Osvaldo Golijov (B. 1960) Osva

Concert I: July 9, 2009 Last Round (2000) . Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960) Osvaldo Golijov (pronounced GO-lee-hoff) was recently characterized by Alex Ross of The New Yorker as “perhaps the hottest composer in the classical scene today.” Born in La Plata, Argentina, of East European Jewish descent, Golijov began music studies with his mother, moved on to conservatory training in Israel, and ended up studying in the United States in the late 80’s and 90’s (U. of Penna. and Tanglewood) where his eclectic mix of musical influences and interests was a perfect fit with the burgeoning interest here in world music, as well as with cross-over styles that borrow from both classical and popular sources. A catalogue of his influences/interests would range from classical music (especially string quartets) through Argentinian tangos, gypsy bands, Jewish klezmer music, Indian tabla styles, and the music of Mexican rock groups. In a relatively short time after coming to this country, Golijov established close and productive friendships with such performing stars as Yo-yo Ma, clarinetist Todd Palmer, the singer Dawn Upshaw, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet – associations which have born rich fruit in commissioned compositions and festival appearances. Last Round, a relatively early work, was begun as a spontaneous response to the death of Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), the legendary Argentinian tango composer who had been a powerful influence on Golijov in his youth. Completed in 1996 as a work for double string quartet and double bass (the performers standing, as traditional with tango orchestras), the work had an immediate success, leading to its later arrangement for string orchestra. The title alludes to Piazzola’s notorious reputation for getting into fistfights, and the first movement originally bore the tempo marking “Movido, urgente – Macho, cool and dangerous,” suggesting a kind of “tough guy’s tango.” The composer has said that “the idea was to give Piazzolla’s spirit an imaginary chance to fight one more time.” The musical style of this movement, with its repeated bass figure and violent in-and-out contours, directly evokes the sound of the bandoneon – a hefty accordion without keyboard that was Piazzola’s own preferred performing instrument, and an indispensable feature of tango orchestras. The second movement is marked “very slow” and, based on the refrain of the song “My Beloved Buenos Aires,” serves as a moving lament. The composer has urged audiences to imagine the entire work as “a sublimated tango . the bows flying in the air as inverted legs in criss-crossed choreography, attracting and repelling each other.” ____________________________________________ Symphony for Strings Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) The Symphony for Strings is an arrangement for string orchestra (by Lucas Drew) of the most poignant of Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets, No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110. Written in a very short time, this quartet had come out of a severe crisis in the Soviet composer’s life. Early acclaimed as the star of his generation of composers, Shostakovich had also been expected to use his gifts to glorify the state and to inspire the Russian people - music in the service of the state. The story of his resentment of these demands is well-known: for the most part, public compliance, but in private, a determination to develop his art as he saw it even in the face of frequent public criticism. The situation came to a crisis in 1948 (during the terrible last years under Stalin) when the composer was officially condemned for “formalist and individualistic tendencies,” and forced to make a public apology. A long list of his works was proscribed, he was stripped of his conservatory positions, and the family was for a time destitute and subject to petty persecution. The trauma of these events inflicted lingering damage on Shostakovich although he resumed writing, and his overt rehabilitation would be rewarded by his election as First Secretary of the Composer’s Union in 1960. To attain this pinnacle of approval, he had had to agree to join the offical Communist Party - something he had always previously sidestepped - and the result seems to have been an emotional breakdown. To recuperate, Shostakovich went to Dresden to work on a commission to provide music for a film about the Allied bombing that had destroyed the city in the last months of World War II. Instead, he found himself obsessed by suicidal desires that triggered the writing of a work that he privately saw as a memorial to himself - a work full of autobiographical references, including a musical motto made of his initials (D S C H = D E C B ) - the 8th String Quartet. Officially associated with the Dresden bombings and announced as a memorial “to the memory of the victims of facism and war,” the quartet’s deeply personal subtext was spelled out only in letters to friends and in conversation with his daughter. From the moment of its first hearing, it was received as a work of “tragic depth and raw passion . a true humanistic document of its era,” and its classic status confidently predicted. The full story of its genesis has not been generally known until the recent biography by Laurel Fay, Shostakovich, a Life. The work is relatively short, consisting of five movements which are to be played as a continuous flow. The opening somber Largo movement is dominated by the DSCH motto which appears first in fugal style, and is then used as a background for several lyrical themes quoted from early Shostakovich symphonies. The second movement, a frenetic Allegro molto, uses pitches related to the original motto to construct a short rhythmic motif which is obsessively repeated and, from time to time, interrupted by heavy chord bursts. Another theme, well-known from his Second Piano Concerto, is used for a contrasting section before the return of the original material. The music segues directly into the third movement (Allegretto), a melancholy um-pah-pah dance, the theme again derived from the motto. The penultimate movement is the longest, and is characterized by several deeply expressive themes, one a nineteenth-century convicts’ song and the other a quote from the composer’s long-maligned opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The final movement returns in tone and style to the opening, the motto reappearing but in a more terse presentation. _____________________________________________ Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat Major, Op. 73 . Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827) The last of Beethoven’s concertos for the piano, the Fifth (1809) is the only one not to have been premiered by the composer himself, due to his increasing deafness. But although he had reached the end of his days as a piano virtuoso, he was just arriving at the peak of his powers as a composer. Both the fourth and fifth piano concertos fall within his so-called “middle” or “heroic” period -- the intensely productive years from approximately 1804 to 1810 when he experienced “the fullest flow of ideas” and produced most of his best-known works. He is known to have been finishing work on the fifth piano concerto in Vienna during the chaotic summer and fall of 1809 when the city was besieged and then occupied by the French Army. The Baron Trémont, a member of Napoleon’s diplomatic staff and a highly-cultivated patron of the musical scene in Paris, has left an extended account of personal visits he paid to Beethoven during that time. Trémont had initially appeared at Beethoven’s door, unannounced, and been somewhat surprised to be admitted. His account begins: “The door was opened by a very ugly man of ill-humored mien [the composer himself] . picture to yourself the dirtiest, most disorderly place imagineable . an oldish grand piano on which the dust disputed place with various pieces of engraved and manscript music . .” Beethoven, apparently flattered by the attention, invited Trémont to return, improvised at the piano for him, and engaged him in conversation about current musical affairs in Paris, eventually even agreeing to travel there with the Baron when the war would permit--an astonishing plan which never came to fruition because of the Baron’s duties elsewhere. The magnificent concerto that undoubtedly would have been among the sheets strewn about on that piano, is itself a curious combination -- of high-energy martial music and almost other-worldly digressions. Dedicated to Beethoven’s most devoted (and most highborn) patron, the Archduke Rudolph, it was dubbed the “Emperor” only some years later, after the composer’s death (although Beethoven is known to have asked the publisher to use the title “Grand Concerto”). It became the most popular of the composer’s concertos in the later nineteenth century and was much imitated. Further, it is credited with establishing a new Romantic expressive model for concertos -- a confrontational or heroic model in which the soloist boldly holds his/her own against the Goliath of the orchestra, instead of graciously following the traditional role of well- behaved reciprocity. This was a vision, of course, that depended for its realization on the new piano technology -- the stronger frame, wider range, and damper pedal, features which combined to produce a larger, more espressivo sound and could also stand up to more dazzling technical feats. The piano takes center-stage immediately upon the opening of the Concerto, answering a series of imposing orchestral chords with weighty cascades of rich piano figuration. The orchestra then proceeds to the traditional exposition tutti without the piano, but the soloist soon reenters, reoccupies center stage and is seldom absent for the remaining 474 measures. The martial pomp of the principal theme, even the key of E flat major itself, and certainly the spurious title, lead the listener to expect a concerto paralleling the Eroica symphony (1804), to which it is, indeed, often compared.

Load more