Please note that the final concert by the Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis and guest soloist Nicolò Spera, originally scheduled for April 6, was postponed due to inclement weather and the widespread power outage on that date. The concert will be rescheduled pending the availability of the musicians and the venue. The new date will be announced as soon as arrangements have been confirmed.
You may read the original story here. This is the full program for the concert:
“Nicolò!” Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor With Nicolò Spera, guitar
Jessie Montgomery: Starburst
Joaquin Rodrigo: Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasy for a gentleman)
Joan Szymko will lead her own works in Boulder and Cherry Hills Village
By Peter Alexander April 10 at 5:15 p.m.
Composer Joan Szymko has set to music poems by several of the leading poets of our times, including Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry.
A conductor as well as composer, Szymko will lead Boulder’s Ars Nova Singers in performing her own works Friday in Boulder and Saturday in Cherry Hills Village (7:30 p.m. April 12 and 13; details below).
Joan Szymko
As a composer, Szymko does not limit her choice of texts to widely honored, prize-winning poets. As she herself points out, she also has set poems from the middle ages and by grade school students. Stressing the breadth of her inspiration, she has written, “My goal is to compose music that invites the audience in while challenging the notion that accessibility and musical integrity are incompatible concepts.
“I have composed choral music to be performed with actors, poets, Taiko drummers, modern dancers, aerialists and accordion players. I have set texts by fourth graders and Pulitzer Prize winners, medieval mystics and contemporary poets. I am drawn to texts that invoke divine grace, speak to the universal yearning for good and that nurture a compassionate heart.”
Szymko grew up in Chicago and studied choral music at the Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University and the University of Illinois at Urbana. She currently lives in Portland, Ore., where she served on the choral music faculty at Portland State University. She recently retired as artistic director of Portland’s Aurora Chorus, and holds workshops with choirs around the United States and abroad.
Her works have been commissioned by groups ranging from professional choruses to church and community choirs. They have been published by Oxford University Press, Walton Music, Roger Dean Publishing, and other leading publishers of choral music.
The program that Ars Nova will present features Szymko’s “It is Happiness,” based on poems by Oliver including the much loved “Wild Geese,” as well as Berry’s popular “Peace of Wild Things,” a text by Teresa of Avila, and other diverse sources.
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“Bloom” Ars Nova Singers, Joan Szymko, guest conductor With the CU Treble Choir and instrumental soloists
Joan Szymko: Vivos Voco (I call out to the living; text by Julian of Norwich)
—“How Did the Rose” (text by Kim Stafford)
—Lo Lefached (Be not afraid; text by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov)
—Nada te turbe (Let nothing disturb you; text by Teresa of Ávila)
—Invitation to Dance (texts by Hafiz, adapted by Daniel Ladinsky)
—Where is the Door to the Tavern?
—Until
—The God Who Only Knows Four Words
—Ubi Caritas (Where charity is)
—It is Happiness (poetry by Mary Oliver)
—Be It Therefore Resolved (poetry by Kim Stafford)
—The Peace of Wild Things (poetry by Wendell Berry)
—Look Out (poetry by Wendell Berry)
—It Takes a Village
—We are All Bound Up Together (text by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper)
7:30 p.m. Friday, April 12 First United Methodist Church, Boulder
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13 Bethany Lutheran Church, Cherry Hills Village
TICKETS including livestream of Saturday’s performance
Mini-Chamber 4 with pianist Hsing-ay Hsu and BCO members
By Peter Alexander April 2 at 11 a.m.
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present their 2023-24 artist in residence, pianist Hsing-ay Hsu, performing with members of the orchestra on a mini-chamber concert Saturday (8 p.m. April 6; details below).
Pianist Hsing-ay Hsu
The performance, titled “Mixed Timbres,” will be the fourth and final mini-chamber concert of the 2023-24 season. The program features works for piano with clarinet and cello, with cellist Chas Bernard and clarinetist Kellan Toohey from the orchestra.
Beethoven’s Op. 11 is the earliest work on the program, and one of the earliest works for the combination of piano, clarinet and cello. It is sometimes known as the “Gassenhauer Trio,” taken from the popularity of the theme that Beethoven uses for variations in the final movement. In Vienna, a Gassenhauer (from Gasse, an alleyway) referred to a simple song that was so popular that it was heard all over town.
The theme Beethoven used was taken from a popular music theater work, L’amor marinaro (Seafaring love) by Joseph Weigl. The same tune was used for variations by several other composers, including Paganini and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
Brahms’s Trio op. 114 is one of four chamber works the composer wrote for clarinet in the last decade of his life. All were written for the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, whose playing inspired Brahms to resume composing after he had planned to stop writing new pieces. Brahms’s admiration for Mühlfeld’s playing was reflected in the comment of one of the composer’s friends who wrote that in the Trio, “it is as though the instruments were in love with each other.”
Like the Trio of Brahms, Fauré’s D minor Trio was one of his last compositions. Although Fauré originally planned the Trio for piano, clarinet and cello, it was published as a traditional piano trio, with violin in place of the clarinet. In that form it was premiered in 1922 by the leading piano trio of the time, that of Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals. The BCO Mini-Chamber performance of the first movement restores the instrumentation that Fauré first imagined for the trio.
Emily Rutherford’s “Morning Dance” for piano, clarinet and cello was commissioned by BCO clarinetist Kellan Toohey in 2017. A native of Colorado, Rutherford is a graduate of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., and the Longy School of Music in Los Angeles. Her works have been performed in California and by Denver’s Stratus Chamber Orchestra.
Boulder will have one less orchestra after this weekend.
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra strings with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis. Photo by Glenn Ross.
The Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra will play their last concert Saturday (7:30 p.m. April 6; details below), after 17 years of steadfast leadership from conductor and artistic director Cynthia Katsarelis. Katsarelis recently moved from Colorado to South Bend, Ind., where she is on the faculty of Sacred Music at Notre Dame University.
With Katsarelis, Pro Musica’s philosophy has been to to introduce composers from under-represented groups while featuring local soloists. In keeping with this approach, the final program will present two works by women—Starburst by living composer Jessie Montgomery to open the concert, and the Symphony No. 3 by 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc—and a soloist from the CU faculty, guitarist Nicolò Spera playing the Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasy for a gentleman) by Joaquin Rodrigo.
Montgomery’s Starburst is a short but colorful piece for strings composed in 2012 that has become a popular concert opener. The composer just won a Grammy for her Rounds for piano and orchestra, in a recording by pianist Awadagin Pratt and the ensemble A Far Cry. Pratt will perform Rounds at the Colorado Music Festival this summer (July 25 and 26 at Chautauqua Auditorium).
“It’s become a canonic piece, and it’s a really fabulous opener,” Katsarelis says of Starburst. Pro Musica played it once before, but “it’s good to repeat repertoire sometime,” she says, “especially if it’s right for the program and to highlight the Grammy win.”
Rodrigo wrote his Fantasía para un gentilhombre in 1954 for the celebrated guitarist Andres Segovia, who gave the premiere in 1958. It has four movements based on dances written for guitar by the 17th-century Spanish composer Gaspar Sanz.
Nicolò Spera
It has become one of the best known concertos for classical guitar. Katsarelis and Spera selected it for this concert, in part because she feels that it fits well with Ferrenc’s symphony. “When you’re working with a soloist, you want to give them the choice and then see whether it fits what you are already thinking,” she explains.
“It works really well with Ferrenc because it is a neo-classical work built on 17th-century pieces,” Katsarelis says. “Ferrenc was an extremely well versed composer, and another part of her was involved in reviving early music for keyboard. Her husband was a publisher, and together they did like 15 volumes of treasures for the keyboard, all stuff that wasn’t being played at the time.”
Ferrenc studied both piano and composition in Paris. A successful concert pianist, she was appointed professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory in 1852, the only woman to hold that rank in the 19th century. Known as an excellent teacher, she had many students who had distinguished careers.
As a composer, she stuck to the traditional forms for the symphony, of which she wrote three, and other genres. “She had modern sensibilities, like Mendelssohn and Schumann,” Katsarelis says, but “she doesn’t go the way of program music. Even though she doesn’t write programs, her themes seem to be kind of epic.”
The symphony is in four movements, following the standard pattern of the 19th century: An opening fast movement in sonata form, followed by a slow movement, a scherzo and a finale.
“The first movement has two introductions, a slow one that introduces melodic and harmonic ideas, and then a fast introduction whose main role is to build up the energy to the exposition,” Katsarelis says. “The first theme has the feel of a rustic dance, and the second major theme is like a lyrical waltz.
Cynthia Katsarelis. Photo by Glenn Ross.
“The second movement is what you expect, a slow movement (with) long gorgeous melodies. The third movement is a scherzo, fast and kind of breathless. While it’s moving it’s going through really distant keys, but that gives it the sheen of color, and then the finale has soaring melodies.”
Now settled in South Bend, Katsarelis has already started to build bridges with the local musical community. She has already conducted the South Bend Symphony in a concert with soloists from Notre Dame, and she has plans to continue that collaboration. Looking ahead, “we have aspirations for some pretty big stuff,” she says of her work the the orchestra. “We agreed that we had similar aspirations, and everybody wants more, so that’s really great.”
In the meantime, Saturday’s concert will be a farewell for Boulder for Katsarelis and the Pro Musica. “The plan was to have a really great season and to end with a bang and a party, and to be really proud of everything we accomplished,” Katsarelis says. “I’ll miss the musicians in the orchestra. I’ll miss the patrons and the donors, and the whole vibe of discovery that we always had.
“My heart is full of gratitude. I want it to be a happy farewell, with happy memories of all that we accomplished.”
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“Nicolò!” Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor With Nicolò Spera, guitar
Jessie Montgomery: StarburstJoaquin
Rodrigo: Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasy for a gentleman)
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor
NOW RESCHEDULED: 4 p.m. Sunday, May 5 Mountain View Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder
New artistic director at Central City has experience and hopes for CCO
By Peter Alexander March 22 at 6:20 p.m.
Alison Moritz’s career in opera started with a hot-air balloon.
The new artistic director of Central City Opera (CCO), Moritz saw her first opera in St. Louis when she was nine. It was Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, a very Parisian spoof of the the story of Helen of Troy. At nine, the innuendo did not make much of an impression.
“I think the sexual politics went over my head,” she says. “I was just impressed by the hot-air balloon onstage!”
Alison Moritz: Destined for opera?
Balloon or no balloon, she might have been destined for a career in opera. That first experience really clicked with someone who says she was “an indoor kid [who] loved everything artistic. I was really obsessed with story and picture and music.”
Her first ambition was to be a film animator. “I did see an opera when I was nine, and the whole world just made sense to me,” she explains. “It just felt so magical and exceptional, but also incredibly familiar.”
That early sense of familiarity soon led to a near obsession with opera. “When I was in 8th grade I saw my first production of Traviata and I went back and saw it five times! My parents went with me to the first two performances, and after that they would drop me off in the parking lot and say, ’See you three and a half hours.’
“I used to say I had to work in opera because I couldn’t afford to see opera as much as I wanted to. I had to find a way to sit in—I never get tired of it.”
Her path into directing was not something that she saw from the outset, however. “Initially, it was not clear what my contribution [to opera] could be,” she says. “When you’re not a singer, at the time I was growing up, there were fewer roles for women in production, there were fewer roles for women in leadership.”
Moritz attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied music and art history. She did some work in art administration, and production work backstage, but she thought that might be a hobby and she would work in another field. An internship with Opera America gave her insight into the American opera scene, and while living in New York she attended all the opera and theater that she could afford in standing room.
A turning point came when a friend who went to some performances with her, but did not work in opera, told Moritz, “The way you think about this is someone’s job.”
“That was the first time that I thought maybe I could do this,” she says. “I was really lucky—I went back to school to get a degree in opera stage direction at the Eastman School of Music. When I arrived there I knew a lot about opera but I had very little experience. And I’m proudly grateful that they saw potential in me, and fostered that.”
From Eastman her career as a stage director has only grown. Today, she can claim directing credits from Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Omaha, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Portland Opera and Opera Colorado, among many others.
Moritz says that she approaches her work principally through the music. “My job as a director is to really help contemporary audiences see what’s so special about the music,” she says. “It’s really key for the director to bring the story and the visuals and the relationships amongst people and ideas together, so that we’re making a case for these beautiful documents. That’s always been my approach.”
She believes that growing up a Midwesterner—“in a flyover state,” she says—affects her perspective on opera. “I’ve never had the point of view that the only great opera in America is in the largest coastal companies. They’re incredibly important, but to be able to produce things locally and regionally I think is important, and fundamental to what makes Central City such an exciting place to work and to watch opera.
“The other Midwestern thing about me is I’ve always been creative, but through the lens of pragmatism. I know the cost of wood when we’re building the set. We’ve got to make some nitty-gritty decisions in order to be able to make great art. The Midwesterner in me is always looking to see how long will this take to rehearse, how many days do we need to do X, Y and Z, and that keeps me pretty grounded.”
For the coming summer, Moritz already has long established engagements at Cincinnati and Glimerglass in upstate New York, but after this year her new job will mean she has to forego summer directing jobs outside Central City. “This year there’s a little bit of a time-share, [but] I’m really confident that I’ll be able to spend meaningful time with the audiences at the top of the mountain,” she says. “For future seasons, I will be at Central City the entire summer.”
Central City Opera House. Photo by Ashraf Sewailam.
Looking ahead, Mortiz envisions creating cooperative relationships with other opera companies where she might have directing work outside of the Central City season. “I’m excited about the prospect of creating more co-productions [with other companies] and being able to bring the best of American opera here to Central City,” she says. “I’m really optimistic and excited about the future. I’m really happy to have my boots on the ground and to get to work.
“We’re all very excited to re-imagine and to dream and continue creating a great atmosphere at Central City for both artists and audiences.”
NOTE: Information Central City Opera’s summer 2024 festival season can be found on the CCO Web page.
Vadim Gluzman, Ray Chen and the Colorado Symphony in Boulder and Longmont
By Peter Alexander March 19 at 4:06 p.m.
The Boulder Bach Festival (BBF) will present the Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Guzman in a program that spans centuries, from J.S. Bach to Arvo Pärt.
The final concert of BBF’s 2023–24 season, Gluzman’s performance occurs on Bach’s birthday, at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 21 (Dairy Arts Center; details below). He will perform with the BBF CORE (COmpass Resonance Ensemble) and be joined by BBF music director Zachary Carrettin for Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.
Known for his wide repertoire, Gluzman has premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Michael Daugherty and Pēteris Vasks, among others. His recordings have won numerous awards, including Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s Choice, and Disc of the Month from The Strad, BBC Music Magazine and other publications. He is currently distinguished artist-in-residence at the Peabody Conservatory. He performs on the 1690 ‘ex-Leopold Auer’ Stradivari, on extended loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
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“Old and New Dreams” Boulder Bach Festival CORE with Vadim Gluzman and Zachary Carretttin, violin
Program includes:
J.S. Bach: Violin Concerto in A minor, S1040
Arvo Pärt: Passacaglia
J.S. Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins, S1043
4 p.m. Thursday, March 21 Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center
The CU Presents Artist Series will feature violinist Ray Chen, who is billed as “redefining what it means to be a classical musician in the 21st century,” together with Hispanic-American pianist Julio Elizalde in a concert program combining serious and lighter works Thursday ( 7:30 p.m. March 21 in Mackay Auditorium; details below).
The major works on the program are Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, op. 30 no. 2, and J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, S1006. Filling out the program are encore material pieces, starting with Tartini’s showpiece the “Devil’s Trill” Sonata. After the two heavier works, Chen and Elizalde will wrap up the program with Antonio Bazzini’s brilliant “Dance of the Goblins,” Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 2, and their own arrangement of “Spain” by Chick Corea.
Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 is part of a set published in 1803 as “Sonatas for the pianoforte with the accompaniment of violin.” This label reflects an earlier time, when domestic music-making often featured female pianists, who were expected to have more time to practice than their male partners on violin, and who therefore could master more difficult parts. In the case of this Sonata, each movement opens with the piano and the violin part, while it is not insignificant, often follows the lead of the piano. Unusually for a piece named “sonata,” the Sonata No. 7 is in four movements, and the key of C minor marks it as an often dramatic and stormy work.
Bach’s Third Partita is a suite of dances, preceded by a Preludio. It is the last of his set of Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, one of the pinnacles of the solo violin repertoire. In the bright key of E major, it is one of the most cheerful of the set. That is particularly true of the Preludio, a perpetual-motion movement that is one of Bach’s most familiar pieces. Apparently Bach was himself fond of this movement, which he re-used in a version for organ and orchestra in his Cantata No. 29.
Violinist Ray Chen
Chen came to wide attention in the music world when he won first prize in both the Yehudi Menuhin and Queen Elizabeth violin competitions, in 2008 and ’09 respectively. He is known for his use of social media to reach a wider audience, including as a co-founder of the Tonic Website that allows young musicians to practice and learn together.
Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, he was accepted at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute at the age of 15. He plays the 1714 “Dolphin” Stradivarius violin on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation and once owned by Jascha Heifetz.
Pianist Julio Elizalde has been performing as a recital partner with Chen and violinist Sarah Chang for nearly ten years. A native of the San Francisco Bay area, he is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he is currently on the faculty, and the Juilliard School. He has collaborated with several living composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Stephen Hough and Adolphus Hailstork.
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Ray Chen, violin, and Julio Elizalde, piano
Giuseppe Tartini: Sonata in G minor (“Devil’s Trill”; arr. Fritz Kreisler)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, op. 30 no. 2
J.S. Bach: Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, S1006
Antonio Bazzini: La Ronde des Lutins (“Dance of the Goblins”), op. 25
Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor, op. 72 (arr. Fritz Kreisler)
Members of the Colorado Symphony will visit the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium Saturday (March 23) of present a bilingual concert that tells the story of “The Ugly Duckling.”
The interactive performance in English and Spanish, dubbed a “Mini Música,” will incorporate storytelling, singing and dance. It will be accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra made up of members of the Colorado Symphony.
The performances at 10 and 11:30 a.m. are free, but both are already full with advance reservations.
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“The Ugly Duckling” Mini Música Members of the Colorado Symphony
10 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 23 Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum
SOLD OUT
CORRECTION on March 19: the word ”Música,” which had inadvertently dropped out, was restored in the penultimate paragraph of the story about Colorado Symphony’s performance of “The Ugly Duckling.”
The Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore will present the last of their concerts at the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium for the 2023–24 season, a sold-out “Mahler at the Museum” performance, Saturday (March 16).
The program features a chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for orchestra with alto (or baritone) and tenor soloists. Based on German translations of Chinese poems, the score was completed in 1909, near the end of the composer’s life. Although Mahler called it “A Symphony for Tenor, Alto (or baritone) Voice and Orchestra,” he did not give it a number as a symphony, supposedly because he feared that when he wrote his Ninth it would be his last symphony, as had been the case with Beethoven.
Ironically, his next symphony, Number 9, was in fact the last symphony he completed.
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“Mahler at the Museum” Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor With Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano, and Matthew Plenk, tenor
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (chamber version)
7 p.m. Saturday, March 16 Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum
Haydn and Dvořák complete program for March 10 and 11
By Peter Alexander March 5 at 5:08 p.m.
The violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama burst onto the classical musical scene in 1993, when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition at the age of 16.
Nokuthula Ngwenyama
Ngwenyama followed that distinction by winning the Young Concert Artist International Auditions the following year, and later an Avery Fisher Career Grant. An American of Ndebele (Zimbabwean) and Japanese descent, she attended the Coburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She later attended the Paris Conservatory as a Fulbright Scholar.
With concerts Sunday and Monday (March 10 and 11; details below), the Takács Quartet brings her Flow to Boulder audiences on a program that also includes works by Haydn and Dvořák. The performance will be presented for an in-person audience and by streaming with tickets available here.
The Takács presented the premiere of Flow in Berkeley last fall and have made it a part of their touring repertoire since. Flow was commissioned by the Takács and the presenter Cal Performances after their second violinist, Harumi Rhodes, got to know Ngwenyama at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
The quartet’s request was for a piece “inspired by the natural world.” Taking the request very seriously, Ngwenyama writes in her program notes that she “researched a wide array of subjects,” including “the life cycle, carbon reclamation, environmental protection, animal communication, starling murmurations, our last universal common ancestor (LUCA), black hole collisions and the sub-atomic realm.”
In conclusion, she writes, “Everything in nature flows and develops through time. Flow can be expressed mathematically, psychologically, physically, visually, and, now, via string quartet. . . . Enjoy and go with the flow, we only know what we know.” Her extensive notes include NASA diagrams of the expansion of the universe over 13.77 billion years.
Flow is in four movements, arranged in an essentially traditional order: Prelude, Lento, Quark Scherzo, and Finale. The progression of movements is loosely linked in Ngwenyama’s notes to the development of the universe through time.
Takács Quartet. Image by Amanda Tipton Photography
Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet is among the composer’s last works in a genre that he created and defined. It was published in 1797, the fourth in a set of six quartets, opus 76. The title comes from the beginning of the first movement, with a sustained chord and a rising line in the first violin that suggests the sun rising above the horizon. That musical idea is developed throughout the movement, which is followed by the usual slow movement, a minuet and an energetic finale.
Sometimes called the “Slavonic Quartet,” Dvořák’s Quartet in E-flat major was written for and dedicated to violinist Jean Becker and the Florentine Quartet, a professional ensemble active in the composer’s time. Dvořák had attracted attention with the publication of his Slavonic Dances for two pianos, and Becker specifically asked for a quartet in the same style, based on folk-dance idioms.
The most conspicuously “Slavonic” elements are heard in the second movement which is labelled “Dumka,” a type of movement derived from Ukrainian folk music that alternates between melancholy and exuberant sections; and the finale, which uses a rapid Czech dance called the skočná.
Takács Quartet violist plays music by Telemann and Piazzolla Saturday
By Peter Alexander Feb. 29 at 11:07 p.m.
Violist Richard O’Neill has a wide-ranging background, both geographically and musically.
Richard O’Neill
For example, when he plays as soloist with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Saturday (7:30 p.m. March 2; details below), he polished one of his pieces by playing with members of Germany’s distinguished early-music ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, and the other he researched near the docks in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The first would be the Concerto in G major for viola by the prolific Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann; the other is the “Grand Tango,” originally for cello, by Argentine bandoneon player and band leader Astor Piazzolla. Other works on the program, featuring the BCO strings under music director Bahman Saless, are Valse Triste by early 20th-century Czech composer Oskar Nedbal, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge (Great fugue), originally the finale of the composer’s String Quartet in B-flat, op. 130.
Two more different composers than Telemann and Piazzolla would be hard to imagine. And yet, O’Neill says, they are not incompatible. “They’re very contrasting, probably on polar opposite ends of the musical timeline,” O’Neill says. “But they share some commonalities—most of all the spirit of the dance.”
The Telemann is the first known true viola concerto, and it is a piece that O’Neill plays often. “I think it’s a gorgeous, amazing piece,” he says.
Georg Philipp Telemann
O’Neill recorded the concerto in 2008 when he was asked to make a recording with members of Musica Antiqua Köln. It was definitely a learning experience for O’Neill, giving him an opportunity to work with a Baroque-style bow that has much less tension on the bow hairs, and to improvise in Baroque music.
The latter did not come naturally, he admits. “I remember them asking me, ‘play a cadenza, be free! Do whatever you like!’” O’Neill says. “I did something, and it was free for sure! I was stopped and it was like, ‘Who are you, Yo-Yo Ma?’ But it was all said with a smile.
“One thing I learned, things were a lot different when performers and composers were the same person. And it was amazing how prolific (Telemann) was. A lot of times you look at the score and it’s very bare, but in some ways it has everything you need—you just have to understand what you’re going to do.”
His approach to Piazzolla’s music was very different. O’Neill first heard Piazolla’s music when he was a 15-year-old student in Las Vegas, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano played Piazzolla’s “Four, for Tango.” “I was completely blown away!” he says.
“I had never heard anything like this. It was so rhythmic, so fun, the instruments were doing all of these cool, weird effects like percussive effects and (playing) behind the bridge. I was, ‘what is going on there?’ I found the Kronos (Quartet) recording and listened to it all the time. I fell in love with Piazzolla.”
Astor Piazzolla
Later he had the chance to study Piazzolla’s musical origins up close. He was in Buenos Aires, and saw an opportunity to learn more. “I wanted to see what the tango was about,” he says.
“I went down to the docks (in Buenos Aires), where the Argentinian tango was originally from. I was shocked to find out it wasn’t the Parisian version of tango, which is Romantic and dignified. It was actually really rough. I went to a few tango shows in cafes, but it was mainly the vibe of Buenos Aires that changed me.”
Piazzolla originally wrote the “Grand Tango” for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, but the viola arrangement that O’Neill plays fits the instrument very well. “Piazzolla wrote a lot of the (original cello) part very high,” he explains—meaning he can play it at the same pitch on the viola.
O’Neill loves both pieces he is playing on BCO’s program, but it is the Piazzolla that gets him excited. “The music is just so incredible and evocative,” he says. “It’s almost like it’s so rhythmic that you can’t help being swept away by it.”
Nedbal’s Valse triste is from the ballet Pohadka o Honzov (known in English as the Tale of Simple Johnny). It was composed in 1902 for orchestra, but Nedbal later arranged the Valse for string quartet, in which form it has become especially popular. Trained as a violinist and a composition student of Dvořák, Nedbal was principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic 1896–1906.
When Beethoven wrote his String Quartet in B-flat in 1825, he provided an unusual finale: an extensive double fugue that takes up to 16 minutes in performance. That movement was criticized at the time for its complexity and for being “a confusion of Babel.” Since then, however, its standing has risen, to the point that Stravinsky famously said that it “will be contemporary forever.”
Beethoven’s publisher was afraid that such a difficult finale would hinder sales of the quartet, so Beethoven wrote a shorter movement that appeared with the String Quartet in B-flat. He then published the Grosse Fuge separately in 1827. Today it is hailed as one of the composers greatest compositions.
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“Virtuosity!” Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor With Richard O’Neill, viola
“Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz,” March 1 and 2
By Peter Alexander Feb. 28 at 10:45 a.m.
Evanne Browne, conductor of Boulder’s Seicento Baroque Ensemble, is the daughter of jazz musicians—“jazz pianist mom and a bass player dad,” she says. “There was a lot of American songbook music going on in our house all the time.”
Evanne Browne
It might seem like a long way from jazz and the American songbook to Bach, Monteverdi, and the other specialities of Seicento. But as a trained early music performer, Browne believes the two musical styles are closer than you might think. And her next concert with Seicento will demonstrate that.
The concert, titled “Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz” (7:30 p.m. Friday in Longmont and Saturday in Golden; details below), features Baroque music by Couperin, Monteverdi and others, mixed together with jazz by Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, and even some pops and Broadway numbers (see full program below). In addition to the Seicento choir, performers will be violin and gamba player Tina Chancey, a jazz ensemble led by bassist Mark Diamond, and Seicento apprentice artists.
The inspiration for the program comes from the fact that in the early Baroque a lot of written music was sketchy, often only a bass part and one or two melody lines. Performances could vary, much as performances of jazz standards very from one artist or combo to another. There were traditional bass lines and chord progressions for dances that were filled in differently by different composers, much as the traditional 12-bar blues can be filled in differently by different performers.
“I’ve been thinking for a long time that when you look at charts for jazz and there’s melody and chords, and when you look at a basso continuo part for keyboard (in Baroque music) and there’s a bass line and chords, those things are similar,” Browne explains. “I just kind of started going down the list of what else was similar.”
Since jazz charts and Baroque scores—especially for the early operas by Monteverdi and others—left a lot to be filled in by performers, in both cases fans of the music distinguish between different versions, or realizations, of specific pieces. Another parallel that Browne found was that rhythms are often not played exactly as they are written, but are made more “swingy,” especially for dance music.
Seicento Baroque Ensemble and conductor Evanne Browne. Photo by Emily Bowman.
In the Baroque era, there was a convention in France called “notes inegales” (unequal notes), where notes on the beat were lengthened and the notes between the beats were shortened, to make the rhythms more pointed. This is not unlike the jazz tradition of “swinging” what are written as even notes. In jazz, Browne says, “you don’t play them ‘straight.’ People would think you were crazy if you did that. It’s exactly what notes inegales are in French.
“In dance music, the need for movement is something that turns duple into triplets and makes that more universally pleasing to us as listeners or performers.”
Claudio Monteverdi
As the music from the Baroque period and from jazz and popular idioms alternate on the program, there is one pairing that Browne particularly likes. “The Lamento della ninfa by Monteverdi and ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ are striking together,” she says. In Monteverdi, “we have this four-note bass line that is repeated, and this beautiful lament. Then going right into ‘Hit the Road Jack,’ it’s the same bass line—it’s interesting how that chord progression can be used expressively to emote what is being said.”
Browne has selected other pieces that demonstrate similarities in the structure of Baroque arias and jazz songs, with a slower and explanatory introduction that sets up the situation, followed by the main tune that expresses emotions. They both represent turning points in music, one the rise of dramatic music and opera in early 16th century Italy, and the other the rise of jazz and widely available popular dance music recordings in early 20th-century America.
In addition to examples that have a serious point to make, Browne also selected some parings on the program just because they are fun. Among the latter would be Monteverdi’s duet Bel Pastor dalcui bel guardo (Beautiful shepherd from whose beautiful gaze), which is a conversation between a shepherdess who keeps asking a shepherd if he really loves her, and that is paired with a song from Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye asks his wife Golde, “Do you love me?”
“So here’s these two (pieces)—we haven’t recovered from two centuries of learning about humanity,” Browne says. “We’re still insecure in love! So I thought that was a fun one.”
In fact, the word Browne uses most in describing the program is fun. “It’s a fun program,” she says. more than once.
“I think the audience will be laughing and tapping their toes.”
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“Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz” Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Evanne Browne, director With Tina Chancey, viola da gamba and violin, and jazz ensemble led by Mark Diamond
Louis Couperin: Prélude non mesuré (Unmeasured prelude)
Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington: “Take the A Train” (arr. Gordon Prugh)
Marin Marais: Fantasie from the Suite in A minor, Book III
Anon: Madre, non mi far monaca (Mother, don’t make me a nun)
Giralamo Frescobaldi: Missa sopra Aria della Monaca, Kyrie (Mass on La monaca)
Thomas “Fats” Waller: “Honeysuckle Rose”
Charlie Parker: “Scrapple from the Apple”
Frescobaldi: Così mi disprezzate (So you despise me?)
Diego Ortiz: Recercada segunda (Second ricrercar)
Claudio Monteverdi: Lamento della ninfa (The nymph’s lament)
Percy Mayfield: “Hit the Road, Jack”
Monteverdi: Come dolce oggi l’auretta (How sweet is the breeze today)
Don Raye and Hughie Prince” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
Monteverdi: Si dolce è’l tormento (The torment is so sweet) (choir, solo and jazz) —Bel Pastor dalcui bel guardo (Beautiful shepherd from whose beautiful gaze)
Jerry Bock: “Do You love me?” from Fiddler on the Roof
Jimmy McHugh: “On the Sunny Side of the Street”
7:30 p.m. Friday, March 1 First Congregational Church, Longmont
Sharps & Flatirons 