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Philips Exeter Residency
February 17-18, 2003 |
Kalistos Chamber Orchestra will be in residency giving
masterclasses, joint rehearsals with student instrumentalists and
giving a concert at Philips Exeter Academy. The program will
include the following pieces:
Jeffery Cotton Elegy
Ralph Vaughn Williams Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus" for harp and string orchestra
Gabriela Frank Leyendas : An Andean Walkabout
mvts 4 and 6
P.I. Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence
Kalistos Chamber Orchestra,
7 p.m., Phillips Church, Tan Lane in Exeter
A Gilbert Series Concert - The concert is open to the public, free of charge.
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Our Next Concert
Tuesday,
18th February -featuring a joint collaboration between students of
Phillips Exeter Academy and Kalistos Chamber Orchestra |
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This concert was on
Tuesday, February 18, 2003, 7 pm
at Phillips Church, Tan Lane on the grounds of Phillips Exeter Academy
for directions please click on the address
Tan Lane, Phillips Exeter
for more info call
800-896-7340 or email info@kalistos.org
The concert is free and open to the Public. This concert is possible via a generous grant from the Gilbert Series
Program notes
Jeffery Cotton's Elegy [please click for composer's own website]
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus
Born at Down Ampney, 12 October 1872; Died in London, 26 August 1958
Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of England's major musical figures for
over fifty years; on an international level he ranked as one of the
great symphonists of the twentieth century. Vaughan Williams is one of
the rare composers who never had to worry about money. Descended on his
mother's side from the Darwin and Wedgwood families, he had an
independent income that easily met his needs. Released from the
necessity of adhering to commercial expectations he was able to pursue
his own compositional path.
The inspiration for the Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus" originated
in 1893 when Vaughan Williams came across that folksong/carol in
English County Songs, published by Lucy Broadwood and Fuller Maitland
that same year. It was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with
that tune. He used it as theme in the Festival Te Deum in F major,
written for the coronation of King George VI in 1937, and did two
different choral settings. He included it as one of the Twelve
Traditional Christmas Carols from Herefordshire that he arranged for
solo voice and piano or mixed chorus in 1920, and it is one of the Nine
Carols arranged for unaccompanied male chorus in 1942.
Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus," for strings and harp, was written
at the request of Sir Adrian Boult, who was invited to present a
program of British music at the New York World's Fair. Vaughan Williams
composed an introduction that leads in to his own harmonization of the
song. The five variations which follow are a mixture of Vaughan
Williams's own creative impulse and alternate versions of the tune
which he had collected himself from traditional singers. Sir Adrian
Boult conducted the first performance of the new work with the New York
Philharmonic on 10 June 1939. At the composer's request, Five Variants
of "Dives and Lazarus" was one of the musical selections performed at
his memorial service in Westminster Abbey on 19 September 1958.
Program Notes by Bruce Gbur
Copyright 2002
Gabriela Lena Frank
Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout [1999/2002] mvts 4 & 6
(excerpts originally for string quartet, arranged for string orchestra)
Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout draws inspiration from the idea of
mestizaje as envisioned by the Peruvian writer José María
Arguedas, whereby cultures coexist without the subjugation of one by
the other. As such, this piece mixes elements from the western
classical and Andean folk music traditions. "Toyos" depicts one
of the most recognizable instruments of the Andes, the panpipe.
The largest kind is the breathy toyo which requires great stamina
and lung power, and is typically played in parallel fourths.
"Tarqueada" is a forceful and fast number featuring the tarka, a heavy
wooden duct flute that is blown harshly in order to split the
tone. Tarka ensembles typically play in casually tuned 4ths,
5ths, and octaves. "Himno de Zampoñas" features a
particular type of panpipe ensemble that divides up melodies through a
technique known as hocketing. The characteristic sound of the
zampoña panpipe is that of a fundamental tone blown flatly so
that overtones ring out on top. "Chasqui" depicts a legendary figure
from the Inca times the chasqui runner, who sprinted great distances to
deliver messages between towns separated from one another by the Andean
peaks. The chasqui needed to travel light. Hence, I take
artistic license to imagine his choice of instruments to be the
charango, a high-pitched cousin of the guitar, and the lightweight
bamboo quena flute, both of which are featured in this movement. "Canto
de Velorio" portrays another well-known Andean personality, a
professional crying woman known as velorio. Hired to render
funeral rituals even sadder, the velorio is accompanied here by a
second velorio and an additional chorus of mourning women (coro de
mujeres). The chant Dies Irae is quoted as a reflection of the
velorio's penchant for blending verses from Quechua Indian folklore and
western religious rites. "Coqueteos" is a flirtatious love
song sung by gallant men known as romanceros. As such, it is
direct in its harmonic expression, bold, and festive. The
romanceros sang in harmony with one another against a backdrop of
guitars which I think of as a vendaval de guitarras ("storm of
guitars").
-Program notes by Gabriela Lena Frank
P.I. Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence Op. 70
It is interesting how some things experienced in childhood affect our
perception for many years to come. Of the few things that I remember
from my years at elementary school one stands out, perhaps because it
proves its validity time after time. Our teacher showed us a
reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and said: "Now you all
can move around the classroom, but keep looking at her, and you'll
notice that Mona Lisa's eyes follow you wherever you go." After we had
a jolly time enjoying this never-before-allowed freedom of movement
during a lesson and indeed amusing ourselves with Mona Lisa's ability
to "watch" us (Communist Party leaders, looking at us from the
portraits on the walls, could not do that), order in the classroom was
re-established, and the teacher asked us to give our own reasons and
explanations for Mona Lisa's smile. Another round of jolly moments, as
our interpretations were all so different. She summarized the subject
with something like this: "One piece of great art makes all people feel
the same, another piece of great art makes people feel a variety of
emotions, but one thing is constant: great art always makes people
feel."
If not for this lesson, perhaps today I would indulge myself in poking
fun at some musicologists for describing Souvenir de Florence as, for
instance "suffused with an atmosphere not often associated with this
composer, of a calm geniality". Calm geniality? Well, perhaps indeed
for some. (An old joke: Texas man, looking at Niagara Falls: "Our
plumber could fix this leak in a couple of hours."). For me, this is
one of the most turbulently passionate works in all music literature!
Written in the winter of 1890, shortly after returning from Italy where
Tchaikovsky had been working on his opera "The Queen of Spades", it was
perhaps indeed intended to be a light detour from the dark drama of the
opera. It did go this way, however. Tchaikovsky had complained to his
brother, Modest, that he felt under great strain working on it. Yet he
was very pleased with the results - until he heard it performed.
Greatly dissatisfied, he completely rewrote two movements - it was at
this time that the title "Souvenir de Florence" was added. Unlike
"Capriccio Italien", composed some ten years earlier and full of
Italian quotations, this work is decidedly Russian, with only the
gorgeous bel-canto in the second movement suggesting a possible link to
the title. Italy was a place where Tchaikovsky spent some of the
happiest moments of his life which, perhaps, could be a key to the
naming of the piece. The first performance of the revised version took
place in 1892, led by the great Russian violinist and pedagogue Leopold
Auer (teacher of Heifetz, Milstein and Zimbalist, among others), and
had great success.
Tchaikovsky saw a great challenge in writing this work - a sextet for
two violins, two violas and two cellos - in such a way as to give
prominence to each voice. He succeeded magnificently. Performances of
this work in string orchestra version are very common nowadays, and,
strangely enough, multiplication of performing forces does not
complicate, but rather helps in achieving the proper balance and
allowing every voice to be heard. (There is actually a simple, albeit
very technical, explanation of this phenomenon.)
-program notes by Misha Rachlevsky
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