Edgar Meyer, Tessa Lark & Joshua Roman

DAZZLING CLASSICAL/BLUEGRASS CROSSOVER STARS

CMNW is proud to present one of the most tremendous chamber music tours of the season: the superstar trio of seven-time Grammy Award-winning bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, genre-crossing Kentucky-born violinist Tessa Lark, and electrifying cellist Joshua Roman. The ensemble will perform everything from Bach to Meyer’s own string trios, plus some new music written especially for their inaugural tour—and some fancy fiddling on violin, cello, and bass! Don’t miss this collaboration of three singular figures in American concert music who are adept instrumentalists with fierce classical chops, deep connections to roots and fiddle music, and expansive artistic sensibilities.

COME EARLY: PRELUDE PERFORMANCE
Beginning at 6:30 PM in the lobby, CMNW’s Education & Community Engagement program features young violinist Erin Qiu, University of Oregon violinist Xiaoyin Zhang, and the Cascadian Trio who will be performing Shostakovich’s first piano trio. FREE and open to the public.

“Friday’s reading, with its astonishingly unified articulations and attacks, was a model of character and style. Also, heart: the slow movement’s denouement offered a touching, beautifully balanced culmination of thematic ideas.”

— Boston Classical Review

Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Saturday, 1/10 • 7:30 pm

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SINGLE TICKETS

Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

J. S. BACH Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G Major, BWV 1027

J. S. BACH (1685-1750) Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G Major, BWV 1027 (1730-40s)

  I. Adagio
  II. Allegro ma non tanto
  III. Andante
  IV. Allegro moderato

On two occasions in 1723, the rich musical life of Leipzig got magnificently richer. On May 22, the famous musician Johann Sebastian Bach arrived to assume the post of cantor and music director at St. Thomas’s Church, one of the city’s musical epicenters. Bach, now thirty-six years old, had achieved enough celebrity throughout Germany for his elite musical skill, that not only his appointment, but his family’s very arrival in Leipzig was reported in newspapers as far away as Hamburg, 180 miles away (“He himself arrived with his family on 2 carriages at 2 o’clock and moved into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School”).

The other great development to occur that year was the partnership between Gottfried Zimmermann’s coffeehouse, Leipzig’s most prominent such establishment, and the Collegium Musicum. The Collegium was a performing collective of singers and instrumentalists (largely comprising students) founded in 1701 by Georg Philipp Telemann, and had since then played a vital role in Leipzig’s musical culture. Zimmermann’s coffeehouse included a concert hall that could accommodate large ensembles, and audiences of 150 (the neighborhood Starbucks it most certainly was not). A series of weekly concerts—always free of charge—sprung from this partnership, and would eventually fall under Bach’s supervision when he became the Collegium’s music director in 1729.

Though overseeing this series undoubtedly added a substantial commitment to Bach’s already demanding church duties, he nevertheless thrived in his dual position as cantor at St. Thomas’s and concert presenter at Zimmerman’s coffeehouse. In fact, in addition to offering works by Handel, Locatelli, Scarlatti, and others, Bach moreover took advantage of the Collegium series as an opportunity to compose a good deal of non-liturgical music himself: primarily instrumental music, as well as a number of cantatas known as “moral cantatas,” lighthearted musical dramas dealing with themes of moral virtue (including the famous “Coffee Cantata,” which passes tongue-in-cheek judgment on the vice of caffeine addiction).

The instrumental works Bach produced for this series include numerous important works, among them this first of three Sonatas for Viola da Gamba, BWV 1027-29. Bach’s Collegium works for Zimmermann’s coffeehouse also include the six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard Obbligato, BWV 1014-19; the Violin Concerto in a minor, BWV 1065; and the famous Double Concerto in d minor, BWV 1043.

The G Major Sonata for Viola da Gamba also exists as a trio sonata for two flutes and basso continuo, BWV 1039, which is almost certainly the earlier version (probably from Bach’s days as cappellmeister at Cöthen). By the late 1730s (around the time of Bach’s arrangement for viola da gamba of his trio sonata), the viola da gamba had already begun to fall out of favor as a solo instrument. Marin Marais, the instrument’s greatest virtuoso, had died in 1728. Bach remained a champion of the instrument, however, as evidenced by his use of it in numerous concerti, cantatas, and the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, in addition to these sonatas. They remain today as standard repertoire for both the viola and cello; the latter’s more burnished tone, compared to the delicacy of the gamba, demands a heightened sensitivity of the player to the nuances of Bach’s writing. The early Bach biographer Philipp Spitta—who ranked the G Major among the three gamba sonatas “the loveliest, the purest idyll conceivable”—also noted that the viola da gamba “afforded a great variety in the production of tone, but its fundamental character was tender and expressive rather than full and vigorous. Thus Bach could rearrange a trio originally written for two flutes and bass, for viol da gamba, with harpsichord obbligato, without destroying its dominant character.”

The sonata does indeed demonstrate trio sonata-style writing. Instead of a sparse basso continuo accompaniment to the through-composed gamba part, Bach provides a complete keyboard accompaniment, which moves in melodic and contrapuntal dialogue with the soloist. In the opening movement, a dignified yet dance-like Adagio, the keyboard and gamba bear equal melodic responsibility, often following each other in canon. The movement’s latter half features an intricately involved dialogue between the two, colored gracefully in turn by florid countermelodies and ornamental trills.

The work follows the four-movement structure of the Italian sonata da chiesa (‘church sonata’) from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Following a slow introduction, Bach launches into the fugal Allegro ma non tanto, whose rollicking, perfectly shaped subject inches its way upwards before quickly laughing its way back down to its starting point. The third movement is a languishing Andante in the relative minor, which the finale answers with another jovial fugue.

In the great wealth of solo and chamber instrumental works throughout Bach’s oeuvre, the Sonatas for Viola da Gamba are among those gems that have, though certainly not ignored, somewhat taken a back seat to the Cello Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, Die Kunst der Fuge, and other such works. Even two hundred years ago, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, only quaintly made note of “Several Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin, Harpsichord and Flute, Harpsichord and Viol da Gamba. They are admirably written and most of them are pleasant to listen to even today.” These sonatas are far from second-tier pieces, however, and demonstrate Bach’s genius in the mature years of his career as fully as any other works.

—© Patrick Castillo

EDGAR MEYER Trios for Violin, Cello & Bass

EDGAR MEYER (b. 1960) Selected Trios for Violin, Cello & Bass

Trio 1986
I.
II.
III.
IV.

New Trio (2024)
I.
II.
III.
IV.

Trio 1988
I.
II.
III.
IV.

In 1986–1988 I wrote a series of three string trios that I premiered with Daniel Phillips and Carter Brey at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. These were the first longer pieces that I had conceived as such, and they set the tone for my next four decades. Only one was partially recorded. After meeting Tessa and Joshua a few years ago, I realized that they were perfect for helping me document this personal milestone. I have now set out to write a new trio for us to “complete the thought.”

—© Edgar Meyer

Commissioning support provided by:
Aspen Music Festival and School, Robert Spano, Music Director
Big Ears Festival
Cal Performances
Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University
The Lied Center of Kansas at University of Kansas

Program Notes for Edgar Meyer, Tessa Lark & Joshua Roman Concert

For a young musician choosing what instrument to play, is double bass the most practical choice? Absolutely not. It’s physically challenging to play. Solo repertoire is almost non-existent. Not to mention you’ll have to book a second seat on every flight you take for the rest of your life.

That certainly didn’t stop Edgar Meyer (b. 1960). He picked up his first bass at age 5, and before long he was joining jazz bands, accompanying church choirs, and playing at weddings. He studied at Indiana University, where teachers tried to get him to focus on either classical or jazz. Meyer refused to choose, instead forging a new path that straddled the barriers between those genres and many others.

Since then, he has established a reputation as one of the United States’ preeminent performers, composers, and recording artists. His accolades include the MacArthur “Genius Grant” and seven Grammy awards, and he has performed alongside everyone from Yo-Yo Ma and the Emerson Quartet to Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, and Zakir Hussain.

In a recent radio interview, Meyer explained why he wanted to begin this program with the Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G Major, BWV 1027 by J. S. Bach (1685–1750): “Bach is my favorite musician. Starting the program with him is a little bit like saying a prayer hoping that we can in some small way aspire towards his example.”

Even during Bach’s own lifetime, many different arrangements of this sonata existed. Tonight’s performers continue that tradition, as Meyer plays the keyboard’s bass line, Lark plays the keyboard’s treble line, and Roman plays the viola da gamba line.

The sonata begins with a gentle Adagio, flowing along in extended, twelve-beat measures of heightened harmonic tension. Its unresolved final cadence sets up a vigorous Allegro ma non tanto full of Bach’s trademark counterpoint style. The Andante changes the mood with its E minor key, gradually unfurling over a consistent repeated bass note, or pedal point. Finally, in the Allegro moderato, all three musicians demonstrate their dexterity, sprinting to the final note with rapid-fire scales.

Between 1986 and 1988, Edgar Meyer wrote three trios for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, premiering them with violinist Daniel Phillips and cellist Carter Brey. He selected this instrumentation very carefully, describing how “adding violin and cello adds the full range of tessitura and color, not to mention harmonic and contrapuntal possibilities . . . 1 + 2 = 500.”

Meyer called Trio 1986 the “first kind of big piece I ever wrote.” Its first movement begins with a slow, tense meditation, before a folksy fiddle line introduces a more lighthearted tone. The second movement builds to a transcendent final moment, where its two contrasting musical ideas finally join together. The third movement, showcasing Meyer’s bluegrass chops, features offbeat solos over bluesy bass riffs. In the finale, each performer takes their turn showing off with ferocious runs, all over a consistent, driving repeated pedal point.

Nearly 40 years after premiering his first trio, Meyer decided the time had come to create the first full recording of these important works. “After meeting Tessa and Joshua a few years ago, I realized that they were perfect for helping me document this personal milestone,” he wrote. Regarding the New Trio (2024), he continued, “I have now set out to write a new trio for us to ‘complete the thought.’”

Musically, Meyer’s style has changed over time, but not to the core. As he put it, “I recognize the person from 40 years ago and from now, but I’ve had time to pick up some other interests, or just explore things that I hadn’t had time to explore when I was 25.”

The New Trio’s first movement explores a series of miniature musical ideas in a manner reminiscent of the agile string quartets of composers like Bartók or Shostakovich. In the more reserved second movement, a contemplative melody gradually becomes overwhelmed by Baroque-style ornamentation, before eventually springing into a more folklike space. The third movement sets a rougher tone with harsh, almost sea shanty-like melodies. Much like the 1986 trio, this one roars to a conclusion with perpetual motion, in this case with hints of “Summer” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

The program closes with the third of Meyer’s early trios, Trio 1988. Its easygoing first movement alternates gently suspended harmonies with more dancelike sections. The second movement is a miniature gem, evoking popular music through its syncopated bass line, smooth chord structure, and hummable melody. A bluegrass vibe defines the third movement, with a groovy plucked bass line interrupted by cello and violin interjections. The trio’s finale foreshadows the more abstract approach of the 2024 trio. A repeated pitch provides a point of stability, around which melodies wind with ease until the effervescent ending.

—© Ethan Allred

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