Schumann l DohnányiEarl Wild, Pianist

Isaiah Jackson, Conductor l American String Orchestral l l l l l l l

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Piano Quintet in E flat Major, Opus 44I. Allegro brillanteII. In modo d’una marcia: Un poco largamenteIII. Scherzo: Molto vivaceIV. Allegro ma non troppo

It seems curious that among the wide variety of chamber music combinations createdby Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, there is not a single work originally written for pianoand the standard string quartet. There are a number of compositions for two or threestrings and piano by these masters, but apparently nobody ever thought of commissioninga piano quintet. Although there are some minor early works for string quartet with a pianocontinuo part, it remained for Robert Schumann to pioneer the form of the quintet forpiano, two violins, viola, and cello. His single model for that combination inspired thenotable examples of piano quintets by nineteenth century composers, such as JohannesBrahms, Antonin Dvorak, César Franck and Gabriel Fauré.

According to musicologist Alfred R. Neuman, “The early piano quintet form (as repre-sented by Louis Spohr and other early Romantic composers) suffered from the fact that itwas primarily a piano virtuoso piece with string accompaniment. The balance between theinstruments, especially in the opening Schumann Quintet in E flat Major, was by no meansmeant to be equal. The piano part does not represent one-fifth of the tonal factors, butrather balances the four strings as one unit. Though the nature of the string parts is inde-pendent, they are really no more independent than the orchestral part of a concerto. WhereSchubert, in his Trout Quintet, seemed to divide a second piano part into four string parts(including a double bass instead of the second violin), Schumann condensed an orchestralaccompaniment of a piano concerto into the string parts of this quintet.” This is why theSchumann work sounds so rich and wonderful with an expanded string section.

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Prior to 1840, piano piecesformed the bulk of RobertSchumann’s compositional out-put. But early in 1840 he startedcomposing lieder, and before theyear was out he had writtennearly half of his 250 songs,among them such importantcycles as Dichterliebe, Myrthen,Frauenliebe und leben and boththe Heine and EichendorfLiederkreis.

The songs, however didnothing to dispel Schumann’sreputation as a miniaturist. Hiswife, Clara, concerned that herwell-established career as apianist was beginning to over-shadow her husband’s efforts asa composer, encouraged him tobroaden his scope by tacklinglarger forms. In 1841, he pro-duced two symphonies (Nos. 1and 4) and the “Fantasia,”which he later expanded intothe Piano Concerto in A Minor,Opus 54. Next he set to study-ing the quartets of Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven.

The Quintet in E flat Major,Opus 44, was written in Schu-mann’s most fertile chamber

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Manuscript of the opening of Schumann’s Quintet, Opus 44

music year: 1842. Six of his tencompositions in that field werewritten in that year: the threestring quartets, Opus 41, the PianoQuartet, Opus 47, Fantasiestückefor piano trio, Opus 88, and thePiano Quintet on this recording. Itwas a period of greatest happinessfor Schumann. Just two years earli-er he had finally been able to marryhis beloved of many years, thepianist, Clara Wieck. As ClaraSchumann she performed thepiano part of this quintet at its pre-mière on January 8, 1843.

The opening movement,Allegro brillante, begins with aheroic theme, harmonized in plainchords, which recurs again in latermovements. After travellingthrough several keys, the openingtheme gives way to a secondmelody, a statement and answerby celli and violas of unforgettabletenderness, providing the mainmaterial of the whole movement.

The mood changes completely with the second movement, a funeral march, character-ized by a melancholy, rhythmic pattern in the low register strings, with the violas takingan important role. With a sudden key change, the violins take over with a contemplativesong in C major, accompanied by exceedingly pianistic passage work. The heartbeat-typerhythm then returns to close the movement.

The scherzo is based on rapidly ascending and descending scale passages, testing the– 4 –

Robert Schumann

performers’ technical skill, without, however, sacrificing melodiousness.The finale, Allegro ma non troppo, presents a great wealth of tonal beauty and ideas.

Schumann provides enough musical material for two average movements, arranging theideas into a kind of double sonata form. The careful listener will be able to discern evenwithout a score the sequence of exposition (two themes), development, and recapitula-tion, here followed by a new exposition (a third theme), a second development (includingelements of the first theme), and a second recapitulation, capped by a brief coda, re-presenting the first theme. The originality of the Quintet in E flat Major thus extendsinto the areas of instrumentation, form, and melody.

Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960): Piano Quintet in C Minor, Opus 1I. AllegroII. Scherzo: Allegro vivaceIII. Adagio: quasi andanteIV. Finale: Allegro animato

Dohnányi was born in 1877 in a town located thirty five miles east of Vienna, the cap-ital of Austria. The town of Dohnányi’s birth was Hungary’s capital for hundreds of years.In Hungarian its name was Pozsony. In German, when Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918), its name was Pressburg. Now this town’s name isBratislava, and today it is the capital of the Slovakia. Ernö Dohnányi’s own name has aGerman version, Ernst von Dohnanyi.

Political turmoils in Europe, of course, affected citizens of many countries of that con-tinent, not just the Hungarians. The two world wars and the frequent rearrangements ofnational borders were, however, far more severe in European lands east of France. Manyeastern European classical instrumentalists and composers born at the end of the 19th cen-tury found themselves displaced and forced to seek safe havens all over the world.

The fate of Dohnányi is especially ironic, because he was for a long time Hungary’spreeminent musical force. He was an internationally acclaimed pianist, world renownedcomposer, and conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra for a quarter of a cen-tury with whom he performed more than one hundred programs each season. Dohnányi

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championed younger composers, such as Bartók and Kodály. He was also the musicaldirector of the Hungarian Radio, concertized all over the world promoting Hungarianmusic, and presided over the Budapest Academy, where he taught piano and compositionfor many years. In short, from 1915 to 1944 Dohnányi had a powerful influence on themusical development of his native country. Yet by 1948 he was hounded out of Hungaryand, after brief stopovers in Austria and in England, he found a temporary respite inArgentina, where he chaired the piano department at the University of Tucumán, some800 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

From 1949 until his death in 1960, Dohnányi lived in the United States, thanks ingreat part to the foresight and largess of Florida State University in Tallahassee, whichprovided him with a faculty position in its music department. His appointment by a U.S.institution of higher learning does not appear to be an unusual event until one realizesthat in 1949 Dohnányi was already 72 years old, seven years older than the then standardmandatory retirement age for employees, including professors.

The musical journey that ended with a heart attack and a fatal bout with influenza inearly February 1960 in New York City began when, at age 8, Dohnányi started his pianoand harmony lessons with Karóly Forstner, the Pressburg Cathedral’s organist. In 1893Dohnányi entered the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest, where he wastaught piano by Stephan Thomen and composition by Hans Koessler. He also received afew master lessons from Eugen d’Albert (1864-1932), a Franz Liszt pupil.

Dohnányi’s musical career started very auspiciously. His Opus 1, the Piano QuintetNo.1 in C Minor, was warmly praised by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). In 1896,Dohnányi was awarded the King’s Prize in composition by the Hungarian government. In1899, his Piano Concerto, Opus 5, won the von Bülow (Bösendorfer) Prize in Vienna,beating more than sixty competing compositions by others. Dohnányi’s 1898 pianisticdebut in London, where he performed his favorite Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 in Gmajor, Opus 58, was also a tremendous success.

In 1954, Ohio State University awarded Dohnányi an honorary doctorate. In his wan-ing years, he composed and performed much less. His last live recital was in Tallahassee in1959. He continued to record, however; at the time of his death, Dohnányi was in NewYork City making studio recordings of Beethoven’s music for Everest Records.

In the summer of 1895 the composer, only eighteen years old and still a student at the– 6 –

Royal Academy, visited JohannesBrahms at his summer retreat at Ischl,a popular gathering place for musi-cians and writers in the AustrianTyrol. Brahms was highly enthusiasticover Dohnányi’s newly created PianoQuintet in C Minor, and arranged animmediate performance of the work,with Dohnányi playing the piano part.It achieved an immediate success.Without a doubt it is one of the mostnoteworthy examples of an Opus 1 inthe entire history of music. TheQuintet in C Minor was published in1902. It comprises four traditionalmovements, the Scherzo being placedbefore the slow movement.

Because of the strong influence ofBrahms pervading this work, manyhistorians have often referred to it as“Brahms’ Second Piano Quintet.”Apart from anything else, the pianopart reminds us that Dohnányi was avirtuoso and pupil of one of Liszt’sdisciples. Indeed, it is the pianowhich at the start of the initial Allegro, expresses the first theme whose first bar constitutesa rhythmic cell which generates several of the work’s important elements. The theme isboth energetic and painful. The piano, already agitated, calms down briefly before thevery beautiful song of the second motif is heard in the first violins and the violas – atheme whose lyricism is accentuated by broad arpeggios on the piano. The development isa true conflict between two themes, a juxtaposition of the light and the shade, the violenceand the softness. The tempo is accentuated and becomes more marked and oppressive.

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Ernst von Dohnányi

The first theme reappears again,but adagio, before the crescendoand coda in C major.

The Scherzo is an allegro vivacein A minor which uses a sobermotif exposed on the first violins;the trio in A major, a beautifultheme of prayer, played pianis-simo, brings a mysterious calm tothis ebullient movement.

It is the violas which sing theinitial motif of the Adagio quasiandante immediately taken up bythe violins around the backing ofthe celli and the syncopatedchords of the keyboard. As soonas the piano becomes involved, arapid modulation leads to a lyricaltheme sung by the strings that thepiano backs with sextuplets and abeautiful bass motif. This move-ment, which is in song form, endspoco piu adagio.

The initial theme of the finale,Allegro animato, is very rhythmic. The celli sing a serene phrase which the piano takestime to adopt as well. We then hear a very Brahmsian and somewhat contrapuntal “inter-mezzo” in F minor. Shortly before the end of the movement, the first-movement themeitself enters briefly, however it is the metrically asymmetrical first theme of the finalewhich brings the Quintet to a close, prompting one contemporary critic to state thatDohnányi “reveals himself often in this work a dreamer, but, above all, it is his ardent anddominating musical personality that leaves us wanting to hear more!”

– Notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, ©2000– 8 –

Isaiah Jackson and Earl Wild

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In the 1930’s, I heard the extraordinary Dutch pianist Egon Petri (also a teacher ofmine), play the Brahms Piano Quintet with the N.B.C. String Orchestra with added basses.It was one of my most thrilling musical experiences – hearing this composition playedwith the full sound and drama that Brahms must have assuredly heard in his head duringthe creation of this masterpiece.

Since that profound experience, I’ve always wished I could hear other composers’piano quintets that same way. I believe most of these works were written with a larger con-cept in mind. I am convinced that Schumann heard this full sound when he wrote hisQuintet – Dohnányi as well.

One summer in the late 1970’s, I organized and conducted a chamber program atWolftrap Farm Park for the Performing Arts (outside Washington, DC), that included aperformance of the Chausson Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet. In that per-formance I used a full compliment of strings and added a bass part. The result was phe-nomenal and provided a wonderfully emotional and dramatic sound. The music literallyjumped off of the page – the emotional impact on the audience was tremendous.

By augmenting the strings and adding a bass part, I have tried to create that sameeffect on this disc.

Isaiah Jackson conducts our American String Orchestra ensemble. We have performedtogether on numerous occasions over the past 20 years and I greatly admire his abilities.

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Earl Wild“When Earl Wild performs, the Golden Age of the keyboard suddenly reappears.”

TIME Magazine (1995)

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Earl Wild is a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition. His legendary career, so distin-guished and long, has continued for well over 70 years. Born in 1915, in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, Earl Wild’s technical accomplishments are often likened to what those ofLiszt himself must have had. Born with absolute pitch he started playing the piano atthree. Having studied with great pianists such as Egon Petri, his lineage can be tracedback to Scharwenka, Busoni, Ravel, d’Albert and Liszt himself.

Earl Wild’s career is dotted with musical legends. As a young pianist he was soloistwith Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. Since then he has performed with virtu-ally every major conductor and symphony orchestra in the world. Rachmaninov was animportant idol in his life. It’s been said of Earl Wild, “He’s the incarnation of Rach-maninov, Lhevinne and Rosenthal rolled into one!” In 1986 after hearing him play threesold-out Carnegie Hall concerts, devoted to Liszt, honoring the centenary of that com-poser’s death, one critic said, “I find it impossible to believe that he played those millionsof notes with 70-year-old fingers, so fresh-sounding and precise were they. Perhaps he hasa worn-out set up in his attic, a la Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray.”

He’s one of the few American pianists to have achieved international as well as domes-tic celebrity. He has performed for six Presidents of the United States, beginning withHerbert Hoover, and in 1939, was the first classical pianist to give a recital on the newmedium of Television. At fourteen he was performing in the Pittsburgh Symphony withOtto Klemperer as well as working at radio station KDKA, where he played many of hisown compositions. As a virtuoso pianist, composer, transcriber, conductor, editor andteacher, Mr. Wild continues in the style of the legendary great artists of the past.

In addition to his distinguished concert career, which encompasses performances withconductors such as Stokowski, Reiner, Maazel, Solti and Mitropoulos, and artists likeCallas, Tourel, Pons, Melchior, Peerce and Bumbry, Wild successfully shines as both a

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conductor and composer. His Easter oratorio, Revelations, was broadcast by the ABC net-work in 1962 and again in 1964. Wild’s recent composition, Variations on a Theme ofStephen Foster for piano and orchestra (“Doo-Dah” Variations), premiered with Wild assoloist with the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra in 1992. Earl Wild has been called “thefinest transcriber of our time,” and his many piano transcriptions are widely known andrespected.

This eminent pianist has built an extensive repertoire over the years, which includesboth the standard and modern literature. He has become world renown in particular forhis brilliant performances of the virtuoso Romantic works. Today at 84, Mr. Wild con-tinues to record and perform concerts throughout the world. In 1997, he won aGrammy® Award for his disc, “The Romantic Master” – Virtuoso Piano Tran-scriptions. Praised by critics and music lovers around the world as a “stunning documentof musical sensitivity and virtuosity” and “a tribute to America’s greatest pianistic trea-sure” – this CD is once again available in its original HDCD state-of-the-art audiophilesound on Ivory Classics® (70907).

Along with the release of over 20 other CDs in the last 10 years, when he was 79, herecorded a well received Beethoven disc which included the monumental HammerklavierSonata, as well as another disc composed of Rachmaninov’s Preludes and the Second PianoSonata. As an Ivory Classics® artist, he has just recorded three 20th century piano sonatasby Barber, Hindemith and Stravinsky as well as a sonata of his own, which will be releasedin celebration of his 85th birthday, in the year 2000.

Isaiah Jacksonl l l l l l l l

American conductor Isaiah Jackson is now in his fourth season as Music Director of theYoungstown Symphony Orchestra. As guest conductor, he has led many distinguishedNorth American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the ClevelandOrchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Houston, Dallas,Toronto, San Francisco, Detroit, Baltimore and Indianapolis, as well as the Boston Pops,

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Grant Park Festival Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic,Louisville Orchestra and National Symphony (Washington, DC). While still a student atthe Juilliard School of Music, Jackson was engaged as Leopold Stokowski’s assistant withthe American Symphony Orchestra and named music director of the New York YouthSymphony. He later held posts with the Baltimore Symphony and the RochesterPhilharmonic and most recently was music director of the Dayton Philharmonic foreight seasons.

Highlights of 1999 and 2000 include the inaugural concert at Cafaro Field as well asdebuts in Israel and in South Africa, where Jackson becomes the first person of color toconduct the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Jackson made his European orchestraldebut with the Vienna Symphony in July 1973. During that summer he served at LeonardBernstein’s suggestion as artistic director of Vienna’s Youth Music Festival. He became thefirst American to hold a major post at Covent Garden when he was appointed principalconductor and, later, music director of The Royal Ballet.

In Europe, he has conducted the Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande, the BBC ConcertOrchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic at the Helsinki Festival, the Gaevleborg Symphony,and the R.A.I. Orchestra in Rome. He has appeared at the Spoleto Festival in Italy andduring the 1994-1995 season made debuts with the Czech Symphonic Orchestra at theopening of the Prague Autumn International Music Festival, the Stockholm SymphonicWind Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He has conducted before mem-bers of Britain’s Royal Family on several occasions, including the 90th birthday gala forRoyal Ballet founder Dame Ninette de Valois which was attended by Her Majesty theQueen, and at the memorial service for Sir Frederick Ashton in Westminster Abbey.

Active in the world’s recording studios, Isaiah Jackson has made three recordings withthe Berlin Symphony: string music by the film composers Bernard Herrmann, MiklosRozsa and Franz Waxman, and dance music by William Grant Still, both for Koch, and alive performance CD is devoted to the music of Australian composer Nigel Butterley,recorded for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ABC Classics label with theMelbourne Symphony.

Jackson’s concerts with various Australian orchestras have been beamed nationwide bythe Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His Boston Pops appearances have been heardon the Pops network in the United States. His performances with the Gaevleborg

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Symphony were broadcast throughout Sweden. He has been seen and heard throughoutGreat Britain with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Jackson also conducts on the Royal Balletvideo, “Still Life at the Penguin Cafe,” on the London/Decca label.

Born in 1945, Jackson is a cum laude graduate of Harvard, where he majored inRussian history and literature. He holds graduate degrees from Stanford University andthe Juilliard School of Music, and he studied at Fontainebleau, Aspen, and Tanglewood.

Jackson is married to Helen Tuntland Jackson, a consultant in the field of music edu-cation. The couple have three children, Benjamin, Katharine and Caroline.

AMERICAN STRING ORCHESTRA – Personnell l l l l l l l

First Violins Second ViolinsStacey Woolley – Concert Master Scott Mozlin

Mauricio Aguiar Hye-Sun ParkSylvia Mitchell John McLaughlin WilliamsMari Thomas Manami WhitePaul Patterson Julia StoltieDenise Doolan Dorothy Han

Elizabeth Shelton Tamara MeineckeHarvey Thurmer Anne Horvath

Karen Lord

Violas Celli Bassi

Steven Rosen Norman Johns Matthew ZoryPaul Frankenfeld Thomas Guth Boris AstafievCatharine Carroll Katrina Aguiar Rick VizacheroDenisse Rodriguez Susan Marshall Petersen

Heidi Yenney Paul GronquistLucille Firlie

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Earl Wild and Chief Recording Engineer Ed Thompson

CREDITSl l l l l l l l

Recorded in Corbett Auditorium, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 13-14, 2000

Original 24-Bit Master

Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Recording Engineer: Ed Thompson

Assistants to the Engineer: Larry Reynolds and Jeremy Boeckman

Piano Technician: Edd Kolakowski

Generous assistance came from the Michael Palm Foundation and Ivory Classics Foundation

Special thanks to Concert Master and contractor Stacey Woolley

Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin

Design: Communication Graphics

Inside Tray Photo:Earl Wild, Isaiah Jackson and the American String Orchestra

(Photo by Edd Kolakowski)

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®

Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat Major, Opus 44 30:26I. Allegro brillante 8:35II. In modo d’una marcia: Un poco largamente 9:50III. Scherzo: Molto vivace 4:49IV. Allegro ma non troppo 7:12

Dohnányi: Piano Quintet in C Minor, Opus 1 30:14I. Allegro 8:59II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace 5:11III. Adagio: quasi andante 7:46IV. Finale: Allegro animato 8:18

Total Playing Time : 61:06Producer: Michael Rolland Davis • Engineer: Ed Thompson

Original 24-Bit Master

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Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 U.S.A. Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799

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64405-71003 STEREO

SchumanndohnÁnyiSchumanndohnÁnyi

American String OrchestraIsaiah Jackson, Conductor

Earl Wild, Pianist

American String OrchestraIsaiah Jackson, Conductor

Earl Wild, Pianist