UMS Concert Program, Wednesday Oct. 24 To 28: University Musical Society: 2001 Fall - Wednesday Oct. 24 To 28 --

Season: 2001 Fall
University Of Michigan

University Musical Society
of the University of Michigan 2001 Fall Season
Event Program Book Wednesday, October 24 through Sunday, October 28,2001
General Information
Children of all ages are welcome at UMS Family and Youth Performances. Parents are encouraged not to bring children under the age of three to regular, full-length UMS performances. All children should be able to sit quietly in their own seats throughout any UMS perfor?mance. Children unable to do so, along with the adult accompanying them, will be asked by an usher to leave the auditorium. Please use discretion in choosing to bring a child.
Remember, everyone must have a ticket, regardless of age.
While in the Auditorium
Starting Time Every attempt is made to begin concerts on time. Latecomers are asked to wait in the lobby until seated by ushers at a predetermined time in the program.
Cameras and recording equipment are
prohibited in the auditorium.
If you have a question, ask your usher. They are here to help.
Please take this opportunity to exit the "information superhighway" while you are enjoying a UMS event: electronic-beeping or chiming digital watches, beeping pagers, ringing cellular phones and clicking portable comput?ers should be turned off during perfor?mances. In case of emergency, advise your paging service of auditorium and seat location and ask them to call University Security at 734.763.1131.
In the interests of saving both dollars and the environment, please retain this program book and return with it when you attend other UMS performances included in this edition. Thank you for your help.
Evgeny Kissin 5
Wednesday, October 24, 8:00pm Hill Auditorium
Gypsy Caravan II: 13
A Celebration of Rroma Music and Dance
Thursday, October 25,8:00pm Hill Auditorium
Theatre de la Jeune Lune Moliere's Tartuffe
Friday, October 26, 8:00pm 25
Saturday, October 27, 8:00pm 31
Power Center
Hagen Quartet 33
Sunday, October 28,4:00pm Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
Dear UMS patrons,
Welcome to this performance presented by UMS. I invite you to join us for our other theater, dance, and music events this season. Check out our complete 20012002 offerings beginning on page 29.
Some thoughts about recent developments:
October 18 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Ticket Office Manager Michael Gowing's first day at UMS. What an extraordinary job Michael has done, looking after the ticketing needs of several generations of UMS patrons and providing exceptional personal service to everyone he has come into contact with. Michael will be retiring at the end of this season.
As I write this message on the one-month anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I am remembering the special role that music has played during the past month in helping people deal with the range of emotions they are expe? riencing, whether in concert halls, stadiums, houses of worship, or on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, DC.
We're going to miss Lee Bollinger when he leaves Ann Arbor. His regular attendance at our events, his service on our Board of Directors, his critical role in enabling us to bring the Royal Shakespeare Company to our commu? nity, his support of visiting artists' creative activities while in residence on campus, and his deep commitment to the role of the public university as a major cultural institution in American society will all become part of his distinctive legacy at Michigan.
Thank you for coming to this event. Look for me in the lobby--I'd like to know your thoughts about this performance and about anything else you feel we can do to make your experience with us the best possible. If I miss you, feel free to call me at 734.647.1174, drop me a note, or send me an e-mail message at kenfisch@umich.edu.
Very best wishes,
Kenneth C. Fischer President
UMS Educational
through October 29, 2001
All UMS educational activities are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted ($). Please visit www.ums.org for complete details and updates.
Gypsy Caravan II
Brown Bag Panel Presentation
Representing Roma in East EuropeanCIS Education and Media
Panelists: Alaina Lemon, Michelle Kelso, and Deborah Michaels. International Institute, School of Social Work, First Floor, Room 1636, 1080 S. University. Wednesday, October 24, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Sponsored by the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies.
Interview and LectureDemonstration
Fanfare Ciocadia Immediately following the CREES Brown Bag Panel (above), members of the Romanian brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia will provide cultural and artistic insight into the unique qualities of their art form. International Institute, School of Social Work, First Floor, Room 1636, 1080 S. University. Wednesday, October 24, 1:15-2:30 p.m. In collaboration with CREES and World Performance Studies.
Gypsy Flamenco Master Class
Antonio El Pipa Intermediate to advanced students only. Open for obser?vation--seating Limited to capacity. Contact UMS Education at 734.647.6712 to register. Swing City Dance Studio, 1960 S. Industrial, Colonial Lanes Shopping Plaza, Ann Arbor. Wednesday, October 24, 12:00-2:00 p.m.
Public Interview
Esma Redzepova, Queen of the Gypsies Interviewed by Ema Stefanova, U-M Department of Slavic Languages. Koessler Room, Third Floor, Michigan League. Thursday, October 25, 6:00-7:00 p.m. A collaboration with the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, World Performance Studies, and the U-M Department of Slavic Languages.
Theatre de la Juene Lune
Greek Chorus Workshop Observation
Theatre de la Jeune Lune Associate Artistic Director Barbara Berlovtiz and Artistic
Associate Steve Epp, who plays the role of Tartuffe in the Ann Arbor productions, will be spending several days working with U-M Residential College students on issues and devel?opment of the Greek chorus in contemporary adaptations of classic theater. RC Auditorium, East QuadResidential College, 701 E. University. Thursday, October 25, 3:00-5:00 p.m. In collaboration with the U-M Residential College.
Master of Arts Public Interview
Join internationally-acclaimed Theatre de la Jeune Lune Artistic Directors Barbara Berlovitz, Vincent Gracieux, Bob Rosen, and Dominique Serrand for a discussion about current issues in theater, their unique work, and their fea?tured production of Moliere's Tartuffe. Interview by Malcolm Tulip, U-M Professor of Theater. Arena Theater, Frieze Building, 105 S. State (between Washington and Huron). Saturday, October 27, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. In collaboration with the U-M Department of Theater.
Evgeny Kissin 0TO
presents
Program
J.S. Bach,
Art. Ferruccio Busoni
Robert Schumann
Wednesday Evening, October 24,2001 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Toccata in C Major, BWV 564
Preludio, quasi improvvisandio
Intermezzo
Fuga
Sonata No. 1 in f-sharp minor, Op. 11
Introduction and Allegro vivace
Aria
Scherzo and Intermezzo
Finale
INTERMISSION
Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Promenade
Gnomus (The Gnome)
Promenade
II Vecchio Castello (The Old Castle)
Promenade
Tuileries--Dispute Between Children at Play
Bydlo
Promenade
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
Limoges le marche (Limoges, the Market)
Catacombae (Catacombs). Cum Mortuis in Lingua
Mortua (With the Dead in a Dead Language) The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba-Yaga) The Great Gate of Kiev
Fifth Performance of the 123rd Season
123 rd Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance is presented with generous support from the H. Gardner Ackley Endowment Fund, established by Bonnie Ackley in memory of her husband.
Additional support provided by media sponsor WGTE.
The piano used in this evening's performance is made possible by Mary and William Palmer and Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia, Michigan.
Special thanks to Louis Nagel and Arthur Greene for facilitating Mr. Kissin's in-class visit with U-M School of Music piano students.
Mr. Kissin appears by arrangement with IMG Artists, New York, NY.
Mr. Kissin records for RCA Victor Red SealBMG Classics, DG and Sony Classical.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Toccata in C Major, BWV 564
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach
Died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig
Arranged by Ferruccio Busoni Born April 1, 1866 in Empoli,
near Florence, Italy Died July 27, 1924 in Berlin
Vladimir Horowitz performed the UMS premiere of Ferruccio Busoni's arrangement ofj. S. Bach's Toccata in C Major on March 6, 1933.
No composer's works have been arranged or transcribed more often than Johann Sebastian Bach's. The reason has to do in part with Bach's universal recognition as one of the greatest composers of all time, and partly with the perception that the essence of his music lies less in the instru?mentation than in the notes themselves. The first person to arrange Bach's music was Bach himself. It is enough to think of the harpsichord concertos, all of which had started life as concertos for other instru?ments, or the "Prelude" to the Partita in E Major for solo violin, which became the organ concerto that opens Cantata No. 29. Among later composers, Mozart scored fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier for string trio, Schumann provided piano accompaniments for the violin partitas, and Brahms made a version of the "Chaconne" for piano left hand.
Ferruccio Busoni was probably the most prolific of all Bach arrangers. A prodi?gious pianist and a protege of Liszt, he was also a forward-looking musical thinker who penned an Outline of a New Aesthetic of Music and inspired (as well as encouraged) such modernists as Bela Bartok and Edgard Varese. A native of Italy, he was part German and spent most of his life in Germany. He was introduced to Bach's music as a child, and his deep love for the Thomaskantor
endured his entire life. He prepared new editions of most of Bach's keyboard music. In the case of the harpsichord works, he needed merely to provide pedagogical guides with fingerings and articulations that are generally faithful to the original text. But in the transcriptions of works originally written for the organ, Busoni's interventions became much more substantial as he had to find a way to render the organ's numerous regis?ters on an instrument that had no couplers.
The arrangement of the Toccata and Fugue for Organ in C Major was made in 1900 and published together with a similar reworking of the ever-popular Toccata in d minor. Both Toccatas are early works of Bach, with all the unruliness of the young genius. Busoni's transcriptions capture a certain "proto-Romantic" quality that can definitely be felt in the originals, and by means of powerful octave doublings, arrived at a piano sound that comes close to Bach's treatment of the organ in its majestic grandeur. Between the Toccata and the Fugue, this work contains a lyrical adagio movement, in which Busoni offers numer?ous performance instructions and dynamic markings that reflect his understanding of this music that influenced generations of Bach players. Busoni's rendering of the stunning cadenza at the end of this "Adagio" is unforgettable. He wanted the theme of the fugue played "un poco umoristico"--and the unusual nature of this theme, with its many interrupting rests, lends more than a little support to his interpretation. "Almost parodistic"--he instructed a little later. He made one of the minor-key episodes "scin?tillating" by adding a whole new voice of parallel sixths in a high register that have no counterpart in Bach. He also added a few extra C-Major chords at the very end, bor?rowing a concluding gesture from Classical and Romantic symphonies, as idiomatic on the concert grand as the long sustained pedal notes are on the organ.
Sonata No. 1 in f-sharp minor, Op. 11
Robert Schumann
Born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Saxony Died July 29, 1856 in Endenich, near Bonn, Germany
Vladimir Ashkenazy performed the UMS premiere of Schumann's Sonata No. 1 on November 2, 1986.
During the first decade of his creative life, Schumann wrote nothing but solo piano music, producing such masterpieces as Papillons, Carnival and Kreisleriana--to name but a few. In those works, he arranged short character pieces into large-scale cycles where a strong sense of cohesion was achieved in spite of extreme diversity among the individual movements. Schumann had indeed found his poetic voice in these cycles, yet he was eager to conquer what he called the "higher forms," by which he meant, more than anything else, the sonata. His first attempts to write a piano sonata date from the early 1830s, but it took several years before he could actually finish one. It is not impossible that the beginning of Schumann's activity as a music critic in 1834--which caused him to study and review many sonatas by other composers-helped him solve the considerable problems, both technical and aesthetic, posed by the genre. Having worked on two different sonatas simultaneously since 1833, he finally completed the first one, in f-sharp minor, in 1835 (the second, in g minor, would continue togestate until 1838).
Yet with Schumann, theoretical deliber?ations about composition were often sec?ondary to the emotional impulse from which the musical ideas sprang. The year 1835, which saw the completion of the Sonata No. 1 in f-sharp minor, was a turning point in the composer's personal life: it was during the summer that he and Clara Wieck fell in love. (Schumann had known Clara,
who was nine years younger than he, for years. It was after Clara, now sixteen and already a renowned pianist, returned from an extended concert tour, that their rela?tionship began to deepen.) By August, the sonata was finished and presented to Clara with a dedication "from Florestan and Eusebius." (The first edition of the sonata does not contain Schumann's name, only those of his two alter egos.)
These two characters were the two con?trasting personas through whom Schumann spoke in many of his critical writings. The passionate Florestan and the daydreaming, soft-spoken Eusebius were both aspects of Schumann's personality. They show up, among other places, in two movements of Carnival, and their interplay is easy to rec?ognize throughout the sonata. In his insightful book on Schumann (Oxford University Press 1997), John Daverio finds that in the sonata "the Florestinian side of his creativity has the upper hand," though "Eusebius too makes notable contributions." Most importantly, some subtle motivic links between sections contrasted in mood reveal that Eusebius and Florestan are really the same person.
The sonata begins with a rather extend?ed slow introduction, which is all "Florestan." Everything about this heroic adagio indicates that we are about to embark on an emotional journey of unusual dimensions. The subsequent fast movement contains some hidden allusions to the new bond between Robert and Clara: the charac?teristic drumming motif in the bass register, with which it opens, derives from a piano piece Clara had written shortly before. To make things even more fascinating, another motif in Clara's composition (called Le Ballet des Revenants or Ballet of the Ghosts), actually alluded to a fandango dance by Robert which remains unpublished to this day, but which contains the thematic seed from which the sonata movement grew.
Robert's fandango motif and Clara's dancing ghosts dominate much of the "Allegro vivace." Through a series of intricate modu?lations and the addition of a new, dazzling figure of rapid sixteenth-notes, the music becomes ever more agitated; the tension is increased even further by a recall of the ominous dotted rhythms of the slow intro?duction, soon before the beginning of the recapitulation, in which both the fandango rhythm and Clara's "ghost" motive are heard again, but in a much more virtuosic setting than before.
The second movement is an "Aria," whose heartfelt "Eusebian" melody Schumann first jotted down as early as 1828, in a song titled "To Anna." Following the regular tripartite (A-B-A) structure of many art songs from the early Romantic period, the melody wanders from the treble register of the piano to the bass and back to the treble again; it ends on a soft and dreamy note, after which the jolting off-beat accents of the third-movement "Scherzo" are like a rude awakening. Florestan takes over once more with an emotional outpour?ing that, from the very start, threatens to explode the habitual framework of the scherzo. There are not one but two trio sec?tions. The first is an agitated passage in syn?copated rhythm that moves even faster than the already quick allegrissimo of the begin?ning; the second, marked "Intermezzo," is a polonaise in a slower tempo. Alia burla, ma pomposo (comical, yet pompous)--instructs Schumann in the score. At first, the "pom?poso" aspect predominates as the stately dance unfolds along its regular course. But then, the music segues into a passage of mock operatic recitative, containing a motif marked in the score as "quasi oboe" and cul?minating in a furious double-arpeggio that leads directly back to the passionate scherzo.
The fiery finale begins with a theme made of powerful chords with a thundering bass line in parallel octaves. This theme
makes periodic reappearances as a rondo theme would, but the intervening episodes are developed so extensively that they come close to destroying the rondo feeling. Also, the rondo form is not usually associated with the expression of such stormy passions. In this Allegro un poco maestoso, Florestan reigns supreme all the way to a breathtak-ingly virtuosic coda, in which the tonality changes from minor to major without any release in the music's dramatic intensity. Has a teenage girl ever received a more glowing declaration of love
Pictures at an Exhibition
Modest Mussorgsky
Born March 21, 1839 in Karevo, district
of Pskov, Russia Died March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg
Vladimir Horowitz performed the UMS pre?miere of the original piano score of Pictures at an Exhibition on February 11, 1949. The Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the UMS premiere of Maurice Ravel's popular orches?tration of the piece on December 11, 1934.
"What a terrible blow!" Mussorgsky exclaimed in a letter to the critic Vladimir Stasov in 1874. "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, live on, when creatures like Hartmann must die" Victor Hartmann, a gifted architect and a close friend of Mussorgsky's, had recently passed away at the age of thirty-nine. A commemorative exhibit of his paint?ings inspired Mussorgsky to pay a musical tribute to his friend by writing a piano suite based on his impressions of the paintings. The suite was not performed and published during the composer's lifetime, and it did not become universally known until Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in 1922. Since then, however, the original version has come into its own and, having been popularized by symphony orchestra, Pictures at an Exhibition
has finally established itself as a classic of nineteenth-century piano repertoire.
Mussorgsky had chosen ten of Hartmann's pictures for musical illustration. The pictures are separated--in the first half of the work at any rate--by a melody called "Promenade" that portrays the visitor at the gallery, strolling from picture to picture. It is fascinating to listen to the changes under?gone by the melody in its various recur?rences: the impression left by the last picture seems to linger on as the visitor proceeds to the next painting.
The first picture, "Gnomus," represents a toy nutcracker in the shape of a dwarf. The strange and unpredictable movements of this creature are depicted quite vividly. We subsequently hear the "Promenade" again, and are then ushered into "II Vecchio Castello" (The Old Castle), where a trouba?dour--a medieval courtly singer--sings a wistful song.
The next picture--preceded again by the "Promenade"--is titled in French: "Tuileries--Dispute d'enfants apres jeux" (Tuileries--Dispute Between Children at Play). It shows children playing and quarrel?ing in the Tuileries gardens in Paris. It is fol?lowed immediately--with no Promenade this time--by "Bydlo," the Polish ox-cart, slowly approaching and then going away as its ponderous melody becomes gradually louder and then gradually softer.
A much shortened "Promenade," more lyrical in tone than before, leads into the first movement to have a Russian title in the original: "Balet nevylupivshikhsya ptentsov" (Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks). This movement is based on designs Hartmann had made for the ballet Trilbi at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. In the ballet, which had music by Julius Gerber and choreography by the famous Marius Petipa, a group of children appeared dressed up as canaries; others, according to a con?temporary description, were "enclosed in
eggs as in suits of armor," with only their legs sticking out of the eggshells.
The next picture is titled, in the origi?nal, "Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle." Hartmann had painted a number of charac?ters from the Jewish ghetto in Sandomierz, Poland, including a rich man in a fur hat, and, in a separate work, a poor man sitting with his head bent. It was Mussorgsky who combined the two Jewish men into a single movement, as if having an argument of some sort. The rich Jew is represented by a slow-moving unison melody stressing the augmented second, which is frequent in cer?tain forms of Jewish chant and folk music (as well as in many other cultures in the Mediterranean region and in the Middle East) with which Mussorgsky was familiar. The poor man is characterized by a plaintive theme whose repeated notes seem to be choking with emotion. Then, the two themes are heard simultaneously.
"Limoges le marche" (Limoges, the Market) portrays the hustle and bustle of an open market in France where people are busy gossiping and quarreling. Mussorgsky's original manuscript contained a more detailed program that, although crossed out by the composer, is interesting enough to be quoted here:
The big news: Monsieur de Puissangeot has just recovered his cow "Fugitive." But the good wives of Limoges are not interested in this incident because Madame the Remboursac has acquired very fine porcelain dentures while Monsieur de Panta-Pantaleon is still troubled by his obtrusive nose that remains as red as a peony.
What a contrast to go from there imme?diately to the "Catacombs!" Hartmann's watercolor shows the artist, a friend, and their guide--who is holding a lantern-examining the underground burial cham?bers in Paris. On the right, one can see a large pile of skulls, which, in Mussorgsky's imagination, suddenly begin to glow. The
"Promenade" theme appears completely transfigured, as the inscription in the score says, Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the dead in a dead language). (Actually, Mussorgsky wrote "con" instead of "cum" substituting the Italian word for its Latin equivalent.)
The next section, "Izbushka na kuryikh nozhkakh--Baba-Yaga" (The Hut on Fowl's Legs--Baba-Yaga) evokes the witch of Russian folktales who lives in just such an edifice. According to legend, Baba-Yaga lures children into her hut where she eats them. According to one recent re-telling of the story, she "crushes their bones in the giant mortar in which she rides through the woods propelling herself with the pestle and covering her tracks with a broomstick." Hartmann had designed a clock in the form of the famous hut; the clock was apparently never made, its design survives only as a sketch. Mussorgsky's movement, whose rhythm has something of the ticking of a giant clock--has a mysterious-sounding middle section, after which the wilder and louder first material returns.
The "witch music" continues directly into the grand finale, "The Great Gate of Kiev," inspired by an ambitious design that was submitted for a competition but never built. To evoke the grandeur of this vast architectural structure, Mussorgsky provided a hymn-like melody, presented in rich chords on the piano. This theme alternates with a more subdued second melody, har?monized like a chorale. Near the end, the "Promenade" theme makes a final appear?ance, preparing the magnificent final climax that, in many ways, symbolizes the grandeur of old Russia.
Program notes by Peter Laki.
E
vgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in October 1971 and began to play and improvise on the piano at age two. At the age of six, he entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor. He gave his first solo recital in Moscow at age eleven and came to international attention in March 1984 when, at age twelve, he per?formed the two Chopin concertos in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic, under the direction of Dmitri Kitaenko. He has since performed throughout the former Soviet Union with the Leningrad Philharmonic, the Orchestra of Soviet TV and Radio and the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR. In 1997, he returned for the first time since 1991 to receive the highest cultural honor in the Russian Republic, the Triumph Prize, and to per?form two solo recitals in Moscow. He returned again last December to perform a concert with Yuri Temirkanov conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
The first appearances Mr. Kissin gave outside Russia occurred in 1985, when he performed in East Berlin and Budapest. He made his first tour of Japan in October 1986 and has since returned regularly. Mr. Kissin made his debut in Western Europe in 1987 at the Berlin Festival and has concertized widely throughout Europe to sold-out hous?es. In August of 1997, he performed the first solo recital in the 103-year history of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Mr. Kissin's first appearances in the US took place in the fall of 1990 when, within ten days, he performed the two Chopin concer?tos with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta and gave the first recital of Carnegie Hall's centenary season. His sold-out Carnegie Hall recital debut was recorded live for RCA Red Seal and the recording was subsequently nominated for
a Grammy Award. On October 5,1995, Mr. Kissin opened the Carnegie Hall season as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa. The performance was telecast nationwide on PBS's Great Performances.
Other televised appearances include a December 31,1988 debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan in the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto and per?formed Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" with the Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado on December 31,1991. Mr. Kissin was seen by an estimated 1.8 billion people in eighty-seven countries when he performed live at the Grammy Award ceremonies on February 25, 1992. More recent televised performances include Mr. Kissin's recital at Tokyo's Suntory Hall on November 4, 1998 and Christopher Nupen's documentary film, Evgeny Kissin: The Gift of Music, which BMG Classics released in April 2000.
Evgeny Kissin has received extraordi?nary acclaim for his numerous recordings, among them the Schumann Piano Concerto
with the Vienna Philharmonic and Carlo Maria Giulini (Sony Classical); Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and No. 5 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and James Levine (Sony Classical); Prokofiev Concertos Nos. 1 and No. 3 with the Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon); and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Boston Symphony and Seiji Ozawa (RCA VictorRed Seal). Other recordings on the RCA VictorRed Seal label include a recently-released Chopin collection
of the 24 Preludes and Sonata No. 2; Chopin's Four Ballades and Berceuse Schumann's "Kreisleriana" and Busoni's arrangement of the Bach "Chaconne"; Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and Brahms "Paganini Variations;" Schumann's "Fantasy in C Major" and Liszt's "Transcendental Etudes;" and a re-release of the legendary 1984 Moscow performance of the Chopin concertos, which first brought Evgeny Kissin to public attention.
During the 20012002 season, Mr. Kissin will perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Mariss lansons and the Baltimore Symphony under Maestro Temirkanov. He will be heard in recitals in major international centers including New York, Boston, Chicago, Amsterdam, Athens, London, Paris, Rome and Salzburg.
Tonight's recital marks Evgeny Kissin's second appearance under UMS auspices. Mr. Kissin made his UMS debut in a solo recital in Hill Auditorium on April 13, 1998.
Gypsy Caravan II
UMS
and
McKiniey A Celebration ofRroma Music and Dance
Associates
present
Program Thursday Evening, October 25, 2001 at 8:00
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Maharaja
from India
Bachu Khan, Kartal, Vocals
Barkat Khan, Sarangi, Vocals
Gewar Khan, Dholak, Percussion
Shayar Khan, Alogooza, Pungi, Sarangi, Vocals
Zakab Khan, Vocals
Sayari, Dance
Esma Redzepova and Ensemble Teodosievski
from Macedonia
Esma Redzepova, Vocals Zahir Ramadanov, Trumpet Simeon Atanasov, Accordion Sami "Buko" Zekiroski, Clarinet Elam Rasidov, Tarabuka Elvis Huna, Keyboards
INTERMISSION
Fanfare Ciocarlia
from Romania
loan Ivancea, Eb Clarinet, Vocals
Oprica Costel Ivancea, Eb Clarinet, Alto saxophone
Laurentiu Mihai Ivancea, Baritone horn
Monel Trifan, Tuba
Costica Trifan, Trumpet, Vocals
Radulescu Lazar, Trumpet, Vocals
Constantin Cantea, Tuba
Constantin Calin, Tenor horn
Costel Ursu, Large drum
Nicolae Ionita, Percussion
Antonio El Pipa Flamenco Ensemble
from Spain
Antonio El Pipa, Dance Juana la del Pipa, Dance, Vocals Concha Vargas, Dance Manuel Tane, Vocals Juan Moneo, Guitar
Finale: Maharaja Flemenco
Tonight's program will be announced from the stage by the artists.
Sixth Performance ofthe 123rd Season
Eighth Annual World Culture Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is sponsored in part by McKinley Associates. Additional support provided by media sponsors WDET and Metro Times.
The Gypsy Caravan II tour is made possible by a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Additional funds have been made available from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and Friends of World Music Institute.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Origins of the Romani People
by Ian F. Hancock
T
he Roma have been composed of many different groups of people from the very beginning, and have absorbed outsiders throughout their history. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, they were thought by the first Europeans to be from Turkey, Nubia, Egypt, or any number of vaguely acknowledged non-European places, and they were called, among other things, Egyptians or "CE-Gyptians," which is where the word "Gypsy" comes from. In some places, this Egyptian identity was taken entirely serious?ly, and was no doubt borrowed by the early Roma themselves. In the fifteenth century, James V of Scotland concluded a treaty with a local Romani leader pledging the support of his armies to help recover "Little Egypt" (an old name for Epirus, on the Greek-Albanian coast) for them.
At the beginning of the eleventh centu?ry, India began to be invaded by the Muslim warrior Mohammed of Ghazni, who was attempting to spread Islam into Hindu terri?tory. The Indian response was to assemble a military force from the Rajputs, soldiers who had been given honorary military {Kshatriya) caste status, and who were assembled from different, but historically related, ethnic populations. Most of Mohammed's attacks between 1001-1027 were successful, the Rajputs routing the Ghaznavids only two or three times in that whole period. It is therefore not possible to say whether the ancestors of the Roma left as a defeated people, or as victors driving away the enemy. Whatever the circum?stances of their departure, they apparently
crossed the Middle East fairly quickly, since the first account of their appearance in the Byzantine Empire is dated AD 1058. But it was another 250 years before they moved on into Europe--again because of the spread of Islam, this time to the West--and it was in the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire that the Romani ethnic character, as well as the Romani language, came into being.
This composite army moved out of India through the mountain passes and west into Persia, battling with Muslim forces all along the eastern limit of Islam. While this is, to an extent, speculative, it is based upon sound linguistic and historical evidence, and provides the best-supported scenario to date. Because Islam was not only making inroads into India to the east, but was also being spread westward into Europe, this conflict carried the Indian troops--the early Roma--further and further in that direc?tion, until they eventually crossed over into southeastern Europe about the year 1300.
From the very beginning then, the Romani population has been made up of various different peoples who have come together for different reasons. As the ethni?cally and linguistically mixed occupational population from India moved further and further away from its land of origin begin?ning in the eleventh century, so it began to acquire its own ethnic identity, and it was at this time that the Romani language also began to take shape. But the mixture of peo?ples and languages didn't stop there, for as the warriors moved northwest through Persia, it took words and grammar from Persian, and no doubt absorbed new mem?bers too; the same thing happened in Armenia and in the Byzantine Empire and has continued to occur in Europe. In some instances, the mingling of small groups of Roma with other peoples has resulted in such groups being absorbed into them and losing their Romani identity; the Jenisch are perhaps such an example. In others, it has
been the outsiders who have been absorbed, and who, in the course of time, have become one with the Romani group.
In Europe, the Roma were either kept in slavery in the Balkans (in territory which is today Romania), or else were able to move on and up into the rest of the continent,
reaching every northern and western country by about 1500. In the course of time, as a result of having interacted with various European populations, and being fragment?ed into widely-separated groups, the Roma have emerged as a collection of distinct eth?nic groups within the larger whole.
Introduction to Roma Music
by Carol Silverman
F
ollowing the resounding success of the Gypsy Caravan in 1999, Gypsy Caravan II provides a further opportunity for North American audiences to experience the diversi?ty and dynamism of contemporary Rom music and dance. Despite continuous his?torical attempts to assimilate or eradicate Roma (singular Rom; adjective Rom or Romani), their musical arts are thriving. The contributions of Roma to European culture are indeed striking.
For over five hundred years, some Rom groups in Eastern Europe have been profes?sional musicians, playing for non-Roma (as well as Roma) for remuneration in cafes and
Proverbs attest that 'a wedding without a Gypsy isn't worth anything'
at events such as weddings, baptisms, cir?cumcisions, fairs, and village dances. Proverbs attest that "a wedding without a Gypsy isn't worth anything" (Bulgarian) and "give a Hungarian a glass of water and a Gypsy fiddler and he will become complete?ly drunk" (Hungarian). This professional niche, primarily male and instrumental,
requires Roma to know expertly the regional repertoire and interact with it in a creative manner. A nomadic way of life, often enforced upon Roma through harassment and prejudice, gave them opportunities to enlarge their repertoires and become multi-musical and multilingual. In addition to nomadic Roma, numerous sedentary Roma in major European cities professionally per?formed urban folk, classical, andor popular music. In Hungary, Russia, and Spain, cer?tain forms of Rom music became national music, veritable emblems of the country. Music as a profession, however, is not found among all Rom groups.
Neither one worldwide nor one pan-European Rom music exists. Roma consti?tute a rich mosaic of groups that distinguish among themselves musically. For example, contrary to popular conceptions, there is no one "Gypsy scale." There are perhaps some stylistic and performance elements, such as the propensity to improvise, the intensity of emotional expression, and the openness to new styles, which are common to many European Rom musics. Often, music-mak?ing is both the social glue and the context for artistic display in Rom communities. Not only is music an important shared art within Rom communities, but it is also an important commodity in the economic rela-
tionship between Roma and non-Roma. Popular exaggerations run the gamut from the claim that Roma are merely musical sponges to the claim that Roma are the most traditional interpreters of peasant music. The truth is more complicated. While Rom music shares much with that of neighboring peoples, often Roma impart a distinct stylistic stamp.
Linguistic evidence reveals that Roma are a composite Indian population who migrated westward from northwest India in the eleventh century. By 1500, Roma lived throughout Europe, becoming indispensable suppliers of diverse services such as music, entertainment, fortune-telling, metalwork-ing, horse dealing, woodworking, sieve mak?ing, basketry, and seasonal agricultural work. The term "Gypsy" derives from the erroneous belief that Roma originally come from Egypt. Romani, the Rom language, is closely related to Sanskrit, and exists in mul?tiple dialects in the Rom Diaspora. Due to assimilation, many Roma today do not speak Romani. Roma often adopted the reli?gious beliefs of their neighbors while keep?ing a layer of older beliefs. Today Roma are found in all professions and an intellectual elite is growing rapidly.
In Europe, initial curiosity about Roma quickly gave way to hatred and discrimina?tion, which continue today virtually every?where. From the fourteenth to the nine?teenth centuries in the southern Romanian principalities, Roma were slaves owned by noblemen, monasteries, and the state; they were sold, bartered, and flogged, and even their marriages were regulated. Slavery was abolished in 1864, but patterns of exploita?tion continue. Roma were viewed as intrud?ers probably because of their South
Asian features and customs and their association with invading Ottoman Muslims. Despite their small numbers, they inspired fear and mistrust and faced preju?dice in every European territory. Many
learned to "pass" for other ethnic groups. Bounties were paid for their capture, dead or alive, and repressive measures included confiscation of property and children, forced labor, prison sentences, sterilization, and forms of physical mutilation.
Assimilation was attempted in the Austro-Hungarian Empire by outlawing Romani language, Rom music, dress, nomadism, and banning traditional occupa?tions. Similar assimilationist legislation was enacted in Spain from 1499-1800 and in East European communist countries after World War II. Persecution escalated with the Nazi rise to power: Roma faced an extermi?nation campaign that is only now being his?torically investigated: more than 600,000-one-fifth to one-fourth of all European Roma--were murdered. Europeans have treated Roma as the quintessential "out?sider" despite the fact that Roma have been Europeans for almost a millennium.
In the 1990s, harassment and violence toward the ten million Roma of Europe have increased, as have marginalization and poverty. The largest minority in Europe, they have the lowest standard of living in every country. Since the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe there has been a rise in scapegoating of Roma, tracking of Rom children into schools for the mentally chal?lenged, and violence against them in the form of mob attacks, skinhead targeting, and police brutality. In response, Rom polit?ical participation, human rights activism, and awareness of shared ethnicity are grow?ing. Rom political parties and unions now have a tentative place in European institu?tions, and Rom culture festivals take place in many cities. In all of these forums, music plays an important role in celebrating the creative adaptability of Roma despite cen?turies of discrimination. Gypsy Caravan II illustrates the mushrooming interest in Rom music on North American soil, where approximately one million Roma reside.
M
aharaja (formerly Musafir), from Rajasthan in northwest India, has dazzled European audiences in recent years with its energetic hybrid versions of Indian folk and popular music, dance, and acrobatics. Maharaja performed to enthusi?astic crowds during the 1999 North American tour of the Gypsy Caravan and has played at hundreds of concerts and fes?tivals all over Europe, such as WOMAD, Roskilde, Paleo, Sfinks, and Ritmos. Maharaja is featured on the CDs Gypsies of Rajasthan (Blue Flame) and Dhola Maru (Sounds True); some members also appeared in the film Latcho Drom, a staged documen?tary of Rom music. In Gypsy Caravan II, Maharaja portrays the symbolic and histori?cal connection of Roma to northwest India. The artists in Musafir are not the actual ancestors of contemporary European Roma but rather suggest some of the occupational and artistic niches that Roma might have occupied in Rajasthan. The term "Gypsy" was applied by the British to numerous nomadic groups in India who have no proven relationship to European Roma. Maharaja is composed of groups of musicians who in Rajasthan would not play together, but here create an exciting fusion. Maharaja's compositions combine Rajasthani rural folk music with influences from Qawwali (Muslim devotional music), Indian film music, and Hindustani (North Indian Classical) music. Maharaja is com?posed of professional musicians who inhabit the Thar Desert in northwest Rajasthan. They are members of the Langa, Manghaniyar, and Sapera groups.
Langas (song givers) are Muslim and perform for Muslim cattle breeders at births, weddings, funerals, and religious hol?idays, receiving payment in animals and food. They are able to lead a sedentary life because they have a stable patron-client relationship, unlike the Saperas who migrate in search of work. Langa music is learned
orally in a masterapprentice relationship. The apprentice begins by accompanying the master and eventually learns a large corpus of songs. The vocal repertoire includes songs of the life cycle and the seasons, songs in praise of their patrons, devotional songs composed by nineteenth-century Sufi poets, and film songs. Themes such as love and heroism predominate, and water and cattle, the source of life in the desert, appear fre?quently in the lyrics. Langas are known for their improvisations and their instrumental and vocal ornamentation.
Manghaniyars (those who beg), like Langas, are sedentary Muslims whose home extends over the border into Pakistan, but their patrons are mostly Hindu Rajputs (a high caste) and Hindu Charans (a caste of poets, bards, and historians). In Rajasthan, Hindus and Muslims often worship in the same temples and share spiritual themes. The Manghaniyar repertoire is vast, includ?ing songs celebrating secular and sacred love and devotional songs to the Hindu deity Krishna. The Saperas (from the word Sap, snake) are a sub-group of the migrant com?munity of Kalbeliyas, who travel with mules and dogs and specialize in snake charming and in curing snakebites. They have their own music but do perform professionally with Langas. Their dances, often performed by women wearing bells tied to their feet, are featured in Maharaja.
Langas play the sarangi, a vertically held bowed stringed instrument. Carved out of a solid block of teak wood, it consists of a res?onator covered with goatskin, a hollow fin-
gerboard, and a tuning peg holder. There are usually three melody strings and a drone string, plus sympathetic strings, but the number of strings and size of the instru?ment varies. The aloogoza is a double-flute with two pipes, one for drone and one for melody, and the pungi is a double-clarinet. The performers use circular breathing, pro?ducing an unbroken airflow. Typical Manghaniyar instruments include a dholak (two-headed ended drum) and kartals (a pair of lightweight rectangular wooden blocks played by the hands).
The performers of Maharaja play multi?ple instruments and sing. The three found?ing members, Bachu Khan (Langa), born in 1974 (vocals, kartals), Shayar Khan (Langa), born in 1967 (vocals, sarangi, pungi, aloogoza), Barkat Khan (Langa), born in 1969 (vocals, sarangi), were all raised in Badnawa and learned to perform from fam?ily members at a young age. Sayeri (Sapera) (dance, vocals) is also from a large per?former family and joined the group in 1994 when she was thirteen years old. Zakab Khan (Manghaniyar) (vocals) recently joined the group, and Gewar Khan (Manghaniyar) (dholak) brings twenty-two years of drumming experience to the stage.
Tonight's performance marks Maharaja's UMS debut.
E
sma Redzepova and Ensemble, from Macedonia, have been per?forming for over forty years to enthusiastic audiences in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia, and continue to dazzle listeners in recent venues such as the Montreal World Music Festival, Andre Heller's Magneten, London's Barbican Festival, and Belgium's Time of the Gypsies Festival. Crowned "The Queen of Romani Music" at the World Romani Congress in India in 1976, Esma is perhaps the most famous Romani singer in
the world and has given thousands of con?certs, many of them for humanitarian caus?es. Her ensemble has played in plazas, stadi?ums, and opera houses, for villagers as well as world leaders. It has performed over 400 musical pieces on dozens of records, several of which achieved gold status in the Former Yugoslavia; recent releases include Songs of a Macedonian Gypsy (Monitor), which includes early recordings, Chaj Sukarije (World Connection), Road of the Gypsies (World Network), and Gypsy Queens (World Network). In the last ten years, Esma has been building a "Home of Humanity and Museum of Romani Music" which includes an archive, theater, recording studio, and an outpatient clinic for underserved populations.
Esma's life charts the commercial accep?tance of Rom music by non-Roma; before Esma, Rom music was played in family and community settings, but was excluded from commercial recordings and concert stages. Esma was the first Balkan Rom musician to achieve success in the commercial non-Rom world; she was the first Rom singer to con-certize and record in the Romani language, and she was the first Macedonian woman (Rom or non-Rom) to perform on televi?sion. Born in 1945 in Skopje, Esma was one of six children in a poor Muslim family. At the age of eleven, Esma met Stevo Teodosievski, a non-Rom Macedonian accordionist and arranger who recognized her talents and secured permission from her parents to train her as a recording artist (not a cafe singer, which was shameful for a Muslim woman). By the age of thirteen, Esma had become a star with her trademark song "Chaj Sukarije" (Beautiful Rom Girl). Esma and Ensemble Teodosievski moved from Skopje to Belgrade in 1961 to escape prejudice against Roma in the music indus?try and to cultivate wider opportunities.
Stevo's vision and Esma's abilities created the perfect combination of Rom exoticism and refinement. Stevo and Esma composed songs that they transformed into staged
choreographies incorpo?rating Rom dance, costume, and dramatic scenarios. Stevo's musical arrange?ments display the stun?ning emotional range and dramatic potential of Esma's voice. The couple
married in 1968 (one of the first "mixed marriages" in Macedonia) and were insepa?rable musical partners until Stevo's death in 1997; Esma continues her Ensemble with her adopted children. Stevo and Esma turned their home into a school of Romani music that served as a training ground for the Ensemble. Since the 1960s they adopted over forty boys, almost all Roma, some orphans and some from poor homes, who endured a rigorous training program begin?ning with drumming and incorporating various Balkan styles and repertoires. Throughout the years the Ensemble embraced an eclectic internationalism: music from various regions of Yugoslavia became part of their repertoire as well as from neighboring Balkan countries and beyond. They sing in over fifteen languages, including all of the Balkan and East European languages, plus Hebrew, German, and Hindi. Esma embodies the versatility and practicality of Rom artists.
Esma's songs, sometimes based on true-life incidents, chronicle the joys and sorrows of love (such as in arranged marriages), the poverty of Roma, and the pain of separation (such as resulting from Balkan men going abroad to work). A trademark of the Macedonian Rom repertoire is the genre cocek in 24 (divided 3-3-2), 78 (divided 3-2-2), or 98 (divided 2-2-2-3). Often utiliz?ing makams (Turkish modes), cocek is marked by mane, an improvised free-rhythm instrumental improvisation played over a metric vamp. The dance cocek is solo and improvised, utilizing demure torso and hand movements.
The featured instrumentalists were all
trained in Stevo and Esma's school; perfor?mance with the Ensemble has served to launch their individual musical careers. Simeon Atanasov (accordion), born in Kocani, lived with Esma from the age of five and has become her chief musical arranger since Stevo's death; on his deathbed, Stevo bequeathed his accordion to Simeon. As well as being an accomplished instrumental?ist, Simeon is also an award-winning com?poser; one of his songs won the Grand Prize at the First Romani Music Festival in Skopje in 1993. Zahir Ramadanov (trumpet) was also born in Kocani and comes from a musical family--his father and uncle were trumpet players. When he was eight years old he was recruited into Stevo and Esma's school; he is also a fine vocalist and has his own band in Kocani. Sami "Buco" Zekiroski (clarinet) was born in Prilep and began playing clarinet at the age of twelve. Along with Stevo's school, he also studied at the Performance School of Yugoslavia. He has composed many pieces, several of which received prizes at Sutka Fest in 1994 and the Festival of Folk Song in Ohrid; he also recorded vocal duets with Esma. Elam Rasidov (tarabuka, hand drum) was born in Kocani and joined Stevo's school at a young age; his energetic drumming provides the driving rhythms for Esma's songs. Elvis Huna (keyboards) recently joined the Ensemble.
Tonight's performance marks Esma Redzepova's VMS debut.
F
anfare Ciocarlia, a Rom brass band from Romania, has catapult?ed to fame since their 1998 debut on the European festival circuit and the release of their two Piranha CDs, Radio Pascani and Baro Biao: World Wide Wedding. They can also be heard on the soundtrack of Emir Kusturica's film Underground, and they are now the
subject of a German documentary film. Gypsy Caravan II marks their first US tour. "Fanfare" means brass band in Romanian and "ciocarlia" means lark, the name of a signature Romanian tune imitating the bird. The group hails from the village of Zece Prajini (Ten Fields), population 400, located in northeastern Romania in the region of Moldavia, close to the border of the (for?merly Soviet) Republic of Moldova. The musicians, many related and all male, come from a long line of professionals; they have learned to play and sing by ear, without written music, in family and community contexts. The ten performers span three generations and range in age from twenty-two to sixty-eight years. The older members, who play a more traditional style, interact dynamically with the younger members, who value rapid tempi and new musical ele?ments from other cultures.
In addition to their recent concertizing at festivals, Fanfare Ciocarlia continues to play in traditional local contexts such as weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Weddings may last for two or three days and appropri?ate melodies and songs herald every ritual moment. Musicians tailor their perfor?mances to various localities and to the var?ied ethnicities of their patrons; they play for both Roma and Romanians, and before World War II, such groups played for Jews andor with Jews. The bulk of the repertoire is Romanian village dance music, including hora, sirba, briul, bdtuta (all in duple meter) and geamparale (in 716, divided 2-2-3). These line dances often require fast, intricate footwork with stamping and heel-clicking, the perfect complement for the incredible speed, rapid-fire tonguing, energy, and sheer volume of the music of Fanfare Ciocarlia. Musicians string together melodies of contrasting mode and tonality to produce dances of varying lengths. Baritone and tenor horns and tubas have both a rhythmic and harmonic function while trumpets, clarinets, and saxophones play the melody.
Some pieces have strigaturi (short extempo?rized verses which are shouted out) or vocal imitations of the instrumental melodies. Free-rhythm doinas feature improvised ornamented melodies.
In addition to the traditional village music, Fanfare Ciocarlia's repertoire includes popular European and Latin genres such as tangos, fox-trots, rumbas, and cur?rent pop and film songs. This is part of the musical dialogue between east and west, rural and urban, and old and new which is embodied in the group's musical history. It is believed that brass bands of the Balkans are distantly related to the Ottoman mehter military bands which were banned in the 1830s and subsequently broke up into smaller formations. There is also the influ?ence of West European brass band arrange?ments and instrumentation; in the early twentieth century, brass bands formed in Eastern European towns to perform marches and folk and popular music. Rom musicians absorbed Turkish music in the eighteenth century when Greeks from Constantinope ruled Romania. The tnanca, similar to the Turkish cifteceli, is an urban musical genre and a solo dance with demure torso move?ments. In the last decade, with the fall of communism, Romanian Roma have had access to the more heavily Turkish-influenced musics of the Roma of southern Balkans,
and a new genre, muzica orientala, has achieved instant popularity. This genre draws from the cocek of Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, but Fanfare Ciocarlia imparts its own stylistic stamp. Melodies in Turkish-influenced modes are followed by impro?vised solos, and songs are sung in Romani or Romanian.
Paradoxically, professional musicians occupy a venerated position in Romania, yet they are socially spurned and deprecated by non-Roma. This is true in virtually every European country. In the 1970s, Ceausescu's policy of homogenization became more oppressive and Rom culture was targeted. The Rom ethnicity of musicians was fre?quently covered up and Roma were not allowed to perform in-group music, such as songs in Romani. Since the 1989 revolution, life has considerably worsened for Romania's approximately 2.5 million Roma. While they can now organize their own cul?tural and political organizations, they suffer numerous attacks on their homes, posses?sions, and persons. In the music scene, many brass band players and their patrons have switched to synthesized music. Groups like Fanfare Ciocarlia salute the resilience of Rom music under trying conditions.
Tonight's performance marks Fanfare Oocarlia's VMS debut.
A
ntonio El Pipa and Company, from Andalucia, Spain, is one of the most exciting, most tradition?al flamenco groups performing today. Born in Jerez, dancer Antonio comes from a dynasty of Gitano (Spanish word for Roma) artists, among whom are his grandmother, the late leg?endary Tia Juana la del Pipa, and his charis?matic aunt Juana la del Pipa, who has been singing and dancing in his group since its inception. The dance production Gypsy Passion, which played in 1992 in New York,
Paris, and Seville, showcased Antonio and his aunt Juana and brought accolades from critics such as Jennifer Dunning of the New York Times, who lauded Antonio's striking presence and energy. His 1999 Gypsy Caravan performance received rave reviews.
Antonio started dancing at a young age and soon began performing with Manuel Morao y los Gitanos de Jerez. He became first dancer in various groups, including Flamenco, Esa Forna de Vivir; Aire y Compas; and Jondo, la Razon Incorp6rea. He toured widely with the Ballet de Cristina Hoyos in the productions Suenos Flamencos and Yerma, and was first dancer in Carmen with Jose Carreras in Zurich and Munich. With Juana Amaya he performed in the ora?torio Un Gitano de Ley in the Cathedral of Seville and in the Vatican for the Pope. Critics have hailed Antonio's interpretations and the ability of his company to communi?cate almost telepathically with one another.
His aunt, Juana la del Pipa, a star of the last Gypsy Caravan Tour, accompanies him in song and dance.
Concha Vargas joins the company with her renowned earthy and playful, yet solidly traditional flamenco dancing. Born to a Gitano family in the village Lebrija, she is a self-taught dancer who debuted profession?ally in 1968 at the age of twelve, and subse?quently performed at many famous Seville clubs, including La Cochera. Concha was
the partner of the great Mario Maya and toured internationally with him. She has also appeared in Gypsy Passion and has toured with Miguel Funi, Curro Velez, and the late Pedro Bacan. The company also includes Manuel Tane (vocals) and Juan Moneo (guitar).
Flamenco is perhaps the Rom musical form most known to North Americans. Although the exact origins of flamenco are subject to heated debate among both schol?ars and aficionados, it is generally agreed that the Gitanos have had the major role in its genesis and performance. Other influ?ences include Moorish (Arab) music, Sephardic music, and Spanish folk music. Andalucia has long been a crossroads of many cultures: Byzantine, Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish. When the Gitanos arrived in Spain via North Africa in the fifteenth cen?tury, a musical and cultural synthesis began. By the seventeenth century, Gitanos were part of a large underclass that included run?away slaves, smugglers, vagabonds, outcasts, and Moorish peasants and Jews hiding from expulsion and the Inquisition. They were poor, unemployed, rowdy, and targeted by many severe government edicts. Gitanos congregated in the urban centers of Andalucia, including Seville (the neighbor?hood Triana), Cadiz, Jerez de la Frontera, Moron de la Frontera, and Utrera. The places where flamenco arose reflect its lower class social position: slums, ghettos, taverns, penitentiaries, inns, bordellos, and smug?gling routes.
Flamenco is the musical expression of these proud outcasts, embodying poverty, despair and marginalization, but also embracing boisterousness, pride, generosity, and recklessness. Elite artists at first rejected flamenco music, but some authors and composers incorporated flamenco motifs into their works. By about 1850, flamenco had become popular entertainment in cafes, and professional performers arose. In more recent times flamenco dance has been pro-
moted as a national art of Spain and stu?dents of all ethnicities train at academies. In the last few years, fusion styles of flamenco music have become popular. Among Gitanos, flamenco continues to be performed in inti?mate family settings as well as for Spaniards and tourists.
Singing is the heart of flamenco, with a hoarse, nasal, raspy timbre and the use of melisma (many notes per syllable) desired in many circles. Song lyrics depict self-pity, fatalism, and the pain of love, and are sung in Spanish or calo (Spanish grammar with Romani words). Flamenco dance involves a histrionic and emotional use of the body. The guitar, tuned in fourths, plays a dual role as a melodic solo and rhythmic accom?panying instrument. Rhythms are further embellished by syncopated hand-clapping, finger-snapping, and heel-stamping, creat?ing a rich texture. A good performer is said to have duende (soul) and be inspired from within. The repertoire may be divided into cante jondo, the deeper, slower, heavier, and more introverted pieces, and cante chico, the lighter, faster pieces.
Flamenco is essentially a solo art, even when performed in a cuadro (group); each
"Maharja Flamenca" presents a collabo?rative work sparked by the meeting of two of the groups during the last Gypsy Caravan Tour--Maharaja and Antonio El Pipa Flamenco Company. "Maharja Flamenca" has evolved into a piece that beautifully illustrates the connection between the music from the Gypsies' original homeland and that of the Andalusian Gitanos' and underscores Rom music as a continually changing phenomenon. "Maharja Flamenca" was commissioned by World Music Institute and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
member takes a turn to perform while oth?ers offer shouts of encouragement (jaleo). Guitarists provide a tiento, an introduction, to create the proper atmosphere, the best of them knowing intuitively what the singer is going to do. The singer warms up his or her voice on the first syllable and launches into a heart-rending text. The dancers alternate between slow dramatic passages and fast lively passages, showcasing techniques such as rapid heel work. In the juerga, a gathering for music and dance, the atmosphere gradu?ally builds to a high-spirited frenzy.
Tonight's performance marks Antonio El Pipa and Company's second appearance under UMS auspices. Antonio El Pipa and Company performed in UMS' March 1999 presentation of the original Gypsy Caravan Tour.
Tour Staff
Artistic Director: Robert H. Browning,
World Music Institute
Tour Director: Isabel Softer, World Musk Institute Assistant Director: Bunny Batliwalla,
World Music Institute Road Manager: George Cruze Travel Coordinator: Lori Harrison, Atlas Travel Sound Engineer: Marc Lecroix Tour Publicity: Rock, Paper, Scissors
Group Managers
Maharaja: Arnaud Azzouz, Ustad Productions
Esma Redzepova and Ensemble Teodosievski: Rene Van
Bodegum, 3WF Productions Fanfare Ciocarlia: Helmut Neuman, Asphalt Tango
Productions Antonio el Pipa Flamenco Ensemble: Miguel Marin,
Miguel Marin Productions
This tour is made possible by a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional funding has been made available from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency and friends of World Music Institute.
Theatre de la Jeune Lune
UMS
and
National City
present
Direction Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design Artistic Directors
Producing Director Technical Diretor Assistant Technical Director Master Electrician Stage Manager Company Manager
Dominique Serrand Dominique Serrand, Dan Lori Sonya Berlovitz Marcus Dilliard Joel Spence
Barbra Berlovitz, Steven Epp, Vincent Gracieux, Robert Rosen, Dominique Serrand
Steve Richardson Daniel Lori Ben Trudeau Karin Olson Ann Terlizzi Alicia Richhart
Program Friday Evening, October 26, 2001 at 8:00
Power Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
MOLIERE
Tar tuffe
Translated by David Ball
Seventh Performance of the 123rd Season
Second Annual International Theater Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is sponsored by National City.
Additional support provided by media sponsor Michigan Radio.
UMS is grateful to the University of Michigan for its support of the extensive educational activities related to this performance.
Exclusive tour representation by Rena Shagan and Associates.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Cast
(in order of appearance)
Mariane Orgon's daughter, Elmire's stepdaughter, in love with Valere Sarah Agnew
Damis Orgon's son, Elmire's stepson Joel Spence
Dorine Mariane's maid Barbra Berlovitz
Elmire Orgon's wife Black-Eyed Susan
Madame Pernelle Orgon's mother Charles Schuminski
Flipote Mme Pernelle's maid Kate Weinrieb
Cleante Orgon's brother-in-law Brian Baumgartner
Assistants to Dorine
Kate Weinrieb, Emily Zimmer
Laurent Tartuffe's manservant Nathan Keepers
Pascal Tartuffe's manservant Charles Schuminski
Orgon Elmire's husband Vincent Gracieux
Valere In love with Mariane Charles Fraser
Tartuffe
Steven Epp
Officer
Dominique Serrand
The scene throughout: Orgon's house in Paris.
The Battle Over Tartuffe
"I have no doubt, your Majesty, that the people I paint in my comedy will use all their influence against me.... Whatever face they put on it, it is not the interest of God which moves them. They have shown this well enough by attending other comedies of which they approve. Those comedies attacked piety and religion itself, which they do not care much for. But this one [Tartuffe] attacks them, and shows them for what they are. And that, they cannot stand. They will never for?give me.... Your Majesty, it is well assured that I should not dream to continue to make my comedies if the Tartuffes take over, and if you allow them to persecute me."
--Moliere, to Louis XIV
T
he creation of Tartuffe gave birth to a huge scandal, which mushroomed into a state affair, in which the Catholic Church had to intervene and Louis XIV himself was embroiled. Tartuffe was first performed May 12, 1664 at Versailles in front of Louis XIV and his court. It was immediately suppressed-although the King approved of the play without reservations, and was, in fact, a staunch champion of Moliere, the religious right wing (led by the Company of the Holy Sacrament, which included some of the most powerful men in France) demanded that it be forbidden.
Moliere responded with an impassioned defense:
The duty of comedy being to correct men by entertaining them, I thought I had nothing better to do than to attack, by making them ridiculous, the vices of my age. And, as
hypocrisy is one of the more common vices, one of the most troublesome and most dan?gerous, I had the thought that I would be doing a service to all the honest people if I made a comedy which would accuse the hypocrites.
His efforts were in vain, however, and Tartuffe remained under interdiction. His more virulent enemies threatened his life.
However, these threats did not deter Moliere. The next year, he created his Don Juan. Not a new story, by any means. But in the middle of his battle for Tartuffe, Moliere modified the plot, using the character of Don Juan to attack again: "Hypocrisy is privileged vice which, with its hand, closes the mouth of everyone." The right reacted swiftly: Don Juan was immediately banned.
Two years later, in 1667, Moliere tried again with Tartuffe. Presented under the title The Impostor, his modifications did not appease his enemies and once again the play was forbidden.
But changes were afoot. The religious right was gradually losing influence. The Company of the Holy Sacrament had been dissolved in 1666, following the death of Louis XIV's mother, the extremely pious Anne of Austria. There also took place an extraordinary event called "The Peace of the Church," an agreement between Louis and the Pope which relaxed, somewhat, the ten?sions between Church and State and created a more tolerant atmosphere in society.
A third version (the present version) of Tartuffe was performed on February 5, 1669. Its long suppression had stirred the curiosity of the public, and the play enjoyed instant success. Moliere hurried to his publisher. With incredible rapidity for the time, Tartuffe was in bookstores on March 23 of the same year. Once published, the text was out of reach of any censor.
M
oliere--born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622--was one of literature's first bohemian dropouts. The son of a bourgeois bedding salesman, Moliere grew up near the Palais-Royal in Paris and attended a reputable religious school where he learned, among other skills, versification and science. At twenty-one, he cast off the security of a middle-class career to become an actor. With the actress Madeleine Bejart he started a theater, the Illustre Theatre, on the Left Bank. He also took a stage name, Moliere, evidently because it sounded good.
In due course, his new company pro?duced enough flops, lawsuits, and quarrels to plunge Moliere in debt for two decades and send the troupe itself to the provinces for thirteen years. While on the road, Moliere began writing (and acting in) farces modeled on Italian commedia dell'arte. When he and his company finally returned to Paris for a run in a newly renovated hall in the Louvre, Moliere's comedies caught the king's fancy. The playwright secured a permanent theater and began creating plays
for both court and bourgeois audiences.
Written in a stylized, melodic verse whose rhyme keeps the sparring light, Moliere's mature works--The School for Wives (1663), The Misanthrope (1667), Don Juan (1665), Tartuffe (1669), The Miser (1669) and The Bourgeois Gentleman (1671)--established him as a comic genius, one of the greatest ever. Today they reveal Moliere as "the prophet and visionary of modern metropolitan middle-class life," writes Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker. "The questions he raises--how much school, truth, medicine, faith it takes to run a bourgeois home (with money by turns greasing and stalling every wheel)--are the questions most of us wake up to every morning, and toss in bed to solve most nights."
In 1673, while playing the lead in a production of his last play, The Imaginary Invalid, about a hypochondriac, Moliere was overcome by a coughing fit. He died later that night.
Director Dominique Serrand Speaks:
On performance style
Moliere wrote this play in the midst of the golden era of commedia deU'arte, which was very active in Paris. Most of Moliere's edu?cation was based on commedia. So the audience was used to a very extraordinarily physical performance. Today we have reduced that by bringing in what I call "this darn psychological theater," where people basically do TV onstage. For some reason, I always think that the great moments of dance in the last twenty years are more dra?matic and more theatrical than theater itself. Certainly there is a side of this production that has to do with the drama that dance brings about on the stage--versus the psy?chological approach to drama.
On visual sources
We looked at religious costumes from the period, and we were in shock at what we saw. People were piercing their own skin with crosses, shaving their heads in a partic?ular way, and bleeding and flagellating themselves, and wearing crowns of thorns. Tartuffe's open chest is based on representa?tions of Jesus in the seventeenth century. We thought that showing this excess was very important, because it was excessive at the time--and fashionable. On Tartuffe and contemporary America Tartuffe is often performed as a farce. But I wanted to make sure that it reflected Moliere's struggle as an artist at the time. It's not very far away from what we lived here in 1994, or a few years afterward, with the National Endowment for the Arts and the pressure that religious groups put on some artists. I did this piece for that reason. The assault on artists by the moralistic fringe, by extremists in this country--that was Tartuffe.
On David Ball's new translation We looked at the existing Richard Wilbur translation and at other translations. The Wilbur is trying faithfully to make Tartuffe a classic piece, and it wasn't a classic when it was written. So I wanted to make sure that it was as contemporary today as it was at the time, which is always one of my major con?cerns with a classical piece. What made it so pertinent when it was first done On Jeune Lune's rehearsal process Before rehearsals begin, the concept of the show is talked about at great length. The scenography, the lighting, the approach to the costumes, the silhouettes of the charac?ters--all are being argued and debated for a very very great length of time, sometimes months, until we find the whole language of the piece. By the time we get in rehearsal, the goals are very clear.
"And here I am, lucky to have followed my imagination."
--The Three Musketeers
F
or more than twenty years, Theatre de la Jeune Lune has been led by the same four artists: Barbra Berlovitz, Vincent Gracieux, Robert Rosen, and Dominique Serrand. A fifth, Steven Epp, joined the Company as an artistic associate in 1983 and this fall was asked to join the founders as co-Artistic Director. This extraordinary partnership has produced a body of work remarkable for its strong, consistent artistic vision: a shared vision of theatrical creation, in which an ensemble of theatre artists come together not just as performers, but as creators-approaching our work with the mind of a director, the eye of a designer, the vision of a writer, and the heart of an actor.
The founders' training at the renowned Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris is always evi?denced in the strong physicality of the performing style and the sensitivity to the space in which each piece is performed. In addition, each piece of Jeune Lune's work is infused with a great sense of play, an emo?tional directness, and a desire to engage an audience.
That said, it is a body of work of great variety, ranging from Moliere and Shakespeare to the contemporary Czech playwright Pavel Kohout to epics like Zola's Germinal and our own Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream to the operatic fantasy of The Magic Flute. We constantly seek new ways of knowing the world, new techniques to use in our desire to speak to our audience. In addition to classical techniques like corn-media and circus, Jeune Lune has explored opera, modern dance, Japanese theatre, and even cinema.
This unique way of creating theatre has garnered national and international atten-
tion for the work of the Company. Jeune Lune has toured in recent years to such prestigious venues as the Yale Repertory Theater, the La Jolla Playhouse, Trinity Repertory Theatre, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, expanding its national and international reputation with such productions as Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream, which won the 1993 American Theatre Critic's Association New Play Award, an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi's The Green Bird, the playopera Don Juan Giovanni, the epic Germinal, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, recipient of an AT&T OnStage award. Jeune Lune's acclaimed Three Musketeers was the hit of the 1997 Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, and toured in 1999 to Philadelphia's Wilma Theater. Closer to home, the Company was honored in 1998 with a First Bank Sally Ordway Irvine Award for Artistic Vision. Six of the Company's productions have been selected for inclusion in the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at Lincoln Center.
Theatre de la Jeune Lune settled perma?nently in Minneapolis in 1985, after seven years of splitting seasons between France and the US. In the fall of 1992, after fourteen years of peripatetic performance, the Company moved into a permanent home in the renovated Allied Van Lines building in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis. This flexible, 6,000-square-foot performance space has won numerous architectural awards and serves as the home base for Jeune Lune's work.
Jeune Lune's name--"Theatre of the New Moon"--reflects the Company's com?mitment to finding theatrical sustenance by looking for the new in the old. The name comes from a little poem by Bertolt Brecht: "As the people say, at the moon's change of phasesThe new moon holds for one night longThe old moon in its arms." The strong and tender care that the future shows for the
past describes the dialectic that informs all of Jeune Lune's work: striving to link a past heritage of popular performance tradi?tions--from circus and classical farce to commedia dell arte and vaudeville--to their present function within the local community and the larger international community of cultural production. While embracing the "old moon" of theatrical tradition, Jeune Lune seeks to create an entirely new kind of theatre that is immediate, high-spirited, pas?sionately physical, and visually spectacular. These commitments are reflected in Jeune Lune's credo:
We are a theatre of directness, a theatre that speaks to its audience, that listens and needs a response. We believe that the?atre is an event. We are a theatre of emo?tions--an immediate theatre--a theatre that excites and uses a direct language-a theatre of the imagination.
This weekend's performances oTartuffe mark Theatre de la Jeune Lune's first and second appearances under UMS auspices.
Productions of Theatre de la Jeune Lune are made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity form the National Endowment for the Arts.
Theatre de la Jeune Lune
UMS
and
Ronnie and Sheila Cresswell
present
Direction Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design Artistic Directors
Producing Director Technical Diretor Assistant Technical Director Master Electrician Stage Manager Company Manager
Dominique Serrand Dominique Serrand, Dan Lori Sonya Berlovitz Marcus Dilliard Joel Spence
Barbra Berlovitz, Steven Epp, Vincent Gracieux, Robert Rosen, Dominique Serrand
Steve Richardson Daniel Lori Ben Trudeau Karin Olson Ann Terlizzi Alicia Richhart
Program Saturday Evening, October 27, 2001 at 8:00
Power Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
MOLIERE
Tartuffe
Translated by David Ball
Eighth Performance of the 123rd Season
Second Annual International Theater Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is presented with the generous support of Ronnie and Sheila Cresswell.
Additional support provided by media sponsor Michigan Radio.
UMS is grateful to the University of Michigan for its support of the exten?sive educational activities related to this performance.
Exclusive tour representation by Rena Shagan and Associates.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Please refer to page 26 for program information on Theatre de la Jeune Lune's production ofMoliere's Tartuffe.
UMS
presents
Hagen Quartet
Lukas Hagen, Violin Rainer Schmidt, Violin Veronika Hagen, Viola Clemens Hagen, Cello
Sunday Afternoon, October 28,2001 at 4:00 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127
Maestoso: Allegro
Adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile
Scherzando vivace
Finale
String Quartet in a minor, Op. 132
Assai sostenuto; Allegro
Allegro ma non tanto
Heiliger Dangesangeines Genesenen in die Gottheit,
in der lydischedn tonnart: Molto adagio;
Neue Kraft fuhlend: Andante Alia marcia, assai vivace Allegro appasionato
Ninth Performance of the 123rd Season
Thirty-ninth Annual Chamber Arts Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This afternoon's performance is presented in memory of David Eklund. The Hagen Quartet appears by arrangement with ICM Artists, Ltd.
Large print programs are available upon request.
F
or more than fifteen years, the Hagen Quartet from Salzburg, Austria, has been renowned for its artistic excellence in the service of a broad, thoughtful?ly balanced repertoire. Its pro?gramming reflects a commitment both to the heritage of the stan?dard quartet repertoire and to the challenges posed by contempo?rary works. Originally formed by four siblings (Lukas, Angelika, Veronika and Clemens) raised in the musical atmosphere of a vio?linist's home, the Hagen Quartet naturally possesses a close under?standing that allows each player to contribute an individual voice to
its interpretations. The resulting spirit of ensemble has enabled the Quartet to main?tain its high artistic standards, even through a change of personnel and the natural evo?lution of personalities within the ensemble.
The Hagen Quartet and its members studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Musikhochschiile of Basel and Hannover and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Their technical and artistic development was further enhanced by Hatto Beyerle, Heinrich Schiff and Walter Levin, who, as both teachers and colleagues, provided guidance and encouragement. They have also been influenced by their acquaintance with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and by their relationship with Gidon
The Quartet's worldwide touring was accelerated by additional competition victories in 1983, at Evian, Bordeaux and Banff.
Kremer, who has regularly involved the Hagen Quartet in his chamber music pro?jects at the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival.
Appearing at Lockenhaus in 1981, the Hagen Quartet was awarded the Jury Prize and the Audience Prize. The following year the ensemble won first prize at the Portsmouth String Quartet Competition and subsequently made its London debut at Wigmore Hall, launching an international career. The Quartet's worldwide touring was accelerated by additional competition victo?ries in 1983, at Evian, Bordeaux and Banff. From the start of its career, the Quartet has had an active and acclaimed presence in its home city, appearing at the Salzburg Festival and in the Mozartwoche as well as on regu?lar concert series.
North American highlights of the Quartet's 20012002 season include perfor?mances in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Salt Lake City and Toronto. In the 19992000 season the Quartet appeared in New York City (92nd Street Y), Philadelphia, Washington, DC (Library of Congress), Denver, Toronto and Vancouver.
The Hagen Quartet has an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Its extensive discography on that label ranges from works of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert to those of Janacek, Ligeti and Lutoslawski. Recent releases include Bartok's Six String Quartets (April 2000), Dvorak's String Quartet, Op. 105
(January 2001) and a Shostakovich disc (August 2001). It has also recorded Schubert's "Trout" quintet with Andras Schiff for LondonDecca and may be heard on several recorded collections from Lockenhaus. Among the Quartet's other reg?ular collaborators are cellist Heinrich Schiff, pianists Paul Gulda and Oleg Maisenberg and violist Gerard Causse.
Lukas Hagen plays a Stradivarius violin (Cremona, 1724) and Veronika Hagen a viola made by Giovanni Paolo Maggini (Brescia, 1610), both of which have been kindly loaned to them by the Austrian National Bank (Osterreichische National Bank).
This evening's performance marks the Hagen Quartet's third appearance under UMS auspices.