Beethoven Festival: Sonatina

From TPR Presents Beethoven! here is Astrid Topletz in the Sonatina in F:

Scriabin 101

If Mozart and other Classical composers have their music compared to architecture then the late compositions of Alexander Scriabin relate more to EKGs or seismographs. It is emotional upheavals that are portrayed rather than the calm, predicable terraces of a building.

It wasn't always the case, when Scriabin was young it was Chopin that informed his musical landscape, but with age and exposure to the music of Liszt, Wagner and Schumann, not to mention LOVE, the composer became aware of an emotional subtext under the notes. With Scriabin's discovery of the theosophists, the writings of H. P. Blavatsky and Sigmund Freud new and exciting horizons opened up for the composer to explore.

Enjoy an introduction to a composer that dared all, with Scriabin 101 on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

McCormick to retire

Just in from CCSA:

The Children’s Chorus of San Antonio announced today that Founder and Artistic Director Marguerite McCormick will retire in May, 2014 after thirty years of dedicated service to the organization. The CCSA will celebrate its 30th Anniversary in 2013-2014 with a series of special events in addition to their full concert season. In preparation for McCormick’s retirement, the CCSA will implement a series of strategic actions over the next two years to strengthen membership and ensure the organization is meeting the needs of the community. McCormick chose to make the announcement now so as to guarantee a successful transition. “It is vitally important that there is continuity in the program” she remarked, “and that the transition is healthy and positive for our young artists, their families and the organization as a whole.” McCormick will leave a long legacy of service to young people in San Antonio, starting with founding the CCSA with 33 singers in 1983. During her tenure, singers have travelled around the country and around the globe and have made their mark on the San Antonio community. Performance milestones include several premieres, recordings and a fully staged baroque opera. The program has also blossomed into a multi-faceted organization with six performing ensembles, two neighborhood community programs and ten early-childhood classes serving almost 400 young people annually. The 30th Anniversary season will include a recital of alumni who are now professional singers, special performances and a grand celebration in fitting tribute to their Founder. McCormick remarked “Exciting events are in the planning stages for 2013-2014, our 30th Anniversary Season. It will be a wonderful celebration of singers past and present and will provide opportunities for our audiences to enjoy the best of CCSA. This season offers a fitting close to my leadership of the Children’s Chorus.” To prepare for transition, the CCSA will implement a series of strategic actions over the next two years and ensure its programs are healthy and ready for new leadership. The CCSA has recently received a generous grant from the Lila G. and Vesey F. Taylor Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation to jump-start the process. The organization will start by conducting a series of focus groups with a broad cross-section of the community to facilitate discussion, gather data and gain valuable insight into their perception of the CCSA and the role of music in the lives of their children and students. “The San Antonio Area Foundation has made a commitment to strengthen nonprofit organizations,” said Sandie Palomo-Gonzalez, the Area Foundation’s assistant vice president of grants and programs. “We are pleased that this grant to the Children’s Chorus of San Antonio will help build a strong future for their organization while supporting arts in our community.”

Dreams of Norma

Joan Sutherland as a young singer still living in Australia believed herself a mezzo-soprano. Her early goal was to dedicate herself to the heroines of Wagner, with a special affinity for Isolde. Among the students that accompanied her in recitals was a very confident young man they all called Ric. He was a few years older and on his way to London for study at the Royal College. In his parting remarks after their rehearsal he advised her that she was capable of a much wider range of roles than she imagined and suggested she consider the then almost completely unknown works of bel canto. Sutherland won great local success and finally cash rewards enough to try her luck in London and was offered entree to Covent Garden and it's program for young singers .

 

She would eventually reach London herself, accompanied by her mother. Teachers there informed her that she was in fact a soprano of potentially great range and began to remake her voice. Incredibly, despite her youth, she was offered a part in Norma, as Clotilde. She would be on stage with no one less than Maria Callas who was reviving the bel canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti. These experiences both inspired her to redirect her aspirations. She too now dreamed of following in the footsteps of Callas and singing the great bel canto parts. Her career flourished and took her to New York and Carnegie Hall. The year was 1961 and again  success was hers and she made a friend of an American who also debuted that year, Marilyn Horne. They would over the next few years visit each others home, cook together and shop.This personal sympathy, besides the supreme artistry of two of the twentieth centurys greatest singers, would create a special dynamic and dimension of mutual understanding that permeated their stage performances. Besides, Ric turned out to be Richard Bonynge (steadily making a name for himself as a conductor and a specialist of the bel canto era) and they would soon marry. By the nineteen seventies the stage was set for a series of the greatest performances and recordings of the period. Popular magazines featured profiles of the two singers, hand in hand on stage in concerts perfectly blended in the most arduous and ravishing of duets, O remenbranza! from Norma.The dream that had begun for the young unknown girl in Australia who later confessed that for bel canto she relinquished Wagner and followed another path, despite the fears and doubts of many, including her mother. Teamed with her husband conducting and Horne as Adalgisa these three now would helped to reestablish the works of Bellini and Donizetti in the great opera houses of the world. Pavarotti would pronounce her "One of the greatest singers of all time."  

 

 Tune in this Saturday at noon for a Met archival special of Sutherland and Horne at the peak of their powers and the roles and performances they made legend,Bellini's Druid  high-priestess Norma and her rival and friend Adalgisa, here on KPAC and KTXI. 

 

by Ron Moore

Potpourri of Beethoven

Cover for Beethoven's Third

We are looking forward to more Beethoven all this month. This weekend the lead group, the San Antonio Symphony starts with the First and Third Symphonies in the Majestic Theatre.


Musical Offerings plays the Ghost Piano Trio with a program called In the Shadow of Beethoven Sunday afternoon at Christ Episcopal Church.


Musical Bridges Around the World starts their complete Violin Sonatas with Gary Levinson Sunday night at San Fernando Cathedral.

We have always enjoyed Rolf playing Beethoven:

Soundtrack Review: "The Artist"

This week, a minor controversy erupted online when Kim Novak, star of the 1958 film “Vertigo,” took out an advertisement in Hollywood trade publications to object to “The Artist,” an utterly charming silent film set during the transition from silents to talkies in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  In question was the film’s use of the “Love Theme” from “Vertigo,” a music cue so utterly and completely married to Hitchcock’s classic that while I found its use in “The Artist” unobjectionable, I did find myself listening to the music more than watching the movie for a few minutes!

Director Michel Hazanavicius has defended his use of the music, which is unfortunately overshadowing Ludovic Bource’s original music for the film. Bource’s score fills all but four of the tracks on the official soundtrack to “The Artist.” And while the soundtrack does not include the Bernard Herrmann cue from “Vertigo,” a sharp-eared listener will find references to Herrmann’s score for “Citizen Kane,” which are matched visually in the film, itself a loving tribute to the movies.

As befitting a silent film, the soundtrack opens with an overture, and then introduces the characters and setting through melodies that are alternately lush and romantic, or bouncy and jovial, evoking the happy-go-lucky era 1920s Hollywood – or, at least the way we thought it was.

Both “George Valentin” (named for the title character) and the “Fantasie D’Amour” are based on a jazzy riff that’ll put a spring in your step. The “Waltz for Peppy” is love in full bloom. Later in the score, we get to the long, linear lines of “In the Stairs,” as Valentin’s star begins to fade, and his love Peppy Miller ascends to superstardom as a singing, dancing, talking movie star.  It’s at the end of this cue that you may hear a faint echo of the opening chords of “Citizen Kane,” by Bernard Herrmann.

As the plot of “The Artist” develops, the music becomes a more urgent. Valentin, obsessed by his inability to keep up with the times, becomes despondent and almost does the unthinkable.  His plucky puppy comes through for him, and the film ends with a triumphant dance number. Bource’s music here is reminiscent of the classic big band sound favored by Benny Goodman and Fletcher Henderson, with a touch of Hollywood thrown in.

“The Artist” was one of my favorite movies of 2011, and had me smiling for most of its running time. The soundtrack is equally as magical to listen to!

--Nathan Cone

Beethoven Fest: First Sonata for Piano & Cello

Here is Ken Freudigman and Kristin Roach of Camerata San Antonio playing the First Sonata for piano and cello by Ludwig van Beethoven:


 The Beethoven Festival continues tonight with SAIPC and pianist Naoko Takao at St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

Room for cello variations

From yesterday's Camerata San Antonio concert, Ken Freudigman and Kristin Roach play 12 Variations on the Magic Flute by Ludwig van Beethoven:

Camerata SA continues Cello Sonatas at #BeethovenFest

Beethoven Festival: Hammerklavier

SAIPC began their complete sonatas for Piano last night at Trinity University: