PROGRAM NOTES
Georg Muffat (1653-1704) :: Passacaglia
Born in the French Alps to a family of Scottish descent, Georg Muffat’s family history seemed to act as a prelude to the remarkably cosmopolitan career he would shape over the course of his relatively brief lifetime of fifty years. Muffat’s music training (he also studied law) seems to have taken place at least in part with Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was the masterful leader of music in the glittering court of the French King Louis XIV. Employment opportunities took Muffat from Vienna to Prague, and on to Salzburg where he worked for the Prince-Archbishop Max Gandolf, Count of Kuenburg.
In the early 1680s, Muffat received permission from the Prince-Archbishop to take leave and spend time in Italy. During his time there Muffat was introduced to styles of music flourishing there, particularly the concerti grossi of Arcangelo Corelli, in which a small group of musicians (the concertino) is contrasted against the backdrop of a larger ensemble (the ripieno), producing texture and drama through the musical dialogue between the two.
After returning to Salzburg, Muffat published a collection of five chamber sonatas in the Corellian concerti grossi style under the title Armonico Tributo in 1682. Each of the sonatas has a different number of movements (anywhere from five to nine) and is comprised of the dance-inspired forms that were typically used for multi-movement works during the Baroque, including gavottes, minuets, and sarabandes. The Sonata No. 5 in G major ends with a passacaglia—a kind of variation form build on a foundation of a repeating bassline. In this case there are twenty-five variations. Owing to the repetition, the effect is that of a delightful slow-motion spinning, as if we were riding a merry-go-round surrounded by a fantastically shape-shifting landscape.
Lembit Beecher (b. 1980) :: These Memories May Be True arr. for String Orchestra
Lembit Beecher’s These Memories may be True is an homage to his Estonian grandmother, Taimi Lepasaar, who died as he began writing the work. He describes her as having an amazing life, surviving Nazi and Soviet occupation and escaping to the United States as the Red Army invaded Estonia for a second time. The power of her storytelling strongly shaped Beecher’s own conception of self, “Though I grew up in California, I felt as much Estonian as Californian.” While writing the work, Beecher reflected on the way stories and memories define us, “whether or not they are complete or even true.”
These Memories May Be True is divided into four movements. As Beecher explains in his own program note, the first was inspired by an Estonian folk song Beecher heard on an old field recording. He remarks, “Like most Estonian folk songs, this movement consists of repetitions of a short melody, though near the middle of the movement the melody gets a little lost.” The second movement recalls a “centerpiece” of Beecher’s grandmother’s stories, her “dramatic account of escaping on the last ship out of Estonia before the Soviets closed the borders in 1944.” Here we encounter the fuzziness of fact against the vividness of personal witness. At some point, Beecher began to realize many other Estonian immigrants claimed to be on the last ship, too—yet clearly not always the same one. He writes, “I soon realized that the important part of these stories, the emotion, was true regardless of the nitty gritty of naval departure times.” In the third movement, Beecher paints a loving tribute to his “Estonian Grandmother Superhero,” and concludes in the fourth movement with a set of variations on a 19th-century Estonian folksong, Meil aiaäärne tänavas (Our Childhood Village Lane). “Of all the movements,” he comments, “this one contains the deepest sense of nostalgia and through it I feel a connection to the country farms and summer nights of my grandmother’s childhood.”
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) Sonata da Chiesa
The greatest cathedrals are awe-inspiring landmarks, not only for their majestic presence, but for the dedication they demanded to bring them to fruition. They are structures built over generations, meaning the individuals who conceived of their layout and initiated the labor moved forward on sheer faith and hope that the project will be continued and completed by future generations, knowing they would not be there to bear witness.
Adolphus Hailstork, born in Rochester and brought up in Albany, New York, received early musical training as an Episcopal boy chorister at the Cathedral of All Saints, where he was steeped in music created for resonant cathedral spaces. Later, after completing his degree at Howard University, Hailstork became a student of the famed composition instructor, Nadia Boulanger, whose particular gift was to nurture musical individuality in an individual, rather than teach them to adhere to a single style. In an interview, Hailstork commented on the process of being honest to his voice rather than bending to modernism, atonality, or whatever compositional method was fashionable, saying, “I call it ‘authenticism’—that’s my ‘ism’.”
Sonata da Chiesa is not only the title of Hailstork’s work for string orchestra, but takes its name directly from a Baroque chamber work meant to be performed in church or sacred settings (opposed to the sonata da camera, which was meant for secular use). Its seven movements are performed without pause, taking us on an emotional journey from joyous ecstasy to solemn meditation, with Latin titles drawn from the traditional liturgical music that inspired the work.
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Divertimento for Strings
Bartók was in the twilight of his life when Paul Sacher (1906-1999), founder of the Basel Chamber Orchestra approached him with the commission for a new work—which emerged, in the space of just fifteen days, as the Divertimento for Strings. By definition, divertimenti were meant to amuse or entertain—nothing too serious. To some degree, that holds true as a description for this piece, but just as the creeping shadow of war haunted Europe, the “night music” (a term used as a descriptor for Bartók’s compositions with a mysterious quality suggestive of nocturnal stillness) of the Divertimento’s middle movement seeps under the door frames of the outer movements, admitting a jolting chill.
Contrasts abound throughout the work. Dance-like phrases are juxtaposed with morose melodies, folk idioms and shifting meters are set within the format of a Baroque concerto grosso, in which a small group alternates with the full ensemble. (Bartók’s interest in Baroque music was ignited after a year spent in Italy between 1925-26.) Multi-voiced fugues inject order into chaos. It’s music that’s trying to live up to its title—a not-so-serious diversion from a world about to be turned upside down—injecting the hope of first light into threatening darkness. The intense whirling energy of the final movement seems to clench its fists and grit its teeth with determination toward that end.
In a poignant turn of events, Bartók, whose life’s work included the monumental task of documenting the folk music of his native Hungary and integrating it into his compositions, was forced to leave for New York City as the horrible events of World War II unfolded. The Divertimento for Strings was one of the last pieces he wrote in Europe. He would die of leukemia in the United States just a few years later.
Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.
