GERSHWIN’S SECOND RHAPSODY
Friday, February 4, 2022 at 7:30 pm Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 7:30 pm Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 2:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL Ken-David Masur, conductor Aaron Diehl, piano CHARLES IVES/ed. James B. Sinclair (Ives Society) Three Places in New England I. The “St. Gaudens” in Boston Common II. Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut III. The Housatonic at Stockbridge FLORENCE PRICE Piano Concerto in D minor (In One Movement) Aaron Diehl, piano INTERMISSION
SAMUEL BARBER Symphony No. 1 (In One Movement), Opus 9 I. Allegro ma non troppo II. Allegro molto (Scherzo) III. Andante tranquillo IV. Con moto (Passacaglia) [played without pause] WILLIAM GRANT STILL Out of the Silence GEORGE GERSHWIN Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra Aaron Diehl, piano The 2021.22 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND. The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on Telarc, Koss Classics, Pro Arte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout recordings. MSO Classics recordings (digital only) available on iTunes and at mso.org. MSO Binaural recordings (digital only) available at mso.org.
Guest Artist Biographies AARON DIEHL Pianist and composer Aaron Diehl mystifies listeners with his layered artistry. At once temporal and ethereal, his expression transforms the piano into an orchestral vessel in the spirit of beloved predecessors Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, and Jelly Roll Morton. Following three critically-acclaimed leader albums on Mack Avenue Records – and live appearances at historic venues from Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Village Vanguard to New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonie de Paris – the American Pianist Association’s 2011 Cole Porter fellow now focuses his attention on what it means to be present within himself. His forthcoming solo record promises an expansion of that exploration in a setting at once unbound and intimate. Diehl conjures three-dimensional expansion of melody, counterpoint, and movement through time. Rather than choose one sound or another, he invites listeners into the chambered whole of his artistry. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diehl traveled to New York in 2003, following his success as a finalist in JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition and a subsequent European tour with Wynton Marsalis. His love affair with rub and tension prompted a years-long immersion in distinctive repertoire from Monk and Ravel to Gershwin and William Grant Still. Among other towering figures, Still in particular inspires Diehls’s ongoing curation of Black American composers in his own performance programming, unveiled this past fall at 92nd St. Y. Diehl has enjoyed artistic associations with Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Buster Williams, Branford Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Philip Glass, and multi Grammy® Award-winning artist Cecile McLorin Salvant. He recently appeared with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra as featured soloist. Diehl holds a Bachelor of Music in jazz studies from Juilliard. A licensed pilot, when he’s not at the studio or on the road, he’s likely in the air. Follow both his earthbound and aerial exploits via Instagram at www.instagram.com/aaronjdiehl.
Program notes by J. Mark Baker American composers are on display this weekend, as we continue our celebration of the 1930s. The MSO’s artistic partner Aaron Diehl returns to play Gershwin’s Second Rhapsody and Florence Price’s long-neglected Piano Concerto. Top-notch works by Ives, Barber, and Still flesh out the program. Charles Ives
Born 20 October 1874; Danbury, Connecticut Died 19 May 1954; New York, New York
Three Places in New England
Composed: 1903-14 First performance: 10 January 1931; New York, New York Last MSO performance: October 1972; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (snare drum, bass drum with attached cymbals, gong); 2 harps; piano; celeste; strings Approximate duration: 19 minutes Unquestionably one of America’s greatest composers, Charles Ives was a heroic figure in experimental music during the first half of the 20th century. Though as an undergraduate he studied composition at Yale with Horatio Parker (1863-1919), his music was constrained neither by academicism nor adherence to European tradition: He made his fortune in the insurance business, so he was free to write music as he pleased. Musical “success” came only in the last decades of his life. The compositional timeline for Ives’s Three Places in New England is somewhat convoluted. The work was written mainly between 1911 and 1914 – about the same time as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring – but sketches date as far back as 1903 and final revisions were made in 1929. Nicholas Slonimsky conducted his Boston Chamber Orchestra in the premiere, at Town Hall in New York City. It has become one of Ives’s most frequently performed compositions, exhibiting several signature traits of his style: layered textures with multiple, sometimes simultaneous melodies, some of which are familiar hymn or marching tunes; masses of sound, including tone clusters; sudden shifts of orchestral texture. Each of the three programmatic movements depicts a specific location. The “St. Gaudens” in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment) is a tribute to the Union Army’s first Black regiment – the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts. The composer had long admired Augustus St. Gaudens’ bas-relief in Boston Common, part of a monument near City Hall. At first elegiac, the music accumulates power and textural complexity and the pace increases. Listen as Ives depicts the stumbling gait of men marching uphill. Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut – the winter quarters of General Israel Putnam during Revolutionary War days – describes a child’s Fourth-of-July fantasy. According to Ives, the boy imagines the marching and countermarching of the army. It also recalls an occasion when the composer heard two bands enter from different side of the park simultaneously. A tour de force for the orchestra, it is a prime example of Ives’s multi-layered pieces.
The Housatonic at Stockbridge recalls a Sunday morning stroll that Ives and his new wife, Harmony, took in June 1908. “We walked in the meadows along the river, and heard the distant singing from the church across the river. The mist had not entirely left the river bed, and the colors, the running water, the banks and elm trees were something that one would always remember.”
Florence Price
Born 9 April 1887; Little Rock, Arkansas Died 3 June 1953; Chicago, Illinois
Piano Concerto in D minor (in one movement)
Composed: 1932-34 First performance: 1934; Chicago, Illinois Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: flute; oboe; 2 clarinets; bassoon; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum); strings Approximate duration: 18 minutes Florence Beatrice Smith Price grew up in a middle-class household in Little Rock, Arkansas, where her father was a well-respected dentist, inventor, and published author. Her mother, from whom she took her first piano lessons, was an elementary school teacher and enterprising businesswoman. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music, then returned home to teach and raise a family. Life in Arkansas was harsh for African-Americans, and lynchings were commonplace. When she moved to Chicago with her family in 1927, her horizons broadened. She divorced her abusive husband and made a new life for herself. In the Windy City, Price became established as a concert pianist, organist, teacher, and composer. Her earlier output was mostly songs, short pieces, and music for children, but now she started to write in larger symphonic and concerto forms. Her compositional catalogue lists over 300 works, including 20 orchestral pieces and 100+ art songs and spiritual arrangements. (Marian Anderson sang Price’s arrangement of “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Easter Sunday 1939.) In 1932, she attracted major attention when she won first prize in the Wanamaker Music Compositions Contest for her Symphony in E minor. Frederick Stock, a conductor of rare broad-mindedness, led its premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in June 1933. Price’s Piano Concerto dates from the same time as her award-winning Symphony. Though it is said to be “in one movement,” there are actually three, all played without a break. Following an orchestral introduction, the soloist has a cadenza. Throughout the Andantino, one senses the influence of Romantic-era composer-pianists such as Liszt and Chopin; the orchestra often delineates the themes, as the pianist weaves arpeggios around them. The second section, Adagio cantabile, is everything that heading implies: slow, soulful, songlike; it is set in D major. The final, joyous Allegretto is in B-flat major. It’s a juba, a dance from Southern plantation days, accompanied by rhythmic hand-clapping and slapping of the arms, knees, and thighs.
Samuel Barber
Born 9 March 1910; West Chester, Pennsylvania Died 23 January 1981; New York, New York
Symphony No. 1 (In One Movement), Opus 9
Composed: 1935-36; revised 1942-43 First performance: 13 December 1936; Rome, Italy 18 February 1944; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (revision) Last MSO performance: September 2007; Andreas Delfs, conductor Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, suspended cymbals); harp; strings Approximate duration: 21 minutes In the spring of 1935, the Prix de Rome was awarded to the 25-year-old Samuel Barber, citing him as “the most talented and deserving student of music in America.” He was granted two years of study at the American Academy in Rome with a yearly stipend of $1400, residence at the Academy, and a free studio. He arrived in October of that year. Barber’s intention was to continue work on his first symphony, which he had begun in Maine that summer. He was sidetracked, however, by a burst of inspiration to write songs; by early January 1936, he had composed seven new ones. He then resumed work on the Symphony in One Movement, completing it on 24 February 1936 in the French alpine village of Roquebrune. Dedicated to Gian Carlo Menotti, the work is – in Barber’s words – “a synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony.” It was premiered in Rome, but soon made its way to the United States (Cleveland, 23 January 1937) and even to the Salzburg Festival 1937, conducted by Artur Rodzinsky, the first time in the history of the Festival that a symphonic work by an American composer was performed. Rodzinsky was on the podium for the Symphony’s New York premiere – Carnegie Hall, 24 March 1937. On that occasion, the program notes included Barber’s own description of his Opus 9: It is based on three themes of the initial Allegro ma non troppo, which retain throughout the work their fundamental character. The Allegro ma non troppo opens with the usual exposition of a main theme, a more lyrical second theme, and a closing theme. After a brief development of the three themes, instead of the customary recapitulation, the first theme in diminution forms the basis of a scherzo section (vivace). The second theme (oboe over muted strings) then appears in augmentation, in an extended Andante tranquillo. An intense crescendo introduces the finale, which is a short passacaglia based on the first theme (introduced by cellos and basses), over which, together with figures from other themes, the closing theme is woven, thus serving as a recapitulation for the entire symphony.
William Grant Still
Born 11 May 1895; Woodville, Mississippi Died 3 December 1978; Los Angeles, California
Out of the Silence
Composed: 1940 Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: flute; piano; strings Approximate duration: 5 minutes Known as the “Dean of African-American composers,” William Grant Still penned over 150 works, including eight operas and five symphonies. Until the 1950s, the Afro-American Symphony, one of his best-known works, was the most frequently performed symphony written by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and received his college education in Ohio – first at Wilberforce University and later at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1939, Still married Verna Arvey (1910-1987), an American concert pianist, author, and librettist. (Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants.) The following year, he wrote Seven Traceries for her, a set of piano solos that he later orchestrated. According to Arvey, these pieces were intensely personal for the composer: “abstractions bearing the imprint of mysticism,” she said. His daughter, Judith Anne Still, went ever further, explaining that the Traceries were “seven faces” of Divinity; each is based on rudimentary motifs and each developed according to its potential. Out of the Silence is the fourth, and central, piece of the set. Modestly scored for piano, flute and strings, its outer – somewhat dissonant – sections bookend a central interlude of stunning beauty. Of this movement, Verna, who provided descriptions for each piece, said “Only in meditation does one discover delicate beauties remote from the problems of the world.”
George Gershwin
Born 26 September 1898; Brooklyn, New York Died 11 July 1937; Hollywood, California
Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra
Composed: 1931 First performance: 29 January 1932; Boston, Massachusetts Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (glockenspiel, xylophone, cymbals, drum set, bass drum, snare drum, wood block); harp; strings Approximate duration: 15 minutes George Gershwin, along with his lyricist brother Ira, gave us some of the most beloved songs in the history of popular music. “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” “The Man I Love,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Fascinating Rhythm” – these are just a few of their contributions to the Great American Songbook. In 1930, George and Ira were invited to Hollywood to provide the music for the film Delicious. Janet Gaynor stars as Heather Gordon, a Scottish immigrant. In America, she is pursued by immigration officers through a series of absurd situations, including a dream sequence in New York, with dark shadows and ominous scenes. For this portion of the movie, George composed
music that he called New York Rhapsody. In the end, much of this scene ended up on the cutting room floor. Of the songs he and Ira wrote, only four – “Blah, Blah, Blah,” “Delishious” [sic], “Katinkitschka,” “Somebody from Somewhere” – made it into the film. When he went back to New York in February 1931, Gershwin decided to repurpose the music from the six-minute dream sequence and expand it into a concert piece. As he labored on the work, radically rearranging and rescoring the music written in California, he called it Rhapsody in Rivets, but later could not decide between New York Rhapsody and Manhattan Rhapsody. By May, he had completed a 14-minute piece, choosing a much simpler title, Second Rhapsody. The composer was at the keyboard for premiere, with Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
2021.22 SEASON KEN-DAVID MASUR Music Director Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair EDO DE WAART Music Director Laureate YANIV DINUR Resident Conductor CHERYL FRAZES HILL Chorus Director Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair TIMOTHY J. BENSON Assistant Chorus Director FIRST VIOLINS Ilana Setapen, Acting Concertmaster Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair Jeanyi Kim, Acting Associate Concertmaster (2nd Chair) Chi Li, Acting Assistant Concertmaster Alexander Ayers Michael Giacobassi Yuka Kadota Dylana Leung Lijia Phang Margot Schwartz SECOND VIOLINS Jennifer Startt, Principal Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair Timothy Klabunde, Assistant Principal Glenn Asch John Bian Lisa Johnson Fuller Paul Hauer Hyewon Kim Shengnan Li Laurie Shawger Mary Terranova VIOLAS Robert Levine, Principal Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair Alejandro Duque, Acting 3rd Chair Assistant Principal Elizabeth Breslin Nathan Hackett * Erin H. Pipal Helen Reich
CELLOS Susan Babini, Principal Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair Nicholas Mariscal, Assistant Principal Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus Madeleine Kabat Gregory Mathews Peter Szczepanek Peter J. Thomas Adrien Zitoun BASSES Jon McCullough-Benner, Principal Donald B. Abert Bass Chair Andrew Raciti, Associate Principal Scott Kreger Catherine McGinn Rip Prétat HARP Julia Coronelli, Principal Walter Schroeder Harp Chair FLUTES Sonora Slocum, Principal Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair Heather Zinninger Yarmel, Assistant Principal Jennifer Bouton Schaub PICCOLO Jennifer Bouton Schaub OBOES Katherine Young Steele, Principal Milwaukee Symphony League Oboe Chair Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal Margaret Butler ENGLISH HORN Margaret Butler Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin CLARINETS Todd Levy, Principal Franklyn Esenberg Clarinet Chair Benjamin Adler, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair William Helmers E FLAT CLARINET Benjamin Adler BASS CLARINET William Helmers BASSOONS Catherine Chen, Principal Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal Beth W. Giacobassi
CONTRABASSOON Beth W. Giacobassi HORNS Matthew Annin, Principal Krause Family French Horn Chair Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal Dietrich Hemann Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair Darcy Hamlin TRUMPETS Matthew Ernst, Principal Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair David Cohen, Associate Principal Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal Trumpet Chair Alan Campbell, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair TROMBONES Megumi Kanda, Principal Marjorie Tiefenthaler Trombone Chair Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal BASS TROMBONE John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair TUBA Robert Black, Principal TIMPANI Dean Borghesani, Principal Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal PERCUSSION Robert Klieger, Principal Chris Riggs PIANO Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair PERSONNEL MANAGERS Françoise Moquin, Director of Orchestra Personnel Paul Beck, Interim Personnel Manager LIBRARIANS Patrick McGinn, Principal Librarian, Anonymous Donor, Principal Librarian Chair Paul Beck, Associate Librarian PRODUCTION TECHNICAL MANAGER Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor
* Leave of Absence 2021.22 Season
