b'Program NotescontinuedCamille Saint-SansWedding Cake WaltzCaprice-Valse for Piano and Strings, Op. 76 Written in 1885 as a nuptial tribute to pianist Caroline de Serres, Saint-Sans Wedding Cake for piano and strings is a slight but charming caprice-valse thats just a bit too big for the salon. The piano commences with a few sparkling cascades of notes that turn into a flighty waltz; the strings offer a more expansive, lilting tune, and the first third of this six-minute piece is simply an alternation of these two ideas. In the middle section, the piano misfires in starts and stops through several measures before it finally catches hold with brilliant passagework. The strings smooth things out; more explicitly waltz-like ideas return, and the piano now appropriates with gusto the strings more developed theme from the first section. At the very end, the piano repeats its solo from the middle section; the piece ends not with fireworks, but with quietly tinkling utterances from the piano and a few almost offhanded pizzicati from the strings. ~Courtesy of James ReelIrving Berlin / Rodgers & HartWhatll I Do? / My Funny Valentine The great American songwriter Irving Berlin wrote the semi-autobiographical Whatll I Do in 1923. Well-known recordings include those by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Linda Ronstadt. The popular song My Funny Valentine was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart for their 1937 musical Babes in Arms. It has been widely recorded by artists including Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Ella Fitzgerald, becoming a jazz standard. Barbra Streisand included a combined version of these two songs, Whatll I Do/My Funny Valentine, on her live concert album Back to Brooklyn, recorded in October 2012 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, USA.princetonsymphony.org/ 18'