VIVALDI
Guitar Concerto in D Major, RV 93 (11’)*
 (Allegro giusto)
 Largo
 Allegro
Manuel Barrueco, guitar

SIERRA
Folías (15’)*
Manuel Barrueco, guitar

INTERMISSION (20 minutes)

STRAVINSKY
Petroushka (1947 version) (31’)*
 Scene 1
  The Shrovetide Fair – The Crowds – The Conjuring Trick
  Russian Dance
 Scene II
  Petroushka’s Room
 Scene III
  The Moor’s Room – Dance of the Ballerina
  Waltz (The Ballerina and the Moor)
 Scene IV
  The Shrovetide Fair (Evening)
  Dance of the Wet-nurse
  Dance of the Peasant and the Bear
  The Merchant and the Gypsies
  Dance of the Coachmen and the Grooms
  The Masqueraders

*indicates approximate performance duration

Program Notes

Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No.2
Ottorino Respighi (b. Bologna, 1879 / d. Rome, 1936)

First performance: March 7, 1924 in Cincinnati
Last ESO performance: March 1988

Like the Vivaldi concerto on tonight’s program, the three sets of Ancient Airs and Dances compiled, arranged, and largely reinvented by Ottorino Respighi were originally written as pieces for an ancient form of Italian lute. But in Respighi’s conception, they are transformed into orchestral showpieces. The second suite, premiered by Fritz Reiner (who was among several American-based conductors who championed Respighi’s music), is scored for the largest orchestra of the three sets.

The suite is introduced with oboe and bassoon accompanied by pizzicato (plucked) strings, leading to a vibrant Gagliarda (a lively Italian dance with a five-step pattern) in 6/4 time, and a contrasting Saltarello (another vivacious dance form, in triple metre). Harp (Nora Bumanis) and flute (Elizabeth Koch) recall the opening measures before the first movement ends quietly. The music is taken from a 1531 ballet by Fabrizio Caroso, Laura soave.

The Danza rustica is, as advertised, a vigorous, rustic dance with the feel of a Gigue, a dance with British origins which branched into two forms when it was imported to France and Italy. The latter version became a quick, athletic dance, typically in 12/8 time. Respighi’s version features the theme tossed around the orchestra in a wonderfully flowing lilt.

The Campanae parisiennes (“Parisian Bells”) is the suite’s slow movement, a lovely Largo introduced by harp, celeste, and strings, leading to a lyrical melody many have compared to a Bach chorale. The final movement is a Bergamasca, a form which takes its origins in a song-form indigenous to Bergamo. In this suite, Respighi’s Bergamasca becomes a lively orchestral showcase, with a wonderfully syncopated rhythm, and vibrant contrasts in orchestral textures, from grand tuttis to delicate wisps – all ending with a strongly stated final chord. Canadians over a certain age are almost sure to recognize this movement from the decades that Bob Kerr used it as the opening theme of his CBC Stereo afternoon program, Off the Record.

Guitar Concerto in D Major, RV 93
Antonio Vivaldi (b. Venice, 1678 / d. Vienna, 1741)

Last ESO performance: May 2005

“The Vivaldi Concerto in D is not only one of the most popular guitar concertos of all times, but it is also, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful concertos Vivaldi ever wrote for any instrument. The centre piece of the concerto is undoubtedly the slow second movement. Through its beauty, charm, and grace, it captures both the musicians and the public alike.”
Manuel Barrueco

Thanks to its beautiful slow movement, Vivaldi’s D Major Concerto, RV 93 has become his most popular work for a plucked instrument. So the fact that even the very instrument for which Vivaldi wrote the piece is the subject of much conjecture makes its very popularity all the more remarkable.

The concerto actually began life as a chamber work, for two lutes, violin, and a continuo instrument (likely the organ, as the harpsichord’s plucked strings would jar against the other plucked instruments). There is evidence to suggest that this concerto was not written for the lutes or archlutes common to Venetian music of the time. Along with two other pieces, the D Major Concerto was dedicated to a Bohemian nobleman, Count Johann von Wrtby, whose own instrument was an 11 or 13-course lute common in Germany and Austria (a “course” is a rank of strings – today’s common 12-string guitar, for example, would be said to have six double courses). But the music Vivaldi wrote does not sit well on this instrument, making it also possible that he wrote the music for a soprano member of the lute family given various names, including “mandolino.”

All this obfuscation, however, does not detract from the work’s charm and delicate grace. It begins with guitar and orchestra stating the first movement’s main theme together. The orchestra then dips into the background to allow the guitar to have a solo statement. This pattern continues, with the solo guitar taking the music into new directions of key and mood, slightly darker in the middle of the movement.

The famous second movement opens with the guitar singing its gentle, rhythmic song over a wash of strings. The song is presented twice, then the guitar decorates this theme with more ornamented passages, until the opening mood is restored as the movement ends. The brief finale is a lively, dotted-rhythm dance, in which the solo instrument and the strings have much more of an equal partnership, exchanging the music in an almost call and response fashion, ending the work in convivial good spirits.

Folías
Roberto Sierra (b. Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, 1953)

First performance: September 21, 2002
This is the ESO premiere of the piece

“(Folías) is a piece that I’m being asked to perform on a regular basis. Normally, new pieces are lucky to get a single performance, after which they tend to wither for the most part. But at this moment I am to play Folías with over a dozen different orchestras, and this leads me to believe that others aside from me will take it up.”
Manuel Barrueco

Roberto Sierra, born in Puerto Rico and educated both there and in Europe (where one of his teachers was György Ligeti), has become one of the most prominent American composers of his generation. He has been commissioned by many major orchestras in both the U.S. and Europe, and in 2003, was awarded the Academy Award in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Program Note by the composer:

Folías is the second guitar concerto I wrote for Manuel Barrueco. As its predecessor Concierto Barroco, the newer work has strong baroque influences. The melodic-harmonic theme known as La Folía was widely used in the Iberian Peninsula since the 16th century. Countless composers wrote variations on La Folía, among them Scarlatti, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Arcangelo Corelli, and Marin Marais. It was the work of Marais which served as point of departure and inspiration in my treatment of La Folía theme, in fact some of the variations in my piece have their roots Marais’ Les folies d'Espagne (1701). In terms of instrumental writing the guitar yields itself as a perfect vehicle for the haunting theme. In Folías I evoke both the world of the Baroque and that of our own time.

Petroushka (1947 version)
Igor Stravinsky (b. Oranienbaum, 1882 / d. New York, 1971

First performance of the ballet: June 13, 1911 in Paris
First complete performance of the score: March 1, 1914 in Paris
Last ESO performance: October 1998

“In composing the music, I had in my mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra in turn retaliates with menacing trumpet blasts. The outcome is a terrific noise which reaches its climax and ends in the sorrowful and querulous collapse of the poor puppet.”
Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (publ. 1936)

Fresh off the success of his first collaboration with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets russes – The Firebird – Igor Stravinsky was quickly becoming the new compositional darling of Paris. The two men had in mind a new ballet, which would become Le sacre du printemps in 1913. But first, Stravinsky wanted to “refresh” himself with a Konzertstück (“Concert Piece”) for piano and orchestra. As noted in the quote above, the piano was to take the part of the doomed puppet, but life led the work in a new direction.

Stravinsky played for Diaghilev a little of the music he was working on for his piano and orchestra composition. The ballet master was seized by the potential he heard in the music, and urged Stravinsky to turn this work into another ballet scenario. “One day I leapt for joy,” Stravinsky’s autobiography states. “I had indeed found my title – Petroushka, the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries.” The ballet premiered in Paris in 1911, and was another triumph for both Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Stravinsky made an orchestral suite from the score in 1914. In 1947, now based in the United States, Stravinsky fashioned a new version as a suite in four parts with 15 movements. That is the version we will hear tonight.

The ballet’s story takes place in St. Petersburg during the Shrovetide Fair. A charlatan’s flute brings not only the puppet Petroushka to life, but also a ballerina and a moor puppet. In his miserable quarters, Petroushka professes his love for the ballerina, who cruelly rejects him. In the moor’s quarters, Petroushka happens upon the moor and ballerina in ardent embrace, and is chased away. As the fair reaches its height, the moor kills Petroushka, bringing back the charlatan to placate the horrified crowd by reminding them the slain figure is, after all, only a puppet. But seeming to belie that notion, Petroushka’s ghost rises as his lifeless body is dragged away, mocking his former master.

Program Notes © 2010 by D.T. Baker, except as noted

Manuel Barrueco is internationally recognized as one of the most important guitarists of our time. During three decades of concertizing, he has performed across the United Sates from the New World Symphony in Miami to the Seattle Symphony, and from the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to New York’s Lincoln Center. He has appeared with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony. His international tours have taken him to some of the most important musical centres in the world, including the Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Royal Albert Hall in London, Philharmonie in Berlin, Teatro Real in Madrid, and Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. In Asia he has completed a dozen tours of Japan and made repeated appearances in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. His tours of Latin America have included performances in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and Puerto Rico. 

Mr. Barrueco's commitment to contemporary music and to the expansion of the guitar repertoire has led to collaborations with many distinguished composers such as Steven Stucky, Michael Daugherty, Roberto Sierra, Arvo Pärt, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Toru Takemitsu. Manuel Barrueco’s recording of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with conductor Plácido Domingo was cited as the best recording of that piece in Classic CD Magazine. His Koch Classics release Concierto Barroco, with conductor Víctor Pablo Pérez, received a Latin Grammy nomination for “Best Classical Recording.” In 2007 Manuel Barrueco received a Grammy nomination for the “Best Instrumental Soloist Performance” for his Solo Piazzolla, the first recording to be released on the exclusive Manuel Barrueco Collection on Tonar Music. Tango Sensations and Sounds of the Americas came out subsequently in collaboration with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano. His latest release is Virtuoso Guitar Duos, which includes breathtaking guitar duos from the Spanish and Latin-American repertoire.

This is Mr. Barrueco’s debut with the ESO.