Season 11 2023/24

Sunday March 10, 2024 3 p.m.

Schubert: String Quintet in C D.956
Webern: Langsamer Satz

Trio Arkel welcomes guest artists:

Eri Kosaka, Violin
Hezekiah Leung, Viola
Leana Rutt, Cello

Presenting one of the great chamber music works of all time, the Cello Quintet by Franz Schubert, so called because of the instrumentation which is a string quartet plus one extra wonderful cello.

This was the last chamber music piece Schubert wrote, composed in 1828 and completed just two months before his death. It is sublime and extraordinary, with unusual depth of emotion.

"The Bird" quartet of Joseph Haydn is part of his set of Op. 33 quartets, many of which have inspired various titles because of clever devices by Papa Haydn.

Webern's Langsamer Satz, composed in 1905, for string quartet was said to have been inspired by a hiking holiday in the mountains outside of Vienna, which he took with his future wife. He intended to compose a complete quartet but put it aside after this movement.

Sunday November 5, 2023 3 p.m.

Stravinsky: Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet
Cusson: The Cure of Madness
Gershwin/Vazquez: Three Preludes
Grieg: String Quartet No.1 in G minor Op.27
Weber: Clarinet Quintet Op.34

Guests:

Dominic Desautels, Clarinet
Luri Lee, Violin

Program Notes

  • Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet is a solo instrumental work by Igor Stravinsky. The work was composed in 1918. It was published in 1919, shortly after the completion of his Suite from L’Histoire du Soldat as a thank-you gift to the philanthropist and arts patron Werner Reinhart, who was also an amateur clarinetist. The Three Pieces is perhaps the most well-known work for unaccompanied clarinet in the repertoire. It is also notable for being one of the few solo pieces for clarinet that calls for clarinets in both B! and A.

    It is well known that Stravinsky was very specific about his musical notation. He believed that music "...should be transmitted and not interpreted, because interpretation reveals the personality of the interpreter rather than that of the author..." (Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1936) In this clarinet work, the following instructions adorned the very first 1920 edition: "The breath marks, accents and metronome marks indicated in the 3 pieces should be strictly adhered to."

  • The Cure of Madness is the third work in a series of pieces that are inspired by paintings of the late-Medieval painter, Hieronymus Bosch. (The first in the series is The Garden of Earthly Delights for piano and violin, which I wrote for Duo Concertante, and which they recorded on their Ecology of Being Album; the second is a Sonata for Oboe and Piano based on The Haywain painting, which I wrote for Charles Hamann and Frédéric Lacroix, and which they recorded for their upcoming album of Canadian Oboe works.) The Cure of Madness quotes both of those works at various points.

    The Cure of Madness is based on 4 separate Bosch paintings. Each movement is named for a particular painting. This work is irreverent, and very much 'tongue-incheek'. Here are some thoughts about each movement.

    I. Concert in the Egg A mixed group of people (nuns, officials, common folk) stand inside a giant egg trying to figure out how a piece of music should sound. The score in the painting is a love song by Thomas Crecquillon and I quote the opening measures throughout the movement (as the singers attempt to sing it). Of course this group of would-be musicians can't figure the piece out, and end up bickering (the counterpoint throughout the movement is their arguing.) In the end, it is the lone lute player who sticks his head out of the egg and manages to properly play the motif (the pizzicato section in the second last measure.)

    II. The Conjuror A magician (who is really a charlatan) transfixes the crowd with his illusions while his assistant picks their pockets.

    III. Ship of Fools This movement is a barcarolle for a boat filled with fools. My intention here is to create a slightly nauseating, sea-sick version of a boat song.

    IV. The Cure of Madness A doctor of questionable abilities drills a hole into a man's skull to cure him of this madness. We hear the constant tattooing of the doctor's instrument in this perpetual motion movement, and one wonders if the procedure itself with its relentlessness will cure the man, or make his madness worse.

  • Three Preludes is a collection of short piano pieces by George Gershwin, which were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in 1926. Each prelude is a well-known example of early-20th-century American classical music, as influenced by jazz.
    The first prelude, in B-flat major, begins with a five-note blues motif; virtually all the melodic material in the piece is based on this theme. Syncopated rhythms based on the Brazilian baião and chords containing flattened sevenths occur throughout; these give the piece a strong jazz feel. Although these sounds are far from adventurous by modern standards, to the audiences of the late 1920s they were almost unheard of. The second Prelude, in C-sharp minor, also has the distinct flavour of jazz. The piece begins with a subdued melody winding its way above a smooth, steady bassline. Gershwin himself referred to the piece as "a sort of blues lullaby." In the third prelude, after a brief and dramatic introduction, the main theme is revealed: two melodies that together form a question-and-answer pair. After a brief, highly syncopated middle section, the melodic pair returns assertively in octaves, causing a battle between major and minor. Major wins, and the piece concludes with a flourish.

  • Edvard Grieg's String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 27, is the second of three string quartets written by the composer. Grieg wrote the quartet in 1877–78, while living at a farm in Hardanger. He wrote to a friend "I have recently finished a string quartet which I still haven't heard. It is in G minor and is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written."


    The first performance of the quartet took place in Cologne in October 1878, by a quartet led by the work's dedicatee, violinist Robert Heckmann. Publication of the quartet was delayed when the composer's preferred publisher, C.F. Peters initially rejected the quartet because they believed the double stopping in some movements would require the work to be rewritten as a piano quartet or quintet. Grieg had to find another publisher, E.W. Fritzschand only after the success of that release did C.F. Peters publish their own edition.

  • The Clarinet Quintet in B-flat Major, Op. 34 was composed by Carl Maria von Weber from 1811 to 1815. As with most of Weber's other clarinet compositions, the quintet was written for the German clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Baermann. Weber began this quintet during a walking tour in Switzerland in September of 1811: the Adagio was completed in March 1812 and, having compose a Menuetto “capriccio”, he gave it to Baermann as a birthday present in April 1813, still lacking a Rondo, which was finished only shortly before the work’s first performance in August 1815. It is essentially a display piece, more like a concerto than a true chamber music work; only in the scherzo is there more than a hint of genuine chamber music textures.

Guest Performers

  • Principal clarinetist at the Canadian Opera Company orchestra, Dominic Desautels is one of the most sought-after wind instrumentalists in Canada as a soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue.

    Desautels began learning the clarinet at the age of 15, yet made his debut as a soloist at 21 with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; furthermore he was hired as a guest principal clarinetist during the same season.

    He studied at the Glenn Gould School and received a bachelor’s degree from the Université de Montréal, and was hired upon graduation by one of the top orchestras in Brazil, the Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais, as principal clarinetist. He later held the same position with Symphony Nova Scotia (2012-2017) and Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra (2018-2022). He was adjunct professor at the University of Toronto from 2018 to 2022.

    He was the first clarinetist to ever win a top prize at the Canadian Music Competition’s prestigious Stepping Stone, at its 33rd edition in 2010, garnering a 3rd prize and a tour of 40 recitals for Jeunesses Musicales of Canada.

    In October 2023, was an other milestone for Desautels as he became the first canadian to be invited as the featured international guest soloist at the German Clarinet Association’s convention, this year held in Munich.

    Dominic Desautels recently recorded Paul Frehner’s Cloak Clarinet Concerto with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Gemma New, available on all streaming platforms. He plays on Schwenk & Seggelke clarinets made of mopane wood, and is an endorsing Artist for companies Silverstein and Légère reeds.

  • Luri Lee has been deemed “the perfect chamber music partner” (Bachtrack) whose playing is “spotlessly clean and with never a routine phrase” (The Calgary Herald). Appearing as soloist with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Lee has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician.

    As a founding member of the Rolston String Quartet, she received Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, First Prize at the 12th Banff International String Quartet Competition, and Grand Prize at the 31st Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions.

    The quartet are associated artists at the Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel, and completed a two-year term as the Yale School of Music’s fellowship quartet-in-residence in spring 2019. Previously, they were the graduate quartet-in-residence at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Keeping in the teaching tradition, they have taught at the Yale School of Music, the University of Toronto, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival among others. Their début album, Souvenirs, an all-Tchaikovsky recording released in 2020, was named Recording of the Year by BBC Music Magazine. The quartet has performed at some of the most prestigious concert venues on the globe, including Carnegie Hall, the Louvre, the Kennedy Center, Koerner Hall, and Wigmore Hall.

    Her diverse chamber music career has led to collaborations with many world-renowned artists such as Paul Neubauer, Yura Lee, Gary Hoffman, Cho-Liang Lin, Miguel da Silva, and Jon Kimura Parker. Lee holds degrees from the University of Toronto, Glenn Gould School, Peabody Conservatory, and Rice University.

    She plays on a Carlo Tononi violin, generously on loan from Shauna Rolston Shaw.

    During her spare time, Lee loves to travel with her husband, violist Hezekiah Leung, exploring and finding hidden food gems.

  • Hailed by the press as “...a burning torch for the next century ..stunning ..superb” (The New Music Connoisseur, New York), the music of Octavio Vazquez has been performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia by leading orchestras and soloists. His works have been recorded for labels including Odradek, Naxos, and Delos and by national radio and TV networks in the U.S., Spain, Russia, and China. A winner of numerous national and international prizes, recent honors include MacDowell, VCCA, and I-Park fellowships. Dr. Vazquez is associate professor & composition program director at the Nazareth University School of Music in Rochester, NY.

    A little anecdote about the arrangement

    I was commissioned by cellist Julia MacLaine to arrange these preludes for the Ikarus Chamber Players. The Ikarus premiered them in New York City at the renowned Tarisio, the world's largest seller of fine stringed instruments and bows. At the time, Tarisio was handling the sale of the 1721 Stradivarius "Lady Blunt", one of the two best-preserved Stradivarius violins in existence. It was a charitable sale, with the proceeds going to the Nippon Foundation's relief fund, in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. They raised almost £10 million (US$15.9 million), more than four times the previous auction record for a Stradivarius. As luck would have it, I got to hold Lady Blunt in my arms after the concert, just for a little while. I am not a clumsy person, but the thought did cross my mind that I probably shouldn't hold it too long, just in case. I mean, I could hardly say "oops, so sorry, I'll make it up to you, perhaps I can send you a bottle of wine?"

Images for Ian Cusson's "The Cure of Madness"

Sunday May 19, 2024 3 p.m.

Brahms: Piano Quintet in G Minor
Beethoven: String Trio Op. 9 No. 3

Guest:

David Louie, piano