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Join Us For Our 2024-2025 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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Why the name Jupiter: When Jens Nygaard named his orchestra Jupiter, he had the beautiful, gaseous planet in mind—unattainable but worth the effort, like reaching musical perfection. Many, indeed, were privileged and fortunate to hear his music making that was truly Out of This World. Our Players today seek to attain that stellar quality.
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, October 7 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservations advised Fei Fei piano Isabelle Durrenberger violin Claire Bourg violin Maurycy Banaszek viola Christine Lamprea cello Vadim Lando clarinet Note: Isabelle Durrenberger replaces Asi Matathias for this concert Joel ENGEL Freilechs Dance Op. 21 Freylekhs are lively circle or line dances commonly performed at weddings. Engel (1868–1927) is regarded as the “Father of the Renaissance of Jewish Music.” The Russian composer, critic, and folklorist was born in Berdiansk, Crimea, and studied law before switching to studies with Sergey Taneyev and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov at the Moscow Conservatory. After graduating, he worked as a music critic for the newspaper Russkiya vedomosty from 1897 to 1919. Concurrently, he composed. Engel also became interested in Jewish folk music—he collected, arranged, performed, and published the songs of Eastern European Jews. He went on excursions to the shtetls of Eastern Europe, writing down the villagers’ songs and then composed music inspired by his findings. In addition, he promoted his interest with lectures on Jewish folk music, and encouraged other Jewish composers to create a national Jewish style of classical music. In 1924 Engel moved to Palestine, settling in Tel Aviv “as a teacher and choir conductor in support of his belief that the revival of Jewish song was prerequisite for any future art of music in Israel [New Grove Dictionary].” Aleksandr KREIN Esquisses hébraïques Op. 13 In Krein’s words, “The form was improvisational, after the manner of my father’s extemporizations on the violin.” The second of two sets of “Jewish Sketches” was written at the urging of Joel Engel, who encouraged Krein to explore his own Jewish musical heritage. The piece earned immediate acclaim, establishing Krein as a major new voice in both Russian and Jewish music. Critics were particularly struck by the use of the classical string quartet with a clarinet line that evoked the idiosyncratic melody and intonation of klezmer music, a sound sometimes said to mimic the emotive character of Jewish prayer chants, the soulful inflections once described as “laughter through tears.” Krein (1883–1951) was one of the leading modernist composers of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Nizhni Novgorod, he was one of 10 children in a family of traditional Jewish folk musicians; his father Abraham was a folk violinist. His childhood was spent performing in his father’s band, playing klezmer music (Eastern European music in the Jewish tradition). At age 13 he entered the Moscow Conservatory as a cello student, then studied music theory and composition with Sergey Taneyev. “While still a student, Krein began to compose song settings for Russian and French symbolist poetry. Upon graduation in 1908, he developed a highly original style of Jewish concert music, one that combined the new harmonic language of modern composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel and, in particular, Scriabin with the lyrical melodies and distinctive modes of Jewish folk music [Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe].” In her paper on “Herzlian Zionism and the chamber music of the New Jewish School, 1912-1925” Erin Fulton wrote, “Yoel Engel and Alexander Krein both left accounts identifying their first interest in Jewish music as an expression of ethnic identity. Krein in particular advocated nationalist music to resist absorption into Russian culture, calling his compositions a ‘turning towards Jewish melody as a protest against persecution and assimilation.’ …These political influences encouraged composers of the New Jewish School to write music that could be played by touring ensembles intended to spread Zionist ideas, and small chamber groups were best suited to such wide travel…. Correspondingly, the Society for Jewish Folk Music sponsored touring ensembles that visited Zionist organizations in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Lithuania, and Russia beginning in 1909. Special mention was given to the chamber music tours as one of the Society’s primary achievements at the organization’s third anniversary session, indicating the importance its members placed on this activity.” Mieczysław WEINBERG Aria Op. 9 Weinberg (1919–1975) is thought of as the third great Soviet composer, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich. He was born to a musical family in Warsaw. His father—a violinist and conductor in a Yiddish theater—gave the boy his first jobs as a musician, and exposed him to the traditional and liturgical Jewish music that influenced his creativity. At an early age, he taught himself to play the piano, and became sufficiently skillful to substitute for his father as conductor. In 1931 he began piano studies at the Warsaw Conservatory. Shortly after graduating in 1939, Weinberg fled the German occupation of Warsaw. He managed to escape to the Russian border after a 17-day trek, but his parents and sister were captured and burned alive. At first he was a refugee in Minsk, but when the Germans began their invasion of the Soviet Union, he was evacuated to Tashkent, where he wrote the Aria (it was not performed during his lifetime). While in Tashkent, in 1942, the composer Israel Finkelstein took an interest in him and showed Shostakovich Weinberg’s First Symphony. Shostakovich was so impressed that he arranged for Weinberg to move in 1943 to Moscow, where he lived the rest of his life. The two composers forged a close friendship that remained central to both of their lives. During the official persecution of Jews, Weinberg was imprisoned in February 1953, but was released after Stalin’s death in April. He continued composing serious works as well as vast amounts of film and cartoon music, radio plays, and music for the circus to support the family. Sergei PROKOFIEV Overture on Hebrew Themes The Overture “is the offspring of an encounter between a small group of Zionist-oriented Jewish musicians committed to Jewish culture and a non-Jew who will always be counted among the major and most influential composers of the first half of the 20th century. The work, composed in New York in 1919–20, was the result of the coincidental confluence of the Russian-born New National School in Jewish Music (the movement centered originally within the Gesellschaft für jüdische Volksmusik in St. Petersburg and its branches) and an artistic inspiration that was ignited and fulfilled when a chamber ensemble of six Russian-Jewish representatives of that New National School performed in New York during Prokofiev’s years there. They were known collectively as the Zimro Ensemble and also as the Palestine Chamber Music Ensemble: ZIMRO. The story framed by that ensemble’s birth in 1918 and its American concerts between 1919 and 1921 en route to Palestine constitutes a fascinating but short-lived and obscure episode in the history of Jewish music in the modern era. For Zimro would offer the American public…its first aural glimpse of the genuine folk melos that had flourished for at least a century in the outlying regions of the Czarist Empire and an insight into the fruits of the Gesellschaft’s mission and its activities within the Russian cultural sphere…. Zimro presented the world premiere of the Overture…[in] February (1920) at the Bohemian Club in New York—with Prokofiev as the guest pianist. The group repeated it, also with Prokofiev at the piano, in April of that year, at the ensemble’s second concert at Carnegie Hall. They played it again at Carnegie Hall at least twice: with their own pianist, Berdichevsky, in 1921; and in December 1920, possibly with guest pianist Lara Cherniavksy.…” In 1934 Prokofiev arranged it for chamber orchestra. Prokofiev had a close relationship with the Bolsheviks before the Russian Revolution of 1917, but he went abroad, living in New York and Paris during most of the early years of the Soviet Union, and by the time he returned in 1935 he found cultural life under monitor—the Composers Union was formed to police the likes of Prokofiev and his more outspoken contemporary Shostakovich for alleged “formalist tendencies” considered to be intellectually elitist and anti-Soviet. Further, any freedom they may have had ended with the 1948 Zhdanov Decree, aimed at suppressing artistic self-expression. Prokofiev was now viewed as “anti-democratic” and much of his music was banned. Many concert and theater administrators refused to program his music, fearful of the consequences of supporting an artist denounced by the regime. He suffered censorship until his death in 1953. Leo ORNSTEIN Piano Quintet Op. 92 The Quintet premiered at a concert in which works by Bartók (who was also present) were performed. Gramophone has described it as “a glorious confection of Stravinsky, Ravel, Rachmaninov and East European folk idioms that almost makes up in enthusiasm what it so conspicuously lacks in discipline…. In the Quintet’s world of elementary melody and accompaniment, amplified by virtuoso texture and spiced by additive-rhythm ostinato, the piano is king.” A writer for the New World Records heard “Sweeping melodies floating beatlessly over strongly marked metric supports. In the outer movements, the mood is often epic; one is reminded of the movies of Eisenstein and the great Russian landscapes, marauding bands of Cossacks, affecting cantorial wails.… The slow movement is an eloquent expression of human sadness.” Ornstein’s obituary in the Independent recalled “An epic tonal work…recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.” Ornstein (1893–2002), the son of a Russian cantor, grew up hearing not only Jewish liturgical music, but Greek and Armenian chant, as well as Russian folk music. These influences are featured and blended in his music, together with a highly personal language of dissonant tonality. A prodigy, he was taught by his father until age 11, when he entered the St Petersburg Conservatory and studied with Alexander Glazunov. In 1907 he emigrated to New York and continued his education at the Institute of Musical Art (now Juilliard) with Bertha Fiering Tapper, the strongest single influence on his life and music. After his debut in 1911 he became a super piano virtuoso, who simultaneously outraged and riveted audiences with his unprecedented “futurist” experimental piano works. Then, after extensive touring and international fame, he abruptly ended his concert career at its height, in 1920, to pursue a quieter life of composition and teaching at the Philadelphia Musical Academy and Ornstein School of Music. A renewed interest in his music began in the 1970s with a steady increase in performances and recordings. When he died in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the age of 108, Ornstein had composed for more than 80 years and was among the longest-lived of composers. |
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Monday, October 21 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservations advised Hyunah Yu soprano Keyi Wang piano Joshua Brown violin Isabelle Durrenberger violin Dov Scheindlin viola Sara Scanlon cello Roni Gal-Ed oboe Casa Ricordi was founded in 1808 by Giovanni Ricordi, a violinist who had spent several months in Leipzig studying the techniques of Breitkopf & Härtel before forming his own publishing house in Milan. During his first decade in business he issued an average of 30 publications annually; in his second, the yearly average had expanded to 300. This was largely the result of securing contracts with La Scala, giving him the exclusive rights to publish the music performed at the opera house. In 1825 Giovanni purchased all their music archives. Subsequently he secured favorable contracts with the opera houses of Naples and Venice, and purchased the stock and plates of Ferdinando Artaria. By the end of 1837 he was advertising more than 10,000 publications. When Giovanni died in 1853, his son Tito continued the expansion of Ricordi. Tito's great coup was the acquisition in 1888 of the inventory of Francesco Lucca (his chief rival and Wagner’s publisher in Italy) from his widow for one million lire. Shortly before his death, Tito handed over the firm’s management to his son Giulio, who in turn was succeeded by his son Tito II. When Tito II retired in 1919, the management of the firm passed out of the hands of the Ricordi family. Giulio RICORDI Piano Trio in A Major The Piano Trio was dedicated to the Trio Pesarese, then one of the foremost piano trio ensembles in Italy. Giulio Ricordi (1840–1912), the grandson of Giovanni Ricordi, was a highly cultured man and the best musician in the family—he played the piano, he painted, and his interest in journalism made him a strong advocate for the company’s periodicals. Born in Milan, Giulio studied composition as a youth and wrote many piano pieces and songs, some orchestral music and stage works, and quite a successful operetta, La secchia rapita. His music was usually published under the name of Jules Burgmein (or sometimes Grubmeni). He was also passionate about the unification of Italy and volunteered for military service at age 20, winning many honors for bravery in the war against the Austrians. From 1856, for a short time, he worked for his father Tito, and permanently from 1863. It was Giulio who regularly dealt with Verdi on the firm’s behalf and played a central role in Puccini’s artistic development. He served as both the editor and publisher of the operas of Verdi, Puccini, and Ponchielli, to name just three. Under his watch, Casa Ricordi became one of the most important music publishers in the world. By its 100th anniversary in 1908, the Ricordi catalog offered 110,000 publications, including the music of the composers on this program. Giulio’s death on 6 June 1912 was considered such a momentous event in the music world that his obituary received a full column in the New York Times. Giovanni Battista VIOTTI Duetto in D minor for Violin Solo W 5.23 Dedicated to his friend Luigi Cherubini, the piece requires finger-twisting dexterity that is a testament to Viotti’s own technical facility and to his compositional vision. It was written in March 1821 when he was in Paris, serving as the director of the Académie Royale de Musique. The New Grove Dictionary describes Viotti (1755–1824) as “the most influential violinist between Tartini and Paganini and the last great representative of the Italian tradition stemming from Corelli. He is considered the founder of the ‘modern’ (19th-century) French school of violin playing, and his compositions, among the finest examples of Classical violin music, exerted a strong influence on 19th-century violin style.” Born in Fontanetto da Po, the son of a blacksmith, Viotti was taken in 1766 to Turin, where he lived and was educated in the home of Prince Alfonso dal Pozzo della Cisterna. After 1770 he studied with the virtuoso Gaetano Pugnani, with whom he toured widely in Europe. His debut at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in March 1782 brought him instant success and fame, and led to frequent performances that garnered acclaim. After September 1783, however, he retired abruptly from public concerts and became court musician to Marie Antoinette at Versailles. He also established himself as a teacher and opera impresario, introducing important works, including the operas of his friend and associate Cherubini. In 1792 the French Revolution forced him to flee to London, where he conducted Italian operas and performed his own violin concerti at the Salomon Concerts. Then, in 1798, he was unjustly accused of Jacobin sympathies and went to Germany when ordered to leave. Upon his return to London in 1801 he retired from music, although he continued to perform and compose privately. Instead, he turned his attention to his wine business, which he had established before his exile. Following the failure of the business, he worked in Paris as director of the Académie Royale de Musique from 1819 to 1822, after which he returned to London. Viotti’s compositions enjoyed enormous esteem and popularity in his day. His “musical style, thoroughly Italianate in its lyricism, reflects the evolution of the Classical style, from galant to pre-Romantic, but in an entirely original and unpredictable way [Oxford Bibliographies].” His 29 violin concertos are his most important work; his favorite genre was the violin duo. Ottorino RESPIGHI Il Tramonto “The Sunset” Respighi wrote Il Tramonto after reading “The Sunset” by Percy Bysshe Shelley in an Italian translation by Roberto Ascoli. The poem is about a woman who had fallen in love with a young man who inexplicably dies. Accepting her fate, she lives on as if life “were a kind of madness, / If madness ’tis to be unlike the world” and seeks consolation in the thought of joining her departed lover: “Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!” The music is shaped by the emotional ride in Shelley’s poem as it wrestles with the mingling of love and death, the intensity of grief, the longing for peace, and the effect of time. Shelley himself was mired in complicated relationships when he wrote his poem in the spring of 1816—he was in a loveless marriage with his pregnant wife Harriet, whom he had left behind to elope with Mary Godwin (author of Frankenstein) in 1814. Percy and Mary’s first son was born in January 1816, and they would marry at the end of the year, after Harriet’s suicide. Antonino PASCULLI Ricordo di Napoli: Scherzo brillante Rachel Becker, a scholar of 19th century opera fantasies tells us that “Pasculli [1842–1924] was a fixture of Palermo musical life from his early teens till his death at age 81.” A phenomenal oboist beloved by his contemporary musicians and audiences, he was appointed a professor at the Palermo Conservatory in 1860 at the age of 18, and served as the music director of the Municipal Music Corps of Palermo from 1877 for 35 years. Pasculli was born in Palermo and raised at the Palermo Conservatory as an orphan with his violinist brother Gaetano (the Conservatory was founded as an orphanage for boys in 1618). His career began at the age of 14 when he performed at the Conservatory, and subsequently toured Europe as a virtuoso oboist with his brother. When Wagner traveled to Palermo in 1881–1882, he met Pasculli. He conducted the Corps with the oboist’s own baton, which was later donated to the Conservatory library. As a performer, Pasculli was famous for his “light and effortless bravura style.” As a composer, he wrote several dazzling opera fantasias that call for challenging feats of virtuosity, orchestral works and concertos, and concert etudes. His chamber music compositions highlight the oboe or cor anglais, and are generally for solo oboe with piano accompaniment. Giuseppe VERDI String Quartet in E minor Verdi’s only piece of chamber music was written between his opera Aida and the Requiem. He had arrived in Naples in November 1872 to oversee the local premiere of Aida, but the performance had to be postponed because Teresa Stolz, the soprano cast in the leading role, had fallen ill. With three weeks of idle time on his hands, he wrote the string quartet. It premiered on 1 April 1873, two days after the opening of Aida, at an informal concert played by local musicians in the lobby of his hotel. Verdi later recalled: “I’ve written a Quartet in my leisure moments in Naples. I had it performed one evening in my residence without attaching the least importance to it and without inviting anyone in particular. Only the seven or eight persons who usually come to visit me were present. I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it’s a Quartet!” He continued to fret over it, and finally submitted it to his publishers 3 years later. |
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Jupiter 2024 - 2025 Season Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservations 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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MeiYing Manager All
performances, except where otherwise noted, are held at: Copyright © 1999-2024 Jupiter Symphony. All rights reserved.
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