Interpreti Veneziani

InterpretI VenezIanI SATURdAy, NOV. 13 — 7:30 p.m.

This event is sponsored, in part, by the Lied Performance Fund.

This performance was made possible through the generous support of the Raymond Stuhl Chamber Music Fund.

Audio description services and recorded program notes are provided through a partnership between the Lied Center and Audio-Reader Network.

Please turn off or silence cellular phones and other electronic devices during performances. Food and drink are not allowed inside the hall. Cameras and recordinglied.ku.edu devices are strictly prohibited in the auditorium.

Performing Arts

Interpreti Veneziani La Follia for strings and harpsichord...................................................................... Francesco GEMINIANI

(1687-1762) Concerto for two violins, strings and harpsichord, RV. 523..........................................Antonio VIVALDI violin, Paolo Ciociola, Nicola Granillo (1678-1741) I. Allegro molto II. Largo III. Allegro Concerto for violin, strings and harpsichord Op. 8 N. 7.................................................Antonio VIVALDI Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione violin, Sebastiano Maria Vianello I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro

George Frederick Handel

(1685-1759) Passacaglia for violin, cello and strings.......................................................................Johan Halvorsen violin, Paolo Ciociola (1864-1935) cello, Davide Amadio INTERMISSION Concerto for cello, strings and harpsichord, RV. 412.....................................................Antonio VIVALDI cello, Davide Amadio I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro Concerto for four violins, strings and harpsichord Op. 3 N. 10 Estro Armonico.....Antonio VIVALDI violin, Paolo Ciociola, Sebastiano Maria Vianello, Guglielmo De Stasio, Pietro Talamini I. Allegro II. Larghetto III. Allegro Le Streghe for violin and strings...................................................................................... Niccolò PAGANINI violin, Nicola Granillo (1782-1840) Interpreti Veneziani is presented under arrangement with Aviv Productions, Inc. | aviv2.com

Interpreti Veneziani

PROGRAM NOTES La Follia for strings and harpsichord Francesco Geminiani Born Dec. 5, 1687 in Lucca, Italy Died Sept. 17, 1762 in Dublin, Ireland Francesco Geminiani showed exceptional talent on the violin at a young age. He was taught by his father for many years before studying with the famous Arcangelo Corelli in Rome. In 1711, Geminiani moved to Naples to take a position as leader of the opera orchestra. He was renowned as a virtuoso violin soloist and earned a reputation with orchestras for being difficult to accompany, due to his unexpected pulling and pushing of tempo.

In 1714, he tried his luck in London where his playing was met with great enthusiasm. Geminiani established himself there as a composer, teacher, master violinist and author of treatises, his first and most significant being The Art of Playing the Violin.

La Follia is a wild Portuguese dance. One particular melody that was often associated with this dance became very popular in the 16th century and was used by numerous composers throughout Europe as an ostinato (underlying bass pattern) in variations. La Follia is one of the oldest European musical themes on record.

In later Western classical music, follia refers to a standard chord progression that was used by many composers in pieces. Composers including Jean-Baptiste Lully, Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi and even as late as Beethoven in the second movement of his Fifth Symphony all quoted it in their works at some point. The official origin of this progression is not known but it was used throughout Europe from the end of the 16th century through the 19th century.

Concerto for two violins, strings and harpsichord, RV. 523 Antonio Vivaldi Born March 4, 1678 in Venice, Italy Died July 28, 1741 in Vienna, Austria

These conservatories were actually orphanages for girls whose parents could not support them. The State funded these conservatories, took care of the girls and provided them with exclusive musical training on instruments and voice. Vivaldi was employed as a violin instructor by the Ospedale della Pietà, arguably the finest of the four Ospedali. He was responsible for teaching, purchasing and maintaining instruments, and for providing music for students to learn and perform that showcased their extraordinary abilities. As such, many of the concerti that he wrote in his lifetime were for his talented pupils. Vivaldi composed more than 500 concertos, approximately 40 of which are double concertos including Concerto for two violins, strings and harpsichord, RV 523.

Concerto for violin, strings and harpsichord Op. 8 N. 7 Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione Antonio Vivaldi During the 1720s, Vivaldi’s fame as a virtuoso violinist and composer began to spread, and the demand for his works, particularly instrumental, began to rise. It was common, at the time, to write a collection of works to be published under one opus number, which is the case with this particular collection of concertos. Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione (The Contest between Harmony and Invention) is a set of 12 concerti composed between 1723 and 1725, all published together in 1725 as Op. 8. Each concerto is for solo violin, strings and basso continuo and is dedicated to Count Wenzel von Morzin, Vivaldi’s Bohemian patron. A number of the 12 concerti are composed with a particular idea or vision in mind, known as program music. The most famous in this collection are the first four concertos, known collectively as Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons). The other concertos in the collection, including tonight’s selection, were composed independent of each other and stand alone.

Antonio Vivaldi spent his life in Venice, one of the most important centers for music in the Baroque period. The city boasted four conservatories of music, known as the Ospedali.

lied.ku.edu

Performing Arts

Passacaglia for violin, cello and strings George Frederick Handel Born Feb. 23, 1685 in Halle, Germany Died April 14, 1759 in London, England Johan Halvorsen Born March 15, 1864 in Drammen, Norway Died Dec. 4, 1935 in Oslo, Norway Johan Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist, composer and conductor who became one of Norway’s greatest violin virtuosos. His compositions followed in the same vein as Grieg and Svendson before him, but he also created his own distinctive voice and colorful orchestration. In addition to composing his own works, he arranged harpsichord suites by Handel. The Passacaglia is one of the most famous of these arrangements and is taken from the sixth movement of Suite 7 in G Minor. It is extremely challenging in that it only uses two solo string instruments, but demands the two instruments create similar sonorities to that of a string quartet through the use of double stops, which allow one instrument to play more than one note at a time.

Concerto for cello, strings and harpsichord, RV. 412 Antonio Vivaldi There are 27 known cello concertos by Vivaldi, far fewer in number than his violin concertos.

They are very important in the literature because there were few concertos for cello written before the 19th century. The cello became recognized more as a solo instrument during the Romantic period by composers such as Brahms, Schumann and Dvo ák.

A composer writing for cello with orchestral accompaniment must give special consideration to the instrument’s low range. The accompaniment must be scored in a way that allows the cello to be heard at all times, even when it is in its lowest range. Vivaldi does this brilliantly in all of his concertos while still showcasing the technical abilities of the performer.

Concerto for four violins, strings and harpsichord Op. 3 N. 10 Estro Armonico Antonio Vivaldi Although the concerto was already in existence before Vivaldi began teaching at the Ospedale della Pietà, it developed considerably in his hands

Interpreti Veneziani

during his time there. It was the perfect genre for Vivaldi to explore as the violin master at the Ospedale. The audiences who came to hear the frequent performances of the girls of the Pietà expected to be impressed by the virtuosity for which the school was so famous. The structure of the concerto of Vivaldi’s time was an alternation between two contrasting groups of instruments, either a solo instrument and larger accompaniment or a small group of solo instruments with a larger accompaniment. This structure allowed all performers to be showcased and was therefore widely used at the Pietà. These concerti usually consisted of three movements, fast-slow-fast, often with the first movement and sometimes the last being in ritornello form, a form in which the large ensemble (known as the tutti) plays the opening material (called the ritornello) several times throughout the movement in between the solo sections, offering opportunities for the soloist to rest from their virtuosic sections.

Estro Armonico (The Genius of Harmony) is a collection of 12 concerti composed by Vivaldi in 1711. The 12 concerti of this group are written for one, two and four violins. The 10th concerto in the collection, Concerto in B minor RV. 580 is a three movement work for four solo violins in alternation with an orchestral ripieno of violins, violas, cellos and basso continuo.

Le Streghe for violin and strings Niccolò Paganini Born Oct. 27, 1782 in Genoa, Italy Died May 27, 1840 in Nice, France Niccolò Paganini was the most famous violin virtuoso and composer of his time. He wrote many of his own compositions to showcase his extraordinary abilities, including the famous 24 Caprices and sets of variations such as Le Streghe (Witch’s Dance). These compositions profoundly changed the future of violin repertoire. Paganini expanded the technical demands of the performer by changing bowing techniques and popularizing other techniques such as harmonics and pizzicato.

Paganini toured constantly as a soloist. His busy touring schedule and extravagant lifestyle affected his already poor health. He eventually died from internal hemorrhaging after years of illness in 1840.

Program notes by Mary-Elizabeth Thompson-Meyer

INTERPRETI VENEZIANI From Venice, Italy comes this group of master musicians—Interpreti Veneziani. Making its debut in 1987, the ensemble immediately gained reputation for the “…youthful exuberance and all-Italian brio characterizing its performances,” becoming a main attraction for both locals and visitors to the romantic city. In Venice it performs some 350 concerts each year, with more than 60,000 subscribers to its own season at the San Vidal Church, where Vivaldi used to play, and where his spirit still hangs strong.

Playing on original instruments, specializing in mostly Baroque music, the individual talent of the members, their expertise as soloists and ensemble musicians, and the high level of performances have earned the Interpreti an enthusiastic welcome from both audiences and critics alike.

The ensemble’s most recent major achievements include appearances in the Bayreuth Festival and concerts in Stockholm’s Royal Palace during the “Water Festival.” Interpreti Veneziani has performed in Leningrad’s Belozelsky Hall and participated in the World Vision telemarathon at the Kirov Theater to mark

the reinstatement of the name St. Petersburg.

It performed a concert at the Osaka Symphony Hall in live broadcast for Japanese radio, as well as concerts at the Tokyo Kjoy Hall and the Yokohama Minato Mirari Hall during three tours in Japan. The Interpreti also participated in the “Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields” festival in Ballarat and Melbourne, Australia, where it toured in 2003.

Interpreti Veneziani has performed in the United States, Turkey, Italy, Holland, Venezuela, the Bahamas and Mexico, and in the prestigious Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia.

Interpreti Veneziani has 18 albums to its name, all on Rivo Alto label.

Even though it is difficult to reproduce the Venetian atmosphere and Vivaldi’s music in concert halls, Interpreti Veneziani manage to do the impossible—it unfolds the silence of the lagoon and the romanticism of the city wherever it goes with the knowledge that no other composer renders Venice better than Vivaldi does.

Lied Center gift certificates make the perfect present any time of year Available through the Lied Center Ticket Office Monday–Friday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., 785-864-2787 or online at lied.ku.edu (click Purchase TickeTs)

lied.ku.edu

Performing Arts

SOMETHING EXCITING IS HAPPENING AT THE LIED CENTER AND YOU HAVE A FRONT-ROW SEAT! The main-floor lobby is expanding to double its current size to provide a more people-friendly space. And, an education pavilion is being constructed on the southeast side of the Lied Center. These projects are made possible by gifts from the Lied Foundation Trust and the William T. Kemper Foundation.

PLEASE NOTE: During construction, you will only be able to enter through the main doors of the Lied Center. Construction walls have been erected and side entrances are temporarily closed.

For the latest updates: lied.ku.edu/about/construction.shtml

How big can you get – 100 years of Cab calloway featuring big bad voodoo daddy R E N DE R I NGS oF th E 2,400 SquaR E-Foot E DucatIoN pavI lIoN aDDItIoN

2010-11

BUSINESS FRIENDS

Friends of the Lied Update

Benefactor ($1,000+) Bigg’s Barbecue

This list includes individuals and businesses that have initiated or renewed their Friends of the Lied membership since the original list was published.

Patron ($500+) Capital City Bank The Chiropractic Experience Sponsor ($250+) Dr. Jim & Vickie Otten

INDIVIDUAL FRIENDS Benefactor ($1,000+) Keith & Karen Ely Becky & Harry Gibson Patron ($500+) Karen & Dennis Christilles Francois Henriquez & Laura Stephenson Charlotte A. Mueller Sponsor ($250+) Steve & Bobbie Gish Charlotte A. Mueller Lucy Price G.E. & Ruth Rutledge Judy & Jack Wright Contributor ($100+) Doug & Becky Eason Alice Clayton & Bob Honea Sharon Graham & Anthea Scouffas Kristin & Blake Hedges Russ & Jackie Hilton C. Shaffia Laue Jesse & Kitty Pacheco Mary Miller Ross Mary Ann & Norman Saul Barbara & Richard Schowen Fred & Lilian Six Steve & Jung Spooner Steve & Pat Sublett Friends ($50+) Frank & Betty Baron Elaine & Virgil Brady Rex Buchanan Cheri Esmond Ellen Loomith Charles & Laurie McLane-Higginson Terry & Mary Beth Miller Carol Thompson Sarah Trulove & James Woelfel lied.ku.edu

Performing Arts

sponsors