UMS Concert Program, October 15, 1988: International Presentations Of Music & Dance -- Paillard Chamber Orchestra

Season: 110th
Concert: Fifth
Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

lnteifiatipnal
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Paillard Chamber Orchestra
JEAN-FRANQOIS PAILLARD, Director
Shigenori Kudo, Flutist Gerard Jaruy, Violinist
Saturday Evening, October 15, 1988, at 8:00 Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Concerto Grosso in B minor, Op. 6, No. 12 ..........................Handel
Largo
Allegro
Aria
Largo
Allegro
Flute Concerto No. 1 in D minor, W. 22 .........................CPE. Bach
Allegro
Un poco andante
Allegro di molto
Shigenori Kudo intermission
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 7, No. 2............................Leclair
Adagio
Allegro ma non troppo
Adagio
Allegro
GerardJarry
Flute Concerto No. 7 in E minor..................................Devienne
Allegro Adagio Allegretto poco moderato
Shigenori Kudo
Six Epigraphes Antiques..........................................Debussy
Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d'ete orchestrated by Paillard
Pour un tombeau sans nom
Pour que la nuit soit propice
Pour la danseusc aux crotales
Pour l'Egyptienne
Pour remcrcier la pluic au matin
Halls Cough Tablets, courtesy of Warner-Lambert Company, arc available in the lobby. Fifth Concert of the 110th Season Twenty-sixth Annual Chamber Arts Series
PROGRAM NOTES by Leonard Burkat
Concerto Grosso in B minor, Op. 6, No. 12.........George Frideric Handel
(1685-1759)
Handel's twelve Concern Grossi, Op. 6, are among his finest instrumental works. They were composed in London during the remarkably short span of one month from September 29 to October 30, 1739, and were published the following year. These "Grand Concertos," as they were called at the time, were intended primarily for performance as instrumental interludes between sections of oratorios, but they quickly proved that they could stand on their own, and they were soon played everywhere in England and on the Continent.
The idea of the concerto grosso at the time allowed the composer a great deal of latitude in the number and style of the movements. No two of Handel's Concerti Grossi follow the same plan. Some are close to being suites of Baroque dances written in concerto style. The freedom with which Handel treated the concerto grosso permitted him to pour an infinite variety of mood and expression into these works. The Concertos were not originally intended for perfor?mance as organized wholes but were played in bits and pieces, and were published as little anthologies of short movements.
The word "concerto" was first used as a musical title in 1587 to denote the combination of voices and instruments in a mixed ensemble, not so much in collaboration as in contest, and its name came from the Latin concertare: to fight, dispute, or debate. Within a century, "concerto" had also acquired its present, opposite meaning: to make music (or anything else) "in concert," that is to say, united and in agreement. In most of the works in Handel's Op. 6, the strings are divided into two groups as in the popular concertos by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) that served Handel as models: a concertino ("little concert") of three solo instruments, two violins and cello; and a concerto grosso ("big concert"), the full string orchestra.
Concerto No. 12 opens with a pair of movements that, taken together, arc in the form of the overture used by the French composers of the Baroque era. The first, Largo, with its pompous rhythm, serves as an introduction to a long, spirited Allegro, with brilliant solos for the concertino. Next, the full strings play a beautiful aria with variations. Another brief Largo movement features the solo players, and the Concerto ends with an Allegro in the style of a fugue and the rhythm of a gigue.
Copyright O 1979
Flute Concerto No. 1 in D minor, W. 22.........Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(1714-1788)
Johann Sebastian Bach's second surviving son was the godson of Tclcmann and his suc?cessor as music director of Hamburg. He was an enterprising young musician who, when only seventeen years old -at just about the time when his father's music was published for the first time -engraved one of his own minuets and sold it as his Op. 1. His parents wanted him to be educated outside of music and sent him to study law at the University of Leipzig. After three years there he went to Frankfurt to continue his study of law but soon was drawn into an active role in the city's musical life.
Turning, almost inevitably, to a career in music, he went to Berlin, where he became involved with the Prussian royal family and spent twenty-eight years in the service of Frederick the Great. The Berlin court was a seat of conservatism in music, as in much (but not everything) else, and the music Bach wrote there does not generally show the kind of freedom of form and sentiment that was to appear in his Hamburg works.
Frederick II reigned as King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, a rare ruler who was a brilliant military commander and a patron of musicians, poets, and philosophers. He was a Latinist and Francophile (although he preferred German music to French), protector of Moses Mendelssohn (philosopher-grandfather of the composer Felix), an admirer of Voltaire, and the composer of more than a hundred musical works.
Music had an important place in Frederick's life. He played the flute daily -alone in the early morning, and in ensemble at the court concerts held every evening at seven. A musician of the time wrote that he played slow movements beautifully, but that fast tempos showed a weak technique and unsteady rhythm. This Flute Concerto was written at just about the midpoint of the eighteenth century for one of the royal musical soirees. Its three movements follow the fast-slow-fast sequence: the first, Allegro; the second, Andante; and the third, again Allegro.
The "W." designation is after Alfred Wotqucnne (1867-1939), the Belgian musicologist, composer, and compiler of C. P. E. Bach's catalog of works. The manuscripts of several important bibliographies in Wotquenne's collection, as well as a large part of his private music library, are housed in the Library of Congress.
Copyright O 1988
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 7, No. 2...............Jean Marie Leclair
(1697-1764)
The French violin school of the eighteenth century is not as well remembered today as the Italian, but it made important contributions of elegant and expressive music to the violin repertoire. Its best composer was Jean Marie Leclair, who started his professional career in the arts as a balletmaster in Turin, and first showed his great creative talent when he began to write music for the dance. In 1728 he settled in Paris as an active performing musician, but after 1736 he worked principally as a composer and teacher.
Leclair wrote successful operas and opera-ballets, but the violin and its music were the focus of his career. He published twelve concertos, forty-eight sonatas, chamber music for other combinations of instruments, and two collections of sonatas for two violins without accompaniment that were of such durable popularity that they influenced Mozart when he was in Paris in 1778. The technical difficulties in Leclair's sonatas indicate that he was a player of considerable accomplishment. What made him a leading figure of his time was not this alone, but the tender, expressive thematic material that gives his music a grace and vivacity of great distinction.
In 1737, and again in 1745, Leclair published sets of six violin concertos -a new and advanced form that was making its way from Italy all across Europe. Leclair's fast movements are clearly influenced by the Italians of the time (of whom we know Vivaldi best), although his slow movements usually retain a characteristically French flavor.
Copyright O 1988
Flute Concerto No. 7 in E minor.......................Francois Devienne
(1759-1803)
Francois Devienne was an important eighteenth-century musician, one of the founders of the French school of woodwind playing that became so influential in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He joined a military band as a little child, and at the age of ten he composed a setting of the mass accompanied by wind ensemble. Later, he played flute and bassoon in the best orchestras in Paris, and when the Conservatory was organized in 1796, he became its first professor of flute. Devienne composed ten operas, thirteen flute concertos, many symphonies, and hundreds of pieces of chamber music with wind instruments. "At the age of forty-four," a historian of the flute wrote in the 1880s, "he fell a martyr to his intense industry, and died insane at Charenton Lunatic Asylum."
This Concerto is a virtuoso piece that made extreme demands on the skills of eighteenth-century flutists and is by no means easy to play even on the modern flute with its elaborate key mechanism. Devienne's style combines classical restraint with a high level of imaginative power. The Concerto's three movements arc a big, fiery Allegro with frequent shifts between minor and major keys, an Adagio that is a long florid aria for the flute with string accompani?ment, and a final Rondo, Allegretto poco moderato, charming and graceful.
Copyright O 1980
Six Epigraphes Antiques..................................Claude Debussy
(1862-1918)
Debussy's Six Ancient Epigraphs has a long and complex history that begins in 1894, when the young Pierre Louys (1870-1925) published a collection of sensuous and elegant poems that he pretended were translations from the ancient Greek. He called them Chansons de Bilitis, "Songs of Bilitis," a courtesan who had once lived in Cyprus and Lesbos. About three years later, Debussy used the same title for his settings of three of the poems as songs for soprano and piano. In 1900 Debussy began to work on still another composition entitled Chansons de Bilitis, in which twelve of the Louys poems were recited to the accompaniment of an exotic sounding ensemble made up of two flutes, two harps, and celesta. He never completed this set, however, and part of what he wrote was lost, but in 1914 he converted some of it into a collection of duets for piano four-hands, to which he gave the title Six epigraphes antiques. Even this did not seem to embody the composer's final musical thoughts on the subject, for he also made a piano solo version of the music and gave some preliminary thought to an orchestral version, which has been realized by Jean-Franc,ois Paillard.
The six atmospheric pieces are aptly described by their titles: Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d'ete, "To Invoke Pan, God of the Summer Wind"; Pour un tombeau sans nom, "For a Nameless Tomb"; Pour que la nuit soit propice, "For the Night to be Propitious"; Pour la danseuse aux crotales, "For the Dancing Girl with Castanets"; Pour l'Egyptienne, "For the Egyptian Girl"; Pour remcrcier la pluie an matin, "To Thank the Morning Rain."
Copyright O 1988
The harpsichord heard this evening is a double manual, five-octave instrument built in 1978 by Willard Martin, Opus 101, owned by Marilyn Mason, Professor and University Organist, LJ-M.
About the Artists
The Paillard Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1953 by the French conductor and musicologist Jcan-Franc_ois Paillard and has since played a leading role in the revival of the music of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries. This role was further enhanced by their recording of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D (released in the United States by RCA Red Seal in 1977), which has become the best selling classical recording of all time, selling, at one point, as many as 60,000 copies every three months. This recording, named by Billboard as Classical Album of the Year with Jean-Franqois Paillard as Artist of the Year, brought international popularity to a previously little-known work.
The Paillard Chamber Orchestra is a permanent ensemble consisting of seven violins, two violas, two cellos, a double bass, and a harpsichord. Their concerts and recordings include works from the Baroque through the contemporary eras. Director Paillard and the orchestra give an annual series of concerts in France and have performed in the major music centers and at major festivals throughout the world. Their frequent tours of North America have taken them to Quebec, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto, and Los Angeles, among many other cities.
Since the release of their first recording in 1953, Jean-Franqois Paillard and his orchestra have made more than 200 recordings and won 22 Grands Prix du Disque. Among their recordings on major labels such as RCA and Erato arc Scarlatti's Concerti Grossi, Tclcmann's Musique de Table, Vivaldi's Concertos for Cello, Cimarosa's Oboe Concerto, and Bach's Or?chestral Suites. Maurice Andre is featured in recordings of works for trumpet and orchestra by Joseph and Michael Haydn, Hummel, d'Indy, and the Bach Brandenburg Concertos, the latter also featuring Jean-Pierre Rampal as flute soloist. In addition, the orchestra is heard on "Rampal Plays Bach."
Jean-Francois Paillard studied with such eminent masters as Norbert Dufourq, Igor Markcvitch, and the late Edward Lindenberg. Visiting the great music libraries of Europe, he unearthed many of the fofgotten Baroque masterpieces that now constitute the basis of the Paillard Chamber Orchestra's repertoire. Many of them were published under his supervision after he was appointed director of Archives de la Musique Francaise and Archives de la Musique Rcligieuse, Editions Costallat Paris. Paillard has written many scholarly works, including La Musique Francaise Classiquc, that have received wide acclaim by musicologists.
Mr. Paillard enjoys an independent conducting career in addition to his activities with the orchestra. He has guest-conducted I Solisti Veneti, the Osaka Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Opera dc Marseilles, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), and the English Chamber Orchestra, recording with the latter Mozart's Symphonies Nos. 35-41 for RCA. He also teaches numerous aspiring conductors and is director of the Academie dc Musique de Chambrc dc Valence.
Born in 1954 in Japan, Shigenori Kudo completed his musical studies in France at the Conservatoire Supcrieur de Musique in Paris. His teachers have included Alain Marion and Jean-Pierre Rampal. He has won numerous international prizes in Paris and Munich and earned the First "Grand Prix" at the International Jean-Pierre Rampal Competition in 1980.
In 1978, Shigenori Kudo made his Paris debut in performance with Jean-Pierre Rampal, and the two subsequently performed throughout Europe and Japan. Mr. Kudo has appeared as soloist with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Dutch Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and the NHK Orchestra. He has also been heard in recital in France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, and Japan. In the chamber music world, he has performed with Victoria de los Angeles, Pierre Fournier, Marielle Nordmann, Gerard Causse, and the Trio Pasquier, and he is a regular guest at the festivals of Menton, Cadaques, Palamos, Barcelona, Nohant, Antibcs, and the Festival of the Mediterranean.
Mr. Kudo made his North American debut on tour with the Lille National Orchestra in 1984. His recordings are found on the Erato, RVC, and Fontec labels.
Gerard Jarry, first violinist of the Paillard Chamber Orchestra, was thirteen years old when he was awarded the Premier Prix and the Prix d'Honncur, the highest degrees offered by the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. The following year he won the Premier Grand Prix au Concours International Marquerite LongJacques Thibaud, and his international career was immediately launched.
Mr. Jarry joined the Paillard Orchestra as principal soloist in 1969.
All artists in this evening's concert are appearing in Ann Arbor for the first time.
Orchestra Personnel
Violins: Gerard Jarry (concertmaster), Bernadette Jarry, Francois Harmelle, Arnaud Aguergaray, Olivier Jung, Sylvie Moura, Francis Oguse; Violas: Laurent Jouanneau and Cecilc Dcnielou; Cellos: Helene Dautry and Carlos Bcyris; Double bass: Francois Ducroux; Harpsichord: Richard Siegel.
The Paillard Chamber Orchestra appears by arrangement with Mariedi Anders Artists Management Inc., San Francisco
The Musical Society is extremely pleased to provide a year's subscription of Chamber Music magazine to series subscribers of our 1988-89 Chamber Arts presentations. Published by Chamber Music America, this informative publication includes in-depth articles and profiles of prominent individuals and ensembles within the world of chamber music.
Pre-concert Presentations
Make new discoveries and enjoy nuances in the performing arts with this season's series of presentations by authoritative speakers. All are free and open to the public, held in the Rackham Amphitheater one hour before the concert.
Sunday, Oct. 23 at 3:00, preceding Moscow State Symphony Orchestra
Speaker: Jim Leonard, Music Critic, Ann Arbor News; Manager, SKR Classical Topic: Purity in Music
Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 7:00, preceding Royal Ballet of Flanders
Speaker: Susan Nisbett, Features Editor and Dance Critic, Ann Arbor News Topic: Afterimages: Writing About the Dance
Friday, Nov. 11 at 7:00, preceding Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Speaker: Andrew Mead, Composer and Theorist, U-M School of Music Topic: Vienna Then and Now, or "How Did We Get Into This Mess"
Monday, Dec. 5 at 7:00, preceding Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Speaker and topic to be announced. Monday, Jan. 9 at 7:00, preceding Kathleen Battle, soprano
Speaker: Richard LeSueur, Head of Technical Services, Ann Arbor Public Library; President of a consulting service for singers and accompanists
Topic to be announced.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY Board of Directors
John W. Rccd, President
David B. Kennedy, Vice President
Thomas E. Kauper, Secretary Norman G. Herbert, Treasurer
Robert G. Aldrich James J. Dudcrstadt Richard L. Kennedy
Patrick B. Long Judythe R. Maugh
John D. Paul Ann S. Schriber Herbert E. Sloan
Kenneth C. Fischer, Executive Director Advisory Committee Ann S. Schribcr, Chair
Catherine Arcure Charles Borgsdorf Barbara Bryant Bradley Canale Sandra Connellan Katharine Cosovich Elena Delbanco Anne Duderstadt
Judy Fry Joann Gargaro Joyce Ginsberg Anne Glendon Charles Hills Stuart Isaac Janet Jeffries Frances Jelinek
Shirley Kauper Howard King Lynn Luckcnbach Carl Lutkehaus Alan Mandel Ingrid Martin Charlotte McGeoch Joan Olscn
Agnes Reading Dorothy Reed Sally Rogers Alice Vining Raven Wallace Mary White Sally White Shelly Williams
Ex-oJJicio: Kenneth C. Fischer, Nancy Cordincr Judge, Rebecca Liss Kott
Staff
Sally A. dishing Lcilani Denisqn
Barbara L. Ferguson Michael L. Gowing Nancy Cordincr Judge
Michael Kondziolka Rebecca Liss Kott William Orr Laura Rosenberg
Robin Stcphcnson Drent Pamela S. Tccple Carol G. Wargelin LornaJ. Young
U-M Student Intern: Mark Ewing
Student Assistants: Sara Billmann, Matthew Levy, Michelc Mustert, Susan Natan, Karen Paradis, Annette Sievcrt, Clare Stollak, Trevor Young
University Choral Union and Festival Chorus
Donald T. Bryant
Stephen L. Bryant
Nancy Hodge
Ncal Kurz
Coming Concerts
Moscow State Symphony Yevgeny Svetlanov..............Sun. Oct. 23
Royal Ballet of Flanders ........................Wed., Thurs. Oct. 26, 27
Special Fundraising Gala, Saturday, October 29
"Our Night of Celebration" with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic
Musica Antiqua Koln Reinhold Goebel....................Tues. Nov. 1
Vienna Symphony Orchestra Georges Pretre...............Fri. Nov. 11
Messiacn Birthday Salute: "Quartet for the End of Time"...........Tues. Nov. 29
Robert McDuffie, violinist; Gervase de Peyer, clarinetist; Santiago Rodriguez, pianist; Nathaniel Rosen, cellist
Handel's "Messiah" Donald Bryant, conductor.............Fri.-Sun. Dec. 2-4
Ashley Putnam, soprano; Kathleen Segar, alto; Richard Fracker, tenor; Stephen Bryant, bass; members of the Ann Arbor Symphony
Yo-Yo Ma, cellist.............................................Mon. Dec. 5
I Solisti Veneti Claudio Scimone...........................Tues. Dec. 6
Vienna Choir Boys..........................................Sat. Dec. 10
Kathleen Battle, soprano.....................................Mon. Jan. 9
Klezmer Conservatory Band.................................Sat. Jan. 14
Montreal Symphony Orchestra Charles Dutoit...........Wed. Jan. 25
Radu Lupu, pianist
Mazowsze, Polish Folk Company..............................Mon. Jan. 30
Canadian Brass............................................Thurs. Feb. 2
Beaux Arts Trio..............................................Sat. Feb. 4
Osipov Balalaika Orchestra...............................Thurs. Feb. 9
with stars of the Bolshoi Opera
Mummenschanz.....................................Sat., Sun. Feb. 11, 12
New York City Opera National Company ............Sat., Sun. Feb. 18, 19
Verdi's "La Traviata"
Richard Stoltzman and Friends............................Wed. Feb. 22
"New York Counterpoint"
Folger Consort & Western Wind...........................Mon. Mar. 6
Paul Taylor Dance Company.........................Tues., Wed. Mar. 7, 8
Israel Philharmonic Zubin Mehta.........................Tues. Mar. 14
Faculty Artists Concert (free admission) .....................Sun. Mar. 19
The Chieftains.............................................Wed. Mar. 22
Emerson String Quartet ..................................Wed. Mar. 29
Alicia de Larrocha, pianist.................................Thurs. Mar. 30
Stuttgart Wind Quintet ...................................Wed. Apr. 5
Dennis Russell Davies, pianist
Munich Philharmonic Sergiu Celibidache ................Thurs. Apr. 13
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Leonard Slatkin .........Thurs. Apr. 20
96th Annual May Festival...........................Wed.-Sat. Apr. 26-29
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kurt Masur
Complete information in free color brochure, available upon request.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1270 Telephone: (313) 764-2538