Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

�� Oberlin�� Contemporary Music �� Ensemble �� Timothy Weiss, conductor �� Benjamin�� Roidl-Ward, bassoon�� Alice Teyssier, soprano �� David�� Bowlin, violin �� Saturday,�� March 7, 2015, 2:00 p.m. �� Gartner�� Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum�� of Art �� Concerto�� for Bassoon Sofia Gubaidulina �� and�� Low Strings (1975) �� (b. 1931) �� I �� II �� III �� IV �� V �� , bassoon �� Benjamin Roidl-Ward �� Aaron Wolff, Maurice Cohn, Nikita Annenkov,�� Christopher Egerton, cello ��Kevin Sullivan, Casey Karr, Dominique Castro, bass �� Pause�� Snow Requiem (2015) Aaron Helgeson PROGRAM NOTES (Cleveland premiere) (b. 1982) Prologue (“Budeiesull Frå Brimisætra”) Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings (1975) January 12, 1888 — 6:00AM, 19°F, 24 mph by Sofia Gubaidulina (b. Chistopol, Tatar Autonomous Republic January 12, 1888 — 11:00AM, -2°F, 42 mph [Russia, Soviet Union], 1931) January 12, 1888 — 2:00PM, -10°F, 60 mph Instrumentation: solo bassoon, 4 cellos, 3 double basses. January 12, 1888 — 10:00PM, -17°F, 22 mph January 13, 1888 — 6:00AM, -25°F, 3 mph (“Svein i’ Sy Gårde”) Life in the Soviet Union in the 1970s meant—in addition to (movements performed continuously) contending with chronic shortages in housing and basic goods—abiding fear of the government which imposed severe restrictions not only on the movements of the citizens but on Alice Teyssier, soprano • David Bowlin, violin the information they had access to; any dissent with the official Yuri Popowycz, Rebecca Telford-Marx, Sophia Bernitz, Francesca Fetten, Communist ideology was liable to punishment. Artists were Thomas Cooper, Mana Imaizumi, Henry Allison, Flora Hollifeld, Cecilie expected to adhere to the principles of “socialist realism” which Balling, Kimberly Bill, Mwakudua Wangure, Toby Elser, violin forbade all experimentation with Western modernism. The relative Daniel Orsen, Eleanor Freed, Marlea Simpson, Margaret Klucznik, viola “thaw” after Stalin’s death in 1953 was followed by a new “freeze” Maurice Cohn, Aaron Wolff, Nikita Annenkov, Christopher Egerton, cello under Leonid Brezhnev who, as General Secretary of the Soviet Kevin Sullivan, Casey Karr, Dominique Castro, bass Communist Party from 1964 to 1982, presided over a period of Joseph Williams, piano • Caitlin Mehrtens, harp extreme orthodoxy in all areas of life. Justin Gunter, Louis Pino, Michael Mazzullo, Hunter Brown, percussion Composers who were seeking to free themselves from these Rachel Rossello, Katherine Lerner Lee, Dorothy Klement, soprano shackles were facing stiff opposition. If their works were not Tian Yoon Teh, Prudence Poon, Caroline Scheibe, Abigail Peterson, alto banned entirely, they were subject to approval from the powerful Daniel Hautzinger, Leonardo Ziporyn, Yizhang Liu, tenor Union of Composers that controlled what could be performed Milo Talwani, John Kearin, Justin Weiss, Geoffrey King, baritone and where. Even if approval was granted and a performance took place, there could always be reprisals after the fact, endangering Pause any future performances. It was under these circumstances that a Russian avant-garde Wheel of Emptiness (1997) Jonathan Harvey appeared in the late sixties, with Alfred Schnittke, Edison Denisov, (1939–2012) and Sofia Gubaidulina as its most prominent representatives. Candy Chang, flute • Regina Brady, oboe These composers studied the ideologically highly suspect Alexander Dergal, clarinet • Benjamin Roidl-Ward, bassoon twelve-tone technique, obtained new scores by Stockhausen, Kevin Grasel, horn • Ashley Hale, trumpet Boulez, and other Western contemporaries through entirely Zoe Cutler, trombone • Joseph Williams, piano unofficial channels, and began openly to challenge the rigid Justin Gunter, Louis Pino, percussion norms of socialist realism. The backlash was not slow to come: Rebecca Telford-Marx, Sophia Bernitz, violin when Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings was Daniel Orsen, viola • Maurice Cohn, cello • Casey Karr, bass presented to the Composers Union, one of its high officials Sage Jensen, electronics declared: “This branch must be hacked off!” The work was Fabian Fuertes, personnel & operations manager eventually performed once under the auspices of the Union, but Michael Roest, librarian further performances were blocked by the apparatchiks. 4 5 To be sure, the work was shocking on many levels. First Snow Requiem (2015) of all, the instrumentation—solo bassoon with four cellos and by Aaron Helgeson ’05 (b. Eugene, Oregon, 1982) three double basses—was highly unusual. Second, the work was filled with such modernisms as an utterly unconventional tonal “This is the hour of lead—remembered, if outlived, as freezing language (including quarter-tones), contrasting with a memorable, persons recollect the snow—first chill—then stupor—then the recurrent theme consisting only of the notes of the G-major letting go.” triad. Gubaidulina uses polyrhythms, aleatoric passages with —Emily Dickinson no rhythmic coordination among the players; she also employs a wide array of extended techniques, including fluttertongues I began writing Snow Requiem two years ago, after being haunted and multiphonics and an imitation of the “saxophone laugh” for by author David Laskin’s account of one of the deadliest winter the bassoon, as well as sul tasto, sul ponticello, glissando, and storms in U.S. history. Dubbed the Children’s Blizzard by the press, complex harmonics for the strings. But even that was not all. For the storm’s name reflects the disproportionately affected children Gubaidulina had inherited from Shostakovich (who died the same who had rushed to far-away schoolhouses in the morning while year this piece was written) the gift of conveying drama through weather was good, only to find themselves trapped indoors by entirely musical means: even an unsympathetic listener had to mid-afternoon without food and

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