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Program Notes
Four Dances from Estancia, Plus Mozart
March 18 – 20, 2011
Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Osvaldo Golijov (born in 1960)
Siderius (2010)
In our increasingly interconnected world, the multi-cultural music of Osvaldo Golijov speaks in a voice
that is powerful yet touching, contemporary yet timeless. Golijov's parents, a piano teacher mother and
a physician father, emigrated from Russia to Argentina, where Osvaldo was born on December 5, 1960
in La Playa, thirty miles from Buenos Aires, into a rich artistic environment in which he was exposed
from infancy to such varied musical experiences as classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and
klezmer music, and the tango nuevo of Astor Piazzolla. He studied piano and composition at the local
conservatory before moving in 1983 to Jerusalem, where he entered the Rubin Academy as a
composition student of Mark Kopytman and immersed himself in the colliding musical traditions of that
city.
Golijov came to the United States in 1986 to do his doctoral work with George Crumb at the University
of Pennsylvania, and spent summers at Tanglewood on fellowship studying with Lukas Foss and Oliver
Knussen. In 1990, he won Tanglewood's Fromm Commission, which resulted in Yiddishbbuk, premiered
by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music in July 1992 and
winner the following year of the prestigious Kennedy Center Friedheim Award. Golijov came to wide
public notice in 2000 with the Pasión según San Marcos ("Passion According to Saint Mark"),
commissioned in remembrance of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death by German
conductor Helmut Rilling and the International Bach Academy of Stuttgart. The Passion integrates
popular and classical idioms in a work that embraces multiple manifestations of the Christian faith in
Latin America (and Golijov's own Jewish heritage), and subsequent performances have been received
with a tumultuous enthusiasm rarely seen in the concert hall; the recording (on Hänssler Classic) earned
a Grammy nomination.
Golijov's works, with their syntheses of European, American and Latin secular cultures and their deep
spirituality drawn from both Judaism and Christianity, have brought him international notoriety and, in
2003, a coveted MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award." He was named Musical America's "2005
Composer of the Year," and in 2006, Lincoln Center presented a festival called "The Passion of Osvaldo
Golijov," featuring performances of his large works (including the St. Mark Passion and the
opera Ainadamar), chamber music and film scores. In 2008, he received a Vilcek Foundation Prize, which
annually recognizes "foreign-born individuals for extraordinary contributions to society in the United
States" in the fields of arts and biomedical research. His recent compositions include: the
operaAinadamar ("Fountain of Tears"), with a libretto by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry
Hwang (M. Butterfly) inspired by the life of Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, which
was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the Tanglewood Music Center and performed
in concert at Tanglewood in August 2003 and given its stage premiere in July 2005 by Santa Fe
Opera; Azul for Cello and Orchestra, a 125th Anniversary Commission from the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, premiered at Tanglewood in August 2006 by Yo-Yo Ma and conductor Donald Runnicles; the
scores for Francis Ford Coppola's films Youth Without Youth (2007) and Tetro(2009); Rose of the Winds ,
premiered by the Silk Road Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony (2007); and She Was Here (2008), a
work based on Schubert lieder premiered by Dawn Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra . He
is currently at work on a commission for the Metropolitan Opera, a violin concerto for Leonidas Kavakos
to be premiered under Gustavo Dudamel in Los Angeles, and a chamber orchestra piece commissioned
by a consortium of 35 American orchestras in honor of Henry Fogel, former President of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra Association and recently retired as President and CEO of the League of American
Orchestras.
Osvaldo Golijov is Loyola Professor of Music at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts,
where he has taught since 1991 ; he also teaches at the Boston Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music
Center. He has held residencies with the Marlboro, Ravinia, Spoleto USA and Cape and Islands music
festivals, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Merkin Hall and the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Music Alive
series.
Krzysztof Penderecki (born in 1933)
Viola Concerto (1983)
Woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo and contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani,
percussion, celesta and strings.
Krzysztof Penderecki (pen-de-RET-skee), born in 1933 in Debica, seventy miles east of Cracow, is the
most significant Polish composer of his generation, and one of the most inspired and prolific musicians
to emerge from Eastern Europe after World War II. His music first drew attention at the 1959
competition sponsored by the Youth Circle of the Association of Polish Composers when three of his
works -- entered anonymously -- each won first prize in its class. He gained international fame only a
year later with his Threnody To the Victims of Hiroshima, winner of UNESCO's "Tribune Internationale
des Compositeurs." His stunning St. Luke Passion of 1963-1965 enjoyed enormous success in Europe and
America, and led to a steady stream of commissions and performances. During the mid-1960s,
Penderecki began incorporating more traditional techniques into his works without fully abandoning the
powerfully dramatic avant-garde style that energized his early music. Utrenia (a choral setting of texts
treating Christ's Entombment and Resurrection), the oratorio Dies Irae (dedicated to the memory of
those murdered at Auschwitz), the opera Paradise Lost, the Violin Concerto and other important scores
showed an increasing reliance on orthodox Romanticism in their lyricism and introspection filtered
through his modern creative sensibility. Even though his compositions are filled with fascinating aural
events, Penderecki insists that these soundscapes are not ends in themselves, but the necessary means
to communicate his vision. "I am not interested in sound for its own sake and never have been," wrote
Penderecki. "Anyone can make a sound: a composer, if he be a composer at all, must fashion it into an
aesthetically satisfying experience."
Penderecki composed his Viola Concerto in 1983 on a commission from the Venezuela Symphony
Orchestra in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Símon Bolívar, the revolutionary leader who
helped to secure South America's independence from Spain; the premiere was given in Maracaibo on
July 24th (the exact date of Bolívar's birth two centuries before in Caracas) by violist José Vasquez and
conductor Eduardo Rahn. The mood of the Concerto is established with the viola's first statement, a
mournful, unaccompanied soliloquy. (Penderecki originally titled the work "Elegie.") The details of the
single-movement form that follows are subtle (much of the thematic substance is derived from the tiny,
step-wise phrases of the viola's opening solo), but the overall structure comprises two large paragraphs,
each divided: Lento--Vivace and Lento--Vivo. A coda reminiscent of the solemn opening provides a
thoughtful epilogue. The important formal junctures of the work are preceded by cadenzas for the
soloist. The Viola Concerto, with its meticulous balance of solo and orchestra, of dynamic energy and
introspection, is a splendid example of Penderecki's musical craftsmanship, but it also speaks directly to
the heart with a profound and intense passion.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major,
K. 364 (K. 320d) (1779)
Two oboes, two horns and strings.
Among the many tantalizing chicken-or-egg problems in the history of music is the emergence of the
virtuoso -- did the perfecting of an instrument encourage new feats from performers, or did performers
demand better equipment from the maker to match their expanding technique? The answer is
scrambled among the labyrinthine cross-currents of art, commerce and ego, but the most sensible view
is one of a continuing interchange between designer and player. The late 18th century was such a time.
Though the great Italian violin makers -- Stradivarius, Amati, Guarneri -- had brought their instruments
to a peak of perfection by the late 17th century, the winds were still undergoing extensive modifications
during the time of Haydn and Mozart, and it was inevitable that performers would take advantage of the
extended possibilities offered by the new models. This advance in musical technology was paralleled by
the social phenomenon of an enriched musical life just coming available to the emerging middle class.
The most important aspect of this trend, the public concert for admission, was a relatively new, but
quickly flourishing venture, and a career as a virtuoso touring on this circuit could provide a lucrative if
somewhat uncertain living.
One of the more popular musical genres used to display artists and instruments during Mozart's day was
a hybrid form called the sinfonia concertante, which combined the richness of sonority and clarity of
structure that were the most attractive features of the symphony with the tunefulness and technical
virtuosity of the concerto. Such works, initially popular beginning in the 1760s in the great musical
centers of Paris and Mannheim, where the best performers congregated, were scored for a group of two
or more soloists with orchestral accompaniment. The solo ensemble ranged in number from two to
eleven (!) players, and usually included wind instruments. Several dozen examples are known, most by
such now-forgotten performer-composers as Bernhard Henrik Crusell, Georg Abraham Schneider and
August Ritter.
Both Haydn and Mozart contributed to the sinfonia concertante repertory. Though Haydn wrote only
one such work -- in B-flat, for oboe, bassoon, violin, cello and orchestra -- several of his early
symphonies contain concerto-like solo passages for instruments within the orchestra. Mozart, always
ready to derive the greatest benefit from his contact with new musical styles, composed his three
outstanding examples of the form as a result of his visits to Mannheim and Paris between 1777 and
1779. The Concerto for Flute and Harp (K. 299) and the Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Clarinet,
Bassoon, Horn and Strings (K. 297b) were composed in Paris on commission. About the background of
the great Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364, however, virtually nothing is known.
From stylistic evidence within the music of K. 364, the date of its composition is placed during late
summer 1779, about six months after Mozart returned from his exhausting journey through Germany
and France in a fruitless attempt to find a secure position. He came back to his "Salzburg slavery," as he
rather injudiciously called his local employment, and reluctantly resumed his hated job as composer,
orchestra musician and organist in Archbishop Colloredo's provincial musical establishment. This time,
though, when he put on the Archbishop's livery (how demeaning he thought it was to be dressed like a
common servant!), he refused to play the violin in the orchestra any longer despite his father's
insistence that he could be the best player in Europe if he would just put his mind to it. He chose instead
the viola -- still a distant second choice to his beloved piano -- and it is a charming thought that he might
have composed the Sinfonia Concertante for a father-son musical outing: Papa on violin, Wolfgang on
viola. There is, however, not a shred of evidence to support this or any other conjecture. This beautiful
work is not mentioned in his correspondence or in other known records, and its provenance will
probably remain forever open to speculation.
This, Mozart's last and greatest concerted work for strings, follows by four years the five violin concertos
of 1775. In comparing this later work with the concertos, Alfred Einstein noted, "Every trace
of galanterie has disappeared" to be replaced by the "revelation of the deepest feeling" characteristic of
the best compositions of Mozart's maturity. Eric Blom, speculating on the source of such emotion,
wrote, "[It is] a beautiful, dark-colored work in which a passion not at all suited to an archiepiscopal
court, and perhaps disclosing an active revolt against it, seems to smolder under a perfectly decorous
style and exquisite proportions."
The first movement, as was typical of both the sinfonia concertante form and of Mozart's works in
general, is filled with an abundance of thematic material. The orchestral introduction comprises
numerous motives -- a bold opening gesture in a distinctive rhythm, a tripping phrase divided between
violins and oboes, a martial strain with active rhythmic underpinning, and a rising line intensified by
repeated trills. The soloists emerge from the orchestral texture on a long-held note high in the register
to introduce a new set of melodies. It becomes clear immediately that violin and viola are equal partners
in this musical undertaking, sharing themes in dialogue fashion or playing them together in sweet
harmonies. The rising trill motive returns to close out the exposition. The central section is less a
development of what has preceded than a spirited conversation between the soloists. The
recapitulation commences with the bold opening gesture that began the work, and proceeds with a
hearty sampling of much of the movement's previous thematic material. A carefully notated cadenza
and a brief coda bring the movement to a close.
The passionate second movement is in C minor, an uncommon tonality in late 18th-century music. It
provides the background against which one of Mozart's most moving essays is written, a composition
not overshadowed by even the major works of his Viennese period. Its sonata form lends it a weight of
utterance that is reinforced by the dark, rich sonority provided by the solo viola and the division of the
orchestral violas into two parts. The finale is a rondo whose ingratiating theme is reminiscent of the
rising trill motive of the first movement. The two recapitulations of the rondo theme are separated by
extended episodes. After a cadenza-like accompanied stanza that takes the soloists into the highest
reaches of their instruments, the piece concludes with a series of bright, cadential harmonies.
Wrote A. Hyatt King of this work, "This Concertante is a proud, deeply expressive masterpiece, in which
the somber glow of passion so broods over the waters of Mozart's creative imagination that gleams of
exultation flicker in alternation with the shadows of despair. Yet he does not allow deep feeling to
disturb the unity or balance, and reconciles perfectly the demands of the soloists with the organic
conception of the work as a whole."
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Dances from Estancia, Op. 8a (1941)
Woodwinds in Pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion, piano and strings.
Alberto Ginastera, Argentina's most famous and widely performed composer, was the outstanding
creative figure in South American music following the death of Villa-Lobos in 1959. Ginastera's career
was divided between composition and education, and in this latter capacity he held posts at leading
conservatories and universities in Argentina and at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. His musical
works, many written on American commissions, include three operas, two ballets, six concertos, eleven
film scores, eight orchestral works, various vocal and choral compositions, and much music for chamber
ensembles and piano. Ginastera traveled extensively to oversee the presentation of his scores and to
adjudicate major musical competitions. For his contributions to music, he was honored with many
awards, including memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
Ginastera divided his works into two stylistic categories. The first ("Nationalism") includes his music
before the mid-1950s, which displays overt influences of Argentine musical traits and themes. He
modeled the rhythms and melodies of these works on the folksongs and dances known as musica criolla,
though he seldom used literal quotations. This nationalistic music is imbued with the symbolism of the
pampas and the "gauchesco" tradition, for which Ginastera became the leading musical spokesperson.
Ginastera's second style ("Neo-Expressionism") began around 1958, and encompassed most of his later
compositions, works characterized by such modernist devices as polytonality, serial writing, use of
quarter-tones and other micro intervals, and an extension of instrumental resources. All of this technical
jargon sounds rather imposing, but these techniques lend to the music a power of expression reinforced
by expert craftsmanship that is always tantalizing to the ear. Ginastera's later works bear a strong
affinity with the expressionism of Schoenberg and Berg, which was itself an extension of the great
European Classical-Romantic tradition. Ginastera's compositions mark him as one of the most important
members of the international community of composers, and demonstrate the manner in which he was
able to combine the melodic and rhythmic resources of the folk music of his native Argentina with the
compositional idioms of the great modern masters.
Lincoln Kirstein, director of the American Ballet Caravan, became familiar with Ginastera's first
ballet, Panambi, during the company's tour of South America on 1941. Recognizing the young
composer's genius, Kirstein commissioned from Ginastera Estancia, a stage work for the Ballet Caravan
with a scenario based on Argentine country life. Though the company was disbanded the following year
before it had performed the new work, a suite of dances from the score was given on May 12, 1943 at
Buenos Aires' Teatro Colón which confirmed Ginastera's position as a leading figure in Argentine musical
life. (The full ballet was not staged until 1952, at the Colón.) In extracting the suite from Estancia,
Ginastera omitted the songs for baritone based on texts from the great epic poem of the "gauchesco"
literature, Martin Fierro, and several pastoral scenes. Except for the gentle second dance, Danza del
trigo ("Dance of the Wheat"), the symphonic suite, comprising Los trabajadores agricolas ("The Workers
of the Land"), Los peones de hacienda ("The Cattle Men") and Danza final: Malambo ("Final Dance:
Malambo"), is brilliant and driving, largely built on short, recurring rhythmic and melodic patterns that
accumulate enormous energy.
The preface to the score notes, "The deep and bare beauty of the land, its richness and natural strength,
constitutes the basis of Argentine life. This ballet presents various daily aspects of the activities of an
?estancia' (Argentine ranch), from dawn to dusk, with a symbolic sense of continuity. The plot of the
ballet shows a country girl who at first despises the man of the city. She finally admires him when he
proves that he can perform the most rough and difficult tasks of the country."
(c)2010 Dr. Richard E. Rodda