Ravinia 2022, Issue 2

BENOIT ROLLAND (FRIED); KAUPO KIKKAS (BITLLOCH) Agathe’s name. From the beginning, he tried to protect the secret human identity associat- ed with his thematic epigram. Its very melod- ic construction camouflages the true mean- ing. Brahms matched letters in the young woman’s name to the closest appropriate musical pitch: A G A T[=D] H[=B-natural] E. To further conceal his musical puzzle, he pre- sented the D and B-natural simultaneously as a harmonic interval. Brahms extended intervallic logic to the con- struction of his initial Allegro non troppo theme. Over the oscillating viola half-steps, a violin melody rises by a fifth, up one step, then leaps by another fifth. This line gently winds downward by another route. Overlap- ping melodic cascades mount a transition to a lyrical cello and violin duet. Agathe’s motto appears in a thick contrapuntal segment be- fore the development. This movement ex- pands leisurely into one of the most “sym- phonic” in Brahms’s chamber oeuvre. An uncharacteristic melancholy atmosphere resulting from the choice of minor key per- meates the Scherzo . More joyful strains em- anate from the major-key trio, but these are momentarily dampened by the returning scherzo melody. In the Adagio , Brahms built a set of variations on a lovely minor-key vio- lin theme, beginning with an upward-leaping fourth, a stepwise ascent, and another bound- ing fourth. Five variations explore the seem- ingly conflicting stylistic goals of pseudo-Ba- roque counterpoint and Romantic effusion. The final variation and the subsequent coda change modes to major. The monothematic sonata-form finale sum- mons memories of the brisk outdoor prom- enades Johannes and Agathe used to share together in Göttingen. The repeated sextuplet pattern receives a nervous contrapuntal treat- ment in the development, but the low-lying consequent phrase retains its comforting lyricism. After completing this movement, Brahms confessed to his friend Johann Gäns- bacher: “Here I have freed myself from my last love.” –Program notes © 2022 Todd E. Sullivan The Mendelssohn Quintette Club of Boston (1878 or 1879) MIRIAM FRIED, violin Born in Romania, Miriam Fried emigrated to Israel with her family at age 2, where she began taking violin lessons as a child with Al- ice Fenyves in Tel Aviv. While there she had the opportunity to meet and play for many of the world’s great violinists, such as Isaac Stern, Nathan Milstein, and Yehudi Menuhin. Stern encouraged her to study abroad and, after briefly attending the Geneva Conser- vatory under Fenyves’s brother, she became a student of Josef Gingold at Indiana Univer- sity and later Ivan Galamian at The Juilliard School. While under Galamian’s tutelage, Fried won her first competition, the 1968 Pa- ganini Contest in Genoa. Three years later she claimed the grand prize in the Queen Elisa- beth International Competition in Brussels, becoming the first woman to win the award. Fried has been a regular guest of nearly ev- ery major orchestra in the world, including the Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Vienna, and London Symphony Orchestras; the Cleve- land, Paris, and Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Israel, (London) Royal, New York, Los Angeles, Czech, Berlin, and Saint Petersburg Philharmonics. She has recently appeared on recordings by the Grand Rapids Symphony, performing a violin concerto written for her by Donald Erb that she premiered with the same ensemble, and the Helsinki Philhar- monic, playing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. For much of 2015, Fried focused intensive study on Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, creating a series of online lectures and master classes for iClassical Academy. She toured the monumental works from Ravinia to Boston, Israel, Canada, and Europe, and made a new recording of them in 2017. She played first vi- olin for the Mendelssohn String Quartet until it disbanded in 2009 and is currently on the faculty of New England Conservatory. The director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Program for Piano & Strings since 1994 and the recipient of Ravinia’s inaugural Edward Gordon Award in 2013, Miriam Fried made her first appearance at the festival in 1974. To- night marks her 31st season and 117th perfor- mance at Ravinia. PAUL BISS, violin and viola Violinist and violist Paul Biss is an alumnus of Indiana University, where he received a bachelor’s degree and studied with Josef Gingold, and The Juilliard School, complet- ing a master’s degree under the tutelage of Ivan Galamian. He has also studied chamber music with such artists as Walter Trampler, Claus Adam, Janos Starker, and William Primrose. For many years Biss was a mem- ber of the Berkshire String Quartet, which was in residence at Indiana University, and has appeared at many music festivals, includ- ing Ravinia, Marlboro, La Jolla, Lockenhaus, Naantali, Casals, and the Ysaye at London’s Wigmore Hall. As both a violinist and violist, he has collaborated with Christoph Eschen- bach, Menahem Pressler, Gidon Kremer, Pin- chas Zukerman, Miriam Fried, Michael Tree, Janos Starker, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Gary Hoffman, as well as the Mendelssohn, Fine Arts, and Alexander String Quartets. Biss has also regularly appeared in recital and as a so- loist with orchestras in North America, Eu- rope and Israel, with recent concerts taking him to Brazil and Korea. He became a pro- fessor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in 1979 and has conducted approx- imately 100 performances of symphonic mu- sic as well as 13 operas for the school’s opera program before retiring from the position in 2008. Biss has also led orchestras in Mexico, Finland, Brazil, Korea, and Israel, where he was awarded a prize by the Ministry of Cul- ture for the performance of contemporary work. Previously the assistant conductor of the Akron Symphony, he is also a former faculty member of MIT and the universities of Tel Aviv and Akron, and has held a pro- fessorship of violin and chamber music at the New England Conservatory since 2006. Paul Biss joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in 1994, and tonight marks his 25th season as a performer at the festival. SARA BITLLOCH, violin Born of French and Catalan parents, Sara Bitlloch began music lessons at age 6, and at 12 she was accepted into London’s Yehudi Menuhin School, where she studied with Pe- ter and Margaret Norris, WhenZhou Li, and Mauricio Fuks. Over the next decade, her mentors grew to include Alberto Lysy at the Menuhin Academy in Switzerland, Clothilde Munch at the Vivaldi Association in Greno- ble, Christian Rouquié at the Perpignan Con- servatory, and Rafael Druian at the Curtis Institute of Music. The same period saw Bitl- loch earn top prizes from the Renata Molinari Competition (1994) and the Carmel Cham- ber Music Competition (1997, as a member of the Raphaello Piano Trio). After becoming a prizewinner at the 1999 Melbourne Chamber Music Competition with the Mediterraneo Piano Trio, she won both first prize and the award for best interpretation of a Hungar- ian work at the Szigeti Violin Competition in 2000. As a soloist, Bitlloch has performed throughout France, England, Spain, Switzer- land, and the United States, appearing with such ensembles as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Radio Symphony Or- chestra, and Camerata Lysy. Chamber music has been her foremost passion as a profes- sional artist, including collaborations with vi- olinists Yehudi Menuhin, Miriam Fried, Ivry Gitlis, and Jean-Jacques Kantorow; violist Vladimir Mendelssohn; cellists Steven Isser- lis, Christoph Richter, and Martin Lovett; and pianist Leon Fleisher, as well as performances at such festivals as Caramoor, Ernen, Horten, Kuhmo, Moulin d’Andé, Prussia Cove, and Wye Valley. After becoming the first violinist of the Paris-based Castagneri Quartet for two years, in 2003 Bitlloch joined the Elias String Quartet, with whom she is currently in resi- dence at the Royal Northern College of Music and has recorded works by Beethoven, Brit- ten, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. Sara Bitlloch was a fellow in the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Program for Piano & Strings in 1997 and 1998 and performed on the inaugural Musicians from RSMI spring alumni tour in 1999. She returned to the fes- tival in 2000 as a member of the Mediterra- neo Trio and the fourth alumni tour in winter 2001. This is Bitlloch’s third season on the RSMI faculty, having first joined in 2018. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 4 – JULY 17, 2022 30 I I ; I I