Program Notes

Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

born: December 8, 1981 in New York City

Strum

composed: 2006 premiere: April 2006; revision in February 2012

American musician Jessie Montgomery is celebrated for her work as a violinist, composer, and educator. Montgomery has been a member of the Providence String Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, the Catalyst Quartet, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble. Since 1999, Jessie Montgomery has been active in numerous roles with The Sphinx Organization, devoted to supporting the work of gifted young African American and Latino string players. Montgomery’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by the Albany Symphony, the Joyce Foundation, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Young People’s Chorus of NY, Dance Theater of Harlem, the Muir Quartet, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

JessieMontgomery.com

Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.

Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration. - Jessie Montgomery

MAURICE RAVEL

born: March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, France died: December 28, 1937 in Paris, France

Piano Concerto in G Major

composed: 1931 premiere: January 14, 1932 in Paris

In 1928, Maurice Ravel embarked upon a four-month tour of the United States and Canada. Ravel traveled across the North American continent, appearing as pianist and conductor in twenty-five cities. Ravel enjoyed a glowing reception from the American people. For example, Ravel was in attendance for a January 7, 1928 Carnegie Hall concert by Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The program featured three Ravel works. The audience summoned Ravel to the stage with a standing ovation. “You know, this doesn’t happen to me in Paris,” Ravel wistfully commented.

While in America, Ravel had the opportunity to meet such musicians as George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman. Ravel and Gershwin traveled to Harlem on several occasions to listen to jazz. Ravel was greatly impressed by what he called “the national music of the United States.”

Ravel completed his Piano Concerto in G in the fall of 1931. Ravel originally intended to be the soloist in the Concerto’s world premiere, but was prevented by illness. The composer did, however, conduct the January 14, 1932 premiere with pianist Marguerite Long (who also played the first performance of Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin).

In an interview, Ravel acknowledged that the jazz he so enjoyed in the United States influenced the G-Major Concerto. Ravel queried: “What is being written today without the influence of jazz? It is not the only influence, however; in the concerto one also finds bass accompaniments from the time of Bach, a melody that recalls Mozart, the Mozart of the Clarinet Quintet, which by the way is the most beautiful piece he wrote.” Of course, the success of the G-Major Concerto is the product of Ravel’s genius at synthesizing various and potentially disparate influences into an engaging, unified, and individual work.

The Concerto in G Major is in three movements. The first movement (Allegramente) opens with the soloist accompanying a vivacious piccolo melody, apparently based upon a Basque folk tune. Ravel introduces several additional themes, notably a descending blues passage. The inspiration for the Concerto’s slow-tempo second movement (Adagio assai) was its counterpart in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, K. 581 (1789). The virtuoso finale (Presto) is the Concerto’s most overtly jazzinfluenced movement.

IGOR STRAVINSKY

born: June 17, 1882 in Lomonosov, Russia died: April 6, 1971 in New York City

Circus Polka (for a Young Elephant)

composed: 1942 premiere: April 9, 1942 in New York

Igor Stravinsky’s Circus Polka was the product of a commission by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to choreographer George Balanchine. The Ringlings wanted Balanchine to stage a ballet featuring the Circus’s elephants. Balanchine contacted his friend Igor Stravinsky with a proposal that he compose the ballet’s music:

George Balanchine in 1942.

Balanchine: “I wonder if you’d like to do a little ballet with me.”

Stravinsky: “For whom?”

Balanchine: “For some elephants.”

Stravinsky: “How old?”

Balanchine: “Very young.”

(after a pause)

Stravinsky: “All right. If they are very young elephants, I will do it.”

Stravinsky composed the Circus Polka in just a few days. David Raskin arranged Stravinsky’s piano version for circus band. The premiere took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden on April 9, 1942, featuring a troupe of fifty elephants and fifty human dancers. Two years later, Stravinsky created his own orchestration of Circus Polka. He conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in that version’s premiere on January 13, 1944, in a concert at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater.

KURT WEILL

born: March 2, 1900 in Dessau, Germany died: April 3, 1950 in New York City

The Seven Deadly Sins

Ballet Chanté · text by Bertolt Brecht

composed: 1933 premiere: June 7, 1933 in Paris

The Berlin Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933 precipitated the Nazis’ seizure of power in Germany. Jewish composer Kurt Weill understood that he was in grave peril, and fled Berlin on March 21. Arriving in Paris, Weill received a proposal from choreographer George Balanchine’s newly-formed company, Les Ballets 1933: English philanthropist Edward James had offered to finance the company’s entire first season, on the condition that they stage a new work starring his wife, dancer Tilly Losch — who happened to bear a striking resemblance to Weill’s wife, singer Lotte Lenya. It was agreed that the piece would combine dancing and singing, with the heroine embodied by two performers: Lenya and Losch.

Lotte Lenya in 1930

Weill invited Bertolt Brech, his collaborator on The Threepenny Opera (1928) and Rise & Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1929), to write the text. It appears that artistic differences arose among the various creative forces. Brecht, a Marxist, viewed the work’s narrative as a biting critique of capitalism. Others in the company contemplated a psychological drama. Weill convinced Brecht that the work as completed would satisfy the writer’s vision. Between April 16 and May 4, 1933, Weill composed the piano score of Der Sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins).

The premiere took place in June 1933 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Critical and audience reaction was divided. Jean Cocteau (Weill’s original choice for librettist) admired the performance, and Weill’s achievement: “the two women were astonishing, stirring up a superhuman air around themselves. Tender and cruel, that is the tempo of your work in which I have dwelt for the last two days. I embrace you.” For Weill’s part, he viewed The Seven Deadly Sins as “the finest score I’ve written up to now.” It proved to be Weill’s final collaboration with Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht in 1954.

Weill’s score is a brilliant fusion of a stunning range of musical genres, both classical and popular, juxtaposing serious and parodic expression.

The Seven Deadly Sins relates the adventures of the sisters Anna I (singer) and Anna II (dancer). The two (who, it’s hinted, may be the same person) leave their home in Louisiana for a 7-year journey across seven cities, raising money to build a house for their family. That family, which serves as a Greek chorus throughout the work, is portrayed by a male quartet (the father and one brother are sung by tenors, the second brother by a baritone, while the mother is a bass). In each city, the sisters encounter a scenario illustrative of one of the Seven Deadly Sins.