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?)