Saturday, June 1, 2013

Joseph Horovitz, Music Hall Suite

                Soubrette Song

                Trick Cyclists

                Adagio Team

                Soft Shoe Shuffle

                Les Girls

performed by Mark Fenderson and Richard Rulli, trumpet,

William Scharnberg, horn, Loren Marsteller, trombone, Torrey Lawrence, tuba

Joseph Horovitz (b. 1926) is one of many distinguished musicians who escaped from Austria in the 1930s. He was a young boy when his family arrived in England in 1938. He went on to study music at the Royal College of Music in London and later with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Since that time he has been regarded as a British composer, holding the post of Professor of Composition at the Royal College. His works might generally be considered “light” or “witty classical,” including a 1961 Horrortorio for the hilarious Hoffnung Festival. A large part of his works, including this evening’s selection from 1964, have been written for wind ensembles and bands.

Billy Joel, Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)

performed by Aaron Miller, double bass, Mary Wells, percussion

William Martin “Billy” Joel probably doesn’t need much introduction. He is one of the most prolific and popular American musicians, widely known as a pianist, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was born in the Bronx in 1949, the son of another German immigrant fleeing Central Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Billy Joel grew up in a rough neighborhood in New York State, where his interest in music rather than sports is said to have caused him much trouble and bullying by his schoolmates. His career has mostly been in rock and popular music. In recent years he has tried his hand at bigger works, including several pieces that have been performed by major symphony orchestras. He wrote this evening’s selection in 1993.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, “Larghetto” from Quintet in A Major, K. 581 for clarinet and strings

arranged by Bernard McWilliams

performed by Bernard McWilliams, viola, Jean Roberts, piano

The year 1789 was an anxious one, both for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1759—1791) and for the Paris that he had so loved. Just months before this sublime quintet was composed, the Bastille had fallen, forever changing the political and cultural climate of Europe. Then Mozart’s dear Costanza had fallen dangerously ill. The Clarinet Quintet is a rather melancholy piece for its time, anticipating the mood of the late romantic works of Brahms and Fauré. It is among Mozart’s most personal works, written with no consideration of a commission, as a gift to the world and to his close friend, clarinetist Anton Stadler (1753—1812).

The Clarinet Quintet was originally written for a basset clarinet, which is similar to the standard instrument, but with an extended lower register. Mozart’s achievement was quite remarkable, for the clarinet had been invented not many years earlier. It was developed from the chalumeau, a bass instrument with an unusually rich sound. The transformation to a clarinet was achieved by several tricks that allowed the production of treble tones and essentially resulted in a compound instrument with two quite different ranges. Mozart was one of the first to master the writing of expressive music for the instrument—music that thrills listeners with leaps and runs between those two contrasting registers. Even with a modern clarinet, the listener can’t help feeling Mozart’s special partiality for the rich lower register. The larghetto movement, however, is mostly confined to the treble register. It begins with a wistful song, punctuated by brief excursions to the lowest range of the clarinet. The song keeps coming back in all the instruments, until finally the piece ends with a mournful low D in the bass clef from the clarinet.

Bernard McWilliams has been a regular at the Red Lodge Music Festival for thirty seven years. He has spent most of his career as a violist on the East Coast, where he is currently on the staff of Coastal Carolina Community College. His instrument, the viola, has been somewhat of an orphan in concert works, which he has tried to remedy by arranging works that were originally written for other instruments.

Willson Osborne, Rhapsody for Solo Bassoon

performed by Carl Rath, bassoon

Willson Osborne (1906—1979) was an American composer whose works generally fall in the “neoclassical” category of his teacher, Paul Hindemith (1895—1963). The Rhapsody of 1958 is probably his best-known work. The Rhapsody was originally written as “Study for Bassoon” and was well received after being performed on a broadcast of a special concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra devoted to American Music. It has become one of the most frequently played pieces for solo bassoon, and has also been adapted as a well-known piece for clarinet. The Rhapsody poses some problems for the instrumentalist, but the principal problem that might perplex the listener is its setting in a Phrygian scale, which begins on a rather unsettling half-step.

Franz Liszt, Concert Etude No. 3 in D-flat Major, S. 144, “Un sospiro”

performed by Del Parkinson, piano

Performers and devotees of early romantic piano music tend to place Franz Liszt (1811—1886) and Frédéric Chopin (1810—1840) at two poles of a rather contentious dispute. Chopin lovers object that Liszt’s music has too many ostentatious ornamentations and flourishes and lacks the simple directness of Chopin’s. Liszt did indeed write a huge number of pieces whose principal intent was to show off his piano technique, but by the late 1840s his compositions began to move away from the popular taste and show a strong sense of thematic unity—perhaps under the influence of Wagner. The Concert Etude “Un Sospiro” of 1845—1849 is one of those mature works, simply and elegantly stated. The Italian subtitle means literally “A Sigh,” and the piece takes on the character of longing.

Gary Buttery, arr, Hijazker Longa (traditional)

performed by Torrey Lawrence, tuba

Gary Buttery is one of the foremost tuba players in America, having performed both as a member of numerous ensembles and as a soloist in America and Europe. One special distinction was in being the first tubist to be interviewed by Johnny Carson, in 1979. He has had many works composed for him and has himself written numerous pieces for his instrument. The piece on this program may perhaps have originated in Buttery’s association with the Balkan Brass Band, Bez Granica

Steven H. Markowitz, A Brief Adventure for Solo Cello (on pretending to visit strange lands)

performed by Ruth Boden, cello

Steven H. Markowitz is known principally for his performances and improvisations on the piano keyboard. His influences include such seeming opposites as Keith Jarrett (b 1945) and Sergei Prokofiev (1891—1953). Many of his improvisations have led to published compositions, such as this evening’s Brief Adventure of 2013. He composed the Brief Adventure specifically for the “Music Ouside Four Walls” project created by Ruth Boden, which launches in July of 2013.

Ernest Bloch, “Rhapsodie” from Suite hébraïque

performed by Jennifer Smith, viola, Jean Roberts, piano

The music of Ernest Bloch (1880—1959) has been frequently featured on the Red Lodge Music Festival programs, largely because it so sensitively displays the sonorities of the lower string instruments. Bloch was born in Switzerland, but spent most of his career in America, where his compositions are mostly in a conservative, “neo-romantic” style. Although he was not close to the avant-garde movement, he taught many of the musicians who were to become leaders of the new American music. The Suite Hébraïque of 1951 is one of numerous compositions that draw on Bloch’s reminiscences of European Jewish traditions; we will hear one movement from the Suite this evening.. At the Red Lodge Music Festival in 2012 we heard another of those pieces: the “Prayer” From Jewish Life.

Claude Debussy, Sonata for Cello and Piano

                I.              Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto

                II.             Sérénade: Modérément animé 

                III.            Finale: Animé, léger et nerveux

performed by David Carter, cello, Del Parkinson, piano

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862—1918) is one of best known of a group of French composers around the turn of the twentieth century whose colorful works are often labeled “impressionist” by analogy with a contemporary movement in painting. Although he did not take well to the rigid discipline of the music conservatories, Debussy eventually acquired a profound knowledge of music theory and techniques, which shows in his use of unusual scales and harmonies and his frequent use of techniques that were frowned on in the conservatories, such as parallel intervals. While he is admired for his shimmering piano music and vivid orchestral displays, Debussy also wrote many works for soloists and small groups that were more classically oriented. Both Debussy and his contemporary Maurice Ravel (1875—1937) wrote several sonatas which are among the favorite (and most difficult) pieces for string players; the Sonata for Cello and Piano of 1915 is one those.