BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Seiji Ozawa, Music Director One Hundred and Thirteenth Season, 1993-94 SUPPER CONCERT H Thursday, November 11, at 6 Saturday, November 13, at 6 VICTOR ROMANUL, violin KAZUKO MATSUSAKA, viola JONATHAN MILLER, cello RANDALL HODGKINSON, piano BEETHOVEN Trio in C minor for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 9, No. 3 Allegro con spirito Adagio con espressione Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace Finale: Presto Mr. ROMANUL, Ms. MATSUSAKA, and Mr. MILLER SCHUMANN Quartet in E-flat for piano and strings, Opus 47 Sostenuto assai—Allegro ma non troppo Scherzo. Molto vivace; Trio I; Trio II Andante cantabile Finale: Vivace Mr. HODGKINSON, Mr. ROMANUL, Ms. MATSUSAKA, and Mr. MILLER Baldwin piano Please exit to your left for supper following the concert. Week5 a Ludwig van Beethoven Trio in C minor for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 9, No. 3 Though Beethoven's real instrument was the piano, he was also a string player; as a teenager he made his living playing viola in the opera orchestra of his native Bonn. After moving to Vienna, Beethoven held off composing a symphony or a string quartet, genres in which Haydn, with whom he studied briefly, was preeminent. But he approached the string quartet by way of the string trio. About 1795-%, after composing his Opus 3 trio for violin, viola, and cello (modeled on Mozart), he began sketching his Opus 9 trios and the Serenade for string trio published as Opus 8. It was through these that he worked out the problems of chamber music writing. The last of the Opus 9 trios is in C minor, the key often associated with Beethoven's more dramatic and forceful musical gestures. There is already the same energy that we know from the middle-period works, and the same lyrical counterfoil to the dramatic quality of the whole. The first four notes present the earliest version of one of Beethoven's basic musical ideas, a figure that lies at the heart of several of the late string quartets. The elaborate decorations of the second movement embellish what is in essence a melody of the greatest simplicity. The scherzo races along with splendid energy, with the instruments scored in such a way as to range from delicate chamber effects to a nearly orchestral sonority. The finale has a rhetorical force in which we can see Beethoven the young Turk, with all the characteristic impatience of youth, but also with something that promises future conquests beyond this remarkable early accomplishment. Robert Schumann Quartet in E-flat for piano and strings, Opus 47 Schumann's piano quartet was the product of his "chamber music year" of 1842, which followed the "song year" 1840 and the "symphony year" 1841. During the course of 1842, Schumann produced his set of three Opus 41 string quartets, the Opus 44 piano quintet, and the present piano quartet. The quintet has always been the most popular of this group of pieces, and it is surely one of Schumann's most splendid creations, but the quartet, a smaller lyrical pendant in the same key, is full of felicitous Schumannesque touches. The slow introduction to the first movement prefigures the main motive of the Allegro that follows. At the end of the exposition, Schumann brings back the slow introduction, as if he is going to repeat it along with the entire exposition, but at the next-to-last note it suddenly veers off into the development, which builds steadily to a furious fortissimo return to the tonic and the opening of the recapitulation. The scherzo is a headlong rush of eighth-notes twice interrupted for more lyrical Trios; the second of these features one of Schumann's favorite rhythmic tricks— passage so syncopated that upbeats sound like downbeats. The richly lyrical slow movement features a long-breathed melody offered to each of the strings in turn while the piano decorates and supports. As the viola takes up the song, following a dark middle section, the cellist must tune his bottom C-string down to B-flat to produce a wonderfully deep pedal point in two octaves against the closing phrases of the rest of the ensemble. The energetic finale begins with a fugato based on a familiar-sounding theme; was Schumann thinking of the Jupiter Symphony? His interest in contrapuntal work is clearly evident in both of the E-flat chamber works with piano composed at this time, and actual fugues or fugatos are a central part of the finale in each case. —Notes by Steven Ledbetter Violinist Victor Romanul joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 1992 Tanglewood season and was appointed an assistant concertmaster of the orchestra in April 1993. Mr. Romanul began performing at the age of seven. His first teacher was Alfred Krips, former associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony. He was soloist in Beethoven's Triple Concerto at eleven, and in the Brahms Violin Concerto at thirteen. Subsequently he studied with Ivan Galamian, former BSO concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, and Jascha Heifetz. In 1979 Mr. Romanul won the Pierre Mayer Award for Most Outstanding String Player at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 1981, when he was twenty-one, he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony as associate concertmaster, a position he held for six years, leaving that orchestra in 1987 to perform as a chamber music and solo artist. Mr. Romanul is on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory of Music, where he teaches violin, chamber music, and string pedagogy. His recent activities include the world premiere of the violin concerto by John Clement Adams, and numerous chamber music concerts and solo recitals. Violist Kazuko Matsusaka joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in August 1991. From 1987 to 1990 she was a member of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and a substitute member with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Ms. Matsusaka studied violin with Josef Gingold at the Indiana University School of Music. A Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 1985, she holds a bachelor of music degree from Hartt College of Music/University of Hartford, where she studied violin with Charles Treger, and a master of music degree from the State University of New York, where she studied viola with John Graham. A prizewinner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Ms. Matsusaka has taught at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Westmoreland Suzuki School of Music. After attending Pablo Casals' master class at the University of California at Berkeley, Jonathan Miller chose to abandon his study of literature there and devote himself completely to the cello, training with Bernard Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio, and studying also with Raya Garbousova, Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, and Edgar Lustgarten. Before joining the Boston Symphony in 1971, Mr. Miller was principal cellist of the Juilliard, Hartford, and San Diego symphony orchestras. He has been soloist with the Hartford Symphony, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Boston and has performed in chamber music concerts at Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood. A winner of the Jeunesses Musicales auditions, he toured the United States twice with the New York String Sextet and appeared as a member of the Fine Arts Quartet. Mr. Miller is founder and music director of the Boston Artists' Ensemble, which is now in its fourteenth season. He has taught at the New England Conservatory and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and is currently on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory of Music. In June 1990, at the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich, he appeared as soloist at the American Cello Congress. Pianist Randall Hodgkinson won the International American Music Competition sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1981 and made his formal New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall under that competition's auspices in 1986. Earlier honors included top prizes in the J.S. Bach International Competition and other competitions, and the Tanglewood Music Center's Cabot Award in 1971. Recent years have brought a series of successful debuts with orchestra, including collaborations with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Gunther Schuller. He made his European orchestral debut in 1985 with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, performing MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2 and the European premiere of Duke Ellington's New World A-Comin Concerto, reflecting his keen interest in American music. Mr. Hodgkinson has appeared in recital throughout the United States. A featured artist on the Bosendorfer Concert Series aired on WNYC-FM in New York City, he has recorded for the Nonesuch, CRI, and New World labels. Mr. Hodgkinson earned his bachelor's degree, master's degree, and Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music, where his principal mentors were Veronica Jochum and Russell Sherman. He is currently on the Conservatory's piano faculty and is also a Music Tutor at Harvard University..