Virtuoso Dialogues

This Concert is sponsored by Ariel Premium Supply, Inc.

January 20
​7:30 PM

Free Admission 

Steinway Piano Gallery Saint Louis 
12033 Dorsett Rd, Maryland Heights, MO 63043

Free parking at the venue  

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PROGRAM
Sergey Prokofiev: Visions Fugitives, Op.22 (arr. ​Timo Andres) -World Premiere
Giovanni Bottesini: Duetto for String Bass, clarinet, and piano
William Grant Still: Lyric Quartet 
Florence Price: Adoration for Clarinet and String Quartet (arr. Tzuying Huang)
Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles for Clarinet and String Quartet  
IV. Forlana 
V. Fughetta

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FEATURED ARTISTS

​Samuel Hollister, Piano
Robert Walker, Clarinet
​Teddy Gabrielides, Bass
Jessie Chen, Violin
Kyle Lombard, Violin
Davis Perez, Viola
​Davin Rubicz, Cello

Program notes by Ann Fink

Sergey Prokofiev: Visions Fugitives, Op.22
(arr. Timo Andres) -World Premiere
Timo Andres, the arranger of Visions Fugitives for clarinet and piano, is an award-winning, living American composer and pianist. He studied composition at Yale for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who lived from 1891 until 1953. He was part of the Russian Empire that is now Sontsivka, Ukraine. From a young age, Prokofiev showed a talent for composing and playing the piano. He spent most of his young life at the St. Petersburg Conservatory studying, composing, and performing. Although Prokofiev completed his official studies in 1914, he returned to the conservatory during World War I to take lessons on the organ and avoid the draft.

Prokofiev composed Visions Fugitives between 1915 and 1917. At first, he composed each of the twenty short pieces as individual works. Prokofiev was inspired to write a few of the pieces for friends and others he composed in response to the political turmoils of the time. Then in April of 1918, he premiered the entire cycle of miniatures as one complete work during a recital in Petrograd, just months after the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Visions Fugitives has been arranged for many instrumentations, but Timo Andres arrangement is the first for clarinet and piano!

From 1918 until 1936, Prokofiev lived abroad. First he immigrated to the United States, but after a short time moved to Paris. In 1922, he moved to the Bavarian Alps and then back to Paris in 1923. During the 1920’s and well into the 1930’s, Prokofiev traveled extensively in the Soviet Union and the United States for various compositional projects including productions of ballets, operas, and symphonic performances.

In 1936, Prokofiev settled in Moscow, but in 1941, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union he evacuated to the town of Nalchik of Kabardino - Balkaria, 900 miles south of Moscow. Once there, Prokofiev met the Minister of Culture who encouraged him to incorporate the local folk music of the Kabardian people into his compositions. Prokofiev’s second string quartet was
the result. Prokofiev returned to Russia after the war. It was a troubled time for Prokofiev who had been denounced along with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and three other famous composers by the Zhdanov Decree, a Soviet cultural doctrine. The artists were accused of formalism and of
ignoring the standard practices of classical music in favor of jarring, cacophonous sounds and harmonies.

Many of Prokofiev's works were banned and Prokofiev was in a large amount of debt by 1948. He attempted to redeem himself in the eyes of Russian authorities with a new opera, The Story of a Real Man, but was unsuccessful. Prokofiev’s career troubles were combined with declining health and he withdrew further and further from society. He wrote his last work, Symphony No. 7 in 1952. Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953 the same day as Joseph Stalin.


Giovanni Bottesini: Duetto for String Bass, clarinet, and piano
Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) was born in Cremona, Italy into a musical family. His father was a clarinetist and composer and started Bottesini on music and violin lessons from early childhood. As a young teenager Bottesini had an opportunity to attend the Milan Conservatory. However, his family could not afford to send him without a scholarship, as these were only available for bass and bassoon students. After a mere month of bass lessons, Bottesini won the bass scholarship and started at the Milan Conservatory in 1835. Upon completion of four years of studies he left the conservatory to spend more time composing and performing.

By the mid-1840’s Bottesini had established himself as a bass soloist around the world. His abilities were compared to his predecessor, Niccolò Paganini, the Italian violin virtuoso. Bottesini developed new techniques on the bass that allowed him to play a huge repertoire of solo pieces including those written for other instruments. He became famous for his bass technique and for being among the first players to use a French style bow grip. In 1872, Bottesini published one of the first complete collections of technical studies for double bass, including Contre Basse in the Orchestra and Contre Bass as a Solo Instrument. He also composed several operas, symphonies and other orchestral works, duos for bass and piano, bass concertos, string quartets and quintets, piano solo works, vocal works, and duos such as his most famous Gran Duo Concertante for violin and double bass with orchestra or piano.

The original publication date of Duetto for string bass, clarinet, and piano is unknown, and
modern publications didn’t appear until the 1950’s.


William Grant Still: Lyric Quartet
William Grant Still (1895-1978) was born in Woodville, Mississippi. Sadly, Still’s father died when he was an infant, and afterwards he moved to Little Rock Arkansas with his mother.
His mother remarried in 1904, and it was Still’s stepfather that began to nurture his love of
music. By the age of 15, Still was taking violin lessons and teaching himself to play several
other instruments!

During his undergraduate years Still majored in science, all the while keeping up his musical studies. However, he didn’t finish the science degree and transferred to Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Still’s early career was interrupted by World War One during which he served in the
Navy. Afterwards, he moved to Harlem and played in W.C. Handy’s band and became very
involved with the Harlem Renaissance. Throughout the 1930’s, Still arranged music for NBC radio broadcasts, had his first symphony performed by the Rochester Philharmonic, received his first Guggenheim Fellowship, started composing the first of nine operas, and composed Song of the City for the World’s Fair of 1939. In 1949, his opera Troubled Island became the first opera composed by an American to be performed by the New York City Opera. Still was also the first African American to conduct a major orchestra in the south, New Orleans Philharmonic, and the first to conduct a major orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, in a performance of his own works.

The Lyric Quartet was composed in 1960, and is officially titled Lyric Quarette: Musical Portraits of Three Friends. It consists of three movements, each one a musical reflection of the friend who inspired the movement: The Sentimental One, The Quiet One, and The Jovial One.


Florence Price: Adoration for Clarinet and String Quartet
(arr. Tzuying Huang)
Florence Price was born in 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Although racial tensions existed, her mixed race family was well respected in their community. Her father was the only African American dentist in Little Rock, and her mother was a successful music teacher. It was with her mother that Price began her early childhood musical studies. Not only did Price show immense talent as a young pianist, but she was a successful academic student as well. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class.

Price entered the New England Conservatory of Music in 1902, at the age of 15! She majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. She also began to compose during her years at the conservatory and wrote her first symphony and string trio before graduating. Sadly, while living in Boston she felt the effects of racism against African Americans. For a period she passed as Mexican and claimed she was from Pueblo, Mexico in order to avoid discrimination.

During her young adult years, Price temporarily put aside her own career and raised three children with her husband, Thomas Price. In 1927, Price and her family moved to Chicago.
Once again Price began to compose and study composition at the Chicago Musical College.
She also joined the Chicago Black Renaissance, a group of African American writers and artists
that lead their community in promoting racial pride, community spirit, and a collective black
consciousness. By 1931, Price’s personal life was deteriorating. She was suffering from her abusive husband and had financial troubles. However, after her divorce, Price carried on with her
musical career to support herself and her children. She worked as an organist for silent films
and continued to compose. In 1932, Price won the top award from the Wanamaker Foundation
competition for her Symphony in E minor. Then in 1933, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
performed her symphony, establishing Price as the first African American female to have a
symphony performed by a major American orchestra. Price continued to have great success as
a composer throughout her life and amassed a large library of works including symphonies,
piano concertos, violin concertos, orchestral suites and tone poems, choral works, songs, string
quartets, piano quartets and quintets, solo piano pieces, arrangements of spirituals, organ
solos, and violin and piano duos. Price was a leader for her gender and race, and holds an
important role in the history of composition and musical performance.

Price composed Adoration for solo organ in 1951. Apparently, it remained lost in a collection of
her compositions until 2009! The piece has since been arranged for many instrumentations, and
thanks to our very own Tzuying Huang, there is now a beautiful arrangement for clarinet and
string quartet!

Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles for Clarinet and String Quartet
IV. Forlana
V. Fughetta​
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was one of the most prominent British composers of his generation. He was famous for his choral compositions, but also wrote for many other instrumentations.
In the early 1930’s, Finzi held a teaching position at the Royal Academy of Music made possible
through a connection with Ralph Vaughn Williams. He left his teaching post in 1933, married,
and resettled in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. Finzi committed his time to composing and growing rare
English apple varieties. He also collected books of poetry, philosophy, and literature. By the end
of his life Finzi had a library of over 3,000.

In 1941, Finzi was at the pinnacle in his composition career and feared its interruption by
the inevitable draft into war service. However, months before the beginning of his service he
was able to complete three works for clarinet and piano using bits and pieces of ideas he’d
saved for 20 years. Finzi managed to complete a fourth piece for clarinet and piano in 1942, and
the four pieces were first performed in 1943 during a lunchtime war concert to cheer the people
of London. Soon after, Finzi added a fifth piece that would complete the set, and become the
famous Five Bagatelles. The Five Bagatelles were hugely popular during his lifetime and remain
the most commonly performed pieces of Finzi’s chamber music compositions. The Five
Bagatelles were arranged for clarinet and string quartet in 2000, by Christian Alexander.