National Festival Chamber Orchestra Saturday, June 6
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NATIONAL FESTIVAL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2015 . 8PM ELSIE & MARVIN DEKELBOUM CONCERT HALL PROGRAM Baljinder Sekhon Sun Dmitri Shostakovich/ Chamber Symphony, Op. 83a Rudolf Barshai Allegro Andantino Allegretto – Allegretto - intermission - Frank Martin Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion and String Orchestra Allegro Adagietto: Misterioso ed elegante Allegro vivace Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 (“Haffner”) Allegro con spirito Andante Minuetto – Trio Finale: Presto 9 Sun array of instruments; that is, each The idea of using orchestral strings BALJINDER SEKHON player has a keyboard instrument (a to perform string quartets is hardly a marimba, a xylophone, a vibraphone), novelty. Gustav Mahler created string Born August 1, 1980, Fairfax, Virginia ‘skin’ (containing a drumhead), orchestra versions of Beethoven’s F Now living in Tampa, Florida wood and metal. In addition, the Minor Quartet (Op. 95) and Schubert’s three performers share a single large D Minor. Dimitri Mitropoulos gave This work for percussion trio was cymbal that is central to the staging. us a similar treatment of Beethoven’s composed in 2010–2011 under a At times the three percussion parts C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. Wilhelm commission from the Volta Trio, which are treated as one large instrument Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini introduced it in a concert at Georgetown with three performers working toward performed and recorded individual University in Washington DC on a single musical character. Thus the movements from other Beethoven November 4, 2011. The score calls for orchestration and interaction alternate quartets. Toscanini also gave us a string- marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, large with each performer executing his/ orchestra version of Mendelssohn’s cymbal and “indeterminate skins, metals her own layers of sound to create a string octet — and Mendelssohn and woods.” Duration, 12 minutes. heterophonic texture, the percussionists himself created a stunningly brilliant using a multitude of techniques to full-orchestral treatment of the scherzo Baljinder Sekhon received his MA and create a palette of nuanced sounds. from that work, originally to serve PhD at the University of Rochester’s In addition to common performance as replacement for the minuet in Eastman School of Music, and now is practice, they are called upon to use his Symphony No. 1. Tchaikovsky an assistant professor of composition their hands, fingers, knuckles, arms and himself was the first to produce a at the University of South Florida’s fingernails to muffle, modify and create version of the slow movement of his School of Music. His works, in a broad diversity of characteristics.” First Quartet in an arrangement for various formats, have been performed orchestral strings; Sir Malcolm Sargent throughout Europe and Asia as well undertook a similar treatment of the as at Carnegie Hall and numerous Chamber Symphony, Op. 83a corresponding movement of Borodin’s other venues in our own country. DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Second Quartet. What is different His saxophone concerto called The Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg about the present work is that (a) Offering had its premiere in Thailand Died August 8, 1976, Moscow in July 2011. Among other recent Rudolf Barshai obtained Shostakovich’s approval for orchestrating his quartets, works are Ancient Dust, for orchestra, Orchestrated by Rudolf Barshai (1924– introduced at the Cabrillo Festival, and (b) in some of them, including this 2010), from the String Quartet No. 4 in one, he did not limit himself to the and Lou, for cello and percussion D Major, Op. 83 quartet, which the McCormick orchestra’s strings. Percussion Group recorded on Ravello Barshai was one of the most Records. Among his numerous The fourth of Shostakovich’s 15 string significant of the numerous prizes and awards are three Howard quartets was among the several works outstanding musicians in Russia during Hanson Orchestral Prizes, the Wayne composed between 1948 and Stalin’s the Soviet years. As a young violist Brewster Barlow Prize, New Music death five years later which the composer at the Moscow Conservatory, he was USA’s Composer Assistance Grant, a put away during that period to wait for a member of a student quartet, and Boehmler Foundation Commission, a a more propitious time for presentation he wrote to Shostakovich to invite Met Life Creative Connections Grant, to the public. It was given its first him to the group’s rehearsal of his the Morton Gould Young Composer performance on December 3, 1953, in first Quartet. The composer eagerly Award and various others from ASCAP. Moscow, by the Beethoven Quartet, the attended that rehearsal, and began He has also taken part as a percussionist ensemble most closely identified with a lifelong friendship with Barshai, in festivals and concerts such as the Shostakovich at the time. Rudolf Barshai whose student foursome became the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green created his orchestral version some two famous Borodin Quartet. In 1955 Umbrella Series, the Festival Spazio dozen years after the composer’s death; Barshai left the quartet to create in Cagliari and the Bang on a Can he conducted it for the first time on July the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Marathon in New York. 20, 1990, in a broadcast recording with which he conducted at home and The composer has provided a note the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra on tour, and with which he made of his own on the work that opens this in Cardiff, and conducted the Hallé some splendid recordings, until 1977, evening’s concert: Orchestra in Manchester in the first when he gave up on his contentious public performance on January 10 of relationship with the Communist “Sun explores a variety of musical the following year. Barshai subsequently regime and settled for a time in energies. From tired phrases to recorded this work, together with his Israel. Eventually he set up a base in extended climactic passages to short- similar version of the Quartet No. 3, Switzerland and began conducting lived bursts of sound, many segments with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe full-sized orchestras. He had productive of music are intertwined and overlaid for Deutsche Grammophon. relationships with orchestras in the in a way that creates a singular event Barshai’s score calls for flute, oboe, UK and on the Continent, and from (the piece itself) with various ‘flares’ of English horn, clarinet in A, bass clarinet, 1985 to 1988 served as music director sound on its surface. These segments bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, whip, field of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra are frequently separated by silent drum, 4 tom toms, tam-tam, xylophone, in Canada. He left us some insightful moments, each of which, because of its marimbaphone, celesta and strings. recordings of the symphonies of particular context, expresses a different Duration, 25 minutes. Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Mahler, type of energy. Each of the individual and produced his own performing percussionists is assigned a very similar version of the Mahler Tenth. Shortly 10 before his death, at his Swiss home is fairly unescapable, and Barshai may Martin was one of the most open- at the age of 86, he completed an be said to have intensified it in his minded, inquisitive and energetic of ambitious orchestral setting of Bach’s instrumentation, particularly in his musical creators. He eagerly exposed Art of the Fugue. use of the clarinet and other wind himself to every style, every influence In undertaking orchestral settings of instruments. In general, an overall and “school,” and sifted out what Shostakovich quartets, Barshai obtained character of deep suffering and might be of interest and use to him not only the composer’s permission but lamentation permeates and defines in developing a truly personal creative also his imprimatur in granting him the work, and the penultimate of its approach — an approach characterized the use of the original opus number four movements has been described by great intellectual vigor and, among of each of the expanded quartets, with as nothing short of an impression of other factors, a productive fascination the addition of the letter “a.” Barshai a pogrom, though the concluding with unusual combinations of completed expanded versions of five of Allegretto, in the form of a theme and instruments (as well as a distinctive use the quartets as “chamber symphonies”: variations, seems to carry within its of individual instruments). He composed No. 8, Op. 110, was the first one he general mood of resignation a stubborn thoroughly contemporary works for undertook to expand, as Op. 110a, hope for eventual peace, if nothing harpsichord and clavichord (both of for string orchestra. The Quartet No. more than that. which he played himself), at a time when, 10, Op. 118, became the Chamber even in performing music of Bach and Symphony Op. 118a. Quartet No. 1 Concerto for Seven Wind his contemporaries, those instruments became “Eine kleine Symphonie,” Op. Instruments, Timpani, were by no means as widely used as 49a; Nos. 3 and 4 became, respectively, they are now. Some of his works reflect Opp. 73a and 83a. Percussion and String an interest in jazz, or in Asian music, or As already noted, the Fourth String Orchestra Bulgarian folk music. He found what we Quartet was one of the compositions FRANK MARTIN came to call “neo-classicism” a generally that Shostakovich put away during Born September 15, 1890, Geneva comfortable mold, and at the same time the period 1948–1953 to wait for Died November 21, 1974, Naarden, developed his own kind of “twelve-tone” a more propitious — which is to the Netherlands procedure that rejected both the rigor say, a safer — time to be heard. The of Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic system composer’s reaction to those darkening and, as he put it, “above all, his principle postwar years, following the official This concerto, one of Martin’s most of atonality.