The students and faculty of the UCSB Music Department will present a lovely box of musical sweets on the eve of St. Valentine’s Day — at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St. They are calling it “Hearts for the Arts — a Valentine Serenade,” and the proceeds will benefit the UCSB Music Affiliates Scholarship Fund.
The program, created by Robert Koenig, head of the Collaborative Piano Program, as a showcase for “stellar performance students performing side by side with the university faculty artists,” will consist of Franz Liszt’s Petrarch Songs, sung by tenor Benjamin Brecher, with the collaboration of pianist Koenig; Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Opus 73, realized by clarinetist Paul Bambach and pianist Natasha Kislenko; the 1st and 3rd movements of Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in a minor, Opus 13, performed by the department’s dazzling scholarship ensemble, the Young Artists String Quartet (Dimitry Olevsky and Katie Waltman, violins, Kimberly Fitch, viola, Kathryn Mendenhall, cello); Three Russian Romances sung by Susana Poretsky, mezzo-soprano, with pianist Natasha Kislenko; Albert Franz Doppler’s Fantasie Pastorale Hongroise, Opus 26, performed by Jill Felber, flute, and Koenig, piano; Maurice Ravel’s Piece in the Form of a Habanera for cello and piano, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s exquisite Vocalise, Opus 34, No. 14 for cello and piano, with Maestros Geoffrey Rutkowski and Robert Koenig; and Rachmaninoff’s Elegy, Opus 3 and Etude-Tableaux, Opus 33, No. 5, performed by Kislenko, piano.
Liszt wrote his first version of the Tre Sonetti di Petrarca in 1838-1839 and continued to revise them for the next 20 years or so. As the name indicates, the songs are settings of three sonnets by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) — for the scholarly minded, they are Sonnets No. 104, No. 47, and No. 123 — who is famous for his study of Latin the way the Romans spoke and wrote it before the Catholic Church took it over, for his claim of being the first person in history to climb a mountain for pleasure, for “inventing” the sonnet form, and for his verses celebrating his passionate, undying love of a beautiful woman, Laura de Noves, whom he glimpsed during a mass but probably never actually met (which doesn’t seem like the kind of love affair that would appeal to Liszt, whose own tended to be carnal and punctuated with illegitimate children).
Flautists are generally more familiar with the work of Doppler than the wider run of music lovers. Doppler was born in the Ukraine in 1821 and died in Austria in 1883. He was a flute virtuoso and composed a great deal for his instrument, but wrote several operas as well — appropriately enough, since more than one music historian has noted the “operatic” style of his writing for the flute.
The range of ticket prices for this concert extends from $10 for students, $25 for the general public and $50 for a “Patron,” to $85 for a “Patron Couple.” (“Patron” tickets include preferred seating and reception). Tickets can be purchased in advance at the UCSB Office of Community Relations, 893.4388. Click here for more information or call 805.893.7001.
Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.