James D’León and Friends Program Notes
October 6, 2024
Program Notes by J. Michael Allsen
Our annual chamber music 1 program, featuring pianist James d’León and leading string players of the Arizona Philharmonic (violinist Luke Hill, violist Mason Haskett, and cellist Ruthie Wilde) opens with a fine piano trio by Fanny Mendelssohn, older and equally talented sister of Felix. Next is an impressionist portrait of the English countryside by Herbert Howells. To close we have the masterful first piano trio by Brahms.
PROGRAM
Fanny Mendelssohn
Piano Trio in d minor, Op. 11 (1847)
Allegro molto vivace
Andante espressivo
Lied: Allegretto
Allegro moderato
Herbert Howells
Piano Quartet in a minor, Op. 21 (1916)
Allegro moderato, tranquillo
Lento, molto tranquillo
Allegro molto, energico
INTERMISSION
Johannes Brahms
Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 (1854, rev. 1889)
Allegro con brio
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Adagio
Finale: Allegro
Click Tabs Below to View
The Music
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11
Mendelssohn completed this work in 1847. Its first performance was on April 11, 1847, at her home, with Mendelssohn herself at the piano, Robert von Keudell on violin and her brother Paul Mendelssohn on cello. Duration 29:00.
Background
Fanny Mendelssohn, older sister of Felix 2, may have been every bit as talented as her famous brother. When she was born, her mother Lea remarked that she had “Bach fugal fingers,” 3 and young Fanny studied piano first with her mother. The family moved to Berlin in 1811, where the Mendelssohn family home became one of the social centers of the city’s music life, with visits by prominent musicians, and private concerts, usually including compositions and performances by the two Mendelssohn Wunderkinder 4 . In 1819, the family hired a composition teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter, to tutor both of them. Fanny Mendelssohn began composing at this time, and continued throughout her life, eventually writing about 400 works: primarily piano and chamber works, and nearly 250 Lieder for solo voice and piano. She married painter William Hensel in 1829. Though her husband and brother continued to encourage her composition, she was held back by the culture of the day: upper-class married German women simply did not have professional careers, let alone careers in composition. However, Fanny hosted a regular Sunday salón in her home that featured many of Germany’s landing musicians, and regularly showcased her works: the trio heard here was played at just such a Sunday performance, with her other younger brother, Paul, on cello. Unlike Felix and Fanny, Paul Mendelssohn chose to follow the family business – banking — and though he became quite successful at it, he was a fine cellist throughout his life. The trio was apparently composed as a gift for her sister Rebecka, a fine singer, who would eventually take up hosting salón performances following Fanny’s death. Fanny Mendelssohn did eventually begin to publish some of her music in 1846, but this was cut short by her death after a series of strokes in 1847—just a month after the premiere of the Piano Trio. Much of her music remained unknown until the 20th century. The Piano Trio, Op.11, however, was published in 1850, just a few years after her death.
What To Listen For
The Piano Trio is among the longest and most substantial works composed by Fanny Mendelssohn, and it has a particularly challenging and powerful piano part was undoubtedly written with her own skills as a pianist in mind. This is clear at the beginning of the first movement 5 (Allegro molto vivace), where are the piano plays a tumultuous line against a simple main theme 6 played in unison by the strings. The cello introduces a flowing second theme above a shimmering piano part. In a long section of development7, piano dominates the texture: A short solo piano flourish leads into a stormy section that ends with the return of the second theme. In the second movement (Andante espressivo), Fanny takes the term “expressive” to heart, and lays out a sensitive “song without words” at the beginning, which the strings and piano extend. Then comes a contrasting idea, another songlike theme played in turn by the piano, violin, and cello. She marks the third movement Lied: Allegretto, and the word Lied (song) is the perfect description of this music: a simple German folk song laid out by piano and strings and varied in several ways. The finale (Allegro moderato) begins with an introspective piano solo, which slyly works from earlier movements, before introducing a tragic main theme above piano flourishes. This is eventually joined by the strings, and violin introduces a second main idea. In place of a development section, there is an extended quotation of music from the first movement. The music closes with an energetic restatement of the opening themes.
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21
Howells composed this work in 1916. He later revised in in 1936. Duration 27:00.
Background
In 1904, the German critic Oskar Hermann Schmitz rather nastily characterized England as “Das Land ohne Musik” (“the land without music”) — hardly true, but “the land without a home-grown musical style” would probably be justified. Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, most English classical music was imported from the Continent, and the relatively few accomplished English-born composers were writing in Continental, primarily German style. Howells was one of the composers who led a “second English renaissance”—a revival of self-consciously “British” music in the early 20th century. Together with his teacher Charles Villiers Stanford, and a host of younger composers—Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Percy Grainger, and others—he created a distinctly English style that had roots in German and French music, but which was also based upon the rich heritage of English, Scottish, and Irish folk music. Though he is best known today as a composer of sacred music, Howells left an impressive body of orchestral and chamber works, including the early Piano Quartet heard here.
The Piano Quartet is dedicated to the “to the hill at Chosen and to Ivor Gurney who knows it.” The Chosen, or Church Down Hill is a landmark eminence, topped by a medieval church, a few miles from the city of Gloucester. Gurney, a poet and composer and his friend Howells had hiked on the hill before Gurney joined the British army in 1915. Gurney was wounded in 1917, but returned to service, only to be gassed. Gurney—almost certainly a victim of what would be diagnosed today as PTSD—never really recovered from this, and spent the last 15 years of his life in mental hospitals. Their mutual friend Marion Scott wrote a program for the work based upon her conversations with Howells. On the strength of a recommendation from the formidable Stanford, who referred to Howells as the “my son in music,” the Piano Trio was the first work to be published by the Carnegie Trust, in a series dedicated to music of the finest British composers.
What to Listen For
This work is scored for violin, viola, cello, and piano. In Scott’s program, the first movement (Allegro moderato, tranquillo) 8 works as follows:
“When the first movement opens it is dawn, and the hill wind, pure, eternally free, and uplifting, is blowing: gradually the greyness changes to crimson, the half-light to radiance, mystery to vision, Dawn to day.”
This is a fine description of what goes on musically in the movement, with a murmuring opening in the strings giving way to a folklike main theme in the piano. (Howells did not quote actual folk songs in this work, but wrote his themes with foursquare English folk style 9 in mind.) The texture clears and piano introduces a second folk-style idea. The strings step aside in the middle for an impassioned piano version of the main theme, and reworkings of this theme dominate the end. In describing the second movement (Lento, molto tranquillo) 10, Scott writes:
“The second movement is the hill upon a day in mid-summer, and the thoughts are those which come as a man lies on the grass on his back, gazing upward into the vast vault of the sky, seeing ‘the giant clouds go royally’, watching the blue depths of height untold flow outward to surrounding immensity until, floating on the flood of wonder, mind and soul almost loosed from the earthly anchorage.”
The music is appropriately dreamy: at first the piano and strings alternate in laying out a relaxed theme. Only once, near the end does the music rise to something approaching passion, but the ending is a hushed reprise of the opening mood. For the third movement (Allegro molto, energico) 11 Scott’s program is quite brief:
“The finale is the hill in the month of March, with splendid winds of spring rioting over it, and flashing in the exuberant rush, wild daffodils goldenly dancing. That is much of the basis of the quartet as Herbert Howells allows to be told.”
This is exuberant music, its main theme a lively English folk dance (or Howells’s imitation of one). The second idea starts almost ominously in the piano, it is worked into optimistic music by the strings. There is a brief melancholy reminiscence of the first moment, before the exuberant folk dance returns in full force, dominating the end of the movement. For his part, Ivor Gurney responded both to Howells’s dedication and Scott’s program with a poem:
“Beauty of song remembered, sunset glories,
Mix in the mind till I do not care nor know
Whether the stars do move me golden stories,
O ruddy Cotswold in the sunset glow.
I am unrapt, and not my own, immortal,
In winds of Beauty swinging to and fro.”
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Trio No.1 in B Major, Op.8 (1889 version)
Brahms completed this work in early 1854, and it was published in November 1854. The premiere was in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), on October 13, 1855. Brahms produced a dramatically revised version of the score for republication in 1889. This version, which was published in 1891, is heard here. Duration 37:00.
Background
This piano trio was among the works with which Brahms announced his presence on the German musical scene. In September 1853, he met Robert and Clara Schumann in Düsseldorf. Robert, who edited a prestigious music journal, wasted no time in publishing an essay on the “young eagle” and claiming him as the standard-bearer for a “new path” in German music: as an antidote to the more radical music of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Robert Schumann would be a champion for Brahms and his music until Robert’s hospitalization and death in 1856. For her part, Clara wrote in her diary in 1853 that:
“This month brought us a prodigious apparition, in the form of the twenty-year-old composer from Hamburg, Johannes Brahms. He came as it sent by God, and played us his own Sonatas and Scherzos… Every note overflowed with fantasy and inner feeling, and he displayed a total mastery of form. He surely has a great future ahead of him. Robert says he just hopes that God grants him health and long life.”
Their relationship, which mellowed into a warm friendship, would be lifelong, lasting until her death in 1896.
The Piano Trio No. 1 was the product of a month in Hanover, living with his friend Joseph Joachim. It was warmly applauded by the Schumanns and their circle, and quickly published. Some 35 years later years later, Brahms was at the peak of his career. In 1889, his friend and publisher Fritz Simrock, asked if there were any early compositions that Brahms would like to revise and republish. He had recently finished his second and third piano trios (in 1882 and 1886 respectively), and may have wished to bring his youthful piano trio more in line with those mature works. Whatever the reason, his revisions to Op. 8 were serious enough that he considered giving it an entirely separate opus number (Op. 108). Clara Schumann apparently preferred the 1854 version. In the end, the composer seems to have been perfectly happy with both the revised piano trio and the 1854 version remaining in circulation. The revised version is performed much more often today. [NOTE: Brahms was not the only person to mess with the 1854 version of the Piano Trio No. 1. In 2007, the Swedish conductor Joseph Swensen arranged the work for orchestra as the Sinfonia in B minor and recorded it, along with his orchestrations of chamber and piano works by Clara and Robert Schumann. – JMA]
What to Listen For
The opening movement (Allegro con brio) 12is in a broad sonata form. The warm opening theme is laid out by the cello, later joined by the violin. The more tragic second theme is largely carried by the piano, with lyrical comments by the strings. Both themes are worked out in along development section. The recapitulation of the main theme is by unison strings and has a strange minor-key inflection. Only at the end, in a coda marked tranquillo, does the main theme return to its former warmth and optimism. The second movement is a scherzo (Allegro molto), which opens with a spooky little theme introduced by cello and echoed by the piano. This is answered by a lush waltzlike trio before a return of the main scherzo theme, The Andante 13is pure unhurried beauty, opening with an alternation of rich piano chords alternate a string duos. A solemn contrasting song is introduced by the cello is developed in the middle. The serene opening texture returns, with the string duos now joined by a delicate piano filigree. The forceful main idea of the finale (Allegro) is presented by the cello and a second main idea, a variant of the first, is carried by the piano. This is an oddly structured movement: there is no real recapitulation, just a vast development section that extends until the stormy final bars.
The Performers
James D’León (JamesDLeon.com), born in South Korea into a musical family, began piano lessons at age 4 and gave his first recital at 5. Trained early by his mother, he earned a full scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a pre-college student. By age 12, he had won the San Francisco Symphony and Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra competitions, performing major concertos by Grieg and Mozart. At 14, he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. He later studied with George Sementovsky, graduating summa cum laude from Temple University, and completed his Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music.
D’León has been a finalist in major international competitions, including the Naumburg and the Van Cliburn. In 2009, he became a Steinway Artist on both the prestigious New York and Hamburg, Germany rosters. He has since performed in the U.S., Europe, and Canada. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with top groups like the Muir and Shanghai String Quartets. He has given master classes at over 75 universities and served as a judge in international competitions. A recording artist praised by the American Record Guide, D’León has also been a guest conductor and Associate Conductor of the Prescott Chamber Orchestra. He remains an active performer, known for his versatility in solo, concerto, and chamber music settings.
Luke Hill is a graduate with his Master’s degree in violin performance from Arizona State University having studied with Dr. Katherine McLin. Before ASU, Mr. Hill received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Colorado at Boulder, having studied with Charles Wetherbee. As Concertmaster of the West Valley Symphony since 2018, Mr. Hill has had the opportunity to perform as soloist on Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto and has enjoyed performing many of the great orchestral Concertmaster solos, such as those from Brahms’ First Symphony and Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye as well as many others. In addition, Mr. Hill was recently appointed Principal Second Violin for the Arizona Philharmonic.
Mr. Hill has performed all over the United States and Europe primarily while attending summer music festivals such as Brevard Music Festival, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and Saarburg Music Festival in Saarburg, Germany, as well as study abroad in Florence, Italy. Mr. Hill performs on a 1912 W.E. Hill & Sons violin.
Mason Haskett, a native of Arizona, begins his second season with the Arizona Philharmonic. A recipient of the Richard and Marilyn Wurzburger String Award, Haskett is completing his studies at Arizona State University. During the summer of 2024, he attended the Opera in the Ozarks festival in Arkansas, where he developed a deeper interest in opera music. As a chamber musician, Haskett values live performance and the connections it fosters between musicians and audiences.
Ruthie Wilde (RuthieWilde.com), an Arizona native, believes that music has the power to transform the world, and is amazed by its ability to heal people and reveal higher truths. A familiar face on Arizona Philharmonic’s stage, Ruthie is a founding member of the Evox Ensemble and serves on the board of the Arizona chapter of the American String Teachers Association. She also maintains a private teaching studio in the Phoenix valley.
Ruthie has served on faculty at both Glendale and Scottsdale Community Colleges, where she taught private cello lessons, directed a cello ensemble, and helped found the first GCC Community Orchestra. She is also an enthusiastic educator of children, having taught music to preschool through high school ages in classroom, church, and other community settings.
Ruthie is grateful for all her teachers who have helped guide her on her musical path; particularly Mrs. VanWee; Jamie Kellogg; and Tom Landschoot, the latter of whom she studied with while earning both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Cello Performance from Arizona State University.