Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Martin Fröst, Director and Clarinet
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Friday, March 20, 2015, 8pm hertz hall 2014–2015 orchestra residency Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Martin Fröst, director and clarinet PROGRAM A igor stravinsky (1882–1971) danses concertantes (1941–1942) Marche: introduction Pas d’action thème varié Pas de deux Marche: conclusion steven copes, leader and violin John adams (b. 1947) shaker Loops (1978; rev. 1982) i. shaking and trembling ii. hymning slews iii. Loops and Verses iV. a Final shaking (Performed without pause ) Kyu-young Kim, leader and violin INTERMISSION Wolfgang amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) concerto in a major for clarinet and orchestra, K. 622 (1791) allegro adagio rondo: allegro Martin Fröst, director and clarinet Major support for this performance is provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsor Patrick McCabe. Cal Performances’ " !#–" !$ season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. CAL PERFORMANCES 15 PROGRAM A NOTES Igor Stravinsky (CJJD–CKIC) section is tender and diffuse, and the playful Danses concertantes, for Chamber variations and shuffling coda bear little sur - Orchestra (CKFC–CKFD) face resemblance to the theme. the Pas de deux borrows another dance convention: a First performed on February S, LTOM, in dance for two, often for the romantic leads. Los Angeles. here, the oboe and clarinet take the spotlight, their duet surrounded by other reveries. the igor stravinsky suffered what he called “the concluding March revisits the opening music. most tragic year of my life” in 1939. his daugh - © Aaron Grad ter, wife, and mother all died within months of each other, and the outbreak of World War ii sent him into exile for the second time, from John Adams (b. CKFI) his adopted home in Paris to the United states. Shaker Loops (CKIJ; rev. CKJD) he married his longtime mistress, Vera, in 1940, and together they settled in West First performed in April LTSN, in New York. hollywood in 1941. stravinsky soon accepted a commission from a local conductor, Werner John Adams was raised in New England and Janssen, and began what would be his first studied at Harvard University, but he left the major work composed en tirely in the United Eurocentric East Coast in LTRL and settled in states, Danses concertantes . California. His earliest successes drew upon the the musical language of Danses concer - Minimalism of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, tantes is typical of stravinsky’s neoclassical and his palette expanded to incorporate rich style, full of quick character changes, crisp echoes of Romanticism and mischievous refer - rhythms, bone-dry textures, and tight har - ences to jazz and popular music. Through his monies. With its small orchestra and ample in - operas and diverse concert works, as well as his strumental solos, Danses concertantes exhibits activities as a conductor and writer, Adams has a kinship to the “dumbarton oaks” concerto established himself as a defining voice in con - from 1938; the two works have been called temporary American music. He wrote the fol - stravinsky’s “Brandenburgs,” after Bach’s fa - lowing description of shaker Loops . mous set of mixed-ensemble concertos. even © Aaron Grad though stravinsky designed Danses concer - tantes for the concert stage, it did not take long Shaker Loops began as a string quartet with for its inherent dance sensibility to be recog - the title Wavemaker . at the time, like many a nized. stravinsky’s friend and longtime collab - young composer, i was essentially unaware of orator George Balanchine was the first to the nature of those musical materials i had choreograph the work when he created a ver - chosen for my tools. having experienced a few sion in 1944 for the Ballet russe de Monte of the seminal pieces of american carlo, a successor to diaghilev’s Ballets russes. Minimalism during the early 1970s, i thought Danses concertantes begins with an intro - their combination of stripped-down har - ductory March , its steady meter obscured by monic and rhythmic discourse might be just shifting layers and displaced accents. the only the ticket for my own unformed yearnings. i extended solo in this preparatory movement gradually developed a scheme for composing is for the leader of the six-member violin sec - that was partly indebted to the repetitive pro - tion. the second movement is a Pas d’action , cedures of Minimalism and partly an out - borrowing a term from ballet for an ensemble growth of my interest in waveforms. the dance. the third movement, taking the form “waves” of Wavemaker were to be long se - of a theme and variations, is the longest and quences of oscillating melodic cells that cre - most abstracted of the work. the thematic ated a rippling, shimmering complex of PLAYBILL PROGRAM A NOTES patterns like the surface of a slightly agitated prefer the orchestral version for its added den - pond or lake. But my technique lagged behind sity and power. the piece has several times my inspiration, and this rippling pond very been choreographed and even enjoyed a mo - quickly went dry. Wavemaker crashed and ment of cult status in the movie Barfly , an au - burned at its first performance. the need for tobiographical account of the poet charles a larger, thicker ensemble and for a more flex - Bukowski’s down and out days on Los ible, less theory-bound means of composing angeles’s skid row. in a famous scene, became very apparent. Bukowski (Mickey rourke), having been bat - Fortunately i had in my students at the san tered and bloodied by his drunken girlfriend Francisco conservatory of Music a working (Faye dunaway), holes up in a flophouse laboratory to try out new ideas, and with the room, writing poems in a fit of inspiration to original Wavemaker scrapped i worked over the accompaniment of the insistent buzz of the next four months to pick up the pieces and “shaking and trembling.” start over. i held on to the idea of the oscillat - John Adams ing patterns and made an overall structure that could embrace much more variety and emotional range. Most importantly the quar - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (CIGH–CIKC) tet became a septet, thereby adding a sonic Concerto in A major for Clarinet and mass and the potential for more acoustical Orchestra, K. HDD (CIKC) power. the “loops” idea was a technique from the era of tape music where small lengths of First performed on October LQ, LRTL, in Prague. prerecorded tape attached end to end could repeat melodic or rhythmic figures ad infini - the music that Mozart wrote for his friend tum. (steve reich’s It’s Gonna Rain is the par - anton stadler, a clarinetist and fellow adigm of this technique.) the shakers got into Freemason, was instrumental in establishing the act partly as a pun on the musical term “to the clarinet as an equal to its older cousins in shake,” meaning either to make a tremolo with the woodwind family. Mozart’s first composi - the bow across the string or else to trill rap - tion for stadler was the “Kegelstatt” trio from idly from one note to another. 1786, scored for clarinet, viola, and piano. the flip side of the pun was suggested by (Mozart played the viola part himself in the my own childhood memories of growing up first performance.) next came a quintet for not far from a defunct shaker colony near clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello, com - canterbury, new hampshire. although, as pleted in 1789. this work required a basset has since been pointed out to me, the term clarinet in the key of a, an instrument with a “shaker” itself is derogatory, it nevertheless low-range extension designed by stadler. summons up the vision of these otherwise Mozart went on to write stadler a concerto pious and industrious souls caught up in the featuring the same instrument, completed two ecstatic frenzy of a dance that culminated in months before the composer’s untimely death. an epiphany of physical and spiritual tran - the solo part in the opening movement scendence. this dynamic, almost electrically demonstrates Mozart’s keen understanding of charged element, so out of place in the orderly the clarinet’s range and agility, especially when mechanistic universe of Minimalism, gave the rendered on a basset clarinet, as in this per - music its raison d’être and ultimately led to the formance. (to play the concerto on a modern full realization of the piece. clarinet, the player must transpose certain Shaker Loops continues to be one of my passages into higher octaves.) the tonal qual - most performed pieces. there are partisans ity of the clarinet changes through its range, who favor the clarity and individualism of the from the deep resonance of the extended bass solo septet version, and there are those who notes, through the warm and hollow CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM A NOTES midrange of the chalumeau register, and up could imitate the human voice to such perfec - into the brilliant clarity of the highest octaves. tion.” the slow movement that Mozart at times, the soloist acts like several opera penned for stadler demonstrates the com - characters engaged in dialogue, leaping from poser’s accord with that assessment. range to range; other times, a single scale or the finale contains a bit of haydn’s sense of arpeggio journeys across all four octaves of humor, as in the playful held notes that draw the instrument’s compass. out unresolved tension. With dramatic inter - a critic, in 1785, wrote of anton stadler, jections and minor-key pathos, this rondo once “one would never have thought that a clarinet again shows off Mozart’s operatic tendencies. PLAYBILL saturday, March 21, 2015, 8pm hertz hall 2014–2015 orchestra residency Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Benjamin Shwartz, conductor Martin Fröst, clarinet PROGRAM B John adams (b.