Details

The ESO taps into a rich vein of holiday sentiment and memory on a night devoted to the beloved classical and traditional music of the season. Treasured holy and holiday classics, carols, sleigh rides, and lots of other musical gifts are in store, from exquisite orchestral arrangements to grand choral masterpieces. Come early to hear pianist Simon-Marc de Freitas perform in the main lobby beginning at 7:15 pm, as part of our Musicians in the Making program, generously supported by TELUS.

Program to include:

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Handel: "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (from Messiah)
Gruber: "Silent Night" (arr Dragon)
Adam: "O Holy Night" (arr Dragon)
Niles: "I Wonder As I Wander" (arr Reineke)
Traditional: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (arr Goldstein)
Tormé: The Christmas Song (arr Stephenson)
Rouse: Karolju

 

$69 Dress Circle (A)
$59 Terrace (B)
$51 Orchestra (C)
$38 Upper Circle (D)
$28 Gallery (E)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
(click map for interactive version)

Tickets subject to applicable service charges.

Thank you to the generous supporters of this series: Bill & Mary Jo Robbins

Thank you to our media sponsor:

The next Robbins Lighter Classics performance is January 14, 2010.

Program Information

Program

ROUSE
Karolju (excerpts) (17’)*
    1. Latin
    2. Swedish
    3. French
    4. Spanish
    5. Little March of the Three Kings
    8. Czech
    9. German
    10. Latin

TCHAIKOVSKY
The Nutcracker: Suite, Op.71a (with verses by Ogden Nash) (26’)*
    Miniature Overture
    March
    Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
    Russian Dance (Trépak)
    Arabian Dance
    Chinese Dance
    Dance of the Flutes
    Waltz of the Flowers

INTERMISSION (20 minutes)

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Fantasia on Christmas Carols (12’)*

HANDEL
The trumpet shall sound (from Messiah) (9’)*

trad.
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (arr. Goldstein) (3’)*

NILES
I Wonder as I Wander (arr. Reineke) (5’)*

WELLS / TORMÉ
The Christmas Song (arr. Stephenson) (5’)*

ADAM / CAPPEAU / DWIGHT
O Holy Night (arr. Dragon) (5’)*

GRUBER / MOHR / YOUNG
Silent Night (arr. Dragon) (4’)*

*indicates approximate performance duration

Program Notes

Two paths led to the composition of Karolju. The first was the great body of Christmas carols written over the centuries. The second was Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, which made an unforgettable impression upon me when I first heard it in March of 1963. In the early 1980s, I conceived of a plan to compose a collection of Christmas carols couched in an overall form similar to that of Carmina Burana, but it was not until 1989, when the work was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, that I was able to begin serious work on it.

Finding appropriate existing texts to fit already composed music would have been virtually impossible, and as I did not trust my own ability to devise a poetically satisfying text, I decided to compose my own texts in a variety of languages which, although making reference to words and phrases appropriate to the Christmas season, would not be intelligibly translatable as complete entities. It was my intent to match the sound of the language to the musical style of the carol to which it was applied. I also elected to compose music which was direct and simple in its tonal orientation, music which would not seem out of place in a medley of traditional Christmas carols. It has been my decision to eschew complexity or oversubtlety of utterance, preferring instead to compose music straightforwardly in terms of melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration. Except for a paraphrase of the coda to the "O Fortuna" movements of Carmina Burana (which constitutes a small homage to Orff) and for a four-measure phrase in No. 3 which I borrowed from The Nutcracker, all of the music in Karolju is by me.

Karolju was completed in Fairport, New York on November 13, 1990 and is dedicated to my daughter Alexandra, who was to celebrate her first Christmas that year. It was commissioned with the generous assistance of the Barlow Foundation for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, and I am also most grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for providing me with a Fellowship which allowed me time to compose the work unencumbered by other duties.

The above program note is reprinted by kind permission of Christopher Rouse (b. 1949)


The last of the three great ballet scores Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote, The Nutcracker premiered on December 18, 1892, less than a year before he died. But what
Tchaikovsky had really wanted to write was the opera Iolanta, and he said as much to the Director of Imperial Theatres in Russia. The latter, however, was enthusiastic on his own balletic retelling of the E.T.A. Hoffmann tale Nussknacker und Mausekönig (“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” – itself a version of a story by Alexandre Dumas père). The two men came to what amounted to a quid pro quo; Tchaikovsky wrote Iolanta as a one-act opera, while the two-act Nutcracker ballet was featured on the program in a double bill.

Iolanta lingers among Tchaikovsky’s least-heard works. The Nutcracker, despite the lack of enthusiasm on the part of its composer, despite the story’s lack of any dramatic weight, and despite initial critical reaction, has become one of the most enduring works in the entire canon. The ballet itself is established as a Christmas tradition all over the world.

As he had done with his previous ballet scores (The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake), Tchaikovsky took some of The Nutcracker’s many gorgeous moments and fashioned them into a suite for the concert hall. The individual segments of the suite do not follow the narrative thread of the story, and includes several of the “character dances” from the Act II pageant, along with other memorable highlights, climaxing in the glorious Waltz of the Flowers. American light-verse genius Ogden Nash (1902-1971) wrote whimsical, brief poems for sections of the suite, first published in 1962 in a book titled The New Nutcracker Suite and Other Innocent Verses. His words have accompanied performances of Tchaikovsky’s score frequently.


Among his many accomplishments, British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was noted for his settings and arrangements of many traditional songs of the British Isles, from folk songs to carols. His 1912 Fantasia on Christmas Carols takes four English carols, and places them in a free-flowing work for baritone soloist, choir and orchestra.

The first carol is the most sombre, "The Truth Sent from Above" is set for the solo baritone over a solo cello (Colin Ryan). "Come All You Worthy Gentlemen” is next, followed by "On Christmas Night," and finally, "There is a Fountain." Following the sober beginning, the choir and orchestra broaden the work out, creating a colourful and radiant work, rooted in tradition but given shimmering and joyful treatment.


“The trumpet shall sound” is from the third and final part of Handel's Messiah. The words are taken from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, a vision of the Final Judgement when the dead shall be raised in glory. It is scored for baritone solo, accompanied by a small baroque orchestra, with a solo trumpet (Robin Doyon) vividly illustrating the power of the words with a proclamatory theme and rich flourishes.


God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen was first published in 1833 when it appeared in a volume called Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, a collection of carols compiled and edited by William B. Sandys. The lyrics of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are traditional old English and may date back to the 15th century, although the author is unknown. If true, the carol is one of the oldest known carols still in the repertoire.


According to folk singer-songwriter John Jacob Niles (1892-1980), I Wonder as I Wander began its existence on July 16, 1933 in the Appalachian town of Murphy, North Carolina. As he tells the tale, a girl dressed in dirty, ragged clothing was singing on a platform, but only a single line of a song. He coaxed her to repeat the fragment, paying her a quarter each time, and it inspired him. He composed three stanzas based on the fragment, and presented his reworking of the song, now called I Wonder as I Wander, for the first time on December 19, 1933 at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.


Popular jazz singer Mel Tormé (1925-1999) and songwriting partner Bob Wells (1922-1998) wrote The Christmas Song (aka “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) in 1946. Its decidedly American, Norman Rockwellian portrait of an ideal family Christmas scene, complete with Jack Frost, Santa, and greetings to “kids from one to ninety-two,” quickly made it a seasonal standard, first in the U.S., but soon internationally as well.


A wine merchant by trade, not a poet, Placide Cappeau (1808-1877) was asked by his parish priest to write a Christmas poem in 1847. Happy with the result, called Cantique de Noël, he felt the words deserved to have music, and he turned to his friend, and noted French composer Adolphe-Charles Adam (1803-1856; perhaps known most today for his ballet Giselle), who composed the beautiful melody. Cappeau’s lyrics were translated into English by John Sullivan Dwight (1812-1893), and it has been known since in English as O Holy Night.


Arguably the most famous Christmas Carol of all, Silent Night came about because of a broken organ. St. Nicholas Church, in the small Alpine village of Oberndorf, did not have a functioning organ for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1818. A priest in the church, Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), gave the words to a poem he had written two years earlier, Stille Nacht (“Silent Night”) to his friend Franz Gruber (1787-1863), who composed music to be played on a guitar, quietly accompanying the tender words. Bishop John Freeman Young (1820-1885) provided an English translation some years later.

Program Notes © 2009 by D.T. Baker, except as noted above

Artist Information

 

Steven Reineke, conductor

 

Steven Reineke begins his tenure as Music Director of The New York Pops in the 2009-2010 season. Mr. Reineke conducts the orchestra’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall as well as tours, recordings, and nationwide telecasts, including the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on NBC Television. New York’s only permanent and professional symphonic pops orchestra, The New York Pops is the largest independent pops orchestra in the United States.

Mr. Reineke begins as Principal Pops Conductor of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra in 2009-2010 and he retains that title with the Modesto Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he holds the title of Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, where for more than thirteen years he has served as a composer, arranger, and conducting protégé of the celebrated pops conductor Erich Kunzel.

Steven Reineke’s recent guest conducting appearances include the orchestras of Los Angeles, Toronto, Houston, Detroit, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Vancouver and Edmonton. In 2009 he made his Boston Pops and Philadelphia Orchestra debuts. In 2008 Mr. Reineke made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting The New York Pops 25th Birthday Gala. Mr. Reineke makes his Asian debut conducting the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in 2009. He made his Hollywood Bowl debut in 2007 with the multi-faceted entertainer Wayne Brady and returned to the Hollywood Bowl in 2008 to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition, Mr. Reineke conducted, arranged and orchestrated the music for Mr. Brady’s orchestral show and played the same role in his collaboration with rock legend Peter Frampton.

As the creator of more than one hundred orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Mr. Reineke’s arrangements have been performed worldwide, and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. Mr. Reineke is also an established symphonic composer. His works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently in North America, with the most recent performances by the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic in July 2008. In August 2008 his Sun Valley Festival Fanfare debuted with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony to commemorate the opening of the orchestra’s new pavilion. In 2005 his Festival Te Deum and Swan’s Island Sojourn were performed by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops respectively. The Cincinnati Enquirer had this to say about Festival Te Deum: “Melodious and joyous, it had antiphonal brass in the balconies, organ, full orchestra and wonderful choral passages.” His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands around the world.

A native of Ohio, Mr. Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned bachelor of music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently resides in New York City. Mr. Reineke is represented by Peter Throm Management, LLC.

Media

Coming Soon!