Another full day

Noon: Well, here it is, Wednesday, July 28th, and today is a day full of activities: my 15th PT session this morning, an afternoon at Marlboro, and an evening course in the Zohar! At this very moment we are at Marlboro, listening to a Piano Trio in A-Minor by Ravel (1914). It is lovely (as expected). The pianist is Ariel Lanyi, whom we have heard before. The violinist is Emilie-Anne Gendron, whom we have not heard before, and the cellist is Alexander Hersh, whom we have definitely heard before,  most notably in the Villa-Lobos - I think it was his birthday that was celebrated with the T-shirts the day of the Villa-Lobos rehearsal. So, I'll settle back and listen. 

Later:  This Trio was influenced by Basque dance music and rhythms. Ravel's mother was Basque and he felt a strong affinity with Basque culture. I know little about the Basque culture, but years ago we went to a Basque dance recital in Boise, ID where there is a large Basque immigrant community. 

Maurice Ravel, c. 1914

Emilie-Anne Gendron, violin. Ms. Gendron is the daughter of French-Canadian and Japanese parents,

Later still:

The Ravel is over. "Lovely" is perhaps not the best word for it - it is voluptuous and the final movement is almost violent in its impetuosity. It must be very difficult to play (I heard the cellist say something about "panic mode"). But of course, they play it beautifully and seemingly without effort, Now we have a break and then at. 2:30 we hear a Schumann Piano Trio in D-Minor, Op. 63, which will feature the co-director of Marlboro Music Festival, Jonathan Biss, on piano. 

Afternoon @2:30p.m. We just had a little picnic lunch outside. Now it is Schumann! The violinist is Maria Ioudenitch; the cellist is Zlatomir Fung. This should be a real treat. 

Maria Ioudenitch

"Maria Ioudenitch was born in Balashov, Russia, and moved with her family to Kansas City when she was three years old. An American with a Russian heart and soul, she began her violin studies surrounded by the sounds of the piano, played by both of her parents. Her teachers have included Gregory Sandomirsky and Ben Sayevich. She studied with Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music and is pursuing her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory with Miriam Fried."

Later: Wow, that was some piece! I continue to be amazed at the virtuosity of the musicians here at Marlboro. I wonder sometimes if these pieces are familiar to the musicians before they come here, or do they learn them here. They always sound so polished in rehearsal. Of course, we are hearing pieces that will be performed this coming weekend, so this is late in the process. These are like dress rehearsals. But still, they have only been here for a month or a little less. How can they know everything so well? I would love to know more about the process of learning a piece here. 

Here is a bit about this Trio:

"The first piano trio (first of three works with this title plus the Fantasiestücke Op. 88 for the same forces) is in an intensely romantic style, and is the most celebrated of Schumann's trios in the modern repertoire. The opening movement begins with a surging theme that is heard in counterpoint initially between the piano's bass and the violin; the scherzo's driving dotted rhythm shares its smoothly ascending contour with the flowing trio section. The third movement features a duet between violin and cello, and moves without pause to the heroic tonic-major finale."

This piano trio was not familiar to me, but then, I am not deeply familiar with chamber music. Ellen is much more familiar than I am. She was introduced to it at an earlier age, and I think it has played a bigger role in her life. For one thing, she played the oboe for several years in her youth. She was also married to a pianist for several years (John Peel) and I think chamber music was a big part of their life. She has undoubtedly heard many more performances than I have. But I feel that having over 30 years of singing Bach and other classical composers with Blanche Moyse under my belt has given me an advantage in the appreciation of this music, even though I am not an instrumentalist (though I did study piano for about 8-10 years in my childhood and youth - up through high school - and then studied organ for a year in college. All of that helps. 

Zlatomir Fung, cellist

"Of Bulgarian-Chinese heritage, Zlatomir Fung began playing cello at age three and earned fellowships at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Heifetz International Music Institute, MusicAlp, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. A proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship, Fung currently studies at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. Fung has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and has appeared on From the Top six times. Fung plays a W. E. Hill and Sons cello from 1905. In addition to music, he enjoys cinema, reading, and blitz chess."

I've neglected Jonathan Biss a bit:

Jonathan Biss, piano

"Biss was born into a family of musicians in Bloomington, Indiana. His paternal step-grandmother was one of the first well-known female cellists, the Russian cellist Raya Garbousova, for whom Samuel Barber wrote his cello concerto. His parents, Miriam Fried and Paul Biss, are both violinists. His older brother Daniel, is a politician serving as the mayor of Evanston, Illinois. After studying at Indiana University, where both of his parents taught, Biss entered the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 17 to study with Leon Fleisher. Interviewed by The New York Times in 2011 in the run-up to Biss' Carnegie Hall debut recital, Leon Fleisher said of his pupil: 

His ability and interest go for things of transcendence and sublimeness. That made a great impression on me. He took a very healthy road that started with chamber music, both with his mother and then more extensively at places like Ravinia and Marlboro, and he got to be known by the elders in the profession as somebody to look out for."

And indeed he has been!

Still later: 4:30pm

And now = Fauré, the Piano Quartet in G-Minor, Op. 45. This is Fauré's Second Piano Quartet. It  is famous for it's 3rd movement - the Adagio non troppo. 

"Aaron Copland wrote that the Second Quartet shows the composer "less carefree, less happy, more serious, more profound" than in the First. To Copland the adagio was "the crowning movement of the quartet". He described it in a 1924 essay, as "a long sigh of infinite tenderness, a long moment of quiet melancholy and nostalgic charm. Its beauty is a truly classic one if we define classicism as 'intensity on a background of calm'."

Zlatomir Fung is doing double duty today - he just played Schumann, and now Fauré. We heard Janice Carissa, pianist, last week. New today is the violinist and violist, Elizabeth Fayette and Sally Chisholm. 

Janice Carissa, pianist

Janice Carissa, from Surabaya, Indonesia, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2013 and studies piano with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Ms. Carissa is the Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest Fellow. Ms. Carissa has been featured on television and radio, including Indonesia Mencari Bakat, Ispirasi Pagi, Sang Juara, Global TV, RCTI, Trans TV, BC TV, Metro TV, TV One, Voice of America, WHYY-TV (Philadelphia), WXQR’s Greene Space, and National Public Radio’s From the Top. Ms. Carissa has participated in the Aspen Music Festival and School, Oxford Philomusica in England, and the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Maine.