carte blanche concert i: Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien: Sehnsucht/Verlangen

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) s July 22 Première rhapsodie (1909–1910)

Sunday, July 22, 10:30 a.m., Stent Family Hall, Menlo School Aleksandr Scriabin (1871–1915) Selected Preludes Program Overview Opus 11 Number 23 in F Major Clarinetist Anthony McGill, an audience favorite since the Opus 16 Number 1 in B Major inaugural season in 2003, and pianist Gloria Chien, alumna- Opus 16 Number 2 in g-sharp minor Opus 16 Number 4 in e-flat minor cum-Director of the Chamber Music Institute, inaugurate the 2012 Carte Blanche series. Their program explores the Nocturne for the Left Hand in D-flat Major, op. 9, no. 2 (1894) element of Romantic longing—verlangen—inherent in the Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) warm, nostalgic sound of the clarinet and subsequently in Abîme des oiseaux (Abyss of the Birds) from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940) the clarinet repertoire. The instrument’s round, mellifluous tone ideally suits the colorful harmonic language of French (1882–1971) composers Debussy, Messiaen, and Poulenc; its depth and Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet (1919) mystery equally befit the dramatic weight of Schumann and Sempre piano e molto tranquillo (quarter note = 52) Eighth note = 168 Berg. The program ends with one of the most virtuosic works Eighth note = 160 in the clarinet repertoire, Carl Maria von Weber’s Grand Duo. (1899–1963) Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, FP 184 (1962) Allegro tristamente: Allegretto – Très calme – Tempo allegretto SPECIAL THANKS Romanza: Très calme Allegro con fuoco: Très animé

Music@Menlo dedicates this performance to Joan and Allan b l a nche concert c a rte Fisch with gratitude for their generous support. Intermission Robert Schumann (1810–1856) Three Romances for Clarinet and Piano, op. 94 (1849) Nicht schnell Einfach, innig Nicht schnell

Alban Berg (1885–1935) Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, op. 5 (1913) Mässig Sehr langsam Sehr rasch Langsam

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) Grand Duo Concertante in E-flat Major, op. 48 (1815–1816) Allegro con fuoco Andante con moto Rondo: Allegro Anthony McGill, clarinet; Gloria Chien, piano

www.musicatmenlo.org 39 Program Notes: Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien: Sehnsucht/Verlangen

Claude Debussy the last music he wrote before his sudden death from blood poison- (Born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye; died March 25, 1918, ing in 1915 at the age of forty-three. The Prelude in F Major, op. 11, Paris) no. 23 (1895), flowing and limpid, is a wide-ranging pastorale. The first Première rhapsodie of the Opus 16 Five Preludes (B major) of 1894–1895 drapes a dreamy melody upon a cushion of almost Impressionistic harmonies. The Pre- Composed: 1909–1910 lude in g-sharp minor, op. 16, no. 2, begins in a hesitant manner but Premiered: January 16, 1911, in Paris, with Prosper Mimart as clarinet- accumulates considerable dramatic tension as it unfolds. The e-flat ist minor Prelude, op. 16, no. 4, is a tiny but heartfelt threnody. These Dedication: Prosper Mimart arrangements for clarinet and piano are by Willard Elliot (1926–2000), Other works from this period: Hommage à Haydn (1909); Masques et composer, arranger, and Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Symphony bergamasques (1910); Khamma (1910–1912); Ibéria (1910) Orchestra for thirty-two years. Approximate duration: 8 minutes The Nocturne in D-flat Major for Piano, Left Hand, op. 9, no. 2, composed in 1894 while Scriabin was recovering from a broken collar bone on his right side and could only play the piano with his left hand, By 1907, despite his iconoclastic views, his unprecedented musical is marked by a strong sense of melody, a richness of figuration, a clarity style, and the scandals surrounding his personal life (he abandoned his of form, and a traditional (but considerably extended) harmonic palette first wife in 1904 for another woman—Paris was deliciously outraged), it grown from his study of Chopin’s music. could no longer be denied by those in bureaucratic power that Claude Debussy, the author of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, the Noc- turnes, and the hotly debated Pelléas et Mélisande, had established a significant reputation as a leading French composer. As a sort of back- Olivier Messiaen handed recognition in lieu of the official establishment’s imprimatur of (Born December 10, 1908, Avignon; died April 28, 1992, Paris) s a faculty position at the Paris Conservatoire, he was invited by Gabriel Abîme des oiseaux from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps Fauré, then the school’s Director, to help judge the competitions for Composed: 1940 prizes in wind instrument performance in 1907. Apparently Fauré was Other works from this period: pleased with Debussy’s participation, since he invited him to become Rondeau, I/24 (1943); Chant des dépor- a regular competition judge in February 1909. In December 1909 tés, I/60 (1945) and January 1910, Debussy wrote two short works for the 1910 clari- Approximate duration: 9 minutes net competitions—his Première rhapsodie, intended as the principal examination piece, and Petite pièce for sight-reading. Prosper Mimart, When World War II erupted across Europe in 1939, Messiaen, then Professor of Clarinet at the Conservatoire and the dedicatee of the organist at Trinity Cathedral, a teacher at the École Normale de score, premiered the Première rhapsodie (Debussy never composed a Musique and the Schola Cantorum, and a composer of rapidly grow- “deuxième rhapsodie”) on January 16, 1911, at a Paris concert of the ing reputation, was called up for service but deemed unfit for military Société Musicale Indépendente. duty because of his poor eyesight. He was instead first assigned as As is true of virtually all of Debussy’s compositions, the Première a furniture mover at Sarreguemines and then as a hospital attendant rhapsodie does not follow a traditional form but is rather a seemingly at Sarralbe before ending up with a medical unit in Verdun. Here he free but actually tightly controlled elaboration of several thematic met Henri Akoka, a clarinetist with the Strasbourg Radio Orchestra, motives wrapped in the luminous harmonies and sonorities of his and Étienne Pasquier, cellist in an internationally renowned string trio Impressionistic musical language. The work is in several continuous with his brothers, violinist Jean and violist Pierre. Inspired by the dawn sections that become more animated and virtuosic as they progress. birdsongs that marked the end of his night watch at Verdun, Messiaen composed the Abyss of the Birds for solo clarinet, but even before Akoka could try it out, the Germans invaded in May 1940 and all three musicians were captured the following month and sent to a pris- Aleksandr Scriabin

rte b l a nche concert c a rte oner-of-war camp—Stalag VIIIA—at Görlitz, Silesia (now in Poland). At (Born December 25, 1871, Moscow; died April 14, 1915, Moscow) Stalag VIIIA, they met the violinist Jean Le Boulaire, who had graduated Selected Preludes (arr. for clarinet and piano); Nocturne for the Left from the Paris Conservatoire but spent much of his life in military service Hand, op. 9, no. 2 (and who would become a successful actor under the name Jean Lanier Composed: 1894–1895 (preludes arranged for clarinet and piano in after the war). It was for this unlikely ensemble that Messiaen composed 1986) his Quartet for the End of Time during his internment, incorporating the Other works from this period: Piano Sonata no. 2 in g-sharp minor, solo clarinet movement he had written for Akoka. op. 19 (1892–1897); Piano Sonata no. 3 in f-sharp minor, op. 23 (1897–1898) Messiaen’s introduction to the score of the Quartet for the End of Approximate duration: 12 minutes Time bespeaks the work’s interpenetration of cosmology, religion, and music as it reflects his visionary universe: “I saw a mighty angel descend from heaven, clad in mist; and a rainbow was upon his head. He set his Scriabin found the aphoristic form of the prelude congenial throughout right foot on the sea, his left foot on the earth, and standing thus on sea his career, and he entrusted to it some eighty-five of his most succinct and earth, he lifted his hand to heaven and swore by Him who liveth for musical thoughts, from the Twenty-Four Preludes, op. 11, composed ever and ever, saying: There shall be time no longer; but on the day of between 1888 and 1896, which were inspired by and modeled on Cho- the trumpet of the seventh angel, the mystery of God shall be finished.” pin’s Opus 28 (Scriabin slept with scores of Chopin’s music under his Messiaen noted of the third movement, for solo clarinet, Abîme pillow as a youth), to the dense, nearly atonal Five Preludes, op. 74, des oiseaux (Abyss of the Birds): “The abyss is Time, with its sadness and tediums. The birds are the opposite of Time; they are our desire for *Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 107. light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant outpourings of song! There 40 Music@Menlo 2012 is a great contrast between the desolation of Time (the abyss) and the to the memory of Arthur Honegger; Goodman and Leonard Bernstein joy of the birdsongs (desire of the eternal light).” gave the premiere in New York on April 10, 1963, ten weeks after the composer’s death from a heart attack in Paris on January 30th. Keith W. Daniel noted that this composition and the sonatas for flute (1957) and oboe (1962) “rank among Poulenc’s most profound, accomplished Igor Stravinsky works: they retain the early tunefulness, but the impertinent edge is (Born June 5/17, 1882, Oranienbaum [now Lomonosov], near St. replaced by serenity and self-confidence, deepened by the addition Petersburg; died April 6, 1971, New York) of a religious undertone.” Rather than the sonata structure often heard Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet in the first movement of such works, the Clarinet Sonata opens with Composed: 1919 a three-part form in which a central section, at once benedictory and First performance: November 8, 1919, in Lausanne by Edmondo slightly exotic, is surrounded by a beginning and ending paragraph in Allegra quicker tempo. The second movement, marked “very sweetly and with Other works from this period: Suite from L’histoire du soldat (1818– melancholy,” is almost hymnal in its lyricism and quiet intensity. The 1819); Pulcinella (1919–1920); Suite from The Firebird (1910) finale is based on the progeny of a French music hall tune that is treated with good humor and sympathy rather than as a parody. Approximate duration: 5 minutes

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Stravinsky settled full-time in Switzerland, near Lausanne, where he remained until moving back to Robert Schumann France in 1920. With the strictures of performance imposed by the war, (Born June 8, 1810, Saxony; died July 29, 1856, Endenich) Stravinsky turned from the opulent ballets that had established his rep- Three Romances for Clarinet and Piano, op. 94 utation in Paris during the preceding years and collaborated with the Composed: 1849 Swiss novelist and poet Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz on a vest-pocket the- Other works from this period: Adagio and Allegro, op. 70 (1849); atrical entertainment for instrumental ensemble, narrator, and dancers Symphony no. 3 in E-flat Major, op. 97, Rhenish (1850); Trio no. 1 in based on a traditional Russian story titled The Soldier’s Tale. The costs d minor, op. 63 (1847) of the venture were underwritten by the Winterthur industrialist and Approximate duration: 12 minutes s talented amateur clarinetist Werner Reinhart, and the work was given a successful premiere at the Théâtre Municipal in Lausanne on Sep- tember 28, 1918. Reinhart continued his support of Stravinsky’s work On May 3, 1849, insurrection broke out in Dresden. Richard Wagner the following year by funding a series of concerts of his recent cham- was one of the leaders of the rebellion, but Schumann, though he ber music (including a suite from The Soldier’s Tale arranged for violin, admired Wagner the musician, was not about to join with Wagner the clarinet, and piano), which were given in Lausanne, Zurich, and Geneva. politician. Schumann fled to the country with his wife, Clara, and their In appreciation, Stravinsky composed for the Lausanne program a set oldest daughter. Such turmoil was difficult for Schumann, who not only of Three Pieces for Clarinet, Reinhart’s instrument, and dedicated the suffered repeated bouts of melancholia during that time but was also score to him; Zurich clarinetist Edmondo Allegra played the premiere. grieving over the recent deaths of his brother Karl and his friend and Stravinsky told the English music critic Edwin Evans that the Three champion Felix Mendelssohn. The rebellion was soon quelled, and Pieces for Clarinet were inspired by “Characteristic Blues” by Sidney Schumann was able to return to Dresden. He found the town full of Bechet, the famous New Orleans clarinetist and soprano saxophon- Prussian soldiers (“Oh, shame! After shooting harmless citizens, now ist who played with many of the leading early jazz artists and died in they demand food and drink,” he complained) but was quickly able France in 1959. The opening number, slow, meditative, and pitched to resume composing. His inspiration, temporarily checked by events, in the clarinet’s lowest register, was probably intended to be a blues, started to flow once again, and the closing months of 1849 were among but its nearest musical kin seems rather to be the bardic, Slavic folk his most productive. In addition to many piano works and choral com- music–inspired bassoon solo that opens The Rite of Spring. The second positions, he finished large parts of the Scenes from Goethe’s Faust as movement, written without bar-lines, uses mercurial arpeggios sweep- well as the lovely Romances for Clarinet and Piano. ing across the instrument’s entire compass to frame a quiet central Schumann throughout his life had a superb ability to write beauti- section. The closing piece is a Stravinskian tango. ful melodies. This characteristic demonstrated itself in his earliest piano works and was confirmed by his many settings of German Romantic

poems for voice, including the nine sets of Romanzen und Balladen b l a nche concert c a rte he wrote for chorus. In the same vein of expressive lyricism, he com- Francis Poulenc posed Three Romances for Clarinet and Piano in December 1849. The (Born January 7, 1899, Paris; died January 30, 1963, Paris) romances, each of which is disposed in the simple, three-part form that Sonata for Clarinet and Piano he so favored for his smaller works, are imbued with the twilit tender- Composed: 1962 ness and bittersweet nostalgia that mark the best of Schumann’s music. Dedication: Arthur Honegger First performance: April 10, 1963, in New York, by Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein Alban Berg Other works from this period: Trois mouvements perpétuels (1962); (Born February 9, 1885, Vienna; died December 24, 1935, Vienna) Novelette sur un thème de Manuel de Falla (1959); Élégie for Horn Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, op. 5 (1957) Composed: 1913 Approximate duration: 13 minutes First performance: October 17, 1919, in Vienna Other works from this period: Piano Sonata, op. 1 (1907–1908); Four Of Poulenc’s thirteen chamber works for various instrumental com- Songs, op. 2 (1909–1910) binations, only three are exclusively for strings. The Clarinet Sonata, Approximate duration: 8 minutes Poulenc’s last work except for the Sonata for Oboe and Piano, was com- posed in the summer of 1962 for Benny Goodman and is dedicated www.musicatmenlo.org 41 Berg served his musical apprenticeship under Arnold Schoenberg from 1904 to 1910, and he mooted a large symphonic score, perhaps even something with voices, as his first major work after finishing his stud- We’re excited ies. His sketches had not gotten any farther than a few ideas for an opening movement, however, before he turned to making succinct set- to be back! tings for voice and orchestra of five aphoristic poems by his friend Peter Altenberg, which were directly influenced by Schoenberg’s Opus 11 and Opus 19 piano pieces (1908 and 1911) and Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, op. 6 (1910), seminal creations in both their atonal harmonic language and their miniature scale. Schoenberg included two of the Altenberg Lieder, op. 4, in the concert of new music that he presented in Vienna on March 31, 1913, and Berg followed them with an instru- mental sequel, the Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, op. 5, which he completed in June. Though the short durations of the Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano do not allow for the unfolding of any conventional formal pat- terns, the movements are unified by repeated references to a few melodic and harmonic interval cells, a technique that Schoenberg was to evolve into his system of serialism a decade later. The writing here is virtuosic not in the traditional sense but in the control and the range of techniques—from warmly expressive legato to flutter-tongue growls, echo tones, trills, and extreme registers—demanded of the clarinetist. Except for brief dramatic outbursts in the first and last movements, the Four Pieces are whisper-soft throughout, hardly more than echoes of a dream of music.

s Returns to the South Bay & Peninsula on

Carl Maria von Weber (Born November 19, 1786, Eutin; died June 5, 1826, London) Grand Duo Concertante in E-flat Major, op. 48 104.9 FM Composed: 1815–1816 First performance: February 10, 1817, in Dresden, by Johann Simon Hermstedt and the composer Other works from this period: Music for König Yngurd (1817); Over- ture and marches for Turandot (1818) Approximate duration: 22 minutes

During a visit to Prague late in 1814, Weber met the clarinetist Johann Simon Hermstedt, whose brilliant playing had inspired four concertos and several chamber works from Louis Spohr. The virtuoso asked the visitor to compose a concerto for his instrument, and Weber went to work on the piece immediately, but he ended up with a duo for piano and clarinet rather than a full concerto. He finished the Grand Duo Con- certante in Berlin the following November and performed it twice with Hermstedt when they met in Dresden in February 1817. Of the musical

rte b l a nche concert c a rte nature of the Grand Duo Concertante, Weber’s biographer John War- rack wrote, “This is not a sonata for clarinet with piano accompaniment august 11, 2012 but a full-scale concert work for two virtuosos.” The opening move- 8:30 p.m. ment, Allegro con fuoco (Fast, with fire), is a large sonata form with a pleasing balance of themes and an ingenious development section. Following the August 11 performance of The Andante begins and ends with a somber melody in c minor whose Concert Program VIII, please join Artistic Directors poignant lyricism is indebted to Weber’s experience as an opera com- David Finckel and Wu Han and Music@Menlo’s community poser; the movement’s middle portion is marked by a certain chromatic of musicians and aspiring young artists for a dinner celebration peregrination. The Grand Duo closes with an expansive and delightfully of Music@Menlo’s tenth-anniversary season! showy rondo. —Richard Rodda Arrillaga Family Recreation Center 701 Laurel Street, Menlo Park Dinner tickets are $50

Reserve online at www.musicatmenlo.org or by calling 650-331-0202.

42 Music@Menlo 2012