by Annie Liu
Annie is a PhD student in musicology at Princeton University. She received her MA in Musicology, MM in Bassoon Performance and a Certificate in New Media and Culture from the University of Oregon in 2024. She received her BS in General Science and BMA in Bassoon Performance from Penn State University as a Schreyer Honors Scholar in 2021. As a 2022-23 inaugural Cykler Song Scholar, she created a public musicology resource about popular music in Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s (shanghaisong.org). Outside of academics, Annie enjoys playing the bassoon, training for triathlons, and hanging out with her cat, Mouse.
Gustav Mahler | Rückert-Lieder for Mezzo-Soprano, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Piano (arr. Stéphane Fromageot)
Many know Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) for his expansive symphonic works and emotionally expressive songs, produced during a crucial transition between Austro-German Romanticism and twentieth century modernism in Western classical music. Mahler wrote his Rückert-Lieder in the first few years of the twentieth century while conducting and composing in Vienna. During this time, he experienced success in both his life and career, marrying Alma Schindler in 1902, welcoming daughters Maria Anna and Anna in 1902 and 1904, and successfully premiering his Third, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies. In total, Mahler set ten poems by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), a German poet and translator whose poetry had previously been set to music by composers like Franz Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. Five of these settings later became the Kindertotenlieder cycle (Songs on the Death of Children), based on Rückert’s loss of two children to scarlet fever, a tragic experience that Mahler related to due to many of his siblings passing away during his childhood. The other five became known as the Rückert-Lieder, a collection of songs that are less formally related yet united by Rückert’s thoughts on love and observations of the world. Originally written for voice and orchestra, here Rückert-Lieder is reimagined by Stéphane Fromageot for voice and piano quartet, tenderly rendering this song collection in an intimate chamber setting.
The first movement, “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft” (“I breathed a gentle scent”), describes the narrator lightly breathing in the scent of a linden branch, a gift from a dear lover. Accordingly, the texture of the ensemble is spare and delicate over a bed of running eighth-notes, capturing the process of inhaling the ephemeral linden fragrance and savoring its expression of love. Next, “Liebst du um Schönheit” (“If you love for beauty”) depicts a speaker who urges their counterpart not to love them for beauty, youth, or wealth, but only to love them for love. This song was a gift from Mahler to his wife Alma, perhaps an expression of his lack of wealth or physical youth and beauty. The verses are primarily strophic with a thick, lush accompaniment until the final verse that begins with “Liebst du um Liebe” (“If you love for love”), where Mahler opens up time and space, allowing the voice and instruments to linger on a proclamation of love forevermore.
“Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder” (“Do not look at my songs”) warns the self and others against looking or watching when unsuitable. Once again, Mahler places running eighth notes throughout the instruments, this time invoking a moodiness that aligns with the angularity in the voice. The fourth movement, “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I am lost to the world”) expresses Mahler’s interior state of mind and his position as a solitary, withdrawn figure within the expanse of the world. Here, he displays his powerful lyrical writing, interweaving the often-muted instruments with the voice to create a somber and plaintive atmosphere that concludes with a sense of finally being at peace. Lastly, “Um Mitternacht” (“At midnight”), the longest song in the collection, takes the listener on an ever-deepening journey into the nighttime. Mahler’s recurring motifs throughout the movement, including descending scales and minor third oscillations, paint a dark picture of nocturnal contemplation and isolation with a grand, exclamatory conclusion.
Clancy Newman | Palindromic Variations for String Trio
Clancy Newman is a cellist and composer who serves on the faculty of Princeton University and teaches both privately and at the Maine Chamber Music Seminar. He has enjoyed a wide-ranging career as a performer, soloing with orchestras across the globe and winning numerous awards and competitions. Newman attended the Columbia-Juilliard exchange program, studying both English and music performance. He also frequently appears as a guest lecturer, teaching his Golden Ratio Method for composition or skills like video editing and acting. Newman’s creative “Pop-Unpopped” project features his adaptations of pop songs into solo cello caprices, including songs like Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” and Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.”
As a composer, Newman has written works for the cello and chamber ensembles, including his 2023 string trio Palindromic Variations, commissioned by violinist Tai Murray. The work premiered at the Yale School of Music featuring Tai Murray on violin, Ettore Causa on viola, and Clancy Newman on cello. Unlike a traditional theme and variations, as indicated by the title, this piece is exactly the same whether performed forwards or backwards. Indeed, even the section titles within the piece are palindromic:
Theme
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Variation 4
Variation 5
Variation 6
Coda-adoC
6 noitairaV
5 noitairaV
4 noitairaV
3 noitairaV
2 noitairaV
1 noitairaV
emehT
True to Newman’s diverse profile as a musician, Palindromic Variations features a variety of musical styles, textures, and techniques, exploring the full range of sonic possibilities available to a string trio. Listen closely as what was previously played returns in recognizable albeit reversed order, playing with our senses of expectation and temporality. You may even identify a previously undetectable nursery rhyme melody!
Arnold Schoenberg | Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4
Few composers have had a greater impact on Western art music than Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), an Austro-Hungarian composer responsible for key modernist innovations like the emancipation of the dissonance and twelve-tone technique. Verklärte Nacht or Transfigured Night for string sextet represents Schoenberg’s early tonal compositional style, written soon after he studied with composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. During this time, Schoenberg met Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde, whom he would then marry in 1901. This tone poem for chamber ensemble was inspired by a Richard Dehmel poem from the Weib und Welt cycle. The poem, written in 1896, follows a man and a woman on a walk in a dark forest lit by the moon; the woman reveals to the man that she is pregnant with another man’s child, and the man assures her that through their love, he will consider the child his own. The work premiered in Vienna in March of 1902 by an expanded Rosé Quartet, receiving unfavorable reviews from the conservative Viennese audience due to its daring chromaticism and the risqué subject matter of the Dehmel poem. However, the piece gradually became accepted and even celebrated, impressing Richard Dehmel himself as well as other composers like Gustav Mahler. Schoenberg later revisited Verklärte Nacht, expanding the arrangement for string orchestra.
Verklärte Nacht is structured in five sections, following the five stanzas in the Dehmel poem: an introductory description of the scene, the woman’s confession, an interlude while they walk, the man’s response of acceptance and forgiveness, and the couple’s reconciliation. This narrative is reflected in the rondo-like ABACA pattern found in the piece, where the A section corresponds to the moonlit walk, B represents the confession, and C is the man’s reply. Following the contours of the narrative, Schoenberg first sets the scene, elaborating on the emotions of the woman’s confession with a heartfelt climax. He then answers her tragic statement with the generosity and love of the man, ending with a coda that restates yet transforms the previous musical themes to depict a true relational transfiguration.
About the Artists
Founded during the Princeton University Concerts 1994–1995 centennial season, the Richardson Chamber Players is our resident ensemble comprised of performance faculty, distinguished guest artists, and supremely talented students. The performance faculty share the artistic direction and seek to present repertoire of works for singular combinations of instruments and voices, which would otherwise remain unheard. Today’s program was conceived and organized by violist Jessica Thompson.
Dr. Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano, is a singer, conductor, educator, and composer. She was a member of the world-renowned vocal quartet Anonymous 4, recording twelve award-winning CDs with the group, including American Angels which twice topped Billboard’s classical music charts, and The Cherry Tree, one of the top selling classical CDs of 2010. Anonymous 4′s performance of the Irish lament “Caoineadh” on Christopher Tin’s album Calling All Dawns, with Jacqueline as featured soloist, led to a Grammy for Best Classical Music Crossover Album. She is currently Artistic Director of ModernMedieval Voices, a women’s ensemble dedicated to creating programs that combine early music with new commissions. Dr. Horner-Kwiatek has a D.M.A. from The Juilliard School and is on the performance faculty at Princeton University, where she teaches voice in addition to being Director of the Early Music Princeton Singers and Associate Director of the Vocal Consort, part of the Minor in Music Performance Program. She is in demand as a clinician and gives masterclasses, ensemble technique workshops, and vocal pedagogy for composers seminars all over the USA. Her website is ModernMedieval.org.
Pianist Margaret Kampmeier enjoys a varied career as soloist, collaborative artist, and educator. Equally fluent in classical and contemporary repertoire, she has concertized and recorded extensively. She has performed with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic Ensembles, Kronos Quartet, and Mirror Visions Ensemble. She co-founded New Millennium Ensemble, a new music sextet that won the 1995 Naumburg chamber music award. As orchestral keyboardist, she performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as the New York Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Kampmeier can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, CRI, Koch, Nonesuch, and Bridge labels. Ms. Kampmeier teaches piano and chamber music at Princeton University. She is also on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Kampmeier earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, and is deeply grateful for the shared wisdom of her mentors, Barry Snyder, Jan Degaetani, Julius Levine, and Gilbert Kalish.
Violinist Anna Lim has taught violin for 20 years at Princeton University. She is a founding member of the Laurel Piano Trio, which won the ProPiano and Concert Artists Guild Competitions and performed extensively throughout the US. As the violinist of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, she has premiered and recorded the music of numerous 20th and 21st century composers. She joined the Manhattan String Quartet in 2019. Anna is a faculty member and artistic advisor of the Maine Chamber Music Seminar and appears regularly at Prussia Cove in the UK, the Portland Chamber Music Festival and White Mountains Music Festival. She is a frequent guest of the contemporary music collective, Talea Ensemble. Anna serves as the faculty advisor for Princeton University’s Trenton Youth Orchestra. She received a BA from Harvard University in History and Literature and completed her Diplom at the Mozarteum in Salzburg under violinist Sandor Vegh.
Cellist Maurice Neuman, 19, is a sophomore at Princeton University. Previously a student of Professor Hans Jørgen Jensen, he now studies with Professor Clancy Newman. Maurice was Principal Cellist of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra’s top orchestra and Principal Cellist of the 2023 ILMEA All-State Honors Orchestra. He has soloed with the DePaul, Lakeview, and Northwest symphony orchestras. Maurice is first prize winner of the 2023 George Gershwin International Music Competition, 2023 19th Century Charleston International Music Competition, and 2024 Grand Prize 2nd Place Winner of the Chicago International Music Competition, among others. He attended Greenwood Music Camp for six summers, has appeared as a concert artist at ChamberFest Brown County, and attended Music@Menlo as a Young Performer last summer. Maurice has been featured on New York’s Classical Music Radio Station, WQXR. He is a member of the Princeton University Orchestra, the Princeton Nassoons, and plays in various chamber ensembles.
Cellist Clancy Newman has enjoyed an extraordinarily wide-ranging career, not only as a cellist, but also as a composer, producer, writer, and educator. First prize winner of the Naumburg International Competition and recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has performed as soloist throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. He has been a featured composer on series by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and his “Pop-Unpopped” project has expanded cello technique in ways heretofore unimagined. Currently teaching at Princeton University, Mr. Newman is a graduate of the five-year exchange program between Columbia University and The Juilliard School.
Violist Jason Seo is a junior economics major at Princeton University, pursuing a certificate in political economy and a minor in music performance. In 2022, Jason performed at Carnegie Hall and toured Europe as part of NYO-USA with conductor Daniel Harding and guest cellist Alisa Weilerstein. He was also the principal violist of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and a music finalist in the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program. At Princeton, Jason is a member of the Princeton University Orchestra and OPUS Chamber Music. He is also a volunteer viola instructor for the Trenton Youth Orchestra. Jason has formerly studied with Ms. Amy Chang at the William Pu Music Academy, as well as with Mr. Zhenwei Shi, the principal violist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he studies with Ms. Jessica Thompson at Princeton.
Violist Jessica Thompson is a passionate chamber musician and educator who performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad as a member of the Daedalus Quartet. The quartet, in residence at the University of Pennsylvania, has premiered works by such composers as Fred Lerdahl, Joan Tower, Richard Wernick, and Vivian Fung. Ms. Thompson has appeared in recital in New York,
Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Princeton, NJ, and has performed at numerous festivals, including Portland (ME), Charlottesville, Mimir, Halcyon, Bard Summerscapes, and Skaneateles. She performs regularly as a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra and the String Orchestra of NYC and teaches at Princeton and Columbia Universities, as well as at the Maine Chamber Music
Seminar. Ms. Thompson performs on an instrument made in 1818 in Milan by Giacomo Rivolta.
Violinist Tienne Yu is a senior in the Molecular Biology department and pursuing a minor in music performance (violin). Originally from Marlboro, New Jersey, she studied abroad at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London during the autumn term of 2024. While studying at RCM, she took 1-on-1 lessons for violin, courses on music history and different musical techniques, and played in numerous performances with orchestras and in smaller group ensembles.
