NOVA Chamber Music Series

Fry Street Quartet, music directors

Frank Weinstock Plays Schubert

music by Britten • Schubert

Utah Museum of Fine Arts
03.24.2024 | 3pm

concert program
with notes by Chris Myers

*Phantasy Quartet*

Benjamin Britten
(1913-1976)

Zachary Hammond oboe | Evgenia Zharzhavskaya violin
Joel Gibbs viola | Anne Lee cello

Benjamin Britten composed the Phantasy Quartet when he was an 18-year-old student at the Royal College of Music. The premiere was given on a BBC broadcast the following year by legendary oboist Léon Goossens, and it became the first piece to win international attention for the young Britten. Though it shows the influence of the pastoral music then in vogue among English composers, Britten’s characteristic formal and motivic rigor are already in evidence in this early work.

The Phantasy Quartet is composed in an arch form which elegantly blends the English Renaissance fantasy with Classical sonata form. An opening march theme rises from silence (quite literally; the first six beats are rests) and frames a strict two-theme sonata-form movement, with a slow movement inserted between the development and recapitulation. After the recapitulation, the opening theme returns and, in a fine bit of symmetrical construction, marches back into silence. Quite an ambitious structural fusion for a teenaged composer!

“Die junge Nonne”
”An den Mond”
”Frühlingsglaube”

Franz Schubert
(1797-1828)

Melissa Heath soprano | Frank Weinstock piano

What Haydn did for the string quartet and Beethoven did for the symphony, Schubert did for art song. Though he didn’t invent the genre, he was certainly the reason for its enduring popularity... to the point that in the 19th century, an informal gathering at someone’s home to sing songs, read poetry, and play chamber music became known as a “Schubertiade”.

Today, we get to hear songs from three periods in Schubert’s life. “An den Mond” was composed when Schubert was 18 and absurdly productive, even by his standards. We know of four piano sonatas, a string quartet, two symphonies, and 150 (!) other songs from this same year! “Frühlingsglaube” was written five years later, by which point Schubert had established a name for himself in Vienna. In 1825, when he composed “Die junge Nonne”, Schubert was at the height of his fame and living comfortably as a successful composer of international repute.

Canticle III:
*Still falls the Rain*

Benjamin Britten

Thomas Glenn tenor | Edmund Rollett horn | Frank Weinstock piano

In the late 1940s, Britten shifted from composing tightly-unified song cycles to longer poems which lent themselves to independent settings. He called these “canticles” because of their use of religiously-infused texts to comment on contemporary issues. In the third canticle (composed in 1954 after the death of a pianist friend), Britten uncharacteristically chose a poem by a living poet, Edith Sitwell. He wrote to Sitwell that in the poem’s “courage & light seen through horror & darkness,” he found “something very right for the poor boy.”

Reusing the form he invented months earlier for The Turn of the Screw, Britten composed Still falls the Rain as a theme and variations for horn and piano interspersed with a group of vocal recitatives (analogous to the opera’s scenes) — one for each of the first six stanzas, with each recit drawing its musical material from the preceding instrumental variation. The horn and voice remain structurally separated until the final variation, when, for the first time, they sing together in an unaccompanied duet that transforms the despair of the previous stanzas into a glimpse of hope.

Read a more detailed explanation by Chris Myers of Canticle III: Still falls the Rain

Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959

Franz Schubert

I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Scherzo & Trio: Allegro vivace — Un poco più lento
IV. Rondo: Allegretto — Presto

Frank Weinstock piano

Schubert wrote his final three piano sonatas during the last months of his life. Noting the many references to his songs scattered throughout these works, many hear them as deeply personal portrayals of Schubert’s emotional struggle with his rapidly declining health. Schubert’s sketchbooks make clear that he considered these three sonatas to be a unified cycle, and he composed them simultaneously.

The D. 959 Sonata in A major is the middle entry in this trilogy. This sonata was one of the first pieces to be composed in such tightly-unified cyclic form, a structural technique popular in the Romantic era in which motives, themes, and even entire passages reappear in multiple movements of a work. For instance, the third movement features a theme derived from the second movement’s opening melody. And in perhaps the first example of its kind in classical music, the finale of the last movement is a retrograde statement of the fanfare which opened the sonata, bringing the work to a stunning (and symmetrical) conclusion.

song texts & translations

Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun)
Jacob Nikolaus Craigher de Jachelutta (1797-1855)

Wie braust durch die Wipfel der heulende Sturm!
Es klirren die Balken, es zittert das Haus!
Es rollet der Donner, es leuchtet der Blitz! –
Und finster die Nacht, wie das Grab! –
Immerhin, immerhin!

So tobt’ es auch jüngst noch in mir!
Es brauste das Leben, wie jetzo der Sturm!
Es bebten die Glieder, wie jetzo das Haus!
Es flammte die Liebe, wie jetzo der Blitz! –
Und finster die Brust, wie das Grab! –

Nun tobe du wilder, gewalt’ger Sturm!
Im Herzen ist Friede, im Herzen ist Ruh! –
Des Bräutigams harret die liebende Braut,
Gereinigt in prüfender Glut –
Der ewigen Liebe getraut. –

Ich harre, mein Heiland, mit sehnendem Blick;
Komm, himmlischer Bräutigam! hole die Braut!
Erlöse die Seele von irdischer Haft! –
Horch! friedlich ertönet das Glöcklein vom Thurm;
Es lockt mich das süße Getön
Allmächtig zu ewigen Höhn. –
Alleluja!

How the raging storm roars through the treetops!
The rafters rattle, the house shudders!
The thunder rumbles, the lightning flashes! —
And the night is as gloomy as the grave! —
So it goes… so it goes!

That’s how it used to be within me, too!
Life roared, just like the storm!
My limbs trembled, just like the house!
Love blazed, just like the lightning! —
And my heart was gloomy, like the grave! —

Now rage on wildly, violent storm!
In my heart is peace; in my heart is quiet! —
The loving bride awaits her groom,
Cleansed in purifying fire —
Dedicated to eternal love. —

I wait, my Savior, with a longing gaze;
Come, heavenly groom! take your bride!
Release the soul from earthly prison! —
Hark! the bells ring peacefully from the tower;
The sweet tones call me
All-powerfully to eternal heights. —
Alleluja!

An den Mond (Ode to the Moon)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Füllest wieder Busch und Tal
Still mit Nebelglanz,
Lösest endlich auch einmal
Meine Seele ganz;

Breitest über mein Gefild
Lindernd deinen Blick,
Wie des Freundes Auge mild
Über mein Geschick.

Jeden Nachklang fühlt mein Herz
Froh- und trüber Zeit,
Wandle zwischen Freud und Schmerz
In der Einsamkeit.

Fließe, fließe, lieber Fluß,
Nimmer werd ich froh,
So verrauschte Scherz und Kuss,
Und die Treue so.

[Ich besaß es doch einmal,
Was so köstlich ist,
Dass man doch zu seiner Qual
Nimmer es vergißt.]*

[Rausche, Fluss, das Tal entlang,
Ohne Rast und Ruh,
Rausche, flüstre meinem Sang
Melodien zu,

Wenn du in der Winternacht
Wütend überschwillst,
Oder um die Frühlingspracht
Junger Knospen quillst.]†

Selig, wer sich vor der Welt
Ohne Hass verschließt,
Einen Freund am Busen hält
Und mit dem genießt,

Was, von Menschen nicht gewusst,
Oder nicht bedacht,
Durch das Labyrinth der Brust
Wandelt in der Nacht.

Again you fill hill and dale
With quiet misty sheen.
Eventually you also release
My soul completely;

Spreading your soothing gaze
Over my realm
Like the gentle eyes of a friend
Over my fate.

My heart feels every echo
Of happy and bleak times,
I roam between joy and pain
In the solitude.

Flow, flow, dear river.
I shall never be happy.
Flirting and kisses ebb this way,
As does faithfulness.

[I owned it once,
This costly thing
Which, to my torment,
I can never forget.]*

[Roar, river, through the valley
Without break or rest.
Roar, whisper melodies
To my song

When, on winter’s nights,
You flood in fury,
Or, in springtime glory,
You cause young buds to grow.]†

Blessed is he who, without hate,
Locks himself away from the world
And embraces a friend
And enjoys with him

That which, unknown to men,
Not even conceived by them,
Roams through the labyrinth of the heart
In the night.

* - Schubert omitted this stanza from his setting.
† - These stanzas will be omitted from today’s performance.

Frühlingsglaube (Springtime Faith)
Johann Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862)

Die linden Lüfte sind erwacht,
Sie säuseln und weben Tag und Nacht,
Sie schaffen an allen Enden.
O frischer Duft, o neuer Klang,
Nun armes Herze, sei nicht bang,
Nun muss sich alles, alles wenden.

Die Welt wird schöner mit jedem Tag,
Man weiß nicht, was noch werden mag,
Das Blühen will nicht enden.
Es blüht das fernste, tiefste Tal,
Nun armes Herz, vergiss der Qual,
Nun muss sich alles, alles wenden.

Gentle breezes have awakened.
They weave and whisper day and night,
Carrying creation to every corner.
O fresh air! O new song!
Now, poor heart, fear not:
Everything — everything — must change.

The world grows more beautiful each day.
One can’t know what’s yet to come.
The flowering refuses to end —
Even the furthest, deepest valley is in bloom.
Now, poor heart, forget your pain:
Everything — everything — must change.

artists

Featured

Jessica Danz

horn

Thomas Glenn

tenor

Zachary Hammond

oboe

Melissa Heath

soprano

Anne Lee

cello

Frank Weinstock

piano

Evgenia Zharzhavskaya

violin

our sponsors

NOVA would like to recognize the following government, corporate, and foundation partners for their generous support of our mission:

The Amphion Foundation
Cultural Vision Fund
Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation
George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation
O.C. Tanner
Salt Lake City Arts Council
Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks (ZAP) Program
Utah Legislature | Utah Division of Arts & Museums
Utah State University Caine College of the Arts Production Services

In-kind contributors include:

AlphaGraphics
Bement & Company, P.C.
Michael Carnes
University of Utah School of Music
Utah Museum of Fine Arts

our donors

impresario ($2,500+)

Michael & Fran Carnes
Thomas H. & Carolyn L. Fey
John & Linda Francis
Eric & Nancy Garen
Joan & Francis Hanson
Hugh & Cindy Redd
Richard Segal
Frank & Janell Weinstock

benefactor ($1,000+)

Dudley Family Foundation
Dan Fischer
Hillary Hahn & Jeff Counts
Diane & Michael L. Hardink
Gordon Irving
William & Pam Littig
Mrs. Anat & Amos Madanes in honor of Nancy and Eric Garen
Dr. Glenn D. Prestwich & Rhea Bouman
Jeffrey & Kristin Rector
Aden Ross & Ric Collier
Shiebler Family Foundation
Richard & Jill Sheinberg
Catherine Stoneman
Kathryn Waddell
Paul Watkins
Rachel White

underwriter ($500+)

Alan & Carol Agle
Anne & Brant Bayless
Sally Brush
Miguel Chuaqui
Mark Gavre & Gudrun Mirin
David & Sherrie Gee
Josanne Glass & Patrick Casey
Andrea Globokar
Keith & Suzanne Holbrook
Joung-Ja Kawashima
Fred & Annette Keller in honor of Eric and Nancy Garen
Mr. & Mrs. Matthew Krentz in honor of Eric and Nancy Garen
Douglas & Julie Meredith
Dr. Louis A. & Deborah Moench
Hal & Kathleen Robins
Steven & Barbara Schamel
Deepika de Silva & Jeff Black
Burney Sigman Family Foundation
Dr. Richard & Anna Taylor
Kristine Widner
Ron & Geri Wohl
Darrell Hensleigh & Carole Wood

sustainer ($250+)

Lila Abersold
Madeline Adkins & John Forrest
Fred Adler & Anne Collopy
Rick Ash & Anne Burkholder
Suzanne & Clisto Beaty
Linda Bevins in memory of Earle R. Bevins and William Wright
Mark & Carla Cantor
David Dean
Disa Gambera & Tom Stillinger
Joanne Glass & Patrick Casey
Ann & Dean Hanniball
Kirsten Hanson M.D. & John Doppelheuer M.D.
Gerald & Elise Lazar
RV Miner
Daniel & Thelma Rich
Michael Rudick & Lani Poulson
Mr. & Mrs. Joel Shine
Thomas Tanzer
Barry Weller
Susan Wieck

friend (under $100)

David Budd
Lori Cox
Robert Fudge
Erika George
Donald & Judy Horwitz
Dorothy Mabey
Becky Roberts
Robert & Cynthia Spigle
John & Lisa Vitkus
Anonymous (6)

endowment contributors

Joan & Francis Hanson
Corbin Johnston & Noriko Kishi
G. Ronald Kastner, PhD
David Marsh
Steven & Barbara Schamel