The Nash Ensemble: chamber music society at yale

The Nash Ensemble chamber music society at yale Vincent Oneppo, Director april 7 2009 music of Schumann Vaughan Williams Dukas Dvořåk

Robert Blocker, Dean

april 7, 2009 · 8 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

The Nash Ensemble Amelia Freedman CBE, FRAM, Artistic Director Ian Brown, piano · Richard Hosford, clarinet · Richard Watkins, horn Marianne Thorsen, violin · James Boyd, viola · Paul Watkins, cello Robert Schumann 1810-1856

Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132 for piano, clarinet, and viola Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell Lebhaft und sehr markiert Ruhiges Tempo mit zartem Ausdruck Lebhaft, sehr markiert

Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958

Quintet in D major (1898) for piano, clarinet, horn, violin, and cello I. Allegro moderato II. Intermezzo. Allegretto III. Andantino IV. Finale. Allegro molto Intermission

Paul Dukas 1865-1935

Villanelle for horn and piano

Antonín Dvořák 1841-1904

Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat major, Op. 87 Allegro con fuoco Lento Allegro moderato, grazioso Finale. Allegro, ma non troppo

As a courtesy to the performers and audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.

The Nash Ensemble has built up a remarkable reputation as one of Britain’s finest and most adventurous chamber groups, and through the dedication of its founder and artistic director Amelia Freedman and the calibre of its players, has gained a similar reputation all over the world. The repertoire is vast, and the imaginative, innovative, and unusual programs are as finely architectured as the beautiful Nash terraces in London from which the group takes its name.

The Nash Ensemble performs with equal sensitivity and musicality works of Mozart to the avant garde. Indeed, it is one of the major contributors towards the recognition and promotion of many leading composers. By the end of the 2007-08 season, the group had performed over 250 works, 138 of which they commissioned, providing a legacy for generations to come.

An impressive collection of recordings illustrates the same varied and colorful combination of classical masterpieces, little-known neglected gems, and important contemporary works.

The Ensemble’s most recent releases include recordings of Mozart’s piano quartets, Brahms’s string sextets, and chamber works by Richard Strauss. In addition, the group has been involved in a contemporary music series for Black Box Records, including chamber works by James MacMillan and Mark-Anthony Turnage. A

vocal and chamber music disc by Birtwistle has also received much critical praise, including a Grammy nomination. The Nash’s Teldec recording with the Arditti Quartet and soprano Claron McFadden of Birtwistle’s Pulse Shadows won a Gramophone Award in the contemporary music catagory.

The Nash makes many foreign tours throughout Europe, the USA, South America, Australia, and Japan, and they are regular visitors to many music festivals and media stations. Their 2006-07 season at Wigmore Hall (“Realms of Gold”) explored the riches of the English musical renaissance and celebrated the 150th anniversary of Elgar’s birthday with performances of all his chamber works. During the 2007-08 season the Nash presented a series at Wigmore Hall entitled “Around Schubert” in which the music of Schubert's contemporaries forms a garland around Schubert, including some of his greatest chamber works, giving the opportunity to hear them in a new light.

The members of the Nash Ensemble are: Ian Brown (piano), Marianne Thorsen (violin), Malin Broman (violin), Lawrence Power (viola), Paul Watkins (cello), Duncan McTier (double bass), Philippa Davies (flute), Gareth Hulse (oboe), Richard Hosford (clarinet), Ursula Leveaux (bassoon), Richard Watkins (horn), and Lucy Wakeford (harp).

robert schumann Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132

The sad story of Schumann’s later life is wellknown: his intense bouts of depression, the split personality and hearing of imaginary voices in his head, his desperate attempts at suicide, all of which lead to his eventual death in an asylum. By 1853, his insomnia, depression, and mental health were all worsening. A temporary ray of light did peek through the psychological clouds in the form of a bright-eyed twenty-yearold named Johannes Brahms. Much has been said and written about the relationship of these two compositional giants, but suffice it to say that the presence of Brahms’ youthful energy and admiration seemed to both calm Schumann and inspire him towards one last burst of creativity.

The Op. 132 “Fairy Tales,” composed in just three days from October 9-11, 1853 for clarinet, viola and piano, is one piece resulting from this renewed enthusiasm. Inspired by the ensemble Mozart used for his “Kegelstatt” trio, K. 498 Schumann is not explicit in describing which fairy tales the work is presenting. By utilizing the rich, eclectic colors of the instrumentation and Schumann’s strong pianistic roots, the warm and intimate work realizes subtle shifts and finely nuanced mood changes throughout its four movements.

The first movement creates a dreamy landscape full of richly drawn textures and harmonies, ebbing and flowing through the ensemble. The second movement is a Scherzo, albeit one with a dark underpinning of relentless pounding and hammering, with respite only temporarily offered in the form of a dance interlude. In the heartfelt third movement, a lyrical duet between clarinet and viola creates the sublime emotional center of the work, managing to be at once comforting and mournful. The fourth movement returns to the broader strokes and bold gestures of the second movement to form a spirited and good-natured conclusion. Even here, as evident throughout the work, there is an undercurrent of sadness and pain despite the upbeat nature of the writing, inevitably reflecting the autumnal realities of the composer’s mental state.

– Jacob Adams

ralph vaughan williams Quintet in D major (1898)

Known particularly for his songs and his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Ralph Vaughan Williams is often considered one of the greatest English composers of all time.

England experienced a remarkably long musical drought between Henry Purcell (d. 1695) and Edward Elgar (b. 1857), during which time no English composer succeeded in making any notable contribution to classical music. A musical renaissance finally occurred in England the latter part of the nineteenth century beginning with Elgar and continuing with Gustav Holst and Vaughan Williams well into the twentieth century.

Williams’ interest in folk music is evident in the second movement, which starts with a delightful folk-like tune in the cello. The movement also shows his penchant for humor and charm, with the waltz rhythm in the piano constantly offset by accents on the second beats in other voices.

The third movement opens with a songful melody in the horn that then moves to the other instruments. A characteristic moment of the movement takes place at the end, where the horn creates an ostinato out of the third bar of the opening melody by playing it nineteen times before passing it to the clarinet and violin to bring the movement to a quiet close.

The last movement is witty and energetic, with only short moments of repose between fast, virtuosic passages. The movement has several folk-like tunes as well as sections in varying forms, including a short fugato. A passionate lyrical section precedes a bombastic drive to the finish.

Written in 1898, the Quintet in D Major is one of four large-scale chamber pieces that Vaughan Williams wrote between 1897 and 1908, a period when he was just beginning to gain fame as a composer. None of these chamber works, however, was ever published in his lifetime or even performed after 1918. This absence was due to a ban Vaughan Williams’ widow placed after his death on performing his early works that she only lifted in the 1990’s. The Nash Ensemble’s recording of the work, made in 2002, is the only – Laura Usiskin recording of the Quintet to date.

The first movement is full of vibrancy and personality. The music oscillates between luscious melodic material and march-like rhythmic material, the latter often presented in the piano.

One important recurring motive is a horn call that the French horn initially presents and that appears in all of the instruments throughout the movement, including at the end by the strings in pizzicato.

Though it would be five more years before he would begin collecting the hundreds of folk songs for which he is now famous, Vaughan

paul dukas Villanelle

Villanelle for Horn is one of Paul Dukas’ only surviving works, as the composer was notoriously self-critical and destroyed almost every thing he wrote. Another extant work is his famous orchestral piece The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Written in 1906 as an obligatory entry in a competition, Villanelle is now a favorite virtuoso piece in horn repertoire. At the time of its conception, Dukas was making a living as a critic and orchestrator. Later he became a highly acclaimed professor at the Paris Conservatory, teaching such prized pupils as Olivier Messiaen.

The term villanelle comes from the Italian villanella, which means “country girl” and is known primarily in literature as a nineteenline poetic form. In music, the term describes a simple, country song. French composers in the 16th century were the first to write villanelles, followed by such composers as Telemann, Berlioz, Dukas, and Chabrier.

Dukas depicts many delightful pastoral scenes in his work, beginning with a declamatory opening followed by a sweet melody in the horn.

Several varying sections follow that include brisk, virtuosic passagework in the piano and melodies for stopped horn and muted horn.

There are also parts at the beginning and end that a natural (valveless) horn could technically play. Dukas may have written music in this way because, until 1896, natural horn was still being taught in conservatories. In addition, the natural tones in these passages evoke a sense of purity and naiveté, which falls in line with his choice of calling the piece a villanelle.

– Laura Usiskin

antonín dvorák Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 87

1889 proved a rich and happy time for Antonin Dvořák. He was in the midst of compoing and conducting steadily, his personal life was joyful, and he had emerged as a major musical figure in demand throughout Europe. It was in this period that the Op. 87 piano quartet was composed, just after the opera The Jacobin and before beginning his beloved Eighth Symphony.

The Quartet was commissioned at the request of the music publisher Simrock, who had discovered in Dvořák’s chamber music a popular and profitable source of new material. Written over the course of six weeks, Dvořák’s enthusiastic writing to Simrock during composition reflects his contented confidence at the time: “I’ve now already finished three movements of a new piano quartet and the finale will be ready in a few days. As I expected, it came easily and the melodies just surged upon me.”

Compared with much of Dvořák’s nationalistic period compositions, the Piano Quartet features less folk-influenced material and is closer in vein to the heroic-Romantic style of his mentor, Johannes Brahms. The opening movement exemplifies this, with its intense shifts between the fiercely dramatic and the gently lyrical. The slow second movement features no fewer than five themes: an opening cello line of wistful passion, a calmer, more poised violin melody, an agitated piano response, a stormy episode for the entire ensemble, and a final theme in the piano, comforting and resolved, derived from the third theme’s material. The ABA third movement is distinctly Dvořák in its folk-inspired originality.

Utilizing the Ländler dance (the peasant predecessor to the waltz), it is tinged with Eastern influences – the high registered repetitions in particular evoking the Hungarian cimbalom, or hammered dulcimer. The rapidly

paced trio propels forward with insistent dotted rhythms. The finale, orchestral in its scope and demands, again evokes the heroic-Romantic style. Its powerful climactic moments are so assertive as to belie the beautiful lyricism of its quieter moments, such as the viola’s secondary subject. Nonetheless, the work concludes with the brilliance and vigor characteristic of Dvořák’s pen.

– Jacob Adams

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concerts & media Vincent Oneppo Director Dana Astmann Assistant Director Monica Ong Design Manager Tara Deming Operations Manager Christopher Melillo Operations Assistant Manager Danielle Heller Box Office Coordinator Kelly Yamaguchi-Scanlon Accomodations & Travel Brian Daley Piano Curator William Harold Piano Curator recording studio Eugene Kimball Director / Recording Engineer Jason Robins Assistant Recording Engineer

April 17 & 18 two one-act operas 7:30 pm, Sprague Hall Jules Massenet’s La Navarraise and William Walton’s The Bear. Doris Yarick-Cross, artistic director; Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin, musical direction and accompaniment. Tickets $8-$12 / Students $5.

April 20 yale cellos 8 pm, Sprague Hall In recognition of Aldo Parisot's 50 years on the faculty. With soprano Hyanah Yu and pianist Elizabeth Parisot. Featuring Heitor Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 and No. 5, plus Christopher Rouse’s Rapturedux, Dave Brubeck’s Elegy and The Desert and the Parched Land: and Ezra Laderman’s Simões. Tickets $10-15 / Students $5. Program will be repeated in Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall on April 21.

April 23 boris berman 8 pm, Sprague Hall Chopin: Barcarolle, Polonaise-Fantaisie, Nocturnes Op. 15 and Op. 27; Debussy: Images (Books 1 and 2), Estampes.

Tickets $10-$18 / Students $5.

April 28 competition winners 8 pm, Sprague Hall Program features winners of the Yale School of Music’s 2009 Chamber Music Competition.

Bartok: Contrasts, Poulenc: Sextet for Winds and Piano, Brahms: Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25. Tickets $10-15 / Students $7.