The final concert of the third season includes Copland’s “In the Beginning” and Mozart’s “Vesperae solennes de confessore”. We are excited about our second collaboration on this concert with Houston’s newest premier string ensemble, Project Divisi.
Copland
In the Beginning
An outstandingly successful composer in many fields, Aaron Copland is remembered as giving American music its "sound". Copland's ballets ("Billy the Kid", "Rodeo", "Appalachian Spring"), "Fanfare for the Common Man", "Lincoln Portrait", and his opera "The Tender Land", his film scores for "Of Mice and Men" and "Our Town" have a distinctive American flavor.
He had, however, hardly ventured into choral music when in 1947 he was commissioned by Harvard University to write a large-scale unaccompanied choral work. With encouragement from Benjamin Britten, he set the first chapter of Genisis and seven verses of chapter two from the King James Bible.
The words of Bod are initially sung by a soloist, while the choir describes the acts of creation, at first austerely, then with increasing abandon, until at "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven" they break out into a wild, jazzy dance. Each day's actrion ends with a choral refrain "And the evening and morning", each time higher in pitch.
At "and God said, Let us make man", the chorus takes over the singing of God's words. The writing is characterized by wide leaps and sudden changes of key, with the soloist and chorus singing simultaneously in different keys. The creation story ends with God's ordaining of the seventh day as a day of rest, set to serenely beautiful choral harmony; there follows a second description of the creation of man, which culminates in a thrilling ffff climax as "man becomes a living soul".
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (1978)
William Bolcom (1938-)
A note from the composer:
Coming 22 years after the first, the Second Sonata results in part from the violinist Sergiu Luca’s association with the great jazz fiddler Joe Venuti. Luca was one of the first classically-trained violinists of the late l970s to begin showing interest in jazz styles, and Venuti, the living legend in his eighties, still had perfect intonation, dazzling technique, and dozens of fresh musical ideas. One unforgettable evening in April l978, at Michael’s Pub in New York, Joe invited first Sergiu, then my wife Joan Morris and me, to play sets with him, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Bobby Rosengarden. (I do not remember what or how we did, as my head was buzzing with excitement at sitting in with the Master.) Sergiu had secured a commission from the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress for a new piece for us to play; that summer, as Composer in Residence at the Aspen Music Festival, I began work on the sonata, incorporating in it many of Joe’s stylistic tricks, alternate left- and right-hand pizzicato, double-stop slides, his encyclopedia of nuances. One day in August 1978 Sergiu phoned me at Aspen; Joe had died, and the Second Sonata became his memorial. The first movement, Summer Dreams, is a modified blues with a contrasting middle section. Brutal, fast is a furious improvisation on a small interval, containing one of the toughest passages for the piano I have ever written. The Adagio, which follows, is a rhapsodic arioso leading to a closing, hymn-like tune. The final In Memory of Joe Venuti, a sort of Venutian salsa, recalls much of his style.
The first performance by Sergiu Luca and the composer took place on 12th January, 1979, in The Coolidge Auditorium at The Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
- William Bolcom
Vesperae solennes de confessore
W.A. Mozart
Famed for the beauty of its solo soprano aria Laudate Dominum (Psalm 116), the Vesperae solennes de confessore is the second of two settings of the early evening Vespers service composed by Mozart for liturgical use in Salzburg Cathedral. The addition "de confessore" (not Mozart's own) suggests that the work may have been employed for a saint's day, although no specific connection has been established. Mozart composed some of his boldest Salzburg church music in the first three psalms, while Laudate pueri is an exercise in strict, old-fashioned counterpoint, a movement in total contrast to the tranquil radiant beauty of Laudate Dominum. This Vespers setting reveals a personal side of Mozart's approach to sacred music. To Alfred Einstein, "anyone who does not know this setting does not know Mozart."
