UMS Concert Program, October 29, 1993: University Musical Society -- The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Season: 115th
Concert: Thirteenth
Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

University Musical Society
and Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Division of Warner Lambert OFARKE-OAVIS
THE LEIPZIG GEWANDHAUS ORCHESTRA
Kurt Masur, Music Director
Friday Evening, October 29, 1993, 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM Overture to Ruy Bias, Op. 95.................Mendelssohn
Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61 ..............Schumann
Sostenuto assai -Allegro ma non troppo Scherzo: Allegro vivace Adagio espressivo Allegro molto vivace
INTERMISSION
Pictures at an Exhibition ....................Mussorgsky
Promenade (Orchestrated by Gorchakov)
Gnomus Promenade II vecchio castello Promenade Tuileries Bydlo Promenade
Ballet of Chicks in Their Shells Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuel Promenade
The Marketplace at Limoges Catacombae, Sepulchrum Romanum; Cum mortuis in lingua mortua Baba Yaga The Great Gate in the Capitol City of Kiev
BAOK is The Official Sponsor Of The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra's 250th Anniversary Tour. A.DELIA AIR LINES is the official airline of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
The UMS extends warm thanks to Kurt Masur for this evening's Phillips Educational Presentation. Maestro Masur will greet well-wishers in the main floor lobby following the concert.
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra can be heard on the Teldec Classics and the Philips Classics labels. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra appears by arrangement with IMG Artists.
Thirteenth Concert of the 115th Season 115th Choral Union Series
Prelude..................................Heitor Villa-Lobos
Etude
Leyenda ...............................Isaac Albeniz
transcribed by Segovia
PAUSE
E1 Pano moruno ...............................Traditional
'Danza del molinero ..........................Manuel de Falla
'Evening Dance...............................Andrew York
' Prelude and Fugue....................Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Mr. Parkening and Mr. Brandon are represented by Columbia Artists Management, Inc. New York, NY.
Mr. Parkening plays a Ramirez guitarSherry-Brenner Ltd. of Chicago
EMIAngel Records
Large print programs are available from your usher.
Fourteenth Concert of the 115th Season 23rd Annual Choice Series
Allemande
Queen Elizabeth's Galliard
Galliard
Fantasia No. 7
John Dowland (U563-1626)
An English composer and lutenist, John Dowland traveled to Paris in 1580 as "servant" to the ambassador to the King of France, and returned in 1584 a converted Catholic. In 1588 he "went down" to Oxford for a "Bacheler of Musick" (sic), and in 1592 performed before Queen Elizabeth herself, when the masque of Daphne and Apollo was presented for her entertainment at Sudeley Castle.
Unfortunately, this opportunity did not pay off, for when one of the Queen's lutenists died in 1594, Dowland applied for the post and was rejected. Dowland speculated bitterly that it was his Catholicism which had caused the refusal, but since he had never officially proclaimed his conversion, this was probably not the reason. In frustration, he left England for continental Europe, travelling through Germany and Italy. When he reached Florence, he encountered a group of exiled English Catholics who were plotting the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, at which point the frightened Dowland retreated to Nuremberg and disclosed the plot in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil.
In 1597 Dowland returned to England at the request of one of the Queen's favorite courtiers, who had the bad form to die before Dowland could be secured as one of the queen's musicians. Instead, Dowland began collecting his songs and instrumental composi?tions, and issued them in the volume The First Books of Songes or Ayres of Foure Panes with Tabletwe for the Lute. The collection enjoyed enormous popularity and rewarded Dowland with a post as lutenist at the court of Christian IV of Denmark by 1598, where he was salaried handsomely.
Four more volumes of songs, translations, and books on lute pedagogy followed in the next decade, which saw an unhappy accumulation of debt despite his generous court paycheck. Penniless by 1606, Dowland was dismissed from his post in Denmark, and he returned to England to serve as lutenist for a prominent courtier. Prestigious post notwithstanding, Dowland complained of neglect and misuse by the musical community: nearly every collection from this period features Dowland's works, but often the composer was not acknowledged. At the time, his Lachrymae was recognized from the court down to the common people, but this wide audience and sustained popularity did not satisfy Dowland.
When he was finally appointed to a position in the English court in 1612, Dowland seemed to lose his creative inspiration. Most of his surviving pieces date from an earlier period, the most famous being In darknesse let mee dwell, a strange and beautiful vocal melody with biting lute accompaniment. His lute music is founded in contemporary polyphony, most obvious in the Fantasia, which passes the opening theme from voice to voice throughout the composition. Dowland's works in dance forms, such as the Galliards and AUemandes, vary greatly among the surviving folios of his compositions, suggesting that his performance may have been largely improvisatory.
Four Renaissance Pieces
Anonymous
The lute, predecessor of the guitar and the favorite instrument of the Renaissance, was often built oi costly materials and with exquisite workmanship, rendering it a plaything of the aristocracy. The gut strings were so temperamental that one 17th-century commentator remarked, "It is said of the lutenist that he spends fifty years of his lifetime just tuning the instrument, five years actually playing it, and the remainder getting it repaired."
These anonymous works were drawn from Jane Pickering's collection of 1616, Music far Lute.
Maestro Masur and Midori at 1991 May Festival
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is the oldest civic orchestra in Germany and celebrates its 250th anniversary in 1993.
The orchestra grew out of the Musicians' Guilds in Leipzig and gave its first performance on March 11,1743 under the name "Grand Concert." At first it met in private venues and from 1744 in the Three Swans Tavern. When the space there became too small for rehearsals the city authorities gave permission for the Drapers' Guild (the Gewandhaus) hall to be rebuilt as a concert hall. The first concert in the Gewandhaus took place on November 25, 1781.
During the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century the Orchestra was led by Johann Adam Hiller and August Matthaei. However, it was the composer Felix Mendelssohn who was primarily reponsible for establishing the Orchestra's European reputation. His appointment as the Orchestra's "Kapellmeister" in 1835 led to an enormous uspsurge in Leipzig's musical life.
In later years, Arthur Nikisch (who led the Orchestra from 1895 to 1922) helped establish the high profile of the Gewandhaus concerts. Subsequent coductors of international reput were Wilhelm Furtwangler, Bruno Walter and Hermann Abendrot, and it was with them that the orchestra began foreign touring.
Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Bach's Das Wohltempierte Klavier ("The Well-Tempered Clavier"), comprising 48 preludes and fugues in two volumes, remains unsurpassed in its comprehensive exploration of the keyboard's potential. Book I, completed in 1722, contains a prelude and fugue pair in each of the twelve major and minor keys, ranging in musical device from the traditional ricercare to a highly ornamented Italianate style. "Equal temperament" refers to the division of the octave into twelve equal half-steps.
The C Major Prelude, the first piece in Book I, initially appeared in the Little Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedmann Bach, and again in 1725, in the second notebook of Anna Magdaler.a. Although originally written for the keyboard, the broken chords of this Prelude invoke the lute or guitar.
Prelude from Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello, BMV 1007 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
In the year 1717, Johann Sebastian Bach, then thirty-two years old, was employed as Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen. Prince Leopold was an excellent musician who, on account of his love for orchestral music, maintained a chamber orchestra of eighteen players. The court belonged to the Reformed Church and, conse?quently, Bach was not required to compose church music or play the organ. Hence, for the following six years of his tenure at the court, he devoted himself largely to the composition of instrumental music, including chamber music, keyboard music (particularly for instruc?tional purposes), concertos, and all of his compositions for unaccompanied strings, of which there are six Suites for Violoncello, three Sonatas and three Partitas for violin. The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello were composed circa 1720. It is surmised that Bach composed them with the court cellist, Christian Berhard Linigke, in mind. The Prince had secured Linigke from the Berlin Hofkapelle and his tenure at the court of Anhalt-Cothen coincided with Bach's position there.
The Six Violoncello Suites are secular in nature albeit their immediate function was to be performed during the Communion service in church. The germ of the suite form lies in the idea of joining different dance-types together to make an artistic balance and contrast. He used the utmost freedom and transformed these dances, essentially stylizing them into purely instrumental specimens of absolute music. Bach begins each of the Suites with a Prelude and follows with a Sarabande; a pair of popular dances such as a Menuet, Bouree, or Gavotte; and ends with a Gigue.
This Prelude was transcribed by the legendary Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia, who almost single-handedly fueled the renaissance of the classical guitar with his exquisite transcriptions of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Chopin and Schumann.
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, from Cantata 147 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Bach was employed as court organist, and later Kapellmeister, by the Duke of Weimar between 1708 and 1717. Much of Bach's music for the organ was written for the Duke, who is said to have greatly admired Bach's playing. Several cantatas were written during the Weimar years, including Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben ("Heart and mouth and deeds and life,") which was first presented on December 13, 1716, the Fourth Sunday of Advent; the text is by Salomo Franck (1659-1725), the Weimar court poet. Years later in 1723, Bach revised the work while he was Kantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Cantatas were performed only on the First Sunday of Advent in Leipzig churches. Bach
adapted the Advent text of Cantata 147 by adding texts appropriate to the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the cantata was performed in its revised form on July 2, 1723. The revised version of the cantata was divided into two parts, each of which ends with the familiar chorale, ]esu, Joy of Man's Desiring.
-program note copyright Todd Sullivan 1987
Variations on a Theme of Handel, Op. 107 Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829)
Giuliani was a composer and performer who, as a cellist, played in the premiere of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony in 1813 and, as a guitarist, was the most important Italian virtuoso of the 19th century. Born in the small village of Bisceglie, on the southeastern coast of Italy, Giuliani first studied cello and counterpoint before making the six-string guitar his primary instrument. Journeying to Vienna in 1807, Giuliani appeared in recitals with pianists Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Ignaz Moscheles, and the violinist Joseph Mayseder. Many of his own compositions for guitar were performed for the first time during his stay in Vienna. Among the numerous works for his favorite instrument are twelve sets of variations, three concertos, duos for guitar and violin or flute, a trio for guitar, violin, and cello; and a quintet for guitar and string quartet. In 1819, Giuliani returned to Italy, settling first in Rome and then in Naples, where he died in 1829. One of the earliest journals devoted to the guitar, the Giulianiad, was established in 1833 a tribute to Giuliani's prominence as a guitarist.
Giuliani's Opus 107 is a set of five variations based on the Air from Handel's Keyboard Suite in A Major.
--program note copyright Todd Sullivan 1987
Villanesca
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Although Granados composed many stage, vocal, orchestral, and chamber works, he is remembered primarily as a pianist and a composer of music for the piano. His first collection of piano pieces, the Danza espanolas, was written between 1892 and 1900, and contains ten dances in a characteristic Spanish idiom. The fourth dance, graceful and mesmerizing, is entitled Villanesca. Although "villanesca" is the term used for a popular form of vocal music in Italy in the 16th century, Granados probably intended the Spanish meaning of the word, "rustic." In this transcription for the guitar by Patrick Russ, the Villanesca's bell-like harmonics and pendular rhythm irresistibly envelop the listener.
Suite in Modo Polonico Alexandra Tansman (b. 1897)
Composed for Andres Segovia, this suite was inspired by the ancient court dances of Tansman's native Poland. Some movements of the suite, the Entree, for example, have counterparts elsewhere in Europe; others are typically Polish (the Polonaise). The composer commented: "The subject has been treated in a language which seems to me most suited for a work based on national or traditional forms, that is, I have avoided any voluntary stylization or modernization which, if adapted to the pure melodic lines, the popular harmonic style, and rhythmic meters, would result in something artificial and hybrid."
There is a variety of moods in these dances, form the grave Entree to the slow, melancholy lullaby which is the Kolysanka, to the vigorous, accented Polonaise, to the fast-stepping Oberek.
Kurt Masur has been Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for the last 22 years. At the beginning of the 1991-92 season he also became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kurt Masur was born in 1927 in Brieg, Silesia. After completing his studies at the Leipzig Music Academy he worked first as Repetiteur and then as Music Director at the Halle Theatre, followed by appointments as Kapellmeister at the Opera Houses in Erfurt and Leipzig. In 1955 he became Assistant Conductor to his teacher Heinz Bongartz with the Dresden Philharmonic Orches?tra. 1958 marked his return to opera, when he was appointed General Music Director at the Mecklenburg State Theatre in Schwerin.
From 1960 to 1964 he was Principal Con?ductor at the Komische Oper in Berlin and in 1967 he was appointed Principal Conductor of
the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held until 1972.
In 1975 he was appointed Professor at the Leipzig Music Academy. He received an honorary doctorate from Leipzig University. He has also received similar honors from the University of Michigan, the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Westminister Choir College (Princeton).
Kurt Masur has worked with virtually every orchestra of international renown. In 1974 he made his U.S. debut with the Cleveland Orchestra and led the Gewandhaus Orchestra's first American tour.
To date, he has made more than one hundred recordings. Teldec has issued recordings of the complete Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur. He has also recorded a complete edition of the Schumann Symphonies and the Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent recordings for the Teldec label include Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Manred Symphony with the Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as Cesar Franck's Symphony in d-minor and Les Eolides, Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 and Mahler's Symphony No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kurt Masur has taken up his activities in New York with great enthusiasm. He is proud to be celebrating with both of his orchestras: the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic and the 250th anniversary of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. It is not
Prelude
Etude
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Heitor Villa-Lobos has made probably more impact than any other composer on twentieth-century guitar music. A cellist and guitarist who played popular music, Villa-Lobos spent his lifetime collecting popular tunes of Brazil; the characteristic rhythms and melodic shapes of Brazilian music permeate his compositions. His first work for the guitar was the Suite populaire bresilienne, composed between 1908 and 1912 during the period when the composer was travelling in the countryside collecting folk music. The set of twelve Etudes was published in 1929 and the five Preludes in 1940. His preludes each depict the nostalgic folk feeling which Brazilians call "saudosismo."
Leyenda (Asturias) Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)
Isaac Albeniz was born in Camprodon. His exuberant talent as a pianist was obvious almost from his infancy. He gave his first concert when he was four years old. At six he studied in Paris with Marmontel for a few months. His concert was eagerly awaited and some newspapers called him the "Spanish Rubinstein." By petition of Debussy, Faure and other distinguished composers, the French government presented Albeniz the medal of the Legion of Honor.
As a composer, he is best known for the Tango in D Major and a set of piano pieces, Iberia. Originally a work for piano, Leyenda is the composer's tribute to the Asturias region of northwest Spain: Leyenda, or "The Legend," is actually a subtitle. Like a traveling troubadour Albeniz sings of his beautiful native land, its scenery and its changing moods. The Leyenda is part of the Suite Espagnole for piano with the transcription by Segovia.
El pano moruno (The Moorish Cloth) Traditional
This Spanish folk song was transcribed and embellished by Manuel de Falla in his Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas. In the traditional version for voice, lyrics lament the fate of the cloth of the title:
That Moorish cloth on the counter, A stain has fallen upon it; Now it will sell for a lower price Because it has lost its value. Ay!
Danza del Molinero (The Miller's Dance) Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), the ballet from which this dance is taken, has a slender plot. It concerns a happy couple, the miller and his wife, and an amorous Corregidor, or governor (who wears a three-cornered hat), who is enamored of the wife. The Corregidor orders the miller's arrest to clear the way for a pleasant little flirtation, if nothing else, with the captivating wife. Dansa del Molinero describes his character -proud, fiery and virile.
Violins
Prof. Karl Suske Prof. Christian Funke Gunar Kaltofen Giinter Glafi Fred Roth Henrik Hochschild Hiltrud llg Ralf Heise Wolfgang Grantzel Giinter Fiehring Christian Geidel Klaus Stein Eberhard Oettel Jiirgen Dase Heinz-Peter Piischel Susanne Hallmann Liane Unger Katrin Stoschek Dorothea Vogel
Peter Gerlach Horst Baumann Juergen Weise Hans Barwald Mi'ink.i Neumann Jutta Knauff Jiirgen Hetzer Christine Nagel LudolfKahler Werner Janek Gudrun Sporl
Udo Hannewald Rudolf Conrad Dietrich Reinhold Edwin Ilg Violas
Eberhard Freiberger Hans Christian Bartel Bernd Jacklin Peter-Michael Borck Peter Baake Hermann Schicketanz Friedemann Starke Henry Schneider Konrad Lepetit Ruth Bernewitz Norbert Tunze Katharine Dargel Dorothea Neumann Cellos
Christian Giger Giinther Stephan Lothar Max Siegfried Jager Ulrike Strauch Adolf Heinrich Jiirgen Schroeder Siegfried Hunger Hans-Peter Linde Matthias Schreiber Christoph Vietz Basses Christian Ockert
Rainhard Leuscher Kilian Forster Felix Ludwig Erwin Nerling Peter Strauch Werner Miiller Eberhard Spree Thomas Stahr Flutes
Wolfgang Loebner Cornelia Grohmann Heinz Maier Ulrich Other Oboes
Uwe Kleinsorge TTiomas Hipper Holger Landmann Roland Messinger Clarinets Thomas Ziesch Peter Schurrock Klaus Stoclce! Matthias Kreher Volker Hemken Bassoons Hans Schlag David Petersen Albert Kegel Gerwin Baasch Horns
Clemens Roger Ralf Goetz
Eckhard Runge
Christian Kretschmar
Jorg Bruckner
Amand Schwantge
Trumpets
John Roderick McDonald
Sven Wunder
Gunter Navrati!
Ulf Lehmann
Trombones
Jorg Richter
Klaus SchieBer
Jiirgen Schubert
Rolf Handrow
Tubas
Dieter Meschke
Jiirgen Bednarz
Harp
Cornelia Seehafer
Timpani
Prof. Karl Mehlig
Percussion
Dieter Wegerich
Steffen Cotta
Philipp Schroeder
Johnann-Georg Baumgartel
Celeste
Ulrich Urban