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Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus
Carlos Kalmar, Principal Conductor
Christopher Bell, Chorus Director
The Rite of Spring
Friday, August 16, 2013 at 6:30PM
Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 7:30PM
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Grant Park orchestra and chorus
Carlos Kalmar, Conductor
Donald Nally, Guest Chorus Director
LISZT
The Black Gondola
orch. Adams
ADAMS
Harmonium
Part I. Negative Love
Part II. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Wild Nights
STRAVINSKY
The Rite of Spring, Pictures of Pagan Russia
Part One: The Adoration of the Earth
Introduction — Dance of the Young Girls —
Mock Abduction — Round Dance —
Games of the Rival Clans —
Procession of the Wise Elder —
Adoration of the Earth — Dance of the Earth
Part Two: The Sacrifice
Introduction — Mystical Circles of the
Young Girls — Glorification of the
Chosen Victim — The Summoning
of the Ancients — Ritual of the Ancients —
Sacrificial Dance
This concert is sponsored by
The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust
2013 Program Notes, Book 5 A23
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013 CARLOS KALMAR’s biography can be found on page 8.
Donald Nally begins his new role as director of choral
organizations at Northwestern University this autumn. He is
conductor of The Crossing, a professional chamber choir in
Philadelphia focused on new music and winner of the 2009
and 2011 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. He
is also chorus master of the Chicago Bach Project, an annual
performance of Bach’s masterworks; until recently he was music
director of Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble. Mr. Nally has
served in many prestigious international positions: as chorus
master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and at Welsh National Opera, and for many
seasons at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Prior to Wales, he lived in Philadelphia, where
he was chorus master at the Opera Company of Philadelphia and music director of
the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia. The recipient of the 2002 Margaret Hillis
National Award for Excellence in Choral Music, Mr. Nally holds a unique position
in that over the last three seasons his ensembles have been listed in the Top Ten
Classical Music Events by the major newspapers of Chicago, Philadelphia and
Cincinnati. In the 2011-2012 season, he conducted the opening of the International
Festival of Sacred Music in Riga with the Latvian State Choir, was visiting professor
in conducting at Indiana University and at the University of Illinois, and received
both the Alumni Merit Award from Westminster Choir College and the 2012 Louis
Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America.
His book, Conversations with Joseph Flummerfelt, was published in 2011.
A24 2013 Program Notes, Book 5
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013
The Black Gondola (1882)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Orchestral Realization by John Adams
The Black Gondola in Adams’ orchestral realization is scored
for two flutes, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet,
two bassoons, three horns, timpani, harp and strings. The
performance time is nine minutes. This is the first performance
of this work by the Grant Park Orchestra.
Richard Wagner, his heart already failing, was nearly exhausted by the taxing work
of bringing Parsifal to the stage for its premiere at Bayreuth in July 1882. He and his
wife, Cosima, elected to escape the rigors of another German winter by returning to
Venice that fall, staying in the sumptuous Palazzo Vendramin on the Grand Canal.
On November 19th, Franz Liszt, Cosima’s father and Wagner’s musical ally, arrived
for a visit. Liszt was struck by Wagner’s rapidly deteriorating health, and he came to
associate his son-in-law’s apparently imminent death with the black funeral gondolas
that passed frequently below his window. He captured his impressions in two elegies
closely related in their somber mood, thematic content, rocking rhythmic motion and
harmonic style, “different aspects of one another” according to Liszt authority Alan
Walker, both titled La Lugubre Gondola. Liszt left Venice and Wagner on January 13,
1883. Less than a month later, on February 13th, Wagner was dead.
In 1989, the noted American composer John Adams made an “orchestral
realization” of La Lugubre Gondola II under the title The Black Gondola. “The music
is a genuine outpouring of deeply felt loss,” Adams wrote, “and its wonderfully
ambivalent harmonic language is remarkably prescient, given when it was composed.
The chiaroscuro of the phrasing and the swelling and receding of the long, sinuous
themes seemed to call out for an orchestral treatment, although my orchestration
probably owes more to Wagner than to Liszt.”
Harmonium for Large Orchestra and
Chorus (1981)
John Adams (born in 1947)
Harmonium is scored for three piccolos, flute, three oboes, two
clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns,
four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp,
celesta, piano, synthesizer and strings. The performance time is
33 minutes. The Grant Park Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus
first performed this work on July 17, 1982, with Leonard Slatkin
conducting.
John Adams is one of today’s most acclaimed composers. Audiences have
responded enthusiastically to his music, and he enjoys a success not seen by an
American composer since the zenith of Aaron Copland’s career: a recent survey of
major orchestras conducted by the American Symphony Orchestra League found
John Adams to be the most frequently performed living American composer; in
2003, he received the Pulitzer Prize for On the Transmigration of Souls, written for the
New York Philharmonic in commemoration of the first anniversary of the World Trade
Center attacks, and was recognized by New York’s Lincoln Center with a two-month
retrospective of his work titled “John Adams: An American Master,” the most extensive
2013 Program Notes, Book 5 A25
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013 festival devoted to a living composer ever mounted at Lincoln Center; in 2004, he
became the first-ever recipient of the Nemmers Prize in Music Composition, which
included residencies and teaching at Northwestern University; he has been granted
honorary doctorates from Cambridge, Harvard and Northwestern universities, and
the California Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.
Adams wrote: “Harmonium began with a simple, totally formed mental image:
that of a single tone emerging out of a vast, empty space, and, by means of a gentle
unfolding, evolving into a rich, pulsating fabric of sound. This wordless ‘preverbal’
creation scene describes the opening of the piece, and it was fixed in my mind’s eye
long before I had even made the decision whether or not to use a text. Some time
passed before I was able to get beyond this initial image. I had an intuition of what
the work would feel like, but I could not locate the poetic voice to give it shape. When
I finally did settle on a text for the piece I was frankly rather surprised by the oddity
of my choice. At almost the same time I happened upon an obscure poem with the
irresistible title Negative Love by the 17th-century English poet John Donne and two
poems by the 19th-century American Emily Dickinson which, together with the Donne
poem, suggested a completed unity of form and meaning.
“Harmonium is different from all my other works to that time because it has a text.
In the Dickinson poems an internal structure is already apparent, and I took advantage
of the unhurried cinematographic unfolding of imagery in Because I could not stop for
Death to once again utilize the expressive power of changes of key (and in this case
changes of mode as well). The ‘placing’ of the speaker — in a slowly moving carriage
while the sights and sounds of her life gradually pass her by — created an irresistible
opportunity for a slow, disembodied rhythmic continuum.
“Negative Love, on the other hand, presented different problems both on the
interpretative as well as the imaginary level. What attracted me to the poem was its
evasiveness: Every time I read it, it seemed to mean something different. The poem
is really about the humility of love, and my response was to see it as a kind of vector,
an arrow pointing heavenward. Thus the opening of Negative Love with its rippling
waves of orchestral and choral sound sets in motion a musical structure that builds
continuously and inexorably to a harmonic culmination point some ten minutes later.
Throughout the movement the music is in a constant state of agitation. The tempo
is always quickening, the amplitude growing louder and the overall density gaining
power and mass until it reaches its peak upon the words:
If any who deciphers best,
What we know not, our selves, can know,
Let him teach me that nothing ...
“At this point the entire mass shifts smoothly back to the opening tempo and
opening atmosphere.
“If Negative Love is a meditation on love and Because I could not stop for Death a
sequence of tableau-like images about the arrest of time, Wild Night embraces both
of the former themes with a poetic intensity that is at once violent and sexual and
full of that longing for forgetfulness which is at the core of all Dickinson’s works. Her
goal is far from being some kind of Apollonian serenity of self-realization, her Eden is
the sea, the universal archetype of the Unconscious, an immense, nocturnal ocean of
feeling where the slow, creaking funeral carriage of the earlier poem now yields to the
gentle, unimpeded ‘rowing’ of the final image.”
A26 2013 Program Notes, Book 5
About the Artwork in tonight’s performance
THE CHOSEN ONE
7ft. x 60 ft.
Medium: Dye-sublimation, Sumi-ink, and oil enamel
Artist: Herbert Migdoll
THE CHOSEN ONE is a painting inspired by The Joffrey Ballet’s production of Vaslav
Nijinsky’s ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). This work is composed
of 20 panels encompassing 60 separate images. The focus of Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du
Printemps revolves around a ritual in which the villagers search for “The Chosen One”.
When Migdoll imaged the original dancer, Beatriz Rodriguez performing “The Chosen
One” in the 1987 premiere, he had her spin three times exactly as choreographed in
the ballet. In the first spin, he imaged the top portion of the body, the second spin he
imaged the torso, and the third spin was of the limbs and feet. These three series were
then united with no intention of matching but rather to recreate a sense of the frenetic
frenzy witnessed during performance. Le Sacre du Printemps was reconstructed by
Millicent Hodson, Kenneth Archer, and Robert Joffrey. The Joffrey Ballet will celebrate
the 100th anniversary with 4 performances at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt
University this September 19-22, 2013.
BLACK GONDOLA
3 ft. x 27 ft.
Medium: acrylic and oil enamel on uncoated aluminum
Artist: Herbert Migdoll
This painting was created a year after Migdoll’s first trip to Venice, Italy to attend his
opening at Ikona Gallery directed by Ziva Kraus. He decided on his second trip to find
the perfect Gondola as a subject for a painting. This required a boat with no passengers
except for the gondolier.
Herbert Migdoll, Director of Special Projects for The Joffrey Ballet, is an artist
living and working in Chicago and has exhibited his work most notably in the Permanent
Collection of The Museum of Modern Art and in the Art Laguna section of the Venice
Biennale in 1995. His painting Turning in Closed Course is a permanent painting
installation in Chicago on the fourth floor at McCormick Center’s new Annex. His most
recent large-scale work Swimmer300 (15 ft. x 300 ft.) was displayed at Art Prize in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. Migdoll’s current gallery affiliation is with Ikona gallery in Venice, Italy.
Special thanks to Leigh Levine for her concept of combining the arts of Painting and
Dance for the first time at this Festival.
2013 Program Notes, Book 5 A27
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013 Negative Love or The Nothing
Text: John Donne
I never stoop’d so low, as they
Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey,
Seldom to them, which soar no higher
Than virtue or the mind to admire,
For sense, and understanding may
Know what gives fuel to their fire:
My love, though silly, is more brave,
For may I miss, whene’er I crave,
If I know yet, what I would have.
If that be simply perfectest
Which can by no way be express’d
But Negatives, my love is so.
To All, which all love, I say no.
If any who deciphers best,
What we know not, our selves, can know,
Let him teach me that nothing: this
As yet my ease and comfort is,
Though I speed not, I cannot miss.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Text: Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
A28 2013 Program Notes, Book 5
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013
Wild Nights
Text: Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights — Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile — the Winds —
To a Heart in port —
Done with the Compass —
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden —
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor — Tonight —
In thee!
The Rite of Spring, Pictures of Pagan
Russia, Ballet in Two Parts (1911-1913)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
The Rite of Spring is scored for two piccolos, two flutes, alto flute,
three oboes, two English horns, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets,
two bass clarinets, three bassoons, two contrabassoons, six
horns, two Wagner tubas, four trumpets, bass trumpets, three
trombones, two tubas, timpani, percussion and strings. The
performance time is 36 minutes. The Grant Park Orchestra first
performed this work on August 8, 2001, with Carlos Kalmar conducting.
Stravinsky’s conception for the epochal The Rite of Spring came to him as he was
finishing The Firebird in 1910. He had a vision of “a solemn pagan rite; wise elders,
seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing
her to propitiate the god of spring.” Stravinsky knew that his friend Nicholas Roerich,
an archeologist and an authority on the ancient Slavs, would be interested in his idea.
Stravinsky also shared the vision with Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballet Russe,
the company that had commissioned The Firebird. All three men were excited by
the possibilities of the project — Diaghilev promised a production and encouraged
Stravinsky to begin work immediately. Having just nearly exhausted himself with
the rigors of completing and staging The Firebird, however, Stravinsky decided to
compose a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra as relaxation before undertaking his
pagan ballet. This little “concert piece,” however, grew into the ballet Petrushka, and
he could not return to The Rite until the summer of 1911.
“What I was trying to convey in The Rite,” said Stravinsky, “was the surge of spring,
the magnificent upsurge of nature reborn.” Inspired by childhood memories of the
coming of spring to Russia (“which seemed to begin in an hour and was like the whole
earth cracking,” he remembered), he worked with Roerich to devise a libretto which
would, in Roerich’s words, “present a number of scenes of earthly joy and celestial
triumph as understood by the ancient Slavs.” Stravinsky labored feverishly on the
score through the winter of 1911-1912, and Diaghilev scheduled the premiere for May
1913. The performance created a sensation (and a near-riot), and the Rite’s position in
the repertory was soon secured.
2013 Program Notes, Book 5 A29
Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2013 The following précis of the stage action is excerpted from The Victor Book of Ballet
by Robert Lawrence: “The plot deals with archaic Russian tribes and their worship of
the gods of the harvest and fertility. These primitive peoples assemble for their yearly
ceremonies, play their traditional games, and finally select a virgin to be sacrificed
to the gods of Spring so that the crops and tribes may flourish. There is a prelude in
which the composer evokes the primitive past. Insistent, barbaric rhythms are heard,
shifting accent with almost every bar. The first rites of Spring are being celebrated,
and a group of adolescents appears. They dance until other members of the tribe
enter. Then the full round of ceremonies gets under way: a mock abduction, games
of the rival tribes, the procession of the Sage, and the thunderous dance of the Earth.
The curtain falls, and there is a soft interlude representing the pagan night. Soon the
tribal meeting place is seen again. It is dark and the adolescents circle mysteriously
in preparation for the choice of the virgin to be sacrificed to the gods. Their dance is
interrupted, and one of the girls is marked for the tribal offering. The others begin a
wild orgy glorifying the Chosen One and — in a barbaric ritual — call on the shades
of their ancestors. The supreme moment of the ceremony arrives: the ordeal of the
Chosen One. It is the maiden’s duty to dance until she perishes from exhaustion.
Throughout the dance, the music gathers power until it ends with a crash as the
Maiden dies.”
©2013 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Grant Park Music Festival 2013 ushers and volunteers
Festival Ushers
Christopher Bales, Sandra Broughton, Jeffrey Callison, Catherine Canale, Darlene
Cunneen, Tai Fraction, Mamie Guerra, Randy Hayes, Joshua Hooten, Rebekah
Kroesing, Rudy Lagunas, Jonathan Mayo, Lee McQueen, Krista Mickelson, Erin
Miesner, Carmen Perez, Dorothy Pertraitis, Marilyn Picchietti, Laurel Prag, Conchita
Ramirez-Sullivan, Micah Smith, John Stevenson, Meagan Stevenson, William
Sullivan, Victoria Torres, Teresa Yi
Festival Docents
Lyn Bivins, Peggy Cassidy, Win Eggers, Susan Fauer, Joellen Freeding, Sharon
Gilkerson, Susan Gray, Dennis Lord, David Morin, Elaine Roth, Susan Schaalman
Youdovin, Charlie Shulkin
Festival Volunteers
Trudie Acheatel, Aimee Almendras, Richard Belmonte, Joyre Booker, Diane
Carter, Mario Caruso, Judy Corbeille, Joan Crow, Stephan Dimos, Nancy Gerich,
Barbara Glasper, Dave Haeckel, Joyce Haeckel, Julia Jenkins, Elizabeth Kall, Kent
Kauffman, Carolyn Lane, Rita Lee, Hazel Lewis, Sam Lindley, Diane Magee, Asma
Mehta, Maya Mehta, Barbara Natal, Karen Nordstrom, Perrianne Nyberg, Bonnie
Orton, Sharon Panick, Bonnie Pool, Donna Robertson, Ida Schenwar, George
Schultz, Cynthia Sneed, Milan Stevanovich, Michelle Vander Woude, Victoria
Warren, Lenora Witcher
A30 2013 Program Notes, Book 5