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— BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director Bernard Haitink, Conductor Emeritus Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate 125th Season, 2005-2006 CHAMBER TEA IV Friday, February 24, at 2:30 RICHARD RANTI, bassoon IKUKO MIZUNO, violin ROBERT BARNES, viola MICKEY KATZ, cello DEVIENNE Quartet in C for bassoon, violin, viola, and cello, Opus 73, No. 1 Allegro spiritoso Adagio cantabile Rondo allegro moderato GARFIELD Quartet for bassoon, violin, viola, and cello (1950) I. Allegro con spirito II. Andante espressivo III. Allegro scherzando BEETHOVEN Serenade in D for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 8 Marcia. Allegro Adagio Menuetto. Allegretto Adagio Scherzo. Allegro molto Allegretto all polacca Tema. Andante quasi allegretto Marcia. Allegro Week 17 m Francois Devienne (1759-1803) Quartet in C for bassoon, violin, viola, and cello, Opus 73, No. 1 Francois Devienne (1759-1803) was one of the most successful opera composers in Paris during the 1790s. He was also among the first faculty of the Paris Conserva- toire upon its founding in 1795. A prolific composer, he wrote eight operas, a num- ber of sinfonie concertante and concertos, and a lot of chamber music. Devienne had studied bassoon, flute, and composition and performed with orchestras in Paris and elsewhere; he was bassoonist in the orchestra of the Paris Opera in 1779. He seems to have been in the service of Cardinal de Rohan in the first half of the 1780s, during which time he also appeared as soloist in his first Bassoon Concerto as well as in his own Flute Concerto. He became, like Mozart, a Freemason and joined the orchestra of the Olympic Masonic Lodge in the middle part of the decade. Devienne was among the most respected flutists of his day; he produced a manual on the performance technique of the single-key flute (1794) that was to remain an important text for many years, and which is still valuable for historical insight into performance practice. He died in an asylum in 1803 after an extended illness that robbed him of his mental faculties. Devienne's set of three Quartets, Opus 73, date from about 1800. The balance of the instruments is skewed toward the bassoon, with the strings each occasion- ally serving as secondary protagonists, but remaining for the most part in sup- porting roles. (This was a traditional hierarchy that Mozart had challenged in his similarly scored Oboe Quartet already in 1781.) Stylistically the work falls squarely in the Classical period, with wonderfully balanced themes and textures. The open- ing Allegro spiritoso is the weightiest of the three movements. It opens with a little exposition for strings alone, as in a concerto, before the bassoon enters with a repeat of the main theme. Devienne (doubtless leaning on his operatic experience) moves almost immediately from C major into darker foreign keys, lending a greater sense of drama to an otherwise lighthearted movement. The slow movement is a charm- ing aria in straightforward ABA form. The delightful main theme of the finale, a rondo (meaning the theme returns as a refrain throughout), is almost childlike in its good nature, a mood that carries over to the secondary episodes of this pleasant movement. r', . sr; ,:v"X • SY.Ml:HONV 5 ORCKrSrSA ^ 'i Tanglewood BO STO N A<k ; J®*-' THE BSO ONLINE Boston Symphony and Boston Pops fans with access to the Internet can visit the orchestra's official home page (http://www.bso.org). The BSO web site not only provides up-to-the-minute information about all of the orchestra's activities, but also allows you to buy tickets to BSO and Pops concerts online. In addition to program listings and ticket prices, the web site offers a wide range of information on other BSO activities, biographies of BSO musicians and guest artists, current press releases, historical facts and figures, helpful telephone numbers, and information on audi- tions and job openings. Since the BSO web site is updated on a regular basis, we invite you to check in frequently. normally found at the head of a chamber composition would be out of place here, Bernard Garfield (b.1924) where all is congeniality. There are surprises, to be sure, and delightful touches of Quartet for bassoon, violin, viola, and cello (1950) scoring, such as the coda of the Menuetto evaporating right in front of us and the For more than forty years Bernard Garfield was principal bassoonist of the Philadel- juxtaposition of the lyrical D minor adagio with the flighty D major scherzo. The phia Orchestra; he retired in 2000. He was frequently a soloist with orchestra, is also "Allegretto alia polacca" is a delightful rondo with a surprise at the end ("alia polacca" well known as founder (in 1946) of the renowned New York Woodwind Quintet, and means "in the Polish style," hence a polonaise). The last movement begins as a set of is a member of the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. One of the most important peda- variations on a theme that resembles the march of the first movement. Following four gogues of bassoon technique, he is a longtime faculty member of the Curtis Institute variations in the original tempo, a faster variation in a galloping 6/8 is interrupted by a of Music in Philadelphia. Also a composer, he has been, not surprisingly, a notable return to the original tempo and an expressive "purple patch." This seems about to die champion of the bassoon in his own works. He studied with Marion Bauer and Philip away in a quiet cadence, but instead it pauses on a long-held dominant chord, poised James at New York University and with Otto Luening and Henry Cowell at Columbia for what we think will be the next variation. But what follows is a literal restatement of University. the first movement march, thereby making explicit its similarity with the theme of the Garfield wrote this quartet in 1950 while still at Columbia. In a preface (here ex- last movement and rounding out the serenade as a whole. cerpted) to the published score, he writes, "Why did I choose the combination of —Notes by Robert Kirzinger (Devienne, Garfield) bassoon and string trio? It is because the string instruments supply the best accom- and Steven Ledbetter (Beethoven) paniment for the bassoon. The bassoon has basically a soft tone, so that the velvety string sounds seem to enhance the bassoon. The piano, on the other hand, being Associate principal bassoonist Richard Ranti joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra tonally brilliant, tends to rob the bassoon of its identity The full orchestra as an ac- at the start of the 1989-90 season; he is also principal bassoonist of the Boston Pops companiment for the bassoon must be in the hands of a master conductor in order Orchestra. Born in Montreal, Mr. Ranti started bassoon at age ten, studying with for the bassoon to be effectively heard." Sidney Rosenberg and David Carroll. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Acad- The bassoon is clearly the leader here, with the string trio primarily in an accom- emy, he studied with Sol Schoenbach at the Curtis Institute of Music. At nineteen he panying role. Garfield's musical language in the quartet is a transparent neoclassi- won the second bassoon position in the Philadelphia Orchestra; he spent six years cism, with a folksy quality not too distant from his teacher Luening's earlier works, with that orchestra, the last as acting associate principal. A 1982 Fellow at the Tan- or from those of such composers as Irving Fine or even Samuel Barber. Tonal centers glewood Music Center, Mr. Ranti has also participated in the Spoleto and Marlboro are strong, but there is also frequent and smooth modulation. The rhythmic character festivals. He won second prize in the 1982 Toulon International Bassoon Competition is also very clear, with the occasional shifting meters adding a touch of surprise. and is the recipient of two Canada Council grants. Mr. Ranti can be heard frequently in The work is in three movements, in the traditional fast-slow-fast plan. The first is a Boston-area chamber performances with groups such as the Walden Chamber Players, sprightly but slightly melancholic sonata form with two contrasting themes. The slow with whom he has recorded an album of bassoon and string music. He is on the movement is a sometimes darkly dramatic lament for the accompanied bassoon. The faculty of both the New England Conservatory and Boston University School for the Allegro scherzando finale is the most extended of the movements, and the most Arts. complex, traveling through fluid changes of meter, phrasing, and tonality. A middle section of chromatic harmonies and almost free tempo separates the quick music of Ikuko Mizuno began her musical training at five, entering the Toho-Gakuen School the movement's start from its reiteration to close the piece. of Music in her native Tokyo and going on to win first prize in a national violin com- petition for high school students. A prizewinner in Japan's NHK Mainichi Shimbun Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Competition, she came to the United States as a winner of the Spaulding Award, which Serenade in D for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 8 enabled her to study with Roman Totenberg at Boston University, where she received This little trio for strings, one of Beethoven's least prepossessing works, is nonethe- her master's degree and was named a member of the honorary society Phi Kappa her its Distin- less full of charm, and Beethoven thought highly enough of it to publish it soon after Lambda. In 2002 the Boston University College of Fine Arts awarded Center, she also studied finishing it.

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