Location: Federal Reserve Restaurant · 60 Dorrance St. · Providence, RI

Date: June 4th at 6:00 pm

CARL NIELSEN (1865-1931)   Serenata Invano

Serenata Invano, written for clarinet, bassoon, French horn, cello and double bass is a seven-and-a-half minute, lighthearted work that paints a picture of a group of male musicians performing under the window of an attractive young lady. Nielsen developed his exceptional compositional gifts as a working musician. In 1889 he became a member of the orchestra of the Royal Theater as a second violinist, and as he advanced his career as a composer, Nielsen managed to maintain his place onstage for many years, becoming the orchestra's associate conductor in 1908.

Carl Nielsen had many close associates in the orchestra, but was great friends with the principal bass player, Ludvig Hegner. During the summer of 1914, Hegner and some of his orchestra mates chose to go on tour with a chamber music program featuring the Beethoven Septet. Hegner begged Nielsen to compose a work that would use some of the same instruments as Beethoven's Septet--combining strings and winds. Since Nielsen had decided to leave the orchestra that past June, he was now facing life as a freelancer for the first time in 25 years. He happily accepted the work offer and quickly composed a light-hearted programmatic quintet. This single movement work has three sections that clearly depict the scenes he envisioned.

"Serenata in vano is a humorous trifle," the composer wrote. "First the gentlemen play in a somewhat chivalric and showy manner to lure the fair one out onto the balcony, but she does not appear. Then they play in a slightly languorous strain (marked Poco adagio), but that hasn't any effect either. Since they have played in vain (in vano), they don't care a straw and shuffle off home to the strains of the little final march, which they play for their own amusement."

REBECCA CLARKE (1886-1979)   Prelude and Allegro  

Born and raised in England, Clarke spent much of her adulthood in the United States and she claimed both English and American nationality. Her family was artistically inclined and her musical studies were encouraged. Clarke enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in 1903, where she studied the violin. She was abruptly withdrawn from the institution in 1905, when her harmony teacher, Percy Miles, proposed marriage. In 1907 she began a composition course at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where she was Stanford's first female student. Again, she was unable to finish her studies, as her father suddenly banished her from the family home. To support herself, Clarke embarked on an active performing career as a violist, and in 1912 she became one of the first female musicians in a fully professional ensemble, the Queen's Hall orchestra.

In a note preserved in a scrapbook of the 1942 ISCM conference, Clarke describes the Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale she had written for the festival, and also mentions her modest circumstances of employment as a nanny. She was particularly proud that her work was included, as she was one of only three British composers represented and, as she and others noted, the only woman. In the early 1940s Clarke became reacquainted with James Friskin, a member of the piano department at the Juilliard School, whom she had first known as a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music; the couple married in 1944.

The Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for clarinet and viola (1941) explores a neo-classical idiom. With its driving momentum, the Allegro can be compared to Stravinsky.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)   Flute Quartet in A Major

If the A Major Flute Quartet provides any indication of Mozart’s relationship with the family that inspired him to write the work (a close-knit bunch in Vienna that he taught, ate, drank with and visited often) then it must have been a joyous and uplifting friendship. Mozart's writing is playful and light-filled throughout, unruffled by either a slow movement or any serious or deep emotions. The first movement is an evenly balanced set of variations based on a theme attributed to the contemporary Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister -- the flute introduces the subject and takes the first variation, after which the violin, viola and cello, in turn, provide their own embroidery around the theme. The trio section of the short middle movement gives a nod to an old French song titled "Il a des bottes, des bottes, Bastien." Mozart, who loved to play jokes and tease his friends, wrote on the closing Rondo, "Not too fast, but also not too slow -- so-so -- with much elegance and expression," and then went on to compose one of his most beguiling works based on a Paisiello operatic theme.

MORTON GOULD (1913-1996)   Benny’s Gig     

Born in Richmond Hill, New York in 1913, Gould was recognized early on as a child prodigy with the ability to improvise and compose. At the age of six he had his first composition published. Gould’s most important teachers were Abby Whiteside (piano) and Vincent Jones (composition).

Morton Gould was a prolific and versatile composer whose works throughout this century reflected the moods and outlook of this country in all its rough-and-tumble optimism. Like Gershwin, Copland, and Ives, Gould turned to the indigenous musical styles of the peoples of this country for inspiration--jazz, folk, hymns, spirituals, gospel, and Latin American music--and produces full-blown orchestral works that are immediately accessible and unmistakably American. Morton Gould wrote the first seven duos of Benny’s Gig in celebration of Benny Goodman’s 1962 Russian tour and the final movement in 1979 as a 70^th year birthday gift for Benny. They range in style from blues to calypso. (From the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts “About the Composer” series).

ERWIN SCHULHOFF (1894-1942)   Concertino for Flute, Viola and Bass     

Erwin Schulhoff was born in Prague and was the son of Gustav, a wool and cotton merchant. His mother, Louisa, was the daughter of an orchestra conductor in Frankfurt. As a youngster, Schulhoff emerged as a child prodigy on the piano, and after consulting with Antonin Dvorak, launched his career in music. His schooling consisted of piano and composition studies at the Prague Conservatory, the Leipzig Conservatory, and the Cologne Conservatory. His most influential composition teachers were Claude Debussy and Josef Janacek. Schulhoff won many awards including the Willner Prize at the conservatory in 1913 and, later that year, two Mendelssohn Prizes (for piano and composition). During World War II he attempted to emigrate west and then tried to make his way to the Soviet Union. However, before he had all of the paper-work arranged, he was arrested and thrown into prison in Prague in June 1941 following the invasion of the Soviet Union. He later was sent to a concentration camp in Walzburg, Bavaria, where, eight months later, he died from laryngeal and pulmonary tuberculosis.

His Concertino for Flute/Piccolo, Viola, and Bass was written in 1925. This unique instrumentation is based on the Baroque Trio Sonata. One can hear that Schulhoff had fun with the voice or each instrument, stretching the limits of each instrument's range. The accompaniment figure at the beginning of the first movement (played by the viola and bass) as borrowed from a Russian Orthodox litany. Above this, as often found in old Slavic song, dances a lyric melody in the flute. The second movement, a scherzo Beseda, Czech Republic's national dance, is marked by the tempo indication "Furiant". The theme of the slow movement, based on a Russian love song, is successively taken over, unchanged, by each instrument. This 'relay-race' style of writing always appears within the ornamented framework of two voices. The last movement is in two parts: the initial based on the song of a Russian bear tamer, the second part a Slovakian shepherd's theme in the flute with a repeating accompaniments figure in the lower voices. You may hear (if you were paying attention in music theory class) that the harmonic structure of this energetic piece is based on the old church modes, (Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian) not our more traditional western, key centers.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)   Oboe Quartet in F Major

Mozart composed his Oboe Quartet K. 370 in 1781, at the age of 25, while he was in Munich writing the opera Idomaneo. Mozart was grateful to take a break from his job as violinist and organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg, who often treated him poorly and whom Mozart despised. While in Munich he worked with the Mannheim Court Orchestra, one of the finest groups in Europe. Mozart wrote the quartet for his 14-year-old friend, Freidrich Ramm, who was an oboist in the orchestra and was considered to be one of only a few virtuoso oboe players at the time. Unlike the oboe of today, which is outfitted with many keys and mechanisms and is much more complicated in structure, the oboe of Mozart’s time was very simple with only a few keys. Ramm must have been a truly amazing player since the piece even today is considered to be one of the most demanding works written for the oboe.

The quartet begins with a lighthearted and sparkling theme by the oboe that is joined by the strings, with imitative passages throughout. The brief second movement is much like an opera aria with the oboe as the singer in the leading role, and includes a brief cadenza. Although the movement is short, it has an extraordinary amount of emotional range. The final movement contains one of the first instances of polyrhythm with the strings performing in 6/8 meter while the oboe performs in 4/4 meter. The work contains many florid and difficult passages for the oboe which encompass the entire range of the instrument with frequent use of some of the highest notes that were rarely heard at the time.

GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)   Lullaby

The Lullaby was written in 1919 while he was a student crafting his harmony and counterpoint techniques with Edward Kilenyi Sr. However, Gershwin was not an innocent composition student at the time. His first musical, La La Lucille, had been presented on Broadway that same year. Contrary to the Hollywood projected image of him, Gershwin was devoted to studying music throughout his short life. He was constantly expanding his knowledge and refining his technique. Mr. Gershwin used the opening theme of the Lullaby as part of an aria (Has Anyone Seen My Joe?) in his unsuccessful one-act opera of 1922, Blue Monday. Even though the stage work wasn't successful, (it was part of "George White’s Scandals" and was withdrawn after a single performance) Paul Whitman, after hearing the work, commissioned a piece from Gershwin for his upcoming Aeolean Hall concert. This piece turned out to be Rhapsody in Blue.

The manuscript for Lullaby sat on Ira Gershwin’s shelves for decades until he shared it with harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler. Adler then transcribed the piece for harmonica and string quartet and presented it at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963. It was then transcribed for harmonica and orchestra. The work was not premiered in its original form until Oct. 28, 1967. Lullaby is often heard in a version for string orchestra but tonight we'll hear it orchestrated for string quintet.

COLE PORTER (1891-1964)   Begin the Beguine                       

Born in Peru, Indiana in 1891, Porter studied music from an early age, and began composing as a teenager. After high school he attended Yale University, where he was voted "most entertaining man." Though he went on to law school at Harvard University, his interest remained in music and he continued to write a number of his pieces that were used in Broadway musicals. Porter originally composed Begin the Beguine for a Broadway musical, entitled Jubilee, which premiered in 1935. It didn't become a hit though until the release of the best-selling record by the Artie Shaw Orchestra in 1938, which remains the song's most memorable version. 

Evan Price's arrangement for string quartet was written in 2005 for a commission by The Sun Quartet, a group which is in residence at California State University, Sacramento. By chance, the completion of the piece coincided with Artie Shaw's passing at the age of 94, so the arrangement is dedicated to him.