UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA KENNETH KIESLER & ADRIAN SLYWOTZKY, CONDUCTORS Wednesday, March 31, 2021 Hill Auditorium 8:00 PM An American Fanfare (1985) Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) Adrian Slywotzky, conductor Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Adrian Slywotzky, conductor Ballade, op. 33 (1898) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) Intermission Variaciones Concertantes, op. 23 (1953) Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) Academic Festival Overture, op. 80 (1881) Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) THe use of all cameras and recording devices is strictly prohibited. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers or set ringers to silent mode. HAILSTORK, AN AMERICAN FANFARE Adolphus Hailstork is an American composer and educator. Born in Rochester, New York and raised in Albany, he grew up studying violin, piano, organ, and voice. Currently residing in Virginia Beach, Dr. Hailstork is Professor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University. Hailstork studied composition at Howard University, one of the foremost Historically Black Colleges and Universities, with Mark Fax and Warner Lawson. This was followed by study in France with Nadia Boulanger, at the Manhattan School of Music with David Diamond and Vittoria Giannini, and at Michigan State University for his doctoral studies with H. Owen Reed. Prior to his tenure at Old Dominion University, Dr. Hailstork taught at Michigan State University, Youngstown State University, and Norfolk State University. An American Fanfare was written in 1985 as a contest entry when an art gallery in Richmond commissioned a fanfare to celebrate its opening. The first public performance was given in January 1991 by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Scored for brass and percussion, the piece is based upon a stately, unison theme first heard in the trumpets. The theme is recontextu- alized and transformed by the ensemble, until eventually the trumpets emerge once again, triumphantly. Note by Robby Meese STRAVINSKY, SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS With Claude Debussy’s passing in 1918, Stravinsky lost a friend, mentor, and respected col- league. Debussy, a modernist trailblazer, was a profound influence on the young Stravinsky, who had encountered Debussy’s music as a student in St. Petersburg against the recommen- dation of his teacher and primary influence, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Debussy was equally enthusiastic about Stravinsky: after the Parisian premiere of Petrushka, he wrote to Stravinksy personally to extol the work’s “sonorous magic.” Debussy even joined Stravinsky for a private piano reading of an early draft of THe Rite of Spring, which he later wrote haunted him for months “like a beautiful nightmare.” It is fitting, then, that Stravinsky memorialized Debussy’s passing with a composition, the piece which became the Symphonies of Wind Instruments. The earliest sketches of the work date from July 1919, with the majority of the piece composed between July and November of the following year. A piano arrangement of the final cho- rale, titled Fragment des Symphonies pour instruments à vent à la mémoire de C.A. Debussy, was printed in a December 1920 collection of pieces by leading composers in memory of Debussy called Tombeau de Claude Debussy. This collection was published by the new music journal La Revue musicale. The complete piece, in its full orchestration for 24 winds, was first performed at Queen’s Hall in London on June 10, 1921, conducted by Serge Koussevitsky. The piece came into being during Stravinsky’s first endeavours in neoclassicism, during which he repurposed and transformed classical musical forms. His first major foray into this are- na was in the previous year with his ballet Pulcinella. With the title of his Debussy tribute, Stravinsky meant “symphony” not in the formal sense, but in the word’s Greek etymology, meaning “sounding together.” The plural “symphonies” is meant to suggest the work’s inter- nal multiplicity and discontinuity, rather than fitting firmly into a traditional musical form. The piece juxtaposes discrete, contrasting sections that are linked by three distinct but related tempi. Stravinsky described the piece as both “a grand chant, an objective cry” and “an austere ritual which is unfolded in terms of short litanies.” Stravinsky’s reference to “ritual” is equally telling; as Malcolm McDonald notes, the work is an instrumental liturgy, with the concluding chorale bringing the service to finality, akin to the role of a Byzantine Alleluia. As in his other neoclassical pieces, however, Stravinsky drew on Russian folk music for thematic material. In this sense, the piece marks a transition point between what is commonly thought of as Stravin- sky’s “Russian period” and his subsequent “neoclassical period.” Note by Leonard Bopp COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, BALLADE, OP. 33 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in Croydon, England in 1875, and his talent was quickly recognized by the British musical elite. One of his principal composition teachers was Charles Villiers Stanford. At the suggestion of Edward Elgar, Coleridge-Taylor was commissioned to write a piece for a festival in 1898. The resultingBallade in A Minor, op. 33 was a tremendous success. A subsequent trilogy based on the story of Hiawatha, written from 1898 to 1900, secured his fame for the remainder of his life. The A minor tonality of Coleridge-Taylor’s Symphony, op. 8 (1896) is perhaps a premoni- tion of the Ballade, the work that afforded him an invaluable opportunity just two years later. Both compositions demonstrate the composer’s facility for lyrically expansive and mellifluous melody, assurance in the handling of tonality, large-scale canvases, and expert scoring. Though the spirit of the Ballade is largely that of a Scherzo, the central focus of the work is essentially the highly lyrical and extended second subject in the relative major. The Ballade, along with his other earlier works, shows the influence of Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, and seems to reflect specifically the dramatic world of Tchaikovsky’s fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet. TheMusical Times reported that the Ballade had been remarkably successful. Coleridge-Taylor conducted the work himself at the Shire Hall in Gloucester, after the orchestra had given him a standing ovation at rehearsal. The review in the Daily Graphic said: “The work occupies barely a quarter of an hour in performance, but it is long since a Festival novelty has provided fifteen minutes packed so full of excitement and charm. In its alterations of barbaric gaiety with lan- guid swaying melody, in its wayward rhythms and strange exotic harmonies, this remarkable work provokes comparisons with the best work of the Bohemian school, and emerges with credit from the ordeal of comparison.” Note by Aleksandr Polyakov GINASTERA, VARIACIONES CONCERTANTES, OP. 23 Alberto Ginastera wrote Variaciones Concertantes during a tumultuous time in his life. Only a year before, he had been forced to resign as director of the conservatory in Buenos Aires as a result of conflicts with the Perón government. Without the conservatory job, Ginastera relied on commissions and film scoring contracts to make a living. Despite his struggle, this period yielded some of Ginastera’s most celebrated works. Ginastera’s compositional output can be divided into three distinct styles: objective nationalism, subjective nationalism, and neo-expressionism. A proud Argentinian, Ginastera often incorporated traditional melodies, harmonies, and rhythms from his culture, as evident in his early compositions. Variaciones Concertantes was written at the height of his middle period, at which time he was moving away from direct quotations of folk music. Rather, he began to depict more of the general sound world of Argentinian music. The piece opens with an ascending harp arpeggio on the pitches E-A-D-G-B-E. These notes mimic the open strings of a guitar, referencing the Gauche- sco tradition, whose nomadic lifestyle requires them to play easily transportable instruments such as the guitar. Ginastera uses these pitches not only as a melody, but also as the basis of the large-scale harmonic structure of the entire piece. Variaciones Concertantes is a set of continuous variations, each one featuring solo instruments within the orchestra, a “concerto for orchestra” of sorts. The piano theme, played by a solo cello with harp accompaniment, fades into a short interlude featuring only the strings. A sudden in- terruption by the winds kickstarts the chromatic and energetic flute variation, which connects directly to the playful clarinet variation. The next section opens with a solo viola, accompanied by eerie winding string melodies, leading to a series of recitative-like interjections by the solo- ist. A songful canon between the oboe and bassoon is then followed by a heavily syncopated variation featuring the trumpet and trombone. An increase of energy overflows into a relentless stream of eighth notes, played by the solo violin. The ensuing horn variation presents a melan- choly contrast, and is followed by a short wind interlude, leading to an abridged restatement of the opening cello theme, this time played by a solo double bass. The final variation, featuring the full orchestra, is full of rhythmic drive and surprising harmonic changes. The juxtaposition of 6/8 and 3/4 time (hemiola) is a hallmark of Latin American and Spanish music, inviting the listener to tap their foot, or even get up and dance! Note by Christopher Gaudreault BRAHMS, ACADEMIC FESTIVAL OVERTURE, OP. 80 Composed in the summer of 1880, the Academic Festival Overture was a “thank you” to the University of Breslau, which had awarded Brahms an honorary doctorate. The work is made up of what Brahms called a “boisterous potpourri of student drinking songs a la [Franz von] Suppe”, as he wrote in a letter to the critic Max Kalbeck. The carefully crafted blend of orches- tral colors and masterful counterpoint appears loose and episodic, thus drawing on the term “academic” for both his sources and their treatment. Brahms’s orchestrational devices highlight the comedic and nostalgic nature of university, no- tably in his treatment of the “Fuchslied,” introduced by the bassoons.