TUNE up Oct2006

TuneNew York Philharmonic Young People’sUp Concert® ! Saturday, October 14, 2006 elcome to the Young People’s Concerts! We at the New York Philharmonic are really excited about your joining us to explore the four ages of music – how music for the orchestra started and how it grew; what makes the music so beautiful, or dramatic, or W emotional. We start at the beginning – with music they call Baroque. This is really grand music, for kings and queens, and for really big feelings, too! Read on to see what’s in store. The Ages of Music BAROQUETHE PROGRAM: GIOVANNI GABRIELI Canzon Septimi Toni, No. 2 Delta David Gier, conductor HENRY PURCELL Overture to Dido and Aeneas Sheryl Staples, violin ANTONIO VIVALDI Largo from “Winter,” The Four Seasons Erin Morley, soprano GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL “Alla hornpipe” from Water Music Thomas Baird, dancer JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Tomiko Magario, dancer THINK YOU WHAT WERE THEY WEARING WORK HARD? IN THE17TH CENTURY? fact Baroque composers could really turn out the hits! n the world of design, the word “baroque” PURCELL: music for 43 plays, 73 means made of big, bold forms with ornament fun anthems and 24 royal odes – in 15 years Iand decoration all over. It can also mean VIVALDI: 50 operas, 75 sonatas, and over 450 concertos – in 36 years extravagant and bizarre. Take a look at this outfit, HANDEL: 46 operas, 31 odes and for instance — big flowing fabric, big heels, big hair. oratorios and 37 concertos – in 54 years See what kinds of ornament you can find on this JS BACH: 256 cantatas, 14 masses guy. What kind of person do you think he is? What and passions, 26 concertos, hundreds of keyboard works – in 53 years do you think he likes in music? about the composers and their music… Giovanni Gabrieli Canzon Septimi Toni No. 2 iovanni Gabrieli (c. 1553 – 1612) worked in abrieli was known for his music for Venice, the magnificent city of canals, as brass instruments as well as his choral G organist at St. Mark’s Basilica, still one of the G music, and this short, celebratory grandest churches in the world. He was born in a musical piece really sounds like two choirs singing back family and grew up in the trade, just like a craftsman. Gabrieli and forth to each other. In fact, “canzon” means song – in this case, “song on the seventh tone.”Gabrieli composed many pieces composed in an earlier style of music called Renaissance music, like this for two groups or more, because they made the which flowed smoothly and usually used voices without instruments, or all one kind of enormous open space of St. Mark’s with its many balconies instrument. But Gabrieli’s music helped inspire those who created the Baroque style. resound so beautifully. Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas enry Purcell (1659 - 1695) was one ido and Aeneas is an opera - a story told through music with all the words sung - that Purcell of the greatest English composers Dcomposed in 1689 for a girls' school to perform. Hever. He began as a boy singing in Although Purcell composed much music for plays, this was choirs, and grew up to be organist at his only true opera. Like many Baroque operas, this one is Westminster Abbey, the church of the kings about ancient times, mythical gods, heroes, queens, and great passions. Aeneas, a and queens of England. Part of his job was to compose music for prince who would later found the city of Rome, marries Dido, the queen of Carthage. A witch disguised as the god Mercury tells Aeneas to leave Dido to fulfill his destiny. the court – birthday odes, funeral odes, every kind of ode – as well Although he decides not to go, his Dido dies at the very thought of losing him. The as music for the church and for plays. Purcell was highly honored Overture we hear today is for the orchestra without voices. It conveys powerful emotions in his time; you can still visit his tomb at Westminster Abbey, where in both its slow opening and its faster conclusion. Many Baroque overtures are he is buried alongside royalty. composed in this form – a slow, grand start with a fast, flowing finish. Largo from "Winter," Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons ntonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) was the foremost he Four Seasons are four separate, Italian Baroque composer. He was for years the three-movement concertos for violin. A music teacher at Pio Ospidale della Pieta – a girls T Vivaldi composed poems to go with each of these pieces, describing life in orphanage in Venice – but he was famously vain and boastful. each season. For the second movement of Winter, he wrote, Nicknamed The Red Priest for his hair,Vivaldi was convinced he To spend quiet and happy days by the fire was the greatest composer of opera and just about everything Whilst outside the rain soaks everyone. else. He was also a virtuoso violinist. He wrote so many brilliant The music evokes exactly that feeling in the listener, right concertos – music for a soloist to play with an orchestra – that his works came to down to the sound of raindrops on the windowpane. define the form.Vivaldi was also among the first to use music to tell a story. George Frideric Handel Water Music eorge Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759) was born in ater Music is Germany but became one of the world’s leading one of only two G composers while working in England.Although his W orchestra pieces Handel composed for use father wanted him to be a lawyer, he was precocious enough outside the theatre – the at the age of seven to try out an organ at the home of a duke, other is Royal Fireworks who insisted that he receive musical training. Learning to play many instruments, Music – and both were Handel set his heart on composing opera. He traveled through Italy, trying to make intended for outdoor performance. Water Music was composed for his fortune, but his great success came when he brought his Italian-style operas to a royal procession on barges on London’s River Thames in 1717. It has many movements, both fast and slow. The Hornpipe we hear England in 1710.There he also created oratorio – large pieces with orchestra and today is a very grand interpretation of a country dance. Trumpets, singers but without staging – and composed the most popular oratorio of all, horns, and drums must have made a wonderful sound across the Messiah.Handel’s career had many ups and downs, but he achieved such fame water. Like the Gabrieli Canzon, this Hornpipe sets the trumpets that at his death he was buried, like Purcell, at Westminster Abbey. and horns apart in a call and response pattern. Johann Sebastian Bach Orchestral Suite No. 3 ohann Sebastian Bach rchestral Suite No. 3 is a (1685 - 1750) remains to many suite of pieces based Jpeople the greatest composer ever O on courtly dances, because of his astonishing musical but intended for concert technique and the depth of expression in listening. The suite all his music. From an early age he was a opens with an Overture, which virtuoso organist and improviser, like Purcell's Overture to Dido inventing highly complex music on the and Aeneas, starts slow and spot. He studied other composers' music continues fast – but on a much larger scale, with the slow, grand music intently, copying it out by hand, so that his returning at the end. The second music would bring together nearly every idea from every country of his movement, Air, or Melody, is famous time. He composed sacred music above all, plus concertos, orchestra as the Air on the G String, often heard on its own. The dances music, keyboard music – everything except opera. For much of his life themselves begin with a Gavotte, a dance in four beats, and Bach was a teacher and choirmaster, and as the father of 26 children continue with a Bouree, in two beats, and finally a Gigue, in a sweeping (involving a series of three wives), Bach fathered a musical family that six beats to the measure. would be important for generations. The New York Philharmonic Delta David Gier elta David Gier is music director of the South Dakota Symphony DOrchestra, and has been a cover the artists conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the past 10 seasons. He first conducted the Philharmonic in 2000, during the Concerts in the Parks. After completing his studies, he was invited by Riccardo Muti to spend meet a year as an apprentice at The Philadelphia Orchestra. As a Fulbright Scholar, he has led many performances in Eastern he New York Philharmonic is by far the Europe. Mr. Gier has served as visiting professor at the Yale oldest symphony orchestra in the United School of Music, the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, T States, and one of the oldest in the world. San Francisco Conservatory, and SUNY Stony Brook. It was founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians, and currently plays about 180 concerts every year. On December 18, 2004, the Sheryl Staples Philharmonic gave its 14,000th concert — a record that no other symphony orchestra in the world has orn in Los Angeles, violinist ever reached. The Orchestra currently has 106 Sheryl Staples joined the New York members. It performs mostly at Avery Fisher Hall, BPhilharmonic as Principal Associate at Lincoln Center, but also tours around the world. Concertmaster (The Elizabeth G. Beinecke The Orchestra’s first concerts specifically for a Lee Chris photo: Chair) in 1998, and made her solo debut with the Orchestra younger audience were organized by Theodore in January 1999.

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