UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA 1983 1984 presents I MUSIC! with PINA CARMIRELLI Wednesday, April 25, 1984 FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR THIS EVENT HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE MISSOURI ARTS COUNCIL Kazuko Hillyer International, Inc. 250 West 57th Street New York, New York 10107 Kazuko Hillyer, President Philips Records I MUSIC! AND THEIR INSTRUMENTS Pina Carmi re 11 i Violino A. Stradivari (Cremona, 1732) Anna Maria Cotogni Violino H. Amati (Cremona, 1696) Arnaldo Apostoli Violino G. Gagliano (Napoli, 1730) Walter Gallozzi Violino Matthias Klotz (Tirolo, 1742) Pasquale Pellegrino Violino G. B. Gabbrielli (Firenze, 1752) Claudio Buccarella Violino F. Goffriller (Udine, 1739) Luciano Vicari Viola A. Marconcini (Ferrara, 1776) Massimo Paris Viola P. Guarnieri (Mantova, 1697) Francesco Strano Violoncello G. B. Guadagnini (Milano, 1755) Vito Paternoster Violoncello L. Ventapane (Napoli, 1820) Lucio Buccarella Contrabasso A. Mariani (Pesaro, 1678) Maria Teresa Garatti Clavicembalo G. C. Klop (Garderen, 1980) The Italian chamber orchestra I Musici was formed in 1952 when twelve students of the Academy of Santa Cecilia of Rome, who had often played together for pleasure, gave their first public concert. Their success was so complete and so immediate that by the end of that same year they had toured not only Italy, but also Portugal, Spain, and France. In the next two years they appeared throughout Europe, and soon with overseas tours to North and South America, to South Africa, and to Japan and Australia, their worldwide fame was well established. In Europe they added to early triumphs highly memorable performances at festivals fo Graz, Menton, Aix-en-Provence, Copenhagen, Salzburg, and Edinburgh. I Musici's leader, Pina Car­ mirelli, has been acclaimed both as a chamber player and as a solo­ ist. She is a member of the faculty of the Academy of Santa Cecilia. While the ensemble has been most closely associated with the music of the Baroque Era and has played a vital role in promoting a wider appreciation of the works of Antonio Vivaldi and lesser-known com­ posers of the Italian Baroque, its repertory is of greater scope. I Musici has won equal praise for its interpretations of music by such contemporary masters as Bela Bartok, Benjamin Britten, Frank Martin, and Samuel Barber. In the field of recording, I Musici has been more successful than any other group of its kind. Its first Grand Prix du Disque was awarded in 1956 for Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a recording that re­ mains an international best-seller. It was the forerunner of an impressive discography, which includes collaborations with notable guest soloists. On March 30, 1977, I Musici celebrated its Silver Jubilee and re­ ceived tributes from the world of music, the international music press, civic dignitaries, and officials from the Italian govern­ ment and the Vatican. THE PROGRAM Concerto Armonico No. l in G Major U. W. Van Wassenaer Grave Allegro Grave, staccato Allegro Concerto in A Major G. Tartini for Cello, Strings, and Continuo Allegro Larghetto A11 egro mo lto Francesco Strano, Soloist Concerto in A Minor, RV 523, A. Vivaldi for Two Violins, Strings, and Continuo Allegro molto Largo Allegro Pina Carmirelli & Claudio Buccarella, Soloists Intermission Concerto in D Major, BWV 1064, J . S. Bach for Three Violins, Strings, and Continuo Allegro Adagio Allegro Pina Carmirelli, Pasquale Pellegrino & Walter Gallozzi, Soloists Divertimento in D Major, K. 136 W. A. Mozart Allegro Andante Presto PROGRAM NOTES The modern concert-goer can recognize the music dating from the approximately one hundred fifty years now known as the Baroque Era (1600-1750) in various ways. The most easily heard clue, perhaps, is the presence of a "general rhythm" created by regular, typically decisive figurations that pervade the musical fabric from top to bottom and start to finish. This controlled but insistent approach to rhythmic energy is the justification for labelling pieces from this epoch with faster tempos "sewing-machine music." General rhythm is, in fact, a manifestation of a fundamental rule of Baroque composition--that each movement of music must exhibit only one "affection." Accordingly, each movement is intended to conjure up only one mood or one passion, and there is a corresponding uni­ formity of musical gesture within a movement. Dramatic contrast is consequently heard only between movements. Unlike earlier music, Baroque music displays a polarity to voices in its texture, that is, the listener can usually perceive an em­ phasis on the highest voices (often the top two) and the lowest voice (the bass line that serves as foundation for the newly evolv­ ing harmonic language of the day). This "melo-bass" dominance is enhanced by the almost universal employment of the basso continue, usually a pair of instruments given the responsibility of deliver­ ing the harmonic and metric essence of the music. This unit, com­ prised of a bass instrument to supply the bass line (gamba, cello, ranckett, bassoon, etc.) and a chording instrument to provide the specific details of the harmonic rhythm {harpsichord, organ, lute, guitar, etc.)~ functions much like the culturally distant rhythm section of a jazz ensemble of recent times. The nature of Baroque melody, moreover, was very much influenced by the capabilities of preferred instruments, such as the cornetto, the oboe, the trans­ verse flute, and the violin family. This again represents a strik­ ing departure from the past, when all music had reflected a vocal ideal for melodic details. The treatment of volume levels is another matter of obvious con­ vention. Compositions are typically designed to exhibit the alter­ nation of uniformly loud and uniformly soft passages, known as terraced dynamics. One should not infer because of this practice that Baroque music was rendered in a neutral or static fashion, without tasteful variations in dynamics to bring it to life, but the kind of drastic crescendos and decrescendos of later music is not of this style. Terraced dynamics are often built into the music by the composer--through the dispos ition of instruments, through orchestration, or, in the case of keyboard music, through registration. Another central feature of Baroque music, one closely related to terraced dynamics, is the systematic manipulation of contrasting blocks of sound--the so-called concertato principle. Derived from the "stereophonic" ceremonial music of end-of-the-Renaissance Venice, in which vocal and instrumental forces were separated into choirs with distinctive sonorities and then alternated in the course of a composition, this practice became accepted as the operative organi­ zational concept not only for individual movements, but for the grander multi-movement genres of the period: cantata, oratorio, opera, sonata, sinfonia, and concerto. In the concerto, considered the most important instrumental genre of the Baroque, the confrontation of differing blocks of sounds takes the form of a juxtaposition of passages perfonned by a small group of soloists (the concertina) and by the total orchestra (the ripieno). The contrast is even more conspicuous in the solo con­ certo, in which the concertina is comprised of a soloist accompanied by the continua. It is entirely appropriate to note the spirit of competition created by such compositional procedures: the Latin root of "concerto" means "to strive together." Tonight's program presents an interesting sampling of the Baroque concerto. The works by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) are products of the mature Baroque style; the concerto by Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) bears evidence of the transition that will culminate in the new ideas of the Classic Era. All three of these men played important roles in exploring the idio­ matic advantages of stringed instruments. The piece by Bach is better known as a concerto for three harpsichords, which the com­ poser is known to have created from it; scholars have reconstructed the original. The concerto grosso by Count Unico Wilhelm van Was­ senaer (1692-1766), a noble Dutch stateman and amateur composer, is the first of a famous set of six Concerti Armonici surrounded in controversy for many years. The authorship of these pieces had been a matter of scholarly conjecture until recently, when a manu­ script score was discovered in the Netherlands with evidence to settle the debate. The concert will conclude with light-hearted entertainment music from Classic Era Austria--Divertimento in D Major for strings, K. 136 (1772) by Wolfgang A. Mozart (1756-1791). In practice pieces designated by composers as divertimentos exhibit a great variety of treatments: instrumental forces of various kinds and numbers; a series of relatively short movements (often three to eight); individual movements drawing on many sources (dances, marches, variations, sonata movements). The appearance of this three-move­ ment work as the finale of a program of Baroque concertos should point up effectively how music changed in the eighteenth century. Notes by Michael Budds THE UMC CONCERT SERIES THANKS ITS SUPPORTERS As another season comes to a close, the staff of the University of Missouri-Columbia Concert Series is happy to acknowledge publicly the assistance and support of individuals and organizations in our community. Unfor­ tunately the arts can flourish only with the generosity and enthusiasm of local patrons. We are, of course, grateful to the concert-going public in general; the following, however, are worthy of our special gratitude. Contributors to the Herbert ORGANIZATIONS Schooling Concert Series Museum Associates Endowment Fund Friends of Music UMC Choral Union UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI University Singers UMca Administration Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia UMC Administration and Staff Sigma Alpha Iota Chancellor Barbara S. Uehling The Culture Connection Provost Ronald Bunn Columbia Commission on the Arts Associate Provost Gerald Brouder Missouri Arts Council Assistant Provost Otis Jackson Mid-America Arts Alliance John Yeager, Academic Budget National Endowment for the Arts and Resource Officer Boone County Community Trust Dean Milton Glick Faculty and Staff of the Depts.