THE COLUMBIA O R C H E S T R A 2020-2021 THE COLUMBIA O R C H E S T R A APPALACHIAN SPRING Saturday, November 21, 2020 · 7:30pm Columbia Orchestra YouTube Channel PROGRAM Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 J.S. Bach [Allegro] (1685-1750) Allegro Strum (2006, rev. 2012) Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981) Appalachian Spring (1944) Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Columbia Orchestra’s 2020-2021 season is sponsored by Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors and made possible through general operating grants from the Howard County Arts Council, Howard County Government, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Community Foundation of Howard County, the Rouse Company Foundation – and donors like you! P R O G R A M N O T E S JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) BRANDENBURG CONCERTO No. 3 in G MAJOR, BWV 1048 Composed: 1717 Premiered: Weimar, Germany, 1717 The six concerti grossi that Bach pulled from a drawer and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg appended to a job application in 1727 are certainly masterpieces, but they also show us the less attractive side of Bach’s personality, as he blatantly tried to pass them off as new works written specially for the Margrave. The Margrave saw clean through the ruse, and ignored both the application and the gift. The Margrave realized that the soloists required by the Concerti were exactly those of Bach’s existing band at Cöthen; despite Bach’s flashy French dedication offering the new works to him, this was old stuff. In the case of the Third Concerto, for strings alone, it was very old stuff, as it dated back to Bach’s time at Weimar, ten years previously. To pile on further insult to the Margrave, it isn’t even, strictly speaking, a concerto grosso. There is no real group of concertino soloists set off against a larger ripieno section; in effect, everybody is a soloist in what is really an extended sinfonia rather than a true concerto. The second movement, on the page, is all of two measures long—a short cadence, intended for the first violinist to improvise a cadenza over while everyone else prepares for the very difficult finale. Arguably not a concerto, arguably short a movement—but still vital, crucial Bach. The first movement (one hopes the Margrave missed this) is actually a reworking of the sinfonia of one of Bach’s cantatas, Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (“I love the Highest with all my heart”), with a rondo-like ritornello structure. The concertino/ripieno contrast of the true concerto grosso is replaced by a kaleidoscopic rotation of different groups of payers; at one time or another, they are all soloists, a technique left dormant after Bach until Stravinsky revisited it in our own time. After the mysterious two-measure Adagio (not so much a movement as a pause for breath), the players take off on another kaleidoscopic rethink of the entire grosso genre in a headlong dash of rapid passage work. Program note written by Bill Scanlan Murphy JESSIE MONTGOMERY (b. 1981) STRUM Composed: 2008 Premiered: Detroit, Michigan, 2012 Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the P R O G R A M N O T E S piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition. Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration. Composer's note written by Jessie Montgomery. AARON COPLAND (1900–1990) APPALACHIAN SPRING – Suite Composed: 1944 Premiered: Washington, DC, 1944 To say the least of it, Aaron Copland was full of surprises. John Wayne once asked to be introduced to the man who had written such fine, strong, all-American music—music that enshrined the spirit of the Old West—and was startled to find himself shaking the hand of an openly gay Jewish Communist from Brooklyn who spent many years very near the top of the Blacklist. Copland thought of himself as a gritty, serious composer in the Schoenbergian mode (and there is plenty of music by Copland to prove it), but he was always best known, and always will be, as the composer of a number of works in a populist, open-hearted style that for many—John Wayne included—is simply the style of modern American music. Rodeo and Billy the Kid—two ballets set in the Wild West—allowed Copland to set Hollywood’s Western musical agenda forever more, but, ironically, his politics prevented him from ever scoring a major movie. His own association with the West, incidentally, began and ended with his childhood nurse having been the niece of Pat Garrett, executioner of Billy the Kid. Copland had similarly little linking him personally with the rural expanses of the Eastern states; this partly explains the weird conundrum of the title of Appalachian Spring, which was known throughout its gestation simply as Ballet for Martha. “Martha” was the choreographer Martha Graham, who commissioned the music. She gave Copland a vague outline of a story—little more than the courtship of a rural couple, taking place nowhere in particular. It was Martha Graham herself who suggested calling the piece Appalachian Spring, after a line in her favorite poem, The Dance by Hart Crane: P R O G R A M N O T E S O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge; Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends And northward reaches in that violet wedge Of Adirondacks! wisped of azure wands … The title had no sooner been decided on than Miss Graham wrote a final scenario for the ballet that took place entirely in Pennsylvania. Copland became fond of gleefully pointing this out when told by admirers that his music perfectly expressed the soul of either the Poconos or the Adirondacks, when neither had been anywhere near his thoughts as he composed the music in darkest Brooklyn. It seemed almost churlish to mention further that the “spring” of the Crane poem is a water source, not a season. That Copland composed much of the music under the patronage of the Ex-Lax Corporation made it all even funnier. The similarity of the story to the “dream ballet” of Oklahoma, incidentally, is no coincidence at all; both Copland and Graham were close friends and admirers of Richard Rodgers and Agnes de Mille, composer and choreographer of Oklahoma. The original ballet music was scored for thirteen instruments; the premiere took place in the Library of Congress, which excluded the possibility of anything more grandiose. However, the success of the music was so instantaneous and widespread (Pulitzer Prize for Music, 1945) that a suite for full orchestra soon followed, helped along by a staggering fee from Serge Koussevitzky; it is this version that is best known. Although nominally a “suite from the ballet,” only a couple of minutes of material are missing from the original score. The suite opens with the definitive American rural musical scene, all open fifths and reaching major sevenths; through Copland’s students (notably Jerome Moross), this sound became not so much an inspiration as a format for generations of movie composers, like so much else in this music. A series of dances for the Bride and her prospective husband follow, leading to the appearance of the Revivalist and the couple’s wedding. What follows is the celebrated series of variations on the Shaker melody Simple Gifts, the music for a series of tableaux depicting the Bride and her husband in scenes of daily life after their nuptials. Both the idea of a set of variations and the theme itself were given to Copland by Martha Graham, who was herself from a strictly Presbyterian family in rural Pennsylvania; the more worldly Copland, who had manufactured several bogus folksongs for his earlier ballets, raided a book of Shaker melodies for the definitive version. The work ends with the Bride and her husband, in the words of the scenario, “quiet and strong” in their new house. Copland was fond of saying that the proceeds from this music also left him in a new house – in rural (!) Cortlandt Manor, NY. Program note written by Bill Scanlan Murphy. M U S I C JASON LOVE D I R E C T O R Conductor and cellist Jason Love leads the Columbia Orchestra in his twenty-second year as Music Director, the fourth person to have held that post in its forty-three seasons. Praised for his “intelligent and innovative programming,” the Baltimore Sun has called the orchestra “Howard County’s premier ensemble for instrumental music,” noting that “Love has the musicians playing not only with verve and passion, but with an awareness to enter into the emotional core of the works they perform.” He has received many recognitions including the American Prize for Orchestral Programming, a Peabody Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Music in Maryland, and a “Howie” Award recognizing achievement in the arts in Howard County, Maryland.