Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
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Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Saturday, April 18, 2015 8 p.m. 7:15 p.m. – Pre-performance discussion Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts www.quickcenter.com ~INTERMISSION~ COPLAND ................................ Two Pieces for Violin and Piano (1926) K. LEE, MCDERMOTT ANNE-MARIE MCDERMOTT, piano STRAVINSKY ................................Concertino for String Quartet (1920) DAVID SHIFRIN, clarinet AMPHION STRING QUARTET, HYUN, KRISTIN LEE, violin SOUTHORN, LIN, MARICA AMPHION STRING QUARTET KATIE HYUN, violin DAVID SOUTHORN, violin COPLAND ............................................Sextet for Clarinet, Two Violins, WEI-YANG ANDY LIN, viola Viola, Cello, and Piano (1937) MIHAI MARICA, cello Allegro vivace Lento Finale STRAVINSKY ..................................... Suite italienne for Cello and Piano SHIFRIN, HYUN, SOUTHORN, Introduzione: Allegro moderato LIN, MARICA, MCDERMOTT Serenata: Larghetto Aria: Allegro alla breve Tarantella: Vivace Please turn off cell phones, beepers, and other electronic devices. Menuetto e Finale Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited. MARICA, MCDERMOTT COPLAND ...............................Two Pieces for String Quartet (1923-28) AMPHION STRING QUARTET, HYUN, SOUTHORN, LIN, MARICA STRAVINSKY ............................Suite from Histoire du soldat for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano (1918-19) The Soldier’s March Music to Scene I Music to Scene II Tonight’s performance is sponsored, in part, by: The Royal March The Little Concert Three Dances: Tango–Waltz–Ragtime The Devil’s Dance Great Choral Triumphal March of the Devil K. LEE, SHIFRIN, MCDERMOTT Notes on the Program by DR. RICHARD E. RODDA Two Pieces for String Quartet Aaron Copland Suite italienne for Cello and Piano Born November 14, 1900 in Brooklyn, New York. Igor Stravinsky Died December 2, 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York. Born June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg. Composed in 1923 and 1928. Died April 6, 1971 in New York City. Duration: 9 minutes Composed in 1932. “In my catalogue under ‘Chamber Music,’” wrote Copland in the first Duration: 19 minutes volume of his autobiography (Copland: 1900 through 1942, with Vivian Perlis) So successful was the premiere of the Violin Concerto in D that Igor “can be found Two Pieces—Lento Molto and Rondino for String Quartet. The Stravinsky wrote for violinist Samuel Dushkin, on October 23, 1931 in Rondino was written in the spring of 1923 in Paris as an ‘Hommage à Fauré.’ Berlin, that composer and violinist received invitations to present the piece (Gabriel Fauré was Boulanger’s favorite composer, and I soon shared her all over Europe, from Florence to London to Madrid. The resulting series of admiration for him.) It was based on the letters of Fauré’s name. [The Rondino concerts made Stravinsky realize, however, that a good performance of the opens with the notes G–A–B-flat, but the derivation of thematic material from concerto demanded both a first-rate orchestra and an adequate number of the French composer’s name is difficult to follow thereafter.] Mixed with his rehearsals, circumstances that could not be taken for granted in all cities, so influence can be heard a hint of American jazz and a bit of mild polytonality.” for a subsequent tour with Dushkin he devised several recital pieces for violin For a concert in New York on May 6, 1928, Copland prefaced the Rondino with and piano that would enable them to play almost anywhere without difficulty. an original piece titled Lento Molto, which, though very different in style and The centerpiece of the tour program was the Duo Concertant of 1931-32, but to effect, was paired with the Rondino as the Two Pieces for String Quartet. While round out the concert together they arranged excerpts from some of his ballets, the Rondino is angular and nervously syncopated, the Lento molto is austere, pure including The Firebird, The Fairy’s Kiss, Petrushka, and The Nightingale. (Dushkin in harmony, and profoundly moving. After Copland sent Boulanger a copy of the extracted the violin parts from the orchestral scores; Stravinsky made the piano Lento molto, she wrote to him that “it is a masterpiece—so moving, so deep, so arrangements.) The best known of this set of transcriptions is the Suite italienne, simple.” derived from Stravinsky’s luminous score for Pulcinella, the 1920 ballet based on works of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36), a musical meteor who flashed briefly across the Italian artistic firmament during the early years of the 18th L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), Trio Version for Violin, century and created several important instrumental and operatic pieces that laid Clarinet, and Piano the foundations of the Classical style. In 1933, Stravinsky arranged the Suite Igor Stravinsky italienne for cello and piano. Composed in 1918; arranged for trio in 1919. The plot of Pulcinella was based on an 18th-century manuscript of Premiered on November 8, 1919 in Lausanne. commedia dell’arte plays discovered in Naples. Stravinsky provided the following Duration: 15 minutes synopsis: “All the local girls are in love with Pulcinella; but the young men to whom they are betrothed are mad with jealousy and plot to kill him. The After soaring to international fame in 1910 with The Firebird, Igor minute they think they have succeeded, they borrow costumes resembling Stravinsky became a citizen of the world, living in Switzerland during the Pulcinella’s to present themselves to their sweethearts in disguise. But autumn and winter months, returning to Russia for the summers, and Pulcinella—cunning fellow!—had changed places with a double, who pretends descending on Paris to oversee the productions of Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, to succumb to their blows. The real Pulcinella, disguised as a magician, now and The Nightingale. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, resuscitates his double. At the very moment when the young men, thinking however, his travel was restricted so he settled full-time in Switzerland, near they are rid of their rival, come to claim their sweethearts, Pulcinella appears Lausanne, where he remained until moving to France in 1920. Among his and arranges all the marriages. He himself weds Pimpinella, receiving the closest friends during the war was Ernest Ansermet, then conductor of the blessing of his double, who in his turn has assumed the magician’s mantle.” symphony concerts in Geneva and founder (in 1918) of the Orchestre de la Though the Suite italienne is a sort of vest-pocket version of the original ballet, it Suisse Romande in that city, who introduced him to the Swiss novelist and fully captures the wit, insouciance, and joie de vivre that place this music among poet Charles Ferdinand Ramuz late in 1915. Stravinsky invited Ramuz to help the most delicious of all Stravinsky’s creations. prepare French versions of the Russian texts for Reynard and Les Noces, and the collaboration went so well that they agreed to undertake a new collaboration in 1917. Given the difficulty of theater production during the war, they realized Two Pieces for Violin and Piano that only a small company could be assembled, perhaps one that could play Aaron Copland in almost any hall and easily tour Switzerland. Ramuz, not being a dramatist, suggested that he write a story which could be presented on stage as a kind Composed in 1926. of acted narration, something “to be read, played, and danced.” It was agreed Premiered on May 5, 1926 in Paris by violinist Samuel Dushkin and the that Stravinsky’s music would be an accompaniment to the action, arranged composer. so that it could be performed either on stage or independently in concert. For Duration: 11 minutes a subject, they settled on a story from a collection of Russian tales compiled In June 1924, Copland returned to New York from his study with Nadia by Alexander Afanasiev that concerned, according to Stravinsky, “a Soldier Boulanger in France and began to establish a reputation for himself with his who tricks the Devil into drinking too much vodka. He then gives the Devil thorny Symphony for Organ and Orchestra and the more friendly Music for a handful of shot to eat, assuring him it is caviar, and the Devil greedily the Theater. Early in 1926, Boulanger invited him back to Paris to take part in swallows it and dies.” Stravinsky and Ramuz incorporated other episodes from a concert of American music that she was planning for May under the auspices Afanasiev’s stories into their scenario, notably one that featured a “Soldier of the Société Musicale Indépendente that would include performances of who deserts and the wily Devil who infallibly comes to claim his soul.” A pieces by Virgil Thomson, Herbert Elwell, Walter Piston, George Antheil, Narrator would tell the following Soldier’s Tale while performers portraying the Theodore Chanler, and Copland. To help finance the trip, Copland agreed characters danced and mimed to Stravinsky’s music: to act as correspondent for Musical America at the International Society for A Soldier, granted ten days leave, marches home to his village. He rests Contemporary Music Festival in Zurich that summer. Before he left New York along the way, takes out his fiddle, and plays. The Devil, disguised as an old for Paris in March, Copland began his Two Pieces for Violin and Piano, an man with a butterfly net, persuades the Soldier to trade his fiddle for a magic unlikely pairing of a Nocturne and a Ukelele Serenade, and finished them the book. He invites the Soldier to spend three days with him, when he will show following month at his lodgings in the Boulevard Pasteur. Samuel Dushkin, him how to earn immense wealth from the book. Arriving at his village after then carving out a fine career on the European concert circuit, was enlisted their encounter, the Soldier discovers that not three days but three years have as violinist for the SMI premiere on May 5th; the composer was pianist.