Event
A Happy Meeting of New and Old
J S Bach Trio sonatas arranged from organ trios
Jeff Harrington Chasse infernal
Stuart Diamond Telling tales
Alex Shapiro Slip
Sheli Nan Absinthe avec mes amis
Karen Bentley Pollick violin
Marion Rubinstein recorder
Jonathan Salzedo harpsichord
Amy Brodo cello
Jeff Harrington writes
Chasse Infernale was written to showcase the talents of two virtuosi: violinist Karen Bentley-Pollick, and harpsichordist Jonathan Salzedo. The music was inspired, in many ways, by the experience of living in the walled city of Avignon, France. Looking to the east from my music study, 100 yards away, are the remains of the cathedral where Petrarch first saw Laura, in 1327, which would later inspire the Humanist Renaissance tradition. Looking towards the west, 200 yards away, is the Collégiale Saint-Didier where Messiaen was baptized and where in the 1200's as part of the Inquisition, thousands of Chatars were burned at the stake. Walking through the narrow streets in Avignon, one is exposed to all of the contradictions of Western history. Avignon had a rich history of musical innovation during the Ars subtilior movement, one of the most complex musical periods prior to the 20th Century. And although the title was chosen after the piece was completed, it could be said to be in the form of the Renaissance composition, the caccia (or chasse), a canonic form with onomatopoeic exclamations that make reference to hunting.
Chasse Infernale relishes in a muscular approach to the harpsichord informed by pop cultural tropes from The Addams Family or the hallucinatory vision of the Beatles' Strawberry Fields and by the manic music of the French Baroque composer, Pancrace Royer. The violin part was inspired by East-European and Spanish dance musics, utilizing dramatic unisons and seconds for rhythmic fervor. Both instruments engage in this dramatic hunt with flourishes, scales and pounding ostinati throughout the piece.
Stuart Diamond writes
"Telling Tales" had its origins decades ago, when I was working on a series of children's' projects. The individual pieces were coalesced into a suite for flute and harpsichord. Though the details are only fragments of memory at this point, I do recall that the melodies were drawn from several sources including a record project, commercials, and if I am not mistaken a song for a lovely young woman. These days I often revisit early works, reworking the material to see how they might sound if they were written more recently. So "Telling Tales" for Violin and Harpsichord is the 2012ish take on music from the 1970s.
Alex Shapiro writes
Slip was commissioned by Robin Lorentz as a gift for her friend and partner in musical crimes, Kathleen McIntosh. Both women are intrepid and superb musicians who persist in the marvelous delusion that the 18th century's winning combo of harpsichord and violin deserves a repertoire from the 21st, as well. Far be it from me to argue such an inspired position, and so, knowing that my dear comrade Robin can make a violin sing beautifully in every style imaginable, I came up with the idea of giving Kathy everything and anything to play, with the one exception of the baroque styles to which she was so often tethered.
Since the violin is found in all corners of the globe, I decided to make the harpsichord a chameleon as well. I turned it into a host of different plectrum instruments, including dulcimer, koto, mandolin, rock n' roll keyboards, guitar and bouzouki. Throw in some Cuban montuno rhythms for a little variety, and suddenly it's a world tour for anyone with attention deficit disorder.
This bit of whimsy was written with the intent of giving Robin and Kathy something that would be unexpected at the close of their otherwise respectable concerts. Quite ironically, the first few lighthearted measures were written on September 10th, 2001. After the horrors in New York City the following day, Robin called me up and made it clear that given the circumstances, it would be absolutely fine with her if I felt instead like writing a very serious piece. Thinking about it for a moment, I replied that no, I wanted to continue in this upbeat direction, perhaps as a bizarre antidote for my grief. During the rest of that stunned month, there were times when the television glared silently in the corner of my studio with its constant images of devastation, as I irreconcilably wrote these giddy passages.
I'm a New Yorker. I grew up in Manhattan and watched the construction of the World Trade Towers when I was a little girl. As those edifices tumbled from hatred 29 years later, I thought of the people of all nationalities who perished that sunny morning. But New Yorkers are resilient, and composing this internationally-tinged piece may have been my way of declaring that to best honor those who have lost their lives, the rest of us should live ours to the fullest extent, for whatever time we're given. Just as these musical styles slip suddenly from one to another, life can slip from one reality to the next. As Ram Dass said, be here now...
Sheli Nan writes
We meet as friends, on a rainy afternoon, when our interior thoughts press in like the rain on the windowpane and we become the moment...we can only go inward on our instruments as our musical paths lead us toward unbridled imagination. We are friends and as such share a language between ourselves that often becomes mute when others are around. This piece leads us into the place of sharing.
This sonata was composed originally for baroque violin and harpsichord. The reference to musical history and the modern piano is inevitable in our early 21st century. With that in mind, it is entirely appropriate to perform the piece on both modern piano and modern violin." Dedicated to Jonathan Davis and Andrew Fouts.
|
|
 |
LocationUnitarian Universalist Church (View)
505 E Charleston
Palo Alto, CA 94306
United States
Categories
Contact
|
