DOCSLIB.ORG

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 8:00pm Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 8:00pm Thomas Søndergård, conductor Baiba Skride, violin Thomas Adès Dances from Powder Her Face Overture Waltz Finale Benjamin Britten REVISED 1954/65 Violin Concerto, Op. 15 I. Moderato con moto II. Vivace III. Passacaglia: Andante lento (un poco meno mosso) Intermission Francis Poulenc Les animaux modèles (Symphonic Version) 1. Petit jour: très calme 2. Le lion amoureux: passionnément animé 3. L’homme entre deux âges et ses deux maîtresses: prestissimo 4. La mort et le bûcheron: très lent 5. Le combat des deux coqs: très modéré 6. Le repas de midi Claude Debussy La mer I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea) II. Jeux des vagues (Play of the Waves) III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea) OCTOBER 18 & 20, 2018 27 ABOUT THE WORKS Thomas Adès Dances from Powder Her Face 12 Born: London, United Kingdom, March 1, 1971 min Composed: 2006 Adès’s two-act Powder Her Face (with libretto waltz and tango, popular songs from the 1930s by Philip Hensher) is based on the colourful and 1950s, light orchestral music, and the life of Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of music of such composers as Berg, Stravinsky, Argyll. Once named débutante of the year, and Janáček—all freshly imbued with a vivid later becoming one of the most photographed and visceral edge. women in the world and a celebrated style Dances from Powder Her Face consists of three icon, Margaret gained notoriety in 1963 orchestral numbers that Adès extracted from when her second husband, the Duke of the opera and rescored, from the original Argyll, filed for divorce, citing her infidelity. 15-piece pit band, for full orchestra. Taken A scandal ensued when photographs were together, they form a musical snapshot of the discovered of the Duchess and a “Headless Duchess’s world. A lurid, acid-soaked tango, Man” in a compromising position, among the Overture features aggressively acerbic other sensational details of the Duchess’s sex musical gestures, especially from the brass, life. After the divorce, Margaret attempted to evoking the hotel staff mocking the Duchess maintain her extravagant lifestyle, but her at the beginning of the opera. The ensuing excesses soon forced her to sell her home Waltz has a surreal quality, a pale ghost of the and live in a hotel suite. She eventually died, real thing, as if belonging in a world of faded penniless, in a nursing home. dreams. Following the Duchess’s departure The opera frames the key events of the from the hotel, the Finale music, sardonic but Duchess’s life—in her prime as a débutante with an air of nostalgia, accompanies the hotel and socialite, and the tumult surrounding the staff as they strip her room to prepare it for the divorce—with scenes of her amid her decline, next occupant. about to leave the hotel where she had been Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley living for over a decade but at which she can no longer afford to stay. Adès has described Powder Her Face as being about “a woman who finally becomes entrapped in a world of perfume and fantasy and memory.” Musically, he renders this narrative with a score filled with references to the musical forms and styles of the Duchess’s lifetime—dances such as the 28 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA As a composer, Adès has been highly ABOUT THE COMPOSER regarded for his prodigious ability to Award-winning English completely absorb, master, and reinterpret composer, conductor, and a wide range of past and current techniques pianist Thomas Adès has been and practices of contemporary music, described the The New York which he combines to often dazzling effect Times as one of today’s “most in his compositions. Some of them are accomplished overall musicians.” He studied practically bursting with layers of musical piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, references, though deftly set within a logical and read music at King’s College, Cambridge. In and rigorously formal framework. Among 2000, he became the youngest-ever recipient Adès’s major works to date are three operas— of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award; recently, Powder Her Face (1995), The Tempest (2004), he was awarded a CBE in the 2018 Queen’s and The Exterminating Angel (2016)—all of Birthday Honours. From 1999 to 2008, he was which have been performed to great critical the Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival; acclaim worldwide; and significant orchestral today, he continues to coach piano and works such as Aslya (1997), Tevot (2007), chamber music annually at the International Polaris (2011), and Totentanz (2013). Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove. Benjamin Britten Violin Concerto, Op. 15 Born: Lowestoft, United Kingdom, November 22, 1913 32 Died: Aldeburgh, United Kingdom, December 4, 1976 min Composed: 1939 Benjamin Britten wrote seven concerto works in September 1939, during the first weeks of spanning almost the whole of his career: World War II. the first, the Piano Concerto, Op. 13, was Britten wrote his bravura Piano Concerto of composed in 1938, when he was not yet 25; 1938 to exploit the resources of the piano the last, the Lachrymae for viola and strings, and show himself off as a pianist, but in Op. 48a, was completed in 1976, just months later concerted works he sought a closer before his death. He began the Violin Concerto, integration of soloist and orchestra. The Violin Op. 15 in November 1938, and was still working Concerto, its brilliant and taxing solo part on it the following May, when he left England notwithstanding, is already a more symphonic for a three-year stay in North America with work, and when Britten revised it, years later, his companion, the tenor Peter Pears. Before it was to tame the more indulgent solo writing heading to New York, they spent the summer and further enhance the music’s unity. in Canada, where Britten wrote several works including Canadian Carnival. The Violin The three movements, all unusual by Classical Concerto was completed at St.-Jovite, Quebec, standards, are played without a break. OCTOBER 18 & 20, 2018 29 ABOUT THE WORKS The first, urbane and moderately paced, opens rhythmically driving, angular and dissonant, with a rhythmic “snap” in the timpani that sparely but brilliantly scored. (The transition becomes an important motif—there is as much from the more relaxed Trio section back to the development of rhythmic ideas as of themes in scherzo is plain weird, scored for two piccolos, this piece. (According to the Spanish violinist tuba, and trembling string harmonics.) The Antonio Brosa, who gave the première in New lone solo cadenza serves as a link to the finale, York in 1940, this “snap,” and the movement’s which marks Britten’s first use of a favourite frequent sombreness, reflected Britten’s visit form: the passacaglia (variations on a ground to Spain in 1936, where he witnessed the civil bass). Three trombones—saved until now— war.) Britten had a gift for irony and parody, announce the noble, arching ground bass, and, and it shows in the spiky scoring, pointed in the brilliant series of variations that follows accompaniments, animated rhythms, and tart the theme, is reworked with astonishing dissonances. imagination. The result is not a series of isolated little pieces, however, but a massive The second movement is an aggressive movement of impressive cumulative power. scherzo—biting and even grotesque, Program note by Kevin Bazzana Francis Poulenc Les animaux modèles (Symphonic Version) Born: Paris, France, January 7, 1899 20 min Died: Paris, France, January 30, 1963 Composed: Original ballet, 1940–1942; orchestral suite, 1942 Poulenc’s melodic flair, coupled with a 1. Petit jour (Dawn): Impressionistic harmonies sophisticated use of an extended tonal palette, depict a July dawn in rural Burgundy, as makes his music as appealing to audiences farmers pick up their tools and leave for the today as it was during his lifetime. Deeply fields. rooted in the Parisian artistic scene—from the techniques of his fellow French composers to 2. Le lion amoureux (The amorous lion): The popular styles of the music hall and the café— beautiful Elmire is seduced by a “lion,” who is, his music is nevertheless uniquely his own. in fact, a very handsome and virile man. They dance a “waltz-java,” a faster, more sensual The ballet Les animaux modèles was composed dance popular in the early 20th century. while Poulenc was splitting his time between German-occupied Paris and his country house 3. L’homme entre deux âges et ses deux at Noizay. Based on the fables of Jean de la maîtresses (A middle-aged man with two Fontaine, it is structured as a suite of dances, mistresses): High-energy music reminiscent of each a twist on a popular musical style; his music hall dance tunes evokes a pas-de-trois experience in writing film music is also evident. of a middle-aged man whose head is picked bald by his two mistresses—one old, one young. 30 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 4. La mort et le bûcheron (Death and the hens. (Poulenc inserted the melody of the song woodcutter): A woodcutter, heavily burdened “No, no, you will not have our Alsace-Lorraine”, with a bundle of sticks, calls upon Death to played on trumpet, as a “protest song” to the deliver him. Death in the guise of a very elegant German officers who would have heard it at the woman appears. Death takes off his mask.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • POWDER-HER-FACE.Pdf
    3 La Fenice prima dell’Opera 2012 3 2012 Fondazione Stagione 2012 Teatro La Fenice di Venezia Lirica e Balletto Thomas Adès Powder ace her f ace er InciprialeF h il viso owder owder p dès a homas t FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE DI VENEZIA TEATRO LA FENICE - pagina ufficiale seguici su facebook e twitter follow us on facebook and twitter FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE DI VENEZIA Destinare il cinque per mille alla cultura è facile e non costa nulla. Quando compili la tua dichiarazione dei redditi, indica il codice fiscale della Fondazione Teatro La Fenice di Venezia: 00187480272 Aiuti la cultura, aiuti la musica. Incontro con l’opera FONDAZIONE lunedì 16 gennaio 2012 ore 18.00 AMICI DELLA FENICE SANDRO CAPPELLETTO, MARIO MESSINIS, DINO VILLATICO STAGIONE 2012 Lou Salomé sabato 4 febbraio 2012 ore 18.00 MICHELE DALL’ONGARO L’inganno felice mercoledì 8 febbraio 2012 ore 18.00 LUCA MOSCA Così fan tutte martedì 6 marzo 2012 ore 18.00 LUCA DE FUSCO, GIANNI GARRERA L’opera da tre soldi martedì 17 aprile 2012 ore 18.00 LORENZO ARRUGA La sonnambula lunedì 23 aprile 2012 ore 18.00 PIER LUIGI PIZZI, PHILIP WALSH Powder Her Face giovedì 10 maggio 2012 ore 18.00 RICCARDO RISALITI La bohème lunedì 18 giugno 2012 ore 18.00 GUIDO ZACCAGNINI Carmen giovedì 5 luglio 2012 ore 18.00 MICHELE SUOZZO L’elisir d’amore giovedì 13 settembre 2012 ore 18.00 MASSIMO CONTIERO Clavicembalo francese a due manuali copia dello Rigoletto strumento di Goermans-Taskin, costruito attorno sabato 6 ottobre 2012 ore 18.00 alla metà del XVIII secolo (originale presso la Russell PHILIP GOSSETT Collection di Edimburgo).
    [Show full text]
  • THOMAS ADÈS Works for Solo Piano
    THOMAS ADÈS Works for Solo Piano Han Chen Thomas Adès (b. 1971) Works for Solo Piano Composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Adès has been sexual exploits scandalised Britain in the 1960s. Adès’s A set of five variants on the Ladino folk tune, ‘Lavaba la Written in 2009 to mark the Chopin bicentenary, the described by The New York Times as ‘among the most Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face (2009) reflects blanca niña’, Blanca Variations (2015) was commissioned three Mazurkas, Op. 27 (2009) were requested by accomplished all-round musicians of his generation’. Born the extravagance, grace and glamour of its subject in a by the 2016 Clara Haskil International Piano Competition. Emanuel Ax, who premiered them at Carnegie Hall, New in London in 1971, he studied piano at the Guildhall bravura piece in the grand manner of operatic paraphrases The music appears in Act I of The Exterminating Angel , York on 10 February 2010. The archetypal rhythms, School of Music & Drama, and read music at King’s of Liszt and Busoni. The composer quotes and Adès’s opera based on the film by Luis Buñuel, where it is ornamentation and phrasings of the dance form are College Cambridge. His music embraces influences from extemporises freely on several key scenes, transcribing performed by famous pianist Blanca Delgado. The wistful, evident in each of these tributes to the Polish master, yet jazz and pop as well as the Western classical tradition. He them as four spontaneous-sounding piano pieces. The first yearning folk tune persists throughout a varied sequence of Adès refashions such familiar gestures to create has contributed successfully to the major time-honoured piece is Scene One of the opera, Adès’s Ode to Joy (‘Joy’ treatments, some exploiting the full gamut of the keyboard something new and deeply personal.
    [Show full text]
  • PROGRAM NOTES Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in a Major
    PROGRAM NOTES by Phillip Huscher Franz Liszt Born October 22, 1811, Raiding, Hungary. Died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth, Germany. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major Liszt composed this concerto in 1839 and revised it often, beginning in 1849. It was first performed on January 7, 1857, in Weimar, by Hans von Bronsart, with the composer conducting. The first American performance was given in Boston on October 5, 1870, by Anna Mehlig, with Theodore Thomas, who later founded the Chicago Symphony, conducting his own orchestra. The orchestra consists of three flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, cymbals, and strings. Performance time is approximately twenty-two minutes. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first subscription concert performances of Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto were given at the Auditorium Theatre on March 1 and 2, 1901, with Leopold Godowsky as soloist and Theodore Thomas conducting. Our most recent subscription concert performances were given at Orchestra Hall on March 19, 20, and 21, 2009, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist and Jaap van Zweden conducting. The Orchestra first performed this concerto at the Ravinia Festival on August 4, 1945, with Leon Fleisher as soloist and Leonard Bernstein conducting, and most recently on July 3, 1996, with Misha Dichter as soloist and Hermann Michael conducting. Liszt is music’s misunderstood genius. The greatest pianist of his time, he often has been caricatured as a mad, intemperate virtuoso and as a shameless and
    [Show full text]
  • Focus 2020 Pioneering Women Composers of the 20Th Century
    Focus 2020 Trailblazers Pioneering Women Composers of the 20th Century The Juilliard School presents 36th Annual Focus Festival Focus 2020 Trailblazers: Pioneering Women Composers of the 20th Century Joel Sachs, Director Odaline de la Martinez and Joel Sachs, Co-curators TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction to Focus 2020 3 For the Benefit of Women Composers 4 The 19th-Century Precursors 6 Acknowledgments 7 Program I Friday, January 24, 7:30pm 18 Program II Monday, January 27, 7:30pm 25 Program III Tuesday, January 28 Preconcert Roundtable, 6:30pm; Concert, 7:30pm 34 Program IV Wednesday, January 29, 7:30pm 44 Program V Thursday, January 30, 7:30pm 56 Program VI Friday, January 31, 7:30pm 67 Focus 2020 Staff These performances are supported in part by the Muriel Gluck Production Fund. Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. The taking of photographs and use of recording equipment are not permitted in the auditorium. Introduction to Focus 2020 by Joel Sachs The seed for this year’s Focus Festival was planted in December 2018 at a Juilliard doctoral recital by the Chilean violist Sergio Muñoz Leiva. I was especially struck by the sonata of Rebecca Clarke, an Anglo-American composer of the early 20th century who has been known largely by that one piece, now a staple of the viola repertory. Thinking about the challenges she faced in establishing her credibility as a professional composer, my mind went to a group of women in that period, roughly 1885 to 1930, who struggled to be accepted as professional composers rather than as professional performers writing as a secondary activity or as amateur composers.
    [Show full text]
  • 1) Aspects of the Musical Careers of Grieg, Debussy and Ravel
    Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Biographical issues and a comparison of their string quartets Juliette L. Appold I. Grieg, Debussy and Ravel – Biographical aspects II. Connections between Grieg, Debussy and Ravel III. Observations on their string quartets I. Grieg, Debussy and Ravel – Biographical aspects Looking at the biographies of Grieg, Debussy and Ravel makes us realise, that there are few, yet some similarities in the way their career as composers were shaped. In my introductory paragraph I will point out some of these aspects. The three composers received their first musical training in their childhood, between the age of six (Grieg) and nine (Debussy) (Ravel was seven). They all entered the conservatory in their early teenage years (Debussy was 10, Ravel 14, Grieg 15 years old) and they all had more or less difficult experiences when they seriously thought about a musical career. In Grieg’s case it happened twice in his life. Once, when a school teacher ridiculed one of his first compositions in front of his class-mates.i The second time was less drastic but more subtle during his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory until 1862.ii Grieg had despised the pedagogical methods of some teachers and felt that he did not improve in his composition studies or even learn anything.iii On the other hand he was successful in his piano-classes with Carl Ferdinand Wenzel and Ignaz Moscheles, who had put a strong emphasis on the expression in his playing.iv Debussy and Ravel both were also very good piano players and originally wanted to become professional pianists.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Booklet
    THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR COMPOSER’S NOTE the same musical stuff, as if each were a THE CHAMBER MUSIC OF THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971) different view through a kaleidoscope. ‘Six of Nearly twenty years separate the two string the seven titles’, he has noted, ‘evoke quartets on this record, and all I have been able various vanished or vanishing “idylls”. The Piano Quintet (2001) * to discover over this time is that music only gets odd-numbered are all aquatic, and would splice 1 I [11.43] more and more mysterious. I am very grateful if played consecutively.’ 2 II [4.35] for this enjoyable collaboration to Signum, Tim 3 III [3.00] Oldham, Steve Long at Floating Earth, and my In the first movement the viola is a gondolier friends the Calder Quartet. poling through the other instruments’ moonlit The Four Quarters (2011) World Premiere Recording 4 I. Nightfalls [7.06] water, with shreds of shadowy waltz drifting 5 II. Serenade: Morning Dew [3.12] Thomas Adès, 2015 in now and then. Next, under a quotation 6 III. Days [3.50] from The Magic Flute (‘That sounds so 7 IV. The Twenty-Fifth Hour [3.51] The Chamber Music delightful, that sounds so divine’ sing of Thomas Adès Monostatos and the slaves when Papageno Arcadiana (1993) plays his bells), comes a song for the cello 8 I. Venezia notturno [2.39] These three works are not only in classic under glistening harmonics. The music is 9 II. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schon [1.22] genres but themselves becoming classics, with stopped twice in its tracks by major chords, 0 III.
    [Show full text]
  • Schumann (1810- 1856) a Monté Un À Un Les Degrés De La Haute Composition Musicale
    1 Trois Romances pour hautbois et piano Op. 94 1 I - Nicht schnell 3’39 2 II - Einfach, innig 3’58 3 III - Nicht schnell 4’22 FRANÇOIS LELEUX, hautbois ERIC LE SAGE, piano Trois Phantasiestücke pour clarinette et piano Op. 73 4 I - Zart und mit Ausdruck 3’14 5 II - Lebhaft, leicht 2’55 6 III - Rasch, mit Feuer 3’24 PAUL MEYER, clarinette ERIC LE SAGE, piano Cinq Pièces dans le ton populaire pour violoncelle et piano Op. 102 7 I - Mit Humor 3’09 8 II - Langsam 3’13 9 III - Nicht schnell, mit viel Ton zu spielen 3’57 2 10 IV - Nicht zu rasch 1’40 11 V - Stark und markiert 3’11 JEAN-GUIHEN QUEYRAS, violoncelle ERIC LE SAGE, piano Märchenbilder pour alto et piano Op. 113 12 I - Nicht schnell 3’08 13 II - Lebhaft 3’42 14 III - Rasch 2’27 15 IV - Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck 5’15 ANTOINE TAMESTIT, alto ERIC LE SAGE, piano Märchenerzählungen pour clarinette, alto et piano Op. 132 16 I - Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell 2’56 17 II - Lebhaft und sehr markirt 2’57 18 III - Ruhiges Tempo, mit zartem Ausdruck 4’07 19 IV - Lebhaft, sehr markirt 3’59 PAUL MEYER, clarinette ANTOINE TAMESTIT, alto ERIC LE SAGE, piano 3 Adagio et Allegro pour cor et piano Op. 70 20 Langsam mit innigen Ausdruck 3’42 21 Rash und Feurig 4’27 BRUNO SCHNEIDER, cor ERIC LE SAGE, piano Le programme du CD (sauf plages 7 à 11) a été enregistré en septembre 2006 au Studio Radio Zürich (DRS 2 Schweizer Radio) ingénieur du son : Charles Suter 4 2 Sonate pour violon et piano en ré mineur Op.
    [Show full text]
  • View List (.Pdf)
    Symphony Society of New York Stadium Concert United States Premieres New York Philharmonic Commission as of November 30, 2020 NY PHIL Biennial Members of / musicians from the New York Philharmonic Click to jump to decade 1842-49 | 1850-59 | 1860-69 | 1870-79 | 1880-89 | 1890-99 | 1900-09 | 1910-19 | 1920-29 | 1930-39 1940-49 | 1950-59 | 1960-69 | 1970-79 | 1980-89 | 1990-99 | 2000-09 | 2010-19 | 2020 Composer Work Date Conductor 1842 – 1849 Beethoven Symphony No. 3, Sinfonia Eroica 18-Feb 1843 Hill Beethoven Symphony No. 7 18-Nov 1843 Hill Vieuxtemps Fantasia pour le Violon sur la quatrième corde 18-May 1844 Alpers Lindpaintner War Jubilee Overture 16-Nov 1844 Loder Mendelssohn The Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave) 16-Nov 1844 Loder Beethoven Symphony No. 8 16-Nov 1844 Loder Bennett Die Najaden (The Naiades) 1-Mar 1845 Wiegers Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3, Scottish 22-Nov 1845 Loder Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 17-Jan 1846 Hill Kalliwoda Symphony No. 1 7-Mar 1846 Boucher Furstenau Flute Concerto No. 5 7-Mar 1846 Boucher Donizetti "Tutto or Morte" from Faliero 20-May 1846 Hill Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Choral 20-May 1846 Loder Gade Grand Symphony 2-Dec 1848 Loder Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor 24-Nov 1849 Eisfeld Beethoven Symphony No. 4 24-Nov 1849 Eisfeld 1850 – 1859 Schubert Symphony in C major, Great 11-Jan 1851 Eisfeld R. Schumann Introduction and Allegro appassionato for Piano and 25-Apr 1857 Eisfeld Orchestra Litolff Chant des belges 25-Apr 1857 Eisfeld R. Schumann Overture to the Incidental Music to Byron's Dramatic 21-Nov 1857 Eisfeld Poem, Manfred 1860 - 1869 Brahms Serenade No.
    [Show full text]
  • Claude Debussy in 2018: a Centenary Celebration Abstracts and Biographies
    19-23/03/18 CLAUDE DEBUSSY IN 2018: A CENTENARY CELEBRATION ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES Claude Debussy in 2018: A Centenary Celebration Abstracts and Biographies I. Debussy Perspectives, 1918-2018 RNCM, Manchester Monday, 19 March Paper session A: Debussy’s Style in History, Conference Room, 2.00-5.00 Chair: Marianne Wheeldon 2.00-2.30 – Mark DeVoto (Tufts University), ‘Debussy’s Evolving Style and Technique in Rodrigue et Chimène’ Claude Debussy’s Rodrigue et Chimène, on which he worked for two years in 1891-92 before abandoning it, is the most extensive of more than a dozen unfinished operatic projects that occupied him during his lifetime. It can also be regarded as a Franco-Wagnerian opera in the same tradition as Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys (1888), Chabrier’s Gwendoline (1886), d’Indy’s Fervaal (1895), and Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus (1895), representing part of the absorption of the younger generation of French composers in Wagner’s operatic ideals, harmonic idiom, and quasi-medieval myth; yet this kinship, more than the weaknesses of Catulle Mendès’s libretto, may be the real reason that Debussy cast Rodrigue aside, recognising it as a necessary exercise to be discarded before he could find his own operatic voice (as he soon did in Pelléas et Mélisande, beginning in 1893). The sketches for Rodrigue et Chimène shed considerable light on the evolution of Debussy’s technique in dramatic construction as well as his idiosyncratic approach to tonal form. Even in its unfinished state — comprising three out of a projected four acts — the opera represents an impressive transitional stage between the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra (1890) and the full emergence of his genius, beginning with the String Quartet (1893) and the Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune (1894).
    [Show full text]
  • The Heraclitian Form of Thomas Adès's Tevot As a Critical Lens
    The Art of Transformation: The Heraclitian Form of Thomas Adès’sTevot as a Critical Lens for the Symphonic Tradition and an original composition, Glimmer, Glisten, Glow for sinfonietta A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Music Composition and Theory David Rakowski and Yu-Hui Chang, Advisors In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Joseph Sowa May 2019 The signed version of this form is on file in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This dissertation, directed and approved by Joseph Sowa’s Committee, has been accepted and approved by the Faculty of Brandeis University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of: DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Eric Chasalow, Dean Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Committee: David Rakowski, Brandeis University Department of Music Yu-Hui Chang, Brandeis University Department of Music Erin Gee, Brandeis University Department of Music Martin Brody, Wellesley College, Department of Music iii Copyright by Joseph Sowa 2019 Acknowledgements The story of my time at Brandeis begins in 2012, a few months after being rejected from every doctoral program to which I applied. Still living in Provo, Utah, I picked up David Ra- kowski from the airport for a visit to BYU. We had met a few years earlier through the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, when Davy was on the board of advisors and I was an intern. On that drive several years later, I asked him if he had any suggestions for my doc- toral application portfolio, to which he immediately responded, “You were actually a finalist.” Because of his encouragement, I applied to Brandeis a second time, and the rest is history.
    [Show full text]
  • De Claude Debussy -De L’Aube À Midi [Extraits]- Tous Cycles
    L'oeuvre musicale du mois octobre 2009 Principe : Découvrir chaque mois une oeuvre musicale ou un instrument pour : − favoriser l'ouverture culturelle des élèves − soutenir une séquence de travail en éducation musicale − s'approprier des éléments du lexique en musique « La Mer » de Claude Debussy -De l’aube à midi [extraits]- Tous Cycles L’œuvre : « La Mer » est datée de 1905. C’est une des compositions pour orchestre les plus célèbres de Debussy avec le « Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune ». Claude Debussy (1862-1918) est un musicien français qui a développé un langage très personnel, basé sur des recherches de sonorités particulières. Il a été impressionné par les musiques extra- européennes entendues à l’Exposition Universelle de 1889 à Paris. Il s’est libéré de l’influence de la musique de Wagner. Tant sur le plan historique que musical, les points de vue français et allemand étaient opposés. Et Debussy se faisait alors appeler « Claude de France ». Les oeuvres de Debussy témoignent d’un goût original pour les couleurs harmoniques subtiles, rares et délicates, pleines de mystère. A travers sa musique, Debussy ne cherche pas à décrire mais souhaite nous faire partager des impressions qui lui ont plu. Sa musique est souvent construite par superpositions de fines touches sonores et associations de couleurs instrumentales qui laissent des impressions auditives au goût délicieusement étrange. Avec Ravel et Fauré, il a participé au renouveau de la musique française du début du XXe siècle. Debussy a commencé à composer « La Mer » alors qu’il séjournait en Bourgogne. A propos de sa musique, il écrit alors à Massenet, un ami musicien : « …cela pourrait bien ressembler aux paysages d’atelier, mais j’ai d’innombrables souvenirs ; cela vaut mieux à mon sens qu’une réalité dont le charme pèse généralement trop lourd sur votre pensée.» Toutefois, peu de temps après, il retrouvera les rivages marins au cours de vacances à Jersey et à Dieppe, avant de finir sa composition.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Program Notes
    Notes on the Program By James M. Keller, Program Annotator, The Leni and Peter May Chair Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) Nocturnes Claude Debussy laude Debussy achieved his musical produced. This work is too exquisite, alas! It Cmaturity in the final decade of the 19th is too exquisite.” century, a magical moment in France when partisans of the visual arts fully embraced the gentle luster of Impressionism, poets navi- In Short gated the indirect locutions of Symbolism, Born: August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain- composers struggled with the pluses and mi- en-Laye, just outside Paris, France nuses of Wagner, and the City of Light blazed Died: March 25, 1918, in Paris even more brightly than usual, enflamed with the pleasures of the Belle Époque. Works composed and premiered: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune begun in 1892 — Several early Debussy masterpieces of perhaps as early as 1891 — and completed the 1890s have lodged in the repertoire, by October 23, 1894; premiered December 22, including, most strikingly, the Prélude à 1894, at a concert of the Société Nationale de l’après-midi d’un faune. Debussy was hardly Musique in Paris, Gustave Doret, conductor. a youngster when he composed it. He had Nocturnes composed 1897–99, drawing on begun studying at the Paris Conservatoire material sketched as early as 1892; dedicated to in 1872, when he was only ten; had served the music publisher Georges Hartmann; Nuages as resident pianist and musical pet for Na- and Fêtes premiered on December 9, 1900, dezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s myste- at the Concerts Lamoureux in Paris, Camille rious patron, in Russia and on her travels Chevillard, conductor; the complete three- during the summers of 1880–82; had finally movement Noctunes was premiered on October 27, 1901, by the same orchestra and conductor.
    [Show full text]