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Bra ••>' BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS JH&I Sunday, March 30, 2003, at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS .:''< Malcolm Lowe, violin Jules Eskin, cello Haldan Martinson, violin Edwin Barker, double bass Steven Ansell, viola William R. Hudgins, clarinet with LUCY SHELTON, soprano LUDOVIC MORLOT, conductor and BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MEMBERS Elizabeth Ostling, flute Ann Hobson Pilot, harp Cathy Basrak, viola Timothy Genis, percussion Martha Babcock, cello J. William Hudgins, percussion DEAK The Ugly Duckling (Part I), for soprano and double bass LUCY SHELTON and EDWIN BARKER BERIO Folk Songs, for soprano and seven instruments 1. Black is the color (USA) 7. Ballo (Italy) 2. I wonder as I wander (USA) 8. Motettu de tristura (Sardinia) 3. Loosin yelav (Armenia) 9. Malurous qu'o uno fenno 4. Rossignolet du bois (France) (Auvergne) 5. A la femminisca (Sicily) 10. Lo fiolaire (Auvergne) 6. La donna ideale (Italy) 11. Azerbaijan love song (Azerbaijan) LUCY SHELTON, soprano Ms. OSTLING, W.R. HUDGINS, Mr. ANSELL, Mr. ESKIN; Ms. HOBSON PILOT; Mr. GENIS and J.W. HUDGINS LUDOVIC MORLOT, conductor Please note that texts are being distributed separately. INTERMISSION BRAHMS String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat, Opus 18 Allegro, ma non troppo Andante, ma moderato Scherzo: Allegro molto Rondo: Poco Allegretto e grazioso Messrs. LOWE and MARTINSON; Mr. ANSELL and Ms. BASRAK; Mr. ESKIN and Ms. BABCOCK Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, RCA, and New World records Jon Deak (b.1943) The Ugly Duckling (Part I), for soprano and double bass Jon Deak is associate principal double bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and also serves as that orchestra's Creative Education Associate. He attended Oberlin College, the Juilliard School, and the University of Illinois, and received a Fulbright scholarship to study at Santa Cecilia in Rome. His music has been performed widely by such ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago, National, Cincinnati, Seattle, New Jersey, Atlanta, and Colorado symphony orchestras, and the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as by chamber groups and soloists. His discography includes recent releases on Centaur, CRI, Innova, and Cabrillo records. Mr. Deak was recently composer- in-residence with the Col- orado Symphony under the Meet The Composer Residencies Program, working also with the Colorado Children's Chorale and Denver Public Schools. He now teaches a composi- tion class in the New York Public Schools. Deak described the origins of The Ugly Duckling in his notes for a 1981 recording of the piece: The Ugly Duckling has been heard by all kinds of audiences: black tie sophisticates, new music intellectuals, six-year-olds on Saturday mornings, and even at a home for the aged. It has been variously described as an operatic scena, as fun music for adults, and as serious music for children. When we perform it for children I notice they respond at different points in the score than adults. "NO! NO! It's not a turkey!" kids yell to us. They seem to accept the combination of a bass fiddle and a soprano as completely natural, whereas adults often don't stop laughing at the incongruity. But everyone seems to get misty-eyed when . the mother duck huskily sings to her duckling, "If only I didn't hatch you. " Sometimes the bassist will say to the audience: "The soprano has to sing all the characters in this story, but guess who gets to play the ugly duckling." People often ask me how I intend the piece to be taken, and I can only say that I like the story. I've tried to set it as simply and directly as possible—much as I perceived it as a child: perhaps a bit lightheartedly and naively, but nonetheless sincerely for that. One sweltering day in July 1980, Richard Hartsthorne and I sat down to do the text. He translated directly from the original (he happens to speak fluent Danish, among his other talents). Later, two weeks before his New York recital with the soprano Lucy Shelton, he came down to the city to stand over my desk and make sure I was busy writing notes. (I was very busy that week—my concerto for the oboe d'amore virtuoso Tom Stacy was being pre- miered by the New York Philharmonic.) Two days before the recital I managed to crank out Part I. Richard and Lucy performed it beautifully. But how to finish the story? I couldn't imagine a bass fiddle turning into a convincing swan without the aid of a string quartet. Fortunately, Mark Malkovich of the Newport Music Festival offered to commission Part II, and so Julia Lovett superbly sang that premiere with the Audubon String Quartet at New- port the following summer. Luciano Berio (b.1925) Folk Songs, for soprano and seven instruments One of the twentieth century's most fascinating artistic partnerships allied Luciano Berio, the provocative Italian avant-garde composer, with Cathy Berberian, an equally adventurous American singer who explored ethnic techniques and other methods to extend the sonic vocabulary of the human voice (the two were married between 1950 and 1966). Berio wrote experimental works for Berberian, in some manipulating her voice on tape, in others uti- lizing inventive vocal sound effects. A quite different project united them in 1964, when he provided her with a group of eleven folk songs from varied nations, supplying accompa- HKIillfl niments that teemed in pungent detail but respected the melodies' traditional origins. The journey begins with two American songs in tribute to Ms. Berberian's homeland, then shifts to the Armenia of her heritage, and goes on to encompass France (Nos. 4, 9, and 10), and Italy (6 and 7), also exploring Sicily (5) and Sardinia (8) before concluding with an Azerbaijan love song. Berio provided the following commentary: In essence, it is an anthology of folk songs. .found on old records, in old anthologies, or sung by friends, which I have reinterpreted rhythmically, metrically and harmonically. The instrumental discourse serves to suggest and comment on what seemed to me to be the expressive, i.e., cultural, roots of each song. These roots do not have to do only with the origins of the songs themselves, but also with the history of the uses that were made of them when men didn't try to destroy them and manipulate their meanings. Two of these songs ("La donna ideale" and "Ballo") are folk songs only by intention. Actually, I wrote them myself in 1947, the first on humorous lyrics by an anonymous Genovese, the second on a text by an anonymous Sicilian. —Benjamin Folkman Johannes Brahms (18334897) String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat, Opus 18 The shadow of Beethoven the symphonist loomed large over Brahms, who did not complete a first symphony of his own until 1876, when he was forty-three. Doubtless Beethoven's spectre also influenced Brahms in the realm of the string quartet. Though he began work- ing on them around 1865, the first two of his three quartets appeared only in 1873. But his first important chamber work for string ensemble appeared well before that: he worked on the first of his two sextets, Opus 18 in B-flat, in the years 1858-60, publishing it in 1862. (The second, Opus 36 in G, was published four years later.) Beethoven never wrote for this particular combination of instruments (two violins, two violas, and two cellos), which allows for an extraordinary range of contrapuntal variation and textural ingenuity on the composer's part. The presence of two cellos also allows for a particularly rich sound in the ensemble's lower range, evident from the very opening of the first movement, when the two cellos sing the main theme against the accompaniment of a single viola. When this theme returns at the recapitulation, it is made to sound quite dif- ferent, embedded within the texture over an unstable harmony. For his second movement, Brahms writes a theme-and-variations whose mood and manner may suggest the slow move- ment of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. But at the same time, this music is very much Brahms 's own. At one point the suggestion of a Bach chaconne in the cello reflects Brahms's wide-ranging and inquisitive sense of musical style. Throughout, the shape and harmonic scheme of his theme permit striking moments of Brahmsian lyricism and warmth as relief from the generally moodier tone. The scherzo's energy cannot help but suggest Beethoven; this movement is also extremely compact where the first and second are expansive. Brahms qualifies the tempo marking of his Rondo finale with the term "grazioso," a marking that appears frequently in this com- poser's music. The finale's duple meter contrasts strongly with both the opening movement and the immediately preceding scherzo. The tune is easy to follow, so the changes Brahms works upon it are readily recognized. As rondo form dictates, the theme alternates with a number of ingeniously contrasting episodes. Near the end, the use of pizzicato strings harks back to a similar effect at the end of the sextet's first movement. -Marc Mandel . GUEST ARTISTS Winner of two Walter W. Naumburg Awards—for chamber music and for solo singing—soprano Lucy Shelton enjoys an international career marked by frequent prestigious performances. Ms. Shelton is recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of today's composers. More than 100 works have been written for her, including Elliott Carter's song cycle Of Challenge and Of Love, Oliver Knussen's Whitman Settings, Joseph Schwantner's Magabunda and Sparrows, Poul Ruders's The Bells, Stephen Albert's Flower of the Mountain, and Robert Zuidam's Johanna's Lament.

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