robert xavier rodríguez complete music for cello & piano a cknowledgments Recorded in PepsiCo Hall, Texas Christian University Recording Engineer/Editor: Michael Austin Recording Consultant: Frank Dufour This recording was funded by a generous grant from the University of Texas at Dallas, Hobson Wildenthal, Provost; Dennis Kratz, Dean of Arts & Humanities. All music is published by G. Schirmer. p h o t o c r e d i t s Cover image: Ellen Locy, photographer; Mary-Margaret Pyeatt, model Black and white photo of Robert Xavier Rodríguez by Phil Schexnyder; color photo courtesy of BandQuest. The composer and performers dedicate this CD to Carlos Prieto on the occasion of his 75th birthday. www.albanyrecords.com TROY1355 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd jesús castro-balbi {cello} gloria lin {piano} tel: 01539 824008 © 2012 albany records made in the usa waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. ddd Rodriguez_1355_book.indd 1-2 4/16/12 4:24 PM t h e c o m p o s e r The Juilliard Focus and Summergarden Concerts, The Israel Philharmonic, Mexico City Robert Xavier Rodríguez is “one of the major American composers of his Philharmonic, Toronto Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, The Baltimore, Dallas, generation” (Texas Monthly). His music has been described as “Romantically Houston, San Antonio, Knoxville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Boston and dramatic” (Washington Post), “richly lyrical” (Musical America) and “glowing with Chicago Symphonies, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber a physical animation and delicate balance of moods that combine seductively Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra. His music is recorded on the Newport, with his all-encompassing sense of humor” (Los Angeles Times). “Its originality Crystal, Orion, Gasparo, Pro Arte, ACA, Urtext, CRI (1991 Grammy nomination), First Edition, lies in the telling personality it reveals. His music always speaks, and speaks Naxos and Albany labels and is published exclusively by G. Schirmer. in the composer’s personal language” (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters). Rodríguez has written in all genres — opera, orchestral, concerto, ballet, vocal, choral, chamber t h e m u s i c and music for the theater — but he has been drawn most strongly in recent years to works for For me, the cello comes closest to the range and sound quality of the human voice, so it is my the stage, including music for children. favorite of all the instruments in the orchestra. This CD presents my complete music to date for Rodríguez received his early musical education in San Antonio (b. 1946) and in Austin (UT), solo cello, written between 1979 and 2006. The music is in reverse chronological order, except Los Angeles (USC), Lenox (Tanglewood), Fontainebleau (Conservatoire Américain) and Paris. for the second version of Lull-A-Bear at the end, as an encore. His teachers have included Nadia Boulanger, Jacob Druckman, Bruno Maderna and Elliott Carter. Rodríguez first gained international recognition in 1971, when he was awarded the Prix de Tentado por la samba (2006) was commissioned by Carlos Prieto on the occasion of his 70th Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace at the Palais birthday and premiered at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. There are two movements: Princier in Monte Carlo. Other honors include the Prix Lili Boulanger (judged by Elliott Carter, Appassionato and Sempre appassionato. At the beginning, the piano proposes rhythmic patterns Walter Piston and Aaron Copland), a Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from ASCAP and the related to the traditional samba, but the cello refuses to join in the Latin dance until the very Rockefeller Foundation, five NEA grants, two Aaron Copland Awards and the Goddard Lieberson end of the movement. At that point, the piano’s samba invitation becomes too tempting for the Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Rodríguez has served as cello to resist. After a moment’s hesitation, the cello and piano plunge together into the second Composer-in-Residence with the San Antonio Symphony and the Dallas Symphony. He is active movement as equal and enthusiastic partners in the vigorous samba finale – hence the title, as a guest lecturer and conductor and is a Professor with an endowed Chair in Art and Aesthetic “Tempted by the Samba.” Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas, where he is Director of the Musica Nova ensemble. Rodríguez’ music has been performed by conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Antal Máscaras (1993), for cello and orchestra, was commissioned by Carlos Prieto, who gave the Dorati, Eduardo Mata, James DePriest, Sir Raymond Leppard, Keith Lockhart and Leonard premiere performance at the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico. The present version for Slatkin and by such organizations as the Vienna Schauspielhaus, New York City Opera, Brooklyn cello and piano followed in 2010. Máscaras is based on the colorful and richly decorated masks Academy of Music, American Repertory Theater, The Dallas Opera, Opera Colorado, Michigan used in traditional Mexican folk ceremonies and dances. Like Favola Concertante, it is both a ballet Opera Theater, Houston Grand Opera, American Music Theater Festival (now Prince Music and a concerto. There are six short movements, played without pause: Theater), Festival de Mayo, Cervantino Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Rodriguez_1355_book.indd 3-4 4/16/12 4:24 PM I. Evocación is a florid and passionate incantation over a hypnotic ostinato accompaniment. Ursa: Four Seasons for Contrabass and Orchestra (1990) was commissioned by The National II. El murciélago (The Bat) is a high-strung scherzo, which takes off like the proverbial “Bat out of Endowment for the Arts for bassist Gary Karr, who gave the premiere performance with the San Hell” in this depiction of one of Mexico’s most popular masks, the messenger of death. Antonio Symphony, conducted by Christopher Wilkins. This version for cello and piano dates III. La sirena y el tecolote is a mock-serious pair of lyrical serenades. La sirena, iridescently chromatic, from the same year. The title Ursa (Latin for “bear”) is a reference to the contrabass’s bear-like depicts a seductive mermaid with echoes of Cortez’ native mistress, Malinche, the subject of size and low register. Like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Ursa is based on texts—in this case, fragments many masks. El tecolote follows, with a playful pizzicato depiction of another Aztec harbinger of from children’s poems by Mary Medrick about a new-born bear and the discoveries and adven- death, the owl. The incongruous pairing of the owl and the mermaid recalls Edward Lear’s nonsense tures of his first four seasons. The high, distant-sounding opening represents the constellation Ursa poem The Owl and the Pussycat. Major (Big Bear), also known as the Big Dipper. This constellation appears in different positions IV. The owl’s serenade is cut short by Compañeros de la Oscuridad (Companions of the Darkness), in the sky through the four seasons; similarly, variants of the opening three-note motif (B-C-E) as piercing tone clusters of Bartokian “night music” announce a gallery of grotesque Indian monster recur in all four seasons of Ursa to unify the work: masks: serpents, lizards, scorpions, toads, devils, calaveras (skeletons) and, representing Mexico’s I. Summer, when a baby bear learns by following its mother, contains a phrase from J.S. Bach’s European conquerors, bearded men. After the night creatures pass, the owl and the mermaid Cantata BWV 78, Jesu der du meine Seele, in which the contrabass plays a slow, plodding line calmly continue their serenade. against faster-moving cello figuration for the words, Wir eilen mit schwachen, doch emsigen Schritten V. El ángel provides radiant contrast as high rushing scales depict the familiar winged, fair-skinned (We hasten with weak, but diligent footsteps). Christian image. II. Autumn, when bears eat as much as they can to prepare for their winter hibernation, is a brisk VI. The concerto ends with El Tigre, a festive toccata in which wild cello passage work depicts the Scherzo in which energetic gobbling passages for the soloist alternate with sweeter, more reflec- jaguar: in Indian legends the king of beasts and the embodiment of the powerful human vs. animal tive digestive episodes. duality believed in Aztec culture to exist within each individual. III. Winter (Lull-A-Bear) is a “BEAR-ceuse” (after the French berceuse, or cradle song), with the The music of Máscaras has a strong Mexican flavor, with two actual Mexican folk melodies— melody heard first in its highest register, then repeated in a lower octave, suggesting deeper “El tecolote” (the owl) and “El tigre” (the jaguar)—woven into the musical texture. Since many of sleep, and ending in a long, resonant snore. Mexico’s folk masks pre-date Cortez, there are musical echoes of Aztec Mexico, with rhythmic, IV. Spring arrives as the ice gradually thaws in a mighty Falstaffian trill that spreads upward to a non-Western modal motifs drawn from the tuning of ancient flutes. The interrupted dialogue powerful crack, and the bears wake up to play. A romp ensues, closing with an extended low C between the mermaid and the owl contains two quotations from Mexico’s Spanish and Austrian pedal point in homage to the famous contrabass passage in the fourth movement of Haydn’s rustic rulers: La maja y el ruiseñor (The Maiden and the Nightingale) from Granados’ opera Goyescas is Symphony No. 89 in C, called “The Bear.” based on paintings by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, and a fragment from Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat represents the bearded Austrian Emperor Maximilian.