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
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday February 4, 2010
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]
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday January 29, 2010
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.
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
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.
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.
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