The Library of Congress Coolidgeauditorium

The Library of Congress CoolidgeAuditorium

Thursday, March 14, 2008 8 p.m.

POST-CLASSICAL ENSEMBLE Angel Oil-Ordonez, Music Director Joseph Horowitz, Artistic Director Eugenia Leon, voice James Demster, piano

"FOUR VOICES OF SILVESTRE REVUELTAS"

I National Self and Its Representations

8 X Radio

Magueyes Eugenia Leon and Ensemble El Gavilan Eugenia Leon and James Demster, piano

Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca I. Baile III. Son

0 II The Black Poets

Caminando Eugenia Le6n and Ensemble Canto a una muchacha negra Eugenia Le6n and James Demster, piano

Sensemaya (preceded by an excerpt from a recording of the poem read by Nicow.s Guillen)

Intermission

III Spain in My Heart

Canci6n de cuna Eugenia Le6n, voice

Homenaje a Federico Garda Lorca II. Duelo

IV '~ainst the ancestralapathyand cavernousobsrnrityofacademicmusicians"

Batik

Planos

The appearance of Post-Classical Ensemble is made possible with support from the Mexican Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA) and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

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20 POST-CLASSICAL ENSEMBLE Angel Gil-Ord6nez, Music Director Joseph Horowitz, Artistic Director

Violin Clarinet Tuba Oleg Rylatko, David Jones Mike Bunn concertmaster Marguerite Levin Eric Lee Ed Walters Percussion Bill Richards Viola John Spirtas Lisa Ponton Bassoon Tom Jones Don Shore Greg Akagi Cello Jonathan Rance Gita Ladd Doug Wallace Trumpet Bass Tim White Piano Ed Malaga Chris Gekker Naoko Takao

Flute Trombone Personnel Manager: Sara Stern Lee Rogers Sue Kelly David Lonkevich

POST-CLASSICAL ENSEMBLE AND SILVESTRE REVUELTAS

In our fiveyears,Post-ClassicalEnsemblehas performed the music ofSilvestreReveultas more-much more-than that of any other composer. Our debut, in fact, was a May 1st (significant date) presentation of the classicMexican film Redes,with Revueltas's indeli- ble score-a film music masterpiece-performed live with the movie. ' It is, in short, our conviction that Revueltas is a composer whose time has come. In addition to the "four voices" Robert Kolb eloquently discerns in these pages, Revueltas also possesses a predominating "fifth voice" that is at all times instantly recognizable. Shrill trumpets and booming tubas infuse his instrumental palette with the sonic bit of a village band. Equally typical is his eschewal of prefabricated structure. As he himself

21 once put it with reference to Planosand other sound murals:"[Theyare]subjectto the rhythm of life, not to the exact distance from one sidewalk to the other. There is nothing I can sayabout the technique behind the music because it doesn't interest me. Some good-humored people claim I have mastered composing technique; then again, some ill-tempered ones claim I haven't. Well, they surelyknow better. . . " He also wrote, unforgettably:

I was very young, three years old, [mymother] tells me, when I heard music for the first time: the little village band playing its evening concert in the square. I stood listening for a long time and with what must havebeen spectacular concenttation because it was so intense that my eyescrossed. And cross-eyed I remained for three or four days after. . . . As a small boy. . . I always preferred banging on a washtub or dreaming tales to doing something useful. . . I have had many teachers.The best of them, with no degrees, knew more than the others. For that reason I have alwayshad little respect for degrees. Now, after many years I still study, have teachers, write music, dream of distant countries and sometime bang on washtubs. - Joseph Horowitz

REFLECTIONS ON REVUELTAS

Working on Spanish repertoire-the music I am most familiar with-helps me to understand the music of all cultures. Consider the internationally popular Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. The fact that Almodovar is so unusual, so local (not just to spain, but to Madrid), so true to his own vicinity in rendering feeling and experience- this is what makes him so universal. The more I study the composers of my country, the more I am able to appreciate the German or French repertoire-or, in the caseof tonight's concert, the music of Mexico. What attracts me to Silvestre Revueltas, first of all, is that he is so Mexican, so com- pletely local. When you listen to Revueltas, you smell the marketplace and taste the tamales. You are in a cantina-a piano bar-drinking tequila. And you are in a culture saturated with music, with marimbas and mariachis. Music is a continuous component of Mexican life. The young men of Mexico actually still serenade their girlfriends-with trumpets, violins, and guitars. In Mexico City, the Plazade Garibaldi is filled with mariachis all playing at the same time; you go there to hire a band. The tamborasare often out of tune, with clarinets clashing with tubas. This is the sound of Revueltas. It also suggests something common to Ives-the clash of simultaneous bands-or to Mahler's imitations of street musicians. Revueltas is also the sound of Mexican popular singers like Eugenia Leon or Chavela Vargas, or of people in the streets and in the parks whose talking is alwaysloud. Revueltas's writing for chamber ensemble is very original, very surprising. The han- dling of texture and color is alwaysorganic and well organized. Of course, he was aware of the music of his time and before-Stravinsky's T'11£Rite ofSpringis a clear influence on the rhythm and ritual of Revueltas's signature composition, Sensemayd,based on a poem by Nicolas Guillen. Tonight we hear the original version for chamber orchestra. Revueltas setsnot only the story,but the rhythms and accentsof the words. LikeRevueltas, Guillen wasa Communist, an intellectual passionate for socialjustice.And like Revueltas, Guillen was searching for his cultural roots. In Spain, Lorca and de Falla searched for their roots in the gypsycaves of Andalusia. In Cuba, Guillen searched for African and

22 Spanish roots. Sensemaydis a spell to kill a snake; it is Afro-Cuban black magic. And there is a Cuban flavor to the rhythms of Sensernayd. I very much like to explore a composer's first thoughts-such as the first, chamber version of Falla's ElArnarBrujo,which I have conducted many times. Of course the composer wants to make things betrer, more spectacular, and he discoversmaterial that asks to be developed.But, aswith El ArnarBrujo,the original1937versionof Sensemaydis revealingly harsher, more elemental. Instead of the massive orchestra of the later 1938 version, Revueltas uses only three strings-two violins and a double bass-in combination with piccolo, clarinets, bassoon, ttUmpets, trombone, piano, and percussion. This , version, little known and rarely performed (though I have previously conducted it here in Washington, D.C.), was only published in 1978;the score is in Revueltas's fastidious hand. It is also about sixty measures shorter than the 1938 version. The revision adds new counter-melodies; the tempos are slower;he takes more time to introduce the themes and repeats them more often. One can actually say that these two versions of Sensernayd are two different pieces. Typically in Revueltas there is a quality of intimate compassion alongside all that is festive and noisy. You find it even in music as raucous as 8 X Radio-the slow middle sec- tion, with its expresivoduet for clarinet and ttUmpet. He was a troubled soul. - Angel Gil-Ord6fiez

FOUR VOICES OF SILVESTRE REVUELTAS

Trying to find common traits that would allow us to approach Silvestre Revueltas's oeuvre in an orderly fashion is a futile enterprise. This Mexican composer could experiment with the most advanced grammars of his time one day, jump back to writing a romantic tone poem the next, and then mix the old with the new the day after. One moment he was satirical, and a moment later, he was dead serious. He claimed to compose for the common people of his country, but his languagewas strident and complex. He was at once an adamant cosmopolitan and a sentimental Mexicanist. He defended the educational virtues of the Orquesta Sinf6nica de Mexico, while at the same time using it to provoke and ridicule its audience. One cannot speak of a clear beginning or a logical sequence or an end in the erratic unfolding of his compositional practices. Hence, we will follow his example and begin at the end.

IV '~ainst thi:AncestralApathy and CavernousObscurityofAcademicMusicians"

Sometimes one needs to be far from home in order to define oneself. While in Republican Spain in 1937,visiting the Second International Congress ofWriters for the Defense of Culture, Revueltas was called upon to do just that:

Carlos Chavez, the iron musician-which is what I used to call him when we were working together-organized Mexico's musical activity and pro- duction. We were a small group with a common drive and a lot of destruc- tive energy. [. . .JOur fresh and joyful impetus fought against the ancestral apathy and cavernous obscurityof academicmusicians.We washed, cleaned, swept out the old Conservatory which was crumbling under the weight of tradition, termites and glorious sadness.The Orquesta Sinf6nica de Mexico was founded, and Stravinsky,Debussy,Honegger, Milhaud, and Varesestar-

23 tled millenary professors who cultivated termites and audiences anesthetized by a Beethoven that was prescribed to them every other year and the year after [. . .Jwith ghastly performances that were nonetheless well-liked by the docile listeners.

This is the voice of a modernist enfant terrible.It is also the voice that can be heard on and off in pieces composed early (or not so early) in his career. It could first be heard in the music Revueltas composed while working as a violinist in silent movie theaters in San Antonio, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama. It was there that he concocted an initial experiment, which he gave the enigmatic name of Batik (1926). Contrary to what one might expect, there is nothing exoticabout the music: if anything, it points to the modernity of composers such as Milhaud and Auric, whose works Revueltas had performed a year earlier in a concert of new music that Chavez had organized in Mexico City. But the composition that most overtly declared its modernism was composed eight years later, in 1934.Dedicated to his architect friend Ricardo Ortega, he entitled it Plaws, which was erroneously translated by American editors as "Planes." In Spanish, plaws can refer either to architectural blueprints or to layers. Revueltas playswith both mean- ings. He introduces the music metaphorically, as "functional architecture, which does not exclude feeling. [. . .JThe rhythm and sonority are reminiscent of other rhythms and sonorities, just as one construction material may be simil,arto or the same as another, but is used for a construction that differs in meaning, shape and expression." He also suggests the presence of two different layers of music: one that springs from an older impulse, from emotions associated with earlier works, and another engulfing it, which he characterizes as music with an "obstinate rhythm" and a "sonority that may seem strange, because it is unconventional." It is not hard to identify these two musical expressions: one is overtly tonal, and the other modern and non-tonal. The first is melodious and reminiscent of Romantic music; the other is harsh and provocative. They are never blended: in fact, one gets the definite impression that the old is being "attacked" by the new. The Romantic melody leads nowhere; it is never allowed to develop. It is also fragmented into smaller and smaller pieces, and squeezed into ever tighter and louder episodes of modern sonority. It is as if the past were being forced to make room for the new: in a manner of speaking, a modernist manifesto.

The National Self and Its Representations

When Revueltas launched his career as a composer, he was confronted with an audience who demanded music that was recognizably Mexican. Many artists defined them- selves as either nationalist or modernist-as if such stances were mutually exclusive. Revueltas refused to get caught up in this false dilemma. He was proudly Mexican as well as modern. His choice of local sources and the way they appeared in his works revealed his varying viewpoints regarding the problem of the national self and its representation. In order to prove and define their local filiation, composers chose symbols strategi- cally.The older Romantic generation tended to incorporate music from the past, often derived from the Spanish folklore that had profoundly marked Mexican culture as a result of so many years of colonization. Younger composers turned to Mexico's many ethnic groups in search of symbols that were free of colonial stigma. Revueltas's choices reflected the avant-garde aesthetic and political vindication of "low" culture, infusing

24 his compositions with the coarse mestizo music associated with urban "soundscapes": the music that could be heard in Mexico City's cantinas, and which came mainly from the region known as LosAltos de Jalisco. One such tune was the loveand drinking song "Magueyes"(named for the plant from which both pulque and tequila are derived), which falsely posed as the leitmotif for Revueltas's Second Quartet (see the note for last night's concert). Revueltas's interest in this song, however, could not have been more personal. It comes from Jalisco, as did most of his favorite Mexican music. Moreover, Revueltas was already becoming known for his fondness of alcohol, and it is probably no coincidence that he chose, perhaps satirically,a drinking song as a kind of personal signature. The folklore of LosAltos has since become very famous. It drew the interest of Juan Rulfo-born in Sayula,Jalisco- whose world-renowned novels display an expert knowledge of the region's rural culture. Among the samples of folklore that Rulfo collected was the text of the picaresque "EI gavilan" ("The Sparrowhawk"), recently set to music by the young Mexican composer Marcial Alejandro. Most localistic composers expressed their nationalism by resorting to a time-honored formula: writing music which prominently featured traditional tunes, thus guarantee- ing the audience's self-recognitionand ensuing celebration. Revueltas,however,wasgen- erally reluctant to use literal quotations of local tunes because, paradoxically, they drew the listeners' attention awayfrom his musical ideas, to the point that they tended to dis- regard what was really happening musically around and beyond the quotations. This became painfully clear in the comments of chroniclers, who dwelled on Revueltas's "spontaneous" and "real" Mexicanness, while ignoring what he had to say as a modernist in search of new musical ideas. Thus, Revueltas's use of quotations should not alwaysbe taken at face value. In 1931 he composed his Second Quartet, which uses "Magueyes"to create the false expectation of a "true" nationalistic piece, only to end up with harshly modernistic music. In 1934 an invitation to compose a piece for public radio provided Revueltas with the opportunity to deliver the death stroke to sentimental nationalisms and estab- lish his stance as a modernist above all. The playfullyDadaistic title of the new composition, 8 X Radio, responds to the debate between nationalists and modernists-it is in itself a representation of this debate, suggesting that "folklorists" and "cosmopolitans" are irreconcilable. 8 X Radiois radical in its critique of facile and accommodating nationalism. A med- ley of highly Mexicanistic melodies-thirteen in all-are heard one after another, just as a casual selection of Mexican curios would be displayed in the stalls of a tourist market. But the folkloristic pastiche is dramatically superseded by a modem, non-tonal language, presumably representing the composer's voice. Grotesque gestures continuously inter- fere, precede, interrupt, and even cancel out the folksymaterial. We hear two voices- present vs. past, modernity vs. nostalgia-not only confronting each other, but in fact competing with each other at all times. 8 X Radiocommences with a celebratory fanfare. But this voice of tradition gradu- allythins out as the piece drawsto a close.As might be expected, the final gesture belongs to Revueltas's modernistic and satirical voice. Something similar happens in the curi- ous note that Revueltas wrote for the premiere. Teasing his nationalistic audience, he referred to 8 X Radioas an "algebraic equation with no possible solution, unless one possesses a profound knowledge of mathematics." Two years after writing 8 X Radio,Revueltas mysteriouslyturned his back on his mis- . chievous antinationalist provocations, composing two straightforwardly nationalistic

25 pieces. They are contained as movements of his popular Homenajea FedericoGarcia Lorca(Homageto FedericoGarciaLorca, 1936). The draft of the first movement, "Baile" ("Dance"), bears the subtitle "cuasi [sic]indio" ("quasi-Indian") but there is nothing to suggest an ironic intent here or in the music itself. Not unlike Chavez a year earlier in his Sinfonia India (Indian Symphony), Revueltas draws melodic and rhythmic inspira- tiOIl from surviving ethnic melodies which were presumed to have pre-Hispanic ori- gins. The main theme flows forth without a trace of Revueltas's usual harshness and strident contrapuntal noise. In essence, we hear an often repeated and only slightly varying tune in a setring of very Petrushkian ostinato textures. The third movement- "Son"-employs one of Revueltas's favorite signs of local identity: the popular musical genre from Los Altos de Jalisco named son. It is presented here as a dominant, perva- sive theme, leaving behind an unquestionable Mexicanistic taste and assuring the cor- responding applause. How can we explain such a radical change of heart regarding the representation of the National Self?Had Revueltas joined enemy ranks? Homenajewas composed and performed for an entirely different listener: first performed at a political rally organized by the League of Revolutionary Artists and Writers (LEAR) in collaboration with the Communist Youth of Mexico and the Republican Frente Popular Espanol, and soon after, in representation of LEAR at the government-sponsored Congress of National Writers and Artists, which had a much broader political platform. It was also performed during Revueltas's visit to Republican Spain in 1937.These were audiences of political peers that needed to be seduced rather than provoked. A desire to meet their nationalistic expectations-which seemed to be the same for both the Right and the Left-is eas- ilyunderstandable. The strange combination of the two nationalistic styles-"Baile" and "Son"-with Homenaje'ssecond movement, "Duelo" ("Mourning") forced into their midst (thus appealing to the audience's sympathy with the Republican cause), mirrored the political identity of the rally's participants: a marriage of convenience.

II The BlackPoets

Whatever the balance between nation-building and emancipated cosmopolitan modernity in Revueltas's music, its interest clearly cannot be reduced to the presence and role of Mexican symbols. For one thing, he also resorted to the popular music of other cultures, such as the Blues and Mro-Cuban rhythms. He did so not in order to paint other landscapes, but to represent political concerns. These played a much more important role than the issue of musical patriotism in his life and his music. Political concerns surface in most of his compositions, from his first one in 1924- El afilador(The Knife Sharpener), for violin and piano-to his last, the ballet music for La Coronela,heroine of the Mexican Revolution. The subjects of Revueltas's political passion are usually represented by the voices of the poor street vendor or musician, but on occasion by others as well, such as the slavesin colonial Cuba or the black girl "way down south in Dixie." It might come as a surprise that America's famous black poet Langston Hughes spent some time south of the border during his childhood and returned there to teach English in 1920.As a poet, he became quite popular in Mexico during the 1930s,and severalof his poems were translated and published in an important modernist journal, Contemporaneos.This might have been Revueltas's inspiration when he chose a translation of Songofa bark Girl to compose his heartbreaking Cantoparauna muchacha negrain 1938. Revueltas, for his part, might have coincided with Hughes in Spain, where

26 the latter worked as a newspaper correspondent for the BaltimoreAfro-American.Although nothing is known about an actual encounter between poet and composer, the chances of it are hardly remote. But the work of another Black poet left an even deeper impression on Revueltas than that of Hughes. In January of 1937, the celebrated Afro..Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen had been invited to participate in a congress organized in Mexico by the previously men.. tioned LEAR, headed by Silvestre Revueltas at the time. This encounter led to a solid friendship, further deepened by their joint travelsto Republican Spain. During Guillen's stay in Mexico, he wrote his collection Cantosparaso/dadosy sonesparaturistas(Songs for Soldiers and Sonesfor Tourists), which contains not only the poem "Fusilamiento" ("Execution"), dedicated to Revueltas, but also "No Sfporquepiensastu, so/dado. . ." ("I don't know, soldier, why you think. . ."), which the composer set to music in a number of different versions. Around the same time, Guillen must have introduced Revueltas to his earlier collection, West IndiesLtd., written in Cuba in 1934, soon after the Batista coup. While remaining faithful to the Afro-Cuban language that the poet had distilled from mulatto rhythms and traditions, this collection of poems took a significant turn into the domain of the political. The combined expressivefonnat-a poetry drawn from music and imbued with social significance-must have appealed to Revueltas's political side. He set a first poem from West IndiesLtd.- "Caminando" ("Walking")-~o music in two versions: one for voice and piano and another for voice and small orchestra, the latter dedicated to the poet. Perhaps significantly, Revueltas scored the orchestral version so that the voice could be omitted: thus poetry that had been derived from music would be returned again to its original medium. Three months later, Revueltas musicalized a second poem, "Sensemaya"-this time leaving out the words altogether. Guillen's poem has been interpreted as an allegory for the need for, and means of, definitive liberation. The act of liberation is played out by two characters: the snake-charmer and the snake, presumably representing imperialism and the oppressed. The music also brings two actors face to face, each one represented by an identifying musical code. The sense of "struggle" is quite evident throughout the piece, as is the defeat of the "snake" at the end.[*]

II Spainin My Heart

It is hard to understand today why artists the world over became so emotionally involved with the Civil War in Spain. For many Mexican artists and intellectuals, it was surely the disillusion caused by the Revolution whose ideals they considered to have been betrayed. Therefore, they put all their hopes for change in the arms of the Spanish Republic, in the songs of its militia, in the pens of its writers and poets. On his long voyage to Spain, Revueltas was accompanied by prominent creators, includ- ing future Nobel.. prize winner Octavio Paz, writer Elena Garro, and poet Juan de la Cabada, but it was Revueltas who displayed the greatest devotion to the Republican cause, and it was also he who suffered the most from its eventual defeat. Spain gave Revueltas the energy we feel in his 1937 arrangement of the popular "Song of the Loyalist Fronts." But the cause and the country would mostly come to mean pain and loss of hope to him. Spain was very much in his heart when he composed the "Duelo" ("Mourning")- the middle movement of Homenaje,his homage to the poet-and "FiveSongsfor Children,"

27 composed in 1938based on poems and texts by Garcia Lorca. Written shortly afterward, Itinerarios(Itineraries) seems to embody most clearly all the anguish and sadness which Spain's looming defeat had awakened in Revueltas. The Republic had meant everything to Revueltas, and its defeat robbed him of the energy to go on living. His brother-the equally famous writer Jose Revueltas-recalls the composer's physical and spiritual agony.

Near the end, Silvestre became very quiet, taciturn, the victim of terrible melancholy. This began.following Spain's defeat. It was only natural: Silvestre had experienced the most beautiful and profound moments of his life alongside the vast and great Spanish people. While in Spain, he tried to join the battalion of Mexican colonel Juan B. Gomez, as the director of the small, anonymous military band which played on the frontlines. Everyeffort and reason was needed to dissuade him, but Silvestre was alwayspained by the fact that he did not achieve his goal. Spain was ttuth, the truth of the struggle, of humanity's hopes. And those men [ . . . ] were the men of that world. [In Spain] he was able to contemplate the future. He was finally able to believe that he was not alone and that a destiny advances from every corner of the world to com- plete man, to set him free and to restore him to his loftiest and most sacred dignity. And yet Spain fell: to state it in a few words. Nevertheless, Silvestrewould never recover from the immense pain that this caused him. He had lost children, he had lost brothers, he had lost his mother, but he never thought he would lose Spain. [ . . . ] The black light- ning of the Spanish defeat was more than he could bear, and then came the threat of some sinister light striking those eyesblind, those eyeswhich had suffered the most extreme pain a man can feel. From that day forward, Silvestre's silences grew longer and longer.

In October 1940, not long after the Republic had collapsed into Franco's dictator- ial hands, Revueltas's own life came to an end. - Roberto Kolb Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico

[* SENSEMAYA,CANTO PARAMATARUNA CULEBRA(Sensemaya: A Chant for the Killing of a Snake by Nicolas Guillen) Mayombe-bombe-mayombe! [three timesJ/ The snake has eyes of glass; / The snake coils around a stick; / With his eyes of glass, around a stick, / The snake moves without legs; / The snake wants to hide in the grass; / Slithering, he hides in the grass, / Moving without any legs. / Mayombe-bombe-mayombe! [three timesJ/ If you hit him with an axe he will die: / Hit him now! / Don't try to kick him or he'll bite; / Don't try to kick him, or he'll get away. / Sensemaya, the snake / sensemaya, / Sensemaya, with his eyes / sensemaya, / Sensemaya,with his tongue, / sensemaya. / Sensemaya, with his mouth, / sensemaya. A dead snake can't eat; / a dead snake can't hiss; / he can't move, / he can't run!/ A dead snake can't see; / a dead snake can't drink; / he can't breathe, / he can't bite! / jMayombe-bombe-mayombe!/ Sensemaya, the snake / jMayombe-bombe-mayombe! / Sensemay:i, isn't moving / jMayombe-bombe-mayombe! / Sensemaya, the snake. . . / Mayombe-bombe-mayombe! / Sensemaya, he's dead!]

28 Text Translations

MAOUEYES (Agaves) Anonymous song from the State of Jalisco

I pray to heaven that the Magueys wither and die / For those magueys have been my downfall: / I'm a drunkand don'tlikeanythingat all/ Forthe woman I lovedso will not be mine. I ordera glassand drink it with pleasure,/ Thenordera second,whichI like,thenanother./ I go out onto the street and let out a cry, / For the woman I loved so will not be mine.

EL GAVILAN (The Read-Tailed Hawk) Text from Los Altos de lalisco

In the first verse, the speaker compares his lady love to two endemic flowers: that of the pitahaya or dragonfruit, known as the moonflower, and that of the garambullo cac- tus, and professes his undying love for her, even if he one day leaves.He also expresses his pride in the fact that no one else can ever rule his roost, meaning that no other man can get close to his woman (or women). The second verse describes the woodpecker's act of bowing down to find the hole and then digging in repeatedly with his beak. This is clearly an extended double entendre equating the pecking motion of a woodpecker to the'speaker's sexual acts with his lover. In the third verse, now speaking as a horse, he complains of different pains: in his hindquarters and where the saddle is too tight-similar to the idea of tightening one's belt against hunger pangs, though in this case the pangs are caused by his sexual absti- nence. He toys with the idea of performing an act of derring-do like leaping over a hur- dle to see how much he swellsfrom the impact. This may refer to the temptation to cheat on his girlfriend and his fear at getting caught, because in the last two lines he says,"Even with so many fillies about, only mine can make me whinny." Only in the final verse is any mention made of the song's title: "A red-tailed hawk am 1/ With red wings on which to take flight / I'm not afraid to go to sleep / Nor to stay up until late at night / Justtalkingwithmysweetheart,/ Thoughdeath bystabbing may be my plight." Again, the stabbing motion from the final line is a double entendre for the long awaited sexual act.

CAMINANDO Text: Nicolas Guillen, from the collection WestIndies,Ltd., 1934

Walking, walking / walking!Without direction I'm walking/ walking; / without money I'm walking, / walking; / feeling so sad I'm walking, /walking. / Far away is the one looking for me, / walking; / the one waiting for me is farther away,/ walking; / and I've already pawned my guitar, / walking. / Ay, / my legs start getting stiff, / walking; / my eyes see from a distance, / walking; / my hand grips hard and doesn't let go, / walking. / The one I grab onto and squeeze,/ walking, / he'll pay the price for everyone, / walking; / I'll cut the throat of that one / walking, / and though he asks for my forgiveness, / I eat him up and drink him down, / I drink him down and eat him up, / walking, / walking, / walking. . .

29 SONG FOR A DARK GIRL Original text: Langston Hughes (Spanish translation: Xavier Villa urrutia)

Way Down South in Dixie / (Break the heart of me) / They hung my dark young lover / To a cross roads tree. / Way Down South in Dixie / (Bruisedbody high in air)/ I asked the white Lord Jesus / What was the use of prayer./ Way Down South in Dixie / (Break the heart of me) / Love is a naked shadow / On a gnarled and naked tree.

CANCI6N DE CUNA (Lullaby) based on Blood Weddingby Federico Garcia Lorca

Wife: Sleep, clove pink. / The horse won't drink. Mother.in.Law:Sleep, rose tree. / The horse will weep.

- Translations: Michelle Suderman

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

"More than an orchestra," POST-CLASSICALENSEMBLEperforms music in the con- text of its cultural heritage, incorporating folk song, dance, film, poetry, and commen- tary to offer deeper engagement and to cultivate adventurous new listeners. Founded by Angel Gil-Ord6fiez and Joseph Horowitz in 2001, Post-Classical Ensemble made its oft!. cial debut in May 2003, breaking out of classicalmusic with its implied notion of a high culture remote from popular art. Since then, it has performed more than two dozen con- certs and recorded two DVDs and a CD. On April 6 Post-ClassicalEnsemble will present "Artists in Exile," a program exploring the New World fates of the composers Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg, and the filmmaker Fritz Lang. Weill's Walt Whitman Song3 will be performed for the first time in the United States with orchestral accompaniment. Post-ClassicalEnsemble's2007-08 Season is made possiblewith support from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information log onto www.post-classicalensemble.org.

Former associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, ANGEL GIL-ORD6NEZhas led performances of symphonic music, opera, and ballet throughout Europe, the United States, and Latin America. In the United States he has led the American Composers Orchestra,Opera Colorado, PacificSymphony,Hartford Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the National Gallery Orchestra. Abroad, he conducted the Munich Philharmonic, Solistes de Berne, and at the Schleswig-HolsteinMusic Festival and Bellas Artes National Theater in Mexico City. In the summer of 2000, he toured the major music festivalsof Spain with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in the Spanish premiere of Mass. Born in Madrid, he worked closelywith Sergiu Celibidache for more than sixyears in Germany. Gil-Ord6fiezhas recorded four CDs devoted to Spanish composers, in addition to a VirgilThomson CD/DVD. Currently he is the director of orchestral studies at WesleyanUniversityin Connecticut and the music director of the Wesleyan Ensemble of the Americas. In 2006 the King of Spain awarded him the country's high- est civilian decoration, the RoyalOrder of Queen Isabella.

30 JOSEPHHOROWITZhas been a pioneer in classical music programming, beginning with his tenure as artistic advisor for the annual Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y.As executive director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, he received national attention for "The Russian Stravinsky," "American Transcendentalists," "Aamenco," and other festivals exploring the folk roots of concert works. An artistic advisor to various American orchestras, he has created more than three dozen interdisciplinary music festivals since 1985. Horowitz is author of seven books dealing with the institutional his- tory of classical music in the United States, notably Classical Music in America: A Histcrry, named one of the best books of the year by The Economist,and the recently published Artists in Exile:How Refugeesfrom War and RevolutionTransformedtheAmericanPerforming Arts.A former New YorkTimesmusic critic, Horowitzwrites regularlyfor the TimesLiterary Supplement(UK) and contributes frequently to scholarly journals. Earlier this season, he inaugurated the New York Philharmonic's new "Inside the Music" series, writing, host- ing,and producing a presentation on Tchaikovsky'sPathetiqueSymphony.josephlwrowitz.com.

Guest Artists

EUGENIALEONis one of Mexico's most prominent artists. She began her career in the 1970s, singing with groups that reflected the political concerns of young students. Mter her debut solo performance in 1982 she started buil~ing her repertoire with works by Mexican songwriters of her generation-Marcial Alejandro, Pepe Elorza,Jaime Lopez, David Haro, and Guillermo Briseno. In 1985 she won at the OTI Festival in Sevilla, Spain, with the song "El fandangoaqui" by Marcial Alejandro. Eugenia Leon has performed with the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, and Mariachi Vargas de Tecatitlan, and has shared the stage with such artists as Lola Beltran, Ramon Vargas, Lila Downs, Jose Jose, Oumou Sangare, and Susana Zabaleta, among many others. In 1998 the Mexican state of Veracruz awarded her the Agustin Lara Medal for her interpretations of the renowned composer's music. She createstheater showswith actress and director Jesusa Rodriguez, appears in her own television program, AcUstico,and is featured on a weekly radio program,"Meeting Eugenia Leon."

JAMESDEMSTERis the musical director of the Compania Mexicana de Zarzuela "Domingo-Embil," the company originally founded by the parents of Placido Domingo. For the past five years he has been the artistic director of the Coro de Madrigalistas de Bellas Artes of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City. In New York City he has conducted over thirty Japanese operas as the musical director of the Harmonia Opera Company, Inc. Demster is a professor at the Escuela Superior de Musica, Mexico's lead- ing music school.