Randall Thompson's Requiem
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74TH SEASON of CONCERTS April 24, 2016 • National Gallery of Art PROGRAM
74TH SEASON OF CONCERTS april 24, 2016 • national gallery of art PROGRAM 3:30 • West Building, West Garden Court Inscape Richard Scerbo, conductor Toru Takemitsu (1930 – 1996) Rain Spell Asha Srinivasan (b. 1980) Svara-Lila John Harbison (b. 1938) Mirabai Songs It’s True, I Went to the Market All I Was Doing Was Breathing Why Mira Can’t Go Back to Her Old House Where Did You Go? The Clouds Don’t Go, Don’t Go Monica Soto-Gil, mezzo soprano Intermission Chen Yi (b. 1953) Wu Yu Praying for Rain Shifan Gong-and-Drum Toru Takemitsu Archipelago S. 2 • National Gallery of Art The Musicians Founded in 2004 by artistic director Richard Scerbo, Inscape Chamber Orchestra is pushing the boundaries of classical music in riveting performances that reach across genres and generations and transcend the confines of the traditional concert experience. With its flexible roster and unique brand of programming, this Grammy-nominated group of high-energy master musicians has quickly established itself as one of the premier performing ensembles in the Washington, DC, region and beyond. Inscape has worked with emerging American composers and has a commitment to presenting concerts featuring the music of our time. Since its inception, the group has commissioned and premiered over twenty new works. Its members regularly perform with the National, Baltimore, Philadel- phia, Virginia, Richmond, and Delaware symphonies and the Washington Opera Orchestra; they are members of the Washington service bands. Inscape’s roots can be traced to the University of Maryland School of Music, when Scerbo and other music students collaborated at the Clarice Smith Center as the Philharmonia Ensemble. -
Köchel Numbers
Köchel numbers I have long associated Mozart's works with the numbers from the Köchel catalogue, so that, for example, the number 465 instantly evokes in my mind the slow chromatic introduction to the C major "Dissonance" quartet. During our first year in Canada, my wife and I lived at a house bearing the number 899, a disappointingly unevocative number, I thought, since I knew that Köchel’s catalogue ends at 626 with the Requiem. Then we moved to our present address, 529 Piccadilly Street. The number 529 was equally unevocative; a consultation of Alfred Einstein’s Mozart biography revealed it to correspond merely to an isolated song, unknown to me. Compounding my frustration was the fact that the number of the next door house is 533, the Köchel number of my beloved Mozart piano sonata, the contrapuntal two movement sonata in F. I was further chagrined to find that just down the street there are three successive houses bearing numbers corresponding to some of my favourite works, 499 (D major "Hoffmeister" quartet) 511 (A minor rondo for piano) and 515 (C major quintet)—the presence of an intervening side street explains the incongruous jump from 499 to 511. I remained unhappy with my house number until it struck me after a while (no Ramanujan am I) that 529 is the square of the prime number 23, Alban Berg's "magic" number, which pops up in many of his compositions (for example, the number of bars in each movement of his "Lyric Suite" is a multiple of 23). Stimulated by these revelations, it suddenly occurred to me that my initial house number 899 was less dull than I had first thought, mathematically at least: it's the product of 29 and 31, a pair of "twin" primes. -
Requiem, Op. 48 Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924)
ASO Program Notes Requiem, Op. 48 Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924) Gabriel Fauré grew up in the French Pyrenees and began his musical education at a very early age. He studied organ, piano and choral music at increasingly more prestigious schools, ending up at the Niedermeyer School in Paris. His teachers included Camille Saint-Saëns. When he later became a teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger were among his pupils. He served as organist and choirmaster at a number of large churches in Paris, and enjoyed an excellent reputation as a successful composer until he grew deaf and had to give up much of his musical life. There have been many famous Requiems, and all have their own style. Verdi, Berlioz, and Brahms all composed glorious Requiems addressing the themes of death, resurrection and final judgment. The tone of their works is grand and even theatrical. Mozart’s Requiem is moving and poignant. Fauré chose to make his gentler, full of solace and comfort for the mourners. It is also moving, but in a kinder, more consoling way. The awesome vision of “The Last Judgement” would have meant little to Fauré. In spite of the fact that most of his life had been dedicated to service to the church, he was an unbeliever, and so he focused more on the blessed rest for those whose life journey had come to an end. In Fauré’s words, “Everything I managed to entertain in the way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which is…dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.” and at another time, “I see death as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.” Although firmly agnostic, he was a spiritual man, and sought to compose a newer kind of church music, different from the heavily romantic style of the German composers dominating European music at the time. -
Johannes Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45." Doctoral Dissertation
JOHANNES BRAHMS’S EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM: A COMPARISON OF THE REDUCED ORCHESTRATION TECHNIQUES IN JOACHIM LINCKELMANN’S CHAMBER ENSEMBLE VERSION TO BRAHMS’S FOUR HAND PIANO VERSION Michael Aaron Hawley, B.M.E., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS December 2016 APPROVED: Richard Sparks, Major Professor and Chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles Stephen F. Austin, Minor Professor Gregory Hobbs, Committee Member Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Vice Provost of the Toulouse Graduate School Hawley, Michael Aaron. Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem: A Comparison of the Reduced Orchestration Techniques in Joachim Linckelmann’s Chamber Ensemble Version to Brahms’s Four-Hand Piano Version. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), December 2016, 265 pp., 29 musical examples, bibliography, 30 titles. Recognizing the challenges small groups have to program a major work, in 2010, Joachim Linckelmann created a chamber ensemble arrangement of Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem. In 1869, J.M. Reiter-Biedermann published Brahms’s four-hand piano arrangement of Ein deutsches Requiem. Brahms’s arrangement serves as an excellent comparison to the chamber ensemble version by Linckelmann, since it can be assumed that Brahms chose to highlight and focus on the parts he deemed the most important. This study was a comparative analysis of the two arrangements and was completed in three stages. The first stage documented every significant change in Joachim Linckelmann’s recent chamber arrangement. The second stage classified each change as either a reduction, reorganization, or elimination. -
Performing Michael Haydn's Requiem in C Minor, MH155
HAYDN: The Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America Volume 9 Number 2 Fall 2019 Article 4 November 2019 Performing Michael Haydn's Requiem in C minor, MH155 Michael E. Ruhling Rochester Institute of Technology; Music Director, Ensemble Perihipsous Follow this and additional works at: https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal Recommended Citation Ruhling, Michael E. (2019) "Performing Michael Haydn's Requiem in C minor, MH155," HAYDN: The Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America: Vol. 9 : No. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal/vol9/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Research Media and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in HAYDN: The Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America by an authorized editor of Research Media and Information Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Ruhling, Michael E.. “Performing Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor, MH155.” HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America 9.2 (Fall 2019), http://haydnjournal.org. © RIT Press and Haydn Society of North America, 2019. Duplication without the express permission of the author, RIT Press, and/or the Haydn Society of North America is prohibited. Performing Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor, MH155 by Michael E. Ruhling Rochester Institute of Technology Music Director, Ensemble Perihipsous I. Introduction: Historical Background and Acknowledgements. Sigismund Graf Schrattenbach, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, died 16 December 1771, at the age of 73. Johann Michael Haydn, who had been in the service of the Prince-Archbishop since 1763, serving mainly as concertmaster, received the charge to write a Requiem Mass for the Prince-Archbishop’s funeral service. -
Faure Requiem Program V2
FAURÉ REQUIEM Conceived and directed by Barbara Pickhardt, Artistic Director Produced by Barbara Scharf Schamest Premiered: June 13, 2021 Ars Choralis Barbara Pickhardt, artistic director REQUIEM, Op. 48 (1893) Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Introit Brussels Choral Society Eric Delson, conductor Kyrie Ars Choralis Chamber Orchestra Barbara Pickhardt, conductor Offertory Ars Choralis Chuck Snyder, baritone Eribeth Chamber Players Barbara Pickhardt, conductor Sanctus The Dessoff Choirs Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor Pie Jesu (Remembrances) Magna Graecia Flute Choir Carlo Verio Sirignano, guest conductor Sebastiano Valentino, music director Agnus Dei Ars Choralis Magna Graecia Flute Choir Carlo Verio Sirignano, guest conductor Chamber Orchestra Barbara Pickhardt, conductor Libera Me Ars Choralis Harvey Boyer, tenor Douglas Kostner, organ Barbara Pickhardt, conductor Memorial Prayers Tatjana Myoko Evan Pritchard Rabbi Jonathan Kligler Elizabeth Lesser Pastor Sonja Tillberg Maclary In Paradisum Brussels Choral Society Eric Delson, conductor 1 Encore Performances Pie Jesu Ars Choralis Amy Martin, soprano Eribeth Chamber Playersr Barbara Pickhardt, conductor In Paradisum The Dessoff Choirs Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor About This Virtual Concert By Barbara Pickhardt The Fauré Requiem Reimagined for a Pandemic This virtual performance of the Fauré Requiem grew out of the need to prepare a concert while maintaining social distancing. We would surely have preferred to blend our voices as we always have, in a live performance. But the pandemic opened the door to a new and different opportunity. As we saw the coronavirus wreak havoc around the world, it seemed natural to reach out to our friends in other locales and include them in this program. In our reimagined version of the Fauré Requiem, Ars Choralis is joined, from Belgium, by the Brussels Choral Society, the Magna Graecia Flute Choir of Calabria, Italy, the Dessoff Choirs from New York City, and, from New York, instrumentalists from the Albany area, New York City and the Hudson Valley. -
Ethereal Light Program Notes
Ethereal Light – Program Notes Ethereal: adj. very light or airy, belonging to the heavens, otherworldly Light: n. energy that makes seeing possible, the representation of light or the effect it has in a work of art, God as a source of spiritual illumination This afternoon’s program features music of the great French composer Gabriel Fauré, as well as a singular work each from the celebrated Sergei Rachmaninoff and the contemporary genius of Morten Lauridsen. Composed during a span of over one hundred years, these divergent works are drawn together by the subject of Light. In Fauré’s Requiem, the familiar text from the Catholic Mass for the Dead speaks directly of “eternal light” and “perpetual light,” invoked to “shine forever” on those who have died. They are asked to be saved from “utter darkness” and the “darkness of hell,” perhaps implying that the unmistakable quality of heaven is Light itself. In the same composer’s Après un Rêve, the singer wishes to return to the “awakening light” of his dream, now sadly over. In Lauridsen’s masterwork, Lux Aeterna (Light Eternal), each of the five movements reference Light in their own way, the opening and closing movements not dissimilarly to the Requiem of Fauré. The texts of the inner three movements, all drawn from sacred Latin sources, contain their own unique references to Light, including one of the most celebrative moments in the work which uses the words, “O Lux beatissima” (O Light most blessed). It is in the hearing of today’s two works without text – Pavane and Vocalise – in which perhaps the ear of the listener is most responsible for providing the connection to the theme of Light. -
An Analysis and Performance Considerations for John
AN ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR JOHN HARBISON’S CONCERTO FOR OBOE, CLARINET, AND STRINGS by KATHERINE BELVIN (Under the Direction of D. RAY MCCLELLAN) ABSTRACT John Harbison is an award-winning and prolific American composer. He has written for almost every conceivable genre of concert performance with styles ranging from jazz to pre-classical forms. The focus of this study, his Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings, was premiered in 1985 as a product of a Consortium Commission awarded by the National Endowment of the Arts. The initial discussions for the composition were with oboist Sara Bloom and clarinetist David Shifrin. Harbison’s Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings allows the clarinet to finally be introduced to the concerto grosso texture of the Baroque period, for which it was born too late. This document includes biographical information on John Harbison including his life and career, compositional style, and compositional output. It also contains a brief history of the Baroque concerto grosso and how it relates to the Harbison concerto. There is a detailed set-class analysis of each movement and information on performance considerations. The two performers as well as the composer were interviewed to discuss the commission, premieres, and theoretical/performance considerations for the concerto. INDEX WORDS: John Harbison, Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings, clarinet concerto, oboe concerto, Baroque concerto grosso, analysis and performance AN ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR JOHN HARBISON’S CONCERTO FOR OBOE, CLARINET, AND STRINGS by KATHERINE BELVIN B.M., Tennessee Technological University, 2004 M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2006 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2009 © 2009 Katherine Belvin All Rights Reserved AN ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS FOR JOHN HARBISON’S CONCERTO FOR OBOE, CLARINET, AND STRINGS by KATHERINE BELVIN Major Professor: D. -
Antonio Salieri's Revenge
Antonio Salieri’s Revenge newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/antonio-salieris-revenge By Alex Ross 1/13 Many composers are megalomaniacs or misanthropes. Salieri was neither. Illustration by Agostino Iacurci On a chilly, wet day in late November, I visited the Central Cemetery, in Vienna, where 2/13 several of the most familiar figures in musical history lie buried. In a musicians’ grove at the heart of the complex, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms rest in close proximity, with a monument to Mozart standing nearby. According to statistics compiled by the Web site Bachtrack, works by those four gentlemen appear in roughly a third of concerts presented around the world in a typical year. Beethoven, whose two-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday arrives next year, will supply a fifth of Carnegie Hall’s 2019-20 season. When I entered the cemetery, I turned left, disregarding Beethoven and company. Along the perimeter wall, I passed an array of lesser-known but not uninteresting figures: Simon Sechter, who gave a counterpoint lesson to Schubert; Theodor Puschmann, an alienist best remembered for having accused Wagner of being an erotomaniac; Carl Czerny, the composer of piano exercises that have tortured generations of students; and Eusebius Mandyczewski, a magnificently named colleague of Brahms. Amid these miscellaneous worthies, resting beneath a noble but unpretentious obelisk, is the composer Antonio Salieri, Kapellmeister to the emperor of Austria. I had brought a rose, thinking that the grave might be a neglected and cheerless place. Salieri is one of history’s all-time losers—a bystander run over by a Mack truck of malicious gossip. -
The Sackbut and Pre-Reformation English Church Music
146 HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY JOURNAL THE SACKBUT AND PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH CHURCH MUSIC Trevor Herbert n the mid-1530s the household account books of the Royal Court in London showed that as many as twelve trombone players were in receipt of regular fees. If these accounts /signify all expenditure on Court music at that time, it can be estimated that an eighth of the wages bill for this part of its activities went to trombone players. The 1530s were something of a high point in this respect, but it remains the case that for the whole of the 16th century a corps of trombonists were, in effect, salaried members of the royal musical establishment.1 Yet, not a single piece of English music from this period is explicitly linked to the trombone. This in itselfis not significant, as the labelling of parts at this time was rare,2 but the illustration draws historians of brass instruments to a neat focus. Throughout the 16th century trombonists occupied a regular and important place in English musical life. The players were professionals, probably fine and distinguished performers: What did they play and when did they play it? In this article I address some issues concerning the deployment of trombones in the first half of the 16th century. It is worth stressing that musical practice in England in the 16th century was sufficiently different from the rest of Europe to merit special attention. As I explain below, the accession of Henry VII marks what many historians recognize as a watershed in British history. The death of his son Henry VIII in 1547 marks another. -
Berlioz Requiem Alto Road
BERLIOZ: Grand Messe des Morts Alto Road Map I. Requiem and Kyrie (Introit) •First entrance at rehearsal B: sing tenor I part, stop singing at 7 measures after rehearsal C. •Re-enter at 13 measures after rehearsal C: sing soprano (II) part here. •Switch to tenor part at 6 measures after rehearsal E. •Switch to soprano II part 5 measures after rehearsal F. •Sing tenor part 10th-14th measures after rehearsal F. •Switch back to soprano II 4 measures before rehearsal G. •Sing soprano II part until end of movement, II. Dies irae •First entrance: sing tenor part 5 measures after rehearsal B. •Switch to soprano II 5 measures after rehearsal C. •Hum tenor part 4 measures before rehearsal D •Stay humming tenor part until 9 measures before rehearsal E—switch to soprano II here. •Switch to tenor I part at 17 measures after rehearsal F. •Do not sing at 9 measures before rehearsal K. •Re-enter on tenor I part 7 measures after rehearsal L •Tacet from 3 measures before rehearsal M to 4 measures before rehearsal P. •Re-enter at 4 measures before rehearsal P on soprano part. •Switch to tenor I at rehearsal Q. •Switch to soprano II at rehearsal R to end of movement. III. Quid sum miser •Hum tenor I line at throughout, IV. Rex tremendae •Begin with soprano II part. •Tacet from rehearsal B to rehearsal C. •Re-enter at rehearsal C with soprano II part. •Remain on sropano II part except sing tenor I for the four measures before rehearsal E. •Return to soprano II from rehearsal E to 6 measures after rehearsal E, •Switch to tenor I at 7 measures after rehearsal E. -
Framing a Critical, Interdisciplinary Approach to Film: Teaching Amadeus
Framing a Critical, Interdisciplinary Approach to Film: Teaching Amadeus Nancy Rachel November, University of Auckland Brenda Allen, University of Auckland ow might I interpret the film Amadeus as a Mozart reception doc- ument of the 1980s?” “What does ‘authenticity’ mean in relation to that film’s soundtrack and screenplay?” “How is Salieri char- “Hacterized in the film, and why?” These are the sorts of questions one might wish that students would formulate when considering the popular music biopic (biographical film) Amadeus in relation to music history. The reality can be quite different. Surveys of second year Music History students at the University of Auckland in 2012-2014 show that they tend to view music history as estab- lished fact, and have great difficulty posing complex critical questions and constructing critical, evidence-based arguments. Most writers on the subject of historical literacy agree that the ability to read, write and think critically about a range of media is an especially valuable skill. These abilities not only serve stu- dents’ immediate studies within historical disciplines, but also enable graduates “to negotiate and create the complex texts of the Information Age.”1 This is espe- cially true of music history: one can draw on a broad range of sonic, visual and digital media to answer the increasingly varied questions that music historians address. But how is one to help students prepare for the interdisciplinary skills, attitudes and understandings this requires? How do we best equip students to analyze and read critically the films, YouTube clips, cartoons and diverse other source material they might want and need to study? One useful way to address such questions is for music history teachers to bring co-teachers from other disciplines in to a given music history course: a cartoon historian, for example, or a teacher from film studies, as befits the sub- ject matter.