s GRAMMY®-nominated British vocal ensemble performs ertoire ranging from early Renaissance music to traditional song, contemporary, and popular music.
sday, October 28 | 7:30 p.m.
The program for this GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble includes works by Igor Stravinsky, Jonny Greenwood, Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as original arrangements and compositions.
Friday, November 21 | 7:30 p.m.
At Tuesday Musical, we treat you to the thrill of discovery with carefully curated musical experiences you won’t find anywhere else.
Superstars and hidden gems. The classics and redefined genres. Special programs that connect you with the musicians and their inspirations.
Tuesday Musical’s Akron Concert Series promises artful, entertaining and engaging opportunities with every concert. We are thrilled that you are here to enjoy them with us!
Cynthia Snider Executive Director
OCTOBER 21, 2025, 7:30 p.m.
Near-superhuman technical prowess
“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), pianist Marc-André Hamelin performs around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time. Now he joins us at EJ Thomas Hall for our season opener and Annual Margaret Baxtresser Piano Concert. Experience a true master at work.
Les Arts Florissants
NOVEMBER 18, 2025, 7:30 p.m.
Celebrating one of history’s most popular works
In a concert tour that’s selling out around the country, France’s heralded Les Arts Florissants celebrates the 300th anniversary of this beloved work with a virtuosic program that also includes other Baroque gems. Featuring violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, of whom the reviewer at Gramophone said gives “performances so special that I feel a changed man from listening.”
NOVEMBER 30, 2025, 3 p.m.
Beloved stories & songs
Blending narration and song, acclaimed vocal ensemble Cantus presents The Velveteen Rabbit and The Polar Express alongside an abridged romp through The Nutcracker and other time-honored carols and new classics. Happening the Sunday afternoon after Thanksgiving, this is your family’s perfect start to the holiday season.
MARSALIS-McALLISTER-AMES TRIO
MARCH 3, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Classical meets jazz
Hailed early on as a young jazz lion, saxophonist Branford Marsalis has expanded his vision and crossed stylistic boundaries. In the process, he’s won three Grammys, a Tony nomination, and an NEA Jazz Master citation. For us, he’ll join fellow saxophonist Timothy McAllister — part of the Grammy-winning PRISM Quartet — and pianist Liz Ames to blend the spontaneity of jazz with the structured elegance of classical music.
FEBRUARY 10, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Bach, Piazzolla, Sandoval!
Boston Brass and 2024 Grammy-winner Imani Winds join forces to showcase their jointly commissioned music of Cuban-American trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval. Add in works by J.S. Bach, tango master Astor Piazzolla, modern masters Paquito D’Rivera and Lalo Schifrin, and more for this rollicking “super band” collaboration.
Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene
APRIL 21, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
The world’s most famous soprano
Superstar Renée Fleming brings her legendary voice to Akron for a program of Romantic and contemporary songs — plus an exploration of our evolving connection to nature, accompanied by the backdrop of a beautiful film from National Geographic. The most sought-after ticket of the season!
Tuesday Musical Association appreciates your continued support of The Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert Endowment Fund. This fund gives a lasting voice to Margaret’s objective of presenting the world’s greatest pianists in Akron. It also helps maintain the legacy that this extraordinary woman left for us to remember. Listed here are donors to the fund since its inception after Margaret’s passing in 2005.
Barbara Ainsworth-Porter
Ronald & Ann Allan
Moshe Amitay & Judy Levin
Tom & Nancy Anderson
Anonymous
Marion Goetz Aron
Eleanor & Richard Aron
Mark Auburn
Sue & Christopher Bancroft
Lee and Floy Barthel
Earl & Judy Baxtresser
Jeanne Baxtresser & David Carroll
Robert Baxtresser
Suzanne Baxtresser & Steven Wangh
George Bellassai
Jeanette & John Bertsch
Jan Bird
Ginny Black
Sue & Pete Birgeles
Mary & Dave Brown
Lisle M. Buckingham Endowment/ Akron Community Foundation
Alan & Sara Burky
Elizabeth Butler
Alfred S. Cavaretta
Sarah Church
Joyce Clark
Cynthia Maglione Coleman
Lydia Colopy
Mr. & Mrs. Nicolas Constantinidis
Carole Cordray-Syracuse
George Curley
Rita Czarnecki
Jane Davenport
Mary Davenport
Jerry Davidson
David & Katharine DeBolt
David & Judith DeShon
Mary Di Donato
Marjorie Donahue & Robert Roach
Dave & Susan Dudas
Dennis & Karen Dunn
Carolyn & Jerry Durway
Hope Everhart
David & Roberta Ewbank
Denis & Barbara Feld
Lois & Harvey Flanders
Richard & Eleanor Freeman
Thomas Friedman
Marlene Mancini Frost
Laura Lee Garfinkel
Candace Gatewood
Diana F. Gayer
Stephen T. & Mary Ann Griebling
Mary Lynne Grove
Elaine Guregian
Toshie Haga
Bruce & Joy Hagelin
Bart & Jeannie Hamilton
Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Hancock
DuWayne & Dorothy Hansen
Jarrod Hartzler
Karin Harvey
Jean Hauser
Dan T. Hayes
Marcianne Herr
Harriet & Herb Herskowitz
Patti Hester
Linda Hohenfeld
Monica (Niki) Houghton
Kathryn E. Hug
Kathryn M. Hunter
Margaret W. & David M. Hunter
Mary Ann Jackson
Constance C. Jenkins
Jerry & Helen Jenkins
Scott & Linda Johnston
Phyllis R. Kaplan
Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert Katz
Ardith & Bill Keck
David W. Kellogg
Jon & Martha Kelly
Cynthia Knight
Dr. & Mrs. Edward L. Koosed
Mr. Louis Lane
Laurie Lashbrook
Diane Lazzerini
Lehner Family Foundation
Peter & Dorothy Lepp
Larry & Shirley Levey
Michelle and Richard V. Levin
Marian Lott
Martha Klein Lottman
Richard & Leslie Lund
Barbara MacGregor
Orlene Makinson
Eugene Mancini
Roberta & Stan Marks
Charitable Foundation
Sanford & Eleonora Marovitz
Gloria Massa
Diane Mather
Claire McJunkin
Virginia Mead
Dodi S. & Claude Meade
David & Anita Meeker
Eileen L. Meeker & Chris Houghton
Mr. & Mrs. Robert Mercer
Lynn & Ed Metzger
Emmett & Alice Monroe
Charles & Elizabeth Nelson
Dianne & Herbert Newman
Wm. Max Nonnamaker
Louwana S. Oliva
OMNOVA Solutions Foundation
Bob & Marge Palmieri
Ruth Papini
Reinhard & Mary Petrich
Alice H. Phillips
George S. Pope
Madeleine Pringle
John H. & Carol E. Ramey
Susan Ramsdell
E. G. Sue Reitz
Sally & David Riede
Nan & John Riemenschneider
Corrinne & Donald Rohrbacher
Phyllis Ronald
Beverly M. Rose
Lola M. Rothmann
Bernadette Blount Salley
Anne M. Schellin
Mary Schiller
Brent & Nathalina Schloneger
Theresa Dye Schoettler
Arthur & Jean Schooley
Grace Reginald Scott
Walt & Donna Scott
Geraldine & Nadine Shank
Dr. C.M. & Barbara Shearer
Betty Sloan
Sandra & Richey Smith
Margo Snider & Rick Butler
Mrs. Jimmy Rogers Snoga
Louise & Al Spaulding
R. Thomas & Meg Harris Stanton
Mary Jo Stasell
Jennifer & Jeffrey Stenroos
Kenneth F. Swanson, M.D.
James Switzer & Gretchen Laatsch
Mr. & Mrs. Russell Tinkham
Dr. & Mrs. LeRoy Tunnell
Lewis H. & Charlotte E. Walker
Paul & Gwyn Wallace
Lee Wallach
Ann Waters
Walter & Barbara Watson
Virginia B. Wojno-Forney
Jerry Wong
Janet Wright
Mary Alice & David Wyatt
Zeta Omicron Chapter of Delta Omicron
Mayumi & Christopher Ziegler
John & Kathleen Zizka
EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall—The University of Akron Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 7:30 p.m.
Member of Tuesday Musical’s Brahms Allegro Junior Music Club.
Three Concert Études, S.144, La Leggierezza
Tuesday Musical’s 2025-26 Margaret Baxtresser Pianist.
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106, Hammerklavier
Franz Liszt 1811-1886
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827
Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), Op. 82
Robert Schumann Eintritt(Arrival) 1810-1856
Jäger auf der Lauer (Hunter on the Watch)
Einsame Blumen (Solitary Flowers)
Verrufene Stelle (Haunted Places)
Freundliche Landschaft (Pleasant Landscape)
Herberge (Shelter)
Vogel als Prophet (Bird as Prophet)
Jagdlied (Hunting Song)
Abschied (Departure)
Gaspard de la nuit (Three Poems for Piano) Maurice Ravel Ondine 1875-1937 Le Gibet Scarbo
Mr. Hamelin performs this evening on Tuesday Musical’s Three Graces Steinway D Piano, made possible by the generosity of Lucinda Weiss. Generous support for this performance and the masterclass tomorrow at Kent State University’s Glauser School of Music comes from donors to The Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert Endowment Fund as well as from other individuals, foundations, and businesses.
During the masterclass, Mr. Hamelin will work with piano students from Kent State University and Tuesday Musical’s Brahms Allegro Junior Music Club. Our thanks to Professor Donna Lee for hosting the masterclass. Dr. Lee is a member of Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, a prestigious designation recognizing the work of North America’s most committed and passionate piano teachers.
Among Tuesday Musical’s generous season supporters: Akron Community Foundation, Lisle M. Buckingham Endowment Fund, Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust, KeyBank Trustee, Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust, Charles E. and Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation, Helen S. Robertson Fund, Sisler McFawn Foundation, Lloyd L. and Louise K. Smith Foundation, Welty Family Foundation
Pianist Marc-André Hamelin—a “performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times)—is acclaimed worldwide for his rare combination of profound musicianship and dazzling technique.
He is celebrated both for his interpretations of the core repertoire and for his fearless exploration of lesserknown works from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. He regularly performs around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time and gives recitals at major concert venues and festivals worldwide.
Mr. Hamelin’s 2025–2026 season spans North America (including Akron!), Europe, Asia, and Australia, with a dynamic mix of orchestral, recital, and chamber music engagements. He opens the season with a tour of Australia and Asia, featuring concerto and recital appearances with the Sydney Symphony under Sir Donald Runnicles, concerto engagements with the Wuxi, Ningbo, and Shenzhen symphonies, and solo recitals in Adelaide, Xiamen, and Shenzhen.
In North America, Mr. Hamelin appears with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the San Diego Symphony with Thomas Guggeis, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on tour. Recital highlights include Chicago Symphony Presents, San Francisco Symphony, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Keyboard Concerts in Fresno, and Soka Performing Arts Center. In duo with Maria João Pires, he is presented by The Cleveland Orchestra, the Gilmore Piano Festival, and the Fortas Chamber Music Series at the Kennedy Center.
European appearances include Rhapsody in Blue with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Vladimir Jurowski, the Marx Piano Concerto with the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich and Fabien Gabel, and performances with the Bremer Philharmoniker, Wigmore Hall, the Schubertiade, MDR Wartburg, and the Chipping Campden Festival.
Additional recitals take place in Italy, the Netherlands, and Berlin, along with an extensive duo tour with Maria João Pires to the Philharmonie de Paris, the Barbican, The Hague, Martigny, Toulouse, and Berlin.
Chamber music highlights include the Chausson Concert with Augustin Hadelich and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Franck Piano Quintet with the Juilliard String Quartet for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. With Canadian pianist Charles RichardHamelin, Mr. Hamelin tours to Koerner Hall in Toronto, Salle Bourgie in Montréal, Club musical de Québec, and the Isabel Bader Centre in Kingston.
An exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records, Mr. Hamelin has released more than 90 albums to date, with notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoire. This month, Hyperion releases Found Objects / Sound Objects, a recording of
contemporary works. Recent acclaimed recordings include Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106, and Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3, as well as the Dvořák and Florence Price quintets with the Takács Quartet.
Also a noted composer, Mr. Hamelin has written more than 30 works. Many, including his Études and Toccata on L’homme armé—commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition— are published by Edition Peters. He performed the Toccata in 2023 on NPR’s Tiny Desk along with works by C.P.E. Bach and William Bolcom. His most recent composition, Mazurka, was commissioned by the Library of Congress to celebrate 100 years of concerts and premiered in April 2024.
Featuring 9 original pieces, Mr. Hamelin’s 2024 album New Piano Works is a survey of some of his own recent works, exhibiting his formidable skill as a composer-pianist whose music imaginatively and virtuosically taps into his musical forebears. “His previous offerings of his own music were rich, but his latest self-portrait album is on another level,” observed The New York Times. It was Mr. Hamelin’s first album of all original compositions since Études (2010)
Mr. Hamelin is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award and more than 20 quarterly awards from the German Record Critics’ Association. Other honors include 8 Juno Awards, 12 Grammy nominations, the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize from Northwestern University, and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation.
Mr. Hamelin is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Born in Montreal, he lives in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB.
Born in Mie, Japan, Saya Uejima started playing piano at age 6 under Seiko Kaneshige. After moving to the U.S., she won the gold prize in the 24th Mie Music Concours in 2018 with her teacher, Dr. Sebastian Birch. Since then, she has also studied with Dr. Yuka Nakayama-Lewicki and Dr. Mayumi Kikuchi, and currently studies under Dr. Haewon Song from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
At age 12, Saya had her first solo concerts at Kent State University and the College of Wooster under her previous teachers Dr. Birch and Dr. Nakayama-Lewicki. She has received many awards including 1st place in the Steinway & Sons Junior Piano Competition. She recently won the 1st prize and recital prize of Vincent Lenti piano competition at Eastman School of Music. She was also a semifinalist in the 2025 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition.
Saya has been the keyboardist of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra since 2023 and is playing piano, celesta and the Norton Memorial Organ. She is the winner of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition and debuted as the Concerto Soloist at Mandel Concert Hall in Severance Music Center this past May.
Apart from the piano, she enjoys chamber music, oboe, and classical voice. In her spare time, she likes going to concerts, visiting new places, and photography.
Piano Sonata No. 29, in B-flat major, Op. 106 Hammerklavier
Ludwig van Beethoven
Between 1816 and 1826—a decade in which he expressed originality, idiosyncrasy, invention, and expressivity unparalleled in the career of any other composer—Beethoven wrote a series of unsurpassed masterpieces: five piano sonatas, five string quartets, the Missa Solemnis, and the Ninth Symphony.
During the period just before these compositions began to appear, his output had been slim, for the works of his middle years had exhausted the possibilities of the forms he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. Withdrawn and separated from much of the rest of the musical world by his increasing deafness, Beethoven conceived and wrote a body of musical literature almost seemingly
without root in history and tradition, a new music of his own invention. The word had gone around in Vienna that Beethoven had written himself out, that like Haydn in his old age, he was reduced to making folk song arrangements because he was incapable of doing anything else.
When he heard these rumors from a disciple, Beethoven said, “Wait a while. They’ll soon learn differently.”
One of Beethoven’s many new ideas around this time was to use his own language, German, in his publications, instead of the French and Italian that convention required. He did not apply this principle consistently in the case of the late piano sonatas, perhaps because he was distracted by the problem of what to call the instrument itself. In Germany, at the time, usage was vague and varied. When he decided
on the title Hammerklavier (literally “hammerkeyboard,” because the sound is produced by little hammers that strike the strings), he used it in the titles of three sonatas, but it has adhered only to this one.
Beethoven began to write this sonata in the autumn of 1817 while he was also occupied with his Missa Solemnis and with preliminary ideas for a ninth and possibly even a tenth symphony. He intended the Missa Solemnis to celebrate the elevation of his gifted pupil and generous patron, Archbishop Rudolf, an Austrian Emperor’s younger son, to the post of Cardinal of Olmütz (now Olomouc in the Czech Republic) on June 4, 1819. It seems to have become obvious to Beethoven quite early that the Mass could not be finished in time. In fact, it turned out to be four years late.
In the meantime, Beethoven had to cast around for something with which to honor or flatter Rudolf. Instead of a Mass, the
composer sent Rudolf the two completed movements of this sonata, apologizing for the unfinished state of the whole, and claiming that in his heart he had always intended the sonata for His Imperial Highness. He then rushed the sonata to completion so that it could be published, and the first edition, issued in September 1819, bore Rudolf’s new title.
This monumental sonata belongs to the group of Beethoven’s late works that came to define the very idea of “masterpiece,” and in many ways it is an inexplicable feat of the creative imagination, one that challenges every performer to plumb its depths and to rise to its great heights. Its influence has been long and profound. Mendelssohn imitated it in a sonata in the same key, which he wrote at the age of 16 and withheld from publication, but it was imprudent of Mendelssohn’s friend, who prepared the posthumous edition, to assign it the same opus number, 106, as Beethoven’s.
Young Brahms, too, when only 20 years old, showed the weighty influence of the Hammerklavier Sonata in his very first published work.
The first pianist to risk playing this sonata in public (at a time when sonatas were still understood to be intended for domestic musicmaking, not part of the concert repertoire) apparently was Liszt, whose performance of it in Paris in 1836 had a profound effect on Berlioz.
Later, musicians tried to convert the sonata into a huge symphony, but even the best of the orchestral versions, the one published in 1926 by the great Beethoven conductor composer Felix Weingartner (1863-1942), fails to prove that the content transcends the medium. In the end, perhaps nothing bears comparison with this sonata except String Quartet, Op. 130, in the same key, that Beethoven himself completed several years later, which (in its original version) had a related but different sequence of movements, ending in a huge fugue. Knowing that the great size of the sonata made it difficult to comprehend, Beethoven said that it would occupy the minds of pianists for 50 years and, in accordance with his suggestion, the publisher of the first English edition broke it up into two pieces.
The Allegro first movement opens directly with its two-part principal subject: The first part, a chordal figure that can only be described as hammering; the second, which follows immediately, is a flowing melody in a contrapuntal texture. Keys shift. New ideas make their entrances and establish their relative weights, all subject to discussion, development, and recapitulation with altered relationships among them until the movement’s forceful conclusion.
Next comes a Scherzo, Assai vivace, which is relatively compact in scale. It has a contrasting central section in the minor mode, and it makes a sudden shift to duple meter and to Presto tempo before
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the return of the opening. The Scherzo is a relatively brief interlude before the next large-scale piece, a huge slow movement, Adagio sostenuto, which, even at its quiet start, must be played “passionately and with great feeling.” Its overall shape resembles that of the first movement, but the ideas here are essentially lyrical rather than heroic, less percussive certainly. In some places it is almost operatic; in others, it is ecstatic. A German Romantic scholar-critic of Beethoven’s time, with whom, even in our very different time, it is difficult to disagree, called it “the most sacred spot in the holy temple of Beethoven’s art.”
The transition from the slow movement to the finale is affected by a single page of music that is slow, Largo, but is interrupted, falls back, and then speeds up to Allegro risoluto. Here begins a gigantic fugue in three “voices,” with the fugue subject so altered in its course that it almost takes on the character of a set of variations. At the same time, changes in key and changes of subject reflect the basic, first-movement sonataallegro structure. Just before the end, the music slows briefly, refers again to the music of the opening fugue-subject, and then closes with rhythmically displaced references to its trills and even to the first movement’s chords.
Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), Nine Piano Pieces, Op. 82
Robert Schumann
Schumann composed this group of nine picturesque piano pieces in the nine days from December 29, 1848, to January 6, 1849. A late work, it is the effort of a man in his late 30s, struggling against cycles of debilitating depression.
The inspiration, or at least the subject matter, was provided by a work of the writer Heinrich Laube (1806-1884), in which there are scenes of the hunt that Schumann converted into poetic distillations of the Romantic view of nature. Schumann wrote: “The titles for pieces of music, since they again have come into favor in our day, have been censured here and there, and it has been said that ‘good music needs no signpost.’ Certainly not, but neither does a title rob it of its value; and the composer, by adding one, at least prevents a complete misunderstanding of the character of his music. What is important is that such a verbal heading should be significant and apt. It may be considered the test of the general level of the composer’s education.”
Regardless of the seemingly casual title, these are not woodland depictions without complications. Clara Schumann, in fact, found some of the individual
quite upsetting, and she chose not to perform them.
Schumann intended to preface five of the cycle’s nine short pieces with fragments of poetry, but he removed all but one of the poetic references before publication. He treats the forest in a Romantic symbolic way, as a marker for the unconscious.
No. 1, Eintritt, is an “Arrival” piece to balance the “Farewell” or “Departure” of No. 9. The tempo is Nicht zu schnell, “Not too fast.” From the asymmetrical phrases and free irregularity of its rhythms, we know that this is not a processional or a march, but its bounciness may suggest the excitement of arriving at the hunting grounds.
No. 2, the technically challenging Jäger auf der Lauer (Hunter on the Watch), played Höchst lebhaft, “With the highest degree of animation,” suggests the exciting, lively, and sinister sights seen by the hunter.
No. 3 is a charming nature picture of Einsame Blumen (Solitary Flowers), quite melodic, marked by Schumann as Einfach, or “Simple.”
No. 4, Verrufene Stelle (Haunted Places), changes the mood drastically. Eerie and mysterious, this slow piece is preceded by verse taken from the works of Friedrich Hebbel (1813-1863): “The flowers, no matter how high they grow, are here as pale as death. Only one, in the middle, is a deep red. It does not get its color from the sun, whose glow never reached it, but from the earth, where it has drunk human blood.”
No. 7 is the famous Vogel als Prophet (Bird as Prophet), a beautiful but strange and timeless nature-picture sung in birdsong. Headed Langsam, sehr zart, “Slow, very tender,” this selection, with its very delicate texture, has achieved popularity as a stand-alone selection. The text Schumann had originally intended to accompany it was: “Be careful, stay alert and watchful!” by Eichendorff.
No. 8, Jagdlied (Hunting Song), provides contrast with its jolly mood, rhythmic drive, and the sound of horn calls from the hunt, Rasch, kräftig, “Quick, powerful.”
No. 9 is Abschied, (Departure), a calm, introspective leave-taking.
Schumann dedicated the cycle to a young lady named Annette Preußer.
Gaspard de la nuit (Three Poems for Piano)
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit is based on three prose poems emphasizing the supernatural, which were written by the obscure French Romantic poet Louis Aloys Bertrand (1807-1842) in 1832. They were published in 1908 in the magazine Le Mercure de France, where Ravel read them.
No. 5, the quick Freundliche Landschaft (Pleasant Landscape), returns to the friendlier mood of No. 3.
In No. 6, the scene changes to the Herberge (Shelter), where we experience a variety of sentiments: merrymaking not untinged with sadness and regrets.
The essentially Impressionistic suite of descriptive pieces conjures up the mystery, bewitchment, castles, bells, and visions that Ravel found in the poems, which immediately inspired him to create one of the most difficult works for piano ever written, a demandingly profound musical essay requiring a pianist of great imagination as well as one who has complete technical command of the instrument. Ravel was not himself a virtuoso, but he consciously aimed to compose a work that would be, in his words, “more difficult than [Balakirev’s] Islamey.” He used the pianistic style of Franz Liszt and created what pianist Alfred Cortot called “one of the most
extraordinary examples of instrumental ingenuity which the industry of composers has ever produced.”
The nocturnal Gaspard of the title is the Devil, and each of the three poems is a story he tells or a picture he draws: of a water sprite, a corpse on the gallows, an evil dwarf. Each of Bertrand’s poems is preceded by a brief quotation from another writer. Subtitled “Three Poems after Aloysius Bertrand,” Ravel’s Gaspard suite movements are each prefaced by one of the poems. Gaspard made its premiere in a January 1909 performance by pianist Ricardo Viñes, the man who introduced Ravel to Bertrand’s work.
In the first piece, Ondine, in which the influence of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes is clear, Ravel portrays the seduction of a mortal man by the water nymph Ondine who appears, as Ravel’s biographer Benjamin Ivry put it, “in sparkling foam amid a sparkling melodic line” and lures men to their death by drowning. An innocent sounding melodic line accompanies the piano’s water figuration.
“Listen! Listen! It is I, Ondine, sprinkling these drops of water you hear on the panes of your window in the melancholy moonlight. ... My father is thrashing in the rumbling water with a green alder branch, and my sisters, with their arms of foam, are caressing the cool islands of grass...”
The second movement, Le Gibet (The Gibbet)—a portrait of the gallows—has such formidable textural density that Ravel notated nearly the whole piece using three staves. The words of Ravel’s other favorite poet, Edgar Allen Poe, and an extract from the preface of the corresponding Bertrand poem provide some idea of the musical atmosphere: “It is the bell sounding from the walls of a city far away below the horizon, and the carcass of a dead man hanging from a gibbet, reddened by the setting sun.” Ravel’s “bells” contain a slow melody, sometimes in parallel chords as well as
a slightly irregularly grouped repeated notes, an ostinato bell-like figure that tolls as a pedal point throughout the movement. The piece is quiet, yet suspenseful and sinister. Ravel directs the pianist to play “without expression” for the last part of the movement.
The final movement, Scarbo, named after a goblin, has some of the most incredibly difficult piano music Ravel or any other composer has ever written. Scarbo is a somewhat malicious dwarf from the underworld who horrifies the night and then disappears without a trace.
Ravel emphasizes rhythm in this virtuoso display piece and intersperses pauses throughout. Full of rapid repeated notes, arpeggiations, and sudden changes of texture and dynamics, this piece was well described by Ivry: “Like a Morse code operator gone mad, the pianist raps out Asian sounding groups of high notes. After a great, malignant, hopping dance, there are low echoing notes, and slowly the whirling returns in the best horror film style: ‘He’s baaaaack.’ The classical tradition of da capo offers an encore within the piece itself. The pianist goes up and down in demented reiteration as Scarbo exults in his own wickedness. The lushness of the end is like the dense final aria in Richard Strauss’s Salomé, celebrating the erotic triumph of malignancy.”
Commentators have also particularly singled out a very difficult passage that perhaps is the result of the composer’s double-jointed thumb and is certainly more than challenging for those without one. After a very loud climax, the music softens as it concludes in impish little, speedy notes. In a letter, Ravel admitted his difficulties with ending the piece. He said Gaspard had been “the devil to finish which is logical since He was the author.” Program notes are copyright © Susan Halpern, 2025.
EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall—The University of Akron Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at 7:30 p.m.
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at 300
Adoramus te, SV 289
Claudio Monteverdi (transcription) 1567-1643
Concerto for strings and basso continuo Antonio Vivaldi Madrigalesco RV 129 1678–1741 Adagio – Allegro – Adagio –Without indication
Bergamasca
Concerto in D minor, RV 813
Marco Uccellini 1603-1680
Vivaldi Allegro – Adagio – Allegro –Adagio – Andante e piano –Largo – Allegro
The Four Seasons:
Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, Spring (La primavera)
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 8, RV 315, Summer (L’estate)
I. Allegro non molto
II. Adagio
III. Presto
Vivaldi
Overture to La Fida Ninfa (The Faithful Nymph) in F major, FV 714
Concerto No. 3 in F major, Op. 8, RV 293, Autumn (L’autunno)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio molto
III. Allegro
Grave from Violin Concerto in B flat major, RV 370
Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, Winter (L’inverno)
I. Allegro non molto
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Vivaldi
Vivaldi
Vivaldi
Vivaldi
Vivaldi
North American management for Les Arts Florissants and Théotime Langlois de Swarte by David Rowe Artists, davidroweartists.com.
Les Arts Florissants records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi.
Théotime Langlois de Swarte records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi.
Our thanks to the Oberlin Conservatory for sharing their magnificent French double manual harpsichord by William Dowd for tonight’s performance.
Among Tuesday Musical’s generous season supporters:
Akron Community Foundation, Lisle M. Buckingham Endowment Fund, Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust, KeyBank Trustee, Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust, Charles E. and Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation, Helen S. Robertson Fund, Sisler McFawn Foundation, Lloyd L. and Louise K. Smith Foundation, Welty Family Foundation
William Christie, Founder and Musical Director
Paul Agnew, Musical Co-Director
An ensemble of singers and instrumentalists specializing in the performance of Baroque music on period instruments, Les Arts Florissants is renowned the world over. Founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, the ensemble is named for a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Les Arts Florissants has played a pioneering role in the revival of a Baroque repertoire that had long been neglected (including the rediscovery of countless treasures in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France). Today that repertoire is widely performed and admired: not only French music from the reign of Louis XIV, but also more generally European music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Since 2007, the ensemble is also conducted by the British tenor Paul Agnew, who was appointed Musical CoDirector in 2019.
Each season Les Arts Florissants gives approximately 100 concerts and opera performances in France—at the Philharmonie de Paris, where it is artist in residence, the Théâtre de Caen, the Opéra Comique, the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées, the Château de Versailles, as well as at numerous festivals—and is an active ambassador for French culture abroad, being regularly invited to New York, London, Edinburgh, Brussels, Vienna, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, and elsewhere.
Since the 1987 production of Lully’s Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris, triumphantly revived in May 2011, it has been on the opera stage that Les Arts Florissants has enjoyed its greatest successes. Notable productions include works by Rameau (Les Indes galantes, Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Boréades, Les Paladins, Platée), Lully and Charpentier (Médée, David et Jonathas, Les Arts florissants, Armide), Handel (Orlando, Acis and Galatea, Semele, Alcina, Serse, Hercules, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato), Purcell (King Arthur, Dido and Aeneas, The Fairy Queen), Mozart (The Magic Flute, Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Monteverdi (his opera trilogy), as well as by composers who are less frequently played, such as Landi (Il Sant’Alessio), Cesti (Il Tito), Campra (Les Fêtes vénitiennes) and Hérold (Zampa).
For its theater productions, Les Arts Florissants has called on the talents of some of the greatest stage directors, including Jean-Marie Villégier, Robert Carsen, Adrian Noble, Andrei Serban, Luc Bondy, Deborah Warner, David McVicar, Claus Guth, Jérôme Deschamps, and Macha Makeïeff, as well as renowned choreographers such as Béatrice Massin, Ana Yepes, Jirí Kylián, Blanca Li, Trisha Brown, Robyn Orlin, José Montalvo, Françoise Denieau, Dominique Hervieu, and Mourad Merzouki.
Les Arts Florissants enjoys an equally high profile in the concert hall, as illustrated by its many acclaimed concert or semistaged performances of operas and oratorios (Rameau’s Zoroastre, Anacréon and Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Charpentier’s Actéon and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, Campra’s Idoménée, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Montéclair’s Jephté, Rossi’s L’Orfeo and Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Cecilia Bartoli as well as his Messiah, Theodora, Susanna, Jephtha and Belshazzar), its secular and sacred chamber-music programs (petits motets by Lully and Charpentier, madrigals by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, court airs by Lambert, hymns by Purcell, among others) and its approach to large-scale works (particularly the grands motets by Rameau, Mondonville, Campra and Charpentier, as well as Handel’s Messiah and J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion).
The ensemble has produced an impressive discography: nearly 100 recordings (CD and DVD) and its own collection in collaboration with Harmonia Mundi directed by William Christie and Paul Agnew.
In recent years, Les Arts Florissants has launched several education programs for young musicians. The most emblematic is the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix.
Created in 2002, the academy is held every two years and has already brought a substantial number of new singers into the limelight. The Arts Flo Juniors program, launched in 2007, enables conservatory students to join the orchestra and chorus for the length of a production, from the first day of rehearsals up to the final performance. And then there is the partnership between William Christie, Les Arts Florissants, and New York’s Juilliard School of Music, which since 2007 has allowed a fruitful artistic exchange between the U.S. and France. Launched in 2021, a yearly program of masterclasses in Thiré (Vendée, Pays de la Loire) comes to complete this panel of programs with short working sessions led by William Christie and Paul Agnew to help young professionals improve their skills. Les Arts Florissants also organizes numerous events aimed at building new audiences. Linked to each year’s concert program, these are designed for both amateur musicians and non-musicians, adults as much as children.
In 2012, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants created the festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie, in partnership with the Conseil départemental de la Vendée. An annual event, the festival brings together artists from Les Arts Florissants, pupils from the Juilliard School, and finalists from Le Jardin des Voix for concerts and promenades musicales in the gardens created
by William Christie at Thiré, in the Vendée. In addition to the festival, Les Arts Florissants are working with the endowment fund Les Jardins de Musique de William Christie toward the creation of a permanent cultural venue in Thiré. In 2017, following a decision by the French Ministry of Culture, Les Arts Florissants has been awarded the national label Centre culturel de Rencontre, which distinguishes projects associating creation, patrimony and transmission. In 2018, Les Arts Florissants became the Foundation Les Arts Florissants—William Christie.
Les Arts Florissants receives financial support from France’s Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs (DRAC), Département de la Vendée, and Région Pays de la Loire. The Selz Foundation is the Principal Sponsor. Aline Foriel-Destezet and the American Friends of Les Arts Florissants are Major Sponsors. Les Arts Florissants has been ensemble-in-residence at the Philharmonie de Paris and is recognized as a “Heritage Site for Culture”.
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin “Performances so special that I feel a changed man from listening” (Gramophone), “A stunner by any standard” (The Strad), and “Mesmerizing” (The New Yorker)—these represent common reactions upon encountering violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, who is rapidly emerging as a much soughtafter violin soloist (on both baroque and modern instruments), chamber musician, recitalist, and conductor.
Chad A Immel
Advisor
Recognition has come in the form of major awards, including the 2022 “Diapason D’or of the year” for his recording of Vivaldi, Locatelli, and Leclair concertos (Harmonia Mundi), and the 2022 “Ambassador of the Year” award from the European Early Music Network (REMA), along with multiple additional recording awards and a February 2022 cover story in The Strad magazine.
In solo appearances on both baroque and modern violin, Théotime Langlois de Swarte regularly offers concertos by the baroque masters, along with those of Haydn and Mozart. He has appeared with Les Arts Florissants, Le Consort, Orchestre de l’Opera Royal, Holland Baroque, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Les Ombres, and Orchestre National de Lorraine.
His engagements have brought him to prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Vienna’s Musikverein, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Hall, and the Shanghai National Art Center.
Théotime Langlois de Swarte studied at the Paris Conservatory under Michael Hentz and while still a student became a regular member of Les Arts Florissants at William Christie’s invitation in 2014. He has since appeared as soloist with the ensemble. He has also appeared in recital with William Christie, including a 2021 recording of sonatas by Leclair and Senaille (Generations on Harmonia Mundi).
As co-founder—with harpsichordist Justin Taylor—of the baroque ensemble Le Consort, Théotime Langlois de Swarte can be heard on numerous highly acclaimed recordings on Alpha Classics including Specchio Veneziano, Opus 1, and Philarmonica. Le Consort has performed widely throughout Europe, and their debut North American tours in the 202324 season included Montreal, Boston, Washington, Kansas City, Berkeley, Chicago, St. Paul, Louisville, New Orleans, Vancouver, and Ottawa.
Besides William Christie, frequent recital collaborators include harpsichordist Justin Taylor and lutenist Thomas Dunford, with whom he recorded a much-praised album titled The Mad Lover. Another notable recording, A Concert at the Time of Proust, was made on the newly restored Davidoff Stradivarius at the Philharmonie
de Paris Museum. His recording Antonio Vivaldi Concerti per una vita (Harmonia Mundi) has garnered wide acclaim. Early 2025 marked the release of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the work’s publication.
Alongside his instrumental work, Théotime Langlois de Swarte is emerging as a conductor. In 2023 he led performances at l’Opera Comique of Lully’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (with Les Musiciens du Louvre at Marc Minkowski’s invitation) and Gretry’s Zemire et Azor (at Louis Langrée’s invitation). Earlier this month he returned to l’Opera Comique to lead Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride
Théotime Langlois de Swarte is a laureate of the Banque Populaire Foundation. He plays a 1733 violin of Carlo Bergonzi on generous loan from an anonymous patron.
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin soloist
Violin I
Augusta McKay Lodge, leader Valentine Pinardel
Amandine Solano
Magdalena Sypniewski
Violin II
Roxana Rastegar
Yaoré Talibart
Lydia Becker
Alyssa Campbell
Viola
Lucia Peralta
Nicolas Fromonteil
Cello
Elena Andreyev
Magdalena Probe
Double Bass
Alexandre Teyssonnière de Gramont
Harpsichord
Benoît Hartoin
A colorful figure in fascinating Baroque Venice who captivated audiences with his extravagance and virtuoso violin playing, Antonio Vivaldi is one of the most influential musicians of 18th-century Europe.
Born in Venice in 1678, Vivaldi quickly became violin master, choirmaster and then concert master at the Ospedale della Pietà. There, he explored a wide range of musical activity, demonstrating an incomparable talent, notably in the invention of the solo concerto, which enchanted 18th-century musical Europe and inspired virtually all subsequent composers. His career also flourished in opera, particularly at the San Angelo theater in Venice, but also in Mantua, Rome and Vienna.
The Four Seasons, whose 300th anniversary we are celebrating today, played an essential role in the composer’s fame. With its descriptive and imaginative writing, this work anticipates the programmatic music that would prevail among later Romantic-era composers and even included descriptive sonnets to help illustrate the music for performers and listeners.
For violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte it embodies the essence of spirituality, a metaphysical work evoking life and death, with moments of great gentleness as well as extreme violence. Through his interpretation Théotime seeks to capture the drama characteristic of Venetian arts: expressive density, operatic and theatrical emotion, and jubilant energy.
The works complementing the Seasons on our program serve to highlight musicians who influenced Vivaldi’s approach—and one he in turn inspired.
The transcription of Claudio Monteverdi’s Adoramus te SV 289 is closely linked to Vivaldi’s childhood, when he accompanied his father, a musician in the San Marco orchestra which Monteverdi previously directed. The work also embodies the liturgical vocal style specific to Venice, as
well as the city’s theatrical and musical environment. In a way, it represents Vivaldi’s musical DNA, upon which he built his virtuosity, notably through the abundance of repeated notes.
The Madrigalesco from Vivaldi’s Concerto for strings and continuo RV 129 is composed in the “antico” style. Its presence here establishes an interesting connection between Monteverdi and Uccellini, revealing the extent to which the influences of the masters shaped Vivaldi’s new style.
If Monteverdi marks the beginning of Vivaldi’s musical journey, Marco Uccellini’s Bergamasca reveals the origin of his instrumental repertoire. A pioneer in the art of violin and sonata composition, Uccellini exerted a decisive influence on the young Vivaldi. This dance, based on a popular theme with variations, also celebrated the art of improvisation, an element dear to the Venetians and to the composer throughout his life.
Vivaldi’s Concerto in D minor RV 813 was one of his earliest written for the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. All hallmarks of Vivaldi’s style are already present: joy, virtuosity, theatricality, exaltation. The popularity of this concerto is also due to Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterly transcription for keyboard.
Vivaldi’s Overture to La Fida Ninfa in F major RV 714 evokes the Teatro San Angelo and shows how opera influenced the composer’s instrumental music, offering extraordinary vocality. Opera also enabled him to create dramatic interactions between instruments, where brilliance, impetuosity, sensuality and seduction blend harmoniously in the soundscape.
The “Grave” movement from Vivaldi’s Concerto in B flat major RV 370 is an unfinished piece, built on an ostinato chromatic bass. Théotime Langlois de Swarte has completed it here; a tribute from a young violinist to his illustrious elder.
Vivaldi’s singular genius continues to inspire artists the world over, as demonstrated by this concert of Les Arts Florissants led by violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte. As this great Vivaldi performer and member of Les Arts Florissants puts it: “For one of the bestknown composers in Western music, it is astonishing to realize that there are still so many facets to explore.”
When published in 1725 nobody could imagine that Vivaldi’s Opus 8, Nos. 1-4 (The Four Seasons) would become
perhaps the most frequently heard music of all time. Vivaldi’s singular genius continues to inspire artists the world over, as demonstrated by this concert of Les Arts Florissants led by violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte. As this great Vivaldi performer and loyal member of Les Arts Florissants puts it: “For one of the bestknown composers in Western music, it is astonishing there are still so many facets to explore.”
Program notes copyright © Fannie Vernaz, 2024.
These sonnets appeared in the first edition of The Four Seasons published in 1725. Many people assume they were penned by Vivaldi, although nobody is certain. The sonnets nevertheless must have been important to the composer.
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song, and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes. Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven, Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath spring’s beautiful canopy.
Allegro non molto
Under a hard season, fired up by the sun Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine
We hear the cuckoo’s voice; then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard. Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside. The shepherd trembles, fearing violent storms and his fate.
Adagio e piano—Presto e forte
The fear of lightning and fierce thunder Robs his tired limbs of rest
As gnats and flies buzz furiously around.
Presto
Alas, his fears were justified
The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail
Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain.
Allegro
Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances, The pleasure of a bountiful harvest. And fired up by Bacchus’ liquor, many end their revelry in sleep.
Adagio molto
Everyone is made to forget their cares and to sing and dance By the air which is tempered with pleasure And (by) the season that invites so many, many Out of their sweetest slumber to fine enjoyment
Allegro
The hunters emerge at the new dawn, And with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting The beast flees and they follow its trail; Terrified and tired of the great noise Of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens Languidly to flee, but harried, dies.
Allegro non molto
To tremble from cold in the icy snow, In the harsh breath of a horrid wind; To run, stamping one’s feet every moment, Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold
Largo
Before the fire to pass peaceful, Contented days while the rain outside pours down.
Allegro
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling. Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up. We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors... this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.
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Are you—and perhaps a few of your friends— interested in funding a specific budget item? Perhaps in honor of a friend or family member? (Unrestricted gifts for our general operating fund are always welcome, too!)
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Executive Committee
President Claire Purdy
Vice President/President Elect James Wilding
Treasurer Paul Mucha
Secretary Sally Childs
Governance Committee Chair Bryan Meek
Committee Chairs
Artistic Planning Cynthia Snider
Brahms Allegro Jennifer and Jeffrey Stenroos
Development Louise Harvey
Finance Paul Mucha
Hospitality Bobbie Eaton and Marianne Miller
Membership Teresa Good
Member Programs Stanislav Golovin
Scholarship Mark Greer and George Pope
Education Michele Monigold
At-Large Members
Theron Brown, Justin Chenault, Diane Klein, Landon Nyako, Fred Specht, and Marc Weagraff
Staff
Executive Director Cynthia Snider
Director of Finance and Audience Services Karla Jenkins
Director of Artistic Operations
and Educational Engagement Austin Ferguson
Marketing Consultant Jim Sector
Social Media Assistant Amie Cajka
Marketing and Program design and production by Live Publishing Co.
NOV 28 l FRI 7:30 PM
NOV 29 l SAT 7:30 PM
NOV 30 l SUN 3 PM
Petr Popelka, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
RAVEL Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
LIGETI Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL Pictures at an Exhibition
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Yuja Wang does double duty in two virtuosic piano concertos: Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand, which transforms an apparent limitation into a jaw-dropping tour de force, alongside Ligeti’s fiendishly playful contribution to the genre. Czech conductor Petr Popelka continues the celebrations for Ravel’s 150th birthday with the composer’s magnificent orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Ohlsson Plays Mozart OCT 31– NOV 2
Mahler’s Sixth Symphony NOV 13 – 15
Dvořák’s New World Symphony NOV 20 – 23
clevelandorchestra.com