DUMKA FOR VIOLIN, VIOLA AND PIANO
Rebecca Clarke (b. Harrow, London, August 27, 1886; d. New York City, October 13, 1979)
Composed 1940-41; 10 minutes

Except for the rare occasions when a spotlight would shine brightly on Rebecca Clarke’s compositions, she was known during her lifetime principally as a virtuoso violist—renowned internationally as a soloist and in ensemble. As a young violinist Clarke received a first-rate music education at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, studying composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. He encouraged her to switch from violin to the viola, for which she went to the great violist Lionel Tertis. One of the first female members of Sir Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra, she became the viola partner to such famous performers as Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein, Pablo Casals and George Szell.

As a composer Clarke was inhibited not only by society’s bias against women, but also by her own reticence and lack of self-confidence. Born in Harrow, London, to an American father and a German mother, she suffered serious abuse by her father, which also brought significant disturbance into the family dynamics. Although she had the courage to defy convention by succeeding as a viola soloist, her potential career as a composer—a published composer—was undermined.

During World War I, Clarke lived and worked for a few years in the United States, where she became acquainted with Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, this nation’s preeminent patron of chamber music. Submitting winning works for two of Mrs. Coolidge’s chamber music competitions, Clarke earned admiration and glowing reviews—her moment in the spotlight—as a composer. In 1924 she resumed her successful viola career in England and continued to compose in private.

After a visit to her two brothers in the United States in the late 1930s, Clarke was prohibited from returning home to London by the outbreak of World War II. In 1944 she renewed a friendship with the American pianist and composer James Friskin. They married in September. Despite Friskin’s warm support for her composing, Clarke went into retirement. She devoted herself instead to the unaccustomed companionship and pleasure of their life together. “I can’t [compose],” she once explained to an interviewer, “unless it’s the first thing I think of every morning when I wake and the last thing I think of every night before I go to sleep.”

Clarke’s impressive Dumka for Violin, Viola, and Piano was published as “Duo Concertante for Violin and Viola, with Piano.” In the introduction to the 2004 Oxford University Press edition of the Dumka score, the editor Christopher Johnson wrote that when Rebecca Clarke helped him to catalogue her works in 1976, “she dated [the Dumka Trio] to 1940-41, placing it near the beginning of a series of late compositions.” Johnson noted Clarke’s affinity for the gorgeous melodies, melancholy and smoky passion of the music of both Brahms and Dvořák. “Dumka” is a musical form that emerged from folk roots in Eastern Europe. It emphasizes not only the mercurial changes between melancholy and exuberance in Eastern European folk music, but also the asymmetric rhythmic patterns, which slip easily from duple to triple pulses. Antonin Dvořák composed several works using the Dumka form, and in this trio for violin, viola and piano, Clarke created her own captivating version.

At her death in 1979, Clarke left a significant body of unpublished compositions which have slowly come to light. The increasing interest in her music has contributed to her being recognized today as one of the most important English composers of her era.

FAST ZU ERNST [ALMOST TOO SERIOUS]
from KINDERSZENEN [SCENES FROM CHILDHOOD], OP. 15, NO. 10
Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau, Saxony, June 8, 1810; d. Endenich, Germany, July 29, 1856)
Composed 1838; 1 1/2 minutes

Robert Schumann composed Kinderszenen, a suite of thirteen short piano pieces, for his beloved fiancée, pianist Clara Wieck. He wrote to her that these pieces “...[are] more cheerful, gentle and melodic” than any of his other works, and in a different category from her usual virtuosic concert repertoire. Despite Schumann’s characterization, these thirteen pieces require an advanced adult pianist. Schumann intended that they suggest children’s thoughts about, and reactions to, their world.

In 1838, after composing the thirteen pieces of Kinderszenen, and before their publication, Schumann created titles for each of the movements. Believing that a good composition will speak for itself by whispering to a performer its musical character, tempo and style, Schumann decided that titles would constitute “gentle hints for execution and interpretation.” Among the 13 pieces, the “gentle hints” include such titles as those for No. 6, “Important Event”; No. 7, “Dreaming” (the famous “Träumerei”); No. 9, “Knight of the Rocking Horse"; and the curiously abstract title of No. 10, “Almost Too Serious.”

Schumann composed “Almost Too Serious” in the evocative key of G sharp minor, with the time signature 2/8.  Its lovely melody is buoyed by a syncopated rocking bass figure. The piece advances in a series of seven gentle observations, suggestive of a child’s innocent musings. In between each of the thoughts, a fermata marks the conclusion of the phrase, indicating a pause for a lingering thought before continuing. The musings, while important for an innocent child, are almost too serious. Almost.

VERGE FOR CLARINET, VIOLIN AND PIANO
Sebastian Currier (b. Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, March 16, 1959)
Composed 1997; 18 minutes

In 1997 Sebastian Currier’s Verge emerged from a co-commission by the Verdehr Trio and Michigan State University. The Verdehr Trio performed its world premiere on March 7, 1998 in the St. Nicholas Church of Talinn, Estonia. Currier attended the U.S. premiere on March 28, 1999 in the Music Room of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. In his composer’s statement, Currier has written:

Verge is written for and dedicated to the Verdehr Trio...The idea for the work is taken from the title of Robert Schumann’s “Almost too serious.” Implicit in the title is an aesthetic boundary which, although it may be approached, should not be crossed. If the piece were too serious, it would cause it to be out of balance with the simple, childlike world of Kinderszenen as a whole. On the other hand, as long as it does not cross this threshold, it may come as close as possible. It is this idea of being on the verge of some extremity or another that becomes the basis for my piece. Each of the nine movements stands on the edge of excess and I use the phrase borrowed from Schumann to describe them. The nine movements can be divided into cycles of three, each beginning with a pair of movements that oppose one another: Fast-slow; dark-light; etc. “Almost too much” forms the dramatic center of the whole. “almost too fractured” presents brief quotations from the other movements.

THREE MADRIGALS FOR VIOLIN AND VIOLA
Bohuslav Martinů (b. Policka, Bohemia, December 8, 1890; d. Liestal, Switzerland, August 28, 1959)
Composed 1947; 17 minutes

Within a life filled with adventure and misadventure, the composer Bohuslav Martinů created an estimable music catalog of 400 works. Born in a small Bohemian village where he spent his youth, he lived the remainder of his years largely in political exile from his beloved homeland,

Bohemia cum Czechoslovakia. For long periods he and his wife changed residence repeatedly among France, Switzerland and the U.S.

At the end of World War II, during which they had sheltered in the U.S., Martinů planned to take advantage of Czechoslovakia's release from despotic rule. As a life-long resistance fighter, he eagerly planned for his permanent return to Prague. His plans came to naught in 1946 when he was seriously injured by a fall from a balcony near Tanglewood, where he was teaching for the summer. His recovery was slow and frustrating and he experienced severe after-effects for the rest of his life.

Martinů‘s brain injury necessitated years of patient recovery, including a revision of his composing practices. He was fortunate in his friendship with the violinist Joseph Fuchs and violist Lilian Fuchs. Renowned as concert and recording artists, the siblings frequently performed as a duo and were in constant need of excellent, challenging repertoire. Understanding their friend’s need to compose, and his current physical limitations, they asked him to write a new concert work. Their commission helped him psychologically and financially to get back to work.  For some time, Martinů would focus his energies on shorter pieces for fewer instruments—a boon for chamber musicians’ repertoire.

Upon completion of the 3 Madrigals for Violin and Viola, Lilian and Joseph Fuchs, the dedicatees, performed it for the first time on December 22, 1947. It was published two years later and found immediate favor with performers and with their audiences. The three movements vibrate with the inventive infusion of Martinů’s great musical loves—of English madrigals, polyphonic vocal works, American jazz, colorful harmonies and rhythms—all amalgamated in the crucible of Bohuslav Martinů’s unique musical imagination.  As concert staples, the Madrigals have certainly earned their place next to Mozart’s beloved works for violin and viola.

TRIO IN E FLAT FOR PIANO, CLARINET AND VIOLA, “Kegelstatt Trio,” K. 498
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. Salzburg, January 27, 1756; d. Vienna, December 16, 1791)
Composed 1786; 20 minutes

Turning 30, Mozart found himself inundated with composition requests. The rising influence of music publishers was creating a demand for his work, and the diminution of royal and aristocratic financial support was providing a need for new income sources. In 1786 alone, Mozart composed a piano quartet, a string quartet, two piano trios, a dozen horn duos, piano variations, a four-hand sonata and more. In addition, Mozart composed this Trio, which gave him personal pleasure beyond any market concerns. 

Largely because of the brilliant musicianship of clarinetist Anton Stadler, Mozart became infatuated with the sound of Stadler’s clarinet and its sibling, the basset-horn. Mozart’s exquisite Clarinet Quintet and the later Clarinet Concerto give ample testimony to his feeling for the inimitable timbres that Stadler called forth. Writing this trio for his three favorite instruments brought out the best in Mozart: the piano (by 1786 it was replacing the harpsichord), the mellow-toned viola and Stadler’s clarinet. Shortly after completing this composition, in August 1786, Mozart himself was the violist, the renowned Anton Stadler the clarinetist, and Mozart’s favorite keyboard student, Franziska von Jacquin, the pianist for its first public performance. (Franziska was also a sister of Mozart’s dearest friend, Gottfried von Jacquin.) The publisher’s note that “The violin part can also be performed by a clarinet” indicates the paucity of capable clarinetists among likely purchasers. Anton Stadler alone had the necessary clarinet facility and musical depth. Only much later was the Trio known as a work for piano, clarinet and viola.

It opens unusually, with a rich Andante movement. The middle movement, the Menuetto, is an unusual example of its type, a dark, serious mood dampening the dance and trio. A Rondeaux: Allegretto completes the Trio in good spirits. A myth grew up that Mozart had composed the work while playing a lively, alcohol-fueled game at a skittles court (Kegelstatt). As the Mozart scholar John Burk once wrote, the Kegelstatt title “came from the unlikely story that he had composed it during a game of ninepins [or skittles]. The character of the music implies anything but haste—rather, loving care in the combined treatment of the three instruments.”

— Program notes by Sandra Hyslop