th 44 Season

Beethoven’s Pastoral & Montgomery from MAG

Vanden Brul Pavillion, Memorial Art Gallery 500 East Avenue, Rochester NY

Beethoven Symphony No. 6, ‘Pastoral’, arranged for String Sextet by M. G. Fischer (1810) Beethoven reveled in walking in the environs of Vienna and spent nearly every summer in the country. Beethoven's letters are filled with declarations of the importance of nature in his life, such as one from 1810: "How delighted I will be to ramble for awhile through the bushes, woods, under trees, through grass, and around rocks. No one can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo that man desires to hear." Beethoven’s "Pastoral" Symphony belongs to a tradition, going back to the previous century, of "characteristic" symphonies. Scattered comments that Beethoven made in his sketches for the Symphony are revealing: "The hearers should be allowed to discover the situations.” “Anyone who has an idea of country life can make out for himself the intentions of the composer without many titles.” “Also, without titles the whole will be recognized as a matter more of feeling than of painting in sounds." Beethoven wrote his Sixth Symphony during the spring and fall of 1808, although some sketches date back years earlier. Its composition overlapped in part with that of the Fifth Symphony, which might be considered its non-identical twin. Not only did both have the same period of genesis and the same dedicatees (Count Razumovsky and Prince Lobkowitz), but they were also published within weeks of one another and premiered together (in reverse order and with their numbers switched). The title given by Beethoven to his Sixth Symphony is Pastoral Symphony or Recollections of Country Life. He gave each of the five movements a descriptive headnote. The first movement, Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arriving in the country, engages with a long musical tradition of pastoral music. The leisurely and often repetitive pace of the movement is far from the intensity of the Fifth Symphony. The second movement, Scene by the brook, includes the famous birdcalls: flute for the nightingale, oboe for the quail, and two clarinets for the cuckoo. The third is entitled Merry gathering of peasants and suggests a town band of limited ability playing dance music. The dance is interrupted by a Tempest, storm that approaches from afar as ominous rumblings give way to the full fury of thunder and lightning. Just as the storm had approached gradually, so it passes, leaving some scattered moments of disruption before the Shepherds’ hymn—Happy and thankful feelings after the storm brings the work to its close. The première of the “Pastoral” Symphony was in Beethoven's famous marathon concert of December 22, 1808, at the Theater an der Wien (Vienna). The program included the first public performances of the Sixth Symphony, the Fifth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto, two movements from the Mass in C, the concert aria Ah! perfido, and the "Choral" Fantasy. Reports indicate that all did not go well, as musicians playing after limited rehearsal struggled their way through hours of demanding new music. Although Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”, was not well received upon its premiere in 1808, it was highly praised in an article published two years later in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. The author of the article was Michael Gottard Fischer, who would publish his arrangement of the symphony for string sextet that same year. Michael Gottard Fischer was an organist and composer, born near Erfurt in 1773, he studied organ and counterpoint with one of J. S. Bach’s grandchildren, Johann Christian Kittel, and was appointed organist at the Barfüßerkirche and director of the city concerts in Erfurt. In 1809 he succeeded Kittel as organist at the Erfurt Predigerkirche and from 1816 also taught at the Erfurt teacher’s seminary. He lived until 1829. Although well regarded in his time, Fischer and his music are virtually forgotten now. His vocal and organ music were well known and he did not ignore chamber music, writing two string quartets, a string quintet a piano quartet and this string sextet. While Fischer was almost an exact contemporary of Beethoven, there is no evidence to suggest they knew each other nor is their any indication that Beethoven either asked or authorized Fischer to make his string sextet arrangement of the symphony. On the other hand, Beethoven would certainly have known of the arrangement and could well have expressed his dissatisfaction since Fischer’s arrangement was brought out at virtually the same time that Breitkopf and Härtel, the publisher to whom Beethoven sold the Symphony, brought out the original orchestral parts and score in 1810. In all likelihood, Beethoven was pleased with Fischer’s arrangement as this gave his symphony a much wider audience than it otherwise would have enjoyed. Beethoven’s symphonic legacy wasn’t always heard in the format in which it is known today. At the time the symphonies were premiered, the technical development of musical instruments was still limited, orchestral sizes were small, concert venues were semi-public or semi-private, and European governments were highly suspicious of large gatherings after the French Revolution, discouraging them for fear of potential revolutionary plotting. At this same time a huge new market for chamber music came into existence, as home music making became one of the most poplar pastimes for the emerging bourgeois classes of Western . Both composers and publishers, with an eye towards profits, made a regular practice of arranging large-scale works by well-known composers as chamber music works. Arrangements should be understood as translations, a re-writing of the original work that can reveal hidden dimensions of the original and adapts it to a specific audience and cultural environment. Therefore, it is not a smaller version of a larger work, or a “mere” transcription of the original composition, but a re-creation that provides a new interpretation of a well-known work, expanding its horizons and enriching its significance. The string sextet, an unusual ensemble still uncommon during the early 1800s, behaves as an enriched quartet in this arrangement: Fischer assigns the parts performed by the strings in the original score to the first , first viola and second cello and the woodwind parts to the other three instruments. Using these six string instruments, Fischer captures the essence of one of Beethoven’s most lyrical and contemplative compositions. We can just see Beethoven strolling through the countryside, the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders, breathing in the cool fresh air, taking in the invigorating sights and sounds. There are even skips in his rhythmic gait.

Jessie Montgomery, “Strum” (2006; revised 2012) Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely as one of the most relevant interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. Jessie was born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. Her parents – her father a musician, her mother a theater artist and storyteller – were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought Jessie to rallies, performances, and parties where neighbors, activists, and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. It is from this unique experience that Jessie has created a life that merges composing, performance, education, and advocacy. Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in- residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. A two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition, she was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her debut album, Strum: Music for Strings. She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sorel Organization. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Rhapsody No. 2 and Peace (2020), Five Slave Songs (2018) commissioned for soprano Julia Bullock by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Records from a Vanishing City (2016) for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival, and Banner (2014) – written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner – for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation. Other forthcoming works include a nonet inspired by the Great Migration, told from the perspective of Montgomery’s great-grandfather William McCauley, to be performed by Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony. Jessie is also teaming up with composer- violinist Jannina Norpoth on a commission to reimagine Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, being produced by VolcanoTheater. Jessie began her violin studies, at the Third Street Music School Settlement, one of the oldest community organizations in the country. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and currently a member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as with the Silkroad Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi. Jessie’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School and a Master’s degree in composition and film scoring from New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. Montgomery calls music her “connection to the world,’’ and it challenges her to make clear the things she doesn’t understand. “Creating a piece like Strum is anything but an academic exercise; it often comes from the gut”. “It’s an emotional process in that I have to be willing and able to work creatively and openly, which is very much tied to mood and general pacing of my day. But if I’m working to convey any particular emotion in the piece, I’m not necessarily feeling that emotion when I’m writing. I think the ebb and flow and emotional expression in the music happen somehow on another plane, through the performer’s interpretation.” Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet commissioned by the Community MusicWorks Players for the Providence String Quartet in 2006. It was arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions and then underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in 2012 for a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition. The voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. Up-bow and down-bow markings over pizzicato passages indicate an upward and downward (back and forth) pizzicato stroke, as one would strum a guitar. This strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration. Strum, as you might expect, is a pizzicato tour-de-force. Montgomery exploits the plucked strings in driving bass lines and meaty chords of the sort normally heard on guitars. The seven-minute work, in one movement, opens with an ancient-sounding incantation that brings Arvo Pärt to mind. Then the jazz bass and popping syncopations kick in, and the traveling music takes off. The miniature zips by quickly with such exhilarating energy that it’s easy to miss the sights along the way: the reference to Steve Reich’s Different Trains; the flamenco-like hemiolas; the beautiful modal melodies that spool out over potent rhythms; the momentary pause for meditative stasis just when you need it. Although purely abstract, it’s part of her effort to contribute to an American sound, at the same time making an impact through the intersection of social justice and the arts. Her commitment to addressing inequity is one reason the New York Philharmonic this year has honored her as a featured composer for its Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and a woman’s right to vote.

Program notes compiled by Eric Zeise from text by Jesse Montgomery, Kurt Loft, Robert Mielke, and from the Fundación Juan March.

Biographical Notes: Juliana Athayde, appointed concertmaster of the RPO in 2005, has made numerous solo appearances with the RPO and with orchestras across the country. She has also appeared as guest concertmaster with several orchestras. A passionate educator, Ms. Athayde is Associate Professor of Violin at the Eastman School, a Visiting Teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and previously served as a Visiting Professor at Cornell University. Appointed Assistant Principal viola of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015, Marc Anderson has been with the RPO since 2005 and has served as principal violist of the Rochester Chamber Orchestra. He holds performance degrees from the where he studied with George Taylor (bachelors) and John Graham (Masters). As a teacher, he has been on the string faculty of Roberts Wesleyan College, The Eastman Community Music School and the Eastman School of Music, Cellist Christopher Haritatos joined the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009, co- directs the period-instrument ensemble Publick Musick, and performs with Pegasus Early Music and NYS Baroque. Also sought after as a teacher, he currently teaches at the Eastman Community Music School, has been on the faculty of Texas State University-San Marcos, and has given numerous workshops and master. He holds degrees from the University of , the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. His major teachers have included Alan Harris, Marc Johnson, Catharina Meints, Pieter Wispelwey, Steven Doane, and Jaap ter Linden, with whom he studied as a Fulbright Scholar at the Akademie für Alte Musik Bremen.

Benjamin Krug joined the cello section of the RPO in 2008. He graduated from St. Olaf College with a Bachelor of Music Performance degree and continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Stephan Geber, earning his Masters in Cello Performance in 2006 and a Professional Studies Diploma in 2008. A prior member of the Akron and Canton Symphony Orchestras, he has participated in summer music programs including the Blossom, Aspen and Tanglewood Music Festivals. Aaron Mossburg, principal viola with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, recently completed a one-year contract with the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and received a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Robert Vernon (Cleveland Orchestra Principal Emeritus). Thomas Rogers joined the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra as a member of the first violin section in 2012. During the 2014-2015 season, he served as principal 2nd violin. He holds a Master of Music degree in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with William Preucil and completed his undergraduate studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He is a founding member of the Salaff Quartet, founded in 2014, has served on the faculty of the Kanack School of Musical Artistry in Rochester since 2012, and taught violin orchestral repertoire at the Eastman School of Music during the 2019-2020 academic year.

This concert was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York Legislature.

Thank-you to our Contributors, Sponsors, Patrons and Benefactors. Rollie Abkowitz Werner and Susan Kunz Hank and Joanne Altland William Kutcha Bob and Jody Asbury Marshall and Lenore Lesser Ashley Family Foundation Drs. Dawn and Jacques Lipson Fund Barbara Billingsley Anne Lutkus Jim and Maria Boucher George Mandeville Kristine Bouyoucos Dorothy E. Maples Linda Bretz Francie Marx Judith and David Bulin Edwin Maier & Barbara Ann Mattle Gary and Chris Burton Chita McKinney Andrew London and Alan Curle Bob and Margaret Mecredy Alison and John Currie Ruth Messinger Lee Danielson Cyril and Shula Meyerowitz Tex and Nicki Doolittle Suzanne Meyerowitz Dr. Eric M. Dreyfuss Ilene Montana Margaret and Peter Dundas Laura Morrissey and David Pixley Martin Eichman Suzanne J. O’Brien Andrew and Juli Eliot Jan Opalach Sue and Ray Feasey Martin O’Toole Joan Feinbloom Duffy Palmer and Mark Siwiec Catherine Frangenberg Jonathan and Maria Bornhurst Parkes Ruth Freeman David Rakov Kevin Frick and Shiley Blandino Larry and Elizabeth Rice Carolyn and Roger Friedlander Deborah Ronnen David and Linda Friedman Dennis Rosenbaum and Robert Caruso Suressa and Richard Forbes Hannah and Arnie Rosenblatt Robert Gabbey Leslie and Mark Scatterday Kent Gardner Carol H. Schlank Linda G. Gillim Jon Schumacher Warren and June Glaser Joan Schumaker Mary Gordon Wolf and Elizabeth Seka Marjorie Grinols Muriel Shaw Todd and Claire Gunther Marit Sheffield Peggy and David Hall Daniel Singal Lawrence Helfer Jane Shuffelton Kirk Heriot Ingrid Stanlis Charlotte and Raul Herrera David Stern Joanna Hodgman David and Maya Temperley Larry and Dorothy Humm Sally Turner Don and Polly Hunsberger James Varner Earl G. Ingersoll Ralph and Janice Volpe Nancy Ives Peter Oddliefson and Kay Wallace Daryl Kaplan James and Barbara Walker Robert and Barbara Kay Larry and Diane Wardlow Robert J. Kennedy Thomas Weiler Robert and Myrta Knox Robin Weintraub Diane Knox Ann Weintraub James and Marianne Koller James Willey Martin and Phyllis Korn Kitty J. Wise Ernest and Sarah Krug Ellen Henry and Eric Zeise New York State Council on the Arts

Board of Directors Rollie Abkowitz* Martin W. O’Toole Hank Altland Duffy Palmer Juliana Athayde Betsy Rice Erik Behr Dennis Rosenbaum Meg Burton-Tudman Mark D. Scatterday Juli Elliot Ingrid Stanlis Linda Gillim David Temperley Todd Gunther Octavio Vazquez Chris Herz Janice Volpe* Donald Hunsberger James Willey* Robert Knox* Eric K. Zeise Frances Marx *Advisory

Officers of the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester Linda Gillim, President Betsy Rice and Ingrid Stanlis, Vice Presidents Frances Marx, Secretary and Chair Emerita Dennis Rosenbaum, Treasurer Donald Hunsberger, Chair Co-Artistic Directors Juliana Athayde and Erik Behr Director of Public Relations and Operations Meg Burton-Tudman Chairman Emeritus and Co-Founder John Bouyoucos Artistic Directors Emeriti Richard Luby, Co-Founder Michael Webster Andrjez Grabiec Deborah Dunham Ilya Kaler Joseph Werner, Stefan Reuss Music Advisor Emeritus James Dunham The Society for Chamber Music in Rochester presents chamber music concerts featuring musicians of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Eastman School of Music as well as selected local and visiting artists. We perform great works of chamber music of all periods and styles. Our outreach mission teaches and reaches students of all ages and inspires chamber music’s ongoing creation through composition competitions and commissions. - Mission Statement -