Schubert’s Last Year II
McDermott, Brey, Morales, Phillips, and the Dalí Quartet close Immersive Experiences with Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen for Soprano, Clarinet and Piano; Piano Sonata in B- flat major; and Cello Quintet in C major.
Did you know?
“The art of music here interred a rich possession / But still far fairer hopes.” So reads the inscription on Schubert’s grave, softened only slightly by appreciation of the vast catalogue of music he did complete in his 31 years.
Featured Artists
Susanna Phillips
Ricardo Morales
Carter Brey
Anne-Marie McDermott
Dalí Quartet
Susanna Phillips
soprano
Soprano Susanna Phillips continues to establish herself as one of today’s most sought-after musicians. Ms. Phillips’ 2023-24 Season includes engagements with Music of the Baroque, Musica Sacra, Oratorio Society of New York, Boston Baroque, and Houston Symphony.
Career highlights include The Metropolitan Opera singing numerous roles with her recent debut at Mimì/La bohème. Ms. Phillips’ is also praised for her portrayal of Musetta/ La bohème, Pamina/The Magic Flute, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira/Don Giovanni, Rosalinde/Die Fledermaus, Antonia and Stella/The Tales of Hoffmann, Micaëla/Carmen, and Countess Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro – a role very close to her heart. Ms. Phillips received great applause for singing Fiordigili/Così fan tutte, which The New York Times called a “breakthrough night”, and Clémence in The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin. Ms. Phillips has sung two premieres, Rose/Awakenings at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Brahms’ A German Requiem with the Oratorio Society at Carnegie Hall. Previously, she has performed the role of Stella in a concert staging of Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Renée Fleming and also has sung Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Teddy Abrams. Ms. Phillips has also sung leading roles with Boston Baroque including Cleopatra/Giulio Cesare and the title role in Agrippina. Other opera house appearances include Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, Dallas Opera, Minnesota Opera, Fort Worth Opera Festival, Boston Lyric Opera, Gran Teatro del Liceu, and Oper Frankfurt.
Dedicated to symphonic works, Ms. Phillips has collaborated with highly esteemed orchestras including The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and her native Huntsville Symphony. Some credits include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler’s Second and Fourth Symphonies, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Fauré and Mozart Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. An avid chamber music collaborator, Ms. Phillips has performed a tribute concert to Clara Schumann at the Library of Congress and has sung alongside Eric Owens for Washington Performing Arts in a program co-curated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Prestigious awards include some of the world’s leading vocal competitions: The Metropolitan’s Beverly Sills Artist Award (2010), Operalia (first place and the audience prize), The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, the MacAllister Awards, and the George London Foundation Awards Competition. She has also claimed the top honor at the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition and has won first prizes from the American Opera Society Competition and the Musicians Club of Women in Chicago. Ms. Phillips has received grants from the Santa Fe Opera and the Sullivan Foundation and is a graduate of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center. She holds both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.
A native of Huntsville, Alabama, more than 400 people traveled from Ms. Phillips’ hometown to New York City in December 2008 for her Met Opera debut in La bohème. She returns frequently to her native state for recitals and orchestral appearances.
Ricardo Morales
clarinet
Ricardo Morales is one of the most sought-after clarinetists of today. He joined The Philadelphia Orchestra as principal clarinet in 2003. Prior to this he was principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a position he assumed at the age of 21. His virtuosity and artistry as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician has been hailed and recognized in concert halls around the world. He has been asked to perform as principal clarinet with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and at the invitation of Sir Simon Rattle, performed as guest principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also performs as principal clarinet with the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra and the Mito Chamber Orchestra, at the invitation of Maestro Seiji Ozawa.
A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Mr. Morales began his studies at the Escuela Libre de Musica along with his five siblings, who are all distinguished musicians. He continued his studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Indiana University, where he received his Artist Diploma.
Mr. Morales has been a featured soloist with many orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the Flemish Radio Symphony. During his tenure with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, he soloed in Carnegie Hall and on two European tours. He made his solo debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2004 and has since performed as soloist on numerous occasions. Ricardo performed the world premiere of the Clarinet Concerto by Jonathan Leshnoff, commissioned for him by The Philadelphia Orchestra.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Morales has performed in the MET Chamber Ensemble series at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival, and the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, on NBC’s The Today Show, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed with many distinguished ensembles, such as the Juilliard Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, the Miró Quartet, the Leipzig Quartet, and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has also collaborated with Christoph Eschenbach, André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, James Ehnes, Gil Shaham, and Kathleen Battle.
Mr. Morales is highly sought after for his recitals and master classes, which have taken him throughout North America, Europe and Asia. In addition, he currently serves on the faculty of Temple University.
Mr. Morales’s performances have been met with critical acclaim. The Philadelphia Inquirer hailed his appointment to The Philadelphia Orchestra, stating that “… in fact, may represent the most salutary personnel event of the orchestra’s last decade.” He was praised by The New York Times as having “ … fleet technique, utterly natural musical grace, and the lyricism and breath control of a fine opera singer.” Mr. Morales was also singled out in The New York Times review of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, describing his playing as “exquisite” and declaring that he “deserved a place onstage during curtain calls.”
Mr. Morales’s debut solo recording, French Portraits, is available on the Boston Records label. His recent recordings include performances with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, with the Pacifica Quartet, which was nominated for a Latin GRAMMY Award, as well as the Mozart Concerto with the Mito Chamber Orchestra for DECCA. Ricardo is a sought-after consultant and designer of musical instruments and accessories, and enjoys a musical partnership with F. Arthur Uebel, a world renowned manufacturer of artist level clarinets.
Carter Brey
cello
Carter Brey was appointed Principal Cello, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Chair, of the New York Philharmonic in 1996. He made his official subscription debut with the Orchestra in May 1997 performing Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations under the direction of then Music Director Kurt Masur. He has since appeared as soloist almost every season and was featured during The Bach Variations: A Philharmonic Festival, when he gave two performances of the cycle of all six of Bach’s cello suites. Most recently, he was the soloist in performances of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major at David Geffen Hall in February 2020 and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in July 2021, with Music Director Jaap van Zweden conducting on both occasions.
He rose to international attention in 1981 as a prizewinner in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition. The winner of the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize, Avery Fisher Career Grant, Young Concert Artists’ Michaels Award, and other honors, he also was the first musician to win the Arts Council of America’s Performing Arts Prize.
Brey has appeared as soloist with virtually all the major orchestras in the United States and performed under the batons of prominent conductors including Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Sergiu Comissiona, and Christoph von Dohnányi. He is a member of the New York Philharmonic String Quartet, established in the 2016–17 season, and has made regular appearances with the Tokyo and Emerson string quartets, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at festivals such as Spoleto (both in the United States and Italy) and the Santa Fe and La Jolla Chamber Music festivals. He and pianist Christopher O’Riley recorded Le Grand Tango: Music of Latin America, a disc of compositions from South America and Mexico released on Helicon Records.
Carter Brey was educated at the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Laurence Lesser and Stephen Kates, and at Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot and was a Wardwell Fellow and a Houpt Scholar. His violoncello is a rare J.B. Guadagnini made in Milan in 1754. An avid racing and cruising sailor since childhood, he holds a Yachtmaster Offshore rating from the Royal Yachting Association.
Anne-Marie McDermott
piano
Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott is a consummate artist who balances a versatile career as a soloist and collaborator. She performs over 100 concerts a year in a combination of solo recitals, concerti and chamber music. Her repertoire choices are eclectic, spanning from Bach and Haydn to Prokofiev and Scriabin to Kernis, Hartke, Tower and Wuorinen.
With over 50 concerti in her repertoire, Ms. McDermott has performed with many leading orchestra including the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Seattle Symphony, National Symphony, Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Hong Kong Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and Baltimore Symphony among others. Ms, McDermott has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi.
In the recent seasons, Ms. McDermott performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Huntsville Symphony, Alabama Symphony, San Diego Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players, and the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
Recital engagements have included the 92nd Street Y, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, The Schubert Club, Kennedy Center, as well as universities across the country. Anne-Marie McDermott has curated and performed in a number of intense projects including: the Complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas and Chamber Music, a Three Concert Series of Shostakovich Chamber Music, as well as a recital series of Haydn and Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Most recently, she commissioned works of Charles Wuorinen and Clarice Assad which were premiered in May 2009 at Town Hall, in conjunction with Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
As a soloist, Ms. McDermott has recorded the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas, Bach English Suites and Partitas (which was named Gramophone Magazine’s Editor’s Choice), and most recently, Gershwin Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with the Dallas Symphony and Justin Brown.
In addition to her many achievements, Anne-Marie McDermott has been named the Artistic Director of the famed Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado, which hosts the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony in addition to presenting over 40 chamber music concerts throughout the summer. She is also Artistic Director of Santa Fe Pro Musica, The Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, McKnight Chamber Music Festival, and The Avila Chamber Music Celebration in Curacao.
As a chamber music performer, Anne-Marie McDermott was named an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1995 and performs and tours extensively with CMS each season. She continues a long standing collaboration with the highly acclaimed violinist, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. As a duo, they have released a CD titled “Live” on the NSS label and plan to release the Complete Brahms Violin and Piano Sonatas in the future. Ms. McDermott is also a member of the renowned piano quartet, Opus One, with colleagues Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Peter Wiley.
She continues to perform each season with her sisters, Maureen McDermott and Kerry McDermott in the McDermott Trio. Ms, McDermott has also released an all Schumann CD with violist, Paul Neubauer, as well as the Complete Chamber Music of Debussy with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Ms. McDermott studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Dalmo Carra, Constance Keene and John Browning. She was a winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions and was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Ms. McDermott regularly performs at Festivals across the United States including, Spoleto, Mainly Mozart, Sante Fe, La Jolla Summerfest, Mostly Mozart, Newport, Caramoor, Bravo, Chamber Music Northwest, Aspen, Music from Angelfire, and the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, among others.
Dalí Quartet
The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Tours of its “Classical Roots, Latin Soul” programming have reached enthusiastic audiences across the U.S., Canada and South America. Its fresh approach has been sought out by distinguished series in New York, Toronto, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, San Juan, and countless communities beyond.
The quartet has been called upon for return engagements at the National Gallery of Art, Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Chamber Music at Beall, and the SA’OAXACA International Music Festival in México among others. Upcoming appearances include the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts and Maverick Concerts and the east coast premiere of Anna Clyne’s “Quarter Days Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra,” co-commissioned by the Harrisburg Symphony.
In addition to works of the master's from Haydn to Brahms and Amaya to Piazzolla, the group's adventurous and entertaining programming includes new works for quartet with percussionist Orlando Cotto, and quintets both Latin and Classical with the renowned clarinetist Ricardo Morales, principal clarinetist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with acclaimed pianist Vanessa Perez. The Dalí Quartet has an ongoing collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition’s gold-medal winning pianist Olga Kern, with whom they have toured from coast to coast and recorded the piano quintets of Brahms and Shostakovich released on the Delos label.
The Dalí Quartet is Chamber Music America's 2024 Ensemble of the Year, recipient of the 2023 ACMP Foundation's Susan McIntosh Lloyd Award for Excellence and Diversity in Chamber Music, 2021 recipient of Chamber Music America's Guarneri String Quartet Residency, funded by the Sewell Family Foundation, and the 2021 Silver Medal at the inaugural Piazzolla Music Competition. The quartet is also the 2019 recipient of the Atlanta Symphony's esteemed Aspire Award for accomplished African American and Latino Musicians. The quartet’s latest CD is Voces Latinas and is now available on Centaur Records.
The Dalí is devoted to audience development and to reaching communities of all kinds. The group’s Latin Fiesta Workshops and Family Concerts in both traditional and innovative settings move listeners – literally! The Dalí Quartet is sought after for master classes and professional development workshops for students, (recently at the National Repertory Orchestra, Miami University, Michigan State, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Iowa) and has opened musical vistas for younger kids with its week-long Any Given Child programs (over three seasons for the Tulsa Public School System). In addition, the quartet’s International Music Festival is an admired chamber music and orchestral program founded in 2004 which develops the performance skills of young musicians up through semi-professional level. The Dalí has also served as a guest resident ensemble at Lehigh University, and the 2023-24 Hartt School of Music's Composition Feldman/Geoffroy Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Hartford.
Trained by world-renowned artists, members of the Dalí Quartet are from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the US, and have degrees from esteemed institutions including the New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, Juilliard, Indiana University Bloomington, and the Simón Bolivar Conservatory in Caracas, Venezuela. The quartet is based in Philadelphia, PA.
Inspired by its namesake, the great Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, the quartet holds imagination and excellence at the heart of its music making.
The quartet serves as faculty at West Chester University Wells School of Music as the Quartet in Residence and is an Iris Collective Resident Ensemble.
The Dalí Quartet proudly uses Pirastro Strings and WMutes.
Worldwide representation by Jonathan Wentworth Associates.
Program Details
- Susanna Phillips, soprano
- Ricardo Morales, clarinet
- Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
- Dalí Quartet
- Ari Isaacman-Beck, violin
- Carlos Rubio, violin
- Adriana Linares, viola
- Jesús Morales, cello
- Carter Brey, cello
SCHUBERT Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) for Soprano, Clarinet, and Piano
SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in B-flat major
SCHUBERT Cello Quintet in C Major
Program Notes
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock), for Soprano, Clarinet, and Piano, D. 965
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock), for Soprano, Clarinet, and Piano, D. 965
Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960
Molto moderato
Andante sostenuto
Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza
Allegro ma non troppo
INTERMISSION
String Quintet in C major, D. 956
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
String Quintet in C major, D. 956
Allegro ma non troppo
Adagio
Scherzo: Presto—Trio: Andante sostenuto
Allegretto
It is arguable,” wrote Benjamin Britten in 1964, “that the richest and most productive eighteen months in our musical history is the time when Beethoven had just died, when the other nineteenth-century giants, Wagner, Verdi, and Brahms had not begun; I mean the period in which Franz Schubert wrote his Winterreise, the C-major Symphony, his last three piano sonatas, the C-major Quintet, as well as a dozen other glorious pieces. The very creation of these works in that space of time seems hardly credible; but the standard of inspiration, of magic, is miraculous and past all explanation.”
Of the more than six hundred lieder penned by Schubert, “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” (The Shepherd on the Rock) was the last. In fact, it was the last piece Schubert completed in any genre, composed in October 1828, a month before he died. He wrote it expressly for Anna Milder-Hauptmann, who had created the title role of Beethoven’s opera Leonore (in 1805) and its successor version, Fidelio (in 1814). She repeatedly asked Schubert to write a Goethe setting for her to introduce, but instead she got this song, to a text he cobbled together from two disparate poems, “Der Berghirt” by Wilhelm Müller (the poet of his song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise) and “Liebesgedanken” by Helmina von Chézy (for whose play Rosamunde he had composed incidental music). The lied with obbligato instrument is a distinct but singularly appealing musical subgenre, the love-child of chamber music and art song. Schubert wrote only two, “Auf dem Strom” (heard yesterday) and “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen,” and they feature the two instruments most in tune with the sound-world that colored the Germanic Romantic movement, the horn and the clarinet. This final song is an anthem to Romantic sensibilities, evoking such central concerns as singing in nature (yodeling, even), the vastness of the picturesque landscape (replete with towering rock, distant vale, and echoing chasm), lovers desolate in their separation, and images of forest, night, springtime, and wandering.
It came on the heels of his Piano Sonata in B-flat major (D. 960), which he completed on September 26. As Britten noted, it is one of three piano sonatas that date from Schubert’s last year. It was preceded during that same month by those in C minor and A major, and the fact that Schubert marked “Sonata III” on the manuscript of his last clarified that he was thinking of them as a triptych. (We might add to Britten’s roster further essential keyboard works from Schubert’s last year: his Four Impromptus, D. 935, and his F-minor Fantasie for piano four-hands.) Many of the characteristics we cherish most in Schubert coincide in this work. It is at once monumental and lyrical, and it seems to have arrived at greater peace overall than its emotionally conflicted predecessors. It is entirely unhurried, beginning almost hesitatingly, as if Schubert were humming to himself offhandedly; but its emotional climate darkens quickly when a subterranean rumble interrupts the opening phrase, suggesting that happiness will not continue unimpeded. The rumble takes the form of a pianissimo trill in the bass, a shivering on the note G-flat. That pitch belongs to the key of B-flat minor rather than the sonata’s overall key of B-flat major. It reappears almost obsessively, injecting ominous moments and expanding the tonic key to embrace both the major and minor modes—a Schubertian fingerprint, a mixture of sunlight and shadows.
The broadening of the tonic key similarly adds to the emotional intensity of the String Quintet for two violins, viola, and two cellos—the composer’s only piece for these forces (his beloved Trout Quintet employing a differently constituted ensemble of five players). A word about Schubert’s mastery of musical texture. The piece begins in apparent simplicity with a C-major chord swelling from piano to forte, at which point it is transformed into an ambiguous and ominous diminished-seventh chord and then recedes back to piano before proceeding on and coming to rest on a G-major chord, the dominant, eerily high-pitched. That is imaginative in its own right, but what is most striking, perhaps, is that in these opening measures Schubert employs only one of his two cellos; his quintet begins as a standard string quartet. Then, in the eleventh measure, he responds with a second phrase that mirrors the first, but moved into the depths of the ensemble, with the first violin sitting it out while the second violin (playing on its lowest string), viola, and the two cellos make a sound that contrasts starkly with the opening. A pianissimo figure is then batted back and forth for a couple of measures between two instrumental units: viola and two cellos on one hand, viola and two violins on the other—with the viola’s double duty tricking the listener into imaging that a string sextet is at work. And so it goes in this subtle masterpiece of chamber music.
The second movement is the soul of this piece. Words fall short in suggesting the “time-stands-still” sublimity of this Adagio. The pianist Arthur Rubinstein, the cellist Alfredo Piatti, and the novelist Thomas Mann all expressed the desire that they might die while listening to this movement. Some in today’s audience may be similarly inclined—but just not quite yet, please.