Oceans of Time: Orchestral Evolutions SoNA
September 21, 2024
Walton Arts Center
Paul Haas, conductor
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 (1721)
Johann Sebastian Bach
b March 31, 1685 in Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies, Germany
d July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany
Bach spent some of his happiest and most productive years in the tiny principality of Anhalt-Köthen, where music-loving Prince Leopold maintained
a lavish court kapelle. There was, however, a slight catch: Leopold’s court was Calvinist, meaning that elaborate concerted church music—one of Bach’s specialties—was forbidden.
Therefore, Bach focused his energies on secular rather than sacred music. This is the era of his greatest instrumental music, of those immortal keyboard pieces and sonatas and suites and concertos. The list includes a set of six orchestral concertos that Bach dedicated to a German
aristocrat: Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, a province in the general vicinity of Berlin. Alas, His Lordship was not impressed. He tucked Bach’s priceless manuscript away in his library, whence it vanished, not to reappear until 1849.
Each of the six “Brandenburg” concertos is a world unto itself, each offering a different take on the instrumentation and structure of the Baroque orchestral concerto. Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major restricts itself to strings only; as the shortest of the bunch, it even dispenses with a fully composed slow movement in favor of two chords that invite responses ranging from minimalist statements to improvised cadenzas to interpolations of entire movements from other Bach works. The joyous first and third movements feature Bach’s mature instrumental style at its most robust, rhythmically alert, and joyous. (Nota bene: intrepid Bach explorers will find an enhanced version of the concerto’s first movement as the opening sinfonia of Cantata 174.)
Oceans to Cross (2023)
World Premiere
Aldo López-Gavilán b December 20, 1979 in Havana, Cuba
classical to jazz. Nor does he limit his composition to the concert hall; he has written for television and film as well.
Oceans to Cross reflects that remarkable range. The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas’s first commission, it’s a concert suite for piano and orchestra, in three movements, each of which “reflects a unique aspect of the human experience,” López-Gavilán tells us.
The first movement, “Oceans to Cross,” blends African and Afro-Cuban influences. Opening with powerful statements in the solo piano, it soon sets off on an exploration of “hope and trepidation, encapsulating the emotions and experiences of crossing a vast ocean.” Turbulence contrasts with introspection, exhilaration with inwardness, the whole ending in blazing excitement.
“Soul Journey” follows, a “spiritual odyssey through harsh deserts and remote locales, from the Middle East to Eastern Europe. It delves into the musical heritage of Jewish culture, tracing its evolution across different geographies.” Its subdued, intimate opening gives way gradually to crackling rhythmic vitality and lyrical effusion in orchestra and piano alike.
Music is in Aldo López-Gavilán’s DNA. He’s the son of musicians who introduced him to the piano at age 4; by age 5 he had written his first composition. His abilities range widely, from piano to composition, from
Cuba takes center stage in “Conga,” which “revisits themes from the first movement, interweaving them with Cuban rhythms and melodies.” A brilliant, propulsive dance, it emulates indigenous instruments as it seeks to forge “a musical connection between African and Cuban cultures, celebrating their shared vibrancy and rich musical traditions.” Thus Oceans to Cross “highlights
the interconnectedness of diverse traditions, showcasing how music can be a universal language that speaks of journeys, both physical and spiritual,” writes López-Gavilán. “Each note echoes the shared history and collective spirit of humanity.”
Aldo López Gavilán Composer & Pianist
Praised for his “dazzling technique and rhythmic fire” in the Seattle Times, and dubbed a “formidable virtuoso” by The Times of London, Cuban pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán excels in both the classical and jazz worlds as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chambermusic collaborator, and performer of his own electrifying jazz compositions. He has appeared in such prestigious concert halls as the Amadeo Roldán (Cuba), Teresa Careño (Venezuela), Bellas Artes (Mexico), Carnegie Hall and Jordan Hall (USA), Royal Festival Hall (UK), Nybrokajen 11 (Sweden), The Hall of Music (Russia), and Duc de Lombard et Petit Journal Montparnasse (France), as well as venues in Canada, Santo Domingo, Colombia, Spain, Greece,
Hong Kong, Burkina Faso, Germany, and Austria. López-Gavilán has recently been touring in the U.S., appearing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. He has also toured extensively in Europe, South America, Canada, and the U.S. with Cuban singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, for whom he wrote all the string arrangements for an award-winning documentary that was broadcast by HBO Latino in the U.S.
Aldo has also been performing together with the Harlem Quartet, a GRAMMYwinning string quartet founded by his brother and violin virtuoso Ilmar López-Gavilán. They will continue touring broadly for the rest of the year with concerts in many cities across the nation. Learn more at aldomusica.com.
Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 (1889)
Antonín Dvořák
b September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Czech Republic d May 1, 1904 in Prague, Czech Republic
In his article on the history of the Symphony for the original 1889 edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, C. Hubert H. Parry stated flatly that “it might seem almost superfluous to trace the history of Symphony further than Beethoven.” In this he was expressing the common opinion of European musical punditry, which by the 1870s had come to treat contemporary symphonies as little more
than pale reflections of earlier, more robust achievements. All the truly cool people were flocking to the tone-poems and music-dramas of the “New German School” exemplified by Wagner and Liszt. Compared to the avant-garde thrillers coming out of the new order, a pure-music, non-programmatic symphony in the classic manner must have seemed about as relevant as a twelfth-century organum triplum.
Predictions of the symphony’s demise were, however, premature. Two phenomena in particular combined to help recharge the languishing genre. First was an exponential increase in orchestra concert attendance, which naturally led to more orchestras playing more concerts in more concert halls. Even more important was the blossoming of nationalist fervor throughout Europe, especially prevalent in music as composers began injecting the pan-European musical language with folk melodies and idioms taken from their native music. Antonín Dvořák is the quintessential exemplar of this invigorating generation, a distinctly nationalist composer who mastered the forms and techniques of the Viennese Classical tradition.
With the darkly dramatic Symphony No. 7 in D Minor of 1885, Dvořák had established himself as a master symphonist, in public esteem on par with his mentor Johannes Brahms. Just as
Beethoven had followed his great C Minor Fifth Symphony with the bucolic idyll of the “Pastorale,” Dvořák countered the turbulent reds and browns of the Seventh with sparkling greens and golds in Symphony No. 8 in G Major, easily the lightest and most spontaneousseeming of Dvořák’s later symphonies, characterized by sustained lyricism and high spirits.
That lightness of touch extends to a carefree attitude towards traditional symphonic forms. The opening Allegro con brio establishes the symphony’s unorthodox demeanor by being less about the rigors of sonata-allegro form and more about its abundant melodies that interact with, and bounce off, each other. The second-place Adagio is peaceful for the most part, enlivened with chipper interludes. For the third movement, Dvořák dispenses with his typical furiant (a blazingly energetic peasant dance) in favor of a sweetly melancholy waltz that ends in a sudden flurry of dancelike enthusiasm. The Allegro ma non troppo finale stands among Dvořák’s finest creations; a complex theme and variations affair, it opens with trumpets calling all to the dance and, having established its distinctly self-possessed theme, presents its thematic transformations interleaved with contrasting episodes, the whole concluding in a blaze of muscular showmanship.
Program notes by Scott Foglesong, copyright 2024