Program Notes: Artist-Behind-The-Desk Concerts
November 2, 2003 MIT Endicott House, Dedham
November 12, 2003 MIT Killian Hall, Cambridge

Henry Purcell (1659-95) was a masterful English composer who became best known for his theater music, showing great sensitivity to the texts he set. As was the practice of the day, he mostly set songs and instrumental pieces to spoken plays but also wrote semi-operas and one full opera, Dido and Aeneas. He used a rich Baroque harmonic language and simple musical forms, often setting free melodies against strict, repetitive bass lines. John Harbison has noted that this technique has the effect of re-harmonizing and re-interpreting the music through the changing relationship of the melody to the constant pattern below it. This can be heard in both Music for a While, which has an upward gliding pattern, and An Evening Hymn, where the phrasing of the melody set against the five measure bass pattern produces an effect of weightlessness. The song, I Attempt From Love’s Sickness to Fly, is set in simple ABACA form. The lightness of the music helps to underscore the irony of the text in a very witty way.

Catherine Lynn Steele (1951-2002) worked at MIT’s Sloan School from 1989 until her death. She received her BA from Smith College and her DMA in composition from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She composed many chamber works, songs for voice and piano, two operas and a Requiem. After meeting her through a mutual friend who was also a composer, Lynn gave us two of her compositions for our combination, Aquarelles (1986) being one of them. Lynn had a capacity to find beauty in everyday experiences and to share those by being a consummate storyteller. This is evident in the six short pieces comprising the Aquarelles, whether it’s the humor of “Girl in a Pink Dress,” the likeness of a Swedish folk tune in “The Flutist,” the dance of “Self-portrait with Cat,” or the sometimes off-kilter 7/8 pattern in “Family Group.” We would like to dedicate this performance to her memory.

In 1838, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) wrote to his friend Ferdinand Hiller: “A very important branch of pianoforte music, which I am particularly fond of – trios, quartets and other pieces with accompaniment, in short, true chamber music – is quite forgotten now, and I feel greatly the want of something new in that line. I should like to do a little towards this… and I am thinking next of writing a couple of trios.” The Trio in D minor, op. 49 premiered the following year and was an immediate success. It garnered praise from Robert Schumann who wrote in a review for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik that it was “the master trio of the ages.”
Classical in form but warm and romantic in mood, the piece opens with a long, lyrical cello solo, the same instrument which introduces the second theme. The piano writing throughout the work is virtuosic, balanced by the soaring melodic lines played by the flute and cello. Mendelssohn’s masterful writing is apparent in such places as the recapitulation in the first movement where a countermelody is added, heightening the theme’s restatement. The Andante con molto tranquillo is in ABA form. The piano states the melodic theme which is repeated as a duet by the flute and cello. Very song-like, it is pure romanticism without being overly sentimental. The sparkling Scherzo which follows is reminiscent of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; quick, light and staccato with grace, charm and wit. The Finale employs the use of dactyl rhythm (one accented syllable followed by two unaccented ones) in its two main themes, contrasted by the passionate cello melody of the third theme. It is this theme which modulates gloriously into D Major - a key which heightens the brilliant virtuosity and ends of the piece.