Juilliard Orchestra

Saturday Evening, September 29, 2018, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL presents Juilliard Orchestra MARIN ALSOP, Conductor MEGHAN KASANDERS, Soprano NAOMI LOUISA O’CONNELL, Mezzo-soprano AMANDA LYNN BOTTOMS, Mezzo-soprano PAUL APPLEBY, Tenor AUBREY ALLICOCK, Baritone RYAN MCKINNY, Bass-baritone LUCIANO BERIO From Bernstein Birthday Bouquet JOHN CORIGLIANO WILLIAM SCHUMAN JOHN WILLIAMS LEONARD BERNSTEIN Songfest (1918 –90) I. To the Poem (Frank O’Hara) II. The Pennycandystore Beyond the El (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) III. A Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos) IV. To What You Said (Walt Whitman) V. I, Too, Sing America (Langston Hughes) Okay “Negroes” (June Jordan) VI. To My Dear and Loving Husband (Anne Bradstreet) VII. Storyette H. M. (Gertrude Stein) VIII. “if you can’t eat you got to” (e.e. cummings) IX. Music I Heard with You (Conrad Aiken) X. Zizi’s Lament (Gregory Corso) XI. Sonnet: “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” (Edna St. Vincent Millay) XII. Israfel (Edgar Allan Poe) Intermission PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. DMITRI Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 SHOSTAKOVICH Moderato—Allegro non troppo (1906 –75) Allegretto Largo Allegro non troppo Covers: KATERINA BURTON , Soprano MARIE ENGLE , Mezzo-soprano MYKA MURPHY , Mezzo-soprano JAMES LEY , Tenor GREGORY FELDMANN, Baritone WILLIAM SOCOLOF , Bass-baritone Coaches: Musical Preparation: DIANE RICHARDSON Language Preparation: KATHRYN LABOUFF and ROBERT COWART Rehearsal Pianist: ADAM NIELSEN Performance time: approximately two hours, including one intermission This concert is made possible by the vision and generous funding of the International Foundation for Arts and Culture and its Chairman, Dr. Haruhisa Handa. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium. Information regarding gifts to the school may be obtained from the Juilliard School Development Office, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, ext. 278 (juilliard.edu/giving). Juilliard’s Bernstein Centennial Celebration Continues with Bernstein’s Genius: The Maestro as Educator Sunday, September 30, 2018 3pm, Paul Hall Join us tomorrow at Juilliard for a unique celebration of the life and legacy of Leonard Bernstein. Co-hosted by Thomas Cabaniss and Brian Zeger, this event will feature excerpts from Bernstein’s celebrated television lectures along with per - formances by Juilliard students and a conversation with a distinguished panel that includes Jamie Bernstein, Peter Kazaras, and Stephen Wadsworth. Following the event, Bernstein will sign copies of her acclaimed new book Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein . The event is free; tickets are required. For more information, visit Juilliard.edu/calendar. Notes ON THE PROGRAM by Thomas May LUCIANO BERIO, JOHN CORIGLIANO, WILLIAM SCHUMAN, JOHN WILLIAMS From Bernstein Birthday Bouquet When he turned 70 in 1988, Leonard Berio’s For Lenny (originally titled Bernstein enjoyed a foretaste of the LB.AM.LB.M.W.D.IS.LB ) adopts a tremendous outpouring of affection similarly eclectic approach, weaving that his memory would inspire on the together obvious allusions to the occasion of his centenary. The Boston canon into a fresh context. Indeed, Symphony Orchestra paid homage many of the contributors hit upon the with an impressive celebration lasting strategy of linking the distinctive pro - four days at Tanglewood, its home dur - file of the “New York, New York” ing Bernstein’s birthday month of melody to pieces with special signifi - August. Oliver Knussen, then director cance to Bernstein (including refer - of contemporary music at Tanglewood, ences to other examples of his own arranged for a suite of commissions work). John Corigliano, whose father from eight composers to be premiered had been concertmaster of the New by Seiji Ozawa and the BSO. The com - York Philharmonic under Bernstein, posers chosen were Luciano Berio, pays homage to the friendship with John Corigliano, John Williams, William Aaron Copland (via Fanfare for the Schuman, Lukas Foss, Leon Kirchner, Common Man ) while also working in Jacob Druckman, and T ru Takemitsu, allusions to the Kander and Ebb hit ō each of whom had some tie to Bernstein “New York, New York” (hence the (and all but Takemitsu taught at or wittily titled For Lenny, with love— attended Juilliard). In the manner of and candor… ). In To Lenny! To projects like the Diabelli Variations , Lenny!, John Williams suggests a veri - each composer was asked to provide a table mini-narrative, making promi - brief set of variations on the same nent use of the irresistible rhythmic theme—in this case, on the tune to design of West Side Story ’s “America.” “New York, New York,” one of the hits from Bernstein’s first Broadway Bernstein had first met William Schuman musical, On the Town (1944). while still a Harvard undergraduate, and the elder composer (and former Juilliard alumna Marin Alsop, who Juilliard president) had hosted the made the first complete recording of national broadcast celebrating Lenny’s the Bernstein Birthday Bouquet suite, 60th birthday. His contribution, Let’s has chosen four of the contributions. Hear It for Lenny!, concluded Bernstein Bernstein had commissioned Luciano Birthday Bouquet with references to Berio to write his epochal Sinfonia West Side Story , Candide, and the in 1968 to mark the New York Copland Fanfare. It would be Schuman’ s Philharmonic’s 125th anniversary . own orchestral farewell. LEONARD BERNSTEIN Songfest Born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts; Died October 14, 1990, in New York City Bernstein’s close relationship with the in New England (Anne Bradstreet) to Kennedy Center—for whose inaugura - three poets who were still alive at the tion he wrote MASS —reached another time (June Jordan, Gregory Corso, and high point when Mstislav Rostropovich Lawrence Ferlinghetti). In later per - (“Slava”) began his tenure as the formances Bernstein developed a prac - National Symphony Orchestra’s music tice of having actors recite the poems as director. Slava’s opening concert, on a prelude to the song settings. October 11, 1977, was an all-Bernstein affair, including the world premiere of That spirit of diversity extends to Songfest , subtitled A Cycle of American Bernstein’s sumptuously detailed scor - Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra ing (using a rich palette of percussion), (for which Bernstein took the Russian’s which allows for myriad combinations place on the podium). Initially, the plan and chamber-like intimacy, as well as was to introduce Songfest during the his organization of the voices. The U.S. Bicentennial (as a commission score calls for six soloists, who sing by the Philadelphia Orchestra), but three sextets that form the cycle’s spine Bernstein’s focus on 1600 Pennsylvania (Nos. 1, 8, and 12); each vocalist is also Avenue , his musical about the White given the opportunity for a solo num - House and its occupants through histo - ber (Nos. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11), and ry, had intervened. Five of the songs Bernstein supplies further textural and were performed on different occasions dramatic variety with a blend of smaller preceding the premiere of the complete ensembles: two duets (Nos. 5 and 7) cycle (including one for President and a trio (No. 6). Carter’s inauguration). In its emotional and stylistic range, its 1600 had been a deeply disappointing moments evoking jazz, blues, European fiasco, but it provided a source for late Romanticism, and other idioms— some of the dozen numbers that made all filtered through Bernstein’s recogniz - up Songfest . Bernstein recycled what able sensibility— Songfest foreshadows had been the opening chorus for the the evolution of the contemporary musical to set Walt Whitman’s “To What American concert and operatic scene that You Said,” a pathos-filled reflection on has played out over the decades since repressed Eros (No. 5, which, with mov - he first envisioned this ambitious work. ing simplicity, sets an incomplete poem An openness to juxtaposing widely and that had only recently been discovered). wildly varied styles—which had, in turn, been anticipated by Bernstein’s idol, The unifying idea behind this cycle of Mahler—is the default mode among 12 songs is its very diversity—the diver - many of today’s composers. And the sity that is America’s strength, as mir - importance of opening up Songfest’s rored by Bernstein’s liberal range of poetic perspective to the range of humanity voices and musical styles. The texts come that forms American identity resonates from 13 poets (two combined for No. 5), even more for those concerned with reaching as far back as the Colonial era the role of art in today’s world. DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 Born September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia; Died August 9, 1975, in Moscow, Russia In 1942, when Bernstein’s mentor Serge fragile dialog of flute and horn in the Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony coda. Shostakovich’s signature mor dant in the American concert premiere of sarcasm dominates the brief scherzo. It Shostakovich’s wartime “Leningrad” opens in the lower depths, with a num - Symphony at the newly established ber of echoes of the scherzo from Tanglewood Festival, Lenny took part Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The music by playing the bass drum part. But begins to resemble a mad waltz, on the there’s no more telling example of brink of sanity—a foretaste of what is Bernstein’s deep affinity for Dmitri to come in the finale. Shostakovich than the latter’s stamp of approval when the American conducted Expansive like the opening movement, his Fifth Symphony in the presence of the Largo turns inward and calls for a the composer during the New York reduced palette—Shostakovich omits the Philharmonic’s historic tour to the brass—yet contains some of the Fifth’s Soviet Union in 1959.

Load more