UMS Concert Program, February 18, 1980: International Presentations Of Music & Dance --

Season: 101st
Concert: Forty-ninth
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Jean-Pierre Rampal
Flutist
Alexandre Lagoya
Guitarist
Monday Evening, February 18, 1980, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Sonata in D major, Op. 21, for flute and guitar Allegro Romance Rondo
Three Fantasies for solo flute.....
No. 12 in G minor
Grave, allegro, grave, allegro, dolce, allegro, presto No. 6 in D minor
Dolce, allegro, spirituoso No. 2 in A minor
Grave, vivace, adagio, allegro
Pavana and Canarios for solo guitar ....
Sonata a concertante for flute and guitar Allegro spirituoso
Adagio assai espressivo
Rondo
INTERMISSION
SCHEIDLER
Telemann
Sanz Paganini
Shankar arr. Rampal and Lagoya
Villa-Lobos
"The Enchanted Morning" for flute and guitar (based on Raga Todi)
Prelude No. 1 in E minor for solo guitar
Variations on a Theme from Mozart's The Magic Flute
for solo guitar..............Sor
Grand Sonata in A major, Op. 85, for flute and guitar.....Giuliani
Allegro, adagio, minuetto, finale
Mr. Rampal: Columbia, London, RCA, Everest, CMXOryx, Nonesuch, Turnabout, and Orion Records. Mr. Lagoya: Columbia, Philips, and RCA Records.
101st Season--Forty-ninth Concert
Special Concert
PROGRAM NOTES
Christian Gottlieb Scheidler (1752-1815) vs one of the versatile musician-composers typical of his time--lutenist to the Elector of Mainz and also cellist and bassoonist in the court orchestra. When he was pensioned by the Elector he moved to Frankfurt-on-Main and turned his attention primarily to the guitar, which was beginning to eclipse the lute in popularity. He won renown as a guitar teacher, and his Sonata in D has been a favorite with concert performers. As befits a work that coincides with the peak of the classic era, it is cast in pristine, if small-dimensioned, classic form: an Allegro in sonata form, a middle movement in song form and a mettlesome rondo finale.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) had only an ordinary school training in the musical rudiments, and owed his later eminence to self-instruction. At twelve he wrote an opera; at fourteen conducted the music for a church at Hildesheim; at twenty he entered Leipzig University as a student of law and modern languages; and three years later became a church organist, enlarging his choir by a students' singing society which he organized. He went to Frankfurt in 1712 as Kapellmeister at the churches of the "Barefooted Friars" and St. Catherine, and from 1721 until his death he was town musical director at Hamburg. Telemann was an astonishingly productive composer, writing with ease and fluency in any desired style. Telemann was far better known in his time than Bach, though subsequently his fame suffered an eclipse. After Handel and Reinhard Keiser, Telemann was the most notable of the early German dramatic composers, his operas numbering about forty.
Gaspar Sanz, a 17th-century Spaniard whose birth and death dates are unknown, studied philosophy and theology at Salamanca and proceeded at some point to Naples, where he was employed by the Spanish viceroy. In 1674 he published "Instruccion de musica sobre la guitarra espanola," a valuable source of contemporary Spanish dance music. By this time the pavane (which possibly originated in Padua) had already begun to decline in popularity as an actual dance, but it had retained its attraction for instrumentalists, as Sanz' composition attests. The stately four-beat pace recalls its original function--as a processional leading the company onto the floor at the opening of a ball. The canario is quite a different kind of dance--a heated, lusty affair in triple meter in which, according to Curt Sachs, "the combination of skip and stamp and the alternation of heel and sole in the stamping are characteristic."
Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840) had a lifelong fondness for the guitar, dating from the age of nineteen when he retired to the Tuscan hills for four years with "a lady of rank" and devoted himself to her and to that instrument, neglecting both the violin and his public concert career. He wrote music for the guitar, in combination with other instruments, for a quarter of a century, and among the earliest of such pieces is the Sonata a concerlante for guitar and violin, transcribed here for flute. It was composed in December 1804 and dedicated to Signorina Emilia di Negro, the cousin of a young Genoese aristocrat who had been one of Paganini's benefactors. (She was to be married that month to a Polish general serving under Napoleon.) The composer's care for his adopted instrument is evident throughout. Although the guitar is by nature more retiring than the violin (or flute), Paganini sees to it that there is an interlacing of instrument parts, that the guitar's counterlines act as a foil to the more forward instrument, and that the guitar occasionally provides a sense of motion against the sustained voice above. In the slow movement a dialogue between the two instruments sets them on equal footing.
In his autobiography, "My Music, My Life" (Simon and Schuster, 1968), Ravi Shankar describes the music of India as characterized "by gentle curves, controlled grace, minute twining, winding whorls of detail." It is also characterized by an octave subdivided into 22 microtones, or 66 still smaller units of pitch--a subtlety of pitch division difficult for the western mind to grasp. Fortunately, the essentials of the raga are not so difficult. The raga--the melodic kernel on which the performer improvises--exists in potentially thousands of forms, but only a few hundred are in use. (They are never, says Shankar, invented but rather discovered, as a biologist might discover a new species.) Each raga expresses a fairly specific emotion, and each is asso?ciated with a particular time of day. Older tradition required that a raga be performed only at its own proper time, but this custom has given way to the demands of modern life. A raga begins in a serene mood, establishing the home tone, or "tonic," and proceeds upon its improvisatory path, growing more elaborate and agitated. The Enchanted Morning--based on Raga Todi--was written by Shankar for flute and harp and was arranged for flute and guitar by Rampal and Lagoya.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), the great Brazilian composer, first wrote for the guitar when he was in his early twenties, but it was friendship with Segovia that prompted both the Twelve Studies of 1929 and the Six Preludes of 1939-40 (the latter written in the composer's home city of Rio). In view of Villa-Lobos' lifelong interest in the instrument, the following remarks by Segovia (in an interview with this writer) are amusing: "Composers will always have to compose through the player. This was true even of Villa-Lobos. He himself played the
guitar--very badly. He was my great friend for many years, but he was--how shall I put it__
childish-proud. He would not admit that he played badly. He would write a chord in one position which was possible and the next chord in another position, which was also possible; but to get from one to the other--impossible! I had to transpose notes and rework the harmony." Still, Prelude No. 1 indicates that for a bad guitar player, Villa-Lobos managed very well.
Fernando Sor (1778-1839) is a seminal figure in the art of guitar playing, and his studies are so tellingly designed that they remain in the repertoire to this day. After a precocious start as an opera composer, Sor continued his career as court organist and guitarist in Madrid, served as a captain in the Napoleonic army and, after its defeat, was forced to flee to Paris. He traveled between that capital and London often enough to qualify as one of history's early commuters, and he was the first guitarist to perform with the Philharmonic Society (his playing was praised for its "sobriety and chaste refinement of style"). He was enormously successful in Russia as well, when he journeyed there about 1833. Sor's admiration for Mozart is evident in the fact that he wrote six Airs on Themes from "The Magic Flute" (Op. 19) in addition to the Theme and Variations performed in this recital. The theme--"Das klinget so herrlicht," (it jingles so softly)--occurs in Act I when Papageno, playing his magic chimes, sets Monastatos and his slaves to dancing and saves Pamina from their clutches. There are five variations and a short coda.
Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) was born in Bologna but became one of the substantial citizens of a more active music capital---Vienna. For the most part self-taught, his natural abilities must have been impressive for he was on friendly terms with the Viennese greats of his day--Haydn, Schubert, Moscheles, Hummel, and Beethoven among them. In England, where he made a great str, a magazine called The Giulianiad was established after his death; it was short lived but survived long enough to publish this comment by a contributor identified only as "N": "The impression Giuliani made in his first performance at the Argyll Rooms, which I attended, was of a nature which will never be erased from my memory; it was at once magical and surprising; nobody could credit that such effects could be produced on the guitar! Indeed, there was a sort of suppressed laugh when he first came forth before the audience, which, however, soon changed into the most unbridled admiration when he began to display his talents. . . . Several guitar quacks went there to scoff, but remained to pray. ..." A London critic wrote, "He vocalised his adagios to a degree impossible to imagine by those who never heard him."
Giuliani's duets for flute (or violin) and guitar are among the finest in the standard repertoire. The Grand Sonata in A, Op. 85, reveals not only how skilled he was in writing for his own instrument (which for the most part provides gracious and idiomatic accompaniment here) but how thoroughly he knew the flute--so well nurtured in this work that it is difficult to imagine a violin in the part. The "coloratura" passages of the Allegro and the purely vocal character of the slow movement are among the sonata's notable features.
Program notes by Shirley Fleming, Editor of Musical America, reprinted by permission of RCA Records.
About the Artists
Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flutist extraordinaire, collects superlatives wherever he performs in concert and recital on his globe-encircling tours. His popularity also stems from a gargantuan output of recordings of virtually the entire flute repertoire--as soloist with orchestras and chamber groups, with keyboardist Robert Veyron-Lacroix, and in the literature for solo flute. Several of his records have been awarded the Grand prix du Disque and all of them are best-sellers around the world. Several seasons ago he added conducting to his credits and, since making his American conducting debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, has gone on to conduct the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra, among others on this side of the Atlantic, as well as orchestras in Europe and Japan. This season, concertgoers in a few North American cities are treated to the double artistry of the two gentlemen from Paris on stage this evening, who gave their initial duo-recital in 1977 in New York's Avery Fisher Hall to rave reviews. Tonight's concert is Mr. Rampal's fifth in Ann Arbor, while Mr. Lagoya appears here for the first time.
Alexandre Lagoya is presently making his third coast-to-coast tour of the North American continent in as many seasons. In addition to his recitals with Mr. Rampal, he is performing in New York and Toronto, among other cities, and is heard with the Houston Symphony. Self-taught as a child, Lagoya made his debut at thirteen and soon acquired many pupils of his own. At nineteen he was able to go to Paris to study, where he was encouraged by Heitor Villa-Lobos and other well-known musicians. He later studied with Villa-Lobos and Castelnuovo-Tedesco in the United States. Mr. Lagoya's repertoire is extensive--in addition to the existing works written for the instrument, others have been added by composers such as Villa-Lobos, Poulenc, and Rodrigo, all inspired by the guitarist's performances. Mr. Lagoya is a professor at Paris' National Con?servatory where he conducts the guitar class that he originally founded in 1969. Summers find him teaching at the International Academy of Music in Nice.
Important Concert Change
The Krasnayarsk Dance Company from Siberia, scheduled for February 29, has cancelled its tour to the United States. We're pleased to announce the following attraction as a replacement on ths same date:
Massenkoff Russian Folk Festival--Nikolai Massenkoff, bass, and his California-based ensemble of folk dancers and balalaika players, all of Russian heritage, in a program spanning a thousand years of Russian history--ballads, war songs, love songs, and dances--Friday, February 29 at 8:30, in Hill Auditorium.
Krasnayarsk tickets should be used for admission to the Massenkoff Folk Festival. Additional tickets are also available, from $4 to $9. Ticket exchanges, if desired, may be made up to two days prior to the performance.
Aldo Ciccolini, Pianist..........Thurs. Feb. 21
Music of Satie, Debussy, and Liszt. Founders Day Concert..........Sun. Feb. 24
The Festival Chorus, Donald Bryant, Conductor; Handel's Israel in Egypt.
Carlotta Wilsen, Soprano; Rosemary Russell, Contralto; John McCollum,
Tenor; Willis Patterson, Bass; with members of University Symphony
Orchestra.
Cuban Folk Ensemble..........Tues. Feb. 26
Massenkoff Russian Folk Festival
(replacing Krasnayarsk Dancers)........Fri. Feb. 29
Elly Ameling, Soprano..........Wed. Mar. 12
Royal Dancers & Musicians of Bhutan......Sat. Mar. IS
Jury's Irish Cabaret of Dublin (sold out).....Tues. Mar. 18
Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin, Violinist & Pianist . . . Wed. Mar. 19 Brahms: Sonata No. 2 in A major; Bach: Partita No. 3; Franck: Sonata in A major; Bartok: Rumanian Dances; Debussy: La Fille aux cheveux de lin; Wieniawski: Scherzo and Tarantelle.
New World String Quartet.........Wed. Mar. 26
World premiere of Leslie Bassett's recently-commissioned Quartet No. 4.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Sergiu Comissiona . . . Wed. Apr. 2 Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante for Woodwinds; Borodin: Polovtzian Dances from Prince Igor (with the Festival Chorus) ; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2.
Sherrill Milnes, Baritone.........Mon. Apr. 14
Quartetto Italiano...........Thurs. Apr. 17
Ann Arbor May Festival
Wednesday, April 23--Onnandy and Stern: Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3, Violin Concerto in
D major; Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition. Thursday, April 24--Skrowaczewski and Firkusny: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25, K. 503; Berlioz:
Symphonic fantastique. Friday, April 25--Skrowaczewski and Choral Union: Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2;
Menotti: world premiere, "A Song of Hope"; Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor. Saturday, April 26--Onnandy: Prokofiev: Classical Symphony, Suite from "Love for Three
Oranges"; Schubert: Symphony No. 9 ("The Great").
Single concert tickets for the Festival go on sale Monday, March 3, in Burton Tower.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Gail W. Rector, President Richard S. Berger Sarah Goddard Power
Harlan Hatcher, Vice-President Allen P. Britton Harold T. Shapiro
Douglas D. Crary, Secretary Peter N. Heydon Lois U. Stegeman
Wilbur K. Pierpont, Treasurer Paul W. McCracken E. Thurston Thieme
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Phones: 665-3717, 764-2538