Carthage Philharmonic Program

2020-2021 Carthage Music Department Presents

e ThCarthage Philharmonic Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021 | 7:30 p.m. | A. F. Siebert Chapel

program There will be no intermission To Emily: Adagietto for Strings Serenade for Strings

I Pezzo in forma di Sonatina III Élégie

IV Finale (Tema Russo)

Vally Weigl (1894-1982)

Pytor Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

personnel Dr. Etsushi Edward Kawakami, conductor Violin 1 Azniv Khaligian** Sophia Tajnai Lee Fulkerson Violin 2 Ashlynne Edwards* Edelmar Morales-Rivera Viola Genevieve Zauhar* Molly Fraser Bailey Wellen Samuel Gomberg Megan Baumeister Elena Cordoba Meghan Keiffer-Zagar Jacob Mayer

Cello William Dowell* Grace Hill Rheanna Weaver Davison Krajcik Brian Dean Halla Swindle Emily Carr Bass McKenzie Wallace*

*principal **concertmaster

program notes “To Emily” Adagietto for Strings

Vally Weigl devoted her later years of life to others. Growing up in Austria, she engaged in private music lessons that turned into studying musicology at the University of Vienna and taking a plethora of private musical studies with various teachers, including her future husband Karl Weigl. With a brief stint as a translator in Amsterdam, Weigl spent her time in Vienna teaching music and performing with her husband. This ended after the annexation of Austria to Germany and the establishment of Nazi race laws that designated Weigl and her family as Jewish. While Weigl, her husband, and her son were able to escape Nazi persecution by emmigrating to the United States, many family members did not survive.

program notes Weigl’s mother committed suicide and her sister was murdered in Ravensbruck. Before her imprisonment and murder, Weigl’s sister, Kathe Leichter, was an a active suffragete and Social Democrat who criticized Weigl’s apolitical stance. In the U.S, Weigl focused on using music for social change while working as a music and language teacher and a translator. She also began composing a plethora of piano, chamber, and vocal music.

In 1949, Weigl lost her husband and suffered a debilitating shoulder injury that prevented her from pursuing a career teaching or playing piano. During her physical therapy, she noticed that music eased her pain as she went through her exercises. This discovery inspired her to switch her career to music therapy, graduating from the Teacher’s College at Columbia University and becoming a pioneer in the field. In addition to working with children and seniors with physical and mental disabilities through music therapy, she also produced a body of writings that pushed music therapy forward in the U.S. Outside her career, Weigl still used music to help others and bring people together. She helped found the Society of Friends’ Arts for World Unity Organization and served as the president of the organization After many years of service work, including establishing the Karl Weigl Memorial Fund in memory of her late husband, Weigl died in 1982 at 88 years old.

“To Emily” showcases a sense of contemplative care that permeated through Weigl’s work. After a short syncopated introduction, the first and second violins engage in a flowing and tender melody and countermelody. The violas sit below the melody and countermelody, supporting it underneath. Shortly later the cellos enter with their own tender declaration of loving care. A syncopated rhythmic motive is passed around the ensemble, with minor variations between the different string sections. Its 16th-8th-16th note combination creates a sense of unsteadiness, even while the flowing melodies and countermelodies intertwine. Yet that unsteadiness reinforces a sense of earnestness through its imperfect care.

Later on in the piece, the violins create a nobler, dignified melody on top of the violas’ running 8th notes that are soon taken over by the cellos. This nobility starts to loosen as the earnestness returns with a more pronounced variation of the syncopated rhythmic motive. The caringness begins to rise and fall, before returning to the original melody. While the music repeats what was established in the beginning of the piece it eventually slows down into its final section. 8th and 16th notes start being replaced by quarter notes and half notes. The music expands as the ensemble draws out each and every note. The earnest care drifts slowly into a peaceful final chord that just fades away.

Serenade for Strings in C Major - Pytor Tchaikovsky

Serenade for Strings in C Major is the antithesis of Tchaikovsky’s other work that he composed in the same time frame, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The 1812 Overture is a loud, openly milatristic and nationalistic piece that fills the concert hall with sounds of canon fire.

The Serenade for Strings is an intimate, artistic, and loving piece for string orchestra. This dichotomy is expressed by Tchaikovsky himself, with the 1812 Overture being described as a piece written with “no warm feeling of love” and one with no possibly no artistic merit. His Serenade for Strings on the other hand, was described by him as a piece composed “from inner conviction” claiming it was “a heartfelt piece.” That serenade’s beauty and intimacy comes from its simplicity. Tchaikovsky allows the music to sing without overcomplicating it with needless ornamentation or spectacle.

This beautiful simplicity is shown best in the very beginning of the first movement, Pezzo in forma di Sonatina. Almost completely rhythmically unison, or homorhythmic, the grandiose theme is shared among the whole string orchestra. The individual sections start to break apart with the low strings first triumphantly singing the melody followed by the first violins, but still does not go beyond a couple differing rhythms. While the opening begins grandly, it does slowly fade away before the music jumps into a bustling new allegro moderato.

The string orchestra starts homorhythmically, but then shifts to a displaced melody

program notes with the violas and cellos a beat behind the violins. The string orchestra briefly goes back and forth between being together and being displaced until Tchaikovsky introduces a new darker variation on the theme introduced in the allegro moderato section. Here the cellos rumble with furious 16th notes underneath the violins and violas’ homorhythmic chord changes. With only two different rhythmic ideas, Tchaikovsky balances clarity with emotional turbulence.

This simplistic clarity slightly unravels in the first movement’s transitions with Tchaikovsky frequently bouncing fragments between the sections. This departure from a more cohesive structure creates a sense of chaos as the various sections fight within each other.

This chaos is resolved once Tchaikovsky establishes the second theme of the Allegro moderato. The first violins and violas create a bouncy series of 16th notes as the cellos and basses maintain a series of plucked 8th notes. The second violins replace the first violins’ consistent 16th notes as the first violins begin brief syncopated runs of the cellos now slurred 8th notes. Even with the addition of a new musical line, the rhythmic steadiness from the second violin and viola allow the first violins and cellos remain clear. The serenade starts to become a little hectic as sections begin to pass melodies to each other, but the grouping of instrumental sections together keeps it from reaching the chaos seen in the earlier transition.

While Tchaikovsky maintains the serenade’s simplicity by reducing the number of independent lines, he creates a sense of variety by changing the combination of sections that make up each line. The second theme is regularly returned to until the first half of the movement climaxes into an energetic G major frenzy. Afterwards, the music returns back to the first theme and goes on to essentially repeating the first half, only this time having the second theme remain in the same key as the first. After that repetition, the orchestra finally returns to the glorious opening theme. Tchaikovsky’s beautiful simplicity fills the concert hall as every instrument sings out the melody, ending with a glorious C major chord.

The Elegy is arguably the most complex movement of the Serenade, but in exchange has some of the most beautiful viola melodies. While its opening starts off in a sense of quiet sorrow, a sense of joy and love begins to blossom in the violins’ melody. This joy still retains a sense of tension, as Tchaikovksy frequently sets its lyrical 8th note melodies against a series of accompanying triplets. While the violins and cellos regularly sing during the third movement, it is the violas that truly steal the show. Their warm rich register is fully taken advantage of as they regularly sing both joyous and tragic melodies. An elegy regularly reflects sorrow and loss, especially for those who have died, but Tchaikovsky reminds us through the violas and the rest of the ensemble that grief contains both pain and joy. The Elegy ends peacefully, as each section floats away, ascending into the final movement.

While the Finale is bouncy and exciting, it also returns to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful simplicity. A small rhythmic motive constantly permeates through the Allegro con spirito section of the fourth movement, taking inspiration from Russian folk dances. This dance inspiration is seen in the lightness that comes with the flurries of 16th notes. Like the rest of the serenade, Tchaikovsky continues to pair the sections together, regularly turning the five different sections into just two different ideas. Whether it is a gliding melody in the violins or a running line of eight notes in the violas and cellos, the music maintains a sense of beautiful cohesion. The Finale even calls back to the wonderful opening and closing theme of the first movement, adding a little bit of a dramatic flair in the violins. Tchaikovsky concludes the serenade with a celebratory zeal as the orchestra rings out their C major chord together, showing that sense of unity and simplicity that makes Serenade for Strings so beautiful.

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