Charley talks with pianist Natasha Paremski and guest conductor Peter Oundjian about their concerts with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Frédéric Chopin: Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op.60
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Etude in B flat major, Op.23 No.2
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Etude in G sharp minor, Op.32 No.12
Natasha Paremski, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 3/10/10 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra & Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor; Angela Cheng, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43 (7/2/04)
And, Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about Angela Cheng's appearance next week. He also anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's recital at Colorado College on Sunday.
Dmitri Shostakovich: "Allegretto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.3 in F major, Op. 73
Veronika String Quartet
(Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 10/1/09 MS
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43
In May of 1934, Rachmaninoff was confined to a hospital in Switzerland for a minor operation. There he made plans for his latest composition. Returning to his villa near Lucerne, ``from morn to night'' he said, he worked on his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He completed it on August 18.
``Two weeks ago I finished a new piece,'' he wrote to a friend, ``it's called a Fantasia for piano and orchestra in the form of variations on a theme by Paganini....The thing's rather difficult; I must begin learning it.'' He did learn it, as he was the soloist at the first performance on November 7, 1934 in Baltimore. Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The theme is Paganini's Caprice No. 24 in A minor, Op. 1, which Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and others, even Paganini himself, had also used for variations. In Rachmaninoff's version, an introduction and the first variation preceded the actual statement of Paganini's theme, then there are 23 more variations. The seventh and tenth variations also use the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead.
The composer may have had a program in mind. In a letter to the choreographer Michel Fokine, he suggested the Rhapsody as a possible subject for a ballet. ``Why not resurrect the legend about Paganini, who, for perfection in his art and for a woman, sold his soul to an evil spirit?'' he wondered. ``All the variations which have the Dies Irae represent the evil spirit....Paganini himself appears in the theme.'' On June 30, 1939, a new ballet titled Paganini, a Fantastic Ballet in Three Scenes was given in London.
Biographer Geoffrey Norris writes: ``Rachmaninoff's melodic gift, even if it is a gift now applied to somebody else's melody, is nowhere more apparent than in the 18th variation of the Paganini Rhapsody, and his skill as an architect is rarely exemplified more clearly than in his organization of these 24 variations, finely conceived into an entirely logical and close-knit structure....These aspects, with a subtle wit and careful, discerning orchestration, typical of his late works, combine to place the Rhapsody at the peak of his works for piano and orchestra.''
The score calls for solo piano, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, side drum, triangle, glockenspiel, harp and strings.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday March 11, 2010
Charley anticipates Natasha Paremski's appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Frédéric Chopin: Etude No. 24 in C minor, Op.25 No. 12 (Ocean Waves).
Natasha Paremski, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 111705
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Julian Kuerti, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60 (12/4-5/09)
And, Charley talks with Margaret Higginson and John Lindsey, both contestants in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild's annual competition.
Giacomo Puccini: "Un bel di" from Act II of Madama Butterfly
Margaret Higginson, soprano; Hyun Kim, piano 4:13
Giacomo Puccini: "Addio fiorito asil" from Act III of Madama Butterfly
John Lindsey, tenor; Hyun Kim, piano 1:53
KVOD Performance Studio 3/2/10 MS
Moreover, Herbert Howells: "I heard a voice from heaven" from Requiem
Ars Nova Singers/ Thomas Edward Morgan
NAR 003 Track 10 4:14
In addition, Charley talks with Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan about their concerts this weekend.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60
I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven had already begun his C minor Symphony (No. 5) when he and his patron, Prince Franz Lichnowsky, visited Count Franz von Oppersdorf at his castle in Silesia. The Count's private orchestra played Beethoven's Second Symphony for the guests. The host then commissioned a new symphony from the composer.
Setting aside the Fifth, Beethoven started a new symphony in B flat major. Most of the work was done in the autumn of 1806. By November, the Symphony--now known as the Fourth--was finished. Beethoven wrote to his publishers: ``I cannot give you the promised symphony yet--because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me.'' In fact, Beethoven never sent the score to Count Oppersdorf. All he ever received was the dedication to the published edition.
The first performance of the Fourth Symphony probably took place at the Viennese palace of another Beethoven patron, Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz. Two all-Beethoven concerts were given there during March of 1807. The programs included the first four symphonies, the Coriolan Overture, excerpts from Fidelio and a piano concerto. One review noted that ``richness of ideas, bold originality and fullness of power, which are the particular merits of Beethoven's muse, were very much in evidence to everyone at these concerts; yet many found fault with the lack of a noble simplicity and the all too fruitful accumulation of ideas which on account of their number were not always adequately worked out and blended, thereby creating the effect more often of rough diamonds.'' Another critic noted the new Beethoven symphony ``which has pleased, at most his fanatical admirers.''
Carl Maria von Weber, then a rash twenty-year-old, wrote an article on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony that he would later regret. In it, he portrayed the violin complaining of having to ``caper about like a wild goat'' in order to ``execute the no-ideas of Mr. Composer.''
Referring to its place between the mighty Eroica (No. 3) and Fifth Symphonies, Robert Schumann called the Fourth ``a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.'' Hector Berlioz found the Fourth ``generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness.''
Berlioz loved this symphony. After the seminal slow introduction, he writes, ``the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness....As far as the Adagio--it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely.''
Sir Donald Francis Tovey found great fun in the last two movements. Towards the end of the third, he says, ``the two horns blow the whole movement away.'' The last movement contains what he calls ``The Great Bassoon Joke,'' when the solo bassoon clowns the return of the main theme.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Frédéric Chopin: Etude No. 24 in C minor, Op.25 No. 12 (Ocean Waves).
Natasha Paremski, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 111705
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Julian Kuerti, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60 (12/4-5/09)
And, Charley talks with Margaret Higginson and John Lindsey, both contestants in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild's annual competition.
Giacomo Puccini: "Un bel di" from Act II of Madama Butterfly
Margaret Higginson, soprano; Hyun Kim, piano 4:13
Giacomo Puccini: "Addio fiorito asil" from Act III of Madama Butterfly
John Lindsey, tenor; Hyun Kim, piano 1:53
KVOD Performance Studio 3/2/10 MS
Moreover, Herbert Howells: "I heard a voice from heaven" from Requiem
Ars Nova Singers/ Thomas Edward Morgan
NAR 003 Track 10 4:14
In addition, Charley talks with Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan about their concerts this weekend.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60
I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven had already begun his C minor Symphony (No. 5) when he and his patron, Prince Franz Lichnowsky, visited Count Franz von Oppersdorf at his castle in Silesia. The Count's private orchestra played Beethoven's Second Symphony for the guests. The host then commissioned a new symphony from the composer.
Setting aside the Fifth, Beethoven started a new symphony in B flat major. Most of the work was done in the autumn of 1806. By November, the Symphony--now known as the Fourth--was finished. Beethoven wrote to his publishers: ``I cannot give you the promised symphony yet--because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me.'' In fact, Beethoven never sent the score to Count Oppersdorf. All he ever received was the dedication to the published edition.
The first performance of the Fourth Symphony probably took place at the Viennese palace of another Beethoven patron, Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz. Two all-Beethoven concerts were given there during March of 1807. The programs included the first four symphonies, the Coriolan Overture, excerpts from Fidelio and a piano concerto. One review noted that ``richness of ideas, bold originality and fullness of power, which are the particular merits of Beethoven's muse, were very much in evidence to everyone at these concerts; yet many found fault with the lack of a noble simplicity and the all too fruitful accumulation of ideas which on account of their number were not always adequately worked out and blended, thereby creating the effect more often of rough diamonds.'' Another critic noted the new Beethoven symphony ``which has pleased, at most his fanatical admirers.''
Carl Maria von Weber, then a rash twenty-year-old, wrote an article on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony that he would later regret. In it, he portrayed the violin complaining of having to ``caper about like a wild goat'' in order to ``execute the no-ideas of Mr. Composer.''
Referring to its place between the mighty Eroica (No. 3) and Fifth Symphonies, Robert Schumann called the Fourth ``a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.'' Hector Berlioz found the Fourth ``generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness.''
Berlioz loved this symphony. After the seminal slow introduction, he writes, ``the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness....As far as the Adagio--it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely.''
Sir Donald Francis Tovey found great fun in the last two movements. Towards the end of the third, he says, ``the two horns blow the whole movement away.'' The last movement contains what he calls ``The Great Bassoon Joke,'' when the solo bassoon clowns the return of the main theme.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Wednesday March 10, 2010
Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about Angela Cheng's appearance next week.
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor; Angela Cheng, piano
Franz Josef Haydn: Symphony No. 6 in D major (Morning)
Wolfgang Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503 (6/27/04)
Also, Charley talks with The Playground's Conrad Kehn about their Samuel Barber program at the Arvada Center tomorrow.
Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 6 in D major
(Le Matin--Morning)
I. Adagio--Allegro
II. Adagio--Andante
III. Menuet e Trio
IV. Finale: Allegro
``I was no sorcerer on any instrument,'' Haydn once admitted, ``but I knew the possibilities and effects of each.'' When Prince Paul Esterhazy hired Haydn in 1761, he also hired a number of excellent solo players, among them the violinist Luigi Tommasini, for whom Haydn was to compose a number of violin concertos. Thus Haydn borrowed elements of the baroque concerto grosso for his symphonies of the time, allowing a great amount of solo space for the new virtuosi to exhibit their prowess.
It was the Prince's idea that the new assistant conductor should display his prowess by composing symphonies dealing with the different times of the day, so Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 6-8 bear the subtitles Morning, Noon and Night.
Haydn was never too specific about the programmatic character of the Symphony No. 6 (Morning), but it's fairly easy to hear the sunrise in the opening Adagio and the songs of birds in the flute and oboe of the ensuing Allegro. Some have suggested that the second movement is meant to depict a singing lesson. As it takes place in the early morning, the students are only half-awake. The teacher--represented by the solo violin--vainly tries to arouse them, finally bringing in the support of a colleague--the solo cello.
Remarking on the baroque flavor of the third movement, H.C. Robbins Landon says it ``could be part of the unwritten seventh Brandenburg Concerto.'' The Trio of the Minuet features a dialogue between bassoon and double bass. The last movement has solo passages for violin, cello, flute and horns.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, strings and continuo.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.505
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante
III. (Allegretto)
Despite the moderate success of The Marriage of Figaro in the spring of 1786, Mozart still had no position at the Viennese court. He planned to seek his fortune in England, taking his wife Constanze with him and leaving his father to babysit the two children in Salzburg.
Mozart's father was not amused. On November 18, 1786, unaware that his youngest grandson Johann Thomas Leopold had died three days before, he wrote to his daughter: ``Your brother actually suggested that I should take charge of his two children, because he was proposing to undertake a journey through Germany to England....Not at all a bad arrangement! They could go off and travel--they might even die--or remain in England--and I should have to run off after them with the children....If he cares to do so, he will find my excuse very clear and instructive.'' The trip to England was abandoned.
By December 4, 1786, Mozart finished another piano concerto (K.503). He may have used it the very next day, or at one of the three other subscription concerts that season at Johann Trattner's Casino in Vienna, although no evidence of this has survived. In 1798, Mozart's widow had the concerto published with a dedication to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.
Quite a few critics refer to K.503 as Mozart's ``Jupiter'' Concerto, because it is in the same key and spirit as the symphony by that name. ``It is apt to strike one as rather frigid on first acquaintance,'' writes Eric Blom, ``but a closer study of it reveals a concentration of workmanship and a grandeur which make it the counterpart of the `Jupiter' Symphony among the concertos.'' Arthur Hutchings describes the work as ``Mozart's `Emperor' Concerto.''
Alfred Einstein writes: ``No other work of Mozart's has such dimensions, and the dimensions correspond to the power of the symphonic construction and the drastic nature of the modulations. In no other concerto does the relation between the soloist and the orchestra vary so constantly and so unpredictably.''
The score calls for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets and strings.
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor; Angela Cheng, piano
Franz Josef Haydn: Symphony No. 6 in D major (Morning)
Wolfgang Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503 (6/27/04)
Also, Charley talks with The Playground's Conrad Kehn about their Samuel Barber program at the Arvada Center tomorrow.
Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 6 in D major
(Le Matin--Morning)
I. Adagio--Allegro
II. Adagio--Andante
III. Menuet e Trio
IV. Finale: Allegro
``I was no sorcerer on any instrument,'' Haydn once admitted, ``but I knew the possibilities and effects of each.'' When Prince Paul Esterhazy hired Haydn in 1761, he also hired a number of excellent solo players, among them the violinist Luigi Tommasini, for whom Haydn was to compose a number of violin concertos. Thus Haydn borrowed elements of the baroque concerto grosso for his symphonies of the time, allowing a great amount of solo space for the new virtuosi to exhibit their prowess.
It was the Prince's idea that the new assistant conductor should display his prowess by composing symphonies dealing with the different times of the day, so Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 6-8 bear the subtitles Morning, Noon and Night.
Haydn was never too specific about the programmatic character of the Symphony No. 6 (Morning), but it's fairly easy to hear the sunrise in the opening Adagio and the songs of birds in the flute and oboe of the ensuing Allegro. Some have suggested that the second movement is meant to depict a singing lesson. As it takes place in the early morning, the students are only half-awake. The teacher--represented by the solo violin--vainly tries to arouse them, finally bringing in the support of a colleague--the solo cello.
Remarking on the baroque flavor of the third movement, H.C. Robbins Landon says it ``could be part of the unwritten seventh Brandenburg Concerto.'' The Trio of the Minuet features a dialogue between bassoon and double bass. The last movement has solo passages for violin, cello, flute and horns.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, strings and continuo.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.505
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante
III. (Allegretto)
Despite the moderate success of The Marriage of Figaro in the spring of 1786, Mozart still had no position at the Viennese court. He planned to seek his fortune in England, taking his wife Constanze with him and leaving his father to babysit the two children in Salzburg.
Mozart's father was not amused. On November 18, 1786, unaware that his youngest grandson Johann Thomas Leopold had died three days before, he wrote to his daughter: ``Your brother actually suggested that I should take charge of his two children, because he was proposing to undertake a journey through Germany to England....Not at all a bad arrangement! They could go off and travel--they might even die--or remain in England--and I should have to run off after them with the children....If he cares to do so, he will find my excuse very clear and instructive.'' The trip to England was abandoned.
By December 4, 1786, Mozart finished another piano concerto (K.503). He may have used it the very next day, or at one of the three other subscription concerts that season at Johann Trattner's Casino in Vienna, although no evidence of this has survived. In 1798, Mozart's widow had the concerto published with a dedication to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.
Quite a few critics refer to K.503 as Mozart's ``Jupiter'' Concerto, because it is in the same key and spirit as the symphony by that name. ``It is apt to strike one as rather frigid on first acquaintance,'' writes Eric Blom, ``but a closer study of it reveals a concentration of workmanship and a grandeur which make it the counterpart of the `Jupiter' Symphony among the concertos.'' Arthur Hutchings describes the work as ``Mozart's `Emperor' Concerto.''
Alfred Einstein writes: ``No other work of Mozart's has such dimensions, and the dimensions correspond to the power of the symphonic construction and the drastic nature of the modulations. In no other concerto does the relation between the soloist and the orchestra vary so constantly and so unpredictably.''
The score calls for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets and strings.
Tuesday March 9, 2010
Charley anticipates Natasha Paremski's appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Lilacs, Op.21 No. 5 & Elegie in E flat minor, Op.3 No. 1
Frédéric Chopin: Etude No. 24 in C minor, Op.25 No. 12 (Ocean Waves).
Natasha Paremski, piano 2:14, 5:54, 2:27
KVOD Performance Studio 111705 MS
Also, Friends of Chamber Music
Alarm Will Sound
Alan Pierson, conductor
Payton MacDonald: Cowboy Tabla/Raga Cowboy 22:08 (1/21/09)
And, Charley anticipates a recital at the King Center next Monday with Nan Shannon, Stacy Lesartre and Dianne Betkowski (Parabola Trio).
Lowell Liebermann: Nocturne No. 2, Op.31 6:41
Nanette Shannon, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 1111207 MS
In addition, Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's appearance at Colorado College this Sunday.
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in F major, Op.18
Veronika String Quartet (Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 10/1/09 MS
Moreover, Charley talks with Broomfield Civic Orchestra music director David Brussell about their concert Thursday.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Lilacs, Op.21 No. 5 & Elegie in E flat minor, Op.3 No. 1
Frédéric Chopin: Etude No. 24 in C minor, Op.25 No. 12 (Ocean Waves).
Natasha Paremski, piano 2:14, 5:54, 2:27
KVOD Performance Studio 111705 MS
Also, Friends of Chamber Music
Alarm Will Sound
Alan Pierson, conductor
Payton MacDonald: Cowboy Tabla/Raga Cowboy 22:08 (1/21/09)
And, Charley anticipates a recital at the King Center next Monday with Nan Shannon, Stacy Lesartre and Dianne Betkowski (Parabola Trio).
Lowell Liebermann: Nocturne No. 2, Op.31 6:41
Nanette Shannon, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 1111207 MS
In addition, Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's appearance at Colorado College this Sunday.
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in F major, Op.18
Veronika String Quartet (Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 10/1/09 MS
Moreover, Charley talks with Broomfield Civic Orchestra music director David Brussell about their concert Thursday.
Monday March 8, 2010
Strings Music Festival
Peter Schickele: Quartet
Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Mark Nuccio, clarinet; David Hardy, cello; Katherine Collier, piano (7/30/08) 21:13
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2 in B flat major, Op.87
Michelle Kim, Xiao-Dong Wang, violins; David Harding, Rebecca Young, violas; David Hardy, cello (7/30/08) 28:59
Also, Charley talks with Kathy Brantigan about the Denver Brass Bagpipe concerts. He also anticipates Geraldine Walther's recital tomorrow at CU Boulder.
Dvorak: Gavotte
Martin Chalifour, violin; Stefan Hersh, violin; Geraldine Walther, viola 2:15
Colorado College Summer Music Festival (7/8/02)
And, Charley talks with Cherry Creek Chorale conductor Brian Patrick Leatherman about this weekend's concerts.
Peter Schickele: Quartet
Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Mark Nuccio, clarinet; David Hardy, cello; Katherine Collier, piano (7/30/08) 21:13
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2 in B flat major, Op.87
Michelle Kim, Xiao-Dong Wang, violins; David Harding, Rebecca Young, violas; David Hardy, cello (7/30/08) 28:59
Also, Charley talks with Kathy Brantigan about the Denver Brass Bagpipe concerts. He also anticipates Geraldine Walther's recital tomorrow at CU Boulder.
Dvorak: Gavotte
Martin Chalifour, violin; Stefan Hersh, violin; Geraldine Walther, viola 2:15
Colorado College Summer Music Festival (7/8/02)
And, Charley talks with Cherry Creek Chorale conductor Brian Patrick Leatherman about this weekend's concerts.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Friday March 5, 2010
Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Largo, ma non tanto" (2nd movement) from Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Krista Feeney, Owen Dalby, violin; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
Charley talks with oboist Joseph Robinson about his teacher, Marcel Tabiteau.
Also, Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor; Hsing-ay Hsu, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 33:16 (3/8/08)
And, Charley talks with Longmont Symphony music director Robert Olson about their concert tomorrow.
Moreover, Charley talks with pianist Zoe Erisman and Andrew Cooperstock about Saturday's Broomfield Fine Arts Festival.
Frederic Chopin: Nocturne in B flat minor, Op.9 No.1 Andrew Cooperstock, piano 3:51 KVOD Performance Studio 3/1/10 MS
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante con moto
III. Rondo: Vivace
The Fourth Piano Concerto was composed for the most part during 1805 and 1806. It was first played at a private concert at the Viennese palace of Beethoven's patron Prince Lobkowitz during March of 1807.
The conditions surrounding the first public performance on December 22, 1808 were less than ideal. The piano was out of tune. The orchestra was under-rehearsed. The hall was unheated. And the program was typically massive. Besides the Concerto, the all-Beethoven evening included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Choral Fantasy, the concert aria Ah, Perfido, and two movements from the C major Mass. One eyewitness complained, “there we continued, in the bitterest cold, too, from half past six to half past ten, and experienced the truth that one can easily have too much of a good thing--and more still of a loud thing.”
The concert was a disaster. Pianist Ignaz Moscheles observed: “I perceived that, like a run-away carriage rushing downhill, an overturn was inevitable.” Critic Johann Friedrich Reichardt said he wanted to leave the theater because “many a failure in the performance vexed our patience in the highest degree.”
Nevertheless, Beethoven's playing, despite the piano, was praised. Reichardt noted the final work on the program, “a new piano concerto of extreme difficulty, which Beethoven played with astonishing bravura, at the fastest possible tempi. The Adagio, a masterly movement of beautifully developed song, he sang on his instrument with a profound melancholy that thrilled me.”
Beethoven's deafness prevented further performances of the Concerto during his lifetime. Indeed, his efforts to persuade other pianists to tackle the piece were unsuccessful. The work lay dormant until 1836, when Felix Mendelssohn resurrected it in Leipzig. Schumann was in the audience, and later recalled, “I sat in my place without moving a muscle or even breathing.”
“A creation of absolute and consummate mastery,” writes Harris Goldsmith of the Fourth Concerto, “a miracle of deceptive simplicity and elevated emotion, exhibiting a graceful and incandescent originality with no sign of an Achille's Heel anywhere.” The opening movement begins with the solo piano, a device used earlier by Mozart in his E flat Concerto, K.271. Franz Liszt said he heard the story of the Beauty and the Beast in the middle movement. Novelist E.M. Forster granted that image, but wondered, “What about Orpheus and the Furies, though? That is the idea that has slipped into my mind to the detriment of the actual musical sounds.” Sir Donald Francis Tovey flatly replied: “The orchestra does not imitate wild beasts, and the piano does not imitate a lyre or a singer.” Biographer Maynard Solomon points to the “military” character of the finale, “with its snare-drum rhythms and `bayonet motif’ opening theme.”
The score calls for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Largo, ma non tanto" (2nd movement) from Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Krista Feeney, Owen Dalby, violin; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
Charley talks with oboist Joseph Robinson about his teacher, Marcel Tabiteau.
Also, Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor; Hsing-ay Hsu, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 33:16 (3/8/08)
And, Charley talks with Longmont Symphony music director Robert Olson about their concert tomorrow.
Moreover, Charley talks with pianist Zoe Erisman and Andrew Cooperstock about Saturday's Broomfield Fine Arts Festival.
Frederic Chopin: Nocturne in B flat minor, Op.9 No.1 Andrew Cooperstock, piano 3:51 KVOD Performance Studio 3/1/10 MS
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante con moto
III. Rondo: Vivace
The Fourth Piano Concerto was composed for the most part during 1805 and 1806. It was first played at a private concert at the Viennese palace of Beethoven's patron Prince Lobkowitz during March of 1807.
The conditions surrounding the first public performance on December 22, 1808 were less than ideal. The piano was out of tune. The orchestra was under-rehearsed. The hall was unheated. And the program was typically massive. Besides the Concerto, the all-Beethoven evening included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Choral Fantasy, the concert aria Ah, Perfido, and two movements from the C major Mass. One eyewitness complained, “there we continued, in the bitterest cold, too, from half past six to half past ten, and experienced the truth that one can easily have too much of a good thing--and more still of a loud thing.”
The concert was a disaster. Pianist Ignaz Moscheles observed: “I perceived that, like a run-away carriage rushing downhill, an overturn was inevitable.” Critic Johann Friedrich Reichardt said he wanted to leave the theater because “many a failure in the performance vexed our patience in the highest degree.”
Nevertheless, Beethoven's playing, despite the piano, was praised. Reichardt noted the final work on the program, “a new piano concerto of extreme difficulty, which Beethoven played with astonishing bravura, at the fastest possible tempi. The Adagio, a masterly movement of beautifully developed song, he sang on his instrument with a profound melancholy that thrilled me.”
Beethoven's deafness prevented further performances of the Concerto during his lifetime. Indeed, his efforts to persuade other pianists to tackle the piece were unsuccessful. The work lay dormant until 1836, when Felix Mendelssohn resurrected it in Leipzig. Schumann was in the audience, and later recalled, “I sat in my place without moving a muscle or even breathing.”
“A creation of absolute and consummate mastery,” writes Harris Goldsmith of the Fourth Concerto, “a miracle of deceptive simplicity and elevated emotion, exhibiting a graceful and incandescent originality with no sign of an Achille's Heel anywhere.” The opening movement begins with the solo piano, a device used earlier by Mozart in his E flat Concerto, K.271. Franz Liszt said he heard the story of the Beauty and the Beast in the middle movement. Novelist E.M. Forster granted that image, but wondered, “What about Orpheus and the Furies, though? That is the idea that has slipped into my mind to the detriment of the actual musical sounds.” Sir Donald Francis Tovey flatly replied: “The orchestra does not imitate wild beasts, and the piano does not imitate a lyre or a singer.” Biographer Maynard Solomon points to the “military” character of the finale, “with its snare-drum rhythms and `bayonet motif’ opening theme.”
The score calls for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Thursday March 4, 2010
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Julian Kuerti, conductor; Michael Thornton, horn
Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Op.20
Wolfgang Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major, K.495 (12/4-5/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Andre Watts's appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Franz Liszt: "Paganini" Etude No.4 in E major
Andre Watts, piano
EMI 47380 Track 4 2:01
And, David Rutherford talks with Tenly Williams and James Cline (Mountain Music Duo).
Johann Sebastian Bach: Gavotte from English Suite No.3, BWV 808, March & Musette from Anna Magdalena Notebook, BWV Anh.121 & 126
Mountain Music Duo (Tenly Williams, oboe; James Cline, guitar)
"Summer Play" CD Tracks 9 -11 4:39
Moreover, Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Allegro" (1st movement) from Harpsichord Concerto in E major, BWV 1053
Jory Vinikour, harpsichord; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
NCA Track 4 8:12
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Don Juan, Opus 20
``Enormous fun!'' exclaimed Strauss in a letter to his father after the first performance of Don Juan on November 11, 1889 in Weimar. ``Great success, the piece sounded magical, went excellently, and produced a storm of applause pretty unheard-of for Weimar.''
Don Juan was inspired by a verse play by Nicolaus Lenau, his last work before being confined to an insane asylum in 1844. For Lenau, Don Juan is ``no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing women,'' but rather ``it is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate womanhood, and to enjoy, in her, all the women on earth, whom he cannot as individuals possess. He cannot find her, although he reels from one to another.''
Accordingly, Strauss included various stanzas from Lenau at the top of the score. He finished the music during the summer of 1888. After a two-hour rehearsal, he reported to his father: ``I'm delighted to see that I've made further progress as an orchestrator, everything sounds splendid and comes over famously, even if it's terribly difficult. I was really sorry for the poor horn-players and trumpeters. The horns certainly blew as though they weren't afraid of death!....Afterward, a horn player who was sitting there sweating and quite out of breath gasped, `O God, what have we done wrong that you have sent us this stick to beat us! We won't get hid of HIM in a hurry.' We laughed until we cried.''
Though the audience reaction to Don Juan was positive, some critical reaction was not. Eduard Hanslick wrote: ``I have heard ladies and little Wagnerites speak of Strauss's Don Juan with enthusiasm. Others found the thing simply repellent. There is no tone picture, but a confusion of blinding color splashes, a stuttering tonal delirium.'' On the other hand, conductor Hans von Bülow was smitten. ``Your grandiose Don Juan has taken me captive,'' he wrote to Strauss.
For Bülow's Berlin performances, Strauss requested that the program book contain ``no thematic analysis but only the Lenau verses, exactly as printed facing the front page of the score.'' Strauss chose three excerpts from the Lenau play, two from the opening scene, in which the Don explains his compulsive quest. The third, from the final scene, is addressed to his friend Marcello:
The immeasurably wide magic circle
Of the multitudes of beautiful women,
I would penetrate it in the storm of delight,
To die of a kiss on the mouth of the last.
O friend, I would fly through every place
Where a beauty blooms, to kneel before each
And were it only for moments, to conquer.
I flee satiation and pleasure weariness,
I keep myself fresh in the service of beauty.
Scorning the one, I adore the whole sex.
The breath of a woman, today the scent of Spring
Oppresses me tomorrow as dungeon fetor.
As I wander, ever changing with my love
In the wide circle of beautiful women,
My love is different for each;
I will not build temples out of ruins.
Yes! passion is always the new.
It cannot be transferred from one to another,
It can only die here, rise again there.
And knowing itself, it knows no regret.
As every beauty in the world
It is only satisfied by love.
On and away to ever new conquests
As long as the fire of youth still pulses!
It was a fine storm which drove me,
It has now passed over, and stillness is left.
All wishes, all hopes are seemingly dead.
Perhaps a bolt from heights I scorned
Has fatally struck my powers of love
And suddenly the world is desolate for me,
And turned to night
And it has grown cold and dark on the hearth.
Don Juan is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bells, cymbals, triangle, harp and strings.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major, K.495
I. Allegro moderato
II. Romanza: Andante
III. Rondo: Allegro vivace
Mozart wrote four horn concertos for his friend Joseph Leutgeb, who played horn in the Salzburg orchestra. In 1760 Leutgeb married Barbara Plazzeriani, whose father owned a cheese and sausage shop in Vienna. He moved to Vienna in 1777, apparently to run the business. He also received some financial help from Mozart's father. He toured as a soloist in Vienna, Prague and Milan and was much admired for his singing tone and incredible accuracy.
Mozart's last horn concerto is dated June 26, 1786. On the manuscript he wrote ``A French horn concerto for Leutgeb.'' Leutgeb was constantly the butt of Mozart's jokes. The scores of the horn concertos are littered with insults. For the Fourth Concerto Mozart notated the solo part in red, green, black and blue inks in an effort to confuse the performer.
``Whether or not Leutgeb really was as simple as Mozart's inscriptions suggest,'' writes A. Hyatt King, ``the purely musical personality which comes out in this sequence of horn concertos is remarkable. The wonderful cantilena of the solo parts lingers gratefully in the memory, like the utterance of a dignified yet witty conversationalist, at ease among friends.''
Julian Kuerti, conductor; Michael Thornton, horn
Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Op.20
Wolfgang Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major, K.495 (12/4-5/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Andre Watts's appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Franz Liszt: "Paganini" Etude No.4 in E major
Andre Watts, piano
EMI 47380 Track 4 2:01
And, David Rutherford talks with Tenly Williams and James Cline (Mountain Music Duo).
Johann Sebastian Bach: Gavotte from English Suite No.3, BWV 808, March & Musette from Anna Magdalena Notebook, BWV Anh.121 & 126
Mountain Music Duo (Tenly Williams, oboe; James Cline, guitar)
"Summer Play" CD Tracks 9 -11 4:39
Moreover, Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Allegro" (1st movement) from Harpsichord Concerto in E major, BWV 1053
Jory Vinikour, harpsichord; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
NCA Track 4 8:12
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Don Juan, Opus 20
``Enormous fun!'' exclaimed Strauss in a letter to his father after the first performance of Don Juan on November 11, 1889 in Weimar. ``Great success, the piece sounded magical, went excellently, and produced a storm of applause pretty unheard-of for Weimar.''
Don Juan was inspired by a verse play by Nicolaus Lenau, his last work before being confined to an insane asylum in 1844. For Lenau, Don Juan is ``no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing women,'' but rather ``it is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate womanhood, and to enjoy, in her, all the women on earth, whom he cannot as individuals possess. He cannot find her, although he reels from one to another.''
Accordingly, Strauss included various stanzas from Lenau at the top of the score. He finished the music during the summer of 1888. After a two-hour rehearsal, he reported to his father: ``I'm delighted to see that I've made further progress as an orchestrator, everything sounds splendid and comes over famously, even if it's terribly difficult. I was really sorry for the poor horn-players and trumpeters. The horns certainly blew as though they weren't afraid of death!....Afterward, a horn player who was sitting there sweating and quite out of breath gasped, `O God, what have we done wrong that you have sent us this stick to beat us! We won't get hid of HIM in a hurry.' We laughed until we cried.''
Though the audience reaction to Don Juan was positive, some critical reaction was not. Eduard Hanslick wrote: ``I have heard ladies and little Wagnerites speak of Strauss's Don Juan with enthusiasm. Others found the thing simply repellent. There is no tone picture, but a confusion of blinding color splashes, a stuttering tonal delirium.'' On the other hand, conductor Hans von Bülow was smitten. ``Your grandiose Don Juan has taken me captive,'' he wrote to Strauss.
For Bülow's Berlin performances, Strauss requested that the program book contain ``no thematic analysis but only the Lenau verses, exactly as printed facing the front page of the score.'' Strauss chose three excerpts from the Lenau play, two from the opening scene, in which the Don explains his compulsive quest. The third, from the final scene, is addressed to his friend Marcello:
The immeasurably wide magic circle
Of the multitudes of beautiful women,
I would penetrate it in the storm of delight,
To die of a kiss on the mouth of the last.
O friend, I would fly through every place
Where a beauty blooms, to kneel before each
And were it only for moments, to conquer.
I flee satiation and pleasure weariness,
I keep myself fresh in the service of beauty.
Scorning the one, I adore the whole sex.
The breath of a woman, today the scent of Spring
Oppresses me tomorrow as dungeon fetor.
As I wander, ever changing with my love
In the wide circle of beautiful women,
My love is different for each;
I will not build temples out of ruins.
Yes! passion is always the new.
It cannot be transferred from one to another,
It can only die here, rise again there.
And knowing itself, it knows no regret.
As every beauty in the world
It is only satisfied by love.
On and away to ever new conquests
As long as the fire of youth still pulses!
It was a fine storm which drove me,
It has now passed over, and stillness is left.
All wishes, all hopes are seemingly dead.
Perhaps a bolt from heights I scorned
Has fatally struck my powers of love
And suddenly the world is desolate for me,
And turned to night
And it has grown cold and dark on the hearth.
Don Juan is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bells, cymbals, triangle, harp and strings.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major, K.495
I. Allegro moderato
II. Romanza: Andante
III. Rondo: Allegro vivace
Mozart wrote four horn concertos for his friend Joseph Leutgeb, who played horn in the Salzburg orchestra. In 1760 Leutgeb married Barbara Plazzeriani, whose father owned a cheese and sausage shop in Vienna. He moved to Vienna in 1777, apparently to run the business. He also received some financial help from Mozart's father. He toured as a soloist in Vienna, Prague and Milan and was much admired for his singing tone and incredible accuracy.
Mozart's last horn concerto is dated June 26, 1786. On the manuscript he wrote ``A French horn concerto for Leutgeb.'' Leutgeb was constantly the butt of Mozart's jokes. The scores of the horn concertos are littered with insults. For the Fourth Concerto Mozart notated the solo part in red, green, black and blue inks in an effort to confuse the performer.
``Whether or not Leutgeb really was as simple as Mozart's inscriptions suggest,'' writes A. Hyatt King, ``the purely musical personality which comes out in this sequence of horn concertos is remarkable. The wonderful cantilena of the solo parts lingers gratefully in the memory, like the utterance of a dignified yet witty conversationalist, at ease among friends.''
Wednesday March 3, 2010
Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D major, BWV 1050
Krista Feeney, violin; Christina Jennings, flute; Jory Vinikour, harpsichord; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
NCA (3/13/09) 20:20
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Jessica Guideri, Stacy Markowitz, violins; Elizabeth Jaffe, viola; Alan Rafferty, cello)
Antonín Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op.96 (American) 27:10 (7/3/07)
And, Charley talks with oboist Joseph Robinson about his teacher, Marcel Tabiteau.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Cum Sancto Spiritu" from Lutheran Mass in F major, BWV 233
Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra & Chorus/ Timothy Krueger
NCA (3/13/09) 3:27
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D major, BWV 1050
Krista Feeney, violin; Christina Jennings, flute; Jory Vinikour, harpsichord; Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra
NCA (3/13/09) 20:20
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Jessica Guideri, Stacy Markowitz, violins; Elizabeth Jaffe, viola; Alan Rafferty, cello)
Antonín Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op.96 (American) 27:10 (7/3/07)
And, Charley talks with oboist Joseph Robinson about his teacher, Marcel Tabiteau.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Cum Sancto Spiritu" from Lutheran Mass in F major, BWV 233
Boulder Bach Festival Orchestra & Chorus/ Timothy Krueger
NCA (3/13/09) 3:27
Tuesday March 2, 2010
The founding cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet, David Soyer, died on February 25, a day after his 87th birthday, in New York. Tonight we hear part of the Quartet's farewell tour.
Friends of Chamber Music
Guarneri String Quartet
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F 27:43
Wolfgang Mozart: “Andante” (2nd movement) from String Quartet No. 8 in F major, K.168 3:20 (12/3/08)
Wolfgang Mozart: “Allegro ma non troppo” (4th movement) from String Quartet No.15 in D minor, K.421
Guarneri Quartet
Philips 426 240 Track 8 9:32
Antonin Dvořák: "Allegro ma non tanto" (1st movement) fromPiano Quintet in A major, Op.81
Artur Rubinstein, piano; Guarneri Quartet
RCA 6263 Track 1 10:47
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): String Quartet in F major
Allegro moderato—très doux
Assex vif—trè rythmè
Très lent
Vif et agité
Ravel’s only string quartet was composed in 1902-03, while he was still a student at the Paris Conservatory. He said it “reflects a definite preoccupation with musical structure, imperfectly realized, no doubt, but much more apparent than in my previous compositions.”
An obvious model was Debussy’s only string quartet. When Ravel played through his effort on the piano, Debussy is supposed to have said, “In the name of the gods of music, and in mine, do not touch a single note of what you have written in your quartet.” A comparison between the two quartets in the press and the cafes escalated into a breach between the two composers. “It’s probably better for us, after all,” said Ravel, “to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”
The premiere was given by the Heymann Quartet at a Société Nationale program in Paris on March 5, 1904. The reaction was mostly positive, though the Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune said the opening theme sounded like the wailing of clarinets in a Chinese theater, and the general feeling of all four movements was that of a lesson in arithmetic. More typical was Jean Marnold’s review, in Mercure de France. “One should remember the name of Maurice Ravel,” he wrote. “He is one of the masters of tomorrow.”
Biographer H.H. Stuckenschmidt notes “the astonishing unity that makes this work appear as though it had been poured into its mold in one continuous stream….All the themes and all the motives used in the four movements of the work grow out of a common seed and are elaborated by little rearrangements and by a phenomenal variety of changes in perspective and lighting.” Stuckenschmidt also notes the work’s classical roots: “a rapid first movement in the two-theme sonata form,” a scherzo “with a slow trio of wavering tonality,” “a very songlike slow movement in free form,” and a finale whose meter (quintuple) “probably derives from Russian rhythms.”
Friends of Chamber Music
Guarneri String Quartet
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F 27:43
Wolfgang Mozart: “Andante” (2nd movement) from String Quartet No. 8 in F major, K.168 3:20 (12/3/08)
Wolfgang Mozart: “Allegro ma non troppo” (4th movement) from String Quartet No.15 in D minor, K.421
Guarneri Quartet
Philips 426 240 Track 8 9:32
Antonin Dvořák: "Allegro ma non tanto" (1st movement) fromPiano Quintet in A major, Op.81
Artur Rubinstein, piano; Guarneri Quartet
RCA 6263 Track 1 10:47
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): String Quartet in F major
Allegro moderato—très doux
Assex vif—trè rythmè
Très lent
Vif et agité
Ravel’s only string quartet was composed in 1902-03, while he was still a student at the Paris Conservatory. He said it “reflects a definite preoccupation with musical structure, imperfectly realized, no doubt, but much more apparent than in my previous compositions.”
An obvious model was Debussy’s only string quartet. When Ravel played through his effort on the piano, Debussy is supposed to have said, “In the name of the gods of music, and in mine, do not touch a single note of what you have written in your quartet.” A comparison between the two quartets in the press and the cafes escalated into a breach between the two composers. “It’s probably better for us, after all,” said Ravel, “to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”
The premiere was given by the Heymann Quartet at a Société Nationale program in Paris on March 5, 1904. The reaction was mostly positive, though the Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune said the opening theme sounded like the wailing of clarinets in a Chinese theater, and the general feeling of all four movements was that of a lesson in arithmetic. More typical was Jean Marnold’s review, in Mercure de France. “One should remember the name of Maurice Ravel,” he wrote. “He is one of the masters of tomorrow.”
Biographer H.H. Stuckenschmidt notes “the astonishing unity that makes this work appear as though it had been poured into its mold in one continuous stream….All the themes and all the motives used in the four movements of the work grow out of a common seed and are elaborated by little rearrangements and by a phenomenal variety of changes in perspective and lighting.” Stuckenschmidt also notes the work’s classical roots: “a rapid first movement in the two-theme sonata form,” a scherzo “with a slow trio of wavering tonality,” “a very songlike slow movement in free form,” and a finale whose meter (quintuple) “probably derives from Russian rhythms.”
Monday March 1, 2010
Colorado Chamber Players
Hollis Taylor: Excerpt from “Samba Beach Flies” from The Crawl Ball
Paul Primus & David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Jeffrey Watson, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 050707 MS
Wolfgang Mozart: Finale (“Allegro Molto”) from String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K.465 (Dissonance)
Paul Primus, David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 011006 8:43
Ervin Schulhoff: “Alla Serenata” (2nd movement) from Five Pieces for String Quartet 2:49
David Waldman & Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello; Ken Harper, double bass
Toru Takemitsu: “In the Shadow” (3rd movement) & “Rocking Mirror” (4th movement) from Rocking Mirror Daybreak
Paul Primus, David Waldman, violins
KVOD Performance Studio NCA 4:55 030106 5:15
Claude Debussy: "Profane Dance" from Danses sacrée et profane (Sacred and Profane Dances) 4:47
Lynne Abbey-Lee, harp; Paul Primus and David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Jeffrey Watson, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 101607 MS 5:55
KVOD Performance Studio 022707 MS 2:51 + 0:43
Antonín Dvořák: “Allegro assai” (4th movement) from String Quintet in G major, Op.77 7:22
David Waldman & Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello; Ken Harper, double bass
KVOD Performance Studio 022707 MS 8:33
Katrina Wreede: How a Mosquito Operates
Colorado Chamber Players (Daniel Silver, clarinet; Paul Primus, violin; Scott Higgins, vibraphone; Nanette Shannon, piano) 5:50
KVOD Performance Studio 022708 MS
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (arr. Higgins): Bumblebee Boogie
Colorado Chamber Players (Scott Higgins, vibraphone; Nanette Shannon, piano) 3:00
KVOD Performance Studio 022708 MS
Gordon Jacob: "Gavotte" (2nd movement) from Four Fancies
Colorado Chamber Players (Paul Nagem, flute; Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 1/16/09 MS
D'Arcy Reynolds: "The Camel Yard" (opening section) from Cloven Dreams (2:34)
Colorado Chamber Players (Paul Nagem, flute; Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 1/16/09 MS
Hollis Taylor: Excerpt from “Samba Beach Flies” from The Crawl Ball
Paul Primus & David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Jeffrey Watson, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 050707 MS
Wolfgang Mozart: Finale (“Allegro Molto”) from String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K.465 (Dissonance)
Paul Primus, David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 011006 8:43
Ervin Schulhoff: “Alla Serenata” (2nd movement) from Five Pieces for String Quartet 2:49
David Waldman & Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello; Ken Harper, double bass
Toru Takemitsu: “In the Shadow” (3rd movement) & “Rocking Mirror” (4th movement) from Rocking Mirror Daybreak
Paul Primus, David Waldman, violins
KVOD Performance Studio NCA 4:55 030106 5:15
Claude Debussy: "Profane Dance" from Danses sacrée et profane (Sacred and Profane Dances) 4:47
Lynne Abbey-Lee, harp; Paul Primus and David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Jeffrey Watson, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 101607 MS 5:55
KVOD Performance Studio 022707 MS 2:51 + 0:43
Antonín Dvořák: “Allegro assai” (4th movement) from String Quintet in G major, Op.77 7:22
David Waldman & Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello; Ken Harper, double bass
KVOD Performance Studio 022707 MS 8:33
Katrina Wreede: How a Mosquito Operates
Colorado Chamber Players (Daniel Silver, clarinet; Paul Primus, violin; Scott Higgins, vibraphone; Nanette Shannon, piano) 5:50
KVOD Performance Studio 022708 MS
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (arr. Higgins): Bumblebee Boogie
Colorado Chamber Players (Scott Higgins, vibraphone; Nanette Shannon, piano) 3:00
KVOD Performance Studio 022708 MS
Gordon Jacob: "Gavotte" (2nd movement) from Four Fancies
Colorado Chamber Players (Paul Nagem, flute; Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 1/16/09 MS
D'Arcy Reynolds: "The Camel Yard" (opening section) from Cloven Dreams (2:34)
Colorado Chamber Players (Paul Nagem, flute; Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 1/16/09 MS
Friday February 26, 2010
Charley anticipates the Turtle Island Quartet's appearance at the Lakewood Cultural Center tomorrow.
Evan Price: Variations on an Unoriginal Theme
Turtle Island Quartet & Ying Quartet
Telarc 80630 Track 7 7:32
Also, Charley talks with cellist Julie Albers of the Albers Trio.
Bohuslav Martinů: "Poco moderato" (2nd movement) from String Trio No.2, H.238
The Albers Trio (Laura Albers, violin; Rebecca Albers, viola; Julie Albers, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 1/21/10 MS
And, Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Paul Schoenfield: “Pining for Betsy” & “Who Let the Cat Out Last Night” from Three Country Fiddle Pieces Mark Fewer, violin; John Novacek, piano; John Kinzie, percussion (6/25/08) 11:03
Jean Françaix: L’Heure du Berger Elizabeth Mann, flute; Jeff Rathbun, oboe; Bil Jackson, clarinet; Michael Kroth, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn; Anne Epperson, piano (6/29/08) 9:35
Kenji Bunch: Common Tones Toby Appel, violin/viola; Stewart Rose, horn; Susan Grace, piano 23:07 (6/25/08)
In addition, Monika Vischer talks with cellist Zuill Bailey, who appears with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra tomorrow.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Bourée I & II" & "Gigue" from Solo Cello Suite No.3 in C major, BWV 1009
Zuill Bailey, cello
Telarc 31978 CD1 11-12 7:06
Moreover, Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney about Andrew Henderson's organ recital tomorrow.
Evan Price: Variations on an Unoriginal Theme
Turtle Island Quartet & Ying Quartet
Telarc 80630 Track 7 7:32
Also, Charley talks with cellist Julie Albers of the Albers Trio.
Bohuslav Martinů: "Poco moderato" (2nd movement) from String Trio No.2, H.238
The Albers Trio (Laura Albers, violin; Rebecca Albers, viola; Julie Albers, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 1/21/10 MS
And, Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Paul Schoenfield: “Pining for Betsy” & “Who Let the Cat Out Last Night” from Three Country Fiddle Pieces Mark Fewer, violin; John Novacek, piano; John Kinzie, percussion (6/25/08) 11:03
Jean Françaix: L’Heure du Berger Elizabeth Mann, flute; Jeff Rathbun, oboe; Bil Jackson, clarinet; Michael Kroth, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn; Anne Epperson, piano (6/29/08) 9:35
Kenji Bunch: Common Tones Toby Appel, violin/viola; Stewart Rose, horn; Susan Grace, piano 23:07 (6/25/08)
In addition, Monika Vischer talks with cellist Zuill Bailey, who appears with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra tomorrow.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Bourée I & II" & "Gigue" from Solo Cello Suite No.3 in C major, BWV 1009
Zuill Bailey, cello
Telarc 31978 CD1 11-12 7:06
Moreover, Charley talks with Boulder Bach Festival executive director Carole Whitney about Andrew Henderson's organ recital tomorrow.
Thursday February 25, 2010
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68 (11/20-21/09)
Also, Charley talks with viola da gambist Ann Marie Morgan about her appearance with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra this weekend.
Antoine Forqueray: "La Portugaise" & "La Couperin" from Suite No.1 in D minor
Ann Marie Morgan, bass viola da gamba; William Simms, theorbo
Centaur 2685 8-9 8:35
Charley talks with St. John's Episcopal Cathedral organ restorer Susie Tatersall about the "Hook" organ.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68
I. Un poco sostenuto; Allegro
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso
IV. Adagio; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
Unlike Haydn, who wrote his first symphony in his early twenties and kept going until he had amassed more than a hundred, Brahms waited until his early forties and stopped at four. Of course, symphonies had changed considerably in this interval of over a century. Brahms himself observed: ``A symphony is no laughing matter nowadays.''
Brahms had other reasons for procrastinating. When urged by Schumann and others to make the attempt, he insisted: ``I shall never write a symphony. You have no idea how the likes of us feel, when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.'' The ``giant'' was Beethoven, whom even Haydn regarded as ``that Great Mogul.''
After hearing a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Brahms set out in earnest to write his First, finishing it, after a few false starts, in 1876. The first performance took place in Karlsruhe on November 4, 1876.
Conductor Hans von Bülow immediately pronounced the work ``Beethoven's Tenth.'' Indeed, there is some similarity between the theme of Brahms' last movement and the finale of Beethoven's Ninth. When someone pointed this out to Brahms, he replied: ``Any ass can see that.''
It was also von Bülow who made the familiar coupling of the three ``B's,'' when he said: ``I believe it is not without the intelligence of chance that Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are in alliteration.''
These kinds of remarks served only to embarrass Brahms and inflame his critics. Hugo Wolf reported: ``The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found in Brahms one of its worthiest representatives....He understands the trick of making something out of nothing.''
But it was the influential critic Eduard Hanslick who insured the First Symphony's success. After the Viennese performance, he wrote: ``The new symphony displays an energy of will, a logic of musical thought, a greatness of structural power and a mastery of technique such as is possessed by no other living composer.''
``The gloomy, painfully struggling first movement,'' writes biographer Karl Geiringer, ``is dominated by a sort of musical motto, which plays an important part in the Introduction, supplies the counterpoint to the main subject, and is the leading feature in the second subject and the development....The two middle movements, however, are lighter and shorter...(providing) the indispensable moments of relief in the dramatic action of the whole composition. For not only the first movement, but the beginning of the Finale, conjures up a vision of a gloomy Inferno. Everything in this last movement seems to be hastening towards a catastrophe, until suddenly a horn solo sounds a message of salvation. Then the broadly flowing, hymn-like Allegro proclaims its triumph over all fear and pain.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68 (11/20-21/09)
Also, Charley talks with viola da gambist Ann Marie Morgan about her appearance with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra this weekend.
Antoine Forqueray: "La Portugaise" & "La Couperin" from Suite No.1 in D minor
Ann Marie Morgan, bass viola da gamba; William Simms, theorbo
Centaur 2685 8-9 8:35
Charley talks with St. John's Episcopal Cathedral organ restorer Susie Tatersall about the "Hook" organ.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68
I. Un poco sostenuto; Allegro
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso
IV. Adagio; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
Unlike Haydn, who wrote his first symphony in his early twenties and kept going until he had amassed more than a hundred, Brahms waited until his early forties and stopped at four. Of course, symphonies had changed considerably in this interval of over a century. Brahms himself observed: ``A symphony is no laughing matter nowadays.''
Brahms had other reasons for procrastinating. When urged by Schumann and others to make the attempt, he insisted: ``I shall never write a symphony. You have no idea how the likes of us feel, when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.'' The ``giant'' was Beethoven, whom even Haydn regarded as ``that Great Mogul.''
After hearing a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Brahms set out in earnest to write his First, finishing it, after a few false starts, in 1876. The first performance took place in Karlsruhe on November 4, 1876.
Conductor Hans von Bülow immediately pronounced the work ``Beethoven's Tenth.'' Indeed, there is some similarity between the theme of Brahms' last movement and the finale of Beethoven's Ninth. When someone pointed this out to Brahms, he replied: ``Any ass can see that.''
It was also von Bülow who made the familiar coupling of the three ``B's,'' when he said: ``I believe it is not without the intelligence of chance that Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are in alliteration.''
These kinds of remarks served only to embarrass Brahms and inflame his critics. Hugo Wolf reported: ``The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found in Brahms one of its worthiest representatives....He understands the trick of making something out of nothing.''
But it was the influential critic Eduard Hanslick who insured the First Symphony's success. After the Viennese performance, he wrote: ``The new symphony displays an energy of will, a logic of musical thought, a greatness of structural power and a mastery of technique such as is possessed by no other living composer.''
``The gloomy, painfully struggling first movement,'' writes biographer Karl Geiringer, ``is dominated by a sort of musical motto, which plays an important part in the Introduction, supplies the counterpoint to the main subject, and is the leading feature in the second subject and the development....The two middle movements, however, are lighter and shorter...(providing) the indispensable moments of relief in the dramatic action of the whole composition. For not only the first movement, but the beginning of the Finale, conjures up a vision of a gloomy Inferno. Everything in this last movement seems to be hastening towards a catastrophe, until suddenly a horn solo sounds a message of salvation. Then the broadly flowing, hymn-like Allegro proclaims its triumph over all fear and pain.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday February 24, 2010
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Andrew Bain, horn; Jeffrey Work, trumpet; Eric M. Berlin, trumpet; Gordon Wolfe, trombone; Stephen Dombrowski, tuba)
Wilke Renwick: Dance 1:35
Eric Ewazen: Colchester Fantasy 18:28
G.W.E. Friederich: Salute from The American Brass Band Journal 7:41 (7/3/07)
Also, Charley talks with Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless about their concerts with Jerome Fleg this weekend.
Georges Bizet: Carmen Fantasy
Astor Piazzolla: Milonga sin Palabras
Antero Winds (Cobus Du Toit, flute; Sarah Mellander Bierhaus, oboe; Jerome Fleg, clarinet; Megan Garrison, horn; Kaori Uno, bassoon)
KVOD Performance Studio 103108 MS
And, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players's appearance at the Arvada Center tomorrow.
Astor Piazzolla (arr. José Bragato): Oblivion, La Muerte del Angel
Maurice Ravel: 1st movement from Sonata for Violin and Cello
Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players (Michael Butterman, piano; Jennifer Carsillo, violin; Charles Lee, cello; Janet Braccio, page-turner on Oblivion)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/24/09 MS
Wilke Renwick: Dance 1:35
Eric Ewazen: Colchester Fantasy 18:28
G.W.E. Friederich: Salute from The American Brass Band Journal 7:41 (7/3/07)
Also, Charley talks with Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless about their concerts with Jerome Fleg this weekend.
Georges Bizet: Carmen Fantasy
Astor Piazzolla: Milonga sin Palabras
Antero Winds (Cobus Du Toit, flute; Sarah Mellander Bierhaus, oboe; Jerome Fleg, clarinet; Megan Garrison, horn; Kaori Uno, bassoon)
KVOD Performance Studio 103108 MS
And, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players's appearance at the Arvada Center tomorrow.
Astor Piazzolla (arr. José Bragato): Oblivion, La Muerte del Angel
Maurice Ravel: 1st movement from Sonata for Violin and Cello
Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players (Michael Butterman, piano; Jennifer Carsillo, violin; Charles Lee, cello; Janet Braccio, page-turner on Oblivion)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/24/09 MS
Tuesday February 23, 2010
Newman Center Presents
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti, violin & conductor
Roger Smalley: Footwork
Pavel Haas (arr. Tognetti): String Quartet No. 2, Op.7 (From the Monkey Mountains) (4/30/09)
Charley anticipates the Newman Center Presents series with pianist Yuja Wang and the Russian National Orchestra tomorrow.
György Ligeti: Etude No.4 (Fanfares)
Yuja Wang, piano
DG 12534 Track 5 3:40
Also, Charley talks with Kantorei music director Richard Larson about Eric Whitacre's appearance at the University of Denver Thursday.
Eric Whitacre: Animal Crackers No.1
Kantorei/ Eric Whitacre 2:24
NCA (5/08)
And, Charley talks with Front Range Chamber Players artistic director David Brussell about their concert Sunday.
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti, violin & conductor
Roger Smalley: Footwork
Pavel Haas (arr. Tognetti): String Quartet No. 2, Op.7 (From the Monkey Mountains) (4/30/09)
Charley anticipates the Newman Center Presents series with pianist Yuja Wang and the Russian National Orchestra tomorrow.
György Ligeti: Etude No.4 (Fanfares)
Yuja Wang, piano
DG 12534 Track 5 3:40
Also, Charley talks with Kantorei music director Richard Larson about Eric Whitacre's appearance at the University of Denver Thursday.
Eric Whitacre: Animal Crackers No.1
Kantorei/ Eric Whitacre 2:24
NCA (5/08)
And, Charley talks with Front Range Chamber Players artistic director David Brussell about their concert Sunday.
Monday February 22, 2010
Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
Frank Nowell & Cynthia Miller Freivogel, co-leaders
Debra Nagy, oboe; Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin; Tekla Cunningham, violin
Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite in A minor, BWV 1067 18:56
Johann Sebastian Bach: Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043 14:38
Also, Charley anticipates the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado's "Bach Meets Frederick the Great" concerts this weekend.George Frideric Handel: Organ Concerto in B flat major, Op.4 No.6
Frank Nowell, organ; Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado 11:31
George Frideric Handel: "Adagio" (3rd movement) & "Allegro" (4th movement) from Trio Sonata in G minor, Op.2 No.5
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin; Debra Nagy, oboe; Sandra Miller, cello; Frank Nowell, harpsichord 5:13
NCA (5/1/09)
And, Charley talks with Colorado Ballet's Gil Boggs about their production of Beauty and the Beast.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
I. Vivace
II. Largo ma non tanto
III. Allegro
In 1717 Bach assumed his new position as court conductor to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. ``My gracious prince loved and understood music,'' he later recalled. Much of Bach's secular, instrumental music dates from his tenure at Cöthen, including a series of violin concertos.
The Double Concerto was written about 1720. ``The attack of the first movement is uncompromising,'' says Geoffrey Crankshaw, ``and the contrapuntal exchanges of the orchestra are matched by those of the two soloists, using a variant of the main theme. The self-consistent logic of this movement is contrasted with the exalted calm of the second movement, whose serene canon, unfolded...by the soloists against a softly beating accompaniment, takes us beyond earthly experience. In the third movement, energy returns in an argument dominated by the soloists. Bach's use of double-stopping in both solo parts is a marvelous stroke of poetic intensity.''
The score calls for two solo violins, strings and continuo.
Frank Nowell & Cynthia Miller Freivogel, co-leaders
Debra Nagy, oboe; Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin; Tekla Cunningham, violin
Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite in A minor, BWV 1067 18:56
Johann Sebastian Bach: Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043 14:38
Also, Charley anticipates the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado's "Bach Meets Frederick the Great" concerts this weekend.George Frideric Handel: Organ Concerto in B flat major, Op.4 No.6
Frank Nowell, organ; Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado 11:31
George Frideric Handel: "Adagio" (3rd movement) & "Allegro" (4th movement) from Trio Sonata in G minor, Op.2 No.5
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin; Debra Nagy, oboe; Sandra Miller, cello; Frank Nowell, harpsichord 5:13
NCA (5/1/09)
And, Charley talks with Colorado Ballet's Gil Boggs about their production of Beauty and the Beast.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
I. Vivace
II. Largo ma non tanto
III. Allegro
In 1717 Bach assumed his new position as court conductor to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. ``My gracious prince loved and understood music,'' he later recalled. Much of Bach's secular, instrumental music dates from his tenure at Cöthen, including a series of violin concertos.
The Double Concerto was written about 1720. ``The attack of the first movement is uncompromising,'' says Geoffrey Crankshaw, ``and the contrapuntal exchanges of the orchestra are matched by those of the two soloists, using a variant of the main theme. The self-consistent logic of this movement is contrasted with the exalted calm of the second movement, whose serene canon, unfolded...by the soloists against a softly beating accompaniment, takes us beyond earthly experience. In the third movement, energy returns in an argument dominated by the soloists. Bach's use of double-stopping in both solo parts is a marvelous stroke of poetic intensity.''
The score calls for two solo violins, strings and continuo.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Friday February 19, 2010
Charley talks with Cantaloupe Records manager Alec Bemis about the Mile High Voltage Festival at the Newman Center this weekend.
Newman Center Presents
Benjamin Hudson, violin; Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056 10:42
Peter Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings in C major, Op.48 31:00 (3/21/07)
Also, Charley talks with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis about the Haiti Benefit Concert tomorrow.
Wolfgang Mozart: "Allegro asai" (3rd movement) from Divertimento in D major, K.136
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra/ Cynthia Katsarelis
NCA (12/2/07)
And, Charley talks with Kantorei music director Richard Larson about their Augustana Arts concert on Sunday.
Eric Whitacre: "The Eel," "The Kangaroo" & "The Canary" from Animal Crackers No.2
Kantorei/ Richard Larson
NCA (10/2009)
Evan Ziporyn: Excerpt from Frog's Eye
Evan Ziporyn,bass clarinet; Boston Modern Orchestra Project/ Gil Rose
Cantaloupe 21040 Track 1 1:48
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Serenade for Strings in C major, Opus 48
I. Piece in the Form of a Sonata: Andante non troppo; Allegro moderato
II. Waltz: Moderato, tempo di valse
III. Elegy: Larghetto elegiaco
IV. Finale: Andante; Allegro con spirito
``Whether because it's my latest child or because it really isn't bad,'' Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher, ``I'm terribly in love with this serenade.'' The Serenade for Strings was written in just seven weeks during the fall of 1880, at the same time as the 1812 Overture. ``My muse has been benevolent of late,'' Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. ``I have written two long works very rapidly: the festive overture and a Serenade in four movements for string orchestra. The overture will be very noisy. I wrote it without much warmth or enthusiasm; and therefore it has no great artistic value. The Serenade, on the contrary, I wrote from an inward impulse; I felt it; and I venture to hope that this work is not without artistic qualities.''
The Serenade was introduced by Eduard Napravnik and the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg on October 30, 1881. When Tchaikovsky conducted the work in London, the Musical Times reported applause ``far beyond the limit of merely courteous approbation.''
Tchaikovsky again wrote to his patroness: ``I wish with all my heart that you could hear my Serenade properly performed. I think that the middle movements, as played by the strings, would win your sympathy....The first movement is my homage to Mozart: it is intended to be an imitation of his style, and I should be delighted if I thought I had in any way approached my model.''
Biographer John Warrack says ``the opening movement used the strong opening descending scale figure again at the end, and the Waltz, justly one of his most famous, and Elegy both base their tunes, so different in effect, on a rising scale. The Finale makes use of two Russian themes. The second of them is again built out of a descending scale, and Tchaikovsky subjects it to delightfully varied treatment on each of its repetitions....At the end, he brings back the descending scale theme of the very opening before blowing it away with a last statement of the second, boisterous Russian theme.''
Newman Center Presents
Benjamin Hudson, violin; Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056 10:42
Peter Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings in C major, Op.48 31:00 (3/21/07)
Also, Charley talks with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis about the Haiti Benefit Concert tomorrow.
Wolfgang Mozart: "Allegro asai" (3rd movement) from Divertimento in D major, K.136
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra/ Cynthia Katsarelis
NCA (12/2/07)
And, Charley talks with Kantorei music director Richard Larson about their Augustana Arts concert on Sunday.
Eric Whitacre: "The Eel," "The Kangaroo" & "The Canary" from Animal Crackers No.2
Kantorei/ Richard Larson
NCA (10/2009)
Evan Ziporyn: Excerpt from Frog's Eye
Evan Ziporyn,bass clarinet; Boston Modern Orchestra Project/ Gil Rose
Cantaloupe 21040 Track 1 1:48
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Serenade for Strings in C major, Opus 48
I. Piece in the Form of a Sonata: Andante non troppo; Allegro moderato
II. Waltz: Moderato, tempo di valse
III. Elegy: Larghetto elegiaco
IV. Finale: Andante; Allegro con spirito
``Whether because it's my latest child or because it really isn't bad,'' Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher, ``I'm terribly in love with this serenade.'' The Serenade for Strings was written in just seven weeks during the fall of 1880, at the same time as the 1812 Overture. ``My muse has been benevolent of late,'' Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. ``I have written two long works very rapidly: the festive overture and a Serenade in four movements for string orchestra. The overture will be very noisy. I wrote it without much warmth or enthusiasm; and therefore it has no great artistic value. The Serenade, on the contrary, I wrote from an inward impulse; I felt it; and I venture to hope that this work is not without artistic qualities.''
The Serenade was introduced by Eduard Napravnik and the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg on October 30, 1881. When Tchaikovsky conducted the work in London, the Musical Times reported applause ``far beyond the limit of merely courteous approbation.''
Tchaikovsky again wrote to his patroness: ``I wish with all my heart that you could hear my Serenade properly performed. I think that the middle movements, as played by the strings, would win your sympathy....The first movement is my homage to Mozart: it is intended to be an imitation of his style, and I should be delighted if I thought I had in any way approached my model.''
Biographer John Warrack says ``the opening movement used the strong opening descending scale figure again at the end, and the Waltz, justly one of his most famous, and Elegy both base their tunes, so different in effect, on a rising scale. The Finale makes use of two Russian themes. The second of them is again built out of a descending scale, and Tchaikovsky subjects it to delightfully varied treatment on each of its repetitions....At the end, he brings back the descending scale theme of the very opening before blowing it away with a last statement of the second, boisterous Russian theme.''
Wednesday February 17, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Robert Schumann (arr. Franz Liszt): Widmung (Dedication), Op.25 No. 1
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 4/24/09MS
Robert Schumann: Arabesque, Op.18
Christopher O'Riley, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 11/15/08 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550 (7/23/06) 31:18
And, John Newton (arr. Jack Schrader): Amazing Grace
Colorado Children’s Chorale
Deborah DiSantis, conductor; Tad Koriath, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 5/11/06 JP
Robert Schumann (arr. Franz Liszt): Widmung (Dedication), Op.25 No. 1
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 4/24/09MS
Robert Schumann: Arabesque, Op.18
Christopher O'Riley, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 11/15/08 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550 (7/23/06) 31:18
And, John Newton (arr. Jack Schrader): Amazing Grace
Colorado Children’s Chorale
Deborah DiSantis, conductor; Tad Koriath, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 5/11/06 JP
Tuesday February 16, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Robert Schumann: “Aria” (2nd movement) from Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op.11
Barry Douglas, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 3/19/09 MS
Also, Friends of Chamber Music
Marc Andre Hamelin, piano.
Frédéric Chopin: Barcarolle in F sharp major, op.60
Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, op.47 16:17
Marc Andre Hamelin: Etude no.7 (after Tchaikovsky)
Marc Andre Hamelin: Etude no.8, Erlkönig (after Goethe) 9:46
Leopold Godowsky: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Johann Strauss's Wine, Woman and Song 11:06
Marc Andre Hamelin: Diabolical Suggestion 1:20 (5/14/08)
And, Isaac Albéniz: “Rumores de la Caleta” from Recuerdos de viaje
Jason Vieaux, guitar
KVOD Performance Studio 10/5/07 MS
Robert Schumann: “Aria” (2nd movement) from Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op.11
Barry Douglas, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 3/19/09 MS
Also, Friends of Chamber Music
Marc Andre Hamelin, piano.
Frédéric Chopin: Barcarolle in F sharp major, op.60
Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, op.47 16:17
Marc Andre Hamelin: Etude no.7 (after Tchaikovsky)
Marc Andre Hamelin: Etude no.8, Erlkönig (after Goethe) 9:46
Leopold Godowsky: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Johann Strauss's Wine, Woman and Song 11:06
Marc Andre Hamelin: Diabolical Suggestion 1:20 (5/14/08)
And, Isaac Albéniz: “Rumores de la Caleta” from Recuerdos de viaje
Jason Vieaux, guitar
KVOD Performance Studio 10/5/07 MS
Friday, February 5, 2010
Monday February 15, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Traditional Chinese: Fisherman's Song
Linda Wang, violin; Alice Rybak, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 2/13/07 MS
Also, Strings in the Mountains Music Festival
Vivaldi: Concerto No. 3 in F major (“Autumn”) from The Four Seasons, Op.8
Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Strings in the Mountains Chamber Orchestra (8/14/04)
Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op.53 (Heroic)
Jon Nakamatsu, piano (8/17/04)
Gershwin-Singleton: Rhapsody in Blue
Ralph Votapek, piano; Kimberly Aseltine, clarinet; Alpen Brass; Paul Eachus, conductor (7/2/04)
And, Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro vivace—Presto" (1st movement) from String Quartet in F minor, Op.80
Jupiter String Quartet (Nelson Lee, Meg Freivogel, violins; Liz Freivogel, viola; Daniel McDonough, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 12/6/07 MS
Traditional Chinese: Fisherman's Song
Linda Wang, violin; Alice Rybak, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 2/13/07 MS
Also, Strings in the Mountains Music Festival
Vivaldi: Concerto No. 3 in F major (“Autumn”) from The Four Seasons, Op.8
Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Strings in the Mountains Chamber Orchestra (8/14/04)
Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op.53 (Heroic)
Jon Nakamatsu, piano (8/17/04)
Gershwin-Singleton: Rhapsody in Blue
Ralph Votapek, piano; Kimberly Aseltine, clarinet; Alpen Brass; Paul Eachus, conductor (7/2/04)
And, Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro vivace—Presto" (1st movement) from String Quartet in F minor, Op.80
Jupiter String Quartet (Nelson Lee, Meg Freivogel, violins; Liz Freivogel, viola; Daniel McDonough, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 12/6/07 MS
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Friday February 12, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Gigue" from Solo Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007
Johannes Moser, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 3/29/07 MS
Also, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic's concert on Sunday.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor; Kenrick Mervine, organ
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op.78 (Organ) 37:26
Johann Sebastian Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (10/4/08)
And, Maurice Durufle: "Ubi Caritas" from Four Motets on Gregorian Themes
Lamont Chamber Choir Ensemble (Evans Choir)
Catherine Sailor, conductor
KVOD Performance Studio 4/28/09 MS
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Opus 78 (Organ Symphony)
I. Adagio, Allegro moderato, Poco adagio
II. Allegro moderato; Presto; Maestoso
``With it, I have given all I could give,'' said Saint-Saëns of his Third Symphony. ``What I did I could not achieve again.''
Saint-Saëns had already sketched a few ideas for a new symphony when he visited Franz Liszt in Paris in April, 1886. By the time he reached London, Francesco Berger approached him with a commission from the London Philharmonic Society.
A few months later, Saint-Saëns wrote Berger that the symphony was ``well under way. It will be terrifying, I warn you....This imp of a symphony has gone up a half-tone; it didn't want to stay in B minor and is now in C minor. It will be a treat for me to conduct it. Will it be a treat, though, for the people who hear it? That is the question. It's you who asked for it. I wash my hands of the whole thing.''
Saint-Saëns conducted the London Philharmonic in the first performance of the Third Symphony on May 19, 1886. Sir Arthur Sullivan conducted the balance of the program, which included Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, with Saint-Saëns as soloist. When the Symphony was played in Paris, Charles Gounod remarked: ``Behold, the French Beethoven!''
For the London performance, the composer provided the following analysis: ``This symphony, divided into two parts, nevertheless includes practically the traditional four movements: the first, checked in its development, serves as an introduction to the Adagio, and the Scherzo is connected after the same manner with the Finale. The composer has thus sought to shun in a certain measure the interminable repetitions that are more and more disappearing from instrumental music.''
The Third Symphony is called the Organ Symphony for obvious reasons, but the organist's role in the work is more of a participant than soloist. Saint-Saëns once provided a clue to his intent in the Symphony: ``If the sound of the organ, an harmonious noise rather than exact music, produced little that is worth writing down on paper, then it belongs to the same category as those old stained-glass windows where you can hardly discern the shapes but which, nevertheless, have more charm than their modern counterparts.''
When Liszt died in Bayreuth just two months after the London première of the Third Symphony, Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to the great pianist.
Vincent d'Indy said the Third was ``full of indisputable talent and seems to constitute a wager against the traditional laws of tonal construction--a wager that the composer sustains with adroitness and eloquence. But in spite of this work's undeniable interest...the final impression remains one of doubt and sadness.''
Biographer James Harding points to the finale, ``in which every trick of the trade is used to pile up an exciting climax underlined by thunderous reverberations from the organ. The texture of the score is lightened from time time with runs and arpeggios written to be played at will on the piano by two performers or one. A very large orchestra is required for this monumental attempt at grandiose utterance by a man whose natural bent was for wit rather than passion. The emotion is strangulated. Like Tchaikovsky, he strives for tragedy and achieves pathos. It is as if Ravel had attempted, with sincerity, to write Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And yet...and yet there are half lights, muted moments, when the pangs of genuine emotion stab through the glittering web that the magician of the orchestra is so deftly spinning.''
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, timpani, organ, piano and strings.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Gigue" from Solo Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007
Johannes Moser, cello
KVOD Performance Studio 3/29/07 MS
Also, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic's concert on Sunday.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor; Kenrick Mervine, organ
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op.78 (Organ) 37:26
Johann Sebastian Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (10/4/08)
And, Maurice Durufle: "Ubi Caritas" from Four Motets on Gregorian Themes
Lamont Chamber Choir Ensemble (Evans Choir)
Catherine Sailor, conductor
KVOD Performance Studio 4/28/09 MS
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Opus 78 (Organ Symphony)
I. Adagio, Allegro moderato, Poco adagio
II. Allegro moderato; Presto; Maestoso
``With it, I have given all I could give,'' said Saint-Saëns of his Third Symphony. ``What I did I could not achieve again.''
Saint-Saëns had already sketched a few ideas for a new symphony when he visited Franz Liszt in Paris in April, 1886. By the time he reached London, Francesco Berger approached him with a commission from the London Philharmonic Society.
A few months later, Saint-Saëns wrote Berger that the symphony was ``well under way. It will be terrifying, I warn you....This imp of a symphony has gone up a half-tone; it didn't want to stay in B minor and is now in C minor. It will be a treat for me to conduct it. Will it be a treat, though, for the people who hear it? That is the question. It's you who asked for it. I wash my hands of the whole thing.''
Saint-Saëns conducted the London Philharmonic in the first performance of the Third Symphony on May 19, 1886. Sir Arthur Sullivan conducted the balance of the program, which included Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, with Saint-Saëns as soloist. When the Symphony was played in Paris, Charles Gounod remarked: ``Behold, the French Beethoven!''
For the London performance, the composer provided the following analysis: ``This symphony, divided into two parts, nevertheless includes practically the traditional four movements: the first, checked in its development, serves as an introduction to the Adagio, and the Scherzo is connected after the same manner with the Finale. The composer has thus sought to shun in a certain measure the interminable repetitions that are more and more disappearing from instrumental music.''
The Third Symphony is called the Organ Symphony for obvious reasons, but the organist's role in the work is more of a participant than soloist. Saint-Saëns once provided a clue to his intent in the Symphony: ``If the sound of the organ, an harmonious noise rather than exact music, produced little that is worth writing down on paper, then it belongs to the same category as those old stained-glass windows where you can hardly discern the shapes but which, nevertheless, have more charm than their modern counterparts.''
When Liszt died in Bayreuth just two months after the London première of the Third Symphony, Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to the great pianist.
Vincent d'Indy said the Third was ``full of indisputable talent and seems to constitute a wager against the traditional laws of tonal construction--a wager that the composer sustains with adroitness and eloquence. But in spite of this work's undeniable interest...the final impression remains one of doubt and sadness.''
Biographer James Harding points to the finale, ``in which every trick of the trade is used to pile up an exciting climax underlined by thunderous reverberations from the organ. The texture of the score is lightened from time time with runs and arpeggios written to be played at will on the piano by two performers or one. A very large orchestra is required for this monumental attempt at grandiose utterance by a man whose natural bent was for wit rather than passion. The emotion is strangulated. Like Tchaikovsky, he strives for tragedy and achieves pathos. It is as if Ravel had attempted, with sincerity, to write Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And yet...and yet there are half lights, muted moments, when the pangs of genuine emotion stab through the glittering web that the magician of the orchestra is so deftly spinning.''
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, timpani, organ, piano and strings.
Thursday February 11, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Gigue" (4th movement) from Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin
KVOD Performance Studio 2/19/07 MS
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Christine Brewer, soprano
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus Overture, Opus 43
Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs (11/20-21/09)
And, Opera Colorado Outreach Ensemble Gioachino Rossini: The Barber of Seville
"La Calunnia" from Act II
Alexander Scopino, bass; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
Duet, "Dunque io son" from Act II
Ted Federle, baritone; Julia Tobiska, mezzo-soprano; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
"Il vecchiotto cerca moglie" (Berta's Aria) from Act III
Donata Cucinotta, soprano; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
KVOD Performance Studio 1/19/10 MS
David Mullikin: "Chanson" (3rd movement) from Trio for flutes, violin and viola
Ivy Street Ensemble (Catherine Peterson, piccolo; Erik Peterson, violin; Phillip Stevens, viola)
KVOD Performance Studio 6/1/06 MS
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Overture to the Ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Opus 43
Sometime in 1800, Beethoven was commissioned to write the music for a new ``heroic-allegorical ballet'' titled The Creatures of Prometheus. Intended as a compliment to the Emperor Franz's second wife, Maria Theresia, the ballet was choreographed by Salvatore Vigano, the ballet master at the court theater in Vienna. When Beethoven finished the music, he wrote to his publishers: ``I have written a ballet, in which, however, the ballet master has not made the best of his part.''
Nevertheless, The Creatures of Prometheus was a moderate success at its first performance, a benefit for the prima ballerina, one Fräulein Casentini, on March 28, 1801 at the Court Theater. The work was given fourteen times that year; nine times the next.
One day, Beethoven ran into his former teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn, whose oratorio The Creation had been a sensation only three years earlier. Haydn: ``Well, I heard your ballet yesterday and it pleased me very much!'' Beethoven: ``O, dear Papa, you are very kind; but it is far from being a Creation. Haydn: ``That is true; it is not yet a Creation and I can scarcely believe that it will ever become one.'' Whereupon both men, somewhat embarrassed, went their separate ways.
The program at the first performance summarized the action of the ballet: ``The basis of this allegorical ballet is the fable of Prometheus. The Greek philosophers, by whom he was known, allude to him as a lofty soul who drove the people of his time from ignorance, refined them by means of science and the arts, and gave them manners, customs, and morals. As a result of that conception, two statues which have been brought to life are introduced into this ballet, and these, through the power of harmony, are made sensitive to the passions of human existence. Prometheus leads them to Parnassus, in order that Apollo, the god of the arts, may enlighten them. Apollo gives then as teachers Amphion, Arion, and Orpheus to instruct them in music, Melpomene to teach them tragedy; Thalia, comedy, Terpsichore and Pan, the shepherd's dance, and Bacchus, the heroic dance, of which he was the originator.''
The Overture contains several themes from the ballet proper. A slow introduction representing ``the solemn appearance of Prometheus'' is followed by a fast section depicting ``human creatures led to joy.'' The stormy climaxes towards the end suggest the flight of Prometheus from ``the mighty wrath of Heaven.''
The Overture is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder)
I. Frühling (Spring)
II. September
III. Beim Schlafengehen (Falling Asleep)
IV. Im Abendrot (In the Sunset)
In 1948, a year before his death, Strauss and his wife Pauline moved to the Palace Hotel in Montreux. There he composed his last work, Four Last Songs. Two years earlier he had read Joseph von Eichendorff's poem Im Abendrot (In the Sunset), about an old couple regarding the sunset and asking ``Is that perhaps death?'' By May 6, 1948 he finished an orchestral song setting of the poem, in which he quoted from his own Death and Transfiguration of 1889.
Meanwhile an admirer sent him a volume of poems by Hermann Hesse. Strauss planned to set four of the poems, and add them to the Eichendorff setting to form a cycle of five. He finished only three of the Hesse settings, the last one, September, on September 20. He died a year later.
Strauss's publisher Ernest Roth gave the works the collective title of Four Last Songs. The first performance was given at the Royal Albert Hall in London on May 22, 1950. Kirsten Flagstad, who had been selected by Strauss before his death, was the soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.
``In trying to understand the poignant feelings they arouse the word nostalgia comes to mind,'' writes biographer Norman Del Mar, ``but this is too superficial to cover music of the calibre of these songs, although their beauty undoubtedly contains a nostalgic element, as well as sadness. Yet the tiredness of great age in the presence of impending and welcome death is not really sad but something far deeper. It is the prerogative of great art that it arouses nameless emotions which can tear us apart. With his last utterances, as at intervals during his long life, Strauss showed himself such a genius of the highest rank.''
The score calls for soprano, piccolo, 4 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, celestra and strings.
Texts of Four Last Songs
I.Frühling (Hesse)
In dämmrigen Grüften
Träumte ich lang
Von deinen Bäumen und blauen Lüften
Von deinem Duft und Vogelsang.
Nun liegst du erschlossen
In Gleiss und Zier,
Von Licht übergossen
Wie ein Wunder vor mir.
Du kennst mich wieder,
Du lockest mich zart,
Es zittert durch all meine Glieder
Deine selige Gegenwart.
(Spring)
(In shadowy grottoes,
I dreamt long
Of your trees and blue skies,
Of your fragrance and birdsong.
Now you lie opened up
In glitter and ornament,
Bathed in light
Like a wonder before me.
You also recognize me
You sweetly tempt me,
Your blessed presence
Trembles through all my limbs.)
II. September (Hesse)
Der Garten trauert,
Kühl sinkt in die Blumen der Regen.
Der Sommer schauert
Still seinem Ende entgegen.
Golden tropft Blatt um Blatt
Nieder vom hohen Akazienbaum.
Sommer lächelt erstaunt und matt
In den sterbenden Gartentraum.
Lange noch bei den Rosen
Bleibt er stehen, sehnt sich nach Ruh.
Langsam tut er die grossen
Müdgewordenen Augen zu.
(September)
(The garden mourns,
Rain sinks cool into the flowers.
Summer trembles quietly,
Faced with its end.
Leaf after leaf drops, golden
Down from the high acacia.
Summer smiles astonished and faintly
Into the dying garden-dream.
Long yet by the roses
It remains standing, longing for rest.
Slowly the big
Tired eyes are closed.)
III. Beim Schlafengehen (Hesse)
Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
Soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
Freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
Wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände lasst von allem Tun,
Stirn vergiss du alles Denken.
Alle meine Sinne nun
Wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht
Will in freien Flügen schweben,
Um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
Tief und tausendfach zu leben.
(Falling Asleep)
(Now the day has made me tired,
Let the starry night
Receive my ardent demand,
As if I were a tired child.
Hands, leave off from every action,
Brow, forget all thinking.
All my senses now
Wish to sink into slumber.
And the soul, unfettered,
Wants to soar in free flight
In the magic circle of night,
Deeply and a thousandfold to live.)
IV. Im Abendrot (Eichendorff)
Wir sind durch Not und Freude
Gegangen Hand in Hand;
Vom Wandern ruhn wir beide
Nun überm stillen Land.
Rings sich die Täler neigen.
Es dunkelt schon die Luft,
Zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen
Nachtträumend in den Duft.
Tritt her, und lass sie schwirren,
Bald ist es Schlafenszeit,
Dass wir uns nicht verirren
In dieser Einsamkeit.
O weiter, stiller Friede
So tief im Abendrot
Wie sind wir wandermüde--
Ist dies etwa der Tod?
(In the Sunset)
(We have, in need and joy,
Gone hand in hand;
From wandering let us rest
Now in this silent land.
The valleys press around us,
Soon the air will darken,
Two larks rise,
Dreaming in the fragrance.
Come here, and let them whirr,
Soon it will be time to sleep,
So that we do not lose ourselves
In this loneliness.
O wide, still peace
So deep in the sunset
How tired we are of wandering--
Is this perhaps death?)
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Gigue" (4th movement) from Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin
KVOD Performance Studio 2/19/07 MS
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Christine Brewer, soprano
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus Overture, Opus 43
Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs (11/20-21/09)
And, Opera Colorado Outreach Ensemble Gioachino Rossini: The Barber of Seville
"La Calunnia" from Act II
Alexander Scopino, bass; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
Duet, "Dunque io son" from Act II
Ted Federle, baritone; Julia Tobiska, mezzo-soprano; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
"Il vecchiotto cerca moglie" (Berta's Aria) from Act III
Donata Cucinotta, soprano; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
KVOD Performance Studio 1/19/10 MS
David Mullikin: "Chanson" (3rd movement) from Trio for flutes, violin and viola
Ivy Street Ensemble (Catherine Peterson, piccolo; Erik Peterson, violin; Phillip Stevens, viola)
KVOD Performance Studio 6/1/06 MS
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Overture to the Ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Opus 43
Sometime in 1800, Beethoven was commissioned to write the music for a new ``heroic-allegorical ballet'' titled The Creatures of Prometheus. Intended as a compliment to the Emperor Franz's second wife, Maria Theresia, the ballet was choreographed by Salvatore Vigano, the ballet master at the court theater in Vienna. When Beethoven finished the music, he wrote to his publishers: ``I have written a ballet, in which, however, the ballet master has not made the best of his part.''
Nevertheless, The Creatures of Prometheus was a moderate success at its first performance, a benefit for the prima ballerina, one Fräulein Casentini, on March 28, 1801 at the Court Theater. The work was given fourteen times that year; nine times the next.
One day, Beethoven ran into his former teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn, whose oratorio The Creation had been a sensation only three years earlier. Haydn: ``Well, I heard your ballet yesterday and it pleased me very much!'' Beethoven: ``O, dear Papa, you are very kind; but it is far from being a Creation. Haydn: ``That is true; it is not yet a Creation and I can scarcely believe that it will ever become one.'' Whereupon both men, somewhat embarrassed, went their separate ways.
The program at the first performance summarized the action of the ballet: ``The basis of this allegorical ballet is the fable of Prometheus. The Greek philosophers, by whom he was known, allude to him as a lofty soul who drove the people of his time from ignorance, refined them by means of science and the arts, and gave them manners, customs, and morals. As a result of that conception, two statues which have been brought to life are introduced into this ballet, and these, through the power of harmony, are made sensitive to the passions of human existence. Prometheus leads them to Parnassus, in order that Apollo, the god of the arts, may enlighten them. Apollo gives then as teachers Amphion, Arion, and Orpheus to instruct them in music, Melpomene to teach them tragedy; Thalia, comedy, Terpsichore and Pan, the shepherd's dance, and Bacchus, the heroic dance, of which he was the originator.''
The Overture contains several themes from the ballet proper. A slow introduction representing ``the solemn appearance of Prometheus'' is followed by a fast section depicting ``human creatures led to joy.'' The stormy climaxes towards the end suggest the flight of Prometheus from ``the mighty wrath of Heaven.''
The Overture is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder)
I. Frühling (Spring)
II. September
III. Beim Schlafengehen (Falling Asleep)
IV. Im Abendrot (In the Sunset)
In 1948, a year before his death, Strauss and his wife Pauline moved to the Palace Hotel in Montreux. There he composed his last work, Four Last Songs. Two years earlier he had read Joseph von Eichendorff's poem Im Abendrot (In the Sunset), about an old couple regarding the sunset and asking ``Is that perhaps death?'' By May 6, 1948 he finished an orchestral song setting of the poem, in which he quoted from his own Death and Transfiguration of 1889.
Meanwhile an admirer sent him a volume of poems by Hermann Hesse. Strauss planned to set four of the poems, and add them to the Eichendorff setting to form a cycle of five. He finished only three of the Hesse settings, the last one, September, on September 20. He died a year later.
Strauss's publisher Ernest Roth gave the works the collective title of Four Last Songs. The first performance was given at the Royal Albert Hall in London on May 22, 1950. Kirsten Flagstad, who had been selected by Strauss before his death, was the soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.
``In trying to understand the poignant feelings they arouse the word nostalgia comes to mind,'' writes biographer Norman Del Mar, ``but this is too superficial to cover music of the calibre of these songs, although their beauty undoubtedly contains a nostalgic element, as well as sadness. Yet the tiredness of great age in the presence of impending and welcome death is not really sad but something far deeper. It is the prerogative of great art that it arouses nameless emotions which can tear us apart. With his last utterances, as at intervals during his long life, Strauss showed himself such a genius of the highest rank.''
The score calls for soprano, piccolo, 4 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, celestra and strings.
Texts of Four Last Songs
I.Frühling (Hesse)
In dämmrigen Grüften
Träumte ich lang
Von deinen Bäumen und blauen Lüften
Von deinem Duft und Vogelsang.
Nun liegst du erschlossen
In Gleiss und Zier,
Von Licht übergossen
Wie ein Wunder vor mir.
Du kennst mich wieder,
Du lockest mich zart,
Es zittert durch all meine Glieder
Deine selige Gegenwart.
(Spring)
(In shadowy grottoes,
I dreamt long
Of your trees and blue skies,
Of your fragrance and birdsong.
Now you lie opened up
In glitter and ornament,
Bathed in light
Like a wonder before me.
You also recognize me
You sweetly tempt me,
Your blessed presence
Trembles through all my limbs.)
II. September (Hesse)
Der Garten trauert,
Kühl sinkt in die Blumen der Regen.
Der Sommer schauert
Still seinem Ende entgegen.
Golden tropft Blatt um Blatt
Nieder vom hohen Akazienbaum.
Sommer lächelt erstaunt und matt
In den sterbenden Gartentraum.
Lange noch bei den Rosen
Bleibt er stehen, sehnt sich nach Ruh.
Langsam tut er die grossen
Müdgewordenen Augen zu.
(September)
(The garden mourns,
Rain sinks cool into the flowers.
Summer trembles quietly,
Faced with its end.
Leaf after leaf drops, golden
Down from the high acacia.
Summer smiles astonished and faintly
Into the dying garden-dream.
Long yet by the roses
It remains standing, longing for rest.
Slowly the big
Tired eyes are closed.)
III. Beim Schlafengehen (Hesse)
Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
Soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
Freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
Wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände lasst von allem Tun,
Stirn vergiss du alles Denken.
Alle meine Sinne nun
Wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht
Will in freien Flügen schweben,
Um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
Tief und tausendfach zu leben.
(Falling Asleep)
(Now the day has made me tired,
Let the starry night
Receive my ardent demand,
As if I were a tired child.
Hands, leave off from every action,
Brow, forget all thinking.
All my senses now
Wish to sink into slumber.
And the soul, unfettered,
Wants to soar in free flight
In the magic circle of night,
Deeply and a thousandfold to live.)
IV. Im Abendrot (Eichendorff)
Wir sind durch Not und Freude
Gegangen Hand in Hand;
Vom Wandern ruhn wir beide
Nun überm stillen Land.
Rings sich die Täler neigen.
Es dunkelt schon die Luft,
Zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen
Nachtträumend in den Duft.
Tritt her, und lass sie schwirren,
Bald ist es Schlafenszeit,
Dass wir uns nicht verirren
In dieser Einsamkeit.
O weiter, stiller Friede
So tief im Abendrot
Wie sind wir wandermüde--
Ist dies etwa der Tod?
(In the Sunset)
(We have, in need and joy,
Gone hand in hand;
From wandering let us rest
Now in this silent land.
The valleys press around us,
Soon the air will darken,
Two larks rise,
Dreaming in the fragrance.
Come here, and let them whirr,
Soon it will be time to sleep,
So that we do not lose ourselves
In this loneliness.
O wide, still peace
So deep in the sunset
How tired we are of wandering--
Is this perhaps death?)
Wednesday February 10, 2010
Charley and Steve Blatt talk about the "From the Performance Studio" CD.
Felix Mendelssohn: Song without Words in G minor, Op.19 No. 6 (Venetian Gondola Song)
Simon Trpceski, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 1/17/07 MS
Wolfgang Mozart (arr. David Overton): “Rondo Alla Turca: Allegretto” (3rd movement) from Piano Sonata in A Major, K. 331
Sir James Galway, Lady Jeanne Galway, flutes; Obadiah Ariss, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 2/20/07 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Vivienne Spy, piano; Joseph Meyer, violin; Courtney Sedgwick Filner, viola; Gregory Sauer, cello; Randall Nordstrom double bass) Franz Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout) 37:52 (7/31/07)
And, Frédéric Chopin: Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 (Minute)
Hsing-ay Hsu, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 11/6/08 MS
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Piano Quintet in A major, D.667 (Trout)
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante
III. Scherzo: Presto
IV. Thema: Andantino
V. Finale: Allegro giusto
During the summer of 1819 Schubert went on a walking tour of upper Austria. He stopped at the small town of Steyr and sent a note to his brother Ferdinand. ``The country round Steyr,'' he wrote, ``is unimaginably lovely.''
In Steyr he stayed at the home of Sylvester Paumgartner, the manager of a local mine. A keen amateur cellist, Paumgartner often entertained in a music room on the second floor of his house. It was he who commissioned Schubert to write the Trout Quintet, stipulating that it should have the same instrumentation as Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Quintet in E flat major, Op.87 (piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass), and that it include a variation movement on Schubert's song of two years before, Die Forelle (Trout), D.550.
Schubert began the work in Steyr that summer and completed it back in Vienna in the fall. Its fourth movement (Andantino) contained the requested variations.
After Schubert's death his brother Ferdinand sold the score to the publisher Joseph Czerny, who issued it as Opus 114. On May 21, 1829 an announcement declared, ``This Quintet, having already been performed in several circles at the publisher's instigation, and declared to be a masterpiece by the musical connoisseurs present, we deem it our duty to draw the musical public's attention to this latest work by the unforgettable composer.''
J.A. Westrup calls the Quintet ``entertainment music from first to last, and should be listened to with simple, unsophisticated enjoyment. To drink--even to talk--during a performance would not be blasphemy.''
In his book on Schubert, Alfred Einstein calls the Quintet ``a serenade for chamber ensemble,'' whose opening movement dispenses with a coda. ``The movement simply comes to an end,'' he writes, ``after a well-ordered sequence of pleasant and increasingly richly figured Schubertian ideas. One of these ideas, the last one in the `angular' rhythm, dominates the contrasting section of the following Andante, with its lyrical opening. It has a faint Magyar or Slav ring about it. And the Finale practically dispenses with fancy dress, and advertises itslef as all' ongarese [in the Hungarian style]. The first subject dominates the movement...and the melodic ideas and rhythms that compete with it are taken from the first movement (the `Trout' Quintet is a very homogeneous work). But Schubert is at his most Schubertian in the concise and stormy Scherzo and Trio, in its contrast between rhythmic emphasis and lyricism.''
The fourth movement is a set of six variations on the opening of the song Die Forelle: ``In a bright stream the capricious trout darted along like an arrow.'' The first three variations are simple melodic embellishments by first piano, then viola and cello, and finally double bass. The next two variations considerably alter the original melody and the final variation presents a grand summing up of all that has come before.
Felix Mendelssohn: Song without Words in G minor, Op.19 No. 6 (Venetian Gondola Song)
Simon Trpceski, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 1/17/07 MS
Wolfgang Mozart (arr. David Overton): “Rondo Alla Turca: Allegretto” (3rd movement) from Piano Sonata in A Major, K. 331
Sir James Galway, Lady Jeanne Galway, flutes; Obadiah Ariss, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 2/20/07 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Vivienne Spy, piano; Joseph Meyer, violin; Courtney Sedgwick Filner, viola; Gregory Sauer, cello; Randall Nordstrom double bass) Franz Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout) 37:52 (7/31/07)
And, Frédéric Chopin: Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 (Minute)
Hsing-ay Hsu, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 11/6/08 MS
Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Piano Quintet in A major, D.667 (Trout)
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante
III. Scherzo: Presto
IV. Thema: Andantino
V. Finale: Allegro giusto
During the summer of 1819 Schubert went on a walking tour of upper Austria. He stopped at the small town of Steyr and sent a note to his brother Ferdinand. ``The country round Steyr,'' he wrote, ``is unimaginably lovely.''
In Steyr he stayed at the home of Sylvester Paumgartner, the manager of a local mine. A keen amateur cellist, Paumgartner often entertained in a music room on the second floor of his house. It was he who commissioned Schubert to write the Trout Quintet, stipulating that it should have the same instrumentation as Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Quintet in E flat major, Op.87 (piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass), and that it include a variation movement on Schubert's song of two years before, Die Forelle (Trout), D.550.
Schubert began the work in Steyr that summer and completed it back in Vienna in the fall. Its fourth movement (Andantino) contained the requested variations.
After Schubert's death his brother Ferdinand sold the score to the publisher Joseph Czerny, who issued it as Opus 114. On May 21, 1829 an announcement declared, ``This Quintet, having already been performed in several circles at the publisher's instigation, and declared to be a masterpiece by the musical connoisseurs present, we deem it our duty to draw the musical public's attention to this latest work by the unforgettable composer.''
J.A. Westrup calls the Quintet ``entertainment music from first to last, and should be listened to with simple, unsophisticated enjoyment. To drink--even to talk--during a performance would not be blasphemy.''
In his book on Schubert, Alfred Einstein calls the Quintet ``a serenade for chamber ensemble,'' whose opening movement dispenses with a coda. ``The movement simply comes to an end,'' he writes, ``after a well-ordered sequence of pleasant and increasingly richly figured Schubertian ideas. One of these ideas, the last one in the `angular' rhythm, dominates the contrasting section of the following Andante, with its lyrical opening. It has a faint Magyar or Slav ring about it. And the Finale practically dispenses with fancy dress, and advertises itslef as all' ongarese [in the Hungarian style]. The first subject dominates the movement...and the melodic ideas and rhythms that compete with it are taken from the first movement (the `Trout' Quintet is a very homogeneous work). But Schubert is at his most Schubertian in the concise and stormy Scherzo and Trio, in its contrast between rhythmic emphasis and lyricism.''
The fourth movement is a set of six variations on the opening of the song Die Forelle: ``In a bright stream the capricious trout darted along like an arrow.'' The first three variations are simple melodic embellishments by first piano, then viola and cello, and finally double bass. The next two variations considerably alter the original melody and the final variation presents a grand summing up of all that has come before.
Tuesday February 9, 2010
Friends of Chamber Music
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio in C major, Op.87
Felix Mendelssohn: “Andante con molto tranquillo” (2nd movement) from Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op.49 (4/23/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Ars Nova Singers concerts this weekend.
William Bolcom: “Amor” from Cabaret Songs
Tara U'Ren, mezzo-soprano; Brian du Fresne, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 013109 JP
And, Charley talks with music director Cynthia Katsarelis about the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert Saturday.
Wolfgang Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro Overture
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra/Cynthia Katsarelis
NCA 4:19
Moreover, Charley talks with conductor Thomas Blomster about the Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert on Sunday, and with guitarist Neil Haverstick.
Neil Haverstick: "Birth" from Spider
Neil Haverstick, 19-tone guitar; Colorado Chamber Orchestra/ Thomas Blomster
Haverstick 008 Track 1 1:20
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio in C major, Op.87
Felix Mendelssohn: “Andante con molto tranquillo” (2nd movement) from Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op.49 (4/23/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Ars Nova Singers concerts this weekend.
William Bolcom: “Amor” from Cabaret Songs
Tara U'Ren, mezzo-soprano; Brian du Fresne, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 013109 JP
And, Charley talks with music director Cynthia Katsarelis about the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert Saturday.
Wolfgang Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro Overture
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra/Cynthia Katsarelis
NCA 4:19
Moreover, Charley talks with conductor Thomas Blomster about the Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert on Sunday, and with guitarist Neil Haverstick.
Neil Haverstick: "Birth" from Spider
Neil Haverstick, 19-tone guitar; Colorado Chamber Orchestra/ Thomas Blomster
Haverstick 008 Track 1 1:20
Monday February 8, 2010
Charley talks with music director Michael Butterman about Sunday's Boulder Philharmonic concert.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No.8 in G major, Op.88 38:29 (3/21/09)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado All State Choir board member Will Taylor about this year's concert on Tuesday.
Heinrich Schütz (ed.Nancy Grundahl): Cantate Domino
2008 Colorado All State Women's Choir/ Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt
David Conte: Drinking Song from Carmina Juventutis
2008 Colorado All State Men's Choir/ Dr. James Rodde
NCA CD 1 Track 1 1:51 + 4:12
And, Charley talks with music director Cynthia Katsarelis about the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert Saturday.
Moreover, Charley anticipates the Ars Nova Singers concerts this weekend.
Leo Delibes: Flower Duet from Act I of Lakmé
Tana Cochran, soprano; Tara U'Ren, mezzo-soprano; Brian du Fresne, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 013109 JP
Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904): Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88
I. Allegro con brio
II. Adagio
III. Allegretto grazioso
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
In August of 1889, Dvořák remarked that his “head was so full of ideas” for a new symphony that he could hardly write them down fast enough. This time, he said, he wanted a work “different from the other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way.” By the following November, his Eighth Symphony was finished. The first performance was given in Prague, under the composer's direction, on February 2, 1890.
The work is sometimes called the “English” Symphony, for a number of reasons. First, during his sixth visit to London, Dvořák conducted it on April 24, 1890. The Musical Times called the piece “generally speaking, of a pastoral character, having been written, like (Beethoven's) Pastoral Symphony, under the influence of rural sights and sounds....All is fresh and charming.” The reviewer detected a story in the second movement, a story which, if it existed at all, Dvořák never revealed. “Wanting the story,” the critic continued, “one must be content with picturesque utterances, a great deal of absolute beauty, and the fresh aroma which the work gives forth.”
A year later, Dvořák conducted the Eighth Symphony when Cambridge University gave him an honorary Doctor of Music degree. “I do not like these celebrations,” he later recalled, “and when I have to be in one of them, I am on pins and needles....Nothing but ceremony, and nothing but doctors. All faces were serious, and it seemed to me as if no one knew any other language than Latin.”
While the composer was in England, Hans Richter was conducting the Eighth in Vienna. “Certainly you would have enjoyed this performance,” he wrote to Dvořák. “We all felt it was a splendid work, and consequently we were all enraptured. Brahms had dinner with me after the concert, and we drank to the health of the unfortunately absent father of No. 8.”
The Symphony was issued in 1892 by the English publisher Novello, as a form of revenge on Dvořák's German publisher Simrock, who would have been content with an unending series of Slavonic Dances. His reluctance to publish Dvořák's larger works irritated the composer, who said he had “a lot of ideas for big works in mind.” Negotiations deteriorated, and Dvořák blandly announced: “I shall simply do what God imparts me to do. That will certainly be the best thing.” He then sold the Eighth Symphony to the English publisher, but with a dedication “in gratitude to the Bohemian Academy of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Science, Literature, and the Arts.”
Despite its English connections, biographer John Clapham notes that “there is nothing in the music itself that by any stretch of the imagination can be described as English. Its spirit and thematic basis are thoroughly Czech....Starting with an expressive funereal melody in G minor, the sunshine suddenly breaks through when the flute plays a light-hearted theme in the major key....In the next movement, it is the Adagio's quiet initial phrase which for a while shatters the idyllic peace. A gracious waltz with a rustic trio takes the place of a scherzo; and the work is rounded off with a somewhat freely organized set of variations.”
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani and strings.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No.8 in G major, Op.88 38:29 (3/21/09)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado All State Choir board member Will Taylor about this year's concert on Tuesday.
Heinrich Schütz (ed.Nancy Grundahl): Cantate Domino
2008 Colorado All State Women's Choir/ Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt
David Conte: Drinking Song from Carmina Juventutis
2008 Colorado All State Men's Choir/ Dr. James Rodde
NCA CD 1 Track 1 1:51 + 4:12
And, Charley talks with music director Cynthia Katsarelis about the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra's concert Saturday.
Moreover, Charley anticipates the Ars Nova Singers concerts this weekend.
Leo Delibes: Flower Duet from Act I of Lakmé
Tana Cochran, soprano; Tara U'Ren, mezzo-soprano; Brian du Fresne, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 013109 JP
Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904): Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88
I. Allegro con brio
II. Adagio
III. Allegretto grazioso
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
In August of 1889, Dvořák remarked that his “head was so full of ideas” for a new symphony that he could hardly write them down fast enough. This time, he said, he wanted a work “different from the other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way.” By the following November, his Eighth Symphony was finished. The first performance was given in Prague, under the composer's direction, on February 2, 1890.
The work is sometimes called the “English” Symphony, for a number of reasons. First, during his sixth visit to London, Dvořák conducted it on April 24, 1890. The Musical Times called the piece “generally speaking, of a pastoral character, having been written, like (Beethoven's) Pastoral Symphony, under the influence of rural sights and sounds....All is fresh and charming.” The reviewer detected a story in the second movement, a story which, if it existed at all, Dvořák never revealed. “Wanting the story,” the critic continued, “one must be content with picturesque utterances, a great deal of absolute beauty, and the fresh aroma which the work gives forth.”
A year later, Dvořák conducted the Eighth Symphony when Cambridge University gave him an honorary Doctor of Music degree. “I do not like these celebrations,” he later recalled, “and when I have to be in one of them, I am on pins and needles....Nothing but ceremony, and nothing but doctors. All faces were serious, and it seemed to me as if no one knew any other language than Latin.”
While the composer was in England, Hans Richter was conducting the Eighth in Vienna. “Certainly you would have enjoyed this performance,” he wrote to Dvořák. “We all felt it was a splendid work, and consequently we were all enraptured. Brahms had dinner with me after the concert, and we drank to the health of the unfortunately absent father of No. 8.”
The Symphony was issued in 1892 by the English publisher Novello, as a form of revenge on Dvořák's German publisher Simrock, who would have been content with an unending series of Slavonic Dances. His reluctance to publish Dvořák's larger works irritated the composer, who said he had “a lot of ideas for big works in mind.” Negotiations deteriorated, and Dvořák blandly announced: “I shall simply do what God imparts me to do. That will certainly be the best thing.” He then sold the Eighth Symphony to the English publisher, but with a dedication “in gratitude to the Bohemian Academy of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Science, Literature, and the Arts.”
Despite its English connections, biographer John Clapham notes that “there is nothing in the music itself that by any stretch of the imagination can be described as English. Its spirit and thematic basis are thoroughly Czech....Starting with an expressive funereal melody in G minor, the sunshine suddenly breaks through when the flute plays a light-hearted theme in the major key....In the next movement, it is the Adagio's quiet initial phrase which for a while shatters the idyllic peace. A gracious waltz with a rustic trio takes the place of a scherzo; and the work is rounded off with a somewhat freely organized set of variations.”
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani and strings.
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