BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director BOSTON I SYMPHONY Bernard Haitink, Conductor Emeritus I ORCHESTRA. \ JAMES JIEVJNE / Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate 124th Season, 2004-2005 1» CHAMBER MUSIC TEA V Friday, April 1, at 2:30 CHAMBER PRELUDE II Saturday, April 2, at 6 COMMUNITY CONCERT VI Sunday, April 3, at 3, at the Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem This concert is made available free to the public through the generosity of State Street Foundation. THOMAS ROLFS and BENJAMIN WRIGHT, trumpets JONATHAN MENKIS, horn NORMAN BOLTER, trombone MIKE ROYLANCE, tuba J.S. BACH Contrapunctus No. 9 from The Art of the Fugue, arranged for brass quintet BOLTER Mystery Dreams: Cydonia for two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba SAMPSON Morning Music for brass quintet EWALD Quintet in B-flat minor, Opus 5, for brass quintet Moderato Adagio non troppo lento Allegro moderato Week 22 Notes on the Program The Art of Fugue, probably begun around 1738, was one of the last pieces J.S. Bach (1685-1750) worked on at the end of his life. An inscription in the manuscript of the final fugue, in the handwriting of Bach's son Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, reads (in German), "While working on this fugue, where the name B.A.C.H. appears in the countersubject, the composer died." (B-A-C-H, in German nomenclature, translates to our B-flat-A-C-B-natural: Bach's musical "signature.") This is one of several Bach works that fulfills an almost encyclopedic role in the demonstration of various compositional techniques. Already in Bach's middle life, during his time at Cothen in the early 1720s, we find his unsurpassed music for solo violin, the six cello suites, and the Brandenburg Concertos, collections that exemplify their genres. Of his later works besides The Art of the Fugue, the Goldberg Variations and A Musical Offering, along with the forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of The Well-tempered Clavier (written over the course of many years and compiled by 1742), explore the furthest reaches of contrapuntal art for the keyboard. The Art of the Fugue, a virtuosic display of formal contrapuntal genres, consists of eighteen extant canons and fugues and one incomplete fugue. The manuscript does not indicate instrumentation, and there is no conclusive evidence as to whether the work was even intended for performance. Some scholars have considered the piece a kind of encyclopedia of contrapuntal technique, a compositional meditation, designed more for study or for the "inner ear" than for performance. On the other hand, Bach was a consummately practical musician; would he have written music for abstract posterity, even at this late stage of his life? "Contrapunctus IX" is a double fugue—more completely, a double fugue in double counterpoint at the twelfth—in D minor. The first subject, beginning in the alto voice, is eight bars long, a leap of an octave followed by a descending scale, a rising passage of short sequences, and another descending passage of short figures. The second subject, starting in the topmost voice in the thirty-fifth measure, is the familiar one that recurs throughout The Art of Fugue: a leap of a fifth, descending major third, descending minor third (all outlining the D minor triad), followed by a four-note ascending scale beginning from the leading tone and a descending scale back to the tonic. This is presented in tandem with a further statement of the first subject of Contrapunctus IX, and the two are worked out together over the remain- ing course of the fugue. —Robert Kirzinger ***** Boston Symphony Orchestra second trombonist Norman Bolter (b.1955) has composed music from a very early age, with the last eleven years witnessing an outpouring of new works winning him acclaim as a composer in the U.S. and V ^BOSTON * mtPHOttY / \ % ORCHESTRA f BOSTON • Tanglewood "<v'A A "' $F THE BSO ONLINE Boston Symphony and Boston Pops fans with access to the Internet can visit the orches- tra's official home page (http://www.bso.org). The BSO web site not only provides up-to- the-minute information about all of the orchestra's activities, but also allows you to buy tickets to BSO and Pops concerts online. In addition to program listings and ticket prices, the web site offers a wide range of information on other BSO activities, biographies of BSO musicians and guest artists, current press releases, historical facts and figures, helpful telephone numbers, and information on auditions and job openings. Since the BSO web site is updated on a regular basis, we invite you to check in frequently. abroad. Besides his own recordings of his works, his compositions have appeared on International Horn Society, the Chicago Chamber Players, and the American Brass recordings by trombonists Joseph Alessi, Ronald Barron, Douglas Yeo, and James Quintet, among others. Recent works include Hommage: JFK, commissioned and pre- Miller. His music has been performed throughout the world, including in Asia, Aus- miered by the National Symphony Orchestra; Monument, commissioned by the Bar- Zealand, South America, Europe and the U.S. tralia, New low Endowment for the Memphis Symphony; his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, In his numerous compositions (more than 100 to date), Mr. Bolter explores creat- commissioned by the Bergen Foundation and premiered by the New Jersey Sym- atmospheres through music inspired by the natural worlds the ing tangible and phony Orchestra, and Triptych for trumpet and orchestra, commissioned by Ray- human story, using a broad range of instrumentation, including solo instruments mond Mase and the International Trumpet Guild, premiered by Mase at the Aspen tuba, French horn, flute, didjeridoo, ram's horn, (trombone, trumpet, serpent, and Music Festival, and also performed by Mase and the American Composers Orchestra others), brass ensemble, trombone choir, concert band, brass band, mixed chamber at Carnegie Hall. orchestra. has written music for the trombone than ensemble, and He more any other Sampson's music is represented by numerous recordings, including the American composer, and has received commissions from numerous organizations and individu- Brass Quintet's recording of Morning Music for the Summit label. Sampson also re- Orchestra, the als, including the Pro Arte Chamber Zellmer-Minnesota Orchestra cently co-authored a new trumpet method with Raymond Mase, published by G. Trombone Competition, the University of St. Thomas, the Online Trombone Journal, Schirmer. He has served on the Board of the Composers Guild of New Jersey, is a New York Philharmonic principal trombonist Joseph Alessi, and several BSO col- member of Solid Brass, and is the Founding President of the "Hardly Any Sampson" leagues. His conducting includes New England Conservatory trombone ensemble Music Festival. and chamber music groups as well as the Frequency Band. Morning Music was premiered by the American Brass Quintet at the Aspen Music Mr. Bolter serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music and Festival in summer 1987. For the American Brass Quintet's recording of the piece, Longy School of Music. Many of his students hold positions in major symphony Sampson provided the following note: orchestras, chamber music groups, and universities around the world. Besides con- Morning Music for brass quintet, written for the American Brass Quintet, is a se- ducting regular master classes, he also holds special workshops, Frequency Band quel to a previous work of mine titled In Memoriam: W.E.S. for woodwind quin- "retreats," co-conducted with psychologist Dr. Carol Viera, designed to offer a sanc- tet written in 1981. The subject of that piece was the murder of my brother by tuary for musicians and an enhanced ecology for the expression of atmospheric music. the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazis in 1979. Morning Music deals with my Mr. Bolter is also co-author, with Dr. Viera, of several papers and booklets, including thoughts and feelings seven years later. As you will hear, the anguish over the Methods Effective Practice, High Range Exercises, It's Not All in the Air, Composing: A of death is as intense as ever, but a certain sense of strength and hope will emerge Frequency Band Approach, and Metronome Meditation. from these ashes. There is even beauty. The work is in one movement with sev- eral clearly delineated sections ending with a fast-paced coda. I dedicated this "Mystery Dreams: Cydonia" work to my mother, certainly the strongest individual I have ever known. In June 1976, the Viking Orbiter shot a photograph of the surface of the planet Mars that has potently stirred both wonder and controversy from that day forward. This photo revealed, in an area of Mars called Cydonia, what appeared to be a "face" very Music was an avocation for Victor Ewald (1860-1935). Born in St. Petersburg, similar to that of the sphinx in Egypt, and nearby were structures resembling pyra- Russia, Ewald trained as a civil engineer, a career in which he earned considerable mids. After careful study by a team of interested scientists, impressive mathematical distinction; from 1895 to 1915 he was a professor at the Institute of Civil Engineering. data were collected strongly supporting the theory that these structures were delib- An engineer and teacher throughout his life, he kept music as a pastime, playing erately and intelligently constructed. And despite the ensuing rebuttal and ongoing cello and French horn. Such musical dilettantism was common in Russia at that debate over the validity of this theory and what these structures may or may not really time: Borodin (a chemist), Rimsky-Korsakov (a navy inspector) and Mussorgsky (a be, this haunting discovery continues to promote awe and wonder in those whose civil servant) were all in Ewald's circle.