Launch Music Player
Sunday, March 14th 2010 at 4pm
The Broad Stage – 1310 11th Street, Santa Monica CA 90401 map
Free Concert. No ticket needed.
Program:
Pärt Fratres for Violin & Strings
Caitlin Kelley, Violin
Arutunian Trumpet Concerto
Adam Bhatia, Trumpet
*Debut Competition Winner 2009
Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor
Case Scaglione, Conductor
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| Caitlin Kelley, violin | Adam Bhatia, trumpet | Case Scaglione, conductor |
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Program Notes
ARVO PÄRT
(11 SEPTEMBER 1935 – )
Fratres for Violin, Strings and Percussion
Duration: 12 min
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer who immigrated to Austria in 1980 in order to escape struggles with Soviet officials. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs a self-made compositional technique called tintinnabulation. Pärt has said that tintinnabuli is a word “which evokes the pealing of bells, the bells’ complex but rich sonorous mass of overtones, the gradual unfolding of patterns implicit in the sound itself, and the idea of a sound that is simultaneously static and in flux.” More specifically, it is characterized by simple harmonies that are often single, unadorned notes or triads in various inversions and are rhythmically simple and do not change tempo.
Fratres was first composed in 1977 as a string quintet. Six further versions were written, including for violin, strings and percussion (1980), until 1992 and exemplifies Pärt’s Tintinnabuli style. Structurally, it consists of a set of nine chord sequences, separated by a recurring percussion motif. The chord sequences themselves follow a clear pattern while the progression explores a rich harmonic space.
In this piece, Pärt enters into “an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away.”
ALEXANDER ARUTUNIAN
(23 SEPTEMBER 1920 – )
Trumpet Concerto in A-flat major
Duration: 17 min
Widely known particularly for his Trumpet Concerto, Alexander Arutunian is an Armenian composer and pianist. In 1948 he was awarded the USSR State Prize for the Motherland cantata, a graduation piece he wrote as a student at the Moscow Conservatory.
In 1950, he wrote his Trumpet Concerto in A-flat major. While not divided into formal movements, the work consists of 5 attacca sections: Andante—Allegro energico / Meno mosso / Tempo I / Meno Mosso / Tempo I – Cadenza Coda. The melodic and rhythmic characteristics of Armenian folk music are strong in this work. He expresses his nationality by incorporating the flavor of “ashughner”, or folk minstrel, improvisations.
JOHANNES BRAHMS
(7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897)
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
Duration: 39 min
A German composer, Johannes Brahms was a leading musician and towering figure of the Romantic period. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. A master of counterpoint and development, Brahms aimed to honor the purity of these German structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his process of creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody has been admired by subsequent generations of composers.
Completed in 1885, Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 is the last of his symphonies and is arguably his magnum opus. They symphony is in four movements. The first movement, Allegro non troppo (E minor), is dramatic and passionate, while the second movement, Andante moderato (E minor/E major), has an air of requiem. The third movement, Allegro giocoso (C major), is joyful with the resonance of triangles. The finale, Allegro energico e passionate (E minor) is a rare example of a symphonic chaconne. The repeating theme was adapted Passacaglia theme from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 150 Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. The symphony is rich in allusions, most notably to various Beethoven compositions.
I wished I could have been there. I am so proud of my niece, Caitlin Kelley.
All the best,
Roberta Kelley
Seattle, WA