Friday March 12, 2010

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.