UNCG Symphony Orchestra
Robert Gutter, conductor
Jaemi Loeb, assistant conductor
Violin I
LaTannia Ellerbe,
concertmaster
Frédéric St-Pierre,
assistant concertmaster
William Selle
Michael Cummings
Jared Matthews
Matthew Troy
Andrew Liggitt
Shelley Blalock
Violin II
Laura Doyle
principal
Elisabeth Malcolm
Holley Ross
Holly Sitton
Amy Johnson
Justin Ivey
Ashley Brown
Greg Peterson
Viola
Eric Koontz,
principal
Noah Hock,
assistant principal
Susannah Plaster
Joseph Driggars
Frances Schaeffer
John Ward
Patrick Scully
Caitlin Leming
Christina Fuchs
Amber Autry
Violoncello
Meaghan Skogen
principal
Brian Carter
assistant principal
Deborah Shields
Joel Wenger
Michael Way
John Benson
Paul Stern
Rebecca Wade
Austin Cline
Double Bass
Rebecca Marland,
principal
Paul Quast,
assistant principal
Patrick Byrd
Di Wang
Andrew Hawks
Stephen Jackson
Michael DiTrolio
Brent Rawls
Flute
Allison Flores
Heather Meredith
Christina DiGioia
Laura Pritchett
Oboe
Thomas Pappas
Chet Moon
Elizabeth Staff
Amanda Woolman
Clarinet
Soo Goh
Shawn Copeland
Sarah Lloyd
Kevin Erixson
Bassoon
Rebecca Hammontree
Carol Lowe
John Baxter
Justin Thompson
Contrabassoon
John Baxter
Horn
Tara Cates
Kelly Dunn
Julie Price
Philip Kassel
Trumpet
Scott Toth, co-principal
Mark Hibshman, co-principal
Jeff Kindschuh
Michael Sailors
Trombone
Frank Beaty
Mark Shoun
Richard Tyndall
Tuba
Matt Higgins
Harp
Bonnie Bach
Percussion
Robert Rocha, principal
Braxton Sherouse
Matt Watlington
Sara Mecum
Librarians
Jaemi Loeb
Joel Wenger
University Symphony Orchestra
Robert Gutter, conductor
Dominique Fanal, guest conductor
Monday, February 21, 2004
7:30 pm
Aycock Auditorium
Program
Overture to Le Roi d'Ys Edouard Lalo
(1823-1892)
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Ludwig van Beethoven
Allegro con brio (1770-1827)
Andante con moto
Allegro
Allegro
Intermission
Shéhérazade Maurice Ravel
Asie (1875-1937)
La Flûte enchantée
L'Indifferent
Carla Le Fevre, soprano
Daphnis et Chloë, Suite No. 2 Maurice Ravel
Lever du Jour
Pantomime
Danse générale
_____
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Maurice Ravel:
Daphnis et Chloë, Suite No. 2
Ravel’s breathtakingly beautiful ballet, Daphnis et Chloë, is one of only two scores that the master orchestrator wrote specifically for dance (the other being his famous Bolero). Commissioned by the well known Russian impresario, Sergei Dyagilev, Daphnis et Chloë was Ravel’s contribution to the formidable repertoire of the Ballets Russe, whose dancers premiered most of Stravinsky’s early ballets. The piece is scored for large orchestra, with optional chorus, and premiered on June 8, 1912. Like many premieres of famous works, this one was fraught with problems. Differences in concept between Ravel and the Ballets Russe design team were compounded by a short rehearsal process and difficulties between the lead dancer (Nijinsky) and the choreographer (Fokine). The result was a fairly unimpressive performance, despite the best efforts of celebrities like Pierre Monteux, who conducted the performance, and the lead dancers, Nijinsky and Karsavina. Though the ballet is rarely performed today, the score (particularly the Second Suite) has become a staple of orchestral literature.
The plot of the ballet is based on the Greek pastoral romance of the same name. The ballet opens with a scene of adolescents worshipping at an altar of Pan and his Nymphs. Daphnis, a shepherd, enters with Chloe, his beloved. They pause to honor the gods and are each swept up into religious dances; Daphnis surrounded by young women and Chloe surrounded by young men. A cowherd named Dorcon is especially ardent in his attempts to impress Chloe, and Daphnis is forced to intervene when his rival tries to kiss Chloe. The group convinces the rivals to dance for Chloe’s affections, with the winner earning a kiss. Dorcon is awkward and inept, whereas Daphnis is graceful and light. Daphnis easily wins Chloe’s kiss and remains on stage, dazed from her beauty, after the rest of the youthful dancers leave. After a visit from Lyceion, who tries to tempt Daphnis to her charms with a veiled dance, the sounds of a warlike struggle awaken the shepherd from his reverie. Daphnis runs offstage to find Chloe and keep her safe. Moments later, Chloe runs onstage, fleeing from pirates. After imploring the Nymphs for protection and putting up as much struggle as she could, Chloe is carried off. Daphnis rushes back onto the stage, only to find a sandal as a sign of struggle. Realizing that Chloe has been abducted, Daphnis falls into a stupor only to be visited by the Nymphs themselves. They revive the shepherd and invoke Pan, to whose presence Daphnis supplicates himself. Pan takes pity on the young lovers and his agents rescue Chloe from the pirates’ lair. The section of the ballet most often heard in a concert setting is the Second Suite, which begins after the rescue of Chloe. Daphnis is awakened by passing shepherd to find Chloe returned to the meadow. One of the shepherds tells the couple of Pan’s love for Syrinx, and they realize that the god has reunited them in memory of his lost love. In a gesture of thanksgiving, Daphnis and Chloe mime Pan’s tale of winning the Nymph’s love by playing a melancholy song on his flute made out nearby reeds. After Daphnis and Chloe declare their love, the ballet ends with a general dance of celebration.
— —
Dominique Fanal has conducted several orchestras in France and, since 1982, the Sinfonietta de Paris (with forty to fifty annual concerts in Paris, throughout France and abroad). Meanwhile, he has been invited to conduct many foreign orchestras, including those at St. Martin in the Fields (London), Conservatoire Royal (Brussels), Hellenic Cultural Centre (Mexico), and opera houses in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Cairo. He is regularly invited to conduct in the USA and throughout Europe, and for nearly ten years he has been invited to Latin America to conduct each season in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, and Paraguay with such varied ensembles as the Philharmonic Cali Orchestra of National Radio-TV Orchestra of Montevideo, Buenos Aires Sinfonietta, Orquesta Clásica de Santiago, National Orchestra of San Juan, Asunción National Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmònica de Monterrey. His repertoire reaches from classical and baroque oratorios to great contemporary works by such composers as Tomasi, Messiaen, Landowski, Jolivet, Pierre Wissmer, Jacques Hétu, Milhaud, Schnittke, and Górecki. He has recorded on several occasions for the Audite, Quantum, De Pein Vent, Frémeaux-associated, and Solstice labels with critical acclaim from noted magazines such as Diapaison and Répértoire. Fanal is on the faculty of the Manuel de Falla Supérior Conservatory in Buenos Aires, the Buenos Aires International Music Festival, and the Latino-American Conducting Course Academy in Asunción. He is also a member of several competition juries in France and, since 1994, a member of the jury of the International Music Competition of Vienna (Austria), an honorary member of the jury for the International Masterclasses for Piano in Berlin (Perrenoud Foundation), and since 1996, also of the jury for the International Competition in Buenos Aires. In 2003, Dominique Fanal and the Sinfonietta de Paris were nominated Artists-in-Residence at the University of Minnesota at Duluth.
je voudrais voir des roses et du sang;
je voudrais voir d’amour ou bien de haine.
Et puis m’en revenir plus tard
narrer mon aventure aux
curieux de rêves,
en élevant comme Sindbad
ma vieille tasse arabe
I would like to see roses and blood;
I would like to see deaths from love or else hate.
And then to return later
to recount my adventures to those who would know of dreams,
raising, like Sinbad,
my old Arab cup de temps de temps jusqu’à mes lèvres
pour interrompre le conte avec art…
to my lips from time to time
to interrupt the tale artfully…
La Flûte enchantée
L’ombre est douce
et mon maître dort,
coiffé d’un bonnet conique de soie
et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche.
Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor
et j’écoute au dehors
une chanson de flûte où s’épanche
tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie
un air tour à tour lagoureux ou frivole
que mon amoureux chéri joue,
et quand je m’approche de la croisée,
il me semble que chaque note s’envole
de la flûte vers ma joue
comme un mystérieux baiser.
The enchanted flute
The shadows are gentle
and my master is asleep
under his conical silk cap,
his long yellow nose in is white beard.
But I am still awake
And I am listening
To a flute playing its song outside
Pouring out sadness and joy in turn,
A tune by turn languorous or skittish,
Played by my dear love,
And when I go to the window,
It seems to me that each note flies
From the flute to my cheek
Like a mysterious kiss.
L’Indifférent
Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille,
Jeune étranger,
et la courbe fine
de ton beau visage de duvet ombragé
est plus séduisante encor de ligne.
Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte
une langue inconnue et charmante
comme une musique fausse . . .
Entre! et que mon vin te réconforte . . .
Mais non, tu passes
Et de mon seuil jet e vois t’éloigner
Me faissant un dernier geste avec grace
Et la hanche légèrment ployée
Par ta démarche féminine et lasse . . .
The indifferent one
Your eyes are gentle as a girl’s,
Young stranger,
and the delicate curve
of your beautiful face, shaded with down,
is even more seductive in its contours.
On my doorstep your lips sing
an unknown and charming language
like music out of tune . . .
Come in! and let my wine refresh you . . .
But no, you go past,
and from my doorstep I can see you moving away
making me a last, graceful gesture,
your hips lightly swaying
in your languid, feminine gait . . .
Edouard Lalo:
Overture to Le Roi d’Ys
Though it was the most popular of his works during his lifetime, Lalo’s opera Le Roi d’Ys is rarely performed today outside of France. The opera premiered at the famed Opéra-Comîque in 1888, where it was performed more than 100 times that year. The plot revolves around a traditionally operatic love triangle between a knight (Mylio) and the two daughters of the king of the fictitious, submerged town of Ys. Both daughters are in love with Mylio, though one has already been promised to a nearby King as a peace offering. Mylio marries the daughter who is not betrothed and jealousy, a plot to destroy the city as an act of vengeance, and the requisite operatic suicide ensues. Like many forgotten operas, its overture has found its way into the orchestral literature as a spectacular concert piece. It opens with a slow, pensive introduction, with a solo clarinet quoting Mylio’s aria in the first act. A regal and martial trumpet fanfare leads into the main body of the piece, marked Allegro, with the princesses’ themes. The sisters are something like polar twins, one being represented by a passionate, almost angry theme, and the other being represented by soft and gentle music. The overture concludes with an energetic statement of Mylio’s war song.
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has become perhaps the single most recognizable piece in the Western symphonic literature. The piece was premiered at concert that became a landmark in the history of Western music, on December 22, 1808 in Vienna, along with his Sixth Symphony, excerpts from his Mass in C, his Piano Concerto No. 4, and several other works. Like much of Beethoven’s work, the Fifth Symphony was revolutionary in its time, and therefore met with understandable initial resistance before being afforded the status of masterpiece that it still retains. In 1808, the traditional formal outline of a first movement of a symphony went something like this: slow introduction followed by an exposition consisting of a strong first theme and then lyrical second theme (often the exposition was repeated), leading to a development section which dealt with thematic material from both theme areas, and finally concluding with a recapitulation (almost verbatim) of the exposition and perhaps a coda. Each theme area and section has its own material, with harmonic relationships forming the backbone of the structural integrity. Beethoven opens his Fifth Symphony without any real introduction, but rather with a statement of the famous four-note motto that serves as the melodic underpinning of the entire movement. Even the second, more lyrical theme, is surrounded by reiterations of the motto, keeping the theme from attaining any real independence from it. After a very non-literal recapitulation, Beethoven uses some of the fiercest music in the symphony in a coda which, rather than taking up the customary eight to sixteen bars, stands as the largest section of the movement. Rather than providing simple extra closing material, this coda is a section of serious melodic development.
Continuing with the technique of linking sections set up by the first movement, the opening motto reappears throughout the symphony and all main themes are connected through various melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic devices. Such continuity was revolutionary in 1808, when movements of symphonies were often performed separately from the other movements, as stand-alone pieces. Rather than the traditional slow movement, the second movement of the Fifth Symphony is marked “Andante con moto.” The movement begins as a variation set, based on the opening theme, stated by the violas and cellos. It ends, however, with a long section of free-form development featuring each instrument in its traditional role – pastoral woodwinds, martial horns, etc. Having replaced the traditional third movement Minuet with a “Scherzo,” Beethoven continues his pattern of innovation. The movement begins with a mysteriously lyrical and distinctly non-Scherzo-like” theme in the in the low strings. Perhaps the joke is on the audience for having expected something more traditionally jovial. This gives way to a strongly martial theme, introduced by the horns, which anchors the movement and is very closely related to the opening motto. What might be called a trio section, features a fugal section that still challenges the limits of string playing today. Perhaps the joke is on the players, as bassists struggle madly to perform feats of daring agility on their huge instruments. After a recapitulation of the martial main theme, the movement ends not with a concluding coda, but with a transition into the triumphant fourth movement, marked “Allegro.”
Suddenly the orchestration expands with the addition of trombones (still not standard in the symphonic world, but not completely unheard of) and a contrabassoon (the instrument’s first appearance outside of the opera pit). The regal and exuberantly triumphant main theme is made all the more excited in its initial unison statement by these added instruments. Following a fairly standard sonata form, Beethoven follows this theme with a slightly lighter second theme, though it never strays far from the main theme in tone or melodic contour. The development section focuses mostly on the second theme material. In a moment of total revolution, Beethoven begins the recapitulation not with the opening material of the fourth movement, but with a quotation from the third movement. In much the same way that he reprises earlier movements in the finale of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven, once again forcefully integrates the last two movements, forcing the listener to acknowledge the ending of the third movement as the introduction to the fourth movement, rather than as a coda to the third. The recapitulation proceeds in a fairly standard way, only to be followed by yet another extraordinarily long coda that presents new melodic development. As a string-and-woodwind back-and-forth discussion seems to transition to a staid ending, Beethoven once again breaks new ground. In an almost unprecedented moment, the tempo steadily increases to until a new theme brings the symphony to a wildly declamatory finish. Beethoven has all but shattered the traditional structure of the symphony as a mirror of ancient Greek rhetoric. A work significantly larger in scope and difficulty than its contemporaries, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is still exciting and powerful as it retains its honored place in the canon of Western symphonic music.
— —
Maurice Ravel:
Schéhérazade
Like the more popular piece by Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel’s Schéhérazade was inspired by the Persian legend of 1001 Arabian Nights. In this legend, the beautiful young Scheherazade (or, more accurately, Shahrzad) agrees to wed the king, though she knows his habit of beheading his wives directly after their wedding night. To avoid this fate, Scheherazade uses her genius as a storyteller. Each night, she tells a tale of adventure (including the famous stories of Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin’s Lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) that fails to reach its conclusion, leaving the court and the king in suspense. In this way she passes one thousand and one nights at court, eventually winning a permanent reprieve from the death sentence of her predecessors.
This song cycle is an artifact of Ravel’s fascination with Scheherazade and her story. In Rimsky-Korsakov’s version, Scheherazade is represented by a solo violin. Ravel takes a more direct approach, putting Scheherazade herself onstage in the form of a mezzo-soprano. Ravel was not alone in his fascination, as all of Paris became enthralled with all things “eastern” after the 1889 World Exhibition, setting the stage for most of the paintings, music, sculpture, and literature now referred to as “French Orientalist”. Ravel began writing an opera on the Persian legend, but never completed the work. When, in 1903, Tristan Klingsor, a fellow Parisian artist, published a series of poems inspired by and named for Scheherazade, the 28-year-old Ravel wasted no time in setting the poems to music, premiering the work the following spring.
The first song in the cycle, “Asia” is a journey not through Asia, the geographical place, but the Asia of stereotypes and legends created in Western artistic imaginations. Ravel’s music beautifully mirrors the text, using musical tropes to convey the literary ones employed by his friend and taking the listener through now familiar musical landscapes of “the east.” The second song, “The Enchanted Flute,” begins with a startlingly beautiful flute melody. In a somewhat Wagnerian tactic, the flute in fact carries the main melodic material of the movement, leaving the singer to almost chant her words, perhaps signaling her submission to the magic of the flute. “The Indifferent One” once again demonstrates Ravel’s genius for orchestration and word painting. The music entreats the stranger to enter, but there is a somehow listless lack of energy, showing a very nuanced subtext – perhaps Scheherazade has already given hope, perhaps she never had any real expectations. True to Ravel’s orchestral style, Schéhérazade is unfailingly beautiful and very precisely expressive, using all of the resources of its large orchestra to their utmost musical abilities.
Asie
Asie, Asie, Asie,
vieux pays merveilleux
des contes de nourrice,
où dort la fantaisie
comme une impératrice
en sa forêt tout emplie de mystère.
Asie,
je voudrais m’en aller avec la goëlette
qui se berce ce soir dans le port,
mystérieuse et solitaire,
et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes
comme un immense oiseau de nuit
dans le ciel d’or.
Je voudrais m’en aller vers
des îles de fleurs
en écoutant chanter la mer perverse
sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur;
Asia
Asia, Asia, Asia
ancient and marvelous
land of nursery tales
where imagination
sleeps like an empress
in her forest filled with mystery.
Asia,
I would like to leave with the schooner
rocking tonight in the harbour
mysterious and solitary,
spreading its purple sails last
like a huge night-bird
in the golden sky.
I would like to leave
for the islands of flowers
listening to the song of the wayward sea
to an ancient, bewitching rhythm.
je voudrais voir Damas et
les villes de Perse
avec les minarets legers dans l’air;
je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie
sur des visages noirs aux dents claires;
je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d’amour
et des prunelles brillantes de joie
en des peaux jaunes comme des oranges;
je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours
et des habits á longues
Je voudrais voir des calumets
entre des bouches
tout entourées de barbe blanche;
je voudrais voir d’âpres marchands
aux regards louches,
et des cadis et des vizirs
qui du seul mouvement
de leur doigt qui se penche
accordent vie ou mort au gré de leur désir.
I would like to see Damascus and
the towns of Persia
with light minarets in the air;
I would like to see beautiful silk turbans
above dark faces with white teeth;
I would like to see eyes dark with love
and pupils shining with joys
against skins golden like oranges;
I would like to see velvet clothes
and robes with long fringes.
I would like to see pipes
in mouths
surrounded by white beards;
I would like to see grasping merchants
with shady looks,
and cadis and viziers
who with a mere
crook of their finger
dispense life or death at will.
Je voudrais voir la Perse,
et l’Indie et puis la Chine,
les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles,
et les princesses aux mains fines,
et les lettrés qui se querellent
sur la poésie et sur la beauté;
Je voudrais m’attarder au palais enchanté
et comme un voyageur étranger
contempler á loisir des paysages peints
sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin
avec un personnage au milieu d’un verger;
Je voudrais voir des assassins souriants
du bourreau qui coupe un cou d’innocent
avec son grand saber courbé d’Orient.
Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines;
I would like to see Persia
and India and then China:
pot-bellied mandarins under parasols,
princesses with slender hands,
and scholars arguing
over poetry and beauty;
I would like to linger in the enchanted palace
and, like a foreign traveler,
contemplate at leisure landscapes painted
on fabrics in frames of pine
with a figure in the middle of an orchard;
I would like to see murderers smile
as the executioner cuts off an innocent head
with his great curved oriental sword.
I would like to see paupers and queens;
