The D’Angelo Department of Music at Mercyhurst University

presents

Faculty Recital

Eleanor Lee, cello

Chiaroscuro An Unaccompanied Recital

Walker Recital Hall

Wednesday, November 11, 2020 8:00pm

www.mercyhurst.edu/music

PROGRAM

Suite No. 5 for Solo Cello in C Minor J.S. Bach Prelude (1685-1750) Allemande Courante Sarabande Gavottes Gigue

Brief Pause (5 minutes)

Variations on a Theme of Paganini Hans Bottermund (1892-1949) Arr. Janos Starker (1924-2013)

Spring Song Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964)

Theme & Variations on “Draw the Sacred Circle Closer” Adolphus Hailstork Theme: Moderately (b. 1941) Variation I: Spritely Variation II: Playfully-Dramatic-Playfully-Dramatic Variation III: Adagio Variation IV Variation V: Animated

The use of recording devices is strictly prohibited. Please turn off and stow all electronic devices. Thank you.

NOTES

Chiaroscuro - (n.), from Italian chiaro, “light,” and scuro, “dark”, technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects; used to dramatically enhance emotive effect and psychological impact - Encyclopedia Britannica

2020 has been an emotionally fraught year for our nation and the world at large. With COVID-19 and political division ever-looming, as a collective, we have known isolation, insecurity, grief, anger, and fear. Music and musicians have suffered some of the worst consequences, limited in our ability to both collaborate and to share. While it is true that most of our training comprises independent activities - spending countless hours practicing, score-studying, and listening - music, in its final execution, is meant to be social: a celebration of civilization, of universal human experience. If ever there was a time when we needed music, it is now. This year has been difficult; this year has been dark. And yet...

Here we are, sharing music. Though in shadow and despair, we have found a way to celebrate our common humanity. I cannot speak for others, but in spite of or because of it all, I have uncovered a renewed appreciation for the good in my life, this year, and anticipate a brighter future. This program is entitled Chiaroscuro because even though darkness surrounds us, there is still a beacon of light to be found in hope.

In that vein of thought, the program begins with Bach’s dark, ambiguous Suite No. 5 for Solo Cello in C minor. After a brief pause, we continue with the Bottermund-Starker Variations on a Theme of Paganini, a virtuosic piece that highlights the extremes of the cello’s register and various techniques. While this work, like the Bach, is also in a minor key, the theme and variations form is more light-hearted and less pensive than the Bach. Following this, Augusta Read Thomas’s Spring Song exhibits both intimate and emotionally heightened moments, much like the spring we had this year. Lastly, to end on a hopeful note, the program concludes with Adolphus Hailstork’s Theme and Variations on “Draw the Sacred Circle Closer” which references Beethoven’s ninth in both its content and its purpose: a call for universal unity, an ode to joy.

J.S. Bach: Suite No. 5 for Solo Cello in C Minor

Celebrated cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, has recorded the six Bach Cello Suites three times in his career (so far): in 1983, 1998, and 2018. Now in his sixties, he has chosen to tour less with repertoire but continues to perform the Suites around the world to inspire unity, togetherness, and peace. Every cellist who has the honor of studying these works never quite feels like their journey with Bach is ever finished; there are always new layers to be uncovered.

In my own journey, I finally studied Suite No. 5 for the first time just this year. When I was younger, my teachers wanted me to wait; as I got older and started juggling other deadlines and projects (all worthy in their own right), I somehow didn’t get around to it. However, I’m glad I waited. Of the Suites, the C minor is the most mature and requires the ability to express a deep complexity found in dark, searching solitude, nuanced with hope. Appropriately, in Yo-Yo Ma’s second Bach album (1998), a visual collaboration with other artists, the fifth suite was subtitled, “Struggle for Hope.” Studying this heavy, pensive work under the circumstances of this year, I worried that it would become too much for me. Bach leaves it up to interpretation whether hope is actually found in the cellist’s “struggle.” Ultimately, though, this search, in how it paralleled my mindset, proved fruitful for me, and hope prevailed.

The fifth Suite is the only suite of which we have an original manuscript, autographed by Bach, and this manuscript is not even the cello version. Bach, himself, transcribed the work for lute. The Cello Suites’ closest rendering to an autographed original is a copy made by Anna Magdalena Bach, his wife, whose handwriting is notoriously difficult to read. Thus, cellists are allowed an additional measure of freedom in interpretation that extends to bowings, some rhythms, and even, sometimes, the notes themselves. The fifth Suite is also the only suite that calls for scordatura, or a retuning of the cello’s typical string pitches to alternate ones. In this case, Bach asks for the A-string (the cello’s highest) to be tuned down a whole step to a G, creating an even darker timbre and additional sympathetic resonance. (I have chosen to perform this piece at normal tuning, which is an equally common practice.)

The movements of the Suites align with the format of a church service. As such, each opens with a Prelude, the purpose of which is to explore the home key. In Suite No. 5 in C minor, Bach chooses to include an implied fugue, a form based on imitation at various pitch points in the home key. Although the home key of this Suite is C minor, Bach ends his wild, dynamic, fugal Prelude with a “Picardy third,” the parallel major harmony. This was pretty common practice in church music of the time, as the more uplifting final chord was thought to pay a greater respect to God. Following the Prelude are the Allemande and Courante, a pair of contrasting dances. The Allemande was considered outdated when Bach wrote the Suites, an old-fashioned, stately entrance dance for royalty, while the Courante, after French for “running,” is a brisk, almost jovial dance. In church, the Allemande would likely be the Processional and the Courante, the Offertory.

Standing alone at the center of the suite, the Sarabande perfectly encapsulates the prevailing sense of searching. Originally, the Sarabande was a fast, vigorous dance brought over to Europe from Latin America that was banned for being too scandalous. Over time, it was drastically slowed down enough to eventually be considered acceptable by the church. There are no chords or double-stops (two notes played at the same time) in this movement, only a single voice. Of all of the movements from all of the suites, the Sarabande of the Fifth Suite is the most ambiguous, setting a reflective mood perfect for Communion.

Following the existentialism of the Sarabande are the Gavottes I and II, which are played together, concluding with a return to the Gavotte I. Though paired, these movements are polar opposites: the Gavotte I is stately, robust, and heavy with many chords, while the Gavotte II runs in a squirrelly, single voice line. The activity of the Gavottes represents the Recessional.

As with all of the Suites, the fifth ends with a Postlude-worthy Gigue (after “jig”), an earthy, rowdy dance that lands on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the Allemande. However, in keeping with the work’s solemnity, the Gigue of the fifth Suite incorporates a sicilienne rhythm, giving it more pastoral energy, rather than that of a barn dance. The sicilienne rhythmic feature dates back to Italian Renaissance madrigals of the 1500s and, arguably, even further back to spoken meters used in epic Greek and Roman poetry. Rather than ending with a “grand finale,” Bach concludes our introspective journey with a sense of timelessness.

Hans Bottermund-Janos Starker: Variations on a Theme of Paganini for Unaccompanied Violoncello

Paganini was an incredible violin virtuoso whose challenging 24 Caprices are often used as inspiration for further technical “showpieces.” Hans Bottermund (1892-1949) wrote a set of variations based on the theme of the 24th Caprice for solo violin - in spite of being a cellist, himself! Janos Starker, renowned cellist and leading string pedagogue of the 20th century, later arranged this work for cello. Starker revolutionized a more ergonomic approach to cello technique that expanded the possibilities of how the cello could be played. Two of my own teachers studied with him, and I have long admired him. This work features extended techniques like false harmonics, left hand pizzicato, saltando, and plucking and bowing at the same time.

Augusta Read Thomas: Spring Song for Solo Violoncello

“Spring Song, composed at the request of Scott Kluksdahl and recorded by him on Albany Records, is a short, five-minute, piece which celebrates the lyrical, long line, expressive, and elegant characteristics of the instrument. The double stop passages remind one of a carillon of bells, all ringing in a flurry, atop a large cathedral. At times the piece is very intimate, and other times bold and energized. Much of the piece is in the high register, so that when it finally falls down to the low C string, one feels as if one has landed back on the earth, if only for a while.” - Augusta Read Thomas (augustareadthomas.com)

The music of Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 in New York) is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colorful — "it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music" (Philadelphia Inquirer).

A featured on a Grammy winning CD by and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Thomas’ 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 Academy 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 . Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and (1997-2006). This residency culminated in the premiere of , one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

In February 2015, music critic Edward Reichel wrote, "Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American 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."

Adolphus Hailstork: Theme and Variations on “Draw the Sacred Circle Closer” for Solo Cello

“Cello is the perfect instrument to showcase through this fascinating set of variations on a theme of universal unity. The cello’s range and tone evoke the baritone voice, and its facility in contrapuntal playing allows for polyphony in the manner of Bach’s cello suites. The theme (sounding like a spiritual) is actually the final chorus of the composer’s Earthrise, a profoundly bold cantata using Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ as text, and full of allusions to all four movements of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Hailstork’s Earthrise features a festival chorus singing in German, alternating with an African-American chorus singing in English with vernacular verve. The choruses ultimately unite to end the cantata together with ‘Draw the Sacred Circle Closer,’ a translation of lines from Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy.’” - Note, Theodore Presser Company

Adolphus Hailstork (born Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III, April 17, 1941) is an American composer and educator. Hailstork is of African American ancestry, and his works blend musical ideas from both the African American and European traditions. Born in Rochester, New York, he grew up in Albany, where he studied violin, , organ, and voice. Hailstork obtained a BA from studying with Mark Fax, master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music studying with Vittorio Giannini and , and a doctorate in music composition from Michigan State University in 1971, studying with H. Owen Reed. He also studied at The American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. He has served as professor at Youngstown State University in , as well as professor of music and Composer-in- Residence at Virginia's Norfolk State University. He is currently a professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at in Norfolk, Virginia. Hailstork's awards include a Fulbright fellowship (1987). In 1992 he was named a Cultural Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Old Dominion University maintains the Adolphus Hailstork Collection, in the special collections area of the F. Ludwig Diehn Composers Room, in the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center. In 1999, he was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association. Hailstork is published by Theodore Presser Company and Carl Fischer Music.

BIOGRAPHY Hailing from Washington, Pennsylvania, Eleanor Lee is on the faculties of Mercyhurst University and Sullivan Conservatory in Erie, PA and is a New World Symphony Finalist. She holds a Master’s degree in Cello Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy from the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), where she studied with Stephen Geber. During the 2019-2020 season, Lee served as Principal Cellist of the Ashland Symphony Orchestra and subbed with The Cleveland Orchestra. For two years, Lee taught private lessons at the Cleveland School of the Arts, aiding in her students' acceptances into institutions like Cleveland State University to major in music. Prior to CIM, Lee was a member of The Orchestra Now at Bard College, where she earned a Master's of Music in Curatorial, Critical, and Orchestral Performance Studies, performing as both a section and principal player in prestigious venues around New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Lee holds a Bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she studied with renowned pedagogue, Alan Harris. She is an avid chamber musician, actively involved in community outreach projects, and a champion of diverse composers. Her hobbies include baking, singing, domestic and international travel, and petting cute animals.

For a full list of LIVESTREAM department performances, visit our Concerts & Events page at www.mercyhurst.edu/music.