Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa. The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States. A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals. In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 in G Minor: “The Hen” (La Poule)

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In 1784, Franz Joseph Haydn received a commission to write six symphonies (Nos. 82-87) from the board of directors of the Parisian concert society, the Concert de la Loge Olympique. The orchestra at Haydn’s disposal, which included 40 violins and 10 double basses, was far larger than the chamber ensemble of 25 players at the Esterházy Palace where Haydn was employed. According to musicologist Robbins Landon, “The musicians wore splendid ‘sky-blue’ dress …

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Handel’s “Semele,” “Endless Pleasure”: The Music of Elation

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Handel’s Semele, first performed at Covent Garden Theater in 1744, falls somewhere between an opera and a three-part oratorio. It is based on a mythological story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses which centers around Semele, the mother of Bacchus. At the end of the first act, Semele expresses delight in her role as the new mistress of the god, Jupiter. Her elation is expressed in the aria, Endless pleasure, endless love. Dancing accompaniment lines swirl …

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Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus: Concerto for Birds and Orchestra

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In 1915, while working on his Fifth Symphony, Jean Sibelius ventured into the Finnish landscape where he saw sixteen swans take flight into the midday sky, circle, and disappear “into the solar haze like a gleaming silver ribbon.” The experience inspired the pivotal theme of the Symphony’s final movement, which emerges majestically in the horns. Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), perhaps the most significant Finnish composer of the second half of the 20th century, …

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Shunske Sato Plays Vivaldi: “Winter” from “The Four Seasons”

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Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) is one of the earliest and most iconic examples of programmatic music. Vivaldi composed the collection of four violin concerti, each depicting a season of the year, during his tenure as music director at the court chapel of Mantua. Along with eight additional concerti, the works were published in Amsterdam in 1725 under the enticing title, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The Contest Between Harmony and …

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Schumann’s Six Fugues on B-A-C-H and Six Canonic Etudes: Contrapuntal Explorations

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“What art owes to Bach is to the musical world hardly less than what a religion owes to its founder,” said Robert Schumann. (Eric Frederick Jensen) Championed in part by Mendelssohn, the first half of the 19th century saw a revival of interest in the music of J.S. Bach. Nine days after their wedding, Robert and Clara Schumann began an extensive study of Bach’s counterpoint together. The occasion was documented by Clara …

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Schumann’s Second Symphony: Drums, Trumpets, and Triumph

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“For several days, drums and trumpets in the key of C have been sounding in my mind,” wrote Robert Schumann to Felix Mendelssohn in a September, 1845 letter. “I have no idea what will come of it.” These recurring musical reveries were the seeds of Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61, sketched over the course of two weeks in December of 1845, and completed a year later. As he …

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Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1: “A True Turning Point”

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Arnold Schoenberg completed the Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 in July of 1906, a year after Mahler finished his Seventh Symphony. Both works can be heard as daring glimpses into a disquieting modernist future. Nineteenth century Romanticism was crumbling under its own weight, and an over-waltzed Vienna was entering the turbulent twilight years of the Habsburg Empire. Mahler delayed the Seventh Symphony’s premiere until 1908, anxiously anticipating the audience’s bewildered response. …

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