Fanfare For the Common Man. Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. LEONARD BERNSTEIN Serenade (After Plato's Symposium). Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz. Last Modified: May 14, 2012. Serenade, for violin & orchestra Bernstein: Serenade Program Notes. 1 Elgar: Symphony #1 Program Notes. Born August 25, 1918, Lawrence, Massachusetts. Died October 14, 1990, New York City. Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium. Bernstein completed this serenade on August 7. PROGRAM NOTES: PROGRAM NOTES BY MISHA RACHLEVSKY (c). Serenade in E minor for String Orchestra, Op. LACOMBE & GLUZMAN . Music Director Jacques Lacombe devotes the first half of this weekend’s program to that concept. The two works in question—Berlioz’s Beatrice and Benedict Overture and Bernstein’s Serenade for Violin and Orchestra—are further unified in that literature inspired both pieces. The program closes with Tchaikovsky’s powerful, turbulent Fourth Symphony—a hugely popular work that needs little introduction. Leonard Bernstein Arias and Barcarolles Halil Concerto for Orchestra (Jubilee Games) Mass On the Town Prelude, Fugue and Riffs Serenade. Leonard Bernstein once wrote. Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium) Bernstein’s Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium), a “violin concerto” for soloist, string orchestra, harp, and. Bernstein's own notes for the Serenade for violin and orchestra (1954) stress, a bit disingenuously, that the work has no 'literal program,' but was inspired by a re-reading of Symposium, Plato's celebrated dialogue on the. Bernstein subsequently performed concerts with the orchestra and recorded his Serenade. Leonard Bernstein provided this grant to develop an arts-based education program. The Leonard Bernstein. Leonard Bernstein: Notes. BERLIOZ: Beatrice and Benedict Overture. HECTOR BERLIOZBorn: December 1. La- C. Other listeners may recall Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh playing those roles in Branagh’s more traditional 1. In spite of the Shakespearean source and a gorgeous score, the opera has not achieved the kind of popularity that it deserves. Its bubbly overture, however, has become a concert favorite. The reasons are similar to those that distinguish other Berlioz overtures such as Roman Carnival, Rob Roy and Le corsaire—all are brilliant orchestral showpieces that exude energy and excitement. In her next role, as Juliet, she further mesmerized him. Although he did not meet Smithson until 1. They married in 1. The marriage was not a success; however, his enchantment with the English bard proved more durable. As early as 1. 83. Berlioz considered a musical adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, but other projects intervened and he set the sketches aside—for three decades. Beatrice and Benedict followed his epic Les Troyens by just a couple of years, and it was something of a reaction to that work. By nature, Berlioz was more attuned to tragedy than to comedy. Beatrice and Benedict was an exception. The entire opera, as Berlioz’s biographer Hugh Mac. Donald has written, has the polish and refinement of an experienced composer. Berlioz implements these qualities with an uncharacteristically light touch. His overture is brimful of good humor, further leavened by the charm of light opera. Many of its details are Italianate, such as the triplets that are a constant textural component, whether as melody or underpinning. Beatrice and Benedict adheres to a familiar pattern in Berlioz overtures. A brilliant Allegro opens the piece, followed by a more sedate and lyrical Andante. Another brisk Allegro concludes the work. Two melodies adapted from the opera provide the principal thematic material. After a hiccupy start, punctuated by cascading triplets and jaunty dotted rhythms, Berlioz moves to his Andante section. It opens with a fine introductory passage for horns and solo clarinet, before the strings announce one of those long- breathed melodies for which Berlioz is celebrated. Though relatively brief, this interlude establishes the romantic aspects of the opera as a complement to the sharp- tongued comedy of the outer sections. A shimmering tremolando transition anticipates the main body of the Allegro, in which Berlioz develops the opening material at a breathtaking pace. Instrumentation: piccolo, flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, cornet, three trombones, timpani and strings. BERNSTEIN: Serenade for Solo Violin, String Orchestra, Harp and Percussion (after Plato’s Symposium)LEONARD BERNSTEINBorn: August 2. Lawrence, Massachusetts. Died: October 1. 4, 1. New York, New York. Composed: between autumn 1. Premiered: September 1. Venice. Isaac Stern was the soloist; the composer conducted the Israel Philharmonic. First NJSO performance: 1. Marco Parisotto conducted soloist Daniel Heifetz. Duration: 3. 1 minutes. In Plato’s Symposium, a group of Athenians at a drinking party amuse themselves by discussing the merits of love. The participants include Socrates and Aristophanes; their dialogue muses on love’s nature, its power and the yearning and passion it inspires. Bernstein’s 1. 95. Serenade translates some of Plato’s dramatic retelling into music. The composer’s biographer Peter Gradenwitz likens the work to a solo concerto in the form of a symphonic suite. Bernstein casts the violinist as chief speaker. Unaccompanied violin opens the work, establishing a prominent profile in the opening measures of the middle movements. Not until the finale (Socrates: Alcibiades) do we hear a conventional orchestral exposition preceding the soloist’s entrance, as in most concertos. He had planned to write a concerto for Stern to introduce at the Venice Festival in September 1. After reading Plato’s Symposium, he changed his concept of the new piece. Bernstein’s film score for Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront also dates from 1. In spirit, however, Serenade more closely resembles Bernstein’s First Symphony, “The Age of Anxiety” (1. Like that earlier work, Serenade derives from a literary model, with the solo instrumentalist as protagonist. Both compositions stretch accepted definitions of genre, whether symphony or concerto. Isaac Stern was so pleased with the score that he chose to edit it for the publisher G. Critics have praised the Serenade for its unity, coherence and musical logic. The slow movement (IV – Agathon) contains some of the loveliest, most emotionally pregnant music Bernstein ever composed. The finale is a superb fusion of jazz elements with traditional folk dance rhythms—as well as virtuosic writing for percussion. Instrumentation: harp, percussion (snare drum, tenor drum, bass drum, suspended cymbal, chimes, triangle, temple blocks, tambourine, xylophone and glockenspiel), strings and solo violin. TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKYBorn: May 7, 1. Votkinsk, Russia. Died: November 6, 1. St. Petersburg, Russia. Composed: 1. 87. 6–7. Premiered: February 2. Moscow. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted. First NJSO performance: 1. Rene Pollain conducted. Duration: 4. 4 minutes. Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is inextricably entwined with the emotional havoc in his life during the year 1. That was the year he began his remarkable correspondence with Nadejhda Filaretovna von Meck, the wealthy patron who was to provide both emotional sustenance (via her letters) and financial security to the composer for more than a decade. Antonina Milyukova, a former student of Tchaikovsky’s, wrote to him with declarations of love and threats of suicide, inexplicably prompting him to propose to her, marry her and leave her within a matter of months. Desperate for emotional stability and wrestling with the torment of his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky sought refuge in the country, in his correspondence and in composing. More and more, Tchaikovsky turned to von Meck for spiritual guidance, as confidant and as muse. The F minor symphony was the first work he dedicated to her, and he called it “our symphony” in his letters to her. In one of his letters to von Meck, he sketched a program, identifying the opening brass fanfare as “Fate ! A third theme combines musical elements from the other two, and allows Tchaikovsky to develop his material into a colossal and emotionally intense opening movement. The composer wrote. This is that melancholy feeling that comes in the evening when, weary from your labor, you are sitting alone, you take a book—but it falls from your hand. There comes a whole host of memories. It is both sad that so much is now past and gone, yet pleasant to recall your youth. You both regret the past, yet do not wish to begin your life again. It is pleasant to rest and look around. The passionate climax is a reminder of the tumult at the beginning of the symphony. After each section has its turn, the three are brilliantly interwoven to conclude the movement in anticipation of the brilliant finale. Tchaikovsky was comparatively neutral on any program for this movement, calling its individual sections “capricious arabesques . We do not reach that satisfactory conclusion without additional struggle, however. The “fate” motive from the first movement recurs, a significant storm cloud on the horizon. Presently, Tchaikovsky recalls passages from the second and third movements as well, intermingling them with the adapted strains of a Russian folk song. The quotations from the first three movements make the symphony a cyclic structure. Despite references to the “fate” motive, Tchaikovsky succeeds in erasing the clouds in a fiery, exciting conclusion. Scholars and musicians are still debating the extent to which the Fourth Symphony is an emotional autobiography for its composer. What is indisputable is the electric effect that Tchaikovsky’s music still has on audiences, 1. Instrumentation: woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings. ARTIST BIOS. JACQUES LACOMBE, CONDUCTOR. For Jacques Lacombe's bio, click here. The Israeli violinist has appeared worldwide with major orchestras such as the London, Israel, Czech and Munich Philharmonics; London, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, Atlanta, Vancouver and NHK Symphonies; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin; Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Leipzig Gewandhaus. Last season, he made his debut at the BBC Proms in London. This season, he becomes Creative Partner and Principal Guest Artist with the Pro. Musica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio. He gave the UK premieres of Michael Daugherty’s Fire and Blood concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and of Balys Dvarionas’ Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Accolades for his extensive discography with BIS Records include Diapason d’Or of the Year, Choc de Classica and Disc of the Month (Classic. FM, Strad and BBC Music Magazine). In 1. 99. 4, he received the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award. He plays the 1. 69. Leopold Auer” Stradivari, on extended loan to him through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
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