Program:
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Sea Songs (1923)
Vaughan Williams' avoidance of easy solutions resulted in a long path to musical maturity. He ultimately forged a unique voice based on the influence of folk song and pre-18th century British music, and through reinventing rather than rejecting European antecedents. He was prolific, both in sophisticated large genres – symphonies, operas, film scores (the first at age 70) – and in smaller, simpler ones. He reconciled interests in direct lyrical expression with interests in the complexity implicit in large-scale forms. Sea Songs is a setting of British sailor songs "Princess Royal", "Admiral Benbow" and "Portsmouth". It was first performed as the second movement of English Folk Song Suite in the year it was composed, and first given as a stand-alone work during the British Empire Exhibition a year later.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)/arr. R.L. Moehlmann (1907-1972): Prelude and Fugue BWV 553(ca. 1740)
The Eight Short Preludes and Fugues (BWV 553-560) are a collection apparently intended as teaching pieces for the pedal clavichord. Since the 19th century they have almost always been played on the organ because other keyboard instruments with pedal are no longer as widespread. Their brevity and relative simplicity have led to frequent modern performances in churches, and to continued use as teaching pieces.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1834-1921): Orient et Occident, op. 25 (1869)
The French Revolution had a profound effect on wind music, shifting focus from Harmoniemuzik, 6 or 8 winds (in pairs) employed by nobility throughout Europe, to larger instrumentation including percussion intended for larger, public gatherings. In 1789 the band of the "Garde Nationale," consisting of almost fifty musicians, was formed, eventually becoming the most active band in France, and drawing and influencing compositions from Gossec, Cherubini, and Berlioz. Saint-Saëns composed Orient et Occident for "Harmonie Militaire," instrumentation closely resembling the band of the "Garde Nationale." To the 19th-century French, the “orient” was Egypt or Algeria in northern Africa. In later years Saint-Saëns was an inveterate traveler, and he indeed died in Algiers, but he did not visit the "east" represented in this piece until many years after its composition. The beginning section represents the "west" with a lively march followed by a lyrical song. The middle section reflects characteristics of nineteenth-century French ballet and opera music set in the "orient," including unison melody accompanied by Jannisary-esque percussion. The return begins with the theme of the “occidental” march as the subject of a fugato, and the work culminates with simultaneous statement of the “occidental” and “oriental” music.
Karel Husa (b 1921) Divertimento for Brass and Percussion (1959)
Overture
Scherzo
Song
Slovak Dance
Husa was educated as a composer and conductor at the Prague Conservatory and in Paris, including with Nadia Boulanger. He taught at Cornell University for many years and became an American citizen. The movements of the Divertimento were originally part of the Eight Czech Duets for piano (1955). The Divertimento has become one of his most frequently-performed works, and has been arranged for widely varied media, both by the composer himself and by others.
Russell Peck (1945-2009): Cave of the Winds (1976)
Russell Peck earned degrees from the University of Michigan (BM, MM, PhD), and taught composition at Northern Illinois University and the North Carolina School of the Arts. His compositions have received thousands of performances by hundreds of orchestras in the United States and around the world.
“Below is a prose poem I wrote for Cave, as printed in the front of the score.”
In the Cave there is no sunlight. Everyone has lost sight,
wearing sunglasses over their atrophied eyes.
Plants abound in the Cave, nourished by vapors and black light.
The musicians of the Cave never read music. How could they?
All music is by feel. No one is watching. No inhibitions.
Everyone moves to the music, ensembles in unison.
The Cave is located on a Sethian node
three miles below the earth's crust,
underneath a cornfield in Dekalb, Illinois.
The rock walls ring to one unchanging pulse,
upon which all the Cave dwellers
build their spontaneous symphonies.
Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981) Suite of Old American Dances (1948)
Cake Walk
Schottishe
Western One-Step
Wallflower Waltz
Rag
Bennett was the pre-eminent Broadway orchestrator for over 40 years, including orchestrations for Gershwin (Girl Crazy, Of Thee I Sing), Kern (Show Boat), Porter (Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate), Berlin (Annie Get your Gun), Rodgers (South Pacific, Oklahoma, King and I, Sound of Music), and Leowe (My Fair Lady, Camelot). He was born and raised in a family of professional musicians in the Kansas City area, showed talent at a young age, and was rigorously trained (including three years with in Paris with Nadia Boulanger). He composed prolifically including symphonies and operas. The Suite of Old American Dances was written for the professional Goldman Band in New York, and is probably his best-known piece because of an early recording by Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. The work's sophisticated working of popular-sounding material is similar to other often-underestimated pieces of the same era ranging from Gershwin's American in Paris and Porgy and Bess to Bernstein's West Side Story.
John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) Jack Tar (1903)
“Jack Tar” was a term that referred to seamen of the Royal Navy, particularly during the British Empire. Sousa’s Jack Tar was premiered at Royal Albert Hall in the presence of the Queen during the Sousa Band’s third European tour. After his 136 marches, Sousa’s most important body of work is15 operettas, several of which were successful, but which, except for El Capitan (1896), have not succeeded in revival. However, he did borrow themes for marches from several of his operettas, including El Capitan, The Free Lance (1906), and Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (1899), from which he adapted the first two tunes in Jack Tar. Sousa begins the break strain with a quote of the sea chantey “The Sailor’s Hornpipe,” and concludes it with a ship’s bell sounding “8 bells”, answered by calls from a bosun’s whistle.
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Music Center, 6605 5th Ave N, St.
Petersburg
Donation/Admission: Free
Phone: 727-341-7984
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