Horszowski Trio Horszowski Trio (Jesse Mills, Violin; Raman Ramakrishnan, Cello; Rieko Aizawa, Piano)

Da Camera The Menil Collection Sarah Rothenberg Tuesday, February 21, 2017; 7:30 pm artistic and general director

Horszowski Trio Horszowski Trio (Jesse Mills, violin; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Rieko Aizawa, piano)

Gabriel Fauré Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120 (1922-23) (1845-1924) Allegro, ma non troppo Andantino Allegro Vivo

Joan Tower For Daniel (2004) (b. 1938) INTERMISSION

Franz Schubert Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, D. 929(1827) (1797-1828) Allegro Andante con moto Scherzando. Allegro moderato Allegro moderato

This performance is sponsored by Chinhui and Eddie Allen. The Menil Series is sponsored by Louisa Stude Sarofim.

28 Fauré: Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120 Fauré’s work, in particular his adven- hearing. The critic Émile Vuillermoz, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was one of turous late music, remains largely un- a contemporary of Fauré, wrote, “The the central musical figures of the belle derrepresented in the U.S. ability to love and understand Fauré is, époque, that remarkable flowering of Fauré’s Trio for violin, cello, and in fact, a privilege . . . . It is a diploma French culture that took place from piano, Op. 120, his only piano trio, con- of the ear’s subtlety; a flattering index 1870-1914, a period that also witnessed stitutes just such an obscure late work. of refined sensibility; a genuine spiri- the work of composers Saint-Saëns, Composed during his seventy-seventh tual wealth not to be renounced volun- Bizet, Chabrier, Chausson and even- year in 1922-23, the trio would be his tarily.” It helps to pay special attention tually Debussy, Dukas, Satie, Roussel, penultimate composition; only the to the bass lines, always beautiful in and Ravel as well -- a world of music 1924 String Quartet, another neglected themselves, so as to hear how the com- analogous to the innovative and splen- piece, lay ahead. In poor health, Fauré poser’s harmonies arise from the inter- did paintings of Pisarro, Manet, Degas, wrote the trio at the suggestion of his play of the various melodies. Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin and publisher Jacques Durand; originally intended for cello, piano and violin or Tower: For Daniel Rousseau that arose at about the same Born in 1938 in New Rochelle, New time and place. clarinet, he ultimately decided against the clarinet option, although some lis- York, Joan Tower, one of the country’s Of all these French composers, best known composers, spent her for- Fauré might well have been the most teners hear vestiges of woodwind writing in the violin part nonetheless. The mative years in Bolivia before return- aristocratic, at least in terms of the re- ing to America for study at Benning- finement of his music, because as the trio’s first public performance, by three recent graduates of the Paris Conserva- ton College and Columbia University, son of a village schoolteacher, he him- where she worked with composers Jack self came from a humble background. tory, took place at a concert honoring Fauré’s seventy-eighth birthday on Beeson, Otton Luening and Vladimir A scholarship enabled him to go to Ussachevsky, and received a doctor- the Niedermeyer School in Paris, an May 12, 1923. Fauré could not attend the concert because of ill health, but he ate in music composition in 1968. In institution devoted largely to religious 1970, she helped found the Da Capo music. The institution’s emphasis on had the chance to hear the piece played later in the season by no less than vio- Chamber Players, a “Pierrot” ensemble old church music, including Gregorian (made up of violin, cello, flute, clarinet chant, helped shape Fauré’s unique linist Jacques Thibaud, cellist Pablo Casals and pianist Alfred Cortot. The and piano, after the instrumentation of musical language; at the same time, Arnold Schoenberg’s influential Pier- the only slightly older Camille Saint- score bears a dedication to the widow of the French statesman Maurice Rou- rot lunaire), for which she served as Saëns, who came to teach for a while at pianist for some 14 years; and in 1972, the school, introduced the young Fauré vier. The trio has three movements. she joined the faculty of Bard College, to some of the latest trends, including where she still teaches. Wagner. The waltz-like opening movement is in sonata form, with the obligatory two Tower has devoted herself largely In his adult years, Fauré led a dis- to writing orchestral and chamber tinguished career as an organist as well main themes and tripartite shape; but the whole sounds like one long melo- works (her catalog contains hardly any as professor of composition at the Paris vocal music). In 1990 she became one Conservatory, which he also headed dy, the composer even disguising the climactic recapitulation of the main of the earliest recipients of the Grawe- for 15 years. His composition students meyer Award (for her 1986 orchestral included such outstanding figures as theme by placing it in the cello against an overpowering countermelody in work, Silver Ladders), a highly presti- Ravel, Enescu, Casella, and both Lili gious prize established in 1985, with and Nadia Boulanger. Because of Na- octaves in the violin -- a wonderful ex- ample of the composer’s “grande ligne” the Polish Witold Lutoslawski and the dia Boulanger’s reverence for Fauré, Hungarian Györgi Ligeti -- two legend- and her importance, in turn, as a men- (“long line”) so admired by Boulanger. The slow second movement turns ary figures -- the first two winners; tor to such American composers as El- along with the Finnish Kaija Saariaho liott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Dia- somewhat nostalgic. And the finale has the quicksilver qualities of a scherzo or (2003) and the Korean Unsuk Chin mond, Roy Harris, Walter Piston and (2004), Tower is one of only three wom- Virgil Thomson, Fauré’s legacy proved joke, bringing the work to an end more jolly than weighty, although with all en to have won this prize. Aware of the a very determinant factor in the devel- special difficulties faced by women th the ripe wisdom of age. opment of 20 -century American mu- composers, and women in general, sic, far in excess of what might be ex- Feeling the logic and power of Fau- ré’s harmonies especially at this point Tower has expressed her feminist con- pected given Fauré’s modest reputation victions in five works all sharing the here at home. Indeed, although widely in his development poses a challenge for even the most experienced and title Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman known for some songs and a few other (the first and most familiar installment pieces, including a famous Requiem, sensitive listener -- especially on a first 28 29 was written for the Houston Sympho- A longer lifetime would have granted ist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, cellist Josef ny), a take on Aaron Copland’s Fanfare him greater fame and glory as well: Linke and pianist Carl Maria von Bock- for the Common Man. She sees herself within years of his death, he was rec- let – three of Vienna’s finest musicians and her compatriot Ellen Zwilich (the ognized as one of the great musical ge- -- followed soon after by its public pre- first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in niuses of his time, a position he secure- miere on March 26, 1828, with Linke music) as continuing the work of such ly has held ever since, whereas during and Bocklet, as before, but with Joseph older Americans as Miriam Gideon his lifetime, aside from a circle of Vien- Böhm the violinist. and Louis Talma, who similarly blazed nese connoisseurs who often gathered The work has four movements. The trails for women composers in the U.S. to play and hear his music, he labored first movement, in sonata form, begins Tower wrote For Daniel in 2004 in fair obscurity, eking out a living as dynamically, but moves in the course for the venerable Kalichstein-Laredo- a schoolteacher as he managed to pro- of its exposition toward a quiet, intro- Robinson Trio, comprised of pianist duce a vast body of well over a thou- spective theme that forms the basis for Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Lar- sand compositions. the movement’s development section; edo and cellist Sharon Robinson. Com- Schubert wrote his two completed after the movement’s powerful final ca- missioned by the Arizona Friends of piano trios, one in B-flat Major, Op. 99, dence, the instruments quietly recall a Chamber Music, the work was written the other in E-flat Major, Op. 100, dur- subsidiary theme, a wisp of a gesture in memory of Daniel MacArthur, the ing the last year of his life. Although the that seems to epitomize Schubert’s ro- composer’s nephew, who died in 2003 chronology of these two works remains mantic tendencies. after a long illness; and was first per- muddy, scholars seem to agree that he The highly dramatic second move- formed on March 2, 2004, at the Tuc- wrote the B-flat Major trio first, as its ment is the most renowned of the trio’s son Winter Festival. opus number would suggest, in 1827, four movements, with a funereal main In one long movement, the work and the E-flat Major trio later in the theme put forth by the cello -- one of the grows organically from tiny motives, year. However, the E-flat Major trio was most famous cello solos in the chamber periodically exploding into frenzied published in 1828 during Schubert’s music repertoire. Over the years, this activity before ebbing back into more lifetime, whereas the B-flat Major trio darkly hued music achieved further sorrowful and reflective passages. Tow- was not published until 1836. popularity through its use in film, in- er has said of the work that it “tries to Both Schubert piano trios quickly cluding most notably Stanley Kubrick’s convey the imagined struggles associ- entered the standard repertoire, and 1975 period drama, Barry Lyndon. ated with someone who is facing a are widely regarded today as two of the The third-movement scherzo, a long-term terminal illness. The hopes, finest such works ever written. The B- gambol in which the instruments echo joys, depression, anger, deep turmoil flat Major trio has enjoyed the greater each other at the distance of a few and occasional serenity are in constant popularity over the years, much as the beats, brightens the mood, although juxtaposition in this work, as they were composer’s posthumous piano sonata the stomping middle section adds a throughout the last years of Daniel’s in the same key remains probably his heavy-footed quality to the proceed- life.” The trio at all times reveals Tow- most celebrated work in that genre; ings. The finale, a festive romp, recalls, er’s expert and idiomatic writing for the key of B-flat Major seems to have at two crucial junctures, the funereal instruments honed by years of expe- inspired a special warmth and lyri- slow movement theme, the melody rience both as a composer and a per- cism from Schubert, whereas the key transformed at the very end of the former. of E-flat Major, as with Beethoven, a work from a minor mode into a major cooler grandeur and brilliance. Robert mode for a triumphal conclusion. Schubert: Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, D. 929 Schumann, reviewing the B-flat Ma- The work’s sheer length -- about By infusing the styles and forms inher- jor trio, had trouble deciding which of 50 minutes -- challenges the stamina of ited by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven the two trios he preferred, describing, performers and listeners alike; indeed, with intense lyricism and strong emo- in the style of the day’s gendered dis- the music seems only a step away from tions of a sort that would come to char- course, the B-flat Major trio as “more the grand late-19th century symphonic acterize the music of Mendelssohn, passive, lyrical and feminine,” the E-flat edifices of Schubert’s Austrian descen- Schumann and Weber, Franz Schubert Major trio as “more spirited, masculine, dants, Anton Bruckner and Gustav (1797-1828), more than any other fig- and dramatic;” but he concluded his Mahler. Many performers opt not to ure, represents the transition from the review, in any event, by stating, “Time, take the customary repeat of the first Classical to the Romantic period of though producing much that is beau- movement’s exposition in the inter- music history (c. 1810-1825). Unfortu- tiful, will not soon produce another est of time. Schubert himself seems nately, his work as a seminal Roman- Schubert!” to have sanctioned cuts in the finale, tic composer was cut short by his early The E-flat Major trio was tried out although it’s hard to imagine how so death at age 31, possibly from syphilis. first privately in early 1828 by violin- well-structured a work as this could be

30 31 dismembered profitably. At the least, for all its undeniable discursiveness, the work offers, in addition to the sheer loveliness of its melodies, a number of stimulating and surprising harmonic twists and turns throughout. Howard Pollack

Houston Youth Symphony Spring Concert

HYS Spring Concert May 7, 2017 4:00 pm Stude Concert Hall Rice University Join us for the final concert of the 2016/17 season featuring two HYS concerto competition winners and the HYS Symphony performing Debussy’s La Mer.

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