David Shifrin & Friends

fa culty a rtis t s eri es

David Shifrin clarinet

& Friends

morse recital hall November 15, 2011 • Tuesday at 8 pm Music of Brahms, Mozart, Panetti, Ponchielli, Poulenc, and Shulman Celebrating David Shifrin’s 25 th year on the Yale faculty

Robert Blocker, Dean

david shifrin, clarinet November 15, 2011 • Sprague Memorial Hall • Faculty Artist Series

clarinet Romie de Guise-Langlois* Soojin Huh‡ Gleb Kanasevich‡ Wai Lau‡ Igal Levin‡ Thomas Masse* David Perry‡

violin Katie Hyun* Daniel S. Lee*

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1795

Divertimento in B-flat major for three

basset horns, K.Anh. 229/439b Allegro Minuetto: Allegretto Adagio Minuetto Rondo: Allegro

viola Wei-Yang Andy Lin cello Mihai Marica*

bass Aleksey Klyushnik* piano Amy J. Yang* * alumni of the Yale *School of Music ‡ students of David Shifrin

Soojin Huh, Wai Lau, basset horns

Johannes Brahms 1833–1897

Sonata in F minor, Op. 120, No. 1 Allegro appassionato Andante un poco adagio Allegretto grazioso Vivace Amy J. Yang, piano intermission

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

Joan Panetti b. 1942

Circles of Light (2011)

Dedicated to David Shifrin

World premiere of new complete version I. Lobgesang: Dolce, e sempre legato II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace III. Chorale: Adagio intimissimo IV. Tarantella Soojin Huh, Gleb Kanasevich, Wai Lau, Thomas Masse, David Perry, clarinets Igal Levin, clarinet & bass clarinet

Francis Poulenc 1899–1963

Sonata for two clarinets (1918) Presto Andante Vif Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet

Alan Shulman 1915–2002

Rendezvous for Benny Katie Hyun, Daniel S. Lee, violins Wei-Yang Andy Lin, viola Mihai Marica, cello • Aleksey Klyushnik, bass

Amilcare Ponchielli 1834–1886

Il Convegno: Divertimento for two clarinets and strings (1857) Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet Katie Hyun, Daniel S. Lee, violins Wei-Yang Andy Lin, viola Mihai Marica, cello • Aleksey Klyushnik, bass

About the Artists

Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and throughout Germany. His recordings (on Delos, DGG, Angel/EMI, Arabesque, BMG, Sony, and CRI) continue to garner praise as well as awards, and he has received three Grammy nominations. Sought after as a chamber musician, he appears frequently with such distinguished artists as the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson String Quartets, and Wynton Marsalis.

One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974, clarinetist David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and as a chamber music collaborator.

He has performed with numerous major orchestras, including the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit, Denver, Memphis Symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras, and with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), with the Cleveland Orchestra, Honolulu, and Dallas symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Chamber Symphony.

Mr. Shifrin has appeared in critically acclaimed recitals around the world, including at Alice

Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, Mr. Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. Along with his work at CMSLC, Mr. Shifrin is also the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. David Shifrin is now celebrating his 25 th year as a professor at the Yale School of Music. He has also served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Hawaii. At Yale, he is also the artistic director of the Oneppo Chamber Music Series and the Yale in New York concert series.

Program Notes

wolfgang amadeus mozart Divertimento in B-flat major for three basset horns, K.Anh. 229/439b

johannes brahms Sonata in F minor, Op. 120, No. 1

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a particular liking for the basset horn. The abundance of works he wrote for this newly invented instrument shows that he must have been impresed by its delicate quality and mellow sound. He was probably also inspired by the extraordinary skill of his friend and lodge brother Anton Stadler on the basset horn.

The instrument is written into The Magic Flute, La Clemenza di Tito, the Masonic Funeral Music, the Requiem, and many chamber works. The Clarinet Concerto was derived from a sketch for basset horn and orchestra.

By 1890, after the publication of his string Quintet, Pp. 111, Brahms vowed to retire from composing, but his promise was short-lived.

In January 1891 he made a trip to Meiningen for an arts festival and was inspired by performances of the Weber Clarinet Concerto and the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. The solo clarinetist was Richard Mühlfeld, and Brahms began a fond friendship with the man whom he so admired. The beautiful tone of “Fräulein Klarinette” (as Brahms would nickname Mühlfeld) inspired him to begin composing again less than a year after he retired. The fruits of their friendship were a few remarkable additions to the relatively modest clarinet repertoire of that time. The beautiful and unusual Trio in A minor, Op. 114 for clarinet, cello, and piano came first, followed by the monumental quintet in B minor, Op. 115 for clarinet and strings. In the summer of 1894 at his Bad Ischl retreat, Brahms completed the two clarinet sonatas. They were first performed privately for Duke Georg and his family in September of that year. It is interesting to note that the keys of the sonatas—F minor and E-flat major—correspond to the keys of the two clarinet concertos Weber produced.

Brahms also produced a transcription of these works for viola.

We do not know when Mozart wrote the five Divertimenti K. Anh. 229/439b. The autograph is lost, and copies are no longer extant.

However, sources from Mozart’s day mention basset horn trios by him. In a letter written in May 1800 to the publisher Johann Anto André, Konstanze Mozart complained that Anton Stadler must have still owned some unidentified trios, but he claimed that they had been stolen. Breitkopf & Härtel’s Alter handschriftlicher Catalog von W. A. Mozart’s Original-Compositionen lists: “XXV pieces p: 3 Corni di Bassetto o 2 Clarinetti, Fag. e Violoncello,” leaving no doubt about Mozart’s authorship.

– Adapted from the preface to the Meyer/ Breitkopf & Härtel Edition

– Notes adapted by David Shifrin

Program Notes

francis poulenc Sonata for Two Clarinets (1918) Of Poulenc’s thirteen chamber works for various instrumental combinations, only three are exclusively for strings. “I have always adored wind instruments,” he remembered, “preferring them to strings, and this love developed independently of the tendencies of the era. Of course, L’Histoire du Soldat and Stravinsky’s solo clarinet pieces stimulated my taste for winds, but I had already developed the taste as a child.” The Sonata for Two Clarinets, one of his earliest works, was composed at Boulogne sur Seine in the spring of 1918, when he was just nineteen and heavily under the influence of the iconoclastic Eric Satie. “[Poulenc] was, indeed, a brash young composer during those years,” wrote Keith W. Daniel, “intentionally shocking the public, becoming a member of the provocative Les Six, and earning a reputation as the mauvais garçon [‘bad boy’] of new French music.”

With its tempo changes, occasional blatant dissonances and ostinato rhythms, and primitive parallelisms, the Sonata for Two Clarinets is Poulenc’s response in miniature to the seismic shock that still reverberated in musical circles from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring five years before. Like the slightly later (1922) Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon and Sonata for Horn, Trumpet, and Trombone, this work is so compact that Poulenc later felt it necessary to note, “Calling them sonatas might surprise some people because of their restrained dimensions, but we must not

forget that Debussy had just revived the tradition of the 18th-century sonata, as a reaction against the post-Franckian sonata. Wellwritten for winds, [these sonatas] maintain a certain youthful vitality that links them to [Raoul] Dufy’s early canvases.”

The Sonata for Two Clarinets follows the traditional fast-slow-fast progression for its three movements. The opening Presto eschews a development section in favor of a contrasting central episode in slower tempo.

In the Andante, one clarinet provides an undulating ostinato as accompaniment for the simple, lyrical theme intoned by the other. (Many years later, Poulenc borrowed this melody to open Act III of his opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites.) The finale is a modern rondo, whose returning theme is marked by flashing, rising arpeggios in the first clarinet.

– Richard E. Rodda

Program Notes

alan shulman Rendezvous (1946) The gifted cellist and composer Alan Shulman was born into a musical family in Baltimore on June 4, 1915, and encouraged to start playing cello when he was eight by his mother, who wanted him to round out a trio with his brother, a violinist, and sister, a pianist.

Within two years, young Alan was studying at the Peabody Institute; he started composing almost immediately. Shulman entered Juilliard on scholarship in 1932 and studied cello, composition, and conducting. While still a student, Shulman arranged popular selections and played them with a string ensemble on NBC Radio, joined the Kreiner String Quartet, and made his formal debut as a composer with incidental music to an American Children’s Theatre production.

After Alan graduated in 1937, the Shulman brothers joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra; the following year they organized both a “symphonic jazz group” and the Stuyvesant String Quartet, which specialized in performing contemporary compositions. Shulman had his first major success as a composer with the 1941 NBC Symphony premiere of his Theme and Variations for Viola and Orchestra.

After service during World War II, Shulman built a diverse career including performing and teaching. He helped to found the Violoncello Society, wrote popular songs with entertainer Steve Allen, and arranged and composed steadily until declining health forced his retirement in 1987.

Many of Shulman’s compositions, all traditional in their melodic and harmonic idioms and almost entirely instrumental, bear Jewish, Impressionist, or folk influences. Others reflect the jazz and popular styles that he knew well as a player and arranger. Rendezvous originated at the suggestion of famed jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, whom Shulman met in 1941. Early in the summer of 1946, when Shulman had retreated to Maine to work, Goodman, then expanding into the classical concert repertory, asked if he and the Stuyvesant Quartet could join him on his NBC radio show to play a movement from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Shulman did not want to trek back to New York to play for five minutes, so he asked Goodman if he could instead write a short piece to play together when he returned to the city.

Goodman agreed, and Shulman finished his Rendezvous with Benny (re-titled simply Rendezvous upon its publication in 1947) on July 29. They gave the premiere on a nationwide broadcast three weeks later. Shulman also made a version of Rendezvous for string orchestra.

Rendezvous begins with meditative strings, but the mood turns jazzy when the clarinet enters. A smoky blues occupies the center of the piece before the return of the jazzy strains provides the work with an up-tempo ending.

– Richard E. Rodda

Program Notes

amilcare ponchielli Il Convegno (“The Meeting”), Divertimento for Two Clarinets and Strings (1857) Though Amilcare Ponchielli’s modern reputation rests on a single work — the grand opera La Gioconda, source of the famous “Dance of the Hours”—he was a highly regarded musician of varied talents and great promise who enjoyed considerable prestige in his own day. His greatest creative efforts went into his dozen operas, but he also produced many ballets (only three survive), four cantatas, sacred and secular vocal music, piano pieces, a symphony and chamber music, as well as more than eighty works for the bands at Piacenza and Cremona that exemplify the genres with which such ensembles became integral facets of Italian community life in those days before broadcasts and recordings: quicksteps, funeral marches, concerted pieces, dances, fantasies on themes from popular operas, arrangements of symphonic works.

Il Convegno (“The Meeting”) for two clarinets and strings was composed in 1857, soon after Ponchielli left the Milan Conservatory and returned to Cremona; it was revised and fitted with an accompaniment for band sometime after he became bandmaster in Piacenza four years later, and orchestrated in 1873. The work is in three sections, linked by cadenzas and other connective tissue: a genial Allegro nicely balanced between a

tender opening theme and more spirited figurations; a duet of operatic lyricism that gathers increasingly elaborate fioratura as its unfolds; and a showy Allegretto scherzoso that evidences the virtuosity of Ponchielli’s bandsmen.

– Richard E. Rodda

Program Notes

joan panetti Circles of Light (2011) The first movement, “Lobegesang,” was written in honor of Keith Wilson and performed in Vancouver, Canada at the 2007 International Clarinet Festival. It was premiered by Yale School of Music alumni who had studied with Mr. Wilson (including Richard Stoltzman) and by David Shifrin, who succeeded Mr. Wilson as Yale’s clarinet professor. Last year it was performed again

by David Shifrin and his clarinet studio. We had a lot of fun in rehearsals, and I was asked if I would consider composing other movements. Tonight is the answer to that question. Once again I have had much fun, and this year’s clarinet studio has been like a gathering of great energy.

I very much appreciate the contributions of Wai Lau, Thomas Masse, and Garth Neustadter to this performance.

Circles of Light is dedicated to David Shifrin and his studio.

Joan Panetti, pianist and composer, garnered first prizes at the Peabody Conservatory and the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, received her B.A. degree from Smith College, and earned her D.M.A. degree from the Yale School of Music. She taught at Swarthmore College and Princeton University before joining the Yale faculty. Her principal mentors were Olivier Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod, Wilhelm Kempff, Alvin Etler, Mel Powell, and Donald Currier. She has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, performs frequently in chamber ensembles, and has recorded a disc with violinist Syoko Aki on the Epson label. Recent compositions include a piano quintet, commissioned by Music Accord; a piano trio, commissioned by the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble; Fanfare for six trumpets, premiered at the 2007 International Trumpet Guild; Within the cycles of our lives, premiered by the Meritage String Quartet in 2007, and To the flashing water say: I am, premiered by the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in 2008. Ms. Panetti has developed a nationally-recognized course, “Hearing,” that emphasizes the interaction between performers and composers. In 2007, she conducted an interactive Hearing workshop at Chamber Music America’s national conference and taught and coached at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. She is the recipient of the Luise Voschergian Award from Harvard University, the Nadia Boulanger Award from the Longy School of Music, and the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Alumni Award from the Yale School of Music. She was named the Sylvia and Leonard Marx Professor of Music at Yale University in 2004.

shinik hahm, conductor

Yale Philharmonia mendelssohn

nov

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream brahms

Piano Concerto Nº 1 · Lindsay Garritson, piano rachmaninoff

Symphonic Dances

music.yale.edu

Thursday at 8 pm · Woolsey Hall Free Admission · 203 432-4158 Media Sponsor: wshu 91.1 fm

Robert Blocker, Dean

Upcoming Events

Peter Frankl, piano

Benjamin Verdery, guitar

november 16

november 29

Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 8 pm Horowitz Piano Series Mozart: Concerto No. 11 in F major, K. 413; Menuet in D major, K. 355; and Sonata in D major, K. 576; Chopin: Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49, and Concerto No. 2 in F minor.

With the Linden String Quartet and Gregory Robbins, double bass.

Tickets $12–22, Students $6–9

Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 8 pm Faculty Artist Series Guitarist Benjamin Verdery plays music by Yale composers: Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, Ezra Laderman, David Lang, Jack Vees, and himself.

Free Admission

Ettore Causa & Boris Berman Yale Philharmonia

november 30

november 17 Woolsey Hall| Thursday | 8 pm Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Lindsay Garritson; Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances.

Free Admission

Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 8 pm Faculty Artist Series Ettore Causa, viola, and Boris Berman, piano, perform sonatas of Brahms, Schumann, and Shostakovich.

Free Admission

Concerts & Public Relations: Dana Astmann, Danielle Heller, Dashon Burton New Media: Monica Ong Reed, Austin Kase Operations: Tara Deming, Chris Melillo Piano Curators: Brian Daley, William Harold Recording Engineer: Eugene Kimball

P.O. Box 208236, New Haven, CT · 203 432-4158

Robert Blocker, Dean

music.yale.edu