Performance; Phyllis Moss

Good evening and welcome to a performance a series of concerts aired each Wednesday evening through the facilities of WGBH FM. Our guest artist for this program is pianist Phyllis Moss who was born in Philadelphia and it was awarded a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music By the time she was 11. Her principal teacher was Isabel and go out at 12 she made her Philadelphia debut at a concert of the Philadelphia symphony and they said the critics were enthusiastic about her. Remarkably a velvety touch astonishing feeling beautiful legato tone phrasing and surprisingly adult technique. She played in New York when she was 15 a soloist with the federal symphony. Since that time she has toured extensively and has been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra the Boston Pops Orchestra the bombero Samphan in the Boston Symphony symphony and many other orchestras. Ms Moss has given recitals at New York's Metropolitan Museum the Brooklyn Academy of Music and of the Gardner Museum in Boston in one thousand seventy. She was soloists in an esplanade concert in Boston playing the Beethoven Emperor Concerto

during the past few years Phyllis Moss and two members of the Boston Symphony have concerts as the Boston trio now given the Jordan Hall concert and a Tanglewood concert both under the auspices of the Boston Symphony miss mosses a member of the faculty of Wellesley College to open her program Phyllis Moss will play on downtown variations in F minor. Oh.

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You're honest. Phyllis Moss has opened her performance recital with a

performance of variations in F minor front of this program devoted to music of Scarlatti Schubert Debussy and Ravel will continue in just a moment with the one without interruption the C major number for 57 in the long catalog and the D minor which is a longer number 15 to Sonata by Domenico Scala played by Phyllis Moss. Oh. I am.

I am. Be honest Phyllis Moss has played two Sinatras of Domenico Scala C

major number 457 in the Longo catalog and D minor number 15 in the Longo catalog. We continue this performance recital with the largest scale work on the program the B-flat major Sonata Opus posthumous Franz Schubert. His work is divided into four movements tomorrow on down to Sawston OTO. Let's get some chick on the ticket and the final Allegro M. Krop ball. Here once again is pianist Phyllis Moss. Oh.

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So not in B-flat major opus pasta most of France Schubert played by

pianist Phyllis Moss as part of this performance program. It's intermission time on this performance program and our guest artist Janice Phyllis Moss is with us for this brief you know mission and conversation. Miss Moss I understand that when you were a student in Curtis Institute in Philadelphia you were a pupil of Isabel then you know about. Yes I was I had the great privilege of being one of her students which a group of which included Gary us Jacob Leonard Bernstein and many other marvelous musicians. She was one of I think at that time one of the two or three greatest teachers in the world. Well she was part of a great dynasty of you know in the teacher pupil relationship and university and go to herself studied with us of docs and with pleasure to ski. And I was a pupil of

journey who was a people of Beethoven. So there you go. Some pretty big names there. Did you have an opportunity to work with any other teachers I wish your principal actually gave me practically all of my pianistic education. I started studying with her when I was 11 and I went through many many years at the Curtis Institute with her exclusively of course I had ensemble playing with various other people like Harry Kaufman and Louis bhai who was a very famous violist of the time. And of course I've continued with both solo and chamber music in recent years I've gone back to do a great deal of chamber music. Well done is about the Boston trio this I find very interesting. Well the Boston Freo consists of two Boston Symphony members and myself and this has was organized about eight years ago

and has been playing ever since the personnel has changed we had we've had two changes in members since we started but the group is quite stable now and consists of Roger Sherman and Martin Harmon myself and we have explored a great deal of the trio literature which is marvelous literature. It's great music and this certainly is. Piano violin cello combination is certainly one of the most popular I know for example Beethoven's Opus One is a set of trios for that combination right. Yes and then of course Beethoven has written it and true it was in all of his periods. We you know we haven't played many Mozart for years we find those a little weaker than in some of the others we have played. Quite often we have played several of the Brahms trios which are marvelous worked and. Well I would think that the real foundation of that repertory would be Beethoven though with the Archduke and the ghost and all of that what certainly is except I find that the string players resist Beethoven

more than other composers they find the piano has too much to do in detail because they killed themselves. Not as though that's a bit of a problem I have to keep fighting for Beethoven. What sort of solo repertory do you prefer anonymous to this program. Scotty Schubert Debussy and Ravel. Do you enjoy playing more modern works. I think that's probably my weakest area largely because my interest is in that older music more I think I have played some more recent music but also it takes a great deal of time to learn and with my very busy schedule I find this difficult and there are also few opportunities of playing contemporary music. Even the trio has has trouble programming contemporary music. Well there is some repertory for that combination I know but not as you say a great deal and also the kind of concert playing we do is very often in New

England colleges and clubs and so forth and and very often it's a very conservative audience. And you have to handle them quite carefully. Well. The second half of this program of course is 20th century music. That's right I have played a great deal of Rhode Island did you see I have I think I feel very close to these composers. I'm very interested in piano color and one of my my my great idols is the king whose recordings I have I have all of his recordings. Well he's a great colorist and a great a great exponent of Debussy and Ravel That's right. Certainly one of the finest players of that of that repertory. And in our own lifetime definitely. Oh I remember he's his recording of what is the level just by Lenny. Yes that's that's one of the pieces that I'm learning at the moment I have played the album Dean and

I mean struggling with with the Scarboro right now hope to play it perhaps next year. And you know that it seems to me that that grows right out of the Chopin tradition. You get the Scovell for example sets up the exactly the atmosphere that I feel is needed for say the last movement of the Funeral March so not sure about that. Desolate bear. Yes I think there is there is a closeness there and of course one of the great things about Revill is that he understood the panel so thoroughly and writes so marvelously full of the piano and for pianists things lie under the hands very well and there never any for me no technical problems or ability compared to Brahms for instance who write so awkwardly and so musically marvelous for the piano. There's a lot of substance there but you have the feeling he's writing against the piano very often in Yaba I often feel it should be orchestrated when I'm playing drums you know it's it fights the instrument to

some extent. Well I think he tries to turn the instrument into an orchestra that is not necessarily the pianistic thing to do is it. That's right. We find that the Brahms trio is true that the piano part has got to be lightened. Otherwise it's completely overpowering. Whereas in the Revill the piano writing is just exquisitely in tune with the other instruments it lets them sound. So pianist if if he's playing just as it's written you have a very good result. I know you're a member of the music faculty at Wellesley College. What sort of effect is busy teaching schedule have on your own performing. Well it has to affect. I'll say this a very favorable one first that it's very stimulating to work with with good students and I have quite a few very interested and very talented students at Wellesley and I find that I have to well sort of be on my toes about repertoire and new music and so for the I have many students studying contemporary music perhaps more than that I'm studying it right now. And

I do that on the on the negative side. It does take a great deal of time and energy and enthusiasm. Teacher and I find I'm very often between teaching and playing I'm quite drained. I can very well imagine. But it does give you a great feeling of accomplishment and reward now I love it dearly and I like being with young people I like and I like the contacts I like the enthusiasm and the forward looking attitude. I find it very stimulating. Well it's almost time for they say the mission period to be over and time for us to hear these works of Debussy and Ravel that we've been talking about. Our guest for this information period has been kind of Phyllis Moss who will continue her performance program after this brief pause for station identification. This is the eastern Public Radio Network. Family eighty nine point seven mega cycles Public Radio in Boston.

Phyllis Moss will continue this performance program now with fireworks booked. Claude Debussy. I am. I am.

The second book of credits by the composer.

Another Debussy where is next from the series called I stamp. This is not it. Once again pianist Phyllis Moss who. But.

Bill as Moss has played Les why don't you go

Debussy Continuing now with exploration of a ton coloristic possibilities of the piano as we were discussing during our intermission conversation. We'll hear from Phyllis Moss and with her performance of the. You sure don't know. Played by pianist Phyllis

Moss to complete this performance recital. Liz Moss has chosen another work of showing a completely different side of that composer's musical personality. This is out of the glass which is frequently translated as the morning song of a jester. That's Moss playing. Oh. Maurice Ravel played by pianist Phyllis Moss. Their

performance earlier on this program. And the same composers before him. And the variations in F minor. Performance is a series of concerts heard each Wednesday evening. WGBH radio. We invite your comments on this series. This particular program simply address performance radio Boston 0 0 2 1 3 4. That address again performance. WGBH radio Boston 0 2 1 3 4. This performance program with pianist Phyllis Moss was tape recorded for broadcast at this time as evening's engineer Nathaniel Johnson. This is Bill Cavanaugh speaking for the eastern Public Radio Network.