PROGRAM: CHAMBER MUSIC WITH MEMBERS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MONDAY, FEBRUARY $(, )($- ! $):(( PM ! BING CONCERT HALL PROGRAM Nathaniel Stookey: Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano I. Lisa Tien-Un (Heavenly Grace), violin II. Melinda Tien-Wei (Heavenly Wisdom), piano III. Angela Tien-Yuen (Heavenly Melody), cello Yun Chu, violin Margaret Tait, cello Marc Shapiro, piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K.581 Allegro Larghetto Menuetto Allegretto con variazioni Jerome Simas, clarinet Diane Nicholeris, violin John Chisholm, violin Christina King, viola CHAMBER Barbara Andres, cello MUSIC WITH MEMBERS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ARTISTS Yun Chu, violin Margaret Tait, cello Marc Shapiro, piano Jerome Simas, clarinet Diane Nicholeris, violin John Chisholm, violin Christina King, viola Barbara Andres, cello This program is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn o* all phones, pagers, and watch alarms, and unwrap all lozenges prior to the performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you. '( STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE JANUARY-FEBRUARY ")!* NATHANIEL STOOKEY #B. $(/)* collaboration with San Francisco author WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART TRIO FOR VIOLIN, CELLO, AND PIANO Lemony Snicket. Other collaborative #$/,0'$/($* pieces by Stookey include Into the Bright QUINTET IN A MAJOR FOR CLARINET Nathaniel Stookey was a member of the Lights (with mezzo-soprano Frederica von AND STRINGS, K.,*$ San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Stade, setting poems she had written) and from 1986 to 1988, playing both violin Zipperz: A SoaPOPera, created for the Perhaps no piece of chamber music sets and viola. In 1987, at 17, he became Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra so autumnal a mood as the Clarinet the youngest composer ever to receive jointly with poet Dan Harder, playwright Quintet by Wolfgang Amadeus (Amadè) a commission from the SFS New and Eisa Davis, and actor Manoel Felciano. Mozart—at least none before those Unusual Music Series, and the work that Stookey also composed the musical score by Brahms. Nostalgic longing came resulted, Fête-Dieu, was introduced in for John Doyle’s production of Brecht’s naturally to Mozart’s musical expression, November 1988, while he was a student at The Caucasian Chalk Circle, which ran but he rarely vented it so freely, and at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Stookey at American Conservatory Theater in such uninterrupted length, as he did in was raised both in San Francisco and in a 2010. Stookey’s latest orchestral work, this quintet, a major-key work with a small farming village in the French Basque Mahlerwerk, commissioned by the NDR minor-key aftertaste. In fact, Mozart country. At five he began his violin studies Symphony Orchestra for the final concert wrote the piece in autumn, at the end with Anna Teksler; later, he worked with of its centennial Mahler cycle, was of September 1789. The times were Malgorzata Rouger at the École Normale premiered under Christoph Eschenbach; tumultuous. England was reeling from the de Musique in Paris and with former SFS the work was also performed by the San war in America; France was in turmoil, violinist Daniel Kobialka. Theory studies Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra last the Bastille having fallen little more with Peter Lewis fostered his interest in season. Nathaniel Stookey’s most recent than two months earlier; and the rest of composition and led eventually to his first work is the String Quartet No. 3, The Europe was more on edge than usual. work, The Head of the Creek, presented in Mezzanine, commissioned and premiered August 1987 at the Hidden Valley Institute by the Kronos Quartet in 2013. Mozart’s life was also in distress. The of the Arts in Carmel Valley. novelty of his childhood successes were Comments by the composer on the Trio distant memories, and the Viennese Shortly after he graduated from the for Violin, Cello, and Piano: public was applauding his piano playing University of California at Berkeley, less enthusiastically than just a few years Stookey headed off to England as the The Piano Trio No. 1 was commissioned earlier. In July, his wife, Constanza, fell first recipient of the Hallé Orchestra by the Lee Trio, in conjunction with San dangerously ill. Her leg became ulcerated, Composition Fellowship. He spent three Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. It requiring extensive—and expensive— years as the composer-in-residence of that is dedicated to the Lee sisters (Angela, medical attention away from home. While Manchester-based orchestra, which at the Lisa, and Melinda) in commemoration she was away, Mozart doubtless spent a time was headed by Principal Conductor of the 100th birthday of their maternal good deal of time with friends. One of his Kent Nagano. After returning to the grandmother, Shih Kwok-Shing. Each of closest was the Austrian clarinetist Anton United States, he served another three- the three movements is named for one Stadler (1753–1812), who had begun year stint as composer-in-residence at the of the sisters, using the Chinese names freelancing with the Viennese Imperial North Carolina Symphony, during which given to them by their grandmother. Each Wind Band in 1782 and joined the Vienna time he also completed his doctorate at prominently features the instrument of Court Orchestra in 1787, accompanying Duke University. the dedicatee and, I hope, in some way the Mozarts on their trip to Prague that reflects the spirit of her name: year. Stadler would also be part of the Since then, his music has been Mozarts’ Prague entourage in 1791, commissioned and performed by a heady I. Lisa Tien-Un (Heavenly Grace), violin playing in the orchestra at the premiere roster of the nation’s leading orchestras, of La clemenza di Tito, in which the II. Melinda Tien-Wei (Heavenly Wisdom), including the Philadelphia Orchestra, composer spotlighted him through several piano Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, clarinet obbligatos. Though Stadler’s Los Angeles Philharmonic, and National III. Angela Tien-Yuen (Heavenly Melody), character has been questioned—some Symphony. In 2006 the San Francisco cello have suggested that he took advantage Symphony commissioned and premiered of the Mozarts’ hospitality and even that his work The Composer Is Dead, a —Nathaniel Stookey he stole the composer’s pawn tickets— encoreartsprograms.com '! PROGRAM: CHAMBER MUSIC WITH MEMBERS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY Mozart admired him and bestowed on the clarinet joins the ensemble to restate him two of his greatest instrumental the opening minuet (without repeats), and masterpieces: his Clarinet Quintet (K.581) in the second trio its upturned phrases and his Clarinet Concerto (K.622). seem to laugh only with a pathetic, forced smile. The musical aesthetics It seems that Mozart wrote both the of Mozart’s time exerted pressure for quintet and the concerto for a basset a happy ending, and Mozart complies clarinet—essentially, a standard with a finale in which six variations instrument with an extended bass are derived from a four-square, folk- register. It is on such an instrument that inflected theme. The movement explores Stadler probably played when the work the clarinet’s technical capacities and the was unveiled in a Christmas concert sonic possibilities of combining it with of Vienna’s Tonkünstler-Societät. the string quartet. All the same, happiness seems to be something of an interloper, In the Clarinet Quintet we hear Mozart and Mozart allows the viola to inject at his most personal, allowing music to Briominous 121112 appoggiaturas glimmer 1_3v.pdf in the minor-key GLIMMER!" flow from his soul without answering third variation and the clarinet and violin GLAMOUR!" to the terms of a commission or the to exchange final nostalgic memories exigencies of a public. Mozart indulges in the fifth, before closing with polite GLEAM himself with spacious pacing and a assurance that the clouds are sure to pass. luscious timbre. The themes of the A sumptuous array of spacious first movement tend toward the —© 2014, James M. Keller. Note used wistful—or even the mournful—and the with permission. sparkling textiles— slow harmonic rhythm holds the vigor metallic brocades, of the tempo marking (Allegro) in check. beaded French laces, The clarinet’s warm sonority goes hand ABOUT THE ARTISTS satins, velvets and in hand with the autumnal spirit, more Yu n C h u joined the first violin section so since Mozart spends a great deal of of the San Francisco Symphony in 2002. embellishments. time emphasizing the instrument’s rich He received his early training at the lower range. Having set the mood with Shanghai Conservatory of Music and an Allegro that is hardly fast, Mozart served as concertmaster on two concert turns to the profound soulfulness of tours with the Asian Youth Orchestra the Larghetto, in which the clarinet under Sergiu Comissiona, performing offers a hushed song supported, with as soloist with Yo-Yo Ma. In 1999, great harmonic subtlety, by the muted while a student at the University of quartet of strings. Other Mozart slow Southern California (where he received movements are introspective, but few the Jascha Heifetz scholarship), he was make their appearance after an opening selected to participate in the Schleswig- movement as relaxed as that of the Holstein Festival in Germany, where Clarinet Quintet. Together, the two he played under such conductors movements achieve an expanse of the as Christoph Eschenbach, Vladimir rarest poignancy from the composer, Spivakov, and Mstislav Rostropovich who would live only another two years. and was subsequently appointed concertmaster of the festival orchestra. Concerto-like dimensions rule over the !"#$GEARY$STREET$·$SAN$FRANCISCO third movement, too, a menuetto with Cellist Margaret Tait joined the San JUST$OFF$UNION$SQUARE two trios. Despite making efforts to Francisco Symphony in 1974 and "!%&'()&)(!*$·$MON$+$SAT$!*$+$#$ be good humored, the Menuetto itself currently occupies the Lyman and WWW&BRITEXFABRICS&COM remains bittersweet.