Arthur Shepherd (1880-1958)
"Triptych" for Soprano and String Quartet

American composer, conductor, and educator Arthur Shepherd was born in Paris, Idaho, a small Mormon community near the Utah border. After graduating with honors from the New England Conservatory, Shepherd spent 11 years in Salt Lake City, where he taught private piano lessons and conducted the Salt Lake Symphony. In 1910 Shepherd became Professor of Composition at the New England Conservatory, a tenure interrupted by military service in France during World War I. In 1920 he relocated to Cleveland, where he served as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, wrote music criticism, and taught composition at Case Western Reserve University. Shepherd wrote his best known compositions, including the Triptych, while living in Ohio. His mature works reflect his admiration for the romantic modalities of Vaughan Williams and the fine craftsmanship of Fauré. Shepherd wrote that he remained a traditionalist because he "was unable to renounce the inevitable beauty of the simpler euphonies."
Shepherd's most frequently performed work is his Triptych (1926). Pervaded by a subtle chromaticism that suggests French influence, the work is a luminous set of songs supported by countermelodies in the string quartet. The songs are arranged to form a three-movement cantata with contrasting tempos (moderate-slow-fast).
Shepherd set the Triptych to poems of Rabandranath Tagore (1861-1941), a Bengali poet, painter and composer who blended folk song with classical Indian music in his own works. Shepherd chose poems 72, 74, and 57 from Tagore's Gitanjali (Song Offerings), which was published in England (1913) with an introduction by William Butler Yeats. Tagore made his own English translation from the Bengali original.

He It Is
He it is, the innermost one, who awakens my being with his deep hidden touches.
He it is who puts his enchantment upon these eyes and joyfully plays on the chords of my heart in varied cadence of pleasure and pain.
He it is who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds his feet, at whose touch I forget myself.
Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and sorrow.

The Day Is No More
The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher.
The evening is eager with the sad music of the water. Ah, it calls me out into the dusk. In the lonely lane there is no passer by, the wind is up, the ripples are rampant in the river.
I know not if I shall come back home.
I know not whom I shall chance to meet. There at the fording in the little boat the unknown man plays upon his lute.

Light, My Light
Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

Jiri Gemrot (b. 1957)
Quintet for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello (World Premiere)

Czech composer Jiri Gemrot writes that his musical aim is to fuse styles so that past and present are united. He often treats classical forms in unconventional ways by emphasizing elements of evolution and contrast rather than traditional thematic development. Although fluent with current compositional trends, Gemrot regards both 19th and early 20th-century composers as important models. His own works are suffused with their themes and specific architectural elements-the original tonalities of Martinu, the ironic melodies of Prokofiev, the long phrases of his countrymen Dvorák and Janácek.
Primarily an instrumental composer, Gemrot believes that his inventive faculties are best suited to chamber genres. Often inspired by the musicians to whom he has dedicated works, he also finds inspiration in age-old questions of philosophy. Gemrot writes that his Quintet (2006) reveals ties to classical style in its first movement, written in sonata form. The second movement resembles a rondo with new episodes interspersed between statements of material that recur as a refrain. The Finale develops freely in sonata form. This World Premiere was made possible by Joan Jacobson, a member of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Commissioner's Circle.

Josef Suk (1874-1935)
Ballad Opus 3b in D minor for Violin and Piano

The favorite pupil of Antonin Dvorák and eventually his son-in-law, Suk was one of the leading Czech post-Romantic composers. By the age of 22, Suk had published several works with the venerable Simrock because of Brahms' recommendation. After his appointment as Professor of Advanced Composition at the Prague Conservatory, much of his time was taken up with administrative details. In great demand as a violinist, Suk performed over 4000 concerts with the Czech Quartet. Inevitably, composition for Suk gradually became a part-time activity. He did create a small but distinguished body of primarily instrumental works that show a steady development from lyrical romanticism toward a complex and personal musical language.
The early Opus 3b Ballad (1890) is one of the two works Suk wrote for violin. Its warm, somewhat introspective themes develop with rich harmonies and fluent passagework. Suk was not only a violin virtuoso but also a fine pianist, and his accompaniments reveal sensitive support for the violin line.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Quintet for Piano and Strings in C minor

Because of his deep assimilation of folk song of the British Isles and his appreciation for the modalities heard in ancient British music, Vaughan Williams wrote numerous works distinguished by their "Englishness." Acclaimed as the re-creator of his country's musical vernacular, Vaughan Williams achieved a reputation as one of Europe's most distinctive musical personalities by the beginning of World War I. Yet because composition never came easily to him he weathered a long and self-critical apprenticeship period. When the prolific Vaughan Williams wrote his early C minor Quintet (1903), he already had composed four of his most famous songs and a cantata to set words by British poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti. But the quintet's heavily marked and erased score reveals labor unusual for Vaughan Williams, suggesting that he did not feel control over the chamber medium. Revised over the course of two years, the quintet was finally premiered in December 1905 by some of the finest musicians in London. Although successful performances followed, Vaughan Williams withdrew the work in 1918. He did not altogether repudiate its material, however, for he quarried the Fantasia movement for themes to develop in his 1954 violin sonata.
Vaughan Williams' early unpublished works all carry an embargo forbidding performance. However, because of intense interest in his music written before 1908, after a forty year hiatus his widow Ursula agreed to the publication and performance of certain selected works, among which was the 1903 Quintet. Its first modern performance (1999) was held in London in association with the conference "Vaughan Williams in a New Century." In 2002 the quintet was published by the British firm Faber Music Ltd.
Created for the same combination of instruments as Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, the 1903 Quintet develops with the free Romanticism and the atmosphere of open-air freshness characteristic of Vaughan Williams throughout his career. The tempestuous first movement offers strong contrasts of mood and dynamics. After extensive exploration of the opening lyrical theme, first heard in Vaughan Williams's favorite viola voice, an emphatic idea is played in unison by all instruments. This motto recurs in the following movements as a unifying device.
The Andante, marked to be played "tenderly," offers expressive interludes for the piano. After a more agitated central section and interesting harmonic excursions, the movement closes quietly with a muted statement in the strings.
The Fantasia movement develops like the Elizabethan fantasy, a rhapsodic one-movement work that improvises on a principal motive. The movement opens with the theme (related to the strongly accented motto heard in the first movement) played in unison by all the strings. The piano offers a solo response. Designated "smooth and without expression," this soft beginning suggests an entrance from a remote point of time and distance. The ensuing sections, designated as "almost variations" by Vaughan Williams, unfold with sharp contrasts of tempo, mood and tonality. The movement closes in the same quiet atmosphere as its beginning.