PROGRAM
Sonata No. 2 in A Major for Piano and Violin, Op. 39 (composed 1850-1855)
Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)
I. Allegro grazioso
II. Scherzo. Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. Finale. Allegro
 
Nancy Oliveros, violin and Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes: Louise Dumont Farrenc was a pianist, teacher, editor of an historical anthology of keyboard music, and a composer of whom the French were proud.  She has gained notoriety since the turn of this century through programming of her symphonies, chamber music, and piano works.  Bea Friedland's dissertation, "Louise Farrenc, 1804-1875, Composer, Performer, Scholar," is a dependable and thoroughly-researched English source on the life and works of this fascinating woman.  Regarding Farrenc's early piano studies, Friedland writes, "the child's endowment plainly exceeded that of the average promising piano pupil; she was not only an intuitive pianist but correspondingly precocious in solfege and the rudiments of composition.  Indeed, in her fifteenth year (1819), this enterprising young Parisienne turned to Anton Reicha, professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatoire, for a more systematic course of study in harmony and theory."  Commenting on Farrenc's musical career, Friedland cites a memorial commentary from the Gazette musicale, written at the time of Farrenc's death, noting her uncommon musical gifts: "without question the most remarkable of all women who have devoted themselves to musical composition...Her works bear witness to a power and richness of imagination as well as to a degree of knowledge which have never before been the attributes of a woman." 

The last phrase of the memorial catches the 21st-century musician off guard.  Not only does it assume that women weren't as capable of producing first-rate work, it reveals the cultural obstacles that sought to corral the creativity of women during the 19th century.  We see pockets of it surviving from as early as the 12th century, most often encouraged and preserved by religious institutions or by aristocratic means.  By the 19th century, women were gaining status as composers (i.e. Clara Schumann), but struggled against pay inequity and unyielding stereotypes.   Louise was hired as professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire 1842, but didn't receive equal pay until she decided to fight for it in 1850.  It would have been hard to dismiss her contribution to the institution; she was widely published,  her piano students were winning prestigious awards and competitions, and her brilliant Op. 28 Nonet had just premiered.  It was time to move over, boys.

Farrenc's style mirrors that of her teacher, Anton Reicha.  Uninterested in the virtuosic salon pieces that were all the rage in Paris during the 1840s and 50s, Louise turned to the more conservative, absolute forms grown from the Viennese Classical tradition.  The first movement of the second sonata for Piano and Violin (note the heading) is cast in Sonata-Allegro form.  The following movements - Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale: Allegro - are predictable forms imbued with the dramatic harmonic inventions and melodic elegance that would have made her old teacher proud.

By the end of the 1850s, heart-broken after the death of her beloved daughter, Louise ceased composing and devoted the remainder of her life to teaching and editing.  In 2012, as part of the liner notes for Deux Sonates de Chambre that I recorded with Nancy Oliveros and Kirsten Whitson, I wrote, "The world would have to wait for the full breadth of her exemplary piano, chamber, and symphonic works to be recognized as musical mainstream, all daring to be heard."  Ten years later I would have to add, "You've come a long way, baby."
O ma belle rebelle (composed 1855)
Poetry by Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589)
Music by Charles Gounod (1818-1893)

James Wilson, baritone and Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes: Born in Paris on June 18, 1818, Charles Gounod was an interesting figure.  His father was a talented though unsuccessful painter who died when Charles was four years old.  His mother, a skillful artist herself, took over her late husband's classes while continuing to teach music lessons.  Charles picked up both arts with facility.  He was a skilled at drawing, and at the age of twelve was starting to compose.  He studied privately with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire and won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1839.  The prize sent him to Rome where he was deeply moved by the polyphonic Mass settings of Palestrina and even considered joining the priesthood.

Harold Schonberg, in his "Lives of the Composers," offers a more shadowy glimpse into Gounod's life.  We know that Gounod left Paris for England during the Franco-Prussian War and "it was there that he had his affair with Mrs. Georgina Weldon.  Georgina became Gounod's business manager," and it doesn't take much imagination to guess why Anne-Marie Gounod, Charles’ wife, packed her things, and moved back to Paris.  Once back at home Anne-Marie's curiosity got the better of her and she sent their son, Jean, back to England to do a little snooping.  Schonberg adds that Jean "promptly tried to seduce Georgina but that she threw him out of the house.  Gounod eventually tired of Georgina and left England.  Safely in Paris, he asked her for his scores, effects, and the money he had loaned her.  Instead, the Weldons instituted a countersuit, including a large bill for room and board for the three years that Gounod was in England.  Eventually Gounod got his music back (sidebar: after settling for the equivalent of 50,000 - Schonberg's figure is in $$, but it would have to be in either pounds or francs); for years he lived in mortal fear that Georgina would descend upon Paris and claim him.  Thankfully, he died peacefully on October 18, 1893."

"O ma belle rebelle" was written in 1855 with inspiration from a 16th century poem by Jean-Antoine de Baïf.  The accompaniment is sensitive to the 16th century poetry by using right hand arpeggiation and left hand melody to perhaps evoke a lute and bass viol.  The subject of de Baïf​'s poem is Louise Labé, the most prolific French poetess of the 16th century.  She was born in Lyon around 1520 to a newly rich rope-maker's family and received an extensive liberal education.  One of the many names by which she was called was "la Sappho lyonnaise."  Her marriage to a wealthy rope-maker thirty years her senior caused many to refer to her as "La Belle Cordière."  Her May-December marriage seems to have given her almost total freedom to socialize with men of letters and hold literary salons.  Little is know about her admirers or her private life.  One of her supposed lovers was the poet Clément Marot.  Labé appears in Marot's collection of poems titled "L'Adolescence Clémentine" (1532), where she is referred to as "La belle rebelle." - Poetry notes by Carol Kimball and Richard Walters
 
TRANSLATION
O my beautiful rebel!
Alas! How cruel you are to me
When with a sweet smile
That steals my spirit
Or with a word
Delicately soft,
Or with a glance from those eyes
Proudly graceful,
Or with the smallest gesture
Quite divine, quite celestial
You plunge all my heart
Into ardent love!
 
O my beautiful rebel!
Alas! How cruel you are to me!
When the fiery passion
That consumes my heart
Requires me to ask of you
To cool the flames that burn me
The refreshment
Of a single kiss.
O my beautiful rebel!
Alas! How cruel you are to me!
When with one little kiss
You will not appease me.

Could I one day, heartless one!
Avenge your insult
My young master, Cupid
Would wound your heart some day
And for me have you languish,
To cause you to love me
As he made me languish
And to love you.
Thus through my vengeance
You will know
How harmful it is
To refuse a lover a kiss.
Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 101, No. 2 (published 1824)
Anton Reicha (1770-1836)
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Minuetto.  Allegro
III. Andantino
IV. Finale
 
2 Sisters Trio
Kristina Gullion, violin | Monika Sutherland, cello | Mary Ellen Haupert, piano​
Notes: Parisians in the early 19th century had an insatiable appetite for stage spectacles.  The Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opéra) fostered the desire for opera (especially of the grand variety), drawing composers from all over Europe to seek their fame and fortune – Lully, Gluck, Salieri, Rossini, Cherubini, and Meyerbeer, to name a few.  Anton Reicha briefly fell under the spell of opera and traveled from Hamburg to Paris in 1799, in hopes of finding success there. “Despite the well-received performances by his friends of the symphonies opp. 41 and 42 (with thematically connected movements - think Berlioz and the idee fixe), an overture and some scènes Italiennes, Reicha could neither get his Hamburg librettos accepted nor find a suitable new one.” 
 
Reicha took leave of Paris in 1801, and sought out the compositional expertise of Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri in Vienna, while rekindling his friendship with Ludwig van Beethoven.  His Thirty-Six Fugues, written in 1803 and dedicated to Joseph Haydn, are a swift departure from the tuneful Parisian operatic arias he had left behind.  It is likely that Haydn recommended a disciplined review of counterpoint, accounting for the dedication.  Like many of his German Romantic contemporaries, Reicha’s sonatas, symphonies, quartets, and trios from this period are cast in traditional forms, yet contain movements imbued with fugal material showing the influence of Albrechstberger and Haydn. 

Reicha’s success as a teacher can be measured by the caliber of student he was able to attract.  “Reicha had had few composition pupils before 1809, but by 1817 the Count de Sèze, recommending Reicha for appointment to the Conservatoire, could point out that eight of Reicha’s students were already were professors there. These men, most of them accomplished musicians when they began studying with Reicha, spread his reputation for being precise, logical, efficient and strict.”
 
More impressive than the Conservatoire nobility, Reicha attracted notable composers Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, and Cesar Franck into his studio – all of whom lauded Reicha’s teaching.  In 1832, Adam Liszt would choose Anton Reicha as one of two private teachers for his talented son Franz.  Alan Walker, in his exhaustive biography of Franz Liszt, describes the attraction to Reicha’s innovative writing: “Some of [Reicha’s] works contain advanced harmonic combinations and are unusual also for their display of innovatory metres, characteristics which would later be taken up by the young Liszt.”  Hector Berlioz, who studied with Reicha at the Conservatoire from 1826 to 1828, made special mention of Reicha in his memoirs:  “Reicha taught counterpoint with remarkable clarity; he made me learn a great deal in a short time and with few words.  As a rule he did not omit, as the majority of teachers do, to give to his students, as far as possible, the reasons for the rules whose observance he recommended.”  Finally, Cesar Franck’s father moved his entire family in 1835 to Paris so that his son could study privately with Anton Reicha.   
 
Anton Reicha’s legacy as teacher may well have been his most important contribution to the music of the Romantic era.  Reicha’s innovative work with some of the world’s most gifted composers has been largely dismissed by music historians; the omission is a gross oversight when one considers his early training and relationship with Beethoven, as well as his compelling theoretical writing.  If notable composers benefited from their study with Anton Reicha, it is safe to assume that Louise Farrenc improved her craft under his tutelage, as well.  And just as Reicha fails to receive any credit for the success of Liszt, Franck, and Berlioz, he is scarcely mentioned as one of Louise Farrenc’s teachers. Students of music history know that their work is more in the retrenching than regurgitation of the story.

We look forward to performing the second Opus 101 trio in D Minor by Anton Reicha.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
A founding member of the critically acclaimed Artaria String Quartet and a 2004 McKnight Fellow, violinist Nancy Oliveros has performed at renowned venues in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and throughout the United States and Europe. She is a multi-year recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and the Minnesota State Arts Board for performance and educational outreach projects. Co-founder of the Stringwood Summer Chamber Music Festival in Lanesboro, MN and the Artaria Chamber Music School in St. Paul, she was Artist/Teacher in Residence at the world-renowned Tanglewood Institute under the mentorship of Norman Fischer. Her students are national prizewinners and can be found in professional posts around the world.

James Wilson is an Associate Professor of Music at Viterbo University where he directs the Concert Choir, 9th Street Singers, and Rose Chorale. Wilson also teaches conducting, choral methods, diction, and serves as the artistic director for the annual A Viterbo Christmas performances.  Wilson’s education includes a B.A. in voice performance from The Hartt School, a M.A. in choral conducting from Boston University, and a D.M.A. in choral conducting from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His teachers and mentors include Ann Howard Jones, Peter Eklund, and Paul Head.

Kristina Gullion, a native of Chicago, received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in violin performance from Indiana University. She was a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Symphony, and numerous chamber ensembles, performing at Carnegie Hall and the Weill Recital Hall in New York City. Ms. Gullion won a position in the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia in La Coruña Spain, where she lived for several years, performing and touring Europe with the orchestra. Ms. Gullion is currently a member of the Lacrosse Symphony Orchestra, the Dubuque Symphony, and various freelance orchestras in the Midwest.

Monika Sutherland is an active teacher and performer. Early in her career she performed as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Yamagata Symphony Orchestra in Japan, with which she toured extensively and performed as soloist. In Chicago, Monika played with the Civic Orchestra, served on the faculty at the Western Springs School of Talent and directed the orchestra at Four Winds Waldorf School. Monika received a Bachelor of Music from Indiana University School of Music and a Master of Music from Northwestern University. She studied with Janos Starker, Hans Jørgen Jensen and Leonard Chausow.

Mary Ellen Haupert spreads her musical abilities between her roles as Music Director for Roncalli Newman Parish and as Professor of Music at Viterbo University, both in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  She holds a B.A. degree in music education with emphases in piano and flute performance from the College of St. Scholastica, as well as M.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Piano Performance Practice from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.  She was awarded the Alec Chui Award for engaging students in scholarly activities in 2012 and the Teacher of the Year Award in 2014.  
Selected Works
Berlioz, Hector.  Memoirs of Hector Berlioz from 1803 to 1865, Comprising His Travels in Germany, Italy, Russia, and England. Trans. Rachel      Holmes and Eleanor Holmes.  New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1932. 
Demuth, Norman.  Cesar Franck.  New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.
Friedland, Bea. "Farrenc." Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed August 7, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/09336pg2. 
Friedland, Bea.  Louise Farrenc, 1804-1875:  Composer, Performer, Scholar.  Ann Arbor:  UMI Research Press, Studies in Musicology, 1980.
Holoman, D. Kern. “The Paris Conservatoire in the Nineteenth Century.”  Oxford Handbooks Online. 3 Nov. 2017.  http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935321.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935321-e-114. 
Marek, George.  Biography of a Genius.  New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969. 
McCachren, Jo Renee.  Anton Reicha’s Theories of Musical Form.  UMI Dissertation Information Service:  Ann Arbor, MI, 1991. 
Peter Eliot Stone. "Reicha, Antoine." Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed August 3, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23093. 
Reicha, Anton.  Treatise on Melody.  Trans. Peter M. Landy.  Hillsdale, NY:  Pendragon Press, 2000.
Swafford, Jan.  Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Marcourt Publishing Company, 2015. 
Turner, W.J.  Berlioz:  The Man and His Work.  London:  J.M. Dent and Sons LTD., 1939. 
Walker, Alan.  Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811 – 1847.  Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 1983. 
J.G. Prod'homme, and Theodore Baker. "The Baron De Trémont: Souvenirs of Beethoven and Other Contemporaries." The Musical Quarterly 6, no. 3 (1920): 366-91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/737966.
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