Programs and notes for past faculty recitals (c.2004-2017)...
North Carolina Central University
North Carolina Central University
Department of Music
Presents
Timothy Holley, violoncello
In Faculty Recital
Assisted by
Deborah Hollis, piano
Alice Tien, piano
Saturday, April 1, 2006, 4:00 PM
Recital Hall, Edwards Music Building
Twelve Variations on a theme from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, WoO 45 (c.1796)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
* * * * * *
Blues (“…kind of…”) from Sonata for Cello and Piano (1968)
David Baker (1931-2016)
Berceuse, Opus 16 (1883) Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Melodie:
Les Berceaux
Automne
Aurore
En Sourdine
Green
Dans la forêt de septembre
En Prière
* * * * * *
Madrigal in a minor (c.1910) Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
INTERMISSION
Vocalise, Op.34, No.14 (1912) Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Sonata, Opus 6 (1932) Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Allegro ma non troppo
Adagio-Presto-Adagio
Allegro appassionato
“April’s Fool” recital thoughts, amid the NCAA Final Four Weekend)…
It is a strange enough experience to live in this part of the United States, and be found NOT watching the seemingly nonstop NCAA Basketball Tournament coverage on television--and yet here you are!! On behalf of the artists and faculty of North Carolina Central University--WELCOME!! I have only had the rare and even dubious distinction of attending one such recital given on this holiday of humor and practical joking. While a graduate student at The University of Michigan, I went to hear a joint faculty duo recital given by violist Donald McInnes and pianist Martin Katz, both world-renowned musicians--McInnes now teaches at the University of Southern California, while Katz, in spite of being a USC alumnus, is still in Ann Arbor. Both musicians appeared onstage, yet one thing was obviously out of place: Katz was carrying the viola (with a careful grip, I might add), and McInnes carried a piano score. Both men went to their “places” at center stage and bowed nobly to the audience. McInnes sat down at the piano, and played one note, the “A” which all string players have played for them in the onstage pre-performance ritual of tuning. Katz in turn, plays that “one note” on the viola, but it sounded only of a raspy, scratching noise, much to the mirthful mixture of confusion and chuckling of the audience members, who really knew all along that they’d been “had”!! Both gentlemen leaned toward the audience and said in unison, “April Fool’s!!” The audience erupted in boisterous laughter, the men “re-exchanged” instruments--and gave the audience a performance so special for its technical and musical virtuosity that it has endured for decades in more than my own memory, distinct from any connection to the calendar or the “holiday”.
This afternoon’s program opens with the variations on the familiar chorus from Part I of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (“Hail, conquering hero…”). I still have vivid memories of playing this melody as a young quasi-Suzuki method cellist. Ludwig van Beethoven composed this set of variations during his early years in Vienna, along with the two sonatas for piano and cello (Op.5), probably for the cellist Jean-Louis Duport, with whom he performed for Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia (the grandson of Frederick the Great) on a visit to Berlin. In spite of his quickly budding sense of virtuosity and a pianist and composer, the variations are quite evenly matched throughout. Each variation calls for each partner to “converse”, one with the other in the most intriguing manner--sincere musical conversation, neither competitive nor argumentative. In the avoidance of temptation--the commission of an “April Fools” musical joke or prank--and for the sake of audience understanding, the variations unfold according to the following design: we begin with the Theme (in the key of G Major); the first variation is for solo piano--Beethoven either felt the need to have his say immediately, or to give the cellist an early break!! Variations 2 through 4 follow the theme closely--both musicians at work conversing; in Variation 5 the dialogue becomes more commentary than conversation. One performer’s secret: listen for the manner in which each variation ends, and the manner in which the next variation begins; Beethoven’s genius of craftsmanship shines forth here--in places that even performers often overlook. After about the sixth variation, one is apt to feel a bit “lost”, so here are a few more good sound “safety spots” so the audience will know where to “hang their hats.” Variation 7 features the cello, not by loud declamation but by quiet skittering around while the piano plays the main theme. Variation 8 is a short and stormy variation, while Variation 9 resembles “two people on a blind date that doesn’t quite work out (pleasant but not quite special enough for a seconddate!!”) The only instance where the theme is restated in its opening “triumphal garb” is at Variation 10, in which the cello carries the melody throughout. Variation 11 is a beautiful Adagio (very slow tempo), featuring each instrument, and the final variation closes the work as an “open-collared” jig.
David Baker is one of the few remaining musical “elders” that continue to serve as “guardians of the flame” of American jazz. A renowned performer, educator, author, composer-arranger and conductor, he has directed the Jazz Studies Program at Indiana University since 1966. He has directed the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra since 1990, and his own small ensemble at IU, the 21stCentury Bebop Band. No less than three generations of musicians have studied, performed or toured with him. He is an incredibly prolific composer in both the jazz and concert traditions, and his concerted works often seek to draw the aural boundaries between the two as nebulously as possible--to the extent that both traditions become conclusively “classical” in and of themselves. Such is the case in the Sonata for Cello and Piano(1968), in which classical cello technique meets and interacts with jazz and blues phraseology throughout all three movements of the work. Only the middle movement, whose actual tempo marking is “Slow”, will be performed here. The “Blues” title was coined by the venerated cellist and pedagogue Janos Starker over the course of many performance opportunities of the Sonata at IU and beyond. However, its “bluesy” sound is less related to the actual standard, triple-phrased, twelve-measure long harmonic formula of blues-based music than it is to a distinct style of modern jazz played on the classic recording of the Miles Davis Sextet, Kind of Blue (1959). The music is heavily saturated in modal writing, and the individual performance styles of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and guitarist Wes Montgomery can be clearly heard throughout the work. The movement is largely a cello “soliloquy”, opening unaccompanied followed by a quasi-improvisatory cadenza midway through the work. The piano plays austerely, but the reserved manner of writing is poignantly expressive throughout the movement.
My first exposure to the music of Gabriel Fauré came when I was in high school, upon hearing a recording of the Requiem, Opus 48. While the beauty of the melodies was quite attractive, it was the unusual beauty of his harmonic palette that captivated me as a young listener. Fortunately, he wrote a fair amount of music for the cello (his Elegy, Opus 24 is one of the best-known works of the cello repertoire), but his melodie have long held a special place on my list of musical favorites. I have collected a number of them over the years, but this performance is the first attempt to perform them as a set, extolling their melodic and harmonic variety. I chose to do an entire “set” of short pieces and songs that have reasonably attractive melodic lines and mostly exploit Fauré’s “kaleidoscopicism”. The set opens with an unlikely choice of work for a recital, but expectable given the date of this recital--how “occipitally appropriate” (or just plain bone-headed) to place a berceuse(lullaby) ‘smack in the middle of the front half of the program!! Notwithstanding the title and temperament of the berceuse, its beauty of melodic line and harmonic language make a nice introduction to Fauré’s oeuvre, which is dominated by the piano--many works for solo piano, vocal and piano chamber music. “Les Berceaux” speaks of the double-entendre imagery of large rocking ships at port and small cradles rocked by their mothers; cast in 12/8 meter, the song has a long-phrased “rocking” feeling, reflective of a large ship at sea. “Automne” deals with melancholy brought on by past regrets of thought and deed over a substantial period of time (two decades). It is the stormiest song of the set, where the piano dominates the “dramatic texture”, the right hand creating a cloudy skyline while the left plays a repetitive figure that might represent the sentiment of regret. “Aurore”--as its title implies--signals a change of mood, imagery and tonal color from stormy gray to full-spectrum, rainbow palette; no less than nine references to visual color or astronomy can be found in the poetry. The sound texture is light and open, with a simple accompaniment and attractive melody, giving the song a placid disposition interrupted only by a brief excursion into the parallel minor key. “En sourdine” continues the pleasantry of mood and image with a “cloak” of thick forestry, silence and wordless passionate love. This setting is a languorous sylvan tone-poem gently propelled by the 16thnote figures cascading throughout; the serene melody is well suited for the high baritone voice or the cello, with very few real conflicts of acoustic balance. It is interesting to note that the title of this song is also a musical term, meaning “use the mute”. In “Green”, the muted image opens up to unabashed Romantic emotional expression; Fauré’s harmonic palette is at its most chromatic in this song, one that receives scant exploration throughout his oeuvre. The philosophical “deep point” of the set is reached in “Dans le forêt de septembre”, where the aches of an ancient forest in autumn encounter a solitary man weeping, and the forest “consoles” the man by presenting him its token of “mortal fraternity”--its first dead leaf. The song is most attractive, not for its melody which has a recitative-like flow, but for the beautiful piano accompaniment that undulates between key regions using enharmonic modulations. The culmination of this set is something of a restrained “high point” discovered by “good chance” and dialogue with my esteemed colleagues in preparation of this program. “En Prière” is simply what it is, a prayer--but the prayer is that of Jesus Christ said prior to his eventual betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion--and resurrection. The tone and style of this setting are fittingly reminiscent of either the Sanctus or Pie Jesu sections of the Requiem. As in “Aurore”, simplicity of melody and accompaniment are all that is necessary to convey this message of devout faith.
Enrique Granados was born in Lerida, Spain, and studied piano in Barcelona and Paris, returning to Barcelona in 1889, where he opened a school of music. He won distinction as a pianist and composer, and championed the zarzuela, the Spanish nationalist operatic genre which takes its name from the Palace of La Zarzuela (the opulent derivative of Versailles), and whose earliest work for the stage was produced in 1629. His best-known work, Goyescas, was produced at the Metropolitan Opera in 1916; while en route back to Spain from the U. S. (via Liverpool, England), his ship was torpedoed and sank in the English Channel. Granados and his wife were among the passengers lost at sea. Granados wrote Madrigal in c.1910 for the renowned Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. Zarzuelas include the recitative and madrigal forms, and both can be found in the cello work, which gradually moves from a free-flowing recitative to a slow stately march by its bravura conclusion.
Sergei Rachmaninoff has as an unavoidable connection to April Fool’s Day--he was born on April 1, 1873. One of my “grand-teachers”, Mr. Louis Potter (Professor of Music emeritus at Michigan State University for 45 years), was also born on April Fool’s Day--at last hearing, he should be 94 years young today!! Rachmaninoff was one of the last of the great performer-composers of the Romantic tradition, and his piano performances as well as his works--still stand out as legendary for their technical virtuosity and artistry, beauty and grandeur. The Vocalise is the last of the Fourteen Songs (Op.34) of 1912, written for Antonina Neshdanova, a gifted coloratura soprano of the Moscow Grand Opera. It quickly became a favorite with audiences, and soon appeared in arrangements for almost every solo instrument, and an orchestral transcription also followed--at Serge Koussevitsky’s urging in 1916. Oskar von Riesemann, the editor of Rachmaninoff’s memoirs, wrote the following about the Vocalise: “The wonderfully curved melodic arch, with its even tranquility, spans the song from beginning to end in one unbroken line…We find in it a resemblance, without any similarity of notes, to Bach’s Air on the G String, which moves in the same clarified atmosphere of divine tranquility.”
Samuel Barber is one of the most honored and frequently performed American composers of the mid-twentieth century. Encouraged by his aunt and uncle--the contralto Louise Homer and the composer Sidney Homer, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 14, where he studied composition, piano and voice. Annual summer travels to Italy with his Curtis schoolmate (and would-be lifelong friend) Gian-Carlo Menotti, reinforced his interest in European culture and Romanticism. With the help of Curtis Institute founder Mary Curtis Bok, Barber achieved significant recognition early in his career. He gained international notoriety as a composer when Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra performed a live broadcast of Adagio for Strings in 1938. After that time most of Barber’s compositions resulted from commissions from prominent performers and ensembles. Barber began work on the Sonata for Violoncello and Piano in the summer of 1932. It was dedicated “to my teacher, Rosario Scalero”, but early published editions bore an inscription to Orlando Cole, the cellist who gave the world premiere: “to Orlando, physician at the birth of this Sonata, in appreciation of his help and interest, Samuel Barber, seven years late”. Like Barber and Menotti, Orlando Cole was one of the first group of students to attend the Curtis Institute, studying with the British cellist Felix Salmond, and playing in a student string quartet that gave the first performances of the Serenade (Op.1), and Dover Beach (Op.3). Barber’s primary compositional models for the Sonata were the cello sonatas of Johannes Brahms, with which Barber was thoroughly familiar with by his later years at Curtis. In letters to his parents and uncle, he wrote of “playing sonatas of Brahms with David Freed” (cellist and Curtis schoolmate) while sailing across the Atlantic en route to Europe in June 1928. The entire three-movement work is built upon one set of ascending tones (in sixths) in its opening measures, outlining a French augmented sixth chord. This opening is reflective of the opening measures of the Sonata in F Major (Op.99) of Brahms, which contains a similar melodic idea built primarily of ascending fourths. Although Romantic in spirit, its contemporary features cannot be overlooked, especially that of complex rhythmic structures, as well as the dynamic balance of key relationships throughout the work. Cole and Barber gave the first performances of the Sonata in Philadelphia and New York in 1933 and 1934; although from that time until 1947 it received no less than ten significant public performances, Barber never seemed confident about how the work would be received by audiences and critics. Barber’s manner of composing placed him quite independent of the trends of his generation, according to Cole “even passé--in contrast to the music of Aaron Copland and other composers of the Boulanger school”. However, since that time--until 1948 it was the only cello sonata in the repertoire written by an American composer--it has enjoyed great popularity with cellists, pianists and chamber music enthusiasts. To give this work its greatest sense of artistic worth and perspective, a closing quote of creative wisdom from a letter to Barber from “Uncle Sid” is most appropriate: “Public life has its value and often lifts a man to great efforts and inspires great conceptions, but production is done in the dark, underground, as it were, and an honest acquaintance with himself and an understanding of his own convictions is the hardest but most necessary job a composer has, if he wants to do anything but artificial work…” In no way should the Barber Sonata ever be considered “artificial…”
Dr. Timothy Holley, with the kind assistance of Deborah Hollis and Barbara B. Heyman
“Les Berceaux” (Sully Prudhomme)
Along the quays, the large ships, rocked silently by the surge, do not heed the cradles which the hands of women rock, but the day of farewells will come, for the women are bound to weep, and the inquisitive men must dare the horizons that lure them!
And on that day the large ships, fleeing for vanishing port, feel their bulk held back by the soul of the far away cradles.
“Automne” (Armand Silvestre)
Autumn of misty skies, of heart-rending horizons, of hasty sunsets, of pale dawns,
I see flowing like the waters of a torrent your days filled with melancholy.
My thoughts, carried away on wings of regret, as if our lifetime could be reborn,
Roam dreaming through the enchanted hills, where in days gone by my youth delighted!
I feel in the bright sunlight of triumphant recollections
The scattered roses blooming again in a bouquet, and I feel tears rising to my eyes, which in my heart
My twenty years had forgotten!
“Aurore” (Armand Silvestre)
From the gardens of the night the stars fly away,
Golden bees attracted by an unseen honey,
And the dawn, in the distance, spreading the brightness of its canvas,
Weaves silver threads into the sky’s blue mantle.
From the garden of my heart, intoxicated by a languid dream,
My desires fly away with the coming of the morn,
Like a light swarm to the coppery horizon,
Called by a plaintive song, eternal and far away.
They fly to your feet, stars chased by the clouds,
Exiled from the golden sky where your beauty blossomed,
And, seeking to come near you on uncharted paths,
Mingle their dying light with the dawning day.
“En Sourdine” (Paul Verlaine)
Serene in the twilight created by the high branches,
Let our love be imbued with this profound silence.
Let us blend our souls, our hearts, and our enraptured senses,
Amidst the faint languor of the pines and arbutus.
Half-close your eyes, cross your arms on your breast,
And from your weary heart drive away forever all plans.
Let us surrender to the soft and rocking breath
Which comes to your feet and ripples the waves of the russet lawn.
And when, solemnly, the night shall descend from the black oaks,
The voice of our despair, the nightingale, shall sing.
“Green” (Paul Verlaine)
Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches
And here, also, is my heart which beats only for you.
Do not tear it apart with your two white hands,
And may this humble offering seem sweet to your so lovely eyes.
I come, still covered with dew, which the morning wind has turned to frost on my brow.
Permit that my fatigue, reposing at your feet, may dream of the cherished moments that will refresh it.
On your young bosom let me cradle my head, still filled with music from your last kisses,
Let it be soothed after the good storm, and let me sleep a little, while you rest.
“Dans le forêt de septembre” (Catulle Mendes)
Weakening murmuring branches, sonorous tree trunks, hollowed by age,
The ancient, aching forest is in tune with our melancholy.
O fir trees clinging to the gorge, dry nests in broken boughs,
Burnt thickets, flowers without dew, you know of suffering!
And when man, entering palely, cries in your solitary woods,
Shadowy and mysterious plaints greet him with sympathetic tears.
Good forest! Open promise of the exile that life implores,
I come with footsteps still quick into your depths still green.
But a slender birch on the path, a russet leaf grazes my head and alights trembling on my shoulder.
The aging forest--knowing that winter, when all comes to nought,
Is now at hand in me as in it--presents me with a fraternal tribute: Its first dead leaf!
“En Prière” (Stephan Bordese)
If the voice of a child can reach you, O my Father,
Listen to the prayer of Jesus on His knees before you.
If You have chosen me to teach Your laws on the earth
I will know how to serve you, holy King of Kings, O Light!
Place on my lips, O Lord, the salutary truth,
So that whoever doubts should with humility revere You!
Do not abandon me--give me the gentleness so necessary to relieve the suffering,
To alleviate pains, the misery!
Reveal Yourself to me, Lord, in whom I have faith and hope,
I want to suffer for You and to die on the Cross at Calvary!
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