Matthias Lang, guitarist
Symphony Arlington will be performing Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni and Falla’s Suite No. 1 from The Three-Cornered Hat! This performance will also feature guitarist, Matthias Lang performing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra! The orchestra will be led by guest conductor, Maestra Juanzi Yi!
Arriaga: Overture to Los Esclavos Felices
Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola (January 27, 1806 – January 17, 1826) was a Spanishcomposer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish
Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigyand an accomplished composer who died young. Whether by design or coincidence, they also shared the same first and second baptismal names; and they shared the same birthday, January 27 (fifty years apart).
The opera Los esclavos felices premiered in Bilbo in 1820 with great success; the adolescent composer presencio atonito among bastigores, the favorable
effect that his music caused in the public.
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was born in Bilbao,Biscay, on what would have been Mozart's fiftieth birthday. His father and older brother first taught him music. He thenstudied the violin under Pierre Baillot, and counterpoint and harmony under François-Joseph Fétis at the Paris Conservatoire. He was so talented that he soon became a teaching assistant in Fétis's class. He died in Paris at the age of nineteen, of a lung ailment, or exhaustion, perhaps both.
Falla: Suite No. 1 from The Three-Cornered Hat
El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat or Le tricorne) is a ballet by Manuel de Falla commissioned by Sergei Diaghilevand premiered complete in 1919. The story — a magistrate infatuated with a miller's faithful wife attempts to seduce her — derives from the novella by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (born in Granada) and has been traced in film several times, usually in Spanish. The music has these sections:
Introducción y escena — Introduction and Scene
La tarde — AfternoonDanza de la molinera (Fandango) — Dance of the Miller's WifeLas uvas — The GrapesDanza de los vecinos (Seguidillas) — Dance of the NeighborsDanza del molinero (Farruca) — Dance of the MillerDanza del corregidor — Dance of the Magistrate
Danza final (Jota)
Sergei Diaghilev, of the Ballets Russes, saw the premiere of El corregidor y la molinera and commissioned Falla to rewrite it. The outcome was a two-act ballet scored for large orchestra called The Three-Cornered Hat (El sombrero de tres picos). This was first performed in London at the Alhambra Theatre on 22 July 1919. Sets and costumes were created by Pablo Picasso. Choreography was by Léonide Massine. Diaghilev asked Falla to conduct the premiere but the composer felt he was not experienced enough to conduct a work so complex, and he handed the baton to Ernest Ansermet after one rehearsal.
Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez
The Concierto de Aranjuez is a composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century.
The Concierto de Aranjuez was inspired by the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort palace and gardens built by Philip IIin the last half of the 16th century and rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century by Ferdinand VI. The work attempts to transport the listener to another place and time through the evocation of the sounds of nature.
According to the composer, the first movement is "animated by a rhythmic spirit and vigour without either of the two themes... interrupting its relentless pace"; the second movement "represents a dialogue between guitar and solo instruments (cor anglais, bassoon, oboe,horn etc.)"; andthe lastmovement "recalls a courtly dance in which the combination of double and triple time maintains a taut tempo right to the closing bar." He described the concerto itself as capturing"the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushingof fountains" in the gardens of Aranjuez.
Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the inspiration for the second movement, and thus the popular belief grew that it was inspired by thebombing of Guernica in 1937. In herautobiography, Victoria eventually declaredthat it was both an evocation of the happy daysof their honeymoon and a responseto Rodrigo's devastation at the miscarriageof their first pregnancy. It was composed in 1939 in Paris.
Rodrigo dedicated the Concierto de Aranjuez to Regino Sainz de la Maza. Rodrigo, blind since age three, was a pianist. He did not play the guitar, yet he still managed to capture the spirit of the guitar in Spain.
Composed in early 1939, in Paris, amid the tensions of the impending war, it was the first work Rodrigo had written for guitar and orchestra. The instrumentation is unusual: rarely does the guitar face the forces of a full orchestra. Instead, the guitar is never overwhelmed, remaining the solo instrument throughout.
This concerto is in three movements, Allegro con spirito, Adagio and Allegro gentile.
The second movement, the best-known of the three, is marked by its slow pace and quiet melody, introduced by theEnglish horn, with a soft accompaniment by the guitar and strings. A feeling of quiet regret permeates the piece. Ornamentation is added gradually to the melody in the beginning. An off-tonic trill in the guitar creates the first seeds of tension in the piece; they grow and take hold, but relax back to the melody periodically. Eventually, a climactic build-up starts. This breaks back into the main melody, molto appassionato, voiced by the strings with accompaniment from the woodwinds. The piece finally resolves to a calm arpeggio from the guitar, though it is the strings in the background rather than the guitar’s final note that resolve the piece. The third movement is in mixed metre, alternating between 2/4 and 3/4.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21, was dedicated to Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an early patron of the composer. The piece was published in 1801 by Hoffmeister & Kühnel of Leipzig. It is unknown exactly when Beethoven finished writing this work, but sketches of the finale were found from 1795.
The symphony is clearly indebted to Beethoven's predecessors, particularly his teacherJoseph Haydn as well as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but nonetheless has characteristics that mark it uniquely as Beethoven's work, notably the frequent use of sforzandi and the prominent, more independent use of wind instruments. Sketches for the finale are found among the exercises Beethoven wrote while studying counterpoint under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger in the spring of 1787.
The premiere took place on 2 April 1800 at the K.K. Hoftheater nächst der Burg in Vienna. The concert program also included his Septet and Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as a symphony by Mozart, and an aria and a duet from Haydn's oratorio The Creation. This concert effectively served to announce Beethoven's talents to Vienna.
There are 4 movements:
Adagio molto—Allegro con brio, 4/4—2/2
Andante cantabile con moto, 3/8 in F major
Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace, 3/4
Adagio—Allegro molto e vivace, 2/4
Its duration is approximately 25 minutes.
The musical form is in accordance with the established composing tradition. Musical content, instrumentation as well as tempi are unusual, if not revolutionary in its use for a symphonic work of Beethoven's time. Therefore, Beethoven introduced himself with this work uniquely and boldly as an advancing symphonic composer and stood true to this statement throughout his compositional life.