Index to the Composer and Performer Biographies

Barber, Samuel....................................................................4,15

Bryla, James........................................................................... 12

Chanler, Theodore.............................................................. 10

Chasins, Abram.................................................................... 10

Daly, Shawn.............................................................................. 9

Diamond, David................................................................. 4,10

Eggers, Marty........................................................................... 7

Elsing, Evelyn...................................................................... 17

Ewazen, Eric........................................................................ 14

Foote, Arthur........................................................................ 18

Galyon, Joe............................................................................... 9

Kirchner, Leon..................................................................... 19

Lees, Benjamin.....................................................................4,9

McCoy, Robert..................................................................... 17

Munds, Philip C................................................................... 13

Nichols, Sara........................................................................ 12

Persichetti, Vincent............................................................. 13

Phipps, Danny K................................................................... 13

Piston, Walter......................................................................4,13

Riegger, Wallingford............................................................ 10

Rorem, Ned.........................................................................4,19

Salness, David...................................................................... 17

Schoenfield, Paul.................................................................. 18

Sipes, Ronald........................................................................ 12

Smith, Hal.................................................................................7

Thompson, Butch................................................................... 7

Washburn, Robert................................................................. 14

20

The Fifty-eighth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

E LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

FIFTY-SEVENTH AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL

Under the Direction of George Manos

Presented in honor of the exhibition

Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection

2, 9, 16, and 30 April 2000

Sunday Evenings at Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission Free
2

The Fifty-seventh American Music Festival

is madepossible in part by agenerous giftfrom

the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

The use ofcameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed.

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

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

Selectionsfrom concerts atthe Gallery

can be heard on the second Sunday ofeach month

at 9:00p.m. on WGMS-FM, 103.5.

3
The American Music Festival and the Ebsworth Collection

This spring, visitors to the National Gallery of Art are invited

not only to listen to one or more of the American Music Festival

concerts, but also to view an exhibition that offers a parallel

encounter with twentieth-century American creativity: TwentiethCentury American Art: The Ebsworth Collection. The Ebsworth Collection, one of the premier private holdings of American modernist art, was assembled by Mr. and Mrs. Barney A. Ebsworth

ofSaint Louis, Missouri. The collectors did not limit themselves

to established categories of American art; they added works to

the collection because they found pleasure in them. As a result,

the collection encompasses three generations ofAmerican modernists, juxtaposing works by prominent artists with those of

their lesser-known contemporaries. This allows the viewer to

examine a fuller and richer history of American art and its relationship to American culture.

The same claim can be made for the 57th American Music Festival. The performers have chosen the programs that make up

the festival with the intent ofpresenting works by American composers that will please and inspire their audiences. The festival

does not present a version ofthe accepted linear history ofAmerican music, nor is it intended to do so; instead, it contains works

of various styles composed between 1907 and 1990. Composers

who today can be identified by their last names only, such as Barber, Piston, and Rorem, are represented along with composers

who are probably unknown to almost everyone in the audience.

Among the composers featured in the festival, there are two whose

interest in the visual arts has resulted in major works for orchestra

with art-related themes. Like many other musicians of the midtwentieth century, David Diamond was fascinated by the art of

Paul Klee, who was a musician as well as an artist. In 1957 he paid

homage to Klee with an orchestral tone poem: The World of Paul

Klee. Benjamin Lees, whose Sonata for Two Pianos receives its Washington premiere performance on April 9, was inspired by the mobiles ofAlexander Calderwhen he wrote Mobiles in 1980 in response

to a commission from the Fort Worth, Texas, Symphony. Lees returned to the theme of great art again in 1987, composing a suite

for orchestra entitled Portrait of Rodin. Each of the seven movements of the suite carries the name of a Rodin sculpture: Meditation, Pierre de Wiessant, Large Torso ofa Man, Cybele, Genius ofEternal

Rest, The Prayer, and Jean de Fiennes.

4

Among the works exhibited from the Ebsworth collection, several reflect the artists’ affinity for music. Georgia O’Keeffe was 

fascinated with music throughout her life and played the violin.

Between 1918 and 1921 she completed five works in which there

is an attempt to make music visible. The primary impetus for

this undertaking came from two artists with whom she had studied, Arthur Wesley Dow and Alon Bement. Both were enthusiastic disciples of Vassily Kandinsky and his theories on the close

link between music and the visual arts. Although O’Keeffe did

not embrace those theories with the fervor of her teachers, she

did refer to them in some of her letters. Music-Pink andBlueNo. 1

features gently undulating curved forms that overlap each other,

calling to mind Kandinsky’s claim that words and music have

psychical as well as physical vibrations that can be transformed

by the artist into visible vibrations.

Suzy Frelinghausen enjoyed a dual career as a painter and a

soprano for the New York City Opera, where she was known as

Suzy Morris. Her Composition, 1943, is one of a number of paintings and collages inspired by Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and

other European cubists. Frelinghausen found a model for the

patterns and curves in her art in the outlines and details of musical instruments, especially the guitar and the piano. Another

stringed instrument, the harp, served as a useful symbol for

O. Luis Guglielmi in his Mental Geography, 1938, depicting a

surrealistic image of the Brooklyn Bridge after an air raid. The

son of a musician, Guglielmi associated the suspension bridge

with the harp and incorporated a harp player into his scenario. A

further clue to Guglielmi’s affinity for the music world is that

he used the title “Program Notes” for his commentary on the

first exhibition of Mental Geography.

Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection remains

on view at the Gallery until 11 June 2000. Visitors who wish to

enjoy both the exhibition and a concert on the same day should

bear in mind that the exhibition closes at 6:00 p.m. on Sundays.

5
2343d Concert

2April 2000

THE BUTCH THOMPSON TRIO

Butch Thompson, piano

Hal Smith, drums Marty Eggers, bass

(The performers will announce their selections

from the stage.)

For the first program of this year’s American Music Festival, the

Butch Thompson Trio has chosen to explore the vitality and

variety of the early jazz tradition. From the graceful ragtime of

Scott Joplin to Jelly Roll Morton’s New Orleans jazz, funky

Southside Chicago blues, and the roaring virtuosity ofthe Harlem

stride tradition of Fats Waller and others, jazz was the lifeblood

of the entertainment business, the very basis of popular music

in America. The trio plays a cross section of this rich heritage,

laced with Butch’s lively commentary. The Butch Thompson

Trio appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Zajonc/

Valenti Management of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

6

Pianist Butch Thompson, described by the London Observer

as “a musicologist of vast erudition,” is one of the most prominent musicians in traditional jazz. He played Christmas carols

on his mother’s upright piano at the age of three and started

formal lessons at age six. Thompson picked up the clarinet in

high school and led his first jazz group as a senior. He began his

professional career at age sixteen in Minnesota and two years

later was visiting New Orleans frequently to learn from veteran

musicians, among them clarinetist George Lewis. Thompson

began his recording career in 1964 and joined the staff of Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion in 1974, remaining with the show full-time until 1986. He continues as a frequent guest on that program. Today Thompson spends much of

his time on tour in the United States and abroad, sometimes as

a soloist and at other times with cellist Laura Sewell or with his

ensembles, the Butch Thompson Trio and the New Orleans Jazz

Originals. He performs with symphony orchestras, including

recent engagements with the Hartford Symphony, the Saint

Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Cairo

(Egypt) Symphony. Thompson writes about jazz for various

magazines, including Downbeat and The Mississippi Rag, and produces a weekly jazz radio program in Minneapolis. As a recording artist, Thompson’s most recent CD, Thompson Plays Joplin, is

the ninth in his acclaimed solo series on the Daring label (distributed by Rounder Records). Set for release this year is a CD

of duets with Laura Sewell.

A resident of San Diego, California, jazz drummer Hal Smith

is a product of Southern California’s long-lived and fertile traditional jazz scene. He became serious about jazz after hearing

and sitting in with a number of bands. Since 1978 Smith has

played with virtually every major musician in the field and is

today in constant demand in the United States and abroad. He

has appeared often with the Butch Thompson Trio on A Prairie

Home Companion and has been a permanent member since 1987.

Bassist Marty Eggers is well known on the West Coast as a

top-notch bass player and ragtime pianist. His musical career

began in Sacramento, where, as a teenager, he helped found the

Sacramento Ragtime Society. Eggers, who is a skilled composer

and arranger, currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where

he plays in several groups and leads his own eight-piece band,

the Front Street Wanderers, in performing original arrangements

of ragtime and traditional jazz styles.

7
2344th Concert

9 April2000

SHAWN DALY AND JOE GALYON, duo-pianists

PROGRAM

Benjamin Lees Sonata for Two Pianos

(b. 1924) (1951)

Allegro giocoso

Adagio semplice

Allegro

Washington premiere performance

Theodore Ghanler Fugue from The Second Joyful Mystery

(1902-1961) (1942)

David Diamond Concerto for Two Solo Pianos

(b. 1915) (1942)

INTERMISSION

Abram Chasins Period Suite

(1903-1987) (1948)

Prelude

Bouree

Pavane

Rigaudon

Sarabande

Fugue

Wallingford Riegger A Suite of Three Dances

(1885-1961)

Evocation (1933)

The City (1935)

New Dance (1935)

Pianists Shawn Daly and Joe Galyon have combined their talents to explore a wide variety offour-hand repertoire for one or two

pianos. Since winning the 1995 Graves Duo Piano Competition in 

Columbus, Ohio, Daly and Galyon have been concertizing regionally in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. They

have performed at universities, for music teachers’ organizations,

in public recital, and at the executive headquarters of the Baldwin

Piano Company. In addition to concerts, the artists also present

lectures on American music related to piano ensemble repertoire.

Shawn Daly holds a bachelor ofmusic degree from Susquehanna

University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and master’s degrees in 

piano performance and accompanying from Syracuse University.

He is currently a candidate for the doctorate of musical arts at the

College-Conservatory ofMusic in Cincinnati. A recipient ofseveral 

awards for excellence in music, Daly counts among his distinguished

teachers and coaches Frank Weinstock, Robert Weirich, George

Papastavrou, Glen Deibler, Arlene Shrut, Steven Heyman, and

Eileen Brown. In addition to his work as a performer and teacher,

Daly has served as administrative assistant for the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He also serves as organist/choirmaster at Holy Trinity Episcopal

Church in Cincinnati.

Joe Galyon holds a master of music degree in piano from the

University of Missouri-Kansas City and a bachelor of music degree

in piano from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Galyon 

is also a candidate for the doctor of musical arts degree at the University ofCincinnati College-Conservatory ofMusic. As a recitalist,

he has appeared in concert in Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio,

and Tennessee. A teacher ofaward-winning students, Galyon maintains a private studio at the Church of the Saviour United Methodist in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is also director of music. In

addition, he is an active member of the Music Teachers National

Association and the National Guild of Piano Teachers. As an arranger, Galyon has published sacred service music for both piano

and organ with the Genovox Music Group and Word, Inc.

Born in Harbin, China, to parents of Russian lineage, Benjamin

Lees moved with his family to the United States at an early age.

He studied composition with Halsey Stevens, Ernst Kanitz, Ingolf

Dahl, and George Antheil. Lees also studied extensively in Europe on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Lees’ compositions include

symphonies, operas, oratorios, chamber music, concerti, and solo

literature. The Sonatafor Two Pianos represents the genesis of his

compositional style. Thematic connections make the work cyclical

9
and enhance the tight construction of the entire sonata.

Theodore Ward Ghanler was a master of small forms, writing

more than a hundred songs for voice and piano, several small choral

works, and many chamber works. The Second Joyful Mystery\ one of

his largest compositions, was originally cast as a prelude and fugue.

As he reconsidered the work, he rewrote the prelude and added a

setting of the Magnificat for two pianos and women’s chorus, but

the only part of the work to be published was the fugue, which has

since found its place in the standard repertoire for two pianos. The

title refers to the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth after

she learned that she (Mary) would give birth to Jesus Christ.

David Diamond’s composition studies included workwith Bernard

Rogers, Roger Sessions, and Nadia Boulanger. While studying with

Boulangerin Paris in the late 1930s, he fell underthe spell ofStravinsky

and Ravel. He returned to the United States and joined the faculty of

the Manhattan School ofMusic and subsequently the Juilliard School 

of Music. The Concertofor Two Pianos opens with an emotional movement set in double exposition form. The slow second movement provides a moment ofrepose, before the third movement launches into a

driving rhythmic dialogue between the two pianos.

Abram Ghasins achieved wide acclaim as a composer, pianist,

author, educator, and broadcaster. His compositions for piano include several smaller works, two concerti, a monumental set of

Twenty-four Preludes, and music for two pianos. The PeriodSuite presents many of the formal and stylistic aspects of the eighteenthcentury suite, using harmonies and sonorities that were contemporary in the mid-twentieth century.

Composer Wallingford Riegger was born too late to fit comfortably into the post-romantic mold. A member of a generation of

composers who centered their attention on Aaron Copland, Riegger

became seriously interested in writing for the emerging field of

modern dance during the 1930s. Riegger explained that the three

dances in his Suite ofThreeDances “stem from the period in which [I

was] writing for the modern dance and [they] were composed,

respectively, for Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Doris Humphrey.

They may be said to express, in order, the spirit of tragedy, of romanticism, and ofjoyous affirmation.”

Program notes by Joe Galyon

Adapted and edited by Elizabeth Haeberle

10

2345th Concert

16 April 2000

NATIONAL GALLERY CHAMBER PLAYERS

WIND QUINTET

Sara Nichols, flute Ronald Sipes, oboe

James Bryla, clarinet Philip G. Munds, French horn

Danny K. Phipps, bassoon

PROGRAM

Vincent Persichetti Pastoral for Woodwind Quintet

(1915-1987) Op. 21 (1943)

Walter Piston

(1894-1976)

Three Pieces for Flute, Clarinet, and Bassoon

(1926)

No. 1: Allegro

No. 2: Adagio

No. 3: Vivace

Samuel Barber Summer Music for Woodwind Quintet

(1910-1981) Op. 31 (1956)

INTERMISSION

Robert Washburn Suite for Woodwind Quintet

(b. 1928) (I960)

Allegro

Andante

Rondo: Vivace

11
Eric Ewazen

(b.1954)

Roaring Fork-Quintet for Wind Instruments

(1993)

Whitewater Rapids (Maroon Creek): Allegro moderato

Columbines (Snowmass Lake): Andante

At the Summit (Buckskin Pass)

Allegro moderato

Allegro molto

Washington premiere performance

Winning exuberant praise from a receptive audience at its debut

performance during the 1995-1996 season, the National Gallery

Chamber Players Wind Quintet has become a regular feature of

the Gallery’s popular Sunday evening concerts. Under the guidance of Gallery music director George Manos, the ensemble explores and presents masterpieces of chamber music that are not

often heard, as well as the standard classics for wind quintet.

Sara Nichols is the principal flutist of the Baltimore Opera Orchestra and performs regularly with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she was acting assistant principal flutist for two seasons. In addition to performing on traverso flute as a member of

Pro Musica Rara, she is a member of the Towson Fine Arts Wind

Quintet. She and other members of the Towson ensemble have 

given master classes and recitals at Russia’s famed Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Nichols is currently on the faculties of Towson

University and the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Oboist Ronald Sipes, who studied with Marc Lifschey, received

his bachelor and master of music degrees from the San Francisco 

Conservatory of Music. He has played principal oboe in the

Orquesta sinfonica de Castille y Leon (Valladolid, Spain), the New

World Symphony, and the Orquesta del Estado de Mexico. Since

moving to the Northern Virginia area in 1994, he has played with

numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the National Gallery Orchestra, the Washington Opera, and the Theater

Chamber Players.

Clarinetist James Bryla made his solo debut with the National

Symphony Orchestra at age twenty-one as winner ofthe 1987 Young

Soloist Competition. He has won numerous other awards, including the Milton W King Memorial Certificate, the Presser Scholar

Award, the 1986 and 1987 International Clarinetist Competitions,

and the 1987 National Young Performers’ Competition. He has

12

performed throughout the United States as a soloist, orchestral,

and chamber musician with such ensembles as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphony, the United States

Air Force Band, Washington Concert Opera, the Eastwind Consort, and the National Gallery Orchestra. Bryla received the bachelor and master of music degrees from The Catholic University of

America, where he has served on the faculty.

French hornist Philip G. Munds is the assistant principal French

hornist of the Baltimore Symphony. A native of Napa, California,

and a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Munds

performed with the San Francisco Symphony and as principal hornist

of the Santa Cruz, Modesto, and Berkeley, California, Symphony

Orchestras. From 1989 to 1997 he was associate principal French

hornist ofthe United States Air Force Band. Munds has also played

with the National Gallery Orchestra, the Richmond Symphony,

and the Alexandria Symphony.

Bassoonist Danny K. Phipps, a graduate of the Curtis Institute

of Music in Philadelphia, received his master’s and doctor of musical arts degrees from The Catholic University ofAmerica. In addition to being the principal bassoonist with the United States Air

Force Band at Bolling Air Force Base, Phipps is an adjunct professor of bassoon at Shenandoah University in Virginia.

The first two compositions on tonight’s program are a part of a

recorded series entitled AnAmeriean WoodwindSymposium, for which

each composer provided an explanatory note regarding his particular work. Vincent Persichetti, for his Pastoralfor Winds, Op. 21,

wrote: “[It was] written in 1943 and contains several sections, each

a variant ofthe opening dolce theme. Although the music travels far

from its starting point, the interrelationship of materials outlines a

clear formal path. Toward the end, the principal melody returns in

a condensed version to complete the arc created by the piece.”

Born in Philadelphia, Persichetti studied and taught music there

until 1947, when he joined the faculty of the Juilliard School of

Music in New York. Dedicated throughout his life to the improvement of music education, he composed many works for beginners

and high school bands.

For his Three Piecesfor Flute, Clarinet, and Bassoon, Walter Piston

provided the following commentary: “[They were] written in Paris

in 1926 and were first performed there that year at a concert ofthe

Societe Independente de Musique. They are intended simply as

pleasant and mildly diverting pieces to play and listen to, the first

playful, the second nostalgic, and the third more dancelike. To the

13
composer they seem like concise pencil drawings.” Piston was highly 

regarded during his lifetime as a composer of carefully crafted, rational, and tasteful works. He taught at Harvard University from

1926 to 1960, and numbered among his students Elliott Garter,

Leonard Bernstein, and Daniel Pinkham. His influence as a teacher

was widespread, thanks in part to several widely adopted textbooks

of which he was the author.

Samuel Barber’s Summer Musicfor Woodwind Quintet was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. Written in

one movement (an abbreviated tripartite format), the quintet has

thematic character changes that occur within its sections, along

with undulating tempos. The throbbing rhythms of the French

horn and bassoon in the opening measures of the first section (A)

give way to virtuoso embellishments for flute and clarinet. The

oboe enters with a lengthened sentimental theme over the palpitating cadence of the accompanying French horn and bassoon. A

new section (B) encases a melody (hinted at in section A) that is

played rapidly, with staccato articulation. As the section progresses,

reshaped motifs in sixteenth notes are spun off. After repeating

the first and second sections (AB), the music increases in speed to

an exhilarating climax. The episodic section (A) briefly recalls

themes from both the first and second sections and brings the

composition to a breathtaking close.

Robert Washburn studied with Darius Milhaud, Nadia

Boulanger, and Alan Hovhaness. In addition to composing a wide

variety oforchestral and chamber music, he has authored an important music textbook, Comprehensive Foundations ofMusicianship. He

teaches at State University College in Potsdam, New York.

Eric Ewazen’s Roaring Fork was commissioned by and is dedicated to the Borealis Wind Quintet. The composer’s program note

reads: “The valley ofthe Roaring Fork River in Colorado is home to

some of the most spectacular scenery in the Rocky Mountains.

The first movement, Whitewater Rapids (Maroon Creek), depicts the

lush, rich sounds of the creek’s flowing rapids with its bright, high

melodic lines, ever-changing colors, and rhythmic energy. The second movement, Columbines (Snowmass Lake), evokes the serenity

of...a glacial lake ringed by 13,000-foot peaks and surrounded by

delicate and fragile white columbines. It is a scene at once awesome and intimate, [reflected by] music [that is] alternately gentle

and expansive. The final movement, At the Summit (Buckskin Pass),

portrays the sense of exhilaration, excitement, and quiet amazement one experiences at the top of Buckskin Pass, with its ardu14

ous ascent and 360-degree view ofmountain ranges, lakes, streams,

and dark green valleys.”

Eric Ewazen was born in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied

composition with Samuel Adler, Milton Babitt, Warren Benson,

Gunther Schuller, and Joseph Schwantner at the Eastman School 

of Music. Among his recorded works are Symphony in Brass and

Colchester Fantasy on Summit Records, and Balladfor Clarinet, Harp,

and String Orchestra on CRS Records. Ewazen is currently a faculty

member at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

15
2346th Concert

30 April 2000

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND PIANO TRIO

David Salness, violin Evelyn Elsing, cello

Robert McCoy, piano

PROGRAM

Arthur Foote Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 65 No. 2

(1853-1937) (1907-1908)

Allegro giocoso

Tranquillo

Allegro molto

Paul Schoenfield Cafe Music

(b.1947) (1985)

INTERMISSION

Leon Kirchner Trio (1954)

(b.1919)

I. J = circa 92

II. Largo

Ned Rorem Spring Music

(b. 1923) (1989-1990)

Aubade

Toccata

Fantasia

Bagatelle

Presto

16

Violinist David Salness, a highly respected teacher and performer

on the violin and viola, has studied under some of music’s most

illustrious teachers and performers, including David Cerone,Jascha

Brodsky, Ivan Galamian,JosefGingold, Zoltan Szekely, Felix Galimir,

and Karen Tuttle. Salness comes from a musical family and began

his study ofthe violin as a child with his father. He is an alumnus of

the Cleveland Chamber Music Seminar, the Center for Advanced

Quartet Studies in Aspen, Colorado, the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Cleveland Institute, and the Curtis Institute of Music. In

1977 he joined the University of Maryland faculty as head of chamber music studies and associate professor ofviolin. A frequent chamber music collaborator, Salness has performed with members ofthe

Guarneri, Cleveland, and Juilliard Quartets. His recordings are on

the RCA, Telarc, and Centaur labels. Salness developed the

chamber music program at the Chautauqua Festival and teaches

chamber music and violin at the Meadowmount School in

Westport, New York.

Cellist Evelyn Elsing has been a prizewinner in the Munich International Cello Competition and the Washington International

String Competition, and a finalist in the Tchaikovsky Competition. She has concertized across the United States, Europe, the

former Soviet Union, and Japan. A chamber music enthusiast, Elsing

is resident cellist with the Theater Chamber Players, a group devoted to presenting contemporary music as well as masterpieces of

the repertoire. Washington area solo engagements have included

performances at the Phillips Collection, the National Gallery of

Art, the Library ofCongress, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Kennedy

Center Terrace Theater. Elsing was the recipient of a 1997 citation

for exceptional leadership and merit from the American String

Teachers Association. She is currently professor of cello and chamber music at the University of Maryland in College Park.

A two-time recipient of the Maryland Creative and Performing

Arts Award, pianist Robert McCoy enjoys a versatile career as a

concert pianist, vocal coach, and conductor. He studied in Paris on

a Fulbright grant, which enabled him to work with Yvonne LoriodMessiaen and Dalton Baldwin. McCoy has appeared as guest lecturer at the 1994 William Kapell International Piano Festival and

has given numerous master classes at conservatories and universities throughout the world. He has collaborated with many leading

artists, including Gerard Souzay, Sherrill Milnes, Benita Valente,

and John Shirley-Quirk. He has been a member of the music staff

of the Maurice Ravel Academy, the Washington Opera, the Paris

17
Opera (Bastille), and the Vienna Kammeroper, where he conducted

the first Austrian production ofCarlisle Floyd’s Susannah. Currently

serving as artistic director of the Alaska Summer Arts Festival Opera Theater, McCoy is also professor of music at the University of

Maryland in College Park.

Arthur Foote was the most prominent among a group of late

nineteenth- and early twentieth-century composers known as the

“second New England school.” Trained at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, he was the first American composer

to complete all of his training in his home country. His Piano Trio in

B-flat, Op. 65, No. 2, is a product of his mature period. Members of

the Kneisel Quartet gave the premiere performance in Boston on 3

December 1908. With the prevailing influence of the German romantic tradition at the turn of the century, the trio exhibits its

indebtedness to both Brahms and Wagner, with certain harmonic

changes that were inherent in Foote’s style. By his own assessment,

his trio was “less than conventional,” but close examination reveals

its traditional status. The first movement {Allegro giocoso) utilizes

an abbreviated sonata-allegro form. The second {Tranquillo), in the

key of D major, has an ABA format with a Brahmsian tritonal relationship between the two sections (B-flat major to D-flat major).

The B section, with its eloquent cantabile, employs doubling of the

violin line by the piano two octaves above. In the final movement

(Allegro molto), Foote chooses to reemploy the sonata-allegro form, 

and does so cleverly through the use of the parallel minor of B-flat

major, B-flat minor. He returns to the original key when entering

the recapitulation and ends the trio jubilantly on the resounding

B-flat major chord.

Commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, CafeMusic

by Paul Schoenfield received its premiere in January 1987. About

the work, Schoenfield says: “The idea to compose CafeMusic first

came to me after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s

Restaurant in Minneapolis. Murray employs a house trio that plays 

entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to write a [special] kind of high-class dinner music -

music that could be played at a restaurant, but might also find

(just barely) its way into a concert hall. The work draws on many

ofthe types ofmusic played by the trio at Murray’s. Represented,

for example, are early twentieth-centuryAmerican music, Viennese

music, light classical music, gypsy music, and Broadway melodies.” The work contains two movements, one of which is performed in this concert.

18

Leon Kirchner’s Triofor Violin, Cello, andPiano was commissioned

by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of

Congress to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Coleman

Chamber Music Associates of Pasadena, California. Its premiere

was given in the fall of 1954. An apt description of the work’s unusual construction can be found among the writings ofKlaus George

Roy, who was at the initial recording session of this trio: “One cannot speak of sonata form, of a set of distinct themes, [or] of an 

easily classifiable structure. The idiom of the Trio has its roots in

the music of Schonberg (sic) and Sessions, and is accordingly

complex.. ..The design appears to be one of perpetual variation on 

certain motivic and harmonic fragments, in a sort of ‘stream-ofconsciousness’ unfolding. Yet it must be stressed [that] the

composer...always shapes his momentary inspirations with great

care for balance and logic of development. If the sense of improvisation is strong, one can be sure that it is willed, and that its result

stands approved by its highly critical creator.” Born in Brooklyn, 

Leon Kirchner was raised in California, where he received his musical training. His teaching career began in 1950 at the University

of Southern California and continued at Harvard University, where

he succeeded Walter Piston as Walter Bigelow Professor of Music

in 1961.

Complete in five movements, Spring Music by Ned Rorem was

commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation for the BeauxArts

Trio in honor ofCarnegie Hall’s centennial season. It was first performed on 8 February 1991 in Carnegie Hall. Speaking about the

work, Rorem states: “Having already written The End of Summer

and WinterPages, I am beginning to round off a seasonal cycle, which

is one reason for the title, SpringMusic. Another reason is the need

for a tag. I’ve composed many works for three instruments (the

first even called Trio), and have found that names help the auditor

- not to mention the composer - to tell them apart. Finally, the

workwishes to reflect (insofar as non-vocal music reflects anything)

the season of optimism.” A recipient of the Guggenheim and

Pulitzer Prizes, as well as most of the other prizes and honors available to American composers, Rorem has come to be ranked with

such prominent living composers as Gunther Schuller, John

Corigliano, and Dominick Argento.

Program notes by Elmer Booze, unless otherwise indicated

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