An Evening in Paris

Performed Friday, May 14, 2021 at 7:30 PM
The Great Hall at Town Hall Seattle

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983): Piano Trio
I. Allegro animato
II. Allegro vivace
III. Moderato
IV. Trés animé

A native of the Paris suburbs, Tailleferre showed very early promise as a musician. She took piano lessons from her mother, in defiance of her father’s strong opposition to her calling. In fact, she later changed her last name from Taillefesse (her name at birth) to Tailleferre to spite her father. At the Paris Conservatory, which she entered at the age of twelve, she earned several prizes in piano and composition. There she met Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Honegger, all of whom would become fellow members of the unofficial group of avant-garde musicians known collectively as Les Six. Maurice Ravel enthusiastically promoted her music, and Erik Satie described her as his “musical daughter.” The decade of the 1920s established her fame as a composer, as Tailleferre excelled in multiple genres: solo works for piano and harp, chamber ensembles, concerto, ballet, and film. After spending the Second World War years in exile in Philadelphia, she returned to France and continued to produce a wealth of music. Sadly, most of it remained unpublished until after her death. The piano trio on this SMCO program spans nearly six decades of her career. Tailleferre began writing it in 1916-17 (two years after Ravel had composed his trio), then finally completed it in 1978 on a commission from the French Ministry of Culture. Like so much of her music, it demonstrates her gift for melodic imagination and rhythmic energy. Despite the gap between its start and finish, Tailleferre’s piano trio confirms her belief that music should only express “one’s own personality.”

Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor
I. Allegro vivo
II. Intermède (fantasque et léger)
III. Finale (Très animé) 

One of the most influential (and truly modern) of all composers, Debussy received his first piano lessons at age seven in Cannes, where his family had gone to escape the bombardment of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Three years later, he gained admission to the Paris Conservatory, and he remained there for the next eleven years. (He studied organ with César Franck, whose piano quintet concludes today’s concert.) In his late teens, he spent three summers as pianist in the household Nadezhda von Meck, the patroness of Tchaikovsky. Debussy soon conceded that he had become “too fond of my own ideas.” He began experimenting with harmony and musical structure and texture. He found inspiration in Liszt and, for a time, the operas of Wagner. Javanese gamelan music fascinated him, along with the exotic harmonies of Rimsky-Korsakov. He identified with Satie, Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, and Manuel de Falla as artistic “outcasts.” Debussy only achieved great fame as a composer in his late thirties, by which time he had come to personify “impressionism” (a term which he despised). In his final years, as cancer steadily consumed him, he completed three of six planned sonatas for various instruments, including his Violin Sonata. In fact, he made his last public appearance, as the pianist, in the world premiere of this work, given on May 5, 1917, as part of a fundraising concert for French soldiers. Despite the circumstances of war and illness, this work has many passages of virtuosity, sensuality, beauty and light (alongside the moments of darkness), suggestive of his contemporaries among French painters. Its three movements also reveal distinct cultural influences of Spain, Hungary, and Italy. 

Intermission (10 minutes)

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), arr. Allion Salvador: Après un rêve (After a dream)

A child prodigy and protégé of Camille Saint-Saëns, Fauré enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a pianist, organist, composer, teacher, music critic, and director of the Paris Conservatory. His style spanned the periods of the Romantic and Impressionist, and his students (including Ravel) helped define the more modern compositional approaches of the twentieth century. His friends and admirers among fellow composers included Tchaikovsky, Edward Elgar, Isaac Albéniz, Richard Strauss, and Aaron Copland. Fauré refused to see nationalism in music, insisting that it existed on a much higher plane. His reputation was such that the American artist John Singer Sargent painted his portrait, and the President of  France led a day-long national tribute to him at the Sorbonne. Après un rêve, the best-known of Fauré’s more than one hundred songs, dates from the 1870s. Its original text describes a dream of romantic, rapturous escape with a lover at night, away from the earth and “toward the light,” before the protagonist becomes more pensive as the dream ends.

César Franck (1822-1890): Piano Quintet in F minor
I. Molto moderato quasi lento
II. Lento, con molto sentimento
III. Allegro non troppo, ma con fuoco

Franck was born in Liège, Belgium, and he gave his first public recitals there (including one for the king) at the age of twelve. His father, a bank clerk, envisioned a brilliant career for the young Franck, on the order of Franz Liszt. As a result, the family relocated to Paris a year later, and the boy pursued his studies with Anton Reicha, who had been a good friend of Beethoven. Franck excelled as a keyboardist, spending the last four decades of his life as a church organist, in addition to his faculty position at the Paris Conservatory. However, his temperament and religious devotion never suited him for the life of a charismatic virtuoso. (Ironically, Liszt frequently programmed the organ and chamber music of Franck in Germany.) His students greatly admired him, often referring to their professor as “Père Franck” (“Father Franck”). Only in the last twenty years of his life did he find the time to compose in earnest, and that activity resulted in his best-known works, including the symphony, string quartet, violin sonata, and the piano quintet which concludes this SMCO program. Franck dedicated the score of this impressive piece to “my good friend Camille Saint-Saëns.” However, after playing – indeed, sight-reading – the piano part at the premiere in January, 1880, the dedicatee stormed off the stage, leaving the score open at the piano. He later confirmed his disdain for the piece. On the other hand, their fellow French composer, Édouard Lalo, praised the work as an “explosion.” It has three movements of almost symphonic breadth, with a motto theme of two four-bar phrases which appear frequently throughout the work, giving it a cyclical quality and compositional unity. Its surging rhythms in the outer movements, coupled with its highly chromatic, frequently shifting harmony made the work an immediately popular addition to the repertoire, Saint-Saëns’ opinion notwithstanding.

Program notes by Steve Reeder

Featured Artists

Allion Salvador, violin

Mr. Salvador has been described as "a rising star of the Seattle music scene, displaying virtuosity well beyond his years" by Westside Seattle. He graduated with degrees in Violin Performance and Neurobiology from the University of Washington in 2015. His teachers include Carol Cole, Ronald Patterson, and Maria Larionoff. He also attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, studying with David Halen on scholarship.

In 2018, Mr. Salvador joined the second violin section of the Spokane Symphony. He serves as assistant concertmaster of the Yakima Symphony, concertmaster of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, and a member of Symphony Tacoma and the Missoula-based String Orchestra of the Rockies. He has served as concertmaster of the Seattle Philharmonic, Pierre Monteux Festival Orchestra, University of Washington Symphony, and Sammamish Symphony. Other orchestra engagements have included the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, Ensemble Tremblay, Ars Flores, and the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Project. He has founded and worked with several vibrant chamber music projects, including piano trio Andromeda, the modern music-focused Inverted Space Ensemble, Sound Ensemble, and the Parnassus Project. Collaborating with the Seattle-Bergen Sister Cities Association, his quartet recently toured and recorded an album in Eidfjord, Voss, and Bergen, Norway.

Mr. Salvador’s interests also extend towards the podium. He is the founding music director of the Seattle Philharmonic Strings, a community orchestra promoting string repertoire of the highest quality. He has also held assistant conductor positions at the Seattle Philharmonic, Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, and University of Washington. His teachers include Michael Jinbo, Adam Stern, and Ludovic Morlot.

Caitlin Kelley, violin

Hailed as “dazzling” by Peninsula Reviews, violinist Caitlin Kelley is a versatile performing artist, equally at home with traditional classical and contemporary repertoire. Currently based in Seattle, she enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. Ms. Kelley has appeared as a soloists with orchestras across the United States and has presented recitals in both the US and Europe. She recently performed as Guest Concertmaster and Interim Assistant Concertmaster of the Louisville Orchestra, and is the former concertmaster of the Colburn and YMF Debut Orchestras. Ms. Kelley also appears frequently with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Kelley has performed with Camerata Pacifica and the Colburn Chamber Music Society, and is a current member of wild Up, an LA- based modern music collective. Her festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, Luzerne Chamber Music Festival, and Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Kelley received a Bachelor of Music degree and Professional Studies Certificate from the Colburn School in Los Angeles, and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School in New York. Her former teachers include Robert Lipsett, David Chan, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Naoko Tanaka.

Tricia Wu, viola

Tricia Wu currently serves as principal violist in the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra and the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra and is an active chamber musician in the Seattle area. She studied viola in Eugene, OR with Leslie Straka and has performed in master classes for Roberto Diaz and the Berlin Philharmonic String Quartet. Her She is also a research scientist in the field of hearing loss at the University of Washington after graduating with a biochemistry degree from the University of Chicago.

Mary Riles, cello

Cellist Mary Riles received her BA in Classics and BM in Cello Performance from Oberlin College & Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Andor Toth, Jr. She received her Master of Music degree from the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University, where she studied with Jeffrey Solow, whom she met as an award student at the Chautauqua Music Festival. Having relocated to Seattle, Washington, Ms. Riles performs with a variety of area ensembles. She is principal cellist for the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the Seattle Modern Orchestra and other local orchestral ensembles. She is a frequent chamber ensemble performer, and has appeared as a soloist with the Thalia Symphony and the Kirkland Civic Orchestra.

Having grown up in a family of teachers, Ms. Riles maintains a diverse private music studio, finding that teaching and performing complement each other productively. As well as private cello lessons, she teaches cello camps, and chamber coaching.

Anastasia Solomatina, piano 

Ms. Solomatina became a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2003, where she had been a student of Peter Serkin and subsequently Eleanor Sokoloff. In continuation of her educational studies, Anastasia commenced her graduate fellowship at the Kazan State Conservatory of Music, Russia, where she received her Master of Music and doctoral degrees. During her last academic year in Russia Ms. Solomatina maintained a piano faculty position at the Kazan State University of Culture and the Arts, as well as assistant faculty position at the Kazan State Conservatory, which she relinquished in 2008 in order to continue her professional activity in the United States. Ms. Solomatina was the recipient of the National Talented Youth Award by Russian presidential decree in 2008.

Anastasia has appeared as a soloist with Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halifax Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Magna Grecia, Orchestra Seattle, Kazan Philharmonic Orchestra, and N. Novgorod Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2012, Ms. Solomatina moved to the West Coast, and now resides in Bellevue, WA. Currently, she focuses on performing solo and chamber music, as well as maintaining a private studio. She is currently the collaborative pianist at the Seattle Conservatory of Music and Forest Ridge of the Sacred Heart, and is in high demand as a coach and collaborator in the Seattle area.