TRIO IN C MAJOR, HOB XV: 27Josef Haydn (1732-1809)

AllegroAndanteFinale: Presto

PIANO TRIO (1987)Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)

Allegro con brioLentoPresto

:: intermission ::

TRIO NO. 1 IN B-FLAT MAJOR, D. 898Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Allegro moderatoAndante, un poco mossoScherzo: AllegroRondo: Allegro vivace

24 june

Frida

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8 PM

Andrés Cárdenes, violinAnne Martindale Williams, celloDavid Deveau, piano

the program

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GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY DIANNE ANDERSON

Pre-concert talk with Dr. Andrew Shryock, 7 PM

TRIO IN C MAJOR, HOB XV: 27Josef Haydn (b. Rohrau, March 31, 1732; d. Vienna, May 31, 1809)

Composed before 1797; 19 minutes

In 1794, during his first two-year stay in London, the Austrian composer Josef Haydn met a talented young pianist, Teresa Jansen (ca. 1770-1843). Born in Germany, Ms. Jansen hadcome to England as a young child with her parents, who established a successful dance studio in London. She and Haydn became friends, and in 1795 he was a witness of Teresa’smarriage to the engraver Gaetano Bartolozzi.

A student of the famous pianist and composer Muzio Clementi, Ms. Jansen attracted the admiring attentions of several composers who dedicated works to her. Haydn, for instance,wrote his last three piano sonatas at the behest of, and in honor of Teresa Jansen. In addition,he composed three technically challenging Piano Trios, Hob XV: 27, 28, and 29, as a tributeto his young friend’s superior keyboard talents.

The Trio in C major is, accordingly, a virtuoso piece, written with full measures of Haydn’simagination, wit, and skill. Although harpsichords were still widely played privately, and usedin concert performances, Haydn composed these trios as works for piano, violin, and cello.

The brilliant Allegro in C major is in sonata form, with a prominent piano part throughout.Haydn plays with our ears by setting the following Andante in the surprising key of A major.Within that movement he effects a transition back to C major through modulations from Amajor to A minor, and thence to C major (which is the relative major of A minor), for the livelyFinale of the Trio.

Returning to a sturdy C major for the Presto Finale, Haydn is not donewith his playfulness. The lively third movement abounds in surprises: a startling first theme, off-beat rhythms, and angular melodic material.The critic and pianist Charles Rosen called it “possibly the most humorouspiece that Haydn wrote.”

Laughter and delight are appropriate responses.

PIANO TRIO (1987)Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. Miami, Florida, April 30, 1939)

Composed 1987; 16 minutes

The Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano was commissioned for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson(KLR) Trio by the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund of the Kennedy Center, the Tisch Center for thePerforming Arts (of the 92nd St. Y in New York), and San Francisco Performances. The KLRTrio performed its premiere on April 15, 1988, at the Herbst Theatre of the War MemorialCivic Center in San Francisco.

The composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who currently holds the Francis Eppes DistinguishedProfessorship at Florida State University, began her career as a violinist. After earning amaster’s degree in composition at Florida State University, she pursued advanced violinstudies with Richard Burgin and Ivan Galamian in New York, where she was a member of theAmerican Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski for seven years. For a doctorate atThe Juilliard School, she studied under the composers Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

54 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

An engraved portrait of Haydn from the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique

Registry entry for the May16, 1795 marriage of thepianist Teresa (Therese)Jansen to the engraver Gaetano Bartolozzi, withJosef Haydn’s signature (“In the presence of…”)under those of the groomand bride

With this early training, it’s no wonder that Ellen Taaffe Zwilichworked her way into professional successes as a composer ofhighly regarded works for instrumental soloists (especially violin),chamber ensembles, orchestras (five symphonies and many concertos), and much more. An impressive roster of musicians have commissioned and performed her compositions. Furthermore,these prominent musicians have performed her works not just once, but have taken her music into their active repertoire for multiple performances.

Ms. Zwilich composed this work with the KLR Trio in mind, which accounts for the tightnessof the ensemble writing and the virtuosic demands on each of the instruments. The threevoices sound a bold chord to raise the curtain. An energetic figure insixteenth notes, played by the strings and echoed by the piano, plungesthe ensemble into the Allegro con brio with the power of a jet in take-off. A second theme, swirling groups of half-steps, provides intenselyfocused energy that contrasts with the sweeping sixteenth notes. Percussive piano comments punctuate the strings’ voices throughout,and as the violin and cello exhaust their energies, the piano concludesthe movement with low, quiet chords.

Opening the Lento movement, the strings resume their duet with asorrowful melody, while the piano picks up the final chord of the firstmovement to provide sympathetic support. To the piano’s lyrical voice inthis movement the strings add prickly pizzicato effects. The movementends quietly, as the string duet poses an unanswered moment of suspended thought.

The piano sounds two treble chimes before rushing headlong into afalling torrent of sixteenth notes, a mirror of the first movement’s boldfigure. The Presto finale commands the full attention of the musiciansand the listener, with catapulting forward motion. A brief lull in theactivity only increases the suspense before the drama concludes with a resounding closing chord.

PIANO TRIO NO. 1 IN B-FLAT MAJOR, D. 898Franz Schubert (b. Alsergrund, Vienna, January 31, 1797; d. Vienna, November 19,1828)

Composed 1827; 40 minutes

During Schubert’s lifetime, concert life in Vienna began to open up to a wide spectrum of society. By 1800 the manufacture and distribution of musical instruments had created amarket to which members of the well-off classes responded enthusiastically.

At the same time, the relatively new media of music journals and newspapers flourished,providing a forum for lively discussion and leaving a valuable historical record of musiccriticism and contemporary taste. Thanks to these publications, as well as to the privatememoirs, journals, diaries, and extant letters from that time, we can imagine Schubert’sVienna and its music environment with some accuracy.

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This Peanuts© cartoon offersanother example of the “immediate appeal” to which Nicolas Slonimsky referred in his Ellen TaaffeZwilich entry in the Baker’s BiographicalDictionary, below.

“There are not many composers in themodern world who possess the luckycombination of writing music of substance and at the same time exercising an immediate appeal tomixed audiences. Zwilich offers thishappy combination of purely technicalexcellence and a distinct power ofcommunication, while poetic elementpervades the melody, harmony, andcounterpoint of her creations. Thiscombination of qualities explains thefrequency and variety of prizesawarded her from various sources.”BAKER’S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS

The variety of performances that the journals covered ranged from thephenomenally popular demonstrations of instrumental virtuosity (Paganini, Hummel, et al.) to multiple concert series initiated by theGesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society for the Friends of Music) after itsfounding in 1812. Private house concerts and music salons abounded,drawing the gifted and the not-so-gifted to perform before enthusiasticgatherings in parlors and music rooms.

Beethoven’s devoted violinist friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-1830)was one of the gifted musicians. He was the leader of numerous stringensembles (including his own Schuppanzigh Quartet) and he presentedconcerts over several decades in Vienna. He and Schubert met in 1823,and Schubert dedicated the A-minor String Quartet (D. 804) to him.

Schubert’s acquaintance with Schuppanzigh—who had received quartetcoaching from Josef Haydn himself—meant that the composer couldcount on excellent performances of his chamber music in the last five years of his life.In the case of the Piano Trios—the present one, in B-flat, as well as its sibling, the E-flatPiano Trio, composed a month later—Schubert had at his service not only Schuppanzigh, but also the cellist from the Schuppanzigh Quartet, Josef Linke (1783-1837), and one of Vienna’s most able young pianists, Karl Maria von Bocklet (1801-1881).

During his final winter, Schubert composed many significant works and engaged himselfbusily in Vienna’s music life. Although the manuscript of this Piano Trio in B-flat hasbeen lost—therefore contributing to some confusion about its actual date of composition—scholars have by now agreed that Schubert composed it in September and October, 1827,at the same time he was finishing the composition of his great song cycle Winterreise.The Trio was published in 1836, after Schubert’s death.

Even though Schubert hardly needed a specific complement of performers to inspire hiswriting, his acquaintance with this particular trio of musicians—Schuppanzigh, Linke, andBocklet—must have been gratifying. He provided them with superbly balanced works thatfed their talent for remarkable ensemble playing. The Piano Trio in B-flat, although not virtuosic in a flashy sense, requires first-class technical preparation from all threeperformers, along with a refined sense of balance and sensitivity in the ensemble.

The B-flat Trio is an ebullient work. In the first movement—at about fifteen minutes thelongest—Schubert introduces lively themes that he transposes deftly to various keys,delighting and surprising us with his dexterous transitions to wide-ranging tonalities beforereturning finally to the sunny B-flat of the opening. In the second movement, the pianointroduces a gentle, rocking motion in E-flat, and the cello and violin, in turn, sing a lullaby of great sweetness. The evening air is disturbed by passionate explorations into minor keysbefore calm settles in the E-flat coda. The Scherzo, a lively dance, swirls by joyously; itsleisurely Trio provides contrast. The Piano Trio closes with an amiable Rondo movement.The B-flat Rondo episodes alternate with thematic adventures into other keys, and a Prestocoda completes the work with a flourish.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

56 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Ignaz Schuppanzigh(1776-1830) was the prominent Viennese violinist who gave the first performance of the “Archduke” Trio withBeethoven and who introducedboth of Schubert’s PianoTrios to the Viennese public.

The cellist Josef Linke(1783-1837), along with Schuppanzigh andBeethoven himself, introduced Beethoven’s“Archduke” to Vienna in1814. Twelve years later,Linke, Schuppanzigh, andthe pianist Carl Maria vonBocklet played the premierperformances of Schubert’stwo Piano Trios.

The composer and pianistCarl Maria von Bocklet(1801-1881), with IgnazSchuppanzigh and JosephLinke, played the first public performances of the two new piano trios by his friend and colleagueFranz Schubert.