CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

Zankel Hall
Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Douglas Boyd, Conductor
Dawn Upshaw, Soprano

DVOŘÁK Serenade in D Minor for Winds, Op. 44
STRAVINSKY Two Poems of Konstantin Bal'mont
STRAVINSKY Three Japanese Lyrics
RAVEL Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
SCHUBERT / OSVALDO GOLIJOV She Was Here (NY Premiere)
·· Wanderers Nachtlied
·· Lied der Mignon
·· Dass sie hier Gewesen
·· Nacht und Träume
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella Suite (1949 revision)

Program Notes:

ANTONÍN DVOØÁK Serenade in D Minor for Winds, Op. 44
Born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia; died May 1, 1904, in Prague.

Composed in 1878, Dvoøák’s Serenade for Winds was first performed at Carnegie Hall on December 24, 1964, with an unnamed orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider.

Scoring: 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon (optional), 3 horns, cello, and double bass.

Dvoøák was a quintessentially nationalist composer. The traditional music of his Bohemian homeland inspired him throughout his life. You hear it on the musical surface—he both arranged folk tunes and incorporated them into his compositions—and in the very grammar of his musical language. Yet his greatest successes would come in foreign lands, principally Austria, England, and America.

In 1874 he won the Austrian state stipend for music and captured the attention of Johannes Brahms, who introduced him to his publisher Simrock and effectively launched him on the international scene. Through Simrock, Brahms had successfully published plenty of his ersatz “Hungarian” works, and the publisher wanted something similar from Dvoøák. He hit gold: Dvoøák’s Slavonic Dances (for piano duet) caught the public imagination throughout Europe, and then crossed the Atlantic to America. Dvoøák orchestrated them almost immediately and went on to write a series of equally charming “Bohemian” works, including this wind serenade. It was completed in just two weeks, in January 1878, and was first performed on November 17, 1878, in Prague—on Dvoøák’s fifth wedding anniversary.

Since the golden age of Mozart’s marvelous serenades, few serious composers had written for wind ensembles. Perhaps Dvoøák’s love of Mozart inspired this piece—he famously described Mozart as “sweet sunshine,” words that could easily apply to much of his own music. Dvoøák makes a nice bow to the Classical-era serenade with his opening march. For Mozart’s musicians, the march was a practical feature: they played it as they entered the performance venue. However, Mozart’s serenades usually have at least two dance movements—often minuets. Dvoøák only included one and, despite calling it a minuet, he actually wrote a sousedska, a Bohemian dance closer to a waltz than a minuet.

Brahms loved this piece. He exclaimed, “A more lovely, refreshing impression of real, rich and charming creative talent you can’t easily have . . . I think it must be a pleasure for the wind players!’’
Copyright © 2008 by Svend Brown


IGOR STRAVINSKY Two Poems of Constantin Bal’mont; Three Japanese Lyrics
Born June 5, 1882, in Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov), Russia; died April 6, 1971, in New York.

Composed in 1911, the Two Poems of Constantin Bal’mont received their first Carnegie Hall performance in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on March 14, 1981, with Nan Nall, soprano, and Glenn Parker, piano. The Three Japanese Lyrics, composed in 1912–13, received their Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on January 24, 1954, with Bethany Beardslee, soprano; Russell Sherman, piano; and a chamber ensemble conducted by Jacques-Louis Monod.

Scoring for both works: 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, piano, string quartet, and solo soprano.

Stravinsky’s experiences in Paris in the early part of the 20th century greatly influenced his compositional style at the time. In addition to his interest in Russian folk music, he was quite taken with the modern French style. He came into contact with a group of young composers, writers, and artists who called themselves Les Apaches (“Apache” was French slang for “hooligan.”) Members of this group, including fellow composers Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, and Maurice Delange, as well as poet Tristan Klingsor, considered themselves to be artistic rebels of a sort, striking out in new exciting directions.

Some of Stravinsky’s songs from the time bear the unmistakable musical stamp of the Russian idiom, but these intimate pieces, inspired by Les Apaches and their fascination with Asian art, move in a new direction.

In Two Poems of Constantin Bal’mont, written for soprano and chamber ensemble, Stravinsky resists the florid French idiom in favor of shorter, more modular phrases. The set consists of two little songs. The first, “The Forget-Me-Not Flower,” which Stravinsky dedicated to his mother, begins in high contrast with a smooth vocal line against a disjunct line in the accompaniment. That contrast disappears in the last phrase, when the voice adopts the disjunct style for a brief moment. “The Dove,” dedicated to Stravinsky’s sister-in-law Ludmila Beliankin, features a meandering line in the voice, perhaps mirroring the gentle flight of the bird. The complex meter of the ostinato accompaniment is something the composer would later explore in The Rite of Spring. Both songs were written without a key signature and exhibit a sense of tonal freedom.

Les Apaches used to meet in a room decorated by Maurice Delange that was filled with Asian art. When Stravinsky wrote about Three Japanese Lyrics (1912–13) in his autobiography, he mentioned the profound influence of Asian art on his compositional process. He was thinking specifically of the distinctive way certain Japanese painters portrayed three-dimensional space in a two-dimensional medium. The three songs of this group—dedicated to Delange—set very short Japanese poems, each addressing the coming of spring. Stravinsky wrote them at the same time as his controversial masterpiece, The Rite of Spring, so musicologists have long studied the musical similarities between the two works.

The first song, “Akahito,” features leaps and is reminiscent of some of the less bombastically rhythmic sections of The Rite. The second song, “Mazatsumi,” is more agitated, the accompaniment mimicking gushing water as the ice melts and the flowers arrive. The final song, “Tsaraiuki,” begins, almost Pierrot-like, in musical darkness. The meandering line in the voice is echoed by a similar line in the orchestra. The poem speaks of the cherry trees in full bloom, a sure sign that spring has at last arrived, and the calmness and peace wrought by this arrival can be heard in the quiet and subdued ending.
Copyright © 2008 Christine Lee Gengaro


MAURICE RAVEL Three Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé
Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, near Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Basses-Pyrénées, France; died December 28, 1937, in Paris.

Composed in 1913, the Three Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé received their Carnegie Hall premiere on February 12, 1935, with Ethyl Hayden, soprano, and the National Orchestral Association conducted by Leon Barzin.

Scoring: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet), piano, strings, and solo soprano.

Work on these songs marked Ravel’s emergence from a troubled time. He endured a few creative crises in his life. One, in 1907, followed the death of his father. Then, five years later, he found himself close to total breakdown following a seriously tough year of artistic and business disappointments. Doctors ordered complete rest.

By way of a musical occupation that would not be too tiring, but keep him in the flow of things, the impresario Serge Diaghilev suggested he collaborate with Stravinsky on a new practical edition of Mussorgsky’s uncompleted opera Khovanschina. Ravel accepted, and he and his mother took themselves off to Switzerland, where Stravinsky was staying. Spending time with Stravinsky proved almost as great a tonic as the healthy Swiss air. Between bouts of working on the opera, they shared ideas; Ravel was bowled over by Stravinsky’s recent work, which included The Rite of Spring and Three Japanese Lyrics, the direct inspiration for these three Mallarmé songs. He even adopted exactly Stravinsky’s instrumental lineup for them.

Ravel had long admired Mallarmé’s verse, but he was particularly inspired to set it to music in 1913 because a new complete edition of the great poet’s works had just been published. Fellow composer Claude Debussy shared his passion for the poetry, and also began setting some of it to music. What is remarkable is that both composers chose the same poems (the first two in Ravel’s set of three). When this was discovered, Ravel (who had been first to obtain permission to use the poems) had to intercede with the publisher to secure permission for Debussy. His generosity was not entirely untainted with competitiveness, however. When he discovered that Debussy set a third poem, Ravel matched it with a third song of his own.

Ravel’s exquisite settings of the poems show his skill as an orchestrator and melodist. The delicate nuances of instrumental sounds yield arrestingly beautiful textures, not least the shimmering web of colors that opens the piece. The vocal writing is sinuous and erotic—the perfect vehicle for mezzo-soprano Jane Bathori, who gave the first performance.

Copyright © 2007 Svend Brown


FRANZ SCHUBERT
Born January 31, 1797, in Vienna; died there November 19, 1828.
Arr. OSVALDO GOLIJOV
Born December 5, 1960, in La Plata, Argentina.

She Was Here

Golijov completed She Was Here in 2008; tonight’s performance marks the work’s New York premiere.

Scoring: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo and alto flute), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet and basset horn), 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, percussion, harp, celesta, strings, and solo soprano.

Osvaldo Golijov has turned his unique style—honed in his Argentine Jewish childhood and his education in Israel and the United States—to a set of Lieder by the early Romantic composer Franz Schubert. Schubert's originals, composed for voice and piano, are finely crafted miniature masterpieces of Romantic Lieder writing. In the hands of Golijov, these works gain stature as orchestral pieces of a new dynamic and complex character.

Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of a lifetime of experience with various types of music. His Romanian Jewish parents exposed him to the traditional klezmer music and liturgical music of their faith; growing up and going to public school in Argentina showed him the many musical styles of his family’s adopted country, including the tango. Once Golijov traveled abroad to continue his studies, the influences of other people and other styles became part of him. What is so wonderful about his musical language is that, rather than a pastiche of styles, it is wholly cohesive. It is also vibrant and alive, growing and changing—as he does.

These song settings show Golijov’s command of orchestral colors, and his profound understanding of Schubert’s original pieces. He leaves the vocal lines unchanged but sometimes takes dramatic liberties with the accompaniments.

Two songs are particularly striking in their new orchestral form. In “Lied der Mignon,” some of the original piano accompaniment is assigned to the harp and celesta, giving the song an ethereal, mysterious quality that mirrors Mignon herself. Mignon is a character taken from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. A wandering gypsy, she is mistreated by her master and rescued by Wilhelm, who only realizes his love for her after Mignon nearly dies in a fire. Golijov uses the earthy warmth of the horns—along with Schubert’s original melody—to keep the song grounded. However, unsettled triplets in the woodwinds and the strings make for a shifting palate of colors that utterly suits the mercurial Mignon.

“Nacht und Träume” begins with a flowing accompaniment in the strings, while the horns and clarinet sound long, organ-like notes. Triplets in the harp push against the steady flow, and Golijov further drives the accompaniment by syncopating the strings and the bass clarinet.

Golijov’s sensitivity to Schubert’s melodies and accompaniments allows him to fold these musical threads into a new tapestry of sound, one which both honors Schubert and allows Golijov’s fascinating style to shine through.
Copyright © 2008 Christine Lee Gengaro

The composer has written the following regarding She Was Here:

Among the new musical worlds that Schubert predicted are the vastness of Russia; the lyrical minimalism of Philip Glass (as in the slow movement of the Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, the opening of the Fantasy in C for violin and piano, and the beloved song “Nacht und Träume”); the fragility and intimacy of Hugo Wolf, and, beyond him, the ambiguous scent of the Vienna of Alban Berg, 100 years after Schubert’s own disappearance (in “Dass Sie Hier Gewesen”); the irony of Stravinsky and Kurt Weill (in “Lied der Mignon”); and, perhaps most daringly, the sound of longing for a sweet, peaceful death (“Wandrers Nachtlied”).

These orchestrations were written at a time of loss and sadness for both Dawn Upshaw and me. Death is present, but Schubert brings consolation, especially in the last two songs, when he shows that past, present and future, in time, are only illusion. At least while the music lasts.


IGOR STRAVINSKY Suite from Pulcinella
Stravinsky composed the Pulcinella Suite in 1922, revising it in 1949; the revised version of the Suite received its Carnegie Hall premiere on February 26, 1953, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer.

Scoring: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 bassoons 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, strings, and solo string quintet.

In 1917, Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes had a hit with a ballet called The Good-Humored Ladies; the music was by Domenico Scarlatti, orchestrated by Vincenzo Tommasini. Hoping to score with a sequel, Diaghilev approached Stravinsky and Picasso—and opened the door to buckets of grief! He knew exactly what he wanted: “something very sweet,” as Stravinsky later explained. He persuaded Stravinsky to orchestrate a selection of pieces by the minor Italian composer Pergolesi, and asked Picasso to create scenery and costumes inspired by commedia dell’arte. Why Diaghilev expected these men to produce “something very sweet” is mystifying. Neither one had a sweet bone in his body. Picasso’s designs so outraged him that he jumped up and down on them, and Stravinsky reports that his tongue-in-cheek treatment of Pergolesi “so shocked [Diaghilev] that he went about for a long time with a look that suggested The Offended 18th Century.” Thankfully, Diaghilev eventually came round to appreciate what these two great artists did. The ballet premiered at the Palais Garnier in May 1920. It was a big success and this suite followed 18 months later.

The music is so genial and entertaining that it is hard to imagine it as controversial, yet Stravinsky lost friends over it. He was accused of having sold out, of being a mere pasticheur—as though the young man who provoked riots with The Rite of Spring had traded his rebel’s boots for a comfy pair of slippers. Stravinsky found this ridiculous. For him, Pulcinella was a revelation, a gateway to new directions. It was, he said, “the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too.” For a mind as creative and lively as his, this was like discovering the key to a marvelous treasure box.

The story of the ballet was never particularly important. Stravinsky threw it together with Diaghilev and Massine, the choreographer. At the start, two men, Florindo and Cloviello serenade two girls, Prudenza and Rosetta. For their pains, they are showered with water and chased off by Prudenza’s father. Next, Rosetta enters with her father. She dances for Pulcinella and, just as they are kissing, his girlfriend, Pimpinella, arrives to break up the intimacies. Suddenly, two men dressed exactly like Pulcinella rush in and beat him up—worse, he is stabbed and appears to die. Thankfully, this turns out to have been a ruse to persuade Pimpinella to forgive him. The magician, Furbo, “resurrects” Pulcinella and all is forgiven. Prudenza and Rosetta succumb to Florindo’s and Cloviello’s wooing . . . Cue the mass wedding.
Copyright © 2007 Svend Brown

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Douglas Boyd, Conductor
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, beginning its 50th anniversary season in September 2008, is the nation’s only full-time professional chamber orchestra and is widely regarded as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world. In collaboration with five Artistic Partners—Dawn Upshaw, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Roberto Abbado, Douglas Boyd, and Nicholas McGegan—the 35 virtuoso musicians present more than 150 concerts and educational programs each year and are regularly heard on public radio’s Performance Today, which reaches 1,101,000 listeners each week on 242 stations, and Symphony Cast, which reaches 218,100 listeners each week on 104 stations. The SPCO has released 67 recordings, commissioned 114 new works, and premiered 53 additional compositions. The SPCO has earned the distinction of 12 ASCAP Awards for adventurous programming. Renowned for its artistic excellence and remarkable versatility of musical styles, the SPCO tours nationally and internationally, including performances in premier venues in Europe, Asia, and South America. Launched in 1995, the SPCO’s award-winning CONNECT education program reaches 6,000 students annually in 15 Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. For more information, visit thespco.org.

Douglas Boyd’s international reputation as a conductor is on the rise. Now in his seventh season as Music Director of the Manchester Camerata, he continues to transform this orchestra into one of England’s finest. Like so many of Mr. Boyd’s performances, his 2005 debut with the Camerata at London’s fabled Proms concerts were praised for their clarity, vibrancy, and musicality.

This season, Mr. Boyd begins his second three-year term as Artistic Partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, with which he performs, records, and tours regularly. North American conducting highlights include appearances with the Baltimore, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, and Toronto symphonies, as well as the National Arts Centre Orchestra.

Mr. Boyd was recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Colorado Symphony and also holds this title with the City of London Sinfonia, with which he recently toured China.

Born in Scotland, Mr. Boyd was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and served until 2002 as its principal oboist. His recording of the Bach concertos for Deutsche Grammophon marked his recording debut as conductor and soloist, and in 1996, he began developing a conducting career concurrent with his solo appearances. His return to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the role of guest conductor has been a success throughout Europe, and the acclaimed performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique he led in London for the orchestra's Silver Jubilee was truly cause for celebration.

Dawn Upshaw, Soprano
Possessing rare natural warmth and a fierce commitment to the transforming communicative power of music, Dawn Upshaw has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging form the sacred works of Bach to the freshest sounds of today

From Salzburg, Paris, and Glyndebourne to the Metropolitan Opera, where she began her career in 1984 and has since made nearly 300 appearances, Ms. Upshaw has championed numerous new works created for her, including The Great Gatsby by John Harbison, the Grawemeyer Award–winning opera L’Amour de Loin by Kaija Saariaho, John Adams’s nativity oratorio El Nino, and Osvaldo Golijov’s chamber opera Ainadamar and song cycle Ayre, both newly recorded on Deutsche Grammophon.

In her work as a recitalist, and particularly in her work with composers, Ms. Upshaw has become a generative force in concert music, having premiered more than 25 works in the past decade. She is a member of the faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center, and is Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music. This is her first season as Artistic Partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Ms. Upshaw is featured on more than 50 recordings, including the million-selling Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki. Ms. Upshaw holds honorary doctorate degrees from Yale University, the Manhattan School of Music, Allegheny College, and Illinois Wesleyan University. In recognition of a career that has pushed the boundaries of opera and concert music, she recently received a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as a “genius grant.”

Dawn Upshaw has recorded extensively for the Nonesuch label. She may also be heard on Angel/EMI, BMG, Deutche Grammophon, London, Sony Classical, Telarc, and on Erato and Teldec in the Warner Classics Family of labels.