JPL Program Calendar
JU Piano Trio (faculty artists)
Dr. Shannon Lockwood, Cello
Dr. Scott Watkins, Piano
PROGRAM SELECTIONS
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trio No. 2 in G Major, Op. 1, No. 2
LEIN: Sad Minuet in Olden Style
MENDELSSOHN: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49
CLICK HERE to view the PROGRAM GUIDE (PDF)
A member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra since 1990, violinist Marguerite Richardson began her violin studies at the age of four. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Master of Music degree from the University of South Carolina, and the Doctor of Music degree from The Florida State University. Dr. Richardson has performed symphonic and chamber music throughout the United States, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Costa Rica, El Salvador and China. She has appeared as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in performances of Barber’s Violin Concerto, Vivaldi’s Summer Concerto from The Four Seasons, and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins. Dr. Richardson has appeared frequently as recitalist and chamber musician locally, including with the St. Augustine Music Festival, the Chamber Music Society of Good Shepherd, and Friday Musicale. In addition to her extensive performance schedule, Dr. Richardson began and developed the string program at the University of North Florida (1995-2003), has taught with the Prelude Chamber Music Camp, and has appeared as an Associate Conductor with the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra. In 2007, Dr. Richardson joined the faculty of Jacksonville University where she is Associate Professor of Strings and serves as Music Director of the Jacksonville University Orchestra. In the summers of 2012 and 2014, Dr. Richardson was a Visiting Foreign Scholar at Beifang University (Yin Chuan, Ningxia Province, China) and Visiting Professor at Ningxia Teachers University (Guyuan, Ningxia Province, China), where she presented recitals, taught master classes and gave private lessons in both violin and viola.
PROGRAM NOTES by Edward Lein, Music Librarian
Transcendent German-born composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) would come to represent the culmination of the Classical period and forge the way into the Romantic, but he began his career as a composer essentially imitating the styles and forms he inherited from both Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and W.A. Mozart (1756-1791). Beethoven's indebtedness to the older masters is apparent in his Piano Trio No. 2 in G major, Op. 1, No. 2, which he likely completed in 1793, the year after he moved to Vienna and began studies with Haydn. Taking Haydn’s G Major “Gypsy” Trio as a model, Beethoven uses the distantly related key of E major for his slow movement, and like Mozart he treats all the players as equal partners rather than having the piano dominate. But Beethoven’s individuality is already in play, too. With the addition of the Scherzo, Trio No. 2 became the first piano trio with four movements rather than three. And the striking originality of Trio No. 3 was such that Haydn unsuccessfully tried convincing Beethoven to exclude it from his “Opus 1,” fearing the work would be incomprehensible to most. Though not actually Beethoven’s first works to appear in print, they were the first he deemed worthy of an “official” opus number. And despite Haydn’s warning, the 1895 first edition was so successful with the public the publisher even mentioned the trios in advertisements for Beethoven’s later works.
Florida native Edward Lein (b. 1955) holds master's degrees in Music and Library Science from The Florida State University. Early in his career he appeared as tenor soloist in recitals, oratorios and dramatic productions, and drawing on this performance experience the majority of his early compositions are vocal and choral works. Following performances of pieces by the Jacksonville Symphony (Meditation for cello, oboe and orchestra in June 2006; In the Bleak Midwinter in December 2007), his instrumental catalog has grown largely due to requests from Symphony players. His song translations are frequently published in music program guides in North America and Great Britain, ranging from student recitals to concerts by major orchestras, including Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and the Utah Symphony. He also contributes articles to Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra's Encore magazine. Sad Minuet in Olden Style (2014) is adapted from a 2011 orchestral work in memory of Edward Koehler (1948-2011), who volunteered catering services for receptions that followed Library concerts for several seasons. During the 1970s Mr. Koehler was principal flute with the Navy Band in Washington, D.C., and among his favorite performance pieces was Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits, which inspired the Sad Minuet.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a composer, pianist, organist and conductor whose prodigious musical talents rivaled those of Mozart, and who, like Mozart, did not live to see his 40th birthday. But young Felix came from a well-to-do German family, and he, his brother and two sisters were raised in an intellectually stimulating and stable environment, protected from the childhood exploitation Mozart had endured. Mendelssohn benefited from an impressively well-rounded education, and in addition to studying the piano, the violin and composition he developed skills as a visual artist, evidenced in over 300 surviving paintings and drawings of remarkable quality. At sixteen, Mendelssohn produced his first masterwork, the Octet for Strings, Op. 20, and the following year saw the completion of the brilliant A Midsummer Night’s Dream concert overture (Op. 21). Thus, in terms of achieving his musical "maturity" Mendelssohn surpassed even Mozart. Published in 1840, Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 is among his best and most popular chamber works. The demanding piano part shows the “Romantic” influence of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), who in reviewing the trio dubbed Mendelssohn "the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the most illuminating of musicians."
