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PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Ralph Vaughan Williams favored tradition over novelty in his compositions. He trained at the Royal College of Music and Cambridge University, before beginning the project of collecting folk songs in 1903. He was appointed to edit The English Hymnal in 1904. In 1908, Vaughan Williams traveled to Paris and studied with Maurice Ravel for three months. Ravel’s insights seem to have been the key to unlocking Vaughan Williams’s musical imagination, and he started writing in larger forms. These include sacred works, the biblical ballet Job, six operas, and nine symphonies. He also left a wealth of smaller-scaled pieces including gems like the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The Fantasia was written in 1910 for the Three Choirs Festival and premiered in the Gloucester Cathedral. It is based on a melody written in the Phrygian mode for Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter of 1567 by Thomas Tallis, a musician in the court of Elizabeth I and a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal with a license to publish music. Vaughan Williams included the melody in his Hymnal (No. 92) and was obviously quite taken with its potential. In the Phrygian mode, whole steps and half steps are arranged differently than in the major or minor scale and Vaughan Williams uses this to his advantage in the Fantasia. Taken at first hearing it is a wash of exquisite string sonorities that rise and fall with very little formal narrative. Phrases obviously reach a climax and come to a close, but not through modern harmonic mechanics. Vaughan Williams also employed an early scoring tactic in this work, dividing his string orchestra into distinct choirs—a quartet of soloists contrasting with two orchestral groups, which Vaughan Williams suggested should be divided if at all possible. This gives a physical depth to the sonorities that is particularly effective in a large ringing space like a cathedral. The embrace of the ancient was actually quite trendy in the early to middle part of the last century and something we hear in music by many of the British contemporaries of Vaughan Williams, as well as continental composers like Ravel, Stravinsky, and Hindemith. The Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis should prove to be a strikingly beautiful opening for tonight’s concert of evocative orchestral miniatures.
Robert Kurka The Good Soldier Schweik Suite Robert Kurka received his musical education in New York, taking a Master’s degree at Columbia University and private lessons with Otto Luening and Darius Milhaud. His work had been recognized by Guggenheim Fellowships and awards from Brandeis University and the National Institute of Arts and Letters before his life was cut short by leukemia. The son of Czech immigrants, Kurka seemed to have a fondness for the folk melodies of central Europe. It is not surprising that he turned to a piece of Czech satire for what became his best-known composition. The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War is a collection of short stories by Jaroslav Hašek. Hašek, who is described at various times by his translator as a “beatnik,” “hobo,” and “born truant,” wrote for various publications in Prague starting around 1909. Although usually hired as a journalist, Hašek’s genuine talent was fiction, which won him a popular following while he lost one job after another. The “Good Soldier Švejk” stories began in 1911 and continued as Hašek found himself caught up in World War I. The main character of these short stories is an “everyman” and a “fool” in the classical tradition, meaning one who is thought to be dimwitted but is actually turning the tables on his superiors. Kurka wrote the following about his suite and its relation to the stories: Each of the six short pieces which comprise the suite represents a general idea or theme which reoccurs throughout the book, rather than any specific episodes. Thus the “Overture” is a character sketch of Schweik, the good-natured common man, the genial collector of homeless dogs. The “Lament” represents the element of sadness and seriousness which underlies many of the episodes, such as the outbreak of the war. The “March,” of course, represents the soldier’s chief means of getting from place to place—Schweik does quite a bit of it. The “War Dance” represents the “authorities,” both civilian and military, and their fanatical pounding of the war drums. The “Pastoral” is the countryside in time of war. The “Finale” is Schweik’s optimism triumphant and indestructible in the end. Kurka expanded his ideas into an opera, completed just before his death. Interestingly, the opera is frugally scored for the little theater orchestra of winds and percussion for which he wrote the suite. Kurka’s music fits in well with pieces by many of his contemporaries such as Kurt Weill, Sergei Prokofiev, or Igor Stravinsky and serves as a bright legacy for a gifted young composer.
Harold Farberman Concerto for Jazz Drummer and Symphony Orchestra Recognized as a performer, composer, conductor, and educator, Harold Farberman has been contributing to American music since he finished work at the Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory and won a job as percussionist with the Boston Symphony in 1951. The Concerto for Jazz Drummer is now a little over twenty years old. Farberman described the genesis of the piece in his notes for the work’s 1986 recording: Early in 1985 [jazz drummer and band leader] Louie Bellson showed me his composition, a “Concerto for Two Drummers, Jazz Quartet and Orchestra.” The piece had been performed. Louie was not happy with the results and asked me if I could make suggestions that might improve the work. As I began to familiarize myself with his “Double Concerto” I realized that I could not rework his compositional materials in any satisfactory way. However, I was intrigued with his eagerness to perform with a symphony orchestra and agreed to write a concerto for him, a jazz soloist with orchestra. And I also agreed that wherever possible I should try to utilize some bits of melodic materials from his own “Double Concerto,” even if the harmonic structures and rhythms would be very different. Louie agreed and I began to create the new concerto. Farberman’s conception balances the quite diverse performance practices of the jazz drummer and the symphony orchestra in a very American amalgam. He recognized that the jazz percussionist, especially a drummer of Bellson’s caliber, is a creative artist who constantly interacts with the music swirling around him. He asks that the soloist supply “his or her own instrumental set-up and a virtuoso’s hands and feet sparked by a jazz musician’s instincts.” The soloist’s written music seems to be more of a lead sheet indicating basics about what should be happening in the score while leaving plenty of room for improvisation and interpretation. Farberman also challenges his soloist by moving him away from the drum set to what he describes as a “Vaudeville Kit-Table” with a wide variety of small implements and noise-makers. Next, he gives the hard-working orchestral percussionists an intricate and prominent role in every movement, creating a secondary layer of ensemble interaction—soloist and small group. Finally, the orchestra is employed a single area at a time in support of the percussion and soloist. The first movement uses the strings, the second uses the brass, and the third uses the woodwinds. The entire orchestra comes together in the finale with the percussion and soloist interweaving thematic material they covered separately. Farberman’s enjoyable music takes us back to a time when light jazz was the currency of the commercial realm. It also allows us to appreciate the artistry of musicians who add so much more to the jazz band or orchestra than a solid beat and a well-placed rimshot.
George Gershwin An American in Paris George Gershwin began to publish songs in his teens and had a hit musical on Broadway before he was thirty. Although rewarded handsomely by the marketplace for his musical talents, Gershwin seemed to crave “high-brow” acceptance as well and sought out some of New York’s finest music teachers to help him develop. A natural talent at the piano, it is not surprising that his first attempts to gain acceptance in the concert hall were showpieces for that instrument: his Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the Concerto in F (1925). In March of 1928, George and Ira Gershwin booked passage for their entire family on an ocean liner bound for Europe. They spent three months visiting London, Paris, Vienna, and Budapest. In each city, the Gershwins spent time with European celebrities and friends from New York (who also happened to be traveling) while sampling the continental musical offerings that ranged from operetta to Berg and Schoenberg’s New Viennese chamber music. There were no formal performance engagements on the schedule for George, and the time seemed to invigorate his creative juices. William Hyland’s recent Gershwin biography quotes a letter from George to a female acquaintance in which he declares that he would love to be able to spend the rest of his life working days in New York while spending evenings in Paris. The first thematic sketches for a fantasy or tone poem that would become An American in Paris appeared after an earlier visit to the city in 1926. Gershwin seems to have had a rough draft for piano in his luggage in 1928, which he continued to work on during his travels. An American in Paris received its premiere in Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928. It is meant to be picturesque. Program notes for the premiere related very specific scenes and moods to the various thematic areas: a stroll down the Champs-Elyseés, a bout of the blues while remembering home, an encounter with another American. Gershwin intensified his use of orchestral effects by adding saxophones, xylophone, celesta, and even taxi horns to the score. Contemporary reviews were contradictory. Herbert Peyser called the piece “nauseous claptrap,” while Leonard Leibling labeled it “merrily, rollicking appealing music.” Today, this music is embraced by nearly everyone as both very American and very evocative of one of the brighter times from the past century. 2007 Klayton Woodworth and Karen M. Woodworth
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