Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 2014-2015 Subscription Series

March 20 and 22, 2015

JEANNETTE SORRELL, CONDUCTOR AND ANNE MARTINDALE WILLIAMS, CYNTHIA KOLEDO DEALMEIDA, OBOE DAVID T. PREMO, CELLO JEFFREY T. TURNER, CONTRABASS JENNIFER E. ROSS, JOHN B. MOORE, CONTRABASS LORNA MCGHEE, FLUTE NOAH BENDIX-BALGLEY, VIOLIN

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Sinfonia from Cantata BWV 42, “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths”

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Suite (Ouverture) No. 2 for Flute, Strings and Continuo in B minor, BWV 1067 I. Ouverture II. Rondeau III. Sarabande IV. Bourrée I and II V. Polonaise and Double VI. Menuet VII. Badinerie Ms. McGhee

ANTONIO VIVALDI for Two , Strings and Continuo in G Minor, R. 531 (P. 411) I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro Ms. Williams Mr. Premo

Intermission

WILHELM FRIEDEMANN BACH Fantasia for Harpsichord in D minor, F(alck) 19 following without pause … JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Finale (Allegro) from in D minor for Harpsichord, BWV 964 (after Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin in A minor, BWV 1003)

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GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN Grillen-Symphonie, TWV 50:1 I. Etwas lebhaft II. Tändelnd III. Presto

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Concerto for Oboe, Violin, Strings and Continuo in C minor, BWV 1060R I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegro Ms. DeAlmeida Mr. Bendix-Balgley

ANTONIO VIVALDI Concerto for Two , “La Follia” ARR. SORRELL (after the Sonata for Two Violins and Continuo in D minor, Op. 1, No. 12 [R. 63]) Ms. Ross Mr. Bendix-Balgley

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PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born 21 March 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died 28 July 1750 in

Sinfonia from Cantata No. 42, Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths (“And in the Evening of That Very Sabbath”) (1725)

PREMIERE OF WORK: Leipzig, 8 April 1725; Thomaskirche; Johann Sebastian Bach, director THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE APPROXIMATE DURATION: 7 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: two oboes, bassoon, strings and continuo

The cantata Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths (No. 42 in ’s standard catalog of Bach’s works — Bach Werke Verzeichnis), which takes as its subject Christ’s appearance in the midst of his disciples on the evening of the Resurrection, was composed in 1725 for the first Sunday after Easter, which fell on April 8th that year. The cantata is prefaced by a splendid Sinfonia whose majestic breadth, richness of scoring and expressive cogency would not have been out of place in the Brandenburg .

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Suite (Ouverture) No. 2 for Flute, Strings and Continuo in B minor, BWV 1067 (ca. 1738-1739 ?)

PREMIERE OF WORK: unknown PSO PREMIERE: 18 January 1946; Syria Mosque; Fritz Reiner, conductor; Sebastian Caratelli, soloist APPROXIMATE DURATION: 19 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: flute, strings and continuo

Though the exact date of the Orchestral Suite No. 2 is uncertain, the years during which it could have been composed circumscribe the most productive phase of Bach’s career. The set of orchestral parts in Bach’s hand that serves as the principal source for the work has been dated through the evidence of the paper’s watermark to 1738 or 1739, though this is apparently a performance copy for his Leipzig Collegium Musicum concerts that he extracted from an earlier manuscript score that is no longer extant. The eminent American musicologist Martin Bernstein conjectured that the Suite was written in the early 1730s for Pierre Gabriel Buffardin, first flutist at the court of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland in Dresden, to which Bach was then actively seeking an appointment as . It has also been suggested that the Suite may have been composed soon after Bach arrived in Leipzig in 1723, when he fitted many of his cantatas with elaborate flute parts, or even as early as the period between 1717 to 1723, when he was director of music at Cöthen. Bach had met Buffardin in 1716 in Dresden through his (Bach’s) older brother Johann Jacob, who was a student of the flutist, and it is possible that the Second Suite was composed for him sometime thereafter at Cöthen, a fertile period that also witnessed the production of the three other Orchestral Suites, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Violin Concertos and much of Bach’s . The Suite would have made the perfect vehicle for Buffardin, who was renowned for his breath control, nimble technique and limpid tone. The Suite in B minor, is an inventive hybrid of dance and concerto forms in which the wind instrument is treated as both a reinforcing tone color for the first violin and as a virtuosic soloist. The work begins with a grandiose Overture based on the type devised by Lully — a slow, pompous opening section leading without pause to a spirited fugal passage in faster tempo. The majestic character of the opening section (though not its music) returns to round out the Overture’s form. The delicate Rondeau is based on an old French form in which the opening motive is heard three times, refrain-like. When the Sarabande emigrated to Spain from its birthplace in Mexico in the 16th century, it was so wild in its

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motions and so lascivious in its implications that Cervantes ridiculed it and Philip II suppressed it. The dance became considerably more tame when it was taken over into French and English music in the 17th century, and it was included as a regular movement of the instrumental suite by Froberger around 1650, when it had achieved the dignified manner in which it was known to Bach. The Bourrée was a French folk dance adopted by the court as early as the 16th century. The Polonaise seems to have originated in connection with Polish court ceremonies, and had become a separate instrumental genre by about 1700. The Menuet was originally a quick peasant dance from southwestern France, but it became more stately by Bach’s time. The closing Badinerie, whose name derives from the same etymological root as “badinage,” is a dancing showpiece of woodwind virtuosity.

ANTONIO VIVALDI Born 4 March 1678 in Venice; died 28 July 1741 in Vienna

Concerto for Two Cellos, Strings and Continuo in G minor, R. 531 (P. 411)

PREMIERE OF WORK: unknown PSO PREMIERE: 3 March 2003; Katz Performing Arts Center; Andres Cardenes, conductor APPROXIMATE DURATION: 10 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: strings and continuo

Vivaldi obtained his first official post in September 1703 at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, one of four institutions in Venice devoted to the care of orphaned, abandoned and poor girls. As part of its training, the school devoted much effort to the musical education of its wards, and there was an elaborate organization of administrators, teachers and associates who oversaw the activities of the students. Part of his duties as violin teacher required Vivaldi to compose at least two new concertos as well as other instrumental pieces each month for the regular public concerts given by the Ospedale. The featured performers in these works were occasionally members of the faculty, but usually they were the more advanced students — the difficulty of Vivaldi’s music is ample testimony to their skill. For his students and colleagues and on commission, Vivaldi wrote some three dozen concertos for cello: 27 for solo cello, one for two cellos, three for violin and cello, two for two violins and cello, one for violin and two cellos, and two for pairs of violins and cellos. The G minor Concerto for Two Cellos follows the three-movement structure (fast–slow–fast) characteristic of the late version of the form: an opening ritornello movement in which solo passages for the tandem cellos alternate with tutti sections for the full ensemble; a melodious Largo in a plaintive mood; and a vigorous finale that here takes on an almost tempestuous quality.

WILHELM FRIEDEMANN BACH Born 22 November 1710 in Weimar; died 1 July 1784 in Berlin

Fantasia for Harpsichord in D minor, F(alck) 19 (ca. 1770)

Members of the , beginning with Johannes and Veit at the close of the 16th century, served the courts and churches of north Germany for over two centuries. Though the familial line is properly considered to have reached its apogee with Johann Sebastian (1685-1750), four of his sons, all trained by him, also became prominent musicians during the mid-18th-century transition from Baroque to Classicism. The eldest, Wilhelm Friedemann, displayed a substantial talent as both organist and composer, but he seems to have lived uncomfortably under his eminent father’s shadow, drifting through various jobs and vacillating in his works between his father’s waning idiom and the not-yet-matured Classical style. By the 1770s, when Friedemann Bach had come to realize that he could never match his father’s mastery of the most rigorous Baroque forms, he devoted himself to his career as a virtuoso performer and largely confined his creative ambitions to such improvisation-based styles as the keyboard fantasia. The Fantasia in D minor (F. 19) is made from a flurry of restless, broken chords and a slow, somber strain in sharply dotted rhythms.

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Finale (Allegro) from Sonata in D minor for Harpsichord, BWV 964 (after Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin in A minor, BWV 1003) (before 1720)

Bach composed the three and three partitas for unaccompanied violin before 1720, the date on the manuscript, while he was director of music at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, north of Leipzig. Though there is not a letter, preface, contemporary account or shred of any other documentary evidence extant to shed light on the genesis and purpose of these pieces, the technical demands they impose on the player indicate that they were intended for a virtuoso performer: Johann Georg Pisendel, a student of Vivaldi, Jean Baptiste Volumier, leader of the Dresden court orchestra, and Joseph Spiess, concertmaster of the Cöthen orchestra, have been advanced as possible candidates. At some unknown date thereafter, Bach arranged the Sonata in A minor (BWV 1003) for solo harpsichord in a version transposed to D minor. The closing Allegro, in two parts (each repeated), is a moto-perpetuo unfolding of briskly moving melodic material.

GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN Born 14 March 1681 in Magdeburg, Germany; died 25 June 1767 in Hamburg

Grillen-Symphonie (“Whimsical/Cricket Symphony”), TWV 50:1 (ca. 1765)

PREMIERE OF WORK: unknown THESE PERFORMANCES PARK THE PSO PREMIERE APPROXIMATE DURATION: 9 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, strings and continuo

Jeannette Sorrel provided the following imaginative commentary on the delightful Grillen-Symphonie in the notes for her Koch recording with Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra: “Telemann displayed an adventurous approach to instrumentation with the curious Grillen-Symphonie. A lively controversy rages as to just what Telemann meant by the title. The word ‘Grillen’ means ‘crickets’ in modern German usage, but was often used in the 18th century to mean ‘whims.’ Thus, while Telemann probably intended a ‘Whimsical Symphony,’ he may have been punning, and it is possible that we also have a ‘Cricket Symphony’ on our hands. One thing is certain: if this is a depiction of crickets, it is a pretty whimsical one. It appears that the crickets along the river Elbe may have come in a wide variety of sizes, as evoked by an orchestra ranging from piccolo all the way down to two contrabasses. The use of contrabasses in a soloistic role was certainly whimsical, and indeed, revolutionary on Telemann’s part. The extraordinary complement of winds is also quite striking for an 18th-century work. One can see the contrabasses and orchestra as Mama and Papa Cricket with their brood: the first movement is a merry family gathering; the second is a kind of flirtatious ballet of cricketettes; and the finale is a rowdy cricket- party with a bit of Polish dancing. In any case, the piece is a delightful romp through Telemann’s whimsical world, with or without insects.”

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Concerto for Oboe, Violin, Strings and Continuo in C minor, BWV 1060R (1736)

PREMIERE OF WORK: unknown PSO PREMIERE: 28 October 1955; Syria Mosque; William Steinberg, conductor; Arthur Krilov & Chaim Taub, soloists APPROXIMATE DURATION: 14 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: strings and continuo

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Bach wrote most of his violin music as part of his duties as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt- Cöthen from 1717 to 1723. The original manuscript of the C minor Concerto for Oboe and Violin (BWV 1060R) written at Cöthen is lost, but the music survived in a version from 1737 for Two (BWV 1060) that Bach made for the Leipzig Collegium Musicum he was then directing. The original was reconstructed (the “R” in the catalog listing) in 1970 for the New Bach Edition. The structure of the opening movement follows the ritornello form customary for Baroque concertos: a returning orchestral refrain separated by episodes for the soloists. This is music of austere countenance but vigorous rhythmic energy that embodies the Baroque ideal of touching sentiment allied with visceral stimulation. The lovely second movement, supported by a delicate pizzicato accompaniment in the strings, resembles an operatic duet in its flowing lyricism and thematic interchanges between the soloists. The finale returns the bracing vitality of the first movement.

ANTONIO VIVALDI

Concerto for Two Violins, “La Follia” (after Sonata for Two Violins and Basso Continuo in D minor, Op. 1, No. 12 [R. 63]) Arranged by Jeannette Sorrell

PREMIERE OF WORK: unknown THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE APPROXIMATE DURATION: 9 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: strings and continuo

In September 1703, Vivaldi was appointed violin teacher and composer at the Ospedale della Pietà, an institution in Venice which housed and educated female “orphans” (mostly bastard daughters of the city’s better classes), and was especially noted for the musical training given to its wards. (Vivaldi’s church, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, just beyond the Piazza San Marco, may still be visited, but the orphanage building itself is long gone.) To announce his creative ambitions to the wider musical world, Vivaldi chose the then-standard method for a young composer of issuing a set of twelve trio sonatas modeled on the esteemed works of the Roman master Arcangelo Corelli. (It was once conjectured that Vivaldi had gone to Rome to study with Corelli himself, but it seems more likely that he simply learned Corelli’s music from its several Venetian editions.) Vivaldi’s Op. 1 was published sometime between 1703 and 1705 by the Venetian firm of Giuseppe Sala. The last number of Vivaldi’s Op. 1 Trio Sonatas, like that of Corelli’s Op. 5, is a set of variations on the ancient harmonic pattern known as La Follia di Spagna (“The Folly of Spain”), which had served as the scaffolding for works in variation form since at least the late 15th century and was later treated by J.S. and C.P.E. Bach, Cherubini, Liszt, Nielsen, Rachmaninoff and others. Vivaldi’s work consists of the brief Follia theme (eight measures, repeated) followed by a string of nineteen variations that weave an increasingly elaborate embroidery — three times interrupted by slow-tempo insertions — around the harmonic skeleton of the subject. The work’s arrangement as a Concerto for Two Violins is by Jeannette Sorrell. — Dr. Richard E. Rodda