Sonata in C Major, K.

521-- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

The Sonata in C is Mozart’s last composition in a form he had made very much his own.
This sonata dates from 1787, during which year Mozart composed Don Giovanni for the Prague
Opera House, two of his most beautiful string quintets, some songs, piano works, and the Eine
kleine Nachtmusik serenade.

The C major Sonata is a model of the fluency, technical polish, and refined expression with which
Mozart invested the works of his full maturity.
The first movement opens with a main theme that balances brio and delicacy with a bold initial
phrase perfectly countered by a restrained, elegant response. Descending scales and a tiny pause
mark the arrival at the gracious second theme, in which something new yet familiar is conjured
from the three-note-pickup rhythm of the earlier elegant phrase joined with the rising contour
of the bold opening motive. Such mastery of form-building continues in the development
section, where the exposition’s motivic atoms, threaded together with brilliant figurations, are
reconfigured without specific reiteration of the themes as they pass through some areas of
subtly expressive harmony. The full recapitulation of the exposition’s materials, appropriately
adjusted as to key, provides the movement with its requisite formal and emotional balance.
The Andante is tender and sweetly melodic in the outer sections of its three-part form (A–B–A),
more agitated at its center.
The finale is a rondo with sonata elements based around the returns of a charming theme of
music-box naivety mooted at the outset.

SPRING; SLEEP; WINTER—Domenic Argento (b.1927)

Domenic Argento is one of America’s most distinguished contemporary composers, and certainly
its leading composer of lyric opera. The majority of Argento’s compositions are vocal and
demonstrate his tremendous knowledge of voice. His widely diverse works display his innate
dramatic sense and have instant audience appeal.

Six Elizabethan Songs is Argento’s most popular and most performed song cycle. The
songs are called “Elizabethan” because the lyrics are drawn from that rich period in
literature, while the music is in the spirit (if not the manner) of the great English
composer-singer-lutenist, John Dowland. The cycle is characterized by strong lyricism.

SPRING (Thomas Nash). The first song cycle is a charming tribute to the Spring-lyric and
buoyant. The form is ABA. The piano patterns suggest a lute or guitar accompaniment.

SLEEP (Samuel Daniel). As in Song 1, the opening melody is repeated at the song’s close.
The lovely setting is characterized by long lyric lines accompanied by rich harmonies.

WINTER (William Shakespeare). Playful pointillistic vocal lines abound in this two-stanza
text, set in a headlong tempo that calls for a singer with flexible diction and an articulate
pianist. The driving rhythmic setting is characteristic of the English gigue, using points of
imitation between voice and piano.
Come away, death; O Mistress Mine; Blow, Blow the Winter Wind --
Roger Quilter (1877-1953)

Roger Quilter was a prominent English art song composer in the early-20 th Century, composing
over 100 songs for the genre. He studied at Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and was a peer of
several prominent composers, including Percy Grainger. Quilter also composed light orchestral
music, and an opera called Julia. He descended into mental illness after the eath of his nephew
in WWII, and died in 1953, shortly after his 75 th birthday.

The Three Shakespeare songs Op.6 were composed in 1905 and are probably the
most successful of Roger Quilter’s seventeen settings of Shakespeare text.

COME AWAY, DEATH is the first song in Quilter’s Three Shakespeare Songs op. 6. The text comes
from Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene IV, when Orsino—a love-sick, heartbroken
nobleman—asks the court jester, Feste, to sing this melancholy song. The song describes the
despair of a broken heart, how the speaker wishes to die alone and be buried in a place
unknown to his true love.

O MISTRESS MINE –Quilter’s simple and energetic melody is built on broken chords and the
accompaniment is harmonically supportive. The poetry resonates with young tenors, as “carpe
diem” is the overriding theme of the text, full of youthful ardor and impatience.

BLOW, BLOW THE WINTER WIND (As You Like It)—In As You Like It, Duke Senior and his men
have been banished to the woods. In this text from the play, they are comparing nature to man:
nature can be harsh but it is never evil ot deliberately cruel like man can be.

Elegiaque No. 1 in g minor-- Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rachmaninoff's first piano trio, composed when was just nineteen, is without opus number, and
it is not as well-known as the Piano Trio in d minor, Op. 9, which he composed as a tribute to his
mentor Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky when the great master died on November 6, 1893, shortly
before he was to conduct the premier performance of Rachmaninoff's symphony "The Rock."

Structurally the fifteen-minute single movement g minor trio is in sonata form; its twelve
sections may be grouped as exposition (1-4), development (5-8), and recapitulation (9-12). It is
written in Rachmaninoff's now familiar musical style, noted for it sumptuous melodies, rich
romantic harmonies, and precise marching rhythms. Massive chordal sonorities for the piano
dominate the movement, and in the exposition there is little independence of the instruments.
The texture becomes more linear in the development where conversations between the
instruments work out the main musical ideas.
In the Lento lugubre the piano presents the mournful first theme over accompaniment in the
strings; then in a reversal of roles, the piano accompanies statements of the theme in the cello
and violin. In the Piu vivo, dramatic statements of the theme in the strings are set against rising
scales and forceful chords in the piano. A more pensive second theme emerges in the Con
anima, first stated by the piano and then by the strings.
In the Appassionato a spirited dialogue between piano and strings followed by a flourish of
keyboard arpeggios concludes the exposition. In the development, contrasting sections of the
haunting mournful theme and vigorous, energetic passages alternate, leading to a climactic
statement of the first theme by piano and strings. After a return of exposition material, the trio
concludes with a funeral march that is announced in the dark registers of the piano; a plaintive
statement of the trio's opening theme in the strings brings the music to a somber close.

Sonatina for flute and piano—Eldin Burton (1913-1979)

A native of Fitzgerald, Georgia, Eldin Burton studied piano and composition at the Atlanta
Conservatory and Julliard School of Music. Sonatina for flute and piano is Burton’s best-known
work and is adapted from a work for solo piano written for a composition class at Julliard. Burton
dedicated his composition to a fellow Julliard student the noted flutist Samuel Baron, who
debuted the performance in 1947 in New York City.

Sonatina for flute and piano is a three-movement work with a conservative, yet unique approach
to melody, harmony and rhythm.
The first Allegretto grazioso movement dances gracefully with its agile tempo and song-like
melody, lyrically toying with scales and arpeggios against a rich harmonic structure.
Andantino Sognando, with its playful and quirky passages, is at some moments bold and at
others,inquisitive; a sublime contrast to the lively and humorous triple-metered third movement,
Allegro giocoso quasi fandango, that begins with lightly spirited burst of energy and races off in
interesting and animated directions.