Press Release for May 27, 2008
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PRESS RELEASE 

For more information or photos contact: www.amusicalfeast.com
Irene Haupt - General Manager: haupt@amusicalfeast.com
For tickets, call the Kavinoky Theater 829-7668

General admission: $ 25.00 Seniors: $ 20.00 Students: $ 10.00
Group prices available

Passacaglia by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) transcribed by Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935).

The Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen was a notable violinist, serving as the concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, eventually becoming its conductor in 1893. In 1899, Halvorsen became the conductor of the orchestra at the newly opened National Theatre in Norway's capital of Christiania, a position he held for 30 years. Halvorsen's compositions, often admired for their vivid orchestrations, were very much in the romantic, nationalist tradition best exemplified by the works of Edvard Grieg, whose niece he married. The only works by Halvorsen that have found a place on American symphony orchestra programs are his two Norwegian rhapsodies and the short but brilliant Entry March of the Boyars, which often turns up at Pops concerts.  Halvorsen's Passacaglia is as transcription of a movement from Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 7 in G minor. The Passacaglia is a baroque dance form based on a set of variations over an unchanging harmonic structure. Halvorsen used the repeated sequence of eight chords in Handel's piece to create a bravura series of variations for violin and viola, using some of his own material to create a few additional episodes, creating the most successful work for the rare combination of instruments since Mozart's Duos for the two instruments. The piece has also proven irresistible to cellists, and several successful transcriptions for violin and cello exist. 

Zelig Mood Ring by Johnny Reinhard (b.1956)

Johnny Reinhard is among the leading American composers of microtonal music in his generation. He founded the American Festival of Microtonal Music (AFMM) to further public performance of   past and contemporary microtonal music and to introduce microtonality to the listening public. Microtonal Music is music that is not exclusively based on the 12-tone equally tempered scale, which is the dominant scale in western music. It is not constrained to any style or time period. Through his direction of the AFMM, a leader in new music activity today and through his other individual efforts, Reinhard has revived public awareness of microtonality from the 1990's on into the present century. The philosophy of microtonality contends that alternatives exist to the traditional Western 12-tone equal temperament system. Johnny Reinhard asserts that "The number of pitches is infinite ... just because more importance is placed on the Western system today does not mean it's the best." Furthermore, he believes that all music is microtonal. Reinhard is not alone in his beliefs; he derives his philosophy from the pioneering work of composers and musical theorists dating back to antiquity. Zelig Mood Ring is an exotic and deeply felt soulful, yet chameleon-like performance piece for spoken word and bass trombone.

French Songs

Transcriptions for bass trombone and piano by David Taylor

Un grand sommeil nor pour voix grave avec piano by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
After a poem by Paul Verlaine

A long black sleep
Descends upon my life:
Sleep, all hope,
Sleep, all desire!

I can no longer see anything,
I am losing my remembrance
Of the bad and the good…
Oh,the sad story!

I am a cradle
That is rocked by a hand
In the depth of a vault.
Silence, silence!

Chants Populaires Hébraïques by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)

Song of the Watchman
Halt! Who goes there? Sad watchman,
poor sentinel, I move through the night.
Sleep flees from me.
Am I then made of iron?

All sleep and rest in peace,
forgetting the day's troubles.
I alone search in vain for rest on the stones.
I, I alone, I search in vain for rest on the stones.
Halt! Who goes there?

Glory to God
My God is my strength and my tower,
and I am so poor.
All my hope is in God
and all my trust in Thee, my God,
my God, God of Hosts.
I am burned alive,
pierced by a flaming arrow
by my Lord and my God.
He has pierced my heart
and his flame in my heart
has consumed my arrogance and my pride,
the God of Hosts!

Translation by Faith J. Cormier, copyright 2002

Psalm 34 by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955)

I, even I, will always
Give hearty thanks to Him on high,
And his praise shall continually inhabit
My mouth.
My soul shall glory still
In that dear Lord with true delight,
That hearing it, hearts truly contrite
May learn their joys to fill.

Besides his many varied activities in promoting the role of the bass trombone in both contemporary jazz and avant-garde classical music, David Taylor has also been long interested in expanding the role of the instrument in the performance of more traditional repertoire beyond the usual works available for brass players. He has found the French art song, or chanson, to be a musical form particularly well adapted to transcription for the instrument. Taylor's transcriptions of these vocal works, originally made for bass trombone and two harps, often make use of the plunger mute, as in the Ravel piece, which he feels "makes the instrument more vocal." David Taylor's interest in French music can be traced at least in part to the influence of his late teacher Davis Schuman, for whom Darius Milhaud composed his Concerto d'hiver (Winter Concerto) for bass trombone. Taylor has also been long intrigued by the cross-fertilization between early twentieth century jazz music and French classical music.

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Transcriptions by Fritz Kreisler and Frantisek Ondricek

Slavonic Dances Op 72: No.2 and No.8
Gypsy Song from "Songs My mother taught me" Op 55
Transcribed by Fritz Kreisler    

Waltzes Op 54: No.1 and No.3

Transcribed by Frantisek Ondricek

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) was an extremely popular Austrian born, Americanized violinist who developed one of the most distinctive violin tones in the first half of the twentieth century. His beautifully expressive phrasing was greatly aided by the use of an almost continuously varied vibrato and broadly expansive tempos. Besides being a master of the traditional German and Austrian violin repertoire, Kreisler was a noted composer, performer and transcriber of miniature gems for the violin in a more intimate, salon setting. Kreisler also played many "lost pieces," by obscure and "forgotten" baroque composers to great public and critical acclaim. When he revealed in 1935 that he was the actual composer of these "rediscovered" jewels, he countered the adverse critical outcry by simply noting that if the critics praised these works when they thought that other, earlier composers wrote them, their new negative remarks rang hollow. Happily, Kreisler's lively and idiomatic transcriptions of the Slavonic Dances and Gypsy Song by Dvorak were never affected by this particular controversy.

Frantisek Ondricek (1857-1922) was a member of a famous violin playing family with close ties to Dvorak. His father Jan Ondricek studied theory with the composer and played with him in the renowned Komzak Ensemble. His younger brother Emanuel developed an influential violin methodology, immigrated to America and operated studios in New York and Boston, were he eventually died in 1958. Frantisek Ondricek, who premiered the Dvorak Violin Concerto in 1883 in both Prague and Vienna, was concerned about the lack of Czech chamber music for violin, and he transcribed works by Czech and other Slavic composers, including the very popular Waltzes for piano by Dvorak.

Piano Trio No. 5 in C major K. 548 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Franz Joseph Haydn composed over 40 works for piano, violin and cello, and their sheer melodic beauty and liveliness have ensured continual performance right up to the present time. However, Basil Smallman, the leading authority on the piano trio genre, makes a strong case in his landmark book on the piano trio for considering Haydn's piano trios to be the last evolution of the 'accompanied' sonata for piano, rather than what we now consider to be piano trios. Smallman considers the piano trios of Mozart to be the first true examples of the piano trio genre, "where all three instruments should be accorded, as nearly as possible an equal share in the sonata argument through the exchange and alternation of thematic material." The opening Allegro movement of the Piano Trio in C major, built from small melodic fragments, contrapuntally contrasts minor key chromatic episodes with the bright, surrounding material written in C major. The middle movement Andante cantabile, written in sonata form, finds the piano meditating lyrically over the dialogue between the violin and the cello. The concluding Allegro is very lively French rondo finale that provides an irresistible conclusion to a work not heard nearly often enough on the concert hall stage.

Jan Jezioro