Symphony Band Chamber Winds Michael Haithcock, Conductor

SYMPHONY BAND CHAMBER WINDS MICHAEL HAITHCOCK, CONDUCTOR NICHOLAS BALLA, KIMBERLY FLEMING & JOANN WIESZCZYK, GRADUATE STUDENT CONDUCTORS Friday, February 12, 2021 Hill Auditorium 8:00 PM Il barbiere di Siviglia: Overture (1816) Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) arr. Wenzel Sedlak JoAnn Wieszczyk, conductor Three Dances and Final Scene from Der Mond (1939) Carl Orff Dance 1 (1895–1982) Dance 2 arr. Friedrich K. Wanek Final Scene Dance 3 JoAnn Wieszczyk, conductor Selene (Moon Chariot Rituals) (2015) Augusta Reed Thomas (b. 1964) arr. Cliff Colnot Intermission Timbuktuba (1995) Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) Nicholas Balla, conductor Bull’s-Eye (2019) Viet Cuong (b. 1990) Kimberly Fleming, conductor Symphony for Brass and Timpani (1956) Herbert Haufrecht Dona Nobis Pacem (1909–1998) Elegy Jubilation THe use of all cameras and recording devices is strictly prohibited. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers or set ringers to silent mode. ROSSINI, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: OVERTURE If the music of Rossini’s overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia (THe Barber of Seville) seems to have a peculiar amount of swashbuckling surge and vigor for a comic opera prelude, it is because the overture originally was composed for an earlier opera, Aureliano in Palmira, a historical work based on the Crusades. In fact, it is believed that Rossini used this music two other times before this opera. The composer’s recycling provides an interesting contrast with Beethoven, who composed four different overtures before arriving at a final version for his only opera,Fidelio . The once-perceivedSturm und Drang of Rossini’s overture has been blunted by association, not only by the composer’s accompanying setting of the Beaumarchais comedy, but also by its jocular appearances in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, the Beatles’ filmHelp , and an episode of Seinfeld. The music is now inextricably linked with high-spirited humor. Owing to its separate origins, the overture contains no material from the opera. It does, how- ever, serve the basic function of creating nervous anticipation for the action that follows, em- ploying a wealth of vivacious and varied themes, and a feeling of impetuous momentum. Two forte chords open the piece, followed by a scampering yet hesitating figure, which runs through most of the introduction. A contrasting central section follows, which uses a lyrical, aria-like melody that allows the music to drift into somnolence until the opening chords jolt it back to reality. In the allegro section, a well-known and slightly grotesque Neapolitan dance takes center stage, which is followed by a jovial theme tossed between woodwinds and horns. A dramatic crescendo with breakneck energy leads into a dramatic and sonorous chord progression in the coda, in which one may hear the overture’s more serious origins. The final cadence, in a major sonority, ends one of opera’s most popular and best crafted overtures. Rossini was one of the most prolific opera composers of his time, and many of his works were arranged for winds as entertainment for nobility. Wenzel Sedlak, an equally prolific and successful arranger of the period, made this version shortly after the opera’s premiere in Vienna in 1816. Note by Wayne Reisig ORFF, THREE DANCES AND FINAL SCENE FROM DER MOND After the successful premiere of his Carmina Burana in 1937, Carl Orff’s next major work for the stage was Der Mond (THe Moon), for which he wrote his own libretto, inspired by a Brothers Grimm tale from their Book of Children’s and Home Tales. The premiere occurred on February 5, 1939 in the composer’s home city of Munich. The staging, which features scenes both on earth and in the underworld, caused great difficulties for the composer, who revised his work three times over the course of the next thirty years. Nevertheless, he said that Der Mond always had a special place in his heart. Der Mond tells the tale of Petrus (whom Orff specified is not quite the same as St. Peter) restor- ing cosmic equilibrium between the living and the dead. A narrator tells us (primarily in the words of the original Grimm tale) that, when the world was created, there was a lack of suf- ficient night light for all parts of the Earth, and a portion of the land lay in the darkness. Four village louts, as they pass through another village, discover the moon, which they see hanging from an oak tree. They are told that this other village’s mayor had purchased it. They decide to steal this new source of light and bring it back to their home, leaving the other village lament- ing the darkness and cursing their bumbling mayor (the disappearance of light and negative portrayals of authority are both major themes in Orff’s output, and the villagers’ lament is echoed in his later Die Bernauerin and his final work for the stage,De temporum fine comoedia). Upon returning to their village, the four louts acquire significant wealth and fame (they do not give away the light of their stolen moon for free). These four characters waste their respective fortunes frivolously on earthly pleasures. In utter despair, the four stand on the threshold of their grave with only one possession, the moon on the oak, which they have tended to most of their lives. Each has a quarter of the moon buried with him. Upon the last one’s death, the now complete moon shines within their grave, illuminating the underworld and awakening the dead. The inhabitants celebrate their new circumstances uproariously, but eventually descend into the same turmoil and chaos that had plagued them in life. Petrus, the one responsible for maintaining order in Heavens and on Earth, travels to the underworld to retrieve and replace this mystical moonlight to its rightful place in the Heavens, putting the dead back to sleep (he is perhaps the most beneficent of any authority figure in Orff’s works). He hangs the moon in the sky where all can benefit from its light. Peace and quiet are restored to the kingdoms of the living and the dead, with sweet folk melodies played on zither and tuned water glasses (struck with mallets)—but the dissonant groans of the dead may be heard beneath the earth. As in Carmina Burana, much of Orff’s music is characterized by diatonicism, folk music, and Bavarian dances (including one called the Zwiefach), as he collected traditional Bavarian music with his colleagues Kurt Huber and Hans Bergese. The three dances and final scene of Der Mond were arranged for twelve winds by the composer’s friend and editor Friederich K. Wanek, in the tradition of transcribing operatic material for small groups of wind instruments, called Harmonie, dating back to the eighteenth century. THOMAS, SELENE (MOON CHARIOT RITUALS) The music of Augusta Read Thomas is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and col- orful; “it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Thomas’s impressive body of works “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). THe New Yorker magazine called her “a true virtuoso composer.” Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. The American Acad- emy of Arts and Letters described Thomas as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music.” She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at the University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997–2006). She won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Not only is Thomas one of the most active composers in the world, but she is a long-standing, exemplary citizen with an extensive history of being deeply committed to her community. Thomas was named the 2016 Chicagoan of the Year. In February 2015, music critic Edward Reichel wrote, “Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is without question one of the best and most important composers that this country has today. Her music has substance and depth and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and she knows how to say it — and say it in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated.” In Greek mythology, Selene, goddess of the moon, drives her moon chariot across the heavens. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios and Eos, goddess of the dawn. In this version of Selene (Moon Chariot Rituals), an ensemble of nine woodwind instruments is joined by a percussion quartet. The combination of these two quite different instrumental families results in one of the most strikingly distinctive sound worlds to be encountered in Thomas’s output. For one thing, the two instrumental families are seldom used separately, and solo breaks from either the woodwinds or percussion, while present, are conspicuous by their rarity. Instead, Thomas prefers to use the players as a compact instrumental unit whose colors, texture, and complexion changes constantly as the music gambols along. This is one of Thomas’s most concentrated essays in forward motion, with the pace almost always at a run. There are a few pockets of introspection, but they are too brief to ever dispel the sense of vast spaces covered in the blink of an eye as Selene, the lunar goddess of Greek mythology, would do when driving her moon chariot across the firmaments.

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