Sunday, October 27th, 2013
Cordier Auditorium
Scott Humphries, Conductor
Festive Overture, Op. 96 | Dmitri Shostakovich | |||
Appalachian Spring | Aaron Copland | |||
Manchester Variations | R. Gary Deavel | |||
Intermission | ||||
Symphonic Tale of Peter Pan | Kentaro Sato | |||
I. The Boy Who Won't Grow Up / Peter Pan's
Fanfare |
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Jeff Diesburg, artist | ||||
Warsaw Concerto | Richard Addinsell | |||
Pamela Haynes, piano | ||||
Program Notes by James R. C. Adams |
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Festive Overture, Op. 96 |
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) |
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Shostakovich is best-known as a symphonist (fifteen symphonies), but his repertoire was wide-ranging, consisting of string quartets (another fifteen), operas, ballets, songs, and at least thirty-six film scores. Of the three great Russian composers of the Stalin era (Prokofiev and Stravinsky being the other two), Shostakovich was the only one who worked entirely in the Soviet era. Although he was an extreme patriot, and had a great empathy with the common man, he both hated and feared Stalin. He was twice publicly humiliated, and his music banned. He considered Stalin to be totally unprincipled, and whose actions were completely self-serving and capricious. Not long after being denounced in Pravda, almost certainly at the order of Stalin, Shostakovich was ordered to prepare for a trip to New York to represent the Soviet Union at the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace. He refused to go. He made all sorts of excuses to the officials who tried to persuade him. He got air-sick, he was working on an opera. Whatever. Stalin called him to sort things out. Why did he not want to go? He said that he couldn't go. His comrades' music wasn't played, and neither was his own. They would ask him about that in America. What could he say? Stalin pretended to be surprised. "What do you mean, it isn't played? Why aren't they playing it?" Shostakovich recalled him saying. There was a decreee by the censors, he replied. Stalin said that he had given no such orders, and blamed it on someone else, and, all of a sudden, it was okay to play Shostakovich's music in the USSR. From an "enemy of the people," Shostakovich had suddenly become valuable to Stalin as a cultural ambassador to the West. The Festive Overture was written in 1954, and has been said to be Shostakovich's celebration of Stalin's recent death. Beginning with a grand fanfare in the brass, repeated, it moves through what one critic described as a "skittish presto" in the woodwinds, then has a lyrical theme in the strings, and ends with a reiteration of the opening fanfare, and a drum-roll. It certainly sounds like a celebration of something! |
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Appalachian Spring |
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) |
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Appalachian Spring was the result of a collaboration among Martha Graham, the queen of Modern Dance, the composer Aaron Copland, and the artist Isamu Noguchi. It became perhaps the best-known "American ballet." Graham claimed to have devised the choreography before the music was written, and that Copland had taken his cues from her choreography. Several people have questioned the plausibility of that. For most of Graham's dances, she worked with music already written, and not by Copland. Apparently, they did work very closely together, and doubtless Copland adapted his ideas to hers, but this was their only collaboration. On the other hand, she worked for a long time with the artist Isamu Noguchi, and on many other ballets. One might conclude that artists found it easier to work with her than composers did. Copland became famous as a composer of demonstrably American music. Usually, he was associated with rural scenes, as in Rodeo, Billy the Kid, The Red Pony, and Appalachian Spring, but he was actually a city person, and much of his music has a world-weary urban quality. His most popular composition is Appalachian Spring. A note on the score lays out the "program." A soon-to-be-married couple experiences the ups and downs of emotion expected in such a situation. Their neighbors advise them; a revivalist preacher provides them with a jaundiced view of human relationships, but, at the end, they are strong in their devotion to each other. Martha Grahma's choreography was almost the polar opposite of traditional classical ballet. While the latter is "air-borne" and stylized, Graham's was earth-bound and more natural. People stayed pretty much on the floor, rolling and crawling. The set by Isamu Noguchi was in the "constructivist" style: extremely sparse, requiring the audience members to exercise their imaginations. |
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Manchester Variations |
R. Gary Deavel (b. 1930) |
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Gary Deavel graduated from Manchester College in 1952, got his Master's degree from the Sherwood Music School in 1956, and his Doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in 1970. He taught piano and organ at Manchester College for many years, and was Chair of the Music Department for much of that time. Gary is fondly remembered not only as a serious scholar (he is a specialist in the music of Benjamin Britten), but as one who gave great service to the community, was active in promoting inter-departmental teaching, and who had a great sense of humor, often displayed in his collaboration with Pat Helman (wife of former college President A. Blair Helman) in their annual comic musical productions. Gary continues to compose in his retirement in Michigan. Dr. Deavel has provided the following notes on his Manchester Variations. In 1977, Patricia Helman wrote the words and I the
music for the college song, "Manchester Fair." In these variations I
have used six motives from that song. They appear in various melodic,
harmonic, and rhythmic disguises -- some more transparent than others.
Their order is frequently rearranged. Only in the finale do they unmask
and conform to their original shape and order. Manchester Variations was commissioned by the Manchester Symphony Society in 1985 and is dedicated to Robert Jones (conductor at that time) and the Manchester Symphony Orchestra. |
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Symphonic Tale of Peter Pan |
Kentaro Sato (b. 1981) |
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If you find this music familiar, perhaps you remember Wings of Dreams, played a few years ago by the Manchester Symphony Orchestra. Sato is a California-based composer of film music. He was born in Hamamatsu, Japan. He has a Master of Music degree in conducting, and a Bachelor of Music in Media and Commercial Writing from California State University. He also has a degree in Cinema from Santa Monica College. Much of his music is choral, and it has been described as full of rich and colorful harmony. It is certainly true that his orchestration is rich and melodious, although the melodies are usually not sustained, betraying his association with film music. He has also done a lot of composing for video games, a rapidly-growing genre. Orchestration is his strong suit, and he offers to teach students over the Internet. He has received so many letters asking how he goes about orchestrating his melodies that he decided to write a book on orchestration. He is actually posting it, bit by bit, on the Web, and walks one through all the stages, from the basic melody, played on the piano, to the simple harmony on the left hand, through the change from piano to flute for the theme, and to other instruments for the harmony, and finally through the variations. Sato seems to be a very engaging man. |
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Warsaw Concerto |
Richard Addinsell (1904-1977) |
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Richard Addinsell was principally a composer of film scores. Of all the ones he wrote, this piece was the most remembered. The film was about a Polish concert pianist and airman who fled the country to Britain to escape the Nazis. He joined the R.A.F., and had a romance with an American reporter, suffered a mental breakdown ... the usual heart-string puller. The film was called Dangerous Moonlight. Never heard of it? Later, the name was changed to Suicide Squadron. Never heard of that, either? What about Goodbye Mr. Chips, or Gaslight, Blithe Spirit, The Greengage Summer, or The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone? Actually, a lot of the older members of the audience will remember those films, but nobody will remember the music. Not that it was bad music. It's simply because of the phenomenal success of a piece of music written for the film Dangerous Moonlight. The producers wanted Rachmaninoff to write the score, but he didn't want to. They tried to get permission to use his Second Piano Concerto, without any luck. So they asked Addinsell to write a concerto in the style of Rachmaninoff. The plot called for a piano concerto that would be instrumental (sorry about that) in restoring the main character's mental health. Addinsell soaked up the Rachmaninoff sound, and produced The Warsaw Concerto. It was an instant success, has been recorded more than a hundred times, and has sold over three million copies. Until the 1950s, many scores written for the studios were destroyed, since it was assumed there would be no more use for them. That happened to The Warsaw Concerto, so it had to be reconstructed by a composer, Philip Lane, who did so by listening to the soundtrack of the film. The studio had no idea that this music would have such great appeal. The film was produced during the war, and the British were clinging to any romantic or sentimental lifeboat during that hard time. In writing these notes, I watched the film again to refresh my memory (it was made in 1942). I could remember almost nothing of the film, but have a vivid memory of the music, and could hum the themes before even playing the music. The only other wartime music that had anywhere close to the impact of The Warsaw Concerto was Lili Marleen, written during the First World War, and made popular during the Second, but it sold only a third of the number of copies that The Warsaw Concerto did. |
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Manchester Symphony Orchestra Personnel |
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Violin I Elizabeth Smith, Concertmaster Thomas Dean +^ Pablo Vasquez Kristin Westover Linda Kanzawa Kristine Papillon Violin II Joyce Dubach * Rachel Nowak Paula Merriman Emily Lynn Linda Kummernuss Will Stanley Viola Julie Sadler * Carrie Shank +^ Margaret Sklenar Colleen Phillips Bruce Graham Cello Robert Lynn * Michael Rueff +^ Jade Keane +^ Robert Hudson Bass Darrel Fiene * Katie Huddleston +^ Jess Gaze Piccolo/Flute Kathy Davis * Kathy Urbani Alyssa Rocheck + Oboe George Donner * Nyssa Tierney Abigail Lynn English Horn George Donner |
Clarinet Lila D. Hammer * Mark W. Huntington Sarah Leininger +^ Bass Clarinet Sarah Leininger +^ Bassoon Erich Zummack * Elena Bohlander + Horn Christen Adler * John Morse ** Michael Paynter +^ Dana Dillon +^ Kelly Weeks +^ Trumpet Steven Hammer * John Adler ** Dennis Ulrey Mykayla Neilson + Trombone Jon Hartman * Chris Hartman +^ Larry Dockter Tuba Caleb Dehning Timpani Dave Robbins * Percussion Dave Robbins * Joseph James Ulrey Mackenzi Lowry + Katie Lowther + Harp Jaclyn Wappel Piano Alan Chambers * Denotes principal + Denotes MU student ^ Denotes Keister Scholarship recipient ** Denotes assistant principal |
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![]() Diesburg earned a Bachelor of Art in Biological Pre-Medical Illustration from Iowa State University in 2003, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He completed a Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2006. After earning his graduate degree, Diesburg served two years with the Peace Corps. Living in a rural rain forest community, he worked with Panamanian, American, and European organizations to educate children and adults. He also led and taught college students from all over the United States. Networking and teaching in adverse conditions, he learned to work effectively with faculty, staff, and students from diverse backgrounds. Following his time in the Peace Corps, he earned Teaching Licenses in Visual Arts and Biology, and served one year with the AmeriCorps and Porter County (Ind.) United Way as a career advisor for high school students. ![]() Dr. Haynes has also enjoyed performing as an accompanist, chamber musician, opera vocal coach, and musical theatre pianist, as well as teaching piano and music theory at Los Angeles City College. Currently, Dr. Haynes is an accompanist for Manchester University and adjunct faculty at Huntington University. Her instructors include Mary Berkebile, Dr. Lorna Griffitt, Hans Graf, Gail Berenson, and Jack Winerock. She and her husband reside in Wabash with their seven children, three cats, and two dogs. |
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