Colorado Spotlight

Friday May 14, 2010

2010-05-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado MahlerFest
Charley looks forward to Colorado MahlerFest later this month with a past performance of the Fifth Symphony.

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor
recorded 1/12-13/02

Program notes

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
Part I
I. Trauermarsch: In gemessenem Schritt
II. Stürmisch bewegt--Mit grösster Vehemenz
Part II
III. Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell
Part III
IV. Adagietto: Sehr langsam
V. Rondo Finale: Allegro giocoso--Frisch

“You wouldn't believe the trouble it's giving me,” said Mahler while composing his Fifth Symphony. “Both the construction and the ordering of the details and proportions…call for supreme mastery. As in a gothic cathedral, what appears to be total confusion must be resolved into a superior order and harmony.”

Resolution came during the summer of 1901. “There is nothing romantic or mystical about it,” Mahler wrote to a friend. “It is simply an expression of incredible energy. It is a human being in the full light of day, in the prime of his life…The human voice would be absolutely out of place here. There is no need for words; everything is expressed in purely musical terms.”

By the following summer, the Fifth was finished. In the meantime, Mahler had met and married Alma Schindler, who became his copyist. During a try-out of the new work, she recalled, “I had heard all the melodies while I was copying them, but I heard none of them now. Mahler had given the percussion and drums so overwhelming a role that hardly anything but the rhythm was recognizable. I ran home, crying out loud…I broke out, sobbing, ‘But you've written a symphony for percussion!’ He laughed. Then he picked up the score and drew a long red line across the whole side-drum part and nearly half of the rest of the percussion.”

Years later, after five revisions of the Symphony, Mahler wrote: “Yes, I have actually had to reorchestrate it completely. I can't understand how I could have written so much like a beginner. Evidently the routine I had acquired in my first four symphonies simply left me in the lurch, as if a wholly new message demanded a wholly new technique.” The Fifth was dedicated “to my dear Alma, my faithful and courageous comrade in all weathers.”

Mahler conducted the first performance on October 18, 1904 in Cologne. The work was greeted with catcalls and scattered applause. One critic claimed the opening movement was followed by “a breathless silence which proved more effectively than tremendous applause that the public was conscious of the presence of genius.” It was a minority view. After the Viennese première, Robert Hirschfeld called Mahler “The Meyerbeer of the Symphony,” complaining that “there was a time when the public was interested in freaks of nature only--giants, six-legged calves, Siamese twins. But now it has lost all notion of what is wholesome in art and takes an interest in nothing but spiritual freaks.”

After the first rehearsal in Cologne, Mahler had written to Alma: “The Scherzo is a very devil of a movement. And the public--what are they to make of this chaos out of which new worlds are forever being created, only to crumble in ruin a moment later? What are they to say to this primeval music, this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound, to these dancing stars, to these breath-taking iridescent and flashing breakers? I'm going for a walk along the Rhine, the only Cologner who will quietly go his way after the première without calling me a monster. O that I might give my symphony its first performance fifty years after my death!”

The Scherzo is the centerpiece of the entire symphony, forming the second part of a three-part work. The first part begins with a Funeral March, which can be regarded as a long introduction to the second movement, marked “stormily agitated, with greatest vehemence.” Similarly, Part Three begins with the famous Adagietto, which can be viewed as a link to the Rondo-Finale. The last movement contains a fragment of the song Praise from a Lofty Intellect, Mahler's dig at music critics.

Despite Mahler's acquired abhorrence of programs for his works, several writers have tried to affix a scheme to the Fifth Symphony. Hans Tischler, for one, wrote: “Mourning and pain (first movement). Fighting and wounds (second movement). Irony and shadowy insecurity, coupled with a forced gaiety (third movement); relieved by the Interlude (fourth movement). The fifth movement concludes the work more cheerfully, describing daily work and haste, still the best phases of ordinary human existence.” Biographer Michael Kennedy writes: “The Fifth is Mahler's ‘Eroica,’ progressing from tragedy to triumph.”

The score calls for 4 flutes, 3 piccolos, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, gong, harp and strings.

Thursday May 13, 2010

2010-05-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado Symphony Orchestra

Bedřich Smetana: “The Moldau” from Má Vlast
Jean Sibelius: Finlandia, Opus 26 No. 7
Jean Sibelius: “The Swan of Tuonela” from Four Legends, Op. 22 No. 2
Jean Sibelius: “Lemminkäinen’s Return” from Four Legends, Op. 22 No. 4
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
recorded 3/6/10

Program notes

Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884): “Vltava” (The Moldau) from Má Vlast (My Country)

According to Smetana’s diary, Ma Vlast was “begun at the end of September,” 1874. However, two years earlier a newspaper article mentioned the composer at work on two symphonic poems titled Vysehrad and Vltava (The Moldau). In June, 1873, another article reported that Smetana was writing a series of “musical pictures of Czech glories and defeats.” By late 1875, the first four movements of the cycle were finished. Vltava (The Moldau) was completed on November 18, 1874, and first performed in Prague on April 4, 1876. Adolf Cech conducted the Royal Bohemian Provincial Theater Orchestra. Two more symphonic poems followed, and the entire set was introduced in Prague on November 5, 1882, again by Adolf Cech.

In a letter to his publisher, Smetana described The Moldau’s program: “Two springs pour forth their streams in the shade of the Bohemian forest, the one warm and gushing, the other cold and tranquil. Their waves, joyfully flowing over rocky beds, unite and sparkle in the rays of the morning sun. The forest brook, rushing on, becomes the River Vltava (Moldau). Coursing through Bohemia’s valleys, it grows into a mighty stream. It flows through dense woods from which come joyous hunting sounds, and the notes of the hunter’s horn drawing ever near and nearer. It flows through emerald meadows and lowlands, where a wedding feast is being celebrated with songs and dancing. By night, in its glittering waves, wood and water nymphs hold their revels. And these waters reflect many a fortress and castle--witnesses of a bygone age of knightly splendor, and the martial glory of days that are no more. At the Rapids of St. John the stream speeds on, winding its way through cataracts and hewing a path for its foaming waters through the rocky chasm into the broad riverbed, in which it flows on in majestic calm toward Prague, welcomed by time-honoured Vysehrad, to disappear in far distance from the poet’s gaze.”

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Finlandia, Op. 26 No. 7

“We are not Swedes, we can never be Russians, so let us be Finns” was the popular slogan in Finland. The country had been ruled by Sweden for five hundred years and then, in 1809, by Tsarist Russia. In 1894, Tsar Nicholas II appointed General Bobrikov as governor of Finland. Within months, the General had abolished all freedom of speech and assembly.

The people were not amused. Early in November, 1899, the wily Finns staged a series of “Press Celebrations,” ostensibly benefits for the Press Pension Fund, but really grand patriotic pageants meant to protest Russian rule. The November fourth show featured a series of six tableaux depicting various events in Finland's history. Sibelius wrote the accompanying music. The final section, titled “Finland Awakes,” roused the patriotic fervor of the audience to such an extent that the piece was banned by the Russian authorities.

Sibelius separated “Finland Awakes” from the other incidental music, revised it, and made a piano arrangement titled Finlandia. The orchestral tone poem had many names. “It was actually rather late,” Sibelius recalled, “that Finlandia was performed under its final title. At the farewell concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra before leaving for Paris, when the tone poem was played for the first time in its revised form, it was called Suomi. It was introduced by the same name in Scandinavia; in German towns it was called Vaterland, and in Paris La Patrie. In Finland its performance was forbidden during the years of unrest, and in other parts of the Empire it was not allowed to be played under any name that in any way indicated its patriotic character. When I conducted in Reval and Riga by invitation in the summer of 1904, I had to call it Impromptu.”

Sibelius was accused of cribbing tunes from folk music in Finlandia. He told his biographer that “there is a mistaken impression among the press abroad that my themes are often folk melodies. So far I have never used a theme that was not of my own invention. Thus the thematic material of Finlandia…is entirely my own.”

The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): “The Swan of Tuonela” from Four Legends, Op. 22 No. 2

In 1893, Sibelius and his friend, writer J.H. Erkko, were planning an opera, titled Veneen Luominen (The Creation of the Boat), inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. “It was originally intended that Erkko should write the book of the opera”, Sibelius recalled, “but somehow or other I did so myself, while Erkko helped me as literary adviser. During the summer I completed the prologue to the opera and the book. When I returned to Helsingfors in the autumn, I called on Kaarlo Bergbom, the creator of the Finnish operatic stage, to ask for his opinion of the book. He said that it was effective, but too lyrical. In this he was indeed right; I realized this at once. This sealed the doom of the opera. But the labor I had devoted to carrying out the idea was not entirely wasted, for my fresh absorption in the world of the Kalevala gave the idea for the Lemminkäinen Suite. In the prologue to the opera I really had one movement of the suite ready made: ‘The Swan of Tuonela’.”

The Suite, also called Four Legends from the Kalevala, traces the progress of the hero Lemminkäinen, who must do three heroic deeds to win the Daughter of the North. The other three movements, “Lemminkäinen and the Maidens,” “Lemminkäinen in Tuonela” and “Lemminkäinen's Homecoming,’ were completed late in 1895. Sibelius conducted the first performance, after quarrelsome rehearsals, on April 13, 1896 in Helsingfors (Helsinki). One critic recognized “that Finnish quality we all recognize in our hearts and which is part of ourselves.”

For the premiere, “The Swan of Tuonela” was placed third; after the final revision of the score, it was moved to second.

The score contains the following preface: “Tuonela, The Kingdom of Death, the Hades of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river of black water and rapid current, in which the Swan of Tuonela glides in majestic fashion and sings.”

One of Lemminkäinen's tasks is to slay the Swan, as recounted in Canto 14 of the Kalevala, in which the hero
Went and took his twanging crossbow,
Went away to seek the long neck.
Forth to Tuoni's river.

Accordingly, the song of the Swan is played by the English horn, and the final section is an elegy for the Swan. The strings are divided into as many as seventeen separate parts. The score calls for oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, harp and strings.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): “Lemminkäinen’s Return” from Four Legends, Op. 22 No. 4

In 1893, Sibelius and his friend, writer J.H. Erkko, were planning an opera, titled Veneen Luominen (The Creation of the Boat), inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. “It was originally intended that Erkko should write the book of the opera,” Sibelius recalled, “but somehow or other I did so myself, while Erkko helped me as literary adviser. During the summer I completed the prologue to the opera and the book. When I returned to Helsingfors [Helsinki] in the autumn, I called on Kaarlo Bergbom, the creator of the Finnish operatic stage, to ask for his opinion of the book. He said that it was effective, but too lyrical. In this he was indeed right; I realized this at once. This sealed the doom of the opera. But the labor I had devoted to carrying out the idea was not entirely wasted, for my fresh absorption in the world of the Kalevala gave the idea for the Lemminkäinen Suite.”

The Suite, also called Four Legends from the Kalevala, traces the progress of the hero Lemminkäinen, who must do three heroic deeds to win the Daughter of the North. The other three movements are “Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of Saari,” “The Swan of Tuonela” and “Lemminkäinen in Tuonela.” Sibelius conducted the first performance, after quarrelsome rehearsals, on April 13, 1896 in Helsinki. One critic recognized “that Finnish quality we all recognize in our hearts and which is part of ourselves.”

“Lemminkäinen’s Return,” the last of the four, portrays his journey home with his companion, Tiera. The Daughter of the North destroys their boat, but the hero’s magic saves them. In the program book for the premiere, Sibelius quoted the following from the Kalevala:

Then the lively Lemminkäinen,
He the handsome Kaukomieli
From his care constructed horses,
Coursers black composed from trouble.
Then the lively Lemminkäinen
Started on his homeward journey,
Saw the lands and saw the beaches,
Here the islands, there the channels,
Saw the ancient landing-stages,
Saw the former dwelling places.

“I think that we Finns should really show more pride,” Sibelius once said. “‘Let us not bear our helmet crooked,’ a quotation from the Kalevala. What do we have to be ashamed of? This is the idea running through ‘Lemminkäinen’s Return.’ He is as good as the finest count.”

Biographer Robert Layton writes, “The piece is an exciting perpetual motion: the opening three-note figure is a kind of seminal motive that fertilizes all the subsequent thematic material.”

Wednesday May 12, 2010

2010-05-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado Music Festival
Cellist Johannes Moser with the Festival's founder and in our Performance Studio.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op.62
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op.107 (7/21/06) 31:24
Johannes Moser, cello
Festival Orchestra
Giora Bernstein, conductor
recorded 7/21/06

Johann Sebastian Bach: “Allemande” (2nd movement) & “Sarabande” (4th movement) from Solo Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007
Johannes Moser, cello
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 3/29/07
Produced by Martin Skavish

Tuesday May 11, 2010

2010-05-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Friends of Chamber Music
 Franz Schubert: Impromptu in E flat major, Op. 90 No. 2 (D.899)
Robert Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13
Ingrid Fliter, piano 
recorded 4/1/09

Monday May 10, 2010

2010-05-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Charley talks with Kantorei music director Richard Larson about their concerts with Simon Carrington this Friday and Sunday.

Dominick Argento: Walden Pond
Kantorei
Richard Larson, conductor
Richard von Foerster, David Short, Marcelo Sanches, cellos
Janet Harriman, harp
recorded 10/08

John Bennet: All creatures now are merry minded
Shaker Hymn (arr. Bob Chilcott): Simple Gifts
King's Singers
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 10/24/09
Produced by Martin Skavish

Friday May 7, 2010

2010-04-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado MahlerFest

In this first of 3 programs devoted to MahlerFest, music director Robert Olson gives us a “blow-by-blow” account of the Third Symphony, which they're performing on May 22-23, followed by a past performance of the Sixth.

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor (Tragic)
Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor
Recorded 1/11,12/03

Colorado Symphony Musicians in Recital

Charley notes that concertmaster Yumi Hwang Williams and principal harpist Courtney Hershey Bress are giving a recital Sunday at Olinger Crown Hill Pavilion of Reflection.

M. Albeniz-Mildonian: Sonata in D major
Granados-Bress: Spanish Dance No. 2 in C minor, Op. 37 (Oriental)
Erardo Guerra: Apunte Betico
Courtney Hershey Bress, harp
St. Joseph Hospital Chamber Music Series: recorded 3/23/04
Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro vivace" (1st movement) from Sonata in F Major
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin
Dror Biran, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 11/9/09
Produced by Martin Skavish

Program Notes

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 6 in A minor (Tragic)
I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo: Heftig, aber markig
II. Scherzo: Wuchtig
III. Andante moderato
IV. Finale: Allegro moderato

"My Sixth," wrote Mahler to a friend, "will propound riddles the solution of which may be attempted only by a generation which has absorbed and truly digested my first five symphonies."
Most of the work on the Sixth Symphony was done during summer vacations in 1903 and 1904. In her book on her husband, Alma Mahler described the scene: "The summer was beautiful, serene and happy. Before the holidays came to an end he played me the completed Sixth Symphony. I had first to get everything done in the house, so as to have all my time free….Not one of his works came so directly from his inmost heart as this. We both wept that day. The music and what it foretold touched us so deeply. The Sixth is the most completely personal of his works, and a prophetic one also."

Before the first performance, in Essen on May 27, 1906, Mahler was a nervous wreck. "We came to the last rehearsals," Alma recalled, "to the dress rehearsal--to the last movement, with its three great blows of fate. When it was over, Mahler walked up and down the artists' room, sobbing, wringing his hands, unable to control himself."

The actual performance fared little better. Mahler was stung by Richard Strauss's remark that "Mahler wasted his greatest strength at the beginning and then became weaker and weaker." According to Alma, "Mahler was so afraid that agitation might get the better of him, that out of shame and anxiety he did not conduct the Symphony well."

For the premiere, Mahler subtitled the work "Tragic," but later deleted the title. At one point, he even switched the order of the middle movements, but later changed his mind and returned them to their original sequence.

The opening movement begins with an ominous march melody, which leads to a six-note rhythm in the timpani, what Mahler called the "rhythm of catastophe." This "Fate motive" returns in the Finale. The first movement also contains a theme associated with Alma Mahler. After its composition, the composer told her: "I've tried to capture you in a theme. I don't know whether I've succeeded….You'll have to take it as it is." In the Scherzo, Alma said that her husband "represented the unrhythmic play of the two little children as they toddle through the sand. Horrible--these children's voices become more and more tragic, and at the end there is just the whimper of a little expiring voice."

"The beauty of the music," writes Michael Kennedy of the slow movement," may easily cause us to overlook (as, indeed, it should) the technical skill, notably the novel and subtle merging, or overlapping, of themes."

Of the last movement Mahler said, "It is the hero, on whom fall three blows of fate, the last of which fells him as a tree is felled." The three hammer blows of fate--which Mahler wanted to be "short, mighty but dull in resonance, with a non-metallic character, like the stroke of an axe"--are said to foretell three tragic events in his life. A year after the premiere, his heart condition was first diagnosed, and a daughter died of scarlet fever and diphtheria. Four years later, Mahler died of subacute bacterial endocarditis. Michael Steinberg thinks the third blow represents "the bitter end of his directorship of the Vienna Opera." Being superstitious, Mahler deleted the third hammer blow. Some conductors restore it.

The score calls for 3 piccolos, 4 flutes, 4 oboes, 2 English horns, 5 clarinets, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 6 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, glockenspiel, cowbells, low-pitched bells, bass drum, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, woodblocks, tam-tam, rute, tambourine, hammer, xylophone, 2 harps, celesta and strings.

Thursday May 6, 2010

2010-04-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado Symphony Orchestra

From this season's Masterworks Series, associate conductor Scott O’Neil and the Orchestra play Moussorgsky's tribute to his friend Victor Hartmann.

Modeste Moussorgsky (Orch. Maurice Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition
Scott ONeil, conductor
Recorded 2/20/10

Lamont School of Music
CSO principal hornist Michael Thornton talks about his first meeting with composer Eric Ewazen, who is in residence at the Lamont School of Music, followed by a performance of his music.

Eric Ewazen: “Dance” from Ballade, Pastorale and Dance
Michael Thornton, horn
Anne Epperson, piano
Julie Duncan Thornton, flute
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 12/15/05
Produced by Martin Skavish

Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra
Charley notes that CSO concertmaster Yumi Hwang Williams is playing the Sibelius Concerto with the Fort Collins Symphony this weekend.

John Adams: "Meditative" (2nd movement) & "40% Swing" from Road Movies
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin
David Korevaar, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 6/6/08
Produced by Martin Skavish

Boulder Chamber Orchestra
Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless talks about their concerts this weekend.

 
Program Notes

Modeste Moussorgsky (1839-1881): Pictures at an Exhibition (Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel)
Promenade: Allegro guisto nel modo russico; senza
allegrezza ma poco sostenuto
I. Gnomus: Vivo
Promenade: Moderato comodo e con delicatezza
II. Il vecchio castello (The old castle). Andante molto cantabile e con dolore
Promenade: Moderato non tanto, pesante
III. Tuileries: Allegretto non troppo, capriccioso
IV. Bydlo: Sempre moderato pesante
Promenade: Tranquillo
V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks: Scherzino, Vivo
leggiero
VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
VII. The Market Place at Limoges: Allegro vivo, sempre
scherzando
VIII. Catacombae, Sepulchrum Romanum: Largo
Cum mortuis in lingua mortua: Andante non troppo,
con lamento
IX. The Hut on Fowls' Legs (Baba-Yaga): Allegro con
brio, feroce
X. The Great Gate of Kiev: Allegro alla breve;
Maestoso; Con grandezza

In 1874 a memorial exhibition of some 400 paintings and drawings by Victor Hartmann was organized by critic Vladimir Stassov and Count Paul Suzor, president of the Architect's Society, in the galleries of the Academy of the Arts in St. Petersburg. Hartmann's death the year before was a shock to his friend Modeste Moussorgsky. "What a terrible blow!" he wrote. "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and creatures like Hartmann must die? There can and must be no consolation--it is a rotten mortality!"

Moussorgsky was inspired by the exhibition to write a piano suite "in memory of our dear Victor" titled Pictures at an Exhibition. The work went swiftly. "Sounds and ideas float in the air," he said, "and my scribbling can hardly keep pace with them." The music was finished in less than a month, during June, 1874.

Moussorgsky's suite contains ten "pictures," interspersed with a "Promenade" meant to depict the composer himself, "roving right and left, now desultorily, now briskly, in order to get near the pictures that had caught his attention," said Stassov. "My own physiognomy peeps out through the intermezzos," wrote the composer, who weighed over two hundred pounds.
Here is a handy guide to the Pictures:
Promenade
1) "The Gnome." In his introduction to the first edition, Stassov says that Hartmann's drawing represented "a little gnome awkwardly walking on deformed legs." Elsewhere Stassov refers to "something in the style of the fabled Nutcracker, the nuts being inserted in the gnome's mouth."
Promenade
2) "The Old Castle." A troubador sings in front of a medieval castle.
Promenade
3) "In the Garden of the Tuileries." Moussorgsky's subtitle is "Dispute of the Children after Play."
4) "Bydlo." A Polish wagon, drawn by oxen.
Promenade
5) "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks." Stassov says that "in 1870 Hartmann designed the costumes for the staging of the ballet Trilby at the Maryinsky Theater, St. Petersburg. In the cast were a number of boy and girl pupils of the theater school, arrayed as canaries. Others were dressed up as eggs."
6) "Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle: Two Jews, One Rich and One Poor." Moussorgsky liked this picture so much that Hartmann gave it to him.
7) "The Market place at Limoges." In the margin of the score, Moussorgsky wrote: "Great news! M. de Puissangeout has just recovered his cow. The Fugitive. But the good crones of Limoges are not entirely agreed about this, because Mme. de Remboursac just acquired a beautiful new set of teeth, whereas M. de Panta-Pantaleon's nose, which is in the way, remains the color of a peony."
8) "Catacombs, Roman Tombs" and "Cum mortuis in lingua mortua" (With the Dead in a Dead Language). In a footnote, Moussorgsky explained: "Well may it be in Latin! The creative spirit of the departed Hartmann leads me to the skulls, calls out to them, and the skulls begin to glow dimly from within."
9) "The Hut on Fowls' Legs (Baba-Yaga)." Hartmann's drawing shows a clock in the form of the hut of the Russian witch Baba-Yaga, who eats bones ground up with a mortar and pestle, which she also uses to fly through the air.
10) "The Great Gate of Kiev." Hartmann's design was submitted for city gates commemorating Tsar Alexander II's escape from assassination in 1866.

The work is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, E-flat alto saxophone, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, rattle, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, whip, triangle, xylophone, glockenspiel, bells, celesta, tam-tam, timpani, 2 harps, piano and strings.
©2010 Charley Samson

Wednesday May 5, 2010

2010-04-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado College Summer Music Festival

Charley shamelessly promotes the benefit concert for the Festival on Friday with past performances in concert and the Performance Studio.

Camille Saint-Saëns: Violin Sonata No.1 in D minor, Op. 75
Scott Yoo, violin
Susan Grace, piano
recorded 6/29/08

Johannes Brahms: “Allegro appassionato” (1st mvt) from Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1
Jon Manasse, clarinet
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
Charley Samson, page-turner
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 5/29/07
Produced by Martin Skavish

Lowell Liebermann: Fantasy on a Fugue of J.S. Bach
Elizabeth Mann, flute
Frank Rosenwein, oboe
Jon Manasse, clarinet
Michael Kroth, bassoon
Stewart Rose, horn
Susan Grace, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 6/26/07
Produced by Martin Skavish

Robert Schumann (arr. Franz Liszt):
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 4/24/09
Produced by Martin Skavish

Boulder Chamber Orchestra
Charley talks with Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless about their concerts this weekend, followed by one of his soloist's appearance in our Performance Studio.

Maurice Ravel: 1st movement from Sonata for Violin and Cello
Jennifer Carsillo, violin
Charles Lee, cello
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 9/24/09
Produced by Martin Skavish

Program Notes

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 75

I. Allegro agitato--Adagio
II. Allegretto moderato--Allegro molto

“I live in music like a fish in water,” said Saint-Saëns. “I write music as an apple tree produces apples.” In an age when most French composers pursued opera, Saint-Saëns concentrated on instrumental music. Comparing himself to Georges Bizet, he remarked, “We pursue a different ideal, he seeking passion and life above all things, I running after the chimera of purity of style and perfection of form.” In 1871 Saint-Saëns founded the Société nationale de musique, whose purpose was to encourage French chamber music.

The first of his two violin sonatas was written in 1885 and dedicated to the Belgian violinist Martin-Pierre-Joseph Marsick. The two has just completed a recital tour of Switzerland and the sonata was probably a thank-you gift.

The work has two movements, each with two sections. In his liner notes to James Ehnes’s recording, Don Anderson writes, “The first half of the opening movement is restless and dramatic, lightened by a runny second theme. It segues into an Adagio of exceptional lyric sweetness. The second movement opens with a lightly dancing, scherzo-like section; a series of solemn piano chords heralds the steeple-chase virtuoso excitement of the finale.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Clarinet Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1

I. Allegro appassionato
II. Andante un poco adagio
III. Allegretto grazioso
IV. Vivace

Brahms was convinced he had written his last composition when he visited the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen's court in March, 1891. However, the playing of the principal clarinetist of the Duke's orchestra, Richard Mühlfeld, convinced him to resume composing again. “It is impossible to play the clarinet better than Herr Mühlfeld does here,” he wrote to Clara Schumann. Calling him “the best wind player I know,” Brahms wrote the Clarinet Trio and Clarinet Quintet with Mühlfeld in mind. During the summer of 1894 he added two clarinet sonatas for “my dear nightingale,” as he called him. They were his last chamber works.

Biographer Karl Geiringer writes: “Their manner is familiar: a wonderful exploitation of the possibilities of the clarinet, particularly in the effective change from the higher to the lower registers, coupled with a certain austerity of tone; a tender melancholy, which seldom breaks out into more energetic or joyous accents; and a splendid perfection of form in all the movements. And yet, amid these typical features, what a profusion of individual attributes! In the F minor Sonata, for instance, it is remarkable how in each of the three sections of the beautifully proportioned introductory movement the lyrical opening rises gradually to epic strength, leading to final victory in the softer mood of the Coda.”

Tuesday May 4, 2010

2010-04-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Friends of Chamber Music

Tomorrow Inon Barnatan and Alisa Weilerstein perform on the Friends of Chamber Music series, which featured the pianist as a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2008. Both Barnaton and Weilerstein have visited our Performance Studio.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Quintet in E flat Major, Op. 16

Jean Francaix: Divertissement for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Inon Barnatan, piano
Stephen Taylor, oboe
David Shiffrin, clarinet
Peter Kolkay, bassoon
Stewart Rose, horn
recorded 3/5/08

Maurice Ravel: “Ondine” from Gaspard de la nuit
Inon Barnatan, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 3/5/08
Produced by Martin Skavish

George Frideric Handel (Arr. Johan Halvorsen): Passacaglia from Harpsichord Suite No. 7 in G minor, HWV 432
Chee-Yun, violin
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 10/20/05
Produced by Martin Skavish

Monday May 3, 2010

2010-04-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado

Charley talks with Baroque Chamber Orchestra co-leader Frank Nowell about their concerts this weekend. We'll also hear a 2006 all-Bach program, excerpts from their “Echoes of Venice” concert, and recordings made by their co-leaders in our Performance Studio. Listen to extended interview (web extra).

Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite in A minor, BWV 1067 Bach_Suite_No_2">notes

Johann Sebastian Bach: Two-Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043

Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
Debra Nagy, oboe
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin
Tekla Cunningham, violin
recorded 9/23/06

Biagio Marini: Echo Sonata

Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
Tekla Cunningham, Kathleen Leidig, Stacey Brady, violins
recorded 9/26/09

Georg Philipp Telemann: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major
I. Allemande
II. Corrente
III. Sarabande
IV. Gigue (web extra)

Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin
Frank Nowell, harpsichord
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 7/14/06
Produced by Martin Skavish

Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067
I. Ouverture
II. Rondeau
III. Sarabande
IV. Bourrée
V. Polonaise: Lentement
VI. Menuet
VII. Badinerie

After working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach was appointed cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. He moved family and furniture in May of 1723. His job description included duties as civic director of music, and this meant numerous odious encounters with the Town Council. He complained of “superiors who are strange people, with little regard for music.”

Some relief from his official duties came in 1729, when he was asked to direct the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a group founded 25 years earlier by Telemann. During the winter, they performed from eight to ten o'clock every Friday night at Gottfried Zimmermann's coffeehouse. In the warmer months, they moved outdoors in the garden for concerts from four to six o'clock on Wednesday afternoons.

All four of the Suites for Orchestra were played at these concerts, although three of them may have been written earlier, at Cöthen. Martin Bernstein believes the Second Suite was written in the early 1730s for Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin, first flutist in the Dresden Orchestra. Buffardin had given lessons to Bach's older brother Johann Jacob--in Constantinople, of all places.

Teri Noel Towe writes: “This elegant and glittering suite must have done much to enhance Bach's already great reputation when Buffardin played it with the Dresden court orchestra. Brilliant musician that he was, Buffardin certainly must have appreciated such subtle touches as the remarkable canon…in the Sarabande and the construction of the Double of the Polonaise over a bass line that is an exact quotation of the theme of the Polonaise proper.” The final movement, titled “Badinerie,” is a witty and dance-like substitute for the traditional dance movements of the suite.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Double 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.

Friday April 30, 2010

2010-04-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado College Summer Music Festival

Clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu have appeared at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival and the KVOD Performance Studio. Tonight we get ready for their appearance at the benefit recital next week.

Carl Maria von Weber: Grand Duo Concertant, Op. 48

Jon Manasse, clarinet
Jon Nakamatsu, piano  
recorded 6/11/08

Aaron Copland: Clarinet Concerto

Jon Manasse, clarinet
Festival Chamber Orchestra
Scott Yoo, conductor
recorded 7/9/02

John Novacek: “4th Street Drag” & “Full Stride Ahead”
from Four Rags for Two Jo(h)ns

Jon Manasse, clarinet
John Novacek, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 6/25/07
Produced by Martin Skavish

Sound Circle

Charley talks with Sound Circle artistic director Sue Coffee about their concerts this weekend, which include a work they've recorded.

Stephen Smith: Eagle Song

Sound Circle
Sue Coffee, conductor
"Stick Around" CD

Program Notes

Aaron Copland (1900-1990):
Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano
I. Slowly and Expressively; Cadenza
II. Rather Fast

“The King of Swing, Benny Goodman, commissioned the Clarinet Concerto in 1947. Copland was on a good-will tour of South America that year and began work on the Concerto in Rio de Janeiro. He finished the piece in New York during the fall of 1948.

Goodman was the soloist at the first performance, on November 6, 1950, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner's direction. Jerome Robbins used the music for a ballet, The Pied Piper, which was introduced by the New York City Ballet in 1951.

The Clarinet Concerto is in two movements, with a cadenza for the soloist in between. “The general character” of the opening movement, said Copland, “is lyric and expressive. The cadenza that follows provides the soloist with considerable opportunity to demonstrate his prowess, at the same time introducing fragments of the melodic material to be heard in the second movement. Some of this material represents an unconscious fusion of elements obviously related to North and South American popular music.”

In his book on Copland, Arthur Berger notes that since the work was written for Benny Goodman, “it inevitably exploits the ‘hot’ jazz improvisation for which that clarinetist is noted. But the very episodes that evoke the sharp-edged, controlled, motoric style of Goodman's brilliant old sextet are often the ones recalling most strongly the stark, dissonant devices that gave Copland the reputation for being an esoteric in the early thirties.” Berger notes that jazz elements first appear in the soloist's cadenza and “they dominate the fast second part of the work.”

Thursday April 29, 2010

2010-04-17T19:10:00.002-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado Symphony Orchestra

From this season's Masterworks Series, 2009 Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medal Winner Haochen Zhang plays Prokofiev with the Orchestra.

Peter Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Opus 26

Scott O’Neil, conductor
Haochen Zhang, piano
recorded 2/20/10

Program Notes

eter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32

When Tchaikovsky was in Paris during the summer of 1876, he wrote to his brother Modeste: “Early this morning I read through the Fifth Canto of Dante's Inferno, and was beset by the wish to compose a symphonic poem based on the love and eternal punishment of Francesca and Paolo.” Dante's story depicts the adulterous love of Francesca and Paolo, who are both murdered by a jealous husband and thence consigned to the second circle of hell, where carnal sinners are continually buffeted by howling winds.

Originally Tchaikovsky wanted to set the story as an opera, but by November 17, 1876, he had completed the symphonic poem. Again, he wrote to his brother: “I have just finished the composition of a new work, a symphonic fantasia...I have worked on it `con amore,' and believe my devotion has been successful.”

Francesca da Rimini was successful when Nikolai Rubinstein introduced it in Moscow on March 9, 1877. Tchaikovsky said he preferred this work “above all the others I've composed in this genre.”

Biographer Edwin Evans describes the work: “It has three phases, of which the central one is by far the most important, as it depicts the narrative of Francesca, the beginning and end of the work providing the background of the Inferno. The agonizing picture brought to mind by the perusal of Dante is unmistakably portrayed in the opening and close of the work. The disconsolate wandering of the lost souls is represented by an andante lugubre, which merges into a veritable whirlwind, allegro vivo. The andante section is full of a haunting melody first played by the clarinet. The subsequent accompanying figures, provided by three flutes, are among the most attractive features of the score. In the end the unhappy pair disappear once more into the whirling throng.”

The work is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 cornets, 2 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, gong, harp and strings. 

 Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26
I. Andante--Allegro
II. Theme and Variations: Andantino 
III. Allegro ma non troppo

The Third Piano Concerto was begun “by fits and starts” as early as 1911. Prokofiev set it aside, returned to it in 1913, set it aside again and returned to it again in 1916 and 1917. By then the principal themes were outlined, but the work was still unfinished. When he left Russia the following year, the score was in his luggage. He finally completed the Concerto in France during the summer of 1921.

The first performance took place in Chicago on December 16, 1921, with Prokofiev as soloist and Frederick Stock conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The audience, according to the composer, “did not quite understand” the work. After performances in New York, Paris and London, the Concerto reached the Soviet Union, where it was welcomed with open arms. “What is important,” wrote Boris Asafeyev, “is that Prokofiev has still not cut himself off from his own country. The work throbs with its strength, and radiates the Russian understanding of art's meaning and value.”

For the Chicago première, Prokofiev provided the following description of the work: “The first movement opens with a short, calm introduction...The theme is introduced by unaccompanied clarinet, then taken up by the violins...The violins' passage...leads to the principal theme (on the piano). Development by orchestra and soloist is lively. After a few bars of chords for piano solo, an expressive secondary motive is initiated by oboe with plucked string accompaniment. The piano develops this theme in a bravura passage...In the recapitulation, the two themes are submitted to a brilliant development, ending in an agitated crescendo.

“The second movement is a theme with five variations. The theme is announced by the orchestra. The first variation, by piano in a quasi-sentimental mood, ends in a prolonged chain of trills, while the orchestra repeats the theme. The second and third variations...occur in brilliant piano figurations, while snatches of the theme appear on all sides in the orchestra. The fourth is calm and dreamy. The fifth...leads to the reappearance of the basic theme in a setting of delicate chordal decorations from the piano.

“In the third movement...bassoons and strings state the theme with gusty interruptions from the piano. Orchestral development of the theme leads to a clash of tonalities. The piano takes up the first theme again and develops it to a powerful climax. After a slackening of rhythm, new material is introduced in the woodwind. The piano answers with a theme humorous in character. This episode receives an extensive development, which leads to a brilliant coda.”

The Concerto is scored for solo piano, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, cymbals, castanets, tambourine, bass drum and strings.

Wednesday April 28, 2010

2010-04-17T19:10:00.001-07:00

On tonight's show:

Yevgeny Sudbin Recital

Monika Vischer talks with pianist Yevgeny Sudbin about his recital tomorrow at the Newman Center, followed by his recordings in our Performance Studio.

Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude No. 6 in B minor, Op. 87
Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52

KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 4/27/10
Produced by Martin Skavish

Colorado Music Festival

Pianist Jon Nakamatsu has appeared at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, the Strings Music Festival and the KVOD Performance Studio. Tonight we hear him at the Colorado Music Festival.

Ernö Dohnányi: Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1

Jon Nakamatsu, piano
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players
Calin Lupanu, violin
Monica Boboc, violin
Matthew Dane, viola
Bjorn Ranheim, cello
recorded 7/17/07

Musical Oddities
Charley talks with CSO horn player David Brussell about the book signing of his new tome, Musical Oddities, tomorrow night at the Bookery Nook.

Opera Colorado

Charley talks with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, who sings the title role in Opera Colorado's production of Puccini's Tosca, which opens tomorrow.
Giacomo Puccini: Aria, "Vissi d'arte" from Act II of Tosca

Moscow Chamber Orchestra
Constantine Orbelian, conductor
Sondra Radvanovsky, soprano
Telarc pre-release

The Playground Ensemble
Charley talks with The Playground's Conrad Kehn about their Colorado Composers Concert (CoCoCo) Friday.

Program Notes

Ernö Dohnányi (1877–1960)

Born in Pressburg (Bratislava), Dohnányi entered the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest in 1894. When Brahms heard his Quintet in C minor, he exclaimed, “I could not have written it better myself.” Dohnányi's Symphony in F major was awarded the king's prize in 1897, the same year he began studying with Eugen d'Albert. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, and in 1919 was appointed director of the Budapest Conservatory and conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1948, having lost two sons in the War, he left Hungary, traveling to Austria, then spent a year in Argentina.In the fall of 1949 he came to the United States to teach at Florida State College in Tallahassee.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Aria, "Vissi d'arte" from Act II of Tosca

Victorien Sardou's drama La Tosca had already been rejected by Giuseppe Verdi when Alberto Franchetti acquired the exclusive rights to set it as an opera. Meanwhile Puccini saw Sarah Bernhardt in a production of the play and was determined to have it himself. After much intrigue, Franchetti was talked into abandoning his project, only to discover that Puccini was interested. He never forgave Puccini for his treachery. Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica fashioned a libretto and Puccini's Tosca was introduced in Rome on January 14, 1900.

In the second act, the title character, an opera singer, has just heard her lover Cavaradossi being tortured when the torturer, Baron Scarpia, tries to woo her. She who “lived for art” muses on her cruel fate.

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore,
non feci mai male ad anima viva!
Con man furtiva
quante miserie conobbi, aiutai.
Sempre con fé sincera,
la mia preghiera
ai santi tabernacoli salì.
Sempre con fé sincera,
diedi fiori agli altar.
Nell'ora del dolore
perché, perché Signore,
perché me ne rimuneri così?
Diedi gioielli
della Madonna al manto,
e diedi il canto agli astri,
al ciel, che ne ridean più belli.
Nell'ora del dolore
perché, perché, Signore,
perché me ne rimuneri così?

Translation:
I lived for art, I lived for love:
Never did I harm a living creature!
Whatever misfortunes I encountered
I sought with secret hand to succour.
Ever in pure faith,
my prayers rose
in the holy chapels.
Ever in pure faith,
I brought flowers to the altars.
In this hour of pain.
Why, why, oh Lord,
why dost Thou repay me thus?
Jewels I brought
for the Madonna's mantle,
and songs for the stars in heaven
that they shone forth with greater radiance.
In this hour distress
Why, why, oh Lord,
why dost Thou repay me thus?

Tuesday April 27, 2010

2010-04-17T19:06:00.002-07:00

On tonight's show:

Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival

Charley anticipates Alisa Weilerstein's appearance with Inon Barnaton on the Friends of Chamber Music series next week. She has also appeared at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

Beethoven: String Trio in G major, Op.9 No.1
Michelle Kim, violin
Cynthia Phelps, viola
Carter Brey, cello

Brahms: Cello Sonata No.2 in F major, Op.99
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Adam Neiman, piano
recorded 7/22/03 & 7/15/03

Colorado Chamber Players

Charley anticipates the Colorado Chamber Players recital Wednesday at Shalom Park.

Max Bruch: Eight Pieces, Op. 83
V. Rumanian Melody: Andante in F minor
Colorao Chamber Players
Daniel Silver, clarinet
Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola
Andrew Cooperstock, piano)
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 4/19/10
Produced by Martin Skavish

Program Notes

The three string trio of Opus 9 were published in July, 1798 with a dedication to Count Johann Georg von Browne-Camus. One of the Count's employees described him as "one of the strangest men, full of excellent talents and beautiful qualities of heart and spirit...[but] full of weakness and depravity."

The Count once gave Beethoven a horse in exchange for dedicating the Variations on a Russian Dance (WoO 71) to the Count's wife. Beethoven's pupil, Ferdinand Ries, recorded that "He rode the animal a few times, and soon after forgot all about it and, worse than that, its food also. His servant, who soon noticed this, began to hire out the horse for his own benefit and, in order not to attract the attention of Beethoven to the fact, for a long time withheld from him all bills for fodder. At length, however, to Beethoven's great amazement he handed in a very large one, which recalled to him at one his horse and his neglectfulness."

Biographer Lewis Lockwood notes Beethoven's previous works for string trio, the Trio in E flat major, Op.3 and the Serenade in D major, Op.8. "But with the three String Trios of Opus 9 we come to a higher level," he writes, "These three trios are the best of Beethoven's string chamber music before the Opus 18 quartets." At the time, Beethoven himself declared them "the best of my works."

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op.99
I. Allegro vivace
II. Adagio affettuoso
III. Allegro passionato
IV. Allegro molto

Brahms wrote two cello sonatas, the first in 1865. Some twenty years would elapse before he wrote another. The F major sonata was composed in the Swiss town of Hofstetten, on the Lake of Thun, during the summer of 1886. It was inspired by the playing of young Robert Hausmann, the cellist in Joseph Joachim's quartet. And it was Hausmann, with Brahms at the piano, who introduced the work on November 24, 1886 in Vienna.

Biographer Karl Geiringer says the opening movement "differs in some respects from other compositions of the mature period. Its ardent pathos would be less surprising in Brahms's youthful compositions...Although the cello part has in general a much higher pitch than in the first Sonata, great strength of tone is required if the player is to assert himself against the tremoli of the piano, here employed to an extent which will hardly be found in any other work of the composer. It may be that Brahms did not `go for so many walks' with this work as was otherwise his wont...The Finale--a rather hastily elaborated Rondo--seems to have been written with quite peculiar speed, as though the master could hardly write fast enough to put the rush of ideas on paper."

The second movement's lyrical melody is shared by two instruments, the cello alternating between bowed and plucked expression. The third movement is a scherzo with strong rhythmic accents and a trio section containing a sweet melody played mostly by the cello.

"The writing in the Second Sonata,'' writes Karen Monson, "is more successfully idiomatic for the solo instrument than in the first. It takes the cello out of its low register and coincidentally establishes a more natural balance with the piano. In contrast to the E Minor Sonata, the F Major work is extroverted--more outwardly noble, dramatic and spirited, though not without warmly tender moments."

Monday April 26, 2010

2010-04-17T19:06:00.001-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado College Summer Music Festival

Charley anticipates next week's Colorado College Summer Music Festival benefit and talks with pianist John Novacek about Tchaikovsky's pupil, Sergei Taneyev, followed by a 2008 performance of his Piano Quintet from the Colorado College Summer Music Festival.

Sergei Taneyev: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30
John Novacek, piano
Jonathan Crow, violin
Mark Fewer, violin
Toby Appel, viola
Bion Tsang, cello
recorded on 6/29/08

CU at Boettcher

Charley anticipates David Korevaar's appearance at the “CU at Boettcher” concert tomorrow.

Frédéric Chopin: Etude in G sharp minor, Op. 25 No. 6 (Thirds),
Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 25 No. 7 (Cello)
Etude in D flat major, Op. 25 No. 8
David Korevaar, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded on 6/24/08
Produced by Martin Skavish

Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915)

A pupil of Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rubinstein, Taneyev gave the first Russian performance of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. When Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory, it was Taneyev who succeeded him. By 1885 he was director of the Conservatory. His pupils include Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Gliere.  Boris Asafiev writes that Taneyev, “like no Russian composer, lived and worked immersed in the world of ideas, in the development of abstract concepts.” He was friends with Rimsky-Korsakov, Tolstoy and Turgenev. He was interested in Esperanto and set several vocal works to Esperanto texts.

Friday April 23, 2010

2010-04-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Boulder Philharmonic

Charley talks with music director Michael Butterman about the Boulder Philharmonic's season finale tomorrow, followed by an all-Mozart program from the Orchestra.

Wolfgang Mozart:
Contradances, K. 609 Nos. 3 & 4
Aria, "Vedrai carino" from Act II of Don Giovanni, K .527
Aria, "L'amerò sarò costante" from Act II of Il Re Pastore, K .208
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K .219 (Turkish)

Michael Butterman, conductor
Adriana Zabala, mezzo soprano
Bonnie Draina, soprano
Brian Lewis, violin
recorded 11/1/08

Moscow Chamber Orchestra
Constantine Orbelian, conductor
Sondra Radvanovsky, soprano
Telarc pre-release

Venice Baroque Orchestra
Charley talks with members of the Venice Baroque Orchestra about their epic journey to the Friends of Chamber Music concert last night.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Aria, “Vedrai carino” from Act II of Don Giovanni, K. 527
After the success of The Marriage of Figaro in Prague, Mozart was commissioned to write a new opera by Pasquale Bondini, whose company had only recently been saved from bankruptcy by Figaro in 1787. Mozart's librettist for Figaro, Lorenzo da Ponte, suggested the subject of Don Juan.

Mozart worked on the music during the spring and summer of 1787, but Don Giovanni was still unfinished when he and his wife Constanze left Vienna in late August. Staying with friends in Prague, they enjoyed a rare vacation, with good food, good company, and numerous games of darts and skittles. Mozart even worked on the opera occasionally, out in the garden.

There is a darling legend about Mozart writing the Overture the night before the premiere, with Constanze by his side supplying cups of punch and telling him silly stories to keep him awake, and the orchestra sight-reading the music before the ink was dry. More likely, Mozart wrote it on October 27, the night before the last dress rehearsal.

Don Giovanni was finally given on October 29, 1787 to enormous acclaim. One account mentioned that “the whole powers of both actors and orchestra were put forward to do honor to Mozart.” The impresario sent Da Ponte a note: “Long live Da Ponte, long live Mozart. Every impresario and singer should bless them. As long as they live the theater can never again fall on hard times.”

In the second act, Zerlina comforts her fiance Massetto, who has just been beaten up by Don Giovanni.

“L'amerò, sarò costante” from Act II of Il Re Pastore, K. 208
Shortly after his return to Salzburg from the Munich production of La Finta Giardiniera, K.196, Mozart was commissioned to write another opera, this time by his own employer, the Archbishop Colloredo. The occasion was a visit to Salzburg of the Empress Maria Theresia's youngest son, the Archduke Maximilian Franz.

Mozart had barely a month an a half to complete the work, which is sometimes called a cantata, a pastorale or a dramatic serenade. He selected a well-worn text by the Viennese court poet Pietro Metastasio titled Il Re Pastore (The Shepherd King). It had been set by at least twelve other composers, including Giuseppe Bonno at the first performance in 1751 and later by Gluck. The first performance of Mozart's Il Re Pastore was given on April 23, 1775 with the famous castrato Consoli in the title role.

In the second act, the shepherd Aminta--who is the righful heir to the throne--sings of his love for the nymph Elisa. In his book on Mozart's operas, Charles Osborne describes the aria as “a rondo in five sections, an andantino of great beauty and tender feeling, and the emotional climax of the opera.”

The score calls for soprano, solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 English horns, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings.

Text of “L'amerò, sarò costante”
L'amerò, sarò costante,
fido sposo e fido amante,
sol per lei sospirerò.
In sì caro e dolce oggetto
la mia gioia, il mio diletto,
la mia pace io troverò.

Translation:
I will love her, I will be faithful,
a faithful husband and faithful lover.
I shall sigh only for her.
In her, so precious and sweet a thing,
my joy, my delight,
my peace will I find.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219 (Turkish)
I. Allegro aperto
II. Adagio
III. Rondeau: Tempo di menuetto

“You have no idea how well you play the violin,” wrote Mozart's father to his son. “If only you would do yourself justice and play with boldness, spirit and fire, you would be the first violinist in Europe.”

Within a period of nine months in 1775, Mozart wrote five violin concertos, either for his own use as concertmaster of the Salzburg orchestra, or for his successor in the post, Antonio Brunetti. The fifth of the set was finished on December 20. It is subtitled Turkish because of the so-called “Turkish music” in the last movement, which Mozart lifted from his own opera Lucio Silla.

Alfred Einstein considers the Fifth Concerto “unsurpassed for brilliance, tenderness and wit.” Describing all five violin conertos, H.C. Robbins Landon writes: “Melody is piled upon melody, and new ideas succeed each other in blissful insouciance of each other and of any strict formal pattern. What immediately captivates the listener is the matchless elegance of conception and execution, the suavity of orchestration--which even at this comparatively early stage has that natural brilliance which is so characteristic of mature Mozart--and the luxurious delight in pure melody.”

The score calls for solo violin, 2 oboes, 2 horns and strings

Thursday April 22, 2010

2010-04-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Colorado Symphony Orchestra

From this season's Masterworks Series, guest conductor Bernard Labadie and the Colorado Symphony play Mozart.

Wolfgang Mozart:
La Clemenza di Tito Overture, K. 621
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550

Bernard Labadie, conductor
recorded 1/23/10

Earth Day

Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis is donating a portion of the royalties from her most recent CD, Air, to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Claude Debussy: "Final" (3rd movement) from Sonata for Flute, Harp and Viola

Yolanda Kondonassis, harp
Joshua Smith, flute
Cynthia Phelps, viola
Telarc 80694

Rocky mountain Center for the Musical Arts

Charley looks to Sunday's Rocky Mountain Center for the Musical Arts faculty recital. Two of the musicians involved stopped by our Performance Studio.

Marcia Marchesi: Ciranda
I. Ciranda
II. Contando Estrelas
III. Esconde-esconde

Mountain Music Duo
James Cline, guitar
Tenly Williams, oboe
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 10/17/08
Produced by Martin Skavish

Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Overture to La Clemenza di Tito, K.621

During the summer of 1791, even as he worked furiously on The Magic Flute and the Requiem, Mozart received a new commission. Domenico Guardasoni, acting on instructions from a band of Bohemian noblemen, asked Mozart to write a serious opera for the celebration of Leopold II's coronation as King of Bohemia. The fee was twice the normal rate; Mozart was in no position to refuse.

The libretto for La Clemenza di Tito, by Metastasio as revised by Caterino Mazzola, concerns love and intrigue in Rome around 80 A.D. Mozart wrote the opera in 18 days, partly in Vienna that summer, partly in carriages and inns on the way to Prague and partly in Prague, just before the first performance on September 6, 1791.

In his book on Mozart's operas, Charles Osborne writes: "Composed at the last moment, the Overture nevertheless does not make use of any themes from the opera: instead it establishes a mood which, though formal, is also festive. Its contrapuntal development section links it in mood with The Magic Flute Overture which must have been composed only a week or two later."
The Overture is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, as well as timpani and strings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550
I. Molto allegro
II. Andante
III. Minuet: Allegretto
IV. Allegro assai

The G minor Symphony was the second of three symphonies that Mozart wrote in the space of just two months during the summer of 1788. It was finished on July 25.

We have only speculation about why Mozart wrote these works and whether any of them were performed during Mozart's lifetime. They may have appeared on programs in Leipzig in May, 1789, or at a pair of concerts at the court theatre in Vienna conducted by Antonio Salieri in April, 1791. On the latter occasion, the brothers Anton and Johann Stadler played solo clarinets, a fact which leads some to infer that the G minor Symphony was the "Grand Symphony" on the program, since Mozart did revise the score to include two clarinets.

A great deal has been written about the G minor Symphony, much of it nonsense, some of it useful. A French critic in 1828 called it "one of the very finest productions of the human mind." About twenty years later, a Russian commentator wrote: "I doubt if there exists in all music anything more deeply incisive, more cruelly anguished, more violently distracted, more agonizingly passionate than the second half of the finale."

Most of the Romantics seem to miss the point. Berlioz called the work "that model of delicacy and naïveté." Schumann found in it "Grecian lightness and grace."

In his book The Classical Style, Charles Rosen wrote in 1972: "The limit of dramatic complexity in a classical finale is reached with Mozart's G minor symphony: despairing and impassioned, it is also rhythmically one of the simplest and squarest pieces that Mozart ever wrote."

The original version of the work was scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings. The second version adds 2 clarinets.

© 2010 Charley Samson

Wednesday April 21, 2010

2010-04-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Opera Colorado

Charley talks with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, who sings the title role in Opera Colorado's production of Puccini's Tosca, which opens this Saturday.

Giacomo Puccini: Aria, "Vissi d'arte" from Act II of Tosca

Moscow Chamber Orchestra
Constantine Orbelian, conductor
Sondra Radvanovsky, soprano
Telarc pre-release

Colorado Music Festival

Music director Michael Christie and the Chamber Orchestra play Schubert's Tragic Symphony.

Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D. 417 (Tragic)

Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra 
Michael Christie, conductor
recorded 7/16/06

Lamont School of Music

Charley looks forward to Jonathan Leathwood and Heidi Brende Leathwood's recital at the Lamont School of Music Saturday.

Franz Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821
I. Allegro moderato

Matthew Dane, viola
Jonathan Leathwood, guitar
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 3/24/10
Produced by Martin Skavish

Front Range Chamber Players
Charley talks with the Front Range Chamber Players artistic director David Brussell about their season finale Sunday, and about his new book, Musical Oddities.

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Aria, "Vissi d'arte" from Act II of Tosca

Victorien Sardou's drama La Tosca had already been rejected by Giuseppe Verdi when Alberto Franchetti acquired the exclusive rights to set it as an opera. Meanwhile Puccini saw Sarah Bernhardt in a production of the play and was determined to have it himself. After much intrigue, Franchetti was talked into abandoning his project, only to discover that Puccini was interested. He never forgave Puccini for his treachery. Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica fashioned a libretto and Puccini's Tosca was introduced in Rome on January 14, 1900.

In the second act, the title character, an opera singer, has just heard her lover Cavaradossi being tortured when the torturer, Baron Scarpia, tries to woo her. She who “lived for art” muses on her cruel fate.

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore,
non feci mai male ad anima viva!
Con man furtiva
quante miserie conobbi, aiutai.
Sempre con fé sincera,
la mia preghiera
ai santi tabernacoli salì.
Sempre con fé sincera,
diedi fiori agli altar.
Nell'ora del dolore
perché, perché Signore,
perché me ne rimuneri così?
Diedi gioielli
della Madonna al manto,
e diedi il canto agli astri,
al ciel, che ne ridean più belli.
Nell'ora del dolore
perché, perché, Signore,
perché me ne rimuneri così?

(I lived for art, I lived for love:
Never did I harm a living creature!
Whatever misfortunes I encountered
I sought with secret hand to succour.
Ever in pure faith,
my prayers rose
in the holy chapels.
Ever in pure faith,
I brought flowers to the altars.
In this hour of pain.
Why, why, oh Lord,
why dost Thou repay me thus?
Jewels I brought
for the Madonna's mantle,
and songs for the stars in heaven
that they shone forth with greater radiance.
In this hour distress
Why, why, oh Lord,
why dost Thou repay me thus?)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D.417 (Tragic)
I. Adagio molto; Allegro vivace
II. Andante
III. Menuetto: Allegro vivace
IV. Allegro

Schubert was nineteen years old when he finished his Fourth Symphony on April 27, 1816. It was probably introduced shortly thereafter by an amateur orchestra that met twice a week at Otto Hatwig's house in Vienna. According to Schubert's friend Leopold Sonnleithner, the orchestra's members included "merchants, tradesmen or minor officials." They had practised enough to handle most Mozart and Haydn symphonies, as well as the first two symphonies of Beethoven. One Josef Prohaska was the conductor; Schubert played viola.

The first public performance of the Fourth Symphony had to wait until the twenty-first anniversary of Schubert's death. August Ferdinand Riccius and the Euterpe Society played the work in Leipzig on November 19, 1849.

It was Schubert himself who gave the title Tragic to the Fourth. Why is unclear. Perhaps because it was his first symphony in a minor key. Or maybe because of his personal situation. He had just completed a gruelling three years as assistant to his schoolmaster father, and felt the need to escape. While working on the Fourth Symphony, he applied for the government position of Music Director at Laibach. Despite testimonials from his teacher, Antonio Salieri, and the chief inspector of schools, he was rejected in favor of a local drone named Franz Sokol.

Alfred Einstein says that the Schubert Fourth "betrays the disturbing influence of Beethoven." Antonin Dvorak marveled "that one so young should have had the power to give utterance to such deep pathos."

Joan Chissell writes: "In the first movement the intensity of the slow introduction, the challenge of the first subject and the melodic surge of the second leave no doubt of the force of Beethoven's inspiration. The finale, particularly the harmonically daring, thrusting development of the main theme's opening motif, has a voltage scarcely less strong. But in the C major homecomings of both these bigger flanking movements, Schubert's victory over fate is comparatively easily won. The benign lyricism of the slow movement, only briefly threatened by darker outbursts in minor tonality, is prophetic of the mature keyboard Schubert. The movement includes many subtleties of transition and scoring. The restless chromaticism of the Minuet, offset by a disarminly naive Trio, is no less remarkable for a teenager."

The Symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Tuesday April 20, 2010

2010-04-03T05:07:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Friends of Chamber Music

From this year's Chamber Series, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and the Miami String Quartet play a new Septet written for them, as well as the Boccherini Quintet (the one with the Minuet).

Luigi Boccherini: Cello Quintet in E major, Op. 11, No. 5 (G. 275)

Sharon Robinson, cello
Miami String Quartet
Benny Kim, violin (substituting for Ivan Chan)
Cathy Robinson, violin
Yu Jin, viola
Keith Robinson, cello

Ellen Zwilich: Septet

Kalichstien-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Joseph Kalichstien, piano
Jaime Laredo, violin
Sharon Robinson, cello
Miami String Quartet
Benny Kim, violin (substituting for Ivan Chan)
Cathy Robinson, violin
Yu Jin, viola
Keith Robinson, cello
April Travers, page-turner

recorded 11/11/09

Colorado Chamber Players

Charley talks with Colorado Chamber Players artistic director Barbara Hamilton-Primus about their recital tomorrow at the Littleton Historical Museum.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Trio in E flat major, K. 498 (Kegelstatt)
III. Rondo: Allegretto (includes interview)

Colorado Chamber Players
Daniel Silver, clarinet
Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola
Andrew Cooperstock, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 4/19/10
Produced by Martin Skavish

 
Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Trio in E flat major, K. 498 (Kegelstatt)
III. Rondo: Allegretto

K.498 was written for Mozart's pupil, Franziska von Jacquin. It was probably first played privately for their little social circle, which included Franziska's brother Gottfried, the singers Michael Kelly and Nancy Storace (both were in the original cast of The Marriage of Figaro), Nancy's brother Stephen Storace (a composer) and another Mozart pupil, Thomas Attwood. The Trio was proably played by Franziska on piano, Mozart on viola and Anton Stadler on clarinet.

The Trio is subtitled "Kegelstatt," or the "Bowling Alley Trio," because of the legend that Mozart wrote it while playing skittles, or nine-pins ("kegel" in German). The Dutch scholar Marius Flothuis suggest the title is more appropriate to the twelve Horn Duos, K.487, which were composed nine days before the Trio, which was complete on August 5, 1786.

Alfred Einstein calls K.498 "a work of intimate friendship and love." Eric Blom regards it as "perhaps the most adorable" of all Mozart's trios. "This is a great work," he writes, "in which the somber color of the wind and the string instrument as well as the affection Mozart had for both of them called splendidly knit and emotionally fully charged music from him."

Monday April 19, 2010

2010-04-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

On tonight's show:

Newman Center Presents

Charley anticipates tomorrow’s “Essential Graham: Classics from the Martha Graham Dance Company” at the Newman Center by airing a 2009 offering in the series from the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 44 in E minor (Mourning)

George Frideric Handel:
“Va tacito e nascosto” from Giulio Cesare
“Dove sei? Amato bene!” from Rodelinda
“Se parla nel mio cor” from Giustino
“O Lord, whose mercies numberless” from Saul
“Aure, deh, per pietà” from Giulio Cesare & “Vivi tiranno!” from Rodelinda

Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti, violin & conductor
Andreas Scholl, countertenor 
recorded 4/30/09

Program Notes

Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 44 in E minor (Mourning)
I. Allegro con brio 
II. Menuetto e Trio: Allegretto canone in diapason
III. Adagio—Presto

In the 1760s, Haydn entered what commentators call his Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period. Conductor Raymond Leppard describes it as “the literary and musical parallel of the credo of nature over reason first set forth by Rousseau in 1751. In the field of music the effects of this philosophy showed themselves in a heightened subjectivity, an enlarging of the expressive scale by means of new orchestral tone colors, surprising dynamic effects, a new freedom of modulation, and frequent use of minor tonality.”

The Symphony No. 44 can be counted among these Sturm and Drang works. Probably dating from around 1772, the Symphony is subtitled “Mourning” because its third movement was a favorite of Haydn’s, who requested that it be played at his funeral. According to C. F. Pohl, an early biographer, the work was performed in Berlin when Haydn died in 1809. Karl Geiringer implies that the title Mourning was even intended by Haydn himself as a lament for the “death of a hero.”

The great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon calls the Symphony “one of the greatest of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang productions…. Here Haydn finally achieved the form he had sought so long, for the emotional world of the sonata da chiesa (church sonata) was successfully transferred to the normal symphonic structure. Not quite normal, though, because Haydn shifts the weight, after the enormously powerful opening movement, to the slow movement but allows a breathing space by inserting the minuet in between. In overall balance, this Symphony is a miracle of judgment.”

The minuet, in the form of a canon, is, writes Landon, “a fantastic piece of contrapuntal prestidigitation.” He says the finale “carries things further than even the first movement would lead us to expect. The unison opening is tensely rhythmic, with those inserted silences that increase the power so effectively. Just as in the first movement, the first (seven) notes of the Finale prove to be essential.”

Friday April 16, 2010

2010-04-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about their season finale on April 24.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor
Peter Tchaikovsky: No.5 in E minor, Op.64 48:24 (2/14/09)
Also, Charley talks with Resonance Women's Chorus conductor Sue Coffee about their concerts tomorrow.
And, Charley anticipates pianist Susan Grace's appearance with the Chamber Orchestra of the Strings this weekend.
Anton Arensky: Waltz from Suite No. 1
William Wolfram, piano; Susan Grace, piano
Colorado College Summer Music Festival (Recorded 6/24/03)
Moreover, Charley talks with Mercury Ensemble music director Daniel Leavitt and Spring Strings director Kathleen Spring about their joint concert tomorrow.

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Opus 64
I. Andante; Allegro con anima
II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
III. Valse: Allegro moderato
IV. Andante maestoso: Allegro vivace

``In the summer I shall certainly write a symphony,'' wrote Tchaikovsky to his brother Modeste in 1888. This was the first mention of what would become his Fifth Symphony. As early as May of that year, he complained: ``To tell the truth, at present I've no inclination at all to create. Have I really finally used myself up? But I hope that little by little materials for a symphony will accumulate.''
A month later, Tchaikovsky mentioned to a conductor that he was ``working fairly assiduously on a symphony, which if I'm not mistaken will be no worse than the previous ones. But perhaps it only seems so. Recently I've been haunted by the thought that I've written myself out.''
Despite the composer's doubts about his inspiration, the Fifth Symphony was finished in August. It was first performed on November 17, 1888 at a concert of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, with Tchaikovsky conducting.
Typically, Tchaikovsky's opinion of his own work changed. After the third performance he wrote to his patroness, Nadejda von Meck: ``I have come to the conclusion that it is unsuccessful. There is something repellent about it; too much patchiness and insincerity, fabrication. And the public instinctively recognizes this. It was very clear to me that the ovations of which I was the object were on account of my previous works and that the symphony itself doesn't give pleasure.''
However, after a successful performance of the Fifth in Hamburg, Tchaikovsky had changed his mind: ``I no longer find the symphony bad, and love it once again.''
Tchaikovsky never revealed a program for the Fifth Symphony, but Nicolas Slonimsky discovered the following note among Tchaikovsky's sketchbooks: ``Introduction. Complete resignation before Fate, or, which is the same, before the inscrutable predestination of Providence. Allegro (I) Murmurs, doubts, plaints, reproaches against XXX....II. Shall I throw myself in the embraces of faith???'' What this note means is the subject of some speculation. ``Whether or not XXX refers to an actual person,'' writes John Warrack, ``it seems certain that Tchaikovsky is alluding to his central emotional problem, his homosexuality.''
The Symphony begins with a slow introduction, whose theme acts as a motto in the other three movements. Biographer Edwin Evans writes: ``The slow movement is a perfect poem, and more than one writer has professed to find here the finest symphonic movement Tchaikovsky has bequeathed us. The waltz, which takes the place of the scherzo, is also a triumph.'' In the finale, according to Ernest Newman, ``the motto phrase, which has appeared like a sinister intruder, an unwelcome guest at the musical feast, emerges as the chief thematic factor, not only of the introduction to the Finale, but of the whole movement.''
The score calls for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

Thursday April 15, 2010

2010-04-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Charley talks with principal guest conductor Douglas Boyd and concertmaster Yumi Hwang Williams about their Colorado Symphony concerts this weekend.
Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro vivace" (1st movement) from Sonata in F Major (1838)
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin; Dror Biran, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 11/9/09 by Martin Skavish
Also, from this year's Masterworks series:
 Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Labadie, conductor; Benedetto Lupo, piano
Wolfgang Mozart: "Chaconne" from Idomeneo, K.367
Wolfgang Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K.456 (Recorded 1/23/10)
And, Charley talks with Mercury Ensemble music director Daniel Leavitt and Spring Strings director Kathleen Spring about their joint concert Saturday.
And finally, more Yumi:
Ernest Bloch: "Vidui" (Contrition): "Un poco lento" (1st movement) from Baal Shem
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin; Dror Biran, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 11/9/09 by Martin Skavish

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): "Chaconne" from Idomeneo, K.367

Towards the end of 1780 Mozart received a commission to compose a serious Italian opera for the Munich Carnival. He selected a libretto by the Salzburg court chaplain Giambattista Varesco titled Idomeneo, King of Crete, basically the Biblical tale of Jephtha transferred to ancient Greece. The music was begun in October, 1780 in Salzburg. Then in early November, Mozart left for Munich to consult with the singers.
The first rehearsal went well. ``I cannot tell you how amazed and delighted everyone was,'' Mozart wrote home. ``But I did not expect anything else, and I assure you I went to this rehearsal with as easy a mind as if I were going to a dinner-party.''
At the dress rehearsal, the Elector of Bavaria wondered that ``such great things were tucked away in so small a head....I was quite surprised; music has never had such an effect on me before.'' The first performance of Idomeneo took place in the Elector's new opera house on January 29, 1781, just two days after Mozart's twenty-fifth birthday. No accounts of the event have survived, but if it was anything like the rehearsals, it must have been a success.
The ballet music to Idomeneo was inserted somewhere in or after the opera, just exactly where is uncertain. Also uncertain is the action of the ballet, which may or may not have related to the action of the opera at all. The choreographer (Jean-Pierre Le Grand), is named, as are the principal dancers (Hartig, Antoine, Falgera).
On December 30, 1780, Mozart wrote to his father that ``as there is no extra ballet, but merely an appropriate divertissement in the opera, I have the honor of composing the music for that as well. I am glad of this, however, for now all the music will be by the same composer.'' The usual custom was to have the ballet composed by a different composer than the opera. By January 18, 1781, Mozart reported: ``Till now I've been kept busy with those cursed dances--Laus Deo--I have survived it all.''
The ballet music consists of five movements. The theme of the opening “Chaconne” was lifted almost note for note from the Chaconne in Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide.
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K.456
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante in G minor
III. Allegro vivace

Nine days after the birth of his second son, Karl Thomas, Mozart completed K.456 on September 30, 1784. The Concerto was probably written for Maria Theresa von Paradis, an excellent pianist, singer and composer. She was the daughter of the State Councilor of Lower Austria and a godchild of the Empress Maria Theresa, who gave the pianist a yearly allowance of 200 florins.
Paradis had been blind from birth and was a pupil of the composer Leopold Kozeluch. According to one account, she could play "more than sixty keyboard concertos with the greatest accuracy and the finest expression, in every way worthy of her teacher." At the time, she needed the concerto from Mozart for an upcoming tour to Paris. Haydn's Piano Concerto in G major was written for her.
Mozart himself played K.456 in February, 1785. His father, who was visiting Vienna at the time, gave an account of the concert in a letter to his daughter in Salzburg: "Your brother played a glorious concerto, which he composed for Mlle. Paradis for Paris. I was sitting only two boxes away from the very beautiful Princess of Würtemberg and had the great pleasure of hearing so clearly all the interplay of the instruments that for sheer delight tears came into my eyes. When your brother left the platform the Emperor waved his hat and called out 'Bravo, Mozart!' And when he came on to play, there was a great deal of clapping."
Alfred Einstein says the Concerto "is very French. The work is full of miracles of sonority, but it contains none of the 'surprises,' great or small, of the great concertos."
The score calls for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings.

Wednesday April 14, 2010

2010-04-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

Charley anticipates the Intermezzo Chamber Players concert Friday.
Franz Schubert: String Trio in B flat major, D.471
Intermezzo Chamber Players (Stacy Lesartre, violin; Kelly Shanafelt, viola; Dianne Betkowski, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 6/16/09 by Martin Skavish
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (John Fadial, Lisa Vaupel, violins; Courtney Sedgwick Filner, viola; Matthew Lavin, cello)
Wolfgang Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B flat major, K.458 (Hunt) (Recorded 7/25/06)
And, Charley talks with Resonance Women's Chorus conductor Sue Coffee about their upcoming concerts.
Gwyneth Walker: The Tree of Peace
Resonance Women's Chorus/ Sue Coffee
Resonance 108 Track 6 6:15
Moreover, Charley anticipates the Colorado Chamber Players recital Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts.
Ofer Ben-Amots: Cantillations
Colorado Chamber Players (Daniel Silver, clarinet; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola)
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 11/12/08 by Martin Skavish

Program Note by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): String Quartet No. 17 in B flat major, K.458 (Hunt)
I. Allegro vivace assai
II. Moderato
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro assai

K.458 was finished on November 9, 1784. It was nicknamed the "Hunt" quartet because of the fanfare-like harmonies and lilting rhythms of its opening movement, and also to distinguish it from another B lat major quartet (K.589). It is the fourth of the six quartets dedicated to Haydn.

In February, 1785, Leopold Mozart came to Vienna to visit his son and sent back this report to his daughter in Salzburg: "On Saturday evening Herr Joseph Haydn (and two Barons) came to see us and the new quartets were performed, or rather, the three new ones which Wolfgang has added to the other three which we have already The new ones are somewhat easier, but at the same time excellent compositions. Haydn said to me: 'Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition'."

The "three new" quartets performed that evening were K.458, K.464 and K.465. On September 1, 1785, Mozart sent the manuscripts of these three quartets, along with those of K.387, K.421 and K.428 to Haydn, with a a dedication that also appeared in their publication the next month as Opus 10, complete with Mozart’s flowery dedication “to my dear friend Haydn,” in which he describes them as “the fruit of long and laborious endeavor.”

Tuesday April 13, 2010

2010-04-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Sejong
Antonín Dvořák: Waltz in A major, Op.54 No. 1 4:09
Antonín Dvořák: Serenade in E major, Op.22 26:36 (9/23/08)
Also, Charley talks to composer Leanna Kirchoff, who has written a new piece for The Playground's appearance on the Pendulum series.
Leanna Kirchoff: Midsummer in the Cottonwoods
Paul Nagem, flute; Sarah Balian, oboe; Daryll Stevens, clarinet; Alexander Vierira, bassoon; Michael Yopp, horn
Colorado College New Music Symposium 2008
Leanna Kirchoff: As Sparks Fly Upward
Djuna Jennings, clarinet; Rob Blessinger, violin; Adam Esbensen, cello; Susan Smith, piano; Gordan Rencher, percussion
Ernest Bloch Festival 2006
And, Charley anticipates the Lamont Faculty Brass Trio's recital tomorrow.
Johannes Brahms (arr.Verne Reynolds): Duet, "So lass uns Wandern!" (So let us wander), Op.75
Jesse McCormick, Susan McCullough, horns; Tamara Goldstein, piano
"It's All Relative" CD

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904): Serenade for Strings in E major, Opus 22
I. Moderato
II. Tempo di Valse
III. Scherzo: Vivace
IV. Larghetto
V. Finale: Allegro vivace

Dvorák's Serenade for Strings was composed in just twelve days, between May 3 and 14, 1875. A planned performance by Hans Richter and the Vienna Philharmonic the following fall never materialized. The first performance took place in Prague on December 10, 1876. Adolf Cech conducted the combined string sections of the Czech and German Theater Orchestras. A Viennese performance had to wait until 1884.

Biographer John Clapham writes: ``Both the light-hearted Scherzo and the Finale start canonically, and the Trio of the Waltz and the Larghetto are both enriched when their melodic themes are repeated canonically. The first movement is simple and child-like, but the subdivision of violas and cellos gives it richness and the expressive interjections of the violins during the main theme are telling. The Waltz and Trio have decided charm, and are linked together by a rhythmic motif....When the melody of the beautiful Larghetto is compared with the Trio theme in the second movement they are found to be two versions of the same basic musical thought.''

Monday April 12, 2010

2010-04-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Colorado College Summer Music Festival Orchestra
Scott Yoo, conducting; Toby Appel, viola
Maurice Ravel: Mother Goose Suite 17:31
William Walton: Viola Concerto 25:06 (7/1/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the DU Lamont School Faculty Recital tomorrow.
Ludwig van Beethoven: “Allegro assai” (1st movement) from Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op.30 No. 3
Henryk Wieniawski: Variations on an Original Theme, Op.15
Linda Wang, violin; Alice Rybak, piano
KVOD Performance Studio: Recorded 2/13/07 by Martin Skavish.

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Mother Goose Suite
I. Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty
II. Hop-o' My Thumb
III. The Ugly Little Girl, Empress of the Pagodas
IV. Conversation of Beauty and the Beast
V. The Fairy Garden

Mother Goose was written in 1908 as a five-movement suite for piano duet. Based on the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, the work was originally intended for Ravel's two young friends, Mimi and Jean Godebski. The children baulked at giving the first public performance, so Jeanne Leleu and Genevieve Durony, aged six and ten, both pupils of Marguerite Long, introduced the work on April 20, 1910. The following year Ravel orchestrated all five pieces and added new ones to form a ballet. This version was first performed on January 28, 1912. He then made an orchestral suite from the ballet.
Like the original piano duet, the ballet suite has five sections. The opening ``Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty'' refers to the famous beauty who fell asleep for a hundred years, waiting for Prince Charming to awaken her with a kiss.
The second section, ``Tom Thumb'' or ``Hop-o' My Thumb,'' is perhaps best explained by quoting Perrault's original: ``He believed that he would have no difficulty in finding his way by means of the bread crumbs that he had strewn wherever he had passed; but he was greatly surprised when he could not find a single crumb; the birds had eaten them all.''
The middle section, ``The Empress of the Pagodas,'' refers to an ugly little girl, a former princess transformed by a wicked witch, who meets a huge Green Serpent (a former handsome prince, also transformed by a wicked witch). The pair make a sea voyage together, finally landing in the country of the Pagodas, tiny people made of porcelain. The Green Serpent, it turns out, used to be king of the porcelain people. Both ugly little girl and Green Serpent are transformed back to their former selves, get married, and....
Ravel's music in this section describes only one incident in the saga of the ugly little girl. As Perrault puts it, ``she undressed herself and went into the bath. The Pagodas and Pagodines began to sing and play on instruments; some had theorbos made of walnut shells; some had violas made of almond shells, for they were obliged to proportion the instruments to their figure.''
The fourth section is titled ``Conversation of Beauty and the Beast.'' Beauty tries to build up Beast's confidence. Thus emboldened, Beast proposes. Beauty at first declines, but then takes pity on him. At the very moment that she accepts, he is transformed into yet another handsome prince.
The final section, ``The Fairy Garden,'' depicts the actual kiss from Prince Charming that awakens Sleeping Beauty. They plan to get married, and....
The work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, English horn, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, celesta, harp, glockenspiel, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tan-tam, xylophone and strings.

William Walton (1902-1983): Viola Concerto
I. Andante comodo
II. Vivo, con molto preciso
III. Allegro moderato

``It would be rather a good idea if you wrote something for Lionel Tertis,'' Sir Thomas Beecham told Walton in 1928. A year later the Viola Concerto was finished. ``When it was completed,'' Walter recalled, ``I sent it to Tertis, who turned it down sharply by return of post, which depressed me a good deal as virtuoso violists were scarce.''
Walton wondered if he should convert the work into a violin concerto and try again. Meanwhile Edward Clark, of the BBC music section, sent the score to Paul Hindemith, who agreed to play the Concerto at a Henry Wood Promenade concert.
Hindemith's publisher, Willy Strecker, was furious. He had planned to launch Hindemith as viola soloist at the prestigious Courtauld-Sargent concerts, and fired off a note to Hindemith's wife, Gertrude: ``Your husband should make himself harder to get. An appearance with Wood to play a concerto by a moderately gifted English composer--and that is what Walton is--is not a fitting debut.''
According to Walton's wife, Susana, ``Paul Hindemith played William's concerto for the best possible reason--because he liked it....Playing William's concerto endeared Hindemith to the British public more than any number of Courtauld-Sargent concerts would have done.''
The concert took place on October 3, 1929, with Walton conducting. Lionel Tertis was there. According to the composer, ``Tertis was completely won over, and he played the work whenever he had the chance.''
Biographer Frank Howes describes the Viola Concerto as ``the most characteristic expression of his mind. Each of its three movements is strongly defined, and they contain between them most of the idioms, stylistic tricks of speech, the peculiar dynamism and the sharp orchestration that are the superficially recognizable features of his work. But their basic unity is unusually marked....The longest movement comes last and gathers into its more ample enbrace the conclusions of the first two movements....You will hardly find him recapitulating a theme strictly and his tunes might be called Protean or Bergsonian with equal justice; they turn up in many different forms and they recreate themselves as they proceed. But the organic unity of the whole is forcibly brought home to the listener.''

Friday April 9, 2010

2010-03-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

Charley talks to Longmont Symphony music director Robert Olson about their season finale tomorrow.
Giacomo Puccini: “Nessun dorma” from Act III of Turandot 3:24
Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor; Paul Hartfield, tenor (Recorded 3/3/07)
Also, Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor
Georges Enesco: Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Opus 11 12:49 (Recorded 10/6/07)
Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber 21:34 (Recorded 3/3/07)
And, Charley talks with Resonance Women's Chorus conductor Sue Coffee about their upcoming concerts.
Joan Szymko: Always Coming Home
Resonance Women's Chorus/ Sue Coffee
Resonance 108 Track 3 5:21
In Addition, Charley anticipates Michelle Stanley's recital with Charles Lawson and Gary Moody at CSU on Monday.
Cherise D. Leiter: "Dawn Fantasy" (1st movement) from The Life in a Day
Michelle Stanley, flute & alto flute; Jeff LaQuatra, guitar; Yoriko Morita, cello
Centaur 2881 Track 9 5:32

Georges Enesco (1881-1955): Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Opus 11

Enesco once described himself as ``a savage, whom nothing could fully discipline, a staunch adept of independence, who accepted no constraint and did not recognize any school.'' He studied first at the Vienna Conservatory, and later at the Paris Conservatory. His teachers included Massenet and Fauré, and his own pupils included Dinu Lipatti and Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin called him ``the one man to whom I owe everything.''
Despite his internationalism, he maintained ties with his native Rumania, serving as court violinist to the Queen of Rumania, conductor of the Bucharest Philharmonic and founder of the Enesco Prize for composition. He said Rumanian folk music ``is influenced not by the neighboring Slavs, but by the Indian and Egyptian folk songs introduced by the members of these remote races, now classed as gypsies, brought to Rumania as servants of the Roman conquerors. The deeply Oriental character of our own folk music derives from these sources and possesses a flavor as singular as it is beautiful.''
The two Rumanian Rhapsodies appeared in 1901. Both were introduced at a Pablo Casals concert in Paris on Feb 7, 1908 with Enesco conducting. A drinking song (I Have a Coin and I Want a Drink) and four other national melodies appear in No. 1, which S.W. Bennett describes as ``all jollity, from its opening `call' by clarinets and oboe through its chain of rousing dance motifs, and without ever losing its earthly folk quality, it achieves near the end a Dionysiac rapture.''

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
I. Allegro
II. Turandot Scherzo: Moderato
III. Andantino
IV. March-Finale

In 1940, Hindemith settled permanently in the United States--``this land of limited impossibilities'' he called it. One of his earliest projects here was a collaboration with Léonide Massine on a ballet based on Carl Maria von Weber's music.
Composer and choreographer met in April in Buffalo, New York, where Massine's company danced to the Bacchanale from Wagner's Tannhäuser. According to its creator, the piece consisted of ``a series of weird hallucinatory images.'' The set, by Salvador Dali, included a black swan and an enormous black umbrella decorated with a skull. Hindemith found the entire enterprise ``quite simply stupid.''
By the end of the month, Hindemith reported to his publisher: ``I have broken off relations with Massine, for artistic reasons.'' Massine had objected to the music on Weber themes for being ``too personal.'' When Massine announced his intention to use Dali in the new ballet, Hindemith had had enough.
However, the music was not wasted. During August of 1943, he completed the score, calling it ``Symphonic Metamorphosis.'' It was first performed at Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1944 by Artur Rodzinski and the New York Philharmonic.
The Weber themes that Hindemith used are mostly found in a volume of four-hand piano music. The opening movement is based on an Allegro in A minor, No. 4 of Eight Pieces for Piano Four Hands, Opus 60. The second movement derives from a Chinese melody found in Rousseau's Dictionary of Music. Weber had employed it in his incidental music to Schiller's adaptation of Gozzi's play Turandot. The third movement comes from an Andantino in C minor, one of Weber's Six Pieces for Piano Four Hands, Opus 10. The Finale is based on the March in G minor, the seventh of the Eight Pieces, Opus 60.
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombonews, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Copyright 2010, Charley Samson

Thursday April 8, 2010

2010-03-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

Charley talks to cellist Ralph Kirshbaum and principal guest conductor Douglas Boyd about their Colorado Symphony concerts this weekend.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Gigue" (6th movement) from Solo Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007
Ralph Kirshbaum, cello
Virgin 45086 CD1 Track 6 2:05
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Hector Berlioz: “Love Scene” from Romeo and Juliet Op.17
Peter Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (1/15-17/10)
And, Charley talks with flutist Cobus Du Toit about the Antero Winds concert in Westcliffe Sunday.
David Maslanka: 3rd movement ("Very Fast") from Wind Quintet No.3
Antero Winds (Cobus Du Toit, flute; Sarah Mellander Bierhaus, oboe; Jerome Fleg, clarinet; Megan Garrison, horn; Kaori Uno, bassoon)
KVOD Performance Studio (Recorded 3/7/10 by Martin Skavish)

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Dramatic Symphony, Romeo and Juliet, Opus 17
I. Love Scene

``If you ask which of my works I prefer,'' Berlioz once said, ``my answer is that of most artists: the love scene in Romeo and Juliet.''
As early as 1827, Berlioz had seen the Irish actress Harriet Smithson in Charles Kemble's Shakespeare productions in Paris. ``This sudden and unexpected revelation of Shakespeare overwhelmed me,'' he wrote. ``The lightning-flash of his genius revealed the whole heaven of art to me, illuminating its remotest depths in a single flash.''
Then, in December, 1838, the violinist Niccolo Paganini--perhaps acting as intermediary for the publisher Armand Bertin--sent Berlioz 20,000 francs, with a note: ``Since the death of Beethoven, none but Berlioz has been able to make him live again.''
Berlioz was stunned. ``Paganini had given me money that I might write music,'' he said, ``and write it I did. I hit upon the idea of a symphony with choruses, vocal solos, and choral recitatives, on the sublime and ever-novel theme of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I worked for seven months at my symphony, not leaving off for more than three or four days out of every thirty on any pretense whatsoever.'' The work was finished on September 8, 1839.
The first performance of Romeo and Juliet took place at the Paris Conservatory on November 24, 1839. Berlioz conducted an orchestra of 160 members and a chorus of 98. Richard Wagner was in the audience, and later recalled, ``This was a wholly new world for me...the grandeur and masterly execution of the orchestral part almost overwhelmed me....I was simply all ears for things of which till then I never dreamt, and which I felt I must realize....At that time, I felt almost like a little schoolboy by the side of Berlioz.''
The scenes involving Romeo and Juliet are entrusted to the orchestra alone. In his preface to the score, Berlioz explained: ``This is a symphony and not an opera. In addition, since duets of this kind have been treated vocally a thousand times and by the greatest masters, it was both prudent and interesting to try another means of expression. It is also because the very sublimity of this love made it so dangerous for the musician to depict, that I needed more latitude for my imagination than the definite meanings of a text would have allowed, and therefore I had recourse to the language of instruments which, in this case, is richer, more varied, less precise and, in its very vagueness, incomparably more powerful.''
One of Berlioz's biographers wrote of the Love Scene, ``Over the whole of the music, with its soft enchanting melodies, there lies a delicate bloom. It is music of a love untouched by eroticism; it wounds the heart as any contemplation of the pure and undefiled always must.''
The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, ophicleide (tuba), timpani, ``at least 15 first violins, at least 15 second violins, at least 10 violas, at least 11 cellos, and at least 7 double basses.''

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture

``I shall be thinking of something new and big to write,'' Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. ``I want to find an operatic subject that will be deep and exciting. What would you say to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? The richness of that tragedy is fathomless.''
It was composer Mily Balakirev who suggested that Tchaikovsky write not an opera but a symphonic overture on the subject. ``Arm yourself with galoshes and a walking-stick,'' he advised, ``and set out for a walk along the boulevards, starting with the Nikitsky: let yourself be steeped in your plan, and I am sure that by the time you reach the Sretensky Boulevard some theme or episode will have come to you.''
The Overture occupied Tchaikovsky for most of October and November of 1869. He sent the main themes off to Balakirev, who complained that the music depicting Friar Laurence resembled ``the character of Haydn's quartet themes, the genius of petty bourgeois music, awakening a strong thirst for beer.'' What was wanted, in Balakirev's opinion, was something ``on the line of Liszt's chorales.''
Balakirev also commented on the love theme: ``I often play it, and would like to hug you for it. It has the sweetness of love, its tenderness, its longing....I have only one thing to say against this theme: It does not sufficiently express a mystic, inward, spiritual love, but rather a fantastic passionate glow that has hardly any nuance of Italian sentiment. Romeo and Juliet were not Persian lovers, but Europeans.'' Overall, he liked the piece: ``It is the first of your compositions that contains so many beautiful things one does not hesitate to pronounce it good as a whole.'' When Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov saw the full score in January, Tchaikovsky recalled, ``my Overture pleased them very much and it also pleases me.''
It was a different story when Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the first performance of Romeo and Juliet at a concert of the Russian Musical Society in Moscow on March 16, 1870. ``It had no success at all,'' Tchaikovsky complained. ``I longed for sympathy and recognition, but the Overture was wholly ignored. After the concert, a crowd of us supped at Gurin's Restaurant, and nobody spoke so much as a word to me about it!''
Tchaikovsky made the first revision of the score in 1870. When the work was introduced in St. Petersburg in 1872, Cesar Cui wrote: ``The composition is a most talented one. Its special merit lies in the excellence of its themes.'' Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky made another revision of the music in 1880.
``The characterization of the music is very good,'' writes biographer Edwin Evans, ``in fact the entire work is based upon characterization rather than action. Apart from the opening theme which typifies Friar Laurence, the work has two principal contrasted movements, the one representing the feud of the Montagues and the Capulets, and naturally all fire and animation, and the other the love-stricken pair, all sweetness and romance. It closes in a manner suggesting a reference to the final tragic scene.''
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, English horn, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, harp and strings.

Wednesday April 7, 2010

2010-03-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor; Margaret Lattimore, mezzo-soprano; Seryung Choi, soprano; CMF Chorus/ Timothy Krueger
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection) (Recorded 8/3/07 by Michael Quam)
Also, Ryan Warner talks with Boulder Philharmonic concertmaster Gregory Walker about playing his father's Violin Concerto.
George Walker: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Gregory Walker, violin; Sinfonia Varsovia/ Ian Hobson
Troy 1178 1-3 20:33
And, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players concert at the Arvada Center tomorrow.
Astor Piazzolla (arr. José Bragato): Oblivion, La Muerte del Angel
Boulder Philharmonic Chamber Players (Michael Butterman, piano; Jennifer Carsillo, violin; Charles Lee, cello; Janet Braccio, page-turner on Oblivion)
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 9/24/09 by Martin Skavish.

Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2010.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection)
I. Allegro Maestoso. Mit durchaus ernstem feierlichem Ausdruck
II. Andante moderato. Sehr gemächlich
III. Scherzo: In ruhig fliessender Bewegung
IV. Urlicht (Primal Light): Sehr feierlich aber schlicht; Choral-mässig
V. Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend.

``It is really inadequate for me to call it a symphony,'' Mahler said of his Second, ``for in no respect does it retain the traditional form. But to write a symphony means to me to construct a world with all the tools of the available techniques: the ever-new and ever-changing content determines its own form.''
Mahler had been struggling with the work since 1888. The opening movement was once a tone poem titled Totenfeier (Funeral Rite). The second and third movements were ready by 1893. The fourth movement was a setting of Urlicht (Primal Light) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn), an anthology of poems in German folk style that inspired him for some twenty years. He knew he wanted some kind of choral finale, along the lines of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but couldn't decide on a text.
Then on March 28, 1894 there was a memorial service for Mahler's benefactor Hans von Bülow. ``The mood in which I sat there and thought of the departed one,'' he later recalled, ``was fully in the spirit of the work which then constantly occupied my mind. Then the chorus near the organ intoned the Klopstock chorale, Aufersteh'n! (Resurrection). It struck me like a thunderbolt and everything stood clear and vivid before my soul.'' The Klopstock ode would be the basis of the Second Symphony's finale, though Mahler could not refrain from deleting some lines and adding others of his own invention.
Richard Strauss conducted a performance of the first three movements on March 4, 1895 in Berlin. The first complete performance took place on December 13, 1895, with Mahler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and Singakademie. Bruno Walter was there and reported ``the effect of an elemental event. I shall never forget my deep emotion and the ecstasy of the audience as well as the performers.''
Mahler at various times made elaborate programs for the Second Symphony, only to abandon them later. Nevertheless, he regarded the opening movement--once titled Funeral Rite--as an outgrowth of the First Symphony. ``It is the hero of my First Symphony whom I bear to the grave,'' he said. ``It poses the great question: To what purpose have you lived? To what purpose have you suffered? Has it all been only a huge, frightful joke? We must all somehow answer these questions, if we are to continue living, yes, if we are to go on to die. Anyone who has heard this question must answer, and this answer I give in the last movement.'' Reminiscences of Beethoven's Ninth dominate the movement, from the introduction's string tremolos to the anticipations of the choral finale in the concluding coda.
Mahler regarded the second and third movements as interludes, or memories of the departed from the first movement. The second movement features a delicate waltz melody as the recurring refrain in a free rondo. ``Suddenly,'' Mahler said, ``the picture of a happy hour long, long past, arises in your mind like a ray of sun undimmed by anything--and you can almost forget what has just happened.''
The third movement is an orchestral treatment of the Wunderhorn song about St. Anthony preaching to the fishes, who listen attentively then return to their old carnal ways. The humor of the beginning becomes grotesque as the music progresses. Mahler said he was after ``the ceaseless motion, the restless, senseless bustle of daily activity (which) may strike you with horror, as if you were watching a whirling crowd of dancers in a brightly lighted ballroom--watching them from the darkness outside and from such a great distance that you cannot hear the music. Then life can seem meaningless, a gruesome, ghostly spectacle, from which you may recoil with a cry of disgust!''
The fourth movement, with its alto solo singing Urlicht from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, functions as a slow introduction to the finale. It is the perfect foil to the upheavals that follow.
After the initial outburst of the full orchestra, the finale dies down to silence, interrupted by horn fanfares. For Mahler, this was ``the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness'' (Isaiah, XL, 3). One of his programs mentions ``the Last Judgment is at hand and the horror of the day of days has broken forth. The earth quakes, the graves burst open, and the dead arise and stream on in endless procession. The great and the little ones of the earth--kings and beggars, righteous and godless--all press on; the cry for mercy and forgiveness strikes fearfully on our ears. The wailing rises higher--our senses desert us; consciousness dies at the approach of the eternal spirit. The Great Summons is heard--the trumpets of the apocalypse ring out; in the eerie silence that follows, we can just catch the distant, barely audible song of the nightingale, a last tremulous echo of earthly life! A chorus of saints and heavenly beings softly break forth: `Thou shalt arise, surely thou shalt arise.' Then appears the glory of God! A wondrous, soft light penetrates us to the heart--all is holy calm! And behold--it is no judgment. There are no sinners, no just. None is great, none is small. There is no punishment and no reward. An overwhelming love lightens our being. We know and are.''
The chorus intones the Klopstock Ode, with references to the opening movement. The movement ends with the rising ``Resurrection'' motive, first in the basses, then passing through the other sections of chorus and orchestra.

IV. Urlicht (Primal Light)
O Röschen rot!
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not,
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein
Ja lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein.
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg,
Da kam ein Englein und wollt' mich abweisen.
Ach nein? Ich liess mich nicht abweisen.
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott!
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
Wird leuchten mir in das ewig selig' Leben!

(O Rosebud red!
Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain.
I'd rather wished I were in heaven.
Then I came upon a broad road;
There came a little angel who wanted me to turn back.
Ah no, I would not be turned back.
I am of God and wish to return to God!
The dear God will give me a light,
Will light my way into eternal blissful life!)

V. Aufersteh'n (Resurrection)

Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du
Mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh!
Unsterblich Leben
Wird, der dich rief, dir geben?

(Thou shalt arise, yea, arise
My dust, from brief repose!
Immortal life,
Shall He, who called thee, give thee?)

Wieder aufzublüh'n, wirst du gesät!
Der Herr der Ernte geht
Und sammelt Garben
Uns ein, die starben.

(Again to blossom thou art sown!
The Lord of the Harvest goes forth
Collecting sheaves,
We who have died.)

O glaube, mein Herz, es geht dir nichts verloren.
Dein ist, ja dein, was du gesehnt
Dein, was du geliebt, was du gestritten!
O glaube: du warst nicht umsonst geboren
Has nicht umsonst geliebt, gelitten.

(Have faith, my heart, for naught is lost to thee.
Thine, yes, thine is all you yearned for
Thine what you loved and what you fought for
Believe: thou wast not born in vain
Thou didst not live nor suffer in vain.)

Was enstanden ist, das muss vergehen
Was vergangen, auferstehen!
Hör auf zu beben!
Bereite dich zu leben!

(All that arose must perish
All that perished, rise again!
Cease thy trembling!
Prepare thyself to live!)

O Schmerz, du Alldurchdringer
Dir bin ich entrungen!
O Tod, du Allbezwinger,
Nun bist du bezwungen!

(O Pain all-pervading
I have escaped thee!
O Death, thou all-subduer,
Thou art now subdued!)

Mit Flügeln die ich mir errungen
In Liebesstreben
Werd' ich entschweben zum Licht,
Zu dem kein Aug' gedrungen.

(With wings which I have won
In ardent love's endeavor
I shall soar to light
Never pierced by eyes.)

Sterben werd' ich um zu leben!
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du,
Mein Herz in einem Nu
Was du geschlagen
Zu gott wird es dich tragen.

(I shall die in order to live again.
Thou shall arise, yea, arise,
My heart heart in an instant!
What you have conquered
To God it will carry you.)

The score calls for solo soprano, solo alto, 4 flutes, 4 piccolos, 4 oboes, 2 English horns, 5 clarinets, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons, 10 horns, 8 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, organ, strings and chorus.
Copyright 2010, Charley Samson

Tuesday April 6, 2010

2010-03-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Friends of Chamber Music
 Julia Fischer, violin; Milana Chernyavska, piano
 Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.8 in G major, Op.30 No.3
 Bohuslav Martinů: Violin Sonata No.3, H 303
Peter Tchaikovsky: Melody in E flat major, Op.42 No.3 from
Souvenir of a Beloved Place (5/6/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Katie Mahan's appearance with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic this weekend.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Etudes-Tableaux in C major, Op.33 No.2 & in D minor, Op.33, No.4
Katie Mahan, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major,
Opus 30 No. 3
Allegro assai
Tempo di Minuetto
Allegro vivace

By 1802 Beethoven was fully aware of his hearing loss and began consulting physicians. Dr. Vering had promised ``an improvement if no complete cure,'' but delivered neither. Dr. Schmidt recommended moving to someplace quiet. Accordingly, in the autumn Beethoven took lodgings in rural Heiligenstadt.
There he wrote a remarkable letter, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, whose tone is part will, part suicide note, and part hymn to his determination to compose in spite of his malady. ``I almost reached the point of putting an end to my life--only art it was that held me back, ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt called upon to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence.''
During this time Beethoven wrote his Second Symphony, three piano sonatas (Op.31) and three violin sonatas (Op.30). The latter were published the next year with a dedication to Tsar Alexander I of Russia. The third of the set is sometimes called ``the little G major'' sonata, to distinguish it from the Opus 96 Violin Sonata in the same key.
``The first and last movements are gay and brilliantly effective,'' writes John N. Burke, ``the middle one, by contrast, delicate and thinly scored.'' The opening fugure in the first movement, he says, ``appearing in many guises, roaring in the bass, or whispering in the treble, is characteristic of points of excitement, such as flashing scales, or the passage of driving trills which opens the development.'' Burke calls the Minuet ``a movement of transparent simplicity,'' and the last movement ``headlong and sparkling, giving the violinist plentiful opportunity to show his sleight of hand.''
Copyright 2010, Charley Samson

Monday April 5, 2010

2010-03-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Strings in the Mountains Music Festival
Tylman Susato: Renaissance Dances
Alpen Brass (7/2/04)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Horn Sonata in F major, Op.17
William VerMeulen, horn; Katherine Collier, piano (7/14/04)
Josef Suk: Piano Quartet in A minor, Op.1
Cary Lewis, piano; Solomiya Ivakhiv, violin; Yizhak Schotten, viola; Amit Peled, cello (7/10/04)
Also, Charley talks with Resonance Women's Chorus conductor Sue Coffee about their upcoming concerts.
Charles Baker: All the Rivers
Resonance Women's Chorus/ Sue Coffee
Resonance 108 Track 1 2:24

Saturday April 3, 2010

2010-03-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Charley talks with violinist Karen Gomyo about her appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra tonight.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Preludio" (1st movement) from Solo Violin Partita No.3 in E major, BWV 1006 3:36
Astor Piazzolla: Tango Etude No.3 3:21
Karen Gomyo, violin
KVOD Performance Studio 3/31/10 MS
Also, Richard Toensing: Responsoria, Book III
Choir of the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields/ David Shuler
North/South 1022 CD3 40:50

Friday April 2, 2010

2010-03-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

Richard Toensing: Responsoria, Book II
Choir of the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields/ David Shuler
North/South 1022 CD2 50:42
Also, Charley talks with violinist Karen Gomyo about her appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.

Thursday April 1, 2010

2010-03-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Charley talks with violinist Karen Gomyo about her appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra tomorrow and Saturday.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Preludio" (1st movement) from Solo Violin Partita No.3 in E major, BWV 1006 3:36
Astor Piazzolla: Tango Etude No.3 3:21
Karen Gomyo, violin
KVOD Performance Studio: recorded 3/31/10 by Martin Skavish.
Also, Richard Toensing: Responsoria, Book I
Choir of the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields/ David Shuler
North/South 1022 CD1 36:11
And, Charley notes the Curious Theatre's production of Michael Holliger's backstage drama, "Opus."
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro molto vivace" (2nd movement) & "Allegro moderato" (3rd movement) from String Quartet No.14 in C sharp minor, Op.131
Takács Quartet
Decca 2875 CD1 6-7 3:39

Wednesday March 31, 2010

2010-03-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano
Hector Berlioz: Beatrice and Benedict Overture
Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs (1/15-17/10)
Also, Charley anticipates the recital Saturday by violist Matthew Dane and guitarist Jonathan Leathwood at the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts.
 Franz Schubert: "Allegro moderato" (1st movement) from Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D.821 
Matthew Dane, viola; Jonathan Leathwood, guitar 11:50
KVOD Performance Studio 3/24/10 MS

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Overture to Beatrice and Benedict

Berlioz first got the idea of setting Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing while on vacation in Italy in 1833. He didn't do much with the idea until 1860, when the Baden-Baden summer music festival commissioned an opera. Suffering from chronic intestinal neuralgia, Berlioz set to work in earnest, titling the piece Beatrice and Benedict, after the principal characters in the play. ``I have been working so hard,'' he told his son, ``that the distraction of actually composing helps to keep me well. I can barely keep up with the music of my little opera, so fast do the pieces come to me; each one hurries after the next; sometimes I start one before the other is finished.''
By February, 1862, the opera was finished. Berlioz conducted the first performance on August 9 of that year in Baden-Baden. During rehearsals he described the work as ``a caprice written with the point of a needle, and it requires an extremely delicate performance.''
The Overture was composed last, and incorporates several themes from the opera proper, notably the Duettino from the last act and Beatrice's musing song as Benedict goes off to war. Biographer Jacques Barzun says the Overture ``establishes the recurring contrast between lively coquetry and gentle melancholy--the melancholy of humor. The instrumentation is filigree work, tonal pointillism which acts upon us like champagne and prepares us for a drama that occurs in fantasy.''
The score calls for piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, cornet, 3 trombone, timpani and strings.

Tuesday March 30, 2010

2010-03-20T06:34:00.000-07:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Miró String Quartet; Shai Wosner, piano
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34 (2/18/09)
Also, Charley anticipates the recital by the Mendelssohn Trio (Theodor Lichtmann, piano; Barbara Thiem, cello; Ron FranÇois, violin) Friday at DU's Lamont School of Music.
Felix Draeseke: Barcarole in A minor, Op.11
Barbara Thiem, cello; Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach, piano
AK/Coburg 2 Track 10 7:32
And, Charley talks with Denver Young Artists Orchestra alumna Emily Levin.
Franz Liszt (arr. Henriette Renie): The Nightingale
Emily Levin, harp
KVOD Performance Studio 3/17/10 MS

Monday March 29, 2010

2010-03-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

Charley talks with Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless about Lindsay Deutsch's appearance this weekend.
 Boulder Chamber Orchestra
 Bahman Saless, conductor; Lindsay Deutsch, violin  
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto No. 2 in G minor (Summer) from The Four Seasons, Op.8 
Astor Piazzolla: "Spring," "Winter" & "Autumn" from Four Seasons in Buenos Aires (arr. Leonid Desyatnikov) 1/27/08
Also, Charley anticipates Margaret McDonald's "Double Duty: The life of a collaborative pianist" recital tomorrow at CU Boulder.
Franz Schubert: "Andante" (2nd movement) & "Scherzo: Allegro vivace" (3rd movement) from Grand Duo in C major, D.812
Margaret McDonald, David Korevaar, piano
CU Boulder Faculty Recital (11/2/06)

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): The Four Seasons, Opus 8
Concerto No. 1 in E major (Spring)
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Allegro

The Four Seasons is the collective title for the first four concertos of a larger collection of twelve concertos titled The Test of Harmony and Invention (Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione), published in Amsterdam in 1725. Vivaldi dedicated the entire set to the Bohemian Count Wenzeslaus von Morzin, a cousin of another Count von Morzin who would be employing Haydn thirty years later.
With an effusion typical of the eighteenth century, Vivaldi wrote: ``I have decided to have this volume printed in order to lay it most humbly at Your Highness's feet. I beg of you not to be surprised if among these few and feeble concertos Your Highness should find the Four Seasons, which, with your noble bounty, Your Highness has for so long regarded with indulgence.''
Vivaldi went to extraordinary lengths to insure the perception of The Four Seasons as program music. Not only did he label each concerto as a specific season, but he also provided sonnets describing the events depicted in each. Further, he titled specific events in the score itself.
Accordingly, the following handy chart, distilled from Vivaldi's own pronouncements, indicates the program of each movement of each concerto:
Concerto No. 1 (Spring)
I.: ``Song of the Birds,'' ``The Brooks Flow,'' ``Thunderclaps,'' and the return of the birds.
II.: ``The Sleeping Goatherd,'' ``Murmuring of Boughs and Grasses'' and ``The Barking Dog.''
III.: ``Pastoral Dance'' of the nymphs and shepherds.

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992): Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons in Buenos Aires) [arr. Leonid Desyatnikov]
I. Primavera Porteña (Spring): Juguetón
III. Otono Porteña (Autumn): Lentón
IV. Invierno Porteña (Winter): Lento y dramático

Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Piazzolla is known as “the king of the tango” for rescuing a dance tradition many considered moribund after the death of Carlos Gardel in 1935. Piazzolla invented a “nuevo tango” (new tango) with expanded harmonic language from American jazz and European concert music. Traditionalists were outraged (there were even death threats), but eventually Piazzolla’s role as the saviour of a great tradition was conceded even by his critics.
Piazzolla’s family moved to New York when Astor was a child. When the legendary Gardel came to the United States in the 1930s, he hired Piazzolla, then barely a teenager. When Piazzolla returned to Argentina in 1937, Anibal Troilo hired him to write arrangements and play the bandoneón, a hybrid instrument related to the concertina and the accordion. He studied with Alberto Ginastera in Argentina and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Both encouraged his composition of concert works, but advised him not to forsake the tango. He didn’t, producing a body of works not only for the traditional tango ensemble (orquesta típica) of violin, guitar, piano, bass and bandoneón, but also for solo and duo guitars, string quartet, big band and symphony orchestra.
In 1965 Piazzolla began The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, a kind of homage to both the tango and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. He finished it five years later. Originally written for his quintet, the work has seen numerous arrangements, including the present version for violin and string orchestra by Leonid Desyatnikov.

Friday March 26, 2010

2010-03-11T18:26:00.000-08:00

Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Camille Saint Saëns: Violin Sonata No.1 in D minor, Op. 75
Scott Yoo, violin; Susan Grace, piano 21:54 6/29/08)
Jeffrey Rathbun: Episodes for Chamber Ensemble
 Mark Fewer and Stefan Hersh, violins; Virginia Barron, viola; Bion Tsang, cello; Elizabeth Mann, flute; Jeffrey Rathbun, oboe; Bil Jackson, clarinet; Michael Kroth, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn; Susan Grace, piano; Courtney Hershey Bress, harp (6/25/08) 14:39
Also, Charley talks with Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra conductor Cynthia Katsarelis and violinist Edward Dusinberre about their concert tomorrow.
Johannes Brahms: "Andante tranquillo" (2nd movement) from Violin Sonata No.2 in A major, Op.100
CU Boulder Faculty Recital (11/2/06)
And, Charley talks with ice sculptor Tim Linhart about the concert of ice instruments at the Crystal Grotto at Beaver Creak Sunday.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007
NCA 1:40

Thursday March 25, 2010

2010-03-11T18:24:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra conductor Cynthia Katsarelis and violinist Edward Dusinberre about their concert Saturday.
Johannes Brahms: "Allegretto grazioso" (3rd movement) from Violin Sonata No.2 in A major, Op.100
CU Boulder Faculty Recital (11/2/06)
Also, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor 
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92 (1/8-9/10))
And, Charley anticipates Julia Tobiska's recital with Brendan Daly and Ruth Ann McDonald tomorrow.
Gioachino Rossini: Duet, "Dunque io son" from Act II of The Barber of Seville
Ted Federle, baritone; Julia Tobiska, mezzo-soprano; Steven Aguiló-Arbues, pianist
Opera Colorado Outreach Ensemble
KVOD Performance Studio 1/19/10 MS

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92
I. Poco sostenuto; Vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto; Assai meno presto
IV. Allegro con brio

Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was completed in the late spring or early summer of 1812. It wasn't performed publicly until December 8, 1813 at a concert in Vienna to benefit wounded Austrian and Bavarian soldiers. Also on the program was Beethoven's Wellington's Victory.
Beethoven himself conducted. The composer Ludwig Spohr described the scene: ``The execution was quite masterly, despite the uncertain and often ridiculous conducting of Beethoven....It is a sad misfortune for anyone to be deaf; how then should a musician endure it without despair? Beethoven's almost continual melancholy was no longer a riddle to me.''
A review of the concert reported that the Symphony ``deserved the loud applause and the exceptionally good performance it received....This symphony...is the richest melodically and the most pleasing and comprehensible of all Beethoven symphonies.'' Beethoven regarded the Seventh as ``among my best works.''
Not everyone shared Beethoven's opinion. After a performance in Leipzig, Clara Schumann's father suggested that the music could only have been written by someone who was very, very drunk. When the Seventh was played before the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Carl Maria von Weber remarked that Beethoven was ``now quite ripe for the madhouse.'' Twelve years later, Weber conducted the London Philharmonic's performance of the Beethoven Seventh. Apparently Weber had changed his mind about the piece.
It was Wagner who dubbed the Seventh ``the apotheosis of the dance, the dance in its highest condition, the happiest realization of the movements of the body in ideal form.'' He wrote: ``If anyone plays the Seventh, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, aye, the children in the cradle, fall to dancing!'' Wagner once demonstrated his theory by dancing to the Seventh Symphony, accompanied by Franz Liszt at the piano.
``It would require more than a technical yardstick to measure the true proportion of this Symphony--the sense of immensity which it conveys,'' writes John N. Burk. ``Beethoven seems to have built up this impression by willfully driving a single rhythmic figure through each movement, until the music attains (particularly in the body of the first movement, and in the Finale) a swift propulsion, an effect of cumulative growth which is akin to extraordinary size.''
After a long introduction, the opening movement launches into a persistent rhythmic propulsion that Ernest Walker found virtually unparalleled elsewhere. The second movement, according to Marion M. Scott, is ``marvelous...full of melancholy beauty.'' Beethoven's biographer Alexander Thayer says the trio of the third movement is based on an Austrian pilgrims' hymn. In the Finale, George Grove discovered ``a vein of rough, hard, personal boisterousness, the same feeling which inspired the strange jests, puns and nicknames which abound in his letters.''
There is a story about Beethoven wandering around the park after the 1814 performance of the Seventh. He stopped to buy cherries from two young maids, who said: ``There is no charge to you. We were at the concert and heard your beautiful music!''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Wednesday March 24, 2010

2010-03-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's appearance at the Steam Plant Theater in Salida this Sunday.
Franz Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703
Veronika String Quartet (Veronika Afanassieva, Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 102308 MS
Also, Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 in C major, D. 589 (Little) 37:30 (7/22/07)
And, Charley anticipates David Korevaar's appearance with the Littleton Symphony this Friday.
Frédéric Chopin: Etude in B minor, Op.25 No. 10 & Etude in A minor, Op.25 No. 11 (Winter Wind)
David Korevaar, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 062408 MS

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 6 in C major, D.589 (Little)
I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Andante
III. Scherzo: Presto
IV. Allegro moderato

The Sixth Symphony is called the ``Little'' C major Symphony to distinguish it from Schubert's ``Great'' C major Symphony (No. 9, D.944). The earlier work was finished in February of 1818 and probably performed shortly thereafter by an amateur orchestra that met twice a week at Otto Hatwig's house in Vienna. According to Schubert's friend Leopold Sonnleithner, the orchestra's members included ``merchants, tradesmen or minor officials.'' They had practised enough to handle most Mozart and Haydn symphonies, as well as the first two symphonies of Beethoven. One Josef Prohaska was conductor; Schubert played viola.
When Schubert offered his Great C major Symphony to the Society of the Friends of Music in 1828, the Society's orchestra ``provisionally put it aside because of its length and difficulty'' after only one rehearsal. Schubert suggested that they play his earlier C major Symphony instead.
When Schubert died later that same year, a memorial concert was planned by these same Friends of Music. Again the Great C major Symphony was rejected in favor of the Little C major Symphony. Alluding to the earlier work's debt to Beethoven, one critic wrote that it ``certainly justified expectations, for although it is written almost throughout in the manner of a master highly esteemed by the young composer, yet that master himself would have had no cause to be ashamed to rank it among his own works.''
Indeed, most commentators have detected Beethoven's influence in this symphony, especially in the third movement. Alfred Einstein says that the beginning of the movement is ``suggestive of Beethoven,'' and that the first movement ``breathes an atmosphere of almost completely unruffled cheerfulness in the interplay of its themes.'' He calls the second movement ``delicately constructed...playful.'' Einstein continues: ``The Finale is playful and `sociable,' with a graceful main theme, which Schubert loses sight of for a long time in the spirit of a Rondo. The movement is...full of the most carefree Schubertian fancies.''

Tuesday March 23, 2010

2010-03-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music 
Julia Fischer, violin; Milana Chernyavska, piano 
Wolfgang Mozart: Violin Sonata in C major, K.296
 Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No.1 in F minor, Op.80 (5/6/09)
Also, Charley talks with Niwot Timberline Symphony conductor Devon Patrick Hughes and pianist Stephen Fiess about their concert Friday.
Frédéric Chopin: Etude in A flat major, Op.25 No.1 (Aeolian Harp)
Stephen Fiess: "Calm at Sea" from Lorelei Suite. Op.2
Stephen Fiess, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 3/16/10 MS

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Violin Sonata in C major, K.296
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Rondo: Allegro

Mozart wrote K.296 in Mannheim for his fifteen-year-old pupil, Theresa Pierron Serrarius. As he complained of his “leisurely” attempts to finish the flute pieces commissioned by the Dutchman De Jean, he wrote to his father: “Hence as diversion I compose something else, such as duets for clavier and violin.” He finished the sonata on March 3, 1778.
Two years later the C major Sonata and the Violin Sonatas, K.376-380 were published in Vienna as Opus 2, with a dedication to Josepha von Aurnhammer, another of Mozart’s pupils. This group of sonatas was reviewed in Cramer’s Musical Magazine: “These sonatas are the only ones of this kind. Rich in new ideas and in evidence of the great musical genius of their author. Very brilliant and suited to the instrument. At the same time the accompaniment of the violin is so artfully combined with the clavier part that both instruments are kept constantly on the alert; so that these sonatas require just as skillful a player on the violin as on the clavier.”
In The Compleat Mozart, Marius Flothuis writes of K.296: “The first movement opens with vigor and élan, very much in keeping with its bright C-major tonality, and retains that mood throughout. The Andante is tender and dreamlike.” The second movement resembles an aria by Johann Christian Bach, which cannot be accurately dated and therefore we don’t know who borrowed the theme from whom. Mozart and the “London” Bach had known each other since Mozart’s child prodigy days. The end of the third movement recalls the finale of the Flute-Harp Concerto (K.299), which Mozart finished a month later in Paris.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Opus 80
I. Andante assai
II. Allegro brusco
III. Andante
IV. Allegrissimo

During the summer in 1938, while listening to Handel's music, Prokofiev sketched his F minor Violin Sonata. He didn't finish it until the summer of 1946, some two years after the D major Sonata, Op.94. Nevertheless, the F minor was designated ``No. 1,'' as it was begun first.
Prokofiev played through the completed work for David Oistrakh, who recalled: ``It seemed to me that on this occasion he played somehow with great restraint, even timidly. Even so, the music itself made an enormous impression--one had the feeling of being present at a very great and significant event. Nothing written for the violin in many decades--anywhere in the world--could equal this piece in beauty and depth. I can make that statement without the slightest exaggeration.''
The work is dedicated to Oistrakh, who gave the first performance on October 23, 1946 in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with pianist Lev Oborin. Nikolai Miaskovsky noted in his diary: ``Heard Prokofiev's new violin sonata in its entirety-a work of genius (Oistrakh's playing was inspired).'' The Sonata was hailed by Pravda, which noted the ``Russian national spirit'' and ``stern, epic grandeur'' in the work. The next year it was awarded the Stalin Prize.
``In mood it is more serious than the Second,'' Prokofiev said of the First Sonata. ``The first movement...is severe in character and is a kind of extended introduction to the second movement, a sonata allegro, which is vigorous and turbulent, but has a broad second theme. The third movement is slow, gentle, and tender. The finale is fast and written in complicated rhythm.''

Monday March 22, 2010

2010-03-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

National Repertory Orchestra
JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op.68 41:05 (6/27/07)
Also, Charley anticipates Katie Mahan's appearance with the Denver Philharmonic this Friday.
Franz Schubert: Impromptu No.2 in E flat major, Op.90 & Impromptu No.3 in G flat major, Op.90
Katie Mahan, piano
katiemahan@comcast. net
And, Charley talks with Niwot Timberline Symphony conductor Devon Patrick Hughes about their concert Friday.

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.

Friday March 19, 2010

2010-03-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with Barbara Hamilton Primus and Paul Primus about the Colorado Chamber Players Bach concerts this weekend.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Contrapuncti 1 & 11 from The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 7:34
Colorao Chamber Players (Paul Primus and David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
Johann Sebastian Bach (arr.Dmitry Sitkovetsky): Aria and Variations 8, 11 & 25 from Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 10:15
Colorao Chamber Players (Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 3/17/10 MS
Also, Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Romance in A Major, Waltz in A Major 
Anne Epperson, John Novacek, Susan Grace (6/29/08) 4:59 + 2:20
Jacob Druckman: Valentine
 Susan Cahill, bass (6/25/08) 10:14
Dmitri Shostakovich: 5 Pieces for Two Violins & Piano 
Mark Fewer and Jonathan Crow, violins; John Novacek, piano 6/29/08) 11:34
And, Charley anticipates the St. Martin's Chamber Choir concerts with the Colorado Chorale this weekend.
Wolfgang Mozart: Motet, "God Is Our Refuge," K.20
St. Martin's Chamber Choir/ Timothy Krueger
Cygnus 12 Track 1 1:01
In Addition, Charley anticipates Anne Guzzo's new composition on the Telling Stories'"Sounds of Silence" program tomorrow.
Anne Guzzo: "Contemplation from Two Pieces for Clarinet
Anne Guzzo, clarinet
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS

Thursday March 18, 2010

2010-03-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violin
Modest Moussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain
 Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Opus 19 (1/8-9/10)
Also, Charley talks with Barbara Hamilton Primus and Paul Primus about the Colorado Chamber Players Bach concerts this weekend.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Contrapuncti 1 & 11 from The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 7:34
Colorao Chamber Players (Paul Primus and David Waldman, violins; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
Johann Sebastian Bach (arr.Dmitry Sitkovetsky): Aria and Variations 8, 11 & 25 from Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 10:15
Colorao Chamber Players (Paul Primus, violin; Barbara Hamilton Primus, viola; Judith McIntyre, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 3/17/10 MS

Modest Moussorgsky (1839-1881): Night on Bald Mountain

Notorious for leaving works unfinished, Moussorgsky was also loathe to abandon good material. The music now known as Night on Bald Mountain popped up in various guises for over twenty years and only emerged fully after the composer's death.
On Christmas Day, 1858 Moussorgsky announced plans to make an opera of Gogol's St. John's Eve. Less than two years later, he spoke of a commission for incidental music to a play called The Witches by his old army buddy Baron Georgy Mengden. The music for both these projects, if he ever wrote any of it at all, is lost. Parts of the Bald Mountain music appeared in his unfinished opera Salammbô of 1864.
Something concrete finally surfaced on June 23, 1867 (St. John's Eve), when Moussorgsky completed an orchestral fantasy titled St. John's Night on Bare Mountain. ``I wrote it quickly,'' he said, ``straight away in full score without preliminary drafts, in twelve days. It seethed within me, and I worked day and night, hardly knowing what was happening within me. And now I see in my sinful prank an independent Russian product, free from German profundity and routine.''
Based on the legend of the witches' sabbath on St. John's Eve at Mt. Triglav near Kiev, the music, said Moussorgsky, is ``a very graphic depiction of a Witches' Sabbath provided by the testimony of a woman on trial, who was accused of being a witch and had confessed love pranks with Satan himself to the court. The poor lunatic was burnt. All this occurred in the Sixteenth Century. From this description I stored up the construction of the Sabbath.''
Accordingly, Moussorgsky prefaced the score with the program: ``Subterranean din of unearthly voices. Appearance of the Spirits of Darkness, followed by that of the god Tchernobog. Glorification of the Black God, the Black Mass. Witches' Revels. At the height of the orgies, there is heard from afar the bell of a little church in the village. The spirits of Darkness disperse. Daybreak.''
St. John's Night on Bare Mountain was never performed during Moussorgsky's lifetime. In 1871 he added a chorus to form ``The Sacrifice of the Black Goat on the Bald Mountain,'' a portion of the opera-ballet Mlada, a collaboration with Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. It, too, was never performed.
In 1877 the same music was reworked as an intermezzo titled ``Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad'' from the comic opera Sorochintsy Fair. It was this version that Rimsky-Korsakov arranged and titled Night on Bald Mountain for a St. Petersburg performance on October 27, 1886. Moussorgsky's original 1867 version wasn't published until 1968.
It was also Rimsky-Korsakov who compounded the confusion by insisting that the Bald Mountain music originated as a piece for piano and orchestra, along the lines of Liszt's Totentanz. As Moussorgsky's biographer, M.D. Calvocoressi, puts it, ``there is good reason to believe that it never existed outside Rimsky-Korsakov's notoriously faulty memory.''
There was yet another version of the Bald Mountain music. In 1878, on a concert tour of the Ukraine, Crimea and towns along the Don and the Volga, Moussorgsky played piano transcriptions of his orchestral music, including ``a musical picture from a new comic opera, Sorochintsy Fair.'' It was the very same Bald Mountain music.
Rimsky Korsakov's orchestration of the work calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, a bell in D, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, harp and strings.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Opus 19
I. Andantino
II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo
III. Moderato; Allegro moderato

Early in 1915 Prokofiev sketched an opening melody for a one-movement violin concertino. ``I often regretted,'' he later recalled, ``that other work prevented me from returning to the pensive opening'' of the piece.
His chance came two years later, when he spent the summer at a country house near Petrograd reading Kant and Schopenhauer and turning his early sketch into a full three-movement violin concerto. A pianist, Prokofiev sought advice in writing for the violin from the Polish violinist Paul Kochanski, who was scheduled to play the premiere the following November. But World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution intervened, and the planned performance was postponed.
Indeed, the first performance didn't take place until October 18, 1923 in Paris. By then Prokofiev had left Russia, toured the United States and made his way to Paris, where Serge Koussevitzky offered to conduct the work. Several soloists, including Bronislaw Huberman, had refused to play it, so the concertmaster Marcel Darrieux was engaged. He ``did quite well with it,'' according to the composer.
Modernists criticized the work for not being complex enough. Georges Auric accused it of ``Mendelssohnism.'' A year later Joseph Szigeti took up the Concerto, playing it all over Europe, and its entry into the standard repertory was assured.
Biographer Israel Nestyev writes of the ``unusual sequence'' of the Concerto's three movements, ``the first and third are predominantly tender and melodic, while the second...is a fast, grotesque, and mocking scherzo....Unexpectedly for Prokofiev's music, a tenderly melodious, lyrical theme predominates in the first movement (and is restated in the finale). It is almost impossible to find in any of Prokofiev's early works a melody so simple and clear, so soulful and warm.''
In the second movement, says Nestyev, ``the whole gamut of scherzo-like moods and images'' is presented. ```Perpetuum mobile' and sparkling, sometimes mischievous humour predominate....In the third movement serene lyricism once again prevails....Just as in the beginning, the violin sings in a full voice of the beautiful and lofty feelings of man.''
The score calls for solo violin, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, tuba, timpani, side drum, tambourine, harp and strings.

Wednesday March 17, 2010

2010-03-05T05:16:00.000-08:00

Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Antonín Dvořák: String Serenade in E major, Op.22 30:26
Zoltán Kodály: Dances of Galánta 17:00 (7/20/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Colorado Music Festival winter series this weekend.
Wolfgang Mozart: " Allegro" (4th movement) from String Quintet in C minor, K.406
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Jessica Guideri, Dominique Corbeil, violins; Matthew Dane, Ethan Hecht, violas; Judith Glyde, cello) (2/24/08) 24:20

Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904): Serenade for Strings in E major, Opus 22
I. Moderato
II. Tempo di Valse
III. Scherzo: Vivace
IV. Larghetto
V. Finale: Allegro vivace

Dvorák's Serenade for Strings was composed in just twelve days, between May 3 and 14, 1875. A planned performance by Hans Richter and the Vienna Philharmonic the following fall never materialized. The first performance took place in Prague on December 10, 1876. Adolf Cech conducted the combined string sections of the Czech and German Theater Orchestras. A Viennese performance had to wait until 1884.
Biographer John Clapham writes: ``Both the light-hearted Scherzo and the Finale start canonically, and the Trio of the Waltz and the Larghetto are both enriched when their melodic themes are repeated canonically. The first movement is simple and child-like, but the subdivision of violas and cellos gives it richness and the expressive interjections of the violins during the main theme are telling. The Waltz and Trio have decided charm, and are linked together by a rhythmic motif....When the melody of the beautiful Larghetto is compared with the Trio theme in the second movement they are found to be two versions of the same basic musical thought.''

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Dances of Galánta

For seven years, Kodály's father was railway station master at Galánta, a small town on the main line between Budapest and Vienna. During the summer of 1933, his son memorialized the town in his Dances of Galánta. Zoltán wrote the piece for the eightieth anniversary of the Philharmonic Society of Budapest, which gave the first performance on October 23, 1934 under Ernö Dohnányi's direction.
Kodály based his material on several sources. There were his memories of ``the most beautiful seven years of my childhood'' and the gypsy bands he heard in Galánta. Also, he consulted a collection of Hungarian dances published in Vienna around 1800, which included a number of pieces ``after several gypsies from Galánta,'' including the old Magyar recruiting dances, the verbunkos music.
In the spring of 1935 the Galánta and Marosszék dances were combined to form a ballet, titled A Rebel's Tale, first produced at the Budapest Opera. Despite adverse reviews--``plot and music are at cross purposes''--the ballet made the rounds of various German theaters in the late 1930s.
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, percussion and strings.

Tuesday March 16, 2010

2010-03-05T05:14:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Emerson String Quartet
Franz Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810 (Death and the Maiden) 38:33
Johann Sebastian Bach (arr.Mozart): Fugue in E major BWV 854 from The Well  Tempered Clavier, Book I 3:28 (10/22/08)
Also, Charley anticipates Arnaldo Cohen's piano recital for the Friends of Chamber Music tomorrow.
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

Monday March 15, 2010

2010-03-05T05:07:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about Angela Cheng's appearance Wednesday.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
 Michael Butterman, conductor; Bonnie Draina, soprano; Adriana Zabala, mezzo soprano
Wolfgang Mozart: La clemenza di Tito Overture, K.621 5:09
Wolfgang Mozart: Duet, "Ah perdona al primo affetto" from La Clemenza di Tito, K.621 3:24 (Draina, Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Aria, "Non so piu" from Act I of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 3:12 (Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Aria, ``Voi, che sapete'' from Act II of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 3:27 (Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385 (Haffner) 20:17 (11/1/08)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado Ballet's artistic director Gil Boggs about their triple-bill opening Friday. Charley also anticipates pianist Alejandro Cremaschi's recital tomorrow at CU Boulder.
Alberto Ginastera: Three Pieces
Alejandro Cremaschi, piano
University of Colorado at Boulder Faculty Recital
In addition, Charley talks with Kathy Brantigan about the Denver Brass Bagpipe concerts this weekend.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Overture to La Clemenza di Tito, K.621

During the summer of 1791, even as he worked furiously on The Magic Flute and the Requiem, Mozart received a new commission. Domenico Guardasoni, acting on instructions from a band of Bohemian noblemen, asked Mozart to write a serious opera for the celebration of Leopold II's coronation as King of Bohemia. The fee was twice the normal rate; Mozart was in no position to refuse.
The libretto for La Clemenza di Tito, by Metastasio as revised by Caterino Mazzola, concerns love and intrigue in Rome around 80 A.D. Mozart wrote the opera in 18 days, partly in Vienna that summer, partly in carriages and inns on the way to Prague and partly in Prague, just before the first performance on September 6, 1791.
In his book on Mozart's operas, Charles Osborne writes: ``Composed at the last moment, the Overture nevertheless does not make use of any themes from the opera: instead it establishes a mood which, though formal, is also festive. Its contrapuntal development section links it in mood with The Magic Flute Overture which must have been composed only a week or two later.''
The Overture is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, as well as timpani and strings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Aria, ``Voi, che sapete'' from Act II of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492

Mozart began The Marriage of Figaro sometime during October of 1785. The librettist was Lorenzo da Ponte, who would later provide the texts for Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte. They chose the sequel to The Barber of Seville of Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, or the Madcap Day.
The first performance of The Marriage of Figaro began at seven on the evening of May 1, 1786 at the Court Theater in Vienna. Count Zinzendorf's appraisal that the ``the opera bored me'' was a minority view. The opera was a huge success.
In the second act, Figaro, the Count's valet, is conspiring with the Countess and her maid Susanna, Figaro's betrothed, to humiliate the Count for his womanizing. Part of the plan involves dressing the young page Cherubino as Susanna for a tryst with the Count. As the ladies prepare his costume, they demand that he sing his little song of love, with Susanna accompanying on guitar.

Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor,
donne vedete, s'io l'ho nel cor.
Quello ch'io provo, vi ridirò,
e per me nuovo, capir nol so.
Sento un affetto pien di desir,
ch'ora è diletto, ch'ora è martir.
Gelo, e poi sento l'alma avvampar,
e in un momento torno a gelar.
Ricerco un bene fuori di me,
non so ch'il tiene, non so cos'è.
Sospiro e gemo senza voler,
palpito e tremo senza saper;
non trovo pace notte, né dì,
ma pur mi piace languir così.

(You who know what love is,
ladies, see whether it's in my heart.
What I experience I'll describe for you;
it's new to me, I don't understand it.
I feel an emotion full of desire,
that is now pleasure, and now suffering.
I freeze, then I feel my soul burning up,
and in a moment I'm freezing again.
I seek a blessing outside myself,
from whom I know not or what it is.
I sigh and moan without meaning to,
palpitate and tremble without knowing it.
I find no peace night or day,
and yet I enjoy languishing so.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385 (Haffner)
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Presto

During the summer of 1782, while hard at work on The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart received an urgent request from his father to provide some music for the festivities surrounding Siegmund Haffner's elevation to the nobility. The Haffners were old Salzburg friends of the Mozarts. Six years before Wolfgang had written the Haffner Serenade for the wedding of Siegmund's sister Elisabeth.
On July 20, 1782, Mozart wrote to his father: ``Well, I am up to the eyes in work....And now you ask me to write a new symphony? How on earth can I do so?....Well, I must just spend the night over it, for that is the only way; and to you, dearest father, I sacrifice it. You may rely on having something from me by every post. I shall work as fast as possible and, as far as haste permits, I shall turn out good work.''
By the end of July Mozart reported: ``You see that my intentions are good--only what one cannot do one cannot! I am really unable to scribble off inferior stuff.''
The completed work was actually a six-movement serenade, consisting of the four movements of the Haffner Symphony, plus the March, K.408 No. 2 and a second minuet which has since been lost. This was the version performed for the Haffner wedding in Salzburg in 1782.
On March 23, 1783, the Haffner music was performed as a four-movement symphony at a concert in Vienna attended by the Emperor. In the interim between the two performances, Mozart seems to have suffered a memory lapse. ``My new Haffner Symphony,'' he wrote to his father, ``has positively amazed me, for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good effect.''
And it did. After the concert, Mozart again wrote to his father: ``I need not tell you very much about the success of my concert, for no doubt you have already heard of it. Suffice it to say that the theater could not have been more crowded and that every box was full. But what pleased me most of all was that His Majesty the Emperor was present and, goodness!--how delighted he was and how he applauded me!''
Because of its origins as a serenade, Alfred Einstein regards K.385 as ``a somewhat amphibious work. Not that the first movement, with all its pomp of trumpets and drums, lacks seriousness. The lordly principal motive, which is first stated in unison, is made the basis of rich contrapuntal weaving and contrast.'' Describing the second movement as ``graceful and innocent,'' Einstein points to the Minuet as the ``outstanding movement,'' which expresses ``strength, festivity, and masculinity in the main section, and the most delicate grace in the Trio.'' The last movement is a masterly synthesis of sonata and rondo forms. Mozart advised that the first movement should be ``played with great fire'' and the last, ``as fast as possible.''
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Friday March 12, 2010

2010-02-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

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.

Thursday March 11, 2010

2010-02-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Wednesday March 10, 2010

2010-02-27T17:05:00.002-08:00

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.

Tuesday March 9, 2010

2010-02-27T17:05:00.001-08:00

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.

Monday March 8, 2010

2010-02-27T17:04:00.001-08:00

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.

Friday March 5, 2010

2010-02-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Thursday March 4, 2010

2010-02-17T19:02:00.000-08:00

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.''

Wednesday March 3, 2010

2010-02-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

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

Tuesday March 2, 2010

2010-02-17T19:00:00.002-08:00

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.”

Monday March 1, 2010

2010-02-17T19:00:00.001-08:00

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

Friday February 26, 2010

2010-02-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

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.

Thursday February 25, 2010

2010-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

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.

Wednesday February 24, 2010

2010-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

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

Tuesday February 23, 2010

2010-02-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Monday February 22, 2010

2010-02-13T06:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Friday February 19, 2010

2010-02-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

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.''

Wednesday February 17, 2010

2010-02-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

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

Tuesday February 16, 2010

2010-02-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

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

Monday February 15, 2010

2010-02-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

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

Friday February 12, 2010

2010-02-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

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.

Thursday February 11, 2010

2010-02-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

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?)

Wednesday February 10, 2010

2010-02-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Tuesday February 9, 2010

2010-02-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

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

Monday February 8, 2010

2010-02-03T05:59:00.000-08:00

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.

Friday February 5, 2010

2010-01-25T18:44:00.000-08:00

Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
Poulenc: Oboe Sonata
Stephen Taylor, oboe; Jonathan Biss, piano (8/1/04)
Dvořák: String Quintet in E flat major, Op.97
Rossetti String Quartet; Emily Rome, viola (8/1/04)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado All State Choir board member Will Taylor about this year's concert on Tuesday.
Frank Tichelli: There Will Be Rest
2008 Colorado All State Mixed Choir/ Dr. Geoffrey Boers
NCA CD 1 Track 10 5:23

Thursday February 4, 2010

2010-01-25T18:42:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Olga Kern, piano; Rhoslyn Jones, soprano; John Danieki, tenor;
Anton Belov, bass; CSO Chorus/ Duain Wolfe, director
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.36 (10/23/09)
Sergei Rachmaninoff: The Bells, Op.35 (10/24/09)
Also, Steve Blatt talks with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who portrays Rosina in Opera Colorado's production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Kolokola (The Bells), Opus 35
I. Allegro ma non tanto: ``The Silver Sleigh Bells''
II. Lento: ``The Mellow Wedding Bells''
III. Presto: ``The Loud Alarum Bells''
IV. Lento lugubre: ``The Mournful Iron Bells''

Rachmaninoff wrote his choral symphony, The Bells, in an apartment once occupied by Tchaikovsky's brother on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome in 1913. ``Nothing helps me so much as solitude,'' he said. ``In my opinion it is only possible to compose when one is alone and there are no external disturbances to hinder the calm flow of ideas. These conditions were ideally realized in my flat on the Piazza di Spagna.''
The idea of setting Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem was first suggested by an anonymous admirer, who sent Rachmaninoff a copy of Konstantin Balmont's translation. Years later she was identified as a cellist in the Moscow Conservatory named Danilova, who was too shy to approach her idol directly.
Balmont’s translation was not strictly faithful to Poe’s original. He deleted some lines and added others of his own, but he did preserve Poe’s four-part structure. Accordingly, each of the four movements represents a different kind of bell and its attendant symbol. The opening movement (“The Silver Sleigh Bells”), featuring solo tenor and chorus, denotes birth and youth. The second movement (“The Mellow Wedding Bells”), for soprano and chorus, refers to gold. Brass is evoked in the third movement (“The Loud Alarum Bells”), scored for chorus only. The solo baritone with the chorus intones the finale (“The Mournful Iron Bells”), signifying death.
Rachmaninoff conducted the first performance, in St. Petersburg on November 30, 1913. He conducted the work in Moscow on February 8, 1914. After this concert he was presented with laurel wreaths and flowers. The work was published in 1920 with a dedication to the Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg.
Instrumentation: soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, pianino, organ and strings.

Text of The Bells

I.
Slyshish, sani mchatsya v ryad,
Mchatsya v ryad,
Kolokolchiki zvenyat.
Serebristym legkim zvonom slukh nash sladostno tomyat,
Etim penyem i gudenyem o zabvenye govoryat.
O, kak zvonko, zvonko, zvonko,
Tochno zvuchnyi smekh rebyonka,
V yasnom vozdukhe nochnom
Govoryat oni o tom,
Shto za dnyami zabluzhdenya Nastupayet vozrozhdenye.
Shto volshebno naslazhdenye, naslazhdenye nezhnym snom.
Sani mchatsya, mchatsya v ryad,
Kolokolchiki zvenyat.
Zvyozdy slushayut, kak sani, ubegaya, govoryat
I, vnimaya im goryat,
I mechtaya, I blistaya, v nebe dukhami paryat;
I izmenchivym siyanyem,
Molchalivym obayanyem,
Vmeste s zvonom, vmeste s penyem, o zabvenye govoryat.

(Hear the sledges dash abreast,
Dash abreast,
Jingle bells!
Their light and silvery tinkle pours sweet anguish in our ears,
All this singing and this ringing sweet oblivion foretells!
Oh, how clear, clear, clear,
As if baby's resonant laughter,
In the icy air of night
Is their chatter:
After days of disillusion hope restores.
The delight is all-enchanting, as enchanting as sweet dreams.
Sledges dash, dash abreast, dash abreast,
Jingle bells!
Stars, attentive to the sledges,
Seem to listen, all aglow,
Dreaming, sparkling in the heavens
With the ever-changing radiance
And with silent fascination
With the ringing and singing sweet oblivion foretell.)

II.
Slyshish, k svadbe zov svyatoy,
Zolotoy.
Skolko nezhnovo blazhenstva v etoy pesne molodoy!
Skvoz spokoinyi vozdukh nochi
Slovno smotryat chyi-to ochi I blestyat,
Iz volny pevuchikh zvukov na lunu oni glyadyat
Iz prizyvnykh divnykh keliy,
Polny skazochnykh veseliy,
Narastaya, upadaya, bryzgi svetlyye letyat.
Vnov potukhnut, vnov blestyat,
I ronyayut svetlyi vzglyad
Na gryadushcheye, gde dremlet bezmyatezhnost nezhnykh snov,
Vozveshchayemykh soglasyem zolotykh kolokolov.

(Hear the call to holy nuptials,
Golden bells!
What a tender bliss the youthful song foretells!
Through the quiet air of night,
As if someone's eyes are gazing, shining
At the moon through the undulating tones
From the wondrous sounding cells,
Full of fairytale rapture,
Mounting, sinking,
Crystal's sprinkle
As they glance
At the future, wherein sleeps tender quietude
Announced by the harmony of bells.)

III.
Slyshish, voyushchiy nabat,
Tochno stonet medniy ad.
Eti zvuki, v dikoy muke, skazku uzhasov tverdyat!
Tochno molyat im pomoch,
Krik kidayut pryamo v noch,
Pryamo v ushi temnoy nochi
Kazhdyi zvuk,
To dlinneye, to koroche
Vyklikayet svoy ispug.
I ispug ikh tak velik,
Tak bezumen kazhdyi krik
Shto razorvannyye zvony, nesposobnyye zvuchat,
Mogut tolko bitsya, bitsya, i krichat, krichat, krichat
I k pylayushchey gromade,
Vopli skorbi obrashchat.
A mezh tem ogon bezumnyi,
I gluykhoy I mnogoshumnyi, vsyo gorit,
To iz okon, to na kryshe
Mchitsya vyshe, vyshe, vyshe,
I kak budto govorit:
Ya khochu
Vyshe mchatsya, razgoratsya vstrechu lunnomu luchu,
Il umru, il totchas, totchas, vplot do mesyatsa vzlechu.
O, nabat, nabat, nabat,
Yesli b ty vernul nazad
Etot uzhas, eto plamya, etu iskru, etot vzglyad,
Etot pervyi vzglyad ognya,
O kotorom ty veshchayesh s voplem, s plachem i zvenya
A teper nam net spasenya.
Vsyudu plamya I kipenye,
Vsyudu strakh I vozmushchenye.
Tvoy prizyv,
Dikikh zvukov nesoglasnost
Vozveshchayet nam opasnost.
To rastyot beda glukhaya, to spadayet, kak priliv.
Slukh nash chutko lovit volny v peremene zvukovoy,
Vnov spadayet, vnov rydayet medno-stonushchiy priboy!

(Hear the wail of the bells,
As if brazen hell is moaning,
Agonized. A tale of terror their turbulence foretells!
As if pleading to be helped,
Screaming out into the night,
Straight into the ears of darkness
Every sound,
Now lengthened, now abrupt
Calling out their lasting fright!
Their horror is so great
And so mad is every shriek
That the punctuated tolling, quite unable to intone,
Keeps on clanging, clanging, as they shriek, shriek, shriek
Toward the fire-engulfed mass,
Sending their appeals for mercy.
While the frantic fires roar,
Dense and deafeningly strident, blazing
Out the windows, on the roof,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
As if saying:
It's our wish
To keep going, to keep blazing toward moonbeams,
Either perish now or reach to the moon itself this instant.
Oh, you bells, bells, bells,
If you'd only turn back
All the terror, all the fire, all the embers, and this sight,
The initial fiery glance
You describe with roar and clamor.
Now we see no liberation--
Boiling fire all around
Full of fear and indignation.
Your command
To fierce cacophony declares
Nothing but a mad distress.
Now the danger ebbs and flows
And our ear distinctly tells all the waves of changing sound,
Swelling, sinking in the brazen breakers' well!)

IV.
Pokhoronnyi slyshen zvon,
Dolgiy zvon!
Gorkoy skorbi slyshny zvoki, gorkoy zhizni konchen son.
Zvuk zheleznyi vozveshchayet o pechali pokhoron.
I nevolno my drozhim,
Ot zabav svoikh speshim,
I rydayem, vspominayem, shto i my glaza smezhim.
Neizmenno-monotonnyi,
Etot vozglas otdalyonnyi,
Pokhoronnyi tyazhkiy zvon,
Tochno ston.
Skorbnyi, gnevnyi
I plachevnyi,
Vyrastayet v dolgiy gul,
Vozveshchayet, shto stradalets neprobudnym snom usnul.
V kolokolnykh kelyakh rzhavykh
On dlya pravykh i nepravykh
Grozno vtorit ob odnom:
Shto na serdtse budto kamen, shto glaza somknutsya snom.
Fakel traurnyi gorit.
S kolokolni kto-to kriknul, kto-to gromko govorit,
Kto-to chyornyi tam stoit.
I khokhochet, I gremit,
I gudit, gudit, gudit,
K kolokolne pripadayet,
Gulkiy kolokol kachyet,
Gulkiy kolokol rydayet,
Stonet v vozdukhe nemom
I protyazhno vozveshchayet o pokoye grobovom.

(Hear the mournful toll of bells,
Lasting toll!
Sounds of bitter sorrow are heard as a bitter life's dreams end.
And the iron tone of bells solemn monody foretells.
Inadvertently, we shiver.
All diversions stand away.
We lament, for we discover time will come to end our day.
The inalterably dull
Is this distant voice.
Mournful heavy toll,
A knoll.
Pained, wrathful,
And lamenting,
Growing into lengthy din,
It proclaims that the sufferer fell into eternal dream.
In the rusty cells of the steeple
For the righteous and the wrong
It is menacingly saying:
On the human heart a stone as the orbs will close forever.
A funerial torch is burning.
From the steeple someone yelled, someone called,
Someone all in black stands there
And he laughs, and he drones,
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
As he falls onto the steeple,
Swaying throbbing iron bells.
Throbbing iron bells are moaning,
Groaning in the still of night
And their lingering call proclaims: all is gravely right!)

[Transliteration and translation by Valeria Vlazinskaya]

Wednesday February 3, 2010

2010-01-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor; Colin Currie, percussion
Giovanni Gabrieli: Canzona in the Ninth Tone 5:27
Jennifer Higdon: Percussion Concerto [2010 Grammy award winner for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition] 25:34 (6/29/07)
Also, Jennifer Higdon: Piano Trio 13:36
(Adam Neiman, piano; Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival (7/15/03)
And, Charley anticipates Opus Two's appearance with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Friday.
Lowell Liebermann: "Allegro energico" (2nd movement) from Violin Sonata No.1, Op.46
Opus Two (William Terwilliger, violin; Andrew Cooperstock, piano)
Troy 684 Track 6 4:34

Tuesday February 2, 2010

2010-01-25T18:40:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Pieter Wispelwey, cello; Alexander Melnikov, piano
Bohuslav Martinů: Variations on a Slovakian Folksong, H.378
Frédéric Chopin: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.65 (11/5/08)
Also, Charley talks with St. Martin's Chamber Choir music director Timothy J. Krueger about this weekend's concerts.
Cecilo Effinger: "No Mark," "Noon" & "Wood" from Four Pastorales
Sue Logan, oboe; St. Martin's Chamber Choir/ Timothy J. Krueger
Cygnus 4 1,2,4 10:48
And, Steve Blatt talks with Opera Colorado general director Greg Carpenter about their production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

Monday February 1, 2010

2010-01-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen about her recital with pianist Cullan Bryant tonight and tomorrow.
 Benjamin Britten: "Perpetual Motion" (2nd movement) & "Waltz" (4th movement) from Suite, Op.6 
Jerilyn Jorgensen, violin; Cullan Bryant, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 11/13/09 MS
Also, Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Patrick Cardy: Tango! 
Jon Manasse, clarinet; Mark Fewer, violin; John Novacek, piano (6/28/06)
Matthew Hindson: Little Chrissitina’s Major Fantasy 
Mark Fewer and Steven Copes, violins (6/28/06)
André Previn: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano 
Robert Walters, oboe; Michael Kroth, bassoon; John Novacek, piano (7/3/06)
Moreover, Charley talks with the Playground Ensemble's Conrad Kehn about their concert Thursday, and anticipates Opus Two's appearances at CU Boulder and with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra this week.
Paul Schoenfield: "Fughetta" from Partita
Opus Two (William Terwilliger, violin; Andrew Cooperstock, piano)
Azica 71241 Track 9 2:23

Friday January 29, 2010

2009-12-26T05:54:00.000-08:00

Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor
John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine (3/13/04)
Richard Strauss: Death and Transfiguration, Op.24 (3/14/04)
Also, Charley talks with violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen about her recitals with pianist Cullan Bryant this weekend.
Benjamin Britten: "Perpetual Motion" (2nd movement) & "Waltz" (4th movement) from Suite, Op.6
Jerilyn Jorgensen, violin; Cullan Bryant, piano
CPR Performance Studio 11/13/09 MS
Wes Devore: In the Middle of Nowhere
Felix Mendelssohn: Andante & Rondo Capriccioso, Op.14
Wes Devore, piano
NCA (11/8/08) 2:56 + 6:44

John Adams (b.1947): Short Ride in a Fast Machine

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Adams grew up in New Hampshire. He studied the clarinet, and later composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard. Moving to California in 1971, he worked in a warehouse, then joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. He was composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1979-1985. His opera Nixon in China won a Grammy in 1989 and his Violin Concerto won the Grawemeyer Award in 1995.
Commissioned for the opening concert of the Great Woods Festival in Mansfield, Massachusetts, Short Ride in a Fast Machine was first performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, on June 13, 1986. The work is subtitled ``Fanfare for Great Woods.''
Asked to explain the title, Adams replied: ``You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn't?'' Accordingly, the score is marked ``Delirando'' (frenzied), with a relentless clacking of the woodblock, which Adams calls ``almost sadistic.''
The score calls for 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 4 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 synthesizers, timpani, percussion and strings.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Opus 24

During 1889, the last year of his contract as third conductor at the Munich Court Opera, Strauss completed the tone poem Death and Transfiguration. Strauss conducted the first performance on June 21, 1890 at a music festival in Eisenach. It was well received. After a Viennese performance three years later, the critic Eduard Hanslick wrote of the ``realistic vividness'' of the score.
The program for the work is best described by Strauss himself. In a letter, he said that the music depicts ``the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist. The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with heavy irregular breathing; friendly dreams conjure a smile on the features of the deeply suffering man; he wakes up; he is once more racked with horrible agonies; his limbs shake with fever--as the attack passes and the pains leave off, his thoughts wander through his past life; his childhood passes before him, the time of his youth with its strivings and passions and then, as the pains already begin to return, there appears to him the fruit of his life's path, the conception, the ideal which he has sought to realize, to present artistically, but which he has not been able to complete, since it is not for man to be able to accomplish such things. The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body in order to find gloriously achieved in everlasting space those things which could not be fulfilled here below.''
The music was so convincing that nearly sixty years later, on his own deathbed, Strauss wrote to his daughter-in-law: ``Dying is just as I composed it in Death and Transfiguration.'' His friend Alexander Ritter was moved to write a poem on the subject, a more elaborate telling of the original Strauss program. The composer approved, and the poem was printed with the score.
There are four main sections in the work. A slow introduction depicting illness and sleep leads to an agitated representation of the struggle with death. Some calm returns as dreams and childhood memories figure in the third part. But--to quote the Ritter poem--``the iron hammer of Death threatens its last blow,'' and the final section imparts the transfiguration, or ``deliverance from the world.''
The work is scored for 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, tam-tam, 2 harps and strings.

Thursday January 28, 2010

2009-12-26T05:52:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Opus 45 (10/23/09)
Also, Charley anticipates the Denver Young Artists Orchestra's concert Sunday.
Ottorino Respighi: “St. Michael Archangel”(2nd movement) from Church Windows
Denver Young Artists Orchestra/ Scott O'Neil)
NCA (11/9/08) 5:50
And, Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's appearance with the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs this weekend.
Franz Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703
Veronika String Quartet (Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 102308 MS
Dmitri Shostakovich: "Allegretto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.3 in F major, Op. 73 5:13
Veronika String Quartet
(Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 10/1/09 MS

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphonic Dances, Opus 45
I. Non allegro
II. Andante con moto: tempo di valse
III. Lento assai; Allegro vivace

A few months before his death in 1943, Rachmaninoff complained of lacking the ``strength and fire'' to compose. When friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, he replied: ``Yes, I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker.''
Rachmaninoff's ``last flicker'' was begun during the summer of 1940 on an estate in Long Island. By August, he wrote to conductor Eugene Ormandy: ``Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called Fantastic Dances. I should like to play the piece for you.''
Meanwhile, Rachmaninoff had second thoughts about the title. ``It should have been called just Dances,'' he said, ``but I was afraid people would think I had written dance music for jazz orchestras.'' At one point he even considered titles for the three movements--``Midday,'' ``Twilight'' and ``Midnight''--but abandoned the idea in favor of the Italian tempo designations.
By the time Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced the work on January 4, 1941, Rachmaninoff had settled on the title Symphonic Dances.
A New York performance three days later received a lukewarm reception. The World-Telegram reported that ``the composer took a bow from the stage. The prolonged applause was doubtless a tribute to himself rather than to his music, for the novelty nowhere rises to his best standards....The piece teems with weird sounds, some of them just plain echoes. Mr. Rachmaninoff's orchestra is definitely haunted, especially the wind section, which is a real rendezvous of ghosts.''
Olin Downes, writing in the New York Times, was more perceptive: ``The dances are simple in outline, symphonic in texture and proportion. The first one, vigorously rhythmed and somewhat in a pastoral vein, is festive in the first part and more lyrical and tranquil in the middle section. The second Dance begins with a muted summons, or evocation, of the brass, a motto repeated in certain places, and for the rest there are sensuous melodies, sometimes bitter-sweet, sometimes to a Viennese lilt--and Vienna is gone.
``In the last Dance, the shortest, the most energetic and fantastical of the three, an idea obtrudes which has obsessed the musical thinking of Rachmaninoff these many years--the apparition, in the rhythmical maze, of the terrible old plain chant, the Dies Irae.
``The Dances have no ostensible connection with each other. They could easily reflect a series of moods, presented in a certain loose sequence--of Nature, and memories, and reveries with some Dead Sea fruit in them--all unpretentious, melodic, sensuously colored and admirably composed music.''
At the end of the score, Rachmaninoff had written ``I thank Thee, Lord!'' It was his last major work. Two and half years after its completion, he died in Beverly Hills, California.

Wednesday January 27, 2010

2009-12-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

Colorado Music Festival
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor; Olav van Hezewijk, oboe
Johann Sebastian Bach: Oboe Concerto in F major, BWV 1053 20:53
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 31 in D major, K.297 (Paris) 17:29 (7/15/07)
Also, Charley talks with violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen about her recitals with pianist Cullan Bryant this weekend.
Benjamin Britten: "Perpetual Motion" (2nd movement) & "Waltz" (4th movement) from Suite, Op.6
Jerilyn Jorgensen, violin; Cullan Bryant, piano
CPR Performance Studio 11/13/09 MS
And, Charley anticipates the Colorado Chamber Players' collaboration with St. John's Cathedral Sunday.
D'Arcy Reynolds: "The Camel Yard" (opening section) from Cloven Dreams (2:34)
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

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Oboe Concerto in F major,
BWV 1053
I. [Allegro]
II. Siciliano
III. Allegro

After working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach was appointed cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. He moved family and furniture in May of 1723. His job description included duties as civic director of music, and this meant numerous odious encounters with the Town Council. He complained of ``superiors who are strange people, with little regard for music.''
Some relief from his official duties came in 1729, when he was asked to direct the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a group founded 25 years earlier by Telemann. During the winter, they performed every Friday night at Gottfried Zimmermann's coffeehouse. In the warmer months, they moved outdoors in the garden for concerts every Wednesday afternoon.
For these concerts, Bach resurrected a number of violin and oboe concertos that he had written in Cöthen and transcribed them for keyboard and strings. The F major Concerto is a reconstruction of a lost work whose component parts have survived. As best scholars can figure, the oboe concerto came first, then material from it was used in later cantata movements, a keyboard concerto and even a work for organ and voice that Bach wrote as a proficiency test for his eldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillip Emmanuel.
In three cantata movements from 1726 the solo line is allocated to the organ. The first two movements of the oboe concerto appear in the Cantata No. 169 (Gott soll allein mein Herze haben) and the last movement in the Cantata No. 49 (Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen). The keyboard concerto in E major (BWV 1053) comes from the same sources, if not from the oboe concerto version itself.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 31 in D major, K.297 (300a) [Paris]
I. Allegro assai
II. Andante
III. Allegro

Mozart had not composed a symphony in four years when, in June of 1778, Joseph Legros, the director of the Paris Concerts Spirituels, commissioned one. Mozart and his mother had arrived in Paris from Mannheim only three months earlier.
Mozart's Paris Symphony was introduced on June 18, 1778. The rehearsals were a trial. ``Never in my life have I heard a worse performance,'' he wrote to his father. ``You have no idea how they twice bumbled and scraped through it.'' At the actual concert, ``the audience was quite carried away--and there was a tremendous burst of applause. I was so happy that as soon as the symphony was over, I went off the the Palais Royal, where I had a large ice.''
Legros said that ``this was the best symphony ever written'' for the Concerts Spirituels. He then asked for a new second movement, as he found the first version too long. Mozart duly supplied a new second movement for the second performance in August. ``Each is right in its way,'' he said, ``for they have different characters; however, I like the second still better.''
Commentators disagree on what influences are at work in the symphony. Alfred Einstein says that it is ``characteristic of the Mannheim-Paris style. In the first movement it even parodies that style to a slight degree.'' It begins with a precise unison attack by the strings, an effect much boasted by the Parisian orchestra. ``What a fuss the oxen here make of this trick!'' said Mozart. ``The devil take me if I can see any difference! They all begin together, just as they do in other places.''
The opening movement also features ``pompous runs in the strings characteristic of the French overture,'' writes Einstein, and ``impressive unison passages for the strings against sustained tones in the winds. But that is where the parody, or the connivance to please the French taste, ends. Mozart's ambition was far too great, and there was too much dependent on the success of the work, for him not to take it seriously. The fact that the last of the three movements was the most successful does honor to the taste of the Parisians. The second theme of this movement is a fugato, supplying the natural material for development; it does not return in the recapitulation--one of the strokes of genius in this masterful movement, which hovers continually between brilliant tumult and graceful seriousness.''
Jens Peter Larsen calls the work ``the first fully mature symphony in the Viennese classical style.'' But H.C. Robbins Landon writes: ``It is not really a Viennese classical symphony at all, but rather a conscious attempt to write an orchestral work in the grand Mannheim style.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Tuesday January 26, 2010

2009-12-26T05:47:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Miró String Quartet; Shai Wosner, piano
 Leoš Janáček: In the Mist
Leoš Janáček: String Quartet No. 2 (Intimate Letters) (2/18/09)
Also, Antonin Dvořák: Scherzo (Furiant: Molto vivace) [3rd movement] & Finale (Allegro) from Piano Quintet in A major, Op.81
Shai Wosner, piano; Axel Strauss, Chee-Yun, violins; Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola; Alisa Weilerstein, cello 11:15
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival (7/18/06)

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928): String Quartet No. 2 (Intimate Letters)
I. Andante--Con moto--Allegro
II. Adagio—Vivace—Andante—Presto—Allegro—Vivo--Adagio
III. Moderato—Adagio--Allegro
IV. Allegro—Andante--Con moto—Adagio--Tempo I

In 1917, at the age of sixty-two, Janáček fell in love with Kamila Stösslová, who was twenty-seven. The relationship continued for ten years, right up to Janáček’s death in 1928. On January 29 of that year, he began his second string quartet. “I’ve begun to write something nice,” he wrote to her. “Our life will be in it. It will be called ‘Love Letters.’ I think that it will sound delightful. There have already been so many of those dear adventures of ours, haven’t there? They’ll be little fires in my soul and they’ll set it ablaze with the most beautiful melodies.”
He completed the piece on February 19. “Today I managed to write a piece in which the earth moves,” he reported. “This work will be dedicated to you. You are the cause of it and composing it has been my greatest joy.”
Not wishing “to deliver up my feelings to the tender mercies of fools,” Janáček changed the title to “Intimate Letters.”
The Moravian Quartet came to Janáček’s house in Brno to rehearse the new work on May 18. “It’s going to be beautiful,” he said, “outside all conventional composition….It’s my first composition to spring from directly-experienced emotion.” After the final rehearsal on June 27, he wrote to Kamila: “They played with fire as if they themselves were writing Intimate Letters….I think that I shall write nothing deeper or more truthful….Everything is somehow coming to an end by itself! It’s as if I were never to take up my pen again.” Janáček was prophetic: the first performance was given by the Moravian Quartet in Brno on September 11, 1928, one month after Janáček’s death from pneumonia.
The music is profoundly autobiographical. The first movement, he told Kamila, represents “the impression when I saw you for the first time…Mine alone the speaking; yours—just surprised silence.” In the second movement, “you are giving birth. Just like you, falling from tears into laughter, that’s how it sounds.” The third movement “is bright and carefree, but dissolves into an apparition which resembles you.” “Let it be jolly,” he said of the last movement, “and then dissolve into a vision resembling your image, translucent as mist….It is the sound of my fear for you, not exactly fear, but yearning, yearning which is fulfilled by you.”

Monday January 25, 2010

2009-12-26T05:45:00.000-08:00

Strings in the Mountains Music Festival
Reinhold Gliére: Tarantella, Op.9 No. 2
Evan Premo, double bass; Katherine Collier, piano (8/9/06) 6:06
Johannes Brahms: “Scherzo” (2nd movement) & “Andante” (3rd movement) from Piano Quartet in C minor, Op.60
Jonathan Feldman, piano; Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Yizhak Schotten, viola; Young Song, cello (8/2/06) 13:50
Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 9 in E flat major, Op.117
Miami String Quartet (8/9/06) 24:59
Also, Charley anticipates the Telling Stories show "Culture Shock" on Saturday.
Benjamin Britten: "Andante sostenuto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in D major, Op.25
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS
And, Charley talks with Telling Stories den mother, Jennie Dorris.

Friday January 22, 2010

2009-12-26T05:41:00.000-08:00

Charley anticipates Sunday's Englewood Arts Presents concert with Yumi Hwang-Williams and Michael Thornton.
Ernest Bloch: "Vidui" (Contrition): "Un poco lento" (1st movement) from Baal Shem
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin; Dror Biran, piano
CPR Performance Studio 11/9/09 MS
Ludwig van Beethoven: “Allegro moderato” (1st movement) from Horn Sonata in F major, Op.17 (6:07)
Michael Thornton, horn; Anne Epperson, piano
CPR Performance Studio 12/15/05 MS
John Adams: Road Movies 17:37
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin; David Korevaar, piano
CPR Performance Studio 060608 MS
Franz Strauss: Nocturno, Op.7 (5:51)
Michael Thornton, horn; Anne Epperson, piano
CPR Performance Studio 12/15/05 MS
Wolfgang Mozart: “Adagio—Allegro” (1st movement) from Duo in B flat major, K.424
Yumi Hwang Williams, violin; Basil Vendryes, viola
CPR Performance Studio 030309 JP
Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro vivace" (1st movement) from Sonata in F Major (1838)
Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin; Dror Biran, piano
CPR Performance Studio 11/9/09 MS

Thursday January 21, 2010

2009-12-26T05:38:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Olga Kern, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Opus 40 (10/23/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Benedetto Lupo's appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Nino Rota: Concerto Soirée
Benedetto Lupo, piano; Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana/ Massimo de Bernart
Nuova Era 7063 5-9 19:54
Charley anticipates the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado's "Mozart by Candlelight" concert this weekend.
Georg Philipp Telemann: Oboe Concerto in C minor
Debra Nagy, oboe; Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado 8:32
NCA (5/1/09)

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Opus 40
I. Allegro vivace
II. Largo
III. Allegro vivace

The most neglected of Rachmaninoff's concertos, the Fourth dates from as early as 1911, when he wrote an Étude-Tableau in C minor, originally intended for his Opus 33 set but withdrawn. In 1914 a Russian musical periodical mentioned that he was working on a concerto. A year later, Rachmaninoff complained of ``being unable to control either the work or myself and so I gave up working.''
It wasn't until 1926 that he resumed work on the Concerto, first in New York and later in Dresden, where he completed it in August. He was concerned about the length of the piece and remarked to his old friend Nikolai Medtner that ``it will probably be performed like `The Ring' on several evenings in succession.''
After the first performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski on March 18, 1927, Rachmaninoff played the Concerto in New York and other cities to generally negative critical reaction. Calling the work ``long-winded, tiresome, unimportant, in places tawdry,'' Pitts Sanborn wrote that ``Mme. Cécile Chaminade might safely have perpetrated it on her third glass of vodka.'' Lawrence Gilman said the Concerto ``remains as essentially nineteenth century as if Tchaikovsky had signed it.''
Rachmaninoff made revisions in the score during the summer of 1927 and still more revisions in 1941.
After a typical upward sweep by the orchestra, the piano enters with the first theme, derived from the earlier Étude-Tableau. A more lyrical second theme follows, and a development section based primarily on a fragment of the first theme. The middle movement's melody reminded some critics of the nursery tune Three Blind Mice. Indeed, Rachmaninoff reprimanded Medtner for not noticing the music's resemblence to Schumann's Piano Concerto. A transition based on the same Étude-Tableau leads directly to the Finale, which features themes both brilliant and lyrical, as well as reminiscences of the first two movements.

Wednesday January 20, 2010

2009-12-26T05:33:00.000-08:00

Lakewood Cultural Center Performing Arts Series
Yeol Eum Son, piano
Claude Debussy: Preludes No.3 (The Wind in the Plain), No.4 (The sounds and fragrances swirl through the evening air), No.5 (The Hills of Anacapri), No.6 (Footsteps in the Snow), No.7 (What the West Wind saw) & No.8 (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), Book I
Frédéric Chopin: Waltzes No.9 in A flat major, Op.69 No.1 (L'adieu), No.11 in G flat major, Op.70 No.1& No.5 in A flat major, Op.42 (2/4)
Alexander Scriabin: Etudes No.10 in D flat major, No.11 in B flat minor & No.12 in D sharp minor (Patetico), Op.8 (11/5/09)
Also, Leopold Godowsky: Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, Jr.
Yeol Eum Son, piano
Harmonia Mundi 907507 Track 13 9:59
Charley anticipates the Albers Trio's recital at the Lakewood Cultural Center tomorrow.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: "Andante" (3rd movement) from Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.19
Julie Albers, cello; Orion Weiss, piano
Artek 22 Track 3 5:39

Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Preludes, Book I
No. 3. Le vent dans la plaine (The Wind in the Plain): Animé
No. 4. Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir (The sounds and fragrances swirl through the evening air): Modéré
No. 5. Les collines d'Anacapri (The Hills of Anacapri): Très modéré (Roy Howat: from a bottle of Italian wine?)
No. 6. Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow): Triste et lent
No. 7. Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind has seen): Animé et tumultueux
No. 8. La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair): Très calme et doucement expressif

Like Bach and Chopin, Debussy wrote a set of keyboard preludes. Bach did it twice in The Well Tempered Clavier, covering all the major and minor keys. Debussy's single effort, with no sequence of keys--indeed, five keys were not used at all--was divided into two books of twelve each. The first was sketched in 1907; the actual composition took just two months in 1910. A clue to his intent might be a remark we made before starting the second book. “Who can ever know the secret of musical composition?" he said. "The noise of the sea, the curve of the horizon, the wind in the leaves, the cry of a bird; all leave impressions on us. And suddenly, when one least wills it, one of those memories spills out of us and expresses itself in musical language.” To indicate the primacy of the music over the inspirations, he printed the titles at the ends of the scores.
"The Wind in the Plain" (No.3) comes from the epigraph to Paul Verlaine's poem “C'est l'extase” from Ariettes oubliées, which Debussy had set as a song cycle in 1887. “The wind on the plain holds its breath” is a line from a poem by Simon-Charles Favart. In his biography of Debussy, Oscar Thompson refers to "the racing lilt of lively breeze, with here and there a momentary gust of biting wind. But this is no tempest. It ends in thin air, wisplike, on a note marked "laissez vibrer" (let it vibrate) instead of gravitating to an expected cadence."
"The sounds and fragrances swirl through the evening air" (No.4) is a line from Baudelaire's poem Harmonie du soir (Evening Harmony), which Debussy set as a song in 1889. Thompson calls it "melancholy, languorous music, sensuous in every detail, if not strictly the poet's 'vertiginous waltz.' The air is heavy with perfumes and vibrant with sounds that seem to swoon in the dying day. All the senses, with those of touch and smell added to those of sight and hearing, seem to enter into the caress and the gentle intoxication of this fantasy."
Roy Howat thinks No. 5 ("The Hills of Anacapri") was inspired by the label on a bottle of Italian wine? Again, Thompson describes "a snatch of folksong and a hint of cowbells, a carefree popular refrain, with its frank tune passed from bass to trebl; a songlike middle section with diatonic harmonies leading on to a badinage of tunes and bells, fragmentarily recalled, the a close marked 'lumineux' (luminous) as if there were blazing sunlight in a tonic chord with added sixth."
There is no traceable source of the inspiration for "Footsteps in the Snow" (No.6). Debussy directed that the rhythm "should have the sonorous value of a melancholy ice-bound landscape." André Suarès remarked that "this stumbling rhythm, persistent, like a false step on q treacherous surface, the step of a foot which slips and catches itself, evokes marvelously the gray horizon over a pale expanse of ice. But how much more the crushing silence of space where the heart can be heard beating and almost stops, sick with unhappiness, haunted by melancholy, palpitating with doubts and regrets. The little breath of wind which holds the snowflake every now and then in its falling, only to toss it aside; the long, interminable road; the nostalgia for the light which is not there and for the warm caress: this solitude, infinite, in a word, the solitude of our soul, wandering along absorbed in itself, a solitude which all the deserts and all of the winters of earth never approach."
"What the West Wind has seen" (No.7) was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Garden of Paradise,” in which the four winds recount their recent feats. The West Wind (Zephyr) comes from the Atlantic, bringing storms and shipwrecks, with the sounds of Spanish guitars in the coda. Thompson claims the music represents "the vision of a hurricane and of a sea lashed to a fury, but retaining the sensation of a nightmare rather than of terror actually experienced."
No.8 was inspired by one of Leconte de Lisle's Scottish Songs about “the girl with the flaxen hair, the beauty with lips of cherry,” or even Robert Burns's “Lass with the lint white locks.” Roland Nadeau says “the soft initial melody begins unharmonized; we are stirred by a sense of gradual apparition. There is a strong suggestion of the pentatonic mode, which...tends to generate gentle, transparent chords. Debussy draws upon this tendency to produce a delicate sheen, an harmonic texture that just fits the mood of the poem.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849): Waltzes
No. 9 in A flat major, Op.69 No. 1 (L'adieu)
No. 11 in G flat major, Op.70 No.1
No. 5 in A flat major, Op.42 (2/4)

Pianist John Ogden called Chopin's waltzes "the brightest jewels in the greatesty salons of the time." Louis Ehlert said they are dances of the soul and not of the body. James Hunker referred to "their animated rhythms, insouciant airs and brilliant, coquettish atmosphere, the true atmosphere of the ballroom."
The Waltz No.9 was a gift for Marie Wodzinska, with whom Chopin was in love. When he departed after a visit with her family 1835, she wrote: “On Saturday, after you had left us, we all walked sadly about the drawing room where you had been with us a few minutes earlier. Our eyes were filled with tears...You were the sole topic of conversation. Felix repeatedly asked me to play that Waltz (the last thing you played and gave to us). They enjoyed listening as I enjoyed playing, for it brought back the brother who had just left.”
After Chopin's death in 1849, his childhood friend Julian Fontana returned from America to Paris, so he could prepare various works for publication that had never been issued. Though Fontana had studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory, scholars wonder if Fontana might have "completed" some unfinished Chopin scores. The Waltz No.11 is among these. In it, writes Frank Cooper, Chopin “opposed an initial joyous outburst with a central section both songlike and sentimental.” It was later orchestrated and used in the ballet Les Sylphides.
The Waltz No. 5 dates from 1840. “If Chopin had written it for dancing," wrote Robert Schumann, "more than half of the dancers would necessarily be represented by countesses. This waltz is aristocratic to the tips of its toes.” In his book on Chopin, Huneker writes: "The prolonged trill on E flat, summoning us to the ballroom, the suggestive interminglinbg of rhythms, duple and triple, the coquetry, hesitation passionate avowal and the superb coda, with its echoes of evening--have not these episodes a charm beyond compare?" Herbert Weinstock writes, "In reality a potpourri of, or free fantasy on, waltz melodies, the A-flat major is held together very loosely by recurrences of the chief melodies and by constant reappearances of a promenade-like interlude...a device very like that used by Schumann in Carnaval."

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Etudes, Op.8
No.10 in D flat major
11 in B flat minor
12 in D sharp minor (Patetico)

A classmate of Rachmaninoff's at the Moscow Conservatory, Scriabin was also a virtuoso pianist, who slept with Chopin's scores under his pillow. His Twelve Etudes, Op.8, published in 1895, are said to owe a debt to Chopin. In liner notes to his recordings of the works, pianist Morton Estrin has a caution: "Why should this come as a great surprise?" wonders pianist Morton Estrin, "Every significant piano work owes something to the composer who virtually invented the instrument. What is surprising--and wonderful--is that Scriabin, who was in his early twenties when he composed these pieces, had something to add to Chopin, something very individual to say."

Tuesday January 19, 2010

2009-12-26T05:22:00.000-08:00

Lakewood Cultural Center Performing Arts Series
Yeol Eum Son, piano 
Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No.6 in E minor, BWV 830
 Samuel Barber: Piano Sonata, Op.26 (11/5/09)
Also, Franz Josef Haydn: Piano Sonata No.58 in C major, Hob.XVI:48
Yeol Eum Son, piano
Harmonia Mundi 907507 1,2 10:50

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Partita No.6 in E minor, BWV 830
I. Toccata
II. Allemande
III. Courante
IV. Air
V. Sarabande
VI. Tempo di Gavotta
VII. Gigue

Bach's first published work—his Opus One--was a set of partitas for keyboard. He had just taken a new job as cantor of the Thomas Church in Leipzig. His predecessor, Johann Kuhnau, had published two volumes titled Clavier-Ŭbung (Keyboard Practice), consisting of seven suites each called “Parthie” (partita). Inspired by Kuhnau's example, in 1726 Bach began his own Clavier-Ŭbung. He even bought an ad in the paper: “Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, wanting to publish a work of harpsichord suites, and having already begun it with the first Partita, and intending to continue it now and then until the work is complete, informs amateurs of the harpsichord of this, and that the composer of this work is himself the publisher.”
He continued adding partitas until 1731, when he issued six of them as “Keyboard Practice, consisting of Preludes, Allemandes, Courantes, Sarabandes, Gigues, Minuets and other Gallantries; composed to delight the hearts of music lovers by Johann Sebastian Bach...Opus 1.” The endeavor was not a financial success: there was no second edition.
But they soon caught on. Writing in 1802, biographer Johann Nicolaus Forkel called them “euphonious, expressive and always original compositions...Any one who learned to play a few pieces out of them well could make a great success with them.”
In Bach's day the term “partita” had come to mean a suite of dance movements. The standard sequence was Allemande—Courante—Sarabande—Gigue, but new dances--Minuet, Gavotte, Bourree and Passepied--were soon inserted between the other movements. In the case of the Sixth Partita, Bach inserted an Air between the Courante and Sarabande.
In liner notes to Rosalyn Tureck's recording, Christoph Wolff refers to “...the huge conception of the Toccata, with its opening and closing sections forming the buttresses to the great central fugue; the florid freedom of the Allemande, the extraordinarily imaginative flight of figuration in the Courante. Momentary suspension of these complex figurations brings relief in the simple, lyrical Air, but his movement is followed by one of the most rhapsodic compositions ever written by Johann Sebastian.”

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Piano Sonata in E flat minor, Op.26
I. Allegro energico
II. Allegro vivace e leggiero
III. Adagio mesto
IV. Allegro con spirito (Fuga)

"I would like to find a good large work by an American composer," said pianist Vladimir Horowitz. He found one when, in 1947, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers commissioned Barber to write a piano sonata in honor of the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers. Horowitz would have first performance rights for the 1949-50 season.
The composition of the Sonata didn't come easily. He tried to start it in Italy, but returned to the United State in 1948. "There are so may distractions i Rome that I accomplished precisely nothing," he reported. "The Sonata had started off so well here in January. 1st movement finished--but then Italy seemed to stop the progress: so I came back here....For a month nothing happened: not an idea worth jotting down....Last week, at last, an idea, and I've just finished the second movement--a scherzo. So now I don't want to move again until it is finished....I'll just continue my hermit-like existence until the Sonata is finished. I don't force things, but six months without writing a note is disarming, and makes me feel I have no reason to exist. Anyway, it moves ahead now, and I shall just plug away. The first two movements are good, i think. Now a slow movement-finale."
When Horowitz saw the three movements he told Barber "the sonata would sound better if he made a very flashy last movement, but with content. So he did that fugue, which is the best thing in the sonata." Again Barber was stalled, when he received a call from Wanda Horowitz (the pianist's wife, and conductor Arturo Toscanini's daughter). She told him, "the trouble with you is you're stitico (constipated). That's what you are, a constipated composer." That did the trick. "That made me so mad," said Barber, "that I ran out to my studio and wrote that [fugue] in the next day."
Horowitz played the work in Havana, Cuba on December 9, 1949. The official premiere took place at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 11, 1950. Glenn Gunn wrote in the Washington Times-Herald: "The sound of the instrument has not been exploited in like manner by any twentieth-century composer." Richard Keith of the Washington Post described of the last movement fugue as "one of the most musically exciting and technically brilliant pieces of writing yet turned out by an American." Later, on tour with the Sonata. Horowitz told a reporter: "This sonata is terrific... Barber's music is like him: aristocratic and full of taste, and also very American. That is why I am proud to present it."
In her definitive biography of the composer, Barbara B. Heyman writes: "...though not revolutionary in its formal structure--it adheres to traditional designs for each movement--is a monumental masterpiece of its time. Its strength lies in the remarkable alliance between long sweeping melodic ideas that are distinctive to Barber's musical imprint and the modern harmonic language and structural techniques that are idiomatic to the eclectic musical style of the twentieth century. The first movement is generated from an extraordinary economy of thematic material, and the sonata form is more aptly delineated by melodic design than by harmonic structure (the home key of E minor is not fully ascertained until the coda)....Twelve-tone rows appear in three movements, not as a rigid technique of organization but as one of many agents of in Hans Tischler's words, 'logical patterning'." As an example, she points to the third movement's "accompaniment patterns, over which a lyrical melody is fused but never in conflict with, sometimes even contributing to, the tonal structure of the movement."
Heyman calls the second movement "an evanescent, scherzolike dance movement in a rondo form....The four-voice fugue of the fourth movement may well be the most brilliant twentieth-century example of the genre. Barber uses the traditional structure...There are conventional fugal devices...but in no sense is this an academic exercise or a fossilized resurrection of the form. Syncopated rhythms and 'blue-note' harmonies associated with American jazz are integrated into the fabric of the music."

Monday January 18, 2010

2009-12-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about Saturday's concert.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor; Hiroko Okada Hellyer, Peter Hellyer, Paul Mulliken, percussion
Leonard Bernstein: Fancy Free Ballet 28:20
Russell Peck: The Glory and the Grandeur 15:22 (10/4/08)
Also, Charley anticipates Christopher Taylor's appearance with the Boulder Philharmonic Saturday.
Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No.7 in E flat major ("Eroica") & No.10 in F minor
Christopher Taylor, piano
Liszt Digital 005 7,10 10:03

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Fancy Free Ballet
I. Enter Three Sailors: Very fast four
II. Scene at the Bar: Poco meno mosso
III. Enter Two Girls: Fast and hot
IV. Pas de deux: Very slowly
V. Competition Scene: Opening tempo
VI. Three Dance Variations
Variation 1 (Galop): Presto
Variation 2 (Waltz): Allegretto grazioso
Variation 3 (Danzon): Strong, moderate
quarters
VII. Finale: Tempo come prima

One night during the fall of 1943, there was a knock on Leonard Bernstein’s door. It was dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins, who had a story outline for a one-act ballet titled Fancy Free and wanted to hear some of Bernstein’s music.
“Funny you should ask that,” Bernstein said, “because this afternoon in the Russian Tea Room I got this tune in my head and I wrote it down on a napkin.” Bernstein sang the melody, and “Jerry went through the ceiling. He said, ‘That’s it, that’s what I had in mind!’ We went crazy. I began developing the theme right there in his presence….Thus the ballet was born.”
It was Bernstein’s first ballet. He conducted the first performance at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 18, 1944. There were almost twenty curtain calls that night and more than 160 performances to follow. The press was ecstatic. “Just exactly ten degrees north of terrific,” said the New York Times. Time magazine praised the dancing, which it called “acrobatic, a specialty rhumba [danzon], soft shoe adagio, eccentric jitterbugging, knee-drops, slapstick and a violent, half-hidden free-for-all under the bar.”
Bernstein described the story in a program note: “From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly Young America of 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamp post, a side-street bar, and New York skyscrapers pricked out with a crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying background. Three sailors explode on the stage; they are on 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they first meet one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.”
It was Bernstein’s sister Shirley who recorded the blues song “Big Stuff” heard playing on a jukebox as the curtain rises. Bernstein made a suite from the ballet for a performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1945.

Russell Peck (b.1945): The Glory and the Grandeur

``I think it's very possible for people to be excited by what the orchestra has to offer,'' says Russell Peck. ``For me the orchestra offers transportation to heights, depths, mysteries, and revelations that simply are not accessible by other means.'' Since 1983 Peck has been writing works which receive frequent performances beyond their premieres.
Born in Detroit, Peck received three degrees from the University of Michigan. His teachers have included Clark Eastham, Leslie Bassett, Ross Lee Finney, Gunther Schuller and George Rochberg. He has received the Koussevitzky Prize and two Ford Foundation Fellowships, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been guest composer at the Gaudeamus Contemporary Music Festival in the Netherlands, and composer-in-residence with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. A recent Albany Records compact disk features four of his works, including The Glory and the Grandeur, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.
The Glory and the Grandeur is an exciting work both visually and musically, featuring three percussion soloists who perform in front of the orchestra. It has been greeted by standing ovations ever since its first performance by the Greensboro Symphony and The Percussion Group/Cincinnati, conducted by Paul Anthony McRae, on October 18, 1988. After a performance by the Alabama Symphony, the work was called ``the hit of the evening, drawing lots of `yips', a few `yups', and cheers from all corners of the hall.'' The Sacramento Symphony's performance prompted the remark that Peck ``continues to surprise concert hall audiences with the diversity of his talents and a willingness to risk his musical neck.''
The title, from Edgar Allen Poe, ``shouldn't be taken to imply a heavy monumentality,'' Peck says. ``The volume of sound is certainly monumental on occasion, but the intent is more to glorify and celebrate the natural glitter of percussion.''
The Glory and the Grandeur is a true show piece. At times the effect is like a ``perpetual motion,'' with players hopping from one station to another. At others, the lyric qualities of the percussion soloists are exploited, as in the ``tranquillo'' section toward the beginning. The changing location of the sound itself is the idea much of the time, especially in the opening group drum cadenza.
The three percussion soloists are busy throughout the piece. At the beginning, says Peck, ``they play rhythmic antiphony from widely separated drum stations, then gather at the metal instruments of vibraphone, bells, and Chinese cymbals and gongs. At one point in the composition all three perform together on one marimba. The finale section builds a rapid pace of color changes as the players hasten among different instruments, and concludes with the orchestra supporting a return to the spirit of the opening.''
The Glory and the Grandeur was included on WPBY's ``Symphonic Wonder Works,'' a video performance of the West Virginia Symphony's Young People's Concert in 1991. It won the Gold Award in the Music Video Stage/Concert Performance category of the 25th Annual Worldfest-Houston at The Houston International Film and Video Festival.

Friday January 15, 2010

2009-12-26T05:04:00.000-08:00

Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor; Misha Dichter and Cipa Dichter, pianists
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Air" from Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 5:12 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto in E flat major for Two Pianos, K.365 23:14
Aaron Copland: "Hoe-Down" from Rodeo (2/14/09)
Also, Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about next week's concert.
Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No.2 in A minor, No.3 in F major ("Landscape"), No.4 in D minor ("Mazeppa") & No.5 in B flat major ("Will-o'-the-wisps")
Christopher Taylor, piano
Liszt Digital 2-5 21:16

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068
II. Air

After working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach was appointed cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. He moved family and furniture in May of 1723. His job description included duties as civic director of music, and this meant numerous odious encounters with the Town Council. He complained of ``superiors who are strange people, with little regard for music.''
Some relief from his official duties came in 1729, when he was asked to direct the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a group founded 25 years earlier by Telemann. During the winter, they performed from eight to ten o'clock every Friday night at Gottfried Zimmermann's coffeehouse. In the warmer months, they moved outdoors in the garden for concerts from four to six o'clock on Wednesday afternoons.
All four of the Suites for Orchestra were played at these concerts. Apparently, the Third Suite was composed during 1730-31 in Leipzig. In 1830 Felix Mendelssohn played the Third Suite for the 80-year-old Goethe. ``He took great pleasure'' in it, Mendelssohn recalled. ``The opening was so pompous and so aristocratic, he told me, that one could clearly see a procession of elegantly dressed people descending a grand staircase.'' Mendelssohn conducted the first performance of the Suite since Bach's day on February 15, 1838 in Leipzig.
In Bach's time, a ``suite'' of dance movements was preceded by an ``Ouverture,'' after the innovations of Jean Baptiste Lully. To complicate matters, the entire sequence of movements--``Ouverture'' plus suite of dances--was also called an ``Ouverture.'' Nowadays, to complicate matters further, the entire enterprise is called a ``suite.''
After the ``Ouverture'' in the Third Suite comes the ``Air,'' made famous by August Wilhelj's arrangement for violin and piano titled ``Air on the G String.'' The work is scored for 2 oboes, 3 trumpets, timpani, strings and continuo.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Concerto in E flat major for Two Pianos, K.365 (316a)
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Rondeux: Allegro

The Concerto for Two Pianos was completed in January of 1779, shortly after Mozart returned from his visit to Paris and Mannheim. He probably intended to play it with his sister. If he did, it was a private performance and no contemporary account survives.
At the first public performance--in Vienna on November 23, 1781--the other pianist, besides Mozart, was ``the fat daughter of Herr von Aurnhammer,'' as Mozart called her.
Josephine Aurnhammer was apparently in love with Mozart, much to his consternation since at the time he was earnestly courting Constanze Weber, whom he later married. Mozart described Josephine in a letter: ``If a painter wanted to portray the devil to the life, he would have to choose her face. She is as fat as a farm-wench, perspires so that you feel inclined to vomit, and goes about so scantily clad that really you can read as plain as print: `Pray, do look here'.'' However unpleasant she may have been to look at, Mozart respected her piano-playing: ``the young lady is a fright, but plays enchantingly.''
Eric Blom says that the Concerto is ``not a great work, but technically a most attractive one by reason of the composer's joy in the special problem of coordinating two keyboards. His effects are sometimes quite unlike what could have been obtained from any other combination, as though they came from some transfigured, heavenly barrel-organ.''
Calling it ``a work of joy,'' Cuthbert Girdlestone writes: ``The tone of the work is one of dignity, worthy of expression in the presence of sovereigns. The impulsive themes of Mozart's previous concerto (K.271) have no counterparts here save in the rondo where a more `unbuttoned' gaiety, as Beethoven would have said, is always allowable; the composer's personality asserts itself more discreetly and the purely physical go of its predecessor is absent from the first movement. But if it is less full of fun, it is more graceful and of fairer countenance. The less ambitious flight is made up for by a breadth and ampleness in its themes and proportions which was lacking in the restless earlier concerto.''
The Concerto is scored for 2 pianos, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings.

Thursday January 14, 2010

2009-12-26T05:02:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Olga Kern, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead, Op.29
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43 (10/18/09)
Also, Sergei Rachmaninoff: “Serenade” from Fantasy Pieces, Op.3
Olga Kern, piano
Harmonia Mundi 907399 Track 8 3:03

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.

Wednesday January 13, 2010

2009-12-26T05:01:00.000-08:00

Colorado Music Festival
Jon Nakamatsu, piano; Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Calin Lupanu, Monica Boboc, violins; Matthew Dane, viola; Bjorn Ranheim, cello)
Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op.44 30:09 (7/17/07)
Robert Schumann (arr. Franz Liszt): Widmung (Dedication), Op.25 No. 1
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
CPR Performance Studio 042409 MS
Johannes Brahms: “Allegro appassionato” (1st movement) from Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op.120 No.1
Jon Manasse, clarinet (barefoot); Jon Nakamatsu, piano (shod), Charley Samson, page-turner (barefoot)
CPR Performance Studio 050909 MS
Frédéric Chopin: Fantasy-Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op.66 5:17
Jon Nakamatsu, piano
Strings in the Mountains Music Festival (8/17/04)
Also, Charley anticipates cellist Mary Artmann's recital this Friday in Pueblo.
Mendelssohn: "Adagio-–Allegro vivace" (1st movement) from String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 ("Ist Es Wahr?") 8:17
Veronika String Quartet (Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 031209 MS

Tuesday January 12, 2010

2009-12-26T04:58:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Belcea String Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No.7 in F major, Op.59 No.1(Rasumovsky) (10/28/09)
Also, Charley anticipates the Albers Trio's appearance at the Lakewood Cultural Center on January 21.
Gregor Piatigorsky: Variations on a Paganini Theme
Julie Albers, cello; Orion Weiss, piano
Artek 22 Track 9 14:18

In 1805 the Russian ambassador to the Viennese court, Andreas Kyrillovitch Razumovsky, commissioned Beethoven to write three string quartets. According to a later biographer, Razumovsky “lived in Vienna like a prince, encouraging art and science, surrounded by a luxurious library and other collections, and envied by all; what advantages accrued from all this to Russian affairs is another question.”
Accordingly, Beethoven’s Opus 59 Quartets are nicknamed the “Razumovsky Quartets,” with Russian themes incorporated into two of them. In his book on Beethoven’s string quartets, Joseph Kerman calls them “a trio of sharply characterized, consciously differentiated individuals.” The premieres of all three were given by Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s quartet in February, 1807.
Musicians, audiences and critics alike were impressed but mystified by the music. The violinist Felix Radicati wrote: “Beethoven, as the world says, and as I believe, is music-mad—-for these pieces are not music….I said to him that he surely did not consider these works to be music? To which he replied, ‘Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age!’”
One critic called them “deeply thought through and of excellent workmanship but not comprehensible to the public.” As late as 1821, the second quartet was called “important but…unpopular…bizarre.” In short, they were quite a departure from Beethoven’s earlier Opus 18 quartets.

Monday January 11, 2010

2009-12-26T04:56:00.000-08:00

Lakewood Cultural Center Performing Arts Series
Benny Kim, violin; Anne Epperson, piano
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Sonata No. 4 in c minor, BMV 1017 16:05
Camille Saint-Saëns: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 75 24:54 (1/31/07)
Also, Charley anticipates cellist Mary Artmann's recital this Friday in Pueblo.
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in F major, Op.18 7:05
Dmitri Shostakovich: "Allegretto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.3 in F major, Op. 73 5:13
Veronika String Quartet
(Veronika Afanassieva and Karine Garibova, violins, Ekaterina Dobrotvorskaia, viola; Mary Artmann, cello)
CPR Performance Studio 10/1/09 MS

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Violin Sonata No. 4 in c minor, BMV 1017
I. Siciliano: Largo
II. Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. 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. “I expected to end my days there at Cöthen.” Unfortunately, Prince Leopold later married a very unmusical woman and his interest in music would become, according to Bach, “somewhat tepid.”
Much of Bach’s instrumental music dates from his tenure at Cöthen (1717-1723), including a set of six sonatas for violin and keyboard, which probably date from sometime after 1720. Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nicolaus Forkel, said “they may be reckoned among Bach’s first masterpieces of this kind….The violin part demands a master. Bach knew the possibilities of this instrument, and spared it as little as he spared his clavier.”
The first five sonatas conform to the church sonata movement scheme: slow-fast-slow-fast. The violin’s melody in the opening of the fourth sonata anticipates the alto aria “Erbarme dich” from the St. Matthew Passion.
Writing in 1774, Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel counted the sonatas “among the best works of the dear late father. They sound very good even now and give me much pleasure, regardless of the fact that they are over fifty years old. There are some adagios among them which one cannot compose more melodiously at the present time.”

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 75
I. Allegro agitato--Adagio
II. Allegretto moderato--Allegro molto

“I live in music like a fish in water,” said Saint-Saëns. “I write music as an apple tree produces apples.” In an age when most French composers pursued opera, Saint-Saëns concentrated on instrumental music. Comparing himself to Georges Bizet, he remarked, “We pursue a different ideal, he seeking passion and life above all things, I running after the chimera of purity of style and perfection of form.” In 1871 Saint-Saëns founded the Société nationale de musique, whose purpose was to encourage French chamber music.
The first of his two violin sonatas was written in 1885 and dedicated to the Belgian violinist Martin-Pierre-Joseph Marsick. The two has just completed a recital tour of Switzerland and the sonata was probably a thank-you gift.
The work has two movements, each with two sections. In his liner notes to James Ehnes’s recording, Don Anderson writes, “The first half of the opening movement is restless and dramatic, lightened by a runny second theme. It segues into an Adagio of exceptional lyric sweetness. The second movement opens with a lightly dancing, scherzo-like section; a series of solemn piano chords heralds the steeple-chase virtuoso excitement of the finale.”

Friday January 8, 2010

2009-12-26T04:50:00.000-08:00

Charley talks with violinist Leila Josefowicz about her appearance with the Colorado Symphony tonight and tomorrow.
Also, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Adam Neiman, piano; Colin Jacobsen, violin; Chee-Yun, violin; Max Mandel, viola
Stravinsky: Italian Suite from Pulcinella
Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.57 (7/20/04)
And, Manuel Ponce (arr. Jascha Heifetz): Estrellita
Leila Josefowicz, violin; John Novacek, piano
Philips 462 948 Track 8 3:26

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.57
Prelude: Lento
Fugue: Adagio
Scherzo: Allegretto
Intermezzo: Lento
Finale: Allegretto

Soon after the premiere of the First String Quartet in 1938, the Beethoven Quartet asked for something they could play with Shostakovich as pianist. “I shall definitely write you a quintet and play it with you,” he said to the Quartet’s leader, Dmitry Tsiganov.
The Piano Quintet was completed on September 14, 1940, between the composition of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. The first performance took place in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on November 23, 1940. The Scherzo and Finale were encored, a practice so common that the Quintet was often described as a work “in five movements of which there are seven.” It won the Stalin Prize the following May.
"Hearing the Piano Quintet for the first time in 1941," recalled composer Bernard Stevens, "during the first great Nazi assault on the USSR, was for me a profoundly moving experience. I realized the greatness of a musical mind that could speak in such simple and direct terms….With this work Shostakovich spoke with a universal voice. No longer would the understanding of his music be in any way dependent on knowledge of and sympathy for its Soviet background.”
The opening Prelude begins with a solemn piano solo in the style of a Bach prelude. This is then answered by the quartet and followed by a restrained and serious Fugue, which starts with muted strings, later joined by the piano playing low octaves.
According to Ian MacDonald in The New Shostakovich, there are two ways to take this Quintet, either as "pure music," without any topical allusions, or as "a volatile hybrid of the abstract and representational." He points to the next three movements as perhaps reflecting the times in which it was written.
The usual meaning of scherzo as a "joke" is loaded with more allusions. "Far from being harmlessly high-spirited," he writes, "the scherzo is a clumsy rustic dance with brutal undertones….Its hammering of tell-tale repeated notes is loutish, not mischievous, and the 'wrong notes' in the piano part are as sarcastic as those in the second movement of Prokofiev's contemporary Sixth Piano Sonata. This, in other words, is another allusion to the 'revolt against intelligence'--Stalin's generation of cultureless country bullies. In the same way, the return of the keening lamentation of the first two movements in the intermezzo should move the heart--but not to the extent that the mind overlooks the menacing stalk of the piano's staccato bass-line."
"To the Jewish-Gypsy anguish of the intermezzo's closing bars, the finale responds in the manner of a kindly babushka murmuring 'never mind, never mind'--the sound of credulous self-deception (and a version of the 'betrayal' motif, itself to be found on violin in the previous movement). The second subject, announced with naïve grandeur by the piano, inverts the fanfare traditionally played to signal the coming of the clowns at Russian circuses, quickly drumming up such excited throngs of repeated notes that it loses track of its own chords. On cue, the babushka returns, drowsily reiterating 'never mind' in the bass-register of the piano like a cooing woodpigeon, before a puzzled recollection of the Quintet's intermezzo momentarily stills the music's placid motion. But the finale is too foetally asleep to be troubled by the composer's forebodings and its blandness resumes, linking arms with the 'clowns' theme and wandering dreamily off into the wings."
MacDonald relates this to Stalin's dismissal of intelligence that German forces were massing. On June 21, 1941, he said, "We are starting a panic over nothing." Six hours later, the Luftwaffe destroyed most of the Soviet air force, and 3.5 million German troops stormed the border.
In the Quintet, says MacDonald, Shostakovich "stands in storm-light at the edge of a great darkness, crying like Cassandra of coming catastrophe. Hearing him, Russia stirs vaguely in her dreams before rolling over and going back to sleep--a vision at once comic and terrible which could have come from no other composer."

Thursday January 7, 2010

2009-12-26T04:48:00.000-08:00

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 44 (10/16/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Leila Josefowicz's appearance with the Colorado Symphony this weekend.
George Gershwin (arr. Jascha Heifetz): Prelude No.2
Leila Josefowicz, violin; John Novacek, piano
Philips 462 948 Track 11 3:47
Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro molto appassionato" (1st movement) from Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
Leila Josefowicz, violin; Colorado Music Festival Orchestra/ Michael Christie
Colorado Music Festival (7/6/06) 12:47

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 44
I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio non troppo
III. Allegro

``When I compose I am a slave,'' wrote Rachmaninoff. ``Beginning at nine in the morning I allow myself no respite until after eleven at night. A poem, a picture, something concrete helps me immensely. There must be something real before my mind to convey a definite impression, or the ideas refuse to appear.''
In two separate sessions in Switzerland in 1935 and 1936, the ideas appeared for the Third Symphony. It had been almost thirty years since his last symphony.
Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced the work on November 6, 1936. The reviews were mixed. The Symphony was praised for its ``sincerity and personal accent,'' its ``technique and skill in orchestration,'' and its ``impassioned stress.'' However, one review called it ``a chewing over again of something that never had importance to start with.''
Rachmaninoff was resigned. ``The critics are not helpful,'' he told a reporter. ``When my first symphony was first played they said it was so-so. Then when my second was played they said the first was good, but the second was so-so. Now that my third has been played, they say my first and second are good but that my--oh, well, you see how it is.''
When Sir Henry Wood conducted the Third Symphony in Liverpool, he wrote: ``The work impresses me as being of the true Russian romantic school; one cannot get away from the beauty and melodic line of the themes and their logical development. As did Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff uses the instruments of the orchestra to their fullest effect. Those lovely little phrases for solo violin, echoed on the four solo woodwind instruments, have a magical effect in the slow movement. I am convinced that Rachmaninoff's children will see their father's third symphony take its rightful place in the affection of that section of the public which loves melody.''
Biographer Geoffrey Norris writes: ``Of all Rachmaninoff's late works, the Third Symphony is the one that most resolutely looks back to his mature Russian years in the impassioned turn of the phrases, the rich string writing and the soaring cello tunes. The Third is pervaded by a pithy, chant-like motto theme, heard in the opening bars on clarinets, horns and cellos. But the Third differs from his other symphonies in having only three movements, with a sharp-edged scherzo incorporated into the central slow movement. It is here, and in the buoyant finale, that we can detect certain stylistic features peculiar to the works of his later years: a rhythmic crispness, a pungent spice to the harmonies and a sparer, more discriminating use of the orchestra, with particular attention being paid to the percussion and to the individual tone qualities of solo instruments. Running through the whole symphony, though, is Rachmaninoff's unmistakable strain of nostalgia and Slavic melancholy, here so pronounced that we may perhaps regard the Third Symphony as the most Russian-sounding of them all.''
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, flutes, English horn, clarinets, bassoons, contrabassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta and strings.

Wednesday January 6, 2010

2009-12-26T04:46:00.000-08:00

Colorado Music Festival
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor; Glenn Einschlag, bassoon
Richard Wagner: Siegfried Idyll 19:42
Marjan Mozetich: Concerto for Bassoon and Strings with Marimba 21:47 (7/15/07)
Also, Charley anticipates Leila Josefowicz's master class at the Lamont School of Music tomorrow and her appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Friday and Saturday.
Felix Mendelssohn: 1st movement from String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op.80
(Leila Josefowicz, violin; Jennifer Koh, violin; Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola; Thomas Kraines, cello)
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival (7/8/03)
John Novacek: "Intoxication" & "Full Stride Ahead" from Four Rags
Leila Josefowicz, violin; John Novacek, piano
Philips 462 948 1,4 3:27

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Siegfried Idyll
Siegfried Idyll was written as a surprise present for Wagner's bride Cosima on her thirty-third birthday. It also celebrated the birth of their first son Siegfried.
The first performance took place on Christmas Day, 1870 on the staircase of the Wagners' villa at ``Triebschen'' near Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Wagner had organized a small band of musicians, who rehearsed in secret and crept into the house at 7:30 in the morning to awaken the sleeping Cosima with the music. By a strange coincidence, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was a house guest at the time.
Cosima was stunned. ``As I awoke,'' she later recalled, ``my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming: music was sounding, and such music! When it died away, Richard came into my room with the children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was in tears, but so was all the rest of the household.''
The original title for the work was Triebschen Idyll, with Fidi's Bird Song and Orange Sunrise, presented as a Symphonic Birthday Greeting to his Cosima by her Richard, 1870. ``Fidi'' was the parents' nickname for young Siegfried. ``Orange sunrise'' refers to the wallpaper in Cosima's bedroom.
After its initial early morning performance, Siegfried Idyll was played twice more during that Christmas Day in 1870. The assembled musicians also played the Wedding March from Lohengrin and a sextet by Beethoven.
Wagner considered the music too personal for public performance, but in 1878 money worries forced him to sell it. Cosima wrote in her diary: ``My secret treasure is becoming common property; may the joy it will give mankind be commensurate with the sacrifice that I am making.''
Various themes in Siegfried Idyll date back to 1864, so it was the opera Siegfried that borrowed from the Idyll, and not the reverse, as is often supposed. The Idyll also contains the German folk song Schlaf', Kindchen, schlafe (Sleep, Little Child, Sleep).

Tuesday January 5, 2010

2009-12-26T04:44:00.000-08:00

Friends of Chamber Music
Belcea String Quartet 
Franz Josef Haydn:String Quartet No. 25 in C major, Op. 20, No. 2, Hob.III:32
 Benjamin Britten: String Quartet No.3, Op.94 (10/28/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Chee-Yun's recital at the Vilar Performing Arts Center tomorrow.
Bach: "Allegro" (3rd movement) from Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
(Anthea Kreston, Chee-Yun, solo violins; Henry Gronnier, Timothy Fain, violins; Thomas Diener, viola; Eric Gaenslen, cello; Peter Lloyd, double bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord)
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival (7/29/03) 5:11 From Vail 11.
Jules Massenet: Meditation from Thaïs
Chee-Yun, violin; Akira Eguchi, piano
Denon 17473 Track 13 4:29

Monday January 4, 2010

2009-12-26T04:43:00.001-08:00

Lakewood Cultural Center Performing Arts Series
Claremont Trio
Franz Josef Haydn: Piano Trio in E major, Hob.XV:28 16:52
Leon Kirchner: Piano Trio No. 2 17:10 (3/22/07)
Also, Charley anticipates Chee-Yun's recital at the Vilar Performing Arts Center Wednesday.
Felix Mendelssohn: "Andante espressivo" (2nd movement), "Scherzo: Molto allergro quasi presto" (3rd movement) & "Finale: Allegro appassionatao" (4th movement) from Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op.66
Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Ensemble (Wendy Chen, piano; Chee Yun, violin; Andres Diaz, cello) 17:00 (3/1/06)

Thursday December 31, 2009

2009-12-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve Beethoven Bash

7:00pm Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Opus 55 (Eroica)
Berlin Philharmonic / Herbert von Karajan
DG 429036 50:03
7:53pm Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60
Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
35:19 (7/10/08)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 1 in C major, Opus 21
I. Adagio molto; Allegro con brio
II. Andante cantabile con moto
III. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
IV. Adagio; Allegro molto e vivace

Sketches for the finale of Beethoven's First Symphony were found amongst counterpoint exercises for his teacher, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, dating from 1794. Most of the writing probably took place during the year before the first performance, on April 2, 1800 in Vienna.
The newspapers noted that ``Herr Ludwig van Beethoven will have the honor to give a grand concert for his benefit in the Royal Imperial Court Theater.'' The program also contained a Mozart symphony, two excerpts from Haydn's The Creation, Beethoven's Septet and one of the first two piano concertos, as well as improvisations at the piano by Beethoven. ``A new grand symphony with complete orchestra, composed by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven'' was listed last. It must have been a long evening. The concert started at 6:30 and probably didn't end until around 10:00.
A review mentioned that ``at the end one of his symphonies was performed in which there is considerable art, novelty and a wealth of ideas. The only flaw was that the wind instruments were used too much, so that the symphony is more like a piece for military band than a real orchestral work.'' The writer noted how badly the orchestra played: ``The faults of this orchestra...became all the more evident since Beethoven's compositions are difficult to execute....How, under such circumstances, is even the most excellent composition to be effective?''
A critic of the Leipzig performance two years later described the work as ``intellectual, powerful, original and difficult, but here and there somewhat over-rich in detail.'' By 1805, when the Eroica Symphony was terrifying musical conservatives, the same critic regarded the First as a ``noble work of art. All the instruments are splendidly used, an unusual wealth of ideas is magnificently and gracefully displayed and yet consistency, order and light reign throughout.''
The supposed dissonance that begins the First Symphony horrified the French critics, who said that Beethoven's music ``was a peril to art.'' Berlioz, for one, disagreed: ``This work, by its form, melodic style and harmonic and instrumental sobriety, is altogether distinct from the other compositions of Beethoven that succeeded it. The composer evidently remained under the influence of Mozart's ideas while writing it; these he sometimes enlarges but he everywhere imitates with ingenuity.''
In his book on the Beethoven symphonies, George Grove wrote: ``The finish and care observable throughout the work are very great. Beethoven began with the determination, which stuck to him during his life, not only of thinking good thoughts, but of expressing them with as much clearness and intelligibility as labour could effect; and this Symphony is full of instances of such thoughtful pains.''
Beethoven had originally intended to dedicate the First Symphony to his former employer in Bonn, the Elector Maximilian Franz. But the Elector died before publication and the dedication was changed to Baron van Swieten, the great friend of Mozart and Haydn.
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 36
I. Adagio molto; Allegro con brio
II. Larghetto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro molto

Sketches for the Second Symphony date from as early as 1800. Most of the work was done during the summer and fall of 1802, about the time that Beethoven realized the “roaring” in his ears would lead to total deafness.
The first performance took place in Vienna on April 5, 1803. It was a typically mammoth all-Beethoven concert. Besides the Second Symphony, the program included the First Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives.
Rehearsals began at eight that same morning. According to an eyewitness, “it was a terrible rehearsal, and at half past two everybody was exhausted and more or less dissatisfied. Prince Karl Lichnowsky (one of Beethoven’s patrons)…had sent for bread and butter, cold meat and wine, in large baskets. He pleasantly asked all to help themselves, and this was done with both hands, the result being that good nature was restored again.”
After the premiere, the Second Symphony was criticized for its “striving for the new and surprising.” A Leipzig performance a year later moved one reviewer to describe the work as “a gross enormity, an immense wounded snake, unwilling to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, though bleeding to death, furiously beats about with its tail in the finale.” But for Hector Berlioz, “in this symphony, everything is noble, energetic, proud.”
In his book on the Beethoven symphonies, George Grove wrote: “The Second Symphony is a great advance on the First….The advance is more in dimensions and style, and in the wonderful fire and force of the treatment, than in any really new ideas, such as its author afterwards introduced and are specially connected in our minds with the name of Beethoven….The first movement is distinctly of the old world, though carried out with a spirit, vigor, and effect, and occasionally with a caprice, which are nowhere surpassed, if indeed they are equaled, by Haydn and Mozart. Nor is there anything in the extraordinary grace, beauty, and finish of the Larghetto to alter this…nor in the Finale, grotesque and strong as much of it is: it is all still of the old world, till we come to the Coda, and that, indeed, is distinctly of the other order.”
Grove regards the Second Symphony as “the culminating point of the old pre-Revolution world, the world of Haydn and Mozart; it was the farthest point to which Beethoven could go before he burst into that wonderful new region into which no man had before penetrated, of which no man had even dreamed, but which is now one of our dearest possessions, and will always be known by his immortal name.”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Opus 55 (Eroica)
I. Allegro con brio
II. Marcia funèbre: Adagio assai
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
IV. Finale: Allegro molto

As early as the spring of 1798, so the legend goes, the French ambassador to Vienna, General Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, suggested that Beethoven write a symphony about Napoleon Bonaparte. At the time, Napoleon was one of Beethoven's idols, but it wasn't until 1801 that the composer first sketched ``Third Symphony, written on Bonaparte.'' He worked on it during 1803 in the countryside near Vienna and finished during the spring of 1804.
The title page originally read ``Grand Symphony composed on Bonaparte.'' But in May, 1804, Beethoven heard the news that Napoleon had proclaimed himself Emperor. Beethoven flew into a rage, tore up the title page, and bellowed: ``Is he too no more than a mere mortal? Now he will trample on all the rights of man, and indulge only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others, become a tyrant!'' He later gave the symphony a new title, ``heroic symphony to celebrate the memory of a great man,'' and dedicated it to his patron Prince Lobkowitz.
After several private performances, the Third Symphony received its first public performance in Vienna on April 7, 1805. One critic found the work ``strident and bizarre,'' but another recognized ``the true style of really great music.'' The Director of the Prague Conservatory banned the piece as a ``dangerously immoral composition.''
When the Third Symphony was published, Beethoven included a note, requesting that ``this Symphony, being purposely written much longer than is usual, should be performed nearer the beginning rather than at the end of a concert...if it is heard too late it will lose for the listener, already tired out by previous performances, its own proposed effect.'' At the première, one heckler in the audience exclaimed, ``I'd give a kreutzer with pleasure if it would only end.'' But others were undeterred by the size of the Third Symphony. Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia once insisted on hearing it three times in a single evening.
Paul Henry Lang called the Eroica ``one of the incomprehensible deeds in arts and letters, the greatest single step made by an individual composer in the history of the symphony and the history of music in general.'' For Richard Wagner, ``the first movement embraces, as in a glowing furnace, all the emotions of a richly-gifted nature in the heyday of unresting youth.'' When, in 1821, Beethoven heard the news of Napoleon's death, he remarked: ``Well, I've written the funeral oration for that catastrophe seventeen years ago,'' referring to the second movement, a funeral march. Donald Francis Tovey said the third movement is ``the first in which Beethoven fully attained Haydn's desire to replace the minuet by something on a scale comparable to the rest of a great symphony.'' The Finale is a set of twelve variations on a tune Beethoven first used in a little country dance in 1801, then again in The Creatures of Prometheus ballet and also in the Eroica Variations for piano. Edward Downes comments that ``each variation is a little cosmos in itself and the sum of them is overwhelming.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

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.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro

“So often heard,” Robert Schumann wrote of the Fifth Symphony, “it still exercises its power over all ages, just as those great phenomena of nature that, no matter how often they recur, fill us with awe and wonder. This Symphony will go on centuries hence, as long as the world and world's music endure.”
According to Beethoven's biographer, Alexander Thayer, “this wondrous work was no sudden inspiration. Themes for (three of the movements) are found in sketchbooks belonging, at the very latest, to the years 1800 and 1801.” After interrupting himself to write the Fourth Symphony, Beethoven finished the Fifth in the spring of 1808.
Beethoven conducted the first performance at a typically massive all-Beethoven concert in Vienna on December 22, 1808. Besides the Fifth, the program included the Sixth Symphony, the concert aria Ah, Perfido, two movements from the Mass in C major, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy. One listener 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 still more of a loud....Many a failure in the performance vexed our patience in the highest degree.”
“In spite of several faults which I could not prevent,” said Beethoven, “the public received everything most enthusiastically.” Critic Amadeus Wendt wrote: “Beethoven's music inspires in its listeners awe, fear, horror, pain, and that exquisite nostalgia that is the soul of romanticism.” E.T.A. Hoffmann called the Fifth “one of the most important works of the master whose position in the first rank of composers of instrumental music can now be denied by no one....It is a concept of genius, executed with profound deliberation, which in a very high degree brings the romantic content of the music to expression.”
In 1830, Mendelssohn played the first movement on the piano for Goethe, who said: “It is tremendous--quite crazy--one is almost afraid the house will collapse; and imagine how it must sound in the orchestra!” Of the celebrated four notes that begin the movement, Beethoven is supposed to have said: “Thus Fate knocks at the door.” Much has been made of this remark, most of it nonsense. Pointing to the same four notes in the Fourth Piano Concerto, theorist Heinrich Schenker wondered, “Was this another door on which Fate knocked or was someone else knocking at the same door?” By coincidence, the rhythm of the four notes corresponds to the Morse code for the letter “V.” That, coupled with Winston Churchill's “V for Victory” gesture, inspired the BBC to use the phrase as a signature during World War II.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey compared the second movement to Shakespeare's heroines, for “the same courage, the same beauty of goodness, and the same humor.” Berlioz claimed that the third movement produces “the inexplicable emotion that one experiences under the magnetic gaze of certain individuals.” With the finale, writes George Grove, “all the noisy elements at Beethoven's command in those simpler days (burst) like a thunder-clap into the major key and into a triumphal march.”
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani and strings.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 6 in F major, Opus 68 (Pastoral)
I. Allegro ma non troppo (Awakening of Cheerful Feelings on Arriving in the Country)
II. Andante molto mosso (Scene by the Brook)
III. Allegro (Merry Gathering of Country Folk)
IV. Allegro (Thunderstorm, Tempest)
V. Allegretto (Shepherd's Song, Happy, Thankful Feelings after the Storm)

``How glad I am to be able to roam in wood and thicket, among the trees and flowers and rocks. No one can love the country as I do,'' wrote Beethoven. ``My bad hearing does not trouble me here. In the country, every tree seems to speak to me, say `Holy! Holy!' In the woods, there is enchantment which expresses all things.''
Beethoven's thoughts on imitating Nature in music were scribbled in the sketches for his Sixth Symphony as early as 1803. ``All painting in instrumental music is lost if it is pushed too far,'' he scribbled. ``Anyone who has an idea of country-life can make out for himself the intentions of the composer without many titles.'' During the summer of 1808, he finished his Pastorale Symphony, or Recollections of Country Life, complete with programmatic titles for all five movements.
Beethoven conducted the first performance at a typically massive all-Beethoven concert in Vienna on December 22, 1808. Besides the Sixth, the program included the Fifth Symphony, the concert aria Ah, Perfido, two movements from the C major Mass, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy. One listener 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 still more of a loud....Many a failure in the performance vexed our patience in the highest degree.''
Beethoven cautioned against taking the movement titles too literally. In a letter to his publisher, he described the Sixth as ``an expression of feeling rather than a description.''
Nevertheless, Hector Berlioz, for one, imagined very specific activities when hearing the opening movement, ``Awakening of Cheerful Feelings on Arriving in the Country.'' ``The herdsmen begin to appear in the fields,'' he wrote, ``their pipes are heard afar and near. Ravishing phrases caress one's ears deliciously, like perfumed morning breezes. Flocks of chattering birds fly overhead; and now and then the atmosphere seems laden with vapors; heavy clouds flit across the face of the sun, then suddenly disappear, and its rays flood the fields and woods with torrents of dazzling splendour.''
Anton Schindler described being taken by Beethoven to a valley near Heiligenstadt. ``Here I composed the `Scene by the Brook' (second movement),'' he said, ``and the yellowhammers up there, the quails, nightingales and cuckoos round about, composed with me.'' Modern ornithologists maintain that Beethoven's ``yellowhammer song'' is incorrect, if anything resembling more the buzzing of insects.
Schindler said that the third movement, ``Merry Gathering of Country Folk,'' was inspired by Austrian tavern bands. ``Beethoven asked me if I had not observed how village musicians often played in their sleep, occasionally letting their instruments fall and remaining entirely quiet, then awakening with a start, throwing in a few vigorous blows or strokes at a venture, but generally in the right key, and then falling asleep again: he had tried to copy these poor people in his Pastorale Symphony.''
Berlioz wrote of the fourth movement (``Thunderstorm, Tempest''): ``Listen to those gusts of wind, laden with rain; those sepulchral groanings of the basses; those shrill whistles of the piccolo, which announce that a fearful tempest is about to burst. The hurricane approaches, swells; an immense chromatic streak, starting from the highest notes of the orchestra, goes burrowing down into its lowest depths, seizes the basses, carries them along, and ascends again, writhing like a whirlwind, which levels everything in its passage. Then the trombones burst forth; the thunder of the timpani redoubles its fury. It is no longer merely a wind and rain storm: it is a frightful cataclysm, the universal deluge, the end of the world.''
Berlioz called the finale (``Shepherd's Song, Happy Thankful Feelings after the Storm'') ``a hymn of gratitude. Everything smiles. The shepherds reappear; they answer each other on the mountain, recalling their scattered flocks; the sky is serene; the torrents soon cease to flow; calmness returns, and with it the rustic songs, whose gentle melodies bring repose to the soul.''
Donald Francis Tovey cautioned against the interpretive excesses of Berlioz and others. ``In the whole symphony,'' he wrote, ``there is not a note of which the musical value would be altered if cuckoos and nightingales, and country folk, and thunder and lightning, and the howling and whistling of the wind, were things that had never been named by man, either in connection with music or with anything else.''
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani and strings.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92
I. Poco sostenuto; Vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto; Assai meno presto
IV. Allegro con brio

Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was completed in the late spring or early summer of 1812. It wasn't performed publicly until December 8, 1813 at a concert in Vienna to benefit wounded Austrian and Bavarian soldiers. Also on the program was Beethoven's Wellington's Victory.
Beethoven himself conducted. The composer Ludwig Spohr described the scene: ``The execution was quite masterly, despite the uncertain and often ridiculous conducting of Beethoven....It is a sad misfortune for anyone to be deaf; how then should a musician endure it without despair? Beethoven's almost continual melancholy was no longer a riddle to me.''
A review of the concert reported that the Symphony ``deserved the loud applause and the exceptionally good performance it received....This symphony...is the richest melodically and the most pleasing and comprehensible of all Beethoven symphonies.'' Beethoven regarded the Seventh as ``among my best works.''
Not everyone shared Beethoven's opinion. After a performance in Leipzig, Clara Schumann's father suggested that the music could only have been written by someone who was very, very drunk. When the Seventh was played before the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Carl Maria von Weber remarked that Beethoven was ``now quite ripe for the madhouse.'' Twelve years later, Weber conducted the London Philharmonic's performance of the Beethoven Seventh. Apparently Weber had changed his mind about the piece.
It was Wagner who dubbed the Seventh ``the apotheosis of the dance, the dance in its highest condition, the happiest realization of the movements of the body in ideal form.'' He wrote: ``If anyone plays the Seventh, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, aye, the children in the cradle, fall to dancing!'' Wagner once demonstrated his theory by dancing to the Seventh Symphony, accompanied by Franz Liszt at the piano.
``It would require more than a technical yardstick to measure the true proportion of this Symphony--the sense of immensity which it conveys,'' writes John N. Burk. ``Beethoven seems to have built up this impression by willfully driving a single rhythmic figure through each movement, until the music attains (particularly in the body of the first movement, and in the Finale) a swift propulsion, an effect of cumulative growth which is akin to extraordinary size.''
After a long introduction, the opening movement launches into a persistent rhythmic propulsion that Ernest Walker found virtually unparalleled elsewhere. The second movement, according to Marion M. Scott, is ``marvelous...full of melancholy beauty.'' Beethoven's biographer Alexander Thayer says the trio of the third movement is based on an Austrian pilgrims' hymn. In the Finale, George Grove discovered ``a vein of rough, hard, personal boisterousness, the same feeling which inspired the strange jests, puns and nicknames which abound in his letters.''
There is a story about Beethoven wandering around the park after the 1814 performance of the Seventh. He stopped to buy cherries from two young maids, who said: ``There is no charge to you. We were at the concert and heard your beautiful music!''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 8 in F major, Opus 93
I. Allegro vivace e con brio
II. Allegretto scherzando
III. Tempo di menuetto
IV. Allegro vivace

The year 1812 found Beethoven in ill health. His doctor advised treatment at the Bohemian baths at Teplitz. Beethoven did so, and on his way home, stopped at Linz to visit his brother Johann. There, in October, he finished his Eighth Symphony, which had been rattling around in his brain and sketchbooks for over a year.
Beethoven’s patron Archduke Rudolf arranged a private performance the following year in Vienna. The first public performance took place on February 27, 1814, also in Vienna. Also on the program that night were the Seventh Symphony, a vocal trio and Wellington’s Victory.
The Eighth was not well received. One review said: “The greatest interest of the listeners seemed centered on this the newest product of Beethoven’s muse, and expectation was tense, but this was not sufficiently gratified after the single hearing, and the applause which it received was not accompanied by that enthusiasm which distinguishes a work which gives universal delight; in short, it did not create a furor.” Beethoven maintained that the Eighth Symphony was unloved “because it is so much better” than the Seventh. He would often refer to his Eighth as “my little symphony in F.”
Wagner regarded the work as “characteristic of the man, mingling tragedy with farce and a Herculean vigor with the games and caprices of a child.”
In his book on the Beethoven symphonies, Sir George Grove wrote: “At this time of life (41) his love of fun and practical joking had increased so much in him as to have become a habit; his letters are full of jokes; he bursts into horse-laughs on every occasion; makes the vilest puns, and bestows the most execrable nicknames….He had an express term for this state of things: `unbuttoned’ was his own word for it….The work might with propriety be called the Humorous Symphony--often terribly humorous; for the atmosphere of broad rough enjoyment which pervades the first and last movements is in the former darkened by bursts of unmistakable wrath.”
The second movement is based on a canon Beethoven had written the previous spring for Johann Mälzel, who claimed to have invented of the metronome. Hence, the ticking accompaniment in the music.
Describing the Symphony as “frankly a little darling--happiness incarnate and a masterpiece of character and conciseness,” biographer Marion M. Scott calls the third movement “a delicious blend of beauty and humor, where the bassoon solo completes the enchantment, and the whole movement is very Viennese in the easy sway of the tunes. The opening of the finale is typical Beethoven, with immense vitality in the rhythms and violent dynamic contrasts. The second subject, however, is a piece of pure loveliness that rises suddenly into view by one of those step-of-one-degree harmonic transitions that Beethoven uses when he has something most special to say.”
The score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, as well as timpani and strings.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125 ("Choral")
I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
II. Molto Vivace--Presto--Molto Vivace
III. Adagio molto e cantabile--Andante moderato
IV. Allegro assai

As early as 1793, Beethoven was thinking of setting Friedrich von Schiller's Ode to Joy to music. A friend reported to the poet's sister that ``he intends to set Schiller's Ode stanza by stanza, and I expect something great as he is devoted to the lofty and sublime.'' Beethoven's notebooks record ``disjointed fragments from Schiller's Ode,'' but nothing much came of the project for some time.
Meanwhile, the theme for what would later become the second movement of the Ninth Symphony appeared in 1815. His pupil Carl Czerny claimed that the tune occurred to him while listening to the twittering of sparrows. The violinist Karl Holz maintained that Beethoven was inspired by the idea of gnomes popping in and out of their hiding places in the forest.
Three years later, Beethoven was planning a ``pious song in a symphony in the ancient modes.'' Later, he told the critic Friedrich Rochlitz: ``I have been thinking for some time about three more great works. A lot of it is all ready--in my head, of course. First I must get the following off my chest: two great symphonies, each different from my others, and an oratorio.'' Eventually, the two symphonies would merge into one, and the oratorio would become the Missa Solemnis.
``It is long since I have been able to bring myself to write easily,'' Beethoven complained in 1822. ``I sit and think and think. The ideas are there, but they will not go down on paper. I dread the beginning of large works. Once begun, it's all right.'' That year, he sketched the opening movement of the Ninth and was again toying with the Schiller Ode as a finale.
That same year the London Philharmonic Society commissioned a symphony from Beethoven, who welcomed the opportunity to compose ``for the first artists of Europe....Beethoven can compose, God be thanked--though he can do nothing else in this world.''
On August 16, 1823, Beethoven wrote to his nephew: ``Today I really began my service to the Muses.'' He was finally composing the Ninth Symphony in earnest. He had doubts about the choral finale, though, and sketched a ``finale instrumentale.'' This music would later become the last movement of the A minor string quartet (Op. 132).
The Schiller Ode eventually prevailed. Beethoven's friend Anton Schindler reported: ``When he reached the development of the fourth movement there began a struggle such as is seldom seen. The object was to find a proper manner of introducing Schiller's Ode. One day entering the room he exclaimed `I have it! I have it!' With that he showed me the sketchbook bearing the words, `Let us sing the song of the immortal Schiller,' whereupon a solo voice began directly the hymn, to joy.''
By early 1823, the Ninth was finished. Despite his promises to the London Philharmonic, it was put into rehearsal in Vienna. The contralto soloist, Karoline Unger, called Beethoven a ``tyrant over all the vocal organs'' to his face. He refused to change a note. Whereupon she turned to the soprano and remarked, ``Well, then we must go on torturing ourselves in the name of God.''
The first performance took place on May 7, 1824. Beethoven, completely deaf, sat in the middle of the orchestra, with a score. The conductor, Michael Umlauf, instructed the orchestra and chorus to ``pay no attention whatever to Beethoven's beating of the time.''
Sir George Grove later talked to Fräulein Unger and gave the following account: ``The master, though placed in the midst of this confluence of music, heard nothing of it at all and was not even sensible of the applause of the audience at the end of his great work, but continued standing with his back to the audience, and beating the time, till Fräulein Unger turned him, or induced him to turn around and face the people, who were still clapping their hands, and giving way to the greatest demonstrations of pleasure. His turning around, and the sudden conviction thereby forced on everybody that he had not done so before because he could not hear what was going on, acted like an electric shock on all present, and a volcanic explosion of sympathy and admiration followed, which was repeated again and again, and seemed as if it would never end.'' Anton Schindler told Beethoven later, ``the whole audience was impressed, crushed by the greatness of your work.''
Sir Donald Francis Tovey writes: ``The great problem for Beethoven in the composition of the Ninth Symphony was obviously that of providing a motive for the appearance of the chorus. The general scheme of the whole symphony as a setting for Schiller's Ode is simple and satisfactory enough. The first movement gives us the tragedy of life. The second movement gives us the reaction from tragedy to a humor that cannot be purely joyful.... The slow movement is beauty of an order too sublime for a world of action; it has no action, and its motion is that of the stars in their courses....But it is a fundamental principle in Beethoven's art that triumph is to be won in the light of common day....Beethoven's plan is to remind us of the first three movements just as they have been described above; and to reject them one by one as failing to attain the joy in which he believes. After all three have been rejected, a new theme is to appear, and that theme shall be hailed and sung as the Hymn of Joy.''
The Ninth Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings.

Text for Choral Finale

(Baritone Solo, Quartet and Chorus)
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere
anstimmen, und freudenvollere!

(O Friends, no more of these
sad tones! Let us rather
raise our voices together
in more pleasant and joyful tones!)

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

(Joy, thou shining spark of God,
Daughter of Elysium!
With fiery rapture, Goddess,
We approach thy shrine.
Your magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted,
All men will become brothers
Under your protective wing.)

Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freudes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesen Bund!

(Let the man who has had the fortune
To be a helper to his friend.
And the man who has won a noble woman,
Join in our chorus of jubilation!
Yes, even if he holds but one soul
As his own in all the world!
But let the man who knows nothing of this
Steal away alone and in sorrow.)

Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht von Gott!

(All the world's creatures draw
Draughts of joy from Nature's breast
Both the just and the unjust
Follow in her gentle footsteps.
She gave us kisses and wine
And a friend loyal unto death;
She gave the joy of life to the lowliest,
And to the angels who dwell with God.)

(Tenor Solo and Chorus)
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen.

(Joyous, as His suns speed
Through the glorious order of Heaven,
Hasten, Brothers, on your way
Of joyous deeds to victory.)

(Chorus)
Seid umschlungen Millionen!
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!
Brüder! Über'm Sternenzelt
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stüzt nieder Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.

(Be embraced, all ye Millions!
With a kiss for all the world!
Brothers, beyond the stars
Surely dwells a loving Father.
Do you kneel before him, O Millions?
Do you feel the Creator's presence?
Seek him beyond the stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.)