Artistry in Action: Chamber Series

JOHANNES BRAHMS: Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, op. 120, no. 1
Allegro appassionato
Andante un poco adagio
Allegretto grazioso 
Vivace

YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
Roberto Poli, piano

JESSIE MONTGOMERY: Duo for Violin and Cello (2015)

Sharan Leventhal, violin
Nicholas Johnson, cello

—INTERMISSION—

SCOTT WHEELER: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano—“The Singing Turk”                                         

Sharan Leventhal, violin
Marc Ryser, piano

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ: Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Cello and Piano, H. 315 

Amanda Hardy, oboe
Judith Eissenberg, violin
Andrew Mark, cello
Roberto Poli, piano

JESSIE MONTGOMERY: Duo for Violin and Cello (2015)

American composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981) wrote Duo for Violin and Cello in 2015 for her friend, cellist Adrienne Taylor. In the work’s program note, Montgomery describes the Duo as “an ode to friendship with movements characterizing laughter, compassion, adventure, and sometimes silliness.” 

The first movement, Meandering, introduces musical fragments in both instruments that seem to speak to each other like two old friends catching up, having grown somewhat independent but eventually coalescing on pizzicato chords as if in conclusive agreement with one another. It is in this opening discourse that Montgomery’s expert sense of musical counterpoint is on full display, even if just for a few passing moments of exuberance as the lyrical lines of both instruments repeatedly crest and fall. The second movement, Dirge, is perhaps the emotional core of the piece and exploits harmonic and melodic ambiguity so that the musical material seems to constantly question itself. Slow-moving, sustained chords seep in and out of one another as the violin and cello alternate with statements of emotion and longing. Unified with the first movement through the concept of call-and-response, the second movement is comparatively a discourse that doesn’t necessarily end with a coherent answer. The third and final movement, Presto, suddenly breaks the tension created by the sober mood of the second movement by ways of both a newly discovered harmonic clarity that seems to resolve a general atmosphere of dissonance, and through repetitive, kinetic bursts of bright, shimmering musical activity. Toward the end of the third movement, both instruments play for the first time in overt synchronicity, cascading together in total ecstasy through now-familiar harmonic places. This is the final moment of tension before both instruments seem to float away for a moment, only to immediately return for a final, joyful push.

—Nicholas Politi, M.M. '23
 

SCOTT WHEELER: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano—“The Singing Turk”

Larry Wolff’s book The Singing Turk, published in the fall of 2016, is a rare work by a non-musician that provides a new perspective on music. It examines the popularity of Turkish characters in more than 100 European operas written and performed between the 1680s to the 1820s. Wolff’s book shows how the shifting nature of the threat of the Ottoman Empire caused telling shifts in the way singing Turks were portrayed in the European operatic theater. 

As a composer, I read this book in part as a window into music I didn’t know, even with composers with whom I was familiar. I found the music of these operas so enchanting that I decided to feature one singing Turk in each movement of my violin sonata, and to borrow Larry’s title for the work as a whole. The result is certainly far from the genre of the “operatic paraphrase,” like the still popular Carmen Fantasy by Pablo de Sarasate, but it has passages of that sort of simple pleasure. While the borrowings do not guide the sonata, which has its own structure, the earlier music forms a subterranean vein that colors each movement in varying degrees. The first movement, Sù la sponda, draws on Handel’s 1724 opera Tamerlano in which the noble Turkish ruler Bajazet is imprisoned by the title character Tamerlane (also known historically as Timur). As he prepares to commit suicide, Bajazet sings to his beloved daughter “on the banks of Lethe, wait for me there.” This movement of my sonata adopts some of the character’s tragic nobility; his aria is quoted most clearly at the end of the first half.

The second movement draws on the aria of Roxelana, from the 1761 work The Three Sultanas by librettist Charles Simon Favart and composer Paul-César Gibert. This aria was famously sung by Favart’s wife, Marie, who accompanied herself on the harp. In the opera, Roxelana sings to the “invincible” warrior Suleiman the Magnificent to “defend yourself, if possible, from becoming the slave of two beautiful eyes.” The movement begins as a passacaglia, which then alternates with variations on the tender melody from the opera.

My third singing Turk is the handsome prince Selim from Rossini’s comic opera Il Turco in Italia, in which Selim falls in love with the Italian Fiorilla. She flirtatiously sings, “In Italy, certainly one doesn’t make love like that.” Selim responds, “In Turkey, certainly one doesn’t make love like that.” Rossini’s music makes it clear that they make love in exactly the same way. My musical response is to create a moto perpetuo for the violin, from which Rossini’s deliciously joyful duet emerges with increasing clarity and giddy violinistic virtuosity. 

“The Singing Turk” was commissioned and premiered by Sharan Leventhal, my gifted friend and admired musical interpreter.

—Scott Wheeler, Composer
 

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ: Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Cello and Piano, H. 315

Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) was a Czech composer of instrumental music who was active primarily in the first half of the twentieth century. Martinů’s Oboe Quartet was written in 1947 when the composer was residing in New York City, and can be best described as a work in the neoclassical style. The quartet has a three-part, fast-slow-fast structure, which is a callback to the similar classical ‘concerto’ form, though the work comes across more as a small ‘concerto grosso’ with all instruments functioning in both soloist and accompanist roles.

The first movement, Moderato poco allegro, opens with a lyrical dialogue between the four instruments which is punctuated by short, accented ideas until seemingly reaching a consensus between the sustained and the fleeting with a clear resolution. While the oboe, violin, and cello pass around material, the piano functions mainly in an accompanimental role with secondary lines, decorations, and harmonic underpinnings. The first part of the second movement, Adagio – Andante, contrastingly opens with an emphatic piano solo that sets the stage for the purely-lyrical, lilting melodies which flow from the oboe, violin, and cello. There is an increased sense of balance in the roles of the instruments at this point in the work as the piano steps further into the foreground to meet the other three. The second part of the second movement, Poco allegro, opens with delicate, discursive gestures that grow organically into ever more synchronous playing. The instruments coalesce together, fully connected, in the finale of the work as the final resolution is reached with three strikes of a major chord, a hat-tip to the analogous ending of classical-era fast movements.

—Nicholas Politi, M.M. '23

Judith Eissenberg, violin, is founder of the Grammy-nominated Lydian String Quartet, a group that has recorded extensively and won top prizes at the Evian, Banff, and Portsmouth international string quartet competitions. An active chamber musician, Eissenberg performs regularly throughout the U.S. and abroad and is involved with Boston Chamber Music Society and Emmanuel Music. Learn more about Eissenberg.

Amanda Hardy, oboe, serves as principal oboist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and has performed as guest principal oboist with the Boston Pops, Boston Philharmonic, A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, and the Des Moines Symphony. She has won numerous awards and makes regular festival appearances. Learn more about Hardy.

Nicholas Johnson (he/they), cello, performs regularly with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, and Quincy Symphony Orchestra, and Florida’s Space Coast Symphony Orchestra. While a student at Boston Conservatory, Johnson won the school’s concerto competition; won first prize winner at the 2019 Massachusetts State ASTA (American String Teachers Association) String Masters Solo Competition; collaborated with members of Silk Road; was a member of the Honors Chamber Ensemble; and performed several world premieres.

Sharan Leventhal, violin, has toured four continents as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Since winning the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis at the 1984 International Contemporary Music Festival in Darmstadt, Germany, she has built an international reputation as a champion of contemporary music. Learn more about Leventhal.

Marc Ryser, piano, has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in North America and Europe with Boston Artists Ensemble, Music from Salem (New York), Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music (New Hampshire), and more. He studied at Boston University, MIT, and Stony Brook University, where he earned his D.M.A., and has taught at New England Conservatory Preparatory School, Rivers School Conservatory, Smith College, Pomona College, Brandeis University, Drake University, and the San Francisco Conservatory.

Andrew Mark, cello, is an award-winning performer and educator whose teaching excellence has been recognized by the Foundation for the Advancement of String Education and American String Teachers Association. A former U.S. Artistic Ambassador, Mark has given recitals and master classes throughout Europe, Asia, Central America, and South America, and he has served as cellist for the Boston Composers String Quartet and the CORE Ensemble. Learn more about Mark.

Roberto Poli, piano, is a sought-after teacher and lecturer, and currently serves as artistic director of the Chopin Symposium. In addition to an active performance career, he is the author of the acclaimed book The Secret Life of Musical Notation: Defying Interpretive Traditions, which presents original insights based on the analysis of Chopin’s manuscripts and early editions. Learn more about Poli.

YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet, is an internationally renowned artist who has received several awards and recognitions, including the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition. Currently principal clarinetist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, he has performed with numerous ensembles around the world. Learn more about Zhai.

Chamber Series is part of Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s Artistry in Action series, which celebrates exceptional artists and initiatives that exemplify Boston Conservatory’s core values of excellence, innovation, and community engagement. Hosted by the Conservatory’s Music Division, Artistry in Action brings together the school’s prestigious and long-standing Piano Masters Series, String Masters Series, and Chamber Series with exciting new programming for winds, faculty recitals, and ensembles in residence.

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