. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director BOSTON SYMPHONY Bernard Haitink, Conductor Emeritus ORCHESTRA Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate JAMES LEVINE Music >4& 130th Season, 2010-2011 Director CHAMBER TEA VI Friday, March 25, at 2:30 COMMUNITY CONCERT VIII Sunday, March 27, at 3, at Somerville High School COMMUNITY CONCERT IX Sunday, April 3, at 3, at Tuckerman Hall, Worcester The free Community Concerts are made possible by a generous grant from the Lowell Institute. HAWTHORNE STRING QUARTET SI-JING HUANG, violin (1st violin in Post and Lee; violin in Srnka) RONAN LEFKOWITZ, violin MARK LUDWIG, viola SATO KNUDSEN, cello THOMAS MARTIN, clarinet JESSICA ZHOU, harp MCHEDELOV Variations on a Theme of Paganini, for harp TAILLEFERRE Arabesque, played by clarinet and harp RAVEL Vocalise-etude en forme de habanera, played by clarinet and harp DEBUSSY Arabesque No. 2, played by clarinet and harp POST Virtual Fantasie on a Chorale, for string quartet LEE Morango. Almost A Tango for string quartet SRNKA Escape Routines for harp, clarinet, and string trio Week 19 Notes on the Program The Russian Mikhail Mchedelov (1903-1974) was a kind of Segovia of the harp, delving into the non-harp repertoire to expand the range of his own instrument at a time when the harp was really coming into its own as a serious solo medium in the twentieth century. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1937 until 1959. His Variations on a Theme of Paganini was published in 1962 and, as a bravura work, is frequently assigned as a competition piece. The theme is a familiar one, that of the last of the twenty-four solo violin caprices by Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840), the quintessential virtuoso of the Romantic era. It is, apparently, an irresistible tune. Composers as varied as Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lutoslawski, and Andrew Lloyd Webber responded with far-flung variations of their own. Mchedelov's version is conservative but deft in both its requirements of the harpist and its treatment of Paganini's theme. The first group of variations is short and straightforward, but the last two of the eleven allow the theme to stretch well beyond its original bounds. The little group of duets for clarinet and harp is arranged from other sources and tweaked by Thomas Martin and Jessica Zhou for their use. Martin relates, "The Debussy Arabesque will be performed on the rather rare clarinet in D. The instru- ment was built by the Chilean instrument-maker and clarinetist Luis Rossi and purchased by the Boston Symphony some years ago. It is often heard in Symphony Hall during the opening flourishes of the Second Suite from Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe. This will be the instrument's short and hopefully sweet BSO solo debut." Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) was a major voice in French music in the generation following Ravel and an erstwhile member of the loosely constituted "Les Six" group (with Poulenc, Auric, Milhaud, Honegger, and Durey) in Paris in the early 1920s. Later in her career she concentrated on opera. The sweet, melodic Arabesque, originally for clarinet and piano, is derived from music in her 1960 opera he Petite Sirene, based on Anderson's The Little Mermaid. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) wrote his Vocalise-etude en forme de habanera for (word- less) voice and piano in 1907. A habanera is a Cuban dance with the distinctive rhythm of dotted-eighth-note, sixteenth, eighth, eighth (the most famous is the habanera from Bizet's Carmen). Here, the harp carries the rhythm while the clarinet sings the sultry melody. The Arabesque No. 2 of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was the effervescent second of a pair of works for piano solo the composer wrote in about 1890. The string quartet works of David Post (b.1949) are repertoire staples for the Hawthorne String Quartet. He has written several pieces for the quartet, including his Third and Fourth string quartets, his Piano Quintet, and most recently his Concerto a Cinque for clarinet and string quartet, for the Hawthorne Quartet and clarinetist Thomas Martin. He wrote the Virtual Fantasie on a Chorale in 2003 on commission from the Terezin Music Foundation; its string orchestra version was premiered by members of the BSO on March 21 at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, under James Sommerville's direction. The Hawthorne String Quartet recorded the string quartet version of the Virtual Fantasie along with Post's string quartets nos. 2, 3, and 4 for a Naxos CD released in fall 2010. Post started musical training early, studying cello with Samuel Reiner and Lee's music has been commissioned by the Koussevitzky and Fromm founda- Charles Forbes and composition with Charles Whittenberg and later with Ralph tions, Amnesty International, the Terezfn Chamber Music Foundation, and such Shapey at the University of Chicago. He also worked with Larry Bell and Lukas Foss. ensembles as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Boston's Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra For several years he was a participant in the Chamber Music Conference and Com- and Collage New Music; the Omaha Symphony Orchestra; the Artaria, Lydian, Man- posers Forum of the East at Bennington College. His orchestral and chamber works hattan, Hawthorne, and Kronos string quartets, the Pittsburgh New Music En- have been played and recorded by international organizations including the Czech semble, and many others. His catalog numbers over 130 works ranging from small Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Moravian Philharmonic, and the Salem Philhar- pieces to the evening-length chamber opera The Inman Diaries (2007). Recent works monic, among others. Soundbites, a recent commission from the Aiolos Collective— include his Violin Concerto, written for violinist Irina Muresanu and the Civic an international group of wind players—was premiered in August 2001 to critical Symphony Orchestra of Boston, and his harp concerto "... bisbiglianda... " for the acclaim. His music is published by MMB Music, Inc., St. Louis, MO. David Post's Boston Modern Orchestra and soloist Ina Zdoravetchi. (His first harp concerto was discography includes his Symphony No. 1 performed by the Czech Radio Symphony written for Ann Hobson Pilot, then principal harp of the BSO.) Orchestra under Vladimir Valek, his String Quartet No. 1 performed by the Boston Morango... Almost A Tango (1983) was originally a thirty-two-bar jazz tune Lee Composers String Quartet, a Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra with soloist performed every Sunday night with the Moon Unit at the 1369 Jazz Club in Cam- Donna Marie Cobert and the Moravian Philharmonic, Vit Micka conducting, and bridge, MA, in the early '80s. The string quartet version, although written for the Soundbites for nine double reed instruments, recorded by the Aiolos Collective. Kronos Quartet, was premiered at Concert X by Composers in Red Sneakers in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA, on July 21, 1983, by the Red Sneakers String The composer has provided the following note on his piece: Quartet. Lee writes, "Gustavo Moretto, an Argentine composer... taught me the The American Heritage Dictionary defines virtual as "existing or resulting in essence finer and more beautiful aspects of the Tango. In my modest way, as someone or effect though not in actual fact, form or name," and the term has gained a wide looking in from the outside, I created Morango... Almost A Tango — a bastardized currency in the cyberspace age. "Essence" and "effect" are the operative words version of the 'real thing.' Morango... is also intrinsically connected to Kate Moran, here for the Fantasia is written "backwards"—in that the development precedes the a sometimes painter...to whom it is dedicated. The work is played con sordino exposition of the ideas. Well before any point of arrival is reached, the listener is [with mutes] throughout." confronted with swirling bits and pieces, motives and intervals that are part of the The Kronos played Morango... while on tour in Europe in 1986 and recorded it chorale but which collide and ricochet off each other, at times seeming to land and for their CD "White Man Sleeps." It has entered the repertoires of several other form a well-behaved cadence, but remain unsettled until the very end, when the quartets. As interest in the work grew, other ensembles have requested arrange- fragments coalesce and the chorale finally emerges. But its appearance is cut short ments of Morango...; there are now versions for violin and piano, big band jazz abruptly, and before it can establish itself completely it begins to disintegrate and ensemble, and string orchestra. soon vanishes into silence. The inspiration for this piece came from the wonderful, haunting Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale "Saint Wenceslas" of Josef Suk, for string quartet (or small Miroslav Srnka was born in Prague in 1975. He studied musicology at Prague's string orchestra). It became a signature piece and a well-loved symbol of unity and Charles University with Jarmila Gabrielova and composition at the Prague Academy comfort for the Czech people during wartime. Fantasia on a Virtual Choralewas of the Performing Arts with Milan Slavicky. He also attended Humboldt University commissioned by the Terezin Music Foundation (www.terezinmusic.org ). in Berlin and the Paris Conservatoire. As a musicologist, his particular interest has been the work of Dvoiak and Czech music after 1945. Compositionally, Srnka has been influenced by spectralism as well as older Czech music. The philosophical Like David Post, the prolific and eclectic composer Thomas Oboe Lee (b.1945) has and musical friction and cooperation that arises between Czech and international been one of the Hawthorne String Quartet's favorites for many years. The quartet musical directions, while abstract, is evidently a concern that helps direct his musical recorded a disc of his music, including Morango.