements of Franz Liszt’s Faust Symphony, composed in 1857. Rachmaninoff chose not to reveal the inspiration, and this sonata is in no sense programmatic: its three movements should be understood more as character pieces than as pieces that depict specific events. This is an extremely difficult sonata for the performer, and it generates textures so full and dramatic that Rachmaninoff was right to wonder if it might really be symphonic music. The Allegro moderato alternates tentative figures with fierce outbursts before rushing ahead at the Allegro; its second subject, marked Moderato, is built on repeated notes that

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emerge from murmuring figurations. This movement, long and technically demanding, drives to a sonorous climax that rides along great waves of sound before the music subsides to recall the second subject and to close quietly, even peacefully. The main idea of the Lento is introduced above rocking triplet accompaniment, and that rhythm will eventually drive this movement to an agitated climax; a striking sequence of descending trills brings the movement to its restrained close. The finale has seemed to some who know of the sonata’s original inspiration to have been inspired by the Flight to Brocken in Goethe’s Faust. It opens with hammered octaves that are marked both fortissimo and marcato and then races ahead; the second subject is a quiet, march-like idea that Rachmaninoff marks “very resolute.” These two ideas alternate throughout the movement, which also features some lyric and haunting melodies. The music accelerates to the close, where Rachmaninoff rounds matters off with a great chordal climax full of the sound of pealing bells and a suitably furious cadence.


BIOGRAPHIES EMANUEL AX, piano

Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition; he went on to win the Young Concert Artists Michaels Award (1975), and the Avery Fisher Prize (1979). Mr. Ax’s 2015-16 Season includes duo collaborations with Itzhak Perlman, Pamela Frank and Yo-Yo Ma. A return visit to Japan will be followed by concerts in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Tel Aviv and Amsterdam. He will return to orchestras in New York, Houston, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and a series of solo recitals will culminate in Carnegie Hall for its 125th anniversary in May. A Grammy®-winning artist exclusive to Sony Classical since 1987, his most recent release is a recital disc exploring “variations” by composers including Haydn, Schumann, and Copland. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates from Yale and Columbia universities.

STEVEN CASSEDY, prelude presenter Steven Cassedy, Distinguished Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at UCSD, is a classically trained pianist who studied at the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division and at the University of Michigan’s School of Music. He received his undergraduate degree in comparative literature at the University of Michigan in 1974 and his Ph.D. in comparative literature at Princeton University in 1979. He has been a member of UCSD's Department of Literature since 1980.

NING FENG, violin

Berlin-based Ning Feng performs regularly in his native China with major international orchestras, and in recital and with the Dragon Quartet which he founded in 2012. He has developed an international reputation as an artist of great lyricism and emotional transparency, displaying tremendous bravura and awe-inspiring technical accomplishment. Mr. Feng recently made debuts with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester under the baton of Iván Fischer and the LA Philharmonic. He toured China with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Europe with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, he performs chamber music regularly at major festivals in Germany and elsewhere, including annual appearances at Kissinger Sommer Festival where he was an Artist-in-Residence in 2014. Highlights of Mr. Feng’s 2015-16 Season includes debuts with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the baton of Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla and at the Schubertiade with Igor Levit. He will return to perform with Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Western Australian Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia orchestras. He plays a 1721 Stradivari violin, known as the ‘MacMillan’, on private loan, kindly arranged by Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, and plays on strings by ThomastikInfeld, Vienna.

Jeeyoon Kim, piano

Classical pianist Jeeyoon Kim delights audiences with her colorful musical expression, and her sensitive artistry described as “impeccable, brilliant and heart-rending.” A native of South Korea, Dr. Kim has made her way across the globe with performances at Chicago’s WFMT 98.7 FortePiano Salon Live Series, GloVil Art Hall in Korea, Judson Park Auditorium in Cleveland and at Austria’s Mozarteum Festival in Salzburg. She has collaborated with violinist Philippe Quint and cellist Johannes Moser. With full scholarships, she received a Master of Music in piano pedagogy from Butler University and a Master and a Doctor of Music in piano performance from Indiana University, graduating with distinction. She studied with Andrzej Jasinski, Claude Frank, Menahem Pressler, Reiko Neriki and Shigeo Neriki. For more information, please visit: www.jeeyoonkim.com

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JI, piano

Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a gifted young pianist who is clearly going places,” Ji has been praised from a young age for his compelling musical presence and impressive technical command. Last season, he made his Alice Tully Hall concerto debut performing with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Gerard Schwarz, to a rave review in The New York Times. Ji has appeared in recital at Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, among others, and as soloist with numerous symphonies and orchestras. Well-known in his native country, Ji gave Korea’s first outdoor classical concert as soloist with the BBC Symphony, and performed on the streets of Seoul with his “Stop & Listen” outdoor “guerrilla” performances. He has recorded two CDs: Bach Exhibition on the Credia label, and Lisztomania with Credia/Universal Music. Winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, he made recital debuts at Merkin Concert Hall and the Kennedy Center. At the age of ten, he was the youngest pianist to win the New York Philharmonic’s Young Artists Competition, resulting in a performance at Avery Fisher Hall under Maestro Kurt Masur. Ji earned his Bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School, with Choong-Mo Kang.

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR

Beginning in 1966, the Monterey Jazz Festival has assembled master jazz musicians under the “Monterey All-Stars” banner to perform at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. No longer just gracing the stages of Monterey, these bands tour nationwide and embody the past, present and future of jazz history, and spread the Monterey Jazz Festival’s artistic footprint. The Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour 2016 again features critically-acclaimed, Grammy®-winning jazz artists. The band will perform 25 shows in nine states, including a five-night run at Birdland in New York City. Born in the Netherlands and raised in Southern California, pianist, composer and music director of the group Gerald Clayton is a leading figure in the up-and-coming generation of jazz artists. He has been hailed by The New York Times for his “huge, authoritative presence.” Son of John Clayton, the acclaimed bassist, composer and bandleader, he attended both the USC Thornton School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Ravi Coltrane is a critically-acclaimed Grammy®-nominated saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Born on Long Island, New York, the second son of John and Alice Coltrane, he has worked as a sideman to many, and recorded noteworthy albums for himself and others. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Raul Midón has earned renown as one of music’s most distinctive and searching voices. He is “a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus,” according to The New York Times. Grammy®-winning multi-instrumentalist and trumpet master Nicholas Payton was born in New Orleans, and was a member of the All-Star Brass Band by the age of 12. In high school, he studied with Clyde Kerr Jr., and at the University of New Orleans, he studied with Harold Battiste and Ellis Marsalis. Joe Sanders is one of the most sought-after young bass players of his generation. He has played, recorded, and toured with many great musicians—including Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. Having graduated from the Monk Institute, Mr. Sanders currently lives in Paris and leads and tours with his own band, Joe Sanders’ Infinity. Gregory Hutchinson is one of the most highly-respected musicians of our time. A musician’s drummer, he is rooted in the jazz tradition, and is able to approach all styles of music with supreme accuracy and imagination. Dianne Reeves describes him as “pure genius” Jazz Magazine called him “the drummer of his generation.”

THE MONTROSE TRIO

The Washington Post raved, “absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear…they are poised to become one of the top piano trios in the world”(2015). Formed in 2014, The Montrose Trio is a collaboration stemming from a long, fruitful relationship between pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet. Mr. Parker was the Quartet’s final guest pianist, and a backstage conversation led to The Montrose Trio’s creation, named after Chateau Montrose, a storied Bordeaux wine long favored after concerts. Like each player’s individual careers, The Trio has established a reputation for performances of the highest distinction. Pianist Parker, is the Artistic Advisor of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival and Professor of Piano at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He performs regularly with major North American orchestras and with Stewart Copeland in Off the Score, an experimental chamber group. Martin Beaver, a top prizewinner at the Indianapolis and Brussels international violin competitions, has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of San Francisco, Montreal, among others and has collaborated with numerous musical luminaries. Cellist Clive Greensmith has

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performed as a soloist with the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, among others, and worked with many distinguished musicians. Mr. Beaver and Mr. Greensmith are currently on faculty at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.

AARON NEVILLE, vocals

Possessing one of the most evocative and recognizable voices in American music, Aaron Neville is an international ambassador of New Orleans R&B, though his soaring falsetto sounds at home in many styles. Coming of age in the incredibly creative 1950s Crescent City R&B scene, Mr. Neville gained national attention with his 1966 hit “Tell It Like It Is,” the stirring ballad and #1 hit, as well as with the Wild Tchoupitoulas, a touring Mardi Gras celebration that led to the creation of the Neville Brothers band — an institution that would confirm Mr. Neville’s iconic status. Over his four-time Grammy®-winning solo career, Mr. Neville has scored a string of hits including “Tell It Like It Is,” memorable duets with Linda Ronstadt including “Don’t Know Much” and a hugely popular cover of Main Ingredient’s “Everybody Plays the Fool.” With his latest album, Mr. Neville revisits the doo-wop music he grew up with, adding a few new spins along the way. My True Story, his first release for Blue Note Records, was co-produced by Blue Note President Don Was and Keith Richards and features a collection of twelve classic doo-wop numbers, performed in his inimitable vocal style.

GARRICK OHLSSON, piano

Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. He commands an enormous repertoire that ranges over the entire piano literature, including over 80 concertos from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, many commissioned for him. Long regarded as a leading exponent of the music of Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson is also noted for masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the Romantic repertoire. His 2015-16 Season includes recitals in Berkeley, New York, Indianapolis, Brisbane, Seattle, La Jolla, Evanston, Fort Worth, Lincoln and Costa Mesa. In return visits to Australia he will appear in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and for the first time with the New Zealand Symphony in Wellington and Auckland. With concerti as diverse as Beethoven, Brahms, Barber and Busoni he can be heard with orchestras in Boston, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Nashville, Indianapolis, Oregon, Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Manchester (UK) and Lugano (Switzerland). In the fall he will serve as a judge at the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, and in April he will join the Takács Quartet for a brief east coast tour culminating at Carnegie Hall.

MARCUS OVERTON, prelude presenter

In a 50-year career, Marcus Overton has crossed almost every disciplinary boundary, as performer, teacher and coach for singers and actors, opera and theatre stage director, critic for major publications and Emmy Award-winning radio and television producer. His arts management career began at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, continued in senior management at the Ravinia Festival, included nine years as Senior Manager of Performing Arts at the Smithsonian Institution and – by invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti – the general manager’s post at Spoleto Festival USA.

ITZHAK PERLMAN, violin

Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. The 2015-16 season commemorates Mr. Perlman’s 70th birthday with worldwide concert tours and three album releases: a new Deutsche Grammophon album with pianist Emanuel Ax, a 25-disc box set of his complete Deutsche Grammophon/Decca discography and a 77-disc box set of his complete EMI/Teldec discography. This season Mr. Perlman tours with pianist Emanuel Ax in special duo recitals across America. In December, he performs at Carnegie Hall in rare trio collaboration with pianist Evgeny Kissin and cellist Mischa Maisky, marking the first time he and Mr. Kissin have performed together. He plays season-opening gala concerts with the Toronto Symphony under Peter Oundjian and W W W. L J M S . O R G · 8 5 8 . 4 5 9 . 3 7 2 8

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the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck. He will also conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Perlman performs further recitals with pianist Rohan De Silva in concerts that take them across North America, Asia and to Europe. Mr. Perlman is actively involved in music education through his work with the Perlman Music Program and the Juilliard School. He has been honored with 16 Grammy® Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY & CONSERVATORY

Under the leadership of President and CEO Dalouge Smith and Music Director Jeff Edmons, San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory (SDYS) instills excellence in the musical and personal development of students ages 8 to 25 through rigorous and inspiring musical training experiences. Since 1945, SDYS has given thousands of musicians the opportunity to study and perform classical repertoire at a highly advanced level. SDYS attracts student musicians from throughout San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties and serves over 600 students annually through its ten ensembles. The organization’s preeminent ensemble, the SDYS Chamber Orchestra is comprised of the principal and assistant principal musicians from the advanced level Ovation Program and rehearses at an extraordinarily proficient level for a youth program. Provided the finest training, the Chamber Orchestra is given the opportunity to perform professional level repertoire from multiple historic periods for both string orchestra and full chamber orchestra on a national and international stage. Most recently, select students of the San Diego Youth Symphony participated in SDYS’s 70th Anniversary tour to China and performed in Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, San Diego’s sister city Yantai’s Concert Hall and the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai in June 2015.

Jeff Edmons, music director & conductor

Jeff Edmons is now in his twentieth year with SDYS. Under his direction, the Youth Symphony has experienced tremendous growth, both in enrollment and in its level of musical achievement. Mr. Edmons has been featured in articles and journals honoring his work and has been the subject of documentaries on CNN, Fox Television, National Public Radio, and more. Mr. Edmons has led youth, collegiate, and professional orchestras in critically acclaimed performances throughout the United States as well as abroad, from Mexico to Switzerland and beyond. He is frequently invited to judge and guest conduct local and regional orchestras and bands and has received numerous local and national invitations and awards for his achievements in music education. His mentors and teachers include Esa Pekka Salonen, Michael Davis, Dr. Robert Gillespie and Craig Kirchoff.

DANIIL TRIFONOV, piano

Combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, Daniil Trifonov has made a spectacular ascent to classical music stardom. Since taking First Prize at both the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein competitions in 2011 at just 20, the Russian pianist has appeared with the world’s foremost orchestras and graced key international venues from Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw to Tokyo’s Opera City and Suntory Hall. Mr. Trifonov’s 2015-16 Season includes debuts with the Berlin Staatskapelle and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, where he headlines the prestigious Nobel Prize Concert. He reprises his own acclaimed piano concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony and undertakes residencies in Lugano, Switzerland, and at London’s Wigmore Hall, where he collaborates with pianist Sergei Babayan and violinist Gidon Kremer. Mr. Trifonov is an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist whose recent releases include Rachmaninoff Variations, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Trifonov: The Carnegie Recital, captured live at his sold-out 2013 Carnegie Hall recital debut, which scored both an ECHO Klassik Award and a Grammy nomination. Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Mr. Trifonov studied with Tatiana Zelikman at Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music and Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 2013 he was awarded Italy’s Franco Abbiati Prize for Best Instrumental Soloist. PHOTO CREDITS: Cover: D. Trifonov © Dario Acosta/DG ; Pg 2: New York Philharmonic © Chris Lee; Pg. 11 & 41: G. Ohlsson © Pier Andrea Morolli; Pg. 15 & 40: R. Midón, N. Payton, R. Coltrane © 2016 R. R. Jones/Monterey Jazz Festival; Pg. 16, 39 & 41: I. Perlman by Lisa Marie Mazzucco; E. Ax by Lisa Marie Mazzucco; Pg. 19 & 40: Ji by Dario Acosta; Pg. 23 & 40: The Montrose Trio by Jerry Zolynsky; Pg. 26 & 41: A. Neville courtesy of artist; Pg. 27 & 39: N. Feng by Lawrence Tsang; Pg. 31: SDYS by Matthew Fernie; Pg. 35 & 42: D. Trifonov © Dario Acosta/DG; Pg. 39: S. Cassedy courtesy of presenter; J. Kim © First Blush Photos; Pg. 41: M. Overton courtesy of presenter; Pg. 42: J. Edmons courtesy of artist; Back Cover: N. Feng by Lawrence Tsang

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ANNUAL SUPPORT La Jolla Music Society’s high quality presentations, artistic excellence, and extensive education and community engagement programs are made possible in large part by the support of the community. There are many ways for you to play a crucial role in La Jolla Music Society’s future —from education or concert sponsorships, general program gifts, or planned giving. For information on how you can help bring the world to San Diego, please contact Ferdinand Gasang, Development Director, at 858.459.3724, ext. 204 or FGasang@LJMS.org.

FOUNDER Brenda Baker & Stephen Baum ($250,000 and above) Conrad Prebys & Debra Turner ANGEL City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture Joy & Ed* Frieman Joan & Irwin Jacobs ($100,000 - $249,999)

BENEFACTOR Rita & Richard Atkinson ($50,000 - $99,999) Raffaella

& John Belanich Silvija & Brian Devine

GUARANTOR ($25,000 - $49,999)

Anonymous Mary Ann Beyster Dr. James C. & Karen A. Brailean Gordon Brodfuehrer Katherine & Dane Chapin Dave & Elaine Darwin Martha & Ed Dennis Mr. & Mrs. Dick Enberg Kay & John Hesselink Susan & Bill Hoehn Theresa Jarvis Bill Karatz & Joan Smith

Sharon & Joel Labovitz National Endowment for the Arts Rafael & Marina Pastor Peter & Peggy Preuss QUALCOMM Incorporated Marge & Neal Schmale Mao & Dr. Bob Shillman Jeanette Stevens Twin Dragon Foundation Vail Memorial Fund Joe Tsai & Clara Wu Tsai

*In Memoriam

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ANNUAL SUPPORT

SUSTAINER

AMBASSADOR

Anonymous George Bolton & Leia Hayes Linda Chester & Kenneth Rind Carol Lam & Mark Burnett Vivian Lim & Joseph Wong Steven & Sylvia RĂŠ Stacy & Don Rosenberg Leigh P. Ryan John Venekamp & Clifford Schireson Jean & Gary Shekhter Thomas & Maureen Shiftan Judith Harris & Robert Singer, M.D. Haeyoung Kong Tang Dolly & Victor Woo Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome & H. Barden Wellcome

Anonymous (2) Johan & Sevil Brahme Tatiana & David Brenner Stuart & Isabel Brown R. Nelson & Janice Byrne Don & Karen Cohn Anne & Bob Conn Jeane Erley Diane & Elliot Feuerstein Elaine Galinson & Herbert Solomon Dr. Lisa Braun-Glazer & Dr. Jeff Glazer Warren & Karen Kessler Angelina K. & Fredrick Kleinbub Annika & Gordon Kovtun Judith Bachner & Dr. Eric L. Lasley Lean Hull Fine Art, LLC. / Leanne Hull MacDougall Sue & John Major Michel Mathieu & Richard McDonald Bill Miller & Ida Houby Morgan & Elizabeth Oliver Paul Hastings, LLP Susan Shirk & Samuel Popkin Drs. Jean & Catherine Rivier James Robbins & Jill Esterbrooks Ivor & Colette Royston The San Diego Foundation Sheryl & Bob Scarano Sempra Energy Simner Foundation Elizabeth Taft Gianangelo Vergani Ronald Wakefield Margie Warner & John H. Warner, Jr. Abby & Ray Weiss

($15,000 - $24,999)

SUPPORTER

($10,000 - $14,999) Anonymous Joan Jordan Bernstein Bob* & Betty Beyster Norman Blachford & Peter Cooper Wendy Brody Ric & Barbara Charlton County of San Diego / Community Enhancement Program Brian Douglass, President digital OutPost Sue & Chris Fan Olivia & Peter C. Farrell Pauline Foster Richard & Lehn Goetz Michael & Brenda Goldbaum Margaret Stevens Grossman & Michael S. Grossman Alexa Kirkwood Hirsch Keith & Helen Kim New England Foundation for the Arts Hank & Robin Nordhoff Betty-Jo Petersen Ethna Sinisi Piazza Deirdra Price Maria & Dr. Philippe Prokocimer ResMed Foundation Sandra & Robert Rosenthal Joyce & Ted Strauss H. Peter & Sue Wagener Bebe & Marvin Zigman

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($5,000 - $9,999)

*In Memoriam

COMMUNITY MUSIC CENTER Since 1999, La Jolla Music Society has operated the Community Music Center, a free afterschool music education program in southeast San Diego. Each year, the program provides instruments and valuable instruction to over one hundred students.


ANNUAL SUPPORT

AFICIONADO

ASSOCIATE

Jim Beyster Ann Spira Campbell Callan Capital Valerie & Harry Cooper Nina & Robert Doede Mr. & Mrs. Michael Durkin Bryna Haber Betty Ann Hoehn Linda Howard Jessie Knight & Joye Blount Carol Lazier Todd Lempert & Donna Madrea Arleen & Robert Lettas Charlie & Gloria McCoy The Hon. M. Margaret McKeown & Dr. Peter Cowhey Marilyn & Stephen Miles Gail & Edward Miller Novak Charitable Trust: Earl N. Feldman, Trustee John Rebelo & Sarah B. Marsh-Rebelo Murry & Patty Rome The SingerVenekamp Team at Brown Harris Stevens Annie So Leland & Annemarie Sprinkle Matthew & Iris Strauss Bill & Shelby Strong Renee Taubman Mary L. Walshok Al & Armi Williams Harvey & Sheryl White Joseph Witztum & Mary Elinger Witztum Su-Mei Yu Tim & Ellen Zinn

Kenny & Kathy Alameda Frank Alessio Christopher Beach & Wesley Fata Bjorn Bjerede & Jo Kiernan Ginny & Bob Black Marsha & Bill Chandler Del Foit & Cynthia Bobin-Foit Teresa O. Campbell Anthony F. Chong & Annette Thu Nguyen Victor & Ellen Cohn Peggy Cravens Lori & Tony Demaria Dennis Dorman Mary & Hudson Drake Ernie & Marilyn Dronenburg The Rev. Eleanor Ellsworth Drs. Edward & Ruth Evans Nomi Feldman Gigi Fenley Richard & Beverly Fink Paul & Clare Friedman Paul & Barbara Hirshman Floyd Humphreys Elisa & Rick Jaime Daphne & James Jameson Jeanne Jones & Don Breitenberg Peter & Beth Jupp David & Susan Kabakoff Katherine Kennedy Greg Lemke Theodora Lewis Grace Lin Jaime & Sylvia Liwerant Paul & Maggie Meyer Dr. Sandra Miner David Mittelstadt Will & Nora Hom Newbern Beverle & Marc Ostrofsky Anne Otterson Art & Vicki Perry Ann & Ken Poovey William Purves Dr. Jane Reldan Dr. Marilies Schoepflin Juliette Singh Francy Starr Kathy Taylor & Terry Atkinson Susan & Richard Ulevitch Robert Vanosky Dr. Lee & Rhonda Vida Nell Waltz Jo & Howard Weiner Jack & Judith White Karin Winner

($2,500 - $4,999)

SERVING OUR COMMUNITY During our 2014–15 season, La Jolla Music Society was able to reach over 11,700 students and community members. We worked with students from over 60 different schools and universities, providing concert tickets, performance demonstrations, and master classes. Thanks to the generous support of our patrons and donors, all of our outreach activities are free to the people we serve.

($1,000 - $2,499)

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ANNUAL SUPPORT

Toby Wolf Anna & Edward Yeung Thomas W. Ziegler Josephine M. Zolin

FRIEND

($500 - $999) Anonymous K. Andrew Achterkirchen Barry & Emily Berkov Malin Burnham Luc Cayet & Anne Marie Pleska Robert & Jean Chan June Chocheles Elizabeth Clarquist Peter Clark Sharon Cohen Douglas P. & Robin Doucette Ted Hoehn Innovative Commercial Environments Sally Fuller Ed & Linda Janon Saundra L. Jones Louise Kasch Sally Maizel Jain Malkin Winona Mathews Ted McKinney & Frank Palmerino* Robert Nelson & Jean Fujisaki Mr. & Mrs. Don Oliphant Phil & Pam Palisoul Gaynor & Gary Pates Jill Q. Porter Robert & Allison Price Lonnie Ross Gordana & Dave Schnider Pat Shank Todd Schultz Miriam Summ Yvonne Vaucher Suhaila White Olivia & Marty Winkler Faye Wilson

ENTHUSIAST ($250 - $499)

Fiona & Scott Bechtler-Levin Carolyn Bertussi Steven & Patricia Blostin Benjamin Brand Stefana Brintzenhoff Kathleen Charla Geoffrey Clow Hugh J. Coughlin Dr. Ruth Covell America Daschle Edith & Edward Drcar Marina & Igor Fomenkov Drs. Lawrence & Carol Gartner Carrie & Jim Greenstein Nancy Jones Nan & Buzz Kaufman Gladys & Bert Kohn Arlene LaPlante Elinor Merl & Mark Brodie Alan Nahum & Victoria Danzig Joani Nelson Aghdas Pezeshki RejeuvinĂŠ Medspa Peter & Arlene Sacks William Smith Joan Snider Edward Stickgold & Steven Cande Eleanor L. tum Suden Norma Jo Thomas Kevin Tilden & Philip Diamond M.D. Laurette Verbinski Carey Wall Terry & Peter Yang *In Memoriam

DANCE SERIES OUTREACH La Jolla Music Society hosts master classes and open rehearsals throughout the winter season. Participating companies have included, MOMIX, Joffrey Ballet, New York City Ballet MOVES, and many more. In addition, we host a biennial CHOREOLab for up-and-coming local choreographers to present their work for feedback from some of the leading figures in the global dance community.

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ANNUAL SUPPORT

FOUNDATIONS The Atkinson Family Foundation Ayco Charitable Foundation: The AAM & JSS Charitable Fund The Vicki & Carl Zeiger Charitable Foundation Bettendorf, WE Foundation: Sally Fuller The Blachford-Cooper Foundation The Catalyst Foundation: The Hon. Diana Lady Dougan The Clark Family Trust Enberg Family Charitable Foundation The Epstein Family Foundation: Phyllis Epstein The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund: Drs. Edward & Martha Dennis Fund Sue & Chris Fan Don & Stacy Rosenberg Shillman Charitable Trust Richard and Beverly Fink Family Foundation Inspiration Fund at the San Diego Foundation: Frank & Victoria Hobbs The Jewish Community Foundation: Diane & Elliot Feuerstein Fund Foster Family Foundation Galinson Family Fund Lawrence & Bryna Haber Fund Joan & Irwin Jacobs Fund David & Susan Kabakoff Fund Warren & Karen Kessler Fund Liwerant Family Fund Theodora F. Lewis Fund Jaime & Sylvia Liwerant Fund The Allison & Robert Price Family Foundation Fund Gary & Jean Shekhter Fund John & Cathy Weil Fund Sharon & Joel Labovitz Foundation The Stephen Warren Miles and Marilyn Miles Foundation The New York Community Trust: Barbara & William Karatz Fund Rancho Santa Fe Foundation: The Fenley Family Donor-Advised Fund The Susan & John Major Donor-Advised Fund The Oliphant Donor-Advised Fund ResMed Foundation The San Diego Foundation: The Beyster Family Foundation Fund The M.A. Beyster Fund II The Karen A. & James C. Brailean Fund The Valerie & Harry Cooper Fund The Hom Family Fund The Ivor & Colette Carson Royston Fund The Scaranao Family Fund The Shiftan Family Fund Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving: Alexa Kirkwood Hirsch Fund Ted McKinney & Frank Palmerino Fund The Shillman Foundation Silicon Valley Community Foundation: The William R. & Wendyce H. Brody Fund Simner Foundation The Haeyoung Kong Tang Foundation The John M. and Sally B. Thornton Foundation The John H. Warner Jr. and Helga M. Warner Foundation

Vail Memorial Fund Thomas and Nell Waltz Family Foundation Sheryl and Harvey White Foundation

HONORARIA/ MEMORIAL GIFTS In Honor of Christopher Beach: Brenda Baker & Stephen Baum Dr. James C. & Karen A. Brailean Gordon Brodfuehrer Wendy Brody Ann Spira Campbell Katherine & Dane Chapin Ric & Barbara Charlton Linda Chester & Kenneth Rind Elaine & Dave Darwin Martha & Ed Dennis Silvija & Brian Devine Brian Douglass, President digital OutPost Dick & Barbara Enberg Joy Frieman Matthew Geaman Dr. Lisa Braun-Glazer & Dr. Jeff Glazer Lehn Goetz Susan & Bill Hoehn Theresa Jarvis Angel & Fred Kleinbub Carol Lam & Mark Burnett Robin & Hank Nordhoff Rafael & Marina Pastor Ethna Piazza Conrad Prebys & Debbie Turner Peggy & Peter Preuss Silvia & Steven Re Jere & Cassidy Robins Leigh Ryan Cliff Schireson & John Venekamp Marge & Neal Schmale Jean & Gary Shekhter Maureen & Tom Shiftan Jeanette Stevens Dolly & Victor Woo Clara Wu & Joe Tsai Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome & H. Bard Wellcome In Memory of J. Robert Beyster: Clifford Schireson & John Venekamp In Memory of Evelyn Brailean: Martha & Ed Dennis Ferdinand Gasang Helene Kruger In Honor of Brian Devine’s Birthday: Helene Kruger In Honor of Ferdinand Gasang’s Father: Dr. James C. & Karen A. Brailean In Honor of Alexa Hirsch: Todd Schultz In Honor of Susan and Bill Hoehn: Mary & Hudson Drake Tom & Loretta Hom In Honor of Irwin Jacobs’ Birthday: Martha & Ed Dennis In Memory of Lois Kohn: Ingrid Paymar In Honor of Helene Kruger: Anonymous

Brian & Silvija Devine Ferdinand Gasang Sharon & Joel Labovitz Patricia Manners Paul & Maggie Meyer Ann Mound Lonnie Ross Debbie Horwitz & Paul Nierman Don & Stacy Rosenberg Clifford Schireson & John Venekamp Beverly Schmier Nell Waltz Pat Winter Bebe & Marvin Zigman In Honor of Carol Lam: QUALCOMM Incorporated In Honor of Peggy Preuss Peggy Cravens In Honor of Kristen Sakamoto’s Grandmother: Ferdinand Gasang In Honor of Clifford Schireson: Kevin Tilden & Philip Diamond M.D. In Honor of Jean Shekhter: Morgan & Elizabeth Oliver In Honor of Jeanette Stevens: Todd Schultz In Memory of Fiona Tudor: Anonymous Frank Alessio Christopher Beach & Wesley Fata Mary Ann Beyster Elaine & Dave Darwin Lori & Tony Demaria Martha & Ed Dennis Barbara & Dick Enberg Ferdinand Gasang Theresa Jarvis Robin & Hank Nordhoff Marina & Rafael Pastor Peggy & Peter Preuss Carol Randolph & Bob Caplan In Memory of Carleton and Andree Vail: Vail Memorial Fund In Honor of Abby Weiss: Anonymous

MATCHING GIFTS Bank of America IBM, International Merck QUALCOMM, Inc. The San Diego Foundation Sempra Energy To learn more about supporting La Jolla Music Society’s artistic and education programs or to make an amendment to your listing please contact Benjamin Guercio at 858.459.3724, ext. 216 or BGuercio@LJMS.org. This list is current as of December 15, 2015. Amendments will be reflected in the next program book in March 2016.

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ANNUAL SUPPORT

MEDALLION SOCIETY

In 1999, the Board of Directors officially established the Medallion Society to begin to provide long-term financial stability for La Jolla Music Society. We are honored to have this special group of friends who have made a multi-year commitment of at least three years to La Jolla Music Society, ensuring that the artistic quality and vision we bring to the community continues to grow.

CROWN JEWEL

Brenda Baker and Steve Baum Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner

DIAMOND Raffaella and John Belanich Joy Frieman+ Joan and Irwin Jacobs

EMERALD Rita and Richard Atkinson

RUBY Silvija and Brian Devine

GARNET Elaine Galinson Peggy and Peter Preuss

SAPPHIRE Kay and John Hesselink Keith and Helen Kim Sharon and Joel Labovitz

TOPAZ

Anonymous Joan Jordan Bernstein Mary Ann Beyster+ Dr. James C. and Karen A. Brailean Dave and Elaine Darwin Barbara and Dick Enberg Jeane Erley Dr. Lisa Braun-Glazer and Dr. Jeff Glazer Margaret and Michael Grossman Alexa Kirkwood Hirsch Theresa Jarvis Angelina and Fred Kleinbub Joseph Wong and Vivian Lim+

Michel Mathieu and Richard McDonald Rafael and Marina Pastor Maria and Dr. Philippe Prokocimer Don and Stacy Rosenberg Leigh P. Ryan+ Neal and Marge Schmale Jeanette Stevens Elizabeth Taft Gianangelo Vergani Dolly and Victor Woo Bebe and Marvin Zigman Note: + 5-year term Listing as of December 15, 2015

DANCE SOCIETY

La Jolla Music Society has quickly become the largest presenter of major American and great international dance companies in San Diego. In order for LJMS to be able to fulfill San Diego’s clear desire for dance and ballet performances by the very best artists around the world, the Dance Society was created. We are grateful to the following friends for their passion and support of our dance programs.

GRAND JETÉ

POINTE

ARABESQUE

DEMI POINTE

Anonymous

Katherine and Dane Chapin Ellise and Michael Coit June and Dr. Bob Shillman Jeanette Stevens

PIROUETTE

Elaine Galinson and Herbert Solomon Annie So Marvin and Bebe Zigman

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LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY

Teresa O. Campbell Innovative Commercial Environments Saundra L. Jones Gordana and Dave Schnider Susan Trompeter

PLIÉ

Stefana Brintzenhoff Mara Lawrence Joani Nelson Rejeuviné Medspa Elyssa Dru Rosenberg Elizabeth Taft Listing as of December 15, 2015


ANNUAL SUPPORT

LEGACY SOCIETY

The Legacy Society recognizes those generous individuals who have chosen to provide for La Jolla Music Society’s future. Members have remembered La Jolla Music Society in their estate plans in many ways – through their wills, retirement gifts, life income plans and many other creative planned giving arrangements. We thank them for their vision and hope you will join this very special group of friends.

Anonymous (2) June L. Bengston* Joan Jordan Bernstein Bjorn and Josephine Bjerede Dr. James C. and Karen A. Brailean Gordon Brodfuehrer Barbara Buskin Trevor Callan Anne and Robert Conn George and Cari Damoose Elaine and Dave Darwin Teresa & Merle Fischlowitz Ted and Ingrid Friedmann Joy and Ed* Frieman Sally Fuller Maxwell H. and Muriel S. Gluck* Dr. Trude Hollander Eric Lasley Theodora Lewis Joani Nelson

Maria and Dr. Philippe Prokocimer Bill Purves Darren and Bree Reinig Jay W. Richen Jack and Joan Salb Johanna Schiavoni Patricia C. Shank Drs. Joseph and Gloria Shurman Jeanette Stevens Elizabeth and Joseph* Taft Norma Jo Thomas Dr. Yvonne E. Vaucher Lucy and Ruprecht von Buttlar Ronald Wakefield John B. and Cathy Weil Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome and H. Barden Wellcome Karl and Joan Zeisler Josephine Zolin *In Memoriam Listing as of December 15, 2015

BUSINESS SOCIETY

Members of our Business Society are committed to the LJMS community. For information on how your business can help bring world-class performances to San Diego please contact Ferdinand Gasang, Development Director, at 858.459.3724, ext. 204 or FGasang@LJMS.org

GUARANTOR

AMBASSADOR

ASSOCIATE

The Lodge at Torrey Pines San Diego Gas & Electric

ACE Parking Management, Inc. Giuseppe Restaurants & Fine Catering La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club La Valencia Hotel NINE-TEN Restaurant Chef Drew Catering, Panache Productions Sammy’s Woodfire Pizza Del Mar

Jade J. Schulz Violins Jimbo’s…Naturally! Sprinkles Cupcakes

SUSTAINER The Westgate Hotel

SUPPORTER digital OutPost Paul Hastings LLP Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP

ENTHUSIAST Nelson Real Estate

AFICIONADO Callan Capital Girard Gourmet Sharp HealthCare

Listing as of December 15, 2015

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DINNERS La Jolla Music Society has partnered with restaurants to enhance your cultural experience. Along with their generous support as a member of our Business Society, the following restaurants offer our patrons exciting menus prior to LJMS performances. Please call ahead for reservations.

La Valencia Hotel – THE MED 1132 Prospect Street, La Jolla For Reservations: 858.551.3765 www.lavalencia.com

NINE-TEN Restaurant

The Westgate Room

For Reservations: 858.964.5400 www.nine-ten.com

For Reservations: 619.557.3650 www.westgatehotel.com

910 Prospect Street, La Jolla

RESTAURANT NIGHTS

Please join us and fellow concertgoers for dinner prior to selected performances. These special three-course dinners are only $65 per person and begin with a champagne reception at 5:45 PM followed by your seated dinner at 6:15 PM. For more information or to reserve your seat, please call Benjamin Guercio at 858.459.3724, ext. 216 or email BGuercio@LJMS.org.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28

1055 Second Avenue, San Diego

DISCOVERY DINNERS

Please join us and your fellow concert goers for dinner with the artist following the performance! Hosted at a private home, our Sunday Discovery Dinners immediately follow select Discovery Series performances. Reminisce on the performance over an evening meal with the Discovery Series performing artist himself as well your fellow concertgoers for only $75 per person. This unique dinner experience has limited seating, so early reservations are strongly encouraged!

Discovery Dinner with Ji

Sunday, January 24 ¡ 5:30 PM $75 per person Held at the La Jolla home of Maureen and Tom Shiftan.

FRIDAY, MARCH 4

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LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY

For more information or to reserve your seat, please call Benjamin Guercio at 858.459.3724, ext. 216 or email BGuercio@LJMS.org.


sharp applauds

La JoLLa Music society for its efforts to enrich the cultural life of san diego.

CORP580A ©2014 SHC

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Foundation

The ResMed Foundation is pleased to support your excellent programs in musical arts education. Board of Trustees Edward A. Dennis, PhD Chairman

Mary F. Berglund, PhD Treasurer

Peter C. Farrell, PhD, DSc Secretary

Charles G. Cochrane, MD Michael P. Coppola, MD Anthony DeMaria, MD Sir Neil Douglas, MD, DSc, FRCPE Klaus Schindhelm, BE PhD Jonathan Schwartz, MD Kristi Burlingame Executive Director

7514 Girard Avenue, Suite 1-343 La Jolla, CA, USA, 92037

Tel 858-361-0755

ResMedFoundation.org


S E R V I NG L A JO L L A N S S I NC E 19 87


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JANUARY GARRICK OHLSSON

Thursday, January 14, 2016 · 8 PM FRIEMAN FAMILY PIANO SERIES MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR Saturday, January 16, 2016 · 8 PM JAZZ SERIES Balboa Theatre

ITZHAK PERLMAN & EMANUEL AX Wednesday, January 20, 2016 · 8 PM SPECIAL EVENT

Jacobs Music Center-Copley Symphony Hall

JI, piano

Sunday, January 24, 2016 · 3 PM DISCOVERY SERIES The Auditorium at TSRI

FEBRUARY THE MONTROSE TRIO

Martin Beaver, Clive Greensmith & Jon Kimura Parker

Saturday, February 6, 2016 · 8 PM REVELLE CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

AARON NEVILLE

Thursday, February 11, 2016 · 8 PM JAZZ SERIES Balboa Theatre

NING FENG, violin

Sunday, February 21, 2016 · 3 PM DISCOVERY SERIES The Auditorium at TSRI

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Jeff Edmons, music director & conductor Ning Feng, violin

Friday, February 26, 2016 · 8 PM SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY SERIES MCASD Sherwood Auditorium

DANIIL TRIFONOV

Sunday, February 28, 2016 · 8 PM FRIEMAN FAMILY PIANO SERIES

NING FENG

MCASD Sherwood Audit

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 858.459.3728 · WWW.LJMS.ORG


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