Schumann's Musical Journey

This Concert is sponsored by Ariel Premium Supply, Inc.

December 15
​7:30 PM

Free Admission 

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

Free parking at the venue  
PROGRAM
​Amy Beach: Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23
Gabriel Fauré: Après in rêve
Darius Milhaud: Sonata for 2 Violins and Piano, Op. 15
Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.47
FEATURED ARTISTS

Ariel Liu, Piano
Charlie Lin, Violin
​Ann Fink, Violin
Hannah Ji, Violin
 Alejandro Valdepeñas, Viola
Yin Xiong, Cello
​Program notes by Ann Fink
​Amy Beach: Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23
Amy Beach was born in 1867 in Henniker, New Hampshire into an educated and talented family.
Her father co-founded Bates College, and her mother was a talented pianist and singer. It
wasn’t a surprise that Beach showed an inclination for music, but her ability to sing, harmonize,
read music, and compose all by the age of four was astonishing. However, instead of sending
her to a European conservatory, her parents chose to send her to local teachers. Beach was a
gifted student and had quite a bit of early success as a piano soloist. She also had a few
composition lessons, but she learned music theory and composition mostly by studying on her
own. Beach became the first female American to compose and publish a symphony. Her Gaelic
Symphony was successfully premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896. Beach had
a long and eminent career as both a pianist and composer. Her library of works is extensive and
includes solo piano works, chamber music, orchestral works, and choral works. In 1944, Beach
died of heart disease while residing in New York City.
Romance for Violin and Piano was composed in 1893. Beach dedicated the piece to her friend
and colleague, Maud Powell, a renowned violin soloist of the time. Together they premiered the
work at the Women’s Musical Congress during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in
Chicago.
Gabriel Fauré, born in 1845, was a leading French composer of his time. He was also an
organist, pianist and professor. Among his most famous compositions are Pavane, composed in
1887 for orchestra and Sicilienne for Cello and Piano, composed in 1898. Après un rêve (After a
dream) was composed between 1870-1877 as part of a set of three works for solo voice and
piano. The original vocal text is based on a French poem by Romain Bussine and is about
waking after a romantic dream of flying over the earth with a lover.
Fauré also wrote two operas and a number of works for solo piano, piano for four hands, violin
and piano, cello and piano, flute and piano, piano quartets, quintets, and trios, solo harp, voice
and piano, chorus, and orchestra.
Fauré was director of the Paris Conservatory during the later years of his life. In 1920, he retired
from the position to allow himself more time for composing. One of his first projects was to write
a trio for either violin or clarinet, cello, and piano. However, his health was declining as was his
hearing, which he’d been losing gradually over the past two decades.The trio was followed by
Fauré’s string quartet, which was the last piece he wrote before his death in 1924. After his
death, the Paris Conservatory regarded Fauré’s compositional style as the farthest limit of
modernity, beyond which students should not go. (Nectoux, Jean-Michel (1991). Gabriel Fauré:
A Musical Life.)
Darius Milhaud was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He studied composition at the
Paris Conservatory in the early 20th century. Milhaud was greatly influenced by Brazilian music,

American jazz, and other European composers of his time such as Schoenberg, Honneger, and
Tailleferre.
During the Nazi invasion of France, Milhaud and his family fled to the United States. He began a
career as a professor of composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. The Juilliard,
Paganini, and Budapest Quartets performed his works in Oakland as well as the Aspen Music
Festival. He continued to teach at Mills, Aspen, and the Paris Conservatory until late in life. He
died in 1974, at the age of 81.
Milhaud was a member of Les Six (along with Louis Durey, Germaine Tailleferre, Arthur
Honnegger, Francis Poulenc, and Georges Auric) a group of contemporary composers whose
music was often considered neoclassical in style. The Les Six composer’s return to classicism
was a reaction against the Impressionists, such as Debussy and Ravel and the late
romanticists, like Richard Wagner.
Milhaud composed the Sonata for two violins and piano in 1914, when he was nearing the
completion of his studies at Paris Conservatory. The work was composed before Milhaud would
attend his first live American jazz band concert in London in 1920. Regardless, the piece seems
to contain jazzy chords and melodic phrases that hint at the influence that American jazz will
have on Milhaud’s compositions for years to come.
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was born in what is today considered Central Germany. He was
born into an upper middle class family and was the youngest of five children. Although his father
was a successful author and a bookseller and his family had no musical ties, when Schumann
was seven he began to take piano, cello, flute, and general music lessons at his private
preparatory school. Although he showed immense talent throughout his youth, he eventually set
out to study law at Leipzig University in 1828. However, he continued to spend the majority of
his time playing the piano and he was encouraged by his piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck, to
pursue a career as a concert pianist. There is still a question to this day as to whether
Schumann ever set foot in a lecture hall at the law school. While just gaining a foothold in his
musical career, Schumann experienced great discomfort in his right hand due to paralysis of a
finger. The pain and lack of mobility forced him to curtail his career as a performer and turn
solely to composition. Modern scientists think the discomfort was actually a form of dystonia.
Schumann married Clara, the daughter of his piano teacher in 1940.
They had eight children together and also shared a life of musical collaboration. Clara was an
accomplished pianist herself and an inspiration for Schumann. After he married Clara, he
started composing for a wider variety of instruments. By the end of his life Schumann had
composed a large library of works including ballets, chamber music, lieder, piano pieces,
concerti, and symphonies.
In 1953, Johannes Brahms was traveling through Düsseldorf and introduced himself to Robert
and Clara Schumann with the help of a letter from their mutual friend Joseph Joachim, a famous
virtuoso violinist of the time. The Schumann’s were so impressed with Brahms abilities as a
composer that he was invited to stay with their family for months. He would remain a devoted,
lifelong friend to both Robert and Clara.
In 1854, Schumann tried to commit suicide. He had suffered from depression and delusions for
many years, and they had increased to a point at which he was unable to bear. After his suicide
attempt, Schumann was voluntarily admittied to a mental hospital. He would live out the

remaining two years of his life at the hospital with only one permitted visit from Clara days
before he died.
Schumann wrote his piano quartet during the year of 1842, in which he also wrote string
quartets, a piano quintet, and a piano trio. Before this time Schumann had not written any
serious chamber music, and it is interesting to ponder if his marriage to Clara in 1940 may have
inspired him to do so. He dedicated the piano quartet to Count Matthieu Weilhorsky, a Russian
cellist, but he had Clara in mind when he wrote the piece. Clara would perform the premiere at
the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in December of 1844, and the quartet would receive rave reviews.