Chamber Music Competition Winners, May 10

competition winners oneppo chamber music series David Shifrin, Artistic Director May 10, 2016 • Morse Recital Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

competition winners Tuesday, May 10, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Morse Recital Hall Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953

Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 I. Tema con variazioni II. Andante energico III. Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio IV. Adagio pesante V. Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto VI. Andantino Ron Cohen Mann, oboe Eric Braley, clarinet Ethan Hoppe, violin Julia Clancy, viola Levi Jones, double bass

Béla Bartók 1881–1945

String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 I. Moderato II. Allegro molto capriccioso III. Lento Sophia Mockler, Ethan Hoppe, violin Joshua Newburger, viola Eric Adamshick, cello intermission

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Competition Winners

André Previn b. 1929

Trio for piano, oboe and bassoon (1994) I. Lively II. Slow III. Jaunty Timothy Feil, oboe Yen-Chen Wu, bassoon Xing Zhang, piano

Jean Françaix 1912–1997

Wind Quintet No. 1 (1948) I. Andante tranquillo — Allegro assai II. Presto III. Tema con variazioni. Andante IV. Tempo di Marcia Francese videnia quintet Felice Doynov, flute Lydia Consilvio, oboe Bixby Kennedy, clarinet Cornelia Sommer, bassoon Cody Halquist, horn

special thanks to the coaches who worked with the ensembles: David Shifrin (Prokofiev) • Misha Amory (Bartók) Wei-Yi Yang (Previn) • William Purvis (Françaix)

Notes on the Program

sergei prokofiev Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 When Prokofiev arrived in Paris in 1923, the "city of light" was swept up in a Stravinsky craze. Presenters and audiences had little attention to spare for the 33-year-old — during the next decade, Prokofiev had few commissions, and his performances for the most part received lukewarm responses from Parisian audiences and critics.

In 1924, Prokofiev was commissioned by a small theater company to write music for a ballet entitled Trapeze. While Prokofiev was not interested in writing music evocative of circus life, he managed to compromise with the company’s director by proposing a smaller, more economical ensemble for the performance: a quintet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass. While the ballet was a flop, the colorful and captivating score remained largely intact, becoming the Op. 39 quintet. Each movement of the approximately 25-minute work manages at once to be both angular and flowing. Quirky moments burst forth from the delicately balanced orchestration like dancers leaping rebelliously from their choreography.

Prokofiev treats the unusual ensemble like a cohort of old friends, demanding intimacy not just from the instruments, but from the performers as well. béla bartók String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 Bartok’s ethnomusicological studies of Transylvanian, Bulgarian, North African, Algerian, and Hungarian folk music were forced to a stop at the outbreak of World War I. While the war halted his free exploration of folk sources, after being dismissed from the military as unfit for service, the

Hungarian government still employed him and his colleague Kodály to survey folk songs from soldiers. The second string quartet, completed in 1917, is the result of years of absorbing and contemplating diverse musical sources. The quartet passes through time like a single, dramatic trajectory. A fierce and foreboding intensity begins the piece and drives relentlessly towards the suddenly frozen and deeply profound opening of the final movement. In the classic juxtaposition in art of lightness and weight, this quartet seems decidedly on the side of heaviness.

The moments of serene agility that emerge seem apprehensive, battling against an everpresent gravitational pull downwards. andré previn Trio for piano, oboe and bassoon (1994) The German-American conductor, composer, and pianist André Previn might best be known for his rich career as a jazz pianist, symphonic, and film composer, having won four Oscars for his scores to the films Gigi, Porgy and Bess, My Fair Lady, and Irma la Douce. But his prolific output is not limited to large-scale works, as he has a handful of chamber works such as the trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano. Jazz-influenced, playful, and unabashedly sentimental, this approximately 20-minute trio shows off the lyricism and facility of the double-reed instruments, notably allowing for the bassoon to play the oboe’s equal partner in melodic rhapsody. jean françaix Wind Quintet No. 1 (1948) Jean Françaix was a prolific composer and an accomplished pianist, earning First Prize in piano at the Paris Conservatory when he was 18 years old and later studying with

Notes on the Program

renowned French pedagogue, Nadia Boulanger. His musical gifts were recognized at a young age: when he was eleven, he was encouraged by Maurice Ravel to “follow and develop his curiosity.” While conservative in style given his epoch, Françaix demonstrated his curiosity through unique instrumentations and orchestration in his chamber music, contributing much to chamber repertoire for winds. He was also known to be a ravenous composer, constantly finishing one piece and starting the next all the way through old age. The Wind Quintet No. 1, written in 1948, begins with a heavy, chromatic plodding. This introduction quickly gives way to playful, comical banter between the instruments.

The frivolity continues into the second movement, in which an opening scherzo continues to interrupt the more subdued trio. The third movement, a theme and variations, showcases a more lyrical and delicate treatment of the instruments.

The fourth variation renews the whimsy of the previous movements, while the fifth attempts again to tame it. Finally, the fourth movement restores in full the topsyturvy interplay of the instruments, mingling virtuosic fervor with just plain silliness.

– Katherine Balch

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