Sunday, April 22, 2018 • 8:00 p.m.
Angela Zúñiga Graduate Recital
DePaul Concert Hall 800 West Belden Avenue • Chicago
Sunday, April 22, 2018 • 8:00 p.m. DePaul Concert Hall
Angela Zúñiga, soprano Graduate Recital Kit Bridges, piano
PROGRAM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) “Quando avran fine… Padre, germani, addio!” from Idomeneo (1781)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Waldesgespräch, Op. 31 No. 3 (1840) Loreley, Op. 53 No. 2 (1845) Die Meerfee, Op. 125 No. 1 (1851) Die Sennin, Op. 90 No. 4 (1851) Auf Dem Rhein, Op. 51 No. 4 (1842)
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) Selections from Mörike-Lieder (1888) Er ist’s Nimmersatte Liebe Begegnung Verborgenheit Lebe wohl
Intermission
Angela Zúñiga • April 22, 2018 Program
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) I Hate Music! A Cycle of Five Kid Songs (1943) My Name is Barbara Jupiter Has Seven Moons I Hate Music! A Big Indian and a Little Indian I’m a Person, Too
Jacques Leguerney (1906-1997) Poèmes de La Pléiade (1943-47) Ah! Bel-Accueil Epipalinodie A sa Maîtresse Ma douce jouvence est pasée A son Page
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) Cuatro Madrigales Amatorios (1947) ¿Con qué la lavaré? Vos me matastéis ¿De dónde venís amore? De los Álamos vengo
Angela Zúñiga is from the studio of Nicole Cabell. This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Music.
As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you.
Angela Zúñiga • April 22, 2018
PROGRAM NOTES
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) “Quando avran fine… Padre, germani, addio!” (1781) Duration: 8 minutes Mozart was 25 years old when his opera Idomeneo premiered at Cuvilliés Theater (then known as the Court Theater) in Munich. The libretto was written by Giovanni Battista Varesco, and adapted from an early 18th century French text. Years after the premiere, when Mozart and his wife Constanze visited his parents in Salzburg, a letter written by Constanze recalls an intimate family gathering after having been estranged from his father where the family sang the third act quartet from Idomeneo. Constanze shares that afterwards the composer was inconsolable, “so overwhelmed that he burst into tears and had to leave the room.”
The opera takes place in Crete around 1200 BCE as King Idomeneo is sailing home. The opera opens with Ilia, the Trojan princess, now a prisoner of Crete, expressing her distress at being a survivor of the Trojan War when so many of her countrymen have perished. Desiring vengeance on Crete and Greece, she is conflicted about taking action as she has fallen in love with Idamante, Prince of Crete. She wants vengeance for her dead Trojan father and brothers, but cannot hate the man she adores, even if he does love another (she thinks). With great sorrow she bids farewell to her father and brothers, deciding that she could never hate Idamante.
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Waldesgespräch (1840) Loreley (1845) Die Meerfee (1851) Die Sennin (1851) Auf Dem Rhein (1842) Duration: 8 minutes Robert Schumann composed over 400 lieder during his lifetime. 1840 is often referred to as his year of song, as he produced the most lieder during this year, likely inspired by his upcoming marriage to piano virtuoso Clara Wieck. He is believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder which worsened as the 1840s progressed. In 1850 he was hired as music director
Angela Zúñiga • April 22, 2018 Program Notes
in Düsseldorf but due to erratic behaviors was fired in 1853. Around the same time Schumann met the young Johannes Brahms over whom both he and Clara Schumann would have great musical influence.
In 1854 Schumann described hearing angelic voices that quickly turned into something much scarier, and one morning he threw himself into the Rhine. It is said that he may have thrown in his wedding ring before jumping in himself. Shortly after, Schumann was placed in a sanatorium and only saw his wife, Clara, again days before his death.
This selection of songs includes two songs about the siren who lives in a castle on a rock overlooking the Rhine. The beautiful Loreley, who was betrayed by a man she loved, sings to lure men to their deaths, though in some poems she appears in the woods as in Waldesgespräch. The legend originated from Clemens Brentano’s poetry.
The next two songs are about the sea fairy and the herdswoman singing beautifully, their voices resounding through the air and vanishing too soon, never to be forgotten. The set ends with Auf dem Rhein, recalling the mysteries beneath the water and reminiscent of the story of Schumann throwing in his wedding ring before jumping in himself.
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) Mörike-Lieder (1888) Er ist’s Nimmersatte Liebe Begegnung Verborgenheit Lebe wohl Duration: 10 minutes Eduard Mörike was an ordained pastor, a teacher of literature, and an influential German poet. He was a great admirer of Mozart, even quoting his La Clemenza di Tito in one of his poems and writing a novella about Mozart’s journey to Prague. He had a great love for the musical style of the Classical period and was an opponent of Wagner. His writings were
Angela Zúñiga • April 22, 2018 Program Notes
influenced by folk poetry, Greek and Roman literature, and other German poets including Goethe. His poetry was set to music by Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann (a close friend of Mörike’s), Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Othmar Schoeck.
The selected poems share different aspects of love. The first expresses the excitement of spring’s arrival and the romance in the changing of the season. Next is the passion of an insatiable love that no number of kisses can satisfy. Begegnung describes a brief encounter between a young man and woman remembering how their last encounter left her looking as if she’d been in a storm. The young man continues to think of her even as she departs. Verborgenehit is a man pleading for the world to stop enticing him with love, asking to be left alone with his own bliss and pain. Lebe wohl expresses the pain in ending love and moving on, and the heartbreak of hearing “Farewell.”
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) I Hate Music! A Cycle of Five Kid Songs (1943) Duration: 7 minutes 2018 marks the hundredth anniversary of Bernstein’s life. Bernstein was a gifted American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. I Hate Music! was dedicated to Edys Merrill, Bernstein’s flatmate who covered her ears as Bernstein played, coached, and rehearsed music. The text of this cycle was written by Bernstein himself and explores the innocent curiosity of a ten-year-old girl. A note in the score asks that performers avoid coyness to imitate children, as it is impossible to replicate a child’s innocence. In the third song for which the cycle is named, Barbara describes why she hates music although she likes to sing. Perhaps this is a reminder for all to allow themselves to enjoy and experience music with childlike innocence.
Jacques Leguerney (1906-1997) Poèmes de la Pléiade (1943-47) Duration: 9 minutes Ronsard was a member of La Pléiade, a group of sixteenth century French poets who sought to elevate the French language in literature by studying
Angela Zúñiga • April 22, 2018 Program Notes
classic literary works. The poetry of Pierre de Ronsard was set by numerous composers during his lifetime and had a resurgence in the 19th century as Wagner, Bizet, Gounod, and later Poulenc, Milhaud and Leguerney (among others) set his text to music. One quarter of Leguerney’s mélodies feature Ronsard’s poetry. Although Leguerney is not as well-known as some of his contemporaries, he has a significant output of French mélodies of great beauty. There are eight volumes of Leguerney’s Poèmes de la Pléiade which were compiled by pianist Mary Dibbern; this program features the second volume. Leguerney identified with Renaissance poetry as he found it to be concise and clearly detailed. These songs have a variety of musical textures created in the piano and various mood changes where the voice and piano express the meaning of the poetry.
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) Cuatro Madrigales Amatorios (1943-1947) Duration: 8 minutes Rodrigo was a Spanish composer who was blind from the age of three. He studied composition in Valencia and Paris and later worked in France, Germany, and Spain. He gained recognition as a leading Spanish composer and continued to develop his career as a critic, pianist, and teacher around the world. This cycle features four love poems from an anthology of poetry by Juan Vásquez, who lived in the 16th century, entitled Recopliación de sonetos y villancicos a quarto y a cinco. The songs are inspired by Spanish music of the 16th century. The songs were written to be performed by specific sopranos with their vocal characteristics in mind - for Blanca María Martínez Seoane, Celia Langa, María Angeles Morales, and Cármen Pérez Durias, respectively. He first heard the melodies performed by Conchita Badía and a vihuela in Paris. Only “De los álamos vengo, madre” uses the exact melody he originally heard with Rodrigo’s own accompaniment.
Notes by Angela Zúñiga.
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