The Final Day for us.

Today is our final day for the Marlboro Music Festival. There are rehearsals and a concert tomorrow (Sunday) morning and aftenoon, but we will be at church in the morning and a GCC Variety Show Concert in the afternoon. It is sad to have it end, but we have taken full advantage of it, and enjoyed it immensely. Meanwhile, car problems have forced John and Cynthia to cancel their trip to Grand Manan, at least for now. That is hugely disappointing to them, to say the least. So, we'll see what that opens up for us. Maybe something fun with them! Today we will hear a Schumann Piano Trio in G Minor, and Britten's Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi, Op. 86, for piano and three male singers: countertenor, tenor and bass-baritone. These are both new to us. Program notes: Robert Schumann, Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 110 (1851). Schumann: Born June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Germany; Died July 29, 1856, Bonn, Germany; Duration: approx. 28 minutes; Last Marlboro performance: 2021.***** Composed towards the end of his life, Schumann’s Opus 110 Piano Trio in G Minor has been grouped with other later works of the composer’s that are said to show signs of the deterioration of his mental health. However, the work is full of beauty, energy, and turbulence that are woven together in such a way that Schumann’s wife, Clara, wrote, “It is original and increasingly passionate, especially the scherzo, which carries one along with it into the wildest depths.” Though the work may seem to some to signify Schumann’s deterioration, it serves as a suitable final Piano Trio, imaginative, personal, and expressive. It has been played at Marlboro numerous times since its premiere by Marlboro co-founders Rudolf Serkin, Blanche Honegger-Moyse, and Hermann Busch in 1956. Participants: Sahun Sam Hong, piano; Clara Neubauer, violin; Christoph Richter, cello

Clara, Sahun and Christoph playing the Schumann Trio.********** Benjamin Britten, Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi (1971) . Britten: Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, England; Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, England; Duration: approx. 11 minutes; Marlboro Premiere.***** Britten wrote five works which he titled ‘canticle,’ and each are settings of texts of a spiritual nature and scored for a different instrumentation. Canticle IV, Journey of the Magi, is a setting of a T. S. Eliot poem of the same name which explores themes of birth and death through the allusion of Jesus’s birth. The poem itself is not so overt in traditional Christian imagery, exploring instead the reactions of the magi, as Eliot appears to imply they would not be able to understand the miracle of the moment itself. Britten also uses the Antiphon melody, “Magi videntes stellam,” to tie together the Christian material. Although Britten’s other canticles have been performed at Marlboro, this will be the premiere of his fourth. Participants: Daniel Moody, countertenor; Daniel McGrew, tenor; Evan Luca Gray, bass-baritone; Lydia Brown, piano . ********************* The text of the Britten piece: Journey of the Magi. A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling and running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.

Performing the Britten: Lydia Brown, piano; Daniel Moody, countertenor; Daniel McGrew, tenor; Evan Gray, bass-baritone.