CCWS continued its global outreach with a
Performed
Sunday, June 10, 8pm
Hofmann Theatre
Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Dr., Walnut Creek CA
An exciting musical journey through Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland. And a musical tribute to the late Hungarian composer
Frigyes Hidas
* U.S. Premiere of Frigyes Hidas' Third Concerto for Horn, with featured soloist Susan Vollmer
* World Premiere of Hidas' Hungarian Rhapsody, a commissioned work based on Hungarian folk songs
* U.S. Premiere of Franco Cesarini's Bulgarian Dances
* Other works by Dvorak, Bartok, Maj and Hidas
{click on titles or composers for notes}
Odwach March ........................................................................................ Edward Maj
Jocuri Porporale Romanesti (Romanian Folk Dances) ............................ Bela Bartok
1. Jocuri cu Bâta (Stick Dance) 2. Brâul (Sash Dance)
3. Pe loc (In One Spot) 4. Buciemeana (Horn Dance)
5. Poarga Româneasca (Romanian Polka) 6. Maruntelul (Fast Dance)
Slavonic Dances No. 8 (originally named Czech Dances) ................... Antonin Dvorak
Bulgarian Dances (U.S. Premiere) ..................................................... Franco Cesarini
Played without pause, the dances are:
Polegnala e Pschenitza (Harvest Song from Thrace)
Erghen Diado (Song of Schopsko county)
Polegnala e Todora (Todora is Taking a Nap)
Yabalko Zlanta (The Golden Apple)
Djore Dos (A Name)
INTERMISSION
Save The Sea .............................................................................. ........ Frigyes Hidas
II. Song Of The Waves
III. Threatening Sea
Third Concerto for Horn (U.S. Premiere) ............................................... Frigyes Hidas
1. Animato 2. Larghetto 3. Allegro
Susan Vollmer, French Horn
Hungarian Rhapsody (World Premiere) .................................... ... ....... Frigyes Hidas
Commissioned by the Contra Costa Wind Symphony
Sprightly Tunes .................................................................................... Frigyes Hidas
A Tribute to Frigyes Hidas
Tonight’s program is not what I had originally planned. I had aimed for a broader representation of Eastern European composers of wind music. After the untimely passing of Mr. Hidas in Budapest on March 7, shortly after he completed the “Hungarian Rhapsody” for us, this concert evolved into a musical tribute and celebration of his life.
Hidas was born in Budapest in 1928. He studied composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, became the musical director of the National Theater, and held the same role at the city’s Operetta Theater.
Thereafter, Hidas became a freelance composer. His works covered operas, ballets, concertos, orchestral works, chamber music, and vocal and choral music. He was one of the foremost names in the world of contemporary symphonic band music. In 1986 he was named "Merited Artist of the Hungarian People's Republic."
Ben Cruiming, Hidas’ publisher in the Netherlands, introduced me to the music of Hidas. In 2001 I described the kind of musical sound and instrumentation I was looking for in a composition for wind symphony, and he handed me a copy of Hidas’ symphony Save the Sea. I was very impressed, and we have had the pleasure of playing his music ever since. Performances of some of the selections have been West Coast premieres, a U. S premiere, and tonight we have a world premiere.
Hidas has been described as a “modest friend with a warm personality, a composer with a great feeling for romantic tradition who gave us a lot of quality compositions. He was warm, vivacious, witty, and very entertaining. All who knew him loved him.” You can hear the “warm” in “Song of the Waves” and the “witty and very entertaining” in “Sprightly Tunes.”
Tonight I hope you enjoy getting to know a little about one of the band world’s great composers.
– Duane Carroll
Odwach (Guardhouse) March - Edward Maj
This piece is a stylized eastern European march by the Polish March King, Edward Maj. Its uniqueness is best understood in contrast with American and British marches. In the US everything is measured by, or actual is, John Philips Sousa. Sousa wrote 136 marches. His lyrical, high stepping tunes are etched into our memories through parades, concerts and college halftime shows. The British military march is more moderately paced and swinging. A great example is Colonel Bogey, popularized in the film "Bridge on the River Kwai.” Odwach March is different. To the modern ear, it sounds almost operatic, perhaps in the manner of Victor Herbert. Translated as “Guardhouse March,” it paints a musical picture. A fanfare both calls and announces the changing of the guard. An orchestral cadence sets the beat as the splendidly costumed guards wheel into view. After a hinted polka motif, woodwind flourishes depict the swirling of the guards’ capes and the swaying of their plumed helmets. Then a trio featuring majestic low brass reminds us that we are watching real soldiers. This march captures the spirit of a vibrant Poland unknown to most of us. [This entry by Chuck Carroll, Contra Costa Wind Symphony] {Back to Program}
Jocuri Porporale Romanesti (Romanian Folk Dances) - Béla Bartók
Bartók paid frequent homage to the wonderful folk melodies of his homeland. Six varied miniatures segue between haunting beauty and wild excitement. “Romanian Folk Dances” opens with the loping Jocuri cu Bâta (Stick Dance), continuing with the elegant Brâul (Sash Dance) and limpidly expressive Pe loc (In One Spot). Buciumeana (Horn Dance) has a ruminative, pastoral quality, in contrast with the animated Poarga Româneasca (Romanian Polka) and its dashing continuation in the concluding Maruntelul (Fast Dance). Starting with Bartók’s original piano score, seasoned composer Yo Goto skillfully translates Bartók's intentions in a surprisingly accessible manner with no loss of intensity. {Back to Program}
Slavonic Dances No 8, Opus 46 - Antonin Dvorák
Antonin Dvorák 's career was greatly aided by Johannes Brahms, who encouraged his Berlin publisher to promote Dvorák 's work. The publisher asked Dvorák to write a set of Czech dances for piano duet, which he did in the spring of 1878, and later orchestrated them.
There are two sets of these dances, which Dvorák would eventually call "Slavonic," rather than "Czech”. The first, Opus 46, written in 1878, contained eight dances, including two furiants, a polka, two sousedkas (waltzes), two skocnas (leap dances, one of which is the source of this arrangement) and a slow Serbian folk dance.
In this concert we are playing an arrangement based on the final dance of this set, in G Minor. It is marked Presto, typical of the more vigorous of the folk dances of Eastern Europe.
The first set of dances was enormously successful across Europe and established Dvorák's reputation as a major composer. Czechs still consider Dvorák's two sets of Slavonic Dances to represent some of the best examples of Czechoslovakian music. {Back to Program}
Bulgarian Dances - Franco Cesarini
Bulgarian Dances is a free rhapsody divided into four distinct movements and is based on Bulgarian folk songs. These songs originated in antique Byzantium and even earlier in the ancient and mysterious civilization of Thrace. They are first monodic songs, then diaphonic with characteristic dissonances of major and minor seconds which make them unique. What makes these songs so fascinating are also the seductive and complex irregular rhythms. The composer, while remaining faithful to the original spirit of the songs, has not hesitated to broaden the musical ideas, enriching them and making them more suitable to the rich palette of colors of contemporary wind bands. The songs, without translation, are Polegnala e Pschenitza, Erghen Diado, Polegnala e Todora, Yabalko Zlantna and Djore Dos.
Bulgarian Dances is dedicated to the memory of the prolific American composer Alfred Reed. CCWS performs it's U.S. Premiere this evening. {Back to Program}
2. Song of the Waves
3. Threatening Sea
Save the Sea is authentic programmatic music. The titles of the individual movements serve as signals for the musical material, leaving their audience to its own free associations. This performance features the second and third movements. The second movement, Song of the Waves, is the tranquil, joyful melody of the sea, itself. The third movement is Threatening Sea. As the title suggests, the mood of this movement reminds one of the rough sea and stormy weather. {Back to Program}
Third Concerto for Horn - Frigyes Hidas
With the Third Concerto for Horn, Frigyes Hidas continues the acclaim he earned with his first two horn concertos which were written for small symphony orchestra. Earlier Hidas had written several solo works using a small wind and percussion ensemble of about 22 players. This concerto marks a return to the use of the full instrumentation of a wind symphony. While it was completed early last year, its world premiere was in Sao Paulo on May 20, 2007. The delay was due to the political unrest and violence in the region. This evening’s performance marks the debut of Susan Vollmer as a soloist with the Contra Costa Wind Symphony.. {Back to Program}
Hungarian Rhapsody (based on Hungarian Folk Songs) - Frigyes Hidas
Hidas’ Hungarian Rhapsody draws from the 3,000+ Hungarian folk songs—from Transylvania and the Danube and Danube-Tisza regions—collected by Bartók, Kodaly and Vikar. He uses these authentic peasant folk songs and frames them with the Liszt style of Hungarian rhapsody which drew from contemporary urban gypsy songs. Hidas did not indicate in the music score the actual titles of the folk songs he used. {Back to Program}
Sprightly Tunes - Frigyes Hidas
This work comes from the witty, frivolous and carefree side of Mr. Hidas’ personality and can be seen as a sequel to his previous “happy tunes” Merry Music and Tutti Fruiti. These earlier works, when performed at an international music conference in Abony, Hungary, brought immediate world recognition to the composer. The constantly changing rhythmic structure of Sprightly Tunes presents a challenge to those in the audience who like to tap their toes to the pulse of a regular beat. {Back to Program
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHIES
“The last Hungarian Romantic composer”
Hidas was born in Budapest. He studied composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with János Visky. After his studies, he was the musical director of the National Theater in Budapest from 1951 to 1966 and also held the same role at the city's Operetta Theater from 1974 to 1979.
Following this, Hidas was a freelance composer. His oeuvre covered almost every genre, including operas, ballets, concertos, other orchestral works, chamber music, and vocal and choral music. He was one of the foremost names in the world of contemporary chamber and concert band music for wind instruments. In addition, he enjoyed various commissions from opera houses, radio stations, universities, ballet companies, and musical association and federations. He received many prizes and other forms of recognition for his musical services. He died in Budapest on March 7th.
His musical style is well grounded in the Romantic tradition. In fact, Hidas said of himself, “I am the last Hungarian Romantic composer!” His wind band music is a nice fusion of Romanticism, folk music and theater music. He was one of the world’s finest composers for the modern wind band. {Back to Program}
Bartok was one of the leading Hungarian and European composers of his time. He was also proficient as a pianist. He joined his friend Zoltán Kodály in the collection of folk music in Hungary. This fieldwork deeply influenced his own style of composition, which is much more mathematical in organization than much of what Kodály wrote. Bartók disagreed with the government that replaced the post-1918 republic in Hungary , where he was held in less official esteem than abroad. In 1940 he moved to the United States, dying there in strained circumstances in 1945. He left orchestral, chamber and piano music, especially much written for teaching the piano. {Back to Program}
The later 19th century brought an increasing consciousness of national identity to various ethnic groups in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Dvorák was to follow Bedrich Smetana as the leading exponent of Czech musical nationalism, firmly within the classical traditions of Central Europe.
Dvorák was born in a Bohemian village, where his father was an innkeeper and butcher. His early musical training was followed by employment for some years as a violist and then, with the positive encouragement of Brahms, by a life primarily devoted to composition. Dvorák won recognition abroad and rather more grudging acceptance in Vienna. Between 1892 and 1895 he spent some time in the United States as director of the new National Conservatory, a period that resulted in compositions that combine American and Bohemian influence. At home again he was much honored, resisting invitations from Brahms to move to Vienna in favor of a simple life in his own country. He died in 1904, shortly after the first performances of his last opera, Armida.
Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which the best known is the Symphony No. 9, From the New World, written while in the United States in 1893 and first performed in New York that same year. This New World Symphony derived some inspiration from a Czech translation of Longfellow's poem Hiawatha. Other orchestral works include two sets of Slavonic Dances, arrangements of works originally designed for piano duet, and three Slavonic Rhapsodies.
He also left fourteen string quartets and four surviving piano trios. The fourth is nicknamed “the Dumky” because of its use of a Bohemian national dance form.
Dvorák also composed solo piano music, nine operas and a number of songs. His best-known piano piece is Humoresque in G flat Major. The most popular of his songs is the fourth of Seven Gypsy Songs, Op. 55, Songs My Mother Taught Me. {Back to Program}
Cesarini started his musical education at the Conservatory of Milan studying flute and piano. He continued his studies with Peter-Lukas Graf at the Academy of Music of Basle, and he was awarded his teaching diploma there.
Both as a soloist and as a member of chamber ensembles, he has won several competitions, including first prize in the Swiss soloist competition in 1981. In 1984 he was awarded a scholarship by the Ernst Göhner-Migros Foundation.
Since 1989 Cesarini has been professor for concert band conducting and orchestration at the "Musikhochschule" in Zurich. And since 1998 he has been the conductor of the "Civica filarmonica di Lugano" and heads the music school in the same city. In 2001 he began teaching composition at the European Intitute for Symphonic Band Studies (ISEB) in Trento (Italy) and concert band conducting at the "Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana" in Lugano.
Cesarini is a particularly versatile composer. In addition to his compositions for concert bands, his repertoire includes pieces for chamber ensembles, various solo instruments, vocal, string orchestra and symphony orchestra. {Back to Program}
Maj was a Polish violin virtuoso, conductor and composer. He is especially known for his excellent marches and is called the Polish March King.
He was born in Częstochowa and took up the violin when he was 7 years old. Later, while studying at the musical school in Częstochowa, he joined the Small Symphonic Orchestra as a violinist and later was appointed Deputy Conductor.
At the age of eighteen he was appointed as Conductor of the Brass Band and the Small Saloon Orchestra in Zawiercie. In the following years, Maj conducted several brass bands in Southern Poland. In 1920, he was appointed as Conductor of the Military Band of the 5 th Sapper Baon in Krakow. From 1930 Maj served continuously as Conductor of the City Orchestra until 1952. {Back to Program}