Fantasia on Greensleeves                                              Ralph Vaughan-Williams/Fackler
                            horn, harp, oboe


Entr'acte from Act III                                                     Georges Bizet/Fackler
 from Carmen
                            horn, harp, oboe

Divertimento pour Cor d'Harmonie en Fa et Harpe        Gasparo-Luigi Spontini
                               horn, harp

Algues (7 pièces pour Hautbois et Harpe)                        Bernard Andrés
                            harp, oboe

Five-Olé(España)                                                             Jeanne Singer
     from Suite for Horn and Harp
                            horn, harp

Guitare Pièce caractéristique pour la Harpe Op. 50        Alphonse Hasselmans
                            harp

A Swan's Song                                                                 Saint-Saëns/Carlos Salzeo/Fackler
                        horn, harp, oboe

View Me Lord, A Work of Thine                                    Jackson Berkey/Fackler
                           horn, harp, oboe

Joys of Spring Waltz                                                        Adam Geibel/Fackler

British composer Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958) was among the first to collect and notate folk songs and carols which were becoming extinct. He edited the English Hymnal and the Oxford Book of Carols and composed several hymns that became world wide favorites including For All the Saints and Come Down O Love Divine.

Legend holds that Greensleeves was composed by Henry the VII for Anne Boelyn. The first record of the tune in print dates to 1585. Vaughan-Williams’s Fantasia on Greensleeves includes  the English folk tune Lovely June in the contrasting middle section.  The Fantasia was originally an interlude for his opera Sir John With Love.

Gaspare-Luigi Spontini (1774-1851) served as a church musician and worked in Napoleon Bonaparte’s court. Spontini had relocated to Paris where he found earning a living as a composer difficult. Earning the favor of Empress Josephine, he secured the position of imperial typesetter. It was through Josephine’s fondness for his music that he gained acclaim as a composer of opera. In 1811 he married Marie-Céleste Erárd, niece of the famous piano and harp builder Sebastien Erárd. Erárd’s innovations in the mechanism of the double-action harp changed the way harps were built, and are still incorporated into modern pedal harps. As a composer, Spontini is best known for his operas. His marriage into the Erárd family may explain this work for harp.

Bernard Andrés combines composing with his position as principal harpist with the French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. His innovative ways to pull new sounds from the harp does so in ways that embellish the entire effect, rather than presenting a special effect as a mere novelty. Andrés admits to preferring short musical ideas and the breaking of Algues into seven short movements is typical of his work. The title, Algues, literally means ‘algae’.

Jeanne Singer, composer and pianist, set over one hundred fifty poems to music as art songs, choral works and vocal-chamber settings combining voice with solo instruments. She has composed a number of chamber works for various combinations of instruments including flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp, violin, viola, cello, piano.

The Suite for Horn and Harp was commissioned by a Jeanne Fintz Goldstein and Arthur E. Goldstein, a husband and wife horn and harp duo in 1980. Jeannne Singer died in June of 2000.

Five-Olé is a quick romp in 5/8 time where the two instruments trade melodic and accompanimental roles.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 -1921) was for nearly twenty years organist at the Madeleine in Paris and taught at the École Niedermeyer, where he befriended his pupil Gabriel Fauré. One of his most well known works is The Carnival of the Animals, from which The Swan(Le Cygne) is extracted. The original work was a private joke for the enjoyment of the composer's friends and except for The Swan, Saint-Saëns refused to allow performances until after his death. Russian choreographer Michel Fokine used Le Cygne for ballerina Anna Pavlova's signature solo dance “The Dying Swan” in 1905. The poem by Sara Yarrow, A Swan’s Song, added in this version by composer/harpist Carlos Salzedo(1885-1961) reflects the interpretation by Fokine. Salzedo is one of this century's most respected(and sometimes controversial) harp teachers. Salzedo established the harp department at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924 and founded the Salzedo Summer Harp Colony, in Camden, Maine, where he taught until his death in 1961. The Colony serves harp students from around the world today. Salzedo’s version of The Swan is scored for voice, cello and harp. In our version, horn replaces the cello, oboe replaces the voice, and missing segments of Saint-Saëns’ original melody are restored.
 
With roots in classical music, Jackson Berkey’s published works include 300 compositions for solo voice, solo instruments, choir, orchestra, and chamber groups. An ASCAP award-winning composer, his works receive hundreds of performances and recordings from professional choral and chamber music ensembles each year. Jackson is also well-known nationally as a pianist and recording artist and the featured keyboardist on Mannheim Steamroller’s Fresh Aire and platinum Christmas recordings.

The text source for View Me, Lord, A Work Of Thine is English poet and composer Thomas Campion (1567-1610). Campion supplied texts and music for masques of the court of James the First. Berkey's setting repeats the second verse as a refrain, ending the piece with the echoing repetition of "endless, endless, endless days", painting a picture of God's faithfulness to his covenants. The version here has been arranged for our trio with the blessing of the composer, for which we are grateful. The vocal line is played by the oboe.

View Me Lord, A Work of Thine
 ~Thomas Campion

View Me, Lord, A Work of Thine;
Shall I then lie drown'd in night?
Might Thy grace in me but shine,
I should seem made all of light.

Worldly joys like shadows fade,
When the heav'nly light appears;
But the cov'nants Thou has made,
Endless, know nor days, nor years.

In Thy word, Lord, is my trust;
To Thy mercies fast I fly;
Though I am but clay and dust,
Yet Thy grace can lift me high.


Adam Geibel (1855-1933) was a successful composer, conductor, and organist. Blinded at age 8 by an untreated eye infection, he studied at the Philadelphia Institute for the Blind, and wrote a number of Gospel songs, anthems, cantatas, as well as popular music. His best known hymn is Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus. During his lifetime, parlor music was very popular and within that genre, “waltz-songs” became a staple. The Joys of Spring Waltz is typical of this form and was published by Geibel in several versions, piano solo, chamber ensemble, women’s trio and piano/vocal. In the spirit of the parlor concert, we’ve arranged this delightful music for our own trio.