August 8 | August 10 | August 12 | August 14 | August 16

Variations on a Rococo Theme – Piotr Illych Tchaikovsky​

Tchaikovsky’s abiding love of Mozart and an idealized 18th century is one of the many conflicting facets of his complex personality. Passion and self-dramatization existed side by side with precision and elegance. His opera The Queen of Spades evokes a rococo world, and many of his shorter pieces (piano music and songs) suggest Haydn or Boccherini as a model. The Variations on a Rococo Theme was the first work to plunge unashamedly into this world, making a strong and striking contrast with the unrestrained passion of the symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini that preceded it. But by this time (the fall of 1876) Tchaikovsky’s inner tensions and the relentless self-realization that embittered his whole life were already evident. Perhaps these yawning differences between one work and the next reflect his distraughtly atomized state of mind in those years. Tchaikovsky always yearned to compose such a work, so long had his admiration for 18th-century rococo been implanted in him; this urge, combined with his observation, on hearing the great Russian cellist Karl Davidov in March 1875, that the cello was poorly served for solo repertoire, led him to write a concert piece that explicitly recalled Haydn’s form and Haydn’s orchestra. In December 1876 he simply told his brother that he was writing a piece for cello and orchestra without saying why or whom it was for. Davidov had just become director of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, so if Tchaikovsky wrote the Variations in the hope that he would perform it, it may have been the burden of his new duties that prevented him from taking it on. Possibly, too, Davidov might have been unwilling to be featured in a work that was so deliberately old-fashioned. The cellist who gave its first performance in Moscow in November 1877 was Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, the cello teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire and a member of the quartet that had played Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet in 1871. In Tchaikovsky’s manuscript full score the first five measures of the first variation and six measures of the fourth variation are in Fitzenhagen’s hand, so he was a collaborator in the composition as well as its first exponent. His revisions were quite extensive throughout, all of them accepted by Tchaikovsky when the work was published with a piano reduction of the orchestral part. A dozen years later the full score was published, still with Fitzenhagen’s alterations, which the composer permitted even though he was heard to say: “Look what that idiot Fitzenhagen did to my piece, he altered everything!” Evidently the notoriously volatile composer had earlier congratulated Fitzenhagen on his contributions and later scalded him with invective. In 1954 the work was re-edited in its original form by Soviet editors so that cellists now have the option of either version. Jian Wang will perform the standard version as prepared by Fitzenhagen and (at one time, at least) approved by the composer.A brief introduction prepares the presentation of the theme by the soloist, a tune of immaculate symmetry and grace, lightly accompanied, and having both its halves repeated. The orchestra appends a coda in a more personal, chromatic style that is to be a regular feature of each variation. Variation 1 preserves the tempo and key and allows the soloist some triplet decorations. Neither half is repeated, but the coda is there. Variation 2 introduces a faster motion and shorter phrases in dialogue. The coda is still there, extended to take the music into a new key for… Variation 3, an expressive slow waltz, longer than the previous variations. Variation 4 returns to the original key for a grazioso version of the theme that brings the coda in at the end of each phrase over low held notes on the cello. The flute introduces Variation 5, which gives the soloist a stream of trills and brilliant passages and eventually a cadenza. Variation 6 moves to the minor mode with an expressive melody with a more romantic flavor; the coda is especially plaintive in the minor, like something out of Eugene Onegin. The last variation restores the main key and sets a swift tempo for some brilliant exchanges between the soloist and the orchestra, particularly the winds. If Tchaikovsky’s purpose was to make a real contribution to the cello soloist’s repertoire, he succeeded superbly. Fitzenhagen proved to be a worthy ambassador for the work; when he performed it in Wiesbaden in 1879, it greatly impressed Liszt and von Bülow. In the age of high Romanticism, a neo-classic work of such fine craftsmanship was something to be treasured.

Tzigane – Maurice Ravel​

On one of his many performing tours to England, Ravel attended a private soiree in 1922 at which Hungarian violin virtuoso Jelly d’Arányi played the composer’s Duo with cellist Hans Kindler. As the evening progressed Ravel asked her to play a Gypsy melody, then another, until the party finally broke up at five o’clock in the morning. Though that occasion planted the seed for his Tzigane, rapsodie de concert (Gypsy, concert rhapsody), it took another two years for him to complete the piece because of numerous intervening projects such as his opera L’enfant et les sortilèges (The child and the sorceries).

As it turns out, Ravel completed the brilliant, challenging Tzigane just days before Arányi and pianist Henri Gil-Marchex were to premiere it on April 26, 1924, in London. Her sensational performance dazzled the audience and critics—all but one, who expressed confusion over whether the composer was parodying Hungarian Gypsy violin music or launching a new style with more warmth than his previous works had shown. On November 24 that year Arányi also premiered Ravel’s orchestrated version, this time in Paris with Gabriel Pierné conducting the Concerts Colonne orchestra.

While Ravel had been working on Tzigane he had sought technical advice from his violinist friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange. “Come quickly,” he telegrammed her, “and bring the Paganini Caprices with you.” This speaks volumes about the kinds of feats expected of the violinist in this one-movement piece. The colorful but spare orchestral accompaniment prominently features the harp ingeniously combined with the solo violin.

The opening “cadenza” for the unaccompanied violin sounds improvisatory and declamatory, beginning, in the instrument’s sultry lowest range and progressing through slides, trills, octave passages, and harmonics, all the while calling for the kinds of changes and bending of tempo so characteristic of Gypsy music. Toward the end of the cadenza the accompaniment sneaks in quietly but with an unexpected harmony. The violin and piano together launch the dancelike main section of the piece, which varies ideas from the cadenza and introduces two new themes—a sprightly patter first given to the piano and a swaggering theme marked “grandiose.” Ravel creates an effect of humorous suspense by slamming on the brakes several times during his brilliant drive to the close.

“Rondo” from Violin concerto – Ludwig van Beethoven

In 1794, Beethoven met a precocious violinist, Franz Clement, who was only thirteen at that time.  Shortly thereafter, he wrote to the teenager, “Continue along the road on which you have already made such a fine and magnificent journey. Nature and art have combined to make a great artist of you…”  Beethoven followed Clement’s career and trusted him with conducting the first performance of his Eroica.  Selecting him to premiere Opus 61 was not surprising.

On December 23, 1806, at Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Franz Clement, noted for “graceful playing, a relatively small but expressive style, and unfailing purity in high positions and exposed entrances.. indescribable delicacy, neatness and elegance” introduced Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, which he had requested from the composer. The frequent high positions, restraint, and lyricism in Opus 61 were tailor-made for his personal strengths, and the concerto was dedicated to him. However, the performance was deadly for several reasons. Clement had received the hand written score only two days before the musicians; the twenty-six year old was probably sight reading most of the time; a cadenza was missing and Clement most likely improvised a cadenza on the spot. Between the first and second movements, his youthful ego took over, and  he threw in a couple compositions of his own, played upside down  on one string  for a bit of saucy showmanship which regaled the audience. The concerto itself was marginalized at best. After the concert, Clement advised that the work be re-written for the piano, which Beethoven did in 1808. Eventually, this was put on the shelf. To audiences of that time, the Violin Concerto was perplexing at best because it just did not seem like a “real” knockout concerto. For example, the opening began with a long three minute wait for soloist entry; the five note  “knocking rhythm” from the timpani seemed strange; direct connectivity between second and third movements was unusual; a brusque ending was shocking; a comparative “lack” of traditional virtuosity was disappointing, and the length seemed excessive. Reviewer Johann Nepomuk Moser commented in the Theaterzeitung,“ The concerto’s many beauties must be conceded but…the endless repetitions of certain common place passages may easily become tedious…it is to be feared that if Beethoven continues upon this path he and the public will fare badly.”  In Harmonicon, William Ayrton wrote, “Beethoven has put forth no strength in his Violin Concerto. It is merely a fiddling affair and might have been written by any third or fourth rate composer.” After this inauspicious debut, the concerto was very slow to gain traction. It was not until the precocious Joseph Joachim at age thirteen played the concerto in London in 1844 with Mendelssohn conducting, that the concerto began to  thrive. Audience reception finally was positive, and Joachim continued to play the concerto many times to great acclaim. This support for Opus 61 was critical to its survival. OThe third movement, Rondo: Allegro, flows seamlessly with the soloist presenting a rocking theme on the low g string. This is repeated three times. The result is warm and folk-like, and the orchestra quickly joins in the informal merrymaking, as the rondo unfolds. Contrasting sections offer colorful changes of mood and key in securely crafted, bold writing. There is ample opportunity for virtuosic fun (including an inserted cadenza), and horns lend pastoral touches throughout. The concerto dwindles at the end but suddenly closes with a pair of hammered orchestral chords.

“Rondo” from Violin concerto – Ludwig van Beethoven

In 1794, Beethoven met a precocious violinist, Franz Clement, who was only thirteen at that time.  Shortly thereafter, he wrote to the teenager, “Continue along the road on which you have already made such a fine and magnificent journey. Nature and art have combined to make a great artist of you…”  Beethoven followed Clement’s career and trusted him with conducting the first performance of his Eroica.  Selecting him to premiere Opus 61 was not surprising.

On December 23, 1806, at Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Franz Clement, noted for “graceful playing, a relatively small but expressive style, and unfailing purity in high positions and exposed entrances.. indescribable delicacy, neatness and elegance” introduced Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, which he had requested from the composer. The frequent high positions, restraint, and lyricism in Opus 61 were tailor-made for his personal strengths, and the concerto was dedicated to him. However, the performance was deadly for several reasons. Clement had received the hand written score only two days before the musicians; the twenty-six year old was probably sight reading most of the time; a cadenza was missing and Clement most likely improvised a cadenza on the spot. Between the first and second movements, his youthful ego took over, and  he threw in a couple compositions of his own, played upside down  on one string  for a bit of saucy showmanship which regaled the audience. The concerto itself was marginalized at best. After the concert, Clement advised that the work be re-written for the piano, which Beethoven did in 1808. Eventually, this was put on the shelf. To audiences of that time, the Violin Concerto was perplexing at best because it just did not seem like a “real” knockout concerto. For example, the opening began with a long three minute wait for soloist entry; the five note  “knocking rhythm” from the timpani seemed strange; direct connectivity between second and third movements was unusual; a brusque ending was shocking; a comparative “lack” of traditional virtuosity was disappointing, and the length seemed excessive. Reviewer Johann Nepomuk Moser commented in the Theaterzeitung,“ The concerto’s many beauties must be conceded but…the endless repetitions of certain common place passages may easily become tedious…it is to be feared that if Beethoven continues upon this path he and the public will fare badly.”  In Harmonicon, William Ayrton wrote, “Beethoven has put forth no strength in his Violin Concerto. It is merely a fiddling affair and might have been written by any third or fourth rate composer.” After this inauspicious debut, the concerto was very slow to gain traction. It was not until the precocious Joseph Joachim at age thirteen played the concerto in London in 1844 with Mendelssohn conducting, that the concerto began to  thrive. Audience reception finally was positive, and Joachim continued to play the concerto many times to great acclaim. This support for Opus 61 was critical to its survival. OThe third movement, Rondo: Allegro, flows seamlessly with the soloist presenting a rocking theme on the low g string. This is repeated three times. The result is warm and folk-like, and the orchestra quickly joins in the informal merrymaking, as the rondo unfolds. Contrasting sections offer colorful changes of mood and key in securely crafted, bold writing. There is ample opportunity for virtuosic fun (including an inserted cadenza), and horns lend pastoral touches throughout. The concerto dwindles at the end but suddenly closes with a pair of hammered orchestral chords.

“Es ist Ein traum” from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss

The famous “Ist ein Traum” (“It is a dream”) duet from the final scene of Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier expresses the sheer disbelief and joy of the young lovers, Octavian and Sophie, as they finally hold each other.

German Lyrics and English Translation

• German:
  Ist ein Traum, kann nicht wirklich sein,
  dass wir zwei beieinander sein,
  beieinand’ für alle Zeit und Ewigkeit!
• English:
  It is a dream, it cannot really be,
  that the two of us are together,
  together for all time and eternity!
• German:
  Spür’ nur dich, hab’ nur dich allein
  vor meinem Sinn!
• English:
  Sense only you, have only you alone
  within my mind!
• German:
  Halt’ mich, ein schwach Ding, wie ich bin,
  sink’ dir dahin!
• English:
  Hold me, a weak thing, as I am,
  I sink toward you!

Piano Concerto, 1st movement by Edvard Grieg

Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg embarked on his first and only piano concerto at a truly happy period in his life. He’d married the love of his life in 1867, and the couple’s daughter was born in 1868. That same year, while taking a holiday in Denmark to enjoy the warmer climate — compared to Norway, remember — the 25-year-old Grieg penned the first draft of his famous concerto. Despite his sunny personal outlook, the piece opens with a thunderous timpani roll and explosive piano chords, portentous and tempestuous. The woodwinds introduce the melody of the first theme, a march-like tune set against syncopated strings. This piano repeats this first theme and decorates it with flowing arpeggios. A brief transition accelerates the music, and then the cellos introduce the movement’s more lyrical second theme, romantic and sighing. These two themes alternate and combine and modulate throughout the movement. 

Finale to 2nd Piano Concerto by Sergei Rachmaninov

Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra was a personal as well as a musical triumph for the composer. During his lifetime Rachmaninoff was prone to depression, and Stravinsky used to speak of his “everlasting six and a half foot scowl.” Once again, for three years, between 1897 and 1900, Rachmaninoff had been in one of his deep depressions, unstable and unable to compose. It was said that Rachmaninoff could not even look at a blank piece of manuscript paper for two years. The trigger for all of this was he combined failure of a love affair and the critical disaster of his First Symphony, which had stopped him in his tracks. In his Memoirs, the composer explained, “A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch. I had given up in great despair.” Even the consoling words from the great novelist Tolstoy failed to help him. Finally, under the hypnosis treatment of Dr. Nikolai Dahl (who had recently treated his aunt, Varvara Arkadyevna Satina) he recovered sufficiently to quit excessive drinking, to regain his will and ability to write.  After the treatment, Rachmaninoff recorded; “I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl’s study. ‘You will begin to write your concerto… You will work with great facility… The concerto will be of an excellent quality.’ It was always the same without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me.”  Appropriately, Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to his physician. On October 14, 1901, he premiered his complete Second Piano Concerto in C minor with the Moscow Philharmonic conducted by Alexander Siloti. The outcome was wild, unfettered acclaim. (A partial Moscow premiere had taken place in December of 1900, with the second and third movements.). His third movement, Allegro scherzando, offers a brilliant finale, opening with crisp, martial style writing for the piano providing a peppy refrain. This dashing mood yields to one of the most famous melodies of the entire concerto, first sung by violas and solo oboe. The melody grows to gigantic proportions; the pianist leads into a passionate development, sweeping the listener into a sensual embrace.  Asafiev’s biography summarizes “[Rachmaninoff’s] music tenderly glorifies the beauty in life…the listener experiences the presence of human breathing, a vital flow of living speech, which goes from heart to heart.”  And, one might add, from age to age. A calming interlude cools the development before the exciting presto.  The lush viola tune re-appears, now cast in the brilliance of violins.  A brief cadenza for piano moves the tonality to C major.  Then, the orchestra joins in a re-affirmation of the melody in the highest instruments of the ensemble; and the concerto roars into a dazzling finish.

August 8 | August 10 | August 12 | August 14 | August 16

“Kreutzer Sonata”

In some ways, Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata is the violin sonata, the great hit of the genre. Which only makes attempts to define the genre all the harder, since it is a fiercely original work that remade not only the violin sonata but duo sonatas generally.  Composed in 1803, it is one of the works marking the beginning of Beethoven’s middle period of boldly heroic work. There was a new violinist in Vienna that spring, and Beethoven’s patron Count Lichnowsky put the two musicians together. Born in Poland as the son of a West Indian father and a European mother, Bridgetower made his debut in Paris at the age of ten. He and his father then moved to England, where he became a celebrity prodigy, promoted as the “son of the African Prince.”  In 1802 Bridgetower had gone to visit his mother in Dresden and his success there produced letters of introduction to Lichnowsky and others in Vienna. He and Beethoven quickly became friends, and planned a concert together in May 1803. Beethoven already had the finale for a violin sonata in hand, one he had composed for his Op. 30, No. 1 Sonata but replaced. He had been sketching two other movements, which he proceeded to finish in great haste – Bridgetower ended up reading the second movement from the composer’s manuscript during the performance, there having been no time to copy out the violin part.  Beethoven well understood how different this new sonata was from any that had come before, including his own eight. His title page describes it as a “Sonata for the pianoforte and violin obbligato, written in a very concertato style, almost like a concerto” – in other words, nothing like the modest sonatas for keyboard with optional violin accompaniment of Mozart’s youth. The Sonata begins with a slow introduction, something expected more in a symphony than a violin sonata, and the violin has the first notes, echoed by the piano. This chromatic introduction emphasizes the key of D minor, making it harmonically a bookend matching the coda of the finale. The main Presto is a vigorously driven – although also often interrupted – dialog in A minor, whose passionate intensity later inspired Leo Tolstoy’s short story, “The Kreutzer Sonata,” which in turn was the impetus for Janácek’s String Quartet No. 1. The second movement is an expansive theme with four variations and a coda, rhythmically and harmonically off-kilter. It is in F major, an odd key for a piece in A major but one related to the prominent D-minor digressions in the framing movements. Not only that, the theme begins not in F, but with four bars on the dominant. With the variations, Beethoven follows a pattern much like Mozart’s letting the piano dominate the first variation and the violin the second, and putting his next-to-last variation in minor mode. The spryly sprung finale, the only movement actually in A major, is in sonata form, though with its own odd metrical deviation near the end of the exposition, mirrored, of course, in the recapitulation. Shortly after the concert, Beethoven and Bridgetower quarreled over a woman (according to Bridgetower’s recollection years after Beethoven had died). Bridgetower returned to England (eventually taking a music degree from Cambridge) and Beethoven dedicated this startling new work to the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, who found it completely baffling and never performed it.

Sextet for horns & strings Beethoven’s ‘Sextet for two horns and string quartet in E flat, Op 81b’ was composed in 1795. There was a long delay between composition and publication of his two sextets, and it’s thought that perhaps it was only in 1810, after having ‘proven himself’ as a composer of sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies that Beethoven considered that the publication of his sextets would not harm his reputation. There are three movements and in the final rondo Beethoven seems to unite town and country worlds – the aristocratic intimacy of the string quartet contrasts with the horns’ hunting call, evoking the mountains and forests so characteristic of German Romanticism.

Archduke trio

The “Archduke” Trio’s moniker comes from Archduke Rudolf, the work’s dedicatee. The Archduke was a music lover and practitioner who became Beethoven’s piano student in 1803. He later studied composition with Beethoven, one of the few such students Beethoven took on. Their relationship remained warm for the duration of Beethoven’s life. When Beethoven nearly left Vienna in 1809 for a lucrative appointment in Kassel, the Archduke was among the three patrons who teamed up to provide Beethoven with a generous lifetime annuity to keep him in the city. Beethoven was overjoyed with the arrangement, though his hope for the title of Imperial Kapellmeister was never fulfilled.

The genial nature of the first movement of the trio defies some of the traditional associations with Beethoven’s music. We default to thinking of the fiery Fifth Symphony or the angsty finale of the “Appassionata” Sonata (both of which are on the program this summer). But Beethoven also wrote music that keeps its emotions at a more even keel: consider the opening movement of the Sixth Symphony, or the delightfully sunny “Spring” Sonata (also on this summer’s lineup), or even the calmly reverent “Kyrie” movement of his Mass in C. There is a strong sense of confidence in this opening movement of the “Archduke,” a feeling that Beethoven no longer needs to prove himself with dramatic shifts and gestures at every corner. Instead, he allows the music to unfold organically, its creative twists emerging without special attention drawn to them.

Built in a sturdy sonata form, the first movement sets the tone immediately with its lyrical and flowing first theme, marked dolce (sweet) and then cantabile (singing). The second theme contrasts in articulation and contour—now a detached cascade of notes through a descending scale—but its character is similarly inviting and cheerful. However, its key is entirely unexpected: G major, a key that shifts the home tonic note, B-flat, to B natural. Quiet innovations like this abound here, from the thematic use of piano trills and extended string pizzicato in the development section to the startling way that the music settles back into the home key during the retransition.

Don’t let its seemingly innocuous opening fool you: the second movement Scherzo is deeply strange. After an initial period of almost childlike simplicity and predictable repetition and phrase structure, Beethoven disrupts the proceedings with a sudden crescendo, an unexpected key change, and off-kilter note and measure groupings—all at once. Although order is quickly restored, Beethoven has tipped his hand. It is in the middle section (what would traditionally be called the “Trio”) that the oddness truly takes hold. The section begins with a creepy-crawly chromatic fugue, a precursor to the complexities that would emerge in his late chamber works. But just as the fugal exposition is completed, the contrapuntal texture is summarily abandoned in favor of a raucous dance fragment, led by the piano. A fragment of the chromatic fugue is looped in the brief coda, creating an effect that would not be out of place in a Ligeti score.

The theme and variations third movement is expansive and graceful. Indeed, it is a model of Classical balance. The 28-bar structure of the symmetrical theme is strictly adhered to through the first four variations, each progressively introducing more flowing accompaniment figures. In the fifth and final variation, however, Beethoven returns to the sparse texture of the theme but introduces subtle harmonic and formal shifts that end up leading the music to E major instead of the expected D major. This allows him to add a much freer coda, which brings the movement to a quiet close.

A single chord connects the third movement to the finale, delivering the surprising but necessary tonal shift (D major to B-flat major). Beethoven organizes the last movement as a 7-part rondo (ABACAB’A), maintaining the friendly Schubertian dialogue between the instruments that characterized the previous movements, as well. He does have one last trick up his sleeve, though. The final appearance of the rondo theme (A) comes in the wrong key: A major instead of B-flat. As in the third movement, this opens up the space for a coda, here a whimsical flight of fancy, that strikes this listener as a musical representation of our three players engaged in a spirited game of tag.

August 8 | August 10 | August 12 | August 14 | August 16

Tanner Porter is a composer-performer and songwriter. In her “original art songs that are by turns seductive and confessional” (Steve Smith, The New Yorker), Tanner explores her passion for storytelling, often framing her work within the imagery of the California coast she grew up on. Tanner’s orchestral music, described as “drop-dead gorgeous” (Jim Munson, Broadway World), has been commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Nu Deco Ensemble, and the New York Youth Symphony, among others.  Music as a vehicle for the mingling of artistic mediums is at the heart of Tanner’s work, stemming from a reverence for theatrical productions, and a deep love of song arrangement. She is thrilled to have collaborated with choreographer Claudia Schreier on two new ballets: Slipstream, for the Boston Ballet, and Kin, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet and hailed as “a total-stage spectacle” (Rachel Howard, SF Chronicle). As a songwriter, Tanner has been commissioned to write and perform song-cycles by institutions such as Dumbarton Oaks (A Sky To Love More,premiered by Eric Jacobsen and Friends) and the Louisville Orchestra (True Lover’s Knot, premiered by the LO under the baton of Teddy Abrams). Her short opera Boughs was commissioned and premiered by Barnard College and Columbia University’s New Opera Workshop. Her most recent record, One Was Gleaming, was released in 2024 with mixing by Christopher Botta and mastering by David Peters of Oak House Recording. Called “an outstanding, genre-defying album from a uniquely talented composer-songwriter…a rare, must-listen recording from an important artist with much to say” (Lauren Ishida, I Care if You Listen), One Was Gleaming features colorful arrangements and “songs imbued with nothing less than life itself” (Adobe and Teardrops). Her previous record, The Summer Sinks, was recorded with LA-based studio Oak House Recording and can be heard on all streaming platforms. As a performer, Tanner had the privilege of being in the original Broadway cast of ILLINOISE, with music by Sufjan Stevens, direction and choreography by Justin Peck, a book by Jackie Sibblies Drury and Justin Peck, music direction by Nathan Koci, and new orchestrations by Timo Andres. She was the vocal/guitar understudy for two roles played by Tasha Viets-Vanlear and Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond)/Becca Stevens.  As an arranger, Tanner orchestrated Grammy award-winning songwriter Aoife O’Donovan’s All My Friends for premiere with the Orlando Philharmonic, with a 2024 record featuring orchestrations for The Knights of New York, the Westerlies, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.  Tanner was a composer-in-residence with the Louisville Orchestra’s 2023-2024 Creators Corps, a 2022 Early Career Musician in Residence at Dumbarton Oaks, and has been a fellow of the Aspen Music Festival, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Next Festival of Emerging Artists. Her works have been presented at Carnegie Hall, the New World Symphony’s New World Center, the Prototype Festival, the Miami Light Box, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music, New Music Gathering, and the American Composers Orchestra’s Connecting ACO Community virtual series. She was a 2019 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship. Tanner holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan’s SMTD (BM) and the Yale School of Music (MM).

Piano quintet by Johannes Brahms

Brahms’s only piano quintet had a particularly unusual gestation. In 1862, Brahms began by scoring his Op. 34 for string quintet with two cellos, perhaps influenced by the success of Schubert’s work of that form. Although Clara Schumann had only good things to say about the piece, Joseph Joachim, the great violinist and friend of Brahms, claimed that the string parts were simply too difficult. Taking his friend’s advice, Brahms rescored the piece as a sonata for two pianos. Now Clara Schumann objected, finding that the piece sounded too much like the arrangement that it was and suggesting that Brahms could solve this problem by rewriting it again, now as a piano quintet. While not completely dissatisfied with his piano duo (which he eventually published as Op. 34b), Brahms wisely followed Clara’s counsel to produce one of the three or four best-known and best-loved piano quintets today. In an 1865 letter to Brahms, Joachim writes that the F minor quintet is a “masterpiece of chamber music, the likes of which we have not seen since the year 1828.” That was the year of Schubert’s death, and indeed Brahms may have been drawing on the inspiration of his Viennese predecessor while composing his quintet.
The original string quintet scoring reveals a debt to Schubert’s magnificent C major string quintet. However, the respected American pianist Charles Rosen suggests an even greater influence may have been Schubert’s Grand Duo for two pianos, which Brahms had been studying around the time of composing his piano quintet. The last movements of these two works in particular seem closely aligned: they employ similar melodies and use comparable meter, phrase structure, accompaniment figures, and syncopations. As a great admirer of Schubert, Brahms could only have been flattered by any such comparisons, but in the end, the piano quintet is uniquely Brahmsian in its broad conception of melody, rhythmic vitality, and innovative use of form. The opening measures are unique: the piano plays an arpeggiating theme in octaves with the cello and first violin, marked mf, coming quickly to a ritard (slowing down) and fermata (pause). The mood is peculiarly ambiguous: bold and hesitant, secure and searching. It is an introduction that sets up the first movement, a melodically rich offering that is indeed built from a series of distinctive, expressively contrasting themes. The genius of Brahms is that the music never feels like a patchwork; the themes emerge naturally one from the next—from mysterious to stormy to heartbreakingly expressive—despite the economical use of transition material. The melodies are revisited and rearranged in the surprisingly low-key development section, and the innovative coda is a masterful expansion of the first eight measures of the piece. In recasting his two-piano version of the piece as a piano quintet, Brahms frequently chose to retain one of the two piano parts or even to combine the right hand of one piano with the left of the other to form the piano part of the quintet. He distributed the remainder of the music to the four string parts, setting up a dichotomy between the piano and the string quartet in his quintet. This is especially evident in the exquisite second movement, where the piano has the main calm, lyrical theme extending through the first 34 measures of the movement. At this point, a shift to triplets ushers in the second theme in an unusual unison between the second violin and viola. When the first theme returns, it shifts from the piano to the strings. The somewhat confusing tempo marking here (indicating something between andante and adagio) has led to widely varying interpretations, with performances clocking in between just over 6 minutes (the Montreal String Quartet with Gould) to just under 10 minutes (the Borodin Quartet with Richter). With its eerie syncopations and double bass-like pizzicatos in the cello, the opening of the Scherzo almost sounds like it emerged from the jazz era. The following dotted-rhythm theme contrasts nicely without losing rhythmic vitality and is dramatically transformed into a triumphant march. The more lyrical trio material is ingeniously derived from this third theme. The slow, highly chromatic introduction to the Finale builds on fugal entrances that poignantly outline a minor 9th. (The striking tonal clashes here are reminiscent of the unusual opening of the Mozart “Dissonance” Quartet, which the Edgar M. Bronfman String Quartet performed one week ago.) The main part of the movement is formally free, establishing two contrasting themes—a folk-like dance that first appears in the cello (perhaps derived from the same folk theme that inspired Smetana’s The Moldau from two nights ago) and a more sustained, chromatic theme. These two alternate and eventually are united at the fiery close of this impressive quintet.Rudolf Haken is internationally renowned for his creative melding of disparate musical styles and genres. He concertizes and teaches regularly on four continents, frequently performing his own concertos on his eight-string Jordan electric, six-string Wood Viper electric and five-string Rivinus Pellegrina acoustic violas. Haken is an Ambassador for Prim Strings.

Haken was invited as a featured artist at the June 2026 American Viola Society Festival at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He performed his two electric viola concertos with the festival orchestra under the direction of Kira Omelchenko, as well as showcasing his virtuosity with the looper, talkbox and EVL eight-string electric viola.

During his thirty years on the music faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Haken led the world’s only degree program in Electric Strings, offering Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees, as well as the Artist Diploma. In 2025 Haken produced a 12-part video series for the Electric Violin Shop YouTube channel, performing the complete Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas and Cello Suites, each on a different electric viola, ranging from five to eight strings.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl1EomZB2NA-lo5R34pzWi9DCpwalv8kb

Performances of his compositions, including numerous commissioned works, have met with great success both in live performance and recordings. In September 2012, violinist Rachel Barton Pine premiered Rudolf Haken’s solo violin work Faust at Chicago’s Beethoven Festival. Pine had commissioned this work from Haken as part of an effort to bring heavy metal influence into solo acoustic violin music. In April 2011, Haken’s Violin Concerto for Stefan Milenkovich was premiered at the NOMUS Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and at Kolarac Hall in Belgrade. A Centaur CD of concertos composed by Rudolf Haken was chosen as a 2007 “Critics’ Choice” by American Record Guide. In 2004, WTTW-Chicago produced a video featuring Haken performing his transcriptions of Van Halen and Metallica on a Jensen five-string electric viola. This video was shown frequently in passenger areas at O’Hare and Midway airports in Chicago. Haken’s compositions have been featured at conventions of the International Double Reed Society, North American Saxophone Alliance, and International Trumpet Guild.

Professor Haken has composed commissioned works for Paul Merkelo (principal trumpet of the Montreal Symphony), oboist Nancy Ambrose King, flutist Jean Ferrandis, clarinetist William King, Nobel Prize laureate Paul Lauterbur, pianist Robert Auler, patrons George Brock and Harry Triandis, and numerous others.

Haken has been a featured performer of contemporary music at conventions of the Society of Composers, Inc., Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and American Composer’s Alliance in New York City. Among Haken’s recordings of contemporary music is a Capstone Records release of viola works of Matthew Davidson.

As a sought-after educator and adjudicator, Professor Haken was invited to Seoul in October 2012 to serve on the international jury for string auditions of the Korean Broadcasting Service Symphony Orchestra. Haken also has served on the faculty of the Bayreuth Young Artists Festival (Germany), Mark Wood Rock Orchestra Camp, Festival Internacional de Musica Erudita de Piracicaba (Brazil), Tbilisi National Conservatoire (Republic of Georgia), Schlern International Chamber Music Festival (Italian Alps), Michigan City Chamber Music Festival (Indiana), Musikalischer Sommer in Ostfriesland (Germany), Hot Springs Music Festival (Arkansas), Interlochen Music Camp (Michigan All-State), Zomeravond Concerten (the Netherlands), Mammoth Lakes Festival (California), Montecito International Music Festival (California), and Quartz Mountain Festival (Oklahoma). He has given master classes internationally, with venues including the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, Kookmin, Jungang and Konkuk Universities (South Korea), British Education Korea (Gangnam, Seoul), Shakujii International Orchestra and HEIMES (Japan), Welsh National Academy of Music and Drama, Universidade de Caxias do Sul and Universidade Estadual de Maringá (Brazil), Studio für neue Musik at Universität Siegen (Germany), Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna), Salle Jacques Brel in Montigny-le-Bretonneux (France), Conservatorio Oficial de Música in Cáceres (Spain), Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi in Istanbul, University of York (UK), University of Toronto, and Queens University (Canada). Haken’s recitals and master classes in the United States have included appearances at the Eastman School of Music, Rice University, and the Kaufman Center in New York City. Haken has served as viola professor at West Virginia University, as well as guest violist for the Houston Symphony and Houston Grand Opera, performing under such renowned conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Sir Neville Marriner. He has performed in London, Beijing, and Shanghai as principal violist of the Sinfonia da Camera, and has toured South Korea with the World Symphony Orchestra. Professor Haken has acted as adjudicator for the Houston Symphony Young Artists, Midwest Young Artists, Missouri-American String Teachers Association, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. and Chicago Viola Society competitions.

At the age of ten, Haken conducted his first orchestral works at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (University of Illinois) with the encouragement of Professor Charles DeLaney. As a child, Haken appeared frequently in the US and Europe as composer, conductor, soloist, and chamber musician. In his teenage years, Haken studied composition and piano with Hubert Kessler and viola with Guillermo Perich.

Rudolf Haken currently lives in Charleston, West Virginia with his wife Sara Beal.

Rudolf Haken is internationally renowned for his creative melding of disparate musical styles and genres. He concertizes and teaches regularly on four continents, frequently performing his own concertos on his eight-string Jordan electric, six-string Wood Viper electric and five-string Rivinus Pellegrina acoustic violas. Haken is an Ambassador for Prim Strings.

Haken was invited as a featured artist at the June 2026 American Viola Society Festival at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He performed his two electric viola concertos with the festival orchestra under the direction of Kira Omelchenko, as well as showcasing his virtuosity with the looper, talkbox and EVL eight-string electric viola.

During his thirty years on the music faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Haken led the world’s only degree program in Electric Strings, offering Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees, as well as the Artist Diploma. In 2025 Haken produced a 12-part video series for the Electric Violin Shop YouTube channel, performing the complete Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas and Cello Suites, each on a different electric viola, ranging from five to eight strings

Performances of his compositions, including numerous commissioned works, have met with great success both in live performance and recordings. In September 2012, violinist Rachel Barton Pine premiered Rudolf Haken’s solo violin work Faust at Chicago’s Beethoven Festival. Pine had commissioned this work from Haken as part of an effort to bring heavy metal influence into solo acoustic violin music. In April 2011, Haken’s Violin Concerto for Stefan Milenkovich was premiered at the NOMUS Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and at Kolarac Hall in Belgrade. A Centaur CD of concertos composed by Rudolf Haken was chosen as a 2007 “Critics’ Choice” by American Record Guide. In 2004, WTTW-Chicago produced a video featuring Haken performing his transcriptions of Van Halen and Metallica on a Jensen five-string electric viola. This video was shown frequently in passenger areas at O’Hare and Midway airports in Chicago. Haken’s compositions have been featured at conventions of the International Double Reed Society, North American Saxophone Alliance, and International Trumpet Guild.

Professor Haken has composed commissioned works for Paul Merkelo (principal trumpet of the Montreal Symphony), oboist Nancy Ambrose King, flutist Jean Ferrandis, clarinetist William King, Nobel Prize laureate Paul Lauterbur, pianist Robert Auler, patrons George Brock and Harry Triandis, and numerous others.

Haken has been a featured performer of contemporary music at conventions of the Society of Composers, Inc., Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and American Composer’s Alliance in New York City. Among Haken’s recordings of contemporary music is a Capstone Records release of viola works of Matthew Davidson.

As a sought-after educator and adjudicator, Professor Haken was invited to Seoul in October 2012 to serve on the international jury for string auditions of the Korean Broadcasting Service Symphony Orchestra. Haken also has served on the faculty of the Bayreuth Young Artists Festival (Germany), Mark Wood Rock Orchestra Camp, Festival Internacional de Musica Erudita de Piracicaba (Brazil), Tbilisi National Conservatoire (Republic of Georgia), Schlern International Chamber Music Festival (Italian Alps), Michigan City Chamber Music Festival (Indiana), Musikalischer Sommer in Ostfriesland (Germany), Hot Springs Music Festival (Arkansas), Interlochen Music Camp (Michigan All-State), Zomeravond Concerten (the Netherlands), Mammoth Lakes Festival (California), Montecito International Music Festival (California), and Quartz Mountain Festival (Oklahoma). He has given master classes internationally, with venues including the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, Kookmin, Jungang and Konkuk Universities (South Korea), British Education Korea (Gangnam, Seoul), Shakujii International Orchestra and HEIMES (Japan), Welsh National Academy of Music and Drama, Universidade de Caxias do Sul and Universidade Estadual de Maringá (Brazil), Studio für neue Musik at Universität Siegen (Germany), Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna), Salle Jacques Brel in Montigny-le-Bretonneux (France), Conservatorio Oficial de Música in Cáceres (Spain), Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi in Istanbul, University of York (UK), University of Toronto, and Queens University (Canada). Haken’s recitals and master classes in the United States have included appearances at the Eastman School of Music, Rice University, and the Kaufman Center in New York City. Haken has served as viola professor at West Virginia University, as well as guest violist for the Houston Symphony and Houston Grand Opera, performing under such renowned conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Sir Neville Marriner. He has performed in London, Beijing, and Shanghai as principal violist of the Sinfonia da Camera, and has toured South Korea with the World Symphony Orchestra. Professor Haken has acted as adjudicator for the Houston Symphony Young Artists, Midwest Young Artists, Missouri-American String Teachers Association, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. and Chicago Viola Society competitions.

At the age of ten, Haken conducted his first orchestral works at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (University of Illinois) with the encouragement of Professor Charles DeLaney. As a child, Haken appeared frequently in the US and Europe as composer, conductor, soloist, and chamber musician. In his teenage years, Haken studied composition and piano with Hubert Kessler and viola with Guillermo Perich.

Rudolf Haken currently lives in Charleston, West Virginia with his wife Sara Beal.

Piano quintet by Johannes Brahms

Il Re Pastore (The Shepherd King) is usually classified with Mozart’s operas, but contemporary documents refer to it as a serenata – an 18th century term for an unstaged or semi-staged cantata composed in honor of a patron or royal personage. In this case, the work was commissioned by the Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymous Colloredo, for a visit to Salzburg by the Archduke Maximilian Franz, youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa. The libretto, by the Italian dramatist Pietro Metastasio, was selected and edited by the court chaplain. Mozart, 19 at the time, spent six weeks working on the opera, and the performance was given in the Archbishop’s palace on April 23, 1775. Nothing more is known about that original performance, but serenatas, in general, were highly stylized works, consisting of a sequence of arias focusing on messages of love and duty. They included no ensemble pieces and little dramatic conflict. In his recent book Mozart and his Operas, David Cairns dismisses Il Re Pastore as “melodious music of great assurance and fluency, elegantly scored, but not what Mozart would have regarded as real opera.” The libretto deals with the frustrated love of Aminta, the rightful heir to Sidon but now living as a shepherd following the usurpation of the throne by the tyrant Stratone.

Before the opera begins, Alexander the Great has overthrown Stratone, and he now wants to restore Aminta, resolving any conflict by marrying him to Tamiri, Stratone’s daughter. The problem is that Aminta loves Elisa, a shepherdess, and Tamiri loves Agenore, a Sidonian aristocrat. Alexander reminds Aminta that royal duties take precedence over love. However, in the opera’s greatest aria, “L’amerò, sarò costante (I will love her and be faithful)”, Aminta declares his undying feelings for Elisa. A violin obligato adds elegance and eloquence to his song. At the time, Mozart was composing his five early violin concertos for his own performance, and it is likely that he played the violin part in Aminta’s aria as well. Aminta and Elisa plead their case with Alexander, and Alexander relents, approving their marriage. Aminta is crowned king of Sidon with Elisa as queen. Everyone praises Alexander for his wisdom, and Alexander decides that Agenore and Tamiri will rule over the next kingdom that he conquers.