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Program Archive
Eccentric Centuries
July 8 2006, 7:30 at the Barshinger Center (2006 Schedule)
Have you ever worn a pair of pants or trousers that fit a bit snug for your liking? You pretty much lose your sense of freedom and agility. What do you do in this situation; limit your consumption until the old size fits or move to the next size to satisfy one's hunger? This need to expand can also occasionally happen to chamber orchestras that specialize in 17 th and 18 th century music but feel the need to indulge beyond the year 1799. WARNING: My brain just shifted to TV pop culture for a brief moment!!!!! Do you remember the short-lived game show Greed? Chuck Woolery's ( see also Love Connection and Lingo ) favorite line was that the contestants had “a need for greed”. Allegro, and more precisely, Dr. Brian Norcross seems to have a need to expand the Allegro audience's listening experience with Franz Schubert (1791-1828) and Arlen Clarke (1954-present) for this July performance. Are we nervous that Allegro has lost its vision of previously stated repertoire? Is next season destined to be exclusively John Cage, Charles Ives, and Arnold Schoenberg? I doubt it. Trust me, the president of Allegro, T.J. Titcomb, loves baroque music too much to allow such things to happen. In fact, I'm guessing that Dr. Norcross (a.k.a. The Theme Meister) will eloquently explain this brief excursion to Schubert and Clarke while quenching our baroque and classical appetites with servings of Handel and Mozart. The microphone is yours Brian, what exactly do you mean by “Eccentric Centuries”?
Concerto a Due Cori No. 2 by Georg Friederich Händel (1685-1759)
We believe that Mr. Handel wrote his three Concerti a due Cori around the years 1746-7 in London . This places these pieces between “Messiah (1741) and “Royal Fireworks” (1748). The audiences in England must have had longer attention span than most of us possess today since these instrumental concerti would have been performed on the same program with a major oratorio like “Judas Maccabaeus” or “Alexander's Feast”. Handel, being the busiest composer around, seems to have borrowed material from his earlier oratorios including “Esther” for tonight's performance of Cori No. 2. Please don't rush the Allegro ticket office for a refund of your money, feeling somewhat duped by the composer-we promise that Handel's ingenuity and inventiveness offer a fresh sound to previously used themes for this concerto.
The “cori” or choirs, of this work's title refers to the two small wind bands consisting of oboes, bassoons, and horns. The piece features antiphonal writing not only for the wind choirs, but for the strings and continuo that accompany them. It's rare to attend a Brian Norcross program that doesn't feature the horn section and tonight is no exception. The brilliant fanfares and unusually treacherous virtuosity required make this a true feast for horn lovers in the audience. Scholarly opinion now inclines towards the view that this work was publicly performed in Handel's lifetime……….perhaps he's listening again tonight.
Cinco de Molly by Arlen Clarke (1954- )
“Well, can I say that my association with Brian Norcross and writing several pieces for First Methodist Choir and orchestra performances really opened my eyes to the talent of his daughter Molly. After hearing her do some marvelous things with both my Christmas Cantata and O Nata Lux, I felt that I wanted to give her something that she could really get her teeth into.” - Arlen Clarke
I first met Mr. Clarke following the solo performance of his “Concerto for D Trumpet and String Orchestra”. It happened to be this past year's Super Bowl Cultural Warm-up and “my” Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Seattle Seahawks. I knew that Arlen was a fun-filled person when he supported my “need” to wear a Steeler jersey for the solo performance. Further evidence of Mr. Clarke's light-hearted approach to the compositional process is seen in the title of his horn concerto, “Cinco de Molly”.
Tonight's Horn Concerto is in five movements, perhaps celebrating the 5 th year of Allegro. I quote Arlen's own words to better explain his approach to this piece. “I enjoy sneakily introducing themes in groups of instruments and repeating the theme throughout the movement interspersed with counter melodies and variations on the theme. Each movement has its own theme and personality. The fourth movement possesses a definite 6/8 American folk-dance feel with a wonderful juxtaposition of two against three feel throughout. The fifth movement is a recapitulation of the first movement, thus tying the whole together. Movements two and three lend a certain soberness and a somewhat pietistic, yet open-aired freshness feel to the concerto. I treat the woodwinds, brass and strings as separate choirs, each creating a definite color to the overall personality of the movements. The music for the soloist taxes the extreme ranges of the horn, offering machine gun-like staccato opportunities, long melismatic phrases, and above all, free reign to turn phrases into a memorable musical experience.” I know that you will enjoy this “Vivaldi-esque” work, supplemented with a few “modern harmonic curveballs” by Arlen Clarke, a man of melody.
Serenade No. 10 in Bb, K.361 “Gran Partita” by W.A. Mozart (1756-91)
Serenades were the fast food of musical life in the late 1700s, often completed in haste for immediate consumption at a specific social event. They were usually intended for a single performance. Mozart's serenades conveyed feelings common to serenades of his time (tranquility, contentment, cheerfulness, and grace), yet progressed beyond these qualities to a new expanse of the emotional landscape. Don't be thrown by the term partita, it is simply an Italian term referring to a set or collection, in this case seven movements. The standard instrumentation for a late 18 th Century Austrian wind serenade would have required eight musicians but tonight's Mozart offering requests a party of thirteen, including….you guessed it, four horns.
There are Mozartean debates ( usually by people with much more time on their hands than you and me ) as to the year of the Gran Partita's creation but most agree that it was written between 1781-4. Probably not accurate but a wonderfully romantic story is the 1782 theory that this music was written for Mozart's wedding to Constance . No matter when this piece was actually created, it became one of the most influential pieces of wind music ever composed with later references and musical quotes by Alban Berg and Richard Strauss….hmmm, 17 th and 18 th century music influencing later composers. Could this be part of Dr. Norcross' “Eccentric Centuries” theme?
Symphony No. 2 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
“He must be taught by God himself” –Antonio Salieri
Speaking of Mozart, did you ever see the movie “Amadeus”? Then you might enjoy knowing that Franz Schubert studied in Vienna with Mozart's contemporary, Salieri. Also much like Wolfgang, Franz seemed to have his melodies in his head and thought it very boring to print them.
Schubert's “Symphony No. 2” was written in 1815 when he was just seventeen years of age. Employed as a teacher at his father's school, Franz simply wrote music for the fun of it with no one ordering or purchasing his compositions at this time. For this reason, he very seldom had the chance to hear his works by a full orchestra and by professional artists. Schubert's early symphonies were composed in the true spirt of Beethoven, his musical idol. He admired him so much that he insisted on carrying Beethoven's coffin at his funeral. He would later be buried next to his idol's grave as requested.
Tonight's symphony is cast in four movements and is decidedly grander in scale and outlook than his 1813 “Symphony No. 1”. The first movement begins with a brief and sunny slow introduction followed by a vigorous Allegro vivace with scurrying strings. Movement two is a theme and variation with simplicity and grace. The third movement is a minuet, featuring a hearty, almost gruff dance tune. The finale movement maintains the generally light and energetic mood of a teenage composer. Bridging two musical eras, we think of Schubert as composing Romantic music in a Classical way.
Handel, Mozart, Schubert, and our friend Arlen Clarke: bridging 321 years of musical creativity (so far). The more we learn the stories of these four composers, the more we realize that their motivation for creating their art is quite similar. To each of these musicians, composing music is truly a gift from God and these “men of melody and harmony” are simply sharing the gift with us.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Doug Albert