Serebrier - Suite for Solo Cello

José Serebrier

Suite for Solo Cello

I. Meditación……………......…1 II. Memorias de Tango............3 III. Polka Pizzicato …................6 IV. Canción de Amor ..............8 V. Moto Perpetuo…..............11

I met Carlos Prieto when we were both on the jury of the Sphinx Competition for young string players in Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan a few years ago. Our friendship was instant, and he asked me if he could commission a new work from me for solo cello. I was delighted and flattered, since he had previously commissioned some great composers. Also, while I had written solo pieces for violin and for viola, still in my teens, there was a gap that needed closing. I was instantly inspired to write a five-movement suite. Interestingly, another juror in the same competition, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, also commissioned me, a year later, to write a work for solo violin, Aires de Tango. I had never spoken to them about my music, so I was surprised. To add to the pleasure, the Sphinx Competition was a delight in every sense, with enormous talent on display.

The five movements of the suite may be described as follows: Meditación is an elegiac, nostalgic, almost sad reflection based on minor 2nds and 7ths. The cello has the perfect sound for reflecting these feelings of longing.

Memorias de Tango is a free, quasi-improvisational tango, quoting freely from my own “Tango in Blue”.

Polka Pizzicato is a fun little interlude, to be free momentarily from the feelings of sadness and solitude.

Canción de Amor–A real “love song”, but perhaps with premonitions…

Moto Perpetuo is a frenetic show of virtuosity. A happy ending, perhaps?

– JOSÉ SEREBRIER December 2010 José Serebrier established himself as a significant composer very early in his career. He was just 17 when Leopold Stokowski gave the world premiere of his Symphony No. 1, and soon after started to gain notoriety also as a conductor. His dual career has been honored with 36 Grammy Award nominations, and the Latin Grammy award for Best Classical Recording as conductor.

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay of Russian and Polish parents, Serebrier was awarded a Koussevitzky Foundation Award at Tanglewood and a BMI Young Composers Award for his Symphony No. 1 and Saxophone Quartet. He received a U.S. State Department Fellowship to study composition at the Curtis Institute of Music with Vittorio Giannini and with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. Awarded two consecutive Guggenheim Fellowships at 19 and 20, he remains the youngest to have ever obtained these awards in any field. Following graduation from Curtis, Serebrier studied at the University of Minnesota, where he received his M.A. in composition. He was awarded two Dorati Fellowships, a Pan American Union Publication Award (for Elegy for Strings), and the Ford Foundation American Conductors Project Award. Subsequent awards for his compositions include a Rockefeller Foundation award (for an extended residency with the Cleveland Orchestra); a Harvard Musical Association Commission Award (for Fantasia for string quartet); and a National Endowment for the Arts Commission (Orpheus x Light, a ballet for the Joffrey Ballet).

Serebrier was 22 years old when Leopold Stokowski named him Associate Conductor of the newly formed American Symphony Orchestra in New York, a post he held for four years. Stokowski conducted the first New York performance of Serebrier's Elegy for Strings at Carnegie Hall, and he opened the American Symphony Orchestra season at Carnegie Hall with the premiere of Serebrier's Poema Elegiaco, the second movement of Symphony No. 2: Partita. For two consecutive seasons, George Szell named José Serebrier Composer-inResidence of the Cleveland Orchestra. While in that position, he brought new elements to his compositions. His harp concerto Colores Magicos for the Inter-American Music Festival in Washington D.C. and Nueve, a concerto for double bass and orchestra commissioned for the double bass virtuoso Gary Karr, both incorporated imaginative staging. Serebrier has conducted Karr in performances of Nueve all over the world. Also from this period is the dramatic Symphony for Percussion, which was recorded by John Eliot Gardiner.

Serebrier’s Violin Concerto: Winter was premiered by Michael Guttman in New York in 1995 and recorded on ASV. His Symphony No. 3 for string orchestra and soprano vocalise, nominated for a Grammy in 2004 as Best Composition of the Year, has been released on Naxos along with a number of his other works for strings. More recently, he has revisited his Uruguayan youth by writing Tango in Blue and Almost a Tango for orchestra (both recorded on BIS) – lighter works using rhythms and melodic turns of Latin American popular music. Tango in Blue, in fact, comes full circle: its first four notes quote the last four from his early Partita.

SUITE FOR SOLO CELLO I. Meditación

Quasi adagio, liberamente

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f

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b˙

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arco

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José Serebrier (2006)

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nœ

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13

mf

≤ > b-œ≥ nœ b ˙ œœ ‰ J mf arco

pizz.

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œ ≥ J ‰ Œ œ™ nœj œ≤ œ bœ œ œ™ ‰ ‰ bœ≤ j -

≥ œ bœ œ ˙

Œ

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© Copyright 2013 by Peermusic III, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

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II. Memorias de Tango

3

Allegro- Tempo di Tango

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poco f

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f

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III. Polka Pizzicato Andante con moto pizz. sempre

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IV. Canción de Amor Andante mosso e comodo, liberamente e con rubato

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Poco più mosso-Tempo di Valse

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V. Moto Perpetuo Allegro

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15