Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
2014-2015 Subscription Series
May 29 and 31, 2015
JUANJO MENA, CONDUCTOR
NANCY E. GOERES, BASSOON
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
“Ibéria,” No. 2 from Images for Orchestra
I.
II.
III.
DAVID LUDWIG
Par les rues et par les chemins
Les parfums de la nuit
Le matin d’un jour de fête
Picture from the Floating World for Bassoon and Orchestra
I.
Sunken Cathedral
II.
Sirens
III. En Bateau
IV. Voiles
V. Reflections in the Water
Ms. Goeres
Intermission
ALBERTO GINASTERA
Suite from Panambí, Opus 1a
I.
II.
III.
IV.
ALBERTO GINASTERA
Four Dances from Estancia, Opus 8a
I.
II.
III.
IV.
MANUEL DE FALLA
Claro de luna sobre el Paraná
Invocación a los espíritus poderosos
Lamento de la doncellas
Fiesta indígena — Ronda de la doncellas —
Danza de los guerreros
Los trabajadores agricolas
Danza del trigo
Los peones de hacienda
Danza final: Malambo
Interlude and Dance from La Vida Breve
May 29-31, 2015, page 1
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Born 2 August 1862 in St. Germain-en-Laye, near Paris; died 25 March 1918 in Paris.
Ibéria from Images for Orchestra (1905-1908)
PREMIERE OF WORK: Paris, 20 February 1910; Orchestra of the Concerts Colonne; Gabriel Pierné,
conductor
PSO PREMIERE: 9 April 1946; Heinz Hall; William Steinberg, conductor
APPROXIMATE DURATION: 20 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION: two piccolos, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, three
bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion,
celesta, two harps and strings.
The year 1908 was a difficult one for Debussy — one of the succession of difficult years that
comprised the last decade and a half of his life. The success of his only completed opera, Pelléas et
Mélisande of 1902, had catapulted him into the public consciousness as an important musical
personality, but the effect of that notoriety on Debussy was not so salutary as might be expected. It
meant that he could no longer play the reclusive bohemian, composing what he like, when he liked.
Fame increased the demand for both his music and his personal appearances, and to fulfill the former,
he undertook an ambitious agreement with the publisher Jacques Durand that imposed heavy creative
obligations on him. Though Debussy frequently found Durand’s demands difficult to meet, the works that
he produced during the succeeding years were among the greatest to come from his pen — La Mer,
Jeux, the Images for Orchestra and most of the important piano compositions. He satisfied the calls for
his personal appearances with several strenuous European concert tours in which he conducted his own
compositions. Concerning those trips, he wrote in a letter to his wife, “Everything annoys me. My nerves
are on edge and I find that a composer of music is required to excel in those qualities of toughness
possessed by a traveling salesman.”
The reason that Debussy gave so much time to these wearing activities was, of course, money. He
had abandoned his first wife, Lilly, in 1904, and her subsequent suicide attempt created a good deal of
animosity among the Parisian public toward the composer. The judgment at their divorce hearing went
against him, with the result that he was harassed by lawsuits regarding his first wife for the rest of his life.
At the same time Debussy left Lilly, he had taken up with Emma Bardac; they were married in 1908. She
had expected a large inheritance from a wealthy uncle on his death in 1907, but it turned out that she
had been disinherited, probably because of her liaison with this composer who could barely support
himself. The financial burden of two marriages plus the birth of a daughter to his second wife made
seeking all available work mandatory for Debussy. In addition to his familial and financial problems,
those years also saw a severe decline in Debussy’s health. In January 1909, his plans for several
concerts in England were cancelled because of the first signs of an illness that was diagnosed later in the
year as cancer. Morphine and cocaine to ease the pain helped him to continue — after a fashion.
Following a February concert in London, he wrote to Durand, “Arrived here Thursday, have been ill all
the time. The concert today went off admirably. It only depended on me to secure an encore for L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune, but I could hardly stand up — a very bad posture for conducting anything.”
That such a brilliant work as Ibéria could arise out of such difficult circumstances is a tribute to
Debussy’s artistic spirit and creative diligence. Equally remarkable is how clearly he captured the
atmosphere of the land across the Pyrenees, despite the fact that he had spent only a single afternoon in
Spain during his entire life — to attend a bullfight in San Sebastian. Manuel de Falla, Spain’s great
composer, wrote admiringly of Ibéria, “The entire piece down to the smallest detail makes one feel the
character of Spain.” Ibéria, which Debussy included as the second of his three Images for Orchestra (it is
seldom performed with the other two, Gigues and Rondes de Printemps), is in three movements. The
first, Par les rues et par le chemins (“On the Highways and the Byways”), establishes the Spanish
inspiration of the work with a rhythm dominated by tambourine and castanets. The opening melody
suggested to Falla “village songs heard in the bright, scintillating light.” A martial middle section
dominated by the horns follows, and leads to the return of the opening melody. The second movement,
evocatively titled Les parfums de la nuit (“Fragrances of the Night”), is a dreamy nocturne, but one
May 29-31, 2015, page 2
presented with detailed precision. This is music marked by a glorious instrumental palette, subtle rhythm,
luscious harmony and sinuous melody that embodies the quintessential Impressionist style. The finale,
Le matin d’un jour de fête (“A Holiday Morning”), celebrates a festival day amid the sounds of strumming
guitars (represented by pizzicato strings) and church bells. The movement represents, Debussy wrote,
“the whole rising feeling, the awakening of people and of nature.” It is a brilliant tour-de-force of
orchestral color and infectious rhythm, extroverted and sunny in mood. Ibéria is music of celebration, of
dance, of joy — invigorating, enthusiastic, life-affirming.
DAVID LUDWIG
Born 1 December 1972 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Picture from the Floating World for Bassoon and Orchestra (2013)
PREMIERE OF WORK: Philadelphia, 1 November 2013; Kimmel Center; Philadelphia Orchestra;
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Daniel Matsukawa, soloist
THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE
APPROXIMATE DURATION: 19 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION: pairs of woodwinds plus piccolo, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, timpani,
percussion, harp and strings.
David Ludwig, born in 1972 in Doylestown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is the descendant of a
distinguished musical family — pianists Rudolf Serkin and Peter Serkin are his grandfather and uncle,
and his great-grandfather was the renowned violinist Adolf Busch. Ludwig studied at Oberlin College
(B.M.) and the Manhattan School of Music (M.M.), and continued his post-graduate work at the Curtis
Institute and the Juilliard School before earning a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania; his
teachers include Richard Hoffmann, Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, Ned Rorem and John
Corigliano. In 2002, Ludwig was appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute, where he now serves as
the Artistic Chair of Performance and Director of the Curtis 20/21 Contemporary Music Ensemble. He
was Young-Composer-in-Residence at the Marlboro Music Festival from 1997 to 1999, and has also held
residencies at Yaddo, Aspen Music Festival, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Académie Musicale de
Villecroze, Pacific Music Festival, Isabella Gardner Art Museum in Boston, Vermont Symphony, Seoul
National University, Shanghai International Summer Music Festival and Atlantic Center Composers and
Singers Program in Florence, Italy; he is 2015 Composer-in-Residence at Music from Angel Fire. David
Ludwig has received commissions from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Curtis
Institute, New York Youth Symphony, eighth blackbird, Concertante, choral conductor Judith Clurman,
pianist Jonathan Biss, violinist Lara St. John, flutist Jeffrey Khaner and other noted ensembles and
performers. His honors include the First Music Award, Independence Foundation Fellowship, Theodore
Presser Foundation Career Grant, Fleischer Orchestra Award and two nominations for the Stoeger
Award of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has also received grants from Meet the
Composer, American Composers Forum, American Music Center and National Endowment for the Arts;
in 2009 he was honored as a City Cultural Leader by the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, and in 2011
NPR Music selected him as one of the “Top 100 Composers Under Forty in the World.”
Ludwig wrote of Pictures from the Floating World, composed in 2013 for bassoonist Daniel
Matsukawa, the Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, “Danny wanted
music that lived in melodies, music that brought forward the beautiful flowing bassoon lines that so many
composers of past centuries have written into their music. This was a great prompt for me to start
thinking about the idea of floating lines, which led to thoughts of water, which led to floating, which led to
thoughts of the Japanese art tradition of Ukiyo-e print making (the ‘floating world’ of our every day life),
which led me to think of Debussy (who became obsessed with the prints he saw at the World Exhibition
of 1889), which brought me to the idea of the piece: Pictures from the Floating World. This is the process
by which many of my pieces get written; composers find something meaningful in an initial seed or idea,
and then develop that idea into something bigger. I am especially interested in the intersection of
cultures, and Debussy’s fascination with Japanese art is likewise fascinating to me.
“This piece is five movements, each taking its title from one of Debussy’s ‘water pieces’: I. Sunken
Cathedral [La cathédrale engloutie from Préludes, Bk. I]; II. Sirens [Sirènes from Nocturnes for
Orchestra]; III. En Bateau (‘In a Boat’ from Petite Suite); IV. Voiles [‘Sails’ from Préludes, Bk. I]; V.
May 29-31, 2015, page 3
Reflections in the Water [Reflets dans l’eau from Images for Piano, Bk. I]. Each movement flows into the
next — again the idea of fluidity and floating being key. The bassoon sings throughout the whole twenty
minutes of the piece, and the orchestra provides sheen to its color and support to its lyricism.
“There is something poetic for me about the idea of the ‘Floating World,’ as we in the modern world
tend to float through our days as one passes into the next, losing definition into memory. (Debussy had
an especially keen sense of this.) This piece is a journal, of sorts, to describe that feeling, gliding on time
in a world of fleet impressions.”
ALBERTO GINASTERA
Born 11 April 1916 in Buenos Aires; died 25 June 1983 in Geneva.
Suite from Panambí, Opus 1a (1937)
PREMIERE OF WORK: Buenos Aires, 27 November 1937; Teatro Colón Orchestra; Juan José Castro,
conductor
THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE
APPROXIMATE DURATION: 12 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet,
three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion,
celesta, harp, piano and strings.
Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera, of Catalan and Italian descent, showed musical talent early
and began studying formally when he was seven. Five years later he was admitted to the music school
established in Buenos Aires in 1893 by the pioneering Paris Conservatoire-trained Brazilian composer
Alberto Williams (1862-1952), among the first to incorporate indigenous influences in his works;
Ginastera graduated in 1935 with a Gold Medal in composition. He composed prolifically after entering
the National Conservatory of Music the following year, and got his big break on November 27, 1937,
while he was still a student, when Juan José Castro, principal conductor of the Teatro Colón, performed a
suite from the ballet based on Argentinean legend he had just completed — Panambí. The young
composer became a musical celebrity in Argentina when Castro led the premiere of the complete ballet
at the Colón on July 12, 1940, and he gained international notice when Lincoln Kirstein, director of the
American Ballet Caravan of New York, became familiar with Panambí during the company’s South
American tour the following year and commissioned him to write his next ballet, Estancia, with a scenario
depicting Argentinean country life. Aaron Copland, who accompanied Ballet Caravan on its tour, met
Ginastera and predicted, “He will, no doubt, someday be an outstanding figure in Argentine music.” They
became friends, and after World War II Copland arranged a fellowship for Ginastera to spend eighteen
months in the United States and study with him at Tanglewood.
Panambí is based on a legend of the Guaraní people, the indigenous culture of the region where
Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet; the Guaraní language and Spanish are the two official languages
of Paraguay. Ginastera captured the setting, the romance, the violence and the supernatural elements of
the timeless tale in his music (in Guaraní, Panambí means “butterfly,” thought by them to be the
reincarnated spirits of certain individuals), which is outlined in the score: “According to the legend,
Panambí was the beautiful daughter of the chieftain of an Indian tribe on the banks of the Paraná River.
She was betrothed to Guirahú, the most valiant warrior of the tribe, who, shortly before the wedding day,
is kidnapped by the maiden spirits of the river. The tribe sorcerer, who is also in love with Panambí but
has been rejected by her, tries to take advantage of the situation by claiming that the almighty spirits
decreed that she should descend into the river in quest of her lover. Panambí is ready to carry out the
supposedly divine orders when Tupá, the good god, appears from above and stops her. Tupá punishes
the sorcerer by turning him into a strange black bird and restores Guirahú, who rises from the waters of
the river to throw himself into the arms of his loved one.” The suite includes six evocative movements
extracted from the complete score, the last three played without pause: Moonlight on the Paraná,
Invocation to the Spirits of Power, Lament of the Maidens, Native Festival, Round Dance of the Maidens
and Warriors’ Dance.
May 29-31, 2015, page 4
ALBERTO GINASTERA
Four Dances from Estancia, Opus 8a (1941)
PREMIERE OF WORK: Buenos Aires, 12 May 1943; Teatro Colón Orchestra; Ferruccio Calusio,
conductor
THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE
APPROXIMATE DURATION: 12 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION: woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion, piano and
strings.
Lincoln Kirstein, director of the American Ballet Caravan, became familiar with Ginastera’s first
ballet, Panambi, during the company’s tour of South America on 1941. Recognizing the young
composer’s genius, Kirstein commissioned from Ginastera Estancia, a stage work for the Ballet Caravan
with a scenario based on Argentine country life. Though the company was disbanded the following year
before it had performed the new work, a suite of dances from the score was given on May 12, 1943 at
Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colón that confirmed Ginastera’s position as a leading figure in Argentine musical
life. (The full ballet was not staged until 1952, at the Colón.) In extracting the suite from Estancia,
Ginastera omitted the songs for baritone based on texts from the great epic poem of the “gauchesco”
literature, Martin Fierro, and several pastoral scenes. Except for the gentle second dance, Danza del
trigo (“Dance of the Wheat”), the symphonic suite, comprising Los trabajadores agricolas (“The Workers
of the Land”), Los peones de hacienda (“The Cattle Men”) and Danza final: Malambo (“Final Dance:
Malambo”), is brilliant and driving, largely built on short, recurring rhythmic and melodic patterns that
accumulate enormous energy.
The preface to the score notes, “The deep and bare beauty of the land, its richness and natural
strength, constitutes the basis of Argentine life. This ballet presents various daily aspects of the activities
of an ‘estancia’ (Argentine ranch), from dawn to dusk, with a symbolic sense of continuity. The plot of the
ballet shows a country girl who at first despises the man of the city. She finally admires him when he
proves that he can perform the most rough and difficult tasks of the country.”
MANUEL DE FALLA
Born 23 November 1876 in Cádiz, Spain; died 14 November 1946 in Alta Gracia, Argentina.
Interlude and Dance from La Vida Breve (“The Brief Life”) (1904-1905)
PREMIERE OF WORK: Nice, France, 1 April 1913; Casino Orchestra; Jacques Miranne, conductor
PSO PREMIERE: 9 April 1948; Syria Mosque; Fritz Reiner, conductor
APPROXIMATE DURATION: 8 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two
harps and strings.
Suzanne Demarquez outlined the stark plot of the opera La Vida Breve in her biography of Manuel
de Falla: “A Gypsy girl, Salud, lives with her grandmother and her aunt in the Albaïcin quarter of
Granada. She has been seduced by Paco, a fashionable young man. Both have sworn eternal love, but
Paco has deserted Salud for a rich novia [i.e., fiancée], Carmela, whom he plans to marry. On the day of
the wedding, Salud, followed by her relations, appears in the middle of the wedding feast, reproaches her
lover for his unscrupulous conduct, and falls dead at his feet.” The Interlude and Dance from La Vida
Breve not only suggest the opera’s Andalusian setting but also distill the essence of Falla’s Spanish
musical nationalism.