The next free concert by the Santa Barbara Music Club, in partnership with the Santa Barbara Public Library, will be at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 24, in the Faulkner Gallery in the downtown library branch. Admission, as I said, is free.
The program for this concert features soprano Takako Wakita and pianist Betty Oberacker performing Italian Love Songs by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Wolfgang Mozart, Benedetto Marcello and Ernesto de Curtis.
After the vocal performance, pianist Natasha Kislenko will play Ludwig Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 21 in C-Major, Opus 53. “Waldstein” (1804),” and two pieces by Claude Debussy: “La cathédrale engloutie” from Préludes, Book 1 (1909–10) and “L’isle joyeuse (1904).”
A lovely program, this.
Pergolesi (1710-36) was only 26 when he died, yet that is six years more than the marvelous Spaniard, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga (1806–26), who died 10 days short of his 20th birthday.
In that six years, Pergolesi managed to compose everything for which he is revered today:
Two flute concertos (one of doubtful attribution); the sparkling intermezzo “La Serva Padrona;” the mesmerizing “Stabat Mater” (literally a deathbed composition); and half a dozen gorgeous sinfonias (which were later strip-mined by Stravinsky for his ballet Pulcinella.
After his death, Pergolesi became quite popular, and publishers attached his name to all sorts of pieces because they sold.
It wasn’t until the late 20th century that musicologists began to sort out his catalogue, and arguments still rage about what he did and did not compose.
Marcello (1686-1739) is chiefly remembered for his sublime oboe concerto.
For more information on this or other Santa Barbara Music Club programs and performing artists, visit www.sbmusicclub.org.
— 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.