Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players

“This was music-making of a very high order”
“at the Jupiter concerts, there is always so much about which to be enthusiastic.”
“the rarities glittered like jewels”

Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun
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Jupiter 2019 - 2020 Season
20 Mondays at 2:00 PM & 7:30 PM

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Concert Venue:
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway), New York

“one of the most refined and intelligent church spaces in New York” ~ The New York Times Built in 1893 by Josiah Cleveland Cady, architect of the old Metropolitan Opera House and the American Museum of Natural History

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JUPITER SYMPHONY
155 West 68th Street, Suite 319
New York, NY 10023
admin@jupitersymphony.com
(212) 799-1259

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Listen to a live recording of the Jupiter Symphony
Chamber Players from September 23, 2013
Recorded by Joseph Patrych

Roman Rabinovich piano
Xiao-Dong Wang violin
Mihai Marica cello

Antonín DVORÁK  Piano Trio No. 1 in B^b Major Op. 21
i. Allegro molto
ii. Adagio molto e mesto
iii. Allegretto scherzando
iv. Finale

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Jupiter in the News

ConcertoNet
“knocked the socks off this listener...It was wondrous chamber music. And the three artists gave it the deserving excitement, volition and imagination.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

“the performers were top notch”
“The homey church where these concerts take place, nestled on West 66th Street in the shadow of Lincoln Center, is an intimate and acoustically vibrant place for chamber music.”
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times   more...

Strad Magazine
“A finely forthright, fluent and expressive account of Haydn's Divertimento in E-flat major opened this programme of miscellaneous chamber music in a series known for adventurous programming.”
Dennis Rooney, Strad Magazine   more...

ConcertoNet
“Mr. Nygaard’s cadenza flowed down Mozart lanes and paths, each with beautiful backgrounds. And at the very end, Mr. Nygaard brought forth that martial major theme, like an unexpected gift.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

“...the group’s efforts proved illuminating ...Brown played a lovely, subtly virtuosic cadenza for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 by Jens Nygaard, the ensemble’s founder, who died in 2001, but whose fascination with rarities continues to drive its programming”
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times   more...

Monday, December 2, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Great Danes
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

William Wolfram piano
Winner of the William Kapell, Naumburg, and Tchaikovsky competitions ~ “Wolfram’s technique is flabbergasting; fiendishly difficult octave passages were as child’s play, and his strength is tempered by an easy poetry.” The New York Times ~ “Wolfram is a dazzling performer.” Kalamazoo Gazette

Itamar Zorman violin
Recipient of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant ~ winner of the 2011 Tchaikovsky and 2010 Freiburg competitions ~ “a virtuoso of emotions” Göttinger Tageblatt ~ “I cannot believe my ears... such musical originality, a tone full of colors and beauty and an emotional expression full of inner intensity” Hanoch Ron ~ Yedioth Aharonot (Israel's largest newspaper)

Carl NIELSEN  String Quintet in G Major FS 5
  ~ an early, lush, and sonorous Romantic work exuding optimism ~ by Denmark’s national treasure

Nielsen (1865–1931) was born into a poor family, the seventh of 12 children. His father, who was much in demand as a village musician, gave him violin lessons as did the local school teacher. Initially, he played in a military orchestra in Odense. He then studied at the Copenhagen Conservatory from 1884 to 1886, thanks to financial assistance from benefactors. According to Emilie Demant Hatt, a sweetheart 8 years younger, Nielsen completed the Quintet on 1 January 1889. The work was well received when it was first played on the 13th of that month at a private chamber music society in Copenhagen, and then again on 28 April 1889, when it was presented at the Hornung & Møller concert hall by the newly-formed society for contemporary Danish music called “Symphonia.” Both Niels Gade and J.P.E. Hartmann were present. Socialdemokraten reported that the Quintet “was performed nicely by the composer himself [on second violin] and Messrs. Ludvig Holm, Osvald Poulsen, [Kristian] Sandby and F.O. Hansen.” Politiken characterized it as “extraordinarily fresh and pleasing...it testified to a healthy, fertile talent for instrumental composition.” Praise also came from Berlingske Tidende, which wrote, “As a whole this work...makes a beautiful impression, thanks to an appealing melodiousness, a rounded form and no ordinary powers of invention in harmonic terms.” But the Quintet was played only a few times during Nielsen’s lifetime and somehow sank into oblivion. It was, however, played at his 60th birthday celebration on 9 June 1925, and toward the end of his life, when Nielsen suggested that his “unknown” Quintet be played by an admirer and his ensemble. In gratitude for its resurrection, the piece was dedicated to the Thorvald Nielsen Quartet in 1931.

Carl REINECKE  Trio in A Major Op. 264
  ~ splendid late Romantic work—Schumannesque, expressive, and passionate ~ completed around his 80^th birthday for clarinet, viola, and piano

Reinecke was born in 1824 near Hamburg in the town of Altona, then under the jurisdiction of Denmark (until 1864). Taught by his father Rudolf, a widely respected teacher and music theorist, he started composing at age 7, and at 11 he made his first public appearance as a pianist. He was also a top-notch orchestral violinist; and at age 18 he toured Sweden and Denmark as a pianist, being especially successful in Copenhagen. In 1846 he was appointed court pianist to the King of Denmark in Copenhagen, where he accompanied the violin virtuoso Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst and gave solo recitals. As a teacher of composition and piano, he had few equals; and as the director of the Leipzig Conservatory, he transformed it into one of the most renowned in Europe. Among his many students were Grieg, Bruch, Sinding, Svendsen, Janáček, Weingartner, Albeníz, Delius, Arthur Sullivan, Ethel Smyth, and George Chadwick. He was also the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra until 1895. According to the New Grove Dictionary, “As a composer Reinecke was best known for his numerous piano compositions, representing virtually every musical form of the time and stylistically nearer to Schumann than to Mendelssohn.... His chamber music is distinguished.”

Otto MALLING  Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 80
  ~ late Romantic in style, Brahmsian in feel, and with Nordic flavor and a lovely, enchanting Andante movement—an emotional outpouring of lyrical expression and escapism

Born in 1848, Malling was educated in Copenhagen, where he studied with Gade and Emil Hartmann at the Copenhagen Conservatory. He was an organist in several Copenhagen churches; and he also taught harmony, counterpoint, composition, and orchestration at the Conservatory, where he became director from 1899 until his death in 1915.

Jupiter Players on this program:

Geneva Lewis violin
First prize winner at the YoungArts, ENKOR, and 2019 NEC Concerto Competitions

Cong Wu viola
Assistant Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonc, won 3rd Prize in the 14th Primrose Viola Competition and a Special Prize in the 12th Lionel Tertis Competition

Lisa Sung viola
Special prizewinner of the 2016 Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, top prizewinner of the 2019 Vienna & 2017 Manhattan competitions, twice winner of the Australian States Concerto Competition ~ “a viola prodigy” Australian Daily Telegraph

Christine Lamprea cello
First Prize winner of the Sphinx and Schadt competitions, winner of the 2013 Astral Artists’ Auditions and recipient of an award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts ~ praised by the Boston Musical Intelligencer for her “supreme panache and charmingly effortless phrasing”

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Monday, December 16, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Warhorses
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

Roman Rabinovich piano
Winner of the Rubinstein, Animato and Arjil competitions, the Mezzo and Salon de Virtuosi awards, and the Vendome Prize ~ “admirable interpretations...performed with a rich, full-blooded sound, singing lines and witty dexterity.” The New York Times

William Hagen violin
Third prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition (the highest ranking American since 1980) ~ a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” The Dallas Morning News ~ “an intellectual command of line and score, and just the right amount of power” Violinist.com ~ “plays with an obvious and sincere love for the very act of music making” North Texas Performing Arts News

Paul Neubauer viola
First violist to win an Avery Fisher Career Grant, first prize winner of the Whitaker, D’Angelo and Lionel Tertis competitions ~ “Neubauer’s seamless control of the bow, his intonation, his rich and varied tonal palette, mark him as a member of the elite.” The New York Times

Hyunah Yu soprano
Prizewinner at the 1999 Naumburg competition and recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award ~ “absolutely captivating...with exceptional style and effortless lyrical grace. The audience, to judge by the general swooning, was helplessly in love by the end.” The Washington Post

SCHUBERT  “The Shepherd on the Rock” D. 965a
  ~ composed barely a month before his death at age 31 for the soprano Anna Milder-Hauptmann, whom Schubert admired ~ premiered by Milder on 10 February 1830 at the House of the Blackheads in Riga ~ for soprano, clarinet, and piano

Richard STRAUSS  String Sextet from “Capriccio”
  ~ the exquisite “overture” to and subject of Strauss’s last opera—about opera—its perennial debate over which should prevail, the words or the music

WAGNER  Wesendonck Lieder
  ~ 5 songs written during an affair that Wagner had with Mathilde Wesendonck—the poet, author, and wife of his patron ~ arranged by cellist Rudolf Leopold for soprano and string sextet

Wagner set music to 5 poems that Mathidle had written during her years as his lover. In a letter to Liszt dated December 1854, Wagner revealed, “Since I have never enjoyed in life the real happiness of love, I will erect to this most beautiful of all dreams a memorial in which, from beginning to end, this love shall for once drink its fill.” The result was the Wesendonck Lieder, and upon its completion, he reportedly stated, “I have done nothing better than these songs.”

Heinrich Wilhelm ERNST  Grand Caprice on Schubert’s Der Erlkönig Op. 26
  ~ his finger-twisting paraphrase of Schubert’s art song set to Goethe’s poem is considered one of the most difficult pieces for solo violin, which has to assume 4 voices—the narrator, boy child, father, and supernatural being—in its depiction of the child’s death when snatched away by the Erlking

Ernst, a Moravian-Jewish virtuoso and Paganini’s greatest successor, often performed with Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, Clara Schumann, Joachim, and other friends.

BRAHMS  Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor “Werther” Op. 60
  ~ a swirling vortex of emotions that include the dark, dramatic, and passionate

Work on the Quartet began as early as 1855, during a very difficult period for the young composer, torn between despair for his friend Robert Schumann, then confined in a mental asylum, and love for his wife Clara. Upon its revision and completion twenty years later, the older Brahms confessed to his publisher through a grim allusion, “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose.” Thus, the moniker “Werther,” after Goethe’s archetypal Romantic hero in his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, who shot himself for the unrequited love of a married woman, whose husband he honored and admired.

Jupiter Players on this program:

Lisa Shihoten violin
Honored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and winner of the Menuhin and Paganini violin competitions

Lisa Sung viola
Special prizewinner of the 2016 Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, top prizewinner of the 2019 Vienna & 2017 Manhattan competitions, twice winner of the Australian States Concerto Competition ~ “a viola prodigy” Australian Daily Telegraph

Timotheos Petrin cello
Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Auditionm, top prize winner at the Paulo Cello Competition in Finland ~ “a great and passionate soloist style: expressive, vibrant singing lines, sparkling rhythm... an interesting, original personality” Helsingin Sanomat

Daniel Hass cello
Gold Medal winner of the 2016 Stulberg String Competition, as well as the 2016 winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Michael Measures Prize

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Monday, January 6, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Austro-German Gems
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

William Wolfram piano
Winner of the William Kapell, Naumburg, and Tchaikovsky competitions ~ “Wolfram’s technique is flabbergasting; fiendishly difficult octave passages were as child’s play, and his strength is tempered by an easy poetry.” The New York Times ~ “Wolfram is a dazzling performer.” Kalamazoo Gazette

Danbi Um violin
Top prize in the 2018 Naumburg competitions; Recipient of the 2018 Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant; Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Auditions; Silver Medalist in the Menuhin and Michael Hill competitions ~ “...utterly dazzling” The Strad ~ “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” New York Classical Review

MOZART  Clarinet Quartet No. 1 in B^b Major
  ~ arranged from the Violin Sonata K. 378/317d, possibly by his publisher Johann Anton André

The Violin Sonata, dedicated to his pupil Josepha Barbara Aurnhammer, a talented pianist, was written in Salzburg during the 1779–80 season or shortly before his departure for Vienna in 1781. After his death in 1791, Mozart’s widow Constanze sold his manuscripts. The Leipzig publishers Breitkopf & Härtel approached her in 1799 and bought about forty of the autographs. Later that year, she accepted an offer from Johann Anton André for the remaining 300 autographs and a few copies. Shortly after, André published 3 clarinet quartets based on transcriptions of the Violin Sonatas K. 317d and K. 374f, and Piano Trio K. 496.

Alexander Ernst FESCA  Grand Septuor No. 1 in C minor
  ~ scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, oboe, and horn, the Romantic septet is in effect a mini-piano concerto, by turns lyrical, turbulent, powerful, mysterious with intermezzo-like passages, and driven

Fesca, a piano prodigy born in Karlsruhe in 1820, was first taught by his father, Friedrich Ernst Fesca, a composer and music director of the Ducal Court Orchestra of Baden. At age 14 he went to Berlin to study at the Royal Prussian Academy of the Arts. In 1838 he returned to Karlsruhe, where his first opera Mariette was performed. The following year he began the first of a number of concert tours, earning recognition as a piano virtuoso. In 1841 he became chamber virtuoso to Prince Carl Egon von Fürstenburg. At age 28, in 1849, he succumbed to tuberculosis (as did his father). Fesca’s considerable oeuvre includes six piano trios, two piano quartets, a piano sextet, and two septets for piano, winds, and strings. Robert Schumann, in reviewing some of Fesca’s youthful piano pieces in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, wrote, “even if not manifesting a unique power and view of art, all contain within a fresh seed of life”—an opinion applicable to the Septets. A critic in Fesca’s day described his septets as belonging to the “field of higher, nobler entertaining music.” Giacomo Meyerbeer, whom Fesca met at least once in 1841, also highly praised his first three piano trios.

SCHUMANN  Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor Op. 110
  ~ intense and spirited, the Trio explores a darker realm, at times turbulent and dramatic with outbursts, mood swings, and restlessness, but it finally ends in radiance

At the Trio’s first rehearsal in late October, Clara Schumann was deeply impressed with its fervor and exuberance, noting, “It is original and increasingly passionate, especially the scherzo, which carries one along with it into the wildest depths.” She also played it for Liszt at a musical soirée the following March. It was dedicated to Niels Gade, whose music was esteemed by Schumann.

Jupiter Players on this program:

Luosha Fang viola
Winner of the 2013 Astral Artists Auditions as violinist; won 1st Prize in the 2018 Tokyo Viola Competition as violist; winner of the Silver Medal at the 2010 Fischoff competition as first violinist and founding member of the Chimeng Quartet

Ani Aznavoorian cello
Winner of the Julius Stulberg and Paolo competitions ~ “shows great sensitivity and great virtuosity at all moments” Los Angeles Times ~ “stunning in her assured technical mastery” Kansas City Star

Ha Young Jung double bass
Gold Medalist in the 2017 Berliner competition, multiple prizewinner at the 2016 Irving Klein and 2016 Boulder Chamber Music competition, First Prizes at the 2013 Koussevitzky and 2007 International Double Bass competitions, Grand-Prix in the 2006 String Competition in Moscow ~ “Disarming prodigy who achieved the rare distinction of making her instrument seem worthy of solo status.” Daily Telegraph of London

Roni Gal-Ed oboe
First Prize winner of the Lauschmann Oboe Competition in Mannheim ~ “Outstanding” The New York Times ~ “Expressive, wonderful player” German SZ Magaziner

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Karl Kramer horn
Winner of the 1997 and 1999 American Horn competitions ~ “Praise goes to the heroic horn playing of Karl Kramer.” New York Classical Review

Dear Friends and Music Lovers,    As many of you already know, Jupiter is a paradise for melomaniacs. It’s a haven to wallow in beautiful melodies, superb musicians and music making, and interesting programs. There’s nary a dull moment, thanks to our brilliant artistic director, Michael Volpert.    Indeed, “The playing is top notch; the programs are full of exotica.” Richard Morrison ~ The London Times “excellent musicians in unusual programs” Anthony Tommasini ~ The New York Times “this was truly impressive music making” “One of the Best Deals in Town” “Those in the know keep coming back.” Fred Kirshnit ~ The New York Sun “bringing classical music to people in a powerful way” Cole Grissom ~ Broadway World    So do come as often as you can. And please give as much as you can to help keep Jupiter spinning its musical magic. Your financial support is truly needed.    All gifts are tax deductible.    Thank you so much,

Pencil drawing of Jens Nygaard by Michael McNamara

Why the name Jupiter: When Jens Nygaard named his orchestra Jupiter, he had the beautiful, gaseous planet in mind—unattainable but worth the effort, like reaching musical perfection. Many, indeed, were privileged and fortunate to hear his music making that was truly Out of This World. Our Players today seek to attain that stellar quality.

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