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The Society wishes to thank John Moore for the program notes that he has written during the past five years. John, a professor in the School of Education at the Collge of William and Mary, is also an accomplished musician and musical scholar. Unfortunately for us, John has reached a new stage in his career which will require his full time and energy. His continuing contribution will be sorely missed.

Fortunately, Bruce Stewart has agreed to assume the job of providing the program notes for each concert, and we owe him our thanks. Bruce Stewart and Bill Bynum have compiled an archive of program notes that have appeared in the concert programs of the Society during the past decades. Through the use of this archive, we will be able to continue to enjoy the scholarly work of John Moore, Carl Dolmetsch, and Sidney Smith, as well as the new contributions of Bruce Stewart and other members of the chamber music community.

Haydn's Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano in D Major was one of three piano trios composed in 1789 or 1790 at the behest of the London publisher John Bland, who ventured to the Esterházy Palace in western Hungary to see Haydn in early 1790. Haydn contracted with Bland to provide three piano trios in which the flute would replace the traditional violin, probably as a concession to some of Bland's favorite clients. By April Haydn had delivered the trios to Bland (Hob. XV:15-17) and their publication was announced in June. As common in the early years of the piano trio's existence, the idea still prevailed that the piano should dominate with the flute and cello accompanying and the cello line being frequently tied to the piano's bass line. It fell to Mozart and Beethoven to achieve a realization of the piano trio form that exhibited a more democratic and equal sharing of the melody and creation of the musical structure.

Mozart's Die Zauberflöte was composed and premiered in 1791, the year of his death. Beethoven declared The Magic Fluteto be Mozart's greatest work, and this opera was the inspiration for two of Beethoven's variations for cello and piano. In 1796 Beethoven wrote Twelve variations on Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen (A Girl or a Woman), and in 1801 he wrote Seven Variations on Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen (In Men who feel Love). The theme of the latter is based on a love-duet sung by a soprano and a baritone (Pamina and Papageno) near the end of Act 1. The piano plays Pamina's initial declaration, and the cello follows with Papageno's response. Following the theme are seven brief elaborations of the theme.

Philippe Gaubert was a French flautist, composer and conductor born in 1879 in Cahors. He studied flute and composition at the Paris Conservatory and won first prize for flute at the age of 15 and a gold medal for composition from the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Paris (Prix de Rome) in 1905. He was a soloist with principal Paris orchestras, and, at the age of 40, was appointed a professor of flute at the Paris Conservatory, principal conductor of the Paris Opéra and principal conductor of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. He is best remembered as a conductor specializing in contemporary music and by flautists for his Méthode Compléte de Flûte. He was a prolific composer and wrote many works for flute, but also operas, a ballet, an oratorio, four symphonies, a violin concerto and numerous songs. In Trois Aquarelles Gaubert sought to reflect in music the watercolor technique by which paper remains transparent so that its structure is visible through and enhanced by addition of layers of colors. The work exhibits a rather Spanish style suggested by the imitation of castanets.

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer and organist born in Avignon in 1908. At the age of 8 he taught himself to play the piano and began to compose. He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 11, garnered first prizes in organ, improvisation and composition, and taught himself to recognize and notate bird songs and sounds. After graduation in 1930 he became organist at the Trinity Church in Paris, began teaching, and organized, with other young French composers, the group La Jeune France, to promote modern French music. At the beginning of World War II Messiaen was drafted into the French army, was captured shortly thereafter by the Germans and was held prisoner for two years in Stalag VIII-A at Görlitz, Silesia, where he composed one of his most well-known chamber works, Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time), which was scored for the four instruments available at the prison camp, piano, violin, cello and clarinet. After repatriation Messiaen was appointed professor at the Paris Conservatory and resumed his post as organist at the Trinity Church. He wrote extensive treatises on the technique of composition and other aspects of music. He was profoundly religious and had an unshakeable devotion to the Catholic Church. In composition Messiaen made use of a wide range of musical resources -- Hindu rhythmic patterns, exotic percussion instruments, Gregorian chant, and birdsong. La Mérle Noir was composed as a test piece for flautists seeking to enter the Paris Conservatory. Although some of the melodies and rhythms of this piece were derived from birdsong, it is unlikely that the harmonies were thus derived.

Closing the concert is another composition inspired by animal sound, "whalesong" this time, rather than birdsong. George Crumb is an American composer born into a musical family in Charleston, West Virginia. He studied in the United State and then in Berlin on a Fulbright fellowship. After returning to the United States he obtained a doctorate from the University of Michigan and thereafter earned his living as a professor of music in Virginia, Colorado and finally at the University of Pennsylvania. He has received numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for his Echoes of Time and the River. Crumb is an innovative composer of modern and avant garde music, known for his use of novel sounds and sonorities obtained from an enormous range of instrumental and vocal effects, ritualistic and exotic guises suggested for performers, music heard from offstage, unusual stage lighting and twists on listeners' anticipations. He utilizes such idiosyncratic means as amplification of classical instruments, tuned water goblets, placing of objects on or between the strings of pianos (that he referred to as "extended piano"), and spoken flute in which the flautist speaks or sings while blowing into the instrument. Late in the 1960s Crumb was transfixed by sounds emitted by a humpback whale as recorded by a marine scientist. These sounds were the inspiration for his Voice of the Whale, composed for the New York Camerata. The composer describes the piece as "a simple three part design, consisting of a Prologue, a set of variations named after the geological eras, and an epilogue".