Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Robert Olson, conductor
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, Op.100 (4/19/03)
Also, Charley anticipates the Colorado Chamber Players concert this Sunday.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "Allegro, vivo e schietto" (1st movement) from Guitar Quintet, Op.143
Colorado Chamber Players (Masakazu Ito, guitar; Jerilyn Jorgensen, Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/30/09 MS
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, Opus 100
I. Andante
II. Allegro marcato
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro giocoso
``I regard the Fifth Symphony as the culmination of a long period of my creative life,'' wrote Prokofiev. ``It was intended as a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit. I cannot say that I deliberately chose this theme. It was born in me and clamored for expression. The music matured within me. It filled my soul.''
The Fifth Symphony was written in the space of a single month during the summer of 1944 at the Composers' House near Ivanovo, whence the authorities had spirited Prokofiev and other composers during the war.
Prokofiev played through the new work on August 26. ``For some reason the composer was extremely nervous,'' recalled Dmitri Kabalevsky. ``He talked a great deal about irrelevant matters and seemed anxious to put off as long as possible the moment when he would have to sit down and play for us. When he did play, however, he played marvelously well, contriving to suggest the full spectrum of the orchestra on the piano. The symphony made a profound impression on all of us and we congratulated him. He was very pleased, for he always considered the Fifth Symphony one of his best compositions.''
The Fifth was first played at the Moscow Conservatory's Grand Hall on January 13, 1945. Before Prokofiev conducted the work, an announcer came on stage and declared: ``In the name of the Fatherland there will be a salute to the gallant warriors of the First Ukrainian front, who have broken the defenses of the Germans! Twenty volleys of artillery from 224 guns!'' At that very moment, the Soviet Army was crossing the Vistula River into Poland.
After the noise of the guns came the Fifth Symphony, whose effect was electric. According to Prokofiev's biographer, Israel Nestyev, ``Prokofiev's compelling music perfectly suited the mood of the audience. The critics commented on this in their glowing reviews of the new composition. Kabalevsky, extolling the Symphony as the embodiment of man's courage, energy and spiritual grandeur, also made a special note of its profoundly national character.''
Another biographer, Harlow Robinson, writes: ``What is most striking about the Fifth Symphony...is its epic scale and character....The long first movement begins with a heroic but supple theme, free of chromatic alteration and ironic leaps....Few themes in Prokofiev's oeuvre can match it for power and expansiveness. The second theme, announced by oboes and flutes, is more chromatic, but in the optimistic `classical' idiom....The slow third movement reveals Prokofiev's debt to Shostakovich, particularly to his Fifth Symphony....Like Shostakovich, Prokofiev balances the gloomy power of the third movement with the high spirits of the two movements which precede and follow it. The second movement contrasts a gently tongue-in-cheek martial theme with a free-falling one hinting at modality, while the concluding movement is playful and jaunty, with the quirky off-beat rhythms and sour dissonances that are the composer's trademarks....In the Fifth Symphony, Prokofiev finally succeeded...in finding a language sufficiently accessible and optimistic, one appropriate to `Soviet reality,' and yet highly individual.''
The Fifth Symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, harp, piano, timpani, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, bass drum, military drum, and strings.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday October 8, 2009
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Larry Rachleff, conductor
Jennifer Higdon: Loco
Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (5/8-10/09)
Also, Charley talks Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan, cellist Jurgen de Lemos and soprano Tana Cochran, who are featured on the Ars Nova Singers's opening concert.
John Tavener: "Death" from Akhmatova Songs
Jurgen de Lemos, cello; Tana Cochran, soprano
KVOD Performance Studio 9/18/09 MS
Born in Brooklyn, Jennifer Higdon grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Seymour, Tennessee, and now lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Bowling Green State University. Her teachers have included George Crumb, Ned Rorem, and Marilyn Shrude in composition, Judith Bentley and Jan Vinci in flute, and Robert Spano in conducting. She has served as composer-in-residence with the Music From Angel Fire Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Walden School, the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, the Prism Saxophone Quartet and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
Loco was commissioned by the Ravinia Festival in Chicago in 2004. In her notes for the premiere, Higdon says "The work was the last of a series of "Train Commissions,' whic h featured the orchestra playing works that reflect the trains (and their noise) that run through the Ravinia train yard (and backyard of the orchestra' summer home, quit a noisy venue). I though about the idea of a locomotive, which led me to think about a fast moving piece, which made me think about the word 'loco,' which means crazy in Spanish. So I got the idea to write a piece about 'a crazy train.' The general sound of the piece is of a fast-moving train, or rather, what I imagined it to sound like."
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
I. Prologue: Allegro moderato
II. Somewhere: Adagio
III. Scherzo: Vivace leggiero
IV. Mambo: Presto
V. Cha-Cha: Andantino con grazia
VI. Meeting Scene: Meno mosso
VII. Cool-Fugue: Allegretto
VIII. Rumble: Molto allergro
Finale: Adagio
Jerome Robbins' idea for a kind of urban Romeo and Juliet was once called Gang Way!, and then East Side Story. With book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story was the title used for the first performance, on August 19, 1957 in Washington, D.C. Starring Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert, Mickey Calin, Ken Le Roy and Chita Rivera, the show opened at the Winter Garden Theater in New York on September 26, 1957 and ran for 973 performances. The film version, with Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, appeared in 1961. It was voted Best Picture of the Year and earned ten Oscars.
Meantime, with the aid of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, Bernstein had assembled the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The first performance took place at a Pension Fund Benefit concert of the New York Philharmonic on February 13, 1961. The all-Bernstein evening was billed as ``A Valentine for Leonard Bernstein,'' complete with heart-shaped program book. Bernstein himself was in the audience at Carnegie Hall, as Aaron Copland, Vladimir Golschmann and Lukas Foss directed the Philharmonic. It was Foss who conducted the Symphonic Dances.
There are nine dances, played without pause. The Prologue depicts the rivalry of the two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. Somewhere and Scherzo suggest a dream world beyond the city's confines. Mambo finds the two gangs in a competitive dance. The lovers Tony and Maria dance together in Cha-Cha and finally speak in the Meeting Scene. The Jets are getting hostile in Cool-Fugue and leaders of both gangs are killed during the Rumble. In the Finale, Tony dies in Maria's arms and the Somewhere theme is recalled during the funeral procession.
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celesta and strings.
Larry Rachleff, conductor
Jennifer Higdon: Loco
Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (5/8-10/09)
Also, Charley talks Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan, cellist Jurgen de Lemos and soprano Tana Cochran, who are featured on the Ars Nova Singers's opening concert.
John Tavener: "Death" from Akhmatova Songs
Jurgen de Lemos, cello; Tana Cochran, soprano
KVOD Performance Studio 9/18/09 MS
Born in Brooklyn, Jennifer Higdon grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Seymour, Tennessee, and now lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Bowling Green State University. Her teachers have included George Crumb, Ned Rorem, and Marilyn Shrude in composition, Judith Bentley and Jan Vinci in flute, and Robert Spano in conducting. She has served as composer-in-residence with the Music From Angel Fire Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Walden School, the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, the Prism Saxophone Quartet and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
Loco was commissioned by the Ravinia Festival in Chicago in 2004. In her notes for the premiere, Higdon says "The work was the last of a series of "Train Commissions,' whic h featured the orchestra playing works that reflect the trains (and their noise) that run through the Ravinia train yard (and backyard of the orchestra' summer home, quit a noisy venue). I though about the idea of a locomotive, which led me to think about a fast moving piece, which made me think about the word 'loco,' which means crazy in Spanish. So I got the idea to write a piece about 'a crazy train.' The general sound of the piece is of a fast-moving train, or rather, what I imagined it to sound like."
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
I. Prologue: Allegro moderato
II. Somewhere: Adagio
III. Scherzo: Vivace leggiero
IV. Mambo: Presto
V. Cha-Cha: Andantino con grazia
VI. Meeting Scene: Meno mosso
VII. Cool-Fugue: Allegretto
VIII. Rumble: Molto allergro
Finale: Adagio
Jerome Robbins' idea for a kind of urban Romeo and Juliet was once called Gang Way!, and then East Side Story. With book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story was the title used for the first performance, on August 19, 1957 in Washington, D.C. Starring Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert, Mickey Calin, Ken Le Roy and Chita Rivera, the show opened at the Winter Garden Theater in New York on September 26, 1957 and ran for 973 performances. The film version, with Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, appeared in 1961. It was voted Best Picture of the Year and earned ten Oscars.
Meantime, with the aid of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, Bernstein had assembled the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The first performance took place at a Pension Fund Benefit concert of the New York Philharmonic on February 13, 1961. The all-Bernstein evening was billed as ``A Valentine for Leonard Bernstein,'' complete with heart-shaped program book. Bernstein himself was in the audience at Carnegie Hall, as Aaron Copland, Vladimir Golschmann and Lukas Foss directed the Philharmonic. It was Foss who conducted the Symphonic Dances.
There are nine dances, played without pause. The Prologue depicts the rivalry of the two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. Somewhere and Scherzo suggest a dream world beyond the city's confines. Mambo finds the two gangs in a competitive dance. The lovers Tony and Maria dance together in Cha-Cha and finally speak in the Meeting Scene. The Jets are getting hostile in Cool-Fugue and leaders of both gangs are killed during the Rumble. In the Finale, Tony dies in Maria's arms and the Somewhere theme is recalled during the funeral procession.
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celesta and strings.
Wednesday October 7, 2009
Colorado Music Festival Chamber Players (Calin Lupanu, Joseph Meyer, Rebecca Corruccini, Monica Boboc, violins; Shannon Williams, Matthew Dane, violas; Bjorn Ranheim, Greg Sauer, cellos)
Felix Mendelssohn: Octet in E flat, Op.20 33:34 (7/22/08)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado Chamber Players artistic director Barbara Hamilton-Primus about this weekend's concerts.
Maria Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "Allegro, vivo e schietto" (1st movement) from Guitar Quintet, Op.143
Colorado Chamber Players (Masakazu Ito, guitar; Jerilyn Jorgensen, Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/30/09 MS
Isaias Savio: Little Music Box
Masakazu Ito, guitar
Muse 724 Track 14 2:06
And, Charley talks with Cherry Creek Chorale conductor Brian Leatherman about this weekend's concerts.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Octet in E flat major, Opus 20
I. Allegro moderato ma con fuoco
II. Andante
III. Scherzo: Allegro leggerissimo
IV. Presto
Late in life, Mendelssohn confessed that the Octet was “my favorite of all my compositions,” and added, “I had a most wonderful time in the writing of it!” He was just sixteen years old when he finished it on October 10, 1825. A week later he presented it to his violin teacher Eduard Rietz on his twenty-third birthday.
The Octet was first played at one of the Mendelssohn family’s regular Sunday afternoon musicales. Felix’s composition teacher Carl Zelter wrote enthusiastically to Goethe of “an octet for eight obbligato instruments, which is full of life.” His sister Fanny loved the piece. “Everything’s new and strange and at the same time most insinuating and pleasing,” she said. “One feels so near the world of spirits, carried away in the air, half inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the aerial procession. At the end the first violin takes a flight with a feather-like lightness--and all has vanished.”
Mendelssohn made it very clear that he conceived the Octet for eight separate parts, not two string quartets combined. Even Ludwig Spohr--no stranger to the art of double string quartets--admitted, “An Octet for stringed instruments by Mendelssohn belongs to quite another kind of art in which the two quartets do not concert and interchange in double choir with each other, but all eight instruments work together.”
Fanny insisted that the Scherzo was inspired by the last lines of the Walpurgis Night scene in Part I of Goethe’s Faust:
The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist
Are lighted from above,
A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds
And all has vanished.
For the London performance of his First Symphony in 1829, Mendelssohn orchestrated the Scherzo as a substitute for the Minuet. The Scherzo was even used during a Requiem Mass in memory of Beethoven. “I can scarcely imagine anything more absurd that a priest at the altar and my Scherzo going on,” he said.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey called the Octet “unmistakably a work of genius. Its first movement is an admirable specimen of Mendelssohn’s most spirited and energetic style; and if sometimes the inner parts degenerate into orchestral tremolo, Mendelssohn as the first offender has received the whole blame for a vice which is cheerfully condoned when later composers indulge in it far more unscrupulously. The slow movement is rather vague in structure and theme, but extraordinarily beautiful in scoring and colour….The finale is very boyish, but so amusing that it wears a good deal better than many a more responsible utterance.”
Felix Mendelssohn: Octet in E flat, Op.20 33:34 (7/22/08)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado Chamber Players artistic director Barbara Hamilton-Primus about this weekend's concerts.
Maria Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "Allegro, vivo e schietto" (1st movement) from Guitar Quintet, Op.143
Colorado Chamber Players (Masakazu Ito, guitar; Jerilyn Jorgensen, Paul Primus, violins; Barbara Hamilton-Primus, viola; Katharine Knight, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/30/09 MS
Isaias Savio: Little Music Box
Masakazu Ito, guitar
Muse 724 Track 14 2:06
And, Charley talks with Cherry Creek Chorale conductor Brian Leatherman about this weekend's concerts.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Octet in E flat major, Opus 20
I. Allegro moderato ma con fuoco
II. Andante
III. Scherzo: Allegro leggerissimo
IV. Presto
Late in life, Mendelssohn confessed that the Octet was “my favorite of all my compositions,” and added, “I had a most wonderful time in the writing of it!” He was just sixteen years old when he finished it on October 10, 1825. A week later he presented it to his violin teacher Eduard Rietz on his twenty-third birthday.
The Octet was first played at one of the Mendelssohn family’s regular Sunday afternoon musicales. Felix’s composition teacher Carl Zelter wrote enthusiastically to Goethe of “an octet for eight obbligato instruments, which is full of life.” His sister Fanny loved the piece. “Everything’s new and strange and at the same time most insinuating and pleasing,” she said. “One feels so near the world of spirits, carried away in the air, half inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the aerial procession. At the end the first violin takes a flight with a feather-like lightness--and all has vanished.”
Mendelssohn made it very clear that he conceived the Octet for eight separate parts, not two string quartets combined. Even Ludwig Spohr--no stranger to the art of double string quartets--admitted, “An Octet for stringed instruments by Mendelssohn belongs to quite another kind of art in which the two quartets do not concert and interchange in double choir with each other, but all eight instruments work together.”
Fanny insisted that the Scherzo was inspired by the last lines of the Walpurgis Night scene in Part I of Goethe’s Faust:
The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist
Are lighted from above,
A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds
And all has vanished.
For the London performance of his First Symphony in 1829, Mendelssohn orchestrated the Scherzo as a substitute for the Minuet. The Scherzo was even used during a Requiem Mass in memory of Beethoven. “I can scarcely imagine anything more absurd that a priest at the altar and my Scherzo going on,” he said.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey called the Octet “unmistakably a work of genius. Its first movement is an admirable specimen of Mendelssohn’s most spirited and energetic style; and if sometimes the inner parts degenerate into orchestral tremolo, Mendelssohn as the first offender has received the whole blame for a vice which is cheerfully condoned when later composers indulge in it far more unscrupulously. The slow movement is rather vague in structure and theme, but extraordinarily beautiful in scoring and colour….The finale is very boyish, but so amusing that it wears a good deal better than many a more responsible utterance.”
Tuesday October 6, 2009
Friends of Chamber Music
Pieter Wispelwey, cello; Alexander Melnikov, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.19 35:53 (11/5/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's opening program this Sunday in Pueblo and on October 18 in Colorado Springs.
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in F major, op. 18
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
And, Charley also anticipates guitarist Masakazu Ito's appearance with Colorado Chamber Players this weekend.
Joaquín Turina: "Soleares" from Homage to Tárrega, Op.69
Masakazu Ito, guitar
Polgear 1036 Track 5 2:10
Pieter Wispelwey, cello; Alexander Melnikov, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.19 35:53 (11/5/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Veronika String Quartet's opening program this Sunday in Pueblo and on October 18 in Colorado Springs.
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Allegro con brio" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in F major, op. 18
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
And, Charley also anticipates guitarist Masakazu Ito's appearance with Colorado Chamber Players this weekend.
Joaquín Turina: "Soleares" from Homage to Tárrega, Op.69
Masakazu Ito, guitar
Polgear 1036 Track 5 2:10
Monday October 5, 2009
Charley anticipates pianist Mutsumi Moteki's recital with soprano Irene Friedlob tomorrow at CU Boulder.
University of Colorado at Boulder Faculty Recital
Michio Miyagi: Haru no Umi (The Sea in Spring)
Christina Jennings, flute; Mutsumi Moteki, piano 7:07
Kosaku Yamada: 3 Songs on Texts by Hakushu Kitahara 9:16
Julie Simson, mezzo-soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Yoshinao Nakada: From The Poems of Matinée Poétique 6:04
Sara Gartland, soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Sadao Bekku: Sakura Yokocho (Cherry Blossoms Lane) 3:50
Sara Gartland, soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Fumio Hayasaka: Uguisu (Nightingale) 4:19
Sara Gartland, soprano (9/26/06)
Also, Charley talks with cellist Jurgen de Lemos and soprano Tana Cochran, who are featured on the Ars Nova Singers's opening concert.
John Tavener: "Death" from Akhmatova Songs
Jurgen de Lemos, cello; Tana Cochran, soprano
KVOD Performance Studio 9/18/09 MS
Also, Charley talks with Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan and Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless.
Astor Piazzolla: "Winter" from Four Seasons in Buenos Aires [arr. Leonid Desyatnikov]
Lindsay Deutsch, violin; Boulder Chamber Orchestra/ Bahman Saless.
NCA
University of Colorado at Boulder Faculty Recital
Michio Miyagi: Haru no Umi (The Sea in Spring)
Christina Jennings, flute; Mutsumi Moteki, piano 7:07
Kosaku Yamada: 3 Songs on Texts by Hakushu Kitahara 9:16
Julie Simson, mezzo-soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Yoshinao Nakada: From The Poems of Matinée Poétique 6:04
Sara Gartland, soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Sadao Bekku: Sakura Yokocho (Cherry Blossoms Lane) 3:50
Sara Gartland, soprano; Mutsumi Moteki, piano
Fumio Hayasaka: Uguisu (Nightingale) 4:19
Sara Gartland, soprano (9/26/06)
Also, Charley talks with cellist Jurgen de Lemos and soprano Tana Cochran, who are featured on the Ars Nova Singers's opening concert.
John Tavener: "Death" from Akhmatova Songs
Jurgen de Lemos, cello; Tana Cochran, soprano
KVOD Performance Studio 9/18/09 MS
Also, Charley talks with Ars Nova Singers artistic director Thomas Edward Morgan and Boulder Chamber Orchestra music director Bahman Saless.
Astor Piazzolla: "Winter" from Four Seasons in Buenos Aires [arr. Leonid Desyatnikov]
Lindsay Deutsch, violin; Boulder Chamber Orchestra/ Bahman Saless.
NCA
Friday October 2, 2009
Monika Vischer talks with violinist Augustin Hadelich, who plays Mozart's "Turkish" Concerto with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Niccolo Paganini: Caprice No. 4 in C minor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Avie 2180 Track 5 7:18
Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Joachim Raff: Octet in C Major, Op. 176
Mark Fewer, Steven Copes, Scott Yoo, Stefan Hersh, violins; Phillip Ying and Virginia Barron, violas; Bion Tsang and David Ying, cellos 26:46 (6/15/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Austin Lovelace 90th Birthday Celebration Sunday.
Austin Lovelace: Choral Anthem, "Unto the hills" & Toccata on "A Mighty Fortress"
Austin Lovelace, organ; Lamont Alumni Choir, Robeert Penn, director (8/26/01)
And, Charley anticipates the Telling Stories show, "Pilots," tomorrow.
Anne Guzzo: 2 Pieces for Clarinet
Anne Guzzo, clarinet
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS
Niccolo Paganini: Caprice No. 4 in C minor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Avie 2180 Track 5 7:18
Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Joachim Raff: Octet in C Major, Op. 176
Mark Fewer, Steven Copes, Scott Yoo, Stefan Hersh, violins; Phillip Ying and Virginia Barron, violas; Bion Tsang and David Ying, cellos 26:46 (6/15/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Austin Lovelace 90th Birthday Celebration Sunday.
Austin Lovelace: Choral Anthem, "Unto the hills" & Toccata on "A Mighty Fortress"
Austin Lovelace, organ; Lamont Alumni Choir, Robeert Penn, director (8/26/01)
And, Charley anticipates the Telling Stories show, "Pilots," tomorrow.
Anne Guzzo: 2 Pieces for Clarinet
Anne Guzzo, clarinet
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS
Thursday October 1, 2009
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Larry Rachleff, conductor; Jeffrey Kahane, piano
Samuel Barber: Overture to The School for Scandal, Opus 5
George Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F (5/8-10/09)
Also, Charley talks with Jennie Dorris, artistic director and den-mother of Telling Stories.
Benjamin Britten: "Andante sostenuto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in D major, Op.25
Telling Stories String Quartet (Chris Jusell, Chris Short, violins; Megan Tipton, viola; Dave Short, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS 8:41
Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Overture to The School for Scandal, Opus 5
Barber was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when he won the Joseph H. Bearns prize of $1200. This enabled him to travel to Italy during the summer of 1931. There he wrote the Overture to The School for Scandal, after the satirical play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). The next year he submitted the work as his graduation thesis from Curtis.
The first performance took place at Robin Hood Dell on August 30, 1933. Alexander Smallens conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. By then Barber was in Italy again, having won a second Bearns prize for this very Overture.
Barber noted in the score that the music was only ``suggested'' by the Sheridan play, so the intrigues of Lady Sneerwell and Joseph Surface and the virtues of Maria are only indirectly depicted. As Nicolas Slonimsky puts it, ``from the onset the music reflects the theme of sly merriment, the shining metallic sonorities of trumpets, triangle and cymbals accentuating the brightness of the scene. As the festive metallic sound subsides, a pastoral theme is sounded by the oboe. But a school for scandal must have its wily elements as its farce. The tonality is dislocated and twisted, suggesting intrigue; the gaiety is resumed with an invigorating rhythmic bounce.''
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, bells, celeste, harp and strings.
George Gershwin (1898-1937): Concerto in F major for Piano and Orchestra
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro agitato
After the success of Rhapsody in Blue, Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Society, commissioned Gershwin to write a full-length piano concerto in 1925. ``This showed great confidence on his part,'' said Gershwin, ``as I had never written anything for symphony before.'' Rhapsody had been orchestrated by Ferde Grofé.
With contract in hand, and a promise of $500 for the Concerto, Gershwin left for London, armed with ``four or five books on musical structure to find out what the concerto form really was!'' Returning to New York in late June, he set to work in earnest. ``It took me three months to compose this Concerto, and one month to orchestrate it,'' he said. By November 10, 1925, it was finished.
Eager to hear his new work, Gershwin hired 50 musicians and arranged for a run-through at the Globe Theatre. ``I enjoyed it,'' he admitted, ``not as one of my fair and mischievous friends said, as the mad King Ludwig enjoyed Wagner, being the sole audience in the theatre, for Mr. Damrosch was there, and about a dozen others who wished to hear it.''
Gershwin was the pianist at the first performance on a stormy Thursday afternoon, December 3, 1925, in Carnegie Hall. Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony in a program that also included Glazunov's Fifth Symphony, Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis Overture and Henri Rabaud's Suite Anglaise.
Audiences loved the Concerto; the critics were mixed. The most perceptive was Samuel Chotzinoff, who wrote in the World: ``He alone actually expresses us. He is the present, with all its audacity, impertinence, its feverish delight in its motions, its lapses into rhythmic exotic melancholy. He writes without the smallest hint of self-consciousness....And here is where his genius comes in, for George Gershwin is an instinctive artist who has a talent for the right manipulation of the crude material he starts out with that a lifelong study of counterpoint and fugue never can give to one who is not born with it.''
Gershwin himself provided an analysis of the Concerto: ``The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young, enthusiastic spirit of American life....The second movement has a poetic, nocturnal tone. It utilizes the atmosphere of what has come to be referred to as the American blues....The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythm starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.''
The score calls for solo piano, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, bells, xylophone, triangle and strings.
Larry Rachleff, conductor; Jeffrey Kahane, piano
Samuel Barber: Overture to The School for Scandal, Opus 5
George Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F (5/8-10/09)
Also, Charley talks with Jennie Dorris, artistic director and den-mother of Telling Stories.
Benjamin Britten: "Andante sostenuto" (1st movement) from String Quartet No.1 in D major, Op.25
Telling Stories String Quartet (Chris Jusell, Chris Short, violins; Megan Tipton, viola; Dave Short, cello)
KVOD Performance Studio 9/29/09 MS 8:41
Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Overture to The School for Scandal, Opus 5
Barber was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when he won the Joseph H. Bearns prize of $1200. This enabled him to travel to Italy during the summer of 1931. There he wrote the Overture to The School for Scandal, after the satirical play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). The next year he submitted the work as his graduation thesis from Curtis.
The first performance took place at Robin Hood Dell on August 30, 1933. Alexander Smallens conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. By then Barber was in Italy again, having won a second Bearns prize for this very Overture.
Barber noted in the score that the music was only ``suggested'' by the Sheridan play, so the intrigues of Lady Sneerwell and Joseph Surface and the virtues of Maria are only indirectly depicted. As Nicolas Slonimsky puts it, ``from the onset the music reflects the theme of sly merriment, the shining metallic sonorities of trumpets, triangle and cymbals accentuating the brightness of the scene. As the festive metallic sound subsides, a pastoral theme is sounded by the oboe. But a school for scandal must have its wily elements as its farce. The tonality is dislocated and twisted, suggesting intrigue; the gaiety is resumed with an invigorating rhythmic bounce.''
The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, bells, celeste, harp and strings.
George Gershwin (1898-1937): Concerto in F major for Piano and Orchestra
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro agitato
After the success of Rhapsody in Blue, Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Society, commissioned Gershwin to write a full-length piano concerto in 1925. ``This showed great confidence on his part,'' said Gershwin, ``as I had never written anything for symphony before.'' Rhapsody had been orchestrated by Ferde Grofé.
With contract in hand, and a promise of $500 for the Concerto, Gershwin left for London, armed with ``four or five books on musical structure to find out what the concerto form really was!'' Returning to New York in late June, he set to work in earnest. ``It took me three months to compose this Concerto, and one month to orchestrate it,'' he said. By November 10, 1925, it was finished.
Eager to hear his new work, Gershwin hired 50 musicians and arranged for a run-through at the Globe Theatre. ``I enjoyed it,'' he admitted, ``not as one of my fair and mischievous friends said, as the mad King Ludwig enjoyed Wagner, being the sole audience in the theatre, for Mr. Damrosch was there, and about a dozen others who wished to hear it.''
Gershwin was the pianist at the first performance on a stormy Thursday afternoon, December 3, 1925, in Carnegie Hall. Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony in a program that also included Glazunov's Fifth Symphony, Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis Overture and Henri Rabaud's Suite Anglaise.
Audiences loved the Concerto; the critics were mixed. The most perceptive was Samuel Chotzinoff, who wrote in the World: ``He alone actually expresses us. He is the present, with all its audacity, impertinence, its feverish delight in its motions, its lapses into rhythmic exotic melancholy. He writes without the smallest hint of self-consciousness....And here is where his genius comes in, for George Gershwin is an instinctive artist who has a talent for the right manipulation of the crude material he starts out with that a lifelong study of counterpoint and fugue never can give to one who is not born with it.''
Gershwin himself provided an analysis of the Concerto: ``The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young, enthusiastic spirit of American life....The second movement has a poetic, nocturnal tone. It utilizes the atmosphere of what has come to be referred to as the American blues....The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythm starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.''
The score calls for solo piano, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, bells, xylophone, triangle and strings.
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