Gryphon Trio - Wooster Chamber Music Series

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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
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Gryphon Trio - Wooster Chamber Music Series

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