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Join Us For Our 2024-2025 Season! |
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Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players “This was music-making of a very high order” Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun |
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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.
View Our Printable Calendar and Ticket Order Form (pdf) Take a look at our guest artists for this season. |
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Join us for our next concerts...
Monday, January 20 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservations advised Maxim Lando piano Danbi Um violin Claire Bourg violin Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt viola Brannon Cho cello Roni Gal-Ed oboe Oskar MERIKANTO Valse Lento Op. 33 Merikanto (1868–1924) was a household name in Finland—from the mid-1880s to the 1920s he influenced the taste of the Finns, from cities to rural towns, through his melodious folk songs that were inspired by salon romances. After studies at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1887–1888 and in Berlin in 1890–1891, he had an active career and his accomplishments were of great importance in the development of Finnish musical life in the early 20th century. He was an organist in Helsinki, teacher at the Helsinki Music College, music critic for the daily paper Päivälehti, an excellent accompanist for singers, and a conductor from 1911 until 1922 of the Finnish Domestic Opera, which he cofounded with Finland’s star soprano Aino Ackté and others. Merikanto believed in the beauty of music. In 1909 he wrote that “music will return to simple forms, clarity and esprit if the currents of the time dissolve into peace and harmony.” (Oskar Merikanto is not to be confused with his son, Aarre, who composed many notable works in the Modernist style.) Burmester (1869–1933) was a German violin prodigy to whom Sibelius originally dedicated his Violin Concerto. He studied under Joseph Joachim from 1882 to 1885 at the Hochschule in Berlin, but later departed from the classical tradition when he focused on music in the bravura style. A Paganini recital he gave in Berlin in 1894 led to his sought-after international breakthrough. Bernhard Henrik CRUSELL Divertimento in C Major Op. 9 The Divertimento was described by Peter Lawson as “more of a concerto piece...requiring a virtuosic almost operatic personality from the soloist.... It’s beautifully crafted, and...there’s an abundance of early-Romantic coloring, despite its obviously-Classical roots. Every commonplace idea is balanced by an agreeable surprise” in its unexpected shifts in mode and harmony. Crusell was born in 1775 to a poor bookbinder in the town of Uusikaupunki, then known for its wooden tableware and furniture production. His ticket out of Finland, and ultimately to Stockholm, was his facility on the clarinet, which he began playing at the age of 4. At age 12 he was apprenticed to a military band in Sveaborg, and moved with it to Stockholm, where in 1793 he was made a court musician. Among his teachers were Franz Tausch in Berlin, Jean Xavier Lefèvre in Paris, and Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler, who founded a national music school in Stockholm. “His association with the greatest writers of his day through Stockholm’s Gothic Society, which he joined in 1818, led to his greatest successes, in settings of poems…. Crusell was also a brilliant linguist and his translations of the foremost French, German and Italian operas for the Swedish stage earned him the Swedish Academy’s Gold Medal in 1837 [New Grove Dictionary].” He was also the first Finnish composer whose music appeared in print, published by Peters in Leipzig (another measure of his success). He died in 1838 in Stockholm. Ernst MIELCK String Quartet in G minor Op. 1 After a brief meteoric rise, Mielck’s career was cut down by his death at the age of 21. During his short life he was excluded from the mainstream: he spoke German in a land where Finns and Swedes were striving for linguistic supremacy; his musical orientation was towards Romanticism influenced by Mendelssohn and Schumann at a time when Finnish Nationalism (colored by Wagnerism) was entering its prime; and he was a fragile recluse. Born in 1877 into a wealthy family of merchants in Viipuri and raised in a cultured home, Mielck was a sickly child and barely spoke at age 7. It is possible he had meningitis, rickets, and tuberculosis, as well as autism. He was homeschooled and began to study music at age 10. Before he turned 14, he was sent to Berlin to study at the Stern Conservatory with Robert Radecke and privately with Max Bruch. He made his debut as a pianist in Viipuri at the age of 17, and in the next few years he wrote a handful of compositions, including the first substantial symphony ever written in Finland in 1897, predating the First Symphony of Sibelius by two years. He died of tuberculosis in Switzerland in 1899. Although Mielck’s talent was viewed suspiciously, Sibelius was friendly to him and he was encouraged by the conductor Robert Kajanus, founder and conductor of the Helsinki Orchestral Society and notable interpreter and champion of Sibelius. The conductor Arthur Nikisch also gave him encouraging references, and he was a favorite pupil of Bruch, who wrote the following recommendation: “To Whom it May Concern: This is to certify that Ernst Mielck of Vyborg, Finland, has been my private pupil from October 1895 to May 1896. Under my direction he addressed himself to score reading, exercises in the art of orchestration, and the detailed formal analysis of the works of the masters, demonstrating a profound understanding. With my guidance he wrote a String Quartet which showed him to be in possession of an easy, felicitous, and remarkable flair for invention, and an ever-increasing and most pleasing understanding of the essence and the inherent aims and purposes of instrumental music. He was for me an exceptionally dear pupil, who has through his unquestionable talent and the greatest diligence—brought me nothing but joy and who, should he continue to develop in the same vein, must inspire the greatest hopes for the future.” Jean SIBELIUS Piano Quintet in G minor The Quintet was written during a year of private study in Berlin, following his graduation from the Helsinki Music Institute. The premiere of its first and third movements was performed by none other than the great Italian pianist Ferruccio Busoni (his teacher and lifelong friend) and the Norwegian composer and violinist Johan Halvorsen, both of whom were impressed with the Quintet. It did not receive a full performance until 1965. Details of his year in Berlin is recounted at Sibelius.info: “In Berlin, the 23-year-old Sibelius had powerful musical experiences…. [He heard Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Meistersinger, Hans von Bülow’s legendary piano concerts, Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, and performances by the Joachim Quartet of Beethoven’s Op. 50 String Quartet and Schubert’s String Quartet in C Major, both of which made deep impressions.] Sibelius became a student of Albert Becker and had to do the rigorous composition exercises that his teacher demanded…. The endless practice in fugal techniques and the laborious counterpoint exercises were no doubt useful, but Sibelius’s composing vein dried up for months on end. Sibelius did not like the atmosphere of Berlin…the spirit of the times was too pessimistic and conservative for his taste. He mainly socialized with other foreign students.… Sibelius played chamber music with his friends and bought cheap scores from local second-hand bookshops. In the evenings, he lived far beyond his means, buying tickets for the best seats at the opera and enjoying the cuisine of high-class restaurants. This merry student life led to illness—and even to venereal disease if we are to believe the uninhibited letters he wrote at the time. In November 1889, Sibelius was admitted to hospital. On his recovery, he met Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni invited Sibelius…to Leipzig to hear the first public performance of a piano quintet composed by their mutual friend Christian Sinding. Busoni was the pianist at the concert. Sinding’s work awakened in Sibelius the will to compose, and in the spring of 1890 he put the finishing touches to his only significant work during the Berlin year, the piano quintet in G minor…. Becker was satisfied with the piano quintet and wrote a positive report in which he emphasized the importance of additional studies. The piano quintet was sufficient proof for the senate, which granted Sibelius a scholarship of 2000 marks (about 8000 euros in today’s money) for the following academic year.” |
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Monday, February 3 ♦ 2 PM & 7:30 PM Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservations advised Michael Stephen Brown piano Geneva Lewis violin Isabelle Durrenberger violin Natalie Loughran viola Sara Scanlon cello Sooyun Kim flute Roni Gal-Ed oboe Vadim Lando clarinet Karl Kramer horn Gina Cuffari bassoon SCHUBERT Fantasia in F minor D.940 Composed the year he died at age 31, the dedication was announced on 21 February 1828. If Schubert and Caroline were the first to play the divine Fantasia, the first other person to hear it was likely Schubert’s great friend Eduard Bauernfeld, a music connoisseur and dramatist, for whom Schubert and Franz Lachner played it on 9 May at a Schubertiade. It was published posthumously in 1829. The arrangement by Claus Ludwig for string quartet is from the original for piano-4 hands, one of the most ravishing pieces in the piano literature. Countess Caroline Esterházy was born in 1805 into the wealthy and illustrious Esterházy family—the younger of two daughters of Johann Karl Count Esterházy of Galánta. She was a gifted pianist and sensitive musician. Schubert gave the sisters music lessons at their home in Vienna, as well as during the summers of 1818 and 1824 at the family estate in Zseliz. Thereafter, she and Schubert remained friends till his death in 1828. The memoir of Baron Karl von Schönstein, the Count’s close friend, throws some light on the relationship between Caroline and Schubert. However, because it was written in 1857, almost 30 years after Schubert’s death, the details of Schönstein’s recollections are inconsistent and not to be entirely trusted. Regardless, he disclosed that “a poetic flame sprang up in Schubert’s heart for Caroline. This flame continued to burn until his death.” He also recalled that “Caroline esteemed his talent very highly, but did not return this love; perhaps she did not realize the degree to which it existed. I say ‘the degree,’ because that he loved her must have been clear to her from a remark of Schubert’s—his only expression [of his love] in words. When she once jokingly teased Schubert that he had never dedicated a piece of his to her he responded: ‘Why do that? Everything is dedicated to you anyway.’” Further, Bauernfeld divulged in his diary in February 1828 that “Schubert seems to be seriously in love with Countess E[sterházy]. I like that in him. He is giving her lessons.” (To put the revelation in context, the diary entry was written at the time the Fantasia was dedicated to Caroline.) Love exists on many levels, and to say, as some have put forth, that she was the object of his unrequited love may not quite be the case. It could be more realistic that they were soulmates and shared a platonic love. We may never know for sure. Ludwig THUILLE Sextet in Bb Major Op. 6 Written over a period of 2 years, the Sextet is anchored in the classicism of his teacher Josef Rheinberger, while reminiscent of Liszt and Brahms as well. It received the approval of Richard Strauss, his lifelong friend who was instrumental in arranging the premiere performance in 1889 at the Wiesbaden Festival, with Thuille playing the demanding piano part and the winds shining in their harmonies and solo turns. It was well received and appreciated by both the press and public. In the view of musicologist Byron Adams, “Thuille’s enthusiasm for the Mage of Bayreuth was further quickened by his marriage in 1887 to Emma Dietl, who was a passionate Wagnerite. Even so, Thuille retained a certain ambivalence towards Wagner; he once remarked approvingly to a student that ‘The astonishing thing is that you have kept yourself entirely free from the Wagnerian influence!’ As with Schumann, the years following Thuille’s marriage prompted a burst of creative activity. Among the scores that Thuille completed during this joyous period is an attractive Sextet…[which] exemplifies Thuille’s style at its most graceful, fluent, and polished.” Thuille (1861–1907) was both a pupil of Rheinberger, whom he later succeeded as counterpoint teacher at the Königliche Musikschule in Munich, and a lifelong friend of Strauss. Born of Savoyard ancestry in Bolzano (then in Austria, now in Italy), he was orphaned at the age of 11. His stepuncle took him in and oversaw his secondary education in Kremsmünster. There, he served as a chorister in the Benedictine Abbey and studied the organ, piano, and violin. From 1876 he lived with his half-sister’s family in Innsbruck, his expenses paid by the generous widow of Matthäus Nagiller. He continued his studies with Joseph Pembauer and in 1877 met Richard Strauss, who was three years his junior and whose parents were acquainted with the Nagiller family. They became and remained fast friends (interrupted by a quarrel) until his untimely death at age 45. In 1879 Thuille began his studies, steeped in Viennese Classicism, with Josef Rheinberger at the Royal Academy, graduating with honors in 1882. Although he was musically conservative and sternly disciplined by Rheinberger, “a decisive change suddenly occurred in his style through his association with Alexander Ritter, a forceful figure who converted him and…Strauss into rich orchestral colourists in the late Romantic vein. Ritter diverted Thuille’s attention to opera of Wagnerian proportions and encouraged the young composer to cultivate bold harmonic ideas [New Grove Dictionary].” Before his death, Thuille made one other contribution: his Harmonielehre—a treatise on harmony that survived into the 1930s. Antonín DVOŘÁK “Songs My Mother Taught Me” from Gypsy Songs Op. 55 Originally for voice and piano, Fritz Kreisler arranged it for violin and piano in 1914 and performed it frequently. Dvořák composed the songs at the request of the Viennese tenor, Gustav Walter, with texts from a collection of poems by Adolf Heyduk. The song was recommended by Classic FM (UK) as one of “10 beautiful pieces of classical music for Mother’s Day.” The nostalgic lyrics pay tribute to a mother’s tears, memories, and influence:
Bedřich SMETANA Piano Trio in G minor Op. 15 Smetana was devastated by the death of Bedřiška, a musical child with whom he had an especially close relationship. The rhapsodic, heartrending elegiac work with unbridled passion, completed in 2 months, is influenced by Bohemian folk music. It was condemned by critics at the premiere on 3 December 1855, but praised by Liszt (his friend and teacher), and in our time by Harold Schonberg, who said it is “of unusual loveliness.” Many years after its composition, Smetana wrote in a letter to one of his doctors, “The death of my eldest daughter, an exceptionally talented child, motivated me to compose...my Trio in G minor. It was performed the same year in Prague [with Smetana playing the piano part]... The audience was unresponsive and the critics hated it.” A year later, when the Trio was played in Smetana’s Prague apartment, Liszt was in attendance; he was profoundly moved and arranged for subsequent performances in Germany and Austria. Smetana’s wife, Kateřina Kolářová, whom he had married in 1849, was also not well at that time, having been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Smetana was the first major nationalist composer of Bohemia and the founder of the Czech national school of music. The 11th child and first son to survive infancy, Bedřich was born in 1824 to a keen amateur violinist and master brewer in the service of Counts Waldstein and Czernin. First taught by his father, he was playing the violin in a performance of a Haydn quartet by age 5. The following year, he made his debut as a pianist; at age 8 he was composing folk and dance tunes. Although he had no formal musical training, he completed a general education at a school in Pilsen. At the age of 20, Smetana studied composition with the distinguished teacher Josef Proksch in Prague. From 1844 to 1847 he was appointed as resident piano teacher to the family of Count Leopold Thun. This job lifted him out of dire poverty. He also met Liszt, Berlioz, and Robert and Clara Schumann in Prague. Encouraged by Liszt, he opened a piano school in Prague in 1848. Two months before the school’s opening, he participated in the Prague Revolution, which was aborted on 11 June and resulted in Bohemia’s failure to disentangle itself from the autocratic rule of the Austrian Hapsburgs. The event had strongly aroused Smetana’s patriotism—he helped to defend the barricades and wrote revolutionary marches. By 1856, he became so disenchanted with Prague’s stifling atmosphere and discouraged by the cool reception to his Piano Trio that he moved to Gothenburg. He was very productive in Sweden—he wrote his first symphonic poems and was appointed conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music. After 5 years, he returned to Prague, where he played a leading part in the establishment of the national opera house. In 1874 Smetana became deaf from syphilis, yet he continued to compose until the last few days of his life when his mental faculties broke down, and he was cared for in a lunatic asylum. Before then, on 4 January 1880, Smetana played in his Piano Trio at a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of his first public performance. At one moment in the Trio, he horrified the audience when he cried out “Pianissimo!” in a stentorian voice. Smetana’s death in 1884 drew an outpouring of national mourning, with many tributes paid to him. Liszt lamented his passing, declaring that “he was undoubtedly a genius.” |
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Jupiter 2024 - 2025 Season Tickets: $25, $17, $10 ~ Reservation advised Please visit our Media Page to hear Audio Recordings from the Jens Nygaard and Jupiter Symphony Archive Concert Venue:
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As promised, here are the videos of John Field’s Divertissement No. 1 and Sir Hamilton Harty’s Piano Quintet. Fortuitously, our Jupiter musicians had the good sense to record the rehearsal in an impromptu decision, literally minutes before pressing the record button. Pianist Mackenzie Melemed (replacing Roman Rabinovich at the last minute) learned the music in 2 days! Bravo to him. Both works are Irish rarities that were scheduled for the March 16 performances which had to be canceled because of the coronavirus epidemic. Even though the entire program could not be recorded because of technical issues, we are pleased to be able to share with you the 2 musical gems. Enjoy. John FIELD Divertissement No. 1 H. 13 We thank the University of Illinois (Champaign) for a copy of the Divertissement music. Mackenzie Melemed piano
Sir Hamilton HARTY Piano Quintet in F Major Op. 12 Andrew Clements of the Guardian proclaimed the beautiful Quintet “a real discovery: a big, bold statement full of striking melodic ideas and intriguing harmonic shifts, which adds Brahms and Dvořák into Harty’s stylistic mix, together with Tchaikovsky in some passages.” There’s folk music charm as well, reminiscent of Percy Grainger—notably in the Scherzo (Vivace) with its folksy quirks and nonchalance, and the winding, pentatonic melody in the Lento. Our gratitude to the Queen’s University Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a copy of the autograph manuscript of the music. Much thanks, too, to Connor Brown for speedily creating a printed score and parts from Harty’s manuscript. Mackenzie Melemed piano I Allegro 0:00 | ||||||
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Jupiter featured on Our Net News American program opener on March 18, with grateful thanks to Michael Shaffer of OurNetNews.com for recording the matinee concert, and making available the Horatio Parker Suite video for our viewing pleasure. Horatio Parker Suite in A Major, Op. 35, composed in 1893 Stephen Beus piano
More video from this performance can be viewed on our media page |
Jupiter on YouTube NEW YORK CANVAS : The Art of Michael McNamara is a video portrait of the artist who has painted iconic images of New York City for more than a decade, capturing the changing urban landscape of his adopted city. Our Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players provide the music from Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, underscoring the inspiration the artist has drawn from Jens Nygaard and the musicians. Michael was also our Jupiter volunteer from 2002 to 2010. Here is a video of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players performance of the Rondo alla Zingarese movement:
The producer-director, Martin Spinelli, also made the EMMY Award-winning “Life On Jupiter: The Story of Jens Nygaard, Musician.” For more information, visit our media
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“Some great musicians get a statue when they pass away. Some get their name imprinted on the roof of a well-known concert hall. But the late conductor Jens Nygaard has a living tribute: an entire ensemble of musicians and a concert series to go along with it... It is one of the city’s cultural jewels... In the end, if Mr. Nygaard was known for anything, it was unmitigated verve. That’s what the audience regularly returned for, and that’s what they got Monday afternoon. To have a grassroots community of musicians continue to celebrate Mr. Nygaard with indomitable performances like these week after week, even without the power of world-famous guest soloists, is proper tribute. And with more large orchestras and ensembles needing more corporate sponsorship year after year, I, for one, hope the Jupiter’s individual subscriber-base remains strong. New York’s musical life needs the spirit of Jens Nygaard, and Mei Ying should be proud she’s keeping it alive.” Read the complete article on our reviews page. |
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MeiYing Manager All
performances, except where otherwise noted, are held at: Copyright © 1999-2025 Jupiter Symphony. All rights reserved. |
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