By 1886, after his early years of disappointment, poverty and struggle, Antonín Dvořák had become one of the leading composers in the world. That summer, submitting to the regular pestering of his publisher, Fritz Simrock, he completed a sequel (for piano duet) to the wildly successful set of Slavonic Dances of 1878, and then set out on a concert tour, his fifth, of Great Britain. Dvořák was easily the most revered musician in England since Mendelssohn, and several important cities vied for the privilege of premiering his oratorio St. Ludmila. Leeds won the honor, and he conducted the first performance of the work there on October 15th. He returned to Prague three weeks later, spent an arduous two months orchestrating the new set of Slavonic Dances, and then turned to less strenuous projects.

Living at the same address as Dvořák during the winter of 1887 was a chemistry student and amateur violinist named Josef Kruis. Composer and chemist struck up a friendship, and in the space of just one week (January 7-14), Dvořák composed a trio for Kruis and the young man’s teacher, Jan Pelikán, a violinist with the Prague National Theater Orchestra, and himself as violist. (Dvořák had played viola in the National Orchestra many years before.) This Terzetto (Op. 74) proved too difficult for Kruis’ limited technique, however, so the following week Dvořák wrote a simpler set of four Bagatelles for two violins and viola, which he shortly thereafter arranged for violin and piano as the Four Romantic Pieces, Op. 75. Both works were first played publicly in Prague on March 30th. Simrock, who constantly badgered Dvořák to write short, easily salable works in the manner of the Slavonic Dances (from which the publisher got very rich), quickly snapped up the Terzetto and the Romantic Pieces, and issued them later that year.

The Terzetto opens with a lyrical movement of quiet melancholy which Dvořák labeled “Introduction” that leads through a series of harmonic peregrinations directly to the Larghetto, a warmly emotional wordless song that becomes more rhythmically animated in its middle regions. The Scherzo proper makes use of the vivacious Bohemian dance mannerisms that Dvořák favored in many of the works of his maturity, while the movement’s central trio is in the style of the waltz-like Ländler. The finale is a set of variations on a harmonically mischievous theme that courses through sections in both slow and fast tempos before ending with a lively dash to the close.

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Jasmine Barnes was born in Baltimore and took advantage of every musical opportunity during her education in the city’s schools, participating in classes, ensembles and programs at the Baltimore School for the Arts, Arena Players (the oldest continually performing historically African-American community theatre in the United States), AKAdemy Dance Collective and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), as well as playing in the marching, concert and pep bands at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, her own high school. Her rich musical experiences as a young student instilled in her a continuing passion for teaching others — one of her aspirations is creating a non-profit organization to bring art lessons to low-income communities.

Barnes undertook her professional training at Morgan State University, a public, historically Black research university in Baltimore, where she studied voice and composition and performed and composed works for the choir, early products of her continuing interest in writing music for voice. She was the first graduate of Morgan State with a major in composition, and stayed at the school for graduate work with noted composer James Lee III.

After receiving her master’s degree in 2018, Barnes was appointed Head of Composition and Jazz Voice at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. In 2019, she partnered with the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas in creating a composition competition for her students to write an original piece for the Center’s chandelier, a spectacular array of L.E.D acrylic light rods that change in color and configuration as they are lifted into the ceiling before every performance to the accompaniment of specially composed music. During her three years teaching at Booker T. Washington, Barnes received honors from the National Young Arts Foundation, American Composer’s Forum, and NextNotes High School Music Creator Competition. Since 2021, Barnes has devoted herself primarily to composition, fulfilling commissions from Washington National Opera, Resonance Ensemble, LyricFest Philadelphia, Baltimore Choral Arts and Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Symphony Number One, winning the Black Brilliance Award from the Pleiades Project and Brinkley Fine Arts First Place Award of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, having her works performed by the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra, Portland Opera, Tulsa Opera, Hampsong Foundation (at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany) and other noted ensembles and soloists, and serving as Composer Fellow at the Chautauqua Institution in 2021. She is currently Resident Artist of the American Lyric Theater in the Composer Librettist Development Program.

Might Call You Art, set to poetry by Cleveland native Weatherspoon, was commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland in 2021 for premiere at this concert.

Notes from Jasmine Barnes
I decided on that title because of a line in the last song of the cycle, America’s Mandatory Pottery Class, which states, ‘If you could just keep your hands where everyone could see them and stay still, some- thing beautiful might happen. They might call you art and fall away.’ I found that line highly appropriate for the entire work in embodying the overall statement of each piece.

Let Me. My thought in setting this text was to capture an almost playful sound that tends toward sarcasm. This piece, coming from a child’s perspective, offers some advice to adults: ‘Remember, young is a circumstance, not a person- ality.’ I perceived this to be a bold statement about ageism, namely that a child shouldn’t be treated as just a child, but as a person with individual, complex needs and dreams. I tried to capture the wittiness of children in this movement, and also thought that it ties into the overall theme of Might Call you Art by urging adults to ‘stay still’ and realize that the capabilities of children far out- weigh the limited box into which most put them.

Once You Get It They Move It. I believe this piece to represent the way people of color feel when trying to achieve what they’re told to be good for them to keep up with society, but then society changes, making life a constant game of cat-and-mouse. In the opening and closing sections, written in an unsettled meter, the repeating viola line represents the status quo, dictating where society would like everyone to go. The cello and violin 2 illustrate how the oppressed try to keep up with that status quo, while violin 1 represents individual thought, which might influence the status quo without any recognition from society, much as Black culture changes society without being recognized for it. The movement’s central section, in a steady triple meter, emphasizes the text,

“My heart behind some white picket fence I’d just recently learned to want. It’s not enough dream space for all the dreams I keep folding. There’s not enough air in my lungs to filter out all the dreams I’ve been holding.” I thought this piece tied to the overall theme of the cycle because it indicates the lack of respect given to the individual by society, with its ever-changing opinions and rules.

Ambition. This song was intended to capture a nostalgia based in R&B as well as in marching band music, specifically that of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The text in the vocal line is set like an R&B song, with the characteristic decorating notes of that genre notated in the score.

The piece is about the inspiration behind ambition — hope for tomorrow. My hope is that tomorrow allows for classical compositions, such as this song, that are influenced by other genres. Genre fusion is valid.

America’s Mandatory Pottery Class. The chord progressions of this song are somewhat unpredictable but still familiar, much as the text illustrates America shaping and molding Black individuals like pottery while still refus- ing to allow liberty and justice for all. The song begins with the opening phrase of The Star-Spangled Banner — Oh say can you see? — posing the question: Can you see what people of color are actually going through in America? That reference is followed by a quote from the gospel song Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, which represents how Black people feel in America, often not claimed as American, often feeling they have no place in America. The line, ‘the convent of being Black comes with a grief that shapes and molds’ is meant to feel heavy and weighed down ... and heavier and even more weighed down with each repeat. [The word “convent” comes from the Latin for “assembly” or “community” and here may indicate a group of people set apart.] The line, “If you could just keep your hands where everyone could see them and stay still” is set sarcastically, illustrating the attitude and perspective of those who accuse Black people of wrong-doing when encountering racial profiling. They believe this to be a solution when the problem isn’t about the actions of the oppressed, but more about the actions of the oppressor. The section starting with the line, ‘Something beautiful might happen...’ is also set sarcastically because of the text. The piece ends with the return of The Star-Spangled Banner and Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, which asks an essential question — ‘Oh Say can you see (that) sometimes I feel like a motherless child?’ I believe this message is wrapped in each song of the cycle.”

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Let Me

Let me learn you a lesson in the hopes that it protects you, And maybe gets you to heaven.
Let me fall on this sword in front of you,
So you don’t have to pay out of pocket for points of view Too many children do.
Remember,
Young is a circumstance, Not a personality.

Once You Get It They Move It

Glorified ashtrays and cupholders we are, Of things that absorb,
And do not burn.
To break down and break down again, Swisher guts in a solo cup,
My heart,
Behind some white picket fence
I had just recently learned to want.
There’s not enough dream-space
For all the dreams that I keep folding, There’s not enough air in my lungs To filter out
All the heat that I’ve been holding.
Once you get it,
That elusive and hard-come-by thing, Through trials of justice, fire,
And other error,
They move it,
So you are never keeping up
Enough.

Ambition

My little cousins think
Ambition comes from the waist down.
I think it comes from where we come from, But they never listen when I say that.
I think we’re all connected,
But some connections are stronger than others. I know what the bottom feels like.
The taste of pavement is always as fresh
As the tongue you sport.
Some black boys with purple lips
Learn the speech patterns of night time,
To coax their livelihoods to sleep,
While they stay up,
To protect themselves,
And never dare to dream.
I think ambition is the courage
To take a nap when you have doubts
About waking up.
It’s that football filled with faith
That we learn to throw far into the future.
It’s that girl we settle down with.
It’s that project we’re working on.
It’s that conversation in the barbershop
About who’s going to win the play-offs.
All of these things wear the shadow
Of the promise to ourselves,
That we are going to make it
To tomorrow.

America’s Mandatory Pottery Class

This is America’s mandatory pottery class,
The convent of being Black comes with a grief that shapes and molds As if,
“If you would just keep your hands
Where everyone could see them,
And stay still”
Something beautiful might happen,
They might call you art
And fall away.
They might indulge your life one last time,
And mark you a fine investment,
They might decide you exist better
As a person, as an artist,
Than another news story.

Charles V. Rychlik was a musical godfather to three generations of Cleveland violinists. Rychlik (r-EYE-ch-lik) was born in Cleveland in 1875 to Bohemian parents and introduced to violin by his father, who was serious enough about his son’s instruction with the Cleveland-born, Leipzig-trained composer and violinist Johann Beck that he forbid Charley to play sports for fear of injuring his fingers. Rychlik progressed rapidly and by age twelve he was performing around town and teaching neighborhood children; two years later he became the youngest member of the local musicians’ union. Rychlik studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1891 until his graduation in 1895, and remained in Prague until returning home late the following year, allowing him to play with the city’s opera orchestra, join the celebrated Bohemian String Quartet, and meet Antonín Dvořák, who returned in April 1895 after directing the National Conservatory in New York for three years. They became friends, and Rychlik was frequently entertained at Dvořák’s home, who looked over his young colleague’s compositions in return for practicing his English with him. During a memorable tour stop in Vienna with the Bohemian Quartet on March 27, 1896, Rychlik visited Anton Bruckner in the morning, had lunch with Johannes Brahms, and played before both Brahms and Dvořák at that evening’s Quartet concert.

After a brief stop in Cleveland late in 1896, Rychlik joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, founded five years before by conductor Theodore Thomas. Upon the death of his father, in 1901, Rychlik returned for good to Cleveland, where he began teaching in earnest and played with the Cleveland Philharmonic String Quartet and with the variously titled orchestras (frequently conducted by his early teacher Johann Beck) that were the forerunners of today’s Cleveland Orchestra, which was established in 1918 by philanthropist and administrator Adella Prentiss Hughes and conductor Nikolai Sokoloff. Rychlik was a charter member of the Cleveland Orchestra for two years — his compositions Caprice and Elegy were performed during the ensemble’s first season and two others before 1921 — but resigned to devote himself to composition and teaching, which he regarded as his true vocation. He taught hundreds of students during the following decades, some forty of whom became members of the Cleveland Orchestra, and completed his monumental Encyclopedia of Violin Technique, a twenty-year project that eventually filled 6,000 pages and 25 volumes. (The Cleveland Public Library digitized the entire Encyclopedia and made it available on its web site: cdm16014.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16014coll30/ search) Charles Rychlik died in Cleveland on December 6, 1962 and was buried at Lake View Cemetery. A scholarship fund was established in his memory at the Cleveland Music School Settlement, and on June 14, 1964, a plaque was dedi- cated to him in the Czech Cultural Garden in Rockefeller Park, watched over there by a bust of his friend and mentor, Antonín Dvořák.

Though his reputation rests largely on his tireless pedagogy, Rychlik also composed a number of short orchestral pieces, which were performed in Cleveland, Detroit, Rochester and elsewhere, as well as some thirty recital pieces for his own instrument. His Sonata for Violin and Viola was published in Prague in 1930 with a dedication to Dudley S. Blossom, the Cleveland business- man and philanthropist who headed the campaign that raised the funds required to match John L. Severance’s $2.5 million donation to build the hall whose name honors Severance’s late wife. Blossom was also president of the Musical Arts Association and a trustee of the Negro Welfare Fund, University Hospitals and Cleveland College; the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer home was named in honor of the Blossom family. The opening movement of Rychlik’s Duo Sonata follows a modified sonata form with an animated main theme carried along on triplet rhythms and a broad, melodic second subject introduced by the viola. Both motives figure in the development section and are given abbreviated reprises in the recapitulation that rounds out the movement.

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Jessica Meyer, born in 1974 in New York City and educated at Juilliard, has performed, she says, “everything from Bach to rock” as a violist on modern and period instruments and composed a variety of vocal and instrumental works. In 2019, her first composer-performer portrait album (Ring Out on the Bright Shiny Things label) debuted at Number One on the Billboard traditional classical chart. Meyer has performed widely as a violist, most notably in solo performances that draw on a wide range of influences, from Bach and Brahms to delta blues, flamenco, Indian raga, and Appalachian fiddling, which have been seen in New York, Pittsburgh, Paris, Singapore, Switzerland, Vietnam, the Emirates and else- where. Though she has long improvised and created pieces for her own shows, Meyer only began composing seriously around 2015. She has quickly developed a reputation as a composer with performances by several American orchestras and new works for the American Brass Quintet, Roomful of Teeth, St. Lawrence String Quartet and A Far Cry, this last commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which allowed her to live in the museum for a week to find inspiration for the work. Meyer was Composer-in- Residence at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2021, received the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer’s Award for a composition for the Bangor Symphony’s 2022-2023 season, and fulfilled additional commissions for GAEA, a viola concerto for herself with the League of Composers Orchestra, and a project with the Juilliard School Historical Performance Program. Jessica Meyer is also a passionate educator who has conducted hundreds of workshops for Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Caramoor, Little Orchestra Society, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music, Longy School of Music, NYU, and many other schools and universities around the country.

Jessica Meyer wrote of Welcome to the Broken Hearts Club, commissioned in 2021 by CityMusic Cleveland and set to poems by Cleveland native Weatherspoon, “Upon reading Weatherspoon’s poetry for the first time, it seemed impossible that it was written by someone who was only seventeen. The verses speaking about the glory, the beauty, the awkwardness, and the inconvenience of love reflected those of someone in their forties instead of the young person who created them.

“Then I remember how I was at that age: full of feelings and in need of a place to park them. I started creating my own music at seventeen, and much of what I was writing about dealt with the same issues Weatherspoon is tackling so viscerally in his poems. In Welcome to the Broken Hearts Club, I sequenced a handful of their [the poet’s preferred pronoun] poems to create somewhat of a narrative about these different aspects of love while also taking inspiration from various kinds of song genres — Art Song and Opera to Broadway and Pop. Most of all, I tried to paint an aural canvas that gives much room to showcase the gravitas of the text.”

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I. Between Us – Stuck in the Middle – The Saddest Thing You’ll Ever Hear

Love is not so short a feeling
That fits between us.
We are in it,
The way we are in the world.

Like is too juvenile a word,
Love is too old.
So we’re stuck in the middle
As children often are,
With everywhere to go but home.

The saddest thing you’ll ever hear is that
Your friend doesn’t believe in love,
And that life might be okay without it,
Because you’ll wonder who taught them to settle,
And who taught you to move.

II. Better Love – Georgia Peach Tree

My brother told me once,
That his girlfriend left him for someone else,
I said to him sadly,
That we compete with comfort
For better love,
Not with people.

Relationships are shaky,
I know and embrace it,
Sorry, I wasted your time,
An extroverted, claustrophobic Feeling, like love,
It don’t come easy.

It grows like a Georgia peach tree When it’s big, it’s beautiful,
When it’s not
People step on it
I sort of stepped on you,
And I’ll learn from it.

III. On Love – Welcome

Love is a damp corner of a dark room
Where the bugs come in.
It is potential on ice in a rink
That no one seems to have brought The right shoes for.
I mean it is inconvenient, funny, Poorly timed, full of uneven steps, And unwanted company.

I’m still seventeen, so chew my words
Before you swallow them,
But understand when I say,
However clumsily and in juvenile tender, That I care, and it’s nice, and it hurts, And I call it love.

Welcome to the broken hearts club
Where healing is not so rare that we don’t sing about it,
But not so common that we know the words
To any of these songs.