Tuesday 04/08/2025

Mozart Symphony No. 39 in E flat Major K. 543

Summer 1788. Mozart composes three symphonies - Nos. 39, 40 and 41 - in an unprecedented nine weeks all while teaching piano,
caring for his sick wife, grieving the death of his daughter, and relocating from the city to the country. No. 39 is a bright E-flat major
with a grand, slow introduction of majestic, dotted rhythms reminiscent of the overture to Don Giovanni. Most notable is its minuet
and trio, an Austrian folk dance featuring a clarinet solo.

Thomas Tallis If Ye Love Me

"If ye love me" is a four-part motet by English composer Thomas Tallis, a setting of a passage from the Gospel of John. First
published in 1565 during the reign of Elizabeth I, it is an example of Tudor music and is part of the repertoire of Anglican church
music. An early English-language motet, it is frequently performed today, and has been sung at special occasions including a papal
visit and a royal wedding.

Schenk The Rhine Nymph Sonata 9 in e minor

Details of the life of Johannes Schenck are relatively sparse. He was born in Amsterdam and baptized in 1660. Nothing is known of
his teacher but he quickly became known as a distinguished virtuoso on the viola da gamba. Around 1696 he accepted an
appointment to the court of Johann Wilhelm. His 'Nymphs of the Rhine', a virtuoso set of 12 sonatas for two gambas, were written
as a tribute to Wilhelm. They are haunting duets filled with gorgeous lyricism and another example of mythology in Golden Age art.
Schenck's date of death has yet to be traced. This morning we are going to hear Sonata No. 9 is in e minor.

Bonis Sonata for flute and piano

Mélanie Bonis was born January 21, 1858, in a modest Parisian lower middle-class family. Her parents discouraged her early
interest in music, so she taught herself piano. By the age of 12, her parents finally agreed to private lessons. By 16 she was
composing, and a friend introduced her to Cesar Franck, who was so impressed with her abilities he made special arrangements for
her to be admitted to the then all-male Paris Conservatory in 1876. At the time, it was clear to her that musical composing could in
no way be a profession for a woman, so she used the pseudonym Mel Bonis in an attempt to be taken more seriously. Mel won
prizes in harmony and accompaniment and showed great promise in composition, but her parents withdrew her from the
institution in 1881 and arranged a marriage for her against her will with a man who did not like music. During the next ten years,
Mélanie devoted herself to her family duties. By the time of her death, her music had fallen into obscurity. The body of Mel Bonis’
work consists of about 300 pieces including piano, organ, chamber music, vocal, and orchestral works.
Louise Farrenc Nonet for winds and strings in E flat Major Op. 38
At the start of her professional career as a composer, Louise Farrenc nearly exclusively wrote piano music. A few of these works
garnered some attention from critics and other composers. In the 1830s, she began to pen larger works for orchestra and chamber
ensembles. Louise Farrenc's Nonet in E flat Major, Op.38 for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and bass dates
from 1849. It is ironic that of all her chamber music, the work which achieved the most popular success was a piece without piano
of which she was a virtuoso. It was this Nonet which made whatever name she had as a composer during her lifetime and actually
played a large part in her rising popularity in Europe.

Geminiani Cello Sonata in B flat Op. 5 No. 4

When thinking of important cello repertoire from the Baroque period of course J.S. Bach’s suites come to mind immediately. But
there is so much more out there to be discovered from this period. Italian composer and violinist Geminiani studied in Rome with
Corelli and Scarlatti before travelling around Europe, spending eighteen years in London. He is best known for several sets of
Concerti Grossi but also wrote sonatas for the cello. His six sonatas Op.5 for cello and continuo were published in Paris in 1746.
They are the finest cello sonatas from the era and deserve far more attention than they get.

Amanda Maier Swedish Tune and Dances (with Julis Rontgen)

Swedish composer Amanda Maier was an accomplished violinist, cellist, organist, and composer. Her initial studies in piano and
violin were with her father, and later studied at the Royal School of Music at Stockholm and was their first female music graduate.
While she was there, she won numerous awards for her instrumental playing and compositions as well. After graduating, she
moved on to the Leipzig Conservatory where she continued to win prizes for her compositions, including her Sonata for Violin and
Piano in b minor which was composed in 1874. In Leipzig she met the German-Dutch pianist and composer Julius Röntgen. The
couple married in 1880 and moved to Amsterdam. The Swedish Tunes and Dances for Violin and Piano are a collaborative work
between Amanda Maier and Rontgen. They were written in 1882 then published in 1887. Assuming Maier performed them herself,
they reveal much about her virtuoso abilities as a violinist. In 1887 Maier became ill with tuberculosis. She died in 1894.
Welcome to A Journey through the Baroque, a special Tuesday morning program at 8am on KCME where we travel back to the
17th and 18th centuries, to learn more about the composers whose passion and emotions gave us the music of the Baroque. I’m
Pam DeVier.

FUND DRIVE

Guido Violin Concerto No. 1 Spring

We’ll start today with Winter from the Four Seasons…composed not by Antonio Vivaldi, but instead by Giovanni Antonio Guido.
You see, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons may be the most famous, but they weren’t the only ones composed during the Baroque era.
Giovanni Antonio Guido is one of the more mysterious and lesser-known figures in baroque music. His 'Four Seasons' is now
believed by many to have inspired Vivaldi's more flamboyant version. Guido’s Seasons may have pre-dated Vivaldi’s, perhaps as
early as 1716 or 1717.

Christopher Simpson April in a minor from The Monthes

Christopher Simpson was one of England’s finest composers of viol music in the 17th century. Dating from the 1660s, are Simpson’s
set of twelve fantasies, the Months.

Oswald Airs for the Seasons Crocus, Narcissus, Rununculus, Lady’s Mantle
James Oswald, born in Crail, Scotland in 1710 was one of the most celebrated Scottish composers of the 18th century. He moved to
London and created an entire musical scene centered around Scottish folk music, combining English, Italian and French musical
idiom with the intricate figure of traditional Scottish Highland music. He wrote two sets of Airs for the Seasons in 1755, each set
comprising twelve pieces for each season: a total of ninety-six miniatures, each representing a plant or flower at its most distinctive
period in the year. They are an excellent example of the merging of the Celtic and the Baroque, as Oswald’s Scottish heritage is
evident in the movements that are actually slow airs, jigs, or reels.

Vivaldi The Four Seasons Concerto No. 1 in E Major “Spring”

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos are arguably the most well-known works from the Baroque period and are some of the most
recognizable and most performed classical pieces of all time. With that level of exposure, it is easy to assume one “knows” the Four
Seasons, but there is more to these concertos than meets the eye, or the ear. There are four sonnets that go with each of the
concertos of the Four Seasons, which lay out the program in the music. Vivaldi integrated the poetry, perhaps written by the
composer himself, into the score of his Four Seasons concertos, marking each distinctive musical texture and figure with descriptive
pieces of verse. The first movement includes birdsong and a spring storm; the second a shepherd who sleeps with his faithful dog
by his side and the third is a lively spring dance. Festive Spring has arrived, The birds salute it with their happy song.
Creating. Inspiring. Leading. This is how women have shaped the past and present of classical music; remarkable women,
talented and extraordinary women, contributing to the music we love in vast and diverse ways. Let’s celebrate them now on
Women of Note. I’m Pam DeVier.

The Cobbett Competitions where designed to encourage the younger generation of British composers to write chamber music. Its
founder and benefactor was the chamber music aficionado William Wilson Cobbett. The rules of the competition provided an
alternate format, the old English Fantasia from the time of Purcell, to the traditional four movement work which had developed
from Haydn onwards. There was to be only a single movement of around 15 minutes duration embracing a variety of moods, tone
colors and tempi while at the same time retaining an inner unity.

Alice Verne Bredt Phantasie Trio

Alice Verne-Bredt was born in the English town of South Hampton to German parents, both musicians, who had emigrated from
Bavaria. The family name was Wűrm but they Anglicized it to Verne. Alice studied violin with her mother, a concert violinist and
piano with Marie Schumann, the daughter of Robert and Clara. Alice married William Bredt, a keen amateur musician and added
his last name to hers. She lived most of her life in London and worked as a piano teacher as well as a composer. She composed the
Phantasie Trio in 1908 and entered it in the Cobbett Competition. The trio features many contrasts, by turns dramatic, lyrical and
playful. The trio bears the alternate title, Under the light, there is darkness. Verne-Bredt's trio was awarded one of the prizes for
1908.

Susan Spain-Dunk Phantasy Quartet in d minor

Susan Spain-Dunk was a British composer, violinist, violist and conductor born in Folkestone. She spent most of her life living and
working in London composing, conducting and performing – particularly in string quartets. She performed in the string quartet of
Walter Cobbett, the celebrated patron of chamber music and originator of the Cobbett competition and her best known work is her
Phantasy Quartet, composed for the competition. In the 1920s a number of her orchestral compositions were performed at the
London Promenade Concerts and she herself conducted several. Spain Dunk’s Phantasy for String Quartet was composed in 1915
for the Cobbett Competition.

Rebecca Clarke Poem for String Quartet

British composer, Rebecca Clarke was renowned as a viola virtuoso and also became one of the first female professional orchestral
players in London. Born to German and American parents, she spent substantial periods of her life in the United States, where she
permanently settled after World War II. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London and was
one of the College’s first women students. After graduation, she performed widely as a soloist and orchestral musician. Her 1926
Poem for String Quartet was not published in her lifetime. The Layfette String Quartet, who are performing on this recording, came
across the manuscript in the UC Berkeley library and made the premiere recording in 2002.

Imogen Holst Phantasy Quartet

Imogen Holst was the only child of composer Gustav Holst; she was a composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and
festival administrator, and a close friend and confidante of Benjamin Britten. She was born west of London in 1907 and showed
precocious talent in composing and performance from a young age. She is particularly known for her educational work at
Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. She entered the Royal College
of Music in 1926 to study with Ralph Vaughan Williams and in 1928 won the Cobbett Prize for her Phantasy Quartet. This 10-minute
work is transparently written and pastoral in flavor. Based on two themes, which occur in different forms throughout the piece, the
quartet builds to a passionate climax before ending peacefully.

Joan Trimble Phantasy Trio

Irish composer, Joan Trimble studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and Trinity College in Dublin before going to the Royal
College of Music in London to study composition with Vaughan Williams. Recognition as a composer came with her publication in
1938 of various songs and two-piano music. These were followed in 1940 by her Sonatina for two pianos and her Phantasy Trio,
which won the Cobbett Prize at the Royal College of Music. Its rich sonorities and rhapsodic effects speak the language of Engish
romanticism while remaining true to her Irish heritage.
Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time: Louange a l’eternite de Jesus
The most otherworldly music of the 20th century was first heart on a brutally cold January night in 1941 at a prisoner of war camp
in Germany. The composer was Olivier Messiaen and the work was the Quartet for the End of Time. Messiaen wrote most of it
after being captured as a French soldier during the German invasion of 1940. The premiere took place in an unheated space,
Barrack 27. Movement six, composed for just cello and piano is one of the slowest notated works ever composed. Inspired by the
Angel of the Apocalypse, there is no thunder, no fire or brimstone trumpets. Messiaen’s vision is a drawn out cello melody over
pulsing piano chords, building then vanishing into silence.

Wagner Tannhauser Overture

Tannhäuser, Richard Wagner’s fifth completed opera, was composed from 1842 and 1845. Despite a troubled premiere, the opera
soon found success throughout Germany. The Overture, which he completed last, features the "Pilgrim's Chorus", and hints at the
story's core conflict between earthly pleasure and spiritual redemption.

Fanny Mendelssohn Notturno

German pianist and composer, Fanny Mendelssohn was born in 1805. She was the oldest of four children and the sister of
composer Felix Mendelssohn. Fanny shared the early musical education and upbringing of her younger brother Felix and the
siblings shared a great passion for music. Fanny showed prodigious musical ability as a child and began to write. However, she was
limited by prevailing attitudes of the time toward women, attitudes apparently shared by her father, who was tolerant, rather than
supportive, of her activities as a composer. "Music will perhaps become his (Felix) profession, while for you it can and must be only
an ornament". Altogether, Fanny composed over 460 pieces of music.

Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 Op. 90 Italian

The work has its origins in the tour of Europe which occupied Mendelssohn from 1829 to 1831. Its inspiration is the color and
atmosphere of Italy. He wrote to his father: This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought ... to be the supreme joy in
life. And I am loving it. Today was so rich that now, in the evening, I must collect myself a little, and so I am writing to you to thank
you, dear parents, for having given me all this happiness. And he wrote to his sister, composer Fanny Mendelssohn: The Italian
symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. Few would argue
with that description, but it took a little while for its full realization as he wrestled with the project for some years and it was not
until 1851, four years after his death, that it was published.