American Celebration Program Notes

Michigan Theater, Saturday, March 13, 2010, 8:00 PM
copyright 2010, Edward Yadzinsky

Concerto in F
George Gershwin
Born September 26, 1898; Brooklyn, New York
Died July 11, 1937; Hollywood

On the heels of Gershwin’s spectacular success with Rhapsody in Blue came a storm of requests from the highest places in the musical world. Among them was a commission by the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch to compose a "proper concerto" for the piano – which was both a compliment to Gershwin’s potential but also a sly reference to the Rhapsody as a kind of "pops" showpiece.
Agreeing to accept the challenge Gershwin later wrote:
"Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well, I wanted to show that there was plenty more where that had come from. I made up my mind to do a piece of ‘absolute’ music. The Rhapsody, as its title implied, was a blues impression. The Concerto would be unrelated to any program. And that is exactly how I wrote it. I learned a great deal from that experience, particularly in the handling of instruments in combination."
The first movement of the Concerto in F is quick and pulsating, representing the young, enthusiastic spirit of American life with a Charleston motif. Later, a second theme is introduced by the piano. The second movement has a poetic nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated. The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping the same pace throughout.
Scored in 1925, for a robust 20th-century orchestra, the Concerto in F begins with the great timpani strokes which so often opened the curtains in Manhattan’s theater district (in fact Gershwin once thought to title the piece A New York Concerto). From that point on we are in for a Broadway feast of great tunes, sassy rhythms and mad-cap colors – teasing and tempting, at once replete with optimism and lush nostalgia. The second movement begins with some of the loveliest blues ever dreamed, heard in the solo trumpet over a sustained clarinet choir before the piano strides onto the scene, adding whimsy to the Impressionist tableau, which then turns brazen and boisterous before a reflecting close. Gershwin’s brief description of the final movement barely hints at the caprice of virtuoso mischief at hand – for soloist and orchestra alike – a frenzy of jazz and pizzazz to the Nth degree.
As an aside, the great pianist Artur Rubinstein once advised a New York music critic who complained about the easy popularity of jazz compared to the classics: "Kind sir, there are but two kinds of music – good and bad, and Gershwin makes me cry."
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Seattle Slew: Derby Dressage
William Bolcom
Born 1938; Seattle, Washington

A native of Seattle, Washington, William Bolcom concluded his formal study of composition with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen in Paris. In addition to his current position as professor emeritus of composition at the University of Michigan, Bolcom has been distinguished with many important awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Music, two Koussevitzky Foundation Awards, two Guggenheim Fellowships, several Rockefeller Foundation Awards and NEA Grants, the Marc Blitzstein Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, the Michigan Council for the Arts Award, and the Governor’s Arts Award from the State of Michigan. Bolcom was named 2007 Composer of the Year, and was honored with multiple Grammy Awards for his Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Commissions have included the Carnegie Hall Centennial, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philhamonic and the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Composed in 1977, Bolcom’s ballet Seattle Slew was conceived by Kent Stowell of the Pacific Northwest Ballet. A protégé of George Balanchine, Stowell was quick to realize an entertaining link between a popular icon and dance theater. 1977 was also the year in which the great race horse Seattle Slew won the elusive Triple Crown.
From the ballet score, Bolcom derived a concert suite of three orchestral pieces. The first of them, Derby Dressage, opens our A2SO concert this evening. About the music, Bolcom remarks:
"Writing simple and formally predictable music is as hard as the opposite. All the dance pieces incorporate tango and ragtime elements in mixture. Each has a set-dance quality; I wanted to see how far I could go with the regular phrase structure of these dances. I had to find a sort of series of celebratory pieces that would evoke the posed atmosphere of a racetrack – the orderedness, the old-fashioned atmosphere – thus the 16-measure tango, gavottes and rag dances."
Bolcom’s cryptic metaphor "Forequarter Time" is a delightful play on words. The composer deals a coy hand indeed with the nuance of Derby Dressage – part tango and part down-low jazz from the cabarets of the 1920s. The pace and swagger of the score is perfect for modern ballet theater. And the music surely provided plenty of time and space for colorful dancing and amusing reference for listeners. We note the strutting accent from the tuba, escorting droll woodwinds out for a stroll, swinging from major harmonies to sassy blue-notes on the fly, complete with an upright, clanky piano.
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Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, op. 95
"From the New World" Antonin Dvorak
Born September 8, 1841; Nelahozeves, Bohemia
Died May 1, 1904; Prague, Czechoslovakia

A mainstay of the symphonic repertoire, Dvorak’s New World Symphony of 1893 is a work which binds wide ethnic contrasts into a broad and universal statement about the heart and hearth of one’s homeland.
Influenced initially by Beethoven and Schubert, and later by Wagner and Liszt, the Bohemian Dvorak was able to combine his deep interest in folk idioms into the vernacular of 19th century Romanticism. By the early 1890s the composer’s reputation stretched across the whole of the European continent. Brahms was a close acquaintance, Tchaikovsky a dear friend. Dvorak even received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University. In 1892 he accepted an offer to become the first Director of the new National Conservatory of Music which was about to open in New York City. While residing here in the United States he was able to spend the summer months in the little Czech community of Spillville, Iowa. Those travels into the heartland of the New World enabled him to experience several prime examples of indigenous American folk music, especially Afro-American spirituals and the rhythmic/melodic expressions of Native American tribes. Moreover, Dvorak was well acquainted with American literature, including Longfellow’s Hiawatha, and was also knowledgeable about the folk music of the American frontier, including familiarity with the popular melodies and lyrics of Stephen Foster. It is widely believed that all of this played a formative role in his New World Symphony, a work that seems to meld myriad ethnic identities into a common, pan-cultural musical statement. The symphony was completed in 1893 in New York City, the metropolis which itself had become the cultural ladle for our great American melting pot.
The New World Symphony overall maintains an evocative spirit through all four movements – especially within the languid nostalgia of the second. Its famous Largo features a haunting melody from the English horn which, in turn, is resonated with increasing depth in the choir of orchestral strings. Graphic momentum is achieved in the colorful tableaus of the first, third and fourth movements. Unmistakable throughout is Dvorak’s indelible gypsy touch, a masterful use of the orchestral palette, sharp and crisp rhythmic pointing and the gentle hues of heartache. Forward this email to a friend

American Celebration
March 13, 2010
Michigan Theater
8:00 PM
Pre-Concert Lecture at 7:00 PM
Tickets from $6 to $49
Great Seats Still Available

734/994-4801
www.a2so.com