Concert Notes

Today’s concert is a public foray into how the passage of time in history can be perceived subjectively. The music performed today was written approximately a century ago. A concert of music that might have been performed in 1925, made up of music from the 1820s would have struck the audience in 1925 as welcome,…

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) Born February 28, 1876, in Park Ridge, Illinois Died April 26, 1951, in Chicago Skyscrapers: A Ballet of Modern American Life Composed 1923-24 Premiered on February 19, 1926 in New York, New York at the Metropolitan Opera House conducted by Louis Hasselmans featuring dance soloists Albert Troy, Rita de Leporte, and…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) was perhaps the most famous, respected, and original composer from the Protestant north of German Europe during the later eighteenth century, a worthy equal and rival of two composers whose posthumous reputation and place in the repertory far exceeds his own—Haydn, 18 years younger and a Catholic subject of the Habsburg Empire—and…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) Born March 8, 1714, in Weimar, Germany Died December 14, 1788, in Hamburg, Germany Heilig, H.775 Composed 1776 Premiered premiered during Michaelmas in 1776 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, H.777 Composed 1774-78 Premiered March 18, 1778 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately…

Scott Joplin Overture to Treemonisha Born November 24, 1868 in Texarkana, TX Died April 1, 1917 in New York, New York Composed 1911 Premiered on January 28, 1972 in Atlanta, Georgia Conducted by Robert Shaw Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes While all the composers on this program worked in a variety of genres and styles,…

This concert program tries to put a dent—so to speak—in a prejudice (if prejudices had metal surfaces like cars) too many of us still share: that there is a fundamental tension between popular music and classical “art” music, particularly in America. There is none; great music thrives in all genres from Taylor Swift to John…

Tonight the American Symphony Orchestra, along with the Bard Festival Chorus and soloists, presents one of the most remarkable works of the early 20th century, Gurre-Lieder, a “grand cantata” scored for more than 200 musicians and voices. The connection between the ASO and this largest work by Arnold Schoenberg is important; their founding conductor, Leopold…

Bryan Gilliam, in his elegant and expert notes for this performance of Gurre-Lieder, observes that Schoenberg’s belief in the “historical obligation of musical style” has “lost all meaning” in our current century. What Schoenberg understood as the “historical obligation” was actually an ethical imperative. Any style adopted by composers of music had to match and…

As distinguished scholar Michael Beckerman—in his very fine notes to this performance—observes, there was no “specific reason” on Antonín Dvořák’s part for composing his Requiem. What Beckerman was referring to was some personal or perhaps public reason to honor the dead with a major monumental choral and orchestral work. The reason Dvořák wrote the work…

Premiere: October 9, 1891 in Birmingham, England at the Birmingham Music Festival conducted by Antonín Dvořák with soloists Anna Williams, Hilda Wilson, Iver McKay, Watkin Mills, and the Birmingham Festival Chorus Instruments for this performance: 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 4 French…