Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 123, 2003
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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director Designate BOSTON Bernard Haitink, Principal Guest Conductor SYMPHONY Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate ORCHESTRA 123rd Season, 2003-2004 CHAMBER MUSIC TEA V Friday, April 2, at 2:30 COMMUNITY CONCERT VI Sunday, April 4, at 3, at the Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem This concert is made available free to the public through the generosity of State Street Corporation. THOMAS ROLFS and BENJAMIN WRIGHT, trumpets JONATHAN MENKIS, horn DOUGLAS YEO, bass trombone KREBS Prelude and Fugue in D minor (previously attributed to J.S. Bach) JOSQUIN DES PRES Royal Fanfare DES PRES Absalon, fili mi FRANCOIS COUPERIN La Tromba ANTON BRUCKNER Locus iste (Motet) PAUL HINDEMITH "Morgenmusik" from Ploner Musiktag Mafiig bewegt [Moderatol Langsame Viertel [Slow quarter-note] Bewegt [With movement] GIOVANNI GABRIELI Canzona per sonare No. 1 (La Spiritata) Canzona per sonare No. 2 WILHELM RAMSOE Quartet No. 5 Allegro moderato Andante quasi allegretto Scherzo Finale Week 21 Notes Over the centuries, the brass instruments have only gradually become part of the larger musical ensemble that we know as the orchestra, and only more recently did com- posers actually write chamber music for them. The trumpet, of course, was tradition- ally connected with military fanfares, the horn with hunting. The trombone had two very opposite connotations. In church, used largely to reinforce the choir, it took on a strongly religious character; at the same time composers liked to employ it in the opera house to depict scenes in the underworld. JOHANN TOBIAS KREBS (1690-1762) was a Weimar organist and composer who for a while, in the 1710s, took lessons from J.S. Bach. He was also one of J.S. Bach's copyists during this period, as was his eldest son, JOHANN LUDWIG KREBS (1713-1780). Both, but in particular the younger—whose music is now far better known—were close col- leagues of Bach for many years. Many of Bach's works are known from copies in the handwriting of these two men, which is likely why this D minor Prelude and Fugue, now attributed to one or the other Krebs (we don't know which), were originally attributed to Bach himself. For years this music was listed in the standard catalogue of Bach's works as BWV 554; more recently it seems to have been stripped of its BWV number. The career of JOSQUIN DES PREZ (c.1455-1521) took him from his native region of Hainault (in what is now Belgium; his birthplace, like his age, is subject to speculation) to service in the papal chapel and also the court of Ascanio Sforza by the 1590s. Following Louis XII's invasion of Italy in 1499 and the fall of the Sforzas in Milan, he likely returned to France in service to the king for some years before again being lured to Italy, this time as maestro di cappella at the court of Ercole d'Este in Ferrara in 1503. From 1504 he was back in Hainault, in Conde-sur-1'Escaut, where he was provost of the collegiate church of Notre Dame until his death seventeen years later. One of the most significant composers of the Renaissance, Josquin apparently enjoyed a high reputation during his own life- time, to judge by the number of publications of his works. His oeuvre, entirely vocal music, consists of numerous sacred motets (the most prevalent genre of the day), several masses, and many secular works. Josquin is supposed to have written the "Royal Fan- fare" Vive le roy for King Louis XII using a technique called "soggetto cavato" (literally "carved subject"), in which the letters of a name or phrase are associated with their coun- terparts in a contemporary system of solfege syllables. In the phrase "Vive le roy," each vowel takes its own pitch, and the v's of "vive" correspond to "ut," or our "do." We have no specific date for the motet Absalon, fili mi ("Absalom, my son"); there is also some question of its authorship, with one scholar attributing the work to Pierre de la Rue. FRANCOIS COUPERIN (1668-1733) was the most important French composer of his generation, working in the middle Baroque period. He was the son of another important composer and organist, Charles Couperin; his uncle Louis was also a notable musician. Francois's father died when Francois was only ten, and after a period of apprenticeship he assumed, at age eighteen, his father's post as organist at St. Gervais in Paris. In 1693 he also became one of the four organists in the court of Louis XIV; by this time he had also published his first organ works and was a famous harpsichord teacher. As a com- poser, Couperin provided music for the king's court, including instrumental secular music as well as vocal music for the court chapel. He was the premier harpsichordist of his time, in 1717 taking up the post of king's harpsichordist. The most important French composer of the day for the instrument, he published four major books of harp- sichord music between 1713 and 1730. Along with many sacred and secular vocal works there is also a great deal of chamber music, including the Concerts royaux and its follow- up, Nouveau concerts (1722 and 1724, respectively), which in total comprise fourteen groups of pieces for various instruments. "La Tromba" ("The Trumpet") is the fourth and final movement of the Dixieme concert in A minor for strings, winds, and continuo. As grouped on this program with the two works by Josquin, La Tromba forms the final "movement" of a satisfying fast-slow-fast arch. ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-96), the great symphonist, was also an organist and ardent contrapuntalist. His work as a cathedral organist in Linz, Austria, along with his love of choral music, led him to compose numerous sacred works for accompanied and a cappella choirs, including several masses, psalm settings, and motets. Having taken up the Linz position in 1855, he remained there for thirteen years, leaving only in 1868 to take a prominent post as professor of counterpoint at the Vienna Conservatory, though he still kept in touch with his former life. He wrote the gradual Locus iste (originally for a cappella mixed chorus) for the dedication of the votive chapel in Linz's new cathedral in 1869 (several years before completing his Symphony No. 2). No composer of the twentieth century was more deeply committed to the proposition that musical performance was for everyone, not just for the professional, than PAUL HINDEMITH (1895-1963). A substantial part of his musical output consists of pieces specifically composed for the enjoyment of the performers themselves, amateur musi- cians of varying levels of skill. He called this aspect of his work simply "music for singing and playing." His Music-Day at Plon ("Plotter Musiktag" in the original German) was a 1932 composition consisting of four separate sections for different combinations of instru- mentalists or singers. The "day" as a whole begins with "Morning Music" for brass ensemble, continues with "Table Music" for mixed winds and strings, a Cantata "Admon- ishing the Young to be Industrious with their Music" for an ensemble including children's chorus, soloist, speaker, and orchestra, and closes with an "Evening Concert" of six differ- ent pieces for different orchestral combinations. The "Morning Music," designed to get everything off to a bright start, consists of three movements that run, altogether, less than five minutes and provide pleasure to player and listener alike. For the quarter-century before his death, GIOVANNI GABRIELI (c.1555-1612) was the leading musical figure of Venice and one of the most influential musicians in Europe. His work is the highpoint of Venetian Renaissance music, an art of color and richness and brilliance, created to celebrate God and the Venetian state, "la Serenissima" ("the most serene [republic]"), as it was universally called. Himself the pupil of his uncle, the great Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni was one of the most influential teachers of his time (his greatest pupil was Heinrich Schiitz). In 1585 he won the coveted post of "first organist" at St. Mark's, which he held until his death, turning out both vocal and instrumental music of great energy and variety. His canzoni are instrumental equivalents of a popular vocal form, the chanson, and are among the most important examples of independent Renaissance instrumental music. WILHELM RAMSOE—violinist, composer, conductor—was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on February 7, 1837, and died in Roskilde, Denmark, on April 17, 1895. He showed great talent for the violin as a youth, and was giving solo performances on that instrument by fourteen. From 1851 to 1854 he was employed as an orchestral violinist while studying music theory, counterpoint, and composition. In 1857 he became music director of the Alhambra, an amusement park in Copenhagen that was then more pop- ular than the famous Tivoli park. The Alhambra had both a theater and a concert hall, offering a wide range of possibilities for Ramsoe to hear performances of his own music. His orchestra contained some superb brass players, and he wrote many pieces especially for them, including many of the brass ensemble works by which he is best-known today. He later conducted at the Folketeateret, one of the largest theaters in Copenhagen, then, at thirty-seven, moved to Russia, where he became conductor of the Royal Italian Opera Orchestra in St. Petersburg and later of the Imperial French Theater. He spent seventeen years in Russia, returning to Denmark not long before his own death. Ramsoe's works for brass ensemble are almost all quartets; only late in his career did he include the French horn (which traditionally played in woodwind quintets, as it still does) in his ensemble, making it the standard brass quintet of today.