1996/97 SEASON
THE BOSTON
ARTISTS
ENSEMBLE AT
'
TRINITY
CHURCH
IN NEWTON
PROGRAM 4
SUNDAY, MARCH 23 2:30PM
Victor Romanul - violin
Sharan Leventhal - violin
Kazuko Matsusaka - viola
Bernard Greenhouse- cello
Jonathan Miller - cello
RICH AND RARE
This season's fourth program by the Boston Artists Ensemble offers
music for unusual combinations of string instruments by two
generally unfamiliar Russian composers along with a seldom-heard
work by the popular French composer Ravel.
MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) wrote music that is both elegant
and powerful; his orchestral music draws upon the varied palette
of instrumental timbres to produce typically colorful and evocative
images in sound. His interest in far-away places, and his love for
children, frequently led him to conjure distant lands and fairy tale
characters, as in the orchestral song cycle Sheherazade, or the magical
Mother Goose Suite written originally for piano four-hands and
later expanded into a full-scale orchestral ballet score. The summer
of 1920 saw Ravel worlcing on two projects, the fairy-tale opera
L'Enfant et les sortileges ("The Child and the Magic Spells"), to be
completed only in 1925, and a "duo for violin and cello" dedicated
to the memory of Claude Debussy. This was a spare period in
Ravel's creative life-the flow of new compositions had been seriously
interrupted with the death ofhis mother in January 1917,
and in May 1921 he moved to the country estate of Le Belvedere
outside Paris. It was there, in February 1922, that he finally
completed the duo; he made a concerted effort to finish the piece,
having observed the preceding month that its composition had
been dragging on for a year-and-a-half. The premiere, on April 6,
1922, in Paris, drew mixed reaction: this was a very different sort
of music from what Ravel's listeners had come to expect, what
with its leanness of texture, lack of adornment, and unyielding
counterpoint. But Ravel noted that his Sonata for Violin and
Cello marked a turning point in his career, reflecting a move
toward economy of means, restraint from harmonic charm, and
a pronounced reaction in favor oflinear motion. In the first movement,
the two instruments, alternately leading and following,
place individual claim upon our attention, and it is only with the
final chords that we are reminded of the existence of vertical harmonies.
The second movement is assertive, the third, by contrast,
almost hypnotic in its lyricism. The finale restores the forceful
language of the second movement, blending elements of folk and
dance music a la Bart6k and Kodaly with a sure sense of goal and
proportion.
The "Big Five" or "Mighty Handful" ("moguchaya kuchka") of
Russian nationalist composers (Cesar Cui, Mily Balakirev,
Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai RimskyKorsakov)
were born between 1833 and 1844, as was Peter Ilyich
T chaikovsky, though the latter's cosmopolitan leanings set him at
odds with the more single-mindedly nationalistic Five. The next
generation of Russian composers included the two represented in
this program, ANTON ARENSKY (1861-1906) and
ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV (1865-1936). For several years
in the late 1880s, while in St. Petersburg, Arensky and Glazunov
were among a group of Russian composers, also including Borodin
and Rimsky, who gathered each Friday night for chamber music at
the home of the music publisher, patron, and amateur violist
Belayev. On several occasions the group honored Belayev with
music written especially for his name-day. (One such work,
entitled Fridays, was a set of quartet movements by no fewer than
ten different composers. In 1886, Glazunov, Rimsky, Liadov, and
Borodin each provided a movement for a collaborative string
quartet.)
Born in Novgorod, Arensky studied at the St. Petersburg
Conservatory, where Rimky-Korsakov was among his teachers.
Later he taught harmony at the Moscow Conservatory and led the
Imperial Chapel choir in St. Petersburg. He spent his final years in
a sanitorium in Finland, where he died at forty-five of tuberculosis.
Rachmaninoff and Scriabin were among Arensky's own pupils
in Moscow, where he himself came directly under T chaikovsky's
musical influence. His music includes a number of works for the
stage (including opera, ballet, and incidental music) , orchestral
and choral music, songs, a substantial amount of piano music, and
chamber music including, among other things, two string quartets,
a piano quintet, and two piano trios. For a while, though
certainly not in recent memory, Arensky's Variations for String
Orchestra on Tchaikovsky's song "Legend," about the infant
Christ in his garden (one of the sixteen children's songs that make
up Tchaikovsky's Opus 54), became part of the standard repertory.
This is particularly relevant here, since this music was originally
the slow movement of the A minor quartet, Opus 35, being played
in this concert.
Born in St. Petersburg, Glazunov also studied with RimskyKorsakov,
with whom he began weekly lessons in harmony, counterpoint,
and orchestration at fifteen. Having completed his first
symphony at sixteen, he was immediately hailed as successor to
the older Russian masters. He ultimately composed in every genre
except opera, and was also known as a conductor. (He led the
Boston Symphony in a program of his own music, including his
Sixth Symphony, Violin Concerto, and the symphonic poem
Stenka Razin, in January 1930.) Glazunov resigned from teaching
composition and orchestration at the St. Petersburg Conservatory
in 1905, in protest over Rimsky's dismissal by government authorities,
but later he became its director, holding that post until1928.
Noteworthy among his chamber music output are seven string
quartets. In fact, the scholar Gerald Abraham has observed that
Glazunov and the somewhat older Sergei Taneyev were "the only
nineteenth-century Russians who took the quartet seriously
enough to write a whole series of them." Abraham also notes that
a strilcing change-evident in the Fourth and Fifth quartets-in
Glazunov's music from a "national" to a more "universal" idiom
(i.e., less clearly connected to recognizably Russian folk or religious
elements) first becomes evident in the A major string quintet,
Opus 39, of 1891-92, that shares this program with Arensky's
Opus 35 quartet.
Arensky's A minor quartet and Glazunov's A major quintet share
an unusual feature regarding their instrumentation: each calls for
two cellos, allowing for unusual expressive warmth, greater flexibility
of contrapuntal treatment in the lower register, and greater
interplay of voices in the middle range, given the overlap between
the viola's low register and the cello's high one. Arensky's ensemble
includes one violin, one viola, and two cellos rather than the standard
two violins, viola, and cello (though a version for the standard
group does exist, as Opus 35a). Glazunov's quintet calls for
two violins, one viola, and two cellos, following the model of
Arensky Quartet for Violin, Viola, and two Celli, Opus 3 5
Moderato
Variations on a theme ofTschaikowsky: Moderato,
Variaions 1-7, Coda.
Finale: Andante sostenuto, Allegro moderato, Adagio, Tempo I
Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello
Allegro
Tres vif
Lent
Vif, avec entrain
INTERMISSION
Glasunov Quintet, Opus 39
Allegro
Scherzo
Andante sostenuto
Finale
UPCOMING CONCERTS AT TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWTON
Sunday, April 27 2:30 pm Dvorak -Piano Quintet in A, Schubert- "Trout" Quintet
To continue to bring the finest quality chamber music to the Newton community we need your
support. Please call 617-964-6553 to inquire about volunteer opportunities.
Schubert's late, great C major quintet. (Mozart's six string quintets
add an extra viola-Mozart's own preferred instrument in
chamber music-tO the standard quartet; Brahms's two string
quintets follow the Mozartean model.)
Composed in 1894, Arensky's score-notably in three movements
rather than the usual four-is inscribed "ro the memory
ofTchaikovsky," who died the previous November. The first
movement begins with a memorial chant from the Russian liturgy.
This returns to introduce the recapitulation, in which the
thematic materials are somewhat condensed, and is heard again
following the brief coda. As noted earlier, the th-:me of the second
movement is from T chaikovsky's Opus 54 set of children's
songs. There are seven variations; the third presents the E minor
theme in the major mode, the seventh turns it upside down. A
coda restores the original shape (now colored by harmonics, perhaps
suggesting a distant recollection) but interrupts the theme
with a return of the first-movement memorial chant. The comparatively
brief finale begins with solemn contrapuntal treatment
of a chant from the Russian Requiem service; this gives
way to more energetic fugal treatment of a popular Russian
folk song ("Hail to the sun high in the sky") used famously by
Beethoven in the third movement of his E minor quartet,
Opus 59, No. 2 (the second of the three so-called "Razumovsky
Quartets" commissioned from him by Count Andreas
Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna); and also by
Mussorgsky in the Coronation Scene of Boris Gudonov ("Like
the sun in the skies, over Russia our Tsar Boris now reigns in
glory").
Glazunov's quintet is less specifically nationalistic, at least until
a folk-dance element makes itself felt in the finale. The opening
Allegro is impressive for its combination of warmth, rich lyricism,
and underlying rhythmic pulse. The scherzo is inventively
multi-textured, with much use of pizzicato (plucked strings);
Glazunov cleverly blurs the boundaries between the scherw
proper, the more broadly sustained Trio, and the coda, which
grows livelier "little by little." The third-movement Andante
restOres a mood of gentle lyricism and also serves as perfect foil
for the genial finale, which offers an array of dance-like, lyric,
and inventively contrapuntal elements.
-Marc Mandel
Marc Mandel is Publications Manager of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Program notes copyright Marc Mandel, 1997
Bernard Greenhouse was a fellowship student at Juilliard and
completed his studies in Europe under the great Spanish cellist
Pablo Casals. Greenhouse is today known as one of the foremost
exponents of the cello in solo and chamber concerts. His artistry
is familiar to classical music lovers the world over from his long
career with the Beaux Arts Trio, of which he was a:n original
founding member. He has held appointments at Manhattan
School of Music, the University of Hartford, New York State
University, Ruetgers University, and New England Conservatory.
Victor Romanul before joining the Boston Symphony Mr.
Romanul was Associate Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra and Concertmaster of the Eastern
Philharmonic. Mr. Romanul studied with Jascha Heifetz, Joseph
Silverstein and Ivan Galamian. He currently teaches at the Boston
Conservatory.
Sharan Leventhal has built an international reputation as a champion
of contemporary music since winning the Kranischsteiner
Musikpreis in 1984 in Germany. Her more than 100 premiers
include works by Virgil Thompson, Gunther Schuller, William
Kraft and Simon Bainbridge. Ms. Leventhal has appeared as a
soloist with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Boston
Ballet, and the Milwaukee and Vermont Symphonies. Her recording
credits include GM, Northeastern and Catalyst/BMG labels.
Kazuko Matsusaka studied violin with Josef Gingold at the
Indiana School of Music. She studied with Charles Treger at Hartt
College, and John Grahm at the State University of New York.
Ms. Matsusaka was a prizewinner in the FischoffNational
Chamber Music Competition and has been a soloist with with
several orchestras in the area. She was a member of the Pittsburgh
Opera Orchestra, and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble before
joining the BSO in 1991.
Jonathan Miller (cello) trained with Bernard Greenhouse. He has
performed as soloist with the Hartford Symphony, The Boston
Pops and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Boston.
Miller won the Jeunesses Musicales auditions and has twice toured
the US with the New York String Sextet and appeared as a member
of the Fine Arts Quartet. He performed as a featured soloist at
the American Cello Congress in the spring of 1990 at the invitation
of Rostropovitch and performed the music of Bach and
Janacek at the 1996 Congress.
Administrator Anne Rodda
Board of Directors
Martin and Alice Axelbank
Bo Batty
John Danenbarger
James Gilreath
Jonathan Miller
Anthony Weller
Thanks to
James Gilreath, Klaus Peter,
Dorothy Chen-Courtin
These programs are made possible, in part, from a grant from
the Newton Arts Lottery Council
THE BAE SOCIETY
Benefactors (500+)
John K. Danenbarger
Lillian Miller
Anonymous
Lillian Fassino
Patrons (200+)
Bo Barry
Merry and Dan Glosband
James R. McReynolds
Alan and Miriam Sack
Virginia and Warren Stone
Sponsors( 1 00+)
Nicolas C. Avery, MD
Bill and Susan Brady
Mr. and Mrs. Philip Burnham
Ann and Bob Buxbaum
Ron and Judy Clark
Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Craig
Modestino and Nancy Criscitiello
Sally Flint
Burton and Beverly Foster
Mr. and Mrs. David Friedman
Diane and Jim Gilreath
Peter Kadetsky and Ann Stark
Dr. William T. Haley
Mr. John C. Hurst
Mr. and Mrs. RichardS. Johnson
Janna and Ed Kaplan
Lee and Chris Kauders
Steve Klessert
Elinor and Julius Krirzman
Penny and Tom Lawrence
Constance Lewis
Holger Luther
Miriam and Jack Pizer
Susan Rothenberg
Chuck Schwager
Rita and Harvey Simon
Harold and Elizabeth Simons
Joseph and Alix Smullin
Gabrielle Vawter
Dr. and Mrs. Harold J. White
Friends (SO+)
Norman Balmuth
Betty Bone
Dr. and Mrs. John M. Craig
Cynthia and Michael Curcio
Jacob Gottler
Shelby Hypes
Janet Isenberg
Peter and Martha Karoff
Helen Lasagna
Claire J. Keyes and Johnes K. Moore
Ernest V. Loewenstein
Mike and Barbara Markell
Donald Ricketts
Marylen R. I. Sternweiler
Kathy Weingarten
Other Contributors
Robert Amory • Mrs. Donald Dawson • Keith and Lynette Dennis
George Fishstein • Sol Fleishman• Kathleen Gordon
Roger F. Greenslet • Mr. and Mrs. Raymond A. llirt Jr.
Edwin Hawkridge • Muriel Hirr • Dr. Morris J. Karnovsky •
Celia Oliver • Judith M. Spielman • Dr. Patricia Tudbury
Rebecca Weiss
