th S e a s o n P r o g r a m N o t e s 45 Week 5 August 13 — 19, 2017

Sunday, August 13, 6 pm Beethoven combines his performers in This recital offers four songs by Hahn unusual ways: sometimes the piano plays full of love and longing. The beautiful LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN with one stringed instrument, sometimes “À Chloris” sets a brief love poem by the (1770 – 1827) with both, sometimes alone, and sometimes French poet, libertine, and freethinker Piano Trio in G Major, Op. 121a, the strings are alone. Beethoven’s Varia- Théophile de Viau (1590 – 1626), whose “10 Variations on ‘Ich bin der Schneider tions remain very much within the spirit of freethinking got him imprisoned for a Kakadu’” (published 1824) Müller’s gentle theme, and the effect is of couple of years. Hahn marks his setting accomplished and pleasant music-making. Very slow and arcs his musical line over the In his early years in Vienna Beethoven A brief rondo, itself a variation on the origi- long span of a 4/2 meter. Beginning gently established his reputation by a phenomenal nal theme, concludes the Trio. (Hahn’s marking is tendrement), the song ability to improvise at the piano, spontane- —Eric Bromberger rises to a soaring climax, then falls away to ously generating entire sets of variations its subdued conclusion. Part of the success from a single theme. He would return to REYNALDO HAHN (1874 – 1947) of this song is its wonderful piano prelude— the extended variation form in one of his Four Songs: stately, poised, and wistful—that returns finest late works, the Diabelli Variations, “À Chloris” (1899) throughout and finally draws the song into Op. 120, published in 1823. In the years “Quand je fus pris au pavillon” (1899) silence. before the Diabelli Variations Beethoven “Chanson au bord de la fontaine” (1912) “Quand je fus pris au pavillon” sets the put the final touches on a set of varia- “Paysage” (1890) work of another prisoner, Charles d’Orléans tions for piano trio, which he published in (1394 – 1465). Charles was taken prisoner 1824 as his Opus 121a. The exact date of Born in Venezuela to German parents, at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and this composition, known as the “Kakadu” Reynaldo Hahn was taken to Paris at age held by the British for 25 years in a sort of Variations, is uncertain. There is evidence three and had all his musical training in the easy confinement. Charles used that period that it was written as early as 1803 just City of Light. Hahn appears to have been to write more than 500 poems in English as Beethoven was beginning work on the one of those people who could do it all. and French. Hahn’s setting is animated: “Eroica” Symphony, but his manuscript He was a fine pianist and had a beautiful he marks the song Fast, very lightly, and dates from 1816. In that year Beethoven baritone voice, and he would give recitals the pianist’s left-hand dancing staccatos was mired in a deep creative drought, and in which he sang his own songs while he continue virtually throughout. The metric it may well be that—unable to generate played the piano, a cigarette dangling from marking is simply 2, and this very brief song new music—he turned to earlier composi- the corner of his mouth as he sang. He was rushes to a breathless finish. tions and revised them for publication. Why an accomplished conductor who conducted “Chanson au bord de la fontaine” was that publication should then have waited at the Salzburg Festival, became director the first number in Hahn’s incidental music for eight years remains unknown. of the Paris Opera in the final years of his to a production of the play Méduse by The “Kakadu” Variations themselves life, and was an early champion of Mozart’s Maurice Magre (1877 – 1941) in 1912. This are charming. The work divides into four operas. He also served for some years as is a very subdued setting: Hahn marks the parts: an introduction, the theme, 10 music critic of Le Figaro. Hahn composed vocal line doux (“gentle”), and the dynamic variations, and a concluding rondo. The operas, ballets, orchestral music, songs, never rises above piano. Long sections of theme itself comes from the song “Ich bin and operettas, and it was as a composer of this song are virtually recited above quietly der Schneider Kakadu” (“I am the Tailor operettas that he had his greatest success: sustained chords from the piano. Cockatoo”) from the singspiel Die Schwest- one of these—Ciboulette of 1923, set in a “Paysage” sets a brief poem by the ern von Prag (The Sisters from Prague) by fruit and vegetable market—ran for more French novelist and poet André Theuriet the Moravian composer Wenzel Müller than 1,000 performances. Hahn struck a (1833 – 1907), who was still alive when (1767-1835), best-known for his light distinctive, elegant, and witty figure in Paris the 16-year-old Hahn composed this song compositions. Beethoven’s Trio opens with salons. He was Marcel Proust’s lover, and he in May 1890. Theuriet was known for his a long and portentous slow introduction, also wrote a biography of Sarah Bernhardt, novels celebrating rural life, and this brief marked Adagio assai. Müller’s theme—a one of his close friends. A dandy, Hahn is expression of love is fired by the poet’s rather innocent little tune—is introduced reported to have dismissed members of or- longing for a quiet spot in Brittany sur- by the piano, and the 10 brief variations chestras if he felt they were not sufficiently rounded by trees, birds, and the sea. Hahn follow. These are melodic variations, and well-dressed at rehearsals. marks the vocal line Very intimate at the

Program notes for Music at Noon Concerts are sponsored by Barbara & Ronald Balser with thanks to the gifted Festival musicians who inspire us all. beginning, but the song will eventually rise III. Chanson au bord de la fontaine to a surprising climax. The young composer Text by Maurice Magre (1877 – 1941) dedicated this song to Jules Massenet, with whom he was studying composition at the O blanches colombes du soir, Paris Conservatory when he wrote it. Quand je viendrai m’asseoir —Eric Bromberger Sur la pierre de la fontaine, Á l’heure où tout est noir, Texts Je vous dirai ma grande peine I. À Chloris I. To Chloris Et mon espoir. Text by Théophile de Viau (1590 – 1626) O blanches colombes du soir, Envoyez alors votre reine sur le lavoir; S’il est vrai, Chloris, que tu m’aimes, If it is true, Chloris, that you love me Je lui dirai pourquoi je traîne (Mais j’entends, que tu m’aimes bien), (And I hear that you love me well) ce désespoir; Je ne crois point que les rois mêmes I don’t believe that even kings Je lui dirai ma grande peine Aient un bonheur pareil au mien. Could have a happiness equal to mine. Et mon espoir.

Que la mort serait importune How inopportune it would be De venir changer ma fortune If death came to turn my good fortune IV. Paysage A la félicité des cieux! Into the joys of heaven. Text by Claude Adhémar André Theuriet Tout ce qu’on dit de l’ambroisie Everything they say about ambrosia (1833 – 1907) Ne touche point ma fantaisie Could never stir my imagination Au prix des grâces de tes yeux. If it meant giving up the charms of your A deux pas de la mer qu’on entend bour- eyes. donner Je sais un coin perdu de la terre bretonne Où j’aurais tant aimé, pendant les jours II. Quand je fus pris au pavillon II. When I was caught in the pavilion d’automne, Text by Charles, Duc d’Orléans Chère, à vous emmener! (1394 – 1465) Des chênes faisant cercle autour d’une Quand je fus pris au pavillon When I was caught in the pavilion fontaine, De ma dame, très gente et belle, Of my noble and beautiful lady Quelques hêtres épars, un vieux moulin Je me brûlai à la chandelle I was burned by the candle, désert, Ainsi que fait le papillon. As happens to a butterfly. Une source dont l’eau claire a le reflet vert De vos yeux de sirène. Je rougis comme vermillon, I blushed red A la clarté d’une étincelle, With the brightness of a spark, La mésange, au matin, sous la feuille jaunie, Quand je fus pris au pavillon. When I was caught in her pavilion. Viendrait chanter pour nous Si j’eusse été esmerillon Et la mer, nuit et jour, Viendrait accompagner nos caresses Ou que j’eusse eu aussi bonne aile, Had I been a merlin, d’amour Je me fusse gardé de celle Or had had wings as strong, De sa basse infinie! Qui me bailla de l’aiguillon I would have saved myself from her Quand je fus pris au pavillon. Who stung me When I was caught in her pavilion.

2 2017 Program Notes Week Five III. Song by the Fountain JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) Monday, August 14, 6 pm Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34a (1861-64) FRANCIS POULENC (1899 – 1963) O white evening doves, In 1861 what would become Brahms’s Sonata for Horn, Trumpet & Trombone, FP 33 When I come to sit down Piano Quintet, Op. 34 first came to life (1922/1945) On the stones of the fountain, as a string quintet with a second cello, à At the hour when all is dark, la Schubert’s late masterpiece. Forward- It may yet be that, with the establishment I will tell you of my great sadness ing the score to his friend and mentor, the of major works such as the opera Dialogues And my hope. acclaimed violinist Joseph Joachim, Brahms des Carmélites and the choral composi- learned that, though Joachim initially tion Gloria, along with a plethora of witty O white evening doves, admired the score, he suggested that the and well-crafted songs and a stimulating Send your queen to the basin; composer “mitigate the harshness of some variety of chamber music, Poulenc will be I will tell her why I languish passages.” considered one of the most enduring voices In this despair. By early 1864 Brahms had recast the of 20th-century music. I will tell her of my great sadness piece as a sonata for two pianos and played His upper-class parents insisted on a And my hope. it in that version on a few occasions. (He formal education, although Poulenc had al- burned the five-strings version, but the ready begun as a child to learn music from two-piano work was published as Op. 34b.) his mother. Serious piano lessons began at IV. Landscape This time it was the critics who influenced age 16 with Ricardo Viñes. Only two years his thinking: the consensus was that a later Poulenc found himself at the center certain sweetness—which might be sup- of attention as one of a half-dozen young plied by strings!—seemed to be missing. So artists who rose to the defense of the Brahms combined the best of both worlds, establishment-rocking Erik Satie. Just steps from where you can hear the sea and this perennial and epic favorite was The group proclaimed itself the “Nou- murmuring published as we know it in 1865, though veaux Jeunes” (New Youths), but the label I know a hidden place in Brittany not premiered in its final form until 1868. that stuck came courtesy of critic Henri Where, during autumn days, I would so The amazing diversity of critical reactions Collet, who dubbed them “Le groupe des have loved to it ever since gives ample evidence of Six” or, more popularly, “Les Six.” The other To take you, my beloved. the range of expression contained in this members were Georges Auric, Louis Durey, masterpiece. Richard Specht declared that Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Oak trees encircling a fountain, it contains “some of the gloomiest music Germaine Tailleferre. Poulenc was ini- Some scattered beeches, an old deserted Brahms has written,” and Sir Donald Tovey tially considered the least of these equals; mill, labeled the opening movement “power- musicologist David Brew once said, “When A spring whose pure water reflects the fully tragic.” But Karl Geiringer described Poulenc has nothing to say, he says it.” green it as merely “lively,” and Clara Schumann But before Poulenc could begin to reap Of your siren eyes. confessed that she was “charmed” by the the left-handed compliments that his music. music was frequently droll and charming The blue tit, in the morning, under yellow- The first movement is astonishing in but lacked significance, he had to serve in ing foliage, its wealth of melodic material as well as the French army (1918-21). The three years Would come and sing for us, for the subtle interrelationships among following that hitch found him immersed And, night and day, the sea apparently unrelated themes, a quality that in his first focused and formal composition With its ceaseless roar repeated hearings have long impressed on lessons under Charles Koechlin. It was in Would come and accompany our passionate aficionados. The opposition of simultane- this period, specifically 1922, that the So- caresses. ous duple and triple rhythms—a lifelong nata for Horn, Trumpet & Trombone came —Translated by compositional fingerprint of Brahms—is to life. (Almost without exception, perfor- Hannelore N. Rogers effectively used in the quieter second mances since 1945 have used the revision theme. The Andante, un poco Adagio Poulenc prepared in that year.) is among Brahms’s sweetest creations, The first movement changes mood contrasted all the more when followed by frequently, from a folk-like tune marked a Scherzo: Allegro of superhuman energy. grazioso to an even more lyrical melody The finale is lent added weight by virtue of before a faster section that is, in turn, its slow introduction, and the final pages followed by a new trumpet theme. The contain a unique moment when the work preceding faster theme is a rhythmic seems about to end, only to have Brahms transformation of the trumpet’s opening turn up the emotional drive one final notch. melody, and the whole is capped by one of —Greg Hettmansberger Poulenc’s trademark “wrong note” endings. The Andante has some of the tenderness of a lullaby, and while both its themes grow

3 2017 Program Notes Week Five out of the second theme of the opening contact Szigeti, who was interested in the FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809 – 1847) Allegro moderato, the second of them is piece but finally could not find an oppor- Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 66 (1845) something of an inversion, or mirror image, tunity to perform it. The first performance of the first. The Rondeau finale inhabits the took place in Paris on June 11, 1925, with The ridiculously prolific and prodigiously world of harmonic ambiguity, vacillating Marcel Darrieux as soloist and the Or- talented teen-aged Mendelssohn tossed between major and minor with a coda that chestre des Concerts Straram under the off a handful of chamber works with piano overflows with a series of musical jokes. direction of Walter Straram. The Concerto between the ages of 13 and 15—but no —Greg Hettmansberger was performed throughout Europe over trios, a form well-established by Haydn, the next few years, and Fritz Reiner led the Beethoven, and Schubert. At the ripe age KURT WEILL (1900 – 1950) American premiere in Cincinnati in 1930, of 23, he confessed to his sister Fanny (an Concerto for Violin & Wind Orchestra, but then it largely dropped out of concert accomplished composer and pianist in her Op. 12 (1924) life. Recent recordings by Christian Tetzlaff, own right): “I should like to compose a Chantal Juillet, Frank Peter Zimmermann, couple of good trios.” He didn’t get around It has become inevitable—and important!— and Anthony Marwood have helped it find to even the first one until 1839, but when to observe that there were two Kurt Weills. a contemporary audience. his Opus 49 D-Minor Trio saw the light of The first was the immensely talented young Weill’s Violin Concerto is in three move- day, it was apparent that he certainly had man who studied with Busoni in Berlin and ments that span about half an hour. The written at least one great trio. established his reputation through his great violin soloist, who plays virtually through- And so the Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 66 has collaborations with Bertolt Brecht: The out the Concerto, has a part of breathtak- always suffered in comparison. Perhaps it Threepenny Opera (1928) and The Rise and ing difficulty full of rapid passagework is the kind of circumstance that led the Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930). There and complex doublestopping. There is an conductor Hans von Bülow to say that was a “classical” side to this Weill: he wrote expressionistic intensity about this music Mendelssohn “began a genius, but ended as two symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, that takes the violin far away from its usual a talent.” Such an opinion can be ventured and other concert works. But the rise of lyrical self and often sets it in competition only if awestruck by compositions such as the Nazis drove the young composer out of with the spiky sound of the orchestra. The Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream Germany and helped create a second career opening movement—like the entire Concer- and the Octet, produced by Mendelssohn at for him. Weill came to the United States in to, built on constantly shifting meters—falls the ages of 16 and 17. As today’s audience 1936, collaborated with Maxwell Anderson, into different sections at different tempos. will learn, the Opus 66 has too long been and wrote such pieces of Broadway musi- A return of the opening tempo helps propel overshadowed by its D-Minor forebear and cal theater (and satire) as Knickerbocker the movement to a climax that Weill marks is finally gaining the greater appreciation Holiday, Lady in the Dark, and Lost in the Furioso before the music taps itself into it deserves. It could even be said that, ulti- Stars. Weill’s American career was brief—he silence. mately, it adds a depth that in one aesthet- died of heart disease in 1950, only a month The structure of the middle movement is ic respect brings the composer’s tragically after his 50th birthday. particularly interesting. Functioning as the short life full circle. Late in the winter of 1924 just as he “slow” movement of the Concerto, it is in Those who today know the works of turned 24, Weill began to compose a violin three-part form, but even these can be at Louis Spohr may not know that he was concerto but one with a difference. Weill quite different tempos. The opening section also a violinist of note: not only was he scored his Violin Concerto for solo violin is marked Notturno, but the tempo—Allegro named in the dedication of Opus 66, but and an orchestra made up largely of winds: un poco tenuto—is far from the slow music performed it with Mendelssohn on more pairs of flutes, clarinets, bassoons, and we expect from a nocturne. The xylophone than one occasion. He certainly must have horns; solo piccolo, oboe, and trumpet; has a prominent part here, its spiky dotted admired the breadth of the work, apparent a large percussion section; and basses. rhythms set in contrast to the sound of the from the very beginning. It seems at least Works for solo instruments accompanied violin. The central section of this move- as symphonic in scope as the celebrated by winds were very much in vogue in the ment is titled Cadenza, but this cadenza Violin Concerto. The writer John Horton has experimental 1920s—they include Stravin- is accompanied by the orchestra led by a stated that Mendelssohn, that most Classi- sky’s Concerto for Piano and Winds (1924), prominent part for trumpet. The conclud- cal of the early Romantics, “never wrote a Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Violin and ing section, Serenata, features a lovely solo stronger sonata-form allegro.” The Andante Piano with 13 Winds (1925), and Janá ek’s passage for flute along the way. espressivo reminds us that this composer Capriccio for Piano and Seven Wind Instru- The concluding movement goes back to of “Songs without Words” had nearly as ments (1926). Weill could not have beenč the manner of the first movement but now fecund a gift for melody as Schubert. When aware of these other works as he composed at an even more frantic pace. At moments the material returns for the third and final his Violin Concerto, but that sharp and this movement has something of the feel statement, it comes in the guise of a tender spiky sonority was very much a sound of of a tarantella as it dances its wild way duet among the strings. that era. forward. A coda marked con fuoco does The Scherzo is as feathery, breath- It has often been stated that Weill indeed drive the Concerto to a fiery finish, less, and technically demanding as any of wrote the Violin Concerto specifically for this one concluded most emphatically by the composer’s earlier great scherzos. But Josef Szigeti, but he did not. Only after he the timpani. it is in the Finale that Mendelssohn ties had completed it in May 1924 did Weill —Eric Bromberger together his passion of nearly two decades

4 2017 Program Notes Week Five earlier—the music of J.S. Bach—with this Tuesday, August 15, noon The finale is in another classical form, last masterpiece of chamber music he a rondo, here set in 6/8 and full of dancing would live to complete. In the development FRANCIS POULENC (1899 – 1963) and staccato writing, particularly for the appears a chorale borrowed from the Ge- Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano, FP 43 (1926) oboe and bassoon (Poulenc’s marking is Très neva Psalter of 1562, used by the venerated vif: “very lively”). Brief melodic interludes Baroque master in his cantata, BWV 130. It Some composers have an instinctive feeling may momentarily interrupt this sizzling takes but little reflection to tie the for instruments they do not play. Mozart, motion, but the opening energy always Opus 66 to Mendelssohn’s 1830 “Reforma- a virtuoso pianist and violinist, wrote returns, and at the end it rips the Trio to a tion” Symphony and to his final master- beautifully for winds, capturing perfectly very energetic conclusion. piece in progress, Elijah. the character of each different instrument. Poulenc dedicated the Trio for Oboe, —Greg Hettmansberger Bartók, also a virtuoso pianist, wrote grace- Bassoon & Piano to his friend, the Spanish fully and idiomatically for stringed instru- composer Manuel de Falla, who turned 50 ments. Poulenc, who did not play any wind the year it was composed. instrument, nevertheless loved the sound —Eric Bromberger of those instruments and wrote happily for them throughout his life. Of Poulenc’s WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 13 works for chamber ensemble, only two (1756 – 1791) include a stringed instrument (one sonata Serenade No. 11 in E-flat Major, K. 375 each for violin and for cello); the other 11 (1781) are all for winds. Poulenc described one of those pieces as “an homage to the wind In October 1781, just four months after instruments I have loved from the moment getting free of the Archbishop of Salzburg I began composing,” and that statement and moving to Vienna, Mozart wrote a might apply to every one of his works for serenade for winds and left an account of winds. its composition: Poulenc composed his Trio for Oboe, “I wrote it for St. Theresa’s Day, for Frau Bassoon & Piano in 1926 when he was von Hickel’s sister, or rather the sister- only 27 years old. He was already famous: in-law of Herr von Hickel, court painter, Diaghilev had commissioned a ballet score at whose house it was performed from the young composer, and Les bȋches [October 15, 1781] for the first time. had been performed successfully in Paris The six gentlemen who executed it are in 1924. Now the young composer turned poor beggars who, however, play quite to chamber music and wrote a Trio that well together, particularly the first is witty, concise (only 12 minutes long), clarinet and the two horns . . . I wrote and beautifully conceived for these three it rather carefully. It has won great ap- instruments. plause, too, and on St. Theresa’s Night it The first movement has a classical poise. was performed in three different places, Poulenc opens with a slow introduction for as soon as they finished playing it in marked Lent, full of cadenza-like flourishes one place they were taken off some- from the two wind instruments before the where else and paid to play it.” tempo leaps ahead at the Presto on music The “poor beggars” must have been of a Haydnesque clarity. At the center of pleased with the music, for they chose to the movement Poulenc sets aside all this reward its creator in an unusual way two energy for an elegant little interlude. The weeks later. Mozart described this in a let- oboe sings a long melody of almost “popu- ter to his father: lar” character before the Presto resumes, “At 11 o’clock at night I was treated to and the movement races to its sudden a serenade performed by two clarinets, close. two horns, and two bassoons—and that, After the whirling energy of the opening too, of my own composition . . . these movement the central Andante con moto musicians asked that the street door comes as a long-breathed melody. The might be opened and, placing them- piano’s introduction outlines this melody, selves in the center of the courtyard, the bassoon briefly takes it up, and then surprised me just as I was about to the oboe sings its long lines. Poulenc marks undress in the most pleasant fashion this très doux et mélancolique (“very sweet imaginable with the first chord in and melancholy”), and the marking doux E-flat.” will appear many times throughout the Although Mozart originally scored the entire Trio. Serenade in E-flat Major for six players,

5 2017 Program Notes Week Five the following July he revised it, adding ROBERTO SIERRA (b. 1953) Angel and the Shadows, Mysterious Dance, two oboes to the original sextet. Today it Fuego de ángel, Quartet for Piano & Strings The Vision of the Angel, and Fire. Listen- is always heard in the revised version for (2011) ers new to Fuego de ángel may approach eight performers. it in several ways. One of these is to enjoy Mozart’s wind serenades often had a Roberto Sierra had his early training in the vivid sound-world that Sierra creates. “social” function: frequently they were Puerto Rico and then went on to study This music is beautifully conceived for the intended as background music at social in Europe, some of that time spent as a instruments, and the string players in par- occasions and were sometimes intended for student of György Ligeti in Hamburg. He ticular must produce a range of varied so- outdoor performance. These conditions led returned to the Americas and over the norities: ponticello bowing (directly on top Mozart to write in what has been described last three decades has had a very success- of the bridge to produce a grainy sound), as a “rustic” style, producing energetic, ful career as a composer. Sierra has been tremolos, extended pizzicato passages, and spirited, and not particularly complex mu- composer-in-residence with the Phila- quick contrasts between muted and unmut- sic. The Serenade in E-flat Major, however, delphia Orchestra; the Milwaukee, Puerto ed bowing. The sound-world here is quite is an exception to that rule. Mozart did, Rico, and New Mexico symphony orches- varied, soaring brightly one moment, dark indeed, write this music “rather carefully,” tras; and he has had works commissioned and full of sharp interjections the next. and it remains one of his most polished and and performed by almost all the leading That, in turn, offers another approach to expressive serenades. American orchestras. It is a measure of his Fuego de ángel, which is extremely dra- The Allegro opens with a rhythmic international success that one of his most matic music, full of rhythmic energy and motto that Mozart liked to use at the popular pieces, Fandangos, was performed sharply varied incident. The opening may beginning of works in E-flat Major (it also on the opening night of the 2002 Proms by be mysterious and subdued, but quickly the opens the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364 the BBC Symphony. Sierra has composed music turns animated and turbulent, and and the Piano Concerto No. 22, K. 482). prolifically in almost all genres, and in 2010 such quick contrasts will occur throughout. This movement is in sonata form, with two he was elected to the American Academy of Sometimes the music ruminates darkly, contrasted subjects, a brief development, Arts and Sciences. He currently teaches at sometimes it dances, sometimes it explodes and a long and amiable recapitulation that Cornell University. in directions we don’t expect. The dual actually introduces a new theme, a noble Fuego de ángel was commissioned by inspiration of “an angel in conjunction with horn melody. The first Minuet opens with Music from Angel Fire, a chamber music fire” and “celestial battles between good an energetic unison, but the real interest festival that sets out to serve the musical and evil” produces quite diverse music comes in the trio, which shifts to needs of northern New Mexico, particularly from Sierra, and if it remains abstract, it is C Minor, offers haunting chromatic winding its remote rural communities. Sierra hon- nevertheless dramatic throughout. and unusual modulations, and grows to a ored the Festival and its aims by dedicating Fuego de ángel is a compact piece—its length much greater than the minuet itself. the piece to Music from Angel Fire and, in four movements span barely 20 minutes. The Adagio is the real glory of this ser- fact, naming it after the Festival: Fuego de Yet within that brief time is music inspired enade. It, too, is in sonata form, and Mozart ángel translates as “Angel Fire.” The music by powerful forces: fire, darkness, dances, writes beautifully for all eight voices here, was composed in 2011 and premiered that angels, and battles beyond the sphere of with the thematic line shared and passed year at Music from Angel Fire by OPUS humankind. between them. Mozart was justly famous ONE, who perform it at this concert. —Eric Bromberger for his writing for winds, and this move- On his website the composer offers ment features some of his finest woodwind a brief introduction to Fuego de ángel, writing, with the beautiful melodic line particularly about what caused him to changing colors as it moves from instru- write it: “The inspiration for Fuego de ángel ment to instrument. was a place (Angel Fire, New Mexico) that, Some have felt that after three such although I have never visited, triggered my distinguished movements the final two imagination. The idea of an angel in con- seem a little more in the “rustic” serenade junction with fire reminded me of images style. The second Minuet is focused and from Renaissance and early Baroque reli- brief, while the concluding Allegro in gious paintings; in particular some of the sonata-rondo form offers some graceful Latin American early colonial works which, fugal writing in the midst of all its buoyant in fantastic and unusual ways, depict celes- energy. tial battles between good and evil—such as —Eric Bromberger the many representations of the archangel Michael defeating the devil.” Each of the four movements has an evocative title in Spanish, but listeners should not approach this music expecting musical depictions of specific events—this is a piano quartet rather than a tone poem. The four movement titles translate: The

6 2017 Program Notes Week Five Wednesday, August 16, noon its energy, recalls the poignant tinge of the ing Schumann did not write idiomatically opening movement. Composed to honor the for strings. Schumann can call for double- FRANCIS POULENC (1899 – 1963) memory of Elizabeth Sprague-Coolidge (the stopping to create chordal writing that Sonata for Flute & Piano, FP 164 (1956) patron saint of chamber music in America might make sense on the piano but which and beyond), it can also occasionally be produces thick textures in a string quartet; It was Claude Rostand who said, “In Pou- found in a version for flute and orchestra as he can also ask for solo virtuoso writing lenc there is something of the monk and arranged by Lennox Berkeley. that seems at odds with the intimacy and something of the rascal.” In the larger con- —Greg Hettmansberger equality of voices in chamber music. In any text the observation makes perfect sense. case, Schumann himself was pleased with Poulenc’s first significant work,Rapsodie WILLIAM BOLCOM (b. 1938) his new creations, going so far as to say nègre, from 1917, consisted of gibberish Sextet (2017) that “I have spared no pains to produce poems set for baritone and seven instru- something good; as I often think, my best.” ments; one of his last was the masterful (Commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber He marks the first movement Allegro vi- Gloria. But for those who are acquainted Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, vace, and fast it certainly is, but this is also only with a sampling of his chamber works and Great Mountains Music Festival, South flowing and smooth music with a second it is more likely the rascally Poulenc they Korea) (New Mexico premiere) subject that enters unobtrusively. The brief are familiar with. development—motivic rather than the- It does seem to have been the more Please see “Commissions and Premieres” in matic—is built on busily arpeggiated chords dominant characteristic of the young man. the program book for notes by the com- and leads to a nearly literal recapitulation The aforementioned Rapsodie was dedicat- poser about his work. and the sudden ending. The marking for the ed to enfant terrible Erik Satie, and by 1920 second movement—Andante, quasi Variazi- Poulenc was receiving regular premieres at ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810 – 1856) oni—is unusual: in what sense is something concerts held at the studio of the painter String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 41, a quasi-variation? The movement is built on Émile Lejeune—and so were five other like- No. 2 (1842) an attractive chordal idea that rocks along minded composers. Self-proclaimed as the gently on its 12/8 meter. There follow four “Nouveaux Jeunes” (New Youths), the label Until 1840 the young Schumann composed episodes that vary this material in general that stuck came courtesy of critic Henri almost exclusively for the piano, but with ways—perhaps Schumann did not want this Collet, who dubbed them “Le Groupe de his marriage to Clara Wieck in 1840 the process of organic evolution judged by the Six,” or more popularly, “Les Six.” The other floodgates of creativity burst wide open, standards of the usual theme-and-variation members included Georges Auric, Louis and new kinds of music poured from his movement. Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, pen. Curiously, the genre seemed to change The Scherzo is a real tour-de-force for and Germaine Tailleferre. Poulenc averred by year: from 1840 came 130 songs, from the first violin, which must hurtle up and that the purpose of the group was not an 1841 different kinds of symphonic music, down the scale with the other instruments “ism” or a compositional method but simply and from 1842 chamber music. Schumann trailing madly in its wake, sometimes in an interest in creating music that was light, quickly took up the most difficult challenge quite unusual keys. By comparison, the trio entertaining, even simple. On one occasion in chamber music, the string quartet, and section marches along the steady tread he said, “We were tired of Debussyism, of spent the spring of 1842 studying the quar- of off-the-beat attacks before Schumann Florent Schmitt, of Ravel.” tets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. That plunges back into the scherzo. The coda But Poulenc was more likely to tap is formidable competition, indeed, and it ingeniously combines the scherzo and trio into his spiritual side following the horrific was only after a period of fretful indecision themes before winking out suddenly on death of a close friend. Aside from major that Schumann was able to proceed. Even quiet pizzicato strokes. obvious examples of a new-found depth then he was still worried, and his language As its marking makes clear, the Alle- (the opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites betrays his anxiety—so threatened was gro molto vivace finale is very fast, and it immediately comes to mind), Poulenc was, Schumann that he almost could not say the maintains the manner of the third move- for the rest of his life, less apt to musi- word “string quartet.” Instead, he said only ment as the first violin dashes ahead with cally thumb his nose at his listeners. He that he was having “quartet-ish thoughts” a virtually concertante part. But along the also created a large catalog of songs, and and referred to the music he was compos- way the cello, too, is swept up into this all but eight of the 136 he would compose ing as “quartet-essays.” And then the music excitement, and now it has wide skips and had been written by 1956, the year of the came quickly: in June and July 1842 he blistering runs. The movement is in modi- Sonata for Flute & Piano. composed the three string quartets that fied sonata form (Schumann offers oppor- Poulenc had, in fact, just composed make up his Opus 41. He never returned to tunities for repeats of both exposition and “Dernier Poème” to a poem by Robert the form. development), and it rushes to an energetic Desnos, who had died in a concentration The second of these quartets, in close on a brief coda. camp soon after writing the lines. The F Major, has to some extent been overshad- —Eric Bromberger Sonata’s Allegro malinconico movement is owed by the other two, but this concise something of a wordless extension of the music is very pleasing in its own individual song. The ensuing Cantilena was encored at way. Certain critics (and many string play- the work’s premiere, and the finale, for all ers!) have complained that the piano-play-

7 2017 Program Notes Week Five Wednesday, August 16, 6 pm speculated that Laks survived the camps via Cleveland Institute of Music as director of music at the expense of his own creative the Electronic Music Studio. SZYMON LAKS (1901 – 1983) voice, at least temporarily. In the decade or At about the same time, Kohn became String Quartet No. 5 (1963) so prior to his arrest by the Nazis he had interested in art songs and folk songs, and built a strong catalogue of songs in French this led to his three-volume collection Szymon Laks can be fairly judged by saying and Polish and numerous chamber works. titled American Folk Songs. American folk he was “a man of his time,” but in his case Following the war and the publication of music has, of course, attracted a number it is a phrase fraught with multiple mean- his memoir, Laks continued to focus on of musicians over the past century: John ings, some of which are as dark as can be. literary pursuits and translations. The String Jacob Niles, the Seeger family, Alan Lomax, But unlike many swallowed up in the vortex Quartet No. 5 marked a temporary return and others made their own collections of referred to as the Holocaust, Laks not only to focused composition. The first movement this music, and composers as varied as survived but left multiple legacies of both opens with the cello in an almost carefree Aaron Copland and Luciano Berio have his life experiences and unique gifts. theme marked by a skipping rhythm, but turned these folk songs into superb art Born a Russian citizen in Warsaw, his when the other strings join in the disso- songs. Kohn gathered a number of tradi- early talents were manifested not only in nances quickly dispel any possibility of a tional American folk songs, many of which music but in mathematics and linguis- sunny mood. The second-movement-Adagio had appeared in those earlier anthologies, tics (it wasn’t long before he was fluent gives us the main theme in the first violin, a and wrote new piano accompaniments for in Russian, Polish, English, German, and gently elegiac tune. The scherzo is a whirl- them. His aim was to bring these songs to French). Not long after Poland gained its ing romp that pits bowed motifs against a new generation of singers and audiences, independence the lure of music won out in pizzicato propulsions, with other string and in this he has been quite successful— Laks, and he entered the Conservatoire in techniques incorporated to colorful effect. these songs have been widely performed Warsaw in 1921. Five years later he began The finale, dominated at once by another and recorded. The first volume ofAmerican a western migration, first to Vienna where sequence of lively give-and-take, reminds Folk Songs appeared in 2000, and the four he played music for silent films, and then us that at heart Laks was a 20th-century songs presented at this concert are the first to Paris in 1929. Active both as a composer voice thoroughly grounded in classical four songs in that volume. and in the promotion of Polish music, Laks’s structures and concise expression. We can Like America itself much of American career grew steadily. But not long after only be grateful that his was one voice not folk music has its roots in the British Isles, the German occupation in 1941, Laks was snuffed out by evil or its aftermath. and so it is with two of the songs on this arrested and was soon a prisoner at the —Greg Hettmansberger program. “Ten Thousand Miles Away” seems infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. at first both love song and sea shanty, and The key to Laks’s survival was the STEVEN MARK KOHN (b. 1957) an early version of this song had appeared recognition of his musical talents; he was From: American Folk Songs by mid-19th century in Scotland. This song, soon used in the prisoners’ orchestra and (traditional, arr. 2000): so full of passion, seems straightforward at eventually became its director. Two years “Ten Thousand Miles Away” first as the young man sets out to reunite later he was moved to Sachsenhausen and “On the Other Shore” with his distant love. But the mention of then to Dachau, where he was liberated at “Wanderin’” “a Government ship” is ominous, and an the end of the war. But music in the camps “The Farmer’s Curst Wife” early version of this song had the distant was rarely, if ever, the medium of healing young woman wearing steel bands around or transformative power. In 1948, after his Steven Mark Kohn has had a spectacularly her ankles and wrists—she was on a prison return to Paris, Laks published a stunning varied and successful career as a com- ship bound for Australia (which would help memoir of his time in the camps, Musique poser. Trained as a composer at Kent State explain the title). Some hint of this may d’un autre monde (Music of Another World, University, Cleveland Institute of Music, and survive in the song’s sixth stanza: “She’s subsequently released in English in 1989). the Aspen Music Festival, he achieved early a-doing of the grand in a far-off land.” In the book Laks describes how the music success as the composer of advertising “On the Other Shore,” with its repeated was used as an adjunct to torture—that jingles ranging from Wheaties to Volvo. He lines, simple refrain, and ringing final the music was played twice a day for the went on to compose theme music for radio stanza, is sometimes sung as a gospel song. entrance and exit of the officers. Early in and television programs and then wrote The song was collected by Alan Lomax in the book he writes, “…music stands, music the scores for numerous children’s and South Carolina in 1959 but is much, much stands! … Where there are music stands independent films. He went on to what has older than that. there must be musicians. You can’t have been called “Guided Imagery”: Kohn wrote “Wanderin’” comes from another form one without the other. Who plays music the musical accompaniment to a number of folk song–the hobo song. “Wanderin,’” here? The executioner or his victims? What of CDs intended for patients as they are led which may have its roots in an old Irish type of music do they play? Danses ma- through the treatment of specific illnesses. melody, appears to date from about the cabres? Funeral songs? Hitlerian chants?” He has also composed an opera (Riders of beginning of the 20th century when it was Later, he flatly states, “in no case did I ever the Purple Sage, based on the Zane Grey apparently sung by hobos on railroads. meet a prisoner who found courage in our novel and premiered in Arizona in February This is a beautiful song made particularly music, whose life our music helped save.” 2017) and has written librettos for other effective by its quiet refrain at the end of Indeed, for that matter it might be composers. In 1998 he returned to the each stanza, and Kohn rounds it off with a

8 2017 Program Notes Week Five haunting piano postlude. II. On the Other Shore IV. The Farmer’s Curst Wife “The Farmer’s Curst Wife” may be the best-known of the four songs on this I have a mother gone to glory, There was an old man at the foot of the program. John Jacob Niles included it in his I have a mother gone to glory, hill. 1938 collection, noting that he had heard I have a mother gone to glory, If he ain’t moved away, he’s a’ livin’ there it in Breathitt County, Kentucky, and it has On the other shore. still. been recorded by Pete Seeger and many Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi other singers. This is a hilarious song, and By and by I’ll go to meet her, Diddle-i diddle-i day. Kohn gives it a vigorous setting, well-suited By and by I’ll go to meet her, to its dry folk humor. By and by I’ll go to meet her, The devil he come to his house one day, —Eric Bromberger On the other shore. Says “One of your fam’ly I’m gonna take away.” Texts Won’t that be a happy meetin’? Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi I. Ten Thousand Miles Away Won’t that be a happy meetin’? Diddle-i diddle-i day. Won’t that be a happy meetin’? Sing I for a brave and a gallant barque; On the other shore. “Take her, my wife, with all a’ my heart, For a stiff and a rattling breeze, And I hope, by golly, you never part.” A bully crew and a captain true, There we’ll see our good old neighbors, Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi To carry me o’er the seas. There we’ll see our good old neighbors, Diddle-i diddle-i day. There we’ll see our good old neighbors, To carry me o’er the seas, my boys, On the other shore. The devil he put her up on his back, To my true love so gay, And off to Hell he went, clickity clack. Who went on a trip on a Government ship There we’ll see our blessed savior, Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi Ten thousand miles away! There we’ll see our blessed savior, Diddle-i diddle-i day. There we’ll see our blessed savior, Oh, blow, ye winds, hi oh! On the other shore. When he got her down to the gates of Hell, A-roaming I will go. He says “Punch up the fire, we’ll scorch her I’ll stay no more on England’s shore, III. Wanderin’ well.” So let the music play. Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi I been a’ wandrin’ early, Diddle-i diddle-i day. I’ll start by the morning train I been a’ wandrin’ late, To cross the raging main, From New York City to the Golden Gate. In come a little devil draggin’ a chain, For I’m on the road to my own true love, An’ it looks like… I’m never gonna cease my She upped with a hatchet and split his Ten thousand miles away. wanderin.’ brain! Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi My true love she was handsome, Been a’ workin’ in the army, Diddle-i diddle-i day. My true love she was young. An’ workin’ on a farm, Her eyes were blue as the violet’s hue, All I got to show for it is the muscle in my Now nine little devils went a’ climbin’ the And silv’ry was the sound of her tongue. arm. wall An’ it looks like… I’m never gonna cease my Saying’ “Take her back, daddy! She’ll a’ And silv’ry was the sound of her tongue, my wanderin.’ murder us all!” boys, Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi And while I sing this lay, There’s snakes up on the mountain, Diddle-i diddle-i day. She’s a-doing of the grand in a far-off land, And eels in the sea. Ten thousand miles away. ‘Twas a redheaded woman made a wreck The old man was a’ peepin’ out of a crack, of me. And he saw the old Devil come draggin’ her Oh, blow, ye winds, hi oh! An’ it looks like… I’m never gonna cease my back. A-roaming I will go. wanderin.’ Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi I’ll stay no more on England’s shore, Diddle-i diddle-i day. So let the music play. Ashes to ashes And dust to dust. Now, there’s one advantage women have I’ll start by the morning train If whiskey don’t get you, than the woman over men. To cross the raging main! must. They can all go to Hell! …and come back, For I’m on the road to my own true love, An’ it looks like… I’m never gonna cease my again. Ten thousand miles away. wanderin.’ Sing hi diddle-i diddle-i fi Diddle-i diddle-i day.

9 2017 Program Notes Week Five JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) animato. The development treats the first Thursday, August 17, noon String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 two thematically, but the third is devel- (1858-60) oped rhythmically. Brahms derives a series JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH of rhythmic patterns from this theme that (1685 – 1750) We so automatically identify Brahms with help bind the movement together, and the Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914 (ca. 1710) Vienna that it is easy to forget that he did theme reappears in its melodic shape only not move there until he was nearly 30. By in the recapitulation. The lengthy move- Believe it or not, even composers from that time he had already written a great ment closes with a nice touch: the brief the most glorified heights—Bach, Mozart, deal of music, and some of the best of coda, played pizzicato, moves gracefully to Beethoven—can still take their knocks… these early works were composed while he the two concluding chords. even from performers! One might think was a court musician in Detmold. About The second movement in somber that, given the ubiquitous nature (and, 100 miles southwest of Hamburg, Det- D Minor is a theme and six variations. The therefore, presumed popularity) of Bach’s mold was a cultured court much devoted first viola immediately lays out the firmly Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, that all of to music, and for three seasons (1857-59) drawn theme, and the first three varia- Bach’s toccatas must rock. Not so much… Brahms served as a court musician there. tions seem barely able to suppress a sort even performers as decorated (and yes, These years were quite productive for of volcanic fury that seethes beneath the controversial) as Glenn Gould had prob- him musically. With a chorus, orchestra, surface of this music. Even in chamber lems with the toccatas as a group. In fact, and good solo performers at his disposal, music Brahms favored a heavy sonority, and when he finally decided to record all seven Brahms could have his music performed at several points in these variations all six of them in the late 1970s, he thought so immediately and could test his ideas. From instruments are triple-stopped, creating little of BWV 914 that he opted to include these years came his two serenades for huge chords played simultaneously on 18 a 1963 recording to complete the set rather orchestra, the first two piano quartets, strings. A ray of sunlight falls across the than record this shortest of the Bach toc- several choral works, and the completion of music at the fourth variation, which moves catas afresh. his Piano Concerto No. 1. to D Major, while the sonorous fifth is al- Why this relative disdain for works It was during his final year at Detmold most entirely the province of the first viola, which, after all, have been recorded and that Brahms began his Sextet in B-flat Ma- accompanied by the violins’ wispy octaves. still get programmed? Mostly it has to do jor, completing it in 1860. Perhaps because The dark sixth variation serves as the coda— with where they fall in Bach’s output and it is an early work critics have been quick the cello, playing with an almost choked stylistic development. They were all writ- to detect influences. Brahms’s admirable sonority, returns to the D-Minor darkness of ten between 1707 and 1711, and the great biographer Karl Geiringer hears the influ- the opening and leads the movement to its Baroque master still had a ways to go when ence of Schubert in the first movement, quiet close. it came to mastering his complex ideas of Beethoven in the Scherzo, and Haydn in After these two massive movements, the harmony and wedding them to his greatest the finale. But the Sextet already shows pleasing Scherzo zips past in barely three structural passion, contrapuntal writing in Brahms’s unmistakable voice, particularly in minutes. The Scherzo section itself is play- general and the fugue in particular. its rich sonorities and in the way a wealth ful but feels a little subdued in comparison The form itself, which dated back to the of musical ideas grows out of each theme. to the slashing, full-throated trio. This rises 16th century, was not held in the highest And in contrast to the clenched intensity of to a resonant climax before the return of esteem. The word derives from “toccare” (to some of Brahms’s late chamber music, the the opening Scherzo; Brahms closes with touch) and was appended to works where Sextet is full of sunlight. a mighty coda derived from the trio. The musicians would both display their digital A sextet is a string quartet plus ad- concluding Poco Allegretto e grazioso is skills on a keyboard as well as test out new ditional viola and cello, and Brahms fully a rondo based on the first cello’s ami- keyboards themselves. Eventually compos- exploits these lower sonorities as well as able opening theme. Significant interludes ers paired the virtuosic passages with a playing off combinations of instruments intrude on the course of the movement, fugal section or two, but by Bach’s adult- impossible in a string quartet. The gentle, which makes use of the same kind of hood they were often stand-alone works. rocking main subject of the Allegro ma non rhythmic underpinning that bound the first BWV 914 shares some characteristics troppo, heard immediately in the first cello, movement together so imaginatively. The with BWV 915; they are often considered is only the first in a number of thematic rondo theme itself undergoes significant transitional between the first two toccatas ideas in this sonata-form movement, but variation as this movement proceeds, and and the more assuredly developed its relaxed and flowing ease sets a tone Brahms rounds things off with a coda so F-sharp-Minor and C-sharp-Minor ex- that will run throughout the Sextet. This is powerful that it feels virtually symphonic. amples. Today’s E-Minor example unfolds in music that proceeds along a mellow song- —Eric Bromberger four connected sections and is unusual in fulness rather than through the collision that we get some technical flourishes in an of unrelated ideas. Brahms’s performance opening slow section (indeed, it does share markings tell the tale here: the first theme the improvisational quality of that most is marked espressivo; the second subject, famous D-Minor Toccata). for upper strings, is marked dolce and The next section is a double fugue for pianissimo; while the third, a winding idea four voices leading to yet another Adagio. for cello, is marked poco forte espressivo Here, Bach subtly fuses a fantasia style

10 2017 Program Notes Week Five prominent in Northern Germany with a mental dance, and of the eight keyboard eager would-be opera composer, but touch of Italian aria style. The final section suites he published in 1720 five contain Rameau wasted no time in completing a is a three-voice fugue replete with all the movements titled Allemande. All of the set of harpsichord pieces, some of which demands any performer could want. Allemande movements in these suites are in would be transformed into his later operas. —Greg Hettmansberger common (4/4) time, and they can all range But initially Rameau focused on the current far from their home key. The Allemande of dance forms of the day, and the courante GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL his Suite No. 5, in binary form, is built on a was certainly in fashion. (1685 – 1759) stately melody made up of a steady flow of The origins go back to the late 16th Allemande from Suite No. 5 in E Major, 16th notes. That firm progression continues century, with one description from 1589 HWV 430 (1720) throughout, moving smoothly between the remarking upon the duple meter, which performer’s hands, and is enlivened along a generation later was rarely the case. In 1720 Handel published a collection of the way by quick flashes of unexpected Eventually there were two distinct breeds eight Suites de pièces pour le clavecin keys before reaching its firm close in of the dance, one Italian, the other French. in London. It is impossible to date these E Major. The former is in a brisk triple meter and compositions exactly, and he apparently —Eric Bromberger features continuous running sequences. assembled them from pieces he had written The French believed their version more over the previous few years. In a note in JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683 – 1764) civilized—moderate in speed and usually in the published edition Handel wrote: “I have Courante from Suite in A Minor from 3/2 or 6/4 time—and many examples shift been obliged to publish some of the fol- Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin between those meters, resulting in a tem- lowing Lessons, because surreptitious and (1728) porary displacement of a three-beat unit by incorrect Copies of them had got Abroad. I a duple. Certainly Rameau is nothing if not have added several new ones to make the While it seems a safe assumption that refined, but it’s a good bet most listeners Work more usefull … ” These “Lessons,” as creative artists believe they have more are content to keep their seats and enjoy he called them, were apparently composed left to say at the time of their passing, it the rhythmic subtleties without trying to in part for the instruction of Princess Anne, is endlessly intriguing to muse upon how make their dance steps match the music. daughter of King George I and Queen disparate creators must have had some sort —Greg Hettmansberger Caroline. Easily the best-known of the eight of inner clock: Mozart, dead at the age of is the Suite No. 5 in E Major, which has be- 36, and Schubert, leaving this earth at 31. FRANÇOIS COUPERIN (1668 – 1733) come famous for its final movement, an Air Each left hundreds of works despite the L’Atalante from Douzième ordre from Pièces with five variations that has acquired the short time given them. de clavecin (Book 2) (1716) nickname “The Harmonious Blacksmith.” On Rameau, on the other hand, could not this recital, however, Mr. Barnatan performs have been more deliberate. There can be If you’ve ever wished for a little less of the only the second movement of the Suite, the little debate that he showed his talent early “great genius dies tragically young” refrain Allemande. (both his father and brother probably gave so familiar to most music lovers, spend An allemande is a 16th-century dance him his first organ lessons), but there is no a little time considering the incredibly of German origin—that title is derived from evidence that he wrote anything of import productive and rewarded life and career of the French word for Germany, Allemagne. in his early life. Indeed, his wife averred François Couperin. His father was an organ- It began as a lively dance in duple time, that she knew next to nothing about her ist at St. Gervais in Paris, and although he but over the centuries it evolved far from husband’s early life. Apparently there was lost his father at the age of 10, François’s its origins. It was set in different meters, little to know. Rameau spent years study- talent was already so obvious that the developed rather than simply repeating ing theory and harmony, and as for original authority at Gervais decreed that, upon its material, and evolved harmonically, compositions, there was only a relatively reaching his 18th birthday, François would sometimes contrasting phrases in different scant number of motets and cantatas and officially assume his father’s position. keys. Eventually the allemande became the two volumes of harpsichord music. Not a bad way to launch a career, but standard first movement of the instrumen- But when Rameau moved to Paris in the Couperin was just warming up: in 1693 he tal suite (allemande-courante-sarabande- early 1720s he felt he had everything in was appointed court organist to Louis XIV. gigue). In the 18th century it became a place to take his career to an entirely new From then on his life was full of perform- triple-time dance in Germany, Austria, level. In what may be the most famous let- ing, teaching, and composing. While he and Switzerland, where it was known as ter never answered, Rameau wrote in 1727 may have felt constrained at times by the the Deutsche, or “German dance.” Mozart, to the famous librettist Antoine Houdar de king’s relatively conservative tastes (a large Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert all wrote la Motte, laying out his case as a composer part of his duties consisted in composing Deutsche, and this form of the ancient al- ready to write great operas. Alluding to his religious music for the court), Couperin lemande would evolve once again into the lack of finished work, he spoke of his belief flourished…and bided his time. When the ländler and the waltz. The term survives that one should “study nature before paint- king died, Couperin found greater oppor- in American popular culture as a square- ing it,” but he also cited his harpsichord tunities in both form and style and soon dancing term: “Allemande right with the pieces of 1724 as worthy examples of his increased his output of harpsichord music. old left hand.” ability to portray emotion. Ultimately 235 pieces for keyboard were Handel, of course, knew it as an instru- De la Motte did not respond to the collected by Couperin and published in four

11 2017 Program Notes Week Five books totaling 27 “orders” or suites. The come up with anyone at all, there’s no way it was introduced to Paris and environs first book, published in 1713, seems little that that composer could have matched his around 1630 by the dance master Rigaud. more than a grouping of pieces by their achievement for great keyboard writing and In the end, when we pit these “what’s in tonality. The second book is attributed to equally compelling instrumental versions. a name” exercises against a miniature 1716, although there is less clear documen- Of course, his greatest achievement in the masterpiece à la Ravel, the bottom line is tation for this set than the others. More area of orchestration came courtesy of sheer delight. interestingly, it is here that we find a more another man’s work: Mussorgsky’s unique Ravel’s Rigaudon is in 2/4 time and in adventurous Couperin—indeed, the com- suite Pictures at an Exhibition. This is a the key of C Major. When criticized for poser who would revolutionize music for piece that cried out to be orchestrated—and the relatively light nature of the Suite’s the harpsichord. indeed, more than two dozen composers movements, Ravel is said to have replied, Many great composers following have, including pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy “The dead are sad enough in their eter- Couperin’s death had a far keener sense of in the early 1980s. nal silence.” While each of the other five his importance than the general public. Of Of course, in today’s concert we have an movements of Le tombeau de Couperin was course, we think first of Ravel with hisLe excerpt from Ravel’s original six-movement dedicated to a single friend, the Rigaudon tombeau de Couperin, but J.S. Bach copied suite for piano Le tombeau de Couperin, was dedicated to the brothers Pierre and one work completely for his Anna Magdale- begging the question of what the above Pascal Gaudin, who had been childhood na Notebook, and Berlioz and Milhaud both has to do with the re-imagining of instru- friends of the composer and died together transcribed some of Couperin’s harpsichord mental colors. Originally, in 1914 Ravel from a single shell in November 1914. music for orchestra. As for why audiences toyed with the idea of an homage to his —Greg Hettmansberger were far behind in their admiration of country’s great Baroque era predecessor the French Baroque master, the answer François Couperin, whose contributions THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971) lies largely in the fact that the works do to harpsichord literature were bountiful, Blanca Variations, for solo piano (2015) not translate well from the harpsichord, to say the least. Ravel planned to adopt whether on piano or in instrumental ver- some of the forms of Couperin’s time and English composer Thomas Adès was asked sions. When the instrument began to enjoy infuse them with his own early 20th-century by the Clara Haskill International Piano its renaissance in the 20th century more and harmonies and sensibilities. The outbreak of Competition to compose a test piece for more of Couperin’s music became better World War I put the project on hold, but he its 2015 competition, which attracts young known to a wider audience. returned to it in 1917, following the death pianists from around the world. For that As for L’Atalante, it is a fine representa- of his mother and a number of friends in competition he wrote a short piece with a tion of Couperin’s penchant for naming combat. The work became a double tribute: mysterious title, Blanca Variations, and the dozens of his works—but not really letting first to the Baroque era and then each music came with the admonition that its us in on why he chose the names. From movement dedicated to a friend (or, in one title would be explained later. That set of the preface to the first book he wrote, “I case, brothers) Ravel lost in the Great War. variations was premiered on have always had a subject when composing As to whether Ravel intended and/or August 26, 2015, in Vevey, Switzerland, these pieces; different occasions have pro- succeeded in imitating the harpsichord, and was subsequently played by every vided it. Thus the titles relate to ideas that the legendary pianist Charles Rosen had contestant in the competition. have occurred to me, and I shall be forgiven no doubts. Decades before his Pulitzer The title was explained the follow- if I do not account for them.” In truth, Prize-winning book The Classical Style, ing summer when the Salzburg Festival many listeners and performers have not Rosen penned his own liner notes for an premiered Adès’s opera The Exterminating forgiven Couperin for this apparently willful Epic recording on a vinyl LP. “The sonority Angel based on Luis Buñuel’s 1962 film trait. At least in the case of L’Atalante we of the 18th century—this is what Ravel is El ángel exterminador. In the first act of know her to be a king’s daughter who could after. Ravel is perhaps the greatest orches- that opera one of the characters, Blanca run so fast that she outran every would- tral mimic in musical history. No other Delgado, the wife of a conductor, entertains be suitor, who then had to forfeit his life. composer could make an instrument sound guests at a social gathering by playing on Happily, Couperin’s inspiration sidesteps the so much like something else…For guitar ef- the piano a set of variations said to be by grim aspects of the myth and delights in a fects in the orchestra, Ravel does not even the 18th-century composer Paradis, but, in great deal of fast “running” notes. need to use pizzicato strings, let alone a fact, this music by the mythical Paradis is —Greg Hettmansberger real guitar. And in Le tombeau de Couperin the set of variations Adès had composed the attempt to reproduce the sound of a for the Haskill Competition. The theme for MAURICE RAVEL (1875 – 1937) harpsichord not only determines the rhyth- these Variations was the ancient Judeo- Rigaudon from Le tombeau de Couperin mic accents but the harmony as well.” Spanish song “Lavaba la blanca niña” (“The (1917) As for the form itself, some scholars still pale girl is washing”), a song which Adès ascribe some murkiness to the origins of has described as having “an unassuageable If you ever want to rack your brain on an the dance, but the consensus remains that harmonic structure very typical of Jewish essentially futile musical puzzle try this: the sprightly 2/4 (or 4/4) dance for couples, music of longing and bereavement.” name any significant composer—other than known for its hopping steps, may have been Though quite brief—the theme and five Ravel—who composed so much music for introduced by some sailors from Provence. variations span only about five minutes—the solo piano…and later orchestrated it. If you The name comes from the supposition that Blanca Variations are extremely difficult

12 2017 Program Notes Week Five for the performer, as any good test piece who clung to 19th-century forms even as the last movement of the Suite No. 1 in should be. Adès states his theme, marked the 20th century evolved furiously around B-flat Major from Handel’s Suites de pièces Moderato espressivo, rubato, at the very him. Yet beneath its seemingly conservative de clavecin published in London in 1733. beginning, and his rubato instruction is exterior, the Piano Sonata is one of Barber’s Handel’s theme falls symmetrically into two central to this music, which is rhythmi- most striking and audacious scores. Its four-bar phrases and naturally presents cally quite flexible. Meters often change harmonic language is based on a dizzying great opportunities for variation (Handel by the measure, phrases have little to do chromaticism, features one of Barber’s rare himself wrote five variations on it). In his with bar lines, and the pianist’s two hands uses of 12-tone sequences, and the thorny version, Brahms first states Handel’s theme sometimes seem to inhabit different worlds writing for piano requires a virtuoso of the (like Handel, Brahms titles it Aria), creates rhythmically. The theme, presented ppp on first order. Nearly 70 years after its compo- 25 variations, and then concludes with a its first appearance, has a keening quality sition, Barber’s Piano Sonata remains one tremendous fugue derived from Handel’s from its first instant, and from this simple, of the finest works for piano ever composed original theme. The variations themselves quiet presentation the five Variations pro- by an American. Horowitz himself called are extremely ingenious, and Brahms ceed through gathering complexity. Each of it “the first truly great native work in the complicates his task by composing some the Variations flows so smoothly into the form.” of them not just as variations on Handel’s next that it is sometimes difficult to deter- Barber had originally intended to con- themes but also to conform simultane- mine when a new one has begun. clude the sonata with a slow-movement ously with other music forms: Variation 6, Variation 1 embellishes the theme ornately finale, but Horowitz convinced him that it for example, is a Baroque canon, No. 19 a with softly rippling runs, Variation 2 sud- needed a brilliant conclusion. The Russian siciliana. Brahms stays in the home key of denly turns intense, Variation 3 (marked pianist may have been surprised by how B-flat Major almost exclusively; only three ravvivando: “brightening”) is written completely Barber followed his advice, for of his variations are not in that key. on three staves and extends across the the Allegro con spirito is a spiky four-voice Nearly everyone who has written about complete range of the piano, and Variation fugue of almost incandescent difficulty—so the Handel Variations has commented 4 is marked tumultuoso, molto lirico. The famous has this finale become that it is on the “orchestral texture” of the piano final Variation is the most complex of all. sometimes performed by itself as a dazzling writing and professed to hear the orches- Marked parlando, con molto espressione, virtuoso piece. Barber treats the origi- tral instruments Brahms “must” have had it is of extraordinary rhythmic complex- nal fugue theme ingeniously, sometimes in mind when he composed each varia- ity with the meter shifting by the measure presenting it slowly behind the dizzying tion. In fact, the Handel Variations have between 10/16, 7/16, and 5/16 and the pianistic foreground. At the coda Barber been orchestrated—in 1938 by the English melodic line encrusted with mordents and switches from the original 4/4 to 3/8, and composer Edmund Rubbra—and that ver- grace-notes. The music rises to a forceful the fugue subject assumes yet another sion is occasionally performed and has been climax marked fff and from that powerful form as it rushes to the breathtaking close recorded. Comparison of the two versions height gradually falls away to the near- of what one critic called “one of the musi- inevitably reveals, however, that the music silent concluding notes, marked ppp. cally most exciting and technically bril- makes best sense on the instrument for —Eric Bromberger liant pieces of writing yet turned out by an which Brahms wrote it. American.” The Handel Variations figured promi- SAMUEL BARBER (1910 – 1981) —Eric Bromberger nently in a very unusual context. On Fugue from Piano Sonata, Op. 26 (1949) February 6, 1864, three years after this mu- JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) sic was written, Brahms and Wagner spent Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata, composed Variations & Fugue on a Theme by Handel, an evening together at the villa the latter between 1947 and 1949, is inextricably Op. 24 (1861) had rented outside Vienna. Wagner later linked with one of the greatest pianists had derisive things to say about Brahms (as of the last century, Vladimir Horowitz. Brahms was fascinated by variation form he did about virtually everyone else), but Though Barber said that he did not write throughout his life. From his early piano this evening at least proved cordial, and on the Sonata specifically for the Russian works through the magnificent passaca- that occasion Brahms played his Handel pianist, Horowitz, nevertheless, proved an glia that concludes his final symphony, he Variations for Wagner. One would expect overwhelming influence on this music. He returned continually to what was, for him, the proponent of Zukunftsmusik—“the consulted with Barber during its composi- one of the most demanding and reward- music of the future”—to have no use for tion, performed sections for the composer ing of musical forms. Among his works so ancient and constrained a form as the as he wrote them, and suggested important one finds Variations on an Original Theme, theme-and-variations, but, in fact, Wagner changes. Horowitz gave the world premiere Variations on a Hungarian Song, Variations was generous enough on this occasion to in Havana on December 9, 1949, and then on a Theme of Robert Schumann, Variations recognize what the younger composer had became the Sonata’s champion, performing on a Theme of Haydn, and Variations on a accomplished. “It shows what can still be it more than 20 times that season alone. He Theme of Paganini (two sets). The Varia- done with the old forms by somebody who also made the first recording on one of the tions & Fugue on a Theme of Handel, one of knows how to handle them,” he said. earliest LPs ever issued. Brahms’s finest sets, was written in Ham- —Eric Bromberger The popular conception of Barber is that burg in 1861 when the composer was 28. he was an extremely conservative composer Brahms chose the original theme from

13 2017 Program Notes Week Five Thursday, August 17, 6 pm is instead in 3/4, and Rachmaninoff sets ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921 – 1992) much of the writing—for both pianos—very Primavera porteña (1970); Oblivion SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873 – 1943) high in their registers so that his movement (1984-87); Libertango (1974) (arr. for piano Suite No. 1 (Fantaisie-Tableaux) for Two often has a delicate, ringing sonority. At the four-hands by Anderson & Roe) Pianos, Op. 5 (1893) opening, the second piano leads the way thematically as the first accompanies with Probably the majority of people who, in Young Rachmaninoff had a very good rippling arpeggios; the pianists reverse roles the last several decades, have experienced relationship with Tchaikovsky. The two for the second subject, now introduced by the resurgence of interest in the tango and met when Rachmaninoff was a teenaged the first piano. While textures can be thick, linked Astor Piazzolla’s name with that student at the Moscow Conservatory, and the mood remains restrained and gentle renaissance assume that all the pieces Tchaikovsky—more than 30 years Rach- right through the very wide concluding neatly fell into place for this Argentinian to maninoff’s senior—recognized the young chords. show the way. Yet a closer look reveals an man’s talent and encouraged his career. In Headed by a brief quotation from Byron amazing mixture of cultural and stylistic the spring of 1893 he admired the young and titled O night, O love, the second influences. man’s orchestral fantasy The Rock and movement is love music—in the score Rach- Born in Argentina, Piazzolla actually promised to conduct it on his European maninoff instructs his players several times grew up in New York where the early musi- tour scheduled for the following year. to make their performance “amoroso.” This cal influences on him ranged from Bach Anxious to show his gratitude, Rach- movement is notable for its opulent sounds. and Gershwin to Eastern European Jewish maninoff planned to compose a piece and It is full of rolled chords and trills and music and Cab Calloway. Certainly a semi- dedicate it to his mentor. That summer, the drives to a soaring climax before subsiding nal event was his meeting and subsequent 20-year-old Rachmaninoff stayed at the to a quiet conclusion. work with Carlos Gardel, regarded by some estate of an elderly couple in Kharkov, and Rachmaninoff once noted: “The sound as not just the greatest tango composer there he composed what he described as a of church bells dominated all the cities and singer of his generation, but possibly of “fantasia” for two pianos (it would later be of Russia I used to know—Novgorod, Kiev, all time. formally titled a “Suite”). Early in June he Moscow. They accompanied every Russian A return to Argentina led to some stud- wrote to a friend, describing the project: from childhood to the grave, and no com- ies with Ginastera, and Piazzolla eventually “At present I am busy with a fantasy for poser could escape their influence . . . All made his way to Paris where he studied two pianos, representing a series of musi- my life I have taken pleasure in the differ- with the incomparable Nadia Boulanger. cal pictures.” He gave each movement an ing moods and music of gladly chiming or True to form, she encouraged him to evocative title and headed each with a brief mournfully tolling bells . . .” The two final develop a unique style that drew on tango, quotation of poetry by Lermontov, Byron, movements of the Suite incorporate bell Baroque, klezmer, and avant-garde charac- and others. sounds. Rachmaninoff said that the third teristics. Rachmaninoff dedicated the Suite to movement, titled Tears, had been inspired Primavera porteña is from a set of four Tchaikovsky and brought the manuscript by the ringing of a bell during a funeral at pieces that describe Buenos Aires during back to Moscow with him at the end of the the Novgorod Monastery. This melancholy the four seasons of the year (this one being summer, intending to give its formal pre- music moves along steady rhythms and in Spring). From a technical point of view, miere that fall in the presence of the older its closing moments becomes a dark funeral Piazzolla spins a series of minor seconds composer. And then came disaster. On procession that marches to a cadence (the closest intervals separating two November 6, only nine days after con- marked triple piano. pitches) over a “walking bass” based on the ducting the premiere of his “Pathétique” The final movement, which has been Phrygian mode (an ancient Greek scale of a Symphony, Tchaikovsky died suddenly in St. variously titled either Holy Night or Easter, decidedly minor cast). Perhaps we are more Petersburg at age 53. Devastated, young is dominated by the sound of ringing bells, likely to put aside the musical microscope Rachmaninoff pressed on with the premiere but here those bell-sounds are massive: and agree with the author Jorge Luis on November 30, performing the Suite Rachmaninoff marks this movement Allegro Borges who simply described it as “a way of with Paul Pabst, a professor of piano at the maestoso, and at one point he calls for a walking through life.” Moscow Conservatory. Pabst, who had been dynamic of quadruple forte. Bells—both Oblivion, originally written for oboe, a student of Liszt, was described by a con- very high and very low—ring dramatically shares one trademark with much of Piaz- temporary as “huge, heavy, Teutonic, with throughout this movement, and gradu- zolla’s music: a lyricism both cool and the face of a bulldog (though his figure ally the old Russian Easter hymn “Christ gentle and a sensibility that can slip with provoked fear, he was actually the kindliest is Risen” can be heard through their busy equal ease into the concert hall and popu- of men!).” texture. lar venues. Such a perspective brings to Rachmaninoff described the movements —Eric Bromberger mind composer John Adams’s quote about of the Suite as “musical pictures,” but this Piazzolla: “For him, composing and per- is not “pictorial” music, and listeners should forming were inextricably woven together. not search for musical scene-painting here. One thinks of Bach and Duke Ellington for Take those titles merely as a suggestion of models of a creative musician who saw mood. The opening Barcarolle is not in the little or no separation between improvising, 6/8 meter we expect from that form, but composing, and performing.”

14 2017 Program Notes Week Five Libertango has reputedly been covered his homeland. Gradually the idea evolved of win the hand of a comatose princess. But or arranged by other artists more than 500 a kind of theater piece for small forces that his salvation is only temporary; when he times. The composer described it as “a kind might travel from town to town. returns to his homeland his soul is forfeit to of song to freedom.” The Anderson & Roe Stravinsky turned to the fairytale-like the Devil forever. Piano Duo have described it, along with stories of Alexander Afanasiev (1826 – The musical highlights are numerous tonight’s other arrangements, like this: “In 1871) and selected one that presents a vivid and often unexpected. When the soldier transcribing Piazzolla’s irresistible melodies variation of the man-sells-soul-to-gain- realizes he has lost all the true riches of for four hands at one piano we aimed to the-world theme. Stravinsky translated it a simple life the starkness of the com- emulate the physical choreography of tan- line by line, and Ramuz began developing bined timbres of the clarinet and bassoon go dancers, the sonic textures of a tango the text. The instrumental ensemble of is haunting. In “The Royal March” we get band, and, most importantly, the emotional seven players might seem to function as a Stravinsky’s re-imagining of a “paso doble” spirit of the tango. Within all three of miniature orchestra, with a pair from each he heard in Seville. For many listeners these tangos—the spicy and sassy Prima- family representing a wide range of pitch there is nothing quite like the Three Dances vera, the smoky, sultry Oblivion, and the (plus a varied percussion section for one (Tango—Waltz—Ragtime) that bring the raw and risqué Libertango—we incorporate player). Yet Stravinsky was thinking along princess back to life. (Again, it is instructive extended piano techniques as a metaphor even more specific lines that coincided with to recall that Stravinsky had never actually for the tango’s forays into forbidden terri- a new discovery that he had seen in print heard ragtime!). tory. Four-hand playing already hints at an but never heard—jazz. He describes this The whirlwind finale begins with the intrinsic eroticism, but in these tangos we in some detail as quoted in Robert Craft’s Devil making the Soldier dance to the dare to raise the heat and intensity to an- book Expositions and Developments. fiddle, but one by one the instruments drop other level: we boldly invade one another’s “The shoestring economics of the origi- out until only the hollow pounding of the personal space, while also exploring regions nal Histoire production kept me to a hand- percussion punctuates the final tragedy. of the piano that typically remain unseen. ful of instruments, but this confinement did One of the lines from just before the fateful The effect is at once sensual, visceral, and not act as a limitation as my musical ideas crossing back across the border echoes for highly dramatic.” were already directed toward a solo-instru- the listener who understands Stravinsky’s —Greg Hettmansberger mental style. My choice of instruments was personal plight in 1917: “You have no right influenced by a very important event in my to share what you are with what you were.” IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882 – 1971) life at that time, the discovery of American —Greg Hettmansberger L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) jazz…. The Histoire ensemble resembles (1918) the jazz band in that each instrumen- tal category—strings, woodwinds, brass, Musical Europe was still reeling from the percussion—is represented by both treble 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s seminal ballet and bass components. The instruments The Rite of Spring when all of Europe—and themselves are jazz legitimates, too, except beyond—began shaking with the cataclysm the bassoon, which is my substitution for that was World War I. The brash, young the saxophone… The percussion part must modernist had piled up one triumph after also be considered as a manifestation of my another starting with The Firebird, then Pe- enthusiasm for jazz. I purchased the instru- trouchka, and finally the riot-inducingRite . ments from a music shop in Lausanne, But the war forced Stravinsky into exile in learning to play them myself as I com- Switzerland—albeit a familiar and com- posed… My knowledge of jazz was derived fortable place. He had been spending his exclusively from copies of sheet music, and summers there since 1910, and initially the as I had never actually heard any of the circumstances gave him the opportunity music performed, I borrowed its rhythmic to deepen his friendships and professional style not as played, but as written. I could relationships with the conductor Ernest imagine jazz sound, however, or so I liked Ansermet and the poet Charles-Ferdinand to think. Jazz meant, in any case, a wholly Ramuz. new sound in my music, and Histoire marks The largest work produced during that my final break with the Russian orchestral period was the hybrid choral/ballet school in which I had been fostered.” Les Noces. Finished in a vocal score by the In outline, the events of the story are spring of 1917, Stravinsky saw no point simple: A soldier unwittingly sells his violin in working out the orchestration since it to the Devil for a book that foretells stock was impossible to know when and where prices, and though he soon grows wealthy, there might be an orchestra to tackle it. he realizes that he has lost everything of His royalties were drying up, and the onset true value. He travels to a foreign land and, of the Russian Revolution presaged the by losing all his material wealth back to the unlikelihood that he would ever return to Devil, gains the opportunity to revive and

15 2017 Program Notes Week Five Saturday, August 19, 6 pm Leipzig. The opening Allegro became the ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678 – 1741) Sinfonia of his Cantata No. 146 (“Wir müs- Oboe Concerto in C Major, RV 447 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH sen durch viel Trübsal”) composed in 1728, (date unknown) (1685 – 1750) and the central slow movement became the Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052 opening chorus of the same cantata. The Vivaldi was one of the most famous com- (1738) Allegro finale became the Sinfonia of the posers of his era. His music was performed Cantata 188 (“Ich habe mein Zuversicht”), and published throughout Europe, and his In April 1729, shortly after leading perfor- also of 1728. ideas about concerto form influenced many mances of his monumental St. Matthew In its final form Bach would have composers, including Bach. Vivaldi himself Passion, Bach made a significant change in thought of this as a clavier concerto—a was a brilliant violinist, and he claimed to his musical life. After six exhausting years work for such keyboard instruments as have written 90 operas. Yet for all his fame, as cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig— harpsichord or clavichord—though early in Vivaldi supported himself with a surpris- during which he had composed cantatas, the 19th century Ignaz Moscheles performed ingly prosaic day job. For nearly 40 years oratorios, and passions for religious obser- the Concerto in D Minor on the piano in (1704-40) he was music director of the vances—Bach was named director of the London. It is often performed today on that Ospedale della Pietà, a sort of convent- Leipzig Collegium Musicum. The Collegium instrument, which has significantly more music school for illegitimate, abandoned, or Musicum corresponded somewhat to the power and flexibility than Bach’s harp- orphaned girls in Venice. The city fathers of modern university/community symphony sichord. In Bach’s day the continuo part Venice believed that teaching these girls to orchestra. It was an ensemble of student, would have been taken by a combination of play an instrument would give them a use- amateur, and professional instrumental- a keyboard and a low string instrument, but ful skill, rescue them from a life of poverty, ists who performed orchestral music and modern performances assign that line to and keep them from becoming burdens on rehearsed weekly. The orchestra gave public the orchestra’s cellos and basses. the state. It was largely for the use of the concerts on Wednesday afternoons from 4 The Allegro bursts to life with a girls of the Ospedale that Vivaldi wrote to 6 in a coffee garden called Grimmisches hard-edged ritornello that will be tossed his 450 concertos. Most of these were for Thor during the warm months and inside antiphonally between the violin sections violin, but Vivaldi also wrote a number of Zimmermann’s coffee house on Friday over the span of the movement. The piano concertos for wind instruments and string evenings from 8 to 10 during the winter. quickly makes its distinctive entrance with orchestra (the Ospedale had some distin- After six years of having to produce a a passage full of characteristic 32nd-note guished wind teachers), and among these new cantata almost every week, Bach was runs, and listeners will recognize in the are 20 concertos for oboe, string orchestra, doubtless glad to put his responsibilities for keyboard part a number of figurations and continuo. church music behind him and turn to the that suggest this music’s origin as a violin The Concerto in C Major is in the ex- quite different pleasures of secular music. concerto. Bach was no believer in virtuosity pected three-movement form that Vivaldi As director, Bach was responsible for for its own sake, but at the center of this favored, though he springs a surprise in choosing the music the Collegium Musicum movement he does write out what amounts the finale. The opening Allegro non molto performed, and he quickly discovered that to a cadenza for the soloist—a series of bursts to life with a grand flourish for the he needed new keyboard concertos, prob- brilliant runs—and provides further solo orchestra, though this ritornello theme ably for his talented sons Wilhelm Friede- passages before the movement comes to its will return only sparingly. Most of the first mann and Carl Philipp Emanuel to perform close on a firm reprise of the ritornello. The movement is given to passages for the with the orchestra. He turned to his library expressive Adagio moves to G Minor, and solo oboe, and their difficulty suggests just and recycled eight concertos he had written Bach opens with a long introduction for the how proficient the girls of the Ospedale much earlier—often for other instruments— orchestra in octaves before the soloist en- must have been. The soloist must master by arranging them as keyboard concertos ters with quite different music—disconso- lengthy sequences of swirling triplets, long for the Collegium. The Concerto in D Minor late and intricate—that is eventually taken runs, trills, and wide leaps. Vivaldi moves is one of the works Bach transcribed from up by the orchestra. The concluding Allegro to E Minor for the Larghetto; after its an earlier version, and it offers an example returns to D Minor. Its ritornello is full of stately introduction, the orchestra provides of Bach’s unbelievable ability to recycle energy, while the solo passages encompass minimal accompaniment to the oboe’s long and transform musical material. Evidence a wide range of expression—sometimes lyric lines. Rather than concluding with the suggests that in its original version this powerful, sometimes delicate. Bach brings expected Allegro movement, Vivaldi instead Concerto was for violin and may have matters to a pause with a brief Adagio casts the finale as a minuet. The orches- been written as early as Bach’s tenure as before the ritornello leaps up to thrust the tra opens the movement with the minuet organist in Weimar (1708-17) or while he movement to its animated cadence. theme, and the oboe enters to offer a series was music director in Cöthen (1717-23). —Eric Bromberger of variations on that theme. These take a Working from the keyboard transcription, variety of forms. At one point the music scholars have been able to reconstruct the moves unexpectedly into E-flat Major, original version for violin. But even before another variation is cast entirely in very he arranged that early violin concerto rapid 32nd-note runs, and the entire move- for keyboard, Bach had used all three of ment demands playing of the highest order its movements in cantatas composed in from the soloist. Vivaldi rounds things off

16 2017 Program Notes Week Five by having the orchestra recall the minuet 20 verses, but Vivaldi chose to set only 10. theme in its original form. For many music lovers, Vivaldi begins —Eric Bromberger (and often ends) with the violin concertos known as The Four Seasons, and if one ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678 – 1741) does encounter any of his sacred music it Stabat Mater for Voice, Strings & Continuo, is usually his bracing setting of the Gloria. RV 621 (1712) Indeed, RV 621 was completely forgot- ten for two centuries or more, but when Venice was an incredibly musical city even it was reintroduced in Siena in 1939 one before Antonio Vivaldi’s time (and long af- unattributed listener wrote, “although ter); thus it is all the more remarkable that Italian church music is so rich in superla- he, along with his father, should actually be tive expressions of religious feelings, there considered tourist attractions! A trav- are few works which can be compared to eler’s guide dating from 1713 flatly states: this in emotional intensity combined with “Among the best to play the violin are dignity and nobility, melodic perfection, Gian-Battista Vivaldi and his priest-son.” and skillfulness in the use of an eloquent Being 35 years old at that time, Vivaldi though simple harmony.” had, nonetheless, established a major repu- Those final words could hardly be truer: tation very quickly—and had, indeed, taken Vivaldi’s harmonic scheme consists almost holy orders in 1703. That fact, added to his entirely of alternation between F Minor and apparently flaming red hair, led to the nick- C Minor (we get a radiant burst of name “il prete rosso” (the red priest). While F Major during the final Amen). Structur- it never hurts to have a marketing hook, it ally Vivaldi puts the first two stanzas in the was, of course, of far greater importance first movement of music, and the music for that Vivaldi had also inherited his father’s movements 4-6 is identical to that of 1-3. musical talent and had learned his early Nevertheless, Vivaldi achieves a profoundly lessons well. touching setting of one of the most an- Almost immediately after becoming guished scenes ever set to music. officially clerical, Vivaldi also landed the —Greg Hettmansberger position that would become his artistic base for nearly a quarter-century. Named violin master for the girls of the Osped- ale della Pietà, he suddenly found at his disposal dozens of captive pupils, some of them extremely talented, all of them deter- minedly diligent. The Pietà was one of four such foundations in Venice that housed and educated orphaned or illegitimate girls, and music was considered an essential pillar of the young ladies’ tutelage. Vivaldi worked there with few breaks between 1703 to 1717 and again from 1735 to 1738. Even in the intervening years he was contracted by the school for more than 140 concertos. But it was during a hiatus from the Pietà that Vivaldi composed his Stabat Mater. While performing as a violinist in Brescia in 1711, he was probably commis- sioned by the Santa Maria della Pace for the work to be performed during Holy Week observances in 1712. The text is frequently attributed to Jacopone da Todi (1230 – 1306), but there are some attributions to Pope Innocent III (1161 – 1216). Regardless of authorship, the meditation of Mary’s witnessing of Christ being crucified quickly became a creative magnet for centuries of composers. The complete text consists of

17 2017 Program Notes Week Five Text by Jacopone da Todi GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1230 – 1306) or Pope Innocent III (1685 – 1759) (1161 – 1216) “Voi che udite il mio lamento” from Agrippina, HWV 6 (1709) Stabat Mater dolorosa The grieving Mother Libretto: Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani Iuxta crucem lacrimosa stood weeping beside the cross (1655 – 1710) Dum pendebat Filius. where her Son was hanging. Long before the German-born Handel took Cuius animam gementem Through her weeping soul, a six-month “leave” to London (which, of Contristatam et dolentem compassionate and grieving, course, became permanent and resulted in Pertransivit gladius. a sword passed. Water Music, Messiah, and a slew of other masterpieces), he traveled to Italy as a O quam tristis et afflicta O how sad and afflicted young man in 1706. It could be assumed, Fuit illa benedicta was that blessed Mother given the time and place, that the purpose Mater unigeniti! of the only-begotten, of the journey would be to immerse himself in, and to some degree master Italian Quae moerebat et dolebat, who mourned and grieved, opera. As it turns out this was only partly Pia Mater, dum videbat seeing and bearing the torment true or, perhaps more likely, thwarted by Nati poenas incliti. of her glorious child. circumstances. The sojourn began in Flor- ence where the budding genius became Quis est homo qui non fleret, Who is it that would not weep, acquainted with both Alessandro Scarlatti Matrem Christi si videret seeing Christ’s Mother and his nephew Domenico. In 1707 Handel In tanto supplicio? in such agony? produced his first Italian opera, albeit with little success. Quis non posset contristari, Who could not feel compassion Moving on to Rome, Handel had to Christi Matrem contemplari on beholding the Holy Mother concentrate on other areas since Papal de- Dolentem cum Filio? suffering with her Son? cree had closed all the opera houses in the city. But Handel did not lack for work: the Pro peccatis suae gentis For the sake of his peoples’ sins, Cardinals Benedetto Pamphili and Pietro Vidit Iesum in tormentis, she saw Jesus tormented, Ottoboni both employed him, the bulk of Et flagellis subditum. and subjected to whips. his output consisting of 80 cantatas along with two oratorios and various church Vidit suum dulcem natum She saw her sweet child music. It is worth noting that at this time Moriendo desolatum die desolate, there was little distinction among opera, Dum emisit spiritum. as he gave up His spirit. oratorio, and cantata—particularly inter- esting since Handel transitioned from the Eja Mater, fons amoris O Mother, fountain of love, fading popularity of Italian opera in London Me sentire vim doloris make me feel the power of sorrow, decades later to oratorio. Fac, ut tecum lugeam. that I may grieve with you. Yet his time in Rome proved critical in Handel’s development, for he was intro- Fac, ut ardeat cor meum Grant that my heart may burn duced to Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. The In amando Christum Deum in the love of Christ my God, Cardinal, impressed by the young composer, Ut sibi complaceam. that I may greatly please Him. asked him to set a new libretto, Amen. Amen. Agrippina. Grimani planned to produce it at —Translated by Hans van der Velden a family-owned theater in Venice. Handel (1937 – 2005), Founder of the project settled in the city of canals in November Ultimate Stabat Mater Website: 1709 and completed the opera in about www.stabatmater.info three weeks. We can be amazed on the Used with kind permission one hand at the speed of his work but also should recall that the recycling of materials (even occasionally from other composers) was common at that time. Indeed, Handel did recycle much of the material from the oratorios and cantatas composed in Rome (close to 90 percent), but commentators agree that the material was extensively expanded and rewritten. Grimani’s tale is based—with more his-

18 2017 Program Notes Week Five torical accuracy than was common—on the Text Annals of Tacitus and the Life of Claudius OTTONE: ERIC BROMBERGER earned his doctorate by Suetonius. Agrippina is the mother of Voi che udite il mio lamento, in American Literature at UCLA and taught Nero, and when she hears that Claudius compatite il mio dolor! for 10 years before quitting to devote has perished at sea she immediately puts a Perdo un trono, e pur lo sprezzo; himself to his first love, music. A violinist, plot in motion to secure the throne for her ma quel ben che tanto apprezzo, Bromberger writes program notes for the youthful son. At the last moment it turns ahi che perdolo è tormento Minnesota Orchestra, Washington Perform- out that the emperor’s life had been saved che disanima il mio cor. ing Arts at The Kennedy Center, San Fran- by Ottone, commander of the imperial cisco Performances, University of Chicago army. As a reward Claudius names him his You who hear my lament, Presents, La Jolla Music Society, San Diego heir, but Agrippina isn’t finished with her Take pity on me. Symphony, and many other organizations. machinations, which now turn on the fact I’m losing a throne—which means nothing He has been a pre-concert lecturer for the that Ottone loves Poppea…and so does to me; Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1999. Claudius. But to lose the most beloved one This much of the plot is revealed to set Alas! is a torment GREG HETTMANSBERGER has contributed up what is often regarded as the finest aria That is breaking my heart. criticism and features to the Los Angeles of the work from Act II. Following a rapid Times, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Daily News, series of inexplicable rejections by the Performing Arts, and the Santa Barbara other principals, Ottone begins “You who News-Press and was a staff writer for Los hear my lament.” Winton Dean, in an essay Angeles Opera, for which he has written on the opera writes, “Each [of the charac- two yearbooks. This is his 22nd season of ters] scorns [Ottone]…and goes out, leaving writing program notes for the Santa Fe him alone to supply the inner emotional Chamber Music Festival. He currently con- climax in the only accompanied recitative tributes articles to Madison Magazine and and the profoundest aria in the opera, an writes the blog WhatGregSays at appeal for sympathy addressed directly to www.whatgregsays.wordpress.com, the audience. Both the recitative and aria… co-hosts the radio program “Sacred Choral are as fine as anything in the London op- Classics,” and provides annotations for the eras, which they strikingly anticipate.” New Mexico Symphonic Chorus. The December 26, 1709 opening of Agrippina, proved the best Christmas pres- HANNELORE N. ROGERS has been the ent Handel could have asked for. It enjoyed editor of the Santa Fe Chamber Music an original run of 27 performances, and Festival’s program book for 10 years. A Handel’s biographer John Mainwaring writer/editor based in Omaha, Nebraska, wrote, “The theatre at almost every pause her current and past clients also include resounded with shouts of ‘Viva il caro Sas- the New York Philharmonic, the Hong Kong sone!’ (Long live the beloved Saxon!). They Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts were thunderstruck with the grandeur and Centre Orchestra (Canada), the National sublimity of his style for they had never Arts Centre English Theatre (Canada), known till then all the powers of harmony Handel and Haydn Society, Choral Arts and modulation so closely arranged and Philadelphia, and Omaha Chamber Music forcibly combined.” Society, among others. Prior to her work as —Greg Hettmansberger a freelancer she was the marketing director of the Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and New Mexico symphony orchestras.

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