Evening Concert Series
Sara M. Snell Theater
2023 – 2024 Season
Wednesday, October 4th at 7:30pm
Julianne Doyle, clarinet
Julie Miller, piano
Sonata Op. 120, No. 2 in Eb (1894)
Allegro amabile
Allegro appassionato
Andante con moto –Allegro
Phoenix Rising
Dying in embers
Reborn in flames
Nocturne (1911)
Black Montuno (2014-15)
ThreeAmerican Pieces (1944)
Early Song (1944)
Dedication (1944)
Composer’s Holiday (1945)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Stacy Garrop (b. 1969)
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez (b. 1982)
Lukas Foss (1922-2009)
Arr. By Richard Stoltzmann
Sonata Op. 120, No. 2 in Eb Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was close to retiring when he heard a performance of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. Brahms and was so deeply moved by Mühlfeld’s musical artistry that he deferred his retirement to compose four final works, all of which feature the clarinet in a starring role, including the two Clarinet Sonatas. The second sonata Opus 120, No. 2 in E-flat Major is made of up of four movements. The first movement is imbued with a sweetness that reflects Brahms’s own musical directions to the performers:Allegro amiable, a directive to play “…in a charming, gracious” manner. The second movement is a tour de force, marked “Apassionato, ma non troppo allegro” meaning with passion and features a sostenuto middle section that is lyrical and dignified. The gentle third movement consists of a set of variations and is immediately followed by a fourth movement defined by exuberance and joy.
Phoenix Rising Stacy Garrop
Legends of the phoenix are found in stories from ancient Egypt and Greece. While each culture possesses a range of stories encompassing the phoenix myth, these tales tend to share similar traits: a sacred bird with brilliantly colored plumage and melodious call lives for typically five hundred years; then the bird dies in a nest of embers, only to be reborn among the flames. In Egyptian stories, the phoenix gathers scented wood and spices for its funeral/rebirth pyre, then collects the ashes from its earlier incarnation and flies them to the temple of the sun in Heliopolis to offer as a tribute to the sun god. In Greek myths, the phoenix was approximately the size of an eagle and was adorned with red and gold feathers; it would fly from either India orArabia to Heliopolis to give its offering. The bird’s association with immortalityandresurrectionareparticularlyintriguingaspectsofthesetales,giving numerous writers (including William Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and J.K. Rowling) a rich resource for their own stories. Phoenix Rising consists of two movements. I. Dying in embers represents anoldphoenixwhoissettlingontopofapileofembers and breathing its last breath; II. Reborn in flames depicts the newly born phoenix getting its first taste of flight. Phoenix Rising was commissioned by saxophonist Christopher Creviston. I subsequently made arrangements for flute, clarinet, and violin. -S.G.
Nocturne was composed in 1911, and originally scored for solo violin with piano accompaniment. As the title suggests, the nighttime was the basis and inspiration for this short work for violin. Opening with a sparkle of notes from the piano, the violin enters with the primary melody. The sparse accompaniment leaves room for the rich violin to sit on top. As the violin becomes slightly more agitated in the climactic sections, the accompaniment becomes louder and to support the soloist. The melodies are charming, but also troubled in Nocturne. At one point the music is ambling along and the next the intensity has soared, and so has the violin. These nuggets of intensity and drama really shape the structure and voice of this piece. The opening piano statement lays at the core of the accompaniment, with the piano moving with the soloist when necessary. The end of Nocturne sees the two instruments become entangled as the music becomes quieter until it softly fades away.
Black Montuno Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez
For the realization of this work, I composed a montuno and a tune derived from the montuno’s contour. Influenced by the songs of the Cuban Nueva trova movement, the tune developed into an instrumental song that can be heard in the last section of the piece. Harmonies influenced by Cuban popular music and jazz are also used in this composition. Around the time I graduated from Baylor University with my Master’s in Music Composition, I decided to write a work that would serve as my graduation gift for my professor Scott McAllister. I thought that it would be a good idea to write a piece for clarinet, my professor’s main instrument, and for Wind Ensemble, an instrumental format for which he had written several works. This is how“Blackmontuno”cameabout. Thetitleofmypiecehastodo withMcAllister’s “Black Dog,” a work written for Clarinet in Bb and Wind Ensemble, and with my Cuban roots. The word montuno, which translates as riff, refers to a musical entity characteristic of son and salsa. These are two genres of the Cuban popular music ofthe20th century, which arestill activein thecurrent Cuban musical scene.While the montuno was born with and is still part of son, it became a hallmark of salsa, which is musicfordancing, not forlistening, as onewould do with concert music. Traditionally, the piano, the Cuban tres, and the bass are the instruments that play the montuno. For the realization of this work, I composed a montuno and a tune derived from the montuno’s contour. Influenced by the songs of the Cuban Nueva trova movement, the tune developed into an instrumental song that
can be heard in the last section of the piece. Harmonies influenced by Cuban popular music and jazz are also used in this composition.
– Ivette Herryman RodríguezThreeAmerican Pieces Lukas Foss
A scholar writes, “the works of Lukas Foss (1922-2009) spring from a distinct personality: enthusiastic, curious, and receptive to every kind of musical idea…he was one of his era’s most communicative and representative composer-performer.” It’s not surprising that his good friend Leonard Bernstein called him “an authentic genius.” Foss enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age fifteen, in the same year as Leonard Bernstein, and counted Isabelle Vengerova (piano), Rosario Scalero and Randall Thompson (composition), and Fritz Reiner (conducting)among his teachers. Foss was thepianist in theBoston Symphony, and in 1945 he became the youngest composer ever to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1950–51 he was a Fellow of theAmericanAcademy in Rome and in 1950–52 the recipient of a Fulbright grant. Foss was music director and conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic between 1963 and 1970, the Brooklyn Philharmonic in 1971, and the conductor of the Kol Israel Orchestra of Jerusalem, and became a professor at Boston University in 1991. In 1944, he wrote Three American Pieces for Violin and Piano that he described as “melodious and virtuosic,” and premiered them in Carnegie Hall before the end of the year with the Polish-born violinist Roman Totenberg, also a recently naturalized United States citizen; Foss orchestrated the work in 1990 for Itzhak Perlman. Early Song alternates a simple melody of open intervals and sweet nostalgia with a dance-like theme of buoyant optimism. The touching, bittersweet outer sections of Dedication, whose title suggests amemorial associated with the war, arebalanced by the nervous, animated music at the movement’s center. The closing Composer’s Holiday was apparently spent at a western hoe-down.