CONCERT #9 - Released AUGUST 5, 2021

ROBERT SCHUMANN Trio for Violin, , and in G minor, Op. 110 Bewegt, doch nicht zu rasch Ziemlich langsam Rasch Kräftig, mit Humor James Ehnes violin / Mark Kosower cello / Andrew Armstrong piano

AMY M.C. Beach Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 Jun Iwasaki violin / Andrew Armstrong piano

LILI BOULANGER D’un matin de printemps Jun Iwasaki violin / Andrew Armstrong piano

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Nightclub 1960, from Histoire du Tango Jun Iwasaki violin / Andrew Armstrong piano

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG, ARR. ANTON WEBERN Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 9 Sooyun Kim flute / Sean Osborn clarinet / James Ehnes violin Ronald Thomas cello / Orion Weiss piano ROBERT SCHUMANN A stormy and propulsive Scherzo, marked Rasch (1810-1856) (“fast”), reestablishes the winds of conflict, only to Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano be replaced by a quieter episode of countervailing in G minor, Op. 110 (1851) tenderness. Later still, a lighthearted, even jocular, Most recent SCMS performance: Winter 2010 episode bounces into focus to provide yet another glimpse into Schumann’s labile mental faculties. As the 1850s got under way Robert Schumann’s periodic psychotic episodes were on the increase. The dance-like Finale Rondo fully lives up to its In 1854, his mind had deteriorated so badly that he tempo/character marking, Kräftig, mit Humor attempted suicide, followed by elective residence (“energetic, with humor”). It feels as if Schumann in an insane asylum in Endenich, on the outskirts of were finding refuge in humor and the joy of physical Bonn. He never recovered, dying two years later due movement—alas, temporarily—in his desperate in part to his decision to starve himself. Still, before quest for peace. Firmly situated in G major, the music that final descent he had moments of lucidity that abounds in jaunty rhythms that suggest a carefree permitted him to produce a number of fine works rusticity. that have stood the test of time, including his Cello Concerto (1850), “Rhenish” Symphony (1850) and final version of the Symphony No. 4, his fine but AMY M.C. Beach under-appreciated Violin Concerto (1853), and his (18673-1944) Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 110. Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 (1893) Most recent SCMS performance: Winter 2014 Marked Bewegt, doch nicht zu rasch (“agitated, but not too fast”), the Trio conveys an obsessive current Amy Marcy Beach was the first American woman to of unease established at once by roiling arpeggios establish more than a local reputation as a serious from the keyboard under a long, tormented melody composer. The New Hampshire-born musician shared by the cello and violin. The second theme studied in Europe, as did a host of late 19th- is more lyrical and softer-grained, though it too is century American musicians, showing great skill as accompanied by a restive arpeggio. Schumann’s both pianist and composer. She married in 1885, contrapuntal abilities—he had, after all, studied Bach acquiescing to her physician-husband’s request that with due reverence—comes to the fore in a fugato she curtail touring; with his approval, however, she episode in the development section in which spiky turned instead to composition. After her husband’s pizzicatos heighten the anxiety. As the movement death in 1910, Ms. Beach worked assiduously runs its course the music becomes increasingly to re-establish her reputation, and by 1912 was unsettling before ending somewhat eerily with a regularly giving recitals throughout Germany. With sudden reduction in dynamics. the outbreak of war in 1914, Beach returned to the States, gave many recitals, and remained active In pronounced contrast, the ensuing Ziemlich in musical and artistic circles for the remainder of langsam (“delicately/gracefully slow”) hearkens her life. She wrote a significant number of large- back to the quiet but ardent Romanticism of parallel scale orchestral, choral, and chamber works, but movements in his earlier quartet and quintet for established her reputation as a composer primarily piano and strings. The music begins as a love- through her songs. drenched duet between the violin and cello in slow waltz-time to enhance the tenderness. A sudden The composer met violinist Maud Powell in July 1893 tsunami of threatening drama attempts to overwhelm when both attended the Women’s Music Congress in the duet before calm is restored in the final dreamlike Chicago. The two musicians performed a new work state that ends the movement. by Ms. Beach, the Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, dedicated to Powell. The lovely work was

summer festival // enthusiastically received, prompting an immediate her older and already famous sister Nadia to classes encore performance. Paralleling the work’s beauty, at the Conservatory. Despite her compromised the technical demands were quickly noted by other health, Boulanger eagerly studied piano, violin, cello, musicians and discerning attendees. Beach did not and harp. coddle would-be performers with unprofessional technique, making the work as challenging for the In 1918, she composed two lovely chamber works fingers as it was easy on the ear. often heard in orchestral guise, D’un soir Triste (Of a sad Evening) and D’un matin de printemps (Of a The short work is rich in appealing Romantic era Spring Morning). These were the last pieces she could melody and equally so in its virtuosic display and even copy by herself, though even here, her sister wide instrumental range shared equally by both Nadia had to fill in the dynamic and expressive marks. participants. A lyrical piano-based theme opens up before the violin joins in. A few moments of D’un matin de printemps is perhaps more explicitly heightened passion is soon expressed, creating evocative in its technicolor orchestral garb but balance and increased emotion. Expressive piano nonetheless delights the ear and soul in its intimate arpeggios recur throughout and support the chamber version. Its airy and birdlike chirping flits increasingly ardent violin part. As the Romance about through quick key changes, and quicksilver draws to a close, its opening pages are reprised as dancelike liveliness evokes our love of life as if the music slowly withdraws into a final tonic chord awakening from winter’s grip. For Boulanger it is supported by a recurrent arpeggio chord on the the obverse of her impending passing that awaits piano. nearby—joy tinged with sadness. A slow and contrasting middle section touches the heart in its dreamlike yearning.

Lili Boulanger Like a heaven-sent gift, Boulanger’s short life (1893-1918) promised much but left much unrealized. A great loss. D’un matin de printemps (1918) SCMS premiere

Tragically short-lived, Lili Boulanger was the younger Astor Piazzolla sister of famed pedagogue . Lili (1933-1990) got off to a bad start in life, suffering from chronic Nightclub 1960, from Histoire du Tango illness that compromised her health, especially after (1991) 1895, when she barely survived bronchial pneumonia. SCMS premiere Almost constantly ill thereafter, she died from Crohn’s Though forever identified with the tango, Astor Disease in 1918. Piazzolla was not its creator. The Argentine composer nurtured the nascent Latin dance and established Nevertheless, she worked hard to develop her it in both the dance- and concert-halls of the world. musical skills, and by age 14 had already decided to Steeped in his native popular and folk Argentine focus on composition. Her choral/vocal work Faust culture, he also studied with the 20th century’s et Hélène deservedly earned her the prestigious Prix most justly famed teacher, Nadia Boulanger, de Rome in 1913, which brought immediate fame whose predilection for Stravinskian harmony and both in Paris and abroad. Lili Boulanger was highly textures can be heard in the bracing harmonies regarded by , not generally a cordial and occasional acerbity of Piazzolla’s compositions, supporter of fellow composers; he noted that her tango and otherwise. Sensing her student’s music “undulates with grace.” nervousness, the wise pedagogue urged him to focus his energies on the music closest to heart—the tango At only three years of age she began accompanying

August 5, 2021 // program notes and its cultural offshoots—rather than try to write in ARNOLD SCHOENBERG a modern style that was not natural to him. (1874–1951) Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 9 The tango shares in common with other dances in (1906, arr. Anton Webern 1922) history an early reputation for sexuality that aroused SCMS premiere passion in some, suspicion in others, in much the same way as the Viennese waltz scandalized “proper” Seven decades after his death, Arnold Schoenberg’s Austrians in the early 19th century. Even earlier, the music intimidates concert audiences throughout the frenzied forlane was banned in the Spain of Charles United States. His reputation—perhaps notoriety V because of its presumed licentiousness. Such is is the operative word—has rested mainly on the the nature of dance, with its dual citizenship in the serial or “twelve-tone” technique of composition worlds of music and physical movement. If the tango he fathered (and which served as the model for the revels in libidinous implication, it finds balance in a fictional composer Adrian Leverkuhn in Thomas countervailing melancholy tinged with despair. It is Mann’s novel, Dr. Faustus). Some listeners still this dynamic that invites serious consideration, and respond to his serial works—and those by other deepens its character and appeal. members of the second Viennese school and their spiritual offspring—with a mixture of consternation, A lifetime of experience went into Piazzolla’s Histoire confusion, and contempt…perhaps even fear. du Tango, composed in 1991. The four movement work is a kind of time capsule of the evolution of Schoenberg’s musical journey began with opulent, its changes through time. Tango-ists are a fiercely chromatic post-Romantic works such as Verklärte dedicated bunch, and as Piazzolla added “foreign” Nacht and the grandiloquent Gurrelieder, evolved elements (echoes of Bartók, Stravinsky and other through increasing atonality into the “twelve-tone European composers, Bossa Nova and jazz) the technique” in the early 1920s before retreating into stalwart defenders of the sultry dance expressed a late-life neo-Romanticism best exemplified by his displeasure toward Piazzolla’s audacity at polluting darkly beautiful String Trio of 1946. The first (of two) the purity of their cherished dance. Time can heal the chamber symphonies bids a clear farewell to the rich pain of such transgressions, and the third movement orchestral tapestry of his earliest works but predates of Histoire du Tango, Night Club 1960 has survived his eventual adoption of serialism by more than a such heated reactions. decade. Rather than basing the new piece on the vocal-inspired melodies of 19th century Romanticism, Here one experiences the pervasive influence of the he constructed the Chamber Symphony No. 1 from Bossa Nova mania that spread throughout the world a small number of intervals that serve as building during the late 1950s and ’60s. Piazzolla noted, “This blocks for the overall structure. In so doing, he was is a time of rapidly expanding international exchange, not, strictly speaking, doing anything revolutionary and the tango evolves again as Brazil and Argentina (and, in any case, he saw himself as an evolutionary, come together in Buenos Aires. The Bossa Nova not a revolutionary), since Beethoven tended to and the new tango are moving to the same beat. fashion his music similarly. The difference lay partly Audiences rush to the night clubs to listen earnestly in Schoenberg’s new harmonic sense in which chords to the new tango. This marks a revolution and a were built upon succession of fourths, rather than the profound alteration in some of the original tango traditional triadic harmony that dominated European forms.” art music from 1600 onwards.

Piazzolla casts his lively rhythmic sections into high Critical and audience response to the Chamber relief by contrasting them with poignant passages Symphony was hostile, eventuating in a near-riot from his never-ending supply of expressive melodic that preceded by seven years the far more famous ideas. outburst accorded Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913.

summer festival // Gustav Mahler happened to be in attendance, loudly well that his Verklärte Nacht stresses the same point castigating those who filled the hall with catcalls, when comparing the original string sextet version though he may have done so more out of duty and over the larger string orchestra adaptation. moral outrage than from a real appreciation of the new piece. Mahler’s aphorism, that “the young The Chamber Symphony unfolds in one continuously composer is always correct,” may have sorely tested evolving movement, though it is clearly divided into him; he privately admitted to being puzzled by sections that reflect the four-movement symphonic Schoenberg’s new style. Time may not really heal all format of long-standing. A few throat-clearing chords wounds, but the collective public ear has recovered set the stage for the upward-leaping series of perfect from its initial howl of protest over the past 90 years; fourths, a theme that is strikingly new in its tonality- the first chamber symphony has become one of stretching profile, yet which also recalls the energetic Schoenberg’s best-known, post-Romantic scores. “rocket theme” of much 18th century instrumental composition. It also suggests Mahler’s frequent use Unlike Schoenberg’s more radical disciple Alban of rising fourth throughout his symphonies and Berg, Anton Webern composed 12-tone music songs. After introducing more lyrical materials, a that is infused with an updated Romantic impulse, transition leads to a scherzo with trio section, in most famously in his 1935 Violin Concerto. While turn followed by a contrapuntal development of Webern’s version of his mentor’s Chamber Symphony themes from the opening minutes of the symphony. No. 1 lacks in orchestral heft, it clarifies the inner A poignant Adagio suggests a standard symphony’s lines, allowing listeners to hear the intricacies of third movement, then gives way to a recap of earlier Schoenberg’s counterpoint and savor the added themes and a brilliant and forceful coda. intimacy of a true chamber work. One can argue as

Program Notes by Steven Lowe