Program Notes: Concert 1
About our soloist
”One of the violin greats of our era” (Newhouse Newpapers), Stephanie Chase is a remarkably versatile musician who excels in the virtuoso soloist’s repertoire, period instrument practice, contemporary music, chamber music and music education. As soloist with the world’s most eminent orchestras, including those of London, Vienna, Chicago, San Francisco and New York, her playing is widely acclaimed for its “elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination” (Boston Globe).
Ms. Chase’s recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (on Cala Records) is the first ever on period instruments and features her own cadenzas. Made in collaboration with the Hanover Band conducted by Roy Goodman, her interpretation has been declared “one of the twenty most outstanding performances in the work’s recorded history” (Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Cambridge University Press) and honored with the highest possible ratings by BBC Music Magazine and Classic CD, including “Record of the Month.” Other recordings by Ms. Chase have been selected by Stereophile as a “Record to Die For” and by Gramophone for its “Hot List,” and include three world premieres.
Her diverse solo repertoire ranges from Bach and Vivaldi to Bernstein and Zwilich and includes over sixty concerti and major works for violin and orchestra. She has given the world premieres of numerous contemporary works, including those of Earl Kim, Edward Applebaum, Taavo Virkhaus and Jorge Liderman.
Born in Illinois to musician parents, Stephanie Chase had her mother, Fannie Chase, as her first violin teacher; her father, Bruce Chase, was a noted music arranger and composer as well as a violinist. At age two she was already performing in public, and six years later she made her debut with the Chicago Symphony as the youngest winner ever of the orchestra’s Youth Competition. She commenced studies in New York with Sally Thomas of the Juilliard School and within a few years embarked on extensive national tours as a soloist and recitalist, making her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the National Orchestral Association at age eighteen. Shortly thereafter she became a pupil of the legendary Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux. She has been top prizewinner at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Ms. Chase’s album Music for Violin and Piano by the Bohemian-American composer Rudolf Friml was released in October 2006 on Koch Records. To be released in 2007 is her album of virtuoso music for violin and guitar by the early 19th century Italian composer Mauro Giuliani, performed in partnership with guitarist Richard Savino on historically appropriate instruments
Stephanie Chase has taught violin at MIT and the Boston Conservatory and has given master classes at prominent music conservatories throughout the United States. She is currently a Professor of Violin at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. She performs on a violin made in 1742 by Pietro Guarnerius, which has been in her family for nearly sixty years.
Ms. Chase is represented by Schmidt Artists International.
PROGRAM NOTES
Symphony no. 46 in B Major
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
The symphonies Haydn wrote from the late 1760’s to the mid-1770’s parallel the German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”), and a number of them are now known as his Sturm und Drang symphonies. These compositions often reflect pre-Romantic themes found in Sturm und Drang fiction and poetry, such as an emphasis on passion and expressivity, a taste for uncertainty and disorder, and a disregard for accepted rules of form. It would be a mistake, of course, to see Joseph Haydn as bluntly rejecting the rules of musical classicism (rules which he himself did so much to codify): Sturm und Drang in Haydn is not a credo but a matter of tendencies. In the case of Symphony no. 46, composed in 1772, one is struck by the composer’s unorthodox choice of key (his key signatures are usually limited to three accidentals at most: B Major, with its five sharps, is a remote tonality for Haydn); his use of unusually high notes in the horns, producing a certain tonal unease; and a generally unsettled, searching quality, especially in the first movement and the Trio section (middle section) of the Minuet. Flutes are absent in the work, while double reeds and lower strings are prominent, lending a darkish color to the symphony as a whole.
- Vivace. The Vivace starts off with an emphatic four-note motif destined to dominate the movement. Haydn runs the theme through various keys in the development section, at times treating it contrapuntally.
- Poco adagio. Cast in a slow, rocking 6/8 meter, the Poco adagio, in B Minor, is a sort of mournful siciliano, tender but sad.
- Allegro. The Trio section of a classical minuet often serves as a spot of sunshine, injecting a peaceful calm and grace. This Trio has the opposite effect, darkening the atmosphere after a forthright, affirmative opening theme.
- Presto. The brisk, snappy Finale surprises us with a radical departure from classical rules. Just when the movement seems to be rushing to a spirited conclusion, Haydn suddenly stops the music and reintroduces, out of the blue, a lengthy excerpt from the minuet heard moments before. The later restatement of thematic material used earlier will become a common device in the 19th century symphony. Employing it here in 1772, Haydn is ahead of his time.
Violin Concerto no. 5 in A Major, Turkish
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
In 1775, nineteen years old and at home in Salzburg between tours, Mozart composed in the space of a few months all five of his violin concerti. Exactly for which violinist they were written is not certain, but a likely candidate is the composer himself. Mozart was a very able violinist, the son, after all, of a respected violin pedagogue. Not long after 1775 his interest in the instrument slackened, perhaps because one of his official duties was to play in the orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus von Colloredo, whom he frankly detested.
- Allegro aperto. One of the little surprises in which Mozart delighted greets us in the opening movement. After the customary orchestral exposition at allegro tempo, there is an unexpected pause. The solo instrument then enters, but with a gentle, sweetly pathetic melody that seems too slow and not really related to what has preceded. Only after this momentary lapse has come and gone does the solo violin get down to business. The remainder of the movement is vigorous and rich in melodies. A bravura cadenza adds a final touch of brilliance.
- Adagio. The orchestra presents two melodies in the opening measures. The first of these provides most of the movement’s thematic material.
- Rondo: Tempo di menuetto. A rondo by definition has a returning refrain, but the refrain that opens this rondo never seems to return enough. Nonetheless, the intervening segments have their own beauty, and one of them, in a minor mode, quickly becomes a little showpiece in its own right. The section in question, in 2/4 time, would have been termed “Turkish style” (alla turca) in Mozart’s day; to modern ears it might be “gypsy” sounding. However we label it, the music is vigorous and infectious. The episode ends with a resounding tutti, followed by a brief cadenza. When the minuet refrain is stated one last time, the effect is perfectly simple — and simply perfect.
Serenade for Strings in E-flat Major (1892)
Josef Suk (1874–1935)
Czech violinist and composer Josef Suk studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1891. The star composition pupil of Antonin Dvorak, he married Dvorak’s daughter in 1898. Suk wrote orchestral works, piano pieces and chamber music. His style reveals the influence of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and especially Dvorak.
Serenade for Strings opens with a simple, descending four-note theme that is destined to become a recurring motif. We hear it five more times in the course of the first movement, once as a violin solo. It then returns in the second movement, stated by one violin and echoed by another. It is heard yet again near the end of the third movement.
The second movement Allegro, in lively triple meter, whirls like a merry-go-round, slowing at times to allow the emergence of rich sonorities. A lullaby-like cello solo highlights the lyrical third movement Adagio. The relatively modern sounding Allegro giocoso sparkles with technical fireworks. At one point in this concluding movement, the excitement is dramatically interrupted by a solemn theme, part hymn and part folk song, which seems to evoke the voice of Suk’s father-in-law and mentor.
These notes are written for Symphony by the Sea. They may be reproduced, provided that authorship acknowledgement is given to William R. Clark, © W. R. Clark