Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus
Carlos Kalmar, Principal Conductor
Christopher Bell, Chorus Director
Independence Day Celebration
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 at 6:30PM
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Grant Park Orchestra
Christopher Bell, Conductor
Paul Corona, Baritone
SMITH/arr. TOSCANINI
The Star-Spangled Banner
BERNSTEINOverture to Candide
GOULD
Amber Waves
WILLIAMS
Olympic Fanfare and Theme
COPLAND
Selections from Old American Songs
Paul Corona
INTERMISSION
GROFÉ
Mississippi Suite
GERSHWINOverture to Girl Crazy
arr. WENDEL
From Sea to Shining Sea
TCHAIKOVSKY
1812 Overture, Op. 49
SOUSA
The Stars and Stripes Forever
This concert is sponsored by:
The appearance of Christopher Bell is partially underwritten by a generous gift from
Mr. Raymond A. Frick, Jr.
2012 Program Notes, Book 2 A43
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Bass-Baritone Paul Corona, a Chicago native and a
graduate of Northwestern University, was Grand Prize Winner
in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
and made his Met debut in 2010 in Debussy’s Pelléas et
Mélisande and Strauss’ Capriccio. Last season Mr. Corona
completed his residency with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in
the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, performing
many roles with Lyric, including Jake Wallace in La Fanciulla
de West, Doctor Grenvil in La Traviata, Pistola in Falstaff, the Bonze in Madama
Butterfly and Sciarrone in Tosca. His performances during the 2011-2012 season
included Bartolo In Le Nozze di Figaro with Kentucky Opera and Mussorgsky’s
Khovanshchina with the Metropolitan Opera. With Chicago Opera Theater, Mr.
Corona has appeared as Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Somarone in
Béatrice et Bénédict and Barabashkin in Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki.
Paul Corona has received awards from the Sullivan Foundation, Opera Index,
Monastero Bel Canto Competition, Union League Civic and Arts Foundation,
American Opera Society, Gerda Lissner Foundation and Lotte Lenya Competition
for Singers.
WITHOUT CREATIVITY,
WE’D ALL BE IN THE DARK.
The arts nourish the soul of a community.
At ComEd, we’re proud to lend our support
to music, theater and fine arts programs
throughout our service territories.
ComEd is proud to support the Grant Park Music
Festival. Best wishes for a wonderful season!
www.ComEd.com | 1-800-EDISON-1
© 2012 Commonwealth Edison Company
A44 2012 Program Notes, Book 2
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
OVERTURE TO CANDIDE (1956)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Lillian Hellman conceived a theater piece based on Voltaire’s
Candide as early as 1950, but it was not until 1956 that the
project materialized. She originally intended the work to
be a play with incidental music, which she asked Leonard
Bernstein to compose, but his enthusiasm for the subject
was so great after re-reading Voltaire’s novel that the venture
swelled into a full-blown comic operetta; Tyrone Guthrie was enlisted as director
and Richard Wilbur wrote most of the song lyrics. Candide was first seen in a
pre-Broadway tryout at Boston’s Colonial Theatre on October 29, 1956 (just days
after Bernstein’s appointment as co-music director of the New York Philharmonic
had been announced for the following season), and opened at the Martin Beck
Theatre in New York on December 1st. The Overture to Candide was taken
almost immediately into the concert hall—Bernstein conducted it with the New
York Philharmonic only six weeks after the musical opened on Broadway — and it
has remained one of the most popular curtain-raisers in the orchestral repertory.
Its music, largely drawn from the show, captures perfectly the wit, brilliance and
slapstick tumult of Voltaire’s novel. The group of first themes (the work is disposed,
like many of Rossini’s overtures, in sonatina form) comprises a boisterous fanfare, a
quicksilver gallop, and a brass proclamation, used later in the show to accompany
the destruction of Westphalia, the hero’s home. Lyrical contrast is provided by a
broad melody from the duet of Candide and his beloved Cunegonde, Oh, Happy
We. These musical events are recounted, and the Overture ends with a whirling
strain from Cunegonde’s spectacular coloratura aria, Glitter and Be Gay.
SELECTIONS FROM OLD AMERICAN SONGS
(1950-1952)
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Soon after he completed the imposing song cycle on
Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson in March 1950, Aaron
Copland turned his creative attention to some lighter fare
by “newly arranging” a set of five traditional 19th-century
American songs for voice and piano on a commission from
English composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears for performance at
the Aldeburgh Festival. A second group of five followed in 1952, and Copland
orchestrated Set I in 1954 and Set II three years later. In her study of Copland’s
music, Julia Smith suggested that the Old American Songs form “a kind of vocal
suite, the accompaniments, practical but exceedingly attractive, offer moods by
turns nostalgic, energetic, sentimental, devotional and humorous.” The most
familiar melody among these Songs is Simple Gifts, the evergreen Shaker tune
(also known with an original text by British poet and folk singer Sydney Carter
as The Lord of the Dance) that Copland had earlier used with such excellent
effect in Appalachian Spring. Like the other Songs, it taps a deep, quintessentially
American sentiment in its sturdy simplicity and its plain words, qualities that
Copland captured perfectly in his colorful, atmospheric settings.
2012 Program Notes, Book 2 A45
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
OVERTURE TO GIRL CRAZY (1930)
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Girl Crazy by George Gershwin is a legend among Broadway
shows. It provided the first starring role for Ethel Merman,
featured Ginger Rogers as the ingenue, and boasted a pit
orchestra that included Red Nichols, Glenn Miller, Gene
Krupa, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey.
Though the plot was nothing more than a silly satire on a
city slicker vacationing at a dude ranch in Arizona, the score by George and Ira
Gershwin contained a treasury of their finest songs — I Got Rhythm (with which
Ethel Merman belted her way to overnight stardom), Embraceable You, But Not
For Me, Bidin’ My Time, Sam and Delilah, and Treat Me Rough. Girl Crazy tried
out in Philadelphia before opening at the Alvin Theatre in New York on October
14, 1930, where it ran for 272 performances. It was first filmed in 1932, and then
remade in 1943 by Busby Berkeley and Norman Taurog with a cast featuring
Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, June Allyson and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
The Overture contains some of the show’s most memorable tunes: I Got Rhythm,
Embraceable You, Mexican Dance, But Not For Me, and Bronco Busters.
1812 OVERTURE, OP. 18
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
The Russian penchant for myth-making extends, of course,
to her warfare. It is therefore not surprising that Napoleon’s
strategic withdrawal from Moscow in 1812 came to be
regarded in Russia as a great military victory achieved
through cunning and resourcefulness, conveniently ignoring
the French General Ney’s report that “general famine and
general winter, rather than Russian bullets, conquered the Grand Army.” The
1812 Overture represents the conflict — militarily and musically — of Russia and
France, and the eventual Russian “victory” over the invaders. It opens with a
dark, brooding setting of the Russian hymn God, Preserve Thy People for violas
and cellos. The full orchestra is gradually collected up as the section progresses
to make a splendid climax. The French forces appear to the sound of thumping
drums and the martial strains of the Marseillaise. The battle is joined with ingenious
orchestral interplay, through which are heard fragments of the French marching
song. Two Slavic melodies ensue. One Tchaikovsky rescued from his first opera,
The Voyevoda; the other is a Novgorod folksong that he first set for piano duet in
1868-1869 as one of his Fifty Russian Folk Songs. The sequence of battle — opera
theme — folk song is reiterated. Following a huge rallentando (slowing-down)
passage which occupies three full pages in the score, the opening hymn returns
in a grand setting for wind and brass choir reinforced with bells. The Marseillaise
reappears, but is vanquished by the artillery fusillade and the triumphant rendition
of the Russian national hymn, God, Save the Czar, by trombones, horns and low
strings. The 1812 is one of music’s most invigorating experiences — it never fails
to rouse the spirits and stir the blood.
©2012 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
A46 2012 Program Notes, Book 2