PROVIDENCEEllen Rose, violaKristin Ditlow, piano

AF1808

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”—Robert Louis Stevenson

Any listener receiving the gift of the music on this disc might assume that themusical partnership between Ellen Rose and Kristin Ditlow began somewhere inthe United States, but it was quite the contrary. It began in an airport shuttle in2011 from the Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport to Sárospatak,Hungary. The destination of the shuttle was the Crescendo Nyári Akademia(Crescendo Summer Institute). A conversation that began between the newly-introduced musical colleagues yielded a promise to play together on a Tune-In(informal morning chapel) service. The piece was the fifth movement ofMessiaen’s Quatour pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), and thetitle, Louange à l ’Éternité de Jésus (Praise to the Eternity of Jesus). While this workwas originally for cello and piano, it was arranged for viola by Ellen Rose.

The performance took place about a week later. One of our faculty colleagues,Mari Salli (a pianist, originally from Finland, faculty member in Hungary, andworking in mainland China) extended an invitation to the duo to perform duringthe 2012-2013 season at the National Theater in Kunming, China in the YunnanProvince. This invitation proved to be the center around which a multi-city tourwas formed. From rehearsals and long-distance conversations, concerts planned, totickets purchased, we embarked across the Pacific for a three-week tour of Beijing,

Shanghai, and Kunming. Each city was the site of concerts as well as master classesfor violists, pianists, and chamber ensembles.

One final piece to this story is that the young man who greeted Ellen, her husbandBob, and me at the arrival gate of the Beijing International Airport would, elevenmonths later, become my husband! Zheng Yuan was one of Ellen’s artist diplomastudents at Southern Methodist University, and he began his engagement with ourtour as our translator and guide. If he had not been there, we would still be standingin the Beijing Airport!

It is with this framework that we give our duo-debut disc the name Providence.Without it, the weaving together of three continents and years of planning wouldhave never come into being.

Ellen Rose, a Juilliard School graduate,  served asprincipal viola of the Dallas Symphony from 1980-2017.She has performed with Itzhak Perlman, PinchasZukerman and Yo-Yo Ma in chamber music concertsand has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician inthe U.S., Europe and South America. She served on theAspen Music Festival faculty from 1989 to 2002 andcurrently teaches at Southern Methodist University. Rosecan be heard on two CDs on the Centaur Records label.

She has given master classes at The Juilliard School,Manhattan School of Music, and the Cleveland Instituteof Music. She has been a performer and guest speaker atthe Viola National International Congresses in Sweden and the U.S and haswritten two books: Extreme Viola (a scale book) and Viola Excerpts Plus.

In January 2010 she presented a world premiere of a viola concerto commissionedby the Dallas Symphony, dedicated to her by award-winning composer MargaretBrouwer. In March 2012 she recorded the concerto, with maestro Jaap van Zwedenconducting members of the DSO.

In 2010, she traveled to Romania to do master classes and a chamber music concert.In summer 2010 she joined the faculty of the Crescendo Summer Institute inSárospatak, Hungary. In November 2012 she did a recital tour of China withpianist Kristin Ditlow, in Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming, giving master classesand coaching string ensembles at the Beijing Conservatory of Music and theShanghai Conservatory of Music. Her recital fee in Kunming was donated to theKunming International Academy to buy instruments and create scholarships. InJuly 2013 she participated in festivals in Romania and Hungary and continues to beon the faculty at the Crescendo Summer Institute.

As a fundraiser, she has worked with Children’s Medical Center of Dallas to raisemoney for the children’s cancer unit and has raised funds for the Nelson Children’sCenter in Denton, Texas, for abused and abandoned children. She was a volunteercounselor at the Dallas Pregnancy Resource Center. Currently she volunteers at theJFK Learning Center, a Dallas Independent School District, teaching smallchildren to learn to read. This Fall she will join the faculty of Literacy Achieves, anEnglish as a second language program for adults.

Julia Shteinman Photography

Kristin Ditlow, American pianist, harpsichordist,vocal coach and conductor, is enjoying a career in operaand recital in the United States and abroad. She is analumna of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music,Westminster Choir College, Tanglewood Music Center,and Merola Opera Program. She holds a Doctor ofMusical Arts degree in Accompanying and ChamberMusic from the Eastman School of Music, where shewas a student of Dr. Jean Barr.

Her conducting has been praised as “fine and polished”and featured an “exciting overture,” (Charles Jernigan,when she led Opera Southwest’s Norma). Philadelphiamusic critic Michael Caruso remarked that her piano performance had “an exquisitesensitivity and exhilarating thrusts of energy," and the Bethlehem Morning Callwrote about her performance of Brahms as having “enormous passion, fineprecision, and great musicality.”

Dr. Ditlow is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Vocal Coaching at the University ofNew Mexico. Notable highlights from the past few seasons include conducting worldpremiere operas written by Steve Block, Joseph Illick, Nell Shaw Cohen, and RonStrauss. She has appeared as a pianist with Ellen Rose (principal violist, DallasSymphony Orchestra), Tara Venditti, the Metropolitan Opera National Council, theMetropolitan Museum of Art, OperaWorks, and New Mexico organizations Chatter,Santa Fe Opera, Movable Sol, Opera Southwest, and New Mexico Winds. Sherecently conducted Bellini’s Norma to critical acclaim. Performances of hers as aconductor and chorus master have been broadcast nationally on the Toll BrothersMetropolitan Opera Broadcast. Prior to her appointment at the University of NewMexico, Dr. Ditlow has served on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music,Settlement Music School (Philadelphia, PA), Westminster Choir College, IthacaCollege, and the Eastman School of Music. Dr. Ditlow has recorded for both theGIA and Blue Griffin labels. Her disc with saxophonist Dr. Eric Lau, Journey: FiveCenturies of Song for the Saxophone, was released in 2015.

She studied lieder and German Romantic poetry during the summer of 2017 in Baden-bei-Wien, Austria at the Franz Schubert Institut. The 2017-2018 season has boasted herdebut as both piano soloist and conductor with the New Mexico Philharmonic, as wellas the premiere performance project of her new opera company, Antigua y Moderna. Sheis also the co-artistic director of the Southwestern Art Song Society.

Sonata no. 6 in A Major - Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)

We begin our program in parallel with our China tour recital program, withBoccherini’s Sonata no. 6 in A Major. Boccherini was an Italian-born cellist. Hisbiography boasts numerous positions in theaters and courts throughout Europe,including a theater position in Vienna as well as an infamous tenure in Madrid. Itwas there that the composer brought a job dismissal upon himself from his courtposition under Infante Luis Antonio of Spain. According to scholar Elisabeth leGuin, the King (Charles III of Spain) ordered Boccherini to alter a passage in a triothat he had newly composed. Instead of removing the passage, Boccherini doubledit, and was immediately asked to leave. 

Boccherini is credited with bringing violoncello writing into more melodic andvirtuosic milieu. In his string quartet writing, the cello lines have more prominencethan in Joseph Haydn’s (a contemporary composer) quartets. In addition to writingstring quartets, Boccherini wrote many cello sonatas and other trio sonatas orchamber works. The arrangement that you will hear on the recording became anestablished part of the viola repertoire by William Primrose (1904-1982). Hecustomarily would perform only the first two movements, omitting a final minuetand trio from his interpretation and performances. 

Romance and Whither Must I Wander - Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Two works of the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams are featured on thisdisc. The Romance was found amongst many other unpublished compositions afterVaughan Williams had passed away. Scholars believe it to have been written in 1914.

We performed the Romance throughout China. It is a touchstone to one of myfavorite stories on tour. While presenting part of our concert for children at theKunming International Academy, we spoke briefly about each piece beforeperforming it. I had asked the children to listen for the “waves” in both the pianoand viola part. After concluding the performance, a young man, towards the front of the room,raised his hand. “134.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t think I understood you.” “134 waves. We heard 134 waves in that piece.”

Rita LaVeck Photography

The second, Whither Must I Wander, is originally for baritone and piano, fromVaughan Williams’ cycle Songs of Travel, and is Ellen’s and my arrangement forviola and piano. Ellen had mentioned during a rehearsal period that the she felt theCD needed a piece to “tie it all together.” I immediately thought of the text ofRobert Louis Stevenson, and its poignancy and immediacy to traveling artists.

Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?Hunger my driver, I go where I must.Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather:Thick drives the rain and my roof is in the dust.Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree,The true word of welcome was spoken in the door–Dear days of old with the faces in the firelight,Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.Now when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,Spring shall bring the sun and the rain, bring the bees and flowers;Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours.Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood–Fair shine the day on the house with open door;Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney–But I go for ever and come again no more.

Concertstück – George Enescu (1881-1955)

Investigation of George Enescu’s (known as Georges Enesco in France) biographyis equivalent to an analysis of his showpiece for viola and piano, the Concertstück(also known as the Concertpiece). Enescu was born in Romania in 1881. Hisprodigious musical gifts surfaced early, and as a child, he got to meet and play forJohannes Brahms in Vienna. While still a young teenager, he moved to study at theParis Conservatory. His composition teachers included Fauré and Massenet.

Enescu developed a love for using Romanian folk material as musical material –this would continue throughout his life. He also had a great love for world music,and developed a fascination with the gamelan ensemble. After the Second WorldWar, Enescu remained in Paris until his death in 1955.

The Concertstück is a compositional marriage of Enescu’s first life in Romania, aswell as his adopted home in Paris. Traces of Debussy and the French Impressionistscan be heard in much of the viola and piano passagework. The lively second theme,first heard in the piano part, refers to a Romanian folk dance. The virtuoso writing,especially for the viola, owes much to the Paris Conservatory tradition of writingand performing contest pieces for each solo instrument.

“Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus” from Quatour pour la fin du temps - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

Olivier Messiaen was a virtuoso organist and composer, who is known for usingboth medieval music as well as note and rhythmic patterns from the Far East in hiscompositions. He also was a devout Catholic, in addition to being an enthusiasticornithologist. Religious quotes or motives, as well as bird calls, frequently appearedin his music. His groundbreaking chamber music work, Quartet for the End of Time(Quatour pour la f in du temps), displayed his virtuoso compositional skill, employingall of the aforementioned characteristics.

The Quartet has a very auspicious genesis, for it was composed whilst Messiaen wasimprisoned at Görlitz (in present-day Poland during the Second World War). Amongsthis colleagues and fellow prisoners were a violinist, cellist, and clarinetist. He soonstarted composing for them, and in January of 1941, the Quartet was premiered, thecomposer at the piano, to an audience of almost five thousand prisoners. Two of the movements bear the title Louange (praise), and are for one solo stringplayer and piano. Each movement is marked with a critically slow tempo, in fact,

performers must be careful to not play these “too quickly.” Inscribed in thescore by the composer is, “in homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, whoraises his hand heavenwards saying: ‘There will be no more Time.’ ”

Sonata for viola (or violoncello) and piano - Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)

The largest work on our tour was originally a composition competition entry.Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) wrote her Sonata for viola and piano in 1918 andsubmitted the work in 1919 in a contest sponsored by Elizabeth SpragueCoolidge. Her work tied with Ernest Bloch for first prize in the competition.Clarke’s sonata is in three movements, and demands equal virtuosity for bothpianist and violist. Listeners can hear whole-tone, octatonic, and pentatonicscales, as well as piano and string writing that shows a great admiration forClaude Debussy. Rebecca Clarke’s best-known work is this piece. Other well-known pieces are the Rhapsody for cello and piano and a piano trio, writtensoon after the viola sonata.

“Vissi d’arte” fromTosca - Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

For one of our encores for the China tour, we played an aria from Puccini’sTosca. Many iconic sopranos have interpreted this role, such as the sublimeMaria Callas. In the context of the opera, this aria falls at the end of the secondact. The heroine, Floria Tosca, is begging the evil baron Scarpia for mercy onher lover, the heroic tenor Cavaradossi, currently being imprisoned by Scarpia.She exclaims, “I lived for art, I lived for love, I’ve never harmed a living soul /Vissi d’arte, Vissi d’amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva.”

—Dr. Kristin Ditlow, 2018

Recording Engineers: John C. Baker & Sam Ward, AFFETTO Records,*Margaret Elizabeth Rincon**Editing and Mastering Engineer: Sam Ward, AFFETTO RecordsProducers: Robert McAnally Adams,* Peter Gilbert**Piano Technicians: Machiko Sobrin,* Fred Sturm**Creative Director & Album Photography: Kristin DitlowGraphic Design: Jana DeWittFunding: Peter O’Donnell Foundation, Dallas Symphony

*Lawrenceville, NJ Sessions, December 2014 **Albuquerque, NM Sessions, January 2017

Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) Sonata no. 6 for violoncello or viola1. Adagio 4:212. Allegro 5:15

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) 3. Romance 7:564. “Whither Must I Wander,” from Songs ofTravel (arr. Rose-Ditlow) 4:38

George Enescu (1881-1955)5. Concertstück (Concertpiece) 9:30

8 88295 72987 1

distributed by

� & � 2018 AFFETTO RecordingsAffetto Recordings, LLC61 Nassau Street, Princeton NJ 08542 USA

PROVIDENCEEllen Rose, violaKristin Ditlow, piano

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) 6. “Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus,” from Quatour pour la f in du temps (arr. Rose) 9:37

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)Sonata for viola (or violoncello) and piano7. Impetuoso 9:328. Vivace 4:179. Adagio 13:12

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)10. “Vissi d’arte,” from Tosca (arr. Rose-Ditlow) 3:18