Engel Chamber Music Concert Program and Bios 2022

Engel Chamber Music Concert Program and Artist Bios

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Flute Quartet In D,K.285
Allegro
Adagio
Rondeau

Mozart’s quartets for flute and strings were composed between December 1777 and June 1778 while the twenty-three year old was staying in Mannheim, then home of one of Europe’s most famous orchestras. Mozart’s stay in Mannheim was his first serious attempt to escape the dead-end internship to which he was bound with his family employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful in attaining any permanent employment there; nor did he succeed in marrying Aloysia Weber, the daughter of the highly musical family who took him in, with whom he had fallen madly in love. What he did gain in Mannheim was a more dramatic style, influenced by the city’s great orchestra. When he sent the K. 309 piano sonata home to his sister Nannerl, she wrote, “one can see from its style that you composed it in Mannheim.”  This heightened dramatic style especially influenced the first of these quartets, which was commissioned by a Dutch doctor and amateur flutist named Ferdinand Dejean.  Mozart never finished the complete commission, and bemoaned being paid 96 gulden instead of the stipulated 200. The D major quartet is a gem, however, and remains the most frequently performed of these works.  The Allegro’s development displays all the boldness the flute has to offer; the poignant Adagio places the flute in relief against the pizzicato strings, with a meltingly beautiful melody that has sorrowful affect of an Italian lament aria.  One should appreciate that the key of this movement, b minor, is an extreme rarity in Mozart’s work. Exemplifying the dramatic mood-shifts he gleaned from the Mannheim ensemble, the Adagio leads directly to the witty and brilliant Rondo. 

Carl Maria von Weber
Trio for Piano, Flute, and Cello in G minor, Op. 63
Allegro moderato
Scherzo
Schäfers Klage (Shepherd’s Lament). Andante espressivo
Finale. Allegro

This trio is a rarity in the nineteenth century not only for its instrumentation, but for the fact it is a major work of chamber music by a composer known primarily for opera. Weber is one of the most innovative and transformative figures of German opera, without whom we could never imagine Liszt, Wagner, and Strauss. In operas such as Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon, he invented many of the dramatic devices and practices that came to define programmatic music in the Romantic era. Next to the serious sounding, classicist music of Brahms, Weber’s is refreshingly extraverted and impetuous: each player is an opera soloist, declaiming its part of turbulent but tender narrative. The heart of the trio is the slow movement, entitled “Shepherd’s Lament,” which is based on a Lied of the same name by Wilhelm Ehlers, itself based on a poem by Goethe. Frequent changes of mood and character create an operatic scale of drama throughout the work, and the Finale directly references the actual opera Der Freischütz, quoting the hero Caspar’s drinking song, and a jubilant chorus.

Johannes Brahms
Piano Quartet in g minor, Op. 25
Allegro
Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo
Andante con moto
Rondo alla Zingarese: Presto

The first published of three magnificent quartets for piano and strings, the hot tempered and Dionysian g-minor Quartet contrasts starkly with the serene and Apollonian A major published just after. When Brahms composed it in the summer of 1861, he had only just moved out of his family’s home and taken a studio of his own in Hamm, a suburb of Hamburg. When he sent the score to his lifelong friends and colleagues, the violinist Josef Joachim and the pianist Clara Schumann for comment, they complained to him about the somberness of the first movement—it is a true bummer of a movement! Despite the brooding first movement and the agitated Intermezzo, the Andante con moto opens a new world of warmth, and the piece owes its extreme popularity to the irresistible appeal of its Rondo, alla Zingarese, which lunges forward in earthy, raucous, folk dances. In contrast to the pious tone of the opening piano line in the first movement, the last movement gives two freewheeling cadenzas to the piano, generating kilowatts of intensity from the traditionally accompanying instrument.

Artist Bios
1. The New York Times has called the playing of Australian flutist Catherine Gregory “magically mysterious… her sound rich and fully present.” She has performed at The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, the Barbican Centre in London, and the Lincoln Center Festival. Winner of the 2018 Pro Musicis International Award, she has served as guest Principal Flute of such ensembles as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. A member of Decoda, the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, Catherine served as its Co-Artistic Director from 2017-2020.

2. A native of China, violinist Yue Qian is the Silver Medalist of the 39^th Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, as part of the Y. Trio.  She has performed across China, the US, and Europe, and has worked with Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Simon Rattle, Shmuel Ashkenasi, and the Julliard String Quartet, among many others.  Qian has a Master of Music degree from the Julliard School and is pursuing her doctoral degree (DMA) at USC with Bing Wang, the associate concertmaster of the LA Philharmonic.

 3. Professor of viola at UCLA, award-winning violist Che-Yen Chen is a founding member of the Formosa Quartet. First-Prize winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition and the 2003 Primrose International Viola Competition, San Diego Union Tribune describes Chen as an artist who has the “ability to find not just the subtle emotion, but the humanity hidden in the music.” Having served as principal violist of the San Diego Symphony and Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Chen has appeared as guest principal with Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Performing in chamber music festivals across North America and Asia, Chen is a founding member of Camera Lucida and The Myriad Trio.

4. Eric Byers, cellist, has been praised as “ideally eloquent” by the Los Angeles Times, and captivates audiences as a soloist, chamber musician, and composer. At 18, he made his solo debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. As a founding member of the Calder Quartet, Byers has appeared at venues including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Ojai Festival, Kennedy Center, Disney Hall, and the Sydney Opera House. Byers has taught chamber music as a faculty member at the Colburn School (2008-2011) and has coached chamber music during a quartet residency at Oberlin College Conservatory (2014-2016).  He has conducted masterclasses at The Juilliard School, USC, Aspen Music Festival and UCLA, among others.  He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from USC Thornton School of Music, a Professional Studies Certificate from Colburn Conservatory, and an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School.

5. David Kaplan, pianist, has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Britten Sinfonia and Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, and has performed recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, Washington’s National Gallery, Music on Main in Vancouver, and Strathmore. Balancing solo performances with meaningful collaborations, Kaplan has played with the Attacca, Ariel, Enso, Hausman, and Tesla String Quartets. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in 2020.  David is proud to be a Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist. Away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.