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2009
March 29: The Czech Nonet
Aerie: Now celebrating its 80th year, the Czech Nonet makes a visit to Saint Paul Sunday for a program that includes three works composed especially for its uncommon recipe of winds and strings. The legendary ensemble's longstanding alliance with composers has inspired some of chamber music's greatest works. We'll get tastes this week of Förster and Krejčí side-by-side with fuller courses of Dvořák and Martinů. The latter holds special significance for the ensemble and echoes an expansiveness typical of Martinů's music. Each day as a sickly young child, the composer's father, a watchman, carried him up 193 steps to the top of their village tower. Years later Martinů wrote that this sense of space was to become central to his music—"space which I always have in front of me." (more)
March 22: Brentano String Quartet
Guest host: Ara Guzelimian, Senior Director and Artistic Advisor at Carnegie Hall
Cris de Couer: The madrigals of Don Carlo Gesualdo comprise some of the most intensely expressive music ever composed. This week on Saint Paul Sunday the celebrated Brentano String Quartet brings five of them to us as they've been re-imagined for it by composer Bruce Adolphe. The Brentano captures all of the sweet torment of the pieces, whose vividly compounded moods set the stage well for what comes next: Mozart's A Major Quartet (K. 464), a work of peerless eloquence and technical brilliance that likewise explores zones hovering between pleasure and pain. The Brentano fathoms both composer's works with exhilarating insights all its own.
(more)March 15: The King's Noyse
Time Travel: Perhaps the surest sign of artistry among those musicians who specialize in early music is how convincingly they bid us into the world that first gave life to their chosen repertoire. This week, the celebrated King's Noyse—including soprano Ellen Hargis and lutenist Paul O'Dette—makes a warmly anticipated return visit for works of dashing wit and often haunting beauty. The King’s Noyse draws us into the time of Purcell, Praetorius, and others not only by remaining true to those composers’ origins but reviving them with its own particular magic. David Douglass directs a program that includes several of his own arrangements. (more)
March 08: Zehetmair String Trio
Less is More: The spare sound of the string trio drew from Mozart a lovely contradiction: a work of great elegance and richness. This week, we'll hear his Eb Divertimento performed by the masterful Zehetmair String Trio, who'll also play an often-overlooked fragment of Schubert and an exuberant work composed in 1944 by 23-year old Czech composer Gideon Klein when he was held prisoner at the nightmarish Nazi "show camp" Thieresenstadt. As if to tie these three great works together, Mr. Zehetmair then steps out by himself, concluding the hour with Eugène Ysaÿe's Ballade, a pinnacle of the solo violin repertoire. (more)
March 01: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Old Friends: This week Bill reunites with some long-time friends of Saint Paul Sunday: the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. Joseph Kalichstein, Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson have been playing together for almost thirty years and have made 18 recordings to date. When Bill asks them about their longevity, pianist Joseph Kalichstein jokes, "We're just trying to get it right." But you'll hear for yourself, they've gotten it right from the beginning. Two masterworks of Brahms and a touchingly beautiful movement from Beethoven will illustrate the point, and Andy Stein's arrangement of Gershwin's "Summertime" is just plain fun. You're invited to the reunion, and it promises to be a great time. (more)
February 22: Zuill Bailey, cello; Awadagin Pratt, piano
A to Z: Friendship has long been a wellspring for exalted music making, as this week's program with cellist Zuill Bailey and pianist Awadagin Pratt brilliantly attests. The two first met off hours in a ping pong duel when they were teenaged participants in a music festival. In the years since, they’ve kept the association alive through frequent collaboration on the great works of their shared repertoire—music than opens new vistas for both of these remarkable soloists. They'll bring us sonatas by Debussy, Beethoven, and Brahms. (more)
February 15: OPUS ONE
Dream Team: If chamber music had a "dream team," Bill's guests this week, OPUS ONE, would be it. Four players representing the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tashi, the Beaux Arts Trio and the Orion and Guarneri String Quartets, OPUS ONE is the result of a mutual love of music-making between these extraordinary instrumentalists and friends. That sheer joy in music, not to mention the friendship, shines throughout their performances of piano quartets by Mozart and Dvořák. Don't miss these virtuosos of the rarest kind, OPUS ONE, on Saint Paul Sunday this week. (more)
February 08: Jorja Fleezanis, violin; Karl Paulnack, piano
Missionaries: Now and then, music of our time needs its own champions, too—performers devoted to sharing it with listeners who haven't yet experienced just how it exhilarating can be. This week, violinist Jorja Fleezanis and pianist Karl Paulnack join forces to celebrate the music that originally brought them together. These missionaries of contemporary sound have made it their calling to engage and enlighten audiences with rarely performed 20th and 21st century works. Listen in for sonatas by Peter Mennin and Ernst Bloch as well as one of Alban Berg's hauntingly beautiful Seven Early Songs. (more)
February 01: Thomas Hampson, baritone; Craig Rutenberg, piano
Wondrous Free: Renowned baritone Thomas Hampson tells America's stories in song, bringing them to life through masterly performances and a passionate sense of their importance to our national soul. As part of his extensive collaboration with the Library of Congress, he unearths several previously neglected gems, singing them alongside more familiar favorites by Foster, Copland, Barber, and Ives. We also hear the fourth song in Stephen Paulus's "Heartland Portrait", a cycle commissioned for Mr. Hampson and set to luminous poems by Ted Kooser, thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States. Pianist Craig Rutenberg, whose contributions have likewise enlarged our musical life, performs with equal mastery and heart. (more)
January 25: David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano
Portrait: The Wall Street Journal calls them "America's power couple of chamber music," but their fans just call them "wonderful." Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han make a warmly anticipated return visit to Saint Paul Sunday this week for a program that fully engages the duo's enthralling way of revealing the music from the inside out. Along with Brahms's first cello sonata and one of his beloved intermezzi for solo piano, we also hear heartfelt music of Edvard Grieg. The program opens with "Portrait," a deft and lyrical work composed by David's own father, Edwin Finckel. (more)
January 18: Musicians from Marlboro
Common Ground: Vermont's famous and long-running Marlboro Festival, founded in 1951 by Rudolf Serkin and Adolf Busch, is a very unique environment for a chamber musician to spend the summer. This is a place where a young professional can collaborate side-by-side with an experienced master artist on a level playing field. The result? First-quality music-making, and a family environment unlike any other in the classical music world. Listen in this week as Bill McGlaughlin welcomes a part of this musical family into the studio. Musicians from Marlboro will play a wide variety of music from Mozart to Carter, with a little Ravel and Poulenc too, for good measure. Find out what makes the Marlboro Festival so special, and get to know these musicians through their playing and their words. (more)
January 11: Leif Ove Andsnes performs Schumann, Beethoven, Mompou
Northern Light: Celebrated pianist Leif Ove Andsnes makes a warmly anticipated return visit this week with music that reaffirms his astonishing technical and emotional powers. He begins with four short works of Robert Schumann, conjuring from each all of the rapidly mutating moods and colors they chart, and moves on to a work of even greater temperamental grandeur: Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 110 piano sonata. In the echo of that monument, Mr. Andsnes's concluding performances of Lizst and Mompou sound all the more wondrous. (more)
January 04: Guarneri String Quartet performs Mozart, Ravel, Dvořák
Revelations: On the heels of their 40th anniversary, the Guarneri String Quartet returns to Saint Paul Sunday with music by Mozart, Dvořák and Ravel — works that reveal the heart and soul of this revered ensemble as movingly today as they did when it first performed them. Each composer's distinct voice shines, but refracted through a sound and mastery wholly the Guarneri's own. After more than four decades, both remain undimmed. (more)
