SONG AND DANCE Carter Simmons, Music Director March 7, 2021
Milwaukee
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Carter Simmons, Music Director presents
“SONG AND DANCE” Sunday March 7, 2021 3:00 PM The Harris Theater Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts
RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883) FREDERICK CHOPIN (1810-1849) PERCY GRAINGER (1882-1961) ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833-1887)
Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Les Sylphides (arr. McDermott) VII. Waltz Colonial Song (orch. A. Schmid) Irish Tune from County Derry (orch. A Schmid) Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
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C A R T E R S I M M O N S , M U S I C D I R E C TO R Festival City Symphony Music Director, Carter Simmons, is a long-time member of Milwaukee’s close-knit arts community. The well-known Artistic Director of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) has served for 25 years with the organization that has nurtured, challenged, and inspired young people since 1956. During his association with MYSO, the organization has grown to serve 6,000 students and received recognition as an awardee of the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for out-of-school arts and humanities programs. Mr. Simmons has been invited to work with the Milwaukee Ballet, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Starry Nights Orchestra featuring artists of Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera, and the Wisconsin Philharmonic among other orchestras. He has conducted the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra throughout China, most notably in Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, and also in Orchestra Hall in Chicago’s Symphony Center. He has also accompanied the orchestra for its performances in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Valencia’s Palau de la Música, Prague’s Dvořák Hall, Budapest’s Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, in Argentina and Uruguay, and the Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic. F C S S TA F F A N D B OA R D O F D I R E C TO R S Chief Executive Officer................................................................................................Franklyn Esenberg Music Director.....................................................................................................................Carter Simmons Music Director Emeritus......................................................................................................Monte Perkins Operations Director...............................................................................................................Brandon Yahn Personnel Manager........................................................................................................ Kathryn Krubsack Children’s Program Notes Host.........................................................................................Lynn Roginske Librarian................................................................................................................. Julie Bamberger Roubik Assistant Librarians.......................................................................................Robert and Martha Kriefall
Board of Directors Franklyn Esenberg, Chairman of the Board Charlane O’Rourke, Interim Executive Officer/Assistant Financial Officer Dr. Patricia Ellis Sharie Garcia Bethany Perkins
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Festival City Symphony
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T H A N K S TO O U R S P O N S O R S Festival City Symphony would like to take this opportunity to thank its sponsors, without whom these programs would not take place.
through in-kind contribution
Festival City Symphony is a member organization of Association of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestras, the Creative Alliance, VISIT Milwaukee, an affiliate member of UPAF, and a program partner at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. FCS made the Business Journal’s “Book of Lists” 2002–2007, 2010, and 2012.
F E S T I VA L C I T Y S Y M P H O N Y FIRST VIOLIN Pamela Simmons Concertmaster Kris Gorecki Ass’t Concertmaster JoAnn Haasler Marvin Suson Mary Stryck Kristian Brusubardis Andrea Buchta SECOND VIOLIN Ellen Willman Principal Melissa Mann Ashley Rewolinski Jessica Williams Nataliya Nikonova Lena Gaetz VIOLA Olga Tuzhilkov Principal Julie Bamberger Roubik Jenna Dick Korinthia Klein 5
Festival City Symphony
CELLO Tom Smith Principal Beth Woodward Viktor Brusubardis Paul Gronquist Jon Hodges Marti Kriefall BASS Charles Grosz Principal Barry Paul Clark Steve Rindt Larry Tresp FLUTE Tatiana Pearson Principal Olivia Dobbs OBOE Suzanne Geoffrey Principal Jennifer Bryan
CLARINET Laura McLaughlin Principal Sabrina Pedersen BASSOON Joshua Fleming Principal Steven Whitney HORN Brandon Yahn Principal Nancy Cline Kathryn Krubsack Kelly Hofman TRUMPET Brett Murphey Principal Dale Elenich Bill Dick TROMBONE Jacob Tomasicyk Principal Mark Hoelscher
BASS TROMBONE Matthew Walker TUBA Ethan Morrison Principal TIMPANI Robert Koszewski PERCUSSION Robert Kriefall Principal Terry Smirl Colin O’Day HARP Rebecca Royce Principal
P R O G R A M N O T E S B Y R O G E R R U G G E R I © 2 0 21 Richard Wagner b. May 22, 1813; Leipzig d. February 13, 1883; Venice Prelude to “Die Meistersinger” Wagner’s only comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg stands as an island of warmth, humor and love amid the magnificent gloom of the composer’s other titanic operas and music dramas. Actually one of Wagner’s longest works, Die Meistersinger flows easily through its five-hour duration. The work had its genesis around 1845; while working on Tannhauser, Wagner conceived the idea of creating a parody on that opera’s medieval song contest. However, more pressing activities kept his plan in sketch form for seventeen years. By the time that he set to work on the project in March of 1862, his concept of the work had grown into an expression of the conflict between musical conservatism and innovation...a reflection of the bitter real-life battle between the conservative critic, Eduard Hanslick, and the composer himself. Musically, the opera is a return from the chromaticism of Tristan to a revival of diatonicism that effectively projected an “old German” ambiance. In keeping with this atmosphere, Wagner retreated from his concepts of music drama, so thoroughly expounded in the Ring cycle, and cast Die Meistersinger in the form of an oldfashioned opera with formal arias, choral numbers, marches and dances. On a still more grandiose scale, Die Meistersinger can be viewed as a paean to the supremacy of German art…a sentiment perhaps not readily exportable. The opera’s story is set in Nuremberg; a local guild of Mastersingers is about to hold a contest determining the best composer and performer of an original song. The winner will be given the opportunity to marry the beautiful young Eva. A traveling knight, Walther, passes through the city, sees Eva, and falls in love with her. He soon learns that the only way to win her hand in marriage is by placing first in the local singing contest. Although Walther knows nothing of the complex rules established by the singers’ guild, he auditions for a position as a contestant. At the audition, Walther’s lack of training is evident and his future with Eva becomes very uncertain. The next morning, Walther expresses himself in a beautiful song that had occurred to him in a dream. Hans Sachs, a kindly, philosophical cobbler, assures the young man of the merit of his song and suggests that he practice it in case he is called upon to perform at the contest. The song is written down and promptly stolen by the semi-villain, Beckmesser. At the contest, Beckmesser sings the stolen song so badly that he is jeered from the stage. Walther then steps forward, sings his song gloriously, and wins the hand of Eva. The opera’s famed Prelude opens with a march whose materials contain an authentic 16th-century Mastersinger melody. Wagner continues his web of leading motives with an expressive flute theme that is associated with the love of Walther and Eva; the brass section then makes a presentation of a melody (“banner theme”) characterizing the pompous manner of the Mastersinger guild. Violins play a bit of the lyric “Prize Song,” and a welter of smaller motives combines to suggest other plot elements. The Prelude is capped by the simultaneous appearance of all three major themes in counterpoint: the “Prize Song” (first violins, celli, first horn); the “banner theme” (woodwinds, low horns, second violins); and the “Mastersinger theme” in the bass voices of the orchestra. Song and Dance
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PROGR A M NOTES
c o n t.
Frederic Chopin b. February 22, 1810; Zelazowska Wola d. October 17, 1849; Paris Waltz in C#-minor, Opus 64, No. 2 Like Beethoven and many other major keyboard composers, Chopin was at his best when improvising. A contemporary, Karl Filtsch, wrote in a letter of March 8, 1842: “The other day I heard Chopin improvise at George Sand’s house. It is marvelous to hear Chopin compose in this way: his inspiration is so immediate and complete that he plays without hesitation as if it could not be otherwise. But when it comes to writing it down, and recapturing the original thought in all its details, he spends days of nervous strain and almost terrible despair.” Referring to the “preludes, nocturnes, waltzes, impromptus and mazurkas, as well as a number of single pieces such as the Berceuse, the Bolero and the Tarantelle, and the earlier polonaises,” Maurice Brown writes: “Many of these pieces were dedicated to Chopin’s pupils. Their style is shaped by the tastes of the aristocratic Parisian salon, expressed with superb polish and inventive detail....All these pieces served in part to display and advertise Chopin’s quality as a teacher—but as a teacher of musicianship and artistic expression as well as of technique.” Written in 1846-47 as the second of three waltzes in Opus 64, this elegant piano miniature was notably orchestrated to serve as the penultimate movement in the Fokine/Diaghilev one-act ballet, Les Sylphides, which premiered in Paris on June 2, 1909.
Percy Grainger b. July 8, 1882; Brighton, Melbourne d. February 20, 1961; White Plains, New York Colonial Song A free-spirited Australian, Grainger moved to New York in 1914 and became an American citizen while playing in an Army band during the First World War. Rejecting the European traditions of his earlier musical training, Grainger sought musical “democracy,” thus creating widely ranging works that often mimic folk tunes.
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Among the most memorable of these was the Colonial Song, a song written for piano in 1911 as a gift for his mother, Rose. Subtitled both “Sentimental No. 1” and “Up-Country Song,” this music enjoyed a number of varied settings and was scored for orchestra in 1912. In a letter to the revered bandmaster Frederick Fennell, Grainger revealed that this work was “an attempt to write a melody as typical of the Australian countryside as Stephen Foster’s exquisite songs are typical of rural America.” Even in vocal settings of this music there were no lyrics, the composer directs singers to vocalize on “convenient syllables.”“My life,” Grainger once wrote, “has been one of kicking out into space, while the world around me is dying of ‘good taste.’” Irish Tune from County Derry Among the most famous of Grainger’s folk-based works was the Irish Tune from County Derry, a song which he arranged for chorus (with controversial nonsense syllables) in 1902, for orchestra in 1913, and for band in 1917.
Alexander Borodin b. November 12, 1833; St. Petersburg d. February 28, 1887; St. Petersburg Polovtsian Dances, from the opera “Prince Igor” An extremely versatile genius, Alexander Borodin divided his time between being a full-time surgeon-consultant, one of Russia’s leading experimental chemists, and being a skillful and successful part-time composer. Frederick H. Martens called this tall man with a drooping mustache “a kind of human musical paradox...a great musician, who was only a musical amateur; an eminent physician and chemist, an unwearied philanthropist, an ardent defender of woman’s rights at a time when the whole movement for the emancipation of women was in its infancy.” In 1869, Borodin’s friend, the Russian critic Vladimir Stassov, suggested the apocryphal early Russian poem, the Epic of the Army of Igor, as a basis for an opera. Despite the fact that this work was considered to be a fraud by many Russian scholars, Borodin devoted the best years of his compositional life to the project. A noted Borodin expert, David Lloyd-Jones explains: “No discussion of Borodin can fail to show the extent to which most of his compositions were bound up with the protracted creation of his most substantial achievement, the opera Prince Igor. The main reason why the opera remained unfinished and largely unorchestrated when he died after 18 years of intermittent labour on it was undoubtedly his attitude to composition as a part-time occupation. But much of the blame can also be laid at the door of his foolhardy decision to fashion his own libretto from Song and Dance
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PROGR A M NOTES
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the early Russian chronicle on which the opera is based, and his failure to complete this basic task before embarking on the actual composition. It is for this reason, as much as for any shortcomings of Borodin as a composer of dramatic music, that the opera as it is now known appears so tableauesque and disjointed; and why, in spite of its abundant musical richness, it has never gained a secure place in the repertory outside Russia.” Set in 12th-century Russia, the opera weaves an episodic tale of Prince Igor and his son, who set out on a campaign against the Polovtsians, a nomadic tribe who threaten to overrun the empire. Defeated and captured, the heroes are magnanimously entertained by the Khan of the Polovtsians. It is at this point, the end of the second act, that the Polovtsian Dances take place. Young girls, boys, slave maidens, wild men and prisoners dance around the roaring campfire in honor of the royal captives (who manage to escape by the end of the opera).
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ABOUT THE ORCHESTR A AND UPCOMING PROGR A MS Festival City Symphony has been a significant member of the Milwaukee-area arts community for nearly 100 years. Formerly known as the Milwaukee Civic Symphony Orchestra, Festival City Symphony is Milwaukee’s oldest performing symphony orchestra. Its mission is to extend the reach of classical music in the Milwaukee-area community by presenting free and affordable concerts in formats that embrace people of all ages. Striving to attract new audiences to live classical music performances, the orchestra’s collaborative programs often incorporate local arts or educational organizations, Milwaukee-based performers and artists, and children’s performing groups. Composed of professional musicians from around the Milwaukee area, FCS member musicians serve as instructors in many of Milwaukee’s universities, public and private schools, and private lesson studios. For information about upcoming FCS performances and to learn more about the orchestra, please visit festivalcitysymphony.org or follow Festival City Symphony on Facebook.
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