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Serenade at Dusk

FEBRUARY 15, 2020 • 8:00 PM Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

FEBRUARY 16, 2020 • 3:00 PM George Washington Masonic Memorial

James Ross, conductor Berta Rojas, guitar

PROGRAM

Serenade No. 6, K. 239, Serenata notturna

Mozart

Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 99

Ca te nuovo

Berta Rojas, guitar

- INTERMISSION -

String Quartet in G major Andante Moderato

arr. for string orchestra by J. Ross

Price

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485

Schu ert

Serenade in D major, K. 239 Serenata notturna

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Were serenades the “Muzak” of Mozart’s day? Perhaps, but only in the hands of anyone other than Mozart himself. Designated as background music, it would be expected that wine bottles would be uncorked, food chewed and conversations would continue even as the music played.

But Mozart was simply incapable of hiding his gifts, irrespective of the nature or significance of the commission. His serenades contain some of the most charming, even awe-inspiring musical moments—recall the famous scene in the movie Amadeus where Salieri looks at the score of Mozart’s Serenade for Winds and comes to believe that the young upstart had been “touched by the hand of God.” Mix in a little humor, and you have the recipe for this delightful string serenade.

Technically, the name Serenata notturna is redundant; a serenade is meant to accompany evening activities, and there is nothing “nocturnal” about this spirited romp. The title itself was scribbled onto the first page not by Wolfgang, but by his father Leopold, who also added the date of January 1776. The three movements—Marcia (maestoso), Minuet and Rondo (allegretto)—are scored for two small orchestras in a manner which calls to mind a sinfonia concertante. Mozart adds timpani to the strings for a striking, almost military, color and allows some comical soloistic play in cadenza-like moments before the final coda. Smiles and foot tapping are encouraged.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)

Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D major, Opus 99 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco stands alongside Joaquín Rodrigo as one of the greatest composers for guitar of the 20th century. Like Rodrigo in Spain dealing with Franco, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was confronted by

the politics of his day: during the 1930s the Jewish composer’s works were banned from radio broadcast and his concerts canceled, eventually causing him to flee his beloved Italian homeland shortly before World War II to escape fascist persecution.

After establishing citizenship in the U.S., Castelnuovo-Tedesco was drawn to Hollywood and film composing, where he contributed to more than 200 films for MGM and taught such well-known figures as John Williams, Nelson Riddle and Henry Mancini.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco was already well-established with an international reputation when he first met Andrés Segovia in 1932. The result of this chance meeting was a significant contribution to the guitar repertoire, including several works for Segovia. The Guitar Concerto No. 1 premiered in 1939 with Segovia as soloist.

The allegretto opening movement is an elegant exposition of Spanishflavored melodies; the middle movement, Andantino alla romanza, softly reminisces; the finale, Rimico e cavalleresco, is noble, chivalrous and virtuosic.

Florence Price (1887-1953)

Andante moderato from String Quartet in G major (arr. James Ross)

Considering the fact that she was born to a mixed-race family in Little Rock, Arkansas just a generation removed from the Civil War, young Florence Smith had a remarkably normal early childhood. Her dentist father and music teacher mother provided a stable environment, and the family was well respected in the community. At the age of 14, Florence graduated valedictorian from her high school, and she moved on to

the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In her late teens, in order to avoid the stigma and prejudice directed toward AfricanAmericans, Florence identified as a Mexican.

After graduation, Florence moved to Atlanta, where she taught at Clark Atlanta University; she met and married lawyer Thomas Price in 1912. By 1927 she and her husband were back in Little Rock, where a series of racial incidents persuaded the couple to move north to Chicago. A divorce in 1931 forced Florence to find work as an organist playing for silent films and writing jingles for radio ads.

Through it all, Florence continued to compose, building a substantial list of works. Renowned vocal star Marian Anderson opened some doors for Florence; in 1933 her Symphony in E minor was performed by the Chicago Symphony, making her the first African-American woman composer ever to have a work presented by a major orchestra.

The andante moderato movement from her String Quartet in G major has a beautiful pastoral quality. Calm, reflective, colorful and original, this arrangement by Maestro James Ross allows for a fullness and warmth of sound the composer no doubt would have appreciated.

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederick Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, George Gershwin and Franz Schubert all have two things in common: each is considered among the greatest melodists in history, and none made it to the age of 40.

by Salieri) and his fortuitous friendships with great singers likely contributed to his understanding of the melodic line. Schubert’s melodies, even in instrumental works, have a particularly vocal quality to them. His enormous output of art song (typically for solo vocalist with piano accompaniment) defined the genre and influenced composers for generations. Film composer John Williams, student of Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco (featured earlier on this program), quoted one of Schubert’s songs in his score for the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Schubert completed his fifth symphony at the ripe old age of twenty. It came just a few months after his fourth, a work he later titled “Tragic.” The fifth is almost unrelentingly cheerful and light in spirit, perhaps serving as an antithesis to the earlier work. At the time, Schubert was enthralled with the music of Mozart, and one can imagine the youngster allowing himself to be influenced by the master in the symphony’s airiness and warmth of expression.

The allegro first movement begins with a clever musical gesture, a short series of chords in the winds interrupted by descending eighth notes in the violins that morph into the main theme of the movement: a simple, ascending triad upon which much of the movement is based. The second movement, andante con moto, takes the ascending triad of the first movement and inverts it, creating a songful yet compact musical experience.

The third movement inverts the melodic triad once again, returning it to its ascending pattern in a vigorous, angry sounding gesture of defiance. The finale is a romp, full of vim and vigor, bringing the work to a rousing conclusion.

Berta Rojas ranks among today’s foremost classical guitarists. She has been praised as “guitarist extraordinaire” by the Washington Post and by Classical Guitar Magazine as “ambassador of the classical guitar.” Berta Rojas, guitar

Berta has been nominated three times for Latin Grammy Awards in the category of Best Instrumental Album for Día y Medio (A Day and a Half), a duet with Paquito D’ Rivera (2012), in the category of Best Classical Album for her album Salsa Roja (2014), and more recently in the category of Best Tango Album for her album History of Tango (2015), recorded with the Camerata Bariloche.

Berta’s acknowledged warmth and musicality have earned her the admiration of audiences at major venues worldwide: the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and the Frederick P. Rose Hall of Jazz at Lincoln Center, London’s South Bank Centre, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the National Concert Hall in Dublin, where she performed as a soloist with the Irish Radio and Television Orchestra, and the Flagey Studio 4 in Brussels, where she performed with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra for Belgian National Television.

In 2011, with guest artist Paquito D’Rivera, Berta initiated a four-year tour In the Footsteps of Mangoré which followed the travels of Agustín Barrios, pioneer of the classical guitar in the Americas. The duo performed in 20 Latin-American and Caribbean countries, concluding the journey at the national theater of the capital of El Salvador, final resting place of the celebrated composer.

Berta takes her audience on a colorful journey of sound, embracing new works by composers in diverse genres. The journey is echoed in

recordings such as Cielo Abierto (2006) and Terruño (2009), as well as the duo with Carlos Barbosa-Lima on Alma y Corazón (2007) and the celebrated Intimate Barrios (2008) featuring works by the great Paraguayan composer and guitarist. On her latest recording, Felicidade (2017), she pays tribute to Brazilian music, with guest artists including Gilberto Gil, Toquinho and Ivan Lins.

In addition to continually enriching her own career through international tours and master classes, Berta Rojas is firmly committed to furthering and disseminating the classical guitar. A particular focus is on promoting the music of her country, Paraguay, as well as LatinAmerican music more widely, and her ongoing support for the careers of upcoming guitarists. With this aim, she created the first online classical guitar competition, the Barrios World Wide Web Competition in 2009, and was the Artistic Director of the Ibero-American Guitar Festival at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. She also co-founded the young persons’ Beatty Music Scholarship Competition for Classical Guitar, offering winners the opportunity to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

After initial studies in her native Paraguay with Felipe Sosa and Violeta de Mestral, Berta studied in Uruguay under Abel Carlevaro, Eduardo Fernández and Mario Payseé, and at the Peabody Institute under Manuel Barrueco, Ray Chester and Julian Gray.

She has recently joined the prestigious Berklee College of Music as Associate Professor, sharing her knowledge and love of music with a select group of young guitarists from all over the world.

Berta Rojas has been ranked amongst the most influential women in the Hispanic world. She has been named a Fellow of the Americas by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her artistic excellence, and honored by her country with the title Illustrious Ambassador of Musical Art. In 2015 she was awarded the National Order of Merit of the Comuneros, and honorary doctorate degrees by two national universities. In 2017, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to culture, she received both the National Order of Merit Don José Falcón and the Carlos Colombino Awards.

What does a nighttime serenade sound like? Does it include a guitar? Must it be outdoors underneath a window, or can it be indoors gathered around a piano? Would a quartet end the evening playing a song on the patio that sounds like Auld Lang Syne? Does it matter whether that night is happening in Austria, or Italy, or Arkansas? The idea of serenade seems to be that you can reach the heart of someone more easily if they can’t actually see who is making the music or exactly where it is coming from. Ideally, we should be playing this program in the dark somewhere down by the Potomac starting around 11 p.m. at an undisclosed location which the audience has to find by following their ear.

These are all pieces that aspire to reach the heart. Mozart’s serenade is curiously orchestrated for strings and timpani (What? No trumpets or horns?) and features special solo turns not just for the leading violin but also for the lead double bass and the rambunctious kettledrummer. The Castelnuovo-Tedesco D major guitar concerto continues in the same key and vein as the Serenata notturna despite having been written some 160 years later. We lose track of time at night. Florence Price’s yearning Andante seems to connect with Schubert at the level of serene and simple singing. I remember a nighttime serenade in Asuncion (Paraguay) 16 years ago with our soloist, guitarist Berta Rojas, which captured the precise spirit of this evening’s darkness-infused yet loving program. Close your eyes and just listen. “Might you love me?” asks a plantive voice.