Events & Tickets

Chamber Music
Chamber Music: Northern Lights
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall
Program
NWS closes out 2022 with an afternoon of shimmering chamber works from northern climates, including by Scandinavia's finest. Composer Jean Sibelius is often credited with putting Finland on the musical map. His famed romantic melodies are center stage in his Serenata trio for strings. Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Wind Quintet, one of the most famous works of the genre, exudes his signature personality and charm. Norway is represented by Edvard Grieg’s lush melodies for strings and Mogens Andresen’s captivating modern dances for large brass ensemble. Ann Southam moves between senses of urgency and rest in her Quintet for piano and string quartet, while Jo Kondo creates a unique sonic landscape in An Insular Style.
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Program
Carl Nielsen
(1865-1931)
Approx. Duration: 25 minutes
Wind Quintet, Op. 43
(1922)
Allegro ben moderato
Menuet
Prelude: Adagio – Theme and Variations
Emily Bieker, flute; Joo Bin Yi, oboe
Jakob Lenhardt, clarinet; Brendon Sill, bassoon
David Alexander, horn
Jean Sibelius
(1865-1957)
Approx. Duration: 7 minutes
Serenata for Two Violins and Cello, JS 169
(1887)
Jacob Buhler, violin I; Jaewon Seo, violin II
David Olson, cello
Jo Kondo
(b. 1947)
Approx. Duration: 8 minutes
An Insular Style for Flute, Clarinet, Percussion and Harp
(1980)
Minha Kim, flute; Julianna Darby, clarinet
Caleb Breidenbaugh, percussion; Phoebe Powell, harp
Edvard Grieg
(1843-1907)
Approx. Duration: 8 minutes
Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34
(1880)
Hjertesår: Allegretto espressivo (The Wounded Heart)
Våren: Andant (The Last Spring)
Ann Cho, Yankı Karataş, violin I
Ye Jin Min, Jiyoung Lee, violin II
Jacquelyn O’Brien, Nicholas Pelletier, viola
Kamila Dotta, Jessica Hong, cello
Bryan Bailey, bass
Intermission
Ann Southam
(1937-2010)
Approx. Duration: 20 minutes
Quintet for Piano and Strings
(1986)
Noah Sonderling, piano
Natsuko Takashima, violin I; Shomya Mitra, violin II
Toby Winarto, viola; Amy Sunyoung Lee, cello
Mogens Andresen
(b. 1945)
Approx. Duration: 11 minutes
Three Norwegian Dances for Brass Ensemble
(1990)
Prelude – Rheinlænder (From the Rhineland)
Trønderpols (Thunder Pole)
Per Spelmann (Per the Fiddler)
Henry Bond, Thea Humphries, horn
Morgen Low, Aislin Carpenter, cornet
Kenneth Chauby, Alan Tolbert, Jack Farnham, trumpet
Natalie Colegrove, euphonium
Guangwei Fan, alto trombone; Chase Waterbury, tenor trombone
Noah Roper, bass trombone; Andrew Abel, tuba
Jennifer Marasti, Ben Cornavaca, percussion
Carl Nielsen
Wind Quintet, Op. 43
(1922)
Approximate duration: 25 minutes
Although Carl Nielsen is now regarded as one of the most significant Danish composers, his work was not fully appreciated until decades after his death. In the 1960s, conductor Leonard Bernstein played a large role in popularizing Nielsen’s music. Some of Nielsen’s posthumous accolades include having his image printed on the Danish hundred-kroner banknote and being named one of the greatest Danish classical composers by the Danish Ministry of Culture.
In 1921 Nielsen heard the Copenhagen Wind Quintet rehearsing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and decided to write a piece for the same instrumentation. Nielsen’s Wind Quintet was premiered the next year and is one of his last works. Careful attention is paid throughout the piece to the timbre and range of each instrument, and Nielsen wrote in his program notes that “at one moment they are all talking at once, at another they are quite alone.”
The entire Wind Quintet is based on five melodic motives that recur in each movement, and the harmonic language of the piece is primarily tonal. The first movement is in sonata form. This is followed by a rustic minuet and trio. The piece closes with a theme and variations based on Nielsen’s hymn “My Jesus, make my heart to love Thee.”
Jean Sibelius
Serenata for Two Violins and Cello, JS 169
(1887)
Approximate duration: 7 minutes
The music of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius is often credited with helping Finland project its own national identity during its struggle for independence. Sibelius’s image was featured on the Finnish 100-mark note until 2002 and his birthday was declared the Day of Finnish Music in 2011.
Sibelius’s Serenata is an early unpublished work and remained unknown until many years after his death. In fact, until the 1980s, most scholars and musicians presumed that Sibelius had written very little chamber music. However, a significant number of early chamber works, including the Serenata, were discovered when his family donated his manuscripts to the Helsinki University Library. Sibelius composed the Serenata in 1887 while vacationing in the island village of Korpo in the Turku archipelago. That summer, Sibelius gave an informal performance of the Serenata, along with his cellist brother Christian and their mutual friend. The piece is full of charming, youthful enthusiasm and expressive lyricism.
Jo Kondo
An Insular Style for Flute, Clarinet, Percussion and Harp
(1980)
Approximate duration: 8 minutes
The Japanese composer Jo Kondo made his compositional debut in the Japan-Germany Contemporary Music Festival in 1969, where he won third prize. A Professor of Music at Ochanomizu University, Kondo’s music has been played by prominent orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world. In 1978, he spent a year in New York City, where he encountered the works of American avant-garde composers John Cage and Morton Feldman. Drawing on those influences, Kondo composed An Insular Style in 1980. The piece layers a variety of timbres on top of one another. Kondo incorporates hockets (“hiccups”) in which instruments take turns playing fragments of a single melody, typically in quick succession. This fragmentary conversational style creates a surround-sound effect and places the listener at the center of the melody. An Insular Style also explores unusual combinations of instrumental timbres, dissonance and open sonorities.
Edvard Grieg
Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34
(1880)
Approximate duration: 8 minutes
Edvard Grieg is credited with helping Norwegian music to develop a distinct identity and bringing it into a broader global context. In 1880 he published vocal settings of 12 poems by Norwegian poet Å.O. Vinje. These poems were written in Ladsmål, a synthetic language based on the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of rural dialects. The next year, Grieg set two of these songs for string orchestra as Two Elegiac Melodies.
Elegiac works generally address issues of serious reflection and are often laments for the dead. In “Hjertesår” (“The Wounded Heart”), life has scarred the protagonist’s heart. There is suffering at the first hints of spring each year when the leaves open, the ice melts and the cuckoo bird sings on the hillside. However, as the flowers sprout from the earth, the protagonist’s heart begins to heal.
Våren (“The Last Spring”) also portrays the coming of a Norwegian spring after a harsh winter. Ice drifts away, waterfalls cascade and the grass and animals awake from a long winter’s hibernation. Amidst such beauty, however, there is also poignant sadness, as the protagonist is nearing life’s end. Perhaps this will be the last chance to experience spring’s grandeur. Regardless, the protagonist is grateful for the renewal and rebirth signified by springtime.
Ann Southam
Quintet for Piano and Strings
(1986)
Approximate duration: 20 minutes
In 2017 Globe and Mail hailed Canadian composer Ann Southam for “blazing a trail for women composers in a notoriously sexist field.” Southam, who expressed in an interview that she always knew she wanted to be an artist, wrote pieces across numerous genres and mediums. Her works purposefully do not fall into any one particular style, and she draws on elements of romanticism, minimalism and iterative conventions. Reflecting on her work, Southam wrote, “Art is magic. There is great magic in drawing and there can be a world of emotional meaning in the relationship of just two notes.”
After years of composing electronic works, Southam returned to acoustic compositions in the 1980s. Her 1986 Quintet is based on a tone row of all 12 chromatic pitches. Southam was fascinated with this specific tone row for more than 15 years and used it in several pieces. At the beginning of the Quintet, the piano states the first five pitches of the tone row by repeating a two-note melody on top of a three-note harmony. After a lengthy introduction, the violins play a melody of seven pitches to complete the tone row.
Once all 12 pitches have been initially played, the entire ensemble uses the complete row. Much of the work is dissonant, but two piano solos interspersed throughout the piece transform the tone row into a consonant sonic space. After a series of climactic moments, the Quintet ends quietly in the way it began.
Mogens Andresen
Three Norwegian Dances for Brass Ensemble
(1990)
Approximate duration: 11 minutes
Danish composer and trombonist Mogens Andresen has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, an author on the history of brass instruments and the founder of the Dania Brass Ensemble. His original compositions and arrangements have been recorded and performed by prestigious ensembles around the world, and he is the recipient of several teaching awards.
The Three Norwegian Dances were written for the Oslo Concert Brass in 1990. The first dance, “Rheinlænder” (“From the Rhineland”), is a lively dance that begins with the couples in a circle with one partner facing in and the other facing out. “Trønderpols” (“Thunder Pole”) is a slow, sensual dance. “Per Spelmann” (“Per the Fiddler”) is an early 20th-century folk song dance that every Norwegian child learns. The only music for this dance is the singing of the dancers!
– © Dr. Paula Maust
Dr. Paula Maust is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the creator of Expanding the Music Theory Canon, an extensive online collection of music theory examples by historical women and/or people of color. A book based on the website is forthcoming from SUNY Press, and she has also published articles in Women & Music and The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. As a harpsichordist and organist, Paula conducts baroque opera from the keyboard, most recently directing a program of opera scenes by early modern women at Peabody.
Carl Nielsen
(1865-1931)
Duración aproximada: 25 minutos
Quinteto de Vientos, Op. 43 (1922)
Allegro ben moderato
Menuet
Prelude: Adagio – Theme and Variations
Emily Bieker, flauta; Joo Bin Yi, oboe
Jakob Lenhardt, clarinete; Brendon Sill, fagot
David Alexander, trompa
Jean Sibelius
(1865-1957)
Duración aproximada: 7 minutos
Serenata para Dos Violines y Cello, JS 169 (1887)
Jacob Buhler, violín I; Jaewon Seo, violín II
David Olson, violonchelo
Jo Kondo
(b. 1947)
Duración aproximada: 8 minutos
An Insular Style para Flauta, Clarinete, Percusión y Arpa (1980)
Minha Kim, flauta; Julianna Darby, clarinete
Caleb Breidenbaugh, percusión; Phoebe Powell, arpa
Edvard Grieg
(1843-1907)
Duración aproximada: 8 minutos
Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34 (1880)
Hjertesår: Allegretto espressivo (El corazón herido)
Våren: Andant (La última primavera)
Ann Cho, Yankı Karataş, violín I
Ye Jin Min, Jiyoung Lee, violín II
Jacquelyn O’Brien, Nicholas Pelletier, viola
Kamila Dotta, Jessica Hong, violonchelo
Bryan Bailey, contrabajo
Intermission
Ann Southam
(1937-2010)
Duración aproximada: 20 minutos
Quinteto para Piano y Cuerdas (1986)
Noah Sonderling, piano
Natsuko Takashima, violín I; Shomya Mitra, violín II
Toby Winarto, viola; Amy Sunyoung Lee, violonchelo
Mogens Andresen
(b. 1945)
Duración aproximada: 11 minutos
Tres Danzas Noruegas para Conjunto de Viento Metal (1990)
Prelude – Rheinlænder (Desde Renania)
Trønderpols (Polo de trueno)
Per Spelmann (Según el violinista)
Henry Bond, Thea Humphries, trompa
Morgen Low, Aislin Carpenter,
Kenneth Chauby, Alan Tolbert, Jack Farnham, trompeta
Natalie Colegrove, euphonium
Guangwei Fan, Chase Waterbury, trombón
Noah Roper, trombón bajo; Andrew Abel, tuba
Jennifer Marasti, Ben Cornavaca, percusión
Carl Nielsen
Quinteto de Vientos, Op. 43 (1922)
Aunque Carl Nielsen es considerado hoy en día como uno de los compositores daneses más importantes, su trabajo no fue apreciado en su totalidad hasta décadas después de su muerte. En los 1960, el director de orquesta Leonard Bernstein jugó un papel fundamental en popularizar la música de Nielsen. Algunos de los honores póstumos de Nielsen incluyen su imagen impresa en el billete de cien coronas danesas y ser nombrado uno de los más grandes compositores clásicos daneses por el Ministerio de Cultura de Dinamarca.
En 1921, Nielsen escuchó el Quinteto de Vientos de Copenhague ensayando la Sinfonía Concertante de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart y decidió escribir una obra con la misma instrumentación. El Quinteto para Vientos de Nielsen se estrenó al año siguiente y es una de sus últimas obras. A través de la pieza, Nielsen presta cuidadosa atención al timbre y el rango de cada instrumento, escribiendo en sus notas al programa que “en un momento están todos hablando a la vez, y en otro se encuentran solos”.
El Quinteto para Vientos completo está basado en cinco motivos melódicos que recurren en cada movimiento, y el lenguaje armónico de la pieza es principalmente tonal. El primer movimiento tiene forma sonata. A este le sigue un minuet rústico y un trío. La obra cierra con un tema con variaciones basado en el himno de Nielsen “Mi Jesús, haz que mi corazón te ame”.
Jean Sibelius
Serenata para Dos Violines y Cello, JS 169 (1887)
A la música del compositor finlandés Jean Sibelius a menudo se le atribuye haber ayudado a Finlandia a encontrar su propia identidad nacional en su lucha por la independencia. La imagen de Sibelius fue impresa en el billete finlandés de cien marcos hasta 2002 y su cumpleaños fue declarado Día de la Música Finlandesa en 2011.
La Serenata de Sibelius es una de sus primeras obras inéditas y permaneció desconocida hasta muchos años después de su muerte. De hecho, hasta los 1980, la mayoría de los académicos y músicos asumían que Sibelius había escrito muy poca música de cámara. Sin embargo, cuando su familia donó sus manuscritos a la biblioteca de la Universidad de Helsinki, un número significativo de obras de cámara tempranas salieron a la luz. Sibelius compuso la Serenata en 1887 mientras vacacionaba en la villa isleña de Korpo en el archipiélago de Turku. Ese verano, Sibelius dió una interpretación informal de la Serenata, acompañado de su hermano cellista Christian y de un amigo en común. La pieza está llena de encanto, entusiasmo juvenil y lirismo expresivo.
Jo Kondo
An Insular Style para Flauta, Clarinete, Percusión y Arpa (1980)
El compositor japonés Jo Kondo hizo su debut composicional en el Festival de Música Contemporánea Japón-Alemania en 1969, donde obtuvo el tercer premio. Profesor de Música de la Universidad de Ochanomizu, la música de Kondo ha sido interpretada por prominentes orquestas y conjuntos de cámara alrededor del mundo. En 1978, pasó un año en la ciudad de Nueva York, donde conoció las obras de los compositores avant-garde estadounidenses John Cage y Morton Feldman. Basado en esas influencias, Kondo compuso An Insular Style (Un estilo insular) en 1980. La pieza superpone una variedad de timbres y Kondo incorpora hockets (“hipo”), en los que los instrumentos se turnan para tocar fragmentos de una sola melodía, generalmente en rápida sucesión. Este estilo conversacional fragmentario crea un efecto de “surround-sound” y coloca al oyente en el centro de la melodía. An Insular Style también explora combinaciones inusuales de timbres instrumentales, disonancias y sonoridades abiertas.
Edvard Grieg
Dos Melodías Elegíacas, Op. 34 (1880)
Edvard Grieg jugó un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de la música noruega hacia una identidad distinta, llevándola a un contexto global más amplio. En 1880 publicó arreglos vocales de 12 poemas del poeta noruego A.O. Vinje. Estos poemas fueron escritos en Ladsmål, un lenguaje sintético basado en la gramática, vocabulario y pronunciación de dialectos rurales. Al año siguiente, Grieg arregló dos de estas canciones para orquesta de cuerdas y las tituló Dos Melodías Elegíacas.
Las obras elegíacas generalmente abordan temas de reflexión profunda y suelen ser lamentos por los muertos. En “Hjertesår” (“El corazón herido”), la vida ha dejado una cicatriz en el corazón del protagonista. Hay sufrimiento en los primeros indicios de la primavera cada año cuando se abren las hojas, el hielo se derrite y el cuco canta en la ladera. Sin embargo, a medida que las flores brotan de la tierra, el corazón del protagonista comienza a sanar.
Våren (La última primavera) también nos muestra la llegada de la primavera noruega después de un duro invierno. El hielo se deshace, las cascadas fluyen y la hierba y los animales despiertan tras una larga hibernación invernal. Sin embargo, entre tanta belleza, también hay una tristeza conmovedora, ya que el protagonista se acerca al final de su vida. Quizás esta sea su última oportunidad de experimentar la grandiosidad de la primavera. De todas formas, el protagonista se siente agradecido por el sentido de renovación y renacimiento que esta estación nos regala.
Ann Southam
Quinteto para Piano y Cuerdas (1986)
En 2017, Globe and Mail elogió a la compositora canadiense Ann Southam por “abrir un camino para las mujeres compositoras en un campo notoriamente sexista”. Southam, quien expresó en una entrevista que ella siempre supo que quería ser artista, escribió piezas a través de numerosos géneros y medios. Deliberadamente, sus obras no se encierran en ningún estilo en particular, tomando de elementos del romanticismo, el minimalismo y las convenciones reiterativas. Reflexionando sobre su trabajo, Southam escribió: “El arte es mágico. Existe una gran magia en el dibujo y puede haber un mundo de significado emocional en la relación de solo dos notas.”
Después de años de componer obras electrónicas, Southam regresó a las composiciones acústicas en los 1980. Su Quinteto de 1986 está basado en una serie de los doce tonos cromáticos. Southam había estado fascinada con esta específica serie por más de 15 años y la usó en varias de sus piezas. Al principio del Quinteto, el piano declara los primeros cinco tonos de la serie repitiendo una melodía de dos notas encima de una armonía de tres notas. Después de una larga introducción, los violines tocan una melodía de siete notas para completar la serie tonal.
Una vez que las doce notas se han presentado inicialmente, el conjunto completo usa la serie en su totalidad. Gran parte de la obra es disonante, pero dos solos de piano intercalados a través de la pieza transforman la serie tonal en un espacio sonoro consonante. Después de una sucesión de momentos climáticos, el Quinteto termina tranquilamente, como empezó.
Mogens Andresen
Tres Danzas Noruegas para Conjunto de Viento Metal (1990)
El compositor y trombonista danés Mogens Andresen ha disfrutado de una multifacética carrera como profesor de la Royal Danish Academy of Music (Real Academia de Música Danesa), escritor sobre la historia de los instrumentos de viento metal y fundador del Dania Brass Ensemble. Sus composiciones y arreglos originales han sido grabados e interpretados por prestigiosos conjuntos alrededor del mundo, y ha recibido numerosos premios de enseñanza.
Las Tres Danzas Noruegas fueron escritas para el Oslo Concert Brass en 1990. La primera danza, “Rheinlænder” (“Desde Renania”), es un baile animado que comienza con las parejas en círculo, con un integrante mirando hacia adentro y el otro hacia afuera. “Trønderpols” (“Polo de trueno”) es una danza lenta y sensual. “Per Spelmann” (“Según el violinista”) es una canción folclórica bailable de principios del siglo XX que todo niño noruego conoce. ¡La única música para este baile es el canto de los bailarines!
– © Dr. Paula Maust
Dr. Paula Maust es Profesora Asistente de Teoría Musical en el Instituto Peabody de la Universidad John Hopkins y creadora del sitio web Expanding the Music Theory Canon, una extensa colección de ejemplos de teoría musical escritos por mujeres históricas y/o personas de color. Un libro basado en el sitio web será publicado próximamente por SUNY Press, y también ha publicado artículos en Women & Music y The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. Como clavecinista y organista dirige ópera barroca desde el teclado, y más recientemente dirigió un programa de escenas de ópera de mujeres modernas en Peabody.
Translation by Maria Paulina García
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