PROGRAM NOTES

Raimundo Penaforte (b. 1961)
TANGO FOR SEVEN

Tango is the result of a multitude of global influences from Africa, Europe, Cuba, and South American folk traditions coming together to create something unique and special. Today, it is most closely associated with Argentina, and Ástor Piazzolla, whose compositional style brought such an entirely new soundscape to the traditional tango scene that it became known as nuevo (new) tango. Distinctly passionate, expressive, and melancholy, the music is hypnotic with its repeated syncopated rhythms. “Tango is more like a feeling,” it has been said. The craze for tango spread from Argentinean clubs to Paris in 1912, becoming a staple of café society, and eventually making its way onto movie screens, into concert halls, and becoming an indelible part of the artistic landscape.

Raimundo Penaforte, a multi-instrumentalist Brazilian American composer, works in a broad variety of genres including Latin, jazz, klezmer, and classical. Tango for Seven was written for the combined ensemble of the Eroica Trio and St. Lawrence String Quartet and was premiered during the 2000-2001 concert season. 

About Tango for Seven, Penaforte has commented:

“When I think of tango music the name Astor Piazzolla comes to mind. Disseminating this musical style was his passion and his obsession throughout his life. Once I got into the daily labor of Tango for Seven, I discovered that I myself had a hidden passion for this type of music as well, especially the ‘new’ tango. While composing it, I couldn’t help but imagine how exciting it must have been to Piazzolla to turn such a traditional style of dance and songwriting into a new concept of instrumental and compositional form.”

Shulamit Ran (b. 1949)
LYRE OF ORPHEUS FOR STRING SEXTET

The Israeli American composer, Shulamit Ran, began composing at age seven, and since 1973 has been on the faculty at the University of Chicago where she holds the position of Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Music. In 1991 she was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in Music for her work Symphony, and continues to have her works performed by leading ensembles worldwide. 

Ran’s excerpted program note follows.

Lyre of Orpheus was composed for Concertante, the New York-based string sextet, for its ONE PLUS FIVE Project, a three-year, six-composer commissioning project designed to create six string sextets, each featuring one of Concertante core players.

This particular commission was made with the goal of giving center-stage to the ensemble’s first cello, a choice I was especially grateful for, not only because it features Zvi Plesser, the outstanding Israeli cellist, but also because it gave me an opportunity to highlight an instrument for which, from a very early stage in my life, I have felt a special affinity. The cello’s “soul,” so naturally combining passion and lyricism, has always touched me in a special way.

As sometimes happens, naming the piece was the final act in the process of creation. Once titled, though, I found myself looking through the piece with a mixture of delight and astonishment–the narrative of this almost iconic mythological story of love and loss seems as one entirely plausible, and to my mind convincing, way to trace the unfolding of the musical events. Of course, the music was written with no such tale (or any tale, for that matter) in mind. But perhaps some stories are emblematic of so much that is part of our lives and psyches, of our desires, fears and wishes. Orpheus, whose longing for Eurydice recognizes no boundaries of heaven and hell… Love regained, then forever lost… Orpheus’ lyre intoning his sorrowful yearning…

One particular detail of interest is the unique tuning Ran specifies for the 2nd cello part. It calls for the lowest string to be tuned down by a 3rd, thus achieving a broader range of sonance.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
SEXTET NO. 1 IN B-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 18

Between the summer and early fall of 1853, Brahms’s life changed irrevocably. Having just turned twenty that May, he embarked on a brief concert tour, during which he met the violinist Joseph Joachim and was introduced to Franz Liszt. That September, he knocked on the door of Robert and Clara Schuman—Clara being one of the most important and famous pianists alive at that time—and immediately captivated them with a performance of his pieces. One month later, Robert introduced Brahms to the musical world with a bang by publishing an article entitled New Paths. In it, Schumann announced the arrival of “a musician who would reveal his mastery not in gradual stages but like Minerva would spring fully armed from Kronos’s head…a young man over whose cradle Graces and Heroes have stood watch. His name is Johannes Brahms...” (No pressure.) 

Brahms was living during an era when the development of the “canon” was in full swing and the idea of building a lasting legacy was taking hold. His own habit of burning manuscripts he felt were unworthy of posterity is evidence that he was acutely aware of this spirit of the age. Perhaps, too, the magnanimous prologue from Schumann contributed to the obsession with reputation that Brahms had throughout his life. 

This anxiety expressed itself most famously in Brahms’ delay completing his first symphony. It took nearly twenty years due to his fear of having to follow in the footsteps of Beethoven. (“You can’t have any idea what it’s like always to hear such a giant marching behind you,” Brahms complained.) It may have also been a contributing factor to his apparent and curious avoidance of writing a string quartet—a genre famously owned by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Brahms wrote for just about every configuration (piano quartets and quintets, trios, cello sonatas, etc.) except for string quartet, and his first foray into writing for chamber strings without piano was the Sextet in B-Flat, Op. 18. There were, of course, other reasons to start with string sextet. Famously studious, he might have known about and examined the previous early classical era sextets of Luigi Boccherini, or Louis Spohr, and found inspiration there. The configuration also afforded the opportunity to add more low strings, a sonority that Brahms adored. He grew up playing the cello, and his father played double bass. 

Whatever his motivation, the sextet is utterly gorgeous with its combination of memorable melodies and plush tones. Sir Donald Tovey called Brahms’ chamber works between Op. 18 and Op. 40 his “first maturity,” where the composer settled into a signature style. Decades later, Arnold Schoenberg paid tribute to Brahms’ quintessential technique in an essay titled Brahms the Progressive. In it, he highlighted these hallmarks of maturity: “...a direct and straightforward presentation of ideas, without any patchwork, without mere padding and empty repetitions.” Richness without excess. He noted in particular Brahms’ “developing variation,” or the ability to manipulate a musical idea and transform it into something new, though it largely retains its original structural qualities. This is on full display throughout the sextet, and in particular its first movement, which goes on a magnificent journey through simply unfurling melodies built around 3rds. The sextet was first performed in 1860, with Brahms’ friend, Joseph Joachim, in the ensemble.

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.