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Join Us For Our 2025-2026 Season! |
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Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players “This was music-making of a very high order” Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun |
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View Our Printable Calendar and Ticket Order Form (pdf) Take a look at our guest artists for this season. |
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Join us for our next concerts...
Monday, March 2 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservations advised Janice Carissa piano Oliver Neubauer violin Rosemary Nelis viola Robin Park cello Roni Gal-Ed oboe Vadim Lando clarinet The 4 greatest musical prodigies in history were Mozart, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, and Korngold. Mozart was the most gifted prodigy in the Classical era. The genius began playing the harpsichord around the age of 4 and was composing music by 5. When he died at age 35 he had composed over 600 pieces. Mendelssohn is regarded as the greatest composing prodigy, whose command at age 16 surpassed that of Mozart; he composed works at age 15, 16, and 17 that are considered masterpieces. The bourgeois genius was also a Renaissance man, being a linguist, literary connoisseur, and artist. The esteemed critic Harold Schonberg opined that “It is not generally realized that Saint-Saëns was probably the most awesome child prodigy in the history of music. His I.Q. must have soared far beyond any means of measurement. Consider: at 2 1/2 he was picking out tunes on the piano. Naturally he had absolute pitch. He also could read and write before he was three. At three he composed his first piece…. At five he was deep in analysis of Don Giovanni, using not the piano reduction but the full score. At that age he also gave a few public performances as a pianist. At seven he was reading Latin…. he made his official debut at ten. As an encore at his debut recital he offered to play any of Beethoven’s thirty-two sonatas from memory…. Saint-Saëns had total recall. If he read a book or heard a piece of music it was forever in his memory.” (Read Schonberg’s The Lives of the Great Composers to discover more about this amazing composer.) Korngold, likewise, had exceptional musical talent and early achievements as a composer (see his brief biography below). MOZART Oboe Quartet in F Major K. 370 The excellent Quartet was composed early in the year for Friedrich Ramm, a friend and renowned virtuoso oboist of the Electoral Court Orchestra in Munich, where Mozart had gone to complete his opera Idomeneo for its premiere. The Quartet was not only a showpiece for Ramm, but it also revealed the improvements that had been made to the oboe at that time. In John Burk’s view, Mozart “obviously put his best efforts into it, for he both expected a first-rate performance and valued Ramm’s regard for his own abilities. The score puts the soloist through his paces…. The string writing shows that Mozart had not forgotten how to write string quartets although he had long left them untouched. The string trio has no mere accompanying function…—it is a concertante partner throughout….” Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD Suite from the Incidental Music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing Op. 11 “The Maiden in the Bridal Chamber” depicts Hero, the bride-to-be, on her wedding morning, happily unaware that Claudio was tricked into doubting her fidelity. “Dogberry and Verges—March of the Watch”—is a mock serious march for Dogberry (the pompous constable), his crony Verges, and the other men of the watch. The Romantic waltz for “Scene in the Garden” unfolds as Beatrice and Benedick fall in love and another couple in the bushes confess their love for one another. The “Masquerade and Hornpipe” portray a lively banter in a masked ball and a lively dance. Written when Korngold was 23, the Incidental Music was performed regularly all over Europe. It was composed for a production of the play in German under the title Viel Lärmen um Nichts, and staged at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on 20 May 1920. Scored originally for chamber orchestra, Korngold arranged Much Ado for violin and piano when the run of performances was extended but no orchestra was available. He himself played the piano part. Korngold was born to a Jewish family in 1897 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary (today’s Brno, Czechia). Strongly influenced by his music-critic father, Julius Korngold, the phenomenal prodigy composer was playing 4-hand piano arrangements with his father at age 5. He could apparently reproduce any melody he heard and began composing at the age of 7, but seriously around 10 years of age. “In 1907 he played his cantata Gold to Mahler, who pronounced him a genius and recommended that he be sent to Zemlinsky for tuition. At the age of 11 he composed the ballet Der Schneemann, which caused a sensation when it was first performed at the Vienna Court Opera (1910), and he followed this with a Piano Trio and a remarkable Piano Sonata in E that so impressed Schnabel that he championed the work all over Europe. Of his first orchestral work, the Schauspiel Ouvertüre and the Sinfonietta (1912), Strauss remarked: ‘…it is really amazing’, while Puccini was similarly impressed by his opera Violanta (1916). His early fame reached its height with the appearance of his operatic masterpiece, Die tote Stadt, composed when he was 20 and acclaimed the world over after its dual premiere in Hamburg and Cologne (1920) [New Grove Dictionary].” In 1928 a poll by the Neue Wiener Tagblatt determined that Korngold and Arnold Schoenberg were the greatest living composers. In 1934 Korngold went to Hollywood to write music for films and to escape the growing threat of the Nazi regime. (During the war, his house in Vienna was confiscated by the Nazis.) He became one of the preeminent composers of Hollywood’s “golden age”—two of his 16 symphonic scores won Oscars: Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse. After the war, Korngold’s compositions for the concert hall included a Violin Concerto premiered by Jascha Heifetz and a Symphonic Serenade premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Wilhelm Fürtwangler. Toward the end of his life, his popularity waned with changing trends. The critic Karl Schumann saw Korngold as a weary man “who had been through emigration and the mill of the film studio…. In the end, he died [in 1957]…more so of a broken heart. He never reconciled himself to the fact of his expulsion from Vienna, from the good old days, from the fin-de siècle atmosphere, art nouveau, symbolism, the cult of music, worship of the opera, and the coffeehouse.” He was buried in Forever Hollywood Cemetery. MENDELSSOHN Clarinet Sonata in Eb Major MWV Q The Sonata was written on commission by a family friend, the Dresden banker and patron Baron Karl von Kaskel, who was also friends with Giacomo Meyerbeer and Richard Wagner. This is documented by Mendelssohn’s letter dated 6 May 1824: “I beg your pardon, my dear Kaskel, for being so late at keeping my promise. I have a great deal to do this winter and a sonata for piano and clarinet is not the easiest of all tasks. I know only too well that I have solved the problem very badly, but it would still be worse if I had written it without sufficient thought, and I must apologize again for the long delay and for the mediocrity of the sonata, but I know that you will not judge it too harshly for if you had wanted a really good sonata you would not have come to me. As I am not barren of poetic ideas I say this complainingly and not to excuse myself….” One may assume that Kaskel was an amateur clarinetist of modest ability as the clarinet part is not written for a virtuoso. A manuscript copy which bears the date “d. 17 April” is owned by the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Berlin; and the first page shows part of Mendelssohn’s fervent prayer, “L. e. g. G.” (Lass es gelingen, Gott! – Let it be successful, Lord!). The autograph copy is owned by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The date suggests that the Sonata was written just before Mendelssohn’s Sextet Op. 110, which was composed between April 28 and May 10. Both works were not published in Mendelssohn’s lifetime (the Sonata was eventually published in 1987). Around this time, Mendelssohn was also working on Act 1 of a comic opera, Die Hochzeit des Camacho. Before writing the Sonata, Mendelssohn had already written 13 string symphonies and a number of chamber works, and in March of 1824, he completed his first symphony for full orchestra. His musical education included the study of works by Haydn and Mozart, the counterpoint of Bach and Handel, as well as the music of his contemporaries, most notably Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber. Camille SAINT-SAËNS Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor Op. 92 Written in the spring of 1892, the Second Piano Trio reveals Saint-Saëns’s mastery of the genre. Its dazzling ride through 5 movements lives up to his remark that he lives in music “like a fish in water.” Robert Philip, writing for Hyperion Records, described the remarkable work: “The opening is one of Saint-Saëns’s most telling inspirations. The piano plays a pattern of repeated chords, rising and falling in a wave, and marked ‘very lightly’ (extremely difficult to achieve on the modern concert grand). Over this pattern, alternating violin and cello float a sombre melody…only Saint-Saëns could have combined such a broad and intense melody with such delicate and airy piano-writing. [The 2nd movement, an] irregular minuet…demonstrates how to write a movement in five-time that sounds entirely natural…. The slow movement is brief, simple and heartfelt…. The fourth movement, like the second, is a…fast waltz…the finale returns to the grand scale of the first…highly contrapuntal, almost ecclesiastical in feel …. We could almost be back in the organ loft of La Madeleine, with a virtuoso pedal solo, and as the tension mounts Saint-Saëns brings the work to an end in a mood of powerful determination.” Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835. Although he was frail and tubercular as a child, he lived till the age of 86, when he died in Algiers. The child prodigy was first taught the piano at the age of two and a half years old by his mother’s aunt. Following studies with other teachers, he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848. After attending organ classes and winning a second prix in 1849 and a brilliant premier prix in 1851, he began formal composition studies with Fromental Halévy, a protégé of Cherubini. In 1857 he became organist at the Madeleine, a post he held for 20 years. Liszt, whom he met about this time and with whom he formed an enduring friendship, called him the greatest organist in the world. From 1861 to 1865 he was professor of piano at the Niedermeyer School, where his pupils included Gabriel Fauré. During his heyday, Saint-Saëns was a progressive force and founded, with Romain Bussine, the Société Nationale de Musique in 1871. Its purpose was to give new music by French composers a hearing, which it did, for many years until about 1900. In 1888, Saint-Saëns suffered a crushing blow with the death of his mother, whom he loved with a passion. From then on, with no family left in Paris, he became a nomad, traveling ceaselessly and widely, either on long concert tours or on holiday. Among his favorite resorts was Algeria, where he composed the Second Piano Trio. |
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Monday, March 16 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservations advised Anna Han piano Fiona Khuong-Huu violin Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt viola Josephine Kim violin Sara Scanlon cello Bethany Bobbs cello Sooyun Kim flute Vadim Lando clarinet Mikhail GLINKA Viola Sonata in D minor The Sonata is the first large, original work for the viola in Russian music, albeit an unfinished one. Usefovich, a well-known Soviet writer on the viola, perceived that “The music sprung from the same lyrical and romanze elements as represented in Glinka’s songs.” In 1825 Glinka (at age 21) began writing a viola sonata while living in St Petersburg. He considered it a major breakthrough, marking a transition from his early, academic pieces to his unique Russian masterpieces. In late April and early May 1828, while visiting Moscow, he wrote the Sonata’s second movement, which he thought had “some quite clever counterpoint.” He began a third movement in rondo form…but never finished it—“the Rondo, whose folksy and Russian overtones I can still recall, I never did write down.” He revised the 2 movements in the early 1850s. Vadim Borisovsky completed the 2nd movement in 1931 and performed the Sonata for the first time on 1 May 1931 in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with pianist Elena Beckmann-Scerbina. Borisovsky was a giant figure in bringing the art of viola playing to prominence in Russia, and was a founder of the Beethoven Quartet. Glinka (1804–1857) was the father of the Russian nationalist school and the first Russian composer to win international recognition. Born an aristocrat, he was raised in landed gentry. During his first 6 years, while in the care of his paternal grandmother, he was cut off “from all music except for the folksongs sung in abundance by his nurse, the chant he heard in the village church, and the strident church bells [tuned to a dissonant chord]…. The importance of this initial and exclusive musical diet was fundamental: the folksongs sank deep into Glinka’s mind so that later he could effortlessly incorporate their shapes into his own melodic invention…. On his grandmother’s death in 1810, Glinka passed into the care of his parents, and at last began to hear other music…. [In 1817] he was sent to school in St Petersburg. There he excelled at languages, adoring also the natural sciences and any subject that elicited an imaginative response. In general, though, his musical education was thoroughly unsystematic…. On leaving school in 1822 he…settled into the life of a musical dilettante in the world of the St Petersburg drawing rooms to which his sociability and skill, both as singer and pianist, readily gained him access…. During the 1820s he composed a fair amount of music, even though he had had no formal musical grounding…. But the rich cultural life of St Petersburg…provided him with models upon which he could base his early works…. [In] the late 1820s his attention was focusing increasingly upon the styles and techniques of Italian opera [New Grove Dictionary].” From 1830 Glinka traveled in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Vienna, and Paris (residing there for 2 years); studied in Milan and with Siegfried Dehn in Berlin, where he died after catching a cold. His compositions were an important influence on future Russian composers, notably the members of the Mighty Five, who took Glinka’s lead and produced a distinctive Russian style of music. He is best known for the operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Ludmila. His orchestral composition Kamarinskaya (1848) was said by Tchaikovsky to be the acorn from which the oak of later Russian symphonic music grew. Glinka is often called the “Father of Russian Music and the “Father of Russian Opera.” Sergei PROKOFIEV Flute Sonata Op. 94 While working on the massive, sprawling film score for Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Central Asia,Prokofiev wrote the Sonata in the summer of 1943 “in a gentle, flowing classical style” for the USSR’s Committee on Artistic Affairs. He had been evacuated to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan, away from the war-torn Eastern Front, to avoid capture by the German regime. His biographer Israel Nestyev noted that its themes were sketched before the war and were inspired by the French flutist Georges Barrère. The demanding Sonata for both the flute and piano is in his neoclassical style. It pushes the boundaries of the flute in its stunning chromaticism and tone colors, which utilize a wide range of dynamics and rhythms to create a rich, nuanced, and expressive soundscape. Later, at the suggestion and with the assistance of David Oistrakh, Prokofiev made a transcription—the Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major Op. 94a.The Flute Sonata (his only work for the flute) premiered in Moscow on 7 December 1943 by Nicolai Kharkovsky and pianist Sviatoslav Richter. The violin version was first performed by Oistrakh and pianist Lev Oborin on 17 June 1944. Glazunov was open about being a musical conservative, and demonstrated this by walking out of a performance of an early work by his pupil Sergei Prokofiev. Despite his distaste for Prokofiev’s spiky dissonances, he encouraged the young composer and secured a performance of his original First Symphony (later destroyed). Alexander GLAZUNOV String Quintet in A Major Op. 39 Roderic Dunnett in a review for Strad magazine commented, “The Quintet is a work of real substance and weight, cogently argued and ingenious in its effects...the bustling, folksy finale makes a splendid conclusion following the...Andante. But the masterpiece is the Scherzo, which features some really effective pizzicato.... It is all profoundly rewarding.” Of immense stature, Glazunov was the major Russian symphonic composer of the generation that followed Tchaikovsky. Born in 1865 in St Petersburg, he lived comfortably as the son of a successful book publisher who played the violin, and a mother who was a good pianist. In 1880 his music teacher Mily Balakirev suggested that he study composition with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Glazunov became Rimsky-Korsakov’s favorite pupil, who in his teacher’s words improved “not from day to day but from hour to hour.” Two years later Balakirev conducted Glazunov’s First Symphony, written at age 16. The public was astounded. He continued composing, and by the time he completed his Second Symphony in 1886, he earned the nickname “The Little Glinka” and was the recognized heir of the nationalist group and composed according to their principles. He was also influenced by Franz Liszt, whom he visited in Weimar in 1884. Other influences were Wagner and Tchaikovsky. Most of Glazunov’s best works date from the 1890s and into the turn of the century. In 1905 he became director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he had taught since 1899. “During his long tenure he worked ceaselessly to improve the curriculum, raise the standards of staff and students, and defend the dignity and autonomy of the conservatory [New Grove Dictionary]. After the Revolution of 1917 he remained at his post until 1928, when, feeling isolated, he left the Soviet Union. After an unsuccessful tour of the United State in 1929–30 he lived in Paris, where he died in 1936; his remains were reinterred in an honored grave in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in St Petersburg. Regarding his significance, “Within Russian music Glazunov…succeeded in reconciling Russianism and Europeanism. He was the direct heir of Balakirev’s nationalism but tended more toward Borodin’s epic grandeur. At the same time he absorbed Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestral virtuosity, the lyricism of Tchaikovsky and the contrapuntal skill of Taneyev…. The younger composers (Prokofiev, Shostakovich) abandoned him as old-fashioned. But he remains a composer of imposing stature and a stabilizing influence in a time of transition and turmoil [Grove].” |
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Jupiter 2025 - 2026 Season Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservation advised Please visit our Media Page to hear Audio Recordings from the Jens Nygaard and Jupiter Symphony Archive Concert Venue:
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As promised, here are the videos of John Field’s Divertissement No. 1 and Sir Hamilton Harty’s Piano Quintet. Fortuitously, our Jupiter musicians had the good sense to record the rehearsal in an impromptu decision, literally minutes before pressing the record button. Pianist Mackenzie Melemed (replacing Roman Rabinovich at the last minute) learned the music in 2 days! Bravo to him. Both works are Irish rarities that were scheduled for the March 16 performances which had to be canceled because of the coronavirus epidemic. Even though the entire program could not be recorded because of technical issues, we are pleased to be able to share with you the 2 musical gems. Enjoy. John FIELD Divertissement No. 1 H. 13 We thank the University of Illinois (Champaign) for a copy of the Divertissement music. Mackenzie Melemed piano
Sir Hamilton HARTY Piano Quintet in F Major Op. 12 Andrew Clements of the Guardian proclaimed the beautiful Quintet “a real discovery: a big, bold statement full of striking melodic ideas and intriguing harmonic shifts, which adds Brahms and Dvořák into Harty’s stylistic mix, together with Tchaikovsky in some passages.” There’s folk music charm as well, reminiscent of Percy Grainger—notably in the Scherzo (Vivace) with its folksy quirks and nonchalance, and the winding, pentatonic melody in the Lento. Our gratitude to the Queen’s University Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a copy of the autograph manuscript of the music. Much thanks, too, to Connor Brown for speedily creating a printed score and parts from Harty’s manuscript. Mackenzie Melemed piano I Allegro 0:00 | |||||||
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Jupiter featured on Our Net News American program opener on March 18, with grateful thanks to Michael Shaffer of OurNetNews.com for recording the matinee concert, and making available the Horatio Parker Suite video for our viewing pleasure. Horatio Parker Suite in A Major, Op. 35, composed in 1893 Stephen Beus piano
More video from this performance can be viewed on our media page |
Jupiter on YouTube NEW YORK CANVAS : The Art of Michael McNamara is a video portrait of the artist who has painted iconic images of New York City for more than a decade, capturing the changing urban landscape of his adopted city. Our Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players provide the music from Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, underscoring the inspiration the artist has drawn from Jens Nygaard and the musicians. Michael was also our Jupiter volunteer from 2002 to 2010. Here is a video of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players performance of the Rondo alla Zingarese movement:
The producer-director, Martin Spinelli, also made the EMMY Award-winning “Life On Jupiter: The Story of Jens Nygaard, Musician.” For more information, visit our media
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“Some great musicians get a statue when they pass away. Some get their name imprinted on the roof of a well-known concert hall. But the late conductor Jens Nygaard has a living tribute: an entire ensemble of musicians and a concert series to go along with it... It is one of the city’s cultural jewels... In the end, if Mr. Nygaard was known for anything, it was unmitigated verve. That’s what the audience regularly returned for, and that’s what they got Monday afternoon. To have a grassroots community of musicians continue to celebrate Mr. Nygaard with indomitable performances like these week after week, even without the power of world-famous guest soloists, is proper tribute. And with more large orchestras and ensembles needing more corporate sponsorship year after year, I, for one, hope the Jupiter’s individual subscriber-base remains strong. New York’s musical life needs the spirit of Jens Nygaard, and Mei Ying should be proud she’s keeping it alive.” Read the complete article on our reviews page. |
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performances, except where otherwise noted, are held at: Copyright © 1999-2026 Jupiter Symphony. All rights reserved. |
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