Presents a THIRTEEN CONSECUTIVE SUNDAY AFTERNOONS THREE SATURDAY TWILIGHT CONCERTS THE BLAIR STRING QUARTET CHRISTIAN TEAL, VIOLIN CORNELIA HEARD, VIOLIN JOHN KOCHANOWSKI, VIOLA FELIX WANG, CELLO ASSISTING ARTIST SALLY PINKAS, PIANO SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2008 at 3:00 P.M. SEVENTY-NINTH YEAR 2008 www.musicmountain.org 860-824-7126 Steinway Piano AIR CONDITIONED
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2008 THE ARTISTS THE BLAIR STRING QUARTET Praised for combining technical expertise and emotional fire. The Washington Post calls them simply a marvelous ensemble. Following a new music concert at Rice University in Houston, the critic of the Houston Post said The Blair String Quartet is a composerʼs dream. Widely acclaimed in performances across the country, the quartet has enhanced its national reputation through appearances at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, New York s 92nd Street Y and Merkin Concert Hall. The quartet has appeared on concert series in Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Memphis, Phoenix, and numerous other cities. Some of their residencies have been at the Aspen Music Festival, the Sedona Chamber Music Festival, the first Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, as well as appearing at the Colorado Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Sewanee Music Festival, Music Mountain and the Maverick Concert Series in Woodstock, New York. Recently, they were the Quartetin-Residence for the Classical Fellowship Awards competition of the American Pianists Association held in Indianapolis. The quartet has performed widely on National Public Radio and was featured for a number of years on a public television series called Recital Hall. The ensemble s recordings of Mendelssohn, Debussy, Ginastera, Harris, Piston, Proto, and Virgil Thomson have been praised internationally by such publications as Gramophone, Stereo Review, and American Record Guide. In 1995, Warner Bros. Records released the CD The Blair String Quartet: From Mozart to Ravel to wide acclaim. The quartet is embarking on a recording project of American music with Naxos Records and have recorded the Quartets of Charles Ives. Well known as interpreters of the standard repertoire, the quartet has also championed music by contemporary American composers, including works written for them by Morton Subotnick, George Tsontakis, Ellsworth Milburn, Michael Alec Rose, Rod-
ney Lister, and Michael Kurek. The ensemble has worked with many outstanding composers, including Elliott Carter, Alan Hovhaness, John Harbison, George Rochberg, Ezra Laderman, Leon Kirchner, Steven Mackey, and Steven Stucky. The Quintet for Banjo and String Quartet, composed for the quartet by Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck, has been featured nationally on the PBS series, Lonesome Pine Special, and remains in their touring repertoire. The quartet has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Southern Arts Federation, the Tennessee Arts Commission and Chamber Music America s C. Michael Paul Residency Program. The Blair String Quartet is in residence at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. SALLY PINKAS, PIANO Pianist-in-residence of the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Ms. Pinkas teaches Piano and Chamber Music in the Music Department. She is also on the faculty of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since her London debut she has concertized widely in the USA, Europe, Africa and her native Israel, both as soloist and as half of the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo (with her husband, Evan Hirsch). Among her credits are appearances with the Boston Pops, the Aspen Philharmonia and the Jupiter Symphony, and recitals in Rome, Jerusalem, Washington, D.C. and Boston. She has participated in the Marlboro, Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals, and has collaborated with Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Lydian and Leontovich String Quartets, and flutist Fenwick Smith. Her discography includes works by Debussy, Schulhoff and Christian Wolff on the Centaur, Northeastern and Mode labels. Two discs featuring the solo works of George Rochberg were released in 2000 on the Gasparo label, and her recording of Fauréʼs Thirteen Nocturnes was recently released on Musica Omnia. She moved to the United States as a teenager to study piano. She earned performance degrees from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music and a Ph.D. in Composition and Theory from Brandeis University. She made her debut in London in 1983.
PROGRAM STRING QUARTET IN F MAJOR, Ludwig van Beethoven OPUS 18 #1 (1798-1800) (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Adagio affectuoso et appassionato Scherzo: Allegro molto Allegro STRING QUARTET #1 A REVIVAL SERVICE Charles Ives (1898-1902) (1874-1954) Chorale: Andante con moto Prelude: Allegro Offertory: Adagio Cantabile Postlude: Allegro Marziale INTERMISSION QUINTET FOR PIANO & STRINGS Ernst von Dohnanyi IN C MINOR, OPUS 1 (1895) (1877-1960) Allegro Scherzo: Allegro vivace Adagio: Quasi andante Finale: Allegro animato ARKIVMUSIC.COM CD s of the music and artists heard today may be purchased through this Music Mountain link, www.musicmountain.org by clicking on the ArkivMusic.com link. CD s purchased through this link are a way to help fund Music Mountain with 10% of the purchase price returned to Music Mountain.
PROGRAM NOTES STRING QUARTET IN F MAJOR, OPUS 18 #1 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) The order of composition of the six quartets of Opus 18 bear little resemblance to their numbering. Beethoven composed the set of six in this order: #3, D Major; #1, F Major; #2, G Major; #5, A Major; #6, B Major and #4, C Minor. While the F Major Quartet was the second one to be written, Beethoven, himself, gave it the number 1 on the advice of his friend, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the first violinist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, perhaps because it is the biggest and is considered, by many, to be the most impressive of the group. Music Mountain audiences first heard this Quartet on Sunday, June 25, 1933 as performed by the Gordon String Quartet. STRING QUARTET #1 A REVIVAL SERVICE by Charles Ives (1874-1954) Charles Edward Ives is widely regarded as one of the first American classical composers of international significance. Ives music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives would come to be regarded as one of the American Originals, a composer working in a uniquely American style, with American tunes woven through his music, and a reaching sense of the possibilities in music. Like many of Ives compositions, the String Quartet No. 1 is based on a series of compositions that Ives had written for church services. The piece is also subtitled A Revival Service, and it liberally quotes a variety of hymns that were popular in Ives day. (Ives later recalled the criticisms of Horatio Parker, his music teacher at Yale, who was scandalized that a serious piece of music was based on hymn tunes.) Ives composed the String
Quartet No. 1 from 1898 to 1902, based on earlier organ and string works from 1896-1898. Unfortunately, all of these organ works are now lost. He later re-worked the first movement of this work as the third movement in the Fourth Symphony. Tunes that are quoted include: Missionary Hymn, Coronation, Bach s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Nettleton, Beulah Land, The Shining Shore and Webb. PIANO QUINTET IN C MINOR, OPUS 1 by Ernst von Dohnanyi (1877-1960) Halsey Stevens writes of Dohnanyi that before he was seventeen years old he had written a good deal of chamber music, including the Piano Quintet, Opus 1, in C minor, by whose Brahmsian flavor Bartok (who was four years younger and a great admirer) was deeply impressed. Donald Tovey takes a less cheery view of the work. He writes that noble though it is in themes, it probably owes much of the impression it first made to the fact of the composer s taking the piano part at the first performance on, or shortly after, his debut as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. Dohnanyi presumably wrote the Quintet while a student at the Budapest Academy of Music, where he studied piano with Stefan Thoman and composition with Hans Koessler. Although his chief inspiration came from Brahms (who praised his early works) his distinctive melodic inventiveness and contrapuntal skill came to minimize the Brahmsian influence. He had unerring mastery of form and a rich natural sense of harmony. In later life he was internationally acclaimed as composer, pianist and conductor. His career ended as professor of piano and composition at Florida State College in Tallahassee. This piano quintet was first played at Music Mountain on June 26, 1932 by the Gordon String Quartet and Muriel Kerr, piano.
THE FINAL TWO WEEKENDS OF THE 2008 SEASON SATURDAY, AUGUST 30 at 6:30 P.M. THE SHANGHAI STRING QUARTET SOPHIE SHAO, CELLO Beethoven: String Quartet in F Major, Opus 59 #1 Schubert: Cello Quintet in C Major, Opus 163, D. 956 SUNDAY, AUGUST 31 at 3 P.M. SPECIAL BENEFIT CONCERT FOR THE MUSIC MOUNTAIN OPERATING FUND THE SHANGHAI STRING QUARTET THE AMERNET STRING QUARTET Yiwen Jiang: Selections from China Song Beethoven: String Quartet in B Flat Major, Opus 18 #6 Brahms: Viola Quintet in G Major, Opus 111 Mendelssohn: Octet for Strings in E Flat Major, Opus 20 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 at 6:30 P.M. AN EVENING OF KLEZMER MUSIC WITH THE ALEX FITERSTEIN TRIO ALEX FITERSTEIN, CLARINET ZEV FELDMAN, DULCIMER, CIMBALON CHRISTINE CROWDER, ACCORDION SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 at 3 P.M. THE ST. PETERSBURG STRING QUARTET ALEXANDER MEKINULOV, PIANO Mozart: Trio for Violin, Viola & Piano in E Flat, K. 498 Kegelstatt Shostakovich: String Quartet #8, Opus 110 Piazzolla: Trio for Violin, Viola & Piano, Winter, Autumn Brahms: Piano Quartet in G Major, Opus 25 Children 5-18 Admitted at No Charge (When accompanied by a ticket holder.)
The broadcasts of these Music Mountain concerts throughout the United States and worldwide on the Internet are underwritten by These concerts are broadcast in this area on: WQXR-FM, New York, 96.3 FM, Saturdays at 9 P.M. WHDD-AM/FM 1020 AM/91.9 FM, Sharon, CT, Saturdays at 12 Noon Both stations stream their broadcast service, making it possible to hear each concert on the Internet at local station broadcast time. INTERNET Music Mountain Chamber Music concerts are available worldwide on the Internet through www.musicmountain.org Go to www.musicmountain.org and click on Listen on Line One concert each week, available 24 hours per day. Music Mountain is supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Music Mountain Box Office: 860-824-7126 Printing & Advertising Sales by Ad-Comm., Ink.: 860-824-7565 Press Representative: Tamara Tregakiss: 860-201-5462 The cooperation of the audience in keeping noise to a minimum is greatly appreciated. Visit Music Mountain s web site: www.musicmountain.org 860-824-7126 Music Mountain is listed in the National Register of Historic Places This program uses the same typefaces, color paper, and design as the original Music Mountain programs of the 1930s. The typefaces are New Century Schoolbook and TommyOpil by Opticraft. The cover drawing is from the first Music Mountain poster in the 1930 s.