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        March 27, 2010 (3 pm Final Rehearsal & 8 pm Concert) - Sherwood Hall, Salinas
        March 28 (3 pm) & March 29, 2010 (8 pm) - Sunset Theater, Carmel
                   Max Bragado-Darman, conductor
                   Sarah Buechner, piano

Cockaigne Overture, “In London Town” Op.40
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Composed 1901

The word “Cockaigne” is Edward Elgar’s own invention. Having built a reputation for creating masterfully constructed classical works, Elgar wished to create a lighter piece with immediate audience appeal. He decided to celebrate the City of London, especially its central section made famous by its Cockney dialect.

Edward Elgar was born at Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on June 2 1857. His father owned a music shop and was the local church organist. Elgar received his initial instruction from his father and often substituted for him at the church. Although he showed a profound musical ability, Elgar first trained to become a lawyer. Eventually, his love of music overwhelmed him and he busied himself in several musical pursuits. He studied violin but realized he would never be a virtuoso. He played in orchestras and served as a band leader. He tried his hand at composing and met with some early success. His Intermezzo was premiered in 1883 in Birmingham. He succeeded his father as the organist at St. George’s in Worcester in 1885. He married Caroline Alice Roberts in 1889. It was a long and happy marriage. It was Caroline who convinced Elgar to focus solely on composing.

Early in 1899, Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op.36 which came to be known as the Enigma Variations. “Enigma” because the theme was concealed, only its variations were apparent. Further adding to the mystery the movements only bore the initials of those to whom they were dedicated. The famous German conductor Hans Richter was delighted with the work and performed it in London, Germany and Austria. Its success cemented Elgar’s international reputation not only as a first-rate composer, but as a first-rate “English” composer, a personage not seen since the death of Henry Purcell in 1695.

Upon the death of his beloved wife in 1920, Elgar stopped composing. Nine years would pass before he picked up his pen again.

As his organization mechanism, Elgar concocted a scenario of two lovers spending time strolling through different parts of the city. They cross bustling thoroughfares, sit quietly in city parks, and sneak a private moment in a secluded corner of a church. A marching band can be heard approaching from a distance as the sound of the City encircles the pair. The Overture was an immediate success and has stayed in the repertoire, especially in England, since it premiere.

The work is scored for double winds, expanded brass and percussion sections.
Joseph Truskot


Piano Concerto in F major
George Gershwin (1893-1937)
Composed in 1925

Music has an uncanny power to conjure up the flavor, the "feel" of times past, none more so than the music of that gifted, improbable, quintessential American, George Gershwin. He lived his brief creative life during the 1920s and early 1930s, when indeed every facet of American music was young, brash, exciting, and very self-confident. As many chroniclers have related it, he closed the gap between Tin Pan Alley and Carnegie Hall in one amazing gesture: his Rhapsody in Blue which Paul Whiteman brought to New York's Aeolian Hall in 1924 with Gershwin himself at the piano. The phenomenal success of the Rhapsody made some kind of encore inevitable. A year later, Gershwin essayed an even more serious composition, a piano concerto, which was awaited breathlessly by most of New York's musical elite. Since Gershwin's musical training had been spasmodic and casual, it was inevitable that he sought models for his Concerto (his first symphonic composition) in works which he admired. Certainly Liszt furnished ideas for much of the Concerto's passagework, whereas the concertos of most 19th century virtuoso-composers suggested its overall shape: three movements in fast-slow-fast tempo sequence. But the color, the Concerto's unique spirit is, of course, pure Gershwin and pure 1920s American.

The premiere of the Concerto in F took place at Carnegie Hall on December 3, 1925, with the New York Symphony on the orchestral part. The conductor was the venerable Walter Damrosch who played such a major role in the development of New York's musical life during the first few decades of this century. Present in the audience were many musical luminaries of the time; Rachmaninoff, Heifetz, and Josef Hofmann to name but a few as well as a full phalanx from the New York press. Critical judgment then as now was mixed, but all agreed that Gershwin was a formidable performer and most were enchanted with the freshness and spontaneity of the work. Perhaps Samuel Chotzinoff, himself a pianist as well as critic, summed it up best: "He (Gershwin) is the present with all its audacity, impertinence, its feverish delight in its motions, its lapses into rhythmic, exotic melancholy. He writes without the smallest hint of self-consciousness."

As for the structure of the Concerto in F, the first movement is obviously modeled on the classic concerto, with an orchestral prelude and the form of a free sonata design. The themes are sprightly and original, especially the "Charleston" theme so characteristic of the 1920s. The middle movement is more pensive, with a "blues" subject in muted trumpet at the start and a serene texture throughout. The finale was described by Gershwin himself as "an orgy of rhythm" and so it is. The finale is cast in a rondo design, with a new, recurrent theme and a cyclic gesture (also borrowed from Gershwin's 19th century models) when themes from the first and second movements are recalled.
Although the critics were mixed in their initial judgment of the piece, the public loved it in 1925, and still does. As Mr. Olin Downes, the late, distinguished critic of the New York Times put it, "There would not have been as much excitement if Brahms had come to town, although Brahms also wrote piano concertos!"
Louise Cuyler


Rapsodia sinfónica for Piano and Orchestra, Op.66
Joaquín Turina (1882-1949)
Composed 1931

Joaquín Turina was born in Seville in 1882 and, except for a few years of study in Paris, lived his entire life in Spain. He came from a middle class family who was supportive of his musical endeavors. In 1902, Turina moved to Madrid, entered the Madrid Conservatory of Music, and quickly became involved in its music scene. He saw La sulamita, his first zarzuela (a Spanish version of the operetta), presented. In 1905, Turina left to study in Paris—piano with Moszkowski and composition with D’Indy—before World War I and remained there for almost a decade, making great friends with his fellow Spaniards: Albeniz and Falla. It was Albeniz who convinced him to create music which captured the spirit of Spain, in general, and his native Andalucía, in particular. For the remainder of his life, Turina dedicated himself to this objective. His music captured the spirit and color of his native land. Turina was instrumental in passing on this legacy from his position as a professor at the Madrid Conservatory, as the pianist in the Quinteto de Madrid, and as a critic for the newspaper, El Debate. Turina died in Madrid on January 14, 1949.

Turina wrote in all musical forms but only completed five works scored for full symphony orchestra (including Sinfónica sevillana to be heard in May 2010). In spite of the volume of piano music Turina devised, he composed only one piece for piano and string orchestra, the brief Rapsodia sinfónica performed on this program. Like its title suggests, the Rapsodia sinfónica is loosely organized into rhapsodic episodes evocative of Andalucia.
Joseph Truskot


Estancia Suite
ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916-1983)
Composed in 1941
Alberto Ginastera was only twenty-five years old when, in 1941, Lincoln Kirstein who was in Argentina with the Ballet Caravan heard his ballet Panambi. Kirstein was so impressed that he immediately commissioned a ballet for the North American group from this gifted Argentinean. The result was Estancia, completed in 1941. The theme of the ballet is to present various aspects of life in an estancia (an Argentinean ranch) during one entire day. The orchestra used for the ballet and for this Suite includes conventional strings, woodwinds and brass, but greatly augmented percussion, specifically tambourine, castanets, military and side drums, gong, cymbals, xylophone, and piano. The four movements follow:

1. The Land Workers
Features heavy, full scoring, alternating two and three rhythms, and polychords.

2. Wheat Dance (Tranquillo)
Opens with flute, then stopped horn over string pizzicato, gradually increasing to full orchestra then receding.

3. The Cattle Men (Mosso e ruvido)
This dance is "moving and rugged" as indicated in the expressive marking. Present are every imaginable combination of two and three units with various cross rhythms and syncopation to depict these rugged Argentinean cowboys.

4. Final Dance -- Malambo
Again, as in most south-of-the-border music, two-three rhythmic combinations prevail. Such modern effects as portamento and glissando in strings, glissando for piano, tone clusters, and lavish use of xylophone build a fine climax in this attractive finale.
Louise Cuyler