Helmut Lachenmann + Bach Ensemble Signal Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano Kelli Kathman, flute Lauren Radnofsky, cello Ari Streisfeld, violin

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1 Miller Theatre at Columbia University th Season Bach, Revisited Helmut Lachenmann + Bach Ensemble Signal Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano Kelli Kathman, flute Lauren Radnofsky, cello Ari Streisfeld, violin Thursday, April 9, 8:00 p.m.

2 From the Executive Director We kick off April with a musical tour-de-force pairing Helmut Lachenmann and J.S. Bach. We ve challenged Ensemble Signal to perform repertoire that bridges the centuries, and the soloists Lauren Radnofsky and Ari Streisfeld are taking the challenge to its most extreme. Bach s sonatas and partitas for solo violin and the cello suites are among the most widely performed solo works for strings. They are deeply moving, incredibly difficult, and have come to represent the pinnacle of achievement for many string players. Though it may be surprising to modern listeners, Bach introduced techniques that transformed how we understand these instruments. Lachenmann s dedication to that quest is evident tonight with his solo works Toccatina and Pression. Like Bach, his works place enormous demands on the performers, including a variety of special techniques to produce a sonic palette that goes far beyond the traditional sound of bow over strings. On April 23, we ll celebrate Anna Clyne at the final concert in this season s Composer Portraits series. The works on the program span a decade, a fitting showcase of her riveting compositions. We ll close the Bach, Revisited series and Miller s season with Sofia Gubaidulina + Bach on May 8. The pairing is a natural fit: Gubaidulina has expressed a devotion to Bach, and the music of both blends compositional rigor and emotional transcendence. It s been an incredible season at Miller Theatre! Whether you joined us at the sold-out opening night with eight blackbird in September, a new work premiere during Composer Portraits, or a free Pop-Up concert, it has been a great pleasure sharing incredible music with you. Of course, I can t wait to share the season! We ll announce the news to our list very soon, so be sure to sign up on our website. Thank you for being part of our adventurous community. Melissa Smey Executive Director Please note that photography and the use of recording devices are not permitted. Remember to turn off all cellular phones and pagers before tonight s performance begins. Miller Theatre is ADA accessible. Large print programs are available upon request. For more information or to arrange accommodations, please call

3 Miller Theatre at Columbia University th Season Bach, Revisited Thursday, April 9, 8:00 p.m. Helmut Lachenmann + Bach Ensemble Signal Allemande and Sarabande from Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011 Lauren Radnofsky, cello J.S. Bach ( ) Third Part for J.S. Bach s two-part Invention in D minor (1985) Helmut Lachenmann Kelli Kathman, flute; Lauren Radnofsky, cello (b. 1935) Ari Streisfeld, violin Toccatina (1986) Pression ( ) Ari Streisfeld, violin Lauren Radnofsky, cello INTERMISSION Lachenmann Lachenmann Chaconne from Violin Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 Ari Streisfeld, violin Bach TemA (1968) Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano; Kelli Kathman, flute Lauren Radnofsky, cello Lachenmann This program runs approximately ninety minutes, including intermission. Major support for Bach, Revisited is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts.

4 About the Program Johann Sebastian Bach ( ) Allemande and Sarabande from Suite No. 5 in C Minor for solo cello, BWV 1011 Bach almost certainly had occasion to write his six cello suites during his time at the court of the young Prince Leopold of Cöthen, when he was in his mid-thirties. The prince, a Calvinist, had no need of church music, but evidently looked forward to instrumental works by his composer and evidently had skilled musicians to play them. Nothing quite like these cello suites had existed before, and nothing quite like them searchings of the cello, by itself, and searchings of the spirit, one might say, through the cello appeared again until the twentieth century. A particular feature of this Fifth Suite is the tuning of the top string down from A to G, which Bach introduced perhaps to facilitate some sonorous and often dark chords (though the piece can be played with normal tuning). This is a grave work, especially in its two big slow dances, the allemande and sarabande. The sarabande is one of the few movements in the suites to be entirely in one part, and is unusual, too, in being almost entirely in one rhythmic value, the slow flow of quavers pausing only occasionally. It is primal melody. Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935) Third Part for J. S. Bach s Two-Part Invention in D minor, BWV 775 (1985) In placing solo string pieces by Bach alongside solo string pieces by Lachenmann, this program emphasizes at once affiliation and difference. The difference is inevitable, between two composers born a century and a half apart; the affiliation may be felt in a sensitivity to the particular sound and technique of the instrument, in a strength of line, and in a shadow of dance. Here, though, the connection is different, as Lachenmann writes music that Bach could have written but did not, adding to a two-part invention a third part that is new, written in 1980, and at the same time old, realizing something implicit in the original. Another sympathetic twist is in the scoring. Bach intended his inventions for keyboard players; Lachenmann, for once writing music where pitch, not timbre, is paramount, leaves the instrumentation free.

5 Toccatina (1986) The diminutive title suits the scale of this piece, which plays for under five minutes, and also its sound, which is generally at a low level, drawing us into its fineness. A toccata is, etymologically, music of touch, and Lachenmann, ever the traditionalist, alludes to the term appropriately, while redefining how this touch takes place. Most of the sounds, high and featherlight, are produced by tapping on the strings with the screw at one end of the bow. To begin with, the left hand stays in one position, holding a chord whose notes subtly resonate after each tap; there are also occasional pizzicatos. Then the extremely delicate background harmony starts to change. Later still, the musician moves on to explore other parts of the instrument: the strings at the bridge and beyond, one of the tuning pegs, and the scroll. The end, however, makes a gentle return. Composed in 1986, Toccatina comes from a time when Lachenmann had moved on from the revolution of tema and Pression to retrieve aspects of older music, within the perspective he had gained, while the cherishing of small sounds, highly defined, can be found in his work from any period. Pression ( ) This work of was among Lachenmann s early explorations of a new music of sounds produced by irregular techniques. At the start, for example, the composer s directions indicate how the bow is to be held in the right fist while the left hand s fingers produce whispering glissandos of quasi-harmonics; the effect is of quiet respiration or the gentlest breeze, in a pianissimo to which the piece often returns. Though the music is produced under pressure (in French, pression) literally, in that it is the pressure of bow and fingers that produces the sound, and figuratively, in the tension any performance is likely to generate it is predominantly delicate. A venerable instrument is found to have quite unexpected resources. Things that would be slips under other circumstances are now striven for, and rendered as objects of beauty. Lachenmann s reference to such pieces as instrumental musique concrète evokes how this is a music of sounds, not notes. But he has also remarked that the listening experience becomes concrete because one hears under what conditions, with what materials, with what energies, and against what (mechanical) resistances each sound or noise is produced. As to form, Pression reproduces the process of discovery by which it was made: a performance possibility is explored, as at the opening, until it leads into, is invaded About the Program

6 by, or summons another possibility, all showing an invigorating sonic imagination and sense of drama. Any sound, in Lachenmann s view, comes with formal properties, arising partly from the tradition in which it is being composed, performed, and experienced, and partly from its physical nature. Among the types Lachenmann distinguishes is the cadence sound : a loud pizzicato from which an upward rustle escapes. An example duly appears at the end of this ten-minute piece. Johann Sebastian Bach Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004 Bach may still have been fresh from school, and in his first job, as a violinist at the ducal court in Weimar, when he set about writing a set of six solo pieces for violin, three each of sonatas and partitas, possibly for himself to perform. (We have the word of his son Carl Phillip Emanuel though much later, of course that he played the instrument cleanly and penetratingly. ) He was at Weimar for only a few months, during which he turned eighteen, before he was off to a better position, but the stay was long enough for him to learn from a senior musician, Johann Paul von Westhoff, who had published a dozen partitas for solo violin twenty years before. No doubt Bach fiddled over the years with what he had written, before making a fair copy in 1720, when he was at Cöthen. This manuscript survives, complete with its title page, on which we can read his inscription: Sei Solo, then Violino senza Basso accompagnato, then, with the tantalizing suggestion that there could have been more, Libro Primo, followed by a signature and date. The great finale to the fourth piece in the set opens in the rhythm of a sarabande: slow, heavy, triple. But this is a dance also of another kind, on a repeating four-bar theme that descends from D to A, ready to make a rising cadence back to D: the inexorably circling, purposefully driving bass of the chaconne. Sixty-four times it comes, on through a middle section in the major (variations 34-52), all the time supporting counterpoint that implies up to seven simultaneous lines, until finally the voices spiral into the keynote. Brahms (one of several composers to adapt the work, in his case for piano left hand) had this to say: If I were to imagine that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind. Playing for around a quarter of an hour, the movement can ably stand by itself.

7 Helmut Lachenmann tema (1968) This was Lachenmann s 1968 moment. Here, in this trio, he ventured for the first time fully into an art of sounds an art, too, of the high-pressure actions by which sounds are to be made and the high-pressure gestures they will correspondingly evoke. The title is the Italian word for theme, but Lachenmann s orthography creates a pun with the German Atem, or breath. This is music of breath, for the cello as much as the voice and flute. It is also instrumental music, for the voice as much as the flute and cello, as Lachenmann indicates by giving the voice no pre-eminence but listing it with the others in descending order of register: tema, for flute, voice, and cello. The incongruities in the trio, the roughnesses, help give the piece its life: these are three individuals who, though thoroughly disparate, find ways to make contact, to communicate with each other and with we who listen. Non-standard means of sound production predominate, sounds that are frayed or strained, scorched or blistered by their own heat, and yet all the time fiercely expressive, while also displaying the extreme virtuosity the piece demands, in terms of precise control and, indeed, beauty. There are urgent solos, as well as places where it is possible for everyone to participate, until about two-thirds of the way through the fifteen-minute composition things come to a head. What happens thereafter is partly expected, partly not, for the message of the coda is the message that is being delivered all through: out of inarticulacy, articulacy is born. -Program notes by Paul Griffiths About the Program

8 About the Artists Helmut Lachenmann (born Nov. 27, 1935 in Stuttgart, Germany) studied piano, theory, and counterpoint at the Music Conservatory in Stuttgart from 1955 to 1958, and from 1958 to 1960 he studied composition with Luigi Nono in Venice. The first public performances of Lachenmann s works took place at the Biennale in Venice in 1962 and at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. Lachenmann has received numerous awards for his compositional work, including the Siemens Musikpreis in 1997, the Royal Philharmonic Society Award London in 2004, the Berliner Kunstpreis and the Leone d oro of the Biennale di Venezia in 2008, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Contemporary Music in He is an honorary doctor at the Music Conservatory Hannover and a member of the Academies of the Arts in Berlin, Brussels, Hamburg, Leipzig, Mannheim, and Munich. He also writes extensively on music. Mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway has been praised by the New York Times for her penetrating clarity and considerable depth of expression and by Opera News for her adept musicianship and dramatic flair. Season highlights include the New York premiere of Steven Stucky and Jeremy Denk s The Classical Style at Carnegie Hall (Zankel), the world premiere of Donnacha Dennehy s The Hunger with Alarm Will Sound in St. Louis, the music of John Zorn at The Cloisters, the world premiere of Jeff Myers Requiem Aeternam with JACK Quartet, and performances with Ekmeles. She is a nominee for Carnegie Hall s inaugural Warner Music Prize. She has sung works by many of today s leading composers, including Unsuk Chin, Gabriela Lena Frank, Oliver Knussen, and Nico Muhly. Flutist Kelli Kathman is active as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Best known for her interpretations of music of our day, she has collaborated with ensembles such as Signal, Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wordless Music Orchestra and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Recent Festival appearances include the Holland Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Chamber Music Northwest, Sacrum Profanum Festival and the NY Electrocacoustic Music Festival. She has recorded for Nonesuch, Warp Records, Naxos, Mode, Cantaloupe, and New Amsterdam Records. Her passion for new music has brought her to work with composers

9 including Steve Reich, John Adams, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and others. Kelli holds degrees from The Eastman School of Music and Yale University and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. She has performed with Signal since its beginnings in Lauren Radnofsky is founding cellist and co-artistic/executive director of Ensemble Signal. In her triple role as cellist and co-artistic/executive Director, she manages all aspects of Signal s varied season, including repertoire, program design, and project management; in addition to being a regular performer in the ensemble. With Signal, she has worked with composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Oliver Knussen, Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe and has appeared at venues and festivals including Lincoln Center Festival, Tanglewood, Ojai Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, (le) Poisson Rouge, and the Bang on a Can Marathon. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra performing Kaija Saariaho s Amers and the Wordless Music Orchestra in Jonny Greenwood s Doghouse for string trio and orchestra. She can be heard with Signal on harmonia mundi, Cantaloupe, New Amsterdam, and Orange Mountain; she recently recorded Lachenman s Pression for Mode records. Praised for his dazzling performance by the New York Times, violinist Ari Streisfeld has quickly established himself as a leader in contemporary classical music. A founding member of the internationally acclaimed JACK Quartet, Mr. Streisfeld has performed in the world s leading concert halls and festivals including Wigmore Hall (London), Teatro Colon (Argentina), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Carnegie Hall, The Miller Theatre, and the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland). He has collaborated with many of today s most prominent composers including Helmut Lachenmann, John Luther Adams, Matthias Pintscher, Georg Friedrich Haas, Steve Reich, and Salvatore Sciarrino. He has performed with Signal since its beginnings in Ensemble Signal, described by the New York Times as one of the most vital groups of its kind, is a New Yorkbased ensemble. Since its debut in 2008, the Ensemble has performed over 100 concerts and has given the New York, world, or U.S. premieres of over 20 works. Signal was founded by Co-Artistic/ Executive Director Lauren Radnofsky and Co-Artistic Director/Conductor Brad Lubman. A new music dream team (Time Out New York), Signal regularly performs with Lubman and features a supergroup of independent artists from the modern music scene. Signal has performed at Lincoln Center Festival, BIG EARS Festival, Carnegie Hall s Zankel Hall, Ojai Music Festival, Miller Theatre, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Bang on a Can Marathon.

10 About Miller Theatre Miller Theatre at Columbia University is the leading presenter of new music in New York City and one of the most vital forces nationwide for innovative programming. In partnership with Columbia University School of the Arts, Miller is dedicated to producing and presenting unique events, with a focus on contemporary and early music, jazz, and multimedia. Founded in 1988, Miller has helped launch the careers of myriad composers and ensembles, serving as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion of those not yet well known in the U.S. A fourtime recipient of the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, Miller continues to meet the high expectations set forth by its founders to present innovative programs, support new work, and connect creative artists with adventurous audiences. Advisory Committee Paul D. Carter Mary Sharp Cronson* Stephanie French* Marcella Tarozzi Goldsmith Karen Hagberg Columbia University Trustees Jonathan D. Schiller, Chair A Lelia Bundles, Vice Chair Noam Gottesman, Vice Chair Mark E. Kingdon, Vice Chair Esta Stecher, Vice Chair Rolando T. Acosta Armen A. Avanessians Andrew F. Barth Mark Jackson Eric Johnson Philip Mindlin Linda Nochlin Peter Pohly Lee C. Bollinger, President of the University William V. Campbell, Chair Emeritus Lisa Carnoy Kenneth Forde Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. James Harden Marc Holliday Margo Viscusi* Mr. and Mrs. George Votis* Cecille Wasserman* Elke Weber I. Peter Wolff* * Miller Theatre Advisory Board member Benjamin Horowitz Ann F. Kaplan Jonathan Lavine Charles Li Paul J. Maddon Vikram Pandit Michael B. Rothfeld Claire Shipman Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Columbia University School of the Arts Carol Becker Dean of Faculty Jana Hart Wright Dean of Academic Administration Miller Theatre Staff Melissa Smey Executive Director Brenna St. George Jones Director of Production Nora Sørena Casey Marketing & Communications Associate Katherine Bergstrom Artistic Administrator Rhiannon McClintock Executive Assistant Charlotte Levitt Director of Marketing & Outreach James Hirschfeld Business Manager Megan Harrold Audience Services Manager Taylor Riccio Production Coordinator Aleba & Co. Public Relations The Heads of State Graphic Design

11 Thanks to Our Donors Miller Theatre acknowledges with deep appreciation and gratitude the following organizations, individuals, and government agencies whose extraordinary support makes our programming possible. $25,000 and above Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts National Endowment for the Arts Dow Jones Foundation H. F. (Gerry) Lenfest $10,000 - $24,999 William V. Campbell The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Mary Sharp Cronson $5,000 - $9,999 The Amphion Foundation Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia University The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation New York State Council on the Arts CLC Kramer Foundation The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation The Evelyn Sharp Foundation Margo and Anthony Viscusi Craig Silverstein $1,000 - $4,999 Rima Ayas Barbara Batcheler Susan Boynton Paul D. Carter Hester Diamond R. H. Rackstraw Downes Marcella Tarozzi Goldsmith Christine and Thomas Griesa $500 - $999 Oliver Allen Regula Aregger Mercedes Armillas ASCAP Elaine S. Bernstein Cedomir Crnkovic / Cavali Foundation Kristine and Joseph Delfausse Carol Avery Haber / Haber Family Charitable Fund Karen Hagberg and Mark Jackson Donella and David Held Roger Lehecka Philip Mindlin Linda Nochlin Jeanine and Roland Plottel Stephanie French Claude Ghez Mary and Gordon Gould James P. Hanbury John Kander Mark Kempson and Janet Greenberg Paul J. Maddon Jessie and Charles Price Peter Pohly Christopher Rothko J. P. Sullivan Cecille Wasserman Janet C. Waterhouse Elke Weber and Eric Johnson Anonymous Marian M. Warden Fund of the Foundation for Enhancing Communities Katharina Pistor James Sharp Cia Toscanini Kathryn Yatrakis $100 - $499 Gail and James Addiss Edward Albee Roger Bagnall Sandra and Marc Bernstein Andrew Birsh Jim Boorstein Alexandra Bowie and Daniel Richman Elizabeth and Ralph Brown Caplan Family Foundation Richard Carrick and Nomi Levy-Carrick Rashmy Chatterjee Ginger Chinn and Reggie Spooner Gregory Cokorinos Merry Conway Norma Cote David Demnitz Vishakha Desai and Robert Oxnam Rosamund Else-Mitchell Peter and Joan Faber Ruth Gallo Marc Gilman June O. Goldberg Richard Gray Barbara Harris Frances and Raymond Hoobler Bernard Hoffer Alan Houston and Lisa DeLange Frank Immler and Andrew Tunick Sandra and Malcolm Jones William Josephson Rebecca Kennison L. Wilson Kidd, Jr. Sandra Kincaid Barbara and Kenneth Leish Arthur S. Leonard Richard H. Levy and Lorraine Gallard Peter C. Lincoln Patricia Lowy and Daniel Frank Caroline and Anthony Lukaszewski Marghretta McBean Gerald McGee Susan Narucki Mary and Andrew Pinkowitz Edmée B. Reit Monique Rinere in honor of James F. Rinere Carol Robbins Esther Rosenberg and Michael Ostroff William Ryall Mariam Said Eliisa Salmi-Saslaw James Schamus and Nancy Kricorian Elliot Schwartz Anita Shapolsky Timothy C. Shepard and Andra Georges Gilbert Spitzer and Janet Glaser Spitzer Peter Strauss Jim Strawhorn Larry Wehr Seymour Weingarten Ila and Dennis Weiss Elizabeth Wheeler Anonymous as of January 20, 2015

12 Upcoming Events Tuesday, April 14 doors at 5:30 p.m., music at 6:00 p.m. POP-UP CONCERTS Ensemble Signal Thursday, April 23, 8:00 p.m. COMPOSER PORTRAITS Anna Clyne Friday, May 8, 8:00 p.m. BACH, REVISITED Sofia Gubaidulina + Bach Save the Date Tuesday, May 5, 7:00 p.m. SPRING SOIRÉE to benefit Miller Theatre Hosted by Jeanine & Roland Plottel The Cosmopolitan Club For more infomation rm3059@columbia.edu STAY TUNED IN Want to learn about new concerts, special announcements, and more? Join our mailing list at millertheatre.com or scan the QR code below on Twitter 2960 Broadway at 116th Street, MC 1801, New York, NY 10027