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Home , American Rhapsody, Andantino (ballet), Conrad Tao, Dial Records (1946), Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, Lyricist

CONCERTS FROM THE 2020-2021

The Carolyn Royall Just Fund in the Library of Congress

CONRAD TAO,

CALEB TEICHER, TAP DANCE

Friday, October 23, 2020 ~ 8:00 pm The Library of Congress Virtual Event The CAROLYN ROYALL JUST FUND in the Library of Congress, established in 1993 through a bequest of the distinguished attorney and symphony player Carolyn Royall Just, supports the presentation and broadcasting of classical chamber concerts.

Conversation with the Artists

Join us online at loc.gov/concerts/tao-teicher.html for a onversation with and Caleb Teicher, available starting at 10am on Friday, October 23.

Facebook Post-concert Chat

Want more? Join other concert goers and Music Division curators after for a chat that may include the artists, depending on availability. You can access this during the premiere and for a few minutes after by going to

facebook.com/pg/libraryofcongressperformingarts/videos

How to Watch Concerts from the Library of Congress Virtual Events 1) See each individual event page at loc.gov/concerts 2) Watch on the Library's YouTube channel: .com/loc 3) Watch the premiere of the concert on Facebook: facebook.com/libraryofcongressperformingarts/videos Videos may not be available on all three platforms, and some videos will only be accessible for a limited period of time. The Library of Congress Virtual Event Friday, October 23, 2020 — 8:00 pm The Carolyn Royall Just Fund in the Library of Congress

CONRAD TAO, PIANO

CALEB TEICHER, TAP DANCE Audio Engineer: Ryan Streber, Oktaven Audio Video Production: Nic Petry, Dancing Camera

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Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1770) Aria from the Clavier-Übung (iv), Aria mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen (), BWV 988 (c.1741)

Conrad Tao/Caleb Teicher Improvisation Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Fünf Klavierstücke, op. 23: V. Walzer (1923) Conrad Tao

1 Ray Noble (1903-1978) / ART TATUM (1909-1956) "Cherokee" (c.1938) Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher

Honi Coles (1911-1992) & Brenda Bufalino, Choreographers The Coles & Bufalino Soft Shoe Caleb Teicher

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Fantasien: IV. Intermezzo in E major, op. 116/4 (c.1892) Conrad Tao

David Parker, Choreographer Song and Dance, based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sonata in A major: III. Allegretto "Alla Turca," K.331 (c.1781-3) Caleb Teicher

Conrad Tao/Caleb Teicher Swing 2 from More Forever Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher

George Gershwin (1898-1937) / Conrad Tao (1924) Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Sonatine: II. Mouvement de Menuet (c.1903-5) Conrad Tao

Johann Sebastian Bach Aria from the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher •

2 About the Program

This special duo recital presentation of Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher is exciting and unusual for us, and we offer a brief word of explanation about the following notes. Because much of the material on the program was improvised and the program in flux due to complications that arose from the pandemic, we prepared notes that focus on the underlying music of some of the pieces we knew would be presented. The dance component is integral to the conception of the full performance, however, and where possible we have added additional information provided by the artists and our archives about the choreographic elements of the works presented.

For more information about the history of tap dance, as well as a searchable database of works and performers, please visit memory.loc. gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html, or if that is a mouthful, just go to loc.gov and search for "tap dance." There you will find a wonderful resource called "Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media by Constance Valis Hill." • Johann Sebastian Bach, Goldberg Variations: Aria, BWV 988

Bach’s lifelong trajectory in composing keyboard music culminated in the Goldberg Variations. The Variations, written toward the end of Bach’s life in 1741, is the last part of the Clavier-Übung series that started with the Six Partitas in 1726. Literally, the word Clavier-Übung translates to “ exercises,” but it is seen today as more akin to concert etudes like those of Chopin than exercises for practice. Bach appears to have borrowed the terminology from Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor at .

The work took its name from one of Bach’s students, a young harpsichord player named Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. Although the story that Bach’s first biographer retold about Goldberg’s employer, the Russian Count Keyserlingk, requesting music to help him sleep through his insomnia is probably apocryphal, Goldberg was an accomplished player and may have been one of the first performers of the work. Bach was still working as the Thomaskantor at the time of composition (a position he held until his death), though the work was most likely written on a trip to in 1741.

Unlike most of the Clavier-Übung series, this is one of the first works

3 in which Bach experimented with variation forms. The entire set of 30 variations is based on a single aria, though interestingly, the variations do not usually follow the of the original aria. Instead, they reuse the same bassline throughout, referred to as a ground bass. The Goldberg Variations also strongly emphasizes canonic writing. Every third variation in the series is a canon, structured as ascending patterns: the third variation is a canon at the unison, the sixth variation is a canon at the second, and so on. Most of the non-canonic variations are typical Baroque genre pieces like dances, fugal works, and French overtures.

The complete set of Goldberg Variations is a massive technical undertaking, showcasing the skill of the performer. As such, it is often a favorite work of pianists and harpsichordists: Wanda Landowska, whose collection is housed at the Library of Congress, was one of the first 20th-century harpsichordists to popularize it and record it in its entirety. written for harpsichord, today it is played equally as often on the piano, an instrument that was just coming into popularity around Bach’s death in 1750.

Emily Baumgart Archives Processing Technician Library of Congress, Music Division • , Fünf Klavierstücke: V. Walzer, op. 23/5

Arnold Schoenberg wrote 13 works for piano. With various degrees of duration, all those pieces combined would be about an hour long. Nevertheless, scholars consider Schoenberg’s piano music to be a true testing ground where his exploratory efforts in composition were first made.

Schoenberg started working on his Klavierstücke, op. 23 in 1920 and finished composing it in 1923. For a cycle of pieces that lasts slightly more than 10 minutes, that is a lot of thought. It is worth remembering that 1923, the year of completion for the Klavierstücke, op. 23, was also the year Schoenberg formally presented his students with a new system of composing music that he described as a “method of composing with twelve tones which are related solely to each other.” This timing makes op. 23 a testament to the ’s creative evolution, where he starts from a clear presentation of expressionistic ideas in atonal pieces no. 1 through no. 4 and ends with newly formed twelve-tonal music organization in no. 5, the “Walzer.”

4 In 1948, when giving lectures at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, Schoenberg said this about his own path to any music discovery:

One must not strive to do something ‘new.’ One must only strive to give expression to the message within him; if in expressing this message, one develops something new in style or form, that is an accident and of no great importance. I personally always strive to write conservatively, in the classical tradition, but when I finish I find that I have not been able to remain within the conservative framework, because what I had to say demanded its own method of expression.1

Therefore we are able to differentiate Schoenberg the music theorist from Schoenberg the music teacher, and, of course, Schoenberg the composer. For Schoenberg the composer, in his creative process, all that mattered was exclusively the music itself. He asked us not to be overly analytical of his music: “I cannot often enough warn against the overrating of analysis since it invariably leads to what I have always fought against: the knowledge of how something is made; whereas I have always tried to promote the knowledge of what something is.”2

If we intend to let the music speak for itself in our appreciation of the Klavierstücke, we should try to put the intellectual way of looking into “how it is made” aside. With that intent, we should be ready to start a musical journey into the inner sanctum of moods, thoughts, and desires that Schoenberg unfolds for us in the meditative atmosphere of his prelude-like Stück no. 1. In Stück no. 2 we are surprised and afraid at the same time as we enter the blinding phantasmagoria of aggression and protest. As we climb high to observe the nocturnal landscapes of the cycle’s centerpiece, Stück no. 3, we are in the utmost density of music events. The images are unfolding in ever-changing waves. We go from tranquility to being abruptly swept out by menacing marching steps. In another turn of events, we continue from surreal intricacy of dancing shadows to undertones of quivering fears. Finally, at the end of the piece, we encounter another transformation of music material into a tender arioso. Stück no. 4 creates a contrasting music environment with a spirited scherzo/fugato where playful sarcasm is combined with the vibrant energy of perpetual movement. Finally, Stück no. 5 (“Walzer,” the selection heard in this performance) could be awarded with a summary 1 Schoenberg, Arnold, as quoted in Santa Barbara News Press (July 18, 1948), “Learn to hear, says composer,” article published by Ronald Scofield, see www.schoenberg.at/ index.php/en/1948-ronald-scofield-learn-to-hear-says-composer. 2 Schoenberg, Arnold, as quoted in Arnold Schoenberg Letters, ed. Erwin Stein (USA: University of California Press, 1987) 116. 5 role in this cycle, reflecting on the complexity of the musical world presented in the previous pieces and, simultaneously, adding more to it. The ubiquitous genre association of the waltz, amplified by the fact that it is written by a Viennese composer, sends us into a whirlwind of contrasting musical moments/motifs. It starts with presenting a familiar, refined image of a waltz, in all its sophisticated elegance, which later gets demolished by an array of wildly aggressive melodic twists and turns. What was introduced at first as a reflection of a waltz goes through a convoluted process of restoration and reaches for an incarnation that now carries many disturbing memories of a fight.

Today, as we listen to this music, we are a century away from the year when Schoenberg conceived his Klavierstücke, op. 23. Yet when the last sound clusters of the “Walzer” slowly disappear in the concert hall, they leave us with the astonishing realization that this music still carries its tremendously innovative edge. When we listen to the Klavierstücke today, we are admiring a newfound way to capture the intensity of living in an emotionally charged moment. The composer offers to his audience a purely expressionistic transformation of the piano miniature into a cinematographic kaleidoscope of vivid musical imagery. Schoenberg’s way of utilizing his newly acquired aphoristic polyphony of music texture and horizontal juxtaposition of contrasting music ideas allows him to reveal a magnitude of events and ideas in a concise time/space compendium of music composition.

Irina Kirchik Senior Cataloguing Specialist Library of Congress, Music Division • Ray Noble / Art Tatum, "Cherokee"

Ray Noble was a British bandleader, composer, and arranger known more for his career as a composer than as a bandleader. His ballads were particularly successful; among them is “The Very Thought of You” (1934). In 1935 he arrived in the United States to direct the band at the Rainbow Room in City before relocating to in 1937.3 He worked in radio and led jazz bands through the end of the swing era in the 1950s.

“Cherokee” was published in 1938 as the first movement of Noble’s Indian

3 Lamb, Andrew revised by Aly Shipton, “Noble, Raymond Stanley,” Music Online, January 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20001 6 Suite. Noble distributed it to bands in both New York and and it was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming a swing and standard that instrumentalists adapted and made their own.4 Noble’s recording of “Cherokee” begins with a melody of memorable simplicity at a moderate tempo after which soloists improvise before the melody returns to close the piece. Recorded during the swing era, the original is devoid of the dizzying bebop technique that characterized recordings in later decades.

Art Tatum’s for solo piano employs the same form and similar chordal structure as Noble’s original, expanding the harmonic palette by including more 9th and 11th chords. In the improvisatory middle “B” section, Tatum maintains the melody in the left hand while the right hand improvises over it, allowing the listener to hear it clearly throughout. Tatum was a stylistic influence on fellow jazz pianist Bud Powell. Powell is even freer with improvisation in his 1947 “Cherokee” recording. Listeners familiar with Noble’s original will hear the melody bookending the improvisatory “B” section. While Powell more or less adheres to the harmonic structure, he takes a faster tempo, utilizes more complicated technique and does not keep the melody in the left hand.

Tatum and Powell were only two of the many jazz artists who recorded “Cherokee” or composed their own tunes based on it. The chart was the first hit for American saxophonist and bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1939. Arranged by player and composer Billy May, it became Barnet’s “signature tune.”5 May sketched the arrangement in a taxi on the way to the recording session, or so the story goes.6 Dial Records recorded members of ’s band performance of “Blue Serge” in 1955, and the harmonic structure was based on “Cherokee.”7 When jazz scholar Geoffrey Wheeler heard the Clifford Brown- Quintet and Harold Lamb perform it in 1955, he recalled the impressive tempo that made their arrangement stand out from others.8 On the Bopland: Legendary Elks Club Concert L. A. 1947, “Cherokee” became the chart “Jeronimo,”

4 Wheeler, Geoffrey, " and 1947 ‘The Chase’ and the Elks Club Concert,” IARJC Journal 39 no. 1 (2006): 13, https://search.proquest.com/docview/ 1240905?accountid=12084. 5 “Barnet, Charles,” Oxford Music Online, “May, Billy,” Oxford Music Online (2001), https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.48199 6 Priestly, Brian, “Parker and Popular Music,” Annual Review of Jazz Studies (2009): 93, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1373145?accountid=12084 7 Akbari, John, James Fisher, Edward Komara, David Lewis, and Alex McGehee, “Sound Recording Reviews. Various Artists. The Complete Dial Modern Jazz Sessions,” ARSC Journal 46, no. 2 (2015): 347, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1733899668?accou ntid=12084 8 Wheeler, Geoffrey, “Savoy’s Early Birds: The First Recordings of on the New Jersey Label,” IAJRC Journal 40 no. 1 (2007): 40, https://search.proquest.com/ docview/1241701? accountid=12084 7 the title a take on the name of Chiricahua Apache (not Cherokee) warrior Geronimo. During the 1870s and 1880s, Geronimo led the Apaches against the United States military invasion of his peoples’ land in what is now the southwestern United States. “Jeronimo” personnel included Sonny Criss, Dexter Gordon, and .9

The most famous adaptation of “Cherokee” is also the least recognizable. On “Ko-Ko,” Charlie Parker used the “Cherokee” chord structure over which to improvise a 64-bar solo.10 When Parker played “Ko-ko” for the B-side of Savoy 597 it sounded too much like “Cherokee” and the producer stopped Parker after the first take, afraid they would have to pay royalties for its use.11 The last take, which appears on the album, is considered one of the greatest jazz recordings of all time.

Stephanie Akau Archivist Library of Congress, Music Division

•

Honi Coles & Brenda Bufalino, The Coles & Bufalino Soft Shoe

Caleb Teicher performs The Coles & Bufalino Soft Shoe twice in the program, and after the first performance he offers the following thoughts about the work:

The piece I just danced is called The Coles & Bufalino Soft Shoe. That was danced by two legendary tap dancers, Honi Coles and Brenda Bufalino. Brenda taught me that dance earlier this year.

Repertoire doesn't loom as large in tap dance as it does in in that we value improvisation, presence, innovation, and some routines stay along the way. This is one of them.

I love dancing it because I feel the presence of Honi Coles and Brenda, separately and together. On the Honi side, I feel his poise and his grace and all the effort that rides underneath the effortlessness. On the other side I feel Brenda, her fire her passion, her drama, her unpredictability. And then, somewhere in the spaces between, I get to find myself in this tradition.

9 Wheeler 2006, 14. 10 Priestly, 95. 11 Wheeler 2007, 38. 8 Tap dance is relatively limited tonally, compared to a piano. But in that limitation, in that space in between, I hear a song and I hear my imagination and I fill in the blanks. That's the beauty of tap dance for me, that it asks myself and asks you, as an audience member, to imagine what fills the space in between.

I'm gonna dance this one more time. And I'll be singing a dance in my head, and maybe you'll sing one in yours. The Coles & Bufalino Soft Shoe. • Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo in E major, op. 116/4

The piano played a vital role throughout the entirety of Brahms' compositional life. Four of the first five works he published were significant solo keyboard pieces (three sonatas and a scherzo), and in his final years Brahms produced a remarkable body of pieces of great refinement. Some of these latter-day pieces contain the orchestral fire that branded his early work, such as the capriccios from op. 116, the Ballade from op. 118 and the Rhapsody from op. 119,12 but many were of the more introspective Intermezzo variety (an unusual and ambiguous title that Brahms embraced especially in the last two decades of his life). In his collection of Fantasies, which includes three capriccios and four intermezzi, it can be argued that the group offers a linked and coherent set, and not just a collection of character pieces, similarly to the three intermezzi of op. 117, composed during the same period in the early 1890s.

The nature of Brahms' late piano works raised contemporaneous questions about the appropriateness of the venue. Katrin Eich quotes an intriguing letter from the Bach biographer Philipp Spitta to Brahms in her chapter "Where was the home of Brahms' piano works?" Before suggesting that it would be silly to perform the Intermezzi in public due to their intimate nature, he writes in part:

The Clavierstücke occupy my mind continually; they are so different from everything that you have written for piano, and are perhaps the richest and profoundest works in an instrumental form which I know of yours. They really are meant to be absorbed slowly in peace and solitude, not just to think about afterwards, but also beforehand, and I think I understand you correctly when I 12 Of the late piano works, the Library of Congress possesses four holograph manu- scripts: the Intermezzo in A minor op. 118/1, and the first threeIntermezzi of op. 119 in B minor, E minor and C major. The Library also holds the manuscript of a transcription of op. 117/1 for and piano by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. 9 say that you meant something like this with the Intermezzo. 'Pieces in between' have predecessors and followers which in this case, each player and listener is to make for himself."13

There is something attractive about this formulation of Brahms' Intermezzi as an artistic site of personal interiority, and while it might be easier to achieve if we could invite a pianist to perform for us in our homes individually, there is something magical about sharing the experience with other people.

I will offer just a few observations about the selection for this performance, the haunting Intermezzo in E major, a piece marked Adagio in which time alternately feels suspended or stretched. Brahms is known for his manipulation of metric and rhythmic rhetoric, but here there seems to be a process of “finding” the music instead of the presentation of an idea followed by its mutation. Consider these three aspects in Example 1 below. First there is the simple arpeggiated accompaniment figure that suavely from an E-major triad to an augmented triad en route to an implied C-sharp minor. This is just in the first measure with a handful of notes: three distinctive sonorities each with multiple implications that Brahms will explore. Second, there is the hand crossing where the right hand takes the bass E and the upper melody while the left hand provides the “stable” central accompaniment; in an Adagio setting this creates a performative visual with the traversal of hands in slow motion. Third, there is the literal stretching of space between articulations of the melody. Compare the passages marked “x” in Examples 1a, b and c; this last example shows that this type of melodic “spillage” continued to be on his mind in works as late as op. 119/1 (another Adagio Intermezzo), where the melody, harmony and accompaniment are united, achieving great richness via simple means:

Example 1a)

Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo op. 116/4: mm.1-3 13 As quoted in Eich, Katrin, "Where was the home of Brahms' piano works?" in Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance, Katy Hamilton and Natasha Loges, eds. (: University Press, 2014), 101-102. 10 b)

Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo op. 116/4: mm.14-17 c)

Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo op. 119/1: mm.1-3

There is a great deal more to say about this piece,14 but for now we will look at just one example of how the harmonic touchpoints shown in Example 1a have been transformed in a “new” setting. The E-major, augmented and C-sharp minor chords now have the same chromatic voice leading (in the central register), but instead move between A major, diminished, E-major and augmented triads:

14 For instance, in a study of the late editing/proofing practices of Brahms, Camilla Cai points out that even in the final pre-publication stages Brahms was still altering this piece, with no fewer than three attempts made in the autograph manuscript to effect the final return to the opening gesture. It is notable that Brahms’ solution was to go from a simple return to E major to a more elaborate one involving the type of melodic expansion seen in Example 1c and a quasi-symmetrical rise in the bass to more naturally lead to the opening material. Cai, Camilla, “Was Brahms a Reliable Editor? Changes Made in Opuses 116, 117, 118 and 119,” Acta Musicologica, vol. 61, no. 1, 1989, pp. 87-88. Accessed via JSTOR. 11 Example 2

Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo op. 116/4: mm. 44-47

The details and textures have been transformed, but the genealogy of the harmonically and rhythmically articulated pauses are clear at this and several other points of similar alchemical shifts throughout the piece. It is a wonderful example of how the concision of Brahms’ late writing remains in conversation with his unique brand of piano writing.

David Henning Plylar Senior Music Specialist Library of Congress, Music Division •

David Parker, Choreographer Song and Dance, based on W.A. Mozart, Sonata in A major, K.331, III. "Alla Turca"

David Parker's irreverent take on Mozart's famous piano piece is a solo dance that involves tongue-in-cheek singing and tapping. Parker capitalizes on the recognizable rhythms, assisted by the sung references in this highly self-aware parody. We will offer a little background on the original piece below, with a primary focus on the roles of rhythm and exoticism. When you watch and listen to Teicher dance, consider how his movement not only successfully presents the "essence" of the piece despite limited vocalizations, but also how his tap "ornamentation" echoes the piece you know, participating in a modern realization of the classical "alla Turca" characterization.

Popularly known as the “Rondo alla turca,” the final movement of Mozart’s A-major sonata K. 331 seems to be ubiquitous; as any parent will tell you, there is a high likelihood that if your child’s toy has a speaker and plays music, you will encounter this piece. K. 331 was composed during the

12 period 1781-3 in Munich or Vienna, and first published in Vienna in 1784 as op. 6/2. It can be tricky to arrive at which keyboard instrument Mozart intended for his music, especially as the “original” intention might be supplanted by whatever is available to the contemporaneous performer. However, after around 1780 Mozart seemed to have the fortepiano in his mind for his keyboard sonatas.15

Ralph Locke examines this movement in his book on musical exoticism. There are several aspects of his argument worth mentioning in a brief encounter with the music. First, he asserts that it is not a rondo at all—Mozart certainly doesn’t call it that, labeling the Allegretto music “Alla Turca”—but rather a ternary form “…that has been enriched—or imperiled—by repeated insertion of an eight-measure Refrain…”16 Such a formulation helps to make sense of the fact that the movement’s primary material only occurs twice.

More important is his discussion of Mozart’s “Alla Turca” designation. Locke approvingly references the work of Eric Rice in demonstrating that this music seems to have had a close relationship to “actual music of the Janissary troops.”17 Locke’s full discussion about the portrayal of Turkish and Middle Eastern music in Western art music is worth considering, as in addition to looking at the types of tropes encountered, he also considers how these formulations of the “exotic” can be situated in a more banal space. For instance, with respect to the K. 331 movement at hand, he states that “…many aspects of this movement are normatively Western. The melody’s opening four-measure phrase, once one removes the five-times- repeated turn figure… turns out to be structured by a bold arpeggiated ascent that spans more than an octave, a particularly attention-grabbing, goal-directed melodic pattern that was central to instrumental art music in the Haydn-Mozart era and that sometimes is known today in music histories as the Mannheim Rocket.”18

The impact of this music cannot be dismissed, contributing along with other works like Die Entführung aus dem Serail to the continuing appearance of Turkish-inspired material in the home and concert hall. Locke notes that “Beethoven’s ‘Turkish March’ (from the incidental music to Die Ruinen von Athen, 1811) seems to have directly copied Mozart’s usul19 and his recurring jangly grace notes.”20 Indeed, Locke goes further to suggest an even greater cultural resonance with the rise of the Turkish style in the 18th century: he “…would propose that alla turca, in many ways, set the pattern—in part because of the impact of Mozart’s pieces in the style—for

15 Maunder, Richard, “Mozart’s Keyboard Instruments,” Early Music, vol. 20, no. 2, 1992, p. 216. Accessed via JSTOR. 16 Locke, Ralph, Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 125. 17 Ibid., 123. 18 Ibid., 124. 19 The usul Locke refers to here is the Turkish word for a particular repeated rhyth- mic pattern that is stylistically identifiable. Locke, 119. 20 Locke, 126. 13 exotic ‘dialects’ in Western music and the stylistic experimentation that often went along with them.”21

~ David Plylar • Conrad Tao/Caleb Teicher, Swing 2 from More Forever

In the course of the program Conrad Tao introduces a collaborative work he composed with Caleb Teicher. Here is what he says about the work:

The next piece on tonight’s program is a short piece from the piece that brought Caleb and me together; the work, the evening- length work that I wrote music for, for Caleb and his company back in 2018, across 2018.

And this short piece is from that larger work, called Swing 2. And this piece was composed with the group. This piece was composed during our very first residency working together at Jacob’s Pillow in . And this piece was, I think, maybe the first bit of music in that overall work that we really wrote together, that was very collaboratively written. It’s kind of our favorite from the whole piece.

But Caleb, in the ending work—More Forever is the name of the piece—in More Forever Caleb never gets to dance this piece. And so, the version we’re going to present now is special and rare. So, this is Swing 2 from More Forever. • , Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue could only be the product of a mind whose palette included jazz and , education was in classical music, living was popular song, and dream was the concert hall.

In November 1923 George Gershwin was 25 years old and had already written five successful revues for George White’sScandals , composed the music for show La La Lucille, had a hit song in “Swanee,” and held a composition contract with publishing company T.B. Harms. Bandleader approached Gershwin with a commission to write a for his concert called “An Experiment in Modern Music.” By holding the concert in a classical music venue, Whiteman hoped the

21 Ibid., 118. 14 concert would convince classical music audiences to take contemporary compositions and genres, especially jazz, more seriously. Gershwin turned Whiteman down, as he and lyricist B. G. “Buddy” DeSylva were working intently on Sweet Little Devil, a new Broadway show premiering in January. It must have been a great surprise to them to find that the New York Tribune had published an article on January 4, 1924, in which Whiteman, promoting the concert, stated that Gershwin was going to write a jazz concerto for the occasion.22 Whiteman was a skilled concert promoter in a rush to stage a jazz concert in a classical hall before bandleader , who had the same idea, presented his concert first.23 It is unclear whether Gershwin had accepted the commission after the initial offer and forgotten about it, or if Whiteman’s announcement was based on wishful thinking.

With the concert a month away, Gershwin got to work. He chose the rhapsody form to free jazz from strict tempos required in the dancehalls.24 Not only does the piece range in tempi but it moves quickly through different keys and draws energy from jazz rhythms. The piece’s memorable are indicative of a composer familiar with writing popular song. The piece is not programmatic, though Gershwin conceived it as “a kaleidoscope of America – of our vast , of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness,” an idea that came to him during a train ride to .25 Gershwin gave the piece the working title . suggested Rhapsody in Blue, noting that painter James McNeill Whistler titled his works after their colors.26

Gershwin was still working on the score when public rehearsals for the concert started on January 22.27 As soon as he finished a page of the two- piano score it was rushed to Whiteman’s orchestrator, to score for . Gershwin was capable of writing the himself but Grofé had more experience with the Whiteman members’ musical strengths.28 At the concert Gershwin improvised the incomplete piano sections on stage.29

The premiere took place on February 12, 1924 at Aeolian Hall in New York 22 Rimler, Walter, George Gershwin, an Intimate Portrait (Urbana, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009), chap. 1, e-book. 23 Ibid. 24 Crawford, Richard, Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019), chap. 10, e-book. 25 Goldberg, Isaac, George Gershwin: A Study in American Music, supplemented by Edith Garson, foreword and discography by Alan Dashiell (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1958), 139-140. 26 Rimler, chap. 1. 27 Crawford, chap. 9. 28 Rimler, chap. 1. 29 Ibid. 15 City with Paul Whiteman conducting his orchestra and the composer at the piano. There were 23 pieces on the concert.30 Rhapsody in Blue was programmed second to last, followed by ’s Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1, whose B section accompanies processing American graduates. Giants of the music world were in attendance that evening, among them , , and Jascha Heifetz.31 Audience members fell instantly in love with Rhapsody in Blue, and the piece (and Gershwin) enjoyed immediate success in the United States and abroad. Rhapsody in Blue earned Gershwin $250,000 in ten years, roughly equivalent to over $3.8 million in 2020.32 It cemented his reputation as a composer essential to the future of American music, lauded by the likes of Otto Klemperer, , Arnold Schönberg, and Fritz Reiner.33 Though critical reception of the concert ranged from tepid to enthusiastic, the piece helped popularize Whiteman’s “Experiment in Modern Music” concerts. They gave an encore of the February 12th concert on March 7, 1924 that included Rhapsody in Blue. Whiteman held seven more “Experiment in Modern Music” concerts, the last in 1938.34

Gershwin and Isidore Gorn premiered the two-piano version of Rhapsody in Blue on the same concert as the premiere of five of his piano Preludes at Gershwin and Marguerite d’Alvarez’s final concert in on Saturday, December 4, 1926, at the Hotel Roosevelt.

If 21st-century audiences have not heard the piece on a concert, they may recognize the andantino theme from an airline commercial or as both the background and inspiration for animated urban cacophony in Disney’s 2000. It is a “work that has never gone out of style.”35

~ Stephanie Akau • Maurice Ravel, Sonatine: II. Mouvement de Menuet

Maurice Ravel composed his Sonatine sometime during the years 1903-5, around the same period as the composition of Miroirs, which is a very 30 Ibid. 31 Ross, Alex, The Rest is Noise (New York: Picador, 2007): 158. 32 Crawford, Richard and Schneider, “George Gershwin,” Oxford Music Online, (Oc- tober 15, 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2252861. 33 Horowitz, Joseph, Classical Music in America (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005): 464. 34 Johnson, Carl, “Paul Whiteman,” Oxford Music Online, (January 2001, https://doi. org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.30223 35 Crawford, Richard, “Rethinking the Rhapsody,” Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter 28, no. 1 (Fall 1998): 15. 16 different kind of composition. But classicism and imagistic writing are two interests of Ravel’s that could coincide. Barbara Kelly notes that the “…Sonatine for piano is similar to the Menuet antique in terms of its modality and ornamentation. At the same time, it is also Classical in character, not only in its use of sonata form and the minuet, but in its melodic clarity, regular phrasing and cadences.” Yet this is not a simple minuet, as a glance at its harmonic range makes clear, though it possesses some characteristics.

The writing is delicate and elegant, and there is an interesting multi- function to Ravel’s use of ornamentation that is interesting to consider in light of the other “Classical” work on the program. After the first 12 bars are repeated, a second section begins that incorporates a number of soft grace notes that serve to color rather than propel. Example 3a shows the opening material—note the rhythm of the melody:

Example 3a

Maurice Ravel, Sonatine: II, mm.1-4

Example 3b shows related music starting at bar 13, now with ornamentation. See how the melodic rhythmic profile is similar to that of Example 3a:

Example 3b

Maurice Ravel, Sonatine: II, mm. 13-16

17 At first these seem to be “only” ornaments, elaborations imbuing the music with another hue, both texturally and harmonically. But because of their referential return later in the piece, they also serve as intact musical signposts, however ethereal they may be. Such a technique is similarly used in the Mozart from earlier in the program. Consider how the ornamentations there are simultaneously elaborative and representative of an established sonority:

Example 3c

W.A. Mozart, Sonata in A, K. 331: III, mm.

Ravel’s example is undoubtedly more subtle, but the importance of textural choices in a classical context rings across the ages. Style is substance, and Ravel bridges time in the melding of aristocratic tradition with his budding modernity.

~ David Plylar

•

18 About the Artists

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer, and has been dubbed a of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by , which also cited him “one of five classical music faces to watch” in the 2018-19 season. Tao is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, and was named a Gilmore Young Artist— an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. At the 2019 New York Dance and Performance Awards (“Bessies”), Tao was the recipient of the award for Outstanding Sound Design / Music Composition, for his work on More Forever, his collaboration with Caleb Teicher.

Tao’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Of the album, NPR wrote: “Tao proves himself to be a musician of deep intellectual and emotional means – as the thoughtful programming on this album...proclaims.” His next album, Pictures, with works by , Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, Mussorgsky, and Tao himself, was hailed by The New York Times as “a fascinating album [by] a thoughtful artist and dynamic performer...played with enormous imagination, color and command.” His latest album, American Rage, was released to acclaim in Fall 2019 and features works by Julia Wolfe, and . Conrad’s creative process behind the album was highlighted as part of a November 2019 profile in The New York Times.

Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with . • Caleb Teicher is a NYC-based dancer and choreographer specializing in musically-driven dance traditions and interdisciplinary collaboration. Teicher began his career as a founding member of Michelle Dorrance’s critically acclaimed tap dance company, Dorrance Dance, while also freelancing in contemporary dance (The Chase Brock Experience, The Bang Group), swing dance (Syncopated City Dance Company), and musical theater (West Side Story International Tour and London).

Since founding Caleb Teicher & Company (CT&Co) in 2015, Teicher has expanded to engagements and commissions across the US and abroad including The Joyce Theater, , the Guggenheim Museum (NYC and Bilbao), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and Out of Doors. Over the next year, Teicher's work will be presented in over a dozen cities across the United States.

19 Teicher is known for his choreographic collaborations with diverse musical talents: he has created full collaborations for CT&Co with world- champion beatboxer Chris Celiz and composer/pianist Conrad Tao; performed as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center; recorded percussion and performed duets for television with Ben Folds; and most recently choreographed Regina Spektor’s residency on Broadway.

Teicher is the recipient of a 2019 New York City Center Choreographic Fellowship, two Bessie Awards, a 2019 Harkness Promise Award, and a 2019 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant. His work has been featured by The New York Times, NPR, Forbes, Vogue, Interview Magazine, and most recently, as the cover of Dance Magazine’s September 2019 issue.

Teicher continues to engage with dance communities as a teacher for international tap and swing dance festivals.

•

20 Upcoming Events Visit loc.gov/concerts for more information

Friday, October 30, 2020 at 8:00 pm [Concert] Founder's Day Tambuco Percussion Ensemble Music by Héctor Infanzón, Jorge Camiruaga, Leopoldo Novoa, Raúl Tudón, Claudia Calderón, José Luis Castillo, Javier Álvarez Virtual Event (loc.gov/concerts/tambuco-percussion-ensemble.html) Additional video content available starting at 10am on 10/30/20

Friday, November 13, 2020 at 8:00 pm [Concert] Ensemble dal Niente Music by Igor Santos, Nur Slim, Hilda Paredes, Tomas Gueglio, Luis Amaya and Tania León Virtual Event (loc.gov/concerts/ensemble-dal-niente.html) Additional video content available starting at 10am on 11/13/20

Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 8:00 pm [Concert] Jennifer Koh, violin & Thomas Sauer, piano Music by Nina C. Young, Anthony Cheung, Qasim Naqvi, Tonia Ko, Inti Figgis- Vizueta, George Lewis, Wang Lu, Lester St. Louis, Nina Shekhar, Missy Mazoli, Julia Wolfe & Beethoven Virtual Event (loc.gov/concerts/jennifer-koh.html) Additional video content available starting at 10am on 11/19/20

Friday, November 20, 2020 at 8:00 pm [Concert] Takács Quartet Music by Schubert, Bartók and Beethoven Virtual Event (loc.gov/concerts/takacs-quartet.html) Additional video content available starting at 10am on 11/20/20

Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 8:00 pm [Concert] JACK Quartet & Conrad Tao, piano Music by Rodericus/Otto, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Elliott Carter and Tyshawn Sorey Virtual Event (loc.gov/concerts/jack-quartet.html) Additional video content available starting at 10am on 12/3/20

21 (Re)Hearing Beethoven Festival See loc.gov/concerts/beethoven.html for the full lineup, including performances, lectures and conversations. Concerts include performances by:

Takács Quartet, Friday, November 20 "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Friday, December 4 Borromeo String Quartet with Nicholas Cords, Saturday, December 5 ZOFO Piano Duo, Thursday, December 10 Adam Golka and the Verona String Quartet, Friday, December 11 Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, , Saturday, December 12 Christopher Taylor, piano, Thursday, December 17

& more, details to be announced soon!

22 Concerts from the Library of Congress

The Coolidge Auditorium, constructed in 1925 through a generous gift from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, has been the venue for countless world-class performers and performances. Gertrude Clarke Whittall presented to the Library a gift of five Stradivari instruments which were first heard here during a concert on January 10, 1936. These parallel but separate donations serve as the pillars that now support a full season of concerts made possible by gift trusts and foundations that followed those established by Mrs. Coolidge and Mrs. Whittall. • Concert Staff

CHIEF, MUSIC DIVISION Susan H. Vita

ASSISTANT CHIEF Jan Lauridsen

SENIOR PRODUCERS Michele L. Glymph FOR CONCERTS AND Anne McLean SPECIAL PROJECTS

SENIOR MUSIC SPECIALIST David H. Plylar

MUSIC SPECIALISTS Kazem Abdullah Claudia Morales

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER Donna P. Williams

SENIOR RECORDING ENGINEER Michael E. Turpin

ASSISTANT ENGINEER Sandie (Jay) Kinloch

PRODUCTION MANAGER Solomon E. HaileSelassie

CURATOR OF Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

PROGRAM DESIGN David H. Plylar

PROGRAM PRODUCTION Michael Munshaw

23 Support Concerts from the Library of Congress

Support for Concerts from the Library of Congress comes from private gift and trust funds and from individual donations which make it possible to offer free concerts as a gift to the community. For information about making a tax-deductible contribution please call (202-707-5503), e-mail ([email protected]), or write to Jan Lauridsen, Assistant Chief, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-4710. Contributions of $250 or more will be acknowledged in the programs. All gifts will be acknowledged online. Donors can also make an e-gift online to Friends of Music at www. loc.gov/philanthropy. We acknowledge the following contributors to the 2020-2021 season. Without their support these free concerts would not be possible. • GIFT AND TRUST FUNDS DONOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Julian E. and Freda Hauptman Berla Fund Producer ($10,000 and above) Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. William and Adeline Croft Memorial Fund DutchCultureUSA Da Capo Fund Frederic J. and Lucia Hill Ira and Leonore Gershwin Fund The Netherland-America Foundation Isenbergh Fund Allan J. Reiter Irving and Verna Fine Fund Revada Foundation of the Logan Family Mae and Irving Jurow Fund Adele M. Thomas Charitable Foundation, Carolyn Royall Just Fund Inc. Kindler Foundation Trust Fund Mallory and Diana Walker Dina Koston and Robert Shapiro Fund for New Music Underwriter ($2,500 and above) Boris and Sonya Kroyt Memorial Fund Geraldine Ostrove Wanda Landowska/Denise Restout Joyce E. Palmer Memorial Fund William R. and Judy B. Sloan Katie and Walter Louchheim Fund George Sonneborn and Rosina C. Iping Robert Mann Fund The George and Ruth Tretter Charitable Gift The Sally Hart and Bennett Tarlton Fund, Carl Tretter, Trustee McCallum Fund McKim Fund Benefactor ($1000 and above) Norman P. Scala Memorial Fund Anonymous Karl B. Schmid Memorial Fund William D. Alexander Judith Lieber Tokel & George Sonneborn Bill Bandas and Leslie G. Ford Fund Leonard and Gabriela Bebchick Anne Adlum Hull and William Remsen Peter and Ann Belenky Strickland Fund Richard W. Burris and Shirley Downs Rose and Monroe Vincent Fund Ronald M. Costell and Marsha E. Swiss Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation In memory of Dr. Giulio Cantoni and Various Donors Fund Mrs. Paula Saffiotti Cathey Eisner Falvo and Jessica Aimee BEQUESTS Falvo in honor of Carole Falvo Milton J. Grossman, Elmer Cerin In memory of Dana Krueger Grossman Barbara Gantt Wilda M. Heiss Sorab K. Modi Judith Henderson

24 Benefactor (continued) Patron (continued) Virginia Lee, In memory of Dr. and Mrs. Chai Lorna C. Totman, Chang Choi In memory of Daniel Gallik Egon and Irene Marx James C. and Carol R. Tsang Winton E. Matthews, Jr. Harvey Van Buren Dr. Judith C. and Dr. Eldor O. Pederson Amy Weinstein and Phil Esocoff, Richard Price and Yung Chang In memory of Freda Hauptman Berla Arthur F. Purcell Sidney Wolfe and Suzanne Goldberg Harriet Rogers Gail Yano and Edward A. Celarier Mace J. Rosenstein and Louise de la Fuente Christopher Sipes Sponsor ($250 and above) Anonymous (2) Patron ($500 and above) Edward A. Celarier Barry Abel Carol Ann Dyer Naomi M. Adaniya Elizabeth Eby and Bengal Richter Daniel J. Alpert and Ann H. Franke Damien Gaul Devora and Samuel Arbel Michal E. Gross Sandra J. Blake, James S. and Zona F. Hostetler In memory of Ronald Diehl In memory of Randy Hostetler Marc H. and Vivian S. Brodsky Kim and Elizabeth Kowalewski Doris N. Celarier Helen and David Mao Margaret Choa George P. Mueller William A. Cohen Robert H. Reynolds Herbert L. and Joan M. Cooper Juliet Sablosky, Diane E. Dixson In memory of Irving L. Sablosky Elizabeth Eby and Bengal Richter Alan and Ann Vollman Willem van Eeghen and Mercedes de Shari Werb Arteaga Patricia A. Winston Lawrence Feinberg Becky Jo Fredriksson and Rosa D. Wiener Fred S. Fry, Jr. and Elaine Suriano Geraldine H. and Melvin C. Garbow Howard Gofreed, In memory of Ruth Tretter

The Richard & Nancy Gould Family Fund Marc and Kay Levinson George and Kristen Lund Mary Lynne Martin Rick Maurer and Kathy Barton Donogh McDonald Jan and Frank Moses Undine A. and Carl E. Nash Judith Neibrief John P. O'Donnell Jan Pomerantz and Everett Wilcox Richard Price and Yung Chang Amy and Paul Rispin Bruce and Lori Laitman Rosenblum Mike and Mical Schneider In memory of Victor H. Cohn David Seidman and Ruth Greenstein Rebecca and Sidney Shaw, In memory of Dr. Leonard G. Shaw Beverly J. and Phillip B. Sklover Anna Slomovic Maria Soto, In memory of Sara Arminana Dana and Linda Sundberg

25