Nexus

Friday, 18 March at 8pm

Aiko Goto (violin), Jeremy Williams (viola), Tim Nankervis ('cello),
Brenda Jones (piano)

Programme

HAYDN – Trio in G for violin, viola and 'cello, Hob XV:25, Gypsy Rondo

MOZART – Quartet in E flat for violin, viola, 'cello and piano, K 493

SCHUMANN – Quartet in E flat for violin, viola, 'cello and piano, op 44

About the artists

Piano quartet Nexus was originally sponsored by Sydney volunteer radio station 2MBS-FM – “Your fine music station” – which records the concerts of the Sydney Mozart Society. The ensemble is now independent. The musicians include members of the Sydney Symphony and Australian Chamber Orchestras; the 'cellist was a core member of the former Whiteley Trio and Grainger Quartet, and of an earlier format of the Australian String Quartet. Nexus presents its own annual series of Sunday afternoon concerts at the Independent Theatre, North Sydney.

Aiko Goto, born in Japan as the grand-niece of Dr Suzuki, began studying the violin at the age of three. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Violin Performance from from the Toho Gakuen School of Music, she pursued graduate studies at The Juilliard School of Music as a scholarship student.

As a winner of the Artist International’s Young Artists Award in New York in 1994, and the All Performance Music Society Competition of Japan, Aiko received the highest critical acclaim at her New York debut at the Carnegie Weil Recital Hall in 1995. Until 1998, she was co-ordinator of strings at the Newark School of the Arts.

As well as giving many solo recitals, Aiko has performed in chamber groups and orchestras at several of the world's most prestigious music festivals in Europe, the USA, and Japan. She has been a member of The Saito Kinen Orchestra since 1995 and became a formal member of Australian Chamber Orchestra at the start of 1999. Aiko performs on a violin made by the illustrious French instrument maker Jean Baptiste Vuillaume (1798 – 1875).

Jeremy Williams graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with distinction, then becoming the youngest violinist accepted by the London Symphony Orchestra. He has performed under conductors such as Abbado, Svetlanov, Previn and Celibidache.

Jeremy won the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and London Sinfonietta. He has toured throughout the world as a member of the Delme Quartet, the Nash Ensemble and the York Piano Trio. He formed the Beethoven String Trio of London before being appointed Principal Viola of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Jeremy was the viola player in the Australian String Quartet, the Grainger Quartet and the Whiteley Trio.

Experienced chamber musician Timothy Nankervis is a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and ‘cellist of the Seraphim Trio. Tim has won numerous awards for ‘cello performance and chamber music. He is a regular guest of the Sydney International Piano Competition. In 2000, he attended the Australian National Academy of Music and was one of two winners selected to perform as soloist with Orchestra Victoria, playing Tchaikovsky's 'Rococo' Variations.

He has performed widely throughout Australia as a soloist and has broadcast regularly for the ABC and 2MBS-FM. Tim has performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto with orchestras in Sydney and Queensland, and is an active chamber musician, performing with the Sydney Soloists as well as for Sydney Symphony Chamber Music.

Since moving to Australia in 2005, pianist Brenda Jones has relished the opportunity to pursue her great passion for chamber music and is a founding member of Nexus. She has also frequently appeared in concert as recital partner to musicians in the Sydney Symphony and Australian Chamber Orchestras.

Brenda received her Bachelor (cum laude) and Master of Music degrees under full scholarship from the University of Southern California. She continued her studies in London on a full scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Brenda was featured as a collaborative pianist in the 2006 Fine Arts ARIA awards gala in Sydney. In 2007 she was a guest pianist with the Granger Quartet.

Brenda toured as a solo pianist in Germany and Austria in the KAWAI European concert series, and has performed throughout the United States, Spain, England, France and Belgium, where she was a guest artist of Prince Charles-Antoine. She has been soloist with the Pacific Symphony, Kalamazoo (Michigan) Symphony, YMF and the Irish National Symphony Orchestras.

After winning several major prizes in the USA at the national level, Brenda was placed 4th in the 2003 Dublin International Piano Competition and was a semi-finalist in tile 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition. In 1995, she was named a Gilmore Young Artist, one of America’s most prestigious honours given to young pianists. The National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts awarded her its highest Level 1 honour and named her as a finalist for the Presidential Scholar of the Arts award.

Brenda is a dedicated piano teacher. She maintains an active private studio and is on the staff of Queenwood School and the Australian Institute of Music.

Programme Notes

HAYDN – Trio in G for violin, viola and 'cello, Hob XV:25, Gypsy Rondo

Andante / Poco adagio. Cantabile / Finale: Rondo all'Ongarese, Presto

Haydn's Gypsy Rondo piano trio in G, dates from his second visit to London and was written in 1795. Its name comes from the rondo finale in 'Hungarian' style. The work was published as one of the ‘opus 73’ (seldom used today) trios by the English firm of Longman and Broderip, all three being dedicated to Haydn's friend Rebecca Schroeter.

The slow opening movement starts with a song-like theme in duple time, which is followed by four sections, each of which is a variation of this theme. The first section is written in the minor mode. The tempo switches to triple time in the second movement, which is even slower. The opening bars introduce a sweet, singing, theme which starts with a one-beat figure containing a triplet of grace notes that returns throughout the movement.

The finale is marked presto and has the title, Rondo all'Ongarese (Hungarian rondo). Here, as Hans Christoph Worbs writes, “sophisticated music and folk song have been happily blended”. To add interest, there is switching between the major and minor modes. The whole movement concludes with six fortissimo chords in the piano..

MOZART – Quartet in E flat for violin, viola, 'cello and piano, K 493

Allegro / Larghetto / Allegretto

At the time when Mozart wrote his two piano quartets in Vienna in 1785 and 1786, the piano quartet was a relatively unknown genre of music. It seems that his first piano quartet in G minor, K 478, was to have been the first of three, to be published by Mozart's friend and colleague, Franz Anton Hoffmeister. It is said that when Hoffmeister complained that the public found the work too difficult and would not buy it, Mozart released him from the contract of publishing the remaining works. In fact, Mozart's second piano quartet, this one in E flat which he completed about nine months later, was published not by Hoffmeister, but by Artaria. Alfred Einstein writes that Mozart made this second work "technically a little easier, but in its originality, its freshness of invention, and its craftsmanship, it is no less a masterpiece. It is bright in colour, but iridescent, with hints of darker shades. [. . .] When one listens to such a masterpiece, one can only recall Haydn's remark: 'The highest taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition' ".

As in the case of the G-minor quartet, the first movement of this work is written in large-scale sonata form. Roger Covell writes that the “conversational mastery” of Le Nozze di Figaro, which Mozart had completed five weeks earlier, “seems to be present in spirit in the dialogue . . . of the first movement: serene in tone, full of quickly established contrasts, wonderfully polished, yet far from bland and complacent. The lyrical slow movement, also in sonata form, is, according to Covell, “music of extraordinarily delicate fancy”. The lively finale is a high-spirited rondo based on a wonderful, pure, simple, main theme. A concertante quality can be observed in all three movements – in the third movement, for example, a trill on the piano may be seen as equivalent to a cadenza in a full-blown concerto.

SCHUMANN – Quartet in E flat for violin, viola, 'cello and piano, op 44

Allegro brillante / In modo d'un marcia. Un poco largamente - Agitato / Scherzo: Molto vivace / Finale: Allegro ma non troppo

Schumann completed the initial draft of his piano quintet in E flat in just five days and completed the score at the beginning of October, 1842. The quintet, which is the first work ever written for a strings quartet combined with a piano, is probably Schumann's best-known chamber work.

The composer's personal state at the time is apparent as much through the fresh, positive, opening statement as through the warm, lyrical, second theme. The second movement, a C-minor rondo in sonata form, is entirely different, being built around a solemn march which is quite similar in character, form and tonality to the funeral march of Beethoven's Eroica symphony - in this case, however, the sombre mood is relieved by the two appearances of the second subject in a major key. The main theme of the scherzo is not much more than an ordinary scale; the rhythms of the ascending and descending scales, however, are so craftily varied that one has difficulty in detecting where the beat falls. The scherzo is unusually extended by the inclusion of two contrasting trio sections. To conclude the work, the energetic finale combines both sonata and rondo forms, and culminates with a coda that is, in fact, an ingenious double fugue.