march Concert 2023
Sunday March 5, 2023 | 4:30 pm and Monday March 6, 2023 | 7:00 pm
artists:
Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, Violin
Program:
Sonata in D Minor for Cello & Piano L.135……………………….……….….. Claude Debussy
Duo for Violin and Piano: Swan Song………………………………………….. Kathryn Mishell
Piano Trio in G Major, K.564.…………………………..………….…Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata for Violin & Piano Op.7 ……………………….……………………….….. Ethyl Smyth
Sonata in D Minor for Cello & Piano L.135……………………….……….….. Claude Debussy
Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano grabs us from the first moment with its intimate, tuneful melody. Within the first three minutes, as we follow its growing excitement, we will not be able to let it go. The playful Sérénade of the second movement will swing us from mood to mood. The dancing joy in its final movement will leave us smiling.
Duo for Violin and Piano: Swan Song………………………………………….. Kathryn Mishell
When Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio honored me by asking if I would write a piece for her to mark her retirement as Founder and Artistic Director of the Cactus Pear Music Festival, I was delighted. Her 26 years of giving imagination and enthusiasm, service and inspiration to performers and audiences is something to celebrate.
My approach to the project was to create music for Stephanie that would give her an opportunity to sing with her violin—sing with her heart, reaching up high where she loves to be—and also plunging to the lower regions of her instrument. The instrument she holds in her glorious hands has taken Stephanie and her audiences to expanses of experience no words can express. She can dance as well as sing. She can laugh and she can wail, she can swim and she can fly. I hoped to give her a piece that could present opportunities to twirl and leap with abandon, as well as to lie down and be still, very still, to simply reflect and to feel.
Stephanie told me she wanted this piece to be her swan song. Here and there, you will hear tidbits of swan music from the literature. Some of it is hidden, just for fun.
- Kathryn Mishell
Piano Trio in G Major, K.564.…………………………..………….…Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
With Mozart, the classically balanced triumvirate of piano, violin and cello finds its first expression. The piano trio went on to become a centerpiece at the heart of all chamber music literature.
His last piano trio, K. 564 in G major, shares the year of 1788 with some of his greatest works, including the last three symphonies and the sublime string trio. This final trio is an exquisitely wrought classical masterpiece of great warmth, color, ingenuity, and, above all, a balanced, nuanced ensemble. It is subtle, yet arguably perfect—like Mozart.
Sonata for Violin & Piano Op.7 ……………………….……………………….….. Ethyl Smyth
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was a groundbreaking English composer, famous for conducting her opera Der Wald at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the first opera by a woman to be performed there. She wrote three other operas and several orchestral works, including a Mass, all of which which were highly acclaimed. Her early style will remind you of Mendelssohn or Brahms. Her middle works reflect the dynamism and turbulence of Beethoven and Wagner. Later she explored both the early 20th-century French style and the neoclassical idiom, yet her music throughout is strikingly original.
Smyth is well known for her active role in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1912 she served two months in Halloway Prison for smashing the window of a cabinet minister. She wrote March of the Women in 1911, which became the anthem of the movement and was sung at meetings, in the streets, and even in prison, where she once conducted a street gathering, using her toothbrush as a baton!
Here is a brief introduction to her that Kathryn gave on a 2006 broadcast of Into The Light on KMFA.