UMS Concert Program, Tuesday Mar. 05 To 20: University Musical Society: 2002 Winter - Tuesday Mar. 05 To 20 --

Season: 2002 Winter
The University Of Michigan

University Musical Society
of the University of Michigan 2002 Winter Season
Event Program Book Tuesday, March 5 through Wednesday, March 20, 2002
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.
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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.
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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.
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra 5
Tuesday, March 5, 8:00pm Hill Auditorium
Guthrie Theater 19
Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!
Friday, March 8, 8:00pm Power Center
Guthrie Theater 29
Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!
Saturday, March 9, 8:00pm Power Center
Los Munequitos de Matanzas 31
Friday, March 15, 8:00pm Hill Auditorium
The Tallis Scholars 35
Tuesday, March 19, 8:00pm
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church
Da Camera of Houston 43
Epigraph for a Condemned Book
Wednesday, March 20, 8:00pm Power Center
Dear UMS Patrons,
Thank you very much for coming to this performance. UMS greatly appreciates your support, especially during what has been a challenging season for us and for many other arts organizations in light of September 11. We are fortunate to have a dedicated, talented, and gener?ous Board of Directors providing leadership to UMS during this time.
Indeed, six members of the UMS Board of Directors have special con?nections to events and activities occurring during this time in March. We are grateful to Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost of the University of Michigan, for his office's support of the concert by Los Munequitos de Matanzas; to Clayton Wilhite, managing partner of CFI Group, for their sponsorship of the Saturday Guthrie Theater performance; and to Board Chair Beverley Geltner and her husband Gerson for their underwriting of the Da Camera of HoustonBaudelaire concert.
UMS Board member Kathleen Charla is the underwriter of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra concert. A recently retired president of her own marketing firm, Kathleen moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor to be closer to UMS and to our community's rich cultural life. A student of Slavic linguistics and a fan of Russian art and music, Kathleen, who speaks fluent Russian, met Yuri Temirkanov, conductor of the Philharmonic, during one of his visits to Ann Arbor. One thing led to another, and now Kathleen is applying her multitude of skills and pas?sions to help organize the International Winter Festival Arts Square in St. Petersburg. This year's fourth Festival (December 27, 2002-January 7, 2003) will be the first official celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city of St. Petersburg. Congratulations on your work with the Festival, Kathleen, and thank you for your support of the St. Petersburg concert.
Dr. Alberto Nacif of Brighton makes his living as a physician. Among his loyal patients are many of southeastern Michigan's best-known musi?cians. If being a doctor is his job, his joy is clearly being host of WEMU's hugely popular Latin music program "Cuban Fantasy," which airs each Monday between 7-9 p.m. on 89.1 FM. In the mid-1990s, Alberto came to us with a challenge, saying, "If UMS will bring to our community in
live performance the best artists I feature on my radio program, I will guarantee a packed house." Sure enough, when UMS brought Tito Puente, Arturo Sandoval, and Jerry Gonzales and the Ford Apache Band to Ann Arbor in 1996 for our first-ever Latin Jazz Summit, Hill Auditorium was completely sold out. The same has been true for Buena Vista Social Club, Afro-Cuban All-Stars, Celia Cruz, and the other Latin performers UMS has featured over the years. We thank Alberto for all of the support he's given UMS in the past and for what he's done to encourage his listeners to attend the performance by Los Munequitos de Matanzas this month at Hill and the Afro-Cuban Dance Party with Celia Cruz and Albita at the EMU Convocation Center on April 6.
Much attention is now on Detroit with UMS' decision to hold three of our Choral Union concerts at Orchestra Hall in Detroit next year. Detroit native Helen Love is one of the city's biggest boosters. Several years ago, just prior to her retirement as Director of Community Relations at Ford Motor Company, Helen saw her dream come true with the publication of a book she inspired titled Global Journeys in Metro Detroit: A Multicultural Guide to the Motor City. Published in collabora?tion with New Detroit, Inc., Global Journeys is a travel guide that not only invites one to explore the rich mixture of cultures in metro Detroit but also helps one better understand and appreciate the variety of people living here. We are proud of Helen for this achievement. I encourage you to purchase a copy at your favorite bookstore so that you can dis?cover the rich cultural treasures in the Detroit area.
I'm always interested in hearing from you about your experiences with UMS. If you don't see me in the lobby, feel free to call me at 734.647.1174 or drop me an e-mail message at kenfisch@umich.edu. Thanks again for coming.
Kenneth C. Fischer President
UMS Educational
throueh Fridav. March 22. 2002
All UMS educational activities are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted ($). Please visit www.ums.org for complete details and updates.
Guthrie Theater
Workshop
"The Guthrie Speaks: Play Discussion" with members of the Guthrie Theater company. Discussion on the upcoming performances of Ah, Wilderness!, the legacy of Eugene O'Neill, and about life in the theater today. Thursday, March 7, 7:00 p.m. Ann Arbor District Library, Auditorium, Basement Level.
UMS Performing Arts Workshop "Once Upon a Time: Bringing Fairy Tales to Life" with Sean Layne, Kennedy Center Theatre Educator. An exploration of the structure of fairy tales and presentation of a simple technique for creating origi?nal fairy tales in the classroom. Monday, March U, 4:30-7:30p.m. Washtenaw Intermediate School District. (S)
Los Munequitos de Matanzas
Master Class
"Rumba and Yoruba Dance" with company members of Los Munequitos de Matanzas. Saturday, March 16, 11:00 a.m.-12:30p.m. U-M School of Dance, Betty Pease Studio.
Interview and Demonstration
with company members of Los Munequitos de Mantanzas, moder?ated by Alberto Nacif, music educa?tor and host of WEMU's "Cuban Fantasy." Saturday, March 16, 1:30-2:30 p.m. International Institute, Room 1636, School of Social Work Building, 1080 S. University.
Da Camera of Houston
Study Club 4
Ross Chambers, U-M Marvin Felheim Distinguished Professor of French and Comparative Literature, discusses Charles Baudelaire's master?piece, Flowers of Evil. Naomi Andrei
U-M Professor of Musicology, will highlight connections between the featured music and the related text. For registration information, please contact Dichondra Johnson at 734.615.6739. Tuesday, March 12, 7:00 p.m. Michigan League, Koessler Room.
Brown Bag Lunch
with Sarah Rothenberg, Artistic Director, Da Camera of Houston, Jennifer Tipton, Lighting Designer, and Chris Kondek, Video Artist. Tuesday, March 19, 12 noon. Institute for the Humanities, Conference Room, Second Floor, Comerica Bank Building, corner of Tliayer and N. University.
Meet the Artists
Post-performance discussion from the stage with artists from Epigraph for a Condemned Book. Wednesday, March 20. Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre.
UMS
and
Kathleen Charla
present
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov, Music Director and Principal Conductor Leif Ove Andsnes, Piano
Program
Tuesday Evening, March 5, 2002 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Modest Mussorgsky, Orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Prelude to Khovanshchina, "Dawn Over the Moscow River"
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto No. 1 in f-sharp minor, Op. 1
Vivace Andante Allegro vivace
Mr. Andsnes INTERMISSION
Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5 in d minor, Op. 47
Moderato
Allegretto
Largo
Allegro non troppo
Forty-seventh
Performance
of the 123rd Season
123rd 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.
This performance is presented with the generous support of Kathleen Charla. 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.
The St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra appears by arrangement with ICM Artists, Ltd.
Mr. Andsnes appears by arrangement with IMG Artists, New York, NY.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Prelude to Khovanshchina, "Dawn Over the Moscow River"
Modest Mussorgsky
Bom March 21, 1839 in Karevo,
Pskov district, Russia Died March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg
Orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Born March 18, 1844 in Tikhvin, near
Novgorod, Russia Died June 21, 1908 in Liubensk, near
St. Petersburg
Tonight marks the seventh UMS performance of Modest Mussorgsky's "Dawn Over the Moscow River." The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the UMS premiere oKhovanshchina in May 1938.
Soon after completing his first opera, Bom Godunov, Mussorgsky began work on a sec?ond one, which he called Khovanshchina. The title, not easy for English speakers to pronounce, is even harder to translate. The word is derived from the name Khovansky, borne by two of the opera's protagonists (father and son), and can be rendered approximately as "The world of the Khovanskys," "The times of the Khovanskys," or "The ways of the Khovanskys." The older Prince Khovansky, Ivan, is a conservative Russian leader, opposed by Prince Vasily Golitsyn, head of a progressive faction. Their conflict is part of the complex political situ?ation at the end of the seventeenth century, preceding the reign of Czar Peter the Great. Mussorgsky conducted extensive historical research on this period before writing the libretto of his opera. (In Boris, he used Pushkin's drama as his starting point. In Khovanshchina, however, there was no liter?ary source for him to rely on; the drama was created directly from the history books.)
"Dawn Over the Moscow River" is Mussorgsky's own title for the prelude. It is based on a single melody of strong Russian flavor. In the course of the prelude, this melody gradually grows in intensity and then fades back into silence.
There has been a lot of controversy about the relationship of this prelude to the opera. After all, Khovanshchina is a rather gloomy work about the struggle of various political parties for control over Russia, while the prelude is a gentle lyrical piece with no hints at dramatic conflicts of any kind. The theme of the prelude returns only once in the opera, in the portions completed by Mussorgsky, and the symbolic meaning of that quote is not entirely clear.
Traditional Russian and Soviet historiog?raphy held that the peaceful prelude sym?bolized the reign of Peter's, supposedly a golden age that put an end to decades of political turmoil and laid the groundwork for a modern, more Europeanized Russia. But that doesn't seem to have been Mussorgsky's view. He was keenly aware that Peter's Russia had been a repressive police state that dealt with the warring factions by suppressing them all. It is telling that Mussorgsky chose not to include Peter among the opera's characters (although the future Czar's guards do appear). He portrayed each of the other characters with great empathy, not siding with any but understanding them all, never losing sight of the complex human emotions beneath the political surface.
In general, Mussorgsky had no illusions about political progress, as we know from a much-quoted letter he wrote to Vladimir Stasov (the critic who was a major influence on the group of composers known as the "Mighty Five," to which Mussorgsky belonged, and who had initially suggested the topic to the composer). Mussorgsky explained to Stasov that as far as he was concerned, there could be no talk of progress "as long as the
people themselves could not see with their own eyes what was being done to them and as long as they did not formulate their own will as to what should happen to them." Mussorgsky did not believe in reforms, even in positive ones, if they came from above, against the will of the people.
The meaning of the prelude, then, if it can be put into words at all, is an abstract expression of hope for a better world, a dream of happiness that never comes true in the opera, or--according to Mussorgsky's pessimistic philosophy--in the world.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in f-sharp minor, Op. 1
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born April 1, 1873 in Semyonovo, Russia Died March 28,1943 in Beverly Hills, California
Tonight marks the second UMS performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1. Pianist Bella Davidovich and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the VMS premiere of the Concerto on May 1, 1982.
In Russian schools, the highest grade a student can receive is a five, to which, in exceptional cases, a plus sign can be added. Therefore, the event that took place at a harmony examination at the Moscow Conservatory in 1887 can certainly be called unusual. The committee, which included Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, had just heard a fourteen-year-old student named Sergei Rachmaninoff who had by far exceeded the requirements of the class. In addition to the simple harmonic exercises called for, the boy played some original compositions he had written. Professor Tchaikovsky took the examination book and added three more plus signs to the "5+" already there--one on top, on below, and one behind.
"My fate as a composer was, as it were, officially sealed," Rachmaninoff recalled many years later. The youngster entered Sergei Taneyev's class as a student of com?position, and soon became the star of the conservatory, even though he had the equally brilliant Alexander Scriabin as one of his classmates. The year Rachmaninoff graduated with the highest honors (1893), his one-act opera Aleko was performed in a double bill shared with Tchaikovsky's Iolantha. Having his work on the same program with one by Russia's leading composer, at the Bolshoi Theatre no less, was enough to launch the twenty-year-old's career. The former star student soon became the most prominent Russian musician of his generation, much sought after as a composer, pianist and con?ductor until his departure from Russia in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917.
Piano Concerto No. 1 was Rachmaninoff's first large-scale work, and the first composi?tion he deemed worthy of an opus number. It was written while Rachmaninoff was still a student at the Conservatory, in 1890-91. Rachmaninoff performed the first move?ment with the school orchestra in 1892, but surprisingly, there is no evidence that he ever played the entire concerto again until he revised it in 1917, although others cer?tainly did. In fact, in 1899, Rachmaninoff turned down an invitation to perform the work in London, as he thought it was not good enough. (Henry Wood, the conductor, disagreed and performed the work anyway with another pianist.)
For his part, Rachmaninoff preferred to write another concerto between 1900-01, his universally popular Piano Concerto No. 2. Yet he did not forget about No. 1, and con?tinued to entertain plans of revising it. On April 12, 1908, he wrote to a friend: "I have three pieces that frighten me: the First Concerto, the Capriccio, and the First Symphony. I should very much like to see all these in a corrected, decent form."
The Capriccio on Gypsy Themes is a weak and now almost entirely forgotten work, and the premiere of Symphony No. 1 was the single most devastating fiasco of Rachmaninoff's life. The composer never touched these two pieces again. He did eventually get around to revising his Piano Concerto No. 1, however. The moment came twenty-six years after the original version, in the politically turbulent and artistically fallow year 1917. This revision, his last major undertaking before he left Russia for good at the end of the year, was rather extensive, involving recomposition of a large portion of the work, partial reorchestration and a great many changes of detail. In the new ver?sion, the youthful energy of the seventeen-year-old is combined with the experience of a mature composer whose catalog had in the meantime reached Op. 39. The writing, although clearly influenced by the concertos of Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Grieg, nevertheless bears the unmistakable stamp of Rachmaninoff's own personality. Virtuoso brilliance and lyrical expansiveness go hand in hand in this concerto. Rachmaninoff is usually described as a conservative composer; yet innovation is not entirely absent, as in the changing meters of the last movements, introduced in the 1917 revision.
Rachmaninoff hoped that in its revised form, the concerto might share in the suc?cess of his Piano Concerto No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 3. But his expectations were not fulfilled. As he later wrote in a letter to Alfred Swan, a musicologist and friend:
I have rewritten my First Concerto; it is real?ly good now. All the youthful freshness is there, and yet it plays itself so much more easily. And nobody pays any attention. When I tell them in America that I will play the First Concerto, they do not protest, but I can see by their faces that they would prefer the Second or Third.
Still, as Rachmaninoff biographer Geoffrey Norris observed, "The First is a very differ?ent piece [from the Second or the Third]; the characteristic melodies, if less remark?able, are there, but they are combined with a youthful vivacity and impetuosity which were very soon to be replaced by the more somber melancholy and wistfulness of the later works."
Symphony No. 5 in d minor. Op. 47
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg,
Russia Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow
Tonight marks the tenth UMS performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. The Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the UMS premiere of Symphony No. 5 under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky in December 1940.
One of the most frequently performed symphonies from the twentieth century, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 has certainly achieved the status of a modern classic. Western audiences have long admired its great dramatic power and melodic richness. But the history of the work and its deeply ambiguous Russian context reveal additional layers of meaning that, sixty-four years after the premiere, we are just about beginning to understand.
Shostakovich wrote Symphony No. 5 in what was certainly the most difficult year of his life. On January 28, 1936, an unsigned editorial in the Pravda, the daily paper of the Communist Party, brutally attacked his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, denouncing it as "muddle instead of music." This condemnation resulted in a sharp decrease of performances of Shostakovich's music for about a year. What was worse, Shostakovich, whose first child was born in
May 1936, had to live in constant fear of further reprisals.
However, the Party soon realized that the country's musical life couldn't afford to lose its greatest young talent, so Shostakovich was granted a comeback. Less than a year after being forced to withdraw his Symphony No. 4, Shostakovich heard his Symphony No. 5 premiered with resounding success in Leningrad on November 21,1937. By that time, however, the "Great Terror" had begun: political show trials resulting in numerous death sentences and mass depor?tations to the infamous labor camps. The Great Terror claimed the lives of some of the country's greatest artists such as the poet Osip Mandelshtam, the novelist Isaac Babel, and the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold; Shostakovich was miraculously spared.
Could it be that the qualities in Symphony No. 5 that are so admired today were the same ones that saved the composer's life then Shostakovich clearly made a major effort to write a "classical" piece here, one that would be acceptable to the authorities and was as far removed from the avant-gardistic Symphony No. 4 as possible. Whether that makes it "A Soviet Artist's Creative Response to Just Criticism," as it was officially designated at the time, is another question. The work is so profound and sincere as to transcend any kind of political expediency. The symphony was definitely a response to something, but not in the sense of a chastised schoolboy mend?ing his ways--rather as a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times.
A lot of ink has been spilled over the "meaning" of this symphony. That Shostakovich had a special message to communicate becomes clear at the very beginning, when the usual Allegro is replaced by a brooding first movement that stays in a slow tempo for half its length. (Shostakovich opened most of his later symphonies-Nos. 6, 8, and 10--in a similar way, making
a habit of avoiding fast first movements.)
The energetic dotted motif at the begin?ning of Symphony No. 5 is, no doubt, dra?matic and ominous. A second theme, played by the violins in a high register, is warm and lyrical but at the same time eerie and distant. The music seems hesitant, until the horns begin a march theme that leads to motivic development and a speeding up of the tempo. It is not a funeral march, but it is not exactly triumphant either. Reminiscent of some of Mahler's march melodies but even grimmer, its harmonies modulate freely from key to key which gives the march an oddly sarcastic character. At the climactic point of the march, the two earlier themes return. The dotted rhythms from the open?ing are even more powerful than before, but the second lyrical theme, now played by the flute and the horn to the soothing harmonies of the harp, has lost the edge it previously had and brings the movement to a peaceful, almost otherworldly close.
The brief second-movement Scherzo brings some relief after the preceding drama. Its Landler-like melodies again bespeak Mahler's influence, both in the Scherzo proper and the Trio, whose theme is played by a solo violin and then by the flute.
The third movement is an expansive "Largo" in which the brass is silent and the violins are divided not into two sections as usual but three. It begins with an espressivo melody, scored for strings only. Two flutes and harp play the next subject, in which the first movement's march rhythm is transformed into a lament. The oboe, the clarinet, and the flute intone desolate solo melodies, interspersed with a near-quote from a Russian Orthodox funeral chant, played by the strings. The tension grows and finally erupts, about two-thirds through the movement; the opening melody then returns in a passionate rendering by the cello section in a high register. At the end, the music falls back into the lament mode
of the earlier woodwind passages.
Generally accepted as the greatest of the symphony's movements, the "Largo" was widely understood as a lament for the Soviet Army marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fell victim to the Stalinist purges in 1937, at the very time Shostakovich was working on his symphony. (Tukhachevsky had been a benefactor and a personal friend of the composer's.) At the first performance, many people wept openly during the "Largo," per?haps thinking of their own loved ones who had disappeared.
The last movement finally resolves the tensions that have built up in the first three movements (or so it seems at first) by intro?ducing a march tune that is much simpler and more straightforward than most of the symphony's earlier themes. Yet after an exciting development, the music suddenly stops on a set of harsh fortissimo chords, and a slower, more introspective section begins with a haunting horn solo. Musicologist Richard Taruskin has shown that this section quotes from a song for voice and piano on a Pushkin poem ("Vozrozhdenie" or "Rebirth," Op. 46, No. 1) Shostakovich had written just before Symphony No. 5. ("Delusions vanish from my wearied soul, and visions arise within it of pure primeval days," says Pushkin's poem.) This quiet intermezzo ends abruptly with the entrance of the timpani and snare drum, ushering in the recapitulation of the march tune, played at half its original tempo. Merely a shadow of its former self, the melody is elaborated contrapuntally until it suddenly alights on a bright D-Major chord in full orchestral splendor, which then remains unchanged for more than a minute, until the end of the symphony.
The official interpretation of Symphony No. 5 was propounded by the novelist Alexey Tolstoy, who, even though he was a count (and a relative of Lev Tolstoy) was loyal to the Soviet regime. In an influential
article, Count Tolstoy viewed the symphony as a kind of musical Bildungsroman (a liter?ary genre describing a person's evolution in terms of education, experience, social con?sciousness, etc.) This interpretation was echoed in an often-quoted article published under Shostakovich's name but probably not written by him:
The theme of my symphony is the formation of a personality. At the center of the work's conception I envisioned just that: a man in all his suffering.... The symphony's finale resolves the tense and tragic moments of the preceding movements in a joyous, optimistic fashion.
Yet critics--even Soviet ones--have had an extremely hard time reconciling this with what they actually heard. The famous pas?sage in Testimony, Shostakovich's purported memoirs as edited (and significantly tam?pered with) by Solomon Volkov, reflects a radically different view:
It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing."
As Taruskin has noted, this interpretation was actually shared by many people present at the premiere, who had serious doubts about the "optimism" of the finale. To some, this was a flaw in the work, to others, its greatest strength and hidden message. On both sides of the political fence, it was felt that the finale did not entirely dispel the devastating effects of the third-movement "Largo."
As a matter of fact, writing a triumphant finale had never been an easy thing to do since Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. That masterpiece has inspired later composers to devote their fifth symphonies to human
tragedies on a large scale, as in the case of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Sibelius. Yet none of the finales in those symphonies can be described as unambiguously "triumphant" as Beethoven's was, a fact that obviously cannot be blamed on politics alone. (Other reasons had to do with the pessimistic side of the Romantic mindset and the increasing complexity of the world surrounding the artist.) In Shostakovich's case, at any rate, politics clearly complicated an already diffi?cult artistic issue even further. The "mean?ing" of the music can rarely be put into words, and under normal circumstances, there would be no need to even try. The cir?cumstances under which Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 5 were, however, far from normal. The powers-that-be demand?ed triumphant optimism of the composers, and failure to deliver it could result in severe criticism and worse. Even so, and despite the efforts of those who have tried to cast Shostakovich as either a Communist sympa?thizer or a secret dissident, the music resists simple black-and-white labels.
Shostakovich's generation had grown up around the time of the 1917 revolution and had never known a political reality other than Communism. In the 1920s, they natu?rally believed in the better world the Communists had promised. It did seem at first that the new power was in many ways a real improvement over the Czarist regime. Yet by the time of the Stalinist purges at the latest, many of the country's best minds had become profoundly disillusioned, in view of the enormous sacrifices in human lives that the Party was trying to pass off as the price of progress. They were facing a horrible sit?uation, but saw no viable political alterna?tives for the country. Voicing the slightest dissent with the regime, of course, resulted in instant deportation and, possibly, death. The irreconcilable conflict between hopes and realities was a defining factor of people's mentalities, and perhaps Shostakovich's
Symphony No. 5 can best be seen as a grip?ping expression of that conflict.
Program notes by Peter Laki.
Yuri Temirkanov is recognized on every continent as one of the most talented conductors of his genera?tion. He was named Music Director and Principal Conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in April 1988, succeeding the legendary Evgeny Mravinsky. Appointed Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony in 1999, he also serves as Principal Guest Conductor of the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of London's Royal Philharmonic. He is a regular guest conductor of the major orchestras of Europe and Asia and enjoys an equally acclaimed reputation among the leading orchestras of the US.
Born in 1938 in the Caucasus city of Nal'chik, Yuri Temirkanov began his musical studies at the age of nine. When he was thir?teen, he attended the Leningrad School for Talented Children to continue his studies in violin and viola. Upon graduation from the Leningrad School, he attended the Leningrad Conservatory, where he completed his stud?ies in viola. He returned to the Conservatory to study conducting and graduated in 1965. During his post-graduate studies, Mr. Temirkanov served as Assistant Conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic under Evgeny Mravinsky.
In 1966, Mr. Temirkanov was named a conductor of the Maly Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad. In 1967 he won the prestigious Moscow National Conducting Competition which, thirty years before, had launched the careers of a galaxy of Russian conductors, including Mravinsky and Rachlin. Temirkanov was immediately invit-
ed by conductor Kiril Kondrashin to tour the US with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the legendary violinist David Oistrakh. In 1968 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, where he remained until his appointment as Music Director of the Kirov Opera and Ballet in 1976. During this time, Mr. Temirkanov not only con?ducted, but staged, two operas, Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin. These productions continue in the repertoire of the Kirov Opera and Ballet. Mr. Temirkanov led the Philadelphia Orchestra regularly between 1975 and 1980. In January 1986, he made a historic appear?ance with the New York Philharmonic, becoming the first Soviet conductor to visit the US following the renewal of the Soviet American Cultural Exchange Agreement. He has since returned many times to conduct the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra along with appear?ances at the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. He conducted the first concerts of his tenure with the Baltimore Symphony in January 2000 to great success.
In 1988, Mr. Temirkanov began a long-term exclusive relationship with the BMGRCA recording labels. His numerous recordings with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra include the complete ballets of Stravinsky and the symphonies of Tchaikovsky. His many recordings with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic include the works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Berlioz, Ravel and Sibelius. Mr. Temirkanov's extensive tours with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra have been highlighted by celebrated perfor?mances in Japan, Asia, Europe, South America and throughout the US.
Tonight's performance marks Yuri Temirkanov's fourth appearance under UMS auspices. Mr. Temirkanov made his UMS debut in February 1977 leading the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra in Hill Auditorium.
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is one of the most sought after artists of his generation. Highlights of his 200102 season include a series of five concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London, an appearance at the St. Petersburg Festival with Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, performances with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra and Vienna Symphony, and tours of Australia and Japan. The season also includes a US tour with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, with whom he will perform in cities including Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Aspen, Philadelphia and New York.
The 200203 season will see Mr. Andsnes give recitals in cities from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome and Oslo to New York, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Seoul. Other engagements in 200203 include per-
formances with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic (with both Jansons and Boulez), Concertgebouw Orchestra, and European tours with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Leif Ove Andsnes is a staunch champion of chamber music and serves as Co-Artistic Director of the Risor Chamber Music Festival in Norway, an event which every year draws some of the most esteemed clas?sical performers to Norway, such as Ian Bostridge, Barbara Hendricks, Maxim Vengerov and Gidon Kremer. He has also participated in leading European and American summer festivals including Aspen, Saratoga, Ravinia, Tanglewood, and New York's Mostly Mozart Festival.
Mr. Andsnes records exclusively for EMI Classics; at the 2000 Gramophone Awards, he received the prize for "Best Concerto Recording" for his disc of Haydn Piano Concern Nos. 3,4 and 11 (released in 1999), which he directed from the keyboard. An album of Liszt piano works is the latest addition to his long discography, which also includes recordings of the Haydn Sonatas, Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Shostakovich and Britten Piano Concerti. In December 2001, Andsnes recorded a new
disc of Grieg solo piano works on Grieg's own piano at the Troldhaugen, Bergen.
Tonight's performance marks LeifOve Andsnes' second appearance under UMS aus?pices. Mr. Andsnes made his UMS debut in January 1997 as piano soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
The St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra is Russia's oldest sym?phony orchestra. It was formed out of the nineteenth-century "Imperial Music Choir" in 1882 but initially played only for the Imperial Court and in aristocratic circles. As early as October 19, 1917 the ensemble was declared a state orchestra, giving its first public concert in Soviet Russia shortly thereafter, on November 8. A year later the Orchestra was incorporated into the newly founded Petrograd Philharmonic Society, the first concert organization of the USSR. In 1991, just after its home city was renamed, the Orchestra changed its name from the Leningrad Philharmonic to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Today it is inter?nationally recognized as one of the world's premiere symphonic ensembles.
The Philharmonic's first principal con?ductors were Emil Cooper (1921-22) and Nikolai Malko (1926-29). During its earliest years, the orchestra was also conducted by Alexander Glazunov, Serge Koussevitsky, Gregor Fitelberg and Nikolai Tcherepnin, as well as abroad by such figures as Bruno Walter, Oscar Fried, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer and Hans Knappertsbusch. In the 1930s, the orchestra was headed by Alexander Gauk and the Austrian conductor Fritz Stiedry.
From 1938 to 1988, Evgeny Mravinsky was the Orchestra's Music Director, and
during World War II, the Philharmonic con?tinued to give concerts without interrup?tion, even as Leningrad was being evacuat?ed. After 1945, the Orchestra under Mravinsky was active in introducing to Russia important foreign composers and conductors, including Leopold Stokowski, Charles Munch, Andre Cluytens, Igor Markevitch, Josef Krips, Zoltan Kodaly and Benjamin Britten. In 1946, it undertook the first tour of the West by a Soviet orchestra.
The St. Petersburg Philharmonic has played a major role in furthering the careers of Russian and Soviet composers. The orchestra premiered Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in 1926, bringing immedi?ate international attention to the nineteen-year-old composer, whose close association with the Philharmonic--which went on to premiere seven more of his symphonies-continued until his death in 1975. In 1988, Yuri Temirkanov was appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Mariss Jansons held the post of Associate Principal Conductor from 1985-2000.
Among the Orchestra's recent tours have been visits to the major European festivals, including highly acclaimed performances in Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh and London
(at the Proms). It participated in many events marking the centennial of Tchaikovsky's death in 1993, including three concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of its American tour that year.
The St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov have recorded much of the central Russian repertoire for BMG ClassicsRCA Victor Red Seal. Among Maestro Temirkanov's recent recordings are Prokofiev's oratorio On Guard for Peace, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 and orato?rio The Song of the Woods. The Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons have recorded the complete Rachmaninoff Symphonies and Piano Concerti (with Mikhail Rudy) for EMI. Recent releases include Rachmaninoff's Symphotiic Dances and Symphony No. 3 with Maestro Jansons (EMI Classics), and Mahler's Symphony No. 6 with Thomas Sanderling (Real Sound).
Tonight's performance marks the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra's eighth appearance under UMS auspices, including four appearances under its former name of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. The Orchestra made its VMS debut in November 1962 under the direction of Maestro Eugen Mravinsky.
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov, Music Director and Principal Conductor
First Violin
Sergei Girchenko,
Concertmaster Lev Klytchkov Alexsandre Zolotareov Valentin Loukine Yuri Ouchtchapovski Serguei Teterine Natalia Sokolova Olga Rybaltchenko Alexandre Rikhter Vadim Selitski Grigori Sedoukh Nikolai Tkatchenko Renata Bakhrakh Tatiana Makarova Dmitry Petrov Konstantin Rassokhine Jana Gerasimova Vladislav Pesin
Second Violin
Mikhail Estrine, Principal Arkadi Naiman Boris Kouznetsov Arkadi Malein Lioudmila Odintsova Janna Proskourova Tatiana Chmeleva Anatoli Babitski Nikolai Dygodiouk Tamara Tomskaia Olga Kotliarevskaia Dmitry Koryavko Konstantin Basok Anton Iliunin Rustem Suleimanov
Viola
Andrei Dogadine,
Principal Iouri Dmitriev Vladimir Ivanov Artour Kossinov Yuri Anikeev Alexei Lioudevig Alexandre Chelkovnikov Grigori Meerovitch Elena Panfilova Alexei Bogorad Dmitri Kossolapov Konstantin Bitchkov Roman Ivanov Mikhail Anikeev
Cello
Dmitri Eremine,
Principal Valeri Naidenov Serguei Tcherniadiev Alexei Vassiliev Iossef Levinzon Iaroslav Tcherenkov Kirill Arkhipov Victor Ivanov Taras Trepcl Alexsandre Kulibabin
Bass
Guerman Loukianine,
Principal Alexsandre Chilo Rostislav Iakovlev Oleg Kirillov Mikhail Glazatshev Nikolai Tchaoussov Alexei Ivanov Alexei Tchoubathchine Nikolai Syrai
Flute
Marina Vorojtsova,
Principal Igor Kotov Olga Viland Olesia Tertichnaia Oleg Mikhailovski
Oboe
Rouslan Khokholkov,
Principal Petr Fedkov Andrei Poliakov Michail Dymskii
Clarinet
Andrei Kazakov, Principal Valentin Karlov Denis Sukhov Igor Guerassimov Vladislav Verkovitch
Bassoon
Oleg Talypine, Principal Serguei Bajenov Yuri Belyansky Alexei Silioutine
Horn
Andrei Gloukhov,
Principal Igor Karzov Anatoly Surzhok Anatoli Moussarov Pavel Gloukhov Vitali Moussarov
Trumpet
Igor Charapov, Principal Mikhail Romanov Leonid Korkine Alexei Beliaev
Trombone and Tuba
Maxim Ignatiev, Principal Dmitri Zorkine Vitali Gorlitski Denis Nesterov Valentin Awakumov
Percussion
Valeri Znamensky,
Principal Timpani Konstantine Soloviev Rouben Ramazian Alexandre Mikhailov Serguei Antoshkin
Harp
Anna Makarova Elena Serdetchkova
Piano and Celeste
Valerian Vishnevski
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Administration
Serguei Tcherniadiev,
Director Mikhail Kouniavski, Chief
Administrator Alexandre Novikov, Stage
Manager Leonid Voronov,
Librarian
ICM Artists, Ltd., Touring Division
Byron Gustafson,
Executive Vice President
and Director Leonard Stein, Vice
President and General
Manager William Bowler, Associate
Manager Siobhan O'Connor,
Associate Maria Keith, Company
Manager Richmond Davis, Stage
Manager Lara Stokes, Production
Assistant
UMS
and
Comerica
present
The Guthrie Theater
Joe Dowling, Artistic Director Douglas C. Wager, Director
Program
Friday Evening, March 8, 2002 at 8:00 Power Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!
Forty-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 pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is sponsored by Comerica Incorporated.
This is a Heartland Arts Fund Program, with major support from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.
UMS is grateful to the University of Michigan for its support of the extensive educational activities related to this performance.
Additional support provided by media sponsor Michigan Radio.
Special thanks to Tim Grimes and the Ann Arbor District Library for their involvement in this residency.
The Guthrie Theater's Tour of Ah, Wilderness! is made possible through a generous gift from Target Stores and Marshall Field's Project Imagine.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Cast
(Understudies are listed in parentheses)
Nat Miller Essie Miller Arthur Miller Richard Miller Mildred Miller Tommy Miller Abby Miller Sid Davis Lily Miller David McComber Muriel McComber Wint Selby Belle Norah Bartender Salesman
Set Designer Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Dramaturgy
Voice and Speech Consultant
Movement Stage Manager Assistant Director Assistant Stage Manager
Nathaniel Fuller (Martin Ruben) Margo Skinner (Barbara Kingsley) Sean Michael Dooley (Casey E. Lewis) Joe Delafield (Sean Michael Dooley) Tara White (Maggie D'ambrose) Jack Davis Maggie D'ambrose Brian Reddy (Martin Ruben) Laura Esping (Mary Alette Davis) Martin Ruben (Paul De Cordova) Piper Brooks (Tara White) Charles Fraser (Casey E. Lewis) Natalie Moore (Piper Brooks) Mary Alette Davis (Natalie Moore) Casey E. Lewis (Charles Fraser) Paul De Cordova (Martin Ruben)
Alternate Performances
Ming Cho Lee Zack Brown Allen Lee Hughes Scott W. Edwards Michael Thomas Maletic
Sarah Felder Marcela Lorca Rita D'angelo Henry Akona Michele Harms
The play is set in a "large small-town in coastal Connecticut" over the July 4th holiday, 1906.
Act One Act Two
The Miller home, early evening
Same as Act One, evening of the same day
INTERMISSION
Act Three, Scene One
Act Three, Scene Two
Back room of a bar, in a small hotel, ten o'clock the same night
Same as Act One, a little after eleven o'clock the same night
INTERMISSION
Act Four, Scene One Act Four, Scene Two Act Four, Scene Three
The Miller home again, about one o'clock the following afternoon
A strip of beach along the harbor, about nine o'clock that night
Same as Scene One, about ten o'clock the same night
A Note from the Director
It has been my experience as an artist that there is nothing like working on a great play during a time of great change. I come to Ah, Wilderness! at a profound moment in our history, a time of national introspection and recovery, a time to rediscover the heart and soul of our American character. We as artists are all very lucky to be able to use our gifts and tal?ents to mount a Midwest tour of this life-affirming comedy, and I want to thank the entire Guthrie staff for making it happen. Ah, Wilderness! is O'Neill's archetypal family play, his only true comedy. The first of his later plays to incorporate autobio?graphical material, it stands in comparative nostalgic comic relief against the fiercely unblinking tragic intimacy of Long Day's Journey into Night. Its effect is that of a dream, which has an apparently delightful surface beneath which lies great depth and resonant compassion for its beautifully ren?dered characters.
O'Neill acknowledged the play's inten?tional complexity when he said "this simple, sentimental comedy...[comes with] under?tones, oh yes, undertones." In one sense, the
play was his therapeutic response to the Depression. He subtitled the play "A Comedy of Recollection," the memory of another time. Ah, Wilderness! dances blithely between comic delight and wistful regret, revealing its deeper wisdom by the way it observes the rite of youthful passage toward adulthood from the melancholy perspective of midlife, with its bittersweet awareness of time, mortality and of the passing of an age of innocence in American family life.
The rule of family law at the turn of the last century was "Ask not what your family can do for you; ask what you can do for your family." As America emerged from World War II into the last half of the twenti?eth century, the promotion of individual achievement above the well-being of the family rapidly took hold. At the turn of the new century, especially since September 11, we are hopefully more apt to be mindful of our responsibility to nurture those familial ties of unconditional love, respect and reas?surance that embrace us in the place we call home. Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! is, in my opinion, the perfect theatrical expres?sion of that hope.
--Douglas C. Wager
A Chronology of Eugene O'Neill and the Early 1900s
1888
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
is born on October 16 in a New York City hotel room.
1888-1905
Spends his summers at Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut, between seasons of touring with his father James, a stage idol of the day.
1900
Kodak begins selling the Brownie camera for $1, bringing photography to the consumer.
Carrie Nation and her anti-liquor group of women begin destroying and vandalizing bars.
1901
US Steel, the world's largest industrial corporation, is formed by John Pierpont Morgan.
President McKinley is shot and fatally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Theodore Roosevelt becomes president.
American Life in the 1900s
Frederick Lewis Allen Excerpted from The Big Change: America Transforms Itself (Harper & Row, 1952)
If a neatly adjusted time machine could take you back to the Main Street of an American town in 1900, to look about you with your present-day eyes, your first exclamation would probably be, "But look at all those horses!"
For in that year 1900 there were registered in the whole US only 13,824 automobiles. Probably half the men and women of America had never seen a car...but horses were everywhere. The sights and sounds and sensations of horse-and-carriage life were part of the universal American experience: the grinding noise of the brake being applied to ease the horse on a downhill stretch; the look of a country road over?grown by grass, with three tracks in it instead of two, the middle one made by horses' hoofs.
It is hard for us today to realize how very widely communities were separated from one another when they depended for trans?portation wholly on the railroad and the horse and wagon--and when telephones
were still scarce, and radios nonexistent. [In] terms of travel and communication the US was a very big country indeed.... Your second exclamation, if you found yourself on a Main Street sidewalk of 1900, would probably be, "But those skirts!"
For every grown woman in town would be wearing a dress that virtually swept the street; that would in fact actually sweep it from time to time. Even for country wear, in fact even for golf or tennis, the skirt must reach within two or three inches of the ground, and a hat...must also imperatively be worn. As for the men, their clothes, too, were formal and severe by today's standards. Collars were high and stiff. The man of affairs was likely to wear, even under his everyday sack suit, a shirt with hard detach?able cuffs and perhaps a stiff bosom.
These implacable costumes, male and female, reflected the prevailing credo as to the relations between the sexes. The ideal woman was the sheltered lady, swathed not only in silk and muslin but in innocence and propriety, and the ideal man, whether a pillar of rectitude or a gay dog, virtuously protected the person and reputation of such tender creatures as were entrusted to his care.... Boys and girls knew they were
1902
Panama Canal project is authorized by Congress.
1903
The Great Train Robbery, the first movie with a plot, debuts.
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a "muckraking" novel exposing realities behind the facade of the meat-packing industry.
1904
New York State passes the first automobile speed limits (10 mph in cities, 15 mph in towns, and 20 mph in the country).
First national child labor laws go into effect.
1905
First Nickelodeon (a precursor to the modern movie theater) opens in Pittsburgh. More than 10,000 will open in the next three years.
The Industrial Workers of the World forms in Chicago. One of the earliest labor unions, it believes that the lower classes will unite and overthrow the dominant capitalist class.
expected to behave with perfect propriety toward one another, and only rarely did they fail to do so. As [a writer of the day] adds, "The boys sought elsewhere for what they did not get [from their social] equals. They raided the amusement parks or the evening streets in search of girls that could be frankly pursued for their physical charms." But the boys preferred to think of "nice" girls of their own class in other terms, and under the code that they followed a kiss was virtu?ally tantamount to a proposal of marriage.
The instruments of mass communica?tion, which were to do so much to provide Americans of all classes and conditions with similar information, ideas, and interests...were almost wholly lacking. There would be no television, except for a very limited audience, for over forty-five years. There was as yet no magazine with a circulation of over a million.
Accordingly, there were sharp limits to the fund of information and ideas which people of all regions and all walks of life held in common. To some extent a Maine fisherman, an Ohio farmer, and a Chicago businessman would be able to discuss poli?tics with one another, but in the absence of syndicated newspaper columns appearing from coast to coast their information would be based mostly upon what they had read in local newspapers.
O'Neill's Wilderness
Travis Bogard
Excerpted from Contour in Time: The Plays
of Eugene O'Neill (Oxford University
Press, 1972)
In September 1932, while [O'Neill] labored at the third draft of Days Without End, he awoke remembering the dream of a play. In a long day's work, he wrote out the scenario of Ah, Wilderness!, and within six weeks had completed the play. Ah, Wilderness! was not entirely the result of a sudden thawing of the imagination. In June 1931, approximate?ly a month after he and Carlotta O'Neill had returned from their long European exile, the two returned for a day to New London. O'Neill at first looked in vain for his former home, Monte Cristo Cottage. When he found it, small and unimpressive, surround?ed by new construction, he felt it a pitiful thing as the sources of memory revisited often seem. What the sight stirred in him has no easy name. Regret and pain, to be sure, and perhaps more--a sense of debts unpaid and benefits forgot. His life, which in its exterior dimension had gone through a long succession of houses, each more stately than the last, was an encompassing
1906
First experimental radio broad?cast of both voice and music.
George M. Cohan (who played Nat Miller in the original 1933 Broadway production of Ah, Wilderness!) composes "It's a Grand Old Flag."
1906
O'Neill expelled from Princeton for his poor academic stand?ing. Moves to New York City and accompanies his brother Jamie in a dissolute lifestyle.
1912
O'Neill attempts suicide by overdosing on a sleeping drug. Soon after, he is diag?nosed with tuberculosis.
1914
O'Neill publishes a collection of works entitled Thirst and Other One Act Plays. The pub?lication costs are covered by his father.
1920
Beyond the Horizon, O'Neill's first play produced on Broadway, wins the Pulitzer Prize.
circle around that house, the fixed foot of his movement through the world. He did not enter physically, but the house contained his truth, and he walked it in imagination almost--as the easy genesis of Ah, Wilderness! suggests--in spite of himself. Yet not quite. That summer, across the sound from New London, he sketched notes for a play he thought would be titled Nostalgia.
The sitting room of Nat Miller's house and the living room of the home of James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night are in their plan substantially the same, as in the geography of the unseen house beyond it. In creating the Miller sitting room, O'Neill made his first direct incursion on the auto?biographical substructure of his life. He entered with joy, colored by nostalgia. With evident delight, he drew in detail the sub?stance of his boyhood world--of the year 1906, when he, like his protagonist, Richard Miller, was seventeen and planning to go to a university in the fall. He created from the citizens he had known in New London, a series of pleasant portraits.
It was the Fourth of July. The town in the grip of an American folk ritual comes vividly to life: fireworks, lodge picnics, out?ings in the motor car, moonlit beaches, old songs, gardens and, underlying the pleasant
manifestations, something of the actual eco?nomic and social structure of the "large small-town in Connecticut." Within the family, too, O'Neill has used actuality--as, for example the blue fish "allergy" and the tale of the heroic swimming rescue which Nat Miller tells, and which were both drawn from the repertory of James O'Neill. Like Mourning Becomes Electra, the comedy is fixed in a historical perspective, and its evo?cation of the reality of the past is full and accurate.
The play's use of sound--the firecrackers, the sound of dance music in the distance, the sense of the turn of the seasons in an unending cycle of life, the use of chiaroscuro, defined by moonlight, are all spun from O'Neill's earlier technique and themes. The difference is that here all events, all "effects" project a sense of well-being and peace, and are not used to go aggressively, painfully "behind life." Yet behind the facade of well-being, as in the substructure of a dream, the truth exists.
1921-30
O'Neill writes Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape, Strange Interlude and Mourning Becomes Eiectra.
1933
Ah, Wilderness! is produced on Broadway starring George M. Cohan. The play's success spawns a West Coast produc?tion with Will Rogers and a film with Lionel Barrymore.
1936
O'Neill awarded Nobel Prize in Literature, the first American playwright to receive this honor.
1953
O'Neill dies of pneumonia, having been unable to work for several years due to a degenerative disease resem?bling Parkinson's.
1956
Jose Quintero's productions of The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night revive interest in O'Neill. Posthumously awarded a fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night.
The Guthrie Theater is an institution of international distinction founded in 1963 by the great English director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. His vision, which continues today, was to pro?vide Minneapolis and St. Paul with quality theater and set a national standard for excel?lence. Under Artistic Director Joe Dowling, the Guthrie remains committed to presenting classic plays at a high level artistic integrity. Recent mainstage productions range from Shakespeare to modern classics, including The Cherry Orchard, A Doll's House, The Playboy of the Western World, Thunder Knocking on the Door, The Magic Fire, Summer and Smoke, Ah, Wilderness!, Martin Guerre, The Darker Face of the Earth, Twelfth Night, Hedda Gabler, To Fool the Eye and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. World-renowned playwrights, directors, designers and artists join the cast of performers to challenge and delight audiences year-round.
In addition to plays presented on the Guthrie's mainstage, the theater provides an additional season of international contem-
porary plays at its second stage, the Guthrie Lab, and has revived its long dormant regional touring program. In 2000, the Guthrie brought its critically acclaimed A Midsummer Night's Dream to sixteen cities and last season toured Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney to thirty communities. In 2004, the Guthrie will move to a new three-stage complex designed by the internation?ally acclaimed French architect Jean Nouvel. The new Guthrie will serve the community in exciting ways, from collaborations with other theaters to expanded education pro?gramming and improved audience amenities.
This weekend's performances mark The Guthrie Theater's third and fourth appear?ances under UMS auspices. The Guthrie made their UMS debut in January 1996 pre?senting k., Impressions from The Trial by Franz Kafka adapted by Garland Wright and Harold Pinter's Old Times.
Please visit the Guthrie Theater online at www.guthrietheater.org
UMS
and
CFI Group
present
The Guthrie Theater
Joe Dowling, Artistic Director Douglas C. Wager, Director
Program
Saturday Evening, March 9, 2002 at 8:00 Power Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!
Please refer to page 20 for program information on The Guthrie Theater's production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!.
Forty-ninth
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 pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is sponsored by CFI Group.
Special thanks to Clayton Wilhite for his generous support of the University Musical Society.
This is a Heartland Arts Fund Program, with major support from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.
UMS is grateful to the University of Michigan for its support of the extensive educational activities related to this performance.
Additional support provided by media sponsor Michigan Radio.
Special thanks to Tim Grimes and the Ann Arbor District Library for their involvement in this residency.
The Guthrie Theater's Tour of Ah, Wilderness! is made possible through a generous gift from Target Stores and Marshall Field's Project Imagine.
Large print programs are available upon request.
UMS
and the
Office of the Senior
Vice Provost for
Academic Affairs
present
Los Munequitos de Matanzas
Diosdado Ramos, Director and Dancer
Jesiis Alfonso, Composer
Musical DirectorPercussion Agustin Diaz, Percussion Israel Berriel Gonzalez, Voice Ronald Gonzalez Cobos, Voice Rafael Navarro, Voice Facundo Pelladito, DancerPercussion
Ana Perez, VoiceDancer Luis Deyvis Ramos, Dancer Barbara Ramos, DancerPercussion Vivian Ramos, Dancer Alberto Romero, VoiceClave Eddy Espinosa, Percussion Ricardo Cane, Voice
Program
Friday Evening, March 15, 2002 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
La Rumba Soy Yo
Las Raices
Tonoche
Eleggua
Oggun
Ochiin
Chango
Arara
Abakua
INTERMISSION
Ciclo de las Rumbas
Yambu Guaguanco Rumba Tap Columbia Fin de Fiesta
Fiftieth Performance of the 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 co-presented with the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.
Additional support provided by media sponsors Metro Times and WEMU.
Special thanks to the U-M Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and U-M Department of Dance for their involvement in this residency.
The 2002 Fiftieth Anniversary US Tour of Los Munequitos de Matanzas has been produced by Muitiarts Projects & Productions (MAPP), New York City.
Large print programs are available upon request.
La Rumba Soy Yo
Tonight's production of Los Munequitos de Matanzas consists of original songs and dances created by its performers.
La Rumba Soy Yo is more like a musical revue, conceived in two parts. "Tonoche" is a typical song from Matanza, which begins the procession of the Fiesta del Dia de los Reyes (Day of the Three Kings), which was the occasion for Cuban slaves to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. In the Fiesta of "Tonoche" everyone participates. Here the entire group of dancers and musicians dance up onto the stage, recreating the ceremonial march and procession of the Dia de los Reyes, or Epiphany. Following the procession, songs and dances of the Orishas--"Eleggua," "Oggiin," "Ochiin" and "Chango"--are performed as well as a cycle of abaktia songs and dances.
Las Raices
Cuadro Yorubd: Danza Ritual de Elegua Major Orisha, messenger of Olofi (Supreme God), is the Orisha that opens and closes pathways and roads. He is described as a child with an old man's face, a playful revel?er, friend of making mischievous deeds and lover of children. He dresses in red and black. He is one of the three warrior brothers of the Yoruba Pantheon and uses as his attributes, a sickle or a prong, to remove the herbs of the mountain. He is the son of Obbatala and Yemu and the first Orisha (Okana). He is represented in the dried coconut {obi) placed behind front doors. He is syncretized1 with the Holy Child of Atocha, Saint Anthony of Padua and the Anima Sola (Lonely Soul).
'Syncretization refers to the process by which the African gods were fused with the images of the Catholic saints.
Ritmo Iyesd con Orishas The Iyesa people are often considered a sub?group of the Yoruba, coming from an area of Nigeria known as Illesha in Northern Nigeria. They share many of the same Orishas as the Yoruba, although the two most prominent are Ochun and Oggun. The traditional drums are two headed and the shells are painted green with a distinctive yellow stripe to represent Ochun and Oggun.
Typically, the 68 rhythms are played for Oggun and the 44 versions for Ochun, which are considered some of the most sensual of all of Ochun's dances. In this program, Los Munequitos will perform the 44 rhythms in dances to "Ochun" and "Chango." With these rhythms and songs, the group invokes the Orishas, the ancestors, and requests the blessing of Oloddumare (Supreme God) to bring peace and good health to all people.
Although these dances and rhythms are not as complex as the "Arara" or Bata, they are some of the most funky and animated of all Afro-Cuban forms. The Iyesa slaves are said to have regrouped in 1868 in Matanzas, Cuba through a reunion of twenty-one Babalawos all originating from the Illesha region of Nigeria. There they formed the only sacred house, or cabildo, of Iyesa, to be found in Cuba today.
Tambores, Cantos y Danza "Arara" The Arara slaves were the most recent of all African slaves to arrive in Cuba, some having arrived as late as 1887. They came from what was then known as Dahomey--today's Benin and Togo. They share a similar pan?theon of deities as the Yoruba but have dif?ferent names and characteristics. In this program, Los Munequitos will dance to Babalii Aye, known as Asoano.
These dances and rhythms are some of the most difficult to master and are regarded as more closely related to African counterparts and less "Creolized" than other Afro-Cuban forms. Of particular interest is the rhythmic placement of the songs in relationship to
the rhythms of the drums. Extremely sophisticated in structure, they are truly a testament to the creative prowess of these people. In Cuba we find three variants of Arara culture, Magino, Sabalu and Dahomey. As with the Iyesa culture, the only sacred houses of Arara are found in Matanzas Province.
Danza Naiiiga "Abakud" The "Abakua" is a men's secret organization, originally from Calabar, Nigeria. The men speak in a jargon made up of seven African dialects. The requisites to enroll in this asso?ciation are to be a man, a good son and a good father, and to pledge loyalty to the institution and to keep its secrets. The Abakua was founded in 1836 in the harbor town of Regla in the Havana Province, with the name Efik Buton. In Cuba, Abakua's lands can be found in Havana's province; in Regla, Guanabacoa and Mariano; in Matanzas' province; in the Capital City and in Cardenas. The outdoors, where they cele?brate their festivities, is open to the public.
The main chiefs open the show making a Wembla ceremony to ask permission to the god Abasi to allow the celebration. The Npego (master of ceremonies) makes an Enkame to give thanks and initiate the fes?tivities. The music being played with the sacred drums begins, and at its height, the Morua brings in the iremes, or little devils, to perform their dance in the styles of Efi or Efo (rapid and slow, respectively) according to the African land of their heritage. The major Morua, who receives them on stage, takes them and the musicians away.
Ciclo de las Rumbas
Rumbas Antiguas Urbanas "Yambii" This is the most ancient rumba of the Afro Cuban Creoles. It is performed with wooden boxes and tumbas. In the past they used candle crates and codfish crates, the sides of a wardrobe dresser and spoons on the small drawers of a night table. In this dance the woman shines more than the man. It is a slow and lilting music, called de viejos (of
the old ones), originally from Matanzas in the mid-nineteenth century.
Rumbas Contemporaneas Urbanas "Guaguanco" This is a contemporary urban rumba origi?nally from Havana and Matanzas. It is faster than "Yambu" and is played with tumbado-ras (conga drums). The musicians introduce other Latin American rhythms through a variety of musical arrangements. The dance is characterized by the vacunao, an erotic sexual movement by the man who pursues the woman in order to possess her, moving his hands, his feet and his hat along with his pelvis. She tries to avoid him by covering her genitals or turning her back to her part?ner. In this sexual dance contest, the best dancer is the man if he can touch her, or the woman if she can avoid him.
In the "Guaguanco," as in other varieties of rumba, the dance breaks loose after the narration of the story that serves as the basis of the musical development in the first part. The alternation between the improvising singer and the chorus intensifies the spirit of the dance, and the rhythmic action supports the steps of the dancers.
Rumba Tap
"La Rumba Tap" is another creation of Los Munequitos, conceived as homage to tap dance as an art form, using the percussive sounds of tap as well as some traditional tap dances. Members of the company studied videos of many well-known American dancers as inspiration for this piece.
Rumba Antigua Rural "Columbia" An old rumba originally from rural Matanzas, it is very fast in its delivery and danced only by men, who develop a compe?tition among themselves using movements from sports, dangerous movements with knives and machetes, gymnastic modern dance and the dangerous bottle dance. Its name comes from the Columbia bus stop close to Matanzas. While the beginning is a song of lament with African phrases, the end becomes a danceable montuno.
"Fin de Fiesta" Conga Popular Matancera As a colophon to the show, a summary is made, which ends the show with the popu?lar street conga from the Matanzas province and invites the audience to dance on the stage, or wherever they would like, while the house lights are on.
Fortunately, the turn of the century permits a sifting of all that has been developed and a clear view of what has gone before. It encourages an appreciation for what has given joy, health, and relative peace to many and dic?tates those things we want to take with us into the new century that are still full of wonder. The traditional musicdance ensemble of Cuba, Los Munequitos de Matanzas, is one of these treasures.
Commencing in the 1950s on the side?walks of the marina district in Matanzas City, Cuba, a group of several young men rose above the other musical groups of the time with a popular song, a contagious rhythm, and pure talent. Their original rendition of a song about "the little dolls--los munequitos" really cornic-strip characters from the then "funnies" in the newspapers, gave them their recognized name and catapulted them to a huge Cuban audience as the acknowledged emblems of the real, the genuine rumba. Despite the fact that rumba was then consid?ered somewhat controversial and provocative, it was definitely powerful music and danc?ing that spoke to the youth, the more African-derived Cuban community, and to a burgeoning international audience that was listening to radios and vinyl recordings from the Americas to Europe and Africa.
The original Munequitos' membership came from specific families that are still rep?resented today. Passing on musical and dance information from generation to generation is one of the key powers within Los Munequitos de Matanzas, providing each individual artist with a lifetime of experience and acute learning. Truly, Los Munequitos are the ideal for what is rumba, what is Cuban rhythm, and
for what is an example of Cuban beauty. Through rhythm, Cuba has had an unparal?leled influence on many nations. Rumba structure is related intimately to distinct musicdance traditions in this hemisphere.
However, rumba is not the only form that Los Munequitos presents; as most Cuban artists, they are knowledgeable of other major musical genres of Cuba that come from their African predecessors. Los Munequitos are expert in the rhythms and chants from the Yoruba or Lukumi, the Kongos or Angolans, the Araras or Aradas, and they have created danced histories to converse the spiritual wisdom of several ancestor communities.
The 1999 tour of Los Munequitos con?tinued an exchange between arts groups in the US and Cuba, despite the existence of conflicting political views. Los Munequitos have appeared as American cultural ambas?sadors from Cuba at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC; at Chicago's Field and Du Sable Museums; in Colorado, California, and Massachusetts' Dance Festivals. Their first visit to the US began in 1992 with a ten-day series of classes and performances followed by a performance tour of important cultural enclaves. Since then, Los Munequitos, as well as other tradi?tional and contemporary Cuban artists, have brought multiple examples of the musical genius of Cuba to Americans.
Today, in live performances of Los Munequitos, audiences can witness the joyous, sensuous, and spiritual forms of Cuba and participate in distinct forms that are the seeds of our shared American artistic creativity. As a result of these performances, the experience of a rich dancemusic heritage, which the Munequitos have demonstrated all their lives; continues into the twenty-first century.
Biography by Yvonne Daniel, PhD. O Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
Caridad Diez, Company Manager
Estrella Quiroga, US Tour Manager
Scott Wardinsky, US Tour Technical Director
UMS
presents
The Tallis Scholars
Peter Phillips, Director
UMS Choral Union Thomas Sheets, Conductor
Spem In alium
Thomas Tattis
Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te, Deus Israel, qui irasceris, et propitius eris, et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis. Domine Deus, creator caeli et terrae, respice humilitatem nost ram.
Exaudiat te Dominus
Robert White
Exaudiat te Dominus in die tribulationis: protegat te nomen Dei Jacob. Mittat tibi auxiliuin de sancto: et de Sion tueatur te. Memor sit omnis sacrificii tui: et holocaus-tum tmini pingue fiat. Tribuat tibi secun-dum cor tuum: et omne consilium tuum confirmed Laetabimur in salutari tuo: et in nomine Dei nostri magnificabimur. Impleat Deus omnes petitiones tuas: nunc cognovi quoniam salvum fecit Dominus Christum suum. Exaudiat ilium de caelo sancto suo: in potentatibus salus dexterae eius. Hi in curribus et hi in quis: nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invo-cabimus. Ipsi obligari sunt et ceciderunt: nos autem surreximus, et erecti sumus. Domine, salvum foe regem et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus te.
Amen.
In manas tuas III
John Sheppard
In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum meum. Redemisti me Domine Deus veritatis.
I have never put my hope in any other but you, O God of Israel, who can show both anger and graciousness, and absolve all the sins of suffering man. Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, be mindful of our humiliation.
The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble: the name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; remember all thine offer?ings, and accept thy burnt-sacrifice; grant thee thy heart's desire, and fulfill all thy mind. We will rejoice in thy salvation, and triumph in the name of the Lord our God: the Lord perform all thy petitions. Now I know that the Lord helpeth his anointed, and will hear him from his holy heaven, even with the wholesome strength of his right hand. Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down, and fallen, but we are risen, and stand upright. Lord, save the king, and hear us: when we call upon thee.
Amen.
Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth.
Gaude plurimum
John Taverner
Gaude.plurimum, satvatoris nostri mater, femina quae vixerunt omnium felicissima, sola virgo prae ceteris, quae naturali partu, sed conceptione caelesti mediam divinae trimtatis personam, verum Deum, sem-piterni patris sempiternum filium, quo nos a perpetua morte servaremur, benignius hominem edidisti.
Gaude Maria virgo divinitus hanc tibi praestitam gratiam, ut ipsa praeter ceteras omnes unica sis mortalis femina, quae Christum Jesum in utero gesseris, gravida ederis enixa materno foveris gremio immortalem sobolem.
Gaude sacratdssima virgo, ilium non minus tibi quam ceteris hominibus immortalem filium peperisse, qui caelica sua potestate inferni debellavit tyrannidem cruentas mortis aeternae principis vires fregit, vitamque humano generi perpetuam restituit
Gaude Maria, Jesu mater, talem te genuisse filium, qui divina sua resurrecu'one futurae nostrae in gloria resurrectionis spem cer-tam tradidit; ad Deumque Patrem ascen-dens, et Deus et homo, misericordia plenus, in caelum quoque rediturn omnibus pollicetur.
Gaudemus itaque et nos omnes nobis et tuae beatitudini, Maria, Jesu mater, gratias habentes gratulamur, quae supernam adepta gratiam ad perennem quoque in caelum gloriam assumpta es.
Eundem igitur Jesum tuum filium sup-plices deprecamur, ut, qui indigni qui exaudiamur assequi non valemus tuis
benignissimis precibus impetrare possimus eandem tecum caelestem gloriam.
Amen.
Rejoice greatly, mother of our savior, most blessed of all women who have lived, the one virgin above all the rest who by natu?ral birth but heavenly conception kindly brought forth as man the middle person of the divine trinity, true God, eternal Son of the eternal Father, that we might be saved by him from everlasting death.
Rejoice, Virgin Mary, in this outstanding grace from heaven, that thou thyself above all others shouldst be the one mortal woman who bore Christ Jesus in thy womb, who, being great with child gave birth and, having borne the child, cherished the immortal offspring in thy maternal lap.
Rejoice, most holy virgin, that thou barest him who is an immortal son to thee no less than to the rest of mankind, who by his heavenly power vanquished the tyran?ny of hell, crushed the bloody power of the prince of eternal death, and restored everlasting life to mankind.
Rejoice, Mary, mother of Jesus, that thou gavest birth to such a son, who by his divine resurrection gave us the sure hope of our future resurrection in glory; and who, ascending to God the Father, both God and man, full of mercy, promises a return to heaven for all.
And so we rejoice, and we all congratulate ourselves, giving thanks also to thy blessedness, O Mary, mother of Jesus, who hast gained divine favor, and been taken up into heaven to everlasting glory.
Therefore we as supplicants pray to the same Jesus thy Son that we, who are unworthy, cannot reach to be heard, may with thy most pleasing prayers attain the same heavenly glory with thee.
Amen.
Aeterne laudis lilium
Robert Fayrfax
Aeternae laudis lilium, o dulcis Maria te laudat vox angelica nutrix Christi pia; jure prolis gloriae detur harmonia, salus nostrae memoriae omni agonia. Ave radix, flos virginum, o sanctifkata; benedicta in utero materno aeata eras sancta puerpera et inviolata tuo ex Jesu filio, virgo peramata. Honestis caeli precibus virgo veneraris, regis excelsi filii visu joamdaris; eius divino lumine tu nusquam privaris, gaude sole splendidior virgo singularis. Issachar quoque Nazaphat necnon Ismaria, nati ex Jesse stipite qua venit Maria; atque Maria a Cleophae sancto Zacharia, a qua patre Elizabeth, matre Sophonia. Natus est Dei gratia. Johannes Baptista gaudebat clauso Domino in matrice cista. Lineae ex hoc genere est evangelism Johannes Annae filia ex Maria ista. Est Jesus Dei filius natus in hunc mundum cuius cruoris tumulo mundatur in mundum, conferat nos in gaudium in aevum jocundum qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto regnat in unum.
Amen.
Ave Maria Robert Parsons
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum:
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui.
Amen.
O sweet Mary, the holy mother of Christ, angel voices praise you, the lily of eternal praise. Justly may music be given to the glory of your son; the safety of our memory and the sacrificial victim for all of us. Hail, root, flower of virgins, most holy one; you, beloved virgin were born blessed, and in your virgin womb was created your son Jesus. Virgin, you give honorable prayers to heaven, with the vision of your blessed son, the heavenly king; you are never deprived of his divine light; rejoice, O matchless virgin, more brilliant than the sun. Issachar, Nazaphal and indeed Ismaria were born of Jesse's stem, from which Mary sprang, and also Mary, daughter of Cleophas. From holy Zechariah and Elizabeth, daughter of Sophoria, was born John the Baptist, by God's grace. He was rejoicing while the Lord was enclosed in his mother's womb. Of this line was John the Evangelist Mary, the daughter of Anne, was the mother of Jesus. Jesus the son of God was born into this world and his cross and burial purified the world with his blood. May Jesus bring us into joy and into a glo?rious age, for he reigns as one with the Father and the Holy Spirit
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among all women And blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Amen.
Ne irasceris William Byrd
Ne irasceris, Domine, satis, et ne ultra
memineris iniquitatis nostrae.
Ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos.
Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta. Sion deserta facta est. Ierusalem desolata est.
Miserere
Byrd
Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dela iniquitatem meam.
Spem in alium
Tallis
Be not angry any more, O Lord, and do not remember our iniquity any longer. Behold, see, we are all thy people.
The city of thy holy place has become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness. Jerusalem is forsaken.
Show thy mercy on me O God, in accordance
with thy most merciful kindness.
And according to the multitude of
thy mercies, do away my sins, and wash me
thoroughly from my misdeeds.
(Please refer to page 1 of this insert for complete text and translation.)
UMS
presents
The Tallis Scholars
Pktkr Phillips, Director
UMS Choral Union Thomas Sheets, Conductor
Deborah Roberts, Soprano Tessa Bonner, Soprano Caroline Trevor, Alto Patrick Craig, Alto Andrew Carwood, Tenor
Toby Watkin, Tenor Donald Greig, Bass Charles Pott, Bass Francis Steele, Bass Robert MacDonald, Bass
Program
Tuesday Evening, March 19, 2002 at 8:00
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thomas Tallis
Robert White John Sheppard John Taverner
Robert Fayrfax Robert Parsons William Byrd Byrd Tallis
Spem in alium
UMS Choral Union
Exaudiat te Dominus In manas tuas HI Gaude plurimum
INTERMISSION
Aetaerne laudis lilium Ave Maria Ne irasceris Miserere
Spem in alium
UMS Choral Union
Fifty-first Performance of the 123rd Season
Seventh Annual Divine Expressions Series
The Tallis Scholars are represented in North America exclusively by Aaron Concert Artists, Inc., New York, NY.
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Spem in alium
Thomas Tallis
Born c.l505 in England
Died November 23, 1585 in Greenwich
The church music of Thomas Tallis is deeply imbedded in the medieval Catholic Church, as much as it represents the developments of Renaissance music. Employed in the royal household from the 1540s, Tallis was the only English composer who worked throughout all the vicissitudes of religious reform from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. Subsequendy, his music exemplifies the change and continuity in English Renaissance sacred music most clearly. Latin music could have been written during several periods in his career, even under Elizabeth I, who tolerated and even encouraged its use under certain conditions. Furthermore, the poly?phonic music of the Catholic Church was unquestionably the most sophisticated music to date, and even Protestant composers wrote Latin-texted music in the "Catholic" manner as part of a purely musical tradition entirely outside of the realms of religion. The English composers, deprived of their ritual field, turned to continental forms and techniques to find a creative outlet. However, one should keep in mind that Tallis and Byrd, aside from their Latin compositions, are responsible for some of the finest music for the Anglican rite of the period.
Given the focus of tonight's program, it is appropriate to begin and end with a work that arguably represents the epitome of choral writing in England, namely with Tallis' great forty-part motet Spem in alium. Technically it is a balance between dense contrapuntal writing and homophonic declamation, exploiting every possible com?bination of effects available from the forty voice parts with dazzling virtuosity. This unusual work was probably not designed for liturgical use, although its original purpose remains uncertain. It is not impossible that
the occasion was the fortieth birthday of either Queen Mary in 1556 or Queen Elizabeth in 1573, or possibly Tallis' desire to rival Alessandro Striggio's own forty-part Ecce beatam lucent. Other theories, perhaps even more plausible, suggest that it was commissioned in 1571 by two leading members of the Catholic nobility, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Henry Fitzalan, twelfth Earl of Arundel. The conditions of its first performance are unknown; the Long Gallery in Arundel House (formerly on the banks of the Thames, off the Strand) has been suggested, but even more likely is the banqueting hall of Arundel's country seat, the palace of Nonsuch (also now demolished). The palace's octagonal ground plan would neatly have accommodated Tallis' eight five-part choirs and shown off the grand polychoral design of the music to best effect. It is difficult not to hear the work as a powerful statement of Tallis' personal allegiance to his faith: "Spem in alium nunquam habui in te, Deus Israel," "I have never put my hope in any other but you, God of Israel."
Exaudiat te Dominus
Robert White
Born c.1535 in England
Died November 1574 in London, England
Robert White, a contemporary of Tallis, moved more in cathedral and collegiate circles rather than in the political spotlight of the Elizabethan Court. He seems to have begun his career at Trinity College, Cambridge, where from 1555 to 1562 he was employed first as a chorister and later as a singing-man. In 1560 he was granted the degree of Bachelor of Music after ten years of study, and in 1562 moved a short dis?tance to Ely where he became Master of the Choristers. He is probably the musician named "White" who held the same post at
Chester Cathedral in 1567, and almost cer?tainly became Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey by 1569 (Thomas Tomkins described White as being "first of Westchester [ie. Chester] and Westminster"). He died of the plague in 1574. With the decline of the so-called Votive Antiphon (a large-scale "motet" commonly set by pre-Reformation English composers), White was among the new wave of musicians to develop the Psalm-motet, constructed on similar dimensions to the large-scale antiphons of Taverner, Tallis and others, but, with the use of Biblical texts, more politically suited to reformed tastes.
Exaudiat te Dominus (Psalm 19) is certainly reminiscent of the early Tudor antiphon, each section beginning with a reduced scoring which emphasizes the rich harmonic textures in the full choral passages. The second half exploits the use of gimells (the division of a single line in to two distinct voice-parts of the same range), culminating in a rich and colorful seven-part texture towards the end of the work.
In manas tuas III
John Sheppard
Born c.l 515 in England Died c. 1559
John Sheppard, Tallis' slightly more obscure contemporary, arguably wrote his finest music for ritual use. Sheppard's generation brought the art of Latin polyphony to near perfection, only to witness its demise at the hands of the Reformation. Sheppard's agile melodies and striking harmonic language makes his style one of the most distinctive and immediately recognizable of the six?teenth century. The use of false relations is one of Sheppard's trademarks and he seems to employ them for the sheer pleasure of their sound rather than to depict meanings
in the text. In manus tuas III, a respond for Compline sung from Passions Sunday through to Maundy Thursday, provides a wonderful example of Sheppard's unique harmonic palette.
Gaude plurimum
John Taverner
Born c.1490 in South Lincolnshire, Enlgand Died October 18, 1545 in Boston, Lincolnshire
John Taverner, reckoned to be the greatest of all English pre-Reformation composers, wrote all of his music for the Catholic Church, he himself scarcely surviving into the Protestant era. Taken as a whole, his oeuvre represents the final development of the florid late-medieval English style. This style is also marked by an assimilation of new aesthetic and technical features, indi?cating the growing influence of continental thought and practice. Very little is known about Taverner's early career; he was employed as master of the choristers at Cardinal College (Christ Church), Oxford, in 1526. Several years later, upon Cardinal Wolsey's fall from power, he retired to Boston, where he was held in considerable esteem. Allegations that he became a militant Protestant in conflict with the Catholic orthodoxy of the time remain speculative. Consequently, the popular assumption that Taverner stopped composing after leaving Cardinal College in 1530, because he had come to dismiss church music as popish, are without foundation.
The Marian antiphon Gaude plurimum appears to have been one of Taverner's most highly regarded works judging from the numerous manuscripts in which it is found. Its function, like all Marian antiphons, was devotional rather than liturgical. The musi?cal structure is characterized by contrasting sections scored for two or three voices with
ones for sonorous five-part choir, a struc?ture typical of earlier generations. There is also frequent use of imitation within the generally sober melodic style. The textural transparency, with melismatic writing being reserved largely for cadence points, demon?strates to what extent Taverner helped to refine the musical complexities of the previous generation.
Aetaerne laudis lilium
Robert Fayrfax
Born April 23, 1464 in Deeping Gate,
Lincolnshire, England Died October 24, 1521 in St. Alban,
Hertfordshire
Robert Fayrfax was favored by Henry VIII, who rewarded him with substantial benefices as well as making him a Knight of the King's Alms. By the end of 1497, he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and from this date until his death in 1521, there appear in various sources a series of dates attesting both to his continuous activity and his royal favor. A number of his works sur?vive in the Eton Choirbook, but the majority of his compositions are to be found in the Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks.
The votive antiphon Aeterne laudis lilium is almost certainly the "anthem of our Lady and Saint Elizabeth" for which Queen Elizabeth of York paid the composer twenty shillings when she visited St. Albans in 1502. The work was written for the feast of the Annunciation ("our Lady and Saint Elizabeth"), and its text is therefore con?structed of a genealogy of Christ and some richly poetical stanzas in praise of the Mother of God. More consistent use of imitation is made in this piece than elsewhere in Fayrfax's output, and this is especially inter?esting when employed between unequal voices; of equal importance is the impres-
sively memorable melodic character of the work--it is less exuberantly melismatic than some of his other music, and in this, together with its imitative working, looks forward to the work of future generations.
Ave Maria
Robert Parsons
Born c.l530 in Newark-upon-Trent, England Died c. 1570
Little is known about the life of Robert Parsons, and only a few of his compositions survive. Like most of the eminent musicians of his time, he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, the organization of thirty-two singers and twelve boy choristers whose job it was to provide music at the chapel services in the various royal palaces in and around London whenever the sovereign was present. Parsons was born in Newark-upon-Trent but met an early death drowning in the Trent at the height of his powers. He wrote music both for the English and the Latin rites, the latter perhaps during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-58) when England had temporarily returned to Catholicism. Ave Maria for five voices is probably his best-known work, a motet of appropriately femi?nine loveliness and radiance. An interesting feature of its characteristically English "ABB" structure is the soprano part of the opening section. It represents the voice of the angel Gabriel, making a series of six entries, each one beginning one note higher that the one before. The effect is of rising excitement and ecstasy.
Ne irasceris Miserere
William Byrd
Born 1543 probably in Lincoln, England Died July 4, 1623 in Stondon Massey, Essex
William Byrd is unquestionably the greatest composer of the Elizabethan Golden Age and well established as the master of English church music, as is testified by his output for both the Latin and English Rites. He was not as nearly as prolific as, for example, Lassus, but his ability to compose all this music in addition to carrying on his other activities was astonishing. His duties at the Chapel Royal, his farm and his religious, legal and social concerns all made substan?tial demands on his time. Byrd was appoint?ed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1570 and moved to London two years later where he shared the post of organist with Thomas Tallis, his teacher and friend. Queen Elizabeth granted the two composers a monopoly for the printing of music. It is well known that Byrd remained a staunch Catholic even after the Reformation, and that he composed a number of "political" motets, choosing a fairly large group of bib?lical texts which obliquely alluded to the sit?uation of English Catholics who had been driven underground.
Ne irascaris has been described by Joseph Kerman as one of Byrd's "quiet masterpieces." It is a profoundly satisfying work structurally, being tonally bipartite and possessing a complex series of har?monic digressions reflecting the anguished nature of the text and many motivic links between the two halves of the work. There is a luminosity about much of the work which imparts a tran?scendent calm to words which are fre?quently very far from tranquil--the pro?tracted cadence at "Ierusalem desolata est" is a case in point. The secunda pars,
Civitas sancti tui has always been one of Byrd's best-loved pieces, with its distinc?tive melodic profile. Formerly it was often sung in Anglican churches as an English contrafact, Bow Thine Ear.
Miserere is a concise work, mixing homophony and polyphony in a more obvious way and closing with a substantial and rather elaborate contrapuntal section.
Program notes by Dirk Freymuth, Sibylle Mager, David Skinner and Ivan Moody.
Peter Phillips has made an impres?sive, if unusual, reputation for himself in dedicating his life's work to the research and performance of Renaissance sacred music. Having won a scholarship to Oxford in 1972, Peter Phillips studied Renaissance music with David Wulstan and Denis Arnold and gained experience in conducting small vocal ensembles, already experimenting with the lesser-known parts of the repertoire.
Besides his work with the Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips has for many years contributed a regular column (as well as a cricket column) to The Spectator. In 1995 he became the Advisory Editor of The Musical Times, the oldest continuously published music journal in Europe. His first book, English Sacred Music 1549-1649, a unique and encyclopedic account of the history of English-texted sacred music written during the golden period between the Reformation and the Commonwealth, has been published by Gimell. He continues to work with groups around the world. In 1997 he visited Japan as the adjudicator of a choral festival in Tokyo and has also worked in Italy and the US with various ensembles specializing in the polyphonic repertoire. He gives numerous master classes and choral workshops with choirs around the world; the 20012002 season
sees him in Spain, Siberia and Taiwan.
Peter Phillips has made numerous televi?sion and radio broadcasts. Besides those featuring the Tallis Scholars (which include live broadcasts from the 1988 Proms, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Bath Festival and the Cheltenham Festival), he has appeared several times on Radio 3's Music Weekly and on the BBC World Service, on Kaleidoscope (Radio 4), Today (Radio 4) and on European, Canadian and North American radio. In December 1990, Peter Phillips, the Tallis Scholars and Gimell Records were the sub?ject of a major South Bank Show television documentary in which the viewer is taken on a personal odyssey through the sacred Renaissance repertoire. Peter Phillips is the Director of the Oakham International Summer School, a new choral course set up to cherish and keep alive the English choral heritage and develop excellence in unac?companied choral singing. For more infor?mation about Oakham visit their website at www.oakham.org.uk.
Tonight's performance marks Peter Phillips' third appearance under UMS auspices. Mr. Phillips made his UMS debut in April 1996 conducting The Tallis Scholars in St. Francis ofAssisi Catholic Church.
The Tallis Scholars were founded in 1973 by their director, Peter Phillips. Through their recordings and concert performances, they have established themselves as leading exponents of Renaissance sacred music. Their exploration of the depth and variety of his repertoire has reached a worldwide audience. Peter Phillips has worked with the ensemble to create the purity and clarity of sound that he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire, allowing every detail of the musical lines to be heard. It is the resulting beauty of sound for which the Tallis Scholars have become renowned. The Tallis Scholars perform in both sacred and secular venues, giving around seventy concerts each year. In April 1994, the group enjoyed the privilege of perform?ing in the Sistine Chapel to mark the final stage of the complete restoration of the Michelangelo frescoes. In New York in December 1998, the group gave their one thousandth concert. That same year saw them in Italy (in Ferrara, at the invitation of Claudio Abbado) and in London for a unique twenty-fifth anniversary concert in London's National Gallery premiering a John Tavener work written for the group and narrated by Sting. A following perfor?mance was given with Sir Paul McCartney in May 2000. This season will see them in France, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Portugal, the US and the UK.
Much of the Tallis Scholars' reputation for their pioneering work has come from their association with Gimell Records, set up by Peter Phillips and Steve Smith in 1981. In February 1994, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars performed on the 400th anniversary of the death of Palestrina in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, where Palestrina had trained as a choirboy and later worked as Maestro di Cappella. Gimell's enterprising series of recordings with the Tallis Scholars continued in
Autumn 2000 with a release of the first recording of the Missa Si bona suscepimus by Morales.
Recordings by the Tallis Scholars have attracted many awards throughout the world. In 1987 their recording of Josquin's Missa La sol fa re mi and Missa Pange lingua received Gramophone magazine's "Record of the Year" award, the only recording of early music ever to win this coveted award. In 1989, the French magazine Diapason gave two of its coveted Diapason d'Or de VAnnee awards for recordings of a mass and motets by Lassus and of Josquin's two masses based on the chanson L'Homme arme. Their recording of Palestrina's Missa Assumpta est Maria and Missa Sicut lilium was awarded Gramophone's "Early Music Award" in 1991, and they received the 1994 "Early Music Award" for their recording of Cipriano de Rore and Josquin des Pres. This recording was also voted by listeners of Classic FM to be the year's "People's Choice" in a joint Classic FMGramophone competition.
Tonight's performance marks The Tallis Scholars' third appearance under UMS auspices. The Tallis Scholars made their UMS debut in April 1996.
General Management
Hazard Chase, Ltd. Cambridge, UK www.hazarchase.co.uk
North American Tour Management
Aaron Concert Artists, Inc., New York, NY www.aaronconcert.com
UMS Choral Union
Thomas Sheets, Conductor Andrew Kuster, Associate Conductor Ronald Bemrich, Assistant Conductor Jean Schneider-Claytor, Accompanist Kathleen Operhall, Chorus Manager Donald Bryant, Conductor Emeritus
Choir III
Marie Ankenbruck Davis Lisa Michiko Murray Fr. Timothy J. Dombrowski Michael Pratt John Pegouske
Choir IV
Christine Kapusky Hilary Haftel Steven Fudge Donald Billings William Baxter
Choir V
Debra Joy Brabanec Beth McNally A. T. Miller Thomas Dent Philip J.Gorman
Choir VI Judith Premin Ruth A. Theobald G. Thomas Sheffer William Premin Charles T. Hudson
Choir VII
Elizabeth Starr Lynn Powell Ronald Bemrich Michael Garrahan Mark Lindley
Choir VIII
Mary Wigton Kathleen Operhall John W. Etsweiler III Rodney Smith John Middlebrooks
UMS
and
Beverley and Gerson Geltner
present
Da Camera of Houston
Epigraph for a Condemned Book
Conceived and Directed by Sarah Rothenberg
Texts by Charles Baudelaire Lighting Designed by Jennifer Tipton Video Designed by Christopher Kondek
Sarah Rothenberg, Piano
Program
Wednesday Evening, March 20, 2002 at 8:00 Power Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Music of Frederic Chopin
Prelude in e minor, Op. 28, No. 4 Scherzo No. 1 in b minor, Op. 20 Prelude in a minor. Op. 28, No. 2 Prelude in G Major, Op. 28, No. 3 Nocturne in c-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1 Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2 Berceuse, Op. 57 Ballade No. 4 in f minor, Op. 52
Voices of Olivier Brossard, Eva La Gallienne, Louis Jourdan, Jason Lindner, and Sarah Rothenberg.
Fifty-second 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 pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is presented with the generous support of Beverley and Gerson Geltner.
Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This performance is co-produced by UMS and the University of Michigan. Additional support provided by media sponsor Michigan Radio.
The Steinway piano used in this evening's performance is made possible by Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia, Michigan.
Special thanks to the U-M Institute for the Humanities; U-M College of Literature Science and the Arts, Department of Romance Languages and Literature; and the U-M School of Music, Musicology Department for their involvement in this residency.
The DCFIIS Pro Disklavier Concert Grand is provided by Yamaha. Special thanks to Wet Electrics for the use of Production Designer software.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Epigraph for a Condemned Book
by Sarah Rothenberg
The condemned book in question is Charles Baudelaire's poetic masterpiece, Lesfleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil). Baudelaire worked on the poems in this collection over a period of many years; it is the only book of poetry he published. Its first publication, in 1857, led to an obscenity trial, and Baudelaire was compelled to remove several poems. The later edition, issued in 1861, also included new work, and the title of this performance work, Epigraph for a Condemned Book, is taken from a poem in the later edition.
Baudelaire is the first poet of city life. His inspiration came less from the beauty of nature than from the pulsating urban world in which he lived. A city is a place where one can wander in anonymity, where chance encounters with strangers carry no conse?quence, where the hidden sides of humanity find release on darkened streets. Baudelaire called his city wanderer le flaneur.
The crowd is his domain, just as the air is the bird's, and water that of the fish. His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd. For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere...the lover of life moves into the crowd as though into an enormous reservoir of electricity....
The city of Baudelaire's flaneur is mid-nineteenth-century Paris, a Paris of winding streets in which one loses oneself with ease; a Paris on the verge of being organized into the grand public boulevards of Baron Haussmann. It is a city, as are all modern cities, of transition: gas lamps shift to elec?tricity, factory workers crowd the streets at day's end, construction of new monuments
and avenues disrupts the life of the quartier. The peculiar state of the flaneur, of the modern wanderer, is solitude. The crowd around him serves to define his aloneness; it allows for human contact that inspires but never interrupts the solo reverie. In the paradox that is poetic ecstasy, rapture and loneliness are one.
The Paris of Epigraph for a Condemned Book has several wanderers. The painter Eugene Delacroix, whose bold colors and visceral intensity embodied the raw emotion that Baudelaire called "modern." The pho?tographers Charles Marville and Charles Negre, who captured with new technology a Paris in a state of change; and also Nadar and Vallou de Villeneuve, who set up studios to create portraits of their contempo?raries--artists, writers and actresses, as well as the anonymous women models often met in nearby cafes. On the same streets of Paris, one finds the elegant and fragile Polish emi?gre composer, Frederic Chopin.
There is no composer who more perfect?ly expresses the exquisite melancholy that one also finds in the poetry of Baudelaire. Baudelaire called him "the musician poet" of "delicate and passionate music, which evokes a brightly coloured bird, hovering over the horrors of a bottomless pit." Chopin's soliloquies for piano are master?pieces of originality. Invented free forms, ("Preludes to what" Andre Gide once asked of the twenty-four strange, short piano works), surprising harmonies, soulful melodies that make the piano sing--these are works of such intimacy that many have observed they are meant to be "overheard" rather than heard. The sensitive composer-pianist himself withdrew early in his life from a career of public performance.
And yet, Chopin has become such a mainstay of the concert stage that we begin to lose sight of his strangeness, no longer react to the "bizarreness" which Baudelaire found so integral to our experience of beauty.
What becomes wholly familiar and without surprise can no longer touch us with true power. A meaningful encounter of any kind must contain an element of surprise, of sus?pense, of discovery.
And so, Epigraph for a Condemned Book becomes for me a personal search, an attempt to find again the magic that Chopin held for me as an eleven-year-old, alone at the piano. That original astonishment that encoded marks on a page could translate into sounds of such intimate expression, could find something deep within myself that I did not even know existed: this is what leads to a life spent in music.
The question of "private vs. public" is a deep one, and it runs throughout this piece. Taking one's innermost secrets and revealing them to the world: this journey from private to public is the struggle of making art. The music of Chopin, the texts of Baudelaire,
the images of Delacroix: these are works that speak directly and personally, made by artists who bare with strength their own vulnerability. And how do we perceive them What is the role of the audience, the public to whom such private confessions are made
We look, we listen. These two solitary activities are two of the most important; other than touch, they are how we experience life. Looking and listening, reading and thinking; private activities become public as we sit together in the theatre. Yet how we do them remains different to each of us: "In music, as in painting, and even in the writ?ten word...there is always a gap (a lacuna), bridged by the imagination of the hearer," writes Baudelaire. Dreaming, understand?ing. Only our imagination can hold the answers.
Correspondances
from Charles Baudelaire
La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L'homme y passe a travers des forets
de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs echos qui de loin
se confondent
Dans une tenebreuse et profonde unite, Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarte, Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons
se repondent...
Nature is a temple whose living colonnades Breathe forth a mystic speech in fitful sighs; Man wanders among symbols
in those glades Where all things watch him with familiar eyes.
Like dwindling echoes gathered
far away
Into a deep and thronging unison Huge as the night or as the light of day, All scents and sounds and colors meet
as one...
Translation by Richard Wilbur.
Sarah Rothenberg, pianist and artistic director of Da Camera of Houston, has one of the most distinguished and creative careers of her generation. Noted for her "power and introspection" {The New York Times) and "heart, intellect and fabulous technical resource" {Fanfare), she has received international acclaim as solo recitalist and chamber musician, and for the innovative programs that she conceives and directs. A frequent performer on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series in New York, other highlights of recent seasons include perfor?mances at London's Barbican Centre, The Aldeburgh Festival (England), Teatro Municipale (Santiago, Chile), Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum and frequent appearances in Amsterdam and Maastricht. Ms. Rothenberg recently received the Medal of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government.
Since becoming Artistic Director of Da Camera of Houston in 1994, Ms. Rothenberg has created numerous original performance works, including the celebrated Music and the Literary Imagination series linking music to the works of Proust, Kafka, Mann, Akhmatova and others. Following their pre?mieres at the Wortham Center, these pro?grams have been presented in New York's Lincoln Center, as well as in England, Holland, Mexico and on performance series across the US. Ms. Rothenberg also conceived and performed in the Da Camera production Moondrunk, a chamber musicdance theatre piece featuring Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire that inaugurated Lincoln Center's New Vision series in January 1999 and was hailed by American Theatre magazine as "the birth of a new genre."
A champion of both contemporary music and forgotten works from the past, Ms. Rothenberg performed the American premiere of Fanny Mendelssohn's virtuosic
piano-cycle Das Jahr in 1991. Her recording of Das Jahr for Arabesque Records received the 1996 "Best Solo Classical Recording" award from the Association of Independent Recording Companies. She previously received international attention for Rediscovering the Russian Avant-Garde 1912-1925: Lourie, Roslavetz and Mosolov (GM Recordings). She has also recorded for the BBC, CRI, Bridge, and Deustche Grammophon labels. The 200102 season brings the release of two new solo CDs on Arabesque: Shadows and Fragments (Brahms and Schoenberg 1892-1911), and Time and Memory (Bach, Schat, Ustvolskaya, Brahms, Maw, Chopin).
In the 200102 season, Ms. Rothenberg makes her solo debuts at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and Brussel's Palais des Beaux-Arts, and performs her solo recital program Shadows and Fragments, Time and Memory at the 92nd Street "Y" in New York.
Prior to coming to Da Camera, Ms. Rothenberg co-founded the Bard Music Festival in 1990, and served as co-artistic director for the festival's first five seasons. She was member pianist of the Da Capo Chamber Players from 1985-1994, and has premiered over seventy-five new works. As chamber musician she has collaborated with members of the American, Brentano, Emerson, Schoenberg, St. Lawrence and Juilliard string quartets. In addition to her performing activities, Ms. Rothenberg appears frequently
as a public speaker on musical, literary and cultural issues. Her writings have appeared in The Musical Quarterly, Chamber Music, The Crisis of Criticism (New Press), World Policy Journal, Nexus (The Netherlands), and most recently in the Spring 2001 issue of Conjunctions. She studied at The Curtis Institute of Music with Seymour Lipkin and Mieczeslaw Horszowski, and in Paris with Yvonne Loriod.
Tonight's performance marks Sarah Rothenberg's third appearance under UMS auspices. She last appeared under UMS auspices earlier this season as Artistic Director and pianist in Da Camera of Houston's produc?tion of Marcel Proust's Paris.
Christopher Kondek has been creat?ing video for performance for over ten years. In 1989 he became an associate member of the New York multimedia theater company, The Wooster Group, where he created video for the group's theater works Brace Up, Fish Story, The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape. Also with The Wooster Group, he recently finished a new video work based on The Emperor Jones, which opened the 1999 Lincoln Center Video Festival. With the Builders Association he was responsible for creating video for FaustJump Cut (1997) and Jet Lag (1998). In 1995, he co-created visuals with performance artist Laurie Anderson for her multimedia concert The Nerve Bible. He has recently worked with Ms. Anderson again, co-creating video and slides for Laurie Anderson's Songs and Stories from Moby Dick. He has made video for Robert Wilson, designing video for his theater piece, The Days Before, Death, Destruction, and Detroit 3, and for a multi?media piano recital created by Wilson with pianist Tzimon Barto entitled Hot Water. Mr. Kondek has also collaborated with com?poser Michael Nyman on a multimedia
work for the Michael Nyman band called The Commissar Vanishes. In addition to the stage, Mr. Kondek's work has been seen in both the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago.
Jennifer Tipton is well known for her work in theater, dance and opera. Her work in opera includes Welsh National Opera's The Queen of Spades, the Dutch National Opera's Peter Grimes and the English National Opera's War and Peace. Her recent work in dance includes Peter Taylor's Antique Valentine, Twyla Tharp's The Beethoven Seventh for the New York City Ballet and Trisha Brown's El Trilogy. In theater her recent work includes a musical version of James Joyce's The Dead at the Huntington Theater in Boston, A Servant of Two Masters in Seattle, Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner in New York and To You, the Birdie for The Wooster Group. Her first collaboration with Sarah Rothenberg was Moondrunk. Ms. Tipton teaches lighting at the Yale School of Drama and is this year's recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.
Epigraph for a Condemned Book is a Da Camera of Houston Production co-commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven; University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Champaign-Urbana.
Translations: Vie Clock, Richard Howard; Epigraph for a Condemned Book, Sarah Rothenberg; To the Reader, Robert Lowell; Elevation, Richard Howard; Twilight: Evening, Richard Howard; Meditation, Sarah Rothenberg; The Fountain, Richard Howard; Spleen, Anthony Hecht; Confession, Richard Howard; Reversibility, F. P. Sturm; Prose translations by Sarah Rothenberg.
A Da Camera of Houston Production
Mary Lou Aleskie, Executive Director Sarah Rothenberg, Artistic Director