PROGRAM NOTES
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Concerto in G minor, RV 156
In 1711, Vivaldi’s first collection of concertos was published. It dramatically widened the reputation and influence of the asthmatic, red-haired, Venetian priest, who had once played alongside his father in the orchestra at St Mark’s Basilica and taught violin to the talented girls at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for orphaned and abandoned girls. Colorfully titled, L’estro Armonico, or harmonic inspiration, the reverberations of its impact were felt widely. Johann Joachim Quantz, flute instructor and court composer for Frederick II “The Great” of Prussia, remarked, “as musical pieces of a kind that was then entirely new, they made no small impression on me. I was eager to accumulate a good number of them, and Vivaldi’s splendid ritornelli served as good models for me in later days.” Johann Sebastian Bach spent hours copying out Vivaldi’s scores in order to study them more closely and made transcripts of multiple L’estro Armonico concertos for the keyboard.
In the years that followed after his initial popularity, Vivaldi would make numerous attempts at opera, but it would remain his instrumental works that formed the core of his output. In all, the number of his concertos would run upward of 500 for a variety of different configurations with one or more soloists, or concerti grossi with a small group pitted against the larger ensemble. A small set of them, around 60, are ripieno (full) concertos, unique in that they do not feature any soloists, but rather function as miniature symphonies before that genre format was regularly utilized, and later codified, with specific rules of organization in the later 18 th century. The brief but dramatic Concerto for Strings in G minor falls into this category. Likely written around 1730, it may have been penned during the composer’s travels, alongside his father, throughout central Europe. The exact itinerary is unknown, but it is thought stops along the way included Vienna and Prague. The concerto’s distinctive opening movement spotlights the steady unfurling of a main musical theme over a driving, syncopated, rhythmic foundation. A melancholic, tension laden, slow movement is followed by a bustling finale with cascades of imitative motions in the various treble parts, punctuated by skyrocketing scales.
Ernest Bloch (1885-1977)
Concerto Grosso No. 1 for String Orchestra and Piano Obbligato, B. 59
Among the collections held by the United States Library of Congress are 64 boxes of music and memorabilia from the composer Ernest Bloch, a testament to his own American story—a Swiss immigrant of Jewish descent who became a citizen during the interwar period and played a vital role in music education while contributing his own great works to the repertoire. That, alone, would be remarkable, but his influence is visible in another area of the library, the Coolidge Auditorium, built with the generously donated funds of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. It was Bloch who made the introductions between Coolidge and the library’s head of the Music Division, having gotten to know the famed philanthropist of chamber music when he won her Coolidge Prize in 1919 with his Suite for viola (the other finalist was Rebecca Clarke).
Having studied with some of the best 20th century European talent, such as Eugène Ysaÿe, Bloch opted initially to play it safe, maintaining a day job working alongside his father in bookkeeping and sales in order to provide for his young family, whilst continuing to compose on the side, until the opportunity came to move to America for a conducting job in 1916. With the exception of the decade between 1930-40, where he went back to Switzerland to focus solely on composing, Bloch’s professional energies were dedicated to advanced music education, teaching at the David Mannes School (now Mannes School of Music), and the University of California at Berkeley, and serving as director at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory. When Bloch finally retired from teaching, he later lived in Agate Beach, Oregon, where he became an avid amateur photographer and mushroom collector. After his death, Bloch’s children, spearheaded by his daughter Suzanne, who had followed her father into the arts but married a scientist, re-energized the Ernest Bloch Society that was originally formed (with Albert Einstein as its president) thirty years earlier.
Out of all his years in leadership, those spent at the Cleveland Institute between 1920-25 proved to be the most controversial, though they were also musically fruitful. Bloch’s pedagogical philosophy eschewed conventional academic practices and instead centered on a more traditional apprentice-based learning model that involved direct study of the works of the old masters. This resulted in tension with the rest of the administration and his eventual departure. Disagreements aside, around 21 of Bloch’s works were composed during his tenure there, including the Concerto Grosso No. 1, which was intended as an example to convince the student orchestra that modernity and tradition were not at odds, and works that rejected the fashionable shift to atonality could still be relevant. As Bloch’s daughter, Suzanne, recalled, “In 1924 my father became concerned with some of his students who expressed their doubts about the validity of tonality and form in contemporary music.” Taking inspiration from the Baroque concerto grosso form, with its groups of soloists contrasted with the whole and the keyboard holding the rhythmic core of the work, Bloch let his imagination run free without ever forsaking tonality. It convinced the students and gained a life far beyond the classroom as one of Bloch’s most performed and bellowed works for string ensemble.
Jungyoon Wie (b. 1990)
A Prayer for Peace, Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra (world premiere commission for A Far Cry)
A Prayer for Peace was co-commissioned by A Far Cry and New Century Chamber Orchestra. It explores, over four movements, different themes in my journey of immigration and search for peace.
I. Echo within yourself (외로움)
This first movement symbolizes loneliness. The same melody repeats throughout without developing. This creates a sense of monologue that feels isolated and stuck. Loneliness is what I struggled with the most as an immigrant. It was primarily due to cultural barriers and my inability to speak the language. But on top of that, I found that minorities end up creating minorities within themselves, resulting in another layer of isolation and loneliness.
II. Heartbeat; difference (다름)
Another emotion I struggled with as an immigrant was anger. Once I began to understand the language and nuance, I started to feel rather resentful. As I began to recognize other people's perceptions based on one's race and sex, I became doubtful, cautious, and cynical. Often times, I felt as though my heart was beating at a different speed as everyone else around me, and that made me feel angry. Heartbeat; difference represents a state that is about to burst, one that would make your face +ushed.
III. Mirror; distortion (왜곡)
In Mirror; distortion, I wanted to musically portray a state in which one sees what they want to see in their reality. When my anger consumed me, I wasn't able to see things clearly anymore; everyone seemed like my enemy. Later I realized that some of my thoughts and behaviors were distorted, and that was when I realized that I overlooked all the good things in my reality, especially the people who have helped me throughout my good and bad times.
IV. Peace; indifference (무관심)
The last piece to this story is my peace and happiness. Now I rather feel content with where I am in my life as I have surrounded myself with what makes me happy and people that I love. However, I can't help but feel like a hypocrite because I can find myself indifferent to the tragedies of others; sometimes it feels as if I try to protect the peace that I have created, and that's all that matters.
This is my prayer for peace: the journey, confliction and my hypocrisy.
-Composer Jungyoon Wie
Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958)
Concerto Grosso for Piano, Violin, Double Bass and Strings
“There should be room for everything, everyone—and every kind of expression,” Errollyn Wallen has remarked. A vocalist, dancer, and composer born in Belize and raised in London, she was educated at the Universities of London and Cambridge and was the first black woman to have her work performed at the BBC Proms. Her catalog spans pop to classical, and her works often nod to tradition, imbuing the sound of her music with a sense of recollection.
One of the main features of a traditional Baroque concerto grosso is the layers of dialogue, both between the soloists and the whole ensemble and among the soloists themselves. Wallen amplifies that aspect of the form with her own Concerto Grosso, in which each different collection of musicians is in constant conversation, occasionally making longer solo statements in the mini cadenzas that pepper the work. In addition to the musicians’ interactions with each other, a meta dialogue is also taking place, between multiple genres of music and several centuries of style. Wallen has remarked that she often thought of Baroque music as a precursor to the rhythm section of the jazz band, with everything moving from the bass (or “continuo” as it would have been known in the era). Throughout her Concerto Grosso one hears infusions of jazz, and an energetic freshness that Wallen attributes to her love of the music of Arcangelo Corelli, who she has praised for his ability to utilize simple elements to build a larger, sophisticated, narrative. Regarding the concerto’s vibrant musical lexicon, Wallen has written, “I have incorporated elements from popular music, reveling in the unexpected connections and universal principles of all music. Importantly, there is a strong element of dance in this piece, and as in so much of Baroque and popular music, buoyant rhythms are at the forefront.” Other remarkable features of the music is the notable space given to each instrument and group’s ideas in the first movement that allows for brilliant clarity, the touching lyricism of the aria-like second movement that floats over the walking baseline, the off-kilter perpetual motion of the third movement, and the toe-tapping energy of the finale.
Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.
