ERBEN ORGAN DAYS 2020 Music for Organ and Violin Lavinia Pavlish, Violin Jared Lamenzo, Organ Sunday, October 11, 2020 2:30 PM

PROGRAM

Theme and Variations, Op. 150, No. 1 Josef Rheinberger (1839–1901)

Barcarolle, Op. 3, No. 3 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912)

Adagio pour Violon et Orgue André Caplet (1878–1925)

Pastorale, Op. 3, No. 1 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912)

Sphärenmusik, Op. 66, No. 2 Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1879–1925) Special guest! Meg Dudley, Soprano

NOTES Rheinberger is renowned in organ circles for his 20 Sonatas for organ, but he, Liechtenstein’s most famous composer, should also be remembered for his rich and effortless chamber music. Rheinberger’s Opus 150 is a set of six pieces for violin and organ. The Theme and Variations is the first piece in the collection, and it invites us to stop: and listen. The rhetorical quality of the melody speaks beyond words; the fermata on the twelfth measure of the theme, and variations, punctuates his penetrating disputation and elaboration. Though the first few variations adhere to variation form, the fourth and final variation is akin to a miniature violin concerto, with its expanded forms, cadenzas, major section with lovely countermelody, reprise, and coda. Rheinberger writes expressively and intelligently for both instruments. A distinguished teacher at the Munich Conservatory, many Americans were counted among his pupils, including Horatio Parker, George Whitefield Chadwick, and John White, who presided over our Erben organ in the late 1870s. Other students included important figures from Europe: Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari; German composers Engelbert Humperdinck, Richard Strauss, and the great Wilhelm Furtwängler; and even the great physicist, Max Planck. "Music is above words; it begins where words no longer suffice, therefore it would be futile to attempt to bring music closer to listeners by means of explanation” - Josef Rheinberger, 1890 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a successful and popular English composer and conductor of mixed race. The two attractive pieces we hear today come from his 1893 Suite de Pièces for violin and organ. A violinist, he later turned his attention to composition, studying with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music. Among his many fans, Edward Elgar recommended him and called him “a genius.” Stanford conducted the premiere of Taylor’s immensely popular Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, based on the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Taylor participated as the youngest delegate at the 1900 First Pan-African Conference held in London, meeting poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and scholar/activist W.E.B. Du Bois. In 1904, on his first tour to the United States, Coleridge-Taylor was received by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. He made three tours of the United States, and had great support among African Americans. Coleridge-Taylor sought to draw from traditional African music, as he considered Johannes Brahms to have done with Hungarian music, Grieg with Norwegian music, and Antonín Dvořák with Bohemian music. Both of his children were musicians as well: his daughter, Avril, became a noted composer and conductor, and her older brother, Hiawatha, adapted his father’s works. The French composer and conductor André Caplet won the Prix de Rome in 1901, despite Maurice Ravel’s entry. A close friend of Claude Debussy, Caplet is known for orchestrations of Debussy’s music. However, his own orchestral works, chamber music, and choral music deserve to be heard more often. In addition to large works like Le Miroir de Jesus (1923), he wrote many mélodies for voice and piano or organ, and this Adagio is closely related, notable for its impressionistic harmonies and evocative melody. Caplet served as conductor of French repertoire at the Boston Opera from 1910 to 1914, until he was conscripted into World War I. While serving, he was gassed, which contributed to his early death from pneumonia. The final composer today is the German Sigfrid Karg-Elert. A multifaceted musician, he played organ, harmonium, as well as several woodwind instruments. Influenced by Bach, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Grieg, who encouraged his work as a composer, he never achieved fame in his native Germany. After having served as a regimental musician during World War I, Karg- Elert was appointed instructor of music theory and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1919. His works were popular outside of Germany, but his 1932 tour of America as a concert organist was a failure, with American audiences used to the often flashy improvisations and virtuosic playing of French organists. Karg-Elert wrote a large number of pieces for the harmonium, or pump-organ, a small and very expressive instrument common in 19th-century homes as well as churches. We will learn more about the harmonium in an upcoming recital. This piece, “Music of the Spheres,” is based on the Christmas chorale Von Himmel Hoch (From Heaven Above); the chorale melody can be heard in various inversions, and the text, written by Frieda Schanz, paraphrases the hymn, addressed to children: “Dear little pilgrims draw near with your pure devoted hearts: God has opened up heaven to you.” Friends of the Erben Organ (FREO) is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization formed in 2017 with the mission of restoring, preserving, and presenting the historic 1868 Henry Erben organ located in the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, corner Mott and Prince Streets, Little Italy, NYC. Martin Scorsese is Honorary Chair of Friends of the Erben Organ. Erben Organ Days 2020 is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NY State Legislature and administered by LMCC. http://erbenorgan.org http://facebook.com/erbenorgan @erbenorgan