The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

Welcome to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series production blog, home of program out takes, artist commentary, and other related tangents we like to call "web extras."

Week 12 of our concert broadcasts from Santa Fe featured music of Antonio Vivaldi and Franz Schubert. Vivaldi, of course, is the baroque composer, part-time priest, and devoted musical pedagogue whose prolific output numbered an astonishing 750 works. He wrote over four hundred concerti for all sorts of instruments, including multiple instruments together, with the violin earning the main focus. He composed only one triple violin concerto, the F-Major RV 551, and that's the piece that violinists Jennifer Frautschi, Giora Schmidt, and Lily Francis played on this program in the company of an ensemble of festival musicians.

Additionally, violist Michael Tree, violinist William Preucil, cellist Lynn Harrell, double bassist Marji Danilow, and pianist Yuja Wang collaborated for a performance of one of the most beloved and often-played works in the chamber repertoire: Franz Shubert's "Trout" Quintet.

The nationally syndicated radio programs can be heard in the Chicago area, Sunday mornings at 11am, from April through June 2010, on 98.7 WFMT. You can also listen anywhere there's Internet. WFMT provides free, live streaming at wfmt.com and via a free, downloadable app for your iPhone.

Please enjoy these items rescued from the "cutting room floor" and the other things found along the way to creating this broadcast from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series.

Thanks for stopping by,
Louise Frank
Series Producer

Vivaldi Stamp

ANTONIO VIVALDI
Concerto in F Major for Three Violins, RV 551

Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Giora Schmidt, violin; Lily Francis, violin; L. P. How, violin; Kathleen Brauer, violin; Steven Tenenbom, viola; Sophie Shao, cello; Marji Danilow, bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord

Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto for Three Violins, strings, and continuo in F Major, RV 551 is often counted among his more striking concerti. The profusion of his favorite solo instrument apparently inspired him to find fresh ways for the violins to interact and create exceptionally colorful textures. He assigns to the solo violins highly virtuosic roles, with one soloist often playing a melody to the accompaniment of arpeggios in the other two.

Kerry and Marc discuss the complexities of Vivaldi's Triple Violin Concerto and what it takes to play it well.

Vivaldi's Women (Part One)

The documentary "Vivaldi's Women" on BBC Four presented the story of an extraordinary creative partnership between one of history's great composers — Antonio Vivaldi — and an all-female orchestra and choir. In the early 18th century, Father Antonio Vivaldi was a violin teacher, musical director, musical instrument procurer and in-house composer for a Venetian orphanage called La Pietà, a home for children, namely girls, who may have been illegitimate daughters of wealthy Venetians.

Looking for more about Vivaldi? There's a helpful piece about him at baroquemusic.org.

Gabor Melegh's 1827 painting of Franz Schubert hangs in the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest.

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Quintet in A Major, D. 667, "Trout"

William Preucil, violin; Michael Tree, viola; Lynn Harrell, cello; Marji Danilow, bass; Yuja Wang, piano

Ian Bostridge & Julius Drake - Schubert - Die Forelle

Michaelerkirche and Tabor Tower, Steyr (© 1995 Tomoko Yamamoto)
The Trout Across a clear brook gentle, There shot in eager haste The trout, so temperamental; Quite arrow-like it raced. I on the shore was gazing And watched the brook disclose The merry fish's bathing To me in sweet repose. An angler's reel unrolled From where he stood below. He watched with blood most cold The fish swim to and fro. So long no stone or sod Stirred up the water pure The trout from line and rod Would stay, I thought, secure. At length the thief lost patience And made the brook obscure With crafty agitations, And ere I could be sure The rod had started curving; The squirming fish was hooked. With pounding blood observing, At the betrayed, I looked. You, at the fountain golden, Of youth, so free from doubt, Be to the trout beholden; At danger's sign, clear out! 'Tis oft for want of reason That maids will shun the straight. Beware the anglers' treason Else you may bleed too late!		Die Forelle In einem Bächlein helle, Da schoß in froher Eil Die [launige]1 Forelle Vorüber wie ein Pfeil. Ich stand an dem Gestade Und sah in süßer Ruh Des muntern [Fisches]2 Bade Im klaren Bächlein zu. Ein Fischer mit der Rute Wohl an dem Ufer stand, Und sah's mit kaltem Blute, Wie sich das Fischlein wand. So lang dem Wasser Helle, So dacht ich, nicht gebricht, So fängt er die Forelle Mit seiner Angel nicht. Doch [plötzlich]3 ward dem Diebe Die Zeit zu lang. Er macht Das Bächlein tückisch trübe, Und eh ich es gedacht, So zuckte seine Rute, Das Fischlein zappelt dran, [Und ich mit regem Blute Sah die Betrogene an.]4 Die ihr am goldenen Quelle Der sicheren Jugend weilt, Denkt doch an die Forelle, Seht ihr Gefahr, so eilt! Meist fehlt ihr nur aus Mangel der Klugheit, Mädchen, seht Verführer mit der Angel! Sonst blutet ihr zu spät!
Schubert wrote his popular song, "Die Forelle" upon texts by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart.

Schubert composed this piano quintet at a happy time in his life. At the time, he was on a walking tour of Upper Austria with his friend Johann Vogl. While visiting Vogl's hometown of Steyr, an Alpine Arts colony, Schubert met Sylvester Paumgarten, a wealthy cellist, arts patron and mine owner. Paumgarten was particularly fond of Schubert's song, Die Forelle, and commissioned the composer to write a set of variations based on the work. While these variations form the center piece of the quintet, the entire piece reflects Schubert’s love of the Alpine country. When the music was finished, there weren’t any plans for a public performance; Paumgartner just asked a few friends to come over and play the piece in his living room.

Schubert’s composing career spanned only 15 years. Although he wrote in the same genres as his three great predecessors Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, it was not his operas and symphonies that ensured his place in musical history, but rather his more intimate collections of chamber works and songs. He wrote 15 string quartets, 2 piano trios, an octet and the Trout quintet. With so much exuberant joy in this music, it's hard to believe that Franz Schubert died only nine years after writing it, at the age of 31. What a loss, to think of his music we never got hear, but how grateful we are that he wrote as music as he did while he was here. As it is written on his tombstone, "Music has buried here a rich treasure, but fairer hopes."

More about Schubert and the Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667 can be found at www.franzschubert.org.uk/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/listeningnotes/ln_schubert_trout.shtml

In January 2010, Lynn Harrell visited WFMT where he sat in as a guest host with Kerry Frumkin. They spent a few hours spinning discs of Lynn's favorite recordings. He wrote about the experience on his blog, There's Always Room For Cello. (Photo: Louise Frank)

Lynn Harrell and Kerry Frumkin first met in 1981 when Lynn was Kerry's guest on WFMT's Profiles of Greatness series. In this clip Lynn tells Kerry that he's lucky Schubert's Trout Quintet was not on the program the night he decided to become a musician.

The Papal Concert: Lynn Harrell Interview

Interview with Lynn Harrell before The Papal Concert to commemorate the Holocost. April 7, 1994.

Yuja Wang and Marc Neikrug

Marc has long been a champion of Yuja Wang, who he met when she was still a student at Curtis studying with Gary Graffman. Here is what Marc had to way when Kerry asked him how Yuja has come into her own now that her career has become so busy.

Lynn Harrell and Yuja Wang played a recital together at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in 2008