Thursday November 5, 2009

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Ingrid Fliter, piano
John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54 (9/11-12/09)
Also, Charley talks with Rosetta Chamber Society conductor Scott O'Neil abouth their concert Sunday. Scott also demonstrates themes from Bach's A Musical Offering.
KVOD Performance Studio 11/4/09 MS
And, Charley talks with members of the Central City Outreach Ensemble and the CU Opera about "Opera Rocks the Rockies."
Wolfgang Mozart: Trio, “Soave sia il vento” from Act I of Così fan tutte, K.588
Claire Kuttler, soprano; Amanda Russo, mezzo-soprano; Wei Wu, bass; Beth Nielsen, piano; Deborah Morrow, page turner
KVOD Performance Studio 11/5/09 MS


John Adams (b.1947): Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Adams grew up in New Hampshire. He studied the clarinet, and later composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard. Moving to California in 1971, he worked in a warehouse, then joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. He was composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1979-1985. His opera Nixon in China won a Grammy in 1989 and his Violin Concerto won the Grawemeyer Award in 1995. Recent works include a clarinet concerto titled Gnarly Buttons for Michael Collins and a piano concerto titled Century Rolls for Emanuel Ax. Naïve and Sentimental Music was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic this past February.
In an interview with Jonathon Cott in 1985, Adams remarked, ``Hindemith once said that a musical work should appear to the composer like an apparition in its completed form and that the act of composition is simply a matter of filling it all in. But to me, it's just the opposite. I find composing to be a journey through the underworld. And the reason I often have heroic endings in my pieces is that I'm totally amazed to have emerged from the tunnel out into the light. The act of composing is the creation of the light for me--it really is like a Biblical trial.''
Commissioned for the opening concert of the Great Woods Festival in Mansfield, Massachusetts, Short Ride in a Fast Machine was first performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, on June 13, 1986. The work is subtitled ``Fanfare for Great Woods.''
Asked to explain the title, Adams replied: ``You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn't?'' Accordingly, the score is marked ``Delirando'' (frenzied), with a relentless clacking of the woodblock, which Adams calls ``almost sadistic.''
The score calls for 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 4 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 synthesizers, timpani, percussion and strings.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54
I. Allegro affettuoso
II. Intermezzo: Andantino grazioso
III. Allegro vivace

``I think the piano concerto should either be in C major or in A minor,'' wrote Schumann to his teacher and future father-in-law, Friedrich Wieck, in 1833. The remark is typical of Schumann's inability to make up his mind about his only piano concerto. By 1839 he had married his teacher's daughter Clara, and was describing the work as ``something between a symphony, a concerto, and a large sonata. I can see that I am unable to write a virtuoso concerto; I must think of something else.''
``Something else'' turned out to be a one-movement Fantasy in A minor for piano and orchestra, which Clara Wieck introduced on August 13, 1841, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Felix Mendelssohn's direction. The piece was also called Allegro Affettuoso and Concert Allegro.
Whatever its title, the publishers weren't interested, and so in 1845 Schumann added two more movements to form a full-fledged piano concerto. ``It has now become a concerto,'' Clara wrote in her diary. ``I am very glad about it for I have always wanted a great bravura piece by him.'' A month later, she noted that ``Robert has finished his concerto and handed it over to the copyist. I am happy as a king at the thought of playing it with orchestra.''
Clara Wieck gave the première in Dresden on December 4, 1845, with Ferdinand Hiller conducting. One critic noted her ``praiseworthy efforts to make her husband's curious rhapsody pass for music.'' Subsequent performances in Leipzig and Vienna produced similar reactions. Franz Liszt called it ``a concerto without piano'' and dropped it from his repertory.
With time the Schumann Piano Concerto became a staple. Sir Donald Francis Tovey wrote: ``It attains a beauty and depth quite transcendent of any mere prettiness, though the whole concerto, like all Schumann's deepest music, is recklessly pretty....Every note inspires affection, and only an inattentive critic can suspect the existence of weaknesses to condone. Fashion and musical party-politics have tried to play many games with Schumann's reputation, but works like this remain irresistible.''
The Concerto is scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.