Download the full String Bling concert program here

Saturday, Novemver 15, 20147:30 pm, um muSic recital Hall

ANNIVERSARY SEASON

String OrcheStra

o f t h e r o c k i e s

string bling: sor concert favorites saturday, november 15, 20142

toNigHt’S Sor playerSViolins

Margaret BaldridgeColleen HunterMegan Karlsloy MarksMadeleine MckelveyMary Papoulissam ParksRachel Petite

ViolasJennifer smithlisa shullamy letson

CelliFern Glass BoydThad suitsChristine sopko

BassDon Beller

2014-2015

Saturday, November 15, 2014 StriNg bliNg: Sor coNcert favoriteS 3

ViolasJennifer smithlisa shullamy letson

CelliFern Glass BoydThad suitsChristine sopko

BassDon Beller

from tHe artiStic directorDear Friends,

Don’t be surprised if you have visions of diamonds dancing in your head during the first piece on our program tonight ~ you might recognize Karl Jenkins’ Palladio music from those famous DeBeers “Diamond” commercials of the mid-1990’s. and therein lies the inspiration behind “String Bling” ~ a collection of “jewels” from the great string orchestra repertoire. Tonight, we will not only be making musical associations with diamond commercials, but with Broadway musicals (This is My Beloved from Kismet, taken from Borodin’s beautiful Nocturne from his string Quartet no. 2), Transylvanian gypsy music (Bartók’s inspiration for his Romanian folk dances), and…….beef commercials! Conjure up a sizzling steak as you listen to Copland’s famous Hoedown ~ it’s what’s for dinner!

a special “shout out” to our young visitors tonight: the 2014 All-Star orchestra students who are participating in the UM 2014 all-star High school Festival. We hope you enjoy our sparkling musical program tonight; we have certainly enjoyed preparing it for you. and we wish you great success with your musical pursuits.

Musically yours,

Fern Glass Boyd

music is a gift for all mankind

proud to sponsor the String Orchestra of the Rockies.

Every minute. Every day.

missoulian.com


KaRl JenKins, born in Wales, was the son of the local organist and choirmaster. He began his studies at Cardiff University and then made his way to the Royal academy of Music. Jenkins’ influences cover a wide range of different cultures and styles. His Armed Man (1999) is a popular new work that this writer recently performed. Palladio was written in 1995 and is a three-movement concerto grosso inspired by the sixteenth-century italian architect andrea Palladio whose work embodies to Jenkins the Renaissance celebration of harmony and order. it offers a synthesis of styles ranging from baroque to contemporary in one piece. The baroque or neo-baroque is the language of the first movement, the one that many will have heard in the TV commercial for diamonds. it is striking how effectively Jenkins recreates the sound of the baroque while still adding something new and personal to what could be an exercise in imitation. The second movement, Cantus Insolitus, is something else entirely. Jenkins continues to use rhythmic repetitions of shorter notes, ostinati, but the violin solo that soars above the accompaniment and the harmony that supports the melody is mysterious and romantic in a much more contemporary, popular music way. in the final movement, we seem to be hearing something out of the baroque again, at least at first. Jenkins is much more interested in texture though, and lets his chord progressions evolve slowly as minimalist composers do. static harmony is used to great effect as in the first movement to build up to climatic saturation. as new sections of the music are introduced, the drama and excitement keeps mounting. Karl Jenkins himself wrote the following: “Two of Palladio’s hallmarks are mathematical harmony and

architectural elements borrowed from classical antiquity, a philosophy which i feel reflects my own approach to composition.”

alexanDeR BoRoDin was a love child: his father, a Georgian noble, had dallied with a 24-year-old Russian woman. His father had him registered as the son of one of his serfs, Porfiry Borodin, and provided for his welfare and education. alexander studied medicine and pursued a career in chemistry, achieving some renown, while taking piano lessons on the side. at the age of 29, he began composition lessons with Balakirev, and at 30, married a woman who was a pianist. Music remained his avocation, but his accomplishments in this regard will be remembered long past any consideration of a paper on aldehydes. Borodin had his first symphony performed under the direction of Balakirev soon after commencing studies. a second symphony was to wait until much later due to his fascination with the Prince Igor saga. This opera is viewed as Borodin’s masterpiece and contains the Polovetsian Dances that are often excerpted in concert performances. Borodin allied himself with a group of Russian composers who called themselves “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful,” who were dedicated to producing music with specifically Russian content. But Borodin was his own man as he showed with his philanthropic efforts, as well as his musical composition. He was a champion of opportunities for women, founding the school of Medicine for Women in st. Petersburg. Musically, he walked his own way in writing two string quartets; the rest of his “Handful” were not fans of this sort of traditionalism. Borodin also played the cello so it is fitting that in the Nocturne the cello has the first word.

program NoteS


program NoteSit is a limpid, long-spun melody backed by hushed and lush chording. after the cello finishes, the first violin repeats the melody in a much higher register. When the violin concludes there is a change in the weather and a new motive is announced, built upon an upward scale followed by sequentially descending trill ornaments. This theme is more agitated and contrasts well with the almost indolent quality of the opening. The agitation is abetted by a syncopated accompaniment, mostly from the viola, but all of the voices have their turn with the lead. Finally, the viola announces a return to the main theme. at first the cello and violin pair in canon, as if in a pas de deux. later, the first and second violins do the same. a small bit of the theme is passed around as the movement rises up, as if to heaven, to its close.

Béla BaRTóK, from a young age, developed a strong sense of nationalism, rejecting the tendency of Hungarian intellectuals at the time to view Germany as the center of culture. He deplored the “Hungarian” works by composers such as lizst and Brahms. no doubt Bartók would have put Monti’s Czardas in an even lower reach of the Inferno. He concluded that these composers were more influenced by café musicians than by the “pure” music of the countryside. at age 22, he began the first of many expeditions to the small villages and byways of Hungary to collect on wax cylinder the songs of the peasantry much as alan lomax did in america. The Romanian Folk Dances are arrangements of dance tunes that were collected in Romania. They were composed originally for piano in 1915 and arranged two years later for orchestra.

The opening Stick Dance is full of hearty gusto. Two fast notes at the beginning of

the measure are a signal stylistic trait. The Sash Dance is coy and playful. Dance on One Spot is full of keening mystery. The melody, taken by the solo violin, features plentiful use of mordents and the interval of the augmented second. The Hornpipe Dance is the slowest of the set. it is an aria for the solo violin. Here the melody plays with the two couples of C sharp-a and B flat-D in quick succession. The Romanian Polka must have been fun for the feet. The phrases are three bars long with two bars in triple meter followed by one in duple meter. The finale is really two dances of the same title, Maruntel, which go together with only a tiny pause. They are purely exuberant fiddling at its best.

eDVaRD GRieG was born in norway in 1843. The city of Bergen was the birthplace of three norwegian giants of the arts: ludwig Holberg; ole Bull, Paganini’s rival; and edvard Grieg. Holberg’s comedies earned him the title of the “Moliere of the north.” in 1884, a committee turned to Grieg to compose a tribute for Holberg’s 200th birthday. The “Holberg” suite is set in the eighteenth-century musical language of its subject’s time. The collection of dance-titled movements follows the pattern of the French suite. Pulsating rhythms of the Praeludium give evidence of Grieg’s idiomatic knowledge of the strings, cultivated by studies in string quartet composition with Carl Reinecke. The Sarabande offers a simple, beautifully harmonized melody with an orchestration favoring the lower strings. The Gavotte and Musette connect without a pause. each of the themes in the Gavotte is announced first by the second violins and violas softly and then repeated louder by the full group. The Musette has a syncopated accompaniment, with the accent always


program NoteScoming just before the next downbeat. The Air is a full-blown romantic “andante religioso” and features the celli again prominently. in the final Rigaudon, two norwegian fiddlers are depicted in a duet for the solo violin and viola.

aaRon CoPlanD was an american composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other american music. instrumental in forging a distinctly american style of composition, in his later years he was often referred to as “the Dean of american Composers” and is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as Populist and which the composer labeled his “vernacular” style.

The Ballet Rodeo, from which the popular Hoedown is excerpted, was premiered by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 with choreography by agnes de Mille. The work was a bit of a launching pad for Ms. de Mille, who up to that point had toiled somewhat in obscurity. Her choice of Copland for the music was based on a favorable impression of his score for Billy the Kid. at first Copland was not keen for another “cowboy ballet,” but de Mille convinced him that this would be a departure. The premiere, at which de Mille also danced the lead role of the

Cowgirl, was a huge success. Rodgers and Hammerstein, who were in attendance, were so impressed that they requested that she work with them on their upcoming show Oklahoma. The score of Rodeo was unusual for Copland in that although he often referred to an imagined american musical vernacular, he rarely used actual quotes. in this case, with de Mille having been given so much creative control, she had already found several tunes that she wanted him to use before he even began work on the score. after the great acclaim that followed the ballet’s opening run at the Metropolitan opera House and subsequent tour, Copland created a suite for orchestra titled Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo. This too was a hit, starting with a Boston Pops performance in 1943. The suite’s four sections are titled Buckaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz, and Hoedown, making a rough parallel to the symphonic four-movement form. in Hoedown, the main tune that springs up after the jangling opening is “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” after several iterations, instead of reaching a climax, a new tune, “Mcleod’s Reel,” is taken up by different solo instruments. Finally, the “Bonaparte’s Retreat” music returns, leading to a blazing ending.

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P R o G R a M

Allegretto from Palladio, for string orchestra ��KaRl JenKins[from The “Diamond” commercial] (b. 1944) Nocturne, [from String Quartet No� 2] �� alexanDeR BoRoDinarr. for string orchestra by Malcolm sargent (1833-1887)

Romanian Folk Dances ��Béla BaRTóKarr. for string orchestra by arthur Willner (1881-1945) i. Jocul Cu Bata ii. Braul iii. Pe loc iV. Buciumeana V. Poarga Romaneasca Vi. Maruntel Vii. Maruntel

i n T e R M i s s i o n

“Holberg” Suite (Suite in Old Style), op� 40 ��eDVaRD GRieG i. Praeludium: allegro vivace (1843-1907) ii. sarabande: andante iii. Gavotte: allegretto; Musette iV. air: andante religioso V. Rigaudon: allegro con brio

Hoedown from “Rodeo” �� aaRon CoPlanD (1900-1990)

This evening’s concert is dedicated to SOR Orchestra Sponsors Pat & Jeff Aresty.

The SOR is grateful for their very generous and ongoing support.

Aaron Copland’s Hoedown this evening is dedicated to Faith & Walter Pickton.

String OrcheStra

o f t h e r o c k i e s

Saturday, November 15, 20147:30pm, UM Music Recital Hall

Documents

Download the full String Bling concert program here