Orchestra Series:

University Symphony Orchestra

Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 8pm

Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center

Pacific Lutheran University

School of Arts and Communication and The Department of Music present

Orchestra Series:

University Symphony Orchestra Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, Conductor

Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 8pm

Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center

Welcome to Lagerquist Concert Hall.

Please disable the audible signal on all watches, pagers and cellular phones for the duration of the performance.

Use of cameras, recording equipment and all electronic devices is not permitted in the concert hall.

PROGRAM

Call of the Mountain (from Gates of Gold) .................................................................. Joseph Curiale (b. 1955)

Suite from Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) .............................................................. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

I. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant

II. Petit Poucet

III. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes

IV. Les entretiens de la Belle at de la Béte

V. Le jardin féerique

Intermission

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Opus 98 ............................................................... Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Allegro non troppo

Andante moderato

Allegro giocoso

Allegro energico e passionato

Program Notes

Whether or not you recognize his name, at least some of Joseph Curiale’s music is likely familiar to you. He began a

successful career as a film and television composer on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1982. His “Sick of the

Blues” became the show’s closing theme. He went on to compose music for many movies and television programs,

including Roxanne, Little Nikita, and Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. He turned to concert music in the 1990s, and released

his first compact disc recording with the London Symphony in 1995. That album included Gates of Gold, the suite for

solo violin and orchestra of which “Call of the Mountain” is the third and final movement. The suite was dedicated to

the Chinese immigrant community in the United States. Appropriately it juxtaposes a florid melody with a decidedly

Asian flavor, first heard in the solo violin part, with elements in the orchestra more reminiscent of the raw, energetic folk

character of American fiddle tunes. The violin melody is built with a five-note scale typical of Asian music. The

orchestral context in which it is set often moves to the fourth degree of a western eight-note scale, a pitch that is not found

in the eastern pentatonic system. The motion to the fourth has the dual purpose of injecting an occidental element and

helping to create the “wide vistas” sound that is so often associated with the American West. The energy and cinematic

sweep of this movement make it a perfect season opening. “Call of the Mountain” is the second work by Curiale to be

performed by the PLUSO. The first, in 2007, was his Wind River, commissioned by the University of Wyoming

Symphony Orchestra.

Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite is one of a number of the composer’s works first conceived and written for the

piano. In this case, the setting for piano four hands was intended for and dedicated to Mimi and Jean, who were the

talented children of Ravel’s friends, the Godebskis. Three years later the composer turned them into ballet music for

orchestra, adding an introductory movement, not included in the present suite.

All five movements were inspired by fairy tales. The composer included prefatory quotations for the inner three. The first

movement, “Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty,” is brief and solemn, as the title would suggest. The second movement, “Tom

Thumb,” reflects a passage by Charles Perrault in which the character’s plan to retrace his steps by following his own trail

of bread crumbs was thwarted by hungry birds. The winding path and the birds are clearly audible in the texture of the

music. The third movement, “Little Ugly One, Empress of the Pagodas,” was inspired by the story of an enchanted

princess and a green serpent, both made ugly by a wicked witch. The spell is broken and they are married. Eventually they

find their way to a land of living pagodas made of porcelain, crystal and gems. The fourth movement, “The Conversations

of Beauty and the Beast,” is prefaced with the following passage by Jeanne Marie Leprince de Beaumont:

When I think of how kind-hearted you are, you don’t seem so ugly.

Yes, it is true, I have a kind heart. Still, I am a beast.

Many men are more beastly than you.

If I were witty I would think up a fine compliment by way of thanks, but I am only a beast. Beauty, will you be

my wife?

No, Beast!

I die happy because I have had the pleasure of seeing you again.

No, my dear Beast, you shall not die. You shall live to be my husband!

The beast vanished and at her feet she saw a handsome prince as beautiful as the God of Love. The Prince thanked

her for breaking the spell laid upon him.

The final movement, “The Fairy Garden,” returns to the story of Sleeping Beauty, depicting her awakening by Prince

Charming. The celesta takes the role of the princess as she slowly opens her eyes in a sun-filled room.

Johannes Brahms was famously reluctant to enter the field of symphonic composition, fearing comparison to the

towering figure of Beethoven. So his symphonies are all mature works. His fourth and last symphony, in the unusual key

of E minor, was written only two years before his death. It is the last of his compositions that he heard performed in

public. While its initial reception was not enthusiastic, a performance in Vienna in 1897, less than a month before his

death, occasioned one ovation after the other, following each movement and reaching a tremendous climax at the end of

the piece. Brahms was in the artist’s box in the hall, and received the applause and shouting with tears streaming down his

face. It was to be his farewell to the Viennese public.

Critics have noted a certain elegiac character to the music, imparted no doubt largely by the key. Even in the second

movement, set in a somewhat sunnier E major, there is a sense of reminiscence, sometimes quiet and intimate, sometimes

overwhelmingly rich. Like other symphonic composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms chooses to put the most

energetic and triumphant music in the penultimate movement rather than in the finale. The final movement is set in the

unusual (for a symphonic work) form of a passacaglia, a variation form more familiar in the baroque era than the

romantic. It is built on a solemn, slowly ascending line that seems to be a near quotation from Johann Sebastian Bach’s

Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (“For you, Lord, I am longing”). The borrowed ground bass comes from

the final chorus of the cantata. Whether or not Brahms was inspired by the text of this chorus or simply the contour of this

musical line is not clear. Yet the sense of the text seems appropriate for a composer whose health is declining and who is

counting far fewer days ahead than behind.

God turns my days of suffering, however, into joy;

Christians upon the thorny path steer toward heaven's power and blessing.

God remains my trusty shield, I do not consider human defense,

Christ, who stands at our side, helps me daily to strive triumphantly.

About the Conductor

Jeffrey Bell-Hanson is in his fourteenth season as conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and Professor of

Music at Pacific Lutheran University. He brings to the podium a dedication not only to high standards, but also to

performances informed by scholarship. His thirty-five year career on the podium and as a teacher has also included faculty appointments in Kansas, Louisiana

and Michigan, where he won recognition for excellence in teaching both from Michigan Technological University and the

State of Michigan. In addition to his academic positions, Dr. Bell-Hanson has conducted orchestras and wind ensembles

throughout the United States and in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, including the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra,

the Vratza Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Bulgarica. Dr. Bell-Hanson’s career-long concern for the orchestra as a model of community has led him to believe deeply in its

ability to teach a sense of shared values. Eminent musicologist, Richard Crawford, in his 2001 book, America's Musical

Life: A History, wrote of the "sense of shared purpose" in one of Dr. Bell-Hanson's orchestras, noting the focus on

performing literature both historic and new that "did honor to the art of music."

University Symphony Orchestra 2015-2016

Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, Conductor

Flute/Piccolo

Jessica Fletcher

Jennifer Dyer

Katherine Nakasone

Meagan Gaskill

Oboe/English Horn

Lydia Robinson

Cooper Sumrall ©

Clarinet

Daniel Kennett

Devin Turner

Karsten Hendrickson

Bassoon/Contrabassoon

Megan Cummings

Alex Orlowski

Tiana Bennett

Horn

Taylor Mills

Lucas Batanian

Michaela Thompson

Alexander Justice

Trumpet

Robert Layton

Claire Rehmke

Georgia Eastlake

Trombone

Frances Steelquist

Collin Ray

Bass Trombone

Nathan Tunheim

Bass Trombone/Tuba

Alan Young

Timpani/Percussion

Emilio Gonzalez

Timothy Hager

Matthew Kusche

Ingrid Smith

Amy Arand

Keyboard

Amy Arand

Harp

Miranda Campos

Violin I

Laura Hillis*

Dylan Nehrenberg

Jonathan Lee

Anita Zeng

Hannah Gorham

Hansol Hyon

Kate Schneider

Dawn Brown

Hannah Sinnes

Mark Jasinski ©

Samantha Rodahl ©

Violin II

North Foulon*

Boris Potapov

Jeeny Chung

Violin II (Cont.)

Erika Query

Bryn Benson

Siebhan Warmer

Carl Johnson

Ruby Reagan

Nick De Los Santos

Sharon Rushing©

Viola

Sophie Robinson*

Phyllis Jenkins

Arden Phu

August Giles ©

Helen Wagner ©

Cello

Soren Iverson*

Kaitlynn Turner

Piper Foulon

Gigi Greir

Holly Ellis

Katie King

Tomas Jack

Marissa Lewis ©

Bass

Jordan Hamilton*

Adam Masucci

Jesika Westbrook

Tomick Necessary

Emily Fields

* String Principal or Co-principal

© Community Member

Orchestra Librarian, Claire Rehmke

Logistics Manager, Alex Orlowski