CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Bobby McFerrin
with special guest Yo-Yo Ma

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Bobby McFerrin, Vocalist
Orchestra of St. Luke's
with special guest Yo-Yo Ma, Cello

BACH Allegro Assai from Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, BWV 1041
FAURÉ Pavane in F-sharp Minor, Op. 50
VIVALDI Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos and Orchestra, RV 531
BOBBY MCFERRIN A Cappella Improvisations

Encores:
BARRIÈRE Allegro Prestissimo from Sonata for Two Cellos (performed by McFerrin/Ma)
BACH "Air on the G String" (from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068) (performed by McFerrin/Ma)
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV "Flight of the Bumblebee" (performed by McFerrin/Ma)

Perspectives: Bobby McFerrin

Sponsored by Ernst & Young LLP

The Bobby McFerrin Perspectives concerts are supported, in part, by The Rockefeller Foundation's New York City Cultural Innovation Fund.

Perspectives concerts are made possible, in part, by a generous grant from The Alice Tully Foundation.

Program Notes:

By Steven Ledbetter

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Allegro Assai from Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, BWV 1041

Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig.

Bach almost certainly composed in Violin Concerto during the years he spent in Cöthen, 1717–1722, probably for the leader of the orchestra, Joseph Spiess. It received its Carnegie Hall premiere on March 19, 1893, with the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Damrosch, with Adolph Brodsky, violin.

Scoring: violin, strings, and continuo.

In 1717, Bach left his post at Weimar to move to Cöthen, though not without first spending some time in jail for having had the temerity to ask for leave to change jobs! The ruler at Cöthen, Prince Leopold, was a knowledgeable and passionate lover of music; he gave Bach every kind of encouragement to write chamber music, orchestral scores, and cantatas to celebrate birthdays and other secular events. (Church cantatas were not included in his duties—as they had been at Weimar and were to be in Leipzig later—since the court was Calvinist, and the liturgy called for little beyond straightforward hymn singing.) Thus, the five years that Bach spent in Cöthen was the time when he wrote a great deal of his purely instrumental music, including the violin concertos and at least some of the Brandenburg concertos.

All three of the violin concertos—the two for solo violin and the double concerto—reflect both the Italian concerto tradition in general and, especially, the Vivaldi’s concerto technique. Bach may have encountered Vivaldi’s music as early as 1708, and he certainly made an extensive study of it, converting a number of Vivaldi’s violin concertos into keyboard concertos for his own use, and learning from Vivaldi such matters of style and technique as “the direction of the ideas, their relationship to one another, the sequences of modulations, and many other particulars besides.” (This quotation comes from an early biography by Forkel, who knew Bach personally.)

Despite his interest in Vivaldi’s brilliant and energetic style, Bach never failed to endow his concertos with a richly detailed contrapuntal structure in the best German manner. He pursues a consistent course of development, creating his episodes out of fresh treatments of the ritornello material, rather than introducing sharply contrasting ideas out of nowhere. Thus, he took the best of what he found in Italian music and combined it with the best that he knew of German technique; the result is a concerto that superbly balances structure and expression, allowing the orchestra to participate to an unusual degree, yet still highlights the soloists as the prime movers in their story. The finale, in a lively and lilting 9/8 time, flows in long, elegant lines that nonetheless express exuberant high spirits.

GABRIEL FAURÉ Pavane in F-sharp Minor, Op. 50

Born May 12, 1845, in Pamiers, Ariège, France; died November 4, 1924, in Paris.

Composed in 1886, the Pavane received its world premiere on April 28, 1888, in Paris, with the Société Nationale, with an added choral part. In 1919, Fauré reused the piece (without chorus) in his one-act ballet Masques et bergamasques, Opus 112. The Pavane received its New York and Carnegie Hall premiere on January 20, 1914, with Schola Cantorum of New York and the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kurt Schindler.

Scoring: flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns in pairs, and strings.

The pavane was a widespread court dance of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Literally hundreds of compositions for solo instrument or ensemble survive from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods to testify to the popularity of the dance, first as an element in social life, later as an abstract musical style. The dance was a stately processional (often used as a sort of “grand march” at the beginning of an evening); couples would move with stately grace around the floor, taking such opportunities for flirting or displaying themselves to others as might be offered by the situation. This promenading character of the pavane has led some scholars to suggest that the name derives from the Spanish pavon (“peacock”), since the dignity of the dance was supposed to suggest the self‑satisfied strut of the peacock with tail spread. The dance is now believed to be of Italian origin. Early publications describe it variously as pavana and padoana; these are adjectives meaning “of Padua,” so it must be presumed that that north Italian town lent its name for the dance.

Fauré certainly never danced a pavane in his life. But when he composed this delicate and seductive score, he was evidently pleased to think of Arcadian nostalgia. The score is ripe with the moods to be found in his Verlaine song Clair de lune, itself an evocation of Arcadia, which was written the following year. In 1919, Fauré’s Pavane was inserted whole into a short ballet called Masques et bergamasques. The structure of his pavane is simple three-part song form; the opening flute solo is perhaps the best-known tune Fauré ever wrote, delicate and supple. The middle section of the dance provides contrast by means of simple phrases over a bass line of descending whole notes, before the opening theme returns, subtly reharmonized—one of the purest examples of Gallic elegance.

ANTONIO VIVALDI Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos and Orchestra, RV 531
Born March 4, 1678, in Venice; died July 28, 1741, in Vienna.

Composed in 1711, the G–Minor Concerto received its Carnegie Hall premiere on April 9, 1976, with I Musici di Roma (a group that performed without a conductor) with Mario Centurione and Francesco Strano, cellos.

Scoring: two cellos, strings, and continuo.

Antonio Vivaldi, known as “il prete rosso” (“the red priest”) after the color of hair that apparently ran in his family, may not have invented the ritornello form of the Baroque concerto. However, he certainly established the form as the basic approach to concerto composition in nearly 500 works, the most famous of which were spread by print and performance all over Europe. Many of Vivaldi’s concertos were composed between the years 1703 and 1718, when he was violin teacher and later concert director at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, a charitable orphanage for girls run by the government of Venice. The purpose of so much musical education was not merely a love of the arts, but rather the result of a practical concern to get the girls off the public rolls by educating them and making them suitable marriage partners. One of the most useful elements of a girl’s education was musical talent, through which she might attract a spouse, or at least enter into one of the professions open to a woman—that of virtuoso performer. It was for the remarkably talented girls in this institution that Vivaldi composed most of his sonatas and concertos.

Vivaldi’s output includes 220 concertos for violin. After that, the bassoon (with 37 concertos) and cello (with 27) take pride of place. The cello had only just begun to be “liberated” from its usual function of playing along on the bass line of virtually every composition. Around the beginning of the 18th century, a few composers began to write for cellists capable of playing more virtuosic solo parts. The most influential of these was probably Giuseppe Maria Jacchini, whose Opus 4 (1701) to some degree liberated the cello, allowing it play more freely over and around the bass line.

As far as we know, Vivaldi wrote only one concerto for two cellos. Through most of the work, he lets the two solo instruments carry on their virtuosic and expressive dialogue with only minimal support from the orchestra. The opening Allegro, for example, has no big ritornello. The soloists begin at once, and the full ensemble only appears to confirm new keys. The slow movement is, for all practical purposes, a trio sonata, with the two solo instruments intertwining and singing in harmony over a continuo part. In the finale, Vivaldi reverts to his more normal concerto style, with a full orchestral ritornello (featuring an eighth-note figure marching down the scale) to contrast to the first music we hear from the cellos, a rising figure in syncopation. Later on, the participants trade these parts as the two solo cellos become more and more independent—each even has a moment that is really a solo before the brief, energetic close.

—Copyright © 2008 by Steven Ledbetter

Bobby McFerrin, Vocalist
Bobby McFerrin is one of the natural wonders of the music world. A ten-time Grammy Award winner, he is one of the world’s best-known vocal innovators and improvisers, a world-renowned classical conductor, the creator of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” (one of the most popular songs of the late 20th century), and a passionate spokesman for music education. His recordings have sold over 20 million copies, and his collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma, Chick Corea, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Herbie Hancock have established him as an ambassador of both the classical and jazz worlds.

With a four-octave range and a vast array of vocal techniques, McFerrin is music’s last true Renaissance man, a vocal explorer who has combined jazz, folk, and a multitude of world music influences—choral, a cappella, and classical music—with his own ingredients. As a conductor, Bobby is able to convey his innate musicality in an entirely different context. He has worked with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Bobby McFerrin’s career can be well described as “unconventional.” Those familiar with McFerrin’s shows, whether as a conductor or a vocalist, know that each one is a unique event that resonates with the unexpected. He is that rare artist who has the ability to reach beyond musical genres and stereotypes for a sound that is entirely his own. As one of the foremost guardians of music’s rich heritage, McFerrin remains at the vanguard with his natural, beautiful, and timeless music that transcends all borders and embraces all cultures.

Visit bobbymcferrin.com for more information, interactive games, sheet music, and merchandise.

Orchestra of St. Luke's

with special guest Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to both his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences and his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music, or exploring musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Mr. Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination.

Yo-Yo Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music activities. He draws inspiration from a wide circle of collaborators, each fueled by the artists’ interactions. One of Mr. Ma’s goals is the exploration of music as a means of communication, and as a vehicle for the migrations of ideas across a range of cultures throughout the world.

Expanding upon this interest, Mr. Ma established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic, and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. By examining the flow of ideas throughout this vast area, the Project seeks to illuminate the heritages of the Silk Road countries and identify the voices that represent these traditions today.

Mr. Ma is an exclusive Sony Classical artist, and his discography of over 75 albums (including more than 15 Grammy Award–winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to the standard concerto repertoire, Mr. Ma has recorded many of the large body of works that he has commissioned or premiered. He has made several successful recordings that defy categorization, including Hush with Bobby McFerrin, Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer, and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil, Obrigado Brazil and Obrigado Brazil: Live in Concert. Mr. Ma’s most recent recordings include Silk Road Journeys: New Impossibilities, with the Silk Road Ensemble, and both Appassionato and Paris: La Belle Époque with pianist Kathryn Stott. He also appears on John Williams’s soundtrack for the Rob Marshall film Memoirs of a Geisha. Across the full range of releases, Mr. Ma remains one of the best-selling recording artists in the classical field.

Yo-Yo Ma is strongly committed to educational programs that not only bring young audiences into contact with music but also allow them to participate in its creation. While touring, he takes time whenever possible to conduct master classes as well as more informal programs for students—musicians and non-musicians alike.

Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four, and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at The Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the Glenn Gould Prize (1999), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Dan David Prize (2006) and the Sonning Prize (2006). Mr. Ma and his wife have two children. He plays two instruments, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.