Paul SchoenField (b. 1947)Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano (1990) Freylakh March Nigun Koztzke

Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Gloria Chien, piano

Felix mendelSSohn (1809–1847)Allegro brillant in A Major for Piano, Four Hands, op. 92 (1841)Inon Barnatan, Wu Han, piano

moritz moSzkoWSki (1854–1925)Suite for Two Violins and Piano, op. 71 (1909) Allegro energico Allegro moderato Lento assai Molto vivace

Sean Lee, Kristin Lee, violins; Wu Han, piano

INTERMISSION

erneSt chauSSon (1855–1899)Concerto in D Major for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, op. 21 (1889–1891) Decidé – Calme – Animé Sicilienne Grave Très animé

Ani Kavafian, solo violin; Inon Barnatan, piano; Sean Lee, Kristin Lee, violins; Arnaud Sussmann, viola; Dmitri Atapine, cello

August 10 and 11Friday, august 10, 8:00 p.m., stent Family Hall, menlo school

saturday, august 11, 6:00 p.m., the Center for performing arts at menlo-atherton

Program overvieWMusic is universally able to delight and bring joy. The final Concert Program of Music@Menlo’s tenth-anniversary sea-son explores music that conjures these feelings of festivity. Paul Schoenfield’s desire to compose a work that would be appropriate for celebratory Hassidic gatherings as well as the concert hall was the impetus for his rollicking Clarinet Trio. Mendelssohn’s exuberant Allegro brillant and Moszkowski’s spirited Suite for Two Violins and Piano demonstrate the cel-ebratory emotions that music has the power to convey. The season fittingly concludes with Chausson’s rousing, colorful, and evocative Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet.

Fête the FeStival: tenth-anniverSarY celebration dinnersaturday, august 11, 8:30 p.m., menlo park’s arrillaga recreation Center

Tickets are $50, and space is limited. Please see the patron ser-vices team for availability.

SPECIAL THANKS

Music@Menlo dedicates these performances to the following individuals and organizations with gratitude for their generous support:

August 10: The David B. and Edward C. Goodstein Foundation

August 11: Marcia and Hap Wagner and also to the Fleishhacker Foundation

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concert program viii:

Delighted: music for the fun of it

Paul SchoenField (Born January 24, 1947, Detroit)

trio for Clarinet, Violin, and piano

Composed: 1990

other works from this period: Café Music (1986); Tales from Chelm (1991)

approximate duration: 20 minutes

Born in Detroit in 1947, Paul Schoenfield began studying piano at the age of six and wrote his first compositions one year later. Early in his career, Schoenfield enjoyed considerable success as a concert pianist but he even-tually turned his full attention to composition. A man of diverse influences, he draws upon his life experiences for his work, from living on a kibbutz in Israel to moonlighting as a lounge pianist at a steakhouse in Minneapo-lis. When he received the Cleveland Arts Prize in 1994, Paul Schoenfield’s music was aptly described by the author Dennis Dooley as follows:

Echoes of Mozart, Brahms, Bartók, and Shostakovich and a host of other ingredients impart an infectious zest, and dis-tinctive flavor, to Paul Schoenfield’s music. He moves with what has been called “wizardly ease” from jazz to popular styles, from vaudeville to klezmer (an Eastern European Jew-ish music that features a quirky clarinet), to folk music and dances from different cultures.

In 1986, clarinetist David Shifrin approached Paul Schoenfield about writing a trio for clarinet, violin, and piano. Inundated with various other projects at that time, Schoenfield was not able to begin sketching out the trio until 1990. Fascinated for much of his career with the music of Hassidic gatherings and festivals, he tackled the challenge of meld-ing artistic and entertainment aesthetics. The first movement, Freylakh, evokes a traditional Eastern European dance that is often heard at Has-sidic courts during festive holidays. The movement’s frenetic energy features virtuosic writing for each of the instruments. Schoenfield described the March as “bizarre and somewhat diabolical.” The move-ment begins with a short piano introduction before launching into the main tune, a duet with the clarinet in a high register with the violin sup-porting in the instrument’s lowest register. The third movement, Nigun, is an introspective meditation, evoking the deeply mystical and spiritual aspects of the Hassidic tradition. The exuberance of the first movement returns in the Koztzke, a Russian Jewish wedding dance, seamlessly incorporating elements of jazz and traditional folk music.

Felix mendelSSohn (Born February 3, 1809, Leipzig; died November 4, 1847, Leipzig)

Allegro brillant in a major, op. 92

Composed: 1841

published: 1851

other works from this period: Symphony no. 2 (1840); Variations séri-euses, op. 54 (1841); Symphony no. 3, Scottish (1842)

approximate duration: 9 minutes

As Music Director of Leipzig’s famed Gewandhaus, Felix Mendelssohn regularly came in contact with the greatest musicians and composers of the day, including the composer Robert Schumann and his young wife, the piano virtuoso Clara Schumann. In March of 1841, Robert and Clara Schumann, still embroiled in a bitter legal battle with Clara’s

father over their courtship and subsequent marriage, were engaged by Mendelssohn to appear at a special fundraiser for the pension fund of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The event served a dual purpose as both a fundraiser and a public show of support for Robert and Clara Schumann. In addition to a performance of Robert Schumann’s First Symphony, the concert included Mendelssohn’s newly composed Allegro brillant in A Major, which he performed with Clara Schumann.

The Allegro brillant begins with a rush of scales before launching into a light and virtuosic scherzo, evoking the spirit of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The second theme features a lyrical, song-like melody. It is followed by a return of the exuberant opening material. After a moment of quiet reflection, the work concludes with a fleeting coda, full of exuberance and celebration.

—Isaac Thompson

moritz moSzkoWSki (Born August 23, 1854, Breslau [now Wrocław]; died March 4, 1925, Paris)

suite for two Violins and piano, op. 71

Composed: 1909

Dedication: Isabelle Levallois

other works from this period: Zwei Concertstücke for Violin and Piano (1909); Drei Stücke for Cello and Piano (1909)

approximate duration: 20 minutes

Moritz Moszkowski was a German pianist, conductor, and composer of Pol-ish descent. He lived from 1854 to 1925 and, though not a household name today, was celebrated in his time as one of Europe’s great virtuosos and, later, piano pedagogues. He was also a sufficiently able violinist to occasion-ally sit first violin with the academy orchestra. A nervous disorder Moszkowski suffered from while he was in his early thirties prematurely ended his days as a touring musician, after which point he focused more intently on composi-tion. He was also active as a conductor and scored some early compositional success with his orchestral scores, but his reputation as a composer was built almost entirely on the strength of his solo piano and chamber music. The lan-guage of these pieces is marked by brilliant virtuosity and, usually, a lightness of character that qualify them as salon music. The irresistible charm of much of this music made it widely popular among the day’s flourishing amateur music-making community.

The opus 71 Suite for Two Violins and Piano is a case in point: the lack of gravitas in this and Moszkowski’s other scores has, in all likelihood, been a major cause of the scant amount of attention paid to his music. But in its glorification of the two instruments with which Moszkowski was most intimately familiar, the violin and piano, the Opus 71 Suite reveals him to be a composer of great imagination.

The suite comprises four movements. The opening Allegro energico begins with a hot-blooded descending theme in the violins. One impressive trait of the suite is made evident right away: despite the absence of a viola or cello, Moszkowski’s treatment of the violins and piano is such that the music never feels texturally thin. The piano offers quick, staccato chords, which the violins answer with fragments of the opening theme. The second theme is more lyrical but no less impassioned than the first.

The second movement is built on deeply affecting melodies, betraying Moszkowski’s penchant for the music of Schumann and Mendelssohn. The nostalgic air of the slow movement likewise bespeaks the deep romantic influence on Moszkowski’s language.

The final movement proceeds with a rhythmic vitality that suggests the tarantella, an energetic Italian dance popularly thought to counter the poi-son of a spider bite. A contrasting middle section is marked by a mellifluous

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*Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 107.

Program Notes: Delighted

lyricism, but the élan of the main theme returns; Moszkowski even steps it up a notch for the finale’s coda, which brings the suite to an exuberant close.

erneSt chauSSon (Born January 20, 1855, Paris; died June 10, 1899, Limay, near Mantes, Yvelines)

Concerto in D major for Violin, piano, and string Quartet, op. 21

Composed: 1889–1891

published: 1892

other works from this period: Symphony in B-flat Major (1889–1890); Poème for Violin and Orchestra (1896)

approximate duration: 40 minutes

The composer Ernest Chausson represents one of the essential voices of French Romanticism in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Chausson studied first with the French operatic composer Jules Massenet and then, more significantly, with César Franck, and his early compositional output, from roughly 1878 to 1886, bears the hallmarks of his training. The music of this period shows an ear for attractively spun melodies and elegant har-monies as well as a reserved melancholy that marks Chausson’s language throughout his career. In the late 1880s, Chausson’s music became even bolder, and the French sensibility of his earlier work gained in dramatic depth.The scholar Jean Gallois observes that this period coincided with Chausson’s appointment as Secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique, which “led to his closer involvement in Parisian intellectual and musical circles, and, as a consequence, to a more elaborate, more intensely dramatic style, as if the musician, brought face to face with other composers, was experiencing either new self-doubts or greater difficulty in expressing his original ideas.” Gallois continues, “Not surprisingly…this whole period is dominated by large-scale, essentially dramatic works.”

Though not a work intended for a dramatic setting, the Opus 21 Con-certo for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, composed between 1889 and 1891, does nevertheless illustrate the dramatic character of Chausson’s music during this time. It is also, in its design, a unique work: it is a hybrid between chamber music and a double concerto for violin and piano, with the string quartet serving as a kind of pseudo-orchestra but with each indi-vidual player distinctly involved, as befits a chamber work.

The concerto begins with an emphatic three-note motif, introduced by the piano and then repeated with the viola and cello.

Décidé

Décidé

moins vite

moins vite

Viola

Violoncello

Pianolong.

The string quartet expands on this motif in hushed tones. After further build-up, the solo violin makes a dramatic entrance, spinning the exultant main theme from the three-note motif. The solo violin and cello issue a pleading melody, built on plaintive half steps, and the music gradually melts into the deeply felt second theme.

Building on the exposition’s thematic material, Chausson crafts a development section of magnificent power. The three-note motif returns, but now tempered by a gentle response from the piano. Over a shimmer-ing piano accompaniment, Chausson revisits the poignant second theme, slowed down to create a feeling of time suspended. At the movement’s climactic point, the plaintive second theme cries out a final time, but the turbulence subsides, and the movement ends on a note of serene repose.

The second movement is a Sicilienne, an instrumental form that dates back to the Baroque period, normally in a slow 6/8 or 12/8 tempo. Chausson

and his contemporary Vincent d’Indy compared the wistfulness of this music to “the charming fanciful gardens of Gabriel Fauré.”

Chausson biographer Ralph Grover praises the concerto’s third move-ment as “a tremendous outpouring of despair and pessimism, one of the really remarkable slow movements in all chamber music.” The movement begins with a humorless chromatic figure in the piano, over which appears a desolate theme, played in unison by the piano and violin. The entrance of the quartet heralds a new section. Rather than offering a contrast in mood, however, this passage only deepens the sense of anguish. The featherweight texture of a passage midway through the movement, built on hushed chords in the piano and whispered arpeggios in the strings, makes for a seem-ing moment of respite—but even this music turns out to be simply another perspective on the movement’s essential despair. The music arrives at a piano-and-violin duet of exquisite delicacy; the chromatic melody and syn-copated rhythms sustain a feeling of unease. The desolate theme from the opening returns, but now in a state of great agitation, bringing the move-ment to an arresting climax.

The final movement answers the gravity of the slow movement with renewed vigor. Structurally, the finale combines elements of rondo form—in which a recurring theme alternates with contrasting episodes—and variations form, meaning that the recurrences of the theme are steadily transformed throughout the movement. Using this technique, Chausson takes the move-ment through a variety of expressive characters.

Chausson also calls on an innovation of his teacher César Franck, who developed the use of cyclic form, a technique by which material from pre-ceding movements returns later in the work, thereby drawing a narrative arc over the entirety of the piece. Indeed, this device lends a dramatic effect to one of the finale’s episodes, which recalls the anguished slow movement.

—Patrick Castillo

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