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robert Schumann (1810–1856)Märchenbilder (Fairy-Tale Pictures), op. 113 (1851) Nicht schnell Lebhaft Rasch Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck

Richard O’Neill, viola; Gilbert Kalish, piano

antonín dvorák (1841–1904)Piano Trio in f minor, op. 65 (1883) Allegro ma non troppo Allegro grazioso Poco adagio Finale: Allegro con brio

Gilbert Kalish, piano; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; David Finckel, cello

INTERMISSION

gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)Piano Quartet no. 2 in g minor, op. 45 (1885–1886) Allegro molto moderato Allegro molto Adagio non troppo Finale: Allegro molto

Wu Han, piano; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; Dmitri Atapine, cello

August 5 and 7sunday, august 5, 6:00 p.m., the Center for performing arts at menlo-atherton

tuesday, august 7, 8:00 p.m., stent Family Hall, menlo school

Program overvieW“Impassioned” speaks to music’s capacity to incite our most visceral emotions. Robert Schumann’s ephemeral Märchen-bilder at once expresses the fanciful daydreams, amorous longing, deep pathos, and ecstatic bliss known to all listen-ers. Antonín Dvorák’s f minor Piano Trio and Gabriel Fauré’s g minor Piano Quartet, each composed at the height of Western music’s Romantic period, reach towards the same expressive extremes on a grander scale, offering monumen-tal statements on the depth of human feeling.

SPECIAL THANKS

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

August 5: Paul and Marcia Ginsburg and also to the Barnard/Fain Foundation

August 7: Betsy and Bill Meehan

André Kertész (1894–1985). © André Kertész - RMN. Paris, A Summer Evening Storm, 1925. Gelatin silver print, 19.8 x 24.8 cm.AM1978-72(1). Photo: Georges Meguerditchian.Photo credit: CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ Art Resource, NY

concert program vii:

Impassioned: listeners on fire

Music@Menlo 2012

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robert Schumann (Born June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Saxony; died July 29, 1856, Endenich, near Bonn)

Märchenbilder, op. 113

Composed: 1851

other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below

approximate duration: 16 minutes

In 1850, Robert Schumann accepted the position of Municipal Music Direc-tor in the city of Düsseldorf. Upon Robert and Clara Schumann’s arrival in Düsseldorf on September 2 of that year, he was given a hero’s welcome. As part of his new duties, Schumann was charged with directing the orchestra and chorus at the Allgemeiner Musikverein as well as overseeing the major feast days at the city’s prominent Catholic churches. But while his tenure in Düsseldorf began auspiciously, by his second season, Schumann had become dismayed at the quality of the musicians in his charge and the irregular concert attendance of the city’s population. Perhaps as an escape from his orchestral-centric directorial duties, in 1851, Schumann turned his attention to instrumental chamber music, composing his a minor Violin sonata, the Märchenbilder for Viola and Piano, the g minor Piano Trio, and the d minor Violin Sonata in quick succession.

The Märchenbilder, or Fairy-Tale Pictures, in their child-like innocence and imagination hearken back to the style of Schumann’s beloved Car-naval and Fantasiestück, composed a dozen years earlier. Though there is no specific fairy tale associated with the Märchenbilder, the charming music evokes the spirit of a fantastical story. The somber Nicht schnell (Not fast) begins contemplatively in the key of d minor with a lyrical melody presented in the viola. Through various guises, the melody weaves its way through the viola and piano, highlighting the conversational quality of Schumann’s music. The exuberant Lebhaft (Spirited) movement can be thought of as a march, with the viola taking on a percussive quality from the opening bars. The moto perpetuo Rasch (Swift) movement begins with the piano and viola trading vigorous passages of running triplets. This energetic opening is contrasted with a dreamy and elusive second theme, before the opening character returns. The final and most substantial move-ment of the Märchenbilder, Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck (Slowly, with melancholy expression), begins in the key of D major and is tinged with a bittersweet sadness throughout.

—Isaac Thompson

antonín dvorák(Born September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, near Kralupy; died May 1, 1904, Prague)

piano trio in f minor, op. 65

Composed: 1883

published: 1883

First performance: October 27, 1883, in Mladá Boleslav

other works from this period: String Quartet no. 11 in C Major (1881); Violin Concerto in a minor (1883); Symphony no. 7 (1884–1885)

approximate duration: 40 minutes

The Czech composer Antonín Dvorák personifies two important artistic movements of the latter half of the nineteenth century. His music con-tains all of the hallmarks of Western European romanticism, largely through the influence of Johannes Brahms. But Dvorák’s mature works moreover incorporate elements of Czech folk music. The widespread

popularity of these pieces placed Dvorák at the forefront of the East-ern European nationalist movement, whose proponents also included Bedrich Smetana, Leoš Janácek, and, a generation later, Béla Bartók.

The opus 65 Piano Trio in f minor is the third of Dvorák’s four exist-ing trios. It was composed in 1883, when he was at a crossroads in his artistic career. Having built his reputation up to this point in his career on the strength of the Czech accent of his music, he was now also more broadly incorporating the language of his German Romantic contem-poraries. Not insignificantly, it was around this time that Dvorák became personally acquainted with Brahms, who would become an important mentor figure for him. As a result, though the Czech element would always be a vital part of Dvorák’s musical language, the Opus 65 Piano Trio and other works from this period have less of a gleeful Slavonic folk flavor than his earlier work, favoring instead a darker, Germanic Sturm und Drang. Indeed, throughout its four movements, the f minor trio is relentlessly expressive and can be heard as a case study of the Romantic aesthetic. It is also a work that bespeaks a newfound artistic maturity in Dvorák’s writing—betraying perhaps an increased familiarity with Brahms’s scores, the f minor trio demonstrates remarkable assur-ance and control on Dvorák’s part in the development and organization of his musical ideas.

The Allegro ma non troppo begins with a dramatic introduction, begun in expectant octaves by the violin and cello and then joined by the piano; a crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo ushers in the forceful first theme. The first theme group is a succession of one exceptional melody after another. Equally impressive is how seamlessly Dvorák brings the listener through such wide-ranging emotional terrain.

The first theme group closes with a menacing melodic idea, stated by the violin and marked by an ominous half step; the quietly burbling sixteenth-note piano accompaniment adds to the tension.

Violin I

Violoncello

Piano

3

Vln. I

Vc.

Pno.

The second theme group departs from the agita of the first. The cello introduces a lyrical and deeply felt melody. But, although the mood has dramatically changed, this melody is closely related to what came before: the half-step figure that distinguished the close of the first theme group is here recast in an entirely different light.

Violoncello

Piano

espress.

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Program Notes: Impassioned

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

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The development section, in characteristically Romantic fash-ion, mines the expressive depth of the exposition’s thematic material, beginning with the dark first theme, now set in the warm key of B major. But this quickly yields to further disquiet, with the music mak-ing a startling harmonic shift from B major to b-flat minor. At the end of the development section, the cello puts together a long, eloquent melody, based on fragments of thematic material from the exposition but slowed down to half tempo. The music arrives at the recapitulation forcefully and with gripping conviction.

The scherzo movement evokes Dvorák’s Slavic roots, adopting the rhythmic gait of a polka. Wrapped in the garb of this Bohemian dance, however, is a vigorously Romantic statement. The trio section offsets the driving, forward motion of the dance with a dreamlike idyll. This music’s serenity is colored with a subtle melodic inflection: the half step between A-flat and B-double flat, which appears at the top of the violin melody, among other places. This simple turn gives the melody a Bohemian accent and also recalls the meaningful half-step gestures from the first movement.

Meno mosso

Violin I

molto espress.dim.

The slow third movement shows Dvorák at his most inspired. Above solemn chords in the piano, the cello offers a broad and gener-ous melody. The writing is strikingly vocal and, as a result, human in its expressive quality. And when the violin enters, the resulting duet could rank alongside the most affecting love duets of any Romantic opera. As a foil to the devastating emotional depth of this opening, Dvorák follows with another violin-and-cello dialog that couldn’t be more sim-ple: the child-like naïveté of this theme is disarming and exquisitely poignant.

Like the scherzo, the final movement begins with the élan of a lively folk dance; the cross-rhythms call to mind the furiant, a Czech dance form that Dvorák drew upon numerous times throughout his compositional career. The folk flavor of the movement is reinforced by the second theme, a tranquil, waltz-like tune. The remainder of the movement is given over to working through both themes until, near the end of the finale, Dvorák shows a cunning sleight of hand: the restless energy of the finale culminates in a powerful reminiscence of the first theme of the first movement. This dissolves into a wistful moment of reflection, before the trio finally races to its blazing finish.

gabriel Fauré (Born May 12, 1845, Pamiers, Ariège; died November 4, 1924, Paris)

piano Quartet no. 2 in g minor, op. 45

Composed: 1885–1886

published: 1887

Dedication: Hans von Bülow

other works from this period: Papillon for Cello and Piano, op. 77 (1884); Barcarolle no. 2 in G Major (1886); Pavane in f-sharp minor, op. 50 (1887)

approximate duration: 32 minutes

Gabriel Fauré’s Second Piano Quartet represents a manifold enigma for chamber music audiences. In contrast with the composer’s reputation as a miniaturist of characteristic (and characteristically French) elegance, the quartet’s rhetorical power places it toe to toe with the robust piano quartets of the German Romantics, such as the Opus 44 Piano Quin-tet of Robert Schumann or the three piano quartets of Brahms. It has inexplicably failed to achieve the same popularity as its elder sibling, the Piano Quartet in c minor, op. 15, even though, as Opus 45 devo-tees will attest, the masterfully wrought Second Quartet is at least the

c minor’s equal. French-music scholar Robert Orledge has specifically lauded the g minor’s “significant advance on the First Quartet in the force of its expression [and] the increased rhythmic drive and complex-ity of its themes.”

The Second Quartet moreover remains enigmatic for how little we know surrounding its creation. Fauré likely composed the work between 1885 and 1886 and played the piano part himself at its premiere on January 22, 1887, at a concert presented in Paris by the Société Natio-nale de Musique Française. (Another performance of note came on November 9, 1891, in London, involving the Belgian composer and violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe.) The score bears a dedication to the Ger-man pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow. Otherwise, almost nothing is known of the quartet’s circumstances.

Nevertheless, the work does demonstrate that Fauré’s keyboard prowess matched his compositional imagination: the muscular piano part, realized by the composer at the premiere, requires strength and sensitivity in equal measures. For much of the work, Fauré weights the ensemble unevenly, with the piano singlehandedly counterbalancing the trio of strings rather than taking part as one of four equal voices. This dynamic propels the work immediately from the start of the first movement: over a turbulent piano accompaniment, violin, viola, and cello in unison introduce the impassioned theme. Much of the move-ment’s subsequent material derives from the physiognomy of this opening melody. A thoughtful utterance by the viola heralds a change in complexion; Fauré fashions a gentler and more tender music, which soon progresses to the ethereal high register of the violin. Following a tranquil recitative in the viola and cello, punctuated by quietly rolled chords in the piano, the violin further transfigures the theme, pianissimo and dolcissimo. The viola, assuming further significance in the move-ment’s narrative structure, emerges from this transfiguration cryptically hemming and hawing; the movement passes into the development sec-tion, a harmonically rich mosaic of fragments of earlier material. The arrival at the recapitulation is forceful and abrupt.

The quartet’s fiendish pianism continues in the scherzo. The left hand’s frenetic eighth-note accompaniment, accentuated by forceful pizzicati, provides a propulsive backdrop for the mischievously synco-pated melody in the right hand. The strings, in unison, introduce their own musical idea, painted in broad strokes and superimposing 3/4 time onto the established 6/8 meter. The piano comments with increasingly chromatic iterations of its own melody. As the scherzo progresses, the music seems on the verge of eruption at any moment, but Fauré allows no such indulgence; instead, his sure-handed restraint only stokes fur-ther disquiet.

The piano introduction to the Adagio extends the scherzo’s metric ambiguity, as Fauré divides the movement’s 9/8 meter—a time signa-ture typically treated as nine small beats grouped into three big beats (1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3)—into uneven groups of two (1-2, 2-2…). Fauré apparently designed this passage to evoke church bells that he heard as a child in the village of Cadirac. The viola again assumes a prominent role, answering the piano undulations with fitting simplicity. Fauré lov-ingly instructs the viola to play piano, dolce, espressivo, senza rigor. The dialog between these two musical ideas—or, perhaps, not a dialog but a poignant attachment of two estranged monologs—provides the blueprint for the rest of the movement. (Aaron Copland remarked that this slow movement’s “beauty is truly classic if we define classicism as intensity on a background of calm.”)

The finale answers the Adagio with a return to the first movement’s furious energy. Fauré even ups the fourth movement, marking it Allegro molto, but his economy and concision of thematic material hold the wagon firmly intact through the tempestuous journey. The movement never relents; indeed, Fauré saves the coup de grâce for the exuber-antly triumphant coda.

—Patrick Castillo