Bach and Vivaldi Saturday, November 21 at 11 Am & 7:30 Pm

program notes

2020 - 2021 SEASON Celebrating 100 Years

Bach and Vivaldi Saturday, November 21 at 11 am & 7:30 pm | Holland Center

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major (1685-1750) Ann Beebe, violin; Keith Plenert, violin; Kevin Tompkins, violin; Thomas Kluge, viola; Brian Sherwood, viola; Bozhidar Shopov, viola; Paul Ledwon, cello; Greg Clinton, cello; Sam Pierce-Ruhland, cello; Bill Ritchie, bass; Mark Kurtz, harpsichord

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord (1890-1959) Susanna Perry Gilmore, violin; Maria Harding, flute; Mark Kurtz, harpsichord

ARVO PÄRT Da Pacem Domine for String Quartet (b. 1935) Ann Beebe, violin; Kevin Tompkins, violin; Thomas Kluge, viola; Sam Pierce-Ruhland, cello

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Trio Sonata for Flute, Violin, Cello and (1685-1750) Harpsichord, from A Musical Offering I. Largo II. Allegro III. Andante IV. Allegro

Maria Harding, flute; Keith Plenert, violin; Greg Clinton, cello; Mark Kurtz, harpsichord

ANTONIO VIVALDI L’inverno (Winter), F minor, from (1678-1741) Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), Op. 8 1. Aggiaciatto tremar tra nevi algenti 2. Passar al foco i di quieti 3. Camminar sopra il ghiacc

Susanna Perry Gilmore, violin; Ann Beebe, violin; Keith Plenert, violin; Kevin Tompkins, violin; Thomas Kluge, viola; Paul Ledwon, cello; Nate Olson, bass; Mark Kurtz, harpsichord

I. LargoII. AllegroIII. AndanteIV. Allegro program notes Program Notes by Dani Meier

The process of composition – from conception through revision – is often as fascinating as the completed work itself. Bach, Vivaldi, Martinů, and Pärt had their own methods – let alone motivations – in approaching the pieces that you’ll hear today in a beautiful program that spans over 280 years. We open with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (1721) Johann Sebastian Bach Like many great works of art, the Brandenburg Concerti are cloaked in mystery. There’s no clear evidence to support when Bach originally composed the set; in fact, most musicologists believe that Bach gathered material from previous, unrelated compositions and revised them into the six concerti we know today. Why? Most likely to create one heck of a work portfolio. In 1721, Bach presented them to the Margrave of Brandenburg with a note containing no less than nine “Your Highness”es. The Margrave, unthinkably and un- ceremoniously, shoved them into a drawer in his desk, where they would start their very narrow avoidance of eternal obscurity until their discovery and publishing in 1849. Despite over a hundred years of neglect – we’re sure the Margrave got an earful in the afterlife – the Bran- denburg Concerti exist as one of the most brilliant collections of works for baroque ensemble, each one a fea- ture for a different set of instruments and requiring the utmost dexterity. The Third Concerto is the outlier of the set for a few reasons. First, it abandons the concertino (soloist) versus ripieno (section) format of the other concertos, instead using a main complement of three groups of three - violins, violas, and cellos – that function both collectively and individually. Second: there’s no second movement. That’s not entirely true. It exists… barely… as two measly chords, forming what’s called a Phrygian Half Cadence. While the chord progression leads very naturally into the third movement, Bach didn’t leave clear instructions behind. What we do know is that Bach was a master improviser – an important thing to remember for later – and that this brief “choose your own adventure” moment might indicate a chance for the harpsi- chordist (*cough* Bach) to improvise a short cadenza. Ensembles across the centuries have each taken their own approach, some opting for the cadenza route, others inserting Adagio movements from other concertos. We’re leaving our own ensemble’s decision as a surprise for you to experience in real time. So – what about movements one and three? Hold on to your seats. The opening Allegro is gloriously stately, yet endlessly flowing, using the primarily string texture to create waves of phrasing. The third movement, also Allegro, is perpetual motion realized, a rage of furious bowing that stops only for section resolutions. It’s a furiously delightful good time.

Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord (1939) Bohuslav Martinů I have a feeling that we all know a Martinů – a person full of seemingly myriad talents but no patience for anything except what they love most. As a child, it was clear that Martinů could be an extraordinary violinist; his hometown of Policka, Czechoslovakia, raised money to send him to the Prague Conservatory following his first public recital at age 15. But… he struggled. The hours of practicing didn’t appeal to him and therefore didn’t happen. His increasing aptitude for new music – especially the French impressionism of the early 20th century – led teachers to trans- fer him to organ, where coursework included composition, but the practicing didn’t happen there, either. He was dismissed from the Conservatory for, fantastically, “incorrigible negligence.” And yet – his time at the Conservatory was not wasted. The access to concerts meant access to new music, hearing the latest compositions with friends and roommates who, flabbergasted, would watch him return to his room and copy out parts of the score by memory. Martinů had found the conduit for his creative energy: the analysis, memorization, and composition of music. 2 In 1923, Martinů finally found a teacher who understood his unique combination of brilliance and stub- bornness: Albert Roussel. Rather than force Martinů to work in a particular method or pursue a specific style, Roussel acted as a director, focusing Martinů’s compositional thoughts and process. Martinů would study with Roussel until the latter’s death in 1937, and during that time he experimented with seemingly every compositional style that came his way: jazz, French impressionism, and the neoclassicism he would eventually settle on, inspired by Igor Stravinsky. For someone who balked at practice room dedication, Martinů became one of our most prolific composers, yet he avoided the historic overthinking that plagued his contemporaries like Poulenc and Dukas. Musicologists disagree on whether this reflected a disinterest in revision; however, looking at Martinů’s composition process, things seem to point rather to someone who had so much music in their system there was simply no time – or need – to revise. For example, upon moving to America later in life, Martinů would take nightly strolls in his neighborhood, actively composing while walking around. He’d work out the scores in his head, as he had as a young student in Prague, so focused in his music that upon “coming to,” he’d realized that he’d gotten com- pletely lost. A friend would ultimately have to come pick Martinů up. These walks bring us, fittingly, to the Promenades. By 1939, Martinů was firmly locked into neoclassicism, a style that mixes the colors and fundamentals of the classical era (think early Haydn and Mozart) and filters them through the sensibilities of current music theory. Consisting of four short movements, the Promenades start with the delicate, delightful timbres that you would expect from an early ensemble of flute, violin, and harpsichord. However, with each movement, the mood and spikiness of the work intensifies – not unlike eating something unexpectedly spicy and realizing, too late, that the heat is building. Luckily, Martinů hands you a figurative glass of milk with a very welcome pre-coda chord, a cadence that eases up the tension that brings the whole set to a deft, bright conclusion.

Da pacem Domine for String Quartet (2004) Arvo Pärt Prior to the Madrid Train Bombings of 2004, Jordi Savall – one of the world’s greatest baroque specialists – had conceived of a concert centered on a 9th-century Gregorian chant setting of the universal prayer for peace: “Da pacem Domine.” He approached Arvo Pärt to write a piece for the program, and Pärt’s vocal quartet was coincidentally finished just days after the atrocity occurred. Although no one could have predicted the timing of the work’s completion, it has become Spain’s annual tribute in commemoration of the victims. This is one of those rare, perfect storms where project meets process meets environment. Pärt has used elements of Gregorian chant in his compositional style for decades – calling his technique tintinnabuli – the overall effect a surreal, meditative sound world. The combination of his natural style, with Savall’s commission, meant that Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine is as close to hearing 21st century Gregorian Chant as we may ever get. The completion of the work, set against the background of the terror attacks, bring even more focus to the text that Pärt worked with: “Grant peace, Lord, in our time; / for there is no one else / who would fight for us / if not you, our God.” Today, you’ll be hearing the string quartet version of Da pacem Domine, another of Pärt’s unique compositional decisions. Pärt’s writing is often easily adaptable to a variety of ensembles, and most of his works exist in several iterations. This is because tintinnabuli seems to highlight a Pärt signature: color and atmosphere over technical dexterity. Though you won’t hear the text today, his use of strings creates a Zen stillness in time that feels especially grounding.

Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale – Trio Sonata for Flute, Violin, Cello and Harpsichord from A Musical Offering, BWV 1079 (1747) Johann Sebastian Bach Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti had been presented to the Margrave some 25 years ago, in his mid-thirties. Now, towards the end of his life, he was making a trip to Potsdam to see his son, Carl Philip Emanuel, and his son’s royal patron: King Frederick II the Great of Prussia. Musicologists don’t quite agree on the King’s mood upon Bach’s arrival – primarily because the origin story of A Musical Offering is either a powerful person with way too much time on his hands, an attempt to musical- ly sabotage (gasp!) the elder Bach, a fan geeking out… or, all of the above. Here’s what we can agree on, however: Frederick II was an avid – and apparently talented – flute player. He was also the proud owner of seven, count-em, pianofortes, a fairly recent invention, and he knew – as did 3 everyone who employed a Bach – that Johann Sebastian was a legendary improviser. So: upon J.S.’s arrival, possibly before he’d even put down his bags, he was enthusiastically dragged around to try the pianofortes. And then, the twist: the King produced a lengthy theme he’d written himself, and asked J.S. to improvise a three-voice fugue. Naturally, the composer succeeded. The King then upped the ante: a six-voice fugue. Here, J.S. Bach had to wave the white flag, asking for time to work on the fugue once he returned to Leipzig. However, if this was a fiendish trick of Frederick II, he couldn’t have imagined the fabulously, gloriously passive aggressive Return-On-Investment he received just two months later from the elder Bach: A Musical Offering. A massive tome of keyboard canons, fugues and more – and the more is important! – all based on Frederick’s Royal Theme. The “more” is the Trio Sonata heard today, the only work in A Musical Offering with a designated instrumen- tation (including flute, a nice nod to the King.) Like all works in the set, the Trio Sonata uses the Royal Theme as foundational material, with appearances in the first, second, and fourth movements, and a reference in the third. The style of the sonata, however, may be the most telling reflection of Frederick’s royal influence: it was written in the galant style. An approach that focused on melody and phrasing over complexity, it was vastly preferred by the King, and against the backdrop of the incredibly intricate Ricercar (the six-voice fugue request- ed), J.S. Bach’s decision to make the one piece Frederick might play in Frederick’s favorite style is both notable and amusing. As for that night, and whether or not Frederick succeeded in flummoxing the elder Bach? Writes Anna Mag- dalena, J.S.’s wife: “So Johann Sebastian sat down and began to play, and it may be that some of the listeners realized that on that night there were two kings in the palace.”

The Four Seasons – Winter (1723) Antonio Vivaldi Written just two years after Bach presented his Brandenburg Concerti to the Margrave, Vivaldi’s Four Sea- sons may never have guessed at their incredible popularity and longevity. After all, they’re just four of his four hundred concerti, and as a set, part of a larger collection titled “The Contest of Harmony and Invention,” a personal project for the composer to see how far he could push his creative genius while maintaining contem- porary compositional guidelines. The result is the gold standard for programmatic music, long before it became popular or popular practice, especially fantastic for a composer who just happened upon a set of anonymous sonnets and decided he needed a challenge. Each season is a set of three movements or “scenes,” following the traditional “fast-slow-fast” tempo struc- ture of the time, and inspired by the poetry below. We’ll be performing the fourth concerto today, “Winter,” featuring our concertmaster, Susanna Perry Gilmore.

I. Allegro non molto: Frozen and trembling in the icy snow/ In the severe blast of the horrible wind,/ As we run, we constantly stamp our feet, / And our teeth chatter in the cold.

II. Largo: To spend happy and quiet days near the fire,/ While, outside, the rain soaks hundreds.

III. Allegro: We walk on the ice with slow steps,/ And tread carefully, for fear of falling./ If we go quickly, we slip and fall to the ground./ Again we run on the ice/ Until it cracks and opens. We hear, from closed doors,/ Sirocco, Boreas, and all the winds in battle./ This is winter, but it brings joy.