T ANGOS & M ORE
Dance Inspired Music from the Americas
Max Lifchitz, piano
Concert made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts administered by North/South Consonance, Inc.
Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 7pm
Recital Hall
Performing Arts Center
UAlbany
MANUEL SAUMELL Nueve Contradanzas (1860)
La niña bonita (The Beautiful Girl)
Lamentos de amor (Pangs of Love)
El Somatén (The Spanish Police)
La Paila (The Sugar Pan)
Sopla, que quema (Blow, for it burns)
El pañuelo de Pepa (Pepa’s Handkerchief)
La quejosita (The complainer)
El huracán (The Hurricane)
Recuerdos de Gottschalk (Gottschalk’s Souvenir)
HÉCTOR CAMPOS-PARSI Tres Fantasías (1968)
I. Sobre la danza
II. Fanfarria
III. Canción y fuga
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS Choros No. 5, “alma brasileira” (1925)
JOEL CHADABE
The Long Ago and Far Away Tango (1984) MAX LIFCHITZ Bittersweet Tango (2023)
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Milonga del Angel (1965)
LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK Ojos Criollos (1857) Souvenir do Puerto Rico (1855) Le Banjo (1853)
Program
WILLIAM ORTIZ Max in Soho Jamming con the Orichas (2022) ALEXANDRE LEVY Tango Brasileiro (1890) ERNESTO NAZARETH Three Brazilian Tangos Ferramenta (1905) Remando (1896) Brejeiro (1893)
Meet the Performer
The AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE referred to Max Lifchitz as “one of America’s finest exponents of contemporary piano music” and THE NEW YORK TIMES praised him for his "clean, measured and sensitive performances.” A graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, Mr. Lifchitz was awarded first prize in the 1976 International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of 20th Century Music held in Holland. As a composer, Mr. Lifchitz has received fellowships from among others, the ASCAP, Ford and Guggenheim Foundations; the Individual Artists Program of the NYS Council of the Arts; and from the National Endowment for the Arts. His works have been performed throughout Europe, Latin America and the US. Lifchitz was invited to join the teaching staff of UAlbany in 1986.
Program Notes
Compiled and Edited by Max Lifchitz
Today’s program features exhilarating works written by composers from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the US.
A common thread evident in these compositions is the skillful usage of folk-derived elements, most notably the AfroCaribbean “clave” rhythm (3+3+2). The discerning listener will also encounter poly-metric constructs that include alternating measures in 3/4 and 6/8; succinct; uncomplicated formal schemes often binary or ternary in nature; and unusually zestful harmonic combinations.
Brief observations about each one of the composers and their music follow:
The Cuban composer Manuel Saumell (1817-1870) is considered the "Father of the Contradanza." He took the characteristic 19th century Cuban dance form to an unparalleled level of artistry, which transcended the entertainment ballroom. Distinctly based on the “clave” rhythms, his brief and delightful piano pieces comprise all the rhythmic and melodic elements that eventually evolved into other popular Cuban genres, such as the habanera, the guajira, the danzón and the canción
criolla. Saumell’s musical language absorbed the punctuated rhythms and syncopations of clear Afro-Caribbean derivation.
The endearing titles of his pieces reflect the personality of the individual to whom they are dedicated. Recuerdos de Gottschalk (Gottschalk’s Souvenir) dedicated to the American pianist/composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk — is a reference to the latter's infatuation with the habanera rhythm as well as the key of Eb Major. Love and romantic musings serve as impetus for Lamentos de Amor (Pangs of Love), La niña bonita (The Beautiful Girl) La quejosita (The Grouch) and El pañuelo de Pepa (Pepa’s Handkerchief). Other contradanzas depict scenes from daily life and special social occasions such as El Huracán (The hurricane), El Somatén (The Spanish Police) and La Paila (The Sugar Pot).
Héctor Campos-Parsi (1925-1998) attended the University of Puerto Rico before enrolling at Yale University during the early 1950’s where he studied with Paul Hindemith. Further work under the direction of Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and Nadia Boulanger in Paris preceded Campos-Parsi’s return to his native Puerto Rico in 1955 to assume the directorship of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Eventually, Campos-Parsi joined the faculty of the University of Puerto Rico’s College of Cayey where he taught until shortly before his death. Widely regarded as the father of Puerto Rican musical nationalism, Campos-Parsi’s style is strongly rooted in the Afro-Caribbean rhythms and smooth melodic lines typical of the traditional Danza Puertorriqueña. Critics have described his musical language as representative of the “marriage between European form and Puerto Rican folklore.”
The Three Fantasies for Piano by Héctor Campos-Parsi were written in 1957 and are a perfect example of his style. The first fantasy titled Apropos of the Dance is an improvisation on the characteristic Caribbean dance rhythms. The second, called Fanfare is a powerful polytonal fanfare. The concluding movement – Song and Fugue – is an A-B-A construct consisting of a hair-raising fugue surrounded by a deeply felt song without words.
A member of the fascinating hybrid culture known as "Nuyorican," the music of William Ortiz Alvarado often reflects the realities of urban life. Born in 1947 in Salinas, Puerto Rico, Ortiz studied with Héctor Campos-Parsi at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, eventually earning his M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook where his teachers included Billy Jim Layton and Bülent Arel. Ortiz was later granted the Ph.D. in Composition from SUNY Buffalo, where he studied with Lejaren Hiller and Morton Feldman. Currently, he is a Professor of Music and Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico’s Bayamón Campus and also serves as Music Director of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño.
Early in his career, Ortiz composed music that sought to reflect the realities of urban life in NY. He compared his music to “the violent beauty of urban life – expressing the cries and shouts of the street as well as reflecting the thoughts of those who feel, of those who are oppressed.” Recently, his palette has expanded to embrace a broader range of stylistic references while retaining strong allusions to Puerto Rican and Caribbean elements.
A native of São Paulo, Alexandre Levy (1864-1892) is regarded as a pioneer of Brazilian musical nationalism. His works are highly original and sometimes built on Brazilian popular forms or use Brazilian folk themes as raw material. In spite of his mysterious premature death, he left an amazing collection of works for a 27 year-old. The Tango Brasileiro was published in 1890 in the newspaper O Diario Popular, “as a gift to our graceful readers”. It was inspired by as a Brazilian ballroom dance that was in vogue in Rio de Janeiro in the last decades of the XIX century.
Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) was a great admirer of Frederic Chopin and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Nazareth was largely self-taught and made a living by playing piano for the silent movies in Rio's cinelandia ("movie land"). He was "discovered" in 1917 when the French composer Darius Milhaud wrote an article about his music for a Parisian
magazine. Ferramenta (The Hammer Man) employs elements of the Portuguese “fado” a sentimental song and dance. Remando (Getting By) and Brejeiro roughly translated, as "sly, easy-going, happy-go-lucky fellow," — are three of his most popular tangos. Elegant and subtle, Nazareth's music is truly exhilarating.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is not only Brazil's most famous composer but also its foremost musical personality. A selftaught musician, Villa-Lobos excelled as guitarist, cellist, pianist and conductor. A born pedagogue, he revolutionized and completely re-organized musical education in his native country during the 1940’s. Villa-Lobos' musical style took Brazilian folk music as its point of departure and source of inspiration. His melodies parallel closely the melodic turns and harmonic inflections commonly found in Brazilian folklore.
Villa-Lobos’ Chôros No. 5 belongs to a series of works that emulate the improvised quality often found in the music making of informal ensembles popular throughout Rio de Janeiro. The Portuguese word chôros means to cry. Chôros music is fundamentally melancholic. Chôros is still a vibrant genre that is continually transformed by contemporary musicians. VillaLobos captured its essence magnificently. His flowing musical style has a convincing spontaneous character appearing to speak directly from the soul.
Joel Chadabe (1938-2021) was a composer who helped pioneer electronic music in the 1960s, later developing compositional software programs and founding the Electronic Music Foundation, an advocacy organization for electronic music. In 1965, when Mr. Chadabe was 27 and computer music was in its nascence, he was asked by the State University of New York at Albany to run its electronic music studio. He had recently graduated from Yale’s music school. He retired from SUNY Albany in the late 1990s but continued to teach electronic music courses at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University and Bennington College, where he had been teaching as an adjunct since the 1970s. The Long Ago and Far Away Tango
is a deeply felt composition based on the “habanera” rhythms. As the title implies, Lifchitz’s Bittersweet Tango has some happy aspects and some sad ones combining emotions that are sweet but also tinged with sadness. The work was written especially for this concert.
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) arrived in New York City from his native Argentina as a four-year old child. In New York he began studying music with Bela Wilda, a disciple of Rachmaninoff. He returned to Argentina in 1936 where he studied composition with Alberto Ginastera and bandoneon with Aníbal Troilo. After performing in several tango ensembles and composing his first successful tango El desbande in 1946, Piazzolla made a name for himself writing music for Argentinean films. In 1953, he moved to Paris where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. Piazzolla returned to New York City in 1958 where he and his wife Dedé Wolf settled. In addition to his frequent touring and recording engagements Piazzolla continued his endeavors as a “serious” composer. Largely credited with making the tango a genre to be listened to rather than simply danced to, Piazzolla’s music “crossed over” and made enormous gains in popularity during the 1980’s. While he was busy recording and touring throughout the world with his Quintet and later with his Sextet, Piazzolla also received commissions from some of the best-known classical artists including Mistlav Rostropovitch, Gideon Kramer and the Kronos Quartet. Piazzolla also kept an extremely busy schedule appearing as bandoneon soloist with many European and American orchestras.
Piazzolla’s Milonga del Angel was originally written as incidental music for a play by the Argentinean writer Alberto Rodríguez Muños. In the play, the music accompanies "the story of an angel who tries to heal the broken spirits of humans in a house in Buenos Aires, only to die in a knife fight." Slow and sensuous, this is one of Piazzolla’s most popular compositions.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) was born in New Orleans to a Creole aristocratic mother and a European-Jewish
merchant father. Growing up in New Orleans — the cultural capital of America in the 1830’s the young musician was exposed to a wide range of social and cultural influences. He traveled to Paris in 1842 and befriended musicians such as Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt. His debut in 1849 brought praise from intellectuals and musicians alike, including writers Victor Hugo and composer Hector Berlioz. His European tours were greeted with much acclaim and his return to the US in 1853 excited audiences throughout the country. Clearly rooted in the Romantic style popular during his lifetime, Gottschalk's compositions spoke an original American-derived language that caught the concert world by storm. In 1855 Gottschalk took a leave of absence from the stage and traveled throughout the Caribbean looking for artistic inspiration and renovation. Upon his return to the US at the beginning of the Civil War, Gottschalk published several compositions based on Caribbean motives and embarked on several concert tours with the aim of raising money for the Union Army. In 1865 he left San Francisco for South America where he again found success and popularity as a pianist. He appeared throughout Argentina, Perú and Brazil. He collapsed and died on stage as he performed a sold out piano recital in Rio de Janeiro.
Gottschalk was America's first superstar as well as its first nationalistic composer. Some of his works, inspired by the rhythms he heard as a child when he witnessed the musical manifestations of African Americans in New Orleans’ Congo Square forecast the development of ragtime and jazz. Ojos Criollos – Creole Eyes – is a charming Danza reflecting his friendship with Manuel Saumell. The Souvenir de Porto Rico — also known as the March of the Jíbaros — is a set of variations on a country tune often sung by Puerto Rican farmers while they labored in the fields. It starts out mysteriously as from afar. Gradually, it becomes louder and louder. Eventually, the music fades out into the distance. The Banjo -- subtitled Fantasie Grotesque -- is an adaptation for the piano of the rhythms and sounds typical of the popular Afro-American folk instrument. Gottschalk employs a quote from Stephen Foster's song Camptown Races especially noticeable in the opening bars and in the coda.
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
erforming rts enterC A P
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