Fantasia Winterreise Violin Sonata London

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José Serebrier (b. 1938) London Philharmonic Orchestra Symphony No. 2 (Partita) • Fantasia • Winterreise • Violin Sonata The London Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1932, has long established a high reputation for its versatility and Symphony No. 2 (Partita) (1958) Partita turned out to be a large four-movement artistic excellence. These are evident from its performances in the concert hall and opera house, its many award- work. The opening movement, a Prelude, uses Latin winning recordings, its trail-blazing international tours, and its pioneering education work. The London Upon graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in American-sounding rhythms and colours, only the Philharmonic Orchestra presents its main series of concerts at the Royal Festival Hall and in summer becomes the composition in 1958, I applied for the apprentice second time I resorted to these, after my Piano Sonata, resident symphony orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Kurt Masur has been the Orchestra’s Principal conductor position with the Minneapolis Symphony written the previous year at Curtis. The second Conductor since September 2000, following in the footsteps of Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Orchestra, which was given in tandem with the Dorati movement, Funeral March (Poema Elegiaco) is in a Pritchard, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti and Klaus Tennstedt. Vladimir Jurowski, currently the Orchestra’s Fellowship for study in composition at the University of sombre Slavic mood, in full contrast to the rather Principal Guest Conductor, will become its new Principal Conductor in September 2007. José Serebrier’s Minnesota. During the two wonderful years in indifferent opening movement. The third is actually a recordings with the London Philharmonic have included the historic version of the Symphony No. 4 by Charles Ives, Minneapolis I wrote my most ambitious work, a Partita transition, an interlude, leading to a grand finale, an which remains in the catalogue after several decades, and the more recent, equally successful recording of Rimsky- for large orchestra. The genesis of this large work, later intricate fugue in which the theme of the Funeral March Korsakov’s Sheherazade, both winners of several international awards. sub-titled Symphony No. 2, was a commission from Mrs transforms itself little by little into an irreverent Faith Smyth of Chicago, my first commission. I had met conga/candombe. The work ends with a jazz semi- her through the composer John Lamontaine, whom she improvisation, based on the same Latin mould. had commissioned many times, and later through pianist Mrs Smyth may have had something to do with the Jorge Bolet. Mrs Smyth was a major sponsor of a film invitation I received from Howard Mitchell, the Music Gonzalo Acosta on the life of Franz Liszt so that Bolet could play the Director of the National Symphony Orchestra, to have piano in it. Although his superb playing was only used this work given its première by his orchestra, under my Uruguayan born Gonzalo Acosta studied with Jaroslav Vanûãek at the Royal College of Music and with Zakhar as sound, and he was never seen, this movie was the direction. This was in 1960, eleven years before the Bron in Germany. At 21 he became Principal Second Violin with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and catalyst to bring Bolet back into the concert circuit. Mrs construction of the Kennedy Center, so the première subsequently Deputy Leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, followed by appearances as guest Smyth was also helpful at the start of Leontyne Price’s was at the orchestra’s home, the mammoth auditorium leader with several British orchestras. He was Professor and Orchestral Coach at the Royal College of Music Junior career, by commissioning a work especially for her, of the D. A. R. Constitution Hall. It was an instant Department, while remaining a member of the Dussek Piano Trio. His recordings include the Arensky trios and a which in turn led to concert engagements. A woman of success with the public. The critic of the Washington CD of chamber music by Willaim Hurlestone. He gave the British première of Jose Serebrier’s early Solo Violin many interests, she was also instrumental in getting the Post was the notorious Paul Hume. His first review of Sonata, which he has performed in Europe and South America. He is Associate Leader of the English National off-Broadway show The Fantasticks into production. Partita was devastating. The next day, at a gala Opera Orchestra. I seem to remember that she decided to commission luncheon for supporters of the orchestra, Hume was me very soon after she met me and heard some of my introduced to me. I extended my hand, and he said: “Are music. Dorati heard about Mrs Smyth from me, and you shaking hands with me after what I wrote in today’s befriended her at once. The result — she paid for the newspaper?” I said “Of course I am”. In fact I had not recording of his symphony, the last recording Dorati yet seen the newspapers, and did not see his review until made in Minneapolis for Mercury. While Dorati did after the luncheon. Hume was the guest speaker. His invite me to conduct my early Elegy for Strings with the speech consisted in reading no less than a dozen reviews orchestra, he was not particularly encouraging whenever from the premières of such works as Beethoven’s Ninth we spoke about a composing career. It had to do with Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, the practicality or lack of it, more than with any Tchaikowsky’s First Piano Concerto, and so on, all of consideration of talent. He was a better than average them damning, amusingly devastating reviews. That composer himself, but obviously frustrated that nobody was his form of apology to me, he added, for writing performed his music. I conducted the world première of negatively about my work, indicating, in a remarkable his difficult Missa Brevis, for chorus and percussion, in show of modesty and fallibility, that time has a way of a concert I organized myself in Minneapolis. correcting such early judgments. His statements had the

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Serebrier was 21 years old when Leopold Stokowski named him Associate Conductor of the newly formed benefit of creating controversy and expectations around Symphony Orchestra with the Funeral March, but he American Symphony Orchestra in New York, a post he held for five years. Previously he had been the Minnesota my piece, especially since none of the 300 guests at the asked me if I would consider changing the title… that’s Orchestra’s Apprentice Conductor, with Antal Dorati, for two seasons. Serebrier made his New York conducting luncheon had yet heard it, and would be attending the how Poema Elegiaco was born. début with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1965 to wide critical acclaim. Running like a repeat performances that night or the following evening. theme through the reviews was an awareness of his intense, dynamic approach to music and his superb control of The opening concert, the previous evening, was only Fantasia (1960) the orchestra. attended by some thirty people. Serebrier’s association with Stokowski goes back to 1957, when the two came together through a dramatic turn It was a very special night. 8th November, 1960, was After graduation from the University of Minnesota, and of events. While conducting the Houston Symphony Stokowski found the scheduled Symphony No. 4 by Ives too election night in the United States, the night that John F. Dorati’s departure from Minneapolis, with my complex for the orchestra. As a last minute replacement, he found and chose Serebrier’s Symphony No. 1, written by Kennedy was elected. TV sets had been set up in the Guggenheim grants finished, life became a big question the then seventeen-year-old student at the Curtis Institute of Music, who had just arrived in the United States. The lobby of the concert hall, and the scattered few people in mark. While driving back to New York I stopped for occasion of the concert was their first meeting. Eight years later the “unplayable” Ives Fourth Symphony finally had the audience kept wandering in and out to the lobby to gasoline in a small city in upstate New York, and read a its première with Stokowski conducting the American Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Standing on the podium next to follow the results of the close election. When the concert newspaper announcement that on that same evening the Stokowski, one of the three conductors necessary for the rhythmic complexities of the work, was José Serebrier. A ended even the musicians ran to the TV sets backstage. At local orchestra was auditioning conductors. With spirit few years later Serebrier would perform and record the symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on his that time, by ten in the evening, it was still unclear if of adventure, I called to ask if it was still possible to own, without the assistance of other conductors. His recording is considered a landmark and received a Grammy Nixon or Kennedy would win. In the following evenings apply. The audition was successful, and I became the nomination and numerous awards around the world. the concert hall was completely full, and Hume wrote a music director of the Utica Symphony, a semi- Leopold Stokowski conducted the first New York performance of Serebrier’s Elegy for Strings in 1962 at follow-up review, in which he re-considered his early professional orchestra. The position in Utica was so Carnegie Hall, and in 1963 he opened the American Symphony Orchestra season at Carnegie Hall with the première statements, indicating that the work gained with each underpaid that the only housing I could afford was a of the composer’s Poema Elegiaco (originally entitled Funeral March, the second movement of Partita). The hearing, and he now even admired it. I was quite little room at the YMCA. I think my salary was $2000 Louisville Orchestra recorded Serebrier’s Partita, to critical acclaim. For the 1968-69 and 69-70 seasons, George impressed by his willingness to retract. I also recall not per year. The position came as a package with a part- Szell named José Serebrier Composer-in-Residence of the Cleveland Orchestra under a special grant from the being bothered at all by his negative comments. time position as Assistant Professor at the local college Rockefeller Foundation. While in that position, he wrote an effective harp concerto entitled Colores Mágicos for the Some months later, when I was teaching to teach violin and composition, which paid some Inter American Music Festival in Washington. Shortly after, he wrote another multi-media work, Nueve, a concerto temporarily at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, I additional sum. This school, part of Syracuse for double bass and orchestra, commissioned for the double bass virtuoso Gary Karr. Serebrier and Karr have had a telephone call from Robert Whitney, Music University, used makeshift classrooms, and was new performed this concerto all over the world. Serebrier has also written concertos for accordion and orchestra, Director of the Louisville Orchestra in Kentucky, with and poor, but at least I had my own office, and a school trombone, violin, and others. He has composed several works for percussion ensembles. the marvellous news that he had decided to record my library room where I could compose. It was in this Serebrier’s Violin Concerto, Winter, was given its première by the New Jersey Symphony at New York’s Partita, but there was a “catch”. Partita was too long for school library/cafeteria that I wrote every note of my Lincoln Center in 1995 to wide critical acclaim, and has since been performed in London, Madrid, and in many a 1961 LP recording, and one of the movements would Fantasia for String Quartet. The noise and the constant other cities around the world. Other recent published works include Dorothy & Carmine! for flute and chamber have to be sacrificed in order for it to fit on the LP, and chatter failed to distract me. I enjoyed writing this piece, orchestra, At Dusk, in Shadows for solo flute; Night Cry for brass ensemble and George & Muriel for double bass he had already decided to skip the Funeral March. which I did on commission from the Harvard Musical and chorus. Would I agree? I agreed, as it was my first music to be Association in Massachusetts. During my last months in recorded, but I was not pleased, as this was an intrinsic Minneapolis, Dorati told me that he had noticed an Based on articles by Oliver Daniel © Broadcast Music Inc. (used by permission) section of the work, the one that Copland had favoured. announcement that this association had a competition to The Louisville Orchestra at the time was one of the most commission a string quartet. I applied for it and won the imaginative and progressive in America. With a large contest. The prize money was quite small, but it grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, it had embarked included a première by members of the Boston on an ambitious project to record a large number of new Symphony, at the Harvard Musical Association’s works. Whitney was a visionary. He did a great job with beautiful salons at Harvard. The première, in the spring rehearsing and performing my work, and the local of 1961, was a wonderful event, acclaimed by the press. critics loved it as much as the public. When I was Later, Wladimir Lakond, the editor at Peer Music working with Stokowski in New York, he decided to suggested a string orchestra version of it, with double open his Carnegie Hall season with the American basses added, and he published both versions.

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After a short introduction that sets the mood, a folk- Concerto, written more than forty years later, to tie a some people’s names become them. In fact the piece not imagine at the time that one day I would be like melody of melancholy nature is followed by a full circle between my earliest and my most recent quotes almost every composer but Schubert. Towards recording Glazunov’s entire ballet The Seasons, which I persistent solo violin that uses unexpected melodic and work. More recently, when I wrote Winterreise, loosely the climax of the piece, the first quotation is from Haydn recently did. harmonic structures. This recurrent solo, a sort of based on the violin concerto, it also quoted from that (Winter from The Seasons), which has a mysterious The piece is like a train ride, when one rides devil’s trill, is purposely out of place. Its closest first attempt at composition. ambience. Then a heroic quotation from Glazunov backwards and all images fly by slightly distorted, never “cousin” would be the solo violin in Mahler’s Fourth (Winter from The Seasons) in counterpoint with to return. All the trees are covered with snow and the Symphony, a work I did not know at the time. The music Winterreise (1999) Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, “Winter Dreams”. lakes are frozen. Icicles cling to the train’s windows. goes back and forth in a truly improvisatory manner that Eventually, all three tunes appear together. If one listens There is no sky; everything seems blinding white. justified the title. The closest it comes to a set form is The genesis of Winterreise goes back to 1991 when I carefully, the Dies irae can also be heard towards the the recapitulation of the solo violin section, which leads was commissioned to write a violin concerto. The end, evolving naturally from the Haydn quotation. I did © José Serebrier to an unexpected, driven coda. This ending may come as concerto had to be the last piece of a puzzle, a violinist’s a surprise, since the bulk of the piece is so lyrical. The idea to record the four seasons — not Vivaldi’s, but by title has to do with the free form of the piece, but it was four twentieth-century composers. We had Rodrigo’s José Serebrier also a kind of homage to Stokowski/Disney’s wonderful Summer Concerto, Milhaud’s Spring Concerto, and film. When I wrote Fantasia I had not yet started to eventually we found an Autumn, a salon piece for violin José Serebrier, who is one of today’s most frequently recorded conductors, established himself as a significant work with Stokowski in New York (that would come by Chaminade. I was asked to write a winter concerto to composer from his early beginnings. Serebrier was born in Montevideo of Russian and Polish parents. At the age of eighteen months later), but he had already given the complete the cycle. The concept and form of the work nine he began to study the violin, and at eleven made his conducting début. While in high school he organized and premières of two of my works, the First Symphony in evolved, rather ironically, while walking on the conducted the first youth orchestra in Uruguay, touring the country and giving more than one hundred concerts. Houston, and the Elegy for Strings in New York. beautiful white sand beaches of Key Biscaine, Florida, Upon graduating at the age of fifteen from the Municipal School of Music in Montevideo, he found no opportunity at Christmas that year. I had never meant to portray for conducting Uruguay’s only major orchestra. That year, the annual composition contest by the National Sonata for Violin Solo, Op. 1 (1948) literally the season of winter. My winter concerto would Orchestra, OSSODRE, was announced very late, only two weeks before the deadline. Thinking that if he won he have to be a poetic vision of winter, not so much the might be permitted to conduct his own work, he entered the contest with a hastily written Legend of Faust overture. I had only taken a few violin lessons when I began actual season but the winter of life, the time approaching Serebrier won the contest, but his work was assigned to another, older guest conductor, Eleazar de Carvalho. Today, writing the first segments of my Sonata for Violin Solo. death, when presumably all memories come back in a Serebrier conducts most major orchestras around the world, and has become one of the most recorded musicians, At the time I had no idea what a sonata was, nor any flash; when reality, futility, purpose, memories all mix with well over 250 titles. His published compositions, many of them written at an early age, number over one other musical form, or key-relationships, or anything in a mocking parade, a never-ending dream. hundred. else about music theory. The piece evolved purely out of I could not write it fast enough. It was my first Early in his career, Serebrier was the recipient of many of music’s most coveted honours. In 1956 and 1957 he intuition. Many years later, after it was published, I was large-scale orchestral work in several decades, but I received a United States State Department Fellowship to study composition at the Curtis Institute of Music with surprised to hear that somebody at a university in Texas seemed to take off where I had left before. There was a Vittorio Giannini and with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. In 1956 he was awarded a Koussevitzky Foundation had made a special analysis of it, which went on for major change in approach. Thanks to the more open Award at Tanglewood and in the same year a BMI Young Composers Award with his First Symphony and Quartet many pages, discussing the formal structure and the times, I now felt free to write as I felt. Soon after it was for Saxophones. The State Department Fellowship was followed by two consecutive Guggenheim Fellowships in key-relationships. This essay was published in 1965. written and recorded, the Violin Concerto was played in 1957 and 1958. At nineteen he was the youngest ever to obtain these awards in any field. Serebrier has also been There are indeed some things that can be analyzed, as an New York, Miami, London, and Madrid within a short honoured with two Dorati Fellowships at the University of Minnesota where he received his MA in 1960, a Pan afterthought. The opening melodic line, which recurs time, and published both by Peer Music and by Kalmus. American Union Publication Award for his Elegy for Strings, and the Ford Foundation American Conductors from time to time, has a modal quality. The piece seems It was recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Project Award. Many other awards followed: a Rockefeller Foundation award to be Composer-in-Residence of the to evolve naturally, developing a form of its own, like a From the start I felt that it contained the roots of a Cleveland Orchestra, at the invitation of George Szell during the seasons 1958/69 and again 1969/70; a Harvard well-planned improvisation. The “appoggiatura” over a purely symphonic piece, a short impulsive utterance Musical Association Commission Award for Fantasia for string quartet; a National Endowment for the Arts major-seventh chord, which becomes a recurring based on the same idea. When I was approached with Commission for Orpheus x Light for the Joffrey Ballet; a Grammy nomination for his recording of the Fourth element, would later become almost obsessive in many the plan to do a recording of my music, I went back to Symphony by Charles Ives, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; the U.K. Music Retailers Association award of my early works. The piece is very difficult to that initiative, and produced a Winter’s Journey, the title for best orchestral recording for the Mendelssohn symphonies, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; the Deutsche perform, making virtuosic demands at every stage. I I gave it originally. To give it Schubert’s title was Schallplatten Award for best orchestral recording for the first of three CDs of Shostakovich’s Film Suites, with the quoted extensively from this sonata in my Winter Violin daring, but in time the piece became Winterreise, like Belgian Radio Orchestra, and many others.

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Also available from José Serebrier: AMERICAN CLASSICS José SEREBRIER Symphony No. 2 (Partita) Fantasia Winterreise Violin Sonata London Philharmonic Orchestra José Serebrier 8.559183 Gonzalo Acosta, Violin 8.559303 8 CMYK NAXOS Playing José Time: SEREBRIER 60:21 (b. 1938) Made in Canada broadcasting and copying of this compact disc prohibited. translations reserved. Unauthorised public performance, All rights in this sound recording, artwork, texts and 8.559303 SEREBRIER: 1999 & Symphony No. 2 (Partita) (1958) 28:32 AMERICAN CLASSICS 1 Prelude 8:19 “José Serebrier’s conducting has been so triumphant that we tend to 2007 Naxos Rights International Ltd. 2 Funeral March (Poema Elegiaco) 8:54 forget he is an equally distinguished 3 Interlude 3:29 composer” (The Times). Symphony No. 2, ‘Partita’, written at the age of 4 Fugue 7:51 19 and premièred by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington

5 Fantasia (for strings) (1960) 12:11 with the composer in his U.S. Partita • Fantasia Winterreise conducting début, “is a sort of 6 musical Armageddon you’re not Sonata for Violin Solo (1948) 12:32 likely to forget” (CDNow), “music of Gonzalo Acosta, Violin our time that demands to be heard” (The Times). The lyrical Fantasia 7 Winterreise (1999) 7:05 was premièred in Boston at the Harvard Musical Association, which commissioned it. The Solo Violin Sonata is Serebrier’s Opus 1, written when he was 9 years old. Winterreise, London Philharmonic Orchestra one of the composer’s most recent Partita • Fantasia • Winterreise Partita • Fantasia works, “… is a passionate orchestral José Serebrier showpiece. Ambitiously scored, it is spectacularly impressive” (The Gramophone). Serebrier’s acclaimed Symphony No. 3, “Symphonie DDD Mystique”, the recipient of several Recorded at The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford, UK, Grammy nominations, is featured on 9th and 10th March, 1999 on Naxos 8.559183.

SEREBRIER: Producer: J. Tamblyn Henderson Jr. Engineer: Keith O. Johnson www.naxos.com 8.559303 8.559303 Publisher: Peermusic Classical Previously released on Reference Recordings American flag, folk artist, 1880s. NAXOS