First Monday at Jordan Hall

What's a folk song doing in a nice chamber music concert like this? Plenty. This season, every concert explores threads of local color in the intimate genre of chamber music.

NEC's most popular chamber music series, curated by cellist Laurence Lesser, President Emeritus and Walter W. Naumburg Chair in Music, features faculty, alumni, students and friends. This year's season spotlights several significant composer birthdays plus pieces inspired by national, folk, or vernacular idioms. Performers whose names are followed by an asterisk are NEC alumni.

Calling Jordan Hall "Larry Lesser's living room," NEC President Tony Woodcock has pulled up a chair and sat down with Lesser to talk about these programs, as in the video on this page.

Given the prominence of Claude Debussy’s 150th birthday celebrations this year, it is not surprising that this composer who opened the gates to modern music should be feted on First Monday. Less obvious is the 300th birthday of Frederick the Great. But, indeed, this great aficionado played an important role in the history of music. J.S. Bach visited Frederick’s court in 1747, to meet the King, to see his son Carl Phillip Emanuel, who was the King’s music master, and to see the new keyboard instruments owned by the King (we now call them fortepianos).

While there, the King gave J.S. a theme he had written upon which to improvise. J.S. duly complied with a three-part ricercar (fugue). When asked to do one in six parts, J.S. said he’d better go home and work on it.

Not long after, J.S. sent the King an elaborate work generally called A Musical Offering which had many canons and ricercars and also a masterly trio sonata. The program is constructed to pay tribute to both Bach and Debussy’s birthdays, to offer a nod toward C.P.E. Bach, and to celebrate the genius of the Musical Offering. In the three-part ricercar, audiences will clearly hear the King’s theme, which is then is woven into the trio sonata.

The Weber, early romantic German music, begins to exhibit the “National” element that will figure prominently in subsequent programs. Take careful note of the slow movement called “The shepherd’s lament.".

Jessica Zhou, now NEC harp faculty, is making her First Monday debut.

Claude Debussy Syrinx
Paula Robison, flute

C.P.E. Bach Duet in E Minor, Wq 140
Paula Robison, flute
Masuko Ushioda, violin

J.S. Bach Ricercar à 3 from “The Musical Offering”
John Gibbons,* fortepiano

J.S. Bach Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale from “The Musical Offering”
Paula Robison, flute
Masuko Ushioda, violin
Laurence Lesser, cello
John Gibbons,* fortepiano

Claude Debussy Danses sacrée et profane
Jessica Zhou, harp
Masuko Ushioda, Amy Galluzzo*, violin
DJ Cheek, viola
Mickey Katz*, cello
DaeHee Choo*, double bass

Carl Maria von Weber Trio in G Minor, Op. 63
Paula Robison, flute
Laurence Lesser, cello
Kai-Ching Chang, piano