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Chestnut Hill Concerts 44th Season 2013 Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

Chestnut Hill Concerts 2013 Season Program Book

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Ronald Thomas, artistic director. "The Romantic Masters and Those They Inspired." Aug 2, 9, 16, and 23 at the Kate in Old Saybrook. Programs, notes by Barbara Leish, artist biographies and more.

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Page 1: Chestnut Hill Concerts 2013 Season Program Book

Chestnut Hill Concerts

44th Season • 2013Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

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225 Elm St. 225 Elm St.

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2013 Concert SeasonRonald Thomas, Artistic Director

Board of DirectorsDavid A. Rackey, president

Patrick Smith, treasurerJ. Melvin Woody, secretary

Connie DickinsonDr. Michael EbertDr. Mahlon Hale

Mihae LeeDavid Lopath

Susan NorzJeanne Guertin-Potoff

StaffVincent Oneppo, managing director

Christopher Melillo, technical manager Daniel Kurpaska, production assistant and page turner

Paula Raggio, bookkeeper

Barbara Leish, program annotator

Chestnut Hill Concerts P.O. Box 183, Guilford, CT 06437

(203) 245-5736 www.chestnuthillconcerts.org

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Cover: Kreutzer Sonata (1901) by René François Xavier Prinet

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From the President of the BoardTo Our Audience, Sponsors, and Contributors:

Welcome to the 2013 Chestnut Hill Concerts chamber music series, marking our forty-fourth year of concerts on the Connecticut shoreline. Over the years we have performed in a variety of venues from private homes, to barns and to churches, but since making our home at the Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center our series has attracted a growing audience of people who love chamber music played at the highest level of artistic skill.

Ronald Thomas, our artistic director, has selected a wonderful program of music composed at a time when the world was in many ways a smaller and simpler place. As Mr. Thomas will explain during the performances, the music world of the time – composers, musicians and audiences – was a relatively small and close-knit group. Many of these composers knew each other, and influenced and inspired each other, and as a group developed a repertory of work that has both endured and become a permanent part of our beloved music vocabulary. They were supported by a still smaller group of wealthy benefactors who recognized the value of art of all sorts and supported the composition and performance of the exceptional artists we will hear this season.

While the world is a larger and more complex place today, performances like this would not be possible without the support of people like you who both attend and lend financial support to our organization. Ticket sales cover only about one third of the cost of mounting these performances, and we would not exist with out your generosity. We particularly want to thank our generous concert sponsors, Essex Savings Bank and Guilford Savings Bank, and the many individual donors who have generously supported these performances.

In addition, every year we recognize a single individual who has made an outstand-ing contribution to the success of our organization. This year we are recognizing a past President, Marilyn Buel, who managed our efforts in the 1980s and and 1990s. Thank you, Marilyn.

I thank you all for joining us.

David A. Rackey

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dedication

Marilyn Buel

Chestnut Hill Concerts is pleased to dedicate its 2013 season to Marilyn Buel, long-time board member and former board president. Even as she pursued a successful career in public relations, Marilyn helped guide the orga-nization through some very difficult transitions, including moves to various venues and changes in artistic leadership. Becoming active with CHC in the mid-1980s, she joined the board, was elected secretary and eventually president. She retired from the board in 1998.

“Please don’t tell anyone, but I confess I don’t really know anything about music,” Marilyn says half-jokingly. “I never remember the titles of pieces — a lot of num-bers and letters. I just know I love it. Every concert had its transporting moments. I remember that frisson of delight hearing the first few notes, realizing it’s a long-loved piece. Like seeing an old friend across a crowded room.”

Marilyn was President when Ronald Thomas was appointed artistic director. “When I joined the CHC family, Marilyn Buel was the heart, the soul, and the mother of the entire venture,” says Mr. Thomas. “She continued to lead and inspire everyone involved, especially me, as she balanced our artistic adventures against the bottom line, while keeping everyone happy and productive. She was down to earth, but frequently joined us musicians in the clouds. Our perfect leader.”

Marilyn said that “Ron never sought programming advice from me; I had other areas of expertise to bring to the board.” He knew I was nervous about ‘new’ music. I thought of ‘new’ pieces as if they were a duty that would do me good: I should be exposed to this.

“However, one of my treasured memories from over thirty years attending Chestnut Hill Concerts, beginning at the Hammonasset School, was the concluding piece to a season while I was president. Ron had chosen a dazzling Shostakovich work. I was terrified when I saw it listed, but it was brilliant and I couldn’t wait to tell Ron how much I enjoyed it. During the enthusiastic standing ovation for the piece, I turned to get my handbag. The long-time subscriber behind me hissed, ‘If I had known they were going to play Shostakovich, I’d have given my tickets away.’ Startled, I said, ‘See you next season,’ while thinking she’d had numerous pre-season mailings and the concert was listed in the season program. As I turned forward, the man in front of me said, ‘Wasn’t that fabulous? Don’t you love it?’ And I did. That’s what makes horse races, as they used to say, and that’s what makes a terrific concert season.

“Missing the concerts since I was diagnosed with leukemia reminds me of how important the Chestnut Hill series has been to me. I feel especially honored to have this season dedicated to me because all the ‘new’ music is ‘old’!”

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The Romantic Mastersand those they inspired

Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert – they need no introduction; their works are as beloved as they are familiar. But nineteenth-century Europe was rich in gifted composers who since have stayed in the shadows, their music for the most part little known and infrequently performed today. Yet they were part of a vibrant musical world, and while some were better known as performers or teachers, their compositions were praised or influenced by their better-known contemporaries. Our concerts this month look at some intriguing relationships, musical and otherwise, among several well-known Romantic-era composers and a handful of their less well-known colleagues or admirers. It’s illuminating, sometimes surprising, and always enjoyable to hear worthy but unfamiliar works performed side by side with Romantic benchmarks, and to trace the interconnections among some less familiar composers and the musical giants who often were their mentors, colleagues, and friends.

— Barbara Leish, Program Annotator

Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

Large Print Programs Chestnut Hill Concerts is pleased to provide the program

and program note pages in a large print format. Please ask

an usher for a copy.

Please Note

The use of cameras and recording equipment without express written permis-sion from Chestnut Hill Concerts is strictly prohibited. During the performance, please disengage alarms and cell phones. Please leave beepers or paging systems with the House Manager or an usher. Lost and found articles should be reported or turned in to the House Manager. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.

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Chestnut Hill Concerts8:00 pm, Friday, August 2, 2013

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center

Andantino and Allegro Scherzoso, Op. 1 (1848) Joseph Joachim for Violin and Piano (1831-1907)

Erin Keefe, violinAnna Polonsky, piano

Romance in C major (1894) Joseph Joachim for Viola and Piano

Beth Guterman Chu, violaAnna Polonsky, piano

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17 (1846) Clara Wieck Schumann for violin, cello, and piano (1819-1896) Allegro moderato Scherzo. Tempo di Menuetto Andante Allegretto

Erin Keefe, violinRonald Thomas, celloAnna Polonsky, piano

Intermission

Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47 (1842) Robert Schumann Sostenuto assai; Allegro ma non troppo (1810-1856) Scherzo: Molto vivace Andante cantabile Finale: Vivace

Erin Keefe, violinBeth Guterman Chu, viola

Ronald Thomas, celloAnna Polonsky, piano

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Program Notes by Barbara Leish

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Europe was divided into two warring musical camps. One, headed by Liszt and Wagner, promoted a programmatic approach to musical composition and proclaimed that theirs was the music of the future. They were opposed by a group of traditionalists among whose leaders were four close friends: Johannes Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann, and the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim. In a way, Joachim was the fulcrum of this group: It was he who was first became friends with the Schumanns, who introduced Brahms to Clara and Robert, and who became a lifelong source of devotion, encouragement, and support for the other three.

Joseph JoachimAndantino and Allegro Scherzoso, Op. 1Romance in C major

Joachim was a child prodigy who gave his first concert in his native Hungary at the age of eight. Sent to Europe to study, he became a Mendelssohn protégé who at thir-teen was taken by Mendelssohn to London, where his performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto catapulted him to fame. His long intimacy with the Schumanns began in 1853, when he played the Beethoven concerto with the orchestra that Robert was conducting in Düsseldorf. “Joachim conquered all of us,” Clara wrote; “I have never heard such ideal violin playing.” The friendship was sealed when, the next day, Joachim was invited to the Schumann home, where he played Robert’s Violin Sonata in A minor with Clara, to Robert’s delight. “I can think of no other violinist now,” Clara wrote afterward. “But we have learned to know Joachim not only as an artist, but as a loveable and truly modest person.” As a gesture of thanks for their new friendship, Robert wrote the Fantasie for Violin and Orchestra for Joachim. On hearing Joachim play it, Schumann reportedly whispered to a neighbor, ”One can never love him enough.”

As for Joachim the composer, both Brahms and Clara expressed their admiration for his work and encouraged him to continue. Joachim, however, eventually stopped composing to devote his energies to performing and conducting, leaving behind a relatively small but distinguished body of work. Probably his best-known composi-tion is the exceptionally difficult “Hungarian” Violin Concerto. But the two pieces on tonight’s program are fine examples of his appealing style. His early Andantino and Allegro Scherzoso shows both his gift for melody and his flair for drama. The Andantino, written in a simple ABA structure, opens with a piano introduction that begins ominously but quickly softens before the violin enters with a lyrical, somewhat melancholy theme. The mood brightens in the central section, where the key changes from minor to major. Throughout, the violin carries the melody,

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while the piano provides harmony and rhythmic variety. The Allegro scherzoso is strikingly different in character: youthfully exuberant, orchestral in scope, virtuosic, and full of dramatic flourishes. Joachim treats this movement almost like the first movement of a concerto, with the piano taking the orchestra part. Brilliant violin passages are followed by vigorous piano solos marked tutti. There’s even a dazzling violin cadenza. After the excitement of this work, the lovely, intimate Romance in C – with the piano rippling under the viola’s calm, soulful melody – is a peaceful respite.

Clara Wieck SchumannPiano Trio in G minor, Op. 17

Like her good friend Joseph Joachim, Clara Schumann’s reputation rested on her brilliance as a performer. Both were also gifted composers, but both eventually gave up composing to focus on performing. In Clara’s case, the reason was practical rather than artistic: during her marriage and especially after Robert’s death, concert tours were the way she was able to support her large family, and they left her little time for anything else. There was another reason, too. Charles Rosen has called Clara “perhaps the chief disaster of the nineteenth century’s prejudice against female composers.” Just as Fanny Mendelssohn let her music be published under her brother Felix’s name because few would believe a woman capable of such achievement, so did Clara allow songs she wrote to be published under the name of her husband, Robert. She did so at least in part because in both Clara’s and Robert’s eyes, Robert took priority.

Clara Wieck’s father began training her from an early age for a great musical career, not just as a pianist but also as a composer. She made her piano debut at eleven and began her Piano Concerto in A minor when she was fourteen. Clara was already well known as a piano virtuoso when she married Robert. Theirs was a passionate relationship, with music at the center of their lives. They studied Bach and Beethoven together, exchanged musical ideas, and influenced each other: Clara’s compositions began to sound more like Robert’s, and Robert included quotations from Clara’s works in his own. She was devoted to him and ardently promoted his work. There was a cost, though. Putting Robert first, caring for their growing family (eventually they would have eight children), and undertaking the concert tours that supported them left little time for composing. “My piano playing is getting behind again,” she wrote in 1841, “as is always the case when Robert is composing. Not one little hour in the whole day is left for me!” Despite Robert’s encouragement, she composed less and less during their marriage.

Most of Clara’s twenty-three published works are songs and short character pieces. A major exception is this Piano Trio in G minor, a complex and beautifully writ-ten chamber work that shows her mastery both of counterpoint and of the long melodic line. The sonata-form first movement is filled with Romantic ardor, from its urgent lyrical themes tinged with longing, to its vigorous contrapuntal development section, to its brief, driving coda. The Scherzo – “in the tempo of a

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minuet” – is a surprisingly gentle movement, marked by playful dotted rhythms and a more lyrical Trio. If Robert’s influence is apparent in the first movement, Mendelssohn’s can be heard in the melodious Andante, a Romantic “song without words” with an agitated middle section and some lovely writing for all three instru-ments. Clara puts her study of counterpoint to impressive use in the animated last movement, which opens quietly, develops dramatically in a fugal central section, and ends elegantly on an uplifting major chord. A wonderful work, the Trio dem-onstrates that while Clara shared Robert’s musical sensibility, she was very much her own immense talent.

Robert SchumannPiano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47

Robert hated the separations that Clara’s concert tours imposed. True, accompanying his more famous wife brought its own stresses: On an 1852 tour of Holland, their royal host asked Robert, “Are you musical too?” Nonetheless, Robert needed Clara nearby for his emotional well-being.

Robert composed obsessively, one genre at a time. His pattern was to work in huge bursts of energy until, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion, he collapsed. In his twenties he focused almost exclusively on composing solo works for the piano, producing a body of work that included all the masterpieces that are cherished today. In 1840 he married his great love Clara, after which – or more likely because of which – he spent the following year writing one glorious song cycle after another. Next, at Clara’s urging, Robert, the master of the miniature, turned to large-scale orchestral works, writing his first symphonies in 1841. In 1842, it was the turn of chamber music. In a way, Clara was again responsible. While she was away on a concert tour, Robert, alone and depressed, passed the time at home studying the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and especially Beethoven, whose work particu-larly inspired him. With Clara’s return his spirits were restored, and the musical ideas began again to flow. In a great creative burst, over the next six months he wrote three string quartets, a piano trio, his famous piano quintet, and this jewel of a piano quartet.

Beethoven’s influence is palpable from the very beginning of the impassioned, rhyth-mically driven E-flat major Quartet. Not only is it in the same key as Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 127, but it begins the same way, with a slow, solemn sostenuto that is followed by a lively Allegro whose first theme is derived from the introduction. The slower sostenuto reappears twice in the movement, before the development, and again before the coda. Although the movement is in sonata form, Schumann twice bends the rules, focusing on just the first theme in the development section, and having the cello introduce a new theme in the coda. While the first part of the nimble Scherzo shows the influence of Schumann’s friend Mendelssohn, the movement’s second Trio, with its series of syncopated chords, is pure Schumann. Robert’s gift for song is on full display in the Andante cantabile, whose ardent main melody is played

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in turn by each of the instruments. The movement ends with a strikingly original coda: the cellist tunes the low string down to B-flat, then sustains that tone as a low drone while the other instruments anticipate the opening theme of the last move-ment. This ebullient Finale demonstrates Schumann’s skill at contrapuntal writing as he spins out theme after wonderful theme – one fugal, another lyrical, a third recalling the Scherzo. It’s an exhilarating end to a quintessentially Romantic work, rich in grand themes, emotional expressiveness, and surprising developments. Clara Schumann, who played the piano part for the Quartet’s premiere, loved it, referring to it as “this beautiful work, which is so youthful and fresh; as if it were his first.”

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Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 32 (1852) William Sterndale Bennett Adagio sostenuto – Allegro giusto e leggierissimo (1816 – 1875) Minuetto caracteristique Allegro piacevole, animato

Ronald Thomas, celloMax Levinson, piano

Piano Trio in G minor (1826) John Thomson Adagio – Allegro moderato (1805 – 1841) Minuet and Trio Andantino Allegro molto appassionato

Jennifer Frautschi, violinRonald Thomas, celloMax Levinson, piano

Intermission

Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 (1839) Felix Mendelssohn Molto Allegro e agitato (1809 – 1847) Andante con moto tranquillo Scherzo: Leggiero e vivace Finale: Allegro assai appassionato

Jennifer Frautschi, violinRonald Thomas, celloMax Levinson, piano

Chestnut Hill Concerts8:00 pm, Friday, August 9, 2013

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center

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Program Notes by Barbara Leish

William Sterndale BennettSonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 32

Felix Mendelssohn was beloved throughout Europe and especially in Victorian England, where he was lionized by English society and emulated by a generation of British composers. William Sterndale Bennett – whom The New Grove Diction-ary calls “the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school ” – was perhaps the first in England to come under his spell. Bennett was seventeen and had just performed his First Piano Concerto when he met Mendelssohn, who was in the audience for the concert. Impressed, Mendelssohn invited him to Germany. When Bennett asked, “May I come to be your pupil?” Mendelssohn replied, “No, no, you must come to be my friend.” It was the beginning of a relationship that would have a lifelong impact on Bennett. Thirty years later, by then the head of London’s Royal Academy of Music and a much-admired composer in England, Bennett referred to his compositions as “works of a Mendelssohn pupil.”

In 1836 Bennett made the first of several extended visits to Germany, at the end of which Mendelssohn wrote to a British friend, “I think him the most promising young musician I know, not only in your country but also here, and I am convinced if he does not become a very great musician, it is not God’s will, but his own.” Bennett’s virtuosity was the talk of Leipzig. Socially too he was a success, joining a musical circle that enjoyed billiards and daily lunches with Mendelssohn and Schumann, with whom Bennett became close friends. Schumann later dedicated his Symphonic Etudes to the personable young Englishman. “Were there many artists like Sterndale Bennett, all fears for the future progress of our art would be silenced,” he wrote. Surprisingly, after Bennett returned to England and launched an illustrious career as a teacher, administrator, and performer, his early outpouring of piano, orchestral, and chamber works slowed dramatically.

Bennett’s delightful Sonata for Cello and Piano reflects his indebtedness to Men-delssohn, especially in the contrasts between the cello’s long, lyrical lines and the piano’s virtuoso figurations. Close your eyes and you might think you’re listening to a Mendelssohn sonata. Bennett’s sonata is no mere imitation, though, but a well-crafted work that abounds in lovely, lyrical melodies and is distinguished by the liveliness, freshness, and grace that made his music so appealing to his listen-ers. The Sonata’s opening movement is in three parts: a long, slow introduction, highlighted by a graceful cello melody; an energetic, airy central section in which passages of rapid triplets alternate with a series of tuneful melodies; and a slow, songful coda that brings the movement to a quiet close. The Minuetto that follows has a charming lilt, with the piano weaving arabesques and the cello taking the lead

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in a livelier central section. The genial Rondo that ends the Sonata is a movement of shifting moods, with sections marked variously “brilliant,” “plaintive,” and “always tranquil.” Again, as in the first movement, the cello sings and the piano cavorts as the movement builds to a cheerful climax, bringing to a close an appealing work from a composer once styled the English Mendelssohn.

John ThomsonPiano Trio in G minor

The Scottish composer and musicologist John Thomson was another of the many talented composers from the British Isles whose careers were influenced by Men-delssohn. Thomson met and became friends with Mendelssohn when Felix visited Edinburgh in 1829. Thomson was eager to study in Germany, so Mendelssohn wrote a letter of introduction to his family in which he praised several of Thomson’s compositions, including the G minor Piano Trio. Thomson’s interactions with the Mendelssohn family included one fascinating episode involving Felix’s sister Fanny, herself a gifted composer. Felix’s Twelve Songs published as Opus 8 in 1827 included some that were actually written by Fanny. It was Thomson who revealed the truth, reporting to English music lovers, “Three of the best songs are by his sister.” A few years later, in 1832, Thomson published another of Fanny’s songs – the first to be published under her own name.

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In 1839, with Mendelssohn’s support, Thomson was appointed the first Reid Profes-sor of the Theory of Music at Edinburgh University. For the inaugural Reid Concert that he conducted there, he introduced a new idea: program notes that analyzed the music for the audience. In 1840 he invited Mendelssohn to come to Edinburgh to direct a music festival at the university. Thomson’s idea was to present oratorios of Handel, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. Felix, though, wanted instead to perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Thomson demurred, explaining in a letter to Felix that it was impossible in Protestant Edinburgh, “for having Christ as one of the dramatic personae would be a fatal objection to its performance in this country.” Mendelssohn decided to accept another festival invitation instead.

Although Thomson’s early death cut short his composing career, he was admired as a composer of chamber works, songs, and operas. It’s not surprising that Mendels-sohn would have been impressed with the G minor Piano Trio, given its Classical structure, lyrical melodic lines, transparent textures, and Romantic mix of gentle-ness and ardor. The Trio opens with a solemn Adagio, with the strings playing a slow, downward-moving line that the piano counters with a rapidly rising scale, a pattern that recurs in the sonata-form Allegro. Highlights of the movement include a sweet second theme, a stormy development section, a dramatic conclusion, and, throughout, restless triplets in the piano that propel the music. Each instrument gets a solo turn in the charming Minuet and Trio, which begins with an amusingly gruff little theme that all the instruments play in unison, then quickly shifts to a series of light melodies. The cello takes the lead in the Trio, which in character is much like the Minuet. Melodies continue to flow in the waltz-like, ingratiating Andantino, throughout which the strings harmonize or trade parts back and forth while the piano keeps up a simple rhythmic accompaniment. A stormy middle section briefly interrupts the genial mood. Triplets return to propel the good-natured, high-spirited Finale, which features rhythmically irregular passages that periodically disrupt the forward momentum, a fugue-like central section, and a propulsive gallop to a surprise ending as the music wafts away, ending on two quietly whimsical notes.

Felix MendelssohnPiano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

Mendelssohn occupied a singular place in the vibrant musical life of his time. He was renowned not just for his music and his influence, but also for his warm per-sonality and his remarkable capacity for friendship; he was a favorite of everyone from fellow musicians to Queen Victoria. He was also surprisingly modest. Joseph Joachim reported that at a performance of his D minor Piano Trio in London in 1844, by mistake only the string parts were placed on the music stands. Mendels-sohn realized he would have to play the piano part from memory. In order not to draw attention to himself, however, he had other music put on his stand and had someone turn pages, so that “I need not look as if I play by heart.”

Professionally as well as personally, Mendelssohn had a great impact on the musi-

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cal life of Europe. As director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he promoted the performances both of German masterworks and of worthy new compositions. Energetic in his pursuit of new works, he became what Peter Mercer-Taylor calls “north Germany’s leading arbiter of musical taste.” Meanwhile, despite his hectic schedule and constant claims on his time, he continued to compose. Schumann called Felix’s Piano Trio in D Minor, written in the summer of 1839, “the master trio of our age” and added, “he has raised himself so high that we can indeed say he is the Mozart of the nineteenth century.” Interestingly, when Mendelssohn played a draft of the Trio for his friend Ferdinand Hiller, Hiller commented that the piano part was too old-fashioned and urged Mendelssohn to make it more virtuosic, in the manner of Chopin and Liszt. As a result, Mendelssohn made significant changes to the first movement, adding brilliance and Romantic unpredictability to the Trio’s Classical proportions.

The Piano Trio is notable for its craftsmanship, Classical form, abundance of memorable melodies, and the brilliance of its piano writing. Two wonderfully lyrical themes open the sonata-form first movement, each introduced by the cello. Throughout the exposition, the cello and violin trade these melodies and develop them harmonically and contrapuntally, while the piano rumbles agitatedly under-neath or wraps the melodies in sparkling figurations. That pattern continues in the development section and the recapitulation, at the end of which the music rises to a peak of passionate virtuosity. In a dramatic change of mood, the second movement begins with a Mendelssohn trademark: a gentle Song without Words introduced by the piano, followed by a duet between the violin and the cello, a contrasting, minor-key middle section, and a return to the enchantment of the opening. The third movement, an effervescent Scherzo, is another trademark – the type of light, mercurial, perpetual-motion romp that Mendelssohn invented in his Octet. The Trio comes to a glorious end in a rhythmic Finale that once more combines virtuosic and lyrical elements. Mendelssohn’s biographer R. Larry Todd aptly describes this sweeping last movement as incorporating “the agitated brooding of the first, subdued introspection of the second and playful frivolity of the third...before reconciling them in the celebratory D major ending.”

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Chestnut Hill Concerts8:00 pm, Friday, August 16, 2013

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts CenterSponsored by Guilford Savings Bank

Short Pieces for Violin and Piano, Set One (1894) Charles Hubert Hastings Parry 1. Idyll: Allegretto (1848-1918) 2. Romance: Andante espressivo 4. Lullaby: Andantino 3. Capriccio: Vivace

Arnaud Sussman, violinMihae Lee, piano

Piano Quartet in D major, Op. 23 (1875) Antonín Dvořák Allegro moderato (1841-1904) Theme (Andantino) and Variations Finale: Allegretto scherzando – Allegro agitato

Arnaud Sussman, violinDimitri Murrath, violaRonald Thomas, cello

Mihae Lee, piano

Intermission

Piano Quartet in A major, Op. 26 (1861) Johannes Brahms Allegro non troppo (1833 – 1897) Poco adagio Scherzo. Poco allegro & Trio Finale. Allegro

Arnaud Sussman, violinDimitri Murrath, violaRonald Thomas, cello

Mihae Lee, piano

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Program Notes by Barbara Leish

Charles Hubert Hastings ParryShort Pieces for Violin and Piano

English composers from the nineteeth century generally have been given short shrift by musical historians. One critic, for example, commented that William Sterndale Bennett’s preeminence was “emphasized by the flatness of the surrounding coun-tryside.” Charles Parry is another who was dismissed as old-fashioned by twentieth-century listeners. In recent years, though, as Parry’s music has been rediscovered and performed in public, audiences have found a richness and adventurousness that belie these earlier impressions. His own contemporaries had a much better appreciation of his gifts. He was an important and influential figure in English musical life: a director of the Royal College of Music, a teacher, a musical scholar, and especially a widely admired composer. For years his third symphony, the “English,” was the most frequently played symphony in England. His stirring hymn “Jerusalem,” writ-ten in 1916 to words by William Blake, is now practically a national anthem, sung at everything from sporting events to the 2011 royal wedding of William and Kate.

In an important way, Parry was shaped by Brahms. After studying law and modern history at Oxford, Parry began his working life as a clerk for an insurance company while composing on the side and dreaming of studying with Brahms. When that couldn’t be arranged, in 1873 he began working with the renowned pianist and teacher Edward Dannreuther, who expanded Parry’s musical horizons through a study of the Classical composers as well as of Brahms and Wagner. Parry was impressed by the visionary ideas of both of these men. It was Brahms, however, whose innovations had the greatest impact on his emerging style. Parry remained a lifelong admirer, and his compositions reflect his close study of Brahms’s chamber music. From Parry’s earliest chamber works – the Grosses Duo for Two Pianos in E minor, the Piano Trio in E minor, the Piano Quartet in A-Flat major – he shows his mastery of Brahmsian sonata technique, with its expanded forms, extended key relationships, and motivic development. (Later in tonight’s program, you’ll hear how Brahms used these same techniques in his A major Piano Quartet.) After Brahms died in 1897, Parry, deeply affected, wrote a moving “Elegy for Brahms” that includes quotations from Brahms’s music. When Parry died, the Elegy was played at his own memorial concert.

By the time Parry wrote Twelve Short Pieces for violin and piano, he had turned to music full time, and his national reputation was firmly established. Commissioned by the publisher Novello, these Short Pieces are delightful miniatures that traverse a wide range of emotions and styles. Each one is dedicated either to the composer’s wife, Maude, or to one of his two daughters, Dorothea (Dolly) and Gwen. The pieces

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include romances, capriccios, envois, a prelude, and a lullaby. When you listen to tonight’s selections, you might occasionally hear strains reminiscent of other com-posers such as Dvořák, Schumann, and of course Brahms. What you’ll certainly hear is one charming character piece after another, from a gifted melodist whose distinctive works are true treasures of nineteenth-century English Romanticism.

Antonín DvořákPiano Quartet in D major, Op. 23

Dvořák was already an accomplished although still obscure composer when Brahms entered his life, and the two began a friendship that Leon Botstein has described as “a relationship that is quite unparalleled in music history.” They first came into contact in 1875, when Brahms sat on an Austrian jury that was awarding financial support to worthy but needy composers within the Hapsburg Empire. Brahms was bowled over by the works Dvořák submitted, and he saw to it that Dvořák received a grant. As the critic Eduard Hanslick later wrote to Dvořák, “Johannes Brahms… takes a great interest in your fine talent….The sympathy of an artist as important and famous as Brahms should not only be pleasant but also useful to you, and I think you should write to him….After all, it would be advantageous for your things to become known beyond your narrow Czech fatherland.”

Brahms’s enthusiastic support was life-changing for Dvořák. His breakthrough came when Brahms persuaded his own publisher, Simrock, to publish Dvořák’s Moravian Duets. They were a hit, and the publisher then commissioned the Slavonic Dances that Dvořák modeled on Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, and that launched Dvořák on the road to international fame. Over the years Brahms offered continual advice and support. (Once, Brahms proofread Dvořák’s music for Simrock and discreetly cleaned up his careless friend’s counterpoint.) “What impressed Brahms about Dvořák,” according to Botstein, ”was the seemingly unlimited inventiveness of Dvořák’s melodic materials, his uncanny sense of time and duration, and the dazzling sense of musical line that the younger composer achieved.” All of these strengths are apparent in Dvorak’s Piano Quartet in D major, written in just 18 days in 1875, after Dvořák learned he had been awarded his stipend.

The Quartet begins ingratiatingly with a folk-sounding, syncopated opening theme that almost immediately shifts to a new key before giving way to a more vigorous second theme – an early indication of the surprises and pleasures to follow. The long sonata-form movement is striking for its expansiveness, its leisurely development of a wealth of melodic ideas, its harmonic color, and the skill with which Dvořák balances the four instruments. The mood is entirely different in the second movement, in which a melancholy, minor-key melody is followed by five variations that introduce a range of textures and rhythms. One instrument enters at a time in the sparse first variation. The piano introduces the melody in the thicker-textured second, and again in the inverted-theme third. The arpeggiated, richly colored, Slavic-tinged fourth variation moves back and forth between two keys, one major, the other minor. After

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a sharp metrical shift to 6/16 in the last variation, an extended coda restores the original tempo and melancholy air. Unusually, the good-natured last movement combines a scherzo with a finale. The sections alternate, rondo-fashion; the rhythms shift from waltz to country dance; and the melodies flow, as does the humor. It’s a delightful end to a fresh and inventive work from the composer Brahms hailed as “a spontaneous talent, who knows from inside himself what’s right.”

Johannes BrahmsPiano Quartet in A major, Op. 26

To Wagner, Brahms was a traditionalist whose music belonged to the past. To Schoenberg, he was a progressive whose innovations influenced Schoenberg’s own musical ideas. In a way, both were right. Brahms’s reputation as a traditionalist and a conservative came from his championing the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and from his use of traditional Classical structures in his own music. What he did within those structures, however, was another story. While he under-stood traditional sonata form – two or more themes presented in an exposition, elaborated on in a development section, and resolved in a recapitulation – he was innovative in his treatment of it. As Jan Swafford notes, “A Brahmsian movement is often made of succinct melodic ideas that begin to transform as soon as we hear them, and continue to evolve and recombine throughout, accompanied by the sort

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of abrupt key changes that used to be confined to the development section.” This is the technique that an admiring Schoenberg named “developing variation,” and that Brahms uses in the superb A major Piano Quartet.

Brahms wrote the Quartet during a relatively placid period in his life, while he was living on his own outside Hamburg. During this period he wrote several impor-tant works, including the Handel Variations and his first two piano quartets, the extroverted No. 1 in G minor and this lyrical and expansive companion. The first movement of the A major Quartet gives a good sense of how Brahms’s technique of developing variation works. Instead of traditional thematic development, Brahms develops a wealth of motives incrementally and in complex relationships. Brahms opens with a striking two-part thematic statement: The piano begins a gentle, irregular motive, in triplets, which the cello answers with a flowing phrase in eighth notes. The strings repeat the triplet motive, immediately after which these two ideas begin evolving harmonically and melodically. Meanwhile, the two contrasting meters play out against each other throughout the sonata-form movement. When, for example, after an intense transition the piano introduces a second theme, the rhythmic pattern of three notes against two reemerges, with the piano this time picking up the eighth-note rhythm and the cello countering with triplets.

While the first movement reflects Brahms’s admiration for Schubert, the beautiful second shows his affection for Schumann. Tranquil, at times ardent, and melodically rich throughout, the Adagio is striking for its long, arching piano themes, the muted sonorities of the strings, and especially the strange, somewhat ominous arpeggios that twice interrupt the melodic flow before closing the movement. Brahms next presents a Scherzo that is surprisingly light and amiable, although the minor-key Trio, which opens with a fiery canon, is made of sterner stuff. The vivacious Finale is marked by exuberant, Hungarian-style themes that sweep the music to a joyful conclusion. It is marked, too, by a continuation of rhythmic irregularities. At the start of the movement, for instance, Brahms seems to be having a good time disguising where the beat falls. This playing with meter is another element that increasingly will become a distinguishing feature of Brahms’s musical style.

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Chestnut Hill Concerts8:00 pm, Friday, August 23, 2013

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts CenterSponsored by Essex Savings Bank

Rondo for Cello and Piano, Op. 2 (1819) Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek (1791-1825)

Ronald Thomas, celloMihae Lee, piano

Two German Songs Franz Lachner Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On Wings of Song) (1832) (1803 – 1890) Seit Ich Ihn Gesehen (Since I First Saw Him) (1846/47)

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965 Franz Schubert (The Shepherd on the Rock) (1828) (1798-1828)

Song texts are on the following pages

Hyunah Yu, sopranoRomie De Guise-Langlois, clarinet

Mihae Lee, piano

Intermission

Trio No. 1 in B-flat major for Piano, Franz Schubert Violin, and Cello, D. 898 (1827) Allegro moderato Andante un poco mosso Scherzo: Allegro. Trio Rondo: Allegro vivace. Presto

Steven Copes, violinRonald Thomas, cello

Mihae Lee, piano

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Song Texts

Auf Flügeln des Gesanges Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)

Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,Herzliebchen, trag ich dich fort,Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges,Dort weiß ich den schönsten Ort;

Dort liegt ein blühender GartenIm stillen Mondenschein,Die Lotosblumen erwartenIhr trautes Schwesterlein.

Die Veilchen kichern und kosen,Und schaun nach den Sternen empor,Heimlich erzählen die RosenSich duftende Märchen ins Ohr.

Es hüpfen herbei und lauschenDie frommen, klugen Gazelln,Und in der Ferne rauschenDes [heiligen]2 Stromes Well’n.

Dort wollen wir niedersinkenUnter dem Palmenbaum,Und Liebe und Ruhe trinken,Und träumen seligen Traum.

Seit ich ihn gesehen Adelbert von Chamisso (1781 - 1838)

Seit ich ihn gesehen,Glaub’ ich blind zu sein;Wo ich hin nur blicke,Seh’ ich ihn allein;Wie im wachen TraumeSchwebt sein Bild mir vor,Taucht aus tiefstem Dunkel,Heller nur empor.

Sonst ist licht- und farblosAlles um mich her,

On Wings of Song

On wings of song,my love, I’ll carry you awayto the fields of the GangesWhere I know the most beautiful place.

There lies a red-flowering garden,in the serene moonlight,the lotus-flowers awaitTheir beloved sister.

The violets giggle and cherish,and look up at the stars,The roses tell each other secretlyTheir fragant fairy-tales.

The gentle, bright gazelles,pass and listen;and in the distance murmursThe waves of the holy stream.

There we will lay down,under the palm-tree,and drink of love and peacefulnesAnd dream our blessed dream.

Since I Saw Him

Since I saw himI believe myself to be blind, where I but cast my gaze, I see him alone. as in waking dreams his image floats before me, dipped from deepest darkness, brighter in ascent.

All else dark and colorless everywhere around me,

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Nach der Schwestern SpieleNicht begehr’ ich mehr,Möchte lieber weinen,Still im Kämmerlein;Seit ich ihn gesehen,Glaub’ ich blind zu sein.

Die Hirt auf den Felsen

Verses 1–4, 7 by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827)Verses 5 & 6 by Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (1785-1858)

Wenn auf dem höchsten Fels ich steh’,In’s tiefe Tal hernieder seh’,Und singe.

Fern aus dem tiefen dunkeln TalSchwingt sich empor der WiderhallDer Klüfte.

Je weiter meine Stimme dringt,Je heller sie mir wieder klingtVon unten.

Mein Liebchen wohnt so weit von mir,Drum sehn’ ich mich so heiß nach ihrHinüber.

In tiefem Gram verzehr ich mich,Mir ist die Freude hin,Auf Erden mir die Hoffnung wich,Ich hier so einsam bin.

So sehnend klang im Wald das Lied,So sehnend klang es durch die Nacht,Die Herzen es zum Himmel ziehtMit wunderbarer Macht.

Der Frühling will kommen,Der Frühling, meine Freud’,Nun mach’ ich mich fertigZum Wandern bereit

for the games of my sisters I no longer yearn, I would rather weep, silently in my little chamber, since I saw him, I believe myself to be blind.

The Shepherd on the Rock

When, from the highest rock up here,Down to the valley deep I peer,And sing,

Far from the valley dark and deepEchoes rush through, in upward sweep,The chasm.

The farther that my voice resounds,So much the brighter it reboundsFrom under.

My sweetheart dwells so far from me,I hotly long with her to beO’er yonder.

I am consumed in misery,I have no use for cheer,Hope has on earth eluded me,I am so lonesome here.

So longingly did sound the song,So longingly through wood and night,Towards heav’n it draws all hearts alongWith unsuspected might.

The Springtime is coming,The Springtime, my cheer,Now must I make readyOn wanderings to fare.

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Program Notes by Barbara Leish

Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek Rondo for Cello and Piano, Op. 2

Vienna in the early part of the nineteenth century was a musically vibrant city on the cusp of change. One of its greats, Beethoven, already had broken boundaries as he moved music away from strict Classicism. The other, Schubert, continued the revolution with his freer, more lyrical style. Among Schubert’s many friends was the Czech pianist and composer Jan Václav Voříšek, who appeared to have a bright future before he died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-four. Voříšek left behind a small number of compositions that showed him to be a gifted musician whose work was inspired both by Beethoven’s handling of Classical structure and by Schubert’s lyricism.

Voříšek was a child prodigy in his native Bohemia. Sent to school in Prague, he began to work with the highly regarded teacher Václav Tomásek. By the time he entered the University of Prague to study philosophy, mathematics, and law, Voříšek was developing a reputation as a fine pianist and had also begun to compose. Moving to Vienna a few years later, he soon became renowned as a piano virtuoso. In Vienna he met his idol Beethoven, who heard Voříšek’s lyrical Rhapsodies and, impressed, encouraged the young composer to continue. Well accepted in Viennese musical circles, in 1819 he was one of fifty composers who wrote a variation on the publisher Anton Diabelli’s waltz. In 1822, Voříšek wrote piano miniatures that his publisher suggested he call “impromptus” – the first time that term was used to describe this particular kind of piece. A few years later, when Schubert wrote a set of similar pieces, his publisher suggested that he too call them impromptus, thus giving rise to a new genre. Although eventually Voříšek finished his law studies and took a civil service job to support himself, in 1822 he won the job of court organist and was able to devote the rest of his short life to music.

Voříšek’s output included a symphony, a violin sonata, a mass, and many pieces for solo piano, all beautifully crafted. The Rondo for Cello and Piano is a good example of his engaging and imaginative style. Written in the brillante style popular in Vienna at the time, it begins with a slow introduction that pits contrasting styles against each other: the piano begins with somber disconnected chords, to which the cello responds with a lyrical cantabile. As the Andante gives way to an Allegretto, the key changes from E minor to E major, the meter from 3/4 to 4/4, and the mood from sober to cheerful and sunny. The cello continues its melodious way (although with plenty of virtuoso moments), while the piano drives forward with rapid figura-tions and Beethovian broken chords. A cantabile section in a new key breaks the momentum, but the vigor and drive of the opening soon return. What is especially striking, aside from the cello’s lovely singing lines, is the virtuosic, glittering piano

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part, much of it in the upper registers of the keyboard. Voříšek’s energy, exuberance, and the melodic richness of his music are hard to resist.

Franz Lachner: Two German Songs

Schubert was surrounded by a large circle of friends who loved, admired, and sup-ported him, although even they often failed to recognize the extent of his genius. Many years after Schubert’s death, Franz Lachner – a member of Schubert’s inner circle who went on to carve his own distinguished career as a conductor and com-poser – reportedly said, “Too bad that Schubert hadn’t learned as much as I did, otherwise he would have become a master, for he was extraordinarily talented.” Nevertheless, Lachner was an affectionate friend. In a memoir of Schubert that he published in 1881, he described “an uninterrupted, almost daily, association and a warm friendship….We both shared with one another, Schubert and I, the projects for our works and frequently went for walks….Schubert was often in my apartment….There we played for the first time his glorious Fantasy in F minor, for pianoforte duet, and many of the other works written at that time.” Lachner and another close friend, the playwright Eduard von Bauernfeld, were the last to visit Schubert before he died. Although Schubert was bedridden and delirious, Lachner reported that he had a brief period of lucidity, during which the three men discussed the libretto that Bauernfeld had written for an opera. To the very end, Schubert’s mind was on music.

After several years in Vienna Lachner moved to Munich, where he built the Bavar-ian State Opera Orchestra into an outstanding ensemble. Although he performed Wagner’s music, his conducting career was cut short by none other than Wagner himself. After Lachner’s patron, Maximillian II of Bavaria, died, his successor lured Wagner to Munich with the promise of complete creative freedom. Wagner promptly dismissed Lachner, replacing him in 1864 with his protégé, Hans von Bülow. Ironically, although Von Bülow conducted the premiere of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, it was Lachner whose long stewardship of the orchestra had gotten it into shape to play Wagner’s difficult score.

Lachner was a prolific composer who wrote his first symphony the year of Schubert’s death. His music was widely admired. Among his output were more than 200 lieder, many of them set to texts by celebrated poets. (In his reminiscences about Schubert, Lachner talks about gathering at an inn with Schubert to listen to poets who read their works and also supplied the composers with texts.) Not surprisingly, Lachner’s songs show Schubert’s influence. Schubert introduced the clarinet as a third instrument in “The Shepherd on the Rock,” and the Two German songs that Lachner later wrote are scored for the same combination. Unfortunately for Lach-ner, Mendelssohn later set the Heine poem “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,” to music, while “Seit Ich Ihn Gesehen” was immortalized in a famous Schumann song; so comparisons are inevitable. Judged on their own merits, however, Lachner’s lieder hold up very well. Like Schubert’s, they begin with long introductions that give the

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clarinet a chance to shine. Both songs are melodious and filled with sweet charm. Most significantly, they showcase the important new role the clarinet was being given in German musical life.

Franz SchubertDer Hirt auf dem Felsen (“The Shepherd on the Rock”), D. 965

Schubert was not one to bare his soul in words. As Schumann wrote a year after Schubert’s death, “Where others keep a diary in which they record their momentary feelings, Schubert confided his passing moods to music paper; his soul, musical through and through, wrote notes where others resort to words.” Yet it was words that inspired some of his most superb creations: his lieder. Beginning in 1815, when he set “Erlkönig ” and more than thirty other Goethe poems to music, Schubert wrote more than 600 songs that set a new musical standard. Until Schubert, songs had been dominated either by the music or by the words. It was Schubert who found an ideal balance, and in doing he so created the modern German lied. In his songs the poetry and the music were perfectly blended, and harmony and accompaniment for the first time became as important as the melody and the poem itself.

The songs Schubert wrote toward the end of his life differ strikingly from one another. On the one hand there is the dark, intensely dramatic song cycle Winterreise, which the soprano Lotte Lehmann called “an epic in sadness.” On the other, there is the mellifluous “The Shepherd and the Rock,” written as a showpiece for the opera singer Anna Milder-Hauptmann, who as early as 1824 had asked Schubert to write a brilliant concert aria for her. The ten-minute, cantata-like song that he eventually produced is the sparkling piece she wanted. It is also one of the first to add a second instrument, the clarinet, as an integral part of a song’s score. The clarinet had become increasingly popular as the Viennese middle class took up musical instruments and amateurs began playing together in drawing rooms. As a result, composers began writing for the instrument, and Schubert was happy to oblige.

“The Shepherd and the Rock” begins with a long, lyrical clarinet and piano intro-duction that establishes just how important the role of these two instruments will be. What follows, in three sections, is a song of many emotions, from the innocent longing of the shepherd calling to his beloved from a mountaintop, to his grief because of their separation, to his outburst of joy because “springtime is coming.” Noteworthy is the way in which the music and the words are interdependent throughout, as well as the way in which the clarinet enhances the text, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly: When the soprano sings of the valley’s echo, the clarinet playfully echoes the phrase she has just sung. Melodically, harmonically, and emotionally, this is vintage Schubert. As always, Schubert set a high bar: His beauti-fully integrated score is a lesson in how such pieces could be written. Composed a month before he died and not performed by Milder-Hauptmann until almost two years later, “The Shepherd and the Rock” spawned a long line of imitators. It remains one of his most popular songs.

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Trio No. 1 in B-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, D. 898

Benjamin Britten called the last year and a half of Schubert’s life – during which he wrote the Winterreise, the C major Symphony, the last three piano sonatas, the C major String Quintet, his last two songs, and a dozen other glorious pieces – arguably “the richest and most productive eighteen months in our music history.” Yet as hard as it is to imagine today, Schubert had great difficulty getting his music played and published during his lifetime. Just as hard to imagine is that he wrote some of his sunniest works while suffering from a debilitating and ultimately fatal illness. Among those works was the B-flat major Piano Trio, the first of the two great piano trios that Schubert wrote during the last year of his life. It is one of his most radiant compositions, overflowing with the rich harmonies and ingratiating melodies that make Schubert’s work instantly recognizable. Schumann later said of it, ”One glance at Schubert’s Trio and all the troubles of our human existence disappear, and all the world is fresh and bright again.” Yet it wasn’t published until eight years after Schubert’s death, and during his lifetime it was performed only once, privately, at the apartment of a friend who was celebrating his recent engage-ment. Today it is one of his best-loved works.

The first movement, Allegro moderato, opens warmly and convivially, with an airy first theme introduced by the strings playing in unison. After the piano joins in, this first theme is expanded before the cello introduces an expansive second theme. A typically leisurely development section ends with a striking example of Schubert’s adventurous harmonies: in a surprising modulation, he begins the apparent reca-pitulation with the violin playing not in the expected key of B- flat major, but in the unexpected key of G flat major. Eventually the music winds its way back to a real recapitulation in the opening key. Schubert’s melodies don’t get any more beguil-ing than the one with which the cello begins the Andante second movement. The violin and the cello trade this melody back and forth before the piano introduces a second theme at the start of a more agitated middle section, after which the three instruments recapture the enchantment of the opening with restatements of the first melody. Like the second movement, the playful, contrapuntal third is vintage Schubert, a witty Scherzo built on two of Vienna’s most popular dances, the ländler and the waltz. Schubert called the Finale a rondo, but it doesn’t follow strict rondo form. Instead of the first theme being repeated between contrasting episodes, it is “put through a variety of hoops,” as Schubert biographer Brian Newbould puts it – including a wonderful moment when Schubert shifts from 2/4 time to a three-beat bar, a shift that reappears in the exuberant coda.

Alfred Einstein pointed out that the opening theme of the Finale recalls an earlier Schubert song, “Skolie,” which includes the verse, “Let us, in the bright May morn-ing, take delight in the brief life of the flower, before its fragrance disappears.” It’s a fitting sentiment for this joyful trio.

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“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it

is impossible to be silent.”

— Victor Hugo

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Ronald Thomas, cello, has been Artistic Director of Chestnut Hill Concerts since 1989. He sustains one of the most active and varied careers in today’s music world as performer, teacher and artistic administrator. His solo appearances include performing with the Phila-delphia Orchestra, the St. Louis, Baltimore and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Handel and Haydn Society and Pro Arte Chamber Orchestras of Boston and the Blossom Festival Orches-tra, among many others. Mr. Thomas has played recit-als in virtually every state in the United States as well as New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston and Los Angeles, and numerous concerts in Europe and Asia.

In great demand as a chamber music collaborator, Mr. Thomas is also co-founder and artistic director emeritus of the Boston Chamber Music Society with which he appears regularly and which has produced a number of highly acclaimed recordings. He has also appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center both at Alice Tully Hall and on tour. Other chamber music appearances include the Seattle, Bravo! Colorado and Portland Chamber Music Festivals, and the Spoleto, Blossom and Yale at Norfolk Festivals, as well as the festivals of Dubrovnik, Edinburgh and Amsterdam. Mr. Thomas was a member of the Players in Residence committee and the Board of Overseers at Bargemusic in New York. While he was member of the Boston Musica Viva and the Aeolian Chamber Players he premiered countless new works, including compositions by Gunther Schuller, Michael Colgrass, Ellen Zwillich, Donald Erb, William Bolcom and William Thomas McKinley. Mr. Thomas is former principal cellist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and was recently appointed as artistic partner of San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival. Before winning the Young Concert Artists auditions at nineteen, Mr. Thomas attended the New England Conservatory and the Curtis Institute. His principal teachers were Lorne Munroe, David Soyer, and Mary Canberg.

Artist biographies

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Violinist Steven Copes leads a diverse life as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. A native of Los Angeles, he became SPCO concertmaster in 1998, and since then has performed concertos by Berg, Brahms, Hindemith, Kirchner, Lutoslawski, Mozart, Prokofiev and Weill. A zealous advocate of today’s music, he gave the world premiere of George Tsontakis’ Grammy-nominated Violin Concerto No. 2 (2003), which won the 2005 Grawemeyer Award and has been recorded for KOCH Records. Copes was co-founder and direc-tor of Colorado’s Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival and is a member of Accordo, a new chamber group in residence at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. He

has performed at festivals and concert series including the Boston Chamber Music Society, Caramoor, Chamber Music Northwest, Marlboro, Music in the Vineyards, Norfolk, Mozaic, and Seattle Chamber Music Society, among others. A frequent guest leader with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Copes has served in the same capacity with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, London Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony. He holds degrees from the Curtis Institute and Juilliard, and studied with Robert Lipsett, Aaron Rosand, Robert Mann and Felix Galimir for chamber music.

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Praised as “…extraordinary...” and “…a formidable clarinetist...” by the New York Times, Romie De Guise-Langlois has appeared as soloist and chamber musician on major concert stages throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Ms. de Guise-Langlois performed as soloist with the Houston Symphony, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ensemble ACJW, the Yale Philharmonia, McGill University Sym-phony Orchestra, at Music@Menlo and at Banff Center for the Arts. She was a winner of the 2011 Astral Artists’ National Audition and First Prize in the 2009 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg competition; she was additionally a winner of the Woolsey Hall Competition at Yale Uni-

versity, the McGill University Classical Concerto Competition, the Canadian Music Competition, and was the recipient of the Canadian Broadcasting Company award. Ms. de Guise-Langlois toured with Musicians from Marlboro, and has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Chamber Music Northwest, among many others. She has performed as principal clarinetist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New Haven and Stamford Symphony Orchestras and she is a member of The Knights. A native of Montreal, Ms. de Guise-Langlois earned her B.M. degree from McGill University and her M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she studied under David Shifrin. Ms. de Guise-Langlois completed her fellowship at The Academy-A Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute, and was recently appointed Adjunct Professor of clarinet and Concert Artist at The Kean University Conservatory of Music.

Guilford

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Chestnut Hill Concert’s 2013 benefit concert took place on May 18 at the beautiful home of Michael and Susan Perl in Essex. The spacious home provided a gracious and acoustically excellent space for the concert, as well as ample porches and grounds for socializing on a gorgeous spring day. The generous sponsors for the afternoon were TD Ameritrade and Dan and Mary Hally. Benefactors were TD Bank; Mahlon and Zoe Hale; MJP Financial Services; and Dave Rackey and Emily Eisenlohr. The honoree was George “Tip” Atkeson, a longtime member of the CHC board. The concert of music by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn was performed by violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist and Chestnut Hill Concerts artistic director Ronald Thomas, and pianist Mihae Lee.

2013 Benefit Concert

Left, Hosts Michael and Susan Perl. Right, Honoree “Tip” Atkeson with his wife, Janice

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Above. Mahlon and Zoe Hale. Right, Jean Richards and Dede Schmitt

Left-Right: Mort Potoff of MJP Associates, Mary and Dan Hally, and CHC president Dave Rackey.

Performers Mihae Lee, Ronald Thomas, and Harumi Rhodes

Barbara Booth, William Purvis, Richard Booth, and Jane Siris

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Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi has won acclaim as an adventurous performer with a wide-ranging repertoire. Equally at home in the classic and contemporary repertoire, she has appeared as soloist with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach the Chi-cago Symphony and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organiza-tion’s Rising Stars series, she also made debuts that year at ten European concert venues, including London’s Wigmore Hall, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Amsterdam’s

Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and La Cité de la Musique in Paris. She has been heard in recital at the Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Washington’s Phillips Collection, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Beijing’s Imperial Garden, Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico. As a chamber artist, she has been heard world-wide, while her growing discography presently offers the Prokofiev concerti, Stravinsky Concerto, the music of Ravel and Stravinsky, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings of Schoenberg. Ms. Frautschi attended Harvard University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz”.

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A native of Belmont, Massachusetts, Beth Guterman Chu is one of the most sought after young violists of her generation, and just finished her first season as principal violist of the St. Louis Symphony. She has appeared as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in Zankel Hall, Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Perelman Theatre, Wigmore Hall, and Jordan Hall, and has toured America, Europe, and Asia. As a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she appeared frequently in Alice Tully Hall with David Finckel, Wu Han, Menahem Pressler, Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, Kyoko Takezawa, Paul Neubauer, Colin Carr, Gary Hoffman, and Edger Meyer

among others. She toured internationally with Gil Shaham and Joseph Kalichstein. She performed as guest artist with the Orion Quartet, members of the Guarneri Quartet, and with the Claremont Trio. Ms. Chu has participated in many summer festivals including Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Lake Champlain, Steans Institute at Ravinia, Festival Montreal, SummerMusic, and Aspen. She has recorded for the Deutsche Gramophone, Tzadik and Naxos labels. Ms. Chu received her Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory where she studied with Kim Kashkashian. As a student of Masao Kawasaki, Ms. Chu received her BM and her MM degrees from the Juilliard School. Ms. Guterman was previously principal violist in the IRIS Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and has been a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) since 2008. Mrs. Chu lives in St. Louis and Boston with her husband and they had their second son this past fall.

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Concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, violinist Erin Keefe was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006. She was also the Grand Prize winner in the Valsesia Musica, Torun, Schadt, and Corpus Christi international violin competitions, and was the Silver Medalist in the Carl Nielsen, Sendai, and Gyeongnam competitions. Ms. Keefe has appeared in recent seasons as soloist with orchestras such as the Minnesota Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, the Sendai Philharmonic, and the Gottingen Symphony and has given recitals throughout the United States, Aus-tria, Italy, Germany, Korea, Poland, Japan, and Denmark.

She has collaborated with artists such as the Emerson String Quartet, Roberto and Andrés Díaz, Edgar Meyer, Gary Hoffman, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, and Leon Fleisher, and has recorded for Naxos, Onyx, the CMS Studio Recordings label, and Deutsche Grammophon. She has made festival appearances with Music@Menlo, the Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Ravinia, and the Seattle, OK Mozart, Mimir, Bravo! Vail Valley, Music in the Vineyards, and Bridgehampton chamber music festivals. Ms. Keefe performs regularly with the Brooklyn and Boston Chamber Music Societies and is an Artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Ms. Keefe earned a Bachelor of Music Degree from The Curtis Institute and a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers included Ronald Copes, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, and Philip Setzer. She plays on a Nicolo Gagliano violin from 1732.

Con Brio Choral Society • Christ the King Church • 1 McCurdy Road, Old LymeTickets: (860) 526-5399 • www.conbrio.org

2013 Chri�mas ConcertsGloria – Karl Jenkins

and much more!

Friday, December 13, 2013 at 8:00 pmand Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3:00 pm

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Praised by Boston Globe as “simply dazzling,” Korean-born pianist Mihae Lee has captivated audiences throughout North America, Europe, and Asia in solo recitals and chamber music concerts, in such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Academia Nationale de Santa Cecilia in Rome, Warsaw National Philharmonic Hall, and Taipei National Hall. She is an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and a founding member of the Triton Horn Trio with violinist Ani Kavafian and hornist William Purvis. Ms. Lee has appeared frequently at numerous international chamber music festivals including Dubrovnik, Amsterdam, Groningen,

Festicamara (Colombia), Seattle, OK Mozart, Mainly Mozart, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Rockport, Bard, Norfolk, Music Mountain, and Monadnock Music. She has been a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Bargemusic, and Speculum Musicae; has collaborated with the Tokyo, Muir, Cas-satt, and Manhattan string quartets; and has premiered and recorded works by such composers as Gunther Schuller, Ned Rorem, Paul Lansky, Henri Lazarof, Michael Daugherty, and Ezra Laderman. A graduate of The Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory, she has released compact discs on the Bridge, Etcetera, EDI,

Northeastern, and BCMS labels. Ms. Lee is the Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series and has performed at Chestnut Hill Concerts since 1989.

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Kitchings & Potter, llcCounselors at LawEstate and tax planning

Wills and trustsCharitable gifts

Probate lawEstate administration

Susan D. KitchingsEdward B. Potter

7 Halls RoadPO Box 187

Old Lyme, CT 06371

(860) 434-5333

Pianist Max Levinson is known as an intelligent and sen-sitive artist with a fearless technique. He has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, New World Symphony, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, San Antonio Symphony, Louisville Sym-phony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Zürich’s Tonhalle, the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, and throughout

the US, Canada, and Europe. Levinson’s international career was launched when he won First Prize at the 1997 Dublin International Piano Competition, the first American to achieve this distinction. He is also recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Award. Levinson is a graduate of Harvard and the New England Conservatory. His teachers include Patricia Zander, Aube Tzerko and Bruce Sutherland. An active chamber musician, Levinson has performed with the Tokyo, Vermeer, Mendelssohn, and Borromeo Quartets, and appears at major music festivals including Santa Fe, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Bravo/Vail, La Jolla, Seattle and Cartagena. His recordings have earned wide acclaim, including his most recent recording with violinist Stefan Jackiw of the Three Brahms Sonatas (Sony). Max Levinson is on the faculty at New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory. He lives in Boston with his wife, cellist Allison Eldredge, and their daughters Natalie and Jessica.

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Born in Brussels, Belgian violist Dimitri Murrath has made his mark as a viola soloist of the international scene, performing regularly in venues including Jordan Hall in Boston, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, and Royal Festival Hall in London, and major venues in Tokyo, Madrid, Budapest, and Brus-sels. A first prize winner at the Primrose International Viola Competition, Murrath has won numerous awards, including second prize at the First Tokyo International Viola Competition, the special prize for the contemporary work at the ARD Munich Competition, Verbier Festival Academy’s Viola Prize, and a fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation. With repertoire

extending from Bach to Ligeti, Kurtag and Sciarrino, Murrath is particularly keen on performing new works, and has commissioned, given the world premieres, and recorded several solo works. An avid chamber musician, Murrath has collaborated with Miriam Fried, Pamela Frank, Richard Goode, Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz, Donald Weilerstein, Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, Menahem Pressler, Radovan Vlatkovic, Arnold Steinhardt, Peter Wiley, David Soyer, and Mitsuko Uchida. Festivals include IMS Prussia Cove (UK), Ravinia’s Steans Institute (Chicago), Verbier Festival Academy, Gstaad Festival (Switzerland), Caramoor, Great Lakes (Michigan), and Marlboro. He began his musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School studying with Natalia Boyarsky, and went on to work in London with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated with an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian. He is now on the viola faculty of New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music.

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We know there are many choices out there for caterers. Coastal Cooking will provide professional warmth and hospitality when catering your event, either at our beautiful Connecticut Riverfront location in Essex or at your own location. Our many dedicated staff members include a Johnson and Wales Chef and Culinary instructor, and we customize our menus to fit your overall theme, budget and preferences.

Call Monique Armstrong at 860-501-5036 to inquire.

www.coastalcookingcompany.com9 Novelty Lane, Essex, CT 06426 • 860-501-5036

[email protected]

Custom Catering

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Experiencing live music is the mosteffective way to ignite the musical

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Michael H. Ebert, M.D.

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Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and many others. She has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Arnold Steinhardt, Anton Kuerti, Peter Wiley, and Fred Sherry. She is regularly invited to perform chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Music@Menlo, Cartagena, Bard, and Caramoor,

as well as at Bargemusic in New York City. She has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of the CMS Two from 2002-2004. In 2006 she took a part in the European Broadcasting Union’s project to record and broadcast all of Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, and in 2007 she performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium to inaugurate the Emerson Quartet’s Perspectives Series. Anna Polonsky made her solo piano debut at the age of seven at the Special Central Music School in Moscow, Russia. She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She received her BM diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with the renowned pianist Peter Serkin, and continued her studies with Jerome Lowenthal, earning her master’s degree from Juilliard. Polonsky was a recipient of the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, and of the 2011 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. With the violist Michael Tree and clarinetist Anthony McGill, she is a member of the Schumann Trio. Polonsky also collaborates in a two-piano duo with her husband, Orion Weiss. In addition to per-forming, she serves on the piano faculty of Vassar College. She is a Steinway Artist.

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R O B B I E C O L L OMOR E 2 0 1 3 - 2 0 1 4 C O N C E R T S E R I E S

LIONEL LOUEKE TRIO, African Jazz Nov. 24, 2013

KUOK-WAI LIO, Piano April 6, 2014

TRIBECASTAN, World Folk and Jazz May 11, 2014

Hailed as a gentle virtuoso by the New York Times, Lionel Louekecombines African Folk forms and extended guitar techniques.

A prizewinner in major international competitions including theGina Bachauer, Steinway, and Chopin (Tokyo) competitions.

An exuberant collaboration that fuses Middle Eastern, Indian,Latin and African musical elements to bold and dazzling effect.

Please join us Sunday eveningsat 5 pm for extraordinary musicand informal receptions at thecharming Chester Meeting House.

For Tickets, Season Subscriptionsor more information, call(860)526-5162 or write to:

Robbie Collomore Music SeriesPO Box 614, Chester, CT 06412

ATTACCA STRING QUARTET Oct. 20, 2013

Formed at Juilliard in 2003, this internationally acclaimed quartethas become one of America’s premier performing ensembles.

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Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Arnaud Sussmann is a multi-faceted and compelling artist who has performed as a soloist throughout the United States, Central America, Europe, and Asia, and at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Museum and the Louvre Museum. He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Stamford Symphony, and the Orchestre des Pays de la Loire. Recent engage-ments include a solo tour of Israel, concerto appearances at the Dresden Music Festival, in Alice Tully Hall and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and a

television performance on PBS for “Live From Lincoln Center”. Mr. Sussmann is a passionate chamber musician and has been a member of The Chamber Music Soci-ety of Lincoln Center since 2006. He appears with CMS both in New York and on tour. He has performed with many of today’s leading artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, and Peter Frankl. His festival appearances include Mainly Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Strings in the Mountains, New Harmony, and the Moab Music Festival. The winner of several international competitions and prizes, Mr. Sussmann has recorded for Naxos, Albany Records, CMS Studio Recordings, and Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Concert Series. His first solo CD of the three Brahms Sonatas with pianist Orion Weiss will be released in the summer of 2013 for the Telos Music Label. Arnaud studied with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman, who chose him to be a Starling Fellow, an honor qualifying him as Mr. Perlman’s teaching assistant for two years.

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Hyunah Yu’s star has risen quickly since 1999, when she appeared as a soloist in St. Matthew Passion with the New England Bach Festival, was a prizewinner at the Walter Naumburg International Competition, and was a final-ist in both the Dutch International Vocal and Concert Artist Guild International competitions. Her promise was confirmed just a few years later as she received the coveted Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, followed closely by her acclaimed Carnegie Hall. She has enjoyed col-laborations with many major orchestras, including the Bournemouth, Seattle, Baltimore, and Milwaukee Sym-phony orchestras, Rotterdam and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, Concerto Koln, Salzburg Camerata, Boston

Baroque, Sejong Soloists, and the Yale Cellos, to name a few. She has appeared at the Marlboro, Great Mountain, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals and performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with acclaimed conductors Myung Whun Chung, David Zinman, and Jaime Laredo. Ms. Yu also performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and of Valery Gergiev, and the Bach B minor Mass in Cologne with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk under Semyon Bychkov. In chamber music and recitals, Ms. Yu has enjoyed re-engagements with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Concert Series, at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and at the Bemberg Foundation in Toulouse, France. Ms. Yu has premiered many pieces specifically written for her. Most recently, she premiered the Symphony of Meditations by Aaron Jay Kernis with the Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz. A highlight of her impressive opera career was the title role in Mozart’s Zaide in New York, London, and Vienna directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Louis Langrée. She has recorded Bach and Mozart arias for EMI and two solo recitals broadcast for the BBC. Ms. Yu also holds a degree

COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL Building community through music since 1983

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23 Main StreetChester Connecticut

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A symphony of local flavors.

Chestnut Hill Concerts’ first community outreach event took place on June 27 at Essex Meadows. Artistic director Ronald Thomas was joined by pianist and board member Mihae Lee in performances of music by Schumann and Brahms, along with a commentary on these composers and the theme of the 2013 Season, “The Romantic Masters and Those They Inspired.” A lively question-and-answer session followed. Essex Meadows sponsored the event. Anyone interested in sponsoring future outreach activities may contact us at 203-245-5736.

CHC’s community outreach

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The HideawayRestaurant & Pub

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Index of Advertisers

Edwin C. Ahlberg Antiques .................... 27

Alforno ........................... Inside back cover

Aspen Restaurant .....................................16

Atlantic Seafood .....................................60

Bartender’s Express ................................. 45

Bishops Orchards .....................................13

Earth2 ...................................................... 54

Coastal Cooking ..................................... 50

Community Music School ..................... 56

Con Brio Choral Society ........................46

David McDermott Lexus ..........Back cover

Douglas Callis, DMD ............................. 39

East River Energy .................................... 58

Essex Meadows ....................................... 10

Essex Savings Bank ................................. 30

Essex Vision Center ................................13

Essex Winter Series .................................40

Eye Physicians & Surgeons ..................... 49

Frank’s Package Store ............................. 20

Fromage Fine Foods and Coffee ............41

Miriam Gardner-Frum ............................13

Genie Maids ............................................ 47

Guilford Preservation Alliance ................21

Guilford Savings Bank ............................ 22

Guilford Sportsmen’s Association ..........41

Hideaway Restaurant & Pub ..................60

Katharine Hepburn Cultural

Arts Center ......................................... 44

Homeworks ............................................. 44

Peter Indorf Jewelers................................57

Kebabian’s ................................................. 2

Kitchings & Potter, LLC .......................... 48

The Lee Company ................................... 58

Livs Oyster Bar .........................................57

Michael H. Ebert, M.D. .......................... 52

Musical Masterworks .............................. 26

Pasta Vita ........................Inside front cover

Physical Therapy Specialists ................... 52

Rancheros Mexican Bistro ......................60

Reynolds Garage & Marine .....................18

River Tavern ............................................ 59

Robbie Collomore Concert Series ......... 54

Robert’s Food Center .............................. 29

Secor Subaru-Volvo-Saab ....................... 28

Shore Discount Liquors ..........................55

Shore TV and Appliances ........................14

Shoreline Financial Advisors .................... 8

Shoreline Medical Associates, LLC ........ 52

Shoreline Piano ........................................51

Splash American Grill .............................53

TD Ameritrade ....................................... 38

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As it is with most arts organizations, the annual operating expenses of Chestnut Hill Concerts exceed our ticket income. Each concert season is made possible by the generous special gifts to our annual fund from individuals, foundations and corpo-rations. We would like to acknowledge those who have contributed to our success this season.

FriendsSteven G. BaraszJudith & Charles BarrDr. & Mrs. Harold D.

Bornstein, Jr.Pierre & Dawn BoulangerMimi and John ColeJS CoxGeorge P. Drenga Mary Lee DuffBarbara FantoneMaureen Fitzpatrick &

Gerry NeppHelen GreenePatricia HurleyBarbara MalinskyPatty & Cliff McGuireElizabeth D.C. MeyerMr. & Mrs. Joseph MurrayCarol K. ReynoldsMary Schroeder &

Catherine SpencerPamela ShinePat & Damon SmithAnn WestAnonymous

Donors

Concert SponsorsA Friend of CHCGuilford Savings BankEssex Savings Bank

Outreach SponsorEssex Meadows

FoundationJane Marcher Foundation, in

memory of Martha Cox

Maestro Bruce & Kathy-Kramer BriggsBill & Loulie CanadyConnie & Peter DickinsonBill & Paulette KaufmannDavid A. Rackey and Emily

EisenlohrAnonymous

BenefactorsZoe and Mahlon HaleMr. & Mrs. Daniel F. HallySukey & Peter Howard, in

memory of Martha CoxJeanne & Mort Potoff Shore TV & Appliance PatronsTip and Janice AtkesonJoan & Bugs BaerAndrew and Ellen BlightMarilyn and Richard BuelJohn & Jennifer CopelinBill & Paulette KaufmannPhilip & Thea PutnamBarbara & David A. ReifAnonymous

SupportersRay & Liz ArchambaultTip & Janice AtkesonDennis Noe & Karen KumorRolf PetersonPhysical Therapy SpecialistsBoynton Schmitt &

Jean RichardsJoan SteitzGeorge & Cynthia Willauer

ContributorsRuthanne & Joseph

BenkovitzDonald & Saundra BialosAndrew & Ellen BlightJane BugbeeMimi and John ColeDr. & Mrs. Roger CyrusDr. Michael & Ellen Ebert Margarida and Thomas HaarLee & Joanna JacobusNancy KingLisa & Lamar LeMonteJane & Samuel MallerPhyllis M. McDowellColin & Suki McLarenElizabeth D. C. MeyerLaura & Alan MossLawrence E. PepperRolf PetersonErnst & Rosemarie PrelingerRobert & Marilyn ReganBoynton Schmitt & Jean

RichardsArthur ThompsonPriscilla WilderMelvin Woody & Nissa SimonAnonymous

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Benefit Concert

SponsorsDan & Mary HallyTD Ameritrade

Benefactors Mahlon & Zoe HaleMJP Associates Dave Rackey &

Emily Eisenlohr

DonorsTip & Janice AtkesonDoug Baldwin &

Betsy GribblePaul Bauer, PTJames L. BrotherMarilyn & Richard BuelJane E. BugbeeCynthia & Randy CleggConnie & Peter DickinsonEdgard & Geraldine Feder

FoundationJudith FisherHelen GreenePhyllis M. McDowellLaura & Alan MossMr. & Mrs. Joseph MurrayMark Renfrow & Jim EckerleLaurie Santos &

Martin CherniakJean Richards &

Boynton SchmittPat and Damon SmithHans & Barbara UllsteinPriscilla Bollard WilderGeorge & Cynthia WillauerAnonymous (3)

PatronsRobin AndreoliKatherine &

Steve AxilrodJoan & Bugs BaerJoseph & Ruthanne

BenkovitzAllan Appel &

Suzanne BoorschRichard & Barbara BoothPierre & Dawn BoulangerJerry & Diana BrophyEd & Suzy BurkeDr. & Mrs. Robert

ChesanowRita Christopher &

David FrankJS CoxDonald & Mary CraneJoseph & Nancy GertnerJenifer Grant &

Ronald NoeLisa & Lamar LeMonteSam & Nikki LindbergDave & Sue LopathJack & Carol MacElweeSusan NorzPhilip & Thea PutnamJerome & Marlene ScharrJane Siris & Peter CoombsHelen L. Smits, MD, and

Roger B. LeCompteChuck StillMelvin Woody &

Nissa Simon

HonoreeTip Atkeson

HostsMichael & Susan Perl

In-Kind DonationsBob O’Brien, Apparel PlusJohn Hines, Bartenders

ExpressMonique Armstrong,

Coastal Cooking CompanyBarbara J. LaFond, Complete

PartyJosh Chalmers, earth2Kevin Noonan, Genie MaidsEric Murray, Shoreline Piano

Tracie Redway, Taylor Rental

Mihae Lee

Ronald Thomas

Harumi Rhodes

Page 66: Chestnut Hill Concerts 2013 Season Program Book

64

Page 67: Chestnut Hill Concerts 2013 Season Program Book

Compliments of the Zemmel Familyand the entireAlforno family

1654 Boston Post Rd Old Saybrook, CT 06475(860) 399-4166

Page 68: Chestnut Hill Concerts 2013 Season Program Book

The McDermott Auto Group

www.lexusofnewhaven.com

Check our web site for a vast selection of both new and used vehicles,

and service specials for your Lexus

203-466-9999David McDermott Lexus

655 Main StreetEast Haven, Connecticut 06512

proudly supportsthe 2013 Season of

Chestnut Hill Concerts

The All New 2014 Lexus IS 250