Music Born of Adversity
Notes on the program
Over the past twelve years Palisades Virtuosi has created many concerts that bring together pieces of music to illustrate a theme. "Music Born of Adversity" includes works that were inspired by a multitude of life's emotions and that run the gamut of life experience from illness and situational conflict to unrequited love and racial subjugation.
Our first work,“L’Operation de Taille” by Marin Marais (1656-1728), tells the story of one person’s trepidation upon facing an 18th Century (YIKES!! - where’s the anesthesia??) bladder stone operation, complete with narrator to tell the tale and PV’s own interpretation of the existing continuo parts. The operation is described throughout a recitativo-like section and then once the patient has gone to rest, a joyous finale ensues.
We are delighted to present selections from Michelle Ekizian’s (b. 1956) new opera, Gorky’s Dream Garden, on the life of Arshile Gorky, the Armenian-American painter (b. 1904, Van, Turkey, d. 1948, Sherman, Ct.)--a founding father of abstract-expressionism and child witness to the Armenian Genocide. The opera was created for the upcoming Centennial Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Often referred to as the “forgotten genocide,” it was the first large-scale act of man’s inhumanity to man of the 20th century, which took the lives of 1.5 million Armenians living in the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, as well as hundreds of thousands of Greeks, Assyrians, Jews and Kurds. [Photo #1 below]
Orror Lullaby from ACT II, scene 5: A brooding Gorky absorbed in his art, and his American-born, ingenue wife, Agnes (18 years younger), are in the living room of their modernist Glass House in the suburbs of Connecticut. Their marital dichotomy is portrayed by Gorky’s singing of the Armenian lullaby “Orror” (Armenian: Gentle), and Agnes’ floating vocals in counterpoint bespeaking of her youthful bewilderment about her mysterious husband. Gorky is obsessed with creating drawings and paintings after a treasured childhood photo--of a nine-year old Gorky and his martyred mother Shushan in Van, 1914 before the Genocide in a mother and son portrait--that would come to be known as his seminal series, “The Artist and his Mother” (1926 – 1944). [Photos #2 & 3 below]
Strange Loop from ACTS I and II: Suggesting the curious turns of fate one encounters on the road of life, a haunting three-bar loop occurs at various turning points throughout the opera’s portrayal of Gorky’s rise, decline and spiraling ascent to a world beyond. [Photos #4 below]
The Real is Surreal Waltz: Charades from ACT II, scene 3: This number precedes ACT II’s closing “Orror Lullaby.” It’s music, a recurring theme in the opera, is in the Soviet era tradition of grand, exotic waltzes, and gives a nod to Aram Khachaturian’s great “Masquerade Waltz.” With the speaking voices of the cast over the music, the number portrays a cocktail party the couple gives in the Glass House in honor of Andre Breton. A flirtation blossoms between Agnes and Breton’s cocky Chilean protégé, Roberto Matta, during the party’s surrealist/Dadaist game of charades with sexual innuendos. Agnes finds Roberto’s whimsical spirit a refreshing change from Gorky’s morose. With his nostalgia welling up in him for his ancestral garden of his lost Armenian lands, Gorky only wants to dance to the lively folk music of The Fiddler by the Tree. [Photos #5 & 6 below]
–story set-ups by Michelle Ekizian
Funding for Michelle Ekizian’s participation has been made possible by the Puffin Foundation.
Alexander Scriabin's (1872-1915) exquisite Prelude in C# Minor for Left Hand, and its companion piece, the Nocturne in D Flat Major, were written during a period when the composer was suffering from tendonitis in his right hand, brought about by overpracticing for a concert tour. Relatively early in Scriabin's oeuvre, they are both redolent of Chopin; ironically, the virtuoso Josef Levinne, with whom Scriabin was in pianistic competition, was famous for his rendition of these pieces.
Unrequited love is the theme of Claude Debussy’s (1862-1918) “Syrinx” for solo flute. The young nymph, Syrinx, desperately trying to escape from the overtures of the Greek god Pan, begged the river gods to help her. They answered her plea by transforming her into hollow water reeds. When Pan breathed on them they made a haunting sound, so he cut them and created the first set of pan pipes. He then sat by the river and played, sadly mourning the loss of the beautiful maiden.
It has become well known that Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was plagued his entire life with various mental issues resulting in debilitating periods of mania or depression. Today he would most likely be considered Bi-Polar, a disorder that ran in his family and which friends (and particularly his famous wife Clara) went to great lengths to hide. Also clouding the issue is the fact that he contracted syphilis that most likely contributed to his final demise. Without the aid of today’s medications he found the release for his angst through his creative skills as a philosopher, writer, musician and particularly as composer. When not in a depressive "down" state he would funnel his energy into his music unleashing his expressive and romantic nature while utilizing the calming influences of structure as modeled by his greatest heroes: Bach and Beethoven. While there may be better examples of his manic depression in some of his other works there is definitely a sense of it here in the juxtaposition of the first and last movements of the Fantasiestücke Op. 73. The first movement begins in a dreamily introspective manner in the key of A minor. It is melancholy but ends with a sudden sense of hope in the key of A major. The last movement stays in A Major and exhibits a fiery passion, pushing along to a frenetic conclusion. These pieces are born out of a distinctly happier and prolific period of his life. When looking at a chart of his yearly output you can get an idea of when Robert was "on" or "off." The Fantasiestucke was composed in 1849, a year in which he was the most prolific, composing 27 works! This was following a period of 8 years in which he wrote no more than 6 works at most in a year and in some years none at all. After 1849, his productivity fell off again and just a few years later he died tragically in 1856 at the age of 46.
The hallmark of a PV’s concert is always the presentation of a newly commissioned work for flute, clarinet and piano, the main thrust of our "Mission to Commission" which has resulted in over 70 new works of music in just 12 years! This evening we present our signature newly commissioned work, “Dog Tales” by Californian and prize-winning composer, Adrienne Albert (b. 1941). Here are the composer’s notes:
"The Artful Dodger"