June 12, 2016

JPL Program Calendar

JiWon Hwang, violin
Boyan Bonev, cello
Mimi Noda, piano

* SARASATE: Romanza Andaluza, Op. 22, No. 1
* LEIN: Nocturne
* PIAZZOLLA: Libertango
* POPPER: Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68
* BRAHMS: Piano Trio No.1 in B Major Op.8

1. Allegro con brio
2. Scherzo - Allegro molto
3. Adagio
4. Allegro

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Korean violinist Ji Won Hwang earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, Korea, where she also taught, in addition to conducting the Soongsil Boy's Orchestra. After moving to the United States she became a teaching assistant at The Florida State University while working on her Doctor of Music degree under the guidance of violinist Eliot Chapo. She has performed as a solo artist and with a variety of ensembles in the Big Bend area, including as violinist with the Eppes String Quartet under the sponsorship of Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Ellen Taafe Zwilich. Winner of the top prize of the Korea Germany Brahms Association Competition in 2004, Dr. Hwang has performed throughout Asia, Europe and North America, and recently gave a concert entitled "Russia in New York" at Carnegie Hall. In addition to her solo engagements, she plays for symphony orchestras in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.

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Award-winning Bulgarian cellist Boyan Bonev teaches cello and double bass at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, and previously taught in Georgia at Albany State University and Darton College. Dr. Bonev is on the faculty of the Florida State University Summer Music Camps, and performs with the Tallahassee, Pensacola, Mobile, Florida Lakes, and Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestras. Active as a solo and chamber musician, Boyan Bonev has appeared in concert and educational programs for Bulgarian National Television and Radio, in performance at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), and as soloist with orchestras in the United States and Europe. Dr. Bonev holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Florida State University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the National Music Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria.

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Mimi Noda was a collaborative pianist with the Japanese Choral Association before relocating to the United States in 1998 to pursue graduate studies. While earning degrees at the University of Georgia (MM) and Florida State University (DM), she was awarded a number of prizes and scholarships in piano performance, and also taught Japanese in FSU’s Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. Now an Associate Professor of Music at Georgia's Albany State University, in addition to annual faculty recitals, other recent solo engagements have included a recital in Tokyo, Japan. Apart from responsibilities in the Music Dept., Dr. Noda has established a course in Japanese at ASU, and will be teaching Japanese through the Study Abroad Program for the University System of Georgia. Her volunteer activities include performing at Albany's Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, and giving piano lessons to children at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee.

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PROGRAM NOTES

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Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908) was a popular virtuoso whose light touch and flawless tone inspired several of the Romantic period's enduring showpieces, including Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, Saint-Saens' Introduction & Rondo  Capriccio and Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, not to mention concertos by these and other composers. As an eight-year old Sarasate already was giving concerts, and after winning the Paris Conservatory's top performance prize at age 17, he began an international solo career that continued unabated for four decades--his star shone so brightly that even Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went to hear him play! Composed in 1879, Romanza Andaluza (op. 22, no. 1) is the third of Sarasate's eight "Spanish Dances" for violin and piano. Paying obvious tribute to the music of his homeland, Sarasate capitalizes on the violin's low register while introducing his folk-like original tunes, then harmonizes them with persistent double-stops that enhance the music's dancing  lyricism with virtuosic flair.

SCORE (pdf)
Hear it on YouTube

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Florida native Edward Lein (b. 1955) holds master's degrees in Music and Library Science from Florida State University. Early in his career he appeared throughout his home state as tenor soloist in recitals, oratorios and dramatic works, and most of his early compositions feature voices. Following performances by the Jacksonville Symphony of his Meditation for cello, oboe and orchestra (premiered June 2006) and In the Bleak Midwinter (premiered December 2007), his instrumental catalog has grown largely due to requests from Symphony players for new pieces. The Nocturne is the second movement from his Sonatina (2007). It presents a languid tune that alternates with a hymn-like chorale, perhaps suggesting a quiet boat ride down the St. John's River at dusk.

SCORE (pdf)[Beginning at p.8]
Hear it on Instant Encore

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With an estimated catalog of over 3,000 compositions, Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992) pretty much single-handedly reinvented the tango. Born in Argentina, Piazzolla spent most of his childhood in New York, where he developed a fondness for jazz and classical music. His father taught him to play the bandoneón, a concertina common to Argentine tango ensembles, and when he returned to Buenos Aires in 1937 he played with some of the leading bands. He also began composition studies with Alberto Ginastera and won a grant in 1953 to study in Paris with legendary composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.  Returning to Argentina in 1955, Piazzolla infused the traditional national dance with characteristics of jazz and formal elements from his classical studies. Although this nuevo tango ("new tango") style was met with resistance in his homeland, it captivated Europeans and North Americans and his international career blossomed. Libertango reflects his "liberation of the tango," and has been recorded over 500 times since originally recorded and published in 1974.

Hear it on YouTube

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Called "the Rostropovich of the 19th century," David Popper (1843-1913) was born in the Jewish ghetto of Prague and became one of Europe's most celebrated cellists. In addition to holding prestigious orchestral positions, Popper was well-known as both solo virtuoso and chamber musician, partnering with a number of high-profile pianists, including his wife Sophie Menter (whom Liszt cited as the world's greatest woman pianist), Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Also a highly respected teacher, Popper joined the faculty of the Budapest royal conservatory in 1896, and his influence continues to this day through the High School of Cello Playing, Op. 78 (1901-05), something of a bible for advanced cello students. A gifted melodist, most of Popper's compositions showcase the expressive and technical capabilities of his instrument, amply demonstrated in the Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68 (1894), likely his best-known work.

SCORE (pdf)
Hear it on YouTube

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At a time when it was fashionable to write programmatic music that illustrated specific scenes, poems, or stories, the great German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was recognized by his admirers as “Beethoven’s true heir” (Grove Concise Dictionary of Music) by demonstrating that established abstract formal procedures could be used to organize musical discourse without sacrificing the passion and deeply individualistic expression that defines 19th-Century Romantic music. Thus, Brahms joined Bach and Beethoven as one of the great “Three B’s” of classical music. Originally composed in 1854, Brahms revised his Piano Trio No. 1, op. 8 in 1889, but, remarkably, he allowed both versions to remain in print (although, not surprisingly, it's the revision that's almost always performed). Another remarkable thing about the Trio is that it's one of very few multi-movement instrumental works composed during the 400 or so years comprising the Baroque through Romantic periods that begin in a major key and end in a minor one.

SCORE (pdf)
Hear it on YouTube

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SELECTED RELATED LIBRARY RESOURCES

• CD VIOLIN S525 R758 DG
  Romances [sound recording] / Gil Shaham, violin (featuring Sarasate : Romanza andaluza).
• CD P584 I59se SONY
  Soul of the tango [sound recording] : the music of Astor Piazzolla.
• 780.92 P584Az, 2000
  Le grand tango : the life and music of Astor Piazzolla / by María Susana Azzi.
• CD STRING P831 I59se NAXOS
  Romantic cello showpieces [sound recording] / David Popper.
• 780.92 NEUNZIG
  Brahms / by Hans A. Neunzig.
• CD B813 T834 TELDEC
  The piano trios [sound recording] / Brahms (Trio Fontenay).

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April 10, 2016 @ 3 p.m.

JPL Program Calendar

Linda A. Cionitti, clarinet

Georgia Southern University Faculty Artist
Maila Gutierrez Springfield, piano
Valdosta State University Faculty Artist

Elliot Del Borgo (1938-2013)
Elegy

Victor Babin (1908-1972)
Hillandale Waltzes [Hear it on Youtube]
Thème – Valse elegante – Valse passionée
Valse sombre –Valse volante – Valse triste
Valse de bonne humeur –Valse brillante et joyeuse
Valse oubilée

Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
Tonada y Cueca [Hear it on Youtube]

Louis Cahuzac (1880-1960)
Cantilène [Hear it on Youtube]

Maurice Saylor (b. 1957)
Romanza (from Comic Symphony)

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
II. Lebhaft [Hear it on Youtube]
IV. Kleines Rondo, gemächlich [Hear it on Youtube]

James M. David (b. 1978)
Historias y Danzas [Hear a demo on Soundcloud]
II. En forma de Habañera
IV. En Forma de Tango (y Mambo)

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Maila Gutierrez Springfield is an instructor at Valdosta State University and a member of the Maharlika Trio, a group dedicated to commissioning and performing new works for saxophone, trombone and piano. She can be heard on saxophonist Joren Cain’s CD Voices of Dissent and on clarinetist Linda Cionitti’s CD Jag & Jersey. MusicWeb International selected Jag & Jersey as the recording of the month for February 2010 and noted that Maila “is superb in the taxing piano part with its striding bass lines and disjointed rhythms”. For Voices of Dissent, the American Record Guide describes Maila as “an excellent pianist, exhibiting solid technique and fine touch and pedal work." Twice-honored with the Excellence in Accompanying Award at Eastman School of Music, Maila has been staff accompanist for the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, Georgia Southern University, the Buffet Crampon Summer Clarinet Academy and the Interlochen Arts Camp, where she had the privilege of working with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. She has collaborated with members of major symphony orchestras, including those in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Jacksonville. She was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree from Syracuse University, and a Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music.

Linda A. Cionitti, an active international performer, presents recitals at significant events such as the International ClarinetFest, the Music Teachers National Association Conference, the College Music Society Convention, and the University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium. In May 2009, she released Jag & Jersey, a CD featuring premiere recordings of works by Libby Larsen and James David, both of whom were considered for a Grammy Award. The American Record Guide states: “Cionitti is a wonderfully expressive player who pours her soul into all her performances; her phrasing is very natural, and she is never afraid to push boundaries with dynamics and tempo.” MusicWeb International selected Jag & Jersey as the February 2010 Record of the Month and said, “I cannot praise the playing of Linda Cionitti too highly. This is extraordinarily fine clarinet playing. Technically beyond reproach what I particularly admire is the way she varies her tone, vibrato (so very subtly applied), attack and whole musical personality to suit the period and style of each piece.” Dr. Cionitti began studying clarinet with her father, Nick Cionitti, followed by lessons with Valentine Anzalone and Michael Webster. She received her B.M. degree from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, studying with Alan Woy. Her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees are from Michigan State University, where she studied with Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr.

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PROGRAM NOTES [CLICK HERE for Program Notes (pdf)]

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Including music for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, American composer Elliot Del Borgo (1938-2013) published over 600 compositions, which he described as reflecting "the aesthetics of 20th-century musical ideals through its eclectic nature and vigorous harmonic and rhythmic style." He taught instrumental music in the Philadelphia public schools and was professor of music at the Crane School of Music, and also was known internationally as a conductor.

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In 1961, Russian-born Victor Babin (1908-1972) became Director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, but he first gained international fame performing with wife Vitya Vronsky as the husband half of Vronsky & Babin, which Newsweek called "the most brilliant two-piano team of our generation." Presenting variations on a theme by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), Babin’s Hillandale Waltzes were written in 1947 for Anne Archbold, an arts patron in Washington, D.C., whose estate was called “Hillandale.”

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With music described as "lushly romantic," Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) was able to earn a living solely from the royalties and performance rights for his music. Among his 600+ works, Guastavino is best-known for his songs, some of which have been performed by international luminaries including Teresa Berganza, José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa; his complete works for piano, as well as samples of his guitar and chamber works also have been recorded. Composed in 1965, Guastavino's Tonada y Cueca ("Love Song and Cueca Dance") retains a favored place in the clarinetists' repertoire, amply demonstrated by the many performances available on Youtube!

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Louis Cahuzac (1880-1960) was one of few 20th-century clarinetists who performed primarily as a soloist rather than as orchestral/ensemble player, and career highlights included making the firstever recording of Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto, and (at age 76) recording Paul Hindemith's Clarinet Concerto with the composer conducting. As one might expect, Cahuzac wrote mostly for his own instrument. According to the notes for his complete works recording, Cahuzac’s birthregion of Southern France provided his inspiration, reflected in his Cantilène by its “radiant Mediterranean light," while its "echo-type effects suggest open, mountainous spaces."

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Based in Washington, D.C., Maurice Saylor (b. 1957) describes his work as "tuneful and quirky scores" that "blur the boundaries of style and genre." The Romanza is a movement from his Comic Symphony for clarinet and piano, based on tunes from an abandoned 1991 musical on Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid). First recast as a symphonic work, for the final duo version Saylor elaborated and expanded the tunes to take advantage of the solo talents of clarinetist Ben Redwine. Retaining "symphony" in the title for the 2012 publication, Saylor explains that "it's the nature of the music that makes it a symphony and not the scoring."

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Along with Stravinsky, Bartók and Schoenberg, German composer, violist, teacher, and music theorist Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) is often cited by musicologists as a central figure in music of the first half of the 20th Century. Although performances of his music have become relatively rare, his Clarinet Sonata (1939) provides an ever-popular exception. A staple on recitals and recordings, it easily qualifies as one of Hindemith's "greatest hits."

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James M. David (b. 1978) is associate professor of composition and music theory at Colorado State University. He has won multiple awards for his music, which has been performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia, and recorded for the Naxos, Albany, Summit, Luminescence and MSR Classics labels. David describes his 4-movement Historias y Danzas (2014) as "incorporating elements of Afro-Latin dance music, along with contemporary techniques and virtuosity." He adds that "En forma de Habeñera is based on the beautiful vocalise by Ravel and features a particularly melismatic clarinet part against an uncharacteristically wavering ostinato," while "En Forma de Tango (y Mambo) was meant to be an unfiltered homage to the great tradition of tango, but my love of mambo rhythms could not be entirely suppressed!"

Intermezzo Sunday Concert, March 23, 2014 @ 3 p.m.

First Coast Community Music School Faculty Recital

MADELEINE DRING: Trio for Oboe, Flute & Piano [on YouTube]
          Allegro con brio - Andante semplice - Allegro giocoso
Ann Adams (oboe), Laura Dwyer (flute) & Lynne Radcliffe (piano)

DOMENICO GABRIELLI: Ricercar No. 7 [on YouTube]
Shannon Lockwood (Cello)

PAUL RICHARDS: Tomorrow in Australia [on YouTube]
Laura Dwyer (flute)

PHILIPPE GAUBERT: Tarantelle, for Oboe, Flute & Piano [on YouTube]
Ann Adams (oboe), Laura Dwyer (flute) & Lynne Radcliffe (piano)

LEO DELIBES: Flower Duet (from Lakme) [on YouTube]
Laura Dwyer & Angela Muller (Flutes), Lynne Radcliffe (piano)

CHRISTIAN CANNABICH: London Duetto No. 1  [Score at IMSLP]
Laura Dwyer (Flute) & Peter Dutilly (viola)

Plus JAZZ TUNES with Michael Emmert (saxophone) & Ben Adkins (drums)

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The First Coast Community Music School is dedicated to providing the highest quality music instruction for children, adults, and families regardless of background, or experience and are available for after-school, evening and Saturday lessons.

Public performances and community outreach programs are a key part of the FCCMS nonprofit mission, including sponsoring ensembles, orchestras and events covering a broad spectrum of musical interests.

The FCCMS is partnered with quality community organizations, including:

• Florida State College at Jacksonville
• Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
• Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra
• Duval County Public Schools.

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Ann Adams is the Band Director at Lavilla school of the arts, and previously was Professor of Oboe and Music Education at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. She received the DM, MM, and MME degrees from Florida State University where she studied with Dr. Eric Ohlsson, and the BM degree from Western Michigan University where she studied with Dr. Robert Humistson. Dr. Adams is an active recitalist, clinician, and performer, playing oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn with various orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout central Florida. Dr. Adams is an active member of IDRS, CMS, MENC, FMEA, NBA, and FBA.

Violist and composer Peter Dutilly is currently completing his Master's Degree at Florida State University in Tallahassee.  A graduate of Jacksonville University,  he was a member of JU's Honors String Quartet,  and was the winner of  the 2009 Frederick Delius Award for Composition. Mr. Dutilly has served on the faculties of  FCCMS and the Prelude Chamber Music Camp, and frequently collaborates with faculty performers from Jacksonville University.

Laura Dwyer was Principal Flute of the Sarasota Opera for seven seasons and has been a member of the Santa Fe Symphony since 2000 and The Colorado Music Festival since 2008. She performs regularly with the Jacksonville Symphony, The Palm Beach Opera, the Phoenix Symphony, theCharleston Symphony and the Hilton Head Symphony. Laura teaches flute at Jacksonville University, the University of North Florida and First Coast Community Music School (FCCMS). Laura has been the Executive Director of FCCMS since 2010. A certified Yoga Instructor, Laura has taught Yoga for Flutists at The Anatomy of Sound at the University of Michigan for the last 9 years and appears on the DVD Anatomy of Sound released in 2012. She has taught yoga at the National Flute Association's annual Conventions, and for Trevor Wye and Keith Underwood at their summer courses for flutists. Laura is married to Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra French Hornist, Chris Dwyer.

Currently serving as instructor of cello at Jacksonville University, Shannon Lockwood completed a Doctorate in Musical Arts at the University of Cincinnati, where she studied with Yehuda Hanani. She began playing the cello at age twelve in the Colorado public school system. She later studied with retired, Colorado Symphony cellist Fred Hoeppner. She graduated Summa cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Denver. While studying in Denver with Richard Slavich, she won the prestigious Presser Award for academic and musical achievement. She also studied in London with Alice McVeigh and Paul Watkins under a grant from the English Speaking Union and returned in the fall of 2011 to conduct research at the Britten-Pears Library. Her broad spectrum of professional experiences include performing with orchestras such as the Colorado and Jacksonville Symphonies, performing as soloist with the Jacksonville University Orchestra and Wired String Ensemble, performing and coaching chamber music, serving as a graduate assistant to the University of Cincinnati Orchestras, and maintaining a private studio.

Angela Muller, flute, earned her BME at the University of Northern Colorado and MM at the University of Denver, and was an Army musician with the 101st Colorado Army National Guard. Formerly a school band director, her teaching assignments have ranged from elementary level through collegiate, and she continues her role as music educator by serving as guest artist with music departments at several area schools. Ms. Muller maintains a private studio, teaching both flute and piano, and performs with the First Coast Wind Ensemble.

Lynne Radcliffe received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Memphis State University. Moving to the Jacksonville area in 1983, she has worked in a musical capacity in various arenas, including private piano instruction, accompanying, performance, choral directing, teaching at Episcopal High School (where she served as Fine Arts Department Chair), church musician, and the Jacksonville Symphony Association (Music Education Programs Manager). Lynne is currently the Director of Music at St. Paul's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Jacksonville Beach as well as Program Coordinator and teacher at the First Coast Community Music School. She serves on the boards of the Beaches Fine Arts Series and BRASS, Beaches Residents Arising in Support of the Symphony. Having done graduate work in Musicology at the University of Memphis recently, she is a contributor to Encore!, the magazine of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and serves as host for the radio program WJCT Presents the JSO.

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PROGRAM NOTES, by Edward Lein, Music Librarian

English composer Madeleine Dring (1923-1977) entered the Royal College of Music as a violinist when she was 10 years old, and later studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, and Gordon Jacob. She was a gifted actress, and her love for the theater is reflected in the incidental music she wrote for stage, radio and television productions.  Ms. Dring was married to Roger Lord, the principal oboist with the London Symphony Orchestra, and much of her chamber music was written for him, including the Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano, composed in 1968. Her unpretentious compositional style often reflects rhythms and gestures derived from popular music and jazz, and the charming Trio exhibits a definite affinity with the music of Francis Poulenc

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In 1919 at age forty, the French flutist, conductor and composer Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941) became one of the most prominent musicians in France by earning three important appointments almost simultaneously: Professor of Flute at the Conservatoire de Paris, and Principal Conductor of both the Paris Opéra and the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Gaubert composed a wide variety of instrumental, orchestral and vocal music, plus two operas, and it is not surprising that many of his most effective compositions feature his own instrument. The Tarantelle for flute, oboe and piano was composed ca. 1903, and is dedicated to Paul Taffanel, the founder of the French Flute School whose techniques dominated 20th-Century flute performance. As the title makes obvious, Gaubert's lively trio is inspired by the Italian tarantella, a folk dance invented as an early form of music therapy to treat tarantula bites--it was thought that dancing the fast-paced music would cause the victim to sweat out any poison from the hairy spider's bite!

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Paul Richards (b. 1969) is Professor of Composition at the University of Florida, and previously taught at Baylor University. Among his many honors and awards, Dr. Richards won the Jacksonville Symphony's Fresh Ink Florida Composers' Competition in 2002.  For his Tomorrow in Australia, composed in 2008 for his UF colleague Dr. Kristen Stoner, the composer provides the following note:

The ghostly sound of a solo flute played with airy tones sparked the image of a post-apocalyptic, dusty, windswept and barren field, and a lone musician initiating a ritual of mourning and a fiery expression of loss, tempered by fleeting hints of hope. A flute further fit this conception as it has a lineage that goes back to the earliest musical instruments, and will likely survive in some form as long as we do. Depressing thoughts, I know, but then I got this fortune cookie: Don’t worry about the world coming to an end, it’s already tomorrow in Australia.

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Unrelated to the famous "one-L" Gabrieli musicians active in Venice, Italian Baroque composer Domenico Gabrielli (1659?–1690) was a church musician and member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna (in his home town), and also was employed by Duke Francesco II d'Este as a court musician in Modena. Gabrielli wrote a variety of sacred and secular vocal works, including a dozen operas, and among his instrumental works his music for solo trumpet is still performed. But he is probably best-remembered for his Ricercari, canone e sonate per violoncello (1689), which includes seven Ricecari that are said to be the earliest published pieces composed specifically for unaccompanied cello. It just happened that wire-wound cello strings had been invented in Bologna during the first decade of Domenico's short life (i.e., during the 1660s), which helped the instrument come into its own. A famous cello virtuoso himself, Gabrielli became known as Mingéin dal viulunzèl (Bolognese dialect for "Little Domenico of the cello").

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French composer Léo Delibes (1836-1891) wrote over two dozen works for the stage (mostly operas and operettas), including the ballets Coppelia and Sylvia. In addition to inspiring his countrymen Saint-Saëns and Debussy, Delibes was greatly admired by Piotr Tchaikovsky, who, upon hearing Sylvia, said he would have been too intimidated to write Swan Lake had he known Delibes' ballet beforehand. Delibes' famous Flower Duet (Sous le dôme épais) is from the opera Lakmé, which premiered in Paris in 1883. The original duet is between two sopranos, Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika, as they pick flowers by the river. The duet became almost universally recognizable in 1989 when British Airways began using it in their commercials.

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Genial Austrian composer (Franz) Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) is the musician most credited with establishing the “Classical” style that his two younger contemporaries Mozart and Beethoven built upon. By the time of his death "Papa" Haydn had become the most widely celebrated composer in Europe.

When Haydn was 8 years old he was accepted as a choirboy at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where in addition to vocal training he received instruction in violin and piano. But puberty spoiled all that, and by about 1749 Haydn found himself re-cast as a struggling free-lance musician. His choirboy years had not provided him with any substantial training in music composition, so he began to teach himself the essentials, pretty much on his own. Through the next decade he began to make a name for himself as a composer, and in 1757 Haydn earned a full-time position as the chief musician for the aristocratic Morzin family. This success was short-lived. By 1761 Count Morzin's finances had tanked and Haydn found himself newly-married and unemployed. But as a manor-door was slamming shut behind him, Haydn climbed through a palace-window of opportunity and immediately entered into the employment of the fabulously wealthy Esterházy family, becoming their Kapellmeister in 1766. Both Prince Paul Anton (1711-62) and his successor, Prince Nikolaus (1714-90), were music connoisseurs, and Haydn thrived under their patronage. In 1779, Nikolaus even agreed that Haydn could publish and sell works apart from those composed for (and belonging to) the family, and Haydn's reputation spread throughout Europe.

Unlike his grandfather and father, Nikolaus's son and heir, Prince Anton (1738-94), was no musician, so after Nikolaus died in 1790 the composer was free to travel, most notably to London, and his international reputation as the greatest living composer was sealed. Haydn composed four divertimenti as a gift for the Baron and Baroness of Aston, whom the composer visited in 1794 during one of his London trips. Originally for two flutes and cello, these light-hearted pieces became known as the London Trios.

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Intermezzo Sunday Concert, 3/11/2012 @ 2:30pm

CLICK HERE for a larger view

Flint River Trio

Russell Brown, clarinet
Boyan Bonev, cello
Mimi Noda, piano

Bohuslav Martinů : Variations on a Theme of Rossini, H. 290, for Cello & Piano
    1. Theme: Poco allegro - Allegro moderato
    2. Variation I: Poco allegro
    3. Variation II: Poco piu allegro
    4 .Variation III: Andante
    5. Variation IV: Allegro
    6. Theme: Vivo. Moderato maestoso
Robert Schumann : Fantasiestücke, Op. 73, for Clarinet & Piano
    SCORE (PDF, from imslp.org)
    1. Zart und mit Ausdruck (Tenderly and with expressiveness)
    2. Lebhaft, leicht (Lively, delicately)
    3. Rasch und mit Feuer (Rapidly and with fiery passion)
Ludwig van Beethoven : Trio in Eb Major, Op. 38
    SCORE (PDF, from imslp.org
    YouTube recordings:
    1. Adagio - Allegro con brio
    2. Adagio cantabile
    3. Tempo di minuetto
    4. Tema con variazioni: Andante
    5. Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace
    6. Andante con moto alla marcia; Presto

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DOWNLOAD CONCERT PROGRAM NOTES (pdf)

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

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Russell Brown is Assistant Professor of Woodwind Studies at Albany State University in Albany, Georgia. He also serves as faculty advisor of the Rho Delta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and is himself a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society. Mr. Brown holds an MM in Music Composition from the University of Florida, an MM in Music Performance from The Ohio State University, and a BM in Music Performance from Valdosta State University. He is a current PhD Candidate (ABD) in Music Composition at the University of Florida. Mr. Brown regularly performs contemporary music in various chamber groups. In Georgia, he also performs with the Albany Symphony Orchestra and the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and in Florida he has performed with The Florida Orchestra (Tampa), the Gainesville Chamber Orchestra, and the Ocala Symphony Orchestra. Russell Brown's compositions have been performed in venues across the country, including performances by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and by the R20 Chamber Orchestra, from Wroclaw, Poland.

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Award-winning Bulgarian cellist Boyan Bonev holds DM and MM degrees from the Florida State University, and a BM degree from the National Music Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Dr. Bonev teaches cello and double bass at Darton College (Albany, Georgia), is the orchestra director at Leon High School in Tallahassee, and is a faculty member of the FSU Summer Music Camps. He performs in Georgia with the Albany Symphony, and in Florida with the Tallahassee, Pensacola, Florida Lakes, Sinfonia Gulf Coast, and Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestras. Dr. Bonev is also an active performer of solo and chamber music, and his repertoire includes wide variety of solo and chamber music works from the Baroque and Romantic eras, contemporary compositions, and virtuoso show pieces. He has been a featured soloist with the Florida Lakes Symphony Orchestra and the Stara Zagora Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), and he has performed in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. A prize winner from the Bulgarian National Competition for Singers and Instrumentalists, and the International Competition "Music and Earth," Dr. Bonev took part in various programs for the Bulgarian National Television and Radio, and he has performed in a number of prestigious music festivals in the United States and Europe.

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Mimi Noda, Assistant Professor of Piano at Albany State University, holds a DM in Piano Performance, Chamber Music, and Accompanying from Florida State University. Her BM is from the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, Japan, and after being graduated she was pianist for the Japanese Choral Association for six years. In 1998, she began her graduate studies at the University of Georgia, and the following year she received the Director’s Music Excellence Award, and was winner of the annual UGA concerto competition. She received her MM in Piano in 2000, and then moved to Lubbock, Texas, as Senior Staff Accompanist for the School of Music at Texas Tech University. In 2002, she began her doctoral studies in Tallahassee, and while there she received the Tallahassee Music Guild Scholarship and the Florida-Japan Institute Scholarship, and she was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the National Music Honor Society. She also taught Japanese in FSU’s Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics from spring 2006 until spring 2009. In addition to her faculty responsibilities at Albany State, Dr. Noda is a keyboardist with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and she regularly volunteers keyboard performances at Albany's Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. She also enjoys singing as a member of the Albany Chorale.

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PROGRAM NOTES, by Ed Lein, Music Librarian

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JAXCAT entries for Bohuslav Martinů

Continuing the line of Czech composers from Dvořák through Smetana and Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) is the best-known Czech composer of the mid-20th Century. Both prolific and versatile, Martinů wrote over 400 works in virtually all genres, including more than a dozen operas, 6 symphonies, and 28 works for solo instruments and orchestra.

His father was a poor shoemaker and church bell-ringer, and, owing to a rather frail constitution, young Bohuslav spent most of his childhood confined to the bell tower where his family lived. But his musical gifts were nonetheless recognized early on, and he began taking violin lessons when he was six or seven years old, and also began to compose around the same time. With the backing of his entire hometown of Polička, on the Bohemian-Moravian border, he moved to Prague in 1906, and entered the Conservatory there. Perhaps because of the introversion his childhood isolation had encouraged, he discovered he was not cut out to be the violin virtuoso his town folk were counting on--he was expelled from the Conservatory in 1910, due to what his teachers deemed "incorrigible negligence." Somewhat ironically, by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Martinů himself had become a teacher, which, together with his health issues, exempted him from military service. But as other young musicians were conscripted, Martinů began playing violin with the Czech Philharmonic, and the orchestra performed some of his compositions. More importantly, he was exposed to a wide variety of musical styles, including especially the music of Debussy, which he said profoundly influenced his development as a composer.

Martinů moved to Paris in 1923 to study with French composer Albert Roussel (1869-1937), and to absorb the influences of Stravinsky, American jazz, and everything else that was churning in the Arts Capital of the World. Throughout his life, Martinů carried a picture postcard of the church he grew up in, and, perhaps inspired by his nostalgic homesickness, rhythmic and melodic elements of Czech folk music became integrated into his increasingly neoclassical style. But in 1941, not long after the 1940 German invasion of France, he and his French wife found themselves living in the United States, unable to speak English and with no job prospects. Fortunately, as with Bartók and a few other ex-patriot composers fleeing from the Nazis, Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitsky (1874-1951) was able to assist Martinů getting commissions and performances, and the virtually unknown Czech exile soon achieved a growing reputation among the Yanks. All six of Martinů's symphonies were written and fairly widely performed in America, and they prompted the internationally-famous Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969) to declare Martinů the greatest living composer of symphonies.

Written in 1942, Martinů's Variations on a Theme of Rossini was among the first compositions he completed in the U.S., and it was composed for the virtuoso cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976), for whom Martinů also wrote several other works. The titular "Theme of Rossini" refers to Dal tuo stellato soglio (From Your Starry Throne), from the opera, Mosè in Egitto (Moses in Egypt, 1819 version). But before Martinů got hold of it, Rossini's tune was first used by Italian violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), in his Sonata "a Preghiera" ("In Prayer" Sonata), aka, Moses Fantasy, a set of variations written originally for the violin's G-string. Perhaps because Moses was still in Egypt and Commandment VII had yet to be handed down, cellists have shown no remorse in absconding with Paganini's violin piece and moving it to their own A-string. Regardless of whether Martinů heard a cello transcription, or perhaps even studied the violin original during his conservatory days, Paganini's Fantasy, with its transformation of Rossini's reverential prayer into a light-hearted romp, is where Martinů's fanciful flight actually originates. Only, "Variations on a Variation from Paganini's Variations on a Theme of Rossini" does seem a little too long for a title.

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JAXCAT entries for Schumann's Fantasiestucke, Op. 73

JAXCAT entries for Schumann Studies

The hopes of the great German Romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) to become a concert pianist were dashed in his early twenties when he permanently damaged his hand, so he redirected his energies to both composing and music criticism. From childhood he was torn between literature and music, and Schumann's abiding respect for the poet's voice helped make him a master songwriter. He also managed to combine these two loves even in some of his purely instrumental music, by using verse and dramatic narrative to color and direct the musical discourse.

That being said, a work which has no apparent connection with any verbiage is Schumann's three-movement Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 73, for clarinet and piano. If Mendelssohn had written these lyric miniatures they might well have been called "Songs without Words," but Schumann himself toyed with the idea of naming them Nachtstücke (Night Pieces). Schumann quickly wrote his would-be nocturnes over the course of two cold days in February, 1849, near the outset of what he would later refer to as "my most fruitful year," and he thought they would be equally effective with violin or cello. The composer instructed that the movements be played without a break, and, as his tempo markings indicate, the first movement is nostalgically dreamy, and the second one sprightly. The third movement becomes a jaunty ride, ever faster and faster in its Coda, so, with apologies to Bette Davis, "fasten your seatbelts ... ."

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JAXCAT entries for Beethoven's Septet, Op. 20

JAXCAT entries for Beethoven Studies

The Transcendent German-born composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) began his compositional career essentially imitating the styles and forms he inherited from Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and W.A Mozart (1756-1791), but during his "middle" period (ca. 1803-1815) Beethoven expanded and personalized this inheritance, creating works that have come to represent the culmination of the Classical style in much the same way that the works of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) represent the culmination of the Baroque. During Beethoven's "late" period (ca. 1815-1827), he discovered new paths toward still more personal, even intimate, musical expression, and, despite the gradual and eventually total degeneration of his hearing, he forged the way beyond the Classical tradition into the Romantic.

To anyone familiar with Beethoven's Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20, his Trio, Op. 38 will be immediately recognizable as an arrangement of the composer's earlier best-seller. Dating from 1799-1800, Beethoven seems to have used Mozart's six-movement String Trio in E-flat Major, K. 563, as the model for the Septet. Beethoven's serenade became so popular with the music-buying public that others had started selling unauthorized arrangements for different instrumental combinations, so Beethoven made an arrangement for reduced forces himself, and issued it in 1805 with a new opus number. The original Septet was for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and string bass, and it was unusual for its time in that the clarinet was treated as an equal to the violin. Beethoven's Trio version allows for either clarinet or violin, with cello and piano.

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9/29/2009 @ 6:15 p.m.: Trio Solis

CANCELED

Due to unannounced renovations to the Library's Hicks Auditorium this program has been canceled. Trio Solis hopes to reschedule.

CLICK for larger view

Founded in 2008, Trio Solis combines three dynamic virtuosi:

    Corinne Stillwell (violin),
    Gregory Sauer (cello), and
    Read Gainsford (piano)

Since their Music @ Main concert in January 2009, subsequent performances by the faculty artists from Florida State University's College of Music included an engagement at New York's Carnegie Hall in May 2009, where they played the Trio by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich with the composer in attendance.

Join us in welcoming these outstanding artists back to the Library's Hicks Auditorium for an evening of chamber music offerings from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries!

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PROGRAM SELECTIONS

BIOGRAPHY RESOURCE CENTER articles for...

Jean Françaix

Anton Arensky

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Jean Françaix

Piano Trio (1986) [Jacksonville Premiere]

          Jean Françaix in the Library's Catalog

Edward Lein

Rumor (Rumba for Violin and Cello, 2009) [World Premiere]
          Edward Lein in the Library's Catalog

Anton Arensky

Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, op. 32 (1894)

          Anton Arensky in the Library's Catalog

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Corinne Stillwell (violin) earned her degrees from The Juilliard School, where she first enrolled at age ten. A versatile musician, she has appeared in recital at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall, on the Dame Myra Hess series in Chicago, and as soloist with numerous orchestras across the United States and on tour in Eastern Europe. Her chamber music activities have included performances at Alice Tully Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, and at the festivals of Aspen, Norfolk, Skaneateles, the Victoria Bach Festival, and the International Festival-Institute at Round Top in Texas. Frequently heard on WXXI-FM public radio, she has collaborated with David Shifrin, Robert Levin, Pepe Romero, members of the Pro Arte and Cavani quartets, and members of the faculty at the Eastman School of Music. She has served as Assistant Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic and prior to that, was a member of the Harrington String Quartet in Amarillo, Texas. In 2007, Ms. Stillwell joined the faculty at Florida State's College of Music, where she is Assistant Professor of Violin.

TRIO SOLIS

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Praised for his versatility, Gregory Sauer (cello) has appeared in numerous solo recitals, including performances at the Old First Concert Series in San Francisco, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and the Brightmusic Concert Series in Oklahoma City, and numerous chamber music performances have included appearances at Tanglewood, Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Promusica, and the Boulder Modern Music Festival, among many others. Greg has performed concertos with the Houston Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Quad City Symphony, and Oklahoma City Philharmonic, to name only a few. A Prizewinner in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Ima Hogg national competitions, he served nine seasons as principal cellist of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Sauer is Assistant Principal Cello of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and, prior to joining the Florida State University music faculty in 2006, he taught at the University of Oklahoma for 11 years, where he was named Presidential Professor in 2005.

TRIO SOLIS

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Read Gainsford (piano) has performed widely in the USA, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and his native New Zealand as solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. He has made successful solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, and has performed in many other prestigious venues, including the Kennedy Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, Fairfield Halls, Birmingham Town Hall and St.-Martin-in-the-Fields. Dr. Gainsford has recorded for the Amoris label, BBC Radio Three, Radio New Zealand's Concert Programme, and has broadcast on national television in New Zealand, the UK, and Yugoslavia. Since moving to the United States in 1992, Read has been a guest artist for the American Music Teachers Association, has appeared at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival and the Music Festival of the Hamptons, and has spent several summers at the Heifetz International Music Institute. He is a member of the contemporary music group Ensemble X, and also the Garth Newel Chamber Players. Formerly on the faculty of Ithaca College where he received the college-wide Excellence in Teaching Award in 2004, Dr. Gainsford became Associate Professor of Piano at FSU in 2005.

TRIO SOLIS

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Program Notes by Ed Lein, Music Librarian

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Jean Françaix (1912-1997)
Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano (1986)
    I. [No designation] -- II. Scherzando -- III. Andante -- IV. Allegrissimo

Although the parents of French composer, orchestrator and concert pianist Jean Françaix were professional musicians -- his father directed the Le Mans music conservatory and his mother was a singer and vocal coach -- the musical talents of such a precocious youngster likely would have been obvious to just about anyone. Young Jean began composing at age six, and by 10 he had become a published composer. At this point his exceptional talent was brought to the attention of Nadia Boulanger, the extraordinarily gifted teacher who mentored some of the greatest musical talents of the 20th Century, ranging from Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter and Ástor Piazzolla to Burt Bacharach and Quicy Jones, and even among such luminaries Boulanger considered Françaix to be one of the most naturally gifted composers she had worked with. Françaix, who remained an unapologetic neoclassicist throughout his long career, never ceased adding to his catalog of over 200 compositions in virtually all forms (including operas and film scores), finishing his last completed work less than four months before his death.

Written when Françaix was in his 70s, his sparkling Piano Trio received its first performance at the 1987 Cheltenham Festival in England, and (as best we can tell) this (its latest performance!) is the Jacksonville premiere. At times reminiscent of Poulenc and Shostakovich, the Trio demonstrates the composer's witty, eclectic style, and shows that he never lost his youthful energy and playfulness.

Françaix's Trio on YouTube (end of mvt. III. -- all of IV.)

TRIO SOLIS

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Edward Lein (b. 1955)
Rumor: Rumba for Violin and Cello

Edward Lein, a native of Fort Pierce, Florida, is the Music Librarian for Jacksonville Public Library, holding Master's degrees in both Music and Library Science from Florida State University, and as a tenor soloist (now retired) he appeared in recitals, oratorios and dramatic works throughout his home state. Drawing on his performance experience the majority of his earliest compositions were vocal works, including Missa pro defunctis (Mass for the Deceased, 1991), first performed by Riverside Presbyterian Chancel Choir with members of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Following premieres by the Jacksonville Symphony of his Meditation, for Cello, Oboe and Orchestra (2006) and In the Bleak Midwinter (2007), his instrumental catalog has grown, largely due to requests from Symphony players for new pieces. He endeavors to imbue his instrumental works with a singing lyricism similar to that of his vocal works.

Rumor is the last movement of a four-movement suite called Un Dulcito ("A Little Sweet"), mimicking the Latin American ballroom dances that inspired them, and the composer is delighted to have such distinguished artists give the premiere performance of his little rumba (rumbita?). The entire suite grew from Tangle, a tango written in March 2009 at the request of Jacksonville Symphony players Piotr Szewczyk and Alexei Romanenko, and both Rumor and Hoodoo (the first movement samba) include variations of the tune from Tangle. Adapted for string orchestra, Un Dulcito is scheduled for its first complete performance this fall by the Vero Beach High School Symphony.

MP3 of Lein's Rumor on the composer's website.

CLICK to download a PDF file of the complete score of Un Dulcito (String Orchesra version)

TRIO SOLIS

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Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, op. 32 (1894)
I. Allegro moderato -- II. Scherzo (Allegro molto) -- III. Elegia (Adagio) -- IV. Finale (Allegro non troppo)

Russian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher Anton Arensky is of the generation between Rimsky-Korsakov (his teacher) and Rachmaninoff and Scriabin (his students). Nurtured by his parents who were both amateur musicians, by the time he was nine Arensky was already composing songs and piano pieces. He began studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1879, and upon being graduated with the Gold Medal in 1882 he immediately joined the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory, a marked distinction for a 21 year old. In Moscow he received friendly encouragement from Piotr Tchaikovsky, whose own international musical style had the greatest impact on Arensky's development as a composer, and, incidentally, whose brother Modest provided the libretto for one of Arensky's three operas. Arensky resigned his professorship in 1895 to return to St. Petersburg as director of the Imperial Chapel until 1901. The last five years of his life were spent composing and touring as a successful concert pianist and conductor, but Arensky had the reputation as an overactive drinker and gambler, and these addictions greatly undermined his health. He died from tuberculosis in a Finnish sanatorium a few months before his 45th birthday.

Not long after Arensky's passing, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in his memoirs that Arensky would be "soon forgotten" because he found the style of his former student to be too derivative of Rimsky himself and of Tchaikovsky (the latter influence is much greater than the former). Nonetheless, Arensky's works are now becoming more familiar as new recordings of his works are made available, and his Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 32, has retained its place in the repertoire and remains his most frequently performed extended composition. According to allmusic.com, this Trio has been released on at least 33 recordings, compared with only four released of Rimsky-Korsakov's Piano Trio. (In fairness, it should be mentioned that Rimsky-Korsakov's Trio was completed after his death by his son-in-law, composer Maximilian Steinberg, but even his most popular chamber work, the 1876 Quintet for piano, flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon, has only 12 recordings listed.)

Arensky's Piano Trio No. 1 was written in memory of cellist Karl Davidov, who had been director of the St. Petersburg conservatory while Arensky was a student there. The cello is featured prominently, no doubt in honor of Davidov, but it has been suggested perhaps also as a tribute to Arensky's father who likewise played the cello. Apparently using Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, op. 49, as a model, Arensky's Trio demonstrates his lyrical gifts as well as his deftness in organizing convincing musical discourse.

Arensky's Piano Trio on YouTube

CLICK to download a PDF file of the complete score and parts

TRIO SOLIS

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