Igor Stravinsky Selections from Apollon Musagète I
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra and QPAC present LANDSCAPES Program Lennox Berkeley Serenade for Strings, Op.12 I. Vivace II. Andantino III. Allegro Moderato IV. Lento Joaquín Rodrigo Dos miniaturas andaluzas I. Preludio II. Danza John Rodgers* Hear Me, and Remember (a lament for voice and ensemble featuring Emily Wurramara, vocals) Igor Stravinsky Selections from Apollon Musagète I. Prologue: The Birth of Apollo (on Delos) II. Tableaux II: Pas de deux (Apollo and Terpsichord) III. Tableaux: Coda IV. Apotheosis: Leading the Three Muses to Parnassus Nikos Skalkottas Five Greek Dances I. Epirotikos II Kretikos III. Tsamikos IV. Arkadikos V. Kleftikos Paul Stanhope* Dancing on Clouds Emily Wurramara* Ngarrikwujeyinama (I’m Hurting) Peter Sculthorpe* Estatico from Sonata for Strings No.3 (Jabiru Dreaming) Emily Wurramara* Ementha-Papaguneray (Turtle Song) * = Australian Composer We’d love to meet you after the concert. Please join us in the foyer – we’ll be there as soon as we can! 7pm Wednesday 28 July, 2021 7pm Thursday 29 July, 2021 Empire Church Theatre (Toowoomba) Concert Hall, QPAC (Brisbane) ABOUT THE music Lennox Berkeley Joaquín Rodrigo (1903-1989) (1901-1999) Serenade for Strings, Op.12 Dos miniaturas andaluzas String musicians sometimes talk of ‘the These two miniatures by the highly English string sound’, an orchestral string regarded and blind composer, Joaquín style or musical landscape that is sweet, Rodrigo were written in 1929, yet did not expressive, warm and lustrous. Berkeley’s receive a premiere until November 1999, Serenade for Strings, that demonstrates barely six months after the composer’s love for and an understanding of such death at the age of 97. He is best string writing, serves as a vehicle for remembered for his two concertos for projecting that “soundworld”. The guitar, the Concierto de Aranjuez and Serenade was composed at the beautiful Fantasia para un gentilhombre the flavour Snape Maltings, where he was living with and style of which are certainly reflected Benjamin Britten in 1938-39 and by the here in these depictions of Andalucia. time of its completion, England was at war and the music seems to reflect the composer’s anxious mood as the world faced an uncertain future. This is not apparent in the first three movements - a light-hearted Vivace, a graceful Andantino and a boisterous, Beethoven- type Scherzo that includes an amusing ‘col legno’ (upper strings playing with the wood of the bow instead of the hair). It’s in the final movement where the sense of impending doom is apparent, a Lento (slow) chorale movement where the real emotional depth and pathos of the work resides. Peter Dickinson, in his study of the composer, remarks that the music of this movement seems to “reflect the composer’s anxious mood as the world faced an uncertain future” (though evidently the composer felt that must have happened subconsciously). John Rodgers (b.1962) Here Me, and Remember Queensland-born John Rodgers has cabaret legend Agnes Bernelle.” Rodgers been described as a prolific and eclectic has performed with a number of artists composer, arranger and improviser… both on recordings and live including his work spanning classical, jazz, pop, William Barton, Kate Miller-Heidke and at world, experimental and improvisational the Resonance Festival (2012) where he music. He had an early background in composed and performed Hear me, and classical music, leading the Queensland Remember, a song of lament based on and Australian Youth Orchestras and later the baroque ‘follia’ figure. playing with the Queensland Theatre and Hunter Orchestras, touring with these and other groups to Europe and Asia, Here Me, and Remember and often appearing as a soloist on violin. In the fire I burn Rodgers ultimately chose not to follow the Parched and hot, my skin it’s so dry path to a career in classical music, instead can you hear in my song? forming controversial sex-and-death cult Brave men are weeping A woman is grieving rock band Madam Bones Brothel with Rising up in lamentation Pearly Black, and together they released From my soul can you hear me? a CD Family of Abjects in 1994. He later Hear me and remember played improvised music in ensembles At the end of passion such as The John Rodgers Trio and At the end of suffering for you lived and you died Artisan’s Workshop early 1990s. He has All shame disperses cruel blows been a contributor to the Australian Art and curses Orchestra and was its Associate Artistic You are gone today, forever Director in 2005, and he has worked with Passing through the golden gate the New York performance artist Penny Go down Jerusalem Ah Rising up in lamentation Arcade (Vienna Festival 1997), the Robyn From my soul can you hear me? Archer band and many of Australia’s Hear me and remember? leading musicians and artists. Rodgers has performed solo concerts in the Adelaide Festival and the Melbourne Summer Music Festival, and produced many works in fields including music theatre and new media. He has performed and recorded with the Antipodean Collective over a number of years and in 2012 performed at the Powerhouse in Dangling my Tootsies - a show featuring the “songs and sites of ABOUT THE music Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Selections from Apollon Musagète In 1927 the Library of Congress of Apollo’, Stravinsky wrote years later, commissioned Stravinsky to write a work ‘is versification, which implies something for small orchestra, featuring four lead arbitrary and artificial to most people, dancers, and lasting less than half an though to me art is arbitrary and must be hour (part of a festival of contemporary artificial’. Apollo’s music made a decisive music sponsored by Mrs Elizabeth impression on the musically trained Sprague Coolidge). Adolf Bolm produced, choreographer Balanchine, who recalled choreographed and danced the role that ‘in its discipline and restraint, in its of Apollo at the Washington premiere sustained sureness of tone and feeling the on April 27 1928. On June 12 Diaghilev score was a revelation...the turning point produced his version in the Théâtre Sarah of my life’. Balanchine’s visual image for Bernhardt in Paris, with Serge Lifar as much of Apollo was ‘white’ music, even Apollo and choreography by the 24-year- ‘white-on-white’. Apollo is an attempt by old George Balanchine. Balanchine’s Stravinsky, perhaps his first, to compose ideas, according to Stravinsky, exactly a large-scale work in which contrasts of matched his own conception of a Greek volumes – dynamics and the number of myth interpreted by ‘classical’ dancing. players on each part – replace contrasts of The costumes and sets were less to instrumental colours. Debts to composers Stravinsky’s satisfaction; Diaghilev chose of the past have been found in this music André Bauchant, ‘a provincial painter’, – from Lully to Tchaikovsky and Delibes – wrote Stravinsky, ‘who in his remote but ‘sterilised’, according to Roman Vlad, village, indulged in a genre of painting and emptied of their original significance. somewhat in the style of Le Douanier © David Garrett. Rousseau. What he produced was Reprinted by permission of Symphony Services Australia. interesting, but, as I had expected, it in no way suited my ideas’. Diaghilev had been afraid of the extreme simplicity of Stravinsky’s idea, that Apollo be ‘danced in short white ballet skirts in a severely conventionalised theatrical landscape’. The period to which Stravinsky alludes in the music of Apollo is that of the operas and ballets of Lully, at the Court of Louis XIV, the Sun King (Apollo). Stravinsky had recently discovered the 17th-century poetry of Boileau, and particularly the Art poétique, in which Boileau laid down rules for versification. ‘The real subject NIKOS SKALKOTTAS PAUL STANHOPE (1904-1949) (b.1969) Five Greek Dances Dancing on Clouds Nikos Skalkottas was a Greek composer Paul Stanhope is a Senior Lecturer th of the 20 Century who was a member of in Composition at the Sydney the Second Viennese school of composers Conservatorium of Music, The University (composers that wrote in 12-note serialism of Sydney. Dancing on Clouds was style) but who drew influences from both commissioned by the Hush Foundation for classical music and Greek traditions. Some its Volume 18 CD, performed by the ACO say that in his avid collecting of Greek folk Collective. The piece followed a residency and dance music he did for Greece what at the Westmead Children’s Hospital Bartok did for Hungary. The Greek Dances School. Paul says, In this environment I are part of a series of 36 Greek dances was impressed by the resilience of the that Skalkottas composed during 1934- young patients and how many used 36, originally for symphony orchestra. their imaginations to cope with stressful He arranged groups of these for various situations; in this context, music was instruments upon request, such as string important to all. They suggested an orchestra, string quartet, and violin and energetic and optimistic musical response piano. The titles here refer to dances from as being the most useful to them. The different localities in Greece. image in the title of the piece suggests a flight of fancy into the heavens, escaping our mortal burdens to a place where anything might be possible, even dancing on clouds. The music begins with gentle pulses and melodic contours before launching into a series of more overtly rhythmic episodes. After a short soloistic section where the music comes to a brief stand-still, playful pizzicati hint at a tip- toe dance, building eventually to a larger, energetic musical climax and a brief coda which re-introduces the gentle pulses of the opening. The music ends in a series of cloud-like puffs suggested by soft, high string harmonics.