2012 Chestnut Hill Concerts program book by Vincent Oneppo

Chestnut Hill Concerts

43nd Season â&#x20AC;˘ 2012 Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

225 Elm St.

2012 Concert Season Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

Board of Directors Dr. Michael Ebert, President David Rackey, Vice President Patrick Smith, Treasurer Karen Cronin Seligson, Secretary Constance Dickinson Miriam Gardner-Frum Mihae Lee David Lopath Dr. Colin McLaren Susan Norz Jeanne Guertin-Potoff J. Melvin Woody

Staff Vincent Oneppo, Managing Director Christopher Melillo, Technical Manager Paula Raggio, Bookkeeper Daniel Kurpaska, Intern Barbara Leish, Program Annotator

Chestnut Hill Concerts P.O. Box 183, Guilford, CT 06437 (203) 245-5736 www.chestnuthillconcerts.org Friend us on Facebook Cover: Low Tide at Pourville (1882, detail) by Claude Monet

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From the President of the Board Welcome to the forty-third season of Chestnut Hill Concerts. We are proud of our long tradition of presenting superb chamber music on the Connecticut Shoreline and are delighted that you have joined us for this exciting season. Having made our home here at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, we greet audiences from virtually every Shoreline community â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and beyond. Artistic director Ronald Thomas has planned an extraordinary season that commemorates the one hundred fiftieth birthday of the great French composer Claude Debussy, and has assembled a fine group of world-class musicans to bring this music to life. Framing Debussyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s revolutionary music with wonderful works by those who influenced him and those he influenced will make for a particularly interesting and enjoyable season. The 2012 season is dedicated to the memory of Martha Cox, whose leadership and spirit will be deeply missed. I invite you to read the tribute to Martha on page 5. We are grateful for the support of our generous concert sponsors: Raymond and Karen Cronin Seligson, Guilford Savings Bank, Essex Savings Bank, and a generous friend who wishes to remain anonymous. We thank the Connecticut Office of the Arts for its continued support, applaud our piano sponsors and those supporting our outreach efforts, and of course all of our donors whose contributions make this series possible. I thank all of you for joining us.

Michael Ebert, M.D. Please Note Reserved tickets may be picked up beginning at 7:00 PM at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center Box Office on the evening of performances. Tickets for future concerts may be purchased by calling 877-503-1286 or via thekateorg. The use of cameras and recording equipment without express written permission 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. 3

Dedication Martha Palmer Cox (1937-2011) Chestnut Hill Concerts dedicates the 2012 season to Martha Cox, a guiding force behind Chestnut Hill Concerts for over a decade. Martha joined CHC’s board of directors in 1998 and served as board president from 2001 to 2009. “Martha was a tireless ‘hands on’ board president,” according to artistic director Ronald Thomas. “She involved herself in every aspect of the series, except the artistic, of which she was consistently supportive and enabling. It was always a delight to get together and discuss the future of CHC with Martha, who never ran out of ideas for the growth and development of the organization. Martha’s unique view will be missed by everyone involved with CHC.” Martha Cox will be remembered for her vibrant and passionate spirit, her unstinting empathy for her fellow people, and her enthusiastic love of art, music, food, and a good story, told well. She was a reader, a thinker, and a doer. Her love, and the loss of it, will leave a lasting mark on the lives of the many people across the world who enjoyed her support, shelter, advocacy, wit, cooking and love. Born on April 19th, 1937, in Springfield, Massachusetts, she was the wife of 46 years of John Stuart Cox. A graduate of the Oxford School in West Hartford and of Bradford College, she also studied at the University of Florence. For 25 years, she was an administrator of the Brownstone and Walden schools in New York City. A resident of Guilford since 1981, Martha was an active member of the community. She loved meeting with her “Gruppo Italiano,” a group of local italophiles who meet weekly to converse in Italian, and was a lifelong supporter of peace and anti-war movements. Besides her husband, she is survived by a brother, two children, and two grandchildren.

Kids & Teens Come Free! Chestnut Hill Concerts is pleased to introduce young people to the world of classical music by offering complimentary tickets to all children and teenagers accompanied by an adult. Special opportunities for music teachers are also available. For more information, please call (203) 245-5736. Generously supported by Judith Fisher. 5

Chestnut Hill Concerts is deeply grateful to the Connecticut Office of the Arts for its support of our 2012 season

Ronald Thomas, Artistic Director

A celebration of

Debussy and his world One hundred and fifty years after Debussy’s birth, his music sounds so familiar to our ears that it is easy to forget how profoundly revolutionary it was. Debussy did nothing less than turn European musical tradition on its head, casting aside the old, accepted verities, replacing them with something radically new, and in doing so paving the way for the musical revolutions of the 20th century. But Debussy didn’t compose in a vacuum. As a young man he threw himself into the bohemian life of avant-garde Paris, a city awash in new ideas and movements. The poets, painters, and writers he knew had an influence on his developing vision, as did composers such as Ernest Guiraud, Cesar Franck, and especially Gabriel Fauré, who would himself have a major impact on 20th century music. Meanwhile Erik Satie and Maurice Ravel joined Debussy in ushering in a new musical age, one shaped by Debussy’s deep and pervasive influence. — Barbara Leish, Program Annotator

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. 7

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Deux Romances sans paroles for Cello and Piano Mélancolie Scherzando Julie Albers, cello Jon Klibonoff, piano

Ernest Guiraud (1837-1892)

“Reflets dans l’eau” (Reflections in the Water) from Images Book 1 (1904-1905)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Prélude: La file aux cheveux de lin  (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair)  (1909-1910) Prélude: La sérénade interrompue (The Interrupted Serenade) (1909-1910) Jon Klibonoff, piano

Piano Trio in G major (ca. 1880) Andantino con moto allegro Scherzo – Intermezzo Andante espressivo Finale: Appassionato Sheryl Staples, violin Julie Albers, cello Jon Klibonoff, piano

Claude Debussy

Intermission Violin Sonata in A major (ca. 1886) Allegro ben moderato Allegro Ben moderato: Recitative – Fantasia Allegretto poco mosso Sheryl Staples, violin Jon Klibonoff, piano

César Franck (1822-1890)

Patrick M. Smith, CFA Brendan T. Smith, CPA

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Guiraud: Deux Romances sans paroles for Cello and Piano Ernest Guiraud may not be a household name today, but he was an admired and loved figure in the mid-to-late nineteenth century French musical world, and he played an important role in Claude Debussy’s musical development. Guiraud, a musical prodigy, was born in New Orleans, had his first opera produced there at the age of 16, then left for France to study at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won prizes for piano and composition. (He and his father are the only father and son both to have won the prestigious Prix de Rome). While at the Conservatoire he began a lifelong friendship with Georges Bizet, who described him as “so nice, so friendly…. I am trying to liven him up a bit.” Guiraud composed several popular operas, wrote the orchestral recitatives in Bizet’s opera Carmen, completed the orchestration of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman after Offenbach’s death, and wrote a treatise on instrumentation that was widely used by music students. He was held in highest regard by friends such as Bizet, Dukas, and Saint-Saens. But in terms of musical history his most significant contribution was his work as young Debussy’s composition teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. Debussy wasn’t an easy student – far from it. He was brilliant but easily bored, flippant, and rebellious. While he won prizes, he showed, early on, an urge to break away from tradition and set his own rules. When Guiraud said to him, “I’m not saying that what you do isn’t beautiful, but it’s theoretically absurd,” Debussy replied, “There is no theory. You merely have to listen. Pleasure is the law.” Still, Debussy respected Guiraud, and it was Debussy’s solid grounding in the harmonic language of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic composers that enabled him to rebel. As Debussy later acknowledged, “I feel free because I have been through the mill, and I don’t write in the fugal style because I know it.” Despite their divergent views, Debussy and Guiraud became good friends, with the relatively broad-minded Guiraud happy to listen to the novel theories that Debussy was working out. Not surprisingly, Guiraud’s own compositions are firmly grounded in the traditional musical world that Debussy rose out of and transformed. While he wasn’t a groundbreaker, Guiraud’s music is stylish and appealing. His Two Romances without words are late-Romantic in spirit, with lovely melodies. Like Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, Guiraud’s Romances evoke pictures and moods. The first, “Melancolie,” begins and ends with a soulful melody that is separated by a more agitated middle section. The more sprightly “Scherzando” has a graceful lilt; it features a melody that passes back and forth between the instruments, and a brief excursion to a minor key. These two romances charmingly represent a particular era in French music. One can easily imagine sitting in a Parisian salon, enjoying hearing them performed. 11

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Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water) from Images Book 1 Prélude: La file aux cheveux de lin  (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) Prélude: La serenade interrompue (The Interrupted Serenade) These three Debussy pieces for solo piano are a perfect starting place for a celebration of his groundbreaking music. By the time he wrote them he had already transformed European music, replacing the old traditions with a radically new vision in works such as Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, La Mer, and the opera Pelléas et Mélisande. As one music historian put it, “All revolutionaries have bent this and expanded that and overthrown the other; Debussy threw nearly everything out, all at once: traditional harmonic syntax, foursquare rhythm, Romantic melody, Classical forms, lush orchestration….[he] is remarkably unlike anyone who preceded him.” Debussy himself wrote, “More and more I feel that music, by its very essence, is not something that can flow into a rigorous, traditional form. Rather, it is a thing of colors and rhythmicized time.” That vision of what music should be is at the heart of Debussy’s Images and Préludes, which present a world of color and sound all their own. Miraculously, Debussy made listeners forget that the piano is a percussive instrument. He did so through a new harmonic language that uses whole-tone and modal scales, and that puts chords and chordal progressions together in new ways; through an exploration of the piano’s sonorities and colors; through free-floating rhythms; and especially through the use of the pedal to blend tones and exploit the piano’s overtones. “Reflets dans l’eau” shimmers like an Impressionist painting of water, but it also has the mysterious, dreamlike quality of Symbolist poetry. Debussy told his publisher that he wrote it “in accordance with the most recent discoveries of harmonic chemistry.” The piece opens with a progression of sonorous chords that run parallel to the melody rather than being tethered to a key. Debussy reportedly described this opening motif as the motion created by a pebble dropping into the water. As the music builds to a brief dramatic outburst and then subsides, rapid arpeggios and chromatic figurations weave over and around an internal melody line. Bell-like intervals bring the work to an end. These bell sounds, like the pentatonic scale at the beginning of “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” suggest the Javanese gamelan, a collection of bells, gongs, and other percussion instruments whose sound greatly influenced Debussy’s musical development. Throughout, the pedal is used to create the music’s striking resonances. Like Chopin, whom he admired, Debussy wrote twenty-four preludes, each a miniature sound picture with its own character and mood. “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” is distinguished by its flowing, richly diatonic melody, delicacy of expression, and unusual harmonies that reflect the non-Western tonalities that intrigued Debussy. “The interrupted Serenade” features evocations of Spain, flamenco guitar strummings, and mischievous interruptions that suggest, perhaps, two serenaders vieing for the favors of a senorita. While his titles are evocative, Debussy put them at the end of each piece so that listeners would focus on the music’s sound. “There’s no need for music to make people think!” he wrote to his friend Paul Dukas; “It would be enough if music could make people listen.” 13

Debussy: Piano Trio in G major Claude Debussy’s childhood was not easy. His family had little money, he had no formal schooling, and not until an aunt recognized his musical gifts did he have his first piano lessons at the age of eight. Two years later he had made such rapid progress that he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he spent the next twelve years earning a reputation as a rebel while at the same time becoming an accomplished accompanist and a prize-winning composer. When he was 18, Tchaikovsky’s wealthy Russian patron Nadezhda von Meck hired him as a pianist; his job was to teach, accompany, and provide musical entertainment for her and her eleven children during their summer travels around Europe and in Russia. Madame von Meck found him to be “Parisian from head to toe, a gamin, very witty and a wonderful mimic.” Perhaps inspired by the trios that he played each night with two other musicians, Debussy wrote the Piano Trio in G major. It is a work with an interesting history. Von Meck apparently sent it to Tchaikovsky for him to look at, but there is no record of his reaction. It was never published, and in fact wasn’t rediscovered until the 1980s, when the work was reconstructed from several pieces of newly found manuscripts. While it is a long way from Debussy’s mature style, it shows that he absorbed his academic training well. Two conflicting impulses drove Debussy during his years at the Conservatoire. On the one hand, his student compositions often baffled his professors, who pronounced them “bizarre” and “strange.” Of one piece, a professor wrote, “tonality too long forgotten.” To such criticism Debussy responded, “I don’t hear your harmonies. I only hear mine.” At the same time, a part of Debussy wanted to succeed in that conservative, hidebound world; he vied for and won several prizes while at school, including, eventually, the Prix de Rome. So it’s no surprise that this youthful Piano Trio conforms to conservatory standards, especially in its conventional tonality, but that it also contains a few hints at what is to come, including bass tones that are sustained through changes in harmony, and suggestions of modal melodies and patterns. The four-movement Trio is a sunny work, very much in the tradition of French salon music (even at this young age, according to Madame von Meck, Debussy thought German music was too heavy). The first movement, Andantino con moto allegro, is distinguished by graceful themes, a dramatic section marked allegro appassionato that appears twice in the movement, and a pianissimo fading away at the end. The second movement, Scherzo-Intermezzo, with its pizzicatos, is witty; the third, Andante espressivo, is lyrical and romantic; and both movements are very French. (As a measure of Debussy’s growth, it’s interesting to compare his use of pizzicato here with what he does with it in the second movement of his great String Quartet.) A lively Finale: Appassionato flirts with harmonic experimentation – an enjoyable ending to a work that offers an intriguing glimpse of a gifted young composer before he found his distinctive voice. 14

Franck: Violin Sonata in A major The French composers whom Debussy admired, and whose work influenced his own music, ranged from Rameau and Couperin to Fauré and Franck. Debussy was in Franck’s organ class at the Paris Conservatoire, but Franck apparently had as much trouble with his strong-willed student as many of the other professors did. The two reportedly had a falling out over Franck’s constant exhortations to Debussy to “Modulate! Modulate!” To which Debussy finally replied, “Why? I’m happy where I am.” Nevertheless, Debussy was enthusiastic about Franck’s music. “The symphony of Franck is amazing,” he commented to Guiraud. “I could do with fewer four-bar phrases. But what splendid ideas! I even prefer it to the Quintet, which I used to find thrilling” And he used Franck’s idea of cyclical development as the organizing principle of his own String Quartet. César Franck was a quiet, self-effacing man whose enormous talent was barely recognized until late in his life. Wagner influenced him, Liszt championed his music, but his works didn’t win a wide popular audience until after his death. Born in Belgium, Franck and his brother were gifted musicians – he a pianist, his brother a violinist – whom their father sent on the road at a young age to earn money for the family. After a stint at the Paris Conservatoire and several more years on tour, Franck stopped performing and took a position as a church organist, where he turned out innumerable influential organ compositions. Eventually, in 1872, he was named professor of organ at the Conservatoire. There he had a great influence on students who, unhappy with the fusty approach of the Conservatoire’s composition faculty, came to him for informal composition study. His last ten years were a period of intense creativity, during which he composed, among other major works, the popular Violin Sonata in A major. Franck wrote it as a wedding present for his good friend, the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who played it for the first time at his wedding. The sonata begins simply and grows in complexity from movement to movement. Franck starts with a surprise: a tender first movement distinguished by a lilting melody introduced by the violin, which will be developed throughout the other three movements. This introduction has none of the fire usually associated with traditional first movements. Franck had intended it to be a true slow movement, but Ysaye wanted to play it faster and persuaded him to mark it Allegretto. The drama comes soon enough when a restless piano launches the Allegro second movement, throughout which turbulent passages give way to more lyrical ones that refer back to the original theme. The third movement is another surprise: A free-flowing Recitativo-Fantasia, Romantically lyrical and expressive. The spacious last movement, Allegretto poco mosso, is as structured as the third is free. A canon, it starts with a sunny treatment of the original melody, moves on to dramatically recall earlier thematic material, and ends triumphantly. The sonata was widely admired; the composer Vincent d’Indy called a “true musical monument.”

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Chestnut Hill Concerts 8:00 pm, Friday, August 10, 2012 Sponsored by Guilford Savings Bank Piano sponsors: Bill and Paulette Kaufmann

Choses vues a droite et à gauche for Violin and Piano (Things seen right to left, without glasses) (1914)

Erik Satie (1866-1925)

Steven Copes, violin Randall Hodgkinson, piano Gnossienne No. 1 (1890)

Erik Satie

“Clair de lune” from Suite bergamasque (1890, rev.1905)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Preludes Nos. 1 and 2 from Op. 103 (1910) Impromptu No. 3 in A flat, Op. 34 (1883)

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Randall Hodgkinson, piano Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor Prologue (Lent – Sostenuto e molto risoluto) Sérénade et Finale (Modérément animé – Animé)

Claude Debussy

Ronald Thomas, cello Randall Hodgkinson, piano Intermission Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 (1886) Allegro molto moderato Scherzo. Allegro molto Adagio non troppo Finale. Allegro molto Steven Copes, violin Marcus Thompson, viola Ronald Thomas, cello Randall Hodgkinson, piano

Gabriel Fauré

Satie: Choses vues a droite et a gauche for Violin and Piano (Things seen right to left, without glasses) Gnossienne No. 1 If Debussy’s revolutionary harmonies influenced composers from Stravinsky to Olivier Messiaen to Pierre Boulez to Duke Ellington, Erik Satie’s heirs were the minimalists and John Cage. “He’s indispensable,” Cage wrote of the witty, eccentric flouter of conventions who was, if anything, more of a radical than his friend Debussy. Satie and Debussy met in 1891, when Satie was the pianist in one of the cabarets that Debussy frequented. Satie already had been drummed out of the Paris Conservatoire, a place he had found excruciatingly dull and stifling. For years he lived in obscurity, better known for his twelve identical gray velvet suits and innumerable umbrellas than for his music. But his lack of musical training ate at him, and at the age of 39 he entered the Schola Cantorum to study classical harmony and counterpoint. The music he wrote after that turned him into a celebrity. His ballet Parade, on which he collaborated with Cocteau and Picasso, brought him scandalous fame, while his symphonic drama Socrate solidified his reputation with the avant-garde. Ravel admired him; Cocteau worshipped him; Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and the Dadaists were fans. But back in the early 1890s, when Debussy’s vision was still a work in progress, Satie’s ideas – especially his anti-Romanticism and his values of simplicity and understatement – had a great influence on him. Debussy told Cocteau that Satie had “determined the esthetic of Pelléas” with his observation, “There is no need for the orchestra to grimace when a character comes onstage. Do the trees in the scenery grimace? What we must do is create a musical scenery, a musical atmosphere in which the characters move and talk.” Satie reveled in absurdities. When he first met young Maurice Ravel, he discussed with him his plan to set newspaper want ads to music. When Debussy suggested that he develop his sense of form, Satie responded by writing Trois Morceaux en forme de poire (three pieces in the shape of a pear). The titles of many of his pieces are nonsensical, including Choses vues a droite et a gauche (Things seen right to left, without glasses). This is a droll piece in three parts. The spare first part, “Choral hypocrite,” is a gentle parody of a chorale, played with the strings muted (the score includes the notation, “My choral works are like those of Bach’s with the difference that they are more rare and less grandiose”). The mockery continues in the fuguelike second movement, “Fugue à tâtons” (groping-around fugue), and in the third, “Fantasie musculaire,” which features an over-the-top-Romantic violin interlude. While these pieces sound simple, they are harmonically forward-looking and a challenge to performers. Satie established his quirky originality early, in pared-down pieces like the six Gnossiennes (Satie invented the word). The first Gnossienne, like the others, is brief – Satie rejected the idea of thematic development, and he also said he didn’t want to bore his audience. It features a single repetitive, modal melody, inspired by the Romanian gypsy music he had heard at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Written without bar lines or a time signature, it is filled with amusing instructions for the pianist: “shining,” “questioning,” “from the tip of the thought,” “wonder about 21

yourself,” “on the tip of the tongue.” Listeners might recognize the music from the soundtracks of many movies, including the 2011 film “Hugo.”

Debussy : “Clair de lune” from Suite bergamasque The distance between the 18-year-old Debussy’s conventional Piano Trio and the 28-year-old composer’s “Claire de lune” is vast. By the time Debussy wrote what is probably his best-known piece, he had already been exposed to many of the influences that shaped his musical vision. And by the time he agreed to revise and publish Suite Bergamasque fifteen years later, in 1905, his revolutionary impact on French music had made him a national hero. Although “Clair de lune” is too often dismissed as light salon music (one critic called it “tea-shop music”), it is much, much more: a wistful reverie that in structure, melodic line, harmony, and color anticipates Debussy’s later piano masterpieces. After Debussy won the Prix de Rome in 1884, he expected to spend the next three years studying in that city. But he hated Rome and soon returned to bohemian Paris, where he became a familiar figure in Montmartre cafes. His Paris was a hotbed of

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intellectual ferment, where path-breaking painters, poets, and composers, intent on overthrowing the old, traded new ideas in cafes and salons. Among his new friends were the Symbolist poets Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Debussy attended Mallarmé’s famous Tuesday salons and absorbed the Symbolist philosophy that art should be sensual, suggestive, and mysterious, that hard-and-fast rules stifled creativity, and that poetry and music were linked. Debussy especially admired Verlaine’s poems and set several of them to music – including the poem “Clair de lune,” which the composer turned to early in his composing career (Fauré also set this poem to music). A few years later the same poem inspired one of the movements of Suite bergamasque as well as the suite’s title: in the first stanza Verlaine refers to dancers of the bergamasque, a peasant dance from 16th-century Bergamo, Italy. Three of the four movements of Suite bergamasque – a prelude, a minuet, and a passepied – in form and spirit look more to the French classical past than to the future. But the third movement, “Clair de lune,” is musically daring. Distinguished by one of Debussy’s most beautiful melodies, it achieves its dreamy effects through irregular beats that give a sense of floating, sonorities that expand and intensify resonance, and the use of pedal tones. While it sounds rhythmically free, it is meticulously constructed in the symmetrical, arching shape of later pieces such as “Reflets dans L’eau.” Here, as in his later piano works, Debussy is concerned with the control of tone as well as with the effective use of the pedal. Of the climax to which the piece builds in the middle, Debussy wrote, “‘The left-hand arpeggios should be fluid, mellow, drowned in pedal, as if played by a harp on a background of strings.” (Much later, in a letter written in 1915, Debussy warned that “abusing the pedal is only a means of covering up a lack of technique,” and he described proper pedaling as “a kind of breathing.”) In short, this atmospheric miniature, which perfectly captures Verlaine’s “still moonlight, sad and beautiful,” shows that Debussy’s piano revolution is underway.

Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor If “Clair de lune” shows us where Debussy was heading early in his career, his three late sonatas show us where he had arrived – and it isn’t necessarily where one might expect. In calling these last works sonatas, Debussy was returning to a Classical tradition he had long dismissed. Of course, this being Debussy, his interpretation of sonata form was typically unconventional; the sonata, he said, was simply an instrumental piece, of French origins. These last works are leaner and simpler, with little of the textural denseness of his earlier Impressionist masterpieces. Debussy told Stravinsky that he was returning to “pure music.” He was also urging French composers to focus on writing sonatas rather than symphonies, which he saw as classically German. So the sonatas can be seen as patriotic as well as musical statements. Written while France was at war with Germany, they were efforts to define French tradition and to strengthen Debussy’s own links to a French musical past that reached back to Rameau and Couperin. 23

Debussy planned to write six sonatas for different combinations of instruments: cello and piano; flute, violin, and harp; violin and piano; oboe, horn, and harpsichord; clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, and piano; and as a grand finale, a sixth sonata that would be scored for all those instruments plus a double bass. As it turned out, he wrote only the first three before succumbing to colon cancer. But these three are remarkable works, beginning with the first of the projected set, the Sonata for Cello and Piano. Debussy had considered calling this sonata “Pierrot fâché avec la lune” (Pierrot raging at the moon), a reference to the sad clown of French pantomime, and an indication, perhaps, of Debussy’s state of mind when he wrote it. The Cello Sonata takes the shape of a Classical sonata: The Prologue is in roughly ABA form, the Sérénade is a scherzo, and the Finale is a dance movement. Other than that, it is unorthodox from the unusual titles of the movements on. The first motif of the Prologue, introduced by the piano, evokes the melodies of medieval French trouvères, the northern counterparts of troubadours. This opening theme is the first of three ideas that are juxtaposed, rather than developed as they would be in a conventional sonata. The cello introduces a second theme, a descending figure that sounds like a lament, followed by a third motif of alternating major and minor ascending fourths. After a brief, agitated section led by the piano, the opening ideas are repeated once more, and the movement ends in a final restatement of the opening theme and a shift from minor to major. All of this takes place in a brief span of about three and a half minutes. The eerie and poignant Sérénade starts with the cello plucking out a low, rhythmically jerky motif that suggests a disoriented Pierrot stumbling around, then picking up his guitar and singing in a falsetto voice. The movement is filled with wandering tonalities and irregular rhythms created by short bursts of accented notes, interruptions, and sudden changes of tempo. The Finale, which is as modally melodic and flowing as the Serenade is spiky and abrupt, is marked by extreme shifts in tempos and the striking juxtaposition of unrelated tonalities. Debussy was pleased with the proportions of the sonata, which he described as “almost classical, in the good sense of the word.” Clearly making a statement, he signed the printed manuscript, “Claude Debussy, musicien français.”

Fauré: Preludes Nos. 1 and 2 from Op. 103 Impromptu No. 3 in A flat, Op. 34 Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 Like Debussy, Gabriel Fauré was a musical innovator, whose chamber music, piano music, and songs elevated French music to a new level. When Fauré was appointed director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1905, Debussy approved, writing to him glee24

fully, “But if they’ve decided to put the ‘right man’ at the head of our Conservatoire, what’s going to happen? And oh! Won’t traditional old dust be shaken up!” Shake things up Fauré did, revamping the curriculum to better prepare a new generation of musicians. His strikingly original ideas about harmony were carried forward by his many students, including Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger, and these ideas had a major impact on musical development in the first half of the 20th century. In many ways, Fauré’s approach was similar to Debussy’s – both used older church modes and whole-tone scales, for example. But while Debussy was intent on cutting ties to the past as he struck out on new paths, Fauré wanted to build bridges from the past to the future. At the same time, his music never gave up its Gallic roots: while he knew Wagner’s music, he was never seduced by it. Both Fauré’s distinctive approach and his musical evolution can be traced in these three works, which span more than a quarter of a century. By the time he wrote the Preludes in 1910, his tonality had become looser, his lines more spare, his writing more compact, his harmonies more ambiguous. While Debussy’s Preludes, written at the same time, were outgoing and pictorial, Fauré’s, with their diversity of moods, were more reflective of an inner journey. Prelude No. 1, marked cantabile and dolce, is built on what Faure’s biographer Charles Koechlin described as “subtle and transparent harmonies.” It begins and ends with a cool serenity that is interrupted by a restless, tense middle section. In the breathless Prelude No. 2, the melody flows atop perpetual-motion triplets, while syncopated chords add to the edginess. Koechlin described this second Prelude as “a feverish whirling of dervishes, concluding in a sort of ecstasy, with the evocation of some fairy palace.” In contrast to these later compositions, the earlier, effervescent Impromptu No. 3, which overflows with irrepressible high spirits and lyric charm, is more suggestive of Mendelssohn than of the 20th century. The second Piano Quartet, written just a few years after the third impromptu, is a sweeping, impassioned work that melds Classical form and tight structure with the long melodic phrases, innovative progressions, and modally colored harmonics that distinguish Fauré’s works. The ardent first movement, Allegro molto moderato, opens tempestuously with the strings playing a stormy first theme over a rumbling piano. The viola soon introduces a gentler, more lyrical second theme. These two contrasting ideas are interwoven and developed contrapuntally throughout the movement, which winds down with an ending as calm as the opening was agitated. In the rhythmically intense Scherzo that follows, the strings play a light pizzicato over the piano’s quicksilver chromatic lines, while the theme from the first movement reappears in the Trio. The sublime third movement, Adagio non troppo, opens with the piano playing bell-like notes, inspired, Fauré said, by the sound of bells he remembered from his childhood. These bell notes are followed at once by a lyrical, hauntingly beautiful recitative, played by the viola, that is the heart of the movement’s spacious development. The final Allegro molto is marked by swirling melodies, rhythmic edginess, and pulsating drive. Like the other movements, it is rich in coloristic effects that anticipate Impressionism. 25

The Test of Time.

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Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano in G minor (1917) Allegro vivo Intermède (Fantasque et léger) Finale (Très animé)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Jennifer Frautschi, violin Mihae Lee, piano String Quartet in F major (1902-03) Allegro moderato – Très doux Assez vif – Très rhythmé Très lent Vif et agité

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Jennifer Frautschi and Xiao-Dong Wang, violins Dimitri Murrath, viola Ronald Thomas, cello Intermission Sonata for Violin and Piano (1923-1927) Allegretto Blues Perpetuum mobile

Maurice Ravel

Xiao-Dong Wang, violin Mihae Lee, piano String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893) Animé et très décidé Assez vif et bien rythmé Andantino, doucement expressif Très modéré

Claude Debussy

Jennifer Frautschi and Xiao-Dong Wang, violins Dimitri Murrath, viola Ronald Thomas, cello 27

Debussy : Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano in G minor Depressed by World War I and eager to contribute to the French war effort, Debussy turned to the only thing he had to offer: his music. “I want to work not so much for myself, but to give proof, however small it may be, that not even 30 million ‘boches’ can destroy French thought,” he said. In his Violin Sonata, as in the other two sonatas he wrote at the end of his life, he turned for inspiration to the sonatas of the eighteenth-century French Baroque masters, although of course he put his own stamp on their form. Like the Cello Sonata, the Violin Sonata is moving away from Impressionism; it is brief, forward-looking, and relatively abstract. Although he had a hard time finishing it and rewrote the last movement several times, Debussy at first expressed satisfaction with it. A month later he had changed his mind: “I wrote this sonata only to get rid of it…. [It] will be interesting from a documentary point of view, as an example of what a sick man can write in time of war.” Time has proven how wrong he was. The sonata is a work of many moods, from sad to humorous to capricious to fiery. Like all of Debussy’s work, it is modal and harmonically ambiguous. At times it suggests Spain; at other times, gypsy fiddlers. The melodic first movement begins and ends, conventionally, in G minor, and it follows the traditional sonata form of exposition, development, and recapitulation. But from the violin’s melancholy opening theme, there are many irregularities. Keys shift unexpectedly. Motives are inserted in unexpected places. The rhythmic interplay between violin and piano is complex from the very first notes, with beats often obscured, or the violin playing in 2/4 time over the piano’s 3/4 time. At times the violin and piano seem to be competing against each other rather than working together as they would be in a traditional sonata. This first movement is subdued and nuanced except for a brief passionate outburst at the end of the development and a fiery, Spanish-tinged coda. The playful second movement is more extroverted and capricious. Titled Intermède (Fantasque et léger), it recalls another classical source much beloved by French artists: the Italian Commedia dell’arte and especially its floppy clowns. (The same source inspired the second movement of the Cello Sonata.) A rhythmic, dance-like theme alternates with a melodious second theme before the movement dies away. Debussy described the vivacious Finale as “full of a joyous tumult.” The structure, he said, with its opening subject taken from the first movement, was “an idea turning back on itself like a snake swallowing its own tail.” Again there is a suggestion of Spain, as well as of the music of a gypsy violinist whose playing had impressed Debussy during an earlier visit to Budapest. While the sonata reflects many of the influences that shaped Debussy’s music over the years, its harmonic adventurousness looks to the future. As Aaron Copland said, “His work incited a whole generation of composers to experiment with new and untried harmonic possibilities.” The Violin Sonata was the last thing Debussy wrote. He performed it in May 1917, and again in his final public appearance in September of that year. He died in 1918 during the German bombardment of Paris. 29

Ravel: String Quartet in F Major While Ravel and Debussy were both musical revolutionaries, in personality they were polar opposites. Debussy was sensual and uninhibited; Ravel was cool and precise, although with a group of artist friends who called themselves ”the Apaches” he could let loose. The Spanish pianist Ricardo Vines, a friend of both men, compared them to gourmets: Debussy, he said, ate delicately, savoring each detail of a meal. Ravel craved spices; he could devour an astonishing quantity of pickles and mustard. Ravel showed his gifts at an early age. During the fourteen years he spent as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, he attracted public attention with two breakthrough works: Pavanne pour une infante defunté (Pavanne for a dead princess) and the String Quartet. He also tried – and failed – to win a coveted Prix de Rome. The uproar after his final failure led to the appointment of the more progressive Gabriel Fauré as the Conservatoire’s new director. Debussy and Ravel often exchanged ideas and even borrowed from each other. Ravel, no less than Debussy, was a master of color and of harmonic innovation, as well as being one of the great geniuses of instrumentation. While Debussy’s influence is evident in Ravel’s music, Ravel noted that Fauré, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Erik Satie also played significant roles in his musical evolution. When Ravel did borrow Debussy’s musical vocabulary, he used it in his own unique way, in music that was meticulously constructed and always Classical in form. Stravinsky, referring to Ravel’s unrivaled technical mastery, praised him as “the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers.” Ravel himself said of his approach to composing: “My objective… is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly to this end, since I am certain of never being able to attain it.” Listening to their two String Quartets on the same program, you can hear Debussy’s influence on Ravel. Yet even with all the similarities – including their cyclic organization, very similar second movements, and harmonic and tonal language – Ravel’s quartet is a masterful achievement in its own right. Ravel biographer Roger Nichols calls it “at once an homage to and exorcism of Debussy’s influence.” Ravel’s approach is more intellectually rigorous and his organization more tightly controlled, starting with the first movement’s strict sonata form. The elegant first movement, which begins with the lyrical theme that will be developed throughout the quartet, is marked by balance, beautiful tones, and exotic sonorities. In a characteristic technique, in the recapitulation Ravel repeats an earlier theme identically while altering it harmonically. The second movement, “very fast and rhythmic,” is a virtuoso scherzo in the traditional three sections, with a slower, more rhapsodic middle section. Like Debussy’s second movement, it opens with pizzicatos and a suggestion of gamelan music, and features cross-rhythms, lyrical interludes, and wandering tonality. Highlights of the lyrical and rhapsodic third movement include its many tempo changes and its varieties of instrumental color: at one point everyone plays on the fingerboards. The finale opens with a dramatic, metrically irregular theme, brings back earlier motifs, and builds to a final vigorous progression of chords. Ravel’s 30

impressive technical control and precision, along with his long lyrical melodies, sensuous sounds, clear textures, and restrained elegance, make it clear that he was carving his own original path. Debussy recognized the quartet’s strengths when he told Ravel, “In the name of the gods of music, and in mine, do not touch a single note of what you have written in your quartet.”

Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Piano Debussy and Ravel – their names are always linked, particularly when any mention is made of Impressionism. It’s an understandable association, but an oversimplified one. While it’s true that their music shares many traits, a closer look reveals that Ravel was very much his own person. “For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration,” Ravel later said, “but by nature I am different from Debussy.” He then offered a provocative assessment of their relationship: “It could very well be…that conceptions, apparently similar in character, should mature in the consciousness of two different composers at almost the same time without implying direct influence of either one upon the other.” Whatever the case, it’s interesting to compare their Violin Sonatas, where some of their similarities and differences are apparent. Debussy, who rebelled against tradition but was an ardent French patriot, was returning to what he saw as France’s Classical roots. Ravel had been a Classicist all along, working assiduously within established forms while put-

ting his own aesthetic stamp on them. Both absorbed and integrated the music of other cultures and times, from ancient church modes to the music of Spain and Asia, and both turned to unconventional sources for inspiration: Debussy’s second movement recalls the Commedia dell’arte, and Ravel’s draws on blues. Both Debussy and Ravel were moving away from the lush Impressionism of their past works and toward the leaner, more abstract style of Neoclassicism. In each sonata, the texture is spare, the parts are independent, the distinctive sounds of the instruments are exploited rather than blended. And both, as Ravel’s biographer Arbie Orenstein noted, “boldly extended harmonic practice within the framework of tonality.” One big difference is that Debussy, unlike Ravel, thought that form was something to be toyed with. Ravel thought no detail should be left to chance. The first-movement Allegretto of Ravel’s meticulously crafted Sonata combines two very different themes, one long-lined and lyrical, the other angular and sharp. Ravel thought the violin and the piano were two fundamentally incompatible instruments, and in the sonata he “assumed the task, far from bringing their differences into equilibrium, of emphasizing their irreconcilability through their independence.” The movement, which follows traditional sonata form, is mostly low-keyed, lyrical, and coolly restrained. Its most striking moment occurs near the end, when the violin plays a long cantabile passage that soars over the piano playing the first two themes. The mood of this movement is very different from that of the second movement, in which Ravel paid homage to the blues, which he called one of America’s greatest musical assets. Noting that all composers put their own stamp on the material they use, he told an American audience, “While I adopted this popular form of your music, I venture to say that nevertheless it is French music, Ravel’s music, that I have written.” To the characteristically syncopated rhythm of blues, he added distinctively Ravelian touches like the movement’s bitonal scoring, its unusual colors, and having the instruments imitate a plucked banjo and a sliding trombone. The virtuoso last movement, Perpetuum mobile, with its nonstop sixteenth notes, is a showpiece for the violin. Throughout this finale, themes from the first two movements reappear, reharmonized, even as they give way to a new style based on propulsive rhythms. Written over a period of four years, the Sonata was Ravel’s last chamber work. Like Debussy’s Violin Sonata, it paid its respects to the past while pointing, in its own distinctive way, to the musical future.

Debussy : String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 By the time Debussy composed his String Quartet in G Minor in 1893, his music had been labeled Impressionistic by critics who saw connections to the French Impressionist painters. Debussy’s friend Erik Satie claimed to have started musical Impressionism when he asked of Debussy, “Why could we not use the means that Claude Monet, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and others had made known? Why could we not transpose these means into music?” Debussy, though, professed to hate the label. As he wrote to his publisher in 1908, “I am trying to make something new – realities, as it were – what imbeciles call ‘impressionism,’ a term which is as poorly used as possible.” Still, he occasionally used it himself to describe his own 32

music. And as a friend noted, “He calls his compositions pictures, sketches, prints, arabesques, masques, studies in black and white. Plainly it is his delight to paint in music.” Whatever the label, the String Quartet, along with the orchestral tone poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune that appeared a year later, ushered in a new age in music. By now Debussy had broken with German musical tradition, which had reached its apex in the music of Wagner. Among Parisian intellectuals Wagner was revered, and for a while Debussy was part of the Wagner cult. But after visits to Wagner’s theater at Bayreuth in 1888 and 1889 he had a change of heart, arguing instead that Wagner had “led music astray into sterile and pernicious paths,” and that his achievement was ”a beautiful sunset that was taken for a dawn.” Meanwhile, Satie was urging Debussy to develop a distinctively French sound. “I explained to Debussy that a Frenchman had to free himself from the Wagnerian adventure, which wasn’t the answer to our national aspirations,” Satie wrote. “I also pointed out…that we should have a music of our own – if possible without any sauerkraut.” He got it in the String Quartet. The Quartet borrows Cesar Franck’s cyclical approach: the entire work develops from the opening theme. But Franck could not have imagined the kaleidoscope of voluptuous sound that Debussy generates from this germ of an idea. This modal theme is quickened, slowed down, changed rhythmically, and in various other ways constantly reworked in each of the four movements. In the first movement, Animé et très decide, it alternates with three other melodies, coming back each time in a different mood and shape. A quick three-note ornament within this motif is also the subject of recurring treatment here and in the third movement. In the secondmovement scherzo, Assez vif et bien rythmé, the theme, here speeded up, becomes an ostinato played by the viola under playful pizzicatos. The violin introduces a gentle melody at the start of the slow movement, Andantino, doucement expressif, which soon gives way to a viola melody built on the three-note ornament within the theme. Finally, in the animated last movement, Très modéré, the motif is elongated and transformed, with melodies and variations building to a vigorous coda that ends with one final dramatic statement of the theme that started it all. This constant rhythmic and modal recasting of the original theme propels the quartet, while sumptuous melodies, sonorous chords, unusual chord progressions, and unsettled harmonies contribute to its Impressionist flavor. The antithesis of Teutonic heaviness, the quartet set a new standard for the genre. In freeing music from “rigid structure, frozen rhetoric, and rigid aesthetics,” as Pierre Boulez later put it, Debussy was opening exciting new possibilities. Chestnut Hill Concerts gratefully acknowledges a generous grant from the NewAlliance Foundation in support of our 2012 Internship Program.

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Chestnut Hill Concerts 8:00 pm, Friday, August 24, 2012 Sponsored by a Friend of Chestnut Hill Concerts

Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 13 (1876) Allegro molto Andante Allegro vivo Allegro quasi presto Harumi Rhodes, violin Mihae Lee, piano

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Iberia from Images for orchestra, Claude Debussy arranged for piano four-hands by André Caplet (1905-1907) (1862-1918) Par les Rues et par les chemins (By the streets and paths) Les Parfums de la nuit (Perfumes of the night) Le Matin d’un jour de fête (The morning of a public holiday) Mihae Lee and Benjamin Hochman, piano

Intermission Piano Trio in A minor (1914) Modéré Pantoum; Assez vif Passacaille: Très large Final: Animé

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Harumi Rhodes, violin Ronald Thomas, cello Benjamin Hochman, piano

Fauré: Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 13 By the beginning of the twentieth century, Gabriel Fauré had become one of France’s cultural icons. “A quarter of a century before other composers,” wrote one admirer in a 1922 magazine article, “[he] readily spoke a prophetic language with an ease, virtuosity and elegance which has not been surpassed.” But it took a while for his music to be recognized and accepted. The first performance of the early Violin Sonata No. 1 was a critical success: Camille Saint-Saens praised its “resourceful modulations, unusual sonorities, and use of the most unexpected rhythms,” and added that its charm “makes the mass of ordinary listeners accept the most extreme strokes of daring as if they were perfectly natural.” But Parisian publishers found it too audacious and refused to accept it. A Leipzig house, Breitkopf and Härtel, agreed to publish it, but only on the condition that, since it was an honor to be published by such a prestigious firm, Fauré cede all rights and agree to receive no money for the work. Although Fauré’s music evolved over the years, his basic approach to composition didn’t change. Early on, he showed his propensity for breaking rules while composing within accepted Classical forms. As the biographer Charles Koechlin put it, “There was no modulation he would not use if it pleased him … [he took] excursions far from a tonality to which he returned how and when he pleased, with the perfect grace of a cat falling on its feet.” This continual interplay between working within rules and stretching them is evident in the first Violin Sonata. One of Fauré’s first masterpieces, it is written in the traditional four movements, three of them in sonata form. Within that form, though, he pushes traditional limits with unusual modulations, modal melodies, and rhythmic liberties. Most noticeably, the sonata overflows with lovely melodies. Fauré won early acclaim as a composer of songs (critics called him “the French Schubert”), and his music is infused with lyrical lines. The opening movement, Allegro molto, is awash in melody, beginning with the piano’s long opening song. The violin introduces a second, falling theme, and both of these themes are developed in the central section, where Fauré, in a characteristic technique, modulates them in a series of upward steps that end with the second theme floating over hushed piano chords. As tonality becomes blurred, it is the continuous melodies that carry the movement forward to a stirring conclusion. In the sonorous Andante that follows, written in 9/8 time, the two instruments pass a lilting, barcarolle-like song back and forth, as the mood shifts from tenderness to passion and back, again through a series of modulations. The third movement, Allegro vivo, is one of Fauré’s frothy French confections – a light-hearted scherzo that takes rhythmic and tonal liberties, with its outer sections surrounding a graceful Trio that suggests Schumann. The Sonata ends boldly, with an Allegro quasi presto finale that is dramatic, romantic, and vigorously rhythmic, and that lets the violin soar in a virtuosic coda. Written at a time when French composers were beginning to preach the need to regenerate French music, Fauré’s sonata showed how the German model could be made to sound distinctively French. 38

Debussy: Iberia (from Images for orchestra, arranged for piano 4-hands) By the time Debussy wrote Iberia, he was admired abroad and revered at home, where his work had inspired a movement known as Debussyism. As one French music critic noted, “The Debussyist religion has replaced the Wagnerian religion.” (Debussy, who disliked factions of any kind, rejected the term, saying, that musicians must be “detached from every school, every clique” because “the enthusiasm of a circle spoils an artist.”) All the influences that shaped his mature musical ideas were in place: Impressionist painting, Symbolist poetry, Erik Satie’s anti-Romanticism, Wagner (who, despite Debussy’s rejection of his music, influenced Debussy’s ideas about form and orchestration), modal church music, and the exotic sounds of Javanese gamelan music, which he had heard for the first time at the Paris Exposition of 1889 and which transformed his ideas of what music could be. Gamelan music, he wrote, “contained all gradations… so that tonic and dominant were nothing more than empty phantoms of use to clever little children.” In addition, for the past few years Debussy had been listening intently to Spanish music, especially Andalusian flamenco. Although he had spent only a single day in Spain, at a bullfight, in Iberia he brilliantly captures the Andalusian spirit in a kaleidoscopic succession of images. The Spanish composer Manuel De Falla greatly admired Iberia and wrote a long appreciation of it. De Falla marveled at Debussy’s ability to conjure up the rhythms and sounds of Spain and to convey “the essential spirit of Spanish music.” From the opening theme, he wrote, the music suggests “village songs heard in the bright, scintillating light; the intoxicating magic of the Andalusian nights, the light-hearted holiday crowds dancing to chords struck on guitars and bandurrias [a lute-like instrument] – all these musical effects whirl in the air while the crowds, as we imagine them, approach or recede. Everything is constantly alive and extremely expressive.” De Falla speculated that Le Matin d’un jour de fête was perhaps an evocation of the afternoon Debussy had spent at the bullfight. Afterward, De Falla said, Debussy remembered the light in the bullring, “particularly the violent contrast between the one half of the ring flooded with sunlight and the other half deep in shade.” Commenting on how apparently easily Debussy had assimilated “the character of the Spanish musical language,” De Falla found a possible answer in the similarity between Andalusian folk music and the modal church music that Debussy knew so well. He also commented that it was Debussy who showed Spanish composers how to use guitar effects imaginatively in their music. He concluded, “If Debussy used Spanish folk-music to inspire some of his greatest works he has generously repaid us and it is now Spain which is indebted to him.” Debussy originally conceived of Images for orchestra as a piano work. He wrote to his publisher Durand in 1905, three years before the orchestral score was completed, “I am now going to complete as quickly as possible the Images for two pianos.” It’s fascinating to hear Iberia in this transcription by Debussy’s friend André Caplet, which employs all of the piano effects Debussy used to paint his sound pictures. 39

What’s especially interesting is how clearly this version reveals the work’s structure, and how it illuminates the way in which rhythm, harmony, and modal melodies work together to create Debussy’s marvelous atmospheric portrait.

Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor In a comment that sheds fascinating light on how Ravel worked, he told a friend who had asked him about a piano trio he was supposed to be working on, “My Trio is finished. I only need the themes for it.” What he no doubt meant is that he had first worked out the intricate shapes and the harmonic plans of the movements before composing the melodies themselves. As it turned out, Ravel was trying to finish the Piano Trio in the summer of 1914 when war with Germany broke out. Although he was 39 years old, short and underweight, he was determined to enlist – but first he had to finish the last movement. While he usually proceeded slowly and fastidiously –“I did my work slowly, drop by drop,” he once said, “I tore it out of me by pieces” – now he worked frantically to finish as quickly as possible. To friends he wrote, “I have never worked with more insane, more heroic intensity.” Finally he was able to report to Stravinsky, “The idea that I should be leaving at once made me get through five months’ work in five weeks!” Amazingly, the Piano Trio reflects none of the tension and anxiety that Ravel must have felt when he was writing it. It is an altogether stunning achievement – a bright and energetic work that seamlessly melds exotic inspirations and dazzling harmonic effects with a Classical framework. Ravel’s Basque roots inspired the opening movement, Modéré, whose first theme is based on a Basque folk dance with a characteristic 3-2-3 rhythm. It is followed by a lyrical, brighter second theme, introduced by the violin, that is in the same rhythmic pattern. The ending of the movement is as striking as the beginning – after a brief development section based mainly on the first theme, an extended coda melts away as the pianist goes to the bass of the piano to repeat the first theme. An example of how Ravel created his unusual textures and sonorities occurs at the beginning of the movement, when the cello and the violin repeat the first theme together while bracketing the piano in widely spaced octaves. Ravel’s love of the exotic surfaces again in the sparkling second movement. The Pantoum is a complex Malaysian verse form, and here Ravel ingeniously captures its patterns with a shifting series of rhythmic phrases: an opening staccato theme, a lyrical modal theme, and a spacious choral-like melody. The metrically interesting middle section features cross rhythms, with the piano playing in 4/2 time while the strings play in ¾ time. Like the first movement, this scherzo brims with distinctive sonorities. With the third movement Passacaille, Ravel looks back for inspiration to a Baroque theme-and-variations format. The piano introduces a haunting eight-measure theme in the bass. As the other two instruments join in, each variation rises in pitch and becomes texturally denser until, reaching its peak, the music reverses course, gradually becoming lower and thinner in texture. The last variation is played by the piano, again alone, again in the bass. The dazzling Finale opens with great splashes of color and features 40

spectacular instrumental writing that, remarkably, has the three instruments sounding like an orchestra and gives everyone a workout right up to the exuberant ending. After he finished the Piano Trio, Ravel did go off to war. He survived, but neither Europe nor his music was the same when he returned.

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Artist biographies Ronald Thomas, cello, has been Artistic Director of Chestnut Hill Concerts since 1989. He sustains one of the most active and varied careers in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s music world as performer, teacher and artistic administrator. His solo appearances include performing with the Philadelphia 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 Orchestra, among many others. Mr. Thomas has played recitals 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 the principal cellist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before winning the Young Concert Artists auditions at 19, Mr. Thomas attended the New England Conservatory and the Curtis Institute. His principal teachers were Lorne Munroe, David Soyer and Mary Canberg.

Cellist Julie Albers made her major orchestral debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1998, and thereafter has performed in recital and with orchestras in the U.S., Europe, Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand. In 2001 she won Second Prize in Munichâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Internationalen Musikwettbewerbes der ARD, at which time she was also awarded the Wilhelm-Weichsler-Musikpreis der Stadt Osnabruch 2001. While in Germany, she recorded solo and chamber music of Kodaly for the Bavarian Radio, performances that have been heard throughout Europe. In November 2003, Miss Albers was named the first Gold Medal Laureate of South Koreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gyeongnam International Music Competition, winning the Grand Prize. Her current and upcoming engagements include performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Utah Symphony, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Moritzburg Festival in Germany, the Colorado Symphony, the Chautauqua Festival, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Charlotte Symphony, the Arkansas Symphony, the Spokane Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, the Reno Philharmonic, and the Grand Rapids Symphony. In the fall of 2006 she began a three-year residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two. She is currently active with the Albers String Trio and the cello quartet, CELLO. Miss Albers is also on the faculty of Kean University as a member of the Concert Artist program.

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’ Grammynominated Violin Concerto No. 2 (2003), which won the 2005 Grawemeyer Award and has been recorded for KOCH Records. Copes was co-founder and director 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.

Save These 2013 Dates! Mihae Lee, Artistic Director

Sunday, January 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special 35th Anniversary Concert: “Romance on the River” — a unique concert celebration, with soprano Patricia Schuman, bass David Pittsinger, French hornist William Purvis, and pianist Mihae Lee Sunday, February 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . World-renowned Orion String Quartet with our 2013 Emerging Artist, clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois Sunday, March 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Northeast Traditional Jazz Ensemble returns by popular demand with bandleader Scott Philbrick

All concerts are held on Sundays at 3 p.m. in Deep River, CT.

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Aver y 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 Chicago 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 Organization’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 GRAMMYnominated 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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Pianist Benjamin Hochman has earned widespread acclaim for his performances with the New York and Israel Philharmonics and the Chicago, Cincinnati, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and Vancouver Symphonies, among others. He has collaborated with the Tokyo, Mendelssohn, Casals, Pražák and Daedalus Quartets, the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, members of the Guarneri and Orion Quartets and with Miklós Perényi, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Ani Kavafian. Highlights of Hochman’s 2010-2011 season include orchestral appearances with San Francisco Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra and Prague Philharmonia on tour in Spain; performances at the chamber music societies of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia and Boston; a solo recital at New York’s 92nd Street Y, and concerts at Carnegie Hall and Ravinia. He also joins Efe Baltacigil for complete cycles of Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas in Istanbul and Philadelphia. Born in Jerusalem, Hochman is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music, where his principal teachers were Claude Frank and Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Benjamin Hochman is a Steinway Artist.

2012 Benefit Concert This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual fund raising event took place on May 12 at the beautiful home of Toni Hoover and Al Nettles, overlooking the Connecticut River in Essex. The spacious home provided a large, sunny room with vaulted ceilings that was a splendid setting for the concert, which was attended by approximately seventy people. The generous sponsors for the afternoon were MJP Associates and TD Bank. The honoree was Phyllis McDowell, who was recognized for her contributions to the community, including the establishment of Fellowship House in New Haven. The outstanding concert of music by Debussy and Beethoven was performed by clarinetist Romie De Guise-Langlois, cellist and Chestnut Hill Concerts artistic director Ronald Thomas, and pianist Mihae Lee.

Honoree Phyllis McDowell, second from right, with Bruce McGowan and her daughters Katy McGowan and Martha McDowell.

Hosts Al Nettles, left, and Toni Hoover, right, with musicians Romie de Guise Langlois, Mihae Lee, and Ronald Thomas.

Benefit Committee members Susan Norz, Vincent Oneppo, Mihae Lee, Jeanne Guertin-Potoff (chair), and Connie Dickinson.

Above: Connie Meierdiercks of TD Bank and Mort Portoff of MJP Associates. Right, artistic director Ronald Thomas talks about the upcoming CHC season, “Debussy and His World”

Mihae Lee and Romie De GuiseLanglois perform Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie.

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Randall Hodgkinson, pianist, achieved recognition as a winner of the International American Music Competition for pianists sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. He has appeared frequently as recitalist and soloist with major orchestras including those of Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Buffalo, the American Symphony and the Orchestra of Illinois. This season he will appear as soloist with the New England Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Newton Symphony. Mr. Hodgkinson studied at The Curtis Institute and the New England Conservatory. While a member of Boston Musica Viva, he performed throughout the United States and Europe and recorded for Nonesuch records. His solo CD “Petrouschka and Other Prophesies” received a double five-star rating from the BBC magazine. Other recordings include a live performance of the world premiere of the Gardner Read Piano Concerto with the Eastman Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Morton Gould Concerto with the Albany Symphony. Recently he recorded the complete works for cello and piano of Leo Ornstein with cellist Joshua Gordon for New World Records. He also performs four-hand and two-piano literature in duo recitals with his wife, Leslie Amper. He is a member of the piano faculty of the New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music, and has been a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1983.

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Jon Klibonoff has established a versatile career as orchestra soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States and abroad. His many awards include the Silver Medal of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, the Affiliate Artists Xerox Pianists Award, the Pro Musicis Foundation Award, First Prize in the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, and a Solo Recitalists Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Presently a member of Trio Solisti, Klibonoff has also appeared as guest artist to numerous chamber music groups including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Shanghai, Miami and Lark String Quartets. For three seasons, he was an artist-in-residence for the â&#x20AC;&#x153;On Airâ&#x20AC;? radio series produced by WQXR classical radio in New York City. In recital, Mr. Klibonoff has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the National Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Klibonoff can be heard frequently in collaboration with many instrumentalists including flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist David Shifrin, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.. His many orchestral appearances include the Baltimore, Utah, Buffalo, Denver, and North Carolina Symphonies. He has several CD recordings to his credit including two recordings of twentieth century violin and piano music with violinist Maria Bachmann on the BMG/Catalyst label. His most recent release is a recording of the Brahms Piano Trios with Trio Solisti on the Marquis Classics label and Music of Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec on Arabesque Recordings. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, Klibonoff has been on the faculties of Hunter College, Concordia College, and SUNY Purchase College. He currently serves on the faculties of The Manhattan School of Music and Manhattanville College. He resides in Bronxville, New York with his wife Amy and their two children, Madeleine and Noah. Fromage Fine Foods and Coffees 873 Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook, CT 06475 - Phone: 860.388.5750

Praised by Boston Globe as â&#x20AC;&#x153;simply dazzling,â&#x20AC;? Koreanborn 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, Cassatt, 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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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 Brussels. 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 (New York), Great Lakes (Michigan) and Marlboro (Vermont). 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.

Acclaimed by the New York Times as a “deeply expressive violinist,” Harumi Rhodes is gaining broad recognition as a multifaceted musician with a distinctive and sincere musical voice. As a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning ensemble, Trio Cavatina, she has appeared in concerts presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, Wolf Trap in Washington, D.C., and in San Francisco, Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall, and on international tours. She has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival and performed on several Musicians from Marlboro tours. Other festivals include Seattle Chamber Music, Bard, Caramoor, Bridgehampton, Music in the Vineyards, Mainly Mozart, and the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan. After completing her residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, Ms. Rhodes joined the Boston Chamber Music Society in 2009. A frequent guest artist with Music from Copland House, she has collaborated with many composers including Richard Danielpour, Leon Kirchner, Benjamin Lees, Paul Moravec, William Bolcom, David Ludwig, and Lisa Bielawa. Ms. Rhodes appears as soloist with orchestra and is a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). Ms. Rhodes is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory. She is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School, and professor of violin at Syracuse University.

Violinist Sheryl Staples was appointed principal associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in 1998. A great lover of chamber music, Ms. Staples steps out of the orchestra frequently to perform with colleagues in the New York and tri-state area, including collaborations with Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Cynthia Phelps and Carter Brey. During summer seasons she has performed at festivals including La Jolla Summerfest, Steamboat Springs, Santa Fe, Martha’s Vineyard, Salt Bay, Seattle and Aspen. While on tour with the Philharmonic, she has performed chamber music for the United States Ambassadors in London, Paris, Beijing and Hong Kong. During her tenure with the orchestra, she has been featured as soloist in concertos of Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn and Bach, collaborating with conductors Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Alan Gilbert and Sir Colin Davis. Most recently, she performed Vivaldi’s “Spring” and “Winter” concertos with the Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert at the Bravo! Festival in Vail, Colorado. In addition, Ms. Staples has appeared as soloist with over forty orchestras nationwide including the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Diego Symphony. Enjoying and juggling a very full life with percussionist husband, Barry Centanni, and children, Michael and Laura, Ms. Staples also makes time to teach at Juilliard, working with students aspiring toward orchestral careers.

ROBBIE COLLOMORE 2011-2012 CONCERT SERIES TIMOTHY MCDEVITT, Baritone Oct. 7, 2012 A rising star, McDevitt has recently gained recognition winning the Metropolitan Opera’s New York District Competition.

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Marcus Thompson, violist, has appeared as soloist, recitalist and chamber music player in series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East. He was featured as soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis and with the Boston Pops, and has recorded with the Slovenian Radio Symphony and the Czech National Symphony. He has received critical acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. He has been a guest of The Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Lydian, Orion, Shanghai and Vermeer String Quartets, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a frequent participant in chamber music festivals in Amsterdam, Anchorage, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Okinawa and Portland. Mr. Thompson earned his doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter Trampler. He is a winner and alumnus of Young Concert Artists, Inc. Born and raised in The Bronx, New York City, he currently lives in Boston where, as the Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music at M.I.T., he founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study. Marcus Thompson also serves on the viola faculty at the New England Conservatory, and is the artistic director of the Boston Chamber Music Society.

Xiao-Dong Wang entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of ten. Mr. Wang was First Prize winner in the Menuhin International Violin Competition and First Prize winner in the Wieniawski-Lipinski International Violin Competition at the ages of thirteen and fifteen. He was brought to the attention of Dorothy DeLay of The Juilliard School who arranged for him to begin a four-year scholarship starting in 1986. A guest soloist of considerable experience, Mr. Wang has performed with orchestras around the world, including the Royal Philharmonic in London, the London Mozart Players, Adelaide, Perth, Queensland Symphony Orchestras, and Sydney Opera Orchestra. His recording credits include the Bart贸k Concerto No. 2 and Szymanowski Concerto No. 1 for Polygram Records. He has also appeared performing on both violin and viola in chamber music concerts at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Aspen, Ravinia and in many other festival and musical events worldwide. Beginning with the 2011-2012 season, Mr. Wang is serving as artistic director of the renowned chamber music group Concertante.

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Guilford Sportsmenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Association guilfordsportsmen.org

BASIL R. DUNCAN ATTORNEY AT LAW

1291 BOSTON POST ROAD SUITE 201 MADISON, CONNECTICUT 06443 TELEPHONE (203) 245-0332 brduncan@snet.net

COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL Building community through music since 1983

Private Lessons · New Horizons Band · Cabaret · Jazz Ensemble · Kindermusik · String Ensemble & more for students of all ages! 90 Main St., Centerbrook 860-767-0026 www.community-music-school.org 65

Donors 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 corporations. We would like to acknowledge those who have contributed to our success this season. Concert Sponsors Supporters A Friend of CHC Laura & Victor Altshul Guilford Savings Bank Joan & Bugs Baer Essex Savings Bank Dr. Donald and Raymond and Karen Cronin Seligson Saundra Bialos Karen Cronin Seligson Dr. Michael & Ellen Ebert Linda M. & Jefferson Foundations & Grants Foundations & Grants Freeman Connecticut Office Connecticut Alton & Elizabeth of the Arts Office of the Arts Foundation Hollingsworth NewAlliance NewAlliance Foundation Jeanne & Mort Potoff Jean Richards & Boynton Piano Sponsors Piano Sponsors Schmitt Bill & Paulette Kaufmann Bill & Paulette Kaufmann Chris & Chuck Shivery David A. Rackey & Emily George & Cynthia Eisenlohr Kids & Teens Willauer Come Free Sponsor Fred & Carol Wright Kids & Teens Come Free Sponsor Judith Fisher Contributors Maestro Tip & Janice Atkeson William & and Loulie Canady George P. Drenga Loulie Canady Thomas & Maria Haar David A. Rackey & Emily Joan Hammeal Eisenlohr Lisa & Lamar LeMonte Jane & Samuel Maller Benefactors Phyllis M. McDowell Constance & Colin & Suki McLaren Peter Dickinson Senator Edward Meyer Sukey & Peter Howard Robert & Marilyn Regan Thomas & Joan Steitz Patrons Barbara Wolf and Philip & Thea Putnam Andy Schatz Susanna & Patrick Smith Anonymous C. Wm. & Donna B. Stamm Anonymous

Friends Andrew Blight Dawn & Pierre Boulanger Marilyn & Richard Buel Dr. & Mrs. Robert Chesanow Barbara J. Fantone Helen Greene Irmtraud Hermanson Patricia Hurley Laura & Alan Moss Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Murray Lawrence Pepper Susan Reichenbach Mary Schroeder Joseph & Magdalena Souhrada Hans & Barbara Ullstein Mia Unson Priscilla Wilder Anonymous (3) Contributions in memory of Martha Cox Dr. Michael & Ellen Ebert Judith Fisher Alton & Elizabeth Hollingsworth Sukey & Peter Howard Alice E. Johansson Carol LeWitt T. Merrill & Marie Prentice Catherine & Philip Reynolds Shoreline Financial Advisors

Benefit Concert

Sponsors TD Bank MJP Associates Patrons Joan & Bugs Baer Joseph Benkovitz Suzanne Levine & Lary Bloom Diana & Jerry Brophy Jane Bugbee Dr. & Mrs. Robert Chesanow Cynthia & Randy Clegg Ethel Davis Jennifer Grant & Ronald Noe Eleanor & Paul Harper Miriam Gardner-Frum Famah & Greg Hoffman Bill & Paulette Kaufmann David & Susan Lopath Katy & Bruce Magown Urszula Masiukiewicz Claire Matthews Martha McDowell Colin & Suki McLaren Connie Meierdiercks Susan Norz Constance Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien Stephanie Porter Carrie Potoff Jeanne & Mort Potoff Philip & Thea Putnam Jane Siris & Peter Coombs Ellen Smoller Chuck Still Louise Tietjen An-Ming & Thomas Truxes Melvin Woody & Nissa Simon

Donors Robin Andreoli Bee & Thistle Inn & Spa Richard & Barbara Booth Marilyn & Richard Buel Mr. & Mrs. John K. Copelin Barbara O. David George & Nancy Davy Constance K. Dickinson Barbara J. Fantone Judith Fisher Linda & David Frankel Edith Gengras Thomas & Maria Haar Irmtraud Hermanson David A. Rackey & Emily Eisenlohr Robert & Marilyn Regan Mark Renfrow & Jim Eckerle Laurie Santos & Martin Cherniak Jean Richards & Boynton Schmitt Donna & Sam Stout Matilda Design George & Cynthia Willauer Honoree Phyllis McDowell Hosts Al Nettles & Toni Hoover In-Kind Donations Linda Sample, A Thyme To Cook Josh Chalmers, Earth2 Eric Murray, Shoreline Piano Steve Hargraves, Shoreline Discount Liquors Josh Chalmers, earth2 Dennis Grills, event coordinator

The Hideaway Restaurant & Pub

Good Food, Good Times, Good Company

Your Hosts: The Caramentes

In the Courtyard, Old Lyme Shopping Center (Exit 70 off I-95) (860) 434-1455 • (860) 434-1854 • (860) 434-3335 • FAX (860) 434-5186 In the Courtyard, Old Lyme Shopping Center Old Lyme, CT 06371 (Exit 70 off I-95)

(860) 434-1455 (860) 434-1854 (860) 434-3335 (860) 434-5186 (fax)

“To find fish any fresher, you’d probably have to throw out a line and catch them yourself.” — New York Times

Voted 2009 Business of the Year by Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce

At Atlantic Seafood of Old Saybrook, we are proud to provide the best seafood in Connecticut. Relish your seafood straight from the ocean, or savor our gourmet seafood dishes and complete seafood meals. www.atlanticseafoodmarket.com 1400 Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook, CT 06475 Sunday 10am-5pm, Monday – Saturday 10am-6pm 68

For Orders Call (860) 388-4527

Index of Advertisers Edwin C. Ahlberg Antiques......................41 Alforno......................................................17 Aspen Restaurant..................................... 20 Atlantic Seafood....................................... 68 Bishops Orchards......................................17 Douglas Callis, DMD...............................41 Caulfield & Ridgway................................ 45 Clinton Eye Associates............................. 42 Robbie Collomore Concert Series.......... 59 Community Music School...................... 65 Con Brio Choral Society..........................16 Connecticut Office of the Arts..................6 Basil R. Duncan....................................... 65 East River Energy..................................... 45 Ellen Ebert Photography......................... 54 Michael H. Ebert, M.D............................ 46 Essex Meadows.........................................12 Essex Savings Bank.................................. 26 Essex Vision Center .................................17 Essex Winter Series.................................. 44 Eye Physicians and Surgeons....................57 Fiore Pizzeria and Restaurant................. 47 Frank’s Package Store.............................. 65 Fromage Fine Foods and Coffees.............55 Miriam Gardner-Frum.............................17 Guilford Preservation Alliance.................16 Guilford Savings Bank..............................18 Guilford Sportsmen’s Association.......... 64 Hammonasset Package Store................. 46 Hideaway Restaurant and Pub................ 68 Homeworks.............................................. 64 Peter Indorf Jewelers................................61 Junior League of Greater New Haven....... 8

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center...........................................55 Kebabian’s.................................................. 2 Kitchens by Gedney................................. 54 Kitchings & Potter, LLC........................... 56 The Lee Company.................................... 63 Livs Oyster Bar.........................................60 David McDermott Lexus........... Back cover MJP Associates......................................... 50 Montesi VW............................................. 28 Musical Masterworks................................31 NewAlliance Foundation.........................33 Old Lyme Inn........................................... 62 Pasta Vita.......................Inside Front Cover Anne Penniman Associates..................... 58 Physical Therapy Specialists....................60 Rancheros Mexican Bistro....................... 70 Read To Grow............................................ 8 Reynolds Garage and Marine.................. 22 Robert’s Food Center................................35 Salt Marsh Opera..................................... 43 Secor Subaru-Volvo-Saab........................ 34 Shore Discount Liquors.......................... 64 Shore TV and Appliances.........................41 Shoreline Medical Associates, LLC..........53 Shoreline Orthopedics and Sports Medicine...................................53 Shoreline Piano........................................ 52 Splash American Grill..............................53 Sunset Limousines................................... 63 TD Bank....................................................51 Village Chocolatier...................................53 WSHU Public Radio..................................6

The McDermott Auto Group proudly supports

The Chestnut Hill Concerts Series 2012 Season

www.lexusofnewhaven.com Check our web site for a vast selection of both new and used vehicles, and service specials for your Lexus 203-466-9999 David McDermott Lexus 655 Main Street East Haven, Connecticut 06512