Pacific Symphony Proudly Recognizes Its Official Partners
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ORANGE COUNTY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL Thursday, Friday & Saturday, December 10-12, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. Preview talk with Alan Chapman at 7:00 p.m. PRESENTS 2009–2010 HAL AND JEANETTE SEGERSTROM FAMILY FOUNDATION CLASSICAL SERIES GIANCARLO GUERRERO, CONDUCTOR SHARON ISBIN, GUITAR RAVEL Le Tombeau de Couperin (1875–1937) Prélude Forlane Menuet Rigaudon RODRIGO Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Nobleman) (1901–1999) Villano y Ricercare Españoleta y Fanfare de la caballeria de Nápoles Danza de las hachas Canario SHARON ISBIN —INTERMISSION— BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op.67 (1770–1827) Allegro con brio Andante con moto Allegro Allegro Pacific Symphony proudly recognizes its Official Partners: Official Airline Official Hotel Official Television Station The Saturday, December 12, performance is broadcast live on , the official classical radio station of Pacific Symphony. The simultaneous streaming of this broadcast over the internet at kusc.org is made possible by the generosity of the Musicians of Pacific Symphony. SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS Pacific Symphony P-1 PROGRAM NOTES BY PETER LAKI, Program Annotator for Pacific Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra included into his music features derived despite one fortissimo passage, is no from the music of the 17th and 18th exception. Finally, the Rigaudon consists centuries, as did the “neo-classicals” of a dynamic opening section in C major coming after him. His early Menuet that contrasts with a pastorale-like mid- antique already shows this tendency, as dle section in a slower tempo that starts does the Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn. But in C minor. In the orchestral version, this Ravel’s best-known homage to the past middle section features a series of lyrical is his Tombeau de Couperin, in which he woodwind solos (oboe, English horn, re-created several Baroque instrumental flute, clarinet), after which the exuberant forms in a 20th-century idiom. C-major theme returns. François Couperin (1668-1733) was one of the greatest masters of the French Baroque, called “Le Grand” in his own time. (He belonged to a dynasty of musi- cians that has been compared to that of the Bachs.) The original piano version of Le Tombeau de Couperin had the following Le Tombeau de Couperin movements: Prelude - Fugue -Forlane - BY MAURICE RAVEL Rigaudon - Menuet - Toccata.In the (CIBOURE, BASSES-PYRÉNÉES, FRANCE, 1875 – PARIS, 1937) orchestral version, the “Fugue” and the “Toccata” were omitted, and the Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes (second doubling “Rigaudon” was moved to the end, cre- English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, ating a suite of three dance movements trumpet, harp, and strings. preceded by a prelude. Performance time: 20 minutes. WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Composers have always been inspired The Baroque inspiration in the suite by the music of the past. But whereas in can be seen above all in the rhythm; the earlier days the most important impulses even sixteenth-notes of the Prelude are tended to come from the generation reminiscent of the steady motion found Fantasía para un Gentilhombre immediately preceding the time of writ- in so many of J.S. Bach’s preludes (to (Fantasia for a Nobleman, 1954) ing, in the 19th and 20th centuries many quote the best-known example). BY JOAQUÍN RODRIGO composers began to find ways to incor- Similarly, the other movements follow (SAGUNTO, SPAIN, 1901 - MADRID, 1999) porate the more distant past into their the patterns of the Baroque dance types works.When this occurs, we can no on which they are based.The formal Instrumentation: solo guitar, piccolo, flute, oboe, longer speak of a smooth and gradual designs, with repeats and recapitulations, bassoon, trumpet, and strings. transition from one musical style to are also those of the 18th century. But Performance time: 22 minutes. another; rather, the source of inspiration the melodies and the harmonies are Every lover of the classical guitar and the new work remain two separate Ravel’s own. Note his beloved pentaton- knows Concierto de Aranjuez, the concerto entities, juxtaposed and affecting each ic scale (playable on the piano’s black that made Joaquín Rodrigo famous in other but quite distinct nevertheless. keys) right at the beginning of the prel- 1940.The Spanish composer, blind since In many of his works, Maurice Ravel ude; and many exquisite chromatic mod- childhood, wrote a number of other may be regarded as a precursor of “neo- ulations throughout the piece, especially concertos in a Spanish idiom (for violin, classicism,” a movement that flourished in the delicate “Forlane.”The minuet—as cello, piano, and harp), but was unable to after World War I, with Igor Stravinsky already mentioned—was one of Ravel’s match the success of Aranjuez. Finally, he (who was, by the way, a close friend of favorite dance forms. Ravel’s minuets are returned to the guitar in 1954, when the Ravel’s) as one of its leaders. Ravel often always soft and graceful, and this one, great virtuoso Andrés Segovia asked him P-2 Pacific Symphony for a new work.The result was Fantasía Symphony No. 5 in C minor, main idea of the opening Allegro, con- para un Gentilhombre, which, according to Op. 67 (1808) sisting of only two bars and initially in at least one commentator,“even [surpass- BY LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN unison, so that the listener is not even es] the Concierto de Aranjuez in its beauty (BONN, 1770 – VIENNA, 1827) certain of the key.The mood of the anx- and sensitivity.” ious, restless yearning created by this sub- Fantasía para un Gentilhombre is based Instrumentation: 2 flute, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 ject is heightened even further by the on the works of 17th-century Spanish bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 melodious secondary theme.”The ferma- guitarist and composer Gaspar Sanz, who trombones, timpani, and strings. ta, the long-held note at the end of the wrote numerous dances in the Baroque Performance time: 35 minutes. first extended phrase, gives, according to style of the day. Rodrigo arranged and Hoffmann,“presentiments of unknown modernized Sanz’s melodies in a typical “The reviewer has before him one of mysteries.” neoclassical fashion (his procedure can be the most important works by the master Everything in the first movement— compared to Respighi’s in Ancient Airs whose pre-eminence as an instrumental indeed, a great many things in the whole and Dances). composer it is doubtful that anybody symphony—are, one way or another, would now dispute....”These words were derived from that opening ta-ta-ta-TA. WHAT TO LISTEN FOR written by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), The rhythm is almost always present in The first movement is called “Villano writer and composer, in 1810, a year and the bass or in the treble, in its original y Ricercar.” It opens with a villano (peas- a half after the first performance (which form or with modifications.Whether or ant dance) and continues with a ricercar— he had not heard), in a review of the not this theme represents “Fate pounding a piece in which an opening theme is score of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. at the portal,” as Beethoven is supposed imitated by a number of polyphonic Although writings about this work would to have said, the dramatic tension of the voices and the listener’s challenge is to now fill a small library, few authors in music and the heroic struggle it portrays seek out (in Italian, ricercare) the principal the past 199 years have equalled cannot be missed. Beethoven might well melody. Hoffmann in incisiveness and the ability have called this symphony an “Eroica,” The second movement likewise com- to combine a poet’s sensitivity and imag- had he not used that name earlier for his bines two separate originals: an españoleta ination with the thoroughness of a musi- Third Symphony. (a slow dance related to the Italian sicil- cal scholar. One of the most striking differences iano) and the Fanfare de la Caballería de Hoffmann immediately understood between the first movements of the Nápoles (“Fanfare of the Neapolitan the significance of the symphony’s open- Third and the Fifth is their size.The Cavalry”—one should remember that ing motif, the famous ta-ta-ta-TA: Third Symphony opened with what was the Kingdom of Naples was for many “Nothing could be simpler than the surely the longest symphonic movement years under Spanish domination).After to date (averaging 15 minutes in per- the faster and more rhythmical fanfare, formance), in which dramatic tension the españoleta returns. resulted from sharp thematic contrasts The third movement is Danza de las and complex procedures of motivic Hachas (“Axe Dance”), a robust and development.The first movement of the energetic dance.The finale is a canario, a Fifth Symphony takes only about eight dance from the Canary Islands character- minutes; dramatic tension here results ized by jumps in the choreography and from the relentless insistence on one syncopations in the music. Rodrigo’s main motif and an extraordinary tight- writing for the guitar is highly virtuosic ness of structure. Only once, and then throughout, with a great cadenza in the very briefly, is there a respite from this last movement. He took special pains to tension: the recapitulation of the main keep the orchestration light so that the theme is interrupted by an oboe caden- soloist is never covered by the other za, whose sorrowful descending melody instruments. is clearly a lament. But this solo is extremely short, and soon we are back in the throes of the drama, without a break Pacific Symphony P-3 PROGRAM NOTES (continued) to the end.