Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Under the direction of George Manos

December 2002 and January 2003

December

22 Cantate Chamber Singers Christmas music by Benjamin

Gisele Becker, music Britten

director Carols for choir and audience

29 Luigi Piovano, cellist Sonatas by Brahms and Saint-Saens

Luisa Prayer, pianist Schumann: Adagio and Allegro

January

5 National Gallery Orchestra Gala Viennese New Year Concert

George Manos, conductor

12 Gary Graffman, pianist

19 The Verdehr Trio

Walter Verdehr, violin

Elsa Ludwig Verdehr,

clarinet

Sylvia Roederer, piano

26 The Thomas Zehetmair

Quartet

Reinicke: Sonata, Opus 179

Von Sauer: Waldandacht

Chopin/Godowsky: Etudes

J. S. Bach: Chaconne in D Minor

Reger: Four Etudes

Blumenfeld: Etude, Opus 36

Mozart: Trio, K. 358

Fanny Mendelssohn: Romance

Armand Russell: Romance

Tchaikovsky: Entr'acte from

Sleeping Beauty

Joan Tower: Rainwaves

Bright Sheng: Reflections, Tibetan

Dance

Schumann: String Quartet No. 1

Cage: String Quartet in Four Parts

Bartok: String Quartet No. 5

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

L. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

SIXTIETH AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL

Under the Direction of George Manos

Presented in honor of the exhibition Drawing on America’s Past: Folk

Art, Modernism, and the Index ofAmerican Design

1 December through 15 December 2002

Sunday Evenings at Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Drawing on America’s Past:

Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design

The Index of American Design has been a cherished, if somewhat

anomalous, part of the National Gallery’s collection since it was first

acquired in 1943. Its 18,000 renderings of American folk and decorative

art were produced by Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists on

work-relief during the Great Depression. The Index, in fact, was one of

the most highly regarded of the WPA art projects during the 1930s,

successfully capturing that decade’s patriotic, egalitarian spirit in a wellpublicized mission: to discover America’s true aesthetic language in the

craft tradition of its ancestral common man.

This romantic urge to survey and document our folk tradition and

to identify its idiosyncratic forms as evidence of an authentic national

culture was closely connected with the further goal of fostering the

evolution of a uniquely American modern art. The Index ventured to

collect and present pictorial proof of the aesthetic “usable past” that

critics had claimed the United States lacked, leaving it incapable of an

artistic present or future. With the proposed—but never accomplished— 

publication and distribution of Index portfolios throughout the nation,

WPA administrators believed that our artists and designers would readily

acquire the keen awareness of their own cultural idiom that would allow

them to develop an American modernism free of European influences.

The exhibition commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the

Gallery’s acquisition of the Index of American Design presents

approximately eighty of its finest watercolor renderings of American

folk, popular, and decorative art along with a selection of the original

artifacts they represent. The original objects range from quilts, weather 

vanes, and hand-carved toys to carousel animals, stoneware, and cigarstore figures.

The Works Progress Administration, initiated by President

Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, included the Federal Music Project,

which offered the most systematic support for music in the nation’s

history. By 1933, two thirds of the national membership of the American

Federation of Musicians were unemployed. By the time it reached its

zenith in 1936, the Music Project had employed 15,000 musicians. In

addition to issuing commissions to composers, the Music Project

generated thirty-four new orchestras in various parts of the United States,

offered free music classes, sponsored forums and panel discussions on

the subject of newly composed music, and produced the Bibliographical

Index ofMusicians in the United States ofAmerica from Colonial Times.

The Works Progress Administration and its Federal Music 

Project were dismantled shortly after the onset of World War II.

Although the American Music Festival at the National Gallery of Art had

a different model (it was founded in 1944 by Richard Bales to continue

the work of the American Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music

in Rochester, New York), it has taken up where the Federal Music

Project left off as a national forum for the presentation of new music by

American composers. Many of the works presented in the festival have

addressed issues that were important to the compilers of the Index of

American Design, including folk music and national identity, modernism

and the folk music tradition, and connections between music and the

visual arts in the United States.

While most of the compositions included in this Sixtieth

American Music Festival are international in style, there are some for

which the basic elements as well as the composer’s idiom are peculiarly

American. Examples include the use of eighteenth-century American

tunes in Henry Cowell’s First Violin Sonata, the Jascha Heifetz

transcriptions for violin and piano of melodies from Gershwin’s Porgy

and Bess, the Christmas Carol of Charles Ives, the arrangement by Vijay

Singh of the spiritual Go, Tell It on the Mountain, the variations by

Edwin Finckel on Willow Weep for Me, and Peter Schickele’s quixotic

Serenade for Three, which stems from such uniquely American roots as

cowboy music, country fiddling, and boogie-woogie.
2436th Concert

1 December 2002

PHILIP QUINT, violinist

DAVID RILEY, pianist

Program

Henry Cowell

(1897-1965)

Suite for Violin and Piano

(1925)

Largo

Allegretto

Andante tranquillo

Allegro marcato

Andante calmo

Presto

John Corigliano

(b. 1938)

Sonata (1963)

Allegro

Andante ma non troppo

Lento

Allegro

Intermission

Lukas Foss

(b. 1922)

Three American Pieces

(1944)

Early Song

Dedication

Composer’s Holiday

George Gershwin

Arr. Jascha Heifetz

Transcriptions from “Porgy and Bess”

(1963)

Summertime 

My Man’s Gone Now

Bess, You Is My Woman Now

It Ain’t Necessarily So

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Musicians

Philip Quint made his New York Debut at Avery Fisher Hall in March

1995, just four years after emigrating from the former Soviet Union.

Since then he has consistently garnered enthusiastic reviews, including

this from the Chicago Tribune: “What a terrific soloist the young

Russian-born American violinist Philip Quint makes! Here is a fiddle

virtuoso whose many awards are fully justified by the brilliance of his

playing.” The awards alluded to in the review include the Juilliard

student competition that afforded him the opportunity to perform the

Korngold Violin Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra in Avery Fisher

Hall. He also won the special audience prize at Spain’s Pablo de Sarasate

International Violin Competition in 1997 and the Salon de Virtuosi

award. Nominated this year for Grammy awards for his recording on the

Naxos label of William Schuman’s Violin Concerto and for the category

of best soloist with orchestra, Quint is rapidly establishing his reputation

as one of the most intelligent and remarkable artists on the concert circuit

today.

Philip Quint has demonstrated a consistent commitment to

American music by recording Lukas Foss’ complete works for violin and

piano, with the composer as his accompanist. He has played in Carnegie

Hall (as winner of the Waldo Mayo Award for “the most gifted
performer in New York”) and at the Caramoor and Aspen Music

Festivals. He has appeared as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra under

Kurt Masur, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and orchestras in

Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Philip

Quint plays a 1736 Antonio Stradivarius violin on loan to him from

Machold Rare Violins and appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Arts Management Group, Inc., both of New York City.

A Bostonian by birth who currently resides in New York City, pianist

David Riley has extensive experience as a solo and collaborative pianist.

His solo performance credits include recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill

Recital Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago,

Sala Casals in Puerto Rico, the University of Calgary Celebrity series,

and the Salle de Concert Pollack in Montreal. He has collaborated with

noted violinist Zvi Zeitlin and has been heard live this past season on

WGMS and WQXR, the classical music stations in Washington and New

York, respectively. An avid supporter of contemporary music, David

Riley has participated in the premiere performances of more than fifteen

chamber works, including five piano trios.

Program Notes

Dedicated to the inimitable Hungarian-born American violinist Joseph

Szigeti (1892-1973), Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano by Henry

Cowell owes it existence to an early American handbook of singing

known as the Southern Harmony by William Walker (1809-1875). The

work contains modal ballads from colonial times and several fuguing

tunes by William Billings (1746-1800), one of the early American

composers whose music is considered by many to epitomize the best in

the genre. In his notes for the work, Cowell elaborated: “It was not the

idea of imitation, but rather of carrying forward into a more extended and

modern form some of the basic elements in this old religious music that I

began to write a series of pieces in two parts, the first a hymn, the second

a fuguing tune, often both modal.... Later on the idea grew on me to

extend the fuguing tune into sonata form by developing two themes.

Such a work would then logically find the basis for other movements in

other types of traditional American music. The present sonata is the

result.... The Violin Sonata...begins with an introductory hymn, then

after the sonata-form fuguing movement it incorporates the IrishAmerican ‘come-all-ye’ ballad style for its slow movement in song form,

and it has a fiddle tune for the Scherzo. The piano and violin contradict 

each other in canon at the start of the Scherzo and play as if they hadn’t

properly started together at several points. The last movement focuses the

forces initiated in the other four into a short and energetic statement that

falls apart just before the end as if momentarily distracted; then the music

gathers itself together and broadens to a full close that recalls the hymn.”

The 1964 Spoleto Festival Competition for the Creative Arts,

sponsored by Boston University, was the setting for the world premiere

of John Corigliano Jr.’s Sonata for Violin and Piano. On that occasion

Corigliano wrote: “For the most part, [the sonata isj a tonal work,

although it incorporates non-tonal and polytonal sections, as well as other

twentieth-century harmonic, rhythmic, and constructional techniques.

The listener will recognize the work as a product of an American writer,

although this is more the result of an American writing music than

writing ‘American’ music — a second-nature, unconscious action on the

composer’s part. Rhythmically, the work is extremely varied. Meters

change in almost every measure, and independent rhythmic patterns in

each instrument are common. The [sonata] was originally entitled Duo,

[making obvious] the treatment of both instruments as co-partners. 

Virtuosity is of great importance in adding color and energy to a work

[that] is basically an optimistic statement, but the virtuosity is always

motivated by musical means.” In a New York Times critique that also

appeared in 1964, Corigliano was said to have “the audacity and the skill

to take an old musical joke like the perpetual-motion finale and restate it

in modern terms without sounding simple-minded and without losing the

point.... He has an important future.”

Three American Pieces was written by Lukas Foss for violin and

piano when he was twenty-two, seven years after his arrival in the United

States from France. Foss’ love of his newly adopted country and the
influence of the musical writings of composer Aaron Copland were the

inspirations for this work. In Foss’ own words: “The longest piece is the

second, Dedication. Its initial Lento builds to an accelerating central

episode whose agitato climax is the suite’s weightiest moment: a Lento

reprise follows. The brisk outer movements are clearly ‘American.’

Movement one, Early Song, begins lyrically (Andante) — a prairie

lullaby? An Allegro episode, eager and breathless, follows. A reprise of

the opening leads to a final section in which the piece’s contrasting

materials are superimposed. The closing Composer’s Holiday zestfully

appropriates a variety of popular styles.”

The selected songs from George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and

Bess, transcribed for violin and piano by Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987),

have become a part of the standard concert repertoire for concert 

violinists throughout the world. Their widespread popularity can be

attributed to their roots in that most beloved of American art forms, jazz. 

During its rise to prominence, this new art form inspired Gershwin’s folk

opera, which is now accepted as America’s finest effort in that genre.

While both musicians were living, Heifetz pleaded with his friend

Gershwin to write a concert work for violin. Unfortunately Gershwin

died before that dream was ever realized. His wish being unfulfilled,

Heifetz provided these transcriptions, a worthy addition to the concert

repertoire, “to fill in a gap in the Gershwin literature” (Francis

Robinson).

Program notes by Elmer Booze

2437th Concert

8 December 2002

THE WASHINGTON MEN’S CAMERATA

FRANK ALBINDER, conductor

MICHAEL PATTERSON, pianist

Program

I

Thirteenth-century Plainsong, Mode V Of the Father’s Love Begotten

Arr. James Engel

II

Michael Sitton Amice Christi, Johannes

The Gentle Storke

III

Arr. Diane Loomer

Greg Geiger

Ave, maris Stella

Ave Maria

IV

Robert H. Young

Richard Dirksen

Who Is He in Yonder Stall

A Child My Choice

V

Arr. Eric Helmuth Three Christmas Carols

Come with Torches, Jeanette, Isabella 

(Traditional Provencal)

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly (Polish carol)

In dulci jubilo (Traditional German)

Intermission
Morten Lauridsen

VI

O magnum mysterium

VII

Arr. Alice Parker and Robert Shaw

Charles Ives

Arr. James McKelvy and David Bohn

Arr. Alice Jordan

Arr. Vijay Singh

The Boar’s Head Carol

A Christmas Carol

Deck the Hall (in 7/8)

Away in a Manger 

Go, Tell It on the Mountain

Conrad Susa

VIII

A Christmas Garland

Musicians

The Washington Men’s Camerata was founded by its members in

1984 to perform, promote, and preserve the rich legacy of men’s choral

music. In addition to its subscription series, which includes regular 

performances at the Kennedy Center, the Camerata has performed with

the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap,

with the National Gallery Orchestra, and with the Mark Morris Dance

Group. The group has performed at the National Gallery of Art, the

Smithsonian Institution, and the White House, as well as at the 2000

National Conventions of Chorus America and the Intercollegiate Men’s

Choruses and the 1998 Eastern Division Convention of the American

Choral Director’s Association. Listeners nationwide have heard the

Camerata on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and

Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio’s Pipe Dreams, and Public

Radio International’s Millennium of Music. To its three critically

acclaimed CDs on the Gothic label (Masters in This Hall: Christmas

Music for Men’s Chorus', Over the Sea to Skye: Folk Songs from Around

the World', and The Spirit of Freedom: Patriotic Songs & Service

Hymns), the group has added Sing We Noel, a new release of Christmas

music for men’s chorus and brass, featuring the Washington Symphonic

Brass. In 1998, with the cooperation of Yale and Georgetown

Universities and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the

Camerata established a National Library of Men’s Choral Music. This

library, which contains original works by many notable composers and is

utilized by men’s choruses nationwide, is part of the Camerata’s ongoing

mission to preserve and promote America’s heritage of music for men’s

choruses and is one of the largest collections of its kind in the world.

The Camerata’s 2002-2003 season includes Christmas concerts in

Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., a March 2003 concert 

featuring Albert Jenny’s Missa Dorica and other sacred compositions

from the romantic period, and a performance at the Terrace Theater on

30 May 2003 of “Music from Unheard Voices,” including the world

premiere of New Zealand composer Christopher Marshall’s Tihei, Mauri

Ora! (Breathe, Life Spirit!), a work based upon sacred texts of New

Zealand’s indigenous Maori people. More information about the

Washington Men’s Camerata can be obtained by visiting

www. camerata. com.

Frank Albinder joined the Washington Men’s Camerata as

music director in September 1999. He came to the Camerata from the

internationally renowned male vocal ensemble Chanticleer, where he

most recently served as the group’s associate conductor in addition to

singing with the ensemble. During his eleven-year tenure with

Chanticleer, Albinder performed in all fifty states and in twenty foreign

countries. He appears on seventeen of the ensemble’s recordings,

including Wondrous Love, which was recorded under his direction, and

the Grammy Award-winning Colors of Love, for which he designed the

concept and chose the repertoire. Other performance credits include the

Boston Camerata, the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, the Washington

Bach Consort, and the Concord Ensemble. He holds a bachelor of arts

degree in vocal performance from Pomona College and master of music

degrees in choral conducting and vocal performance from the New

England Conservatory of Music. Between 1984 and 1988 Albinder was

director of choral activities at Davidson College in Davidson, North
Carolina. He is the repertoire and standards chairperson for male

choruses in the Eastern Division of the American Choral Directors’

Association as well as vice-chair of the board of the Intercollegiate Male

Choruses. He is also a board member of ChoralNet.org, the internet’s

principal portal for information and resources relating to the choral field.

Frank Albinder also directs the Woodley Ensemble, a nineteen-voice 

professional chamber choir based in Washington, D.C.

Pianist and conductor Michael Patterson received the doctor of

musical arts degree in piano performance from the Catholic University of

America. His principal mentor was Bela Nagy. He has performed as

soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician throughout the United States

and appears frequently at the Kennedy Center, the Phillips Collection, the

German and French Embassies, and the National Gallery. As conductor 

of the United States Congressional Chorus, Patterson has led

performances for the inaugurations of presidents George Bush, Sr., and

Bill Clinton, and the nationally televised Christmas in Washington

program.

For the convenience of concertgoers

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

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

2438th Concert

15 December 2002

THE AMERICAN CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

Blanche Abram and Naomi Drucker, directors

Blanche Abram, piano Naomi Drucker, clarinet

Eriko Sato, violin Deborah Wong, violin

Lois Martin, viola Chris Finckel, cello

Marilyn Sherman Lehman, piano

Program

Nancy Bloomer Deussen Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano

(b. 1931) (1989)

Rondo

Canto sogno

Divertimento

(Naomi Drucker, clarinet, Deborah Wong, violin, Marilyn Sherman

Lehman, piano)

Edwin Finckel Variations on “Willow Weep for Me”

(b. 1917)

(Naomi Drucker, clarinet, Chris Finckel, cello, Marilyn Sherman

Lehman, piano)
Robert Muczynski

(b. 1929)

Fantasy Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano

Opus 26 (1969)

Allegro energico

Andante con espressivo

Allegro deciso

Introduction and Finale

(Naomi Drucker, clarinet, Chris Finckel, cello, Blanche Abram, piano)

George Kleinsinger

(1922-1982)

Intermission

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings

(1949)

Presto

Andante semplice

Presto

(Naomi Drucker, clarinet, Eriko Sato and Deborah Wong, violins, Lois

Martin, viola, Chris Finckel, cello)

Peter Schickele Serenade for Three

(b. 1935) (1992)

Dances

Songs

Variations

(Naomi Drucker, clarinet, Eriko Sato, violin, Blanche Abram, piano)

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Musicians

Codirected by pianist Blanche Abram and clarinetist Naomi Drucker,

The American Chamber Ensemble has presented concerts for more

than thirty years. In residence at Hofstra University, the ensemble is a

consortium of distinguished musicians whose concerts explore the music

for various combinations of clarinet, piano, strings, woodwinds, and

voice. Dedicated to presenting the music of living American composers,

the ensemble has commissioned and presented world premieres by Elie

Siegmeister, Meyer Kupferman, Vally Weigl, Max Lifchitz, David

Hollister, Joelle Wallach, Albert Tepper, Marga Richter, Dana 

Richardson, Edward Smaldone, Jerry Rizzi, Katherine Hoover, Josef

Alexander, and Herbert Deutsch. The American Chamber Ensemble has

recorded on the Leonarda, Gasparo, Soundspells, Cala, Dionysus, 

Elysium, and 4Tay record labels.

Blanche Abram, pianist and codirector of the American

Chamber Chamber Ensemble, is adjunct senior professor of music at

Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, and a faculty member of

long standing at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She is well known

for her many workshops and master classes and has lectured extensively

in the United States and abroad, including a presentation at the 

International Conference on Tension in Performance in England.

Honored by the Music Teachers National Association as a “Master

Teacher,” Abram received the 1998 Pathfinder Award for Excellence in

the Arts from the Township of Hempstead, New York, in recognition of

her work as both a performing artist and an arts advocate.

Naomi Drucker, clarinetist and codirector of the American 

Chamber Ensemble, has performed, recorded, and toured with the New

York Philharmonic in such diverse countries as Japan, Great Britain,

Russia, Sweden, France, Canada, and Argentina. As a soloist, she has

appeared with the Nassau Symphony Orchestra, the New York Virtuosi,

the Philharmonia Virtuosi, and the Long Island Symphony, among

others. With her husband, Stanley Drucker, principal clarinetist of the

New York Philharmonic, she has performed on international tours in
Japan, Sweden, France, China, and Australia. Noami Drucker is also an

adjunct professor at Hofstra University, from which she received the

1994 George M. Estabrook Distinguished Alumni Award for her career 

achievement.

Chris Finckel began his cello studies with his father, George

Finckel, and continued them at the Curtis Institute of Music. A member 

of the Manhattan String Quartet and the New York New Music 

Ensemble, Chris Finckel has concertized extensively in Asia, Australia,

Europe, Central America, the United States, and Canada. A frequent 

guest artist with such acclaimed ensembles as the Tokyo String Quartet,

the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Speculum Musicae, he has

appeared at the Casals, Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga, Norfolk, and

Rockport Chamber Music Festivals. A dedicated performer of the music

of the twentieth century, he has participated in the premiere

performances of more than one hundred works and has recorded for the

Nonesuch, New World, CRI, Bridge, and Vanguard Record labels.

Pianist Marilyn Sherman Lehman has given solo and ensemble

concerts in Kaufman Concert Hall of the 92nd Street Y and in many

museums, libraries, and universities in the New York area. A regional

winner of the ASMA International Piano Competition, she has been a

guest artist on radio stations WNYC and WEVD and has participated in

chamber music festivals throughout the United States and Germany. She

holds a bachelor of science degree in music education from Hofstra

University, from which she graduated cum laude, and a master of music

degree in performance from the Manhattan School of Music. As a core

member of the American Chamber Ensemble, she has performed at Weill

Recital Hall for the last three seasons.

Lois Martin studied the viola at the Peabody Preparatory School

and the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music. While at Eastman, she

was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a

founding member of the Atlantic String Quartet, which is dedicated to

the performance of new compositions. She is also a member of the New

York Chamber Symphony and the Concordia, String Fever, and Salon

Chamber Soloists. Her continuing commitment to contemporary music

includes performances with the Group for Contemporary Music, the New

York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the Composers Guild,

the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Composers Forum, and Steve Reich

and Musicians. She has taught at Princeton University and is currently on

the faculty of the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College.

Violinist Eriko Sato is a frequent concertmaster of the Orpheus

and St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestras. Having made her debut at age

thirteen, she performed with the Louisville Symphony, the San Francisco 

Chamber Orchestra, the Aspen Chamber Orchestra, and the Tokyo

Imperial Orchestra. Among the several awards she has garnered are top

prizes in the Tibor Varga International Competition, the Young

Musicians Foundation Competition, and three Japanese national

competitions. Eriko Sato is a founding member of the Aspen Soloists and

the Festival Chamber Music Society. She has been a faculty member 

since 1987 of the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New

York.

Violinist Deborah Wong is a graduate of the Juilliard School of

Music, where she earned both the bachelor and master of music degrees.

A winner of the Victor Herbert award, she was a student of Dorothy

Delay. Wong has been a featured soloist with the Hudson Valley

Philharmonic, the New England Bach Festival, the North Country 

Chamber Players, and the Stony Brook Symphony. She is a veteran

performer with numerous chamber music societies and a member of

the Hawthorne Piano Trio. In addition to her recordings with the American

Chamber Ensemble, she has recorded with the Orpheus Chamber

Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon. She also performs with the

Atlantic String Quartet, the Washington Square Contemporary Music

Ensemble, and the New York New Music Ensemble.

Program Notes

The Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano, by Nancy Bloomer Deussen,

was composed in 1989 for a concert of her works sponsored by Mu Phi

Epsilon and presented to the Palo Alto, California, Cultural Center. It
won a performance award in 1992 at the Delius Composition

Competition, as well as first prize in the Britten-on-the-Bay Competition 

in 1996. The composer writes: “The first movement, called Rondo, is a

joyful, lilting motif in triple meter followed by a slower, sweeping

melody in the C section. Canto sogno (Dream Song) is a nostalgic piece.

[I] was reminded of places and feelings from the past while composing it.

Divertimento is the shopping movement and is dedicated to my daughter 

Liz, who loves to shop. [The movement] depicts crowds of people

running around in a large department store or shopping mall.”

The popular song by Ann Ronnell entitled Willow Weep for Me

has a timeless appeal, made more so by the renditions of such famous

cabaret and jazz singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, and Nina

Simone. It served as the basis for Edwin Finckel’s Variations on Willow

Weep for Me for clarinet, cello, and piano. An uncle of American

Chamber Ensemble member Chris Finckel, Edwin Finckel was a prolific

composer of both classical music and jazz arrangements. He was music

director of an arts-based private school in Short Hills, New Jersey, and

cofounder with his wife of a summer chamber music camp.

Aware of the paucity of literature written for the combination

of clarinet, cello, and piano, Robert Muczynski wrote his Fantasy Trio,

Op. 26, in order to add another work to this neglected genre. Written in

four movements, the Fantasy Trio is the second of three trios that he

composed (the others being a Piano Trio and a String Trio) during a

period of five years. While the second movement (Andante con

espressione) gives its listeners a glimpse of his sensuous nature, the trio

as a whole, says Muczynski, is “joyous and rather extroverted. [The

work] never takes itself too seriously, but it wasn’t intended as a

frivolous souffle, either. There is a great deal of chamber music from the

eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries [that] is fun to perform

and listen to, though not necessarily geared to profound statements at

every turn. As a pianist, 1 played and enjoyed much of this music, and

this is what the Fantasy Trio is all about.” Slightly under thirteen

minutes in length, the work is a marvel of meaningful brevity in trio

writing, with the shortest movement (the third) a little over one-and-ahalf minutes in length and the longest (the fourth) just under four-and-ahalf minutes. Without mentioning the length of the work, music critic

Lawrence Cheek of the Tucson Daily Citizen responded to its other

charms after his first hearing: “What a piece! It is brilliant and instantly

endearing, bursting with jazz inflections, plaintive negotiations between

clarinet and cello, and some engagingly snotty clarinet stuff that sounds,

alternately, like elephant-training music and the shrieks of your Aunt

Philomena. This music is fun, yet it is not at all lightweight.”

The Quintet for Clarinet and Strings by George Kleinsinger is

typical of his works in its simple melody, direct rhythm, and colorful use

of the instrumental textures. Kleinsinger also wrote the widely performed

cantata, I Hear America Singing, and a series of popular musical

melodramas for children, including Tubby, the Tuba.

Peter Schickele can always be counted on for wry comments on

his own music. About his Serenade for Three, he says: “The first

movement is a headlong series of dances set off by a robust refrain. The

tour sections (and three keys) of the lyrical second movement are tied

together in the note E-flat, which repeats in raindrop fashion throughout.

The finale features an interesting bit of incest: Peter Schickele writing

variations on a theme by P.D.Q. Bach. The theme in question comes

from the title character’s aria in Oedipus Tex, an opera/oratorio in one

cathartic act. I’ve always had a weakness for cornball cowboy music,

which in the P.D.Q. Bach work gets combined with certain eighteenthcentury classical figurations. The style in the Serenade's finale is more

wide-ranging. In addition to country fiddling, there is also some boogiewoogie, complete with a rabble-rousing finish.”

Program notes by Elmer Booze

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