harlem quartet

ALMENDRAAbelardito Valdés (1911-1958)/Arr. Nicky Aponte

A NIGHT IN TUNISIAJohn Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993)/Arr. Dave Glenn

THE GIRL FROM IPANEMAAntônio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994)/Arr. Dave Glenn

TAKE THE “A” TRAINBilly Strayhorn (1915-1967)/Arr. Paul Chihara

:: intermission ::

EPÍLOGOAldo López-Gavilán (b. 1979)

TALKING TO THE UNIVERSEAldo López-Gavilán

ECLIPSEAldo López-Gavilán

PAN CON TIMBAAldo López-Gavilán

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Ilmar Gavilán, violin

Melissa White, violin

Jaime Amador, viola

Felix Umansky, celloWITH

Aldo López-Gavilán, piano

the program

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 69

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GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY ALLAN AND KATHE COHEN

harlem quartet

ALMENDRAAbelardito Valdés (b. Havana, November 7, 1911; d. Havana, December 9, 1958)/Arr. Nicky AponteComposed 1938

Abelardito Valdés was the beloved leader of a highly popular Cuban dance orchestra thatbore the same name as this danzon, its theme song: “Almendra” [Almonds]. During theperiod of its greatest fame, in the 1940s and ’50s, ballroom dancers flocked to Almendra’slive performances of its extensive repertoire, which their devoted public also knew from themany albums that Almendra recorded.

A NIGHT IN TUNISIAJohn Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (b. Cheraw, South Carolina, October 21, 1917; d. Englewood, New Jersey, January 6, 1993)/Arr. Dave Glenn

Composed 1941-42

The great Dizzy Gillespie was a trumpeter in the Earl Hines Band during the hey-day of bebopwhen he composed this piece, which he called “Interlude.” Both Sarah Vaughan and AnitaO’Day recorded it (with lyrics by Jon Hendricks) under that title, respecting Dizzy’s disdainfor the other title. “Some genius,” said Dizzy, “decided to call it ‘Night in Tunisia.’” By the

Notes on the

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Sandra Hyslop

70 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie

Abelardito Valdés

In their work together, the quintet of Harlem Quartet and Aldo López-Gavilán has developed a repertoire that honors composers, arrangers, jazz musicians, and other performers whoincorporate improvisation into their music. All the works on this evening’s concert areperformed in that tradition. The composers and arrangers who are named have provided amusical platform for the unique interpretations of the Harlem Quartet and their partner, Aldo López-Gavilán.

In 1979 the pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán was born in Cuba into a family of talentedand accomplished musicians. His mother, Teresita Junco, was a well-known concert pianist andpedagogue. She performed and recorded both with Aldo and with his brother, the concertviolinist Ilmar Gavilán, the founding leader of the Harlem Quartet. Their father, Guido, is aconductor and composer.

As a pre-schooler, Aldo wrote his first music compositions and had his first piano instructionfrom his mother. He began formal studies at the age of seven and made his debut as a pianistat the age of twelve. In addition to learning the demanding classical piano repertoire, Aldodeveloped remarkable improvisational skills at a very young age.

Aldo López-Gavilán has an active international career, performing as soloist and in ensemblesthroughout the world. In 2006 the conductor Claudio Abbado invited him to perform as a concertosoloist in a concert honoring the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, and in 2007 he performedProkofiev’s First Piano Concerto with Abbado in Caracas and Havana. In 2012 he made his debutat Carnegie Hall in the concert “Voces de Latino América.”

Aldo’s seven CDs reflect the breadth of his repertoire, which ranges from classical to jazz andincludes many of his own compositions and improvisations. His first CD won the 2000 Grand Prixat Cubadisco, and he was included in the DVD set Cuban Pianists: The History of Latin Jazz.

• • •

name “Interlude,” Dizzy Gillespie and his Sextet recorded it for Victor in 1946, a 78 rpm discthat in 2004 was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. It is currently available on severalhundred recordings, adapted and arranged for every conceivable combination of instrumentsand voices. In his memoir “To Be or Not to Bop,” Dizzy Gillespie explained the origin of themusical idea. Sitting at the piano, he noticed that the notes of chord progressions he wasimprovising created a melody with a Latin, or oriental, feel. Playing it with a bebop rhythmcreated “a mixture with a kind of syncopation in the bass line,” different from the regularfour-beat bass. He subsequently referred to it as an “anthem to bebop, ” which introducedAfro-Cuban rhythms into American jazz.

THE GIRL FROM IPANEMAAntônio Carlos Jobim (b. Rio de Janeiro, January 25, 1927; d. New York City, December 8, 1994) /Arr. Dave Glenn

Composed 1962

In 1962 the composer Antônio Carlos Jobim and his friend, the poet Vinicius de Moraes, created a song for the musical theater piece Blimp, a work that they were creating in theirhome city, Rio de Janeiro. Originally titled “The Girl Who Passes By,” the samba became oneof the most-performed, most-recorded popular songs in the history of the genre. Eventually,the original Portuguese lyrics were supplemented for international purposes by NormanGimbel’s English lyrics, so that the tall and tan, young and lovely Girl from Ipanema wassoon “passing by” her fans all over the world. By one estimate, the song has been recordedca. 250 times. Although its popularity made “Tom” Jobim’s name familiar in internationalhouseholds, his work as a prolific composer, arranger, singer, pianist, guitarist, performer,and recording artist would have stood alone, even without his famous Girl, as one of themost extraordinary bodies of musical endeavors in the twentieth century.

TAKE THE “A” TRAINBilly Strayhorn (b. Dayton, Ohio, November 19, 1915; d. New York City, May 31, 1967)/Arr. Paul Chihara (b. Seattle, 1938)Composed in 1939

In September 2007 the Harlem Quartet released its first CD, entitled “Take the ‘A’ Train.”The title track features an arrangement by Paul Chihara of the famous Duke Ellingtontheme song composed by Billy Strayhorn.

In this energized four-minute piece, a diverse world comes together: the African-Americancomposer Billy Strayhorn, who wrote so many famous compositions for the Duke Ellingtonorchestras; the Japanese-American composer and arranger Paul Chihara, who has createdsoundtracks for countless cinema and television films; and the Harlem Quartet, whosestated purpose is “to advance diversity in classical music while engaging young and newaudiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire, highlighting worksby minority composers.”


The Brazilian songwriterAntônio Carlos Jobim, alsoknown as Tom Jobim, was aprolific composer, arranger,singer, pianist, guitarist,performer, and recordingartist.

Take the “A” Train, theHarlem Quartet’s first CD(White Pine Music), featuresthe title song.

The composer and pianist Aldo López-Gavilán has provided commentary for the final fourpieces on the program.

EPÍLOGO Aldo López-GavilánComposed before 2009; 7 minutes

From the DVD Más allá del Ocaso [Beyond the sunset]: “Epílogo” was originally written for solopiano, solo clarinet, and orchestra. The central theme explores a dream-like lyricism, highlymodulatory, as well as a triumphant musical gesture reminiscent of “Nueva Trova,” a stylepioneered and made famous by troubadour singers Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanés. Italso showcases Aldo López-Gavilán’s characteristic canon in the development section,where all instruments stagger a rhythmic figure that constructs a sonic kaleidoscope.

TALKING TO THE UNIVERSE Aldo López-GavilánComposed before 2009; 7 minutes

From the DVD Más allá del Ocaso [Beyond the sunset]: “Talking to the Universe” has gonethrough several transformations from piano solo to piano jazz band to piano jazz band withorchestra. The quintet version captures the intimate and yearning quality of a person sendinga message in a bottle out to the vast universe, as well as the vibrancy and wholeness offeeling in union with the cosmos. It culminates in a complex and exhilarating counterpointof gradually increasing energy as preparation for launching out of planet earth.

ECLIPSEAldo López-GavilánComposed before 2009; 4 minutes

From the DVD Más allá del Ocaso [Beyond the sunset]: Originally written for violin and piano,“Eclipse” is a personal piece that expresses great vulnerability. It was written for Aldo’s brotherIlmar, addressing the emotional toll taken by the involuntary separation of the two brothersdue to political circumstances, as Ilmar went to the United States, while Aldo remainedin Cuba.

PAN CON TIMBAAldo López-GavilánComposed before 2014; 4 minutes

From Aldo López-Gavilán’s most recent (2014) CD, De todos los colores y tambien verde[About all the colors, and green, too]: “Pan con Timba” is a quintessential Cuban piece, joyfuland contagiously optimistic. The title means “bread with unknown something,” classicpost-Cuban revolution humor, as the younger generation, instead of indulging in self-pity,embraced humor as a psychologically uplifting device to deal with the scarcities of theirlives. This humor is now a staple, an essential component, of the current Cuban identity.The piece features many types of “Cuban tumbao”—a reiterative rhythmic pattern—andintertwined elements derived from popular contemporary Cuban dances.

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Aldo López-Gavilán’s seventh, and most recentCD (2014) isDe todoslos colores y tambienverde [About all the colors,and green, too]

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Benjamin Jacobson, violin

Andrew Bulbrook, violin

Jonathan Moerschel, viola

Eric Byers, cello

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STRING QUARTET IN G MINOR, OP. 10Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Animé et très decideAssez vif et bien rythméAndantino, doucement expressifTrès modéré—En animant peu à peu—Très mouvementé et avec passion

KONGSGAARD VARIATIONSAnders Hillborg (b. 1954)

:: intermission ::

STRING QUARTET NO. 8 IN E MINOR, OP. 59, NO. 2Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

AllegroMolto AdagioAllegretto—Maggiore (Thème russe)Finale: Presto

calder quartet

GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY SUSANNE GUYER AND THAD CARPEN

STRING QUARTET IN G MINOR, OP. 10Claude Debussy (b. St. Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862; d. Paris, March 25, 1918)Composed 1893; 24 minutes

At the great Paris International Exposition of 1889-90, the young French composer ClaudeDebussy discovered the music of the Far East through the performances of the gamelan orchestras of Javanese musicians. That encounter not only worked its magic on Debussy,but through him it altered the course of music composition in his time.

Unlike other composers, including Beethoven and Shostakovich, Debussy did not wait untilhis maturity to tackle the writing of a string quartet. By 1893, satisfied that he could expresshis idiosyncratic ideas in this medium, Debussy undertook his String Quartet No.1, which heintended to dedicate to his friend the composer Ernest Chausson. Working simultaneously

on the quartet and his new orchestral work L’Après-midi d’une faun,Debussy explored daring new music territory. Midway through the composition of the string quartet, Debussy wrote to Chausson, whom hecounted on for an understanding ear, “As for the last movement, I can’t getit into the shape I want, and that’s the third time of trying. It’s a hard slog….”

After Chausson had heard the quartet in a trial run, he wrote to Debussywith criticisms and reservations. Debussy replied, “I must tell you that for

some days I have been greatly upset by what you said of my quartet….I felt that in the end itonly resulted in your being attracted to certain aspects of my work to which I attach littleimportance.” And to what did Debussy “attach little importance”?

Studying the eventual form of the String Quartet, as well as the great orchestral works hecomposed later, one can see that Debussy had little regard for the traditional sonata form, withits development sections and thematic manipulations. He ignored the rules of counterpoint,which controlled (or forbade) the use of parallel voices, preferring to set chords upon chords,in fleet waves of motion. Through it all, his ear for his own language dictated a rhythm and a flow of his music that ran counter to the definitive thrust of traditional Germanic rules ofcomposition. He reveled in the pentatonic scales and cross rhythms of the music of the FarEast. No wonder Chausson did not understand.

In the Quartet, Debussy begins with the germ of a theme that appears in all four of themovements. Both Hector Berlioz and César Franck had utilized this approach, using arecurring motif to stitch movements, or parts of movements, together. This motif, togetherwith the sheen and freshness of his harmonic inventions, supply all the “structure” thatDebussy needed to make of this string quartet a unified whole.

In some ways, Debussy clung to tradition in this work. Attempting a string quartet was in itself a vestige of his attachment to the past. In addition, the forms of the first movement (a modified sonata allegro), the second movement (a scherzo with trio), and the third (songform) give the superficial impression of a “regular string quartet.” However, the musicalcontent of the Quartet points the way forward, toward the Debussy of the shimmeringorchestral works to come.

In the end, Debussy dedicated his First String Quartet to the Ysaÿe Quartet (Eugène Ysaÿe,Mathieu Crickboom, Léon van Hout, and Joseph Jacob), who gave the first performance ofthe work on December 29, 1893. Its mixed critical reception revealed that at least some in

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Sandra Hyslop


At the 1889 ExpositionUniverselle in Paris—wherethe newly opened EiffelTower served as the entrygate—Claude Debussy firstheard the music of gamelanensembles from Java. Underthe everlasting spell of thescales, harmonies, and timbres of these ensembles, Debussy composed his String Quartet of 1893.

the audience understood the electrifying vitality, brilliant sonic colors, and sparkling clarityof the young composer’s singular achievement in writing for string quartet.

KONGSGAARD VARIATIONSAnders Hillborg (b. Stockholm, Sweden, May 31, 1954)

Composed 2006; 14minutes

The Swedish composer Anders Hillborg has developed significant ties to the United Statesmusic world, where his works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic,Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, hewas composer-in-residence at the Aspen Music Festival in 2008.

Premiered in 2006 by the Prazak Quartet, the Kongsgaard Variations is dedicated to Johnand Maggy Kongsgaard. John Kongsgaard, a winemaker in Napa Valley, California, is a co-founder of the Arietta winery, whose wine labels include an image of a Beethovenmanuscript excerpt: two measures of the Arietta theme from the composer’s final pianosonata. Mr. Hillborg has written the following about his Kongsgaard Variations:

…So when I was asked to compose a piece in honour of this fabulous wine, this [Arietta] theme would naturally have a key role in the piece. But whereas Beethoven’spiece is a set of rigourously carried out variations with a steadily increasing intensitycurve,… the Kongsgaard Variations are more like meditations, with no directionalprocess.

The music floats aimlessly through the centuries, displaying reminiscences ofBaroque, folk music, Renaissance, and Romanticism, but with Beethoven’s Ariettatheme as the musical epicenter. Although scarcely audible, the piece actually startswith music directly derived from the Arietta theme, leaving out the melody, butmaintaining the same rhythmical flow and harmonic landscape, as if Beethoven’stheme is dreaming about yet another variation on itself.

Arietta means “little song,” and these beginning bars are then cloned and mutatedinto other “little songs” that occur on several occasions in the piece.

After the introductory section the first violin takes on a simple, thoughtful solo motif,and again, this is cloned and mutated and appears later in the piece in differentshapes. Then comes a viola solo, joyful, as in trance, leading into a section where all instruments sing the praise of wine and music.

Shortly after the middle of the piece, we hear the Arietta theme for the first time,but strangely distorted and stretched, in the same way a cubistic painting twists themotif it uses. It’s almost as if the music is being played backwards.

A simple chorale lands us in the music that started out the piece. Then, finally, comesthe first part of the Beethoven theme in C major in its pure, original shape, succeededby the second part of the theme in A minor, but here again distorted, before the musiccompletely vaporizes into a mist of harmonics.


Wine labels from the Ariettavineyard (Napa Valley, California) feature a two-measure excerpt ofBeethoven’s manuscript for the Arietta theme fromthe composer’s final pianosonata.

STRING QUARTET IN E MINOR, OP. 59, NO. 2Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1771; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Composed 1805-06; 35 minutes

Beethoven’s three string quartets, composed in 1805-06 and published in 1808 as Opus 59,were commissioned by and dedicated to Count—and later, Prince—Andrei KirillovichRasumovsky, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna. They immediately became known as “the Rasumovsky quartets.”

This patron and friend of Beethoven, one of the wealthiest men in Europe, was a passionateamateur musician. He maintained a professional string quartet for performances, on call, in his elegant home in Vienna. For several years, that ensemble was the quartet of theBeethoven’s close friend and colleague the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-1830).Schuppanzigh, six years younger than Beethoven, was a leading figure in Vienna’s communityof musicians and served as the principal violin in the premier performances of many ofBeethoven’s compositions—chamber music as well as orchestral works.

An acquaintance in that social circle said that “[Beethoven] was as much at home inRasumovsky’s palace as a hen in her coop. Everything he wrote was taken warm from thenest and tried out in the frying pan.” Although Beethoven declined Rasumovsky’s request to give him lessons in theory and composition, he did accept his commission for the threestring quartets. At their first performance, in the Rasumovsky palace, Schuppanzigh sat firstviolin and Count Rasumovsky himself, as was his custom, played the second violin part.

Thayer, in his Life of Beethoven, reported that the Vienna correspondent of the Allgemeinemusikalische Zeitung (that important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century journal thatprovides us copious details of musical happenings throughout Europe) wrote the followingremark about the Opus 59 in 1807: “…three new, very long, and difficult Beethoven quartets…are attracting the attention of all connoisseurs. They are profoundly thought through and admirably worked out, but not to be grasped by all.”

Beethoven was aware of the advanced nature of these compositions. An Italian musician,Felix Radicati, asked the composer if he seriously considered these quartets to be music.Beethoven quickly replied, “Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age.”

That “later age” arrived sometime in the twentieth century, when a profound appreciation forBeethoven’s more challenging quartets began to take hold. What to Signore Radicati seemedbizarre, now reaches modern ears as the exciting force that Beethoven breathed naturallyinto the music.

Opus 59, No. 2, begins with two dramatic and incisive chords, in the tonic, E minor, and itsdominant, B major, followed by a silence. This theme—chords and silence—recurs throughoutthe first movement, contrasted by rapidly swirling melodic passages. The music of theslow—molto slow—second movement demands sustained legato expressivity, more prayerfulthan sentimental in tone. It ends serenely. In the Trio of the exuberant Scherzo, marked“Allegretto,” Beethoven employed a Russian theme (no doubt to honor his patron), which hedelineated in energetic canonic passages. The final movement completes the work, inrelatively short order, with ebullient and rapidly paced good humor. The frequently recurringprincipal theme, memorably jaunty, is like an invitation to a roisterous dance.

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Sandra Hyslop


Ignaz Schuppanzigh(1776-1830), violinist,violist, conductor, and close friend of Ludwig vanBeethoven, occupied a central place in Vienna’smusic life for forty years. Ashis handsome countenanceand fit figure metamorphosedinto morbid obesity,Schuppanzigh becameknown for his corpulence,about which his friendBeethoven occasionallycommented. In fact,Beethoven even wrote ashort choral compositionentitled “Lob auf den Dicken,”[In praise of the fat one] “in honor of” his friend. The text reads, in part,

“Schuppanzigh ist einLump.

Wer kennt ihn nicht,dendicken Sauermagen…”

[Schuppanzigh is a lump,who doesn’t know him,the fat sour belly?...]

Beethoven’s humor, if suchit was, apparently had littleeffect on their relationship,as Schuppanzigh was a loyalfriend and colleague forBeethoven’s entire life in Vienna.

FOLIAS, ANTIGUAS and CRIOLLASFROM THE ANCIENT TO THE NEW WORLD

FOLIAS ANTIGUASLA SPAGNADiego Ortiz (1510-1570)

(CMP 121):FOLIAS ANTIGUAS Anonymous—Improvisation

FOLIAS ANTIGUAS “RODRIGO MARTINEZ”Anonymous—Improvisation

JÁCARAS / LA PETENERAGaspar Sanz (1640-1710)/ Son from Tixtla

PASSAMEZZO ANTICO I - PASSAMEZZO MODERNO III - RUGGIERO ROMANESCA VII - PASSAMEZZO MODERNO IIDiego Ortiz

MORESCAPedro Guerrero ((b. ca. 1520)

FOLIA: PAVANA CON SU GLOSAAntonio de Cabezón (1510-1566)

GUARACHAJuan García de Zéspedes (1619-1678) Traditional from Tixtla, with improvisations

:: intermission ::CELTIC TRADITIONS IN THE NEW WORLD

REGENTS RANT Traditional Scottish

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hesperion XXIJordi Savall, viol and directionXavier Díaz-Latorre, theorbo and guitarDavid Mayoral, percussion

tembembe ensamble continuoUlises Martínez, violin, guitarra de son, and voiceEnrique Barona, guitarra huapanguera, Leona, jarana jaroch 3a, mosquito,maracas, pander, and voiceLepoldo Novoa, marimbol, guitarra de son 3a, jarana huasteca, quijada de caballo, and arpa llanera

The program continues on the next page

FOLIAS, ANTIGUAS, AND CRIOLLAS: From the Old World to the NewALL OF THE MUSIC on this program has travelled oceans of transformation, adapting, absorbing,and reshaping a musical inheritance with many points of origin. The pursuit of true “authenticity”in modern performances grows from the personal rediscovery of the spark of creativity. Hence,our program embraces a constant improvisatory approach, replete with moments of freshcollective improvisation.

A VARIEGATED MIXTURE of sailors and soldiers, nobles and clerics, musicians and merchants,adventurers and African slaves, and all kinds of people hoping to get rich quickly sailed to theNew World from Andalusia via the Canary Islands. In the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America,the newcomers encountered the astonishingly rich cultures of the indigenous peoples whosemusical practices can be heard still today, fragments traced through documents from the

so-called “conquest.” Many of the original languages have disappeared,along with the peoples who spoke them. Some songs, dances, tunes,and rhythmic patterns survive, however, within hybrid or “Creolized”traditional versions. Tunes rescued from long-vanished colonial culturespour forth in early dance-songs and their traditional incarnations.

Spanish Siglo de Oro [Spanish Golden Age] writers provided colorful references to these well-known tunes and dances. In his play El amanteagradecido, Lope de Vega (1562-1635) described the chacona as a“mulatto-like” female ambassadress from “the Indies.” For Miguel deCervantes (1547-1616), worldly songs and dances of the “jacarandina”[rough bullies] sounded in opposition to the decorous “música divina” of sacred polyphony.


LORD MOIRATraditional Scottish

LORD MOIRA’S HORNPIPE Traditional Scottish Ryan’s Collection (Boston)

FANDANGO-EL FANDANGUILLOSantiago de Murcia (1673-1739)/Traditional jarocho

DIFERENCIAS SOBRE LAS FOLIASAntonio Martín y Coll (1650-1734) and improvisations

GLOSAS SOBRE “TODO EL MUNDO EN GENERAL”Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1584-1654)

IMPROVISATIONS ON THE CANARIOSAnonymous

GALLARDA NAPOLITANA – JARABE LOCO (JAROCHO)Antonio Valente (active 1565-1580) and improvisations

With the support of the Departament de Cultura of the Generalitat de Catalunya,the Institut Ramon Llull and the Programa México en Escena del Fondo para

la Cultura y las Artes de CONACULTA - MÉXICO

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Jordi Savall

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Louise K. Stein

In Folías Antiguas & Criollas, from theOld World to the New, we bring to lifethe dialogue among the Llanero andHuasteco oral traditions, the anonymousmestizo folk repertoires influenced by Nahuatl and African cultures, andearly modern European and Hispanicmusic preserved in manuscripts andprinted collections. This dialogue istirelessly engaging, humbling, andennobling—it is among the mostessential of conversations.

Chaconas, folias, canarios, jácaras, and fandangos circulated freely andrapidly, forging audible bonds between “old” and “new” territories andsocieties. Even today, this music and the dances retain an extraordinarymixture of European, Iberian, and indigenous elements.

THE CHURCHES, CATHEDRALS, CONVENTS, and missions in the NewWorld were the institutions whose evangelizing practices not only affectedwhich musical repertoires would be preserved, but also how musicalhistory might be recorded and interpreted. Music was a catechistic artthat lent itself to the evangelizing project in both the northern and thesouthern parts of the Americas.

Both material musical forms (written into choir books or psalm books, for example) and audible, aural ones (musical instruction in European instruments and religious song) wereengaged to bring native musicians and listeners into the cult of the Eucharist. While the suppression of profane music is a story we know too little about, it surely influenced thetransmission of music in the colonies. Even amorous romances and lively bailes could bemisinterpreted when performed in public spaces, perhaps filled with new meanings ormagical associations.

SPANISH AND COLONIAL MUSICIANS were especially famous for their improvisatory talent.Our program displays several manifestations of this passionate musical “madness,”“frenzy,” or folia—the practice of making variations or diferencias on a tune, sounding thetune in the bass while spinning daring figurations above and around it. Variations by the late sixteenth-century Spanish organist Antonio de Cabezón, on therepeated or “ostinato” bass, known as folia, might be its earliest form.Our improvisations on “Rodrigo Martínez” from the Cancionero musicaldel palacio (1499) are shaped by Renaissance conventions of improvisation described by famous practitioners including Diego Ortíz(1510-1570) himself.

In his Trattado de glosas (Rome, 1553), Ortíz included sets of variationswith the bass tune of the folia, as well as bass patterns with the Italianlabels Romanesca, passamezzo anticho, and passamezzo moderno. Inthese, a repeating ostinato harmonic pattern is played on the harp, guitar, or other polyphonicinstruments, while the solo viola da gamba player performs virtuoso melodic and rhythmicelaborations.

Many songs derived from the folia (“Rodrigo Martínez” for example) are included in the Cancionero musical de palacio and other manuscript anthologies. Some appear as instrumentalintabulations (vocal pieces notated for instrumental performance). Luis Venegas deHenestrosa’s Libro de cifra nueva (1557), an anthology of music for keyboard instruments,harp, or guitars, includes Cabezón’s “Pavana con glosa,” with its “glosas,” or elaborations, on the folia. “Pavana con glosa” is the first set of folia variations to be published in organtablature; its inclusion in the Libro de cifra nueva attests to its currency in an epoch famousfor competition among emerging styles.

CIRCULATING IN SPAIN AND ITALY before travelling to the Americas, the “Moresca” knownas “La perra mora” has a strong Arabic flavor in its characteristic rhythmic design with 5/2time. The version attributed to Pedro Guerrero (fl. 1560-1580 in Seville) comes from the


Musicians from both the old and newworlds who believed in the power ofmusic enlivened it through ingeniousimprovisation. They continue to polishit with passion and spirituality in ourtime. This music has been kept alivefor centuries, often in remote regionsby unnamed musicians whose sensitivityand talent has ensured the survival ofindigenous and culturally significantmusic from the distant past.

Performers would embellish with ad libitum ornaments and diminutions, soeach performance of any work wouldbe unique. Pieces that have survived to our time in notation for a single instrument were surely performed bysoloists and ensembles interchangeably,on vihuelas, guitars, harps, harpsichords,or organ.

Cancionero de Medinaceli, collected in the late sixteenth century. The term “perra mora” wasa low insult commonly hurled at Jews, Moors, and others belonging to marginalized groups.In the poem set by Guerrero, it refers metaphorically by the love-crazed speaker, who regardshis lover as a “slayer of hearts:”

Di, perra mora, Tell me, filthy [Moorish] bitch,

di, matadora, Tell me, murderess,

¿Por qué me matas, Why do you slay me,

y, siendo tuyo, And, though I am yours,

tan mal me tratas? Why do you treat me so poorly?

IN CONTRAST, THE FOLIA VARIATIONS, or diferencias in the Flores demúsica anthology compiled between 1690 and 1708 by the Franciscanorganist Antonio Martín y Coll, present the common tune in an embellishedsetting closer in style to the better-known folia variations of his Italiancontemporary, Arcangelo Corelli. Flores de música also contains piecesby Corelli and Handel, reflecting Madrid’s cosmopolitan musical culturein the early eighteenth century. Our choice of instruments for thisperformance, however, includes viol, harps, guitars, and castanets, inkeeping with the characteristic sound of Iberian musical practice.

While the Romanesca, passamezzo, pavana, and gallarda were high-class dances appropriateat aristocratic court balls, other dances known as bailes, including zarabandas, chaconas,seguidillas, folias, fandangos, and jácaras, loudly announced their popular origin and wereunrestricted in social class. They danced from streets and taverns to printed guitar and harpanthologies for literate amateurs. These were profane, even lascivious dances, as describedin legal prohibitions, but their slick popularity allowed them to “squeeze through the cracksand even enter the convents” (Cervantes, La ilustre fregona).

The jácara was a wildly popular urban baile in the later seventeenth century across the Hispanic dominions. Jácaras (also xácaras) explore the world of sassy ruffians and low-lifemercenaries in adventurous and sometimes violent fantasy. The slang-filled jácara strophesrelate the mythical exploits of underworld heroes dangerous to women. The jácaras and the traditional son La Petenera share similar harmonic structures, melodic motives, andrhythms. La Petenera is found in both the Flamenco and Huasteco [region of Mexico] traditions,but reaches back to medieval Sephardic communities in Andalusia as well. The lyrics alwaystell of a dangerous woman. She is a siren or mermaid in the Huasteco song La Petenera, thesalty lament of a damned sailor doomed by her seduction.

THE FANDANGO HAS BROUGHT FORTH exuberant celebration on both sides of the Atlanticsince the seventeenth century. Fandango is the ultimate expression of the Mexican son (alsocalled the huapango), a celebration in which everyone dances, sings, shouts, claps, whistles,and plays instruments. The Fandanguito jarocho is musically identical to the early eighteenth-century fandango by Santiago de Murcia from the Mexican Saldívar Codex No. 4manuscript.The fandango became famous across Europe and the Americas for its vivid choreographyand brilliant strumming. The Venetian Giacomo Casanova described it as expressingpassionate love, from the “sigh of desire to the ecstasy of possession.”


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Jordi Savall

and

Louise K. Stein

An array of Renaissance andBaroque instruments, theviol, Baroque guitar, and asmall Baroque triple harp,plus the ageless handheldpercussion instrument, thecastanets.

This modern copy of the viol[above right] makes clearthe difference in form between a viol and a violin.Both violins and viols cameinto use at about the sametime, the late 1400s. Violscome in different sizes, withvoices ranging from trebleto bass, and in the Renaissanceand Baroque periods werefrequently played together in“consorts.” For this concert,Jordi Savall is playing (1) a Treble viol: anonymousItalia, ca. 1500, and (2) a seven-string Bass Viol,Barak Norman,London, 1697.

The popular canarios dance (perhaps born in the Canary Islands) becamea “ground” bass for instrumental variations. Endearingly “barbarian,” thejoyful canarios was assimilated through Spanish and French adaptationto be transformed into a sophisticated courtly dance. Something of itsuntamed origin may have been featured in its choreography. When thescandalous canarios were danced onstage, the dancers’ bodies surelypointed to the dance’s exotic origin. The canarios remind us how musictravelled, shaped by the vagaries of oral transmission while incorporatingIberian, European, African, and indigenous American traditions ofimprovisation.

The Guaracha from Mexico has a characteristic rhythm in common with a much-performedvillancico by Juan García de Céspedes (†1678). This composer from Puebla, Mexico, basedhis humorous Christmas villancico, “Ay que me abraso” (literally, “Oh, I am burning”) on theGuaracha rhythm. In the villancico, peasants celebrating the birth of Jesus are panting andgasping for air in the excessive heat of their spiritual rapture. The repeating rhythmicpattern mimics the rising intensity of the metaphorical flames of their emotions.

VARIATION SETS (diferencias and pasacalles in the harp and guitar collections) were composedor collected by acclaimed instrumental virtuosos. Their publications allow us to know oftheir technical mastery as improvisers. The tientos and other organ pieces in the Facultadorgánica (1626) by Francisco Correa de Arauxo are among the most brilliantly virtuoso of inventions. Correa chose a long, contemplative bass melody as the basisfor a stunningly beautiful set of variations, “Todo el mundo en general.”

Correa de Arauxo’s older contemporary, the organist Antonio Valente,working in Spanish Naples, published his small collection in the samenotational system or “tablature” used by Correa. The Gallarda Napolitanaon our program is virtually the same as a son jarocho entitled El jarabeloco, which in turn appears to be related to Pan de Jarabe, a son bannedin the seventeenth century by the Inquisition in Mexico.

For the variation sets on folias, jácaras, chaconas and other tunes,and the traditional Mexican sones, both composition and successfulperformance require a succession of freely virtuoso elaborations over a pre-existing bass line, pattern, or melody. This constant elaborationbrings alive the Celtic tunes, which have long travelled back and forthacross the Atlantic.

The raw popular and folk tunes of the Irish and the Scots were gentrified and written downin the eighteenth century in Europe as well, though seventeenth-century collections alsowitness their transformation in variation sets and character pieces for harp, treble viol, orthe lower lyra viol, with a long list of special tunings that imitated familiar sounds, includingthe bagpipes. Performing music for lyra-viol, or in the “lyra-way,” also brings up the manysimilarities between Celtic improvisation and the baroque performance—inégal playing andvery distinctive bowing, along with elaborate, virtuoso improvised ornamentation.


Jordi Savall and Tembembe Ensamble Continuo

The Celtic tunes have long travelledback and forth across the Atlantic. Indeed, some of the first “concert”performers and music teachers in theformer British colonies were Scots orIrishmen. The huge Ryan’s Mammoth Collection of 1050 Reels and Jigs, printed in 1883 in Boston, contains more than a century’s worth of the populardance tunes that working itinerant musicians needed to know as they travelled among communities in thenorthern regions of the Americas.

LETTERS FROM ARGENTINALalo Schifrin (b. 1932)

Tango del AtardecerPampasTango BorealisDanza de Los MontesTango a borgesMalambo de Los Llanos

:: intermission ::

SIX BY PIAZZOLLAAstor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Michelangelo 70Verano PorteñoAdios NoninoLa Muerte del AngelOblivionLibertango

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Cho-Liang Lin, violin

David Shifrin, clarinet

Hector Del Curto, bandoneon

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6viva tango!Alex Brown, piano

Satoshi Takeishi, percussion

Pablo Aslan, bass

This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Jeannie and Angus McIntyre.

LETTERS FROM ARGENTINALalo Schifrin (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 21, 1932)Composed 2004; 57 minutes

Letters from Argentina was premiered in April 2005 at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center andwas subsequently recorded on Lalo Schifrin’s CD label, Aleph Records. This evening’s concertfeatures four members of the original ensemble—Cho-Liang Lin, David Shifrin, Pablo Aslan, andSatoshi Takeishi—with Hector Del Curto now playing the bandoneon (originally Nestor Marconi),and Alex Brown at the piano instead of the composer, Lalo Schifrin, who was a member of thesextet in its first performance and recording. Mr. Schifrin (who is a distant cousin of the clarinetistDavid Shifrin, for whom he wrote the work) has provided the following comment, which heoriginally wrote for the liner notes of the Letters from Argentina CD.

Like the clear sky, like the rain, like the clouds, music has always been part of the Argentinean atmosphere. The strumming of the Gauchos’ guitars, the rhythms of theIndian drums, the expressive melodies of the bandoneon were the aural medium inwhich I grew up. In Argentina, the music was ever present in the literature, in the visual arts, and in the history of the country.

Tangos coming from radios, folk music sung and danced in festivities, Milongas and Candombes celebrating Mardi Gras surrounded my childhood in Buenos Aires.

Letters from Argentina are the musical memories enhanced by my imagination andconverted into impressions of my homeland. Working on this project helped me torecreate an unreal past in which a memory persists and invites us to a journey full of promises and dreams.

Tango Del Atardecer This is one of the pieces which I wrote for the score of CarlosSaura’s film “tango.” In this version a second part (Trio) was added, and its lyricism is a contrast to the sense of self-assurance of the first two themes.

The musicians participating not only in this number, but, in the whole CD are members of the Lincoln Center Chamber group ensemble. Its former director, DavidShifrin, a clarinet virtuoso. Cho-Liang Lin, an outstanding violin soloist. Pablo Aslanon bass and Sato Takeishi in percussion together with me on piano are added to thesextet’s nucleus. And finally, as a guest soloist, Nestor Marconi on bandoneoncompletes the ensemble.

Pampas The vast plains between the populated centers of Central Argentina and thePatagonia are called the PAMPA. I purposely wanted to convey the feeling of infinity, of vast spaces and solitude by transforming the title into “PAMPAS” in plural. There is a feeling of nostalgia but also of hope in this number which reflects the echoes ofArgentinean folk music.

Tango Boreales Vigor, energy, and a strong pulsation are the basic elements of thistango. The second part allows for the theme and variations form, inviting the soloiststo perform solos, duets and different instrumental combinations. The whole piecewhich came to my mind in Iceland was a tribute to Buenos Aires suburbs, where thecity almost meets the countryside.

Danza De Los Montes The Calchaquí Indians in the Northwest of Argentina were vassalsof the Incas before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. In this number, we feel their

Notes on the

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Sandra Hyslop


Lalo Schifrin, the renownedpianist, composer, arranger,and conductor, is widely admired for his work inmany musical genres. Hismany accolades include four Grammy awards and,for his film scores, severalOscar nominations.

rhythms juxtaposed to the scales that suffered the passing of time. The result is anexciting study on rhythms and melodic counterpoints.

Tango A Borges Jorge Luis Borges was one of the greatest Argentinean writers. Hispoems, essays, and short stories have enriched our culture.

This is a tribute to the great man whose provocative thoughts were (and still are) partof my intellectual formation. He loved Tango and even wrote lyrics to Milongas,which are the ancestors of that genre. We could say that the Milonga is a fast tango.

Resonancias Two different themes alternate almost as a “sonatine”: the first, which is built around the cycle of fourths (an interval which is neither major nor minor). Thesecond theme is actually a passacaglia which allows for improvisation. The spirit ofBuenos Aires permeates all through the piece.

La Calle y La Luna (The Street and the Moon) Like a musical portrait, this tangoevokes images of the Argentinean capital. I remember one night in one of the barrios.The street was deserted, only illuminated by a full and bright moon. However, themusic is not only a description of the scene, but expresses the feelings that this “letter” or rather “postcard” awakens in my memory.

Malambo De Los Llanos The gauchos were not peons. They were independent and enjoyed their absolute freedom. The Pampa was their habitat, and the horse theirtransportation. They did not work for a landlord and their resources came from whatever they could find in their nomadic lives.

The “Malambo” (Danza de Los Llanos) was their music, which they play with guitarswhile dancing. They used their spurs as percussion in combination with the bootspoints and heels. This was a dance for men only and a kind of challenge for the oneswho were trying to be faster, more creative in their rhythmic inventions and moreaggressive. Since it was performed only by male dancers, it was a metaphor of a duel!

SIX BY PIAZZOLLAAstor Piazzolla (b. Mar del Plata, Argentina, March 11, 1921; d. Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 4, 1992)

As a sixteen-year-old, Astor Piazzolla worked in the night clubs of Argentina, performingwith traditional tango orchestras while attempting to compose on the side. The pianist ArturRubinstein heard Piazzolla’s early compositions and, impressed, urged him to study with the great Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). Under Ginastera’s tutelage, Piazzolla became familiar with the music of Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bartók and enthusiasticallyadopted them as models. By night he continued to make his way as a tango musician.

In 1953, with Ginastera’s support, Piazzolla won a French government grant to study in Pariswith the renowned Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979). Thinking that this student of Gabriel Fauréand teacher of Aaron Copland would help him unlock the mysteries of composition, Piazzollapresented himself to her for instruction.

“When I met her,” he wrote later, “I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. Shestarted to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It’s very well written.’And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said, ‘Hereyou are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can’t findPiazzolla in this.’ And she began to investigate my private life, what I did, what I did and did


Astor Piazzolla was a virtuosoperformer on the bandoneon.

not play, if I was single, married or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent.

“And I was very ashamed to tell her,” Piazzolla continued, “that I was a tango musician.”

“Finally I said, ‘I play in a night club.’ I didn’t want to say ‘cabaret.’ And she answered, ‘Nightclub, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, and thought ‘I’ll hit thiswoman in the head with a radio…’ It wasn’t easy to lie to her. She kept asking. ‘You say thatyou’re not a pianist. What instrument do you play, then?’ And I didn’t want to tell her that Iwas a bandoneon player, because I thought, ‘Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.’Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own.

“She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand, and told me: ‘You idiot. That’s Piazzolla!’ AndI took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.”

He continued his study with Boulanger, devoting himself whole-heartedly to the tango, to thebandoneon, to the tango orchestra, and to searching explorations of the music. Returning toBuenos Aires, and with extended stays in the United States and tours throughout the world,Piazzolla became enormously influential as a bandoneon performer and composer of tangos.The six tangos on this evening’s concert are among his most well-known.

Michelangelo 70 Michelangelo was a Buenos Aires café in which Piazzolla’s New Tango Quintet performed in the 1970s. The piece first appeared on the recording Nuevo Tango: Zero Hour, which wasreleased in 1986. Piazzolla is said to have considered this his greatest album.

Verano PorteñoPiazzolla wrote four tangos that eventually were gathered under the title of “Cuatro EstacionesPorteñas”—The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (“porteño” refers to someone born in thecapital city of Argentina). Verano Porteño—Buenos Aires Summer—was composed in 1965as incidental music for a play, Melanita de Oro, by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz.

Adios NoninoIn October 1959 Piazzolla composed “Farewell, Nonino” in New York City as a memorial tribute to his father, Vicente “Nonino” Piazzolla, a few days after his passing.

La Muerte del AngelIn 1962 Piazzolla composed evocative incidental music for another theater piece by AlbertoRodriguez Muñoz, Tango del Ángel. The play portrays the residents of a poor Buenos Airesneighborhood who are uplifted by the benevolence of an angel. This innocent being suffers

the common fate of many urban saints: death in a knife fight, describedmusically in “La Muerte del Angel—The Death of the Angel.”

OblivionPiazzolla wrote and recorded “Oblivion” for the Italian film Enrico IV,based on the play of that name by Luigi Pirandello. Directed by MarcoBellocchio, and featuring the well-known actors Marcello Mastroianniand Claudia Cardinale, the film, seen at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival,helped to bring this tango before a world-wide audience.

LibertangoAs a symbol of his transition from so-called Classical Tango to what he called his Tango Nuevo—New Tango—Piazzolla named this piece“Libertango.” First recorded and published by Piazzolla in Milan in 1974,Libertango has been widely performed and recorded, notably by thecellist Yo-Yo Ma on his CD Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla.

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Sandra Hyslop


Astor Piazzolla(1921-1992)

The bandoneon is the most typical instrument in the tango ([like] the saxophone in jazz). It is very differentfrom the accordion, [to] which somesuperficial similarities could be perceived.However, the bandoneon was born inGermany during the Renaissance invillages with small churches that couldnot afford a large organ. So, thebandoneon is a sort of portable organand arrived to Argentina with theimmigration waves from Europe during the nineteenth century.

–Lalo Schifrin

PIANO SONATA NO.13, QUASI UNA FANTASIA, IN E-FLAT MAJOR,OP. 2, NO. 1Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Andante—Allegro—Andante— Allegro molto e vivace—Adagio con espressione—Allegro vivace

VARIATIONS, HOMAGE TO HAYDN, FOR SOLO PIANO, OP. 93Alexander Goehr (b. 1932)

SONATA APRÈS UNE LECTURE DE DANTE: FANTASIA QUASISONATAFranz Liszt (1811-1886)

:: intermission ::

PIANO SONATA NO. 14, QUASI UNA FANTASIA, IN C-SHARP MINOR,OP. 27, NO. 2Ludwig van Beethoven

Adagio sostenutoAllegrettoPresto agitato

SELECTIONS FROM TRANSCENDENTAL ETUDESFranz Liszt

No. 9 Ricordanza [Remembrance]No. 10 Allegro agitato molto No. 12 Chasse-Neige [Snowscape]No. 8 Wilde Jagd [Wild hunt]

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Kirill Gerstein, piano

PIANO SONATA NO.13, QUASI UNA FANTASIA, IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 27, NO. 1Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Composed 1800-01; 15 minutes

The entire corpus of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas covers a diverse terrain. He repeatedly confounded expectations and fearlesslycrossed the boundaries of whatever had been called a keyboard/pianosonata up to his time. The two sonatas of Opus 27 are prime examples.Subtitling both of them “Quasi una fantasia” [in the manner of a fantasy],Beethoven pulled up anchor and set out on two unique journeys ofexploration.

Beethoven composed the four movements of Op. 27 No. 1 as onecontinuous piece, with no pauses between the sections [attacca]. Thekeys of the movements—E-flat major, C minor, A-flat major, and E-flatmajor—knit the four parts together seamlessly. Yet, the movementscontrast with each other dramatically, in a freedom-seeking fantasy.

Beethoven further upset the Haydn and Mozart model by beginning with a slow movement,moving on to a scherzo, and placing the slow Adagio in third place. Internal coherence isprovided by thematic relationships, most apparent in the third-movement theme that isquoted in the substantial final movement, a six-part rondo, which brings the sonata to abrisk conclusion.

VARIATIONS, HOMAGE TO HAYDN, FOR SOLO PIANO, OP. 93 Alexander Goehr (b. Berlin, August 10, 1932)

Composed 2012; 10 minutes

In 2010 Kirill Gerstein received the Gilmore Artist Award, which supported his commission of the British composer Alexander Goehr to write this Variations for Solo Piano. Gersteinperformed it for the first time last summer, July 19, 2015, in the New Mexico Museum of Art at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The subtitle, “Homage to Haydn,” indicates a musical connection that may be noticeable to those who are familiar with Josef Haydn’s F-minor Variations for Piano. Haydn’s Variations have in common with Goehr’s Variationsthe key, F minor; the frequent occurrence of a downward-falling melodic interval of a sixth;and a distinctive dotted rhythm in the main theme.

Alexander Goehr explains the connection between the Haydn Variations and his own:

My piece is subtitled “Homage to Haydn.” Why? Because it is modeled on Haydn’s Variations in F minor/major. But modeled does not imply pastiche or imitation. FromBrahms onwards (if not before) there are countless examples of pieces modeled onothers in a variety of ways. To do this does not imply a closeness to the original, ratherinevitably a distance from it. I don’t know whether a listener would be the wiser forknowing the original. In any case, a composition must stand on its own feet.

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Sandra Hyslop


Miniature portrait on ivoryof Beethoven by ChristianHornemann, 1802

Alexander Goehr inJerusalem, 2007

SONATA APRÈS UNE LECTURE DE DANTE: FANTASIA QUASI SONATAFranz Liszt (b. Raiding, Hungary, October 22, 1811; d. Bayreuth, July 31, 1886)

Composed late 1830s, revised in 1849; 17 minutes

The Sonata après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi sonata, althoughcomposed in the late 1830s for Liszt’s own performances, was firstpublished only in 1856. He first played it in Vienna, November 1839,under its original title, “Fragment after Dante.” He revised it severaltimes, and the expanded, one-movement sonata was publishedin1856 under its new title, Sonata après une lecture de Dante: Fantasiaquasi sonata.

The (so-called) Dante Sonata was included in Volume II of Liszt’sthree volumes of piano solos called “Années de pèlerinage” [Years of Pilgrimage]—a reference to the Romantic tradition wherein atraveling hero treads a path to spiritual growth. Liszt’s own travels inSwitzerland and Italy prompted him to compose pieces for solo pianothat reflected upon those two countries, their cultures, and hisresponses to them.

Volume II of his Années de Pélerinage depicted his impressions of Italyand Italian culture. Basing this one-movement sonata on his reading ofthe epic poem The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265-1321),Liszt divided the work into two main themes. The first section, basedon Liszt’s use of the devilish harmonic interval called the “tritone” (an augmented 4th), depicts the agonies of the souls in Hell—Dante’sInferno. The second section is an uplifting chorale theme that depictsthe joys of souls who go to Heaven. The one-movement sonataconcludes with a frenzy of chromatic octaves as the forces of the devilconsummate their victory.

PIANO SONATA NO. 14 IN C-SHARP MINOR, OP. 27, NO. 2Ludwig van Beethoven

Composed 1801; 16 minutes

In 1800 the thirty-year-old Beethoven fell in love with one of his students, the seventeen-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, and he dedicated this sonata to her. Even thoughtheir romance was fleeting, he treasured her memory. The brilliantly constructed sonata haswithstood amateur attempts on its Adagio sostenuto first movement, as well as the insipid“Moonlight” appellation tacked onto it by the nineteenth-century music critic Ludwig Rellstab.The sonata stands as a first-class example of Beethoven’s unfettered creative powers.

The sonata runs the gamut of emotions, from its subdued opening, through the pensivegrace of the second movement, to the agitated, challenging force of the finale. HectorBerlioz described the famous opening, Adagio sostenuto, as “one of those poems thathuman language does not know how to qualify.” (Even though Rellstab tried…) Beethoven directed that the first movement be played without damping the strings (an instructionagreeable to the pianos of his time), which produced an effect that modern pianists must


This simple 1842 silhouetteof Liszt at the piano by thediplomat and biographerKarl Varnhagen von Ense(1785-1858) is significantprecisely because of its angleof observation. Liszt was thefirst pianist ever to performin the concert hall with thepiano parallel to the stagelip—in other words, withhim, as performer, in fullsilhouette to the audience.

The poet Heinrich Heine called it“Lisztomania”: a continent-wide eruption of Franz Liszt adoration.During the period 1839-1848 Liszttoured ceaselessly as a virtuoso concertpianist, causing public swooning of thesort not experienced until a century laterwith Frank Sinatra. During that decadeLiszt supplemented his enormousrepertoire of piano music written byother composers with brilliant concertworks of his own creation.

Handsome and dynamic,Liszt (here, in an 1841 daguerreotype) toured as awildly popular pianist until1846, when he abruptly leftthe concert stage for good todevote himself to teachingand composing.

strive to accomplish with the instruments of our own time: allowing the harmonies to swiminto each other, without becoming muddy, in order to preserve the gossamer fabric of the lefthand bass, the softly rolling accompaniment, and the crystalline melody.

From the Adagio in C-sharp minor, the Allegretto emerges, without pause, in the enharmonickey of D-flat, now in the major mode and rather wistful in character. In its turn, the thirdmovement pivots back to C-sharp minor, erupting dramatically from the graceful Allegretto.Presto agitato, Beethoven instructs—fast and agitated. In spite of the furor, remnants of thefirst movement are obvious: the prominently supporting bass line in the tonic key, the brokenchords in the center, and the melodic element—this time short and sharp—on top. Thelongest of the movements brings the sonata to a fevered conclusion.

FOUR SELECTIONS FROM TRANSCENDENTAL ETUDESFranz Liszt

Composed 1826-1837-1852; 26 minutes

In the nineteenth century, the two most prominent French manufacturers of pianos, Pleyeland Erard, vied with each other for attention and customers. Frédéric Chopin preferred thelight action and more delicate tone of the Pleyel. It suited the small salons and music roomsin which he occasionally consented to perform for an elite public.

Liszt, on the other hand, whose self-confidence tolerated his big concerts before big audiences,wanted a correspondingly big piano. The Erard instrument, with seven octaves, a largesound, and a more resistant and sturdier action, more nearly suited his style of playing andcomposing. Pieces like the Transcendental Etudes, composed originally for his own concertuse, depended for their effect on an instrument that could withstand the pianist’s technicalexplorations, and give back, to the pianist and the audience, a full measure of articulatesound and color.

The Erard’s strength and responsiveness were particularly important for the wide-rangingtechnical demands of the twelve Transcendental Etudes, which Liszt began composing earlyin his concert career and continued to revise and refine even after he had retired from thestage. Published in 1852, they were dedicated to Liszt’s only teacher, Carl Czerny, with whomhe had studied as a boy. They represent the apex of the “concert etude,” the piano exerciseelevated from a practice room technical exercise to an audience-dazzling feat of musicalpersuasion.

In the four Transcendental Etudes on this evening’s program, the challenges are varied and demanding. These tone poems for piano ask for wide-ranging sonority and legatoexpressiveness in the “Ricordanza” [Remembrance]; unleashed extroversion in the untitledNo. 9 (Allegro agitato molto); a balance of orchestral sounds supporting lyricism in the“Chasse-Neige” [Snowscape]; and the endurance challenge of the powerful chords in theaptly named “Wilde Jagd” [wild hunt]. With the sturdy and versatile Erard piano at hisdisposal, Liszt could indulge his wildest fantasies of his instrument’s capabilities.

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Sandra Hyslop


“The well-known pen-and-ink drawing reproducesBeethoven’s figure prettywell…I often saw him likethat…in full sail homeward…with his body leaning forward(but not bent) and his headhigh, as usual…”–Gerhard von Breuning

(son of Beethoven’s lifelong friend Stephan

von Breuning) in his bookMemories of Beethoven

OVER THE MOONI. MY SPIRIT SANG ALL DAY*

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

S’ANDASSE AMOR A CACCIA*Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

THERE IS SWEET MUSIC, OP. 53, NO. 1*Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

ECCO MORMORAR L’ONDE*Claudio Monteverdi

II. CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM*Orlando di Lasso (ca. 1532-1594)

AVE MARIA*Robert Parsons (ca. 1535-1572)

BENEDICTA ES, CAELORUM REGINAJosquin Desprez (ca. 1450-1521)

III. THREE MOON SONGS*Nico Muhly (b. 1981)HarlequinMoondrunk

Solo: Marques Jerrell RuffThe Alphabet

Solos: Kory Reid and Adam Ward

Commissioned for Chanticleer in 2015 by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon in honor of Howard Solomon

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6chanticleerGerrod Pagenkopf, Kory Reid, Darita Seth, sopranoCortez Mitchell, Alan Reinhardt, Adam Ward, altoMichael Bresnahan, Brian Hinman, Blake Morgan, tenorEric Alatorre, Matthew Knickman,

Marques Jerrell Ruff, baritone and bassWilliam Fred Scott, music director

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GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY STEPHEN AND JILL BELL

NOTES ON THE PROGRAMBy Jace Wittig, Gregory Peebles, Joseph Jennings, Andrew Morgan, Matthew Oltman, and David Crook

MY SPIRIT SANG ALL DAY Gerald Finzi (b. London, July 14, 1901; d. September 27, 1956, Oxford, United Kingdom)

Born in England in 1901, the reclusive and introspective composer GeraldFinzi lived only fifty-five years, dying before his time from Hodgkin’sDisease. During his brief life, he spent time composing, attendingconcerts, lecturing, collecting music, and cultivating friendships withsuch colleagues as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Hisoutput includes orchestral and choral music as well as many solo songsand essays. He shows a brilliance in the way he sets words by finding

the essence of the text without the need for over-embellishment. “My Spirit Sang All Day”is from a set of seven part-song settings of poetry by Robert Bridges (1844-1930) and is anecstatic declaration of the joy wrought by love.

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“Music from heaven, is’t?” from Gerald Finzi’s “MySpirit Sang All Day” —illustrated by a full moon in theheavens over Mt. Hood in Oregon

FROM THE LOTUS LOVERS*Stephen Paulus (1949-2014)

A Rich BrocadeLate SpringAll NightIllusions

Commissioned for Chanticleer in 2010 by Mary Rodgers and Henry Guettel

IV. MIRRORBALL*Elbow/Guy Garvey/Arr. Peter Eldridge

Solo: Adam Ward

FLY ME TO THE MOON*Bart Howard/Arr. Evan Price

MOON RIVER*Henry Mancini/Arr. Jace Wittig

THERE IS A BALM IN GILEAD*Trad. Spiritual/Arr. Jennings

Solo: Marques Jerrell Ruff

WE SHALL WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY IN PEACE*Trad. Spiritual/Arr. William Appling and Joseph Jennings

GOOD NEWS, THE CHARIOT’S COMIN’*Trad. Spiritual/Arr. Moses Hogan

* These works have been recorded and are available for purchase at these performances, or at www.chanticleer.org.

S’ANDASSE AMOR A CACCIA Claudio Monteverdi (b. Cremona, Italy, May 9, 1567; d. Venice, November 29, 1643)

Claudio Monteverdi was revered as a revolutionary composer whose music spurred thetransition between Renaissance and Baroque idioms. Though his legacy is strongly tied to the composition of two remarkable operas (L’Orfeo, 1607, and L’incoronazione di Poppea,1642), his focus until age forty was primarily the mastery of madrigal composition, bothsacred and secular.

Monteverdi’s madrigals, divided into nine volumes, can be seen as a snapshot of hisevolution as a composer. “S’andasse Amor a caccia” comes from Monteverdi’s second book ofmadrigals (published 1590, Venice), setting a flirtatious text by Tasso, perhaps seen as wittycommentary on the fine line between love and lust.

THERE IS SWEET MUSIC, OP. 53, NO.1Edward Elgar (b. Broadheath, United Kingdom, June 2, 1857; d. Worcester, United Kingdom, February 23, 1934)

Sir Edward Elgar was born the son of a piano-tuner and musician. Elgar may have a reputationas a quintessentially British composer, but in fact stated openly that he felt more connectedto the musical culture of mainland Europe, from which he drew much of his inspiration. He is most famous for his orchestral works, though his compositional output is large and includes staged works, solo songs, chamber music, and choral pieces.

The distinctive “There is Sweet Music” is the first piece in Elgar’s Opus 53, a collection offour part-songs for mixed voices. The composer considered the set his best work for chorus,and among them, “There is Sweet Music” was his favorite. It is notable not only for its richsonority, but also for being written in two keys at once (scored for lower voices in G, while the upper voices are in A-flat). That the overall impression is not terribly dissonant speakshighly of Elgar’s skill as a composer and interpreter of text.

ECCO MORMORAR L’ONDEClaudio Monteverdi

Monteverdi’s first two books of madrigals primarily utilize an imitative style, following thetraditions of voice-leading and polyphony established in the 16th century. “Ecco mormorarl’onde” (text by Torquato Tasso) comes from Monteverdi’s second book of secular madrigals(1590) and sets a bucolic seaside text with subtle imitation. In the final phrase, the bassvoice begins a descending, sustained line, providing a harmonic anchor for the upper voices.This technique was increasingly common in Monteverdi’s madrigals, and eventually evolvedinto the decidedly Baroque practice of melody and accompaniment.

CONDITOR ALME SIDERUMOrlando di Lasso (b. Mons, Belgium, ca. 1532; d. Munich, Germany, June 14, 1594)

To his contemporaries, Orlando di Lasso was the “Prince of Music,” the “King of Musicians,”the “Divine Orlando.” His early career was sensational and meteoric: born in the French-speaking province of Hainault in present-day Belgium, di Lasso was abducted three timesduring childhood on account of the beauty of his voice. A master of all the major vocal genres of his time—French chanson, Italian madrigal, German lied, as well as Latin Mass


Edward Elgar, composer of“There Is Sweet Music”

16th-century illuminatedmanuscript for Conditoralme siderum

and motet—Lasso became the most published composer of the sixteenth century. Accordingto one recent estimate, approximately one half of the music publications from the latesixteenth century contain works by him.

The beautiful hymn Conditor alme siderum is quite ancient. Often sung during the Adventseason at Vespers, the chant dates from the 7th Century and has been translated into variouslanguages. (Today it is commonly known as “Creator of the Stars at Night.”) Di Lasso’s settinguses a verse anthem format in which alternating verses are sung in chant and polyphony.The composer’s gift for setting the chant tune is particularly evident when comparing thefourth and sixth verses—the former a relatively florid and intimate setting for two voices,and the latter a celebratory and grand setting for five parts.

AVE MARIARobert Parsons (b. ca. 1535; d. Newark-on-Trent, United Kingdom, 1572)

“You who were so great, Parsons, in life’s springtime, how great you would have been in autumn had not death intervened.” So Robert Dow eulogized Robert Parsons in his partbooks of 1580. Parsons met his fate in a tragic drowning accident on the river Trent. He composed several monumental pieces (mostly in Latin) that were a great influence on his younger contemporaries, especially William Byrd. His most famous surviving work, aravishingly beautiful setting of the “Ave Maria,” could have been written anytime during hisunfortunately short career, and there is no question that it is the work of a master. Thetreatment of the cantus firmus is especially transcendent in its scalar and repetitive structure,allowing each of the soprano’s first six entrances to begin on successively higher pitches.

BENEDICTA ES, CAELORUM REGINAJosquin Desprez (b. County of Hainault, ca. 1450; d. Condé-sur-l’Éscaut, France, August 27, 1521)

Although considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, Josquin Desprezlived a life steeped in mystery for present-day scholars. The earliest surviving written recorddates from 1459, which lists him as an “adult” singer at the cathedral in Milan, where hewas employed until 1472. Other posts included serving as a singer in the Papal Chapel inRome and as court composer to Duke Ercole I of Ferrara. In 1503, Josquin moved to France,where he served as Provost of Notre Dame de Condé, a post he held until his death in 1521.

Like many of his contemporaries, Josquin seemed particularly taken with texts honoring the Virgin Mary. Benedicta es, caelorum Regina is among the composer’s more celebratorymotets. Josquin often employs smaller groupings of voices for repetitions of the samephrase, each seemingly more lush and effusive than the next. Josquin is known for oftensetting apart the “ave” text (his beloved “Ave Maria” uses an entirely original text to closethe motet, set in a homophonic and austere style); such is certainly the case with this motet. The text Ave plena gratia (“Hail, full of grace”) shines through the thick polyphonic texture insustained and radiant tones. The final plea to the Virgin for intercession (Nunc Mater exoranatum…) is set in gently lilting triple meter, preceding the joyful “amen.”

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The veneration of the VirginMary permeated medievalart and music. This illustrationfrom the Book of Hoursdemonstrates the connectionsbetween a significant OldTestament source, the Songof Songs, and the adorationof Mary, the Mother ofGod, who appears in theNew Testament. "Love" isthe subject, whether referringto God's love for Israel, thelove of Christ, or the adorationof the Virgin Mary.

THREE MOON SONGSNico Muhly (b. Randolph, Vermont, August 26, 1981)

Nico Muhly is a celebrated composer of chamber music, orchestral music, sacred music,opera, ballet, and music for collaborators across a variety of fields. He has composed oncommission from St. Paul’s Cathedral and Carnegie Hall, and has written choral music forthe Tallis Scholars and the Hilliard Ensemble, songs for Anne Sofie von Otter and IestynDavies, an encore for violinist Hilary Hahn, and a viola concerto for Nadia Sirota. TheMetropolitan Opera recently commissioned him to compose Marnie for its 2019-2020 season.

This commission, made possible by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon, is Muhly’s first compositionfor Chanticleer. It sets three poems by the Symbolist poet Albert Giraud (1860–1929), fromhis enigmatic cycle, “Pierrot Lunaire” (1884). The French poems (Giraud was Belgian) havebeen translated into numerous languages—perhaps most famously a German translationby Otto Erich Hartleben, as set to music by Arnold Schoenberg. This English translation, byAndrew Porter, captures the larger themes of the cycle—turn-of-the-century decadence, the artist’s yearn for escape (often through intoxicants), the allure of the moon, and amelancholy nostalgia for simpler times.

FROM THE LOTUS LOVERSStephen Paulus (b. Summit, New Jersey, August 24, 1949; d. Saint Paul, Minnesota, October 19, 2014)

The texts are English translations of very old Chinese poems once attributed to a poet named Tzu Yeh (alternately spelled “Zi Ye”). Currentscholarship indicates that these poems may not actually come from thepen of Tzu Yeh; in fact, there may not even have been a Tzu Yeh. StephenPaulus wrote about the composition:

I had long wanted to set some of these poems, and when Chanticleer approachedme, I was asked to find a sensual text to set. The many images evoked in the poemsare rich in descriptions of nature. The text talks of “endless nights, winter skies, harshwinds, the moon’s white light, the willows, and the sea breeze.” The translations areby my friend and colleague Sam Hamill, who lives in the Pacific Northwest, is a poetin his own right, and has made extensive translations of Japanese, Chinese, and Greekpoems.

Musically, I have tried to take advantage of the tremendous vocal talents of Chanticleer.I have used everything from unison to divisi chords with a variety of choral texturesand ranges. With each movement I have tried to exploit a different choral “portrait” or character.

My deep gratitude is extended to my dear friends, May and Hank Guettel for theirkindness and generosity. I am happy to offer this work in honor of their friendship and their wonderful ability to inspire and motivate. —SP


Stephen Paulus, regarded as one ofAmerica’s most beloved and often-performed modern composers, wrotemore than 200 works in a multitude of genres, including commissions formany of the world’s most prestigioussymphony orchestras, chamberensembles, and soloists. The Lotus Lovers,commissioned in 2010, was his firstcomposition for Chanticleer.

Stephen Paulus

Nico Muhly, composer of“Three Moon Songs”

MIRRORBALLElbow/Guy Garvey (b. Bury, Greater Manchester, England, March 6, 1974)/Arr. Peter Eldridge

The British band Elbow has been soaring just beneath the mainstream since their debutalbum was released in 2001. Peter Eldridge, from the New York Voices, captures theweightless, elevated feeling of new love in this arrangement, his first for Chanticleer. Mirrorball was commissioned by Chanticleer in 2013 for the studio album Someone New.

FLY ME TO THE MOONBart Howard (b. Burlington, Iowa, June 1, 1915; d. Carmel, New York, February 21, 2004) /Arr. Evan Price

MOON RIVERHenry Mancini (b. Little Italy, New York, April 16, 1924; d. Los Angeles, June 14, 1994)/Arr. Jace Wittig

American popular music flourished throughout the world in the era thatencompassed Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s through the Hollywood musicalsof the 1950s. The brightest stars of this era (Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington,George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and so many others) created the GreatAmerican Songbook—the most popular and memorable songs of theera. Today these songs are called, simply, “standards.”

THERE IS A BALM IN GILEADTraditional Spiritual/Arr. Joseph Jennings

WE SHALL WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY IN PEACE Traditional Spiritual/Arr. William Appling, Joseph Jennings

GOOD NEWS, THE CHARIOT’S COMIN’ Traditional Spiritual/Arr. Moses Hogan

African American sacred music is a fountain that never runs dry. Impeccableenunciation—often of dialect, as if to highlight the singers’ identification with, and distancefrom, slavery—was combined with a moaning tonality incarnated in American music’sgreatest indigenous sound, the blue note. The ensemble sound was typically huge and thevocal range immense.

In the course of his extended tenure with Chanticleer, Joseph Jennings’s arrangementshave become popular favorites with audiences worldwide. To his reflective setting of “WeShall Walk through the Valley in Peace” and the perennial favorite “There Is a Balm…” weadd a rousing setting of “Good News, The Chariot’s Comin’” as arranged by the late MosesHogan. Hogan (1957-2003) received acclaim as a pianist, arranger and conductor of the MosesHogan Singers. In the works of Jennings and Hogan, exuberance and deep reverence areequally matched.

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Founder: Louis Botto (1951 – 1997)Music Director Emeritus: Joseph H. Jennings

Website – www.chanticleer.org

The Fisk Jubilee Singers, organized in 1871 at FiskUniversity, was the firstvocal ensemble to bring theNegro Spiritual into theconcert hall.

harlem quartet

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