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seventh season 72019-2020 Byron Schenkman & Friends EMERALD CITY MUSIC LIVELY & SOCIAL CHAMBER MUSIC Welcome to the IN SOUTH LAKE UNION. seventh season of Byron Schenkman & Friends at Benaroya Hall, celebrating the human spirit SEPT 13/14: THE SOLDIER’S TALE through music. In these challenging times we RETOLD IN BALLET • NOV 1/2: join together in community to lift our spirits STRING QUARTET ENTIRELY IN with joyful music. We honor the contributions of extraordinary musicians, from Clara Schumann THE DARK • DEC 13/14: CLASSICAL on her 200th birthday weekend to some of the GUITARIST JASON VIEAUX • FEB women, foreigners, and African-Americans who 14/15: THE AIZURI QUARTET • shaped American art music in the 19th and 20th EVOLUTION OF THE MAR 27/28: centuries; to early Baroque composers, including a KEYBOARD • MAY 1/2: MARTINU, Jewish violinist and a Catholic nun; to late Baroque KORNGOLD masters not all of whom were male; and finally to Beethoven, whose music embodies triumph over SEASON 04 TICKETS AVAILABLE AT WWW.EMERALDCITYMUSIC.ORG adversity. Although our Beethoven program is all instrumental, these words from his Choral Fantasy seem apt: “All that was harsh and hostile has turned into sublime delight... When love and strength are united, Divine grace is bestowed upon humanity.” Byron Schenkman Artistic Director Celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday! 2020 SEASON WINTER FESTIVAL, JANUARY 17–26 // Part 1 of Beethoven’s String Quartet Cycle JAMES EHNES Artistic Director SUMMER FESTIVAL, JULY 6–AUGUST 1 // Part 2 of Beethoven’s String Quartet Cycle 206.283.8808 seattlechambermusic.org Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall page 1 Byron Schenkman & Friends Mission Byron Schenkman & Friends presents artistically excellent Baroque and Classical chamber music to audiences in Seattle and beyond Byron Schenkman through lively and engaging concerts and recordings. Here we are in the Seventh Season & Friends of Byron Schenkman & Friends! 2019-2020 Vision Artistic Director Thank you for your part in making this happen. Byron Schenkman diverse and inclusive community Byron Schenkman & Friends builds a General Manager Anyone and everyone who attends a concert, buys through historically informed chamber music performances that Margy Crosby a CD, supports an advertiser, or makes a donation welcome, engage and inspire. Marketing & Operations supports the community that BS&F creates through Kai Wright Values music. Byron Schenkman & Friends thanks you Graphic Design Rebecca Richards-Diop for participating in all the ways you do. Through music we bring people together and foster an inclusive and RRD Design Co diverse community. We could not bring this music to the Web Development Lisette Ausin world without YOU! We perform at the highest levels of artistic expression and support our Austin Creative Inc musicians accordingly. Thank you! Board of Directors Our audiences are enriched by understanding the historical background Rob DeLine context of the music President and . Margy Crosby, General Manager Tom Lewandowski [email protected] Vice President Zhenyu Zhao Treasurer Peggy Monroe Byron Schenkman Friends Secretary 1211 E Denny Way, #179 BS&F is a non-profit Maria Coldwell Seattle, WA 98122-2516 501(c)(3) organization. Flora Lee Phone: 206-276-5490 Tax id# 81-5182891. Donna McCampbell [email protected] Your donation is tax-deductible. Joy Sherman Wyatt Smith www.byronandfriends.org Valerie Yockey page 2 page 3 Sept 15 Clara Schumann Bicentennial Celebration.... 6-7 Oct 27 Brahms, Dvorak and Still ........................... 8-9 Dec 29 Corelli: Baroque Splendor ......................... 12-13 Contents Feb 9 Baroque Bacchanalia ...............................16-17 Mar 15 Vivaldi in Paris ...................................... 24-25 April 19 Beethoven's Archduke Trio .......................26-27 musician bios .............................................................28-31 Out of consideration for people with chemical sensitivities, ❖ please refrain from wearing perfumes or other scented personal products. Byron Schenkman & Friends To our Series Founders would like to acknowledge that Robert DeLine and Carol Salisbury. we are on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, Special To Tom Lewandowski for all his generous support and assistance. the Duwamish People past thanks and present, and honor with To our grantors gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe which has stewarded this land throughout the generations. page 4 page 5 September Clara Schumann notes on the program 15 Bicentennial Celebration By Byron Schenkman 2019 Jesse Irons u Violin Tekla Cunningham u Viola Clara Schumann, née Wieck, was one of the most In 1835 Felix Mendelssohn conducted the premiere of u Nathan Whittaker Cello th Byron Schenkman u Piano influential European musicians of the 19 century. sixteen year old Clara's Piano Concerto in A Minor, She began her career as a child prodigy whose op. 7, with her as soloist. The middle movement, performances dazzled international audiences and a romance in the surprising key of A-flat major, is Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) who published ten volumes of music while still in a luscious song without words for piano solo. An Trio in F, H.XVI:6 her teens. At 18, she was named “Royal and Imperial obbligato cello joins two-thirds of the way through, Chamber Virtuosa” at the Austrian court, a first turning a solo song into a duet. Vivace for anyone so young, let alone foreign, Protestant, Tempo di Menuetto and female. For most of the century, she was at the Robert and Clara Schumann were lifelong center of a circle of German musicians dedicated to companions, lovers, and close colleagues, who studied Clara Schumann (1819-1896) Trio in G Minor, op. 17 preserving and continuing the legacy of what would music together and often critiqued each other’s come to be known as Western classical music. work. Clara outlived Robert by four decades. After Allegro moderato his tragic early death she worked tirelessly to edit, Scherzo Following her triumph in Vienna, Clara composed a arrange, and oversee the publication of his complete Andante piece she called Souvenir de Vienne, which included works while supporting their large family. During Allegro variations on a theme by Joseph Haydn. Early in their one of their few happy years together, Robert wrote a u intermission u marriage, she and Robert Schumann jointly studied series of exquisite chamber works, including his only Clara Schumann scores of chamber music by Haydn, Mozart, and quartet for piano and strings. Clara premiered this Romance in A-flat Major, op. 7, no. 2 Beethoven. Thus it seems fitting to begin our tribute work at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on a program which with a short trio by Joseph Haydn, the first major also included Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor and composer of piano trios. Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 47 Clara’s only piano trio was composed in 1846 and Sostenuto assai – Allegro non troppo published the following year. Clara indicated in a Scherzo: Molto vivace letter that she dedicated her trio to the pianist and Andante cantabile composer Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn); Vivace however, that dedication never appeared in print. Johannes Brahms performed the work in 1854 in Hamburg, and violinist Joseph Joachim reported that it was a great favorite at the Hannover court where he was employed. page 6 page 7 October Brahms, Dvorak notes on the program 27 and Still By Byron Schenkman 2019 Rachell Ellen Wong u Violin Byron Schenkman u Piano In 1885 Jeanette Thurber established a National Maud Powell was the first American superstar Conservatory of Music with the radical idea of violinist and was hugely influential in the sponsoring Black students, women, and students with development of western classical music in America. Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) disabilities, to develop a uniquely American school Powell gave the American premieres of the Sibelius Sonatina in G Major, op. 100 of music. Seven years later Thurber persuaded Czech and Tchaikovsky violin concertos, and performed composer Antonin Dvorak to move to New York and the Dvorak concerto with the New York Allegro risoluto Larghetto become director of the conservatory. In his three years Philharmonic under his supervision. She also Molto vivace there, Dvorak championed the idea of developing commissioned a concerto from the Black British Allegro an American national music built on the music of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose father was African-American and Indigenous people. Dvorak a descendant of enslaved African-Americans. Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) incorporated American themes into his own music, On Bended Knees most famously in his ninth symphony, “From the Amy Beach, née Cheney, was one of the most New World,” and also in chamber works such as the successful American composers of her time, with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) sonatina for violin and piano which he composed in large-scale works premiered by the Boston Deep River (transcribed for violin and piano by Maud Powell) 1894 as a gift to his children. Symphony Orchestra and the Handel & Haydn Society. Her romance for violin and piano was One of the Black students whom Dvorak met and written for Maud Powell and premiered at the Amy Beach (1867-1944) Romance for violin and piano (dedicated to Maud Powell) befriended at the National Conservatory was Henry Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Thacker Burleigh, who played double bass in the u intermission u school orchestra and developed an impressive career Despite the efforts of visionaries such as Thurber, as a singer, composer, and arranger. In addition to his Dvorak, and Powell, white males have continued to Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) concert career, Burleigh was a soloist at St. George’s dominate American classical music. Johannes Brahms, Sonata in A Major, op. 100 Episcopal Church and a member of the choir at an early champion of Dvorak’s work, is among the Allegro amabile Temple Emanu-El in New York.