Orchestra Series:

University Symphony Orchestra Music of Place and Identity

Tuesday, May12, 2015 at 8pm Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center Pacific Lutheran University School of Arts and Communication and The Department of Music present

Orchestra Series: University Symphony Orchestra Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, conductor

Music of Place and Identity Featuring Elizabeth Binkley, soprano

and a new work by Gregory Youtz

Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 8pm Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center

Welcome to Lagerquist Concert Hall. Please disable the audible signal on all watches, pagers and cellular phones for the duration of the performance. Use of cameras, recording equipment and all electronic devices is not permitted in the concert hall.

PROGRAM

A Lutheran Processional ...... Gregory Youtz (b. 1956) *World Premiere*

Exultate, jubilate, K. 165 ...... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Allegro Recitativo Larghetto Allegro non troppo Elizabeth Binkley, soprano

Russian Easter Overture, Op. 36 ...... Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

!Intermission"

Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (“Pathetique”) ...... Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) I. Adagio–Allegro non troppo II. Allegro con grazia III. Allegro molto vivace IV. Finale: Adagio lamentoso

Program Notes

A Lutheran Processional begins with the PLU Alma Mater and combines four famous and beloved hymns associated primarily with the Lutheran tradition with four newly-composed and original “folksongs” in the style of folk music of the four cultures in which Pacific Lutheran University maintains “Gateway” study abroad programs: Trinidad, China, Mexico and Norway. The folksong is always more noticeable at first than the hymn, with the latter gradually revealing itself more and more through orchestration.

The processional also utilizes some non-western instruments (or their playing traditions as emulated by western substitute instruments) including (in order) Javanese gongs, Trinidadian steel drums, and Chinese plucked, bowed and hammered strings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was only seventeen years old when he composed the motet Exsultate, jubilate during his stay in Milan for the production of his opera, Lucia Silla. It was written for the opera’s star castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, because of his admiration of the flexibility and accuracy of Rauzzini’s voice. The work consists essentially of two arias, one fast, one slow, separated by a recitative. Perhaps the most often heard part of the piece is the cheerful “Alleluia” that is appended to the end of the slow movement, and which brings the motet to a close. — Elizabeth Binkley Translation:

Allegro you who feared till now, Rejoice, be glad, and joyful for this lucky dawn O you blessed souls, give garlands and lilies with full right hand. Rejoice, be glad, Singing sweet songs; Larghetto In response to your singing You, o crown of virgins, Let the heavens sing forth with me. grant us peace, console our feelings, Recitativo from which our hearts sigh. The friendly day shines forth, both clouds and storms have fled now; Allegro non troppo for the righteous there has arisen an unexpected calm. Alleluia Dark night reigned everywhere [before];

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed his Russian Easter Overture in 1888, at around the same time that he composed Scherezade, and about a year after Cappricio Espagnole. These works in particular represented the composer’s best efforts to create bright, virtuosic and colorful orchestral compositions that escaped the highly chromatic influence of Wagner. For the present work he drew on elements from his native Slavic musical culture – in this case, the Russian Orthodox liturgy. It uses a number of existing themes all taken from the Obikhod, a collection of Orthodox canticles. He had a program in mind that begins with the solemn recitation of the Old Testament prophesy of the Resurrection, and gives way to the joyful, pagan atmosphere of the traditional Easter celebration.

He dedicated the score to the memory of both Alexandre Borodin and Modeste Moussorgsky, who with Rimsky- Korsakov, César Cui and Mily Blakirev, had worked to establish a distinctly Russian nationalist style.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is not counted among the special group of five Russian nationalists of which Rimsky- Korsakov was a part. He was, however, profoundly influenced by the Russian nationalist movement in more than one respect. He received his formal musical education at the newly-founded St. Petersburg Conservatory, and in fact was enrolled in its first class. He was later asked, and agreed to teach at the Moscow Conservatory, established only a few years after St. Petersburg. Early in his career as a composer he was urged by Rimsky-Korsakov to become part of the Russian nationalist movement represented by “the five.”

His relationship with this group, however, was not entirely a happy one. As a student of Anton Rubenstein in St. Petersburg, he was viewed with suspicion by the nationalist-leaning composers, and harshly criticized for some of his work. A visciously critical review by César Cui of Tchaikovsky’s graduation thesis was particularly devastating to the young composer. Like his teacher, he was disparaged for leaning too much toward European traditions and musical styles, and not being sufficiently Russian.

The sixth symphony is often connected with other important elements of the composer’s life and identity. He had frequent bouts of depression. They were no doubt fed not only by the politics of the Russian musical community, but also by the efforts he made to disguise his sexual orientation, including a sham marriage. These challenges contributed to his fondness for escaping Moscow for extended travel in Western Europe, which only encouraged his critics. Some have even gone so far as to claim that his death from cholera at the age of fifty-three may have somehow been intentional. As that story goes, the “Pathetique” symphony, with its slow and somber final movement, was his musical suicide note.

When considered along with the fourth and fifth symphonies, the sixth does seem to complete an arc characterized by darkness to the triumph over darkness, and then back to darkness. Yet the evidence provided by the composer’s correspondence and conversations reported by his associates in the last days of his life would seem to undermine this story. He expressed pride in this work. And though it was not universally received as positively as he had hoped, he seemed in good spirits only days before his death. Tchaikovsky spoke of a program for the symphony, expressed doubt as to how he would describe it, and went to his death suddenly without providing one.

Roger Bagar relates the suggestion of the composer’s friend Kashkin that it was more likely that the “the overwhelming energy of the third movement and the abysmal sorrow of the Finale” should be interpreted not as a reflection of an individual experience, but one of national or historic significance. If true, then Tchaikovsky’s early critics were surely wrong about him not feeling his “Russianess” enough. Music that reaches such heights of ecstasy, and falls to such depths of sadness could only come from a deep well of emotion.

About the Composer

Gregory Youtz has written works for orchestra, wind ensemble, choir, and chamber ensembles and several operas. He enjoys using musical ideas from his research in China and Trinidad over many years. A native Pacific Northwesterner, he has been a professor of Music Composition on the faculty at Pacific Lutheran University since 1984.

About the Soloist

Elizabeth Binkley is a Senior Vocal Performance major at Pacific Lutheran University. She has actively been involved with the opera productions at PLU since her freshman year, when she participated in the chorus of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Since then, she has sung the role of Pamina in The Magic Flute by Mozart, Mustardseed in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Alcina in Handel’s Alcina. After graduation, Ms. Binkley will continue to pursue her love of singing and will be auditioning for various performance opportunities and learning experiences.

Ms. Binkley was originally scheduled to perform with the PLUSO during the Annual Student Showcase Concert in March. Illness prevented her from doing so, but the Members of the PLUSO are pleased tonight to offer our audience the opportunity to hear this fine young artist.

About the Conductor

Jeffrey Bell-Hanson is in his thirteenth season as conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and Associate Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University, and has established himself in the Pacific Northwest as a clinician, adjudicator and conductor. He brings to the podium a dedication not only to high standards, but also to performances informed by scholarship. His continuing research in the rhetorical conventions of eighteenth-century orchestral literature enlivens his renditions of even the most contemporary works.

His thirty-three year career on the podium and as a teacher has also included faculty appointments in Kansas, Louisiana and Michigan, where he won recognition for excellence in teaching both from Michigan Technological University and the State of Michigan. In addition to his academic positions, Dr. Bell-Hanson has conducted orchestras and wind ensembles throughout the United States and in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, including the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra, the Vratza Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Bulgarica.

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University Symphony Orchestra 2014-2015 Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, Conductor

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