2008-02-18 Symphony [recital program]

              School of Music
U N C G
University Symphony
Robert Gutter, music director
Donald Hartmann, bass-baritone
Andrés Milá-Prats, guest conductor
Monday, February 18, 2008
7:30 pm
Cone Ballroom, Elliot University Center
Program
Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 80 Gabriel Fauré
Prelude - Quasi Adagio (1845-1924
Andantino quasi Allegretto
Sicilienne - Allegretto molto moderato
Molto Adagio
Mr. Milá-Prats, conductor
Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn Gustav Mahler
Revelge (1860-1911)
Der Tamboug’sell
Lob des hohen Verstandes
Dr. Hartmann, bass-baritone
Intermission
Concerto for Orchestra Béla Bartók
Introduzione - Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace (1881-1945)
Giuoco delle Coppie - Allegreto scherzando
Elegia - Andante non troppo
Finale - Presto
– ❖ –
Program Notes
Gabriel Fauré (b. Pamiers Ariège, France May 12, 1845; d. Paris, France November 4, 1924)
Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80—1898
In the spring of 1898, Gabriel Fauré was commissioned to write incidental music for an English-language
production of Maurice Maeterlink’s Symbolist play, Pelléas et Mélisand, to be mounted
later that summer in London. Fauré was perpetually over-committed with professional duties.
With only six weeks before opening night of the play to write and orchestrate the music, he
enlisted one of his pupils at the Paris Conservatory, Charles Koechlin, to assist with the
orchestration. Fauré made so much use of his student’s labors, in fact, that many consider the
end result to be a collaboration between the two composers. It was Fauré, however, who
conducted the theatre orchestra for the premiere on June 21, 1898, at the Prince of Wales’
Theater in Piccadilly.
Later that year Fauré decided to reorganize the play’s 19 pieces of incidental music into an
orchestral suite. The original suite as performed in 1901 had only three sections: Prélude.
Fileuse, and La mort de Mélisande. In 1909 Fauré made further revisions, inserting a Sicilienne
as a new third movement. Sicilienne is now the most famous music from the suite --a graceful,
lilting dance form with an inspired melody, often compared with Fauré’s beloved Pavane dating
from 1887.
The Prélude sets the stage for the suite, creating a moody atmosphere as Mélisande wanders
through the shadowy forest at the beginning of the play. A soaring, lushly-scored string melody
dominates this opening movement. Fileuse is a spinning song that originates from the music
Fauré wrote for the introduction to Act III. It depicts Mélisande at her spinning wheel in her tower,
happy in the presence of Pélleas. This movement is a lovely, singing solo oboe melody played
over delicate flowing triplets in the rest of the orchestra.
Sicilienne draws on the music performed just before Act II of the play. Originally a piece for cello
and piano, this orchestrated setting morphs it into a lovely, sunny duet for flute and harp. The
Death of Mélisande is somber music that preceded the play’s final act. The melody is from a
song sung by Mélisande, but here in the orchestrated version it is given to the low winds and
trumpet, becoming ominously funereal in tone. The piece ends poignantly, with a return to a lush
string sound denoting goodness and light. Debussy’s operatic version of this drama, written in
1902, may be better known than Fauré’s musical treatment; but this suite is an orchestral gem.
Gustav Mahler set a total of fourteen large-scale songs with orchestral accompaniment to texts
from the folk collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Two of these, Urlicht and Das himmlische
Leben, found their final forms as movements of the Second and Fourth Symphonies, respectively.
An additional, fifteenth Wunderhorn setting for solo alto and women's chorus, Es sungen drei
Engel became the fifth movement of the Third Symphony. The remaining twelve songs are
usually grouped together under the banner of Wunderhorn-Lieder, yet they do not form a unified
song cycle. They are, however, highly effective when performed together. In general, the songs
can be divided into two types: songs of a military nature and those of a pastoral, romantic, or
quasi-religious nature. Tonight's excerpts come from the military and pastoral category. Ten of
the songs were composed between 1888 and 1893, preceding the first symphonies. The final two
settings were written in 1899 and 1901 in close proximity to the fifth and sixth symphonies and
the songs to texts by Rückert. The subject matter of both of these songs involves a doomed
drummer boy. They are more extended than the earlier songs. The Second, Third, and Fourth
Symphonies are often called the Wunderhorn symphonies because of their use of some of these
songs as movements. There are also purely orchestral symphonic movements in the Second,
Fifth, and even the Tenth Symphonies that are clearly related to certain Wunderhorn songs.
'Revelge' is perhaps the most bitter anti-war song ever written. To a heartless quick march the
defeated regiment parades through the village as a mass of spectral skeletons. Eerie swagger
(including a gruesomely frivolous 'trallali' refrain) alternates with heartbreaking pathos as the
phantasmal drummer boy bids farewell to his sweetheart. The last in Mahler's gallery of ill-fated
soldiers and drummer boys, 'Der Tamboursg'sell' is a funeral march (prophetic of the opening
march of the Fifth Symphony, on which Mahler was working at the time) that unflinchingly
portrays the pathos, horror and would-be stoicism of a boy about to be shot for desertion. Here,
as in each of the Wunderhorn songs, Mahler conjures a unique and evocative orchestral sonority:
woodwind, brass and military percussion dominate, to the virtual exclusion of the strings, with a
pair of cors anglais lending a haunting, mournful colouring to the final verses. In the raucously
jaunty 'Lob des hohen Verstandes' the composer takes a swipe at his hostile critics, in the shape
of a donkey (gleefully portrayed by bassoon and clarinets) who finds a cuckoo's singing more
alluring than a nightingale's
Revelge
Des Morgen zwichen drein und vieren,
Da müssen vir Soldaten marschieren
Das Gässlein auf und ab;
Tralali, Tralalei, Tralala,
Mein Schätzel sieht herab.
“Ach, Bruder, jetzt bin ich geschossen,
Die Kugel hat mich schwer getroffen,
Trag mich in mein Quartier,
Tralali, Tralatei, Tralala,
Es ist nicht weit fon hier.”
“Ach, Bruder, ich kann dich nicht tragen
Die Feinde haben uns geschlagen,
Helf dir der liebe Gott:
Tralali, Tralalei, Tralala,
Ich muss marschieren bis in Tod.”
“Ach, Brüder! Ihr geht ja mir vorüber,
Als wär’s mit mir vorbei!
Tralali, Tralalei, Trala,
Iht tretet mir zu nah.
Ich muss wohl mein Trommel rühren,
Sonst werde ich mich verlieren;
Die Brüder dick gesät,
Tralali, Tralalralala,
Sie liegen wie gemäht.”
Er schlägt die Trommel auf und neider,
Er wicket seine stillen Brüder,
Sie schlagen ihren Feind,
Tralali, Tralalei, Tralala,
Ein Schrecken schlägt den Feind.
Er schlägt die Trommel auf und neider,
Da sind sie vor dem Nachtquartier schon
wieder,
Ins Gässlein hell hinsaus,
Tralali, Tralalei, Tralala,
Sie ziehn vor Schätzleins Haus.
Des Morgens stehen da die Gebeine
In Reih und Glied wie Leichensteine,
Reveille
Between three and four in the morning,
We soldiers have to march
Up the street and down
Tralai, tralalay, tralala,
My darling gazes down.
“Ah, brother, now I’m shot,
The buckshot has wounded my sorely,
To my quarters carry me,
Tralali, tralaly, tralala,
It is not far from here.”
“Ah, brother, I cannot carry you,
We are routed by the foe,
My the good God help you;
Tralali, tralaly, tralala,
To my death I must march.”
“Ah, brothers, you march by me,
As if I were already finished,
Tralali, tralaly, tralala,
You come too close to me.
I must sound my drum,
Lest I quite give way,
My brothers, thickly sown,
Tralali, tralaly, tralal,
Lie as if mown.”
Up and down he sounds his drum
Rousing his silent brothers,
They rout their foe,
Tralali, tralaly, tralala,
The foe are stuck with horror.
Up and down he sounds his drum,
They’re by their night quarters again,
It’s out into the bright street,
Tralai, tralaly, tralala,
They march by his darling’s house.
There, at morning, stand their bones,
In rank and file like tombstones
Die Trommel steht voran,
Tralali, Tralalei, Tralala,
Dass sie ihn sehen kann.
Der Tamboursg’sell
Ich armer Tamboursg’sell,
Man fürht mich aus dem Gowölb.
Wär ich ei Tambour bleiden,
Dürft ich nicht gefangen liegen.
O Galgen, du hohes Haus,
Du siehst so furchtbar aus.
Ich schau dich nicht mehr an,
Weil i weiss, i gehör daran.
Wenn Soldaten vorbeimarschieren,
Bei mir nit einquartieren.
Wann sie fragen, wer i g’wesen bin:
“Tambour von der Leibkompanie.”
Gute Nacht, ihr Marmelstein,
Ihr Berg und Hügelein.
Gute Nacht, ihr Offizier,
Korporal un Musketier.
Gute Nacht, ihr Offizier,
Korporal und Grenadier,
Ich schrei mit heller Stimm,
Von euch ich Urlaub nimm.
Lob des hohen Verstands
Einstmals in einem tiefen Tal
Kuckuck und Nachtigall
Täten ein Wett anschlagen:
Zu singen um das Meisterstück,
Gewinn’ es Kunst, gewinn’ es Glück.
Dank soll er davon tragen.
Der Kuckuck sprach, “So dir’s gefällt,
Hab ich den Richter wählt”, und tät
Gleich den Esel ernennen.
“Denn weil er hat zwei Ohren gross,
So kann er hören desto bos
Und, was recht ist, kennen!”
Sie flogen vor den Richter bald.
Wie dem die Sache ward erzählt,
Schuf er, sie sollten singen.
Die Nachtigall sang lieblich aus!
Der Esel sprach: “Du machst mir’s Kraus!
Ija! Ija! Ich kann’s in kopf nicht bringen!”
Der Kuckuck fing an geschwind
Sein Sang durch Terz und Quart und Quint.
Dem Esel g’fiels, er sprach nur: “Wart!
Drum at the head,
Tralai, tralaly, tralala,
For her to see.
The Drummer-boy
Poor drummer that I am,
Being led from the vault.
Had I stayed a drummer,
A prisoner I’d not be.
O gallows, tall house,
So fearful you look,
On you I’ll gaze no more,
For I know that’s where I go.
When soldiers marching by
Aren’t quartered with me,
They asked who I was:
“Drummer, No. 1 Company.”
Good night, marble stone,
You mountain and hills.
Good night, officers,
Corporals and musketeers.
Good night, you officers,
Corporals and grenadiers.
Loud and clear I cry,
From you I take my leave.
In Praise of a Lofty Intellect
Once, in a deep valley
Cuckoo and nightingale
Struck a wager:
They should compete for the finest song,
Whether art or luck would win.
Thanks should be the reward.
The cuckoo said, “If you agree,
I have chosen the judge,” and at once
Named the ass.
“For, since he has two large ears,
He can hear all the better
And recognize what is right!”
They soon flew before the judge.
When the matter was explained to him
He proposed that they should sing.
The nightingale sang out sweetly!
The ass said, “You make me angry!
Heehaw, heehaw, I can’t get it into my head!”
The cuckoo swiftly began
His song of thirds and fourths and fifths.
It pleased the ass, he just said, “Wait!
Dein Urteil will ich sprechen, ja sprechen.
Wohl sungen hast du, Nachtigall!
Aber Kuckuck, singst gut Choral
Und hällst den Takt fein innen!
Das sprech’ ich nach mein’ hoh’ Verstand!
Und kost’es gleich ein ganzes Land, so
Lass ich’s dich gewinnen!”
I will pronounce your judgment.
You sang well, nightingale!
But cuckoo, you sing a fine chorale
And keep time beautifully!
Thus I pronounce from the height of my
wisdom!
And though it should cost a kingdom,
I make you the winner!”
Béla Bartók was born in the Hungarian market town of Nagyszentmiklós on March 25, 1881; he
died in New York on September 26, 1945. His Concerto for Orchestra was first heard on
December 1, 1944, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed it under the direction of
Serge Koussevitzky. The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s last performance of this work was in
March 1999.
Bartók scored this work for three flutes and piccolo, three oboes and English horn, three clarinets
and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three
trombones, tuba, timpani and other percussion, two harps and strings. Approximate performance
time: 36 minutes.
Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is his most popular orchestral composition and one of the most
familiar of all his works. Ironically, it was written at a time when its author had, in despair, all but
abandoned his creative endeavors.
Forced to leave his native Hungary by the rising fascist tide, Bartók had arrived with his wife in
America in 1940, and his fortunes, spirit and health soon declined alarmingly. In his own country,
and throughout Europe generally, he had achieved considerable recognition as a composer,
pianist and authority on Balkan and North African folk music. But in New York, where he settled,
he was just one of many refugees. Moreover, the late 1930s and early 1940s were proving a
more conservative period for music than the previous two decades had been, and the sometimes
acerbic modernism of Bartók’s style was falling increasingly out of favor with many performers
and listeners. How much so can be gathered from this bitter complaint that Bartók wrote at the
end of 1942: “My career as a composer is as much as finished; the quasi‑boycott of my works by
the leading orchestras continues; no performances of either old works or new ones. It is a shame
— not for me, of course.” Faced with this situation, Bartók composed no new music during his
first three years in this country.
Unfortunately, the curtailment of his activities as a composer was not the only difficulty
confronting Bartók at this time. Able to secure only part‑time work researching Rumanian folk
music at Columbia University, but refusing any form of charity, the composer lived in precarious
financial circumstances. Then, in the spring of 1943, he was hospitalized with the first signs of
polycythaemia.
It was at this low point in Bartók’s life that something like a miracle happened. In May 1943, the
composer received a visit in his hospital room from Serge Koussevitzky, the renowned conductor
of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who brought with him a formal request for a new orchestral
work. Actually, this commission had been arranged by two of Bartók’s supporters, the conductor
Fritz Reiner and violinist Joseph Szigeti, but knowledge of their intervention had to be kept from
the composer, since his pride would have prevented him from accepting an offer he suspected of
being tainted by charity.
So the identity of Bartók’s benefactors was kept a secret, and the commission proved a
formidable tonic. Bartók worked on it throughout the summer of 1943, finding that the return to
composition dramatically restored his spirits and health. “Through working on this [piece],” he told
a friend, “I have discovered the wonder drug I needed to bring about my own cure.” By autumn
his Concerto for Orchestra was complete, and on December 1, 1944, Koussevitzky led the
premiere.
In a note for the Boston premiere, Bartók wrote of this composition:
The title of this symphony‑like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat the single
orchestral instruments in a concertante or soloistic manner. The “virtuoso” treatment appears, for
instance, in the fugato sections of the development of the first movement (brass instruments) or
the perpetuum mobile‑like passage of the principal theme in the last movement (strings), and
especially in the second movement, in which pairs of instruments consecutively appear with
brilliant passages.
The composer might also have mentioned certain thematic cross-references that bind together its
five movements. In particular, melodic figures based on successive intervals of a fourth recur
throughout the piece. Also, a theme introduced early in the opening movement makes a
conspicuous reappearance in the central slow movement.
The piece opens with a somber declamation by the low strings; they are answered by
atmospheric tremolo and scale figures in the violins and flutes and, presently, by an ominous
motive from the trumpets. This last figure is taken up by most of the orchestra, the music
accelerating to an impressive climax. All this serves as an introduction to the main body of the
first movement, which launches forth on an energetic melody presented by the violins. Two other
ideas are prominent during the course of the movement: a vigorous subject heard in the
trombones and a gently rocking theme introduced by the oboe.
Bartók titled the second movement “Game of Couples,” a reference to the succession of duet
passages that forms the bulk of this portion of the work. We hear in turn pairs of bassoons,
oboes, clarinets, flutes and trumpets. A chorale melody for the brass forms the movement’s
central episode, after which Bartók reprises the duets that went before.
The third movement is a haunting elegy, stark and funereal. Ghostly swirls of melody and a
sinuous line for the oboe bring Bartókian “night music,” eerie, delicate and atmospheric. Later the
violins give out an impassioned cry based on the second theme from the introductory paragraph
of the first movement. Following a powerful development of this material, Bartók returns to the
“night music” sounds. The movement’s concluding measures bring a surprise: traditional
harmonies such as Wagner or Mendelssohn might have written. They seem to bring a measure of
solace, but Bartók complicates the complexion of the passage with further references to the “night
music” heard earlier.
Bartók also gave a title to the fourth movement, calling it an “interrupted intermezzo.” It begins
with a folk‑like melody given to the oboe and proceeds to a broad, pastoral subject in the
strings. Into this placid music, however, comes the clarinet with a melody rather similar to the
march theme in Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, a work Bartók had heard during its famous
radio broadcast in 1942. Soon the entire orchestra has taken up this tune, enjoying a humorous
romp before the more sedate initial material reasserts itself.
The finale opens with a bold horn call. There follows music whose flavor is distinctly Hungarian —
more specifically, it evokes the frenetic energy of certain Hungarian village dances. Several other
ideas follow, most notably a theme of rustic character that Bartók develops in imitative
counterpoint, creating an elaborate fugue. A subsequent interlude recalls the tone of the “night
music” in the third movement: against eerie rustling in the strings, the winds recall thematic ideas
heard earlier, beginning with the opening horn call and culminating in a reprise of the rustic fugue
theme, now played in slow motion and rich harmonizes. A coda of great energy brings the
composition to a close.
Performers
Robert Gutter is currently Director of Orchestral Activities at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro and also serves as Music
Director of the Philharmonia of Greensboro. In 1996 he received an
appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony
Orchestra of the Ukraine in Kiev. He is founder and artistic director
for the International Institute for Conductors, which has had
workshops in Kiev, Catania, and most recently in Bacau, Romania. In
his 35 years as a professional conductor he has devoted himself to
both professional and non-professional orchestras in over twenty-five
countries and in the major cities of New York, Washington D.C.,
Paris, London, Vienna, Milano, Firenze, Stuttgart, and St. Petersburg.
In addition to his symphonic engagements, he has appeared with
opera companies both in the United States and in Europe. Prior to
accepting his orchestral posts in North Carolina in 1988, he served as Music Director and
Conductor of the Springfield, Massachusetts Symphony. In 1986 he was named "Conductor
Emeritus" of that orchestra. As an instrumentalist, Gutter served as principal trombonist with the
Washington National Symphony. He holds the bachelor and Master degrees from Yale University.
Donald Hartmann has been described as possessing a, "big,
rich voice with an amazing timbre." He is a commanding leading
man and one of the best character singers on any opera stage
anywhere. Recent engagements have included Swallow in Peter
Grimes with Opéra de Montreal, and returns to Madison Opera as
Commendatore in Don Giovanni , Michigan Opera Theater as
Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro , Colline in La Boheme for Opera
Lenawee, Bonze in Madame Butterfly with Toledo Opera,
Benoit/Alcindoro in La Boheme with Madison Opera, Pooh-Bah in
The Mikado with Nashville Opera, Raimondo in Lucia di
Lammermoor with Toledo Opera, Pirate King in The Pirates of
Penzance with Chattanooga Opera, and
Luther/Crespel/Schlemeil in The Tales of Hoffmann with Michigan
Opera Theater. Upcoming engagements for the 2005-2006 season include returns to Toledo
Opera as Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro, Madison Opera as Sacristan in Tosca, and Michigan
Opera Theatre as Soldier in Salome. European engagements have included Simon Boccanegra,
Cosi Fan Tutte, Oklahoma, Xerxes, Die Czardasfurstin, Wienner Blut, Im Weissen Rossl, Die
Verkaufte Braut , and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagony at the Stadttheater Regensburg. At
the Vereinigte Städtisches Bühnen Krefeld/Mönchengladbach he has performed in productions of:
Der Meistersinger, Carmen, Cosi Fan Tutte, Die Czardasfurstin, Frau Luna, Don Carlo, Mignon,
Don Giovanni, Entführung aus dem Serail, Die Lustige Witwe , and Orpheus in der Unterwelt . He
also performed comprimario roles as: Zweiter Gefangener in Fidelio , Der Notar in Gianni
Schicchi , and others. Dr. Hartmann completed his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano
Performance and his Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro . He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance,
graduating with honors at the University of Oklahoma . As a member of the faculty at University of
Science and Arts of Oklahoma he was nominated, and received, the prestigious Regents Award
for Superior Teaching. Dr. Hartmann taught for 16 years in the Department of Music at Eastern
Michigan University where he twice received the Faculty Artistic Recognition Award. Having
participated in several vocal competitions, Donald Hartmann has been a second place finalist in
the San Antonio Opera Guild Talent Search and a winner of the Friedrich Schorr Memorial Prize
in Vocal Performance under the auspices of Opera Lenawee. Appearing in five productions with
Opera Lenawee, Donald was recognized as the First Honored
Artist of that organization.
Andrés Milá-Prats was born in Buenos Aires in 1976. He
received his degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Catholic
University of Argentina where he studied Orchestral Conducting
with Guillermo Scarabino, Choral Conducting with Néstor Andrennacci and Guillermo Opitz, and
Composition with Marta Lambertini and Julio Viera. He also participated in Master classes with
Charles Dutoit, Luis Gorelik and Sergio Feferovich, and has conducted several Orchestras and
Ensembles in Argentina and Chile. He received a National Fellowship in Argentina for further
studies in Conducting with Bruno D’Astoli and Musical Analysis with Federico Wiman. In addition,
Andrés has carried out several projects that included premieres of New Music from young
composers. He is now pursuing a Master’s degree in Music Performance at UNCG where he
studies with Robert Gutter.
UNCG Symphony Orchestra
Violin 1
Michael Cummings (Concert master)
Chris Thurstone
Casey Ogle
Song Haein
Lisa Gattuso
Chris Bridgman
Caleb Lackey
Violin 2
Megan Morris (Principal)
Elizabeth Cansler
Annalisa Chang
Kim Jennings
Derrick Foskey
Aileen Stacks
Veronica Allen
Kyrsten Wicker
Viola
Nina Missildine (Principal)
Nicole Peragine
Laura Andersen
Laurie Rominger
Corrie Franklin
Noelle Saleh
Elizabeth Green
Elizabeth Adamik
Patrick Parker
Violoncello
Michael Way (Principal)
Kevin Lowery
Eric Perreault
Megan Johnson
Domenic Sabrol
Jonathan Frederick
John Gemperdine
Sarah Dorsey
Contrabass
Kit Polen (Principal)
Stella Heine
Stephen Jackson
Sanders Davis
Robert Dixon
Alex Young
Stewart McLemore
Harp
Bonnie Bach
Flute
James Miller ◊
Laura D. Stevens ◊
Piccolo
La-Tika Douthit ◊
Oboe
Stephanie Condelli ◊
Jim Davis
English Horn
Michael Dwinell ◊
B-flat Clarinet
Kelly Austermann ◊
Joseph Tomasso
Bass Clarinet
Jay Welborn ◊
Bassoon
Leah Plimpton ◊
Amanda Harman
Contrabassoon
Chris Akins ◊
Horn
Philip Kassel ◊
Nick Lee ◊
Alex Allred
Drew Phillips
Trumpet
Michelle Brown (Principal)
Clay Perry
James Dickens
Trombone
Paul Palm (Principal)
Scott Smith
Bobby McFarland
Bass Trombone
Lawrence Evans
Tuba
Michael Robinson
Percussion
Anthony Grier (Principal)
Joseph Cox
Krish Fowler
Priscilla James
Librarian and Personnel Manager
Andrés Milá-Prats
◊ Co-principal