PROGRAM NOTES
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F MAJOR, BWV 1047
The story goes like this: In 1721, Bach sent a manuscript of orchestral works to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, inscribed with an elaborate dedication to the nobleman. These six pieces were pragmatically titled Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (“concertos with several instruments”), which would be christened with the snappier nickname “Brandenburg” over a century later by Philipp Spitta, a Bach biographer. Why did Bach send them? No one knows for certain. Bach was happily employed as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen when he met the Margrave in Berlin. In fact, evidence shows that the reason he was even in the city was on business to check on a new harpsichord for Leopold. One thing we do know is that a handful of years lapsed between their meeting and the mailing. During those years, devastating change swept through the composer’s household: out of town on duty with musicians and the Prince, Bach returned to find his wife had died several days before and was already buried. Not only was he heartbroken, he was left to care for their several children alone. Perhaps Bach remembered meeting the Margrave and saw him as a potential ticket out of town. The concertos may have been intended as a kind of musical CV. Whatever his motivation, they were sent and met with silence. The Margrave never thanked Bach, nor apparently even had them performed.
It appears the musical material of the Brandenburg Concertos was not new, but rather re-workings of pre-existing works. For one thing, it was commonplace practice for Bach and his contemporaries to recycle old material. Additionally, it would have been bad form for the composer to send brand new music to one nobleman when employed by another. Regardless, Bach—the habitually thorough craftsman—once again took an existing genre and pushed it to its maximum potential. In this case the Brandenburgs are “concerto grossi,” or “large/great concerts,” an orchestral form popularized by Italian composers where a smaller group (“concertino”) of soloists are in conversation with the whole of the ensemble (“ripieno”). Each of the six concertos are completely unique, differing especially in instrumentation.
In the case of No. 2, the solo group includes violin, recorder, oboe and trumpet (the only appearance in all the Brandenburgs for the last two instruments). This arrangement imparts a famously buoyant and shimmering quality given the high tonal register of all these instruments, a characteristic punctuated by the trumpet in the final, and very recognizable, movement.
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
CAPRICORN CONCERTO, OP. 21
Barber’s sound is a unique blend of late 19th century lyricism and tonality mixed with the rhythms, dissonances, and angularities of modernist styles. His is a lean, muscular, romanticism where even beautiful and tender melodies always seem underpinned by a singular, focused intensity (listen to his most famous piece, the Adagio for Strings, and you will hear that fundamental quality). This singular sound he brought to his compositions was evident early on in works like Dover Beach, from 1931, written during Barber’s time studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Mary Curtis Bok – founder of the Curtis Institute of Music—had befriended Barber and his partner (a fellow alum) Gian Carlo Menotti during their student days. Besides acting as patron financially and promoting his music, Bok also eventually helped Barber and Menotti find a house in Mount Kisco, New York, about an hour north of Manhattan. The beloved home became known by the nickname “Capricorn” for the wonderful quality of light that filled its rooms during the winter months.
Barber was drafted for the war effort in 1942 into the Army, and soon transferred over to the Army Air Force. Eventually, it was decided by General Henry Harley Arnold that Barber’s talents might be more useful in the concert hall as “influence” than the theater of war. (In addition to using music to boost morale, the United States government commissioned works as a cultural response and rebuke to the Nazi’s bans on certain styles of music.) As a result, Barber’s assignment was changed to West Point, New York, with the added benefit that he could continue his work from home.
During this time Barber wrote works more directly associated with the military, such as the “Commando March” and his Symphony No. 2 for the United States Air Force, among others that were more focused on showcasing the best of American modern composition. His Excursions for piano and the Capricorn Concerto (named for his house) fit into the latter category. The Capricorn Concerto was the final work Barber wrote as his war effort responsibilities drew to a close.
Using the same woodwind and brass instrumentation for the soloists as J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (flute, oboe, and trumpet), the work has often been described as demonstrating the influence of both Bach—particularly in the final movement that highlights the trumpet in the same manner of Brandenburg No. 2—and Stravinsky, who was then composing in his “neoclassical” period. A distinct feature of the entire Capricorn Concerto is its rhythmic complexity via constantly changing meters (sometimes as frequent as every 2 or 3 measures) from beginning to end, through all movements.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
CONCERTO IN E-FLAT MAJOR, “DUMBARTON OAKS”
Igor Stravinsky traversed through a striking array of musical styles during the course of his career. Early on, as scholar Richard Taruskin notes, a direct influence was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the romantic master of orchestral color with whom Stravinsky studied in his youth. This is evidenced in works like Stravinsky’s score for the ballet The Firebird in 1910, which displays an extreme sensitivity to the broad range and array of possible soundscapes within the orchestra. Then, just three years later in 1913 came the watershed moment of modern music performance lore, The Rite of Spring, with its starkness and pulsating rhythms that still sound arrestingly fresh and unique today, almost 110 years after its storied premiere. Shifting course dramatically, Stravinsky embarked on his so-called “neoclassical” phase, taking a keen interest in the work of Baroque and Classical composers and the musical forms with which they worked, such as the concerto grosso.
It was whilst he was engrossed in this neoclassical stylistic period that he was commissioned by Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss to write a piece to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Stravinsky had first connected with the Bliss family when he traveled to the United States for the premiere of his ballet choreographed by the great George Balanchine, Jeux de cartes. Robert Bliss had built a career as a diplomat, serving in many capacities in numerous countries around the world, including ambassador to Sweden and then Argentina. The commission would become the Concerto in E-flat Major titled “Dumbarton Oaks” after the Bliss’ estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. (Later, in 1944, Bliss would host diplomatic meetings at the estate that would eventually pave the way for the United Nations.) In particular, Stravinsky noted gravitating toward the works of Bach whilst working on the commission. “I played Bach regularly during the composition of the Concerto, and was greatly attracted to the ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos. Whether or not the first theme…is a conscious borrowing from the third Brandenburg, however, I do not know,” he observed.
The work was premiered at Dumbarton Oaks on May 8, 1938. Stravinsky, who was battling illness (and the sadness of loss with the death of his wife, daughter, and mother, in short succession), was unable to attend. His friend, Nadia Boulanger conducted the ensemble in his place.
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)
ENTR’ACTE
In 2013, North Carolina native Caroline Shaw became the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in recognition of her work, Partita for 8 Voices. She studied violin at Rice University and Yale, and composition at Princeton. As a vocalist, she is a member of the Grammy Award winning ensemble, Roomful of Teeth. Between 2014-2015, Shaw was the inaugural Early-Career Musician in Residence at Dumbarton Oaks, the historic estate in Washington, D.C. once owned by the diplomat Robert Woods Bliss, and his wife, arts patron Mildred Bliss. The house, which once played host to meetings between international delegates that blossomed into the United Nations, was given to Harvard University and functions as a research and cultural hub.
Shaw writes about Entr’acte:
“Entr’acte was written in 2011 after hearing the Brentano Quartet play Haydn’s Op. 77 No. 2 — with their spare and soulful shift to the D-flat major trio in the minuet. It is structured like a minuet and trio, riffing on that classical form but taking it a little further. I love the way some music (like the minuets of Op. 77) suddenly takes you to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition.”
David Crowell (b. 1980)
WOVEN IN EARTH AND SKY
Woven in Earth and Sky meditates on the passage of time and development of interdependent relationships, drawing inspiration for its initial passages from Hildegaard von Bingen, Tallis, and Palestrina. The integration and transformation of historical reference into modern expression occurs most fully in the later stages of the piece, completing the journey from medieval to present time.
The last sections of Woven in Earth and Sky also represent a peak level of contrapuntal density, like the massive underground networks that develop to support the ecosystem of an old growth forest. As a conductorless orchestra, A Far Cry reflects a similar progression toward an interwoven consciousness, with individual instruments increasingly drawn deeper into the sonic landscape.
Woven in Earth and Sky was commissioned by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection for A Far Cry.
—David Crowell
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1982)
STRUM
Jessie Montgomery was born into the thriving arts scene of 1980s Lower East Side, Manhattan to parents who were both artists (her mother in avant-garde theater, her father in jazz and film) and activists. She studied at the Juilliard School, and NYU, and has been associated with the Sphinx Organization in a variety of capacities since 1999. She is a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and a dedicated chamber musician. Montgomery was previously a member of both the PUBLIQuartet and Catalyst Quartet.
Montgomery’s note for her earliest work, Strum, is re-printed below.
Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.
Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.
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.
