BRIGHTMUSIC FESTIVAL CONCERT # 1 June 10, 2023 Child Prodigy

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, K 301:  Mozart is widely hailed the greatest child prodigy of all time—and for good reason. His accomplishments from a remarkably tender age are legendary.  At the age of 5, he wrote his first composition, his charming Minuet and Trio in G major.  He was performing before the royal courts of Europe by age 6.  He wrote 10 of his 22 operas while still an adolescent. And it didn’t stop there.  There is the remarkable (some say implausible) account of the famous Miserere which was performed only at the Vatican and only during Easter.  It was never published and was music’s most closely-guarded secret at the time.  Mozart’s father took the 14-year-old  wunderkind to the Vatican, and after just one hearing, the boy copied down the Miserere from memory that night. He asked his father to take him back the same week to hear it again to compare what he had written down.  He acknowledged that he had done it perfectly—the entire composition note for note.  His output over his short life was staggering: he died at the age of 35 but composed more than 600 works, many of them masterpieces.  His two-movement Sonata in G for Violin and Piano was the first of a group of six sonatas for piano and violin composed in Mannheim and Paris in 1777 and 1778 while he was traveling.  Unlike violin sonatas of the day, Mozart grants more independence to the two instruments, and in the second movement, the violin asserts dominance.  All six violin sonatas were published in Paris in 1778 as “Opus 1 Nos. 1-6.  – Sara Grossman

Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960), Mozart en Route (or A Little Traveling Music) for String Trio 301:  Kernis is one of the most celebrated contemporary composers in America.  The Philadelphia native studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory and Yale University.  Among his many other accolades, Kernis, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his second string quartet musica instrumentalis, New Era Dance. Colored Field for English horn and orchestra earned him the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition.  He was also awarded the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Award.  He has taught composition at Yale School of Music since 2003.  Mozart en Route (or, A Little Traveling Music) is a lively and playful trio for strings written in 1991, inspired by a letter Mozart wrote his father describing a long-and-rough carriage ride: “I sat with my hands dug into the upholstery and my behind suspended in the air.”  Kernis quotes Mozart’s Divertimento for Strings, K.563 and even includes a little Nashville-style toe-tapping fiddling.  – Sara Grossman
 
Felix Mendelssohn, Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 66 (1809-1847):  
Mendelssohn was another once-in-a-century child prodigy.  Robert Schumann described him as “the Mozart of the Nineteenth century.”  He was born into a wealthy family who supported the arts, and the boy received the finest music education, as did his sister, Fanny.  A German composer of the Romantic period, Mendelssohn composed some of his most popular music while still a teenager.  His String Octet, one of his best-known composition for chamber ensemble, was written in October 1825, when he was only 16.  One of his most famous works, the incidental music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was written a year later.  He also wrote two pieces everyone is familiar with: Hark the Herald Angels Sing and the Wedding March which is traditionally played as the recessional at weddings. Fanny was also a child prodigy and a composer who eventually would publish under her own name.  The fiery Piano Trio in C Minor was composed in early 1845, premiered in December of that year at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and published in February of the following year.  It is scored for standard piano trio (violin, cello and piano).  The energetic four-movement work is characteristic of the composer’s impeccable attention to structure and instinctive grasp of counterpoint.  Written two years before his death at age 38, it was the last chamber work the composer would live to see published and, like most of his mature chamber music, it remains high on the list in the standard repertory. – Sara Grossman

Carl Maria von Weber, Piano Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 8 (1786-1826):  While not a prodigy on a par with Mozart and Mendelssohn, Weber was a capable pianist and singer by the age of four.  He wrote his first opera at age 14.  He had a comprehensive music education and at age 17 was offered the post of Director of the Breslau Opera, a post he held for two years, making significant improvements to the company.  Several prestigious postings followed.  He is best known for his operas and was a crucial figure in the development of German Romantic Opera.  Like many in his day, he suffered from tuberculosis and died prematurely at the age of 39.  While Weber’s reputation rests almost entirely on his operatic works, especially his two most famous operas, Die Freischutz and Oberon, he wrote three enduring chamber works: his clarinet quintet, the trio for flute, cello and piano, and this piano quartet.  Weber wrote the four-movement quartet in 1809, and although that puts it in the early Romantic period, the work is quintessentially classical and could be easily mistaken for a work of Mozart or Haydn, both of whom exerted powerful influence on the younger Weber.  – Sara Grossman

BRIGHTMUSIC FESTIVAL CONCERT # 2 June 11, 2023 Stories and Rhymes (Children’s Concert for Children of All Ages)
The Mae Ruth Swanson Memorial Concert

Francis Poulenc, L’histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant, for Piano Four Hands and Narrator:  A music critic once called Poulenc (1899-1963)  “half monk and half rascal” – the perfect recipe for his cousins’ children and their friends for whom he first improvised this music and later scored it, dedicated to them.  Poulenc was one of the famous group of young French composers – Les Six – who developed their own compositional styles, inspired at least to some extent by Erik Satie.  Poulenc clearly articulated his own musical philosophy: “I wanted music to be clear, healthy and robust … as frankly French in spirit as Stravinsky’s Petrushka is Russian.”  Blending “serious music” with unpretentious “lowbrow” music, he said, would thereby produce “highbrow” music.  In Poulenc’s opinion, French composers could write music as profound as the Germans or Russians, but when the French did so, their works are “leavened with that lightness of spirit without which life would be unendurable.”  The story of Barbar is told in five interludes: a lullaby which Barbar’s mother sang to him, a waltz of the pastry, Barbar’s wedding march, a polka danced at his wedding reception and a lunar reverie nocturne.  To listeners today, Poulenc would probably say what he told the listeners of his own time: “Do not analyze my music – love it!” – David R. Johnson            

Robert Schumann, Scenes from Childhood for Solo Piano:  What a bundle of contradictions was Robert Schumann (1810-1856) – the composer, the pianist, the music critic, the orchestra conductor, and the Artist (with a capital “A”).  It may seem strange to us today, but he was disliked as a composer and seldom performed during  his own lifetime.  To be sure, he was the first major “anti-Classical” composer.  Whether that made him a “Romantic” composer depends upon whether the inner world of his variable mind qualifies for that label.  As a young man, Schumann did not know whether he was drawn more to music or literature.  He certainly knew that he was drawn to Clara Wieck, the daughter of his piano teacher and landlord, perhaps as much as Clara’s father was repelled by this creative but unstable young man as a husband for his daughter. Despite their nine-year age difference, Robert and Clara eventually persuaded a German court to permit their marriage over the objections of Clara’s father.  Thereafter, they became a 19^th Century German “power couple.”  Clara was the superior pianist, and Robert was the highly respected music critic.  Together, they “discovered” the young Johannes Brahms.  Brahms was a warm friend to the Schumanns, as they contended with Robert’s increasingly severe mood swings (“bipolar disorder,” in today’s parlance).  Brahms dutifully visited Robert during his virtual incarceration in a mental institution following a suicide attempt, when then-contemporaneous medical thought would not allow Clara to visit him.  After Robert’s death at age 46, Brahms and Clara became lifelong close friends (how close is a matter of speculation).  Robert composed Scenes from Childhood in 1838, a suite of 13 pieces for the piano.  Robert described them to Clara as “peaceful, tender and happy.”  What a wonderful respite for this “most elusive of the Romantic composers” [David Dubal].  – David R. Johnson

Paul Hindemith, “A Frog He Went A-Courting” – Variations on an English Nursery Rhyme for Cello and Piano:   The story of a frog that courted a mouse dates back to the pre-Elizabethan era of the mid-16^th Century.  Songs that tell this story have endured to the modern day (including a 1953 Tom and Jerry cartoon, a 2007 vocal rendition by Burl Ives on The Colbert Report, and a 1992 recording by Bob Dylan).  In the hands of Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), this nursery rhyme took the form of 13 variations written in 1941, about the same time he began teaching composition at the Yale Music School (he was named head of the school the following year).  Accolades for Hindemith permeate the writings of authors like Harold Schonberg: “the most important German composer in the 1920s” … “a musician’s musician” … “incredibly gifted” …“one of [Germany’s] greatest craftsmen and most learned musicians” … and “he was to German music what Prokofiev was to Russian music.”  Yet even Schonberg was forced to admit that Hindemith’s music was more admired by professionals than by the public.  His craft was anchored in the Baroque era in general and the works of Bach in particular.  He produced an enormous quantity of music, largely working in older classical forms. Hindemith’s wife was Jewish, as were many of their friends.  This prompted Nazi Germany to brand his music “degenerate,” ultimately leading the Hindemiths to emigrate to Switzerland and thence to the United States, where he became an American citizen in 1946.  Today’s performance of this childhood musical  icon will test one critic’s belief that Hindemith music was “anything but loveable.” – David R. Johnson    
 

BRIGHTMUSIC FESTIVAL CONCERT # 3 Tuesday, June 13, 2023 Once Upon a Time

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) for Piano Four Hands

Ravel was a leading French composer of the early 20^th century, and he wrote this piece for young siblings Mimi and Jean Godebski, aged 6 and 7. Their parents’ Parisian apartment hosted many great artists like Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky. Ravel often read the fairy tales and his own inventions to the children, and each movement in this Mother Goose series (no relation to the English nursery rhyme!) is inspired by certain characters:

• Pavane de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Pavane for Sleeping Beauty)
• Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb)
• Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas)
• Le Jardin Féerique (The Enchanted Garden)
• Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast)

Two other young pianists ended up premiering the piece, including Jeanne Leleu, who impressed Ravel and later went won the 1923 Prix de Rome music composition award. – Malcolm Zachariah 

Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Fantasy Pieces for Clarinet and Piano
Schuman was a German composer of the Romantic period who wrote both complex, large works and short improvised “flights of fancy,” such as these three pieces written in just two days in 1849. Schumann initially titled the work “Evening Party Pieces”, which likely was the case when Schumann’s equally gifted wife and composer Clara on piano and clarinetist Johann Kotte premiered the composition. Each movement is a musical conversation between the instruments an A-B-A song form featuring mood swings of obsessively repeating themes. – Malcolm Zachariah

Ennio Morricone (1928-2020), Selections from Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Arranged for Clarinet and Piano by Michelle Mangani

Morricone was an Italian composer who wrote over 400 scores for film and television, with his music from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. That film’s iconic two-note main theme evokes coyote howls and bounces between instruments, one example of Morricone’s musical experimentations for “spaghetti Westerns” set in the American West but produced often by Italian filmmakers. – Malcolm Zachariah

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate (b. 1968), Snake Oil for Saxophone, Cello, and Piano
Tate was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1968 and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. Impichchaachaaha’ is his Chickasaw house name and means “his high corncrib,” referring to a hut on stilts used to store corn and other vegetables. Tate earned his bachelor’s in music at Northwestern University followed by a masters at The Cleveland Institute of Music. Brightmusic previously performed Snake Oil alongside live painting by Native artist Zonly Looman at the Harding Fine Arts Academy’s First Americans Cultural Experience event in April. Tate had the following remarks: 

As a Chickasaw classical composer, I consider myself a modern impressionist, and Snake Oil is a work that reflects American Indian culture with a high level of abstraction. It is based upon two ancient snake dance songs from the Chickasaw and Seminole tradition and is presented in different sections, referred to as Aberrations (deviations).

Snake Oil was a wonderful adventure for me to compose. I dove into the world of colors and gestures available with piano, cello and saxophone and had a complete field trip! I did encode a lot of emotional and psychological ideas about life and relationship; however, a lot of this work was inspired by my very young son, Heloha. His name means thunder in the Chickasaw language. Heloha is a beautiful young man who is filled with fabulous curiosity, excitement and wit.

Musically, it is a dream come true for Brightmusic to perform this work again. They have an unusual brilliance in adapting to endless styles of new modern compositions and established repertoire. I am absolutely certain they will bring an exciting and memorable performance to the audience.  

– Malcolm Zachariah

BRIGHTMUSIC FESTIVAL CONCERT # 4 Thursday, June 15, 2023 Youthful Brilliance

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano

Poulenc’s wealthy French family afforded him the private study of piano and composition. Initially intrigued by the music of Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Bartok, he instead joined Les Six (“The Six”), whose members stressed unpretentious and not overly sentimental music. This trio was Poulenc’s first major chamber work and reflects other composers’ styles, including a “Mozartian” flavor. While Poulenc did not care to follow the sonata form of evolving and developing themes, he did note: 

For those who think I don't care about form, I've no objection to unveiling my secrets here: the first movement follows the plan of a Haydn Allegro, and the final Rondo the shape of the scherzo in Saint-Saëns's Second Piano Concerto. Ravel always recommended this method to me, which he often followed himself.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Trio in G Major, WoO 37 for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano

Beethoven’s grandfather was from what is now Belgium and eventually became a Kapellmeister (church music director) in Bonn, Germany, where his portrait hung in his grandson’s room. This trio was only discovered after the composer’s death and is thought to have been composed while he was a teen and working as an organist. Much like Mozart, Beethoven’s father promoted his son as a new child prodigy, with his first performance at age 6 (more likely 7).

This work was written for Count and amateur bassoonist Friedrich Von Westerholt to perform with his son and daughter playing flute and piano, respectively. Even at a young age, Beethoven shows his passionate side with many colorful changes in musical motifs that would become his characteristic style in adulthood.

Joseph Miroslav Weber (1854-1906), Septet in E Major, “Aus Meinem Leben”

Weber was a Czech composer who wrote highly regarded chamber works, including this septet “From My Life” which won the highest prize in a Vienna Composers Society competition for works that included wind instruments. The movement subtitles give some hint at their themes reflecting on youth.

• On the banks of the Moldau [River], Youthful Dreams
• Student Life, Life’s Ideal
• At the graveside of his love
• In a struggle for existence, Disappointed hopes, Memories of youth

– Malcolm Zachariah