Spoleto Backstage

On this first episode of Spoleto Backstage for 2021, host Bradley Fuller is joined by Geoff Nuttall, the Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director of Chamber Music for Spoleto Festival USA, to discuss returning to the chamber music series after the cancellation of last year's festival. Then we hear the first concert from this year's series as the St. Lawrence String Quartet performs Franz Joseph Hayden's String Quartet, op. 76 no. 4 "Sunrise."

Spoleto Backstage returns for a brand new season as the Spoleto Festival USA resumes in-person performances for 2021.

In this final episode of Spoleto Backstage for 2020, cohosts Geoff Nuttall and Bradley Fuller mark the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth by taking a tour through the German composer’s three stylistic periods — early, middle, and late — with commentary and a listen to representative performances from the past twelve years of the Spoleto Festival chamber music series. After discussing Beethoven’s musical beginnings, Geoff and Bradley hear his Piano Trio Op. 1, No. 3, followed by the second and third movements of his Septet in E-flat major, Op. 20. The conversation then moves to Beethoven’s middle or “heroic” period, with performances of the haunting second movement of the composer’s “Ghost” Trio and the passionate opening movement of his “Kreutzer” sonata to illustrate this stylistic phase at the start of the Romantic era. A discussion of late-period Beethoven serves to introduce two pieces for string quartet by the composer, both from the final years of his life: the achingly beautiful fifth-movement Cavatina from his String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, op. 130, and the monumental Grosse Fuge, Op. 133.

This episode of Spoleto Backstage highlights the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with Spoleto chamber music series performances of two works representative of the German baroque composer’s prolific and wide-ranging output: his Concerto in C minor for violin and oboe, BWV 1060, and his cantata Ich habe genug, BWV 82. Before listening to these works as performed in the festival’s 2017 and 2011 seasons, hosts Geoff Nuttall and Bradley Fuller talk about Bach’s career and legacy, considering what his music means to them and the qualities that have ensured its appeal across centuries and cultures.

This episode of Spoleto Backstage rounds out Geoff Nuttall’s list of top Spoleto Festival chamber performances from the past decade with a 2011 program featuring Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667—better known as the “Trout” Quintet. As Geoff shares with Bradley Fuller in a conversation before the music begins, this sparkling chamber work gets both its nickname and the musical material for its theme-and-variations fourth movement from a catchy lied or art song Schubert wrote two years prior: “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”), op. 32, D. 550. Baritone Tyler Duncan performs this lied just before pianist Pedja Muzijevic joins string players Hsin-Yun Huang, Christopher Costanza, Anthony Manzo, and Geoff himself for the quintet it inspired. The concert opens with Niccolò Paganini’s fiendishly-difficult Moses Fantasy for cello and piano, a work based on an operatic aria by Gioachino Rossini and allegedly shaped by its composer’s prison sentence.

This episode of Spoleto Backstage highlights one of Geoff Nuttall’s all-time favorite programs from the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Series: the eleventh and final concert from the 2018 season. As Geoff discusses with Bradley Fuller before the music begins, the wide-ranging, variety-packed lineup of this program is emblematic of the chamber series as a whole. To start, the men of the Westminster Choir join the regular chamber musicians for a performance of Franz Schubert’s sublime choral setting of Goethe’s “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern.” Cellist Joshua Roman and pianist Gilles Vonsattel then perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102. Following the late Beethoven work is Antonio Vivaldi’s stormy “Summer” concerto from The Four Seasons. For the final two pieces of the program, tenor Paul Groves takes center stage with a performance of two hit arias: Gaetano Donizetti’s “Una furtiva lagrima” (from L’elisir d’amore) and Charles Gounod’s “Salut! Demeure chaste et pure” (from Faust).

In this episode of Spoleto Backstage, Geoff Nuttall and Bradley Fuller revisit another unforgettable program from the past decade of the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Series. Before moving to the music itself, the two hosts talk about what makes this 2016 concert a top-pick performance. Opening the program are two dazzling violin showpieces by Fritz Kreisler—his Praeludium and Allegro, as well as the Caprice Viennois, Op. 2. Violinist Benjamin Beilman performs both, accompanied by pianist Pedja Muzijevic. Composer Osvaldo Golijov then introduces his “Drag Down the Sky” (an aria from the opera Iphigenia), performed by baritone Tyler Duncan and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The concert concludes with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s captivating String Sextet in D minor, “Souvenir de Florence,” Op. 70. After the music, Geoff is joined by star cellist Alisa Weilerstein for a conversation covering everything from her current projects to a memorable interaction with pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.

This episode of Spoleto Backstage showcases a 2012 chamber series program bookended by late Romantic American works. Opening with Arthur Foote’s A Night Piece, the concert also features Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 in D Major, “The Clock” (arr. Salomon) before concluding with Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 67. Geoff Nuttall and Bradley Fuller talk about the selections and the backgrounds of those who wrote them ahead of the music itself.

This episode of Spoleto Backstage features another of Geoff Nuttall’s favorite programs from the past decade of the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Series. Before listening to the 2018 concert, Geoff and Bradley Fuller discuss the selections, paying special attention to the opening Vivaldi concerto for oboe and violin and emphasizing how the baroque composer’s hundreds of other concertos are anything but nothingburgers. Balancing the Vivaldi is the program’s concluding work: Johannes Brahms’ passionate Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25. After the music, Geoff catches up with pianist and frequent chamber series performer Inon Barnatan. The two talk about his career, special pandemic projects, and fond memories of past festivals.

In this episode of Spoleto Backstage, Geoff Nuttall and Bradley Fuller look back on a concert performed as part of the 2016 Spoleto Festival Chamber Music Series. After discussing what makes it one of the most memorable performances from the past decade of the series, the two enjoy a listen to the program. Andrew Norman’s Garden of Follies comes first, featuring oboist James Austin Smith and pianist Pedja Muzijevic. Next is a baroque-era work inspired by a Cervantes novel: Georg Philipp Telemann’s Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55:G10 “Burlesque de Quixotte.” The concert concludes with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, op. 19, performed by cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan. After the concert, Bradley catches up with pianist and chamber-series regular Pedja Muzijevic to learn more about his current projects, programming decisions, and musical career—including what makes his involvement with Spoleto Festival so rewarding.