June, July & August 2024 Concert Program

Concert Program

MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE PRESENTS

Satu Vänskä & 28 June

Konstantin Shamray

Xavier de Maistre 8 July + Affinity Quartet

Augustin Hadelich 13 August

Trio Gaspard 20 August

Satu Vänskä & Konstantin Shamray

Primrose Potter Salon

Program About the Artists

Aulis Sallinen

Cadenza for Solo Violin, Op.13

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

Four pieces, Op.115

I. Auf der Heide (On the Heath)

II. Danses champêtres, Op.106

III. Tempo moderato

Five Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op.81 I. Mazurka

Six Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op.79 III. Danse caractéristique

V. Tanz-Idylle

Trad.

Tuoll on Mun Kultani (There is my Sweetheart)

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

Six Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op.79

VI. Berceuse

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata No.8 in G for Violin and Piano, Op.30 No.3

I. Allegro assai

II. Tempo di Minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso

III. Allegro vivace

Duration:

approx. 1 hour, no interval

Satu Vänskä violin

Born to a Finnish family in Japan, violinist Satu Vänskä has developed an international profile through her role as Principal Violin with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), a position that she has held for the past twenty years. In that time Satu has both directed and performed as soloist with the ACO, an ensemble regarded as one of the greatest chamber orchestras in the world, hailed for its striking virtuosity and innovative programming.

Satu’s development of solo violin projects is reflective of her desire to continually evolve as a musician and to courageously embrace new musical challenges. She has a passion for dynamic programming that explores the link between old and new music, alongside presenting boundaryblurring cross-genre collaborations, that resonate with today’s classical music audiences.

Satu took her first violin lessons at the age of three in Japan, before her family relocated to Finland when she was ten, where she continued her studies with Pertti Sutinen at the Lahti Conservatorium and the Sibelius Academy. She later studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich as a pupil of Ana Chumachenco.

Satu performs on the 1726 Belgiorno Stradivarius Violin, kindly on loan from Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM and Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis.

Konstantin Shamray piano

Described as an exhilarating performer with faultless technique and fearless command of the piano, Australian based pianist Konstantin Shamray enjoys performing on an international level with the world’s leading orchestras and concert presenters.

In 2008, Konstantin burst onto the concert scene when he won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. He is the first and only competitor to date in the 40 years of the competition to win both First and People’s Choice Prizes, in addition to six other prizes.

He has enjoyed critical acclaim at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, the Bochum Festival in Germany, the Mariinsky International Piano Festival and the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Adelaide Festival, Musica Viva Sydney and Huntington festivals. Konstantin has recorded albums with the labels Naxos, ABC Classic and Fonoforum.

Konstantin was formerly Lecturer in Piano at the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide and was awarded his PhD in 2020 for his performance-based project ‘The piano as Kolokola, Glocken and Cloches: performing and extending the European traditions of bell-inspired piano music’. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Piano at the University of Melbourne.

About the Music

Sibelius loved the violin from the moment of his first lesson, when he was 15 years old. ‘The violin took me by storm,’ he later admitted, ‘and for the next ten years it was my dearest wish, my greatest ambition to become a great virtuoso.’ But an accident at 13 left him with a broken shoulder, which made his right arm slightly shorter than the left. He was also an exceedingly nervous performer; on one occasion, performing before a small gathering, he had to play with his back to the audience to steady his nerves. Yet his passion for the violin never really abated. In fact, his Violin Concerto of 1905 is the most frequently recorded of the 20th century, having been committed to disc more than 75 times.

All the more remarkable then is the obscurity of virtually everything else he wrote for the instrument. This has much to do with the fact that most of these works are miniatures, chips from Sibelius’ workshop, if you like. And if it seems unlikely to you that the man who wrote the music you hear in this performance also composed such towering orchestral pictures as Tapiola and The Swan of Tuonela, it’s worth recalling the words of one of Sibelius’ most eloquent admirers, the writer Neville Cardus: ‘Only the small order of genius is constantly fastidious.’

Sibelius created the Op.79 pieces in 1915, a period of some financial difficulty for him. The First World War had broken out the year before and, as a result, he’d lost access to the revenue from his German publishers. To earn some regular income Sibelius wrote many salon pieces for domestic performance, and had little time for other composing.

There is some spicy harmony in the slow music of the Danse caractéristique, while the alternating fast dance offers plenty of virtuoso opportunities. The Tanz-Idyll is a charming, feathery waltz and the Berceuse takes a simple melodic idea and weaves a gentle spell from it. The Mazurka from Sibelius’ Op.81 (a set of five pieces) also dates from 1915 and is a short, bracing showpiece with pizzicato punctuations.

Fast-forward ten years to the Danses champêtres, Op.106, and from them the Tempo moderato. This does NOT do what it says on the tin, often behaving like a wild Hungarian dance. On the Heath comes from 1929, by which time Sibelius had written his last orchestral works. But this little gem proves that nature could speak through his music no matter the scale of the composition. In just over two minutes he manages to evoke a scene as awe-inspiring as it is austere.

Throughout his composing life, Sibelius drew inspiration from the Finnish national epic the Kalevala and its sibling collection of Finnish folk poetry the Kanteletar. It’s from the Kanteletar that the text for the song Tuoll is my sweetheart can be found. The beautiful traditional tune associated with this story of a man’s longing for his beloved has been performed by many choirs and vocal groups.

After Sibelius, Aulis Sallinen is one of Finland’s most successful composers, particularly in the world of opera. But he writes communicatively in whichever idiom he’s working, and he once said: ‘I feel that all good art is strong and simple.’ His Cadenze was a set piece for the first Sibelius Violin Competition in 1965, but there is nothing gratuitously virtuosic about it. A meditative beginning opens out to dazzling climax, before the quiet, mysterious conclusion. Cadenze calls on all the skills a sensitive performer can bring to it.

In Beethoven’s day sonatas ‘for piano and violin’ (as publishers usually called them) were intended largely for the domestic market. Great violinists were assessed by their ability in concertos and quartets; duo sonatas were not played in public that frequently.

But from 1798, when he wrote the first of his 10 violin sonatas, Beethoven ensured the instruments enjoy a shared glory, that the violinist really had to ‘step up’. As with so many other musical genres, from the concerto to the string quartet, Beethoven’s tendency was for the transformative.

On publication in 1803 the three sonatas which constitute Beethoven Op.30 were dedicated to the recently crowned Czar Alexander I, whose relatively enlightened views Beethoven admired. They make a fascinating triptych, notably because they imply that Beethoven was fully cognisant of the advances in piano building. While the musical argument in the G major sonata you hear in this performance is split evenly between the two players, the piano’s virtuoso flourishes – particularly in the central minuet movement – also suggest, sometimes boisterously, that we are on the verge of Beethoven’s so-called heroic phase. This movement is the most spacious of the three; the opening Allegro assai is gracious and playful by turns, while the final Allegro vivace is a succinct bit of perpetual motion, bringing the sonata to a frisky full stop.

©Phillip Sametz 2024

Goldner String Quartet

Nobuyuki Tsujii

Wednesday 30 October 7.30pm

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall

Feel the magic, hear the brilliance, and witness the mastery of Nobuyuki Tsujii in recital – a poignant reminder of the universal power of music and the human spirit.

Thursday 31 October 3pm & 7pm

Primrose Potter Salon

For their final Melbourne performance and farewell, The Goldners have hand-picked a program that holds great meaning and significance for the ensemble.

Xavier de Maistre + Affinity Quartet

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall

Program

Set 1: Affinity Quartet

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

String Quartet No.62 in C ‘Emperor’, Op.76 No.3, Hob.III/77

I. Allegro

II. Poco adagio. Cantabile

III. Menuetto. Allegro

IV. Finale. Presto

Interval

Set 2: Xavier de Maistre

Giovanni Battista Pescetti (1704-1766) arr. Salzedo Sonata in C minor

Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909) arr. de Maistre

Recuerdos de l’Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra)

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) arr. M. Grandjany Spanish Dance, from La Vida Breve

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) arr. H Renié Le rossignol, S.250/1

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) trans H. Trneček Vltava, from Má vlast

Interval

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Impromptu in D-flat, Op.86

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) arr. de Maistre Two Arabesques, L.66

I. Andantino con molto

Clair de Lune from Suite Bergamasque, L.75

Henriette Renié (1875-1956)

Legende d’après les Elfes (Legend of the Elves)

Duration:

approx. 2 hours and 15 minutes, including intervals

About the Artists

Xavier de Maistre harp

“Xavier de Maistre is a virtuoso of the highest order, profoundly musical and capable of realising a remarkable range of nuance.” (Gramophone)

Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists and a profoundly creative musician. As a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new work from composers. He also creates transcriptions of important instrumental repertoire.

Xavier has been an exclusive Sony Music artist since 2008, when he recorded his first album, Nuit d’Etoiles, dedicated to Debussy. Further releases included Hommage à Haydn (2009), Aranjuez (2010) and Notte Veneziana (2012), featuring significant Baroque repertoire, Moldau (2015), solo harp pieces by Slavic composers, and La Harpe Reine (2016) with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. His album Christmas Harp (October 2021) features paraphrases and fantasies of famous Christmas carols as well as melodies by Schubert and Tchaikovsky. In autumn 2022, his last CD dedicated to Russian music was released, featuring Reinhold Glière’s famous harp concerto and Alexander Mosolov’s forgotten concerto, accompanied by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann.

He has taught at Musikhochschule in Hamburg since 2001. He plays on a Lyon & Healy instrument.

Affinity Quartet

Forming in 2015 Australia’s Affinity Quartet appeared on Melbourne’s classical music scene as ‘one of the most exciting ensembles to make their mark.’ (Classic Melbourne). At the 2023 Melbourne International String Quartet Competition Affinity Quartet was awarded the Audience Prize, the Robert Salzer String Quartet First Prize, and the Monash University Grand Prize; the first Australian group to win the competition in its 32-year history.

POST-CONCERT TALK

Following this exquisite performance, Xavier de Maistre joins Melbourne Recital Centre’s Director of Programming, Marshall McGuire, in the ground floor foyer for a 20-minute discussion about his artistry, career, and more. Take a seat and enjoy this perfect conclusion to your musical experience.

About the Music

Set 1: Affinity Quartet

Josephine Chung violin

Nicholas Waters violin

Ruby Shirres viola

Mee Na Lojewski cello

While Haydn’s 68 quartets are the ‘Old Testament’ of the string quartet medium, they are also exhilarating, inexhaustibly inventive, witty and often moving. This is an Old Testament with very little smiting, a great deal of beauty and a quirky sense of humour.

The quartets span most of his life as a composer – some 40 years – and played a crucial role in the rise of the medium itself; in Haydn’s youth, the idea of a string quartet as a viable ensemble was in its infancy. By the time his final quartet appeared in 1802 he had helped establish the String Quartet – with its many colouristic possibilities and potential for intimate musical interaction – as a vehicle for a composer’s most sophisticated musical thoughts.

He created the six quartets of Op.76 in 1797-8, not long after his triumphant return from his second London visit. After his decades of musical servitude to the Esterházy family, he was now a celebrity, and you hear in the third of the set, the Emperor, a buoyant, richly confident assurance in his craft.

The title refers to the second movement, a series of four variations on the Kaiserlied, a tune inspired by the British national anthem and which Haydn dedicated to the Austrian emperor Franz II. (It subsequently became the Austrian national anthem).

The atmosphere of this serenely quiet movement seems to radiate out to the rest of the work for – whether in the bright glory of the opening Allegro, the open-air jollity of the minuet or the finale’s hurly-burly – the music is often beguilingly direct. As composer and writer Bayan Northcott once put it, Haydn finds ‘that the light of common day is somehow more profound than the gropings of intellect or fires of fancy’.

Set 2: Xavier de Maistre

For all its ubiquity in an orchestral setting, in evoking images of angels, and in announcing dissolves to flashbacks in film noir, the solo harp is still a novelty in recital. As this soloist, Xavier de Maistre, says: ‘I merely want to show that the harp is a serious instrument with a wide spectrum of technical and expressive resources.’

While original music for the harp has been created by Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith, William Mathias, Peggy Glanville-Hicks and other notable composers, much of the harp’s solo repertoire was originally created for other instruments. France is a harp country, they say, and although Debussy originally wrote the two glorious pieces in this program for piano, they can be played on harp with only minor alterations.

However, when you hear a pianist play the six impromptus by Debussy’s older compatriot, Gabriel Fauré, you’ll find that one of them is a transcription, for Fauré created his Op.86 for the Premier Prix of the Paris Conservatoire’s harp class in 1904. The richly arpeggiated opening is the well-spring for many poetic ideas, and the piece ends with a theatrical flourish.

In two cases throughout this performance, the term ‘other instrument’ means the symphony orchestra. Although Falla created this Spanish Dance as part of his opera La vida breve, it’s been transcribed for everything from solo piano to wind quintet. The transcription you’re hearing was created by the fabled French-American harpist Marcel Grandjany (1891-1975), who was head of the Harp Department at New York’s Juilliard School for nearly 40 years.

Smetana composed his hymn to Bohemia’s mightiest river the Vltava, in 1874. This much-loved symphonic poem depicts the river’s course, from its beginnings as a trickling stream, through forests and meadows, past country festivals (where people are dancing a polka) and towering castles, until it flows through the rapids towards Prague, and gradually disappears from sight. This transcription is by Smetana’s compatriot, harp professor at the Prague Conservatory, Hanuš Trneček (1858-1914).

Granada’s Alhambra palace and gardens have been celebrated in music many times, notably in Falla’s trilogy of nocturnes Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and in Tarrega’s much-loved Memories of the Alhambra (1899), which he dedicated to French guitarist Alfred Cottin. The tremolo effect which makes the piece so distinctive translates magically from guitar to harp.

The Venetian composer Giovanni Battista Pescetti composed many elegant harpsichord sonatas. This one, in C minor, is in some ways his best-known, thanks to this transcription by Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961), which has made it a harp favourite.

Salzedo, as performer, teacher and arranger, is a giant in harp history, as is the composer of Legend of the Elves. In fact, the great Lily Laskine once said: ‘To think of the harp is to think of Henriette Renié.’ Her complete method for harp, published in 1946, remains a testament to her pedagogical gifts, while her compositions and transcriptions demonstrate a command of technique among the greatest of its time.

Le rossignol is a double transcription: Liszt transcribed it from a song by the Russian composer Alexander Alyabyev (1987-1851), Renié’s transcription re-imagines Liszt’s dazzling virtuosity in terms completely idiomatic to the harp.

© Phillip Sametz 2024

Melbourne Recital Centre Memberships

Become a part of the Melbourne Recital Centre’s community of members to receive a range of benefits!

Music Lover Membership $50/year

Perfect for the frequent concertgoer, Music Lover benefits include:

› Waived transaction fees on all bookings

› Ticket offers and priority access to our latest announcements

› 10% discount on select performances

› 10% discount at Melbourne Recital Centre foyer bars

› Food and Beverage discounts at Script Bar & Bistro and Blondie Bar

› and more!

Premium Membership $200/year

Premium Members enjoy all the benefits of a Music Lover membership, plus:

› 20% discount on select performances

› One complimentary Music Lover Membership for a friend

› Free exchanges between performances

› Two complimentary drink vouchers to enjoy at your first yearly event as a Premium Member

Visit melbournerecital.com.au/membership to sign up!

Conditions apply, visit melbournerecital.com.au/membership for further information.

Augustin Hadelich

Tuesday 13 August

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall

Program About the Artist

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Partita No.3 in E for solo violin, BWV 1006

I. Preludio

II. Loure

III. Gavotte en Rondeau

IV. Menuett I and II

V. Bourrée

VI. Gigue

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) Blue/s Forms

I. Plain Blue/s

II. Just Blue/s

III. Jettin’ Blue/s

David Lang Mystery Sonatas

III. Before Sorrow

Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931)

Sonata for Solo Violin No.3 ‘Ballade’, Op.27

Interval

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Partita No.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004

I. Allemanda

II. Corrente

III. Sarabande

IV. Giga

V. Ciacona

Duration:

approx. 1 hour and 50 minutes, including interval

Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. Known for his phenomenal technique, insightful and persuasive interpretations, and ravishing tone, he appears extensively around the world’s foremost concert stages.

For the 2023/24 season opening, Hadelich performed the German premiere of Donnacha Dennehy’s Violin Concerto, composed for him, together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin as part of the Musikfest Berlin. Further invitations included the Barcelona Symphony, Danish National Symphony and Finnish Radio Symphony orchestras, the Netherlands Philharmonic and Brussels Philharmonic orchestras, Philharmonia Zürich and Tonkünstler-Orchester. In North America he plays with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as the symphony orchestras in San Francisco, St. Louis, San Diego, Houston, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and Vancouver. In Asia, he is a guest with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Taiwan Philharmonic and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras. Besides his orchestral engagements, he gives solo recitals in Italy, Germany, Australia, and the USA.

Hadelich’s catalogue of recordings covers a wide range of the violin literature. In 2016, he received a GRAMMY Award ‘Best Classical Instrumental Solo’ for his recording of Dutilleux’s violin concerto L’Arbre des songes. A recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices was released by Warner Classics in 2018. This was followed in 2019 by the Brahms and Ligeti concertos, his second album as an exclusive artist for the label. He received an Opus Klassik Award in 2021 for his recording Bohemian Tales with Dvořák’s violin concerto, recorded with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. His recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas was also enthusiastically received by the press and nominated for a GRAMMY. In his latest recording, Recuerdos, he devotes himself to works by Britten, Prokofiev and Sarasate, together with the WDR Sinfonieorchester.

Augustin Hadelich, a dual American-German citizen born in Italy to German parents, studied with Joel Smirnoff at New York’s Juilliard School. He achieved a major career breakthrough in 2006 by winning the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis. His accomplishments continued with the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2011, an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter (UK) in December 2017, and being named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America in 2018.

In June 2021 Augustin Hadelich was appointed Professor in the Practice of Violin to the faculty of the Yale School of Music. He plays a violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù from 1744, known as ‘Leduc, ex Szeryng’, on loan from the Tarisio Trust.

About the Music

Bach’s genius was unknown to most of his contemporaries. Until 1726, when he was 41, none of his music had been published, even though he had by then been composing for 20 years. And he did not travel widely; in his lifetime Bach’s journeys would not have taken him beyond a radius of 200 miles. Now, though, his music is in interstellar space, on the Golden Record carried aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft – including a performance of the Gavotte en Rondeau from the Violin Partita No.3.

The name ‘Partita’ denotes a suite of dance movements all written in the same key, but Bach’s are transcendental studies on each of the dance forms. He created the three partitas, and the adjacent set of three solo violin sonatas in the 1720s, during the happy early years of his service to the Duke of Prince Anhalt-Cöthen. Since the public violin recital as we know it did not exist at that time, you might wonder: for whom were these works composed? Possibly for one of his violinist friends or colleagues, or for his patron, for the Prince was a fine violinist – but we have no idea whether these works were played during Bach’s lifetime.

This virtually new sound world – created by a supreme keyboard player – is, arguably, not ‘native’ violin music, hence the many keyboard transcriptions, notably by Busoni (most famously the Chaconne from the Partita No.2) and Rachmaninov (movements from the Third Partita). Bach himself frequently transcribed string works (by himself and others) for keyboard and, some 11 years after composing the Partita No.3 its Prelude, replete with trumpets, drums, oboes and strings, became the Sinfonia to his cantata We Thank You, God, We Thank You, in which the virtuosic violin writing is transferred to the organ, which Bach himself would have played.

Bach’s solo violin works are on one level the simplest but on another the most complex act of musical creation. You have to marvel at the imagination of a composer who perceived the contrapuntal potential of an essentially legato instrument, particularly in the Ciacona (Chaconne), a work of unprecedented majesty. Brahms offered one of the greatest tributes to this movement when he remarked: ‘On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings.’

Bach meets Paganini meets jazz violinist Stuff Smith in Blue/s Forms by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, a composer of extraordinary versatility. At different times he worked as jazz pianist, pop arranger, film composer and music director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Blue/s Forms is dedicated to Sanford Allen, the first African American to become a permanent member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The work creates an open border between the classical world and jazz; in all three movements ‘blue’ harmonies dominate a landscape that in outward appearance has the potential to be far less groovy.

For most music lovers the term Mystery Sonatas means the 15 sonatas for violin and continuo by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704), written as musical analogues to the Catholic Church’s cycle of prayers on the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The seven Mystery Sonatas by American composer David Lang have a different intent. As the composer has said: ‘I decided to make my own virtuosic pieces about my most intimate, most spiritual thoughts, [but] mine are not about Jesus… Biber divides Jesus’s life into three phases – the joyous, the sorrowful and the glorious. The central pieces of my mystery sonatas are called Joy, Sorrow and Glory, but these are all quiet, internal, reflective states of being.’ The sonata you hear in this performance is the third in the set, and is, you might say, a meditation on an intermediate state of being, preceding the sonata entitled Sorrow. Augustin Hadelich gave the world premiere of the complete set in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2014.

‘The knight of the violin’ was how Eugene Ysaÿe was described by his younger colleague Carl Flesch. Teacher of Nathan Milstein, William Primrose and many others, and the dedicatee of César Franck’s violin sonata, Ysaÿe also wrote a great deal of music, but his six solo sonatas are his calling card to posterity as a composer. Each is dedicated to a great violinist who happened to be one of his friends, and they are teeming with invention, in many ways offering a 65-minute tour of the instrument’s history. The number six tells you that the set is a homage to Bach, as does much of the music. The third Sonata, dedicated to George Enescu, begins with a grand, rhetorical recitative, which sets the stage for the con bravura section which follows. The technical demands throughout are phenomenal, with double-and multiplestopping in bar after bar, and dizzyingly fast passages alternating with such seemingly unlikely instructions as grazioso and sempre dolce

©Phillip Sametz 2024

POST-CONCERT TALK

Following this exquisite performance, Augustin Hadelich joins Melbourne Recital Centre’s Director of Programming, Marshall McGuire, in the ground floor foyer for a 20-minute discussion about his artistry, career, and more. Take a seat and enjoy this perfect conclusion to your musical experience.

Take your seat

Celebrate your love of live music, honour a loved one, or commemorate a special occasion with a seat plaque in the extraordinary Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at Melbourne Recital Centre.

Your seat plaque is a recognition of your $2,000 tax-deductible donation to Melbourne Recital Centre, and will be displayed on your chosen seat in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall for 10 years.

You can dedicate your seat to a special person or include a message of your choosing, with up to 25 characters per line, across two lines. Some restrictions apply.

Following the installation of your plaque, you will be invited to view your dedicated seat and to enjoy a private behind-the-scenes tour of the Centre.

To learn more, visit melbournerecital.com.au/name-a-seat or contact Sylvie Huigen, Development Manager on (03) 9207 2648 or sylvie.huigen@melbournerecital.com.au

Joshua Bell and Academy of St Martin in the Fields perform to a sold-out Elisabeth Murdoch Hall in October 2023.

Trio Gaspard

Primrose Potter Salon

Program

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Piano Trio No.44 in E, Hob.VX:28

I. Allegro moderato

II. Allegretto

III. Finale: Allegro

Sándor Veress (1907-1992)

Tre quadri (Three Pictures)

I. Paysage de Claude Lorrain. Con moto

II. Et in arcadia ego. Quieto

III. Der Bauerntanz. Tempo giusto

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Piano Trio No.2 in F, Op.80

I. Sehr lebhaft

II. Mit innigem Ausdruck — Lebhaft

III. In mäßiger Bewegung

IV. Nicht zu rasch

Duration: approx. 1 hour, no interval

About the Artists

Trio Gaspard has championed the entire breadth of piano trio repertoire to become one of the most sought-after trios of its generation, praised for its unique and fresh approach to the score. As well as exploring well-known classics, the players work with contemporary composers and research seldom-played masterpieces, sharing their discoveries with audiences at prestigious venues around the world.

Their curiosity for uncovering repertoire has led to recent performances of Ethyl Smyth’s Piano Trio in D minor at the BBC Proms, broadcast live by the BBC, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s rarely performed Présence: Ballet Blanc, alongside dancer Luka Fritsch, recorded live at the Pierre Boulez Saal and released on the trio’s ‘Live in Berlin’ CD, in cooperation with German Radio.

Also committed to commissioning new works, the trio has launched an extensive project to commission composers such as Olli Mustonen, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Helena Winkelman, Sally Beamish, Kit Armstrong, Johannes Fischer and Leonid Gorokhov to write companion pieces to Haydn’s piano trios. For its debut project with Chandos Records, the group is currently recording these works alongside Haydn’s originals. The second instalment of the project was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim and The Strad wrote of the first volume, ‘It’s truly a delight, and leaves this listener hungry for more.’ Alongside their Haydn recordings, 2023 also saw the first release in a new series of ‘Stories’ discs, focusing on different European cultural capitals and the composers associated with them. ‘Berlin Stories’ was released in 2023 and included music by Mendelssohn, Juon and Skalkottas, with BBC Music Magazine and The Strad both awarding it five stars. Future discs in the series will focus on Prague and Budapest.

Trio Gaspard is regularly invited to major international concert halls including Berlin Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, Boulez Saal, Grafenegg Castle, Salle Molière Lyon and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. Highlights of the 23–24 season include a residency at Wigmore Hall, Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ Concerto with Uppsala Chamber Orchestra in Sweden and recitals at the prestigious series of the Amici Della Musica Firenze, Lucerne Chamber Music Society, Musik Theater Bern, Sibelius Academy Helsinki, Sage Gateshead and Heidelberger Frühling Festival.

Founded in 2010, the trio’s members hail from Germany, Greece and the UK. They studied at European Chamber Music Academy under Johannes Meissl (Artis Quartet), Ferenc Rados, Avedis Kouyoumdjian, Jérome Pernoo and Peter Cropper (Lindsay Quartet), as well as with Hatto Beyerle. They were Chamber Music Fellows at the Royal Northern College of Music (2017–19) and won first and special prizes at the Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition in Weimar, the International Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna and the International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France.

About the Music

Haydn once said that he wrote his music so that ‘the weary and worn…might enjoy a few minutes of solace and refreshment’ in an era when, as art historian Kenneth Clark once put it, ‘pleasure was important, and worth taking trouble about’. For most of his creative life Haydn was a court composer, turning out music –symphonies, operas and chamber music – for the Esterházy family on a weekly basis, to be performed in their palace on the Hungarian plains. Yet his music was published widely and played in salons and drawing rooms all over Europe.

With the death of his master Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in 1790, Haydn, then 58, made his first journey outside the Austro-Hungarian Empire; in fact he now saw the sea for the first time, for he was going to England at the invitation of the musical impresario Johann Peter Salomon, to direct a series of concerts.

London treated him royally. He stayed with the Prince of Wales, was a feted guest at civic banquets and was made an Honorary Doctor of Music at Oxford (an event commemorated in his Oxford Symphony). Following his first stay of 18 months he returned for a further year in 1794. The country offered him great artistic and financial rewards: in fact he made more money in Britain than he had in all his years of court service. His grandest symphonic achievements, the eight so-called London Symphonies, date from this time, and it was in London, in 1797, that the piano trio you hear was first published.

There’s a lifetime of composerly craft at work here, in ideas of an apparently simple grace which disguise an exalted artistry. In the flowing first movement the initial idea is whispered by pizzicato strings and the piano’s staccato bass; out of that flows six minutes of elegance and good humour. Then there’s Haydn’s capacity for surprise, for in the darkly poised Allegretto the piano is firmly in the spotlight; so much so that at one point the strings are silent for 28 bars. The final Allegro is full of quirky ideas: tunes which meander unexpectedly, and don’t quite ‘land’ as you expect them to, and some adventures into ‘interesting’ keys before a ‘save’ as the return of the main theme gets you back home to E major. It’s worth recalling that Haydn wrote this frequently virtuosic music not for professional musicians but for music lovers to play at home.

The Austrian Haydn spent much of his life in Hungary, while the Hungarian Sándor Veress chose to spend the last half of his life in Switzerland. He learned and later taught at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, studying with Bartók and Kodály, then teaching composition students including Ligeti and Kurtág. Disillusioned by the communist takeover of his country after WWII, he left in 1948, settling in Bern, where he lived for the rest of his life.

As you’ll hear in these Three Pictures, his style owes a little to Stravinsky’s acerbity and to Bartók’s angularity. The first picture is a landscape by Claude Lorrain, set in antiquity, and

Veress responds with a halting, melancholy delicacy. There is an atmosphere of eerie calm over the central picture, Poussin’s depiction of four shepherds finding a sarcophagus inscribed with the phrase ‘Et in arcadia ego’. The final picture, perhaps inspired by one of Brueghel’s scenes of country life, is pretty rambunctious, and even includes some unexpected percussion.

Schumann, a pianist himself, married Clara Wieck in 1840. She would come to be regarded as one of the greatest pianists of her age, and it was not long before he created large-scale chamber works centred around the keyboard; he wrote the Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet within weeks of one another in 1842.

It was five years before he again turned to chamber music of such breadth, composing his first two piano trios in the summer and autumn of 1847. Where the first of them belonged, in his words, to ‘a time of gloomy moods,’ the second, he said, ‘makes a friendlier and more immediate impression.’ But nothing in Schumann is ever exactly what it seems, and the F major trio sets off many depth charges too.

The first movement, for example, opens joyously, and even quotes a passage from his earlier song cycle Liederkreis (‘Your wondrous, blissful image’), but after some contrapuntal busyness the movement’s melodic momentum becomes more fragmentary. The second movement (marked ‘with intimate expression’) mixes tenderness with unease, while the flowing, wistful movement which follows has difficulty getting out of the shadows cast by its predecessor. But you can feel the dappled sunlight break through in the finale. The three distinct melodic ideas you hear at the outset gradually draw closer together, while the mood becomes increasingly passionate as the final bars come into view.

©Phillip Sametz 2024

Thank you to our generous donors

MUSIC CIRCLE

Thank you to the donors who support the depth and vibrancy of the Centre’s musical program and play a crucial role in ensuring we can continue to present a broad range of the greatest musicians and ensembles from Australia and around the globe.

Salon Program Benefactor

Lady Primrose Potter ac

$50,000+

Anonymous (1)

$30,000+

Robert Peck am, Yvonne von Hartel am, Rachel Peck & Marten Peck of peckvonhartel architects (Signature Event Circle Benefactors)

Joy Selby Smith

$20,000+

Alan and Marie-Louise Archibald Foundation

Konfir Kabo & Monica Lim

The Peggy & Leslie Cranbourne Foundation

Cathy Simpson & John Simpson am (Signature Event Circle)

$10,000+

Anonymous (1)

John & Lorraine Bates

Esther & Brian Benjamin

Warwick & Paulette Bisley

Jim Cousins ao & Libby Cousins am (Signature Event Circle)

Craig & Bernadette Drummond

Barbara Hutchinson in memory of her late husband Darvell

M Hutchinson

Jane Kunstler

Andrew Wheeler am & Jan Wheeler (Signature Event Circle)

Igor Zambelli (Signature Event Circle)

$7,500+

Alex King (Signature Event Circle)**

$5,000+

Maggie Cash

Arnold & Mary Bram

John Castles am & Thelma Castles oam

The Hon Susan Crennan ao kc &

Michael Crennan kc

Mary Draper am

Linda Herd

Kathryn Greiner ao

Diana Lempriere

Maria McCarthy

Tom Smyth**

Janet Thomson

Vivian Wang

Lyn Williams AM

Youth Music Foundation of Australia Inc (Signature Event Circle)

$2,500+

Donald Abell

Bill Burdett am &

Sandra Burdett

Alastair Campbell & Sue Campbell

Kerin Carr

Assoc Prof Jody Evans

Colin Golvan am kc & Dr Deborah Golvan**

Ballandry (Peter Griffin Family) Fund

Catherine Heggen

Dr Alastair Jackson am

Paul Jasper

Ann Lahore

Simon Le Plastrier*

Shelley & Euan Murdoch

Emeritus Professor

Margaret Plant

Christopher Menz & Peter Rose

Sirius Foundation

Maria Sola

Jenny Tatchell

Dr Victor Wayne & Dr Karen Wayne oam

$1,000+

Anonymous (4)

Clare Acherson

Robert Baker

Liz & Charles Baré

Michael Bennett & Kate Stockwin^

Kaye Birks in the memory of David

Helen Brack

Jannie Brown

Debbie Brady

The Hon Alex Chernov ac kc & Elizabeth Chernov

Kaye Cleary

Christine & Michael Clough

John & Chris Collingwood

Brian Crisp

The Hon Mary Delahunty

The Hon Justice Julie Dodds-Streeton**

Brigitte Treutenaere & Paul Donnelly

Lord Francis Ebury & the late Lady Suzanne Ebury

Kathryn Fagg ao & Kevin Altermatt

Margaret Farren-Price & Prof Ronald FarrenPrice am

Andrew Firestone

Mark Freeman

Kingsley Gee

Ann Gordon

Gras Foundation Trust

The Hon David L Harper am**

Lyndsey & Peter Hawkins

Alistair Hay & Dr Jennifer Miller

Robert Heathcote**

Peter Heffey

Dr Robert Hetzel

Doug Hooley

Jenny & Peter Hordern

John Howie am & Dr Linsey Howie*

Prof Andrea Hull ao

In memory of the late Harry Johnson

Norah Breekveldt & Andrew Katona*

Angela Kayser

Assoc Prof Sebastian King^

MacKenzie Gobbo Foundation

Maryanne B Loughnan kc**

In memory of John Price

The Mard Foundation

Janet McDonald

Banjo McLachlan & Paul Mahony

Mercer Family Foundation

Maria Mercurio

Dennis & Fairlie Nassau

Stephen Newton ao

Dr Paul Nisselle am

Greg Noonan

Susan Pelka & Richard Caven

Christopher Reed

Ralph & Ruth Renard

Michael Cowen &

Sharon Nathani

Eda Ritchie am

Clara Rubera

Anne Runhardt & Glenn Reindel

Viorica Samson

Terry & Margaret Sawyer

Jacqueline Schwarz

Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine

Dr Vaughan Speck

Iain Stewart

Helen Symon kc & Ian Lulham

John Taberner & Grant Lang

Susan Thacore

Michael Troy

The Ullmer Family Foundation

Jennifer Whitehead

$500+

Anonymous (5)

Lesley Alway

Jenny Anderson

Heather Carmody & Anthony Baird

Maureen Barden

Catherine Belcher

Dr David Bernshaw & Caroline Isakow

The Hon Justice

David Byrne kc

Dr Geoffrey Clarke

Emilia Cross

Bruce Dudon

Martin Duffy & Patrick Kennedy

Jean Dunn

Chris Egan

Susan Fallaw

Dr Jane Gilmour oam & Terry Brian*

Janine Gleeson

George Golvan kc & Naomi Golvan

Liz Grainger

Helen Herman

The Hon Hartley

Hansen am kc & Rosalind Hansen**

Rosemary & David Houseman

Assoc Prof James Hurley

Joan Janka

Dr George Janko

Dr Garry Joslin

Irene Kearsey & Michael Ridley

Sean King

Daniel Kirkham

Angela & Richard Kirsner

Dr Anne Lierse am

Helen Lovass

Barbara Manovel

Jennifer K Marshall

Jane Morris

Tim Orton and Barbara Dennis

Bruce Parncutt ao

Helen Perlen

Erskine Rodan oam & Christine Rodan

Kerryn Pratchett

Jim Short

Simon Strickland

Bernard Sweeney

Charles Tegner

Robin Usher & Mandy Meade

Helen Vorrath

Tony Way

ACCESS TO MUSIC AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

FOR ALL

Thank you to the donors who support learning and access programs which share the music by bringing high quality music and learning opportunities to people from all walks of life.

$100,000+

Prof Dimity Reed am

$20,000+

Krystyna Campbell-Pretty am

$10,000+

Canny Quine Foundation

Gailey Lazarus Foundation

The Hon Justice Michelle

Gordon ac & The Hon

Kenneth M Hayne ac kc**

The Sentinel Foundation

$5,000+

D & X Williamson

Family Charitable Fund

The Jack & Hedy Brent Foundation

$2,500+

Anne Burgi & Kerin Carr

Kathy Deutsch & Dr George Deutsch oam

$1,000+

Anonymous (2)

Keith & Debby Badger

Debbie Brady

Maria Hansen

Doug Hooley

Dr Barry Jones ac & Rachel Faggetter

Prof John Langford am & Julie Langford

Ann Miller

The Hon Ralph Willis ao & Carol Willis

$500+

Anonymous (1)

Kevin Byrne

Elise Callander

Jack & Vivien Fajgenbaum

Nina Friedman & Jarrad Pyke

June K Marks

Miriam McDonald

Lorraine Moir

Andrew & Georgina Porter

Dr Ronald Rosanove & Elizabeth Rosanove

NURTURING ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

Thank you to the donors who support our enriching artist development programs to help create a wide range of opportunities for local musicians to ensure a vibrant musical future for the Centre, Victoria and beyond.

Betty Amsden Kids and Family Program Benefactor

The late Betty Amsden ao dsj

Young Artist Development Benefactor

The Peggy and Leslie Cranbourne Foundation

Merlyn Myer Music Commission

The Aranday Foundation

The Yulgilbar Foundation

$40,000+

Margaret S Ross am & Dr Ian C Ross

$10,000+

Warwick & Paulette Bisley

George & Laila Embelton

Julie Kantor ao

The Vizard Foundation

$5,000+

Anonymous (1)

Dr Mary-Jane Gething ao

Rosemary O’Connor*

$2,500+

In memory of the late Harry Johnson

Jo Fisher & Peter Grayson

Peter J Stirling &

Kimberley Kane**

$1,000+

Peter J Armstrong*

Zoe Brinsden*

Timothy Goodwin**

Martine Letts

Anne Runhardt & Glenn Reindel

Leslie Thiess

A LASTING LEGACY

Thank you to this extraordinary group of donors for supporting the future of Melbourne Recital Centre both now and for generations to come.

Inaugural Patrons

Jim Cousins ao & Libby Cousins am

Anonymous (4)

Jenny Anderson

John & Lorraine Bates

The late Betty Amsden ao dsj

Barbara Blackman ao

Jennifer Brukner oam

The Estate of Kenneth Bullen

Jen Butler

Emilia Cross

The Estate of Beverley Shelton & Martin Schönthal

Kingsley Gee & Zhen Fu Guan

Charles Taylor Hardman

Jenny & Peter Hordern

Dr Garry Joslin

Jane Kunstler

Janette McLellan

Rosemary O’Connor

Elizabeth O’Keeffe

Penny Rawlins

Prof Dimity Reed am

Vivienne Ritchie am

Christopher Menz & Peter Rose

Sandy Shaw

Mary Vallentine ao

TAKE YOUR SEAT

Thank you to the donors who have dedicated an Elisabeth Murdoch Hall seat in the last twelve months.

Warwick and Paulette Bisley

Michael Bennett

Bill Burdett am &

Sandra Burdett

Anne Burgi

Kerin Carr

Andrew & Theresa Dyer

Colin Golvan am kc & Dr Deborah Golvan

Kate Irving

Jane Keech

Reg & Norma Keech

Ian & June Marks

Christina McLeish

Michael Muntisov

Susan Riebl

* Ensemble Giovane

** Legal Friends

^ Medical Friends

List of patrons as at 30 May 2024

Music Circle

You are invited to become part of the Music Circle by making an annual, tax-deductible, gift of $1,000 or more. By donating to Melbourne Recital Centre, you will be joining a community of fellow music-lovers who are passionate about chamber music in Melbourne. Your annual Music Circle donation will bring great music to life in our city by supporting opportunities for talented local artists to build flourishing careers, as well as providing a platform for the greatest musicians from around the world to move, excite, and delight local audiences.

In appreciation of the crucial role that you will play in filling Melbourne Recital Centre with great music, you will enjoy special invitations throughout the year to gather after concerts and meet the wonderful international and local artists whose performances they make possible. Your gift will be recognised on our website, in our Annual Report, and in concert programs. Donate to the Music Circle today and play your part in bringing live music to life at Melbourne Recital Centre.

Donate here

To learn more, visit melbournerecital.com.au/support or contact Sylvie Huigen, Development Manager on (03) 9207 2648 or sylvie.huigen@melbournerecital.com.au

Our Supporters

Founding Patron

The late Dame Elisabeth

Murdoch ac dbe

Founding Benefactors

The Kantor Family

The Calvert-Jones Family

Lyn Williams am

Helen Macpherson Smith Trust

Robert Salzer Foundation

The Hugh Williamson Foundation

Life Members

Lin Bender am

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon ao

Jim Cousins ao

Kathryn Fagg ao

Margaret Farren-Price & Ronald Farren-Price am

Richard Gubbins

Board Directors

Professor Andrea Hull ao, Chair

Paul Donnelly, Deputy Chair

Andrew Apostola

The Hon Mary Delahunty

Melbourne Recital Centre Management

Chief Executive Officer

Sandra Willis

Director of Programming

Marshall McGuire

Principal Government Partner

Director of Corporate Services

Sarah MacPherson

Head of Marketing and Visitor Experience Latoyah Forsyth

Program Partners

Penny Hutchinson

Julie Kantor ao

Stephen McIntyre am

Richard Mills ao

Lady Primrose Potter ac

Jordi Savall

Mary Vallentine ao

Assoc Prof Jody Evans

Liz Grainger

Monica Lim

Peter McMullin am

Head of Operations

Jasja van Andel

Head of Development Alistaire Bowler

Supporting Partners

Foundations

Coming Up at Melbourne Recital Centre

To