Works by Bartók, Schumann and more…

Completing the 2019 Winter Fest experience is the Festival Series performance at the Gesa Power House Theatre. Schumann’s masterpiece of melody and invention, the Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 47, anchors the program. Also on tap is music for two violins by Hungarian master and WWCMF 2019 Poster Composer, Béla Bartók.

Though darkness envelops the Walla Walla Valley by late afternoon in January, but the music of Bartók, Schumann and more will flood the theater with warmth and light. This concert is not to be missed!

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

String Trio in G minor (1894), unfinished

I. Lento

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Selections from 44 Duos for 2 Violins, Sz. 98 (1931)

1. Teasing Song

2. Maypole Dance

5. Slovakian Song No. 1

6. Hungarian Song No. 1

7. Walachian Song

12. Hay Song

13. Wedding Song

14. Pillow Dance

15. Soldier’s Song

19. A Fairy Tale

20. A Rhythm Song

21. New Year’s Song No. 1

22. Dance of the Fly

24. Comic Song

26. Teasing Song

27. Limping Dance

28. Sadness

29. New Year’s Song No. 2

30. New Year’s Song No. 3

32. Dancing Song

33. Song of the Harvest

35. Ruthenian Dance

36. The Bag Pipe, and Variation

37. Prelude and Canon

40. Walachian Dance

42. Arabian Dance

44. Ardeliana

38. Rumanian “Whirling” Dance

INTERMISSION

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 47

I. Sostenuto assai - Allegro ma non troppo

II. Scherzo: Molto vivace - Trio I - Trio II

III. Andante cantabile

IV. Finale: Vivace

Artists: Timothy Christie, viola/violin; Conor Hanick, piano; Norbert Lewandowski, cello; and Maria Sampen, violin.

Grand Tour: High romanticism, well within reach.

The Grand Tour used to mean an extended visit to Venice, Florence, and Rome (among other prominent European sites) to soak up Roman, early Christian and High Renaissance culture. Today we have a seemingly infinite number of grand tours, some in conjunction with a more recent construct, the Bucket List.

You can visit all 30 MLB ballparks. You can follow the Malt Whisky Trail in Scotland, or thumb through the Michelin Guide in France. Surfers have the Banzai Pipeline, Jaws and Mavericks. Elvis fans have Graceland, Las Vegas, and Palm Springs. Golfers… no, I won’t go there. Let’s just say I was recently embarrassed to witness golfers engaging in quasi-religious buffoonery on the first tee at the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland. The golfers were not Scottish. I digress…

Chamber music has its own Grand Tour, and it includes a stop at the Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 47 of Robert Schumann. A Romantic masterpiece, the quartet is possessed of some of the most astounding melodic and contrapuntal invention in all of music. Composed in 1842 in Leipzig, the work pays respect to that other musical titan and Leipzig resident, J.S. Bach. Happily, this stop on tour includes wine by Rôtie Cellars in the very space in which it is made and aged.

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)

Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 47

I. Sostenuto assai - Allegro ma non troppo

II. Scherzo: Molto vivace - Trio I - Trio II

III. Andante cantabile

IV. Finale: Vivace

Artists: Timothy Christie, viola; Conor Hanick, piano; Norbert Lewandowski, cello; Maria Sampen, violin

Tonight we feature music of Robert Schumann, György Kurtág, Josh Burel and Andrew Norman.

Our second Festival Series performance invites the clarinet to the fore with works old and new. Robert Schumann, ever given to flights of fantasy, composed his Märchenerzählungen, Op.132 near the end of his compositional life. Loosely translated as “Fairy Tales,” this work for piano, viola, and clarinet does not tell any specific fairy tale but rather evokes certain tropes such as sparkling elven mischief, regal pomp and the lyricism of loneliness. György Kurtag provides modernist counterpoint to Schumann’s foray into the magical with his Hommage à Robert Schumann for the same instrumentation.

Also on the program are works by 21st-century composers Josh Burel and Andrew Norman. Burel, in his Andooni for clarinet quintet, mourns the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923 and Norman, in his Gran Turismo for eight violins imagines an Italian baroque ensemble revving its engines at the speed of an F1 race car. Though each piece inhabits its own unique sphere, each work shares an essential component of storytelling that looks both to the past and the future.

The 2016 Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival comes to a close with a program any Hollywood producer would admire.

• Shostakovich, String Quartet in A flat, Op. 118

• Schumann, Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 105

• Dvorak, Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 87

What makes a good blockbuster? Worthy protagonists, an implacable villain, equal measures of suspense, uncertainty and volatility, and, eventually, a happy ending. WWCMF brings these plot devices together in a program of music by Shostakovich, Schumann and Dvorak.

Our protagonists are Dmitri Shostakovich, a lonely artist in Soviet Era Russia; Robert Schumann, a passionate but unstable romantic; and Antonin Dvorak, a folk hero who gave a voice to the Czech people. The villains are the Soviet machine and crises of identity in the face of overwhelming odds. The music is in turns scenic, terrifying, resolute and, ultimately, heroically triumphant. When the final credits roll, you will already be able to taste the sequel…

2017: The 10-year Anniversary of WWCMF… This time, it’s personal!

Artists: Timothy Christie, viola; Norbert Lewandowski, cello; Christina McGann, violin; Philip Payton, violin; Maria Sampen, violin; Sally Singer Tuttle, cello; and Wei-Han Wu, piano.

The Schumann Piano Quartet in E flat plus music by Janacek and Shostakovich

The Janacek Sonata for Violin and Piano calls to mind vibrant colors discreetly hidden amid the ancient shadowy cobbled streets of Prague. The Shostakovich Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet stands as a work of virtuosity from this giant of the 20th Century. The lyricism of the Schumann Piano Quartet in E Flat is unmatched. In its slow movement we find one of the most glorious melodies in all of music. Triumphant in its outlook the Piano Quartet is one of Schumann’s best-loved compositions. The performance will feature the Icicle Creek Piano Trio’s Oksana Ezhokina at the keyboard, violinist Maria Sampen, violist and Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival Founder and Artistic Director Timothy Christie, and cellist Norbert Lewandowski.

Mozart: String Quartet in G Major K. 387

Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano

Schumann: Piano Quintet in E Flat Op. 44