Program: November 24, 2002

Program FRANZ SCHUBERT

Overture in Italian Style

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Concerto for violin, cello, and piano Allegro Largo Rondo alla Polacca

Mia Lai-Carlson, violin Jonas Carlson, cello Solon Pierce, piano INTERMISSION CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Dances for Harp and Orchestra Sacred Dance Profane Dance

Elinor Niemisto, harp MAURICE RAVEL

Program

Pavane for a Dead Princess * * * Notes, by Paul Niemisto

Overture in Italian Style (1818) Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was classified as a minor composer during his lifetime, when few of his larger symphonic pieces were performed. In 1827, a German language music dictionary was published in which Schubert's name did not even appear. At the time, despite the fact that Schubert is now widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, writer of melodies, most of Europe was already headed toward the complexity and ambiguity of the high Romantic era. When he was ten, his music teacher responded to his talent: "If I wished to instruct him in anything fresh, the boy already knew it. So I gave him no actual tuition but merely talked to him and watched him with silent astonishment." Every moment Schubert had to himself was spent composing, and in 1812 Salieri accepted him as a student. Two years later, to Salieri's astonishment, the 17-year-old presented him with the 341 pages of his fully orchestrated first opera. In the summer of 1818, he moved to Zseliz in Hungary to take up the position of music tutor to the daughters of Count Johann Eterházy. He returned to Vienna a year later, receiving two opera commissions from the Court Theatre. He received his first publishing agreement for his Erlkönig, but these better fortunes were not to last.

About the Artists Paul Niemisto, conductor and founder of the CVRO in 1979, is a member of the St. Olaf College music faculty. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received additional conducting training at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg and at the American Symphony Orchestra League Institute. While in Canada during the 1970s he was a conductor of the Prince Edward Island Symphony and the South Shore Orchestra and was a playing member of the CBC Halifax Orchestra. Recently, he has been a regular summer traveler to Finland, where he teaches courses in conducting, performs in brass festivals, and conducts bands and orchestras. Since 1991 he has directed a Finnish-American brass ensemble, “Boys of America,” which has traveled widely and made recordings in the U.S. and Scandinavia. American violinist Mia Lai-Carlson was born in Hawaii of ChineseAmerican parentage. Mrs. Lai-Carlson received her main education at the University of North Texas and at the University of Minnesota, where she worked with Robert Davidovici and Sally O’Reilly. She has participated in the master classes of Josef Gingold, Cho Liang Lin, and Yai Kless, among others. Mrs. Lai-Carlson has frequently performed as soloist with orchestras and recently performed the Minnesota premiere of the Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum’s Violin Concerto with the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra. She is on the faculties of ShattuckSt. Mary’s School and the University of St. Thomas Conservatory of Music and has performed extensively in Scandinavia with the Medhamra Chamber Ensemble and with her husband Jonas Carlson. Swedish cellist Jonas Carlson has an extensive performance background in Scandinavia and North America, including approximately 250 chamber concerts. He has performed on television and radio in Sweden and Canada and on television in the United States and Brazil. He has been a member of the cello section of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra, and principal cello of the Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra for the opening ceremonies of the Swedish parliament in 1997. Mr. Carlson has taught at Brandon University and the EckhardtGrammatté Conservatory of Music in Canada and is presently the director of orchestral activities at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School. He is currently completing his doctorate in cello performance at the University of Minnesota. American pianist Solon Pierce was born in Plymouth, Wisconsin and received his Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College. He also holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he worked with Jerome Lowenthal and Abbey Simon. Further studies have been with Howard Karp at the University of Wisconsin and Grant Johannesen and

Diane Walsh at the Mannes College of Music. He completed his doctoral work at the University of Minnesota, where he worked with Alexander Braginsky. Dr. Pierce has performed frequently in his native Wisconsin, including appearances with the Festival City Symphony of Milwaukee and the Madison Symphony, and in many other cities in the United Sates and Europe. He is an ardent advocate of neglected and new music and recently received an Alumni grant from Oberlin College. Elinor Niemisto has been a member of the area music scene for 20 years. She teaches child and adult harpists and performs at local churches and parties. She is principal harpist with the Rochester (MN) Orchestra and the La Crosse (WI) Symphony Orchestra. Elinor also brings soothing harp music to elderly and homebound residents of the Northfield area. She is adjunct instructor of harp at St. Olaf College, Carleton College, and Luther College.

Viola Kim Evander Daniel Rinehart

Cello Andrea Morics Jane Rinehart Mary Zoe Scott Tim Vick Chloe Wardropper Bass Doug Durand Karl Lear Flute and Piccolo Cathy Penning Mary Zard Oboe Cindy Breederland Brenda Rodgers

The Northfield Arts Guild present

The Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra and Soloists Paul Niemisto, Conductor

Personnel Violin Gail Nelson, Concertmaster Ginny Culhane Laura Geissler Jeremy Huseth Bob Hanson Mihaela Irina Deborah Knutson Karin Larson Hannah Reitz Sarah Rinehart Dave Weinhandl

The Trinity Lutheran Artist Series and

Clarinet Karen Frawley Kathy Szydlo Bassoon William Child Thea Groth Horn Trish Culbert Tom Schnauber Trumpet Kurt Stimeling Gary Meidt

Berwald Trio: Mia Lai-Carlson, Violin;

Jonas Carlson, Cello; Solon Peirce, Piano Elinor Niemisto, Harp

Percussion Sonja Zieman

Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Trinity Lutheran Church and music director Jim Streufert for making their sanctuary available for this concert. We extend thanks to the Northfield Community Education and Recreation Department and the music staff at Bridgewater Elementary School for providing rehearsal space for the CVRO. This concert is made possible in part by grants provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature. We greatly appreciate continuing support by the Community National Bank of Northfield.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Faribault Sunday, November 24, 2002 at 7:30 p.m.

As Vienna was becoming increasingly fond of Rossini and his Italian counterparts, many Viennese composers began composing works "in the Italian style," to keep up with demand and compete for their own place in the concert hall. Schubert wrote two “Overtures in the Italian Style" which enjoyed many performances. Both have lyric Adagio introductions followed by lively Allegros, and are fine examples of Schubert's versatility in style and form. Schubert's talent for writing beautiful melodies is clearly evident. Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra in C Major, Op. 56 (1804) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed a Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, which holds a unique place in the composer's output as well as in the rest of music history. Little is known of Beethoven's motivation for writing such a work, but the result is one of great beauty and ingeniousness. He composed the concerto during the period, 1802-04, and it received its first public performance in 1808. The special challenges of writing a concerto for this instrumental combination fall into two main categories: challenges of form and those of balance. The work begins mysteriously with cellos and basses presenting the three themes of the orchestral exposition through an expansive crescendo. The slow movement is an eloquent Largo, presented simply without development, scored for muted strings with light comments from the winds. Although there is no actual break, the Largo movement ends with an expectant hesitation before spilling into the final movement, an elegant rondo in the form of a Polonaise. It’s interesting that no one refers to Op 56 as a ‘Piano Trio’ Concerto. It really is a concerto for three soloists who, although they need to work together as a team, as often as not take turns to enjoy the limelight. This doesn’t suit every front-rank soloist, of course. And it doesn’t benefit the structural integrity of the concerto either, what with so much of the material being repeated for the different solo instruments. The result is that our interest can be divided rather than multiplied. Danses Sacrée et Profane (1904) Until the development of the pedal system found on modern harps, it was extremely difficult for composers to write chromatic music for the instrument, because the harp's strings were tuned diatonically (that is, to the pitches of the major scale). Early in the 20 th century there was a rival design to this kind of harp, a "cross-strung" instrument, with a separate string for every one of the chromatic pitches, which enjoyed a brief vogue. In 1903 the Pleyel Company (which had introduced the instrument in 1897) commissioned from Claude Debussy (1862-1918) a work to be used as a test piece at the Brussels Conservatory. He

composed his Danses in the spring of 1904; there is nothing in the work that cannot be played on the standard pedal harp, and that is almost invariably used for modern performances. The two dances are both subtly inspired by Spanish music, which Debussy had absorbed thoroughly, even though he only once in his life crossed the border into Spain, and that was to spend a few hours at a bullfight in San Sebastian. The Danse sacrée, slow and ritualistic, may have been inspired in part by a short piano piece of a Portuguese composer, Francisco de Lacerda (1869-1934), who shared a friendship with Debussy and Satie, but it also seems to breathe the same air as Satie's Gymopedies, which Debussy loved. The second dance is a lively and lilting waltz, mostly in the key of D, but with chromatic alterations and a great deal of modulation to show off the chromatic possibilities of the instrument. Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899) Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was only 24 when his piano solo Pavane pour une Infante défunte (Pavane for a dead princess) became the rage of the drawing rooms and salons of Paris in 1899, but the work already held the unmistakable stamp of his style. A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, young Ravel had worked with Gabriel Fauré and was an admirer of Emmanuel Chabrier and Erik Satie. Yet though he was an ardent scholar of a wide range of musical forms, his own musical language was immediately apparent in this short piece: in the lightness of touch, in the change of mood and timbre using harmonic rather than dynamic shifts, and in the deftness of melody. The Impressionist movement was in full flower, and the Pavane may have gained some interest because of the strong image that its title conjured. Who was this dead princess? Ravel always assured listeners that the title was nothing more than a fancy of his, that he imagined the tune to be "a slow Spanish dance to which a little princess may once have danced.” The work was popular enough that Ravel orchestrated it in 1910, and it is this version that we hear tonight. It unfolds on a stately eighth-note pulse, following the form of the Renaissance pavane, a Spanish courtly dance. Ravel states the main theme first with horn (the “dead princess”?), then with a flute and oboe duet, and finally in the strings, growing from pianissimo to fortissimo in the course of the last few bars. We end this concert with the Pavane as a memorial tribute to our neighbor and friend, Paul Wellstone.