The first concert of the Music Academy’s Festival Artists Series — in which the great musicians on the academy faculty do what’s known as teaching by example — will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, in the Lobero Theater. The program is called Symphonic Dances, after the concluding piece on it, but it could just as easily be called Timeless. It will consist of:
» “Four Madrigals (1. Si ch’io vorrei morire; 2. Non piu guerra, pietate; 3. Ah, dolente partita 4. Quel augellin che canta)” by Claudio Monteverdi (arranged for brass quintet by Raymond Mase) performed by Julie Landsman, horn; Barbara Butler and Charles Geyer, trumpets; and Mark H. Lawrence and Noah Alexander Roper, trombones.
» “Contrapuncti Nos. 1, 4, and 9″ from J.S. Bach‘s The Art of Fugue (arranged for Brass Quintet by Ralph Sauer), played by Julie Landsman, horn; Barbara Butler and Charles Geyer, trumpets; Mark H. Lawrence trombone; and Colin Benton, tuba.
» Robert Schumann‘s “Piano Trio No.1 in d-minor, Opus 63″ (1847), played by the dream trio of Kathleen Winkler violin; Alan Stepansky, cello; and Jonathan Feldman piano.
» Sergei Rachmaninov‘s “Symphonic Dances, Opus 45″ (1940), arranged by Victor Derevianko for two pianos and percussion, played by Natasha Kislenko and Margaret McDonald pianos; with the collaboration of Academy Fellows Christine Comer, Jake Darnell, Luca Esposito, Maddi Shake and David Yangsoo Yoon on percussion, led by faculty artist Michael Werner.
Replying to my earnest query, Alex Planchart once said to me “Nobody sounds like Monteverdi!” and it’s true, nobody does — none of his contemporaries, his predecessors, his successors, not even his disciple, Heinrich Schütz — though I cannot account for his uniqueness in musicological terms (Alex did not elaborate).
I can give an example from experience.
After the briefest of instrumental introductions, his late opera, The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland (1640), begins with a long soliloquy by Penelope, a mezzo-soprano, in which she expresses her longing for her husband’s return from Troy, and her apprehension at the horde of greedy suitors swarming around her, seeking to replace Ulysses in her bed and on the throne of Ithaca.
Much of the soliloquy is like recitative or Sprechstimme, often near to a monotone; she doesn’t break into melody, one of utter grace and nobility, until she has sung for more than eight minutes. After the melodic interlude, she returns to her introverted musing for another few minutes.
Yet, such is Monteverdi’s genius, that I am never less than mesmerized, even though I can’t understand a single word, and I am certain that I feel every emotion that she is expressing (it helps, of course, to have read The Odyssey a couple of times, and to have at least considered Samuel Butler‘s theory that it was written by a woman).
When I was 19, I worked on an excellent production of The Coronation of Poppea, but I was already a senior citizen when I discovered Monteverdi. I have been trying to make up for lost — I might almost say wasted — time ever since.
Rachmaninov wrote the “Symphonic Variations” for two pianos, then orchestrated it himself. As such, it was one of his last completed works. You would certainly never guess, however, from listening to it, that it was the work of a dying man. There is so much vitality, so many great melodies.
Tickets to this Faculty Artists Concert are $46 (community access $10, if available; ages 7-17 free). Tickets may be obtained by calling 805-969-8787, or by going online to
www.musicacademy.org/whats-on/mafas-i/book/25407.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.