BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director Bernard Haitink, Conductor Emeritus Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate 128th Season, 2008-2009 COMMUNITY CONCERT IX Sunday, March 29, at 3, at Granoff Music Center, Tufts University, Medford CHAMBER TEA V Friday, April 3, at 2:30 COMMUNITY CONCERT X Sunday, April 5, at 3, at Hernandez Cultural Center, Boston The free Community Concerts on March 29 and April 5 are generously supported by The Lowell Institute. CYNTHIA MEYERS, flute and piccolo ROBERT SHEENA, oboe and English horn THOMAS MARTIN, clarinet SUZANNE NELSEN, bassoon JONATHAN MENKIS, horn TIMOTHY GENIS, percussion (Piazzolla; Toussaint; D'Rivera "Afro") PIAZZOLLA Libertango (arr. Jeff Scott) MILHAUD "Sorocaba" and "Ipanema" from Saudades do Brasil, Opus 67 (arr. David Bussick) PIAZZOLLA Oblivion (arr. Jeff Scott) TOUSSAINT Mambo D'RIVERA Aires Tropicales 1. Alborada 2. Son 3. Wapango (arr. Jeff Scott /Tom Martin) 4. Habanera 5. Vals Venezolano 6. Afro 7. Contradanza Week 22 Astor Piazzolla (1921-92) Libertango and Oblivion Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Astor Piazzolla moved with his family to New York City in 1925, where (with one brief return to Argentina in 1930) they lived until 1936. He took up the bandoneon, the central instrument in the Ar- gentine tango, and also studied classical piano. Upon his return to Argentina he began to perform with tango orchestras, but also studied composition with the great Alberto Ginastera. He formed his first orchestra in 1946 but disbanded it as his music became more experimental. Piazzolla's music of the time shows the influence of Bartok and Stravinsky, but with some Argentine elements like the inclusion of two bandoneons in the orchestral work Buenos Aires. That piece earned him a stipend to study in France with Nadia Boulanger, with whose encouragement he once again embraced the medium of the tango as the cen- tral idea of his music. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, Piazzolla returned to the idea of presenting his music in his own groups, forming jazz combo-like collaborations and be- ginning to seed his own music with the materials of jazz. He also performed as soloist with string orchestras in his hybrid tangos, the style of which has come to be known as "tango nuevo." His career became increasingly international: in addition to Argentina he made his base briefly in New York, returned to Europe, and traveled extensively. Although his constant exploration initially alienated tango traditionalists, his worldwide audience continued to grow. Late in his life, admired by musicians of many different styles, he began writing again for classical combinations and for such musicians as Mstislav Rostropovich and the Kronos Quartet. Oblivion and Libertango are among Piazzolla's most familiar tangos, heard in all sorts of contexts including performances by the composer with his band, in movie soundtracks, and in numerous arrangements. The versions here are ex- tremely idiomatic arrangements for wind quintet by composer /hornist Jeff Scott of Imani Winds, a quintet renowned for its explorations of new world-music repertoire. Numerous colorful instrumental touches in both pieces add to the overall sense of spontaneity. Oblivion, primarily slow and melancholy, begins with nearly two minutes of atmospheric, introductory music before the horn announces the recognizable main tune, which is then passed among the instru- ments in rich harmonization. Libertango, its prestissimo complement, was pur- portedly inspired by a line from a poem: "My tango is free, a poet and homeless, as old as the world, as simple as a prayer." Here the wind quintet is joined by improvised percussion. In the introduction, arpeggios among the winds create interesting interlocking textures. The rapid accompanying material to the flute's sustained melody has everything to do with the mood of the piece. Darius Milhaud (1892-1972) "Sorocaba" and "Ipanema" from Saudades do Brasil, Opus 67 (arr. David Bussick) The French composer Darius Milhaud's legendarily vast compositional output runs to more than 400 opus numbers, and includes sixteen operas; twelve sym- phonies; multiple concertos for violin, piano, viola, and cello as well as concertos for harp, oboe, harpsichord, and various combinations; eighteen string quartets, Popol-Vuh, the Cello Concerto, and Hip de la Ciudad for piano and jazz orchestra. and dozens of sundry orchestral pieces, songs, choral works, film music, and He has since continued to compose for ensembles of various sizes, favoring the chamber works—in short, pieces in every conceivable genre over the course of a concerto genre. His works for chamber groups include his String Quartet No. 2, sixty-year career. As a Jew, he was threatened by the encroachment into France commissioned for the Cuarteto Latinamericano. Meanwhile, he has continued of the Third Reich. After 1940 the U.S. was his adoptive home for the rest of his to perform and record with Sacbe and in other contexts, and has been active as life, although he split his time between France and the U.S. after the war. For many an arranger and producer. years he taught at Mills College in Oakland, California, as well as at the Paris Toussaint wrote Mambo in 2001, and it was subsequently recorded by the Conservatoire and at the Aspen Festival. His American pupils are numerous Mexico City Woodwind Quintet. The piece is based on the dance form that and include such luminaries as Burt Bacharach and our own James Levine. originated in Cuba and became a craze in the U.S. in the 1950s. (The cha-cha-cha During World War I, unable to enlist for reasons of health, Milhaud traveled to is a variant.) Toussaint's Mambo is almost a miniature suite, featuring sections of Brazil as a civil servant and lived there until the end of 1918. Upon returning to different tempos and moods. The instruments (with piccolo here in place of flute) Paris he moved in the same circle as Koechlin and was part of the loose "Les Six" are deployed in interlocking patterns, forming a continually shifting timbral group. His first still-famous work, the absurdist ballet Le Boeufsur le toit ("The palette. Percussion is added to add an exotic element to the pulse. Bull on the Roof," 1919—already Opus 58), is an orchestral synthesis of a wide range of Brazilian musical styles. The most important and influential work of his Paquito D'Rivera (b.1948) entire output, the ballet La Creation du monde ("The Creation of the World," 1923), Aires Tropicales was one of the earliest "classical" works to incorporate American jazz. He was The Cuban-born American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera also active as a pianist and conductor. assimilated the bebop styles of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie as a young Milhaud's set of twelve piano pieces Saudades do Brasil, like Le Boeufsur le toit, performer in Cuba. He founded the fusion band Irakere in the 1970s. In 1980 was a direct attempt to compose Brazilian music in his own voice. "Saudade" is a D'Rivera defected while on a trip to Europe, and moved to New York City. Besides Portuguese word meaning, roughly, "yearning for what is lost," which can imply leading his own groups, he played with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy a kind of homesickness or pining for an absent loved one, with the further inflec- Tyner, Arturo Sandoval, and Michel Camilo. tion of permanent separation. Although the term originated in Portugal, it has Along with jazz, D'Rivera has also composed many works for conventional become more strongly associated with the vastness and isolation specific to Brazil. classical ensembles from chamber groups to orchestras. His style allows a free In these character pieces, Milhaud, a year and more removed from his Brazilian coexistence of elements of jazz, traditional classical, and Cuban elements. He has sojourn, suggests he has no expectation of being able to recapture that experience. written works on commission for such groups as the New Jersey Chamber Music Nonetheless most of the pieces are dance-oriented (the set is subtitled "Suite de Society, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano, and danses") and betray little overt nostalgia. The two heard here, "Sorocaba" (named the Opus 21 ensemble. His Gran Damon (The Bel Air Concerto) was co-commis- for a Southern Brazilian city) and "Ipanema" (after a neighborhood of Rio de sioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra Janeiro) were arranged for wind quintet by the oboist and composer David Bussick. in Washington, D.C., for flutist Marina Piccinini. This was premiered by Piccinini "Sorocaba" is the more lyrical of the two; both feature strong syncopated rhythms with the National Symphony under Leonard Slatkin's direction in 2002. and very "modern" harmonic touches, including polytonality (two or more si- D'Rivera's suite for woodwind quintet, Aires Tropicales, was commissioned by multaneously suggested keys) in "Ipanema." the Aspen Wind Quintet, who premiered it in 1994 at the Frick Collection in New York City. It has since become something of a repertoire staple for wind quintets. Eugenio Toussaint (b.1954) players have decided to add (as the third move- Mambo In this performance, the present ment) another short piece, D'Rivera's Wapango, originally a standalone work; Eugenio Toussaint is one of the most important figures in Mexican jazz as a pianist also, the Aires Tropicales movement "Dizzyness" is omitted here. All of the move- and composer, and is also significant as a composer of concert music. Born in ments are fully developed pieces, not simply character sketches, although the Mexico City, he first made his name as a pianist with the bands Odradek and character of each is strongly indicated; most of them are based on dance music.