A Shakespearean storyline, a concerto for a violin virtuoso penned by a… violin virtuoso, music from the ballet made famous by pop culture, and the sacred music of a composer far-better known for his operas. Here’s a closer look at what’s on our Sunday, June 9th program, and an introduction to our featured soloist!
Henryk Wieniawski (b. 1835 – d. 1880)
Concerto for Violin No. 2 in D minor, Op.22
Born in Poland, trained in Paris, and known for both his warm tone and impeccable technique, violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski was considered among the great violinists of the 19th century. He launched a career as a traveling virtuoso in his teens, after graduating with the first prize in violin from the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11. After performing extensively throughout Germany and Russia in the 1850s, he settled in St. Petersburg for a little more than a decade, taking a role as a professor at the newly established music conservatory, as well as solo violinist to the tsar.
It was during this time in St. Petersburg that Wieniawski composed his second violin concerto. The initial performance of his first concerto at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1853 had propelled him to international renown, and the second concerto was suggested as a way for him to introduce himself to Russian audiences. He composed his violin works with his own virtuosity in mind, and Wieniawski himself was the soloist when the second concerto premiered on November 27, 1862 in St. Petersburg. It was first published in 1870 with a dedication to the Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate.
The work consists of three movements, and they are usually played without pause. The first is dramatic and lyrical. The second, the slow movement, is a Romance. The third, draws inspiration from gypsy styles and the folk dances of Wieniawski’s native Poland.
Our soloist is our concertmaster, Camille Jones. Camille is currently enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is pursuing a B.M. in Violin Performance.
Camille is a recipient of the Clifford Arnold Bernsen Scholarship Award from the School of Music faculty at the University of Maryland. She was also awarded a fellowship to attend the Sphinx Connect in Detroit, Michigan where she connected with several of the most inspiring and professional musicians, educators, and leaders of diversity in music around the world. This past fall Camille curated a concert at a local performing arts venue on the University of Maryland campus, MilkBoy ArtHouse, with 26 other students involved in the project. This concert, titled Voices Unheard consisted entirely of works by underrepresented composers, including Gabriela Lena Frank, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Florence Price, Javier Alvarez, student alumnus Pablo Salazar, and Caroline Shaw. The concert featured a diverse range of talent incorporating strings, vocalists, and dance. Camille has performed with various festival orchestras and chamber groups, including the National Orchestral Institute and Festival where she performed under accomplished conductors like JoAnn Falletta, Manuel -Gomez, and John Morris Russel.
Recently, Camille was awarded the Sphinx Orchestral Futurist Fellowship at the National Orchestral Institute and Festival where she will receieve real-world arts administration experience and help curate next year’s festival with the director. Camille has also attended the Master Players Festival and the Bowdoin International Music Festival. While attending Bowdoin, she had the opportunity to perform in a masterclass with the accomplished violinist Itamar Zorman. She has also had the opportunity to perform in masterclasses by former principle second violin of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Jennifer Ross, concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Jonathan Carney, and more. Camille has studied with well known chamber musicians like the Aeolus Quartet, the Jupiter Quartet, and the Jerusalem Quartet. Camille looks forward to pursuing a Master’s degree after finishing her studies at the University of Maryland.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (b. 1840 – d. 1893)
Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture
The works of William Shakespeare provided inspiration for a number of composers, and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture has its roots in the famous Shakespeare play of the same name. Tchaikovsky also composed works based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Tempest, but the Romeo and Juliet work is the most famous, due to the love theme used in a number of television shows and films.
The Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture took form over several years, beginning when Tchaikovsky was in his late 20s and a budding composer and professor in Moscow. During this time he encountered the group of Russian composers known as The Five: Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Balakirev suggested to Tchaikovsky the idea of a piece based on Romeo and Juliet, and the first version was composed in October and November of 1869. The tepid reception of its premiere in 1870 prompted Tchaikovsky to rework the score considerably, with Balakirev’s input, during that summer. A second version was premiered in 1872, but Balakirev was still not satisfied. Tchaikovsky returned to it again in September 1880 for a final reworking of the closing bars, completing the work as audiences know it today.
Tchaikovsky himself described the work as “fantasy-overture,” and it is in sonata form, with the three main sections of exposition, development, and recapitulation. Key themes symbolize the story’s key characters and events, including the conflict between the Capulets and the Montagues, and the love between Romeo and Juliet.
Aram Khachaturian (b. 1903 – d. 1978)
Three Dances from Gayaneh
Aram Khachaturian’s 1936 Piano Concerto put him on the map inside and outside of the Soviet Union, and not long after, he composed the ballet Gayaneh, which would yield his most famous music. Among this suite of Three Dances from Gayaneh is the instantly-recognizable Sabre Dance, which has been used widely across television and film over the decades since its debut.
Born and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia, Khachaturian moved to Moscow in 1921. Without prior music training, he enrolled in the Gnessin Musical Institute, subsequently studying at the Moscow Conservatory. While his music largely adhered to the established musical traditions of Russia, he frequently drew upon Armenian, Eastern and Central European, and Middle Eastern folk music in his works. Khachaturian is known mostly for his ballet music, including Gayaneh and Spartacus (1954), but he also composed three symphonies and two dozen film scores, among other works.
Gayaneh is a four-act ballet. It was originally composed around 1939, and the first performance was staged by the Kirov Ballet in 1942. The score was revised in 1952 and in 1957, with modified plots. As Khachaturian’s original Gayaneh was the story of a young Armenian woman whose patriotic convictions conflict with her personal feelings on discovering her husband’s treason, the resultant, revised stories were more romantic than political.
Quattro Pezzi Sacri
Giuseppe Verdi (b. 1813 – d. 1901)
After Verdi finished his opera Aida and in 1874 the Messa da Requiem, he retired from composing for years, writing only minor sacred compositions such as a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria in 1880. The earliest of the Quattro Pezzi Sacri in terms of its composition date is what came to be known as Laudi alla Vergine Maria (although Verdi himself did not give it that title). It was composed between 1886 and 1888, during which time he was also working on his penultimate opera, Otello, which premiered in 1887. The second of the Pezzi to be composed was the Ave Maria. He originally composed it in 1889 and revised it for publication in 1897. The Te Deum was begun in 1895 two years after the premiere of his last opera, Falstaff. It was finished in the summer of 1896. The Stabat Mater followed, and all four pieces were sent to Verdi’s publisher, Casa Ricordi, in June 1897. We will perform two of the four pieces today.
Ave Maria Verdi was inspired in 1889 to compose Ave Maria using the enigmatic scale which had been published in the magazine “Gazetta musicale di Milano,” inviting composers to harmonise it. Verdi composed a setting for four unaccompanied solo voices, with the bass singing the scale first, followed by alto, tenor and soprano. The three remaining voices supply harmonic texture. Verdi commented: “An Ave Maria. It will be my fourth! Perhaps I shall be beatified by the Holy Father.” He revised the work in June 1897 for publication. Although Verdi’s original intent was that it would be sung by four soloists, today the whole chorus will sing it.
Stabat Mater sets the complete drama of the Passion as seen through Mary’s eyes. It is a 13th-century Christian hymn to Mary, which portrays her suffering as Jesus Christ’s mother during his crucifixion. The title comes from its first line, Stabat Mater dolorosa, which translates as “the sorrowful mother was standing”. Verdi scored his Stabat Mater for a four-part mixed chorus and a large orchestra of three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets. four bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, percussion (timpani and bass drum), harp and strings. The work is through-composed without repetition of text. It is full of chromaticism. Melodic parts, similar to arias, contrast with a cappella passages and dramatic outbursts.