Kevin Dusek, tenor; Melissa Wong, mezzo soprano; Nicolas A. Garcia, baritone; Chris Grady, trumpet; Russell Ryan, Piano; Sylvia O’Neill, Piano

Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 1

Franz Schubert: Fantasie, Op. 103, D. 940

Ned Rorem: Early in the Morning

George Frideric Handel: Sibilar gli angui d’Aletto from Rinaldo; from The Messiah O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion, The Trumpet Shall Sound

Stefano Donaudy: O del mio amato ben

Claude Debussy: Petite Suite

April 29 Program Notes by Sylvia Park O’Neill

The musicians of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral and Chinese Mission are pleased to present a varied program of piano, vocal, and trumpet music ranging from the Baroque majesty of The Messiah to the sense of intimacy and nostalgia that Kevin brings to the midcentury modern song “Early in the Morning” by Ned Rorem.

Russell and I will play the Schubert “Fantasie” as originally written for four hands at one piano. Occasionally this masterpiece is played on two pianos, as happened earlier in 2025 when Yuja Wang and Vikingur Olafsson played the piece in multiple venues, including Carnegie Hall. When playing on a single piano, the two players have to sit close together, which might be uncomfortable. This fact came home to me at the beginning of the pandemic as I realized there is no way to social distance while playing piano four hands. Recently, we were asked whether this piece would sound any different when played on two pianos. The only thing we could think of is that with two pianos, each player would have his or her pedal.

I’d like to say a word about the history of piano four-hand music. Piano four hands took Europe by storm in the nineteenth century. In those days, there were fewer opportunities to hear live music, and recording was not yet available. Piano four-hand arrangements filled the gap by providing a way for people to learn and study the canon of symphonic and operatic literature. Thus, playing piano four hands became a popular hobby to be enjoyed at home.

Many musicians and music lovers know this history. As Russell and I were practicing in the church, several visitors asked whether the composers or someone else had arranged the Slavonic Dances or the Petite Suite. They were surprised to learn these works had been originally written for piano four hands by Dvorak and Debussy. The orchestral versions known by the visitors were arrangements of the original piano four-hand music.

The only true four hand arrangement on today’s program is the accompaniment to Melissa’s beautiful singing in Handel’s “O That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion.” The arranger, Larry Shackley, noted that he had worked from the full orchestral score as opposed to the “finger-busting” arrangement for one pianist, which some of us know from our years of performing The Messiah. For comparison, you will hear Russell playing the “finger-busting” arrangement for one pianist in “The Trumpet Shall Sound,” accompanying the brilliant virtuoso singing and trumpet playing by Nicolas and Chris.

I don’t consider the accompaniment to Melissa’s dramatic singing of “O del mio amato ben” to be an arrangement. Published sources indicate that the composer, Stefano Donaudy, had played the accompaniment as piano four hands with his brother Alberto (who also wrote the lyrics). We searched high and low but could not find the piano four-hand version so we did our best to recreate it, starting from the published accompaniment for one pianist.