Gryphon Trio - Wooster Chamber Music Series

Wooster Chamber Music Series
2009-10 Season Schedule
September 20, 2009
Emerson String Quartet
25 th Anniversary Benefit Concert at First Presbyterian Church
October 25, 2009
Colorado Quartet
November 2009
TBA
January 3, 2010
Tokyo String Quartet
February 28, 2010
Anderson String Quartet
March 21, 2010
April 18, 2010
Juilliard String Quartet
Pacifica String Quartet
Gryphon Trio
With James Campbell, Clarinet
The College of Wooster
Gault Recital Hall
525 E. University Street
Wooster, Ohio 44691
Sunday, May 17, 2009
3:00 P.M.

harmony lost in the trees. Transposing that to a religious level, you have
the harmonious silence of heaven. The piano plays a rhythmic ostinato
based on three Hindu rhythms; the clarinet spins out a bird song.
II. Vocalise, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time: The first and
third parts evoke the power of this strong angel, crowned with a rainbow
and clothed in clouds, one foot on the sea and the other on land. The
central section deals with the impalpable harmonies of heaven, the piano
playing soft cascades of chords: blue and mauve, gold and green, redviolet,
blue-orange; all of this dominated by steel-grey. These chords
surround the plainchant-like melody of the violin and cello.
III. The Abyss of the Birds: Clarinet solo. The abyss is time, in its
sorrows and lassitudes. The birds offer a contrast, symbolizing our
yearning for light, stars, rainbows and jubilant voices. The piece begins
in sadness. Notice the long tones: pianissimo, crescendo molto to the
most atrocious fortissimo. The bird-songs are written in the gay and
fanciful style of the blackbird. The return to desolation is manifested in
the dark timbre of the clarinet's lower register.
IV. Interlude: Scherzo. Of a more outgoing character than the other
movements, but related to them by various melodic references.
V. Praise to the Eternity of Jesus: Jesus represents, in this context,
the word of God. One long, extremely slow phrase by the cello glorifies
with tenderness and reverence the eternity of this powerful and gentle
Word. Majestically the melody unfolds like a distant memory, tender and
all encompassing. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God."
VI. Dance of Wrath, for the Seven Trumpets: Rhythmically the most
idiosyncratic movement of the set. The four instruments in unison give
the effect of gongs and trumpets (the first six trumpets of the Apocalypse
attend various catastrophes; the trumpet of the seventh angel announces
the consummation of the mystery of God). Music of stone, formidable
sonority; movement as irresistible as steel, as huge blocks of livid fury or
ice-like frenzy. Listen particularly, toward the end of the piece, to the
terrifying fortissimo of the theme in augmentation and with change of
register of its different notes.
VII. Tangle of Rainbows, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time:
This movement is dedicated to the angel, and even more so, to the
rainbow covering him (a rainbow symbolizing peace, wisdom, and all
luminous and resonant vibration). In my coloured dreams I hear and see
ordered melodies and chords, familiar hues and forms; then, following
this transitory stage I pass into the unreal and submit ecstatically to a
vortex, a dizzying interpenetration of superhuman sounds and colours.
These fiery swords, these rivers of blue-orange lava, these sudden stars:
Behold the cluster, behold the rainbows!
VIII. In Praise of the Immortality of Jesus: Abroad violin solo,
balancing the cello solo of the fifth movement. Why this second tribute?
It addresses more specifically the second aspect of Jesus –the man, the
Word made flesh, raised from the dead and immortalized to make His life
known to us. This movement is pure love. It ascends gradually toward an
intense peak, the ascension of man towards God, of the Son of God
toward his Father, of the creature become divine towards paradise.
--- Brian Biddle
Gryphon Trio
With James Campbell, Clarinet
Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; Roman Borys, cellist; Jamie Parker, piano
The Gryphon Trio is one of North America’s finest chamber ensembles.
Since their founding in 1993, they have appeared throughout Canada,
the United States, and Europe, delighting critics and audiences with
exhilarating, and sometimes unusual, performances.
The Gryphon Trio is highly versatile, both in repertoire and in the
venues where they have played, enabling them to reach new and younger
audiences. In addition to works by such established composers as
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, and
Shostakovich, the group has actively expanded the piano trio repertoire
with pieces by numerous contemporary composers. They have
commissioned and premiered more than 50 works by composers who
include Christos Hatzis, Chan Ka-Nin, Gary Kulesha, and others. They
have expanded the reach of chamber music in varied collaborations,
such as those with clarinetist James Campbell (who appears with them
today), actor Colin Fox, choreographer David Earle, and many wellknown
jazz artists at Toronto’s Lula Lounge. Their Constantinople is a
groundbreaking multidisciplinary production, composed by Hatzis, which
integrates instrumental, visual, theatrical, and vocal art into a socially
poignant exploration of the human spirit.
The most recent of the Gryphon’s ten recordings is Tango Nuevo,
with music by Astor Piazzolla and Hilario Duran. The group won a
coveted Juno Award (in Canada) in 2004 for their Canadian Premieres,
featuring the works of leading Canadian composers. The Gryphon Trio
are Artists-in-Residence at the University of Toronto. In addition to
teaching and performing at the University, they give frequent master
classes and presentations at schools and universities across the
continent, and have presented lecture-demonstrations with composer
Gary Kulesha and music commentator Rob Kapilow, through Music
TORONTO. They are Artistic Programming Directors of the Ottawa
International Chamber Music Festival, having already established
themselves as beloved performers at this and many other chamber music
festivals.
Clarinetist James Campbell has performed in major concert halls
throughout the world. He has appeared with over fifty orchestras,
including the London Symphony, the Russian Philharmonic, the
Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Pops. He has
collaborated with more than thirty renowned string quartets, such as the
Amadeus, the Guarneri, the Vermeer, and the Allegri String Quartets.
Mr. Campbell has performed with musical luminaries that include both
Aaron Copland and Glenn Gould. He has recorded extensively, with over
forty recordings so far, including his Juno Award-winning Stolen Gems.
Other noted releases include the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, with the
Allegri Quartet, which was voted “Top Choice” by BBC Radio 3; and the
Sony Classical re-release of Debussy’s Premier Rhapsody with pianist
Glenn Gould. (Those familiar with the Internet can visit YouTube.com, do
a quick search, and view delightful footage from the Campbell/Gould
Debussy performance.) Since 1984, Mr. Campbell has been Artistic

Director of Festival of the Sound, an annual summer chamber music
festival in Parry Sound, Ontario. During the academic year, he resides in
Bloomington, Indiana, where he has been Professor of Music at the
prestigious Music School of Indiana University since 1989.
PROGRAM NOTES
--- Sarah J. Buck
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Trio in A Major, Hob. XV:18 (1793)
Haydn's A Major trio dates from the composer's extremely successful
five-year stay in London. Trios 18-20 were published concurrently, and
all were dedicated to Maria Therese Esterházy, the widow of Haydn's
former employer Prince Anton. The works from this period marked for
Haydn a return to piano music after a nearly four-year hiatus.
Piano trios in the time of Haydn are more accurately viewed as
accompanied piano sonatas than the more modern dialogue between
three equal instruments; many of Haydn's trios were published as
“Sonatas for Piano Accompanied by Violin and Cello.” The cello serves as
reinforcement for the left-hand piano material much of the time. The
violin, while still subservient to the piano, does have some moments to
shine, embellishing the melodic framework set out by the piano. The
Andante second movement gives the violin and cello their own lyrical
moments, as in the opening passage where the piano passes the second
phrase of the melody to the violin. The trio is a delightful, wellconstructed
example of late eighteenth-century chamber music
composition.
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1941-42)
“I've always loved the Clarinet Sonata, particularly because it was my
first published piece,” Bernstein remarked later in life. “I remember how
proud I was of it and, for that matter, I still am – in spite of a certain
student element in the work.” Bernstein's first mature work arrived at a
time when the young musician was deciding whether to pursue a career
in composition or conducting. Bernstein's mentors in both fields (Aaron
Copland and Serge Koussevitsky) were among the most well-regarded of
their generation; in the summers of 1940 and 1941 Bernstein benefited
from the shared expertise of these and many others at Koussevitsky's
summer festivals at Tanglewood. Sketches for the Clarinet Sonata were
begun at the close of the 1941 Tanglewood season and the work was
complete by the following February.
The sonata is organized into two concise movements. The strongly
motivic and lyrical opening of the Grazioso betrays the clear influence of
Paul Hindemith, who was in residence at Tanglewood at 1941 – Copland
went so far as to call the piece “full of Hindemith” following the work's
1943 premiere. After a fairly academic course of statement, development,
and restatement, the first glimpses of Bernstein's mature voice emerge in
a wistful extended coda. The second movement returns to Hindemith
with its opening Andantino featuring a reflective clarinet melody.
Suddenly the outgoing Vivace emerges, fraught with lively syncopation
and irregular meter characteristic of Bernstein's later dance music. The
slow, introspective music returns almost too soon. It is, however, merely
a temporary diversion, as the fast material happily returns, pushed
forward this time with an imperative ostinato from the piano. Mixed
meters and a journey to the top of the clarinet's register provide a joyful
conclusion to this intriguing look into the formative years of a musical
genius.
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Quatour pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1940-41)
One of the most significant chamber music works of the twentieth
century arose from a series of chance encounters in perhaps the most
unlikely of settings: the prison camps of World War II. At the outbreak of
the war, Messiaen (already an accomplished composer) was called up by
the French army; in May 1940 his unit was captured by the Germans at
Verdun during the blitzkrieg. Interned at Stalag VIII-A in Gŏrlitz,
Messiaen took comfort in the company of several fellow musicians in his
unit, clarinetist Henri Akoka and cellist Etienne Pasquier. Violinist Jean
Le Boulaire soon joined the group at the P.O.W. camp. Pasquier's
assignment as cook ensured the quartet remained well fed, and selling
surplus food allowed him to buy a modest used cello to pass the time.
Akoka and Boulaire managed to keep their instruments with them in the
camp. When Messiaen discovered a humble piano in a makeshift church
on the prison grounds, the stage was set for the creation of the quartet.
Composition provided a welcome escape from reality for Messiaen,
and the piece emerged quickly. The group premiered the work for an
audience of several thousand prisoners and prison guards, including the
Stalag's Kommandant. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention
and comprehension,” Messiaen later noted. The premiere earned
Messiaen and his comrades respect and admiration from prisoners and
guards alike. Soon after, prison staff erroneously reclassified the quartet
as noncombatant musicians, causing the German bureaucracy to order
their immediate release. They were freed by May 1941.
In a preface to the original score, Messiaen explained his inspiration
for the work and described each of the eight movements. A quotation
from the Book of Revelation forms the spiritual underpinnings of the
work:
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven,
clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and
his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ...
and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the
earth ... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and
upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him
that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no
longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when
he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished
.... (Rev. 10:1-2, 5-7)
Messiaen made the following comments for each movement:
I. Crystal Liturgy: Around five o'clock in the morning, a lone bird
improvises, surrounded by fine fragments of sound, by a halo of

Gryphon Trio
With James Campbell, Clarinet
Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; Roman Borys, cellist; Jamie Parker, piano
PROGRAM
Piano Trio in A Major, Hob XV:18 (1793)
Franz Joseph Haydn
I. Allegro moderato (1732-1809)
II. Andante
III. Allegro
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1941-42)
Leonard Bernstein
I. Grazioso (1918-1990)
II. Andantino
INTERMISSION
Quatour pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) Olivier Messiaen
(1940-41) (1908-1992)
I. Crystal Liturgy
II. Vocalize, for the Angel announces the End of Time
III. Abyss of the Birds
IV. Interlude
V. Praise to the Eternity of Jesus
VI. Dance of Wrath, for the Seven Trumpets
VII. Tangle of Rainbows, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time:
VIII. In Praise of the Immortality of Jesus
Presented with support of
A special thanks to Mrs. Joseph Fishelson and
Dr. Jay Klemme for their support
Bill and Marilyn Blanchard
Mary Grace Engisch
Carlye and Frank Cebul
H. Alberta Colclaser
Grant and Peg Cornwell
Marian Taylor Cropp
Com-Patt-ibles Floral Elegance
William Dameron
Mildred Froelich
Steve and Liz Glick
Catherine and Tom Graves
Elinor Hancock
UNDERWRITER
Sarah Jane Buck and Nick Amster Fishelson
Mr and Mrs Stanley C. Gault
*Deborah P. Hilty
Jay Klemme and Anne Wilson
Lois G. McCall
The Donald and Alice Noble Foundation
Cyril and Amelia Ofori
Viola Startzman Robertson
Ken and Jill Shafer
Tim and Jenny Smucker
Yvonne C. Williams
*in memory
BENEFACTOR
David and Carol Briggs
Dorothy Carlisle
Ed and Mary Eberhart
Louise E. Hamel
Terry Wagner Ling
Clara Louise Patton
Margaret and David Powell
Bill and Carolyn Sheron
PATRON
Carolyn Hostetler
Peter and Tricia James
Lyn Loveless
Julie A Mennes
Sara L. Patton
Kenneth and Louise Plusquellec
Erwin and Susan Riedner
Ed Schrader and Dan Rider
Steve and Cheryl Shapiro
Mary Alice Streeter
Marilyn Tanner
Kathy and Harry Zink
Martha E. Banks
Janelle and Jim Collier
Mary Finkbeiner
Alice and Larry Gabriel
Lucille L. Hastings
Frank and Jean Knorr
Elena Sokol and Yuri Popov
Don and Linda Sommer
SUBSCRIBER
Derek Somogy
Thomas W. Tappan
Grace M. Tompos
Peggy and Charles Ulrich
Carol and Ken Vagnini
Mina and Don Van Cleef
Catherine D. Wiandt
Carol Rueger and David Wiesenberg