Good afternoon and welcome to our first concert in the New Year. Today’s program will feature music in a slightly different style than our usual programs.

While it can be argued that classical music style was adopted by America from European models, no one can deny that with jazz we returned the compliment. At the end of World War I jazz became in vogue throughout Europe’s cultural centers and French, German, English, Italian and even Russian composers wrote works combining jazz with other contemporary styles.

French composer Darius Milhaud (1892 – 1974) first discovered jazz while traveling in London in 1920 and then in 1922 when he visited New York and met famed bandleader Paul Whiteman
(1890 – 1967). A year later he was asked to compose a ballet for the Swedish Ballet then appearing in Paris. He responded with a score inspired by New York – style jazz he called “The Creation of the World”, which has been referred to by musicologists as an “African Rite of Spring”. The scoring includes saxophone, Dixieland trumpet and “tailgate” trombone. It marks one of the earliest uses of jazz in a ballet pit or concert hall.

Three months after Milhaud conquered Paris with Creation, Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin (1898 – 1937) presented the now legendary New York concert that included Rhapsody In Blue. Flushed with the success of both the Rhapsody and Concerto In F, Gershwin toured France in 1926, meeting and exchanging ideas with Ravel, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Poulenc and Prokofieff to name only a few. He conceived the idea of a “rhapsodic ballet” on an American tourist’s impressions of Paris. In an interview, Gershwin described an “opening gay section”, the “rich blues with a strong rhythmic undercurrent”, a “spasm of homesickness” and the return of “the vivacity and bubbling exuberance” of Paris. An American In Paris includes the famous taxi-horns, walking theme and café jazz band sequence but I don’t think many of us can hear it without thinking of Gene Kelley dancing down the boulevard.

In 1913, a fourteen-year old George Gershwin finally found a gifted teacher to replace the local neighborhood piano teachers he had had until then. The teacher’s name was Charles Hambitzer. He wrote that Gershwin “wants to go for jazz and what not. ….. But I’ll see he gets a firm grounding in the standard music first”. His early death contributed to Gershwin changing from being a concert pianist to composition. Gershwin took harmony, theory and orchestration from noted pedagogue Edward Kilenyi, and, for him, wrote his first serious work, the 1919 Lullaby for Strings. It was originally a movement of a string quartet written as a harmony assignment, but was heard and performed often by friends and fellow students. It is now one of his most performed pieces.

As featured soloist today we have a real treat. Rarely do we play works by living composers but today we will have a work with its composer as soloist. Noted Milwaukee jazz artist Warren Wiegratz wrote his Three Scenes for Contemporary Jazz Saxophone and Orchestra in 1992 on a commission by the G. LeBlanc Corporation for the Kenosha Symphony Orchestra. Warren writes, “I believe my strength lies in composing songs, songs that have recognizable, singable melodies together with conventional harmonies and popular rhythms. So, I decided to compose three ‘songs without words’ that would feature the saxophone in orchestral and combo settings. I also decided that the orchestra would not be just an insignificant accompaniment; the orchestra states themes and counter themes and is provided with equal challenges.” We are honored to present Warren Wiegratz and his composition for you today.

We hope you enjoy our jazz inspired program this afternoon. On a cold Milwaukee winter day we can use some “hot” performances.

Good afternoon and welcome to a program by Festival City Symphony we call “Give Me That Country Life”.

Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841 -1904) had received little international recognition for any of his symphonies until his Symphony No. 6 was performed in London in 1882 by the famed German conductor Hans Richter. This led to it and several other works being accepted by the powerhouse Berlin publisher Simrock and, more importantly to Dvorak, being encouraged and promoted by Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897). Dvorak had long admired Brahms and had written his Slavonic Dances after hearing Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. In 1884, Dvorak traveled to Berlin to hear Brahms’ Third Symphony, which showed him a way to continue composing in the German symphonic tradition without succumbing to the excesses of Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883). The Symphony No. 8 was written in appreciation of his appointment to the Prague Academy of Arts and Literature and was premiered on February 2, 1890, in Prague with the composer conducting. The following April he went to England and performed it while receiving an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Cambridge University. Unaware that he had already performed the work in Czechoslovakia, English critics praised the “English Symphony,” a name by which it was known for almost fifty years. It was called “… pastoral, teeming with rural sights and sounds.” An American critic described it as “idyllic, close to the soil, and permeated with folk spirit”. The first movement shows Dvorak at his Bohemian best, melancholy with a touch of mystery. The second movement is uncertain and searching, contrasting high woodwinds with low strings and major with minor tonalities. The influence of Brahms’ Third Symphony is evident in the third movement, as much a waltz as a scherzo. A trumpet fanfare ushers in the last movement, but quickly subsides to a more stately theme, only to speed forward and become a fiery Bohemian dance.

Marie-Joseph Cantaloube (1879 - 1957) was a French composer, musicologist and writer on musical subjects. He composed operas, orchestral works, chamber music and song cycles, but only his Songs of the Auvergne, published in six series between 1924 and 1955 have remained in the repertoire. In 1925, he founded a society to promote the culture, folklore and folk music of his beloved Auvergne region of south central France. The folk songs he collected and arranged are written in Occitan, a regional Romance Language, now used only in small portions of France, Italy, Spain and Monaco. The rustic melodies, spirited harmonies and lush orchestrations are as beautiful as the Auvergne countryside itself. These romantic and expressive songs have long been favorites of audiences and singers alike. We will play five songs from the first two series Cantaloube published: “L’Antoueno;” “Obal, din lou Limouzi;” “Bailero;” “La Delaissado;” and “Ound’ onoren gorda?” Translations of the lyrics are in your program. We are very proud to have as our soloist today internationally renowned soprano Patrice Michaels.

Our program today begins with a concert hall staple, the Overture to Semiramide of Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868). Premiered in 1823, the opera was based on a play by Voltaire. The great Spanish soprano Isabella Colbran was the first Semiramide, and later became Mrs. Rossini.

Rustic. Bucolic. Pastoral. We hope you enjoy our visit to country life.

Lyrics for the
SONGS OF THE AUVERGNE

L’ANTOUENO When we go to the fair, ie! When we go to the fair, oh! We’ll go together, l’Antoine, We’ll go together! We’ll buy a cow, ie! We’ll buy a cow, oh! We’ll buy her together, l’Antoine, We’ll buy her together. But the cow shall be mine, ie! But the cow shall be mine, oh! The horns only for you, l’Antoine, The horns only for you. OBAL DIN LOU LIMOUZI Down below in Limousin, little one, How beautiful the young girls are. Ah, yes. But there are beautiful girls here too. Gallant lad, what if the girls are beautiful In your home country, The men in Limousin Make very tender love to us. Ah yes, down below, in Limousin, little one, The gallant lads may be very loving, But here in our Auvergne The men love us very faithfully. BAILERO Shepherd across the river, You don’t seem to be afraid, Sing the Bailero, etc. Indeed I’m not, and you too, Sing the Bailero, etc. Shepherd, the meadow is in bloom, Come over here to Sing the Bailero, etc. The grass is greener on this side, You come here, Bailero, etc. Shepherd, the stream separates us, And I can’t cross it, Sing the Bailero, etc. Then I’ll come and get you further down, Bailero, etc.

LA DELAISSADO A shepherdess is waiting for her lover, Over in the grove on the hill. But, sad to say, he doesn’t show up. “Ah, he has left me, I don’t see my sweetheart. I was certain he loved me, for I love him so.” Now only the evening star keeps the Young shepherdess company. OUND’ ONOREN GORDA? Where will we find our flock, little girl? Where will we go looking for it in the morning? We will go to the bank of the river, Where the grass is so green, Our sheep will be among the flowers, And we will make love all day. Look at the sheep, my little girl, Look at the bees, and at us! Look at the sheep, which live for their grass. Look at the bees, they live for their flower. But we, little one, we make love. We live for the pleasures of love.

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