This Sunday morning we are at Marlboro, at a dress rehearsal for this afternoon's concert. Amazing - we get to hear for free what people are paying good money to hear this afternoon. The rehearsal is not in concert order. First up is Bartok. Here are the concert notes:
2021 Preview Notes • Week One • Persons AuditoriumSunday, July 18 at 2:30pm
1. Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV:21 (1795)
Joseph Haydn
Born March 31, 1732 • Died May 31, 1809
Duration: approx. 15 minutes • Last Marlboro performance: Marlboro Premiere
After the death of his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, Haydn took advantage of his freedom, and his pension, to travel toLondon twice. Haydn’s works had preceded him across the English Channel and were already much celebrated when the composer saw the ocean for the first time and crossed over to the island on New Year’s Day of 1791. Upon arriving, Haydnmet with even greater success. He also met the pianist Therese Jansen Bartolozzi, one of Muzio Clementi’s best students. Three piano trios were published in London in 1795, before Haydn left England to return home in August that year. The three Trios were dedicated to Princess Marie Ermenegild Esterházy, wife of the new head of the family, Prince Nicolaus II. The first of the set, the Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV:21, opens with a six-bar introduction, marked Adagio pastorale.
Participants: Janice Carissa, piano; Lun Li, violin; Marcy Rosen, cello
This is a delightful, joyful, piece, quite a contrast to the Brahms. It is a perfect opening to a very varied program.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Born March 5, 1887 • Died November 17, 1959
Duration: approx. 7 minutes • Last Marlboro performance: 2018
Villa-Lobos called Bach the “mediator among all races” and regarded him as a lifelong idol. Both Villa-Lobos’s love of Bachand his fluid employment of Brazilian musical forms can be heard in this suite scored for soprano and eight cellos, the instrument that Villa-Lobos himself played. The suite of two movements begins with a sumptuous Aria with its famous wordless vocalise as well as lyrics that dreamily describe the moon’s ascent. The second movement, marked Dança, takes the form of the Brazilian embolada. The piece has only been performed at Marlboro twice before. Benita Valente, who returns every year to Marlboro to work with the young vocalists, sang Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 in 1958, just 13 years after the work was completed.
Participants: Caitlin Aloia, soprano; Marcy Rosen, cello; Alexander Hersh, cello; Coleman Itzkoff, cello; Edvard Pogossian, cello; Julia Yang, cello; Chase Park, cello; Nathan Chan, cello; Oliver Herbert, cello
Today was the birthday of one of the cellists, Alexander Hersh, and all but one of his fellow cellists were wearing a "Happy Birthday, Alex" T-shirt. And of course they sang "Happy Birthday" to him.
3. Contrasts (1938)
Béla Bartók
Born March 25, 1881 • Died September 26, 1945
Duration: approx. 20 minutes • Last Marlboro performance: 2016
Commissioned by clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, this three-movement work is based on Hungarian and Romanian dance melodies. The first movement opens with a lively violin pizzicato, followed by the clarinet which introduces the main theme. This theme is an example of the Hungarian dance and music genre "verbunkos", or recruiting dance. The genre of music was commonly played during military recruiting. The second movement is much more introspective and has a continuously shifting mood without a defined theme. The third is a frenzied dance that begins with a scordatura (G♯-D-A-E♭) violin section, after which the clarinet introduces the main theme. In the middle, there is a slower section in the time signature 3+2+3+2+3/8, after which the pattern of variations on the theme is resumed.
Johannes Brahms
Born May 7, 1933
Died April 3, 1897
Duration: approx. 35 minutes Last Marlboro performance: 2015
Brahms first began work on what would become his Op. 60 in the 1850s. However, perhaps because of the personal meaning of the piece to him, it took two decades for the composer to complete and publish it. Brahms began writing the quartet when he was helping Clara run the Schumann household during Robert Schumann’s stay in a mental asylum. Brahms uses Robert’s own musical motif for Clara, C#-B-A-G#-A, transposed to C minor, throughout the quartet, and he made no secret of his sense of longing for Clara in his note to his publisher. “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistolto it,” he wrote, describing the tragic end to the Goethe character, Werther, who takes his own life to resolve a fateful love triangle.
Participants: Jonathan Biss, piano; Geneva Lewis, violin; Zhanbo Zheng, viola; Julia Yang, cello
This is a tumultuous piece of music, but also voluptuously lyrical - expressing Brahms' emotions, I suppose, concerning his relationship with Clara Schumann. It is really something to hear. And, of course, performed impeccably,
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