UMS Concert Program, October 15, 1970: Paul Kuentz Chamber Orchestra Of Paris -- Paul Kuentz

Concert: First
Complete Series: 3698
Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The University Musical Society
The University of Michigan
Presents
PAIL KIMTZ CHAMBER ORCHESTRA OF PARIS
PAUL KUENTZ, Conductor
Monique FrascaColombier, Violin JeanMarie Gamard, Violoncello
Olivier Alain, Organ
Thursday Evening, October 15, 1970, at 8:30 Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Handel
MaecAntoine Charpentier
Concerto No. 13 in F major for Organ and Orchestra ("The Cuckoo and the Nightingale")
Larghetto; allegro
Larghetto; allegro
Concerto for Four Groups of Viols ....
Prelude I
Prelude II
Sarabande
Giguc angloise
Gigue franc.oise Passecaille
Concerto in C major for Organ and Orchestra
Allegro moderato Largo
Allegro molto
INTERMISSION
Symphonie Concertante in A major for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra . J. C. Bach
Andante di molto
Rondo: Allegro assai
Sinfonia of the Cantata B.W.V. 169, for Organ and Orchestra . . J. S. Bach Prelude pour la genese.........Jacques Charpentier
Haydn
First Concert
Eighth Annual Chamber Arts Series
Complete Program 3698
PROGRAM NOTES by Maurice Imbert (freely translated)
Concerto No. 13 in F major......Georg Friedrich Handel
("The Cuckoo and the Nightingale") (16851759)
Handel's Organ Concertos do not have a religious spirit. They were intended to captivate the general public which had come to hear his oratorios (the master played some of them between the sections of these largers works), speaking to the masses a language easily within its grasp, simple and luminous at the same time. The Concerto No. 13 for Organ is com?prised of two sections. The first opens with a Larghetto in F major, in 44 time, with accented rhythm; joined to it is an Allegro, also in 44 time, very fresh and stylish. It is this movement which has occasioned the work's subtitle, "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," the organ evoking the voices of these birds. The second panel of the diptych also opens with a Larghetto, but in D minor, in 6S and in the style of a Sicilienne, which flows into a new Allegro in F in 44 and in fugal style.
Concerto for Four Groups of Viols .... MarcAntoine Charpentier
(16341704)
Going to Rome to perfect himself in the art of painting, MarcAntoine Charpentier turned toward music and under Carissimi quickly developed a remarkable talent in this art. Returning to his native Paris, he occupied a number of musical positions and ended his career as Master of Music at SainteChapelle. His musical ouptput, religious, theatrical and instrumental, is plentiful. The Concerto for Four Groups of Viols, played today on the viols' counterparts of the violin family, appears in the eighteenth of the twentyeight volumes of Melanges, autograph copies of which are in the Bibliotheque National of Paris. The two Preludes constitute a kind of overture to the work but cannot be considered to be the socalled "French" overture, despite the fact that the first is slow and the following fast. The Sarabande is in the classic mold of this form with its accent on the second beat. The Gigue anglois with its triple metre is juxtaposed to the Gigue francoise, unexpectedly in 44 meter. The final Passecaille employs a fourmeasure refrain which returns between the sections. This engaging little work is full of the abrasive edge of suspensions in the style of Purcell.
Concerto in C major for Organ and Orchestra (H.XVIII 1) . . Joseph Haydn
(17321809)
We know of the existence of sixteen concertos for a keyboard instrument by Haydn and of one for two instruments, printed in London in 1782. The one to be heard here is the only one which Haydn specified be played on the harpsichord or the organ. "Per il clavicembalo" reads the EntwurfKatalog which Haydn prepared with the senior Elssler around 1780. "Concerto per l'organo" reads the Verzeichnis set up by the junior Elssler under the direction of Haydn in 1805. The orchestration consists of strings, two oboes, and two trumpets, these last instruments only appearing in the opening movement. Contemporary copies of the work offer, however, many other combinations for the tutti. The work was brought to light in 1953 as Concerto per l'organo. A very simple work, it commences with an elegant Allegro moderato in C major in 24, continues with a Largo in E major, and concludes with an Allegro molto in 38, returning to the key of C major, which has the characteristics of a dance.
Symphonie Concertante in A major for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra . J. C. Bach
(17351782)
Johann Christian Bach, last son of the Cantor of Leipzig, is called the "Milan Bach" or the "London Bach" according to which part of his career one considers. A summons from the Queen of England, SophieCharlotte, enabled him to get to the island in 1762. There the emigre enjoyed great success in the opera and won a deserved reputation as a virtuoso on a new instrument: the pianoforte. In the English capital he organized with the cellist K. F. Abel concerts which quickly became popular and which prospered until the eve of his death. His purely musical works were created there in London. Among them are more than sixty symphonies and symphonies concertantes, many concertos and a voluminous amount of chamber music. He attented carefully to matters of form when he had the leisure to do so, but. brilliant and amiable, his first ambition was to please his public. It is not known when Christian wrote this present Symphonie concertante in A major. It is divided into an Andante di molto which allows for a cadenza, and an Allegro assai, at the center of which is placed a divertissement in minor which fills the role of a trio section. The cello part demands a singular dexterity comparable to that required of the violinist. The orchestra consists of strings, two oboes, and two horns.
Sinfonia of the Cantata B.W.V. 169, for Organ and Orchestra . . J. S. Bach
(16851750)
One finds this Sinfonia in D major in the Concerto in E major for harpsichord, in which it appears as the first movement. Bach composed it at Leipzig in 1731 or 1732 on the text of an unidentified poem. The organ is accompanied by two oboes, a taille (an oboe de caccia), two violin groups, a viola, and continuo (cello and bass). The master neglected to indicate any tempo mark but an unhurried allegro seems appropriate to the music. The first violins enter with ornamented festoons of arpeggios in the tonic. The organ enters, gradually ascendin small leaps. The writing is, from first to last, highly involved and well worked out.
Prelude pour la genese.........Jacques Charpentier
(b. 1933)
Born in Paris, Jacques Charpentier undertook at a young age the solitary study of musical composition and made enormous strides in this work. At the age of 20 he went to the Indies and studied there the music of the country, which left on him an indelible impression. Returning in 1954 he attended the classes of Toni Aubin and Olivier Messiaen at the Con?servatoire and did brilliantly. Since 1961 Charpentier has represented France at the U.N.E.S.C.O. Congress on musical problems of the Orient and the Occident. In 1966 he was named Principal Inspector of Music in France. The impulse of Mr. Charpentier's creativity has not been interrupted by these activities. In 1963 the Institute cited his already existing work. In 1966 the Koussevitzky Foundation in New York awarded a prize to his Mouvement for Flute Cello and Harp. In 1967 he received a Grand Prix du Disque for his Concertino alia francese for strings, percussion and the electronic instrument, the ondes Martenot.
In this work is expressed, according to its composer, a "certain longing" which is a longing for life, for creation, for movement, also "for Light, for Ecstasy, for the Absolute. It is a tension between that which is not yet and that which is going to be; It is the Virgin, Vivacity and the Beautiful Tomorrow." The work, in one movement, in which the action is produced through successive pulsations, is "neither tonal nor serial nor fixed," but is a little of each.
1970INTERNAT1ONAL PRESENTATIONS1971
CHORAL UNION SERIESNext Program Hill Auditorium
MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA.....Saturday, October 24
Willem van Otterloo, Conductor
Program: In recognition of the 25th anniversary of the United Nations:
Sun Music III ......................... Peter Sculthorpe
Four Psyche Fragments ......................... Franck
John McCollum, Tenor, and 90 singers from the University Choral Union Symphony No. 5 ............................. Beethoven
Tickets: $7.00--$6.50--$6.00--$5.00--$3.50--$2.50
DANCE SERIES
Hill Auditorium
PENNSYLVANIA BALLET COMPANY......Saturday, October 17
Program: Ballade (Faure); Interlude (Ibert); Fugitive Visions (Prokofieff), and Pas de dix (Glazounoff).
MARTHA GRAHAM AND DANCE COMPANY .... Monday, October 26 BAYANIHAN PHILIPPINE DANCE COMPANY . . Saturday, November 21
ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER . . . Friday, February 12
Lecturedemonstration Thursday, February 11. Tickets: $1.00. Season ticket subscribers to the Dance Series will receive complimentary admission.
SIBERIAN DANCERS AND SINGERS OF OMSK . . . Saturday, March 27 (In place of the Ballets Canadiens, whose entire U. S. tour has been cancelled)
Season Tickets: $17.50--$15.00--$12.50--$10.00--$7.50 Single Performances: $6.00--$5.50--$5.00--$4.00--$3.00--$2.00
CHAMBER ARTS SERIES
Rackham Auditorium--Remaining Concerts
SOLISTI DI ZAGREB...........Wednesday, November 4
Program: Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, No. 4 ............... Corelli
Concerto for Two Violins, D minor................. Bach
Concerto for Piccolo in C. major................. Vivaldi
Five Movements, Op. 44 ..................... Hindemith
Concerto for Double Bass and Strings ........ Papandopulo
Sonata No. 3 ................................... Rossini
MOSCOW TRIO...............Friday, November 13
ELAINE SHAFFER, Flutist; and
HEPHZIBAH MENUHIN, Pianist......Monday, January 19
FESTIVAL WINDS.............Tuesday, February 2
GUARNERI STRING QUARTET........Thursday, February 25
MUNICH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA.........Friday, March 12
Hans Stadlmair, Conductor
Tickets: $5.00--$4.00--$2.50 All programs begin at 8:30 P.M. unless otherwise indicated.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
BURTON MEMORIAL TOWER, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48104