Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Astor Piazzolla: Four, for Tango
Steven Copes, Stefan Hersh, violins; Virgina Barron, viola; Bion Tsang, cello 10:17
György Ligeti: Ballade and Dance
Stefan Hersh and Scott Yoo, violins 3:50
Paul Hindemith: Octet
Steven Copes, violin; Phillip Ying and Virginia Barron, violas; David Ying, cello; Susan Cahill, bass; Bil Jackson, clarinet; Michael Kroth, bassoon; Michael Thornton, horn 29:40
Also, Charley talks with conductor Ron Williams of the Broomfield Choral Festival, and two cast members from their production of H.M.S. Pinafore, Abbey Kochevar and Ian Martin.
Gilbert & Sullivan: Excerpts from H.M.S. Pinafore
Thomas Allen, Rebecca Evans; Welsh National Opera Orchestra & Chorus/ Charles Mackerras
Telarc 80374
Moreover, Charley anticipates David Korevaar's recital with The Clavier Trio Tuesday.
Frédéric Chopin: Etude in D flat major, Op.25 No. 8
David Korevaar, piano
KVOD Performance Studio 062408 MS
Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday August 26, 2009
Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op.68 (Pastoral) 44:34 (7/6/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Moab Music Festival in September.
Johannes Brahms: 2 Songs, Op.91
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Leslie Tomkins, viola; Michael Barrett, piano
Moab Music Festival (9/12/97) 12:14
A program note for the idly curious:
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.
Michael Christie, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op.68 (Pastoral) 44:34 (7/6/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Moab Music Festival in September.
Johannes Brahms: 2 Songs, Op.91
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Leslie Tomkins, viola; Michael Barrett, piano
Moab Music Festival (9/12/97) 12:14
A program note for the idly curious:
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.
Tuesday August 25, 2009
National Repertory Orchestra, Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra
Gerhardt Zimmermann, conductor
Olivier Messiaen: Forgotten Offerings 11:06
Ottorino Respighi: The Pines of Rome 22:39 (7/23/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Moab Music Festival in September.
Antonin Dvořák: “Andantino, con variazioni” (2nd movement) from Piano Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op.23
Marija Stroke, piano; Adela Peña, violin; Leslie Tomkins, viola; Tanya Tomkins, cello
Moab Music Festival (9/2/2000) 10:04
Felix Mendelssohn: “Molto allegro agitato” (1st movement) from Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op.49
Paul Hersh, piano; Cenovia Cummins, violin; Dorothy Lawson, cello
Moab Music Festival (9/12/97) 9:30
A program note for idly curious:
Mendelssohn's two piano trios were a long time in coming. Sometime before his eleventh birthday, he wrote a piano trio, but it has never been discovered. From Paris in 1832, he wrote to his sister Fanny of his intention to write ``a couple of good trios.'' And again, from a letter to Ferdinand Hiller in 1838: ``A very important kind of piano music of which I am especially fond--trios, quartets, and other pieces with accompaniment--is quite forgotten now....With that in mind, I recently wrote the violin sonata and one for cello, and I am thinking next of writing a couple of trios.''
A year after this remark, during the summer of 1839, he finished the D minor Trio. It was wildly successful. Robert Schumann called it ``the master trio of the age, as were the B flat and D major trios of Beethoven and the E flat trio of Schubert in their times.''
In his book on chamber music, Melvin Berger describes the first movement as ``a glorious outpouring of melody,'' in which two themes, both first heard in the cello part, ``express ardor and nobility in equal measure.'' The second movement is a kind of Song Without Words with additional strings. Berger calls the Scherzo as ``a movement of delicacy, charm, and elfin grace.'' Unlike many scherzos, this one has no trio section. In the Finale, two themes with a characteristic rhythm are contrasted with a song-like theme for the cello.
Gerhardt Zimmermann, conductor
Olivier Messiaen: Forgotten Offerings 11:06
Ottorino Respighi: The Pines of Rome 22:39 (7/23/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Moab Music Festival in September.
Antonin Dvořák: “Andantino, con variazioni” (2nd movement) from Piano Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op.23
Marija Stroke, piano; Adela Peña, violin; Leslie Tomkins, viola; Tanya Tomkins, cello
Moab Music Festival (9/2/2000) 10:04
Felix Mendelssohn: “Molto allegro agitato” (1st movement) from Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op.49
Paul Hersh, piano; Cenovia Cummins, violin; Dorothy Lawson, cello
Moab Music Festival (9/12/97) 9:30
A program note for idly curious:
Mendelssohn's two piano trios were a long time in coming. Sometime before his eleventh birthday, he wrote a piano trio, but it has never been discovered. From Paris in 1832, he wrote to his sister Fanny of his intention to write ``a couple of good trios.'' And again, from a letter to Ferdinand Hiller in 1838: ``A very important kind of piano music of which I am especially fond--trios, quartets, and other pieces with accompaniment--is quite forgotten now....With that in mind, I recently wrote the violin sonata and one for cello, and I am thinking next of writing a couple of trios.''
A year after this remark, during the summer of 1839, he finished the D minor Trio. It was wildly successful. Robert Schumann called it ``the master trio of the age, as were the B flat and D major trios of Beethoven and the E flat trio of Schubert in their times.''
In his book on chamber music, Melvin Berger describes the first movement as ``a glorious outpouring of melody,'' in which two themes, both first heard in the cello part, ``express ardor and nobility in equal measure.'' The second movement is a kind of Song Without Words with additional strings. Berger calls the Scherzo as ``a movement of delicacy, charm, and elfin grace.'' Unlike many scherzos, this one has no trio section. In the Finale, two themes with a characteristic rhythm are contrasted with a song-like theme for the cello.
Monday August 24, 2009
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in C major for violin, 2 cellos and strings, RV 561
Daniel Ching, violin; Eric Gaenslen, Joshua Gindele, cellos; Sandy Yamamoto, Henry Gronnier, violins; John Largess, viola; Jonathan Brin, cello; Owen Lee, double bass, Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:21
Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso in C minor, Op.6 No. 3
Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 12:00
Antonio Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in D major, RV 428 (Goldfinch)
Eugenia Zukerman, flute; Timothy Fain, Henry Gronnier, violins; Thomas Diener, viola; Eric Gaenslen, cello; Owen Lee, double Bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:54
Johann Sebastian Bach: Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Timothy Fain, Daniel Ching, violins; Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 14:54
Also, Charley anticipates next month's Moab Music Festival.
Francis Poulenc: Finale from Piano Sextet
Steven Mayer, piano; Tim Day, flute; Marilyn Coyne, oboe; Eric Thomas, clarinet;
John Steinmetz, bassoon; Neil DeLand, horn 5:17
Moab Music Festival NCA 9/13/97
A bauble:
Called “the virtuoso of violin virtuosos and the true Orpheus of our time,” Corelli spent most of his life at the Rome residence of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a nephew of Pope Alexander VIII. Corelli's Monday concerts were the center of Roman musical life. While playing, said a colleague, “it was usual for his countenance to be distorted, his eyes to become as red as fire and his eyeballs to roll in agony.”
A pupil recalled that “Corelli regarded it as essential to the ensemble of the band that their bows should all move exactly together, all up, all down,” resulting in “an amazing effect to the eye as well as the ear.”
After a successful career, during which his first five published collections brought him worldwide acclaim, Corelli made some disastrous tours outside of Rome. He returned to find that a new violinist named Valentini had usurped his audiences. Charles Burney theorized that “all these mortifications threw him into such a state of melancholy and chagrin, as was thought...to have hastened his death.”
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in C major for violin, 2 cellos and strings, RV 561
Daniel Ching, violin; Eric Gaenslen, Joshua Gindele, cellos; Sandy Yamamoto, Henry Gronnier, violins; John Largess, viola; Jonathan Brin, cello; Owen Lee, double bass, Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:21
Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso in C minor, Op.6 No. 3
Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 12:00
Antonio Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in D major, RV 428 (Goldfinch)
Eugenia Zukerman, flute; Timothy Fain, Henry Gronnier, violins; Thomas Diener, viola; Eric Gaenslen, cello; Owen Lee, double Bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:54
Johann Sebastian Bach: Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Timothy Fain, Daniel Ching, violins; Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 14:54
Also, Charley anticipates next month's Moab Music Festival.
Francis Poulenc: Finale from Piano Sextet
Steven Mayer, piano; Tim Day, flute; Marilyn Coyne, oboe; Eric Thomas, clarinet;
John Steinmetz, bassoon; Neil DeLand, horn 5:17
Moab Music Festival NCA 9/13/97
A bauble:
Called “the virtuoso of violin virtuosos and the true Orpheus of our time,” Corelli spent most of his life at the Rome residence of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a nephew of Pope Alexander VIII. Corelli's Monday concerts were the center of Roman musical life. While playing, said a colleague, “it was usual for his countenance to be distorted, his eyes to become as red as fire and his eyeballs to roll in agony.”
A pupil recalled that “Corelli regarded it as essential to the ensemble of the band that their bows should all move exactly together, all up, all down,” resulting in “an amazing effect to the eye as well as the ear.”
After a successful career, during which his first five published collections brought him worldwide acclaim, Corelli made some disastrous tours outside of Rome. He returned to find that a new violinist named Valentini had usurped his audiences. Charles Burney theorized that “all these mortifications threw him into such a state of melancholy and chagrin, as was thought...to have hastened his death.”
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday August 21, 2009
Strings Music Festival
Carnegie Mellon Trio (Andres Cardenes, violin; Anne Martindale Williams, cello; David Deveau, piano); Strings Orchestra/ Andres Cardenes
Ludwig van Beethoven: Concerto in C major, Op.56 (Triple) 35:29 (8/9/08)
Also, Charley anticipates appearances by both the Boulder Brass and the Denver Brass tomorrow.
Joaquin Turina "La Marchande de Fleurs" from Souvenirs of Spain
Boulder Brass
"Landscapers and Portraits" CD NCA 2:08
Carl Orff (arr. Singleton): Excerpts from Carmina Burana
Denver Brass/ Kenneth Singleton
DB 8837 "Live Recording at the Newman Center" NCA 17:08
Carnegie Mellon Trio (Andres Cardenes, violin; Anne Martindale Williams, cello; David Deveau, piano); Strings Orchestra/ Andres Cardenes
Ludwig van Beethoven: Concerto in C major, Op.56 (Triple) 35:29 (8/9/08)
Also, Charley anticipates appearances by both the Boulder Brass and the Denver Brass tomorrow.
Joaquin Turina "La Marchande de Fleurs" from Souvenirs of Spain
Boulder Brass
"Landscapers and Portraits" CD NCA 2:08
Carl Orff (arr. Singleton): Excerpts from Carmina Burana
Denver Brass/ Kenneth Singleton
DB 8837 "Live Recording at the Newman Center" NCA 17:08
Thursday August 20, 2009
Friends of Chamber Music
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Eugène Ysaye: Solo Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, Op.27
Johann Sebastian Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005
Johann Sebastian Bach: “Andante” (3rd movement) from Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 (2/13/08)
Also, Charley talks with conductor Ron Williams of the Broomfield Choral Festival, and two cast members from their production of H.M.S. Pinafore, Abbey Kochevar and Ian Martin.
Gilbert & Sullivan: Excerpts from H.M.S. Pinafore
Thomas Allen, Rebecca Evans; Welsh National Opera Orchestra & Chorus/ Charles Mackerras
Telarc 80374
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Eugène Ysaye: Solo Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, Op.27
Johann Sebastian Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005
Johann Sebastian Bach: “Andante” (3rd movement) from Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 (2/13/08)
Also, Charley talks with conductor Ron Williams of the Broomfield Choral Festival, and two cast members from their production of H.M.S. Pinafore, Abbey Kochevar and Ian Martin.
Gilbert & Sullivan: Excerpts from H.M.S. Pinafore
Thomas Allen, Rebecca Evans; Welsh National Opera Orchestra & Chorus/ Charles Mackerras
Telarc 80374
Wednesday August 19, 2009
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor;
Wolfgang Mozart: Serenade No. 6 in D major, K.239 (Serenata Notturna) 14:45 (6/29/08)
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C major, K.425 (Linz) 35:38 (6/29/08)
Also, Schubert: "Menuetto: Allegro molto" (3rd movement) from Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, D.485
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orcestra 4:49
Michael Christie, conductor (8/3/03)
Michael Christie, conductor;
Wolfgang Mozart: Serenade No. 6 in D major, K.239 (Serenata Notturna) 14:45 (6/29/08)
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C major, K.425 (Linz) 35:38 (6/29/08)
Also, Schubert: "Menuetto: Allegro molto" (3rd movement) from Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, D.485
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orcestra 4:49
Michael Christie, conductor (8/3/03)
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