Our 75th season-opening concert is Friday, September 27th at 7:30pm in Ardrey Auditorium! Learn more about each piece by reading the program notes before the concert.
Four Dances from “Estancia” Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Alberto Ginastera (pronounced with a soft “G” in keeping with his Spanish Catalan and Italian family origins) is considered one of the most notable and accomplished twentieth century South American composers. Early musical studies in Buenos Aires were followed by two years in the United States, where he studied with Aaron Copland. Returning to Argentina, he pursued a teaching career with many prominent and accomplished students. He returned to the United States in 1968 and in 1970 moved to Europe, where he died in Switzerland at the age of 67. Ginastera divided his musical output into two distinctive periods, “Nationalism” (prior to 1950) and “Neo-Expressionism” (after 1950), with more experimental techniques of serialism, polytonality, and micro-intervals. A suite of pieces from his ballet score “Estancia” (1941) reflects life among the gauchos (native horsemen of the Argentinian pampas). Melodic and rhythmic patterns characteristic of Argentine folk music infuse the score, obviously intended to support dancing and colorful action onstage. The four sections of the Estancia suite include “Los trabajadores agricolas” (“Agriculture Workers”, “Danza del trigo” (“Wheat Dance”), “Los peones de hacienda” (“The Ranchers”), and the brilliant “Danza final: Malambo”. The ballet portrays a troubled love affair between a city boy and a rancher’s daughter.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85 Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Adagio – Moderato
Lento – Allegro molto
Adagio
Allegro, ma non troppo
Elgar’s Cello Concerto is a late work in the English composer’s extensive musical output. It was written during the years 1918-1919, begun in a bleak London winter and completed during the summer months at Elgar’s country home in Sussex. The work was inspired by the cello concerto of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak, for whom Elgar held deep admiration. The concerto had a less than happy initial reception at its premiere performance due to inadequate rehearsal, but later gained well-deserved recognition as a worthy companion to the Dvorak masterwork. The concerto’s four movements are designed as thematically linked pairs, with the soloist playing almost continually throughout the entire work. Solo passages introduce many of the sections, much in the manner of a recitative, and there are numerous recurrences of the primary thematic material
throughout each of the four movements. The first movement commences with a cello solo that reappears in the following movements, with the exception of the Adagio. Elgar’s instrumentation is restrained, essential to maintaining a proper balance with the cello, emphasizing woodwinds and strings throughout. The third-movement Adagio is a moving and impassioned interweaving of the continuous cello passages accompanied by strings, clarinets, bassoons, and horns and leads without pause to the concluding rondo, again introduced by a solo recitative reflective of the opening of the first movement.
La Valse Maurice Ravel (1875 -1937)
Ravel prefaces the score of La Valse, written in 1919-1920, with the following description: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees … an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.” Ravel denied any direct reflection of post-World War I Europe and the political scene in Vienna, as has been sometimes implied. His “choreographic poem” with its one-movement design “plots the birth, decay, and destruction of a musical genre: the waltz.” La Valse commences quietly in the lower strings, with a gradual crescendo and fragments of melodies played by other instruments. Finally, the upper strings introduce the series of waltzes in five contrasting sections, each enhanced by the brilliant orchestration for which Ravel was an acknowledged master.
Suite from “Swan Lake” Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
It is not surprising that a man with psychological traits including extreme mood changes, bouts of depression, and an obsession with the complex interrelationships of fate and reality would be drawn to the fantasy world of the theatre, and particularly to the world of ballet. That art form did not hold the same esteem in 19 the century Russia as it does today, though Tchaikovsky insisted, “ballet is the most innocent, the most moral of all the arts. If that is not so, then why do they always bring children to the ballet?” Swan Lake was the first of the great ballet scores of Tchaikovsky, written in 1875-76 and later followed by The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. There have been several suites comprised of selections from the full ballet score, including one by the composer. Selections range from six to nine in number. Tonight’s concert features five movements: Scene, Valse, Danse Hongroise, Dance of the Swans, and Scene and Finale. In brief, the story of Swan Lake upon which the ballet music is based is as follows: Young Prince Siegfried is out hunting and while he pursues a flock of swans, one of them is transformed into a beautiful young woman, Odette. She tells Siegfried that she and her companions were turned into swans by an evil Baron von Rothbart. This spell can only be broken if someone who has never been in love swears an oath of fidelity and a promise of marriage. At a grand palace reception Siegfried believes he is dancing with Odette, but his partner is actually the daughter of the evil Baron. He begs Odette’s forgiveness, but she says he cannot alter the manner in which he broke his vow. The doomed lovers determine to die together and throw themselves into a lake!
Notes by Charles M. Spining
