2021-2022 ICO Winter Program Notes

Christmas Oratorio BWV #248 – Cantatas 1 & 2 (1734) Johann Sebastian Bach born 21 March 1685 in Eisenach, Thuringia (Germany) died 28 July, 1750 in Leipzig, Saxony (Germany) The Christmas Oratorio is a set of six cantatas that Bach wrote in 1734, using some material from previous church cantatas with new texts as a portion of the work. Bach had been the Cantor at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig since 1723. The tradition in Leipzig in the eighteenth century was to celebrate the birth of Jesus for six days, from Christmas Day to Epiphany, and one cantata would have been presented on each day. In tonight’s concert we will hear the first two of these works – the birth on December 25 and the visit of the shepherds on December 26. It is highly unlikely that more than one of the sections were performed in a single day during Bach’s lifetime.

Bach biographer Karl Geiringer provides this description of the work in his 1966 Johann Sebastian Bach: “Selections from the New Testament are narrated by an ‘Evangelist,’ while the utterances of individual persons are entrusted to soloists, and those of a group to the chorus. The Biblical text is interrupted again and again by chorales and arias or recitative-like ariosos accompanied by the orchestra. The result is true church music, serving the purpose of edifying and uplifting the congregation.”

Bach employs Martin Luther’s chorale tune Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her – “From heaven above to earth I come” on three occasions during the first two cantatas. This chorale tune would have been instantly familiar to the congregation at St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, a second church in Leipzig that Bach served in addition to other music duties as well as being an instructor in Latin. The six cantatas that make up the full work each followed the reading that would have been delivered from the pulpit during the service.

The first cantata starts with a timpani and trumpet melody that instantly gets attention and announces that a joyous occasion is here. The festive key of D Major is employed, which is completely logical musically but was also a practical necessity in Bach’s time. Valves (or keys in some cases) had not yet been developed for the trumpets (this would first occur around 1800) so they were not able to play in other keys without complication, and they were not fully chromatic in any case. The Evangelist, a tenor who serves as the “narrator,” then sings a brief recitation from the second chapter of Luke that is followed by a recitative and aria for alto soloist. Bach then employs a second chorale – Wie sol ich dich empfangen? (Ah, Lord, how shall I meet Thee?) – that was written in the 1650s by Paul Gerhardt, but to a new original melody. Then follows a brief statement, again from Luke, by the Evangelist and another chorale, this time sung by the sopranos (with interjections by the bass soloist), to the tune Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, composed in 1524 by Martin Luther. Then follows the bass aria and the completion of the cantata with the first statement of Von Himmel hoch.

The second cantata starts with a sinfonia for the orchestra woodwinds and strings that is followed by a continuation of the reading from Luke by the Evangelist. We then hear a chorale sung by the choir with the same orchestra that played the opening sinfonia. This chorale is set to a tune by Johann Rist (1607-1667), a German poet who is most known today for his hymn settings. The Evangelist then continues the reading from Luke and the soprano soloist has a brief recitative. A bass recitative, utilizing the same instrumentation as the sinfonia, leads to a tenor aria with prominent flute melodies and obbligati [ornate decorative countermelodies]. The Evangelist continues the reading from Luke and we hear another chorale – this one written by German minister and theologian Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). A bass recitative leads to a solo aria for the alto with a prominent flute accompaniment. The Evangelist completes the reading from Luke and the full chorus gets its big moment with the chorus Ehre sei Gott. A bass recitative then leads to the final chorale and completion of the cantata with the chorale Von Himmel hoch, this time with much more decoration by the choir and

orchestra, which gives it the finality that would have made a fitting end to the service for the second day of the Christmas festival.

Tonight’s portion of the Christmas Oratorio is score for vocal soloists, chorus, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 3 trumpets, timpani, strings and harpsichord. The duration of both cantatas is about fifty-nine minutes.

In the News in 1734: Revolutionary War figures Paul Revere and Robert Morris are born, as are frontiersman Daniel Boone and painter George Romney; Nicholas Mahudel introduces the concept of dividing ancient history into the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age; George Frederick Handel premieres the operas Ariodante and Arianna in Creta at Covent Garden in London; the population of New York City is about 8,000; Benjamin Franklin is a printer in Philadelphia; James Oglethorpe is busy laying out the new city of Savannah and the Masonic Lodge there is established; the South Carolina Jockey Club is constituted in Charleston.

Messiah – Part the first (1741) George Frederick Handel born 23 February 1685 in Halle, Saxony (Germany) died 14 April 1759 in London In 1666 the chamberlain and personal physician of Duke Augustus of Saxony, Georg Händel, purchased an estate in the university town of Halle, which at that time had a population of about 10,000. Nineteen years later the most famous member of his family was born, the composer Georg Frederick. The house was a short walk from the Halle Cathedral, where the young composer served as organist for a year before leaving Halle at the age of eighteen. He worked with an ensemble called the “Hautbois [oboe] Band of the Hyntzsches,” and recalled years later that “I composed then like the devil, mostly for the oboe, which was my favorite instrument.” He continued to write significant parts for that instrument in such works as Watermusic and Music for the Royal Fireworks, as well as in most of his operas and oratorios.

In 1706 at the age of twenty-one he left on a three-year journey to Italy to study opera composition, spending time in Florence, Venice, Naples and Rome. He met and worked with Italian composers Domenico and Alessandro Scarlatti as well as Arcangelo Corelli. He ventured to London in 1710 – Italian opera had just been introduced there and he had written several in both Italy and Germany. His first piece performed in London was an aria from Agrippina inserted into an opera by Domenico Scarlatti by a Venetian soprano – this practice was not at all uncommon at the time. His first full opera performed there was Rinaldo, and it was a rousing success and featured the star castrato singer Niccolo Grimaldí.

An interesting feature was the release of live sparrows on stage during one aria. Handel returned to Germany for several months and returned to London in 1712. This time he would spend the rest of his life there with the exception of short visits to Germany. His apartment in London from 1723 was in a four-story building. When I visited it a few years ago, I was surprised to see two of the blue discs indicating a historic interest in the building. Obviously one of these was for the fact that Handel had lived in that building for decades and it now contained a museum about him. The second indicated that for a year in the late 1960s Jimi Hendrix had lived on the top floor – quite an interweaving of great musicians from vastly different eras!

Handel became the director of the opera orchestra in the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket district in London. Around 1730 Italian opera fell out of favor in London, and Handel was approached about the creation of a national English opera – for reasons unknown he did not join in on this effort. Instead, he turned to a form related to opera but also popular in London, the oratorio. Oratorios differ from operas in several ways – most notably there is no scenery or staging in oratorios. Biblical subjects are the basis for most, but certainly not all, oratorios, and the singers are often positioned in front of the orchestra in the fashion of soloists with the ensemble. It is common today to associate oratorio, especially Messiah, with performances at churches, often replacing much of the service. This was not the case in the eighteenth century, as oratorios were performed in the same theaters that hosted opera performances.

The librettist to Messiah was Charles Jennens (1700-1773), described by musicologist H. C Robbins Landon as a “rich, eccentric literary dilettante who lived at Gopsall in Leichestershire and collected Handel’s music, not only operas but also oratorios and, for example, the [original manuscript to] Water Musick. . . Handel was in all probability a frequent guest at Gopsall,” and he cites a letter from a local parson: “I know not whether you are aware that there is a probability, I think almost an immediate proof, that Handel’s oratorios took their rise in this county. The rich Mr. Jennens of Gopsall was a man of great piety, beneficence and taste in the fine arts. He built a magnificent house, and in

it a beautiful chapel, in which he read prayers to his family daily. Handel (who, as you know, loved good living) was often his guest.”

It is a rather well-known tale that Handel wrote Messiah in an extremely short period of around a month. Jennens was less than impressed by this: “His Messiah has disappointed me, being set in great haste, though he said he would be a year about it and make it the best of all of his compositions. I shall put no more sacred works into his hands, to be thus abused.” More than a decade after the premiere, he would write to a friend: “I shall show you a collection I gave Handel, called Messiah, which I value highly, and he has made a fine entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might and ought to have done.” In spite of the reservations of the librettist, the oratorio has stood the test of time fairly well indeed.

The full oratorio is set in three acts. Tonight’s performance will feature Part 1, in which the coming of the Messiah and the virgin birth are discussed by Old Testament prophets. The finale to Part 2, and the most famous part of the oratorio, the “Hallelujah Chorus,” will be added as the ending to tonight’s performance.

Handel would live another eighteen years following his most famous work’s introduction and would spend the vast majority of that time in London. His vision weakened in the 1750s and he was forced to dictate his new musical works and letters to scribes. He visited a famed oculist named Chevalier John Taylor, who was almost certainly a fraud, but who had worked with many known people including heads of state throughout Europe. Not long after this appointment Handel’s vision neared failing completely and his health took a serious turn for the worse. According to his biographer Stanley Sadie, “He added a fourth codicil to his will, with many minor legacies to his friends, a request to be buried in Westminster Abbey and an allocation of 600 pounds for a monument there.” This request was granted, and that would seem the end of the story, but it is not. It seems that among the celebrity patients of oculist Chevalier John Taylor was none other than Johann Sebastian Bach eight years earlier in Leipzig. Since both composers died weeks after their appointments with him, there is quite a bit of speculation that it is possible that both died from infections caused by poor hygiene practices while in his care.

Messiah is scored for vocal soloists, chorus, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, harpsichord, and strings. The duration of Part the First and Hallelujah Chorus is about sixty-five minutes.

In the News in 1741: A new edition of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales revives interest in the work; A volcanic eruption causes the disastrous Kampo Tsunami in Japan; Benedict Arnold and André Grétry (Belgian opera composer) are born, and Antonio Vivaldi and Jethro Tull, English agricultural innovator, die; Johann Sebastian Bach composes the Goldberg Variations and his eldest son Carl Philipp Emanuel writes his Symphony in G Major; Cartographer Vitus Bering begins a voyage to map the coasts of Siberia and Alaska – he dies during the venture and the Bering Straits are later named for him; Anders Celsius completes the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory.

January 29, 2022 Au gré des Ondes (1946) Henri Dutilleux

born 22 January 1916 in Angers, main-et-Loire, France died 22 May 2013 in Paris

The translation of the title is At the Whim of the Waves. It was composed as a solo piano piece in 1946 and Kenneth Hesketh, who was a student of Dutilleux, arranged it for small orchestra, as he done for several of Dutilleux’s works. Dutilleux was educated first at the Douai Conservatory of Music in northern France and then finished at the Paris Music Conservatory. He won the Prix de Rome in 1938 for his cantata The King’s Ring but was unable to complete his residency due the onset of World War II. He became a medical orderly and after the fall of France he assumed the post of Choir Director at the Paris Opera. Following the war, he taught and served as the Head of Production for Radio France from 1945-1963. He served twice as a Composer-in-Residence at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. His works include two symphonies, concertos for cello (for Msistislav Rostropivich) and violin (for Isaac Stern and Anne-Sophie Mutter), a ballet, and several works for solo piano. His last major work was a song cycle written for Renée Fleming. He also created the scores for six French films between 1946 and 1987. Dutilleux was a perfectionist, and he explained his relatively small number of completed works: “I always doubt my works. I always have regrets. That’s why I revise my work so much and, at the same time, I regret not being more prolific. But the reason I am not more prolific is because I doubt my work and spend a lot of time changing it. It’s paradoxical, isn’t it?”

Arranger Kenneth Hesketh was kind enough to send this information: “The work was written for piano on a commission for radio interludes. As the French scholar Caroline Potter suggests the title is probably a pun on “sea” and “radio” waves. Orchestrated in 2014, a year after Dutilleux’s death, it is a delightful composition with echoes of Ravel, Milhaud, Poulenc and other contemporaries. Wherever additional material is added, it reflects a latent aspect within the music. Made in fond remembrance of my teacher.” He also provided these details about the dedications of each movement: 1. Prélude en berceuse – dedicated to Claude Pascal (1921-2017), winner of the 1945 Prix de Rome.

2. Claquettes (Tap-dance – originally titled the tap shoes of Fred Astaire) – dedicated to Jacqueline Bonneau (1917-2007), pianist known as a Fauré and modernist specialist and tutor at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1968-1988.

3. Improvisation – dedicated to Pierre Sancan (1916-2008),winner of the 1943 Prix de Rome.

4. Mouvement perpétuel – dedicated to Leon Kartun (1895-1982), a pianist with an interest in both the works of J. S. Bach and Jazz.

5. Hommage à Bach – dedicated to Claude Arrieu (1903-1990), she received the 1932 Paris Conservatory First Prize for Composition and worked for the Radio France.

6. Étude – dedicated to Geneviéve Joy (1919-2009), a piano prodigy whom Dutilleux married in 1946 The work is scored for two flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, harp and strings. Its duration is about thirteen minutes.

In the News in 1946: Norway’s Trygve Lie is selected the first Secretary-General of the United Nations; Juan Perón becomes President of Argentina and Ho Chi Minh becomes President of Viet Nam; Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform as a musical comedy duo for the first time; the Flamingo Hotel opens in Las Vegas; the first Formula One Grand Prix race is held in Turin, Italy and Santa Claus Land (now Holiday World) opens in southern Indiana as the first American theme park. It is a big year for the birth of future musicians and Presidents – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, as well as Dolly Parton, Cher, Freddie Mercury, Liza Minnelli, Linda Rondstadt, Richard Carpenter, and Jimmy Buffett.

Meanwhile in Indianapolis: The city’s population approaches 400,000; Robert Tyndall serves as the Mayor; Anderson High School defeats Fort Wayne Central 67-53 to win the Indiana State Championship; George Robson wins the Indianapolis 500; Tyndall Towne opens in the old Stout barracks area and creates 475 apartments to be leased to veterans; 230 entrants race in the annual Soap Box Derby; Fabien Sevitzky and the ISO dedicate a performance of Beethoven’s Third Symphony at the Murat Theatre to the late novelist Booth Tarkington; local movie theaters feature such films as The Dark Mirror, Till the End of Time, Hopalong Cassidy Returns and Gallant Bess.

ALARM! JAMES AIKMAN January 27, 2022 Background I have known Taimur Sullivan since 2000 when Glossolalia (supported by the Indiana Arts Commission and the Cole Porter Fellowship) won the USA National Award from the International Society for Contemporary Music.

Glossolalia was premiered in Merkin Hall in NYC and Taimur was invited by the ISCM to play the soprano saxophone part. We have been friends since and I composed my Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra for Taimur Sullivan. The orchestral recording was led by the conductor, Vladimir Lande in St. Petersburg, Russia during the White Nights Festival and appears on Naxos American Classics. I was asked to provide a version of the concerto with wind ensemble which Taimur premiered with Mallory Thompson leading the Northwestern Wind Ensemble at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston, 2016.

So when Prism Quartet played in the 2018 Ensemble Music Society’s series at the Indiana Historical Society, I met with the group after their standing ovation concert and we discussed a new concerto featuring the full Prism Quartet as soloists! This intrigued immediately and everyone was truly excited about the new music this concerto would bring! Matthew Kraemer had worked with Prism members before and was immediately enthusiastic about and supportive of this project! I am deeply grateful to Otis Murphy and Julian Velasco, Zach Shemon and Taimur Sullivan, Matthew Kraemer and each member of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, board and staff for making this premiere possible at the highest level!

Notes on the Program Composed in the latter part of 2019, a foreboding sense of perceived imminent danger became the impetus of the title, ALARM! The piece begins with a driving, direct intensity propelled initially by the tenor saxophone, eventually involving the full quartet and orchestra: the ALARM! motif. Overall, the piece is a type of rondo, where sections or rather sectional styles recur. Following the ALARM! motif, the fast-paced rhythmic drive becomes syncopated. There is actually syncopation in the opening, but it is primarily direct, in-your- face, eighth-notes at 160. The second section involves the quartet in an active rhythmic unison which invites the full orchestra, by section, to join in. After a brief pause, a more lyric music appears. These three principal types of music, which are all one after hearing it a few times, continue with a forward momentum using the age-old concepts of contrast and continuity. That, and some good old fashioned motivic interplay, pretty much sums up the driving 12 minutes. The beautiful “seagull” effect produced by the strings mimics distant sirens, appearing here and there during the rondo. There are 3 cadenzas, the first for soprano saxophone is followed by a chattering, freely aleatoric rhythmic answer, out of which comes the baritone saxophone cadenza. It begins in the depths and ascends to its upper register, recalling musics of history (at least to me) and after reaching a high held pitch, returns gradually by phrases to the depths and the aleatoric rhythmic chattering music briefly returns. The timpani triumphantly states a motive heard throughout the piece, then the alto and tenor saxophones sing a lyric, accompanied duo cadenza which leads the work eventually to its conclusion. At the close, there is a suggestion that we will get through this ALARM! together, with everyone playing tightly-knit, energetic, virtuosic musical lines.

ALARM! was completed with parts and score turned in as the pandemic was being announced and as wildfires engulfed millions of animals and acres of land during the beginning of 2020. (And then I humbly turned to 2 Chronicles 7:13-14.)

Aux Étoiles (1874; revised 1911) Henri Duparc born 21 January 1848 in Paris died 12 February 1933 in Mont-de-Marsan, France The English translation of the title Aux Étoiles is “To the Stars.” Henri Duparc was born in Paris and studied with composer Cesar Franck at the Jesuit College. Along with composer Camille Saint-Saëns and poet Romain Bussine in 1871 he founded the Société Nationale de Musique. Duparc’s most often performed works are his chansons, art songs set to the words of such poets as Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Leconte de Lisle and Pierre Gautier. Aux Étoiles was originally the opening movement of a work titled Poéme Nocturne (Evening Poem) that had two more sections. Duparc had a degenerative eye disease that caused him to become totally blind shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. He became disillusioned and destroyed much of his musical output, including the final two movements of tonight’s work. He said to a friend “having lived for twenty-five years in a splendid dream, the whole idea of representation [musically] has become – I repeat to you – repugnant. The other reason for this destruction, which I do not regret, was the complete moral transformation that God imposed on me twenty years ago and which, in a single minute, obliterated all of my past life. Since then [his opera] Roussalka, not having any connection with my new life, should no longer exist.” The work was first performed in 1919 by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leopold Damrosch. Duparc is buried, as are so many famed composers, in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and strings and its duration is about five minutes.

In the News in 1874: the term “impressionism” is first applied to painting – it will be a couple of decades before it is used in regard to music; the Great Chicago Fire destroys 812 buildings in the downtown area; gold is discovered in the Black Hills and the Philadelphia Zoo opens as the first public zoo in America; the elephant debuts as the symbol of the Republican party; Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent for what would become blue jeans; Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre is premiered. Births include Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the U.S., composer Gustav Holst and conductor Serge Koussevitzky, arts patron Gertrude Stein and poet Robert Frost.

Meanwhile in Indianapolis: The city is beginning a rapid expansion, as the population rises from around 10,000 to nearly 100,000 between 1850 and 1900. Neighborhoods such as Woodruff Place and Irvington are established; the English Hotel was under construction on what is now Monument Circle; Southern Park (renamed Garfield Park) was purchased by the city.

Sinfonietta (1947-48) Francis Poulenc born 7 January 1899 in Paris died 30 January 1963 in Paris Francis Poulenc was one of a group of composers (known collectively as “Les Six”) that were under the influence and tutelage of Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie and worked together in Paris during the 1920s. It was a time of great experimentation and collaboration with artists from America and other parts of the world. Jazz was introduced and modern dance was an important influence, especially in Paris following the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913. Young American composers Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Cole Porter as well as entertainers such as Josephine Baker and Eugene Bullard joined writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald in a social scene largely presided over by Gertrude Stein. Add to this the presence of well-established composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel, and the atmosphere for innovation was remarkable. The “other” members of Les Six were Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Germaine Tailliaferre, Georges Auric and Louis Durey.

Poulenc wrote Sinfonietta shortly after the end of World War II as Paris was returning to some sort of “normalcy” for the first time since its occupation by the Nazis in June 1940. This period was a busy creative time for the composer and several important opportunities were presented to him. He made his first concert tour of the United States in 1948, which greatly enhanced his fame here. He also served as the pianist for French baritone Pierre Bernac for several concert tours during the time. Poulenc had written nearly a hundred arts songs for Bernac and the two concertized for nearly a quarter of a century.

The work is in four movements – the opening is sweeping and dramatic in a bold Romantic idiom with the string section providing most of the drive with intervening solos from the woodwinds, horn, trumpet and harp. The rollicking second movement is marked molto vivace (very fast) and is in triple meter. It features lush melodies as were presented in the opening. At the start of the third movement a long, elegant clarinet melody leads to a rather jaunty section featuring violin pizzicati (finger plucks) and bassoon staccati (short incisive notes). A second section is rhapsodic with a feel of longing – this leads to a full string melody with soaring horn and an elegant trumpet solo. The last section returns to the feel of the opening, but the ending with a minor to major phrase leaves a question as to the real mood. The finale features highly decorated clarinet melodies with a big ending that has an almost Hollywood ring to it.

The work is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets with timpani, harp and strings.

Its duration is about twenty-nine minutes.

In the news in 1947: The term “Cold War” is introduced to the lexicon by Presidential advisor Bernard Baruch; a French ship containing ammonium nitrate explodes in the port of Texas City, TX, killing nearly 600 people; the first Ferrari is produced and the Volkswagen “Beetle” is introduced to the United States; Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play in the baseball major leagues in the twentieth century; Secretary of State George Marshall introduces his plan to aid in the reconstruction of Europe; Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl is published, pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier, and in Roswell NM something claimed to be the wreckage of an alien craft is investigated. Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway with a relatively unknown Marlon Brando is his first significant role. The year’s births include David Bowie, Farrah Fawcett, Dan Quayle, John Adams (the composer, not the President), Mitt Romney, O. J. Simpson and Elton John.

Meanwhile in Indianapolis: The population is about 435,000; Mayor Republican Robert Tyndall dies during his second term in office at the age of 70 and is succeeded by George L. Denny. The Indy 500 ended in a controversial finish, as winner Mauri Rose passed his teammate Bill Holland with only a few laps left. Both had been given the instructions from the pit to slow down, and Holland believed that he was one lap ahead of Rose and waved for him to pass. Holland would win the race two years later. Rex Grossman Sr., a linebacker and fullback for Indiana University, was drafted by the Baltimore Colts. His grandson Rex was the Bears quarterback when the Indianapolis Colts won the Superbowl in 2006.