Tchaikovsky’s famous piano trio, which was written in memory of his

beloved teacher Nikolai Rubinstein (1835-1881). The Ensemble da

Camera of Washington played the Washington premiere of Leavesfrom

an Autumn Album in 1996 as part of its annual series of concerts at the

historic Lyceum in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Commissioned by the famous American clarinetist and

bandleader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) and Hungarian violinist 

Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973), Bartok’s Contrastsfor Violin, Clarinet, and

Piano was completed in Budapest in 1938. It is a suite in three

movements. In the notes for a recorded version of this work, Robert

Mann, the former first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, provided

the following general description of Contrasts to music historian Edward

Jablonski: “Each movement has a tonal center...forming a strong

chromatic bond. The violin and clarinet carry the main voices; the piano

supplies rhythmic, harmonic and coloristic emphasis....The Hungarian

language stress [on] the first syllable and the frequent use of dotted

rhythms are outstanding rhythmic features. Melodies usually consist of a

germinal motif repeated and developed. The most distinguishing 

harmonic feature is the use of the diminished fifth, or augmented fourth,

with the major triad.”

Program notes by Elmer Booze

Program notes on Ryabov provided by Ricardo

Cyncynates and edited and adapted by Elmer Booze

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The use ofcameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2475th Concert

THE ENSEMBLE DA CAMERA OF WASHINGTON

CLAIRE EICHHORN, clarinet

RICARDO CYNCYNATES, violin & viola

ANNA BALAKERSKAIA,/?/a«0

Sunday Evening, 7 December 2003

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven Trio No. 4 in B-flat Major

(1770-1827) Op. 11 (1797)

Transcribed for the viola by Paul Klengel

Allegro con brio

Adagio

Tema con variazioni: Allegretto

Aram Khachaturian

(1903-1978)

Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano

(1932)

Andante con dolore, con molto espressione 

Allegro

Moderato; presto

INTERMISSION

Vladimir Ryabov

(b. 1950)

Leaves from an Autumn Album

Op. 38 (1986)

Diminishing Light

In the Land of Lakes

Twirling Leaves

Haystacks

September Field and Bells Chiming

(After Ludwig van Beethoven)

Memento!

Bela Bartok

(1881-1945)

Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano

(1938)

Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance)

Piheno (Relaxation)

Sebes (Fast Dance)

The Musicians

Founded in 1990, The Ensemble da Camera of Washington is one of

the country’s finest ensembles of its kind. Consisting of violin, clarinet,

and piano, the ensemble is made up of players from Brazil, Germany,

and Russia and has performed throughout the United States to

outstanding reviews. Admired for its remarkable homogeneity, style, and

virtuosity, the ensemble performs works covering four centuries of music

for the solo, duo, and trio repertoires. Its CDs for the Vernissage Records

label have received unanimous praise from radio, newspaper, and

magazine critics. In addition to its active concert schedule, the trio

mentors young ensembles and has presented a series of master classes at

the Levine School of Music.

Clarinetist Claire Eichhorn, artistic director of the Ensemble da

Camera of Washington, was born in Stuttgart, Germany, to a family of

outstanding musicians. As the winner of the Young Soloist Competition

at age seventeen, she made her debut as a soloist performing Debussy’s

Premiere rhapsodie with the Cleveland Orchestra. She continued her

studies the University of Michigan, where her teachers were Alfred

Zetzer, Fred Ormand, and Bernard Portnoy. Claire Eichhorn records for

the Vernissage Records label, and her most recent CD, released last

spring, is dedicated to works of Johannes Brahms. She is much sought

after as a teacher and is a faculty member at the Levine School of Music.

She performs on a set of Herbert Wurlitzer clarinets.

Violinist Ricardo Cyncynates, bom in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,

studied with his father and made his debut at age eleven as the winner of

Brazil’s National Young Soloist Competition. In 1987, following his
tenure with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Cyncynates was appointed

assistant concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra under the

baton of Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom he also appeared as a

soloist. He completed his studies at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in

Rome, the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and Indiana University.

Cyncynates has given master classes throughout the United States, Asia,

and South America. His violin is the 1873 “David,” made by JeanBaptiste Vuillaume.

Pianist Anna Balakerskaia received her master of music and

doctor of musical arts degrees from the State Conservatory in Saint

Petersburg and was later appointed a faculty member at both the Moscow

and Saint Petersburg State Conservatories. She studied piano with the

renowned pianist and master teacher Nadeszda Golubovskaia and

chamber music with Professor Tamara Fidler. Balakerskaia has been

awarded many prizes, among them the Best Accompaniment Diploma,

which she won three times from the International Tchaikovsky

Competition in Moscow. Her many recordings are on the Vernissage

Records label. Anna Balakerskaia teaches at George Mason University 

and the Levine School of Music.

Program Notes

Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat Major, op. 11, was originally written for

clarinet (with an optional violin part), cello, and piano. As noted by

author Friedhelm Klugmann in his article, “Piano Trios and Piano

Quartets” {Ludwig van Beethoven, Bicentennial Edition, 1770—1970):

“[With this work,] Beethoven again entered the realm of social

entertainment music.” Noted more for its enchantment than for its

profundity, op. 11 was Beethoven’s capitulation to the taste of the

populace. Enamored with the tone and virtuosity of the Bohemian

clarinetist Joseph Beer (1744-1812), Beethoven assigned the primary

melody ofthe work to the clarinet.

Dedicated to Countess Maria Wilhelmina von Thun (1744-1800),

the trio has three movements. The vivacious first movement is marked

Allegro con brio. The second movement (Adagio) contains one of

Beethoven’s most tender and expressive melodies. The third movement 

(Tema con variazioni: Allegretto) unfolds a set of variations based on a

popular melody extracted from the third act ofthe opera, The Corsair, by

Joseph Weigl (1766-1846).

Although it was written in 1932, the Triofor Clarinet, Violin, and

Piano by the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian did not receive its

American premiere until 1949, seventeen years later. The trio

incorporates Armenian folk melodies as well as folk melodies and

rhythms of other republics bordering Armenia. Khachaturian, who began

the serious study of music during his mid-twenties, was twenty-nine

years old when he composed this work. It gives evidence of the innate

musical gift that culminated in his later works, such as the ballet Gayane

(1940-1942), from which the ever popular “Sabre Dance” emerged; the

Violin Concerto (1940), which Jean-Pierre Rampal transcribed for flute

in 1968; and the ballet Spartacus (1950-1956). Named the People’s

Artist of the USSR in 1954, Khachaturian wrote music that is neither 

iconoclastic nor innovative. Nevertheless, it is considered highly original

and personal and has earned a place in the history of music in the former 

Soviet Union. Writer Boris Schwarz {The New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians) states: “His music is straightforward and

elemental in its appeal to human emotions....He represented socialist 

realism at its best.”

Vladimir Ryabov, the composer of Leaves from an Autumn

Album, was born in Chelyabinsk and has been described as one of the

most original of the younger generation of Russian composers. The

winner of the 1991 Prokofiev International Composers Competition,

Ryabov’s style represents a new romanticism that is characterized by

emotional richness, philosophical profundity, ethical rigor, a wide range

of musical imagery, and freedom of form. Leavesfrom an Autumn Album

was composed in memory of Smabatovich Alumyan, a pianist and

professor at the Moscow Conservatory, after his untimely death in 1986.

Eloquence and a feeling of nostalgia are heartfelt in this trio. The work is

composed in six short descriptive movements that are tinged with

impressionistic language and explore with great emotion a life that was

left incomplete. Ryabov’s trio is in many ways analogous to