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Franz Schubert Jocelyn Morlock Robert Schumann CONCERT #10 - Released AUGUST 7, 2021 FRANZ SCHUBERT Fantasy for Piano in C Major, Op. 15, D. 760 “Wanderer” Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo Adagio Presto Allegro Orion Weiss piano JOCELYN MORLOCK Unfurl WORLD PREMIERE, COMMISSIONED BY SCMS COMMISSIONING CLUB Sooyun Kim flute / Ben Hausmann oboe / Benjamin Lulich clarinet Seth Krimsky bassoon / Jeffrey Fair horn ROBERT SCHUMANN Quintet for Piano and Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 44 Allegro brillante In modo d’una Marcia: un poco largamente Scherzo: Molto vivace Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo James Ehnes violin / Stephen Rose violin / Beth Guterman Chu viola Ronald Thomas cello / Andrew Armstrong piano COncert SPONSORED BY SCMS COMMISSIONING Club FRANZ SCHUBERT hammered fugal treatment of the opening section’s (1797-1828) forceful rhythm. Increasingly demanding, its cascades Fantasy for Piano in C Major, Op. 15, D. 760 of arpeggios and scalar runs challenge modern “Wanderer” (1822) would-be virtuosos as much as they did Schubert. Most recent SCMS performance: Summer 2011 Schubert loathed empty virtuosity, and although a JOCELYN MORLOCK musical player himself with a superb understanding (b.1968) of the piano, he was not seduced by the dazzling if Unfurl (2021) empty virtuosity of some of the keyboard lions of the World premiere day. The closest he came to compose a showpiece is his “Wanderer” Fantasy, dating from the same year Canadian composer and music educator Jocelyn as the “Unfinished” Symphony. Schubert was not Morlock completed a Bachelor of Music in piano a virtuoso and, in fact, could not play the finale of performance at Brandon University before earning the Wanderer Fantasy up to tempo. (He also could both a Master’s Degree and Doctorate of Musical Arts not play the left-hand part of the accompaniment from the University of British Columbia. She served to his first published song, “Die Erlkönig,” without as Composer-in-Residence with the Vancouver simplifying it somewhat.) Symphony (2014-2019) after occupying the same position for Vancouver’s “Music on Main” (2012- The “Wanderer” Fantasy comprises four distinct 2014). In 2018, she won the JUNO Award for Classical sections, each with its own tempo indication. The Composition of the Year for My Name is Amanda initial section, Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo Todd, a deeply moving lament over the death of opens with a motive formed by a single repeated the so-named teenaged victim of cyberbullying, a pitch; this motto is instantly identifiable as a sadly recurrent tragedy befalling so many young funeral rhythm and recurs throughout the entire people. Morlock’s compositions reflect a sensitivity to Fantasy. The very opening presentation of the theme emotion-driven events and circumstances. She has galvanizes the entire piece with its emphatic rhythm, won numerous awards for music that blends post- coruscating arpeggios, and wild scalar passagework. modern tonality and still-potent modal harmony. A complementary lyrical theme calms the passions (and reappears in the third section) before the music This concert features the World Premiere of Morlock’s ascends to a stormy chord-based climax that ebbs to Unfurl, commissioned by the SCMS Commissioning a quiet transition to the ensuing Adagio. Club. The composer has provided the following program note that she entered in the score of the In this section Schubert quotes the song’s melody new work: verbatim and puts it through a sequence of four variations. Its initial somber demeanor and dark “The title of my quintet, Unfurl, came from a poem beauty convey the impression of nocturnal sorrow called “For A New Beginning”, written by John O’ stressed by its minor-key tonality. All is not darkness, Donohue. I read it after hearing that it was sent to however, as Schubert shifts from C-sharp minor to President Joe Biden by the Irish President Michael D-flat major to vary the emotional states, drawing D. Higgins, on the occasion of his inauguration. I on his experience in underlining text-appropriate hope that its mood of optimism and growth will accompaniments to his hundreds of strophic songs. characterize 2021, after the long difficulty of 2020. Unfurl is a similarly hopeful piece, somewhat bucolic, The Presto third section functions as a scherzo that written during late winter and early spring of 2021 as integrates gently ironic iteration of the opening I witnessed rebirth and resurgence beginning in the section’s heroics with a waltz-inspired second theme. natural world, and our own human one.” The concluding Allegro begins boldly with a strongly SUMMER festIVAL // ROBERT SCHUMANN figure herein does not suggest wholesale good cheer. (1810-1856) A tempestuous Agitato episode in F minor led by the Quintet for Piano and Strings in keyboard follows with numerous “asides” from the E-flat Major, Op. 44 (1842) strings. The movement ends with a return to the quiet Most recent SCMS performance: Summer 2018 ambience of the opening, in a mood of unforced calm. Much of Robert Schumann’s solo piano music dates The Scherzo: Molto vivace has been characterized as from the 1830s. After injuring his right hand in a a tongue-in-cheek nod to Czerny, whose interminable disastrous attempt to strengthen his fourth finger via exercises are the bane of every aspiring piano an ill-conceived device, he turned to chamber music student. Yet here, these boundless and bounding in the early 1840s. He produced his three String scales provide the actual subject matter of this Quartets, Op. 41, the Op. 47 Piano Quartet, and his energetic foray. There are two Trios, the first lyrical best-known chamber work, the Quintet for Piano and legato with the first violin and viola in canon, and and Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 44. The Quintet’s the second a swirling and high-powered perpetual buoyancy and youthful vigor no doubt reflected the motion maelstrom of Hungarian/Romani zeal. After joy deriving from his recent marriage to Clara Wieck. a return to the “A” section of the Scherzo Schumann An immediate and enduring “hit,” the Quintet has appends a coda that summarizes the movement. remained a much-loved staple in the chamber music repertoire and established Schumann’s reputation as With equal doses of whimsy and sheer élan, the a major composer. closing Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo darts through an assortment of “wrong” keys, starting in G minor, All five instruments unite in the bold and assertive detouring into B minor after the initial episode, then main theme of the opening Allegro brillante. In a into G-sharp minor at one point in the development. trice, Schumann sublimely transforms the theme into This finale matches the bracing vigor of the Allegro a rhapsodic, cantabile melody—the yin to the yang brillante, beginning with a muscular primary theme of the motive’s initial appearance. The energetic flung out by the piano and seconded by the strings development section pits long strands of virtuosic in their obsessive repeated-note accompaniment. piano runs against sustained chords from the strings. Before he allows his players (and the audience) to run The recapitulation reprises the opening material in a out of breath, Schumann serves up a quiet singing somewhat modified manner, bringing the movement theme as a perfect foil to the boundless energy to a close without a coda. of the opening moments. The short development focuses on the second theme, and ultimately builds Some commentators opine that the slow movement, up to a celebratory return of the first tune. The coda In modo d’una Marcia: un poco largamente, is a boasts a rigorous and exciting three-voiced double funeral march, an interpretation deriving from fugue utilizing the movement’s main theme as well its prevailing rhythmic figure; yet many a listener as that from the opening Allegro brillante. responds to this music as tender and achingly expressive. The dark minor-key opening is assuaged by a lyrical episode in C Major, though the sighing Program Notes by Steven Lowe AUGust 7, 2021 // Program notes.
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