ABOUT THE PROGRAM
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759)
Selections
George Frideric Handel is so deeply associated musically with England that his birth in the city of Halle, and his training and early career in what is now Germany, are often forgotten. So, too, are the four years he spent studying and working in Italy, but these biographical details reveal that Handel was one of the most cosmopolitan and well-traveled composers of his era, making him uniquely suited to compose in the bustling city of London, where a German-born King sat on the throne and audiences flocked to hear anything Italian. A remarkably versatile composer, Handel wrote some of the most well-crafted examples of opera, oratorio and concerti grossi, all of which are sampled on this program.
One of the more popular Italian imports was the concerto grosso, an early form of instrumental music for large ensemble. The Concerto Grosso No. 7 opens with an elegantly unhurried Largo that luxuriates in augmented silences, blissful sighs, and gently suspended dissonances that fall effortlessly into harmonic resolution.
Featured on this program are four arias extracted from Handel’s incomparable operas and oratorios. The first selection, “Where ‘er you walk,” is from February 1744’s Semele. When premiered, it caused a stir for its secular libretto based on Ovid’s telling of the passionate affair between the mortal woman Semele and the immortal god Jupiter in the Metamorphosis. Many felt it was inappropriate for the time of year. As a result, it ran for only four performances (Handel attempted to revive it later in the year, but even then, only two additional performances took place). This tranquil aria is sung by Jupiter as he attempts to distract Semele with pastoral beauty after she expresses a desire to become immortal like the gods.
“Và dal furor portata,” comes from one of Handel’s least popular operas, Ezio, which received only five performances during his lifetime. It premiered on January 15, 1732, and tells a story of tested loyalty and the triumph of fidelity. At the center of the opera’s action is the conniving character Massimo, a man set on revenge. He uses everyone as a means to accomplish his plans, even his daughter Fulvia, who becomes ensnared in a trap between saving the life of her father, or Ezio, the man she loves. In the aria “Và dal furor portata, Massimo taunts Fulvia about her choice, claiming that he gave her life while she threatens to take his.
Alexander Balus was written in June 1747 for a performance the following March. It is one of four “military” oratorios Handel wrote during an extended celebratory period following King George II’s victory in suppressing the 1745 Jacobite uprising. The story, as told through the libretto by Thomas Morell, was taken from the Book of Maccabees, chapters 10–11. “Convey me to some peaceful shore” is sung by Cleopatra (not the famous queen) making an emotional plea after experiencing a torrent of turmoil throughout the action, including kidnapping and the death of her husband, Alexander.
Jephtha was Handel’s final major composition, finished after starts and stops, in 1751 due to his failing eyesight. In the tragic story, based on Judges 11, Jephtha, promises God he will sacrifice the first thing to emerge from the door of his house if is victorious in his battle against the Ammonites. Upon his return, his daughter, Iphis, runs to greet him. “Waft her, angels” is Jephtha’s plea that Iphis’ spirit be taken swiftly to heaven upon her sacrifice (in the oratorio version, her life is ultimately spared.)
When Semele premiered in February 1744, it caused a stir for its secular libretto based on Ovid’s telling of the passionate affair between the mortal woman Semele and the immortal god Jupiter in the Metamorphosis. Many felt it was inappropriate for the time of year. As a result, it ran for only four performances (Handel attempted to revive it later in the year, but even then, only two additional performances took place). The tranquil aria, “Where ‘er you walk,” is sung by Jupiter as he attempts to distract Semele with pastoral beauty after she expresses a desire to become immortal like the gods.
MARY KOUYOUMDJIAN (b. 1983)
Tagh [Diary] of an Immigrant (2013)
Mary Kouyoumdjian is a first-generation Armenian American composer who holds an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Media from New York University. Through her work, Kouyoumdjian uses music as a medium to hold and communicate stories beyond the screen and on the concert stage. Fostering understanding through empathy are values that root her work. As Joan Didion famously observed, “We tell ourselves stories to live.” We need narrative to help us contain, examine, and understand our own experiences of the world. Kouyoumdjian, whose family’s lives were impacted by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, has said in an interview, “If I talk to someone who’s been displaced, I have a deeper understanding of my own family’s experiences.” Her works have been widely acclaimed and recognized, including Paper Planes, a multimedia work exploring the dislocation, longing, and optimism of refugees, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2024.
Tagh [Diary] of an Immigrant was composed for the Munich- based Ensemble Oktoplus in 2013. In her note in the score, Kouyoumdjian explains, “Tagh [Diary] of an Immigrant is an imagined journal entry by an immigrant who finds themselves in a strange and bittersweet stillness once immigration has been achieved. The Armenian word ‘tagh’ translates to ‘diary.’” The music is divided into two distinct sections. In the first, we hear a pulsating nervousness, which is conveyed through constantly shifting time signatures and syncopated accents on notes. Here, the score instructs the musicians to play “with grit, with heavy attacks, folk-music like.” In stark contrast are the sustained notes of the second section, portraying a stillness that is “peaceful while unsettling.”
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Antonín Dvořák spent the early days of his career as a teenage violist gigging around Prague in Karel Komzák’s dance band after his formal training at the Prague Organ School had concluded without a job offer. By a twist of fateful timing, two years later the ensemble formed the core around which the first orchestra of the Provisional Theatre in Prague was formed (later re-named the National Theater as the first space dedicated to Czech performances in the Austrian Empire). Dvořák was appointed principal violist and would perform under the baton of Bedřich Smetana, who took over as conductor in 1866. Occasionally, Dvořák filled as a freelancer with other local concerts which gave him the opportunity to perform under the direction of Richard Wagner three times. To make ends meet, he also gave piano lessons, but in his free time he began pursuing a growing interest in composing. Soon, the ambition to write music became increasingly serious, and by 1871 Dvořák began to talk about his compositions, soon presenting them in public. Finally, things came together in 1877 when Johannes Brahms was introduced to his music and wrote to his publisher, Fritz Simrock saying, “I have enjoyed works sent in by Antonín Dvořák (pronounced Dvorschak) of Prague...he is a very talented man. Moreover, he is poor! I ask you to think about it!” The rest, as they say, is history. Dvořák would go on to become internationally famous.
The exquisitely crafted music of the Nocturne in B major was repurposed multiple times before finding its home. It began as the Andante religioso slow movement of a string quartet written in 1870 but unpublished during Dvořák’s lifetime. Dissatisfied, Dvořák extracted the section and experimented with placing it in his String Quintet in G major from 1875. Still not pleased, he finally decided the work should be freestanding. It was given the title Nocturne and published in 1883.
KARIM AL-ZAND (b. 1970)
The Strangers’ Case for Tenor and String Orchestra (2024)
On May 1, 1517, a riot took place in London. Known to history as “Evil May Day,” the incident was reportedly the culmination of several days of unrest, after a crowd had been stirred up hearing a xenophobic speech delivered by a preacher known to us now only as “Dr. Bell.” This real event was immortalized in a collaboratively written play titled Sir Thomas More, which scholars believe dates to sometime in the 1590s. Contributing authors included Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Munday, and William Shakespeare. It was Shakespeare who is credited with writing a famous monologue from the play, known as “The Strangers’ Case.” The speech is an appeal to empathy and compassion, delivered by the character of More, who at the time of the riot served as under-sheriff of London, and was tasked with calming the rioters and sending them home.
Named for Shakespeare’s monologue, and utilizing numerous literary sources for texts, Karim Al-Zand’s The Strangers’ Case: Songs & Chronicles of the Immigrant Experience presents a moving song cycle that chronicles humanity’s centuries old struggle with displacement and acceptance. As Al-Zand has written, “By using texts that span diverse nationalities, stories, voices, and historical periods, The Stranger’s Case aims to make a case of its own: through our commitment to immigrants and refugees has been equivocal, nonetheless their success forms the basis of American strength and renewal. As the child of an immigrant, I believe this sort of consciousness-raising is the only way forward. And as an artist, I believe that music is an ideal spark to kindle the altruism in our better natures.”
The song cycle begins at Eastern and Western immigration ports in the United States. First, New York Harbor with The Lady in the Harbor/Such an Illumination taken from “A Polish Sweatshop Girl” as remembered by Sadie Frowne, and the anonymous account of “A Syrian.” The source for both is a remarkable book of first-person autobiographical accounts compiled by Hamilton Holt in 1906, The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves. The second song, Who Can Pity My Loneliness takes its heart-wrenching text describing a hope delayed from an anonymous script in Chinese on the detention center walls at Angel Island in San Francisco, which was the largest immigration port on the West Coast between 1910-1940. Whither Would You Go is extracted from the famed monologue of Sir Thomas More by Shakespeare. The tone of the fourth song turns to observe reactions of suspicion and hostility with The Stranger Within My Gate, with texts taken from Rudyard Kipling’s The Stranger from 1912, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s Unguarded Gates from 1895. The fifth section, They Came from Terror and Tumult is from Éxodo, by the Mexican poet Jaime Torres Bodet, and describes a scene of people carrying whatever possessions they can as they flee violence. Exile, by the American poet Harold Hart Crane, describes the pain of being separated from a loved one, and When Dawn Comes to the City by Jamaican American author Claude McKay juxtaposes morning on the islands of Manhattan and Jamaica. Bringing us full circle back to East Coast is a cataclysmic future envisioned in The Statue of Liberty: New York Harbor, AD 2900, where a once vibrant and free county is now ruled by a tyrant, written by Minnesotan poet, Arthur Wheelock Upson in 1908. The work concludes with a charge to act with humility and kindness, delivered in These Strangers, in a Foreign World by Emily Dickinson.
